Planning, Environment and Water Advisory Committee

0:02is the Indigenous Territory of Nolander.

0:05As we gather, let us take time to reflect on our privilege to live and work in Guelph,

0:12a city built with rich Indigenous histories.

0:15We are guests here and we should reflect upon the responsibility to care for this land,

0:21the people who live here today, and the generations to come.

0:24Our actions today can move us towards reconciliation,

0:27which should take pause, make those decisions with intention and gratitude.

0:33This place we call Guelph is served as traditional lands and replaced with refuge for many peoples over time,

0:38but more specifically, the Adelondreanc and the Ravisharoni.

0:43This land is held as the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the credit for its nation.

0:49Guelph lies directly adjacent to the Halberd Tract and is part of the longest established traditional hunting ground

0:54for the six nations of the Grand River.

0:57Many first nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, who have come across Turtle Island called Guelph today.

1:04The next item is a disclosure of pecuniary interest in general, they share their rub.

1:09And Laura is going to be addressing that when it comes to the second item.

1:16Can I join that?

1:18Yes, so I will be presenting the Watery Spinala update.

1:24So I will not be acting as a Canadian member for that portion of the meeting.

1:33The next item is approval of the minutes.

1:35We have a February 9th.

1:37Are there any errors or questions related to the minutes?

1:42Someone would like to move acceptance of the minutes.

1:50Would you like to move?

1:55I can move to accept all of those.

1:57I was absent from the last meeting.

1:59So sure enough.

2:06Okay, all in favor?

2:16Okay.

2:24First item on our agenda is the Gordon Street and Claire.

2:28Claire road environmental assessment.

2:31And.

2:32If we leave Colleen is going to give us a presentation.

2:36Yes, I am. That's correct.

2:39Good evening, everyone. My name is Colleen.

2:41Gammie. I am the manager of capital planning and growth here at the city.

2:45And I'm also the project manager for the Gordon street and Claire Laird road

2:50environmental assessment study.

2:53I'll just give a quick preamble and then I have some information to share visually as well.

2:58So I'm not sure how many of you folks are familiar with the clear multi secondary plan,

3:03which was undertaken by the city kind of starting in 2015 and extending through to 2022.

3:09That looked at developing the policy planning and engineering requirements for development in the south end of wealth between approximately Claire and Malby and kind of south gate and Victoria road.

3:24As part of that study, we did a lot of engineering work, but we didn't do enough work to satisfy the requirements of the municipal class environmental assessment project for road widening projects.

3:36And so that's what brings us to completing the study today. We needed to do a little bit more detail in order to satisfy the requirements of the municipal class.

3:43We as part of our project and to meet their requirements have to public open houses.

3:50So we are hosting our second of two public open houses on the project tomorrow.

3:56And we thought it would be a great opportunity to also share the same type of information with a few of the advisory committees to counsel in and around the same time.

4:05And so that is why I'm here today to share some information with you.

4:09You'll see Leah Lefler and Lucas Malami on the screen. They are also involved in the project and they may come to my rescue if you have any questions specific to environmental planning or policy planning.

4:22So I will share my screen.

4:25And what I'll be sharing is the open house material that the public will be looking at tomorrow. So some of it may not be necessarily the most relevant to this committee, but I will kind of skim through that.

4:35And I'm happy to answer any questions at the end.

4:38Okay.

4:41This is in PDF form not PowerPoint form, but can I just get confirmation that people can see a presentation screen? Okay, thanks Leah.

4:49So I'll just get past the first one, but for those that aren't familiar, municipal class environmental assessment is how all of our infrastructure work is initiated at the city of Guelph.

5:01It's a five phase process that ensures we're looking at a bunch of different alternatives and understanding the potential impacts of those.

5:10So as I mentioned previously, we completed phases one and two of this process when we did the initial secondary plan and supporting work back in 2024 was when it was finally closed out.

5:23And this study is to kind of continue on with phases three and four with phase five being the actual design and construction.

5:30And right now we are still in phase three where we're having our 1st and 2nd open house and we'll be following up with phase four before this study is over.

5:39This image just shows the study area. So we are looking at the entirety of Gordon street south of clear road. And we are looking at clear road east and west and also layered road as it approaches highway six.

5:52A little bit of information about the background. We have so many guiding documents that have been inputs into this study.

6:03I'll just read through a few of them here. We've got our Guelph transit future ready action plan, which identifies a handful of future transit routes planned for the streets in this study area.

6:14We have our transportation master plan, which helped set the widening requirements.

6:20The master environmental servicing plan is the document that was completed alongside the policy document during the clear multi secondary plan. And that also identified the mobility requirements for the study area.

6:34We obviously have policies that are set out in that clear multi secondary plan or official plan amendment 79.

6:41We also have something called the complete streets design guidelines, which were a requirement from the transportation master plan that help understand what each type of street should look like in the city of Guelph.

6:54And then we also have the city's vision zero policy, which looks to reduce injuries and impacts from vehicular collisions and incidents to zero through thoughtful street design.

7:09All of these studies looking at them together carry a handful of recommendations for Gordon, Claire and layered, including widening the corridor to add additional travel lanes, adding pedestrian and cycling facilities, improve the intersections for pedestrian safety,

7:26consider transit priority measures and look at urbanizing these cross sections where they are currently rural with no store, modern management systems.

7:37As part of the process we have a problem and opportunity statement.

7:43Briefly, just to summarize, I won't read the whole thing, but we're looking at how we can provide these mobility solutions to the area widening to meet future traffic volumes, future transit needs, implement walking and cycling facilities, incorporate storm water, and then also implement wildlife crossings were identified.

8:03All while trying to mitigate impacts to the natural and social technical and financial environments.

8:14This slide looks a little bit at the existing conditions so there's several different portions of the roads that have varying cross sections already.

8:23Gordon Street is two lanes from Gosling Gardens down South to Maltby Road with rural cross section and north of Gosling Gardens up to Claire road it is already four lanes.

8:35However, there is only a painted bike lane and limited sort of pedestrian realm.

8:41Claire road and layer road layered road we have sections where it is a rural cross section with ditches and only two lanes.

8:52We have an urbanized section sort of through the developed area. And then we also have a more urban section on the north side and a rural cross section on the south side so some kind of combination of rural and urban.

9:09Some sections have storm water management, some do not. And none of them have the required protected cycling infrastructure and number of vehicular travel lanes that we're looking for.

9:20As part of this project we have looked we have taken an inventory of the existing conditions. This is a very short summary of a several hundred paves long environmental impact study that has been completed documenting the existing conditions, but generally, there's a historical agricultural

9:39use in this area. There's lots of natural areas adjacent to the road corridors. We do know that we have turtle and amphibian road mortality as a known issue, especially near the kettle ponds that exist on Gordon Street.

9:53And we have documented several species at risk in the area as well.

9:59We also have some cultural heritage features in the area. The map shows where we have some known built heritage and cultural heritage landscapes.

10:10Those are shown and you can kind of see the study area of Gordon Street does intersect with some of these these properties as well.

10:21This is just a summary of what we heard at the first open house. I won't read through everything, but I think relevant to this group. There were lots of comments about environmental and habitat protection and water protection as we as we work in this area as well.

10:33So that's aligned with the work that this group does.

10:38Part of the environmental assessment process is to look at design alternatives for the identified need to widen to four lanes.

10:48So we've sort of split the study area into two area a is where we already have the four lanes. We just may not have all of the full cross section features that we want that are required.

10:59And then area B we only have the two lanes and we need to do work to widen both the vehicular travel area as well as implement some of the other cross section features.

11:12One we're looking at how to so we have some solutions to these areas which I'll go over in the next couple of slides but before that we establish evaluation criteria so we have some alternative concepts how do we evaluate which one is the best.

11:27We look at technical, socio economic, natural, archaeological and cultural heritage policy and cost as environments that we evaluate.

11:38And there's some kind of qualitative commentary on each of those as we look at evaluating and assigning a score to each of the alternatives against these criteria.

11:49And I think I believe I provided a bit more detail on these in the report so if anyone's looking for more detail, that would be a great point to reference.

11:57Area A if you can remember is sort of the already built up area. So as a baseline we always considered doing nothing.

12:05Leave the road exactly as it is. This doesn't align with the requirements that we've identified.

12:10Alternative two is to implement the full complete streets design guideline for a residential boulevard which is what this area would be classified as.

12:20This includes improvements in the boulevard to include tree plantings, separated cycling and pedestrian facilities and a boulevard area in the middle of the road as well.

12:31And alternative three is to implement this alternative to wherever possible, however, reduce it to this cross section in areas where there's very hard constraints.

12:43So you can see that there's perhaps removal of the middle median planting zone. Sometimes the boulevard with string as well.

12:56I won't read through all of this otherwise we'll be here all night but the evaluation of for area A was recommended to implement option three which really looks at implementing that full complete streets design except for where we really can't because of hard constraints for example existing buildings that already are present in the corridor.

13:16The next one is for Gordon Street. So this would be kind of the Gosling Gardens down to Maltby Road area. Again, do nothing. That's not satisfying our requirements for the area.

13:28Alternative two is to implement the full complete streets design guideline for the emerging main street which again has separated pedestrian cycling and vehicular travel lanes.

13:40It has planting zones on both sides of the road as well as in the center median and it has two travel lanes going each direction.

13:48And then alternative three was again to look at implementing alternative to wherever possible. However, acknowledging that there are some very constrained areas along Gordon Street for example as we passed through the Kettle wetlands just out of Gosling Gardens.

14:05So there's this constrained version as well where we need to shrink the corridor in order to fit to minimize impact.

14:12For Claire Road, same thing again. There's minor differences between the corridor widths as we kind of look to squish alternative three where we have hard constraints but mostly looking at implementing alternative two which is our full complete streets design cross section.

14:29And then similarly with Laird Road, the main difference here is that there's a multi use path through the employment area versus a separated cycling and pedestrian boulevard feature.

14:40And there's a wider planting zone in the middle of the road as well.

14:44So looking at those.

14:46Again, I won't read through all the detail but evaluating them against the criteria. The option three is what was selected where we'd be looking to implement the full complete streets design guideline cross section to the maximum acceptable.

14:59And then having that constrained area representative of a modified version of that.

15:06Another thing that we evaluated as part of this project per the policy set out in the Claire Maltby secondary plan was the intersection of Gordon and Maltby.

15:15We had three options again. One was to do nothing. Two is to look at a signalized intersection in this area and the third was to look at a roundabout.

15:25Both of these would consider the green gateway feature that was identified in the policy document with it being sort of tagged for a possible location on the northeast corner of the intersection in the signalized option or in the middle of the roundabout in the roundabout option.

