Development charges and Impost Fees" are passed right through to the home buyer.
Here is an excerpt from a case in Kingston that is a quick example of what is involved in making sure the City/municipality and Region/County has adequate infrastructure and how to pay for it.
"City enacted two by-laws imposing fees or charges related to development within Kingston. The first being the
Impost By-law, which allowed the City to impose a fee, based on the capital cost of installing water and sanitary sewer services.
The Impost By-law was passed under
s. 391(2) of the Municipal Act, S.O. 2001, c. 25 (the MA) which provides that a fee or charge for capital costs related to services or activities may be imposed on persons not receiving an immediate benefit but who will receive a benefit at some later point in time. For the City of Toronto, see corresponding provision in
s. 259(2) of the City of Toronto Act, S.O. 2006, c. 11.
The second by-law was a
Development Charges By-law, passed under the
Development Charges Act, S.O. 1997, c. 27(the DCA), under which the
City imposes charges to cover the anticipated capital costs related to specific services such as protection (fire and police), roads, parks and recreation, library, transit, affordable housing and administration. Section 2 of the DCA provides express authority for a municipality to impose development charges. "
Then there are the school boards who need to plan for and fund new schools and teachers etc
(BTW, all of thes Acts have since been superceded but the principles are the same.
Having had much experience in this process, ok I'll partially out myself, as a former (small to moderate sized) developer (and continuing to consult on projects at the early go/no-go stages., I am astonished as to how well all the various agecies across different levels of gov't actually work so well together and actually get shit done!