After a couple of months with nothing controversial in new applications, we’ve got something really controversial for you this month, and obviously, it’s not the new semi-detached home or the proposed garage demolition. There are two new applications, a demolition request and some changes to the delegated authority all on this agenda, the last planning meeting before summer vacation!
NOTE #1: Delegates will be able to appear at this meeting in-person or via tele-presense but you do have to register with the clerks office before 10 am on Friday June 9. You can also submit written delegations and correspondences for agenda items.
NOTE #2: In addition to meeting in-person, this meeting will also be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.
NOTE #3: The meeting starts at the special time of 5 pm, and will be followed by a workshop meeting of council.
12 Forbes Avenue: Proposed Demolition – The property owner here is looking to demolish a detached garage, but there’s a hitch: This property is in the Brooklyn and College Hill Heritage Conservation District so the demolition request has to come through Heritage Guelph and city council first. Since there’s no heritage value to the garage, Heritage Guelph has already voted in favour of allowing the demolition to proceed.
Public Meeting Report 25 Alice Street Proposed Zoning By-law Amendment File OZS23-004 – This application is pretty straightforward, the property owners want to tear down the current detached building and build a new semi-detached building. At issue, is the fact that while the property is zoned RL.2 under the new Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw, that bylaw is not yet in effect because it’s being appealed. This is the statutory planning meeting for this application, which means that council will only vote to receive the application; no final decision will be made at this meeting.
Public Meeting 716 Gordon Street Proposed Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendments File OZS23-003 – You may be thinking to yourself, “Didn’t we sort all this out already?” Well, a decision of the one the past iterations of the Ontario Land Tribunal back in 2013 dictated that the property could be designated as High Density Residential with a height range of 3 to 11 storeys and a density range of 100 to 156 units per hectre. That was then, and this is now.
The new proposal is asking for a zoning change to R.4B-14, which is a Post-Secondary Residence. This will be the addition of a building ranging from 6 to 11 storeys on a four storey podium with 532 dwelling units containing 1149 bedrooms and a 90 square metre café on the main floor. This super-charges the units per hectare to 676, which obviously requires some minor variances including reduced front and side yards and a revised off-street parking ratio of 0.25 parking spaces per bedroom. This is the statutory planning meeting for this application, which means that council will only vote to receive the application; no final decision will be made at this meeting.
Delegation of Authority Update: Minor Zoning By-law Amendments – Section 39.2 of Bill 13, the Supporting People and Businesses Act, allows municipal councils to delegate authority to staff for some minor zoning bylaw amendments including the lifting a holding provision, the passage of temporary use by-laws to authorize the temporary use of land, buildings or structures.
Some of these minor changes are very minor, like the correction of grammatical and formatting errors, mapping errors and updates, housekeeping updates, or the removal of site-specific zones that are more restrictive than the parent zone. The temporary use will only by allowed for up to three years before it reverts back to the original designation, and Holding provisions can only be removed when a requirement is met anyway, and while public notice is still required, it won’t have to be approved by council at a meeting if these changes are approved.
In order to ensure transparency, council will receive a recommendation memo, which would also be provided to the GM of Planning and Building Services, and public notice would be provided wherein Guelphites can submit written concerns that will be addressed at planning meeting of council.
Guelph Politico 