At June’s planning meeting, a lot of ground was covered but there were two primary modes. First, there were a lot of heritage files needing some work, including the latest heritage conservation district and a couple of individual designations that were unexpectely controversial. And then there was the Princess Auto file, an interesting confluence of confusing planning rules that nearly scuttled the future Guelph location of that chain. Here’s the recap!

Planning Meeting of City Council – June 10, 2025

Last month council not only failed to designate 72 Gordon Street, but they also failed to not designate it. So after all that drama and the relative embarrassment, it was approved at the start of this planning meeting by a vote of 8-4. Councillor Rodrigo Goller asked to pull the designation from the consent agenda so that he might vote against it and he was joined by three others.

This would not be the last time there would be drama around a heritage designation.

Council then tackled a couple of new applications including a new six-storey hotel with 152 rooms off Imperial Road next to the Hampton Inn. This was a remarkably brief presentation and passed without much discussion; Guelph has lost at least that many hotel rooms over the last few years between the closure of the Holiday Inn, the Days Inn, and the Parkview.

The other project was for 81 Royal Road, a new Princess Auto location for Guelph. Staff were recommending that council reject the application due to a provincial regulation that doesn’t consider a retail outlet to fit the definition of employment lands under the Official Plan, otherwise the placement of an auto part store down the road from the Guelph Auto Mall makes a great deal of sense. A team representing Princess Auto including Claudio Balbinot from AGORA Research tried to argue that point and also had issue with staff demanding three parking spaces per 100 metres squared minimum versus their own request for a minimum of five parking spaces per 100 metres squared.

Councillor Phil Allt asked explicitly if this application came to council in 2021 if the staff recommendation would be different, but GM of Planning and Building Services Krista Walkey diplomatically said that she’s focused on the policy in front of her. The message was received though and council decided to proceed with approving the application by a vote of 11-1. As for parking concerns, staff noted that they were parking minimums, not parking maximums.

Back to heritage with the intention to designate 5 Queen Street. Current owner Meg Thorburn asked council to pump the breaks because she felt that she and her husband were not given enough time to respond, that they were concerned about losing their insurance, and that their house is not at-risk because they have been lovingly restoring it for the last several years.

Council interrogated Thorburn about the work on the house and why a heritage designation might negatively impact that for about 30 minutes. Essentially, Thorburn says it comes down to wanting to be more involved and more collaborative with staff, and that includes having them provide a list of potential insurance brokers who will protect a heritage house, which is apparently a growing issue. Ultimately, council voted to defer the designation until further notice.

Still on heritage, council heard the initial report on the Ward West Heritage Conservation District, or the “Keep the Ward welcoming and weird” Heritage Conservation District. Those six words apparently sum up the public feedback that staff received from the first phase of development on the HCD, but more practically the plan will celebrate how the Ward was shaped by geography, industrialization and the development of working-class neighbourhoods and housing.

Councillor Dan Gibson asked staff about any negative comments about the project because it seemed like staff was just presenting the positive, and he’s concerned that many people in the area would see the HCD as a hurdle to doing work on their properties. Heritage planner Jack Mallon said that many of the things Gibson was talking about – roof repairs, new siding, interior renovations – do not require a heritage permit, but Gibson persisted when Councillors Leanne Caron and Cathy Downer both said that living in an HCD hasn’t stopped all the renos and demos in their ward.

Gibson called a point of order on irony grounds because there was an entire discussion that very meeting about how designations, or potential designations, were getting in the way of a homeowner doing work on their own property. Caron said that she thought that Gibson had called her a hypocrite, which Gibson denied after Mayor Cam Guthrie asked him to withdraw the comment. Guthrie asked council to move on though Gibson raised his point again before the vote.

Council approved the boundary of the Ward West HCD, and now staff will begin the formal plan and guidelines which will take about another year to complete.

The last item was a series of motions from Councillor Caron focused on new laws passed last week in the Ontario legislature. The motions presented in the meeting were different from the ones posted in the amended agenda to include specific references to Bill 17 in addition to the more well-known Bill 5. Guthrie said that while there was some “okay” provisions in Bill 17, he and other representatives at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario were concerned about how Bill 17 overrides local autonomy and creates unnecessary division. Councillor Phil Allt added that it adds another layer of bureaucracy to local planning matters by forcing provincial oversight in there. The four motions passed unanimously.

Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.

The next meeting of city council is an orientation meeting on Tuesday June 17 at 6 pm. You can see the agenda on the City’s website here.