Heritage designation deadline extension request to province

All right, hello everybody and welcome to our City Council meeting for Tuesday, May 26, 2026. It is five o'clock on the dot, so I'm going to call the meeting to order as we're looking to move into a closed session of Council. Now on the open agenda, it's listed with a few items. I'll just have to read them all out here. So here we go, 1242 to 1270. Gordon Street and Nine Valley Road with an Ontario land tribunal update as per section 2392E, and F of the municipal act regarding litigation or potential litigation, including matters before administrative tribunals affecting the municipality or local board and advice that is subject to solicitor client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose. And the second one is the comprehensive zoning by - law appeals, Ontario land tribunal update. And that's as per section two, three, nine, two, E, and F of the municipal act regarding litigation or potential litigation, including matters before administrated tribunals affecting them municipality or local board and advice that is subject to solicitor - client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose. And the final

one is disclosure of information related to possible acquisition of land. As per section 239 - 2C of the municipal act regarding a proposed or pending acquisition or disposition of land by the municipality or local board. That's it. It's those three. Would anyone be willing to help me move those? Busatil and alt will do that. Anything further before I call the vote. No? Okay, I'll call the vote. Does anyone against moving into closed session for those three items? Seeing and hearing none, that's unanimous. We'll do that now, and I'll do a high - level summary as I do normally at the beginning of the open session, which would be at six o'clock. Thank you.

Okay to my colleagues online, if you could just put your camera on just so we can see if we have Corum here, I'd appreciate it.

All right, we'll call the meeting to order and to kick things off right away before we get into the closed summary. We'll just start with O Canada, please, if you can rise to acknowledge our national anthem if you can please let's do that now.

Great. Thanks so much everyone. And just for a moment of silent reflection, before we continue with the agenda.

Thank you, and now our territorial acknowledgement as we gather let us take time to reflect on our privilege to live and work hearing Guelph, a city build over rich Indigenous histories. As guests here, we should reflect upon the responsibility to care for the land and the people who live here today and the generations to come. For actions today can move us towards reconciliation, which should take pause and make those decisions with intention and gratitude. This place we call a Guelph is served as traditional lands and a place of refuge for many people's over time, but more specifically the Anahuanarock and the Honinashoni. This land is held as the treaty lands and territory with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and Guelph lies directly adjacent to the Hallhamen track. As part of a long - established traditional hunting grounds for the Six Nations of the Grand River. Many First Nations, Inuit, and many peoples who have come from across Turtle Island called Guelpholm today. Great, thank you very much everyone. Any disclosure at pecuniary interest, any general nature thereof for the items in front of us. No, and I just want to confirm, as I start with the closed summary, as well that there was no disclosure or precinary interest for those items by any

member of council enclosed either. But to the summary, there was three items that we went into closed with before the beginning of our open session here. On the first one, which was 1242 to 1270 Gordon Street and nine Valley Road, Council did give direction to staff on that matter. And then on the second one, which was the comprehensive zoning by - law appeals Ontario land tribunal update, council also did give direction to staff on that matter as well. On the third item, which is disclosure of information related to possible acquisition of land, I am going to disclose that now, right now. So I just wanted the public to be aware in our media partners to be aware that Council actually has me an offer. On the lands known as 170 Stephanie Drive. And specifically for the purposes of increasing the supply of permanent affordable and attatum will housing units. And so there's obviously processes and such that will happen from that. Again, it is an

offer that has been made, a sincere offer from us to accomplish more of the type of housing that we're looking for in the city, which is permanent, affordable and attainable housing units, okay? And so that is important state, and that's the final summary of in - camera. So with that, we're now going to go to our Open Agenda. And we do have the consent. So just let me know anybody if you would like anything to be pulled, okay? First off, we have minutes though, okay? So minutes is for the meetings, hell, April 15th and 21st, 2026. And the minute of the Open Committee of the Hole on April 7th, 2026, to be confirmed as recorded and without being read. Would someone be willing to move that? Quran and downer will do that for us? Is there anything else on the minutes, anybody? No. Okay, I'll call the vote. Does anyone against the minutes. Nope, okay, so that's unanimous, thank you. And now into the consent, sorry about that. Guard, we got the minutes they're done.

