Open Council

1st Meeting of City Council

Open Council

1st Meeting of City Council

December 17, 2024, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:04 PM; it being noted that Councillors P. Van Meerbergen, E. Peloza (4:48 PM) and S. Hillier were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED Councillor S. Stevenson discloses a pecuniary interest in item 6.1, Communications and Petitions, having to do with the Integrity Commissioner’s Recommendation Report Regarding Councillor S. Stevenson by indicating that the recommendation consists of a suspension in pay.

That it BE NOTED Councillor E. Peloza discloses a pecuniary interest in item 17, clause 3.9 of the 1st Report of the Planning and Environment Committee having to do with the property located at 1922 Highland Heights and 205 Commissioners Road East by indicating that she resides within the notification area of the subject lands.

That it BE NOTED Councillor J. Pribil discloses a pecuniary interest in item 4, clause 2.1 of the 1st Report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee having to do with Film London - LEDC Purchase of Service Agreement Amendment by indicating that his son is contemplating seeking project support from Film London.

2.   Recognitions

None.

3.   Review of Confidential Matters to be Considered in Public

None.

4.   Council, In Closed Session

Motion made by A. Hopkins

Seconded by P. Cuddy

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

4.1 Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice / Litigation/Potential Litigation

A matter being considered pertains to advice that is subject to solicitor client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose from the solicitor and officers or employees of the Corporation; the subject matter pertains to litigation or potential litigation with respect to appeals related to the property located at 1494 Commissioners Road West at the Ontario Land Tribunal (“OLT”), and for the purpose of providing instructions and directions to officers and employees of the Corporation. (6.1/1/PEC)

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

A matter pertaining to the proposed or pending disposition of land by the municipality, including communications necessary for that purpose; advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege; commercial and financial information, that belongs to the municipality and has monetary value or potential monetary value and a position, plan, procedure, criteria or instruction to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality. (6.1/1/ICSC)

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

A matter pertaining to the proposed or pending disposition of land by the municipality, including communications necessary for that purpose; advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege; commercial and financial information, that belongs to the municipality and has monetary value or potential monetary value and a position, plan, procedure, criteria or instruction to be applied to any negotiations carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality. (6.2/1/ICSC)

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

That Council convenes In Closed Session from 1:12 PM to 1:19 PM.

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

Motion made by S. Franke

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the Minutes of the 18th and 19th Meetings of the Municipal Council, held on November 26 and 27, 2024, respectively, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

At 1:20 PM, Deputy Mayor leaves the meeting.

At 1:25 PM, Deputy Mayor enters the meeting.

6.   Communications and Petitions

Motion made by E. Peloza

Seconded by S. Franke

That the following communications BE RECEIVED, and BE REFERRED as noted on the Added Agenda:

6.2  Request to Remove the Heritage Listed Property at 1927 Richmond Street from the Register of Cultural Heritage Resources        

  1.    R. Finch, President, Finch Auto Group        

  2.    K. McLeod        

  3.    (ADDED) D. Peck and N. Macdonald

6.3  Land Needs Assessment - Official Plan Review of The London Plan (O-9595)        

  1.    Colliers Project Leaders Inc. for the City of London        

  2.    A. Johnson        

  3.    (ADDED) B. Amendola, Community and Social Service Volunteer

6.4  Final Report - 2024 Ward Boundary Review        

  1.    M. Murray, President, Westminster Township Historical Society        

  2.    (ADDED) Ward Boundary Review – Final Option 1, as amended - M. Schulthess, City Clerk        

  3.    (ADDED) Councillor H. McAlister

6.5  (ADDED) Upper Thames River Conservation Authority Service Level Review and Thames River Draft Floodplain Update - Status Update        

  1.    (ADDED) T. Annett, General Manager, UTRCA

6.6  (ADDED) Site Plan Control Area By-law: Housekeeping and Council Directed Amendments        

  1.    (ADDED) S. Rouleau on behalf of Bumble Bee Gardens

6.7  (ADDED) 21-41 Meadowlily Road North and 20 Norlan Avenue        

  1.    (ADDED) Councillor H. McAlister

6.8  (ADDED) 415 Oxford Street West (OZ-9789)        

  1.    (ADDED) T. Whitney, Intermediate Planner, Zelinka Priamo LTD

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

6.1   Integrity Commissioner’s Recommendation Report Regarding Councillor Susan Stevenson

2024-12-17 Submission - IC Report re Councillor Stevenson

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, with respect to the Integrity Commissioner’s Recommendation Report Regarding Councillor S. Stevenson, the following actions be taken:

a)    that the Integrity Commissioner’s Recommendation Report dated November 29, 2024 BE RECEIVED; and

b)    that in consideration of the Integrity Commissioner’s Findings regarding the breach of Council’s Code of Conduct in the above noted report, the remuneration paid to Councillor S. Stevenson BE SUSPENDED for a period of 30 days;

it being noted that the communications on the Added Agenda, from Councillor S. Stevenson, with respect to this matter, were received.

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the motion be amended in part b) to read as follows:

b)    that in consideration of the Integrity Commissioner’s Findings regarding the breach of Council’s Code of Conduct in the above noted report, the remuneration paid to Councillor S. Stevenson BE SUSPENDED for a period of 5 days;

Motion Failed (5 to 9)

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by Mayor J. Morgan

That the Council recess at this time, for 10 minutes.

Motion Passed

The Council recesses at 2:13 PM and reconvenes at 2:26 PM.

At 2:28 PM, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis enters the meeting.

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, with respect to the Integrity Commissioner’s Recommendation Report Regarding Councillor S. Stevenson, the following actions be taken:

a)    that the Integrity Commissioner’s Recommendation Report dated November 29, 2024 BE RECEIVED; and

it being noted that the communications on the Added Agenda, from Councillor S. Stevenson, with respect to this matter, were received.

Motion Passed (14 to 0)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

b)    that in consideration of the Integrity Commissioner’s Findings regarding the breach of Council’s Code of Conduct in the above noted report, the remuneration paid to Councillor S. Stevenson BE SUSPENDED for a period of 30 days;

Motion Passed (8 to 6)

Item 6.1 reads as follows:

That, with respect to the Integrity Commissioner’s Recommendation Report Regarding Councillor S. Stevenson, the following actions be taken:

a)    that the Integrity Commissioner’s Recommendation Report dated November 29, 2024 BE RECEIVED;

b)    that in consideration of the Integrity Commissioner’s Findings regarding the breach of Council’s Code of Conduct in the above noted report, the remuneration paid to Councillor S. Stevenson BE SUSPENDED for a period of 30 days;

it being noted that the communications as appended to the Added Agenda, from Councillor S. Stevenson, with respect to this matter, was received.

7.   Motions of Which Notice is Given

None.

8.   Reports

8.1   1st Report of the Planning and Environment Committee

2024-12-03 PEC Report 1-Full

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the 1st Report of the Planning and Environment Committee BE APPROVED, , with the exception of items 14 (3.6), 17 (3.9), 18 (3.10), 20 (3.12) and 22 (3.14).

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

8.1.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by S. Lehman

That it BE NOTED Councillor E. Peloza discloses a pecuniary interest in item 3.9 having to do with the property located at 1922 Highland Heights and 205 Commissioners Road East by indicating that she resides within the notification area of the subject lands.

Motion Passed

8.1.2   (2.1) Planning & Development and Building Monthly Housing Update - 2024-Year-To-Date

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the staff report dated December 3, 2024 entitled “Planning & Development and Building Housing Update - 2024 Year-To-Date” BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.1.3   (2.2) Passage of Heritage Designating By-law - 247 Halls Mills Road (Relates to Bill No. 21)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix A, to designate the property located at 247 Halls Mill Road to be of cultural heritage value or interest BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024; it being noted that this matter has been considered by the Community Advisory Committee on Planning and public notice has been completed with respect to the designation in compliance with the requirements of the Ontario Heritage Act.

