September 17, 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 and S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Consent items 2.3 to 2.5 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

2.3   Neighbourhood Parks Improvement Fund

2024-09-17 Staff Report - Neighbourhood Parks Improvement Fund

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager of Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services and the Deputy City Manager of Environment and Infrastructure, the report dated September 17, 2024, regarding “Neighbourhood Parks Improvement Fund” BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

2.4   Confirmation of Appointment to the Argyle BIA

2024-09-17 Submission - Argyle BIA

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Chuck Bergeron, owner of Home Hardware - Dundas East BE APPOINTED to the Argyle Business Improvement Association for the term ending November 14, 2026.

Motion Passed

2.5   6th and 7th Reports of the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee

2024-09-17 Submission - 6th Report of DIACAC

2024-09-17 Submission - 7th Report of DIACAC

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the 6th and 7th Reports of the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee from the meetings held on July 11, 2024 and August 8, 2024, respectively, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

2.1   Mayoral Direction 2024-001, City-Owned Parking Lot Redevelopment

2024-09-17 Staff Report - Mayoral Direction 2024-001, City-owned Parking Lot

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to Mayoral Direction 2024-001, City-owned Parking Lot Redevelopment:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake a procurement process to solicit development proposals from qualified firms that can redevelop City-owned parking lots for high-density housing, encouraging modular construction techniques, and public parking at the following locations:

i)   84 Horton Street; and

ii)  199 Ridout Street;

b)    that the city-owned parking lots located at 641 Queens Avenue, 434 Elizabeth Street and 824 Dundas Street BE REFERRED to the Civic Administration to consult with the Old East Village Business Improvement Area and community association and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee; and

c)    the financing for site investigations needed to support the procurement process BE APPROVED in accordance with the Source of Financing Report as appended to the staff report dated September 17, 2024 as Appendix ‘A’.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

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

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That part a) of the motion be amended to read as follows:

the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake a procurement process to solicit development proposals from qualified firms that can redevelop City-owned parking lots for high-density housing and public parking and to replace public parking within the Old East Village Business Improvement Area at the following locations:

i)   641 Queens Avenue; 

ii)  434 Elizabeth Street;

iii) 84 Horton Street;

iv) 199 Ridout Street; and

v)  824 Dundas Street;

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That part a) i) 641 Queens Avenue, ii) 434 Elizabeth Street, vi) 824 Dundas Street BE REFERRED to Civic Administration to consult with the Old East Village Business Improvement Area and community association and report back to a future meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Trosow

That part a) of the motion be amended to read as follows:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake a procurement process to solicit development proposals from qualified firms that can redevelop City-owned parking lots for high-density housing, encouraging modular construction techniques, and public parking at the following locations:

i)   84 Horton Street; and

ii)  199 Ridout Street;

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Moved by J. Morgan

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

2.2   Municipal Accommodation Tax - Tourism London Annual Report

2024-09-17 Staff Report - MAT - Tourism London

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the following actions be taken with respect to the Municipal Accommodation Tax:

a)    on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, Tourism’s London annual report on the expenditures of Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) revenues BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake the process to increase the Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) rate in the City of London from 4% to 5%, to take effect no later than January 1, 2026. The increase will follow the current Council approved policy outlining fifty percent of the net MAT revenues are allocated to Tourism London as the City’s “eligible tourism entity for the exclusive purpose of promoting tourism” in accordance with Ontario Regulation 435/17. The other fifty percent of the net MAT revenues remain with the City of London and are contributed to the Tourism Infrastructure Reserve Fund (TIRF); and

c)    the Civic Administration BE FURTHER DIRECTED, in consultation with Tourism London, to report back to the appropriate standing committee(s) with recommendations to Council for any updates to the TIRF allocation policy and strategic facility investments.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by J. Pribil

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the motion related to the Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) BE REFERRED to the next meeting of Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee in order to allow the accommodation industry to provide comment on the proposed increase to the MAT.

Motion Failed (1 to 13)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.3   12th Report of the Governance Working Group

2024-09-17 Submission - 12th Report of GWG

Moved by H. McAlister

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 12th Report of the Special Governance Working Group from its meeting held on August 15, 2024:

a)    the Councillor Role Description, as amended and attached, BE APPROVED;

b)    on the recommendation of the City Clerk, the following actions be taken with respect to the Council Resourcing Review Task Force – Draft Terms of Reference:

i)    the Draft Terms of Reference for a Council Resourcing Review Task Force, as amended and attached to the staff report dated August 15, 2024 BE APPROVED;

ii)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to bring forward a by-law to a future meeting of Council to create a Council Resourcing Review Task Force;

iii)    upon creation of the Task Force, the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to take the necessary actions to advertise for the Council Resourcing Review Task Force applications; and

iv)    the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to select the membership of the Council Resourcing Review Task Force and bring forward the successful names to a future meeting of City Council for ratification;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication regarding FCM, women’s representation in municipal elected positions from Councillor S. Franke.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

4.1   2nd Report of the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That it BE NOTED the 2nd Report of the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group was considered at the Council meeting held on July 23, 2024.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

4.2   3rd Report of the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group

2024-09-17 Submission - 3rd Report of the SORWG

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 3rd Report of the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group from its meeting held on September 4, 2024:

a)    the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report dated September 4, 2024 regarding the London Police Service Reserve Fund By-law Review:

i)     the report BE FORWARDED to the London Police Service Board Chair and the Chief of Police;

ii)    the Budget Chair and Deputy Mayor BE REQUESTED to engage in discussions with the London Police Service Board regarding this report; and,

iii)    the London Police Service Reserve Fund By-law Review report BE RECEIVED for information;

it being noted that the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group received a communication dated August 30, 2024 from C. Butler with respect to this matter;

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

i)      the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to proceed with the service review training for agencies, boards and commissions at an estimated cost of $15,000 (excluding HST), it being noted that the cost will be funded from the City’s Efficiency, Effectiveness and Economy (EEE) Reserve; and,

ii)      the staff report BE RECEIVED for information;

c)      clauses 2.3 and 4.1 BE RECEIVED;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication and verbal delegation from A. McGuigan with respect to the City of London Municipal Golf update.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by J. Pribil

That the delegation request from A. McGuigan BE APPROVED to be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   (ADDED) Support for a Grant Application for the Growing Canada’s Community Canopies - Councillors S. Franke and C. Rahman

2024-09-17 Submission - (5.1) Tree Planting Project

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the grant application for the Growing Canada’s Community Canopies to assist London in achieving our tree canopy target BE SUPPORTED by Municipal Council.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

6.   Confidential (Enclosed for Members only.)

Moved by C. Rahman

Seconded by S. Stevenson

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

6.1 Labour Relations/Employee Negotiations / Land Acquisition/Disposition / Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice

A matter pertaining to reports, advice and recommendations of officers and employees of the Corporation carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality concerning employee negotiations and labour relations, proposed acquisitions and dispositions of land, and advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee Convenes In Closed Session from 4:06 PM to 4:20 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 4:24 PM.

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (3 hours, 25 minutes)

colleagues, it is 1 p.m. so I am going to call the 14th meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to order. The City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, the Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwak, and Adewander in Peoples, and we honor and respect the history, languages, 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 people today, 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.

The City of London is also committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for our meetings upon request, and to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact sppclondon.ca or phone 519-661-2489 extension 2425. Colleagues, I am going to begin the meeting by looking for any disclosures of bicanery interest. I’m seeing none in chambers and I’m seeing none in line. I’ll advise colleagues that Councillors Van Meerberg and Hillier are with us online, and Councillor Frank did indicate to me that she’s going to try and join online.

She is traveling today, so her ability to join us may be impacted somewhat by reliability of Wi-Fi and airports and and during her travel, but she is going to make an effort to join us. So I’m going to move along to the consent agenda. We have five items. I have been asked to pull 2.1 and 2.2, so I am going to look to see if there is anything else colleagues wish to have dealt with separately.

Seeing none, I’m going to look for a mover and a seconder for the balance of the consent agenda, 2.3 through 2.5 moved by Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor Hopkins, and now we’ll look for any discussion on those three items. Mayor Mayor Morgan, Councillor ramen, whichever one of you both put your hand up at the same time, so whoever wants to go first, we can rock paper scissors or if one of you wants to yield. Mayor Morgan. Yes, I’m just going to make a quick comment on neighborhood parks improvement fund as colleagues will recall.

This was something that was added to the multi-year budget as a business case that that I generated supported by Council. We all know through the pandemic the value of our outdoor public spaces is incredibly important to to the community for a number of reasons and moving money in the budget from the community investment reserve fund which is filled with surpluses and returning that to neighborhoods across the city in some way was something that I know we were all supportive of through the budget process and I want to thank staff for the work that they’ve done on pulling together a report for information on how they’re looking at deploying that across the city. I just want to be clear about the intent that I had when I saw this, you know, there’s a number of ways that we have ideas for improving parks in the city. We have a Parks and Rec master plan which outlines over a ten-year period how we’re going to invest in infrastructure and improve it over time, but we also have like lots of ideas which was generated through public consultations on parks, neighborhood decision-making and other pieces which are community-driven ideas about improving their local spaces in their neighborhoods.

This fund allows us to take advantage of a lot of that information that’s out there and create some added value improvements in neighborhood parks across the city beyond what they’re seeing and and hopefully allow the public to see that each and every part of the city we’re looking at improving our outdoor spaces to make enhancements to them. I know that there’s a draft list there I wouldn’t expect colleagues to get into maybe going through that now but it’s nice to have a sense of the types of projects that are considered and then the map is helpful to see the spread of both existing capital improvement projects as well as where we could in the short term provide some improvements again with the intent being this is something that needs to touch all wards in the city and needs to reach out to widely into the community so I just wanted to add that context and just say thanks colleagues for the support in the budget process thanks to our staff for bringing forward this initial look at what that the deployment of those funds would look like. Thank you Mayor Morgan I’ll go to Council Raman now. Thank you and through you so this is something I’m quite supportive of I’m glad to see that we are enhancing our local parks however I did have some questions related to the criteria by which we selected some of these neighborhood projects.

Specifically my concern is that in I believe Ward 7 and perhaps also Ward 9 - of the fastest growing parts of the city the parks that were selected are parks that are newer parks and in the case of Kent Park specifically this is a park that in my opinion is it’s already coming online as a brand new park DC funded and now we’re doing some additional enhancements to that park where I know there’s concerns around some of the existing parks and the need for some improvements there so I’m just wondering if it’s possible to be able to get some better information on the criteria associated with selecting those parks and why a brand new park in Ward 7 was picked. So I’m going to look to see Mr. Yeoman. Whoever would like to take that one we’ll go to Mr.

Yeoman it looks like. Thank you Your Worship so I appreciate the question criteria for a program like this is always quite challenging you know we know that we have community interests and needs throughout the city that it applies to both existing parks that we have but also to new parks to Council may be familiar with the development charges framework that we have for collecting money it actually has a cap we are a service in parks that has a certain amount that we can collect up to which means that we can’t fully avail of all the funding that’s required to meet our standards that we have so in certain cases there aren’t very many on this list we’ve identified existing park our certain new parks that we have an existing project on where we can actually enhance it to the standard and also make sure that we’re delivering within the time frame that’s a lot of Council Robin. Thank you appreciate that feedback what I’ll share is that a lot of residents feel like in the newer subdivisions where park amenities were added in the last five years or so that they’ve been undersized and under scale so I understand the desire here at this again park to open the park with new amenities with enhanced amenities and enhanced playground equipment completely understand the desire to do that because of that complaint however for the last few years we’ve seen requests from folks that are at or around Black Acres Park that are around Vista Woods that are in the area in Upper Richmond Village that are in a situation where their parks are undersized for their neighborhood either they don’t have enough amenities at those parks so what do they do they go to neighborhood decision-making and they put in a request for additional equipment and they compete against each other for basic level equipment at their park well above basic let’s call it and there are new subdivisions that are very dense and where there’s a lot of young children in fact our master plan for parks and recreation says this is primarily the area where you’re seeing a lot of 0 to 9 and 10 to 19 year olds and yet we’ve undersized the equipment and the amenities to these parks so my hope when we were working on this and when the mayor put in the budget was that it would help to address some of these concerns and I’m so really hopeful that we can continue with some discussions to be able to look at opportunities to address some of these issues thank you Council Raman Council McAllister thank you and through the chair appreciate the work that went into this I know it’s always difficult to scale of parks we have a number of recreational facilities it’s always tough to make these decisions but I appreciate in terms of the variety of projects it was put forward I also liked in terms of spreading it out amongst awards I’m also wondering in terms of I know we had allocated this money from community investment reserve fund but with the provincial government announcement in terms of the community sport and recreation infrastructure fund whether there’s an opportunity for these projects which I don’t not sure in terms of how far along we are with them but we do have the two years sorry these are this fund is for projects that need to be completed within the two years but that this money is available from the province so I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity for us to put in these applications because I know that due date is rapidly approaching miss Smith thank you and for the chair that’s a very good question when we set up the proposed program guidelines for this we kind of we looked at it also what we can do in the existing multi-year budget cycle so that we completed and we also looked at the cost of the projects and they range from 50,000 to 500,000 so currently right now we’re working with our colleagues and facilities and parks and forestry to look at opportunities that would maximize the pots of fun funding available both through the province in the two streams and also through GICB from the federal government so we have a list of potential activities that that enhancements that really align nicely with those criteria and with the available funding that’s being identified by the province so we are taking advantage of those and we are looking to submit well within the deadline of both of those streams for the province. Councilor McAllister okay thank you and through the chair and appreciate that if there are any you know funds in terms of the we received from the province just to Councillor ramen’s point in terms of being able to redeploy those to either expand existing parks or you know add some more projects to the list I’m sure our residents will all appreciate that.

I’m also wondering in terms of getting a bit more criteria as to how we chose it just was it based on what we’re seeing in terms of the growth of the sports the amenities in the area kind of doing a municipal scan to see which areas are lacking so if staff could speak to that a bit more. Thank you and through the chair just a point of clarification for this neighborhood parks improvement fund or what we’re looking to apply for for the provincial government. Councillor yeah and through the chair sorry just for just on what we’re at right now just the neighborhood projects and okay so and the multi neighborhood projects. Thank you and through the chair what we did because of the timeline we looked at as we were directed to what where have we already got out and engage the community so for example through neighborhood decision-making of the parks on the on this list 16 out of 23 of them those activities were and amenities and enhanced amenities were identified through neighborhood decision-making others have been identified when we go out and we do previous park engagement and activities and when we often we go out to ward meetings as requested so neighborhood decision-making previous park engagement and we also get as as you are aware as you often forwarded to us we get ongoing resident feedback and requests around what people would like to see in their parks and enhanced amenities in those parks.

