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Others say it’s difficult to know where to lay blame for failed projects when developers’ profit margins aren’t disclosed and amenity charge negotiations are conducted in private.

In the middle are renters who might pay more if amenity charges rise and developers are reluctant to cut into their earnings to offset them.

Developers and the city may clash, but they are also more dependent on each other than ever. Developers need city rezoning, for which the city demands the amenity charges. Meanwhile those charges account for significantly more of the city’s budget than ever.

A letter sent by Johnston to Kettle Society executive director Nancy Keough, following Boffo’s announcement it was backing out, indicates the city understood the project’s estimate of public benefits to be around $18.1 million, with $12 million of that in-kind contributions for building a drop-in centre and 30 units of social housing, with the other $6.1 million in cash (based on the standard of approximately 75 per cent of how much more the land would be worth after a rezoning).

“We cannot reconcile” this $18.1 million with Boffo’s statement that “the value of these benefits was well over $39 million,” Johnston wrote. Johnston said the first time he heard the $39 million figure was when Boffo announced the project’s cancellation, adding “the discrepancy is a bit of a mystery to us.”

Daniel Boffo, principal of Boffo Properties, said the “$39 million is the overall value to the city.” He said it includes $16 million of value for the drop-in centre and the 30 units of social housing, plus transition costs such as three years of rent to let the Kettle Society operate in an alternative location during construction on its current site.