Motion Passed

8.1.4   (2.3) Upper Thames River Conservation Authority Service Level Review and Thames River Draft Floodplain Update - Status Update

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the staff report dated December 3, 2024, entitled “Upper Thames River Conservation Authority Service Level Review and Thames River Draft Floodplain Update – Status Update” BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.1.5   (2.4) Amendments to the Upgrade to Building Code Loan and Façade Improvement Loan Program Guidelines (Relates to Bill No.’s  10, 11, 12, 13,14 &15)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to amending the Upgrade to Building Code Loan Program and Façade Improvement Loan Program Guidelines:

a)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to AMEND By-law C.P.-1467-175, as amended, being A By-law to establish financial incentives for the Downtown Community Improvement Project Area, by DELETING Schedule “1” and REPLACING it with Schedule “1” a revised Downtown Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024;

b)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to AMEND By-law C.P.-1468-176, as amended, being A By-law to establish financial incentives for the Old East Village Community Improvement Project Area, by DELETING Schedule “1” and REPLACING it with Schedule “1” a revised Old East Village Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024;

c)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “C” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to AMEND By-law C.P.-1521-13, as amended, being A By-law to establish financial incentives for the SoHo Community Improvement Project Area, by DELETING Schedule “1” and REPLACING it with Schedule “1” a revised SoHo Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024;

d)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “D” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to AMEND By-law C.P.-1527-248, as amended, being A By-law to establish financial incentives for the Hamilton Road Area Community Improvement Project Area, by DELETING Schedule “1” and REPLACING it with Schedule “1” a revised Hamilton Road Area Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024;

e)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “E” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to AMEND By-law C.P.-1539-220, as amended, being A By-law to establish financial incentives for the Lambeth Area Community Improvement Project Area, by DELETING Schedule “1” and REPLACING it with Schedule “1” a revised Lambeth Area Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines; appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024; and,

f)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “F” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to AMEND By-law C.P.-1570-330, as amended, being A By-law to establish financial incentives for the Argyle Core Area Community Improvement Project Area, by DELETING Schedule “1” and REPLACING it with Schedule “1” a revised The Argyle Core Area Community Improvement Plan – Financial Incentive Program Guidelines appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024.

Motion Passed

8.1.6   (2.5) Limiting Distance (No Build) Agreement between The Corporation of the City of London and the owners of 2537 Bridgehaven Drive (Relates to Bill No. 3)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken in respect of a limiting distance (no-build) agreement between the Corporation of the City of London and XO Homes (2537 Bridgehaven Drive, London, Ontario):

a)    the proposed limiting distance agreement appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 for the property at 2537 Bridgehaven Drive between The Corporation of the City of London and XO Homes BE APPROVED; and,

b)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 3, 2024, to approve the limiting distance agreement between The Corporation of the City of London and XO Homes for the property at 2537 Bridgehaven Drive, and to delegate authority to the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure to execute the agreement on behalf of the City of London as the adjacent property owner.

Motion Passed

8.1.7   (2.6) Review of Minister’s Zoning Orders

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the staff report dated December 3, 2024 entitled “Review of Minister’s Zoning Orders” BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.1.8   (2.7) 11th Report of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the 11th Report of the Ecological Community Advisory Committee, from its meeting held on November 21, 2024, BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed

8.1.9   (3.1) 11th Report of the Community Advisory Committee on Planning

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, the following actions be taken with respect to the 11th report of the Community Advisory Committee on Planning, from its meeting held on November 13, 2024:

a)    the Community Advisory Committee on Planning Listed Property Work Plan BE APPROVED; and,

b)    clauses 1.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1 to 5.3 BE RECEIVED for information;

it being noted that the Planning and Environment Committee heard a verbal delegation from J.M. Metrailler, Chair, Community Advisory Committee on Planning, with respect to these matters.

Motion Passed

8.1.10   (3.2) 1472 Dundas Street (Z-9788) (Relates to Bill No. 31)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of 2288711 Ontario Inc., relating to the property located at 1472 Dundas Street:

a)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024 to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Community Shopping Area (CSA1) Zone TO a Residential R9 Special Provision (R9-7(_)H35D350) Zone;

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

i)    landscaping to include at minimum 50% native species, with no invasive species planted;

ii)    investigate renewable sources of energy such as solar for the roof and sides of the building, and geothermal for interior heating and cooling;

iii)    investigate air source heat pump options; and,

iv)    apply bird friendly policies using the CSA standard;

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

  •    the presentation from K. Wahdat, Weston Consulting;

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

  •    R. Lamichhane, Weston Consulting;

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

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, 2024 (PPS);

  •    the recommended amendment conforms to The London Plan, including, but not limited to the Key Directions, City Design and Building policies, and the Urban Corridor Place Type policies; and,

  •    the recommended amendment would permit an appropriate form of development at an intensity that is appropriate for the site and surrounding neighbourhood;

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

Motion Passed

8.1.11   (3.3) 325 Southdale Road West (Z-9794) (Relates to Bill No. 32)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, based on the application of Sandhyaji Homes Inc., (c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd.), relating to the property located at 325 Southdale Road East, the proposed by-law appended to the December 3, 2024 Planning and Environment Committee Added Agenda as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Residential R3 (R3-3) Zone TO a Holding Residential R5 Special Provision (*R5-6(_)) Zone;

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

  •    the revised by-law;

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

  •    A. Richards, Planner, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;

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

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, 2024 (PPS), which encourages growth in settlements areas and land use patterns based on densities and a mix of land uses that provide for a range of uses and opportunities for intensification and redevelopment;

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

  •    the recommended amendment conforms to the Southwest Area Secondary Plan, including but not limited to the North Longwoods Neighbourhood policies; and,

  • the recommended amendment would permit an appropriate form of development at an intensity that is appropriate for the site and surrounding neighbourhood;

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

Motion Passed

8.1.12   (3.4) 952 Southdale Road West (Z-9787) (Relates to Bill No. 33)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, based on the application of Forest Edge Commons Inc., (c/o Monteith Brown Planning Consultants), relating to the property located at 952 Southdale Road West, the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to amend the zoning of a portion of the subject property BY AMENDING the Community Shopping Area Special Provision (CSA1(6)) Zone;

it being noted that no individuals spoke at the public participation meeting associated with these matters;

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

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 (PPS); 

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

  •    the recommended amendment would permit a complementary use that is considered appropriate within the surrounding context;

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

Motion Passed

8.1.13   (3.5) 691 Fanshawe Park Road East (Z-9800) (Relates to Bill No. 34)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, based on the application of Mamdouh Ahmed, (c/o Monteith Brown Planning Consultants), relating to the property located at 691 Fanshawe Park Road East, the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024 to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Residential R1 (R1-9) Zone TO a Residential R5 Special Provision (R5-7(  )) Zone;

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

  •    the presentation from B. Senkevics, Monteith Brown Planning Consultants;

 

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

  •    B. Senkevics, Monteith Brown Planning Consultants; and,

  •    G. Bloch;

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

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 (PPS);

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

  •    the recommended amendment would permit an appropriate form of development at an intensity that is appropriate for the context of the site and surrounding neighbourhood;

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

Motion Passed

8.1.15   (3.7) Request to demolish the building at 93 King Street

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the application made under Section 42 of the Ontario Heritage Act seeking approval to demolish the existing building on the property at 93 King Street, within the Downtown Heritage Conservation District, BE PERMITTED subject to the term and condition that, following the demolition of the current building, decorative wrought iron fencing and all-season landscaping be installed by the property owner along the King Street frontage of the property as shown in Appendix C as an interim condition prior to the future redevelopment of the property;

it being noted that no individuals spoke at the public participation meeting associated with these matters;

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

Motion Passed

8.1.16   (3.8) Site Plan Control Area By-law: Housekeeping and Council Directed Amendments (Relates to Bill No.’s 16 & 35)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to implementing house-keeping amendments and sustainability measures to the Site Plan Control By-law as follows:

a)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024 to amend By-law C.P.-1455-541, as amended, entitled the “Site Plan Control By-law”, to add the following:

i)    exempt classes of development for less than 10 residential units, portables associated with school boards, colleges and universities;

ii)    remove references to mandatory pre-application consultation;

iii)    require bird-friendly standards for city facilities design standards; and,

iv)    encourage a minimum amount of native species for landscaping.

b)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024 to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to add the following:

i)    a minimum number of electric vehicle charging stations for new development;

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

  •    a communication dated November 27, 2024 from A. Vandersluis, Development Manager, Auburn Developments;

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

  •    M. Wallace, Executive Director, London Development Institute;

  •    B. Samuels; and,

  •    B. Salt, Salthaven;

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

  •    the proposed amendments align the Site Plan Control By-law with recent Provincial changes; and,

  •    the proposed sustainability measures implement The London Plan policies that encourage bird-friendly design, native planting species and future-ready developments that can accommodate electrical vehicle charging;

it being further noted that the Civic Administration will report back to the Municipal Council with an update regarding the Green Development Guidelines in Q1 2025. Staff will review the legislative framework and municipal best practices to implement sustainable building construction features, and provide a scope and timeline for the preparation of the Guidelines;

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

Motion Passed

8.1.19   (3.11) 4040 Colonel Talbot Road (OZ-9796) (Relates to Bill No.’s 17 & 38)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of Sifton Properties Limited, relating to the property located at 4040 Colonel Talbot Road:

a)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend the Southwest Area Plan (SWAP), for the City of London to change the designation of the subject lands FROM Low Density Residential TO Medium Density Residential on Schedule 4 Southwest Area Land Use Plan, and Schedule 6 Lambeth Residential Neighbourhood Land Use Designations;

b)    the proposed by-law appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan as amended in part a) above), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM an Urban Reserve (UR3) Zone TO a Residential R8 Special Provision (R8-4(_)) Zone;

