This month’s regular meeting of city council brought to an end the great zero parking minimums debate for new residential developments downtown. That was the big item of the meeting, but there was one item of new business to take care of first, the matter of a certain wall that’s been making getting a lot of press in the last several weeks. So there’s all that, plus a new Indigenous territorial acknowledgement on this week’s council recap…
Regular Meeting of City Council – September 26
Ward 4 City Councillor Linda Busuttil retuned to chair as Mayor Cam Guthrie stayed up late in Copenhagen and videoed into the meeting. Most of council’s business was dispatched pretty quickly, but then things kind of hit a wall. The collapsed stone wall on the Ontario Reformatory property.
Councillor Cathy Downer, who is council’s ex-officio designate to Heritage Guelph, brought to council a similar motion that was approved by that committee last week, a request that Infrastructure Ontario repair the stone wall that was damaged on the property late last month. There were three delegates that spoke in favour of the motion, mostly out of a sense of fear that this was another case of demolition by neglect.
Council was unanimous in its support for the motion with Councillor Leanne Caron saying that Infrastructure Ontario should be treated like any other property owner with a duty of care for destroyed or damaged infrastructure on the property they own. Councillor Erin Caton called the OR Lands an important bit of Ward 1 heritage and said that if the Ontario government doesn’t want to maintain it, then they can always give it to the people of Guelph.
Then there was the big item of the night, the final passage of the Downtown Parking Master Plan. Staff remained committed to the recommendation they brought forward at Committee of the Whole, a parking minimum of 0.85 spaces per unit for new residential buildings in the core, but some of the people delegating were hoping that they could persuade a majority of council to get to zero.
One of the notable delegates was Jonathan Westeinde from Windmill, the private developer working on the residential side of the Baker District Redevelopment. He warned that building parking was one of the most expensive parts of any development, and it requires a lot of calculation on the part of the developer to make sure that they have enough parking to cover the needs of the people living there while not having a bunch of empty spaces. He also warned that parking minimums must be compensated with increased options to accommodate the shift in modality, whether that’s bike parking, car shares or high frequency transit.
The other delegates were a student from the University of Guelph, a rep for downtown building owners with office space they want to turn into residential, and members of the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation. They all had hopes for zero, but that was easier said than done apparently. General Manager of Planning Krista Walkey warned that making a sudden move to reduce the minimum parking from 0.85 spaces per unit to something less might require more public engagement; it was too big of a change to simply commit to it after hearing from five people in one meeting after years of public engagement.
Guthrie wasn’t willing to give up yet though. He wanted to get to zero because of the climate crisis and the housing crisis, to have a more pedestrian friendly downtown, and to put the risk entirely on the developer. Getting rid of the city’s dependence on cars was at the heart of what he was learning about in Copenhagen, and he explained that he was being encouraged by other mayors to chase the dream of no parking minimums downtown.
But Guthrie’s dream soon hit many, many roadblocks.
City Engineer Terry Gayman said that there were a lot of short-term challenges coming to downtown in the next few years from the Conestoga campus to infrastructure upgrades to two-way all-day GO train service, and staff will need the next five years to measure those impacts. Councillor Dominique O’Rourke said that she had doubts that the risk was going all on the developer with zero minimums, especially since the City is getting nothing out of it like cash-in-lieu; it was possible a bunch of developments with no parking could get built and demand would require the City to build some parking.
Caton made note of the accessibility piece saying that zero parking is not an accessible policy. Councillor Phil Allt made the point that zero parking does not mean zero cars and it would be a mistake to make such an assumption, which, in the process, drew ire from Guthrie who felt that Allt had implied that the mayor was being dishonest. Allt said that he was talking about the collective “we” of council and not to any one member.
Councillor Dan Gibson offered the best non-sequitur of the night by saying that he would be in favour of a zero parking minimum because it would accelerate the need to look at paid on-street parking downtown, but since that wasn’t on the table anyway, he would follow the will of the majority of his colleagues.
Guthrie’s amendment failed 3-10 with only the mayor’s support and that of the Ward 2 councillors behind it.
After getting confirmation that a first-hour free pilot for off-street facilities, and a review of day and monthly parking passes was underway, council approved the original four recommendations unchanged by a vote of 11-2 with Guthrie and Councillor Rodrigo Goller voting against.
In additional motions, council approved a recommendation to staff to look at zero parking spaces per unit minimums in their 2028 review, and a request to review the exemption of affordable housing projects from the cash-in-lieu policy. Another motion to direct council to confer with the City of Edmonton about “Open Option Parking” was withdrawn when staff said that they could do that without a motion and keep the mover, Councillor Ken Yee Chew, in the loop as they do it.
Busuttil wrapped the meeting by reminding everyone about #OrangeShirtDay this Saturday and by expressing gratitude to the people of Guelph for supporting the LBGTQ+ community, and to the City of Guelph for their approach on equity and inclusion in the wake of last week’s 1 Million March 4 Children and the counter-protest.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 