And Ms. Sherrod did you want to add something to that? If I may thank you the other factor that was a consideration in selecting the projects that are listed here is their buildability so do we require an environmental assessment and archaeological assessment is the park able to support it can we acquire the materials in the existing supply chain methods that are there in the delays that we might experience and can we deliver it with our existing staff resources we didn’t want the capital value of this program to necessarily end up being put into consulting dollars in this case we wanted to make sure that it was going forward and out to the community as a physical new asset. Councilor McAllister thank you for those answers and through the chair and this is kind of I guess the other side of Councillor Robin’s point I know obviously the struggles with the new areas but I’m also wondering in terms of the age of some of our older ones looking at the more established parks if that was taken into consideration I know it’s always difficult with these ones but keeping in mind in terms of the volume of parks but there are some smaller scale projects where we might have been able to do as you said you know quick fixes we don’t have to necessarily do a larger plan get consultants but was there an opportunity maybe to spread it out a bit more or how did we determine which parks were the most deserving.

I will start with Mr. Yeoman and then if Ms. Smith or Ms. Cher have anything to add I’ll certainly give them the opportunity to do that Mr.

Yeoman. Thank you and through you Mr. Chair so we definitely did look at opportunities in existing parks where we know we have deficiencies for example we’ve got park areas that have evolved over time that have a different level of amenities different than many suite which we’re trying to standardize as we go along. We also have a lot of legacy parks that have infrastructure that was installed by developers at a time when the level of amenity that was provided is maybe not what we can replace today so we’re looking at opportunities through this as well to enhance so that the the neighborhoods not seeing such a shock per se with what was there before versus what was going to be provided after the fact.

Councillor. Thank you and through the chair appreciate all the the answers I do have a lot of questions on these ones. Last question I did use an appendix B that some of the larger capital projects were identified I’m just wondering were those just put on just to give us an awareness or are there any plans through this to do any work on those sites. Mr.

Yeoman. I thank you through you Mr. Chair that was just provide a bit of context in terms of what’s going on in the various wards as well with the active projects that we have. During the four year period we have 137 projects that were completing that are parks infrastructure projects.

We do have five staff that work very hard at this work as well too so I thought that was important for everyone to know that beyond the neighborhood parks improvement fund which is a wonderful addition to our parks infrastructure and our parks funding stream we have a lot of other really important things we’re delivering on for the community. Councillor McAllister. Thank you I just want to once again appreciate all the work that goes into this I know the top of mind for a lot of residents so I appreciate all the work I wanted to it and I’m sure all of our residents are anxiously awaiting these additions so thank you. I’ll come back to Mayor Morgan.

Yes just based on the comments from my colleagues I appreciate the feedback and maybe through you to our staff I think that this is I think what you’re hearing from some colleagues is there’s a lot going on so we’ve got the new fund that we approved they we’ve got existing capital projects that are coming forward I think the map is helpful to show kind of the combined spread of those but I also think based on all the criteria we have based on the opportunities for provincial funding you know one of the great resources that I know I was when I was award Councillors having a really good on-the-ground feel for what are the real community pressure points where they’re feeling like either something hasn’t come along in their part of the city for a long time or there’s there’s there’s a need that is very specific to a changing population whether and it’s through neighborhood renewal or a lot of young families moving into an area and I think I certainly respect all the criteria that we need to follow to make sure that we can deliver projects on time and without spending a bunch of money on consultants or other pieces but I think that there’s also some feedback from ward Councillors to say hey here’s some small things that you should think about as you deploy this deploy prevention money deploy our parks and rec master plan that can help balance those so that at the end of the day the goal here is that the community feels like we’re investing in in their neighborhoods right and their neighborhoods are diverse and they have diverse needs and they have different parks are in different states and we want feel that we want people to feel like we’re we’re reaching out into all parts of the city in a meaningful way through the various parks plans we have so I think you’ve you heard some feedback today and I think that there’s near counselors can be a great resource for for doing some checks and balances on what may have been community feedback at a point in the process but more information may have come in through their community meetings and other things so appreciate the work the staff’s done and I appreciate the comments of my colleagues to try to frame it around what they’re hearing on the ground too thank you Mayor Morgan looking for any other speakers on 2.3 through 2.5 Councillor ramen thank you I just had a comment on the seventh report from DiAC my understanding is they had a presentation on the anti-hate project from the the last DiAC meeting I’m just wondering a bit of familiarity with the work that we’re doing on that project and the many stakeholders that are involved community partners that are at the table for that and very pleased to see the list of those involved and how does DiAC interact with the anti-hate project Miss Dator spear through you thank you for the question I would be asking some of our team members to give that specific answer and I will certainly share that with council I will be clear about they are members there’s a large group of a group that comes together from stakeholders from across the city who is involved in this project and I will get more information to council to specifically answer that question I don’t want to mislead you by giving you the wrong information Council Ramen thank you and appreciate that and just to follow up very pleased to see the work that’s coming forward from our community partners it looks like a lot of them are coming to the table with their own individual parts of the project and very I’m very interested to see how that flows out to the rest of the city and I love to see the fact that all these groups are working in collaboration thank you Council Ramen I’ve known also the speakers list if colleagues will just indulge just two very quick comments from the chair I will say thank you to Mr. Yeoman and his team for facilitating the engagement that I was able to do with my residents on the Kiwanis Park project for Canada Day I know between the get involved in the Canada Day feedback in the neighborhood mail out we had several hundred people participate in providing us feedback and I know that they’re very excited to see both the pickleball and the basketball court come to fruition there with respected 2.4 the confirmation of the appointment to the Argyle BIA this was the board’s unanimous choice Mr. Bergeron took over the home hardware franchise in East London about eight months ago now he’s already been actively involved with the BIA and has actually hosted one event at his store and is hosting a second one the fall yard sale coming up in October so you unanimous support of the board of directors at the Argyle BIA for his appointments to replace a member who has left us so seeing no other speakers I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote on the building the vote motion carries 14 to 0 thank you colleagues so moving on we will now move to our items for direction we have three items for direction before we move forward with the other items that were deferred from the consent agenda before we do that though I do want to acknowledge that Councilor Frank has joined the meeting and welcome Councilor Frank we know you’re traveling today so I’m gonna look for consent just by seeing if there’s any objections to a change of order knowing that Councilor Frank is traveling and may have at some point some connection challenges where she’s joining us from I wonder if colleagues would allow for the 4.3 the 12 report of the governance working group which has Councilor Frank’s attachment with respect to an additional FCM committee to be dealt with before we deal with the two reports from the strategic opportunities and review working group does anybody object to dealing with 4.3 first seeing none Councilor Frank we’re gonna try our best to make sure that we get through your items before we lose you to a flight so we are going to move to the 12th report of the governance working group as our next item and that is where you are attachment with the Women’s Committee of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is attached so I’m going to first we have two items here so we need to receive the report from the governance working group make any changes that we may wish to change I’m gonna ask folks to refresh their e-scribe and take a look at that and once you have done that I’m gonna look for a mover and a seconder of the governance working group report Councilor McAllister and Councilor Hopkins and then we will deal with the submission FCM from Councilor Frank as a second vote so looking for any discussion on the 12th report of the governance working group first seeing none then we will call the question motion one this is the vote on the 12th report of the special governance working group meeting this is the terms of reference for the the Council resourcing review task force in here there is also an it being noted that the committee received from Councilor Frank the communication once that’s done we’ll look to Councilor Frank to actually put her her motion on the floor for the endorsement for her to serve in that role so seeing no further speakers I will ask the clerk to open the vote yes seeing the vote motion carries 15 to 0 thank you colleagues so Councilor Frank I’m gonna go to you now to introduce your submission with respect to the FCM women’s committee thanks I think there’s been a little bit confusion so I’m not serving on any additional committee I just included that as information to go along with the committee report so there’s no motion for me other than just sending this information okay great thank you very much and yes and Council Raman just indicated that you also have the trees submission so since we’ve dealt with the 12th report of the governance working group just in order to allow Councilor Frank to continue to be with us for her items you know look to see if there’s any opposition to dealing with 5.1 the support for grant application for the growing Canada’s community canopies before we move on to the items for direction from the strategic opportunities review working group any objections to that change of order I see none so Councilor Frank I’m gonna come back to you now we are going to deal with item 5.1 before we return to the items for direction if you would now like to take the floor and introduce to your motion I will look to you to do that wonderful thanks so much really appreciate the reorder as well so yes this is a bit of a time sensitive item which is why it’s been brought forward on the added agenda essentially there is some funding from the Green Municipal Fund to do tree planting specifically the growing Canada’s community canopy stream and there’s an opportunity for us to be able to work with the community so including Upper Thames, Recourse London blend environmental network who all have tree planting programs to apply for a fairly sizable amount of money any municipality is able to apply up to 10 million over the course of of this program so they’ll be running kind of annual intakes and there’s different streams this is the first one and Upper Thames, Recourse London, London Environmental Network are all eager to get started so part of the grant application is simply a resolution from the local Council saying that we support that this application is submitted to achieve tree canopy target so it is a requirement essentially and the application is due October 15 that is actually when our next Council meeting is so not to put on due pressure on the clerks but I didn’t want to have that motion go to that meeting that be their resolution by the end of that night so essentially that’s what this is I’m happy to speak to it a little bit more fulsomely but I did have a call last week with all three groups and they are working together on this application and as well the city staff are also considering including some funding for municipal programming as well and I know that Mr. Yeoman is here and he can probably answer any questions regarding that so happy to take any questions otherwise I would be happy to move the motion that’s included in the letter at the bottom thank you very much and I know that you had a seconder in Councilor ramen for that motion so I’m just double checking and Councilor ramen’s giving the thumbs up and nodding so it has been moved by Councilor Frank and seconded by Councilor ramen now open the floor to colleagues for any discussion on this Councilor Hopkins yeah thank you Mr.

Chair and I want to thank the Councilor for her advocacy and and the seconder as well in supporting trees in our city obviously we do love out trees here I also was pleased to see that these three groups have come together and working together which is a I think it is stronger in numbers and and how come how different groups and organizations can support each other I do have a question though regarding the motion and it is looking for Council support for the grant application would this support come from the mayor’s office or how is the support going to be given to these groups to support their application I will go to the clerk on that Councilor Hopkins but I think that the simple answer is if this motion passes then it’s a resolution of Council and I’ll just ask the clerk to confirm that thank you through the chair that’s that’s correct and I understand that it is due the day of the Council meeting I’m not I’m not sure I’m not but I think that’s what I understand so my question would be is that enough time since the resolution will be done on the day of the timeline is that going to be sufficient because it will just be a resolution is that correct well we’re going to go to the mover of the motion for that Councilor Frank thank you yes so essentially if it passes at this SPPC it goes to next week’s Council’s my understanding which is September 28th that is why there’s time sensitive and that’s why I didn’t want it to go into October because then the next Council date is October 15th which is the deadline of the grant so sorry I wasn’t clear on that essentially if we do pass it today and it goes to Council then it gives the groups another two weeks to work on the application and submit thank you Councilor Frank Councilor Hopkins getting the thumbs up any other speakers on this seeing none then I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote and I vote yeah closing the vote motion carries 15 to 0 thank you colleagues and Councilor Frank I know that you may have to leave us at some point to board a flight if you can just send the clerk a quick note to let us know when you’re leaving obviously we hope you can stay with us for the whole meeting if we’re really efficient get through everything else but if you are not able to I know on behalf of Council safe travels and we will see you when you return home colleagues moving back to our agenda we have two more items for direction we have the second report of the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group and the third report of the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group the second group item 4.2 has a request for delegation status attached to it so I’m gonna first look to deal with item 4.1 the second report and I’m gonna go to Budget Chair Palosa to see if she’s prepared to move that yes and do we have a seconder seconded by Councillor Pribble so that’s been moved and seconded and now we can have any discussion on item 4.1 the second report of the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group seeing none I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Seeing the vote motion carries 13 to 2 thank you colleagues that brings us to item 4.2 the third report of the Strategic Opportunities Review Working Group and Part A the added request for delegation status from Mr. McKiggan again I’ll go to the committee chair Councillor Palosa are you prepared to remove the move the report and the request for delegation status I am and then I would like to make comments on the report okay so we will we’ve got a mover for both do we have a seconder for both Councillor Pribble okay so what I’m gonna do first is ask the clerk to open a vote to receive to approve the delegation we will have that I’ll go to Councillor Palosa then to make some comments on the report then we’ll go to our delegate in the gallery Mr. McKiggan for his presentation before we go to a final vote on things so first we will open the vote for the delegation closing the vote motion carries 15 to 0 to colleagues so Mr.

