Guelph Council Votes To Move Ahead With Clair-Maltby Process

  • 06/18/18

Councillors will vote on amended recommendations at June 25 meeting

While council has taken a step closer toward developing the southern reaches of the city, numerous citizens and groups came out to city hall Thursday evening with one message: slow down.

At Thursday’s special meeting of council, councillors voted in favour of referring a new preferred community structure, as part of the Clair-Maltby secondary plan to the June 25 meeting of council for a final vote on endorsement.

Pending approval at the end of the month, plans for development of the Clair-Maltby area moves on to the third phase of the secondary plan process. Under that third phase, staff will be putting together a draft and final master environmental servicing plan (MESP).

According to the terms of reference for the Clair-Maltby secondary plan, the MESP would look at how water, wastewater, stormwater management and mobility service to this area would be addressed.

That third phase of the process and its associated recommendations on moving forward is due to come back to council in the second quarter of 2019.

Council also voted in favour of changing the boundary lines of the Clair-Maltby secondary plan. The largest difference between the original maps shown earlier in the year and the one approved to be the basis for future technical analysis, is the exclusion of the Rolling Hills neighbourhood.

At a meeting in April on the Clair-Maltby secondary plan, numerous residents from Rolling Hills came out to city hall to voice their displeasure for parts of the area being designated for low and medium-density housing.

That potential change in Rolling Hills, which is currently dominated by natural features with some larger houses, left some residents concerned the change would affect what they signed up for when they bought or built their houses there.

However, Coun. Mike Salisbury attempted to get the neighbourhood put back into the plan, having it designated as reserve lands, meaning it would not be slated for development.

His reasoning was that excluding Rolling Hills from the secondary plan gave residents a false sense of security on what could happen to their lands in the future — most notably, as a result of the Municipal Comprehensive Review in 2022, which will look at all neighbourhoods in Guelph.

“All we’re doing is kicking it further down the road,” Salisbury said of taking Rolling Hills out of the secondary plan structure.

“It really avoids the false expectation that they’ve been given some sort of reprieve or pass.”

However, all councillors aside from Salisbury voted in favour of taking Rolling Hills out of the secondary plan.

Green development and green gateways

A main concern heard by numerous delegates at Thursday’s meeting was the status of environmental testing as part of the second phase of the secondary plan process. The issue laid out by the speakers was the city is moving too quickly, moving into the third phase while the environmental studies being done as part of the second phase are not yet completed.

“What’s the rush? Who does this benefit?” asked Robert Case, speaking on behalf of Wellington Water Watchers.

“Let’s slow down, look at the research, and complete the process first.”

Several delegates also raised concerns that, on top of environmental testing as part of the second phase not being completed, not all property owners in the Clair-Maltby area had city-orchestrated environmental testing done on their lands, instead bringing in private contractors.

Responding to a question from Coun. Dan Gibson, Stacey Laughlin, a senior policy planner with the city, said no official explanation has been given to city staff as to why several developers chose this route, but they would try to ensure any data provided from those studies is accurate.

“The needs and desires of developers do not trump those of citizens,” delegate Cynthia Bragg told councillors.

The second-to-last delegate of the evening, Nature Guelph’s Valerie Wyatt, called on councillors to send the plan back to staff until all of the environmental studies are completed.

In response to these issues, a number of Guelph- and Wellington-based groups — Nature Guelph, Wellington Water Watchers, Families for Rolling Hills, Guelph Urban Forest Friends, the Speed Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited Canada, the Guelph-Wellington branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario and the Foundation for the Support of International Medical Training — have created a coalition group, ProtectOurMoraine.ca.

The aim of this new coalition, according to its website, is to “help reimagine development in the south end,” and that there is “no need to rush” development of the southern lands.

Following questions from Coun. Mark MacKinnon, Laughlin said a pause in the work at this stage could delay the project for as long as a year, but that there would not be significant extra expenses, as city staff would just work on other files.

While speaking with the Mercury Tribune last month, Mike Marcolongo — his family’s organization, the Foundation for the Support of International Medical Training, is a member of ProtectOurMoraine.ca — pointed to a report released by the city, the Growth Management Monitoring report, in April that states the city “is able to accommodate over 13 years of residential growth through residential intensification and lands that are designated and available for residential development.”

As this is above the minimum of 10 years set out through provincial standards, Marcolongo says the city can afford to wait until those studies are done.

“It’s not like we’re not meeting the province’s own policies,” he said at the time.

In an amendment initially put forward by Coun. June Hofland, a member of ProtectOurMoraine.ca will be given a seat on either the technical advisory or the community working group for the Clair-Maltby secondary plan, with consultation from the city’s community engagement staff.

Another matter that was raised was how the city would handle the southern border of the Clair-Maltby lands, with Puslinch sitting on the other side.

At a meeting of its town council June 6, Puslinch councillors passed a motion requesting Guelph to have the most southern portion of the lands, right on the township’s doorstep. The suggestion is to start out with low-density housing, with land zoning stepping its way up to higher density developments moving further north, into Guelph.

Dominique O’Rourke, a delegate and candidate for councillor in Ward 6, said the city needs to consider moving away from having high-density housing right on the southern entrance into the Royal City.

“Is that really the vision, to have a tunnel of 14 and 16-storey buildings … when you enter Guelph?”

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