Downtown parking master plan approved

So I'm going to start in a minute, but just in case anyone is wondering why I am chairing the meeting this evening. Counselors are assigned a month of acting duties on behalf of the Mayor while the Mayor is away. It's been my honor to represent the Mayor and the city for the month of September, so no, there has not been a coup.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to officially called to order the Tuesday, September 26, 2023 guel City Council Meeting. Thank you for joining us this evening. First off, we have a closed meeting agenda for Council's consideration. The item is listed on the open agenda that we will be considering Item 3.4. Nonunion Municipal Employee Multi year Compensation increase. Before we proceed, is there any disclosure of pecuniary interest in general nature thereof on the item before for closed session. Seeing none. So this item will be considered under section two, three, eight. Subsection two, B and D of the Municipal Act related to personal matters about. An identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees and labor relations or employee negotiations. I am looking for a motion to direct Council to move into closed session for the item listed on the agenda. I've got councilor alt moved, and councilor Richardson. Seconded, is there any discussion on

this matter. Seeing none I'd like to call the vote. Is anyone opposed to moving into closed session for discussion of the stated item. Seeing none. I would say that's unanimous. And so we will be stepping aside. To have this conversation. And then when I come back. I will be kind of high level. Sharing of what was discussed in closed session. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd like to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to provide a closed meeting summary. As you know, we just came in from Item 3.4 on the open agenda. The nonunion municipal employee multi year compensation increase. We considered a report from Staff for the nonunion management. Compensation as we head into the multi year budget process. There is a rise in report resolution and Mayor guthrie all the way from Copenhagen. The resolution I believe will be going up onto the screen. And that resolution was seconded by councilor alt. Mary guthrie, whenever you're ready. Thank you, madam. Chair. And through you that the annual nonunion total compensation adjustment be set within a range of not less than 2% and not more than 3% for 2024. And each year thereafter in the 2024 to 2027 multi year budget. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any discussion on this item. Seeing that I'm going to call the vote. Is there anyone opposed. Seeing none that carries thank

you. The next item is disclosure of pecuniary interests and general nature thereof on items on the Open Agenda before US this evening. I do not see any declarations. Now we're going to go to the refresh territorial acknowledgment. May I please have a counselor move? And second, the recommendation. Councilor alt and Councilor o'rourke, thank you. Is there any discussion on this item. Seeing none. I'm going to call the vote. Is anyone opposed. Seeing none that's unanimous. Thank you. On behalf of Counsel, I'd really like to thank our Indigenous partners, community members and staff who came together.

To work long and hard on this updated territory. Territorial acknowledgment. Keeping it a living document. So thank you again. Now, if you're able, please stand for our national anthem.

Thank you. If we could take a minute for silent reflection, please.

Thank you. I'm honored to read the refreshed Territorial acknowledgment. As we gather, let us take time to reflect on our privilege to work and live in guelph, a city built over rich Indigenous histories. We are guests here, and we should reflect upon the responsibility to care for this land, the people who live here today and the generations to come. If our actions today can move us towards reconciliation, we should take pause and make those decisions with intention and gratitude. This place we call Gualth, has served as traditional lands and the place of refuge for many Peoples over time, but more specifically. The Adawonderac and the Hodinoshoney. This land is held as the Treaty Lands and Territory with the Mississaugas of the Credit First nation. Wealth lies directly adjacent to the haldeman tract and is part of a long established traditional hunting ground for the Six Nations of the Grand River. Many First Nations, inuit and métis Peoples who have come from a cross turtle island

called guaff Home today. Next on the item we're on 7.0 May I please have a councilor move and second the minutes of the Open Council Meeting minutes held June 27 July 5 July 19 July 25 and the minutes.

Of the Open Committee of the whole meeting held July 5, 2023, that they be confirmed as recorded and without being read. If I can have a mover, please. Councilor orok, seconded by councilor Claudson, is there any discussion on any of those items. Seeing none. I'm going to call the vote. Is there anyone opposed. Seeing none that carries. Thank you. Item eight is the committee of the whole consent agenda. We have two items and I would like to check in to see if Council would like any pulled councilor. O'rourke. Which item? Thank you chair bus till I just have a quick question on eight point. One. The 8th motion, but I'm hesitant because I don't want staff to have to stay till way at the end of the evening, but just a quick question. Thank you. Why don't we take that question, then if it's a quick question. Thank you, Chair. But it's still through you to staff. Just the documentation around recruitment, hiring an involuntary departure procedures for municipalities has no reference to the city's internal auditor. And the internal auditor is really the sole

person who reports directly to Council. And really. Is an important person for us in order to be able to validate. So I'm just wondering if staff can let us know under the new strong mayor's powers. What is the mayor's responsibility in terms of hiring or firing an internal auditor. And so I'm just trying to understand what happens with this person because it is a very important function. Sure. Through you chair to counselor work as the legislation sets out. And as the City of guelph has a general Manager of internal audit, that person is not identified in the legislation, and thus the legislation of protected people, as you may generally think of it, does not apply to the city's general Manager of Audit and. Perhaps the clerk has anything to add. Thank you, Ms. Tails. Through you, madam Chair. The only thing I would add is again, there is a list of positions within the new section in the act that is relating to the updated Authority for Heads of Council. It does list an auditor general. It's nuanced slightly different than the internal auditor sort of structure that we have. Yes, the Internal Auditor in

our current arrangement does report to Council, has sort of a dotted line administrative reporting relationship to the cao from a structure standpoint, but obviously does report and is sort of beholden to Council in that regard. There are a series of other statutory positions that do have legislated and statutory responsibilities directly to Council things like City Treasurer. As an example. But in the contemplation of the way the act is written with that new section to miss sales point, it does not explicitly list an internal auditor, and the auditor general function is one that we see in very few other Ontario municipalities, namely the larger municipalities in Ontario, Toronto, and Ottawa being the ones that come to mind off the top of my head. Okay. Thank you, chibi. Still. Thank you. Is there any counselor that would like to pull Item 8.2? Council and Committee meeting. Schedule. Seeing none. Can I have councilor move and second, 8.1 recommendations and 8.2 recommendations. I see councilor Downer and councilor Billings. I assume that you are moving and seconding. Yes, thank you. Is there any further to either of these items. Seeing none. I'm going to call the vote. Is

anyone opposed. That carries that's unanimous thank you. Item nine items for discussing discussion. So this item. The first item is the Heritage Gulf resolution regarding the Ontario reformatory Stone Wall. I'm going to ask councilor Downer to speak to this item. And then after the delegations, I'll turn. To Councilor Downer to ask you to place the recommendation if you could do that, so go ahead, Councilor Downer. Thanks, Chair. Bruce. The Heritage guelph Meeting earlier this month. This motion came forward to request that Council request that Infrastructure Ontario. To restore the wall that was recently damaged. There's some question. A lot of people do not believe that. It was done. By. Was done. Through. Natural erosion, but was done actually through. Vandalism. But I mean. That's still

to be determined. But I think that can be determined. And then we can ask them to restore the wall to the way it was. Thank you. So we have three delegations on this item. If you're here in person, I'm going to call up Susan ratcliffe, please. First, if you would like to come up to the front. You have five minutes for your presentation. There will be a chime. Signal at the 32nd Mark and a chime to signal the end of your delegation time. Susan, if you can, then just remain there in case any counselors have any questions of clarifying nature to. Your presentation. So as soon as you start, the clerks will start the clock. Mr. Mayor Far away. Ms. Acting Mayor and Members of City Council. The poet Robert Frost has important words to consider in his poem. Mending, wall. Something there is that doesn't love a wall that sends the frozen groundswell under it and spills the upper boulders in the sun and

makes gaps even too can pass. The gaps. I mean. No one has seen them made or heard them made. Something there is that doesn't love a wall that wants it down. I could say elves to my neighbor, but it's not elves, exactly. And I'd rather he said it for himself. Infrastructure, Ontario would have us believe that if not elves. That Mother nature. Has suddenly decided that she does not love that particular 4 meters of Stonewall that has stood in its place for at least 103 years. Perhaps a freak storm struck those 4 meters. Perhaps it was the finger of God that pushed it over. Robert's Frost suggestions of elves wanting to all down may be the best one after all. We have seen this pattern before from Infrastructure, Ontario. The large stone chimney has to come down because it has some damage. The trestle bridge has to come down because it has a broken bit. And now a solid stone wall has fallen over by itself and scattered itself all over the ground. Oh, and

too bad about those Indigenous paintings left to rot for 21 years. They are probably only graffiti after all, and so we don't need to save them either. It is interesting that the Infrastructure, Ontario spokesperson, who rejected the. Indigenous paintings as Unselfishable graffiti is the same spokesperson who called the damage to the wall. Natural. Erosion. I support councilor downer's resolution because at some point we have to call the provincial government on their 22 year neglect of this amazing property. And ask them to make it right. All of these elements have been identified by the hcd Study as worthy of designation and preservation because they are outstanding features of a landscape that is unique in Canada. I lead the walks for the stone structures. On behalf of the York clans, I'm a member of the York Lens Board and visitors are always amazed and love to take selfies at those walls. And I believe that you, as

city Council, must urge the provincial government to do their part to preserve and restore this landscape. The walls were built by young men who were doing the job to train and prepare themselves for a better future. We honor their legacy by preserving their hard work. We benefit our city present and future by keeping this landscape and its structure in good shape. Because of their unique features. They will provide our citizens with a beautiful landscape for recreation and again, because of these unique feature. Features Visitors will bring tourism dollars to our city. As Robert said something there is Robert Frost said something there is that does not love a wall and wants it down. Let's show that the city of guelph wants this wall and wants it up again. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions from Council for Ms. Roth. Seeing none. Thank you very much. Next I have Lynn bestari. Same thing if you would like to come down, you have five minutes

for your presentation. There will be a chime at the 32nd Mark and a time to signal the end of your delegation time. And if you could just remain at the end. For any questions from Council. Welcome. Thank you. Mr. Mayor and City councilors I'm here today to talk about the collapsed walls at the former correctional Center, Ontario reformatory Lands. I am the current Chair of yorklands Green Hub and come as a representative to speak with you all. At this point in time, there is no conclusive evidence that it was an occurrence of vandalism, or if it was a natural event. There are different opinions on that. To our knowledge. No formal assessments of the damages have occurred to determine the cause. However, given that these field stone walls have stood there for most of the last 100 years or over. Three years, actually. There are a very unique heritage feature that exists within the city limits. From my understanding, the longest known field stone wall

in Ontario. The other significant stone wall site is on amherst island, near Kingston. The island won the Lieutenant General Award for Heritage Conservation in 2015 with the dry stone festivals that help to preserve the walls and also received a significant tourism dollars from the Ontario. Tourism Development fund. Exactly $73,000 to make the island a heritage tourist destination. If the city of gua formally asks Infrastructure, Ontario, as part of their duty of care for the property to secure funds for the reparations of the wall, it could become an opportunity. For the City in partnership with yorklands, greenhub and Infrastructure, Ontario, to hold a dry stone Building festival. In collaboration with Dry Stone, Canada, who organizes them. This would present. A great opportunity for a large tourist attraction for Guelph over several days. I am in support. Of councilor downey's Nation, Please. Thank you. Thank you very

much. If you could just remain are there any questions. Of a clarifying nature of the presentation for the delegation. Seeing none. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next time I call on John Fisher. Not that you don't know the instructions. Just in case five minutes for your presentation. There'll be a chime at the 32nd Mark and then a chime to signal the end. And John, if you can, please just stay at the end. Okay. Thank you. To the Mayor, the Acting Mayor, councilors and City staff. My name is John Fisher. I'm the President of the Gulf hiking Trail Club. The club has license agreements with Infrastructure, Ontario and fusion Homes to manage and main trail and maintain trails on land that they own on both sides of the Aramosa River. We want to thank councilor downer for continued support of heritage properties in the city. We also thank past and present members of the Heritage Committee for their work, particularly on the or file. The

guelph hiking Club supports this resolution, but feels it may need to go further. We thought it might be helpful to share the club's bridge experience in considering this resolution. Which requests io repair the damaged stone wall. The Club worked actively with I. O. To reach an agreement to repair and repurpose the historic wooden trestle Railway Bridge as a pedestrian cyclist connection to link the or and gid properties. In 2022, the Club applied for Federal active transportation and tourism relief grounds to repair the bridge. We secured letters of support for our applications from the Mayor Property Owners fusion Chamber of commerce. One of those letters was from Mike shriner, mpp for guelph. Who. Wrote directly to the President and CEO of Infrastructure, Ontario, Mike Lindsay. On April 6, 2022. Mike shriner received a reply. From President Lindsay, which included this paragraph. There is no Ministry program,

requirement or need for the decommissioned Bridge, and therefore, no available provincial funding for restoration or future maintenance. However. I. O. Does appreciate the community's interest in the wooden trestle bridge, and if the Ghtc's funding application is successful. Will continue to work closely with the ghcc in support of their efforts. This reply is entirely consistent with the I. O. Mandate to mitigate liability on behalf of the province they don't restore. But CEO and President Lindsay also said. Show me the money and we will work with you. One positive thing you can say about I. O. Is they don't send out mixed messages about the fate of iconic features on their property. Their position is clear and transparent. Things may have changed over the last 18 months between I. O. And the city. In March 2023. Council Unanimously passed this motion. That staff continued discussions with Infrastructure

Ontario regarding options for conservation of the trestle Bridge on the former reformatory property and report back to Council. At this point, I don't know what conservation. Options have been presented for Council to consider. I do know a decision to include restoring the wall and the bridge. In the upcoming multiyear budget would have huge community and organizational support. And I urge Council to make sure they are included. Thank you. Are there any questions for Mr. Fisher. Seeing none. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now I'd like to call on Councilor Downer to place the recommendation, and then I'll look for a seconder, okay? I would ask that to put up the motion. That City Council request the Infrastructure Ontario repair the damaged Dome wall at the Ontario reformatory. Of course making this. Request. Will initiate some discussions as well as has done with the Trussel bridge and my understanding that's ongoing. So I appreciate what Mr.

Fisher has said. And that's something for us to consider at budget time. Or once we've heard from Infrastructure, Ontario. Thank you. I saw councilor koran. I wasn't sure. Are you seconding the motion? Yes. Thank you. Councilor. Did you want to speak to that at all. I treat Infrastructure Ontario as a property owner as we would treat any property owner. And if we haven identified Heritage feature cultural asset on any property in the City of guelph, we would expect duty of care. And stewardship, and in the event that a cultural heritage asset was destroyed in any way or compromised in any way, we would ask for it to be repaired, so this treats everyone equally, and I. O. Has a responsibility. For the people of Ontario to protect our assets, that's a bad example, if they don't so happy to support the motion. Thank you, councilor keaton. I saw your hand. I wasn't sure if that's for comments or seconding. Most for seconding, but if you're going for comments then I can do that. Certainly. Thank

you. Through your chair. I definitely support this. This is a very important heritage piece in Ward One. If you've ever walked through it's like going through hobbit Land with all of the walls and. It's really quite gorgeous. So if you've not been yet, then I highly recommend it because this is something that we should definitely get them to preserve. And potentially, if they don't want to, they can always give us the property and then we can maintain it. That would be great too. Thank you. Thank you. I know I'm mixing comments and questions. Councilor alt, thank you very much, Chair Busatill. And I think I will second Councilor Kayton's motion to require the Province to give us that land. I think that's a great motion. With regards to this particular motion, though, and quite serious vein, I think that it's very important that we do show that this land matters to guelph residents. Historically, this land no joke has been land upon which many people have got their wedding pictures taken. And I always thought that it was somewhat iron. Ironic that people were getting them done in front of a reformatory, but nonetheless they

were the most beautiful lands in guelph. Similarly, there have been many people that have been working very strongly on behalf of preserving New York lands. I think that this requires counsel to stand behind the community of guelph and show that not just. The buildings, but. Every blade of grass and every stone and every stone post matters. Thank you. Is there anything further on this item? Mayor Guthrie. I just had a question. It looks like. The direction here in the recommendation. It doesn't specifically state like the Mayor to write the letter, and it doesn't specifically state that the administration write the letter. And so I was just wondering. What the mover wanted to do there. Is it fully left with intergovernmental to send a letter? Or would you like me to do it. Councilor Donner. I

would actually ask dav. Thank you. Good question. What is. The better protocol for this, whether it would be from the. Mayor and the Administration, or just through the Intergovernmental. Through the Chair to councilor downer intergovernmental staff will likely reach out personally to make a connection to the folks at io before we send the letter and get some guidance from them really about who it's most appropriately best directed to. And then based on that, we'll make a decision on whether or not it's best to come from staff or from the. Mayor. So if you leave that with us, we're happy to navigate that with io. Thank you very much. Is that okay? Councilor Councilor baer Guthrie. Yeah, that's fine. Personally, I think I would like to write the letter because it has a little bit more oomph to it that it's coming from Council. And I'm the head of Council. And it might be an opportunity for me if there's advocacy work in the future. Like if I run by somebody at the province about the

issue. Then. It's an easier door open for me to say like, hey, I sent you a letter. So. I just wouldn't mind that, but I'll leave it up to Intergovernmental to decide. But my second question, and my last question is. Do you think that there's some validity in including the part about the dry stone tourism sort of opportunity because. I think that's a great idea. And maybe could that please be embedded into the letter. Yeah. Through the chair to the Mayor. We're happy to take that direction and include it in the letter. No problem. All right. I'm not suggesting we have to do a motion about it, but I think it's a good idea. So I thought I would just throw it out there. Okay. That's all my comments. I'm supportive. Thank you. Thank you. Any further comments or discussion. Seeing none. I'm going to call the vote. Is anyone opposed to the recommendation. That carries unanimously. Thank you. The next item is the Downtown Parking Master plan. I would like to acknowledge that the staff prepared a memo with some additional information from our

last meeting, with some additional information in response to questions. That were raised by Council. It's included in the package as item 9.2.1, and I'd like to invite dco Homes to provide any other kinds of comments or highlights about that report so that we're all aware of that. Thank you, madam. Chair. If you wouldn't mind indulging us just for a few minutes, we'll have Mr. Zettle, the author of the memo, just to give you a high level update on the contents.

