Daniel Fontaine has an eye-opening piece in today’s 24 Hours, outlining the various fees Vancouver City Hall charges home builders. Not surprisingly, it’s a long, expensive list:

A few weeks ago, a Vancouver couple contacted me to recount a story of how much it cost them by way of fees and permit charges to build their new home on the west side. They had an itemized list and receipts for everything the city charged them. Astonishingly, the bill was close to $36,000.

Included was a charge of $1,200 to adhere to a special covenant in their neighbourhood. The covenant required them to prove their home had a value of at least $4,800. This despite the fact the average property anywhere in Vancouver is now valued at more than $1 million.

Next there was approximately $500 in fees to allow them to install wiring in their living room for surround sound. That’s right, a fee to ensure you can tune into the nightly news in stereo.

They say they were also charged more than $1,600 in relation to an asbestos removal permit. “A guy came over from the city a couple of times, first to agree we had asbestos and then to agree we would remove it,” the couple wrote in an email.

The couple went on to state, “we were charged over $2,200 for a ‘street damage inspection fee’ for which we never saw anything in particular done. We were also charged over $13,000 for sewer-water which was mainly to allow us to tap into the existing sewer line.”

These fees are over and above development cost charges, property taxes, community amenity charges, public hearing and rezoning fees and regulatory costs to have engineers, landscapers, architects and who knows who else sign off on plans.

The next time politicians whinge about the lack of affordable housing, remind them of these fees.