Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water… circumstances forced us all back to the council chambers, or the live-stream page of the City of Guelph website, for a midsummer council meeting. The topic? A new plan to supercharge housing by cutting DCs and funding housing enabling infrastructure courtesy of the federal and provincial governments, but with an election coming timelines are getting tricky. Here’s the recap!
Special Meeting of Council – August 12, 2026
For the third time in four years, council held an August meeting, and once again timing was an important factor when it came to the reason why we were having one.
On Wednesday, most of council got together to talk about the Development Charges Reduction Program. Announced by both the federal and provincial governments earlier this year, the DCRP makes millions of dollars available for housing enabling infrastructure in exchange for cuts to development charges somewhere between 30 and 50 per cent for three years. City of Guelph staff proposed a relatively conservative 30 per cent cut and in exchange they want nearly $74 million for three big water and wastewater projects. The hope is that between the infrastructure investments and the DC cuts, Guelph might “unlock” 5,600 of the 7,000-plus units that have been approved by council but are waiting for the developer to apply for a building permit.
GM of Strategic Initiatives and Intergovernmental Services Jodie Sales and GM of Finance and Treasurer Shanna O’Dwyer both cited the quick turnaround of this project. The guidelines came out in early June and City staff had two weeks to put a proposal together, which they did; Sales added that typically these sorts of proposals take eight-to-ten months to put together. Staff were supposed to hear about whether or not the proposal was successfully received by mid-July but as of this meeting, and this recap, the Ontario government has rendered no verdict, and, in fact, with the exception of Toronto, no municipality has heard about the fate of their application, affirmative or otherwise.
With no decision yet rendered, and council about to enter its “lame duck” period when the decisions there allowed to make are restricted leading up to the October election, staff needed direction about what to do when they get a response from the provincial government, hence the necessity of this meeting.
Council had questions about the risk, what happens if they don’t end up building the 5,600 units? What are the risks to DC collection? Why is it taking so long to get a response back? In terms of the risks, O’Dwyer noted that the success of the program is still dependent on builders deciding to build, but if the goals are not met then the penalty is the lost DCs plus 30 per cent, which could result in tax and rate payers being forced to make up the difference, especially if the governments claw back the grant. There’s also no guarantee that the savings will be passed on to the end homebuyer, but staff are cautiously optimistic that this might shake loose some long in the pipeline projects, the vast majority of whom – over 4,300 units – are large apartments.
Mayor Cam Guthrie assured that the savings will be passed on, at least that’s the feeling he’s gotten from conversations he’s had with developers, and he also noted that the sunset clause in 2029 will “light a fire” under developers to take advantage of the cut (although it should be noted that it’s technically a grant worth 30 per cent of the total DCs being charged for a project). Some councillors still voiced doubts in their final comments, but the three main recommendations were approved unanimously.
Council then went in-camera for an hour to talk about three topics including the negotiation over the parameters for the DCRP. After returning to the open session, Guthrie announced that they gave direction to staff and wrapped up the meeting. You may now return to your regularly scheduled summer vacation!
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
Guelph Politico 