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Douglas Todd: Metro Vancouver's housing growth 'isn't free.' It's an election issue.

Accommodating population growth raises a hard financial reality. New housing units require an average of $107,000 each in civic infrastructure. Who should pay for it?

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So says professor Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program and a fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners.

“It’s not a question of population growth or not,” says Yan. “It’s a question of how do we pay for it and who should pay for it fairly and transparently.”

Despite the financial burden that new housing places on taxpayers, Canadian developers are increasingly demanding that governments reduce the amounts they are asked to contribute for infrastructure: sewer and water hookups, electrical connections, schools, transit, community centres, road maintenance, park bike lanes, libraries, fire halls and sidewalks.

These are not luxuries, Yan says. They have to be maintained — and, if we are to host bigger populations, expanded.

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