Accounting: the expanded

Case Example: Community Village

Using the key features found in Collingwood Village, I developed a composite case study (Community Village) to demonstrate the utility of the Expanded Value Added Statement for an economically targeted investment. I created this case from several sources rather than relying totally on Collingwood Village, because the data available for Collingwood Village were limited. Nevertheless, wherever possible, I did use data based on Collingwood Village, and then supplemented it with additional data. Overall, the purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate what can be learned by using the Expanded Value Added Statement to assess the economic, social and environmental aspects of this type of development over a time frame of 10 years.

Community Village was developed as an economically targeted investment by several pension plans located in a large city in Canada. The community currently has a population of 5,000 residents, and is located within a larger municipal community with a population of 40,000. It was developed on brownfield land in close vicinity to a rapid transit station. The development consists of four rental and six condominium buildings, along with a community centre and community policing centre. Throughout the development, there are several parks with green space accounting for about 25 percent of the total land area.
The development used only union labour, and over the course of the ten years, 3.3 million hours of employment were created: 2.4 million hours in the construction of the buildings; 159,000 in the operations of the buildings; 727,000 in the community centre; and 21,000 in the community policing centre. In addition, 238,000 hours of volunteer opportunities were also created.
The next section outlines the specifics of construction, operations, community centre, and community policing centre, characteristics that will then be brought together in the Expanded Value Added Statement. While previous analyses using this model have been applied at the program and organization levels, this application goes one step beyond, using the community as its unit of analysis.