May 30, 2023, at 4:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 4:03 PM, it being noted that Councillors P. Van Meerbergen and S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

2.2   Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy

2023-05-30 Staff Report - Core Area Land and Building Vacancy

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to a proposed strategy that sets out potential tools that may assist in reducing core area land and building vacancy: 

a)    the staff report dated May 30, 2023, entitled Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy BE RECEIVED;

b)    the City of London Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy, as appended to the staff report as Appendix “A” BE RECEIVED;

c)    the strategic initiatives identified in this Strategy that can be addressed through existing budgets BE IMPLEMENTED; 

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to submit business cases for strategic initiatives in the Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy requiring additional investment through the 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget process;

it being noted that some business cases submitted to address other Council priorities may also address, in whole or in part, strategic initiatives of the Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy.

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated May 28, 2023 from C. Butler with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve part e) of the clause:

e)  the above-noted Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy BE REVISED to include the following:

i)    for buildings with floor plates that are deemed feasible for conversion to residential use, immediate actions be undertaken to facilitate the quick conversion of these areas;

ii)    for buildings with floor plates that are not deemed feasible for conversion to residential use; focus on creating spaces for local communities including studios, galleries, rehearsal and other creative spaces, and spaces for pop-up opportunities; 

iii)    vacant lands and other B and C type existing structures, consider potential adaptation of land and buildings to service the targeted uses as enumerated in the Industrial Land Development Strategy (such as R & D, film production, digital games and other digital services);

Motion Failed (4 to 8)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve part f)

f)  the SPPC hold a Public Participation Meeting to consider the matters in this report and other feedback, and that the meeting be scheduled prior to the commencement of the multi-year budget deliberations;

Motion Failed (4 to 8)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve the remainder of the clause:

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to a proposed strategy that sets out potential tools that may assist in reducing core area land and building vacancy:

a)    the staff report dated May 30, 2023, entitled Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy BE RECEIVED;

b)    the City of London Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy, as appended to the staff report as Appendix “A” BE RECEIVED;

c)    the strategic initiatives identified in this Strategy that can be addressed through existing budgets BE IMPLEMENTED;

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to submit business cases for strategic initiatives in the Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy requiring additional investment through the 2024-2027 Multi-Year Budget process;

it being noted that some business cases submitted to address other Council priorities may also address, in whole or in part, strategic initiatives of the Core Area Land and Building Vacancy Reduction Strategy.

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated May 28, 2023 from C. Butler with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (10 to 2)

2.4   1st Report of the Governance Working Group

2023-05-30 Submission - 1st Report of GWG

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 1st Report of the Governance Working Group from its meeting held on May 17, 2023:

a)  the following actions be taken with respect to the 2024 Standing Committee and Council Calendar:

i)   the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to draft a 2024 meeting calendar with the following parameters:

A)  week 1 - Monday - CPSC - 1 PM

                   Tuesday - CWC - 9:30 AM

                                    Planning - 1 PM

B)  week 2 - Monday - CSC - 1 PM

                    Tuesday - SPPC - 1 PM

C)  week 3 - Tuesday - Council - 1 PM

ii)   the above-noted draft 2024 calendar BE PROVIDED to the Senior Leadership Team for their feedback; and, 

iii)   the Senior Leadership Team comments BE PROVIDED to the Governance Working Group at their next meeting;

b)  the following actions be taken with respect to meetings in closed session at standing committee and Council meetings:

i)    the practice of relocating the Council/Standing Committee members and appropriate staff, during closed session parts of a meeting, BE REIMPLEMENTED; it being noted that hybrid meeting attendance in closed session will be accommodated; it being further noted that this will allow for the public to remain in the Council Chambers during the closed session; and,

ii)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back with respect to closed session meeting participation best practices that may be the subject of a Council Policy; it being noted that this may be incorporated in the report related to virtual meeting participation forthcoming to committee;

c) the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to the Governance Working Group with respect to the following potential changes to the Council Members’ Expense Account Policy:

i)    changes to part 4.2 c) vii) related to hosting ward events that will provide additional flexibility and discretion for individual council members in terms of facility use and locations; 

ii)    incorporation of permissive language with respect to opportunities for partnerships for council members related to engagement opportunities; and,

iii)    a review and recommendations related to updating existing expenditure annual limits and specific expense amounts that currently exist within the policy;

d)  the following actions be taken with respect to Appointment of Council Members to Standing Committees of Council and Various Civic Boards and Commissions Policy:

i)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back on potential policy changes, specific to Standing Committee appointments, that would compel individual members to make complete submissions for appointment consideration, as well as compelling complete selections during any selection process; it being noted that the intention of any such changes would be to facilitate better distribution of work amongst all members;

ii)    additional discussion related to appointments to Civic Boards and Commissions BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the GWG; it being noted that additional information with respect to the participation requirements of these boards and commissions will be compiled; and,

iii)    consideration BE GIVEN to the provision of a summary document from individual Council members that would provide information related to time requirements and commitments of participating on a board/commission; 

e)  item 3.5, Current Council Policies, BE REFERRED to the next meeting of the Governance Working Group (GWG) for consideration; it being noted that the GWG requested that related previous staff reports and any environmental scan information be provided at the same meeting;

f) item 3.6, Potential New Council Policies, BE REFERRED to the next meeting of the Governance Working Group for consideration; it being noted that the Governance Working Group requested that related environmental scan information be provided at the same meeting;

g)  the matter of a ward boundary review BE REFERRED to the Governance Working Group (GWG) for consideration; it being noted that the GWG requested that the most current ward and census information be provided at the next meeting of the GWG;

h)   the next meeting of the GWG BE SET for Monday, June 26, 2023 at 1:30 PM; and,

i) clauses 1.1, 1.2, 3.1 and 2.1 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the motion BE AMENDED, in part a) i), and part h) as follows:

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 1st Report of the Governance Working Group from its meeting held on May 17, 2023:

a)  the following actions be taken with respect to the 2024 Standing Committee and Council Calendar:

i)   the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to draft a 2024 meeting calendar with the following parameters:

A)  week 1 - Monday - CPSC - 1 PM

                   Tuesday - CWC - 9:30 AM

                                    Planning - 1 PM

B)  week 2 - Monday - CSC - 1 PM

                    Tuesday - SPPC - 1 PM

C)  week 3 - Tuesday - Council - 1 PM

h)   the next meeting of the GWG BE SET for Monday, June 26, 2023 at 1:30 PM; and,

Motion Passed (11 to 0)

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

The 1st Report of the Governance Working Group, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (11 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   2022 Climate Emergency Action Plan Progress Report

2023-05-30 Staff Report - 2022 Climate Emergency Action Plan

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 2022 Climate Emergency Action Plan Progress Report, dated May 30, 2023:

a)  the above-noted report BE RECEIVED; and

b)  the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to include the following specific actions as part of the implementation of the Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP):

i)    develop and deliver CEAP training to all current and future staff through the onboarding and continued learning processes in a manner consistent with current internal learning and development programs (e.g., Anti-Racism, Anti Oppression) to ensure that all staff members understand how to align their work to CEAP outcomes and make changes in their everyday routine work to align with targets; 

ii)    bring a CEAP update to SPPC twice a year; a comprehensive progress report in May and an update report in the fall; 

iii)    develop a Net-Zero Emission Plan for Corporate Assets to ensure Fleet & Facilities can achieve 2045 corporate targets subject to the approval of appropriate funding in the 2024-2027 Multi Year Budget; 

iv)    ensure that asset management projects such as retrofits, replacements, renewals, and rehabilitations of City infrastructure make significant and visible efforts to be in line with net zero emission 2045 corporate targets, consistent with CEAP Area of Focus 7, 6a and 6b, while the plan noted above is being developed subject to the approval of appropriate funding in the 2024-2027 Multi Year Budget.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by D. Ferreira

Motion to approve part a)

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 2022 Climate Emergency Action Plan Progress Report, dated May 30, 2023:

a)  the above-noted report BE RECEIVED; and

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by D. Ferreira

Motion to approve part b)

b)  the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to include the following specific actions as part of the implementation of the Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP):

i)    develop and deliver CEAP training to all current and future staff through the onboarding and continued learning processes in a manner consistent with current internal learning and development programs (e.g., Anti-Racism, Anti Oppression) to ensure that all staff members understand how to align their work to CEAP outcomes and make changes in their everyday routine work to align with targets; 

ii)    bring a CEAP update to SPPC twice a year; a comprehensive progress report in May and an update report in the fall; 

iii)    develop a Net-Zero Emission Plan for Corporate Assets to ensure Fleet & Facilities can achieve 2045 corporate targets subject to the approval of appropriate funding in the 2024-2027 Multi Year Budget; 

iv)    ensure that asset management projects such as retrofits, replacements, renewals, and rehabilitations of City infrastructure make significant and visible efforts to be in line with net zero emission 2045 corporate targets, consistent with CEAP Area of Focus 7, 6a and 6b, while the plan noted above is being developed subject to the approval of appropriate funding in the 2024-2027 Multi Year Budget.

Motion Passed (11 to 2)

4.2   Request for a Shareholder’s Meeting - Housing Development Corporation London (HDC)

2023-05-30 Submission - Request for Shareholders Meeting-HDC

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 2022 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder for the Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC):

a)      the 2022 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder for the Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC) BE HELD at a meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on June 20, 2023, for the purpose of receiving the report from the Board of Directors of the Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC) in accordance with the Shareholder Declaration and the Business Corporations Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.16; and,

b)      the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to provide notice of the 2022 Annual Meeting to the Board of Directors for the Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC) and to invite the President and CEO and the Board/Chair to attend at the Annual Meeting and present the report of the Board in accordance with the Shareholder Declaration;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated May 19, 2023, from M. Feldberg, President and CEO, Housing Development Corporation, London, with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

4.3   Request for Business Cases for the Multi-Year Budget

2023-05-30 Submission - MYB Budget Cases-Councillor Franke

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the following actions be taken with respect to the communication dated May 30, 2023, from Councillor S. Franke, related to business cases for consideration with the multi-year budget:

a) the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to prepare business cases for the following :

     i)  New Funding, Existing Strategies - Coves Silver Creek Restoration Project;

b)  the request for a business case for a purchasing natural heritage lands strategy (including compensation requirements for infrastructure projects) BE REFERRED to the Civic Administration in order to report back to the appropriate standing committee with additional scoping details;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated May 19, 2023 from A. Wasylko, Chair, Board of Directors and M. Miksa, Executive Director, London Cycle Link with respect to bicycle infrastructure.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Franke

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee BE RECESSED at this time.

Motion Passed

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recesses at 6:35 PM and reconvenes at 7:07 PM.

In accordance with section 33.4 of the Council Procedure By-law, the following text is removed from the motion, with the consent of the committee and at the joint request of the mover and seconder:

“a) New Funding, Existing Strategies related to:

iv)  Secure Bike Parking, Bike Share, Bike Lane Maintenance and Bike Education;

c) Reduction Cases:

i)  Review road widening projects in the current development charges study, to determine which can be deferred or eliminated;”

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That part b) i), related to the request for a business case for a purchasing natural heritage lands strategy (including compensation requirements for infrastructure projects) BE REFERRED to the Civic Administration in order to report back to the appropriate standing committee with additional scoping details.

Motion Passed (11 to 1)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve part a) i)

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to prepare business cases for the following for consideration during the Multi-Year Budget deliberations:

a) New Funding, Existing Strategies related to:

i)   Coves Silver Creek Restoration Project;

Motion Passed (11 to 1)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve a) ii)

ii)  Invasive Species Management Plan;

Motion Failed (3 to 9)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve a) iii)

iii) Climate Emergency Action Plan;

Motion Failed (3 to 9)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Trosow

Motion to approve part c) ii)

c) Reduction Cases:

ii)  Reduction in frequency of grass cutting on city property;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated May 19, 2023 from A. Wasylko, Chair, Board of Directors and M. Miksa, Executive Director, London Cycle Link with respect to bicycle infrastructure.

Motion Failed (6 to 6)

4.4   Resignation on the London and Middlesex Community Housing Board of Directors

2023-05-30 Submission - Resignation - LMCH

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following actions be taken with respect to the London and Middlesex Community Housing:

a)  the communication dated May 19, 2023 from P. Chisholm BE RECEIVED;

b)  the resignation of Tammy Brooks from London and Middlesex Community Housing Board of Directors BE ACCEPTED; and,

c)  the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to advertise in the usual manner to solicit applications for appointment for a tenant position to London and Middlesex Community Housing Board of Directors, with applications to be brought forward to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee for consideration.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Adjournment

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Franke

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 9:25 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 (5 hours, 32 minutes)

Good luck. Yeah, I’m gonna get this meeting started. I’m gonna call to order the 16th meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee. I will note we have a couple of absences today.

Councillor McAllister is on his honeymoon. So that seems like a fun place to be. Councillor Stevenson is at a police board conference and our other colleagues are online and everybody else is in the room. So forward to a great and efficient meeting today, hopefully.

I’m gonna start off by reading a land acknowledgement. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwak, Adewandran. We honor and respect the history languages and cultures of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. The city of London is currently home to many First Nation Métis and Inuit today.

As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. Further, I’d like to add that the city of London is committed to making every effort to providing alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC at London.ca or 519-661-2489 extension-2425. I will start with any disclosures of pecuniary interest for the items today.

Okay, seeing none, there are four items under consent. I had a request to deal with the first report of the governance working group separately. I’ll look to colleagues to see which other ones you’d like to deal with separately. What’s our trust out?

2.2. 2.2. It’s 2.1 and 2.3. Can we deal with those together?

Still ask questions and have, share some thoughts, but we won’t be pointing them. That looks good. Okay, so I’ll start with a motion from colleagues on both 2.1 and 2.3, which is the update on the community diversity and inclusion strategy and the single source supportive housing model that 403 pumps a road, moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Frank. Okay, comments on either of those items or questions for staff, of course.

Go ahead, Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you. I’m gonna start with 2.1 and then I have separate questions on the other item. So in 2.1, I just wanted to start by saying, thank you for the report.

My question was around, first, I found it really helpful to see this all here in front of us and in a comprehensive way that was very helpful. I just wanted to ask, and without the priority working group members, one, I think we owe them a great deal of gratitude for the work that’s been done and to also the members of the leadership table. I think it’s really important that as we’re thanking them, we’re thanking them not only as publicly as we can, because for a lot of these members, we are asking them to do some emotional, heavy lifting as well. And so I just wanted to acknowledge that publicly and hope for the opportunity to thank them myself as well.

Thank you. Thank you. And maybe just to keep everything focused, let’s just deal with questions and comments on 2.1 now, ‘cause I know you had questions on the other. So other colleagues on 2.1?

Yes, on 2.1, Councillor Hopkins, go ahead. Yes, thank you and like Councillor ramen, I too want to thank the working group personally. I do think we’ve given them a lot of work to do, and it’s been very challenging, I’m sure, for them. So during the past year and a half, that working group, I’m sure has done a lot of heavy lifting.

It’s, you know, I’m glad to see that we’re going to continue though moving forward with the division going forward, in particular with those 12 recommendations. I know in the past they have been very important to the previous council to move those recommendations forward. And I’m really glad to see that we’re going to continue that community outreach and engagement to fulfill those recommendations ‘cause they are very important. I would like to ask a question on one of the recommendations just as an update because I’m really glad to see these updates coming to us.

I’m often wondering when I’m on council, how’s it going out there? So when these reports come in, I’m very deeply appreciative of being updated and a question around one of the recommendations that we sent forward, which was to implement the cause of action through the truth and reconciliation. I know we’re supposed to be getting a report coming back to us by 2024 but we did start that process a while back. And I guess, you know, my question is really, where would be given any updates as to the report before the report comes or is there an annual update or again, is it a matter of reaching out to staff or updates?

I just would like to have a general ideas and I’ll just, we can really speak to all the recommendations but I’m specifically speaking to the cause of action ‘cause I know that it’s a big plan out there. But if I can have a little bit more information as to the process going forward and what we can expect back as a council, thank you, Ms. Morris. Yeah, thank you for the question and through you.

So the answer to your question in terms of the cause to action is the community engagement part is just beginning. There’s been a lot of relationship building, as you can imagine, and that takes time as we know with the indigenous community and rightly so. And so at this point, we’re starting to map out what that engagement looks like and start to have some conversations with the communities that are really best able to tell us how we can best address the cause to action. Internally, the same work has been happening.

We are waiting to hear from the community in terms of how we can do better and what they would like to see. So we’ve seen a lot of things happen, particularly around the sports and recreation piece with our relationships with the communities. And so some of those things are continuing to happen and deepening some of those relationships. And we also know that we can do better, but we need to hear from the community.

So the engagement is starting. We’re looking to create, as you know, a Truth and Reconciliation Action Plan. And that we hope to have that to you in the next few months. And that will really guide our work internally in terms of how we move this forward in a really meaningful way.

And as a reminder, we’re looking at the cause to action that apply to the municipalities, but we also want to go above and beyond those cause to action are quite dated at this point. And we know we can do more as a municipality and as part of our strategic area of focus on reconciliation, equity, accessibility and inclusion, we’ve really identified that we want to be leaders in this work. And so that’s really what we’re looking to do is to do above and beyond what’s required of us. Councillor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you for that. And I really appreciate that word leaders. I think that leadership, it’s a great opportunity for us to, as a city, take that leadership moving forward, really pleased that the community engagement is going to be starting. It’s good to see in the report that there’s existing budgets in there to continue the work going forward.

I think that’s really important for me on council to understand that and that we can do this work. So thank you again to the working group and for the leadership that we have here in the city. Thank you. Any other questions on 2.1, Councillor Preble.

Mr. Chair, to the staff, in terms of the CDIS, I know this report in the appendix, it’s anti-black and anti-indigenous racism. Is this table planning to reach out to all the other groups or is this kind of specifically for these two groups? Go ahead.

Thank you and through you. So those two groups were identified through the priority working group. So we actually only had an Indigenous priority working group on reconciliation initially. Following the murder of George Floyd, there was a discussion around adding a six priority working group on anti-black racism in response to what had happened.

And so those two working groups were specific to those communities, but we also had one on accessibility. We had one that was broad on zero tolerance for oppression and racism. Those communities will continue to be engaged. So these are disbanded now, the working groups.

And so our work now moving forward will be to engage any and all communities and intersectional identities as well. So it won’t be exclusive, although as you know, we have a black and an Indigenous community liaison advisor again acknowledging those two communities have experienced the most harm and oppression in our community and continue to do so. But no, our engagement will be much more broader and intersectional as we go forward. Glad, thank you.

I’m glad to hear that. And as well as when I heard the sports and recreation, I think that’s a fantastic way. And I hope we will implement again more cultural and multicultural events in our strategy. Yeah, I think it’s everybody on 2.1, 2.3, questions on that one.

Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, worship and through you. First of all, I want to acknowledge the folks from Indwell who are in the gallery. And I’ve had the opportunity to visit both of their properties on Dundas Street over my time on council.

And I think that they’re doing an excellent job there. Really, really impressed with the ability for people who are getting housed within well to stay housed as well. And that sustainability of housing is so important if we’re going to make legitimate progress on tackling these issues. So welcome and a job well done so far.

I am happy to support this consent agenda item. I did have a question for staff, actually a couple of questions for staff. First is, and I want to make sure that my interpretation is correct, that supportive housing was always contemplated as part of the roadmap to 3,000. And so we are not sort of abandoning the affordable housing units in the roadmap to 3,000 in exchange for supportive housing units.

We are, these are complimentary to the roadmap. I just want to make sure that that’s, I had a question about that from a member of the public. So I just want to make sure that that’s the case. Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair, yes, the roadmap to 3,000 units. Both includes and speaks to supportive housing and with the work that is being undertaken and before you today aligns very closely with what was brought forward in that plan. Okay, so my second question and thank you for that is around the funding aspect.

And I’m always very cognizant of our former city manager and former city treasurer, Mr. Hayward’s cautions about operating costs that are unfunded. And I note in the report that we have some ability to fund the operating costs initially, but that we don’t necessarily have funding secured or perhaps identified moving forward. And I’m just wondering if we’ve identified perhaps streams of provincial and federal funding that would be appropriate for us to be applying for to make this more sustainable in the future.

I think the operating cost in this case is reasonable for what we’re getting. But I just wanna know if we have identified potential streams of funding that we’ll be seeking out here. Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Your Worship and through you. So we were gonna be utilizing our increase in the homeless prevention program funding to get this program off the ground. The additional HPP funding does allow us the opportunity to continue this funding this project. Should we be in the position to do so?

Ideally, however, we will align this project with some of the advocacy efforts and some of the provincial funding asks that have happened already where health care dollars fund highly supportive housing. Our partner in this program, Indwell, does have experience and success in working closely with the Ministry of Health in some of their existing housing projects. So we feel confident that this would be the case. But also because of this work aligned so well with our whole of community system response, we know that there’s a number of provincial tentacles being explored as it relates to funding that system as well.

Great, so I appreciate that answer. And I’m gonna interpret that as the next time the mayor goes to Toronto, we need to bring back another check. But it’s good to know that those are being explored that way so that we’ve got that operating cost covered. As I said, I think that this is a really good proposal.

I’m very supportive of it. I just have those couple questions that I use some clarity on. So thank you. Thank you.

I’ll take that under advisement for my next trip to Toronto on June 15th. So see what I can do. Other questions or speakers to this item 2.3? Councillor ramen.

Thank you and through you. I was lucky ‘cause I went second and Deputy Mayor Lewis asked a couple of my questions, that was great. The only question I had remaining was just in reading this report, it’s great to have this information in front of us. I think it’s very helpful as we are thinking about more affordable housing and supportive housing.

I know there was different processes at the time in different ways that this was maneuvered. But I’m just wondering if there were any key learnings that we found through this process for this building and how we take those learnings forward. Because I do think that in this process where we had federal dollars that we were able to leverage and we’re able to support this project. And now because we’re moving it from affordable to more supportive, there’s a need for some change in design and retrofitting, et cetera, to be able to support that.

I’m just wondering how do we perhaps learn from that and find some efficiencies as we move forward? Mr. Mayor’s. I’ll just start with the key key learning and then we’ll go to maybe some more of the specifics as well.

And I think the one thing that is super critical and very much important for what we’re doing with any of these initiatives is just that whole of community involvement in those decision making, being able to bring these projects to the table as early and often as possible to ensure that we have alignment across the community. That also includes just even internally working with each other, making sure that we have something that’s from a financial perspective, from a serving people and from a construction perspective is gonna work. I’ll let Matt Felberg here provide you a little bit more details of what we’ve learned from the actually construction perspective. Thank you and through you.

So a big key for us was the shovel readiness of this project and I’m not sure if you recall but back in January we brought a report for it to tweak the road map so that we could be more shovel ready. And since that time we’ve been looking for different opportunities. We actually have an application planned for a previous school site as well that will be coming in as well which is another future opportunity for us and then also some municipal lands. As we move through this project as we move through within dwell and our partnership will be as you see in the recommendation we have some cyclical reviews and we’ll be taking those as we get through the first two and a half year period and then each subsequent year we’ll be able to look at for more efficiencies, find more opportunities and then rebuild some RFP and procurement process so that we can work on developing more programs like this for the community.

Okay, any other comments? I have a couple so I’ll turn the chair over to Deputy Mary Lewis who was just punching on a nacho but will acknowledge the mayor. Thank you, so I appreciate the questions that my colleagues have mentioned. I also want to appreciate the positive comments about indwell and the work that they do.

