June 18, 2024, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:00 PM; it being noted that Councillors P. Van Meerbergen, S. Franke, E. Peloza (5:21 PM) and S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

2.1   Asset Management Plans for Agencies, Boards and Commissions

2024-06-18 Staff Report - Asset Management Plans for ABC

2024-06-18 Staff Report - Asset Management Plans for ABC

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the City related Agencies, Boards and Commissions’ Asset Management Plans:

a)    the report entitled “Asset Management Plans for Agencies, Boards and Commissions” BE RECEIVED for information; and

b)    the “Agencies, Boards and Commissions Asset Management Plans”, as appended to the staff report as Appendix “A”, BE APPROVED.

it being noted that the London & Middlesex Community Housing Asset Management Plan dated November 2020 will be revised and be brought forward to Municipal Council for review and approval in 2025.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the motion BE AMENDED to include the following:

it being noted that the London & Middlesex Community Housing Asset Management Plan dated November 2020 will be revised and be brought forward to Municipal Council for review and approval in 2025.

Motion Passed (10 to 5)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recess at this time, for 20 minutes.

Motion Passed

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recesses at 7:19 PM and reconvenes at 7:43 PM.

2.2   Master Accommodation Plan - Redevelopment of City Hall Campus

2024-06-18 Staff Report - (2.2) MAP Redevelopment of City Hall Campus

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports with the concurrence of the City Manager, the following actions be taken with respect to the Master Accommodation Plan:

a)    the report dated June 18, 2024, titled “Master Accommodation Plan – Redevelopment of City Hall Campus” BE RECEIVED for information; and

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to initiate a competitive procurement process to implement the Master Accommodation Plan guiding overall space needs and the redevelopment of the existing City Hall Campus site which will accommodate civic administration and governance functions in modernized facilities to support effective service delivery, sustainability, and alternative work strategies;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with the relevant Agencies, Boards and Commissions with respect to participating in the range of uses in the redevelopment of the City Hall Campus.

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated June 14, 2024 from C. Butler and a communication dated June 14, 2024 from J. M. Fleming, Principal, City Planning Solutions.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the Master Accommodation Plan - Redevelopment of City Hall Campus BE REFERRED to the next Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on July 18, 2024 to allow Municipal Council to engage with the public and allow for input.

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated June 14, 2024 from C. Butler and a communication dated June 14, 2024 from J. M. Fleming, Principal, City Planning Solutions

Motion Failed (5 to 10)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the motion BE AMENDED to include a new part c) to read as follows:

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with the relevant Agencies, Boards and Commissions with respect to participating in the range of uses in the redevelopment of the City Hall Campus.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by P. Van Meerbergen

That the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports with the concurrence of the City Manager, the following actions be taken with respect to the Master Accommodation Plan:

a)    the report dated June 18, 2024, titled “Master Accommodation Plan – Redevelopment of City Hall Campus” BE RECEIVED for information; and

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to initiate a competitive procurement process to implement the Master Accommodation Plan guiding overall space needs and the redevelopment of the existing City Hall Campus site which will accommodate civic administration and governance functions in modernized facilities to support effective service delivery, sustainability, and alternative work strategies;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to consult with the relevant Agencies, Boards and Commissions with respect to participating in the range of uses in the redevelopment of the City Hall Campus.

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated June 14, 2024 from C. Butler and a communication dated June 14, 2024 from J. M. Fleming, Principal, City Planning Solutions.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   Not to be heard before 1:05 PM - London & Middlesex Community Housing - 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions

2024-06-18 Staff Report - (3.1) AGM - LMCH

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by P. Cuddy

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

a)  on the recommendation of the City Manager, the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated June 18, 2024 as Appendix “A” entitled “A by-law to ratify and confirm the Annual Resolutions of the Shareholder of London & Middlesex Community Housing”, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on June 25, 2024;

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

c)  the 2023 Financial Statements BE RECEIVED; and

d)  the 2023 Annual Report - Transformation Vision to Reality BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That pursuant to section 36.3 of the Council Procedure By-law, P. Squire, Board Chair and P. Chisholm, CEO, London & Middlesex Community Housing BE PERMITTED to speak an additional five (5) minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

3.2   Not to be heard before 1:05 PM - Housing Development Corporation, London (HDC) - 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Shareholder Annual Resolutions

2024-06-18 Staff Report - (3.2) AGM - HDC

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by A. Hopkins

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

a)   on the recommendation of the City Manager, the Independent Auditor’s Report of KPMG LLP for the Shareholder of Housing Development Corporation, London, dated December 31, 2023, BE RECEIVED;

b)  the 2023 Financial Statements BE RECEIVED; and

c)  the 2023 Year End Report to the Shareholder BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

3.3   Not to heard before 1:05 PM - Public Participation Meeting - 2025 Growth Management Implementation Strategy (GMIS) Update

2024-06-18 Staff Report - 2025 GMIS

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by J. Pribil

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

a)    the 2025 Growth Management Implementation Strategy Update BE APPROVED as appended to the staff report in Appendix ‘B’; it being noted that:

i.     Sunningdale SWMF E1 will be rescheduled from 2024 to 2027;

ii.    Stoney Creek SWMF 7.1 will be rescheduled from 2025 to 2027;

iii.   Stoney Creek SWMF 8 will be rescheduled from 2025 to 2028;

iv.   North Lambeth SWMF P2 North will be rescheduled from 2025 to 2028;

v.    North Lambeth SWMF P2 South will be rescheduled from 2025 to 2026;

vi.   Pincombe Drain SWMF P3 West will be rescheduled from 2025 to 2026;

vii.  White Oaks SWMF 3 East will be rescheduled from 2025 to 2026;

viii. Wharncliffe Road South (Campbell St. to Bostwick Rd.) will be rescheduled from 2027 to 2028;

ix.   Kilally South, East Basin SWM 3 will be rescheduled from 2031 to 2027;

x.    North Lambeth SWMF P1 North will be rescheduled from 2033 to 2029;

xi.   North Lambeth SWMF P1 South will be rescheduled from 2033 to 2029; and

xii.  Kilally Road Two Lane Upgrade (Webster St to Clarke Rd) will be rescheduled from 2030 to 2025;

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

c)    the presentation on the added agenda BE RECEIVED:

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

  • M. Wallace, London Development Institute

  • C. Spina

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by J. Pribil

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by D. Ferreira

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response - Proposed Community Encampment Response Plan

2024-06-18 Staff Report - Community Encampment Response Report

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by J. Morgan

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, that the following actions be taken with respect to the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Community Encampment Response Plan report:

a)   That, “The Saving Lives, Alleviating Suffering, & Building a Healthy, Strong, & Safe Community for All” - London’s Health & Homelessness Response: Community Encampment Response Plan as appended to the staff report dated June 18, 2024 as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED, with the following amended guidelines contained on page 36: 

  •    On or within 150 metres of an elementary school or children daycare centre;

  •    On or within 100 metres of a playground, pool, waterpark, or any spray pad; 

  •    Within 100 metres of any private residential property line with a habitable dwelling as per the Building Code; 

  •    On or within 100 metres of any sports fields, inclusive of but not limited to, skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball diamonds, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use courts, as well as stadiums, dugouts, stages, and bleachers;

b)    the report BE RECEIVED for information; and

c)    the memo dated June 13, 2024 from the Deputy City Manager, Social Health Development regarding Community Encampment Response Plan: Community Feedback BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from C. McDonald, Director of Service, London Cares and G. Nash, Director, Complex Urban Health, London InterCommunity Health Centre with respect to this matter.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, that the following actions be taken with respect to the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Community Encampment Response Plan report:

a)    “The Saving Lives, Alleviating Suffering, & Building a Healthy, Strong, & Safe Community for All” - London’s Health & Homelessness Response: Community Encampment Response Plan as appended to the staff report dated June 18, 2024 as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED;

b)    the report BE RECEIVED for information; and

c)    the memo dated June 13, 2024 from the Deputy City Manager, Social Health Development regarding Community Encampment Response Plan: Community Feedback BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from C. McDonald, Director of Service, London Cares and G. Nash, Director, Complex Urban Health, London InterCommunity Health Centre with respect to this matter.

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That pursuant to section 36.3 of the Council Procedure By-law, C. McDonald, Director of Service, London Cares and G. Nash, Director, Complex Urban Health, London InterCommunity Health Centre BE PERMITTED to speak an additional five (5) minutes with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Lehman

That part a) BE AMENDED to read as follows:

That, “The Saving Lives, Alleviating Suffering, & Building a Healthy, Strong, & Safe Community for All” - London’s Health & Homelessness Response: Community Encampment Response Plan as attached as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED, with the following amended guidelines contained on page 36: 

  •    On or within 250 metres of an elementary school or children daycare centre; 

  •    On or within 250 metres of a playground, pool, waterpark, or any spray pad;  

  •    Within 100 metres of any private residential property line; 

  •    On or within 250 metres of any sports fields, inclusive of but not limited to, skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball diamonds, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use courts, as well as stadiums, dugouts, stages, and bleachers;

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by H. McAlister

That part a) BE FURTHER AMENDED as follows:

  •    On or within 150 metres of an elementary school or children daycare centre; 

  •    Within 100 metres of any private residential property line with a habitable dwelling as per the Building Code;

Motion Passed (10 to 5)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by H. McAlister

That, the following actions be taken with respect to the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Community Encampment Response Plan report:

a)    “The Saving Lives, Alleviating Suffering, & Building a Healthy, Strong, & Safe Community for All” - London’s Health & Homelessness Response: Community Encampment Response Plan as appended to the staff report dated June 18, 2024 as Schedule 1 BE REFERRED to Civic Administration to report back to Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on the guidelines contained on page 36 with respect to options on the following:

  •    On or within 50, 150, and 250 metres of an elementary school or children daycare centre; 

  •    On or within 50 and 250 metres of a playground, pool, waterpark, or any spray pad;  

  •    Within 10, 100, and 250 metres of any habitable dwelling as per the Building Code; 

  •    On or within 5 and 250 metres of any sports fields, inclusive of but not limited to, skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball diamonds, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use courts, as well as stadiums, dugouts, stages, and bleachers;

b)    the report BE RECEIVED for information; and

c)    the memo dated June 13, 2024 from the Deputy City Manager, Social Health Development regarding Community Encampment Response Plan: Community Feedback BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from C. McDonald, Director of Service, London Cares and G. Nash, Director, Complex Urban Health, London InterCommunity Health Centre with respect to this matter.

Motion Failed (4 to 11)

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, the following actions be taken with respect to the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Community Encampment Response Plan report:

a)    “The Saving Lives, Alleviating Suffering, & Building a Healthy, Strong, & Safe Community for All” - London’s Health & Homelessness Response: Community Encampment Response Plan as appended to the staff report dated June 18, 2024 as Schedule 1 BE REFERRED to Civic Administration to report back to Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on the guidelines contained on page 36 with respect to options on the following:

  •    On or within 150 and 250 metres of an elementary school or children daycare centre; 

  •    On or within 250 metres of a playground, pool, waterpark, or any spray pad;  

  •    Within 100 metres from any habitable dwelling as per the Building Code; 

  •    On or within 250 metres of any sports fields, inclusive of but not limited to, skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball diamonds, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use courts, as well as stadiums, dugouts, stages, and bleachers;

b)    the report BE RECEIVED for information; and

c)    the memo dated June 13, 2024 from the Deputy City Manager, Social Health Development regarding Community Encampment Response Plan: Community Feedback BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from C. McDonald, Director of Service, London Cares and G. Nash, Director, Complex Urban Health, London InterCommunity Health Centre with respect to this matter.

Motion Failed (5 to 10)

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That part a) BE FURTHER AMENDED to read as follows:

That, “The Saving Lives, Alleviating Suffering, & Building a Healthy, Strong, & Safe Community for All” - London’s Health & Homelessness Response: Community Encampment Response Plan as attached as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED, with the following amended guidelines contained on page 36:

  •    On or within 100 metres of a playground, pool, waterpark, or any spray pad; 

  •    On or within 100 metres of any sports fields, inclusive of but not limited to, skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball diamonds, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use courts, as well as stadiums, dugouts, stages, and bleachers;

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Lehman

That part a) BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

  •    On or within 150 metres of an elementary school or children daycare centre;

Motion Passed (11 to 4)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Lehman

That part a) BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

That, “The Saving Lives, Alleviating Suffering, & Building a Healthy, Strong, & Safe Community for All” - London’s Health & Homelessness Response: Community Encampment Response Plan as attached as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED, with the following amended guidelines contained on page 36: 

-   On or within 100 metres of a playground, pool, waterpark, or any spray pad; 

  •    Within 100 metres of any private residential property line with a habitable dwelling as per the Building Code; 

  •    On or within 100 metres of any sports fields, inclusive of but not limited to, skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball diamonds, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use courts, as well as stadiums, dugouts, stages, and bleachers;

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by J. Morgan

That part a), second, third and fourth bullets, as amended, BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

  •    On or within 100 metres of a playground, pool, waterpark, or any spray pad; 

  •    Within 100 metres of any private residential property line with a habitable dwelling as per the Building Code; 

  •    On or within 100 metres of any sports fields, inclusive of but not limited to, skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball diamonds, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use courts, as well as stadiums, dugouts, stages, and bleachers;

Motion Passed (10 to 5)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by J. Morgan

That part a), first bullet, as amended, BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

a)   That, “The Saving Lives, Alleviating Suffering, & Building a Healthy, Strong, & Safe Community for All” - London’s Health & Homelessness Response: Community Encampment Response Plan as attached as Schedule 1 BE ENDORSED, with the following amended guidelines contained on page 36:

  •    On or within 150 metres of an elementary school or children daycare centre;

Motion Passed (11 to 4)

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by J. Morgan

That the balance of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED and reads as follows:

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, that the following actions be taken with respect to the London’s Health & Homelessness Whole of Community System Response Proposed Community Encampment Response Plan report:

b)    the report BE RECEIVED for information; and

c)    the memo dated June 13, 2024 from the Deputy City Manager, Social Health Development regarding Community Encampment Response Plan: Community Feedback BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from C. McDonald, Director of Service, London Cares and G. Nash, Director, Complex Urban Health, London InterCommunity Health Centre with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That pursuant to section 33.8 of the Council Procedure By-law, the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee BE PERMITTED to proceed beyond 6:00 PM.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Moved by A. Hopkins

Seconded by S. Trosow

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recess at this time, for 15 minutes.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee recesses at 5:10 PM and reconvenes at 5:27 PM.

4.2   Basic Needs Response Plan

2024-06-18 Staff Report - Basic Needs Response Plan

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the attached revised June 18, 2024, The Basic Needs Response Plan report:

a)    a one-time funding allocation of up to $70,500 (excluding HST) BE APPROVED for payment of depot meal program and comfort stations for services delivered in May and June 2024;

b)    the funding reallocation request from Canadian Mental Health Association Thames Valley (CMHA) related to their identified Cold Weather Response surplus of up to $250,000 (excluding HST) BE APPROVED to maintain services at The Coffee House located at 371 Hamilton Road up to an additional 6 months;

c)    the Encampment Response Option 2, to include year-round depot services and operating until March 31, 2026 to better align with other current services which were approved as part of the stability of the sector report in February 2024 BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to allow Civic Administration to provide a report on the City of London application for the $250M of Federal funding for encampments announced April 12, 2024 it being noted the report will provide an update on the status of the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP) funding, confirm the plans for a cold weather response for 2024 and if it will align with the Basic Needs plans, which is seeking funding into July 2025;

d)    the direction to find a source of funding including any unspent previously approved sources of funding, including previously allocated Operating Budget Contingency Reserve funds BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to allow Civic Administration to provide a report on the City of London application for the $250M of Federal funding for encampments announced April 12, 2024;

e)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary in relation to this project;

f)     the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services;

g)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on the existing public washroom facilities across the city, their hours of operation, their locations, their staffing requirements, and information about usage, to allow Council to determine if there is sufficient public washroom access and if the hours of operation align with community programming and our encampment/basic needs services; and

h)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue the depot meal program until the time of which the Basic Needs Response Plan is approved by Council and to find a source of funding including any unspent previously approved sources of funding, including previously allocated Operating Budget Contingency Reserve funds.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the attached revised June 18, 2024, The Basic Needs Response Plan report:

a)    a one-time funding allocation of up to $70,500 (excluding HST) BE APPROVED for payment of depot meal program and comfort stations for services delivered in May and June 2024;

b)    the funding reallocation request from Canadian Mental Health Association Thames Valley (CMHA) related to their identified Cold Weather Response surplus of up to $250,000 (excluding HST) BE APPROVED to maintain services at The Coffee House located at 371 Hamilton Road up to an additional 6 months;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to proceed with Encampment Response Option 2, to include year-round depot services and operating until March 31, 2026 to better align with other current services which were approved as part of the stability of the sector report in February 2024;

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to find a source of funding including any unspent previously approved sources of funding, including previously allocated Operating Budget Contingency Reserve funds;

e)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts which are necessary in relation to this project; and

f)     the approval given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation of the City of London entering into new and/or amending existing Purchase of Service Agreements with agencies identified through the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy to deliver the approved services.

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the motion BE AMENDED to include a new part g) to read as follows:

g)    that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee on the existing public washroom facilities across the city, their hours of operation, their locations, their staffing requirements, and information about usage, to allow Council to determine if there is sufficient public washroom access and if the hours of operation align with community programming and our encampment/basic needs services.

Motion Passed (9 to 6)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That parts c) and d) of the Basic Needs Response Plan BE REFERRED to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to allow Civic Administration to provide a report on the City of London application for the $250M of Federal funding for encampments announced April 12, 2024;

it being noted the report will provide an update on the status of the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP) funding, confirm the plans for a cold weather response for 2024 and if it will align with the Basic Needs plans, which is seeking funding into July 2025.

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the referral BE AMENDED to include a new part to read as follows:

that Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to continue the depot meal program until the time of which the Basic Needs Response Plan is approved by Council and to find a source of funding including any unspent previously approved sources of funding, including previously allocated Operating Budget Contingency Reserve funds;

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the referral, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Moved by S. Trosow

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the balance of the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.3   SS-2024-205 Single Source: Supportive Housing Model at 46 Elmwood Place

2024-06-18 Staff Report - SS-2024-205 Single Source Supportive Housing Model

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to a SS-2024-205 Single Source: Supportive Housing Model at 46 Elmwood Place:

a)    pursuant to the pre-qualification of Indwell Community Homes under RFPQ-2023-810 – Affordable Housing Development Partners, a single source procurement in accordance with s. 14.4(e) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy BE APPROVED to Indwell Community Homes to deliver a 50-unit Highly Supportive Housing project at 46 Elmwood Place that includes a one-time capital contribution up to a limit of $2,044,964 funded from the Housing Accelerator Fund;

b)    funding for the initial one-time capital costs referenced in part a), above, BE APPROVED, as outlined in the Source of Financing Report as appended to the staff report dated June 18, 2024 as Appendix “B”;

c)    an annual housing supplement budget BE APPROVED for up to $500,000 for the Highly Supportive Housing project at 46 Elmwood Place;

d)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to request funding from the Fund for Change to be provided by the Fund for Change to Indwell Community Homes to fund the estimated one-time operating costs of Indwell Community Homes at an approximate cost of $1,700,000;

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to seek funding from the Fund for Change to fund the capital request to Indwell Community Homes associated with the re-development of the property for a total estimated amount of up to $4,000,000;

f)    the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, or written designate, CONTINUE TO refine the capital and operating budget estimates in (a), (c), (d) and (e) above;

g)    the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on June 25, 2024 to:

i)  authorize the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development to approve and execute agreement(s) between The Corporation of the City of London and Indwell Community Homes to address the capital funding and operational funding;

ii)  authorize the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development to approve and execute any amending agreements between The  Corporation of the City of London and Indwell Community Homes that do not require additional funding;

h)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all other administrative acts necessary in connection with this project;

it being noted that where delegated authority does not currently exist for agreements associated with the budget estimates noted in (f), the Civic Administration shall seek approval from Council prior to execution and or amendments.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.4   Consideration of Appointment to RBC Place London Board of Directors (Requires 1 Council Member)

Moved by S. Lehman

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Councillor J. Pribil BE APPOINTED to RBC Place London Board of Directors for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   (ADDED) Appointment of Consultant for RFP 2024-113 Community Improvement Plan to Encourage Residential Development Near Transit

2024-06-18 Staff Report - (5.1) Appointment of Consultant-Community Improvement Plan

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the appointment of a consultant for a Community Improvement Plan to Encourage Residential Development Near Transit:

a)    N. Barry Lyon Consulting, BE APPOINTED Consultant to undertake the said project, in the amount of $106,280.00 (excluding HST), in accordance with Section 12.2 (b) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

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

c)    the approvals given herein BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract with the consultant for the work; and

d)    the Mayor and City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute any contract or other documents, if required, to give effect to these recommendations.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

6.   Confidential 

6.1   Solicitor-Client Privilege/Land Acquisition

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session to consider the following:

6.1 Solicitor-Client Privilege/Land Acquisition

A matter pertaining to advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege and land acquisition, including communications necessary for that purpose with respect to the Master Accommodation Plan - Redevelopment of City Hall Campus and the communication dated June 14, 2024 from J. M. Fleming, Principal, City Planning Solutions regarding an unsolicited proposal for a city-owned City Hall facility on the Market Block in Downtown London.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

That Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session, from 7:57 PM to 8:49 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 9:51 PM.

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (8 hours, 14 minutes)

Afternoon colleagues, I am gonna call the 11th meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to order, and I wanna start by acknowledging that the City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwok, and Adawanda and Peoples. And we honor and respect the history, language, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. The City of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples, and as representatives of the people of the City of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. I also want to, as we always do, acknowledge that the City of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request.

And to make a request specific to this meeting, you can email sppc@london.ca or phone 519-661-2489, extension 2425. Colleagues, I’m going to begin by looking for any disclosures of pecuniary interest. Seeing none, moving along then, we have two items on the consent agenda. I am aware of a request to pull 2.1, and I’ve also had a request to pull 2.2.

So that leaves no items on the consent agenda. Those will be moved to deferred matters at the end of our other scheduled items. That will take us on to scheduled items. And the first item is the London and Middlesex community housing 2023 annual general meeting of the shareholder annual resolutions.

That item is not scheduled until 105. And so we are going to pause just until 105. And then we will begin with that presentation. I believe Mr.

Chisholm and Mr. Squire are with us in the room. So we will invite them to come to the podium at 105 to begin their presentation. Mr.

Chair, would either of our presenters occur more than the five-minute allotment, if so, I’d be happy to move it now, and we could put on that in advance, if procedurally accurate? So we did not have a request from LMCH for more than five minutes in advance, but I will entertain a, first we’ll check with Mr. Squire and make sure that the podium is at the right height for him. Can’t have you back in chambers, Councillor Squire, former Councillor, without picking up where you and I left off.

So just use the microphone so that the folks watch it. It could be 10 minutes, I suppose. Okay, so— - Maybe excite questions. Appreciate you teeing that up for us.

Councillor Ploza, did you wish to move a time extension? I’ll move up to 10 minutes and I could take what they need of that. Okay, so looking for a seconder, Councillor Stevenson, any questions or comments on the time extension for this delegation? Seeing none, then I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote to extend the time.

To bring votes, yes. Councillor votes, yes. Oh, yes. Councillor Trassau?

No, yes. Fosing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. So when we hit 105, Mr.

Squire, we will go to you for your presentation. We’ve got about a minute. I’m just gonna take this opportunity to remind colleagues and to advise the public as well. We have a pretty extensive agenda today, almost 900 pages in length.

There is no meal break planned for this afternoon. There will be for Councillors refreshments in the Councillors lounge later on. I’ll let you know when they arrive. I would invite Councillors to simply go and get themselves something and come back.

It is my intention to continue on and get through as many of these items as we can without requiring a time extension past 6 p.m. So with that, it is now 105. So we are in order to begin. So Mr.

Squire and Mr. Chisholm, if you’d like to begin your presentation on behalf of LMCH, welcome to Council Chambers. Thank you, it’s great to be here. I wanna start off by just saying thank you to the city staff and all of you.

You’ve been very kind in terms of the funding that you provided to us. In terms of the budget, we’re happy with the allocation we received. And we also wanna thank you. I wanna thank you particularly for the change and the tenant criteria that you were able to pass in the last year.

We think that’s a major step in the long term and moving to the goal that we want to get to. I was here for a long time and when LMCH used to come here, it wasn’t a happy story. It was sort of a, we don’t have any money. Our buildings are getting old.

It wasn’t sort of an uplifting sort of thing. So I’m hoping I can give you a little of the opposite side today. Knowing that it’s a long road that we’re on. Since I’ve been on the board, we’re focused on really one thing and that’s our tenants.

Can we make things better for our tenants? Is the experience gonna be better for our tenants? So we don’t talk a lot about having more meetings or internal things like that. It’s like, are we delivering for our tenants and can we measure it?

Do we know that we’re doing it? I hope you saw a little bit of that. The two counselors who are on the board circulated some materials showing we’re doing better in our tenants, our vacancy rate. Also some really enlightening material about pest control.

It’s challenging, but now that we’re getting the material we need to do a better job, we’ve changed our provider. We know what we have to do in terms of providing tenants with assistance to prepare for pest control. So it’s gonna be more focused and we want it to be more focused on why aren’t we serving our tenants rather than why aren’t our tenants doing the things that we want them to do. But there’s still a little bit of that.

My two colleagues are on the board who are tenant representatives constantly talk about tenant responsibility. Tenants have to be involved in being responsible in providing access for pest control, not letting strangers into our buildings. They have to be part of the solution of that. I’ve gone to town hall meetings.

I’ve talked to lots of tenants. They’re aware of that. We have great tenants. We have some problem tenants, not gonna deny that, but largely we’re really helping people with their tendencies.

So that’s gonna be what’s gonna be happening as we go forward and you’re gonna see more of that material from us where we’re actually reporting to you on how we are managing. Next one will be security. How are we doing in making sure people aren’t in our buildings who are causing difficulties? The second thing that I really wanna talk about today is how we’re delivering housing.

We want to continue to do what we’re doing in reimagine London. We wanna continue to invest in the buildings we have, where we’re investing lots of money in new elevators, new infrastructure. But we want a mix in our housing that identifies with the reality of London. We have lots of people who need housing who won’t necessarily qualify for the rent gear to income approach.

So a building that has a mix of rent gear to income and other forms of affordable housing, which is really a housing that they can pay at the rate they can, they’re able to, it’s gonna be important to us. We’re managing for the city, the Ladybrook property. We would love to be involved in not moving forward. And governments have been really generous with us in terms of providing funding.

So do things change quickly at London Middlesex Community Housing? No, they don’t, unfortunately. We got lots of criticism, internal criticism, lots of external criticism. I’ve heard a lot of it myself.

We own that, that’s fine. Last year I know I was here and there was some criticism about tenants and what they had to say. You know, I’ve heard the tenants. I’ve gone to the meetings where I get to hear what they’ve had to say.

And we do the best we can to deliver on that. So today there’s complaints or questions. I’d love to hear them. I’ll try to respond to them as best I can.

But I’m joined here today by Paul. He’ll have more to say to you. And I’m joined here by our senior staff that we’re very proud of. So thank you very much for taking that few minutes to listen to what I had to say.

Thanks, Phil. And good afternoon, chair, members of council, city staff, members of the community, tenants, staff and neighbors of London Middlesex Community Housing. Thank you for joining us today as we present the annual report for London Middlesex Community Housing. As the largest provider of affordable housing in London and Middlesex County, our mission is to provide clean, safe and well-maintained homes to meet the needs of the people we serve in our community.

At LMCHR, vision is to build on inclusive communities where safe, affordable and accessible housing is the foundation of positive change. I’d like to share some key accomplishments from 2023, provide some updates on ongoing work and share our priorities as we forge a path forward to transform our vision to reality. LMCHR owns and operates over 3,200 homes, serving more than 5,000 tenants. We also provide property management service to two other buildings with more than 120 units of housing.

We provide housing to diverse cross-section of low to moderate income households, including families, seniors and adults. We’re funded by two primary sources, tenant rent and operating subsidies provided by multiple levels of government. So our total revenue was $28.6 million in 2023, a 4.8% increase over 2022. 51% of that revenue is from the city and 47% comes to the rent that tenants pay us.

We have a significant challenge in tenant rental revenue in the volatility of that, which makes it hard for us to sort of manage the budget through year-end. While we had a small operating deficit, we are trying to manage to a zero budget where we spend every dollar we receive in tenant rents and government subsidies on the operations of our buildings and investing in our communities. In terms of investing in communities, our maintenance and repair budget remains pretty stable year over year, over $7 million. We are increasing the amount of painting we’re doing within our buildings and as well as cleaning services to meet the needs of the tenants.

We also have cost pressures that are sort of out of LMCH control in terms of things like insurance, which is increased 23% in 2023 and has increased 100% since 2016. In 2023, we invested almost $14 million into our communities that included infrastructure gap funding provided by the city of London of over $7 million. With $2 million on Reimagine Southdale and move that project forward and the CMHC Repair and Renew program, we spent $4.6 million. While the supply challenges we experienced during the pandemic and prior years are diminishing, we still have some delays in moving some projects forward.

They’re now more predictable, but there is long timelines on certain projects. Capital project spending is on schedule, aligning with the asset management plan and in line with the approved multi-year business cases approved in the last multi-year budget of the city of London. For details of building specific projects, if you’re interested, they can be viewed in our presentation on slide 31 in the appendix. The $7 million we spent in regular capital included seven elevator projects, which we started and two which we completed in the year, full site paving for our limber loss community, 252 balcony repairs at McNae, two roofs replaced, and electrical panel upgrades and generator work at multiple sites.

In our CMHC Repair and Renew program, focused on energy accessibility and livability, we replaced 1,700 windows and doors at two sites, did nine paving projects at high-rise sites, two new playgrounds were added to our communities, and we kicked off a unit accessibility program to bring 400 accessible units into the LNCH portfolio. We approved phase one of reimagined Southdale with Jackman Construction brought on as the general contractor. In late 2023, 18 units were demolished to make way for 53 new purpose built units of affordable housing. Fast forward today, we’re currently working on the four story, which puts us on target for a summer 2025 occupancy, and we’re fully funded to start phase two of that project, which will begin in early 2025.

A focus of LNCH over the last number of years was to improve the vacancy. We set a vacancy rate of 3%. We improve the vacancy from 4.8% at the end of 2022 to 2.7% at the end of 2023. This means there are 65 more units available to be occupied by tenants in London.

We’re on track to maintain this in the coming years. And year to date, we are averaging a vacancy rate of 2.4%. And you can ask management seconds. Sorry to break your train of thought.

You’ve got about 30 seconds left. So I think part of the challenge that we face is making sure we’re engaging with our tenants. We have a community engagement manager, a community engagement team that is really working hard to develop community partnerships. We have great partnerships with the Canadian Mental Health Association, East Village Animal Hospital, Harvard’s Hands, London Police Service, and the London Community Chaplaincy and Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

Without those partnerships, our ability to serve the needs of our tenants is diminished. I think our focus as we move forward is to continue to work on the integrated past management, improve the cleanliness of buildings by bringing our cleaning services in-house. We’ve increased the community safety by doubling our community safety team by the end of 2024. And we’re going to update our tenant complaint process to create more visibility on complaints at a building level and create a better tenant experience.

Finally, I’d just like to thank City Council for your ongoing support. With our strategic plan in place to guide us through the next four years, we have a clear path to significant improve the lives of our tenants and building a healthy organization. Over the past three years, we have significantly improved our ability to invest in our communities. We’ve worked to meet and exceed vacancy target at 3%.

We’re making significant improvements with plans to improve past control and cleanliness. And we’re putting together a plan for our staff to meet and exceed the standards we are setting, investing in ourselves and our staff. We continue to do the essential work needed to achieve the priorities. Thank you, Mr.

Chisholm. Sorry, I just have to cut you off there. But I’m sure that you might be able to highlight some of those things and some of the questions that you might get from Council. So with that presentation, we will, first of all, look to see if there is a motion from Council to receive so that we can then begin to ask questions and comments.

So moved by Councilor McAllister and seconded by Councilor Cuddy. And that will be the receipt of the presentation, the financials and the annual report presentation that was in your package colleagues. So now we will open the floor to questions and comments. Councilor Trussa, Mr.

Chisholm, can you turn off your microphone? Okay, well, thank you for your presentation. I wanna start by acknowledging that you have made some really good progress on particular projects. I really like the fact that the new construction, you’re fixing some elevators, you’ve mentioned community partnerships.

My issue is, and it continues to be, and I don’t have enough evidence in front of me right now to be able to say I think you’re making progress on it. But my big concern is the condition of buildings. And I think that while the report that we’re going to be discussing later in the meeting regarding your asset management, which will go into a lot of detail about things like the infrastructure gap and your targets for what you’re looking to do, I won’t go into those details, not because I know they’re on the agenda later, but what I think is missing from this annual report, and I say this with all due respect, is more detail, more detail about the condition of the buildings. And I’m not even thinking in terms of tenant complaints, and I’m not even thinking in terms of the repairs that you have made.

I’m actually more concerned about the repairs that you haven’t made. And I think in order to get to the bottom of this, I want to suggest that we need regular, full, full, not just on a complaint basis, but full inspections. And one thing I learned from reading your asset management report was that you did a full set, well, nearly a full set of such inspections in 2015. And my hope would be that you’ve been doing those inspections on a rolling basis ever since, and you’re not just waiting for a code enforcement complaints to come in.

Could you talk about the level of how you go about routinely inspecting your properties? Mr. Chisholm. Thank you and through the chair.

You are correct, London Middlesex Committee Housing as an asset management plan approved in August of 2020. That asset management plan was used as a basis point to support the capital funding increases and the CMHC Repair and Renew program to help bring the state of repair of the LMCH portfolio up. That funding for the infrastructure gap continues till 2029. So the asset management plan was based on the reality of LMCH in 2018, 2019, based on building condition assessments done in 2015.

So since that time, we have continued to invest in our buildings. We do, our last rounds of building condition assessments was 21, 22, I do believe. So we did a full assessment of our portfolio at that time, which we fed into the system we used to manage our asset. In addition to that, we do engineering studies and other studies that help us prioritize within the pieces of work that needs to be done.

So that could be a balcony study to look at which balconies on which buildings require assistance, electrical studies, those types of things. So we use the BCA as our jumping off point, and then we do more detailed engineering assessments and we work with consultants and professionals to help identify where the priority work is in our portfolio. Councillor. Thank you, that’s helpful.

