June 20, 2023, at 4:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 4:02 PM; it being noted that Councillors P. Van Meerbergen and E. Peloza were in remoted attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

2.1   June Progress Update - Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response

2023-06-20 Staff Report - June Progress Update – Health and Homelessness Whole

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the June Progress Update – Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response report BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed (12 to 1)

2.2   Core Area Action Plan 2022 Review

2023-06-20 Staff Report - Core Area Action Plan 2022 Review

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment & Infrastructure, the Deputy City Manager, Planning & Economic Development, and the Deputy City Manager, Social & Health Development, the following actions be taken: 

a)    the staff report dated June 20, 2023 entitled “Core Area Action Plan 2022 Review”, including its appendices, BE RECEIVED;

b)    one-time funding of $100,000 in support of the Holly Jolly Market and Downtown for the Holidays events BE APPROVED from the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve; and,

c)    a one-time funding increase of $50,000 to support 2023 Summer, Fall and Winter Core Area events and activations BE APPROVED from the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated June 18, 2023 from D. Brown, Coordinator, Midtown Community Organization with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to approve part a) of the clause:

a)    the staff report dated June 20, 2023 entitled “Core Area Action Plan 2022 Review”, including its appendices, BE RECEIVED;

Motion Passed (11 to 1)

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to approve part b) of the clause:

b)    one-time funding of $100,000 in support of the Holly Jolly Market and Downtown for the Holidays events BE APPROVED from the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve; and,

Motion Passed (11 to 1)

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to approve part c) of the clause:

c)    a one-time funding increase of $50,000 to support 2023 Summer, Fall and Winter Core Area events and activations BE APPROVED from the Operating Budget Contingency Reserve;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated June 18, 2023 from D. Brown, Coordinator, Midtown Community Organization with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Not to be heard before 4:05 PM - London Hydro Inc. - 2022 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions

2023-06-20 Staff Report - AGM - London Hydro

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the following actions be taken with respect to London Hydro Inc.:

a)  the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated June 20, 2023 as Appendix “A” entitled “A by-law to ratify and confirm the Annual Resolutions of the Shareholder of London Hydro Inc.” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held June 27, 2023;

b)  the proposed “Recruitment Process for Director Appointments”, as appended to the staff report dated June 20, 2023 as Appendix ‘B’, BE APPROVED;

c)  the presentation by V. Sharma, CEO and C. Graham, Board Chair, London Hydro Inc., BE RECEIVED;

d)  the 2022 Annual Report on Finance BE RECEIVED;

e)  the communication from London Hydro Inc. regarding the Election of Directors BE RECEIVED; and,

f)  London Hydro Inc. BE REQUESTED to bring forward 2 names for consideration for appointment to the August 16, 2023 Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

3.2   Not to be heard before 4:05 PM - London and Middlesex Community Housing - 2022 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions

2023-06-20 Staff Report - AGM - LMCH

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by D. Ferreira

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

a)  on the recommendation of the City Manager, the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated June 2023 as Appendix “A” entitled “A by-law to ratify and confirm the Annual Resolutions of the Shareholder of London & Middlesex Community Housing Inc.”, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on June 27, 2023;

b)  the presentation by P. Chisholm, CEO, London & Middlesex Community Housing BE RECEIVED;

c)  the 2022 Financial Statements BE RECEIVED;

d)  the 2022 Annual Report - Building for the Future BE RECEIVED; and,

e)  the London and Middlesex Community Housing Board of Directors BE REQUESTED to bring forward a tenant’s name for consideration to the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting on September 19, 2023;

it being noted that for the current tenant vacancy on the LMCH Board the City Clerk will circulate to all members of Council all of the applications received at the same time that these are provided to the LMCH Board in accordance with the current Recruitment Process for Director Appointments.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the Committee BE RECESSED until 6:50 PM.

Motion Passed

The Committee recesses at 6:25 PM and reconvenes at 6:56 PM.

3.3   Not to be heard before 4:05 PM - Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC) - 2022 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions

2023-06-20 Staff Report - AGM - HDC

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Housing Development Corporation, London:

a)   the recommendation of the City Manager, the Independent Auditor’s Report of KPMG LLP for the Shareholder of Housing Development Corporation, London, dated December 31, 2022, BE RECEIVED;

b)  the 2022 Financial Statements BE RECEIVED; 

c)  the 2022 Year End Report to the Shareholder BE RECEIVED; and,

d)  the verbal presentation from C. Cooper and added presentation from M. Feldberg, CEO, Housing Development Corporation BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

3.4   Public Participation Meeting - Not to be heard before 4:45 PM - 2024 Growth Management Implementation Strategy (GMIS) Update

2023-06-20 Staff Report - 2024 GMIS Update

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development regarding the implementation of the London Plan growth management policies applicable to the financing of growth-related infrastructure works, the following actions be taken:

a)    the 2024 Growth Management Implementation Strategy Update BE APPROVED as appended to the staff report dated June 20, 2023 as Appendix “B”; it being noted that:

i)    Sunningdale SWMF E1 will be rescheduled from 2022 to 2024;

ii)    White Oaks SWMF 3 – West will be rescheduled from 2022 to 2024;

iii)    Stoney Creek SWM 10 will be rescheduled from 2027 to 2028;

iv)    Kilally (A30) Growth Area – Kilally Water (Phase 2, Webster St. to Clarke Rd.) will be rescheduled from 2023 to 2024; and

v)    it being further noted that further review with the development industry will take place to address housing supply opportunities in the Northeast GMIS Area/Kilally Road area;

b)    the Capital Budget BE ADJUSTED to reflect the timing changes associated with the projects noted in clause (a) above;

it being pointed out that the public participation meeting associated with this matter, the following individuals made oral submissions regarding this matter:

  • A. Beaton, Urban League;

  • J. Dionne, Sifton Properties;

  • M. Wallace, London Development Institute;

it being further pointed out that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received the following communications with respect to this matter:

  • a communication dated June 9, 2023 from A. Beaton and S. Levin, Urban League of London;

  • a communication dated June 9, 2023 from P. Masschelein, Senior Vice President and J. Diotte, Manager, Engineering, Sifton;

  • a communication dated June 19, 2023 from P. Masschelein, Senior Vice President, Sifton;

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by A. Hopkins

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority (LTVCA) and Kettle Creek Conservation Authority (KCCA) - Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry

2023-06-20 Submission - Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority and Kettle Creek Conservation Authority:

a)  the communication dated May 30, 2023 from The Honourable Graydon Smith, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry BE RECEIVED;

b)  Councillor H. McAlister BE APPOINTED to the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority for the term ending November 14, 2026; and,

c)  Councillors J. Pribil and P. Van Meerbergen BE APPOINTED to the Kettle Creek Conservation Authority for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed

Voting Record:

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Councillor H. McAlister BE APPOINTED to the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority Board for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Councillor J. Pribil BE APPOINTED to the Kettle Creek Conservation Authority Board of Directors for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Councillor P. Van Meerbergen BE APPOINTED to the Kettle Creek Conservation Authority Board of Directors for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed (9 to 4)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Adjournment

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 10:04 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 (6 hours, 5 minutes)

Okay, everyone, I’m gonna call the meeting to order. This is the 18th meeting of the strategic priorities and policy committee. I’m gonna start by reading and land acknowledgement. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwock, and Adewandran.

We honor respect the history, language, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. The city of London is currently home to many First Nations, 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 would also note 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 519-661-248924, extension 2425. I will start the meeting off by looking for disclosures of pecuniary interest from colleagues. Seeing none, we have a number of consent items before us. There are seven on the agenda.

There are a number of scheduled items. As you can see, we’ll be going through a number of annual meetings for various agencies and boards. One item for direction, so I’m gonna look to see what colleagues would like pulled from the consent. I’ll just remind you, if you pull something from the consent, ‘cause you wanna vote differently or make some changes to it, that’s gonna go to the end of the items for direction.

If you’re looking to just make a comment, you don’t need to pull it, you can just make a comment when we vote on the series of them together. So at this time, I would ask if anybody would like something from consent dealt with separately. I’ll start with Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship.

Can you please pull 2.2, the core area action plan 2022 review? Councillor Stevenson. Please pull 2.1. Anything else?

Councillor Trosa. I have a brief question about 2.5, but I do not need to pull. If it’s just a question, it’s not gonna lead to any motions, then I’ll just leave it in. You can ask your question when we do the group of them.

If that’s it, see any online? Then, okay, then I will look for someone to move a motion for items 2.3 through 2.7. Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor Hopkins. Okay, so we’ll do any comments or discussion on these items.

Let’s just kinda keep this organized. I know there are a couple of comments. Any comments or discussions on 2.3, 2.4. With colleagues’ indulgence, I’m gonna make a comment on 2.4.

This is the London Community Recovery Network update. In this, you’ll see that the predominant work of the recovery network has come to a close. There’s still a few things that will be coming, a final annual report on the activities that it would have occurred this year. But I did wanna make a few comments because of the conclusion of this work that, first off, wanted to say thanks to the over 50 community leaders and 30 organizations who have contributed to this important work since July of 2020.

This was really our work to guide ourselves through an evolving and at times chaotic situation through the pandemic of changing regulations, changing parameters on how we can or cannot operate. The recovery network was really meant to try to lead us through this process and help us out of it. The work represented more than 2,000 volunteer hours of time to identify and execute the initiatives that contributed to our recovery. Council put forward about $10 million towards this fund.

We spent $7.1 million, as colleagues will recall, we reallocated the remaining 2.8 to support some of our work on health and homelessness. That money spent went towards nearly 50 initiatives ranging from small scale community activations to support small business neighborhoods to major research and program initiatives that help health employers and employees both navigate the pandemic as well as a post pandemic job market. Aside from the work that we funded directly, community partners also took on more than 260 recovery related initiatives that were rolled under the banner of the LRCN in our community since 2020, which was an unprecedented focus and collective effort between the city and a number of agencies and partners across our community. So I just wanted to, as we near the end of this work, just say thank you to all of those involved who helped us work through this.

I know there are still a ways to go with recovery efforts, particularly in some industries, but for the most part, this work, I think, was worthwhile collective work that we did together. And I wanted to just make those comments without just passing this by as a consent item. So that was my comments on 2.5. Any comments on, sorry, that was my comments on 2.4.

Comments on 2.5. I think Councilor Trossa, you had some. Thank you very much. And through the chair, I first wanted to thank everybody that worked on these panels.

I know that, I know how interviewing can really, really take a lot of time, especially when you’re looking at numbers. And what really impressed me about this is you received 60 applications asking for over 4.3 million. And you were only able to fund 13 at about half a million. And I’m worried when I look at that, because I’m wondering are we allocating enough resources to this program?

And I know that that’s not something that would come up today. I am looking forward to the July 19th SPPC where we will get more information. And I was just wondering if Steph had to the chair any additional comments on that. I’ll just see if there’s any additional comments on the community grants program.

Go ahead, Ms. Smith. Thank you. And through the chair, thank you for the question and the comments, you’re correct.

We often in our annual stream, we fund, we receive about three to $4 million in requests. And we have about 500,000 that we allocate annually. So it’s about 12% of the applications that we fund. Sometimes applications don’t meet the eligibility criteria.

They don’t align with the strategic plan. They may duplicate services or maybe the organization has not demonstrated a financial need for city of London funding. However, as we do a little bit more analysis on both the annual stream and the multi-year stream, we can look at those projects and how we can remove barriers to hopefully increase the organizations that we fund. And we’ll be bringing the policy with some recommendations to you next month at SPPC that hopefully will show you some enhancements we’ve made to the policy.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments in the grants program? Okay, I looked too quickly.

Councillor Lehman had a comment on the recovery network items. So I’ll go back to Councillor Lehman on that. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I just was thinking as you spoke to that how this is kind of a, we’re in a reflection point as we come to the end of this.

And I think back in those days when the city was hit in the country and the world, quite frankly, with COVID, and we could have gone many different directions. And so I think it’s appropriate that you express gratitude for the many organizations that came together, rolled up their sleeves and instead of running away from this, but embraced it and got to work. And I’d like to point out to individuals, Ms. Livingston, who was first kind of new on the job with this hit and who drove this certainly was not, I’m sure, what you expected when you signed on to the roll.

So I want to thank you for this, being a major part of this initiative. And I’d also like to give a shout out and gratitude to our previous Mayor Ed Holder. Mayor Holder was a captain of this council and this city in the storming waters. He was a big believer in this recovery network.

Many conversations with many counselors at the time because there was divided opinion on the amount of money and how much it should be spent. Mayor Holder was a driver on this as he was steadfast in many aspects of managing the COVID crisis. So I think it would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge his work in this effort. At this point in time, as this comes to an end, I just wanted to make those comments.

Thank you, Councillor Lehman, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship and through you. I also have a couple of questions about the London Community Grants Program. We have in this report for the first time since I’ve arrived at City Hall, actually, a listing of those who are on the Grants Coordinating Committee through you to our staff.

I’d like to know how often that committee is refreshed with new members. Go ahead. Thank you and through the chair, community grant members come on for the four year period. So they allocate in their first year, the multi-year stream, which lasts four years.

And then each year from year one to year four, they allocate the annual stream. So we will be going out this fall for an entire new community to review panel. And you’ll hear more about the panel and the makeup in the policy update next month. Thank you for that, ‘cause I do think that we need to keep those members turning over as well.

So different perspectives are used in evaluating the grants that are going to be approved. The other question I had for our staff is with regard to the projects that were not funded. And this has been an ongoing frustration for me with this program. Is it possible in future annual reports on this to also provide us a list of the programs that were not recommended for funding?

I think it’s important for us to see because this is public money who applied and who was successful. But I think we should be seeing a list of all the applicants. I’m just wondering through you if staff can comment on providing a list of those applicants who were not funded as well. Good, thank you.

And through the chair, I can take that back and talk to my colleagues and also perhaps talk to the organizations as I’m not aware of funders who share information about those who did not get fund. I’d wanna talk to those organizations and see how they feel about being publicly on a public list about being unsuccessful for funding. So I would like to get back to you about that, thank you. So just a quick follow-up comment on that.

Well, I respect that in other sectors that might not be the practice in order for us to evaluate how we feel. Whether or not the grants program is being effective and whether the successful applicants are indeed properly aligned with our strategic plan pillars. I think it is important for us to see what the range of applications was. There’s nothing, I have no objections to any of the programs that were funded this year being funded, absolutely not.

Which in past years I have, so that’s a good thing. However, I see in this year’s particular batch of programs a scope that is not fully encompassing all of our areas of strategic focus. And that may be a result of not having applications that address some of our areas of strategic focus at all. But it could also be a case of some organizations having great grant writers.

It could be a case of a number of different factors. But in order to evaluate if the program needs any adjustment from council side, I think we need to know what we’re saying no to as well as what we’re saying yes to. So I’ll leave that just as a comment with staff for now and look forward to them discussing amongst themselves and perhaps providing some more information for us in the future. Any further comments on .5, the grants program?

Anything on 2.6, 2.7. Okay, so 2.3 to 2.7 are moved and seconded. If there’s no further debate, I’m gonna open that for voting. I’ll do that.

Councillor Stevenson. I vote yes. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 14 to zero. Okay, given we pulled a couple of items from consent they will go down after 4.1.

So that brings us to scheduled items. The first scheduled item we have is the London Hydro Annual General Meeting of the Chair of Older Annual Resolutions. There is a presentation from London Hydro to start this off. So I can go directly to members of the board up in the gallery to make your presentation and welcome to Ms.

Graham representing the board today. I know there’s a number of your colleagues up there as well there. And so hopefully you can point them out for us as well. Thank you so much, Your Worship, members of SAP PC.

Thank you so much for giving us time this evening to present our outstanding 2022 results and request approval of some shareholder resolutions which you’ll find to follow. And as you mentioned, Your Worship, first I want to acknowledge that the City of London and thereby London Hydro resides on the traditional territories of many First Nations communities. But in particular, I’d like to recognize the community’s resident near London today, which would be the Chippals of the Thames First Nation, Muncie Delaware Nation and the Knight and Nation of the Thames. And to begin, I’d like to recognize the board and the executive leadership team of London Hydro who are responsible for the successful results that Dr.

Sharman and I are going to present this evening. I’ve got a lot of them here with me. I’d appreciate it if you would stand and be recognized please. Thank you so much, I appreciate that.

Now this evening, I’m not going to be following the slides that you have in order in your binders. But there are a couple that I’d like to refer to as we go through. So first of all, I’d like to recognize our retiring members of the board of directors this evening. Michael Van Holst, Jack Smith, Gabe Valenti.

They’ll be leaving us, but they’ll be sorely missed. Their loyalty, their expertise, and will be sorely missed. And we’ll be replacing those directors further on to the summer. If you would locate slide number five, it’s our purpose, vision, and values slide.

Very important because it provides some initial context to my presentation. London Hydro is an electro-distribution utility solely focused on retail distribution and ancillary billing services. And you see that reflected here as our corporate purpose. As our vision statement makes clear, we fulfill your, the shareholder expectations through excellent reliability, cost-effective operation, and award-winning customer service.

Obviously, strong and consistent financial performance is foundational to be able to deliver excellent results. Slide number seven, if you would. Over time, London Hydro is produced for the city of London, a steady 5.5% annual capital growth. As of year-end 2022, the asset base of London Hydro is $567 million, including $223 million in shareholder equity.

And of special interest to this body and to city council, London Hydro’s board of directors has once again approved a $5 million annual dividend to be issued to the city of London. In 2022, we made fully $33 million worth of investment into the London grid to replace aging infrastructure, expand capacity due to London’s growth, and to prepare for our electrified future. These investments are foundational contributors to the Ontario leading 94% customer satisfaction rating we received in 2022. Let me show you why.

Slide number nine, if you will. In 2022, our grid reliability ranked in the top quartile of all Ontario distribution entities. In our business, reliability is defined by the number and duration of outages each year. As you can see from slide number nine, both outages and duration are on a continual decline indicating increased grid reliability year over year.

In 2022, those trends continued. And as you might guess, really great reliability can be really expensive if you spend enough money on people and equipment, very high cost. But London Hydro’s unique value proposition, and this is on slide number 11, is our ability to deliver great reliability at very low cost. In 2022, we were quite literally best in class.

For all like utilities in Ontario, we were the lowest cost per customer. And the reason we can deliver cost effective reliability is our ongoing investments in digital grid monitoring and recovery systems. Part of that $33 million in system investments I showed you earlier. If you recall, I want to give you an example of why the digital grid is so critical to our reliability and our customer service.

If you recall, in May of 2022, that Duraco Storm blew through London. Two EF1 tornadoes struck down and took 57,000 of our customers offline. But by utilizing our digital monitoring, switching and dispatching systems, we were able to restore 18% of customers in two hours, 35% of customers in five hours and 90% in eight hours. London was up and running, and we had people and equipment ready, willing, and able to assist neighbouring utilities in their recovery work.

I’d like to give you a little bit about what’s next. What are the strategic things London Hydro talks about around the board table? As we are all well aware, electricity will be the fuel of the future. In the preparation for a massive increase in demand, intense development of our grid in London and of our transmission partner, Hydro1, will be required.

Electrified heating, cooling, electrified transportation, and integration of green energy systems will demand dramatic investments throughout our entire industry. And I can assure you that we are taking prudent steps in our grid planning and budgeting to accommodate these future requirements. Lastly, noting that the increased environmental, social and governance disclosure are being expected of every corporate entity today, we at London Hydro have chosen to assume a leadership position in the Ontario distribution industry. We’re very fortunate to have Dr.

Andy Raimack, UWO’s, special advisor to the president for the green economy and sustainability on our board of directors. As chair of our policy and HR committee, Dr. Raimack is currently overseeing our ESG policy and performance metric development. We expect that a comprehensive go forward sustainability plan will be presented to and approved by the board of directors somewhere around second quarter of 2024.

Actually, many programs that fall under the sustainability banner have already taken flight at London Hydro as a matter of good business practice. For example, we fully analyzed and minimized our waste streams and carbon footprint and identified prudent opportunities for improvement. We have instituted our award-winning employee health and wellness program called Live Safe Work Safe that supports our employees’ physical and mental health and provides addiction support. Finally, in 2022, and this is the G in the ESG, a fulsome corporate governance modernization was undertaken, including renewing our risk management framework and the redevelopment of our corporate governance documents, both of which enhance effective oversight of London Hydro.

Your worship, that concludes my formal remarks. So through you, Dr. Sharma and I would take any questions or comments you or the SPPC members might have. Thank you.

Great, thank you. I’ll go to colleagues for any questions or comments they’d like to make. Go ahead, Councillor Frank. Thank you, and I just want to congratulate you for another great year.

I do have two questions. And my background is in the environment, so you probably already know where I’m headed with this. But I am wondering, are you currently working with our staff on meeting London’s net zero targets and working that into your work plans currently? Yes, ma’am, we are.

Oh, through you. Go ahead, yeah, of course. Mr. Chair, yes, Councillor, we are.

We’ve met with your staff and working with Jay Stanford and having an ongoing dialogue. Perfect, thank you. I look forward to that because I think you guys are incredibly essential towards London being able to hit those targets. So I look forward to that continued collaboration.

I’m also wondering if you are providing feedback to the IASO regarding the ever-increasing use of gas in our electrical grid and how that’s counterintuitive to us trying to hit our electrification targets. So just wondering if you guys have had that discussion and are working with IASO. Through you, Mr. Mayor, I’m going to ask Dr.

Sharma to respond to that as he’s responsible for our inter-agencies communications. Thank you, Madam Chair. Your worship, indeed, there are some discussion, not as a utility on their own, but as an association of the utilities. So I am on the board of electricity distributor association.

And we submit our reports and filings. And one of the cornerstone of our reporting to IASO and to the government, Ministry of Energy is to look for ways to remove fossil fuel usage in electricity. Now, I grant you that it’ll be a long road and incremental approach that IASO is taking in order to get there. However, our submission speaks to your point that you’re making to eliminate gradually or otherwise the fossil fuel usage in electricity grid.

Just to make a point, however, if I may add, we are very clean. We are the cleanest province in the whole Canada right now in the electricity generation. Thank you. I appreciate that information.

Councillor Trossa. Councillor Pribble. Sorry. I got it.

You got pointed in. I didn’t quite make you make it passes. Sorry about that. Councillor Pribble.

Mr. Chair, to the team from Hydro, I wanted to ask you, are we looking at potentially replacing certain lines, hydro lines, and putting them in the underground instead of over? And I know there are certain infrastructure that we are doing, repairing the roads, et cetera. And for the infill, certainly, there will be much more beneficial.

I do know there are costs associated with that. But are we considering it? And what is our vision on this idea? And through the chair.

Yes, Councillor, we certainly, on a continuing basis, analyze our line failures, successes, and with the intense grid monitoring systems that our digital grid affords, we know when there are a higher rate of failure on one line or another. I will allow Dr. Sharma to respond more specifically to this. But that is part of our constant ongoing balance between cost and reliability.

Thank you. Just to complement that point, Your Worship. The cost is certainly one factor. We have a regulator, OEBE, which very closely monitors investment decision that we make in the grid.

And it balances against the benefits, such as the one you refer, reliability, the aesthetics aspect of it, and infill concentration or density. So if you look at the new subdivisions of a standard is all underground, subdivisions in a new area. And downtown majority is built underground. Dundas Street is all flex street, put a lot of money to make it a very reliable network downtown.

I don’t believe Dundas Street businesses should have experienced even an outage, because everything is redundant, and they will never see. I mean, something can happen always, but they should not see an outage. So we do make those decisions. One thing that often, and I’m not teaching anybody here, but there is one aspect that we overlook sometime with underground.

In some divisions where we have put underground, when that cable fails, it takes 12 hours to 15 hours to locate, to pull, and repair. So we made one more decision to expedite that repair in the future. We are using more ductwork rather than direct burial of the cable, but that comes at a cost as well, increased cost. And OEBE questions us our investment.

So give you a little debate at the OEBE settlement. They removed from our capital expenditure of the past $2.5 million for something that we could not justify, because they said you could have done the direct burial and subdivision, didn’t have to do a ductwork, which costs us 2.5 million extra. So we have to always debate and discuss and balance this, but we make very prudent decision whenever possible, and wherever possible, go underground if it can be done safely and prudently. Thank you.

  • Okay, Councillor Schose. Thank you very much, and through the chair, as a member of the Civic Works Committee, I’m very well aware of the very active program that the City Engineering Department has, that typically, that often involve tearing up streets. There’s probably a better technical word than tearing up streets, but you know what I mean. And these schedules and agendas are published well in advance, so any member of the public would be able to follow what the work plan is for the next year.

My direct question through the chair is, does your agency make an attempt to track these infrastructure projects, and at that point, do an evaluation of where undergrounding might be appropriate and cost-effective? Through the chair, thank you for the question, and I will refer the technicalities of infrastructure development investment back to Dr. Sharma. Thank you, Madam Chair.

You worship. So there is a committee called Utility Coordination Committee that we are a member of. That’s run by, I think, Engineering Department in the City of London, and we communicate and talk about those plans, and we discuss the cost-sharing arrangement in those, and wherever possible and where to prudent again, we make appropriate decision. Yes, we prefer underground in a dense, highly dense area, but those decisions are made in a joint manner with the city, and I have to say this, and I thank the Engineering Department there, there has been a very, very positive collaboration on those topics during this extra ordinary construction season for the last few years.

Go ahead, Councilor. Further through the chair, and I don’t mean to put our staff on the spot here, but may I ask the city engineer to comment on that, and also wonder if it would be possible for civic works to receive reports from time to time about this committee? And start with Ms. Chair.

We’ll see where she wants to go with it. Go ahead. Thank you, Your Worship. So the Utility Coordinating Committee has worked, served us very well, in terms of working with partners like London Hydro to plan our construction works, actually several years in advance, in the case of really large projects, and co-design those spaces together.

Real estate within the road right of way is often limited, so we need to work really well to collaborate on where things go. Should they be underground? Should they be above ground? And we value that input from all of the partners at UCCs and London Hydro as well.

In terms of reporting out, we’ve never traditionally reported out on this committee. It is a working group between the various utility owners. We do, however, provide a report every year that updates committee and Council on the progress of last year’s construction, and the plans for construction for the coming year. And that might be an appropriate section for us to add into that report as a bit of an update on the work of the UCC, if that’s appropriate.

Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ms. Gwen, for your presentation.

And the report, I always appreciate the update. And I can’t believe that the tornadoes that came through over a year ago, and congratulations on getting us back to normal as fast as you did. I was in Toronto that weekend, and it took them a little while longer, so congratulations on that. We sent some of our crews to Toronto.

Okay. I really appreciated what you had to say about your sustainability plan and the programs that are going into that. And I also appreciated your comment around the electricity being the fuel of the future. And it’s pretty hard not to ask the question as we undertake electrifying our transit.

How is that kind of, what does that process look like between London Hydro and London Transit and the city? And are those conversations even happening now? I feel a little disconnected as to as we want to electrify everything and get things going. I know it takes a while, but if you could just touch upon the process a little bit and how it looks today going forward.

Thank you. Through you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins.

At a very high level, at a strategic level, I have to say that the partnership between London City Staff and Council and London Hydro is extraordinary. We are constantly in communications, and I’ll let Dr. Sharma be more specific because of course as a board, we don’t participate in those. So I would not be familiar with the processes and ongoing, but I have to say the coordination and adjustments because at times, the city or London Hydro runs ahead or runs behind and the coordination really has been extraordinary, the partnership has been extraordinary.

So I’ll turn it over to Dr. Sharma to be more specific. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Your worship through you. Yes, indeed. So first of all, on the aspect of sustainability for London Hydro is a corporation. We have been at it since 2013 very sincerely and reducing our footprint on land, water and energy.

And we’ve been monitoring our growth throughout and how the steps that we are taking in pandemic through a little curve ball at us. But nevertheless, during the pandemic, only curve ball it was that we had to use more chemicals to sanitize the office building more than other years. That’s why we had a little challenge in that year. Otherwise, our sanitary, affluent discharge, water usage, the energy usage has been constantly declining on a per capita basis, even though the employee workforce has increased in those years.

So, and we are continuing with the monitoring system. And as part of the comment that our chair made about ESG, Environmental Social and Governance, we’ll be bringing a SASB standard report, including the reporting on those metrics. We did earlier a GRI report, but we stopped GRI report in 2017, 2017 was the last, just because it was not getting us any recognition at the regulation regulator, but we are spending money on providing this report. So, we are now going to SASB because regulators now more in tune with ESG standards.

That’s one aspect of it. Second aspect electrification of transportation. Yes, it is happening everywhere. Personal vehicle to the transit buses.

And we’ve been working with, for example, the electric bus initiative at the city hall, we are a party to a non-confidential agreement with them on the development that is going on through their consultant, Qtric. And we are working very closely in following that up. In so far, the information that we have gleaned, we are stand ready to serve the routes that are planned by the London Transit for electric buses, including at the depot and in between the depot points, with a very high demand charging system. And we are ready to have capacities there for those considerations.

We are also working with other private school buses. We are also working with them because they are also in the process of electrifying their buses. It’ll take some time, but we stand ready to work with them as well. Third aspect is the personal vehicle in the city.

We are good to a large part of it. Some old section where very old homes are there, there will be some upgrade and expenditure needed by customers. What will work those on a case-by-case basis? But most of the city, we are ready to serve those charging stations as well.

Mr. Chair, did that answer your question, Councillor Hopkins? Yes, and I really appreciated the answer. It was, you know, good information for us to have because we don’t really see what’s going on, and but we do hear the concerns.

I appreciate the comment around the residential development as we electrify, but we’re still not there yet. And I would assume the more development that comes on that does electrify vehicles, for instance, the more communication and conversation will happen, I would really encourage you to keep that communication lines going. So thank you. Through you, Mr.

Chair, Councillor Hopkins, certainly the board strategically, and the engineering staff is keeping a close eye on the progress of electrification and making sure that we advance plan the grid and its support systems and the budget to support that kind of development. Thank you. Councillor Lehman. Thank you, Mr.

Graham. I just want to speak to, first of all, the board. It’s been my experience over a number of years at council. Very impressed with the quality and work that the board does.

So thank you to those I’ve served and are moving on and welcome to the new members and your workers chair. And then as well to Dr. Sharma, I’ve been very as well impressed with the work of the executive team and the staff at London Hydro. I think a strong board, strong executive continues, no surprise that we continue to see strong financial results ever since I’ve been a member of this council.

It’s important the work that you do for a city. Not only do you keep the lights on for people at their homes, but to provide reliable energy sources for the industry that is in the city and is considering coming to London for the jobs for those people to have their lights on when they come home. So it’s extremely important. I think it’s a competitive advantage that London has when we’re in competition for companies are looking to bring investment in jobs to this area.

So thank you for that. As a shareholder, I’m very happy with the increase in our equity as a sole shareholder here. I just wanna talk a bit about our dividends. I see increasing shareholder equity.

I see a dividend of $5 million a year in here. I don’t understand there was one pay out, one extra pay out one time. At what point do we start to monetize those the growth in shareholder value? I’m aware of challenges that are coming towards to us on the multi-year budget next year and the pressure that it puts on taxpayers to fund their city.

So in light of that, and if the chair would permit, I’d like to maybe go into staff here to just ask, you know, are those, our discussions had between the city as a shareholder and London Hydro about dividend growth? I’ll go to Ms. Perbo. Thank you through the chair.

So it’s not a discussion that we’ve had recently. Certainly that is something that in the past, the amount has been changed historically for a temporary period where they did declare a dividend that was sufficient a little bit bigger for a temporary period of time. Certainly COVID was a bit of a change in terms of what some plans were, but it’s not a recent conversation that we’ve had. But certainly if it was the Wish of Council, we could continue to have those conversations and look at that opportunity.

It’s something that we would look to the board and have discussions with London Hydro Administration, whether that is possible and what that would do to their plan in the future. And if that was a possibility to investigate. Thank you. I understand capital is needed for our growth.

The city’s experiencing a tremendous growth and the capital is required. However, there is a certain discipline that you bring to corporations when shareholders demand some monetization of that shareholder value. So from my perspective, I would like to see some sort of discussion between the city and the board to consider. A progressive way to see the dividend grow to the city.

Again, realizing reliability for the utility is paramount. I don’t want to put that in her jeopardy, but just from a shareholders point of view, I think that’s a question that should be explored. Go ahead. Through you, your worship.

Thank you very much for the question. And given that it’s a financial discussion, it’s best taken offline, but certainly in the shareholders agreement, there is a requirement that 40% of our net profit at minimum be declared as a dividend, which we have consistently done every year with the exception of the one extraordinary dividend that was declared. So we understand the pressure on council and you clearly understand the pressure on us. But I think as always, we should have up indoors to discussion if you were members of SPPC of council wish for us to engage.

We’re more than happy to do that, but probably best done offline. So I’ll just go to the chair. Do I need to make a motion to that or is it sufficient that my comments would be to start to initiate that conversation? Mr.

Chair. One second. Oh, sure, of course. I’m just not gonna, so a couple of things were said, we’re not gonna have an offline discussion of any sort of quorum of committee to talk about financials.

But just give me a sec ‘cause I wanna identify for the councilor an appropriate process for him to raise us. So my understanding is the councilor’s request is to initiate or start to initiate a discussion about the dividend again. And I think that that’s probably best driven initially by conversations with our staff. Ultimately, you would have to come back to some sort of shareholders resolution at the appropriate time.

We wouldn’t make a change to the dividend at this particular meeting without the proper, obviously background and researchers, I think is what the councilor’s asking for is to start up the conversation. So presumably, if the chair is willing and our staff are willing, that initiation of that discussion could happen at our staff level and it could be reported back through the appropriate standing committee, the appropriate time on what that may look like. Obviously, it would be an analysis of the financials and the stability of the organization to not put it at risk. I guess I’m looking to Ms.

Barbona if she needs a motion to direct staff to engage in that conversation or whether that’s something that can occur given the willingness of the board to have that and start those discussions. Thank you through the chair. So the shareholder declaration sets out how the dividend is declared and what that process is. So as the chair of London Hydro had noted, there’s a very specific metrics, about 40% of annual net earnings of the corporation.

So where there is additional normal earnings, then they can consider declaring a dividend. Of course, this is very much subject to what their business plans are, what the net profit is of the organization at the end of the day. And there are clear clauses set out that where it would impair their ability to deliver business, then a dividend would not be declared. So certainly there are tools there.

I’m happy to have the conversation and to have those discussions. I do not need a resolution to have those discussions and to further investigate whether that is even a possibility based on what their financial projections would be. Sure, so we won’t need to make a resolution, but I would ask when you bring that back, given this hasn’t been a conversation we’ve had in some time given there are new members of council, I think, an overview of that component of the shareholders resolution, how the dividends have worked historically and the shareholder directed restrictions and parameters around that discussion is probably valuable for councillors to have as well. Does that satisfy your inquiry, councillor?

Yes, it does. And thank you, Ms. Graham, I appreciate that. And Ms.

Barbone, I think that satisfies me. I think it’s important to do that. I have Councillor Frank again, go ahead. Thank you, yes.

I just wanted to loop back on an earlier comment by Dr. Sharma. I was just hoping to seek a bit more clarification ‘cause I believe you mentioned that Ontario had the cleanest grid in Canada. And my understanding is Manitoba and Quebecer over 90% hydroelectric and then 3% to 5% wind, whereas Ontario has 7%.

And this is 2019 numbers, 7% of natural gas. So I was just curious to see maybe if those numbers have changed in 2019 or what you’re referring to when Ontario has the cleanest grid. So there are two aspects to electricity, one is the capacity aspect, basically having how many horsepower and second how much energy you draw. For example, our wind capacity is very large, but energy drawn proportionately changes depending on the weather and wind.

So we are 7% to 11% wind and we are similarly 7% to 11% gas or there’s a very minute, very, very traces but oil also somewhere. So Manitoba and Winnipeg especially has some gas. So there also gas it varies depending upon the hydro availability. So gas is not primary usage in Manitoba, it’s hydro and it can vary quite a bit just like Ontario can vary.

If I may correct my statement, purest will be the hydro-cubac, which has some gas but much less than even Manitoba. The BC Hydro has a lot of gas now in the urban centre, they have a lot of cogent plants. So if you look at the Ontario grid, we have power generation owned by government, power generation owned by private contractors. There’s a third component that we often overlook, which is industry themselves having cogents and there’s a lot of cogents in Ontario that run on gas, but they are not called upon because they don’t make much money these days on the market.

So even though on install capacity, you will see we are higher than Manitoba and gas capacity, but on running-wise, we will be very compatible to some years better than Manitoba. Thank you, yes, just wanted to further understand that. I’ll just add the context for our colleagues at Hydro. Part of the interest in this is we recently received some information on our climate emergency action plan and our trending towards the targets.

Given the electrification of both our fleet as well as industries across London, we don’t get quite as far towards our targets when the province shifts more towards gas. And so that provincial decision obviously has an impact on how we can get to our declared targets or how quickly we can. So given Council’s interest in this, we’ve had a previous discussion about this in that. So I wanted you to understand our context and our very much interest in the grid and how it’s powered because of its impacts on us meeting our targets as well.

So just that additional context for you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Other comments, if not, colleagues will see a series of motions that are loaded into the E-Scribe system which consolidates the staff report as well as receiving the annual financial report, receiving the presentation, receiving the communication about the elections of directors, requesting Hydro to bring forward names for considerations through the process.

And of course, the stuff in the staff report, which is introducing the relevant changes to the shareholders meeting to change the process by which we do the recruitment of directors, which you can see in appendix, in schedule I of the by-law, or actually no appendix B of the by-law, which talks about the recruitment process for directors. So we would put all of that on the floor and then we’d be able to discuss it. I’ll look to Councillor Ramen who’s willing to move it. Okay, seconder for that.

You can see all of this in the E-Scribe if you refresh your screen and go to the section. Seconded by Councillor Cudi, you seconded? Yeah, okay. So before we get into debate on this, I do wanna say, since we’ll have a debate now, thank you very much for the presentation.

Thank you for the reports and all the documentation. And thank you very much for answering our thorough questions with your thorough answers. We appreciate not only our ongoing relationship but these times when we get to engage as the shareholder to the corporation in a direct way and face-to-face, that’s always very valuable to us as the shareholder. So thank you very much.

Councillor Troso. As this came up on the screen, particularly item F, it reminds me that I did have a question about the selection process for members of the board if I may ask it. Sure, yeah. And because this is moved and seconded on the floor, that’s part of the motion.

So very, very, a very reasonable to ask questions about it. So this is one of those situations where many people will apply for the position based on a public solicitation. Does the SPPC just see the two names or do we see everybody who applied? So I’m gonna have the clerk answer that and can go through how the process works, what you would see, what to expect.

Thank you through the chair. This was discussed at a previous meeting when the proposal came forward from London Hydro. And indeed, the SPPC, all of council will receive all of the applications. And so it will just come back from the Hydro Board with the recommendation of preferred candidates.

And may I further ask through the chair, what generally without going into people or too much specifics would inform that decision in terms of who would be recommended through the chair? I guess this is back to Hydro. So I’m gonna ask if the chair is willing to respond to that or if the, I’m not willing, but could respond to that. So as you know, the new process outlines a role for the board to do in the either interviewing or selection and making a recommendation process.

So the councilor’s question is, although we receive both your recommendation and all the applications and the decision is ultimately ours, the question is what sort of criteria would you put into the process and assessment of the candidates on your side for your part of the process? Thank you, worship. Councilor Trussell, thank you for the question. We will certainly look at whether they meet the qualifications required that’s included in the shareholder agreement.

There’s a certain list of skills and whatnot that initially are a screen certainly. And once we receive the various CVs and the applications forms from the city, we look through under our consideration at the governance and HR committee and shortlist. And that shortlist, Mr. Trussell, would be based upon basically a skill set.

The shortlisted candidates will be personally interviewed in person, not virtually. And so that we can have an interaction with them to understand how their experience and interest fits with the needs of the board. In this particular case, we have two retiring board members who are audit capable, both have been chairs of our audit committee. So I can assure you we’re looking for audit as a skill set.

And obviously that would enjoy working with London Hydro have a technical background and ideally have some experience with the regulated industry, a crown corporation. We are in essence a municipal crown and those kinds of things. And after the in-person interviews, the HR and governance committee will shortlist again and make the recommendation of two candidates to the board of directors who get a chance to review all the CVs, ask the committee questions and either agree or send it back for more interviews. And if they agree, we will pass that resolution and bring it to you for approval.

Go ahead, Councillor Trussell. Without second guessing decisions that you’ve made in the past or getting into too much discussion about who may or may not apply, I wanna ask this question. How would a member of the public who would be characterized loosely as an activist, as a critic of the system, as somebody who has publicly been critical of your agency, as somebody who doesn’t have expertise in audit, who perhaps has expertise in regulatory affairs be viewed by this committee? Well, I think we were clear about if they have the skill set to contribute because we’re a small board.

And it would certainly be whether they have the skills to contribute to the board at the level we are and finance skills, HR skills, regulatory skills, et cetera. So it would be judged just like anyone. We pride ourselves in developing here a very open and equitable process, whether it, both through our recruitment of candidates, which we assisted with. We had a very good group of candidates and through the interview process.

So an equitable interview for the best skills to fit the job is how anyone would be viewed. Thank you. Sure, and I’ll just let Councillor Trussell know, like ultimately it’s our decision as well. So the full slate of candidates just because the board makes recommendation doesn’t mean we necessarily have to go with that recommendation.

We have the capability of choosing any candidate or that we’d like when the, and that’s why both the board’s recommendation as well as all of the original applicants will come before council for our decision because at the end of the day we get to choose. The other piece of this too is for us to have some valuable insight into the interview process that as part of the proposed process within Appendix B that our representative, Councillor ramen on the board is a mandatory participant in the interviews and then also will be in the room here for us and can hopefully garner some insight into what happened at the board level, you know, firing any sort of confidentiality that she has to maintain with the process. But certainly that’s a contemplated piece of the process as well. I want to go back to the Councillor and then I’ll, I can come to you, go back to the Councillor.

Thank you and I do take some comfort knowing that my colleague Councillor ramen is going to be participating in this. But I want to make sure that separate and apart from the information that she conveys to you that you’re receiving information from the city in terms of some of our equity and inclusion concerns that have come to the table quite a bit over the last period of time with respect to these important committees. I know the governance committee is looking at this and I know one of our advisory committees is looking at this and I just want to make sure that this decision is made with those considerations in mind. Councillor Trozau, I’m also going to have Councillor ramen comment on this because as our representative on the board, one of the roles as Councillors we can do is bring that perspective of our policies, our directions, the type of information we feel is important to consider in these processes to the board and so Councillor ramen, if you want to make some comments.

Thank you and through you. First, I want to say thank you to the members of London Hydro Board members and our senior staff for being here today. With regard to Councillor Trozau’s questions regarding the process by which we’re going to go through this interview process for the first time, I think that was really contemplated when we looked at this process to begin with. This was an opportunity to have a deeper dive and a more fulsome exploration of the possibility of candidates that were being presented to the city and I do think that as we are going through this process, it’s a good learning and I appreciate the help that the clerk has provided and also a nod to our friends from the housing corporation because a lot of when we were looking to build out the process for London Hydro selection process for board members, we were looking to your process for guidance on that as well.

Ultimately, what we’re looking to do is have an equitable process and to do that, we really were striving to bring forward candidates that would be in line with what Council has been looking at as well when we’ve been making appointments and that interview process allows for that conversation to happen in that room and then allows for the recommendation to come forward from Hydro’s committee to Council in order to provide that lens, but also that really important and very, very critical and I can’t stress this enough. This is a very talented and learned group of board members, I feel out of my depth very often. And so to have that skill set and that knowledge that’s needed to do this work, I think it’s really critical. And so making sure that we have people at that table with that financial expertise and knowledge, making sure that they have that audit experience because we do have that knowledge gap with Gabe and with Jack leaving us.

So making sure that that’s also very well-weighted in this process I think is quite critical and hopefully when we bring those names forward in the next month or so, there will be more chance to have that discussion, happy to answer questions at that time as well. Councilor Troso, you’re good? Okay, all right, I think we’re good on that. So any other questions on the resolution in the motion that’s before us?

Can you see none? I’m gonna open that for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed 14 to zero. Okay, thanks again for your time.

We appreciate the dialogue today, but on to the next one, which is London and Middlesex Community Housing, their annual general meeting of the shareholders with the resolutions as well. And so I will turn it over to them and Chair Squire, are you gonna present? I am, I am, I’m gonna put it first. Go ahead with the presentation.

So thank you very much. I’m not gonna go over reports and information. What I thought I would do is sort of present to you what the point of view of the Board of Directors is at this point of time as it relates to London Middlesex Community Housing. Housing is a topical issue in the city of London.

We appreciate that. But we wanna talk about London Middlesex Community Housing tonight. Mostly you’re gonna hear about thank yous, but you are gonna hear one ask in what I’m going to speak about. I’m really aware of the amount of money that is invested in London Middlesex Housing.

A lot of money is invested in what we do. Unlike London Hydro, you will never have us coming to you providing you with a dividend payment to end any suspense that there might be. But the work that we do is important. And we have what I think is a very good Board of Directors.

Two of my colleagues are here. The Deputy Mayor is a member of our Board. Councilor McAllister is a member of our Board. They make a meaningful contribution.

They don’t just show up at meetings and listen. They are completely involved in what we do. And I invite any of you, if you have questions about what we’re doing, speak to them. And I think they’ll be able to keep you very well informed.

Or if you want, you can speak to me anytime you wish. I’m also really proud that we have tenant members of our Board of Directors who provide a really meaningful contribution from the point of view of tenants. So my thank you to you is for all of the capital that we’ve been given over the past period of time, not just by the city of London, but by other political partners. Let me put that into context.

Most of our buildings were built in 1972 and have received almost no upgrades, no improvements, no changes since 1972. So now we’re doing the reimagine project in South London, which is almost entirely a new build. And we are upgrading our buildings across the Board. And for that, we’re very, very grateful and we’re very aware of the steps that have been taken by City Council, this City Council and a previous City Council to make housing a focus.

I also want to tell you that the Board and staff are completely as far as I’m concerned in sync. I was there when we hired our CEO less than two years ago. When we hired him, he said, I’m not the kind of person who’s gonna walk in and make all kinds of changes overnight, firing people, changing things. I’m gonna take my time and I’m gonna get this right.

And he’s doing that. He has made large changes in the way we do things, large changes in our senior management. And I think we have the right people in place from a management point of view. The reason I like our Board and our management is we don’t often say we’re getting this perfect, we’re doing this completely right, we don’t have to worry about it.

We’ve had conversations about pest control. We’ve had conversations about vacancy rates. We’ve had conversations about security where we have had frank discussions, where we have said we are not doing as well as we should do. We are not serving our tenants as well as we should.

And we’re making those changes to make that happen. And we’ve had recent reports on those to do a better job. I think the other thing that is important to remember is that we’ve had meetings with our tenants. I’ve gone to some of them, where we’ve gone into the buildings and talked to the people in our buildings.

You get honest answers from them. I can promise you they don’t tell you how wonderful you are. They tell us about how challenging it is right now to live in London Middlesex Community Housing. They’re worried about pest control, they’re worried about cleanliness, they’re worried about their own security in our buildings.

We are victims, I suppose to some extent of what we’re seeing in the general London area, where we aren’t as safe as we used to be. We’ve made huge investments in that area, but I do have an ask. And it’s an important ask. We presently get nine of our 10 tenants from the city of London list, which is usually consists of people with high needs, high needs in terms of supports.

We are not supportive housing. We are not in well. We are rent care to income where people come into our buildings, live in our buildings as any other tenants would. When those people are subjected to people coming into the buildings who do not have the necessary supports to function in our buildings, we are doing a disservice to those people who come into our buildings, who are being set up for failure, and the current tenants of our buildings, who are raising families, are acting as law abiding citizens and are making great contributions, but they can’t do it if their buildings become war zones.

What I’m saying to you is, let us have the people who can function best in our buildings. Let’s make sure that we have people who need our help in the way we can provide help. I know that staff is looking at that right now. I know they’re intent on helping us in that area, I hope.

I know the members of our board are well aware of that, and I hope you’ll consider it because it’s important to us. You know, when I saw the budget and I saw how much money we were spending on security in our buildings, my reaction was what do you think taxpayers in the city of London would think if we need security in our buildings? And I think that’s a big question we have to answer. This staff who is here with me, senior staff, they’re working hard, they’re prepared to do that, the board is prepared to do it, and I think we need that small amount of help from you.

So I hope that’s sort of a blunt, honest assessment of where we are. I think you have the right people in place in terms of the board and staff, and we’re really dedicated to getting this right with a little bit of help, but you’ve given us a lot of help so far. So I’m gonna leave it at that. It’s just questions later, I will answer them, but I’m gonna turn things over to our CEO, Paul Chas.

Thank you, Mr. Squires. Good evening, chair, members of council, city staff, and the tenant staff and the neighbors of LMCH. I wanna thank you for joining us today as we present our annual report for London and Middlesex community housing.

It is my privilege to share with you the significant progress we are making and the focus as we move forward and continue a building for the future. But first, I wanna make sure we acknowledge that without the support and contribution of the city of London, our board, our tenants, our staff and our community partners, this work would not be possible, we would not be as successful. As the largest provider of affordable housing in London and Middlesex, LMCH is committed to ensuring safe and secure and affordable housing options for those living in our communities. Our objective is to improve the lives of our individuals and families by creating safe, clean, and well-maintained housing in a community that fosters inclusivity.

So I wanted to share some highlights on where we’re at in 2022 is an important year. Chair Squires mentioned the reimagined Southdale project, in 2022, we received budget approval for the funding for that project and our zoning bylaw amendment, which led us move to the point of nearing our 100% completion of our building drawings and we’re ready to release our RFP for our contractor. So that project will get underway by the end of this calendar year. We kicked off critical infrastructure work across the portfolio in 2022, electrical infrastructure in our buildings, replacing generators, elevators, balcony work, roofing projects, just to name a few.

The infrastructure is aging and we’re investing in it to make sure it stays in peak performance. We’ve also invested heavily in the CMAC Repair and Renew program. In 2022, we were able to install energy management systems in seven of our high-rise buildings, limiting the use of electricity or heating, capping the maximum temperature in units to a livable temperature, which lets us make sure we reduce energy consumption, but also lets us troubleshoot the system remotely. So now we can see if there’s specific units that are far below the temperature they should be at in the winter and the added bonuses in the summer, we can check the temperature of our buildings to make sure there’s in critical heat days that we don’t have any units that are over the 100 degree temperature.

So we have this infrastructure in place. We’ve also been doing work internally to let us just to keep modernizing. We’ve upgraded our property management software, which now lets us modernize our business processes, electronic filing and just electronic payments and extra features that we didn’t have the capacity for the last six years. So we’re setting ourselves up for continuous improvement.

On the tennis side, we’ve introduced the housing stability case coordinators in 2022 was the first year. This role has allowed LMCH to develop an integrated housing stability approach, ensuring that individuals and families at risk of homelessness have access to the right supports and services to maintain their tendencies. A key success to this role is our ability to collaborate co-hostily with partner agencies and community resources, driving solutions forward and without this collaboration, this program would not be as successful. So these staff support up to 30 individuals and they complete regular in-home and in-person visits.

Last year, in our first year, we did 400 plus home visits to our tenants. There’s a crisis prevention approach that really is meant to work with a tenant that we would otherwise move forward for eviction. So we work on tenant education on rights and responsibilities, we do goal setting and more importantly, we liaise on with the social and community medical and law enforcement agencies that need to interact with these clients and these tenants. Our role of just referring people to community agencies wasn’t enough, we’re now more engaged in that work to make sure that the connection actually happens and there’s a positive outcome.

So we did 71 intakes in 2022. On that case, load nine tenants were successfully discharged from the program, we were able to save their tendencies. So that’s an important step for us. Through 2022, we started re-engaging our communities.

So initiatives such as art projects for our seniors, town halls and holiday celebrations are just events and activities that get us in the same room with tenants talking to the things that matter to them. In that, we learn what’s important to them and what they would like to be successful in their tendencies. So our services programs and community supports are informed by these tenant needs and feedback and we actively listen to their voices, valuing their input, shaping the initiatives that directly impact their lives. So by fostering these tenant-led initiatives, building strong relationships and encouraging question-driven problem solving, we aim to create a vibrant and thriving community where everyone contributes.

