Same city. Same taxes. Half the price.

The City's own price list makes the argument

Kingston publishes what it charges a developer for every new home for water, wastewater and stormwater. Effective January 1st this year:

Source: City of Kingston 2026 Development Charges and Impost Fees.

A one-bedroom is charged less than half a detached house. That's not my estimate or a think-tank study. It's Kingston's own price list.

And development charges exist for one reason: to pay for the infrastructure that growth requires. That's their legal purpose. So when the City's own schedule prices a detached house at more than double a one-bedroom, that's the City telling you which kind of growth asks more of the system.

And the fee is only the start. After the connection, the City owns the pipe forever and manages the pipe forever.

What "forever" actually means

Utilities Kingston maintains 593 kilometres of watermain, roughly 490 kilometres of wastewater collection, and about 439 kilometres of service lines — more than a thousand kilometres of buried infrastructure, plus 5,612 valves and 3,602 hydrants.

By the end of this year the City's total debt is expected to reach $475 million, and roughly 40 per cent of it is water and wastewater.

Every new subdivision adds kilometres to that. Every apartment building adds metres.

Where the money actually comes from

Two hundred new homes bring in roughly a million dollars a year in property tax — about $900,000 of it to the City, the rest to the province's education levy — whichever way they're built.

Two hundred detached homes need about thirteen hectares and two or three kilometres of new road and pipe. Two hundred apartments need about one hectare and a hundred metres of frontage.

Similar revenue. A fraction of the perpetual liability.

The per-unit assessments behind that comparison are estimates. I'd rather use two real Kingston projects, and I've asked the City for the figures.

My position on the urban boundary

Don't expand it until the City can prove it has to and can afford to do so.

Not a flat no — but a high burden of proof. Before Kingston paves rural or natural land, staff should demonstrate, with the work finished and public, that the growth genuinely cannot be accommodated inside the serviced area through greater density, missing-middle housing and redevelopment.

That work isn't finished. On May 19th this year, Council deferred the Official Plan and the urban boundary decision to the next term — partly because the natural heritage study, the mobility plan and the water and wastewater infrastructure costing were incomplete.

Kingston doesn't yet know what expansion costs to service. The City has said so.

That decision now lands on the Council you're electing in October, with a target of no later than June 30th, 2027.

The question nobody's asking

The consultant's land-need figure isn't a fact about how much land Kingston requires. It's the output of an assumption about density. Assume denser development and the land requirement changes. It could change significantly.

I'd want that assumption examined in public before anyone votes to expand.

What I'd push for

• Finish the infrastructure costing before the boundary vote, and publish it
• Show what each growth scenario costs to service over its full lifecycle
• Make the density assumption explicit and defensible
• Permit missing-middle housing — duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, low-rise — broadly across serviced neighbourhoods
• Report new assessment per hectare, so Council can see which growth actually pays for itself

And one thing about your bill

The average Kingston home is assessed at $325,099 and this year's increase added about $155.

Growth doesn't automatically lower your rate — new development brings its own costs. But where and how we build determines whether new housing strengthens the City's finances or strains them. That's the choice, and Council makes it. I would support only those that improve the City's finances over both the short and long term.

Kingston's own price list charges a detached house more than double a one-bedroom. We should build like we believe our own numbers.