Open Council

The 12th Meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee

Open Council

The 12th Meeting of the Community and Protective Services Committee

November 1, 2022, at 4:00 PM

Original link

The meeting was called to order at 4:00 PM; it being noted that the following Members were in remote attendance: Councillors M. Mamou, J. Helmer and S. Hillier.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that Councillor S. Hillier disclosed a pecuniary interest in clause 5.1 of this Report, having to do with the Deferred Matters List, specifically item number 1 on the list, by indicating that his family hosts a five day event.

2.   Consent

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

That Items 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

2.1   Update on the Roadmap to 3,000 Affordable Units

2022-11-01 SR - Update on the Roadmap to 3,000 Affordable Units

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the staff report, dated November 1, 2022, with respect to an update on the Roadmap to 3,000 Affordable Units, BE RECEIVED. (2022-D04)

Motion Passed

2.2   2022 Annual Emergency Management Program Update

2022-11-01 SR - 2022 Annual Emergency Management Program Update - Full

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Enterprise Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated November 1, 2022, related to the 2022 Annual Emergency Management Program Update:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on November 8, 2022 to:

i)    repeal and replace Schedule “A”, being the City of London Emergency Response Plan, as appended to the above-noted staff report; and,

ii)    repeal By-law No. A.-7657(d)-367; and,

b)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED. (2022-P03)

Motion Passed

2.3   Former River Road Golf Course - Plans for Ownership and Municipal Use

2022-11-01 SR - Former River Road Golf Course - Plans for Ownership and Municipal Use

Moved by M. Hamou

Seconded by J. Helmer

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environmental and Infrastructure and the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, on the advice of the Director, Parks and Forestry and the Director, Realty Services, the staff report, dated November 1, 2022, with respect to Plans for Ownership and Municipal Use related to the Former River Road Golf Course, BE RECEIVED; it being noted that the communications, as appended to the Added Agenda, from Councillor M. van Holst, S. Watson, A. McGuigan and A. Johnson, with respect to this matter, were received. (2022-R05D)

Motion Passed

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

None.

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   Deferred Matters List

CPSC DEFERRED MATTERS as at October 21, 2022

That the Deferred Matters List for the Community and Protective Services Committee, as at October 21, 2022, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by J. Helmer

Seconded by M. Cassidy

Motion to receive Item Number 1 on the Deferred Matters List for the Community and Protective Services Committee, as at October 21, 2022.

Motion Passed (3 to 0)

Moved by S. Hillier

Seconded by J. Helmer

Motion to receive the Deferred Matters List for the Community and Protective Services Committee, as at October 21, 2022, with the exception of Item Number 1.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

6.   Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:24 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (39 minutes)

[12:24] or can you hear me? We can. Thank you. (muffled speaking) Oh, yeah. (muffled speaking) Okay, it’s four o’clock.

[16:14] So I’ll call the final meeting for this term of the Community and Protective Services Committee to order. I will begin by saying that we acknowledge that we are gathered today on the traditional lands of the Anishnabek, the Haudenosaunee, the Lene Peiwach, and the Atawandran peoples. We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. We acknowledge all of the treaties that are specific to this area, the two-row Wampum Belt Treaty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Silver Covenant Chain, the Beaver Hunting Grounds of the Haudenosaunee Nan Pham Treaty of 1701, the McKee Treaty of 1790, the London Township Treaty of 1796, the Huron Tract Treaty of 1827 with the Anishnabek, and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum of the Anishnabek and Haudenosaunee.

[17:12] The three indigenous nations that are neighbors to London are the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, Oneida Nation of the Thames, and the Muncie Delaware Nation who all continue to live as sovereign nations with individual and unique languages, cultures, and customs. The City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request.

[17:46] To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact cpsc@london.ca or 519-661-2489, extension 2425. With that, I will look to the committee to see if there are disclosures of conflict. Councillor Hillier. Yes, I need to recuse myself on 5.1, number one special events policy manual. My family does that, thank you. To Councillor, anybody else?