But what I’m still looking for is a more fulsome report on what the building condition assessments are, what the facility condition index is for each building. And I think that it’s not, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that kind of information be provided in an annual report. Because certainly with respect to your financials, you give a very, very full, you give a very, very full set of financial information. I am looking for the same level of detail with respect to measures like the facility condition index.

Would it be possible to get a building by building list of what the FCI is for each building? Mr. Chisholm. Through the chair, yeah.

We can definitely sort of provide that information to our board and then figure out at what mechanism it is to provide to council. Once it goes to the board, it will be a public document. We are currently working with the City of London to sort of integrate our asset management plan with the City of London structure and format to make sure it’s in a consistent format and the assessment is done at the same way. So that work is scheduled to be completed in early ‘22, ‘85.

So we can provide the revised asset management plan to our board and then through council. And then we can figure out from that report what else may be requested by the shareholder. Thank you, Mr. Chisholm.

Councillor Trussell. Okay, well, I’ll be looking forward to seeing those documents in detail because I think it really is very telling. It’s more useful than actually tenant complaints because it really gives me an across the board assessment of what the buildings are. And as a ward council with only three buildings in my ward, I think it’s my responsibility to really take a very hard look at those three buildings at least.

Now, if I understand what you said was, your asset management plan goes back to 2020, which means we’ll be getting another one next year if I understand that correctly. And that’s something that will be coming to council. Mr. Chisholm.

I can confirm that it is coming to our board and that we’re working with the city of London. I’m not sure the process of integrating the asset management plan into the city process. So I would defer to staff on that, but it will be provided to the city. So.

Okay, well, I think that’s very quick. Sorry, Councillor, I’m just going to touch it off there. I’m just going to go to Ms. Barbara and to see if she can provide further direction to you on how those come through to the city.

Thank you through the chair. So I believe Mr. Chisholm’s referring to the next update related to the asset management plan. So the one that is included in the committee report further on in the agenda is the 2020 plan.

So that is due for an update in 2025. So that’s what Mr. Chisholm’s referring to when that is complete, that once it is approved by the LMCH board, that would then come forward to council after the fact. Thank you for that, Ms.

Barbara. Councillor Trussa. That answers my questions for now and it gives me something to look forward to for next year. Thank you.

Looking for other speakers, Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions regarding rent revenue and areas.

So you wrote off 782 last year, currently 829, two questions. Are these usually the amounts? It is at the end of the year, 0.1 and 0.2. How long do you carry it before written off?

Mr. Chisholm. Thank you and through the chair. And when we write off former tenant arrears.

So when the tenancy ends, we write off those funds. So that’s the 782 you refer to. Current arrears are for current tenants and that amount we don’t write off until, well, they pay it back or the tenancy ends. So that has increased over time, but it’s pretty consistent over the last few years.

One of the nuances for us as a housing provider is most of our tenants are receiving a rent geared income. Rent geared income is an annual review process. And if the tenants don’t complete it, they’re shifted to market rent. So they might be expected to pay $200 a month.

And then if they don’t complete their annual review, their rent will move up to $800 a month. So therefore it creates rent arrears for that household, it’s $600 a month. So that number is what makes the volatility in the rental revenue and a challenge for tenants. So they look to be in arrears, but if we’re able to reestablish their subsidy, that arrears disappears.

So it’s a challenge for us to determine which the actual amount of arrears is, what can we expect repayment on? And that number in 2023 was $1.4 million in rent adjustments based on that, which is quite significant. And that is higher than pre-pandemic levels. So it’s significant shift from the last four years.

Councillor Pribble. Thank you. And CapEx $14 million, and I don’t know where it will sit in 2022, but is it usually on an annual basis around this amount, Mr. Chisholm?

Through the chair, I would believe in prior years, it was lower, specifically just getting the capital projects up and running, just with some of the supply chain challenges and doing the engineering work. We were sort of a little bit behind in the sort of 2020-21 years. So we expect it to be seven plus, eight plus, over the next three or four years, but I believe it was lower in prior years. Councillor Pribble.

In your statement, both for the financial CMHC repairs under CapEx and also building maintenance repairs in both ends, can you tell me kind of the difference, what you would put under the assets repairs and under the regular repairs in the financial statement? Mr. Chisholm. Sorry, through the chair, just gonna get some clarification on the question.

I didn’t quite follow. Councillor? In the regular financials, there’s building maintenance and repairs, $7.3 million, and then under the assets, CapEx, you have CMHC repair $4.6 million, including the renew program. So I was just wondering, will be kind of the allocation, which would go the asset repairs and which would go into the regular financial statement.

Just an example of. Mr. Chisholm, does that clarify for you? Thank you, and through the chair, the $7.7 million in maintenance and repair is just the general cost of plumbing repairs, unit turnover, cleaning programs, landscaping.

So it’s really the operating costs. Some of those costs are capitalized under our TCA policy, but it’s considered operating expenses. The CMHC repair and renew program is a $40 million fund to improve the energy efficiency, accessibility, and livability of our communities, which has specific requirements. So it’s a separately funded program.

So it’s reported separately for this purpose, and all of that is capital projects. Councillor Pribble, any further? Thank you. I do have one more question.

Tenant programs is roughly 30% down. Can you give an example of the tenant program and the time of that year? It was lower last year, about 30%, thank you. Mr.

Chisholm. Thank you, through the chair. The tenant programs are really the community engagement team and the work they’re doing. So we’re just getting back up to sort of pre-pandemic levels of engagement of our tenants.

So it could be investment in community gardens. It could be supporting a community grant for tenants to run a program or participate in something. So it’s funds just to sort of support tenant-led initiatives and tenant community building. Councillor Pribble, thank you.

No more questions but one comment. Congratulations on the vacancy rate and also the Southdale project. I tried to opportunity to see a couple of weeks ago. Congratulations on both.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Pribble, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, quite a few of my questions just got answered. So thank you for the update.

There are a lot of concerns in the social housing unit. So this report is helpful in terms of being able to provide some information to tenants and reassure them that more help is on the way. The pest management, I noticed it says the service recovery plan included a list of seven tasks. So that looks really good.

I do hear a lot of complaints about the pest management and it really does sound horrible. And so whatever we can do to improve that would be great. On page 620 it does talk about improving the tenant experience and it says finalize and implement the LMCH integrated pest management program. Set an IPM target of 10%.

Do you mind just explaining a little bit more about that? Mr. Chisholm, thank you and through the chair. Integrative pest management program is really just a structured approach to managing pests within our buildings.

Pests are fairly common and cross multi-residential buildings and private sector and condos and in the public sector as well. So the integrated pest management sets out how we’re going to treat the pests, how we’re gonna inspect what treatment approach we’re gonna take, what level of treatment, how we’re gonna support tenants with prepping their units. It goes through sort of it’s the guide that will help us make sure that we’re doing what we need to do to hit the 10%. So we’ve set a 10% target for pest control because that is sort of a private sector standard.

It is sort of we’re not going to eliminate but we’re going to manage them down as best we can. We’re right now at over 25% and some buildings are higher. And we’re seeing increases in the pest rate at this time because we’ve started to do things like block treatments and other proactive work to sort of find the root cause units for pest control. So if we’re treating somebody on a consistent basis and they are being cooperative, maybe the pests are coming from the neighboring unit above and below and things like that.

So we started adding in block treatments, diamond treatments and those types of things to find the source units so we can better eradicate the issue. And so the integrated pest management really just sets out that out as a policy and as a requirement of us. So we have an internal standard that we must achieve. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. And just recently I’m hearing more concerned about bed bugs. Previously it was cockroaches, that kind of thing but the bed bugs really are causing a lot of distress because of the bites and that kind of thing. Is that an additional challenge to the bed bugs or is that something that’s gonna be relieved with this program as well?

Mr. Chisholm. There are challenges in sort of increasing bed bugs across most housing. So our hope is that through the integrated pest management program we’re taking a consistent focused approach and we’re gonna be able to improve that.

What we’re finding is that there’s interruptions in service and treatments and things like that through various reasons including tenants and the provider. So we’re through the integrated pest management program. We’re more focused on that. We now have our internal data that tells us what the treatment, when the last treatment took place, how many treatments took place, what happened during the treatment.

So we’re better able to manage that in real time which was something we never had until late 2023. So we’re using that information to make sure the service follow ups are done and just addressing the escalated issues. So it’s not uncommon for someone to say I’m not getting what I expect for pest control treatment and we can quickly see that they are or they are not. And if there’s an issue, identify what that is and work with a tenant or somebody else to address that.

Councilor. Thank you. The other thing is the change we made in the ratio. I was just wondering, it’s great to hear the thank yous for that and when will we fully realize the benefit of that?

And is there another ask to council? Is there more that we can do to help that situation? Mr. Chisholm.

Through the chair, we will say we’re optimistic about the change. So we hear anecdotally from our staff who do tenant placement that they’re seeing a shift in the applicants who are viewing the units which provides us hope. I think the challenge is we turn maybe 10% of our units on an annual basis. So this change will be slow and it’s not sort of a magic pill.

So we need to make sure we have the transitional and supportive housing in the community that meets the needs of the tenants who aren’t being served. We need to make sure the agencies are funded to support tenants who are housed to be successful and we’re not to be transitioned to other housing where they can be successful. And we can continue to support our tenants as best we can and work with our complaint process to deal with some of the behaviors. But it is a long-term roadmap.

I mean, I think it was 15 to 20 years that we’ve had this ratio. So we would say, you know, 10 years would be a reasonable kind of roadmap to see any substantive improvement. Thank you, Mr. Chisholm.

Councillor Stevenson, anything further? Yeah, well, I was hoping for a lot faster than that but thank you for that. And in that regard, there is a requirement, I believe that provincially, that there’d be a house ability requirement met before people get put on the list. Are we doing a good job of that?

Like are we making sure that as we turn this small 10% each year that we’re doing the best job we can, at least of making sure that people are set up for success, both the new tenants and the ones currently there? Mr. Chisholm, through the chair, I can’t speak to the screening process, get on the wait list for subsidized housing in the city of London. I know our ability to decline housing is restrictive under the Housing Services Act, which is the act that we have.

So I would just defer that to city staff because I wouldn’t be able to answer if there’s currently a screening process in place and how effective it is. Councillor. Can we have an answer from city staff or is that a later time? I can go to Mr.

Dickens or Mr. Cooper. I see Mr. Dickens pointing to Mr.

Cooper. So Mr. Cooper, you are up. Thank you and through the chair, the eligibility for our community housing is established through regulation by the province.

You do note the independent living aspect of that. Our teams are currently reviewing an assessment tool to try and help us understand somebody’s ability to ensure they’re successful in their independent living. We do look at our rears as well as part of our matching requirement, but most of the eligibility is actually established by the province through regulation. Councillor.

Thank you, that’s good. Okay, then moving on and Councillor McAllister, I saw your hand, so I’ll add you to the list. I have Councillor Hopkins, then Councillor Layman, and then Councillor McAllister, Councillor Hopkins. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you, Mr. Chisholm. I first of all wanna congratulate you on the vacancy rate getting that below 3% as a former board member. I know how challenging that is, and I wanna thank you and your staff for that.

Also, the 53 units itself, Dale, I think that’s quite exciting, and looking forward to, I guess, the opening next year of that development. Looking ahead, though, in your presentation, you touched upon very quickly about the partnerships that you have in the community, but also looking ahead, the importance of tenant support. I know in the report, it was mentioned the possibility of, like, a community office on Warren Cliff. I wonder if you can expand, not only just on that office, but on what the plans for tenant supports moving forward.

Mr. Chisholm. Thank you, and through the chair. Yes, there is a plan to open a community office, and the first one is in Warren Cliff.

It is a community that doesn’t have a community partner located at it, and it’s sort of, there’s a high volume of tenants, and there’s some challenges on that site, so I think having a site presence will give tenants a place to request service and engage with us and help us better support that community. So we’re looking at where we’re located. We do not all need to be in our main office, so for creating a staff presence in the community is important to us. So Warren Cliff office, we hope to have open in January, and we’re gonna put an office in our self-dale community.

So just to make sure that we’re more accessible to staff, or for tenants, sorry. And we do have to review our tenants intake and support processes and programs. I highlight in the annual report and the presentation, the success we’ve had with the housing stability case coordinators that really help address some of the tenants that are struggling, and that have the ability to save their tenancy, and we highlighted the sort of managing the complaint process differently. What we need to determine is what are the current needs of our tenants, and how do we realign our support programs to better meet their needs?

We have a small number of high needs tenants that consume it in order to amount of our energy as an organization, from our community safety team to our tenant services and proper services team. So we want to sort of reallocate the resources and sort of deal with the problematic tendencies as best we can, but make sure all tenants are served. So we have to do a little bit of a review on that through the course of the year, and we’re hoping to add more, we have plans to add more staff in January of next year to sort of whether it’s focused on one or two buildings, or whether it’s deployed differently. That’s the questions we have to answer internally.

Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, and thank you for that information. I think that’s good information to know. So as you reallocate these resources to support the tenants, how is the funding working there, or are you supported at all by the increase of supports that may be needed?

How is that done? Mr. Chisholm, thank you. The majority of the supports are sort of embedded in our operating funding.

So that is coming with from the city funding and from the tenant rent. So we do get external funding sources for the supports. That’s why partnerships with CMHA and others are critically important. We are in conversations with the Ministry of Housing on how do we better support complex tendencies?

You’ll see some pilot programs and other local housing corporations where they’re working with their health units to do things like that. So we’re trying to see what model might work in London. How does it work with the housing and homelessness work that’s happening here, et cetera? Just to sort of, we can’t fund the level supports needed by our tenants.

They are part of the community. They are citizens of London and Middlesex County and they should be able to access the services available to the broader community. So we sort of take that approach of how can health or other program funders make sure they have a presence and meet the needs of our tenants. And Councillor Hopkins, I’ll come back to you.

I’m just going to ask if perhaps Mr. Chisholm might want to, as a for example, share the partnership that was undertaken with literacy link in terms of the adult digital education piece that was done with some of our tenants. As an example of where some of the external, ‘cause I think to Councillor Hopkins’ point that there might be some value to people knowing about that, I’m sorry to put you on the spot, but. Through the chair, I’d just like to ask Andrew McKenzie, our director of tenant services to respond to that.

So we’ll invite Ms. McKenzie to the mic up in the gallery and we’ll get IT to activate that so she can share some additional information. Good, okay, thank you and through the chair. Thank you, you can’t hear me, still better.

Okay, I’ll ask you down, sorry. We have a number of programs and literacy link was actually a relatively recent addition to our community engagement team. So what we are doing is bringing digital literacy to actually our seniors’ buildings. It’s to provide a little bit more education on cybersecurity awareness on the computers, how to be a little bit more comfortable in this day and age and using computers for our senior population.

Most of the adults in our buildings are quite good at using a smartphone or a computer, but we seem less of that with the senior population. So it’s been a really positive impact that we’ve seen at a couple of the sites. And so that’s been a literacy link was also supported through Fanshawe College. And yeah, I think that’s just one of many.

We have a number of programs, thank you. Thank you, Ms. McKenzie, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you for that, it’s good to know all of these partnerships that are going on.

I just want to, again, thank you and really glad to know that you are looking at other models of support and the need is great with tenants and supporting them and looking at, I guess, the challenges that lay ahead, especially when it comes to that financial burden that’s placed upon London Middlesex community housing. So thanks again. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins. Councillor Lehman, I have you next.

Thank you, Chair, and through you to Mr. Chisholm, thank you for your report today. Can you tell us about refurbishing units? So when a tenant leaves a unit and before you bring it back to market, you will go in and refurbish the unit to get it prepared for a new tenant.

Approximately how many days are you looking at now to get those units back on the market? Mr. Chisholm, thank you, and through the chair. That is a tough question to give a day to, but I will sort of walk you through our process.

As soon as the units confirm vacant, we do pass control for the unit, and then in most circumstances, we actually need to bring in a separate company to debrief the unit. They have to take all the personal effects out, and that could be quite extensive. So once that’s done, we will bring in a, and our property manager will assess the unit to determine whether the level of repair is something we can do quickly in-house, or whether we need to bring it outside vendor. So depending on the level of S control issues in the unit and the level of repair, we can be turning that unit in 30, 60 days.

It’s, we’re running, I think, an average of about 88 days, if I remember the numbers now, so it has come down significantly, but there is a significant piece of the time is sort of doing pest control to bring in the unit, and the other thing that we’ve been doing more is removing the asbestos containing flooring in the units, if it’s damaged, which adds a little bit of length and expense, so that we sort of remove that hazard from the building, put in new flooring, so that we’re sort of, that adds a few weeks and a few thousand dollars, but it’s something that needs to be done, so we’ll rather do when the unit’s vacant. Councillor Layman. Thank you, Chair and through you, that’s really good news, ‘cause I remember last term, we had significant concerns. I think it was up around 140 days, and we were turning units over, which I believe has led to probably one of the contributors to seeing your vacancy rate being chopped in half as Councillor Hopkins alluded to.

I just want to kind of delve into that a bit. That’s an important number, a number of factors. One, it’s 65 more units, which I’m sure the average number of people’s one point something per unit or something, so it’s all over 65 more people that are finding affordable shelter, which is critical at this particular time. The other thought side of things is you’re collecting rent now on approximately 65 more units.

I’m sure that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars that’s now collected, so I can go to pay for things like pest control, elevators, refurbishments, improvements in the buildings themselves. So besides turning units over quickly, what else has contributed to getting that vacancy rate down or having it almost? Mr. Chisholm.

Thank you and through the chair. It really took a focused approach with our vendors and sort of making sure we had good quotes that focused on the basics with them. What’s the price? What’s the scope of work and what’s the quality you’re delivering on and what’s the timeline?

So really just getting back to the basics, engaging a few new vendors, making it a competitive process and just sort of demonstrating with staff that they can do better. And when operationally, if they’re managing 20 vacancies a month versus 60 vacancies a month in their portfolio, it’s way easier to keep on top of vendors and things like that. So it has a compound positive effect that is helping us. Councillor.

Final question through charges. Are there other contributing factors though to lowering the vacancy rate other than just getting the units quicker onto market? Is there better coordination with city staff or getting weightless address or internal procedures that are becoming more efficient? Mr.

Chisholm. Through the chair, the process to rent a vacant unit is pretty stable over the last few years. So that it is really just in coordinating with the property services staff. We’ve increased the number of maintenance repair staff as well by 40% over the last five years is to deal with the backlog in both vacancies and maintenance repair.

So we have a more robust team where they’re focused and they are working closely with their vendors. Councillor. Thank you, Chair. Councillor McAllister.

Thank you and through the chair. I want to start off by thanking Mr. Chisholm, Mr. Squire.

We were missed without thanking our vice chair who is also of the county representative Mayor Grantham from Strathroy. I also want to thank LMCH staff, past and present board members. Really appreciate working with them. And also for the tenants for providing us the feedback and giving us that insight into what we need to do.

And I think this has already been said, but I did just want to stress the importance of the vacancy rate. That was something as a board that we’ve been very intentional about looking at. It’s something that comes up at all of our meetings. We laser focused on that.

So great to see that come down. I think that’s a big win that we really need to highlight. And the other one I want to highlight has been brought up a few times today as well as the Southdale Reimagine Project. And I think that that’s critically important to recognize the reinvestment we’re seeing and that we need new construction.

We need more density. We know the need is great in the community. But what I found really inspiring about this project is we’ve been able to obviously take down the townhouses, build mid rises, increase the density on that site and using the assets we have at our disposal and maximizing them to help the community as much as we can. And to that point also, and I know some of my colleagues, I appreciate you coming out, touring that site, that’s great.

I know some of the other colleagues have gone to other sites in the LMCH portfolio. And I highly recommend if you haven’t done so in your own wards, please do so. And I wanted to point out of Councillor Ferriene, I did a tour of the Walnut location. And one of the things I also found inspiring with that was that being able to tap into those CMHC programs and the accessibility units being turned over, it really is night and day when you look at the unit.

So we looked at a unit flashback to the 70s had not really changed much. And Mr. Chisholm spoke about in terms of having to deal with the floors, these besties, there’s a lot of things when things have been left for too long that have to be dealt with. And so that does impact obviously the cost, but having these programs available has greatly helped us to rejuvenate our portfolio.

So I think we’d need to really call those out, highly recommend at all levels of government make those programs available because it’s needed across the board, not just for London, but in the province. And I do just want to end as we do have ammo coming up, we’ve heard it a few times today. This gives us great insight in terms of having those conversations with our provincial partners where we need to see the reinvestment. And I would just say to, you know, with our tenants, some of them being on OW, ODSP, those housing allowances, critically important to have those conversations ‘cause we really do need those funds.

So people have the money to be able to pay for their accommodations, but also recognize the cost of living, food, and everything else that goes along with that. So I again, just want to end by thanking the board, LMCH staff, and the tenants. So thank you, I appreciate being on this board, giving me a lot of good insight, thank you. Thank you, Councillor McAllister, looking for any further speakers.

Seeing none, then I’m just going to take 10 seconds, very quickly from the chair to echo what Councillor McAllister just said, and in particular, my thanks to Mr. Chisholm, Mr. Squire, and the senior leadership team at LMCH for your patience and tolerance and putting up with me at board meetings and committee meetings, and always being ready to get answers, and when you don’t have them at hand, getting back to me later. So I really do appreciate the work you do, and just wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you.

So with no one else on the speakers list, I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. Oh, yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues.

So moving on, and thank you, LMCH representatives for your time this afternoon, joining us here in chambers. Moving on, our next item on the agenda, 3.2, is the Housing Development Corporation, the HDC 2023, annual general meeting of the shareholder annual resolutions. And I’m just going to look to staff to see if there’s any presentation for this, or if we can go right to receipt, and I’m seeing Mr. Felberg saying we can go right to receipt.

So I will look to see if there’s a motion to receive, and then we can entertain any questions. Moved by Councillor Cudi, seconded by Councillor Hopkins. Looking for any speakers on this one. Seeing none, then I will, Councillor Preble.

Thank you, I do have one question for the staff. It stays the White House strategy, will be presented to the Council 2024, with the completing by December 31st, 2024, and approximate date when it will come back, as the strategy to the Council, thank you. Mr. Felberg.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and through you. So right now what we’re waiting for is we’re waiting on tax advice, land transfer tax advice, so that we can limit the cost of the transfer of existing HDC properties back to the city. So once that comes before us, we’ll be bringing that report forward to SPPC and have you folks make a decision on that.

Our intention would be likely August of this summer, with the wind down activities happening before the end of the year. Thank you, Mr. Felberg, Councillor Preble. One follow-up of any potential delays, or are we still on track by the end of this year to widen it completely down?

Mr. Felberg. Through you, Mr. Chair.

As far as I know, everything is on track, and we should have had something by the end of the summer to you. Thank you very much, no more questions? Thank you, Councillor. As I have no other speakers, I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote.

The vote, yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on, our next scheduled item is the public participation meeting, the 2025 general management implementation strategy, otherwise known as the GMIS.

There was an added presentation from staff, so I am first going to go to Mr. Mathers and his team if they wish to provide us a brief overview on the added information. Thank you, through the chair. So the PowerPoint slides were meant for additional information, but I will quickly summarize some of the key points in the report.

So the GMIS is the annual review of scheduling of capital infrastructure projects required to facilitate new housing units. So it’s focused on green field areas and it’s things like water mains, storm water management ponds, water mains, sewer mains. The GMIS is included in the development charges background study and they are each assigned a year and an estimated cost to be collected for. The annual review adjusts projected timing reflect the pace of growth and ensure the ability to pay for the projects.

Projects can be advanced or maintained or deferred in each year, paying for the projects based on reserve funds and level construction coming in through the DCs collected. And the timing of projects is updated annually so the city’s investments are made prematurely and the timing aligns with the development and construction process of private developers. So the money is allocated and infrastructure built only once it’s needed. Consultation is an important element of the annual review process.

So first there’s a kickoff meeting in early April with the development industry which identifies growth trends of the past year. Then there’s one on one interviews held with interested developers to discuss GMIS timing, subdivision application timing and any changes that are being requested. And then there’s a check and meeting at the end of May where recommended adjustments to those projects are discussed as well. Staff review for any changes that are requested are based on three tests whether the project is needed for additional buildable lots required for the demand in any particular green field area, whether the developers sufficiently progress their development application or if not a deferral perhaps, otherwise advancements are maintaining.

And then third is a review of reserve funds to ensure projects can be afforded. The results of this particular year’s review are eight deferrals, three advancements, and then one advancement of a DC project that isn’t a GMIS project but is very much related. That’s the Clayley Road at Webster to Clark. Also noting that the timing adjustment for underground works in the Clayley area are dependent upon the adjacent landowner completing their works first.

The recommended timing adjustments can be accommodated with the financial plan and maps and tables are included in slides 20 through 29 of the added agenda. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Macbeth.

So this is a public participation meeting on the schedule colleagues. So I’m now going to look for a motion to open the PPM moved by Councillor ramen and seconded by Councillor Cribble. And I will ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Mr.

Van Mierbergen. Vote yes. Posing the vote motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues.

So we will now open the opportunity for members of the public to speak to us on this item. I feel like I’m at a planning committee meeting, seeing the first speaker at the microphone. If you can give us your name, sir, and then you have five minutes. Thank you, Mr.

Chair and Deputy Mayor Lewis, not some other name that I put in an email this week. But anyways— Can we just make sure that the microphone’s on? Sorry, we weren’t getting you there, Mr. Walz.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m here today as on behalf of the industry to talk a little bit about the GMAS process.

I’m not going to talk about individual moves that are happening on individual properties. That’s, we appreciate the opportunity as an industry and individual developers to come and have that discussion in the spring every year on what can move forward, what needs to be pushed off. It’s often due to marketplace issues. We do need to remind Council that this is a just-in-time arrival program that you have an implementation, management and retention program, that is to make sure that the infrastructure is in place when we are ready to actually start the developments.

We think that there’s some potential with the GMAS program to be able to be a driver of development and making sure we capture all aspects of development that is needed to going forward to actually drive the opportunity for development within the city to make sure that you get to your 47,000 homes coming forward. You’ll see a chart there that shows we were well ahead of the curve a number of years ago, then just raise change, we’re down a bit, but we have been in, as an industry in full force and you’ve seen a lot of it at your table, still moving forward with the development process. Not all delays are our fault, not all delays are your fault, but there is a mix of why projects are going forward at the time that they were indicated, especially through the DC process. The other thing that I wanted to take an opportunity to say, ‘cause it’s in the report, is that, and it was mentioned by staff, by Travis, that it’s mostly around, it’s 100% at this point around Greenfield.

We think, and I think going forward, there’s an opportunity to review what a GMAS program could look like for areas in the built area boundary where people seem to think that because there’s a pipe in the ground that you’re able to develop, and we know for a fact that that is a little bit of a pipe dream, and that was, upon intended, that the capacity isn’t necessarily there, and that the vision that the city council has for infill and the development that can happen within the built area boundary might not be absolutely possible because the infrastructure is not there. So in the report, it indicated that going forward, that there will be a review of a built area GMAS program, which we wanna be involved in to make sure that it’s accurate, and that we can actually deliver on that growth that could happen within the built area boundary. The other thing I want you to keep in mind is that, we don’t believe that the industry should be paying for that infrastructure to the full extent, that there’s an opportunity now with the province and the feds and the number of programs that they have that are infrastructure related, that the money that municipalities be able to attract to identify programs for redevelopment and development within the built area boundary, that that money should be used for infrastructure change growth to be able to support that infrastructure or support that development within that built area boundary. So we look forward to working with staff over the next year on these issues, and we appreciate the process that we have going forward, and we hope to make it better for the future years.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, thank you, Mr. Wallace, and now I know we’re not at planning ‘cause you didn’t use your full five minutes.

We’ll look to see if there are other speakers to the GMAS. Come, sir, if we can just get your name and then you have five minutes. Yes, thanks very much. Now we’ll need the five minutes.

My name is Charles Spina. I’ve attended, so I’m a rate pair, I’m not a developer, and I’ve attended three GMAS meetings today, and I think the presentations are very well put together. They’re thorough, and I have no reason to believe they’re not accurate. But my primary observation is that, for the last 10 years running, the actual building has fallen dramatically short, I would say, of projections.

And what I would just suggest is that, as part of the scope of these presentations, there actually be a strategy statement that is designed to address the reasons for that shortfall. And that’s really all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

We appreciate that feedback. Looking for any other speakers, I’m seeing none in the gallery, and I’ll just check with the clerk to confirm there are none online, and there are none online. So I will look for a motion to close the PPM. Moved by Councillor Ploza and seconded by Councillor Ferrera, and I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that.

Vote yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Now I’m gonna look for a mover and a seconder for the staff recommendation, and then we can get into comments, questions, and other procedures.

Moved by Councillor Cuddy and seconded by Councillor Pribble. Now we can move into questions and comments, and/or any amendments or anything that colleagues wish to make, so I’ll look for speakers. Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, to the staff. By the way, thank you for this report as well, and I think that it was the roadmap is very well kind of done, and the outlook is there, the vision is there. My question is more in terms of, when I look at the proposed dates, if there are certain on the ongoing basis, how do we work with the developers in terms of the dates, and especially if they request to push certain things up? If there are certain things that are potentially delayed from our end, that we can, my point is how flexible we are, and how often we are in contact with the developers, with the private sector, to potentially push things through, thank you.

And we’ll go to Mr. Macbeth for that. Yeah, thank you, through the chair. So there’s the ongoing planning applications, any of these subdivisions and sites specifically, but then we also get to the annual GMIS updates, and if projects are advancing, anyone that maybe deferred this year could be advanced come next year, so that’s why we do it as an annual process.

Councillor Pribble. And there was the mention of the review, or review board, review committee, that was gonna be associated together with the update, or this review is gonna be on more regular, shorter basis. Mr. Macbeth.

Through the chair. The other review is going to be starting this year, leading into the next GMIS review, and it would be an approach to how we deal with lands with inside the built area boundary. So currently there is a built area works, which is a general pot of money, but whether or not there would be any specific projects identified within the built area that much like the Greenfield ones have an estimated time and an estimated cost that could be specified. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Macbeth. Councillor Pribble, anything further? Thank you, Chair.

No more questions. Thank you for the answer. And I have Mayor Morgan next. Yes, thank you, and I’m supportive of the recommendations.

I think that the GMIS program over my time on council has been very successful in allowing us to make those annual adjustments to the capital plan and consultation with those who actually are building and bringing the projects to fruition to, and through you, Mr. Chair, some comments on what Mr. Wallace said. I definitely agree that there’s opportunity for us to think about working with the group that supports the GMIS in a broader context, whether that’s within the built area boundary or even to conceptualize projects to forward for federal and provincial funding when they bring forward, which they have, housing enabling infrastructure, which is mainly water and wastewater projects.

Now, I’ll say, you know, the challenge with that is at the provincial level, my understanding is that the program is grossly oversubscribed, dwarfing the money allocated by applications, I think in excess of two to three billion dollars. So municipalities are well positioned to forward projects, forwarding the right projects at the right time and the right way, I think is important. When these applications open for federal and provincial funding, you know, we need to be well positioned to put in as much as we possibly can that will have the biggest impact that it possibly can. And I think, you know, our staff have done a good job recently, but anything we can do to structure things in the pipeline, whether it’s things that are not currently contemplated in the DCs or things that are currently contemplated in the DCs that are projects that can be forwarded.

And I think we have to think about projects that are in the DCs getting asked for federal and provincial money. We know through the potential of a federal DC freeze, if we wanna access other funding, there’s gonna be more and more pressure on the capacity of the DC fund to be able to fund the infrastructure, which means we basically have to pull projects out of there and ask the federal and provincial governments to fund them directly, because we’re not gonna be able to fund them with the pressure within the DC fund. Again, being strategic about the projects so that we enable the right type of housing at the right time. The other piece that I think we have to be conscious about when we think about the adjustments that are made in the servicing through the GMIS project is the provinces move towards saying municipalities will have the ability in the future to prioritize and reallocate servicing capacity within the existing built infrastructure to try to push along developments for those who have servicing capacity and aren’t using it.

That needs to be reallocated to those who are gonna actually build housing in a fairly quick way. And so as our ability to come forward with areas of the city where that might be relevant, I think the work within the GMIS structure and the partners who put feedback into that, there’s a lot here that is moving, both within our existing municipal operations as well as, provincially and federally, that compel us to think very carefully about the way that we envision servicing and our ability to react quickly to changes of circumstances, changes of legislation and changes of funding. So I’m very supportive of this report, but I think I just wanted to make some comments ‘cause I think Mr. Wallace raises a number of things that are out there based on changes of provincial and federal legislation or programs that layered into everything we do with the way that we support development and the way that we service it and make sure there’s adequate servicing both within the current built barrier boundary and the new Greenfield development as well.

Thank you, Mayor Morgan, any other speakers? Seeing none, then I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. Oh, yes. Mr.

Trossall votes yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you colleagues, that completes our scheduled items portion of the agenda. Moving on, we have items for direction.

Item 4.1 is London’s Health and Homelessness Hall of Community Response, proposed community encampment response plan. We have a scheduled presentation from Ms. McDonald and Mr. Nash, unlike with LMCH where I did not have a chance to ask and I appreciate Councillor Palose’s assistance with that one.

We do have a request for Council to consider a 10 minute presentation rather than a five. So I’m looking to see if there’s a move or a seconder in Councillor Palose and Ferreira. So I will ask the clerk to open a vote on the time extension for that. Oh, yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you and Mr. Nash and Ms. McDonald, if you’d like to come to the podium and as you’ve heard, we’ve got 10 minutes now for you to give us your presentation.

So we’ll just give you a moment to get ready and you start when you’re ready to go. Thank you and through the chair. The community encampment plan is the third pillar of the Health and Homelessness Response, focused on those who are chronically unhoused with complex medical and mental health challenges. I’m Chantal McDonald.

I’m a director of service at London Cares and also a co-chair of the encampment table. Good afternoon. To the chair, I’m Greg Nash, director at the London Inter-Community Health Center and co-chair of the encampment implementation table with Chantal McDonald. This third pillar of the Health and Homelessness Response will increase and improve supports to those who are unsheltered in our city and better managing encampments within our community.

London, like many other cities in Canada, is facing a health and homelessness crisis. There are many encampments across our city and there continues to be a critical need for affordable housing in our community. We’re making progress towards bringing support of an affordable housing to London, but demand still paces supply. This is where there’s recognition by the city of London that encampments are a reality.

We must address with a longer-term outlook. In the mirror term, we are looking to make the city as clean and safe as possible. And to ensure individuals and families living in shelter have access and supports to resources. Linging people to shelter is a priority.

