“Short” was the word that best summed up this week’s meeting of city council, the regular meeting for the month of May. There was nothing much on the agenda aside from matters already settled at Committee of the Whole, so the only thing left to debate was a motion to ask the provincial government to stay the erasure of the heritage list at the end of the year. The big news though, that came out of the closed meeting. Here’s the recap!
Regular Meeting of City Council – May 26, 2026
It was a brief one to end May at city council, not as brief as it could have been but brief enough.
For a change there was some news coming out of the closed portion of the meeting. Mayor Cam Guthrie announced that council has authorized staff to make a “sincere” offer on 170 Stephanie Drive in the west end for affordable, attainable and permanent housing. No other details were forthcoming, but Guthrie said that this was part of the City’s plan to try and fill that important gap in the housing market.
The rest of the meeting was pretty straightforward. The consent agenda from Committee of the Whole was approved, and then there was one remaining item. Councillor Leanne Caron wanted the rest of council to endorse a motion that would ask the Government of Ontario to extend the January 1, 2027 deadline to delete properties listed, but not designated, on the heritage registry. No one on council could possibly disagree with such a simple request, right?
Councillor Rodrigo Goller asked about the dedication of staff time to ongoing designation efforts, and DCAO Terry Gayman said that all of heritage staff’s efforts over the last four years has been put towards designating as much as possible, so if anything, a delay would offer some relief. Councillor Dan Gibson notes that there are a lot of people who were looking forward to “having this chapter closed” and that the Ontario government has been “quite fair” with the timelines given. Guthrie more or less agreed and added that he didn’t believe that any request for a delay will go anywhere.
Having said that, Caron’s motion was approved 9-4, and that was the end of this council meeting after the bylaws passed.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 