October 17, 2023, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:03 PM; it being noted that Councillor P. Van Meerbergen was in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Councillor S. Franke discloses a pecuniary interest in item 6, clause 4.2 of the 25th Report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee, having to do with the Consideration of Appointments to the London Transit Commission, by indicating that her brother is an applicant.

Councillor P. Van Meerbergen discloses a pecuniary interest in item 7, clause 3.5 of the 16th Report of the Planning and Environment Committee, having to do with 50 King Street and 399 Ridout Street, by indicating that his immediate family resides in area of the properties.

2.   Recognitions

None.

3.   Review of Confidential Matters to be Considered in Public

None.

4.   Council, In Closed Session

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That Council rise and go into Council, In Closed Session, for the purpose of considering the following:

4.1 Personal Matters / Identifiable Individuals

A matter pertaining to identifiable individuals with respect to the 2024 Mayor’s New Year’s Honour List – “Arts” Category (6.1/15/CPSC)

4.2 Personal Matters / Identifiable Individuals

A matter pertaining to identifiable individuals with respect to the 2024 Mayor’s New Year’s Honour List – “Age Friendly” Category. (6.2/15/CPSC)

4.3 Personal Matters / Identifiable Individuals

A matter pertaining to identifiable individuals with respect to the 2024 Mayor’s New Year’s Honour List – “Sports” Category. (6.3/15/CPSC)

4.4 Education/Training Session

A matter pertaining to the education and training of Council Members by the Integrity Commissioner for the City of London which does not deal with any matter in a way that materially advances the business or decision-making of the Council or Standing Committee. (6.1/24/SPPC)

4.5 Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice / Litigation/Potential Litigation

A matter pertaining to advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose from the solicitor and officers or employees of the Corporation; the subject matter pertains to litigation or potential litigation with respect to appeals related to 689 Oxford Street West at the Ontario Land Tribunal (“OLT”), and for the purpose of providing instructions and directions to officers and employees of the Corporation. (6.1/16/PEC)

4.6 Land Acquisition/Disposition / Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice / Position, Plan, Procedure, Criteria or Instruction to be Applied to Any Negotiations

A matter pertaining to the proposed or pending lease of office space by the municipality, including communications necessary for that purpose; advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege; commercial and financial information, that belongs to the municipality and has monetary value or potential monetary value and a position, plan, procedure, criteria or instruction to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality. (6.1/17/CSC)

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

That Council convenes In Closed Session, from 1:09 PM to 1:20 PM.

5.   Confirmation and Signing of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting(s)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the Minutes of the 15th Meeting held on September 26, 2023 and the 16th Special Meeting held on October 5, 2023, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

6.   Communications and Petitions

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the communications, with respect to the following, BE RECIEVED and BE REFERRED as noted on the Council Added Agenda:

6.1  1236 Southdale Road (Z-9634)

6.3  Urban Design Peer Review Panel

6.4  Deferred Matters List

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by H. McAlister

That the communications, with respect to the following, BE RECIEVED and BE REFERRED as noted on the Council Added Agenda:

6.2  50 King Street and 399 Ridout Street (OZ-9622)

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

7.   Motions of Which Notice is Given

None.

8.   Reports

8.1   15th Report of the Community and Protective Services Committee

2023-10-04 CPSC Report

Motion made by E. Peloza

That the 15th Report of the Community and Protective Services Committee BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

8.1.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by E. Peloza

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.1.2   (2.1) 9th Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by E. Peloza

That the 9th Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on September 7, 2023, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.1.3   (2.2) Capital Needs at City of London Golf Courses

Motion made by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to Capital Needs at City of London Golf Courses:

a)    the Recreation and Sport Division, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services BE AUTHORIZED to draw from the Golf Course Reserve Fund to complete required capital needs;

b)    the funding BE APPROVED as set out in the Source of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report; and,

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all actions necessary to complete required capital needs. (2023-R05D)

Motion Passed

8.1.4   (2.3) Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative and Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative Approval of Ontario Transfer Payment Agreement (Relates to Bill No. 371)

Motion made by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 to:

a)    approve the Ontario Transfer Payment Agreement, as appended to the above-noted by-law, between His Majesty the King in right of Ontario as represented by The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and The Corporation of the City of London for the provision of funding under the Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative and the Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 fiscal years;

b)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the above-noted Agreement;

c)    authorize the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development to approve any future amending agreements to the Agreement between His Majesty the King in right of Ontario as represented by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and The Corporation of the City of London with respect to the provision of funding 

under the Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative and the Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 fiscal years;

d)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute any future amending agreements to the Agreement between His Majesty the King in right of Ontario as represented by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and The Corporation of the City of London with respect to the provision of funding under the Canada-Ontario Community Housing Initiative and the Ontario Priorities Housing Initiative for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 fiscal years; and,

e)    authorize the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, or their written designate, to approve and execute any reports and Investment Plan required under the above-noted Agreement. (2023-F11)

Motion Passed

8.1.5   (4.1) Alignment of Rent Supplement and Housing Allowance Programs to a Portable Benefit System

Motion made by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager of Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to the Alignment of Rent Supplement and Housing Allowance Programs to a Portable Benefit System:

a)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to implement the recommendations of the Rent Supplement System Final Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report, subject to legislative authority and contractual obligations with the Province of Ontario;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue to gather input from internal and external partners, including people with lived experience, and to report back to the Community and Protective Services Committee annually about program implementation progress; and,

c)    the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, or delegate, BE AUTHORIZED to reallocate existing Municipal, Provincial or Federal funding from one Portable Housing Benefit priority household group to another priority group as necessary. (2023-S11)

Motion Passed

8.2   14th Report of the Civic Works Committee

2023-10-04 CWC Report

Motion made by C. Rahman

That the 14th Report of the Civic Works Committee BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

8.2.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by C. Rahman

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.2.2   (2.1) Rapid Transit Implementation – Consultant Design Contract Increase RFP20-29 and RFP20-28 due to Excess Soils Regulation

Motion made by C. Rahman

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to Rapid Transit Implementation – Consultant Design Contract Increase RFP20-29 and RFP20-28 due to Excess Soils Regulation:

a)    the engineering fees for AECOM Canada Ltd. BE INCREASED to recognize the additional scope of work for the RFP20-29 - Consulting Services for Rapid Transit and Infrastructure Improvements - Wellington Gateway project in accordance with the estimate on file, by $288,834 (excluding HST), from $6,490,902 to a total upset amount of $6,779,736 in accordance with Section 15.2 (g) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the engineering fees for Dillon Consulting Ltd. BE INCREASED to recognize the additional scope of work for the RFP20-28 Consulting Services for Rapid Transit and Infrastructure Improvements - East London Link project in accordance with the estimate on file, by $267,881 (excluding HST), from $6,113,853 to a total upset amount of $6,381,734 in accordance with Section 15.2 (g) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

c)    the financing for this project BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report; and,

d)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this project. (2023-T04)

Motion Passed

8.2.3   (2.2) SS-2023-232 Single Source Purchase Hydro Excavator

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to SS-2023-232 Single Source Purchase Hydro Excavator:

a)    approval BE GIVEN to execute a Single Source purchase in accordance with Section 14.4(g) of the City of London’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the single Source negotiated price BE ACCEPTED to purchase (1) Vactor Truvac HXX Hydro Excavator for a total estimated price of $739,804.00 (excluding HST) from Joe Johnson Equipment Inc., 2521 Bowman St., Innisfil, Ontario, L9S 3V6;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this purchase;

d)    the approval, hereby given, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract or having a purchase order, or contract record relating to the subject matter of this approval in accordance with Sections 14.4(g) and 14.5(a)(ii) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy; and,

e)    the funding for this purchase BE APPROVED as set out in the Source of Financing Report, as appended to the above-noted staff report. (2023-V01)

Motion Passed

8.2.4   (2.3) SS-2023-247 Single Source Contract Snow Plow Blade Parts

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to SS-2023-247 Single Source Contract Snow Plow Blade Parts:

a)    approval BE GIVEN to exercise the single source provisions of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy under sections 14.4 (d) and (e) to contract with Valley Blades Ltd. 435 Philip Street, Waterloo Ontario for the supply and delivery of Snow Plow Blades, parts and accessories on City owned equipment for a one (1) year contract with an option to renew for four (4) additional years;

b)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this contract; and,

c)    the approval, hereby given, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract or having a purchase order, or contract record relating to the subject matter of this approval. (2023-V02)

Motion Passed

8.2.5   (4.1) Joining the Smart Commute Program (Relates to Bill No. 370)

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated October 4, 2023, related to Joining the Smart Commute Program:

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED;

b)    the by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023, to:

i)    approve the Memorandum and Understanding between The Corporation of the City of London and the Smart Commute Association, substantially in the form as appended to the above-noted staff report; and,

ii)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute any document to give effect to the above-noted authorization;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to finalize arrangements with RideShark for the provision of the Integrated Mobility Tool, used by members of the Smart Commute Program to support program services, following the procedures set out in the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy; and,

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to launch the Smart Commute London program in the fall of 2023. (2023-T10)

Motion Passed

8.3   24th Report of the Special Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee

2023-09-28 SPPC Report 24

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the 24th Report of the Special Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

8.3.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by S. Lewis

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.4   25th Report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee

2023-10-10 SPPC Report 25

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the 25th Report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee, excluding item 6 (4.2), item 7 (4.3), and item 8 (4.4), BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

8.4.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by S. Lewis

Councillor S. Franke discloses a pecuniary interest in Item 4.2, having to do with appointments to the London Transit Commission by indicating that her brother is an applicant.

Motion Passed

8.4.2   (2.1) City of London Strategic Financial Framework

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following action be taken:

a)    the City of London Strategic Financial Framework, as appended to the staff report dated October 10, 2023 as “Appendix A”, BE APPROVED; and

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to make the Strategic Financial Framework available on the City’s website.

Motion Passed

8.4.3   (2.2) Core Area Ambassador Pilot Program Review

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to a proposed strategy for the Core Area in alignment with the 2023-2027 City of London Strategic Plan:

a)    the staff report dated October 10, 2023, entitled “Core Area Ambassador Pilot Program Review” BE RECEIVED; and

b)    the Core Area Ambassador Pilot Program BE CONCLUDED at the end of 2023.

Motion Passed

8.4.4   (2.3) 6th Report of the Governance Working Group (Relates to Bill No. 375)

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 6th Report of the Governance Working Group from its meeting held on September 25, 2023:

a)    the following actions be taken with respect to the draft Electronic Meeting Participation Policy:

i) the above-noted draft policy, as appended to the Governance Working Group agenda, BE APPROVED; and,

ii) the attached proposed by-law to enact the aforementioned policy BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023;

b)    the following actions be taken with respect to the 2023 Governance Working Group Deferred Matters List:

i) the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to bring forward to the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee revisions to the Selection Process Policy for Appointing Members to Committee, Civic Boards and Commissions and the Appointment of Council Members to Standing Committees of Council and Various Civic Boards and Commissions Policy to enact the following:

A)    the requirement to fully complete the selections for appointments of Council Members to standing committees during the selection voting process; and, 

B)    the requirement for members to fully complete the submission form(s) for consideration of appointments to standing committees;

ii) the above-noted Deferred Matters List BE RECEIVED; and

c)    clauses 1.1 and 5.1 BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.4.5   (4.1) 2023 Corporate Asset Management Plan

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to 2023 Corporate Asset Management Plan:

a)    the report and the “2023 Corporate Asset Management Brochure” as appended to the staff report dated October 10, 2023 as Appendix “A” BE RECEIVED for information; and

b)    the “2023 Corporate Asset Management Plan”, as appended to the staff report dated as Appendix “B”, BE APPROVED;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

8.4.6   (4.2) Consideration of Appointments to the London Transit Commission

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the following BE APPOINTED to the London Transit Commission for the term ending November 14, 2026:

  • Jacqueline Madden

  • David Little

Motion Passed (12 to 1)

8.4.7   (4.3) Lobbyist Registrar

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee receive a communication dated October 10, 2023 from Councillors D. Ferreira and S. Franke with respect to the Lobbyist Registrar.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Franke

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to conduct a review and present a report on the feasibility, purpose, and associated expenses of implementing a mandatory municipal lobbyist registry. The review should encompass the establishment of a publicly accessible electronic portal for tracking lobbying activities within the municipality, the appointment of a registrar responsible for overseeing the registry, registration rules, potential exemptions, penalties, fines, enforcement mechanisms, and general provisions related to lobbying regulations;

Motion Failed (6 to 8)

8.4.8   (4.4) Establishing Homes Ontario

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the following actions be taken with respect to correspondence from T. Kernaghan:

a)    the correspondence from T. Kernaghan, Member of Provincial Parliament, London North Centre dated October 1, 2023 and entitled “Establishing Homes Ontario” BE RECEIVED;

b)    the Government of Ontario BE ADVISED that the Municipal Council of The Corporation of the City of London supports the house debate of the following motion “that, in the opinion of this House, the Government of Ontario should establish and fund a new public agency called Homes Ontario to finance and build 250,000 new affordable and non-market homes on public land over ten years, to be operated and/or constructed by public, non-profit or co-op housing providers”; and

c)    that this matter also BE REFERRED to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) for consideration.

Motion Passed (10 to 4)

At 2:04 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan, places Councillor S. Lehman in the Chair.

At 2:07 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan resumes the Chair.

8.5   16th Report of the Planning and Environment Committee

2023-10-03 PEC Report 16

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the 16th Report of the Planning and Environment Committee, excluding item 7 (3.5) and item 8 (4.1), BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

8.5.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by S. Lehman

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.5.2   (2.1) Delegation of Authority - Part Lot Control (Relates to Bill No. 374)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 to amend By-law CP-17 being “A by-law to delegate certain portions of Council’s assigned authority with respect to approvals for plans of subdivision and condominium pursuant to the Planning Act”  to delegate the authority to pass by-laws to exempt all, or parts of, registered plans of subdivision from part-lot control.  (2023-D25)

Motion Passed

8.5.3   (3.1) 10th Report of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 10th Report of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on September 21, 2023:

 

a)    the Ecological Community Advisory Committee Working Group comments on the Environmental Impact Statement relating to the property located at 2473 Oxford Street West BE FORWARDED to the Civic Administration for review and consideration;

b)    the Ecological Community Advisory Committee Working Group comments on the Environmental Impact Statement relating to the property located at 465 Sunningdale Road West BE FORWARDED to the Civic Administration for review and consideration;

c)    the appointment of S. Miklosi BE RESCINDED from the Ecological Community Advisory Committee due to lack of attendance; and,

d)    clauses 1.1, 3.1 to 3.4, inclusive, 5.1 to 5.3, inclusive, 5.5 and 5.6, 6.1 to 6.5, inclusive, BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.5.4   (3.2) 3480 Morgan Avenue (OZ-9100 / 39T-22503) (Relates to Bill No. 377)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application by Sifton Properties Limited, relating to the property located at 3480 Morgan Avenue:

a)    the request to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1 to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Holding Community Shopping Area Special Provision (hh-11h-63h-82h-95h-100h-105h-135(CSA5(3)) Zone and a Holding Community Shopping Area Special Provision Zone (hh-11h-63h-82h-95h-100h-105h-138(CSA5(3)) TO a Holding Residential R9 Special Provision (hR9-4(_)) Zone; Holding Residential R9 Special Provision/Community Shopping Area Special Provision (hh-54h198(R9-7(_)/CSA5(3)) Zone; Holding Residential R9 Special Provision/Community Shopping Area Special Provision (hh54h-198(R9-7()-CSA5(3)) Zone;  Holding Residential R9 Special Provision/ Community Shopping Area Special Provision (hh54*h-198(R9-7()/CSA5(3)) Zone; and an Open Space (OS1) BE REFUSED for the following reason:

i)    a couple of additional holding provisions are considered necessary to address a range of planning and servicing issues associated with the proposed development;

b)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Holding Community Shopping Area Special Provision (hh-11h-63h-82h-95h-100h-105h-135(CSA5(3)) Zone and a Holding Community Shopping Area Special Provision Zone (hh-11h-63h-82h-95h-100h-105h-138(CSA5(3)) TO a Holding Residential R9 Special Provision (hh-11h-100h-105h-198(R9-4()) Zone; Holding Residential R9 Special Provision/Community Shopping Area Special Provision (hh-11h-54h-100h105h-198(R9-7()/CSA5(3)) Zone; Holding Residential R9 Special Provision/Community Shopping Area Special Provision (hh-11h-54h-100h-105h-198(R9-7(_)/CSA5(3)) Zone; Holding Residential R9 Special Provision/ Community Shopping Area Special Provision (hh-11h-54h-100h-105h-198(R9-7(_)/CSA5(3)) Zone; and an Open Space (OS1);

c)    the Approval Authority BE ADVISED that no issues were raised at the public meeting with respect to the application by Sifton Properties Limited, relating to lands located at 3480 Morgan Avenue;

d)    the Site Plan Approval Authority BE REQUESTED to consider the provision of short-term public bicycle parking in the development of each block through the site plan process; and,

e)    the Approval Authority BE ADVISED that the Municipal Council supports issuing draft approval of the proposed plan of residential subdivision, submitted by Sifton Properties Limited (File No. 39T-22503),  prepared by Archibald,  File No. 8-L-5709-A, March 17th 2022, which shows a draft plan of subdivision consisting of one (1) Medium Density Residential Blocks, three (3) Mixed-Use Blocks and one (1) Park Block and two new streets (Street A and B) SUBJECT TO conditions;

it being pointed out that the following individual made a verbal presentation at the public participation meeting held in conjunction with this matter:

  •    L. Clark, Sifton Properties Limited;

it being further noted that the Municipal Council approves this application for the following reasons:

  •    the recommended zoning by-law amendment is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement;

  •    the recommended zoning conforms to the in-force policies of The London Plan, including, but not limited to, the Shopping Area Place Type, City Building and Design, Our Tools, and all other applicable The London Plan policies; and,

  •    the zoning will permit development that is considered appropriate and compatible with the existing and future land uses surrounding the subject lands;

it being acknowledged that any and all oral and written submissions from the public, related to this application have been, on balance, taken into consideration by Council as part of its deliberations and final decision regarding these matters. (2023-D09)

Motion Passed

8.5.5   (3.3) 1236 Southdale Road East (Z-9634) (Relates to Bill No. 378)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of Aun Holdings Inc., relating to the property located at 1236 Southdale Road East:

a)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Residential R1 (R1-10) Zone TO a Holding Residential R5 Special Provision (h-17*R5-7(_)) Zone and Open Space (OS5) Zone;

b)    the Site Plan Approval Authority BE REQUESTED to consider the following design issues through the site plan process:

i)    design the side elevation of the corner units that are facing the driveway and the amenity space with enhanced detail, such as wrap-around porches and a similar number of windows as is found on the front elevation to offer reasonable level of passive surveillance throughout the site;

ii)    consider moving the garbage bins away from the view of the public street. If garbage bins cannot be moved to another location, provide all-season landscaping to screen the bins from the street and to provide a visual interest;

iii)    provide details for the patio wall/enclosure. Ensure the patio walls/enclosures are of minimum required heights and provide all-season landscape buffers with clear sight lines to delineate the public and private realm along the street frontages and around the internal parking area;

iv)    a 1.5 metre access aisle is required with the barrier-free parking stall in accordance with the Site Plan Control By-law; and,

v)    the provision of short-term public bicycle parking in the development;

it being pointed out that the following individual made a verbal presentation at the public participation meeting held in conjunction with this matter:

  •    M. Davis, Siv-ik Planning and Design;

it being further noted that the Municipal Council approves this application for the following reasons:

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, 2020;

  •    the recommended amendment conforms to The London Plan, including, but not limited to the Neighbourhoods Place Type and Key Directions; and,

  •    the recommended amendment facilitates the development of an underutilized site within the Built Area Boundary and Primary Transit Area with an appropriate form of infill development that provides choice and diversity in housing options;

it being acknowledged that any and all oral and written submissions from the public, related to this application have been, on balance, taken into consideration by Council as part of its deliberations and final decision regarding these matters.   (2023-D09)

Motion Passed

8.5.6   (3.4) Amendment to Increase Additional Residential Unit Permissions (OZ-9651) (Relates to Bills No. 372 and 379)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, with respect to the Official Plan and Zoning By-law requirements for additional residential units, the following actions be taken:

a)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 TO AMEND the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016, to change the maximum permitted Additional Residential Units within single detached dwellings, semi-detached dwellings or street townhouse dwellings FROM a maximum of two additional residential units permitted TO a maximum of three additional residential units permitted;

b)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 TO AMEND Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the City of London Official Plan, 2016, as amended in part a) above); and,

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to remove the bedroom limit city-wide, except Near Campus Neighbourhoods, and report back on possible limits to Near Campus Neighbourhoods (NCN); it being noted that the Civic Administration has been directed to undertake a review of the current five-bedroom limit and to report back at a future meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee;

it being noted that the Planning and Environment Committee received the following communications with respect to these matters:

  •    a communication dated September 6, 2023 from H. Schreff, London Hydro; and,

  •    a communication dated September 15, 2023 from A. Laverty, Upper Thames River Conservation Authority;

it being pointed out that the following individuals made verbal presentations at the public participation meeting held in conjunction with this matter:

  •    M. Wallace, London Development Institute;

  •    J.M. Fleming, City Planning Solutions, on behalf of Copp Realty Corp.;

  •    E. Poirier, University Students Council, Western University;

  •    S. Levin; and,

  •    J. Lepri;

it being further noted that the Municipal Council approves this application for the following reasons:

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, 2020;

  •    the recommended amendment conforms to the general intent of The London Plan, including, but not limited to the Neighbourhoods Place Type, Policy 942; and,

  •    the recommended amendment supports Council’s commitment to increase housing supply and affordability;

it being acknowledged that any and all oral and written submissions from the public, related to this application have been, on balance, taken into consideration by Council as part of its deliberations and final decision regarding these matters. (2023-D04)

Motion Passed

8.5.9   (5.1) Deferred Matters List

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the Deferred Matters List dated September 26, 2023 BE REFERRED to the October 17, 2023 Council meeting for a decision.

