It was an exciting but chilly afternoon with our first town hall of the term. Lots of great ideas for priorities moving forward.
Saturday January 12th Ward 2 Community Town Hall
Location: St. Patrick’s Catholic School, 391 Victoria Road North, Guelph
Time: 1:30pm ~ 4:00pm
Attendance: 32 community members plus both Ward 2 Councillors
What Happened: On Saturday January 12th, Ward 2 Councillors Goller and Gordon hosted their first Town Hall of 2019. Thirty two community members came out to have their say, ask questions, present areas of concern and provide direction.
The session began with community members taking turns to speak and identify issues. Each issue was posted as a discussion topic on an agenda wall. While community members identified issues, City Councillors Gordon and Goller provided clarification and brief updates.
Once all community members had a chance to voice issues, questions and concerns, the agenda wall was grouped into discussion topics, and community members were invited to participate in smaller group conversations. These groups discussed each topics area and were encouraged to write down their specific concerns, directions and suggestions.
Below is the list of priority areas and direction provided by community members.
Crime & Safety
- Get police to tell neighbours what they can do to help reduce crime
- Regarding drugs – lobby for provincial and federal funding and resources to support people with addictions and mental health problems. This is a problem that should be supported by provincial agencies and not property tax dollars
- Focus on prevention to help people with mental health problems
- Start Neighbourhood Watch programs
Urban Design & Development
- Follow the masterplan and secondary plans – do not allow exemptions for developers
- Make deviations & exemptions from City’s masterplans more difficult to get
- Require residential developments to include mixed “real” affordable housing
- Challenge new developers to match job creation with housing development
- Urban Design Plan and City Bylaws should encourage medium and high density buildings, including high-rises, condos/apartments and town homes
- Restrict all building height to a maximum of 4 stories
- Be considerate of streetscapes when allowing new developments so streets feel cohesive
- Use separate and independent body (watch-dog) that is hired by the City to provide property valuation, rather than allowing developers to hire their own land values
Traffic & Parking
- Engage community on street parking to make sure you’re getting it right the first time
- Explore allowing overwinter parking on boulevard section of driveways like Kitchener is doing
- More enforcement of on-street parking, particularly on narrow streets so other vehicles can get through safely
- Speedvale multi-use underpass is needed faster than 5 years from now
- Increase speed controls with more police enforcement and technology (like radar speed signs and school zone speed cameras)
- Create a Community Safety Zones along Victoria, Speedvale & Watson to limit and divert truck traffic
- Free up police resources by bringing the following technology to Guelph:
- Red Light Cameras
- Traffic Speed Cameras
- School Bus Stop Arm Cameras
Public Transit
- Increase number and frequency of public transit routes
- Have buses running every 30 minutes
- Use smaller buses
- Improve reliability
Driveways & Sidewalks
- Whenever possible, replace sidewalks with shared pedestrian/bicycle paths that are physically separated from vehicle traffic
- Bicycle routes must be separated from vehicle traffic
- Ensure new developments have physically divided bicycle lanes
- Adjust bylaws to allow all driveways to have 2 cars
- Sidewalk snow removal is unnecessary – Residents should be required to shovel their own driveways & social programs like Snow Angels can support people with mobility issues
Communication
- Councillors should update people on community projects via newsletter, including bus route changes, condo developments, street construction, etc.
- Use text message notices (just like the City already does with Solid Waste Collections), and allow people to sign up for categories, like bus routes, road construction, planning applications, etc.
Downtown & Community Culture
- Create a second centre for seniors – an ‘Evergreen 2’ on the south end
- Use meetup.com to promote community events and organizations
- Increase funding for community support groups and services
- Encourage people from different Wards to get together and discuss City-Wide issues
- Start ‘meet your neighbor’ days
- Make it easier for community members to find and book meeting and event spaces
Parks & Green Spaces
- Enforce tree placement so all streets have trees. Some newer streets barely have any trees at all. Use arborists’ expertise
- Have foresight – long term planning for green spaces and parkland
- Plant more trees. Care for trees that are already planted. Stop clear cutting by developers
- Make parks a community responsibility – use adopt-a-park programs to help maintain and beautify city parks (prevent and clean up graffiti, garbage pick days, etc)
- Provide a strong response to the Provincial Bill 66, to maintain municipal ability to control growth
Do you have further thoughts, questions or comments? Here’s the contact information for City Council: https://guelph.ca/city-hall/mayor-and-council/city-council/
Your Voice Matters! There are the next scheduled Ward 2 Town Hall Meetings:
- Saturday March 23rd at 1:30pm, Evergreen Senior’s Centre, 683 Woolwich St
- Saturday May 25th at 1:30pm, Waverley Public School, 140 Waverley Dr
Warm Regards,
Rodrigo
Rodrigo Goller
City Councillor, Ward 2
City of Guelph
226-821-1146