However, we also know there aren’t enough indoor spaces to accommodate the volume of need in our community. We continue to actively support these individuals where there are, while connecting them to services and indoor spaces. Our ultimate goal is to help Londoners become stably housed. We know there is still much work to be done in this front and we’re unwavering in our commitment to accomplish that goal, to provide safe and affordable housing with needed medical, mental health and support services.

The year ago this past November, developers, businesses, first responders, health, mental health and social services organizations came together to develop the health and homelessness response, a whole of community approach to solving this crisis in our community. This is a new way to support marginalized individuals experiencing homelessness as well as reduce the strain on the system and in our broader community. We’re now in the process of implementing that response. A new system combines primary care, mental health support with housing in two main ways.

Hubs, as you know, offer a full range of services and the newly approved, highly supportive housing plan extends that to full rock-round supports for individuals who are experiencing homelessness. The approach we’re taking is to help Londoners with the highest need move safely inside. Help stabilize them, wrap around them with supports, connect them to the right type of housing and help them stay housed for long term. Put simply, housing and health are the fundamental core to this plan.

Today, 40 plus individuals have moved into one of two hubs, already in operation, as well as 100 plus individuals moved from encampments into highly supportive housing. And with the announcement late last week, more development are on the way and more to come. This afternoon, we are seeking endorsement from council for the Health and Homelessness Community Engagement Plan. Path to the path from encampments to housing starts with intentional outreach geared towards bringing people indoors.

At the same time, we need to address people’s basic needs and help keep them who are unsheltered, help keep them safe and alive. What we know that hubs and highly supportive housing are the solution in our community to address this crisis. Building this type of housing to scale will take some time. So we need to make sure that we also address basic needs to support individuals living in encampments, keeping people safe and alive as long as possible.

The three key components to the community encampment plan are transactional outreach, transformational outreach, and encampment protocols. These key components have been identified through feedback from the community, businesses, developers, and professionals service sector from and from the professional service sector. Over the past year, Chantel and I have met with multiple stakeholders, including those with lived experience, to address this concern and bring a response and plan to the community. You’ll note Independence A of the community encampment plan that 26 sector organizations participated directly in the development of the plan, with input from in-person and online community engagements, as well as review by the health and homelessness whole of community response sector.

Transformational outreach is a long-term outreach strategy that supports individuals in navigating pathways to indoor spaces, transformational outreach is conducted with a case management style service delivery. Every interaction is intentional and supports an individual to access resources that fit their needs. These outreach workers are trained to complete diversion from services first and foremost. An example of this is an outreach team meets a young male in an encampment and starts to hear his story and that he used to live with his brother.

The outreach team’s first opportunity for engagement is to figure out why the young male is still not living with his brother. Perhaps there was a disagreement about how much food he consumed on a weekly basis. The outreach team would then try to mediate this conflict and find strategies to support having the young man re-enter his previous living arrangements. Sometimes individuals do not have natural support such as families and friends and need system support.

The outreach teams would help navigate what service is right for the individual and what pathway makes sense to the end their experience of homelessness. Some individuals may be connected to the developmental sector and some to long-term care. Others will fall into the shelter in housing plan already in existence in London. For others with complex needs that outreach workers will connect individuals to the whole community response hubs and highly supportive housing and wrap around care and supports.

Individuals that live street level in our community have typically fallen through several different service gaps that did not meet their needs or could not meet their needs. It’s up to the transformational outreach workers to navigate the path back to service and the system. So there’s a continuum, a spectrum of housing available in London which is common in other Canadian cities. What the Health and Homelessness Initiative is creating is innovative and it is to support those with complex needs within our community.

Hubs and highly supportive housing are part of the Health and Homelessness Initiative and create indoor spaces that are dignifying and wrap unique supports around an individual. From this graphic, you can see that there are a number of pathways out of unsheltered homelessness, shelters in hub support, housing through the housing stability for all action plan, affordable housing all the way through to market home purchasing and rent. The Health and Homelessness responses an added pillar of the spectrum of housing filling a significant gap in service. The pathways out of homelessness are unique to each individual and each person is triaged based on their needs and circumstances.

The Health and Homelessness Initiative focuses on those with complex needs. However, the encampment plan will support in triaging individuals out of encampments into a number of services and pathways towards housing. This graphic illustrates some of the entry points for those experiencing homelessness, like referrals, outreach, institutions, into a process of assessing needs and opportunity, then matching what type of housing and services best meet the need of each individual. With the Health and Homelessness response, focused on those with the most complex needs.

I just wanna let you know while you’re switching speakers, you’ve got about a minute or so left. The second element of the plan is transactional outreach primarily involves street outreach organizations engaging briefly with people in encampments to check people’s, check on people’s wellness and provide access to basic needs. This is intended to support people to gain access to some of their immediate basic human rights. And the more structured transactional engagement occurs at service depot sites in proximity to downtown, where access to food and water is provided daily.

In other areas of our community, street outreach goes to known locations where people have established tents, as well as respond to suspected encampments in new locations throughout the community and provide information on services, resources, and the location of service depots. Depots are a crisis solution to help people already living unsheltered and tend to alleviate deprivation and the lack of access to basic needs. I’m just gonna combine these slides and make it a little bit quicker. So for this slide, we’re talking about the encampment safety protocols and they’re utilized by outreach groups and bylaw to enforce encampments and activities within them.

These will be reviewed and monitored for revision and it will be made through council, through city staff. And these encampment protocols also have areas where encampments are not permitted that you can see on this map. And they were created with community as well. And just to wrap up, thank you.

This third pillar of the health and homelessness response is intended to support people who are living unhoused with complex medical and mental health challenges and move them inside with supports and resources. Thank you for the time. Thank you both very much. And I think we might ask you to stay near at hand as there might be some questions for you as we move ahead.

I do, so I’m gonna advise colleagues, we of course have the original staff recommendation that’s in the report. Councilor Raman had circulated a potential amendment that she would like to make to it for procedural purposes. And Councilor Trust, I was indicated he’s willing to move the original staff recommendation and then we can receive the amendment. If Councilor Raman wants to move that amendment, so that’s going to be procedurally the cleanest way to do this.

So Councilor Trust, are you prepared to move the original? Yes, I’m prepared to move the original as it’s stated in our report and I’ll defer my other comments until later. Okay, so I’m gonna look, and I’ve got a seconder and Councilor Hopkins for that. And so now we can open up the floor to questions, comments and potential amendments.

And so I’m gonna look to Councilor Raman to see if you wanna put your amendment on the floor now, or if you wanna wait until some questions and comments have happened and then bring it forward. Thank you, I’ll put my amendment forward now. Okay, so would you like to share that amendment with Council? I know you circulated it, but just so that everybody knows who are watching at home as well.

Thanks, I’m just seeing if it pops up in, you scribe before I go searching in my email. And Clerk says it’s in there now if you refresh. Okay, thank you, it did just refresh. Okay, so in addition to, so I was amending part A, so that it reads the following, the saving lives, alleviating suffering and building this healthy, strong and safe community for all London’s health and homelessness response, community encampment response plan as attached to schedule one, be endorsed with the following amended guidelines contained on page 36, on or within 250 meters in elementary school or children daycare center, on or within 250 meters of playground, pool, water park or any spray pad, within 100 meters of, and I’d like to say private residential property line, on or within 250 meters of any sports fields inclusive of, but not limited to skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf course, bulk diamonds, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use court, as well as stadium stuck out stages and features.

Okay, and I know we’ve had an indication, I’ll just confirm, Councillor Layman, you indicated you’re prepared to second that, is that, I’ll second that. Okay, so that’s been moved and seconded. So, Councillor ramen, I’m gonna go back to you to see if you want to speak to your amendment, provide your rationale, or if you want to let folks go up. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the amendment, and I first wanna thank the presenters for their work, as well as the presentation and the engagement throughout.

What I have put forward as amendment, and thank you to Councillor Layman for seconding, I believe is a need to balance the needs of vulnerable populations. So, looking at the recommended language that was in front of us initially, on page 36, the guidelines, in my opinion, when I use city map, and I dropped a pin at different school sites, and looked at different distances of assets, city assets around those school sites, I observed that 250 meters, it was a number that I was more comfortable with. When I was attending the community engagement sessions, what I was hearing from the public, was around the idea of what does near mean, and this is a conversation we got into as well, when we were talking about hubs. And the issue of near is a concern for residents, and this came up through that discussion, and I think we’re setting parameters around where encampments can go, and as we’re doing that in the report itself, it mentions, for instance, that anyone under the age of 16, there is an age limit that is mentioned as well, in the encampment document, so to be consistent with that age as well, fits with these recommendations around the distance, I think as well, where we’re talking about vulnerable populations related to age and use of different amenities.

I also looked at to be clear, if there was any other guiding principles, any other documents I could find that had guidelines around distance that I could use as a pinpoint or a number, and so I looked at, for instance, marijuana depots, places that you can sell marijuana as a guideline, ‘cause it was the only thing I could find relationship to a school, and that is 150 meters, and I thought about aligning those things, then I looked at the regulatory framework around the marijuana shops, for instance, and again, I don’t think on balance, it’s a fair point or argument, and that’s why I use city map for my rationale around location and proximity, and where things an encampment could go, if we didn’t specify, and how close that would be to a school, so I hope this is a starting point for our discussion for today, I know there’s lots of other questions about being camp and plan, but I wanted to put this forward as we talk about the guidelines, because it was something that I heard from folks around the need for some better parameters around distance, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Raman, and I’ll just let you know on the amendment you’ve used 258, so you do have a little bit of time left if you want to come back. Good Councilor McAllister, and then Councilor Palosa. Thank you, through the chair.

So two questions with this. I’m just wondering in terms of the mapping, because I do appreciate the refined language that it now says private residential, but my question would be in terms of the commercial parameters, is this kind of pushing it on to that? ‘Cause obviously we’re recognizing the residential, but the specifics too with the recreational side, because most parks would have one or multiple of these, I’m just wondering if perhaps the encampment team talked about this, but I mean, I have a large stretch of parks, how far in does this push them in terms of locations? ‘Cause I just haven’t had the time to map this out is my question, and I know the table looked at this, and I appreciate the Councilor getting your feedback from the community, but my concern revolves around how far does this push the encampments in terms of locations, and are we putting this onto the commercial properties if we’re just signaling out residential and recreational?

Okay, so I’m not gonna ask our presenters to speculate on the Councilor’s mapping, ‘cause I know that they privy to her, at least I don’t think that there was discussion on that with them, but I did see that Mr. Dickens can provide some comment, and I will also allow Councilor Raman to respond, so I’ll go to Mr. Dickens first, and then I’ll go to Councilor Raman, Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Chair, and through you. Appreciating this, we haven’t had a lot of time, with this amended motion, but through a very high-level cursory review, to answer your question of where does this push in encampments, having some of our partners in planning and economic development run some scenarios of our most highly used park areas, this at first blush would actually probably move folks right along the riverbank, either in the river, along the riverbank, or smack dab in the middle of parks to satisfy those distance requirements that are proposed. We would have to do certainly a more in-depth review to look at all parks in the city, but using our most visited, most populated, this would essentially put encampments right in the middle of those parks or in tour along the river. And I’m not sure if Mr.

Mayders has any other information related to any of the London Plan items. I will just add a note, the team that built this plan and used some of those proximity measures used the city of Hamilton and their criteria and their distances as a template. So Mr. Dickens, just before we go to Mr.

Mayders or allow Councilor Raman to respond as well to her motion, when you say most used, most populated, are you speaking from the encampment perspective or from the recreational perspective? Thank you, Chair, and through you, those are the sites that we visit most frequently from a CIR encampment response. Thank you. And Mr.

Mayders, did you have anything you wanted to add to Mr. Dickens’ response? Through the Chair, so yeah, absolutely very cursory review. Many of the parks aren’t even 100 meters wide, so that just eliminates them as opportunities or options for encampments.

Okay, and I will now go to Councilor Raman for her response to the rationale on the distance. Thank you, so again, we were provided with information in the guidelines that presented a set recommendation of distance. And then if you were to overlay some of those distances to within some of our schools, some of our parks, you’ll see that that 250 meters would cover not having been right in the backyard of some of our schools and some of the parks and sports fields. So it was more recognition of what are the no-go areas.

And for me, 50 meters was too close to a school or too close to a playground or too close to some of the other locations that we have in the guidelines. So that was where I was coming from. And as for the current locations of encampments and where that would put us in terms of the current location, again, I was looking more from if we were saying that these are where we’re going to allow future encampments as well, how we map to that. So again, a starting point for a conversation.

What I heard at the community engagement session was during the discussion with the public, there were no numbers that were provided. It was just the wording of near. And so if we are looking at these distances, I do feel we need more community engagement. Thank you, Councillor, Councillor McAllister, I can come back to you or you can save your time and I can go on to Councillor Ploza, whichever you prefer.

I just want to use a bit more of my time. So thank you and through the chair. And recognizing that, I understand, I had that discussion with folks as well in terms of having like clear parameters. And I think that concern I had was like, especially some of my schools, I’ve got a school and then a park and a lot of those recreational amenities.

So it’s like 250 meters on top of another 250 meters. And to Mr. Dickens point, it does put them pretty far down in terms of like almost on the river. So I just think we need to be mindful in terms of like, especially the school, I have definitely heard the school one, but I think with the parks on top of it, it really puts us in a tough spot in terms of actually finding locations for the encampments.

Okay, I’ll just let you know you’re, you’ve only used about a minute 35. So if you want to come back on the speakers list later, you still have some time available. I have Councillor Ploza next, Councillor Ploza. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. And on this item, speaking strictly to the amendment, was also at the public engagement sessions. And it’s always the same conversation we have on council too. Define near I want some parameters, we set parameters.

And then it’s the question of are those parameters justified too much or overly prescriptive? Sharing some similar concerns with this. Even if we say we set so many meters, we could accidentally be affecting something on the other side of a river or the other side of a heritage feature, a natural feature and maybe just displacing people from places they already are along the river. That’s not causing an issue right now.

So a couple things and I will be moving an amendment to the amendment. The first one will be where it was the 250 meters of an elementary school or child daycare center. I would like to move 150 meters as I would follow the alcohol and gaming AGCO prescriptions with the use for 150 meters, just as there’s already some legislative parameters out there for consideration. I would like to move that.

And the one for 100 meters of any private residential property line, I appreciate residential having been added in there for wasn’t any property line. If we could add the word private occupy, like looking for it to be occupy that’s just not residential property staying there that’s like a vacant neighborhood right now that we’ve zoned it but it’s actually being used for a residential purpose. Okay, I’m just gonna go to staff for a moment, particularly on the private residential property line. Would staff be interpreting that as existing built dwellings or would staff be interpreting that as residential zoning which can be two different things?

So I’m gonna see if staff has any comment on how they would interpret, do they need more clarification that these are existing occupied dwellings or would they be interpreting it as residentially zoned lands? Through you chair, it would in fact be to confirm as in with all of these examples be it an elementary school or private property, it is the property line. So in the case of a school, we’re not talking proximity to the building itself, it’s proximity to the property line. And under private property, we interpret that in the broadest sense that it’s private property.

Not whether there’s a residential dwelling or whether it’s if it’s zoned as private, or if it’s known to be private property, it’s private property. Okay, so right now, and again, I just want clarity for everyone. So there’s property, there’s private property that is industrial private property, commercial private property, the language right now says any residential private property. So you would only be interpreting that as residential, but it would be regardless of whether there is a dwelling unit on that property or not at this time.

Through you chair, that’s correct. When we look at residential property line, it would be looking at that parcel of land that is private property, whether there’s a house on it or not. We understand in some cases our CIR teams go out now to engage with folks that are actually on private property where there is no dwelling and it’s a vacant parcel of land, but it is owned by somebody and there may be construction happening and so on. So we understand that that is private property.

Okay, so I’m just going to read back Councillor Palosa, what the language of the clerk has drafted, which would say on that particular item within 100 meters of any private occupied residential property line. And I want to see if that’s capturing your intent. I’m just thinking if we put occupied, but it’s at homeless it came in there, now it’s occupied by homeless people versus residents. So as per staff’s thing, maybe it was best to go private residential property with a built dwelling.

I was going to suggest dwelling capture that for you. So we’re just going to give the clerk a moment here. I want to make sure that the amendment to the amendment because there are only two levels of inception to amendments. We cannot go a third, so we’ve got to make sure that the amendments capturing your intent here.

Okay, so what the amendment would read now is that on or within 150 meters of an elementary school or children’s daycare center within 100 meters of any private residential property line with a dwelling. And then right now the other items would remain the same. Yes, when it comes time, we can certainly pull things apart as we see fit, but just for the specific ones. Yes, certainly we can probably, we can look at how we could schedule this to be voted on separately, but that’s what is on the floor at the moment.

So if that’s your amendment, we’ll look for a seconder. Councilor McAllister, just going to give the clerk a minute to get caught up on things so that they can be available on e-scribe for people. Okay, so now we are on the amendment to the amendment and I did have a speakers list on the original amendment, but before we go to that speakers list to see if people want to speak to that, Councilor Palose, I do want to give you an opportunity if you want to provide any additional rationale for your amendment before we go on to other speakers, or if you want to save and come back to that at the end. Happy just the 150 was as I said, in line with AGCO regulations that were already set by the province, hoping that could be more of a middle ground between the recommendation and some people’s thoughts.

As for the property line, just clearing that up, we can certainly, I know once this amendment to amendments been dealt with, people could change how many meters or whatever, but just trying to really clarify and hone in what we’re speaking of to keep the conversation as tight as possible. Okay, and Councilor Ferra, I did see you put your hand up. I’m gonna just check with the people who are on the speakers list for the original amendment to see if they want to speak to the amended amendment and then I’ll come to you. So on the original amendment, I had Councilor Stevenson next, do you want to speak to the amended amendment?

Councilor Pribble, did you want to speak to the amended amendment or the original? Or, well, if we want to get out of here before we need a time extension at 6 p.m., I would suggest speak once, but that is up to you. Joy, I do have a quick question. And there’s, I know I’m aware of one school and there’s almost all beside there is a encampment.

The park is more than 250 meters long. So really going in terms of the enforcement and this, are we going to 50? Are we going to where the park starts? Or are we going to the end of the park because the end of the park would be 400 meters and are they able to be at the end of the park?

So I believe staff already answered that it is from the property line. Mr. Dickens, did you just want to clarify that? Just for clarification, Chair, through you.

So when we reference from a certain point, you’re measuring from that point. So if it’s 200 or 150 meters from an elementary school, you’re looking at the property line from the elementary school into that park. Now, measuring the start of the park to the end of the park, you’re looking at from whatever it is you’re measuring against. And as we talk about private properties and dwellings, we would also look as staff because we are ultimately going to be enforcing some of these measures for clear definition from council and what constitutes a dwelling.

Some things do not fall under the building code, such as trailers and whatnot. Mr. Dickens, before I go back to Council Preble, because of the answer you just gave there, I’m going to ask you to provide a little bit more clarification to Council on the other items that you have that are listed in here right now, because we have playgrounds, pools, water parks, spray pads. I think a spray pad is pretty easy ‘cause it’s a pretty small feature.

But when you get into sports fields, golf courses, are you measuring from the pitching mound? Are you measuring from the tee at the start of a hole on a golf course? When we’re talking about these other amenities, how do you define, certainly for like a baseball diamond or a soccer field, how do you define your starting point from that? Are you dropping a pin in the middle of the feature?

Or are you boxing out the entire feature and then going from the box outline? I think that question is going to come up regardless, so if you can provide some clarification now, that would be appreciated, Mr. Dickens, are you? Thank you, Chair, through you.

So if we’re talking about a sports field, it’s the entire sports field. We’re just looking at, you know, those perimeter lines. So looking at a spray pad, it’s typically embedded in some other type of location. So you’re looking at the perimeter of those spaces.

Not to get too nuanced in all of this, but you’re really looking at, yeah, somebody sets up a tent outside left field of a ball diamond and it’s close to the ball diamond. That tent will be asked to relocate, right? So we look at that property, we look at that physical structure that sports field, whatever that might be. And we look at using these measurements as close proximity to that.

I would also just not to require them to speak, but if Ms. Smith or Mr. Mathers have any additional information, they’ve been, their staff have been actively participating in all of these design sessions and the work of this plan as well. Thank you.

And just to avoid these questions being asked over and over again on these different items, I am going to see if either Mr. Mathers or Ms. Smith wants to offer any additional comment. I’m seeing Ms.

Smith shaking her head. No, Mr. Mather’s shaking his head. No, so I think you’ve provided what they would contribute to the conversation already, Mr.

Dickens. I am going to go back though to Councilor Palosa just for a moment here. The clerk in their learned wisdom has suggested based on the comment we heard from staff, just a slight change to the within 100 meters of any private residential property line with a habitable dwelling as per the building code. Just to clarify that.

Sold. Sold, okay. I commented to Ms. Corman that she must have been the clerk for planning committee at some point in time because that language is quite helpful in clarifying exactly the intent.

So I’m just gonna check and make sure Councilor McAllister, you’re okay with that small change in language. So I’m just going to allow that as a, just a housekeeping measure. Mr. Chair, I also sent you a question of, just only ‘cause I only spoke to two items of Councilor Raman’s motion.

Should just those two be on the screen right now? And then if amended, it goes into her full motion. Yes, and we’re fixing that right now in E-Scribe. Okay, so we had, I’m coming around to the speaker’s list again.

Councilor Pribble, did you have anything further before I move on? I did actually want a clarification. So let’s say if school, if we go with the first 250, the school is 250 meters away from the park. The park has an encampment.

The park is 400 meters long. Will someone be able to start an encampment 200 meters down the park in the other side or not? Because the answer I received, I wasn’t sure. So bottom line is, will they be able to start it or no?

So I will go to staff. I understand you’re asking about overlap, Councillor, but I do want to draw attention to the fact that it doesn’t say in any of the amendment here parks, it speaks to specific features. So overlap might depend on the feature, rather where the feature is located in the park, rather because it’s not a 250 from all parks. It’s only 250 from certain features.

Mr. Dickens, can you comment on the overlap to provide Council a little bit more clarity? Thank you, Chair, and through you. That’s correct.

What we would look at is the distance from that item that we’re trying to measure. So be it an elementary school in this example, we’d be looking at 250 meters from the elementary school. So if it’s in the park, but again, there’s a bit of an art to this and it’s not all science. Although it feels like I’m in a grade 11 math class and I didn’t do well in that class either, we would look to see if there are other amenities or features where that overlap occurs.

So does this park that is 251 meters away from an elementary school have a splash pad or a community garden or a playground or is a near sports field? There are other things we would have to look into consideration. Again, teams go out in these areas that they try to use as much compassion and discretion as possible. If somebody has an encampment and it’s 249 meters away and there’s no public usage of that space and it’s summertime and there’s no school activities in that area, can the person stay if they’re not causing harm to anybody?

Perhaps if it’s a busy school year and they use that playground all day every day, then that’s not a suitable place. So there is a bit of an art to this work as well. Thank you, Mr. Dickens.

And if it’s any consolation, I did terrible in grade 11 math too. So I’ve got you on the list, Councillor Truss out, but I have a long speakers list here, first on the original amendment that I have to go through, which would next take me. Councillor Pribble, I just wanna make sure that question was answered for you satisfactorily ‘cause you haven’t used all your time. Are you okay with that answer?

Okay, I have, just so everyone’s aware, I have Mayor Morgan, Councillor Ferrera, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Truss out, Councillor Layman on the speakers list. Mayor Morgan, you are on the speakers list for the original amendment. There’s an amendment to that amendment. Did you wanna speak now or did you wanna wait?

I’ll just speak now once. So give me some leeway chair ‘cause I’m gonna speak once, I’m not gonna speak to the other ones, although I reserve the right to if someone says something. I think I agree with where Councillor Rohan was going originally, right? I saw some of these to be too low.

I think where she landed may also be problematic. So I support where Councillor Ploza’s trying to correct that because they’re in a desire to improve the distances, particularly for elementary schools, daycares, which I’m supportive of. I don’t have the right number myself. We could put ourselves in a situation, especially with the parks where we’re basically not really allowing encampments in very many places.

I mean, I did, I went out with CIR last week and I could tell you the two of the three locations that I went to probably aren’t there anymore because of these amendments. And so that’s something we need to be conscious of. And so what is the consequence of that? Well, we’re basically creating other, you know, no-go areas and that means there’s going to be other areas where people are going to go because they’re not going to go nowhere.

And if we want to try to maintain reasonably sized encampments, which is also part of our strategy and not have them become large, unmanageable encampments, then we need to have at least some variety in some places for people to go. We can’t push everybody into one spot where it can become unmanageable or very dangerous within the encampments as the report outlines. And I am not trying to make a comparison here but I want to just emphasize for colleagues, when we talked about food trucks and we talked about the distances from restaurants and we had an idea that we’re going to, we started throwing out numbers, like, well, a set of 25 meters, let’s do 50 meters. And we actually paused and had our staff map that out and realized like, well, what’s the point of doing food trucks?

‘Cause there’s not going to be food trucks anywhere ‘cause 50 meters from bricks and mortar restaurant basically wiped out all of the parking downtown. So I think I support the desire of colleagues to find the right balance. It’s probably incredibly hard to do without us getting some mapping of some different distances to try to determine what the impacts of our decision-making actually is because we may have good intentions and then we may not really not like the results if we’re not sure how it’s going to go. And I appreciate that Council Raman has had some chance to map some maps out.

I haven’t. I know Councilor McAllister was asking him some questions but I would very much like to understand that. And I also like the idea of if there’s a natural barrier, like a natural barrier, like a river or something that is between these distances, then maybe that makes some sense too, right? So I think there’s some ways that we can actually look at this that makes some more sense to say, let’s actually have our staff do a mapping at a series of distances.

And maybe there’s actual spots where it may not be in compliance with these parameters but we may actually want to say, this is actually a permissive spot because of some unique features of the site that make it very easy for CIR and others to provide management and service too, right? So I totally support where everybody’s going. I feel a little bit like we don’t have an idea where we’re landing with the motion and the amendments of what it’s actually going to look like and the impacts of what that means for the way that encampments are spread throughout the city, particularly in the downtown core and wider area where they’re mainly concentrated. So I’m not sure how to fix that without some sort of consideration of maybe we improve segments of the report but refer back pieces for some mapping so that we can kind of land these distances in the right spot.

But I think it’s probably a way that we want to consider going to ensure that we understand at least the very clear consequences of our decision-making because I think the other risk that we want to be careful about is if we’re too exclusive, like and we don’t create any very many spaces, then we might trigger some legal concerns based on other jurisdictions who have not been permissive enough and said you don’t have enough shelter space, you’ve got to provide some areas that we don’t want to get ourselves in that boat either. So we’ve got to find the right balance here to, I think support what Councilor Allen wants to do and that’s provide some additional buffering between some of these spaces, which again, is based on Hamilton’s distances. Those might not be right for London but actually know exactly what we’re doing. So I mean, those are my comments.

I’ll think about after we get through these amendments, whether there’s a referral that makes sense to get that, but I obviously didn’t come prepared with that. So I’m going to think through how to do that. But I want to share those comments for colleagues’ consideration because I think I want to be supportive of where everybody’s going but I need to really understand the consequences of it from an operational perspective too. Thank you, Mayor Morgan.

I have Councilor Ferrera next. Thank you, Chair. To the Mayor sentiments is exactly where I was going with the exception. I wasn’t going to use the example for the food trucks but I see that.

I’m amenable to looking into the distance for schools and daycare in the playground specifically. And I’d like to find a way to work with that but I’m concerned with just the distances because if we consider we have that six-tenth limit per encampment and if we consider the distances where both motions would go, we’d find ourselves into a lot of overlaps and spaces and I would be very fearful that that would be impossible to enforce and I just don’t know what kind of situation that could put us into. So just kind of speaking to that and just looking at going back to staff a referral is definitely a direction that I think we should go. Just looking with some of the numbers that we have and seeing if staff can map it out just to make sure that we have something that works because I’m worried and again to what I just heard, we could find ourselves in a situation where all the areas are covered with all the overlaps and we have one or two places that is allowed where we will actually permit encampments and then all of a sudden we find ourselves indirectly creating one area where people are able to have an encampment and we obviously know from the reports and from past reports of safety issues that could arise out of that.

So I do think that maybe we should be referring something like this to staff if council sees that they wanna make some adjustments to it. It’s something that staff would have to look at because it’s pretty complex. We’re talking about the entire city. We’re talking about a policy that affects people on everywhere and it would be nice to know that staff was able to vet something like that and make sure that it works for us.

So I would be looking for a referral as well. I don’t have language either, but we should have staff take a look at this and come back with the numbers. Thank you, Councillor Ferra. I’m gonna ask colleagues for just patience for one moment.

First, I want to invite Mr. Nash and Ms. McDonald. Please feel free to take a seat.

You’re not obligated to stand while you wait for us to debate this whole thing. We appreciate you staying nearby to answer questions, but for your own comfort, if you wish to sit down, please feel welcome to do that and we’ll just have you come back up to the podium if there are questions for you to answer. The second piece to this is I’ve heard two colleagues in a row now mention an interest in a referral, but not actually put one on the floor. What we have right now is an amendment to an amendment of the main motion.

So any referral would still take precedence ‘cause a referral is separate, but you do need to provide some direction in a referral. So if anyone is considering a referral, I would strongly suggest that you consider language that includes consideration of specific distances on some or all of these items. If that is the direction that you feel that this needs to go because we do, if we’re going to refer something, we do need to provide direction to staff in that referral. So since that has come up twice, I just wanna remind colleagues that direction would be required in that referral, whether it’s the 250 for everything, whether it’s the 150 and the 100 for a couple of items or for all items, whatever that is, the direction would need to be in the referral.

So I just want to bring that to colleagues attention. Councillor Ferrera, I have you having used a minute, I don’t know if you had your hand up to get back on the list, a question? With respect to the referral, can we give a range? Could we have like a range with, let’s say for the original one, change from 50 to 250s?

Could we have a referral where staff looks at the range of possibilities of where that will land us from 50 meters to 250 meters or 150 meters? Is that a possibility we can throw into the referral? So I would encourage you to consider that staff really need, if you want them to look at say mapping, for example, they really need some numbers, a range, I mean, what is the range we’re giving them? Do we want them to do mapping for every 10 meters?

Do we want them to do mapping for every 50 meters? So I think my advice to you to operationalize this, if staff are going to return anything to us in a bit of a timely manner, is that we need to, as a group, decide on what a couple of those numbers should be, see what that comes back as, rather than leave a wide range where staff have to do 15 variations on the same exercise. So that would be my guidance to you, is you might have two or three numbers that you want them to look at, but I wouldn’t give them a range because they need some hard data points to start a mapping exercise with. And I see staff nodding in agreement with me on that.

Thank you, Mr. Cooper. I appreciate that that would work best for you too. So I hope that that’s helpful.

So I’ll leave that with you to think about ‘cause you do have some time left. I can come back to you if you want, but I do have three other people on the speakers list. So I’m gonna go through the speakers list next to Councilor Hopkins. Mr.

Chair, I do have a question on the process ‘cause I’m not sure if I wanna make comments right now to the amendment to the amendment. I understand there may be a referral. I would suggest we go to the mover of the first amendment to see if there is a referral before I make comments. I’m just not sure where to go right now.

So we don’t have a referral on the floor and I’m not sure whether the mover wants or the original amendment mover wants to consider a referral or not. If she does, I would just ask her to indicate to be on the speakers list unless, but you asked. So Councilor, I will go to Councilor Raman and see if she has an interest in a referral. She may even want more time to just think about it.

I don’t know, I don’t wanna speak for her. So Councilor Raman. Yeah, thank you and through you. And this was the exact reason I wanted this discussion.

So this is actually in line. I would look to a referral, but I just wanna confirm that if we did refer, it would be we’re referring it to planning staff, like who are we referring it to because the recommendation is coming from staff on the original guidelines that were in our document. So I assume that those guidelines came from some additional looking at and work that was done. So is this because we’re giving a directive of a new distance to guide that framework?

Okay, I just wanna be clear that that’s the case. So then we have to basically land on what that guideline, that new distances within those different pieces and then from there refer it for staff to come back. Yes, so from a process perspective, and I’m hoping and being helpful here, I’m not trying to put words or numbers in anybody’s mouth, but if there was a desire for a referral, the referral would be to provide direction to civic administration to come back with, and you could, as Councilor Ferrer asked, to have multiple options to come back with amended option A at the 250 meter margin that you suggested, as well as an option B with the 150 and 100 meter margins that Councilor Palosa suggested. You could even have a third, because Councilor Palosa’s only did two, so you could have a third option or an amendment or in the referral you could provide direction to look at 250 and 150 for everything.

So it would really be about what we wanted to ask staff to do. We have to provide them with some direction, and we have to provide them with at least a couple of numbers that we want them to bring back information on what it would look like to us, before we can ask them to just, because right now they’ve brought forward a recommendation, so if we wanna change it, we have to provide direction on what that change is going to be. So I hope that’s helpful to everyone, and I’m seeing nods generally, so I’m gonna move on to Councilor Trussow. So I’m going to be not in favor of a referral, and I’m not gonna be in favor of either of these amendments, and I wanna say why.

And I wanna begin by asking Mr. McDonald or Mr. Nash if they could come back up to the microphone. And I just have a very simple question for them.

Where did you get these numbers from? Did you generate these? Did you just pull these out of your head, or were these generated based on something else, or were these generated in consultation with staff, or in consultation with you? I want more assurance that these numbers were well thought out, and I’ll have a follow up at the end.

Okay, thank you, Councilor Trussow. We did hear from Mr. Dickens that they were based on Hamilton, but Mr. Nash and Ms.

McDonald, can you provide any additional insight where their variations from Hamilton? Was it a copy and paste? Where did these numbers come from? Through you, Chair.

Thank you for the question. We had, as the document developed over time, we did not have proximity in it. Through consultation with the sector and the broader community, we heard more and more that there wanted to be some clear definitions around that. We looked to other communities for that, and just prior to submission of the report, Hamilton had approved those distances, and we took them as Mr.

Dickens indicated from the endorsed Hamilton report. Councilor Trussow? Yes, that’s helpful. Now, if we start moving these numbers with different definitions, we run into an enforcement problem, and we run into a situation where we may be creating such a complex set of rules and regulations here that if one wants to set up a tent, maybe they’ll have to come to the customer service line and have an engineer start running lines for them.

We have to keep this simple, and the reason why we have to keep this simple is this has to be accessible to the public, and also it cannot be creating a burden on our enforcement staff. Now, we are, by having these exceptions, we are engaging charter section seven, and there was a lot of discussion in the material about the background legal information, so I think this is contained in the report, but I just want to question people that if we make this too restrictive, either too restrictive or too complicated to figure out without getting a legal opinion or a by-law opinion, we may be running afoul of our Waterloo obligations, because the purpose of this entire exercise is to stay within our Waterloo obligations in a way that is as least restrictive as possible. So I really, I think the best way to deal with this to answer the mayor’s question is, let’s pass this, and if there’s a problem with any of the sites, those can be brought up right away, and I think for us to just land on arbitrary numbers right now, without doing the mapping first, is going to create a lot of mischief. It’s also going to delay.