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

i)    ensure the front face and principal unit entrances for Block D are oriented toward Colonel Talbot Road;

ii)    explore opportunities to reduce the amount of paved area on site in favour of more landscaped area;

iii)    provide a centrally located and adequately sized common outdoor amenity space; and,

iv)    enhanced tree planting and landscaping;

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

  •    B. Wansbrough;

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

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 (PPS), which encourages growth in settlements areas and land use patterns based on densities and a mix of land uses that provide for a range of uses and opportunities for intensification and redevelopment; 

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

  •    the recommended amendments conform to the Southwest Area Secondary Plan, including but not limited to the Lambeth Residential Neighbourhood policies; and,

  •    the recommended amendment facilitates intensification of an underutilized site at an intensity that is appropriate for the site and within the existing and planned context;

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

Motion Passed

8.1.21   (3.13) City-Wide Holding Provision Symbol Review (Z-9762) (Relates to Bill No. 39)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, based on the application by The Corporation of the City of London, relating to the City-Wide Holding Provision Symbol Review, the proposed by-law appended to the December 3, 2024 Planning and Environment Committee as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to AMEND Section 3.8(2) (“Holding Zone Provisions”) By-law No. Z.-1 with an updated list of holding provisions available for use and to adjust the zoning of the subject properties to reflect the revisions to Section 3.8(2);

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

  •    the staff presentation; and,

  •    the revised by-law;

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

  •    M. Wallace, Executive Director, London Development Institute;

  •    F. Feldman, on behalf of John Sivak;

  •    J. Johnson, on behalf of D. Matthews;

  •    J. Zaifman, London Home Builders Association;

  •    M. Moussa; and,

  •    B. Rosser, on behalf of Shleigel Villages;

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

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Policy Statement, 2024;

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Planning Act; and,

  •    the recommended amendment supports Council’s goals in the 2019-2023 Strategic Plan, to improve the delivery of service;

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

Motion Passed

8.1.23   (4.1) Deferred Matters List

Motion made by S. Lehman

That the Deferred List BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.1.14   (3.6) Request to remove the Heritage Listed Property at 1927 Richmond Street from the Register of Cultural Heritage Resources

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the property located at 1927 Richmond Street BE REMOVED from the Register of Cultural Heritage Resources;

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

  •    a communication dated November 27, 2024 from A. Winder;

  •    a communication dated November 27, 2024 from D. Jordan, Executive Superintendent of Business and Corporate Services, London District Catholic School Board;

  •    a communication dated November 25, 2024 from A. Thompson;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from B. Perry;

  •    a communication from Dr. C. Drake;

  •    a communication dated November 27, 2024 from G. Cook;

  •    a communication dated November 27, 2024 from Jill;

  •    a communication dated November 27, 2024 from L. Hamilton Smit;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from M. Allistone;

  •    a communication dated November 29, 2024 from M. Thompson;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from M. Tucker;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from S. Kosar;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from C. Dykeman;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from E. Kennedy;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from S. Jackson;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from C. Ryan;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from D. Thompson;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from C. Thompson;

  •    a communication from J. Grainger;

  •    a communication dated November 29, 2024 from R. Merrison;

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from J. Marsh; and,

  •    a communication dated November 30, 2024 from Dr. J. P. Stevens;

 

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

  •    M Rivard, Senior Heritage Consultant, Stantec Consulting; and,

  •    C. Drake;

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

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

8.1.17   (3.9) 1922 Highland Heights and 205 Commissioners Road East (Relates to Bill No. 36)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of Highland Golf & Country Club, c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd., relating to the property located at 1922 Highland Heights and 205 Commissioners Road East:

a)    the proposed revised, attached, by-law as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024 to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject properties at 1922 Highland Heights and 205 Commissioners Road East FROM a Residential R1 (R1-9) Zone TO Residential R1 Special Provision (R1-9()) Zone and a Holding Open Space Special Provision (h-101*OS1()) Zone;

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

i)    enhanced landscape buffering along the north and west property boundaries that exceed the minimum requirements of the Site Plan Control By-law;

ii)    installation of a board-on-board fence, exceeding the height requirements of the Site Plan Control By-law, along the north property boundary;

iii)    removal of the access between the existing single detached dwelling and west property boundary;

iv)    the Development Agreement shall reflect the need for an easement should the parcels be placed in separate ownership in the future;

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

  •    a communication dated November 29, 2024 from K. Crowley, Senior Planner, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;

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

  •    K. Crowley, Senior Planner, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;

  •    J. Schreff;

  •    M. Katsmenis;

  •    L. Pereira;

  •    Y. Leong;

  •    A. Balassone;

  •    K. Beck;

  •    C. McLaurin; and,

  •    D. Doueck;

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

  •    the recommended amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which promotes economic development and competitiveness by encouraging the intensification of employment uses;

  •    the recommended amendment conforms to the policies of The London Plan, including but not limited to, the Green Space Place Type, City Building Policies, and Our Tools; and,

  •    the recommended amendment facilitates the development of a maintenance building that is accessory to the existing golf course and appropriate for the site and surrounding neighbourhood;

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

Motion Passed (9 to 5)

8.1.18   (3.10) 21-41 Meadowlily Road North and 20 Norlan Avenue (Relates to Bill No. 37)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of 2812347 Ontario Inc., c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd., relating to the property located at 21-41 Meadowlily Road North and 20 Norlan Avenue:

a)    the proposed revised, attached, by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Holding Residential R5 Special Provision Bonus (h-17h-100R5-7(26)B-94) Zone TO a Holding Residential R5 Special Provision (hR5-7(26)) Zone; and,

b)    pursuant to subsection 34(17) of the Planning Act, no further notice be given;

it being noted that the applicant has committed to the following:

i)    providing new playgrounds for Ealing and Trafalgar Elementary Public Schools; and, 

ii)    constructing a sewer line, at their cost, to the Urban Roots property at 21 Norlan Avenue, subject to future approvals by the Board of Urban Roots;

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

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from Councillor H. McAlister, Ward 1 Councillor;

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

  •    L. Jamieson, Planner, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;and,

  •    A. Badillo, Urban Roots;

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

  •    the requested amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which directs municipalities to support the achievement of complete communities by improving social equity and overall quality of life for people of all ages, abilities, and incomes; and,

  •    the proposed density can be appropriately accommodated on the subject lands and is  compatible with the surrounding neighbourhood;

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

Motion made by H. McAlister

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the motion be amended to delete part b) ii) “constructing a sewer line, at their cost, to the Urban Roots property at 21 Norlan Avenue, subject to future approvals by the Board of Urban Roots;” and replace it with a new part b) ii) to read as follows:

b) ii)   a donation to Urban Roots by Royal Premier Homes, the amount and specific project allocation to be determined by the respective parties at a later date.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

At 3:16 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan, places Deputy Mayor S. Lewis in the Chair.

At 3:17 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan resumes the Chair.

Motion made by A. Hopkins

Seconded by H. McAlister

That item 18, clause 3.10, as amended, BE APPROVED in part as follows:

That, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of 2812347 Ontario Inc., c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd., relating to the property located at 21-41 Meadowlily Road North and 20 Norlan Avenue:

a)    the proposed revised, attached, by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Holding Residential R5 Special Provision Bonus (h-17h-100R5-7(26)B-94) Zone TO a Holding Residential R5 Special Provision (hR5-7(26)) Zone; and,

b)    pursuant to subsection 34(17) of the Planning Act, no further notice be given;

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

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from Councillor H. McAlister, Ward 1 Councillor;

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

  •    L. Jamieson, Planner, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;and,

  •    A. Badillo, Urban Roots;

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

  •    the requested amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which directs municipalities to support the achievement of complete communities by improving social equity and overall quality of life for people of all ages, abilities, and incomes; and,

  •    the proposed density can be appropriately accommodated on the subject lands and is  compatible with the surrounding neighbourhood;

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

Motion Passed (11 to 4)

Motion made by A. Hopkins

Seconded by H. McAlister

That item 18, clause 3.10, as amended, BE APPROVED in part as follows:

it being noted that the applicant has committed to the following:

i)    providing new playgrounds for Ealing and Trafalgar Elementary Public Schools; and, 

ii)   a donation to Urban Roots by Royal Premier Homes, the amount and specific project allocation to be determined by the respective parties at a later date.

Motion Passed (11 to 4)

Item 18, clause 3.10, as amended, reads as follows:

That, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of 2812347 Ontario Inc., c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd., relating to the property located at 21-41 Meadowlily Road North and 20 Norlan Avenue:

a)    the proposed revised, attached, by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, (in conformity with the Official Plan for the City of London, 2016), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Holding Residential R5 Special Provision Bonus (h-17h-100R5-7(26)B-94) Zone TO a Holding Residential R5 Special Provision (hR5-7(26)) Zone; and,

b)    pursuant to subsection 34(17) of the Planning Act, no further notice be given;

it being noted that the applicant has committed to the following:

i)    providing new playgrounds for Ealing and Trafalgar Elementary Public Schools; and, 

ii)   a donation to Urban Roots by Royal Premier Homes, the amount and specific project allocation to be determined by the respective parties at a later date.

