Amherstburg's first council meeting of the new year will see the 2023 User Fees By-law up for discussion.
User fees are required to be reviewed on an annual basis, as a failure to do so may result in a significant amount of time passing before fees are adjusted to meet appropriate levels.
Deputy Mayor Chris Gibb says generally he likes what administration is recommending, as from his view it looks like they've come at it from a business perspective.
"The whole idea is to try to ensure that the people who are using the services pay for it, and not the general tax base, or at least mitigate the cost to the general tax base," he continued. "All in all it's pretty well thought out, and looks like a pretty good case for the fees they want to change and adjust."
Everything from day camps, to ice rentals, parking violations and marriage ceremonies are among the things that would be impacted by the change.
Prime ice time rentals would drop from $217 per hour to $209, and non-prime ice time would drop from $189 per hour to $118 under the new proposed rates.
Gibb says the report coming to council shows the effects that COVID has had on the area of recreation, with the the Libro Centre under-utilized during weekdays or during what's referred to as ‘Non-Prime’ hours.
"So the idea being is if we can lower the rental rates at the times when the arena is being under-utilized, hopefully we can generate more revenue because it'll incentivize more people to use it during those times."
Apart from recreational fees, there are also changes to enforcement fees.
The cost of a parking violation would go up under the proposed changes, from $18 in 2022 to $25 in 2023.
Gibb says anyone who lives in Amherstburg knows that parking is always a big topic of discussion in the downtown.
He says administration took a look at other municipalities, and they said the average was around $30 for parking violations.
"We were only at $18, if we increase that to the planned $25 per violation, we're still lower than other municipalities but again it incentivizes people to turn that parking over. You know, those two hour spots are very important to the local businesses," he stated.
Gibb says there's going to be some challenges along the way, but he's impressed by the way administration has gone about preparing the report.
He adds there are some fees that have been eliminated altogether as well, including around renting things for special events, where in the past they found the municipality ended up competing against local businesses for certain items.
The full list of proposed changes can be found here.
Amherstburg's regular meeting gets underway at 6 p.m. in council chambers.
- with files from AM800's Rob Hindi