Council Recap: D.C. Comments
We interrupt your summer vacation for a council meeting!
In this Thursday edition of the Guelph Politico Tip Sheet, we go in-depth with the debates and decisions about this week’s city council meeting or meetings. Your regularly scheduled Tip Sheet will be in your inbox first thing Friday morning!
Special Meeting of Council – August 12, 2026
For the third time in four years, council held an August meeting, and once again timing was an important factor when it came to the reason why we were having one.
On Wednesday, most of council got together to talk about the Development Charges Reduction Program. Announced by both the federal and provincial governments earlier this year, the DCRP makes millions of dollars available for housing enabling infrastructure in exchange for cuts to development charges somewhere between 30 and 50 per cent for three years. City of Guelph staff proposed a relatively conservative 30 per cent cut and in exchange they want nearly $74 million for three big water and wastewater projects. The hope is that between the infrastructure investments and the DC cuts, Guelph might “unlock” 5,600 of the 7,000-plus units that have been approved by council but are waiting for the developer to apply for a building permit.
GM of Strategic Initiatives and Intergovernmental Services Jodie Sales and GM of Finance and Treasurer Shanna O’Dwyer both cited the quick turnaround of this project. The guidelines came out in early June and City staff had two weeks to put a proposal together, which they did; Sales added that typically these sorts of proposals take eight-to-ten months to put together. Staff were supposed to hear about whether or not the proposal was successfully received by mid-July but as of this meeting, and this recap, the Ontario government has rendered no verdict, and, in fact, with the exception of Toronto, no municipality has heard about the fate of their application, affirmative or otherwise.
With no decision yet rendered, and council about to enter its “lame duck” period when the decisions there allowed to make are restricted leading up to the October election, staff needed direction about what to do when they get a response from the provincial government, hence the necessity of this meeting.
Council had questions about the risk, what happens if they don’t end up building the 5,600 units? What are the risks to DC collection? Why is it taking so long to get a response back? In terms of the risks, O’Dwyer noted that the success of the program is still dependent on builders deciding to build, but if the goals are not met then the penalty is the lost DCs plus 30 per cent, which could result in tax and rate payers being forced to make up the difference, especially if the governments claw back the grant. There’s also no guarantee that the savings will be passed on to the end homebuyer, but staff are cautiously optimistic that this might shake loose some long in the pipeline projects, the vast majority of whom – over 4,300 units – are large apartments.
Mayor Cam Guthrie assured that the savings will be passed on, at least that’s the feeling he’s gotten from conversations he’s had with developers, and he also noted that the sunset clause in 2029 will “light a fire” under developers to take advantage of the cut (although it should be noted that it’s technically a grant worth 30 per cent of the total DCs being charged for a project). Some councillors still voiced doubts in their final comments, but the three main recommendations were approved unanimously.
Council then went in-camera for an hour to talk about three topics including the negotiation over the parameters for the DCRP. After returning to the open session, Guthrie announced that they gave direction to staff and wrapped up the meeting. You may now return to your regularly scheduled summer vacation!
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
The next scheduled meeting is the planning meeting of council on Wednesday September 9 at 4:30 pm. You can see the agenda on the City’s website when it’s posted on Thursday August 27.
For more information on Guelph City Council meetings, from agendas to live-tweets to recaps, you can visit that page on Guelph Politico here.
The Guelph Politicast is still cranking out new eps while on summer vacation!
In the most recent episode of the Guelph Politicast this week, we talked to former (and future?) Kitchener Centre MP Mike Morrice. Even though he lost last year, Morrice only missed re-election as a Member of Parliament by less than 400 votes, and since many people still see him as the future of the party, he’d decided to embrace that by running for the leadership of the federal Green Party. Is the time ripe for a Green Party resurgence and is Morrice the man to do it? Listen now or watch the video!
In a new edition of End Credits Conversations available now, we will look at Christopher Nolan’s massive hit The Odyssey, which is still in theatres everywhere, by talking to a man who knows the original text like the back of his hand. Dr. John Walsh, director of the School of Languages and Literatures and a professor of classical studies at the University of Guelph, joins us to talk about the source material, how Nolan found the deeper themes, and why he sees The Odyssey everywhere in all kinds of stories!
Listen to all these shows any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Finally, feel free to reach out to me by email at adamadonaldson [at] gmail [dot] com, or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, GuelphPolitico.ca!