Thank you, madam. Chair, for this opportunity. The Downtown Parking Master Plan reimagines how parking intersects with housing. It offers new zoning requirements. Innovative programs to support residential development through a payment in lieu of parking policy and advances the City's Motorshift targets by encouraging transportation demand measures to further reduce parking requirements. This Master Plan supports and accelerates housing starts by supporting more housing being built downtown on previously locked sites and by acknowledging varying and different site conditions with less focus on traditional ways of delivering parking to residents. Staff Support a reduction in the residential development parking rate. From one space per unit. To zero point 85 spaces per unit. Based on utilization studies downtown and comparisons with other municipalities. This recommendation is a 15% reduction in the number of required spaces currently in force in the

zoning bylaw. This recommendation, however, does not stand in isolation. The Master Plan offers a toolkit to developers to reduce the required parking on their sites. First with this zoning amendment. And second by accessing the payment in lieu of parking program. Which not only significantly reduces the cost to the developer to supply parking. But also envisions site specific and housing type exemptions. Which can further reduce the required spots. Finally, developers who include tdm measures in their proposals, or who include Affordable Housing units. In their developments can further reduce their parking requirement. This toolkit of options if accessed across all of its dimensions. Can reduce the parking rate from zero point 85 to a rate much lower. At Committee of the whole Council began to consider a range of outcomes and changes to the zoning bylaw and

the residential development, parking rate. The Council memo presented in advance of today's meeting. Raised several important cautions for Council's consideration. Strategically embedding Transportation demand management measures into residential developments. Advances The City's modal Shift targets. Support for an expanded transit system. Will further help reduce the demand for parking. Future demand on the city's parking supply is uncertain. As staff do not yet know the impact of coming developments, including conestoga College. Reduced parking rates could trigger increased demand on the public system. Finally, the payment in lieu of parking program is a key component. To fund future capital projects while reducing the investment from taxpayers. The further Council

reduces the recommended zero point 85 parking rate. The greater likelihood the risks identified in the memo will occur. As previously noted, staff will return in five years, having assessed the impact of the planned introduction of allday two way Ghost Train service. The arrival and expansion of the Konasoga College campus. And the impact of the downtown infrastructure renewal projects. At that time, staff will review the residential parking rate. Finally, and in conclusion, it is the recommendation of staff that any deviation from the recommended zero point 85 parking rate should require another statutory public meeting. Thank you for these brief comments. Thank you. We're going to move to the delegations. We have one video delegation. Jonathan weste. Waiting to see if he's there. Hi, Jonathan. Can you

hear me? Okay. Yes. Okay, wonderful. So you have five minutes for your delegation. There will be a chime when 30 seconds is left to your time and then another time at the end of your time. If you can stay on the line in case any city councilors have questions of a clarifying nature for your presentation. The timer will start as soon as you start your presentation. Can I get you to turn your speaker up a bit more. Sure. Can you hear me now. Much better. Thank you. Thank you, madam. Chair. And Mr. Mayor and Counsel, for the opportunity to speak. And as you may know, or. I'm representing windmill Developments, which is driving the Baker Street Development downtown. And parking has been. A very critical thing in sort of our driving of a plan and affordability and other things we're working there. But. I applaud the direction. That staff is taking and I just wanted to share our current experience in other municipalities and experience.

With Mandated parking. Versus more driven. By developer. I just came back from Europe, and in Sweden, and. You find your time. There is never really spending much time in a car. You're on a bike, you're on transit. You're walking around their downtown cores are very vibrant and central. And you wonder why that is. And fundamentally, it's more because of their history. They had to. But their cities were designed not around the car, but around the pedestrian. And we in North America, took a path that designed our cities around a car, which I believe if we follow the patterns that are happening across North America, we're starting to understand. The negative impacts of that and trying to design our cities so that as much as we can, people don't need cars and guelph is one of. A wonderful, vibrant downtown. We're planning to bring. 350 units, ideally, 700 residents downtown. And our job, particularly. We're promoting. Lifestyles that let people live within the resources of one planet. So one of the critical things for us to do is to show people you can live a great

life and not be in a car. And to do that. And that's where downtown qualifies everything out its front door. It's something where we want to be investing the money. On Car Share Bike Share Transit Other things that give those alternatives to people to not need a car and. The more we are sort of told. Or require a certain amount of parking stalls, the more we're stuck kind of saying, no, you got to buy a parking stone. You got to use a parking stall because we have it. It's one of the most expensive things that we have to build. and it limits our ability to do other things and our biggest concern has been another municipalities where we've been able to sort of work more in a collaborative way to sort of find balances i've expressed this before is that with a zero point 85 and we're slightly been able to do a little slightly less with some tdm measures We're going to be stuck with parking we can't sell or utilize and that parking is not something that solves public parking requirements in the town. People from this isn't parking that can be accessed from the public. And as the developer. We are stuck with having to work the market dynamics in the sense

of obviously, we want to make it attractive for residents to be in these buildings. They're not going to be in these buildings if they feel that they can't live there without a form of transit, that the satisfactory to them. And we need to manage that balance between cars, which wouldn't be zero. But we believe we can do far less and encourage other forms that we'd like to invest in. Our experience. In other cities, whether it be Ottawa, Toronto, others. They've all passed in their downtown. It's not across the board. There are certain areas where parking still needs, but particularly in the downtown core areas. No minimum parking requirements, leaving it to the balance. As far as the market to dictate. And for us that means we do have some projects that are higher end where. We absolutely know we have to provide that parking because those residents are going to need that parking. In other cases where we know we're going to have a mix. Even at 0.5 in Ottawa when we've been left with parking because we've done such a good job and that was our choice to go .5 there was no minimum, but for the balance, we did such a good job

of convincing people to not need the car. There is just a balance. An understanding that really when it comes to parking related to residential development. The developer is taking a lot of that risk on. And should have a bit more ability to Mount, but encouraged in many ways to drive tdm measures and other things to get people other cars. And then I would just say across the board. Cars are expensive, more and more. There's a trend. Gen X are less and less getting licenses. Automated vehicles are coming place Uber, other things, all these different trends that are allowing people to live without cars. And so the more we mandate a certain number of cars, because if you mandate a parking stop, someone's got a park there. And that mandates a car which just drives more. Congestion in the downtown area and kind of defeats the purpose of what we're trying to do. So that's been our experience. We've been successful in other municipalities. And you'll see, I'd say in a lot of close to home Southern terror cities, there's not many cities that aren't moving towards I guess that direction. And I'll finish with that. Thank you very much. Thank you. If you could just

hold on. I believe I saw councilor alt Hand. I think no, I saw councilor gallerson. Thank you through Chairperson to the delegate. Thank you for your presentation. Now. It's my understanding that the parking study that was commissioned for the windmill Development came with a recommendation of zero point 75 parking spaces. So I'm trying to understand. How do we reconcile. Approving 0.5 or even no parking requirement when the parking studies that we Commission say we do need at least zero point 57.75 parking spaces per unit. So if you can speak to that, I would appreciate it. Yeah, two things with that one. That was parking study done on behalf of the city, not ourselves. And Secondly, that parking study, which we struggled with was trying to say, Listen, are you taking into account. That we are saying we are going to invest in ensuring there's active car share available to residents. Bike Spot per resident Bike Share Programs and where those things take into account. In

the car share in that parking study, which again was left to some good discussion, but left, I would say still open. But then the last thing is that again these are private parking cells. So. I am ultimately taking it. We as a developer ultimately be taking that risk. And if we chose to build less. And not related to then people not wanting to live in our building. That becomes our problem if we're forced to build more than we think is needed. We're left at vacant parking spots that the public can't use and they just become a sunk investment or a reason for us to have to force someone who didn't necessarily want a car have a car to please buy it because we don't want to be left with that parking stall. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. I'm still hopeful that we can find. Research that indicates that we are ready for having no parking. And to that end. I believe that coming up next month, you have a number of measures that you would be recommending, like active transportation. Bicycle parking spaces,

bus, buses, things. That would encourage people to not have a car. So I think one of the concerns is that if we were to eliminate the minimum go down to zero, then there would be no incentives for developers to build in those active transportation measures. Could you speak to that. Whether. Having the payment to loop policy would be required or whether you would be building those things either way. So one thing just pulling because this isn't a discussion issue about gwell for our view, I think it's inherent. That there's a review of the general trends across major Metropolitan centers across North America. And can there be examples? Find where park can reduce. That. Has caused less or more benefit to the downtown area. Nothing comes with it, but in the sense of bringing more housing, bringing more affordability, bringing more urban traffic and again, coming from a certain lens. But you're hard pressed to find examples or trends where that has not led to more positive. Outcomes and negative outcomes in what's being sought. With the relation to our tdm measures and things like that

again. I would say again, we're concerned we're going to still be left with too much parking. Yes. We are committed to doing those things. And we are not doing our job if we're not convincing people that they don't need a car because we're trying to let people live within the resources of one planet. The thing that. I think you have to appreciate to your comment. Do we need to have these cash in lieu for developers that don't provide these a developer that doesn't provide. The comfort to a potential resident that they can live in that building and have satisfactory transit options. If we were to go ahead with Baker, we wouldn't be looking for zero. We know some of our residents are going to need parking. We just don't think the nation is as high. Perhaps as it is. Then I am left with a building that won't be occupied. That decision and that investment by that developer. And that's why, like downtown Toronto, you're seeing buildings now get built with no parking. But you're never seeing that happen without. Other modal transit options being presented because as a developer, you have to appreciate you're not going to move your real estate unless you have residents that say I'm coming. And there are options that I'm comfortable with in the sense of my modality. Thank

you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you. Chair. Thank you. I have councilor alt and then councilor o'rourke, thank you very much. Chair, busatille through you to Mr. Laceanda. Mr. Westnda, I appreciate your references. To Europe. I've had some experience trying to bike around Europe. And some experience driving around Europe, both with some successes and both with some anxiety. One of my concerns when you made reference to that is that I see significant deficiencies since the 1950s, when we essentially based our principles. On those I believe it was. Of. The designer and developer and planner, Mumford. That we now are in a position where. We're reversing ourselves. And I'm questioning whether we don't need to do it carefully and strategically to ensure that we have public transit and. We have multimodal transportation effectively and efficiently running before we move too quickly. I was wondering if you could please comment upon that. Thank you. That's a

good question. Yes. These things have to be balanced. And again, part of that comes back to who's ultimately taking that risk in the context. Of. The developer, the Municipality of Sufficient intermodal. Or transit options aren't provided in the sense of occupying buildings. But I would say. That. There can be a check to this. Like. For example, in our case we are. Providing one bike stall per unit. We are providing a car share. We are providing a bike share. We are providing all those things. Could there be perhaps better mechanism to reflect, then the ability to offset. Because in this case, we want to invest in all those things. But if we reduce our parking, it's a cash and load that goes to the city. It doesn't do much to help us in investing in those things. Can there be better credit for these things as further starting point to sort of say, okay. Yes. We can be more flexible on your parking requirements. So long as you do demonstrate you're bringing these things and you are bringing those options. And as much as that's our job to have to convince the market of that, Yes. If it's also our job to convince staff and counsel

that's fine. But. There needs to be ideally, there could be more flexibility in that equation. Thank you. So, what I'm hearing you say that there is a capacity for negotiation, regardless what the nation might be, whether. It's. 1.85.75. But that negotiation to ensure those amenities are in is something that. Is clearly within the purview of developers and city planners. Is that correct. Well, again, I'd say the ultimate risk falls back to the developer. And that's where cities that have gone ahead and waived their minimum parking and those sorts of things. Nothing's perfect, but it's worked. And is gauging full buildings, more housing happening. More. Housing parking is the biggest loss leader in any development, so I'll never recover the cost of building a new parking salt. And I have to average that across all the units. So that just makes all my units more less affordable. So there's all these elements. That solar within the nation of the developer to sort of have to balance. And yes, give comfort. To the municipality and staff. And yes, there's obviously room for negotiation. It's just a question

of. We, for example, had proposed on Baker. Perhaps we could take our first building and use that as a gauge in the sense of the sales, because that's a market condo. People aren't going to buy the condos if there's not a parking stall, if they want a parking stall, in which case. And that ratio we achieve be something that we can then average for the next tower as an example. So it's proof driven results to do that. These are all factors that can be looked at, but again. It's just sort of. Stepping back a bit and looking at what is happening, where it's happening. What are the negative, positive consequences of happening these other municipalities? And I believe there's plenty of examples out there. To sort of give comfort and highlight some of the challenges to these but that it's generally been the trend and been again from my perspective, driven more positive outcomes due to that trend. Thank you very much for your very open discussion of this particular issue. Madam Chair, I will be happy to move the motions at the appropriate time. And I will probably have questions for staff about what we've just discussed as well. Thank you very much. And

just to let you know, Mr. Weston, I've been biking through Baker Street. I still haven't found a place to deposit my late books, but it looks beautiful. Thank you. I have councilor O'Rourke. Thank you. Jambus tells through you to Mr. West End. Just a quick question around parking and affordability. In your current models, do you decouple the parking space from the unit, thereby allowing people to forego parking if they don't want any or purchase an additional parking space. If they need more than one. So that in general, I say, has been a trend that has as municipalities have moved away from minimum parking requirements. And then also if an affordability point of view yes increasement has been attended to coupling the parking from the unit. So we absolutely do decouple. At the same time, the more. You're required to build more stalls than you think you might need to the more. You're kind of needing to maybe balance coupling versus decoupling because you also want to make sure. You do not get left with a bunch of vacant stalls that you otherwise thought you might not have needed. Thank you through you chair bus till. So I'm just wondering. So I'm a counselor for the

so then lots of apartment buildings and a concern I get often is people who want space or second space in their building have a really hard time doing that. Sometimes the property manager won't allow. A notice. In the elevator to say, I need a second spot. And sometimes it's something really simple. Like one of my first calls as a counselor was a woman. Whose mother, who was disabled, moved in with her. They were now sharing the apartment. And so then the mum got the parking spot. But then the daughter. Who was commuting into work to Cambridge or something. Then really couldn't find a second space. So do you not have a mechanism within your building to allow for that kind of ebb and flow and renting within parking spaces amongst residents. So in our case, speaking for the first tyranny, we're building it's a market condo. So we have the one opportunity of selling to an end user and what their parking requirements are. And then from there going forward, it's sort of its own market. So in the sense that if someone wanted to sell their stall in the building to someone else in the stall. That's within their marketplace. To manage that if