15:45Again, evaluating against the criteria, the roundabout configuration was recommended as the preferred alternative.

15:52Just a little bit more information about some of the other stuff happening in the study area. So, while not focused on like Gordon and Maltby, all of the intersections will get an upgrade to be aligned with a protected intersection which

16:07strives to provide a more protected crossing for pedestrians and cyclists. It sort of shortens the distance of crossing across the vehicular travel lanes and it has more or sorry less turning radius in order to attempt to slow down speeds.

16:24This is Gordon Street here in the right hand image in the gray with the traffic lights shown where those intersections may go. And you can see this also pulls in the proposed mobility network from the clear Maltby secondary plan just showing the future collector road network that will exist in this area.

16:43So, we're just looking at Gordon Street. There's another study going on looking at Street A and then as part of the various draft plans of subdivisions, they'll be responsible for designing the remainder of the collector road network.

16:55But it will intersect with Gordon at these four points.

17:02Another thing that we looked at as part of this study was a feasibility study for a potential multi-use crossing located at this red dot. So about kind of two thirds of the way between Gordon and Maltby, or sorry, between Claire and Maltby on Gordon Road.

17:19This location represents an ecological linkage in the natural heritage system mapping and there's also a desire to have this be the marine ribbon trail network which kind of outlines the natural heritage system in Claire Maltby and we needed to cross Gordon Street at some point as well.

17:37So, we did look at as per the policy the feasibility of a multi-use crossing both at grade underpass and overpass and through some survey work, I kind of quickly realized that with the topographical constraints and overpass was not feasible.

17:56We also looked at multi-use underpass and found there to be challenges with lighting and sizing with respect to meeting the needs for both people and wildlife. And so the recommended proposal at this time is to have a separate pedestrian crossing at grade which will be

18:17placed and then have a separate tunnel for wildlife. We're currently looking at trying to accommodate large mammals with the size of that one. And there's also four other locations identified in the Claire Maltby secondary plant policies that have wildlife crossings for smaller mammals at these other four dots shown in red.

18:37We're also looking to improve transit facilities in the area. This T on the map over here denotes a future transit hub and as I mentioned at the beginning, the future ready transit plan that our transit team has created in 2022, I believe, identifies several routes coming in and out of this transit hub in the future as this area gets built out.

19:01So we are looking at trying to space proof for transit supportive features such as queue jump lanes. I know the text is a bit small here, but the lanes where buses would be able to pull over and then jump ahead of waiting vehicles at a traffic light.

19:18We're looking at accessible stops and shelters and then making sure that bus stops are provided along Gordon and frequency that would allow them to be within 400 meters of residents and businesses as per the policy.

19:32There's also a potential through future works at the City of Guelph that are not part of this project to look at converting one ridership demands. The most right hand travel lane along Gordon Street to be a dedicated.

19:45Transit lane at least for some of the travel times during the day.

19:52I've talked a lot about the options and the evaluation. What we have right now that we're presenting to the public is what we call the preliminary preferred alternative.

20:02And a big part of the assignment that remains afterwards is to assess the impacts of that preliminary preferred alternative and come up with mitigation strategies.

20:11This is a very high level initial sort of summary of a couple of those, but the consultant team working on this project hasn't really dug into the impact assessment and mitigation, which will be the next thing that we'll be working on as part of this project.

20:28And also I mentioned the environmental impact study that was completed as part of this project that will be updated to be full sum with the impact and mitigation section as well.

20:39I will just note some things here. I think there's obviously as we widen road corridors impacts to trees, woodlands, wetlands and habitats and the associated climate change resiliency impacts as well.

20:52There's impacts to some properties, no buildings, but we do have to use this environmental assessment to negotiate for some land on either side of the corridor.

21:04And then there is encroachment onto the 1 built heritage resource on the east side of Gordon street that we'll have to analyze the impacts and come up with a mitigation plan for.

21:19What are we doing next? So, as part of this process, we're consulting with you guys today. We have a few other presentations to various other advisory committees. We have our public open house tomorrow.

21:31At the same time, we'll be inviting our indigenous nations that we consult with also to review the materials and to meet.

21:39We will then be completing the impact assessment and identifying mitigation specifically focusing on achieving the net ecological gain policies.

21:49And then from there, we will use all the feedback use results from the impact assessment to kind of tweak our design and come up with a 30% design.

21:59We submit that all everything we've done in a report that goes off to the ministry. It does also get posted for public review again.

22:07And then we will proceed to a phased detailed design and construction, which will take several years, probably 10 or 15 years before we see all of the corridors in this area actually constructed.

22:20And that is, that is my presentation. So I'll stop sharing now and I'm happy to answer any questions.

22:28Thank you very much, Colleen. Just before we get into the details and questions of maybe you can provide a little bit of background, a little bit of additional clarity and a few things.

22:38So the environmental assessment or environmental study report that would be phase four starting to fall this year.

22:46Is that going to deal with all of the alternatives that were explored in this phase?

22:54Yes, the environmental study report is essentially a big summary document that summarizes everything we've done as part of the study. So it will outline all of the alternatives, all of the evaluations, all of the consultation, all of the justification and all of the background studies that we've completed.

23:12So while the third alternative seems to be preferred for all of the evaluation areas, that in fact could change as you do the detailed environmental report.

23:24So it could change actually based on kind of this period that we're in right now. So I do call it the preliminary preferred alternative with the idea that engagement is happening.

23:36We've identified it as the project team based on our evaluation as the preliminary preferred. However, there is an opportunity for the feedback that we receive at the public engagement that's happening tomorrow through various other engagement channels such as this that we would consider.

23:54Modification if justifiable.

24:00On slide seven you refer to cultural heritage landscapes. Could you explain to us a little bit what that means?

24:09I may call upon my colleague Lucas to jump in and he's answered this question for me before I should know the answer by now.

24:20Yes, so cultural heritage landscapes can be a designated built heritage resource like very similar to like how an individual property, but it's really the focuses on the particular landscape as opposed to like a individual built form.

24:38For example, so we do as Colleen mentioned, we do have a few of those in Claremolpe. We do have a few of those in other locations of the city. We do have one designated CHL in in Claremolpe.

24:50So that's something that the the road will have to take into consideration.

24:55And one last thing the staff report referred to.

25:04And then you graded ground and surface water model.

25:08I'm not familiar with me. Mike she I think it's called. Yeah.

25:13Can you explain briefly what that means?

25:17Absolutely, and I may ask Leah to jump in if I get a bit lost here, but yes, that's a great question. Actually, I meant to mention in a bit more detail. So this area is there's no traditional outlet for storm water.

25:33There's no river that crosses by this watershed. Everything that's happening right now is infiltration.

25:40So in the Claremolpe secondary plan as we were doing the engineering, the related engineering work to support that secondary plan.

25:49We created a integrated ground and surface water model that looks at the kind of collective impacts of managing storm water.

25:59And so we're going to be looking at what's happening today in this area and what's happening to the groundwater condition. And then also in the developed condition.

26:08So changing all of the agricultural area, unless protected by natural heritage and policy to either, you know, road or low density, medium density, high density, etc.

26:22So we have a lot of things that we called storm water capture areas or swacas along with distributed low impact development measures to be able to mitigate the impacts of development on the kind of groundwater surface water balance in this area.

26:37So Mike, she's just the software that we use to that has this function. We also have a PC swim model for our just the storm water features, which is another modeling tool that the city uses to model storm water management.

26:52Really, what we're looking for and Leah, please help me if I'm getting off track here is.

26:58We want to make sure that as we design changes to this area, we are also installing the correct storm water management features in order to mitigate changes to the water balance in this area.

27:11Because everything's going down into the ground.

27:17Go ahead, Leah.

27:18Yeah, thanks.

27:20Yeah, so Mike, the, the Mike she the integrated model is something that is often used as part of sub watershed planning as some watershed studies.

27:33And the unique aspect of it is that it does allow you to look at feature specific response to post development conditions as well as the system overall.

27:46So having having kind of a plan area wide model.

27:54Allows us to look at the overall impacts as well as the cumulative impacts of development on the broader landscape.

28:03And you might recall from past presentations to the natural heritage advisory committee. We're also using a similar approach for the Clife Creek sub watershed study.

28:15Thank you.

28:17Hey, unless anybody else has any sort of initial sort of background questions, we can get into the details.

28:24The members have any questions for Colleen or any of the other stuff.

28:33Yeah, that one. Yes. So I forget my camp.

28:38I don't know if you have the exact slide up, but you've outlined some preliminary areas that have been identified for potential wildlife crossings.

28:47Are those areas correlated with your habitat connectivity or are they based on like a road mortality, a formalized road mortality survey.

28:56And then I guess my second follow up to that would be you discussed in certain areas hard constraint areas where bullet parts might be removed.

29:04And then you also factor into kind of the efficacy of the length of these proposed passages for the species involved.

29:14Do you mind answering the first one and then I think I might need you to repeat the second question.

29:19I think I can go ahead.

29:21Yeah.

29:23Yeah, so in terms of the wildlife crossing locations as part of our the initial work that was done for natural heritage system planning in Guelph.

29:36This is like from 2010.

29:40Wildlife crossing locations were identified as part of a natural heritage strategy where road mortality surveys.

29:50Identified an issue with vehicle and animal collisions.

29:58We also identified them based on their being appropriate habitat on either side of the roadway and also where ecological linkages across the system because.

30:09One of the reasons natural heritage system planning is important is that it protects an integrated system post development.

30:17So even if wildlife aren't using a specific location to cross post development, their movement patterns are constrained and they're, you know, they're kind of forced to cross at specific locations.

30:33So all of the things that you mentioned are exactly what went into the thought of that and through the secondary plan also some additional work was done and additional wildlife crossings were identified and added to our official plan.

30:50Great. Thank you. I'll repeat my second part there.

30:55Just with regards to obviously the preferred option being being the full streetscape with the pedestrian lanes, the bicycle travel boulevard.

31:05Are those areas where you're traveling through those natural heritage linkages? Have those been identified for a potential reduced? Like you were saying a hard constraint and potentially reduced footprint to kind of make a length of travel and the potential for conflict with wildlife those areas?

31:23Yeah, I can't speak to the exact thinking that the consultant team had like if they thought about the length of the wildlife crossing when they were looking at those hard constraint areas, but just by nature of where they are, those areas are kind of.

31:39What's not in this display package is a very conceptual layout of the road from like a bird's eye view. So I have seen the constrained areas and certainly where the wildlife tunnels are is where we have features on one or two sides of the road that we absolutely cannot.

31:54Impact like the Kettle wetlands and so just by nature of that they are the shorter distances for the crossings.

32:03So thank you.

32:05Yeah, if I could just sorry, Bo, I see that you have your hand up if you don't mind.

