Two meetings this week, one that took care of a lot of planning business in not a lot of time with the monthly planning meeting, and then council tried to absorb four years of Strategic Plan accomplishments in two hours with the annual report. Also, council said goodbye to a very prominent member of staff as he’s about to begin a new adventure as a retiree. Here’s the recap of this week at council…
Planning Meeting of Council – June 11
This planning meeting was more about approving. Without much of a sweat, the meeting began the approval of heritage designations for 408 Willow Road, 100 Queen Street, The Manor, 167 Suffolk Street West, and 14 Neeve Street, plus they approved the extension for a subdivision on Cityview and a letter from Mayor Guthrie to the provincial government asking for more time before properties on the heritage registry are delisted.
That left only one thing, the statutory public meeting for 601 Scottsdale Drive. It’s the second phase of The Alma, 489 residential suites in two, 7-story towers geared to be accommodation for University of Guelph students. The one delegate, Trevor Hawkins – who appeared on behalf of Forum Asset Management – talked about how these will mostly be studio units and similar in type and layout to phase #1 of The Alma, which is the conversion of the old Holiday Inn. Hawkins added that they have a lot of data from phase #1 to back-up some of the planning assumptions made in this application.
Council questions including an exploration of the accessibility of the project, and it turns out that 15 per cent of the units will be barrier-free. Also of interest is that there will be a big increase in the amount of protected bike parking in the new project, and there’s a conversion plan to renovate surface parking for EV charging down the road. Councillor Dominique O’Rourke told staff that she wanted to get clarity about the legal and financial obligations of a private company building units and exclusively marketing them to the undergrad students of one post-secondary institution before this plan comes back to council for final approval.
Council approved the receipt of the plan, which will now be further reviewed by staff. Before the meeting’s end, Mayor Cam Guthrie paid tribute to outgoing Chief Administrative Officer Scott Stewart who’s retiring next week, thanking him for his long career of public service in the municipal sector. DCAO Jayne Holmes will be promoted to acting CAO as council seeks a new person to permanently take up the role.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Workshop Meeting of Council – June 12
For the first time, an entire workshop meeting of council was held to review the annual report of the Strategic Plan, and for the first time the local boards and shared services were invited to take part in the presentation. This was also the first time that council looked back at a completed Strategic Plan period because “Guelph. Future Ready” transitioned to the next four-year plan, “Future Guelph”, at the beginning of the year.
So council looked back at the “Future Ready” plan and considered the accomplishments, missed opportunities, and work still in progress. If you’re interested, there’s an updated reporting website where you can check out all the information provided, and some of the information that wasn’t provided in the meeting. Looking to the new plan, the immediate goals of the first six months are all about housing: Maximizing our real estate assets, meeting our housing pledge, making homes more energy efficient, and downtown renewal.
Next, the boards got their turn.
Chuck Nash of the Downtown Guelph Business Association highlighted cost savings and improved financials, a new website, increased social media presence, and the success of new events like the holiday Spirit of the Season, which will be expanded into six days over two weekend this year.
Michelle Karker, the CEO of the Elliott Community, touted their accomplishments including the expansion of 29 long-term care beds, enhanced support for staff, community outreach and achieving four hours of care per day for very resident as mandated by the Government of Ontario, and more than a year-and-a-half ahead of the deadline.
Grand River Conservation Authority CAO Samantha Lawson thanked staff for the sometimes-difficult work of finishing the new Memorandum of Understanding, and outlined all the work that the GRCA does when it comes to ensuring environmental sustainability. Lawson was asked about the health of the Wellington Street Dam, which isn’t as bad as it looks when you’re rowing by; its in good shape, she said, but it needs some refurbishing and concrete work though that’s not necessarily going to come cheap.
Dr. Matthew Tenenbaum, Associate Medical Officer of Health for Wellington Dufferin Guelph Public Health, reviewed how his agency became the “COVID people” during the pandemic, and how in the last year they focused again on core values like health inspections, oral health, and addressing food insecurity through Smart Cities.
Guelph Public Library Acting CEO Dan Atkins outlined how the library is not just a repository of knowledge in book form, but it’s also a continuous learning centre and a social services agency.
Wellington County’s Social Services Administrator Luisa Artuso talked about the good work around childcare, Ontario Works, and housing, but noted the lack of licensed childcare spaces, the gaps in OW and ODSP benefits, and the need for more deeply affordable housing in our community.
The evening wrapped up with Guelph Police Services Chief Gord Cobey who reiterated his goal to make Guelph the safest community in Canada again, though noted some especially surprising statistics. He said that police are now seizing at least one illegal firearm a week and have seized millions of dollars in drugs already this year. He also said that human trafficking and cyber crime are becoming more prevalent in Guelph, and how these are areas that the service needs to look at improving its expertise in.
On downtown policing, Cobey said that they’re seeing god results, but the goal is to give every area in Guelph the same level of proactive policing and that’s what he’s trying to build up to in the multiyear budget allocations. He said that he would like to lean more on areas of community concern like speeding, traffic and noise control.
Cobey also said that there will be more data about local policing in the coming weeks with the release of the 2023 annual report and the latest crime severity index numbers. He was hesitant to get into what those numbers might reveal, which prompted Mayor Guthrie to suggest that next year they might time this meeting to coincide with the release of those reports.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 