it was a rental building. Then. That is more of a capacity of what's available. And if there was surplus parking available, then that can be made available to that resident. And the one thing I would just say. In comparing say Downtown guelph to say the south end as well is. You have everything within a ten minute walk of your door. In the South End and other places, there's a bit more of a need to have your car to get places. That's something we obviously want to be promoting heavily and encouraging. And that's where in where you have seen minimum parking in Toronto and Ottawa, it's their downtown Corps. It's not everywhere. So it does need to be considered as far as the amenities that are readily available without needing a car in then looking at your parking requirements in those different areas. I appreciate that. Thank you. I have councilor chu thank you. To the chair, to the delegate. Thank you for your presentation. We appreciate all the work that you're doing in Downtown guelph. I was just wondering if. We were to hypothetically reduce the minimum parking requirement from the point 75 that you

guys have worked with staff to achieve. Are there any alternative tdm measures that you would be willing to consider to help incentivize a reduction to parking minimums for your site? I think one of the things that we're looking for here is what are the incentives that you can provide upfront transparently to the public so that we can be more confident. Supporting or at least considering a reduction of parking minimums. Thank you for your question. And again. I'll put it back in certainty. If you or someone coming to look at our building as a private citizen. Again, is there risk on the city or on us in a sense that if I'm if you're looking to live in this building and I'm not satisfying you with that exact question. In the sense of we've provided you these mechanisms. But guess what. There's a building two doors down that has a parking stall for me. Would you come live in my building. Probably not. It is our job to say. And that's where already in what we propose. And this is where guelph is seen and still across one of those very sustainable green city. We proposed

a very strong measure of tdf measures and sensors that we're investing in not only a bike stall per unit, but. A very active Bike Share Program. A Car Share program. And this is where it's a trade off a little bit in the sense of what we have to provide versus what we think we can balance open to investing in transit passes and things like that because I'm happy to invest in anything that can convince someone they can get by without a car. And if I can convince them of that and I don't have a parking stall for them, they just won't live in my building. And that's my. Risk that's not the city's risk in that happening or not happening. And just a quick follow up. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is I'm looking at page nine of the Parking Study, which has a proposed. Enhanced tdm plan that is in front of us by the way. It's very good. I appreciate what being offered, but at the same time. If we were to give you a further reduction, is there anything else, in addition to what has been provided that you would be willing to explore with our staff. Well again, councilor, I'll ask you the question again. If I may if you came to my building and I'd reduced my parking. And you were adamant you wanted to park

and sell. Would you buy in my building. Is that a question to me. I'm sorry I am asking that too, because it's sort of trying to turn around and say. I turn it a little bit in the sense that that's ultimately my risk or the developer's risk, not the city's risk in the sense that if we haven't provided those alternatives. In exchange for reduced parking, then people just won't come live in our building if we haven't satisfied them that. They can't live in that building. With again transit options that they can live with. There are plenty of options out in the marketplace for them to go find a place that can give them parking if that's critical for them. Versus the opposite if I provide too much parking. That now becomes a burden in the context of which has happened to us. We're sitting there with an idle investment that could have been put in much better place. And we didn't have an option to manage that market actively. Thank you. Is that all councilor chu? Yeah, I'll just leave it that for now. Thank you. I see that dco Homes would like to add some comments. Thank you, madam Chair. I was just going to jump in because we are actually talking about the

downtown parking master plan as a whole here. This started to sound like it was talking about a specific site application. For Council's Reference this particular application is coming to Council to Planning on October the 17th. So those kind of questions about the specific site would be more appropriate at that time. Thank you very much. Any further questions. I'd like to thank Mr. West End, please. Oh, there's Mayor. Waving. Thank you, madam. Chair. In general. For either your site. That you have built or in other places or your development community that you're maybe dealing with. When there is no parking minimums, that means. That you could then use that space for cars where they would be parked for more units. Would you suggest that that's an accurate statement that in your case in your developments or in others. That it would actually supply more homes for

people. That's true. In markets that generally would drive above ground parking. For their parking. Like you see a lot of saying Kitchen and waterloo Markets, that sort of thing. In most of our developments, they're driving underground parking. And so I would say. It can drive more housing, more units when you're not stuck on a ratio that you need to relate to, and again, you can create more affordability, but it's not initially that space itself. And quite frankly again from a long term trend relative to. Car use automated parking less unless people driving on. There's a bigger concern, also, that these underground structures over time. Are going to eventually become a lost investment that you don't know what to do with because they got slightly overbuilt and they are hard to repurpose into some other nature. Generally, it can drive more housing, but it's not necessarily a straight conversion of that dedicated space to housing. Yes. Thank you. In the cash in lieu that's being presented.

As one of the measures to get out of parking. That money would come out of the performa, though of the development where that money could potentially stay. To actually provide more units? Is that something you've seen or no. Yes again. The cash in lieu is not necessarily solving. The issue of providing alternate transit options, all those sorts of things. And yes, is taking money away. That could just be creating more affordability in housing. And still within that cycle of the developer's main motive is to fill a building, get it occupied, whatever the structure is. And have sufficient amenity and transportation options that makes people comfortable living there and. Increasingly, with costs being where they are affordability is becoming more and more critical. Cars are becoming less and less an option. And the need to be flexible around these things is critical to create more affordable housing, primarily also. Okay. My last question. Chair is. I just want to get your gut reaction on something. I am going to put you on the spot. Were you

surprised that. Guelph recommendation was zero point 85 when you're seeing what's happening across North America. With Guelph's sort of reputation of trying to be green. Your overall Environmental goals. For. Your company. Were you surprised to actually see such a recommendation. Well, having worked for years now with the city, I understand the tension of downtown in the sense of a lot of the downtown businesses feeling the need for more parking. To attract business. And then, therefore, driving. Policy for parking. And that's where I sort of struggle in the sense of policy for residential parking requirements. Doesn't really impact what's available necessarily for public parking and business and other things downtown, because again, we're dealing with spaces that are available to the public. And rarely are you finding that people are saying, if I can't get a park install here, I'm going to go park on the street forever. Those things just get challenging. But yes, I would say, I guess what I'm surprised by Or I wouldn't even say surprise I would just say I would

encourage is that. This is not. A new topic that just the city of guelph is tackling. This is a topic that every major urban center in North America, and quite frankly around the world is looking at in the context of how do they want to create a vibrant, sustainable downtown core? And the predominant trend you're seeing is a move towards. Less and less options for the car, more and more options for the pedestrian and other options. And that's generally. And this is where for all the questions being posed, though, can we trade this for that? I'm just trying to say on a macro level. It's hard to find. A situation where. The downtown areas have reduced parking and. It's created a less vibrant versus a more vibrant downtown court. Thank you. Thank you. I have one final question from councilor Clawson. Yes. Thank you for your chair to the delegate. Thank you for your presentation. I had a question with regard to. Building parking when you build your developments, how much does transit factor into your decisions? When you're building parking. There's a couple of key things that lead to the amount of parking. So

one yes. Transit. Is a key thing in the sense of access. The first and foremost I'd say, is, what can you do within ten minutes outside your front door. And if you can do everything, that's the number one driver, because then you don't even need transit in many instances other than if you're going somewhere else. But for your daily needs, you don't need anything. And that's what Downtown guelph has. And you guys should celebrate and enjoy it because it's amazing. Downtown Court Transit and access to rapid transit would become second, and then third would be the market type. The higher end, the more expensive. Generally, they drive a higher parking ratio than the more affordable mid market. Other things where people. Are just trying to be able to afford a home. And are willing to sacrifice certain things or in many cases. I stay at our car as much as possible. I ride my bike everywhere. I'm much happier for it. Just find that they can do without the car. But cars are increasingly parking. Salves are more expensive. Cars are more expensive, everything's more expensive. And this is just another means to give an option to live a more affordable lifestyle. Okay. Thank you. So it does factor into the decisions, then around the

quantity of parking spaces. When you're building something new. It'd be factor number two. So number one is what can you do within ten minutes, out your front door? If you can do everything that's their biggest factor to sort of say, okay, second would be transit, and then third would be. Those sort of market type. Okay. Thank you. And one last question. Through chair to the delegate have you ever had residents ask for parking after you've built a development gone to market. So you've decided. I don't know exactly the order of operations. But I'm assuming that. You look at a market and determine. Okay, well, we want to have this many parking spots. Or these are the rules after that, especially in markets that you've referred to. I'm thinking Ottawa, Toronto. Where you have close to zero or zero. Parking minimums. Have residents come back and asked for subsequent parking spaces. I think that perhaps this is partially answered. I think the question was from councilor

o'rourke with regard to. The story she told about a woman living in an apartment building. But I just wanted to understand a little bit about. Some of that what would happen if residents came back to you after they had wanted to invest and then asked for parking.

But on that sense again. We are saying the instance what we're talking about in Gulf right now. We're talking about market housing, where it's an initial point of purchase and sale. And then that buyer from there is its own market after that. If a buyer came back to us afterwards and said, Can we have a stall, then generally we have a winning list. So for example, the building I'm sitting in here in Toronto. The one thing I want to start with is that the other thing to reflect on is that where you have found cities that have put in no minimum parking. Rarely. Is a developer providing no parking. There's always some parking provided it's just provided in a ratio that is equivalent to what's felt. And that can be anywhere from one. But rarely will you ever find a developer not doing any part. So this isn't a zero parking. This is just the right size of parking based on the development that's happening. But in the building. I'm sitting here right now. This is a 0.5 parking stall development in Toronto, for which when we sold Well, we had one parking stall left. We didn't necessarily have anyone specifically come, but we then put that stall out to the residents and said, Does anyone else like us, doll, this is available to you.

In other instances we have crept a waiting list. So if someone's bought a unit and a stall and for whatever reason, say need or like another style, we will put them on a waiting list. But it's also in the context that they've bought there, knowing that they're limited to whatever they've got and that's the choice they've made. And it's a convenience, maybe for them to have it, but it's not essential for them. And if it was essential for them, they just would not have bought in the building in the first place. Some of your question and the previous question I would say. Probably reflects more when you're dealing in a rental environment where there is a lot more sort of turnover or less ownership. And that is a certain amount of stalls available. That becomes again, a balance with the property manager and sort of saying, okay, if there's dolls available, usually those are rented on a monthly basis to residence. And again. It's whether there's supply available. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Westein.

I am going to call up Mike darmon next. I think yes, I saw Mike. And just remind, counselors, I think the staff pointed out that this is about the Downtown guelph master plan and not one particular development because that will be coming to us next month. And we can delve in much deeper into the conversations around the specific application. So welcome, Mike. Five minutes for your presentation. You'll hear. A chime at the 32nd Mark, and then a chime at the end. And if you can just remain for questions from councilors, welcome. Thanks. Could I ask the clerks to put up the slide? I requested first. Thanks a lot. So good evening, councilors Chair bustel merrick guthrie and City Staff my name is Mike darman, and I'm director of gcat, the Gulf Coalition for Active transportation. Gcat fully supports no parking minions downtown. And why we do not have a parking crisis. We have a housing affordability and availability crisis, and we have a climate crisis. Other cities like Edmonton, kitchener and Toronto have done away fully or partially with parking minimums have seen successful have been successful at creating more and denser housing. We have to do more to entice developers to build more housing

in downtown guelph. That makes economic sense for them. Simply put, we support building more housing in downtown with no minimum. Parking requirements. Developers will build more affordable equitable housing choices for those that do not want a car or cannot afford a car plus housing costs, thus creating demand for alternative forms of sustainable transportation. I hope you have read all of the Revised Agenda, which includes new correspondence from developers supportive of no parking minimums. The Woods Development Group, led by Ian Panabaker. Is led by Ian pannebaker, and his letter is referenced. Starts on page 252, but this is actually the one I want you to pay attention to. I quote in part the following Woods Development Group. So the question remains, what city do you want to be building a transit support of one or today's suburban one? It comes down to this. Transit supportive. Move towards no parking minimums creates a real imperative to act on transit and city wide tdm initiatives or status quo. Adopt Zero Point 85 no real action required on transit, and tdm maintains the city's practice of overcontrol through regulation. The second letter I hope you read is from windmill,

which of course, has just been covered. But who are redeveloping? The Baker District, at the center of Downtown guelph on windmill, is committed to a one planet action plan for the Baker District that includes priority principles of pursuing zero carbon and sustainable travel and transport that encourages walking, cycling, and low carbon transport. And it starts on page 249. And I quote, in part, we strongly encourage the City of guel to consider further parking reductions consistent with our other progressive municipalities policies across North America and closer to home here in Southern Ontario, including the City of London, the City of Ottawa and the City of Toronto, reduced or eliminated parking minimums and adopted parking maximums to support the development of more sustainable. Economically vibrant communities. We strongly believe that as developer it has. Ultimately, our market risk to provide parking ratio that will result in full buildings. It is also our opportunity to provide alternatives to car ownership, such as car share, transportation passes, increased bike parking, et cetera. Make our future residents comfortable that they can live comfortably without the expense of a car. If you are unable to provide an equation that provides attractive transportation options, then resins will go to other buildings and will be left with vacancy. But it forced to build too much parking. We were left with little tools or

incentives to provide other tdm measures. End quote. Members of Council I'm asking you, what is the real risk to the city of guelph? Adopting no parking minimums means that the developer assumes all the risk. Do we really want the city? We say we want and urban planners, planning experts. The city have hired say we can have with more density and car free lifestyle, lifestyle living downtown, creating more demand for better transit and active transportation. Or are we going to stick with the status quo with minimum reduction in parking? Minimums that will not move the needle an inch towards a more livable and sustainable downtown and city of guelph, I. 'm Challenging you today to do what respect the developers are saying is needed to build more housing. I'm challenging you today to do what I assume. City staff have hired world renowned city planner Brent Tadarian and former chief planner of Toronto Jennifer Keys Matt, to do to inspire us, to show us and to be brave enough to do what we need to do and start today on this pathway to a more sustainable. Future. So here are some quotes from recent Progress Report and Active Transportation kitchener, which has no parking minimums in some developments. I'm sad to say we're actually a little behind in kitchener downtown Cycling Grid Key Investments The Downtown

Cycling Grid is a continuous and protected cycling network designed for all ages and abilities that connect. Connects adjacent neighborhoods and major trails to the downtown half the network is now available for use, with the remaining to be completed by the end of 2024. By creating a trail like experience in the heart of the downtown, the grid attracts people who would like to bike more but don't feel comfortable comfortable riding in busy traffic. And when combined with walking and light rail transit, the grid provides a viable alternative to car ownership for the up to 5000 people moving downtown in new homes currently under construction. We need to follow suit. Invest in an accelerator plans for similar improvements to our at and Trans Assistance. If you are to achieve our climate action goals and solver housing crisis. In closing Iran's reformer councilor Mike Saldbury last weekend regarding parking minimums, I asked him, what is the risk to our city? And he answered, I would reverse that and ask the question, what is the opportunity? I hope many of you and Council agree. Thanks. Thank you. Are there any questions of a clarifying nature to the presentation. Yes, councilor galler. Thank you. To your chair, Mr. Till. Thank you, Mr. Dimer, for the presentation. I think one of

the main. Arguments that we're hearing is that unless the city has a bargaining chip. If we let developers build as they will, we may not see those active transportation incentives. So I just wanted to hear from your perspective. As the collision for active transportation. Would you be concerned that by having no parking requirements, we may end up with building with no bicycle parking with no ramps. With those things. Because we cannot control it. We cannot make sure that they get billed. I think from listening to the last developer just speaking on exactly that. I am not actually worried at all. Actually about that at all. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Appreciate it. Are there any other questions from councilors. Seeing none. You, madam chair. Mr. Darman, I just have to ask, is there a development in downtown? Maybe the last one that exemplifies tod development. That is great in your eyes. I can't give you

an example of downtown. I can actually give you a better example. It's not in downtown, but very close to downtown. And it's at 120. The former uni Rubber Factory that's being redeveloped. And they did ask for some parking requirements in exchange for putting a bicycle ramp in to the basement, which they are actually completed. Just last week. I was going by it. I should go by there every week. They even went further and put a heated biking ramp into the basement, which is quite exceptional and it's into secure bike parking in the basement. They also added the fifth floor. Of very small units that are apartments that are more affordable to the public. So I think that's kind of a perfect example of what I'd like to see in the downtown. The bicycle ramp may not fit in a downtown, but some developers could actually fit easy access into their building for bicycles, for instance. So. You wouldn't have to trudge it up into the elevator. For instance, there would be an easier room on the ground floor. Saying that could be one example. Just a quick follow up if I may. Just falling. Councilor galler's comments. Do you think we would be in a

risk of having no bargaining chips if we allow developers a reduction of minimum parking. Sorry, could you repeat that again? Just following councilor galler's comments about not having a bargaining chip at the playing table. Do you think a reduction in minimum parking requirements given to the developer would not incentivize. The stakeholder to promote transit incentives. Do you think that's an issue for your group or for yourself personally? No. I think we have to listen to the advice of the building community who are telling us exactly what they will do to make sure that they sell their building. So if they're in a market or they're putting a building downtown and they know people and they're not providing parking, for instance, they know they have to offer. Alternatives so they'd be kind of crazy not to, in my opinion. Thank you. I have councilor o'rourke. Next.