I also want to make sure that if we do a referral, that we’re not delaying the implementation of all the other really important, life-saving things that are in this report. So I’m gonna stand by my original motion that we should pass this motion, and we should be open to making changes, but I wanna be very careful that we not just start using arbitrary numbers or creating a level of complexity that’s going to be difficult to enforce, because that is gonna create unanticipated problems for us. Thank you, Councillor Trussow. I have Councillor Layman next, and then I actually have myself on the list, and when that time comes I’ll ask Mayor Morgan to take the chair, Councillor Layman.

Respectfully, I disagree. I mean, we’re already at that point now by indicating a measure of how many meters we are in the staff recommendation. I wanna thank Councillor Ralman for bringing this forward, ‘cause I think it’s a matter of perspective. We realize for public safety and public use of our public lands, there’s a certain area that the public is entitled to, and we also understand that homeless have encampments that we’re gonna have to facilitate until we get them properly housed.

I know I’ve got to be forgotten. I look at meters, what are meters, meters are steps, and for me, 50 steps from an elementary school or a water park, that’s nowhere near sufficient. That’s fine that Hamilton does it, but this is London, and I think we all hear from our residents. I think 250 steps as indicated in the Councillor’s motion, which I seconded, is very reasonable, because it’s not just use of the place, but it’s access to these areas, and mostly primarily for our kids.

That being said, I understand concern of mapping. Well, London’s a big city, a lot of area, would this severely restrict locations for encampments? I don’t know, there’s has been some concern raised about running out of space, so I think a referral would be an order, and if this is permitted, Chair, I’d like to move a referral to have staff look at two options, one is Councillor Ramen’s measure, and then also with Councillor Palazzas as well, her amendment to the amendment and report back to SPPC with the mapping considerations. Okay, I just need to make sure that we’re capturing your referral correctly, Councillor, and I saw both Councillor Ferrer and Councillor Hopkins raise their hands.

I don’t know whether that was a second for the referral or whether that’s questions, so I will wait for that until we get the language clear here. So the referral would be to direct civic administer, refer back to civic administration to come forward with revised distance recommendations, considering both the 250 and the 150 meter numbers suggested in the two amendments, with mapping of, with overlays on the mapping, okay? I’m gonna look to see if there’s a seconder for that, Councillor Cuddy, okay, on the referral. So we’re on a news speakers list, and we will go to the referral, and I had both Councillor Ferrer and Councillor Hopkins indicating they had questions, so I’m gonna go to Councillor Ferrer first on the referral.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Chair. So I would have also added to the referral, ‘cause I feel like the two new numbers that we’ve seen for all the categories are significant departure from what we originally saw, so I would like to see the original numbers also in that referral, if we’re gonna try to, you know, just weigh and balance the overlaps and the overlays, I think we should have that original, the original numbers as well, part of that referral, and that’s all I wanted to add. I did send a referral to the clerks, but I guess three people beat me, but that’s what it had on that, which was different from what I saw already. Okay, because we’re providing direction to change, I’m going to go, I don’t know whether Mr.

Dickens wants to handle this one if Mr. Dater’s peer wants to weigh in on this one, but I am gonna go to staff to see if, because we’re providing you direction for a report back with new considerations, would you in that report back include the original recommendations as a comparator already, or would you need specific direction on that? Through you, Chair, just so I’m clear, you’re talking about three specific recommendations, the original and two additional new ones, correct? That is correct.

Okay, if I could further through you, if you’re looking for mapping on those three options, it is a significant amount of work to be done, not suggesting we can’t do it, but it will take time given the number of parks we have in the city and the number of other elements and features, and Mr. Mathers can speak more to that if you’d like that kind of information, but just wanted to give you that hats up about that. Okay, and we will go to Mr. Mathers, Mr.

Dater’s peer, I just want to check with you. Would you need direction to include the original recommendations as a comparator, or would that just be something that you would bring forward naturally in the report anyway? Sorry, Mr. Chair, through you, I think for clarity, it doesn’t hurt to have all three there through direction, so that we’re very clear when we come back to you about what you’ve asked for and what we give you.

Okay, Mr. Mathers, did you want to add to that? Through the chair, yes, so as far as the team that would be working on this, it’s the team that works on our land needs study, our VLI for the GMIS, so some of the things that we said just recently that we’re gonna be working on, so this would defer some of that work if this was a priority of council. Okay, thank you for that.

And I just want to advise colleagues to Councillor Ferreira’s request, a referral is amenable, so you could add the original as an amendment to the referral, and given that Ms. Dater’s beer has said that direction would be preferable, I would suggest that if you want that information, you need to amend the referral, Councillor Ferreira. I guess I’ll amend it. Originally, I did want to see the numbers of Councillor Plaza and the original request, but if to get the vote, I will amend it to include all three, including the original numbers is what I want to amend it to.

Okay, so now we have an amendment to the referral, which would bring back three options, both amendments and the original mapping considerations for us and any additional commentary recommendations that staff want to include in bringing that information back. So that has been moved, and I need a seconder for that, Councillor McAllister is willing to second. Okay, so now we are on the amendment to the referral. Councillor Trussa.

Simple question, how long will this referral take, and will this impede the implementation of this project in the first instance? Ms. Dater-Spier. Through you, Chair, I think the question is what you’re referring back.

So what we understand to be referring back is the information as it relates to the proximity, which is the original recommendation to look at the changes to the proximity. If you are continuing to take that part out of it, but allow us to move forward on the other portions of this piece of information, then it will take certainly a period of time, as you’ve heard from Mr. Mathers, to get that information, a significant period of time. But if we have the direction to move forward on the other elements of these recommendations, then we would move forward on that, depending upon the rest of your deliberations.

Thank you, Councillor Trussa. Anything further on that? Yes, I just wanna make sure that in search of the perfect number, we don’t undermine the underlying policy and the underlying framework of what we’re trying to do here. And I’m getting very worried about that.

And I would like to hear more about what the implications of this referral are, because the other way we could do this is, again, we could pass this and say it being noted that this is also being referred for an immediate update to see if something could be done better. But I am not willing to hold up the important work that this project is doing while we do mapping. I have Councillor Stevenson and then Councillor McAllister. Thank you.

Sorry, Councillor Stevenson, I hate to interrupt. I’ve twice added Councillor Hopkins on the list and then not read my own scroll. So I’m gonna go back to Councillor Hopkins and then I’ll come to you and then to Councillor McAllister. Councillor Hopkins, my apologies.

I know how difficult it can be. And on the left side here is sometimes not easy to put over. I’m a man, oh man, I really, I second this because endorsing this plan and the work that has been done is vital to how we deal with the encampments. I don’t think encampments are clear cut.

We have had, we’ve got a recommendation in front of it. I do not want it stalled. And it feels like this conversation is going that way. I appreciate the referral back, but I’m also hearing there’s a lot of work that’s gonna come to us.

So if we can split that out, that’s fine, but I am not going to support the referral. And the reason I do not support the referral is that, and I’m gonna use the word that Mr. Dickens used, the art. And I’m gonna speak about the art of enforcement here.

It’s not clear cut. This reminds me of a conversation we had when it came to cannabis stores. When we were putting it into our zoning policies, 150 meters. Well, we can see how many cannabis stores are in the city.

How many are they are in force to make sure that they are 150 meters away from parks and schools? I’m not sure. A methadone clinics, we had a conversation of that a number of years ago, not to have that distance there. Now we have methadone clinics and pharmacies.

So as much as I appreciate the councilor’s concerns around safety in our parks and our schools, we all want that. But I do think that we are getting too much into setting up numbers that aren’t clear and we’re deciding right here today what those numbers are going to look like. For me, the biggest thing is that we are pushing people from over here to over here to over here. We should be dealing with dealing with these people, not pushing them around.

So I’m not gonna be supporting the referral on this. And I would encourage this committee to please move forward with endorsing this plan as well. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins. And if it makes you feel any better, I missed myself on the speaker’s list too.

So I wasn’t just skipping you. I was skipping everybody from here over and moving to the other half of the horseshoe. But I will wait myself and I will go to the other individuals that I have on the list next, which is Councillor Stevenson and then Councillor McAllister. Then I will speak and then I have Mayor Morgan.

Councillor Stevenson. Okay, thank you. I just wanna quickly say I’m not gonna support the referral. There’s a lot of work for staff to do both on the homeless friend and the housing friend.

And my understanding is these are just guidelines. So I do defer to the judgment of the people making the decisions. If it says 50 meters from a school and they feel it needs to be 200 meters, we’re not, and maybe staff can confirm, but there’s nothing rigid about this. So we just guidelines.

And I think we get to defer to the judgment of the people who are out there doing the work that they will ensure that they make the best possible choices. Thank you, Councillor. And I will just highlight for folks again, Mr. Dickens did earlier comment that they do have, if it’s 249 meters and it’s not an issue, they’re not getting out the 30 centimeter stick to measure those last few centimeters to confirm.

So they do use their judgments to some degree ‘cause these are, in fact, guidelines. Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair. I appreciate the debate we’ve been having today ‘cause I’m sure all of us have these thoughts regarding the report in terms of what we thought an appropriate number would be.

And I agree with what my colleagues just said in terms of, I just think we’re being too prescriptive. And in my conversations in terms of what the work CIR does, they do have some discretion in terms of the ranges. I mean, I just looked at a map of my ward again and I just can’t figure how staff are gonna look at this and it’d not be just massive red rings. I just think it’s too prescriptive.

It’s also the numbers we’re looking at are very large. I just think we’re gonna get into a situation that Mr. Dickens described earlier where we’re literally just gonna be forcing people into a narrow corridor along the river. I just think we’re gonna create legal challenges as Councillor Trosto said.

Councillor Hopkins, just correct as well. I mean, part of this is to have the guidelines to try to help people in their situations. And I just, I know exactly where we’re going with this today. I appreciate, I think we needed to have this discussion.

I’m sure other municipalities did, but I do think that we need to kind of move forward with this. I think those guidelines are appropriate, but I think we’re being far too prescriptive with these numbers and creating this work for staff. I think you’re just gonna get a report back with a lot of red rings and no spaces for people to go. We’re very minimal spaces.

Thank you, Councillor McAllister. I will ask Mayor Morgan to take the chair. All right, I have the chair. I’ll recognize the deputy mayor.

Thank you, your worship and through you. I’m very hesitant on the referral because I think it’s a lot of work for staff. And I do share that in some instances, I think we’re really going to create barriers to any location. I actually agreed with what the mayor said earlier about, you know, the river can be a natural barrier and can be a factor in not requiring the same distance.

I think that’s where some of that staff flexibility on guideline interpretation might come in. At the same time, I can’t support the guidelines that are in here right now, particularly the ones for schools. 50 meters is too close. So I’m happy to pick a number today, but I’m not endorsing a plan that says 50 meters.

I’m not endorsing a plan that says within 10 meters of somebody’s private residential home. I don’t think it is fair and reasonable to expect people to be okay with an encampment right outside the back fence of their property line. And that is a challenge for me. On the other hand, I also hear what colleagues are saying about the red rings.

And I can see how, and I very much appreciate where Councilor Raman was coming from, but I can see how 250 meters from any sports field, ball diamonds can be very big. And so that creates a very big ring. It’s not just 250 meters from the pitchers mound as I kind of alluded to earlier, but it’s in fact 250 meters from all the lines. So I could see how that presents a challenge in removing little areas that might otherwise be fine and not actually impeding anybody’s enjoyment of public space because these folks may be tucked away and not actually interfering with the enjoyment of a ball game or something like that.

So I’m gonna say I’m really torn. I struggle with the referral because I think it’s gonna take a long time for staff to do the work and come back. And I also struggle with what’s just in the guidelines to start and for me, I am prepared to pick a number today around the schools and the private residences. I think Councilor Palosa’s amendment is something I could easily support because I think the cannabis shops do provide a good legislative guideline.

They’re not perfect. It’s not the same situation, but they were rooted in some thought and some consideration when those cannabis shops were coming online and being legalized. So I think that they do provide a good guiding principle. And that’s where for me, I think the saw off between what’s in the report and Councilor ramen’s original amendment is maybe where I could land comfortably today, but I’m hearing from staff, a referral is gonna be a long time coming back.

And so to Councilor McAllister’s point, I think we do have to move forward on things. So I have not heard a compelling argument for the original report, but I’m also really struggling with the referral. So I’ll tell you, I came prepared today to support greater distances. I’m willing to meet in the middle, but I don’t wanna kick the can down the road and give staff three or four months worth of work.

And then we’re overlapping with other challenges and we’re delaying other important priorities of the city. So I think for me, the referral is gonna be a no. I’d like to make a decision on some distances today. Great, I’ll hand the chair back to you ‘cause you have the speakers list.

I do, and you are next on the speakers list. That’s great, thank you. So earlier on, when I suggested the referral, you threw your chair to you, you said two people suggested if it didn’t move it, that’s because I wasn’t prepared to move it, because I actually think there’s a lot of good stuff in the document that I wanna move forward with right away. There’s a whole lot, like ‘cause right now, none of these protocols, the stuff you like, the stuff you might have concerns about, none of them are approved or endorsed by council.

And so I don’t think I support the referral either. And I hear colleagues outlining a path forward that might be functional, although we probably do still have some debate to do on the distances. And that is, there might be other components that colleagues haven’t got to yet, but there’s really only four bullet points on page 36 that have been raised as a points of discussion or disagreement potentially on colleagues’ points where they might want more information. There’s nothing stopping us from endorsing the protocol, whether it’s these numbers or some slowly amended ones, and then identify to our staff.

And I don’t, honestly, although we talked about maps, I’m not sure I need a map to know like how far five meters from a feature is. Like I don’t need that map myself. What I want to know is what are the implications of the distances that we’re choosing? And do we need to take recommendations to staff to amend them?

It may be even in some specific geographic areas because we will have put ourselves in some sort of legal risk or we will have put ourselves into removing encampments from an area that might be deemed to be highly manageable and although not desirable in the long run because we want people in housing, functional in the short term for the people there and the people in the surrounding community. So a path here may be to pull back a number of these amendments, endorse the protocol generally or with a number that we can use as a placeholder that colleagues can come together on, but also with a direction to our staff to say, you need to identify any sort of impacts that we didn’t perceive with this and come back with any modifications from what we’ve approved. So let’s not lock ourselves into these numbers for reconsideration our 12 months, but provide a clear indication, if not mapping because it’s too much work, to say Mr. Dickens comes back and says, listen, this is going to eliminate X location, which is working very well.

We should come back with an exception to say, this location can stand irrespective of the document and the parameters we put in. There is flexibility built into that, but they’re going to actually work around the guidelines. So the guidelines do actually have meaning, flexibility, but meaning, and I think that that might be the path forward. So again, I don’t know what the numbers are.

I could tell you 250 is way too far for me. I think that excludes way too many things, but I think we can endorse the document, find a number that works, but commit ourselves to giving staff that permission to come back with impacts and suggested changes to what we’ve approved to make sure that we haven’t created an unintended impact and that we aren’t causing a situation that I don’t think any of us are looking to cause. And then we get all the other good things, all the other good things in this report, that we haven’t actually had a chance to talk about yet. And I hope I have an opportunity when we get to wherever we land to, to comment on what are some incredibly functional and really thoughtful pieces of this work, like the transformational outreach, the fact that we’re actually creating a document that says encampments aren’t where we want people, we want to create as many pathways to housing as possible.

This is really important for us to all be on the same page of, us outreach workers, the industry, the whole of community, everybody needs to know the whole goal here is to drive people into housing. So I think that’s my comments on this. So I’m not going to support the referral. I’m hoping that we can find some common ground forward, but I think we should flag for colleagues who have concerns about the impacts, include myself included, that we’re going to give our staff permission to come back, whatever they feel they need to to say, what you’ve passed is creating some issues and we need to like make some adjustments to it and we’ll make those quickly and effectively.

Thank you, your worship, again, we’re on the amendment to the referral. Councilor Pribble, you had held your hand up. Did you want to speak to the amendment to the referral? You’re good, okay.

I just want to clarify for everyone because it’s been mentioned now a couple of times about the other things in this report. The Councilor Robbins original amendment and this would include the amendment to the amendment that Councilor Palosa put forward was that this report be endorsed with amendments too. So the amendments don’t change moving the whole thing forward. Only the referral refers the whole thing.

So that’s where we are right now. The referral sends everything back with some direction to come back to us at a future date. The amendments, if the referral fails, speak to everything going forward with some change numbers. That’s what’s on the floor right now.

Just want everybody to be clear and on the same pages to what’s on the floor. So any other speakers on the amendment to the referral? Seeing none. I’m going to just, I want to clarify.

So we would still have to vote down the amendment to the referral, which then brings us back to the referral and then we have to vote on the referral to get back to the amendment to the amendment motion. Sorry, the levels of inception are going quite deep. So I just wanted to make sure we still have two votes on the referral. Correct.

So any scribe, we have a referral that encompasses both parts of the amendments, the original amendment from Councilor ramen and the amendment from Councilor Palosa. So those distances are both captured as well as the original. That is the referral that we are voting on now to send the whole thing back for staff to do some work and come back to us. I have no one else on the speaker’s list.

Oh, Councilor Van Mierbergen. Thank you, Chair. No, I think the amendment or sorry, the referral in this case makes perfect sense. I think this is crying out for a referral in which we can come back and we can take another look at this.

So I’m just going to keep this short. I will be supporting the actual referral. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor.

So colleagues, if it is in eScribe, it is motion five. That is the referral vote that is in eScribe at the moment. That was moved by Councilor Layman and seconded by Councilor Cuddy. That includes all the options to refer that all back.

It would still receive the report, but it refers these back to return to us, so. Excuse me, Chair. I just quick question, Councilor Rivera. I just want to clarify.

You said that if we were to vote on this referral and it passes, everything would be referred. That’s the entire report. The entire document gets referred back. We’ve received this report, but everything goes back to staff to bring back to us at a future committee date.

And that’s not just the distances we’re talking about, entire report, okay. Correct. I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. Sorry, so to my original question through the chair, sorry, is there not a six one because Councilor Ferrara did put forward an amendment to the referral?

So don’t we have to vote on the amendment to the referral before we get back to the referral? Oh, sorry. The clerk has captured all three options in this motion, so we just have the wrong mover and secondary in there. We’ll just get that corrected.

Okay, so that has now been corrected. We have the correct mover and secondary in there. Ferrara and McAllister are the Councilors moving in seconding. This is all three options, which is the amended referral.

So now I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Vote yes. Housing the vote motion fails four to 11. Okay, now we will go back to the original referral, which is only the two amendments, not the work on the original document.

We’ll just give the clerk a moment to get that ready. That was the referral that was moved by Councilor Layman and seconded by Councilor Cuddy. Just bear with us a moment while the clerk gets that in. Clerk has that ready now.

I hope we’ve said everything we need to say about referrals on the amendment to the referral. So unless there’s any further speakers, I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote on the original referral. Just to be clear, this is motion six and E scribe. And this removes the numbers that Councilor Ferrara added in from the original report.

And this now only includes the bullet points on the numbers suggested by Councilor Raman and her amendment and by Councilor Palosa and her amendment to the amendment. Councilor Palosa. Just briefly, I haven’t spoken on any referral yet. And this one still contains mine.

I’m also a no on this. Thank you. Anyone else on the main referral? Councilor Raman.

Sorry, in the referral, it says 100 to 250 meters from a private residential, that piece, but I just said 100. Oh, sorry, we’ll get that corrected. You’re correct there. A little too lowing, sorry.

Thank you for catching that Councilor. That’s being corrected in the E scribe now. And we now, if you refresh E scribe, that language has been changed and we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. Vote yes.

Mr. Cuddy. Yes. Opposing the vote, motion fails, five to 10.

Okay colleagues, we are now back to the amendment of the amendment, which was moved by Councilor Palosa and seconded by Councilor McAllister. This is the amendment that would amend the distance from an elementary school or children’s daycare center to 150 meters and clarify a hundred meters from any private residential property line within a habitable dwelling as per the building code. So that is the motion that’s on the floor right now, looking to see if we have any further speakers to this, noting that many of us have spoken to it. So not everybody has their full time, but if anybody would like to speak to it again, nobody has quite used their full five.

Came for any discussion, Councilor McAllister, and then Councilor Ferreira. Thank you through the chair. So in terms of where Councilor Palosa was going in terms of the suggestion, that’s why I supported this. These were the kind of the two that I thought, in terms of the schools and the private residents.

These are the ones I hear the most. I think the trickier element is still the parks. I think in terms of what I was referencing before, just I can just eyeball it on a map for myself in terms of knowing the amenities in my parks. I think that is the more challenging number.

I think the parks is very difficult to come to an agreement. I think this is kind of where our discussion today, we might be able to land on something. That’s why I was supportive of this. I’m happy to hear more from my colleagues, but I think these are the two items we might be able to kind of come to a compromise distance on.

I think the other ones, those are the more difficult ones, especially with our parks, because I know those are the ones we have a lot of challenges around. Thank you, Councilor. And just for colleagues’ clarification, because I’ve heard different opinions on different numbers, when we get to assuming the amendment passes and then the amendment passes on the main motion as amended, I will have the clerk break these out so that colleagues can vote on the distances on each of the four bullet points separately, just so everyone’s comfortable with they can support one thing but not another. Any further discussion on Councilor Palose’s amendment goes to Councilor Ferreira next.

Thank you, Chair, thank you, Deputy Mayor. So this is closer. Obviously, do you want to see maybe a little changes, but it’s still quite a significant departure. And without knowing the mapping, I wouldn’t be able to support this, and I wouldn’t be able to support the original amended motion.

So I’d be voting this one down and the next one. Thank you, Councilor. And we have Councilor Frank with us online. And I did see, raise your hand, Councilor.

So I’m going to go to Councilor Frank next. Thank you. Yes, I guess I have a quick procedural questions. I know we have an amendment with the amendment.

So we can’t do another one. So I’m wondering if this one passes or fails if that another amendment is allowed and it’s super annoying, sorry, silly today. But I’m just wondering given the other two ones with regarding water parks, splash pad, pools, sports facilities, I just did some quick Google mapping and you can actually map out this. I don’t think anyone can camp in any of my parks in board 11 if it passes today.

So based on that, I think that if we are able to make some amendments in those other two items, which 150 meters from like splash pads and pools, as well as the sports facilities, we’re essentially neutralized all of it. I just want to provide that in my context too, Councilor. Bear with me for just a moment, Councilor. I’m going to talk to the clerk to make sure I have the process right.

Okay, Councilor Frank, an answer to your process question. If this amendment passes and you wish to then move a different number for the playground water parks spray pad or the sports field ones, that would still be an order because it now becomes an amended amendment. So yes, you could change the number on the other two bullet points. Okay, thank you.

I think I will save money. Okay, I will keep my eye, one eye on the screen for your hand to go up again. Okay, so we have exhausted the speakers list at this point. So I’m going to ask the clerk to open the amendment to the amendment, which is Councilor Palozas.

I vote no. Opposing the vote, motion carries 10 to five. Okay, now we are back to an amendment from Councilor Ramen with modified numbers from Councilor Paloza. And so I’ll look for any speakers on the amendment now as amended.

Councilor Frank. Thank you, so can I make the amendment now? Yes, you can. I would like to change then the 250 meters for playground pool water parks spray pad to 100 meters.

And then the 250 meters for sports fields those are not limited to et cetera to 100 meters as well. And I’m happy to speak to that now, of course. Okay, can I just look to see if we’ve got a seconder for you and then I’ll come back to you for your rationale. Councilor Ferra, you’re willing to second?

Okay, so that’s moved and seconded. Councilor Frank and Councilor Ferra, Councilor Frank, the floor is now yours for your rationale. Thank you, yes. Again, I appreciate whatever it is trying to do here.

We’re trying to balance a couple of various needs and of course safety for everyone is most important. Hang on one moment, Councilor Frank. Sorry, Councilor Frank, I just call a point of order. Your headset, you’re really garbly with the audio and really hard to understand.

I just want to make sure that we can hear you appropriately. That was it. Okay, Councilor Frank, did you want to try without the headset? Yeah, how’s that?

Nice and clear. Okay, these are dollar store headsets. So don’t buy a dollar store, that’s the problem. So as I was saying, I appreciate whatever it’s trying to do.

I think we’re trying to balance a lot of safety needs and safety concerns and I know we’ve all heard them from our various residents. I think at the same time we want to be able to ensure that there are places for people who are living in Cammons to stay because we don’t have enough shelter beds for them. One of the questions I had for Chantal and Greg was, you know, how many people do we have living rough right now and how many shelter beds do we have? And it sounds like we have just over 300.

We have, of course, we know several hundred people living in parks. So we simply just do not have enough and they’re all full. So that all to say, appreciate where Councilor Rahman is coming from regarding having more thorough, I guess, or further away setbacks. But for me, I just did a quick scan while we’ve been debating this about all my parks.

And I mean, word 11 doesn’t have that many parks. So maybe that’s another discussion for our parks and forestry team because we would love to have more. But that being said, the 250 meters from the splash pads, the water parks, the pools, the playground equipment, the sports facilities. I did just little Google map calculations and it would pretty much mean people were living either just along the river or they’d have to be living on a slope that’s probably about this high onto embankments along the train or along hills and neither are safe.

So just trying to make sure that we are bouncing these two needs and 100 meters when I was doing some of the scans, provide still a great deal of distance while also allowing for some spots in the parks that are farther away, but still safe for people living in tents to live. So that’s how I arrived at that number. Thank you, Councilor Frank. And I’m going to apologize.

I forgot to start a timer on you. So I don’t know if you used your five minutes or not, but I don’t feel like you did. The clerk, however, was timing, so he says to advise you, you only used about a minute and 50 seconds. Looking for other speakers on Councilor Frank’s amendment.

Councilor Ferrera. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I’ll be brief on this one. I didn’t do the work that Councilor Frank did, but I do feel like this is a good ground to set off from.

It’s not too far removed from the original numbers that we got from staff. So, and this is something that I’d be comfortable with. So that’s why I’m seconding it. And looking at the 100 meters for playground and pool, I believe that’s 50 meters extra on top of that amount and the 100 meters for any sports field.

Looking at that, I believe that was five meters originally. So it’s less than what we saw, and I hope that it does work. And if we have to make a decision and we can’t, I can see the direction we’re going is we’re not actually looking for staff to do the mapping. This is something that would be more digestible for me, so that’s why I’d be seconding it.

Thank you, Councilor Ferreira. Any other speakers to this? Councilor McAllister. Thank you through the chair and Councilor Frank.

I did see your hand, so I will come back to you. And thank you and through you. And I appreciate the last point, Councilor Ferre, I just made it for me, the rest of this, we kind of need to get this in place. These are guidelines, again, as being said.

And I agree, like, if this is something that’s untenable, if we find through our feedback from our CIR teams, that this is too far of a distance, I mean, please bring that feedback back to us. But to everyone’s point, like, we’ve gone around this today, we’re trying to land on a number. I think we’re trying to find that middle ground, and I think that this suits what we’re looking for. But again, this is us debating a Council, we need to see this kind of in real time to see how it works.

I mean, my parks are a different size. I have smaller parks, I have massive parks. It’s kind of all over the map. I did have a question, and I’m not sure if I don’t want to put parks on the spot here.

But if staff could maybe— if they know what the average size of our parks is, and that vastly changes, obviously, depending on which ones we’re talking about. But that’s why I found with the overlap with the 250 was too high, because when I just eyeballed it, that would really put us in a tough spot. 100 meters, I still think, is doable. If our parks are between, I don’t know, 250, 500, I’m not really sure if staff can give us a number.

But I think that might help inform this conversation. So a question to staff. Thank you, Councillor McAllister. I think with over 500 parks in the city, it’s fair to say Ms.

Share would not be able to give you that information on the spot today. Obviously, we have some very, very large parks, and we have some very, very tiny parks. So the tiny parks would become no-go zones. The larger parks would still have that.

So I saw Ms. Share shaking her head that she did not have the answer. So I just want to share with you. They’re not able to answer that at this time.

Okay, I’m sure we’ll get that feedback at some point. But I think that would be useful. And I mean, I think in terms of this conversation, that might have been something that would be helpful to have just as some parameters going into this conversation. So maybe for future meetings, I would suggest maybe we have that.

I did have a second question. I guess this would fall to Mr. Dickens, but in terms of having numbers such as this, is our CRR team kind of equipped to be able to handle this in terms of measurements? Is this something that we can actually enforce?

Or is it just us coming up with a range that’s arbitrary? Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair, through you.

I might first draw our committee’s attention to page 36 of the plan, page 846 of the agenda package where we speak about encampment protocols and proximities will essentially be utilized at the discretion of the CIR team based on individual environmental circumstances. And what that means is we would look to recognize if something was in close proximity and ensure that we remove or enforce that it’s too close to a certain element or amenity. However, when we do look at how this is enforced, we engage through the operational tables. The document talks about health and safety working groups, people that have their feet on the street that are going into these encampments, identifying when there’s significant safety concerns.

So if an item falls outside of the 100 meters or 200 meters and it’s unsafe, we would have to enact our protocols to ensure that that is removed. So as you draw greater distance away from what is proposed in the plan, it captures more and more potential encampments that would then need to be enforced, even if they’re following all of the other guidelines and protocols and rules. So it will have, and I don’t have the exact impact of that, but it will have an impact on our ability to enforce them in a timely manner. It will have an impact on our staffing capacity as well.

So while it may take us longer to get to these spaces, we will ensure that we prioritize those calls and those complaints. So if somebody calls us about an encampment that falls within the 100 meters, but it’s abiding by most rules, it’s not impacting the community in a great, to any great extent. It seems to be relatively low on the priority scale. It’ll get treated as such, because as those proximity rings get bigger and bigger, the demand on our staff and the community teams is gonna get bigger as well.

Thank you, Mr. Dickens, Councilor McAllister. I just wanna let colleagues know, I’ve got a speaker’s list, I’m writing names down. So, sorry, Councilor McAllister, Councilor Frank, Councilor Trustale, Councilor Hopkins.

Councilor McAllister, go ahead. Thank you, through the chair. And I think that’s an important point that Mr. Dickens raised.

Obviously, there’s a certain amount of triage that happens with these in terms of what’s going on in the encampments themselves, what is reasonable in terms of distances. So I do think we have to also acknowledge that there’s going to be some leeway in terms of where, yes, we’re giving guidelines, but especially with the distances. It’s also what we’re looking to do for the residents and those experiencing homelessness, but both have to be weighed accordingly, right? So, we are also kind of giving some leeway to our teams who are on the ground working.

These are parameters, and I think we’ve all heard loud and clear from our communities that folks want those guidelines, they want the parameters, but we also have to be cognizant of what we can realistically do. And so I just, we move forward with this. I think we have to keep in mind that our teams will do their best, but that there’s going to be a certain amount of leeway that would go into the guidelines and what we can realistically do. We want everyone to be safe and secure, but these are numbers that we’re trying to establish.

It’s not going to be perfect, and we’ll kind of have to work on this as the plan develops. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor McAllister. I have Councilor Frank next.

Thank you, I just wanted to reiterate kind of what Councilor McAllister said, but that I expect these to be guidelines as we’re referenced by Mr. Dickens and in the report. I just was worried that with the 250 meter setbacks that if residents start to cite that and use it almost as the Bible and say this is what we must follow, it is written down this piece of paper that gave me some concern. So even with the 100 meters, I understand that their guidelines and if somebody is not bothering anybody, they’re doing just fine and they’re 80 meters away, then that is totally fine, but I just wanted to make sure that again, we kind of brought down that number to be somewhat more reasonable, but we’re still trying to provide and balance those two needs.

So I’m very happy that it’s more of a guideline. Thank you, Councilor Frank, Councilor Trussell. Yeah, respectfully through the chair, I really need to disagree with what my colleague just said. If it says 100 and it’s 80, it’s not okay.

And I think I like what I heard from staff before that it said even if you have a low number, if we get a report about an encampment that’s a problem due to additional some other health or safety or dangerous situations, it can be shut down. And I think the flexibility runs in that direction. And we have to be, again, I think that we have to go out of our way not to make these numbers too high, recognizing that making them too low doesn’t have the same danger because staff will always have the discretion to do, the teams will have the discretion to do what they think they need to do. So I’m gonna vote while I like to swim better and I like the direction this is going, I’m sticking to what I said at the beginning when I made the motion to put this recommendation on the table, period, and I’m not gonna support this amendment.

And I think we have the flexibility even without this amendment, and I must be close to five minutes by now, so I’ll just stop. I think I made my point. Thank you, Councillor. And I appreciate the time sensitivity.

I’ve got Councillor Hopkins next. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I wanna thank all my colleagues for bringing their motions forward.

I think the intent there is they’re listening to the concerns that they hear in the community. And I really do appreciate that. It’s all about balance and compromise, but I will not be supporting this motion. Again, the recommendation from the working group was 50 meters, we heard loud and clear when it comes to the art of enforcement, there is a, it’s a guideline.

And so that 50 could be 80 as well, but I think those guidelines really will assist staff as they try to help, help residents that need a place to stay and have places to put them. So many thanks to the mover and the seconder, but I will not be supporting it. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins. I have no other speakers on the list at this time for the amendment.

So I’m gonna do a last call and I see none. So I lost the clerk to open the vote. Vote no. Housing the vote, motion carries nine to six.

Okay, colleagues, we are now to the main motion as amended. So I’m gonna see if there are any more speakers to the main motion as amended. I hope colleagues don’t feel the need to repeat the same things that they’ve commented on other things. Hold on just one moment, please.

Sorry, we are so far down the inception level that I missed a layer of amendments. So we are now on the amendment to the original motion, which was put forward by Councillor Raman, which now has two amendments made to it with regard to distances. So we are back to the original amendment as amended, not the main motion. Any speakers to that before we call the vote?

Councillor Ferrera. Thank you, Chair. Just because we’ve had so many amendments through this committee, can we, is it possible for the clerk to put everything together just on the scribe before anything? Yes, we will get that.