32:10We if I can't help but talk about what like, so if you're interested, we also have a crossing guideline that we implement through road design projects as well as development applications and with that come kind of the length to openness ratio.

32:29So the design when we get more into the details of the design will be looking to implement that guideline to ensure that the crossing is designed appropriately to facilitate movement.

32:41Really make sure that we're considering all of the design considerations to make sure that wildlife actually use it in the end.

32:51Awesome. Thank you.

32:53Oh, we have a question.

32:58Jordan, I'm glad we I'm glad you went first because I was actually going to check to see if anyone else had any questions on that because mine's related obviously but not quite directly tied.

33:09But I'm not seeing other hands go up.

33:13My question are.

33:18Well, considering the recommended alternative three.

33:23I'm just curious what that looks like from a user perspective for the different road users, pedestrians and cyclists in particular.

33:31And trying to understand what that looks like if it alternates frequently between the full complete streets design and the modified complete streets design or with really long stretches of one or the other.

33:43And when it transitions back and forth, does the user notice that difference? Is it apparent to them?

33:51And maybe roughly are you able to give a rough ratio of what percentage or length ratio you're going to have like a complete street design versus the modified streets design.

34:06Given what's been done so far, realizing I'm about to detailed design so you might not know, but I'm curious what you might know at this point.

34:17Off the top of my head, I definitely cannot give you the ratio. I'm sorry. I'm happy to come back later in the process and share that information with this group.

34:26If that's something that's of interest, but with respect to the usability, I think, especially for cyclists and pedestrians, it will be a uniform.

34:39A uniform situation between the cyclists and pedestrians throughout the corridor that they're in. So, Clair Road, for example, has a cycling facility and a sidewalk that are separate, but there's no physical planting strip or anything in between them.

35:02And that's consistent throughout the entire Clair Road corridor, just based on the complete streets design cross section already having those two features next to each other.

35:13Similarly on Laird Road, we are able to achieve the multi-use path throughout. And at the transition of Clair and Laird, it's a little bit awkward because it's not really an intersection, but there is an opportunity to use a trail.

35:27I'm going to get the name of everything wrong, but there's a trail that comes maybe even from Preservation Park.

35:35Leah, is that right?

35:38Is it?

35:40Yep, I think so.

35:41Okay, it's north of there, yes.

35:44Yeah, on the north side of Clair Road, just around Poppy Drive, I believe, but not at Poppy Drive. So there's an opportunity to use that. We're installing a signalized crossing at the trail to be able to facilitate students.

35:59A lot of students are J-walking there, so we want to provide a safe crossing for them. And that's going to be the opportunity for us to transition from the separate encycling and pedestrian facilities to the multi-use path.

36:12Gordon Street does have a little bit more of a fluctuation. So there are moments on Gordon Street where we have a tree planting zone in between the sidewalk and the cycling lane.

36:25And then there are also moments where those two features are next to each other as we pass through the kind of Kettle Wetlands area. But it is, I think it is one transition versus kind of like weaving in and out.

36:37Does that answer your question?

36:39I think so. So essentially, there's some places where transitions are visually apparent, but in terms of the continuity of a network, sidewalk or a bike lane, it's a continuous path or there aren't breaks in it.

36:59I think that's correct. Yeah, there's even in the areas that are constrained, we, you know, we're not going to have a moment where we spit cyclists back out onto the road. Like they're always going to be in the boulevard. It just might be, is there a tree on my left or is the sidewalk on my left?

37:13You know, there's going to be moments where both of those are happening.

37:16Okay.

37:19So the other question was just a term that I am not familiar with and scrolling down through the slides to find it. The Green Gateway feature. I don't know what a Green Gateway feature is.

37:32Well, that's a great question. So the Clear Maltese Secondary Plan policy recognized that this is the entrance to our city from the south end. And so there's policy to include some sort of feature that welcomes people to the city.

37:49And we, as part of this environmental assessment are not necessarily designing what that would be, but we're just trying to identify some land requirements for where that could go. And I might just see if Lucas has any other specific sales of the Green Gateway from a policy perspective.

38:06Yeah, so there actually is quite a bit of flexibility in terms of what this Green Gateway could look like. I mean, policy refers to things like landscaping, public art, feature lighting, signage. So there are a wide variety of things that could be located in this Green Gateway and what it looks like.

38:22But that will, those specifics will be kind of confirmed later. But if there, if this committee has particular thoughts on the Green Gateway and would like to share those, I am certain we could be receptive to that as well.

38:36Okay, thank you. I just didn't know what it was.

38:41Justin, you have a question.

38:46Yes, thank you.

38:49I'm just looking at a couple things. Is there any coordination right now with kind of that there's going to be a stretch now from Maltby Road going into Aberfoil where we're going to be seeing then four lanes go down to two lanes back to four lanes.

39:10Are we looking at any coordination with Wellington County on kind of that stretch of road and getting that kind of consistent?

39:23Yes, we are meeting with the county in the township. We've had two meetings with them now and we understand their plans south of Maltby Road are is to widen.

39:36Is it Wellington Road 46 south of Maltby? I think it's called to four lanes as well.

39:42And then they are looking at actually transitioning. They've just initiated a study through the actual town area back down to four to two lanes. So it won't be four to four in the future.

39:57It'll be four to two, I think in the far future. But yes, we are coordinating with those folks from the county in the township as well.

40:06Okay. One of my other questions I was just looking at.

40:11You show right now that the next roadways after Maltby or intersections rather as signalized. Is there a reason why right now they're shown as signalized rather than looking at roundabouts for those as well?

40:27Sorry, would this be the future road network connections? I guess that's not quite your purview in this specific project.

40:37I think that the, so I guess yes and no. The policy language, the study that was done at the time of the whole secondary plan, which was like a more broad scale transportation study for this whole area, did recommend looking at it around about for Maltby and Gordon.

40:55It did not suggest looking at a roundabout for any of the other intersections. And I think that the reasoning is because along the Gordon Street corridor, we have a combination of mostly high density, medium density and mixed use.

41:09The Gordon corridor, there's a great rendering in the secondary plan documents that I wish I had at my fingertips, but it just shows a great kind of mixed use corridor.

41:20And so the roundabout layout is not super suitable for that type of future land use.

41:28Okay.

41:29Okay, I have a question perhaps I should have asked at the beginning. It relates to the area B. And you've got two.

41:46You've got a residential section. You've got an industrial section. And then you've got really a rural section, the longest one on Gordon Street between Poppy and Maltby.

41:59And I just wondered what the logic was sort of lumping them all together when it came to the valuation of alternatives because it seemed to me that that lower section B1 Gordon is probably the most sensitive stretch of the project, given the natural environment that surrounds it.

42:21And yet the other two are really already for the most part already developed.

42:27And I'm interested to hear from Leo on this, but I would suspect that the significant wildlife habitat species at risk, the majority of those that have been discovered so far are on this stretch of Gordon.

42:40And whether or not by constraining ourselves so much and going with the modified alternative.

42:49But we might, this might be the area where we want to push the envelope a little bit to try to do a better job of protecting habitat and species and recognizing that the other two are pretty much done deal.

43:02You know, they're already developed. But we might have some opportunities here to do better than just sort of the mixed modified alternative. And so I'm just curious as to what the thinking was to sort of lump all three areas together.

43:16I can start the answer to that question and then Leah feel free to add if you have any more detail.

43:25So this presentation, I think is a higher level summary.

43:33Of course, you wouldn't know this because you don't have access to the detail that pandasies that came along with the report to this but when they've looked at the evaluations they have really kind of split out the impacts per corridor.

43:46So it is sort of presented because the preferred alternative always did end up being that alternative three.

43:52Just to kind of keep the information at a slightly more simple level for our presentation to the public tomorrow. That's how it's presented in slides, but they have considered the impacts in each of those corridors bit separately if that makes sense.

44:11And then I'll, I'll let Leah answer if she has any comments on the natural heritage impact side of things.

44:22Yeah, so in terms of the work that's been completed on the characterization of the natural heritage features and the natural heritage system within the study area has really focused on our official plan designation criteria so the woodlands the wetlands a significant wildlife habitat the things that would

44:46end up being protected and then the impact assessment piece that Colleen spoke about that will come based on the preferred alternative. The policy test from our official plan is no negative impact and a net ecological gain.

45:05So where there are conflicts between the proposed road design we would work to mitigate all of the impacts direct and indirect and then also look at opportunities to demonstrate and that ecological gain.

45:23And so where the road crosses through or there's natural heritage system on either side of the roadway. Those are the areas we would anticipate a reduced cross section and where there are direct impacts that can't be mitigated.

45:43So we would identify those and discuss them specifically, but we're, we're just not there yet in terms of that level of impact assessment at this point but Mike just hearing your initial question I wondered if is what you're asking about

46:08considering our natural heritage system policies and ensuring that we follow them or are you are you wondering about something more than that or something more holistic than that.

46:22And I think it's critical of course that it follows the natural heritage policies I just thought it seemed like when you looked at the study area area B was broken out into three separate corridors.

46:37And so they were evaluated all came basically with the same inclusion and then everything was lumped together and it just seems that perhaps it's not giving sufficient weight from environmental point of view from natural heritage point of view sufficient weight to that Gordon street corridor, because it would seem to me that out of all the

46:57natural heritage study area this is probably the most significant and should be highlighted in terms of the extra effort that's going to be made to ensure no net impact and that would be in that game which I think is, you know, says a lot about the city in terms of what we're trying to accomplish here

47:15You know, that's great, but you just sort of it sort of devalues the significance of that effort and the significance of the environment in that area by lumping mall together.

47:26It's, I just think it's going to be something that people will be quite interested in knowing more about as we go forward.

47:35Yeah, thank you for your comment Mike.

47:38One last thing I guess and it's just a matter of consistency so the slide on page 22 talks about considerations will be made to provide net ecological gain.

47:54And then last slide just box speaks to next steps point to says ensure net ecological gain. So just a bit of inconsistency in the wording and I think that that is a very important statement on behalf of the city's efforts here and I think it just could be clarifying a little better.

48:13One of the things that the staff report speaks to is the option to to hear more on the study as it goes forward.

48:22Coming back to us to talk about mitigative measures.

48:26And I would certainly ask for that and perhaps we can build that into the final motion.

48:36Does anybody have any other questions or comments.

48:38Okay, so we have a motion in front of us or recommendation rather that we receive the information. We recommend the following is preferred alternative so everyone then in agreement with the preferred alternative at this point in time.

49:01I thought not from forest everybody else in agreement.

49:09Okay, so we've got consensus on that.

49:13So that would be, I guess we need to break it out probably in terms of.