So we have the 2026 to 2030 municipal election compliance audit committee. And the second one is 2025 year - end operating budget monitoring report with the surplus allocation and deficit funding. And also a 2025 year and capital budget monitoring report. Along with the 2025 long - term financial statement reserves and debt. And also the 2030 election voting methods. Does anybody need any of those pulled. No, councillor alt, I think you're willing to move the consent. Thank you. And Richard, send, thank you. Trying to keep it in the wards tonight. You know, we did Ward 5. Now I'm doing Ward 3, okay. That's moved in 2nd did. Is there anything further. No? Okay, I'll call the vote. Does anyone against the consent items. That's unanimous as well. Thank you. Now we do have the items for discussion. Councillor Quran is bringing forward one for us called the request to extend the deadline for notices of intention to designate listed heritage properties. As normal, I will go

to you, Councillor Corinne, as the mover of this idea. And with some time to do a little preamble, then we'll see if you have a seconder and go from there. Sure, I'll keep the preamble quite short. And I'm sorry that what would have been a record short meeting reading the bylaws and been out of here in five minutes. I've added something to the agenda. But I did pull this from the info sheets, um, as there were a number of municipalities, um, that were asking for the same thing. And I pulled it because I believe that our heritage planning staff are planning department, our good staff are currently frantically trying to meet these obligations. Uh, and it's very difficult to find planners with that level of specialty. We're relying on a team of volunteers. Um, we're working furiously on voluntary designations as well as at risk and a conservation districts. Um, but the background of this, uh, is that, uh, Bill Morhomes faster act put a deadline on the Heritage Register and forced municipalities into a panic of designations. And that timeline ends on December 31st of this year. So other municipalities have been bringing forward

this motion asking the province to reconsider that deadline and give more time because once this deadline has passed, uh, there is no protection in the law because part of the regulation is also, uh, that a previously, uh, a property that was previously on the register cannot be added back to a new register for a period of, I believe, five years. So, um, move by myself. And seconded by Councillor Clausen. I've taken the motions from other municipalities and replicated them here to benefit the City of Guelph. Great. Thank you. And here they are on the screen. And, um, I think is it just the three? It's just the three. Did you want to read them out? Maybe just short? Sure. The Council of the City of Guelph respectfully request the province of Ontario amend the Ontario Heritage Act to extend the January 1st, 2027 deadline for issuing notices of intent to designate for properties listed on the municipal heritage register and the province considers extending the deadline to January 1st, 2030, or another reasonable time frame that would provide municipalities with adequate time to complete heritage evaluations and make informed designation decisions and that this resolution

be circulated to the Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the local member of Provincial Parliament, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Ontario Municipal Heritage Committee Association. And all Ontario municipalities for their information. Great, thank you very much. Is there any questions or comments on this before? I looked to call the vote. Uh, Gullar. Uh, thank you to your worship. Maybe to the movers, you know, we don't have heritage staff here, but how much time does City staff need to actually finish? Because they have been, like you said, they have been working hard to advance a lot of heritage designations. In my mind, I thought that we would have got all of the important locations designated by the end of this year. I can't speak exactly to the resources. I'll look to our DCAO, Mr. Gaiman, to maybe flesh that out a little bit. I know that the, um, they're doing as much as they can until the deadline runs out. And from what I've heard, they'll just keep going until the deadline passes. And then anything that doesn't get done doesn't get done. And I can't quantify that.

Thank you for that. And if I could follow up with, uh, with staff then, could you help me understand how much of a workload this is? I mean, if we're asking for an extension work that would be potentially done December 31st, January 1st this year, then staff are going to keep on doing that work. If this is extended. Yeah. So through, excuse me, three mayor got three to Councillor Gallar with the sector question. Thank you for asking that. There's, there's a little bit over 1800 properties that are on the non - designated list for the City right now that staff are working through. And certainly the timeline that's in front of us makes that task, uh, I would say next to impossible in terms of delivering from the staff. So I think so we are supportive of additional time, um, that helps manage the risk in the future of those properties not being designated if they ought to be. And so, um, from the staff perspective, we're a supportive. If I could add, uh, as well, sorry, Councillor Galler, that there are other projects in that portfolio that have had to be deferred or paused because of the imminent need to get onto the non - designated heritage register. For example, an amalgamation of the cooling registry, uh, that was put on pause in order to do this work and doing that pause has resulted

