Council Recap: The Epic Season Finale!

To be continued... in 2025.

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!

Planning Meeting of City Council – December 10, 2024

It was another midnight run for council at this planning meeting, and that’s despite the fact that it started two hours earlier than usual. Council received information and gave direction to staff about an Ontario Land Tribunal matter in closed, and then swiftly rejected the objection to the designation of 106 Carden Street before digging into the first of three planning matters.

First council heard the recommended regulations to allow four units as-of-right on residential lots. Doing this is a necessary part of the Housing Accelerator Funding and it will be a condition for future federal infrastructure funding. Staff noted that while there hasn’t been an overwhelming uptake for three units as-of-right, this is meant to be another tool to create more housing, and it might be one the most flexible tools available. The new bylaw would allow fourplexes on as many as 14,250 lots versus just over 11,000 for the current bylaw, and it could be spread out around the city too.

Aside from placement, the new bylaw will allow height on detached ADUs to go up to 6.1 metres, and staff increased the setback for windows, balconies and staircases to allow for more privacy between neighbours. Lots with townhouses, semi-detached and triplexes will not be permitted to allow four units as-of-right and while two ADUs are allowed in the backyard, they do have to be combined into one structure or building.

But if there was a unifying issue of concern for council it was the parking. Under the new bylaw, when you build one ADU in addition to the main dwelling you don’t have to provide an extra parking space, but you will have to provide one for the second and third ADU. So that’s a total of four units, but three parking spaces. Given Guelph’s previous issues with overparking in the city, some councillors were concerned about the end result of not requiring parking spaces for every single unit.

To that end, Councillor Leanne Caron proposed a motion to require that every unit have a parking space except downtown zones, which prompted concerns from Mayor Cam Guthrie that such a limitation would put the HAF at risk. When asked, staff said that they would need to consult their Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) rep to know for sure, which made Councillor Rodrigo Goller want to go in-camera for legal advice. Guthrie said ‘no’ to that idea saying that council had enough information about the potential funding impacts from staff’s first answer.

Caron’s proposed motion failed, and the original recommendation was approved.

Next, it was the final approval of the updated Housing Affordability Strategy. There were 40 different recommendations in three different areas of priority from high to medium to low, as well as a slate of things that the City needs to complete according to the Housing Accelerator Fund agreement with the federal government. Staff conceded that they can’t do everything at one time, so they prioritized based on what they get can done fast and easy first.

Delegates had their own thoughts. Some wanted a vacant home tax to be made more of an immediate priority, others wanted to create more options in terms of types of housing available to low income residents, a few pressed staff again to look at tax increment financing as an option for developers, and others wanted to encourage council to keep in mind people with physical and development disabilities who have trouble finding affordable housing to suit their needs.

Guthrie tried to push council to not get into the minutia of implementing the strategy because there will be follow-ups in the months to come. Councillor Linda Busuttil did get unanimous council support for making the protection of affordable housing, which might include a renoviction bylaw, a higher priority, and that was a request made by many of the delegates who said that this is not just about creating more affordable housing, but protecting affordable housing that already exists. The strategy was then approved unanimously.

The last major piece of planning was the kick-off of the Downtown Height Study, which will lead to an Official Plan Amendment on the subject to guide how tall buildings can get and where. There’s an added level of difficulty here because this is one of many projects happening in and around downtown right now and there’s a lot of overlap.

The big issue here was about environmental impacts. Goller wanted staff to look at the costs of building taller when it comes to matters of heating and cooling and servicing. GM of Planning and Building Services Krista Walkey noted that there will be more information about applying greener building standards city-wide throughout 2025, but environmental impacts due to build form is not part of the scope of this study, and if it were to become a priority, this plan would take longer to complete. Besides, the City can’t mandate things like the installation of heat pumps.

Other considerations: The number of accessible apartments that could be built based on the number of storeys, using the Downtown Secondary Plan as a guide, and thinking about what downtown’s skyline will look like out to the year 2100. Goller tried to put forward a motion to include the environmental impact in build form standards, but it failed 2-11. The main recommendation to initiate the review was, however, approved unanimously.

