June’s planning meeting will not be short on controversy. The Niska Lands are back on the agenda, and the activists who came out to speak for it being parkland earlier this year are probably going to have a bad time with this staff report, and there’s also a mysterious item from the mayor that will likely prompt some heated discussion. Plus, one very big (tall) project will be brought forward for approval, and there will be pretty big new subdivision proposed for the south end.
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 June 5. 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.
65 McTague Street: Notice of Intention to Designate – In the Exhibition Park area, this house as a rare and highly intact example of late-19th-century Queen Anne Revival architecture in Guelph, and as such meets five of the nine criteria under Ontario Regulation 9/06. The Heritage Advisory Committee recommended designation earlier this month.
Decision Report, 70 Fountain Street East, Proposed Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendments – In March, council heard this application for a 24-storey, mixed-use building with ground-floor retail space and 419 purpose-built rental dwelling units. Well, the only thing that changed from that planning meeting is that there will be four fewer units, but the development has the endorsement of City of Guelph staff to proceed.
Public Meeting: 220 Arkell Road Proposed DPA and ZBA File OZS19-017 – Not quite on Arkell Road but accessible from an extension of Hutchison Road from the Victoria Park Village neighbourhood, this is presently a pretty big piece of land with only one house and a couple of accessory buildings on it. The plan here is to replace that with a new neighbourhood containing 31 or 32 single detached homes and between 70 and 94 townhouse units as well as a neighbourhood park, a stormwater management facility, natural heritage lands, and an emergency access route that could eventually become a trail connection. This is the statutory meeting for this development, so no final decision will be made at this meeting and council will only vote to receive the report.
Statutory Public Meeting and Decision Report: Southeast Parcel of Niska Lands, City Initiated OPA and ZBA, 2026-275 – Just when you thought this was settled… Back In February, council backed a motion to re-designate the property formally known as the Kortright Waterfowl Park as parkland, which followed an announcement that the City of Guelph was buying a big portion of the property. And yet, staff are recommending that council not proceed with the re-zoning saying that there is insufficient planning justification to remove the residential designation, especially after years of appeals and back and forth with the Ontario Land Tribunal and its predecessors. This pertains to the specific eight hectares identified presently as residential lands, and staff says the re-designation is an overreach without a solid planning justification, which they feel they don’t have. There’s also the argument that the Grand River Conservation Authority still owns this portion of the land, and is not part of the 51 hectares that the City is in the process of buying.
Potential Opportunity to Advance Affordable Housing and Charitable Hub – What is this? Hard to say because there is no report with this agenda item, just a motion “respectfully” asking Guelph/Eramosa Township to support the possible development of an affordable housing and non-profit charitable space on 14.8 acres of land on Whitelaw Road south of the end of Elmira, which is outside the city limits, and a request for staff to report back about the feasibility of development in a way that’s “cost neutral” to the City.
Guelph Politico 