McKiggan we’re gonna go to some opening remarks from Councillor Palosa on the report as a whole and then we’ll come to you for your presentation to us Councillor Palosa thank you I’ll be brief just as the working group chair just highlighting for colleagues that item 2.1 on this is further direction that we did receive a staff report for the London Police Service Reserve Fund by-law review and that the deputy mayor and I would be requested to engage with the London Police Service Board regarding the report we did not pick the mayor to go just because he’s already on that board and just making sure for ease of conversation that it wasn’t involving a board member the training for agency boards and commissions would receive funding through this municipal golf there was a staff report excellent conversation we did have a member of the public join us for that and just letting colleagues know as previously said that there will be no further strategic opportunities review working group meetings this year as we’re rolling into the budget season and anything that would come further would not be until 2025 and that’s the overview of the report thank you Councillor Palosa so now we will go to our public delegation so Mr. McKiggan if you’d like to come to the microphone I will just ask you to state your name for the record for the clerks we do have it on the agenda but just so that is there and then you’ll have five minutes I know you circulated some information ahead of time so we do have that as members of council and we will when you’re ready we will begin Andy McKiggan excuse me it’s a little nervous I haven’t been in the year before thank you chair we’re gonna get you to hold on just a second can can we just get the microphone a little bit closer to you there sir so that we can hear you you’re for us you know that sounds better okay so you go ahead we’re I’m just gonna restart the time because we were just having a hard time hearing you okay I do want to address the chart that I provided okay but I’d like to have some open remarks okay you’re probably never gonna see another report similar like this from parchment recreation and the reason for that is that I think they’ve abdicated their responsibility for many a firm municipal golf and that is because they’ve actually changed the definition of municipal golf from urban golf to regional golf as well okay and in the process they’ve lost control of municipal golf because you can’t get a comprehensive review of municipal golf from one of your supply and demand from the regional golf it’s an independent association it’s not even an association they’re all independent of courses and they don’t there is no facts of supply and demand that anybody can put together okay so in my opinion parks and recreation have abdicated their responsibility for manufacturing for among municipal golf okay going back to the chart we see that the the population of courses and can I get you to hold on just one second sorry to interrupt you yeah councilor trust I was still having a bit of a hard time hearing can you speak right yeah if you speak right into the microphone okay okay that’s that’s much clearer go ahead the the focus is on pop population growth and as you can see from the chart it goes from 519 thousand to 650 the consequences of that is that the demand municipal golfers demand okay increases from 147,000 to 185 and in the process with a limited 3.5 courses that we have in the net and the network sorry Sam okay is that we’re we’re are short of about by by by 2050 we will be short 69,000 golfers in the municipal that means that those people are either going to drop out of the municipal golf or they’re going to be forced to go the longer commutes higher cost and greater energy convenience by going to the the regional the opportunities that I’d like to address given that and my belief and my belief is that the parks and recreation have abdicated the responsibility for municipal golf for for London okay is that we should be looking at a not-for-profit organization to take over the responsibilities as an independent body for municipal golf with on-site certified practitioners okay CPGA certified and an independent board of directors we’ve seen it we’ve talked to them to San Antonio San Antonio Texas has adopted a not-for-profit they’ve gone from a $500,000 deficit to having fully replaced updated one of their courses fully completely from the club house okay they variegated two others and they were done that at no cost to the city whatsoever okay it’s a joint public and private board of directors with six appointees by the city and six elected privately they’ve been doing it for seven years now and it’s very successful they’ve just they had a five-year extension on their own contract which was for ten years and I said might submit to you that in the given the fact that parks and recreation have essentially abdicated their role in terms of parks municipal golf we need to look at some alternative of an not-for-profit looks a very good option thank you thank you sir and thank you for staying inside your five minutes as well we always appreciate that it’s always awkward to have to cut someone off and sorry that we had to interrupt for the the microphone so that we could hear you thank you colleagues we are dealing with item 4.2 that’s the third report of the strategic opportunities review working group still stumbling over that acronym but we’re gonna look for any discussion on that and I’m gonna go to Councillor Hopkins to start yeah thank you Mr. Chair and I just want to thank the residents for coming forward and requesting a delegation I know it is difficult to do but I really appreciate his engagement and his concerns around municipal golf my question I have though with the report is regarding 2.1 which is the London Police Service Reserve Fund by-law review I’d like to maybe go through you to the the chair just appreciated her update but I’d like to know a little bit more about how the review is going to be shared with with with council or if that is going to be even considered I I do appreciate the Councillor and the deputy mayor being part of those discussions with the police board but just wanted to have a better understanding how that report is going to come back to us well let’s go to the chair of the working group Councillor Palosa thank you Mr. Chair happy to when that meeting does happen provide a debriefing note like you would see from the able when you come back or FCM of just the conversation happened and if there’s next steps that’s come out of it it would have been the first of its kind meeting so I can’t predict how it’s going to go but happy to report back through either SWORG or SP PC the appropriate place where the clerk tells me to put it to bring it as soon as that meeting happens Councillor Hopkins thank you for that response and I look forward to the debriefing on that I do want to thank the clerks too for passing on the link for that working group I really did appreciate it as well so thanks to the clerks for that thank you Councillor Hopkins I’ve got Councillor Tresault next and then Mayor Morgan Councillor Tresault thank you well I’ll pass okay we’ll go to Mayor Morgan yes my question is on the the service review training for agencies boards and commissions upon council approval I can tell you I’ve got I’ve had a number because I’m engaging with the boards of commissions and the development of the budget I’ve had a number of boards and commissions ask you know when this opportunity would be available there’s certainly interest in it so I’m just curious on I know this is SP PC then it goes to council upon that how quickly could that actually be rolled out and available to boards and commissions to to take up on that opportunity that we’re offering mr.

Burbonne thank you through the chair so we’ve although we know it’s not going to counts until final approval till council we have been in communications to try to line everything up with KPMG to be able to provide the training we’re hopeful that we have a couple of dates in November that we might be able to roll this out so the intent is trying to do it fairly quickly before the year end so that it’ll give plenty of time for those to begin for next year so we’re trying to get everything lined up so that pending council approval will be able to go out and get some dates ready to go that hopefully we’ll be able to align with all the boards and commissions to attend Mayor Morgan yes thanks and I’ll take this opportunity on service review to again thank our staff for the continued work that they do on the city service review program I think we’ve learned quite a bit in the years of experience that we’ve had and it’d be great to support the boards and commissions with that if colleagues recall in the multi-year budget just in the first year 2024 staff found ten million dollars of permanent savings and have now carved over fifty million dollars out of the base budget through service review completely representing almost a quarter of a billion a dollars of savings over the entire span of of the service review program so it’s it’s it’s it’s taken some time to work through the different parts of the corporation but it has long-term financial benefits for for liners and I think providing that assisted training to other boards and commissions to take advantage of would be quite beneficial just like it has been here at the city thank you Mayor Morgan I don’t have anyone else on the speakers list however I am going to should they wish and and they don’t need to but I’m gonna go to Mr. McGonigal from our staff to see if he’d like to provide any feedback I know our delegate did not stay for the the outcome but I did want to see if you wanted to provide any commentary for us on partnerships that the municipalities pursuing with golf rather that given what we heard about the the the feeling that perhaps we’re advocating because we’re looking at things from a regional view I just wanted to know if you wanted to provide a response to that yeah thank you and through the chair thank you for the opportunity to provide some comments and thank you to the delegate for his comments as well from a municipal golf perspective I think what’s important to know is there has been no municipalities that have built golf courses since the 1990s as noted in the staff report there’s three overarching boom periods for golf courses to be built as you know we have a parks and recreation master plan our parks and recreation master plan indicates that there is no future provision target for public golf courses so there is no future golf courses from a municipal perspective that are currently recommended and and I think overarching around partnerships there there is a section in the parks and rec master plan under the goal of recreation capacity that outlines a variety of partnership types that are always investigated for the recreation and sports sector from a local government lens and so we’re very comfortable with where golf is obviously we counsel made a difficult decision in 2021 to try and right-size the system in since that time we have been putting record reserve fund profits away we’ve been making record investments we’ve also had record utilization of our golf courses so we have a variety of contracts in place from golf carts to third-party resellers of T times we have partnerships with Special Olympics who use our fully accessible nine-hole course at Fanshawe so there is a variety of partnership types and we will continue to explore those and I think moving forward administration will continue to focus on improving playability affordability of the game and additional revenue generation opportunities thank you thank you mr. McGonigal just wanted to provide you that opportunity to just update us on a little bit about what we heard and what was in the report so I’m gonna look to colleagues for any last questions otherwise I will ask the clerk to open the vote and I see no other speakers in chambers are online so I will ask the clerk to open the vote on losing the vote motion carries 15 to 0 thank you colleagues so we’ve dealt with our items for direction we’ve dealt with our deferred matter which was on the agenda we deferred two items from the consent agenda 2.1 the mayoral direction on city-owned parking lot redevelopment is the item that we will now move to deal with deferred from the consent and Councillor Stevenson you asked for this to be pulled so I’m gonna go to you first before we do anything with this item thank you I pulled it because I am likely to be voting no but I’m happy with the motion going forward I’m not making any amendments okay so we’ll see if there’s any mover and a seconder and Mayor Morgan I assume you want to move your parking lots do we have a seconder for that Councillor Ferrera so that’s been moved in seconded so we’ll look for any discussion Mayor Morgan yes I just want to provide some context although it says mayoral direction I just want to be clear on what that direction was that was for staff without any sort of selection or identification of any possible specific parking lots for myself to look at municipal parking lots in the core of our city and across our city and say what might make sense to bring forward to Council for their consideration not providing any sort of direction on which specific lots to bring forward basically saying within your expert advice which ones do you think we should take another look at and then return to council this body here which is before us today for any for any sort of discussion or feedback or adjustment or process the council would like to follow in looking at this so although I did use a strong Mayor direction all that direction was was to bring it before council for council decision-making council debate so I want colleagues to feel and know that everything from this report is on the floor for your consideration for your discussion for your adjustment for your questions for your change it is a staff report based on a direction I gave but that’s where my influence ended and it’s put in the hands of council so I if you have concerns about any specific lots if you have questions about why lots were not included in the initial five like this is the time to ask them and this is the time to have that discussion before you proceed because it will be a council decision at this point forward whether or not we proceed with any aspect of this all of this or part of it in a modified way but I just want colleagues to know because I know we don’t do mayoral directions very often I just want to be very clear that this was simply to have this come before you the only thing that I I ensured happened is that we would have this discussion but it’s my intent to fully respect the discussion and hear the feedback of colleagues particularly those who might be impacted or or think that their impacts on their community about the proposed the proposed components of the staff report here so I look forward to the debate and discussion and would encourage colleagues to do so before making any sort of decision thank you worship and councilor Hopkins we’re gonna let you jump in and lead off with that and then we’ve got council for our next thank you Mr. Chair and thank you to the mayors for that clarification and and I really do think it’s important that we look at opportunities I can see that’s where that direction was coming from but ultimately it is up for us for consideration so I do have a couple questions and it mainly relates to most likely Horton Street but more particular right out street which is site three insight four and my question first of all being on this council for a number of years and I am the first one there with my hand up supporting the need to get away away from parking lots in our downtown core so in any opportunity I’m more or less in favor of with this direction with the sites that have been mentioned for high-density housing and parking lots as well the concern I have is more on site four which is the right out street which is partially on a flood plane but it’s also the two sites have concerns around the servicing for this for these two sites for sewers but also the opportunity to develop it I look at is more of a brown field development but the challenges of right out street in particular when it comes to it being a very environmentally sensitive area we did take it over from the PUC a number of years ago it is our responsibility to mitigate the environmental effects that are in this area and as we look at development opportunities my concern is really more around how we as a city are going to be responsible for for the care and the mitigation of site four so maybe the question through you Mr.

Chair to staff would be to give me a better understanding or us a better understanding if development was put to proceed on this site how would that look like giving that the the direction is to go high density and a parking lot as well so we’re not really just we have specifics in these proposals going forward but I just like to see how how the future of the site would would develop given the the constrictions well let’s go to Mr. Mathers to start and if other members of the team need to weigh in certainly pass the mic as you see fit Mr. Mathers through the chair so the two sites that were flag there they are very they’re more complex sites there is historical contamination on those sites that it they are currently owned by the city so whatever happens with those sites that responsibility still does lie with the city in the long term it would this this approach would be an opportunity to look at a redevelopment of the site and that would be very specific to what the the folks that that would be putting in submissions what they were look would look for on this site whether it’s how how large the development is how how intense it would be so whenever we go out for a proposal especially on a site that’s as complex as this we ensure that we do our new diligence provide that information so that anyone who might be interested would be a prize to the complexities on this site that also provides some opportunities to so whenever you can reuse a brownfield site and allow for that remediation have a long-term planning then there’s also a value and a benefit to that as well so any work on this site will be a balance between ensuring that that the complexities understood by the the applicant and that the development in its in the state its final state is appropriate for this location Councilor Hopkins and thank you for that and and I it’s hard not to be concerned about any kind of developmental on a partial floodplain along with the the challenges of mitigating the the property will exist and my concern is really about how we as a city will be responsible for that development if at all and that would be obviously looked at through the process but I just wanted to share those concerns a little bit in the direction that is being given here we are going to be looking at high-density housing and public parking so for site four in particular would there be a proposal can a proposal be made on this site just first structural parking only without the high-density Mr. Mathers to the chairs so just to really understand the question there so this would be whether there be an opportunity to just provide structured parking and not identity that that opportunity does exist we of course would ideally be able to have both of both of those types of things if if we’re looking at this this level investment in the area but we would be open to receiving applications as part of the procurement process of course we know that that housing is is very important and something that we need in our core as well so we’d be open to those type of opportunities but the focus and from my understanding of the mayoral direction as well is that we are looking for housing as part of these developments Councillor Hopkins thank you for that response I’m very open to hearing what the rest of the committee has to say thank you thank you Councillor Hopkins we will go now to Council for thank you Deputy Mayor so seeing this report I you know I did like seeing what I was seeing it’s the first real bulk move that we have in converting our surface-level parking lots to to something better so I did appreciate that with you know we do have the work with 185 Queens that’s touched on and but that is its own separate proposal so I did like seeing that and I do like how this is touching into the downtown parking strategy that we had so we are realizing some of the work that was already done I guess Councillor Hopkins did kind of point on some of the points that I was going to point on for right out for that location but I guess I would I guess go further to her questions and just ask about I guess the servicing capability specifically I do see that we might not necessarily have any infrastructure there with respect to the sewer shed and I was looking at that and I was just wondering I guess this is going back to tying into I guess the main trunk sewer again I was looking at like the elevation and everything of that property I do see that elevation is kind of around the same elevation as the main sewer trunk so speaking with that and the flood line what type of work would we need for that type of proposal if we do see something that comes through that works with council there’s obviously gonna have to be some infrastructure work there but what would you foresee that needs to be done in regards to that well I know Mr.

Mathers has some experience with that in his last posting with us but I’m gonna see if Mr. Chair wants to start for note she’s waving waving off the call so I’ll go to Mr. Mathers to respond on that through the chair so very similar to any kind of development so if it was another piece of property that someone was purchasing and wanted to bring forward it really is the effort the applicant to determine what the needs are just to service it specifically so sometimes that may require extension of services from different areas and it really depends on also the the density that they’re looking at as well what we’ve looked at just at a very high level is it doesn’t seem like it’s completely outside the normal possibility as far as what the costs would be to extend servicing but that would also have to be working very closely with with the folks in our infrastructure environment area to determine that that the capacity is available but we don’t at this point think that it might that’ll be a hindrance but that’ll be something that will come through this procurement process and be determined by the applicant. Councillor Ferrera.

Okay for I guess turning 284 Horton as well actually you know I would say I do I do remember that the report did touch on the possibility of keeping part of that parcel as surface level parking lot on the other side of the flood line too so I guess we’re exploring for that procurement process to see what comes through and we’re just kind of looking into the option so so I do this is this is why I’m supporting it right now because I do think that this is a good location looking at 84 Horton Street I see that it did have a licensing agreement with London Hydro that ends in October 2024 because we’re trying to crystal ball some of the timelines are we looking at like a short-term renewal for that parking or are we I guess I’ll start with what is the current length of that contract as it is Mr. Mathers do you have that information? Through the through the chair so we are working directly with our with the facilities group on this as well and that’s of course like a negotiation between with the parties there but the intention would be if council decides to move forward with something with with this that we would be looking at short-term renewals moving forward so that we get both allow this progress this process to proceed and also allow for that parking to be maintained for the for at least the short-term. Councillor Ferrera.

