[SebC]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Right there. It is not NPV inequality, but the FV comparison that you have to take, if you insist on making a feasibility analysis that is based on one isolated area. The FV of the permanent future cashflow increasing at the rate of 3-5% in perpetuity that needs to be higher than the pro-rated NPV of City's investment.

NPV includes FV, so we agree.

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Regardless, this approach is flawed to begin with. You cannot, ok, should not apply it on an isolated area. Elbow Valley, technically, fully paid for itself. It is a beautiful community. But that was a classic example of an urban sprawl - very low density subdivision that was allowed to hook up to City's services with no housing type diversity. A true community for the rich. By applying the same methodology, if, hypothetically, the City allows the entire new subdivision to be built in skinnies (single-family houses on the narrowest possible lots), the net difference would be positive in favour of the City (provided that there are no requirements to oversize utilities).

Well, for starters, Elbow Valley isn't even a part of Calgary, so it's not contributing anything to Calgary for downstream effects (i.e. the cars that go from Elbow Valley to downtown Calgary every day). It is, effectively, a parasite community.

For the sake of argument, though, let's assume that it is part of Calgary and it pays for itself. Our wealthy communities should be paying for themselves, and then some! If only the wealthiest of suburbs are paying for themselves, that's a problem. As I've said many times, I support wealthy areas supporting less wealthy ones (a socialist subsidy). The problem is the lifestyle subsidy. Elbow Valley would still get a lifestyle subsidy, which would cut into its ability to help fund services for low wealth areas. It would be paying for itself, but not contributing as much as a high-density community of comparable wealth.

Originally Posted by Captain Yooh

Re-read Bunk's post on acreage assessment breakdown. It is factual and it does represent the current political position and thinking of Mayor Nenshi and some of the inner-city aldermen well. Re-read my follow-up post. It is also factual, as it represents the fees that are not included in Bunk's calculation. When you add those up, the cost difference disappears.

I read that one. It includes this gem.

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Bunk, I want to comment on this whole "cost gap" suggestion. While your summary of the acreage assessment breakdown was very illustrative for a lot of people here that only hear about these issues in negative light, you didn't mention that [...] the City requires developers to pay for infrastructure oversizing (to support future growth), [...] and boundary cost-sharing (to reimburse previous developers for provision of excess infrastructure capacity), which are very significant components of the upfront development charges.

Infrastructure oversizing is part of the cost of growth, and if it gets reimbursed anyways, there's absolutely no way that ihaving the developers pay for it does anything to address the cost gap.

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

This is a very complex issue, because it also involves the premise of who and how pays to support the growth and who and how benefits from it. Even your friends are telling you that you are talking about it from a very narrow and unsubstantiated angle. Either open up to counter-arguments or stop proselytizing.

I'll fully admit that right now this debate is about capital costs only, which is a very narrow perspective. We should be talking about lifecycle costs, but I'll take the small victory that 100% recovery of capital costs would be as a positive and attainable step before we start addressing with the lifecycle costs of growth. It is unlikely that we can get anywhere on lifecycle if we can't even get capital costs right.

Now, can you please let Bunk address my question?