Everybody’s contributions are recognized and celebrated. So together with our tenants, we’re committed to achieving meaningful and sustainable change that uplifts the wellbeing and resilience of our housing community. So just a few points on where we’re at today. I mean, this work has continued.

So through what we heard in 2022, we have been actively engaging in our communities. We recently opened two community gardens with our tenants, we’ve conducted safety meetings at a number of buildings and we’re developing safety groups and social groups in these communities that we’re just working closely with the tenants to help them support the healthy community and have the conversations they want. We have over $10 million in active capital projects through our CMHC and city funded projects, seven elevator monetizations, electrical upgrades at four sites, replacing windows and/or doors at three sites, two playgrounds that were removed a few years back are being installed this fall. Three generators are being replaced with their end of life.

So through this investment in our communities, we’re just getting back to building our buildings better and that work will continue. In 2023 and beyond, we’re finalizing our 2023 to 2027 strategic plan. Through the input of over 300 tenants, over 60 staff, a number of board and staff and manager workshops, we’re trying to identify those concerns, ideas and insights on how to make sure LMCH is responding to our tenants and our staff and our communities. So we have identified five priorities moving forward that we’re committed to improving the tenant experience, which means the day-to-day operations of cleaning pest control and maintenance need to be better every day.

We need to think differently about community safety and respond to the concerns we’re hearing from our tenants. We need to develop a tenant-centered service model. We need to put the tenant at the center of all the decisions we make. We need to continue and invest in our communities with the capital investments, redevelopment, et cetera.

Investing in sustainability, we’re gonna develop our first green plan. We’re gonna focus on vendor management to make sure there’s good value for taxpayer dollars in the money we spend with our vendor partners. And we need to take a lens on risk management. We have an aging asset and a changing city and we need to make sure we’re on top of that.

And the foundational piece for us is focusing on approving the health of our organization. We wanna invest in order to sort of and achieve the goals that we have. We need to prioritize the wellbeing and development of our staff. They’re the foundation of our organization and by investing in our staff and providing them with the necessary resources and support, we empower them to deliver the highest level of service.

So I think just in closing, I wanna thank you for your support. It is important that we are a good landlord, that we improve at what we do day-to-day, and we place a wellbeing on the emphasis of our staff. And with your support and your continued support, we look forward to keeping this improvement happening and building for the future. Thank you.

Okay, thank you for the comments of the presentation. I’m gonna go to speakers list with questions. I have two people so far. Deputy Mayor Lewis is first.

Thank you, Chair. And Mr. Squire started out by talking about how the last buildings were built in 1972. I was built in 1972 as well, and some of my infrastructure is failing with in my knees and a couple of other spots.

So I understand all too well, the work that’s being undertaken. And I wanna take a moment to acknowledge, and if I can ask them to stand, I want our leadership team, I let in housing to stand up for a moment, ‘cause I wanna acknowledge how much work you’ve all put in. Come on, don’t be shy, Andrea, Diana, everybody stand up. They have been putting in a ton of hours, and it was touched on in the report, but we are moving to a new delivery service for pest control.

New elevators are coming in. The reimagined Southdale Project is underway. They have been just relentless in working through a backlog of challenges facing our public housing system. So I just wanna take the opportunity to say, not only is it a privilege and a pleasure to work with you, but thank you all for the work you do for us, because it is vital.

Now that you sit back down, I just wanted you to be acknowledged, because you put in a ton of work there. I do want to ask, and whether this is Mr. Chisholm or Mr. Squire, or if somebody else from the leadership team might want to weigh in, because I think it’s important to expand on this a little bit, because you all know already that I’m very supportive of the ask that’s been made.

And as Mr. Squire indicated, our staff are working here at City Hall, are working on that with London Housing as well, to have some conversations about how that can be revised. But I wonder if you could speak a little bit to, when we have those tendencies that can’t be sustained, what that means in terms of months that a unit might sit vacant, not housing somebody, and the costs involved in bringing it back up to habitability standards. And I know this is a very broad brush, and so you’d be talking in some very broad terms.

But I wonder if you can just share with folks the impact that it has on our ability to provide housing, when we have housing placements that cannot be sustained. Thank you, and through the chair. I think the first thing I just mentioned is that the real, one of the biggest issues we have is not before the tenant leaves. The length of time it takes to move or problematic tenancy out of our building can take years.

And if you’re the neighbor beside above or below that person or you meet that person in the elevator and they’re a challenging tenant, that is a real problem for our tenants. So the problem starts when the tenancy’s not successful. A lot of the challenges in the built form, the asset, and the unit is that through that period of up to two years to move the person out, the condition of that unit deteriorates. It typically will mean that they are not cleaning the unit, they’re not using it as intended.

So they may be living a different lifestyle where they have bicycle parts and tools and things like that, they’re treating it like an encampment, which puts everybody at risk. And then there’s the extreme where they start removing walls, cabinets, and fixtures. So for us, we’ve had a number of situations where we’ve had a lot of expense in replacing doors on units that tenants are damaging and those same tenants, when they vacate the units, the estimate to restore that unit was upwards of $50,000 per unit because they had breached the walls, they had taken, done a significant damage that required us to sort of basically rebuild the unit. So in the extreme cases, we’re looking at over $50,000 unit to turn these units over.

And that in terms of time takes a 30 to have a 60 day turnaround process into 90, 120 days. And if it’s a townhouse or a larger unit, it’ll take even longer because the level of damage can be quite significant. So I think there’s a compounded impact in our vacancy rate in the amount of energy it takes to turn over a unit. And our typical turnover process, based on our tenant population now, is requires us to do pest control treatment when they vacate, wait for that to settle out.

So we address that issue. We have to bring in debris removal, a couple of dumpsters to take out the unit, then typically pest control again to make sure it’s clear. And then we can actually see the damage and start the repair. So our timelines, our organizational energy to move through these types of tendencies is quite at its capacity.

So just one follow up to that ‘cause I’m sure others have questions. But something that I’ve learned while sitting on the board, I think it’s important for other counselors to know is when you look at the monthly vacancy rates that show up on a London housing reports, I wonder if you could just speak to the fact that because of the way tendencies are signed and keys are turned over, that there’s just a little bit of a delay. And so as we are filling units, it’s not necessarily reflective in our month to month reporting because that signing the lease versus handing over the keys and moving in doesn’t always match up to our reporting period. Yeah, so we do have some challenges in the length of time it takes to restore a unit.

I spoke to that in terms of the problematic tendencies we have. But just the general flow is we take a very short time to commit a unit to someone on the wait list. So that process may take us as little as two weeks, but it may be four plus weeks before that person moves in. In an ideal case, they’re living somewhere else successfully and they have to give notice their landlord or they have to prepare to move, et cetera.

So I always say that it’s a more difficult question when someone is able to move in the next day. We want tenants that have somewhere to live, have some planning that needs to take place and they need to move in with us in a few weeks. So there’s typically we’ll commit a unit and maybe we committed this week in June. They may not move into August 1st or August 4th.

So we have a little bit of a lag in there as well. So it’s just the process and that’s a normal landlord process. You try to reduce that time, but you don’t want it to be the next day ‘cause that’s typically an indicator of someone who may not be ready for housing or they may not have the supports they need to sort of connect with housing. I had myself next on the list followed by Councilor Trossau, so turn the chair over to Councilor Lehman.

I’ll go to the mayor. So first, let me say thank you for the presentation and the discussion and particularly the success you’ve had with actually moving from an organization that was kind of managing the day-to-day operations to an organization that is now building refurbishing units and actually achieving the investments to allow people to live with the dignity that they deserve. I know having served on the board, the conditions in some of the units are not places you’d want someone who is a friend or a family to live in. And yet, for many years, there hasn’t been the necessary investments there to make the changes that I now know the board and the organization is making to those units, both with the support of I know Council and previous Councils as well as CMHC and others.

So I want to thank you for that work. It’s very important to not only give people a place that they can afford to live, but a place that does them the respect of living in a way that people deserve to live. With the comments that the chair Squire made, I would say that this is a concern that I had while I was on the board too. And there’s two components of this.

There’s the financial component that Deputy Mary Lewis asked about. Having someone unsuccessful in their housing journey and having the organization at the end have a repair bill out of this and a delay in actually having the unit occupied is concerning. But the other piece is the human piece about having someone in a place where they’re not being successful in their housing journey because they’re not getting the supports they need. And I know LMCH is not a position to be a supportive housing environment.

You’re filling a role for a really important component of affordability in our city with the RGI units that you have. Like there are, I know there are other organizations who do RGI, but a predominant number of the units are obviously filled through this corporation that we’re the main shareholder for. So a very important affordability role. And I guess my question out of this is given, I know that our desire as a council, our desire as a city staff, is for people to be as successful as possible in all aspects, which means we have to look at a range of options available, including RGI, affordable supportive housing, the work that we’re doing on health and homelessness.

I wonder if, I don’t know through the presiding officer Mr. Dickens, how would that conversation begin to happen about how we best use the assets that this corporation has at its disposal to ensure that we’re landing people in places where they could be successful in their journey? I don’t expect you to say here’s the solution, but how does that conversation actually happen so that we can move down that path of looking at the board’s request? Mr.

Dickens. Through you, your worship, here’s the solution. So our team has been actually raising this topic around Mr. Squire referred to the 9 out of 10 rule, which is something that Council endures back in 2005.

It was a local service managers, provincially in the legislation, have the ability to prioritize how people get placed in the community housing. So back in 2005, this was the recommendation. Looking at placing 9 out of 10 spaces with those that are urgent homeless, but we know that the landscape in our community since 2005 has changed, that the acuity and the higher acuity population has grown, yet that formula has stayed the same. So the team has actually been workshopping what could be possible in terms of changing that formula, reducing the placement numbers and that sort of thing.

We feel, however, that it’s not something we can do in isolation, and therefore the perfect fit, the solution to this conversation, does exist through the highly supportive housing tables that have been struck as part of the whole of community system response. So we’re talking at those tables about defining priority populations, trying to define what highly supportive housing is and what it is not. And it is recognized that people getting into community housing or affordable housing or market housing without the proper supports leads to really bad negative outcomes, as have been articulated. So we want to be bringing that conversation to the highly supportive housing tables to discuss how do we recognize when it’s not working and then how do we connect people to a coordinated system so it does work, which then creates for us and the community a stock of housing options as part of a housing continuum for those people that would be successful in getting into community housing with fewer supports or little to no support.

So that is where that work will happen is through the highly supportive housing table. Sure, yes, and so through the presiding officer, so my question I guess is the kind of next steps in this process and engagement with, say, the board chair and our staff on the work that’s being done at the highly supportive housing table, would that, I’m not saying we transition LMCH into highly supportive housing, I actually think they play a different role in the continuum here, but would it be valuable to extend some sort of invitation to have discussions about whether or not that’s a place where they’d want to be or how do you see this next steps proceeding? I’m happy to leave it with staff without any sort of a bunch of motions here if there’s a discussion already happening, but I think this is something that we’ve heard a request. I’d like to know where it’s going to be comfortable and in the next steps.

Mr. Dickens. Thank you, and through you, yes, so there have been members of LMCH attend the summits, and we will again extend the invite to participate in some of our implementation tables, namely housing. We know there are a key contributor to the housing continuum, so their attendance and participation at that table will be highly valuable.

And I know for council, the priority and the focus in this discussion is LMCH. There are 64 social housing providers in our community, community housing providers, and so we know that that housing continuum is impacted by this exact same reality, 63 more times over. So we want to make sure we’re having whole of community discussions, and LMCH is a major player in this, and we would welcome their participation. Mayor?

Yeah, if I could hear from the board on this as well, that would be valuable to me. I’d love to respond. First of all, Mr. Dickens knows what he’s talking about, obviously, and I think when I started, I wanted to be really careful and say, I’m here talking about London Middlesex Community Housing.

I used to have a job where I had to sit somewhere and make big decisions for a whole city, but I’m not doing that anymore, so I have that sort of luxury of talking about one thing. I think what we’re looking for is that recognition that this isn’t working for us as it is, but the other thing I want to raise is it’s not working for the people that we’re putting in buildings without supports, in my new job, I do hearings every day where we have people routinely, and it’s very common, have multiple problems, have mental health issues, drug addiction problems, family abuse issues, all of those things together, and no one would ever imagine putting them in housing without some very serious supports. And so I think the city’s on the right track. It’s just the number of years we’ve been doing this, referring back to 2005.

It’s sort of caught up with London Middlesex Community Housing in terms of our infrastructure, our ability to deal with it. So I’m really appreciative of the discussion. They try to keep me away from discussions that are really detailed, but I’d be happy to join in any discussions where I’ll behave myself to the extent that it’ll be productive. And I think the staff knows what they’re doing.

They know where we need to go, and that’s what we wanted to raise tonight. Mayor? - Yes, so based on those comments, I’ll certainly commit to, as Mayor, helping foster that dialogue and supporting it in any way that I can. I think this is an important conversation to have.

And I think, as Mr. Dickens said, we need a large continuum of housing supports in the city, each playing a really important role to ensure that there is a place for everybody, and that people can be successful, whether they need financial supports, or they need supportive housing, or they need just a place below market rate that they can live. We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, and I think the more coordinated we can be on this, the better, and obviously LMCH is such an incredible and important asset here in the city on the RGI side of things, and the affordability side of things that we need to make sure that they integrate really well, and that people going there are as successful as possible. So I’m not gonna make any suggestions or motions today.

I’m just going to appreciate the dialogue that was there and commit to helping continue to foster that. And I’ll turn the chair back to the mayor. I have Councillor Trost there next. Thank you very much, and through the chair, I’d like to thank Mr.

Chisholm for the very, very good conversation we had yesterday. I’ll be following up on some of that. Before I get to LMCH staff and board, I do have a preliminary question for Mr. Mathers, though, and I did indicate to you that I would have some.

Have there been inspections through the chair? Have there been inspections as your agency attended for code enforcement purposes, LMCH properties, and without getting into specific cases, which I know we can’t do here, is it possible to get aggregate statistics by building? How many inspections have been done in each building? What kinds of things are you seeing and how are they resolved?

‘Cause this would lead into some of my further questions for the agency. Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, just to give a little bit of context on this, so from a municipal compliance perspective, we both take a reactive approach to responding to complaints from tenants, and then we also have a proactive blitz approach that we’ve been using for the last several months.

From on the reactive side, we of course would have all of that data. I will touch base with our municipal clients. Folks to see how much we can actually share, but if that’s the direction of council, that could be brought forward. On the proactive side of this, we’ve done several of the proactive enforcements.

We’re doing them approximately every four to five weeks. And just actually recently, we have done that at an LMCH building actually this weekend. So very timely. So the basis for these proactive enforcements, it’s a mixture, we select a mixture of private and public sector buildings, and it’s based on heat mapping of complaints.

So it was selected because there was a lot of complaints in and around that area. So we definitely do take an approach, both proactive and reactive, and if it’s council’s direction, then we could bring a report on that matter. Councilor Trossa. Thank you, and I appreciate that.

And at some point in the future, not at this meeting today, I’d like to push a little further on the reports that we could be getting, like the building inspection, the building department reports that we get. Turning my questions to, I guess Mr. Chisholm. And again, thank you for spending so much time patiently talking to me yesterday.

Does the LMCH, and maybe Mr. Squire would wanna help with this, does the LMCH management and board, and staff, believe that the level of maintenance and repairs in its properties, including security concerns, are compliant with applicable health, safety, fire, and building codes across the system generally. And through the chair, we are compliant with all regulations and legislation. We have preventative maintenance programs, we follow fire life safety regulations.

So we believe we’re compliant, we’re refined where we’re not meeting that standard through our own evaluation or through complaints, we address that. So we are compliant with the code as we’re aware. We conduct building condition assessments on a rotating basis. We just finished three years where we did the full portfolio.

We have good information on our asset and its compliance with building code. And as staff discussed, we are part of the Municipal Licensing Inspection Program. And through that program, we expect that the things identified and found with LMCH properties would be better than or the same as any other landlord in the city of London. So our objective is to be compliant to provide clean, safe, well-maintained housing.

And as we start replacing building systems and doing things like that, our ability to stay on top of that and have improved information on that compliance is improving, but we’re definitely compliant. I’m going to ask another one more question and then yield to other Councillors and maybe come back to some of my other issues. I wanna start with a comment. I hear a very different story from your tenants.

Very different story. Let’s go through the chair. Through the chair, comment’s like that, yeah. My experience and I’ve only been to the buildings in my ward.

I have not reported to visit the other ones. So I’m anxious to hear what other ward Councillors are finding. I hear a very different story. And I hear a story of great dissatisfaction in the premises.

And yes, it’s true that people do come in to the people who are in the buildings who have issues and you may have to look at your processes. But the point I wanna emphasize is I do not believe, based on my inspections, my superficial inspection of at least the buildings in my ward, I should say one cliff, that these buildings are in substantial compliance with building codes. I should not be able to walk into a garbage room and stick my hand as you saw me do. Stick my hand into a needle depository.

I should not be able to do that. And I should not be smelling all sorts of things when I walk into the building. And I should not be hearing persistently from the tenants that they’re scared to go out into the hall, which could be due to a variety of reasons. And I should not be hearing from the tenants that they’re scared to make complaints ‘cause they feel they will be retaliated against.

And I think it’s great that there are some complaints that are being made to code enforcement. But I would like to suggest that I’m gonna be asking for some guidance here in terms of how to go about doing this. I think we need to do a building by building, not just superficial inspection, but audit of the systems of each building, including the air circulation, including the circulation. And I understand and appreciate that you are working on the pest control problem.

And I think in the case of pest control, that is a specialized enough function that you probably don’t wanna set that up in-house. But I would like to suggest that in-house, there needs to be more serious maintenance. This is not to minimize the serious problem that you face when units are abused and units are trashed. But I’m talking about the normal course of maintenance.

I don’t believe there’s enough. And if there’s not enough, if you need more money to engage in more systematic cleaning and maintenance, and if you need more money to engage in capital improvements, not just in selected buildings, but across the system, please ask for it. And I think this is the time right now for us to be asking for it. Because I understand that you’re, and I read your report.

I’ve heard members of the board. You’re putting a good spin on this, and I appreciate that that’s your intent. I appreciate that’s the intention that you’re going, the direction you’re going in. But I think we are failing.

I think we are failing the rank and file tenants, who for the most part just want to live their lives and feel they are not living, they are not living in decent, safe, habitable dwellings. And if this city needs to consider options for how we’re going to enhance your budget, I think now is the time to talk about whether or not we want to put another business case request on the table for some specific things. And I’ll yield for now, and hope to hear some comments from other Councillors. I have Councillor Stevenson next.

Thank you and through the chair. Thank you to the board and to the staff at LMHC. We do have it in our strategic plan to increase the safety of our social housing. And there is a lot of despair in those buildings.

And I really, really from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the ask, because I was going to ask. Most people in London have had to deal with some of our more challenging fellow citizens here in terms of their mental health and their addiction, and we’ve got those safety issues. It’s one thing when it’s in your parking lot, it’s in your park, it’s on the street, it’s a whole ‘nother thing when it’s inside your building. And there are a lot of people who are seniors and who are disabled, who are scared to leave the apartment, and they hear a lot of traumatizing things and they feel trapped, they hear the noise, the violence, the people, many of them too aren’t used to the drug addiction seeing it and seeing some of the things that they’re seeing.

So when we talk about how can we help people in difficult times, how do we help people with their mental health, allowing them to feel safe at home, allowing them to feel a sense of community and well-being is really, really important? So whatever it is that we can do to stop putting people who need highly supportive care into our social housing, anything that I can do to help, I wanna do that. It really is a very, very big concern. And I’ll talk about it later more when we’re talking about the encampments, but it’s a similar kind of thing when we’re allowing it near the buildings, but it’s a whole ‘nother thing inside.

So thank you, thank you for the ask, thank you for what you do. I did hear a lot of complaints about the balcony repairs and the dust, but boy, I heard a lot of delight with the results. So maybe a little bit like our roads, we’re gonna have to put up with some catch-up, and that means a lot of renovation and a lot of inconvenience, but we get to celebrate the fact that improvement is being made, and I thank you too, because people are grumpy and they’re frustrated and there’s a lot of catch-up and that can’t be easy to do the level of work that you’re doing when people really aren’t satisfied because it’s not enough, it’s not taking them to the place where they wanna be, maybe the place where we want them to be, need them to be. And so just extra gratitude for knowing holding that space, we get to do it as counselors as well, to hear them, to really, really hear them, and know that it is a concern, and know that it is gonna take us time to do what needs to be done, but we get to do it, and we get to do it with urgency, and no more putting difficult people in, and I’m getting the look like maybe I talked too long.

Okay, I can come back, I did have just an accounting question, ‘cause I do look at these. I did notice that the accounts receivable has doubled, more than doubled from last year, and the Allowance for Doubtful accounts, same thing, more than doubled, and I just wondered if there’s a story there, if there’s anything that could be shared regarding that, ‘cause it is gonna be an extra cost, it looks like. Yes, and I’ll start with the one at the top. My head is the Allowance for Doubtful accounts.

We noticed a trend in income or revenue predictions escalating far beyond what we anticipated, and it’s a result of the RGI administration, where people are moving from a subsidy rent of, say, $130 to full market rent of $800, and that’s a normal occurrence in the program, and usually after two to three months, if someone loses their subsidy, there’s a cycle where we’re able to give them their subsidy back, and that revenue disappears. What we’re experiencing is an exponential increase in that to the point where we created an Allowance for Doubtful accounts for current tenants, which we hadn’t done before, because the time it takes to restore the subsidy and adjust the revenue across calendar years, then therefore we’d be reporting, say, $500,000 in extra revenue that we wouldn’t have available, and in our model of operating surpluses returning to the shareholder, we would then pay back $500,000, only four months later to realize we didn’t have 500,000, and we’d be in this cycle of underfunding because of this Allowance for Doubtful accounts. So it was sort of, and it’s something that’s happening across a lot of the larger RGI providers in Ontario. So it’s a symptom that we’ve all went through in the last year, we did some analysis, and that’s the best way to accurately adjust the revenue, so it doesn’t impact what our cash flow is.

So just two seconds on the other question was related to Council receivable. I’m gonna confer with my colleague for a second. I do not have a note on that. Through you, Chair.

So I’d like to provide the comment on the significant increase in accounts receivable. As our CEO mentioned, we’ve went through the cycle of the RGI program. What happened is the flashback of the policies, which were introduced within the country when everybody was receiving SERP with introduction of SERP to all population that significantly impacted and increased their disposable income and as such, that impacted their tax returns and the eligibility for RGI funding. So due to this fact, we see quite significant fluctuation in our balance sheet.

Doesn’t make sense. Thank you, it does a bit. I had a few emails about that as well. Some shock at changes in their rent due to that.

And is that increasing the allowance as well? Like is it not really going to be collectible? That’s correct. That’s the reason why we adjusted our allowance process.

If in the past, our program impact was impacted only by past tenants. We, with consultation with our external auditors, we entered, we made some corrections and adjustments to our process. And when we were closing a year, we made a provision to reflect that change. I have a question, but I maybe shouldn’t ask it in public session.

Is there, is there any policy around that that you’d like to share with the public? The RGI program and through the chair, the RGI program is very prescriptive. So essentially on an annual basis, the tenants we have who are receiving rent-care day income are required to share certain information with us. And they’re also required to notify of certain life changes like changes in income and things like that.

So based on the rules, if they don’t share increases in income with us, that if that increase in income would affect the amount of rent-care day income they should be paying, they may get charged for that. And the way the RGI simplification process worked in the province of Ontario, they introduced some legislative changes that required us to use the person’s income tax return for that. So that had a downstream impact on people in real time receiving funds, not telling us about it, filing their taxes, us getting their taxes, and that creating this kind of tsunami of uncertainty for the tenant, who if they’d received, served, have already spent it. And for us in terms of, is that a reasonable collection?

And compounded by the fact that we know that the federal government is now in clawback mode. So some of that money that we think they got doesn’t really exist anymore. So we are working, we’re trying to be flexible on this, but we are, there is a prescriptive program we have to manage. Thank you, I appreciate the clarity on that.

And so I’m understanding it’s a one time impact. The other question is probably not interesting in that the sundry receivable is up to 900,000 from 177, but I’m assuming that’s just… It’s not really material. Okay, thank you.

Councillor Ferrera. Thank you and through you. I did have some questions, but it was, they were quite exhausted by colleagues here. So I’m just going to still make some comments just because the questions were already answered and I’ll just try to keep it short and concise.

But I do want to thank community housing LMCH for coming here and doing the work that you do and the vision that you have and bringing the report to us that very appreciative of that. And I’d also would like to point out, this is the main thing that I’d like to also point out is like we, it was said, it was alluded to, but you know, a lot of middle-sex community housing is definitely holding a lot of the weight right now when it comes to a lot of the issues with our housing crisis and our social issues. And you see these comments coming out where like a unit has been down or damaged and that’s just because the truth is, as I believe it was the former Councillor Squire said, it’s not supportive housing. We need more supportive housing.

We need to place people in the type of housing which is appropriate for them, which is appropriate for sustainable living and which is appropriate just for a long-term strategy towards housing. So I do recognize that. Mr. Chisholm took me through one of your buildings and he did point out one of the units that were damaged by individuals who would have been more appropriate placed in housing that would support them.

So it’s literally evidence to a call for what we’re doing and to really kind of put that weight behind our supportive housing initiatives of what we’re doing, especially when it comes to this and the whole of community system response seems to be going there. But just to keep that in mind, we do need that type of housing. So I just wanted to make that statement. And I do wanna say, like I do see what you’re saying with your vision and where you’d like to see going forward, like you’re investing in sustainability, that’s great.

That’s exactly what my colleagues here, I believe, everybody here and myself would like to see. You have a tenant-centric model. That’s very good as well. And you’re just, you’re developing and you’re investing in your staff.

So that’s what we like to see. And I just wanna close it off with, I believe it was former Councillor Square said, you know, this is not working and you’re looking for recognition. I recognize that. So I will be supporting you.