Thank you. Okay I guess I have one last question then and it goes to site 2 for 434 Elizabeth you know I’m not a structural engineer or an engineer in any regard but I was looking at the space and it does seem a little constrained because you do have residents on both sides or buildings on both sides and I was wondering about site 2 and realistically we can put there I did make note in the report that some of the common reasons parcels did not make the final list because it was too small or too narrow to accommodate any development and that could lead to the potential of consolidating some adjacent properties so the way I read that part of the report and then when I was looking at site 2 I was thinking there’s that parcel was chosen because it’s not anticipated that we would have to consolidate some properties around there so I guess just further to that with just the spacing itself that site would be on its own and we wouldn’t be looking at the possibility of acquiring some adjacent properties to help out with that so just clarification on that Mr. Mathers Mr. Chair perhaps I’ll jump in here Michael Thomas insect thank you for the question it is definitely a challenging site because of the saw to pattern but if and when it goes through procurement process it is possible for the private sector to acquire a budding lands as well if they think that they can make a goal of that but also the term high density is a proportion of the size of the property so it doesn’t necessarily mean a high-rise building it could be townhouses on a smaller site that could still be considered high density so on a site like this it I don’t want to evoke pictures of high rises it could also be something more modest and appropriate size for that property thank you Mr.

Thomas in skate counselor for thank you for that so just at this point the intention is to see what we can develop on that kind of weird ordered property there so okay that’s good I guess that would be it for that I you know I am supportive of this as it is because again you know we are always talking about converting our surface level parking lots and making a better utilization of the space I really appreciate that we’re looking at high density more intensification for in with respect to housing I like that we are also including the possibility of affordable housing and stacking on the roadmap to 3,000 portion and I also appreciate the plug-in for the parking because downtown needs that so at this moment I’m gonna be supportive of this and I like where it’s going and I’m hopeful to have something come back when the time comes thank you counselor for I’ve got counselor Frank next with us online sorry counselor you’re on mute can you unmute and start again thank you so much classic I was like I got the camera but not the sound yes one question 84 Horton I have already heard some feedback from constituents regarding the proximity to Old South and as many of you know many of the Old South residents are very interested in getting an indoor pool somewhere within walking distance to Old South as was committed to them when the Thames Park was decided to be or the Thames pools decide to be closed so I’m just wondering if we move forward with this process would sites like 84 Horton which I don’t know if it has the capacity to have an indoor pool but would that be essentially taken off of the available options for that location because I don’t want to preclude if that was a great site for an indoor pool that city owned I would worry about taking away that option I guess moving forward so I’m just wondering for you to staff if there’s any comment on that like mr. Mathers or should I go to mr. Smith or I’ll start out so just to provide maybe like a high-level context on these types of sites so it’s highly likely for any of these sites to be feasible as far as the remediation that’s required and for the amount of the needs for the area that you would highly likely need to have something that was an intense form of development to make that like a viable project like other folks speak to it but excavating in these areas can is going to be costly and it’s going to have a significant amount of effort that goes into it so as far as like I’ll let the other folks speak to as far as like the viability of that for like a typical recreation project but can tell you that it’s very likely that to make some of these sites feasible that there will need to be some intensity there to make that the performers work for any kind of development and mr. Smith did you want to add to that thank you enter the chair I believe in Q1 2025 we’ve been directed to come back and one of one of those recommendations is we’re looking at what it where’s the feasibility of looking in the old South or close by district district in neighborhoods the old South and downtown looking at bringing back some possibilities about building an indoor pool so that will come back to council early next year thank you miss Smith Councilor Frank appreciate that info and I guess one follow-up that perhaps maybe is a bit of a discussion between now and council I’m just wondering if part of that feasibility then to be looking at the ability to co-mingle so if it was I don’t know if this is possible but like a community center in the basement and then a high density apartment building on top again I’m just hopeful that this wouldn’t preclude that analysis as well that is perhaps the only viable site in the area so maybe I won’t ask that as a question because I haven’t asked staff in advance and I’ll ask it to renowned council because it might inform my decision thank you thank you Councillor Frank I’ve got myself and then Councillor Truss out on the speakers list next so I’m going to ask Councillor Ramen to take the chair I have the chair I’ll go to Deputy Mayor Lewis first thank you Madam Presiding Officer so just a very quick question on this I mean I think it’s great that we’ve got some opportunity to look for redevelopment of surface-level parking lots I certainly recognize from my time on planning that as private interests come forward to look to partner with us on this they may bring some of their own pieces to the table including perhaps some other land acquisitions next door to make it a more viable or a more simpler site to work with I guess the one question I have to staff I was slightly surprised to not see the municipal parking lot adjacent to Budweiser Gardens on the list but I’m wondering if that perhaps is because that site might be more feedback might have been that that site might be more appropriate for commercial development you know a hotel or something like that and whether or not we would consider and I think it’s kind of in line with what Councillor Frank was saying when the private sector comes forward although we are the focuses on high density residential housing does that preclude or would that simply add to a scoring of an RFP if partner came forward and said we want to do some mixed use and we’re gonna have some ground floor commercial and some podium parking and you know maybe there is a community facility designation on part of the the property while the focus is on housing does that still allow for some mixed use considerations to come into this discussion when applicants apply thank you go to staff through the presiding officer so to answer that second question there first absolutely anything that they could do to be able to provide in bolster like the case for a possible redevelopment I think would be beneficial if it’s something that’s both providing like a community benefit as long with housing I think that checks a quite a few boxes that were very much open to that on that the current Budweiser garden parking so we did work closely and reached out to the folks at Budweiser and Gardens in the operating group to just to turn to assess some of the their requirements their operating requirements on the site and with this future expansion that is being imminently proposed that very much reduced this amount of parking that was available and they had some concerns about at least in the short to moderate term being able to provide their operational needs especially with some of the events that they’re looking to host in the future if they were to lose that additional parking area at this time so we just decided based on those needs that we were going to remove them from the procurement doesn’t mean like possibly in the long term but we want to do that hand-in-hand with Budweiser garden operating group so we ensure that that we can both have that venue and then hopefully in the future look at different development potential.

Thank you Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you and I promise by the time they get the sign changed I’ll get into the habit of referring to it as Canada life place that’s all my questions for now. Thank you I’ll return the chair to you. Thank you and I’ve got Councillor Trussow and then Councillor Stevenson Councillor Trussow.

I want to just throw something else out which I think might be a reasonable use for some of these areas right not downtown but close to downtown and that is as a site for micro housing some type of installation where instead of selling it to the private sector for development we do something a little less intense and maybe even temporary where we we develop the property so we could put up some I’ll just use the term micro units very very loosely which includes Hudson other other things is that something that is precluded under under this proposal because it says successful respondents have a procurement process would it be possible without making an amendment or changing this that we could investigate keeping it ourselves for something like that. So I don’t know whether I should start with Mr. Dickens or Mr. Mathers on this because I know Mr.

Dickens area has has looked at opportunities for housing relief but Mr. Mathers you’ve been leading this particular piece so I’m going to start with you but if Mr. Dickens wants to comment as well we’ll give him that opportunity to. Through the chair so the analysis that we provided was very much focused on that high density development so and also focused on a procurement process so to suggest that if you if it’s committee and council is prerogative to look at something other than the high density or the moving forward with a procurement process and we’re retaining those lots that that doesn’t necessarily align with what’s being suggested in this resolution right now so this is very much focused on looking at higher density developments and looking at possible ownership by the and sale of the lands and I’ll just give Mr.

Dickens an opportunity if he wants to add anything from his divisions perspective. Through you chair nor there be nothing to add social and health development has worked alongside planning and economic development Mr. Mathers is team with the writing of this report in the plan that’s before you so nothing to add. Council trust out to the chair so I take it then that the answer is that there is absolutely no possibility that this type of affordable housing perhaps run by a nonprofit could be used on some of these lots is that correct.

Ms. Smith Mr. Dickens Mr. Mathers who never wants to feel that one.

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair so there’s possibilities for the use of parking lots for that type of use it’s it’s just what the resolution that’s before you is it doesn’t allow that to happen it actually is going into a different direction so if that is Council’s prerogative to look at that or explore opportunities or for any of these lots to provide that’s from housing we can take that back and explore the opportunity but that it’s not doesn’t align with what you have before you today in our report. So my thank you chair my final question then is would it be would it be contrary then to add a slight amendment along the lines of that could be considered as well or would that be contrary give us just a moment here okay so let me share with you the discussion the clerk and I just had if you wanted to alter this it would not be contrary you would have to add additional uses in clause A so where it says high-density housing and public parking you would have to add additional uses into that clause for these five sites however I will say on the advice of the clerk perhaps the the question we should direct to staff first is from a viability perspective in terms of issuing RFPs and sources of financing whether or not it’s viable that way so I don’t know if you would like staff to respond to that counselor but perhaps if if and again I I don’t know whether this would be better directed to Mr.

Mathers or Mr. Dickens or both but from an RFP process perspective and from a source of financing perspective is it would it be viable to add alternate uses to consideration here and if you need a moment to discuss amongst yourselves before you respond by all means feel free to take that through the chair so I think as if committee can be as specific as possible as far as what they’re what they’re be looking for so there if you’re looking for both submissions that could be a for high-density or for for like a micro homes or something like that that would be an opportunity to have that included in here or if if there’s specific lots that you’d like to look at for those you for that alternative use the difficulty then becomes then how do you assess an app procurement if you’re and creating that criteria because if one development provides a hundred units and the other provides 15 those are very different things that you’re providing as far as procurement and it would be difficult to be able to judge two different applicant submissions that have a very varying ways that they’re looking at providing and meeting the needs of the procurement so whatever you can do to be as as specific as possible ideally it could be that for a couple of the different lots that we look at that type of a use it’s just very different types of uses that you’re considering thank you Mr. Mathers Councilor thank you that’s that’s helpful and keeping in mind what the mayor said at the beginning we’re not really making any decisions on any of these lots we’re just going to be getting a report back later I would like to if I if I may offer an amendment to part a where it says high-density housing public parking and micro housing opportunities that doesn’t go into a lot of detail but it doesn’t preclude any of the lots being mandated for this discussion or coming up the list I think it’s very general so just before we get too far away from things here Councilor it’s not that the mayor didn’t say we were not making it’s a decision today because we would be directing staff and this is to Mr. Mathers point to undertake a procurement process and so that is the reports back later would be on the individual applications that have been received not on the direction that we’re providing today which is to undertake an RFP process so it is a little different than not making a decision today because we in fact are and so and again I don’t want to stop us from doing committee work at committee but I wonder if perhaps you want to have a good discussion with staff between now and Council to see if there’s as you heard Mr.

Mathers say those are actually two very different procurement evaluation processes so I’ll come back to you and see what you’re you’re obviously should you wish to make an amendment that’s you’re free to do that but I want to see what your will is to with with this yes I can say now my will would be not to try to make amendments at a council meeting which is very constrained if it if it’s clear that passing this does not preclude having that discussion that would be fine but I’m just very worried that by by by saying this has to go into a commercial procurement process we would be cutting off the possibility to use any of these process properties for that type of purpose and I’m still a lot of people are saying they want to see these micro units I’m still not sure where they’re going to go and this is land at the city already owns so I might be able to assist a little here and I think miss barbone might be able to assist a little here too these these five lots that have been identified today any step forward would still be dependent on an application actually being made from the private sector so there’s no guarantee that we’re going to necessarily receive interest in all five of these but I’m gonna go to miss barbone for some assistance on this as well with respect to our procurement process thank you through the chair happy to provide some clarity so certainly with the direction for civic administration to undertake a procurement would mean that civic admin would take that and during the direction of council to achieve the outcome that council is ultimately looking for so based on the resolution it is based on high-density housing and then we would set out through a public procurement process a request for proposals that would be looking for proposals that would achieve that objective high-density housing in terms of what it is we’re looking for may not be the same as a request for creating you know something different that might be micro houses for example so in order to evaluate the proposal and who ultimately would be successful we need to have very clear criteria and very clear outcomes of what we’re looking for the proposal to satisfy so if the direction is to do something different we would need that direction to take back so that they can prepare the proposals and do that public procurement process in accordance with council’s wishes when that procurement process is done the proponent who would satisfy that and would achieve the best value would then be brought forward whether they’re done independently or together brought forward for council’s approval to award a contract at that time so I think I’ll let others take it from here and I’ll go to councilor Stevenson next thank you I do have quite a few questions on this especially given that three of the five are in Old East Village and it’s actually three of the four municipal parking lots in the business district that is a business improvement area as designated by this council I’m wondering it says about that these five were chosen because of the critical the critical criteria and I’m wondering what the critical criteria are that meant that some of these did not make the list mr. Mathers or mr. Thomas Nskik if one of you would like to respond to that absolutely through the through the chair so we provide a list of the of criteria there’s a over 10 different criteria but for the most part we’re looking at things like whether the zoning by-law that’s currently in place the zoning on the property the place type whether that aligns at the London plan on proximity to railways industrial facilities the whether there’s a servicing is available the size of the dimensions of the site to see that if it’s something that’s large enough that could facilitate it a large higher density building and also looking at the downtown park parking strategy any kind of actions related to that so that are highlighted in the strategy if there’s occupied buildings or structures in and around it and then also the cultural heritage aspects any kind of potential for archaeological potential on the site as well so we went through those criteria and then shortlisted series of sites that have a higher potential to be able to move forward as high density housing Councilor Stevenson thank you so on that note it talks about zoning and in the first two number one and number two that were ranked one and two if I see it right the zoning is currently only four stories are higher is that correct mr. Thomas and skick is there a parking lot in in particular because some of the zoning for example the ones in downtown offer a higher height so forgive me if there’s if you could probably a little bit more detail of which counselor thank you it’s the ones ranked one and two so it’s lots one and two in all these village and they say zoning to 12 meters mr.

