Guelph Council Watch Report Card: Planning

Council overrides good planning wasting tax dollars and blowing past water supply allocations,  December 5, 2023

Prepared by: Get Involved! Guelph

Get Involved Guelph (GIG) works to enhance citizen participation in local government. It provides information on city government, how to access city government, and how citizens can communicate with local government decision makers to benefit the community.

GIG sees good democratic governance as an essential element of ensuring the best community for the most people. Good planning following transparent processes helps ensure that always the constant pressure from the private sector to maximize profit is balanced with the best interests of the community. We believe good planning is essential to good governance and saves tax dollars.

This report examines a specific vote related to the Innovation District Lands and the issue of overriding effective local planning processes.

Quick background to this council vote: the Greenbelt scandal

The Greenbelt scandal in 2023 revealed that developers had direct access to the Minister of Housing and that local development plans were changed by the Province to meet developer wishes overriding costly but effective local established planning processes. The scandal resulted in the appointment of a new housing minister who gave municipalities the option to reverse the nefarious planning changes that had been made behind the scenes.

At a special meeting of city council, December 5, 2023, council voted to reverse some of the imposed changes at some sites but not the ones involving the Innovation District Lands. Thus the considerable expenses incurred by taxpayers to undertake the preparation of the Innovation District Secondary Plan were wasted and poor planning was the result with serious future implications. To add insult to injury, the housing for the area under consideration is not expected to come about until after 2035.

Planning in Guelph

Columnist Adam A. Donaldson (GuelphToday Market Squared) frequently criticizes Guelph City Council for favouring developer-driven momentum over genuine public interest or deep affordability, while simultaneously getting bogged down by procedural missteps, reactive “vibe-based” decision-making, and yielding to local NIMBY friction. 

In 2023, for example, Council voted to uphold provincial interference (and thus abandon the planning process) to allow changes to the secondary plan for the innovation district lands east of Victoria Road. The changes resulted in the addition of housing for 8000 people and the loss of 26 hectares of employment land.

The impact of those changes was to increase future taxes for homeowners to make up for the higher taxes that come from employment land, and the loss of 1500 to 2000 jobs. Council was warned that the addition of 8000 people to this development area would overextend Guelph’s water supply. This could lead to the future need for a water pipeline to Lake Erie, at great cost to city taxpayers.

As a result of these changes, the developer owning the innovation district lands greatly increased the value of his holdings while future taxpayers were left with increased costs and decreased tax revenue.

Future state: what we want the Council to do

Get Involved Guelph is looking for council leadership that supports the carefully established processes used in planning. The next council should do what it can to roll back the Ford government’s radical shifting of Ontario’s municipal planning landscape, which has included aggressively centralizing land-use decisions, curtailing local powers, and overriding municipal standards to unsuccessfully accelerate housing construction. Through a succession of omnibus bills (such as Bill 23, Bill 17, and Bill 60), the province has pivoted planning authority heavily toward developers while provoking intense friction with local governments.

Overview of the motion and how councillors voted 

The motion brought forward was this: That staff take no further action on reversal of the site specific lands as described in the report, tabled as: Guelph Innovation District Secondary Plan Land Use Schedule and Guelph Innovation District Building Heights Schedule

Conclusion

By voting for the motion, a slight majority of council undermined good planning, wasted the tax dollars spent on the planning process and the water use plan, and set Guelph taxpayers up for significant tax increases in the future.

Learn more about this council decision

Guelph Mercury There’s a water issue brewing here’: Council narrowly decides province’s changes to Guelph Innovation District should be kept

Guelph Today Editorial Lesson of the week from council: two wrongs make a right

Guelph Today Letter to the Editor Council decision could impact city’s water supply