And as I believe it was Councillor Trussell, I think said, you know, if you have an ask, if you require more funding, bring it to us. I’m hoping that we can figure something out and allocate the proper amount of money is going towards you. So you can go and you can do and build and fix and rehabilitate your buildings ‘cause that’s what we need. So I do appreciate you coming here.

I do appreciate you speaking to us and I’ll keep it right there. So thank you. I have two more speakers, Councillor McAllister and Councillor Hopkins. Thank you and through the chair.

As the rookie on the board, I would like to just start off by saying I’ve appreciated working with everyone involved. There’s a lot of part that goes into this work and I definitely get the sense we, you know, we’re all coming from this from a compassionate, from a caring point of view. And we are trying to put the tenants at the focal point of everything that we do. Just some comments in terms of what I’ve observed.

I think a lot of what’s held against LMHC, it’s past practices and processes. And what I’ve personally seen is a desire to move forward to do things differently. And we’re very much in rebuild mode. And I think there’s definitely a genuine new approach in terms of trying to get us back on the right track.

And I see that and I recognize that and I want to applaud the board and the staff for their approach in this way. But I would also like to say that we can’t fix all these issues overnight. I’m sure we’ve all heard from prospective residents or tenants of housing that, you know, there are issues. I think that we are putting the resources as indicated where we need to.

And I think that the chairs ask is very reasonable in terms of placing the appropriate people in community housing. We’re not a supportive housing provider and we have partners in the community that are much better equipped to handle high QD tenants. We have seen problematic tenants who have used up substantial amount of financial and material and human resources delayed unit turnaround which has been an issue which is a number of counselors and the presenters I’ve spoken to. But I also think something we need to recognize is that we have the existing stock.

And as also indicated, much of this is from the 1970s. A lot of the funding evaporated in the 90s. We are seeing some new resources allocated but they are grossly inadequate for the challenge which is in front of us. And so my ask is that the heavy lift, it is on the city.

And then I would say we are doing what we can but we also need to advocate for other levels of government both provincial and federal partners to come back to the table because when this was built, there was input from other levels of government. This was not solely on the city and I do think that we should take those opportunities where available to advocate for more resources. And as we’ve seen with the support of housing model that in well, and we’ve discussed this a lot at council, that they do tap into other levels of government. That is not just on us and they are a good partner but we do have opportunities to partner with other levels of government.

And I just wanna end by saying thank you once again. I’ve enjoyed my time working with community housing and I look forward to the future and what we’re able to achieve. So thank you. Thank you, I have Councilor Hopkins and then once we conclude this item two colleagues, we’ll take a break around that time but we’ll finish up with our friends from the Housing Corporation here first, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair and just following the rookie coming from someone that’s been here a long time. I wanna first of all thank you for your presentation. It’s nice to see you Andrea, I know it’s really good too.

I know there’s lots of changes going on but I do want to compliment the board and staff for dealing with the challenges that are great. I almost look at the London Middlesex Community Housing Corporation as when I was there, sort of the perfect storm, the aging infrastructure, the challenges of the tenants have changed, the supportive needs, the vacancy rates, the security concerns, pest control. I really do wanna commend staff and the board for not giving up and tackling these challenges. I agree with Councilor McAllister, we can’t fix it overnight but I think we have to just really be understanding of the many challenges and it’s not easy.

So with that, I do think it’s good reading the report that some of the capital projects are going forward. I know my time on the board that was almost like a dream and seeing that advancement and I know we’ve still got a long way to go. Again, I’m acknowledging the work that’s going on and there’s a lot of challenges. I heard from a number of colleagues here that will give you whatever you want almost because I think we all understand the need to address the challenges.

I don’t hear any asks for money, which is kind of unusual, but I do hear that one big ask and to me it is a big ask and I appreciate the conversations that we can start to have about addressing the tenants and the supportive needs and are there opportunities to move them around and to in particular deal with those vacancies, but also deal with the quality of life that we want our tenants to have in our housing corporation. So I just hear only one ask, it will be interesting to hear those conversations if we’re privileged as the stakeholder and update maybe next year, who knows where we’ll be, but to have those conversations, I think it’s worthwhile. But I think overall I just want to acknowledge the many challenges and the fact that we’re not giving up. So thank you.

Yes, I’ll just add Councillor just, there are no financial asks here ‘cause this is the shareholder meeting, but I anticipate when the multi-year budget rolls around that you’ll see some asks in it. So the board is here for the shareholder meeting, but they’re also participating in the multi-year budget process where they’re able to submit their request for funding for our consideration. So that’s why you don’t see those asks here today. It’s not ‘cause they don’t want to, it’s just there as responsible board going through our prescribed process.

So you good? Yeah, I appreciate that. I know business cases don’t come here, but I think you’ve heard a number of my colleagues and myself speak to the importance and the understanding and the needs that the corporation has and looking forward to those business cases. I know Councillor Squire once accused me of allocart budgeting.

So I know he wouldn’t want to do the same. So I have Councillor Trostan and Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you and through the mirror, I’m just gonna close by saying I’m a little disappointed. I’m a little, I would feel a little better if I heard the agency acknowledge not across, ‘cause I know some good work has been going on in some buildings and it’s not across the board and it’s certainly not in the building that I am familiar with.

And maybe, maybe I’m just sort of not the typical Councillor, but I know this isn’t the place to talk about the multi-year budget. But if your agency does not come forward with some requests for additional funding for capital improvements and maintenance, and yes, I know that there are problems with many of the tenants in terms of how they treat the building, but you have substantial problems with your building. And if you wanna talk about somebody from 1972, I go a lot further back than that and I try to take good care of myself. And the other thing about it is you gotta do that with the buildings and I don’t think you’re doing it.

And I don’t think it’s your fault, but I don’t think you’re getting enough resources and I wanna see you come forward affirmatively with additional requests for funding across across across the board. And I’m not trying to impugn the good intentions of board members. That’s not what I’m doing here. I’m trying to move this along in terms of, the city has various tools that it could be using for raising money.

Reconcivably could float a bond for additional capital improvements. We’ve certainly talked about doing that for other needs that have come up. And I think that might be appropriate here. So I’m not gonna make a motion right now ‘cause I think it would be a little further out of order from this meeting.

I do wanna point out that I did ask for an amendment on the question of consideration of the tenant vacancy. And I don’t know if that comes up here or under a different item further down. Can you just outline your it being noted clause, sorry? Yes.

I believe that it’s imperative that this council through the SPPC through the mayor and council make the determination as to who the tenant is. This is a very different situation than a BIA or London Hydro or the Convention Center because there is an inherent as much as you feel that you’re doing good tenant relations. And I believe you’re trying. There is an inherent tension in the landlord-tenant relationship between the management of any housing agency and the tenant.

And I think there are quite a few qualified candidates who might not feel comfortable submitting themselves to questioning. Councillor, we do get the final decision. So are you looking to add something as in- Yeah. I just wanna know what your clause is because what you can do is you can put the whole resolution on the floor right with the clause.

I just wanna understand what it is. May I ask if the city clerk can assist me in some of the language we discussed? Okay, so great, you spoke to the clerk. So what do you have at the clerk?

Thank you through the chair. It would be some additional wording at the end of the clause that would be as follows. It being noted that for the current tenant vacancy on the LMCH board, the city clerk will circulate to all members of council, all of the applications received at the same time as these are provided to the LMCH board in accordance with the current recruitment process for director appointments. And I would move that.

Okay, so you’ll move, ‘cause we’re at committee, you can move the entire slate of motions with that already attached to it. Well, it’s not on the floor that it’s pretty mature. I would make that as an amendment. Well, you can put it all on the floor at the same time because at committee, we can put both the staff recommendation and any changes on at the same time.

So if you’re willing to just put that on the floor with your being noted and I’ll look for a second. Okay, as their seconder, Councillor Ferra. So what we have before us is all of the clauses that are in eScribe and including the ones in your report, also receipt of the presentation and the financial statements in the annual report and that request to bring forward the tenant’s name with the if being noted clause that the Councillor has mentioned, which is essentially an alignment with our current process, but clear and decisive in the actual resolution. So that’s on the floor, move to seconded.

I have Deputy Mayor Lewis on the speaker’s list. Well, since the entire motion’s on the floor, I’m gonna speak to both and I’m gonna start with the amendment. I wanna be clear and the city manager or the city treasurer might correct me if I use the wrong language, but I believe it’s the bylaws that established the London and Middlesex housing community housing entity that I actually direct that the tenant or that any of the board placements go through a process where there’s a selection committee and interviews by the board. It’s actually a very robust process and I know that the clerk’s giving the mayor some direction as well.

So the appropriate language, if you could. Yes, so it’s not in the bylaws. It was a process adopted by Councillor, I’ve got this. It was a process adopted by council.

At the end of the day, council still does make the final decision, my understanding of the it being noted clauses, despite the fact that all of those applications come before us with the recommendation from the board through the process that you’re describing, the council is just looking to have them at the same time as they’re distributed to the board, which is just having a little more time with the applications ourselves. So that would be the only real difference here. It would not change the way that the board would receive and make recommendations back to council with all of the applications. We would all just get them a little bit earlier when the board receives them.

Definitely. - Yep, so just to continue on that and thanks for getting the clarification from the clerk, you know, I don’t feel strongly about when council receives the applications. I genuinely don’t, but I am going to, you know, be very clear with colleagues that we varied from our process on the police board appointments and went and conducted interviews. The last time we had applications for the tenant’s vacancy on LMCH, I believe we had about 20 or 25 applicants for that position.

We as a body and, you know, I’m going to say this whether people agree with me or not. We do not have time to do interviews for every board agency and commission that we appoint people to. Our calendars for the most part are pretty full already. We made an exception in an exceptional circumstance, but I’m not interested in going down that route on every board and commission that we have.

I think that the process we have with LMCH actually is great because the board itself through a subcommittee reviews the applicants, particularly where they’re identifying skill sets that are lacking for the at-large appointments, but also for the tenant placement appointments and recognizing that we have buildings, for example, if our family units are represented in one of the tenant appointments, then maybe that our next tenant selection because there are two spots. So maybe then we want a tenant selected from one of our adult buildings rather than one of our family sites. So that is something that we consider as when the subcommittees, and I want to thank Councilor McAllister for volunteering ‘cause I’ve sat on three of these now and he’s offered to sit on the next one in my place. So appreciate that.

But reviewing applications I have no problem with. In fact, I wish we had all of our applications a little sooner ‘cause the stacks that we get are often very, very thick, but reviewing them and starting to alter our process are two different things. So I just want to flag that, but I think I want to flag as well. References have been made to the multi-year budget and like you, your worship, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen a former Councilor Squire smile and nod his head when somebody commented that business cases were coming.

His reaction when he used to sit in a different seat in this chamber was usually different than that. So it’s a nice change of pace. But the reason that you heard the big ask today about the tenant placement prioritization list is because, and I think it’s really important that people understand if we are just spending money fighting the same battles over and over and over and over and over again, we’re not actually making headway. And so until we address that tenant placement issue, we could provide unlimited funding, but there would still be resource challenges with staff, with contractors and tenders to do the work.

And with the fact that in some cases we do the work and two weeks later, the same complaint exists in a building because of the nature of some of the problems that we have. So yes, I think we all are in agreement that we would like to see the live quality of life standards in these buildings lifted. But it’s not just a question of money. It is a question of labor.

It is a question of supply chains. And it is a question of sustainability of the repairs. Because if we are right back in the same problem two weeks later, no amount of money is going to fix that and make tenant satisfied. So there are some deeper issues involved here than just how much we allocate for an operating budget.

So pleased to receive this report. I hope people dig into it if they haven’t in greater detail. Come and sit in or watch one of the housing board meetings. Of course, they’re public meetings.

People can attend, but the problems are not ones that we are going to solve just by putting money into the system. We are going to ask for money. I guarantee you, there’s a business case coming for more money, but it’s going to be money that we can spend in an effective way. And when I first arrived in this chamber a few years ago, we had a housing board at the time that was actually not getting their money out the door.

And that was a problem that council identified and took some action on. The money has to be able to actually be spent in an impactful way. So looking forward to seeing that business case as well, but happy to have the presentation tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. So I’m going to just clarify for colleagues nothing that the councilor has proposed with the being noted is changing the process as it stands now. The only difference will be by email when the applications are sent to the board for their consideration and their process. We would get them at the same time, giving colleagues a little more time to review them.

They will still land on the public agenda with whatever the board’s recommendation or recommendations are, and we will get to make that decision ourselves. So I just want to be clear for everybody that that is the process. Councilor Troso, I have Councilor Ploza before you set her hand up. I’ll put you on the list.

Councilor Ploza. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to colleagues for their concerns tonight and happy to support what’s on the floor.

And just to reiterate, Deputy Mayor Lewis’s points, as we are talking about the multi-year budget, that will be quite the process coming forward. And in the past, there was issues of, you know, realizing it was a big issue and, you know, saying like, here’s more money, here’s more money, but if there’s no plan and capacity to get it out the door, it’s not really a solution. So waiting for that business case, and for staff to say, this is the plan of what we can spend, how we can spend it, what you can expect as an outcome for it, to, you know, transparency and accountability, and how it’s gonna improve resident lives. And glad that a lot of people on this council are taking the opportunity to go in and see the state of the buildings, meet with residents and realizing that is where they’re going home at the end of their day to find safety and comfort and making sure that that is the best place that we can make it for them as they either stay there or transition through there.

If any of us have lived in supportive housing, our GI housing, it is definitely a different realm when you put a lot of people who are struggling together and no one has extra to help each other out, and you’re just trying to get day by day, this money is gonna be impactful, looking for that business case, and thankful for the tenants who serve on the board and all those who serve on the board and the time they’re giving to their community. Thank you. Councilor Troso. This may seem like a petty technical point, but I have to make it.

And that is there is nothing in the provincial legislation that requires this, and there is no permanent by-law that we have that requires this. So when we talk about past practice, I think we have to be careful. In fact, what we do at every annual meeting, including the one today, is pass a new by-law. This is not like you have to go back and generate a new by-law, it’s in our packet.

So when I talk about making some changes to the selection process, this is something that’s on the table every year. And I’ve tried to be helpful here, and I’ve tried to introduce what I think is a very moderate change to what we’re doing. So I hope everybody will support that. And I certainly hope that when the business plan comes forward, some of it has to do with the conditions of the premises.

And with that, I’ll close and thank everybody for their indulgence. Councillor McAllister. I just want to end on a quick comment, ‘cause I’m sure I can hear someone yelling from Strathroy, Mayor Grantham, also sits on fundamental sex housing. And I just want to acknowledge our county partners in this.

They also have units, and they’re not in the same state of disrepair as ours. Obviously it’s county, but I want to acknowledge our county partners. They are also experiencing housing instability as well, and they’re an important partner on the board, and it’s a voice that we should acknowledge as well, that the county plays a role in this board, thank you. Yes, just as we have shared service agreements with the county on many things, some we are the service manager for, some they are the service manager for, it’s a great positive working relationship that we have, sometimes a couple of bumps, but we work through it as best we can.

With that, it seems like the debate has closed, so we have the moved and second emotion on the floor. I’m going to open that for voting. Mr. Cuddy, thank you, closing the vote.

The motion’s passed 14 to zero. Okay, thank you to the board for the presentation today. Really appreciate both your presentation, as well as your thoughtful answers to all of our questions, and I know we’ll be working together, and we’ll look forward to all the things that are come forward in both the commitments we made today, as well as your budget asks. With that, I’m going to look to colleagues to take, we’ll say a 25 minute break, which will take us to about 10-2.

I’ll look for a mover for that. Councillor Frank, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis. We could do this one by hand, all those in favor? That motion’s carried.

Okay, we’ll see you at 10-2. Nice to see you again. It’s our break before your five minute presentation. Yeah, pretty much.

Well, thanks for coming out early. This is not very sort of receptive to public. (overlapping chatter) (overlapping chatter) (overlapping chatter) There’s none of that. And now you can make a presentation still.

Down there, points? I mean, I don’t like this, right? Oh, yeah, I know. Yeah, I didn’t have the budget to take it out.

(laughing) Anyways, guys, good to see you. People are good to work. It’s going to be not my name. Yeah, I probably will because I like to talk, I can’t do any public questions.

I think it’s going to get a bunch of questions. Just through the chambers, Mike’s on in the gallery, and you’re broadcasting. Okay, I’m going to call the meeting back to order. Thank you for accommodating a few extra minutes there.

We are on item 3.3, which is now the annual general meeting of the shareholder and the resolutions for the Housing Development Corporation. You can see the items before us. I see Mr. Cooper at the microphone, so perhaps I will start with him.

Go ahead. Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair, I’m here today representing our Housing Development Corp as the board chair. We’re pleased today to present our annual report to SPPC and committee, and as well, our audited financial statements for the Housing Development Corp.

The last year has been really one of transition for our Housing Development Corp. It has to incorporate and reintegrate into the city and the role with our municipal housing division. So a lot of our work has been really primarily focused on re-establishing the pathways, re-establishing partnerships, fostering existing partnerships, and working with our municipal housing development team on building affordable housing. We foresee in 2023 much of our role to continue on in the transition to manage some of our existing assets under the Housing Development Corp, as we move to a full integration into the city of London.

So I’ll turn it over to our CEO, Mr. Felberg, to answer any questions, and to present a little more information on our report. Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. So first off, I want to thank Mr. Cooper and all of those former HDC employees that have now transitioned into the city.

Also like to thank those that have moved on to other endeavors, whether it’s with other governments or actually one individual actually retired. As a reminder to committee and council and the shareholder, council directed civic administration to wind down the duties of the HDC and transition them to the municipal housing development team and brought a report for it to SPPC in March of 2021, talking about that transition plan. Additionally, Mr. Cooper, who is also the last remaining board member of the HDC, and myself as the last remaining HDC employee, thought it would be important for us to highlight a few of those activities that are outlined in the shareholder report this evening.

First off, though, I am pleased to say that KPMG, our third party independent auditor, has provided an opinion that the work of the HDC is consistent with its responsibilities under the Business Corporations Act and the Canadian Public Sector Accounting Standards and provide an opinion of a clean financial audit. So just summary of early 2022 activities. So through the first few months of the year, much of our activity was focused on aligning our organizational resources for the move over to the city, following council’s direction to transition the HDC into the city’s corporate structure. Additionally, HDC folks were focused on ensuring the projects that the HDC had started, transition very quickly and easily into that new city organizational structure.

I’m pleased to say that despite the dual reporting requirements where we report both to city council and the HDC board, that the work on new affordable housing development has been maintained through that period with a few different projects coming to fruition over the past year or so. We actually have a plan to bring a subdivision application forward on a former school site, Duluth, which is owned by the HDC. The work on 18 Elm Street progressed to a point where we’re now working with our partner to transition that property over to OHS. We got through a substantial component of the Thompson project, which was funded through the RHI Round 2, which we brought a report forward— sorry, municipal housing development brought a report forward in May of this year.

We also established operating conditions for the 122 baseline property, and we had a working partnership with the Habitat for Humanity where we assisted them in bringing some affordable units to market. Additionally, the HDC staff were guiding the work of the Sylvan Street, which is now under construction under the RHI 3, under the guidance of municipal housing development staff. To the latter part of 2022, a lot of the work that we were doing was aligning those HDC responsibilities to those of the city. One great example of that is the report at the last CPSC, which was looking for delegated authority to city staff to undertake some of those activities that were former HDC work around contribution agreements.

Additionally, a big part of our effort in 2022 and equally in 2023 are the activities associated with the audit before you this evening. And now we’re working towards the wind down activities, which will look to transfer and assign any existing HDC agreements to the city, look to transfer any real property to the city, and review and align any procurement or administrative procedure, administrative or procedural policies with those of the city. Our intention is to work on this wind down project or the report over the summer and come back to you in the fall with our plan on how we’ll actually wind things up by the end of the year. With that, Mr.

Chair and committee, thank you and look forward to any questions from the committee. Yeah, so I’ll look to colleagues for any questions or someone who wants to put the motion before us on the floor at any time. Questions? Go ahead, Councillor Lehman.

I’ll move the recommendation. The recommendation is moved, seconded by Councillor Ferreira. Discussion? Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you and through the Chair. I had a couple of questions. One is more of a financial statement question. And as we wind it down, I noticed there’s, just appears to be a small amount of salaries, contracted services and office rental for 2022.

Just wondering what that was and also inquiring. I know you’re looking into the software with an answer to come in the fall, but I’m just wondering where that is in these financial statements as well. So through you, Mr. Chair.

So the software is actually a city activity and it’s part of the municipal housing development team. That’s their part of their mandate. With respect to the staffing and the salaries, the staff actually moved over in April of 2022. So there’s still some residual funding towards those folks before they transitioned into the city.

Thank you. One other question around the affordable units and around 403 Thompson, ‘cause I noticed, I just wondered if you could explain a little bit what the impact is of moving that from affordable to the highly supportive. Or if there is any, when we’re looking at these kinds of reports. Through you, Mr.

Chair. So the units are still considered affordable. What we’ve done is we’ve layered on that supportive housing model with those affordable units. So in respect to delivering on the roadmap, we’re still able to meet those targets.

We’re still able to move those forward at this time. Thank you. And so does this still fall more under your area than into the social services? Or does it move at that point when it’s highly supportive?

Just before you go, I just wanna be, I know it’s a little bit awkward because we have a city staff member who’s also running our HTC, which is actually a separate organization. And so Mr. Felberg is here today in that capacity and to keep it very clean and easy. It would be great if we spoke to him in that capacity.

And if there are other questions for staff, I’ll let Mr. Mathers or someone else direct them just to make it a lot easier because we should keep them focused on the reason he’s here is for the shareholder meeting. So my last question then is, if you could just share a little bit more about the future affordable housing developments that are listed there, the 348, if there’s just a little bit you can share and if not, that’s fine. Certainly and through you Mr.

Chair. So one of those projects, for example, is the Duluth project and that will be coming forward as a subdivision application through the municipal housing development team. Another one on that list would be the Sylvan Street project, I believe, if I recall correctly, and that’s currently under construction right now. In general, all of those affordable projects have been transitioned over to the city and now under the guidance of the municipal housing development team.

And we’ll be, to put my other hat back on, we’ll be taking those forward through our normal process and reporting back to this council and committee. Other speakers, okay. So this is, Councilor Frank, go ahead. Thank you.

I just wanna say good job. And also, will this be the last time we see you as a shareholder and then you’ll be over here next year? Or how does this keep working in the future? Certainly and through you Mr.

Chair. So the intention is to wind down the HDC by the end of the calendar year. So we’ll still have at least one more audit and one more report back to this committee. Next year, I think you can anticipate, we’ll talk about the effort being towards creating and doing the audit and also working on the wind down strategy.

Thank you, that’s everything. Great, any further questions? Okay, see none. This is moved and seconded and essentially receiving the auditor’s report, the financial statements, the year end report and the shareholder documents and the presentation.

So moved and seconded, we’ll open that for voting. Councilor Trosso and Pelosa, closing the vote. The motion’s passed, 12 to zero. So colleagues know, I think Councilor Pelosa will be rejoining us.

She’s not there presently, so she’s been marked absent for that vote. Councilor Hillier and Councilor Mayemirberg are going to also run here. So just so colleagues know what the 12 votes are. With that, we’ll move to item 3.4, which is a public participation meeting, not to be heard before 4.45 p.m.

So we can check that box off, is okay. On the growth management implementation strategy date. So we’re going to start by taking a motion to open the PPM and then there’s a presentation. Moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councilor Hopkins.

We will vote on opening the PPM. Councilor Trosso, closing the vote. The motion’s passed, 12 to zero. Okay, I’m going to turn it over to our staff for the presentation related to this item.

Thank you, through the chair. So before this evening is the 2024 GMIS update report. The GMIS is an important tool to coordinate growth infrastructure with development approvals, time to meet the pace of growth across the city in Greenfield areas, especially and to ensure financial sustainability of the DC Reserve funds. The GMIS, they are projects that are infrastructure projects directly impacting specific subdivisions or site plan applications.

So storm water management facilities, water mains, or sanitary sewers, and they’re projects that are located within the existing urban growth boundary. Only lands in the UGB can have their timing of their growth infrastructure scheduled. The list of GMIS projects is established through master servicing plans, and then added to the DC background study, in this case, the 2021 DC background study. And then the DC background study assigns a construction year to each project based on expectations of that timing, but adjustments are sometimes required in cases where the development may move faster or slower than expected.

This report is an annual update on the timing of the list of those projects for the year 2024, and the purpose is to ensure that next year’s infrastructure projects are coordinated with new development. The annual update is not a mechanism to add new infrastructure projects to the DC background study. That’s done again through those master servicing studies that lead into each new DC background study. The process to do these updates includes extensive one-on-one interviews with developers and community members, and it’s so that the infrastructure timing is coordinated with the delivery of that new infrastructure in the new greenfield areas.

The goal is to have at least three years’ worth of single detached, so low density residential buildings, sorry, lots approved and registered in each of the greenfield areas, where possible, as the city is building out towards those boundaries. And then the developer requests are evaluated against three GMIS tests. So the first is, is the project needed to provide additional buildable lots to meet demand in the greenfield area? Has a developer sufficiently progressed a development proposal to warrant construction next year or the following year?

And then the third is, can the change in timing be afforded? So that’s a reserve fund analysis for the city if projects are being accelerated. This year we had 12 requests received through those interviews. There were four deferrals, two accelerations, and six that were non-GMIS projects.

Although they may have been in the DC background study as capital projects, they were not identified as GMIS projects. And those, weren’t GMIS projects are flagged for review during those upcoming master servicing plan reviews, such as the mobility master plan. Some of those types of requests are either reviews that are not GMIS projects, requests where the review of timing did not specify a given year, such as transportation studies that could be looked as part of that mobility master plan, requests to add new infrastructure projects into the GMIS, or acceleration timing, we saw where it aligned with the next round of master servicing plans and the next DC by-law. The recommended changes for the 2024 GMIS update, there are maps of them on slides 10 to 13 in the slides that were provided.

And you can see that there’s three stormwater management facilities deferred by either one to two years, and one water main deferral by one year. Staff also recommend the capital budget be adjusted to reflect the timing changes associated with this GMIS projects. And we are here to answer any questions if you have them. Thank you.

