To ensure London achieved its provincial housing target before the end of 2025, city hall urged Westdell Development Corp. to accelerate its timeline for breaking ground on a residential high-rise, but breaking ground early resulted in a half-million-dollar bill from the city’s building department. On Monday, the local development firm appealed the interest applied to the project’s development charges (DCs) in front of a tribunal made up of Council members who sit on the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee (ICSC). “What we’re asking the committee to consider is the fairness of the circumstances surrounding this particular project,” Paul Kitson of Westdell Development Corp. explained to the tribunal. City staff had calculated a $553,547 bill for interest on DCs for constructing the 26 storey, 225 unit building at 15 Capulet Walk in west London. Westdell received its building permit on Oct. 30, 2025, just four days before the province changed the Development Charges Act to prevent municipalities from requiring statutory interest payments on DCs. “The timing may be unfortunate, but it does not make the original determination incorrect or establish an error in applying the bylaw,” Deputy Chief Building Official Kyle Wilding told the tribunal. However, Mayor Josh Morgan acknowledged that Westdell was asked to apply for a building permit earlier than initially planned, so that it could get the concrete foundation could be poured before Dec. 31, a requirement so that the new residential units would be counted towards London’s provincial housing target in 2025. “The city was helped out by projects being moved forward, at our request, to meet our Building Faster Fund targets, which ultimately led to [the City of London] receiving almost $12 million from the province,” Morgan explained to colleagues on the tribunal. CTV News had attended a groundbreaking ceremony on the construction site in early Nov. 2025 led by Mayor Morgan and Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Rob Flack. Rules limited the reasons that the tribunal could cite for supporting the appeal by Westdell. So instead, the tribunal denied the appeal, then the council members reconvened the committee (ICSC) meeting to recommend referring the matter back to staff with direction to renegotiate an Alternate Payment Agreement that removes the interest charge. “That does not cost taxpayers money,” Morgan explained. “We’re simply not collecting the interest charges on the DCs, which is commonplace today given the current provincial law.” After the meeting, the mayor emphasized that he felt it was a matter of fairness, “There was no benefit to the applicant in moving it forward, aside from helping the city try to achieve its housing targets, particularly the ones tied to funding programs.” Council will make a final decision Sept. 22.