I’ve had the ability to tour a number of their sites as well both before they’ve opened as well as engage with some people who’ve moved in afterwards. And so I appreciate those opportunities helps us have a really good perspective on the work you do particularly as we move forward with necessary community partnerships to deliver on the challenges that we have. I’m glad that a couple of colleagues raised the idea of where this fits in with our funding asks and how we’re working on this and our advocacy because this is a perfect alignment of the work we’re doing and I first want to commend our staff and the entire team for thinking about this project in a way that allows us to quickly start to move on our health and homelessness work. To be able to transition this site into something that supplies 44 of the 100 highly supportive units that we need this year and that we’re hoping to get this year I think puts us on a really good track to demonstrate to those funding partners that we are 100% serious about moving forward with our plan on an aggressive timeframe and we’re willing to shift our approaches and our assets to try to do that.

I think the fact that this is an RHI round two. I will say in my meetings in Ottawa the way that we are using RHI aggressively and quickly is well received by the federal government and the minister. There is an RHI round three now out there and we will be hopefully very competitive in that based on how we have performed with these funds in the past and of course the housing accelerator fund which my big city mayor colleagues and I have spent a lot of time discussing with the minister and how that will allow us to accelerate some of these things is really key and within that funding envelope there’s also it’s advantageous to create highly supportive housing units because you actually can get a little bit more money out of the process when you would you create not just affordable housing but deeply affordable housing and so us to be able to demonstrate our commitment and our effectiveness in partnering with the community on this positions us very well, very well with the federal government for being very competitive in the existing funding programs and the forthcoming funding programs like the housing accelerator fund and you know to the deputy mayor’s point this is what I have been spending all our time doing is to ensure that we are communicating a clear plan explaining that we are going to fund it how we can in the short term with the resources that we’ve been given but expressing an incredible need for us to be able to scale up and build out this plan in the future and so again I commend our staff on being as creative as possible with the tools that we have at our current disposal and we’ll continue to advocate aggressively for the tools and the funding that we need in partnership with all orders of government to continue to deliver projects like this and again this is just a small piece. I say small despite the fact that it’s 44 out of 100 but we’ve got lots of work in advocacy ahead but this is great to see early in the process I think it demonstrates our clear commitment.

Thank you Mayor Morgan and I will return the chair to you advising I currently have no one else on the speaker’s list. Okay anyone else are we ready to vote on items 2.1 and 2.3? Looks like we are, okay I’ll open those items for voting. Closing the vote the motions passed 13 to zero.

Okay so the two pulled items will now go to the end of items for direction as we, as is our process and procedures which means I will now start with because there’s no scheduled items the first of the items for direction which is 4.1 2022 climate emergency action plan progress report. I’ll look to, I don’t know if there’s an intro that this chair would like to share but go ahead and then we’ll go to questions and I’ll seek a motion in the appropriate time. Thank you Your Worship. And knowing that we have limited time to present I’m happy to bring this forward to provide an update on where we were from the last eight or so months since the climate emergency action plan was approved last April by the former city council.

I’m going to turn it over Mr. Stanford who has a brief presentation to provide a bit of context to this council and then we’re happy to entertain any questions noting that this is an information report provided for your update and information. Thank you Your Worship and Committee. Tonight I have the pleasure of presenting the highlights of whether you have in your slide deck already I will touch on a couple of those items in a little more detail and I’d like to note though that I’m actually doing this as a progress report on behalf of many that have worked on this here at the city as well as many in the community who’ve made contributions as you’ve seen in our report.

As a bit of a reminder the climate emergency action plan was approved by council back in April 2022 after quite a long engagement process in the community. And during that process we really kind of had five things that really were driving the community. The engagement of course, but what we saw was the strength of alignment. The alignment of city staff and our projects that we’re working on but as well as alignment with the community and businesses and institutions and the work that they do that came through loud and clear as well as looking for economic and business opportunities.

We were also very clear that at that time there was no new budget being requested. We were gonna work in 2022 and 2023 with existing budget by leveraging existing programs to create additional benefit for climate change matters. And finally another key part of all that was actually learning from our colleagues and other municipalities. The seat of course as we go in short form very tied into your strategic plan in a number of the areas of focus.

Before you tonight are really two key reports. One is an appendix, a rather large community report and then of course your traditional SPPC report. As we develop the progress report we want to know how do we capture the wealth of information that is occurring. And we looked at what other communities we’re doing and of course what we’ve done in the past.

And on the screen you see two areas in green reporting on actions which is what we’re doing tonight as well as greenhouse gas whether it’s going up, down, staying the same. But as part of the progress we looked at three other areas when it comes to outcomes. Getting a much deeper dive into what’s taking place in the community, understanding what’s going on at the provincial government and federal government levels. And then also an interesting one and I’ll touch on this later will be sort of weather trends and impacts.

These are the five areas that our report cover off. And each one I’m going to walk through rather quickly. But when it comes to our seaport, the climate emergency action plan, we’ve made good inroads in getting our actions started. About 90% of those in 2022 are underway.

The downside, only about 3% are completed. But after eight months in the early part of 2023 from a staff perspective we believe we’ve got a reasonable foundation that is growing. So we are pleased with what has been started but we’re not far enough along. And I think that’s become obvious.

But then again, after eight months, I think though, if we put that in that perspective, we have begun to build our base. When we look at the community and interested parties, we’re making even more inroads as a city here. We’ve seen a number of increased activities, simple things on the surface that EarthFest grew from 600 people in the first year to 2000, just this past year. Green awards out there, more communications being provided not only by the city, but also provided by community groups, to their members and of course to others in the community.

We’re seeing a lot of information being provided on how to participate with the climate emergency action plan. So we’re seeing that uptake in the community to get involved. We’re also seeing the same with businesses and institutions. So from a staff perspective, this growth is very satisfying.

Other levels of government, very, very important because many things that we do here, we can control, but there’s actually more that probably cannot be controlled. So understanding and recognizing what’s taking place at the provincial level and the federal level, very important to determine how things move forward here in London, and once again to repeat, some of the things, no, we just don’t control. We have to roll with it, adapt to it, and where we can influence and engage from a staff perspective. That is what we’re going to do, and when we receive instructions from you on Committee and Council, we will take that action.

And we’re also very grateful for what occurs with Councillors and the various boards and commissions there on to nudge the other levels of government in the area of climate change. Greenhouse gases, very interesting because this is one of the key measurements. We’ve just come out of a pandemic. That is actually influence, both our corporate emissions and our community emissions.

Now when we talk about corporate emissions, what we’re referring to here is what occurs within city operations and city buildings, city utilities. And what you see on the screen there is a orange line that are our corporate emissions to date. Right now, they’re just below 20,000 times per year. They’ve spiked up in the last year.

That, as you see on the screen, is associated with a couple of different items. Part of our plan for 2023 and 2024 is of course to knock that spike. And how are we going to do that? Well, press natural gas vehicles are coming in for the solid waste collection area.

That reduces our dependence on diesel fuel. We have the opportunity now to reduce the number of pickup trucks that were being used during the pandemic. And one of the anomalies that occurred with our water distribution system and our Southeast Reservoir, there were some parts that needed to be fixed, required work, that is now in place. There’s a couple of bigger projects underway too that are going to show definite progress on the corporate side.

Corporately, we’re doing well, and as we’ve indicated, this is something that is within council’s control for the most part. The community, and just to help here, the corporation represents about 6% of the emissions community-wide. So when we talk about our community-wide area, we’re talking about everything that’s going on in London, including our corporate piece. And what you see on the screen are a couple of different lines.

Perhaps the most important one is our green line, our path to net zero by 2050. The green circles are our key milestone targets, our first one being in 2030. And you see, once again, the orange line that goes up and down each year. That is what happens within the community, because climate change and our greenhouse gas is very influenced by what we do as individuals, but also very influenced what happens with the weather.

If it’s a cold winter, we consume more energy to heat our homes. If it’s a cool summer, we basically have to run the air conditioner more often, and we’re consuming more fossil fuels. All these things play into what is going on in London. What we’re seeing here, though, is that we’ve had a spike up after two years with the pandemic, where things were less activity in London.

We’ve now seen that people are moving about more. There is more fuel being consumed within our transportation system, that’s spiking up. We’ve also seen just generally more positive activity in London. So that’s good news, but that activity, if left uncontrolled from a greenhouse gas perspective, will continue to spike up.

This is where we have to look at how we move around the city. We look at the growth in London. We acknowledge now, and our stats are showing it, one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, at 3% growth, double what we’ve been used to. That, of course, influences what’s goes on.

The electricity-graded Ontario is consuming more natural gas, because the province is doing well from an economy perspective and is supporting a newer industry coming in that requires energy and a sustainable energy source. And we have a number of our nuclear power operations that are being either retrofitted or might be phased out. So all these challenges are requiring the greater use of natural gas. That influences the greenhouse gas that is basically generated with community actions.

Finally, sort of two other things that our data are showing us is that London are still like their larger vehicles. In fact, 35% of new vehicles are in the category of large pickup or SUV compared to only 8% that are in the category of low emissions or no emission vehicles. So you get to see the importance of our transportation sector. And in fact, that is our number one area when it comes to greenhouse gas generation for several years in a row.

And when you couple that with household, how we live and historically heat and cool our homes, those two items alone represent 50% of greenhouse gas generation in London. So we know what our challenges are. Why is weather been introduced? Well, it’s interesting.

Weather is very much tied to our efforts on climate change adaptation. We see that weather is changing in London. We’re seeing more severe weather events. Talking about the weather is something that people all relate to.

In fact, I think if you think about that, the last time we were together with your neighbors, you probably did talk about the weather. So it is something there that we found is very easy to communicate with people. People who don’t think about climate change on a regular basis do think about the weather. So it is essentially an opportunity for that important dialogue.

Just to close off a couple of other matters that are highlighted in your SPPC report, there are a number of projects that are either underway or due to start within the next month or two that are tackling the very difficult item. What does all this cost? There are so many unknowns. There are models that we’re going to be using that are going to help us sift through all of this.

For your multi-year budget, we’re going to be doing our best to bring forward information. But this is both a short-term, medium-term and long-term plan, the Climate Emergency Action Plan. So a number of our items are going to be over a number of multi-year budgets. As we space out what is going to be required from an affordability perspective here in London, but also as we look at other levels of government and funding opportunities.

Our Climate Emergency Action Plan allows us to be ready right now if those funding opportunities open up and we’ve been able to take advantage of some and our goal is to take advantage of more that come forward. My last slide, if I made Mr. Mayor, your worship, the project before you today, it’s our first progress report, it’s rather large. The first one is always probably the most difficult to produce, a lot of people put time and effort into this.

We now have to actually, after committee today and council on June 6th, our plan is to begin to unpack that. To begin to unpack that, it’s so it’s easier to understand for the community, for our business colleagues, for our institutions. We’ve tried a few things in this particular report from a note to reader and executive summary, as well as having questions and answers in a number of the key sections, just to help guide the reader. But we’re going to do further work on that to break it into different components.

And part of our complete rollout, we’re going to be theming a number of the areas. Highlighting the successes, and there have been many, but at the same time, there is discouraging news, but we want to package that correctly. It’s discouraging this year. At the same time, there’s some positive aspects that we want to make sure all are captured.

So part of our work will be making sure that we’re listening correctly, hearing from you at SPPC and council, and then bringing that out to the community over the next couple months. And using that as a generator for more information and more ideas as we carry on this mission. Thank you. Speakers list, Councilor Trovesat.

Well, first of all, thank you so much. This is a very ambitious report, and I really appreciate how much work went into this. And for the most part, I think it’s very helpful. There are just a few little points that I’d like to raise, and I’ll try to limit them.

There seems to be a dichotomy here between things that are corporate within the city that we can control directly, and things that other consumers outside of the city do. And I think what that’s missing, and what I think the weakness of this report is, and I’m not gonna ask for amendments on this, but I just think this needs to be addressed, is the city has some very broad bylaw powers, under section 11 of the Municipal Act. With respect to health and safety, with respect to the environment, with respect to consumer protection, with respect to a variety of areas that the city can regulate. And I look through here, and when I see what the downsides are, I think we could be thinking about household purchases, household maintenance, especially with respect to how we take care of our lawns in terms of how we cook, in terms of how we amuse ourselves, and in terms of how we drive, and get around the city.

My first specific question is, with respect to the large SUVs, the large pickups, versus the smaller vehicles, does the city have any regulatory authority, and this may require some research, but does the city have any regulatory authority to look at the environmental effects of the larger, particularly the very larger vehicles, and implement some type of, you know, difference in terms of how we allow them, and how we charge for them. Let’s start with Mr. Stanford. Through your worship, I do believe Barry Card is on the line, and I do hope he’s able to comment on that, or provide additional information.

I see Mr. Card too, Mr. Card. Thank you, Your Worship.

The mechanical equipment on motor vehicles, new motor vehicles is regulated by the federal government. The licensing of those vehicles is operated by the provincial government, municipalities do not have any control over the nature of the equipment. Following up on that through the chair, then with respect to the implements that people use to take care of their lawns, I think though the city does have much more authority and leeway there, we went through a long discussion about pesticides several years ago, and I think we’re going to undertake a discussion about gas powered leaf blowers in other implements. Do you have any comments on that?

I just wanna make sure that we don’t lose sight of the fact that the city has a lot of control over what goes on in private households, at least with respect to these types of devices. Mr. Card? Thank you, Your Worship.

The municipality doesn’t generally have the power to make it unlawful to have lawful property. So like for example, if these units are sold lawfully, people can possess them. The municipality does have some control over how these units are used. For example, if they make an amount of noise that is contrary to our noise by-law, then we may be able to take some action.

But in terms of the emissions that come from gasoline powered lawn equipment, those again are controlled by the provincial government and the, for the Ministry of the Environment, which has a different name, but now these days, but environmental compliance. But the municipality cannot prohibit the use of that equipment. I think some municipalities I’ve noticed around the country have tried to do this. I’m not aware of any of those matters having come before a court.

I think more energy has been devoted of late to trying to have the provincial government take some action to prohibit, to phase out the use of the gas powered blowers. But there are other people who think that the battery powered blowers aren’t much better for different reasons, but I’ll leave that aside. I think your worship if the Councilor wishes to have a more informed response to this question is something that should be referred to staff or reported a future time. Thank you.

Thank you. And I would like to do that through the chair because with all due respect, I think you’re underestimating the powers that municipalities have at this point. I’m not gonna debate that here tonight, but we’ll have a more fulsome discussion about that, especially since we’re gonna be talking about gas powered leaf blowers and other types of devices. The question of the cars, the SUVs, again, I think that’s gonna be a longer discussion and I just wanna flag, I think it’s something that we have to be giving much more attention to.

We should not cut ourselves short in terms of the raw ed authority that municipalities have. And sometimes I worry that we’re doing that. And I’ll just let that go for now. Thank you.

I have Councilor Frank next. Thank you and through the chair, I have a couple questions and then I was hoping to put a motion on the floor, which was circulated earlier this afternoon. I wanna start off by thanking staff for putting this together. I think it’s a comprehensive report of everything that has been going on.

And I really appreciate the work that’s gone into it. And like Mr. Stanford said, I know that a lot of different staff have touched it and have added their contributions to it. I’ll do have a couple questions.

And one of them was just in trying to get a better understanding of the specific actions that we’re doing and how they will reduce emissions. So we know with the chart that we get every year that Mr. Skimming puts together where it shows if we’re going up, if we’re going down, if we’re staying the same. I’m wondering if we know, and I found it a little bit difficult to find in the report, if for example, we said everyone got rid of their gas powered lawn equipment, like how much that would make a reduction.

Because I’m wondering if a lot of the things that we’re doing, I struggle to see, I guess, the direct connection between the action and the specific amount of emissions that it would hypothetically reduce. And trying to get a better understanding of that to make sure that we can add our 2030 targets. ‘Cause I’m in the plan, it kind of looks like we’re throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what we’ll stick and like hoping that our emissions will be reduced. So I’m wondering if there’s a more scientific way that we’re working on making those reductions.

Mr. Stanford. Through your workshop, a couple of ways of looking at that. If we go back to the landscaping equipment, we will be bringing forward a policy options report later this fall.

And in that report, we’ll be talking about the level of effort that’s required to do certain policy options within that envelope. We’ll also do our best to estimate the greenhouse gas reduction associated with each one of the options. At this point in time, we really don’t have a good estimate of how much equipment is out there. That is something that we’re going to have to uncover over the course of the next couple of months.

In our initial climate emergency action plan, we identified what it would take to reduce by about one million tons per year in big buckets, like the transportation sector. As we come forward with each opportunity, we then tend to put a lens on and determine at that point in time how much greenhouse gas will be required, or will be likely to be reduced by a particular action. So at this point, we’re developing further details on the items that are going to come forward as part of the multi-year budget, where that’ll be much clearer. If there’s something specific, we’re always happy to develop earlier estimates.

We always have to keep in mind that if we can glean from other municipalities, we always go through that sort of opportunity. We’d rather than having to do it always first here in London. If others have done it, we tend to look to them as well. So right now, what you have is fairly good information, but on a specific initiative, we do that really on a case-by-case basis.

What we do look for usually low-hanging fruit, at least the impact from a perspective of implementation, and one where we tend to nudge the hardest, but we do look from a household perspective, and if I could just elaborate, where we’ve got to make sure things are doable and understandable and have the right impact and not a negative impact. So there is a fine balance as we move forward on this, and we’ll make sure that our information is very clear when we come forward on individual initiatives. Thanks, sorry, thank you, I appreciate that. And then I’m just curious too.

So I know that it was included that 3% have been completed, 97% are in the works, and I’m wondering when you say get started, like what does that look like kind of on a case-by-case basis? Is that like the, we’ve applied for funding for a project or like a staff person to send an email? I’m just curious as to what gets started kind of means in a practical application. Through your worship, for each item, we actually have a tracking system, and our particular area in environment and infrastructure, we of course know a lot more about what’s going on, so we have better information.

We rely on our colleagues in the other areas on how well they’re doing, but the reality is here is that over the course of the last year, we’ve had so much increased dialogue, we’re starting to get a much better handle on what is being absorbed and embedded. In most cases, it’s much more than just an email, but each individual action, it will range on how far along they are in the continuum. We do look back that it’s only been really eight months for 2022, and with all the priorities that have been in the city, some items clearly haven’t moved as quickly as we’d like, and that is where we’re gonna attend our attention to. It’s the reality of what we’re working with, and when we came to committee and council, it was with no new additional resources and funding, and that we would find a way internally to adjust our budgets and thinking to embed climate changes quickly as we possible in these areas.

Thank you, and last question before I put my motion on the floor, I’m just wondering, with no new funding this year and no new funding next year, is staff feeling confident that we can hit our 2030 targets? Through your worship, that is a very difficult question to answer, and the reason I say that is that we’ve got very ambitious targets, and it’s gonna require everyone in London to do their part. That is why they’re called fair share targets, and they’re milestone targets, and they’re based on science. It is what is required in a community like London to basically do its part.

It’ll be very similar in a lot of Ontario communities and communities in Canada. They have to do more than others. Can we meet them? Well, there’ll be a lot of heavy lifting, no doubt about it.

I have a certain amount of confidence in some areas, ‘cause we see positive stories out there on a regular basis. The key part will be this, I believe, is that we have got to get many people engaged. And when I say many, everyone, to the right amount of involvement, that will take a big effort, and we’re up for the challenge. But I just have to emphasize that Council has about 50% influence over community greenhouse gases, according to what goes on.

So we have to make sure we are strong on our expectations, but also real. And I know that’s probably not something for me to be saying, but that’s how I face these things. I want to be very optimistic, but realistic at the same time, because we’ve got some big challenges ahead in this. Thank you.

Okay, I’ll wrap that up. I’ll stop grilling you. As folks know, I used to work in the environmental sector. So this issue is near and dear to my heart, which I’ve been following along very closely.

So I have put together a couple of items that I’m hoping to seek support on that was circulated via email earlier today, and I’ve sent along to the clerk as well. These things following this trajectory for the next two years are either low or no cost and very internal. So again, as staff mentioned, as we’re trying to set up the foundation to make sure that within our own corporate entity, we’re going to achieve our target so that we can then ripple out into the community. I did include a number of items.

I just want to briefly touch on them, or should I get a seconder before I hop into it? I haven’t actually read through all of them. So you might want to just maybe read the motion that I can ask for a seconder. Great, so motion to direct staff to include the following specific actions as part of the implementation of the SEAP.

Develop and deliver SEAP training to all current and future staff through onboarding and continued learning processes in a manner consistent with current internal learning and development programs. So for example, when people are onboarded, it’s like their HR training, they’d also get a SEAP training. And then they make sure that all staff members understand how to align their work to SEAP outcomes and make changes to their everyday routine work to align with targets. And just a little add, if for folks who went to the FCM conference this weekend, there was a great presentation about making climate change routine.

So embedding into everyday work practices and making sure you’re changing what you’re doing. And that, again, is low to no cost. Have staff bring a SEAP update to SPPC twice a year, a comprehensive report in May and an update later in the fall. Develop a net zero mission plan for corporate assets by December 2024 to ensure fleet and facilities can achieve 2045 corporate targets, subject to approval of appropriate funding in the multi-year budget, and ensure that asset management projects such as retrofits, replacements, renewals, and rehabilitations of city infrastructure make significant and visible efforts to be in line with net zero emission targets, consistent with SEAP areas of focus 7, 6A and 6B, while the plan noted above is being developed subject to the approval of appropriate funding in the multi-year budget.

Sorry, that was very long. So the last two essentially are making sure, again, our own fleet and facilities are in line with our own targets that we have set and agreed upon. Okay, so that is all loaded up, but is there a seconder for that? Okay, Councilor Farrar is willing to second.

So if you could put up on the screen, colleagues can read through. I assume we’re gonna also add in to receive the report. I don’t know if you will do that separate. We’ll deal with your motion first.

We’ll receive the report after if we need to, what we will need to. So moved and seconded, I do have a speaker’s list, but Councilor Farrarar, do you know anyone on it? Can you give me a second? And I’m happy to go to you.

Thank you and through you. I do appreciate first, I guess, the staff. Thank you for the report. Very informative.

It does look very good for our corporate status, but the community wide status seems like the targets are a little further than I’d like us to see. So I just wanted to speak on that. I am happy that Councilor Frank did bring this motion to the table here. And I do see that with the report being as long as it was, splitting it up maybe into two times per year might just help us out just a little bit.

So I did want to just speak to other areas. So like, you know, I do see that, you know, you referenced yourself. We’re doing a lot of case by case basis. And I just wanted to speak to like the structural aspect and what we can implement structurally, the way the city works, just to see if we can start implementing the seed plan itself.

So I just wanted to ask like, when we build, when we move forward and we actually build forward, I guess it’s not directly tied to the greenhouse gas emissions part, but it does have a big effect on that. But is there a way or is there any type of look that we can actually start bringing in the seep into action at the application stage of planning or start looking into areas like that? Just to help with the more structural side of what I’m trying to speak to. Your worship, I’m gonna see if Mr.

Mathers could actually assist on that. We’ve been working closely with his service area to try to help embed some of these things and it’s probably best to hear directly from him on where we’re sitting on these matters. Through the chair, we do have forces as really the fundamental document for a lot of the work that we do here at the London plan. And it does speak very specifically to the importance of any kind of environmental principle with anything that we do.

And that really feeds into a lot of the other work that the many of the groups in the city are undertaking. So that is one of the main elements as far as how we grow, how we move forward, how the policies that are developed coming out of how we’re building our city into the future. That is one of the main principles and one of the main documents that we used as a guiding light as far as how we wanna grow and what the city, what we want that city to look like in the future. So from my perspective, that document and those key principles are really what’s gonna be guiding us into the future.

Councillor Ferra, before I go back to you, just a little bit of logistics ‘cause I don’t want this to get away from me. What I’m gonna ask the clerk to do, assuming the mover and the second are okay with it, is I’m gonna have your motion change slightly to say, basically that we’re receiving the report and like we’re doing all these things. That way if people wanna add, they could add an amendment to the motion ‘cause there’s no motion on the floor yet. So your motion is kind of the staff receipt and some other items.