I’m gonna ask colleagues, this is a PPM, we’re gonna hear from anybody who’d like to speak, but is there any technical questions about to our staff before we proceed, knowing that you can ask some later as well? Okay, then I’ll go to members of the public who’d like to comment on the GMIS strategy today. Just do me a favor and just state your name for the record, and then you will have five minutes to comment. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, committee members, staff. Thank you for the chance to speak tonight. My name is Alister Beaton, and I’m speaking on behalf of the Urban League of London. My colleague, Mr.

Levin, is unable to attend tonight. The Urban League sits on the Development Charges Study Community Reference Group to represent the interests of the community at large. Our brief, and I use that word advisedly, pretty much speaks for itself. But I would like to emphasize that the City of London has run into cash flow problems in the past when construction and infrastructure projects were not coordinated.

GMIS is a valuable tool for coordination, and the Urban League supports the recommendation in the Deputy City Manager’s report. If you have any questions, I will attempt through the chair to answer them. Thank you. Thank you.

I’ll be looking for other speakers. Just one sec, just test the microphone there, we’ll try again. You don’t turn it on, we do— Okay, it’s on now, you’re good. Excellent, thank you.

Yeah, my name’s Justin Deaud. I represent Sifton Properties, I’m Engineering Manager in the Neighborhoods Development Division. Specifically, I’d like to talk about the Northeast GMIS area, and specifically the Kalele Road Water Project and Road Reconstruction. So currently, Sifton has no current available single-family inventory in registered plans in London at this time.

Although recent demand has reduced mid and long-term supply is anticipated to exceed demand. Our proposed Caverhill East draft plan that requires this GMIS work is Sifton’s number one priority in 2024 to bring forward much-needed residential inventories in Northeast London. Development in Northeast London requires a sanitary outlet. The proposed outlet services approximately 8,000 units and exists on an adjacent developer’s property with no present development application.

If GMIS proceeds as written, the design for the 2024 works will include all works required to support a new development except for the sanitary sewer. The sewer is the deepest work and it needs to be installed first. Based on the timing for 2024 delivery, the city would need to identify to their consultant to include the sewer in the design for the water project and road reconstruction. If too much time passes, the development opportunity will be lost.

GMIS is a tool to respond to market demand and adjust in time delivery model. This is Sifton’s number one large development project in 2024 and we have two pending draft plans. Council will see later in 2023 and 2024 that require this sanitary trunk sewer infrastructure. Through our consultants, we’ve estimated a cost for the trunk sewer of $1.3 million and this in our opinion is likely the lowest cost available to the city to provide the maximum amount of units.

We really want to work together to move this inventory forward. We have various products planned at attainable price points and densities. We can’t do it alone. Sifton is also committed to doing everything we can on delivering on council’s commitment on the housing pledge of 47,000 units built over 10 years.

This one area can generate up to 8,000 units alone. We want to invest and deliver new homes in the Northeast area, starting construction in 2024. Currently, without the sanitary trunk sewer along Kalele, this area would be serviced by a sanitary pump station and forced main to the ultimate outlet at an estimated cost of $5.72 million. The $5.7 million only serves 600 units versus the 1.37 million for an 8,000 potential units.

The sanitary sewer option is a quarter of the cost for 13 times more supply versus the pumping station option. While Sifton recognizes staff’s acknowledgement of the importance and potential of the Kalele growth area, the report cites calibration to a demand input of 978 units per year. We believe the GMIS program is disconnected from its role in meeting the City of London’s housing pledge target of 47,000 units by 2031. Over the last 12 months, Sifton has provided planning and economic development, staff, the technical, economic, and logical justification to include the sanitary sewer into the Kalele load project through numerous meetings, presentations, reports, and letters for the Kalele growth area to meaningfully contribute to the London housing pledge.

Sifton requests the strategic priorities and policy committee and council direct staff to include the sanitary trunk sewer in the Kalele water project immediately and tender for construction in 2024. Thank you. Okay, thank you, further speakers. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, Mr. Mayor, Councillors, I’d like to be your last speaker here tonight. Yeah, I’m gonna talk to you about the GMIS from an industry perspective, not what you heard from an individual, to be fair, Sifton is a member of LDI, and we appreciate your consideration of their request. But overall, GMIS, the growth management implementation strategy, we believe it’s time for it to be reviewed for what it possibly could be.

This is not a criticism of staff. Rightfully so, treat the process we have now as a just-in-time arrival for infrastructure, stormwater ponds, sewage, whatever needs to be done. And so, they have the, we’ve set it out through the DCs, what’s the plan is for timing, and then they are gracious enough to have developers in to talk about when things are gonna actually happen and when they’re not. This was created in 2008, it’s 15 years ago, it’s time for it to review.

We think there’s an opportunity to have the core of what it’s doing now, but also to be a strategy to help us get to where you guys want to go in terms of the 47,000 new homes in the next 10 years. The improvements, like we don’t, I’ll be frankly, we don’t have, I’m not here to tell you what the answer is, we’re here to say that we are willing to sit and talk with staff about what the opportunities are for the GMIS strategy, for this strategy program to not only deal with the current what’s coming online piece, but how can we use it as a driver for future development in this, to us to meet their goals. In your package, which was part of the staff’s presentation, if you look at the servicing in the six areas, and if you look at the LDR perimeter ready piece, which is three years, they have a two of your six, full build out, meaning that all the infrastructures in place to the growth boundary in two sections of your GMS in the northwest and in the west. So we are running out of space, there’s no doubt about it, and even staff’s own reports show that that’s the case based on the infrastructure that’s being planned through the GMIS program.

We think there needs to be improved forecasting. I’m not sure if maybe the treasurer can answer this for us. I’m not sure if we ever review what we forecast, what the revenue was to come in, and what actually was collected in DCs in a particular era. Maybe it’s in a report, and I’m not that you can steer me to.

The other issues we have is that we think the GMS can be much more proactive and not just reactive to what, why would a developer come in, and we want to build more housing, there may be delay in the application process. We’re trying to get it from, and I applaud staff’s efforts, we’re trying to get it from like a five to seven year process down to hopefully three to five, but things happen, the marketplace changes, applications we’re waiting for on our side for our consultants, we’re waiting for staff or third party organizations to comment on stuff so things can get delayed, and that’s why you see in this current recommendations, which we fully support, that four items get delayed a year, and then others are moved up from 33 to 28. So it just depends on how things are going for us. We do not have the answers.

We, it’d be great for me to say this is what we think it is, but we think that GMS can be more than what it is now, and it can be a helpful tool for you to plan the growth of this community over the next number of years. We are not saying that we don’t appreciate the process that’s there now on a, what I would call a nickel review of infrastructure requirements and when they come online, but we think the process could also assist us in the longer term planning, the longer term forecasting of where we’re going to go as a community, as it relates to growth, and the GMS as a tool is a possibility for that to help us with that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Can’t imagine there’s any other speakers in the gallery unless they’re, unless they’re ducking now behind the chairs, but there’s no, also no speakers online. So I’ll just for process ask to see if there’s any other speakers. Okay, seeing none, we’ll move a motion to close the PPM.

There’s no one online. Moved by Councillor Trossa, seconded by Councillor Stevenson, we’ll open closing the PPM for voting. Closing the vote, that motion’s 12 to zero. Okay, so first, what I’d like to do is, I’ll just go to our staff to respond to any comments that they may have heard through the PPM that they wanna add, either some insider clarifications on, I know a couple of things were raised there.

I don’t, I’ll start with Mr. Mather’s first, then I can go to Ms. Barbong. Through the chair, I just wanna address a couple of the comments and concerns there.

And we very much agree as far as the GMIS process. We’ve had this process for a long time. It’s up for review. Absolutely, I’ve been actually personally involved in the GMIS for many years.

And I can say that there’s a lot of learnings that I’ve taken away and there’s improvements that can be undertaken. So we actually have this as one of the items for our housing supply reference group to consider what the change is being, set some principles of what the new GMIS might look like for next year. So as much as we wanna make those changes as soon as possible, we’ve gone through our standard approach this year and we’ll be able to review it for next year. Regarding the discussion about the work on Kalele.

So you’ll note that there is a, in the resolution, we have provided a bit of detail saying that we’re gonna come back on that item. We have an approach that we believe will be successful, but we need a bit more time to be able to bring that forward. So what wasn’t highlighted is that in order to actually have a location for the sewer to connect to, we would have to go through a private lands to be able to provide for this servicing. So we don’t have a commitment at this point to be able to do that.

So we’re working with all the landowners to see if we can bring something that works for all the stakeholders and can be a consensus driven approach for this as well. So also there isn’t specific financing that’s allocated for a project here. So we’re gonna be going back through our development charge process and taking a look at some ways that we can be able to ensure that there’s some funding available to do this project. So we wanna bring you back a holistic response and we didn’t wanna rush it to get into the GMIS and hold up the other projects.

So we’re suggesting we come back at a future date with that holistic response. Okay, so if I just be clear, Mr. Mathers, the comments, particularly on Kalele, which is an item in this, you’re suggesting that we move forward with the GMIS, but your staff intend to, before next year, investigate and potentially come back midway through the process with some options. Should they work out?

Through the chair, so a couple pieces, we’re looking at reconsidering the GMAS process for next year, but prior to even that reconsideration, we’re gonna come back with a report looking at options to be able to proceed with this project to provide servicing in the Kalele area. Can I go, there might be some questions on that, but let me just go to Ms. Barbone first. Thank you through the chair.

So the other question was the monitoring of the DC revenues compared to actuals. And just recently on the most recent corporate services agenda, on May 23rd, our annual DC monitoring report and annual report on the reserve funds was presented. So we’ve built in to that annual process now, and there were charts that showed what the budgets were and what the expectations were with the actuals with the revenue that was received. So that is something that we’re trying to take a more proactive approach to report that out publicly, to show that monitoring and something that we’re now trying to do informally on a quarterly basis and start to bring forward more reports so that that is available for people to see how we’re tracking with respect to the revenues that were anticipated.

Okay, thank you. I’ll now go to some questions from colleagues, Councillor Trozau, then Councillor Frank. I’d like to address the issue of a gap, that being a gap between infrastructure that we pre-approve to put into the ground and the ultimate building of the units. Is that a serious issue?

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, it is absolutely a serious issue. We are finding we do have 18,000 units that are approved of different forms, but when we look at the percentage of units within each of those categories, whether there be high density, medium or low, that we do have some differentiation between what the demand is in the marketplace and how many units that are available.

So it very much is an issue and it’s the reason why we have our housing supply reference group and looking at housing supply in general in London. Thank you also through the chair. So I take it that the staff report, as it’s written, does not require an amendment to further discuss this or address this gap issue? Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair, I suggest no, because we already have the direction to look at that through our 47,000 pledge report and the housing supply action plan creation. Finally, if I may, through the chair, ask me to share a question in terms of what would be the implication of if I understand the request from Siften and please correct me if I’m wrong, it would accelerate the process for this infrastructure. What would be the risks of that?

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, as far as the, sorry, absolutely, as far as the risks, we’d like to bring you a fully baked package to be able to express a way that we can move this forward. We don’t have that today.

And that’s why we’ve highlighted that we’d want to come back at a future report. So we wanted to be able to tell you like how it’s gonna happen, what’s gonna be constructed, and when it’s gonna be constructed and the financing available for it. And we can’t do that today. We’re hoping to be able to do that over the next two months, but we need a bit more time.

My apologies for if I don’t go to the right person. Mr. Mathers is just really good at making eye contact. And I just make him talk when he does that.

Councillor Troso. I’m just wondering if Ms. Chair has anything to add to that from an infrastructure point of view, if it’s relevant. Thank you, Your Worship.

And one of the great things about your colleague, Amy, your former director of Water, Waste Water, and Stormwater is we’re entirely on the same page. All this matter. Okay, well, thank you Mayor. That answers my question.

And it seems to point to the soundness of the staff report, but I’ll save that for the deliberation. Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes. I have a question and then I’d be happy to move the staff recommendation.

But my first question was just in regards to the safety and property. It’s my recollection that they’re at the end of a road and there is empty fields and property that’s not being developed. And that’s perhaps why there’s no infrastructure underground because those fields sit vacant and are not currently being developed. I’m just seeking if that is accurate assessment of the situation.

Go ahead. Thank you through the chair. So the current servicing approach is over sizing, which is going property to property as they build out from the existing built area in the west towards the east. The current location of the pipe is on a private landowner’s property.

So there is an actual gap in geography between where the pipe is currently located for the sanitary and the road right of way where a trunk sewer could be located. So that’s what the further discussion needs to be about is with landowners working to figure out the location and getting it to that. The current approach would require the temporary pumping station because they are at the end of the road. But again, the city is open to reviewing the approach to servicing of the area, but provided there has to be that discussion to figure out the gap between the location of the current pipe and the road right of way where the trunk sewer might go.

Councilor Frank. Thank you, that helps clarify that. And I know that staff will do their very best job of negotiating a fair deal. And I am also interested in making sure that whoever is supposed to be helping fund that is responsible for helping fund that.

And taxpayers are only paying what their portion should be. But I know that you guys are already on that. So I appreciate that consideration. And thank you for your work on this.

I know it’s a very large undertaking with a lot of stakeholders. So I’d be happy to move the staff recommendation. Okay, seconder for the staff recommendation, Councillor Hopkins. Okay, staff recommendations on the floor.

I have two more speakers so far. Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councillor Ramen. Yes, thank you. And I really appreciate Mr.

May, there’s highlighting that the Killely area will be reviewed before even the GMS GMIS review, let alone before the next report here. Because I actually echo Councillor Trussau’s concerns. And I’m particularly concerned about our capacity in terms of infill. And we saw it at planning committee last night.

An application came forward for infill for two apartment towers, 12 stories each, right across the road from Fanshawe College. And the staff recommendation had to be a holding provision and a phasing in of only one building at this time because of the lack of sanitary sewer capacity. I recall in the previous council about probably about 18 months ago, we had another recommendation that refused because of a lack of sanitary and storm sewer servicing in the area. We have the redevelopment of the London psychiatric hospital lands, which I know a considerable number of them can tie into the services that are on high berry, but the lands closer to first street may be impacted as that application of about 18 months ago was by the lack of servicing.

So I’m delighted to hear the Kalele piece is gonna be looked at over the next couple of months and a solution is gonna be found ‘cause I know you will find a solution. My comment and my greater concern is that when we talk about and we heard first time, I think I’ve ever heard the private sector speak against Justin Time Delivery, Mr. Wallace, but I think that we heard, you know, in the north and west and then the west, we’re built out, it’s pretty much done. And we’re up against the urban growth boundary there.

So if we want to see growth happen and especially that infill growth, what’s of concern to me is that the servicing in the east is not there. To meet the growing demands, especially around Fanshawe College, although I’m flanked by two other east end counselors who probably have some similar concerns about if we want those city to grow in different parts of the city, we’re gonna need the servicing in the different parts of the city. And that’s what I don’t see really reflected in this. That’s not to take away from the work that staff has done.

And I know, for example, the White Oaks management is really necessary because of the development that’s happening on the south side of the city. And I’m happy to see that, but I would, as we’re considering the Killele piece, also look at where our servicing capacity is for infill. Because around Fanshawe College in particular, there seems to be a shortfall of it. I don’t know if either, now I know that there was an EA around a Pottersburg sewer rebuild.

And I’m not sure if that’s added capacity. I don’t know if either Mr. Mathers or Ms. Sherr can speak to how we’re addressing that shortfall on the east side of the city, but I’d appreciate it if they have any thoughts to share.

Through the chair, one of the things that you just highlighted there is exactly why we need to do an update of the GMIS. So the GMIS, since its inception, is really focused on Greenfield development. We know that we can’t just be looking at Greenfield development as part of our analysis. Anymore, we have to start looking at the intensification piece as well.

And we know if we’re gonna have, we have this target for 45%, we need to ensure that we actually can service that within it. So as part of the housing supply action plan as well, we’re highlighting the need to have an analysis to know where we can grow within that intensification area in a timely manner. So that’s why we really do need to have this focus. And moving forward, we’ll absolutely be including Matt.

If Ms. Shear has anything to add, I’m happy to ask it to her. Thank you, I wish I don’t have anything to add. That’s a ramen.

Thank you and through you. I had a question regarding Table Two and the project timing request, not recommended by staff. And it’s regarding the Sunningdale Road West, Hyde Park to Wonderland. It specifically says that services around roads, stormwater and water, the developer requested to advance all to 2025.

And I’m just wondering why instead the recommendation is 2024. I like earlier, but I just wanted to ask, thanks. Thank you, through the chair. You’ll note that in that table, it identifies 2023 GMIS timing and then not applicable.

That amongst the other road projects were not GMIS projects, although they are identified in the DC background study as capital projects. So those are then identified and have been flagged with transportation staff for review as part of the mobility master plan, which is also running concurrently right now. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

So just to clarify, although we have the master mobility plan, technically the high, sorry, technically the Sunningdale road widening is already something that Council has endorsed to move forward with, but just delayed in terms of timing. Your worship, with respect to the mobility master plan and the impacts on the timing of developments, we’re looking to where projects may need to be accelerated to accommodate growth. So we’re reviewing the opportunity to advance things beyond their current scheduled location. That would include things like Sunningdale West, it does include things like Southdale, that’s four leaning from Boswick to Colonel Talbot.

So there’s a number of parallel processes that are looking at the timing of projects. This one happened to not fall into GMIS, but it’s not off our radar. Thank you. And just to follow up, I see that there weren’t any applications at that time, but you’re expecting an application in 2023 related to the area that was added into the urban growth boundary for Sunningdale.

That’s in the Jerusalem project that’s mentioned in here. Through the chair, I just wanna reconfirm that question. So this is related to the former cemetery site that there was the planning application, is that? Thank you, yes.

I didn’t know how we were referring to it. I’ll call it the former cemetery site, thanks. So through the chair, because it was a cemetery, it was not designated for urban development. Therefore, when the 2021 DC background study was prepared, there were no infrastructure projects identified for it.

So this is the road project specifically where the request was to change the timing, but so far as SWIM or water or any of the other infrastructure projects that would be required, they would be noted for the upcoming master servicing review where applicants can also make requests for consideration of those projects to be added into the next DC background study to become new GMIS projects. Thank you, and I’ll stick to the liberty to add some context to that. It was an area that is actually in the urban growth boundary, although not designated for growth at the time and the temporary cost of servicing were born by the developer for that particular project. So although there may be permanent solutions later, all of the temporary solutions are born by the cost of the developers, is that correct to the staff?

Through the chair, going through that, the planning process, that was the understanding, yes. Thanks, Councilor. Thank you. Councilor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you. And I’m really pleased to know that the GMIS is going to be reviewed. I think that’s a good thing. I do want to follow up with Councilor Tresault’s comments around that infrastructure gap that’s there.

And I’m really pleased that staff are going to be reviewing that as we build the infrastructure is always lagging behind. So please to hear that. Councilor Roman, Roman sort of, I’m gonna follow up with her question, but I’m gonna try to simplify it as it relates to table two, which are the project timing requests that are not recommended by staff. And so as we’re not recommending this list, I heard from staff that it’s going to go forward.

Some aren’t eligible for GMIS timing. They may be going forward. But do you start all over again, or do you take this? And just trying to understand how these projects that aren’t going to be adjusted, what happens to them?

Thanks. Through the chair. So a running list is identified. And in the appendices to this report, some are noted.

And these are given to other transportation staff and swim in the other divisions so that when they do their master servicing plans or the mobility master plan, there is an initial list of requests that have already been received by the city over the years for consideration of those changes. It’s through those master servicing plans that the projects themselves get identified into the DC background study with a year attached and a dollar value assigned. And then this is the annual adjustment to those projects based on whether or not development is coming forward as we would expect. But if it’s something outside of this process, there is a running list and then it gets given to staff during those other projects so they can review it as well for potential inclusion.

Thank you for that. It’s good to know that they’re not forgotten. And there is that list that exists. So thanks again.

Other speakers? This is moved and seconded now, we’ve had discussion. If there’s no other speakers, I’m gonna open this for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed, 13 to zero.

Okay, on to item four items for direction. So 4.1, the lower Thames Conservation Authority and the Kettle Creek Conservation Authority. So you’ll see that we require appointments of counselors to these conservation authorities now. So one requires one member of council, one requires two members of council.

So we’ll deal with these one at a time. We need a volunteer or someone who’d like to serve on the lower Thames Conservation Authority. It’s the time where you can make a nomination or nominate your friend beside you, Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes.

I’d love to nominate Councillor Van Mirbergen for one of the positions. Okay, so yes, you can nominate and second moving an individual to serve on a board. I would note that you would be doing so not knowing whether that person could actually show up for the meetings or would have conflicts. So it’s technically allowed to do this, but I just caution people that we have no idea about his availability for this.

So Councillor Troceau. I’d like to make a comment about this whole matter. No, I serve on the kettle, if I may, to the chair. I serve on the Kettle Creek board and I’ve been diligent as well as I can to attend these meetings, including going down there, which precludes having meetings before and after.

I want to say this, Kettle Creek, I think it’s fair to say it’s from the record. We have difficulties sometime with quorum. We have a meeting tomorrow, which I’ll be attending remotely. And I’ve been advised that one person is not there, we lose quorum.

This came very close to happening the day we were voting on the levy. And I don’t mind saying that the city of London has a lot of influence on the levy matter, because you get more than one vote. I want to say that I am exceptionally disappointed with the response that we’ve received from the province on this. Because we went through a very diligent process and we selected, I’m going to be careful how I framed this because I had a conflict on one of them, but we really were diligent in finding volunteers, non-counselers, to do this.

And to come back at this point in the term and tell us that we have to add counselors, two, two more for Kettle Creek. Does the city of London really need to have three counselors responsible for going to Kettle Creek when there is a serious risk of not having quorums? Now, there’s nothing we can do about this. The province has said what the province is going to say.

And we have to fill these, we have to fill these positions. And that’s going to mean that some of us counselors are going to double and triple and quadruple up on some of these things. I know there are a few of us in this room who currently serve on these boards, on these conservation area boards. If there’s someone who is not, I guess it’s Councillor Cuddy, I guess it’s myself, I guess it’s Councillor Frank, and I guess it’s Councillor Hopkins.

I think if there’s someone else who really would like to serve on one of these boards, even if it’s not up or times, it’s a great experience. There is a learning curve. There is a learning curve and I’m very concerned about unless you’re keen to do it, there is a learning curve. So I think what I want to say is rather than go around the table and start nominating people who aren’t on one of these boards, it might be more useful to go around the table and look at you and talk to people who have already grown up the learning curve of serving on one of these boards.

No, particularly if you’re the Councillor who has the area in the jurisdiction. So I’m at a loss as to what to do. I’m already on Kettle Creek. I certainly would volunteer for another one because I think I’ve done substantially the work in coming up to speed, but I’d like to ask my colleagues whether people have other thoughts.

Because I think this is a real imposition on us from the province, but again, we have to do it. Well, I’ll say, Councillor, I think that’s accurate. It may be an imposition on us. We made a request, the response to the request was clear and it’s within their authority to give that response, whether we like it or not, or whether we think it works for us or not.

So at this time, I’m in a position to have to try to fill the seats. I do have Councillor McAllister. Then I’m going to go back to Councillor Fragan and ask if that was a serious motion and it’s OK, it is. And it’s serious second, OK.

So I do have a motion to appoint someone on the floor as well for the Lord Thames Valley Conservation Authority. Go ahead, Councillor McAllister, though, with your— Thank you, through the chair. Couldn’t be in a while. Can you remind us when they meet?

Now, what’s the frequency? Thank you. We’ll look that up and we’ll get that in just a couple of seconds. It’s going to take a few minutes to get that information.

I’ll look to see if there are other speakers, the motion, on the floor, which is to appoint Councillor Mayemirberg and to this particular conservation authority. Colleagues, please, Councillor Frank, go ahead. Yes, I just was flipping through. And back in November, we made our decisions about what committees that we should sit on.

I did make a little bit of a tally on who’s sitting on how many and where. I do want to recognize Councillor Stevenson and Ferreira for sitting on the most. Stevenson is on 10 and Ferreira is on 8. So I feel like 9.

That is well covered. Just wanted to throw that out there before we had some more nominations to this. But I am looking at other Councillors. So I’d encourage folks who are maybe sitting on between 1 to 4, maybe to consider their schedule of activities and perhaps maybe volunteer for one of these roles, which also I sit on the Upper Thames Conservation Authority.

And it is an excellent time. Conservation authorities are a lot of fun. They’re a good group of people. So I just want to put a plug in for sitting on the CAs.

Thank you. So Colleagues, there’s been a couple of piece of information that I want to pull together for this based on your comments. That is going to take a few minutes. So let me present a couple of options for you.

We can wait to get that information. Or we could put this matter and the potential motion we have on the floor, bottom of the agenda, deal with the 2.1 and 2.2, which we deferred. Give people some time to maybe think about whether they want to serve. We’ll get that exact information about how many appointees there are and the times of the meetings available for everybody.

So that is an option. We could just give people to think about it a little more time rather than stare at each other on the spot here and deal with the other two items. But as soon as that information is available, I’ll make sure it’s circulated to Colleagues, so you have it as you can consider that. Councillor Troe’s out.

Since Councillor Frank kindly pointed out the counts, I’ve ascertained that I’m probably on the lower end. Yeah, yeah, I only have two. So I would volunteer unless somebody else was willing to do it. I would volunteer for lower temps, because I don’t see there’s any conflict being on too.

And I would also be very happy to nominate my colleague, Councillor Pribble, to join me on Cattle Creek and that would move things forward quite a bit. And we will be able to work very well together on this. Right? Absolutely.

Yeah. OK, so you’re in competition with Councillor van Mirberg and right now, because of the motion on the floor, we can certainly take other nominations. This was a motion to a point, so it’s not actually a nomination. It’s actually a move in a second in motion to a point.

Yes. So that should have been nominations. So you’ve nominated an individual. Councillor Troe’s out could be nominated.

We can have a vote as well. We have a ballot ready. So it sounds like if someone could nominate Councillor Troe’s out who was in Councillor Troe’s out. Wait a minute.

