I think you raise a critical catch-22. Part of this has to do with the desire by most municipalities to minimize their own tax increases, and as a result, one of the easy ways they've been able to pay for infrastructure without anyone really noticing is by increasing development charges on new projects and using those development charges to subsidize the building of infrastructure: ensuring the toilets will flush, ensuring the water will come out of the taps when you build the new building.
There has been, in many municipalities across Canada, an approach to infrastructure whereby new development both pays for itself but also subsidizes the existing tax base and existing infrastructure. For example, in the city of Toronto, 50% of the development charge goes to the new development, and 50% of that development charge gets spread across the city.
I used to say, when I was chief planner, that every time we build a condo in downtown Toronto, Scarborough gets a new road paved, or they get a new park, because that's the gift that new homeowner gives.
We need a new model for funding infrastructure if we want to address the development charge problem, because right now, development charges have been used as a way to fund infrastructure in the absence of having a larger strategy for funding infrastructure, and in the absence of municipalities having the guts to raise property taxes, which would be the other way to do it.