Motion Passed

8.5.7   (3.5) 50 King Street and 399 Ridout Street (OZ-9622) (Relates to Bills No. 373 and 380)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application by 50 King Street London Limited, relating to the property located at 50 King Street & 399 Ridout Street North:

a)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 to amend the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016, to create a specific area policy in the Downtown Place Type at 50 King Street & 399 Ridout Street to permit increased height of fifty three (53) storeys and by ADDING the subject lands to Map 7 – Specific Policy Areas – of The London Plan;

b)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, in conformity with the Official Plan, The London Plan, as amended in part (a) above, to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Community Facility/Downtown Area (CF1/DA2D350H15) Zone; and a holding Downtown Area Bonus (h-3h-5h-18h-149h-207DA1D350H15B-36) Zone TO a holding Downtown Area Special Provision (h-5h-18h-103h-149h-207*h-()*DA2()D1250H186) Zone; an Open Space (OS4) Zone and an Open Space Special Provision (OS2(_)) Zone;

c)    the Site Plan Approval Authority BE REQUESTED to consider the following matters through the site plan process:

i)    provide a publicly-accessible, barrier-free path of travel from Ridout Street North to the Thames Valley Parkway and Ivey Park; 

ii)    provide building entrances from the residential lobbies to King Street;

iii)    provide a minimum transparent glazing on the ground floor of 25% on abutting King Street for Tower 2, a minimum of 40% abutting King Street for Tower 1, and a minimum of 60% abutting Ridout Street North for Tower 1;

iv)    utilize visual markers, etched or stained glass to provide bird-friendly glazing; 

v)    implement mitigation measures recommended from the wind study to minimize the impacts of wind on outdoor amenity areas and pedestrian areas; 

vi)    provide a minimum 1.0m stepback of the podium above the third floor for Tower 1: adjacent to the existing courthouse, along Ridout Street North, and along King Street;

vii)    provide a Building Condition Assessment and Strategic Conservation Plan;

viii)    implement construction monitoring for archaeological resources; 

ix)    provide and implement a Temporary Protection Plan prior to and during construction, to evaluate impacts on the existing heritage buildings; 

x)    provide a Commemoration Plan to recognize the historic significance of the site through cultural heritage interpretative signage, features, and other design elements.

xi)    provide parking underground and ensure there are no blank walls associated with the parking structure; and,

xii)    provide landscaped terracing towards and along Ivey Park that addresses the change in grade and provides for active uses; and,

d)    pursuant to Section 34(17) of the Planning Act, as determined by the Municipal Council, no further notice BE GIVEN in respect of the recommended by-law;

it being noted that the Planning and Environment Committee received the following communications with respect to these matters:

  •    a communication dated September 22, 2023, from J. Lownie;

  •    a communication dated September 27, 2023, from J. Hall;

  •    a communication dated September 28, 2023, from N. Knight;

  •    a communication dated September 27, 2023, from J. Potter;

  •    a communication dated September 26, 2023, from B. and J. Timney;

  •    a communication from J. and B. Earley;

  •    a communication dated September 28, 2023, from J. Donnelly; and,

  •    a communication dated September 28, 2023, from D. Erskine;

it being pointed out that the following individuals made verbal presentations at the public participation meeting held in conjunction with this matter:

  •    S. Allen, MHBC PLanning;

  •    C. Quintyn;

  •    B. Earley;

  •    S. Levin;

  •    C. Spina;

  •    J. Fontana;

  •    A-M. Valastro;

  •    J-M. Metrailler;

  •    J. Easton;

  •    J.M. Fleming;

  •    D. Erskine;

  •    J. Donnelly;

  •    S. Britt;

  •    S. Bentley;

  •    Martin;

  •    J. Jacobson;

 

it being further noted that the Municipal Council approves this application for the following reasons:

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, 2020;

  •    the recommended amendment conforms to The London Plan, including, but not limited to the Key Direction, Downtown Place Type and Criteria for Specific Policies; and,

  •    the recommended amendment facilitates the development of a prominent site within the Downtown, Built Area Boundary and Primary Transit Area;

it being acknowledged that any and all oral and written submissions from the public, related to this application have been, on balance, taken into consideration by Council as part of its deliberations and final decision regarding these matters. (2023-D09)

Motion made by S. Franke

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That part c) of the clause BE AMENDED with respect to parts iv), and the addition of parts xiii) and xiv), as follows:

iv) utilize visual markers, etched or stained glass to provide bird-friendly glazing, and request the applicants’ ornithological report from their ornithologist consultant regarding bird friendly practices BE CIRCULATED to the appropriate advisory committee for review and feedback;

xiii) implement a robust solar installation along tops of Towers and include a minimum of 5% EV charging stations in underground parking; and

xiv) ensure a level of LEED or similar green certification is achieved; and

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That part c) of the clause BE FURTHER AMENDED with respect to part iv):

iv) utilize visual markers, etched or stained glass to provide bird-friendly glazing, as consistent with the London Plan section 304;

Motion Passed (10 to 3)

Motion made by S. Franke

Seconded by S. Lewis

That part c) of the clause BE AMENDED with respect to parts iv), and the addition of parts xiii) and xiv), as follows:

iv) utilize visual markers, etched or stained glass to provide bird-friendly glazing, as consistent with the London Plan section 304;

xiii) implement a robust solar installation along tops of Towers and include a minimum of 5% EV charging stations in underground parking; and

xiv) ensure a level of LEED or similar green certification is achieved; and

Motion Passed (8 to 5)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Council rise and go into Council, In Closed Session, for the purpose of considering the following:

A matter pertaining to solicitor-client privilege with respect to 50 King Street and 399 Ridout Street.

Motion Passed (9 to 4)

That Council convenes In Closed Session, from 2:43 PM to 3:05 PM.

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Franke

That item 7 (3.5), as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (11 to 2)

At 3:25 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan, places Councillor C. Rahman in the Chair.

At 3:29 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan resumes the Chair.

Item 7, clause 3.5, as amended, reads as follows:

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application by 50 King Street London Limited, relating to the property located at 50 King Street & 399 Ridout Street North:

 

a)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 to amend the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016, to create a specific area policy in the Downtown Place Type at 50 King Street & 399 Ridout Street to permit increased height of fifty three (53) storeys and by ADDING the subject lands to Map 7 – Specific Policy Areas – of The London Plan;

 

b)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on October 17, 2023 to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, in conformity with the Official Plan, The London Plan, as amended in part (a) above, to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Community Facility/Downtown Area (CF1/DA2D350H15) Zone; and a holding Downtown Area Bonus (h-3h-5h-18h-149h-207DA1D350H15B-36) Zone TO a holding Downtown Area Special Provision (h-5h-18h-103h-149h-207*h-()*DA2()D1250H186) Zone; an Open Space (OS4) Zone and an Open Space Special Provision (OS2(_)) Zone;

 

c)    the Site Plan Approval Authority BE REQUESTED to consider the following matters through the site plan process: 

 

i) provide a publicly-accessible, barrier-free path of travel from Ridout Street North to the Thames Valley Parkway and Ivey Park; 

ii) provide building entrances from the residential lobbies to King Street;

iii)    provide a minimum transparent glazing on the ground floor of 25% on abutting King Street for Tower 2, a minimum of 40% abutting King Street for Tower 1, and a minimum of 60% abutting Ridout Street North for Tower 1;

iv)     utilize visual markers, etched or stained glass to provide bird-friendly glazing, as consistent with the London Plan section 304; 

v)     implement mitigation measures recommended from the wind study to minimize the impacts of wind on outdoor amenity areas and pedestrian areas; 

vi)     provide a minimum 1.0m stepback of the podium above the third floor for Tower 1: adjacent to the existing courthouse, along Ridout Street North, and along King Street;

vii)    provide a Building Condition Assessment and Strategic Conservation Plan;

viii)   implement construction monitoring for archaeological resources; 

ix)     provide and implement a Temporary Protection Plan prior to and during construction, to evaluate impacts on the existing heritage buildings; 

x)     provide a Commemoration Plan to recognize the historic significance of the site through cultural heritage interpretative signage, features, and other design elements.

xi)    provide parking underground and ensure there are no blank walls associated with the parking structure; and,          

xii)    provide landscaped terracing towards and along Ivey Park that addresses the change in grade and provides for active uses;

xiii)  implement a robust solar installation along tops of Towers and include a minimum of 5% EV charging stations in underground parking; and                

xiv) ensure a level of LEED or similar green certification is achieved; and

 

d)    pursuant to Section 34(17) of the Planning Act, as determined by the Municipal Council, no further notice BE GIVEN in respect of the recommended by-law;

 

it being noted that the Planning and Environment Committee received the following communications with respect to these matters:

 

 -    a communication dated September 22, 2023, from J. Lownie;

 -    a communication dated September 27, 2023, from J. Hall;

 -    a communication dated September 28, 2023, from N. Knight;

 -    a communication dated September 27, 2023, from J. Potter;

 -    a communication dated September 26, 2023, from B. and J. Timney;

 -    a communication from J. and B. Earley;

 -    a communication dated September 28, 2023, from J. Donnelly; and,

 -    a communication dated September 28, 2023, from D. Erskine;

 

it being pointed out that the following individuals made verbal presentations at the public participation meeting held in conjunction with this matter:

 

 -    S. Allen, MHBC Planning;

 -    C. Quintyn;

 -    B. Earley;

 -    S. Levin;

 -    C. Spina;

 -    J. Fontana;

 -    A-M. Valastro;

 -    J-M. Metrailler;

 -    J. Easton;

 -    J.M. Fleming;

 -    D. Erskine;

 -    J. Donnelly;

 -    S. Britt;

 -    S. Bentley;

 -    Martin;

 -    J. Jacobson;

  

it being further noted that the Municipal Council approves this application for the following reasons:

 

 -    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, 2020;

 -    the recommended amendment conforms to The London Plan, including, but not limited to the Key Direction, Downtown Place Type and Criteria for Specific Policies; and,

 -    the recommended amendment facilitates the development of a prominent site within the Downtown, Built Area Boundary and Primary Transit Area;

 

it being acknowledged that any and all oral and written submissions from the public, related to this application have been, on balance, taken into consideration by Council as part of its deliberations and final decision regarding these matters. (2023-D09)

8.5.8   (4.1) Urban Design Peer Review Panel

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the communication from Deputy Mayor S. Lewis and Councillor S. Lehman with respect to the Urban Design Peer Review Panel BE REFERRED to the October 17, 2023 Council meeting for a decision;

it being noted that the Planning and Environment Committee received the following communications with respect to these matters:

  •    a communication dated September 28, 2023 from C. O’Brien, Drewlo Holdings Inc.; and,

  •    a request for delegation status and a communication dated September 28, 2023 from M. Wallace, London Development Institute.

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Lehman

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the necessary steps to provide for the immediate dissolution of the Urban Design Peer Review Panel.

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Franke

That the matter of the dissolution of the Urban Design Peer Review Panel BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee.

Motion Failed (6 to 8)

Motion made by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the motion BE AMENDED to add a part b) as follows:

that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to bring the Terms of Reference for the Community Advisory Committee on Planning (CACP) to a future Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting for consideration of the inclusion of urban design.

Motion Passed (11 to 3)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the Council recess at this time, for 20 minutes.

Motion Passed

The Council recesses at 4:27 PM and reconvenes at 4:54 PM.

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by A. Hopkins

Motion to AMEND by adding a part c)

c)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to provide an information report that addresses the matter of the Urban Design Awards and any other matters relevant to the dissolution of the Urban Design Peer Review Panel.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to approve part a), as amended, to read as follows:

that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the necessary steps to provide for the immediate dissolution of the Urban Design Peer Review Panel;

Motion Passed (10 to 4)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to approve part b), as amended, to read as follows:

that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to bring the Terms of Reference for the Community Advisory Committee on Planning (CACP) back to a future Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting for consideration of the inclusion of urban design.

Motion Passed (11 to 3)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by H. McAlister

Motion to APPROVE, as amended part c)

c)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to provide an information report that addresses the matter of the Urban Design Awards and any other matters relevant to the dissolution of the Urban Design Peer Review Panel.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Item 8, clause 4.1, as amended, reads as follows:

That, the following actions be taken with respect to the Urban Design Peer Review Panel:

a)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the necessary steps to provide for the immediate dissolution of the Urban Design Peer Review Panel;

b)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to bring the Terms of Reference for the Community Advisory Committee on Planning (CACP) back to a future Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting for consideration of the inclusion of urban design; and

c)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to provide an information report that addresses the matter of the Urban Design Awards and any other matters relevant to the dissolution of the Urban Design Peer Review Panel;

it being noted that the Planning and Environment Committee received the following communications with respect to these matters:

  •    a communication dated September 28, 2023 from C. O’Brien, Drewlo Holdings Inc.; and,

  •    a request for delegation status and a communication dated September 28, 2023 from M. Wallace, London Development Institute.

8.6   17th Report of the Corporate Services Committee

2023-10-03 CSC Report 17-Complete

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the 17th Report of the Corporate Services Committee, excluding item 6 (4.1), BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

At 5:37 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan, places Councillor S. Lehman in the Chair.

At 5:40 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan resumes the Chair.

8.6.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by S. Lewis

It BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.6.2   (2.1) City of London’s Credit Rating

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the City of London’s Credit Rating Report, providing a summary of Moody’s Investors Service Credit Opinion of the City of London, BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.6.3   (2.2) 2023 Mid-Year Operating Budget Monitoring Report

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the report dated October 3, 2023, with respect to the 2023 Mid-Year Operating Budget Monitoring Report, BE RECEIVED; it being noted that the year-end positions could fluctuate based on factors beyond the control of the Civic Administration:

  •    Property Tax Supported Budget projected surplus of $18.0 million;

  •    Water Rate Supported Budget projected surplus of $5.5 million;

  •    Wastewater and Treatment Rate Supported Budget projected surplus of $3.7 million;

it being further noted that Property Tax, Water, and Wastewater & Treatment Budget surplus will be allocated in accordance with the Council Approved Surplus/Deficit Policy.

Motion Passed

8.6.4   (2.3) 2023 Mid-Year Capital Budget Monitoring Report

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the 2023 Mid-Year Capital Budget Monitoring Report:

a) the 2023 Mid-Year Capital Budget Monitoring Report BE RECEIVED for information, it being noted that the life-to-date capital budget represents $3.4 billion with $1.9 billion committed and $1.5 billion uncommitted; it being further noted that the City Treasurer, or designate, will undertake the housekeeping budget adjustments identified in the Report, in accordance with the Multi-Year Budget Policy adopted by amending by-law No. CPOL.-45(b)-239;

b) the completed capital projects, totaling $3.4 million of net surplus funding, included in Appendix “B” as appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023, BE CLOSED;

c) the funding associated with the rate supported capital projects approved for closure in b) be discharged as follows:

i) pay-as-you-go funding of $15 thousand BE TRANSFERRED from capital receipts;

ii) authorized debt financing of $2 thousand BE RELEASED resulting in a reduction of authorized, but unissued debt;

iii) uncommitted reserve fund drawdowns of $169 thousand BE RELEASED back into the reserve funds which originally funded the projects;

d) the funding associated with the non-rate supported capital projects approved for closure in b) be discharged as follows:

i) uncommitted reserve fund drawdowns of $2.5 million BE RELEASED back into the reserve funds which originally funded the projects;

ii) other net non-rate supported funding sources of $758 thousand BE ADJUSTED in order to facilitate project closings.

Motion Passed

8.6.5   (2.4) SS-2023-252 New Fibre Network Service Installation for Fire Station No. 15

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the new fibre network service installation required for the new Fire Station No. 15 at 2340 Old Victoria Road:

a)    approval BE GIVEN to execute a Single Source purchase as per section 14.4 (d) and (e) of the City of London’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    Single Source negotiated price BE ACCEPTED to secure the installation of the new fibre network service required for the operation of the new Fire Station No. 15 for a total price of $113,850.00 (excluding HST) from Rogers Communications Canada Inc.;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this purchase;

d)    approval hereby given BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract or having a purchase order, or contract record relating to the subject matter of this approval in accordance with Sections 14.4(d)(e) and 14.5(a)(ii) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy; and

e)    the funding for this purchase BE APPROVED as set out in the Source of Financing Report as appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “A”.

Motion Passed

8.6.7   (4.2) Application - Issuance of Proclamation - National Day of Awareness (Economic Abuse Awareness Day)

Motion made by S. Lewis

That based on the application dated September 18, 2023 from the Canadian Centre for Women’s Empowerment, the request BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.6.8   (4.3) Application - Issuance of Proclamation - Turkish Republic Day

Motion made by S. Lewis

That based on the application dated September 29, 2023 from the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations, October 29, 2023 BE PROCLAIMED Turkish Republic Day.

Motion Passed

8.6.6   (4.1) Budweiser Gardens Proposed Expansion - Additional Information and Proposed Amending Agreement (Relates to Bill No. 369)

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken:

a)    the report providing additional information on the proposed Budweiser Gardens Expansion BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated October 3, 2023 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting on October 17, 2023 to execute the proposed amending agreement to the Participatory Occupancy Lease (Schedule “A”) related to the Budweiser Gardens Expansion project;

c)    the source of financing for the proposed expansion BE APPROVED as set out in the Source of Financing Report as appended to the staff report as Appendix “B”; and

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to confirm concurrence in writing for the contract extension with Ovations Food Services, L.P.;

it being noted that the attached questions were submitted by Councillor S. Trosow.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

At 5:54 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan, places Councillor S. Lehman in the Chair.

At 5:58 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan resumes the Chair.

9.   Added Reports

9.1   14th Report of Council in Closed Session

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by Mayor J. Morgan

1.  Lease of Office Space - Lease Agreement – 520 Wellington Street, Unit 10 – Centennial House

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, with the concurrence of the Director, Fleet & Facilities, on the advice of the Director, Realty Services, with respect to the lease of commercial office space located at 520 Wellington Street, Unit 10 (Centennial House), a new Lease Agreement (the “Lease”), attached as Appendix “A”,  between the City and Centennial House Limited (the “Landlord”), for the lease of approximately 1,569 square feet of rentable space located at 520 Wellington Street, Unit 10, for a term of two (2) years commencing December 1, 2023 and ending November 30, 2025, at a net rent of $8.75 per square foot for the duration of the term, with two (2) further options to renew for two (2) years BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

10.   Deferred Matters

None.

11.   Enquiries

None.

12.   Emergent Motions

None.

13.   By-laws

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No.’s 368 to 378, and Added Bill No. 381, and excluding Bill No.’s 369 and 373, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Motion made by H. McAlister

Seconded by J. Pribil

That Second Reading of Bill No.’s 368 to 379, and Added Bill No. 381, and excluding Bill No.’s 369 and 373, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by C. Rahman

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No.’s 368 to 379, and Added Bill No. 381, and excluding Bill No.’s 369 and 373, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 0)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No. 369, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (12 to 1)

Motion made by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Lehman

That Second Reading of Bill No. 369, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (12 to 1)

Motion made by E. Peloza

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No. 369, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (12 to 1)

Motion made by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No.’s 373 and 380, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 2)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That Second Reading of Bill No.’s 373 and 380, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 2)

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by E. Peloza

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No.’s 373 and 380, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 2)

14.   Adjournment

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Franke

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 6:24 PM.

Appendix: New Bills

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 (4 hours, 41 minutes)

Thank you. Please be seated. Okay, I’ll call the order of the 17th meaning of city council. I will start with our land acknowledgement.

We acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabak, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwak, and Adawandran peoples. We honor and respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. We acknowledge all of the treaties that are specific to this area. The two-row Wampum el Treaty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Silver Covenant Chain, the Beaver hunting grounds of the Haudenosaunee Nan Fan Treaty of 1701, the McKee Treaty of 1790, the London Township Treaty of 1796, the current track treaty of 1827 with the Anishinaabak, and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum of the Anishinaabak and Haudenosaunee.

Pre-Indigenous nations that are neighbors to London are the Chippewaas of the Thames First Nation, the Oneida Nation of the Thames, and the Muncie Delaware Nation, who all continue to live as sovereign nations with individual and unique languages, cultures, and customs. Further, the city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings on a quest. To make a request specific to this meeting, please contact council agenda at London.ca or 519-661-2489 extension-2425. I will start with disclosures of pecuniary interest from colleagues.

Councillor Vamehibert can go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. I’m declaring a conflict on the 16th report of the Planning and Environment Committee, specifically item seven on the council agenda, but more specifically 3.5 from the actual agenda, referring to 50 King Street and 399 right out street, as I have immediate family that live very close by to the proposed development. Mr.

Frank? Thank you, yes, and I’ll be declaring a conflict of interest for the 25th report of SPPC item number six in regards to the London Transit Commission as I have immediate family who applied for the role. Okay, thank you. Just ask the committee chairs to note those items for when you present your reports.

Any others? Seeing none, we’re going to proceed with the thing I skipped, which is our O Canada singer. That’s what happens when you leave town for a day. You forget how to do everything.

But this will be very exciting. Catherine Fisher has just participated in the Folk Music Ontario Conference held in London last week. Handling from London Ontario, Catherine writes songs for souls with big feelings. Catherine’s debut full-length album, Great Loves, was released November 2022 and has garnered over 100,000 streams and over 10,000 listeners worldwide.

From coast to coast, she has played over 200 shows from festival stages at Winnipeg Folk to living rooms with so far sounds. In summer 2024, Catherine will begin collaborating with Ontario Parks to bring the first ever musical tour to Ontario Parks across the province. Please join me now in welcoming Catherine, who will now perform the National Anthem for us and will all rise. Thank you.

♪ Canada ♪ ♪ It’s real low ♪ ♪ With glowing hearts ♪ ♪ We see the rise ♪ ♪ True nor strong ♪ ♪ And free ♪ ♪ From Wanda ♪ ♪ We stand on the path ♪ ♪ And on growth ♪ Congratulations for today. There are no review of confidential matters to be considered in public, which brings us to council and closed session. Colleagues will see that there are six items on the agenda for council and closed session. I will look for a mover to move into closed session.

Councillor Ramen, seconded by Councillor Ferrera, any discussion? Okay, we’ll open the vote to move into closed session. Vote yes. Present vote, motion carries 14 to zero.

Okay, thanks, Colleagues. We’ll move to community five for closed session. And thank you, please be seated. Okay, on to item five, which is the confirmation and signing of the minutes of the previous meetings.

We have two meetings to do minutes for the 15th and the 15th regular meeting, 16th special meeting. I’ll look for a mover of both of those minutes. Moved by Councillor Cudi, seconded by Councillor McAllister, any discussion on the minutes? We’ll open that for voting as soon as it’s ready.

Motion carries 14 to zero. Communications and petitions. We have a number of items as we normally do. There is a motion drafted to refer all of those to the relevant items in the committee agenda within the committee reports.

I’ll look for a mover to do that. Councillor Ramen, seconded by Councillor McAllister, any discussion on that? Okay. Mr.

Mayor? Yes, go ahead Councillor Vameira. Just for consistency, since I declared a conflict, if you could call 6.2, so I can abstain on 6.2, if you do that separately. We’re just gonna do that now, Councillor.

So Councillor, just so you know, we’re gonna do everything except 6.2 first. So this is the one that you’re not declaring on. And as soon as that’s ready, I’m gonna open it for voting. I’m gonna use the same mover and seconder if you’re both comfortable, great.

Okay, we’ll open that as soon as it’s ready. And it’ll be on everything except what Councillor Vameira are gonna ask for separate. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Okay, and if the mover and seconder don’t mind, I’ll use you for 6.2 as well, yes, okay.

So that was Councillor Ramen and McAllister. So this will be on 6.2, which is the correspondence related to 50 King and 399 right out to be referred to the relevant committee item. As soon as that is ready, we will open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero with one recuse.

Okay, item seven is motions to which notice is given. We have none, so we’re into the committee reports. The first report is the 15th report of the Community and Protective Services Committee. I’ll turn it over to Chair Palosa to present the report.

Thank you, Your Worship. I’ve been given no notice to pull out any of the items. So I’m happy to put all the items on the floor. Okay, would anybody like anything dealt with separately from the Community and Protective Services Committee report?

Seems like we can proceed. Thank you, all items were unanimous votes at committee, including a staff presentation we received for the rent supplement and housing allowance programs to a portable benefit system, had a good conversation, and no wording was changed in any of the motions before you. Any discussion? Seeing none, we’ll open the.

Councillor Truso, thank you. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, and that concludes the 15th report of the Community and Protective Services Committee. Thank you.

14th report of the Works Committee. I’ll turn it over to Chair Raman to present the report. Thank you and through you. I’m presenting the 14th report of Civic Works Committee.

We had five items on that report. All of those items passed unanimously at committee. I’ll look to put all those items forward. The discussion that took place was mostly along with the joining of the Smart Commute Program, where we had a staff update as well as some discussion.

Okay, the chair’s willing to put them all on the floor. I’ll just make sure no one wants anything dealt with separately. Seeing none, then that’s so moved by the chair. Any discussion or comment?

Okay, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, and that concludes my report. Two for two, that’s great.

I just said everyone else up for failure, I apologize for that. I’ll go to Deputy Mayor Lewis to present the SPPC reports. There’s two in a row here. I recognize the first one is probably fairly easy to do, but I’ll let you present them.