49:21Well, I guess the recommended alternatives, we agree with all of them.

49:26So that's pretty straightforward.

49:31I think that's probably a comment. I think at this point then might be that we recommend that staff come back to the committee.

49:39At a further point in the study to share with us.

49:44The, the mitigative measures that have been proposed for the, the road works.

49:54Anything else we should add into that anyone.

49:58I like that.

49:59Okay, let me just.

50:00Sorry, for you to share. I'm just.

50:17I'm just a logical question for me. Does this committee sit over the summer months?

50:22Yes, we do. Okay.

50:24Aside from August.

50:26Aside from August. Okay. Well, I'm hoping that we'll be able to come back with the impact and mitigation kind of preliminary plans earlier than August.

50:34But I'll work with the staff liaisons to.

50:38To get that set up.

50:42Hopefully June will be the time.

50:45I'm just going to take a minute to think of my hall days and August.

50:50Everybody.

51:21Okay, well, thank you so much everyone for your time and for having me. And if you.

51:26Want to look at the same material again, but more slowly with people that you can ask questions to, you can always come to our open house tomorrow night at.

51:38And we'd be happy to hear your feedback as an individual as well.

51:43Well, thank you very much for your presentation colleague and your input Leah and Lucas. We appreciate time.

51:54Through you chair, I did pull all the motions together. I just want to confirm that the second motion that P. Wack recommend the following as a preferred alternative solution.

52:04We are as of right now, I have drafted that P. Wack support the recommended preliminary preferred alternative solution for the Gordon street and Claire.

52:15Layer road provided by staff in the environmental assessment. Do we need to specify the.

52:22What that design alternative design was.

52:27I forget what it was alternative three or.

52:31Yeah, it wasn't all cases.

52:34It was in all cases. Yes. For the roads as well as the roundabout option. They were all alternative three.

52:41I think I can listen to the.

52:46Yeah, the layer road.

52:56Sorry, the.

52:58Roundabout.

53:02So three.

53:04Three.

53:05All the road intersection alternatives again that was.

53:08Three is.

53:10Okay.

53:15Okay.

53:16So perhaps I can share my screen and the committee can provide feedback or I can add to the motion.

53:33So I have the first recommendation that the committee receive information about the Gordon street and Claire layer road environmental assessment.

53:43And that P. Wack support the recommended preliminary preferred alternative option three for the Gordon street and Claire road.

53:53Maybe I should put option three provided by staff.

53:56The environmental assessment. And then the only caught.

54:09Comments I captured through chair were your comments with regarding to.

54:14That all natural heritage policies be considered, especially as it relates to the Gordon street corridor.

54:20And that consistent wording as it relates to ensuring and or considerations.

54:24It may to provide a net ecological gate.

54:29And one last thing would be that staff.

54:34Committee I guess once would have given measures have been.

54:38Analyzing.

54:39Do you want that a separate motion or do you want it in the comments?

54:45I can. I think you could just.

54:47Okay.

54:48Staff return to the committee to.

54:51Staff wording.

54:53And I have a couple of minutes.

54:55I support it.

55:00Yeah, one.

55:04To present staff return the committee to provide information on.

55:11Impacts and mitigated measures.

55:31On completion without work later on this year.

55:44Of this work on completion. Sure.

55:46It's very slow.

55:49capture all of it. So there was, there's the area A, there's the area B, and then there's

55:54the multi Gordon Street. So there's three components to this. And all, all of the alternative

56:05three options.

56:06Yeah. So there should be pluralized somewhere.

56:12All three components of the study. I don't know if do we need to name them all.

56:25Yeah.

56:26Does that clear that you ask support the recommended preliminary preferred alternative option three

56:30for all three components of the study provided by staff for the Gordon Street and Claire layer

56:36layer road environmental assessment.

56:39I like it.

56:39Yeah.

56:40Everybody.

56:43And then again, looking to committee members, if you would like to add more comments in that

56:49last recommendation, if you know, have you added it?

56:58Can I get a motion and to approve this? These recommendations?

57:03Gavin, all the seconder, Rob Raj, all in favor. Thank you.

57:22All right, the next item on our agenda is the outside water use by log. And I think we're

57:29going to have a presentation from Heather and or someone else.

57:32It's a bit of a hot potato.

57:34Yes, I'll turn it over to you.

57:35Yes, I am not Heather. I'm CVSE, the acting supervisor of the environmental programs team.

57:44For the agenda, we're looking at discussing the the update to the site, what is by law.

57:50I would note Karen, the Q and is on on the call as well. Karen, the new and still escaping

57:55your program coordinator and still kind of line sheriff of the work from the city side of this project.

58:02But in getting to the outside one is by law, we had started over 2025.

58:08Look to.

58:08Look to the right side.

58:11Sorry. Sorry.

58:14Look to reach out to the contract.

58:16And then doing so contract and a G.

58:21Yeah, it's all this.

58:23And it seems a little funny introducing

58:27Laura to this group as everyone knows her very well.

58:31But introduce Laura.

58:32A who will speak on behalf of G.

58:35Like it's all this and to the outside water use of my update.

58:40Thank you. And I just joined the meeting so that I can share my screen here.

58:46Just bear with me for one moment.

58:53And it is a bit of a strange experience doing this, but we'll do it again.

59:12Emoting it up here.

59:17Hopefully with the slide show, it will make it a little easier to see some of the text.

59:21Yeah, with these we get into really small fine print sometimes, but trying to keep this as high level as possible.

59:29So really what what's what is the outside water use by law?

59:35This is a bylaw that was put in place in the early 2000s originally and really intended to support sustainable

59:42efficient outside water use practices and essentially trying to reduce the peak water

59:48demand during dry times a year.

59:51So this was last updated in 2014.

59:56So over 10 years ago.

59:58And at this point in time, the city was looking to update this, looking at

1:00:04considerations for a number of aspects of the bylaw.

1:00:07So the overall program structure, looking at what other municipalities are doing to have similar ground water based

1:00:13water supplies.

1:00:15Also kind of looking at West where they have more dry weather conditions and water shortage issues.

1:00:21What are the municipalities doing?

1:00:25Also considering what specific restrictions are included in the bylaw.

1:00:29Do these still make sense?

1:00:30Are these making a difference?

1:00:33Depending on different program levels, which you might be familiar with, you can see the sign in the picture.

1:00:39It different.

1:00:40There's the we'll get into some of the details of what that looks like.

1:00:45But just trying to understand are these the right restrictions that we should be looking at?

1:00:49We also looked at permits and fees associated with that.

1:00:54And then kind of along the same lines enforcement.

1:00:57So if anyone is out of compliance, what sort of penalties would it be in place?

1:01:04Finally, like making sure that we're getting input from the public and from various stakeholder groups.

1:01:10We met with the GRCA last week and meeting with this committee as well as the I think it's the

1:01:18tomorrow night you're meeting with another.

1:01:19Design, development and tourism.

1:01:22Yeah.

1:01:23Yeah.

1:01:23And so like really wanting to get a lot of perspectives on this.

1:01:26There's also right now on have your say on the website for the city of Guelph.

1:01:31Another opportunities for some more information on some of the stuff we're going to be presenting tonight, as well as an opportunity to submit your comments.

1:01:39So that's open to the public until the 23rd.

1:01:44I will have another slide near the end.

1:01:48So this is the only slide with really small text, but I'll kind of give an overview here.

1:01:52Starting from 2014 when we when the last bylaw update was done, since that time there was the water supply master plan completed, which looks at the city's water needs into the future.

1:02:07So to consider growth within the city as well.

1:02:10And where where would all that additional supply come from?

1:02:15A key piece of this was conservation measures that would help to make the best use of what water infrastructure there is now and the supply available into the future.

1:02:25So not just looking at getting more at the ground, but also what can what can the city do and people in the city to reduce water demand by conservation.

1:02:36Along the same lines, there was the water efficiency strategy done in 2016.

1:02:41Getting into more of the details of the conservation initiatives.

1:02:47The supply master plan was updated in 2022, just to align with more recent growth projections for the city.

1:02:54And following that in 2024, this is a report that drug response operational plan was completed to look at specific measures to respond to drug conditions.

1:03:07And the outside water use program is discussed in this report.

1:03:14And specifically looking at recommended triggers for what conditions in the environment would be a reason to increase the program level and increase conservation measures.

1:03:27Essentially.

1:03:28So that was done fairly recently.

1:03:31And that was the outcome of that was used to inform this bylaw update.

1:03:39And so here we are in 2026.

1:03:42Just to give everyone an understanding of like what is the scope of the bylaw.

1:03:52There are a number of different water users in the city.

1:03:55Really what we're focusing on is the water that is supplied by the city water system.

1:04:01So we're not looking at anything, any uses by private well users.

1:04:07This is generally covers like agricultural uses golf courses.

1:04:11Anyone on their own private well.

1:04:13That is not they would not be considered under this bylaw.

1:04:19This is really anyone using the water system, but this could include residents and business owners, industrial institutionally.

1:04:30You see the photo from the university wealth and also the city themselves.

1:04:34So like the city is also using water outside to water lawns and gardens and various other uses like splash pads.

1:04:43So they are actually captured in the bylaw too.

1:04:46It's not just for private residents and businesses.

1:04:48We talked a little bit about it, but really the key elements of the bylaw would be what are the restrictions that are applying under different conditions.

1:05:05Are there exceptions to make this flexible so there is a permitting system.

1:05:10We'll talk a bit about what that includes right now.

1:05:13So if there's certain conditions where you may need to water at a time when you're not allowed to water, what is the process for getting kind of an exception to still allow for people to use the water they need for various purposes.

1:05:28There's also enforcement.

1:05:30So I mean, it's one thing to have a bylaw, but if there's minimal enforcement, then people would be less likely to comply to that.

1:05:39So a good piece of this bylaw is really communicating what it is to the public, making it easy to follow so that people will be more likely to support it.

1:05:51If people understand the reason for it and it's not overly complicated.

1:05:55So that was like a key element that we were keeping in mind as we were developing these updates.

1:06:02It's really a support lease of compliance, which leads to improve water conservation, which is really the goal.

1:06:08A lot of you maybe are already familiar with the program, but just to highlight some of the key elements of the existing program and the restrictions that apply under the different levels.

1:06:25So there are like the, this does not show the emergency level, which is level three or black, which is not really actually enforceable through the bylaw.

1:06:36So these are just the ones you would see typically.

1:06:40There are some years where level two never applies.

1:06:44Level two red, but these really are the three and you'll notice that level zero and level one.

1:06:52The restrictions are essentially the same.

1:06:55So the only real difference here is that with level blue, the enforcement policy is that you would educate first and then issue fines.

