Growth Debt Level
We measure progress towards long-term outcomes by tracking key indicators for the Peel community.
Why is this important?
- Ontario's Places to Grow Plan calls for development across the Province that supports economic prosperity, protects the environment, and helps communities achieve a high quality of life.
- The Region of Peel is updating its Regional Official Plan for population planning, servicing, and financing to accommodate an additional 500–600,000 people and 970,000 jobs in Peel Region by 2041.
- Over the past decade, The Region of Peel has made generational investments in Water and Waste Water systems to support growth to 2031 and beyond.
- The Region of Peel has accumulated $1.1 billion in net outstanding debt to pay for growth–related infrastructure in advance of development.
- The outstanding development charge (DC) debt needs to be eliminated through development charges related to future development.
How is this measured?
- Historical data from The Region of Peel's Finance Department is used to calculate the cumulative deficit of the Region of Peel's growth program.
- The historical data used to derive this measure includes:
- Gross debt less accumulated principal payments and sinking fund contributions including interest;
- Year–end DC reserve cash balances; and
- Year–end DC Out of By–law reserve cash balances (internal borrowing).
What progress are we making?
- Since the recession in 2008, the Region of Peel's planned revenue from development has not been realized, largely due to underperformance of the non–residential sector, as well as lower than expected high–density residential growth.
- In 2017:
- The deficit is $569 million less than the deficit forecast in the 2015 DCs background study.
- The Region of Peel collected more DCs than it spent on growth–related infrastructure.
- Through the Plan and Manage Growth Term of Council Priority, the Region of Peel is closely managing the financial risk that comes with investing in infrastructure to support expected growth.
- The Region of Peel is aiming to reduce the projected cost–revenue gap in order to increase ability for growth to pay for growth infrastructure, and be at zero growth related debt by 2041.