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

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2024 from Councillor H. McAlister, Ward 1 Councillor;

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

  •    L. Jamieson, Planner, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;and,

  •    A. Badillo, Urban Roots;

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

  •    the requested amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which directs municipalities to support the achievement of complete communities by improving social equity and overall quality of life for people of all ages, abilities, and incomes; and,

  •    the proposed density can be appropriately accommodated on the subject lands and is  compatible with the surrounding neighbourhood;

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

8.1.20   (3.12) 415 Oxford Street West (OZ-9789)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of RAND Developments, (c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd.), relating to the property located at 415 Oxford Street West:

a)    the request to amend the Official Plan, The London Plan, by AMENDING an existing policy in the Specific Policies for the Neighbourhoods Place Type of the Official Plan, BE REFUSED for the following reasons:

i)    the requested amendment does not satisfy the criteria for adoption of Specific Area Policies;

ii)    the requested amendment does not facilitate an appropriate form of residential intensification that is sensitive to existing (and future) neighbourhoods and does not represent a good fit, as required by the intensity and residential intensification policies for the Neighbourhoods Place Type; and,

iii)    the requested amendment does not conform to Policy 86_ of The London Plan that directs the most intense forms of development to the Downtown, Transit Villages and along the Rapid Transit Corridors in which the requested height permissions better align;

b)    the request to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1 to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Commercial Recreational (CR) Zone and Open Space (OS4) Zone TO a Residential R10 Special Provision/ Community Shopping Area Special Provision (R10-3()/CSA1()) Zone and Open Space (OS4) Zone, BE REFUSED for the following reasons:

i)    the requested amendment is not consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which directs municipalities to support the achievement of complete communities by improving social equity and overall quality of life for people of all ages, abilities, and incomes;

ii)    the requested amendment is not in conformity with The London Plan, including but not limited to the Key Directions, City Building policies, and the Neighbourhoods Place Type policies;

iii)    the requested amendment is not appropriate within the existing and planned context; and,

iv)    the requested amendment is considered premature as it is contingent upon the outcome of the ultimate floodplain limits following the Mud Creek Realignment, and development is dependent on servicing and access from the adjacent Draft Plan of Subdivision;

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

  •    a communication dated November 29, 2024 from T. Whitney, Intermediate Planner, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;

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

  •    T. Whitney, Intermediate Planner, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;

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

  •    the requested amendment does not satisfy the criteria for adoption of Specific Area Policies;

  •    the requested amendment does not facilitate an appropriate form of residential intensification that is sensitive to existing (and future) neighbourhoods and does not represent a good fit, as required by the intensity and residential intensification policies for the Neighbourhoods Place Type; and,

  •    the requested amendment does not conform to Policy 86_ of The London Plan that directs the most intense forms of development to the Downtown, Transit Villages and along the Rapid Transit Corridors in which the requested height permissions better align;

  •    the requested amendment is not consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which directs municipalities to support the achievement of complete communities by improving social equity and overall quality of life for people of all ages, abilities, and incomes;

  •    the requested amendment is not in conformity with The London Plan, including but not limited to the Key Directions, City Building policies, and the Neighbourhoods Place Type policies;

  •    the requested amendment is not appropriate within the existing and planned context; and,

  •    the requested amendment is considered premature as it is contingent upon the outcome of the ultimate floodplain limits following the Mud Creek Realignment, and development is dependent on servicing and access from the adjacent Draft Plan of Subdivision;

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

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the motion be amended to read as follows:

That the staff report with respect to the application of RAND Developments, (c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd.), relating to the property located at 415 Oxford Street West BE RECEIVED.

it being noted that Civic Administration received a withdrawal of application request from the applicant.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by S. Lewis

That item 20, clause 3.12, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Item 20, clause 3.12, as amended, reads as follows:

That the staff report with respect to the application of RAND Developments, (c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd.), relating to the property located at 415 Oxford Street West BE RECEIVED.

it being noted that Civic Administration received a withdrawal of application request from the applicant.

8.1.22   (3.14) Land Needs Assessment - Official Plan Review of The London Plan (O-9595)

Motion made by S. Lehman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the Section 26 Official Plan Review of The London Plan:

a)    the Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth) appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE ADOPTED for use as part of Phase 1B of the Section 26 Review of The London Plan;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to initiate an Urban Growth Boundary Review for inclusion of approximately 1,476 hectares of developable land to accommodate planned growth, consistent with the Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth) using a 30 year planning horizon;

c)    the Housing Supply Marketplace Analysis, appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “B”, dated November 2024 prepared by Colliers Project Leaders Inc. for the City of London BE RECEIVED;

d)    the Province BE REQUESTED to support an Urban Growth Boundary expansion of approximately 2,000 hectares of developable land to accelerate London’s new housing supply, considering the Housing Supply Marketplace Analysis and the Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth);

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to develop an alternate scenario of approximately 2,000 hectares of developable land to be used if Provincial support is received;

f)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to receive landowner requests for candidate properties to be evaluated for potential inclusion within the urban area of the city as part of the Urban Growth Boundary Review; and,

g)    the staff report dated December 3, 2024 entitled “Final Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth: Official Plan Review of The London Plan” BE RECEIVED for information;

it being noted that the findings of the Urban Growth Boundary Review, including evaluation of landowner requests and blocks identified for evaluation by Civic Administration, is to be brought forward to a future meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee for Council adoption and circulation to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing for Ministry Approval;

it being further noted that the development of lands within the Urban Growth Boundary Review expansion area will proceed as approved by Council through future planning approvals and the annual Growth Management Implementation Strategy process;

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

  •    the staff presentation;

  •    a communication from J-M. Metrailler;

  •    a communication dated December 2, 2024 from A. Johnson; and,

  •    a communication dated December 2, 2024 from P. Maschellin, Senior Vice President, Neighbourhood Development, Sifton Properties Ltd.;

 

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

  •    M. Wallace, Executive Director, London Development Institute;

  •    S. Levin;

  •    J. Zaifman, London Home Builders Association;

  •    M. Moussa;

  •    B. Samuels;

  •    L. Blumer;

  •    J. Novik, London Home Builders Association;

  •    M. A. Hodge; and,

  •    B. Wansbrough;

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

  •    the Land Needs Assessment is a component of an Official Plan review, required to be undertaken by municipalities;

  •    consistent with Section 26 of the Planning Act, the Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth) under Appendix ‘A’ of the December 3rd report, conforms to provincial plans, has regard for matters of Provincial interest, and is consistent with the new Provincial Planning Statement 2024 (PPS); and,

  •    the Land Needs Assessment under Appendix A also conforms with policies of The London Plan and is consistent with Terms of Reference approved by City Council in April 2023;

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

Motion made by S. Franke

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the motion be amended to include new part g) to read as follows:

g)         the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to develop an alternate scenario of approximately 1,130 hectares of developable land to accommodation planned growth;

Motion Failed (7 to 8)

Motion made by S. Franke

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the motion be amended to include new part h) to read as follows:

h)         the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to demonstrably utilize the climate emergency screening tool as part of the Urban Growth Boundary Review;

Motion Failed (6 to 9)

At 3:52 PM, Councillor S. Stevenson leaves the meeting.

At 3:55 PM, Councillor S. Stevenson enters the meeting.

Motion made by S. Franke

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That the motion be amended to include new part i) to read as follows:

i)          that the Mayor, BE REQUESTED to engage in a discussion with local Southwestern Ontario Mayors and Wardens regarding regional growth; and

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That item 20, clause 3.14, as amended, BE APPROVED, with the exception of parts b), d) and e).

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

At 4:18 PM, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis leaves the meeting.

At 4:19 PM, Deputy Mayor S. Lewis enters the meeting.

At 4:22 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan, places Deputy Mayor S. Lewis in the Chair.

At 4:27 PM, His Worship Mayor J. Morgan resumes the Chair.