Yes, the first one is the 24th report to the Special Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee. This was a completely in-camera meeting. Obviously, there will be a report out to council at the end of this session. So the only thing I have to put on the table at this moment is the disclosures of pecuniary interest of which there were not.

Okay, so that’s moved by the chair. I can’t imagine there’s discussion on that, so we’re gonna open that for approval. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. And through your worship, I will now put the 25th report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on the floor, noting that Councillor Frank has declared a conflict on item six.

That’s 4.2 from the agenda, consideration of appointments to London Transit. So I am prepared to put one through eight, excluding six on the floor. Would anybody else like anything further dealt with separately? Councillor Ferriero, go ahead.

Thank you, your worship and through you. I’d like to pull item seven or 4.3, the lobby registrar on this. Yep, we can deal with that separate. Anything else separate?

Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I’d like to pull eight, please. Anything further? Okay, I’ll let the deputy mayor put forward a motion then.

So I will move one through five of the 25th report of the SPPC. Okay, that’s on the floor. Any discussion on items one through five? Seeing none, we’ll open items one through five for— Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to zero.

Thank you, your worship. I will now put item six, the consideration of appointments to the London Transit Commission on the floor. Okay, the appointments are on the floor. Any discussion?

Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to one with one Qs. Thank you, your worship. I will now put item seven on the floor.

Okay, item seven is on the floor by the chair, discussion. Go ahead, Councillor Ferrer. Thank you, your worship. So I’d like to just speak to this before we have to go for another year wait, but I will be bringing it back in here if it gets voted down.

So I just wanted to say I thought, you know, to everyone here that we had an understanding as our role, with our role as elected officials with our constituents. And that is to work within the best interest of everybody that we represent. And to do that, we need to inform people and be transparent with our work. So we have to add a critical level of oversight.

As it was said on committee, we are moving very fast. We’re building a lot. There’s a lot of initiatives going on. And at this light speed that I’ve heard, be said countless times again, we need to peer into that black box, as a Councillor said, at that committee and punch a little hole into that and give a little window, a little bit of a little look for the people of the city to be able to see us.

So reiterating what I said, we’re not a small city anymore. We’re a big city. We have a housing crisis. We’re moving very fast.

We have big significant projects. And we have to completely understand that we’re on a different landscape here. And the way we need to manage that landscape is we need to add these layers and levels of oversight because things are different than they were before. So this is why I’m saying I’ve heard we’re, I’ve heard you say we’re a big city.

I’ve heard people say that we want to open the public in an increase engagement. This is a good tool. This is a good step that we can bring forward. And we’re not deciding to bring it forward right now.

We are asking staff to come back and tell us what the cost will be. How will it work? What would be considered a constituent matter? What would be considered a matter that is not a constituent matter?

We need to get the information. If we’re just gonna not allow ourselves to get that type of information, then what do we do in here? So we should at least ask staff to look into this matter, you know? I ask, you know, who else has done it?

And I gave in the motion that Councilor Frank and I put on the floor, we have a bunch of cities. But the cities that we should really reference here are the big cities, like Toronto. They’re actually municipally statutorily required to have a lobbyist registry. The city of Ottawa, another big city.

The city of Brampton, another big city. The city of Hamilton, another big city. Cities that are comparable to us. So I ask, why not?

Why not also do this? We’re not a leader in this field. I like the city to be a leader in many of the initiatives that we do. But this is one that we’re a little bit behind the eight ball.

So I think that we should consider at least going to staff and asking staff to bring back the report as it is suggested in the motion that Councilor Frank put on the floor. So that’s what I’m saying. Oh, I must speak to some of the comments and big assumptions, I wish that some of the Councils that commented on SPPC would have at least contacted me before the meeting. So we could have had a discussion because I had very few people contact me.

And some of the things that I’d like to address. This is, it’s a solution in search of a problem or it’s virtuosignally. It’s not, it’s not a solution in search of a problem. It’s not virtuosignally.

It’s, we need to be really aware of how we reflect our own projections when we speak here on Council. This motion is intended to become an indirect line to constituents in order to provide information which grants people who live here and put us here the power of knowledge and that will give them confidence. And that confidence will translate into the vote in voter engagement and turnout when we come time to election. That’s the link.

So all of you, I’m sure have heard at the door during your campaign, during your canvassing that people said to you, my vote doesn’t matter. Why would I do, what’s the point? What’s the difference, says to me, a lack of confidence in their elected representatives in their municipal government. This will give some confidence back.

So if we’re serious about what we’re trying to do, let’s give that confidence back to the people who put us here. So I would really like the vote to go to have staff come back and let us know what are all the details for this registry. Shutting it down now is not the way we do things. We need to be aware and we need to have all the information.

So please. 30 seconds. I’ll end it there. Please vote for the registry.

Okay, and colleagues, I just have to clarify something that is incorrect in eScribe on this matter. If you looked at the eScribe, it came up in a very odd way, which is not normal. It came up with councilor, our deputy mayor, Lewis, moving the motion failed and then the original motion. And so that’s not actually what we’re presenting before us.

It’s not how it works, something did not make it through committee. The only thing that should be there is actually receiving the councilor’s communication. And so the item before us is receiving the councilor’s communication. The item was defeated, a committee had never actually made it to council.

I just want to be clear because that’s not what it said on eScribe, we’re just fixing that up. And if you refresh your screen, think that that should be clear. I just don’t want anybody to read the screen and not think they’re voting on something that isn’t there. So the committee’s recommendation was receive the communication from councilor Freire and councilor Frank with respect to the law who’s registering the motion to implement or move forward with the suggested item in the letter was defeated in committee.

Okay, yes, well, you’ve spoken, but just ‘cause of that clarification, I’ll find out what you’re asking. Just a quick question, how would I put the motion back on the floor to re-vote on it? Okay, so the committee did not take no action on it. It defeated the suggestion where there was no motion to say, take no further action.

So there’s not a take no further action before us for you to defeat. So you could amend the committee’s report from just receiving the communication to putting the motion at the committee back on the floor. I will let you do that now. I don’t want you to speak to it again ‘cause you’ve already just spoken to it.

And the only reason I’m allowing it is because of the awkward wording that was on the screen and you may not have known what you could or couldn’t do here. So I’ll let you put the motion on the floor. I can look for a second or if that’s what you’d like to do. You have to stand up and say that’s what you’d like to do.

And then we’ll move forward, but I don’t want another five minutes of discussion. Thank you, Worship. I appreciate that. I would move to put the original motion on the floor.

So that was the motion at committee. And given it’s not on the agenda so no one can see it. I don’t know if Councilor, I would prefer you read it. If you go to the report, it’s actually there, the original motion.

If you’d like, I can have the clerk read it for you if you don’t have it in front of you. Okay. Thank you, through you, Worship. That the civic administration be directed to conduct a review and present a report on the feasibility purpose and associated expenses of implementing a mandatory municipal lobbyist registry.

The review should encompass the establishment of a publicly accessible electronic portal for tracking lobbying activities within the municipality. The appointment of a registrar responsible for overseeing the registry, registration rules, potential exemptions, penalties, fines, enforcement mechanisms and general provisions related to lobbying regulations. Okay, is there a seconder for that? Councillor Frank’s willing to second.

Okay, Councillor Ferra, I wanna deem you of having spoken to that ‘cause you spoke for about five minutes. I’ll look for, then, with the move in second to motion, which is an amendment to add to the committee’s recommendation. So I’ll look for speakers on that now. Go ahead, Councillor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you, Worship. And I wanna thank the two Councillors for bringing this forward. And I’m glad to see that it’s being brought back here at Council to have a report back. I know eight years ago when I came on Council, we put in a motion to look into an integrity commissioner, as well as a lobbyist registry.

And obviously, after that time, provincially, it was mandated that all municipalities have an integrity commissioner. But I think it’s really worth considering, again, a lobbyist registry. And the reason I’m supporting this, eight years later, we know technology has changed. We know our city has grown.

We know we have changed as a council. And being transparent and accountable is a way of having this lobbyist registry implemented. Large cities, Ottawa, Toronto, Brampton, Hamilton, all have these lobbyists registries. And to have a report back, give us the information to see if this is something that will make us accountable and transparent.

There’s nothing wrong with lobbying. I think it is, we know as councillors, we are constantly being lobbied. It is a way of being transparent and accountable to the public that has elected us to represent them, who we are meeting. And this is, to me, a great opportunity, as we are changing as a city, to see if this can be something that can assist us in being as transparent and accountable to the people that elected us.

So I’m hoping we could at least support a report coming back to us. Okay, other speakers to this? Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship.

So I think I need to start by pointing out that we cannot compare ourselves to the City of Toronto. The City of Toronto is governed by the City of Toronto Act. They have special requirements and special powers that other municipalities in the province of Ontario do not have. So the comparison to Toronto is just not its apples and oranges.

It is a completely different comparison. But I will say this, I don’t need a staff report in Q2 of 2024, because that’s what the clerk told us that committee would be the target date for them to bring us back, to tell us that we’re gonna need a minimum of two, if not three, FTEs, in our direct in-house costs, on top of whatever the costs of the registrar themselves. It’s, we are about to, in seven weeks or so, see the tabling of a budget where we are going to have to say no to a lot of things. I don’t need, frankly, another list of things we can spend money on when we have a whole list of things from policing and transit and housing that we need to spend money on, to add to that list with things that, quite frankly, did not come up at the door for me during the election.

And there’s no correlation in any data that I’ve seen, that says a lobbyist registry increases voter turnout. And it’s fine to say that some other big cities in Ontario have a lobbyist registry. There are other cities in Ontario that do not. Winds are down the highway from us to the south and west, Kitchener water allude to the northeast.

It is a matter of opinion of counselors as to whether or not it’s warranted. But I will say this, ‘cause I’ve heard people, make allusion towards the green belt interest as well. The lobbyist registry didn’t uncover the green belt, the auditor general of Ontario and the integrity commissioner of the provincial government uncovered that. We have an integrity commissioner for exactly the kind of concerns that people want to bring forward.

And it is a very gray line between what is advocacy and what is lobbying. If the London Abuse Women’s Center is advocating for us to keep the pillar of a safe city for women and girls in our strategic plan, is that lobbying? I would argue that it absolutely is. So when we want to move, when we want to discuss lobbying, where do you draw the line?

And again, I don’t need a staff report and staff time taken up to do that. When we have a whole lot of reports, we’re waiting for them to complete a whole lot of financial fiscal considerations that we’re gonna have to make in the budget. And we know that this is going to cost money. We know it’s not gonna be a small amount.

We haven’t even finished adjusting the staffing complement in our council offices to our two to one ratio. And now we’re gonna need to add again, so that we have a staff person who can help manage the lobbyists registry forms that will have to be filed when we have a meeting. And the other piece of this is, when you talk about lobbying versus advocacy, I’m not aware of a single individual in London who makes their living as a paid lobbyist, because we’re not the federal government. We’re not the Ontario legislature.

So whether it is somebody who wants to build a building who’s lobbying for their planning application, or somebody who wants something in the strategic plan, or a constituent who wants their playground and their park replaced, is it lobbying, or is it advocacy? Where do you draw that line? To me, this is not the burning question of our time. And well, I respect that the council disagrees.

I’m entitled to my opinion too, and I do see it as simply political theater or virtue signaling. I don’t see this as solving a problem that the residents of London have identified is a big problem for them. So I won’t be supporting this. I encourage colleagues to stick with the committee recommendation, receive the communication, and let’s move on to the things that we have to tackle.

Any other speakers on this? Councilor, I told you you spoke, but if at the end, when everybody’s done, if you feel like there was a misstatement, or misinterpretation of your opinion, I’ll allow you to reply as per the procedure by-law. But do you want maybe you want to wait until there’s no other speakers before you do that? ‘Cause it’s nice to do that right at the end in case there are others.

Go ahead, Councilor Troso. So a registry may be expensive, and that’s reason not to get a report as to how much it’s gonna cost. That makes no sense. We need a report about how much it’s gonna cost.

And at that point, we can evaluate whether the benefits are worth it. Now, what is a registry? What exactly does it do? A registry is a database.

It’s a database system that tracks the lobbying of public officials, okay? That’s what it does. What’s the purpose of it? Purpose of it is to give additional information to the public.

There’s no attribution of wrongdoing here. It’s perfectly legal to lobby. It’s perfectly legal. It’s perfectly legal, in most cases, to donate the political campaigns, although we’ve seen exceptions to that.

It’s perfectly legal to meet with lobbyists over a variety of issues. This doesn’t outlaw any of those things. This just gives the public more information about what’s going on. We talk a lot about how we wanna be more responsive to the public.

We talk a lot about how we want to be more transparent and accountable. Well, maybe we need a lobbyist registry. Because even though these activities that I mentioned are legal, lobbying does, and let’s face it. Let’s face it, even here in London, which is not the province in which is not Toronto.

Lobbying does carry certain negative connotations. And the perceptions that members of the public have erodes confidence in our work. And if we could take this little step to restore confidence in our work, that’s a good thing. And again, lobbying is a legitimate activity.

Now, I really disagree that this overlaps with the Integrity Commissioner. Because what this does is without a person having to file a complaint, it gives them the ability to go online and check a database to get information. And we require under provincial law, all of the candidates to file campaign disclosures. People can look at the campaign disclosures, which by the way, I hope you all do.

‘Cause there’s a lot of information in those, and I hope you look at them. Now, I think that what’s that got to do with the lobby registry, it’s a double check. You can look and you can see, are the people who gave money regularly contacting the counselor? Or did they just give money, ‘cause they’re interested in good government?

Well, let’s not be foolish about this. There is some expectation, which is not to say it’s illegal, and it’s not to say it’s wrong, but it’s out there. And this is something that erodes confidence in our process as a municipal government. We need to, at least, at least, post out this lobby registry.

And I think that the arguments that are being promoted by the opponents are disingenuous and should be rejected by a majority of this council. Thank you very much. Oh, I’ll remain standing then. Point, there’s a point of order.

Let me address that. Go ahead, point of order. I need the microphone, counselor. Sorry, it should have said point of personal privilege.

Okay. Is point of privilege for a counselor to attribute the motives of a counselor’s comment and describing them as disingenuous. They are made in genuine belief of my position on the matter, and that’s not for another counselor to opinion on. Point of personal privilege as well.

Let me deal with one at a time. It’s a true style. There’s been a point of personal privilege about it described by the deputy mayor. I’ll look to see if you want to adjust the way that you’ve said that.

I wasn’t referring just to one person. I’m referring back to the whole big discussion. And my opinion is that the arguments that have been put forward, my honest opinion, is that the arguments that have been put forward is disingenuous. And so far as the main argument is, it’s gonna cost a lot.

And what we’re asking for is cost data. Yeah, I think that’s disingenuous. Okay, so here’s what I’m gonna do with the point of personal privilege is I believe I have two counselors who are very competent in their views of what they feel is the right thing to do. And both are being concerned about the language the other is using.

So I’m gonna just, both the major points, the point of personal privilege is dealt with in my opinion, and we’ll move on. Do you still have a point of personal privilege? Thank you, I threw you, I do. It passed, but I didn’t call it at the time.

But I was called out for virtue signaling and in search of a problem with a solution or a solution for a problem. I forget how it went. So that would be a point of personal privilege as well. So I don’t know where we go from that.

So your concern is that the terms of virtue signaling and sorry, what was the other one? In search of a problem for a solution. Okay, I’ll go to the deputy mayor. There’s some concerns with the commentary.

You can explain yourself or you can retract something. Go ahead. Yep, so I will point out that the quote that this is a problem in search of a solution or a solution in search of a problem was at committee, not at council today. So.

The virtue signaling piece. The virtue signaling piece I prefaced with in my opinion and I am entitled to my opinion on that. And it was not directed to a specific counselor. That was comment that I made at committee and in the media and was saying that my opinion has not changed.

So I’m gonna suggest to colleagues that perhaps we need to not be using the points of personal privilege so liberally. I think that there is debate that happens in this chamber that should be relatively open. I think that there’s people who can take offense to the way that the words transparency was used. I think there’s many things that people could call points of personal privilege on.

I think, again, on an issue where there is a significant difference of opinion, I understand that counselors may have a personal viewpoint and want to reflect it in a way. And so as much as I will caution colleagues on using the point of personal privilege liberally, I’ll also ask colleagues if you could be thoughtful in the language you use. Although it may be true, that is how you feel. If you can do your best to find another way to articulate that, that is equally meaningful and contribute to the debate, I would appreciate that.

But given what has been said so far, I’m not going to entertain this point of personal privilege further. I’m gonna assume it’s dealt with. I think both colleagues have said their piece. And if people aren’t happy with that, they can challenge the chair.

But I think it’s time to move on with the discussion. And I’ll say to everybody, there’s differences of opinion here, but let’s just try to use language that’s reflective that that is acceptable, that is welcome, and we can have a difference of opinion without using language that others may see as inflammatory. And we’ll try to respect each other a little bit. So I’m gonna deem it dealt with.

So you’re good, you can sit down now. Perfect, I’ve done it too, so it happens. Okay, we’re on to the debate though. So I just wanna make sure Councillor Ferra wants to address in the reply, some stuff.

I just wanna make sure everybody’s done discussing before I do that, ‘cause I don’t wanna have to go back to them a couple of times. Okay, everybody said their piece. Okay, Councillor Ferra, if you feel like something was a misstatement or a misunderstanding of your position, you can clarify that in what’s called a reply, but this is not a chance for further debate on the matter. And if you’re good, you don’t have to.

All right, thank you, Your Worship, stop me. If I’m skirting beyond the confines of what you’re saying. I just wanted to reply, I hear a lot of data, we need the data, I hear three time, three FTE equivalents. I hear all this information, but I haven’t seen that on a report.

I feel like all the arguments that are coming off of this council right now do point towards getting that report back. Okay, that’s just for clarity. That’s not really a misstatement of your fact. I believe you believe that.

I don’t think anybody doesn’t think that, but no one is saying that you’re not suggesting that or believing that yourself. So that’s for future reference colleagues, that’s not a reply. Okay, we’re gonna vote now. Okay, so remember, this is the amendment that Councillor Ferra and Councillor Frank are bringing forward to basically have the motion that was dealt with that committee dealt with again.

So this is amending it to just to receive the report. So on the amendment, we’re gonna open that for voting. Close in the vote, motion fails, six to eight. Okay, so back to the original motion, which is to receive the councilor’s correspondence, that is still moved and seconded.

Any discussion? Okay, we’re going to open that for voting then. Councillor Trossa, close in the vote. Motion carries 13 to one.

Thank you, worship. I will put item eight. This is the establishing homes Ontario on the floor. Okay, this is the motion as passed by committee on the floor by the chair.

Any discussion, comment on this? Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I just wanted to say well, I appreciate the efforts of our MPP to find creative solutions to our housing crisis. I’m not supportive of telling our elected government that they should listen to the opposition.

So I’ll be voting no. Go ahead, Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through chair. As I said at committee, I’m fully in support of this.

I believe we have to use every tool at our disposal. This is an older tool. We’ve seen it work in the past. I think we should try it again.

I think we need to come to the table with creative solutions to the housing crisis we’re facing. I don’t mind if this comes from the PCs, the Liberals could come from the Greens. I don’t mind as long as we can all come to the table and put forward solutions to the crisis we’re currently facing. Councillor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you, Your Worship. I just want to give my thanks to the committee for supporting this recommendation for creating a new public agency called Home Ontario to build 250,000 affordable homes. True affordable housing is what we all want and need in the city and I too am really not concerned about what party is bringing this forward. It is really creating opportunities in our city to create true affordable housing on public land.

So very supportive and want to thank the committee as well. Okay, I have Councillor Ferreira, Perbal and Raman so far. Thank you, Your Worship. I will be in support of the committee recommended motion.

We’re in a housing crisis. It’s all hands on deck. Partisan politics does not work here. I echo what Councillor McAllister and the other Councillors has said on that regard.

We need to use every single tool in the toolbox. We need to bring as much housing, especially affordable housing, the type of housing that the city needs to London. So I would be fully in support of the committee recommendation. Councillor Prabble.

Thank you. I just want to say I did not support it last time to the committee and I spoke to it and the reason why I’m not supporting it is because it doesn’t have any substantial financial information, financial impact. So it’s kind of a, it is very positive, no doubt, but it’s kind of a more of a wish list with no backing up of the really the financials and the impacts. One thing is that if this passes and the recommendation of the committee stands, I do want to reiterate when this is going to be debated at Queens Park that again, we are not supporting, what we are supporting is the debate, exactly as the mayor stated in his motion.

So I just want to make sure that if it’s debated, that it’s not supporting of this, because again, it will be very difficult to us to defend it if there is really no financial impacts and financial analysis, which should be associated with such proposal. Thank you, Councillor Ramen. Thank you and through you. And my comments were similar to Councillor Prabble’s.

That ultimately what is before us is that we support the House debating this issue and then following through with more evidence and more information as they go through the process of looking at it more thoroughly. So again, you know, I think we have to be open to ideas no matter where they come from. I think we have to be open to having constructive discussions both here and expect the same thing in the province. So I think the member for bringing this to us for consideration.

I’m grateful that we’re all thinking along the same lines of how to be creative in a difficult time and welcome this debate in the House. Thank you. Councillor Cady. Thank you, Your Worship and through you.

I won’t be supporting this either, despite the efforts of the opposition. And we’re building as houses and units as quickly as we can. I think it’s all our job to support our elected government and the work that we do. And I think that we are all building immunistically and provincially houses as quickly as we can.

Thank you. I have myself next. I’ll turn it over to Councillor Lehman to share. And please go ahead, Mayor.

So colleagues, I’ll just be brief. And I want to thank a couple of colleagues who’ve outlined this very clearly. It’s important to know what’s before us because I think often through the debate, you can talk in a way that makes the public think that we’re supporting something in a slightly different way than we are. And Councillor Ramen just recently said, what we support here is the House having a debate on the MPP’s idea.

That doesn’t mean every piece of what he’s brought forward. You have to be supportive of. It just supports the discussion happening. And it is the Ontario legislature who will determine how to move forward, if at all, on this matter.

But raising it in the House is something that we can support, or the committee supported, and I’m supportive of. I will say, there’s talk about government and opposition, I will be clear. There is an Ontario legislature. And that legislature is the government of Ontario, and they have a government side who, when there’s a majority, can make decisions independently of the members, but all members in a House can vote in a say, whether they’re opposition, or they’re government, or they’re independent.

And those members can raise issues. And from time to time, I don’t care who it is in the House. If there’s an issue that I think should be discussed, may not agree with every detail of it, may defer to that legislative body to determine the best way forward on it. I’m gonna encourage that.

People encourage us to discuss things all the time, and that’s fine, but they have to respect our authority to make decisions on those issues within our sphere of jurisdiction. So I don’t think that there, I think you could put a lot more on this than there is. I think that, as Councillor Ramen said, encouraging creative ideas on the housing file is something that I think we should all be thinking of. So I don’t have a problem supporting the House debate on the Councilor’s motion.

Now, the House may debate it and say we’re not doing it. And as I said, often in the past when an issue gets raised, the government side of the legislature finds a way to do something that is a piece of that, or some of it at all of it in their own way. Sometimes they actually move forward opposition motion. So this is just an opposition day motion.

It’s not a private member bill. It’s not anything yet. It’s a debate on a subject around the sphere of housing. And the more we debate housing and housing solutions in this province, the better, because we’re not going to create 1.5 million homes without thinking about creative ways to do so.

So I’m going to support the committee’s recommendation. I just wanted to be clear about what is actually before us and that this municipal council is not weighing in deeply into provincial affairs here. We support a discussion, but we respect that legislature’s right to determine what comes of it and what decisions and how they want to carry forward. Thank you very much.