in at least one case where a potentially significant historic home has been approved for demolition. Um, and, uh, so it's already had an impact because of having to pause other work. Thank you. Thank you, worship. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And to Richardson, please. Actually, Councillor Goller asked my question in a second one. Okay. No problem. That was good. You can go first every time Councillor Goldener. Okay. Is there anything further? Oh, Councillor Gibson. Yeah. Thank you. Um, I'm just going to state my opinion. I think I understand where the mover is coming from, but I also want to acknowledge the other side of the argument, uh, and a lot of homeowners. That are, um, sitting in homes that, you know, these aren't our homes. These are the people who own these homes that are looking forward to having this chapter closed for themselves. Like this has been a bit of a stressful spot for them in terms of home insurance and tomes of replacement costs on what the home insurance bill would be. There's a lot of, um, the healthy divide on this file across the city on pros and against. So they're again, I'm just going to speak for the people that are rejowing out to me personally that are looking forward to

having January 1st come and have this chapter behind them in terms of their home ownership story. So I, I won't be supporting just because I think the province is being fair. There is a voluntary process already. If you own a, if you own a Heritage home and you want to voluntarily designate it, you can do that. Um, but I, I, um, I think the province has been quite fair in giving us a long lead time on, on when this window is going to close. So I won't be supporting it. And, um, just allow the, the natural provincial process to take place. Okay. Thank you. Oh, Councillor Donner, please. So I will be supporting this, of course. I think the insurance issue has largely been settled by staff working with homeowners on this issue. And as I've said before, I live in a heritage district and have had no complaints about people having insurance issues or having problems with City processes around their designation. Also on Heritage Gulf, heritage growth works with the homeowners on the properties that come forward to designate. And, you know, there's a process there. And right there's some that are volunteering

and some that aren't. But I would just, we might, everybody, we didn't have an objection to the downtown Heritage District. And those are, those are, um, owners with big stakes in their property. They were quite proud to have, most of them were quite proud to have their properties as part of a heritage district. And I just think a little more time, well, some more time to finish this up. And I remember I had put forward money to also speed this up. Get her just extending. Give heritage staff more money to work through this and hire more staff. So I would like to see us support getting more time. Looks like other municipalities are interested in that, too. Okay. Thank you as well. Okay. I'll just give my comments quickly too. Um, I won't be supporting. I feel that the province gave a certain amount of time that we needed to deal with this issue. Like to every municipality. And that, um, they did give one extension already. And now it's like always asking for more and more. There needs to be a deadline in place as far as I'm concerned so that we can reach that goal. And not just a we as engwelf, but

other municipalities too, to bring certainty to the issues around these around these designations that have lingered and lingered and lingered. Um, so from my perspective, I think, uh, I'm not in favor of asking. I don't think the province would actually move on this issue. But respectfully asking, although the harm, which I understand the motive of the mover on it, um, I, I, I don't think that this will, will, will go anywhere, to be honest with you. So with that, um, I'll call the vote as if theone against, please raise your hand. So, uh, billings, Gibson and two and Guthrie. That's it, I think. Yeah. Okay. So that passes. Thank you. Uh, that's great. And now we are actually at the bylaws and councillor downer. You are moving the bylaws for us, please. Okay. So I would move on. Council Corons that Bylaw 2026 21254 and

bylaws 2026 21256 through to Bylaws 2026 to one 259 be approved subject to section 284. 11 of the municipal act. Thank you to you both. And I'll ask, uh, if then on those bylaws, anybody. No. Okay. I'll call the vote then. Is anyone against the bylaws. No. Okay. So that passes unanimously. Thank you. And with that, I got no mayors announcements. Which means we are at a journeyman. So I'm going to go to somebody who has not moved and seconded. I'm going to go to ward four here. I was like, okay. All right. Boostil and billings. Is going to second adjournment. Is there anyone against adjournment. That's unanimous as well. All right. Thanks everyone. Have a great evening. See you next time.