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That part b) of Item 22, clause 3.14, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (10 to 5)

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That parts d) and e) of item 22, clause 3.14, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (8 to 7)

Item 22, clause 3.14, as amended, reads as follows:

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the Section 26 Official Plan Review of The London Plan:

a)    the Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth) appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE ADOPTED for use as part of Phase 1B of the Section 26 Review of The London Plan;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to initiate an Urban Growth Boundary Review for inclusion of approximately 1,476 hectares of developable land to accommodate planned growth, consistent with the Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth) using a 30 year planning horizon;

c)    the Housing Supply Marketplace Analysis, appended to the staff report dated December 3, 2024 as Appendix “B”, dated November 2024 prepared by Colliers Project Leaders Inc. for the City of London BE RECEIVED;

d)    the Province BE REQUESTED to support an Urban Growth Boundary expansion of approximately 2,000 hectares of developable land to accelerate London’s new housing supply, considering the Housing Supply Marketplace Analysis and the Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth);

e)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to develop an alternate scenario of approximately 2,000 hectares of developable land to be used if Provincial support is received;

f)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to receive landowner requests for candidate properties to be evaluated for potential inclusion within the urban area of the city as part of the Urban Growth Boundary Review;

g)   the Mayor, BE REQUESTED to engage in a discussion with local Southwestern Ontario Mayors and Wardens regarding regional growth; and

h)    the staff report dated December 3, 2024 entitled “Final Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth: Official Plan Review of The London Plan” BE RECEIVED for information;

it being noted that the findings of the Urban Growth Boundary Review, including evaluation of landowner requests and blocks identified for evaluation by Civic Administration, is to be brought forward to a future meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee for Council adoption and circulation to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing for Ministry Approval;

it being further noted that the development of lands within the Urban Growth Boundary Review expansion area will proceed as approved by Council through future planning approvals and the annual Growth Management Implementation Strategy process;

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

  •    the staff presentation;

  •    a communication from J-M. Metrailler;

  •    a communication dated December 2, 2024 from A. Johnson; and,

  •    a communication dated December 2, 2024 from P. Maschellin, Senior Vice President, Neighbourhood Development, Sifton Properties Ltd.;

 

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

  •    M. Wallace, Executive Director, London Development Institute;

  •    S. Levin;

  •    J. Zaifman, London Home Builders Association;

  •    M. Moussa;

  •    B. Samuels;

  •    L. Blumer;

  •    J. Novik, London Home Builders Association;

  •    M. A. Hodge; and,

  •    B. Wansbrough;

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

  •    the Land Needs Assessment is a component of an Official Plan review, required to be undertaken by municipalities;

  •    consistent with Section 26 of the Planning Act, the Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth) under Appendix ‘A’ of the December 3rd report, conforms to provincial plans, has regard for matters of Provincial interest, and is consistent with the new Provincial Planning Statement 2024 (PPS); and,

  •    the Land Needs Assessment under Appendix A also conforms with policies of The London Plan and is consistent with Terms of Reference approved by City Council in April 2023;

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

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by S. Franke

That the Council recess at this time, for 15 minutes.

Motion Passed

The Council recesses at 4:30 PM and reconvenes at 4:48 PM.

8.2   1st Report of the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee

2024-12-09 ICSC Report 1

Motion made by C. Rahman

That the 1st Report of the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee BE APPROVED, with the exception of item 11 (2.7).

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

8.2.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by C. Rahman

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.2.2   (2.1) Appointment of Consulting Engineer: RFP-2024-241 The Queen’s Bridge Rehabilitation

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the appointment of a consulting engineer for the detailed design and tendering of The Queen’s Bridge Rehabilitation:

a)    the proposal submitted by AECOM Canada Ltd. BE ACCEPTED to provide consulting engineering services to complete the detailed design and tendering for the rehabilitation of The Queen’s Bridge at an upset amount of $635,037.70, excluding HST, as per Section 15.2 (e) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the financing for this assignment BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Appendix “A”;

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

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

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

Motion Passed

8.2.3   (2.2) Service Level Agreement Renewal with London Hydro for Water Meter Reading and Water and Sewer Billing (Relates to Bill No. 4)

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the Service Level Agreement Renewal with London Hydro Inc:

a)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024 to approve a Service Level Agreement between The Corporation of the City of London and London Hydro Inc., substantially in the form appended as Schedule “A” to the proposed by-law, for the management and operation of the meter reading, billing, collections and customer service for the City’s water and sewer accounts by London Hydro Inc.; 

b)    the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure BE DELEGATED the authority to execute the Agreement approved in a), above; and

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all administrative acts that are necessary in connection with the Agreement approved in a) above, including any future related documents and/or agreement with London Hydro Inc. that are consistent with the requirement contained in the Agreement approved in a) above.

Motion Passed

8.2.4   (2.3) Increase to Single Source Appointment to Support City-Wide LiDAR Mapping

Motion made by C. Rahman

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the Increase of the Approved Single Source Purchase of City-wide LiDAR data acquisition under Section 14.4(f) of the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy:

a)    the Single Source appointment for Airborne Imaging Inc. BE INCREASED in accordance with the estimate on file, by $3,600, excluding HST, from $48,755 to a total upset amount of $52,355, in accordance with Section 14.5 (ii) of the Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the financing for this project BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Appendix “A”;

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

d)    the approval given, herein, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a formal contract; and

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

Motion Passed

8.2.5   (2.4) Closing Part of Road Widening Block 180 on Plan 33M799 (Relates to Bill No. 24)

Motion made by C. Rahman

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to road widening Block 180 plan 33M799:

a)    the closing of part of the road widening Block 180 Registered Plan 33M799, designated as Parts 5 and 6 on Plan 33R-21184 BE APPROVED; and

b)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, for the purpose of closing that part of Block 180.

Motion Passed

8.2.6   (2.5) 2023-2024 Transport Canada Rail Safety Improvement Program Agreement for Grade Crossing Improvements (Relates to Bill No. 5)

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken:

a)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held December 17, 2024 to:

i)    approve the Agreement, appended as Schedule “A” to the proposed by-law, for the Rail Safety Improvement Program (the “Agreement”) between His Majesty the King in Right of Canada as represented by the Minister of Transport (“Canada”) and The Corporation of the City of London;

ii)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the Agreement;

iii)    delegate authority to the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, or their written delegate, to approve further amending agreements to the above-noted Agreement;

iv)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute any amending agreements approved by the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure; and

v)    authorize the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, or their written delegate, to execute any financial reports required under this Agreement and to undertake all administrative, financial, and reporting acts necessary in connection with the Agreement;

b)    authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute an additional Agreement related to the Rail Safety Improvement Program, appended as Appendix “B” to the staff report for the closure of an abandoned rail crossing; and

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to undertake all administrative acts that are necessary in connection with this matter.

Motion Passed

8.2.7   (2.6) Closing Part of Medway Park Drive (Relates to Bill No. 25)

Motion made by C. Rahman

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to closing part of Medway Park Drive:

a)    the closing of part of the southerly Medway Park Drive on Registered Plan 33M-248 BE APPROVED; and

b)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, for the purpose of closing part of Medway Park Drive.

Motion Passed

8.2.8   (2.8) 2025 Authorization for Temporary Borrowing (Relates to Bill No. 6)

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to authorize the temporary borrowing of certain sums to meet current expenditures of The Corporation of the City of London for the year 2025.

Motion Passed

8.2.9   (2.9) SS-2024-355 Single Source Procurement of Collection Agency Services for Provincial Offences and Municipal Collections

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, the following actions be taken with respect to the single source procurement of collection agency services:

a)    approval BE GIVEN to execute single source procurements for collection agency services with the following collection agencies, for a three (3) year term, with an option to renew the agreements for an additional two (2) years, in accordance with Section 14.4 (g) of the Corporation of the City of London’s (“the Corporation”) Procurement of Goods and Services Policy:

i.    CBV Collection Services

ii.    A-1 Credit Recovery & Collection Services

iii.   CBS (Credit Bureau Services)

iv.   Gatestone & Co. Inc.

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

c)    approval hereby given BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering a formal agreement with each of CBV Collection Services; A-1 Credit Recovery & Collection Services; CBS (Credit Bureau Service); Gatestone & Co. Inc for collection agency services; and

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

Motion Passed

8.2.10   (2.10) Canada Life Place: Facility Licence Agreement

Motion made by C. Rahman

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

a)    the report entitled Canda Life Place: Facility Licence Agreement BE RECEVED for information; and

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to provide consent in writing for the Facility Licence Agreement between the London Civic Centre Corporation and the London Knights.

Motion Passed

8.2.11   (2.7) Expropriation of Lands - Wellington Gateway Project - Civil Works - Phase 2 (Relates to Bill No. 22)

Motion made by C. Rahman

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, with the concurrence of the Director, Construction and Infrastructure Services, on the advice of the Director, Realty Services, approval BE GIVEN to the expropriation of land as may be required for the Wellington Gateway Project, and that the following actions be taken in connection therewith:

a)    application be made by The Corporation of the City of London as Expropriating Authority to the Council of The Corporation of the City of London as approving authority, for the approval to expropriate land required for Phase 2 of the Wellington Gateway project;

b)    The Corporation of the City of London serve and publish notice of the above application in accordance with the terms of the Expropriations Act;

c)    The Corporation of the City of London forward to the Ontario Land Tribunal any requests for a hearing that may be received and report such to the Council of The Corporation of the City of London for its information; and

d)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Schedule “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024 to authorize the foregoing and direct the Civic Administration to carry out all necessary administrative actions.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

8.3   1st Report of the Community and Protective Services Committee

2024-12-02 CPSC Report

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That the 1st Report of the Community and Protective Services Committee BE APPROVED, with the exception of items 14 (2.10) and 15 (2.14).