Thank you. Through your chair. You told Mr. Darman just a couple of questions about sort of the practical nature of bike parking. So we've heard you delegate here about ample bike parking. So if you had a family living in condo and. They've got a cargo bike and. They've got ebike for transportation, and they've got mountain bikes for weekends, et cetera. Would you not need also additional storage? So could you not convert. A parking space that had been designed for a car. For just that space. No, we all see garages full of bikes and stuff. So if a parking space was not required for a vehicle, could it not just be converted for that type of use? A cargo bike in particular. I assume it could. Obviously, you're talking about a bicycle. For every member of the family, it might be a bit extreme. But. The most popular selling vehicle in North America right now, I think is Ford F 150. It's a pretty big vehicle. And I think you can fit a lot of bicycles in the space. One of those things could take for sure. I don't know yes, you will need some space

obviously, but not near as much as car spaces take and big suvs take sure. Just another one. So a couple of weeks ago, we had a member of gcat, and, you know, I'm a fan, and I love the Bike Ballet, so I'm all over it my ebike as much as they can. But the conversation in that meeting from gcat was, Could we encourage the vehicles that are on the road to park in the parcade because it's unpleasant for cyclists to be biking with lots of overflow parking. So is gcat not concerned. And I was just in clona on the weekend where they've got a beautiful walkable waterfront. And let me tell you. There's cars parked on the road for blocks and blocks and blocks around there, right. Because somebody's adult kid comes home and has a vehicle or somebody wants to drive up to the mountains on the weekend. So how do you reconcile that? How do you reconcile not wanting lots of cars parked on the road? Because. It's not really pleasant or safe for cyclists. With not needing additional parking. Residential parking so that people can put their vehicle where they live if they have one. Again, I think when you talk about

downtown. Parking master plan here. I think it's quite different from the rest of the city. I'm talking about the downtown. Pardon. I'm speaking to the downtown. So if people don't have sufficient parking in their building, we can expect overflow parking in surrounding areas. And that's in the staff report. So is that not also a concern for gcat to have lots of. Overflow parking through the downtown and in the surrounding neighborhoods. Well, I think you're also making the assumption that these people will have a car. I'm assuming they won't have a car. As the developers, I think, has pointed out, not everybody wants to own a car and they want to live in the building. Car free. There's lots of young people now that don't want a car. There is that lifestyle that's being attracted to downtowns appreciate that response. Councilor. Gauller, please. Thank you. To your chair. Just a point of clarification to the question about. The conversion the use of a parking spot for bicycle parking. Mr. Dharmer, I think I was speaking with you where one of the residents tried to park their bicycle in an underground parking spot. And they were told by the fire chief that they're not allowed to do

that. Just confirm if that my memory served is incorrect. Yes, it does. Yes. Okay. So we're not allowed to use car parking spaces for bicycle parking in underground parking lots here in guelph. I'm not sure it was on all underground. I think it was that particular building. Yeah, it was some odd ruling. They had for a fairly older building. I think an earlier condominium building. Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you. Are there any further questions from councilors. Seeing none. Thank you very much. The next delegation is Victor LaBresh.

So, Victor, you have welcome. You have five minutes for your presentation. The time will sound at 30 seconds before the end and then another time at the end. And if you could just remain for any questions of clarification from counselors welcome. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Three City Council members, City Staff and public. My name is Victor labresh, director. Associate Director of planning. For Arcadus, formerly ibi Group in the waterloo office. Ibi Group Arcadas are. The second largest architectural firm throughout Canada. We are heavily involved. In medium and high density development. Within the waterloo Region, particularly, and also within Toronto. Certainly, as other previous delegates have spoken in this regard, we support their comments entirely. And certainly there is a trend moving to zero parking requirements in the pure identified downtown core. We specifically represent

the woodhouse group. In regards to this matter in guelph, woodhouse Group has been a family run company for over 50 years. And in the last five years, in particular, has been focusing on repurposing. Existing buildings within Downtown Core, including. Kitchener waterloo area where we're assisting them and also here in guelph. So these are again existing buildings and repurposing them. For residential in many cases mixed use. There still retain some commercial on the ground floor. Having reviewed all the past information and being involved in the previous stakeholder holders meetings, our recommendations remain the same as previously stated that the City of guelph we urge to take bolder action on minimum parking requirements to get more housing built as soon as possible in. The downtown area of guelph. Our written correspondence focused on three options. That Council. Should take action on first extending the 1971 grandparenting exemption for minimum parking requirement for existing buildings in the historic Downtown Core to include those constructed over the last 50

years. Second option directing staff to require no minimum parking for affordable senior housing and student housing in particular. Again, affordable senior housing and student housing. As part of the city staff, proposed cash and Lose. So to exempt those types of housing from cash. New requirements. Third option. Eliminating the minimum parking rates altogether in the Downtown zone. Any of these three options would greatly assist wealth in achieving its goals and further improving. The vitality of downtown. And also maintaining the historic pedestrian oriented form and allowing. For. Those student demands that are certainly forthcoming with Conestova College locating in the Core and the continued increasing housing demand from University guelph, eliminating the minimum residential parking rates would have the most significant effect and would be in line with what? Kitchener, Cambridge, London, Ottawa, Hamilton, and. Hundreds of others North American cities have done in the last five to ten years. Some parking is still constructed where it is warranted, as others have spoken about earlier. But excess

parking is not warranted. Households with private vehicles. Will retain the need and pay for those vehicles. But that's a market choice if Council chooses to retain the residential minimum parking rates, extending the to the 1971 grandparenting clause. In your most current zoning bylaw approved earlier this year, would have a significant impact in our opinion on Cash and lieu parking program. We understand that. Some are interested in the leveraging of that incentive and that amount of influx of cash to provide for more parking within the core. But we don't feel that's reasonable, particularly in this environment where housing is needed yesterday and tomorrow to a significant amount, particularly for affordability. Seniors and students. In closing our previous correspondence and our comments earlier on September 6, we reiterate here today. We would be happy to answer any questions you may have. And encourage that there be no parking requirements, specifically. For affordable housing, seniors and student housing,

and also that they be exempt for cashandloo programs. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lebresch. Are there any questions for the delegation. Yeah, Mayor Guthrie. Thank you. Madam chair. So for a developer like you. When you are forced to provide parking. I'm sorry. I'll turn that question around when you don't have to have parking. That means that you would be able to provide more units. Potentially, more people can be housed. Through your chair. Bruce and tal. Two Merrick short answer is Yes. It goes to the bottom line of the affordability of the project. For example, we are looking at a couple of projects within Guelph. That would range between. 25 units to 30 units. The cash in lieu requirement of that would be. Approximately $900,000. So we're approaching a million dollars. And that just bottom line doesn't make the project feasible. Nor would it allow us

to potentially put a second floor on an existing building. And also pay for the structural stability of that building to add more units. Okay. Thank you. And then so my next question was going to be specifically about the cash and lose. So. There's the question about just straight up. No parking minimums would help you create more units. More supply. The second part of my question, though, is if you are forced to pay that's going to achieve the same negative outcome, which would be less units in the projects that you're managing to look to build. Then I guess your answer is yes because you just said in that question there. Am I correct? Yes. Mary guthrie short answer is Yes. Okay and other developers that. You are I'm assuming you talk with other developers. Are they finding that. These are no parking minimums are really helping them get the projects done and shovels in the ground to get housing built. Huge. And tell to the maricottri yes, I can say right now we represent. Four Projects

Three within Downtown kitchener. One in Waterloo. The minimum number of units within these four high rise apartments. Are 240 units. For example, the 240 unit building. Has a total of 30 parking spaces because. Within the downtown core and the developer is not. Concerned at all. About that limited amount. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next I have councilor alton and councilor galler. Thank you very much, madam. Share through you to the delegate. I've just been reading about the 42 story proposal for kitchener's Downtown Car. Is that the one where you make reference to the 40 or 30 parkness spots for the 242 units. Through you Chair Bruce and tal to the councilor alt. That one is actually at the higher end of the four apartments that were representing the one I was referring to as a 25 story, about 240 units. It's 47

stories. Just over 500 units. That has approximately 90 parking spaces in total. One of my concerns is what the impact would be. On the streets around at that kind of a ratio. That's a significant concern. I'm somewhat familiar with that area and recognize that. It's a residential area in transition. And so I was wondering if you could please comment on that. Because that strikes me as creating potentially. Significant congestion. Through the chair to councilor alt. I would say that. Certainly. All of the studies you could imagine were required with that development, including parking justification, transportation study. Those were done by that case by paradigm Transportation solutions. And supported ultimately by City Council. And certainly that's at the corner of park in Victoria Street. One thing I should have mentioned in my notes that if you're reducing the parking to zero or something close to zero, or at least exempting it for Seniors, affordable Housing and

student housing. If you eliminate the requirement altogether. You need to still fully implement tdm measures so one for one parking bicycle parking. Transportation, Bus route funding, car sharing. All of those tdm measures should be fully implemented and that could be controlled by the required site plan. Process. I'm not exactly sure if the city of guelph has it implemented totally in their zoning bylaw, but they could put that in their zoning bylaw as a tool. Urban design guidelines, site plan control guidelines, and fully implement that. So I hear you say that would be foundational. I appreciate that the other question I think is significant for guelph, in contrast to kitchener, is the issue. Of multimodal transportation and in particular, the impact of the lrt and the lines through there that strikes me as being something that is fairly significant, which guelph doesn't have. At the present point I was wondering if you could comment on that. Councilor. Yes, I would agree. I think it'll be something

that's sort of truth over time. Because of COVID and when the lrt and the Region of waterloo opened up approximately a year and a half before. Covid Hit and then now ridership we've heard in that region. Is now more than it originally was, and overall, I think over the next year we'll see how that plays into but still, Downtown guelph is a major transistation area and has many other transit available. Opportunities, including what other speakers have said, you have a great opportunity. In terms of everything being available within ten minute walking distance in guelph, I would say it's kind of better than kitchener in that regard in terms of walkability, of having those number of. Uses within ten minutes, but it doesn't have the lrt here. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. I have Council gauler, then councilor. Ork thank you, Andrew. Chair. Mr. Till. Thank you. For your presentation and for your interest in changing a commercial building into a residential building in our downtown. I think that's very good. There's lots of opportunity,

if I may add, here. Yeah. Absolutely. Now we did receive a letter. From the Downtown bia, the Association of business. Owners expressing concern that if we were to reduce the parking minimum below the zero point 85 recommended by staff and we were to go to say 0.5 or even zero. Then the visitors, both the residents that live, you might end up someone that does need a car because they're working outside of the city. And then. Their guests, the visitors. Then they're competing with people that are coming downtown to shop. So I don't know if you have thoughts about that. How do we reconcile. Residential uses and visitor uses because I believe in your location, we wouldn't even be able to have visitor parking spots. So how do we balance that with folks that reasonably want to come to guelph, to shop in the downtown. If I can, I guess answer that from my own personal experience, I tend to come to downtown wealth every couple of weeks. I personally live on the East Side of Cambridge. And. I have actually two daughters going to the

University of guelph, and we hear a lot, and certainly on the weekends, on street parking seems to be at its highest demand. Parking garages. And we've heard this earlier in the discussions like 50% utilized, but that's probably because people have to pay for it. From my experience and also. Staying into the evening hours. Sometimes during the week for meeting with clients. I personally don't see that there's a risk for a shortage of parking. For retailers coming down here or customers coming down here for other reasons. I don't personally see that that's just my own observations. Okay, I appreciate that. And through your chair, Buzzatil, my second question. One of the reasons why. We want to have a municipality, a cash new policy is because then it gives us incentives. And we can say. No parking space. And then you have to do this for us, like, provide affordable housing. So to that question, I think if you can help us understand. How does the budgeting process or the pro forma work? Is it that if

you're allowed to build with no parking spaces, then does that just mean extra profit for the builder? Or does the cost actually get passed down to the end consumer? So that is someone buying a unit. Would have to pay that much less for the unit so if you can help understand. If you don't have to pay that money to the city in cash, and lou, that $50,000. Where does that money end up. Yes. Very good question. And I've certainly been asked that question in this topic in other jurisdictions. That goes back to what I was qualifying earlier. That the cash in lieu waiving, cash and Lou requirements should apply to affordable housing, defined affordable housing within the range that is specified for the City of guelph, Seniors housing and student housing. That's where the cash and loo should be waived and. That would really address the issue. Okay. To be clear, you're not advocating that we make the zero perkin requirement. You're actually here asking us. To make it a zero parking requirement for Senior House and affordable Housing and student housing. Not just make

it a blanket. Zero. To clarify that. If you were to consider, there was really three options. If you were to consider a cash and Leo requirement, it should be exempt for those three forms of housing. But I am encouraging that parking in the pure downtown core should be entirely waived for residential unit as a minimum should be waived. Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you, thank you, Chair. Thank you, councilor o'rourke. Thank you, Jeremy. Tell through you to Mr. Dabaresh. So if I've understood correctly, you have primarily. Commercial buildings in Downtown guelph. And you're seeing lots of potential for mixed use. Is that right. Through your chair to councilor rourke. Yes. The client that we represent is specifically targeting in the last few years within this geographic, immediate area. Commercial buildings that are underutilized to become vacant, partially because of COVID impacts, et cetera. And then, specifically, I would say, because of the housing demand in core areas. So there's an opportunity. And that's the repurposing of those commercial existing buildings to residential. Right. So

through you, Madam. Chair. Would you not have to come to a planning meeting anyways, then to get his own change from commercial to mixed use or commercial to residential? And would you not at that point on the basis of affordability. Your tdm in that same context. Just negotiate lower parking and justify that. So there exists a mechanism still for you to reduce the parking for you to advocate for a lower cash and loo. Why is that mechanism insufficient. To the Chair to councilor rourke in the Downtown core. Zones. Almost always allow mixed use, so. We wouldn't need a zone change. In the scenario you would ask about. As of right would allow if it was a 100% commercial building once upon a time we can change that to 100% residential with no zoning issues. What would change is if there is a parking requirement now. And many of these existing buildings are covering like 90% you could imagine in downtown Core, they cover 80 90% of the site area. So there's very limited parking. And

our client is finding. That. In other jurisdiction, like kitchener, Hamilton, London, where there's no parking requirement, it's easy. They could still supply a Loading space or delivery spot. But. They couldn't come close to meeting what the city of guelph is requiring for parking in repurposing that building to residential because. You were requiring. Even one for one. However, I guess the anomaly we see here. In guelph is that if it was commercial, it's zero. So why is it zero parking requirement for commercial uses? But it's zero point 85 for residential. I know there is some rationale behind it, but I think in this time in these days. It's not really justified. Okay. Thanks. I appreciate that. Thank you. Are there any further questions for the delegation. Seeing none. Thank you very much, Mr. Lopez. Thank you. And I'd like to call mauritzio fernandez, please. And just to borrow from the Mayor, I'm going to encourage if it's been said before, feel free to say ditto, and use your time to really bring new points to the

attention of Council. Welcome, Mr. Fernand. Fernandez, and you have five minutes. There will be a chime 30 seconds before the end of your time and a time at the end of your time. Thank you. Hello, everyone. I'm an economics. Wealth and. I'm the person behind strongton's wealth. You might have seen the post. And also I have five main proposals that I believe Council should implement instead of the staff recommendations. For one, we should abolish parking minimums downtown for any users. Two. We should stop free on street parking downtown. Three. We should stop tax offices to parking downtown. Four. We should have more secure bike parking downtown and five. Which will create a Share parking program where we. Encourage the owners of private lots to find ways to better utilize door parking to achieve 100% utilization rates or 80%. If we're serious on tackling climate change and slowing housing prices, we need to avoid codependency and drastically find ways to reduce the housing the cost of housing construction from beginning to end. Mandarin Parking and substanting