1:07:07If you, if you're a repeat offender, if you've shown to be watering your lawn at the wrong time today more than once already called you and explained to you what the, what the problem is.

1:07:18Whereas yellow one level one or yellow, you would get a fine right off the back.

1:07:26Level two.

1:07:27This has more increased restrictions. So you can see the main differences is there's instead of allowing long watering on every other day during specific times of day, there's just no long watering at all.

1:07:40Same with car washing has more specific, more intense restrictions for level two. It's just not permitted.

1:07:49You can see that splash pads and recreational sprinklers, that's one where it's, there's no change depending on the level and that's really because those facilities are used for cooling in the summer.

1:08:02And for people that don't have air conditioning, it really is like important that that be allowed.

1:08:08But there is a restriction that says it's only when it's being used. So you can't just running all the time.

1:08:14Orimental gardens are normally permitted under level zero and one, but there's some more restrictions. So you're still allowed to water your flower garden under level red, but every other day during certain times of day.

1:08:29And just to clarify, like a municipal address day is just the day of the month. So if you have, if it's an odd number day of the month and you have an odd number hens, you'd be allowed to water on that day and vice versa for even number.

1:08:45So just to kind of keep some of these in mind, really the most essential uses that are going to have a higher impact on people's quality of life and ability to kind of keep like vegetable gardens alive and trees like environmental features.

1:09:02There's fewer restrictions on those, whereas things that are less necessary like lawn watering and car washing or restrictions.

1:09:10There's a little bit about the existing permit system.

1:09:19Really, there's three different types of permits and the permits, the term permit would apply to private users of water, whereas permissions is for the city. So the city is still have to go through a process to get an exception if they want to do something that would allow for watering at a different time of day.

1:09:38So there's the time shift permit, which just means you would be watering at a different time or a different day. So instead of your municipal address day, maybe the other day or a different time period within the day.

1:09:51But it's not allowing you to water more for more hours. It's just a different time. So it's kind of shifting that time.

1:10:00Whereas a new turf permit and a treated turf permit, those are really, if you've done either planted new grass or you've just applied a treatment to the lawn and it requires additional water and just to kind of make that product effective or make sure your lawn doesn't die.

1:10:15There are exemptions that apply for that. So that would be for a limited period of time.

1:10:24The idea is really to make it fair for people so they're not spending money on new lawn and then that money goes down the drain if the lawn dies.

1:10:34We'll still not giving so many exemptions that the bylaw, the purpose of the bylaws can be there. So there needs to be kind of a balance there.

1:10:46So in our assessment, we looked at a number of comparable municipalities. You'll see there's a few in here that are close to Guelph that have similar groundwater supplies like Guelph or most of township, region of Waterloo, center Wellington.

1:11:03Also, we looked at West. So there's a few in here from BC and Alberta. Just really interested in seeing like in some of these more water-secures areas what approaches they were taking.

1:11:14We got into the details of like all the different elements with the bylaw if there's any sort of useful aspects.

1:11:23And one interesting feature is just that Guelph actually has quite a progressive bylaw already, especially compared to other municipalities in Ontario.

1:11:31Just a lot, there's more detail to it and the restrictions are more specific and really like having that tiered system like where you have program level one, two, three is fairly rare in Ontario from what we saw.

1:11:48The neighboring municipalities like center Wellington and Guelph-Eremosa have something very similar to Guelph. They sort of used what Guelph had as an example.

1:11:58I'm keeping that in mind. There was also a public survey done before we really kicked off the update just to get people's thoughts on the existing bylaw and how much they understand it or if it had any issues with how it's being presented right now.

1:12:12So we incorporated that feedback. And then a big part of what we did was looking at historical water use and like drilling down into the numbers of like how much water demand was there under the different program levels.

1:12:27So we looked at a number of years worth of data where there was different.

1:12:31Some years it was blue the entire year. Whereas other years you saw multiple program level changes. So kind of trying to see if there were trends in how much water was used.

1:12:43It doesn't make a difference and kind of looking for some of these confounding factors like precipitation. Well, maybe people's water uses went down because it rained and it wasn't because the program level changed.

1:12:55So, yeah, we did some of that data analysis to see like is this tier system that's being used right now really effective. So some of the key things that we learned was that really the multiple program level of approach is being used is fairly unique in Ontario, but it does provide the city with flexibility to control the level of restrictions.

1:13:23And compared to some of the other municipalities where it's just a blanket set of restrictions during the summer period, which in some ways that is very simple approach and it's easy to remember.

1:13:34It is also there's less opportunity to kind of inform people about water conservation. So like every time there's a program level change, people will get a chance to hear about it.

1:13:47You'll see the signs change. There'll be like announcements on the website and social media. So it kind of keeps it in people's minds. So that you could see that as a strength.

1:14:00Some of the opportunities really were around this level zero and this blue level where you're essentially using the same restrictions as level one.

1:14:12And so it's a little bit unclear, especially when you have something that's blue. It almost makes it seem intuitively that it's everything's fine. It's zero. It's blue. There shouldn't be any restrictions, but there are restrictions in level blue.

1:14:26So just to try and look at if there was a way we can make that more clear.

1:14:32The permitting system too, like there's some opportunities to kind of make that a little bit more of a specific protocol. Like instead of anyone just submitting a permit application, maybe if you have a new lawn, the city has the option to request like the receipt of purchase or something just to verify that yes, you actually have a new lawn.

1:14:55This is something you need. It's not just so that it makes your life easier. So then you don't have to worry about the buy law.

1:15:02Not that people are necessarily doing that, but it just it gives it a little bit more clipped.

1:15:07Another thing we learned from some of the comparator municipalities is the number of like they have like a limit to the number of permits that were available per season.

1:15:19So that's something that could be incorporated as well.

1:15:24That sort of helps control the total amount of exceptions because you are going to have more water used, especially with like the new turf permit, for example. So if there's sort of a limited supply.

1:15:37That could help manage the water usage.

1:15:48So the primary updates are some of these on the slide.

1:15:54We looked at basically removing level zero blue and sort of combining blue and yellow into a single standard baseline restriction level.

1:16:06So this would apply from April 15 until October 31.

1:16:13Right now the program period is not clearly defined in the bylaw.

1:16:18So adding a clear period allows us to say, okay, from this day to this day as just a baseline, it doesn't matter.

1:16:30Like this is going to apply unless otherwise stated, having those restrictions just consistent throughout the season.

1:16:37And the only situation where you would elevate is when there are certain conditions met in the stream flow and the precipitation and the demand supply.

1:16:48There's certain triggers that the city would use that will be defined in the bylaw that would say, okay, we need to move to an elevated level.

1:16:56The conditions are such that we need to protect the water supply.

1:16:59We need to try and reduce those peak demands.

1:17:02And so then you would go into elevated. So it's really just standard elevated.

1:17:06Instead of having zero one to the restrictions themselves would be very similar to what you would see in level one and level two currently.

1:17:17And so it's just trying to kind of keep that communication clear and make it very obvious that restrictions will apply throughout that season.

1:17:29It's not just so level blue doesn't mean there's no restrictions.

1:17:33In small increase to the permit fee.

1:17:37Generally from the public server we saw there was support for that.

1:17:40I mean, we didn't want to increase it too much.

1:17:43One of the other kind of pieces of this is if the program is simpler, there may be more justification to enforce it.

1:17:52It might it becomes easier to enforce if it's very clear what you're supposed to do.

1:17:57And so there could be some recoup from the enforcement finds if enforcement is stronger.

1:18:03And I mean the last point here just about regulatory references that's just kind of administrative stuff we need to update in the bylaw from a legal perspective make sure referencing all the latest.

1:18:15Regulations and matching some of the other bylaws that were updated in recent years.

1:18:21Just for consistency.

1:18:23So beyond the bylaw update itself there's also the communication piece so the city is looking at.

1:18:35Promoting the new program once it becomes adopted by council and making sure the public is aware of some of the changes.

1:18:44And so the first step is this public survey that's out right now or the public comment period that is open at the moment.

1:18:52This people like kind of the first view of what the proposed changes are.

1:18:57So it's sort of the first step in that communication piece.

1:19:00And then kind of looking at increasing enforcement efforts.

1:19:08Following that public education.

1:19:10And then the public comment period open right now.

1:19:13So yeah you're welcome to go there if you have any specific written comments you want to add beyond what we talk about tonight.

1:19:20And yeah we've we're trying to get feedback through any different stakeholders that can at this point to make sure that can move forward with adoption.

1:19:31In I think right now we're planning for the June and council meeting or public works committee.

1:19:37Committee of the whole that's the one.

1:19:44That's all they have so.

1:19:46Thank you Laura.

1:19:49Any questions for or then.

1:19:52Just through you chair.

1:19:54Before we go into questions I just for the committee's information.

1:19:59We're kind of faced with a different situation here where we have a member who has declared a conflict of interest but is also the presenter on this item so I would just ask for the committee.

1:20:10If you have any questions.

1:20:13Those questions can be addressed to staff and to Laura as the consultant to all the on the project.

1:20:19And that there is a clear separation or that we just distinguish questions from comments and debates so that we can do questions first.

1:20:31But then I ask that no questions be asked during the discussion and debate portion to.

1:20:41Remember that to clear the conflict.

1:20:44So hopefully that makes sense it is the first time we kind of navigated the situation in a advisory committee meeting.

1:20:50But but yeah over you over here you asked for questions.

1:20:54Thanks for that.

1:20:56I go to question am I allowed to ask questions this time.

1:20:59Yeah.

1:21:01You better be gentle.

1:21:03You chair I don't know about this.

1:21:07So I'll let him over.

1:21:11I was just curious about that.

1:21:14So any questions for Laura or city staff.

1:21:24I think you touched on it in slide 10 but I just want to make sure that I understood it when you when you touched on it was so in terms of elevating the program level from a potential level yellow or one to a two.

1:21:38You're looking at environmental factors as well as current usage rates at the time right like the interplay between those two.

1:21:45Yeah we don't have a clear slide on that because there is still some.

1:21:49Yeah there's still some discussions around the exact thresholds that we wanted to use for some of those.

1:21:54But right now in the bylaw there is reference to the Ontario low water response program.

1:22:00So that's basically through the province and the conservation authorities.

1:22:05And so right now the bylaw is looking at permitting water holders and restrictions that would apply under different conditions and for that they look at stream flow and precipitation.

1:22:16And so right now the bylaw references that those thresholds from the Ontario low water response program.

1:22:25So it's specifically around like the ratio of the current stream flow to like the historical low stream flow.

1:22:34Yeah.

1:22:35And precipitation has something similar.

1:22:37The current bylaw also talks about storage in the water system and a percentage of storage that is available needs to be met or if it drops below that then there could be that would be a trigger for increasing the level.

