The Council of the City of Guelph respectfully requests that the Province of Ontario amend the Ontario Heritage Act to extend the January 1…

1:16:41meeting reading the bylaws and been out of here in five minutes I've added something to the agenda

1:16:46but I did pull this from the info sheets as there were a number of municipalities

1:16:51that were asking for the same thing and I pulled it because I believe that our heritage planning

1:16:58staff our planning department our good staff are currently frantically trying to meet these

1:17:04obligations and it's very difficult to find planners with that level of specialty we're

1:17:09relying on a team of volunteers we're working furiously on voluntary designations as well as

1:17:17at risk and a conservation districts but the background of this is that the

1:17:25build more homes faster act put a deadline on the heritage register and forced municipalities into

1:17:32a panic of designations and that timeline ends on December 31st of this year so other

1:17:38municipalities have been bringing forward this motion asking the province to reconsider that

1:17:42deadline and give more time because once this deadline has passed there is no protection in

1:17:48the law because part of the regulation is also that a previously a property that was previously

1:17:56on the register cannot be added back to a new register for a period of I believe five years

1:18:03so moved by myself and seconded by Councillor Klassen I've taken the motions from other

1:18:11municipalities and replicated them here to benefit the City of Guelph great thank you and here they

1:18:17are on the screen and I think is it just the is it just the three it's just the three do you want

1:18:24to read them out maybe just sure that the Council of the City of Guelph respectfully request the

1:18:29province of Ontario amend the Ontario Heritage Act to extend the January 1st 2027 deadline for

1:18:35issuing notices of intent to designate for properties listed on the municipal heritage

1:18:39register and the province considers extending the deadline to January 1st 2030 or another reasonable

1:18:45timeframe that would provide municipalities with adequate time to complete heritage evaluations

1:18:50and make informed designation decisions and that this resolution be circulated to the Minister of

1:18:55Citizenship and Multiculturalism the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing the local member

1:19:00of Provincial Parliament the Association of Municipalities of Ontario the Ontario Municipal

1:19:04Heritage Committee Association and all Ontario municipalities for their information

1:19:11great thank you very much is there any questions or comments on this before I look to call the vote

1:19:18Guller thank you through through your worship maybe to to the mover seen as we don't have

1:19:25heritage staff here but how much time does City staff need to actually finish because they have

1:19:31been like you said they have been working hard to advance a lot of heritage designations in my

1:19:36mind I thought that we would have got all of the important locations designated by the end of this

1:19:41year I can't speak exactly to the resources I'll look to our DC AO Mr. Gaiman to maybe flesh that

1:19:50out a little bit I know that the they're doing as much as they can until the deadline runs out

1:19:57and from what I've heard they'll just keep going until the deadline passes and then anything that

1:20:01doesn't get done doesn't get done and I we can't quantify that thank you for that and if I could

1:20:09follow up with with staff then could you help me understand how much of a workload this is I mean

1:20:15if we're asking for an extension work that would be potentially done December 31st January 1st this

1:20:21year then staff are going to keep on doing that work if this is extended yeah so through

1:20:29excuse me through you may I go through to Councillor Gower with a resector question thank you for

1:20:32asking that there's there's a little bit over 1800 properties that are on the non-designated

1:20:38list for the city right now that staff are working through and certainly the timeline that's in front

1:20:42of us makes that task I would say next to impossible in terms of delivering from the staff so I think

1:20:47so we are supportive of additional time that helps manage the risk in the future of those

1:20:53properties not being designated if they ought to be and so from the staff perspective we're supportive

1:20:58if I could add as well sorry Councillor Goller that there are other projects in that portfolio

1:21:03that have had to be deferred or paused because of the the imminent need to get onto the the

1:21:11non-designated heritage register for example an amalgamation of the cooling registry that was put

1:21:17on pause in order to do this work and doing that pause has resulted in at least one case where a

1:21:24potentially significant historic home has been approved for demolition and so we're it's already

1:21:31had an impact because of having to pause other work thank you thank you worship okay thank you