That left two relatively straightforward matters.

First, the decision meeting for the 8 Mitchell Street property to build four semi-detached dwellings with a total of eight ADUs. Staff wanted to approve the project, but like they did in October, neighbourhood residents had concerns. Their apprehensions were about the state of on-street parking, which is doubly precarious here because many of the homes in this area pre-date automobiles, meaning there’s no driveways. It seems that area residents are putting together a plan to pursue an independent heritage conservation district study for their neighbourhood to protect its unique character.

Many councillors were sympathetic, but there was really no planning justification to reject the application. Some councillors did explore what would happen if they paused the application as the residents wanted, but that would count as non-decision and would make the file eligible for an OLT appeal. There’s not much else staff could offer though because they can’t review site plans for a project this small, and while there is an on-street parking review underway it won’t be done until next year.

Caron proposed a motion to enforce the developer’s promise to increase the amount of parking on the property, but it failed 5-8. The recommendation to approve the project was passed unanimously.

Last, but certainly not least, the *deconstruction* application for the old greenhouse conservatory at the University of Guelph. Last month, council designated only the steel structure for preservation, but Heritage Guelph passed a slate of motions at their December meeting in a Hail Mary pass to save the building, which also had the support of community members.

What Heritage Guelph and the delegates wanted was more time to explore the possibility of saving the conservatory and to that end a petition of support has gotten 1,500 signatures and there may even be an endowment started by alumni in the 90s to help to cover the cost of maintenance. Still, the U of G’s AVP of Physical Resources Harry Bakker said that it’s way too cost prohibitive to save the building and they have reports from three different planners to prove it.

Guthrie said that this more or less a ratification motion because council set this course back in November. Councillors tried to look for a new path and explored different options, but they all came back to the likely possibility that the U of G admin will just tear it down and not save any portion for commemoration. (Although Busuttil noted that she has no trust that such a commemoration will happen anyway.) Council did pass an additional motion asking the U of G to save as much material as possible in addition to the steel before passing the main motion.

The meeting finished just under the wire at midnight, and just a little over nine hours till the next meeting…

Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.

Planning Meeting of City Council – December 11, 2024

The last council meeting of the year was all about politics. Three slates of motions brought forward by three different members of council attacking issues around drug treatment, the potential misuse of the Constitution and provincial policy to solve the homelessness crisis. In other words, it was a combo platter of the issues that have pretty efficiently haunted council all year.

First, four recommendations from Councillor Phil Allt asked council to put their weight behind supporting Guelph’s consumption and treatment site by urging the Ontario government to keep it open, maintain or expand funding for the new HART Hub, and encourage the government to, if nothing else, let a CTS be opened elsewhere in the city.

Several delegates voiced their frustration about the closure of the CTS at the end of March, not the least of which was Melissa Kwiatkowski, who is the executive director of Guelph Community Health where the CTS is located. She said that last week’s Auditor General report made it clear that CTSes are working, and that there will be tremendous harm to the community if they stop offering services. She added that the HART Hub is not a replacement for the CTS and that she’s been working with Guelph General Hospital, the local Ontario Health Team and others about equipping the community to deal with overdoses when the CTS closes.

Perhaps the most surprising thing that Kwiatkowski said was that although the application for the Guelph HART Hub was filed on time in October, they still haven’t heard about approvals or when they will get funding. She was also asked if there’s a possibility of moving the CTS to some place outside of the 200-metre radius of a school or daycare, but Kwiatkowski said that this was never about proximity because they were never given the option of moving the CTS.

Jean Hopkins, the manager of the Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy, also delegated. She reported that 62 people died of drug poisoning in Guelph last year and 41 have died this year, which doesn’t yet tell the whole story yet because they’re still waiting for data. She also said that the CTS is key to treatment because it’s a place where people feel seen and accepted, which thus allows healthcare workers to build trust and build a relationship that can lead people to treatment.