Thomas and skick through you mr. Chair that’s right the 12 meters would provide a current height maximum of four stories Councilor thank you so when you say zoning is one of the key things that you know allows us to choose these as acceptable ones and we say that we need to high density to make it the the pro form is work do we believe that four stories is enough to make those work there sorry mr. me the chair so for the purposes of this work four stories may be a higher density than in this area that could be appropriate but through the procurement process the applicant may have other ideas of the able to intensify the site and it would be through the planning committee they would have the ability to either approve those kind of changes or not approve those changes so we are open to considering things that are outside the zoning however that currently it just allows for the four stories Councilor so I guess that like my questions are you know we see zoning is important but it’s only zoned to four that number one and two are only zoned to four stories currently they’re adjacent to heritage conservation districts they’re adjacent to the national historic site and there are three of four municipal lots in a business district so I guess I’m just wondering like why are these ranked one and two and and was there any consideration to involve the oldest village business district in the planning giving that this list was available since May 27th just to ensure that we’re not just looking at housing but we’re looking at what is our vision for this space given that we have it designated as a business district given that we’ve got the Hard Rock Hotel coming I’m just curious Mr. Thomas and skip through you Mr.

Chair I just want to point out to you that the appendix of this report it actually provides the detailed evaluation criteria that we went through and why some sites were are chosen in somewhere so I just want to point that out but none of the sites were precluded because of zoning zoning gave us a hint of what the intent of the of the development potential is on the site but the reason these ones are ranked one and two it really has to do with their developability so the size of the property the suitability of the infrastructure those are what made it one and two the further down you go on the list the harder they are to develop for example we talked about the Horton and Rideout Street properties that don’t have servicing right now so they’re lower on the list because the they don’t they’re not developable as easily as some of the ones on the upper part of the list and then the ones that dropped off the list are just not developable at all in terms of the the criteria so that’s the way they were chosen and ranked so I hope that answers your question Councilor yes so I we just heard that it was really important that the RF for the RFP we have clear criteria and clear outcomes can not just be reemphasized here what are the clear criteria and clear outcomes that Council is approving here today Mr. Mathers through the chair so the clear outcome would be higher density housing and providing that and then also meeting those needs for parking at the same time the public parking aspects Councilor and given that we’re being asked here to approve something that’s going to an RFFP process what are the parking requirements for the three municipal lots in all these village mr. Mathers through the chair so those will be determined as we move through the process so say for example when we go through that first first we need to see whether there’s even any interest in developing any of these sites so that’s the first thing we need to hear and then looking at those three three locations being able to determine like what are those parking needs so we have parking data that provides information on how much these how many of these spots are used on a day-to-day basis we also want to ensure that there’s amount there’s a significant amount of additional parking there to be able to support the businesses if that if things do change over time and that there’s parking for those folks that would be living in these this new housing as well so there is definitely flexibility moving forward to be able to ensure that we have an appropriate amount of parking in this location but we have a few good places to start from which is one is how is it being used today and then just ensuring that we have that buffer for the future as well Councillor yeah like still a million questions in that the downtown London parking utilization study was done in 2015 and it didn’t include all these village and we have a business improvement area that’s been oversaturated with social services that we have increased that oversaturation it’s undergone massive construction and and this report says that it’ll be right the parking will be right sized to meet the the needs but are we looking with the vision as to what the anticipated needs are has there been any consideration about making sure that we’ve got public parking near our bus rapid transit so that people can come park in the in the district and then ride the the BRT is that has that something that’s been considered Mr. Mathers or Misha I thank you Mr.

Deputy Mayor we have looked at the availability of park and ride facilities as terminal facilities with respect to the rapid transit routes that are under construction and approved we have not looked at the adjacency of public parking with respect to the routes at various points along those routes the intent is that ideally people would get on earlier in their commute and be able to take the buses into their destination in the core of the city Councillor thank you but wouldn’t the old East Village business district be in the Western fair market there would that not be like a terminal point that would be a great opportunity for park and ride me share through you Mr. Chair generally when you’re providing a park and ride facility the desire is to have people choose to leave their vehicle as early as possible in their journey so that you don’t also have to widen those roads as they progress to the outer parts of the city to accommodate the additional private vehicle use so you’d expect people to get on to these services that run to the periphery of the city as early as possible close to their plate point of origin or destination so if you’re further out to the far east end of the city we would hope that people would get on close to those destinations and that if you happen to be within this area you’re able to walk to those spaces that said we do believe that there are opportunities to partner with some of the larger parking providers whether that’s Western fair municipal 100 Kellogg some of the attractions to connect the OAV and the downtown as an entertainment precinct but no generally you would not provide a park and ride that close to your central hub. Councillor Stevenson thank you can you warn me when I have a minute to go I sure can I will let you know right now you’re at about three minutes and 15 seconds so you’ve got about a minute 45 okay thank you I go you go back to council’s being asked to approve things this to go forward to an RFP and it said clear criteria and clear outcomes and yet we’re hearing high-density housing and appropriate parking is there a way for us to get more specifics prior to approving the RFP process? Mr.

Mathers through the chair so we don’t have further specifics for you right now it’s going to be very much dependent on the submissions that we get if we have someone that is interested in one of the parking lots and not the other parking lot then that will really determine what the needs are for the parking if committee and council want to be overly cautious you could say that you want to replace all the existing parking that’s at the location that is one way that we could write a procurement we have done that in the past so that would be another opportunity. Councillor Stevenson is there any plan to figure out what parking we want for that area like anticipated parking is there any sort of larger vision there to think about doing that to incorporate into this process? Mr. Mathers through the chair so that there was as part of the multi-year budget submission an opportunity to look at demands moving forward we don’t have that comprehensive look because that wasn’t something that went forward however what we do have is that we do have the data as far as who’s using how many people are using that site currently we also know that there will be rapid transit availability to the site in the future so that may also be one of those pushing poles as far as the needs for and demands for parking so we would be looking within that those values to be able to provide an update provide some limitations as far as what we would like to see as parking on the site however as I said that if you want to be like overly cautious with this then you could look at trying to replace that the all of the parking as part of any kind of submission that comes forward.

Councillor okay thank you I did want to ask as well around on page 12 2.4 it talks about supporting affordable housing and it talks a lot about creating new affordable housing and supportive you know qualified potential project partners to deliver on the supply of supportive affordable social and community housing and then in the next paragraph it says it’s not expected to participate in but there’s a lot of there’s a lot in this report about it and I’m wondering is there an opportunity here for some kind of hub or highly supportive housing to to come into this RFP Mr. Mathers through the chair the report speaks generally about that we have of course a roadmap to 3,000 affordable units and the different types of housing is being provided we’ll be looking at including in this RFP is if there’s interest in pursuing affordable housing as part of any of these developments at this point there’s no direction to look at hub or other types of uses but if there’s an opportunity to be able to provide up to 10% affordable housing and use some of our other programs to be able to provide it that’s something that we’d be open to and something that would be beneficial anyone would be submitting an application as part of this but it would be through that process we need to determine how many units would be required but ideally there could be an affordable housing component but it would not be a support of it would just be the standard affordable housing and counselor I’ve I’ve got yet about 30 seconds left but I also didn’t stop the clock mr. Mathers was had started his response before I realized I hadn’t stopped my timer so I’m gonna be a little lenient on that but you’ve got roughly 30 to 40 seconds left okay I have a couple of questions and then an amendment so shall I do my question and then amendment after what I would suggest perhaps is perhaps ask your question and then I did want to advise you that I have Councillor McAllister and Mayor Morgan on the speakers list as well if you wanted to save a little bit of time to come back and and move an amendment you might and again completely up to you as always were were in council’s hands as to when amendments want to be moved councilors can do that at any time but as we haven’t heard from councilor McAllister yet I’m just wondering if you if you might want to hear what others say before moving an amendment but that’s completely up to you okay I’m gonna fire off two quick questions and then I’ll pause so in 3.0 it talks about the awarding of real property and then the subsequent sale and I just wondered if that could be explained a little bit more and then in 3.1 it talks about 32,000 as a contingency cost for fairness monitoring services and I was just looking for more information on that okay so I’m gonna go to Mr. Mathers and then the clerk is reminding me that on an amendment should be moved the first time you’re speaking so if then I’ll come back to you to move your amendment and see if you’ve got a seconder for that before we go to the other speakers just so that we’re consistent with the application of our council policies and procedures bylaw Mr.

Mathers I’ll go Mr. Chairman thank you Thomas in I just with regard to the first question 3.0 financial impacts the intent of this paragraph is just to state that the city’s contribution to the development will be the sale of the land the city’s not intended to get involved in the development process after that there’ll be no further contributions after that and then with regard to the fairness advisor this has been used sometimes in procurement processes related to property in the downtown or other areas where it could be contentious or it could be multiple different potential respondents coming in and trying to evaluate one very different proposal from another and making sure that each proposal is evaluated fairly it’s not that the intention isn’t that we will use a fairness advisor for sure it’s just we want to leave the potential open in the event that it’s necessary at that time okay so I will now come back to Councilor Stevenson to move your amendment okay thank you so given the answers to the questions and stuff I would like to change a to say replace public parking at the following locations so just add the word replace before public parking okay and we’ll look to see if there’s a seconder for that Councilor cutting so we are going to discuss the amendment now which is to replace public parking Councilor Stevenson if you’d like to give your rationale for your amendment now that’s on the amendment perfect thank you I would you know given the answers from staff I think it makes sense given that this is a business district that we anticipate to grow and thrive and expand and we’ve got the hard rock hotel we’ve also got the BRT so people could come from that area park and then get on to the BRT I would love to see it be a both and so that we’ve got what we replace the public parking and we add housing to that I think that would be pertinent for us to clarify in terms of clear outcomes for the RFP okay so we have a new speakers list now but I did have Councillors McAllister Morgan and then ramen on the speakers list for the main motion so I’m gonna go to each of you in turn if you want to speak to the amendment I’ll go to you first if not then I’ll just keep you on the list for the main motion either as amended or if the amendment is not passed back to the main motion for later so Councillor McAllister on the amendment did you want to speak thank you but I also want to stay on the main list sorry just before you go colleagues are asking so the amendment is that part a be amended to add the word replace in front of public parking so the Councillor’s intent is that it would read parking lots for high-density housing and replace public parking at the following locations which is with respect to her concern about not losing any parking spaces in the business district okay a point of order Team Mr. Chair looking for clarification of it’s moved and seconded on the floor is the Councillors wording contrary to what’s already on the floor because this would allow for public parking and they’re not it is not contrary and Mr. Mathers had indicated in an earlier response that Council could in fact direct that all public parking spots be replaced in this process and but I will say it’s been moved and seconded and we’ve heard your rationale Councillor I do wonder if however noting that not all of these five identified lots are within the OIV BIA district and hearing your your very specific concern to that if you want this to be specific to and replace public parking within identified BIA districts or BIA boundaries thank you I appreciate that I’m not going to speak for three and four but for the others I’m happy with saying replace public parking within the oldest village business district okay so we’ll just give it just a moment to for the clerks to get that language so that that’s very clear and thank you Councillor plows it for just getting that clarification because it’s not contrary but to make that very specific is is helpful so we’re just going to give the clerks a minute on that okay so the clerks will work to get that into e-scribe now on the amendment that’s been moved and seconded and I’m just going to check Councillor Cutty you’re still okay to second that seeing a nod there so first Councillor McAllister did you want to speak on the amendment yes I did and also want to stay on the main list and thank you through the chair so my only question with this and kind of goes to my other questions I had but how prescriptive are we looking for this I understand the intention in terms of replace but are we looking for a complete like one-to-one ratio and that every single spot that we’re losing we’re going to replace with the parking garage or is this like I’m just trying to understand from staff what they would interpret that as in terms of a ratio Mr.

Mathers through the chair so I would interpret this as a one-to-one replacement Councillor McAllister you’re good okay moving back to the speakers list I had prior noting that Councillor McAllister you’ll stay on that for the main motion I had Councillor sorry Mayor Morgan and then Councillor ramen next mayor on the amendment do you want to speak yes I don’t say in the main so I don’t mind supporting this type of amendment I might make a suggestion and the Councillor can think about it if these lots are relatively relatively unique and there’s a bit of an unknown factor on the future or the potential for redevelopment but there is an interest in a level of parking and pursuing housing you know there’s nothing there’s nothing precluding Council to say on these three why don’t we take a cycle go consult with the BIA in the businesses and say you know what do you think like maybe there’s areas where you feel there’s a parking deficit maybe there’s areas where you feel there’s a parking surplus but it’s not as prescriptive as perhaps in the amendment there is a possibility here to just take a little bit of time on these three go find out some information and then come back with something that might be a little more flexible in some areas and less rigid and prescriptive because you heard how staff are going to interpret it directly it may preclude an opportunity that that the BIA and the community might be interested in by simply being too prescriptive so I would say if the Councillor has concerns about this another option would be refer those pieces to the next cycle of SPPC on those three ones take some time get some information and come back with with something that might be a little more focused that might meet the needs of the community a little better the intent here for us is to try to open up opportunities it’s not to create you know unforeseen challenges for parts of the city and so I think if we stay focused on that then having a discussion about the opportunities where appropriate might actually get us all to a place where we don’t miss an opportunity by being too prescriptive at this point in the process I think that the other two lots on here I know the ward Councillors for those areas can speak for themselves seem like there’s consensus to move forward with these RFPs need not be let all at the same time there’s nothing saying we have to do all of this at once we can move forward with a couple we can take some time on some we can look at others weren’t on the list and say we’d like you to do a little more work on this everything’s on the table here and and and council has the ability to make every decision so I’m not against the amendment but I would suggest perhaps we don’t want to be as prescriptive and maybe the council would like to just take a little bit more time with this on these on these ones thank you mayor council ramen on the amendment did you want to go yes thank you I’d like to speak to the amendment and then to the main motion please so I’m trying to understand we have parking standards how does this now interact with our parking standards which is a council approved decision mr. Mathers through the chair I’m I’m thinking that you’re just want to make sure that got this right so thank you the answer might be referring to the park as standards related to planning applications so there would be a need to provide parking associated with any kind of housing development but with a my understanding of what we’re discussing here as well is whether this this parking lot that provides some more of a regional parking for the area whether that is appropriate number and we don’t necessarily have standards specific to parking lots that’s what our demand work that we’ve done in the past would provide yes and I’ll come back to council ramen but the language that we have right now specific to the public parking which isn’t the point five ratio for development parking for housing so they’d still follow those standards but council ramen if you’d like to go ahead thank you where I’m confused is we’re talking about public parking but we’re talking about it in high density residential of which we have no minimums in certain areas of which this overlays those areas so I mean are we creating a loophole by allowing the public parking to stand on a council approved decision on parking minimums in those types of developments in those areas mr. Mathers through the through the chair so those parking minimums or non requirements depending on on the area are for private parking so what they need to be able to provide for their residents the discussion here is around I understand anyways is around the public parking lot that already exists and whether there should be a limit or reduction in the amount of public parking spaces so the the planning process if the plan process did say that there was a requirement for how for additional parking for to provide for those people that are buying the housing units you may have to have more parking in this location than you have right now because you’d have the public component and then you’d also have the private component counselor thank you so what this could look like is a development application could come back and it could say that the development has to meet X amount of numbers of residential parking which the residential users could feel is substantially low but it could then have public parking which seems quite ample and underutilized potentially and do we I mean my own opinion I see that as a challenging issue in this form so I wouldn’t be supportive of the amendment only because I don’t think it clarifies that as well the reason that these were identified is around the idea of highest and best use of property and what the criteria were on highest and best use is using this for residential property versus using it for parking and underutilized parking lots so if we’re replacing all parking one-to-one we’re basically saying that those sites were not underutilized which seems contrary to why we’re creating this opportunity in a first place so that’s just my opinion thank you Councillor I have Councillor Hopkins next and then Ferreira and then Stevenson Councillor Hopkins and this is on the amendment and I’m trying to be supportive of the Councillor here and I’m very concerned about going down the wrong road here to the intent of what is being proposed in the RFP process so I’m very unclear what replacing means and if there is a better understanding that you can provide the committee here in exactly what you would like to see in this area I’m all for that but right now I am I’m very unclear on what replace means and how it relates to our policies and how we are changing those policies and if we are I do think it’s important that we understand what those implications will look like if we are to support this amendment that’s what’s going on through my head at the moment so when I’m confused I’m not going to just just go yes and just see what comes back I think we do need to be clear going forward here so those are just my comments on the amendment and right now I will not be supporting it. Okay Councillor Stevenson I saw you waving and and I’m I’m gonna take a little leeway here because I want to make sure that you were waving to respond to what you’re because we’ve heard from staff that their interpretation of replace is a one-to-one but we heard Councillor Hopkins say she’s unsure about what you are meaning by replace and I saw you gesture so I want I am gonna give you an opportunity to respond briefly to what your intention is with the word replace but if you can keep it to that and not go into other parts of the debate please.