1:21:37thank you and to Richardson please actually Councillor Goller asked my question in a second

1:21:41one okay no problem that was good you can go first every time Councillor Goller okay is there

1:21:47anything further oh Councillor Gibson yeah thank you I'm just going to state my opinion I think

1:21:55I understand where the mover is coming from but I also want to acknowledge the other side of the

1:21:59argument and a lot of homeowners that are sitting in homes that you know these aren't our homes these

1:22:07there's people who own these homes that are looking forward to having this chapter closed for

1:22:12themselves like this has been a bit a stressful spot for them in terms of home insurance and

1:22:18terms of replacement costs on what the home insurance bill would be there's a lot of there's

1:22:24a healthy divide on this file across the city on pros and against so there again I'm just going to

1:22:33speak for the people that are a reject to me personally that are looking forward to having

1:22:37January 1st come and have this chapter behind them in terms of their home ownership story

1:22:41so I won't be supporting just because I think the province is being fair there is a voluntary

1:22:45process already if you own a if you own a heritage home and you want to voluntarily

1:22:49designated you can do that but I I think the province has been quite fair in giving us a

1:22:55long lead time on on when this window is going to close so I won't be supporting it and just allow

1:23:00the natural provincial process to take place okay thank you well Councillor Downer please

1:23:11so I will be supporting this of course the I think the insurance issue has largely been

1:23:19been settled by staff working with homeowners on this issue and as I've said before I live in a

1:23:25heritage district and have had no complaints about people having insurance issues or having problems

1:23:32with city processes around their designation also on heritage wealth heritage wealth works with the

1:23:41homeowners on the properties that come forward to designate and you know there there's a process

1:23:47there and right there's some that are volunteering and some that aren't but I would just remind

1:23:53everybody we didn't have an objection to the downtown heritage district and those are those are

1:24:00owners with big stakes in their property they were quite proud to have most of them were quite

1:24:04proud to have their properties as part of a heritage district and I just think a little more time well

1:24:11some more time to finish this up and I remember I had put forward money to also speed this up get

1:24:17heritage districts done and give heritage staff more money to to work through this and hire more

1:24:23staff so I would like to see us support getting more time looks like other municipalities are

1:24:28interested in that too okay thank you as well okay I um I'll just give my comments quickly too um

1:24:39I won't be supporting I feel that the province gave a certain amount of time that we needed to

1:24:44deal with this issue like to every municipality and that they did give it one extension already

1:24:53and now it's like always asking for more and more there needs to be a deadline in place as far as

1:24:58I'm concerned so that we can reach that goal and not just a we as in Guelph but other municipalities

1:25:04too to bring certainty to the issues around these around these designations that have lingered and

1:25:10lingered and lingered so from my perspective I think I'm not in favor of asking I don't think

1:25:20the province would actually move on this issue but you know respectfully asking although there's

1:25:26no harm which I understand the the motive of the mover on it um I I don't think that this will

1:25:33will will will go anywhere to be honest with you so with that um I'll call the vote is if there's

1:25:40anyone against please raise your hand so uh Billings and Gibson and Chu and Guthrie that's it I think

1:25:52yeah okay so that passes thank you that's great and now we are actually at the bylaws

1:26:00and Councillor Downer you are moving the bylaws for us please okay so I would move and Councillor

1:26:07Caron seconds that bylaw 2026 21254 and bylaws 2026 21256 through to bylaws 2026 21259 be approved

1:26:21subject to section 284.11 of the municipal act great thank you to you both and I'll ask uh if

1:26:30there's anything on those bylaws anybody no okay I'll call the vote then is anyone against the bylaws

1:26:38no okay so that passes unanimously thank you and with that I got no mayor's announcements

1:26:45which means we are at adjournment so I'm going to go to somebody who has not moved in second

1:26:52day I'm going to go to ward four here is that okay all right busatil and bill and Billings

1:26:57uh is going to second adjournment is there anyone against adjournment that's unanimous as well

1:27:04all right thanks everyone have a great evening see you next time