Slightly delayed because of the Thanksgiving holiday, this month’s planning meeting of city council is about the size of two planning meetings, maybe three given the agenda. There are decisions that need to be made, new applications to hear, and some direction to be received on matters from heritage designations to development charges. Bring your sleeping bag and some snacks for this one…
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 October 13. 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: This is the second council meeting that’s taking place on Tuesday October 17. A special meeting on housing begin at 12:30 pm.
NOTES #4: The open session for this meeting will begin at 6 pm.
131 Ontario Street: Notice of Intention to Designate – You probably know this property better as the old Tytler Public School, which was one of four priority heritage designations that planning staff announced last year. Tytler is the last to get designated. Heritage Guelph already approved the designation back in the summer, but given that the property is owned by the Upper Grand District School Board, it’s hard to believe that there will be any hiccup to this vote going through.
33-35 James Street West: Proposed Demolition – This demolition has already received the approval of Heritage Guelph at one of their September meetings, but it does also need council’s endorsement as it’s inside the Brooklyn and College Hill Heritage Conservation District. While the building’s been there for a long time, staff investigation says that “significant alterations” over the years have removed all the original heritage attributes thus decreasing the heritage value, and that’s why the demolition is recommended for approval.
716 Gordon Street Official Plan and Zoning By-law Decision – The statutory public meeting for this development took place at the July planning meeting, but despite the list of concerns mentioned for the development by both members of council and the public, staff are recommending that this project go forward with only some very minor modifications.
Public Meeting Report 331 Clair Road East Zoning By-law Amendment – For the most part this is a pretty simple amendment, transforming a “Agricultural” (A-2) zone into a “Specialized Residential Townhouse” (R.3A-xx) zone to allow for the construction of eight stacked townhouse blocks, containing a total of 136 units, but the difficulty is in the details.
The detail here is the old James Hanlon Farmhouse, which is a heritage building and will have to be moved before the new development begins construction. Heritage Guelph will be sorting out the designation issues at their October 10 meeting, but the plan is to take much of the farmhouse and put in the centre of the development as part of the common amenity area. This the statutory public meeting for this application meaning that no final decisions will be made at this meeting, and the report will simply be received for information.
Statutory Public Meeting Report 55 Baker Street, 152 and 160 Wyndham Street North Proposed ZBA File OZS23-008 – To put this simply, this is the residential portion of the Baker District Redevelopment. The new main library building makes up the south end of the site along Chapel Lane, but there are residential developments planned for along Baker Street and on the north end of the site where access will be through an urban square facing Wyndham Street.
The developments are two proposed 15-storey towers with 353 residential units between them and 529 square metres of commercial space on the ground level; the north tower will have 179 residential units consisting of 110 one-bedroom units, 68 two-bedroom units, and 1 three-bedroom unit while the south tower will have 129 one-bedroom and 45 two-bedroom units. There will also be 267 spaces of underground parking.
Reminder: This is the statutory meeting for this project so no final decisions will be made at this meeting, and the report will simply be received for information.
Development Charges Results and Background Study – Following up on a council workshop in July, staff have been working to further refine the recommendation for the new Development Charges bylaw. (Remember, the current one expires in March!) With the refinements, the new proposed DC rates changed from $68,902 to $69,300 for a single or semi-detached residential unit and from $27.25 to $27.44 per square foot for non-residential development. That’s a 0.6 per cent increase from what was presented in July if you don’t have a calculator handy. Staff are recommending that the new bylaw should expire in 10 years instead of five as per new provincial regulations, and staff are also recommending that future increases for specific services areas can be made without changing all the service rates at the same time.
2187 Gordon Street: Notice of Intention to Designate – This property is home to the Kidd Barn and the Blair farmhouse, two of the oldest structures left in Guelph from the earliest period of settlement. The property’s been on the list of proposed sites for a heritage designation for years, but one of the hold ups had been the Clair-Maltby Secondary plan, which was passed in 2022 and has since been under appeal at the Ontario Land Tribunal.
Adding a sense of urgency to this situation is the deteriorating condition of the two buildings. The lawyer representing the property owner said that the barn especially was too far gone to be saved at a Heritage Guelph meeting last month, but the committee persisted in their intent to designate because the property still meets six of the nine prescribed criteria for heritage value and interest under Ontario Regulation 569/22 and voted to proceed with recommending the designation. Staff agrees and is recommending that council do the same.
Guelph Politico 