In fact, I will read it out before we vote, just so that everybody’s clear on what we’re voting on Councillor Frank. Thank you, that’s actually what I’m gonna ask for, so. Okay, so what we will be voting on now is the amended amendment to the original motion, which reads that part A, be approved and amended and reads as follows, that the saving lives alleviating suffering and building healthy and strong and safe community for all London’s health and homelessness response, community encampment response plan, as attached in schedule one, be endorsed with the following amended guidelines contained on page 36, on or within 100 meters of an elementary school or children’s daycare center, on or within, sorry, that should have said 150 meters, on or within 100 meters of a playground, pool, water park or spray pad, within 100 meters of any private residential property line with a habitable dwelling as per the building code and on or within 100 meters of any sports fields, inclusive of, but not limited to skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball time and soccer pitches tennis courts and or any other sports or multi-use courts as well as stadiums, dugout stages and bleachers. So that is the amended part A that we will be voting on before we vote on the main motion as amended should this amendment pass.

Councillor Frank. Thank you, I just want to say I’ll be voting against all of them. I was very convinced by Councillor Trossa and Councillor Hopkins and we’ll just be voting against these ones and then approving the original motion because I agree about the ability to use the lower numbers. Okay, and as I, before I go any further on this, it seemed like we were reaching, if not consensus, at least in majority direction on things, but we could still vote on each of the four separately or some combination of putting them together.

But if you’re just against all of them, then please don’t pull them apart, just vote against the whole thing. If you’re in favor of all of them, just vote for the whole thing. If somebody wants something dealt with separately before I go to anyone else, I need to know. Councillor Palosa.

Could you just call the first one in regards to seeing the school separate from the remainder three, please? Okay, I will ask Kirk to do that. Councillor Ferrer, you had your hand up as well. Was that the same request?

Okay, you’ll have to give us a moment to prep that in E-Scribe so that we can call it separately. Okay, so the clerk is going to open the vote first on the school distance only and it will say that a part A be approved and amended as follows. The second motion on the other three distances will also say that part A be amended and as approved as follows. So we’re just going to break those out into two separate votes that way.

And then whatever the result is, the clerk can incorporate a main motion as amended from those results. Okay, so I’m going to ask the clerk to open the first vote. This is the school distance. The vote, yes.

Posing the vote, motion carries 11 to four. Okay, I’m now going to ask the clerk to open the vote on the other three amended distances. A vote, no. Sorry, question.

Mr. Chair, procedurally, is this the final amendment or the amendment to the original one? No, after this, we then still have to deal with all of the other pieces on the original motion. Sir, Stevenson, Councillor Trozzo.

Posing the vote, motion carries nine to six. Okay, thank you, colleagues. And now we need to deal with the main motion as amended, which includes all the other parts and the amended part A that we just finished the votes on, the distances on. So this includes all of the original part B and part C receiving the report, receiving the memo from our deputy city manager.

And it being noted that we received the presentation from Ms. McDonald and Mr. Nash. That’s the clerk now to open the vote on that.

Can we pull things separate in that as well? Just to come back to, the main motion has been amended. So now we are voting on the main motion as amended. Councillor Stevenson, a question?

I’ve been waiting to speak on the main motion. We’ve been doing amendments all this time. That is true. And certainly I can go to you.

I’m just gonna go to Councillor Palazzo’s question about can we vote separately on the main motion as amended? B and C, I assume you’re okay with leaving together. You simply want to vote separately on me. Is there anything in E-Scribe?

I don’t know if it’s updated in there yet. So I can’t speak to my perception of my actual question. While the clerk updates that in E-Scribe, I’m gonna go to Councillor Stevenson. We’ll advise you when the clerk has updated in E-Scribe.

I will also advise Councillors that should you need to get a quick snack or take a bio break. The snacks have arrived in the council’s lounge. But again, I’m gonna ask that you get them as you will bring them back and continue to work through the agenda here. So Councillor Stevenson, I’m gonna go to you now to speak to what we have, which is the main motion as amended, but that is on the floor.

So before we vote, we can have speakers on that. Go ahead. Okay, thank you. I did want to thank Chantel and Greg and Civic Administration for the public engagement.

And for Mr. Dickens for summarizing that and adding it to the report, it’s great to have it here. I also wanted to thank Chantel and Greg for scheduling meetings with the Councillors ahead of time. It was a really valuable hour and a half.

So thank you very much for that. I did want to just focus on one little piece of this report. On page 773, it talks about decision-making and about how the table, the encampment implementation table will use a consensus-driven decision-making model. And I believe the health and homelessness summit or the whole of community system response does the same thing.

Is that in contrast to our majority rule here? Does that mean that all of the organizations on the table have all, are all in support of what’s been, what Council is being asked to endorse? Thank you and through you, Chair. Can you just sort, Councillor Stevenson, can you read the last part of what you said?

Councilor. Thanks. So the consensus model, does that mean that all of the people on the table all support the, you know, they come to consensus on what this report says and what Council is being asked to endorse? Thank you and through you, Chair.

Yes. Councillor Stevenson. Okay, thank you very much. So I wanted to go to the very last page of the slide presentation.

So I think it’s page one. Anyway, it’s the encampment protocols and it’s the map that maps out the areas where it, and it says locations where encampments are not permitted. And it identifies the parks and the places and it also says public streets, sidewalks and paths. So when we’ve got the whole, we’ve got the encampment table presenting this strategy and Council’s being asked to endorse this strategy, what can the public expect in terms of this statement where encampments are not permitted in these locations, public streets, sidewalks and paths and the outline parks?

When currently we’ve got, you know, a lot of tents and encampments in those areas, particularly in all these village, but I know in the core and in other areas too. So, and we’ve had zero tolerance before. So as the, as this encampment table brings this forward, saying we’re saying they’re not permitted here and Council is being asked to endorse it, can the public expect that that will be the case, that we will be able to keep encampments from those locations? So I’m gonna go to Mr.

Dickens to start. Thank you, Chair, and through you, happy to take this question as that falls under my service area. So the teams are out visiting these spaces, particularly all these village multiple times a day, including first thing in the morning around 7, 15 a.m. or so.

We work in partnership with London Police Services. As far as these spaces not being permitted for encampments, we do not have around the clock 24 hour surveillance or presence in these spaces. I think we all acknowledge that unless police are making rounds. But what we do is we go out to enforce that there are not to be tents and encampments set up on sidewalks, on pathways, in some of these spaces.

It is a significant challenge. You go out and you sometimes engage with the same person over and over and over again. Sometimes people move along and new people come and take their place. Sometimes they do it for very humanistic reasons and survival reasons and it is devastating every time when those folks need to be moved.

But we understand that their presence impedes the intended use of those spaces and it causes safety challenges for people who rely on those spaces, particularly sidewalks and other high use public spaces. So what can the community expect? I think what the community can expect is that the people that work for the city of London, the people that work for the organizations in this community will continue to engage with these folks on a multiple times per day basis. They will do absolutely everything in their power to ensure they balance public safety with supporting the basic human needs of those in our community that have nowhere to live.

And that is what the community should expect. And I expect that my team will do that to the fullest extent with the greatest balance of compassion and enforcement that they can. Councillor. Thank you and through the chair.

I appreciate the response and I, you know, we’re in a really challenging situation, but as we’ve spent a really long time here talking about the number of meters from this and that. And this very clearly says, and it’s not coming from, it’s coming from the whole of community system response saying encampments are not permitted in these 15 places and on sidewalks and paths. And yet then we’re gonna go into all of these other areas where we’re gonna say, and not here, not here, not here, not here. But what does that really mean?

And I just really wanna be clear with the public, I wanna manage expectations, right? That we’re setting all of us up and those who are living unsheltered to, that we understand the situation that we’re in, that we understand what we can expect. We have got a business improvement association district that this council has said is an area that is important, that needs to be invested in, that we put a half a million dollars into, the whole of community system response is saying, these are not permitted, that’s a really strong language there, not permitted. And yet the reality is that you can’t walk along the sidewalk, the municipal parking lots often have many, many tents and encampments in them.

And so, if council’s gonna endorse this and say yes, we endorse this, what does that mean? And what do we say to the people when they’re living in the conditions that they are right now in terms of our businesses in that area and the neighborhood, what are we saying to them if we say we endorse this, but we’re not committed to actually achieving it, then should we change this and not have, and not say it this way? I think when we talk about the language, so I just wanna be really clear on that. And what does rapid force closure mean, what does proactive enforcement mean?

So, can those businesses are coming to me now and saying, what can I expect? Are things gonna change? And I understand the challenge, but I guess it’s like, why are we gonna add all kinds of more rules and expectations if we’re unable to do this one basic one? So, I’m not trying to be critical, I’m just looking to get clarity ‘cause clear is kind here, I think for everybody.

So, we’re sort of straying into our enforcement processes here. I don’t know if Mr. Deater’s Beers wants to speak or if we wanna go to Mr. Dickens directly, Mr.

Dickens. Thank you, Chair and through you. Just to clarify, a comment was made that we’re not committed to seeing this through or making this successful. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I think you see our co-chairs presenting and preparing and meeting with council members and the work that our teams do every day, we’re very committed to seeing this through, to fulfilling these obligations. There is no sugar coating. The challenges and the difficulties that exist with this desperate situation that the members of our community are facing, including the business improvement associations that our neighborhoods face, this impacts a number of elements of society, absolutely. But we’re absolutely committed to seeing this through.

What does it mean? We’ve just expanded the distance around certain amenities and locations. That increases, in some cases exponentially, the requirement to now be present to enforce greater distance, greater geographic areas. So these are going to remain a challenge, but I just can’t accept the notion that we’re not committed to making it, to seeing it through.

When we say these are not permitted here, that’s an acknowledgement that these spaces have high usage, they’re not suitable, they’re not perhaps safe for those in encampments or those that use those spaces outside of unsheltered individuals. So we will continue to go out to these spaces every morning. We are complaints driven, we will get to those complaints, we prioritize based on some of the criteria in this plan. Again, we use discretion to prioritize where we go.

We have a six member CIR team that works six days a week. We will always have to prioritize our calls. And these locations do get prioritized. And other calls, even if they’re outside of the boundary, but there’s unsafe conditions, we will prioritize those calls as well.

So to wrap, Chair, sorry, a long-winded answer on a short question, but we will continue to deploy resources to the best of our ability to make sure that we uphold what this plan says. And yes, this plan has been endorsed and supported by those at these tables. When we do consensus building, we identify if people have concerns that we need to walk through, try to get them to a place if they could accept it. They might not fully agree with it, but they can live with it.

And that’s how we build consensus around these tables. Councillor, Stephen, you have 20 seconds left. I’m gonna see if you’ve got anything else you want to comment on. Yeah, the commitment wasn’t meant to be derogatory.

It’s the reality of the fact that the tents are consistently there day after day and throughout the day. And so it’s about, like I said, getting clear on that and not meant to be derogatory, just looking to say, like what does this actually mean when we say this? So thank you. Thank you.

I’ve got Councillor Pribble and then Mayor Morgan and then Councillor McAllister, Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a few questions.

The first one is management versus support. And it’s either to the presenters or our staff. So we’ve been talking about management, I consider enforcement management, but the support, how is that gonna work and the communication? So when our staff approaches these individuals when they are not in the restricted areas, what are we gonna do?

What communication will be given to them? What options will be given to them? Because I do think that this is one of the issues when I do speak with the people on the street on the encampments, we were given a notice, we have to leave, where should we go? So if you can please answer this, how this will actually work.

Thank you, Ms. McDonald, did you wanna start? Sure, thank you and through the chair. When complaints are generated through the CRM within the city of London, those complaints typically go to outreach teams as well as by the officers so that they can work together to either support and manage the individuals within encampments.

Some of Greg and I’s work within the encampment table was really to try and enhance those communications between partners that are working within encampments. And that’s also a goal to continue with the encampment table as we implement some of these pieces after council. Council approval. So are these individuals be given certain options or it’s gonna be just say you cannot be here?

I am not sure whether Mr. Dickens wants to respond to that one or whether our presenters want to comment on it. But I will go to whomever wishes to offer a thought. I’ll start chair.

So through you, I do have a manager of our CRR team here who can elaborate on this, but high level, I mean, you engage individuals as individuals. And so what the team would say to one individual may be different than what they would say to another individual. In case a point might be, you encounter an individual on an encampment or they’re in a place that’s not suitable. You look in the system to see that they’ve been banned from shelters, for example.

You would not then encourage that person to go seek out a shelter bed. The person beside them, however, may not be connected to the shelter system. Maybe there are no red flags or that they have not been banned from a shelter system. That outreach worker might then engage with that person about getting into shelter.

So this is not a one size fits all. It’s not a blanket template. Here we have a script. In some cases, there’s a lot of commonality, absolutely.

You want to offer somebody a better choice than where they are right now. The reality is we don’t always have that luxury. It’s why we have moral fatigue and burnout rampant amongst our city staff and our community organizations. But what we do is we notify people.

They cannot be in this location. They need to pack up, they need to leave. They’re offered assistance in packing up their belongings. If they leave belongings behind and disregard those items, we work with Ms.

Share’s team to come in and with our roads crew clean up that mess as quick as possible. If there are conditions that are unsafe for that or environmental conditions that prevent that from happening, we will work with a third party contractor to come in and collect that debris as well. So this is not a one-size-fits-all. They’re unique to each individual.

We try to balance that compliance with compassion. Councillor Preble. Thank you, I do have a lot to answer on this question. And these individuals, they actually do realize, a lot of them do realize that there is nothing other option for them.

And they are looking, again, for outdoor space where they are told by our staff, by staff, that they are not able to stay there. And I’m not talking about finding up a place for them sheltered roof over their head. My point is, they don’t know where to go. And I’m talking about outdoors.

Are we gonna give them the option because, again, they get to notice, they get 24 hours, they have to leave. But they don’t know where to go. Are they gonna go to another spot? And are we gonna deal with another restricted spot?

And this is my point, that this knowledge is not out there and they are just saying, where should I go? Through you, Chair, I think you serve with that. Through you, I think we’ve answered this question. I don’t have anything else to elaborate on.

Thank you. Councillor Preble, anything further? Yes, I do. To be honest with you, I really don’t know how I got the answer for that one, to be honest with you, because in terms of being— Councillor Preble.

Okay, I do have the respect that the staff have provided an answer, the best answer that they can provide. So it’s not appropriate to say that they didn’t answer you. You might not like the answer, but they’ve provided a response. Okay, a couple of other questions.

This actually to the presenters. Transformational and transformational outreach, is it gonna be done by suppressed staff or by same staff, so we are more cost effective? Thank you and through the chair. It can be done by both, so transactional and transformational outreach, it can separate the transformational outreach.

Typically, you’re adding elements of transactional outreach within that spectrum of work as well. Transactional outreach can be done by volunteers, whereas transformational outreach is typically done by skilled outreach workers that are hired on. Councillor. Okay, thank you for that answer.

In terms of triaging, and I was really happy to see that we are actually looking into the triaging, but I do believe that there is an opportunity to go even further than the three categories we are currently doing, and all the individuals out there are motivated in different ways. And I think I keep using the same kind of example that happened to me recent, or 21 people in encampment, I’ve reached 25 years old, and a lot of them, no drug addiction, no, it’s just really two main issues, either peer pressure or issues at home, and they left. And these are the individuals they, honestly, they need what I call hold their hand for five minutes, get them back on track, instead of being in these encampments with the individuals who actually have the addictions, et cetera, et cetera. Is there an opportunity, or isn’t there an opportunity to triage more deeper, so we can get to these individuals as fast as we can, and find a path for them, which would be the cheapest, the fastest, for them individually, and for our society?

Ms. McDowell, there are Mr. Nash, any thoughts on that? Thank you, and through the chair.

So you’re right, Councillor Pribble, that graphic is pretty simple, based on what we triaged to. However, the work itself is quite complex, so you would be looking at diversion, and diversion of the cheapest kind, would be lead to natural resources, and that typically best supports that individual. And then what’s not captured on that graph is also the work that those outreach teams do to support individuals into other sectors as well. So developmental sector, long-term care, different agencies in my meet their needs better than just housing or just shelter.

Thank you, you got about a minute and 10 left. Okay, thank you, sort of chair. So thank you for that answer. I will leave it with a comment.

Please look into these opportunities, because I do believe that these opportunities are the most proactive, and that would help greatly our society and the individuals to really triage them and see where is the minimum need, and to get them back from track as soon as possible. So please look into that. And last question, in terms of the reporting, are there any plans to report on quarterly basis as the results, as the progress? Thank you, I’m gonna go to Mr.

Dickens, I think, in terms of reporting, because reporting to council has to come through staff. Certainly if Mr. Nash or Ms. McDonald have some thoughts to offer as well, we can hear those.

We would just offer that built into, as previously, sorry, through you chair, thank you for the question. We just have the size that endorsed by the council already is our systems foundation table that will be evaluating the entire initiative, both from a developmental qualitative and quantitative approach. Excuse me, this will be part of that evaluation. We’ll be setting metrics within this to both evaluate our outcomes, but also quality improvement, what we can do better.

Mr. Dickens, did you wanna add anything in terms of reporting? Thank you, chair, through you. The only thing I would offer is that we do have a quarterly Whole of CUNY system response report that does come to SPPC.

We did not envision that we would be reporting to council quarterly on outreach or like operational activities related to encampments. So we would seek direction if there was to be additional reporting on this specifically. Mr. Provost, is that satisfactory?

Actually, then I have one last question. What do you think would be feasible? Because I do, and I believe some of my colleagues would like to see the progress and update as well. So I’ll give this question to our staff.

What do you think would be feasible recommendation? So it’s not additional huge workload, but on the other hand, we have received the information. Mr. Dickens.

Through you, chair, as Mr. Nash indicated, we do have our system foundations work that will be coming back with the evaluation framework. So we would look to report back on all the elements of the plan under those reporting schedules. Thank you, Provost, you have used your time.

And I’m all done. Thank you, chair. - Okay. Mayor Morgan, thank you, chair.

So first, I’m supportive of the amended motion. I wanted to say a few things about the strategy in general. First off, and I mentioned this earlier, I really want to commend the focus on housing. And I know that with all of the things that we’re doing, everything is geared towards getting people off the street and into housing.

And talking with my colleagues across the province and the country, many are struggling with many different things, but everybody understands that the problem with homelessness is solved by housing. And then we know that that pathway is very complex when you show the spectrum of housing that we have to think about. Homelessness is right at the bottom. It’s the ground level step to then move people into what they need when they need it.

And I think the pathways to housing approach and the transformation on it reaches is really important because, we’ve talked a lot in the whole of community response with the highest needs individuals. But through that outreach work, especially in encampments, you’re coming across many individuals who are not necessarily high-acuity, who are in different house situations, or on house situations, and have different needs. And so the way that this is envisioned to triage them were, although there were many groups doing many good things to try to help, having a very structured framework where we are driving everything into pathways to housing and the types of housing they need, whether it be a financial barrier, a justice barrier, a mental health or addictions barrier, like having that be so intentional in every part of this, I think is absolutely the right focus. Because at the end of the day, I don’t think any of us want to see encampments, right?

The goal here is not having encampments. The goal is ultimately having people house. So I really like the basis and the fundamentals of the plan. I want to say too, because a lot of this is executed by volunteers, but also CIR.

And I had a chance to go out with CIR this past week for a number of hours, visiting a number of encampments. And for all the questions that we had, and I know Councillor Pribble, I know he goes out and walks around as well, but I want to talk about my experience with the CIR team, it is, you could see the transformational piece already at play, and having this organized and structured and supported in the right way, we’ll only take it to the next level. When that team goes and they know the names of the individuals, and they know where they are in the process, whether that be, and I’m not going to use names of people to protect their identities, but when they know that someone is, you know, already submitted their application to Indoorwell and is on the verge of being assessed and they’re about to get housing. And so they’re talking about what to do to take down their encampment, deal with their stuff, so that they’re not drawn back to being worried about their, you know, what is their worldly belongings, and focused on actually that housing piece of the journey, I saw that.

When you see others who are, you know, you walk up and they know that they just completed their first tax return in a number of years and are getting a refund and now can afford first and last ones rent, and are being connected with the right services now that they have that basis to go into not highly supportive housing, but other types of subsidized housing that actually aligns with them. So to see those teams understand the people they’re serving, and to know what step they are along the process and to be assisting them with the next step, you know, it gives me great hope to say, you know, we’ve got a big problem, like we’ve got a scale problem, but we have the right fundamentals in the approach, and we have the right people, it would be great to have more on them, but we have the right people on the ground who are doing the right things and understanding how to get people through those pathways to housing. I mean, I also saw very high needs individuals, and so the need, and this will be on our agenda later today, to create as many supportive housing options as we possibly can is incredibly important for those who absolutely need significant additional supports to be successful and get out of encampments. And I think this week as the temperatures will be very, very high about the people who I had the opportunity to meet, right?

And what they will go through this week and how important the work is that we’re doing to try to ensure that both through the encampment strategy as well as the basic needs report that will come and we’ll talk about next, that people are gonna have a really difficult week and maybe a really difficult summer through the heat, but there are pathways that we can create. I am optimistic about the investments that other levels of government are making, the federal government’s recent significant announcement to support an encampment strategy. I know the big city mayors met last Friday, and one of the things that came out of that was we need the details on when that money is gonna flow and how it’s gonna flow and what our allocation is gonna be as quick as we possibly can because we can deploy those resources today, right? And having this plan allows us to be well positioned for that.

So, you know, these are good things, but the scale of the problem is very challenging to manage, but I wanted to say thank you for the work that you and the teams to pull this, what is months of work together to finally have the chance for us to make a decision on it. Thank you for all the work that you did and to our CIR teams that I had a chance to go out with. Thank you to them who will be going out tomorrow and the next day and the next day and helping people through some challenging situations. Seeing that firsthand was a very powerful experience and I intend to go out with them again a few more times through the summer to see what it’s looked like.

So, I probably had it in my time, but I’m very supportive of what’s before us. I appreciate the amendments that were made and look forward to. Our well beyond your time, I allowed you a few extra seconds ‘cause I could tell you were wrapping up, but you definitely exceeded your time. So, I’m gonna deduct that from any future item you wish to speak on today.

Now, we will carry on with the speakers list and Councillor McAllister, you are next. Thank you and through the chair echoing Mayor’s comments. In terms of my interaction with a CIR, I wanna applaud them for their dedication and this hard work. I know it’s a very challenging environment and that goes for our outreach teams as well.

Whenever I have conversations with my community, I always try to preface it by, you know, these are challenging circumstances. We have to recognize, you know, it’s just working with our partners in terms of helping folks who are experiencing homelessness. No one wants to live in this reality, unfortunately. There are so many things to feed into this.

It’s very complex. And recognizing that, I think the plan you put for us, you know, it addresses a lot of those concerns and this is the front end in terms of when you highlighted the housing spectrum, this is sort of the hardest work on the ground. So, I really do applaud you for these efforts. My questions actually have to do with the depot specifically.

This kind of dovetails into our next item, but it is called out in this report. So, we did go from a system where we had multiple depots to now having the one depot, which is a Watson Park, which falls in my award. And we have the three mobile ones as well. So obviously switching the three to mobile and then keeping one static one.

And so I just wanted to get some more information because this is a question that a lot of my residents ask me in terms of, you know, keeping that depot, what it would look like, what the mobile, in terms of feeding into that. So if you could just maybe flesh that out a bit more, just so in my conversations with my residents, I can provide that information. Well, I’m gonna see perhaps if Ms. Kramer’s wants to join us in the discussion here.

Welcome and go ahead. Thank you and through you, Chair. Yes, the mobile depots. So the intention is to keep the one depot that is working magnificently and for all intents and purposes, the way we wanted a depot to run.

And now it’s to plant some feelers out in community as to where other depots will be able to exist successfully, just as successfully as Watson. We have, we’re calling them mobile in that we’re going to test them out. If they were, we’ve already checked out all the parameters to make sure they meet distances, now new distances, and all of the things we require, easy access for EMS, everything that we can maintain our protocols under, well lit, all of those things we look for, and we’re going to set them up in these three parks and then see how it goes. So that’s the mobile piece of that.

If it doesn’t go as well, as for instance, Watson is going right now, we will look to engage another assessment of another park to move on, one of those three to the next location. So the mobiles will be required to follow all safety protocols as any encampment would. Councilor McAllister, thank you and through you. And my thanks to Mrs.

Kramer. I know I get CC’d on a lot of communications. In terms of folks who reach out about Watson Park, you’re very good about getting back to them, and I appreciate, again, the dedication and keeping the community members informed, because I do think that that’s a critically important part of this. I’ve been impressed in terms of the communication between our city staff and my residents.

There’s a lower population along that stretch, so I can kind of understand why that park might work better than other areas. We did also have a large demolition of a faken building there too, which had its own unique issues, but I think we’ve navigated that while, and I agree, in terms of how it’s operating. But I did just want to call out in terms of some of the feedback in terms of the report itself. One of the things that I thought was very interesting, so the feedback from the residents when they were speaking about the service depots, in terms of improvements was installing the public washrooms, garbage cans, providing the wraparound care, and implementing solutions to address safety and expanding the service time, and recognizing that some of those things are very much contained in what’s before us today.

But I do want to highlight that the installing of public washrooms is interesting, because it is something that comes up a lot. So just for the weirdest of my council colleagues, not having public washrooms is actually a barrier to a lot of our areas. And so when we’re looking at these alternate locations, I do think we have to keep in mind, in terms of garbage and washrooms, that we’re precluding some spots on the fact that we’re not providing those basic needs, and those are things that I hear from folks in living and encampments and from community members, that the lack of those resources is actually causing its own unique challenges. So that’s something, obviously, larger issues, those are the individual things we have to allocate some resources to.

But when you look at the usage, I mean, very important in terms of providing those basic needs. I know that goes into our next conversation, but just to keep that on everyone’s radar. And I’m supportive of this plan. Councilor Ferrero.

Thank you, Chair. I’m listening to the discussion, I’m appreciative. I don’t want to repeat some of the things that were said, some of the comments I did have, so I won’t be repeating those. I did want to kind of speak to, I guess part of the conversation that I had with Mr.

Nash and Ms. McDonald, with respect to the proactively enforced areas, we did have a conversation on like, how would staff approach individuals in an area that is proactively enforced? And we did discuss the outreach portion is the first point of contact to give agency to the individuals that we’re speaking to, so they can have decisions to have their own self-direction. We’re just providing the information before we go to the CIR portion as well.

So I just wanted to kind of touch on that. I did also want to say with the information card, I guess that image that we have of what is permitted and what is not in encampments. I think that that’s a really good thing to see because in my communications with people, they are telling me they are not clear of what is allowed, but is not allowed, so having that pictorographic, I think is really helpful, really useful. So I guess a question on that would be, how would we be distributing that?

Are we gonna actually be distributing that graphic itself within encampments for people so they know what the rules are, what’s permitted and what’s not? Ms. McDonald. Thank you and through you the chair.

Yes, so it’s a good point to make because it also impacts individuals within encampments as well, right? You can’t follow rules that you don’t know. They created an executive summary for the business community as well as individuals that wanted a summary of the document before you and I think it would be a really good summary to be able to provide to individuals in your ward that are looking for more information as well. In addition, we provide the maps and the safety guidelines to those who are experiencing homeless as well, so they understand the expectations and what supports they can also expect.

Councillor Ferrero. Thank you, perfect, thank you for that. So I guess what I will say is like I see this as obviously as the report says, this is a portion within the whole community response itself. And we do have encampments still because we don’t have a fully propped up whole community system response yet.

And if you really look at just the word of the system response, that’s a system response. It works in the aggregate. So it doesn’t just work with two hubs and it doesn’t just work with so many supportive housing units. We will see a huge impact.

We’ve already seen an impact, I should say, especially with the supportive housing and the hubs, just considering the numbers that we are sitting with right now. But once we start seeing that system get implemented more and more, you’re gonna start seeing that aggregate come into effect. And that’s when we’re gonna really start seeing a huge change. So like I understand, we still have encampments, but we’re still propping up that system.

So as we prop up that system, I know we’re gonna start seeing an impact and we’re gonna start seeing that feedback come back from the community. So I did want to point that out. Other than that, yeah, and just looking at just, I guess the plugs into the full system response with this encampment strategy, it plugs in well. We have that transactional outreach portion.

The transformational outreach portion, I think is very clear having that pathway to housing. So that plugs in very well. And with the encampment protocols and just kind of what I pointed out before from our conversation with the agency piece and how we proactively engage and communicate with individuals, that is the, I feel the right way to go. So I’m very appreciative of this.

I really like the work that has came to the table. I know you guys have been putting a lot of work in throughout the months. I occasionally will kind of dip in and ask how things are going. So I like when I see these reports come back and so good work, good work to the whole health and homelessness table, good work to staff.

So that’s where I’ll leave my comments for now. But thank you, very supportive. Thank you, Councilor Ferreira. I have no one else on the speakers list at this time.

So I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. Now it was requested that we separate. So the clerk has arranged to separate it. Refresh your e-scribe if you haven’t done so in a while ‘cause we will start with vote 12.

And the 12th motion in e-scribe is that part A, second, third, and fourth bullets as amended be approved. And those read as follows. On or within 100 meters of a playground pool, water park and any spray pad. Within 100 meters of any private residential property line with a habitable dwelling as per the building code.

On or within 100 meters of any sports fields inclusive of but not limited to skateboard parks, fitness amenities, golf courses, ball diamond, soccer pitches, tennis courts, or any other sports or multi-use courts as well as stadiums, dugout stages and bleachers. Councillor Hopkins. I have a question of process. I noticed that the mover, well, I’m the seconder.

I did not support that. I’m not sure if I need to be removed, but I definitely am supportive of the endorsement. So this is the main motion as amended. You were the seconder on the original main motion.

It has been amended since. If you wish to withdraw your second, then I’ll look for another seconder. Mayor Morgan, we will change the seconder. Councillor Truss.

  • With respect to being consistent with my votes all day, I would not be supporting. Well, if I would be supporting 13, I’m just a little punchy having sat here for a couple of hours after having put a very simple one on the table to start with. So I think I’m saying the same thing as Councillor Hopkins. Okay, we can remove you.

For consistency sake, I’m just gonna have the clerk replace the mover and seconder on both. If the mayor is amenable and I will see if there’s another in Councillor Ferriero, you’re amenable. So just to keep it simple, we’ll have the clerk remove Councillor Truss on Hopkins on both votes and we will have the mayor and Councillor and Councillor Ferriero as the mover and seconder. Councillor Hopkins.

It does have to be on both votes. Yes, okay, so I will ask the clerk to now open the vote on the first part as I have just read out. Councillor Van Merebergen. - I vote no.

Housing the vote, motion carries, 10 to five. And I will now ask the clerk to open the vote on the balance which includes the 150 meters from elementary school or children’s daycare and that the report be received and the memo dated for June 13th from the deputy city manager and the receipt of the presentation from Ms. McDonald and Mr. Nash.

Councillor Truss. Would it be out of order to ask for the dot under A or within 150 to be called separately? It would not be because we’ve already done the other three in this process. If it’s, Councillor, respectfully, I think the people are trying to break this up into too many pieces and because we just held the other vote on part A as bullets, we have to include this bullet on this vote.

Councillor Stevenson. I’d like to vote on A separately. Okay, that part we can do because it still keeps the bullet with clause A and then we can deal with B and C as separate clauses. Okay, so the clerk is gonna open the vote on A.

I’ll vote no. Closing the vote, motion carries 11 to four. And now we will open the vote on part B and C. I’ll vote yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you colleagues. We still have three items in items for direction. We have the consent items from deferred matters and then we have the deferred matter 5.1.

I want to advise colleagues because I had a question asked earlier and I said it would be in order to consider that but I have actually consulted with the city manager on this and I want to advise colleagues that it is staff’s advice that none of the items on the agenda currently can be referred to a July meeting. We do need to make some decisions on some of these items tonight and not doing so would create some problems. So I just want to be mindful of the fact that in about 40 minutes or so we will need a motion to extend past six p.m. and we have some pretty substantive items ahead of us.

So I would encourage colleagues to try and keep their comments focused and try and be not repeating comments. If possible, I know people want to express themselves but if we can try and avoid duplication and stay tight to questions and specific directions that will ensure that we’re all able to get home before midnight tonight. So moving on item 4.2, Councilor ramen. Thank you through you chair.

I’m just wondering if we should take like a 15 minute break give staff a chance to take a break as well. So people could move a recess but I would suggest that we might want to start the next item and we might want to consider whether or not we’re going to have to order a meal for staff as well as for ourselves depending on the timing. So maybe if we can keep working while I consult on with staff about getting some food and then see what that looks like before we, if that’s amenable, you can move a recess now if you wish but it’s my intent to consult with staff on how we address the fact that I do not think we are going to be home anytime soon and we may need a meal break. Sorry, Mr.

Chair, perhaps a point. I’m not even sure if we’d have the vote to go past six. Maybe that would be, I don’t know how soon we can call that vote and then it could help plan the rest of the evening of food and whatnot. Give me a moment to check with the clerk.

So a motion to extend past six p.m. can be moved at any time. So if you’d like to move that now to provide some surety that we’re going to work through, you can move that now. I’ll move it.

Councilor Pribble, you’re willing to second. We’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on this and just so colleagues aware that’s not debatable. So we’re just going to open the vote. Oh, yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to one. Councilor Hopkins. I’d like to move recess for 15 minutes. Okay, we’ll see if there’s a seconder for that.

Councilor Trussau and that is also not debatable. So we’ll open the question. Oh, yes. Councilor Palosa votes no.

Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to two. It is five, 10. We will be resuming at five, 25. Sharp, please be back in your seats for that time.

And if councilors can take their seats, we have quorum. We have clerks and we have staff back with us. So we’re going to resume our meeting. I do want to advise colleagues that Councilor Palosa is transitioning to virtual.

So she is going to not be rejoining us in chambers right away, but will join us online as soon as she has reached her location to do so. So we were on items for direction, section four of our agenda. The next item is item 4.2, the basic needs response plan. Colleagues have their reports.

So I’m going to look for motions first and then we can frame around motion, Councilor Trussau. Thank you very much. I’d like to remove the staff report noting that under C, I am moving option two. Is there a seconder for that, sir, cutting?

We will now enter discussion, debate, amendments, Councilor Trussau. I want to start with a technical question. And that is in 2026, 2026. Can you believe we’re even talking about 2026?

At what point would the Council lose its ability to issue funds under a lame duck rule if that’s the situation? Can somebody remind me what that date is? We will go to the clerk for that. There are two periods that could apply to a lame duck council.

And that is the first at the close of nominations, which is the second Friday in August. And if we don’t have two thirds of council returning, that’s when you would be lame duck. And the second period applies after the close of voting. And you don’t have a majority of council returning to until November 15th.

Thank you. That answers my question and my concern is not evidence. So I won’t proceed with that. Thank you, appreciate it.

Councillor McAllister, thank you to the chair. I do have an amendment I’d like to add. I did circulate to the clerk that just came through. I can read it out for my colleagues right now.

