What kind of year has it been at Guelph city council? A busy one. Things have been pretty much nonstop at city hall so far as council business was concerned, which makes sense because this is an election year, and there was a lot of business to finish. In these very consequential seven months of 2022, what were the highlights and lowlights of the work around the horseshoe? What happened, how did it happen, and why?

These are the questions we deal with on this week’s podcast as we recap hours and hours of council business in about 60 minutes. Remember the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan? That was finally passed earlier this year. Ban on single-use plastics? Yup, that happened this year too, and it starts on New Year’s Day 2023. The Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw review? Well, it’s not done, but it’s pretty close to being done!

This will also be known as the year that council took a step back to business as usual. In March, council returned to in-person meetings with some councillors appearing in the chambers, and others beaming in on the big screen. One month later, council meetings were open again to members of the public and while many people welcomed that opportunity it seems like hybrid meetings are here to stay. How hybrid? We’ll find out.

Those are sort of the top line things that happened this year at council, the really noticeable stuff. There were a lot of planning meetings with a lot of new units, and not a lot of people were openly happy about this trend. There was also a lot of discussion about homelessness issues, some pretty big issues around inflationary pressures, and heritage was still very much a thing on a lot of files. There’s lots to cover and not much time to cover it in, so let’s go!

We will now review the last seven months at city council on this week’s Guelph Politicast!

The next meeting of city council is September’s planning meeting on Monday September 12 at 6:30 om, and then there’s a special meeting on Wednesday September 14 at 6 pm. Then there’s are no more meetings because of the October 24 election and the last meeting of the term will be on November 1 at 6 pm.You can see all the meeting recaps here.

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