City Council Preview - What's on the Agenda for April 11's Meeting?

It's the first city council meeting of the month, and you know what that means: planning, zoning, and rezoning. New buildings will be built, some buildings will be torn down, sewers will be replaced, and the council will receive a report about that one contentious night back in January...

Closed Meeting - An update from the Governance Committee about the CAO contract; Labour Relation, likely meaning details of the tentative agreement with three CUPE unions; a follow-up to some mysterious "February 29 Matter" that deals with "security of the property and personal matter about identifiable individuals"; and a process update from the Transactional Committee are on the agenda.

45 Yarmouth Street Proposed Zoning By-law Amendment - Currently, 45 Yarmouth Street is an empty lot, half of which is defacto parking, but if the rezoning's approved, it might soon be home to a new 14-storey apartment building with 89 new dwellings. The developers are seeking a change from CBD.1 (Central Business District) Zone to a CBD.1-? (Specialized Central Business District), a small change, but a CBD.1 doesn't allow for the construction of an apartment building without commercial use in the same building. The developer also is pushing right up against the standards set by the Downtown Secondary Plan, which establishes that a building can only have a maximum of 12 storeys with an option for two more. The plans also needs an allowance for 2.5 levels of underground parking to accommodate 65 underground parking spaces.

132 Harts Lane West - Proposed Draft Plan of Subdivision, Official Plan Amendment, and Zoning Bylaw Amendment - Developers are looking to get approval for a new subdivision along Harts Lane, a green space sandwiched between Kortright Rd. and Edinburgh Rd. S. west of Gordon St. The new subdivision sitting on 12.8 hectacres of land will have 342 residential units, including 117 single detached dwellings, 4 semi-detached dwellings, 68 cluster townhouse units, and 153 apartment units, plus an open space block, two stormwater management blocks, a walkway/servicing block, and a walkway block and a park block.

Proposed Demolition of 30 University Avenue West - The current owner of the detached home sitting on the property of 30 University Ave. W. wants to tear it down and build an entirely new home of the same relative size and footprint. No drawings for the new home are yet available.

York Trunk Sewer and Paisley-Clythe Feedermain Phase 2A and Waterworks Place Improvements - This motion is to approve the tender of Coco Paving Inc. to begin work on Phase 2 of this project with will see York Trunk Sewer and Paisley-Ciythe Feedermain completed from the area of Royal City Park east along York Rd. to Waterworks Pl. If approved, construction will begin sometime later this month starting at the western end of the project at Gordon St., which will be closed for two or three weeks when construction begins. Also, sadly, the baseball diamonds at York Road and Eramosa River parks will be closed for the 2016 season. On the bright side though, the area's getting new sewers, road reconstruction, new sidewalks, 90 new trees and 238 new shrubs to replace 30 tree being lost. The project is expected to be completed sometime in the fall of 2017. By the way, Coco Paving's tender was $14.6 million to do the job, which is covered by the capital budget.

Report to The City of Guelph Regarding an Allegation of an Improperly Closed Meeting of Council for the City of Guelph - Amberley Gavel Ltd., a firm formed to assist municipal governments in Ontario with closed meeting procedure investigations was asked to look into a closed council meeting that took place on January 25, 2016. The complaint "alleged that five Members of Council left the meeting of Council on January 25 'while it was in progress' and 'to the best of my [the complainant’s] knowledge, held their own (closed) meeting'." Amberley Gavel's investigation concluded that council did not have an "improper" closed meeting on January 25, and neither did the five councillors that left that meeting. No sanctions, and no further investigation will be pursued.