Highlights of the June 27, 2022 Council Meeting Yesterday’s Council meetings started at 4pm and concluded at 11pm. We covered a lot of issues, and I am only including highlights which I think you’ll find interesting/relevant. If you’d like to dig a little deeper, you can find all Council agendas and minutes here: https://guelph.ca/city-hall/mayor-and-council/city-council/agendas-and-minutes/ a) Downtown Guelph Central District Energy has been sold to Cascara Energy In 2013 the City of Guelph embarked on an ambitious project to create a Central District Energy node in our downtown core. You can find out more about District Energy systems here. Our downtown District Energy system currently provides heating and cooling to the Sleeman Centre and River Mill Condominiums. Two years after it was launched, Council realized that this system was underperforming, and in 2019, we gave direction to sell this asset to an operator who had the ability to continue expanding Guelph’s downtown Central District Energy. Yesterday afternoon the sale was finalized. I look forward to the investment Cascara will bring to our downtown and the future growth our our downtown District Energy system. For more information, you can find the media release here: https://guelph.ca/2022/06/downtown-district-energy-system-sold-to-community-energy-innovator/ b) Guelph to be certified as a Bird Friendly City Council gave direction for the City to pursue certification as a Bird Friendly City. This mainly requires a number of actions to be taken at the municipal level to make Guelph a better place for birds. Click here for the staff presentation that lists the Threat Reduction and Habitat Protection actions the City will be undertaking. c) Taxi Cab Rate Increase of 6.7% was approved Earlier this month Council learned that taxi cab fares had not increased in Guelph since 2010. Both taxi cab operators requested this modest increase to help them manage the increased cost of operating taxis in Guelph, and Council approved this fare increase. d) Application to change from ‘Low Density to ‘High Density’ residential zoning at 12 Poole Street was refused Council refused the application for zoning changes to our Official Plan, which would have allowed the property at 12 Poole Street (which will cross Decorso Drive, off Victoria Road South), to have a 10 story building and 4 story stacked townhouses in what is designated as a low density residential neighbourhood. I was happy to see our planning team recommend this refusal, which was unanimously supported by City Council. e) Official Plan Amendment to allow Emma to Earl Pedestrian Bridge was approved This was a difficult decision to make. I heard overwhelming support in favour of this project, and it is an essential connection for our active transportation and recreation trail networks. However, I also heard from some residents in the area who did not want to see this project move forward, due to concerns about the cost of this project, the impact to the environment and the potential for increased crime in the area. After some discussion, and having received confirmation from City staff that through the design and build of this bridge, the natural river system would be protected, Council voted unanimously to approve this Official Plan amendment. This allows City staff to begin working on the detailed design of the bridge. Constructions is expected to happen in 2023. This bridge will be built in advance of the Speedvale road bridge replacement, so it can also act as an alternate pedestrian and cycling connector while the Speedvale bridge construction is underway. Moving forward, I will be advocating for crime prevention through environmental design to be an integral consideration in the design of the Emma to Earl bridge and the adjoining connections to Earl and Emma streets. You can click here to see the staff recommendation and the public emails in support and against this project. f) Edinburgh Road Level Rail Crossing – direction given for enhanced public engagement Metrolinx is bringing two-way all-day rail service on the Kitchener GO rail line as part of its 2041 Regional Transportation Plan. This will increase the frequency and speed of GO trains, which may require changes at several road-level rail crossings in Guelph to meet safety regulations and current design standards in accordance with Transport Canada’s Railway Safety Act. As the City is responsible for maintaining our roads and we are required to make the necessary changes to meet the Railway Safety, Act, the City hired a consultant to do a study of all the rail crossings in Guelph which would support two-way-all-day rail service. A technical memo produced as part of that study, preliminarily identified that an underpass may be required on Edinburgh, Yorkshire, Glasgow and Dublin Streets. These underpasses, if implemented, would also require that several homes on those streets be expropriated, and that neighbourhoods be divided by these road underpasses. Click here for that technical report. As you can imagine, neighbours were quite concerned, particularly those whose homes were red-lined in that technical memo. Part of this concern arose from the way they found out that their properties were being included in that technical memo, and by thinking this may have been a done deal. At this point City staff are just going through the process of exploring all options, and the next step is to carry out an Environmental Assessment Study, which is a provincial requirement whenever major projects like this are undertaken. Listening to concerns from community members, Council gave direction for City staff to do additional public engagement to inform the problem statement, which will guide the Environmental Assessment Study process. Once that problem statement has been defined, an Environmental Assessment Study will be carried out, which will explore all options, including doing nothing, having level rail crossings, and implementing road underpasses. There will be multiple opportunities for the public to have their say in this process. Here’s the City’s page on the Rail Crossing Study. g) Cities Race-to-Zero Four-Year Interim Targets presentation Last week the City hosted a presentation from a respected planner, Brent Toderian. You can watch the replay of the event on YouTube. As part of that provocative presentation Brent said that Guelph is ‘not as green’ as we think we are, and he asserted that Guelph is not on track to meet our goal of 63% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Council members have since received several messages from concerned residents and community groups, some of whom claimed that Council is “blatantly” ignoring 97% of the climate change pollution in the city. Part of this confusion is caused by the fact that the City of Guelph can only directly control our municipal buildings and vehicles. City employees can not go into your home and turn off your lights, lower your water heater temperature, or change your air conditioner settings. For that reason, the City’s four year interim report focuses on what the municipality can directly influence, which accounts for about 3% of our whole community’s greenhouse gas emissions. We are in fact, on track to reach a 63% reduction in the Corporation of the City of Guelph’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. That still leaves the matter that the City only makes up 3% of the total emissions for the wider community Guelph. In the next few weeks, the City will finish negotiating an agreement with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, which will enable us to start delivering a Property Assessed Clean Energy Program, by which home owners can borrow money from the municipality to do residential energy retrofits, and that loan would be repaid as part of your property tax payments. This is a key way in which the City will support residents to lower our carbon footprint. There are other measures which City Council can take to support the reduction of GHG emissions in our community, including prioritizing the build-out of our public transit system, building our active transportation network faster and increasing the rate at which we are growing our tree canopy. After this fall’s election, the new Council will have an opportunity to prioritize those projects as part of the Strategic Plan prioritization that will be done at the beginning of that term of Council, and to increase funding those projects through the multi-year budget process. I would love to hear from you. How would you prefer Guelph City Council to balance keeping property taxes low and increase our efforts to reduce carbon emissions in our community? Should Council bite the bullet and build out our 10 year active transportation network and public transit system plans in the next couple of years? Would you prefer to see this funded through reductions in other levels of service, or via property tax increases? Thank you in advance for any advice or suggestions you can provide as to how myself and other Councillors can best approach these problems. | 