I’ll keep this very brief since much of what I want to say, has already been said. I’m enthusiastically in support of this measure. And I really hope that the government takes this up and looks at what’s been put forward and deals with this in a way that is nonpartisan, which I think we very badly need in this province right now. So I do want to thank MPP Kernahan for calling this to our attention.

And I think this is good policy. It’s very consistent with everything we’ve been saying about building more units. It’s very consistent with a lot of the wonderful initiatives that we’ve already shown in this city. And I’m disappointed to hear the opposition here.

But I just want to encourage my colleagues to support this. And I hope the public will get behind this as well. Thank you. I’m only pausing because Councillor Lehman never passed me back to chair.

So he’s actually chairing. Please go ahead and chair worship. Thank you. Councillor Trosa slipped in there before I got the chair back.

I don’t have any other speakers on the speakers list on this matter. So if there are no further ones, we’ll open this for voting. Councillor Van Merebergen, thank you. Closing the vote, motion carries 10 to 4.

And that completes the 25th report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee. With thanks to the clerks for inserting planning before corporate services, so I can sit down for a couple of minutes. OK, thank you. And with that, we have the 16th report of planning and environment committee.

I’ll turn it over to Chair Lehman to present that report. Thank you, Your Worship. So I’m pleased to put the 16th report of the Planning and Environment Committee. On the floor, I’ve had requests for items number seven and eight to be pulled.

I know others. OK, does anybody— would any colleagues like anything else dealt with separately? There’s nine items, but seven and eight will be dealt with separately so far. OK, Chair, you could craft a motion then.

Thank you. So I’ll move all the items excluding seven and eight on my report. OK, move by the Chair. Any discussion on all of the matters with the exception of seven and eight?

Dean Nunn. We will open that for voting when it’s ready. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 14 to 0.

Thank you. So I’ll put number seven regarding 50 King Street and 399 right out street on the floor. OK, that’s on the floor. I’ll look for any discussion on this.

I see two Councillors, Councillor Frara and Councillor Frank, but Councillor Frank submitted a correspondence. So maybe I’ll go to Councillor Frank first, then I’ll go to Councillor Frara next. Thank you. Much appreciated.

I want to share, so at planning, I was very supportive of this application. As we’ve talked about many times, we need more infill and density. And adding 800 units to our core, I can see as an excellent way to do that and continue to invest in the vibrancy and the foot traffic that would be able to be downtown. Understanding there is some opposition from residents about heritage matters and others.

I do feel that through the site plan information that that will be adequately addressed. I did circulate a added amendment, and I wish I had done it at planning, but I am coming a bit late to the game. I do want to highlight that the applicant has also circulated some information to Council. So if you haven’t had a chance to check that out, it is wonderful information.

Appreciate the work of the applicant to get it to us so quickly, given my last minute amendments. That being said, just wanted to highlight a couple of things I included in the letter. Being that I’m hoping to see a couple more green development standards being included within this development. I know that staff are working towards a green development standard, ideally, including in site plan for next year.

But in anticipation of that, given how excellent this location will be, there’ll be iconic, it’s gonna be a huge project. It’d be great to see some of those standards being included now as we move forward and with our climate emergency action plan, we do have this in one of our work plans as well within our strategic plan. So that all being said, I did revise a couple of the things I circulated based on the input from the applicant, trying to align more closely with what they are planning to do to make it a more green high density building. So I did circulate that to the clerks and I’m not sure if they’re able to pull it up.

It’s pretty close to what I had already circulated by tweaked a little bit to move it closer in line. But the three areas being with bird friendly information. So as we’ve seen on other buildings, simply saying bird friendly, unfortunately, doesn’t actually always in practice result in bird friendly buildings. Some people think if you just put a couple of stickers of birds on the inside of the glass that birds won’t fly into the window, unfortunately they continue to and will still do unless it is a very specific standard.

So that’s why I included that. I did tweak it a little bit, given that we don’t have that CSA standard in our London plan. And then as well with the two items at the bottom, including solar, again, as we know, moving forward, we need to be reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. I do know that, for example, the YU building, which is a charity building, the new apartment building they’re doing, they’re gonna have solar in the roof and on the sides.

So I do see it as an opportunity to ensure we have continued leadership in this area and given how humongous this building will be having opportunity for solar. As we heard from the applicant there, they’re planning only on the top. So I did amend that. Blood, I would love to see it on the sides, but I understand that, you know, that might interfere with some of the windows.

And then I did reduce from 10% to 5% EV charging stations. The rationale provided by the applicant made a lot of sense to me. A phase and approach does make a lot of sense and based on what the clients are using. And then finally, the other areas hoping to include was ensure a leader’s similar green certification is achieved.

They are going through a process, I assume, to secure some federal funding and therefore are going to align with one of the areas for green and inefficient buildings and that and that I think does highlight it. So I would like to still include these at SPA because as you know, when we have it included in safe plan authority, then we’re able to track it. And if I assume, of course, that the applicant will be complying with it, but it is a way for us to follow up on it. So that’s a long-winded way of saying, I’d love to add a couple of these amendments to make the building a little bit greener.

And I think it’s a great building. Okay, the amendments will be pulled up on the screen if you’ve circulated them. Is there a seconder for those particular amendments? And if you need to, Councillor Hopkins, you’re willing to second, okay.

I’m gonna let those go up. So that amendment will be moved and seconded. So what we’ll do is we will start to debate the amendment and I’ll look for speakers on the amendment. Deputy Mayor Lewis.

Sorry, one second. Councillor Ferra, I had you on the main list. So that’s why I kind of skipped you on the amendment. So if you want on the amendment, let me know.

Otherwise, I’ll leave you on the main after the amendment’s done, okay? Thank you, Your Worship. So through you, given the initial communication that was circulated by Councillor Frank and then the response communication that we received from the applicant this morning, I’m fine with the second clause through you to our staff. First of all, though, I would like to ask on the final clause ensure a level of lead or similar green certification is achieved, the applicant indicated in their communication to us that they are building to an MSI CMHC level three and actually in excess of that.

Would staff consider that to be comparable certification? Go ahead. Through you, Your Worship. That’s why we actually included that through the revision, the similar or certified achieved is achieved to help out that out because we’re certainly not experts.

And so we would rely heavily on the applicant to do so. Go ahead, thank you for that. So my second question is in relation to the bird friendly glazing and we did receive communication that the applicant was intending on following the policies that are laid out in the London plan. That is not what this amendment is asking for.

And through you to our staff, this suggestion that the ornithological report be circulated to the advisory committee, do we consult with advisory committees during site plan approval as a matter of standard operating procedure? Go ahead. Through you, Your Worship, not necessarily the case. It could be on a case by case basis, but typically it’s on an actual development application that’s going through a public process.

Thank you. So I’m not sure if the mover is amenable to some change in language there, but I’m not supportive of sending it through the advisory committee. The advisory committee has had their opportunity, the planning advisory committee to comment on this file. They have done so.

I do not support repeated trips to an advisory committee on the same application. I am very amenable to ensuring that the London plan bird friendly standards are met, but I’m not amenable to adding another process for recirculation and more comment back through the site plan approval authority. Particularly is that’s also not a public process. So that’s not subject to a return back to council or to the public as well.

So I would rather that we require the applicant just to follow the London plan. If that language were to be changed to reflect that, I could support all three of these. Otherwise, I will ask for it to be called separately and not support the first one. Give me one second.

So I’m not gonna have it council. People just change the wording of their motion on the fly. So I’m just determining whether or not it’s contrary to the thing to allow an amendment. But I think I’m just gonna make a ruling one way or the other to say if you defeat that piece, you could add something different even if it’s similar.

If that’s your desire to go that way. I just need to just confer with the clerk because I have two options here. I could allow for an amendment to the amendment if it was not contrary and I could allow it to defeat. So if it’s not contrary, then it could be amended.

If it is contrary, it could be defeated and the contrary piece can be put in its place. So I would like you to consult the clerk on that, Mr. Chair, ‘cause I’m prepared to go to the second level of inception and amend the amendment if that’s required procedurally. So I’m gonna do the rare thing of, in order for me to make a determination on whether something is indeed complimentary or contrary on something that requires a little bit of technical expertise that I don’t have, I guess I need to understand either, and I can let the mover comment on this if necessary, whether the proposed different language of using the London Plan language from our staff is it similar?

Like is it, it’s not fundamentally different to what’s being proposed on the floor? I’m just looking for, from a technical professional perspective, not an opinion on what is the right thing to do if these are similar, and then if that’s the case, I’m gonna allow the councilor to amend it, but I need some expertise on this. Do you worship, it falls under the general guidance to give that direction to consider bird friendly and strikes. So they would be similar.

So I’m gonna make a ruling and then I’m gonna give my colleagues an out because I believe in getting decision making to the point of decisions rather than talking the whole time. So here’s what I’m gonna do. Based on the staff’s advice and the advice of the clerk, I’m gonna rule that you can amend the amendment because it’s not completely contrary. Now if Councilor Frank is the mover of the amendment or if anybody else on council feels that I’ve made the wrong ruling and that they are contrary, I would suggest that you challenge the chair, you make your case through that challenge, and then we decide as a council which way to go.

But my ruling so we can move forward is I will allow the deputy mayor to amend the amendment because it is still within the confines of creating bird friendly policies for this particular building. So this is the point where if you wanna challenge the chair, you can. Oh, Councilor Frank, you can go ahead. I’m fine with the amendment.

I will just highlight that the staff’s language ends at the comma. My addition was and request, yada, yada, yada. So I just wanted to highlight that in your decision. But I’m fine with including the London Plan.

The London Plan policy 304 is included in the applicants for the communication. Simply emphasizes the importance of designing buildings and utilizing materials that reduce the risk of bird strikes and high rate structures. So it is good but vague. So I think that is why I was hoping to follow up with more specific standards.

But I will leave it in the capable hands of staff to ensure that we’re using best practices, thanks. Okay, so this is the point where you can make the amendment. I think that was very helpful. Go ahead.

So I’m gonna amend clause IV to utilize visual markers, etched or stained glass to provide bird friendly glazing and request the applicants. Oh, sorry, and that’s where we get into the comma there with the counselor. So at the end of bird friendly glazing, as consistent with London Plan section 304. So that’s the amendment which will strike the rest of it and replace it with that.

Seconder for the amendment. Councillor Stevens, a few people, Councillor Stevenson, you were fastest though. So now we’re on the amended amendment, the amendment’s amendment. And so I’ll start a speakers list on that, which is basically changing clause IV in the way that was described and that’ll be up in just one second ‘cause it’s moved in a second.

So any debate on that? Councillor ramen, go ahead. Thank you and through you. I won’t be supporting the amendment that’s in front of us nor the other amendment, but I’ll speak to this one.

I think that where I have some concerns is in the language that we’re changing on the floor right now, I think we’re leaving a lot up to interpretation during the site plan meeting, and I think that that creates some challenges going forward. So I appreciate that the applicant came back with a letter and outlined every single piece of information. So I’m confident that those things will be addressed. I’m not going to support the amendment for that reason.

Go to the next speaker, Councillor Trostoff, go ahead. I’m speaking only to the amendment to the amendment, not to the amendment, certainly not to the main motion. Okay. That would be appropriate.

Thank you. I see no reason why this cannot be referred to an expert advisory committee for their opinion. There’s just no reason why we can’t do that. There’s no procedural role against it, and we should be getting as much information as we can, especially if we’re worried that there’s a little bit of ambiguity.

So I’m not going to be supporting the amendment to the amendment. Okay. Anyone else on the amendment to the amendment? Councillor Hopkins, go ahead.

No, I wasn’t going to do this, but to the amendment to the amendment, not to the main motion, as much as I appreciate Deputy Mayor’s amendment, I do think it’s important that Council understands, realizes we are a bird friendly city, number one. How we can strengthen our policies, I think we should be doing that. This is going to be a very tall building, if not one of the tallest buildings, and how we can create, going through this process opportunities to make a bird friendly, is, I think, incumbent upon Council to do so. So I will not be supporting the amendment to the amendment, but I will be supporting the amendment, ‘cause I do think it gives us more strength as we go through the process.

I’m very impressed that everybody’s getting this exactly right as you’re describing it. It is a little bit complex, but everybody’s doing excellent. Other speakers do the amendment to the amendment. Okay, then what we’re going to do is we’re going to open for voting, the amendment to the amendment, which is the change that Deputy Mayor Lewis is making to the amendment just on the language associated with IV.

That is going to open for voting now. Close in the vote, motion carries 10 to three, with one recuse. So now that the amendment is amended, I need a new mover and seconder for that amended amendment. Councilor Frank, you’re willing to move it?

Okay, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis. Okay, so the new changed amendment is now has a new mover and seconder, and we’re on debate on that. It’s a new motion now. So I’ll start a speaker’s list on this amendment.

Yes, go ahead. So I’ll be very brief on the new amendment. The reason I’m willing to support this is because the applicant was able to respond and has indicated that most of these are already in the plan anyway, but I do come back to once it’s approved at planning committee. I think it’s really hazardous to start making changes as to Councillor ramen’s point, because what we do need in our community is some surety and stability.

And it’s very difficult for the sector if they’re not sure even after their planning application has been approved at committee. If it’s not just going to be approved at council, but if it’s going to be changed with extra conditions imposed. So my original response to the original motion that was circulated would have been no. I’m supporting and I’m seconding this because of the additional information that we received in response to it today, but I would really encourage colleagues to make sure that you have those conversations with applicants in advance and have these motions come forward to committees because that is where we should get these decisions made and some surety given.

And that’s why we divide up the workload by our standing committees. So, but I’m happy to support this. I’m glad that we’ve got to this point. I’m glad the Councillor and I were able to find a common ground on the bird-friendly language as well.

So thanks for the teamwork on that. Okay, go ahead, Councillor Trozawa. Very briefly, I just really want to take issue with what was respectfully, Deputy Mayor, respectfully. I really want to take issue with what was just said regarding the role of committees and full council.

We do have a committee structure. There are 10 ward Councillors who are not on the committee and we are not able to attend every committee in detail, especially for something complicated like this. Several matters came up after the fact and I think it is quite fine for us to be making these types of changes on the floor. So, I reject the admonishment that it is perilous to do these types of changes.

I think it’s good thorough legislative analysis. Thank you. Councillor Frank, on the amended amendment. Thank you, yes.

I just want to comment on those two comments. I’m not offended. I do think I should have done this at committee. Personally, I think that it’s better when we can for debate and discussion, but I do appreciate the opportunity at council for us to make any last minute changes.

So, a group of both of you respectfully, neither have offended me and I think that where we can, we should be doing this as early as possible. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, Councillor Roman.

Thank you and through you. So, I’ll go back to, I’ll restate my concerns on the amendment that’s in front of us. My concerns go back to the correspondence received. So, before I had received that correspondence, I looked at this and said this was favorable.

But now looking at the correspondence that’s been received, I feel like we’re actually going with less standards except when it comes to the word robust, which I just think is too subjective. So, I personally won’t be supporting this because I actually think we’re creating some ambiguity. If we rely solely on what, if there was a way to include the letter that was submitted from the applicant, I think then we have some ability at that point to understand where we’re going in the site plan approval and to tighten that up. So, if this was an exact replication of that, I think I would be more comfortable because we have then the parameters by which to hold the site plan to.

This is a little bit, in my opinion. It just, it doesn’t give the same exact standard in the language, so that’s where I’m struggling. I appreciate though where it’s coming from and the intent. And I think that if it wasn’t going to meet those intentions by the applicant, then yes, I would definitely want to include this.

But seeing what the applicant submitted to us, I believe that we’re getting actually what we’re looking for in the end. So, I think that we have to have those conversations and agree that those need to happen at planning and also to give the applicant’s opportunity to respond back to us when we do have those kinds of conversations. So, I just feel like it’s a little bit misplaced and that’s why I won’t be supporting it. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Any other speakers on this part? Not the main motion yet. This is the amendment, so go ahead, Councillor Lehman.

Thank you, I have concerns. This was a very high profile, arguably, one of the highest profile things have come before PAC. Councillors attend PAC numerous times and they’re welcome and they’re employed so welcome. This was staff supported.

We had a fulsome public participation meeting. None of the issues that are on the amendment today were raised, by the way, by the public. This was passed unanimously at PAC. And that was back in October the 3rd.

So, yesterday, we received some additions and requiring correspondence going back and forth, which I haven’t had time, quite frankly, to read them. I have barely had time to consider the amendments as put forward to talk to the staff, to talk to the applicant, to talk to other Councillors, do my due diligence. This is why we have committee and it was echoed by Councillor ramen. These are, that’s a tie for committees of time, for these type of concerns to be brought forward.

The applicant is here to respond. An implication staff is here for questions. We don’t have, we have more leeway in debate. So, the Councillor is fully within her right, her legislative right to proceed with this, but I’m just not a comfortable with it.

And personally, I didn’t have time to fully consider the matter. So, I will not be supporting this amendment. There’s Councillor Frank, you’ve spoken to this, but you actually are the mover. So, it’s not a wrap up, not this, a reply.

Yes. We’ll make a different sign language for reply ‘cause that seems like wrap up. Is there any other speakers though first, before I go back? And again, it’s misstatements or misunderstandings of your motion that you’ve put on the floor, which is the amended amendment.

Yeah, there’s no one else okay, I’ll go to you then. Am I able to correct a misstatement on what was communicated at PPMs? ‘Cause we did have many people say that they’re concerned about the environmental impacts of the tall building. So, that was communicated at the PPM, and that is where the reflection came upon me to design this motion.

So, it’s not my motion, but it’s a misstatement about what was occurring at the PPM. I don’t wanna get into cross debate. I think you just did. I think that’s a good reply.

I think people are ready to vote. So, I’m gonna open this for voting. Councillor Trusso, closing the vote, motion carries. Eight, five, with one recuse.

Now I need to move her for the main motion as amended. Deputy Mayor Lewis is willing to move. Councillor Frank, you’re willing to second. Any discussion on the main motion as amended?

Go ahead, Councillor Ferrera. I had you all the way back on that list, and so now you can go ahead. Thank you, thank you, Your Worship. So, I spoke to the concerns, the environmental, the water, the wastewater, the traffic, at Peck.

But I’m not gonna speak to that today. I heard that this isn’t gonna be an iconic building. That is true, an iconic building on iconic lands. The land is iconic.

I wanna bring some history to this site just so we can consider this as we vote for the zoning by-law amendment. So, some history. The province of Ontario transferred this site’s ownership from the province to the county through the County of Middlesex Act in 1979. In that transfer, the former county courthouse became a county seat predicated on the desire to keep the historic site in public hands.

At that time, funding was provided by the federal government through Parks Canada and the provincial government to the county to help with the restoration costs. There was a clear interest at all three levels of government, federal, local, provincial, and keeping this site publicly owned. In 2018, the two addresses, 50 King and 399 Rideout, were severed. Raising the possibility that 50 King could be sold while 399 Rideout would remain as the county seat.

In 2019, the property was sold. So, there are some big issues that we haven’t gotten enough attention regarding the present situation of what led us here. There’s a lot of ambiguity. I hear ambiguity.

The ambiguity is what has been decided for this parcel of land in the past. So, what we know is that the site is a federal designated site. It’s a national historic site. And on the Government of Canada’s Parks Canada website, the boundary is described as Rideout, Dundas, King, and the temps on the website itself.

I have the link if you want to see it. So, I see that the applicant has promised to preserve the land, the courthouse, and the gall. But, the boundary of the land is the full boundary. So, any development on that land would not be in preservation as with respect to its designation.

So, this runs directly contrary to the site’s federal designation because it’s for the whole block of the site. So, the applicant can’t just preserve the courthouse. It has to preserve the whole block from what I understand. I would like to possibly go to our city solicitor to ask that question.

But, I think it’s a valid question. You know, does this proposal directly contravene the federal designation? So, I don’t know how we would go about this, but I would like to have that answer. So, I can ask Mr.

Card, now Mr. Card’s, I don’t know if he’ll answer that in public or camera, but I’ll go to Mr. Card to see if you can answer the address to Councillor’s question. Thank you, Your Worship.

It is a matter that was debated by council in chamber, sorry in camera at the time. And my advice and opinions were received. I would like the same opportunity now if the current council is interested in the circumstances under which the property was transferred and the restrictions that may continue to apply. So, the solicitor who’s given advice in camera in the past would do that again in camera if you need it.

Thank you, Your Worship, I would move to go in camera. Okay, so we’ll put a reason that is just solicitor client advice. Councillor Faire is asking to go in camera on this matter. He’ll need a seconder to do so.

Councillor Trossau is willing to second. Okay, I think it’s clear why the council wants to go in camera. So, we have a moved in second motion to go in camera. I’m gonna open that for voting unless anybody has anything.

So, this is to move into camera for solicitor client privilege on the matter that the councilor just discussed. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries nine, four with one recuse. Okay, colleagues, we’re gonna move to committee room five ‘cause we have all these nice people sitting here and we’re gonna try not to kick them all out of the room.

So, we’ll go back to committee room five. It will take just a couple of minutes for those who are digital, colleagues digital just to get the zoom going, but it’ll be the same length that you used before for the in camera session. Okay, thank you, please be seated. So, we’ll do the report out on that in camera session later when we do all the others where we are is in the middle of the debate on the amended main motion.

Councilor Ferreira, just looking at how much time you’ve used up, but you can continue with any comments you have and then I’ll move to the next person on the speaker’s list. Thank you, Your Worship. I’ll keep this brief ‘cause a lot of questions we had in the confidential setting. So, I’ll just start off where I left off.

So, yes, I’m sure there, as we know, some national historic sites are privately owned in Canada. But this site specifically, the respect to conversion of public lands to private hands with the clear intent to develop, I do believe is an unprecedented thing. And I do believe that it will be appealed and I believe that at that process, I’m not sure how it’s gonna go. So, these are my concerns and I’ll just leave it right there.

So, I will not be supporting the committee recommendation and I would look forward to hear any other colleagues on the floor here of what you have to say. Okay, thank you. Other speakers on what is the main amended motion? Councilor McAllister, go ahead.

Thank you and through you, I do think that this will be a historic development. I think it’s been mentioned a few times. I’m looking forward to seeing you come to fruition. Again, it’s adding to that housing continuum that we desperately need, adding to the info as Councilor Frank had spoke to earlier.

I also actually want to applaud the developer for including the now 600,000 in terms of the in-well donation. I think that’s a real testament to partnering with our Board of Housing partners. And I think that sets a very good precedent in terms of other developers maybe looking at doing future partnerships that way. So I am in support of what’s been put for us today.

Thank you. The speakers, Councillor Troz-Saul, go ahead. I saw you first, you go ahead and I’ll have Councillor Hopkins next. I’m not gonna be supporting this motion.

I’m sorry, I would have liked to have. I would have liked to have been able to come in here very enthusiastically and support this. For many, many of the reasons that Councillor McAllister just correctly said, but it’s too much. And there are too many outstanding issues here.

And I’m not going to go back to all of the points that were raised in the committee. I’m not gonna repeat them all here. But one of the important points that I think kept coming up was that there are just too many questions. We’re pushing more and more of this process to we’ll take care of it later through post-approval review.

And I think that there are just too many questions that have been put on the record here, which I think makes this approval subject to question. I think there are just too many questions here that are being deferred. It reminds me a little bit of doing work on a house and it’s crooked. And you say, well, don’t worry, the painter will fix it later.

I think we really need to move more of this public policy discussion into the pre-approval. That’s the job of this council. And as someone who is not on the committee, I feel the committee was premature. And I think that this project is too big.