So this would be to add a part G that civic administration be directed to report back to a future strategic priorities policy committee on the existing public washroom facilities across the city, their hours of operation, their locations, their staffing requirements and information about usage to allow council to determine if there’s sufficient public washroom access and if the hours of operation align with community programming and are encampment/basic needs services. And we’ll look to see if there’s a seconder for that. Councillor Hopkins, Councillor McAllister, did you want to speak to your amendment? Yes, I would.

And thank you. And through the chair, I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. It speaks to the comments I said in the previous item. I do think it’s beneficial for all of us to get a sense in terms of the public washrooms we have available.

I think this is a dual purpose to this in terms of, obviously with our discussion amount, the basic needs and we’re providing to the community, as well as Londoners more generally in terms of offering those facilities. Because I know I’ve heard this from my residents that it’s definitely a topic of conversation in terms of our parks, some of our public spaces to have more access to public washrooms. So I think this can conserve multiple interests at the same time with a report back on this issue. Thank you.

Any other speakers to the amendment? Sir Raman. Thank you and through you. I’m not sure when the right time is to move a referral.

So I’m going to put this out there and hear from you on what I should do. So I am looking to refer CD, E and F, fine with the amended G. That was just proposed, fine with A and B. But I wanted to move a referral for CD enough.

If it’s an order, I’ll speak to it. I give me just one moment. So what we have right now is just an amendment to add the public washroom report. So I’m going to rule that we should deal with whether or not that amendment even gets added.

And then I will come to you understanding that you intend to referral. I’ll come back to you for that when we move back to the main motion. Any speakers on G team, Councillor Hopkins? No, I would just encourage my colleagues to support this.

I know washrooms are something that are needed in our community. And this is a report back on how many washrooms we do have. So we’ve had these conversations in the past and hoping that you’ll support the amendment. So I’m going to ask Councillor Layman to take the chair.

I have the chair and I’ll look to Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Presiding Officer and through you. I think I have a really simple question through you to our staff.

What are the hours of operation for our park washrooms? Our good staff. Thank you through you, Mr. Presiding Officer.

I don’t have the information for all of our park washrooms for based on season and location in front of me. We have washrooms in a number of parks. We have them in community centers. They’re available in libraries.

They’re available in sports complexes as well. I simply don’t have that information available right now. Deputy Mayor, so that’s fair. But I will say I’m not going to support the amendment because we have had this conversation before.

And we have quite a bit of public washroom space as our Deputy City Manager just referenced. It’s not only those spaces in the Victoria Park, Banjal or on the Field House of Dundas Place. It’s at all of our community centers for the hours that they’re open. It’s at all of our public libraries for the hours that they are open.

We have in warm months, I know, because I had a complaint that it was too close to somebody’s back window, a port-a-potty in a park near a splash pad, which I appreciate staff moving so that it’s no longer being providing a special aroma to somebody’s rear window. But that to me is not something I need a staff report back on. That’s just to me, and I know that that’s not necessarily your intent counselor, but to me, that’s a make-work project for staff. I think that that information is readily available to the public.

So I’m not gonna support adding more work on a report back on that. I’ll return the chair to the deputy mayor. And Councillor Frank, you’re next on the speaker’s list. Thank you, yes, I had a question.

So we actually have, this is a decided matter of council, except for the addition of the encampment section at the end of the Part G from February 2023 SPPC. So I’m wondering, we’d already provide direction to staff to create this type of report, and we just have never received it. So I’m wondering if it’s an order, or if this would actually have to be somebody doing a reconsideration motion. Thank you for raising that.

Give me just a moment to check with our clerk’s team and with our staff in the area. So just one moment on that. Okay, so Councillor, I can advise you that it does not need reconsideration, because although it may still be on a deferred matters list at a standing committee, the direction date from council was in February of 2023. And so the one year timeframe applies to the direction date, not when the report is received.

So although the report is still out there, we are outside of the one year timeframe on the requirement for reconsideration. I saw your thumbs up, so I’m assuming you don’t have any other comments on that right now, looking for other speakers, Councillor McAllister. I thank you through you, just to provide a bit more context to this. So agreed, we did already decide on this, but I’ve added kind of an extra bit to this in terms of having the encampment and basic needs looked at as well, because it was called out in our reports.

This isn’t something I necessarily think I need to explicitly direct staff with. I would assume in the direction given here that they would understand that my intention is, as part of this, that we get the inventory report, but then also bringing this, whether it’s to our health and homeless tables, but as something that was identified in our reports, I think it’s a value for that group to have input in terms of do we have adequate resourcing in the community for these, because it’s something that is called out. So I have kind of added that, because I do think having the report with the inventory hours of operation, all the things laid out is beneficial for our partners to look at. And then maybe perhaps there can be something discussed at those tables to look at that.

Any other speakers? I see none. So I will ask the clerk on the amendment to open the vote. Mr.

Palosa votes yes. Councillor Van Merebergen. Vote no. Closing the vote, motion carries nine to six.

Okay, so now we are on the main motion as amended. And Councillor Raman, you had a referral that you wanted to put forward. So I will go to you now. Thank you.

So I’m just looking for it to come up in eScribe as I provide language for it. So I’m looking to refer the part C, D, E, and F. And I’m just pulling up the rest of the wording. I’m finding G being there.

Now that G has been added, just one moment I’m just looking for the rest language. Just making that adjustment with G there now. So it should be an eScribe now. So I’ll look to see if there’s a seconder for that.

Sorry, I just wanted, yeah, just to be clear that G doesn’t need to be separate if it’s fine just for C, D, E, and F, since A and B and G are fine to go. But I did wanna make sure that the rest of the language was noted and that was around that this motion. So the basic needs response plan for the C, D, E, and F be referred to a future meeting of this SPPC to allow civic administration to provide a report on the city of London’s application for the 250 million federal funding for encampments announced April 12th, 2024. It being noted that the report will provide an update on the status of the IHAP funding confirming the plans for a cold weather response for 2024.

If it will align with the basic needs of plan which is seeking funding until July 2025. And I saw a seconder in Councillor Stevenson. So that’s been moved and seconded. We can move on to discussion on that.

I’m just gonna see if Mr. Dickens wants to provide any comments on this before we get into our council debate. Mr. Dickens.

Thank you, Chair and through you. Just note for committee’s sake, our team has reached out to our supervisors at the federal government. We’ve been notified that there is no formal communication being made to the municipalities at this point about the federal budget. So this fund that’s being referenced was part of the federal budget announcement.

But no formal communication has made its way to municipalities. It’s our understanding that the federal level they’re still sorting out how to administer and how they would receive proposals. That discussion seems to be heading to Treasury Board in September. So from a timeline perspective, there is no staff application happening.

There’s no program to apply for until it passes through Treasury Board and that’s expected in September. Thank you for that, Councilor, yes. Thank you and through you. So I appreciate that feedback.

A couple of things I wanna highlight with respect to the report that’s in front of us. One, we did receive supplemental information about an hour before the meeting that was updating some of the figures that were in front of us for today. And for that reason, I’m not ready to be moving on this funding today. I do understand that there’s also 300,000 of discretionary funding that was in the report before that connects to some of the funding that might be applicable.

So I’m wondering if we can get an update on that 300,000 as well. The other piece of this is that what I learned through the Asylum Seeker funding motion that I made previous to this was that I don’t wanna tie the direction to apply for funding to a motion. So I’m trying to find a path forward. And the problem for me was that the report was silent on any ability for us to look at funding at the federal level.

The funding, it just said the funding source was to be determined at this point. So I’m not clear as to what’s the best way to give direction for us to seek out those funding opportunities when they’re available. I will note though that other cities have already submitted in motions to direct for staff to seek funding and start those discussions. So that’s why I wasn’t clear as to where we were with those discussions, but 250 million of new money for encampments is something that we need to with the situation that we’re facing be in front of.

So that was part of the reason for the referral was so that we can get some more clarity, have a chance to look at those new numbers that were provided to us and the update that was provided to us so that we can make an informed decision today, thanks. Thank you, Councilor Raman, just as a procedural matter. You will note in clauses E and F, there is a civic administration be authorized to undertake administrative acts in relation to this project which the clerk advisors could include the application for funding, but there is also in part F a conditional that approval be given conditionally upon entering into new or amending existing purchase of service agreements, but part A has a funding piece attached to it. So just for everybody’s clarification, I’m gonna go to Mr.

Dickens and ask if A can be addressed apart from F or whether something would have to be addressed in A as well to give you authorization to approve the funding for part A. Thank you, Chair, through you. We would be unable to move forward on A and B without E and F. So now we’re getting into quite technical weeds.

So looking for some staff direction because as the chair, my ruling is that B could move forward because the source of funding is identified as the surplus from their cold weather response. So we’re approving you to reallocate a surplus. That’s not a conditional piece, but I’m, and sorry if I’m getting into very technical components here, but we wanna make sure that we’re doing this correctly so that if the referral is successful, that we’re not inhibiting the movement of A and B. Ms.

Perwong. Thank you through the chairs. So because the A and B, if there is funding, we would need to be able to amend the contracts, which is why E and F are generally there to apply to all of the provisions above. So if you want to separate them, as long as you have the ability for civic administration to be able to action them appropriately, that’s why those are there.

So if you’re gonna separate them, you’d wanna put them in both. Okay, that’s helpful. And so I’m just gonna go back to the move for the motion so that she can. Thank you.

So what I’m hearing is that it’s C and D only that I can, that I can refer. I’m comfortable with that. Okay, so we’ll just adjust that referral based on the staff response, that it’s C and D being referred. When C and D come back, they’ll need to have a new E and F to authorize if there’s some component there, but right now that E and F would apply to A and B only.

So that’s been it, that we’ll get the clerk to adjust that and he scribe for you. And we’ll look for speakers on this. Councilor Trussa. Thank you very much.

I would like to speak against the referral. I think that the, I think that this is a very natural companion piece that goes with the very long piece that we just did. And I think it demonstrates a certain commitment that we are very serious about funding this. There are contingencies that we still have to figure out that’s accounted for in the resolution.

I don’t think there’s anything irresponsible in this motion that suggests we’re spending money that we don’t have or that we’re going beyond our means. I think it’s just a signal. I think it’s just a signal to everybody involved with this project that we intend to take this very seriously and fund it. And the reason why I suggested option two, instead of option one is, I just don’t want to come back here in a few months and have to have this conversation over again or have this referred and have the conversation over again.

I want to create some certainty and I want to create a, I want to send out a very clear signal to the community that we are going to proceed with this as we can. And of course, if the money doesn’t materialize, that’s a very different situation. But I don’t see the need for a referral. So I’ll be voting no on that.

Looking for additional speakers, Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair, and just through you, just provide clarity on the referral on C. One of those two options that are presented to committee to consider.

That is the delivery of the depot services. If that is referred, those services are currently in place are likely to wind down early July, as they will, the funding will expire at the end of the month and they’ll wind down the first part of next month. So deferring C, I just want to make sure people are aware that is the delivery of depot services. The current services would then would start to wind down.

Thank you for further speakers on this. Councilor Raman. Thank you. Okay, so just to clarify, when you’re saying that our funding’s through the chair, when funding’s running out, I’m just wondering if there can be some more clarification around that.

Standing as there’s also 300,000 of discretionary funding, that’s also available. And I will also say that the one-time funding of allocation that we have here for the 70,500 was for services for May and June. So I’m just trying to understand because it looked like we could pay things retroactively and now as I’m trying to get the information and get through the information that was provided, just now to update us a couple of hours ago, as well as trying to understand how to seek funding. I want to make sure that there’s an opportunity to be able to provide supports where we need them, but at the same time have the information we need to make the decisions we need to make.

So Mr. Dickens, can you comment on the $300,000 discretionary fund that’s available and how that impacts continuing services until a decision’s made? Thank you, Chair, through you. So we are providing all the information that we do have.

We’re not withholding any information that is being shared and we will absolutely, as Dee says, seek out other sources of funding. That will include a federal fund that does not exist yet, whereas not been administered. We will seek out those dollars, absolutely. As far as the two previous months, the reconciling in A, those are invoices that are anticipated to come in.

These services continued on in May and June, and we are looking to reconcile those invoices with dollars that we can reallocate to it. As far as the continued service, we do not have a source of funding. Well, we’ve identified where we could get one, but the options in C are for 12 months of service or beyond that. So we would require the need to go and secure funds.

Having the ability to pay May and June is quite different than having the ability to pay for either of those options in C. As far as the discretionary fund, that was tied to the last meeting that, sorry, the last report the committee just discussed. It’s not tied to this report, however, that is a $300,000 budget that is part of the Coordinated Access Team. That team uses that budget to help divert families from experiencing homelessness into hotels, temporary hotel stays.

What we had proposed as part of the last report was that that could be a source of funding in our budget that’s already exists to assist with putting some unsheltered folks into hotels temporarily. As the previous discussion on the last report indicated, sometimes we encounter folks in encampments that are low acuity that need a quick touch that need to get back on their feet. That fund through the Coordinated Access Team would be beneficial to helping move folks out of encampments temporarily into hotels. It was not envisioned that we would use it to provide depot services.

That’s not what that budget item has been allocated for. Okay, I’m gonna ask Mayor Morgan to take the chair. I have the deputy mayor. Thank you, Your Worship.

So I will say that philosophically, I’m supportive of a referral because I have a lot of questions about this too. I mean, an hour before the meeting, the meal service plan went from 120 in the report to 50. So that alone to me is there’s some flags about numbers here that I have not had time to digest. And so that’s a concern and we don’t have really a source of funding and I know that contingency reserve fund has been identified as a potential short term, which is why I would say even if the referral fails, I’m absolutely not supporting two years because we don’t even have a source of funding identified for one year.

So the timing of this and the changes in the numbers that I received earlier today really make it hard for me to be supportive of going forward with C&D. I also see in this report what to me is a bit of an expansion from the service depot program that we ran last year. And I think the program last year had value, but given the economic realities we have and the lack of the source of ongoing funding being available, I can’t support an expansion of what we did last year. And when I look at some of the things that we’re providing in here, I feel like this is kind of back to the discussion that we had around like staffing levels at the hubs model where we’re getting the, this is the ideal version, but we’re not in an ideal situation.

And so operationalizing this, I don’t know how that works. So I will say right now, I understand that this means some things will slow down for a little bit and then we’ll have to pick them back up. But with the food numbers changing and those things, I’m inclined to support the referral until we get some clarification on some of these numbers and opportunities for funding sources. We need to know what we’re getting into.

I mean, we’re, and I don’t mean any disrespect ‘cause I certainly wanna pay the invoices that we’re getting and I know that the meal service that’s come forward has been valuable. But even when we think about the meal services, we have folks who are going to food banks on their own and yet we’re proposing here that we’re going to deliver to folks three meals at encampment sites. I think there comes a point where there has to be a level of responsibility for those folks to engage in other services that are in the community, the church hospitality meals, the other benefits that are out there, benefits isn’t the right word, but the other services that are out there, so that we’re not just saying that it’s okay to stay intense, that we need you to be engaging in other ways. And I understand the transformational and the transactional interactions that you have there, but I think that there’s also an enabling component to not requiring them to go beyond the service depot to access some of the services in the community.

So without some more clarification, I’m inclined to support the referral. I’ll return the chair to you, Councillor Layman. Yeah, I wasn’t gonna speak to this on the referral, but you’ve kind of opened a door for that, so I’ll just talk on the whole thing here. I agree with the deputy mayor here.

I saw with the winter response program that crept into an ongoing program for a year around. I see this happening now with the coffee house and the depots are now looking at delivering three meals a day, seven days a week for two years worth contemplating. Next week, I think of our first meeting where we had a special committee set up to look for savings because the tax increases that Londoners faced this past year and for the four-year budget. And now we’re looking at spending extra dollars here that we haven’t really identified sources of funding.

And then a year, 120 down to 50. I wasn’t aware of that till right now. So I agree with the comment as well about the food bank. Are we starting a food bank program here?

There’s food bank regulations, I believe. You can only visit once a week. They’ll be lucky if we had, if those four, I’m sure there’s folks in London going to the food bank that aren’t getting three meals a day. So I’ll support the referral and to see if we can get some funding from the higher levels of government.

But I’m in no position today if we don’t get the referral to support the direction that we’re going to right now. Thank you for other speakers. And I see both Councillor McAllister and Councillor Stevenson. So I’ll go to Councillor McAllister and then Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you and through the chair. I just wanted to add some clarity, just what Councillor Layman said there just so there’s no confusion. And I had a meeting with the coffee house prior to this. So I feel like I can answer these questions.

What they’re requesting, they are running five-day service right now, which is from 9.30 to 12.30. And then they’re requesting the reallocation of the 250 to allow them to do that seven days a week. I would also note that I wouldn’t stigmatize the whole population as this is homeless people getting three meals a day. They are essentially doing morning service and I’d also like to add a very large portion of their service is also provided to low-income seniors who do live in the community and they’re not all homeless.

So I just want to preface that that there are people who are accessing some of these services, especially in my area. I also have the food bank. I have the largest urban agricultural farm I have two community, two resource centers. A lot of these food services, which some of them are funded through us.

Some of them are self-funded, some of them are fundraising. There are a lot of service providers in the city doing heavy lifting. We are one component of that, but I do just want to be cautious that what these services are doing supports all Londoners. So I don’t want to necessarily say that the title of this is basic needs response plan.

So I don’t categorize this necessarily as us just supporting unhoused. There are a lot of folks in the community struggling. They’re accessing services. So let’s just keep that in mind that some of these services are, it’s not just the unhoused.

Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. It’s such a tragic situation to all of this and to be talking about it. I am going to support the referral and I appreciate Councillor Ramen bringing it forward and the words of my colleagues here.

It’s really challenging times for so many people. And as has been said here, we don’t have the funding. And we do have many, many, many Londoners who are struggling with food. And so we run into dangerous territory here.

I think when we are looking to use our operating budget contingency fund for food, maybe in a way to, if it would help ease the concerns of possibly there being a pause in the service depot if we do the referral. I believe we have agencies and city staff that work pretty hard at ensuring that are unhoused on Ontario Works or Ontario Disability ODSP. Can I just maybe get staff to confirm that most of them do you have a monthly income? Mr.

Dickens or Ms. Kramer, can you comment on the number of folks in encampments who have access to provincial assistance programs? As a recognizing that you’re not going to have an accurate number, it’s a bill, a ballpark. Thank you and through the chair.

A majority of folks have basic needs supports through either OW or ODSP that are experiencing unsheltered homelessness. That is correct. Thank you. Thank you.

Maybe that might alleviate some of the concern about stopping the service depots even temporarily. And we get into this issue of equity and what do we do? How do we help with what funding and with what level of funding? So it’s a difficult situation that we’re in.

And I know many of us and all lenders wish we could just take the pain away across the board and unfortunately we’re not able to do that. And I am concerned when we try to do something that we don’t have the funding to do, that we can’t meet the needs of even this population, let alone the rest of the population that is struggling to eat at the end of the month. Looking for other speakers, Councillor Ferrera and then Councillor Hopkins. Thank you, Chair.

Listening to the discussion here, I see the perspectives as everybody. I just wanted to ask what counts as a meal of these three meals a day? What is that, the meal itself? Ms.

Kramer, can you respond to that? Thank you, and through the chair. So it is a daily meal program, so we make sure that each individual receives their daily intake of nutrition through the Canada Food Guide. It does currently, our depot meals are a warm meal at lunchtime, and then cold-packaged meals for the dinner and for the breakfast for the following day.

There’s a variety of things that comprise the whole caloric intake for an adult for that provision. Councillor Ferrera, thank you for that. So my perspective is, I understand we have food banks and we have other sources of food, but the moment we start reducing, if we were not to approve this and we see the service depots, I guess, kind of turned down, we’re gonna have extra pressure on the food banks. We’re gonna have extra pressure for people who are using these services already.

We’re gonna have more competition if you look at it that way, which means that if we make this decision, if we refer this, we are gonna have this decision reach beyond people who are looking for food, I guess, with respect to just the food itself, for the service depots, it’s going to affect a greater population than the one that we’re speaking to. So I understand the numbers and I understand the comments, but because I’m looking at it in that greater context and we could find ourselves in a much worse situation, I would not be supportive of the referral, I would be supportive of voting either option one or option two, anyone at this point would be good for me just to continue that because if we go the route that we’re going, there are other issues that are gonna pop up. We are gonna create more issues with this referral. So those are my comments.

Thank you, Councilor Hopkins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I wasn’t gonna speak to this, but I do think when we’re having a conversation here in the public that we should be clear in our understanding.

And for me, my understanding is, first of all, I’ve heard a few comments saying we do not have the money. My understanding is we do have the money. It may be not from the places where we want them, the money to come from, but we do have the money to feed people in these depots and the referral that I’m not gonna be supporting is basically not allowing that to happen. I just, after a conversation we had with the last item, here we are looking at not going forward with what we already have established.

Yes, the numbers have changed. Yes, there’s opportunities for funding that will always remain. But I really feel that I’m starting to get, I’m not sure what the direction of this Council is when it comes to supporting homelessness. So I’m not supporting the referral back.

Councilor Stevenson. Thank you, and through the chair, I was just wondering if staff have any comment or concern about providing meals to 50 people. When my understanding is we’ve got 600 high acuity out there and I thought we had others as well. So I don’t know what the numbers that we have living unsheltered, but are there any concerns about providing food for 50 of that group?

‘Cause I know we went into concerns when we only have, say, 20 overnight spaces and we run into issues when there’s 100 people outside that are vying for that space. Mr. Dickens. Through you, Chair.

So when we look at, so there was three changes made to this report. The first bullet under 2.7, you’re right, it was changed to 50 from 120. The second last bullet of that same section, the cost, estimated cost was adjusted to 67,000 from 59,000. And the last bullet, the cost was adjusted 3,500, which was an original type of 11,500.

When I look at the 50 meals, where we have landed on that number, the 120 was used as a high watermark. So that, over the last eight months, was a peak period. It’s not our target mark for going forward in this request. We’re trying to balance what is desired with what is reasonable.

The 50 meals falls just below what our eight month average was for daily meals that were distributed, which was hovered between 70 and 75. We know that as this conversation has alluded to, there are other community entities, community organizations, grassroots groups, there was one just profiled in the media recently, that are also stepping up to fill some of the gap when it comes to food security. So our high watermark was 120 meals, distributed through the depot program. We average roughly 70 to 75.

We’re recommending that we put funding in place to provide 50 a day, and we would then call on, rely on leverage, existing community programs, community organizations, volunteer groups to also provide support and relief to community members. Anything further, counselor? No, looking for other speakers. Mayor Morgan, yes, I wanna make two comments.

One is with the financial pressures that municipalities face, which has become part of this conversation, that is a central lobbying point of pretty much every association we’re a part of right now. Like the pressure on municipalities to meet the demands in these spaces is beyond our current capacity. So it is good that other levels of government are engaged in those conversations. It is very good that the federal government has decided to put $250 million towards supports, poor encampments, although we don’t know what the application is or the parameters of that.

I will tell you again, it is the opinion of the mayors that both formally through motion of OBCM, as well as conversation through BCMC, that like what was described by Mr. Dickens as the timeframe for this money is way too long. Like that is not going to let us know what resources we have going into cold weather months with enough time to really strategically deploy them or our needs. And so there is a very important advocacy piece here, I think about that needs to be sped up as quick as possible.

And there’s no direction that needs to be made for that. I can tell you like the associations are aligned. This is a pretty high priority for advocating that this be sped up, even if they can’t flow the money to later, you need to let municipalities know what the allocations are going to be if they want to do a per capita, if it’s going to be application based, that is going to be an even slower process. And that’s hugely problematic if you’re trying to actually address the problem.

So that’s one piece. The second piece is I don’t think I can get to the referral myself with the absence of filling the gap on the basic needs in the interim until we make a decision. There’s a service being provided now that’s being utilized at this time of year with the type of heat that’s out there to take that away or create a gap in that service, I think is a very risky thing for us to do that I just I can’t get there to vote for. Now, if colleagues need more time to think about this and they’re willing to provide some resources to continue the service we’re having until we get around to making a decision, that would be a different discussion for me.

But if it’s a straight up referral with the possibility of expiring some of the basic needs services that are being provided right now at the end of the month, that’s just not a place I’m going to be able to get to with my vote. Unless we’re going to put some money from whatever source possible to fill that gap until we decide on making a decision on what’s before us. We’re not saying we’re not going to make a decision. We’re saying we need more time, we need to have a discussion.

So I’m very uncomfortable with the gap that would be created in the interim. If people want to do that, then I would strongly advise if people want to go down the referral route and garner more support for it, that you got to add that piece in in some way, or my vote’s not going to be there on the referral without some sort of commitment to fill the gap in the interim until we make a decision as a council. Councilor Pervall. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, to the staff on the financial consideration. And I just wanted to ask you the first two points because the first one is addressing the 50 individuals. And what I heard from one of the staff, I believe those are the bags that currently were prepared by Arcade, the three meals, please correct me if I’m wrong. But I’m just trying to figure out if it’s going to depot, our next one is to the depots as well.

So if I remember correctly, it was during the weekdays, was the first program and the next one is seven days a week. Please let me all understand if it’s duplicated, if it’s different depots, if we are, if one program is for only two depots, the other one is for three. If you can please let me know that part. Cooper.

Thank you and through the chair. Just to be clear, are you, Councilor Pervall, are you referring to the transformational outreach in the report that’s noted for five days a week? If so, that is specific for the provision of an agency to engage individuals that are more on the outskirts of our services, typically it’s 519 pursuit at this point, but they do engage, they do administer meals ‘cause they have an alternate third party agreement with the food bank to provide meals. And we would be looking to rely on them to then make that connection, as was discussed in the previous report, to get people on that pathway to housing.

Councilor Pervall. So I just want to thank the further clarification. It stays there all depot basic. So it’s kind of the basics, but it’s actually not going to depost, it could be in the outskirts, I see nodding.

So thank you very much for that. I do, you know, like as Mayor said, I would like to refer it as well, but I would like to refer it with specific kind of to go through it and, you know, to look at potential, you know, instead of three meals for 50, you know, are we related three meals? And again, I saw those meals. It’s not that it’s fulfilled, but bottom line is, I really think that we look at this type of, we need to provide certain things, what was said here, but on the other hand, I think that we should go straight and try to see what really needs, what is a must and what it’s not.

And potentially what I see here, you know, three meals, seven days a week, 50 people, I would rather see one meal, 75 individuals, which was the average, and we are saving, and we are also saving money with that. So bottom line is, I would like to refer it, but I would like to refer it for us to really do the calculation and come back with it and introduce something that’s recalculated food prices. And, but would I like to provide us something? Yes, I would.

Do I feel that this is the necessity? No, I don’t. Thank you. I’m checking in, Councillor Preble, because I heard you say he wanted to provide some additional direction on the referral, but you didn’t actually do that.

So are you waiting for the discussion to continue first or, okay, so seeing that you’re just putting that out there for discussion at the moment, I’ll go to Mayor Morgan next, and then Councillor McAllister. So I’m just gonna make an amendment to the referral, and then we can decide on this. So the amendment would have two additional parts, and I’d appreciate some assistance with language. The civic administration be directed to continue the service depot program until Council makes a decision on the basic needs response plan.

And then to fund that, I would add in essentially, what is the D clause? Civic administration be directed to find a source of funding, including any unspent previously approved funding sources, including previously allocated operating budget contingency reserve funds. So basically same funding source that was in it, to fund a continuation of our existing service depot program until we make a decision on this. That’s the amendment that I wanna propose.

Okay, do you have a seconder for that? Councillor Ferrer is willing to second. So now we will entertain any debate on the amendment. Councillor ramen.

Thank you. I support that at this point. It gets us to a place where we can get some more information. We can go through the report and see whether or not that change from 52 for 120 to 50, sorry, individuals and the meal plan and everything works going forward.

So I do think that this gives us an opportunity to get more information and be able to consider all that information in front of us and still allows for the community to receive the basic needs that they need in the interim while we’re doing that. Any other speak? Councillor McAllister. Thank you.

You can take me off the other list ‘cause now I have the amendment. So thank you and through you. I appreciate the mayor and your amendment on this. And I’ve been listening intently.

I kind of reserved my remarks. I’m finding this a very difficult conversation. I’m finding some of these conversations very heavy. And specifically just the name of this, it’s a basic needs response plan.

And we talk about folks experiencing homelessness, that in itself is a huge struggle, but like these basic needs. And we heard from staff in terms of like, we’re providing the basic food guide lines in terms of the sustenance we’re providing to people. And I find this a very difficult conversation ‘cause I know there’s a lot of struggles in the community. But like I am very adamant that we need to fund these things.

And I understand there are other opportunities in terms of finding those sources, but like I cannot in good conscience not fund basic needs. We already are struggling with housing. I can’t cut off people’s food and water. Like it’s just, it’s not unconscionable to me.

So I’m very adamant and I appreciate this amendment ‘cause I think it gives us that leeway to look at other funding sources, but I would desperately plead with my colleagues to not go down that route. I think that puts us into dangerous territory in terms of us as a council making decision as to what is acceptable for the community to survive. Just basic survival we’re talking about. Thank you.

Councillor Stevenson, did you have your hand up? You’re okay. Councillor Prabell. I do think that the option for all of us makes sense and I will certainly support it.

And I think it, I hope that everyone is gonna get on the board with it because it will give us time. There will be a continuity, but in the meantime, I do want us with the staff to prepare and look at the numbers and look at the most feasible for both, for the individuals who are involved and also for the taxpayers who will be spending their money. But for the map line is, I’m very much behind this and I will support it. Thank you.

Oh, sorry, one more question. I wanted to ask you, sorry, I forgot to ask that to the staff. What’s on Street Park? Is it still because based on the Wellington Gateway and what we are doing there now is what’s on Street Park still?

Do you believe it’s still the best key location to have? Thank you, Ms. Kramer’s. Thank you and through the chair.

Watson Street Park provides many other things that we don’t get in other parks. The visibility, all the safety features are available to us at Watson Street Park. It’s well lit, it’s open and now with the new construction, it has really brought us away from Wellington and deeper into the park. So you really have to enter into the park before you get to encampments now.

So yes, I do strongly believe Watson Street Park is still a good, viable park. Sir Pribble, perfect. Thank you very much for the answering. Going back, I will be supporting the amendment from De Meri on the in front of us.

Thank you, Councilor Ferreira, sorry. Councilor Palosa, Councilor Ferreira is pointing to the screen to let me know that you had your hand up. So we’ll go to you first and then we’ll go to Councilor Ferreira. Perfect, thank you for recognizing me.

A question and then a comment, a question through you to staff looking for confirmation that the three meals per day are delivered once per day versus three trips to the residence per day. And then Councilor Ferreira had asked about the food. I would specifically like an example of what one of the hot meals could pertain to. Ms.

Kramer’s. Thank you and through the chair, that’s correct. It’s delivered once a day at the hot meal time and then provisions of containers are for the evening meal and the following breakfast. So it’s once a day with three meals and sorry, oh.

An example of a hot meal. So it varies, it could be lasagna and bread with fruit on the side and a drink. It could be meat and vegetable and potato option. The hot meal varies dependent on the kitchen supply, but it is varied.

Thank you and through Mr. Chair, a follow-up question of are all the food containers we’re delivering, especially the hot lunch in just disposable or any of them being collected and repurposed for like the next round of meals? Ms. Kramer’s.

Thank you and through the chair. Some of them are compostable and some of them are recyclable, but they are all takeaway. They’re not reusable, no. Thank you, so they’re just single use.

And just a follow-up on comment we heard earlier about basic needs and people have Ontario Works and ODSP. Certainly I’ve heard from the community that those are not adequate and funding levels to cover basic needs of food and shelter for many in the high majority of those on it. So recognizing those individuals that one would think we’re okay, but they definitely are not. So let’s make these decisions mindful of that.

Thank you for the mayor for the amendment to the referral support of that, but still interested in moving forward with the actual decision point and not a referral. Thank you. Councilor Ferrer, thank you, Chair. So just to clarify this referral, it will continue the depot meal program and it also allows us to, I guess, scout out federal funding in the meantime.

So we don’t have that gap and we are also still looking for resources from our government partners. That is correct. And it also, at this time, Councilor would not be rendering a decision on option one or option two. That would come back to us at a future date.

Thank you, I see that. So, and then the rest of the parts of the referral, if this passes that referral, as amended, will still have parts C and D being referred. So there will still be a referral of D in regard to part C in that a source of funding will need to be still identified for C when it comes back, but that the source of funding identified is also being referred to in the amendment as the source of funding to continue the service at this time. So what could be a little confusing here is that D kind of exists in both an amendment and then in a main motion that’s being referred.

So it actually exists in two places. Okay, so long as we reducing it down, we still continue the depot meal program. We are looking for extra funding from our government partners. And yeah, I feel like that’s a good compromise.

I do know that that means that we’re gonna come back. We’re gonna discuss this again potentially speak about option one or option two at another date or whatever comes back from staff, but I feel like this is a good way forward. So I’m happy for the referral and I’ll be supporting it. Looking for further speakers.

No one online, no one in chambers. So I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote on the amendment to the referral. Well, yes. Opposing the vote motion carries 14 to one.

Okay, now we are back to the referral as amended. We’ve had speakers on this. So I’d ask folks to not repeat something that they said they’re first go around. If anybody wants to get on the speakers list again, nobody used their full five minutes, but you don’t have to use your full five minutes either.

So we’re back to the referral. And I see no speakers in chambers or online. So I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote on the referral now. Well, yes.

Opposing the vote motion carries 13 to two. Thank you colleagues. So that has been referred that dispenses with 4.2 at this time. We move on to 4.3.

This is the single source supportive housing model at 46 Elmwood Place. And looking to counsel for a direction on this move. The staff report is moved by Mayor Morgan and seconded by Councilor ramen. Any discussion on this?

Councilor Stevenson. Thank you. Excited to see this come forward and a little concern. Sorry, just one second.

We may have gotten ahead of ourselves on moving to this item. Let me just check with the clerks on something voted on the referral. Mr. Chair, your mic is on.

Yep, thank you. And it’s great because people can hear probably that we dispense with the referral, but the referral was on C&D. So we’ve got to go back and deal with the other parts of that motion, which is how probably we’re all starting to lose track of where we are in the agenda at this point in the meeting. So we’re back to 4.2.

We have the referral that has passed, but we also have the remainder to dispense with. So looking for any further discussion and poor Mr. Cooper’s left to seat and is now looking like a deer in the headlaces that we might drag him back to his seat, but looking for any further discussion. Councilor Stevenson.

Thank you. I did have a question on B with the coffee house, just wondering why the selection of the morning section versus through the night. I guess I just worry about overnight spaces being available, especially during the spring summer. And I also wondered if there’s anywhere else that we provide meals in the city via the property tax base.