People don’t like some items in it. We can vote on the component separately so people can let me know at the end. That way colleagues still provide their comments and questions on the overall report at the same time as we deal with the motion and their comments on it. But that’s how I’d like to proceed.

If you’ve got something else you’d like to add in, we’ll do that as an amendment to this motion. If you wanna ask questions about the report, you still can. If you don’t wanna do one of these things that Councillor Frank and Councillor Ferra have suggested, you can obviously make comments about that in your debate and then I can have this motion divided in the way that is appropriate based on people’s comments for people to be able to vote the way they wanna vote. So if you’re okay with that, that’s how I’m gonna do it just so we can keep things efficient hopefully in this meeting.

So with that, I lost complete track of where we are. Councillor Ferra, were you done with your questions? Yeah, through you, I am for now. Okay, then I have a speaker’s list.

I have Deputy Mayor Lewis and then Councillor Hopkins. Thank you, Your Worship, through you. I got a couple questions, but I’m gonna start with clause B. How does the twice yearly report change the staff workload from what it currently is in reporting out to us?

Go ahead. Through you, Your Worship, I still have no concerns with clause B, we are reporting and tracking this information. You would see a mid-year report that is going to be considerably abridged from what you see here and the more comprehensive report in the spring when our data is ready for corporate emissions and that’s community emissions. Okay, next question through you, Chair.

Well, developing a net emissions zero for the fleet and facilities for 2024 is certainly something we should be working towards. Where are we in terms of technology that replaces some of our fleet components right now? If staff can provide some information. I mean, I love the fact that we have green Zambones now at some of our ranks, but I’m also aware that replacing a garbage truck is different than replacing a Zamboni and replacing different components of our fleet facilities.

We may not have replacement things that are net zero yet. So through you to our staff, are there challenges that may prohibit some of the fleet changeover based on current technologies? Your Worship, I can certainly start and maybe Ms. Barbano, we may wish to add some things.

Any plan we’re putting together with respect to the fleet replacement house to reflect the current market realities. There are things that are readily available. Supply chain issues are applying to both combustion engine as well as low emission vehicles. There are certain things that are not available on the market to replace equipment that we need and require.

So that plan would be developed and it is underway already to reflect what is available in a reasonable commercial way. And we’ll take a look at the performance, the impact on level of service, obviously the environmental considerations as well as cost. And that plan will evolve as those technologies evolve and become more market ready. We’ve seen certainly a transition in what we can purchase.

It’s a low emission vehicle already. And we’ve seen a change in price, but there are still things that right now there are no substitutes for available in a reasonable scalable way for municipality. Okay, so following up on that question then, there’s also a recommended deadline of December 2024 in this clause, how does that line up with our overall corporate asset management plan report back to council? And I’ll preface this by saying, I don’t want staff doing two corporate asset reports.

So if this deadline does not match up with a report out of the overall corporate asset management plan, I’m reluctant to support the specific deadline. So how do those two things line up? Go ahead. Thank you through the chairs.

So the corporate asset management plan update is occurring right now and scheduled to be brought forward in the late spring to be able to bring that forward. That specifically addresses lifecycle renewal and the funding of like for like, there will be some components related to the climate change, but it does not address the net zero emissions to bring all of the corporate assets into line. That will be a separate plan. So currently the staff are looking at specific strategies such as electric fleets and specific components.

And of course, there’s a great deal of infrastructure where we’re trying to implement charging stations, all those kinds of things. We’re doing the CNG conversion for some of the vehicles. So there’s those pieces that are being done. There isn’t a comprehensive plan and that’s something certainly we’re looking to show up some resources to be able to support us in trying to do a more detailed strategic across all of our corporate assets as well.

The question is ultimately when we look at corporate assets, that ultimately could expand to beyond just assets that move around our facilities, our community centers. It depends on how broad we’re looking to do that. There isn’t something that’s comprehensive. So that’s certainly something that we’re looking to have resources to assist us to be able to do that work and chart to do a broader plan rather than looking at specific strategies that we’re in process of trying to implement.

So through you, Chair, that’s helpful, but I’m not quite sure that I got the information I need out of that response, which is in terms of timeline. And I know that our staff will always say, we’ll do whatever Council directs us to do, but with all due respect to their timelines, can these, is December 2024 a reasonable timeline or would it be better to leave this, frankly, without a specific date? Because I don’t want to tie staff to a deadline of December if they need till March of 2025. And then to have staff have to come back and ask for an extension.

I’d rather just leave it open-ended if you need it to be open-ended. So I know that the standard answer is always, you will do whatever we ask you to do, but I’m also cognizant of the fact that we ask you to do a whole lot. And can you turn this around in that timeframe? Thank you, Chair.

So certainly we will do our best to try to meet that timeline, and certainly that’s on our radar. My preference, if I were to have a choice, would be to remove the December 2024 date, and that we would be striving to do that soon as we have resources and start to continue that concurrently with our implementation of the other strategies that have already been identified. Thank you, appreciate that. Perhaps my last question, and then I’ll yield so some other speakers can ask some questions as well.

And I will say, first of all, I think Part A makes a whole lot of sense. Like, let’s just, as new people join the corporation, let’s bring them up to speed on what we’re doing here. On Part D, again, in principle, very much support that we’re ensuring as we do retrofits and replacements and rehab of our infrastructure, and I miss Barbara in reference, the community centers in the corporate asset plan, and that’s a great example, I think, of one where we should be looking at net zero renewals when those times come. I wonder, though, with this motion, and so I haven’t had a lot of time to think about this one, but I wonder if staff have any thoughts on some, for examples, that because this specifically references areas of focus, seven, six A and six B, if there are some examples, staff could share of what that might look like in those particular areas of focus for us, because I just, and I know Councilor Frank was busy at FCM on the weekend, as was I, so I just haven’t had a time to think of this through, and I’d like to get some staff assistance on that, if possible.

Through the chair, I can misshares looking that up. In the meantime, with respect to, so one of the things we’re doing is, as lifecycle renewal is coming due, that is something that we’re automatically looking to what the most cost-effective solution is that we can implement, and retrofits and replacements allow us some opportunity to be able to sometimes go to new products and look at how we can best meet climate change goals. So that is something we’re already doing. We do run into challenges in some cases, where there are legacy systems and we’re trying to add new technology that sometimes they don’t always work well together and create other challenges.

So, I mean, this building is a perfect example from our current systems and how we manage heat, hydro, et cetera, and all of these things to try to continue managing those things. So, we are doing it to the extent that we have budget for, to the extent that we have the ability to do so. HVAC systems are something where we have retrofits. We are looking to go as green as possible and to try to look at some of those pieces.

The passive house that we’re pursuing for the next fire station is something that is automatically within the budget approved that we’re moving forward to do. So, those are some quick examples off the top of my head that we’re automatically doing. And there’s probably many more that aren’t coming to mind, but that we’re able to assess as lifecycle renewal projects come forward, where we have the ability to automatically do something. We will do so.

Thank you. I appreciate that, I’m just wondering, I don’t know if she’s had a chance to look it up, but no, Ms. Share is waving me off. So, I won’t ask if, but I can follow up with her offline later on that too.

So, that’s okay. So, I’m gonna share that I’m generally supportive of A, hearing that B does not put any more staff burden on a briefer, a bridged version in the fall. I don’t have a big problem with on C. I’m gonna listen to the rest of the debate, but I’m not gonna support that deadline.

So, if the mover and seconder might wanna think about whether they need that specific deadline in there or not, I’ll leave that to them for now. I might want to amend that later. But I think we all wanna see progress made, but I just wanna take the opportunity to underline what we heard from Mr. Stanford.

There are things that are simply beyond our control in this, and it is going to take other levels of government, it is going to take citizens voluntarily changing some of their habits, and working on this together, everybody, and if that doesn’t happen, we are not going to meet these goals. I think it’s important to be realistic about that. They are very ambitious, and I think it’s really vital for the city to lead by example where we can. But I just wanna note that changing culturally how people do things can be a very long, slow process.

And I am not going to be looking at tools that we can use to restrict what kind of vehicle people could buy or what kind of equipment they can legally buy on the market, particularly in a day and age where in many cases, they can order things online and have them delivered to their doorstep, and they don’t even have to be for sale in our municipality or even in our province. So it becomes very difficult to regulate that. Just as we see with many of our bylaws, it’s about voluntary compliance. It’s very hard to enforce bylaws on a city as broad and as growing as ours are if the citizens aren’t willing to follow those bylaws voluntarily.

So those are my thoughts for now. Good, thank you, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, your worship. I’ll speak to, I guess, the amendment.

I know we don’t have a mover and a seconder to receive it, but I’ll just kind of speak to the report as well. Yeah, we’ve changed it, so this is everything now. Okay, so I guess I’ll speak to everything then. First of all, to the amendment.

So, you know, I go back a couple years ago when we declared climate change emergency plan. Took us a little while to get where we are with the plan. I do appreciate the Councillor’s amendments because we do have to set an example to some extent, and I think this is a way. It’s very easy to endorse a plan, but what are we doing about it?

How are we setting an example? I, too, am a little bit concerned about sea. As much as I would like to support it, I do want to acknowledge the challenges around timelines and setting ourselves up for maybe not getting the information that I think is really important that we need. So, I’ll look to comments from my colleagues, the mover and the seconder if they want to change that date, but that comprehensive plan is really important for us to understand exactly what we’re doing as a city and setting that example.

I want to also make a comment on this report and listening to Mr. Stanford, I always listen to you because I know you know your stuff, and I found it really interesting when you were saying about we want to do our part, but we know we’ve got challenges. And I think a lot of us were at EarthFest, and we could see that the community there by the numbers, it was the second year, have really grown. So, the community is interested.

Sometimes I often think that they’re ahead of governments in terms of wanting to do things. That is a really big part of the plan, from what I understand. And when I also hear transportation, for instance, the challenges, the big pickup trucks, how do we convert the use of vehicles, since that’s the greater part of it, the emissions, how do we, it’s like there’s two parts out there in the community, and I’m not sure how we bring these two parts together. And I would think education is a big part, the more we communicate and engage with the community, is going to really lead us forward with this plan.

We have to do that. In the report, it talks about the businesses and institutions and the good work that’s going on. And I’m going to just take this opportunity and talk about West 5 and Eve Park, which is out in the Riverbend area, and that’s sustainable net zero community and the work that is going on there. And those challenges for that to even move forward have been great.

And how do we, how do our processes and policies catch up with the innovation and that sustainable living, that in building that we know is going to be the future? And I know we can be leaders and we don’t talk enough about that. So I’m always caught with the communities getting at the businesses, institutions are doing their part, the city wants to do its part as well. We need to lead by example.

We can’t just say we’ve got a plan and not do anything. So I always appreciate Councillor Frank’s amendments coming forward and how we can do a better job. That’s what we’re doing right now is having those conversations. So I guess maybe a question through your worship, as we go through the mobility plan and as we try to engage with the community when it comes to transportation, how will we engage and work together with the community to bring those challenges forward?

Or will that climate emergency plan be part of the mobility plan just through you to whoever? Go ahead. Thank you, Your Worship. The mobility master plan and the climate emergency plan are really intrinsically entwined.

And members of the climate emergency plan implementation team in Mr. Stanford’s area are working very, very closely with the project team and steering committee for the mobility master plan. And that will be coming to council this summer to provide you an update where we are with respect to those targets related to modal split. We’ll be doing further engagement this through the summer and fall in the community.

We’ll be bringing that back for approval. And as we approach year end and early next year, you’ll be seeing plans that address moving London that include all modes with long-term comprehensive investment, whether it’s active modes, transit use, or vehicle use and freight management. You really can’t do one without the other. It’s very clear in our data for the community in that how we choose to get our homes and how we get around our community are fundamentally the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions for London and Londoners.

And while Londoners absolutely have choice in how they engage in our transportation system, we want to ensure that those choices are well supported and multimodal and we’re going to be engaging you in a very comprehensive and I expect robust and lively conversation about mobility in our community over the coming months. Yeah, thank you for that. I think comprehensive and robust has to happen. We as a city need to engage with the community and how we listen and understand and work together.

We can’t do this plan without that. So getting back to the amendments with a number of them as well, I think C tends, I’d like to know a little bit more about how we’re going to move forward with C, but other than that, I’m really glad to have, these reports come to us and have the conversation. So thank you. Okay, just so colleagues are on the same page as the public who can see that screen.

Three is the new C and so just refresh your screen because we added in the be it received and so things have gotten a little bit re-numbered and reordered, it’s all still there, but it’s now an A and then a B, which is all the directions from Councillor Frank, which is one, two, three and four. So just, if you’re just referring to a letter, that might not be what other people are seeing. So just sort of everybody’s on the same page. I have myself next, then I have Councillor Ferra and then Councillor Layman.

So I’ll turn the chair over to Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Chair. And I would note that Councillor Roman wants to be added to the speaker’s list as well. And then I will go to the mayor for comments.

So thank you very much for the conversation so far. I wanted to ask a couple of questions myself and then I’ll make my comments about some of the components of the motion that the colleagues have brought forward. I wanted to go back to a couple of the charts. So there’s obviously the community-based chart, but there’s also our corporate-based chart.

The corporate-based chart is the thing we have the most control over. And if I’m reading it correctly, we’ve made tremendous progress towards our 2030 goal. We’re actually compared to where we started, not that far off. So it seems like we’re doing well despite the slight uptick and a little bit of flatlining before that through the pandemic.

And is that, to Mr. Stanford, kind of the low-hanging fruit? Or do we anticipate that we have the ability from a corporate perspective to kind of continue to trend below that line that you’ve got on the graph? Or will it get tougher as we kind of get further out in the graph ‘cause I’m trying to understand it.

It looks really good, but is it really good, Mr. Stanford? Through the presiding officer, your worship, a lot of our gains, say probably at least 50%, date back to when basically coal was removed as a fuel source in Ontario. So the whole province gained from that.

Both 40 to 50% though are from the changes that have been made to our facilities, the way we move around with our fleet vehicles. So it’s credit to a lot of work that has been approved by a committee and council. It has been generally though, a lot of the low-hanging fruit. It will get more difficult from here because we’re gonna be getting into new innovation, emerging technologies.

Same as all municipalities as we look at this. There in lies the advantage. When we look in developing a plan, similar municipalities are doing those plans as well. So as we move forward here, it will be a challenge, but because there’s gonna be more of us out there looking at electrification, the price of those technologies should come down in price, as well as the confidence in those technologies and the vendors investing in the technologies will also increase as the more municipalities move, including other levels of government and make large purchases.

And we’re starting to see and hear that too from some major corporations that are also making those necessary investments in their fleets and their buildings. Mayor Morgan, sure. So you mentioned something that I wanted to talk about through the presiding chair. An action the provincial government took is benefiting our plan.

Obviously the recent decision to add more gas into the electrical grid or natural gas into the electrical grid goes the other way a little bit. One of the things that I was interested in talking about because it’s an action that benefits Londoners financially as well as the climate is the components of the plan that talk about food waste. So, you know, I think the average Londoner is wasting about $1,000 of food. I came up with $600,000 to $1,000 or so, maybe it’s the high end there, food per year.

When you think about what that is from a climber’s perspective, say a banana, like it’s grown somewhere else, it’s trucked somewhere, ships somewhere, there’s lots of components in the chain. But do we get credit if we, you know, do better on food waste within our city or is that just helping someone else’s climate numbers? In other words, all of those transportation costs related or emissions related to the transportation of, say, food from long distances away, if we reduce our food waste. Is that something that shows up in our plan or is that just something that’s great to do because it’s benefiting globally?

Mr. Stanford. Through you, it actually benefits both waste. About 70% of average household of their methane and greenhouse gases associated with food waste.

So that will help reduce that number. But globally, that’s where the biggest benefit kicks in because the food distribution system, the whole food production system represents about one third of all our greenhouse gases. So it helps not only locally, but also in the big picture. We also find your worship that food waste is something that people like the weather, they can all relate to, most won’t admit they do it, but it is a good conversation piece and there are savings to be had as well as climate change benefit.

Mayor Morgan. Yeah, so that’s where I wanna go with this. And I think the question was very astute by our colleagues to know what are the actions that really kind of give us bang for a buck and what are the actions that we could debate for a really long time that might have a small impact? Because I think if you’re just saying food waste is seven to 8% of Leonard’s greenhouse gas emissions and the food distribution network is a third of all global emissions, like, obviously that’s a pretty important thing for us to focus on both locally because it has a global impact.

And so as we progress through this, I think understanding as a council, which are the ones that we can really promote, speak to Leonard’s about and get like the biggest return on, I still see those as low hanging fruit, that’s probably a bit of a pun, somewhere one of my kids is groaning. But if you know what I was saying, there are actions beyond our control. There are actions that we have that ultimately benefit others. And so like having an understanding of where we can take really positive actions as a community that benefit kind of the global effort, I think is as important as us getting really fixated on each little dot that we have in our own graph because we’re part of a bigger challenge here that is a global challenge and there are actions we can take that can benefit what other communities are doing and there’s actions that the federal, provincial governments and other international actors can take that will benefit the work that we’re trying to do here.

So just to keep that in perspective, I think that that’s good for us to continue to talk about within the constructs of the plan. Within the climate emergency action plan too, I’m glad you touched on in your presentation on adaptation. I think everybody always forgets that it is about making good climate decisions, reducing our greenhouse gases, but it’s also about mitigation and adaptation of the climate change and the risk to our assets that is already here and continuing to make sure that that’s a key part of our work ahead. And so I appreciate that that is part of the plan and that’s something that we continue to need to take action on as well.

Certainly something that is at the forefront of our discussions, obviously with the federal government who works to fund a lot of that mitigation and adaptation efforts that we have to deploy here in our city. So on the comments that our colleagues brought forward, I’m generally supportive of the components that they brought forward. I think that that makes fine sense to me. I think there’s a couple of colleagues who have some concerns about the dates.

I would suggest that the mover and seconder pay attention to that. It’d be nice to find a path forward where you get as many votes as possible for as many components. And if that’s not something that’s really critical to you, you can maybe make an adjustment there, but I’m generally supportive of what’s been brought for us. Thank you for those comments and questions, Mayor.

I would ask that you add Councillor Pribble to your speakers list at the end of the list you have. And you will look to Councillor Ferrera as I return the chair to you. And thank you and through you. I guess specifically to the dates, I would be willing to hear any alternative dates.

And I would just like to make sure that Councillor Frank is on the same page too. But speaking to that aspect, I just want to say that first. I want to go back to my original question previously, just speaking to like from the debate that I’ve seen here on the floor, I do see that people are speaking about the targets and what the targets are really kind of trying to put us the direction that we’re trying to go in. And then there’s a lot of things that are kind of out of our control, which is fair, it’s obvious.

But just speaking to the Climate Emergency Action Plan specifically in what we can do, it does have a mandate and some could argue that that mandate might have some issue or some directives in it that would be specific, but some might not necessarily work. But in the end, that mandate is trying to put us on a more sustainable path for the future just so we can preserve the space, the land that we live on. So, and the targets in there, some may call the targets ambitious, some may call the targets not. But I do want to talk about what I feel like would be within the city’s control and that would go back to the questions those asking Mr.

Mathers earlier about the planning aspect. And I feel that, you know, just as the downtown council, I do have a lot of planning applications that come through and I am looking at them. And a lot of those planning applications I see don’t necessarily have parts in it that would be directed or kind of would fit within the Climate Emergency Action Plan, the way I see it, like I don’t necessarily see that much low impact development. I’d like to see a little bit more of, you know, setbacks that would allow for more water infiltration for our stormwater and super insulation, stuff like that.

So that’s why I’m asking the question of, you know, at the first point of contact when we start building and how we build, I would like to see, you know, something or just speak to how we would be able to implement those types of requirements at the first point of contact to see if we can, you know, to, so we can be a leader in this space. And so we can ensure that we do build in the correct way. So I just wanted to, that’s really kind of the concern. I am, I do see that would be more within the municipality’s control itself.

So I just wanted to just go back to that question and see if there’s anything that would be something, anything that we could probably speak about or bring back in the future that would kind of focus on that aspect. Through the chair, it’s a great question. And there’s a few different pieces of that that I just want on package. One is that by its nature, when we can try to prioritize intensification over a green field initiative, then those are the types of things that, by even with, if you’re looking at something that doesn’t have embedded in it, some of those environmentally incentivized opportunities like low impact development.

Whenever we can have used existing land, converted parking lot to a new development, we really want to be able to capitalize on that. So when you’re comparing the types of development that are occurring, we very much want to incentivize those positive styles of development. Even if currently we’re not at the point of being able to provide incentives and to allow for like more green initiatives, doesn’t mean that we can’t, it doesn’t mean we can’t provide those incentives. So you’ll be seeing as we move forward with the community improvement plan progression and also the rethink zoning, opportunities to be able to embed that into the core of what we’re doing from a building perspective.

So I feel that we are really made some really great leaps and bounds improvements, but we still have a little bit more to go as well. So I think we’re set up well, however we do have to try to keep that very much top of mind and be able to make sure that we have an approach that can get us to as close to sustainability as we can and then beyond. And thank you, I appreciate that answer. So basically, that’s what I feel like, even if it’s not necessarily like a green field area or anything that can be put into the building that would just kind of reduce the energy consumption or just kind of enhance our ability to meet the targets that we have.

So that’s really what I would like to kind of see a little bit more just because I’m just worried that once you have an application come through and you kind of already starting to do work on it, it goes to that age old, you poured the concrete, it’s already starting to set. And then when you try to start making changes to it, it doesn’t necessarily work. So that’s why I’m kind of really on the first point of contact and just kind of seeing that process right at the beginning and go right through till the end to fruition. So that’s why I’m bringing that up.

But I appreciate the answer, thank you. Thank you. I have Councillor Lehman next. Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, so overlooking those, I just want to focus in on part four. I just want to understand, sometimes when you read these, you’re clear, you think you’re clear, I’m one you’re voting on and then you find out down the road that you might have missed something. I think it’s important that we do lead by example because as Mr. Stanford said, it takes the buy in from the community for us to achieve these targets.

And the way we can do that is we can have policy, but we also can lead by example. So for example, asset management projects, which I imagine concerns buildings and fleets, et cetera, we look for ways to find greener ways to do these things, reduce our carbon footprint in economically responsible ways. But I want to make sure, when I see the word asset management projects, I want to be clear, does this include our roads and our bridges? For example, we are looking at our master mobility plan, which builds plans on how we’re going to get around this city.

Classic example of that is in my ward. There is a bridge project that we’re looking at enhancing to handle the traffic coming in from the West. By agreeing to this, are we handcuffing ourselves in proper planning traffic flow by restricting road widening or enhancements to bridge widths, et cetera, or bridges even? Thank you, Your Worship.

So each project that we’re evaluating is evaluated using the climate emergency framework, as well as the climate emergency screening tools. So that’s standard practice in E&I. We’re working on building that practice corporate wide. And really, what I read for is doing is ensuring that that work happens as we go through each project.

So we’re not looking at a pass/fail in terms of that framework. What that looks at is are there ways to deliver this project to meet the intended and required needs that are going to reduce the environmental footprint of that project? So it might mean selecting different materials. It might mean ensuring that active modes are included in that widening project, and it’s not strictly car-based.

I don’t ever see us being in a position where we would say, we’re not going to fix a bridge because the concrete footprint for using new concrete would preclude that as an infirmative environmental reason. Those bridges are integral to safety, community, and connectivity. So none of this is either or. All of this is ensuring that staff are screening our projects and including these considerations as we make design decisions.

But we’ll also be reporting out on those decisions as we proceed with things like, for example, the Wonderland widening is an example of where we brought something back to council for consideration based on the results of that screening. So for example, as we had developed farther in the south end of the city and there’s some roads down there that are scheduled for widening as the population increases, do you see this as limiting those plans? Because as we know, there’s opinions out there that every time you widen the road, you are adding to the carbon footprint. Do you hear your worship?