And I think there are too many questions. And the only final thing I wanna say is I appreciate you all for $500,000. But when you look at the enormity of this project, I would think it would be a lot higher than that, quite frankly. And I don’t wanna look, I don’t wanna not appreciate the fact that you put something forward that you didn’t have to, but that’s not really significant given the size of this project.

These units are probably gonna go for more than that each. I don’t know how much the units are gonna go for, but it would be hard to imagine that they’d go for much less given this market. So I am going to be reluctantly, but confidently not supporting this motion. Thank you very much.

Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship. And I do wanna have, take this opportunity to speak to the recommendation. I was not at planning committee.

I will be supporting this recommendation though, as much as I think the building is very, very high. And the affordability of having affordable units is not there. I wanna thank the applicant though for their donation to Indwell. But I do think this is an exciting development for our downtown.

This is where we need intensification. This is where it’s gonna happen. I am very supportive of the number of holding provisions that are in the recommendation. In particular, the H5, the public process through the site plan, given that they really don’t know what’s gonna happen to the courthouse yet.

And the heritage significance of the courthouse has its highest level of heritage. And I think it is a public interest to Londoners to see how and what is gonna happen with the courthouse. And having that public process is going to be most valuable, the importance of the design of this building going forward through the site plan. Thank you, it’s also, I’m quite excited to see what we can do here in our city.

And with that, I just wanna sort of end it with, it’s great to see the cranes downtown and I hope they will continue to be seen in our downtown development, so thank you. I have Councillor Cady next. Thank you, worship and through you. I too will be supporting this project.

I spoke at planning that it’s an exciting project. I’m looking forward to it. As my colleagues have suggested, the applicant was not required to make the contribution to Inwell. This is a great contribution.

We’re very grateful to them for it. And I’m excited to see cranes in this guy as well. And this is just an exciting time for the city and for downtown. Thank you.

Councillor Layman. Oh, sorry, Deputy Mayor Lewis, then Councillor Layman. Thank you, worship. I too will be supporting this.

I think it’s very worth noting that our former city planner, John Fleming, was in the gallery for the public participation on this and actually said he was supportive of this. And this was exactly, although it’s taller than the original cap envisioned, it was exactly the kind of infill and downtown density that they had envisioned when they were creating the London plan. And we had a great conversation outside the chambers as well about how the importance of looking at density in more places than even the London plan envisioned along the primary transit corridors, for example, which is an addition that we’ve gone on to make some recommendations for already. And I don’t staff will be coming back with more of those as the rethinking zoning process moves forward.

So I think it speaks tremendously. And as Mr. Fleming said, this will be the image on the postcards of London 10, 15 years from now. So I think that that’s noteworthy ‘cause it will be an iconic development when it’s done.

And I don’t wanna get into cross debate with any members of council, but I will say that holding provisions are a pretty regular process in planning applications large and small right across the city. And in fact, right across the province, it’s not just our policies, it’s consistent with the Ontario Planning Act as well. So I’m quite comfortable that the holding provisions will address some of the questions that are still to do because honestly, in a private sector investment like this, they’re not going to spend, I was gonna say 10s, but probably hundreds of thousands on more detailed reports on things like archeological assessments and those kinds of things. Without first knowing whether or not there was a zoning approval in place, why would you do a study on something that you can’t even contemplate moving forward with?

Once you can contemplate moving forward with it, then that’s the appropriate time to undertake those studies and that’s where the holding provisions come into play. So I’m very comfortable with the holding provisions we have in place to address the outstanding concerns in this area. And I do think that at the end of the day, we will see this tower rise. I’m very confident this is a developer who’s got a proven track record of building and building quality in our city.

They’re locally based. And that contribution back to in well, I know it’s been referenced a couple of times, but I think that that does speak to the fact that there is a good citizen contribution for a community benefit from this application that addresses a need because I know I’ve said this before, that other planning committee applications, not every building is going to necessarily have an affordable housing component to it. But when we can get a commitment to supportive or public or affordable housing as part of the development agreement, the proposal that comes forward, given the lack of tools we have in the toolbox to require from the province, when an applicant is willing to voluntarily make that contribution. And particularly having identified the highest need in our housing gap right now with the supportive housing units that we need right away and that in well is perfectly positioned to start being able to provide.

I think that speaks volumes to not just the contribution to the community, but actually really targeting where the contribution will do the most good right now. And that’s in the supportive housing area. So thank everybody for their comments on that. And I look forward to seeing us move forward.

Councillor Lehman. Thank you, your worship. I remember a number of years ago, and I apologize ‘cause I’m repeating myself from committee. There have been controversial buildings downtown.

One London place, when that was built, people were concerned about the height at that time. On Heritage Front, John LeBatch Center, now called Budweiser Gardens, boy, was there a debate on Heritage now back then. Both buildings, I think, have been proven as to be a tremendous asset to our downtown. I think that this development will complete an important piece of our puzzle downtown.

We’ve done great work on Dundas Street with revitalizing it. We’ve got some work to go and some other aspects. This is finally gonna address the forks of the Thames in a real substantial way. We’re gonna get people living down there, enjoying the forks, tremendous opportunities with the promenade, et cetera, that are in the developers’ plans to really make that place for all of London to enjoy.

And I think it’ll have the opposite effect on that prime piece of heritage that we do have with the courthouse. That’s a beauty, and I think it’s hidden right now. That most people don’t see ‘cause we’re not down there. I see it when I come downtown, wherever I drive, but that’s about it.

We’re gonna get more people down in the area. Gonna energize, ride out and Dundas, and move that energy down Dundas. But let’s wanna talk about intensification. That’s driven this council, and so it should because we’re addressing the challenges in housing.

And it’s hard that we’ve seen, especially being on planning, the impact that it has on those residents where intensification in fill happens. There’s no question there is an impact, but it’s a direction this council wants to go to address housing. It’s also a direction that the London Plan foresaw, even though the London Plan was 10 years ago, the pressance there to see the importance of infill was evident, and it made an impact on me. That one of the major architects of that plan was the head of planning, John Fleming, that actually spoke in favor of this project.

So first time I’ve seen him here in front of PAC on a third party application. So this is an exciting project. I hope you support it. I think it will be transformative for downtown.

It’ll bring jobs downtown, business downtown, 800 people living downtown. I just think it’s a win, win, win. So I can’t wait to see this on a postcard someday, advertising London Ontario. Thank you, Councilwoman.

I have myself an excellent through the chair where the Councilor Raman. Thank you, recognizing I have the chair, I’ll go to Mayor Morgan. Thank you, I’m gonna make a few comments on this particular application. First, on the planning merits of the application, I think our staff have done an excellent job.

In the review of the application, I think they brought forward appropriate holding provisions given some of the concerns that have to be addressed on the site, and I appreciate the engagement back and forth that’s happened with the applicant on some of the concerns that Councilors have had. And so from a planning perspective, this is an easy development for me to support. It comes with the staff recommendation, and I appreciate the good hard work that needs to be done on an application of this scale and size in the core of the downtown. It’s certainly a complex application when you think about the age of the infrastructure and the site that’s being dealt with.

And so I appreciate that work, and I appreciate the clear and concise recommendation. I will say I also appreciate hearing from the public on this and both the concerns they have, as well as the support that came in on this sort of project and what it can do for the downtown. So let me shift for a second from the planning justification, which I think is clear and I’m very supportive of, to some of the other comments that I wanna get in about this type of investment in our downtown. Make no mistake.

This is a significant investment and a significant confidence in the downtown of our city. People do not build 53 story buildings everywhere in this country. They build them in places where they have confidence in the future of those locations. And that is exactly what our downtown needs.

We know that we have some challenges, many challenges coming out of the pandemic. We know that we’ve got a lot of workers at council to do to solve those. But to have someone with the confidence to make this type of significant investment in the core of our city, expressing that confidence as well as all the other cranes in the sky to say there is a clear and important future in this part of the city. I think it’s something that we cannot underestimate.

800 units in that location, as colleagues have said. They’ll pour it into the streets. I lived in a high density tower downtown back in my university master’s days. And what did I do when I was born in my apartment?

I went out the front door. I visited local businesses. I went to local restaurants. I went to the library.

I actually went to the services that were in my area, my neighborhood. This is an investment in long-term downtown vitality, as is every other significant high density investment in our downtown. This is what will secure that upward trend of having a vibrant, revitalized, exciting downtown. When you move thousands and thousands of people into an area, that’s where they live.

That’s where they shop, that’s where they eat. That’s where they go to parks. That’s where they go to libraries. That’s where they go to theaters.

That’s where they entertain themselves. And when you see that excitement there, it will draw others in. We could spend all of our time trying to convince people from every corner of the city to come downtown each and every day. Or we can look at investments like this and say, this is where people can just be.

And let them create that vibrancy and that excitement will follow. And that doesn’t mean that we just do this and wait and don’t take any other actions. We got a lot of work to do to support the downtown. But I can tell you, since this planning application came forward, I’ve spoken with other mayors and they’re a little bit jealous about this type of investment in the downtown core of a city.

Like this is not something you see every day. Maybe in the Toronto, or the Mississaugas, or some of the very large, densely concentrated areas of the province, but not in cities of London size. This is something that is different and this is something that will spur other confidence and other investment in our city. Yesterday I was testifying before the House of Commons Finance Committee.

And I had two members from two different parties come up to me afterwards and mentioned this particular project. It’s on the radar, they’ve heard about this. I was there speaking about housing and they said, hey, great news for your city. You’ve got that 53 story building coming.

Like that must be very exciting for your community. And so it is exciting. And I know that there are people who have some concerns in the immediate area, but this is a massive investment in the heart of our city. It will spur confidence in our downtown and hopefully will lead to many others wanting to do the same as we work to rebuild a vibrancy in this part of the city.

Thank you. I’ll return the chair to you, Mayor. Other speakers, go ahead, Councilor Plaza. Thank you, Your Worship.

On this application, I just wanted to thank Committee and the public for all their insights and the conversation as this is definitely a big change for London and what we’ve seen in the past and where we hope to be going, realizes this in the forward future of what the London we want to see for people versus the status quo of where we’re at. We want to thank the developer for taking their time to meet with me prior to this, going over the proposal and opportunities that we see for the community. I appreciate the donation to and well as they do great work in the community and help forward the strategic directives of this Council. Though I always prefer to see affordable housing mixed into all buildings across the city to make sure that Londoners have access to housing in their price range where appropriate in all aspects.

I’m excited for the space, the public fronting space that this development offers to bring in people who are passing by into the development to actually be part of the community space and realizing there’s such cultural heritage within this development proposal and the space, really excited to be to see what we can do going forward and what the developer will do going forward to animate the space, bring in the heritage component, recognizing that museum London’s right on the doorstep of this facility and Dundas place that has many opportunities and has a foothold in the community of everything it can do to be animated and really bring people downtown. So happy to support this development and looking forward to this iconic development, realizing as well as we go through site plan and development concerns and still encouraging colleagues in the public to reach out as this is going to be a flagship development for this developer and I have no doubt that they would like to address as many concerns as possible to make this development as community grounded as possible to seize every opportunity to make this development everything that they hope it can be and the community hopes it can be. Thank you. Thanks any other speakers.

Okay, seeing none, this is the motion that we’ve amended. It’s moved and seconded duly. I will open it for voting. Opposed and the vote, motion carries 11 to two with one recuse.

Thank you, I will go now to number eight, urban design peer review panel issue 4.1 in the original agenda. Okay, Chair, can you just explain what happened in committee ‘cause for colleagues here, this was not a matter that was finalized at committee. So I just want you to give some context on what’s before us. It’s actually just the letter has been forwarded here with no, could you just explain what’s before us?

Sure, due to personal matters of committee members, this item was at the end of our agenda and we lost quorum. And at that point, before quorum was lost, we moved it down to, moved it ahead to council. There were no public speakers there to speak to the issue. I believe we received two letters to the effect for the committee and we thought based on that, the public had a chance to weigh in.

So we thought appropriate to bring it directly to council. Okay, so what I’m gonna do is I know that colleagues wrote a letter, I know other colleagues have suggested directions what to do with that letter, but at this point, there’s nothing on the floor from committee besides please deal with this matter. So I’ll go to those who wrote the letter first, to potentially put something on the floor, I’ll go to those who want to make changes for adjustments to the process after W.R. Lewis, go ahead.

Thank you, worship. So I’m prepared to put the motion from the letter on the floor, although I’m gonna make one minor change having spoken with Mr. Mathers, a report back from staff is not required, should council move ahead and choose to dissolve the urban design review panel. So the original language from the Clerk had a staff report back, I’ve just moved to delete that and that the original language just be put forward without that report back clause.

Is there a seconder for that? Seconder by councilwoman, just wanted to give me one. Okay, so do you want to speak to it now? Yeah.

  • Okay. Then I’ll start a speaker’s list. I will speak to it now and I’m gonna take the opportunity through you chair to ask our deputy city manager of some questions with regard to this because it has been something that we’ve been back and forth on, so through you for colleagues’ information, does the London Plan already include urban design guidelines built into it, Mr. Mathers?

Through your worship, so that the London Plan is built on some fundamental principles. Those include the use intensity in form. So key component of form is urban design. It’s a thread that’s through the entire documents, each place type includes a discussion and a component that discusses, that provides some details on form and the relevant urban design concepts.

So it is very much ingrained within our London Plan and it would not change based on what council results do. So next question through you to our staff, and I think it’s already been referenced, but do our planning staff review the planning applications that come before a peck with urban design considerations given when they write their reports to us with their recommendations? Mr. Mathers, go ahead.

Through you worship, the current process is that all of the relevant applications are reviewed by city staff and then submitted to urban design review panel, a peer review panel. So there is a design that’s undertaken. Once the panel makes some commentary, that is compliments council city staff’s comments and then brought to council. Thank you and through you Mr.

Chair, we do have a process improvement table working with the industry partners in our city. Has the review by the urban design peer review panel been identified by these process improvement tables as a barrier to the speed at which applications are dealt with? Mr. Mathers, go ahead.

Through you worship, through the various conversations we’ve had and at this reference group, it has been brought up that there’s some concerns with the time frames that in the fixed timing that requirements for being able to bring items to the urban, to the panel. And it is very much a high priority to streamline any type of process. And this was one of the items that are up for review as part of that panels were. Thank you.

And one final question for our staff on this. We also have a planning advisory committee. We get comments from them on all manner of things. You know, heritage comes up, parking space, reductions, landscaped open space.

Is there anything in the terms of reference for the planning advisory committee that would prohibit an individual from offering comment on architectural design or other urban design features through that advisory committee? Through you worship, that community has a very broad mandate to speak to aspects. It doesn’t have a requirement for someone that has an architectural background, but it wouldn’t preclude someone from commenting on the applications that they review. Thank you, Chair.

And thank you to Deputy City Manager Mathers for answering those questions, ‘cause they’re questions that I’ve heard asked. And I thought it was important to get those on the public record. So colleagues, I’m gonna be as brief as I possibly can here. But the urban design peer review panel was established under the old 1989 official plan when the official plan was really focused on heightened density.

And that was really it. There wasn’t a lot in there about form and function, pedestrian interfaces, those kind of things. Our new plan does have those things as we’ve heard, woven as a thread throughout. So this is really a body that’s left over from a time and we did not have process built into this.

And I’m gonna apologize to our staff. I do have one final question to ask. Does our staff, do we have some experience on our staff team that can comment fairly on urban design components? Through your worship, we do have urban design centered area with three staff positions that support urban design review.

Thank you, that’s relevant because my understanding is when this panel was originally created, we had zero staff that had that experience and expertise that they could comment on. So we have another advisory group that already comments on reports. We have staff expertise. We have a process improvement review table that has identified this as a barrier.

Colleagues, what we have here respectfully, ‘cause I appreciate the work that the members of the panel do, but it’s a redundancy. And it’s a redundancy that is holding up time and for those who are building, time is money. So it is adding to cost and it’s adding to timeframes for projects to move forward. Well, we did not have an opportunity to discuss this at committee because we did lose quorum.

That is why it gets forwarded to council. So now we have an opportunity to discuss to ask some questions here today and to move forward on this. I would encourage colleagues to support this because it is a situation where we have staff expertise. We have another advisory panel that provides comments that is legislatively required actually, whereas this one is not.

And we’ve had the process improvement tables having this. I’ve heard allegations that this is being fast-tracked and rushed. Quite contrary, this has followed every other agenda item on a planning agenda. It wasn’t even on the added agenda.

It was on the regular agenda. And as the chair indicated, we only had one request for delegation status to speak to this. This did not arise out of picking a thread out of the sky. This arose from speaking with people who are participating in our process review table, including our staff, including industry members.

We saw from the London Planning Consultants Association, they pulled their members and they communicated to us after the deadline for this agenda, that it was unanimously supported by almost three dozen of their members that we go ahead and dissolve this review panel. We’ve heard from the London Home Builders Association on their support. We’ve heard from the London Development Institute on their support. And it’s not because these folks don’t want to build good buildings.

We just dealt with an application that has some excellent architectural components built into it because people want to build nice looking buildings because that’s what attracts good tenants. That’s what attracts good owners to their buildings if it’s condo owner occupied. So this is a situation where it’s a streamlining matter. It is a cutting the red tape.

It is a moving ahead on development in a manner that’s respectful of our London plan, of our staff expertise and still allows for public comment through both the advisory committee process and through public participation processes. So nothing precludes issues around urban design from being raised. It just doesn’t need a special panel to deal with that and hold up our timelines by as much as 90 days. Thank you.

I have Councillor Raman, Frank and Ferreira on the list. Thank you, through you, point of information. Would a referral be out of order at this time? No, referrals are not out of order.

It takes precedence just because a committee asked council to do something. There’s many times where we’ve sent something council sent it back. So yes, referrals are in order. Okay, thank you.

I’d look to put a referral on this matter and I’d like to refer it back to PEC. So back to a future PEC meeting. Back to future PEC meeting. Okay, a seconder by a few people, Councillor Frank, so now the referrals on the floor moved and seconded.

So do you want to speak to the referral now? Thank you and through you. So I am aware that this topic was entertained, was to be entertained at the last PEC meeting and I understand at the time that there may not have been much attention to the matter. I will say, however, that since that time, there has been a lot of correspondence on this item.

And just looking at the communication that was received from deep parks, where it says further to the above, we noted that the motion was circulated to the UDRPRP members on Thursday, September 28, three business days prior to the scheduling PEC meeting. So I think that I see the value that in having this discussion in a fulsome way with the community. And I think that we’re in at this point, deferring it to the next PEC meeting, we’re not holding up any processes in order to do that, to have that discussion. I think that it’s incumbent on us to allow those that have an opinion on this matter to be able to voice those opinions.

I think it’s really important to hear all sides on this matter. I mean, we’re hearing from staff today, which is great, but I do think it would be wonderful to have the opportunity to consider additional questions from the community in a PEC meeting so that they can put forward those questions as well through the chair so that they can be addressed. So I’m hoping that members today of our council will support a referral back to a future PEC meeting so that we can engage in a fulsome discussion. Thank you.

Okay, so I had some people on the original speakers list, but I’m going to make a referral speakers list. So if you wanna be on the referral list, I need your hands again, I have Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes. I appreciate this referral being brought.

It is similar to, in spirit, to what Councillor Hopkins and I were bringing, but the main idea is I also would like to have a fulsome debate on this. I’d like to hear more from staff, more from the community. What I’m trying to understand is also, of course, no one I think on this council would like to have more red tape or bureaucracy. We’d like to get rid of that.

I’m happy to if it’s redundant and repetitive and serves no value. I would like to understand that though, and given my correspondence with various staff members, my understanding is the review panel looks at stuff that’s not just residential, that it saves time in certain instances where people don’t have the ability to afford further reviews for architectural comments. For example, there’s nonprofits, there’s a city-owned assets, there’s institutional buildings, and so I would like to fully understand what those impacts are before making this decision. I agree, I’m not trying to delay it to cause more expenses occurred to developers.

I simply want to understand what the impacts are before we make this decision, because I have heard actually different information than Deputy Mayor Lewis about cost and who would be incurring cost if we were to dissolve this. And I’d like that information before I make a decision. And I think that there’s a lot of value into hearing what the community members have to say. I know that there’s only one person who had asked for delegation status at our PEC meeting.

And I do think based on what I’ve heard from other people is that the timeline for them first was so tight that they didn’t even know that they could delegate. They’re not part of the industry, so they didn’t know that that was an opportunity and that they do want to have input on this decision. So I’ll be supporting this referral. Thank you.

I have Councillor Ferrera, Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councillor McCallister so far on my list. Thank you and through you. I will also be supporting this referral. I do want to see more information about this.

There was a speediness to this three days before PEC is not enough time. I didn’t see any comments from staff on any report. I feel like as council and us, we should not be sticking our heads in the sand, closing our eyes and shutting our ears. We should be trying to get as much information as possible, so this referral is something that I would support at this point in time.

Deputy Mayor Lewis, thank you, Your Worship. So I won’t be supporting the referral, which should be of surprise to no one. This matter was before PEC on October 3rd. So we’ve had 14 days to ask our questions of staff.

Every member of council has had 14 days to ask any questions of staff that they may have had on this. So they’ve had two weeks to avail themselves of that opportunity. This was not, and I’m going to say it again, this was not rushed, this followed the regular process. It was not even the added agenda.

It was the regular agenda. The same as every item on every committee agenda’s timeline is. So if we want to say there wasn’t enough time for this, then there’s not enough time for any matter on any of our agendas, because the timelines are what they are. They are published publicly, the public can review them.

We have our meeting, we make decisions, we forward those to council. It is unfortunate that we lost quorum at planning committee. And I understand personal situations happen. I think it’s incumbent on committee members, and I would say even beyond our committees, I’d say our boards and commissions as well, it’s incumbent on those of us who serve on those committees to arrange our personal schedules as best we can to be there fully available to attend those meetings for however long they last.

That said, I recognize personal circumstances arise, and that unfortunately happened on this night. But because personal circumstances arose, does not mean that we should not continue to forward those items to council and deal with them in an efficient manner, because that’s what we’re talking about here, is dealing with them in the regular process, holding efficient meetings. I’ve seen councils in the past, not this one yet, but councils in the past that have referred and referred and referred and want more information and more information except at some point you have to make a decision. And making that decision should be done within our standard timelines unless there’s very good reason to vary from that in terms of the communications, with the exception of a couple of individuals who regularly comment on all kinds of matters, the communications have been from those who have served on the panel or served on the panel.

And while I don’t dismiss those, as I indicated, the London Planning Consultants Association pulled their members last week and shared that with us. We had over 30 in unanimous support. So I think it’s important to repeat that. The home builders consulted their members.

The LDI consulted its membership. So there has been consultation. And when we say there’s been a number of communications, I think we have to look at the fact that when the home builders are putting a communication on or when the Planning Consultants Association is putting a communication on, that’s not one communication. That’s communication of an organization that’s been actively participating in our process review tables.

And we heard our staff say this has been identified as a barrier. So I would encourage colleagues to ask the questions you have with staff. Don’t support the referral. All we’re doing is postponing a decision on this.

And I don’t think that anybody from what I’m hearing so far is necessarily going to change their opinion entirely, although they may. I don’t know whether they will or not, but they’ve had 14 days to ask the questions. So I think it’s time that we make our decision and let that decision stand whichever way it turns out. Councillor McAllister, you’re next.

Thank you and through the chair. I appreciate where both sides are coming at from this. I think the referral kind of speaks to unfortunately not having quorum and not being able to have that discussion. I understand the intentions, both of the Deputy Mayor and Councillor Lehman.

I can understand, especially with the input from the table and trying to find those efficiencies. I’m looking at this from a different perspective though, and the issue I’m having is, I totally see when there’s redundancies, we should take those opportunities. We’re trying to streamline our processes. But I’m not in favor of just outright dismissing people’s input if we can amalgamate it somehow.