Mr. Cooper, are you able to speak to the morning versus evening and other locations? Thank you and through the chair, the morning program is to augment some existing funding that CMHC already received and have traditionally operated that program even pre-COVID. What the funding, as mentioned, I think earlier was, is to augment some additional day staff Monday to Friday, but then to staff the program Saturday and Sunday.

So I’d make it from a five day program that it would go to without the funding to a seven day program that we’ve sort of supported through COVID and within the last cold weather response. As for meals within the community, we do receive information from the health unit on some community meals where they are different faith-based groups that offer different meals in community. We do share that information with individuals that we engage with, but it is a fairly unorganized provision of meals, right, it’s all volunteer based. Sometimes it’s available, some weeks it’s not.

So we do struggle with the consistency on that. And I’m only aware of our current depot program where we fund meals provided to those living in shelter. Councilor. Thank you through the chair.

Just one follow up. It says six months. When would that take us until? Mr.

Cooper. Yes, thank you and through the chair. It would look to begin July 1st and six months beyond that. So end of December and to the end of January.

Thank you for that. Looking for any further questions or comments on the balance of the report, Councilor McAllister. Excuse me. Thank you and through the chair.

Just to further add to Mr. Cooper’s comments, if you haven’t had a chance to go to the coffee house, they do also have laundry facilities, washroom facilities. They are also CMHA. They do provide those services when available.

So just to note that it’s not just the food service, they do provide some other services to go along with who they are and what they do. So just to keep that in mind, there is that added value that they have other services they can provide on site. I have no one else on the speakers list. So I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote on the remainder of the staff recommendations on 4.2.

Councilor Van Mierbergen? Yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Okay, picking up where we left off on 4.3.

Now that we have played musical chairs and Mr. Felberg is back and Mr. Cooper gets a break again. This has been moved by the mayor and seconded by Councilor Raman and Councilor Stevenson was going to ask a question.

Councilor Stevenson. Yes, thank you. I said excited to see this come forward. And I did a bit of a concern about the operating costs.

So I can see that we’re getting one time operating costs from the Fund for Change, which I believe is new. We hadn’t been doing operating through there. So just wanted to confirm that that was new. And what is going to happen after that?

Like, do we know that provincial funding is coming or are we potentially going to be in a place, do we know that the Fund for Change will cover future years if it doesn’t or is that going to fall on the property taxpayer? Mr. Dickens. Thank you, Chair and through you.

This is somewhat new when the first hubs plan came forward and there was a proposed third hub. The Fund for Change was committed to stepping into fund some short-term operating for that location. So new in that it’s moving forward, I suppose. The Fund for Change has been very supportive of this project.

They’ve identified that this is a space that they could assist in through conversations with Indwell. We did land on this being a one-year commitment from the Fund for Change while they continue their multifaceted advocacy work and their demonstration projects with the province itself. So the anticipation or the hope is that other orders of government through the Ministry of Health, perhaps, would be able to step in like they have in the past and support the operating ongoing, not anticipating using tax levy dollars to fill that gap beyond this year. I say that on June 18th when you’re receiving this report, but the Fund has really stepped up to help in this manner and this is through consultation with Indwell that we bring this report forward this way.

Thank you, Mr. Dickens. Thank you, so thank you, that’s really helpful. And so, is there a way to sort of get some sort of comfort that we could use the Fund for Change in future years that we wouldn’t be tying ourselves to this?

‘Cause I hate to get in the situation of a year from now comes by really fast. And then we are in the space of, like you said, having to do what we say we don’t want to do. Is there a way to get a commitment from the Fund for Change even for a second year that if the province didn’t come forward, we could get it? Mr.

Dickens. Thank you through you, Chair. We could certainly consider it, but we are looking at other options for that funding that come from other orders of government. Thank you, and through the chair, thank you.

I hear you. The other question I have is, we’ve got construction costs, approximately 15 and 1/2 million. And it says that once the project’s completed, we transfer the asset to Indwell. So, is that the way, am I hearing that right?

That we, that they will then own the building once it’s completed? Sorry, Mr. Felberg. - Apologies, Chair.

Could you repeat the question? I was just chatting with Mr. Mathers. Was the one that construction is completed, the property transfers to Indwell?

Oh, sorry. Yeah, on page 811, it says that the property will then be transferred to Indwell who will operate the building. And I noticed the cost is 15 and 1/2 million. So, are we basically, when it’s all done, are we giving it to Indwell?

Mr. Felberg. So, through you, Mr. Chair, it’s a bit, it’s not quite that simple.

It’s a little more complex than that. So, what we have is a very unique partnership that are for largest developers in town. They’ve gone out, purchased the property. They’re gonna take on all of the capital work in order to bring this project to a point of occupancy.

At that point, based on all the costs that they’ve incurred on the project, what they will then do is then transfer the project for the property to Indwell through a sale. Indwell will then go out and obtain a mortgage through CMHC, and then they will add that to their operating value. Some of the funds that you see from the fund for change, some of the half dollars, those are to help offset some of the capital and operating performance. So, we’re very excited about this model.

It’s something that we could potentially replicate in other cases with contractors, developers that are interested in doing this kind of work. It lets them put their feet firmly in this work and allows us to move forward supportive housing and affordable housing in the city. Thank you, last one. And so, it’s great to hear all of this exciting and different and new and glad to see everybody coming together to get this done.

Of one last question, I guess, and it’s talk, and I don’t understand a lot about this, so the Housing Accelerator Fund talks about targets. Is there some risk if we miss the target or is this just informational? Mr. Felberg or Mr.

Mathers? Through the chair, that background is informational. It’s just from the previous reports that were there. We have already made our commitments to the Housing Accelerator Fund, and there’s some previous reports on that matter that would provide a bit more context.

Thank you for that, Mr. Mathers. Okay, thank you, so that 2 million is secured funding, then we’re good there. All right, thank you.

Mayor Morgan. Yes, so I want to provide a few comments on this. First, just on the heels, I think, Councillor Stevenson asked some good questions. The one piece of context, I want to add to what Mr.

Felberg said is, this is a group of developers who have formed, like their own little part, well, I don’t want to say little, ‘cause they’re very large developers, their own partnership called Development for Change. And the whole concept here is they buy the property, they commit to fixing it up, they seek some resources to do so, the whole transfer of indwell through a mortgage puts them into a stable long-term funding model, and then releases some capital back to the development group, and then they go out and they replicate the model, right, in the future, which is actually a really unique and compelling way to try to drive supportive housing units in the province. It’s something that, you know, when the media covered this, like, I ended up getting a lot of asks from other cities about, like, how did this come together? This seems like a model that is very unique.

It works, you’re able to leverage a whole bunch of money from a whole bunch of different places. And municipally, you’ve only really committed, you know, some annual housing supplements into the project. And you’ve created 50 supportive housing units. Like, this is a pretty incredible opportunity for us to not only support today, but also be seen as a model for the future.

And so I want to just clearly say thank you to Auburn, Drulo, Sifton, and Tricar for not only being part of the whole of community response, not only for understanding the need for supportive housing in the community, but actually having the, like, taking time away from everything else they do to actually put their own organization’s effort and money and commitment behind being part of the solution. I think it’s commendable and it inspires others to do the same. And as for the components before us, I’d also recognize that we are making a request to the Fund for Change in here. Like, this is not something that we actually have final control over.

It’s held by the London Community Foundation, and they have a commitment through a donor agreement to support this type of activity. But this is how it will work as we deploy and spend this money. And there’s been a lot of questions about how does this money get spent? It gets spent this way, where there’s a project, there’s a request, and then that request goes to the Fund for Change for, to basically say, can we bring this to fruition?

And obviously, I think the developers have had a good dialogue with them, knowing that this is something that they’re going to be supportive of, knowing that this is a model that they are partnering as well. But I just wanted to make that clear. Our municipal process here is, we’re going to approve the structure, but there’s a number of other partners who say, yes, to make this come to fruition. And so it’s a really unique partnership.

And on supportive housing, I know we’ve created about 100 units this year. Having the capacity to add 50 is great. And taking the operating from the Fund for Change, or asking the Fund for Change to support the operating for one year, the difference between that or waiting to see if the province funds it, is getting people into supportive housing units in 2025. Like, if we were to wait, even if the province came through and funded it, we would miss the construction season this year.

We would not start work on the project, and we would miss bringing people into the building as early as possible in 2025. On that, there’s lots of runway, lots of runway to engage with the province. Like, there’s the capital outfitting before we even have to flow operating dollars into the project. So there’s time to make those asks.

There’s time to even have it report back to council. And there’s a possibility that we don’t even need to use the $1.7 million for Fund for Change if the province comes through with supporting housing dollars as they have been slowly. And not in, you know, as large amounts as I think any of us would like to see yet. But they do understand the value of supportive housing, and they are supporting organizations like Interwell with the work they’re doing across the province.

So I’m very optimistic about— 30 seconds. - About this project. I think it’s great. And I, again, want to say thank you.

I know more of them were here, but they’ve got to go build housing in our city. So I want to say thank you through Gary back to the, back to the group. So thanks. Councilor Pribble.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, to the staff. I do have a question on the appendix B, which is the last page of this report. And I wanted to ask, we usually get kind of the four columns, which also includes committed and balanced for future.

And is there, would we be able to receive it kind of such reports as well? So we know where we stand. Mr. Felberg.

Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair. So you’re referring to the source of financing, Councilor Pribble. That is correct.

I think I would probably have to work with our finance folks to see what the intention was and how this particular source of financing was structured. We have within the housing accelerator fund, there is a bucket of money that we are applying to this. This is part of the program that we have. We still have some work to do to bring some things back related to the roadmap, which is independent of this project.

And then we’d align some of the support of dollars through the housing accelerator fund. And we’d identify the future potential expenditures on that at that time. Councilor, thank you for that. Thank you for that answer.

So if you could please discuss with the finance team and please update us on it later, please. I think this is a kind of a node one and below is node three. And I think that has to do with it. So I was just going to say if it’s supposed to be the same, if it can be, I’ll just update it for the Council.

And besides that, I just want to say honestly, such a fantastic, and I know it was already said here before, but a huge thank you to the four developers to Indwell, to our staff to putting this together. It is really thinking outside the box and it’s a new model. And we all believe in it and everyone is behind it and everyone is truly excited about it. And I know we all can’t wait till the first people move in next year.

Thank you very much to all parties involved. Councilor Frank, we can’t hear you, Councilor? Oh, now. Loud and clear now.

Okay, ah, man, these are not from the dollar store, but they still don’t work. I just wanted to also say thank you to Indwell and to the developers and people who have been working on this project for the last couple of months. I look forward to the barbecue in the future, as well as the future opening. So much appreciated.

Any other speakers? Councilor Ferrara. Thank you, Deputy Mayor, I’ll be really quick. I have to give credit where credit is due.

Also, big thank you and great work to the developers and Indwell as well. I’m happy to see this. And yeah, I’ll keep it right there in nice and good size. That’s perfect ‘cause we probably don’t need 14, thank yous.

Two will get the job done, I think. So that’s great, thank you. I have nobody else on the speakers list, so I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. The vote, yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on, item 4.4 is consideration of appointments to RBC Place London Board of Directors requires one council member. This would be for the term ending November 14th, 2026.

Anyone can put their name forward for this. I’ve had one communication as the chair from Councilor Pribble that he would be interested in putting his name forward. So Councilor Pribble, I’m gonna ask if you’re still wishing to do that, and then I will ask if there are any others. Yes, I’m still wishing to do that, thank you, Chair.

And looking to see if any other Councillors wish to put their name forward. I noticed all the Councillors online quickly turned off their video. So, Councilor Layman. I’ll move Councilor Pribble to take this position.

Okay, so we have a motion moved by Councilor Layman and seconded by Councilor Trusts out. That Councilor Pribble be appointed to the RBC Place London Board of Directors for the term ending November 14th, 2026. Councilor Ferrer. Just wanna say thank you to Councilor Pribble for putting your name forward.

It’s a great board, high functioning board. You’re gonna really enjoy it. They have a new executive director and they have a lot of things coming. So, again, I appreciate you putting your name forward.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Ferrer, and I think it’ll be up to Councilor Pribble to replace you to keep it a high functioning board. So, we’ll put that challenge out to him. And since we have no one else on the speakers list, we will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Councilor Van Mereberg closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on to our deferred matters and additional business. We are going to deal with the deferred matter that was on the agenda as a listed deferred matter first.

That’s 5.1. The appointment of a consultant for RFP 2024-113. CIP to encourage residential development near transit. Then we will deal with the two items that moved to deferred matters from consent.

So, we have the report and it wasn’t added. I’m gonna look to see if there’s a mover and a seconder for the staff recommendation. Councilor Cuddy’s prepared to move. Do we have a seconder?

Councilor Layman, and now we will open the floor to any questions, comments. Councilor Stevenson. Just a quick question for those who might say, you know, why do we even need it like we’ve got this? You’d think we build it and they will come.

You know what I mean? We’re gonna put this rapid transit, the transit in. Do we really need to incentivize people to put residences there if somebody could just give me the answer to that? Mr.

Mathers. Through the chair, so as part of our housing accelerator application, we were one of the major items that we had to address that was part of what the federal government was looking for was providing ways to incentivize new development near transit areas. So this would be, this work is to provide that program that would use the funding that’s within that housing accelerator that we provided from the federal government to be able to provide incentives for transit related, oriented development. Anything further, Councilor?

You’re good? Looking for any other comments or questions? Seeing none, if colleagues will just allow me to indulge quickly from the chair, I think that this is a good investment for us to be making on this. You know, this is an important measure in terms of our residential development and intensification, but our planning staff themselves have a tremendous workload on them.

This is not something that we can ask them to do, bringing in an outside consultant to do this work, I think is the way to go. So I appreciate this coming forward now. And I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Oh, yes.

Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. We have two items that were deferred from the consent agenda. They were pulled to be dealt with separately.

It is 659, so I want to test colleagues will. I will inform you that the pizza dinner has arrived and that our staff need a dinner break as well. We can work with one of these items. We can work with none of these items and take a break first.

I’m in colleagues’ hands, looking for some direction. Do you want to proceed with the next item or do you want to take a dinner break now? Councillor Cai. Yes, Chair and through you.

I’d like to proceed with both items and then break out with some. Okay, I think Councillor Trussow has a different opinion, Councillor Trussow. I know for sure that my item is going to be shorter because of the fact that I’m going to be limited to five minutes and I’m not going to ask for an extension. I have asked some questions and depending on how the questions are answered, I wanted to pull this for a separate vote so it’s not going to be a long night.

However, I think the other one will do. So, I’ll take that advice and this is going to be my suggestion to Council. Is that pizza is always a little better once the cheese has had a chance to cool just a little bit? So, if this first item is going to be short, perhaps we deal with this knowing full well that I’ve had colleagues inquire about in-camera on the second item and that this may take a while to move in and out of camera.

Let’s see if we can deal with 2.1 so that some staff perhaps can go home and then we can come back to deal with 2.2 after a brief dinner break. So, let’s get 2.1 moving. That’s the S, unless anybody wants to challenge the chair’s advice on that, they can, but that’s what I’m going to suggest we deal with one and then break. So, 2.1 is the next item on the agenda.

This is the asset management plans for agencies, boards and commissions. And I’m looking to see if there’s anyone who wishes to move the staff recommendation. We can take it from there, Councillor Layman, Councillor Cudi. Okay, so the recommendation is on the floor so we’ve got something to frame our discussion around.

Councillor Truss, I’ll ask for this to be pulled, so I’ll go to you. Thank you very much. I had grave concerns about the asset management plan that was filed by LMCH while it wasn’t explicitly dated from what I’ve been able to understand from staff and conversations is that this is a document from 2020. And I guess my, I sent a list of 12 questions to staff this morning.

And I’m just wondering if you would be comfortable just answering any of them or do I have to go through each one of the 12, which will just take more time. And if you want me to try to guide this a little bit, I can do that. It’s up to you. Well, Ms.

Berwone, you received the questions. Is there a way that you might want to provide a comment, like a brief commentary that may answer some of them directly through that commentary? And then if there’s anything unanswered left and Councillor, I can go to the council for any additional questions. Okay, then Ms.

Berwone, you’re up. Thank you, through the chair. So we’ve attempted to provide some answers and I have Mr. Shahad, a hero can walk through some of them.

So I think there’s a couple of broad ones that, and some of them I believe were answered through some of your questions while LMCH was here at the broader with respect to condition assessments. So there are a couple that I think have been answered already. Some of the more general ones were with respect to the plan and our compliance with respect to the new regulation that comes into effect on July 1st, 2024. So LMCH did create their plan in 2020 and it, because of all of the changes that happened with service delivery with respect to the pandemic, never actually was brought to council.

So we’ve included it and they were not able to update it fully when we were updating all the other plans. So that will be coming, it is due to be updated next year. So an updated plan will be coming forward and that will be revised and it will reflect the investments that were done through the multi-year budget. So some of the questions that the Councillor had were with respect to the risk of filing an inaccurate or incomplete asset management plan.

And so what we can tell you is that all of the asset management plans that we are presenting to you, that the staff have assisted the boards and commissions to do our compliant with the regulation. They provide the levels of service as proposed levels of service as well as the current levels of service. They are a plan, they are at a point in time. So depending on when they are done, the levels of investment that are there are reflected in the plan.

And obviously over time, conditions do change, which is why reviewing the plans on a regular basis is actually quite important to ensure that they’re there. So I can use the police as an example as well. There was a great investment done in the multi-year budget that made some significant change towards moving towards their proposed levels of service. So we’ve attempted as part of the report to address some of the intern period of time from when the plans were done until now.

But certainly as the investments change, I mean a really good example is even the City of London’s plan, there were no additional investments made to the City of London’s asset management and infrastructure gap. We have other mechanisms that some additional investments so certainly over the period of time, when we go to the next update, there will be changes. So by moving these plans, we have a good plan forward. They give us a really good sense of the investment required that we need to pay attention to over the next course of the annual updates, multi-year budgets as we go forward.

But also how we, as we are looking at our capital plans, how we’re looking at trying to close that gap through the decisions going forward as well as the levels of service. So I think at a broad level, that does address, I think some of the questions. And then if you have anything specific you want us to touch on, Mr. Shahada can also try to address those as well.

Thank you very much. And that is a good general response. And I have no issues with all the other plans that have been filed. Why does one agency have the prerogative to say, well, that was COVID and we have staffing problems.

So we’re gonna file a report that’s four years old. Why is it okay for an agency to do that? Ms. Barbara.

Thank you through the chair. So with respect to the regulation, the other boards and commissions did not have asset management plans, so those needed to be created from scratch and delivered. LMCH already had an asset management plan. So it was actually ahead of all of the other state of the boards and commissions in terms of actually having something ready to go.

So they in effect met the regulation a number of years ago well in advance of everyone else. Okay, thank you, and I think it’s a reasonable response from the city’s point of view. I do think that a more fulsome plan should have been provided and I will be voting no on this. However, I’d like to offer one thought, which just may be a simpler way to respond to this right now.

I have a number of very specific issues with what’s in that report. I’m gonna take that up and I think Deputy Mayor and Adley, you’re on notice. I’m gonna take those up individually with the board night. What I learned this afternoon is they will hear me on these issues.

So I’m not gonna go through those now. Would the council be willing to include to the motion? A clause that says it being noted that the LMCH, LMCAMP, dated 2020 is not current and will be revised and brought to full council for review and approval in 2025. ‘Cause if that language could be put in there, I feel that most of my concerns at a macro level are being met and my other issues can be taken up with the agency.

So just to repeat that, it being noted that the London Middlesex Community Housing Corporation AMP dated 2020 is not current and will be revised and brought to full council for review and approval in 2025. And the other reason I think that’s important to do is you’re disclosing on the face, you’re disclosing on the face of the motion without having to get into the many, many, many documents that there is an older plan in there. It’s like writing something on your tax return where you’re disclosing what you’re doing. Susan will appreciate that.

So would that be okay if I offer that as an amendment? So I’m gonna check with the clerk. I’m also gonna ask for clarification, councilor, ‘cause you had indicated you, I just wanna make sure that I’ve got your intent clear ‘cause you had indicated that you, and if I misheard you, I apologize, that you were gonna vote against it, but that you supported all the other ones. And because it’s sort of a, does this satisfy the need to vote against it?

Okay, so I just wanted to be clear on that so that colleagues understand. And I am just gonna check with the clerk. I believe that is in order, but I just need to double check. Okay, so the clerk concurs, it is in order, but it does need to be a formal motion to add it.

So, councilor, I’m presuming you’re moving it, and then we’re looking for a seconder for that. Thank you, I’m moving that and looking for a seconder. Okay, so do we have a seconder? Councilor Hopkins, so we have a seconder.

Any discussion on that? Councilor? Yeah, maybe through you two staff, any concerns without motion going forward? Ms.

Barbone, any concern with that if being noted clause? Not necessarily a concern, but what I would suggest is that would actually apply to all of the others because they reflect a point in time. So as I had indicated, even the police is technically out of date because it doesn’t reflect the multi-year budget investment. So that could apply in fact to all of them because it is calculated at a point in time.

Councilor Hopkins? I wonder if the councilor would be able just to adjust it being noted to reflect that a report will be coming back to us in 2025, given what we just heard from staff. So the preliminary language the councilor trust out provided did indicate LMHCs is coming back in 2025. So I’m just checking councilor, you’re just asking that we will be receiving updates on all of them.

So councilor, I’ll go back to you ‘cause you’re the mover of the motion. Yes, there is a technical difference between an update and a preparation. The update needs to be done every year. The review needs to be done every year, but the new plan needs to be done every five years.

So so long as the other ones were done within the five year period within the meaning of Ontario Reg 388/17, they don’t need to be, they don’t need to be redone whereas the LMHC does need to be redone. So if you wanna reflect that the other ones are going to be updated, that’s probably redundant ‘cause you have to do that anyway, but it could be a separate clause. And if anybody wants to, I mean, that could be added. But I do think that LMHC is a different situation because their report is dated 2020 and it will have to be done in its entirety for 2025.

So there is— - Thank you. So councilor Hopkins, I’m hearing that the councilor wants this very specific to LMCH. So are you still comfortable being the seconder based on the rationale you just heard? And I heard that he’s willing to separate it as well in an A&M.

He was suggesting that if you wanted all of the other ones included, it should be a different, it being noted because it’s, so it would be an, it being further noted. I’m okay with that. Okay. So I really need to figure out where folks are going because I’ve heard it and I’m okay with that.

And it being further noted would be acceptable, but I don’t have actually in it being further noted. It being further noted, if I may, it being further noted that the remainder of the AMPs will be, I wanna make sure I use the exact right word here. I think it’s reviewed in 2025. Ms.

Barbone. So in accordance with the regulation, the absolute critical requirement that we need in the resolution is that the plans are all approved. In order to meet that July 1st date, the approval needs to take place. So with respect to the others, I mean, the plans all suggest that they will be reviewed and we will continue to do that.

So whether it’s in the resolution or not, those will continue. The counselor did raise the five year mark, which he is correct. So as part of the five year, we will be bringing that back next year. So having that it being noted is consistent with what our plan is to update the plan for council’s approval.

Okay, so colleagues, in the interest of time, what I’ve heard from Ms. Barbone is that an it being further noted is actually redundant to what’s in the plans. So I’m hoping that we’re okay with just the preliminary it being noted on LMCH, seeing nods. So we can have some discussion on this, but right now I don’t have it being further noted, just the original it being noted.

Looking for any discussion, Councillor Stevenson. I can go along with it, but my comment was going to be similar to what Ms. Barbone said, like the police one is very not current. And so it was presented to us is very different.

And so to specifically say this one is not current when the police one is the same. I would just, again, if the counselor doesn’t want to, it’s fine. I would just prefer to take the is not current out and just say it’s dated 2020 and it’ll be revised and brought forward. If we could just take that is not current out, I would prefer it, but I’m not going to stick on it.

I think it’s not current is commentary and lighted the fact that the word 2020 is used. Okay, so I just want to encourage people to please wait until you’re recognized first. Councillor Truss, I really appreciate that willingness to modify that to take out the is not current because that does simplify everything I think. And I’m seeing a nod from Councillor Stevenson on that and a nod from Councillor Hopkins on that.

Being as those are the you three are the only three Councillors who have spoken so far. I’m going to take that as consent unless anybody objects to that change in language. So seeing no objection, I’m taking that as a consent. So any further discussion?

Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair. I will be supporting this. I just don’t think it’s necessary considering that the regs are quite clear that it has to be done on the five year mark.

I think if you want to start cherry picking ABCs, then I think that opens the door for the rest of us to start doing that. So not in favor of that, I don’t think it’s fair. I think the LMCH has explained to the Councillor that they are going to do it anyways. And I find this redundant.

So I won’t be supporting it. Okay, looking for any further speakers before we call the vote, seeing none, I’m going to just ask the clerk to open the vote. Vote yes. Building the vote, motion carries 10 to five.

Thank you colleagues. I am going to suggest that we now take a dinner break. We allow the staff who don’t need to wait. Oh, sorry, we have to do as amended.

See, I want to get the pizza before the cheese gets too cold. So we’ll get the main motion as amended. Councillor Stevenson moved. Councillor Kerber will second and we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote.

Housing vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Thank you colleagues. Now we can let staff who don’t need to stay for the master accommodation plan item call it a night. The rest of us are going to take a break.

I’m looking for a length of time that colleagues want to recess. Councillor Layman, two hours I’m going to call out of order and I’m going to go to Councillor Hopkins. So I know it’s been a long, long evening and people are still hanging in here with us. I would suggest a short break of 10 minutes.

Councillor Hopkins is suggesting 10 minutes. I would just encourage colleagues to remember that staff need a break too. I’m wondering if we might perhaps entertain something just a little bit longer. Some of them may need to go up to their offices.

  1. So 20, by Councillor Hopkins second, by Councillor Pribble, we can do that by hand, recess for 20 minutes. Motion carries. It is 720, we will see you back at 740.

Okay, everyone has rejoined us. It is 743, my apologies to the gentleman in the gallery who are patiently waiting. I hope you’re working in an unbillable hours. Because it has been a long one to get to the last item on our agenda, which is 2.2.

This is the master accommodation plan redevelopment of City Hall campus. There are also two communications to be received with regard to this one. I am going to go briefly to Ms. Barbone for a very high level sort of review of where we are and what is required from us to go forward.

So Ms. Barbone, if you can provide us just a very high overview of things. Thank you through the chair. So with respect to the master accommodation plan, so this report is very similar to the report that was brought before you about a year ago in July that initially sought direction last summer.

So subsequent to that, there’s been additional work done in terms of trying to move us forward. And certainly council has made some decisions with respect to alternative work strategies. So we will be looking to finalize the update of what our space requirements are in terms of taking that into account and also taking into account the change in service model for the planning development staff with the four day a week to take that into account to identify specifically how many square feet in total the city of London administration space would require. So certainly following council direction, we are bringing this report forward for you today.

In terms of moving forward, we have had a number of urgent items approved through the multi-year budget in terms of with respect to this building to address the aging infrastructure. Obviously in terms of moving the map forward, the next step would be looking at trying to consolidate the space and redevelop this campus so that all of the items can move in conjunction together and maximize the efficiency and factiveness with which we would like to proceed. So certainly staff are looking for the direction to proceed on this location. And then obviously we would highly recommend that doing so and moving to redevelopment for something that is significant would look to follow a competitive procurement process.

We’ve tried to outline some of the timelines with respect to that in terms of moving that forward. So hopefully the work to develop the RFPQ and an RFP would be done throughout the rest of the year so we could move forward in early 2025. So happy to answer any questions. Thank you for that Ms.

Berbon. So as usual, I’m going to look to get a motion on the floor to frame our discussion before we move forward with anything. Councilor Cuddy. I’ll use it today.

I’ll move this motion please. Okay. Move to receive and move the motion. So that’s the staff report and the direction.

And the direction. Yep, okay. So we’ve got the staff recommendation on the floor. I think I have a seconder and Councilor Van Mierbergen.

Well, I’m going to look for a seconder. So Councilor Van Mierbergen, if you want a second. Yeah, a second. I’m glad to see that the pizza has arrived for you too.

So we have a mover and a seconder with Councilor Cuddy and Councilor Van Mierbergen. Now that we’ve got a motion on the floor, we can enter into discussion. Can you for any speakers? Councilor Cuddy?

Thank you and through you, Chair. I know I’ve just made the motion to receive an open discussion, but I think maybe at this time, since considering the lateness of the hour, we might want to refer this to another meeting. So Councilor Cuddy, I’m going to share the same advice I shared earlier when I suggested that we were going to need to dispense with all the agenda items today. I can certainly get staff to respond as well to the importance of us providing them some direction today.

But as you just heard Ms. Brabant say, the multi-year budget made some investments that have some immediate consequences in terms of some costs on this campus, that they need some direction to know whether or not they advance or don’t advance some of these things. I’m going to go to either Ms. Brabant or Ms.

Dater’s beer. If either of you wants to expand on that in terms of why this decision needs to, you need some direction from Council on this. Thank you through the chair. So certainly noting that the next, we go into the summer cycle and there’ll only be one committee a month.

Certainly through the multi-year budget, there’s lots of work to be done and certainly working on the square. There’s a lot of immediate pressures that we need to do, but then also some of the renovations of the floor is something that we have already begun the work and that if we are not moving forward, the sooner staff would know is absolutely sooner so that we can ensure that the work is being done appropriately and that there are not any additional sunk costs with respect to the current capital plan. So certainly there is some urgency with a decision. This process has been ongoing since 2016.

So it’s been quite some time. We’re kind of at the end of the runway in terms of trying to make some decisions before a significant investment needs to be made. So certainly if there is a direction from Council, the sooner we can receive that direction, the sooner we are able to maximize the use of the existing funds that we currently have approved through Council. So Councilor Cuddy, I know that you’ve got that staff.

I know you were suggesting a referral, but I hope that that addresses why they were suggesting that we need to give them some sort of direction tonight on this. So I’m gonna look for other speakers if you wanna come back later, we can come back. Councilor Stevenson. Thank you.

And through the chair, we did receive and it’s in the media, the other opportunity that has been presented to Council. And so how can we, as far as I’m aware, there’s some motions prepared, right, that if Council would like to explore that option and see the financial analysis between the two and all the other impacts in terms of how does it impact our downtown revitalization? How does it impact our housing criteria? How much better would the housing possibly be here versus Bendassen Richmond?

What is the impact of us consolidating and canceling some of the leases downtown to move it here? What impact would that have? So for me, this is new that’s come, this opportunity to have the three properties downtown. There’s people are talking about it.

I feel as though as Council something, a big decision, this is a $125.5 million renovation we’re talking about for this building. And I know it went through the multi-year budget, but none of us talked about it at all. And I don’t think the public has been engaged in that process. So what are our options to be able to do our due diligence in terms of exploring and making sure when we invest that kind of funding and make that kind of long-term decision that we’re making the best decision for our downtown, for our city, for our housing and for our budget because we’ve also got, I can’t find my notes, but if I can stop you there for just a second, and you asked about what our options are, and that is, and I was asked by multiple counselors what our options were, which is why there is a motion the clerks have, should colleagues wish to go in-camera for legal advice on our procurement process and unsolicited proposals and how those things are handled.

For legal advice, we can go in-camera for that. That would need a motion to go in-camera for client’s solicitor privileged advice. Ms. Barbone, did you have a?

Thank you. If I might add, it would not solely be for legal advice. It would also be with respect to acquisition of property. Okay, give me one moment here.

So I, in conversation with the clerk, the suggestion is that if there’s a bargaining position, land acquisition is a valid reason to go in-camera. If there is not, then it does not meet the threshold for an in-camera discussion. So I’m not sure where that takes us, and that may itself be something where legal advice has to be given before we know where things are. I don’t know if you wanted to add anything from your perspective just in public session in terms of process.

Thank you and through you, I would suggest that if we are looking at a proposal, the unsolicited proposal is in the nature of land acquisition. So I think it would fit into that subsection of the municipal act. Okay, then that, based on that advice, then client solicitor privilege and land acquisition would be the reasons for which we go in-camera. If colleagues want to move a motion to go in-camera.

Councillor Stevenson, you have a question, Councillor Hopkins. Yes, and it is about process. So I understand the recommendations, staff’s recommendation is not in front of us. And the only, So staff’s recommendation is on the floor right now.

It was moved and seconded. Okay, I misunderstood. I thought it was just to receive it, but I just wanted to confirm that it is on the floor. So right now A and B are on the floor, as well as the receipt of the communications.

So that’s what’s on the floor. So if we go in-camera and there would have to be amendments or other votes on this once we come back in a public session for a different direction, but we can certainly go in-camera to Councillor Stevenson’s inquiry about the unsolicited proposal. So your Councillor Pribble is seconding. I just want to confirm first, if Councillor Stevenson’s actually moving, she got her hand up, but then I cut her off to go to Councillor Hopkins.

I’d like to move that. Okay, so we have a mover and a seconder to go in-camera for client solicitor, privileged information and land, purposes of land acquisition. And I will ask Clerk to open the vote on that. Oh, yes.

Thank you, Councillor. I’m gonna ask you to hold your vote for just a moment until the clerk can open, get it saved in E-Scribe. And now you can verbally indicate your yes. Oh, yes.

Councillor Ploza votes yes. It’s just not loading for me. Just, yeah, bear with us, just a little technical issue saving the motion, so it’ll come up in just a moment. And I will record your vote, Councillor Ploza, and we’ll record Councillor Van Mier-Bergens.

And everyone else’s E-Scribe will open in a moment. Here. Yes, Councillor Frank. I’m not sure if there’s a Zoom link for in-camera, so I just wanted to remind Clerks, maybe if they could send out along, if we go in-camera?

Sorry, Councillor, now I was trying to talk to you without turning on my mic, so that wasn’t gonna help you here either. Because we stay in this room, rather than move to a committee room, there doesn’t have to be a separate Zoom link. Okay, thank you, much appreciated. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

Okay, so we will need to move some folks around, so that we have only the appropriate staff in the room, file the doors, and then we can begin our take colleagues. We are back now in public session, our live streams are up, the public doors are open, our media is back in the room, our staff are back in the room, so we can resume where we left off, which is a staff recommendation that has been moved and seconded is on the floor. I’m looking for any speakers. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. I’m looking at two options. One is replacing B and the other is adding to B to suggest that we defer this until we get a report back from staff, addressing some of the concerns that have come up around the impact on our downtown when we pull those leases in, looking at the financial analysis of potential other options in terms of leveraging property owners with development charges and that type of thing. How long would it take for staff to, because we answer to the public and we get to sell them on this and explain why this is the right way to go.