Well I am still allowed to speak to this amendment though yeah yes so I I’m gonna answer and I just have other Councillors on the list as well so I want to make sure we give everybody a chance to speak but if we if you can just speak to responding to Councillor Hopkins question and then come back and talk more. Yes. Well I agree replace but the original thing was appropriate Council was endorsing appropriate parking that is not clear either at all and in terms of what Councillor Ramen said there are many many tenants in Old East Village who pay monthly parking for in our in our lots and so that’s already happening and I don’t know that that would be an issue either and it meets a demand there so in terms of replace parking well I bring it up to ensure that we’ve got sufficient parking for what is Council has committed to improving that area and expanding it and supporting it in thriving despite the addition of more social services in that area and despite the problems with the proactive enforcement of the encampments right now so if Council is serious about having a thriving business district in that area then I’m guessing at replace parking as an appropriate parking I am looking to do what the Mayor suggested and refer this back to get clarity around that. Okay so hearing that and if that’s why you were waving earlier I apologize for for not going direct to you I do have Councillor Ferreira next on the list but I just heard you say you want to now take your amendment and refer it per the Mayor so trying to make this meeting as efficient as possible and not prolonged debate on something that we may be referring anyway I’m going to come back to you just on the opportunity to refer your amendment piece so those three lots if we’re going to do that let’s get that referral on the floor now.

I think it was a great suggestion and I would love that opportunity. Okay so you would like to move a referral that are A-34 and 5. 1-2 and 5. Sorry 1-2 and 5 be referred to civic administration with direction to consult with the old East Village Business District and Community Association.

Okay and then report back to a future meeting I’m just going to give the clerk some moment to to do that I’m just going to see Mayor Morgan did you want to second that I’m seeing a nod there as you had sort of suggested the idea I’m going to look for any debate on the referral now it’s been seconded the Mayor seconded. Councillor Ferrera. Thanks Chair I had my hand up for the other one but you can just keep me on the referral I’ll just make comments here I think it’s a good way to go I can see that there’s some more work that needs to be done for those three locations as long as it doesn’t impact the locations for downtown for the right out in the Horton Street and that would just be because the the report did make mention of a parking deficit that we’ll be potentially seeing in the future in that area so as long as that is still going to be moved along I would support the referral as it is at this time. Thank you Councillor Ferrera any other speakers on the referral Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you I just want to say I appreciate this opportunity to discuss with that area it is an area that is struggling and and I and it is a beautiful area we’ve got the National Historic Site of the Banting House we’ve got heritage properties there we’ve got Palace Theater we’ve got two residential towers that we have just recently proved and there’s another one coming there is a lot to consider and we talk about silos and I and I really appreciate the opportunity to bring forward much-needed housing but at the same time take that soft eyes to what is it we envision in terms of transit in terms of business district in terms of heritage properties all that kind of stuff we also have a public safety crisis in that area and so addressing this as well I think will be good just to ensure that we’re just taking a look and protecting a much valued district here I think that an opportunity to find a both-and with housing and parking will be great and having the input of the community will be great I look forward to you know being able to support this going forward with the input of this of the communities thank you Councillor Stevenson I’m just gonna see if the clerks are have the vote ready for us for you scribe give me just a moment please just a process question very hopefully what’s going to be a very simple and and quick yes or no Councillor Stevenson we had an amendment and then we had a referral but I I’m hearing because the amendment was specific to the parking that the referral is actually to those three parking lots for the entirety of the main motion for so all of the pieces of it so what procedurally would be best is if yourself and Councillor Cudi are prepared to withdraw the amendment and there’s no objection from Council to allow for that because it’s in count it’s in the committee’s hands now and then the referral would come forward on the whole thing which the clerks have ready so we would just proceed so first I’m going to see if anyone objects to the mover and seconder withdrawing the motion to amend that was on the floor first and I’m not seeing any objections to that so I’m gonna rule that amendment has been withdrawn and the referral is now on the floor with respect to the original main motion so I’m gonna look for any further debate on that before we call the vote and this is just on the referral of those three specific parking lots and then we would still have the main motion the pieces that are left to deal with today so no further speakers on the referral I will ask the clerk to open the vote on that housing the vote motion carries 14 to 0 noting so Frank has left the meeting thank you clerk now we are back to the main motion which now does not include 1 2 and 5 so that it would be part a 3 and 4 and part b and I know we had folks who had said leave me on the speakers list for the main motion but we’ve had a fair amount of debate now around the parking and the other components of this so I’m gonna go back very quickly Councilor McAllister you had been asking to stay on the main motion did you want to still speak or are you satisfied you want to still speak so we’ll go to you first thank you through the chair yeah I think my questions are still relevant because once we get the other ones back I’ll probably ask some more questions so in terms of the affordability component I know we identified the 10% I’m just wondering in terms of the the staff report they could speak a bit more how we reach the 10% do we think it’s appropriate in terms of the bidding process that we’re putting out because I mean right now we’re in a position where we don’t really have a lot to compel outside of the fact that we own the land and we’re obviously putting this as a condition of the sale of the land how confident our staff that we can get that 10% Mr. Mathers through the chair so it really come down to the to the performer that’s developed by the by the applicant so there’s of course a lot of different ways to negotiate as far as the value of this land that the number of programs that we have so we do have programs that will be available to be able to stack to make this a little bit more viable than we and other different initiatives may be so it will really come down to the the opportunity for the applicant to provide that in the performer my usually how we proceed is to provide as part of the evaluation to put that as an evaluating factor so if there is there’s still an opportunity to submit something that might be less than the 10% threshold but you’re gonna be the waiting in the vow of scoring that you would get you lower than you would if you were able to actually provide the 10% so it would really be determined through that process and but it’s there is at least more flexibility when you have a procurement that includes the land and then also be ability to stack with some other the city financing counselor thank you and through the chair yeah and I mean this is something I’m gonna keep in mind when we’re evaluating these things because this is an important condition because we are the ones who own the land currently and so when we get these applications back I’m really going to be looking for that affordability component because for me that’s a big deal like we have our roadmap to 3,000 but in terms of you know us being the ones who have the land now and looking at as an evaluating factor I really think we have to keep that in mind to try to hit our goals right so and I appreciate what you said Mr. Mathers you know there might be some that come in that don’t hit the 10% and I mean I’m still open to hearing the different proposals but I think if we get into a situation like that I would like to see you know the other offers to be honest because if people are splitting errors over doing two units for instance like that that to me is just ridiculous like I don’t want to have it at such a low threshold that it’s it’s not really worth considering and sorry switching gears now I’m also wondering and council draws a recent interesting point in terms of the micro housing but I was actually thinking of a different component of this and is there anything precluding as part of the RFP looking at modular housing because I think this could be an interesting opportunity for us because one of the things that I haven’t seen to date is for me a big part of the housing crisis is yes we make these approvals but the speed at which we get things built right now is a real problem and I have yet to see any real appetite coming from the private sector for building modular a lot of these when we look at the high density it’s still the traditional building model and that’s fine I know that’s what they do it’s their bread and butter but we do have modular housing going up in the province and I’d like staff to respond in terms of is that something they would be open to or is that pretty much written off just in the way that it’s currently written Mr. Mathers through the chair firstly there’s nothing limiting an applicant like providing that as part of of what they want to provide that’s just the construction methodology the way they’re going to deliver it it probably be more successful and be able to provide that housing quickly if it is a modular style of housing it’s part of our housing accelerator work well so internally at within our building area looking at ways that we can streamline approvals for that type of housing noting that is something that is very be a standard product that you be receiving so there will be opportunities moving forward but there’d be no problem including language like encouraging the use of modular housing as as one of the things that we’re considering and and I think that would really for the most part point to the like making it that house that housing more affordable but also that that housing come on can come online more quickly if it was in a modular form Councillor thank you and through the chair yeah so I mean I know we just be through this exercise but I do think that that’s an important thing to add in and I would like to add in the encouragement of modular housing for the RFPs as Mr.

Mather said I think because we own the land currently I would like to see some different models come forward and I think modular is something we should absolutely consider so if that language can be added in I would I’d like to move that amendment so Councillor I’m gonna suggest that you want perhaps before you move that amendment that staff need an opportunity to respond from a procurement process in terms of what that does to their evaluation criteria and how they would evaluate as we heard with the micro housing piece it would be it potentially and I don’t know how staff are going to respond but it could potentially be a very different procurement evaluation and and could in fact be contrary to what I’m not suggesting it is but I think we need staff to respond to that before we get into some language on in amendment language and I know colleagues have again I know this is a big report and I know that we’re always subject to amendments being brought on the floor but I would really encourage colleagues to try and prepare amendments to motions ahead of time and circulate we’ve now spent over an hour on this item and we’ve actually made one vote on a referral Mr. Mathers yeah through the chair the there’s absolutely the opportunity to include it as part as as I mentioned before any of this housing the idea is that you’re bringing it on quickly it’s not to provide a procurement to say that we want to move forward on a parking lot and that’s going to take 10 20 years no we want that to happen quickly so encouraging the use of modular construction methods that really for my perspective like links to the speed that you’re able to bring something forward so as far as then that will be part of our waiting of our criteria and modular would be something that be able to be able to provide that more quickly so if it’s language like it that we incur this part of the RFP encouraging the use of modular construction techniques then that would align with what you have before you today so based on what you just said and to perhaps help the counselor with the the language here Mr. Mathers an amendment that changed the language in a to say lots for city-owned parking lots for high-density housing comma encouraging modular builds comma and public parking at the following locations with that from a from a civic administration point of view encapsulate what the counselor is indicating his intent is yeah I plead the language to modular construction techniques okay the clerks are making note of that Councilor McAllister I’ll come back to you now because you are still the counselor so it’s still your will to put forward what you want but I’ll let you take it from there yeah I’m comfortable that language and I can speak to speak to it now if you first we need to see if there’s a seconder and we’ve got seconders in Councilor Trussow and Councilor ramen so we’ll go with Councilor Trussow this time and now if you’d like to speak to it thank you and through the chair yeah I said you know and I appreciate what you said in terms of having these amendments to the course of the discussion this is something that I’ve been toying with for a while but I think this is a golden opportunity considering we own the land personally I think this is actually it adds to the competitiveness of it like for me an element like I said before is the speed at which we can get these projects completed so for me looking at projects and the RFPs that come forward I absolutely think for me this is something that really you know is a determining factor is how quickly these projects can go up I’ve seen some very impressive modular constructions I think this is something that you know other municipalities are looking at and I think in this case and in the case of the others even we definitely should take this opportunity to look at it through this process thank you Councilor so on the amendment only again recognizing we are down to two locations not five look for any other speakers to the amendment before we move forward Councilor Hopkins yeah given the concerns I had or have still on these two properties I really want to thank the Councilor for bringing this opportunity forward to maybe look at a different form of housing on these properties a question through you Mr. Chair just listening to the debate these two proposals will come back to Council for a final approval and we’ll just receive those two proposals before they go through a planning application process I just want to understand how we move forward and this is going to staff Mr.

Mathers through the chair yes similar to our other procurements we would bring that back for Council approval Councilor Hopkins and then it would go through the planning process given that one of these properties is on a floodplain and and there’s some mitigation and there’s some other challenges that will still go through a planning process Mr. Mathers through the chair absolutely any of these applications would need to go through a final planning process happy to support it thank you Councillor Ferrera and then Mayor Morgan thank you chair okay so I’m looking at this motion for the modular housing I just wanted to get some clarification you know we are looking for high-density housing so it was not can modular housing be a component of high-density housing in this respect Mr. Mathers or Mr. Thomas Nskick through the chair yes absolutely there is different techniques and also full modular builds that they can do for for higher intensity buildings so that it is an opportunity yes Councillor okay I guess I’ll stop my questions there I just need a little bit more time to process this Mayor Morgan yes through the the chair I just want to ask a couple questions of our staff so I’m not opposed to encouraging modular housing construction I am cautious about being overly restrictive if that precludes us getting something done that is with relative speed that achieves all of the other goals so how would that play out in an RFP process would it would it be you get points for this but if no one actually comes forward with modular housing someone could still be a successful bidder because it’s not viable there I just I want to understand that how actually restrictive it is and how much there’s still an opportunity if that just doesn’t work with the performer that something can still be be pitched that is viable let me see other goals in the RFP Mr.