1:22:54Under this we're looking at keeping the stream flow and the precipitation but instead of having the storage as a trigger we were looking at a ratio of supply demand basically which is a more direct indicator of how much water is available.

1:23:11Yeah I know very well that was kind of to my point of the questions.

1:23:15Thanks.

1:23:17On the line we've got questions from Bowen for us to mature who is first and we'll go with both.

1:23:24They have a question.

1:23:25Thank you. Yes, I'm mine are questions.

1:23:29On slide eight, you noted that there was a public survey last fall.

1:23:35And I apologize if I missed this. I was wondering whether the survey included any questions that, although I guess it'd be tricky because I'm not sure what the response rate was or how many people responded.

1:23:47I wonder if there were any questions that gauged the level of awareness among the respondents about the existing bylaw.

1:23:57There is no other survey data already.

1:24:00But, but if I am curious is if there is any as to like how well the residents of Guelph are know about the bylaw, like as it currently exists.

1:24:12I ask that partly because also on slide eight, I was trying to look at the graph that shows when we're in level zero one to end the total average daily consumption.

1:24:26It's not a super obvious whether there's any change and I'm not sure whether your analysis showed any response in usage that reflected the program level we were at.

1:24:41Does that make sense.

1:24:43Yeah, so there's a couple of things. So the first the survey responses.

1:24:48I believe it is now posted on the have your say so you can actually look at like the percentage of people that responded to different questions.

1:24:57I thought I had a print out of the responses here but I don't I believe that that particular one in terms of being aware of it.

1:25:04Most of the people that responded were aware of it but that's not obviously a full sample size because yeah, the people that didn't know probably did fill the survey.

1:25:14And sorry the other piece. Yeah, the historical water use but here this is this is a snapshot.

1:25:21It's kind of hard to read it wasn't really it's it's a piece of the puzzle like we looked at multiple years.

1:25:27And we looked at a few different indicators so like the supply. Also we only have monthly demands to look at so we didn't have daily demands so it's really hard to see.

1:25:39So there are some limitations to the amount of conclusions we can make from the data.

1:25:45One thing we did note was that the peak.

1:25:51Average so like that are the peak for each year under if we looked at the peaks during each program level over the course of all of the years that we looked at which was a five year period.

1:26:01We can see a clear increase or decrease in the peak as the program level increased, even though the average supply that was going out into the system went up as drier conditions became more present in the program level went up.

1:26:17We saw the peak supply go down.

1:26:21So that led us to believe that there could be some.

1:26:27Some of the data was actually backed from the program, but again, that's the supply so we were working with the data that we had and so to see.

1:26:37But overall it did look like there was some indication that the program was working.

1:26:42I think to get more refined data on like daily demands would help understand.

1:26:49The correlation more so that could be a future thing that's like that.

1:26:54So if I have asked questions about enforcement or maybe force wants to go ahead and then I'll go after force.

1:27:02I just had a couple of comments one.

1:27:05I lived in Victoria BC for a couple of decades.

1:27:08And in July and August that's, they have next to no rain is drier near Arizona.

1:27:13Same in Vancouver I live there as well.

1:27:16And they had three levels, and they enforced them.

1:27:19The first year I moved there.

1:27:21I was really in trouble. And they cut their consumption and half with this program.

1:27:28It was amazing.

1:27:30They were the problem some of the part of the tips that I still remember one was that you know when you brush your teeth turn the tap off.

1:27:37They were getting down to Liddy nitty gritty.

1:27:40And every week they published the results in the paper.

1:27:44Now they had a paper at that time, and they still do actually in Victoria, but we don't have a paper anymore.

1:27:48So people actually got feedback weekly on how they were doing.

1:27:53I was, I was very, and they had three levels.

1:27:56And there was a difference between the three levels.

1:27:59And so my comment is that I think you might lessen your impact, having extra no difference between zero and one.

1:28:11Great.

1:28:12In your presentation, you commented on, you know, we were groundwater, as opposed to surface water.

1:28:20I don't think that has any bearing on this issue, does it?

1:28:26I think the main kind of thought around that is compared to like other municipalities in Ontario, they're getting their water supply from the Great Lakes just as an example.

1:28:36And I think there's more of a supply there as opposed to the groundwater.

1:28:40I mean, it is like a deep aquifer that we're getting the water from, but the capacity for that supply water is less than some other municipalities in Ontario.

1:28:50So I think that's really what that is coming from.

1:28:52But in BC, you're right that there are some places getting it from surface water where it's still very water constrained.

1:28:58And yes, they definitely have the multi-tier system that you're speaking of.

1:29:04And it's well-publicized and it has effect.

1:29:09I think the enforcement piece is really key.

1:29:12So that's one of the recommendations through this is to look at how to improve enforcement.

1:29:18And it's always easier to enforce if the program makes sense to people and is easy to follow.

1:29:25So it's sort of a balance that we try to make it as fair as possible.

1:29:30Another comment I make is that I moved here and I bought a 1954 house and it had 1954 toilets.

1:29:38I changed the toilets, two of them, and my consumption almost went down in half.

1:29:44So it seems that there may be, you know, I was just, I couldn't believe my own results.

1:29:51I haven't necessarily followed them afterwards, but I just saw an after I put change of toilets, 50% reduction. It was huge.

1:30:01I just want to weigh in on that. Thank you, Member Forrest.

1:30:05The City of Guelph has invested since, as Laura started in her presentation, since 1999 with a pretty robust water conservation.

1:30:14And it turned into efficiency and it turned into optimization program.

1:30:18And so there are outside water use bylaw and the update. This is one of many prompt approach for us to manage our water demand.

1:30:27And as we see with places to grow and the impact of growth coming for our city, we want to use our resources as efficiently as possible.

1:30:38So this is one prong of a multi-pronged approach for the City of Guelph.

1:30:44And I would just weigh in that as a groundwater based community, we are constrained by that supply.

1:30:50It is costly and very difficult for us to get new water supply in a quick fashion.

1:31:01And so the City's investment is, you know, environmentally, we are a very green and environmental community.

1:31:08But also this is the most cost effective form of new supply.

1:31:12So water demand management is a big component of this, a big component of this for us.

1:31:18And as Laura spoke to, sort of, that those peak demand components, we're seeing those actually happen on their shoulder season.

1:31:24And Guelph is quite flat as you're looking at, I mean, we're looking at that particular graph there from May through October.

1:31:32We're seeing a few peaks in there of production going up high.

1:31:37Fortunately, we don't have the data to be able to have information on consumption, individual consumption on a daily basis,

1:31:47because we only read water meters on a monthly basis.

1:31:51So to Laura's point, we're working with the data that we have.

1:31:55And so I wanted to add to Laura's comment there and to thank you, Forrest, for changing out those toilets.

1:32:05The City offers rebates, presently for toilet rebates.

1:32:08So if anybody else has the structure, it looks to upgrade.

1:32:12I was just wondering, like, what percentage of the toilets have been changed out?

1:32:17It's a great question. We've, sorry, through you, Chair.

1:32:22Quite a fair number of toilets, in fact, so many so that we are actually presently rebating toilets that were installed in 1996 when the building code changed to have six liter toilets.

1:32:34So now we're swapping out six liter toilets for 4.8.

1:32:37You're not getting as many liters or like, you're not necessarily buying back the same amount of capacity as a 13 liter or 20 liter toilet any longer.

1:32:47But they're still seeing gains because of the types of flabbers and models that were being used at that time.

1:32:54So the City has reclaimed a considerable amount over, I think, we're close to 7,000, over 7,000 cubic meters per day in reclaimed capacity based on our water conservation efficiency programs.

1:33:09And that doesn't account for what we're seeing through, through initially policy initiatives like our outside water use bylaw.

1:33:19Okay.

1:33:21We had a presentation on, we use it or we.

1:33:25Yep. You would have heard from Leigh Annon. Yes, exactly.

1:33:28And I can remember, I grew up in Belleville. My mother was on City Council.

1:33:33And there was a development proposed. And they didn't have enough water supply or sewage treatment in that area.

1:33:39And he went out and the developer went out and bought toilets and shot no flow shower heads for the surrounding community in order to free up enough space for him to have his own, have his own development.

1:33:53Curious.

1:33:55That was several deck that was maybe 30 years ago.

1:33:59Happy to make fun. Yes.

1:34:00So I just something else when I was relating my experience in Victoria, I went back another couple of decades.

1:34:08Thanks very much. Sorry.

1:34:11Yeah, I was looking at your slide eight.

1:34:15And the historical data.

1:34:18And it was just interesting. I saw that, you know, the consumption is around 40,000.

1:34:24And your supply, if you read those little dotted lines run around 50.

1:34:28So that's about a 25% surplus capacity.

1:34:34And I haven't intrigued about that because I'm concerned that, you know, we're going to run out of water.

1:34:40And in fact, I think we're going to run out of sewage first.

1:34:46Yeah, the graph is a little bit.

1:34:48It could be a bit misleading because there's average monthly demand and that daily supply. So it's not.

1:34:57It's hard to see how they might move together.

1:35:00There's always going to be some water, like non revenue water. They call it that is it comes from the supply, but it doesn't end up going to someone's home.

1:35:13There'd be minor, minor amounts of that, but so they're not going to exactly match, but it's harder to see the correlation.

1:35:20We're just looking at the monthly demand.

1:35:25And I was just interested in those statistics.

1:35:29And I think that's what, as I mentioned when they published in the newspaper, the results sometimes feedback and numbers of people can understand or see on the graph.

1:35:38Make a big difference.

1:35:42Thanks.

1:35:44Yep. Okay.

1:35:45Oh, you have a question.

1:35:52We're just looking for the unmute Annika or Annika. I apologize about pronunciation also has a question and hasn't gone yet. So I will wait.

1:36:03Okay. Yeah. So you still have a hand up bow cup twice actually, and so does for so are you, you have any further questions?

1:36:13No, I just had to get him down. How do you get it down?

1:36:18I just had kind of like a comment and a question. So kind of going to like what forest was saying in the sense of like diversity and how people are going to be made aware of this.

1:36:30I think is really important because not everybody is going to retain the information in the same way. So having like newspaper or mail or like these public events and having it like at a frequent rate, I think is going to make it more receptive.

1:36:47More receptive to the public.

1:36:49Like the free like if you constantly have the information around people, I think the more willing to learn understand it and follow it.

1:37:00And then I just wanted like some clarity on the enforcement side of it. Like, if I understand correctly, it sounds like you guys are still working out some of those details, but.

1:37:13Like, would there still be an approach where if somebody, let's say, wasn't completely aware of this new bylaw, would they still automatically be getting a fine?

1:37:23Or would they be given a warning?