When the matter came to council for debate, Councillor Dominique O’Rourke asked for an amendment to the first clause adding the words “at least until the HART Hub is fully operational” to the request to keep the CTS open and funded. Many councillors objected to this because they heard that the HART Hub is not a replacement for the CTS, which is part of a necessary continuum of care for drug treatment. Ultimately, O’Rourke’s motion failed, and the Allt recommendations were approved one-at-a-time to allow some council members to support some actions, but not all of them.

Next, there were three motions opposing the use of the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a method to stop courts from interceding on new laws to force the removal of homeless encampments and the involuntary treatment of people with substance abuse and mental health issues. These recommendations were moved by Councillor Erin Caton, who said that there are already some cracks among the mayors who supported this originally.

Several of the same delegates spoke in favour of the motions and so did representatives from The Shift and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness who noted that the Ontario government seemed to be prioritizing the criminalization of homelessness as opposed to building more homes as well as the general undemocratic use of the clause to take the rights of homeless people away. There was also some commentary about how Mayor Cam Guthrie signed the letter with the City of Guelph logo, which implies the approval of the City as a corporation for the measure.

Some members of council had some concerns about the second clause noting that it may not be within their power or ability to say that no one should ever be remanded to treatment against their will. Caton tried to refine the motion to her intent, which was to endorse the idea that no legislation should be passed using the notwithstanding clause that would force people into treatment. When Guthrie pressed about where exactly in the letter from the 13 Big City Mayors it said that Caton couldn’t find the reference in short order and withdrew that clause.

(It’s not clear, but this may be the line that Caton was referring to in the October 31 letter: “The Provincial Government is requested to strengthen the existing system of mandatory community-based and residential mental health care and to expand service to treat those who have severe and debilitating addictions.”)

Caton said that Premier Doug Ford’s original message telling the mayors to ask him about using the notwithstanding clause was “bait” and that it let the Ontario government off the hook by supposedly prioritizing community safety instead of properly funding social services. Guthrie said that if the City encountered an encampment in a playground or a splash pad, even with the Public Space Use Bylaw in place, he would want the tools to keep “community spaces safe and maintain public order.” He also said that the mayors who signed the letter deserve thanks because they “moved the dial” on this issue.

Caton’s two surviving motions were approved, although Guthrie and Councillors Michele Richardson and Christine Billings all voted against council’s opposition to using the notwithstanding clause.

Lastly, Guthrie asked council to approve a slate of motions supporting the Ontario Big City Mayors’ Solve the Crisis campaign. He noted that over 200 municipalities in Ontario so far have endorsed these measures, and they’ve also passed them without any amendments. So naturally, council wanted to make some changes.

One of the recommendations asked the provincial government to strike a task force to develop a “Made in Ontario” action plan for homelessness, and Caton asked to strike explicit mention of the business community and tourism industry and replace them with people with lived experience of homelessness and substance abuse. Guthrie rose to the defense of Skyline who’ve done a lot like donating the land for the transitional housing project on Shelldale, but Caton said that’s irrelevant. Other councillors though sided with the mayor saying that businesses are stakeholders and should not be excluded.

Caton’s amendment ended up failing, but that opened the door for Councillor Linda Busuttil to bemoan the use of task forces. She noted that there have been several reports and task forces to tackle homelessness, so they already know what the solutions are, and, in fact, they’ve put some of those solutions in action in Guelph already. There was some agreement among councillors on that saying that they have the ideas and what they need now are the resources to put them into action.

Ultimately, the fifth and sixth recommendations in the slate were pulled so that Busuttil could give a thumbs down to more task forces, but the recommendations were approved with one amendment to include people with lived experience on any future task force, no matter how pointless.

Guthrie wrapped up by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and thanking council and staff for a busy work year around the horseshoe!

Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.

The next meet of city council is the planning meeting on Committee of the Whole Meeting on Tuesday January 14, 2025, at 2 pm. The agenda for this meeting will be posted on the City’s website on Thursday January 2.

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!