Hope everyone enjoyed the extra time off in January, because there’s a lot of serious business to take care of this February starting almost immediately with Committee of the Whole. For this first CoW of 2024, there’s some left over budget business to talk about, plus some construction business ahead for the downtown core. Also, there’s some staff recognitions, governance changes, and the return of downtown parking concerns.
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 February 2. 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.
CLOSED MEETING:
1) Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan, Ontario Land Tribunal Update – Since this is a matter of “litigation or potential litigation, including matters before administrative tribunals, affecting the municipality or local board and advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose,” it has to be discussed in-camera.
2) 2024 Chief Administrative Officer Performance Objectives – This may be of some interest due to recent events. However, since this is a matter related to “personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees, and labour relations or employee negotiations” council has to chat behind closed doors.
STAFF RECOGNITIONS:
1) CAO Scott Stewart, DCAO of Corporate Services Trevor Lee, and the general manager of human resources Mark Ellis will accept the honour for the City of Guelph being named one of Southwestern Ontario Top Employers of 2024.
2) Stewart, Lee and Ellis will also accept the honour of being named one of the Waterloo Ara’s Top Employers of 2024 on behalf of the City.
3) A consortium of staff members from finance, intergovernmental and planning will be feted for securing millions of dollars in Housing Accelerator funding from the federal government.
4) Manager of Business Services will receive congratulations from the committee for getting a leadership certificate from the University of Waterloo.
5) Construction Contract Administrator Samy Mohamed will be recognized for becoming a Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute.
Expansion of the Governance Section at Committee of the Whole – If there’s not enough governance for you right now at Committee of the Whole, get ready, you’re about to get more. The clerks’ office has proposed two motions that will allow reports from the Chief Administrative Officer’s office, not including the internal audit, to be formally presented as part of the Governance service area.
Budget Impacts per Ontario Regulation 284-09 and Budget, Public Sector Accounting Standards Reconciliation 2024 – As you may or may not know, there’s a difference between how we see the municipal budget and the format that our city’s budget has to be presented to the Ontario government. In past years, council approves this motion at the end of the budget meeting, but it was obviously postponed this time due to changes in municipal budgeting approved in provincial Bill 23.
Physician Recruitment Initiative – During the budget process last November, council approved $43,335 in one-time funding over two years for a physician recruitment initiative through the Guelph Wellington Ontario Health Team. That motion was worded to say “subject to the receipt of the corresponding contributions for this initiative from the County of Wellington, and Guelph Chamber of Commerce”, but the Chamber is not contributing money, only services. Since the wording of the motion made the City’s funding seemingly contingent on the Chamber’s funds, committee needs to approve an amendment.
Financial Plan for Water and Wastewater Services – The City’s Municipal Drinking Water License has to be renewed every five years, and along with that, a financial plan has to be submitted to the Government of Ontario. A consultant was engaged to turn the Water and Wastewater Master Plans into financial plans to support the City’s license renewal. There are no direct financial impacts from this plan since the work’s already been incorporated into the 2024-2027 multi-year budget.
Payment-in-lieu of Parking Policy – This work came out of the passage of the Downtown Parking Master Plan last fall, and while that plan is being appealed at the Ontario Land Tribunal, the approval of the Payment-in-Lieu parking policy was included in the City’s application to the Housing Accelerator Fund, which was recently approved.
Essentially, any developer looking to reduce its parking burden will be encouraged to apply Transportation Demand Management measures to reduce overall parking requirements for the site, and then, using the cost of a parking space as $60,000, the developer will pay between $7,500 and $54,000 for each space they don’t build into the project. Authority to approve each PIL agreement is delegated to the General Manager of Planning and Building Service, and will be executed before the building permit is issued.
Wyndham Street North Cross Section and St George’s Square Intersection – You may have heard that the underground infrastructure downtown is old, perhaps even ancient by modern standards. In the next few years, the upper end of Wyndham will be revamped as consequence of all these upgrades meant to modernize downtown’s pipes and make the core ready for hundreds of new residents.
There are two recommendations in this report for Upper Wyndham. First, the recommended street design is a two-lane street with a uni-directional bike lanes on either side of the road. There will still be parking on street, set between the bike lanes and the car lanes, and there will also new streetscaping with room for pedestrians and flexible seasonal space for things like patios. As for St. George’s Square – don’t worry! – no one is planning a traffic circle. The staff recommendation is to let this corner operate in the same way that it does right now. Construction should start in spring 2026.
Guelph Politico 