I don’t want to be a hog here. I mean, if somebody else wants to do it. Is it Councillor McAllister? I would also, through the chair, lower terms, I’m more likely to do.

But I would like to know the schedule first, especially if it’s a heavy day already. Just because it isn’t JADM, recognizing the distance. And I don’t. Distance is a factor.

I know there are some remote meetings, but that would work better for me than Kettle Creek. So I will also put my name out there for that. But scheduling, if that works. We know the information for Kettle Creek, sorry.

We don’t know the information for lower terms. Councillor ramen. Thank you. I Googled it.

Held on the last Thursday of every year or month. At two, I think, right? Yeah. So last Thursday of every month for lower terms, lower terms, Valley Conservation Authority.

And the Kettle Creek is Thursdays at two, Councillor Troe’s Wednesday, Wednesday at 10. OK, Wednesday at 10, Councillor Troe says. Last Wednesday of the month or tomorrow? So middle of the month.

OK, so hopefully that helps colleagues with their decision-making. So we have someone who’s nominated Councillor Van Mirbergen. I know Councillor Troe has always expected to express an interest for lower terms, but not put his name forward, because he said he wanted to see if others did. Councillor McAllister, you wanted to know the information to see if that works for you.

So I’ll go to you to see if you’re looking to have someone nominate you or not. With it’s Thursday at two, slower terms, I believe. Last Thursday at two, that works better in my schedule than the Wednesday. So you’re willing to be nominated?

OK, someone will nominate Councillor McAllister, Councillor Stevenson’s willing to. OK, OK. So that’s two candidates for the one spot. Anybody else interested in getting their name on this list?

OK, so we’ll do the vote in the system. Everybody gets to vote for one person. There would be two candidates. That’s right.

Who were the two candidates? Councillor Van Mirbergen and Councillor McAllister. Oh, OK. Oh, he’s a Catholic Greek that you wanted?

OK, the clerk heard that incorrectly. So can you just reiterate? Oh, for either. OK, so you’re not looking to nominate Councillor Van Mirbergen for this.

OK, so we’re just dealing with lower now. So we have one person nominated in Councillor McAllister. Given that, we don’t have to have an election if everybody’s there. I just look for someone to move appointment of Councillor McAllister.

Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Councillor Lewis. Any discussion on this? Oh, we took a long way around on that one. Councillor Farrar, go ahead.

Thank you, through you. Thank you. Councillor McAllister. OK, so we’ll vote on that in the system.

I’m going to open that for voting. Two-point Councillor McAllister to the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority. Closing the vote. That motion’s carried 13 to 0.

OK, one down. There are two spots on the Kettle Creek Conservation Authority. Councillor Trostai, you had a nomination in Councillor Prabell. OK, Councillor Prabell.

Yep. OK, so Councillor Prabell is nominated for this. Other nominations? Councillor Frank?

I’d like to nominate Councillor Van Mirberg. OK, Councillor Van Mirberg and also nominated to serve other nominations? Councillor McAllister. I’d like to nominate Councillor Hillier.

That’s three nominations, so we will have a ballot for this. You’ll be able to select two individuals. Councillor Palosa, go ahead. Sorry, thank you.

I’ll note two things as the former Councillor from last term who served on Kettle Creek. Wonderful board. It does turn into a hearing tribunal for any disputes, which is different than some of the other ones that all members automatically serve on a hearing tribunal, important to note. And I will also note that this meeting time does not work for Councillor Hillier, as he originally took it last term or council and couldn’t do it, and I took it over.

So I already know this time doesn’t work for him, as it’s not— it just doesn’t. So just letting the committee know that, as it happened in the past, we had to hand it off. Councillor Trostai. Thank you.

Thank you for that, Councillor Palosa. And you’re quite right. This is just a wonderful board to work with. They get a little bit more hands-on in terms of working with potential appellants.

And I don’t know if that’s a carryover or something new. So there really aren’t a lot of hearings that have come up. Councillor McAllister, thank you. Through you all, I’ll withdraw my nomination with Councillor Hillier.

OK, so now the nominated candidates are Councillor Pribble and Councillor Vamehir-Burgen. Again, I think colleagues can address their availability. This has to go to Council for approval as well. So there’s that option.

There’s only two candidates nominated for the spots, which means we don’t actually have to have a vote. As you get two votes, those two candidates are going to win. So I just look to see if there’s a motion to appoint these two individuals. Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor Trostai.

Any discussion on this? Councillor Frank. I look forward to their leadership on these two boards. And I think that the conservation authorities are a really important part of what we do in this community.

So I look forward to their service. Is there any other discussion? Councillor Stevenson? I’m feeling uncomfortable without the acceptance of the nomination by Councillor Vamehir-Burgen.

So we could divide it so that you vote to appoint Councillor Pribble and you vote to appoint Councillor Vamehir-Burgen separately, just to several votes. If you need to vote differently on those, that’s easily accommodated through this process. So we’ll deal with the nomination of Councillor Pribble first. This is everybody— anyway, I have the discussion on just Councillor Pribble’s nomination.

The same mover and seconder will open the appointment of Councillor Pribble to the Kettle Creek Conservation Authority. Posing the vote, the motion’s passed, 13 to 0. Yes, and so the second one, it’s the same mover and seconder fine with that. It’s the appointment of Councillor Vamehir-Burgen to the same conservation authority, the Kettle Creek Conservation Authority.

I look for discussion on that. Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you. I do— maybe I’m remembering this wrong, but I think it’s Councillor Layman.

You happened to miss a meeting of which they were appointing a vice chair of a committee, and so they made you the vice chair because you were unable to be there that day. So this is kind of a past practice for us, that we’ve done this before, where we’ve said, if someone wasn’t there, that we would then ask them if they were able to through the vote, and then they could let us know. So there is opportunity, if Councillor Vamehir-Burgen is unable to make those meetings to then change this before council, at council. So I think that— just wanted to put that out there because I do know that that is something that we have done in the past, and I think that there is opportunity to balance some of those appointments and roles by looking at filling those and giving the person the opportunity to then refuse.

Thanks. Councillor Stevenson. Not to belabor this. I was made vice chair of audit in my absence, and that was fine, but I’d already committed to the committee and the date and time.

But I’m fine with voting on this. So I’m going to speak. I’ll hand the chair over to Councillor Layman. Please go ahead, Mayor.

So I’m not going to support this motion. I do think that it is important for colleagues to carry a workload, but I think it’s respectful to them to find out if they’re able to serve before we point into something. This is different from appointing someone device chair. They’ve already committed to the time block for that committee.

I think we would just be setting Councillor Vamehir-Burgen up for an awkward council meeting. It’s unfortunate he’s not here to put his name forward. An alternate motion is we could have left this blank and forwarded it to council and reached out to see if he could serve. So obviously, the committee can make its decision.

I just wanted to be on record to say I won’t be supporting someone on a committee if we don’t know if they’re available to serve on it. And I’ll hand the chair back to you. Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes.

And just to follow up on that, I think we had lots of thoughts after the process that we did last November. And I think one of them that I felt that I know that lots of previous councillors had reminded all us new councillors was don’t take on too much of the workload because you are going to burn yourself out. A lot of these are four-year commitments. And so just afterwards, having done the analysis and looking where everyone was seated, how much time people are putting in and how much time people are not putting in, I do think it’s fair to have some expectations that there is shared duty and fairness across this council.

So I am just hoping to see, again, as Councillor Robin said, there’s always opportunity to change things before council. But I do think it is fair to expect that some people are going to carry at least somewhat of a similar workload to others. And I think right now there are some people working significantly, and there are some people who have a much lighter workload. And I think this is a process we have an opportunity to redistribute some of that workload.

Okay, any further comments before we vote? Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, I don’t want to just deliver it either, but I will be supporting it. I think it is only fair that we try to share some of the workload.

There is an opportunity for the Councillor to not acknowledge it or to not put his name forward at council, but I do think it’s an important discussion that we have to have around the table here to see how we can share the workload. Thank you, any further discussion? Okay, if not, we’ll open this for voting. Closing the vote, the motion’s passed nine to four.

Okay, so that concludes the items for direction 4.1. Now colleagues, if you recall, we deferred, are we pulled two consent items? Item 2.1, which is the June progress report on Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response, and 2.2, which is the core area action plan review. So we’ll deal with these one at a time, and we’ll start with item 2.1, which is the June progress report on the Health and Homelessness Whole of Community System Response.

There, this is a report, let me just flip back to it, that is to be received, so we can certainly put a motion on the floor to receive it, and then we can have some debate on this item. So I look for anybody who wants to move motion to receive, Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Cuddy, discussion on this item. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you.

I’ve been reflecting on this quite a bit, and I’m gonna seek clarity tonight, like just from a genuine place, ask some questions so that I’m more clear, I guess I would say, on this Health and Homeless Summit. So I mentioned at the last meeting that we talk about building a bridge as we go across it, and I wasn’t sure where the bridge was going to. And what I mean by that is, what can Londoners expect at the end of this? ‘Cause my concern is that we, and we’ll talk about this when we do the court area action plan as well, that my experience, my limited experience in council so far is that we tend to come up with these task lists, and we do the tasks, and then we say we’re done.

Did we achieve the objective? And so when I look, I went back to the February 28th because often it said, you know, the council endorsed whole of community response. So I went back to the February 28th report. And in the executive summary, it seems really great.

Like it says, throughout 2022, Londoners from all sectors and backgrounds said clearly that something needed to change, to save lives, to better deliver healthcare and housing for marginalized Londoners experiencing homelessness, and to address the whole of community impacts of this crisis. It goes on to say complex factors, and at the end it says as well as, so the crisis has also had a major impact on those that provide direct service, which we’ve been hearing about, as well as mounting economic and health impacts to the entire community. And so when I look at that February 28th report, I do endorse it, I did endorse it, but what I’d like to know is, what can Londoners expect at the end of this? We know we’re gonna have 600 supportive, highly supportive housing units.

We’re gonna have 10 to 15 hubs, or 12 to 15 hubs. But when, so my piece has been that community piece. And I’m wondering, even when it comes to the businesses, we’ve got the BIA’s represented, but there’s a lot of businesses that aren’t represented by the BIA. And even in my own ward, you know, Lanoisette has a couple of windows broken down on Wellington, we’ve got the, I think it’s Chickbaw’s cupcake.

She was just in the news, and they’re not picked up by the BIA’s. The community, it’s here, it is here. And I’m just a little concerned that in the implementation that we’re so focused on one group, we might miss what’s happening in the larger thing, or at least they perceive, and I perceive it to be missed. So if we could just clarify that, that what can Londoners expect on our main streets in our, at the end of this?

Start with Ms. Livingston. Through you, your worship, I really appreciate the question. This is some of the work that is live right now at the Strategy and Accountability Table.

We’re beginning to articulate the very specific outcomes that can be expected. There are the obvious ones. Fewer deaths, fewer encampments, more people housed. But as has been noted, there are the additional components, reduced impact on emergency rooms, reduced off-load delays for EMS.

We have stood up the business reference table. It is intended to include more than just the BIAs. In fact, Graham Henderson, who is the head of the chamber, has very kindly agreed to co-chair that. So we’re hoping to engage more.

The other group that we’re standing up is our systems foundations table. And this is really where the data on what is the impact. So there are very specific goals that will be KPIs identified, so that we’re able to say what difference did we make? So do we have those all articulated today?

No. But that is some of the work that is happening right now, and will continue to happen as we send up those pieces so that we can then demonstrate, yes. Putting hubs in place that brings all the services together that people need and create a pathway to housing and standing up the highly supported housing. So as we heard earlier, people are inappropriate housing has those two impacts, but also broader community impacts.

So that is part of the work. I don’t have all of that in front of us today, and I believe we are engaging the right group of people to help us understand how we define those. Thank you, and I really appreciate the answer. Can I ask also how we’re making sure that the community itself is represented, ‘cause I know council’s not on, and I’m just wondering the community itself, specifically, I think many, many near parks and rivers are feeling it, certainly those near the social service agencies in my area are feeling it, that to just keep remembering that there’s that piece of it, so when we talk about the encampment strategy, what about the impacts to the people around it?

Are we gonna be tracking it? Is there gonna be a number that they can call? And so in each part of this, can you just clarify how the community is participating? When I say community, I mean residents, like homeowners, tenants, the people who live in the area, or how we could be a stronger voice on that?

Go ahead. Through you, your worship, the first or beginning of that level of engagement started in a significant way last week with four community meetings across the community, engaging very specifically on what the hubs are, so folks could learn about the plan, understand what they’re intended to do, and provide input on criteria on where they can be located, not located, how to be a good neighbor. That work has continued through the Get Involved site, there’s another session next week, we’re standing up our businesses as well to provide input on that. We are anticipating that as we continue to move through components of this, when we come to the longer term, for example, longer term encampment strategy, that there would also continue to be that engagement with the broader community as we move through the development of detailed plans.

It’s true in the development of the very urgent health and safety issues with respect to encampments right now and what was in front of CAPS last week. There was not a broad community engagement on that, we were talking about very immediate concerns from a health and safety perspective, but the intention as we move through this work around supportive housing, all of the elements that we would find important opportunities to engage the broader community as we have just done and are in the midst of with respect to the Hubs. Thank you, I have a few questions, but I’m just gonna ask one more and then I’ll give my colleagues some time as well. When it comes to the public participation and the community engagement, do you see a time in this process where there could be a public participation meeting where people could, I think there’s a need for them to be heard.

I know Timmons had a phenomenal turnout at theirs and some very emotional stories shared and I wondered if that was possible. Ms. Livingston. Your worship, really the PPMs, I’m in the hands of council, we have embarked on a fairly comprehensive engagement process for example around the Hubs with five community opportunities, that get involved site, over 1200 Londoners are participated in that already, over 200 coming out to the community meetings and bringing that input into the development of that work versus providing a PPM at the end of a piece of work.

So we’re trying to move quickly, engage people and have it inform the development of the plan. That’s the approach that we’ve embarked upon. Should council choose to have a PPM? We’re entirely in your hands on that.

We’re trying to balance moving forward quickly to do the work, have it informed by community input. So council has all of that in front of you when you’re making some decisions. For example, around the plan for the first five Hubs that will come to you later in July. Good, thanks.

If I can just follow up on that, I thought I was done, but I will just reiterate that the community engagement, which I think is great that we had it, but there weren’t any between Warren Cliff and a few blocks from Clarkside Road. There was a huge area, probably the most impacted currently with social service agencies that didn’t find it is easy to access that. And the get involved, which is great, there was no gating on that at all. And I know when Ollie’s Village did a survey, it was quickly overtaken by activists.

So I’m a little concerned about the results that come from this get involved in the sense that you’re not really gonna know one way or the other if some people really had some influence there. If you’re looking to comment on it. Okay, but I think that’s just a comment from a councilor. So I’m gonna move to councilor Pribble.

Thank you, sir, to chair to the staff. I have a few questions and I’ll start on page five, the third paragraph from the bottom. And this was partially answered, but I still would like to have a clear answer. It states to support a more inclusive and broad representation approach for businesses and economic partners.

On page seven, it’s mentioned the business and developers tables. Is it just through these two tables? Or will there be, are we gonna reach out beyond these two tables to get the feedback from business community? And also I’m looking at the timeframe because we were supposed to get the first draft or not, sorry, first initiatives proposals next month.

And I know the timeframe, it doesn’t give us a lot of time. So my question is, are we going beyond these two tables to reach out to the business community, Mr. Dickens? Thank you, Your Worship, and through you.

So those two tables will have larger representation and we will have multiple meetings of those two tables. So as Ms. Livingston indicated, we have two co-chairs, one from the old East Village BIA and one from the Chamber of Commerce to lead our business group. We’re also working with the downtown BIA in terms of a business engagement session that fits their format.

But we do have a meeting booked for June 22nd, which is this week with the business group. And we have another one penciled in for next Tuesday. I’m working with the downtown BIA on a third meeting. So there’ll be three meetings with that business group.

We’re also promoting that survey online to the business community as well. They’re free to provide feedback as well. And with the developers group, our chair is actually up in the gallery. And we have had one meeting with the developers group that was on June 16th.

We are getting another meeting on the books as well. So it is a very tight timeline. And staff are moving quite quickly to make sure we collect as many voices as possible. Great, thank you for that.

Page seven on the bottom and it’s as encampment strategy. A series of responses face out over the next 90 days. CPSC approved, we approved, we didn’t go to accounts yet, 355,000 in phase one. And my question is this, that I’m and I mentioned during the last meeting as well, that we are right now approving finances and initiatives till end of July, which is let’s say roughly 40 days.

And then in this document, we have 90 days phase out strategy. And my question is going back to it again that we are not gonna have the initiatives in place certainly till the fall. When are we gonna get any proposals from these 40 to 90 days to phase out? So my question is kind of, what is the game plan?

Thank you. Through you, Your Worship, thank you for that question. So what the CAHPS committee received in the past was the first phase of that response, you’re right? We’re looking at, you know, a 90 day, you know, what can we do right now in the month of July and June?

What do we need to do beyond that? And then take us into the fall. So what you’ve received is sort of the first 30 to 40 days of a response. The other iterations of that plan will be informed that that table is actually meeting tomorrow.

So as they meet this week, they will refine some of those plans. We do, we did table this conversation about the encampment response that are strategy and accountability table last week. We will start to funnel some of those updates and requests there before they come here. But we expect within that window of the next five to six weeks that there would be a report back.

Glad to hear that. And I hope that the proposal is going to come before the end of July. So we can make the decision. So again, the agencies are prepared and continuing with their services.

Page 8, 2.3, next steps bring forward a detailed hot plan on July 19th SPPC meeting. My question is this, will this be detailed in terms of the services and designs or actual sites? And the costs as well, Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Chair and through you. So we expect that the hubs plan will include a lot of the criteria about where the locations could be. So it will not come back to you in July with these are the specific locations. What we want to put before council is the criteria that’s been informed by the public, by those with lived experience, by the business community and so on, for council to consider.

And through that consideration, we will then have a plan that will lead us into the launch of an expression of interest. The expression of interest is where you will see the budgeting and those cost figures start to come back. So in the hubs plan, yes, the services will be defined. We have core functions that were part of the plan that we put before you.

So those are the core functions. We already know what those core functions are. We’re just working through the definition of those and understanding how they will be delivered in a multi-disciplinary approach. So those services have not changed.

They’re just being clearly defined. And then through the plan, we will then be able to launch an expression of interest. So we’re already working at the table around some really loose projection in terms of budgets. We’ve used some budget figures as we go to other orders of government to do some advocacy works.

We have sort of a working figure. But those, the expression of interest piece will be when we start to see those concrete locations and start to see those concrete dollar figures. I’m going to do a follow up. I have two more questions about other councils, give them their opportunity to ask.

But I wanted to ask, so if we are going to do this, end of July, we are not going to have the concrete hubs yet. We are going to talk about the design and the services, not locations and costs. And that’s going to be end of July. We are going to, and again, two, three months later, we are going to go into winter.

How do you see the kind of the timeframe in this? Because again, and that’s actually just one of the things why our committee asked to do the comparison for the last three years in terms of our winter response and agency’s winter response. Because I’m just a little bit cautious, or cautious and optimistic. How are we going to, if we are going to cut it really short and then we are going to have winter here and we are going to be in a similar situation.

So if you can kind of give me please the timeframe, what do you think the actual sites, the cost? So we can compare it, if it makes sense. And also the services, right? So we can look hubs, our system when we run it and also the agencies, thank you.

Your worship, the steps that we’re working through are to bring to council in July the plan for the first five. So how all those functions are going to be delivered by multi-disciplinary teams? What’s the criteria for location? What are the first five populations?

All of that information. If council gives us the direction, we will then issue an expression of interest. We would then bring back to council in September, the results of that expression of interest, which would articulate who are the lead agencies? Where will these be located?

So that we can move to have the first five stood up before the end of the year. The question about needing also a transition plan or an accompanying plan about what other supports need to be in place for people to deal with bad weather, cold weather, what do we need to do there? That work is beginning now. So we’re also trying to say, because again, we’re not standing up, we won’t have 10 to 15 hubs in place.

And we, so we’re aiming for the five and we’ll have to complement that with additional services. And that’s as we unfold the work, what it will look like. So that will be the locations and specifics will be later in September. Last quick follow up.

I’ll leave the other two questions for later. Then, based on the timeframe I just heard, there’ll be, I’m assuming, correct me if I’m wrong, that the first five, they will have to be existing places because there’s no way we can, in September, say this is the location and we are gonna start building or acquiring long-term leases for winter that starts in one or two months. Good. Your worship, we anticipate that the first five will be not new builds for sure.

But I don’t know what those locations will be or what that model will be. This is some of the work that is will unfold as people try and identify. Again, it’s the populations that will drive along with the location criteria that we’re getting input on that will determine where we go for those first five and the responses we get from the expression of interests in terms of how they would be delivered. So, a lot to still unfold as we’re working towards trying to get these in place as quickly as possible.

Thank you, I’ll give for work to someone else now. Councillor Trozau. I’d like to address through the chair, the issue of what is meaningful participation and are we doing it? Because I think the suggestion has been made that without a particular format for that participation, one that I very much like, it’s not meaningful.

I’ve also heard comments made about how certain interest groups are taking this over. But I think what’s important here is I went to one, I went to the one that was the closest to my community and I worked very hard to get people from my ward go to that and I saw a lot of people there. And I was very pleased and a number of you were there too. I was very pleased with the level of engagement of people that showed up.

I’m speaking about the Aquatic Center. Of course, and I know this was going on in other places. People that came there with significant concerns and significant problems had the opportunity to have quality face time with the likes of the mayor, the city manager, and there were quite a few other staff and Councillors there. I thought it was very productive.

In fact, I personally observed a number of very animated discussions. And I observed the mayor, I observed the city manager, really doing what I would call top quality public engagement. And just because this wasn’t in the form of a, you get to go up to a microphone in a crowded room and give you five minutes. We should not take away the importance of this as a meaningful participation avenue.

Now, it might be that we need to add another, one of these meetings that would probably be somewhat of an imposition on staff. But if they’re prepared to do that, I don’t think we need a resolution of council. I think they could do that, and it would be welcome. So I’m just going to leave it at this.

That was meaningful participation, and I was very pleased to be there. Deputy Mayor Lewis, thank you. So I’m going to pick up where Councillor Trostall laughed off. I agree with him.

The community engagement that happened at the East Lions Community Center was far better and more valuable in my perspective than having a lineup of speakers out of microphone for five minutes each. Because we actually got to have discussions with people. They got to not just ask their questions, but get them answered by staff in a one-on-one interaction. They also got to listen to the questions that fellow community members were asking, and lean in on those answers, maybe getting their questions answered without having to ask them themselves, but also just approaching each other with some genuine respect.

And listen, there were some people there who still didn’t like this plan, and that’s okay. We are never going to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. But there’s also that old adage that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. We have opportunities for people to engage, or we had opportunities for the hubs to engage at five different sessions.

We had opportunities for people to participate in the Get Involved. And I will say, I think that there could have been a couple of more dig down deeper questions on the Get Involved, but I get that we’re also looking for some high-level feedback right now. There’s also, when people visit that site, there is a housing summit at London.ca email where they can email their feedback into staff. If they want to go beyond the Get Involved survey, they can use that email to share that feedback in as well.

A public participation meeting, and I’ve argued this about the budget. I’ve argued this about the strategic plan. A public participation meeting is not the end-all be-all of public engagement. In fact, I would argue in this day and age, it’s probably the least valuable.

Because it’s one way, it’s not a conversation. It’s a, you know, we listen to Mike, Mr. Wallace, stand up in the gallery and talk to us for five minutes. But we don’t go back and forth with him.

In fact, I know he’s argued that consent items should be subject to those things, but at the same time, he doesn’t get a chance to go back and forth with the song questions. So I don’t think those are particularly helpful. And as many opportunities as we give to people for public engagement, there are always going to be people who say it wasn’t enough. There needs to be more.

And I don’t mean members of this council. I mean, the feedback we get from the public at large. Well, I didn’t have the opportunity to attend, so you need to do more of these. We are, and I said this at CAPS as well.

For government, we are moving at absolute light speed on this project to completely reimagine and reinvent the system. But the more we talk about, well, we need to have more engagement. We need to do more of these systems. And we can do these along the way.

But if we want to get away from what we had last winter, in terms of a winter response, if we want to get away from people spending January sleeping in doorways, the only way we are going to get Hubs open this year is if we start making some decisions. And staff are going to bring the criteria that the public has provided us back next month. And then once we’ve given that the okay, then they will go for some EOIs. And those will come back for our approval too.

So there’s check-ins with us all along the way. There’s check-ins for the public all along the way. But we cannot hold up this work and get the first of our Hubs open if we are just going to say that we need more public engagement, we need more public engagement, we need more public engagement. I’m not saying this through you, Chair, to pick on Councillor Stevenson or anyone else in this process.

But Timmons was cited as an example. Timmons is a community of 40,000 people. We’re a city of over 400,000. And I would say that a part of the responsibility here does not lay with the people in those rows there.

It lays with the people around this horseshoe to get the word out to individuals in our wards and bring them into those meetings. And if the meetings aren’t sufficient in our individual opinions, then we need to find ways to schedule and host meetings ourselves and grab more of that input and bring it back. But the clock is ticking. I know it’s hard to believe ‘cause it’s 30 degrees outside and sunny today, or while it’s probably dark outside now, but it was 30 degrees and sunny outside today.

But the snow is not far away because it’s Canada. And we will blink and the summer will be gone and the colder temperatures will be coming back. And I will have to be sad and close my pool. But that happens every year.

And if we don’t act and make some decisions here, we are going to be right back to interim, winter responses, band-aids on situations and not moving towards a more permanent solution. So as our city manager has said, many times we are building this bridge while trying to walk across it. But we’ve got to keep building it ‘cause you know what happens when you stop building a bridge halfway through, it falls into the river and it’s no good to anyone. So we’ve got to keep moving on this construction project and have some decision points here.

So I support what’s in this report. I think that there is always room for improvement, but right now we can’t let perfect be the enemy of good. And I think what we have here is reasonable to move forward on. I have Councillor Stevenson again on the speaker’s list.

With all due respect. Through the chair, right? Through the chair. Okay, thank you.

With all due respect. It is like a third world country on Dentistry East. I walked it today. There’s human poop all the way along it.