[18:19] Dean Nan, I will move on. Oh, Councillor Halmer. Thank you, on item 2.3. I don’t think there’s a secondary interest right now, but there might be if there are alternative ideas discussed including returning property to use as a golf course as my father’s a point of the national golf course, owners association and the City of London is a member of that association. So I’m not gonna declare an interest right now, but if the idea of returning it to golf comes up, I’m gonna have to declare at that point.

[18:54] Thank you, Councillor. That is noted and I will also note that the matter before us is a land disposition matter. It is not a matter concerning golf or the golf program in London. That being said, things sometimes happen unexpectedly at the committee, so thank you for being proactive there. If there are no other disclosures of pecuniary interest, I would invite somebody to move the consent items. The entire agenda is consent, or if somebody would like to pull an item, that is up to committee.

[19:33] So do I have a mover for the consent agenda? Moved by Councillor Hamoon, seconded by Councillor Halmer. I would note as part of the consent agenda are four added communications that we will also be receiving today. Are there any comments or questions on any of these items before us today? Councillor Halmer. First question, I think it’s a really straightforward one about item 2.2 in the report. It mentions that there’s some adjustments being made to the activation levels in line with provincial best practices.

[20:14] It looks to me like you’re flipping level one and level three around. I just wanna make sure that that’s the only change that’s happening in terms of activation levels in the 2022 response plan compared to last year’s. Is that you, Ms. Davidson? Go ahead. Certainly it is. And that is correct. That is the only change that we’re making at this time. Councillor? Thanks. It’s very helpful. I appreciate the report. I’m often not discussed extensively, but very handy to have it every year.

[20:47] And I think the changes are good ones this year. On 2.1, the update on the roadmap to 3,000 affordable units. I just had one question, which is maybe since the report has been written, there have been some changes at the provincial level around inclusionary zoning. For example, and I just wanted to ask through the chair to staff about what impact if any of that change might be, might have on our ability to achieve the units we’re anticipating through inclusionary zoning, considering it’s been capped at 5%.

[21:22] Mr. Mathers. The chair, as you’ve all probably have heard, there has been substantial changes to many facets of the planning, development, or does act. So we will be bringing forward a future report to discuss some of those changes. And they will have impacts on affordable housing at the city and various facets of the work that we do. So we will be referring to bring forward a report likely in December to be able to address some of those concerns and issues for Council. Councillor?

[21:55] That’s it for me, thanks. Thank you. I’ll go to Councillor Hillier next. Thank you. I was just making a note that yes, this is just to be received and it is a report regarding the disposition of lands and not of the golf course, but I would be with all the communication received, I think I need to ask, what is the state of the infrastructure of the old golf course and could it date just so we get that out of the way? Okay, I will go to Ms. Smith. The chair, I’ll turn that over to and I’ll send her department to talk about the state of the infrastructure.

[22:37] I can speak to the state of golf and the programming, but not the infrastructure. Thank you through the chair. So the state of the infrastructure, as you know and as was identified in the report, the clubhouse was demolished, so that significant, that was the most significant piece of infrastructure that was on the property. There is another smaller structure that is there and still currently being used. And then with respect to the infrastructure from the irrigation, those are still in good repair and will be utilized on the other city courses and removed from those locations.

[23:23] And then the parking lot certainly does remain and is viable. Councillor Hillier. Thank you. Okay, I will go to you Councillor Vanholst. Thank you, Madam Chair. So of course, we’re looking at potential disposition. However, I did want to ask if that property could be made, well, if housing could be built on that property, is this going to be simply industrial?

[23:59] Because if it’s housing, then of course, there’s an opportunity for the city to build something. So first may, can I ask if that property would be suitable for some type of housing? Mr. Warner. Thank you through the chair. So we have undertaken some due diligence and preliminary planning analysis where we’re essentially recommending further study towards the highest and best use. We have done a liaison of our municipal housing development team and others.