We certainly know that roadway widening is not a long-term solution to congestion and there is an impact to the carbon footprint. We generally are widening to four lane cross sections that include both active transportation, transit accommodation, so cycling, pedestrianism, and transit. But we’re not in a position where we would restrict these rural cross sections from being brought up to a safe urban standard. Where we’re looking beyond four lanes and this has been brought forward previously to council, we are reviewing those and considering whether or not we would proceed beyond a four lane urban cross section and there would have to be extenuating circumstances to motivate six lane, eight lane type widenings.

But where we’ve got developing areas and we have substandard infrastructure that’s generally come in through annexation, we need to ensure that we’re providing a safe functional mode or sorry cross section for all modes and that generally would look like on an arterial, four lanes, sidewalks on both sides, cycle accommodation and transit accommodation. And we will be working on what that network needs to be as part of the mobility master plan and that will be brought back to council for your approval. Okay, just to be clear, I’m sorry to hammer this but I want to make sure I understand the way you read part four asset management projects will not restrict road widening in the future. Your worship road widening is not considered an asset management project.

Road widening is a service enhancement or capacity project and those are all screened already using the climate framework and will be part of our capital planning and the mobility master plan. So we will continue to review those projects and report out to council on those. Thank you. That was my understanding.

Would I just want to make clear that I wasn’t off track. Your worship I see Ms. Marmon would like to address this. Go ahead.

Thank you, if I might be helpful. So it refers specifically to focus area seven, six A and six B which refers specifically to city of London buildings and city of London lifecycle renewal projects for existing buildings. So it’s specific, I believe if that’s the intention of the mover of this recommendation is to look at specifically lifecycle renewal that I don’t believe was intended based on the reference to six A and six B to look at anything beyond civic buildings. Thank you.

I believe I understand fully what the intent is here and I fully support this ‘cause I think this is a great idea. Like I said, we have done this in the past with our build some buildings and retrofits. And for sure, I think we should continue on this both to do our part in reducing the carbon footprint but also more importantly, I think, is to lead our community with our actions. Councillor Roman.

Thank you and through you. So first to staff, thank you for the report and for the follow up conversations and information requested as well. I wanted to say thank you to the mover and seconder as well for continuing to engage us in conversation and push our thinking and our political will on these issues ‘cause I think it needs to happen. And so thank you, I appreciate that.

I am supportive of what’s included in the motion. I just wanted to ask a question around one and that is where it talks about training. I’m wondering whether or not we currently have training that would relate to the strategic plan for council. So anybody new to the organization would be given a little bit of a flavor of our strategic plan, which also would include, of course, our targets that are in there and sorry, our information that’s in there around the SEAP as well as our climate action initiatives and growth initiatives.

So I’m just wondering, do we already have some of this covered and is it, do we need to parse out the SEAP or does it already deal with informing people about our strategic plan and all those actions? ‘Cause I think that it’s important to also have and reflect on all of the organizational goals as they interrelate with one another and connecting that back to all of our work with the strategic plan as well. So I’m not really sure who to go to for that one. It’s really a question of how do we onboard staff and do we bring them kind of through our strategic plan giving them some information about our strategic plan which would include all of many of the things including climate emergency action plan and others?

Yes, your worship, we do that. But we also do additionally some specific training. In particular, I view item one as similar to the ARAO Foundation training that we do in terms of trying to, while all new staff understand our strategic plan and the direction that we are trying to move in, sometimes there’s additional specific training required to make sure everybody is on the same page. So there may be some parallels here in terms of how we approach our ARAO work and the use of our equity tool similar to our climate emergency plan and the use of the screening tool there.

Go ahead. Thank you, yeah, I think that’s helpful. I think it’s really important that we’ve got the climate emergency action plan and then we’ve got what’s happening with our outcome too in our climate action and sustainable growth from within the strategic plan. Just making sure that we’ve got that alignment with all of the work we’re doing and making sure that staff under a new staff that are being on board and understand how that all fits in together, I think is important.

I think that staff is one piece of it, but I do think also with reflecting on all of our other agencies, boards, commissions as well because I think there’s an opportunity around all of the work we’re doing to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to have that training. I think it’s just helpful, again, to realize our shared goals, but that’s just my comment on that. That’s our privilege. So the chair to our staff are specifically Mr.

Stanford. One of the crafts shows GHU emissions community and it’s in total and I know I can divide it by our population, but I was wondering if we can do the craft per capita as well. And the reason we have five for that is because there are a lot of places in the world that we are looking up to, how they are doing great, but if I look at tons per capita, London, we are actually doing better than they are. And I think it would be much easier for Londoners and even for us to see a craft that shows per capita and especially if our population is gonna grow.

So I was wondering if that’s possible and then I have one more question. Mr. E worship an excellent idea. We have used that type of information in the past and we’ll make sure during a rollout to actually slice and dice it and unpack it a couple different ways.

The household and the per person are two excellent ways of doing that, so we will do that during a rollout. Perfect, thank you because as I said, we are actually doing better than many other countries that we are actually looking up to and saying how great of things they are doing. The other point is, I don’t mind at all the initiatives for climate and sustainability, but there are certain decisions that certain proposals I wouldn’t mind to have a little bit earlier because it’s not that I wanna do lots of research that takes days, months, no, not at all. Fundia and these are really important decisions and I think that we have to look at yes, I don’t mind to be a leader in these initiatives.

But on the other hand, I wanna be able to discuss it with our staff. I wanna also compare it to other municipalities because I think the growth investment in our city is tremendously important and it has to do with other things as homelessness, et cetera, et cetera. And we potentially could be making really quick decisions here, which we really need to compare ourselves to other municipalities in Ontario and Canada. So we are still competitive and we still do have the investment and growth.

So that’s actually not a question that’s just a comment. Thank you. Well, I think in general, motions have come late, make long debates, motions have come early, give people time to think about it and maybe get some questions answered ahead of time. I think that’s a general principle, but I will say, although we’ve talked about the slots as a council, I think we need to respect someone’s right to bring a motion when they feel it’s appropriate because sometimes you gotta do research right up until the end and you don’t have a lot of time.

I think everybody’s in that situation. So always good when we can get it as soon as possible, but certainly there’s good reasons why sometimes something comes a little later. I don’t have others on my speaker’s list, but I did have a follow-up question, which I’ll just make from the chair. And then I’ll go to you next.

I see you online, Council Ma’am Mayor Birkin. The question is based on what Councilor Perbal said, and that’s with the community emissions. And in the presentation, you talked about us being a fast growing city. So this population growth helpful or kind of, I don’t wanna say hurtful or harmful because it is, but does that help our targets?

Like does a net new person come in actually adding like a significant bump to the community emissions? Or are people generally coming into an environment based on what you said about the impacts of the province and the electrical grid have on it in a fairly neutral way? In other words, I guess what I’m trying to get it is, how much is this more difficult for a very fast growing city than say a city without a lot of growth? You’re worshiped, it is more difficult for a fast growing city, but it will depend on where these people actually live.

And so if they come into a city and they’re part of our living in the downtown area, living in multi-residential buildings, in adding to the intensification of the city, it will be a lot easier to absorb for a variety of good reasons, including climate change reasons. I didn’t know if Ms. Shearer behind you was seem to be excited about the question. I’m not sure, maybe not, but go ahead.

You’re worshiped by Mr. Stanford, James has said it very succinctly. Really, the impact of each net new residence is about how they live in the community, and there are a lot of spectrums of choices. We’re talking about a lot of those things as we talk about growth as a fast growing city and through things like the mobility master plan.

Great, I’ll go to Councilor Vameer Bergen online. Thank you, Mayor, and through you. I have a question firstly for Mr. Stanford, and that is in regard to the heating of homes.

I recall from the previous council, we had some discussion. There was some information given that by 2030, there would be a phase out of natural gas heated homes. For new homes, could you expand on that? Mr.

Stanford. Through the chair, it is one of the items that we’re looking at. Natural gas right now is a very important source of energy to heat and cool our homes, but as we move into the future, it is an opportunity where can we actually introduce other technologies to help reduce our reliance on natural gas. As far as actually a phase out date here in the city, no, it is something there that would come forward as part of policy options.

It would be something that would be very, would have to have a comprehensive review to make sure that this is something that is doable, but these are the types of tough decisions that do have to be made as we move forward into the future as we look at more electrification for our heating and cooling needs. Okay, I have to make the comment, like we’re talking about six and a half short years from now and it’s unfathomable to even think that we would have newly built homes that are heated by electricity when we know there are shortages and pending and shortages in the electrical grid that we’ve been hearing about more recently and natural gas of the, as we know, of the fossil fuels is the cleanest and far better than coal. So I think we have to tread very, very carefully as we progress in terms of making public policy mistakes and I have to go back to what I heard earlier in the debate. When we hear talk about the certain vehicles are too big, is there a way that we can prevent that?

I mean, you start to see a slippery slope building towards a much more dictatorial form of municipal government and I think we have to stay clear of that. And we also have to take a few steps back and just kind of look at the whole world view here when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions. Yeah, carbon dioxide emissions. When you look at a country like China, for example, that is currently producing in one year in the year 2022, they produce 36.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

And yet here we are in Canada with about 1.6% of the total world contribution of carbon dioxide. And then we go to Little London, Ontario and we’re trying to act like climate change warriors. We will have absolutely no effect in terms of climate change by what happens here. When you look at something like China with the tsunami of carbon dioxide and they’re showing no willingness, they’re showing no plan to abate that.

In fact, last year alone, they added two new coal fired power plants every week for 52 weeks and the plan is to continue with that. With those types of numbers, anything we do in London, Ontario. And then we get to the point where we start to look at maybe poor public policy alternatives. We have to be very careful of it because the result is not, I think, what we’re intending and what we could very well do is impose negative consequences on London residents.

I mean, we’ve already seen that we’ve got a moratorium on the widening of Wonderland Road in the name of climate change as if that somehow is gonna change anything. So yeah, we’re gonna be seeing more and more of the so-called climate change lens affecting our daily life here in the municipality of London, Ontario. Meanwhile, the global atmosphere is not going to be changed by anything that is done in London at all. And I think most people who see the numbers understand that fact.

That’s a true sound. Thank you. If we start with the premise that what China does is so big— Sure, I see this is through the chair. Sure, of course.

  • You wanna add? Sorry. If we start with the premise that what China does is so massive on a worldwide scale, which it is, what the United States does is a worldwide scale, which it is. We make what we’re doing here irrelevant.

Yet on the local level, it’s London residents, it’s residents of southwestern Ontario that are living in this built environment that we’ve created that include, according to many of us, hazards. So I think to characterize what London does is not important, or to throw out statements such as where environmental warriors or whatever it was, the Councillor said, I think really, really does a disservice to this process. And I think we have to take this seriously. We have to be respectful.

And again, I wanna go back to something I said before. We have to understand what the authority of Canadian municipalities are. And this is what we’re working on. And I hope that most of the people on this council will take that seriously.

And yes, there are problems with what China and the United States is doing. This is not the United Nations. This is London City Council, thank you. Thanks, Councillor Frank.

Thank you, yes. And I just wanna follow up indicating that everything that I’m talking about today is gonna save us money. I’m here because I think it’s really fiscally responsible for us to do environmental action. The Wonderland Road widening saved taxpayers $212 million, maybe around there, $262, where is it?

$212, okay, great. And that is avoided costs that would, widening Wonderland Road would not have improved anyone’s commute. So last council just saved a ton of money for the community. I think that’s really important to highlight in these actions, trying to achieve net zero.

Natural gas is a finite resource. I know people don’t like to hear it, but we are eventually gonna run out of it. So trying to get us on track to transition to renewable resources, which is going to be the future is a smart financial investment decision. And that’s really what we’re talking about making right here.

I also would like to highlight that. I agree with Councillor Van Mierbergen. We have six and a half very short years to make any difference on climate change. And so what we do in London matters incredibly and we need to continue showing leadership to all of Ontario, to Canada and to the rest of the world.

So I’m gonna continue supporting this motion I’ve put on the floor. I will ask through the chair to staff if there is a better timeline that would make it more feasible. I’m hesitant to take away the timeline entirely, but I’m very happy to work with what staff thinks is feasible. So this is in reference to the develop a net zero emission plan for corporate assets.

By December 2024, the question is from SAS perspective, what is a knowing that we could say for sure? And you might push the mother stuff off. What is a date that could be worked with that is not gonna compromise some of the other work we’re doing? Thank you through the chair.

So I think one of the things that makes it challenging to give you an exact date of how long it will take us to do is I’m not entirely certain of what the scope is that would be included in this. And that’s some work that we would need to do. When I see corporate assets, that tells me that is every corporate asset that we have excluded that would be facilities. So it’s actually a pretty broad scope.

So there is a tremendous amount of work to do that. We are looking as part of the MYB to include some resources that are as part of the existing work plan to implement a lot of the electric vehicles and all of those pieces. So my worry with putting a date in there is that we’re working concurrently on trying to implement the work plan items that are there to focus on electric, to divert and then do a bigger plan might slow down the work on those other things. So I think at least we need at least a quarter if not more to try to do that.

I’d be tempted that as we report back on some of those other things if we might be able to take out the date and that that could be back on a future report in the future where we’ve had a little bit more time to think about that as to how that fits into the broader scope of some of the other things that we’re doing ‘cause we are doing some of that already. It’s just trying to understand how that can be done, noting that the multi-year budget may impact the ability to actually implement some of those things. So my challenge is if the funding isn’t in place to write a plan that might not be implementable is entirely challenging, noting we have a lot of things that we’re trying to do now to try to support those that might not include everything. And I think the challenge that we have is that building a new building to make it zero emissions is very, you can build it to that spec to take an existing community center just as an example and try to make that a net zero as we look at all of our inventory is a little bit more challenging to do and especially when we’re trying to advance moving those things forward as we go forward.

So it may take us a lot longer than I’m anticipating just given the scope is a lot broader than some of the current assets that we’re already trying to advance through the work plan. If that’s helpful. Thank you, yes, it was very helpful. So I’m happy to take off the date, which I think will make some people happy.

And I am hoping perhaps then maybe a subsequent SPPC or maybe when we do the next SEAP update in the fall, we could have a deadline maybe around then even like a year ballpark. I’m not saying a date but a year. And I think that my seconder is okay to drop the date as well. Yeah, I’ll just make sure that there’s no objections to dropping the date.

So we don’t have to have motions to go back on. I don’t see any. Okay, so we’ll do that comments. Go ahead.

I just wanted to highlight one thing that Councilor Ramen said. I would love if this could somehow go down to the ABCs. For example, I was chatting with one of ours today and they’re talking about asset renewals, but they hadn’t even considered the environment. So I do think that was a really good point because a lot of people are coming to us in the MYB this year.

Ideally should be also considering these kinds of greening. So I’m not sure if it is, if I can wedge it in somewhere in here or come to a future SPPC asking for maybe further communication, knowing that the staff that are employed by our ABCs don’t necessarily receive the same training that city staff do. But I’m wondering what maybe if there’s some sort of informational packet we can direct staff to like send to all the ABCs and have their staff read it. So maybe that’s a future SPPC motion.

But I don’t know, maybe through the chair to staff if they have any ideas for that? I will start with Ms. Livingston and Ms. Cher also had her hand up.

Certainly and I’ll defer to Ms. Cher on sharing informational packages if I use the ARAO example as a like thing. We share our equity tool. We do not have the resources to train ABC staff.

Thank you, Mayor Morgan. And precisely that anything we develop for our own staff, we certainly are happy to share with the ABCs to provide training or to provide specific training to the types of assets programs and projects they deliver would be beyond our current ability to resource or what we’re entertaining putting on to our teams. Thank you. So hearing that perhaps whatever training is gonna be developed under item B, I or one.

If we could maybe include then a motion to like a sub-motion of that saying sending that or providing that information to the ABCs as well. Go ahead. Your worship, we’re happy to do that without further direction. I don’t believe it requires direction from council.

Wonderful, thanks. Okay, other speakers to this. We’ve had a good long debate. I think we’ve made some adjustments here and colleagues have shared their thoughts.

Now, I just wanna be clear ‘cause it was mentioned, this is not an amendment. This is receive the report and also take these other actions. Like when we vote on this, like the discussion on this piece is done. So if you were thinking you were gonna wait for a main motion, like we’ve been going through the main piece all the way through.

So I just didn’t want a colleague to see the vote and then say they were looking to comment later. See any other speakers? I’ll just add one final comment then from the chair. Our climate emergency action plan was something that was unanimously approved by council because we found a way to carve out a path forward that I think we carved out a broad framework that we could all get supportive of.

I think there will from time to time be very stark differences of opinions on components of the plan. And we’ve seen some of those today and I think that’s gonna continue. There are stark differences in our community about thoughts and approaches to how we should proceed, how far we should go in what area, who should be responsible. So, I keep in mind with colleagues that ultimately at the end of the day, we’ll have those discussions.

We’ll try to do them as respectfully as possible and we’ll come up with a path forward on behalf of all owners, but those differences of opinion will be welcome and respected in the chamber, no matter which opinion it is because there’s gonna be those discussions. So I think we’ll work forward through this and with that, I’m gonna open the vote. Councillor Van Mereberg and you haven’t voted but you have your hand up. Is there a challenge you have?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I just wanna be clear here. Is there no way to vote to receive without voting for the rest of us? I was under the impression that we would vote.

Yeah, I got your question. Give me a second, Councillor. Yeah, thank you. Okay, the vote, we’re gonna, ‘cause not everybody is voted, I did commit to doing that.

So I’m going to colleagues who voted, you can have to re-vote, we will divide this up. So Councillor, just to understand, you wanna vote on the received part and then everything else has two separate votes. Correct. Okay, so that means we’ll vote on A, which is received and then B, which is everything else separately.

All right, so the first vote we’ll have is on A, which is to receive the report and that’ll just be one second. Okay, we’ll open that for voting. This is on A, the part to receive the report. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 13 to zero.

And then we’ll use the same over in a seconder for B, which is everything else in the motion. And that’ll just be a second, I’ll let you know when the vote’s ready. Okay, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 11 to two.

Okay, item 4.2, is a request for shareholders, meaning for the Housing Development Corporation, the HDC. This is a letter from the corporation, which is essentially part of the corporation, but a separate asset that we have, but we still have to have that shareholders’ meeting. So you see the letter before you, we have a motion drafted to proceed with the meeting. So is there someone willing to make that motion?

Councilor Palosa, seconded by Councilor Hopkins. Any discussion on the motion? Okay, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 13 to zero.

Okay, my intention is to take a break at 6.30. So I’m gonna proceed with the next item, and if we don’t get all the way through it, or we’re close to it, we may adjust that timeframe, but I’m gonna try to stick to that as closely as possible for people who need a break. The next item is a request for business cases for the multi-year budget. This is a piece of correspondence from Councillor Frank.

So I’ll go to you first to outline your letter and put the motion that you’d like to put on the floor. Yes, thank you. And as mentioned in my letter, I know that we’re already quickly looking at budget season, which I know our budget chair is so excited about. So in anticipation, I was hoping to outline a couple different items that I was hoping to see business cases for.

This is to ensure that we have sufficient information to be making informed decisions about whether or not to fund these things. Some of them, other Councillors might have seen in the past, because they are from previous strategies that maybe have not received any funding, but they’re things that I’ve kept my eye on for the last couple years, and have really been excited about and wanting to make sure that we put some effort into making sure that some of these are viable. I just want to reiterate, these are just to prepare business cases. They’re obviously not to approve these from moving forward, but just in the same way that we did for the land strategy and potentially tonight later on for the core area of vacancy strategy, we’re already currently asking staff to create business cases on a variety of different areas.

So this is essentially similar to that. The one thing I will add is I was planning on removing, under the reduction cases C, the removal of two hour free honk promo code, core street parking downtown. Sorry, I did not write that very eloquently, but I’m planning on removing that because I did find out from staff we’re actually gonna be getting a more fulsome report in a month at Civic Works about that. So I would like to wait and see what that report contains.

So other than that, the first four are items that have been kind of in the works, I’d say, like their proof plans or projects or items that are being worked on by staff. And then the second area was purchasing natural heritage lands. This is something that doesn’t necessarily have a specific strategy tied to it, but I thought it was very important, especially because as you might know, when we, for example, do road widening and cut down a bunch of trees, we actually also follow our own rules and have to do compensation. So in order to do that, we are required to have space to plant or provide area for a wetland to be moved to.

So that actually is really important for us to be able to achieve our housing targets because if we’re gonna be moving in this direction, we will have to have compensation land. And then I think, I’m just gonna scroll down. But yeah, the last two, I think, speak for themselves. So happy to have some debate and see if there’s interest from other counselors in seeing the business cases for these.

So you’re looking to make a motion that generally is in your letter except you’re not gonna make the, from your letter, the 3A1, which is the two hour promo code for parking, but you’d like to make the other deserves a seconder for that, Councillor Trostaz willing to second. My guess is people might wanna vote on some of these separately. They’ll be all together for now. We can have a debate.

If someone wants them voted on separately, you can let me know during the debate. And I’ll just kind of parse out a series of motions at the end that allows everybody to vote their preferences. So I think we could just proceed with a general debate on this, but as you’re discussing, if you’re looking on having something separate, let me know and I will do to kind of a final call. If you kind of let us know as we go, we can speed up the back end process of preparing the possible motions.

Councillor Frank, I’ll let you just wrap up your motion now that it’s moved and seconded. And then I’ll go to some general debate. I just wanted to say that this is my condensed and very streamlined amount of budget cases. So I wanted to just say it could’ve been longer.

So to frame that, so good luck. Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship. So I’ll start off.

Councillor Frank knows this debate’s coming ‘cause we’ve had a good discussion about it before getting here today. I’m gonna start with the new funding existing strategies and I’m gonna be really, really clear on this. I actually support the secure bike parking component. I absolutely will not support the bike share.

This program has already gone through a business case. It went out for an RFP in tender and we did not have a successful bidder. Even with a public subsidy of over $80,000 annually to provide it, no vendor was willing to step up and say London is a market where this can work. So I am not, and that was just last year, earlier this year.

So to me, this is actually an already decided matter of council. But that said, I will absolutely not support this going forward. If there is no vendor willing to support this, and I know that London cycle link really, really wants this, then I would challenge them to find a way to deliver it as a not-for-profit partner in the community because I’m not willing to put tax dollars into this. Likewise, in that same section, the bike lane maintenance, while I recognize some of it, is stuff that we’re doing on some of the dedicated lanes.

We’ve heard now, and I will grant that this is not this council, but the previous council, but we’ve seen business cases come forward asking for better winter maintenance removal. And we couldn’t even meet the requests for the sidewalks no removal fully because the cost is tremendous. You’re not talking about a decimal point on the budget. You’re talking about multiple decimal points all along.

So on four, and I hear it all the time. We’re only asking for a business case, but I have to underline, business cases have a cost in and of themselves in terms of staff time, and the salaries that they have to devote for that as well as other projects that have to go to the side in order to meet the budget deadlines. Now, I will say that I’m actually quite open and interested to the debate on the cold silver creek restoration project. I see some merit to that.

I wouldn’t mind seeing that advanced. I also think that there’s some value in purchasing the natural heritage lands, as Councillor Frank commented on, we do have some need for some space for compensation. So I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to look at where we might want to acquire some of that. I’m also open to reducing the frequency of grass cutting on city property.

And even in some of our larger area parks, not our little neighborhood parks, but some of our larger area parks going to some more naturalization spots that don’t need to be cut as frequently. I can point to a couple of spots in Kiwanis Park that would be great for that. But in a couple of our little corner neighborhood parks, not so great. And actually some of the naturalization efforts caused some challenges in those parks.

So I’m a little less enthused there. I’m glad to see the two-hour honk is coming off the list. I think there’s a bigger discussion to be had on that when the parking report comes forward. And I’m gonna wrap up with my thoughts on these for now, other than to say that I think our road widening projects, I don’t think that we need to have these reviewed as part of the development charges study.