There’s people strung out half conscious, half dressed, doing drugs, black feet, open wounds. Business is trying to survive. I’m appalled, quite frankly, by the response of their city council, their city hall to the desperate need there. The hub at the corner of Adelaide and Queens has 24 or has security there now, removing the tents from that piece of property.

There was a survey. Where do you want the hubs work? Okay, let me deal with the point of order. That takes precedent point of order.

Not to dissuade the Councillor from making her points, but what is that Adelaide and Queen is not a whole community response hub. And it actually is not helpful to refer to it as a hub, because that is not the model that is proposed. And it does create a misperception in the public’s mind if we refer to it as a hub. Okay, so that’s not a point of order.

That’s a good point in debate, of which you can get on the speakers list to make that point. Point of orders are about the proceedings of the council and our order of operations as per the procedure by-law. So I’m gonna go back to the Councillor and let her continue her remarks. Most of the neighbourhood would like to know what to call that place, ‘cause I don’t know what the name is, but the building at the corner of Adelaide and Queens.

And I understand what all of you are saying, and it’s gonna be different, and it’s gonna be that going forward. It’s all the same service agencies, with all the same people, with more money, but show me a good neighbour. Show me a single social service agency that has good neighbour status in the neighbours around it. Show me success, show me hope, show me possibility.

Tell me what’s gonna be different. Identify what’s not working so that I know that when you come around with the next one, it’s gonna work. On page 279 here, it says to support the, so what I’m on is the June 13th encampment response. It says to support the transition to the initial core area of depots as part of phase two.

You’ve got service depots down the river that are not inward floor. You’ve got encampments by the river in very unsafe locations. My understanding is there was an incident today at Waterloo and South. We’ve had all kinds of fires and terrible situations.

Now we’re talking about core area depots as phase two coming to where the social services agencies are. I, it sounds good guys, I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t hear anything that gives me hope, that gives the people in my area hope. I don’t hear, identify what’s wrong and how you’re gonna fix it. Tell me how it’s gonna be different.

Don’t put a questionnaire out that says, how can they be good neighbors, you tell us? How can they be good neighbors? How can people have safe parks? How can they have people not throwing needles and bear spraying them from the municipal parking lots into their, into their yards?

I’m gonna take a pause and let somebody else talk. Okay, and I, I see counselors looking at me. Listen, I’ll just, I’ll just make a remark here. Counselors are allowed to debate an issue and share their thoughts, no matter how passionately they wanna share them, that is, that is fine.

If counselors think that something is not correct or different in a debate, you put your hand up and you participate in the debate. That’s how democracy works. So the counselor has raised points. People can counter those points should they choose.

So I see people making eye contact with me. I allow debate in this chamber, even if people are gonna be passionate, as long as it remains respectful and on the point. So I have a speaker’s list, I’ll go to Council Purple next. So the chair to the staff and the other, I don’t delay it anymore.

So I’m not gonna, those are the two questions that I would like you to kind of two points that I would like to be included in the July’s report. And it is Hubs and Shelter Services, kind of what is gonna be the difference, the added value for the Hubs, so we can really start comparing apples to apples. And then the financials, the sustainability financial model for the Hubs, and if this could be included, when you are gonna come back with the concrete financials for this report, thank you. I don’t want the answer now.

As long as it’s in next report, I’m gonna waste. Council Purple, I know, and I think there’s been some answers given about kind of the stages of the process where you’ll see the different pieces. You know, one of those components will be the financials, but until the services in the Hubs, the populations they serve, the locations, based on the criteria that we’re giving, the feedback on is determined. There’s not going to be a specific answer to those questions that will all be estimates at that point.

So I think staff are committed to us having a full understanding of what that looks like as soon as we possibly can. So I think your comments are fine. I just want, I think it’s been answered a couple of times that there is a process we have to go through before we get to some of this information. Okay, no, that’s good.

So I’m gonna actually do ask the question to staff if it will be possible in the report to receive the comparison shelter services to the Hubs, the added value, and also the financial sustainability. If we will be receiving this included in the report, thank you, question to staff. I can go to Ms. Livingston.

Your worship with respect to the comparison to the current shelters, certainly we can talk about what’s different with the Hubs ‘cause they are not what our current shelters are. That’s really different. Just by the virtue of the number of functions and multidisciplinary teams that will be providing services within them. So we can describe that in the report.

With respect to the sustainability question, we can certainly provide our estimated costs prior to the EOIs going out, but it’s important to understand, and we’ve been clear from the get-go on this, that the resources required to deliver on this plan, both from the Hubs perspective and the highly supportive housing perspective, will require the involvement of other levels of government. That is why we’ve been in front of both levels with this plan, with very clear asks. The plan at the end of July will help bring detail to that ask, but we will require additional support. As well, we are very fortunate with the anonymous donor family to be able to provide some assistance to the delivery of this plan.

So in terms of the sustainability question, there are aspects that will require other levels of government to step in and play a role in order for this full plan to come to fruition. So I just would like to be clear about that. I think we’ve said that from the beginning, but just given the comments of sustainability, I want to reiterate it. Councillor Bribble.

I will give it, thank you, Councillor Frank. Thank you. I understand the urgency and passion from a lot of different fellow councillors, and of course the community. I think all of us have been receiving calls and emails for months, but of course they are ramping up as we are starting to put out different plans.

And I don’t actually disagree with Councillor Stevenson, many of your points about the sheer urgency of the situation, the direness of the situation. And again, I think we’re all hearing that from the community. As such, I’d love to support having conversation about where there are additional opportunities for us to support. And I think I’d really like us at council to support the community response and our staff.

I think that we are all getting significant pressure. I think staff are getting significant pressure from the community. Of course, this is our jobs. We are responsive to what the community needs, what residents want.

That is what we’re supposed to do. But I think we need to continue leading with compassion and hope. I personally have never worked in a workplace where raising your voice is allowed. And I’m not trying to tone police anyone, but raising voices is not something I generally am supportive in a workplace, because we’re all a team.

And teams are allowed to disagree, but very respectfully. So I think staff are telling us what’s wrong. Staff are telling us what to do. Staff are collecting community engagement and providing it to us.

Staff are working to be very open and provide answers. Staff are trying to be innovative. I think that they’re working incredibly hard. So I’m very open to looking at many new ways we can try to address this.

I’m open to expropriating vacant buildings, mandating affordable housing and CIPs, reaching out proactively to landlords to try and deal with rent control issues. I’m interested in a vacant homes tax. I’d love to continue lobbying the province to get a vacant commercial buildings tax. I’d like to figure out what we can do about the person that owns 60% of our downtown that’s not doing anything with it.

I’d love to host how to build an ARU session for the community with speakers from the development community. Continue work with nonprofits where they can build housing. So we are not limited I think from what staff is bringing to us. There is many more things we can be doing.

I’m very supportive of that. But I do think in this moment, staff are telling us what’s wrong. Staff are coming up with ways and solutions. If we don’t like them, I think we can set motions and make up plans and work together to try and find something else that is a better solution.

But currently I’m at a loss some days for figuring out what to do. And so I appreciate that staff are working with the community to try and raise those solutions to us. But again, I’m personally very open to other ideas and other solutions if there are some available. So I’ll leave it there.

But if there’s interest, I’m open to other ideas as well. Other speakers, Councillor Stevenson. I will apologize for raising my voice. It’s just that so it’s very difficult to be in this position where there is a certain sector of town that is sharing more than it’s, or bearing more than it’s share of the burden.

And we were gonna talk about this when it comes to the core area action plan. This is not something new, but it is theory to everybody who isn’t living it. And so I appreciate everybody’s talk. But what are we going to do about the emergency situation that exists in Old East Village?

What are we going to do? Because as a city, we get to respond. Their desperation is no less important than the desperation of the people in the encampment. We get to respond.

On page three of what comes before us today, linkage to the corporate strategic plan, it says well being in safety, Londoners have safe access to public spaces, services and supports that increase well being and quality of life. And I would like to know from staff, what is the response to the people who are, who have encampments all around them, open drug use, drug trafficking, criminals, weapons, people defecating, people stealing things from their homes. We have an emergency situation. We need an emergency response.

And I’d like to hear about that. Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Your Worship, and through you.

Staff agree with the sense of urgency, with the despair, with the impacts to community, with the impacts to business residents, and those that are on the margins of our community. It is what was fundamental in bringing together so many different people in the summit to create a space where businesses, where those impacted, those observing homelessness, those working on the front lines of it, could share and articulate the profound impacts of this crisis. It is why probably this council has declared this to be one of the most pressing issues in our community. What will be different?

How do we support? This is why we’re working to not only collect the feedback, but then reflect the feedback so that a plan comes forward to you that is built upon the responses of the community, but to also create spaces that are fundamentally different than one exists now. We heard from frontline workers, to executives, to those that are impacted by homelessness, that the system is broken. And I think we as staff have acknowledged that many times that the system is broken.

So what we’re trying to do is construct something that’s fundamentally different. Bringing in clinical expertise, multidisciplinary teams, bringing about approach that is more centered on the individual and not having the individual try to fit into a system. So we hope that, and we expect that through the expertise of those that are helping shape this plan and will help deliver this plan and the healthcare, post-secondary, business communities, the developers that will participate in bringing this plan to life, that we will be able to relieve that pressure for all these village, the downtown, and other neighborhoods that are seeing and feeling the impacts of encampments, of homelessness. Now, some of those things are out of scope for what city staff and my team at least are responsible for are able to make an immediate impact on.

We talk about drug trafficking, crime, human trafficking. Those things are a little bit of side of my wheelhouse, but we know it’s a symptom of a broken system. And what we’re trying to do is to show leadership in repairing that system in a fundamentally different way. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you and through the chair. I do appreciate what’s being developed and looking at new solutions and that things will not be as they currently are. But I’m looking for a temporary six week emergency response for the neighborhoods that have been devastated. And I’d like a phase two for that and a full sum response to that, to their recovery and to their safety right now.

And yes, maybe not, we can’t do things about the drugs and the crime, but we can do something about enforcing the bylaws that we have. So one of my other questions is, there’s a lot of confusion and a lot of back and forth. So in terms of fires that are happening in the encampments in the woods, people are being told by the bylaw that it’s fire and fire is saying that it’s bylaw and they’re going back and forth. So if I could get clarity on, like clarity will help too.

So that people know what to do in when emergencies come up, Mr. Dickens. Through you, Chair. Roll clarity in terms of if there’s an act of fire, the fire department does respond.

The fire department has responded recently, they’ll continue to respond. The fire department shows up, extinguishes the fire, works with the individuals in the encampment around fire education and safety. The CI, they work in tandem. The CIR teams show up.

We actually have an alert system that a fire attends an encampment. There’s an immediate alert to the CIR team to make them aware of that incident. And then the CIR team responds on site to support those individuals. Sometimes that’s cleanup relocation, but also care and support and looking at what the next steps would need to be for that individual.

So we very much, we work in tandem and the fire department actually sits at the encampment table and the work that we’re trying to do over the next 30, 60, 90 days. So they’ve been very active in deciding how we can support people. I think I was getting into the weeds maybe, but I will go back to what is the temporary response to handle the crisis that we’ve created and the problems that we’re acknowledging are gonna be fixed in this new whole of community. What are we gonna do to respond?

What’s the emergency temporary response and the plan going forward to look after that? Because this whole of community, unless I’m wrong, whole of community is whole of community. And when I reread February 28th, it does say it talks all about the impacts of what’s happened and the impacts of this. So the response gets to be for the whole as well and not assume that by healing one part of it, the rest will heal else.

Also because I’m asking for help for this part of the community as well. Ms. Livingston. Your worship, I’m not sure how I can satisfy the comments.

Mr. Dickens and I understand very well the dire situation that is faced by businesses, by homeowners, by those living and suffering on the streets. This is why we began the work that we did. If Council wishes us to undertake a very specific strategy for OEV, I respectfully ask for that direction.

We are trying to move forward. We are trying many things. We’re trying to address encampments. We’re trying to move forward with the plan that Council has endorsed.

And so I don’t know what more we can do. We are moving quickly. Many things are not under our control. Every city is struggling with this.

Many cities are doing different things. We are seen to be at the front edge, the leading edge of doing the right kind of things to address the very difficult situations that everyone in the community is impacted with. So I’m happy to work with the Councillor. I’m happy to try and move forward with stuff, but I frankly would require, I think, some direction at this point, because it means moving resources also to try and do that on top of this work.

Councillor, I’ll say we probably won’t carve out that direction. I’m not looking for specifics there. And I’m not asking for something specific for all these village necessarily. I’m asking for what we endorsed.

The plan is to put it back on us and say, we have to come up with it. No, no, no, this is the plan that we endorsed that says it will address the whole of community impacts of this crisis, as well as the mounting economic and health impacts to the entire community. So I’m asking for what I endorsed. And sandwiches and water bottles by the river, I’ll trust you that it’s going to help there.

It does not help here. And so we’ve got to at least talk about this. I need to at least have the leaders of this plan acknowledge that there’s a whole community that was committed to, equally, equity. With speakers list, I’m going to continue along and I can get you back on it later.

I have Councillor Raman, Councillor McAllister, Councillor Trozal and myself and Councillor Frank, Councillor Pribble. So we’ll start with Councillor Raman. Thank you and through you. I hear the Councillor’s passion and I hear other very passionate voices when we’re having these discussions at CPSC and throughout the community.

And I understand and I had a lot of people reach out to me this week about the request for a public participation meeting. And what I committed to myself is what I’ve committed to and I know that other Councillors have as well. And that is I’m knocking doors this summer. I’m happy to, I’ve made the offer to Councillor Ferrera.

I make the same offer to you. I’m happy to go out in your neighborhoods as well with you and have those conversations because I do think that at this time, you’re right that there needs to be that opportunity to share experiences and share impacts. And so I think that’s something that we all need to take the opportunity to listen as well and have those dialogues at the door and elsewhere. I know Councillor McAllister was also planning some upcoming door knocking as well in the mayor.

And so I’ll tell you, as much as we need that opportunity to listen, we also need that opportunity for us to provide the leadership. And that leadership comes with what we did in February, which is endorsing the plan. And we didn’t endorse a plan that was going to be moved immediately and swiftly and done in a day. We endorsed a long-term strategy that’s still in development.

And again, we keep using the same reference point that we’re building it as we’re walking across. That’s going to take time. And I understand how desperate the situation is right now and how dire things are and the need to be able to address those needs as quickly as possible. But it’s going to take time.

And we have to be able to say to the community that we trust that the work that’s being done is going to be done in a way that is thoughtful and is going to meet the needs. And this is how it’s being done. And I gotta say, we’re seeing small wins. And I don’t know, perhaps, it’s because our staff are engulfed in the work that they perhaps don’t even recognize, perhaps get those small wins.

But I can tell you that I’ve been out to organizations that are telling me repeatedly about those wins. Wins like, hey, LHSC is at the table. And this is the first time that we’ve ever had them at the table in this way. That’s a win.

That is a win. Like, we cannot even imagine right now in a way that what we’ve accomplished in a very small time. And I know there’s not moments to celebrate because we still have desperation. We still have significant struggles for people on our streets, but we are making strides.

And again, I can tell you, I hear the hope. I hear the hope when I go to an organization or service like I did on Friday and Monday this week and they say to us, this is the first time that they feel like their voices are being heard that at this table, they’re starting to hear that we’re starting to understand how difficult the work is they’re engaging in and how much of a need of this whole system change needs to happen in order to do it. So I hear the hope and it’s going to take some time and we just have to commit to the fact that this is what our community is going to do and this is how things are going to get better. And I hear what the counselors are saying and I can understand that perhaps being in the war that I’m in, it may feel like I’m more removed from it.

And so what I’m saying is bring me in and get me more involved if you feel that’s the need because we are working as a team here. And if any one of us feels that way, I would like you to have a conversation because we need to act as one. And we need a shared voice and we need to take that responsibility off of our staff as well to have to continuously answer for what that outcome is going to be. So I continue to support this work.

I appreciate the update that’s in front of us today and I welcome opportunities from other community members to continue to share solutions if they have them because honestly, it’s not just about bringing their concerns forward, it’s also about solutions. If someone out there has a better solution that they think that we should be paying attention to, please bring it forward, right? Because I would love to hear more of those as well. So thank you.

Councilor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair. I really do appreciate these discussions. I think it’s very important.

We’re in an unprecedented time. I mean, right off the heels of a global pandemic and we’re having these discussions. It’s a national crisis to be honest with you and we’re facing crises on multiple fronts. And so to Councillor Frank’s point, we’re all on the same team here and I have not had a conversation with anyone at City Hall that doesn’t take these issues seriously and we’re all working towards a common goal to find solutions and if folks have solutions, bring them forward.

I mean, I think around the table that we have open minds right now because we’re all looking for solutions. I would say though that, and I applaud the mayor for his advocacy as well because one of the things we also have to realize is a lot of these issues have been downloaded to us. I mean, if I had a crystal ball and I could go back to the 90s, I’d show them what 30 years down the road defunding a lot of these things does because we’re living it now. And I think that unfortunately we are faced with that reality where we have to deal with problems that are a long time in the making.

And it’s difficult. It’s gonna take heavy lifting, not just from us, from all levels of government. I’m probably gonna go blue in the face by the end of this term saying that all ends on deck but it really is that kind of a moment where we need everyone involved. And I do genuinely get the sense that we are making progress.

And to Councilor Roberts’ point, there are wins and we have to really acknowledge them and champion them. And personally, this is, I also wanna say it’s unprecedented to bring everyone to the table. I mean, there is that history of everyone pulling in different directions. And we’re all pulling in the same direction but there is a lot going on.

And I personally, I think we have made progress and I think we as a city should acknowledge that. I can totally see the frustration. I hear it all the time as well. And it’s not just, I know there’s the, especially with the core and I hear that.

And I know Councilor Ferre probably has opinions on this too. But it’s east, it’s west, it’s north. We’re all feeling it. It’s not just London, it’s the province, it’s the country.

But I think what we’re doing is we’re leaders and we’re actually showing that we can do something. We were doing it differently but we’re building it on the fly. And I do think that’s going to take time. But I applaud us for trying because at least we’re trying something and I congratulate us for at least doing something.

And I know it’s not going to fix everything overnight but I think we have to try and have that hope as we move forward. Thank you. Councilor Trozano. Very, very briefly through the chair.

Thank you for your comments that you just made. And thank you for your wonderful comments that you just made. So I’ll leave this really short. There was some discussion a few speakers back about fire enforcement and I’ve had my nose in the fire ordinance.

Some of you know I’ve been watching that carefully. And there’s no confusion. If there is a fire in an unauthorized place which other than someone’s backyard, you need a permit. If there is a fire, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a police officer, a fire department officer or a bylaw officer, the bylaw and this is typical language in our bylaws is that that enforcement belongs to any of them.

Even if the fire department is the lead agency police and bylaw enforcement officers, if they see something wrong, they don’t have to go figure out whose jurisdiction it is. So it would be wrong to say that. And I think if somebody sees a fire at an encampment, you don’t need to worry about whether it’s the fire department, the police or other enforcement officers, any of them and all of them have jurisdiction. And I just wanted to clear that up but also thank some of the speakers who came before me for saying what I would have said but not as well.

Thank you. I have myself next unless I’ll turn the chair over to Councillor Layman. Please go ahead Mayor. I haven’t spoken on this yet.

I wanted to listen to my colleagues to discussion. I also have to run the meeting which is an awkward thing to do at the same time as you want to jump in every two seconds. So I want to reiterate a couple of points that have been said because this is pretty important. I think this is a pretty important moment for us.

You know, when we started this work, it was all hope and optimism and the reason why is because we were doing something different. We had agencies coming together who said by the end of this, I don’t know if I’m going to exist in the future. I might hand over the keys, give you my building and pack up the day. And the reason why agencies came to the table and there was hope is because it has been years, years that they have seen people die on our streets, face addiction challenges, suffer in a modern, advanced industrialized society.

And it has flown under the radar because it’s been hidden. It’s been in places that many of us don’t see. It’s not front and center on the streets. And now that the type of work that’s been done for years by many who have asked for transformational change for a long period of time and not see it done.

Now that we’re willing to come together and try to make some change, there’s tremendous hope. But the challenge is the reason why this is precipitated like an action is because this is in our streets. I know all the East is a hotbed and a center for some of the challenges. But I know each and every one of you have heard the challenges of homelessness and safety and different matters in all corners of the city.

And people don’t know what to do, right? So they look to us as leaders and they say, “Solve my problem,” and they put tremendous pressure on us. And then we in turn go out and we put tremendous pressure on our staff to say, we’re tasked with solving the problem, solve the problem, and lead this effort and bring together this diversity of voices and solve this challenge. And the reality of this, having had the lens of being outside the city and speaking with colleagues who are facing the exact same challenges, is that there are many people who do not know what the next steps are.

But everybody agrees that the status quo is not working. And so we have a number of cities trying different things. There are those who have leaned into encampments and used to look at places like Kitchener and Waterloo who have large managing encampments and trying to provide safety within that structure. You looked at areas like Kingston and they are integrating and trying to lead the integration of primary healthcare services and some of their early hub models, bringing hospitals to the table much earlier than even we did.

But there’s a lot of people looking to us because we’ve got two things that have caused us to be a few steps down the road and on the leading edge of this. One is the incredible coming together of the community at the start of this process. And two is like the incredible private sector financial, our private individual and private family financial donation that has allowed us to kind of center around this idea that the community is coming together. And that is a symbol and a representation of what we hope to be a larger calling for all of us.

But we are all being tested through this process. Our ability to stay together and to support each other will be tested multiple times through this process because it will be the most difficult thing that we can possibly do. It will be the thing that pulls us in seven different directions, whether that’s our constituents with each other, what we expect of staff, what they expect of us, what’s on us, what’s on the community, what the agency should be doing, where the problem is, and all the same time people are suffering and dying in our streets. Tremendous pressure on us that will pull us in multiple directions and has the potential to fracture us, make us divisive and potentially even fracture the work of the coalitions come together.

We will all be tested multiple times through this process. But there’s a few things that have been said today that give me hope. And that is our colleagues’ perspectives that we still continue to want to rally around each other, including Councillor Stevenson. And I know not everybody agrees with some of the language through the chair, of course, some of the language that is used or perhaps the way your voice is elevated or perhaps your approach is too engaging in the media.

But I do think that this council cares about and understands the pressure that you face in your community, the tremendous pressure that many of us won’t feel in the same way. I feel that somewhat as Mayor, having represented the whole city, the desire of the community that is facing the frontline brunt of a health homelessness and addictions crisis without the hope that some others have. And I know, ‘cause I’ve spoken to people, they don’t know what’s next. They can’t see the solution because each and every day they have to walk out their front door in a situation that they never expected when they move there, don’t want today, would like to see solved, but don’t have the answers or solutions too.

So some commitments that I’ve heard today is that we want to try to support each other and that means we do need to have a conversation about what we can do to try to mitigate and support, mitigate the impacts and support some of the challenges that those in the most impacted area of the city are facing. And I don’t have answers to what that are today, but I hear the desire for us to have a conversation about that and try to make some modifications. And for some, they will not be enough because this is a crisis that is not going to, we’re not gonna have a magic solution to help one area that’s gonna make everything better, but perhaps we can provide some supports, perhaps we can provide some hope, and perhaps we can give people that chance to see where we’re headed to and where we can get to together. The reason why we’re building a bridge, and I think the comment was made, like I don’t know what the bridge is going to, that’s ‘cause the goalposts are shifting in this.

And that is why I think the design of our approach is something that is leading edge. We’re building a bridge as we walk across it, but we’re adjusting what that bridge looks like, where it’s going, how it’s working, where it’s headed to as the conditions and the real-time ground is going. We’re also learning from other communities about the innovations that they’re bringing to this process and what we can apply and bring to our perspective. We have Mr.

Dickens going and presenting to AMO, and many people learned a ton about what they can be trying in their community from that. And I think other counselors learned what other communities are doing and what they can do. So we need to find a path forward that allows us to stick with a process where we can make adjustments to it, knowing that we will not have all of the answers all the way through this process, even when we build the hubs, even when we have the supportive housing, the ground will shift and we will have other challenges that we will have to adjust to at the other end. But we’re working towards a situation beyond the status quo, which is completely unacceptable for those suffering in our streets.

Nothing is working for those who are experiencing the side effects of the situation in our community. And we are aligned and on the same page as many other communities across this country who are struggling with the same things. And we are, at this point, I think, united as a council in our desire to see that change, even if we have differences of opinions through the path. And we are united as communities in actively engaging with the province and the federal partners that we have to say you have a role to play to and something needs to be done and we need your help.

These are not things that we will solve on our own. These are not solutions that we can solve independent of all of the work that others are doing. And so there’s a lot of irons in the fire on this and it’s really easy to pick on one and try to get fixated on it and say how it’s working or it’s not working. But I think we have to continue to take this really diversified approach, bringing in as many voices, finding the pathways on how to stay together, shifting and adjusting as we see the changes that we need, trusting in each other maybe a little more than we’re comfortable doing.

Maybe a little more than maybe our gut tells us to do because you don’t see the progress. But I do think I hear a number of us wanting to support each other today. And I think that if we stick with that as the basis of our decision making and if we try to find solutions together, if we try to continue to take the next best step, do the next best thing that we can in this process, then we’ll continue to take steps towards the result and we’ll continue to start to see hopefully some improvements. But as was said, we are paralleling the reimagining of a system with the temporary and adjusting supports that we have to give until we can get to that.

And then adjusting the system as we go ‘cause we don’t know how it’s changing on the ground until we get that feedback that we start to measure it. So all this to say, the staff report before us is an update on where we are. The engagement that Council has had today, I think is a frank and honest engagement that we need to have with each other on a regular basis to ensure that we’re checking in to see how each other feel and we can support each other in the process. And I don’t think anybody’s expecting a Council to stick up their hand and give a magic solution to this problem and this debate.

But I think we get better as we share our thoughts and perspectives. I think we support each other as we share the pressures that we’re feeling with each other. And I know I’ve had a number of you in my offices and had very frank conversation about what you feel is working and what isn’t. And I don’t always sit there and say, here’s the answer to your frustration or your challenge that day.