Mathers through the chair so in drafting the RFP we’d be highlighting a number of different factors and many of the things that are listed here one item would be encouraging modular construction techniques the way that would play out in the ranking is that that would be it really is a result and the result and metric that you’d be you’d be evaluating on is the ability to bring forward that housing in a short amount of time so if you can do that with a non-modular then you may be really successful or if you’re comparing against someone that can provide the same number of units the same under affordable housing that you might be a little bit more successful if you’ve got the modular housing but it’s not to limit and to say that you you’re forced to use it but it allows firstly for the the folks that are submitting to know that that’s something that is important but does not does not preclude other forms of development as well so it provides both but when it in the ranking it would be as far as the ability to bring that that housing forward quickly Mayor Morgan that’s actually throw enough to answer my second question too so I’m fine on the amendment only any further speakers before I call the vote on surfer era you only use 21 seconds so you got some time just thanks chair just some comments so I wish that I did have a little bit more time to weigh out everything with modular housing I you know I’m looking at just some descriptions here on the internet it does seem that it wouldn’t be as high in density or intensification as the original work was intending so but I just wanted to clarify just a little bit more I’m not opposed to the modular housing idea I just don’t want to lose direction for that high intensity intensification on the inflow component in that area so my question I guess directly would be even though it is considered high density will it be comparable to the original the original recommendation that we saw in the report and with respect to how many units we would get Mr. Mathers to the chair so as part of that of evaluation as well one of the primary waiting factors and values will be determining is how many units are provided so whatever is being provided you’re going to be definitely see more of a of an alignment between the successful applicant and the number of units so if if someone wants to use a very traditional modular approach and have a three-year four-story building on a site and someone else wants to have a 30-story building well it may be less likely that the modular housing is going to win but there might be other techniques that they’re using to build a larger building that provides modular nature and can be done very quickly as well so this wouldn’t limit a more intense use it just allows for first late for for us to share that our interest in able to make sure this moves forward quickly and that we’re interested in unique and innovative techniques if that’s available. Thank you Mr. Mathers and just before I go back to you Councilor Ferreira I just want to underscore the motion says encourage modular construction techniques not modular housing which really are two different things and I would point out that our baseline road under the Rapid Housing Initiative used a modular construction technique to get it done in approximately a year I believe so there is a difference between modular housing which is a form of housing and a modular construction technique so I just want to underscore that I know we’ve been using the terms kind of interchangeably today but just because that’s what’s in the amendment I just want to be very clear that everyone is is understanding what the amendment says with the construction techniques and with that I’ll go back to Councilor Ferreira.

I guess you made it a little more complicated now this is a tough one so I guess I don’t have any questions at this time I do look to committee for more discussion to help me with this one. Thank you Councilor so I I do not have any other speakers on the list so I am going to open ask the clerk to open the vote on this on the amendment. Using the vote motion carries 14 to 0. Thank you colleagues so now we are back on the main motion as amended I had sorry I have four different speakers lists going here I got to make sure I’m looking at the right one okay so following the amendment we’re back to the speakers list on the main motion now it’s the main motion as amended Councilor ramen I had you next so it is your turn if you wish to go ahead thank you and thank you for keeping track of that I just had one question regarding the costs for the basic site investigation are these costs realized before we have interest or not.

Mr. Thomas Enskik. Mr. Chair that’s right they are realized before so that we can give proponents an idea of what the property entails what kind of contamination could be there what the property dimensions are and if there’s any easements for example on these properties Councillor thank you that’s helpful thank you and moving down back the original speakers list I had Councillor Hopkins next Councillor Hopkins if you’d still like to speak to the main motion as amended I already spoke thank you thank you very much and then I the last speaker I had on the sorry I had to I had Councillor Ferrer on the main motion as amended I’m seeing you waving me off there and then I had Mayor Morgan yeah withdrawn okay that exhausts the speakers list Councillor Stevenson yeah just a quick question do we want to adjust the financial expenditure estimate prorated two to five or is it better just to leave it I’m gonna suggest that it should be left for now because we’ve referred a portion back and so when that that returns staff may have a new number to put in there but right now they would not have right I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote now on them closing the vote motion carries 14 to 0 thank you colleagues that brings us to item 2.2 that was deferred from our consent agenda that is the municipal accommodation tax tourism London annual report I know that miss Finn has been waiting very patiently in the back for us she was here to answer any questions during consent but we delayed that a little bit hope you’ve been able to make good use of your time while you’re waiting for us miss Finn and Councillor Palosa and I had also circulated an amendment to this so I’m gonna turn to Councillor Palosa to see if she’d like to move the amendments that I will second then once that’s on the floor we can go to miss Finn for any questions and debate on the motion Councillor Palosa okay I’m happy to move it the clerk’s already have it’s an e-scribe it was circulate first thing to colleagues this morning the seconder is Deputy Mayor Lewis once that’s official I’d like to speak to it that is official they have it in the system and you and I are listed as the mover in the seconder so if you’d like to go to that now thank you I’ll be as succinct as possible as colleagues know in 2018 we brought in the municipal accommodation tax this is a tax on hotel stays the overnight accommodation is not on your property tax and it does not come out of the hotel’s profit that they’re charging it’s a tax on top of that I want to thank city staff they’ve met with me and the municipal accommodation tax adjudication committee that’s part of tourism London in April as we work through questions and processes this would be the first increase we’ve seen here in London realizing other cities have already raised theirs and some are already above ours we have circulated letters to support in advance of this to colleagues from the airport the grand theater and what’s currently still Budweiser Gardens looking for your support on this as it brings in funds from tourists visitors to our city to help enhance the offerings that they get to involve and and be in and enjoy better services and then Londoners get also the benefit of money coming from a town to enhance their experience I’ll also note that the tourism board does contain hoteliers on it as well and two of them do serve on the municipal accommodation education committee thank you counselor so we have a motion moved and seconded this would be receiving the report and then adding those two new directions to have civic administration undertake the process to increase the municipal accommodation tax and that civic administration be further directed in consultation with tourism London to report back to the appropriate standing committee or committees with the recommendations to counsel for any updates to the TIRF allocation policy and any strategic facility investments that might be identified we do have miss Finn here who can answer questions to the report that was originally on the agenda and then any debate that we wish to have on the directions as well so I’m going to look to see first if we have any questions for miss Finn specifically before we wait into any debate we might have so I’ll look to see if colleagues have any questions Councillor McAllister thank you through the chair Councillor Palosa actually alluded to one of my questions which was you just mentioned you had two hoteliers on your board I’m just wondering in terms of feedback from the hotels if tourism London’s received any and what that look like I can go to Councillor Palosa or miss Finn on that but I think I’m going to go to Councillor Palosa first as the mat is our direction not a direction from the tourism board we’ve had discussions with the board but the board did not provide this direction the budget chair and I did Councillor Palosa yeah thank you also as you know deputy Marlos myself are the council representatives on tourism so balancing what hat we wear in what spaces this was our direction to raise it 1% have met with city staff Mr.

Murray about how to do this through the process some questions did come back miss Finn can speak to it if she wishes of some hoteliers still not completely understanding the process it seems that it’s not come out of their profits it’s collected though it’s a separate line item though as you would see some of the ones definitely enjoy what the money gets the people here for as we do enhancements and heads and beds which generate more revenue have already spoken to miss barbone and Mr. Murray boat potential questions some hoteliers might have a policy that they could do some engagement with them and also note that the tourism board has we rotate through members on a rotating basis and we have a new hotel you’re coming on to I think sorry and I’m going to take a little prerogative to interject here I think it’s also important to note that Airbnb’s are also subject to this municipal accommodation tax no it’s not just the hotels any overnight short-term accommodations are subject to the levy of the miss accommodation tax I’m going to go to miss Finn to see if she’s got anything she’d like to add to that response through you Mr. Chair I couldn’t have put it any better than Councilor Palosa she’s very well aware both of you have the of the work that we do on the board so thank you thank you miss Finn Councilor McAllister okay thank you and through the chair so I’m also just wondering then in terms of the increase to the 1% obviously with tourism London promoting tourism what that added 1% what could potentially be used for if they have any plans just getting better in line of sight in terms of what we anticipate that money being used for thank you Councilor McAllister and I’ll go to miss Finn in this case this would be specific to tourism London’s portion of the mat obviously 50% goes into the city’s tourism infrastructures are fund as well which is subject to Council’s direction but tourism London has full control over their portion of the mat so miss Finn the kind of things that we might use increased funding for certainly through you Mr. Chair some of the examples are are within the report and we would continue to build on some of our marketing initiatives certainly with the UNESCO City of Music designation that has opened us up to more of an international scope where we couldn’t have afforded to have integrated prior to the implementation of the mat so our ability to build attract and host at an international level is certainly one of the initiatives we will be concentrating on certainly bid fees since covid everyone is trying to recuperate loss cost due to the pandemic bid fees are one of those areas that have increased so our ability to attract and retain and host large provincial national and international events has become more expensive as well Councilor no thank you for those answers thank you I’m going to look to see if there’s any other speakers and I’ve got Councilor Pribble next thank you answer to this staff I just have a question the one the report that’s in front of us and the 50% that we are talking about the marketing funds for tourism London King just verify for me that currently we have their 4.8 million dollars balance so we have 4.8 million to spend on marketing funds miss Finn with regard to the balance on the fund through the chair this is the audited balance as of the end of 2023 as the tax continues to accumulate according to visitation fees that’s obviously going to increase or decrease depending on the time of spends versus the time of collection and miss Finn I’m just going to ask if you want to expand as well the Councilor said that this is available for marketing fees but you’ve already referenced conference and convention bid fees and stuff so it’s not solely for marketing did you want to provide some other contextual information about the types of things that the mat is spent on because I know it’s not just marketing through you mr.

Chair certainly we provide additional support to new and growing local initiatives festivals events event rights holders and the work that they’re doing marketing is one small portion of it we also use it for bid fees and we also use it to assist in new event development council approval thank you and I do have follow-up in terms of this increase has has it been consulted and are the hotel association local Ontario restaurant and hotel association the hotel years have they been consulting and are they aware of this coming today and increase of 1% so Councilor I’m not going to go back to miss Finn for that Councilor Plaza has already answered that there has been discussions happening since April Councilor Pribble okay I’ll specifically do the hotel years local hotel years do they know that is one percent increase has been because the you know I’m gonna say the other way sorry I’ll start again I do appreciate everything that was put forward and it does make when we do the comparison with other cities it certainly I’m not saying that it doesn’t make sense my issue is that the proposal is to start January 2020 sorry 2026 and we are making the decision today the hotel years I don’t believe the hotel years were consulted in terms of the depth that it is coming today they would love to provide their feedback they would like to be consulted and I think that based on last six years they’ve been in great in collecting these funds for us I do believe that we should give them this opportunity I do I I don’t plan to support the B and C if it’s defeated I do it’s not that I want to go move forward and I do want to again compare to the other municipalities but the thing is hotel years as the tax collectors money collectors for us I would like to have them the opportunity to give their feedback and consult if we do it I don’t see any reason why should be delayed more than June just sorry January 2026 and I think we still have time to implement it but I do believe that they should have the opportunity to give their feedback suggestions recommendation and again I don’t even think and just so you know the hotel years even till now six years even though this 50/50 has been they would like to have they would like to give kind of receive the summary of what what has been happening not just from the reports a lot of them they don’t see our reports and they would like to have their input and their feedback thank you so I’m actually going to ask Councilor ramen to take the chair because as as someone involved from the board perspective Councilor I want to be able to respond to that I don’t think it’s fair to ask miss Finn to respond to a direction that Councilor Palosa and I are providing but I would also through you as I turn over the chair ask if if we could also get a response from his barbone about the process to increase this and the timelines that staff need given that we are moving into our own municipal budget update season and then they have assessment growth and the process that’s involved in getting this increase which also needs to have a provincial approval component because the province gives us permission to to collect this tax so I’m going to turn over the chair to Councilor ramen and ask if she can go to miss barbone and then to myself okay thank you I have the chair I’ll go to miss barbone I thank you through the chair so with respect to the process the the legislation sets out that municipality may put forward the municipal accommodation tax that is affected through the issuance of a or approval of a by-law that is brought forward and then the implementation component is that that collect is so the hotels collect the tax on behalf of the city of London and then remit the tax to us so the money goes to them because that’s at the time of further collecting the fees for the accommodation and then the tax is remitted to us so no different than HST or other things instead of going to the provincial government it comes through to the municipality so with respect to implementation certainly we know that and it and if we were to really fast track it would be about three months to implement so 2026 gives us plenty of time to be able to bring forward the by-law the additional analysis to have that in front of council to approve the by-law and the by-law when we bring that forward and have that approved would set out the implementation date and then essentially from the collection perspective instead of collecting the the three or the four percent currently it would then be collected to five percent but the same process would apply and of course that would also apply to our short-term accommodations as well given the by-law was expanded to include that so I think that answers fully your question but let me know if I missed anything. Thank you I’m seeing nods okay so in response to councilor Pribble Deputy Mayor Lewis wanted to provide a response so I’ll go to Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you madam presiding officer and I’m gonna just ask you to continue not to return the chair to me right away but yes so as Councilor Paloza indicated this conversation started at the April tourism one in board meeting. Councilor Pribble you were with me at AMO when we talked to tourism industry Association of Ontario as well and we even at that point had informed them that they were that there was the consideration to increase the mat they in fact provided information back to Councilor Paloza and I with respect to frankly how far behind we are other comparable municipalities who have already done this or will have it in place for January of 2025 that includes Windsor who will be going from four to five this year Hamilton who will be going from four to five at January 2025 Ottawa who’s already gone to five from four and is now seeking to go to six Toronto and Mississauga which went right from four to six large urban municipalities across the province are raising their municipal accommodation tax no there is not unanimity between the hotel years just as there was not unanimity if colleagues call will recall back I think only Mayor Morgan and Councillor Hopkins may have been present at the time but the something like a year-long consultation on food trucks and how close they could be to a brick and mortar restaurant and getting down to arguing about meters of distance and some restaurateurs agreed and other restaurateurs did not however without naming and shaming there are a couple of hoteliers who don’t like it and and who continue to insist that we’re taking from their profits which is not true it is a tax collected on the bill as a separate line item as was indicated there are other hotel years who absolutely recognize the value of this and who are supportive of it because we have continued to use both the tourism London piece of the mat to enhance events to bring new events to the city to do marketing abroad to do those kind of things but colleagues will recall that we’ve also used this municipal accommodation tax on our side the tourism infrastructure reserve fund to invest in some key tourism assets in our community not the least of which was the incredible renovation that is underway at Bud Garden slash Canada Life Place as well as just as recently as a month ago drawing on that fund to support the Grand Theatre to replace their boiler and those made sense because those are putting heads in beds and without the ability to raise more funds to put into that infrastructure reserve fund it does limit our ability to make major investments I remember this this particular council debating whether or not we should make the Bud Garden’s investment because there was worries about the balance in the TIRF so quite honestly this is a to me a political decision on a tax it is not an industry decision because people are not going to fail to stay in a hotel in London as they did I think a hundred percent capacity this weekend with Western Fair and Airshow London going on because we’re charging five percent instead of four they’re not going to choose to stay in Kitchener and drive to London for the Airshow they’re going to stay here anyway we’re not in competition for hotel spaces that way and whilst there may be a couple of hoteliers who still make that false argument frankly I do not think we should hold back on making this decision because they don’t want to compete somehow with Toronto or Windsor when in reality they will not be competing with those centers those centers will do their thing around their events and we will do our thing around our events okay thank you Deputy Mayor Lewis that was in response to Councillor Pribble so I’m going to go back to Councillor Pribble and see if he has anything that he’d like to add and I don’t have the time recorded as to how much time you have left so I’ll just check with the deputy mayor to make sure we keep everybody on time the clerk has been very helpful in recording this so Councillor Pribble has used two and a half of his five minutes thank you Councillor Pribble go ahead thank you Anna I don’t think that what we just heard from the podium mayor and the chair of his committee that there will be any disagreement with what he stated I think that again it has to do with the sector that they feel that they weren’t aware of this that this is coming today they wanted to be consulted we have nothing to lose as we heard was in three four months it can be in place and Dinoa I would actually change I said first that I would not support it what I would like to actually do is I would like to refer it to the next meeting and I would like to have our civic and administration during this month consult with tourism London and the accommodation sector with respect to proposing an increase to the municipal accommodation tax we have nothing to lose all I want is the sector that’s collecting the money for us to have the opportunity to give their feedback and their comments okay sorry so I heard you ask for a referral so you’re moving a referral do you have a seconder Councillor Stevenson a seconder okay so there’s a referral on the floor and I will look for speakers to the referral and I see Deputy Mayor Lewis’s hand up so before I go to Deputy Mayor Lewis on the referral only did you want to speak specifically to the referral or you’ve said your piece okay okay okay I will go to the Deputy Mayor go ahead thank you Madam Presiding Officer I’m gonna be brief colleagues please defeat this referral not only is it an unnecessary delay and as I said we’re never gonna get unanimity in the sector but we do have support we have been making investments and drawing down on this fund but more importantly a referral for one month and then to suggest that we would start it sooner while Ms.