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

8.3.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

Motion Passed

8.3.2   (2.1) 11th Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That the following actions be taken with respect to the 11th Report of the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee, from the meeting held on November 7, 2024:

a)    the Civic Administration BE REQUESTED to provide an update to the Animal Welfare Community Advisory Committee (AWCAC) on the motion that was made at the AWCAC meeting held on September 5, 2024, with respect to limiting rodenticides; and,

b)    clauses 1.1, 3.1 to 3.3, 3.5, 3.6, 4.1, 4.2 and 5.1 to 5.3 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.3.3   (2.2) 11th Report of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That the 11th Report of the Environmental Stewardship and Action Community Advisory Committee, from the meeting held on November 6, 2024, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.3.4   (2.3) Contract Amendment - RFP20-68 Boler Road Cycling Improvements

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, related to a Contract Amendment for the Boler Road Cycling Improvements:

a)    the contract with Arcadis Professional Services (Canada) Inc. BE INCREASED by $116,946.85 to a total agreement value of $422,176.55 (excluding HST) to complete the detailed design and tendering for the Boler Road Cycling Improvements in accordance with Section 20.3 (e) of the City’s Procurement of Goods and Services Policy;

b)    the financing for this assignment BE APPROVED as set out in the Sources of Financing Report as appended to the above-noted staff report;

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary;

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

e)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute any contract or other documents including agreements, if required, to give effect to these recommendations. (2024-T05)

Motion Passed

8.3.5   (2.4) Amendments to the Traffic and Parking By-law (Relates to Bill No. 23)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the proposed by-law, as appended to the staff report dated December 2, 2024, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, for the purpose of amending the Traffic and Parking By-law (PS-114). (2024-C01A)

Motion Passed

8.3.6   (2.5) Urban Forestry Strategy Monitoring Report

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, related to the Urban Forestry Strategy and Monitoring Report:

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to provide an annual Urban Forest Strategy Monitoring Report to update the community on actions and outcomes that advance the implementation directions of the Urban Forest Strategy; and,

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to complete the requisite technical studies and background research to update the Urban Forest Strategy, with finalized recommendations presented no later than Q1 2027;

it being noted that the linked 2025-2029 Tree Planting Strategy will be submitted for Council consideration in February 2025. (2024-E04)

Motion Passed

8.3.7   (2.7) Dundas Place Traffic Management

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure and the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, with respect to Dundas Place Traffic Management, BE RECEIVED; it being noted that the actions described herein can be implemented administratively. (2024-T08)

Motion Passed

8.3.8   (2.8) NG 9-1-1 Hosted Call Handling Solution Amending Agreement to the Bell Authority Service Agreement (Relates to Bill No. 2)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Enterprise Supports, and the concurrence of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, related to the NG 9-1-1 Hosted Call Handling Solution Amending Agreement to the Bell Authority Service Agreement:

a)     the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to:

i)    approve the Amending Agreement, as appended to the above-noted by-law, being the Next Generation 9-1-1 Authority Service Amending Agreement between The Corporation of the City of London and Bell Canada, amending the agreement enterned into between The Corporation of the City of London and Bell Canada on February 14, 2023;

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

iii)    authorize the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, or their designate, to approve and execute any further amending agreements to the above-noted Agreement;

iv)    delegate authority to the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, or their designate, to undertake any administrative actions that are necessary in connection with section 1 of the above-noted by-law;

b)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED; and,

c)    the Civic Administration BE AUTHORIZED to undertake all the administrative acts that are necessary in connection with part a) above. (2024-P16)

Motion Passed

8.3.9   (2.9) Civic Administration Key Learnings and Update Regarding the April 21, 2024 CPKC Train Fire in London, Ontario

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, and the concurrence of the Deputy City Manger, Enterprise Supports, the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, with respect to the Civic Administration Key Learnings and Update Regarding the April 21, 2024, CPKC Train Fire in London, Ontario, BE RECEIVED. (2024-P16)

Motion Passed

8.3.10   (2.11) Life Stabilization Purchase of Service Agreements - Single Source Procurements

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, related to Life Stabilization Purchase of Service Agreements – Single Source Procurements:

a)    a Single Source Procurements BE APPROVED at a total estimated cost of $700,000 ($350,000 of municipal costs and $350,000 utilization of provincial funds) (excluding HST) for the period of October 1, 2024 to December 31, 2025, with the opportunity to extend for four (4) additional one (1) year terms, to administer Life Stabilization programs, as per the Corporation of the City of London Procurement Policy Section 14.4 d) and e); to the following providers:

i)    to allocate $300,000 to London Cares Homeless Response Services – “The Commons” (SS-2024-356)

ii)    to allocate $400,000 to VHA Home Healthcare - Extreme Clean/Hoarding Program (SS-2024-357);

b)    the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, or their written designate, BE DELEGATED authority to approve amendments to existing agreements authorized and approved above;

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

d)    the approval given, herein, BE CONDITIONAL upon the Corporation entering into a Purchase of Service Agreements with each program. (2024-S04)

Motion Passed

8.3.11   (2.12) Update on the Alignment of Rent Supplement and Housing Allowances Programs to a Portable Benefit System

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager of Social and Health Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, related to an Update on the Alignment of Rent Supplement and Housing Allowances Programs to a Portable Benefit System:

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED; and,

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back to the Community and Protective Services Committee annually about the Municipal Rent Assistance Program progress as part of the annual Housing Stability Action Plan. (2024-S14)

Motion Passed

8.3.12   (2.13) 2023 Ontario Works Participant and Service Delivery Profile

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Social and Health Development, the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, related to the 2023 Ontario Works Participant and Service Delivery Profile BE RECEIVED. (2024-S04)

Motion Passed

8.3.13   (2.6) Publicly Accessible Washrooms - Parks and Facilities

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure and the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, with respect to Publicly Accessible Washrooms – Parks and Facilities, BE RECEIVED; it being noted that park washroom facility service provision will be a matter reviewed with the Parks and Recreation Master Plan Update; it being further noted that a communication, as appended to the Added Agenda, from S. Lewkowitz, with respect to this matter, was received. (2024-R04)

Motion Passed

8.3.16   (3.1) Hamilton Road - Fairmont Neighbourhood Connectivity Plan

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the Hamilton Road Neighbourhood Connectivity Plan, as appended to the staff report dated December 2, 2024, BE APPROVED to inform the annual Renew London Construction Program and New Sidewalk Program;

it being noted that no individuals spoke at the public participation meeting associated with these matters; and,

it being further noted that the communication, as appended to the Agenda, from A. Harding, with respect to this matter, was received. (2024-T04)

Motion Passed

8.3.14   (2.10) Property Standards By-law CP-24 - Amendments Related to Minimum Headroom and Information Regarding the Tenant-Landlord Forum (Relates to Bill No. 18)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, related to Property Standards By-law CP-24 Amendments Related to Minimum Headroom and Information Regarding the Tenant-Landlord Forum:

a)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED; and,

b)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend By-law CP-24, being the Property Standards By-law, to reduce minimum headroom requirements in conjunction with amendments to the National Building Code and the Ontario Building Code. (2024-C01A)

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

8.3.15   (2.14) Special Events Policy Update (Relates to Bill No. 19)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated December 2, 2024, related to the Special Events Policy:

a)    the proposed by-law, as appended to the above-noted staff report, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council Meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend By-law No. CPOL.-142-394, as amended, being “Special Events Policies and Procedures Manual”, by deleting and replacing Schedule “A”; and,

b)    the above-noted staff report BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

8.4   1st Report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee

2024-12-10 SPPC Report 1

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the 1st Report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee BE APPROVED, with the exception of items 4 (2.1) and 5 (3.1).

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

8.4.1   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

Motion made by S. Lewis

That it BE NOTED Councillor J. Pribil discloses a pecuniary interest in item 2.1, having to do with Film London - LEDC Purchase of Service Agreement Amendment by indicating that his son is contemplating seeking project support from Film London.

Motion Passed

8.4.2   (2.2) 10th Report of the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the 10th Report of the Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Oppression Community Advisory Committee from its meeting held on November 14, 2024 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.4.3   (2.3) 12th Report of the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the 12th Report of the Integrated Transportation Community Advisory Committee from its meeting held on November 20, 2024 BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.4.6   (4.1) London Convention Centre Corporation (RBC Place London) By-law Update and Appointments (Relates to Bill No. 7)

Motion made by S. Lewis

That the following actions be taken with respect to London Convention Centre Corporation (RBC Place) By-law Update and Appointments:

a)    the proposed by-law appended as Appendix ‘B’ to the staff report dated December 10, 2024 A by-law to amend By-law No. A-6866-270, as amended, respecting the London Convention Centre Corporation BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to update references to the Board, section 4, and section 5(2) term; 

b)    the following appointments to the Board of Directors BE CONFIRMED:

i)    Mary Lynn Stuckey (Health Care) as a Class 2 Board member for the term ending November 30, 2026;

ii)   Ryan Bennett (Finance) as a Class 1 Board member for the term ending November 30, 2025;

iii)   Kara Heddle (Communications) as a Class 1 Board member for the term ending November 30, 2025;

iv)   Sara De Candido (Health Care) as a Class 2 Board member for the term ending November 30, 2026; 

v)    Jeffrey Floyd (Music/Business) as a Class 3 Board member for the term ending November 30, 2026; and

c)    on the recommendation of the City Clerk, the report dated December 10, 2024 respect to the London Convention Centre Corporation (RBC Place) By-law Update and Appointments, BE RECEIVED.