But I listen and I talk to our staff and I talk to other mayors and other communities and I raise those points and I ask what other people are doing that we can bring back here. And I think each and every time we do that, we make improvements. So I appreciate the discussion today. I think it is exactly what we needed today at this point in the process as a check in with each other.

And I know people will leave here not necessarily satisfied with us finding a solution but hopefully having had that opportunity to share with each other where we feel on this even if we disagree in opinions. So I’ll leave it at that. I’m sure I’m over my time but I know Councillor Layman wasn’t timing me. So I appreciate you listening to me today and I’ll continue on this speaker’s list when I get the chair back.

Well, given the gravity of the discussion mayor in your position, by all means time allotted was where you needed. I’ll turn the chair back to you. Councillor Frank. Thank you.

And you stole almost all my words. So I’ll be brief. But I just wanted to reiterate, we’re a team. I’m happy to support other Councillors and our staff and residents across my ward but also across London.

So if you want, I’ll come canvas. I’ll canvas businesses. I’ll canvas residence house. I’ll canvas people who are living unhoused.

I’ll co-host a town hall. I’ll do an outreach session. So whatever other Councillors are needing in their ward, I know it’s a lot for us to each individually shoulder. I do understand each of our wards comes with different difficulties and different opportunities.

So as the mayor said, I really appreciate this moment that we’re all being able to be honest and very daring to be vulnerable. I’m listening to some Brenny Brown right now. And this is like very in line with Brenny Brown. So if you haven’t listened to Dare to Lead, it’s a really good audio book.

So I’m sorry if people aren’t feeling supported in the work and in their areas. So I think we all can do a better job maybe of making people feel that way. So I’m supportive of these discussions and hoping that moving forward, we’re able to come together and focus on solutions and outcomes. And I think eventually hopefully we’ll make them tighter in less time and we’ll go home at seven.

But that is a later goal. So again, thanks everyone for being very open right now. Councillor Preble and then Councillor Stevenson, Hopkins and Ferra. Your wisdom is the questions I had at the beginning and those are the reason why I asked them because when we are moving forward into the summer, I’m hoping that all those things will be included, that the report is gonna be kind of full of meat and less of potato.

So we can really make the best possible decision for our community. I believe I’m certainly in support of it from the beginning. As I said last week, I’m glad that we came at least with the enhanced encampment strategy because I do, from my own experience, it does alleviate the pressure from the people living in the encampments in the surrounding area. So I am pleased at least with that.

I’m hoping for the big picture that we are gonna come out with something great. But one thing is I do think with the summits and I think it’s a very positive initiative, but certain words what I heard, congratulate ourselves, et cetera. Let’s leave that up to the Londoners and let’s remember one thing. We are all so far is a theory on the paper and let’s let the Londoners congratulate us when we deliver the results.

Thank you, Councillor Stevenson. I wanna thank the committee for their indulgence in listening to me. It matters, it really does. And I’m not obviously speaking in a way that you guys can hear me because we had LMCH here saying we need to, we’re making an ask to stop putting those people in our building.

Okay, well, say whatever you want. Those who need highly supportive care, please don’t put them in our social housing because it’s causing a lot of problems. The people who need highly supportive care who have mental health addictions and violence are roaming the streets and living in the neighborhood. And when it’s quite frankly, and with all due respect, Mayor, you said the problem was hidden before.

It wasn’t for that area of town. It has been a decade. They were just starting to make inroads when things for many reasons got really bad again. But it’s insulting to say, yes, we know there’s an area of the city that they don’t feel safe in their homes.

They don’t feel safe walking around the block. There’s people stealing things and knocking on the windows and trying to get in the doors. And then go, and we’re gonna bring three meals a day to the river. How do you look those people in the face and say, your city hears you?

How do we present? I am excited about the whole of community, but we neither need to change the title and call it a homelessness, one at first of its kind response, or we need to talk about the people, the law abiding citizens who are not being served by the city. So it gets to be one or the other. You don’t get to call it whole of community and then say, oh, it’s up to me if I have a suggestion.

No, the council endorsed plan is whole of community that it was gonna look after the whole of community. And if you’re not hearing those voices, I will take any one of you around with me gladly. I’ll bring Kleenex. I’ll do my own town halls.

I will put it on social media. I will get their voices out there, whatever it takes, or just say to them, look, we’re focused on the homeless. And hopefully it fixes your problem. But don’t keep calling it whole of community if you’re not gonna be whole of community.

And even here it says support communication and data collection and app and stuff like that. We had some pretty passionate conversations around the lack of response when we call in for the noise bylaw. And it is really frustrating for people when they can’t get through and they can’t sleep. That’s the same phone number.

That’s the same phone number if you have somebody on your front porch. If you’ve got people doing things in the middle of the night. So I want it addressed. There’s an emergency in our city.

And I want it on the table. I want this whole of community to look after it. I will happily be on it. I’ve been asking to be on it or change the name because otherwise it’s just not fair to people.

It’s not kind and I can’t continue to represent the city if the actions don’t align with the words. So I will not be supporting this. I also, I’m not getting into it but I did not support the 403 Thompson switch from affordable to highly supportive in that neighborhood when I don’t even know what it is. Says it’s first of its kind pilot project.

I have no idea who we’re putting into that neighborhood. Is there a way for me to get my record of a no vote? Doesn’t have to be tonight. Can be council or something like that.

You can always ask the clerk for records of previous votes and you can vote however you like tonight. Okay, councilor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, your worship. And I think I’m gonna just start with you and thank you for allowing us to have this conversation.

It is an important one as much as I look around this room and to be honest, I thought many times I just wanna go home. I have made myself pay attention and listen and really appreciate a number of the comments that I’ve heard. I wanna say to staff, I’m proud of the work that you are doing. I’m proud when I go to an AMO homeless conference and the city of London is showcased with the work that is being done.

I don’t know how it’s going to end. I think we’ve still got a long way to go, but I am proud of the work that’s gone into this. And it’s a different approach. It’s a different way.

It’s hard to understand everything. As a councilor, there’s many issues that I have to grapple with. I was gonna be really quick. But I think it’s really, really important to understand that we as a city really don’t know how that path is gonna look like, but I know when I look around this horseshoe and when I look at staff, we all need to be on the same page and we have to do that.

So to Councillor Stevenson, I really want to understand your point of view and I need to understand that. And I hope you will be open to each and every one of us trying to understand your point of view and the challenges and take us into your ward and show us what you see. I also, just to end everything, I think it’s really, really important that we show the compassion that’s being mentioned, look at the winds. But I think it’s really important that we be kind to one another.

It’s where we’re gonna have to start on this journey to deal with the challenges that we see in our city. So again, thank you Your Worship for the conversation. Councillor Ferrell. Thank you, Mr.

Naren, through you. I guess I will start with everybody and who spoke here and just the comments that we’ve made and I’ll start with the mayor and his words of we need to stick together because we definitely do. I see the work that staff is doing. I see how much effort and input they put in.

I see the stress that sometimes you can just feel from us bringing through this brand new response. Like I went to, I also went to an open house and I did see Ms. Livingston and Scott Cortis and those are heavy hitters there doing a phenomenal job, discussing, engaging with the community, fielding questions, getting constructive criticism or just straight up criticism and explaining what it is of what this whole community response looks like and just trying to clear the questions that people have and going back to the comments that we have to be working together is really big right now because if we find ourselves in an area where we fracture all the work that we’ve done up to this point could be at risk. So the one thing is, is yeah, we can have this debate, we can have conversations, we can have opposing opinions, but as long as we just support each other and stick together and just make sure that we see this whole system and this planning all the way through is very, very, very important.

And I’ve seen that as the downtown counselor, I have a lot of correspondence, a lot of inquiries daily, like, and I’m not joking, daily. I’ve fielded 170 emails over the weekend, sent them all out on Monday and by the time yesterday was done, I had 120 emails again in my inbox. Most of them are to this. So, you know, and I’ve been talking with my colleagues about it and you have been reaching out saying, “I’ll help you, I’ll help you Canvas.” Councilor Raman, “I’ll help you, I’ll help you too.” I believe the mayor even said to Councilor Frank that he would help with the Canvas and Councilor Troso and Councilor McAllister and everybody who I’ve spoke to who said that they would come out and help me.

I appreciate that, I really do. The reason I haven’t accepted is for core issues. So, you know, I don’t wanna break any rules. So, that’s why I haven’t accepted that.

But I am holding a community engagement meeting struck last minute because I had so many inquiries come in over the weekend and that will be in two days but that will be with staff. So, you’re not invited, I’m sorry. Just because I do have a lot of the issues that are concentrated in my right, in my constituent or my ward and a lot of the residents are very concerned and they’re watching this very, very close. And they do see the work that we’re doing and they do see the little wins.

And that’s just basically it. That’s why we need to continue to just make sure that we see this all the way through. And the reality is we also need to make sure that we’re managing expectations. We need to make sure that the community knows that at this stage in planning, we are in the planning stages.

We are planning before we’ve started anything. And that’s why we’re just really reaching out and looking for as many individuals to give us their input as possible so we can cover as many holes or gaps or just capture everything that we aren’t able to think about because we can think about so much. But the more people we bring in, the more we hedge our bets, the more information we get. And that’s very big and that’s very wise in my opinion.

But the moment we start, there are going to be screw ups. There’s gonna be mistakes. There’s no, just know that, expect that. And the more engagement we get now, the less mistakes we get when we start.

But it will happen. And by the time we get there, hopefully we don’t have that many mistakes and we can correct really quick. But in the end, we need to make it there. So that’s why I would echo everything I’ve heard when it comes to sticking together because we need to make it there.

We have this whole new system, it’s very different. It has direct pathways to housing, which is very different. It has supportive housing that is really integrated into the model. We have an intake system that has no wrong door, warm transfers, we don’t have that right now.

These are huge, huge differences that will make a difference. We also have huge support and development for our outreach teams that we’re gonna be utilizing as we have this system working. And that is a big deal as well. And so I always point at these things.

I always point at these things just to show that this is how different this whole plan is. And this is why I have so much faith and confidence in what we’re doing right now because it’s different. It’s leading edge and I am very, very certain that 10 or 15 years from now we’ll be looking back and we’ll be like, we did that and that was new. And it’s still here today and it made a huge difference.

But back to what I’m trying to say is we need to make it there. So we can have our disagreements and we can have our clarifications, but let’s just support each other and make it to that finish line. So again, going back to everybody who’s reached out and said you’ll help me, I appreciate that because I’m not running on that much sleep and I haven’t been for the last couple of weeks. And then to that, you know, that’s well, I’ll stop.

So thank you. Okay, that exhaust speakers list except for Councilor McAllister. That’s the look you told me about it, the break. No, I was just gonna say I’m gonna take a picture of that.

There’s the look through you, last comment. And this is to Councilor Truss’ point that he made earlier, we were discussing housing. And I think it’s important for us to keep in mind that these are issues. And just by the amount of time we’ve spent on this, how important it is, but there’s also going to be budget asks to go along with this.

And I think we have to keep in mind that, you know, we got to put our money where our mouth is at a certain point. And I understand and I know there’s a few budget watchdogs around the horseshoes. So I will also be mindful of the fact that we’re gonna be essentially lobbyists by the end of this term because we’re going to have to keep advocating for money from provincial and federal partners because as a city, we cannot absorb that cost. It’s a monumental cost and I recognize that.

But we need to have those partnerships and the work we’ve put in in terms of collaboration. I’m very hopeful that we can get there. But we do have to show if the province and the feds are gonna invest, we’ve got to show that this works and we’ve got to be able to go to them with an ask and say, okay, this is a priority. We’re willing to take it on, but we need the money to do it.

Thank you. Okay, that ends the speaker’s list. This is a report to be received. It is moved and seconded, okay.

I’m gonna open this for voting. Posing the vote, the motion’s passed 12 to one. Okay, one more item. The last thing that we pulled from consent was 2.2, the court area action plan 2022 review.

So that’s, we’ll consider that now. It was pulled by Deputy Mayor Lewis. So I’ll just go to the Deputy Mayor first because we pulled it. So, well, I will start your worship by saying I have good news for everyone.

The result of being at the end of the agenda means that I’ve actually had some of my questions answered by parties outside of this chamber in regards to the item that was of particular concern to me in this report. But I do want to highlight it because I think there’s an important comment to be made with regard to this one. And that is in terms of the staff recommendation and clause B, the one-time funding of $100,000 to support the Holly Jolly Market and downtown for the holidays events. And I want to note that in the body of the report, there was commentary that said a multi-year budget ask will be coming forward to permanently fund this.

And I’m gonna be blunt right now. I will be a hard no when that comes forward. There is a time when private sector business has to stand on its own two feet without public dollars to run holiday events. We funded them last year as part of the LCRN recovery.

They’re back asking for 100,000 again. This is in a downtown BIA zone, however, that has an annual operating budget of almost $2 million. So there comes a point where they have to prioritize what they want to do with their levy money. And if this is an important driver of economic activity, then I would encourage them to invest in that area.

However, I’ve gotten some answers that I sent out to a couple of members of the board and to a couple of the partners in this organization this afternoon that I didn’t get answers back when the SPPC meeting had started, but I did get them back in the interim ‘cause we’ve had a lot of debate about other topics tonight. So I do understand that downtown London did have actually a $200,000 clawback because of a result of a reassessment to one of the levy payers in their district. So I understand that there’s not that money this year. I also understand that downtown London itself is not the primary recipient of these funds.

That the Dundas Place and Coven Garden Market were the primary beneficiaries. But I will say, and I hope that there are board members aside from those members on council listening with regard to the Coven Garden Market, when we had the Briar happening here, the market closed at its regular hours. It didn’t stay open to serve those thousands of people who were coming out of Budweiser Gardens after we had great pro-ing events happening. You can’t keep coming to us asking for public money if you’re not gonna take opportunities to capitalize on the business opportunities that present itself when we do bring events downtown.

So recognizing the shortfall this year, recognizing that it is only in its second year and so that it may still need a little bit of seed money, recognizing that there are, and I know Councillor Stevenson in our last debate was talking specifically to OEV, but I recognize that some of those issues are more intense in the core as well as compared to what they are in my ward. But I look at, I do want the downtown London group to hear this really clearly. I know Hyde Park, their BIA funds their own Christmas market. The Argyle BIA funds its own security program.

BIA’s are supposed to spend their money on ways that benefit their members. And I would say that this is a big benefit to their members to bringing people downtown, not just to market vendors, but to the region. So there has to be a plan moving forward that does not require coming to us and expecting us to put $100,000 a year in taxpayers money into a holiday market, especially when we’re actually using that money to help that market compete with the Hyde Park market, with the 100 Kellogg Lane market, and with other vending opportunities during the holiday season. So I pulled it because I wanted to vote against Clause B.

I’ve been persuaded that it’s worth supporting for one more year this year, but when it comes in the multi-year budget ask, I’m gonna be a hard no. So I just wanted to share with folks the reason why I pulled it and why I’ve changed my mind since 4 p.m. when the meeting started. Okay, sounds like you wanna move the staff recommendation.

Okay, seconder for the staff recommendation, Councillor Cuddy. I got a speakers list, it includes Councillor Hopkins, and then Councillor Troe sound, then Councillor Stevenson. I’m really glad you changed to my deputy mayor, as all I can say, I just wanna make some brief comments on this, I am supportive of the recommendation. Coming forward, I really do think the work about being evaluating the new strategies for the core, realigning it with our strategic plan and learning from the lessons that we’ve learned.

Hopefully we can make it better going forward. The cost program, I’m just amazed with the numbers of outreach that we’ve had with that program. I think that anyone looking for numbers, it really is really good to see these numbers. The partnership with ANOVA too, I didn’t even know about that, but doing that, establishing that bystander training program, and hopefully we’ll continue that in the summertime.

I think these are all really great positive things coming out of it. The 50,000 for the recommendation and see very supportive of that as we try to promote the city being UNESCO, having the free music events in the summer. Also the outdoor movies, things like that, is not only free for residents in London, but it’s also for the visitors that come to our city. Emma Conference is happening in August, that’s going to be over 2,000 people.

So lots of great opportunities, getting people back into the core. I just see a lot of good stuff coming out of this. So, like I said, I’m glad the deputy mayor changed his mind. Councillor Joseph.

The deputy mayor sort of was reading my mind a few hours ago and I was going to pull this too. And I was going to pull this because I want item B separately voted on. And if the deputy mayor has received through the chair, if the deputy mayor has received reasons why we should be giving $100,000 to the, when we get to this right, Holly Jolly Market in downtown for the holidays program. In light of the lot of the things that we spoke about tonight, I’d like to hear it too because I’m not inclined to want to spend that $100,000 right now.

That $50,000 in clause C is very different because that’s distributed to a lot of free events. But I just, I don’t have enough in this report to justify in my mind spending this $100,000 now. So, I’ll be voting against this unless somebody can help me with this and I’m open to hearing other thoughts. But I just cannot justify going home tonight, having spent $100,000 for the Holly Jolly Market when I’m not even getting a lot of information in here in terms of what it is.

So, I hate to end the evening on a negative tone, but I had the exact same thoughts earlier tonight. There’s still lots of evening left. So, I think we’re very close to being done. So, I prefer not to jump into a break ‘cause I think we’re very, very close here at Councillor Stevenson.

Can’t help you with the Holly Jolly Market, but I did have some comments on the core area action plan. I’ve talked to staff about it. I understand, I probably don’t understand all the things that have happened since this core area action plan went into place, but it was $9 million, and our core area is not good. And I have talked to staff about number 69 of the core area action plan, the inventory of social services in the core area.

And I can’t, I’ve expressed to staff, but I’m gonna publicly say this is indicative of what I’m trying to get across to council and to staff is that something isn’t getting through when this happens. It specifically says in the core area action plan, it was all detailed out. It said, during our conversations, many business owners emphasized the concern that there was an over-concentration of social services within the core area. They suggested that many of these services did not truly need to be located in the core area, but there was a default expectation that such services would locate there.

Furthermore, there are concerns that some social services are operating without concern for the impact that they may be having on the surrounding business area. For example, long lineups along main streets are creating congested and inhospitable walking environments that keep customers away. This could possibly be avoided simply by altering the operational approach of the service. This action calls for a full inventory and mapping of all the social service agencies in the core area, an understanding of the numbers they serve and their need for a core area location, where services are being operated in a way that may negatively impact the surrounding business environment, potential solutions will be identified that could mitigate this impact.

This is ticked off as complete. There’s a directory of services that’s called Help and Hard Times that was updated that has nothing to do with number 69, nothing to do with it. It was clearly detailed in 2019. And even with the whole of community response, I am not hearing it addressed.

I am begging this council and staff to address this issue. We’ve got now four urban depots coming and the social services are in one area and some in the downtown. This is a detailed inventory of the graffiti near cycling lanes that made them unwelcoming. This is insulting to the people that have asked and it’s been acknowledged and council approved.

I am so frustrated with being told it’s council approved so that’s why it got done. But I got all these council approved things that I want done that aren’t done. And I had a lot to say about this core area action plan. I got all kinds of notes here and it’s late.

There are six months left in this plan. I would like to work with staff. I will come up with ideas and things that we can do to try to just make this better. I’m really asking that number 69 be addressed though.

It’s critical to that area, to the move forward. I think it’s important to the whole of community. It gets to be addressed. And the way that I appreciate what council has done, I appreciate their indulgence.

I can only imagine it’s been a long night. And there is this sort of patronizing feeling. You know what I mean? Yeah, we hear you on all these things.

We’re not feeling heard. I’ve been talking about number 69 since I got elected. And I’m not hearing anybody say, we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna get the answers.

We’re gonna find out. We’re gonna handle this. I’m asking that before this ends, at the end of this year, that we will have from a genuine, really wanting to know and understand what is needed in our city and how we can best serve the people who need to be served and not at the expense of other Londoners. I do have some ideas and suggestions and I’m gonna do them another day.

Councilor Ferrer. Thank you and through you. There was an added item to the core area action plan or for the agenda for the core action plan. And it’s from Midtown.

And they have asked me this question before. So I thought I would just ask the question again to staff just to get an answer for the record. So they’re asking for a seat at the core area strategy team or the core area action team. So I just wanted to know if I could get a response for that for Midtown.

Your wish if I can certainly start. The reason we hadn’t included Midtown when we were working on developing those groups into 2020 was not for lack of interest, but for the lack of a single organized association that was representing businesses. And in fact, at one point during that time, we were actually approached by a number of businesses, all of whom were sort of purporting to represent the whole area. So it became a bit difficult to have a single voice for the Midtown merchants.

We did continue obviously to apply the actions of the plan, enhance cleaning, all of those things through that area, but didn’t have those positions available. We’re happy to meet with the group that submitted the letter and see what the steps can be moving forward to ensure they have a stronger voice at the table. And that would be a benefit for staff as well. And thank you through you.

Thank you for that answer. I’ll pass that on if they are now watching right now. Thank you. Councilor, I have Councilor Pribble next.

20, I’d like to vote on A separately. On A separately, that the report be received, okay. And I might have to do B separately. I’ll go back to Councilor Trossa at the end of the meeting.

So we might just deal with them all separately. Councilor Pribble, your last person on my speaker’s list. I’ll try to be brief. No, actually, I will be brief.

I had nine questions, but I’m gonna leave. That directly with the staff. I’m not gonna do it tonight. But a couple of things.

The first one is just to reiterate what Councilor Stevens has said in terms of 0.69. That was one of them. And I think certainly think in terms of the businesses, we certainly can do much more and help them out because there’s gonna be a very tough year for them. And as I keep saying, every small business applied for the federal grants and they’ll have to pay by end of this year, 40,000.

If they don’t pay 40,000 by end of this year, it’s gonna become 60,000 first of January. Unless something else happens. But I’m gonna tell you this. The page 13 on the top.

This is really a paragraph that if we deliver, it’s gonna be fantastic. The effectiveness of the actions is being evaluated as the new strategies for the core area are being developed in alignment with Councils 23 to 27 strategic plan and new tactics to make meaningful change are included in that work that reflect lessons, learn to date and best practices. Altair right now, if we deliver this, there will be a lot of businesses and people, citizens happy in downtown London. One thing is, I truly believe that one of our struggles was that we never clearly defined our problems and we never clearly defined the tactics, the actions plan, the implementation plan, which we do have now in our strategic plan.

If we do that, we’ll be on the right track and many businesses and citizens of the core will be much happier. Thank you. Okay, I don’t have any other speakers except for the deputy mayor. Thank you.

I just wanted an opportunity to through you chair sort of share a little bit more in detail, particularly as Councilor Truss I’ll ask. And so I’m just gonna share and bear with me ‘cause I am reading from responses that I got from two board members. The first of which indicates, you know, we don’t have a surplus. There is an asset balance, but that’s not free cash flow sitting in a lockbox that we can invest right now.

Certainly the $204,000 clawback at the end of 2022 in December was a shock to us and not something that we can readily make up right now. But as for the downtown for the holidays and the Holly Jolly Market, a couple of things that we ask you to consider. This is the first time that we could say that downtown London special events, Covent Garden Market and Dundas Place worked together to deliver an integrated campaign. We also are shaking every tree and menorah.

That was in here and menorah to get more private sponsorship. Our sponsors include Drulo and Fari Holdings, Tricar, Siften, TD Bank, and we are going to continue to look for more. We also had support and welcome the support we got from the city of London and from tourism London in promoting our event. We do wanna make it better.

We do recognize your criticism about Covent Garden Market being closed while the Briar was happening. Members who sit on both boards are working with the market, including some potential rearranging of floor plans so that stalls in the market that cannot be open for later hours can close up and the rest of the market can continue to be open. So in brief through you chair to Council Trust, I went to all members of Council that I’m hearing that they are shaking down some private donors, that I hear that they are looking to address some of the concerns that I had with the market closure and trying to address that with it having been the first event that they’ve done as four groups together. The special events team from the city done best place, Covent Garden Market, hand downtown London.

They persuaded me that it’s worth giving them a one year lifeline to do this again. Also recognizing that they did move Santa’s house downtown. They did have some upfront costs at the market in particular. I know that they had some generous help from the London Home Builders Association, but they did have the pop up stalls and things that they’ve invested in, which this year will help them deliver the event a little bit better and a little bit quicker.

So all those things being considered, that’s why I’m willing to extend a one year lifeline on this program. And that’s why I said, you know, for a multi year budget, a hundred grand a year, I’m not ready to support, but I’m willing to give them a little bit of time to finish getting their ducks in a row so that they don’t have to keep coming back to us. Councilor Trossow. I feel really bad because this just sounds so nice.

Why $100,000? Could I ask how that figure was arrived at? Mr. May, there’s.

Absolutely, so through the chair, anyone that did visit the downtown over the last December period, you’ve noted that there was the giant tree, there’s decorations, they had a substantial amount of equipment that was there, they had the heated vendor huts and the stage with entertainment. Also had the horse wagon rides, some security that’s been allocated as part of that and also the carousel rides. So all of those things are included in this $100,000 cost. I’m always tempted by the things that have all nines rather than the bigger number myself, but it’s $100,000 for the reason mentioned.

Councilor, are you good? Regardless of which way you vote, you know, you make it out. - I can’t support this and I just, again, I’m open to something better than, it’s late, I know, but I just, I can’t do it. The great news is we can separate it out now, maybe get some answers for Council, I’ll leave that with you and the final decisions, not today.

So I’m gonna separate them A, B and C ‘cause I’ve got people wanting to vote against different things in different ways. Okay, and we’re ready for that. So if the same mover and seconder are good with all those parts, I’ll just stick with them and we’ll start with part A. Part A is receiving the report, I should mention.

Closing the vote in the motion. Carries 11 to one. Okay, and next we’ll put part B on the floor, which is the $100,000 for the Holly Jolly market downtown. Closing the vote in motion carries 11 to one.

And part C, which is the $50,000 to support the 2023 summer fall and winter core area events and activations. Closing the vote in the motion carries 12 to zero. Okay, that dispenses with item 2.2. That concludes the items for direction as well as all of the items we pulled.

Deferred matters in additional business, I’ll look for any additional business or deferred matters. Okay, seeing none, motion to adjourn. We’d like to move it. Councilor Ferrera, seconded by Councilor Hopkins, we’ll do this by hand.

All those in favor? Motion carries. All right, thank you very much.