STAYNER - Sometimes you can get a break.

Just ask the folks who live at Huron Meadows, the retirement complex in the south end of Stayner.

At the request of the Huron Meadows Residents’ Association, Clearview council has agreed to waive a $3,587 development charge the association faced paying in connection with a storage building it’s planning to construct beside its clubhouse.

Council agreed to waive the fee after a presentation from the residents’ association last Monday night.

Ted Weel, a director with the association, told council the fee would be prohibitive to the project, which involves enclosing a 200-square-foot patio so the space can be used to store tables and chairs that are currently kept inside the clubhouse.

Weel said the residents who occupy the 58 one-level townhouse-like units are seniors, have faithfully paid taxes throughout their lives and deserve the break.

Council agreed.

A motion to waive the fee was put forward by Deputy Mayor Alicia Savage, seconded by Ward 7 councillor Shawn Davidson and supported by everyone around the table.

Weel thanked council members for their support.

“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “We didn’t come for a free ride, we just need some help.”

Municipal officials also agreed to approach the Simcoe County District School Board and the County of Simcoe about waiving their development charges that apply to the project.

The school board’s fee is $66.70 and the county’s fee is $526.66.

Doug Code, president of the residents’ association, said the building project will go ahead as soon as possible in the spring.

He said that presently there are three walls around the patio and so the work to enclose the space involves building a fourth wall and roof.

Residents decided to go ahead with the project last August at the annual general meeting of their association, Code said.

At council’s meeting last Monday, Deputy Mayor Savage said township officials must take a closer look at the municipality’s Development Charges Bylaw.

Officials need to find a way to make changes to the bylaw so that it doesn’t potentially impede projects that will have no major impact on municipal services.

Development charges are levied to pay for infrastructure improvements, such as water and sewer projects or new roads that will be required to accommodate growth.

Savage said it’s ridiculous, the way the bylaw is now, that Huron Meadows Residents’ Association faced paying more than $3,000 to build a shed, when it won’t impact any of Clearview’s services.

Clearview passed its Development Charges Bylaw last year and at that time Savage wanted officials to give more thought to its implications.

But council went ahead and approved the new bylaw because the one it had on the books was set to expire.

Savage said she’d like to see the new council, which will be elected in October, take another look at the bylaw in 2011.