Staff don’t bring these forward lightly. When they do, we have a chance to weigh in on whether we think they’re a good idea or not, as we just heard about Wonderland Road. So I don’t think that that actually is a good use of staff’s time in the development charges study. I think that that’s much more aligned with the master mobility plan work that’s already going on.

And I think we’re just layering extra components onto that transportation plan that’s being developed by a number of folks across, and particularly Ms. Share’s team, but folks from across the corporation who are working on that. So, and there, other than to say, very happy to actually share with Councillor Frank, some bike education pieces that staff have already developed earlier this afternoon. And I think that there’s merit in that.

I would hope though, and I would ask through you to staff chair, if that really needs a business case, or if the education component can be really delivered through existing funds, knowing that I have some in hand already, and that other opportunities to maybe shift some of our messaging from things that we’re promoting right now to bike education components. If we really need a business case for that, or if it’s really more of a direction on making sure that that is included in part of our comm strategy. I’m happy to get the answer to that question, go ahead. Thank you Your Worship.

With respect to bike education, we do do promotion about active cycling, safe routes, how to use bike lanes effectively. It really depends on the nature and scope of that. We don’t provide things like school outreach programs. We’re not staffed for that, even with funding.

So we do rely on partnerships with other organizations, like CAA, like school boards. So I don’t know that we necessarily are in a position where we’d be looking for new funding in that, unless it’s specific to promote a city program or project. I would like, if I have the opportunity though, to mention that both one D and three B will be very difficult business cases for staff to prepare, because they are subject to the conclusion of the mobility master plan, and that will be an amendment to this budget that will be occurring next year through the amendment process. Okay, so all good information.

Let me, I want to make a just a quick comment, aside from the fact that my wife would tell you ever, since I became mayor at the frequency of grass cutting on my front yard has gone down dramatically. So how I want to do this is, because we’re going to divide it, if you’re looking to like amend the scope of one of them, let’s wait for that piece until that particular item is on the floor. So if you wanted to divide it, you say I want to deal with one D separately, because you want to amend it. Deal with it separately.

I can deal with any specific amendments at that time. That way we can kind of parse out that people may be supportive of a business case for a portion, but not the other. Maybe the information’s changed your mind, but I’ll just let colleagues know that if there’s a scope that you want to change, we could do that. The other thing I just want to mention is, we do not need to have a debate about the items, like in detail tonight.

This is about do you want a business case for them? Business cases take staff time. You might say yes to some. You might say no to others, but we don’t need to adjudicate each of these items tonight.

If there’s a business case coming, there’ll be lots and lots of time to do that. And the public will get to weigh in on it. So this is the decision point about, do you want to add these things to staff’s workload or not? We don’t get into the merits too much.

I have Councillor Palazzo next. Thank you and also point out that Councillor Troso has his hand up next as well. Realizing some of us have been around, sorry, a second or third term or more. As the budget chair, if nothing else, I appreciate this request coming through now.

For all Councillors and community groups, as you have seen with London CycleLink, this is the appropriate time to bring them through. Our summer vacation with the budget staff and myself is spent working on the budget cases to discuss discussing how to bring things forward the best way to do it and how it aligns with other city projects. So absolutely don’t wait till the fall. Work on it now if you have something coming.

I’m going to want some of this pulled apart. We can see the discussion goes for the reduction cases. Happy to see that A was removed as there’s always a lovely report coming. B, we heard from staff.

It doesn’t flow in reduction to frequency of grass cutting on city property as the past chair of civic works and whatnot. This is already being done with the climate emergency screening tool and plans. Cleardale Park in Ward 12 was being done. And staff are already implementing those opportunities as cost savings in climate.

So I support it, but it’s already being done to the best of my knowledge. And just to comment then in passing with the bike lane maintenance as per the London CycleLink letter that the request in the snow and ice removal will be down to the pavement. Even our sidewalks, no removal standards aren’t down to pavement, which I know the public would prefer, but it’s not. And a question on that through you, Mr.

Mayor and Chair, to staff, is there provincial legal snow clearing criteria that we have to meet for bike lane and multi-year trail standards? Like there is for roads, just before we move forward potential support of this case. Go ahead. Your worship there is for Inn Street bike lanes, which should be a protected cycle track.

There is not for multi-use pathways or Inn Boulevard facilities. Perfect. I appreciate knowing that as the city does have some different projects of Inn Boulevard on street and things that we do do. And as Deputy Mayor Lewis said, that is already extremely expensive that we do.

So I’ll leave my comments there and look forward to the rest of the discussion. Councillor, could you just remind me which ones you wanted specifically separate, just so we can make sure that— All of three. All of three. The other thing I want to ask colleagues to do is because of the way that we’ve loaded it in the system and there was a different numbering and lettering in the letter, if you could refresh your screen and look at E-Scribe and refer to the pieces there from this point on.

So A, four or B, I, however you want to describe it, that way we’ll all know exactly what we’re talking about just because of the removal of one, things have been slightly renumbered and I don’t want anybody to be unclear when we’re voting ‘cause we’ll be voting with the numbering that’s on the screen. So let’s refer to that from now on about what we’d like, dealt with separately. I have Councillor Trost now next. Thank you and to the chair.

I want to just limit my comments to addressing the under 1D bike share because I think there was a characterization that this has been a decided matter of council and that’s not my recollection as to what the disposition of it, was and I’m hoping either civic work staff and/or the clerk could clarify that because there were aspects of bike share that I don’t think were really addressed. So I think to say that there is a blanket where we’re done with that is wrong and I would like to get, I would like, I don’t know if that can be done right away, perhaps my share has a better memory than I do, but can you help me with that? Thank you, your worship, my understanding is, or my recollection would be that it was referred for consideration as part of the mobility master plan. So any implementation or future direction with respect to micro mobility and bike share will be a recommendation coming out of that plan early next year.

Thank you, thank you, that’s very helpful. I also do, I do, I also do recall that we were not able to get private vendors to the chair. We were not able to get private vendors to put in bids, but we never really did have the question of what it would mean and what it would cost and what the long-term implications would be to have a municipal approach to this. So I think there are a lot of questions that are still on the table and perhaps it would best, perhaps this would be the best way to approach it.

Thank you very much. Okay, I have, Councillor Layman next. Thank you, a couple of questions. One C, Climate Emergency Action Plan, funding to fully implement the plan.

I don’t understand what that means. Can, through you, Chair, can I have some further explanation on what that entails? Go ahead. Thank you, Your Worship.

I certainly can’t speak to what the Councillor’s scope of work would include and, but from a staff perspective, we do intend to prepare a business case about what we think needs to be advanced over the next four years, both from a corporate emissions perspective as well as from a community emissions perspective. So would approving one C change that direction for, in your opinion? Your Worship from a staff perspective, no, it would not. Thank you.

I’ll move on to one D. I’m a little concerned about a special group coming forward and kind of getting into the weeds here. Councillor, let me just, before you say that, Councillor brought forward a motion, not a special group. So I know that there was a letter written, but the motion on the floor is from a Councillor.

Correct. My apologies. I’m concerned about a motion that’s motivated by a specific group, desires. We just finished a strategic plan process where many groups indicated what they would like to see coming forward in our strat plan, which drives our city multi-year budget.

We had, we all commented that it was quite a list that was driven from that process. I heard a number of upwards of 8% plus needed to achieve all the items on that list that came from strat planned desires. I could see items in here coming forward, maybe just in outside of this multi-year budget plan towards civic works, et cetera. I don’t see that it’s needed this specific request ‘cause I think it opens the door to other groups coming forward and steering the city budget outside of what we had seen with our strat plan.

So I’ll leave it at that. The Silver Creek Restoration Project, I have interest in that. Vases, species, management plan, for sure. That impacts my award as we have challenges along the Thames River in Ward 8.

So I would like to see that as well. Going down to two A, purchasing natural heritage lands. I’m not too sure financially that one entails. I’m kind of curious about that and see what a business case would result in.

And down in three, A’s removed, B, road widening projects. I’m definitely not in favor of that as our engineering planning has gone through considerable work in developing our engineering plans and to piecemeal those off. Again, I’m concerned about in a ideological way against road riding. That concerns me.

Reduction in frequency of grass cutting. I think that comes, I think I remember seeing things like that in our budget last time in our multi-year budget. So sure, why not look at that? I will say at this point, I get a lot of concerns about our parks not being cared for properly now.

So, but we are faced with some certain financial challenges as we determine our levy for London taxpayers going forward. So to you, Chair, you’re asking for which things that I would like to see separated for sure, 1D and 3B for sure. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship.

And maybe through you to the budget chair, I’m kind of surprised that we’re doing this, that we’re able to bring forward business cases individually, which is a little bit new to what we’ve done in the past. But if that’s the new way forward, I’m okay with that. I would like to know if there’s a timeline that we are given to bring forward business cases? First question.

I’m gonna have the treasurer talk about it first, or sort of the deputy city manager of the long title financial supports and all sorts of important things, go ahead. So through the chair, we’re just working on finalizing the timelines right now, but the budget guidelines were just issued and the timelines to complete business cases are pretty much by the end of July and August. So we’re starting to wrap our heads around what those business cases and the number of business cases that would be looking at being brought forward through the multi-year budget process. So is it the end of July or end of August?

Not sure. Final deadlines end of August. We’ve kind of got some stratified different timelines based on what kind of business cases they are, but no later than the end of August, they have to be all completed and into finance that the review would be completed. I’d, we’re just a little unclear on that.

So if someone wanted a new business case, let’s say me, I’ll use myself. You want me to, well, or Councillor Hopkins, you want us to give it to you by end of August or earlier than that. So thank you through the chair to be very clear. So we are beginning work on business cases right now.

Every business case that has to be developed has to be into finance by the end of August. So the budget chairs comment about, we need them this information now. We’re really short of runway to be able to get a business case done by the time that we require them to start consolidating to prepare the budget documents for a council and the tabling, which will be in December. So we pretty much after this time, we’re gonna have very little time to prepare business cases after we hit the month of June to be able to get them in and finalized.

Okay, so go ahead, city manager. Through you, your worship, I would just like to address the issue of, is this something new? I know it’s not, but it has been a rare circumstance before. So we have received business cases or direction to prepare business cases to be considered in the multi-year budget.

For example, I can think of the film office was one of those instances that the Councillor may recall from the past. I really, the driver for the development of business cases at a staff level is your strategic plan. There are many, many business cases you will recall from the order of magnitude that will fall out of that strategic plan that we will bring forward for your consideration. If I’m understanding what’s happening is we’re adding to that list or wanting assurance that some of the things on the list might be the work that staff is doing.

I just would like to caution that there not be now a run on a bunch of new business cases. I believe the treasure would tell you that we’re in the area of 50 to 60 business cases right now that would require full development, let alone summary business cases that are in the 10s, 20s, 30s. So I just want to share that with you because this is significant staff time to prepare full business cases to implement your strategic plan. So I just wanna share that information.

As you consider adding business cases to that list. On this, just ‘cause the budget chair was asked the question, I just wanna go to the budget chair first. Thank you, just absolutely everything staff just said. We set out our strat plan.

Also some committees have forwarded business cases already and really mindful of the work when staff says we’re already doing it, that it’s already being done, especially if you’ve gotten that information already. I know each of us are passionate about different things, but if staff said they’re already on it, I fully believe staff is on it. And as you see, we will have a long list of things to consider coming back. And as those business cases come forward, we already know that the money’s not gonna be there to do them all and that’s gonna be very tight.

Funding and potentially high tax increases, depending on what we pick. So just really being mindful of when we ask staff to invest their time in it, that it really is going to be highly impactful and a good use of tax dollars. Okay, I’m going back to Councillor Hopkins who asked the question. After Councillor Hopkins, I’m taking a break.

I’ve got lots of speakers list and I said we would break at 6.30, we’re a little bit past that. And so Councillor Hopkins will have you finish first though. Yeah, thank you, your worship. That’s why I asked the question.

I think we do have to be mindful of staff’s time and energy here and just going through the strategic plan. I wasn’t sure it was 50 or 60, but I was sort of thinking there was a lot of business cases. And I think it’s really important that we understand that. Secondly, to my second question then, is with the direction coming forward to prepare business cases that are in front of us, what is not being done?

Probably a very tough question to answer. I, it’s for an opportunity cost question, but I’ll see if you want to make a comment on the idea that business cases cost staff time and what would we be potentially displacing? I think it’s the question. Take your time though.

Your worship, I think the best answer to that is it’s a prioritization exercise for staff. So I don’t know that I could give you a specific example. If council is directing us to prepare these business cases, the treasure is going to make sure that various staff teams do it and we will allocate people’s time to do that. I can’t off the top of my head tell you what it means will drop off.

Things will drop off. It takes time to develop these, to cost them, to lay them out and it also affects the implementation plan. So I don’t know specifically because each of these business cases affect a couple of service areas, but it means that other work isn’t being done. And I would also suggest it may mean that some staff have to consider choices in time that they take perhaps as vacation or other components in order to be able to deliver this.

You appreciate we do this through the summer months and try and deliver it. So that’s also a consideration. So I can’t answer the specifics but it will have an impact on what staff do. Yeah, thank you for that because I don’t want to really duplicate things but I think I don’t want things to be left off either.

So, you know, I’m not, I’m just, I don’t know where to go with this right now but I know we’re going to be breaking. So give me some time to think about things. So I’ll just leave it at that for now. Okay, so this is a good time for a break.

I’ll say colleagues as we’re breaking kind of the middle of a debate. So do not talk about this in front of a group of counselors. You don’t want to have a quorum issue. If you need, you have a burning urge to talk about it with one of your colleagues, just kind of find a spot away from everyone else so that we’re not over hearing it.

I’ll go for like a 20 minute break. I see nods at that. So moved by Councilor Palosa, seconded by Councilor Frank. All those in favor of a 20 minute break.

That motion’s carried. Okay, everyone. For everybody who could just take their seats, apologies for the slight delay. Okay, I don’t know where I left off but I’m going to start with the budget chair and I might just start a new speaker’s list because I put that piece of paper somewhere and I’m not sure where the existing one was.

I’ll start with close. I have then Councilor Frank and who’s next but you can click me down. Yeah, just raise your hand. The mayor would be happy to recognize you.

So if everyone wants to just refresh their e-scribes so we’re on the correct thing versus the original submission from the Councilor, for we know that we’re speaking about numbering. As the putting on the budget chair had, we’ve had lots of discussion tonight. Some good ideas heard what people are really passionate about and heard some different feedback from staff. So going to staff with the numbering.

Is there items in here that even if we wanted to do it that the foundation is not there in time to formulate a business case for that over the summer? For you, Mr. Mayor. I need a couple of different staff on that.

So I’m going to start with who put the re-end up first. Go ahead. Mr. Mayor, I can certainly start and these affect the number of service areas.

So there may be other ones. With respect to, okay, we’re going to do this right. ‘Cause I’ve got the hard copy here. A four and three two.

So the bike related ones and sorry, B one, the road widening. We have a number of placeholders in our budgets right now that are pending the completion of the mobility master plan. In order to put a budget case forward for any of these, we really do need the mobility master plan complete, which will allow us to assess what that budget case saw to be and also where we can free up funding from projects that may no longer be required or may be changed as a result of that work. So we are proposing that we would provide that sort of information and the potential budget impact as that plan comes to council and through the next amendment process.

With respect to 1B, I need to understand more as to what the council’s intent is. Our invasive species management plan is being updated shortly. We do feel we’re adequately funded for the threats we currently face. We can do more on certain things like Frank Mighty’s control.

It doesn’t generally get us ahead for a very long period of time because they wash in from other parts of the watershed through the county, but we do already do it in strategic locations to protect ecology and to ensure that we’re managing flood risk well. So those would be the ones for me that are a bit challenging would be one, sorry, to really not have two versions of me in front of me, my brain is not that good. Sorry, I wrote it down. So you said it in invasive species, which is A2.

And then you mentioned related to the master mobility plan A4. And C1. And with respect to B1, that one would cross a number of service areas. I think it’s a very interesting proposition, but I don’t believe we’ve done the work to scope what that would entail between Mr.

May. There’s ecology teams and my teams who manage parks and forestry spaces. I think it would be very difficult to get that scope of work defined in advance of a business case that needs to be prepared no later than the end of August. I don’t want to put words in Mr.

May, there’s mouth, but that would be certainly my feeling for where we’d have parts in parks and forestry. We do, however, intend to bring forward something on A3 climate change and C2 grass cutting on city property, which could include parks as well as other facilities yards and roadways. Mr. May, you wanna give that a try too?

Yeah, absolutely through the chair. So just in with regard to the second item, the purchasing natural heritage lands, maybe just like a question back just for clarification around the expectations from the counselor related to bill 23, bill 97 and the impacts. From my understanding, there isn’t like a requirement to provide compensation, is this speaking to what our OP requires for compensation or just like what’s the element that you want us to capture there? Councillor Frank.

Thank you, yes, happy to further explain. So for that one, in discussion with various staff, I’ve been learning more about this whole process. And my understanding is in order for us to meet specific requirements that if, you know, again, we had to cut down trees beside a road ‘cause we’re widening it, we still have to also do the same compensation that a developer would if they cut down 20 trees on their property, but we don’t have any land to put that on. So in the past, we’ve actually done a project in Haldeman County, which is between here and Niagara.

And while I do love working with rural partners, I’d rather us forest our area as opposed to buying our leasing property in another county and then putting trees over there with taxpayer dollars from London. So I’m hoping that we can purchase our own lands and be able to plant trees or use it as wetland areas for compensation targets. We have to meet when we’re doing our own development projects. Mr.

Mathers, that was kind of a problem that you had through the— Through the chair. So currently we don’t have, like we haven’t used, for example, development charges to purchase lands to be able to do those offsets. So we don’t, like even without the bill, 23 bill 97, we’ve been able to come up with strategies that haven’t required us to purchase lands, whether it’s on other city lands or in different areas. So if this is like a new program, that’s looking at possibly purchasing lands to be able to have those offsets.

I don’t, I can’t speak to the need for that as far as our infrastructure projects. This chair has a comment on that, but it’s very helpful the way you described it so I completely understand it, so thanks. I don’t know if there’s anyone else before I go back to Councillor Ploza. Okay, Councillor Ploza.

Thank you. I just haven’t, from staff’s comments, just circling back to A1, being the CoVES Silver Creek Restoration Project, as there was some discussion amongst Councillors tonight and interest in it, looking to staff to see if it was approved tonight for a business case, if that could be implemented, if the scope of project and work is in place as a foundation already. Go ahead, through you. I wish if I can certainly start on that.

There have been some discussions related to the channel restoration. There’s a much larger restoration project that was developed with the ecology team and I believe upper chimps is an environmentally sensitive area. I think that work is probably advanced enough that that could be prepared as a business case, at least at a reasonably high level. It’s, there would be enough information for staff to provide reasonable estimates.

Thank you to staff for that. So off of our list, that’s before us on the screen tonight. It was A1 with a high level business case you’ve heard from staff. A3 is a yes that staff has no problem doing.

B1 potentially needs some flushing out in regards to the heritage projects for a site, some naturalization. And C2 is a yes for grass cutting on various city properties. So that essentially is our feedback from staff as you move forward making your decisions tonight and recognizing staff have already told you that they have over 60 business cases that their staff is working on in addition to a few other things that are flushing out over the summer. So their staff time is tight as you move forward through discussions and comments this evening.

Councilor Frank. Thank you. And reading the room, I’m happy to pull A4 and C1. Given that staff have said they’re gonna be including those kinds of business cases in the MMP amendments which I’m hoping are coming to us next year.

Maybe through the chair, I just wanna confirm we’ll get those amendments for next year’s budget update. Okay, your worship, the intent is to provide them through the 2024 budget update. Where I’d add as a caveat on schedule is there’s a consultation process that needs to occur with the community as our maps that show our future roadway, transit, pedestrian and cycling projects go out. If that process requires additional time, that deadline might become quite tight in early 2024 but that is absolutely staff’s hope and intent.

Okay, so one second. So the council is looking to remove, which one was it? Sorry, A1, A4, sorry, A4 and C, no, that was staying. C1, thank you, I’m glad.

See, you should have shared this part, budget chair. Okay, so is there any objections to those being removed? It’s on the committee’s floor so I don’t wanna make sure that everybody’s okay with that based on the conversation. Okay, that seems fine.

Councilor Frank, I don’t know if you had something further, you’re good. Okay, good. Well, I’ll let you know when that adjustment’s been made so you don’t have to refresh until I let you know but that’ll just take a moment. Speaker’s list, I have Councillor Troe sound next.

Very briefly through the chair. Since it’s now clear to me that it’s appropriate for Councillors to bring forward proposals for business plans at this early date, would it be, since you say that you already have so many in the works, would it be possible for us to just informally get a list of that so we don’t spend time duplicating them? Through you, your worship, you have that list, the order of magnitude that was provided through the strategic plan is what we are working on. We received direction during your planning target setting that you wanted to see everything so that is the list we are working from.

So it’s the, all the things that had dollar signs associated with it in the strategic plan are getting a business case. And if colleagues are thinking of doing something, like working with our staff will make it very clear very quickly, if you say you have an idea, they’ll let you know if it’s being worked on. Councillor Frick. Thank you, yes, and I did want to follow up on that.

That was actually my original point earlier and I forgot about it after we ate such great pizza. But yeah, so I just wanted to let other Councillors know that my process for this was originally asked for a full list and was given the same information and therefore went around to staff asking, like if the things I was really interested were gonna be on it or not. And depending on the response I got, I then added it to like a list. And like I said, I had a really long list and I slowly whittled it down.

And these are the ones I included because in the strap plan for the environmental section I found we weren’t very specific. We said, you know, restore heritage lands, plant more trees, protect the land. And those are really great things. But that’s why I kind of went through with my like very scoped approach.

And that’s why I chose the ones I chose because they all meet our strategic plan in various different ways. But they weren’t necessarily gonna be business cases because we didn’t specifically say the strap plan like in order to achieve our natural heritage goals you must do the Co-Silver Creek Restoration Project. So just for people’s understanding that was my process of how I went down and I got down to this list because as staff said they are going off the strap plan but if you have these really specific asks, that’s where I found maybe there’s a bit of disconnect between the strap plan and what I wanna see in our budget cycle. So the motion should be edited if you refresh.

We used to strike throughs so that nobody has to change their numbering. Just ‘cause I don’t wanna make it more confusing. Actually that was the clerk’s brilliant idea not mine. I have Councillor Lehman next.

It’s also incorrect. We stroke the wrong one. So we’ll fix that. Now it should be correct.

Go ahead, Councillor Lehman. Through you Mayor. We’re not including every single thing we’re gonna do in the next four years and in the multi-year budget. There’s things that come up that are handled on a hot basis.

That’s the nature of government and we have budgets to cover that. So I guess in that tone of thought, would something like, you know, interest in the Cove Silver Creek Restoration Project, would that be something that, you know, if community or staff are interested in pursuing that, that they would speak to staff and talk about it and staff would go, “Okay, we think we can go here or here.” And then they would bring that motion to, you know, the appropriate standing committee. I’ll certainly give it a shot. So we have a number of capital programs that are not defined by specific location as we go into multi-year budget.

And we say that we’re going to say invest in roadway renewal in new sidewalks, in restoration of natural heritage lands. And then we work through those priorities based on need, on community benefit, on the funding available, on partnerships available. And in some cases on legislative requirements, we do have other locations that require restoration on natural heritage throughout the city. And we set those priorities a four-year plan as based on the budget that’s approved.

Certainly we have a longer-term capital strategy, 10-year plans and multi-year, even beyond that, in some cases, if there’s a desire to see the priorities within that change, then yes, counselors generally would provide a motion to find out what’s the current priority and whether or not those can be adjusted. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Like, so for example, you know, Riverside Drive, I think it needs to be repaved. So I want to include Riverside Drive repaving as a part of our multi-year budget.