[24:32] And it indicates that from their perspective, it would not make a very good location in sight for housing. So we are looking at other potentially higher and better uses. This stage, it looks like a more of a light industrial type of use, however, is subject to further studies. Thank you. Councillor. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that answer. Of course, if there’s a development allowed there, certainly they would have to access that through River Road.

[25:10] And there’s definitely some improvements that required along that area. Is there someone from staff who can tell us what process we have by which that those requested improvements will be reviewed? Ms. Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. We are planning a structural rehabilitation of the pavement for 2025 subject to approval of the next multi-year budget. Councillor.

[25:46] Okay, and that sounds like great news. Could I ask through you just a little more detail on what’s a structural repayment? What does that entail? Sure, Madam Chair, that would involve rehabilitating the existing pavement structure. There’ve been a number of concerns with the possibility of the conditions, particularly during spring thaw and during wet weather events. So we’d be looking to reconstruct the road to a more passable, serviceable standard to meet the passability needs of our abusers.

[26:21] Councillor. Thank you, that’s great news to hear. My next concern was regarding the leaching and the gets to the irrigation pond. Of course, there’s an old landfill site there. And as while I was walking around in there and I see that there’s portions of it that have weeds growing on it. And then there are portions where nothing grows. So clearly there’s contaminated substances there still have an effect that I suspect are leaching along into there.

[27:06] Has that, have those contaminants been studied? Perhaps that’s my, should be my first question. Ms. Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. The irrigation pond on the golf course was monitored quite extensively after there was a spill on a nearby private property that resulted in that ending up in the irrigation pond. The pond has been remediated as a result of that spill. Through that monitoring, however, we did do characterization around the chemicals that were present and they actually weren’t consistent with leachate from a landfill.

[27:40] They were attributable to this accidental release on private property in the past and that has been mitigated. Councillor. Okay, well, thank you. So it seems like that’s the leachate isn’t a concern. If it was, then I would say we might be able to try and mitigate contamination for a larger area. Yeah, in that space, okay. Well, thank you. I’m not going to bring up golf operations though I mentioned it in there.

[28:19] I think there’s certainly some concern people would like to know about that. I was expressed in the letter and I think in coming reports that should be covered. So at that point, Madam Chair, I think that’s all I have for that. I don’t, and I did want to ask a couple of questions about 2.1, the affordable housing units. So it’s nice to see that elucidated quite well.

[28:56] I wondered if I see the LMHC community housing has only 50 units planned for intensification. Do we know where those are? You said you, Mr. Dickens. Oh, Mr. Feldberg, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair and through you. It is the Southdale Road Project. They are looking to intensify and build some new units out there. Councilor?

[29:32] Okay, thank you. I would mention that a place like Alan Rush Gardens looks like it has, I think there needs to be a rebuild there and would seem to be a place where much higher intensification could happen as well. The end in the on page, I guess, four of the report, there’s the table talks about the various types of affordable housing.

[30:08] Number two is affordable rental. Now, is that the 20% less than fair market value for the 50 years? Is that what’s meant by those 1400 units? Mr. Feldberg. Thank you, Madam Chair and through you. So what we’d be looking to do is do a mix of different affordability rates, a large portion of the rental units coming from private development are often around that 80% AMR/MMR rate. But what we’d be looking to do is actually improve on that and add some higher depth of affordability.

[30:48] If you look at the units in progress, that’s actually the SOHO project is counted in that number there. And that actually, there are some units in there that would have a much deeper level of affordability there. So really the roadmap looks for a mix and a broader look at the affordability across the city through the different units and different projects that we bring forward. Councilor. - Okay, thank you. I see about maybe 16 or 17% is rent supplements.

[31:24] And how much, how much typically a year would be supplemented in one of those 500 or is it a broader scale, is it a wide variation or is it, can you give me a typical number? Mr. Dickens, welcome. Thank you, Madam Chair and through you. Thank you for the question. So in year one, we’ve earmarked, we’ve actually allocated about $250,000 of which about 125,000 has been applied.

