Sparing you the April Fool’s joke (at least in the intro), we arrive at the first meeting of April. Naturally, here at the end of the first quarter, we get into some financial matters as financial staff reviewed debt and debentures. And speaking of drains on the spreadsheets, council once again dug into the question of what to do about the Drill Hall, plus there were also some questions about how many trees that council can save. Get all the details in the recap!
Committee of the Whole Meeting – April 1, 2025
It was April Fool’s Day, but there was no joking at Committee of the Whole because once you got passed the staff recognitions, it was all about what the City can fund and what levers they can pull to fund more. It was also about saving more trees, and once again trying to save a downtown heritage building for what must be the third time.
But first, there was the matter a debenture. If you don’t know what this is, it’s a type of loan that isn’t backed by collateral, just the creditworthiness and reputation of the entity doing the borrowing, which in this case is the City of Guelph. The aim of this debenture is to secure $92 million which will be dedicated to the completion of the South End Community Centre and the Baker District (which includes, but is not limited to, the new library building). This report was largely administrative since the debenture’s already been approved in the City’s capital budget.
Obviously, the City’s proposed debt-based funding causes some concerns, and while the pressures of infrastructure renewal will push Guelph beyond the S&P guidelines about the use of debt and will possibly impact the City’s AAA credit rating, 1 Carden will still be well inside the debt limit imposed by the Government of Ontario. David Berner from the National Bank told committee that he foresees no issue with Guelph finding investors interested in its debenture, which will go to market once final authority is approved at the regular council meeting later this month, and the details are worked out with Berner as the fiscal agent as well as the lawyers.
Staying with investments, committee heard about the policy for the Municipal Servicing and Finance Agreements, or MSFA. This a tool that lets the City enter into agreements with developers to finance housing enabling infrastructure like roads or water pipes and is not dissimilar to how the City works with developers to establish parkland in new developments. To fund the infrastructure, the developer would either receive DC credits instead of paying DCs at the time building permits are issued, or DC reimbursements where the developer gets money back if they spend more than the amount of DCs charged for the project.
DCAO Jayne Holmes explained there has been some interest from the development community for the City to have a tool like this, but there’s still a lot of economic uncertainty when it comes to construction right now. At least one councillor was concerned about the potential budget impact with the existing exemptions and discounts to DCs, but staff said they’ve built various tests and reviews into the application process that will assure that accelerating growth does not mean accelerating exemptions.
After approving the policy, committee got lost in the trees… or make that the Private Tree Bylaw. Staff reported that they walked a fine line from the public feedback, expanding the number of trees that are being protected while watching the bottom line and relying more on a cost recovery model with new and increased fees.
But the new protections didn’t go far enough for at least a couple of councillors. Rodrigo Goller and Leanne Caron moved an amendment to increase the protection to include all trees over 30 centimetres in diameter and all trees over 10 centimetres on lots bigger than 0.2 hectares. Many on committee liked the idea of protecting more trees and saw it as a long-term commitment to community, but a few didn’t like the short-term increased in costs. The amendment, and the amended main motion, passed 8-3.
Lastly, committee tackled the Drill Hall again. The result of the feasibility study asked for by council was that the idea of turning the Drill Hall into an arts and culture centre has possibility, but it needs a massive investment of time, energy, and most importantly money on the part of the City, which is why they were recommending, again, that the Drill Hall be sold as a surplus asset.
But wait! There was another potential last-minute reprieve from Art Not Shame. The arts group, which promotes access to creative pursuits for equity seeking groups, may have a funder willing to put up some kind of investment to help achieve an arts space in the Drill Hall, they just need some more time to flesh out a proposal and explore what the requirements will be.
With a new option on the table Mayor Cam Guthrie said that he did not want to sell the building as it was a community asset that the City had put a lot of time and money into stabilizing. There were a couple of things that committee had to do though if the intention was to keep chasing some form of the arts centre idea: Keep paying for the upkeep of the Drill Hall, decide on what level of investment the City can and will make, and then look at crafting a request for proposals to execute on the plan.
Councillor Carl Klassen, taking a break from her maternity leave, tabled a three-part recommendation along those lines saying that committee owed it to residents to exhaust all possibilities. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the motion, but there was also some caution. Although Guthrie had already directed staff to look at the allocation of funds to the Drill Hall as part of the 2026 budget review, he warned that council had already deferred $1 billion in capital work in the name of affordability, so supporting an art centre in the Drill Hall may come at the expense of something else. Still, committee approved the recommendations unanimously.
Guthrie also offered an additional motion to direct the CAO to advocate to the Ontario government about allowing permission for residential development on the site with a deadline to September 30 to either get direction from Metrolinx or abandon the idea. Guthrie said that they could keep the building as an arts centre and maybe add some residential portion to it, but that would mean overcoming certain restrictions for new builds near Metrolinx tracks. The mayor said it wasn’t a deal breaker, but he didn’t want to let an opportunity slip by and committee agreed with him, unanimously.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 