Motion Passed

8.4.7   (4.2) Growth Management Implementation Strategy and Municipal Service and Financing Agreements Policy Amendments (Relates to Bill No. 20)

Motion made by S. Lewis

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

a)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 10, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council Meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, to amend By-law No. CPOL.-391-152, being A by-law to enact a new Council policy entitled “Municipal Service and Financing Agreements” by deleting and replacing Schedule “A”;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to identify and incorporate eligible growth infrastructure projects located within priority intensification areas of the Built Area Boundary into the Growth Management Implementation Strategy upon the completion of the 2028 Development Charges Background Study, it being noted that until approval of the 2028 DC Background Study, the Built Area Works program can continue to be availed of for the delivery of eligible municipal infrastructure works within the Built Area;

c)    the changes to the 2008 Growth Management Implementation Strategy principles to align with amendments in clause b) above and growth policies of The London Plan BE APPROVED by Municipal Council; 

d)   the correspondence from Zelinka Priamo regarding 3095 and 3105 Bostwick Road (Talbot Village) BE REFERRED for consideration during the 2026 Growth Management Implementation Strategy process; and

e)    the report BE RECEIVED for information;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal delegation from M. Wallace, Executive Director, London Development Institute with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed

8.4.8   (4.3) Housing Accelerator Fund - First Annual Update

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the report regarding the Housing Accelerator Fund - First Annual Update BE RECEIVED for information;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated December 5, 2024 from C. Kulchycki, Senior Associate, Zelinka Priamo Ltd. with respect to this matter;

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee heard a verbal delegation from M. Wallace, Executive Director, London Development Institute.

Motion Passed

8.4.4   (2.1) Film London - LEDC Purchase of Service Agreement Amendment (Relates to Bill No. 8)

Motion made by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Planning and Economic Development, the proposed amending by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 9, 2024 as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024 to amend By-law No. A.-8441-4 being “A by-law to authorize a Purchase of Services Agreement between The Corporation of the City of London and the London Economic Development Corporation; and to authorize the Mayor and the City Clerk to execute the Agreement” to:

a)    an amending agreement (Schedule “A2”) BE AUTHORIZED and BE APPROVED between The Corporation of the City of London and the London Economic Development Corporation for the purpose of extending funding for Film London; and

b)    the Mayor and the City Clerk BE AUTHORIZED to execute the amending agreement.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

8.4.5   (3.1) Final Report - 2024 Ward Boundary Review

Motion made by S. Lewis

That with respect to the 2024 Ward Boundary Review, the following actions be taken:

a)    the boundaries for the fourteen (14) electoral wards detailed in Final Option 1, with the following amendments, BE APPROVED for the City of London, effective November 15, 2026: 

i. the fifteen (15) homes on the north side of Springbank Drive — between The Coves Environmentally Significant Area, Greenside Avenue, and the Canadian National Railway to be retained with proposed Ward 11 as a minor amendment to retain a community of interest; 

ii. the area contained between Wellington Road South and the Canadian National Railway adjacent to Adelaide Street South (Rowntree Area) south to Commissioners Road East be incorporated into proposed Ward 11 to better reflect communities of interest and balancing population; 

iii. the area contained within Oxford Street East, to Highbury Avenue North, to Canadian Pacific Railway, to Adelaide Street North be incorporated into proposed Ward 4 to better reflect communities of interest and balancing population;

b)       the proposed by-law, attached, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 17, 2024, for the purpose of redividing the wards in the City of London;

c)    the Final Report – 2024 Ward Boundary Review, dated December 10, 2024 and the Watson & Associates Economists Ltd. Final Report BE RECEIVED.

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from Watson & Associates Economists Ltd. with respect to this matter;

it being further noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received communications from the following individuals:

  •    a communication dated October 17, 2024 from B. Mejia, Executive Director, Argyle BIA;

  •    a communication dated December 1, 2024 from R. Van Overberghe;

  •    a communication from J. Boyce;

  •    a communication dated December 10, 2024 from Councillor S. Franke;

  •    a communication dated December 9, 2024 from S. Levin, President, Orchard Park/Sherwood Forest Neighbourhood Association;

  •    a communication from G. Faul; and

  •    a communication dated December 9, 2024 from Councillor A. Hopkins;

it being pointed out that the following individuals made a verbal presentation at the public participation meeting with respect to this matter:

  •    D. Boyce;

  •    J. Boyce;

  •    G. Faul; and

  •    G. Warren.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

9.   Added Reports

9.1   1st Report of Council In Closed Session

Motion made by C. Rahman

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the 1st Report of Council, In Closed Session BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

That clause 1 and 2 of the 1st Report of Council, In Closed Session, reads as follows:

  1.    Offer to Purchase Industrial Land – His Majesty the King in Right of the Province of Ontario, represented by the Minister of Transportation for the Province of Ontario – Part of Lot 16, Concession 2, in the Geographic Township of Westminster PIN 08404-0071 (LT) shown as Part 1 on the Ministry Plan P-3052-273

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, on the advice of the Director, Realty Services, with respect to the City-owned industrial land legally described as Part of Lot 16, Concession 2, in the Geographic Township of Westminster PIN 08404-0071 (LT), shown as Part 1 on the Ministry Plan P-3052-273, as outlined in red on the plan attached hereto as Appendix “A”, the Agreement of Purchase and Sale (the “Agreement”), attached as Appendix “B”, submitted by His Majesty the King, Represented by the Ministry of Transportation (the Purchaser), to purchase from the City the subject land, containing an area of approximately 0.361 acres, at a purchase price of $99,220.00 BE ACCEPTED, subject to the conditions and terms as set out in the Agreement.

  1.    Disposition of Surplus City-owned Land – Part of 50 Rollingwood Circle

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Finance Supports, on the advice of the Director, Realty Services, with respect to the City-owned vacant land municipally known as part of 50 Rollingwood Circle and legally described as Part of Block B in Registered Plan 837 (subject to Final Reference Plan), as outlined in red on the plan attached hereto as Appendix “A”, the Agreement of Purchase and Sale (the “Agreement”), attached as Appendix “B”, submitted by Dorothy Pol and William Pol (the Purchaser), to purchase from the City the subject property, containing an area of approximately 3,745 square feet (subject to final reference plan), at a purchase price of $38,500.00 BE ACCEPTED, subject to the conditions and terms as set out in the Agreement.

That progress was made with respect to item 4.3 as noted on the public agenda, (6.1/1/PEC).

10.   Deferred Matters

None.

11.   Enquiries

None.

12.   Emergent Motions

None.

13.   By-laws

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No.’s 1 to Bill No. 39, including Added Bill No.’s 40 and 41, BE APPROVED with the exception of Bill No.’s 8, 18, 19, 22, 36 and 37.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Second Reading of Bill No.’s 1 to Bill No. 39, including Added Bill No.’s 40 and 41, BE APPROVED with the exception of Bill No.’s 8, 18, 19, 22, 36 and 37.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No.’s 1 to Bill No. 39, including Added Bill No.’s 40 and 41, BE APPROVED with the exception of Bill No.’s 8, 18, 19, 22, 36 and 37.

Motion Passed (15 to 0)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No. 8 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Second Reading of Bill No. 8 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Trosow

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No. 8 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No. 18 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Second Reading of Bill No. 18 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lehman

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No. 18 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No. 19 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That Second Reading of Bill No. 19 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No. 19 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No. 22 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Motion made by D. Ferreira

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Second Reading of Bill No. 22 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Motion made by A. Hopkins

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No. 22 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (13 to 2)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No. 36 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (9 to 5)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Second Reading of Bill No. 36 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (8 to 6)

Motion made by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No. 36 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (8 to 6)

Motion made by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No. 37 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (11 to 4)

Motion made by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Second Reading of Bill No. 37 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (11 to 4)

Motion made by H. McAlister

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No. 37 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (11 to 4)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Introduction and First Reading of Bill No. 42 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Second Reading of Bill No. 42 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by A. Hopkins

That Third Reading and Enactment of Bill No. 42 BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (14 to 1)

14.   Adjournment

Motion made by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 5:39 PM.

