A special meeting of city council, you say? Yes, and it will be another one of those highly consequential meetings that will look towards the future of Guelph, and since that Monday is Election Day, the meeting will be taking place on a Wednesday to give it that extra dose of specialness. At this meeting, development of Clair-Maltby takes another step forward to becoming a reality.

NOTE #1: Delegates will be able to appear at this meeting via telephone or video, but you do have to register with the clerks office before 10 am on September 17. You can also submit written delegations and correspondences for agenda items.

NOTE #2: The meeting will be closed to the public, though it will be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.

Statutory Public Meeting for the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan Proposed Official Plan Amendment – Yes! It’s a planning meeting. A second planning meeting. On a Wednesday. Only a project the size of Clair-Maltby could demand it’s own statutory planning meeting for an Official Plan Amendment.

When we last dealt with Clair-Maltby in the official realm of the (virtual) horseshoe, it was spring 2020 when council approved the Open Spaces Strategy, and the future creation of a 10 hectare community park in the area around the southern end of Hall’s Pond. That document, plus the Policy Directions Document and the Preferred Community Structure passed in 2019, have informed this draft amendment that will cover land use, transportation, built forms, natural and cultural heritage resources, and more.

There have been some slight adjustments to the plan since the approval of the Policy Directions Document, including an increase to the maximum density for “Clair-Maltby High Density Residential” and “Mixed Use” land use designations from 200 units per hectare to 250 units per hectare. There’s also a new addition called the multi-use overpass at the the intersection of Gordon and Maltby, which will allow safer access for people using active transportation options as well as area wildlife. You can see page 70 of the draft amendment.

The Master Environmental Servicing Plan (MESP) is also part of this report, bringing together the results of a bunch of recently completed technical documents including the three phases of the Comprehensive Environmental Impact Study, plus Water and Wastewater Servicing and the Transportation Master Plan Study. A number of capital projects initiated in multiple phases will be needed to complete the infrastructure requirements of the area.

The recommended secondary plan and the Master Environmental Servicing Plan will come back to council for final passage sometime in the first quarter or 2022. In the meantime, there will be more consultations with Heritage Guelph, the Planning Advisory Committee, the CMSP Community Working Group, and the CMSP Technical Advisory Group as the final draft is development over the next few months.

Finally, since this is the statutory planning meeting for this project, no final decision will be made by council, who will only vote to receive the report.

You can see the full agenda for the meeting here.