With the new year, Heritage Guelph is now officially under the proverbial gun thanks to changes in Bill 23 and the ongoing efforts to preserve the Ontario Reformatory Lands in the east end. Both of these items will be front and centre at this month’s Heritage Guelph committee meeting as the people in charge of protecting Guelph’s old places face some new challenges. Continue reading “MEETING PREVIEW: Heritage Guelph Meeting for January 23, 2023”
Here’s the first episode of the podcast for the year, and what are we talking about? Stuff that happened in the year that just ended! Before we let 2022 go for good, we’re going to go around the horseshoe, the one in the council chambers at 1 Carden Street, one more time. There weren’t that many council meetings between September and December, but that doesn’t mean nothing interesting happened. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #355 – …The Rest of the Year at City Council”
It’s 2019 all over again! That’s how Guelph MPP and Green Party leader Mike Schreiner described the situation at Queen’s Park during his most recent appearance on Open Sources Guelph. It’s been a very busy first few months for the new Ontario Legislature, and as we close 2022, Schreiner has notes about Bill 23, Doug Ford’s leadership style, and whether or not he’s going to change team colours. Continue reading “On OSG, Schreiner Calls Out Ford Policies as “Dangerous” and “Unnecessary””
Unlike a lot of boards and committees that are meeting for the first time in this pre-holiday, post-election period, the Grand River Conservation Authority Board of Directors had a pretty big agenda to cover from changes created by Bill 23, new fees at parks, and the shocking (!) increase to the cost of worms. Want to learn more? You can click here to see the agenda for the board meeting, and below you can watch the YouTube broadcast of the meeting, or see the live tweets. Continue reading “RECAP: The GRCA Board Copes with Rapid Changes in First Meeting of the Term”
Doug Ford’s promise to not touch the Greenbelt was turned into a hip-hop beat, and it led a couple of hundred people milling about in the Boathouse parking lot over the covered bridge York Road Park. And they kept coming. Guelph joined the province-wide series of protests happening around Ontario this weekend, another loud choir of voices who are against recent changes the Ontario government’s made to planning rules. Continue reading “Guelphites Join Province-Wide Protest of Planning Changes”
Council wasn’t supposed to meet until December, and then the Provincial government announced the More Homes Built Faster Act, aka: Bill 23, and the rapid pace of change to municipal planning rules demanded an immediate response. So council met this past week to talk about what that response should be, and you will probably agree that it’s pretty definitive. Let’s recap this week’s meeting. Continue reading “This Week at Council: Bill 23? No Thanks!”
The new council will tackle Bill 23. You can click here for the amended agenda from City Hall, and you can click here for the Politico preview. For the complete blow-by-blow of today’s council meeting, you can follow along on Twitter, or follow the tweets below. You can also watch the City’s own live-stream of the meeting here. Continue reading “LIVE BLOG: City Council Meeting for November 22, 2022”
The first real city council of the term is one that not many people are looking forward to. You might have heard about Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, and City staff have heard of it too. They also have some considerable concerns about the legislation, which is why we’re having a whole meeting about it on Tuesday. Here’s the late breaking preview of the meeting per the amended agenda. Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the November 22 Meeting?”
The last Heritage Guelph meeting for this term of council offered a sneak preview of the challenges facing the next council. With Bill 23 creating some pretty stark changes for how heritage properties are preserved and protected in the future, planning staff offered a way forward in the short-term. Also, the committee had some thoughts on the council approved change in designation to 50-60 Fife Road. Here’s what happened in case you missed it. Continue reading “RECAP: Heritage Guelph Meeting for November 14, 2022”
You may have heard about the Government of Ontario’s Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act. Literally introduced the day after the October 24 municipal election, the legislation proposes to change significant portions of municipal planning policy to, in theory, increase the development of housing units. With the first round of feedback about the legislation coming due, the new Guelph city council will assemble to have their say. Continue reading “Emergency Council Meeting to Discuss Impact of Bill 23”
Guelph Politico 