And the issue I have with this is, I just feel like it’s lacking some direction. I think the reason why going back to PAC, I know not everyone wants to go back into it, but I think that that’s the way we have to go with this, unfortunately, ‘cause we didn’t have the discussion, is looking at say amalgamating the review panel with the planning advisory committee. I believe that committee’s only currently sitting at 12, and can be up to 15 members. So there is some room in terms of adding members to it.

But I just think in terms of, if we’re looking for those redundancies, I don’t think we should just outright dismiss the input from that community. They are experts in their field. I do think that there’s value in that. But personally, I think there needs to be an amalgamation.

And I think that’s what unfortunately was lacking from this, is to take that group and maybe combine it with something else so that we can have two and one, and that’s where I’m coming up with this. Thank you. I’m gonna go to Councilor Ferra next, ‘cause you had your hand up earlier, and I accidentally skipped you. Councilor McCallister got a little bonus there.

Then I have Councilor Hopkins and Kadi. Thank you, through you. I am gonna be speaking to after the actual motion on the floor before referral, but I just wanted to answer some points. So is this about redundancy?

I see this as accountability. I see this as an extra layer of public input and engagement. I’m trying constantly to bring more and more engagement in, and this is an area for that. I have questions.

I have a lot of questions that will be asking staff on the main motion. I can do it now, but I don’t think it’s appropriate. No, this is on the referral. Yeah, on the referral.

So that’s the comments that I would like to make there. With respect to committee work happening at committee and not at council, I understand there was a situation at PEC, which caused you to lose quorum and not be able to do that, but you should refer that back to another cycle of PEC, because committee work should stay at committee. I’ve heard many people say it, I said it myself. This is where the work has to be done.

Because we have this certain specific instance in the process that has put this here, this is still not, in my opinion, the way it should have went. It should go back to the next PEC cycle, which is why I would be supporting this referral. Now go to Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship.

And thank you, Councillor Raman, for your referral back to PEC. It was, it’s very similar to the amendment that Councillor Frank and I would have liked to have introduced here at council to get more information. And the more I listen here today, the more confused I am getting about exactly what this panel does and what it’s about. And I think we need that fulsome conversation at committee engage the public to find out what exactly is the problem.

If staff are saying it is creating a barrier, I wanna hear that information. I wanna hear the concerns of the costs. And I wanna hear from the stakeholders in the community what the problem is. And if indeed we can even make it better, but we need that conversation.

Here at council is not where this should take place. I have concerns if we start getting rid of our panels, at council without full public disclosure, that is gonna create a huge problem on council as we become and should be transparent and accountable to the community that we serve to have these conversations. Not at council where we make decisions on the floor, getting rid of panels and who knows, whatever groups that we deem important to get rid of. This is not the place that we should have those discussions.

We should be having them at committee. If there is a problem, I wanna know if there’s a problem. I’ve been on PEC for a number of years. I’ve been on council eight years.

I know in the past we have talked about this panel, can we improve it, can we do a better job? But is there a concern? I wanna know about that concern if that is the case. I’m not gonna get that information here at council.

It’s gotta come to us at committee and have that public engagement. If not, we are in my concern. If we make a decision here at council on this panel, we, to me, are undermining our process. And I do not want to be a part of that.

I think committee work is committee work and public engagement is something that we should foster. Regardless if we agree or not with what is being said, we should have those conversations. So we understand exactly what the unintended consequences of our decisions that we are making. We make them here at council.

They’re made without that process. So putting the panel aside, to me, it’s more of a concern about what we as a council are undertaking and making decisions without that public process. So I will be supporting the referral. Let’s have that conversation.

Let’s have more information. Let’s have a better understanding exactly what this panel does do. And if indeed it is creating costs and delays and a barrier to staff. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard that.

It’s a barrier to staff. I wanna know more. And so with your referral, it will give us a better understanding. Thank you.

Councillor Caddy. Thank you, your worshiping through you. You know, I’ll be voting against this referral. I heard my colleagues speak about red tape and adding a referral to this is adding more red tape.

And I harken back to what Deputy Mayor Lewis said that we’ve had 14 days since planning to ask questions to engage stakeholders, which I did. I came to planning as an invited guest and I have engaged stakeholders in the past 14 days. And I’m satisfied that I have made the right decision and I wanna proceed with this. And I think referral is just delaying the inevitable.

Thank you, Councillor Pribble. As well, we’ll support the referral and I will support the main motion. I’m against certainly against bureaucracy. And if you look at our targets, 47,000 homes and doesn’t matter if it’s a commercial residential, I’m against additional committees.

Let’s streamline, let’s focus on that. If there is any value in this, let’s put it into the advisory committee. Let’s have the members approach the advisory committee and say this was the volume we brought in. Let’s have our staff back it, that there’s what we need.

Let them be part of the advisory committee. Let’s get rid of this committee. Let’s move on and let’s stay focused on our targets. And I think that there is no need to have an additional committee whatsoever.

If we see the value, if we talk about it next pack, let’s bring back to the advisory committee, no need for an additional committee. Thank you. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I just wanted to quickly add that I feel ready to make a decision and I will not be supporting the referral.

Councillor Trostav. I’ll limit my comments for now to the amendment. I don’t think we’re ready to make a decision on this. I think there’s a lot of information that we still have to have.

I heard Mr. Mathers through the chair say that there was a concern raised at one of the tables. Is that a concern that made its way to a council report, if I may ask? Councillor, we’re on the referral.

Should I save that? That’s more like a main motion question unless it’s absolutely critical to your vote on the referral, which you said you support. Yeah, so I’ll say that, you know that question’s coming. I’m very much here.

Okay, any other speakers who haven’t spoken yet? Okay, so it’s the referral that’s on the floor. It’s moved and seconded, so we’ll open that for voting. Opposing the vote, motion fails, six to eight.

Okay, so back to the main motion. Councillor Frank, you were next on the list. So go ahead and Councillor Ferrell, I’ll get you on the list. Thank you, yes, I saved all my questions and hopes the referral would pass, but now I have my questions.

So through the chair to staff, I’m just wondering, do you find that the work the review panel does is redundant with the process of the design work by staff, or do they look at different things? Mr. Mathers. Through your worship, just to go back to what’s in the terms of reference, so the terms of reference includes having at least three folks on that peer review panel that have an architecture background or architects.

That’s one of the elements that we don’t have an internal staff to review, so that is an important piece of the work that they comment on when we review these applications. Thank you, so I’ll interpret that as not redundant, personally, but thank you. And then advisory committee timelines. So I’m interested in hearing more about the timelines of comparison between advisory committees and the urban design review panel, ‘cause to me, this, based on my experience with advisory committees, most of the time items will actually come and go before an advisory committee can even have it on their agenda.

So I’m wondering, given that we have, I think it’s 90 days with some of these, will that even work within a cycle with an advisory committee? Go ahead. Through your worship, one of the concerns that’s been raised is that the timeframe and the number of meetings that they have of the urban design review panel, it is the same as what an advisory committee would be, which is like once a month meeting and then meeting those timeframe. So it would be very similar if it was done in the design panel or if it was in an advisory committee.

And with that concern that you have a fixed date that you have to be able to get your application in by certain deadlines. So it would be very similar based on what you would do there. That is wonderful news. So if we do go this way and I’m getting the vibes that it is gonna go that way, it sounds like the timelines for the advisory committee review, the same number of applications that the review panel does will time out well, so that’s good to hear.

Do you feel that the London Plan is sufficient on its own to provide input on an assessment on design proposals in terms of urban design and architectural character? Again, I know you noted at the beginning that form is something it looks at, but I’ve read some of these applications that have come to pack and it highlights things like the size of the numbers on the side of the building. So I’m just wondering is that something that the London Plan is able to comment on? So the London Plan provides through your worship that the London Plan provides the broad context and that’s interpreted through the lens of our planning staff and urban design staff and then commented on by the urban peer review panels as well.

So it’s gone through all those lenses, but the London Plan doesn’t specifically speak to the size of lettering and things like that. Thank you, yes, that was my understanding as well. The London Plan is good, but vague, as I mentioned earlier, so it doesn’t have the specificities that we receive from staff or the panel. Following up on similar to that, and you kind of mentioned it, but if the urban design review panel is a dissolved, is there a potential for increased workload on city staff to make these assessments outside of the explicit scope of the London Plan?

So again, with form being the kind of the minimal marker, but having read these comments from the panel where they make stuff or where they comment on things more than just form, I’m wondering, and we don’t have, as you mentioned, architects on staff, is there gonna be increased workload? Through your worship, so the city staff would still go through the current review that they go through now. There may be a requirement that if you have some more sophisticated applications or some applications that require like an art text review that we would have to be able to procure some of those services to be able to provide those comments, but the bulk of the work would still be completed as per with the staff due today. Thank you, and to follow up on that, is there any estimate of cost of how much it would cost to in a year, let’s say, to hire architects to comment on these matters?

Go ahead. Through your worship, we would go through a procurement process. We don’t have any estimates of cost this time. Thank you, yes, no estimate of costs.

Okay, appreciate that at this time. And then I’m just checking if there’s anything else. Oh, we had heard back that the review panel is a significant contributor to time delays for the approval process for SPA and ZBA applications. I’m just wondering if there’s any data that shows that other than colloquial commentary from the various industries involved in the sector.

Also, my understanding is that the review panel came kind of in pre-consultation phase, so maybe if you could comment on those comments. Through the chair, so we haven’t assembled that information, so we don’t have that available. I can tell you that in all of my conversations with anyone from the actual development industry, they will point to those requirements in the extension of the timelines. There are four different deadlines that have to be met in order to bring forward an item to the panel.

And if we decided to exchange the panel for moving to like one of the other committees and for the work that wouldn’t impact the efficiency savings that you might get from complete removal of the panel because it’s just gonna be adding in a different group making the same commentary. So as far as the efficiency concerns and the ability to move applications forward, having another panel to do that is not going to have you provide any savings. Appreciate that. And then my last question before I do some wrap up comments.

So again, having seen a bunch of these comments in our planning application proposals, one sticks out for me was a here on street application. And I remember it because the person voluntarily put in affordable housing and very few people have actually done that this year. So I remember that in that application, the review panel noticed where the pedestrian walkways were going and they’re gonna enter a kind of right into where cars would be driving to get into the units as well, again, referenced it earlier, but there was some design features that were not really compliant with the London plan. So oversized lettering, which was not encouraged.

So I’m wondering those kinds of things that get caught at that stage. When will they be caught? And if they’re not caught, is there any mechanism for us to start noticing if we’re slipping on design characteristics? Through the chair.

So it is always responsibility of city staff to be able to catch any kind of issues and concerns with the spot forward. If that isn’t being found and if it’s held in safety issue, then that absolutely is on us. We need to be doing that as a performance issue on our part. However, it’s never the responsibility for the peer review panel to catch those types of things.

If they catch it, there are that second set of eyes on it, but it is our responsibility to find those things and bring them forward to committee. All right, thank you. Appreciate you answering all those questions. And I know that you don’t have all the answers to them because we haven’t asked you to do a report on this, so you wouldn’t have the answers.

But I appreciate the context that you’re putting into. I won’t be supporting this because I do think that based on the information I’ve been given, which doesn’t allow for me to make a full of some evaluation, but I’ll do it anyway ‘cause things come to council and that’s what you gotta do. I won’t be supporting this because it looks like it could increase costs. We might have to hire out consultants to do the architectural reviews.

We don’t know what those costs could be, as well, given the letter circulated. There are a lot of examples where the panel reviews, things that are not residential buildings, and I would hate to lose the opportunity for further review, and I think a lot of the time appreciated comments on how to improve the design quality, as well as the interface with the public realm. And I think that’s something that I’ve noticed that the review panel does a really good job of, is interfacing the public realm with the projects, and not just these one-offs where I know that developers do their best work, trying to make sure that it’s an attractive place for tenants, but I think the panel catches a lot of things that the, perhaps, help integrate it into the community. So I won’t be supporting this at this time, thank you.

I’ll just let people know the speaker’s list ‘cause I see some people waving. I do have some of you. I have Councillor Frayer, Councillor Cuddy, and Councillor McCallister so far, go ahead. Thank you, through you.

I appreciate the comments and questions that the Councillor previous to me was just asking. Some of the questions that I have are close, so I’m gonna try to pull those out. But the Urban Design Peer Review Panel, what is it? It’s an independent group of volunteer pro bono, highly qualified professionals, tasked with providing unique, immediate, and multidisciplinary expert opinions.

They bring impartial input on planning for a more informed review process to provide expertise and guidance, which is a key part of the planning and construction process. I like to do things right, and I feel like a panel like this would help us do that. Who does the Panel Composer? We have landscape designers, planners, urban designers, and architects.

And the questions that was asked before is, do we have any architects in the city as it is right now? And the answer was no. So right there, that could put us into, as the Councillor correctly stated, into a situation where we would have to go and find these architects to help us in very significant or complex developments. So I asked some questions that I would like to ask, not that one, ‘cause I did already.

But here’s a question for staff. How much time was given to staff when this first came to Peck beforehand? Did you have the three-day lead time as well? Go ahead, Councillor, you need your mic.

Through the chair, we would receive the actual language, and then we would take any kind of an action, that we weren’t asked to take any action when we received the language as well. So that’s the timing that we would get to be able to provide responses, and there was no questions at committee. So we didn’t take any action at the time. Thank you.

My next question, are there any other panels that would serve this function if we were to lose the Urban Design Review Panel, Policy Review Panel? Through your worship, we don’t currently have as part of a terms of reference another group or advisory group that specifically deals with urban design. Only the other group that have a crossover would be the planning specific group. Thank you.

Who creates or sets the items for deliberation? Who puts the items on the agenda for the Urban Design Peer Review Panel to discuss? Through your worship, that’s done by our staff. So our staff helps in the development of the design briefs, working with the applicants.

There’s meetings with pre-meetings with the Urban Design Review Chair, and then this is finally brought to Urban Design Review, and our staff would then be part of those meetings and those conversations, and then the comments would then have to be assembled and put together, there’s a 10-day time that the panel has to be able to provide those comments back to us, and then we take the time to take those and ensure that they can be combined with our own comments, and then we bring that back to committee. Thank you, and as Councillor Frank asked, they meet every 30 days or every month, safe to say. So here’s my next question on that one. How long does the Urban Design Peer Review Panel have to submit their comments after their meeting to planning?

Through your worship, it’s 10 days after the meeting. Thank you, so 10 days. So that could be a maximum of about 41 days, considering once a month, if everything stretched out to that much. So my next question would be, how long would your average zoning bylaw amendment or development application, how long is that process on average?

Through your worship with the changes to the legislation, we have a maximum amount of 90 days prior to us having to provide back portions of the fees. So 90 days, 41 days. So there’s no area for that to slow down the process. Is this done concurrently?

Is the work on the peer review panel done concurrently with any other work after submitted for deliberation by staff or by the applicant? Can the other parties do their work as this is being discussed? Through your worship, we tried our best to do that. If an Urban Design issue is the one that’s kind of the sticky issue, that it would be on that critical path and may extend the process whenever we can overlap processes and do concurrent work.

We do that, but in some cases, and especially if it’s something it’s more sophisticated development, it might require extension of the timeframe to be able to get through those sticky issues. Thank you. So it doesn’t seem like removing this panel would streamline anything or speed anything up. So my question really is, is why?

Why is this coming to council? Looking at the London Plan, what does the London Plan say about the Urban Design Review Panel, as a policy review panel? As a matter of fact, it does have some explicit language that gives council the ability to utilize the Urban Design Policy Review Panel, section 306, as a matter of fact, under city building policies because as was correctly stated, there is some vagueness in the London Plan and the London Plan counts for that. It recognizes that.

So it adds this policy review panel to interpret that, to interpret the nuances, to interpret the confusion that could come up with significant developments. And you can look at that section, it’s 306, like I said. So the risks that we have, if we were to remove something like this, like I said before, it’s not about redundancy. It’s about the layers.

It’s about the layers of public engagement, about accountability, and allowing ourselves to be able to achieve the best possible planning and development we can see in the city. More hands on deck is better. I just, this panel is a nonpartisan, is a non-partial, is an unbiased objective group that oversees this. They’re all experts in the field.

They work in the field currently right now and they’re not charging us for their time and their services and they wanna do it. They wanna do the job, which is honestly a win, win, win, win situation. And we need to really see this as we move forward. Dissolving this panel is definitely not the way to go.

It will not streamline anything. It could make our costs greater, which would be on the tax levy. And it would force us into the type of development and planning that we don’t necessarily wanna see. The London Plan itself could, the rigidity of the language, if it was just interpreted strictly from the language on the page.

30 seconds. We’ll put us into a very boilerplate type of development. This is why we need this peer review panel to interpret the language of the London Plan so we can have the type of development that we want. I have Councilor Cudi next.

Thank you, Your Worship, and through you, I’ll be supporting this motion. And I wanna thank Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councilor Lehman for bringing this forward. My colleague should be asking what the value of the UDPRP provides the responsibility panels to review the proposal to ensure the intent of the official plan, the relevant city policies and urban design guidelines are met. And that is also the responsibility, your worship of our city staff.

The dissolution of UDPRP will not result in unintended consequences, as there is a full team of competent and highly skilled city staff already reviewing applications and providing detailed urban design comments throughout consultation and application review stages. The UDPRP is an advisory panel, not unlike other advisory committees that exist. Unlike the other advisory committees, the UDPRP gets to review applications before they are submitted and have extensive submissions requirements. It’s an unnecessary step in the process.

In order to increase our housing supply, we need to make significant efforts to reduce red tape. And one way to do that is to eliminate redundant reviews such as the UDPRP. Thank you. I have Councilor McAllister next.

Thank you and through you. Again, I’m gonna take a different approach with this, try to extend a lifeline, but I do have some questions prior to getting to that. How many people currently sit on the review panel to staff? Go ahead, Mr.

Raiders. Through you, Worship, there’s currently six members of the panel. Okay, and thank you and through you again, a follow-up. In terms of the planning advisory committee, how many people do we currently have on that and how many vacancies do we have?

Worship, I don’t have that number offhand. The clerks might have it, just give me a sec. Perfect, that’s great. Thank you, through the chair.

Not sure of the exact number. We think it’s 12 that we can certainly confirm that. Okay, and that was my best guess too, it was 12. So that’s the last I heard and through you.

I would like to put a, I hope this is perceived as friendly, ‘cause that’s what it’s intended to do. As we heard from one of the previous questions, right now in terms of our terms of reference for the planning advisory committee, urban design is not in the terms of reference. And I would like to make an amendment that we include that as the terms of reference for that committee. I know this would have to be referred back perhaps, but knowing that there are six members, only three vacancies perhaps looking at folding these two committees into each other.

I do think that they provide some valuable insight. I understand all the arguments that will be made in terms of redundancies. But I do think we’ll be doing a disservice to just dismiss, I would like to see perhaps an amendment where we can maybe expand in terms of the terms of reference and invite those members to join that committee. Councilor, I’m gonna ask you to pause for a second.

Councilor, let me just provide thought on this based on the advice from the clerks. To change the terms of reference at council would require very specific language in the terms of reference ‘cause the change is here. You could provide a direction to bring forward the terms of reference with updated language that includes this that then would go to the committee and then the clerks will make sure they just get all the language right in the terms. So if you wanna change it today, I mean, probably I need some time to work through like the actual language including a recess and all sorts of things like that.

But if you wanna provide the direction to do it, that’s something that could be done today and then they would have the time to bring forward the language in the terms. No, I’d actually like to have it referred to PAC to review the terms of reference ‘cause I do feel like that’s the appropriate place for it. But I just don’t wanna throw it aside and all the work that these people have put into it over the years, I think that it would be valuable for PAC to at least look at that. So I would have that, I could have that referred to PAC for review.

So one piece of information, it’s actually 15 members with no vacancies so the committee is full. And yes, but that would be an amendment. Like there’s no friendly on the council floor so you could bring forward amendment to add a second piece to provide that direction which then would come back. So we’ll just need a second to work on language on that.

I can look for a seconder. And then maybe before we start that debate because I had planned on breaking it for, let me get the language ready, see if there’s a seconder and then maybe we can take that short break for people to have the break ‘cause it’s been three hours and then we can reconvene in the debate where we are after that. So I’m gonna, so we’re not gonna break now. I’m gonna get the language, I’m gonna look for a seconder and then I’m gonna look to see if someone has a break before we have the debate on the amendment.

Okay, small detail, Councilor. And this is why we’re working through the language. We need to know where you’d like to send it. So previous advisory committee reviews went through governance working group and then SPPC.

We don’t have to do it that way but I guess what we need is a place that you’d like to land this. So the updated language for consideration would come somewhere. Where is it that you’d like it to go? If we go to SPPC, then we could have a full discussion and everyone could be included.

Let me just read what we have ‘cause it’s your motion. So when we write it, like the movers gotta be good with it. The motion be amended to add a part B as follows. The terms of reference for the community advisory committee on planning, we brought back to a future SPPC meeting for consideration of inclusion of urban design.

Yes, so is there a seconder for that? Yes, there’s a seconder in Deputy Mayor Lewis. Okay, moved and seconded. We can start a speakers list but perhaps it is a good time for a break.

So I’d look for someone to move a break. I have Councilor, so how long, 20, 20 minutes? Moved by Councilor Ferrer for 20 minute break. Seconded by Councilor Frank.

All those in favor by hand? Motion carries. Be seated. Okay, everyone.

So where we left off was the language for the amendment is up. You can see if you flip to E-Scribe, it is as an added part B. So that means you have what will become the main part of the motion, which is the motion that was brought forward about the dissolution of the panel. And then an amendment to add a second part B, which is about the piece about updating the terms of reference to the community advisory committee on planning, which will be brought forward to a future SPPC with the language to include urban design.

I will say once the amendment is voted on, people want to divide the vote they can later. It’s meant to be in two pieces, but we’ll try to just keep the debate on the amendment then back on the main motion. And then after that’s all done, even if we divide the vote, we’re not going to debate two pieces again because we’re kind of doing that now. But at the time of the voting, if someone wants a split apart, we can.

So with that being said, it’s moved and seconded by Councilor McAllister and Deputy Mayor Lewis. We’ll have debate on Councilor McAllister’s amendment. Anybody like to speak to that? Not, then give out on the amendment.

Councillor Hopkins. My apologies, Your Worship. I do have a question, maybe through you to staff on the amendment. - Yep.

And I would like to have a better understanding if we proceed with the inclusion of the urban design to the CICP, what is going to change or how are we improving the process if we go that way? My concern is that we may have further delays as we’re trying to streamline the process. So we’d like to have a better understanding how is this streamlining the process? So it’s the Councilor’s motion.

So I mean, our staff might comment on it at the time of the language review, depending on exactly what it looks like. So I guess I could go to Councilor McAllister first and then I can ask our staff, but I don’t want to have staff give the intent of what a Councilor has put on the floor’s motion. So I’ll go to the mover first. Yeah, thank you and through you to add some more clarity.

I personally think there’s value in adding in the urban design element to the terms of reference for this one. Obviously that was the sole purpose when we look at the review panel, but my intention behind that was to create an avenue for the former members of that committee or from the panel to join the advisory committee. Obviously they do weigh in at different points, but I do think that this gives us an opportunity to have that input from those panelists, former panelists, I guess it would be if we go this route, but I think it also gives us the opportunity to say when we look at the terms of reference, potentially having one member of the committee as an architect, I think that that allows us to have the conversation at committee in terms of the makeup of the planning committee to see potentially if there’s a role, whether we want it to be an urban planner architect to allow for that voice to be heard on that committee. Councilor Hopkins.