Well, no, that’s part of our road maintenance program that we look at in the instance, et cetera. Like, I find myself going through this listening, oh, yeah, Silver Creek Resuesterate. Yeah, that sounds pretty good, invasive species. Yeah, yeah, I like that, maybe not that one.

I shouldn’t be doing that at this point. Like, we had a process of developing a strap plan that from that developing, you know, in the process now, developing a budget that comes from that. I think anything outside of that, to a certain extent, should be held, you know, should be brought forward as appropriate standing committees or with staff throughout the next four years. Is that, I don’t know if that’s a question, Mayor.

Is there enough leeway, I’ll go back to staff. I think you already answered this, I apologize. Does there enough leeway within our budget framework that allows for these types of things to be brought forward in the years to come? I think that’s more a question for, it’s kind of a complicated question ‘cause there’s sometimes within an existing budget, but there is a process for annual, even though we have a multi-year budget annual updates to it that colleagues would have seen the tail end to in the last multi-year budget.

So perhaps we could start with just a quick point on that and then anything else that needs to be added after. I think you threw the chair. So some things like a capital project, for instance, that are included, so we do a 10 year capital plan and there’s the projects that are outlined. They may be general and then of course the scope is refined and some of that work will come back through a report that Council will ultimately decide on the direction and bring that forward.

Particularly when you’re going out multiple years, we would have a 10 year capital plan, things that are happening in the final year or the end part of the latter years, I’ll say of the multi-year budget, may not have a very, very defined scope that may have a bucket that may allow us to do in certain things that may be refined through Council discussion and a report that might provide more specific direction at that point in time. So some of them particularly where their annual programs might allow a little bit more flexibility to do that and to be able to provide that direction. And obviously as the updates come forward and we have better scoping or particular projects that we might be able to provide those updates for, those updates will occur through the MYB, particularly if there’s a change due to inflationary factors or if there’s a change in scope that the Council has directed as well. So we have three specific things to drive our multi-year budget and sorry, through the updates, there are three particular items.

So one is the Council direction. One might be a new service that has been directed that could be a legislative change and/or cost drivers where something has dramatically changed we would bring forward. Those typically are the reasons we would see updates that come forward. So Council has the opportunity if there was something that was approved that was a little bit more broad that you could refine that scope for a particular project down the road, particularly with respect to capital.

You could also reallocate existing funding and operating if there was a reason to do so and that could happen in year if it’s still within budget. So there’s a number of opportunities that staff make amendments during the year or bring forward to address Council priorities where we have a reserve fund that might particularly fund something or that you’re reallocating that funding to something different. Thank you. You know, it’s not like I have an issue with a number of these things.

I think probably they’re probably good ideas. It’s just a process that I’m very cautious about opening the door to specific items that could be handled maybe in another way. So I’ll leave it at that and happy to hear what others think. Okay, I’ll just let people know who I have on my list in case I’m missing anyone.

Councillor Frank, Deputy Mayor Lewis, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor ramen. Go ahead. Thank you and through the chair, I agree. I’d be happy with a different process.

I like at the beginning of my term, these are a lot of things that I was really hoping to see funding for. And again, in our strat plan, we do even this getting down to the specific levels. We don’t specifically say we’re gonna do the COA Silver Creek Restoration Project. And so I feel like I kind of, what’s the word?

Jerry Rick, not Jerry Rick. So what I’m looking for. MacGyverd, MacGyverd this, because I couldn’t figure out how to do it. So I was like, is this the only way I can ask for specific things I want money for?

Because I did go to staff and I asked and certain things are coming forward, which as we’ve talked about, they are coming forward at different times, but certain things aren’t necessarily coming forward in the next four years. So this was the result of my efforts. And I am happy to go through a different process, but I think if we started then also getting to strat plan, where you have to itemize every single thing we wanna see in the next four years down to what specific project we’re gonna do, I also don’t think that necessarily is the most effective use of the strat plan time. So I’m not sure what the solution is, but if there was an easier way, perhaps for council to dictate specific things that they wanna see included in the budget, that’s why I wanted to do this when also open and transparently, ‘cause maybe it’s something that only I wanna see and you guys don’t.

So anyway, all to say is, I don’t necessarily think this is the best process, but it was what I made up. So I hear your council layman’s points there. Thank you. MacGyvering something is when you turn a paperclip into a natural restoration project, though.

That’s when you really do the magic. And point taken, I think there’s a number of, we’re all new, we’re a new group together, so we’re not gonna get every process perfectly right. So I think everybody’s gonna work through the way, but we’ll learn and we’ll make better processes through the updates. Go to the city manager.

Through you, your worship, if a counselor or council’s a whole wishes to see something specific in the budget, this is the way. This is the way to give the very clear direction. And then we can determine whether it’s there already or not, make sure it is, that’s the way to do it. Deputy Mayor Lewis.

Thank you, I appreciate the city manager quoting the Mandalorian. This is the way that we have right now. Maybe we should consider whether there are other ways to do it, but this is what we have before us at the moment. I wanna really try and get some things focused in here for us, so perhaps we can start making some decisions.

And I wanna come to be one first, and because I actually support the idea, but I hear that this crosses several service departments. This could be a fairly complicated thing, and we still have some bill 23 implications to consider in this as well. So I’m wondering if, and I’m going to suggest, but I am open to the clerk or staff, suggesting it belongs at another committee, but I wonder if this one might be one that is best referred to a future meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee for discussion with the department heads in that regard, because this is really sort of a planning matter. I don’t know how the mover and seconder might feel about that.

I do see value in this, but I also hear that it is really unlikely that a specific business case could be brought forward for the multi-year budget, but perhaps if it’s taken to peck, something could be developed for an annual budget update. I’m just gonna, through you, chair asks staff if they feel like this should be referred to the Planning and Environment Committee without being at the appropriate committee. I will make, let me make a comment on that. So this is the appropriate committee for doing budget, I’ve got that, Councillor.

This is the appropriate committee for doing asks of the multi-year budget. There may be an ask that doesn’t have enough information. Information can come into that ask in a variety of ways. Referral could be one of them.

There’s nothing precluding if something doesn’t move forward here, it not being brought up at a committee as a discussion in another way. So, but I do wanna just say like this is the committee where we’re talking about business cases for the multi-year budget, so it’s in the right spot. I think your question is, you don’t feel like there’s enough detail to flesh this out. Yes, so let me be clear, this is not about making a budget decision.

This is about referring it to the Planning and Environment Committee for a scoping of what the natural heritage lands acquisition requirements might be moving forward with changes to the provincial planning legislation. Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, just again, wanna confirm with the Councillor and her perspective here for the actual wording in the motion.

So, my understanding was that this is related to city-led infrastructure projects and the offsetting of those. That’s how I’ve read this currently. So, if we’re talking about development projects, then absolutely the planning environment would be a piece of that too. Typically, if you’re looking at compensation related to an infrastructure project, that would be part of the infrastructure project that would go to Civic Works, but happy to take whatever direction Council or the clerk might have on that.

So, the Councillor actually described before what the intent was behind this, and I think the confusion is in the letter that there’s references to, obviously, the different acts, but I can have the Councillor clarify again, but it’s your question. Well, I do have a couple of additional questions, but I did see the Councillor raise her hand, and I think she might be able to provide some clarification. So, let’s see if the Councillor Frick. I would love for you to buy every single piece of natural heritage land that is available, that is significant, wetland, woodland, anything, mmm, love it.

But I’m being reasonable in that what I’ve included in here, I think is just trying to meet our compensation targets, and I think that the DCM did clearly say it, but the door is open if you wanna put together a proposal for you by every beautiful piece of natural heritage property in the city. Definitely, Mayor. Okay, so, you know, I’m quite aware that on individual projects that come before Civic Works, those are not necessarily all scoped out for the multi-year budget process yet. Works to be done on that, so we don’t even know what the compensation is that would be required.

So, I’m going to propose, first, a referral on B1, to a future meeting of the Civic Works Committee for a report back on the overall scope of our natural heritage lands, so that a proper scoping can be done on this. So, the referral would be descended to Civic Works for a more detailed report to come back. And just to clarify, ‘cause I know I raised PEC at the beginning, but hearing from Mr. May, there’s that the infrastructure, that PEC would be appropriate for development, but for municipal infrastructure projects, Civic Works would be where it would land.

I think that it’s the Civic Works Committee where compensation for infrastructure would land. So, what he doesn’t discuss is what you would do is you would refer to staff for the scoping and the staff would land it at the right committee. Like, that would be the process that you would do if you’re doing a referral. It could come back to whatever committee, but I saw Ms.

Cher, sorry, put up her hand, so go ahead. Thank you, Your Worship. And you’ve gotten it right every time, except for one, so we’re doing pretty well. I would ask one question to the council, and I agree.

The ideal thing would be referral to staff for scoping and report back to the appropriate committee. In the preamble to the motion, there’s a reference to the loss of land with respect to developments along Southdale Road as well. So, I just wanna understand as one of two or possibly the lead on this, should this pass, is this strictly related to offsets for municipal infrastructure works, or is it offsets for other loss of land? Because that will help us to find what that work needs to be.

So, I’m not gonna find that out yet. I have to go back to the person who wants to put a referral on the floor ‘cause it takes precedence. So, I’ll see if you need that clarification, and I can ask whoever, but go ahead. I am fine without specifying which committee it lands at, that we refer it back to staff for a report scoping this out.

And whether that’s PEC or civic works, that’s up to staff to decide. I guess that’s not the question that’s being asked. The question is on the scope of this. For me, my thought process was on the municipal infrastructure piece, but I am open to it, including other developments as well.

So, I am actually going to suggest with that question being posed that it’s a scoping for both municipal infrastructure and private in-field developments. And we’ll see what that scoping comes back to look like. Okay. So, you wanted to make a referral.

The referral is to staff for those reasons. A referral does take precedent on a matter. And so, I’ll have to deal with the referral now, even though we’re in the middle of a number of things. So, I need to know if there’s a seconder for the referral.

Councillor Cady has offered a second. Give me one second. Okay, so referrals debatable. So, we’ll debate on the referral.

I have Councillor Raman, and then I’ll go to Councillor Hopkins. Thank you. And through you, thank you to the Deputy Mayor for introducing those referral. I, too, was struggling with how we would deal with this in the multi-year budget as a business case.

I personally saw this as very similar to our industrial land strategy in needing a strategy. So, I personally would prefer to have more in-depth knowledge from a strategic perspective on what we can do with a natural heritage land strategy. ‘Cause I think that is kind of where the discussion needs to go. So, I support the referral.

Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, I, too, support the referral. I really appreciate the Deputy Mayor coming up with a solution, ‘cause I’ve been wrestling with this one I do want to support a strategy to deal with purchasing natural heritage lands. I do have a question through you to staff.

In the meantime, and depending on how long this will take, ‘cause I would think there’s a lot of work that we’ll have to go into this. But in the meantime, if we do need compensation or need opportunities to find land, what would be the process? Through the chair, I’ll just start from the actual, the planning and development process. So, it’s through that process, and this is enforced with Official Plan, London Plan policies, is that we would require the developer to find those lands and to secure it possibly even in their development to be able to provide that.

So, the city wouldn’t be obligated to find land for them. So, that is the current process. And so, it just wanna be very open and transparent with everybody that that’s our process, and we don’t necessarily find land for developers. Good, okay.

Okay, on the referral, that’s everybody I have so far. No other speakers, okay. So, the referral language is not there yet. So, give me one second.

Okay, I’d like the mover and the seconder to take a look at the language before we proceed. And of course, everyone else, which is acceptable to me. So, that’s the referral. If there’s no one else on the speakers list, I’m gonna open the referral for voting.

Closing the vote, the motions passed 11 to two. 11 to one, excuse me. So, as I indicated your worship, I have two other questions quickly, and then I think I have everything I personally need to vote. First, I wanna come back to the Invasive Species Management Plan, and I did hear Ms.

Share say right now, they feel like they’re funded sufficiently to carry out the plan that they have, and that some of this sort of comes and goes with things that are beyond our control of our borders. I just wanna confirm that that’s the case, and that a business case at this point would really be how can we spend extra money if you give it to us? Go ahead. Three-year worship.

So, Invasive Species is a bit different to, let’s say, expanding your cycling network, in that you don’t sort of take off one piece at a time, and then you’ve made that progress and retained that progress. It very much depends on what’s going on in terms of emerging trends, weather. So, a really great example is for two years, we sprayed for Spongy Moth. We did not spray this year because the egg sac counts were massively down due to both the past year spraying, the egg mass scraping, and the natural virus that has affected the ecosystem.

Can we always do a bit more on Invasive Species? We probably can. Do we see a gap right now that’s impacting the level of service in a way that’s causing concerns? Not in advance of actually updating the Invasive Species Management Plan, which is on our work list.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the exact year as to when. That’s okay. My concern is, do we have gaps right now that we’ve identified, and I’ve heard that we don’t at this time. My last question is on A3, and I just wanna be sure that I heard very clearly the answer we got before, which was A3 does not change the business cases that are already being worked on by staff in relation to our Climate Emergency Action Plan.

Those business cases are in process, and that this conclusion in this motion would not change what they’re bringing forward at this time. Through you, Your Worship, we will be bringing forward a business case to fund the next four years of implementation of the Climate Emergency Action Plan. Should counsel upon deliberation of that business case wish for us to do more or less. You would have that business case in front of you.

We’re going to provide what we believe we can reasonably deliver in the community and in the corporation over the course of the next four years. Okay, so I’m gonna wrap up. I’m happy that those business cases are already being developed. I don’t think we need to give more direction, so I’m not gonna support A3 or A2, because we don’t have an identified cap right now, and I come back to that piece that I said at the beginning.

This does require staff time, and we’ve got some pretty pressing business cases. I suspect that a lot of our staff are working on around the whole community system response, as well as other issues that we are dealing with that are pretty high priority. So that’s where I personally am. I am glad to hear that something could come back on the Code of Silver Creek Restoration Project, because I do think that there is some value in seeing what that would cost us.

And I supported the reduced frequency of grass cutting the last time it was before us, so I’m certainly happy to see that one come back. And I suspect that that one probably won’t require too much staff work, ‘cause it might well be a copy and paste from the last opportunity we had to debate that. But I will just wrap up by saying, I do appreciate people supporting the referral, because I didn’t wanna see B1 potentially die, because we weren’t going to be able to get something back for the budget. I really think, and I think it was Councillor Ramen, who suggested much like the industrial land strategy, that this was a good one, and I agree, that’s the spirit that we were capturing there, so I just wanna thank colleagues for supporting that referral, so that we could keep this moving, but knowing that we’re not gonna make a decision on it at the EMYB.

Yeah, I have a speaker’s list, just in case people forget who’s on it. Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Ramen, and Councillor Pribble are next. Yeah, thanks, Your Worship. I’ll be brief.

I first of all wanna thank Councillor Frank for creating a great conversation here at SBPC, and doing your homework. I really wanna thank you for that. I have a concern though, as we are creating more work for staff, and I’ve been listening really intently, and I hope I have it right, that we’re already doing this work. I really am glad that we’re referring the natural heritage lands back for further work to be done on that, but this is my problem.

If I say no to everything, ‘cause everything is already being done, it’s gonna show that I don’t support invasive services, management plan, or climate energy plan, and so on and so forth, and that concerns me. But I really, truly think that this work is already being done, and I will not be supporting the rest of the requests going forward. Thank you. Councillor Pribble.

Oh, sorry, Councillor Ramen, and then Councillor Pribble. Thank you, and through you, through you to the mover. I’m wondering if, based on the conversation that’s happening, if you’d consider removing the plans that are being seen as redundant to the work that staff’s already been doing. So if colleagues remember, we played this game once before, there’s a motion on the floor, so even if the remover wants to remove it, I’m gonna kinda ask if everybody agrees, so I’ll go to them, but we can also amend and strike things as well.

See, I’d like you to keep one, A one. You wanna keep A one. Through the chair to Councillor. Through you, so yeah, so what I’m hearing is invasive species management plan, there’s redundancy, climate emergency action plan, there’s redundancy, and so I’m just trying to, again, not create the political dynamic where some of us are now going to be seen as not supporting something that we do support, so what I’m saying is if it would be helpful to the public, I think it might be advantageous to then just keep the items that are real new multi-year budget deliberations.

I have you on this, Councillor Trostall, but you’re not next. Their question is to Councillor Frank. I guess to me, in my opinion, I was asking for an increase in invasive species management plan, so I don’t really wanna lose it, ‘cause I think we could be doing more, and that is why I wanted to keep it, but I don’t wanna make people vote against something they care about. So yeah, I mean, I’d have to see with a seconder, but I guess if we just wanna keep the cove Silver Creek plan, then that’s all we’re gonna keep.

Rosso, Councillor Trostall, sorry, you’re the seconder, and you’ve had your hand up, and I assume it’s right on what we’re talking about right now, so I’m gonna go to GX, and the good news is the person next to the list, anyways, is nodding, give you a turn, so go ahead. Yeah, through the chair, I just feel as if we are systematically dismantling pretty much this entire matter that we’ve spent so much time on, and so much thought went into, and what I thought I heard at the beginning of this discussion was good for the Councillors who are bringing these items forward, because the multi-year budget discussion is the place to have that discussion, and now I’m seeing this totally picked apart, and that’s why I voted against the last referral. It’s too much work to give to staff to put in a multi-year budget for an analysis, but let’s just refer it back to staff is what I heard, which is why I voted against that motion. Now, I may be too confused here to be following this discussion.

I asked before, I asked before for straight answer to the question of could the Councillors and the public, could the Councillors and the public please, be given a list of things that are considered redundant that we’re already discussing, so we can avoid this? I don’t feel my question was answered. I’d like to ask it again, and I intend to follow Councillor Frank’s, I thought, good example, by bringing forward some additional items at future SPPC meetings that I think we should be doing investigations on, and now I just feel like, I just feel very discouraged for doing that, so I guess I would like to see, and I think the public would like to see, without referring to another document, or a link to what that document is, a clear indication of what’s redundant and what you’re already working on. Thank you.

The city manager. Your worship, I’m not sure I understand why I’m being made to feel I didn’t answer the question. We were given direction to develop business cases for the strategic plan. During the planning target discussion, Council was very clear they wanted to see everything.

The document that is currently driving that work, is the order of magnitude document, where it shows by dollar signs, where new investments are required. That is the document that is driving our work to date, where we are in the, where we are right now in the process, is trying to make that manageable for Council to receive. There are many, many, many lines there. We are trying to make it manageable, so you can actually see where each of those show up, but not receive hundreds of business cases.

So that is the driver of what we are doing right now. That is the list of work, where there are dollar signs on the cases that we’re doing. And as I say, where we are in the process right now, is trying to bring that together in a way that is manageable for Council to consider. So I’m not sure how I’m not answering the question.

I think that is the answer to the question. So, Councilor Trozac, go ahead. Yeah, so is the Invasive Species Management Plan, I don’t have that documented in front of me. Is that redundant?

Is that something that’s redundant? Through the chair, you mean? I’ll go to, okay, go ahead. Your worship, I believe the distinction that Ms.

Chair was making is that the Councilor has requested an increase to the Invasive Management Program. That is not in the list of, in the order of magnitude. It was not in that list. So that is, you would not see an increase or an increase of dollar signs.

What Ms. Chair was responding to is that in our current budget, we feel we have enough to do what we’re doing. The Councillor, if I understand the language, is asking for an increase. So no, it’s not under the order of magnitude at the moment.

Councillor Trozac. Which means it’s not redundant. And it’s through the chair question, which means it’s not redundant. And actually, Councillor Frank’s motion with respect to this item is well taken.

Should Councilor want to increase the funding? Yes, Councillor. It wasn’t staff who said it was redundant. It was a councilor who said that.

And so I think that staff is being very clear with their answers on what there are. I will say there’s parts of this where they’re getting more information to understand the scope of what is being asked in that. And so people can make comments, but we’re gonna, I didn’t hear staff say something was redundant, I heard a councilor ask a question about what their opinion was on redundancy. Okay, well then finally through the chair, I’m of the view that the money that we spend on invasive species management plan mitigation helps us out later on because otherwise we have more expenses to try to rid ourselves of bigger problems that have spread.

So I would recommend you vote for that one then. And that’s what would happen now that we understand the scope of what that means, which was an increase. And I think that that scope only came out through the discussion. So colleagues, we can vote on these too.

Like we don’t have to ask people to remove them. I know that it’s awkward, but that’s what our job is. So you vote the way you need to vote and then you explain to the public why you voted that way. That’s how it works, but I’ll go to, I wanna go to Councilor Primmel and then I’ll put Councilor Ramen back on the list.

I would like to thank Mr. Ligniston because I did have the question in regards of those 60 business cases. So that was my question. If it’s the document, visit the $2, $3, $4 sign.

So you answered that. So thank you because that clarifies to us because I had the same question as Councilor Troso. I want us to realize one thing though, that we did do the permit and then we went down to outcomes, expected results, strategies, matrix. And there is the last step to coming, which is the implementation plan.

And as Ms. Livingston said that if we do want something, this is the time to do it in the business case in terms of putting the dollars behind it. But on the other hand, everything we are putting up, it should be fitting the strategy model that we were working on since the beginning of the year. So again, it’s not that it is the wrong time, as Ms.

Livingston said, but again, do we already have other initiatives in the areas because I’m quite sure all of us have certain areas that are kind of closer to our hearts. And are we gonna have in one of them, one of the areas 100 initiatives implementation plans in some of them five? So I think this is what I would like us to consider. And in terms of the timing, this would be the right timing.

And as you mayor said, let’s vote on that move forward, but please realize that whatever we are doing now, it should be fitting the permit. If it’s outside the permit, then we might as well go back to January or whenever we start and we’ll never get it done. Thank you. Councillor ramen.

Thank you and through you. I think where I’m still struggling with two and three in, oh gosh, I’ve lost my number and hold on, sorry. A, two and three. I think where I’m struggling is the need for additional language in both of those parts.

So I’m thankful for the submission of the letter because I do think that that word accelerated with before the invasive species management plan, for instance, is helpful in framing the conversation. And in the climate emergency action plan, similarly the language that’s there around funding to fully implement the plan. So I think the motion itself doesn’t necessarily reflect the intent as it is in the letter, which I think would, it would help if that was fully flushed out in the intention because then it is more transparent to the public as to what we’re voting on. And then it’s also clear as to how it needs to be laid out in the business case.

So that’s just my feedback and thought on it. Thank you. That’s all of my speaker’s list. So given I don’t know where we are on the division, I think we’ll just vote on each of them separately.

That’s probably faster than asking everybody what they want moved separately. So colleagues are ready. I can put these up one at a time and then we can vote on them. So the first one will be A1, which is the Coves Silver Creek Restoration Project.

Despite the fact that we’re moving them separately, I’m just gonna make sure the mover and the seconder are good with you just being the mover and the seconder on each of them as we do them independently. Okay, that saves lots of time. Okay, okay, we’re gonna open that for voting. That’s A1.

Councilor Troso? I still have, please wait. Did you do that on your microphone? Yeah, it’s not on my screen yet, but I would vote yes for the Coves Silver Creek Restoration Project.

Okay, thank you. Zooming session, I’m sorry, I’m just— Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 11 to one. Okay, next it will be A2, which is the Invasive Species Management Plan. I’ll let you know when that’s ready for voting.

Okay, we’ll open that one for voting. Closing the vote, the motion is lost, three to nine. Okay, the next one will be three, which is the Climate Emergency Action Plan. Climate Emergency Action Plan item.