Barboon said the absolute fastest we could fast track it would be three months I ask you to respectfully keep in mind our finance team is in the middle of putting together the annual budget update for this Council’s consideration and deliberation in just a few weeks time that’s a massive amount of work as we know and now we’re gonna ask them to do this work on top of that and come back in one cycle when the annual budget update is done they have to move into the assessment growth allocation reviews and bring that forward to us a few weeks after that so I don’t think it’s fair because a couple of hoteliers don’t like it and again I’m really resisting the urge to name them because I know who they are to delay and ask our staff to do additional work at one of the busiest times of the year for them because there are a couple of individuals who object to this you’ve you’ve heard the support from other really key tourism assets the airport which just brought over 50,000 people in partnership with London Airshow to our city people who stayed in those hotels the Grand Theatre has a season this year which will have overnight visitors with heads and beds because we used this accommodation tax to help them replace their boiler and bug gardens that will be bringing 9,000 people a night every Friday night for hockey games and everything else that they do through the season of tens of millions of dollars invested in updating that this is a political decision this is not an industry decision so let’s do our job and make a political decision today and not refer this either just vote yes or no okay thank you I have a list building and I will go to Councillor Pribble next and then I’ll go to Councillor McAllister and Councillor Pelosa Councillor Pribble so let me talk now that industry decision political decision there are two local associations and neither one of them and their representatives said that they were aware this is coming forward sorry a point of order Madam Chair has the seconder this motion left the meeting just a moment I’ll confer the clerk after conferring the clerk the motion is in the possession of the committee and it doesn’t matter if the seconder is present I’ll go back to Councillor Pribble so going back to it I really honestly and there’s one thing is actually that both organizations and four different hotel areas it’s not that they would not be that they would be totally opposed to it or they didn’t say yes we don’t want it it doesn’t make sense they just don’t feel that as a sector that they are receiving a direction from us and not conversation and they want to be actually heard I attended few of their meetings during this year and they want to be heard and again it’s not that the ones that have stated it they said we are against it you’re not gonna do it they didn’t say it they might mean it or they might say it during the conversations but they did not say that the thing is that as we heard this three months so I know I said referral bio to the next meeting my point is more three months for us to implement this okay this is what one year and four months that we have time what’s in front of us they’re not asking for 20 reports they’re not asking for 10 meetings all they’re asking for to be heard and to give their input their feedback not just on this but also support of the city of the issues they have that’s really what it comes down to so it’s not again I’m not delaying it certainly the marketing radical marketing funds it’s not just marketing funds it additional we have their 4.8 million dollars so we are installing on that and again it’s not to kick in till January 2026 what I want the sector that has been doing great things for us if it’s a referral or if it’s a change afterwards to the motion all I want them to have the opportunity to be heard by civic administration and to say what I feel would help them as the collectors of the stocks for us okay thank you I have Councilor McAllister next followed by Councilor Palosa thank you and through the presiding officer and you know I hear both sides in this appreciate the discussion that’s gone on I’m not willing to support the referral I’m willing to make a decision as the deputy mayor said I do think this largely is a political decision looked at what the other cities are doing in the area I think it’s fair in terms of what we’re looking at with the mat I think in terms of the answer to the given with two of them London I think there are a lot of opportunities to utilize these funds as again the deputy mayor said we’ve we’ve drawn on those funds very recently to support a lot of our assets throughout the city so I will be voting against this referral I like to vote on the main motion and support it but I would also like to say I mean in terms of the associations if they want to be heard I’m more than willing to hear them out at council if they want to have a delegation there’s also the opportunity to have conversations between now and council again you know I’m happy to have those conversations but I do think you know again I think we’re we’re unfortunately behind everybody else and I do think that we need to support this and give tourism on them those funds to support these very valuable things to our city thank you thank you just a reminder to counselor we don’t have delegations a council but I hear your point in between there is opportunity for conversations and I did also have councilor cuddy on the list correct okay so I’m gonna go to councilor Palosa and then councilor cuddy thank you I won’t be sprint the referral as you said there’s no delegations at council but they’re welcome to always send in correspondence or have meetings outside of this I’ll also note that we were advised that hotel stays have exceeded pre-COVID levels as well which was one of the things that led us to doing this that the heads were in beds and through Ms. Finn’s conversation with some hotel years we knew there were some questions and Deputy Mayor Lewis and myself I’ve already reached out through tourism London a while back that if there was questions we were happy to set the meeting with those with questions to come and talk about tourism London’s portion of the mat the city of London’s portion and what we’re doing what we have done and we can continue to do together just for those conversations we’re already in play months ago thank you I will go to counselor cuddy next go ahead thank you madam presiding officer I won’t be supporting this referral and I will be supporting the main motion it seems that whenever we don’t want to make a decision we ask for referral and that’s not fair to us it’s not fair to our constituents and it’s not fair to our staff to Deputy Mayor Lewis’s point this is something we’re at the bottom of the we’re at the low end of other cities who are increasing the taxes because they need to and this isn’t a case madam presiding officer where people aren’t going to come to the city because we’ve raised it by a point they’re going to come to the city anyway and they’re going to enjoy dining and and overnight accommodations and it’s one point and it’s not going to make a big difference so I will be gladly I will be voting against referral and I will be supporting the motion thank you thank you anyone else on the referral okay counselor you have a lesson two and a half minutes go ahead I don’t think I’m very clear because everything that will set even including the last two counselors I don’t agree I don’t disagree with them but again we have a group I don’t get repeated again we have a group that’s collecting tax for us funds for us we have a group that feels done or being heard that being just directed we have an opportunity again we are not losing the time again it’s from first of January so when I hear when I heard here that again it’s an opportunity of the funds there isn’t till January 2026 there is no additional funds on the table whatsoever we heard from our staff that it will take three months to implement and we are not giving an opportunity to the group that has been doing a great job for us last six years to be heard they didn’t say I hear here did they say that against it the the increase he never even said that they didn’t make it a such a statement all they ask is before you give us a direction let’s talk let’s talk let’s talk with the staff let’s talk and that’s what they’re asking for so whatever I heard here from previous come from other counselors that we are losing money that there’s this that’s not true January 2026 we are not touching anything till then if there’s anyone that have a different suggestions all I want them before we do this direction of one percent increase all I want this group to be heard that’s all they want okay thank you I have Deputy Mayor Lewis on the referral you two minutes and 24 seconds remaining I promised not to use it all because I keep hearing all they want is to be heard and respectfully read clause C civic administration be further directed in consultation with tourism London and these associations have representatives on the tourism London board to report back to the appropriate standing committees with recommendations to counsel for any updates to the tourism infrastructure reserve fund allocation policy and strategic investments if they don’t like or don’t think that the way the money is being spent is benefiting them clause C gives them the opportunity to participate so they have a chance to provide feedback to come and talk they’ve had a chance since April to provide feedback and come and talk it’s not about how much if it’s about how the money is being spent whether it’s the matte allocation which has a great policy that other municipalities are actually copying to use that tourism London has established for how its 50% is used and take a look at Kingston’s it’s a carbon copy of ours because our staff did a great job the tourism London staff did a great job of creating that but that is what clause C is about it’s not there should be no discussion with the industry about whether we’re having it at 4% or 5% because they’re not paying it they’re collecting it from a bill we’re deciding what the tax rate is if they want to have a conversation about how it’s being spent that is exactly what clause C does and that says report back to the appropriate standing committees so what ever timeline that is doesn’t matter it’s about getting the 1% increase directed so that staff have the time outside of the annual budget update process to go through the steps and not on the three month fast track but to be able to balance that with all their other work to bring forward the increase so that it can take effect had we really wanted to just do this without consultation we would have brought this forward to you in April and said make it effective January 1 2025 and given the staff the summer to work on it but we didn’t we’ve taken the time to ask around to have some conversations and so and there’s an opportunity for further conversations in clause C thank you any further speakers on the referral before we call the vote seeing none in chambers and no one piping up online we’ll look to open the vote closing the vote motion fails 1 to 13 thank you you want me to keep the chair for the rest or you okay thank you all right so on the main motion just looking for any additional speakers I see Councillor Hopkins and Councillor Chaso go ahead Councillor Hopkins thank you madam presiding chair and I want to thank Councilor Pribble first of all as much as I didn’t support the referral I did appreciate the conversation this is committee this is where we are able to debate and understand motions coming forward Miss Finn I think what sold me in terms of supporting this increase because the fact that other cities are doing it wasn’t a big selling feature for me but when I hear what the tourism London is doing in our city the increase in tourism the support of our city being in a UNESCO music city all those things matter and it does tell me that tourism London is doing a great job so thank you for that also what I sold me on supporting this 1% increase was the fact that infrastructure is increasing and the cost to replace via boilers or renovations is going to be harder to obtain to get that funding and our organizations are going to be challenged so this is an opportunity where we can spread that wealth I’m glad that C is included in the motion I would encourage the industry the hotel groups out there to reach out to us it’s standing committees and to us on our phones and to share their concerns with us as well those are still opportunities that that they have to go forward and I’ll be supporting this motion and again appreciate the debate we’ve had here thank you I’ll go to Councillor Trozzo well the one concern I want to raise and I’m not going to put anything on the table right now because I think this is a bigger discussion we have to have it I’m really worried about the leakage in the loss of revenue that we’re not getting from the Airbnb industry we’ve spoken I’ve raised some of my concerns about the enforcement of our Airbnb by well I’m not going to put it I’m not going to put something on the table now but thank you Councillor I’ll just remind you to tie it back into the conversation on the map I am going to tie it back into the conversation in the map because if I if I I think that there’s a certain equity for the hotel years and the people if people can go off to Airbnb and not go to hotels knowing that the the Airbnb industry is not complying with this that’s a fundamental question of unfairness and again I’m not putting anything on the table now I just want to mark my dissatisfaction with what I what I perceived to be happening and I would like to see a report on that that’s a different committee and I’ll just leave it at that but I have to say something about the Airbnb industry thank you Councillor Perble next I do not have the original speakers list so I do not know how much time you have remaining but while you’re speaking we’ll figure that out I don’t think I’ll be very long ago but by the way I do I agree with Councillor Trost so just said this Airbnb is 100% I just want to let you know I just want to reiterate a couple of things tourism London these funds for municipality for tourism London are fantastic 100% support of it will support it right from the beginning you know any initiatives that came doesn’t matter if it was the grand theater if it’s the bids makes complete sense and it’s great benefits tourism London doing a great job in it maximizing this these funds all great I’ll tell you right now if the industry would know that this is in front of us today I would avoid it I would avoid it yes yes yes that’s not my point I’m even supported with the five my thing is that the industry that’s collecting these funds for us they were surprised sort no door they are still surprised today that this is in front of us on the table today that’s all it’s about so again if they were aware of it I’m all for it and again we see it here in the motion into other municipalities it makes sense that’s not a point the point is that they are collecting for us and they have something you know always call it kind of the best decisions are not made about you without you and this is the thing that kind of that I felt they weren’t hurt is it a good thing for our city municipal tourism London absolute latest there was the only point I was trying to make that we are doing deciding and the sector who is collecting it for us is not aware of it that we are deciding today that’s all it was about thank you thank you any other speakers on the main motion seeing none here and no one speaking up online I will look to call the vote losing the vote motion carries 13 to 1 thank you I will return the chair to Deputy Mayor Lewis thank you madam presiding officer and thank you for steering us through that piece of of our debate today colleagues that concludes our public agenda we’ve made our way through our consent our items for direction under deferred matters we do have one matter to be discussed in closed session that is a labor relations employee negotiations land acquisition disposition solicitor client privilege advice matter and so I’m going to look for a mover to take us into confidential session and that’s been moved by Councillor ramen and seconded by Councillor Stevenson and we will ask clerk to open the vote on that losing the vote motion carries 14 to 0 thank you colleagues so we will just get the appropriate people in the room let everyone else I’m going to call the 14th meeting of the strategic priorities and policy committee back to order from our closed session and I will turn to Vice Chair ramen to report out thank you I’m happy to report the progress is made on the item we went in camera for thank you Councillor that concludes our agenda so all we need now is a motion to adjourn and that is moved by Councillor Ferrera and seconded by Councillor Stevenson and by hand all in favor motion carries thank you colleagues we are adjourned