cars the most wasteful and constructive way of getting around. Will only first amend the south school. Incremental change is not enough now we need bold action. Staff notion that parking is predetermined same for every user and unchanging over time simply not true. The built environment and the pricing of parking relative to our motor transportation. Determin. Determine how much fargo require and when it will be required. Every preference comes to our price point. Reality forces us to make trade offs. Furthermore. Stock's arguments for maintaining high parking minimums. I find them very weak. The central argument. The developers will build two little parking if the city doesn't force them to build more. I find it simply not true. Technological problems of overflow parking there are easily followed by correctly pricing the value of the land of the streets where people are parking on. Again, every preference comes to our price point. This issue reinforcing and subscribing car ownership. Another arguments used by C. Staff was a claim that even soon buildings have high parking decision rates. Statue

clarified that. Some of the buildings along Golden Street on the South End. I live on one of them. It's one unit, yes, but that one unit is shared by four, three or four people, sometimes even five. So even when you have the full parking lot fully utilized, you only have 0.2. Cars per independent adult living in the building. So in this case the devil is truly in the details. You have to be more conscious of how we're defining units and who's really going to live there and what their needs really are. So what should Council do. I believe the answer is to avoid minimums to lower the cost of housing construction and get it done built. Now. Two abolish free on Street Park in downtown to stop wasteful use of the highest balance landing wealth. Three no more tax offices will park in downtown as it should be a three job to subsidize the most destructive option within wealth four. More secure park in Downtown to encourage active transportation and action against climate change. And five the creation of the Share Parking Program to promote

high due session rates of empty service blocking out probably on within downtown. Doing this will make our downtown a more livable and beautiful place to live with a mollish and pay or wave like R. It's time for us to build back beautiful places for the people who have to live in. Thank you. If you can just stay. Are there any questions? Yes. Councilor galler. Thank you, Chairman. The tail to Mr. Fernandez. Thank you for your presentation. You mentioned that the building that you live in effectively has zero point 25 parking spaces for adult living there. Can you tell me. If there's issues. Do you ever have friends over that come over to visit that have a car and then what happens for parking in those situations. Yeah? And the building that I live when park is utilized at the maximum. There's about 90% of the session rate. So you always have at least 10% of parking spots. Always empty. There's a problem in the building where there's effectively no marketplace. There's no way to communicate who has a free parking spot and who can buy it. So once again, the share parking. Program. That the city could implement would come in handy in those situations,

creating a marketplace where. The people who have the parking can connect with the people who run the parking. That's one issue, the other issue. Is that my building is right in front of the United Way Church. Now Ponkido is always. Empty most of the time, except for Sunday, where you have the service and. It's one third utilized. We should find ways. To land the scare resource in the city, we should find ways to better utilize the land that we already have instead. Of coming and saying, oh, yeah? We need more parking, more per case. We need more surface parking lots. I think we're really high enough. We just need to better utilize what we have. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. Thank you. Chair. Councilor Chu. Thank you, madam Chair, to the delegate, just from your lived experience. How do you see us better utilizing the downtown parking lots? Because you can probably imagine. In daytime hours. That are not utilized to its fullest potential. And you probably understand that parking is parking regardless of what it's designated for. So how do you see creatively be kid better utilize what we have

in light of Konistoga and some other. Partnerships Coming in Online in the downtown. What I see is that there's no party in charge. The only parking charge is for the premium parking spaces where people actually want to be, because it's only a five second walk from where they want to go. But the thing is, by definition, prime parking will always be scarce because there's only so much land. So you could build a brcade Ryan for the store. That would have an astronomy. Course cost. So every preference comes to a price point. You have to be willing to pay for something if you want it rebuilt in that specific way. And the way I see it is that free on street parking downtown. He's really distortive. It generates perversion centers where the highest value landing wealth is utilized by people that are no pain and they're not contributing to a maintenance and then contributing to the social opportunity cost of the land that land could be used for more nation it could be used for. More secure by parking. Could we use for more? We could

build more mini parks. Like Montreal has been doing. And coping hang has been doing. Land is kerrison has multiple uses. I don't think storing cars for free is the best usable land downtown. Thank you. Is that all? Councilor chu? Thank you. Are there any other further questions from councilors. Seeing none. Thank you very much. Going to call up Mr. Salvatore, please. Same thing Ditto five minutes. You'll hear the chime at 30 seconds before the end of the presentation. And then if you could just stay at the end so councilors can ask any questions of clarification. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you very much, madam Chair. Good day. Mayor guthrie. Esteemed members of Council and respected city staff. My name is Adrian salvatore, and I'm here today as the chair of the guelph Coalition for Active Transportation. I wish to speak today on some of the cautions and considerations that have been raised against further reducing minimum parking requirements beyond zero, 85 spaces per unit. And the Council memo subject, Downtown Parking master. Plane memo. Though it is acknowledged that removing or further reducing parking minimums helps

Council work towards our goals on climate modal, shift and housing affordability, ultimately. It is recommended that a reduction beyond 15% not be considered. We believe that. This advice is not considering the broader implications of these changes to our community, and that. The data that this recommendation is based on is not representative of the actual residential vehicle demand within the downtown area. Though before addressing these concerns, I will note that it is mentioned that a further reduction could be requested through a minor variance or zoning by law amendment. If the developer offered alternatives to manage transportation demand, such as building bike parking or offering bike share, this is again noted as the first caution in the memo that developers have less incentive to provide demand management alternatives unless parking minimums are leveraged. This seems to be an extremely roundabout and. Inefficient way to handle this, it leads us to question why options were not included in the Downtown Parking Master plan that provided choice of reduced parking minimums if, for example, a given bike parking minimum

was met. Secondly, housing costs are top of mind for many in our community. Though the memo acknowledges that reducing parking minimums may make housing more affordable, it cautions that the city has no mechanism to ensure that developers pass those savings on. There need be no mechanism for these savings to be passed on to residents. Given two identical units, one with parking included and one without. It is obvious that a rational consumer would be willing to pay more for the inuit with parking. Or expected discount for the unit without. We also know that reducing parking minimums leads to increased units being produced. Land is limited, and building parking structures is very costly. This was acknowledged in a very recent guelph Mercury article, where the director of planning and development from Monked in New brunswick noted that they would likely have seen fewer developments downtown if they still had parking. Minimums. I'm sure you all know this is key. As a report from the Ontario Housing affordability Task Force said, we must make an unwavering commitment to keeping the spotlight on housing supply. As an aside, recommendation Number Nine of the Housing affordability Task Forces Report is

allowing as of right zoning of six to eleven stories with no minimum parking requirements on any street utilized by public transit, including streets on bus or streetcar routes. The majority. Of the area covered by the Downtown Parking Master Plan is served by transit. The memo also notes that reducing parking will not reduce parking demand. This is agreeable. Of course. Driving alternatives. Are unceded to reduce parking demand. However, this creates a chicken and egg problem. With minimum parking requirements in place, we are forced to allocate space for cars that directly impede the usability of driving alternatives. It is obvious that reduction in minimums is needed to support a mode shift. The. Parking spots per unit number appears based on a study of only ten locations within the downtown area, with five survey times for each. Were these locations representative of. The actual. Number of parking spaces needed downtown. The appendix for this data does not seem to specify. As such, we ask that a decision that

will have serious implications for our Downtown for the next five years be based on solid representative data and thoroughly and holistically. Consider the impact it will have on us achieving our goals. On Modalshift the Environment and Housing affordability. Thank you. And I appreciate your time. Thank you. I have councilor alt. Thank you. Chair. It's not a question for the delegate. It's almost a point of personal privilege. There are a couple of statements that are made that I think staff should have the right to respond to those relate to the data was not representative and solid representative data, which I considered borderline suggestions that staff did not provide us with accurate data. Thank you. You know what I'm going to suggest is that perhaps once the delegation has left, can you bring that question forward. If that's your will. Yes. Please. Are there any questions of clarification on the presentation? Any other. May I clarify regarding councilor also remarks. Thank you. I mean to say that we don't know if the locations were representative. There was nothing in the appendix that said or specified that these

were representative locations. That accurately and broadly covered the downtown area. I am aware that there are buildings within the downtown area that currently offer no parking as they are grandfathered in these were not included in the study. So I'm not saying with certainty that it is not representative, but it is not stated in the report. As far as I can find that they are representative, nor do they account for the number of people who are living in an average unit in any given building. Thank you. I will ask the staff for a response afterwards. Councilor Gordon, did you have a question? Yes. Thank you. Through Chairman Till. Thank you, Mr. Salvador, for your presentation. I am going to refer back to the letter we received from the Downtown PA with their concerns to the parking minimum. So I didn't get a chance to ask Mr. Durman this, but to you, what do you say to the concern that if. There's significant amount of buildings built in the downtown with no parking that then no one is going to find a spot when they come to shop because they'll all be taken by those residential uses. Thank you for the question. That concern presumes again that all the people living. In the residential buildings, will own

cars and will be placing demand on public parking assuredly there will be some amount of demand from that, although. From our very low parquet utilization rates. I believe that can be absorbed with what we currently have on stock. I don't think it's a concern for commercial users coming to the downtown area. Thank you and for my reference. How many members. Does your organization have here in the city? We are just over 200 members. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chair. Thank you. Seeing no further questions. Thank you very much. Councilor alt, if you wanted to ask your question and then I need to speak to the motion. So the recommendations that are in the report. There are some changes to that. So come forth if you want to ask. Thank you. Through you two staff. I've heard Mr. Salvatore. Respond that. There was no clear intent to be smirched staff, but I was wondering if I could please get clarification because I'm left a bit confused by the assertions that perhaps we don't have representative data. So through you, madam. Chair to the Councilor.

Ba Group undertook our utilization study of 13 residential buildings downtown. Those buildings were required to offer residential parking because we need to do a utilization study of the actual parking that was occurring. So we excluded buildings that don't have any parking in them. So in the report we've seen that the results are anywhere between 0.7 and zero. Nine use of those stalls. And for further clarification, the Gordon Street buildings were not included in the study. They were used as a comparator to gauge the use of student housing and the demand on parking. So they were not included actually in the utilization study, but rather we use just to compare and get a sense of what student housing may have an impact in residential buildings downtown. Thank you very much. Thank you. So the recommendations that are in front of you, the five recommendations in consultation with the clerk. I just want to point out recommendation number four is redundant. It is a reporting from the committee of the whole so that can be removed. In recommendation number Five can move up and become new recommendation number Four with an edit to the end of that

sentence. It says be referred to the September 26 Council meeting. And that is where we are right now. So I believe the clerks have edited those recommendations. 1234. I did have councilor alt volunteer to place the recommendation. I need. A seconder councilor. Richardson. And so are you willing to those amended motions. That's fine. Okay. And the other thing is. I know there are a lot of questions. The new recommendation number four. And I'm going to ask impose on the chief planner, Ms. Walkie, because if you can just give us kind of a high level. Process around the Planning Act. And the conversations have been about zero and 0.5 and zero 75 and things like that before we get into. Specific discussions and amendments. Can you. Give us an overview of the process and also this opportunity to provide any clarification. On delegation presentations as well,

and not just yourself, anyone. Thank you. Thank you, chair. I'll start and maybe others will have something to add. I will start with a point of clarification on one of the delegations. The first delegation. Indicated that. The traffic study they had submitted was done by the city. It was done by their consultants. Wsp. Our consultants are ba Consulting. So I just wanted to make that clear that the WSP. Traffic study that's. In the current development applications online right now for 55 Baker Street is done by their consultants and not by the city consultant. So I did want to make that clear. As for process. We have advertised Zero point 85. We had a public meeting on point 85. And. I think if Council wants to change that. It would be appropriate to host another public meeting. We have not had any consultation on anything other than zero. 85. So or Council passes a motion that they do not feel that another public meeting is required.

And that's a Council prerogative. We do that a lot of public meetings if we have a minor change, but certainly. Anything lower than zero. 85 has not been talked about in the report. The ba Report that accompanies this. The first 48 pages are on consultation. So there was a lot of consultation around the downtown parking plan. And we have five delegates here tonight. But if we have zero or zero, five or. 42 on the floor. We might have different delegates here. So I just have to say that certainly would be my recommendation that any other number do have appropriate public consultation. Thank you. Does anyone else wish to speak. Or. Thank you, Mayor guthrie, I saw your hand go up. Is this in relation? Are you going to speak to the motion? Because. I am going to kind of fall back on my governance training the mover. And seconder, I will turn to them to say, do you have any words on the motion before? Do you want to speak to the motion or to

what? Our chief planner. Has shared. Well, no. Just to expedite the process here of getting through to a decision. I was just going to speak to potential changes if you want to go to the mover. In the second or first or at least the mover about why. He wants to support the staff recommendation. You can go ahead. It's up to you. Yes, thank you. I'm sorry I'm falling back on my school board. Sorry, councilor alt, if you can indulge me, I'm used to. Whoever places the motion gets to speak first, whoever a second gets to speak second, and then we will open it up to everyone else. Otherwise, they have to get in line quickly and. I did check my Roberts Rules of Order Section 4.6.2. I believe it is. Just around procedurally how that is done. So it's just kind of the way that I'm used to doing things. So I hate to impose counselor out if you would like to say some words. Not at all. I do know that Roberts is very good reading when you can't sleep at night. Thank you very much. Chair Busatill, I appreciate the opportunity to ask

my colleagues to consider supporting the staff recommendation. We do know at this point that there have been two consultants that recommended this staff work with one of them. And the others said independently that they were in favor of it. I am very concerned for the unintended consequences and challenges of increasing density. That can occur. When we have an issue. Where potentially on street parking is used as a way to subsidize the lack of parking in a building. I particularly think that we have a number of problems that are coming to the fore in Downtown guelph in the very near future that we need to address that will affect both the residents and business. And also reduce the appeal of Downtown guelph as a tourist destination for those people who have to come from out of town for that if, in fact we are looking at streets providing for parking that isn't available or even parking lots for that matter that aren't available in residential buildings. I also am very concerned about the millions of dollars. That potentially this can have an impact on for taxpayers if the city is put on the hook for some of the things that other jurisdictions have currently done, I

note that for example, kitchener waterloo does have an lrt and that many of the cities that have gone to a zero based parking. Have also been required after the fact. To build parking lots for the parking that had been there previously, and that. They are now required to provide. These are concerns for us. We are not in a position to build an LRT. And so I think that we need to recognize that while we have and we are making great strides with our transit, our transit is at this point merely future ready. It is not the future. And that's something that I think. Is important for this because. We are essentially renovating guelph, and we are renovating guelph for multimodal transportation. At this point. It is not necessarily that we can start with a blank slate. Like anybody who's done renovations, we can all appreciate that this is a long task and it's a costly one as well. Similarly, this is compounded with increased requirements for parking for Go Transit. And dare I say more importantly, because of the 5000 students. That are going to

be seeing conestoga College as their main campus. Coming very shortly. Many of them will be residing close to downtown guelph. Others will be driving into downtown guelph, and this creates a significant problem for parking within what we term the downtown area. Then we don't know the answer to that right now. I'd also like to answer the ten minute proximity question. I ride both a bicycle and electric bike, and I live what I would consider to be within the downtown catchment. For me. It is patently untrue that I can get anywhere in ten minutes whether I walk or even if I bike or if I electric bike if I want to go to. A shopping market for food. I am looking at a 1520 minutes bike ride up aramasa Hill and down aramasa Hill because while I might go to some of the stores in the downtown, these are not the stores that provide me with the essential provisions, and similarly, they are not necessarily the cheaper stores as well. I don't want to see us building park it for only. Those parking apartments and condominiums only for those that can afford downtown guaff. That would be folly. I believe that we need good planning to get to yes on what I think is essential. And

that is getting people out of cars. I'm a strong believer in the principles of Jane jacobs, and I would like to get us away from suburbanization. But like I said. Earlier, this is not a revolutionary movement. This has to be evolutionary because we're not dealing with a blank slate. We're dealing with many, many challenges. And I can just speak to some of them. I rode my bike tonight and not everybody. 's necessarily ready to do that. And we need to recognize that we should be very, very careful that we don't virtue signal on this. But we deliver what is possible to deliver effectively for the future. And that we make certain that the right steps have been taken so that we don't inadvertently make a mistake. Thank you. Thank you, councilor rich. Richardson, if you'd like to say a few words at this time, thank you, sir. You chair bustel ditto. I think Phil said that in crier's Council said that incredibly eloquently. And I have to give credit to staff for the amount of work that they did on this plan. And I think we need to follow the data. It's there for a reason. It's concrete. And I too am very concerned about moving too fast, too soon without having a full picture of some of the unintended consequences. Thank you now, Mayor

