Council Recap: Getting High Downtown
(Not what you think.)
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!
Shareholder Meetings of City Council – February 11, 2025
First, it was a usual situation where we had shareholder meetings for Guelph Municipal Holdings Inc. and Guelph Junction Railway in the dead of February. These are two corporations that the City of Guelph owns, which makes city council the singular shareholder, and these specific meetings were about appointing directors. Mayor Cam Guthrie called the changes on the agenda “administrative” in nature.
Tara Baker was confirmed as the CEO of GMHI, and then they added Deputy CAOs Jayne Holmes and Trevor Lee as two new directors in addition to Baker. On the GJR side, Baker was affirmed as chair and was named director along with Lee. The changes to the board make up are meant to diversify the planning and strategy of the corporations while still having a small and nimble decision-making apparatus.
Both sets of changes were approved rather handily, and there was also some discussion around the impact of the tariff tiff with the United States on the business of Guelph Junction Railway. It ended up being a chance for staff to promote their new landing page on the City of Guelph website where the impacts and work arounds for any trade war on Guelph will be discussed.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Planning Meeting of City Council – February 11, 2025
The main point of interest in Tuesday’s meetings was the planning agenda, and the first big presentation was about trains. Staff from the City of Guelph and the Region of Waterloo presented the initial business case for a GO Train connection between Cambridge and Guelph that would then continue to Union Station.
According to Oriana Aguas from the Region, a path through Guelph was chosen because they would have an easier time working with the track’s owners and because the Milton line is at – or near – capacity as it is. Feedback during the engagement process also showed a lot of interest in getting a direct public transit connection from Cambridge to Guelph and there was also some interest in being connected to other towns and cities along the Kitchener Line.
Council was interested in the potential financial impacts on Guelph including infrastructure work, but the expectation is that Metrolinx will foot the bill. The tracks will need to be upgraded for passenger rail, but it looks like there won’t be a need for upgrades to road crossings in Guelph’s west end where the tracks from Cambridge enter town. There are still some things to work out around the future Pinebush station in Cambridge, the schedule, and other logistical concerns, and the Region is recommending that Metrolinx launch a bus route between us and Cambridge in the near-term, but council saw the value and unanimously endorsed the business case.
Before getting into two other main points of discussion, council rejected the University of Guelph’s objection to the designation of the Rutherford Family Conservatory, which is mostly dismantled now anyway. Heritage planner Jack Mallon said that the U of G had a wide degree of flexibility for the site once council approved designation of only the steel frame.
Next, council got high! Or rather they talked about heights.
It was the statutory public meeting for the Downtown Height Study, which could see some places within the boundaries of Downtown Guelph go as high as 20 storeys. The goal of the plan here is to be mindful of the impact on surrounding neighbourhoods, while protecting the heritage resources of the core, including the view corridors of the Basilica of Our Lady. It’s a model staff called the “urban amphitheatre”.
Most of the delegates who signed up in advance represented developers, and they were looking for height limits on their sites beyond what was recommended in the draft plan. The owners of a property on Wellington that’s currently home to a Wendy’s and a KFC wants to go as high as 29-storeys with a mixed-use building, and he felt that the height limits in the plan seemed to be chosen willy nilly. On the other side, a resident of Edwin Street spoke to his concerns about a high rise on the corner of Woolwich and London, which could impact his street with increased traffic and more congestion.
Tim Smith from the Wood Development Group said that extra height is the key to “unlocking certain sites” and pointed to his employer’s plans for Plant #2 on the old Woods property in The Ward noting that if they can have 24 storeys in the centre it would allow them to avoid having to max out height through the rest of the site in order to make it financially viable. The onus was on staff to explain the 20-storey limit, which they described as a “sweet spot”, getting greater height and density without compromising the aesthetics downtown.
In terms of feedback, council dittoed the request from developers to see staff’s work in determining the location for various height limits, and staff were also asked to help council visualize what the new limits would look like on the downtown skyline. Council also expressed concerns about parking (again!) with Councillor Cathy Downer warning that they might need to take another look at the Downtown Parking Master Plan to include some new public parking when developments come up short. There were also notes about making sure to protect greenspace since all those new people will need places to play and relax.
The report was received unanimously, and a final Official Plan Amendment will be brought back to council in April.
The last item was the approval the Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan, the nature of which caused some confusion because it was a statutory meeting and a decision meeting for something that had already previously come to council. The issue was that the plan needs a 20-day appeal process, and it only had 18-days’ notice after the initial meeting in November, so in the interest of being thorough, the public will get their full 20 days in order to appeal if anyone wants to.
The plan offers three grant streams. The first is the Vacant Unit Renewal Grant, which helps property owners turn vacant commercial, office or residential spaces into new affordable units that have to remain affordable for 25 years. Next, there’s the Affordable Housing Unit grant, which supports the creation of affordable units in mid-rise, multi-unit residential and mixed-use developments. And finally, there’s the Additional Dwelling Unit grant, and that offers money to build new ADUs with a bonus if accessible features are included. If there are no appeals, the program could go into effect sometime early in March.
There was nothing but enthusiasm for the initiative from delegates and council though there was at least one concern about some unscrupulous landlord taking the City’s money and creating a short-term rental. Staff assured that they have compliance measures including annual declarations from both landlord and tenant; if a property is found in contravention, then the full amount of the grant must be paid back. No one can plead ignorance either because the grant information is attached to the title of the property.
Council approved the program and the City of Guelph announced Wednesday that applications will be open on March 6.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
The next meet of city council is the orientation meeting on Wednesday February 19 at 6 pm. You can see the agenda on the City’s website here, and but since this is an orientation meeting there will be no opportunity for the public to delegate.
For more information on Guelph City Council meetings, from agendas to live-tweets to recaps, you can visit that page on Guelph Politico here.
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!