[32:00] Those figures are not represented in this report as the actual numbers and I’m giving you sort of a broad brush numbers. The actual numbers will be reported to the city by the housing providers that have been allocated those supplements and that will come through their quarterly reporting. So those numbers are just coming in at this point and they were not available at the time of publishing this report. You will also note that in order to provide housing supplements or rent supplements, they are available to the tenant on a multi-year basis.

[32:34] So those costs will compound and they will be part of future multi-year budget discussions as well. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. Maybe this will be in terms of land that’s available, city land. Are we considering what’s gonna be left over from the widening of Wellington Road for BRT? We’ve purchased quite a few properties and many of them have been torn down already but they’re quite deep.

[33:12] And so after the widening, we’ll have quite a bit of property left over. Is some of that going to be used? Or is there an intent for some of that to be used in the way that we might use a closed school, for instance? Mr. Falberg. Thank you and through you, Madam Chair. So if you look down at the bottom just before the conclusion where it’s as future opportunities for the heat team, one of the two of the items there identification of non-traditional city-owned lands for intensification, including affordable housing, and then surplus school acquisition.

[33:52] So we’ll be looking at any opportunity like that but we have to go through the proper process with our real estate folks in order to ensure that there are no other intentions for that property. Okay, thank you. Well, I would just point out that might be a good opportunity for us to build something that we would like to see, make it affordable and still perhaps sell it after that. So to recover some of the funds that we use for expropriation.

[34:28] But thank you, Madam Chair, and I appreciate being part of your final meeting. Thank you, Councillor. Any other questions or comments from committee or any visiting members? Seeing none, I’ll call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero. I understand we do have members of the public in the gallery that were interested in the River Road golf course, former golf course land.

[35:07] As I mentioned at the beginning, this wasn’t a report to talk about golf. Golf was not on the agenda today, just the land. And so the report was a recommendation from staff on what possible options we have for disposing of that land in the future. And that’s what the committee heard today. And we received that report for this committee’s information. Thank you for attending. And I’m sorry if you expected something more to talk about golf. So that takes us to the deferred matters list.

[35:44] And we do have a disclosure of pecuniary interest declared on item one from the deferred matters list. So let’s deal with item one first, moved by Councillor Halmer, seconded by. Okay, I will second that motion. Is there any discussion on item one from the deferred matters list? Seeing none, I’ll call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries three to zero with one upset.

[36:29] And I will call the, I will look for a motion for the remaining items on the deferred matters list. Moved by Councillor Hillier, seconded by Councillor Halmer. Any questions, comments? Seeing none, I’ll call the question. Closing the vote, the motion carries four to zero.

[37:12] That just leaves adjournment. And before I go to adjournment, I just want to say, first of all, thank you to all of the staff who come out throughout the years on City Council and support this committee with your reports, with your information, with your expertise, with your wisdom. You are an invaluable part of this committee. I think I’ve served on this committee seven of the past eight years, I think. And it really has been enjoyable. I was speaking with different staff members the other day, talking about what the different committees cover.

[37:48] There’s infrastructure at Civic Works. There’s finances and insurance and taxation at corporate services. There’s buildings at the planning committee, but this committee really does deal with people. We deal with the matters that affect people, sometimes on a very, very personal level here in the City of London, especially dealing with our challenges around housing and homelessness, providing supports to people who are in dire need in the City of London.

[38:24] And I think that’s why I’ve always been attracted to serving on this committee. It warms my heart. And I know that the staff that support us are approached their jobs with compassion and passion and dedication. So thank you again to all you staff and all the staff at City Hall who aren’t here and yet provide that backbone support to the leaders who show up at this committee every month. And to the members of this committee, thank you for your service to Councillor Hamou, and Councillor Helmer, who are, this is your last day on this committee for the next four years anyway.

[39:05] Thank you for your service. And with that, I will look for a motion to adjourn. Moved by Councillor Hillier, seconded by Councillor Helmer. I can do a hand vote on that. All those in favor, by show of hands. And that motion carries. Thank you everybody. See you at council next week.