Guthrie. Thank you to you, madam. Chair. So I completely disagree with councilor Richardson and alt. Obviously. I think it is the time to move fast. We are in a housing crisis, and we are in a climate crisis, and we have a race to zero policy. That we all embrace. And we want a more pedestrianized downtown. We want to try to help with the modal shift. And we've heard very clearly that. The market should decide and the risk is with the developer and that's the type. Of. Overall kind of bullet points. There is the type of community. That I'm trying to get to and we should get to it now. I'd like to move an amendment, please. I don't know if I have a second. At all madam chair. But I would like to move an amendment. I've already sent it to O of Council and I've sent it to the clerks. To go to zero parking, no minimum parking. Within the downtown core. And so

I'll just stop there because I know I shouldn't speak any further. My apologies to my colleagues. I should have just placed that motion for first before speaking. My apologies. So I don't know. If I have a seconder. That would like to do exactly. What I'm proposing. So I'll just leave it with you first. Thank you. I have a seconder Councilor galler. Okay. Thank you. If I still floor, then yes, you do, madam. Chair. Thank you. Yeah. It's kind of funny that you want to do amend that one motion that took out the words September 26, because you said that we were already there. I'm already all a day ahead of you. I'm on the 27th right now. So I'm pretty passionate about this. The fact that I'm in copenhagen, learning how to do exactly this. Issue with fellow mayor's, researchers and administrators across our country. To see how. Exactly moving. To this. Way of. More active transportation life with more housing options and more affordability

can actually happen. I'm up at 03:00 in the morning right now because. I want to fight for this. And the reason why I say I want to fight for this is because. I had a Mayor about three or four weeks ago reach out to me. And by the way, I've had several mayors and several counselors across the country reach out to me in the last month because of my position on this. That they were looking for advice on how they could get this done in their communities. I'm surprised. That we're not looking to try to do it in guelph, when we have many other people looking at us right now to see what this Council is going to do. I just had a Mayor tonight. Encouraged me to fight for this. Because her counsel just voted unanimously a few hours ago. To do exactly what I'm proposing right here. And they go out inspiration from guelph thinking. That guelph was actually moving towards what I'm proposing here. And so. I would just want you all my colleagues, please, if you take the climate crisis seriously,

if you take the affordability issue seriously, if you want a more pedestrianized downtown and if you want to try to move people to a different modal shift for their active transportation. This is the way to go. And. Our Minister of Housing for the Federal government. Came out today. And. I just found this here that I wanted to read, and I'll end on that. Sorry. I thought it had it ready. Here. It is. Here. This is what our Federal Minister said today. Our message to Builders today is that it is time to get shovels in the ground. We are going to leverage. All the tools. At our disposal. To make it easier for you to say yes to build homes for Canadians. Counsel, we have a tool at our disposal right now. That can help with

housing. Right now, this is. A very important. I think leadership position for this Council to make. And we have a tool that can help with housing and all the other benefits. Right at this moment. And so if the Federal government is saying that. They're going to do whatever they can to. Help. Wealth has got to help too. And there's never been a moment or a time, madam Chair, where I think we should take this opportunity. And I appreciate that. I just want to also just say sorry. That. There's obviously many people in our community that agree with Mike shriner, including many members of my colleagues. Page. I believe it's page 49 of his housing bill, which many people have openly endorsed in this community. Says no parking minimums. Our own mpp, which I've heard many of my colleagues say that they support no parking minimums.

It's right in Housing plan. So my colleagues, I ask you to please, really consider this moment. And I appreciate the respectful conversation about it and allow me to have my opinion on that. And I'll leave it with Council to decide right now. Thank you, madam Chair. Thank you. Before I go to my speakers list, I just had a conversation check in with the City clerk. Just so that we're focused on what this amendment is in the document that we have. Thank you, madam. Chair. And to Council. Madam Chair outlined that we have seen some obviously, some changes to the recommendations from the committee of the whole recommendations were presented on the agenda to sort of show that transparency of what occurred from Committee to hold at Council. They obviously changed because we're no longer referring, for example, what was number five. To counsel this evening. So we've made those changes. We've captured Mayor guthrie's motions, and we can put them up on screen. What effectively will be captured here is an amendment. And then we will revise if provided this carries, we would revise what is now the new number for. On the agenda to read as amended. So it is effectively an amendment. And Chair Busatill pointed it out to attachment four of the report. It's amending that attachment, which points to the changes

in both of the zoning bylaws. But again, I just wanted to make it clear that. Should this pass. We would effectively then update Clause the new clause for to read as amended and again, I will draw Council's attention to Ms. Walkie's commentary in regards to. Per section 30. 417 of the Planning Act, whether there's a determination on Council and this is Council's prerogative that no further public notice is required. In regards to this decision. So I'll leave that with you, chair boosted. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for focusing our discussion. I've got councilor galler and then councilor o'rourke and then councilor Keaton. Thank you to you, chairman. This is. A difficult choice. When the previous term of Council approved the transportation plan for the city. There was a point where. There were options presented to Council. How fast did you want to move. Towards. Shifting car use to public transit and at the time. Council decided to go for a moderated approach that balanced. The use of vehicles and the move towards

active transportation. So our goal, I believe is 8% ridershift shift. To active transportation by 2031. At that time, I was disappointed that the Council at the time went that way rather than being more progressive in our spending on public transit. And I believe that. The motion. Amended by Margotri, which I happily seconded would make a correction on that direction. It would force us to relook at our active transportation, at our public transit. Infrastructure and say, okay. We are going to be okay with no vehicles, no vehicle parking in the downtown for residents. Then we have to revisit our public transit. So I encourage my colleagues to support this change. And then know that we'll have to look at those other measures. To speed along the active transportation infrastructure in our city. Thank you. Thank you, councilor O'Rourke. Thank you. Chair bustell. I have a couple of questions and then a comment, if that's okay. This is a significant change that's being proposed. So I'd really

like to go to staff for their input. And so through you chair. To our staff. I'd like to give you an opportunity to raise the concerns about going to a zero parking resident, and we should be clear. Residential parking requirement. At this time when we're expecting the two wheel, they go and conestoga, and and so can you just flag for us? Like, what are the major concerns? Because we would need to know eyes wide open what the real impacts would be immediately and then in the future. Through the chair to councilor Rock, thank you. I think important from csas perspective, is taking a look at the circumstances around downtown in the short term. As we've summarized in our information to Council. With the. Upcoming changes with Costaware College with two way all day go with Downtown infrastructure renewal programs, et cetera. From staff's perspective. The appropriate approach given the utilization study and all the information contained in our reports. Is to advance from one. Parking

space per Residential Union, which is the current zoning bylaw to something more progressive that helps unlock housing. And the way we've proposed to do that is through the suite of options contained in the Master plan. So that is the reduced ratio, the Cash and Loop program, tdm measures, and then other site specific zoning considerations that can be considered on an individual specific basis from site to site. So that gives you an opportunity to reduce the ratio down quite a bit on a context specific basis. At the same time, the downtown parking. Master Plan will undergo a five year review. At that point in time, staff intend to come back to Council. With more certainty around some of those unknowns that we've talked about now to help further inform any potential changes in the future to the parking minimums. Thank you. Chairby still through you to staff. Just another question for folks who haven't read the memo that outlined some concerns around. Zero parking. In residential buildings. Should that pass. What do you think the on the ground impacts would be in the short term. Four

surrounding neighborhoods for the on street parking. What could residents expect if we go to that tomorrow. So to the chair to councilor o'rourke. Certainly, in our memo, there's a number of considerations for Council to contemplate as it relates to risk. And the further you go from the staff recommendation, the more likely we think those risks are to occur. Things like pressure on the public supply. Certainly the cost impact associated with that, by law, impact. The level of service to the community as it relates to potential parking spillover. Those types of things are highlighted as well. Our transit plans, our investment rate, our pace of evolving transit is a number. There's a number of factors along those lines as well outlined in our report. And so again staff is saying. Let's move in a direction that promotes more housing. And let's do it in. A way that uses the full set of tools in the Master plan. Thank you. And chairby still, if I could just make some comments, certainly go ahead. So we asked staff to bring us their best professional advice for parking downtown.

They went out. They got professional consultants. Staff are trying to balance the need for parking downtown residential needs funding of our parking services because we still have standing dead on the downtown parcade and are anticipating. Potentially additional unceded services and then also to bring in the economic Development piece for business. So large employers and also shops and tourism downtown. So they did that. And based on that data. And best practices. And our local context. The recommendation is a reduction from one to zero point 87. So that Recommendation recognizes transit and services downtown. As well as ongoing residential needs. Conestoga, College and two way all day go. The cash in lieu of parking is a measure that allows staff to ensure those tdm measures are in place. Before a reduction in minimum parking spaces and decoupling is an option for developers who want to come to Council. So today. We require one parking space for an accessory unit everywhere in the city, including Downtown. Why? Because

Data says most people who are in a basement apartment or an accessory apartment still have a vehicle. So I want to get to the place where there are no vehicles and we can all bike or take transit. But we are not there yet. And I am concerned. That accelerating the timing has a significant impact on downtown businesses and the surrounding neighborhoods. In April of this year, the Comprehensive zoning bylaw did not propose reducing parking downtown because this study was underway. We didn't ask for it. Then we did not give staff direction to remove parking minimums for the Downtown Parking master plan. This is why we do the terms of reference. This is why we have the conversations all the way along. So also Historically, despite official plan goals for the modal shift. We have not hit our modal shift targets in guelph, so we have now accelerated through the Transportation Master plan. Accelerated aaa bike lanes. We've got tons of costs coming at us in terms of facilitating that. But we are not there yet on transit or on the Transportation Master plan. And so it's premature to remove those parking minimums. Windmill is at

zero. 75 because they are providing those tdm measures. If we remove the minimums, we remove any room at all to ensure that those tdm measures are in place. And we've heard that the risk is entirely on the developer, but I'm not sure that's accurate. The city's risk is financial because we lose the cash in lieu that will help us to build facilities. Address overflow pay bylaw Finish paying for the existing parcade. The city's risk is in the overflow parking and dissatisfied residents and surrounding neighborhoods. And it's also an impact to economic development downtown. And we saw that in the letter from the DGBA. And I would close by saying, let's remember those magical savings. They don't get passed along to renters or new buyers. Because in both those cases those costs are driven by market rates. They're not based on the cost to build the building and rent the unit. So it's a false dichotomy to say you're progressive or. Not what we are looking at is a set of facts provided to us by staff and sound recommendations. And on that basis, I am not ready to support a move to zero residential parking.

Thank you. On the speaker's list. I have councilor keaton alt, and if there are no more speakers. I see a hand councilor Downer when there are no more speakers, I will circle back to and councilor karan to the Mayor to see if he has any comments. And then we'll call a vote on the amendment. Okay? So, councilor keaton, please. Thank You, Sir You chair. Feel a little bit like the lorax speaking for the trees because I'm going to speak for people who have disabilities. Which don't seem to be taken into account a lot here. So every time there is a post online about having zero parking. There's also somewhere between five to ten posts underneath. Talking about how that is not an accessible policy. I personally have owned a car since I've been and prior to that I didn't have my chemical disability, but even public transit is not accessible to me. And as a single parent, with a child. Who also has sensory issues trying to get around in winter on two bikes. Is

not necessarily the easiest thing to do. The family bike that is electric. Also. Costs $12,000. If you actually want to bring your kid around. With it cargo bikes not always accessible hard to Park. Your bike can be stolen, and it takes six months to replace. So we are not in a place in society where we have enough accessible options. To not give parking as an option to people. There is 20% of the population that is disabled. I think. When we talk about no parking just for senior buildings, that's also a little bit problematic because we're assuming. That. The seniors have other alternative transportation. So just in terms of an access piece. I would not support zero parking. I think that staff have created quite a good balance. There's a lot of disabilities that do not qualify for accessible parking. And so that would not actually meet the need moving forward or for families, really. Thank

you. Thank you, councilor alt, thank you very much. Chair, busateel. I'm struggling with the words because I can't support this. I think in some senses, some of the issues that we're dealing with with regards to affordable housing and vehicle ownership are a bit of a canard. If we. Remove parking from larger scale buildings. We don't eliminate cars. We simply remove the cars from the building. The cars must go somewhere. I was talking to somebody who is a manager of one of the automotive firms out in the industrial area. Many of the workers out there take public transit until such time as they can afford a car. If a car is put on the street or if a car must go into a garage or to a private setting, we have not saved anybody any money. All that we have done is transferred. The collection of the cost. To someone else. So Consequently, you no longer have accommodation charges that include your vehicle. You have two

different charges, one of which. Is completely uncontrollable, and people in places like Toronto and Montreal will attest to the cost of private parking as being a significant impediment to getting ahead. I think we need to be very careful. As we frame this debate. We cannot look at such things as affordable housing as being necessarily guaranteed because it's not just about affordable housing. It's about affordability. And that includes paying for your car parking, which might be susceptible to theft if it's out. In the public or in some private lot somewhere. And so let's face facts. We're not exactly being honest with all of the details on things like removing the parking minimums. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor downer, please. Yes, I have a point of order. I don't appreciate councilor alt's assumption that I'm not being honest. Just a point of order in retort. I didn't mention any names. I said. We as a College of counselors. Yeah, well, I'm one of them madam Chair. I'm one of them. I recognize that you are one of them. Excuse me. I'm speaking to the chair. Not to

you, madam. Chair. That's the way this works. You go through the chair. Madam Chair, I don't appreciate myself as being collectively involved in being. Assuming that I'm not being honest. In my presentation. Around my desire to move. To. Zero Parking requirements. So. I would ask through you, madam Chair, that that be stricken from councilor alt, because I don't think that's fair to imply that on myself or. Anyone here. Thank you, councilor alt. Regrettably. I can't apologize because I didn't speak to Marigotri. I spoke to we as a College of people making a decision. And I think that staff have given us fair and accurate details. And that's what I'm talking about. If Mayor guthrie feels that I have impugned his reputation for that. I'm terribly sorry. This was not about Mayor guthrie. I don't believe in individuals at Council. I believe in councils. The Council,

as an organic unit, trying to decide things that are in the best interests of the community. Thank you, Mayor guthrie. When I heard councilor alt, I thought of the we, the Collective, we. And so on behalf of myself, I guess I apologize if there was a misunderstanding. No, it's not on you. Thank you. Thank you. I have councilor Downer. Thanks. So thinking of the Collective, we I think we all recognize on Council that. There's a direction we need to go in. I think staff recognize that that's reflected in the report. And I think they've tried to do a balance here. That is difficult trying to get that way responsibly. In order to keep things in alignment with another. Policies, and. What Councilor work was saying with the correct context of what's going on in the downtown. I won't support the zero. I had at one point thought that I might be willing to look at

some reduction, but I don't know, considering what we've heard. And I'd have to say Ditto to a lot of what I've heard. But there's another issue here that the downtown boundaries are not what they were. At one point. Many of the developers that came and spoke to us talked about the downtown core. Well, our downtown boundary now. Take up half the Ward where you'll have 23 stories. Those zero minimums of which we had a letter from one of them. The parking around that was neighborhoods for visitor parking is going to be very difficult. It goes all the way to London Road. It goes down to. Dublin street. And now they all have 23 stories. So I think that's problematic. I think if this ever comes back and it sounds like it will staff need to consider sort of defined areas of the downtown where. You have parking minimums because. You're going into those. More residential neighborhoods that are different than the actual core of the downtown. I also agree with what Council work said in

