City Council

9:07All right, hello everybody and welcome to our city council meeting for Tuesday, May 26th,

9:142026. It is five o'clock on the dot so I'm going to call the meeting to order as we're

9:20looking to move into a closed session of council. Now on the open agenda it's listed with a

9:27few items. I'll just have to read them all out here. So here we go 1242 to 1270 Gordon

9:33Street in Nine Valley Road with an Ontario Land Tribunal update as per Section 2392E

9:41and F of the Municipal Act regarding litigation or potential litigation including matters

9:46before administrative tribunals affecting the municipality or local board and advice

9:50that is subject to solicitor client privilege including communications necessary for that

9:55purpose. And the second one is the comprehensive zoning bylaw appeals Ontario Land Tribunal

10:01update and that's as per Section 2392E and F of the Municipal Act regarding litigation

10:08or potential litigation including matters before administrative tribunals affecting

10:13the municipality or local board and advice that is subject to solicitor client privilege

10:17including communications necessary for that purpose. And the final one is disclosure of

10:23information related to possible acquisition of land as per Section 2392C of the Municipal

10:29Act regarding a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality

10:34or local board. That's it. It's those three. Would anyone be willing to help me move those?

10:40Bousatil and Ault will do that. Anything further before I call the vote? No. Okay. I'll call

10:47the vote. Is anyone against moving into closed session for those three items? Seeing and

10:52hearing none. That's unanimous. We'll do that now and I'll do a high level summary as I

10:58do normally at the beginning of the open session which would be at six o'clock. Thank you. Okay.

1:09:05To my colleagues online if you could just put your camera on just so we can see if we have

1:09:10quorum here. I'd appreciate it. All right. We'll call the meeting to order and kick things off

1:09:38right away before we get into the closed summary. We'll just start with O Canada please if you

1:09:44can rise to acknowledge our national anthem. If you can please let's do that now. Great. Thanks

1:11:17so much everyone and just for a moment of silent reflection before we continue with the agenda.

1:11:35Thank you and now our territorial acknowledgement as we gather let us take time to reflect on our

1:11:41privilege to live and work here in Guelph a city built over rich indigenous histories. As guests

1:11:46here we should reflect upon the responsibility to care for the land and the people who live here

1:11:50today and the generations to come for actions today can move us towards reconciliation which

1:11:55should take pause and make those decisions with intention and gratitude. This place we call Guelph

1:12:00has served as traditional lands and a place of refuge for many people over time but more specifically

1:12:05the Aniwana rock and the Honanashoni. This land is held as the treaty lands and territory with the

1:12:11Mississaugas of the credit First Nation and Guelph lies directly adjacent to the Hallamond track

1:12:17as part of a long established traditional hunting grounds for the six nations of the Grand River.

1:12:22Many First Nations Inuit and Métis peoples who have come from across Turtle Island call Guelph home

1:12:26today. Great thank you very much everyone. Any disclosure of pecuniary interest any general

1:12:36nature thereof for the items in front of us? No and I just want to confirm as I start with the

1:12:43closed summary as well that there was no disclosure or pecuniary interest for those items by any member

1:12:50of council enclosed either but to the summary there was three items that we went into closed with

1:12:57before the beginning of our open session here on the first one which was 1242 to 1270 Gordon

1:13:04Street and Nine Valley Road. Council did give direction to staff on that matter and then on

1:13:11the second one which was the comprehensive zoning bylaw appeals Ontario land tribunal update.

1:13:16Council also did give direction to staff on that matter as well. On the third item which is disclosure

1:13:24of information related to possible acquisition of land I am going to disclose that now right now.

1:13:31So I just wanted the public to be aware and our media partners to be aware that council actually

1:13:38has made an offer on the lands known as 170 Stephanie Drive and specifically for the purposes

1:13:49of increasing the supply of permanent affordable and attainable housing units.

1:13:56And so there's obviously processes and such that will happen from that again it is an offer

1:14:04that has been made a sincere offer from us to accomplish more of the type of housing that

1:14:11we're looking for in the city which is permanent affordable and attainable housing units okay.

1:14:17And so that is important to state and that's the final summary of in camera. So with that

1:14:25we're now going to go to our open agenda and we do have the consent so just let me know anybody

1:14:32if you would like anything to be pulled okay. First off we have minutes though okay. So minutes

1:14:41is for the meetings held April 15th and 21st 2026 and the minutes of the open committee of the whole

1:14:50on April 7th 2026 to be confirmed as recorded and without being read would someone be willing to move

1:14:59that. Koran and Downer will do that for us. Is there anything else on the minutes anybody?

1:15:05No okay I'll call the vote is anyone against the minutes?

1:15:09No okay so that's unanimous thank you and now into the consent sorry about that I'm

1:15:13glad we got the minutes they're done. So we have the 2026 to 2030 municipal election compliance

1:15:19audit committee and the second one is 2025 year end operating budget monitoring report

1:15:25with the surplus allocation and deficit funding and also a 2025 year end capital budget monitoring

1:15:32report along with the 2025 long term financial statement reserves and debt and also the 2030

1:15:41election voting methods. Does anybody need any of those pulled? No Councillor Allt I think you're

1:15:50willing to move the consent thank you and Richardson thank you. I'm trying to keep it in the wards

1:15:56tonight you know we did ward five now I'm doing ward three okay that's moved and seconded is there

1:16:01anything further? No okay I'll call the vote is anyone against the consent items? That's unanimous

1:16:09as well thank you. Now we do have the items for discussion. Councillor Caron is bringing forward

1:16:16one for us called the request to extend the deadline for notices of intention to designate

1:16:22listed heritage properties as normal I will go to you Councillor Caron as the mover of this idea

1:16:30and with some time to do a little preamble then we'll see if you have a seconder and go from there.

1:16:35Sure I'll keep the preamble quite quite short and I'm sorry that I would have been a record short

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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