An update from planning staff.
The following recommended change to the process at Planning meetings of Council came out of our recent meeting with the Guelph Wellington Developers Association and subsequent discussions with our Planning staff regarding improvements. This change to our procedures during Planning meetings of Council has been endorsed by Ann and Karen.
Current Process:
1. Staff provide introductory comments on the application and respond to any questions from Council;
2. The applicant (developer) presents their application, and responds to questions from Council;
3. Delegations address Council, and respond to questions from Council:
4. Council deliberation and decision, if it’s a report for decision.Concern:
There is currently no opportunity for staff, or the developer, to clarify comments that delegates have made, that in some cases may be erroneous and/or misleading to Councillors, other than having the General Manager wave his hand to get the Mayor’s attention.Recommended Process Change:
Following the delegations, the Mayor as Chair will ask the Acting GM if there are any issues raised by the delegates that he feels requires clarification. The Planner who presented the introductory comments will then respond by indicating very specifically, e.g. “Yes, Madame Mayor, there are X issues that require clarification” and will specify/list what those issues are. At that point, the GM or the Planner can either provide the clarification, or ask the developer to provide the clarification on those specific points.Benefits:
1. Council obtains clarification;
2. The developer won’t get an automatic “rebuttal” to get up and simply reiterate their key points.This change will be implemented for our next Planning meeting on Monday February 6th. Staff