a few others about the risk. I don't think the risk is all on the developers. I think the community takes a risk. In the extra parking that will be able to be used up for visitor parking like the dgba mentioned Cambridge in their letter where there's an example of that but also. Graham mcnaughton, who wrote the article today about what happens when parking minimums are reduced. There was some positive, but in one of the places he identified, they have to build two parking garages. There is evidence to that as well. So there is that risk as well. And the shops are concerned downtown that. Their shop parking will be taken up. With that overflow. The ten minute downtown, I wish. But again, the boundaries of downtown are different. I don't think if you live on huron street, which is part of the downtown. Those areas that that's a ten minute community. And even in downtown, as councilor olse points out, there's really no affordable grocery

shopping. You'd be going elsewhere. So until we get to that point. Where. We have some further along in our which talks more about more gradual growth in transit till we get to that point. I think staff are still going in the right direction. I think the point 85 is is that starting point? They have all these other tools that they can use. To get that lower. And so. I think that's where. We're going to see that. And for supportive housing, there is zero. So there's a lots of ways that these can be reduced. And I think this right now is a good plan that will evolve over time. So those are just the additional points that I wanted to make in addition to what some others have said. Thank you, Councilor Downer before I go to Councilor Karen and class. And I just want to take a second to ground us in the reality that we are here for the common good and recognize that we are all here to do the best for our families and our collective community. So if we can just keep that in mind at the center of our. Conversations that we are a collective. And we're all here to

do the best that we can. Thank you, councilor karan. Yes. Thank you, madam Chair. My colleagues have expressed. My primary reasons for not supporting the amendment. And to the mover. I would love nothing more than to live in a city, in a community, in a society. Where dependence on the car was not a reality. But I've been reminded several times. By the new generation among us. I work at the University, as most people know that when we talk about parking, we're assuming that we're talking about cars and. We're not we're talking about personal transportation devices. And those can take many forms. They can take the form of a mobility scooter. A sidecar for a bicycle. And we're in transition. We're in an evolution of what personal transportation means right now. Speaking specifically to the motion, I can't support it mostly because and it was articulated by one of the previous speakers, the loss of cash in lieu. Because the risk of not building enough parking

means. We lose the cash in lieu that allows us. Stewards of the tax dollar to then build the capacity. That we may need in the future. So there is a lot of risk for the city going to a parking minimum. And as councilor gauner said, we have to remember that our downtown boundary. Has expanded. To beyond wyndham street and the Core. We're talking about downtown boundary that has moved. Into low density residential neighborhoods. And that's where we're going to see the impact the most. So although I'd love to live in a society with zero dependence on cars, I can't support the motion at this time. Thank you. Councilor Clawson. Yes. Thank you. Through your chair. Bushetel. I actually have a question for staff. There was a reference to 120 huron street earlier in a delegation by delegate Mike darman with regard to, I think, bike parking. But I also believe that there was a request from them with regard to parking. And I would just like to hear a little bit more about that. Through the chair to Councilor class. And so that is correct.

120 here on street was approved based on a parking justification report with zero point 97 spaces per unit. So just a little bit less than one. And they do have 30 micro units. And when they did their calculations that worked out 2.5 spaces for each of those micro units. And that was all calculated in that point 97 per unit. They are in presales and sales and are having difficulty selling some of the units with not enough parking and have put in a request to remove their landscape open space and put in additional parking spaces in the landscape open space. To go above one. Okay. Thank you for that. Comments as well. Is that what we're doing? Yeah. I do want to say thank you to staff. You've spent so much time with us as we kind of try to navigate this super complex issue with so many different stakeholders. I'll just try to be really brief tonight. We heard from a few different perspectives, developers. We heard from the active transportation community. And thank you very much for that. And last minute, we heard from

the dgba and businesses. And one voice that's notably missing tonight is the residence. And I feel like they're potentially reflected in the report. There was stakeholder consultations done a great deal. You mentioned the 40 pages done in the report, and we're not hearing them tonight. And I just think. It's an important voice that we're not hearing from. And I keep coming back to that because I hear those voices in my inbox. I hear them on the Street. I hear a lot of different types of complaints about. Parking downtown. And where I am so inspired by. The mover. And. Cam your motion to make us even better downtown. I'm struggling to find that balance because I think it is a balance where we do need to progress, and we do need to move forward. And we do need to push towards. A Car Free world. That's what we want to do, but the plan. Also. Does ground in reality as well. So that's where I'm at.

I'm trying to find the balance. And. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Councilor clausen. I have no more speakers on my list. I did say that I would go back to the Mayor. Oh, I see. Councilor Gibson. Just weighing in a little bit here. Great conversation, everyone. It's been a nice night to talk about downtown and what the Downtown needs. I really see Mayor guthrie's motion. Progressing us to a point where I think it would help domino some other policies. So I express frustration at the community, the whole meeting around, not introducing paid on street parking and kind of kicking that decision another five years down. I understand the rationale, but it was a frustrating point for me. Given that we are still using public space to provide free, taxpayer funded parking downtown. I think moving to zero parking minimums for the downtown community would result in. People purchasing lower priced units and then looking. For alternatives to park their car, which would inevitably mean we'd be putting even more pressure on the public spaces, public

streets, which would force us to turn into. Force us to do something about paid on street parking. So I see it kind of as a domino effect if we decide to go to zero. I think that would drive the demand for paid on street parking in the near future. But at the same time, we're not here talking about paid on street parking for the next five years. And so while I would really like to support the 0%. Or the 0% demand. Or requirement. I don't see the two matching up in what has been presented to us from staff. So. Again. I would prefer to support a zero, but. I don't think Council. Or the staff recommendations support what would come shortly thereafter, which would be a need to move to a paid on street parking. So I think this conversation needs to keep moving. I'm supportive of reducing it below the zero 85, but not to zero yet because I don't think we're ready for on street pay parking for the next five years. Thank you, councilor Gibson, councilor Chu. Thank you, madam Chair. And thank you again for all the hard work. And I

appreciate all the conversations that my colleagues have presented tonight. This is kind of the conversation that I was hoping for. Because we literally have this one opportunity to make a decision on this. Until. 2028. So it's very important that we make this pivotal decision. I just have a quick question for maybe some remarks later down the road if I may. Just to clear the air and make the record clear. Why did staff decide to go with zero point 85 instead of zero point 79, which is the average of the ten lots at peak utilization. I just want to make it very clear for our audience here tonight. Why that was the clear, rationale. So through you, madam Chair, to the councilor. Point 85, was the recommendation that came from the consultants who used their expertise.

And who used comparisons to other municipalities. So the staff recommendation that came forward was zero point 85. Thank you so much and just some brief comments. I feel compelled for us to do something. Because. If we set the expectation very clear upfront. To our community. Where we're heading with our downtown. Nothing's going to change. Overnight. Parking is still going to be around. Parking is still going to be provided. But it gives our community time to adjust, especially our business community to work within their pro. Former how can. They better accommodate within their budget for other tdm measures. That would. Be better served for our community. So I also think as well we are medium sized city, small and medium sized city, and. Zero parking minimums would be quite aggressive. I know other major cities like Vancouver. They don't have zero minimum parking requirements. They actually

use. Per block per zone within their downtown core. A further reduction. So I'm happy to support a further reduction in parking minimums, but I don't think zero is necessarily the right step in the right direction, but. I applaud our Mayor for his work and advocacy and his time also spent with our staff. Researching best practices in COVID Hagan because I think that's the type of leadership that we need to help shepherd the conversation forward so we can have better, more insightful conversations on how we can provide mechanisms for transit utilization, especially in our downtown core, where it's most necessary. Thank you, thank you. I have I think no more speakers on my list. I did promise the Mayor that I would circle back to him before I call the vote on the amendment. Just. Merritt, did you want to speak again, or shall I PROCEED with the vote. No, I think it's kind of obvious where this is going, which is fine. So just let our vote be our voice. Thank you. So I'm going to call the vote if anyone. Is opposed to the amendment. If you can put your hand up for that

and I'm going to look to the clerks to help me count to make sure that I'm not missing anyone. So if anyone is opposed, if you can just please indicate with a hand up, please. This is opposing the zero minimum.

So the Amendment doesn't pass. I do Inuit the Mayor because I believe you had a second Amendment. You also wanted to put forward. Thank you, madam chair. I'm so sorry. I just didn't see being all the way here in Copenhagen. I didn't know what was the end result on that vote, because whatever the end result was on that vote will determine whether we're here for another hour or another five minutes. Ten opposed. Ten were opposed. Okay, then. I think the five minute journey might be the best for us. Madam Chair, I'll just say out loud where I was thinking about going, but obviously I don't think the appetite is there for this Council at this time. Which is the way it goes. So just so everyone knew I was going. To. Bring forward. A proposal that we do like a three year temporary use by law for no parking minimums to basically see how it

would go to see if the sky would fall. And then we could review it in three years. But based on the. Ten three outcome of the original vote. I think I'll just pass that and forget it and then also. My other motion I was thinking about madam Chair. Was. To reduce it. From. The. Point 85. Which is recommended down to 0.5, but I can hear very clearly. And I've heard from some of my colleagues today. Not only in the comments now, but my colleagues today that there's no appetite for that either. So I won't bother counsel with trying to do that either. So madam Chair, I think councilor downer might have had something that she wanted to propose. And I'm happy to give the floor respectfully to her. However, I would just ask madam Chair. Perhaps after councilor downer, I do have one other motion. That I would like. To propose to counsel after this item is done, but still in regards to the topic at hand. So thank you very much for the opportunity. To talk. I'll leave it back to you. Thank you.

And I do want to acknowledge it's after 02:00 a.m.. In copenhagen. So thank you. For. The early morning. It's actually almost 330, but that's okay. 03:30 a.m. Thank you. I'm going to turn to Councilor Downer. Councilor downer. I can't hear you. Sorry. No, I don't have an amendment. I was considering the point 75. But after another further discussions today. And emails from staff. I've decided not to move that forward. Thank you, councilor o'rourke, thank you, Chair. You still, I just had a couple of questions on the main motion. If you allow so through you to staff just looking at. The additional memo. You have a chart and a timeline. So first, thanks very much. For agreeing to Pilot. Well, am I understanding this correctly? It looks like Pilot first hour free parking and off street facilities which was raised committee the whole byrgey delegate. And I'm a proponent of that. So can you give me

an idea of when we're thinking of piloting that first hour free in off street facilities, that kind of drive that behavior. So through you, madam. Chair to the Councilor. If tonight's plan is approved, that is one of the first work items we have in addition to creating some targeted permit. So while I'm away at a conference next week. It will be up shortly. Certainly. We'll see it in the fourth quarter of this year. That's terrific. Great. Thank you. Through Cherbus. Till I'm wondering, the gcat delegate. There are three of them tonight. But. Our strong town's economist. Also raised a question about how can we get better collaborations between. Private lot owners. I'm thinking of the one behind the albion, right? How do we get better collaboration between those folks. And maybe residential buildings or something like that. So are there apps? Are there conversations? The city. Is a city approaching those businesses. So what does that look like? Because it's a great suggestion. Through you, madam Chair to the councilor. Some of that work is already underway. So my team has reached out to. A

number of private and not for profit owners with their own facilities. We're always looking for opportunities to find where we can find some synergy and sort of offload supply or better use supply. So some of that work is underway already. I don't have a specific example because there's a bit of time lag as we work with condo boards or owners or not for profit directorships to get those things in place. But that's certainly work we're looking at. Thank you. And through chair boost till last question. I was in Vancouver this week. Some other downtown lots do not have $30 day rate. Parking. In Downtown Vancouver. So I, as you know. Feel the the rate the day rate in our Parkage quite high prohibitively. So for some people who want to take the go train or can't even get a day pass because they're sold out despite what our eyes tell us. So how close are we to some kind of a rate review? Just because I don't see it in the chart. A rate review or some kind. Of mechanism where we can balance out those people with the monthly pass who go to Toronto

or London or wherever. Kitchener. Five times a month. So it's more economical to buy the day fast. So when are we going to help those folks? Because I do hear from them as well. Through madam Chair to the councilor. So some of that work has begun. There's some work going on with finance. One of the things that we're doing right now is analyzing how much of our business is actually from full day rate. Once we have a better understanding of how long people are staying, we can probably look to reduce it. Our 30 day rate is, quite frankly, just simple arithmet. Arithmetic. It's $3 an hour. It's open for 10 hours. That's when we charge. So it became $30. I think it's also related to supporting Go train users. So we want to make sure that we're creating some equity there. Some of that work is underway. We'll probably need to bring that back to you. It may come back in time for the fee bylaw approval for the multi year budget. If we can get it in. Place in that time you'll see it and the fee schedule. If not, we'll probably come back to you and propose some changes to the rate schedule. Thank you, councilor o'rourke, and I was going to say we're refocusing on the main motion. I was going to ask the clerks, please, to put the motions back up

on the screen, just in case. Just to refresh our memories. And do I have any other speakers to the main motion. Councilor, Gauller. Thank you through Chairperson I wanted to take a moment before we vote to thank staff for. The significant amount of work that has been done and in particular, something that. Councilor Gibson mentioned. That. Once the body of construction is done in the downtown, we'll be looking at paid on street parking in the downtown. I'm excited that that is going to happen. I think it's necessary, and I understand. That I would also love it if it came in in the next couple of months. But if wyndham street is going to be up and under construction for a couple of years. I completely understand why the staff is recommending to revisit payton Street Parking at that time. Once that main construction is done. I am also excited that as part of these recommendations, we will be looking at a citywide. On street parking

review coming down. In. The next couple of years. I think that is that is necessary to support the work. Of really making that shift from subsidizing cars parking everywhere in the city. To. Pay a user pay system. But thank you very much for all of this work. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Are there any other speakers to the main motion? And they were up on the screen. Mayor Guthrie. Oh, thank you. Already unmuted God. For the last two minutes. I just had a question about I'm very sorry. I can't find it just in my struggle of trying to find stuff here. About. The 1971 issue. I just wanted to make sure that. I know it was answered, can we just get staff to. Was there a motion in that memo that you sent? I'd have to pull it back up. Around that to make sure

that there would be no parking. Requirements for the existing stock of buildings within the downtown. Through the chair to Merrick. So it's not in the memo. So we did answer it at the public meeting for zoning, which was the 1971 was when. The full bylaw zoning bylaw came into effect in Gulf. So everything that was existing prior to that was grandfathered. And since then we've required the parking for residential. It is exempt for commercial in order to help with our businesses and our economic development and keep the economy strong in the downtown. But for residential it is not exempt. As discussed, there's options they can go through to reduce that parking with cash and loo with affordable housing to incent other means of housing that we do desperately need in our downtown. They can do bike share, car share. So there's other options they can do to reduce that number for conversions of buildings. In the downtown. Okay. Thank you, krista. Through you, madam. Chair.

So basically what you're saying is. The status quo recommendation that's been presented for us to consider now is what would apply. For the existing stock of buildings that would be looking to potentially be renovated from commercial office into residential. Through the chair. That is correct.

Okay. All right.

Yes. That's my only question. I have no further comments, madam Chair, other than to bring the motion forward after this is done. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other speakers. To the motion to the recommendations on the floor. Okay seeing none. I would like to call the vote. I'm going to ask if anyone is opposed to if we could have the recommendations back up again. The four recommendations. And again, I'm going to ask the clerks to be my eyes to make sure I don't miss anyone. So if anyone is opposed to the four recommendations. If they could please indicate that. Thank you. I have two opposed to the recommendations and so the recommendations carry. Thank you to everyone. I am now going to turn to councilor o'rourke for bylaws if you would be. Oh, sorry, Mayor guthrie. Sorry. I completely forgot. Yeah. No problem.