And maybe another question, just so I understand exactly. I know the terms of reference are going to be determined at SPPC, are we looking at implementing that the whole panel itself and expanding the advisory group? ‘Cause I do know we are going to be doing reviews of our advisory groups in the new year as well. So just really wanna have a better understanding exactly what we’re doing here, because my concern is gonna be that we are going to be bogging down the system even more.

So if we go through with this and I wanna make sure that there aren’t any of those unintended consequences through this process. Let me just add, Councilor, part of the reason why the clerk said that lesser was very specific language posed by the Councilor on changing the terms of reference. I think until you see the language I wanna consider it, it’s difficult to answer some of the questions you might have on that piece of that debate. Because, I mean, the inclusion of urban design could be included in a number of ways, and so SPPC could obviously assess that and change it.

Unless the Councilor had specific language that you wanna use tonight, this is why it was suggested that this might be a good route to go, given like the terms of reference changes would have to be very specific, because they would be passed and finalized tonight if we did it at Council. Councilor McAlcher, go ahead. Thank you, through you. Yeah, my whole purpose was to not necessarily tie our hands tonight, but to give the full SPPC the opportunity to weigh in in terms of where they see value, because my intention was, if we eliminate one, I don’t want all of that knowledge to go nowhere.

I think that they still have valuable insight to offer us, but I think if we can combine, and we’ve done that with other committees in the past, like look at transportation, for instance, we had multiple committees that were tasked with that, and then we decided to go to an integrated committee. And I view this as a potential to have more of an integrated planning approach, versus having two different groups looking at some more things. And you worship if I’m maybe asking one further question. If we proceed with this direction, until this comes to SPPC, and the terms of reference are developed, the panel still exists.

I just wanna have, I just don’t wanna do something without having a full understanding. The answer to that is no, depending on how the vote goes, because there’ll be two parts to the motion. There’ll be the part that provides, that staff be directed to take the necessary steps for the dissolution of the Urban Design Peer Review Panel. Part B, which is Councilor McAllister’s amendment.

Again, you can vote on those separately if you like, but that question can’t be answered until that vote happens. But yes, it’s like, it’s contemplated that there is no urban design panel, and this process is happening after that. Okay, thank you for that clarification. And if you will allow me then to speak to the amendment, I won’t be supporting it.

I’ll speak to, I guess, my understanding about the panel itself. And as much as I appreciate, maybe there’s a bit of a compromise in that we’re not getting rid of it completely, I’m really not convinced that this is the direction, it’s a streamlined process, that this is the way to go. I am very supportive of the panel itself, just from my own experiences, and maybe to have a better understanding, quick question through you to staff on, and this is why I’m getting confused, ‘cause I wanna speak to the main motion, but I wanna make comments here to the amendment and why I’m not supporting it. And with that, I am going to be asking questions of staff.

Okay, so questions in the main motion should really wait for the main motion the councilor has an amendment. So if your questions are on the amendment, that’s fine. If they’re on the main motion, I would suggest you wait to the amendments dealt with. Okay, so I think I will just speak to why I’m not supporting the amendment and supporting the panel.

And one of the reasons, and my understanding about this panel, and my relationship that I’ve had with this panel for the past number of years, I am supportive of having it. We have heard there’s a lot of disinformation right now, and for us to sort of make these changes, I’m not prepared to do it because of the unintended consequences. For instance, the Urban Design Awards. We hold these every other year.

They, as chair of, as a former chair of PEC, I have attended and sat on the panel of these awards, seen the great development that the city has done, and learned a lot from the architects, landscapers. I understand these awards are tied to the panel. We really don’t know what’s going to happen now, going forward. I also understand that this panel is separate, not only to civic administration, but to council, the political body.

They operate individually. They have the expertise in their fields. They really do a good job in helping, in assisting the urban design process. It also reviews the compliances to our policies and the London Plan.

Thank you. With that, they have a better idea, and we design our buildings in a better way for our communities. When I read the recommendations coming from our, at PEC, I read the Urban Design reviews. They give me information as a committee member to make informative decisions.

I rely on that expertise. I also have attended, and this panel is open to the public. Anyone can attend their meetings. I’ve attended myself, learning a little bit more.

I have a number of infills in the word that I represent, but I’ve also attended with residents at these panels to get more information, to have a better understanding, engaging with the public and the panel, why our policies are the way they are, why this building fits into their neighborhood. And those opportunities, I’ve always felt that we wear better for it when it comes to decision-making. I think I mentioned the Urban Design Awards. Not sure what happens to those.

Most large cities in Canada have some kind of a review. Not all of them, but a lot of them do. I know we all want to build homes. I appreciate Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councillor Layman wanting to bring forward ways to streamline.

But as we build and as we grow as a city, it is going to become even more important that we have that extra look, that extra expertise. 30 seconds, Councillor. And as much as I appreciate the intent for this, not to go away completely, I’m very unsure exactly how it’s going to work, going forward. So I won’t be supporting it.

Okay, I think I have Councillor. I don’t, Councillor, Stephen, so I don’t remember if you’re on the main list or not. I had you on a list, but no, okay. Councillor Trostall then.

I’ll limit myself to the amendment that’s on the floor. Looking forward to speaking to the main motion later. I’m going to not be supporting the amendment. I think what it does is it waters down the expertise of the committee and I think it’s a bad idea.

The example I’m thinking of is there used to be a dedicated advisory committee on heritage that was made up of people who were experts in the area of heritage. And in its wisdom, the Council merged that committee with a much broader committee, even though they’ve retained their statutory obligation to look at heritage alteration permits. And I think that was not a good move. And at some point, I’d like to talk about bringing back a full latch.

The reason why I don’t think that was a good move is now you’ve got fewer people on that committee who are actual heritage experts who are dedicated to the heritage issue. And in fact, and I’ll ask Mr., you can confirm this, there’s been problems in terms of getting quorums at times when you had live heritage alteration applications, much to the detriment of the applicants and the neighbors. How many times did that lack of quorum occur? For me to ask, through your worship, we’re tracking approximately two, that’s happened so far for that purpose, for the heritage component of it, but there could be more that we know at least two.

Okay, well, that’s significant. And what’s significant to me, ‘cause it just sort of landed right in the middle of a dispute that was going on in my ward. So I had to do a lot of extra explanation as to why the committee didn’t meet. Let’s just do this.

I don’t want to sidestep the importance of this decision by just sort of saying, well, let’s take just some of these people and put them on another committee where they’ll be in a minority. I think that’s a little insulting to the professionals who work on this committee. And there’s no reason why we couldn’t get people with architectural expertise on this committee, if they so choose, but just to eliminate one committee and then turn around and just do a review of the terms of reference to another committee doesn’t seem to be solving the problem. So I’m gonna be voting against the amendment.

Thank you very much. Okay, Councillor Ferra. Thank you, through you. So I appreciate what the Councillors are trying to bring through with this motion, trying to save some of the expertise that’s on this panel.

But I’m still unconvinced on why we are looking into dissolving the panel in the first place. We’ve had the questions go back and forth with staff. I think it’s pretty clear that the intent of this motion will not realize what it would like to do considering the information that’s already been provided. And I’m not willing to concede the whole motion or just voting for something like this anticipates the dissolution of the body.

So I would not be supporting the motion as a stance. I still would like to see more information coming back on and any other way that we can streamline the process. But I would also need more time to consider this, to be able to actually vote on it. But as of now, I wouldn’t be able to support it.

Additionally, we have a panel of experts. And if we were to start mixing the panel of experts with the panel of the other planning advisory committee, we would find a whole bunch of people who wanna speak very technically and get very into the grains of the development or the application. And then we would have individuals seeing it from a different perspective. So I also don’t think that that type of group or committee would even be able to work very well if we were to do something like that.

So going back, I would not be supporting this motion as it is right now just because I don’t feel that we should be dissolving the panel as it is. The panel is needed. It’s in the London plan. It’s explicitly stated.

The London plan has great urban design written all over it. And it has intended to use the urban development peer review panel to interpret the London plan for these developments. So I can’t be supporting it the way it is right now. Other speakers to Councillor McAllister’s addition.

Okay, seeing none, we’re gonna open that for voting. Opposed on the vote. Motion carries, 11 to three. Okay, now I need to move her and seconder for the as amended motion, which now contains two parts.

I have Councillor McAllister, Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councillor McAllister, sorry. So on the as amended motion, Mr. Trossa. Is this when I get to speak to the merits of the motion?

You can speak, it’s all there together now. So you can speak to any part of the like. Okay, first I wanna ask a question that I foreshadowed before. Something was said about concerns being raised at a table.

I didn’t get the name of the table for what the concerns were. Could you expand on that, please? Absolutely, it’s part of our 47,000 unit framework for coming up with solutions to improve in the housing supply in London. We have a table that’s called the Customer Service and Process Improvement Reference Group, and it includes industry professionals and we come up with ideas, solutions, and then we’re systematically going through those ideas and the issues that they’ve highlighted and to bring forward some possible positive changes.

What were the concerns who raised them and who were they referred to, did it come to council? Were they shared with the architect group or did it just stay at the table? Through your worship. So we’re currently at, we’ve collected all of those comments.

We’ve done a ranking based on a survey to all the people that are involved in that group and then the highest category that included as streamlining our approvals process. So that was in the highest category. We have not, we are bringing forward a report on October 31st, discussing the 47,000 units and there will be an update from this committee. We weren’t intending to include all of the 40 items in that list, but we would speak to what our process is and what we’re trying to accomplish.

Thank you, next question. Could you very briefly talk about the difference between the professional training, educational requirements, and ethical obligations of the planning profession and the architectural profession? Mr. Mathers, I’m not sure if that’s something you have the expertise to do, but— Yeah, through your worship, I could speak to the engineering profession ‘cause I am an engineer, but I don’t have the specifics of the ethical requirements.

For the two, I’d imagine it was probably a high ethical standard for both, but I can’t speak to it. Okay, I was interested in pursuing the difference because the benefit of the panel is it is right now, it does seem to be operating in a much higher level of expertise and I can tell you architects have a very, very, very exacting standard of code of ethics without going through them, but I guess I also want to ask about the 15 bullets, and I’m not sure who to ask because the 15 bullets came from Councillor Frank. May I ask her just to maybe talk about one or two of these bullets in terms of the success story, or just be out of order? Well, through the chair, you can ask.

I can ask the Councillor to be up to her on whether or not she wants to respond, but I want you to comment on a few of the bullets. Sure, yeah, I got that list from staff, so I would not be able to comment on the exact feedback that the review panel gave on those items, but those were suggested as ones where they went through the panel, received comments, made adjustments, so I included that as a list. And I appreciate you being brief there, because I think that that could have opened an opportunity for additional debates, so I just want to say thank you, and that’s why I will allow some of these questions. If Councillors turn this into more Councillors getting more time to debate, I’m not going to allow it, so I appreciate how you handled that.

Go ahead, Councillor Joseph. Okay, now I noticed on this list of 15 bullets, most of these seem to be non-residential developments. My question for the proponents of this, that’s debate, isn’t it? I’m just curious why we’re not limiting this change to the panel, to residents, as the building residents as quickly as the goal, because a lot of these are non-residential properties, but I think I’m just going to close with a comment.

And the comment I want to make is here we are again, the specter of red tape. Red tape is being overused as a trope. Red tape is being used. It’s being overly used as a narrative.

Whenever you want to get rid of something, let’s call it red tape, and say let’s get rid of the red tape. But I’d like to tell you, this panel is not about red tape. This panel is about an extra assurance of quality, and I think that’s evidenced by some of the things that are on this list. Now, this panel plays an important role.

This panel plays an important role, and this panel plays an important role, and I think we would be losing something very rich, and something very valuable if we eliminated this professional panel. And I’d like to just close by thanking everybody that’s been involved with this panel for their service. It’s really valued by a lot of people, and we would be losing something very important if this was taken away from us. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I have Deputy Mayor Lewis, thanks to the speakers list. Thank you, Your Worship. So on the main motion, as amended, I’m gonna try and be quick.

I’m not gonna repeat the things I said earlier. I supported Councilor McAllister’s amendment, because I do think similar to the Integrated Transportation Committee, or similar to the Planning Advisory Committee that we have now, it is better to not silo people off and place one group over another that they have their discussions together and bring forward one set of recommendations to us. I can recall times in the past council where the Transportation Advisory Committee and the Cycling Advisory Committee brought forward contrary recommendations to one another to planning, because they weren’t sitting in the same room talking to each other. And the same thing can happen here.

In fact, I will point to a development that has not materialized at Oxford and First Street, where one of the challenges was the developer brought forward a proposal for an 18-story tower, and the Urban Design Review Panel told them to go higher. And they came back with a 24-story tower, and our staff said we can’t support that, it’s too high. We talked about the bullet points, and I’m only gonna reference a couple of the non-residential units referenced in the letter. I’ll tell you, that’s the Star Tech Community Center.

We had a building that was designed with self-facing windows beside an ice rink where sunlight tends to melt ice that people are trying to skate on. At the East Lions Community Center, we’ve had to do a frosting on the windows around the gymnasium because the pickleball and badminton players can’t see the lines on the floor because the abundance of natural light was recommended as a great feature, but in functionality, it failed the users of those facilities, and we had to go back and make revisions. So let’s not pretend that anyone ever, whether it’s the Urban Design Review Panel, whether it’s our staff, whether it’s ourselves as council, we don’t always get things right. So it’s not that this expertise is so phenomenally over the top, and I will repeat what you said, Councilor Trustile, it’s not that we don’t appreciate their work, but it’s not that it’s without errors either.

But the most important thing is we’ve heard, we’re going to lose this, we’re going to lose that, but this panel is non-binding. All they do is provide recommendations. They don’t provide the staff recommendation, they don’t provide that decision, that’s Council’s job, based on recommendations of our staff and changes that we may want to see. I think the other piece, and I’m going to address this rather than doing a reply at the end in terms of the timelines.

So it’s really important to understand the difference, and I just want to make sure that we’re being really clear on this. When an application goes through pre-consult, then it has to go to the Urban Design Review Panel before it can be submitted. And then after it’s submitted, it has to go to the Planning Advisory Committee or Review Panel. So you’re actually doing this at two different stages, which is if you combine them, you’re doing it once in one stage.

You’re not having a delay between the pre-consult and the application being submitted, waiting for comment back from Urban Design. You are getting the comment through the Advisory Planning Committee, and I want to make sure through you, your worship, if staff can confirm that that’s, in fact, true, that the current design review panel process is between the pre-consult and the application is being submitted. And the Planning Advisory Committee is after the application has been submitted. So it’s a review process twice.

So I’ll ask staff to just clarify that. Through you, worship, that is accurate. Thank you. So that’s why I support Councilor McAllister’s amendment, and that’s why I’m encouraging colleagues to support this main motion.

It is important that if we’re going to have Urban Design considerations being brought forward to us, it is brought forward with all the other considerations from the community, so that it’s all there for the public participation meeting at the Planning Committee, which we have on every item for direction, rather than a pre-process, and then through our staff, and then through another advisory committee, and then before the public, put it in one spot where everybody can see it, and have those with Urban Design or Architecture Experience sit there with the people who also have some heritage expertise, some people who are there as community voices, some people who are there who understand what the market can bear in terms of what the cost of some of these recommendations mean for a building to come forward, because it’s great to say that these are the wonderful design elements we have. But if you’re not considering the financial applications on a proposal, particularly if we’re concerned about affordability, then you’re not really looking at the whole picture. You’re looking at things from only one lens, so I’m actually going to end it there. I just wanted to make sure that we were clear on the process, that one of the delays is that there are actually two processes, not one timeline.

I don’t have any other speakers happy to divide it if people would like me to. Someone gave a nod. Right now, it’s two pieces all day. OK, good.

So the way it’s constructed now, if you refresh as a part A and a part B. When I divide them, we’re not debating part A and part B. So if you have something to say now is the time, we’re just going to do that for the votes, because I know people want to vote separately. And so we’ll deal with the part A part first, which is the taking the necessary steps for the dissolution of the panel.

And then the part B will be what Councillor McAlister added to it, so you can vote on them separately. But again, we’re not going to debate those two separately. The debate will end, and we’ll just do the voting. So if everybody’s ready to vote, yes, Councillor Ramen, go ahead.

Thank you, through you, just to clarify. Did I hear Deputy Mayor Lewis say something about a staff report as well? I don’t know, but I can go in if you want to clarify. Just for clarification, in the original motion that the clerks had prepared to assist with this, it called for a staff report back, but in consultation with Mr.

Mathers, he indicated they don’t need to report back. If we move ahead with the dissolution, that’s why I removed that. Yes, and the reason why that was allowed at councils, because community actually never passed anything, everything was just sent here. So the motion that was crafted could be pretty much anything based on the communication.

Thank you, and through you. So just to follow up, there were some things that Councillor Hopkins mentioned in her speaking, that I don’t believe we’ve addressed by way of the amendment nor the main motion. So I’m just wondering when we might be able to ask some of those questions or get those addressed, because I don’t think we can answer them fully here. But I’m just wondering, for instance, when it comes to the Urban Design Awards, is there any implications of not having the panel to the Urban Design Awards?

Mr. Mathers. Through your worship, so the Urban Design panel was the jury for those awards, that most of the work was done on the staff side, so we would have to come up with a process if we want to continue those awards, to have a jury that would be other than the Urban Design panel. Thank you, and through you, I guess, maybe a question to the Mayor’s, where do we have that discussion?

Is that here right now, or is that something that needs to be included in the terms of reference that we’re sending back for another committee that we’re then gonna come back and go to SPPC on? Is that something that I need to amend into this now, or do you think, how do I address that? Give me one sec. So based on the advice of the clerk, I’m gonna say your question has remained to the purpose of the motion now.

If we’re eliminating a panel that does another purpose, if you want to entertain a direction to have staff, also come back with options for the continuance of the Urban Design Awards, or the replacement of the jury, or whatever you want to word it as, you could do that now, if you’d like. There’s nothing stopping you from doing it at a committee later, but it would be, I would see it as relevant to the motion on the floor, if you’d like to add something today. But if you don’t, it doesn’t preclude you from doing it in the future too. Thank you, I appreciate the clarification.

I’m not sure how to word this though. Do I say to include all unintended consequences that we don’t know of at this time to report back? ‘Cause that sounds to me just like asking for a staff report. Mr.

Mathers, you have something valuable? Through your worship, just reviewing the terms of reference for the peer review panel, there’s nothing in there that explicitly states that they are responsible for that activity. So we can take back and look back at the exact, where the, how the decision was made to provide them as being the jury, and then come back to committee and council with some other opportunity, but it’s not specifically tied to the terms of reference of the Urban Word Design Review panel. So I don’t have an answer to your question, councilor, because I mean, could ask for a report that was general in nature, but I don’t know what it would contain, but I’m just not sure where you wanna go with that.

So yeah, Mr. Mathers answer, I wouldn’t preclude you from having an option to do that, but I don’t know how you wanna word that. Thank you and through you, Chair. I think that’s where I’m struggling, is how do I word for unintended consequences of our decision?

So I guess at this time, I’ll try to amend to include a staff report that perhaps addresses the dissolving of the Urban Design Panel. I’m not sure how else to word it. And unfortunately, I haven’t had time to think through all of those consequences. And as we’ve been having this discussion, I’ve come to realize there are some other things we need to consider on top of design excellency.

So I just wanna make sure that there’s a way that we can do that so that we’re meeting obligations so that we’re addressing those consequences. So I’ll look to move that amendment. So happy to help you with that ‘cause I understand you’re intending more fully now. So if you give me a second, we will, we will draft some language on exactly what you’re trying to accomplish.

Now, sir, before we craft something, what we’re going with this is you have one concern that you are aware of specifically. So we could say you bring back something related to the awards and then add a little bit to the end of say and any other, I don’t know what the wording is, but we’ll figure it out that captures what you’re trying to say. Is that sound like we go along that lines, fair? Thank you, and three, that sounds fair.

I think the unintended consequences is what we’re trying to capture here. Okay, okay. I’m gonna read the language. No, I’m not, but it gets too fast for me.

So the counselors check this. And then I’m gonna look for a seconder. I’m just gonna read a motion to amend by adding a part C that the civic administration be directed to provide an information report that addresses the matter of the urban design awards and any other matters relevant to the dissolution of the urban design peer review panel. Moved by Council Raman, seconded by Councilor Hopkins.

That’s now on the floor for discussion. Councilor, do you want to, you’re good, okay. Anybody want to discuss that addition of a C? This is just an addition to the other two pieces now.

We’re still gonna vote on them all separately. No, then moved and seconded. We’ll open that for voting. Opposing the vote, motion carries 13 to one.

Okay, now we have a part A, B and C. This is an, I need another mover for the as amended motion. I see Councilor McAllister and Deputy Mayor Lewis. There was no other debate before then.

Councilor Robbins made an addition. I’m happy to vote on these A, B and then C. I would say should A be defeated, we might end up making other parts of this moot so we can deal with that at the time. So the proper order to vote on this is with A first.

So A is the part about the dissolution of the panel. I’m gonna open that for voting. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 10, four. Part B is the addition that Councilor McAllister added when we had that debate.

So I’m gonna open B for voting now. Same mover and seconder. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 11 to three. And part C is the addition we just added from Councilor Raman.

So we’ll put that up for voting now too. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 13 to one. Thank you, Mayor. That concludes my report.

Great report, Councilor. On to Councilor 8.6. Mayor Sire, sorry, not Councilor Ayersett, report 8.6, which is the 17th report of the Corporate Services Committee. I’ll go to Deputy Mayor Lewis to present that report.

Thank you, Worship. I will put the entire report excluding item six, the Budweiser Gardens proposed expansion, which I know Councilor Truss I want to deal with separately on the agenda. I’ve not been made aware of any others that people want dealt with separately. Okay, so we’ll deal with item six, the Budweiser Gardens piece separately.

Is there anything else that anyone would like dealt with separately, make a motion then? And that motion is everything except six. Okay, that’s on the floor, any discussion? I’m gonna say something.

Councilor Layman, will you chair? Please go ahead, Mayor. I’m gonna speak briefly for those who have watched me on Municipal Council. You know that I speak to this every time it happens and that’s the city’s credit rating.

I’ve served every year on Corporate Services since I’ve been on Council. And every year this item can be taken for granted, but it should not be. Each and every year, it requires important and diligent engagement with the credit rating agency. It requires to achieve this adherence to a long-term thoughtful fiscal framework and fiscal plan the city has put forward.

It is a function of not only the way that we manage our finances, but the way that the city is governed. It involves multiple successive councils adhering to a long-term fiscal plan debt management strategy at the corporation that has been well received. And at the end of the day, what the credit rating does is it allows us to borrow money at a cheaper rate on behalf of lenders. It allows us to invest in significant municipal infrastructure at a rate that is enviable to others who do not have the same sort of credit rating.

And so I cannot let this pass us by, even though it feels like it has become routine. And I will say this year, I was away and Deputy Mayor Lewis had to do the interview with Moody’s and he did a very good job ‘cause we still have a credit rating. He wouldn’t give me an out if we had lost him this year, but multiple successful engagements by staff, councils, over many years to maintain this. I believe our biggest risk to our credit rating always is a general downgrade across the province ‘cause we are ultimately tied to the province.

But comparatively, as a municipal corporation, we have done very well to maintain this over the years. And I wanna thank our staff and all of the teams and all of the previous councils and all of the good policy decisions that have been made that continues to let us borrow at incredible rates on behalf of lenders and invest in the infrastructure we need to invest with and get our money to go a little further than it otherwise would. Thank you. And I’ll hand the chair back to you.

