Category: Council Post-view

This Week at Council: Niska Lands Blocked, Renoviction Bylaw Unlocked!

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It was a pretty big week for Guelph City Council in terms of both length and substance. The planning meeting also had scale, between the approval of a massive new project for the downtown area and the protection of a big piece of land in the south end. There were also big implications for supporting affordable housing in the city, as staff brought back three very in-demand new bylaws. So let’s get all the details from two mega meetings in this recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: Niska Lands Blocked, Renoviction Bylaw Unlocked!” →

This Week at Council: A Bridge Too Far Gone?

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It was a long one at June’s Committee of the Whole meeting, and it was mostly about a bridge. But there was something for everyone at this meeting from energy equity to community grants to outside water use. We covered a closed meeting investigation, a new procurement bylaw update, and there was even a semi-planning matter in regards to building fee changes. So let’s get into all that and more in this week’s council meeting recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: A Bridge Too Far Gone?” →

This Week at Council: Stephanie Drive Deal and Heritage Reprise Request

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“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! Continue reading “This Week at Council: Stephanie Drive Deal and Heritage Reprise Request” →

This Week at Council: No to Five Units, Yes to More Grants

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Everyone was prepared for a long one at the planning meeting of city council this month, but in the end length was relative. One big item was deferred off the agenda, and we will see it again in September, but for this meeting, we focused on two other areas. Council once again had a look at doing five units as-of-right, and it turns out feelings about it haven’t changed, and then they looked at a new grant to get housing built. Here’s the recap… Continue reading “This Week at Council: No to Five Units, Yes to More Grants” →

This Week at Council: Mixed Reviews for Fiscal 2025

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Money matters were on the agenda for the May Committee of the Whole meeting! First up, the internal auditor returned with the results from the latest value-for-money audit, which this time focused on the building permits office. For the rest of the meeting, the City of Guelph’s finance staff officially closes the book on the 2025 fiscal year with the final report save for the outside auditor’s double check next month. For now, here’s the recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: Mixed Reviews for Fiscal 2025” →

This Week at Council: Debating Bumps in the Road at Regular Meeting

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Straightforward regular council meeting to end April, right? (Albeit a week earlier than what have been expected.) Not so fast! The agenda was the confirmation of stuff that’s already passed, and the endorsement to create a Canadian Chinese Heritage Month, but there was apparently more to be said about traffic calming, and traffic calming options. What more was there left to say and how did the traffic calming policy change? Read the recap below… Continue reading “This Week at Council: Debating Bumps in the Road at Regular Meeting” →

This Week at Council: More Heights, Less Affordable Housing with Downtown Community Plan

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This week at Guelph city council was the monthly planning meeting, and it was the first time that the debate was pushed to nearly midnight in a long time. So what was so controversial? Well, there was a couple of new projects on both sides of College Avenue, one big and one small, but it was the smaller one that got the biggest reactions. Then there was the plan to get more affordable units downtown, which didn’t not turn out the way we might have hoped. Here’s the recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: More Heights, Less Affordable Housing with Downtown Community Plan” →

This Week at Council: Traffic Calm and Carry On

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This week at council almost everyone had concerns about road safety. For the last few years, the City of Guelph has been trying to advance the cause of safer streets, and making Guelph a place where no one is hurt and killed on our roads but as we were reminded at April’s Committee of the Whole meeting, there’s been some mixed results on that effort. Can staff reset expectations by refocusing on some key problem areas? They think so in the recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: Traffic Calm and Carry On” →

This Week at Council: Ice Discount Secured and Council Gets Paid!

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With so much to figure out at this meeting, it was maybe for the best that city council had two weeks off to figure it all out. After receiving two special guests specializing in council accountability and transparency, we dug into two ongoing issues. First, council had to figure out the issue of ice time and especially discounted ice time at the Sleeman Centre, and then, even more complicatedly, they had to figure out council pay for the next term. Here’s the recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: Ice Discount Secured and Council Gets Paid!” →

This Week at Council: That One Tower and the Housing Report

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It was a big meeting for big projects at the March planning meeting for Guelph City Council this week. From a proposed tower on the downtown core to the zoning for the Guelph Innovation District, these were perhaps the two biggest files that council has seen in the last couple of months. But bigger than any individual housing project is the entirety of the housing file, and council got an update on that too. Let’s review what went down in the meeting in this recap! Continue reading “This Week at Council: That One Tower and the Housing Report” →