Taller buildings will not necessarily be coming to Guelph and Mayor Cam Guthrie is “livid” about it.
Not because of the change itself, but how it was announced and the resulting months of “lost” efforts on the housing crisis.
Monday morning the provincial government announced plans to cancel official plan amendments imposed on some municipalities earlier this year, including Guelph. Chief among the local amendments is the allowance of 23-storey buildings throughout much of the downtown area and beyond.
“Livid is an understatement,” Guthrie said on the phone from Ottawa, where he’s speaking with various federal government officials regarding housing-related matters.
“Months of work now has gone into especially engineering because a lot of the changes … required a ton of work from our staff trying to figure out all the capacity issues.”
Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Paul Calandra said legislation will be introduced to reverse the changes made in April. This, he said in a news release, comes after reviewing how the decision was made prior to his arrival as minister in September.
“Since becoming Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, I have made it a priority to review past decisions, including minister’s zoning orders and official plans, to ensure that they support our goal of building at least 1.5 million homes in a manner that maintains and reinforces public trust,” Calandra said in the release.
“In reviewing how decisions were made regarding official plans, it is now clear that they failed to meet this test.”
In April, the provincial government made 18 changes to the city’s official plan.
Among them was allowing 23-storey buildings to be constructed in much of the downtown core, with the exception of areas included in protected view corridors for the Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate and flood plains along the Speed and Eramosa rivers, among others.
It also decreased the amount of employment lands to be included in the planned Guelph Innovation District and increased the quantity of housing there, with 23-storey buildings endorsed in some spots along Stone Road.
Those decisions, it was stated at the time, couldn't be appealed.
Guthrie is “very upset” about the province’s decision to reverse the changes for a variety of reasons, including that he learned about it through the media and wasn’t given the courtesy of a heads-up.
“To find out through the media is appalling and does not bode well for the relationships … many municipalities have been calling for for many years,” Guthrie said.
However, he’s mostly concerned about the impact of soon-to-be-reversed changes on the workload faced by city planning staff and others.
“This change has wasted well over a year of our time as a municipality in trying to implement what was originally a unanimous vote of council for our official plan,” he said, noting the plan was approved in July of 2022, then put on pause as the province considered additional changes, which weren’t announced until this past April.
“When the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs makes those changes, you have to embrace them because they’re the ones that have the final say,” he continued. “We could have been implementing a lot of our planning based on … the official plan from a Guelph lens only since July of last year.
“Since spring of this year when they made their changes, we’ve now had to completely change everything to accommodate the changes that they made, and specifically in both our planning and our engineering department.”
With the regulation not yet shared with municipalities, it's difficult to say what the impact will be, commented deputy CAO Jayne Holmes.
"It's frustrating for staff because we've been moving forward on all the changes that the government has been making in the last year or so, trying our best to keep up and making sure we're keeping our commitment for the housing pledge," Holmes said, referring to city council's commitment to make changes that would allow builders to construct 18,000 new homes by 2031.
The city's 2024 to 2027 draft budget, which will be impacted by Monday's announcement, is set to be publicly released next week.
"I think we were in agreement where a lot of the intensification was going to happen, so we're hoping there won't be too many changes to the budget or work plans," noted Holmes. "Right now the (draft) budget is set based on the amendments that were approved in April."
As noted in the provincial announcement, impacted municipalities have been given 45 days to submit changes and updates to those plans to the housing ministry.
“In recognition of the costs incurred by municipalities arising out of this decision, the province will work with impacted municipalities to assist with related planning and staffing costs,” Calandra said.
“You can bet the taxpayers of Guelph’s bottom dollar that I will be making sure that every red cent that’s owed to us through this whole process is paid back. To the penny,” Guthrie said. “It’s the human resource cost and the time wasted during the middle of a housing crisis that can never be recouped.
“And for that, I’m very upset.”