Okay, any other speakers? Go ahead Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Your Worship. I just wanna point out I had great line mates in Ms.

Livingston and Ms. Barbone who made sure I didn’t turn the puck over and blow that credit rating score, so. Okay, thank you. There’s no other speakers, we’ll open everything, but the Budweiser Gardens piece.

Everything on the committee’s agenda for voting. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 14 to zero. Thank you, Your Worship.

I’m now pleased to put item six, the Budweiser Gardens proposed expansion on the floor. That’s on the floor. I’ll look for speakers to this, Councillor Trovesau. Yes, I’ve submitted a written four part motion to a refer, I provided that to the clerk earlier.

And for the four parts, you have it, it might be on the screen, and I put that on the floor. It’s not on the screen yet. I will line what you’d like to do, Councillor, and then I will have to, I will respond to it with a process on how you get to putting it on the floor. Okay, and I did send this to the clerk earlier today.

Motion to refer item six, the Civic Administration. For an additional report to include discussion of the following, one, provides city council with the text of the KPMG report. Two, seek a ring of negotiation of the 80%, 20%, cross split for terms more favorable to the city. Three, limit any extension of the food service contract to a term not to exceed five years.

And four, refer the approval of phase one to the 2024 multi-year budget process. And that was submitted this morning. Sure, give me one second, Councillor. So let me, I’m gonna go to the treasure on this.

Some of the items that you’ve suggested in the correspondence you put forward, so be directed to seek re-negotiation of the costs. That was essentially an agreement that was brought forward by our staff for consideration. So there’s a possibility here that if you’d like to go and do something different, that you would defeat the proposal that was brought forward and then you could direct staff to do something different. You could try to refer the whole thing back with context and commentary, but it wouldn’t be in order to try to renegotiate the piece, given that the negotiations that happened and that is the packages brought forward.

We can accept it or defeat it. If we defeat it, we can basically go back and do any sort of negotiations we want. It doesn’t preclude a different type of negotiation. So I’m trying to figure out the order of operations here because I think a referral of the phase one piece to the multi-year budget, yes, we could consider that.

But directing the re-negotiations of the terms of the agreement that has already come forward, the agreement has come forward. It’s that one for approval or not. And if it’s different, then we defeat this and then you direct something else. So I’m determining what parts of this would be required you to defeat the current committee’s recommendation, what parts that you could refer.

And I just need a little bit of context from the deputy city manager on the implications of a couple of the pieces so that I can deal with your motion in the proper phases. So go ahead, Ms. Breville. Thank you, through your worship.

So I think this is the motions contrary to what we were directed to do that was brought forward in this report. So should the council wish to have something different or a different agreement or a different proposal, we would go back to the drawing board to begin discussions with OVG about Budweiser Gardens expansion. Again, so this direction in May was what brought us here today to prepare the agreement based on the proposal and do the analysis. The proposal is based on completing the work next summer so that it would be ready for the fall season to begin.

Should this be referred back, we would have to begin again and work with OVG to see what proposal it would be that would come forward, noting it would be entirely different because the return on investments would change, potential investments that both sides would be willing to put in would change because it would be a different proposal ‘cause it would be delayed at least well beyond a year from what it’s anticipated based on what was put forward for council’s consideration. I think hope that’s helpful. So, councilor, so parts of this, you need to feed before you can take some of these actions, the committee’s recommendations. Others you could try to refer, but I think in general, if the council’s will is to proceed with this, then you can’t put your motion on the floor.

So we have to determine that through addressing a large component of the committee’s recommendation first. So I wanted to give you that advice and then you can determine what part you’d like to try to proceed with and I’ll let you know how to do that. Well, why don’t I do this in order to expedite this and move it along a little bit? I think I know how the vote’s gonna turn down.

I mean, we’ve been through this at the committee. You know, at the last committee, I asked a specific question, what about the 80/20 split? Can we do better than that? And your response was, if you want to have that renegotiated, there needs to be a council direction.

So rather than just say, shuttle the whole thing, I thought I would do some very specific things here that would allow us to proceed. It seems not to be the will of what the rolling of the chair is. So I think at that point, we can just proceed to the vote and I’ll just collect all of my comments in my five minutes on the main motion rather than have a lot of procedural issues here. Councilor, I appreciate that.

And it’s, my ruling is based on the advice that was given from the deputy city manager about delaying is basically essentially constructing a new agreement. So you may as well just defeat the agreement for us and then we’re open to do that. So I appreciate you allowing us to go that route and I’ll give you your full five minutes to debate the item. If you’d like to do that now, you can.

If you’d like to, yeah. I’m gonna give some leeway to let you do that. And so what we’ll do is we have the committee recommendation on the floor for debate and discussion. So who would like to discuss this?

Go ahead, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, I do not sit on the committee and I appreciate comments. And I appreciate Councillor Tresault’s inquiries around what we’re doing and how to proceed. I think it’s important that as a committee member and as a council member that we really understand what’s going on, I also have concerns about the delays that this may cause which I do appreciate the councilor’s consideration to that.

I do have a quick question through you, Your Worship, about the comment around having the approval go through the budget process, the phase one and would like to have a better understanding if that’s a possibility or where are we with the understanding negotiations have taken place. But as we continue with taking care of this building and going forward, where is it through the budget process or is it there at all? I’ll go to Ms. Barbone.

This is a question about the source of financing being, I mean, do you address this a little bit at committee, but could you address it for the councilor here? Thank you, Through Your Worship. So there’s two components to this proposal that was brought forward. There’s a phase one and a phase two.

So the initial proposal was presented and was hoping to go forward all at once. Although given the magnitude of the ask, we knew that that would not be possible to proceed prior to the budget approval. So the proposal was crafted to be able to push out a large component of it, which would require a significant investment from the city so that could go through the budget process, noting that the initial phase one would like to proceed initially because that’s the part that would have more of the financial return that would be generated with respect to the food and beverage components that would be creating some of that initial return. And with a small investment from the city of London could essentially proceed, knowing that we have a source of financing that could be identified through the Tourism Reserve Fund to support the capital infrastructure.

So based on the proposal that is submitted before you, the first phase was intended to be done next summer. So they would be looking for the ability to advance and based on council approval. They’ve already done some initial work, but the intent would be then to proceed and be able to do that work over the summer so that it’s ready to go. The second phase we are proposing be pushed to the multi-year budget where it would be part of council’s review of the multi-year budget over the period of time that council would then choose the timing and the investment through that process in conjunction with all of the other business cases that are there.

So certainly it’s subject to council’s approval through the budget process and you would see that business case along with all of the other business cases before council. Through you, Your Worship, thank you. I was not able to attend corporate. I really do appreciate this information.

It’s important to know that the phase two process will continue as we go through the budget process. I am supportive of the recommendation. I do appreciate the councilors oversight to the questions. I do think it’s important that the delays not be had as we go forward, but look forward to the budget process with phase two.

I have councilor Layman next and then myself. Thank you. I’m going to support the staff recommendation and the committee recommendation here. I’ve met with, or last number of months, I’ve met with staff on this and I’ve also met with management of Budweiser Gardens.

This is a 50 year deal. The first half, we got very little percentage of the returns. We’re going into the part of the deal where we get a much greater part of the return. So what a great time to invest.

Great at greater share, food and beverage returns that we will be investing in. This is one area of expenditures where we will actually see net proceeds coming towards the city as opposed to going out. I want to thank Ms. Barbone and the work her team did on this.

I know it was extensive talks with Budweiser Gardens. What we’re going to be able to do is we’re going to have enhanced F&B. We’re going to have a back of house enhancements because as acts are bigger now, when they come on the road, London is in danger of missing the big axe, quite frankly. And what a shame because up until now, boy, I’ve learned that there’s enjoyed some terrific entertainment at Budweiser Gardens.

There was some concern that we were paying for the night’s dressing room. The nights are paying for the dressing, we’re expanding space for sure. And let’s not forget, they’re our biggest tenant and they provide a lot of revenue to the city. There’s a, this is a wise business decision and so it should be, you know, this is not roads and sewers.

But the offshoot, as far as the returns on investment, we get terrific entertainment and we bring that business into London, which enhances our hotels, our restaurants, our shops, et cetera. So this is a very good news story, in my opinion. I think it was well thought out to get to this point here. Okay, I’ll turn the chair over to Councillor Lehman.

Please go ahead, ma’am. I’m gonna ask a question of our staff, somewhat question until I ask at the committee and I just wanna confirm the general numbers because I think that there’s a difference between phase one and phase two. I think phase two, which is going to require some opportunity costs and municipal decision making in the way that we fund it, is, you know, is pretty important for us to consider as part of the budget process. Phase one, and the way that it’s funded, I think, is actually a very appropriate and smart way to fund such an expansion.

Because the initial phases of the project and phase one are all meant to drive additional revenues when you look at most of the components before of the enhancements to the facility. And we actually partake in the share of those additional revenues. And so it’s projected that the city will get some additional funding through Budweiser Gardens, not only because of the enhancements, but also the component of the agreement that allows for a lower threshold of payback for the losses that have been occurred through COVID. So there’s more front-end money coming to the municipality.

Why is that important? Because the way that we would fund this is through an issuance of a debenture. And if I get the numbers right and this is the part where I’ll just go to the deputy city manager afterwards. The funding of the principal interest on that debenture is probably $700,000 to $1.2 million, I think was the range that was given.

So how would we pay for that? First, we would get additional revenues and from both the new agreement as well as the activity generated at Budweiser Gardens, which has done very well since post COVID. And so if that continues, we’re going to take some of that additional revenue that we otherwise wouldn’t have seen and start to put it towards the debt and principal payments. Then if that’s not quite enough to cover it, we would go to the municipal accommodation tax that’s coming in each year of, which last year I think was 1.6 million.

And so even if we got no additional revenues from Budweiser Gardens for some reason, we would still have enough mat coming in to cover the debt and principal payments. And also we’re not even touching the existing outstanding balance in the municipal accommodation tax fund, which is over $3 million, if I’m correct, I see nods. Which means we can still invest in tourism-related infrastructure opportunities through the mat, both the existing balance, as well as the revenues that are coming in and pay off the $9 million to venture with both the proceeds of the expansion and the new terms, which are more favorable to us in the way that we have to account for the losses during COVID, up front and early on. And if that’s not enough to cover, we can use a portion of the municipal accommodation tax to do it, still leaving additional room likely in the municipal accommodation tax for new opportunities.

So for me, this is a way to enhance a facility in phase one, without putting any strain at all on municipal taxpayers. In fact, it’ll be mainly the activities of Budweiser Gardens and the municipal accommodation taxes flowing into the city that will help pay for phase one in its entirety, both principal interest. To me, that’s a creative way to have like a win-win on an expansion of what is probably one of our largest, that in the conventions that are largest, tourism driving centers that we have in our city and allow it to kind of pay for itself to a certain degree, both through the activities of the facility as well as the tourism and nights and overnight stays that it drives, it actually contributes to the municipal accommodation tax. Seems like a highly appropriate way to fund such an expansion.

So for me, I’ll be very supportive of phase one. For phase two, yes, it’ll go through a process and we know that I’ll go through the budget process and we can have the discussions we have to have there about the appropriateness of funding it and how we’d wanna do that. But the item before us today is allowing them to proceed with phase one, which allows that money to, as soon as the enhancements are complete, to start flowing in at additional level, the new arrangement of the way that we would not claw back as much on the debt repayment, flowing more money to the city to fund the expansion seems like a great proposal to me. So I’ll be supporting it and I hope council does as well.

And I’ll turn the chair back to you with Deputy Mayor Lewis on the speakers list. I actually have Councilor Palosa before. So I’ll go to Councilor Palosa first and then I’ll go to Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship.

And thank you to staff for your work on this. And equally as much, thank you for those in the gallery who joined us promptly at our start time who are still here at this hour with us and for your work and on this and for what this means to the city. Realizing that FODWISER Gardens is an important aspect in this community. It hosts items of interest for us, figure skating championships, Junos, Briars, Memorial Cups and role-class concerts.

I will note that the municipal accommodation tax collects 4% on visitor hotel stays. That comes into municipal accommodation tax, which has a very set purview of what it can be set spent on and items like this being one of them. As per another councilor’s question, the London Knights dressing room, it is just the walls for the facade piece of it. Anything in that dressing room is still the financial responsibility of the London Knights.

But I will note that the London Knights is accounting for 50% of the attendance to Budweiser Gardens and 30% of the revenue that comes in. This has big local economy impacts on downtown retailers, transportation hotel stays and restaurants down there. And if we want to be able to stay competitive and relevant, this investment is necessary. As a tourism London board member, there’s lots of bids confidentially behind the scenes.

Each bid has different requirements that the cities and the facilities will have to be able to provide in order to host the things. And we need to stay relevant if we want to keep bringing these world-class opportunities right here, two Londoners for Londoners can stay in their hometown and enjoy it and welcome people from abroad. And with it being an older facility and keeps aging, it is our duty to keep making sure that the investments that are desperately needed in it are needed as it is a source of revenue and entertainment. So I do see this as a grid return on investment.

And as the city’s budget chair, I look forward to the business case coming forward, but right now as for phase one, absolutely no concerns about the private funding, municipal accommodation tax funding, and who’s paying for what? Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Well, after you and our budget chair, I’m not even gonna touch the financial pieces ‘cause you both covered it wonderfully and I echo everything that both of you said there.

I did want to take a moment though to recognize Ms. Austin and Mr. Oal and other members of the Budweiser Gardens team who are here tonight and thank them also for being there at the committee to answer some questions. We kind of put you on the spot.

You didn’t ask for a delegation, but the questions arising from committee, I use the flexibility of the chair to give you an opportunity to answer those questions. I know our tourism team is here tonight to and whether it’s Mr. Crossman in music or Mr. Jarvis in sports and Ms.

Finn and Ms. Wabakash, and sorry, Nat, I always screw up your name, it’s just Natalie to me. And Natalie up there, the one thing I want to underline that’s really important and Councillor Ploza, you touched on it, but making this investment is not just about Budweiser Gardens itself, but it is about our ability to be successful bidders on bigger and better events than we have brought to the city so far. And with those come more hotel stays.

But the consequences of not doing that actually becomes a depreciating return on our investment over the years as we lose that competitive advantage, as newer facilities beat us out on the bid process and we become less competitive. So it’s not just about becoming more competitive, more return on investment for the city in the long run, but it’s also about not losing out on those bids in the future because we’ve got a wonderful bid team. I know Ms. Daudin isn’t here and the convention center is more her facility than Budweiser Gardens, but we’ve got a great team that puts in great bids on a whole number of things.

And we all were at AMO and we saw the wonderful job that was done there. Budweiser Gardens is, as was referenced, one of the two key things with the convention center and it was wonderful to see the partnership during the Briar where we had the patch at the convention center and all the Briar activities at Budweiser Gardens. That’s the kind of synergy we need from a world-class facility. That’s what moving forward on these proposals will do.

Yes, we will see the second phase in the budget process, but I come back to, and it was mentioned by Ms. Barbone as well. There’s actually a very limited timeframe for contractors to get lined up and for work to be done during what is the Bud’s off season, which is really the summer months when people are at outdoor music festivals and the nights are in their off season and the lightning are in their off season. It’s the winter when that building is full and live and full of energy.

So they’ve really got that short period of time from hockey season and basketball season ending the early part of May through to about the 1st of September when things ramp back up. So it’s a limited window of time. I hope everybody will support this tonight so that they can get some contracts and get moving forward on these improvements and then get generating us some more revenue. Thank you, other speakers.

(mumbles) And no point during this discussion have I ever, ever suggested we shouldn’t go ahead with these improvements. I wanted more transparency and I don’t think I’ve gotten transparency. I’ve raised a list of 30 questions. I don’t think they were answered.

Some of them were, some of them were glossed over. For example, why are we not getting the KPMG report? The answer to that is there’s proprietary information in there so we can’t have it. Well, we asked for the report and we used what was in the report to justify how we got to where we are today.

So I think there are questions that the public could be asking about the report. Now we see things in the report like assumptions. Still not sure what the assumptions were because we’re just told that the assumptions are gonna, it’s gonna be a positive response. But we never really, we never really see what the assumptions are, handful of variables.

Never really got an answer to what those were. Language like appears to be and may have. These are all issues that could have been cleared up. Had we been a little bit more forthcoming in terms of the documentation.

And I think a lot of the questions that I’m raising here at the end today may have gone away if we had been given a copy of the report. And I don’t think the question of the report is done. I mean, it’s done as far as I’m concerned with this council. But I think anybody is going to be able to file a FEPPA request for the report.

And I think they’ll probably get most of it. Now we’re told that this is because we have to get started right away for the next season. We’re proposing here an extension of the food contract until 2051, 2051. We don’t have to do that tonight in order to get these improvements started.

I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer as to why the extension of the food service needs to be more than five years. They need some improvements so they can hit the ground running next season. Fine, do that. But to 2051, that seems like a lot.

And in terms of the budget process, well, I think we were told at the last meeting that it’s too late to submit this to the budget process. So that’s a dead question anyway. And I do look forward to some of these questions coming back in phase two. But I just think it’s really important to understand that London taxpayers have questions not about whether this is a good facility or whether you add value.

It’s not the question that’s on the floor. The question that’s been on the floor during this whole discussion is what information are we getting when, how are the decisions being made and can we do anything? Can we do anything to improve our transparency process? And I think the answer to that is yes.

Now, I suspect in the coming years, there are going to be other big projects that come to this table. And I intend to raise the same, excuse me, I intend to raise the same types of questions, especially when we’re talking about things like extensions of a contract out to 2051. So with that, I think I’m going to leave it. If I read the room, I don’t think I’m going to do very well on the roll call, but I am going to vote no on this because I don’t think my questions, which I believe were legitimate questions were properly answered.

And it’s no reflection on the nights and it’s no reflection on bud gardens and it’s certainly no reflection on all of you, the staff. It’s about the kind of information that this council should be able to get on behalf of our constituents. Thank you very much. That exhausts my, oh, Councillor Vameira-Brigon, you got your hand up, sorry about that, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. When it comes to the John Lebatt Center/Bud Gardens, we have to remind ourselves what London was like prior to its existence. It really is the tale of two cities after it was created and before. So before and after, it’s clear that the impact that it’s had on our community is immense.

The spin-offs are a myriad of spin-offs, too many to even count that’s helped our city and put our city on the map. It’s loved by Londoners, it’s loved by Western Ontario, and even Americans love to come up to bud gardens. So you can’t overestimate the impact that it’s had for our city. And so it truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

And so let’s help it do that. We have to reinvest, that’s just a normal part of the cycle of these types of buildings and these types of places. And so let’s help it get even better. Londoners are looking forward to an improved, even better experience at bud gardens.

So let’s say yes to this motion and get on with it. Thank you. Okay, now that exhausts my speaker’s list. We have the committee recommendation on the floor.

If there are no other speakers, which I see none, we’re gonna open that for voting. Close in the vote, motion carries, 13 to one. And that completes the report from the Corporate Services Committee. Okay, I need a volunteer for added reports.

It’s a short one. We’d like to, I mean, with added reports. Thanks, Councillor ramen. Added reports, 14th report of closed session.

Councillor ramen’s gonna read out the report and then progress on all the other items for which we went into camera. Go ahead, Councillor. Thank you and through you. So the 14th report of council in closed session, your council in closed session report.

Item number one, lease of office space, lease agreement 520 Wellington Street Unit 10, Centennial House. That on the recommendation, the deputy city manager finance supports with the concurrence of the director, fleet and facilities on the advice of the director of Realty Services with respect to the lease of commercial office spaces located at 520 Wellington Street Unit 10, Centennial House and new lease agreement the lease between the city and Centennial House limited the landlord for the lease of approximately 1,569 square feet of rentable space located at 520 Wellington Street Unit 10 for a term of two years, commends December 1st, 2023 and ending November 30th, 2025 at a net rent of $8.75 per square foot for the duration of the term with two further options to renew for two years be approved and that progress was made on all other items. Okay, so that’s the report on progress for all items which we went into camera but the motion on the floor that the council is presenting doesn’t need a seconder ‘cause it’s presentation of a closed session report, any discussion on this? We’re gonna open that for voting.

Opposed in the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Okay, there are no deferred matters, inquiries. Seeing none, there are no emergent motions, we’re on to bylaws. So I know that on bylaws there’s someone declared a conflict on 50 King, so we’ll do those two separately.

That relates to bill number 373 and bill number 380, so we’ll do those separate but as a group. I guess I need to know what other, does anybody else want anything else dealt with separately? Okay, there’s no bylaw for that, Councilor, thanks. Okay, so I’m gonna put it all together except for those two with the conflict and so that’ll include bills 368 through 379, excluding 373 and the added bill from the motion that was just spread out.

Okay, so a mover for that. Councilor Cuddy seconded by Councilor Stevenson. There is no debate on first reading so we’ll open that for voting. Yes, why do you want that separate?

Okay, when I asked if you wanted something separate, that was the time to suggest it. Yes, and at the end of the meeting, not everybody always asks for them to be split, so that’s why I usually ask if colleagues want it split. I know I myself have voted one way in the debate and just supported the bylaw, but that’s up to you. So we can pull out Budweiser Garden separate.

The other ones don’t have bylaws associated with them that I’m aware of, that’s correct. So what we’ll do is Budweiser Gardens and the 50 King separate. Everything else will be on the floor. I’ll use the same mover and seconder for that, okay?

So this is not now, we’re just adjusting it to not include Budweiser Gardens, okay? Everything else except for Budweiser Gardens and the two bylaws related to 50 King. Okay, that’s going to open this graph. Councilor?

Sorry, just looking at this, I do see that Bill’s 380 is here and I believe that was supposed to be pulled. It is, but if you look, it’s excluding, it’s just a word a little way. The bill range and then it says excluding 380 later in the motion. All right, thanks.

So it’s excluded. Those in the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Second reading, moved by Councilor McAllister. Seconded by Councilor Provol, any debate?

Seeing none, we’ll open that same set for voting. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Okay, third reading. Councilor Ferrera, seconded by Councilor Raman.

I will open third reading for voting as soon as it’s ready. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Okay, next we’ll deal with 369, which is the Budweiser Gardens item. I’ll look for a mover and a seconder for Bill 369.

Councilor Cuddy, Deputy Mayor Lewis, open that bill for first reading as soon as it’s ready. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 12 to one. Okay, I look for a mover and a seconder for second reading of this bill. Move by Councilor Stevenson, seconded by Councilor Lehman.

Any discussion on second reading? Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting moment. So colleagues, you know, the second reading vote may have erred for you. We’re just gonna refresh and redo it again.

Councilor Lewis and Cuddy, closing the vote, motion carries 12 to one. Okay, I move on a seconder for third reading. Move by Councilor Palosa, seconded by Sir Cuddy. We’ll open third reading for voting.

Opposed in the vote, motion carries 12 to one. Okay, next will be Bill 373 and 380, which both relate to the 50 King and 399 right out of the street property. I’ll look for a mover for first reading. Councilor Stevenson, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis.

We’ll open first reading for voting as soon as we’re ready. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 10 to two with one recuse. Second reading for those two bills. I’ll look for mover and a seconder.

Moved by Councilor Cuddy, seconded by Councilor Stevenson. Any discussion on second reading as soon as it’s ready. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 10 to two with one recuse. Okay, third reading, moved by Councilor Layman.

Seconded by Councilor Palosa. We’ll open third reading for voting as soon as it’s ready. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 10 to two with one recuse. Okay, that’s it for bylaws.

Thank you colleagues. I’ll now look for a motion to adjourn. Moved by Councilor Raman, seconded by Councilor Frank. All those in favor of adjournment by hand?

By motion carries. We are adjourned.