1:37:26I speak bylaws approach right now is education first.

1:37:36So going up to households and making sure people are aware. I think traditionally people are either not aware and they're given that education piece occasionally they get a council was defined that they have purchased a permit or something of that sort.

1:37:51If they haven't figured that out before having into that was but right now the approaches is education first.

1:37:58Before issuing that fine.

1:38:01Okay. And then with this education be kind of taking place before during or like continuing throughout the process of this because you mentioned that it's going to come into effect around June.

1:38:14It would be happy when we have to.

1:38:19Once the violence accepted at that point we would be putting out education for it.

1:38:25And then bylaw would enforce after an educational period.

1:38:31But even to how we promote or bylaw now, we're out of events the waterway does events across our community where we have a staff member that can speak to some of the things like that.

1:38:43And give up.

1:38:45We have magnets that people like that will that will discuss this and people take a moment when we shift levels right now we're doing it through radio ads were announcing it on social media so we would approach.

1:38:58Level changes similarly so that people know what they're expecting.

1:39:04We're like I said we're also in the community and we would be running an education campaign so working with our communications team now to determine what the best approaches to make sure our community is is most happily aware of if and when there is a change.

1:39:22And just to add to that to like during some of the workshops we held, you're just discussing what some of these potential updates could be like the city's engagement and communications staff were were strongly involved in those meetings and gave their perspective and to try and like really understand

1:39:39how we can get a huge part of this bylaw development is how do we educate people is it going to be something that's easy to communicate or will the challenges of really getting their feedback from the beginning has been a really helpful process that did lead to some changes and how we are proposing to move forward.

1:40:02Thank you.

1:40:05I'm still seeing questions from bowl and forest bowl would you like to go again.

1:40:11Thank you very much. My questions around the enforcement piece. If I followed correctly for now at least there isn't any plans to update the enforcement approach in the bylaw update.

1:40:27Correct me if I misunderstood, but I also have a question related to that is well approached enforcement in terms of the relative the approximate price points, but also in terms of how different offenders are find comparable to the other municipalities that were looked at.

1:40:48I'm curious if the price points, like how those came to be in place, and also if the range is different for different users like residential versus non residential, or if it's more about the severity of the offensive their repeat offender.

1:41:10I'm wondering if the data that you have on enforcement looking back.

1:41:16Is it all, if there's enough of it to be able to assess how effective it's been.

1:41:23Then there may not be enough data for that.

1:41:26So yes, those are my questions.

1:41:30Yeah, and like the amount for enforcement I mean it does vary between municipalities like the bylaw itself has sort of a maximum amount like legally per the municipal act that could be enforced but on the website there's actually like the amounts that would typically apply.

1:41:54In terms of trying to think.

1:41:59Turn, you had a few you had like three or four.

1:42:02What if there was a difference for residential versus.

1:42:05Oh, yes. Yeah, there are different.

1:42:10price points, you'd say for residential versus business.

1:42:16I believe but I'm going to maybe double check that if, if I might, I think we don't have anybody here representing our bylaw department and they help with with fine setting as part of the as part of the conversation.

1:42:36We might be doing a disservice to speak to like levels associated with that without with our bylaw representative here. I want to just speak to the permit value the $10 to $15 and I don't know both that factored into any of your questions at all.

1:42:50$10 was set in 2014. We still just charge $10.

1:42:54It's to help cover with administrative costs as well associated with the permit fee.

1:43:01But could we circle back with you around the enforcement.

1:43:06It was, it was more just a comment for consideration the permit fee seems very reasonable. I think you want to encourage folks to be aware of the bylaw and to reach out and request a permit when applicable.

1:43:17My question is more and I don't have, I have no idea what the answer is. I'm just wondering if the amounts are deterrent for a business. And as I thought about that and responding I was thinking that those who are offending are probably not wanting to use too much water and it's not.

1:43:34It's a little different maybe that other enforcement scenarios but I was curious how it compared to other municipalities and if it was something that was being considered for in the update or not.

1:43:53Yeah.

1:43:56It's definitely like something that we is like one of the main factors that we looked at compared to compared municipalities but in terms of like setting those final files and that's still under review.

1:44:09Thank you.

1:44:10For us do you have another question.

1:44:14You're muted for us.

1:44:21struck me that an electricity we have different rates.

1:44:26Different times a day or you can be on the.

1:44:29I forget what they call it. I'm actually on that rate where I pay so much for the first and then I pay so much more for the second part.

1:44:36And we ever considered that in water.

1:44:38In other words, you get the first so many gallons at this price and then.

1:44:43Absolutely.

1:44:45Through you chair. We, the city of golf has evaluated over the many years unrelated to outside water use per se.

1:44:52The city of golf has done a number of studies to determine whether conservation block rate structure is what you're sort of describing.

1:45:01I will I will pay a nod to city of Stratford who has a basic lifeline where it is actually $0 for your first seven cubic meters for the month and that has increases to a certain point and then a consumption where our industrial commercial and institutional customers

1:45:21I see customers would then go back down to a much lower rate. So not to de incentivize economic growth in their community.

1:45:29And so and there's so many iterations of block rate structures.

1:45:33As you can imagine, they are also very difficult to communicate through studies that we've done most recently with Brock University and an economist there well well read in rate block rate structures and conservation rate structures.

1:45:48So I don't know how well uses water and our consumers our customers.

1:45:54The merits of moving to a block rate structure for the city of wealth wasn't worth the administrative burden cost challenge associated with communicating such a challenging structure.

1:46:10And that we're not going to revisit that. Absolutely not. We will revisit there may come a time when especially as as supply is more constricted or what have you be still going to continue to consider a conservation rate structure.

1:46:25It just isn't the most economically viable for us.

1:46:32And there's still other opportunities at this time to look at optimization. If that makes sense for us.

1:46:38Yeah, yeah, I just think the electrical system doesn't isn't very complicated.

1:46:46When it comes to when it comes to time of use. Absolutely. We don't have we don't have meters from a time of use perspective right now we have monthly meter reading.

1:46:57So there are opportunities if and when we go down the path of automatic meter reading and automatic meter infrastructure.

1:47:05And then I read your bylaw, and I had a comment.

1:47:10I may not be correct but a 1.41 a the definition of waste has an or in there.

1:47:24I like find again myself.

1:47:27Then.

1:47:30Yeah, waste is different and they say if it's raining or and then it goes on with some restrictions.

1:47:38I wondered if you meant to have the or in there.

1:47:43Oh, I see after rainfall.

1:47:46Yeah.

1:47:48I have a raised by garden in the front and I purposely flooded with water every time I water it because it's, you know, I water I don't use a sprinkler or any I just comes right out the holes.

1:48:04And so, and I don't water it in the rain.

1:48:09But I do.

1:48:12And so, if the or is there, that would mean I couldn't have ponding at any time.

1:48:18And then I thought, well, you know, my sidewalk is when I do when I did have a lawn, I got rid of my front lawn.

1:48:25If I didn't water with them, I would probably water this sidewalk at the same time.

1:48:31So it's just different. And again, I wouldn't be watering it in the rain.

1:48:37I think the intention is to try and like water it at a rate that it has a chance to infiltrate and not just run all off onto the sidewalk.

1:48:45So, yeah, I mean, depending on what practice should the or be in there or not.

1:48:51It's the question.

1:48:53Well, the or is intended to yes be in there.

1:48:56Whether or not it's watering with your hose.

1:49:01So that it it's essentially not wasting water.

1:49:04So, like, pulling it in a like a low lying area that will eventually drain down into the soil is not really what we're talking about.

1:49:11It's more that if it's so much that it can't absorb and it just runs off onto the paved area.

1:49:18Yeah, I'm saying, you know, when when it's not raining.

1:49:23I purposely pond my garden when I water it.

1:49:28Because I don't want to stand out there all day. I just get it done quick and let it soak in.

1:49:35Soaking into your garden and not like, oh, it runs off, but that's the intention of waste. Just trying to find it.

1:49:42As you define it with the or I'd reclude it from doing that.

1:49:46Because it's like coffee or tea. So if it's raining, that's coffee.

1:49:51No, it's not raining or it's tea. You can't do any of the following.

1:49:57It's considered waste. You could take the or out.

1:50:00And those items only apply when it's raining.

1:50:06Yes, I guess the intention is that it should be a flying when it's raining or if someone just watering in a wasteful way. That's, that's really intention.

1:50:14So it's both supposed to be both. Yes.

1:50:17So I would take the or out and make two points.

1:50:20Don't rain when it's water. Don't water when it's raining and to don't do the following.

1:50:27It's not either or it's both.

1:50:32Okay.

1:50:33I think I'm looking at that. I maybe I'm picking that could take that under advisement.

1:50:39We have a question from Shannon.

1:50:44Yeah, I just, I wanted to comment on the naming of the levels.

1:50:49So the proposed naming of standard and elevated.

1:50:53They don't really seem as descriptive as what's been used previously. So, in the previous program or talked about careful use.

1:51:02Restricted and stop. It's fairly clear what the intent is. Whereas.

1:51:07Standard may leave people kind of puzzled if they if they don't understand that there are restrictions even the baseline.

1:51:14They may think standard is just use as much as I want.

1:51:18And.

1:51:20Elevated, I mean, elevated could mean more. So someone looking at this, you know, getting very basic information about it might.

1:51:28I think that elevated means use more water. So I'm just hoping they'll be really, really careful consideration given to how the program levels are named.

1:51:40That's that's really good feedback.

1:51:42Because yeah, this is the kind of thing that you have to communication piece is going to come next to like to try and get that to like optimize the naming would be this is the time to do it.

1:52:01You have another question. Yeah, I was going to suggest.

1:52:05I remember back to my Victoria time, because they rely upon a reservoir.

1:52:11They had a very simple measuring stick to say, you know, we got to move to the next level and start this.

1:52:18They could say like how much water is left in the tub, which is the reservoir.

1:52:23So I think it's important to communicate. You answered a question earlier on, you know, what's what's the trigger to move from one level to another.

1:52:31I think it's important to communicate that rationale in a way that's understandable.

1:52:37Because that then rush would have people. Ah, yeah, I really got to do this.

1:52:44Thanks for Brian. Do you have a question?

1:52:46Yeah, I've got a few and just kind of on Shannon's point.

1:52:50So I just. So, okay, sorry. So I was actually quite surprised.

1:52:54Like I learned today that level zero blue that you can only water your lawn every other day, which was completely news to me, which is crazy.

1:53:07And so I kind of understand that conundrum Lake where there's always a restriction.

1:53:13Right. And so how we knew that. So, so I got a quick question on the levels.

1:53:18When I was looking at the slide, we're kind of compared all the different levels.