And I’ll let you know when that’s ready for voting. That’s a ramen. Thank you, and three, so this is again, just to be clear, based on the intention of the letter, it is the Climate Action Emergency Plan, full implementation, not what was already going to come to us called the Climate Action Emergency Plan, based on four years of projects. I’m just clarifying that, because again, I want to be clear that staff was already bringing us a report on the Climate Emergency Action Plan in the multi-year budget, associated with four-year spending.

What’s being requested here is the full implementation, and it’s somehow above and beyond what we were gonna get anyways, just clarifying. I think it’s always very important to find out what we pass and what’s gonna be done. So given the way this is worded now, what is gonna be done? Through you, your worship, based on what is worded now, my expectation is we would bring forward what staff had intended, which is to fully fund the recommended implementation strategy over the next four years.

We cannot bring forward a fully-funded implementation budget for the life of the plan to 2050. We don’t have those answers. The technologies we might be investing in haven’t been invented yet. So my intent and belief would be that we would tell you what we should accomplish during this multi-year budget, based on what is achievable in the community and in the corporation.

Okay, and I think the clarification is, is that any different from what you were doing anyways? From my perspective, it would not be, but I would not want to speak for Councillor Frank as to the intent of what she believes fully-funded implementation means. Well, it’s important what is being interpreted. So if we need to change that interpretation, like this will be on the floor.

So now is the time to add clarification if you want to do that. And I don’t, Councillor Raman, are you okay? Okay, no, I meant, are you done? (laughing) I don’t think any of us are perfectly okay.

All of the time, Councillor Hopkins, go ahead. I am just gonna go on record. I appreciate the question and the answer, support the Climate Action Plan to its fullest. That can be achieved in the four years.

I am voting against the full plan at this moment. I really am upset that I’m doing this, but I think to be honest and transparent, that’s the way I’m gonna go. Thank you for your clarity. Anybody else need to say anything before I open the vote?

No, okay, we’ll open the vote on this one. Closing the vote, the motion’s lost, three to nine. So B has been referred, B one has been referred. C one has been removed, so C two is the next item.

This is related to the frequency grass cutting on city property, Councillor Raman. Thank you and through you, and I’m sorry to do this. But just again, to clarify that the intention is on picking places in parks that can be naturalized and then not cutting those that can be naturalized to the intent and not all city property, clarifying. I’m gonna go to staff for the clarification if you need a question back to the Councilor, I can do that, but go ahead.

Through you, your worship, our intent would be to prepare a business case on where we believe we can suitably extend or the cycle of between trimming or eliminate grass cutting altogether by naturalization on a variety of city properties that are appropriate for that use. So highly active places like Springbank would be a no, but we do have some very large parks that we still have turf grass in that are not programmed and actively used. It’s not a zero sum game with naturalization, there are still costs. There’s an investment to begin with it, and then there’s also maintenance that needs to be done even with native species, but it is a different level of investment than grass cutting.

So we believe we would be able to provide appropriate information on where it would be a good location and what the potential cost savings would be. Any other comments before, go ahead, Councillor Plaza. Thank you, and I appreciate that staff have already been working away on this one. So everybody’s good.

I’m gonna open that for, yep. Okay, I’m gonna open that for voting. Posing the vote, the motion is lost, six to six. Okay, okay, we’ve done everything on that item.

So the next item is a 4.4 resignation from the London Middlesex Community Housing Board of Directors. There’s a letter from the CEO. There’s a motion that can be prepared. I could go to a member of the board to make some comments.

Okay, I’ll put it, Deputy Mayor Lewis first. Thank you, Your Worship. Yes, as Councillor McAllister is not here, as your other representative on the board, we’ve had another tenant vacancy. So we’re just looking to fill that position with another tenant from London Middlesex Housing with the appropriate direction of the clerk to recirculate that the applications are open.

Okay, we’ve got the big word of motion up. Councillor Trostav, go ahead. To the chair, is this the one we just refilled, or is this the same old vacancy? This is a new vacancy.

There are two tenant positions. The one we just filled, that tenant is there. The position that’s vacant now had a tenant who was in that position for a couple of years now and is now leaving. I’m not the clerk clarified because the tenant circulation is slightly different than a regular circulation because for a very specific group of people.

So the clerk will make some comments on this. Thank you through the chair. I don’t have a great deal to add other than what the chair has already articulated, but we do rely heavily on LMCH directly to get the information out to the tenants directly because it’s a very specific targeted recruitment. So you’re willing to move the general, we’ll get it up in a sec so you can see it as a seconder for posting, Councillor Cuddy.

We’ll put that up on the screen. People can read it before we vote. Okay, I should be in there now. Look to see if there’s any questions, although I’ll give you a second to read through it.

Councillor Trostav, go ahead. Yeah, just to be clear that we’ve got the resignation. We don’t have much we can do about that. And we wanna just refill it again.

So by voting yes on this, I’m not making any comments about me being pleased with the process they’re using. That’s correct. Thank you. So what you’re doing is you’re receiving the communication, you’re accepting the resignation and then the city clerk is being directed to advertise in a manner that actually gets to the tenants, which is basically relying on the board to help us put that out, applications brought forward to a future meeting of this committee.

That’s what the motion essentially says. Okay, all right, we’ll open that for voting. Opposing the vote, the motion’s passed 12 to zero. Okay, so for those who don’t recall way back at the start of the meeting, we pulled two items from consent.

So this is the time where they land. So just for your reference, we pulled the core area land and building vacancy reduction strategy and the first report of the governance working group. So those are the two items we have left to deal with. I’m gonna start with the core area land and building vacancy reduction strategy.

I can’t remember who pulled that, but I’d like to go to them or speakers first. Sorry, Councilor, go ahead. Councilor Ferrer, probably appropriate for you to start. Go ahead.

And thank you, and through you, first, I wanna say, this is a really big deal, the way I see it, and from the feedback that I got back from residents and constituents after it came out in the media. So I do wanna thank staff and I do wanna thank just the very good report that came through was it had a lot of details in it, which I’m very grateful for. And I just wanna let you know that everyone that I’ve spoke to up to this point, well, mostly everyone, has just had positive reviews for what we’re doing here. So I just wanted to say that first, and I do have a question before I wanna put something else on.

I do have some additions to what has been recommended by staff that I’d like to put on the floor as well. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to circulate that before I just, I ran out of time. But anyways, my first question would be what I see in the direction of the motion that you’re gonna be writing business cases for all the strategic areas or the strategies in there. So that is, that’s correct.

I just wanted to ask that first. Go ahead. Absolutely, through the chair. Yes, there’s a number of council strategic plan items that link specifically to this work.

So we’ll be providing updated multi-year budget cases for that work. Perfect, thank you, and through the chair again. So maybe this would be the appropriate time to just put the additions that I wanted to put on the floor. I did send it to, we did send it to the clerk beforehand.

But basically, with what we wanted to add to that was for the first part, just kind of dealing with the floor plate of the buildings, I do know that some floor plates are more readily convertible than other types of floor plates. So if the motions, or if the additions do come up, you’ll see the first part of the language, which we still haven’t completed yet, but it’s supposed to be basically identifying those, most easily, the lowest hanging fruit, so to speak, buildings that would be converted, just to convert those first, or that’s what I wanted to put on for that. But for the other parts, we wanted to also talk about the floor plates that aren’t necessarily readily convertible to residential. And I wanted to basically kind of point out that there’s other areas that was also written, that was also put out in the report too, that could also have other uses for it.

So those would be uses like, like galleries or studios, or meetings or workshop rooms, or, you know, we have flex work going on nowadays, so individuals coming in that could be hoteling these spaces, or pop up shops for, for anything like vendors who are trying to sell something, or like, you know, any type of gallery or anything like that. So I wanted to put that within one of the additions for the motions as well, and that would just be geared towards getting people back downtown, ‘cause that’s really what we need to do. We need to bring more people downtown, so I feel like some of the space that is not so readily convertible to residential, maybe we should be focusing on that, and it did get highlighted in the report as well. And then for the vacant lands, and other B&C type existing structures, we were thinking of, you know, ‘cause we did have an industrial land strategy that came through recently, which was dealing with film production and digital games, or other digital services, to maybe look into that as well, if we could use some of that commercial space to convert to that as well.

And we also wanted to add to it as well, having a public participation meeting for feedback on the core area vacancy report as well. So I was wondering if maybe the clerk could put that up, and my apologies again for not circulating that sooner. So our assumption is that you want to put everything to that is in the staff report, plus those items, correct? Most of those items are actually already spoken about in the report in various spots, except for the public participation meeting, I don’t think I saw any of that, but basically it’s just highlighting key points that I feel, and I’m hoping that I get a seconder, or I do have a seconder, that I feel would really promote just bringing people back downtown, and I’ll go further than just converting to the residential side, but actually trying to just bring the core back to where it can be and where it should be.

Okay, Council, I’m just trying to be clear, ‘cause there’s lots of things in the report that we can highlight that are great. As for the structure of the motion that I’m just trying to get on the floor in the staff report, there is a recommended motion that we would usually put on the floor. I guess what I need to know is, are you willing to put that on the floor, and then what piece or pieces are you adding to it? Is it only the public participation meeting, are you adding something else to the actual direction?

I wanna be clear. Thank you, and through you, actually I wasn’t gonna change anything that was recommended. I wanna add to the bottom of the recommendation. Okay, so we’re gonna put that on the floor, and then do you have, yeah, Councilor Troso?

Yes, I’ll be seconding this, and I think I can help you with that question a little bit. If I should address that. Okay, sometimes it’s great for the chairs to know what’s going on, but if you guys have a motion that’s details, go ahead. Yes, and the clerk has done some work on this since this afternoon.

I didn’t feel it was appropriate to circulate it individually to everybody, but it incorporates what’s already in the report and adds a number of things, and it’s up on the screen now, and there is one little piece of this that says needs another clause, and I would like to clarify that by asking Mr. matters a few questions when it’s appropriate to do that. Okay, so the clerk drafted something up and added some wording, so what I want is for everybody to just take a pause and read this, given this will be the first time that I’m reading a number of them, it’s in the system now, and then I will return to debate, and I want to go back to Councilor Freira ‘cause to make sure that he was done, and ‘cause you’re bringing forward this motion, you need to be okay with it, and I’ll check with your seconder, so just maybe give a read through. Okay, so hopefully everybody’s had a chance to read through that, so the original A through D are identical, the Ip being noted clauses are identical, although there’s one to recognize that there was a communication, and so the additive parts of the original motion is the E and the F, and the E has three sub-components, so it’s so good to move that, that looks good.

Yes, and through you, everything looks good. There’s a big focus on local communities for part two for E, so that’s exactly what I want, and for the quick conversion for E1, so that looks good too, so this entire motion, this is exactly what I’d like, so that looks good. Okay, and you’re so good to second it, Councilor Trossa? Yes.

  • Okay. Okay, so that’s moved and seconded, now we’re gonna have some debate, Councilor Trossa, you can go first. I would like to ask, Mr. Mathers, through the chair, just a few clarifying questions.

So the way I understand the report, we have to distinguish between buildings that have floor plates that are deemed feasible for residential conversion, and we have to distinguish those from floor plates that are deemed not feasible for residential conversion, and we also have the buildings divided into A, B, and C, and we also have vacant lots that we have to deal with. And I want to better understand the metric that’s specifically going to be used to make that determination to sort out the buildings with floor plates that are deemed feasible for conversion from the ones that are not deemed feasible. Mr. Mathers.

Through the chair, thank you very much. So I think it might be important that I take a little bit of a step back. The report that you have here today is going to inform a lot of other work that we’re doing. So June 12th, we’ll be bringing back some, we’ll have, there’ll be a public meeting to discuss any type of incentive, community improvement plan or financial incentive that council wishes, and based on public commentary, to be able to move forward any objective that is going to require a financial incentive to the city for someone else to do some type of work.

A lot of the work that was done as part of this strategy does have some of those implications and it has some of those suggestions. The opportunity to be able to talk about that, make those decisions, we’ll be done at that June 12th meeting. And if these, if there was a separate PIC, you’re actually going to miss that meeting and then not be able to make the multi-year budget timeframe, which is why we had that meeting while we structured it like that. So the next piece of it, and just to go back to your question, is related to what would be targeting.

So through that community improvement plan that we’d be looking at conversions, we would have to come up with a criteria that we’d be targeting, and it would be based on the information that you’ve seen here today. So we’d be looking at buildings that are structured from an architectural perspective can actually allow for residential housing. That would be one of our first criteria, and then council would have to descend as part of— No, no, no, it’s, no, okay, all right. No worries, eight, we just get the chair’s attention, okay, I just, okay, well, and colleagues just let people listen to the answers, go ahead, Mr.

Mathers. Yeah, no, either, be yourself no problem. So through that developing the community improvement plan, we would then have to set some criteria. So that criteria would identify the types of buildings that we would want to provide an incentive for.

So we’d be looking for those buildings that have that architectural arrangement to allow for residential housing that are a lower priority for commercial, and then council can make a decision as part of the multi-year budget, what we want to fund, and how much to what level we’d want to have that funded. Through the chair, in E, where I say for buildings with floor plates that are deemed feasible for conversion to residential use, there will be another step determining criteria. Mr. Mathers.

So if it’s deemed that it’s not for residential use, through the CIP program, we’d have to decide whether there is a CIP program to provide incentives for that type of work. I don’t think it’s actually on the table at this point, I’ll actually let Jim speak to that, ‘cause he’s the lead on both of these projects. So I’m just gonna pass that on to him, but it really comes down to what council wants to provide incentive for. This report isn’t saying you have to do anything, there’s a decision to be made.

So I’m gonna pass it on to Jim to be able to answer the specifics of the CIP suggestions. Mr. Angela. I guess the best way that I could answer this is, in order to be able to incorporate E, one, two, and three as a council direction, it would have to come through a community improvement program, a financial community improvement program, under a community improvement plan first.

And we don’t have a community improvement plan that authorizes this activity yet. So at first we have to do that in order to comply with the Planning Act. After we do that, we would have programs that implement the plan. This could very well be one of them.

For example, recommendation five on page 43 of the report actually says to develop a financial incentive program that supports undertaking feasibility studies for converting vacant B and C class office space into residential. So that would be the trigger to develop that program and then lay out, well, how do you do that? You have to look at all of the architectural dimensions, not only floor plate, although that’s a big factor. Air exchange would be a problem close to windows, like I don’t wanna get into the building code, but there’s many things that would have to be considered in that bandwidth of what the intent of E number one is.

So there’s some steps that Mr. Rather’s correctly pointed out that have to happen that will get you to the criteria for judging whether a building is or is not adaptable for any kind of use. And that’s what the intent of recommendation five and page 43 would allow us to do. So Councillor Ferriero is correct.

It’s in the report. He’s looking for a little bit more guidance to us on this and we could put those kinds of things in there. Thank you for continuing through the chair then. Thank you, that was very, that was very helpful.

For buildings with floor plates that are not deemed feasible though, I guess I wanna back up a little bit and say, join Councillor Ferriero in thanking you for the report, because there was so much rich detail in that report that talked about some really exciting things, which I think the community is looking for. My concern and the reason why I wanted to participate in expanding this recommendation tonight is because when you look at A, B, C and D, yes, technically that’s what we need to do, but I wanted to put a little bit more, I’m not sure what the right word is, but I wanted to put a little more pop in here. I wanted to create a little bit more excitement and I wanted to talk a little bit more detail. I wanted to align some of the really good points that are included throughout the report in the recommendation.

So I don’t think there’s really nothing in what we’re proposing here that is contrary to what’s in the report. The only difference is here we’re asking for a public participation meeting that specifically considers where people can actually come to the public participation meeting and also speak to other items that are in the report and it not be limited to just the incentives, although it can include that. So I think for now, oh, and the piece on vacant lands, we had a discussion about this two weeks ago about the industrial strategy and it might be that some of the targeted new industries are would be appropriate on some of these smaller lands that are either closer to downtown or can be somewhat converted. And I’m speaking specifically here to the B&C buildings and the vacant buildings.

And again, I don’t think that’s inconsistent with anything that’s in the report. It just underlines it a little bit more in the recommendation. I’ll yield for now. I got a big speakers list, so I’ll go to Deputy Mayor Lewis first.

Thank you, Your Worship, and through you, I’m not gonna support the amendments and I’m not gonna support them for two reasons. First of all, I think a public participation meeting before we have dollar figures so the public can understand the cost of these is getting the cart way ahead of the horse. But more importantly, and when I look at E, one and two, we have to actually approve a feasibility study grant before we can, we’re not going out to study the floor plates. We would provide a grant for the private landowners to do their feasibility studies and determine for themselves whether or not it is in their business model to make a conversion to residential.

We’re not doing this work. And these are not actually our buildings. So when we come to E2 and we start talking about focus on creating spaces for local communities, including these aren’t our buildings. These aren’t public use spaces.

The private owner has to determine for themselves what they can attract to use that space. And when we start talking about some of the digital media and digital services, some might see these as viable office spaces, but I’ll tell you, when you talk about some of these class C buildings in particular, you are talking about some very old buildings that it is very hard to start running digital connections for things for. These are not, you’re not just running a corridor through some drywall to run some ethernet. And when you start talking about, even if you’re going with wireless signals, brick and concrete do a really good job of blocking those.

In fact, I’ll tell you, in my own home renovation for a building that’s in the late 40s, early 50s, construction period, when we had to move a wall, we found out that not only was there concrete in the wall, there was actually a metal brace. Well, no wonder I had to get a wifi booster to get my signal through ‘cause there was concrete sprayed into a metal mesh. Old buildings are not really conducive without a tremendous fiscal LA to modern technologies. But I think, you know, things like the pop-up opportunities, that’s mentioned in the report.

I actually don’t think that that’s one of our best strategies. I think there’s a lot of great strategies in here. For me, that one’s like, man, I can take it or leave it. But for me, these amendments are actually missing the mark in terms of what the goal is here, which is to provide, through community improvement programs, some opportunities for some vacant spaces to get reimagined potentially as residential, knowing full well that they won’t all fit for that residential.

But we are not undertaking this work. We don’t own these properties. So we would be talking about property acquisition, in addition, to reimagining these spaces for some of the things that are listed here. So for me, I wanna talk about the strategy staff as laid out.

I don’t wanna get the card ahead of the horse here. I think there’s a lot of great things in the actual plan that staff have laid out. And I’m gonna highlight just a couple, ‘cause I think they’re really important. Investing in the feasibility of a new zone or zoning tool for limiting regulations applying to existing commercial buildings.

And direct mandatory ground floor commercial uses to only highly commercial streets to ensure continuity through rethink zoning. So right now, in the London plan, we want all of these high density builds, ideally to have commercial space on the ground floor. But with the changing realities of both office and retail commercial, we’re creating capacity that’s not needed by the market right now. So if the building owner or the proposal comes forward for a new building, and they feel that they can make something else work on the ground floor, whether that’s amenity space for their residents, whether that is residential on the ground floor, which in some of the cases where, and I hope Ms.

McNeely’s listening, ‘cause in some of the cases where they suggest a step back, maybe those are the units that you wanna make barrier free. Maybe they envision those as fully accessible barrier free units on the ground floor. But those are the kind of things that we need to be looking at in this program. And I think that there’s a lot of even amongst the public, this perception that somehow we’re just letting the developers sit on these vacant buildings.

No, they own them. They can make the choice of whether they’re going to sit on them and leave them vacant, or whether they’re going to convert them, or whether they’re gonna go and attract tenants. And I suspect that quite a number of them try and attract tenants. But the B and C class commercial space is just not in demand anymore.

These are aging buildings. Some of them at some point probably are gonna come before us with demolition permit requests, because they’re gonna look to re-envision something else on the property. Some of the vacant property acquisition that’s suggested for some green space and parquettes in this, so that we could offset the zoning that requires amenity space on a development. Again, I think that’s a great idea.

If some of that comes forward and we’ve got a CIP that allows us to acquire some of those to create some mini parquettes, great idea. I actually had a chance to share with Mr. Yanchula yesterday that while we were at FCM, there was a great little parquette right outside the Metro Toronto Convention Center. Not a big space, but it was a nice little green space that allowed people to pause and enjoy their coffee, some naturalized plantings, even milkweed coming up, which was great to see, so take a break from the hustle and bustle the street and do that.

And I think that there’s opportunities for us to do that with some of the land in the downtown. But I think when we start getting into talking about studio galleries and rehearsal spaces, and that’s not the goal of the core vacancy right now. And it’s not lining up with our strategic priority on housing and homelessness and the roadmap to 3000. So I think we’re getting way beyond what we would see.

And as Mr. Yanchula said, there’s not even a CIP to cover these things yet. So it’s way too early to start talking about some of these incentives when we haven’t even dealt with the possibility of the conversions that are before us. So with all due respect to the counselors, I think this is far too soon in the process for these amendments to be coming forward and I’ll be voting no.

Okay, so I’ll just clarify there aren’t amendments there. It’s the whole motion, but we can deal with E and F separately. So that’ll be your opportunity to vote the way you’d like on those ones. Councillor Palosa.

Sorry, as the hour grows late, I’ll make a point not to repeat anything that’s been said, but for those who were enjoying their time at FCM, I was busy holding on the forward as acting mayor, we were gone and this was actually a conversation piece on the Craig Needles Roundtable and got some community feedback from it. And thank you to Mr. Angela for taking my phone calls for I can be completely informed before I said media. I appreciate the report.

There’s a love in my opinion, good groundwork in here, looking at the environment, the empty space and recognizing as we’ve discussed before at council and in prior councils how much vacant land there is in underutilized 67 parking lots downtown and potential strategies for infilling that, the vacancy rate and as most of us would have assumed the divide in vacancy ownership being held within a few key land owners within the downtown core. Very supportive of the direction staff is taking and knowing that new builds have an end of life conversion cycle as part of their planning for adaptive reuse and conversions. Really interested in seeing what we could do for a new zone category that would really help identify these properties and expedite and make the processes easy and as minimal red tape as we need and then finding the funds that we would need to help fund those conversions for residential for those who are interested in being a partner and coming to the table and interested in the potential for residential and the ground floor. If there’s no desire in that area as a designated district for commercial properties and there really need to be on an upper floor that there’s nothing worse than coming home I’m sure to downtown tenants in your main floor being boarded up or vacant and you need to go and that’s your front entrance to your home and then going up from there.

So just allowing I guess the market in those terms to set where the needs are. But thank you have this support of this report and supportive of the direction you have put before us. Thank you. I have Councillor Ferreira and then Councillor Privel.

Thank you. So there’s a lot to unpack. So I’m gonna try to catch something. So with the criteria for the floor plate, we put that in there just because we were looking for some way to distinguish between what is readily convertible and what is not.

Like our simple brains we may not be able to capture everything so the criteria portion can change. If you find like something that would be better for your criteria on how you distinguish between the two I’m fine with that. Obviously this report is to be bringing to convert to residential because that’s really the goals that we’re trying to do. But the way I see it is as we move forward and we start identifying what works and we’re incentivizing these owner, landlords and owners to convert.

And it’s all about the instantification but as we incentivize we are gonna find that there are buildings that are good to go to convert but then there’s buildings that aren’t able to convert but we’re gonna be putting work into the ones that aren’t able to convert and just to find out if they can be convertible or not. So that’s why we started putting in just try to the community aspect that focuses on the local communities, the Londoners themselves. We have a lot of venues around here that speak to what we’re trying to pull out in that section of the addition for the motions but those venues don’t necessarily focus on local communities on Londoners themselves. They focus on people coming from outside like the Budweiser Gardens, great venue but most people that come and perform there on this aspect aren’t from London.

So that’s why we were thinking this would be an appropriate place to do it because you’re already gonna have your eyes looking at that to distinguish whether it works or not. So while you’re there, it’s kind of like while we’re here maybe we can place it for there. ‘Cause ultimately it’s for me, obviously we would like to have more residential units for more housing but at the same time as a downtown counselor and as a counselor for the city, we’re trying to bring people to the downtown court. So that’s why I was just thinking we could hit two birds with one stone with this.