Thank you. So I do have a motion that I have I think in the queue with the clerks, if they could pull it up. I won't do any preamble or anything until I get a second just to make sure we can keep the flow going here. So if the clerk could pull up the one that I think it was the fourth motion that I sent. Which is just a direct staff around. Considering no parking minimums in the next review. Through you, madam chair. Thank you for that, clarification. Maragothri, we're just pulling that up right now. We weren't sure which motion you were referring to specifically. Thank you. It was the fourth one that I sent. Councilor gauler. And then councilor Two. Afterwards. Who? You're placing? A recommendation. Okay. Thank you. That's it, clerks. Thank you. And through you, madam. Chair. This is the motion here that staff be directed to evaluate the implementation of Zero Parking minimums for residential uses in downtown zones, including community

engagement and a report back to Council as part of the next Downtown Parking Master plan. In 2028 or sooner, and. I don't have a second yet, so I'll let you see if there's a second. Is there a seconder? I have councilor clawson. Is willing to second. Did you want to speak to the motion there? Mayor Guthrie. Just very quickly. I talked to staff about this today. They actually helped me write. This. They seemed very supportive. But anyone there can ask staff. If you wish. But I would feel comfortable with this and hope that Council would. Support this. I would call it a nod, it's a little bit of a nod, the tip of the hat that we are going to seriously consider this in the next review. And I'll leave that with you. Thank you, Manager. Thank you. I'll go to the secondary councilor. Coughing Would you like to say a few words. You can say no. Thank you. Does anyone wish to speak to the recommendation? Can you put it back up on the

clerks? Back up on the screen. Sorry.

I have councilor alton and councilor O'Rourke. Thank you. I respect the sincerity of the intention, but I want to ask a question through to staff because it's implying that. We're examining. The effectiveness of zero parking in guelph. I don't think that was the intent, but I'm just wondering, how would you go about doing this. Through the Chair to councilor out, I think as part of our review over the next five years and as we kind of indicated throughout the process with more certainty on a number of different topics, it provides staff an opportunity through the Next Master plan. To look at the parking ratio again. And certainly, as part of that review and our due diligence, we would look at what the impact of no minimum parking is. And so this gives us some clarity to make sure that that work is clearly done and identified and done through community engagement. So no concerns with what's proposed. Okay. Thank you very much. Councilor o'rourke, that was my question. Thank you. Are there any further questions about the recommendation. Seeing none. I'm going to call the question, is anyone opposed. I see no opposition. So

that is unanimous. Now. Is that. It Mayor Guthrie. Yes, everyone shall be thrilled. Yes, thank you. Thank you very much. I'm going to go to councilor galler. Thank you. Chairman. I would like to move a motion. I have sent it around to the clerks. And I'm not sure if I'll have a second there, but it is with regard to the payment in lieu of parking policy. I would like to have to explore. Exempting affordable housing from having parking minimums. Is there a seconder? I've got councilor Richardson. Would you like to speak to that briefly. I think. In support of building Affordable housing in the city. I would like this to be a consideration. The City is responsible. For a portion of the housing spectrum, including. Affordable Rental housing. And. We continually see those units not being built in the city. So I think that this

consideration could be. Another little thing that could perhaps. And this motion does not direct staff to do it, but to include it as part of the review. What would it look like if we were to. Exempt affordable housing from having parking minimums. And I would just. In the same spirit of the motion that was just passed. Asking staff to consider having no parking in the next parking review. I would like that when the payment in lieu of parking policy comes back that this was given due consideration. Thank you. Councilor Richardson, would you like to say a few words. Ditto. I have councilor alt and then councilor O'Rourke. Thank you Chair, busatille. I don't really have a problem with the direction to review. My caution coming from the experience of having built how is it go ups and being chair of the Housing Authority is that one of the real challenges is that parking is absolutely essential in affordable housing. And. It's essential for some of the very reasons that I was talking about earlier, the

shortage. Of Public transit. And multimodal transit in places like this are significant. And I remember when we put winfield Housing Co op in the ground. The big challenge was to get the garbage bins out. Go. On city parking so that we could add two more spaces to a 75 unit development. So I certainly have no problem with reviewing, but I'm not certain that we're going to get the result that we might expect. Thank you, councilor o'rourke, thank you, Chair. But you still throw you to the mover. Wondering how you are defining affordable housing, whether it's the province's new definition of 80% of market, whether it's rent geared to income. Where are you on that spectrum for this motion. Through the chair to councilor, ork I would leave that to staff. It is my hope that we would use the city's definition when we look at affordable rental housing. That is a guide, but staff will let us know what we can and cannot do. We get every year report that tells us how much housing has been built in the city. And that report identifies

how much affordable rental has been built. And we haven't met the targets for what a healthy mix would be for the city for as long as I have been on City Council. So that is what I had in mind when we get the reports that tell us how much affordable. Rental units have been building wealth that this might. Encourage. Some more of those to be developed. Thank you and Council. Chair vistel just a comment to Echo what councilor alt said. A lot of people who need affordable housing are working jobs like psws, where they are required to have a vehicle and they're going 20 appointments in a day or people juggling two or three part time jobs. So I think we want to acknowledge that. But I support the nation because it's certainly worth looking at. But I think we want to have a lens of what the need is from the people with that lived, experience. Thank you, councilor o'rourke, I have Mayor guthrie and then councilor Gibson. Thank you. Through you, madam. Chair. I'm still kind of caught a little bit on exactly what councilor o'rourke asked. That's what was really good to be the premise of my question. And so it's through

you to staff. Are you under the impression that when the words Affordable Housing is included in this motion. That. It means. What our own Affordable Housing strategy. That we just initiated. Definition is going to be at some point. Is that what you would be tying it to. The charit of America Three, so the Affordable housing definition, as it is today. Is an rp. If it changes by their province, we'll have to consider that. Obviously, though, with a reduction in parking, we'll also have to consider the length of time for affordable housing units. And so all that would be factored into any recommendation that we bring back. Okay. Thank you. And through to the mover. Can I just get clarity. Actually to clerks. Would you mind if you put The Nation, Please back up on the screen.

Okay. Thank you. Through you, madam. Chair to the mover councilor caller, are you looking to try. And get affordable housing projects out of having to build parking. Or is it also for them to not have to pay in the cash and leave for to get out of parking. Through cherubus. Mary GOTRI. My intention is that when the cash and new policy comes. That. When we have a development that is guaranteed to be affordable or affordable rental that instead of saying you still have to pay $10,000. For a payment in lieu or 20,000. That consider what it would look like if they had to pay zero so that developments that are affordable are effectively exempt from the cash and loop payment. Okay. Good. So in other words, councilor caller, you're still okay. If an affordable housing

development wanted to build parking. Oh, absolutely. And I would not support. Any motion that has parking maximums. I think we need to let people build. What they think is of need in our city. Let the market decide. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, thank you. I have councilor Gibson. Thank you. Through you. Chair busatell to the mover. Just because we're here talking about the downtown parking master plan, I'm still assuming this is in relation to the downtown. Your motion is specific to the downtown. It doesn't specifically say that, but I'm just assuming it's implied. Correct. Through Chair Boots Hill to councilor Gibson. Yes. I believe it was the committee of the whole that we gave direction for staff to come back in Q one of 2024 with a payment in loop policy for the downtown parking. So this is in reference to that policy. And if I could maybe hear from staff just for confirmation that that is your understanding. Of the Nation. Thank you. Through the chair. We're comfortable with that interpretation. Thank you. Are there any further speak? Oh, I've got Mayor Guthrie. I'm sorry.

Is there anything stopping us. From oh, there's no cash in Lou outside of the downtown. Core. Thank you. I'm good. Ten to four in the morning. Here. Sorry, everybody. Is there anything further on this item. Seeing no further speakers, I'm going to call the vote. If you are opposed to the recommendation if you could just put your hand up. I see no opposition. So that is unanimous. Thank you. And I thought, Is there. Another. Okay. Council Chu. Do you have a recommendation or a motion. Okay, so councilor Chu. Through you, madam Chair, if I may just provide some context on my motion. Do you recommend that I read out the motion. Then provide a has it been sent to the count to the clerks to go on the screen. If the clerks can. Yeah. Through you, madam. Chair. We did suggest wording here. We didn't receive specific wording from the Council, so we've. Sorry. Thank

you. Yes, we did. My apologies. Getting late a. That's correct. Okay. I guess I'll just read the motion. And then if I can provide some context. Yeah. What I would suggest is you can read the resolution. I need a seconder, and then I will turn to you to speak to it and then your secondary as well. Okay. Okay. So I have a motion so that stoppy directed to reach out to senior staff at Sydney Edmonton on best practices from their open. Option parking bylaw and report back through an information Report with Best Practices for the City of guelph to consider as part of future Downtown Parking review. Do I have a seconder for this. Is someone willing to second. Councilor Gibson. Sorry. Who was that? Is that councilor taran? Oh, Gibson. Thank you. Seconded. Thank you. Would you like to speak to the Nation?

Yeah. Thank you, madam. Chair. So as part of my due diligence. With this review tonight. I reached out to some of the representatives from the City of Edmonton who helped spearhead and unanimous vote to end parking minimums. They worded it as open option parking. And if I may just speak to this a little bit more in depth. Just an excerpt from their report. They preface open option parking as removing minimum parking requirements, not necessarily meaning no parking will be provided, and that parking is a powerful force, often a hidden force that shapes how our communities are designed, how parking is supplied, priced, and use affects every aspect of how people live, work and move. Around and I think. We all get the nature of this motion, but I do think a public receipt of some due diligence from our staff. Who I would think often reach out to municipalities for Best to evaluate best practices would be helpful for our discourse in the future. And just a few other comments we do have to be

serious about. How we allow the market to decide. What gets built because ultimately. Our stakeholders in downtown, they're the ones that are going to be a major part of shaping how our future is. And we need to give them a bit more goodwill, in my opinion. And not be so restrictive from regulatory perspective. Downtown is very different as well compared to other parts of the city, and that we need to keep that mindset in mind and not assume that the South End, where I have a lot of constituents. Who still drive. That lifestyle is very different from downtown. And we can't continue to assume folks from the east end will have the same standard. Same lifestyle as well as folks living in the downtown. So I think until we get to that point where we recognize there are differences. In all parts of the city, then we can have a better, more robust conversation on how we shape our downtown in terms of utilizing transit

incentives to funnel. In transit demand management practices that can best serve condo dwellers in private developments. I think we still have a long way to go, but I want to thank my colleagues who helped shepherd the conversation on reduction to minimums. I do think that's a necessary step. It's part of the life of our city and. It's a necessary growing pain as well. That we face head on. It's just like going to the gym. It's not fun, but you have to do it in order to make some progress. Right? So I'll just leave it at that. And I welcome anybody who wants to have a conversation with me or the other counselors on this matter, because I think this is very important for us moving forward, especially with Hanstoga coming in all day, two way go coming in wyndham street redevelopment. There's so much potential in our downtown. And this is the prime opportunity to work with our groups from the Chamber and from all other facets. Of downtown. So thank you for this time. And. I appreciate the conversation tonight. Thank you. I have

councilor Gibson as a seconder, and I wasn't sure. I believe I saw Council koran. And then I have councilor alt on the Speaker's list and councilor o'rourke. So we'll go with councilor Gibson, please. Just wanted to support my fellow counselor. I think this is a good idea. I think it's a small but subtle instruction to staff. I don't think it's micromanaging them at all. And I think it only bodes well for better policy down the future. Thank you. Councilor Gibson, councilor koran alt, and then O'Rourke. I'd like to give staff an opportunity to respond to respond. Evanson is a city of a million people. That aside, we're talking about a review that's going to take place years from now and. It is incumbent upon our staff as part of their normal review practice to look at best practices throughout the country and beyond so. I wouldn't mind hearing their response. I certainly appreciate councilor chu's intent here. But it would be a matter of course, for our staff to review best practices. Regardless of the

motion. So through the chair. So, as Council chu had mentioned, it's part of our due diligence to do outreach to different communities, to see what they're up to. To determine best practices to see if it's suitable for the City of Guelph. Council koran had mentioned City of evington is different than the City of Guelph. In lots of ways. I'm struggling a little bit with our pace and capacity as it is as we go forward with some of the items that staff want to do as part of the downtown parking master plan. Some of the things that you've seen in the memo are things that we want to get going on sooner rather than later. What I might suggest is that we have that conversation. And maybe report back to see if it's even feasible or even. If it's even doable here at the City of guelph before we start doing a deeper dive on that, if it is, then we would consider that as part of our regular review when we come back with the next downtown Parking Master plan. Yeah. Thank you for that. And although, again, councilor chu, I appreciate your intent. I

don't think I'll support the motion because I think we get into, Well, I'd like you to contact Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Quebec City, and there's a lot of best practices out there. And I think if we send our. Staff out in this form of our Terms of reference in the next review, which would likely be done not necessarily in house but by a consultant anyway. Then we can frame. What kind of. Policy practice reviews. We want to do, but I think doing it at this point is premature. But appreciate the intent. Thank you. I have councilor alt o'rourke and then chu, thank you very much, madam Chair. I was going to say very similar to what Council koran said and appreciate the responses from staff. In fact, actually, I now have a request of you. I think that the motion is out of order as it is redundant to the work that is currently taking place from staff. Further, I think that it narrows the work of staff rather than expands it because it confines it particularly to Edmonton. Whereas councilor corona is quite correct. There are a number of best practices that need. To be reviewed. So, madam Chair, seek your ruling on that. Thank you. I'm going to turn to councilor chu. That

was my first impression when I saw it very quickly on the screen. I was going to ask if you would consider allowing staff to take it under advisement when they are looking at terms of preference and work with their consultants in future. Through you, madam, chair. I welcome any amendment to the motion. I think in spirit of the conversation we're having tonight. And all that's happening downtown. I think it would be good. It would be good just to have a receipt of where our conversation is going. And I think that's part of having information be received as an information report. I think maybe just to give some context on maybe the due diligence. And manpower that would be required to undertake such consultation. If we had a motion, for example, that. Said consult other municipalities. Not limited to City Edmonton. And I think if we afforded you the scope in which this due diligence. Takes place. Would that be better, just for lack of better words? Councilor chu I think the issue is that the staff already do consult other municipalities as part of their process and best practice and that we are kind of

waiting into operational matters. And not the governance side to this through you, madam Chair. I guess just a question. How do I phrase this in a way that allows for a receipt. And some kind of a yeah, just some kind of a receipt that says, oh, this is what staff is doing. May I suggest that this be deferred, that this conversation come out of Council, and perhaps you can have a meeting with the CEO homes to try to frame this a little bit more in the governance side of the House and not so much the operational so that it meets. Your intent. Of recognizing that there are best practices and recognizing the good work of the staff dco home. And as we see through the chair, perhaps I can help here a little bit. Is that as mentioned, this is part of our due diligence. So perhaps after we have those perhaps the initial discussions. For this concept that we could even share an email with Council if that's helpful. And then you have some

information about where we landed with it. Okay. Yeah. I think I'm satisfied with that. Thank you so much. Thank you. So procedurally, if you are to withdraw the motion, I need you to withdraw it. And I also need the support of councilor Gibson to withdraw the motion. Or we can just leave the motion on the floor and defeat it. I will respectfully. Withdraw the motion. I'm going to turn to councilor Gibson. He's deferring the motion as well. Okay. Thank you. So that is it on those items. And then maybe we can talk afterwards. With dco Homes on that. So are there any other motions. Okay, thank you. So next are the bylaws councilor O'Rourke. Thank You, Chair. Mr. Till. The recommendation is that bylaw is numbered 2023. 2833 through 2023 2836 are hereby. Passed. Thank you. Can I have a seconder? Councilor galler. Thank you. Are there any other discussion? Is there any other

discussion on this item. Seeing none. I'm going to call the question. Is anyone opposed to the bylaws. Seeing none. They pass unanimously. There are no mayor's announcements from the Mayor. However. I as Acting Mayor with superpowers that have been given to me by the Mayor. I do want to make an announcement. And this is personal. I don't have direction from Council or anything like that. So on Friday, September 29, I would encourage everyone to wear an Orange shirt as a way to honor Indigenous lost children and survivors of residential schools. Their families and communities as part of our commitment to truth and reconciliation. And I believe councilor alt is wearing his shirt today. If you would consider that. That would be and badges. Yes. Sorry. Councilor or Rock and Councilor. Richardson, those are beautiful. I have to go and get one. And the other one is also. A personal comment. I just want to personally publicly acknowledge that especially after last Wednesday's protest, I want

to acknowledge the City of guelph support for the two Slgbtqia community and our strong city commitment to human rights and equity as outlined in our strategic plan. And I know personally. When we talked about our strategic plan, I talked a lot about equity as a number of other counselors did and human rights. And so I just want to thank the staff. And City Councils for support. And that is it on that I am looking for a motion for adjournment. Of someone Councilor Richardson, seconded by. The Mayor Cam, who wants to go to bed in copenhagen. Time. Is there any opposition to this. Seeing none. We are done. That is unanimous. Good night, everyone.