So what’s a reasonable timeframe if staff were to come back and really do that analysis, economic and financial around the option of moving our city hall right downtown versus here? Let’s ask our staff if they have any ability to give us timeframe on and Councillor, is what you’re asking for an economic impact study? I don’t really know what the title means, but the issues that have risen given the unsolicited proposal, they’re sort of to the average lender. They’re questions that get to be answered, I think, before we move forward, potentially even public engagement sessions.

I guess that’s my question to staff is, how do we answer the questions and involve the public in this, any guidance in that regard? Ms. Barboon. Thank you through the chair.

So let me address the public part first. So this went through a public process when the master accommodation plan business case was put forward as part of the 2020 multi-year budget. So that was a business case that was put forward and that was approved through that process. So obviously as a result of the pandemic, we could not action that during that period of time and that has brought us to a number of delays that has brought forward now.

So from a public participation perspective when that budget was approved, it was certainly done through that process. So that’s where that part would come in. With respect to certainly a procurement process, given the fair and transparent, there is not a public participation process built into any procurement because it is based on very clear criteria and it is based on the evaluation of that criteria being applied equally. So certainly in terms of following practice, that is not something that is included in the process to ensure a very fair equitable and transparent process.

In terms of looking at an economic perspective, certainly as part of the development of the map, that was done in some of the early stages and there were some previous reports to council with respect to that. What I can tell you is that in terms of the location of employees, the employees that would be consolidated are all within the downtown currently. So they’re still moving within the same geographic area in terms of where you’re relocating them. We’re still within the general vicinity of the core.

So I think it’d be challenging to look at how we would go about doing an economic analysis of moving four blocks north to consolidate them here and to move forward with respect to the redevelopment. So certainly that’s something that in terms of if we were to proceed with something like that, I’d need to go out and probably do some sort of competitive process just to get a consultant to be able to do that work. ‘Cause I would assume that doing something of that nature would be a significant undertaking in terms of understanding with the scope and complexity of that would be in terms of identifying what kind of an outcome we’re looking to do unless there’s something specific that council is looking to do. There could be something that is quite involved from doing a full review, depending on how broad you wish that economic review to be.

Okay, thank you, I’m gonna pause and see what my colleagues have to say about this, but I would just respond and say that if we did this in 2020 and we brought it forward to the public, a lot has changed since then. Like our downtown is, a lot of people are very, very concerned about our downtown and we hadn’t hit the property taxpayer with 8% this year and 8% next year. And so this gets to be a bit of a sales job for us to make this kind of investment in City Hall. I don’t think we’re their top priority.

And I know that it’s needed, and I really think that we’re gonna get to answer for this. So I’ll see what my colleagues say. Councilor Rowan. Thank you and through you.

I can’t recall from when we looked at all the class A buildings and we were looking at the different types of floor plates on buildings if we had an evaluation of this building and its potential conversion to residential if we considered that at all. Mr. Maythers or Mr. Warner?

Through the chair, actually, I’m sorry, I’m just conferring with Mr. Maythers. I believe that there wasn’t analysis done of the buildings as it relates to housing and that’s why actually maybe you could just repeat the question just as a lateness of the hour, that is. Thank you, I agree, it is fairly late and which is why my memory is failing me.

I can’t remember whether or not we looked at this building in particular when we were looking at the office conversions that were potential, the types of buildings that were potentially convertible within the downtown core, if we actually looked at this building, particularly the floor plate of this building and whether or not it was structurally, and not structurally, but in the same classification to be considered amenable to a conversion to residential. So have we evaluated our own city hall for office to residential conversion for mom? Thank you for that clarification through the chair. We have not done an analysis for residential conversions on this campus.

We have included the addition of housing in terms of looking forward towards the proposal that we’ve put in front of council to redevelop this campus would be to look for the addition of additional housing as part of a redevelopment. But we have not looked at this floor plate in this building specifically, whether that conversion would be something that is feasible or not. Councilor. Thank you.

Yeah, I think I would want to know that in terms of our highest and best use of this piece of property. Also, did we have conversations with the library, other partners around additional amenities that are needed in the core, maybe what their useful life is for their building, what they’re looking at in terms of their plans as well as we were looking at our space plans and capacity needs. Ms. Barbara.

Thank you through the chair. So when we had the budget go forward initially in 2020, there was a desire in a conversation with other boards and commissions at that time for potentially, if there was an opportunity to redevelop the campus, that they would be looking for additional space. Certainly, we have not had that conversation recently because there’s been quite a bit of change with respect to that. And certainly, we would be looking forward to getting approval to proceed on this site.

And then we could certainly include that within the space analysis if there was another opportunity as part of an RFP to proceed. Councilor. So that would be additional direction within the RFP. I’m just wondering specifically for, let’s say, a partner like the library who also has cost pressures and budget issues, if there were an indication that they too were in a space or looking to have that discussion, how would they go about expressing that interest to be included as part of an RFP?

Ms. Barbara. Thank you through the chair. So certainly one of the things that we had identified as part of the report was we would be going back to through the multi-year budget, ensuring that with the growth of the positions that were currently approved that our space calculations were adequate.

So in the development of the RFP, there’s obviously some work to do in terms of developing with that criteria is and putting the documents together. So there would be an opportunity that as we are looking for partnerships to redevelop this site, if there were needs that needed to be included as part of the city, certainly that that could be included as part of that. And whether council wishes to add that to the recommendation to make certain that that occurs, that is something certainly that could be done. Councillor Roman.

Thank you. So just to clarify as that additional direction that would be needed today, or is that just part and parcel of the direction that is included in the motion that’s on the floor right now? Ms. Barbara.

Thank you through the chair. I would suggest that if council wishes us to include that, adding that direction would be advantageous to ensure that when we proceed, we are meeting the desires of council to move forward. Councillor? Any other speakers?

Councillor Cuddy and then Councillor Stevenson. Okay, you both can’t yield to each other when it has to go first. So Councillor Cuddy, you haven’t spoken on this one yet. I’m gonna go to you.

Thank you chair and through you. And I wanna be respectful of Ms. Barbara because I appreciate the fact that a referral would be an issue for you. But my concern, Chair, is that we’ve been at this for eight hours today and we don’t need to make it a decision that we might regret later.

And I won’t go into any details that we do know this building is old and it has some issues. And we’re trying to rectify many of them right now, as you can see by the structure outside. But it does have issues. We have discussed in the past about previous council has discussed about moving the city campus.

And I don’t think it’s something that, I don’t think this is something at this moment that we should close the door on. And I’m just afraid because of the lateness of ours and because we’ve been at this for eight hours today, we’re going to be making a decision that we might regret later. So again, with all due respect, I do think we should look at a referral. And I’d look for a second or for that, if someone was interested, thank you.

Okay, Council can certainly move a referral. What I would ask though, Councillor Cuddy, is if you could provide direction in the referral, as I’ve requested with other referrals, we need to be referring it for a reason. And we’re tired, doesn’t qualify for a reason, respectfully. So there has to be more than just a, we want to wait.

We need a little bit more direction on that. So if you want to move a referral, we need some direction. I’ll thank you, Chair. And I’ll let Councillor Stevenson elaborate, thank you.

Okay, Councillor Stephen. Thank you. I do agree with my fellow Councillor here. And I think my request would be that we refer to the next SPPC and ask staff to come back with a report that updates the master accommodation plan from 2020 when it was approved in the budget, to 2024 with all that has changed.

So to talk about the issues that have been addressed about the floor plates that, you know, is this building a better residential building than civic administration? And who would have thought we were in the situation that we’re in, in our downtown currently? So I can tell I’m going into reasons. So that it would be referred to the next SPPC, assuming staff could get back to us that quickly, with the rationale for why this location versus the idea of moving civic administration to our downtown or combining with our library, looking at the whole of the issues that we have in our core area.

So first, I’m going to go to staff because I think what you’re asking for might be a more significant undertaking than they could return back to us with in one SPPC cycle, given the breadth of what you just laid out there, Ms. Barbone. Thank you through the chair. So certainly that would be multiple months of work at a minimum.

The master accommodation plan and the space, but those are several months of work in terms of updating staff numbers and trying to pull all that information in terms of growth projections and updating that plan. The entire master accommodation plan took 18 months to complete in total. The update was a year. So those are very significant pieces of work.

To do an economic assessment and the effects of the core, that would take an external consultant to assist us, to create that kind of work. That is definitely a minimum of a few months work once we have procured a consultant to actually do that work for us. And just before I go back to Councillor Stevenson, because she referenced updating from 2020, but you had referenced earlier that there has been some updates since 2020 because of the council direction on alternate work strategies and staff calculations. So when you’re talking about the base might be 2020, but can you just advise us all when the most recent update to the map was done, because we did provide you some direction on alternate work strategies.

And I know you’ve accounted for that in this report. So when was that factored in? So how recent, I guess, can you advise us the update to the 2020 base is? I thank you through the chairs.

So the update for the master accommodation plan for alternative work strategies was presented to the SPPC on October 19th, 2021. So that provided the council direction to integrate the alternate work strategies into the map and revise down the floor plate calculations based on those revised models with alternate work. Thank you. I just wanted you to provide everybody that clarification on the last calculation on the floor plate.

Councillor Stevenson, back to you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And so that’s not gonna be my rationale for the referral.

So I’d like to make an amendment that we refer, or I’d like to make a motion that we refer this to the next SPPC to allow council to engage with the public and get the input, give them a chance to speak and before we make this big decision. Okay, and do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Cuddy. Okay, so a referral has been moved and seconded.

And now we will look for speakers on the referral. Councillor Palosa and then Councillor ramen. Thank you. Just a question through you.

I think just like I said, just listening along, the Councillor Stevenson said to give the public a chance to speak. I’m not sure if she’s referring to a public participation meeting or just allowing some time for public feedback to come in to us for Councillors, just looking for clarification. Thank you. Well, let’s ask Councillor Stevenson for her clarification on her intent there.

Thank you. My intent is just to engage individually with our wards and bring back to advise us as we make this big decision. Councillor Palosa, okay, seeing the thumbs up there. Councillor ramen, same question, okay.

Looking for further discussion. Councillor McAllister. Thank you, through you. Sorry, I’m trying to stay awake here.

(laughs) I appreciate in terms of why the Councillors are looking for more time. I think my issue with this is essentially, we’ve had one developer put out a proposal and to allow three weeks for public input, you’re creating a situation where the comparison is between staying where we are and the one proposal for us. I think that’s unfair to the development community as well. I understand in terms of what’s being put before us, but I don’t think that allows for adequate time for even the private sector to provide any sort of input in terms of alternative options.

So in terms of what we’ve considered in the past, I think we should make a decision this evening. So I won’t be supporting this referral. I think at a certain point, we have to pull the trigger on something. I can think back to, I mean, this has been going on for well over a decade in terms of this discussion.

I understand the public’s desire for that input, but I think there is an opportunity in terms of redeveloping this campus. So I would like to make a decision this evening. Thank you, Councillor. And I’ll just advise colleagues, the next SPPC is four weeks on July 18th, which is a Thursday, but because we’re coming out of a break in our committee cycles, we have extra committee work that week.

So that’s the date of the next SPPC. Looking for other speakers, I’m gonna go to Councillor Ferriar ‘cause he hasn’t spoken yet. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I’d also point out that what we have on the table is for a civic administration to initiate a competitive procurement process.

So that would be what we would be referring and to get the public to have the public’s input. That procurement process is a fair process. It’s an open process, it’s a transparent process. So I would be wondering what comments would we be expecting from the public would they to change the process itself?

So I wouldn’t be supporting the referral for that. And Councillor Trussow. Same thing. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. Then I’ll just quickly say that it’s 100, you know, in the budget anyway, it’s $125.5 million that we’re talking about spending here. And we do have some very serious concerns about our downtown. There’s this one option that has some financial incentives in terms of getting that developer to develop in our city, which everybody wants, and there may be others come.

So to me, it’s a referral for four weeks for us to talk to Londoners. This just came down just recently. No one’s really had a chance to look at it, to really give this some serious thought, to decide whether in four weeks, we move ahead confidently with what we’ve got here, or we decide to go the expressions of interest after having given it due consideration, that we’d like to expand our options and look at other alternatives. And I think in four weeks, it would be very clear.

I do feel that if we make the decision tonight, we’re inclined to limit our options and decide for Londoners on a very large investment that they might want to have a say in. So I would ask for support for the referral, and four weeks shouldn’t make a big difference. Councilor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair, and through you.

And I’d just like to remind my colleagues that this isn’t something new that’s just come up. We’ve been this council, not this council, but previous councils have been discussing for years, dating back to, I think, 2011 or 2012, moving city campus with the bell building was a consideration many years ago. And I think we put an offer on it, if my memory serves me correctly. So we do know that we have issues with this existing building and campus, and it served us well, but at 56 years old, it’s probably served its time.

So I think taking the time, as my colleague, Councilor Stevenson, suggested, and taking a month that we can revisit this with the fresher minds and take a clearer look at it. Thank you. Okay, I’m Councilor Pribble, and then Mayor Morgan, Councilor Pribble. Thank you, and I just want to add to that, I will also be supporting this referral, and I do think that it will give me more time, speak to the public, look at the opportunity, and look at actually the bigger region in terms of combining potentially with other facilities of city owned operating.

And I do think that now, when I look at the time and this, I really think that the one month, based on how long this has been taking, it’s not gonna be in the game changer, but I really think with the public, and with everything being new, this one in front of us, I will be supporting the referral. Mayor Morgan. Yes, I just want to make a couple of comments on the process. So the idea of engaging the public on a new city hall, like there’s multiple ways to go about this.

One is like, we just build ourselves a new city hall. And guess what? You can do a lot of public engagement on that, ‘cause you can ask them everything they want in it. You can do a design yourself, you can build it, and that’s gonna be really expensive, because we’re gonna pay for the whole thing ourselves, right?

The process that Council has kind of gone down, which lands us at, what staff has brought back, is we don’t want to spend that much money. We want to try to unlock some of the innovation that might be out there by utilizing the assets on the site that we own, and say, listen, someone can pitch us an idea that there is a budget of 125 million. We don’t have to spend 125 million. Could be more, could be less.

But that’s the function of the RFP process, to see what people are gonna pitch. If people want to pitch, here’s some civic space with upwards of 30 stories of residential on top. Well, there’s value in that for the partner who’s going to pitch that. But we don’t know exactly what that looks like, because we don’t actually have any of the proposals.

So, although I agree we could go out for four weeks and try to talk to the public, I can’t even contemplate what types of proposals we’d get back at this point. So, I don’t know how you go out and talk to the public about something that we’re trying to unlock, innovation and other ideas on the site, without going through an RFP process. It’s kind of hard to have it both ways, because you’re just, you know, unless you’re gonna set some clear parameters under which you wanna engage the public on. Like, I don’t know what they’re gonna come forward with to talk about, right?

Because I don’t think even we understand the potential that we’re attempting to unleash with this type of RFP process, which is not an RFP just for us to build our own city hall. It’s an RFP to actually unlock the potential of the site, or at least to see what’s out there. No one may bid on the site. You may put it on RFP and say, you know what, no one is interested in looking at this site, in partnering with us, and we’re kind of back to, okay, well then we’ve gotta either do something ourselves or think about a different path.

So, for me, we can spend another two or three years trying to think about how we wanna do this, or we can try to take a step that gets us more information about what the potential is for developing the site. You know, there’s other things that we can contemplate in, you know, the RFP process. If you wanna talk about other partners potentially coming in and having access to say, you know, we could use a couple floors of office space where the X, ABC, whatever it is, then sure, you know, that sounds like something that could enhance the project, but I still don’t think you’re gonna understand the full potential of what it is here, that people are interested in partnering on until we actually let an RFP and get the ideas back for review and consideration that then, you know, we can have like, we can have a big discussion on, right? So, it’s, I understand, I understand the desire.

I just, I don’t understand what information we’re gonna get back that isn’t gonna leave us pretty much exactly in the same spot we’re in now with a decision of, do you wanna redevelop this campus? And do you wanna put it on our RFP to see who’s interested in partnering? Or do you not wanna do that? That’s kind of the decision we’re at now.

And I don’t know if that’s gonna fundamentally change four weeks from now, will we, you know, given we’ve already decided to kind of go down the path of let’s see what potential we can unlock here. So, I don’t think I’m gonna support the referral. I’m open to some other adjustments to the, kind of the language and adding in some direction to staff for consideration and the letting of an RFP process. But I just don’t know what that’s gonna buy us.

And the piece I have in the back of my mind is, we put a bunch of money aside in the multi-year budget because we gotta make a decision on this site at some point ‘cause, you know, the building is old, we have started to refurbish a number of the floors. We’ve kind of paced that differently in the multi-year budget. But, you know, it’s not a great idea to invest a whole bunch of money if you’re gonna go a different direction. So, we have to pick a lane here and decide what we’re gonna go down the next steps on so that we can make smart financial decisions with the assets that we currently have, which, when you don’t maintain them, only get more expensive to maintain later.

So, I don’t think I’m gonna support the referral at this time, but I’m open to other thoughts on the colleagues have on the general direction we’re headed. Councillor Ferrer. - Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I, you know, this is an interesting topic just because there’s a rich history here when it comes to council deciding on where to put City Hall.

It’s happened right from the beginning of the city. We have examples in the 1800s. We have examples again in the 1900s. And there’s a consistent tone throughout the entire history of the city.

And that is, you know, as to about the indecision of the tone. We have seen this a lot. I actually have this book. I was gonna read some passages from it, but chapter two is entirely on the history of council not being able to decide where to put City Hall.

From the beginning of the city, it’s true. It’s a good book. I found it on Claire’s book show. You even had some municipal referendums actually on the topic in the 1920s, more than one.

And I don’t wanna repeat history again. You know, I like to approach everything with an informed vote, an informed vote on the past, an informed vote on evidence, everything we need, that we need to bring to our new civic space, how we’re supposed to be able to have it prepared for the future and just be able to accommodate the needs as the city grows. So I’m looking for something like that. And I’ve seen that this work has already been done.

This work, this, the master accommodation plan has been around since 2011 or 2015. We’ve been working on it. We’ve been updating it. I don’t see any other data that’s better than that.

You know, we’ve had that data be discussed, be vetted, and we’re not gonna get anything better than that. So also, this book was written in 1998 on chapter two. You know what I am gonna read? The very last two sentences, because those last two sentences are written for us.

The past is written to us. And they say, based on our past experiences, it is probable that any debate over a new city hall will be a protracted one. Log down over matters of false economies of nickel and dime kind. It goes on to read.

One can only hope that a future generation of Londoners will be more willing to bite the political bullet and finally build a city hall that London deserves. So, and it’s a short chapter, and I’ll pass it around for anybody who wants to read, but this is something that’s been going on for the longest time. I honestly would like to stop that tone. I would like to stop that momentum that we’ve seen dragging our feet, because in the end, we’re gonna have a protracted city hall.

This is our chance to break that momentum and actually make a decision and be decisive here. That’s what the city needs. The city needs us to be decisive and decide. So, that’s why I will not be supporting the referral.

I would like to see that procurement process go. I would like to see us approve that and move forward. Thank you, Councillor Ferra, and put me on your book borrowers list, please. Councillor Hopkins.

Me too, I appreciate those comments, Councillor. And I also appreciate the mayor’s comments too. I think we do have to make a decision. That’s why I’m not supporting the referral.

I am not exactly sure what even the question I am going to ask of residents within a month span here. I think all we’re doing is just postponing the inevitable. What I am interested in doing, though, is going forward with the public report. And that is going to be our process going forward with the RFP.

It’s when we’re going to gather information and have further conversations. I definitely will not be supporting the referral. Thank you, Councillor Hopkins, Councillor Stevenson, and then Councillor Prabhall. I just want to say that for me, it’s a lot less about City Hall than it is but our downtown.

Do we have a vision for our downtown? What is it going to be? We had a core area action plan that didn’t really work out. I know we had the pandemic and everything, but it didn’t work out.

And we have Dundas Place, we’ve put all that money into it, but there’s no foot traffic. The NW is closing, like everything is closing. And we’ve got Budweiser Gardens, which is great. And maybe we’d have a beautiful City Hall over here.

But what are we going to have in between? What’s the plan? Our library downtown is struggling. We’ve got Western and Fanshawe that are going to be downtown.

Are they going to be? Are they going to stay? What is our vision? And maybe that’s what we need to talk about.

City Hall, we’re committed to building a new city hall. This has to be replaced. But how we do it could have a huge impact on the core area of our city that is in despair. And so for me for weeks and yes, am I talking about just having a town hall and talking to people?

No, not really. But look at just what has come into us from experts, from advisors. What would come in from our development community, from our, you know, what kind of brainstorming could we do? Could we have sort of a whole community downtown response over the next four weeks?

Get the brains together and see what could we create over the next four weeks? And if at the end of that, we decide, no, you know what? This was the right thing when we lock ourselves in with this process because I’ll just finish with clarifying that if we move ahead with this, I do believe we’re locked in. And wouldn’t it be great and powerful to give voices an opportunity to really get together and see what is possible and then make a decision from that point?

So no, I’m not talking about regular town halls. I’m talking about coming together, asking the best and the brightest and those who have the experience to share a vision of our downtown. Could we tie it into the economic and development plans? We need something for the city and Londoners need it.

So I think this could be a beautiful opportunity to have a lot more than the city hall, have it and a great downtown. Councillor McAllister. Thank you and through the chair, just to kind of consolidate some of the comments I’ve already been said. I agree in terms of what the mayor said.

For me, we own this property. We want to redevelop it. I think with the RFP, we have the opportunity to have those conversations with the public to see what they would like here. And I think my skepticism comes from just caution in terms of land acquisition.

And I think when you look at what’s available, sure, we could go down that road, but I think there’s a lot of unknowns in terms of what we’d be paying, renovation costs, maybe even building something from scratch. I think opening that door so wide is a worry for me to be perfectly honest. I’d also like to point out that I understand in terms of the concerns, I hear them all the time in terms of the core, but I don’t think they’re entirely validated. Like I personally am impressed in terms of the sky rises we’re seeing.

I think you’re seeing an investment in downtown, and I think unfortunately we don’t give that enough credit. I think it’s easy to look at those issues and say, oh well, there they are. I mean, I have those issues too. I mean, I have them on Hamilton Road, but I don’t have the core infrastructure in terms of building that kind of infill.

And I think those opportunities exist in the core to revitalize it. And I think the residential is actually what’s driving that. We’ve seen that in terms of converting office space. I think there are a lot of other opportunities that can drive development in the core, and you’re seeing those happen right now.

And we’ve had this over the years. I mean, I think back to even like the ’90s, like, you know, Galleria and Hal City Plaza, those kind of things have always been pitched. And unfortunately, I haven’t stuck, but I think what you’re seeing now is people coming and living downtown on the core, which is what I see as the big difference in terms of having people live here. I mean, we’ve talked about a grocery store for years.

I think you need the people living downtown to make those differences. So for me, I think City Hall, we can redevelop this. We can have something that all Londoners enjoy. I still view this as part of the core.

Victoria Park is central to that. And I don’t view it as outside the orbit of the core. I think we can still create a campus, have that input, and I think we can still put those ideas to work in the core, but on the residential side. I think you obviously will have commercial, but I think the residential is really gonna make the difference.

Thank you. Let me see if we have, sorry, we did have other speakers in Councilor Privel, and then I’ll go to Councilor Raman, and then I’m gonna turn the chair over to share a couple comments myself, Councilor Privel. George, I’m gonna make kind of three quick comments, three quick statements. And I really think that closing the doors and not looking, moving it a few blocks down the road at potential loss of very positive economic impact, greatly added value and domino effect.

And I do agree with Councilor McAllister just said in terms of the residential, no doubt. The commercial, when you look at the conversions, the conversions are not that cheap, and they are quite expensive. And I just don’t want to at this stage, and I do hear it, and I do certainly want us to make decision this year, and I was hoping by the fall, but by a couple of months, and to really explore this, the added value that this potentially could bring, and I would just like to consider it. That was the reason why it referred it, even by one month, because that one month will give us an opportunity to discuss it with other key players, not just residential, but even in business, in the core, and not to underestimate it, because there’s no doubt that if you were to do it, even with an announcement, there will be a positive effect on the businesses, on the retail.

Thank you. Thanks for roaming. Thank you and through you. So I hear the conversation and the desire for a non-status quo decision around this item, but I do not think that entertaining the possibility of reimagining this city hall campus is a status quo decision.

I think that we have the opportunity to reshape what this campus looks like. We had the opportunity to not only do that, but also engage the public. And I do see that by way of the media’s story and the unsolicited proposal, people see value in wanting to have a conversation about what city hall in our campus can be like, and what amenities can be there. We were in Calgary last week.

One of the things I was very impressed about at Calgary City Hall was that they have an integrated classroom in City Hall. They call it the city lab or something of that sort. They also have an innovation lab in their library that I really thought was quite remarkable. All of those things I see as possible within this potential new campus, the opportunity to invite the public back in, to have a space that feels like their own, that feels as though they have more connection to.

And so I think a referral would allow for conversation, but we could also embed conversation if we don’t refer this and we just amend. And we look to amend into the motion some direction around some communication with the public to provide some of their thoughts, ideas around, even within the engagement to us, around what they’d like to see. I think that there’s opportunity and value to allowing people to imagine in this space, what is possible. I would also say that we could also, and I wanna know if this doesn’t pass the referral, some suggestion language, around how we may be able to, again, invite dialogue with our partners about how they may also want to potentially be involved in this space.

So if that’s part of the RFPRFQ process that we could also look at, so that we could have that dialogue as well. So if we don’t, if we, this referral doesn’t pass, I’d be looking for some helpless in language around amendment. Thank you, Councillor ramen. And I’m gonna ask you to take the chair now, ‘cause I have myself on the speakers list next.

Thank you, I have the chair. Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Councillor ramen. So I appreciate the discussion we’ve had.

There are some of us around this horseshoe, and then the discussion longer than others, and I appreciate that. There’s a difference in experience in that too. For me, first of all, I wanna be really clear that this isn’t an argument for me about whether City Hall is downtown or not. And Councillor McAllister touched on this.

But not only are we right across the street from Victoria Park, we’re right across the park from Richmond Row. And Richmond Row is just as much a part of the downtown as Dundas Place. It is just as historically important to our city as a commercial district as Dundas Place has been. And so I think if we wanna make the argument that we need to be in the core, we already are.

And all we’re talking about is whether we’re on Dundas Place or Richmond Row, that is sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul in my view. I will say, given we’re now eight and a half hours into tonight, I’m not sure how much anyone in the public would want to re-imagine being in this space with us. But that said, I do think, and I talked about this at Planning and Environment Committee at the last meeting with regard to the school board and exploring coal builds with them, I do think there would be great value in exploring coal build-shaped space sharing with our ABCs. And certainly, if Councilor ramen was to introduce, or any Councilor was to introduce an amendment to that effect, all on board, ‘cause I think coal builds are the way to go for the future.

I also appreciate Councilor Ferreira’s selection of readings for us tonight, because I feel like that has been, in many ways, the history of London on a number of issues, not the least of which is our city hall. And I do agree that we want to make some decisions. I’m also, honestly, I don’t think that there’s gonna be that much value in a public engagement over the first two weeks of July, as kids have just gotten out of school, as people are going off to the cottage, celebrating Canada Day, going out to Port Stanley for a swim, whatever it is that they’re going to do. I think what we’re doing in this space, for a lot of Londoners for the next few weeks, is going to be way down the priority list.

And I’m not really sure that beyond where are their fireworks on Canada Day, they’re gonna have a whole lot of interest in engaging with us on some of this other stuff. In fact, I’m embedding some Kiwanis Park Community Engagement into Canada Day, ‘cause I think that’s the only way I can get people to actually talk to me about that. So that’s kind of where I am. I just don’t think four weeks is gonna change the move the needle in terms of public engagement.

I do think that there’s a number of things we need to think about with our downtown, but for me, I think we should be looking at what we’re gonna put into the potential RFP, rather than not moving forward with a direction on it at this time. So that’s where I am, and I’ll conclude my remarks there, Madam Presiding Officer. We’re turning the chair to you, if no one on the speaker’s list. Okay, so I’ve known else on the speaker’s list, although before I removed myself from the chair, Councillor Cutty, you had had your hand up, so I don’t know whether you wanna— Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. All right, Councillor Ramen, that you were after me. Yes, it might refer to you, thank you, Chair. I’m sure you, I was gonna recommend that we put the new city hall in word three, I actually know some land where it can go, but really it belongs in the, it belongs downtown, and I will, I will for the last time emphasize that this is an old building with old problems, and I don’t think we’re gonna resolve them quickly, or cost effectively.

I think it’s gonna be a really big expense for us to renovate this building and do what we wanna do with it. In chair I would recommend, I would ask all of my colleagues to push for the referral, because I think one month isn’t going to make a lot of difference in the fact that people, I think people will come up, but I don’t think it’ll make a lot of difference in terms of the time we need and the time required, but I think it’s a decision we should make, and I think it would be prudent for us just to have the extra time, to have the public weigh in on this, and thank you. Councillor Palosa. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Also realizing colleagues have pointed out earlier the lateness of the hour we’re trying to make important decisions. I’m not sure if, I know your ruling was that they couldn’t just refer this in the next cycle. Perhaps a motion to adjourn also would have accomplished, but people were trying to accomplish of dealing with this in the next cycle.

Just it is almost 10 o’clock. I’ll leave my comments there for an important decision. Thank you, Councillor. If we have no other speakers on the speakers list for the referral, Councillor Hillyer, did you wanna weigh in?

Your camera came on and then went off again. Just wanna make sure I didn’t miss your hand up. You’re good, okay? See your thumbs up there.

So we have a motion on the floor with a referral. So unless we have any other speakers, I’m going to call the question. I see no other speakers, so I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. Councillor Stevenson votes, yes.

No, yes. A number of colleagues may need to refresh their e-scribe. Closing the vote, motion fails five to 10. So we are back to the motion on the floor.

Councillor ramen. Thank you, thank you and through you. I’m just wondering if staff might be able to suggest some wording around allowing for discussions around expressions of, I don’t know if that is part of the expressions of interest on co-builds or space or any of those pieces that can be added. Ms.

Barbone, would you perhaps have a suggestion for us around what you’ve heard from Council in terms of partners beyond the proponent for the RFP? Thank you, Chair. I’m wondering if I could just clarify, is the Council are wanting us to reach out to the boards and commissions to look for, who would like to be or would want to be included as part of the redevelopment of the campus? Or is it more to the, okay, if that’s it, then maybe it’s a simple, that civic administration be directed to consult with the relevant city-owned, or something to the effect of the agency’s boards and commissions, who would want to participate as part of the, be included as part of the competitive procurement process for space.

I’m sure the clerk might be able to help, but something to that effect? Okay, and the clerk is typing up something furiously here, so give us just a minute to it. Okay, so I’m gonna read what we’ve got here in E-Scribe. I would like to make sure that Council’s ramen’s intent is captured, also that it works from Ms.

Barbone, which is that civic administration be directed to consult with the relevant agency’s boards and commissions with respect to participating in the range of uses in the redevelopment of the city hall campus. Councillor ramen, does that meet your intent? Yes, thank you. Ms.

Barbone, does that work for you from an administrative perspective? Seeing nods on that, Councillor Trussow? So that’s been moved and seconded. Excuse me, I’ll second that.

Discussion on the amendment? We’ve got two hours and 15 minutes till midnight, we don’t want to discuss the amendment. Okay, I’m seeing no speakers, so I will ask the clerk to call the question. Oh yes.

Oh yes. It appears I have to feed the meter right out of quarters. Resuming session, oh yes. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

Thank you, colleagues, now on the main motion as amended, Mayor Morgan. Yes, I have just a couple of quick questions for our staff, so the way that this is structured is with an RFPQ, followed by an RFP. Is it possible to run the RFPQ process? Well, at the same time, having a process where we can provide the opportunity for the public to provide feedback on what they might want to see in a city hall civic space?

Like we’re talking about a city hall campus, and we focused on our accommodation needs and the staffing needs and the footprint, but there’s a desire, I think, for people to maybe give some feedback on what they might feel would be valued on this space, whether or not we can do it, and obviously the more features you add, the more costs you add. But is it possible to do that so that before we let the actual RFP, we can have a decision of Council on whether or not we want to add other pieces into it before we let that. Is that a process that could run in parallel? Ms.

Barboon? Thank you, Chair. I’m thinking through the process. Certainly in terms of developing the RFP, we would be clearly putting out what the needs are with respect to space.

A large part of the process would be putting forward all of the information that we know about the current campus, that kind of thing. Typically, so one of the certain in terms of there’s the redevelopment and the proposals that come forward with respect to the selection, but one of the things that once a proponent is selected, there’s what other sites have done, have included components, such as, say, the square after the fact, or as part of that, that would be done separately that the public could look at in terms of what would be there. So I think some of the previous discussions have been with respect to the square, and what could that be done, is that you could have components where the public could provide guidance or feedback on various components, and how certain things are put together, for instance. So if you had a square and you had so much money, the look of redeveloping what that would look like, whether it is a community garden, or if it’s got other different spaces to be utilized within a specified parameter, that’s how it’s typically been done in other municipalities.

In terms of putting forward the RFP, that’s certainly something that the market would drive, in terms of what those proposals are that would put forward, but you could include once that’s brought forward components of it, where the public could provide guidance where you have choices between different things, perhaps, in terms of how you put those together. Mayor Morgan. Yes, so it sounds to me like, if we move forward with the motion today, and we wanted to contemplate some of that, there’s a little bit of runway for us not to have to figure out how we’d want to work that in now. But there are options, either leading up to the RFP process, or after a successful RFP process for public engagement and decision-making, beyond just the basic level of floor plate, we need space for staff needs.

Okay, all right. Anyone else on the main motion as amended? Seeing none, then I’m going to ask Clerk to call the question, and we’ll open the vote. Vote yes.

Seeing the vote, motion carries 14 to one. Thank you, colleagues. That dispenses with our deferred matters from the consent agenda. We have no other items on deferred matters with me for just a second.

Okay, because we went into confidential session, there’s now the added confidential, from which I am going to report out from the chair, that we convened in closed session with a matter pertaining to advice subject to client-solicitor privilege and land acquisitions, including communications necessary for that purpose with respect to the master accommodation plan. Advice was received in camera. No votes were taken in camera, other than the vote to move out of closed session after we received the advice. That is the report out.

So we only have item seven left on the agenda, which is a motion to adjourn. And Councillor Ferrera wins the lottery to get his hand up first. Councillor Hopkins was a very close second. So she will be our seconder and by hand, all those in favor.

Motion carries. Thank you, everyone. We are adjourned.