This week at Guelph City Council, there was a little meeting and a big meting. The little meeting was the Committee of the Whole, which was over and done in about 20 minutes. As for the big meeting? Well that is – what’s the word? – complicated. The fallout from the Ontario government’s flip-flop on the Official Plan proved more trickier than you might have thought for a motion that was simply meant to reverse previous changes, but that’s what this recap is for…
Committee of the Whole Meeting of City Council – December 5
This last Committee of the Whole meeting of the year was done in about 20 minutes, Matt Betik from KPMG presented the plan for the External Audit and it was pretty straightforward. The biggest change year-over-year is that the City has to report this year for the first time the risks of retiring and decommissioned City-owned sites, including he old landfill, or the removal of asbestos from any buildings that still has it. There wasn’t much follow-up from committee and the presentation was unanimously received for information.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Special Meeting of City Council – December 5
This was the main event, a special council meeting meant to follow-up on the impact of Bill 150, which will roll back all approved changes to the Official Plans of a dozen different municipalities made by former Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark. The deadline for the mayors to submit feedback to Bill 150 is today (December 7) if they want to hold to specific changes the minister made or if construction is already in progress due to those ministerial decisions.
General Manager of Planning and Building Services Krista Walkey and Manager of Policy Planning Urban Design Melissa Aldunate explained staff’s recommendation for what changes to keep and what changes to undo. Walkey said that this was a messy process, and that she’s never seen anything like this before in her professional career. She also apologized for issuing a report so close to the final buzzer, but that was the hand she, and council, were dealt.
There were several delegates appearing, all tied to specific sites whose zoning was changed at the ministerial level and would revert back to the original Official Plan passed in 2022 without the mayor’s (and council’s) endorsement.
First, there was a planner from Bousfields Inc who are representing NewCold and the new facility they want to build at 384 Crawley Road. David Falletta was asking for council to leave zoning as it is right now and explained that they had already been working with staff on site plans and other applications for the project. Changing the zoning back now could mean losing the project completely, Falletta added, and that would mean Guelph won’t benefit from the hundreds of new jobs and the millions of dollars in new investment.
Next, there were several people representing a proposed affordable housing project for 280 Clair Road West. The original zoning for his area was Industrial, but now it’s zoned High Density, and this group wanted to keep it that way. At issue is that this property was once identified as a “provincially significant employment land”, another hurdle that has to be vaulted before development can begin, plus the size of the property might make it difficult to host some kind of industrial development anyway.
The final delegate was Ian Panabaker from Wood Development Group, though he used to oversee downtown development with the City. He didn’t have any specific beef with the changes to the Official Plan, before or after, but he did want to encourage council to do more work activating development downtown by being more flexible with height and density.
The first amendment proposed by council was to make 41-45 George Street medium density again. Staff had recommended high density, but council made the switch to medium before passing OPA 80, and then the Minister’s office made it high density again. Councillor Dominique O’Rourke, who was chairing the meeting while Mayor Cam Guthrie was beaming in from Dubai, asked council not to rehash old debates, and the change was rather swiftly re-approved 7-6.
Next, Guthrie proposed to leave the zoning on 280 Clair as it is, and that council should direct staff to meet with Home Opportunities and their consultants in order to get their application in shape by the end of February. Despite the zoning in the Official Plan, the developer still needs to file a zoning bylaw amendment, which means that it will still have to go through the normal planning process to get council approval for the project.
Some councillors had concerns about the “provincially significant employment land” tag on the site and how that could be removed, but that seems to be the developer’s responsibility. Others were hesitant because approving the zoning as high density was no guarantee that affordable housing would be built there. There was also some concern more broadly about the loss of employment lands, and that was not the last time that concern would arise at this meeting.
After a great deal of back and forth, Guthrie explained that this was an opportunity for the City to send a signal that they want to help with the housing crisis and get one hurdle out of the way, even if there are future reports to come. As for outcomes, Guthrie said that this team was made up of “very honourable people” in our community who were coming to council with the best of intentions. Seven of the mayor’s colleague agreed and approved the motion to not change the zoning 8-5. The second part of the motion to have staff meet with the developers was passed unanimously.
After pausing briefly for unanimity to accept staff’s recommendation to look at a proper study to create additional height downtown, council got back to controversy when the mayor tabled a motion to take no further action on the zoning for 384 Crawley.
This situation presented even more complications because the plan from NewCold is already in front of the Ontario Land Tribunal on an issue of completeness about their site plan application, so Walkey explained that the council decision would have no impact on that process. There’s also the fact that NewCold had started to go through the formal planning application process, and then they petitioned the Province instead in order to get the zoning they wanted in the amended Official Plan.
Guthrie put the situation simply: This was about Guelph showing the community that it’s open for business and that $1 billion in investments is nothing for council to sneeze at, he called it a Reputational vote.” Ultimately, the motion was passed by a slim 7-6 vote with many of the no votes taking exception to the characterization that this vote meant that council was either pro-business or anti-business.
Next, there was a motion to leave the provincial decision to change the plan for the Guelph Innovation District lands alone. Guthrie again made the argument that the developer, in this case Fusion Homes, was a trusted community partner who needs some consistency to proceed with planning, but two wrinkles emerged, the loss of 26 hectares in employment lands and the possible exhaustion of local water supplies.
Walkey had previously made the point during the Clair Road debate that the City has running tight with potential employment lands already, so the loss on the GID lands was nothing to sneeze at. Other councillors made the point that the employment lands portion of the development were in later phases of the development, and that phase one, which won’t even start construction for another three years, will be unimpacted by going back to the original version of the GID secondary plan.
CAO Scott Stewart interjected saying that the message to Fusion should be that they should work with the City to make sure there’s no broader impact on water and employment lands, because Guelph’s still got to redevelop Clair-Maltby and Dolime some point in the next 20 years too. Councillor Michele Richardson brought up the concerning possibility of liability if Guelph doesn’t have the water supply to provide for the Official Plan, and Stewart said there would be if the City weren’t actively searching for options.
Now nearly six hours into the meeting day, council’s comments started to be more general, expressing resentment about being put into this position by provincial mismanagement in the first place and then flip-flopping. Ultimately, the decision to pause any further tinkering with the GID was passed 7-6 with Chair O’Rourke noting that there would be other opportunities for council to address their concerns as Fusions starts filing plans.
The original staff recommendations as amended were approved by council 9-4. On Wednesday evening, Guthrie shared his finished letter to Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra on social media.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 