So that’s why you see these additions the way they are. Councillor Pribble. I will not be supporting these amendments either and I could just repeat everything what Deputy Mayor said. I don’t think this is our position and timing for it.

I think that these are potentially good initiatives for implementation plan but what we are missing downtown and in the core, you know, we need to have someone like VFLEDC, we have four pillars that they are taking care of and they are looking after which is really 99.9% industrial land. We don’t have anyone like that in terms of the sales and marketing for the core. And those are, if we assign these duties responsibilities to someone that they are the ones who should be working with these building owners and maximize the opportunity. And I think this is the part of the strategic plan.

I think this is the part of the implementation plan. I don’t think this is the way to do it through this motion that’s out there. I would leave it the way it is. I will not support it.

But what I would love to see is from our staff, strategy core strategic plan. I would love to know when is the date, when we are gonna have it. And I would love our staff to brainstorm and how to best market sales our core just like we are doing a great job or a really good job. We can be always better with the industrial land through LEDC.

I think that’s what we are missing. And once we assign this, then this department, this individual can work with the building owners and deliver these initiatives through the four year strategic plan, through the implementation plan. Thank you. Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair. The order of operations, not mistaying what the other recommendations are up here, would be that we have the overlap with the CIP conversation. There’s a number of the strategies that are within the recommendations for the CIP program.

They’re going to June 12th that check some of these boxes for these items. If council approves that, then we’ll be looking at developing the multi-year budget business case to support those CIP items. So you’ll have the opportunity to add, take away, whatever you feel appropriate as part of that discussion. Councillor Pribble.

Just to follow up. Now, I really would love our staffs for the chair to the staff if we can really consider our sales and marketing strategy for downtown. And I don’t think we have to wait with this for the four year plan. I think we could do it much sooner within the next one, two month.

And already we can have a start ahead that this individual, this department, will be working with the downtown owners and pushing to core. And when I say downtown, I mean, the entire core. Mr. Mathers.

Through the chair, we of course are always very involved if there are folks coming to the city that are looking for opportunities. At this point, we don’t have like a full process where we have basically ability to have a sales pitch for the city that is more overarching than that. Right now, we are very much on that reactive piece. But as part of the council’s strategic plan items, there is built into the requests for additional resources to be able to support something like that.

But we are very open to work with anybody that’s looking at coming to the city and we do engage with them. Anyone who does have an opportunity to be able to come and speak to us. So we don’t have any other kind of other framework that we have at this time or that we have the resources to be able to provide. Go ahead.

No more questions, don’t follow up. But I would love to follow up with after in terms of the detailed steps towards this goal. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship.

And thank you, staff for this report. I know what happens in the downtown area is important to each and every one of us here. The investments that we make, we get at least 10 times back in the downtown core. So I’m trying to unpack the added recommendations.

And through you, Your Worship, just so I understand it, and maybe this is going to Sriyanne Chula, that the, I gotta make sure I get my name, the D, I, or E, sorry, E, I, and I, have to go through a CIP process, or it should be determined through a CIP process. Did I get that correct? Go ahead, Mr. Yantula.

Through the chair. If you want to offer city assistance in those regards, then yes, it has to go through a CIP process because a program would have to be developed to do that. We would have no other mechanism to participate with a private sector other than that. That’s right.

Yes, and if I may, just to follow up, just understanding the CIP process, will that come back to us in business cases? And will there, I think I did here, there will be a public participation process if that comes back to us? Yes, again, four incentives that come from the city, it would come through a public process, it has to come through a public process through the Planning Act. Thank you.

And sorry, I’m just feeling a little slow here, just trying to understand the process. And then at that time, we will get a public participation and we’ll have those conversations. And I understand that’s coming to us June the 12th or so, just to make sure, so I’m hearing that we really don’t need the I and I-I to put it in the recommendation. Councillor, just let you can get on back on the speakers list, but if you disagree with something, you can debate it, but we’re not gonna jump in on cross-debate with staff comments, there’s a Councillor asking staff questions.

And I, Mr. May, there’s, I’ll let you direct the answer. Through your worship, regarding I and I-I, that is something that we are building into the other work that we’re doing, but it’s up to Council to decide what they wanna direct us as far as this moving forward. It will be covered off in some of the CIP conversations we’re having on the 12th as well.

However, if it’s the ideas to just make sure that this is very much highlighted for us, then there’s no problem with having this language. That’s what happens. Yeah, thank you. So we’re gonna be doing it already and I’m supported of doing that.

If we wanna highlight the importance, I’ll go to the downtown Councillor and look to the downtown Councillor. So I appreciate you bringing it forward. I have no problem with I-I-I. I don’t think we need to put in get into the weeds when we talk about such as R&D and film production.

I would be fine with leaving that out, but we do have a land development strategy. And I know it is in the land development strategy looking at lands in the downtown core. So have no problem supporting I-I. When it comes to the public participation, I think when I read the report, there wasn’t really much mention about public engagement.

I know we talked about partner organization, realtors, major landlords, developers and many other stakeholders. I’m sure we can add residents in that, but I am quite comfortable as we go through the CIP process that there will be a public participation going through that. So I have no problem supporting the extra recommendations, maybe with the F. I’m still not sure where to go with that.

I’m willing to hear further comments. Pop-ups are fine, but again, the more we can engage in the public, especially in the downtown area, and to understand what downtown means to Londoners. As we revisit revitalizing downtown, we’ve spoken for years on council about the need to revitalize. And we’ve done some great investments, how we can build on those investments.

I’m all up for that. I do wanna talk about, or just maybe make a few comments on the properties with no buildings on them. Parking is a huge issue here. And we’ve had long conversations for many councils on the importance and looking at a new parking strategy.

I’m glad one’s coming. At the end of June, I would assume there will be a public engagement there. Maybe that’s a question through your worship, but I would like to finish off with my comments, because one of the things I really think is important. When we get reports coming from staff with recommendations, suggestions, we can add to it.

It’s very easy for us to point the finger towards other people, but I would like us to look at ourselves as a council and what is our vision moving forward and how do we stand behind recommendations that come to us, especially at planning, especially when it comes to parking. Those are the big challenges that we have. And again, I’d rather point the finger at us, looking at these reports that are coming to us to really have a vision or an understanding where we wanna go. And that is gonna take some leadership and a bit of vision and really difficult conversations.

‘Cause I’ve been there, I know what’s coming down the pipeline, but I am encouraged that we’re gonna start again with these conversations and the importance of what we do in the downtown. And I do think it’s really important. We have changed as a city. The mayor has also mentioned that we have grown as well and how we create opportunities, meet our targets of 3,000 affordable units.

All those things we have to really take into consideration. And I know London has changed as we try to get Londoners to come into the downtown. I also know Londoners, one facilities out in the outskirts as well, how we’re gonna balance all that is really, really important for us as a council to really tackle and have that. I don’t know what it’s gonna take, but it’s gonna have to take a strong focus in a vision where we wanna see the city go.

So I’m really looking forward to the reports coming back. I would think with the, and maybe your worship just to follow up with that public participation conversation ‘cause we must understand what the public wants of us as well with the parking, will there be a parking PPM when that report comes back to us? Thank you. Mr.

Maythers. Through the chair, so a couple of pieces there. The actual report, I don’t wanna go into what the report’s going to say at this point ‘cause that’ll be coming forward. So what we do have in the council strategic plan is the requirement, the request to do a downtown parking strategy, any kind of strategy that would be an all-encompassing piece of work would have an engagement process and would have opportunity for our public meeting.

What we’re bringing during June is a number of initiatives going, looking at what we’ve had today as far as the HOG program and some other possible initiatives to be able to support what we’ve heard in the query of vacancy study as well. So there isn’t going to be like a PIC for that report but some of the work that comes out of the report would have PIC related to it. Yeah, for now, thanks. Okay, great.

Councilor Frank and then council for our here next. So go ahead, Councilor Frank. Thank you. Yes, I also look forward to this report and thought it was really well done.

I really like the four different areas. I especially quite like the place making section, talking about converting parking lots into park space and having just again coming back from Toronto, a lot of cool little pocket parks and things going on there. So excited to see that coming forward. I am wondering, so I’m looking through this report and I think a lot of it, actually all of it is kind of, what can the city do to bring people back down to the downtown?

How can we get people into units here? How can we make sure business is thriving downtown? But we’re just talking maybe four hours ago about how in the client emergency action plan, a lot of the stuff, the city doesn’t have direct control over, even if we want to. So I’m wondering in the core with over 60% of the vacant buildings being known by one landlord, is there like a specific strategy for dealing with landlords that are unwilling to fill spaces, giving that such a significant amount of space?

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair. At this time, there isn’t any kind of a program like that.

And through a various initiatives, including our housing supply action plan, including the incentive conversation we’re having, we’re looking at ways that we can try to provide incentives, but possibly even disincentives for landowners that aren’t moving ahead with allowing for housing. So where we’re starting with is just, and with the basis of this report, was just highlighting the issue that’s out there. We’re provided a few different strategies to begin with. Next, we have a lot of other work that we have that this very much links in as it will be a supporting document for the other work.

So when we’re looking at our housing supply action plan, when we look at the community improvement plan and the financial incentives, this base work will be feeding into it. Also, we have our core reaction plan that we’ll be looking at providing more details to counsel on and aligning that with the core area strategies that are in the counsel strategic plan. So this is a foundational document, provides some preliminary strategies that we could use, but also that data that we need to be able to come up with some good policy. So this is one piece of what’s going to be eventually a multifaceted approach for housing and revitalization of the core.

Thank you. Really glad to hear that there is an opportunity for disincentives coming up, because I think, again, this report is full of carrots, and I love carrots, and love rabbits. But I also think we need some sticks, and especially in, I’ve been finding more and more with some of the provincial legislations, where all we’re left with is carrots. So where we can use sticks, I would like to see some personally.

A lot of this is voluntary, which I think, again, the right partners, that’s excellent, and lots of movement will happen given the right carrots. But I also sometimes wonder, not that I want to necessarily do this, but for example, people who are experiencing poverty, who are on ODSP and OW, most governments force them to spend all of their savings before they’re able to go on social assistance. So again, I’m wondering in this case, where again, we know there are people that own significant amounts of property. They have capital.

So I am curious as to why I would consider subsidizing private businesses that aren’t making efforts to use their capital to invest and reinvest in their property. So I am a little hesitant about necessarily looking down some of the CIPs where we’re using taxpayer dollars to give to corporations that are not necessarily doing their due diligence in their asset planning. But that being said, again, I think this is great. Look forward to more discussions.

But I do, I’m not sure at what point, but I would like to see maybe, I don’t know if it’s a fifth pillar or something, but a section about using sticks, whether that’s policy or disincentives. But I look forward to that discussion. And sticks come from trees and you love trees, right? Yes, Councillor Ferra.

Thank you, through you. To the last two Councillors that just spoke, thank you, that was really good. Carrots and sticks, you know, I foresee a combination of carrots and sticks and how to effectively use those just to do what we need to do. I just wanted to, I put my hand up ‘cause I wanted to add some things.

The amendments are the additions to the motion that we have right now, like I want people to support it. So if you do have any suggestions on what you would like to kind of re-jig or change, before you say you don’t support it, tell me or tell us what you would like to do to have a little change so you could support it because the way what we have right here is right in our strat plan, which was voted on by everybody here. So everything that’s here is already a part of strategic areas of focus, especially within the downtown that we evolve given a lot of support for. So that’s what I just wanted to add to that.

And I guess I’ll stop there. Councillor Pribble and then Councillor Joseph. Just the last follow up, that’s actually why I didn’t feel that there’s the right way to do it at this time because what just the Councillor just said, it is stuff that’s including already in our strat plan. So that’s why I don’t think there’s the right timing for it.

But one thing is when I was talking about the hopefully new structure that we will introduce when I was talking through the chair to the staff, one thing is I forgot and I said the new structure, the new people dealing with the building owners, I forgot about one important very thing to cooperate also and be very close to visit the BIA’s. That’s why I just wanted to add. Thank you, Councillor Troz. Councillor Troz, sir.

So it’s, if I understand some of the objections that are being made to the amendments, it’s this is something we can’t tell business owners and we can’t tell property owners what to do. It’s their property. It’s too early in the process. It’s too early in the process.

Later on, it may be too late in the process. These amendments don’t really change the substance of what’s in the report. They amplify them and talk about some aspects of it. But I think the big difference here, and I do wanna address the public participation meeting because what I’m hearing is there’s gonna be a very specific public participation meeting on incentives and it’s going to be limited to the chair.

Is that correct? Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, yes, in June 13th, June 12th, there’s a planning environment committee and it’s gonna, one of the big items on that agenda is to look at the community improvement plan and financial incentives program.

So any aspects for that Councillor Committee or the public are looking for that would be linked to this query of work, query of vacancy work, if the goal is to provide an incentive or some other type of program to be able to support it, that would be, that needs to get into that conversation. If it’s anything beyond incentives, then absolutely that could be a different conversation. So further through the chair, this is why I think F is important and this is why I think F is not merely duplicating something we’re already doing. We need to give the public the opportunity to address the very good work that was done in the report and maybe come up with some of their own ideas and talk to Councillors about it that go beyond the question of incentives.

Now to limit this discussion to incentives really is taking a one-sided approach because the city does have a number of legal tools at its disposal and planning tools at its disposal and regulatory and licensing tools at its disposal where it could be telling the owner. You have an owner, for example, it’s been deemed feasible to do the conversion. They don’t wanna do it because they’d rather sit on the property vacant because they think it’s a better investment for them in the long run. The city needs to have a discussion about what we do and we can call it a stick, but it’s a very, very warranted stick because when owners sit on vacant property for purposes of enhancing their long-term investment, they’re creating downside social costs for the rest of the city.

And I think the biggest flaw with this report and I’m trying to correct that here a little bit by opening up the possibility of a broader public participation meeting is that we need to have an all-around discussion about how we’re going to address this problem. This is in large part. It is about forming creative partnerships in cooperation with property owners that want to do something about the vacant problem, but that is not the entirety of the problem. And we have got to address, we have got to address the other piece of this where we have people who are sitting on large parts of downtown or maybe just a few buildings.

And they’re not demonstrating that they’re trying to rent the place out. They’re sitting on their property and it’s creating social ills for the rest of the city. One point I want to make about to be in the sea buildings is, yeah, the painting mayor is quite right. Some of these probably would not be good candidates for upgrading to a digital facilities.

Some of these may need to have the text in the amendment is potential adaptation. Now, maybe that’s not clear enough and it could be fixed, but that would include demolition. That would include demolition. If you’ve got a quality sea building sitting on the edges of downtown and the owner is just sitting on it, figuring that someday it’s going to appreciate that’s not okay, we need to do something with that.

And the city, the city, and I think at some point we’re going to need to get some more clarification on this ‘cause it really wasn’t in the report. The city has very broad, very broad police powers with respect to instituting licensing programs and collecting fees for things like enhanced inspections. We’ve got to be doing that. The intention of this, I think, very, very mild and moderate motion was to just sort of add a little bit of extra context for the public, largely, to see what we could be doing.

And I’m really disappointed in the reaction against it and I just want to close by saying, I think there is a big segment of the public. There are many people in the public that think we need to be, as a city, taking more effective action against owners of property who intentionally allow their property to sit vacant when we have so many different social needs. And I’m just going to leave it with that. But we need to take a broader approach and if nothing else, we need to have that public participation meeting welcome people who want to come to the mic and give other perspectives ‘cause they’re going to anyway.

So thank you very much and Chair, I’ll return it to you. And I do want to urge my colleagues to support this motion. Thank you. Okay, that exhausts the speaker’s list.

I know people would like this divided at least. I just want clarity. People want E and F as two separate things or E and F together, two separate things. Okay, I see nods for two separate things.

So we’ll have an E, an F, and then everything else vote. So we’re going to start with everything else first. So everything but the additions that the councilors moved is what we’ll put on the point first. I don’t know what it is, it’s a point of something.

Sure. I would be more comfortable if we did E and F first because without E and F, I wouldn’t be terribly comfortable supporting everything else because I think something would be missing or is that not in order? Given that the order was a preference recommendation and not a procedural one, happy to do it in a different order. So we can do E first, then F, and then everything else.

So we’ll put E on the floor first, same mover and seconder, and I’ll let you know when that’s ready for voting. Okay, that vote is open. This is just E, so E part one, two, and three. You can actually read it on the screen if you’d like.

We need your microphone, please, Councillor. Closing the vote, the motion is lost four to eight. Okay, and next we will do F. Okay, F’s open participation part.

Councillor Hillier. Closing the vote, the motion is lost four to eight. Okay, and then the remainder is everything else, which is everything in the original staff report, plus a recognition of the correspondence that came in. A minor technical issue, it’ll just take a moment.

Okay, that’s now open for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 10 to two. Okay, that completes that item. So the remainder remaining item we have left is something that we pulled off of consent.

That’s item 2.4, which is the first report of the governance working group. I’ll go to the working group chair to bring that forward. Thank you, Your Worship. And through you two reasons for pulling this.

The first is that in clause H of the report, there was an indication that the next meeting of the GWG be set for Monday, June 26th at 1.30. The clerk actually reached out earlier today to let me know that there is a, sorry, the original recommendation was at 1 p.m. The potential to bump up against another meeting exists. So the recommendation is that clause H be set for 1.30 rather than 1 p.m.

Just so that the governance working group does not find itself without a committee room to meet in because of another meeting that’s occurring. So I wanted to bring that to people’s attention. And hopefully that’s a minor adjustment that everybody can support. The other item, then this came from some public feedback after the report was published last week.

And I think it’s a valid one worth our consideration. There was feedback that in week, so now we’re talking about clause A and subsection one. This is with regard to a draft meeting calendar. Week one suggests that Tuesday CSC would meet at 1 p.m.

And in week two, that planning would meet at 1 p.m. on the Monday. There has been a suggestion that perhaps we would entertain flipping those so that corporate services would actually meet on the second Monday and that planning would meet on the first Tuesday. Just very, very quickly.

The rationale behind that is planning, of course, is the committee that gets the most probably pieces of public correspondence. This would not only allow for one extra day for members of the public, applicants, even members of planning staff to get an added item on the agenda or a communication on the agenda. But by moving planning to week one, it does allow a little bit more flexibility for the potential to add extra planning committee meetings, if necessary, when you run into long agendas and statutory deadlines. So with that kind of feedback, I’m willing to move a suggestion that the report has outlined from GWG moves, planning and corporate services in their respective weeks.

So I hope that that might have some support. Put that on the floor to see if it does or not. But I’m putting that forward out based on the report being published last week and the feedback from the public. And while the clerk’s just looking at that, I would note that this is still a draft calendar.

It would go to the senior leadership team. It would come back to the next governance working group for more discussion. And then a recommendation from that working group meeting would be forwarded to the SPPC that that feeds into before a final decision from council. There was also some discussion at the committee about some language around council expense policy, looking at some other items that folks thought was more worth looking at.

And also a request that the matter of award boundary review be referred by SPPC to governance working group for consideration so that we can start the discussion well in advance of 2026 on the award boundary and have some discussion with the clerk. So while you were doing some language smoothing out there, I just wanted to provide those quick highlights of the working group report. So my preference would be that you put Pity’s report on the floor and then because it’s not a standing committee, we need a seconder for the committee report and then we’ll amend it with the changes. Yes, and nice and clean.

So procedurally, whatever works for you, I’m happy to put the preliminary report on the floor. So moved the committee report at the core committee report seconded by Councillor Cuddy and then that’s on the floor and now you’ve moved the amendments that you mentioned about and I just, we’ll make sure we captured them all. And Councillor Trostai, are you willing to second all the amendments? I was, I’m not keen to bring out my calendar right now and review all these dates and times, but since it’s coming back to the staff back to the committee, this looks like something you and I talked about.

So I’m willing to support this. Yes, it would be changes to the draft calendar which the draft calendar certainly needs to be approved through the regular process on how calendars are approved. So the amendment then, the series of amendments are, we’ll just make sure we have the wording right, but that’s how we’re gonna do it. We’ve now put the original motion on the floor, other original report on the floor and it’s been now amended by Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councillor Trostai.

So I wanna be clear ‘cause we were getting stuff going while you were talking. The change is the switching of the committees and the data, the time started for the next meeting and there’s only, that’s it. That’s it, the rest was just commentary. Okay, so pause A would flip corporate services on the Tuesday with in week one, with planning on the Monday in week two.

Yep. And pause H would move the time from 1 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. So we’ll vote on the amendments, first of all, have debate.

Councillor Ramen, on the amendments. Thank you and through you. My question pertains to the process by which senior leadership team looks at the calendar. So I just wanna know if that process includes talking to outside agencies, boards and commissions that may have meetings at those times already scheduled into 2024.

So just as an example, hydro’s calendar is done basically till June of 2024, I think right now. And so they’ve already outlined their dates for Mondays and Tuesdays. Councillor Ramen, before we get the answer to that, Councillor Trostai, you need to go. Okay, I need an alternate seconder for the amendment then.

Someone who’s going to second and said, Councillor Ferrer, you’re free to go anytime now. No, no problem. I just wanna make sure that before you go, I procedurally have a seconder to replace yours. Okay, now on Councillor Ramen’s question, I’ll go to the city manager.

Through you, your worship. The senior leadership team would look to the clerk’s office to undertake that review of other boards and commissions and when they would be meeting. So we can make that happen. Generally, we’re looking at it from a workflow perspective and are we having the meetings in the right place in order to have work move smoothly forward, but certainly we can work with the clerk’s office to ensure that we’re addressing as many conflicts as possible.

Good, okay. The other thing I would add is, by the time we get to the 2020-24 calendar, colleagues will have a chance to change the committees that they serve on as well as we do that committee assignment annually. So, of course, I’m on every committee, so that doesn’t really apply to me. Okay, I’m gonna provide a suggestion just because it’s not always what we do to just send out the calendars and people may not have the context.

If you sit on an external board, you should raise this potential change for them or with them and bring back when we have the discussion with the draft calendar, which happens, I believe, in June or July, well in advance of the next year, those concerns will be flagged by the counselors who can talk to their boards and commissions and we can decide what to do at that point. So, we’ll put some on us on ourselves to engage with those boards and commissions that we sit on that might have that issue. Okay, any other debate on the amendments, Councillor Hopkins? Yeah, I think I do wanna go on record here.

I really appreciated the conversation we had at the governance working group. We did a lot of work that day, I think. There’s still more to come. I did have concerns around changing our planning to the afternoon, in particular, the public participation process.

I know right now, and I wanna confirm we are not approving these items. We’re just sending the draft to staff for their comments and then we will have the debate if we will go in the afternoon with these recommendations. I just want to make that clear, or if something else. So, I’ll make that clear in the report.

It says the civic administration be directed to draft a 2024 meeting calendar with the following parameters. It outlines the parameters. The above noted draft calendar be provided to the senior leadership team for their feedback. The senior leadership team comments be provided to the governance working group at their next meeting.

So, they’re gonna draft a calendar and the governance working group is gonna talk about it some more. So, great. So, with that, we have the amendment on the floor. I’d like to vote on the amendments.

So, this is the changes that Deputy Mayor Lewis brought forward. So, we’ll open that for voting. I’ll vote verbally, yes, from Councillor Ploza. Closing the vote, the motion is passed, 11 to zero.

Okay, and so, now a move for the seconder, as amended, moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Cuddy. Any discussion on the whole governance working group as amended now, report? Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. We’ll vote, yes.

I’ll vote, yes. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 11 to zero. Okay, that completes the regular amount of agenda items. Item five is deferred matters or additional business.

There are no deferred matters. I don’t see any additional business, okay. We’ll move to adjournment, motion to adjourn. Councillor Ploza, seconded and thirded by Councillor Frank.

All those in favor by hand for adjournment. Motion’s passed. Okay, thank you, we’re adjourned.