1:53:22Is there a difference between blue and yellow aside from the, the fine?

1:53:29No.

1:53:30Is it all the same? Like everything in the white.

1:53:34It's the same other than enforcement.

1:53:40So we're always in a city yellow.

1:53:43That is not that that is what our current program is and why we need to do an update to our bylaw.

1:53:48And so there will never be a state where we can water every day.

1:53:52That's right, which is insane. Essentially, it's more lawn watering or car washing.

1:53:59So just on that, they, it's right in the, the, how you're saying right now, is it.

1:54:05Is it so we already have a model and it's saying, here's the model, or is it saying, here's the model. What do you think?

1:54:14We're still kind of open to designing and sorry, Laura, if I'm making more work.

1:54:21It's just general comments, but it's presenting the recommended changes that we're talking about today.

1:54:29And if you've left concerns or comments or questions, they can submit those.

1:54:36So I think like even on building on Shannon's point about kind of that wording and what we're saying,

1:54:43but the education and all that, there's a lot of good brand in what we have here, in my opinion, as a resident of Wolf,

1:55:00as well as somebody that also tries to educate community.

1:55:04And so I think there is some strength in that the conundrum is, is that there is no true level zero.

1:55:10As I told you this thing, there's no, there's no scenario we can water every day.

1:55:16And so I think that there may be some benefit in having still a yellow, red, grey, black or something because it shows that intensity,

1:55:27which is what I was kind of hearing from Shannon's thing.

1:55:30So I just, I'm curious if there is something, something about that.

1:55:37I don't know how you saw that. So that was just kind of one thought. Thanks for clarifying those things.

1:55:45I heard about communication stuff. So just also, is there an opportunity without we're going to be taking over our water billing in the summer?

1:55:52That's another stream of education and outreach and using some of this too and messaging, you know, what level we're at.

1:56:01If it is the two or three tier. So I don't know if that's being discussed.

1:56:08And then I had a question about the triggering. So you mentioned about, and I apologize, I missed some of it, but the percentage and stream flow or something like that.

1:56:21Right. So, you know, being a water guy, but if the stream is flowing, everything's good. So we're low blue.

1:56:29But we're seeing that kind of water levels are coming down and things are stepping up a level.

1:56:36It's an indicator. It's like one of several different drought indicators and it's discussed more in the drop report as well.

1:56:43Like, because there's beyond the trigger is using this by all others also other sort of secondary indicators like the temperature is more evaporative losses.

1:56:53For example, like there's groundwater levels to that are going to fluctuate not exactly the same as the river.

1:57:01So kind of deciding which of those make the most sense to use in the bylaw as part of this exercise.

1:57:09Yeah, I don't know if that was.

1:57:11So, as far as how does it differently more developed well, compared to in 2014 impact those triggers, and if we have more flash coming off the surface water and these different variables and climate change and all those other things that might be going in.

1:57:31So it's good to hear that there's kind of well levels and something that that was the thing that kind of call me like stream flows.

1:57:37If we're sending more water, not going to the ground going water service water.

1:57:43Does that kind of skewer measurements and know what you're saying.

1:57:49And the way that the bylaws proposed to be written is such that there are three different, like kind of primary triggers any of those any of those could cause the city to elevate the program level.

1:58:05But there are other factors that they may consider as well to like allow for that decision to made so there's a certain amount of flexibility because the others.

1:58:15It's not just stream flow in isolation that would be enough, but there needs to be something in the bylaw that sort of justifies why the program is elevated if it kind of goes back and why, why did you do this and give me a five.

1:58:28Yeah, so keep it open enough.

1:58:34And sorry, and then I guess my last one. I was curious about the permit process. And if I got a permit.

1:58:42Do I have to show that I have a permit to anybody.

1:58:48While I'm watering my lawn when everybody else can.

1:58:52And I think there's a there may be an opportunity that to you got it up in your window of your house like you do for a bill and you are required to do that. Yes, you are.

1:59:01Nice that they kind of put it on their lawn too.

1:59:04And just like, I think there's, I think there's benefit in that kind of trust in the system to say, Hey, there is a permit. So there's that education piece to like making it more visual because I don't know if I, you know, if you're driving by and you're since God, what you just kind of swear at them.

1:59:19And you're not necessarily seeing permit in the window.

1:59:22Whereas I'm saying if it's more visible than you're kind of saying, okay, well, maybe that guy does have.

1:59:27He's gone through that proper process. Okay, I kind of rationalize that. And yes, there is a system that is kind of governing this. So.

1:59:34They're doing their job. I'm going to continue to have faith in the system. So I just something on that. Like, I think it's good to see that there is the permitting.

1:59:44But I think there's a there's value in being more visible with the permitting because I don't think I've ever seen anybody with a permit.

1:59:53And not that I've been looking for it. So just there is something in the permit.

1:59:59I think sometimes when people call him to complain that someone's not compliant, they might actually have a permit. They just didn't know they had a permit or even know that permits existed.

2:00:09So there's a special.

2:00:12And that's the last error.

2:00:15And I don't think that there's necessarily that feedback to.

2:00:19Like, I will be honest. I have read it out somebody.

2:00:24It's a commercial company that kept doing this. And so as I came, you know, I think they should be holding the Wilson and there hasn't been any feedback when.

2:00:35And that the same place. And so I did.

2:00:40I think what I'm saying on this though is is what, you know, it takes there is.

2:00:45There is the value of having faith in that the system works. Not just in that there is a system.

2:00:52You get what I'm saying on that.

2:00:55Because if it's great to have a permit and all that stuff, but if that trust in that is a roading that.

2:01:02Then we're just not going to, nobody's going to follow the system at all.

2:01:06People have to know that if they are falling and making the effort to call in with complaint that something is actively being done.

2:01:11So like closing the loop and I think there is maybe you can correct me on this. There is an online sort of tracker of currently these are where the reference.

2:01:20You can see that it is correct logged and I'm not sure if it once it becomes resolved.

2:01:25Is it clear on the same as somebody who has used the system personally because I do live in Guelph.

2:01:31Using that system does give me a report back and lets me know how it was resolved, but I don't know. I haven't phoned in Brian.

2:01:37So there is resolution and that's something that as we explore the enforcement component of it. I think we could talk to by luck at that.

2:01:44Brian going back to the bills to, I think it's an opportunity with billing coming in.

2:01:51We can.

2:01:53Appetizer programs on on the bill right where people are looking at it where at least the most sense when it comes to the bylaw.

2:02:02We would, it would be general information. It's not that we could present a change.

2:02:09Because it changes where are being assessed on a weekly basis.

2:02:13And then we can go back and forth.

2:02:16Yeah, that's the yeah, it was because you're on monthly terms.

2:02:23I have one question that's kind of related to that. I think Gavin sort of brought it up or anything from as we touched on it to and as the time sensitive nature of.

2:02:33Gathering the data. So we're getting residential use on a monthly basis and obviously that's not timely enough. So in terms of the staff monitoring stream, slow, groundwater.

2:02:48Extraction and so on and so forth that being done sort of on a daily basis, hourly basis, how timely is is that data gathering.

2:02:59Absolutely speak to yeah, make a little logistics of it. And as we do as so we rely on the Grand River Conservation Authority is stream overflow data.

2:03:11For the whole network and we have specific sites. We actually post presently our conditions as as they arise. We are collecting that data on a weekly basis.

2:03:23It looks at weather forecasting and relies on environment Canada Turcrest Institute and other weather data as it succumbs to precipitation as well.

2:03:33We have our own.

2:03:35We have our own weather stations that we QAQC against determine how much precipitation has been collected over that period.

2:03:42And then to your point around production. We are logging because we run a drinking water system. So we log all all production that's occurring from wells and captured into our reservoirs based on the demand of what's what's leaving going into the system.

2:03:58And so we have those logged on a daily basis that gets inputted as well into our conditions reports and then those condition reports get posted to the city's website so people can see what's driving those changes.

2:04:09We try to also give a capture what happened this time last year or a year where it was similar as well just to provide some context to that.

2:04:18And the program itself will take different shape. So as it comes to residential billing for a monthly basis everybody isn't read unfortunately in the first of the month to capture the last months.

2:04:29And so all of it is staggered. So we have to do a lot of fancy footwork to be able to QAQC the data associated with consumption practically right now.

2:04:39So that's why we can actually use the that's why we were having some issues with being able to correlate the data to what was happening with production. And so that that when it comes to that gap between production and consumption and that that

2:04:54gulf between the two. Laura spoke very well to non revenue water is being a part of that fire flows. I'm needing to do sampling different aspects around operational work as well.

2:05:06So fortunately we don't have the granularity but we do have pumping and that indicates how much water we've had to pump into the system to compensate for what the people use the day before.

2:05:20If there are no other questions and move to the next phase.

2:05:26She's nothing directed to Laura.

2:05:30We have a recommended motion here.

2:05:34That we basically receive the report and endorse the proposed update to the outside order use bylaw.

2:05:42People comfortable with that recommended resolution.

2:05:47Okay someone want to move it.

2:05:55Somebody would like to move the recommended motion.

2:06:01Oh, thank you.

2:06:02Seconder.

2:06:05Raj.

2:06:06Thank you all in favor.

2:06:14Okay, great. Thank you.

2:06:18Thank you for your presentation Laura and Heather and I'm sorry, Steve, appreciate you being here and providing input as well. Thank you very much.

2:06:29Okay, so I don't have any announcements as chair, but are there any staff announcements to be made?

2:06:39Focus.

2:06:41Hi everybody just quickly from me.

2:06:44Tomorrow there's a council planning meeting starting at 10am.

2:06:48So if you are available to watch or you can watch the recording afterwards but a number of interesting items going to council planning tomorrow including what may be the tallest building in Guelph being proposed.

2:07:01I definitely take a look at the agenda. The other thing on the agenda for tomorrow is our annual housing update as well.

2:07:09And this is a really critical one. I think this is about our third annual housing update, but this one we're really taking a look at all the housing accomplishments that we've done since the beginning of this council term.

2:07:22So going all the way back to 2022. So it's a good opportunity to get familiar with all the work that we've been doing and all the work to be done over the course of the next couple of years.

2:07:33So just something to keep an eye out if you have time tomorrow or if you want to watch the recording separately. I would encourage that one.

2:07:41Thank you.

2:07:45One update from clerk's office just a staffing update for the committee's awareness. Heather Connell is now the solid waste representative staff liaison on the committee, though not present this evening, you will likely see her in future meetings.

2:08:03Thanks.

2:08:05The meeting is April 13.

2:08:09And if I could get a motion for adjournment.

2:08:14Kevin, seconder bold all favor.

2:08:21Thanks everyone.

2:08:22Thank you everyone.

2:08:26Thank you.