Appendix: New Bills

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (4 hours, 54 minutes)

[19:13] Okay, thank you, please be seated. Okay, we’ll start today with land acknowledgement. We acknowledge that we’re gathered today on the traditional lands of the Anishnabek, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwak, and Adawandran. We honor respect the history, languages, and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. We acknowledge all of the treaties that are specific to this area, the two-row Wampum Belt Treaty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Servore Covenant and Chain, Beaver Hunting Grounds Treaty of the Haudenosaunee, Nan Fan Treaty of 1701, the McKee Treaty of 1790, the Lene Township Treaty of 1796, and the Huron track Treaty of 1827 with the Anishnabek, and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum of the Anishnabek and Haudenosaunee.

[19:57] The three indigenous nations that are neighbors to the city of Lene are the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, the United Nation of the Thames, and the Muncie Delaware Nation, who all continue to live as sovereign nations, each with individual languages, cultures, and customs. The city of Lene is also committed to making every effort to providing alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request to make a request specific to this meeting. Please contact Council Agenda at Lene.ca, or 519-661-2489, extension 2425. Next, it’s my pleasure to introduce our performer today.

[20:38] Born and raised in Northern Ontario, Sydney McLeod has been enjoying all that the trombone has to offer for 14 years. She holds a master’s in music performance in both the trombone and instrumental conducting from Memorial University and Western University, where she currently teaches pre-service music education majors. Sydney is part of the Window Music Series on Dundas Place. Please rise and join me in welcoming Sydney, who will now perform the National Anthem for us. (horn honking) Thank you.

[23:23] Before we get to disclosures of pecuniary interest, I just, since we do have a number of members of the gallery here today, I just wanted to just remind both members of the gallery, our staff and colleagues about some decorum that we have here in the council chambers. Obviously, people are here to support various matters on the council agenda. Sometimes the person beside you may be supporting something that is different than you are. Generally, what we do is refrain from expressions of support or dismay to allow for this to be a place where everybody can express their views openly and as they’d like to.

[23:58] Now, there is no public participation today, ‘cause this is a council meeting that occurs at our standing committees. So people in the gallery won’t be able to participate, but we are greatly appreciate you coming and watching the proceedings today. With respect to members of council, I was recently looking at some information about decorum and best practices. It includes things like respectful communication that we speak thoughtfully, avoid personal remarks. Disagreeing is absolutely part of the process, but should be done with professionalism and respect. We don’t interrupt each other. No person should speak without interruptions.

[24:32] Having the opportunity to contribute to discussion is important for all of us. Listening actively to each other, we’re all going to share information and listening as carefully to your colleagues as possible is an important way to respect their opinions and the constituents they represent. Try to stick to the agenda. Often we can move beyond what’s on the floor before us. I’ll keep us on track on that and we’ll avoid any unnecessary distractions. And of course, professional conduct is leaders in our community. We’re held to a standard that is high and we can demonstrate courtesy, civility and a commitment to the public trust effectively and efficiently in this chamber.

[25:06] And so I appreciate all the work that you’ve done all year long. And this is our last meeting before the holiday break. And I’m sure we’ll get through it quickly and efficiently and everybody will be on to the holiday season and of course the new year. So with that, I’ll look for any disclosures of pecuniary interest that any colleagues might have. Councillor Stevenson and then Councillor Prabble. Thank you, I potentially have a pecuniary interest on 6.1 depending on the motion. Okay, we’ll make note of that. And if you at that time want to clarify whether you do or not, we could update it then.

[25:42] Councillor Prabble. Thank you, Mayor. And minus an 8/4/2.1 film London. And I have a deemed interest in this point on the basis that my son is contemplating seeking project support from film London. So 8/4/2.1 film London. Thank you, others. Councillor Plaza. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just clearing up your carrying interest on item number 17 off the pack report being 3.9 as I live within the notification areas of the subject lands within the report.

[26:20] Okay, others who have interests seeing none. That moves us on to recognitions. Councillor Prabble has a recognition for us today. Thank you once again. It’s my great pleasure to recognize and congratulate and thank you to our Para Karate Radi athlete, Hemnath Manoharan. He won two gold medals last month in South Africa and the Commonwealth Championships and we are tremendously proud of him and he made certainly our city proud and I saw the videos and amazing, amazing men and thank you once again and recognizing him for the success.

[27:02] Thank you. Great, any other recognitions? Okay, seeing none, a review of confidential matters to be considered in public, we have none. That brings us to our closed session of which there are three items. I’ll look for a motion to move into closed session. Moved by Councillor Hopkins, seconded by Councillor Cuddy. We’ll open that voting in the system. Councillor Van Meerbergen.

[27:43] I’ll vote yes. No, thank you, closing the vote. Motion carries 15 to zero. Okay, so colleagues, we’ll be moving to committee room five and then we’ll return after that. Okay, thank you, please be seated.

[38:37] All right, so that concludes our closed session. We have all members except for Councillor Lewis with us who is just out. He’ll be returning to the meeting. He hasn’t left for the whole thing. We have a confirmation and signing of previous minutes. We have the motion loaded together for both sets of minutes. It’s the 18th and 19th sets of minutes. Mover for both of those sets. Councillor Frank, seconded by Councillor Palosa. Any discussion on the minutes? All right, we’ll open that for voting.

[39:22] Wasn’t the vote, motion carries 14 to zero. No, no, no, Councillor Lewis is absent. Okay, we’re on to communications and petitions. So the way we’ll deal with these is we have 6.1, which is a report from the integrity commissioner with some recommendations. Then we have all of the other communications and petitions that relate to other pieces of the agenda. We will deal with the integrity commissioner matter now in its entirety. And then we’ll proceed with distributing those other matters to the various parts of the agenda and carrying through the various committee reports.

[39:56] But this particular communication and petition, because it comes directly to council, will be dealt with at this time and at this point in the agenda. And with that, like previously, there is an overview of the report from our integrity commissioner who is participating remotely. So you can switch your screens to the remote. They have 10 minutes as they did last time. And I will turn it over to you to present the report to Janice Atwood.

[40:28] So go ahead. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Council, for making time for me today. My partner, Jeff Abrams, is not available today. It is just the two of us who are, in fact, your integrity commissioner principal’s integrity. I wanna make two sort of points before I talk about the report itself. First off, under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, Councillor Stevenson does, in fact, have a conflict of interest, but there is an exception whereby she may participate in the proceedings today in regard to this report, although she may not vote on the report because there is a sanction in the report.

[41:13] She may not vote on it. And the provision is in section five, sub 2.1 of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, which says specifically that. So I can read just a little bit of it. The member may take part in the discussion of the matter, including any submissions to Council, as the case may be, and may attempt to influence the voting on any question in respect of the matter. However, the member is not permitted to vote on any question in respect of the matter. So that is, I hope, very clear. And of course, a contravention of that could give rise to a complaint under the MCIA, which could ultimately result in a court application.

[41:53] So it’s definitely, I just wanna make that crystal clear. So the report on your agenda speaks for itself, and I wanna speak just briefly about Council’s role. I will be outlining some of the facts and findings in a summary fashion. And as you know, we are bound by statutory confidentiality. So I will not be addressing questions concerning the evidence considered in the investigation itself. And Council should understand that it sits with respect to this report in a disciplinary mode.

[42:31] So it is not the role of Council to conduct its own investigation. Today is not a hearing. It is not an appeal from our findings. The role of Council is to consider whether the recommended sanction should be imposed based on the findings before you in the report. You must consider that while the Council has provided you with written submissions, you have no other evidence for many other witnesses who were interviewed, nor should you have, you are not in a position to conduct the investigation, nor to assure confidentiality to those who participated.

[43:08] So that said, I will talk a little about the report itself. The investigation resulted from a complaint brought by senior administrative staff against the Council in regard to a pattern of treatment of civic administration and the targeting of a particular staff. The allegations are that the Council engaged in a pattern of harassing and bullying behavior towards certain administrative staff members and that she had made a post on social media which identified a staff member in relation to homelessness in a manner which incited members of the public to target staff in a threatening manner to target that particular staff.

[43:51] We have found that the Council’s conduct constitutes harassment, bullying, and targeting in breach of the code. The issue of homelessness confronts every urban municipality in Ontario right now. In the course of lengthy debates and deliberations, senior administrative staff have worked with and supported the community, other service providers and Council to bring meaningful solutions. In respect of the targeting of an individual staff member, the Council are lifted and posted a portion of an explanation from Deputy City Manager.

[44:31] The Council are editorialized the quote by the addition of provocative emojis and gratuitously included the staff members name which was in our view completely unnecessary if she’d simply referenced the article from which she lifted that quote. She unfairly implied that the views advanced were the members own rather than reflecting the widely acknowledged prevailing view across the province. The quote can be understood as a public criticism and disparagement of the statement identifying the staff member by name.

[45:09] The post appeared to suggest that this individual was responsible for the continuing problems of encampments in the city, naming the employee left him vulnerable to targeting by members of the public. The employee emailed the Council requesting that the post be taken down and that this name, his name not be bandied about in future posts. Presented with a respectful request from the employee to take the post down and refrain from identifying him by name in her social media, the Council refused to acknowledge having done anything wrong and refused to commit to refrain from the behavior in the future.

[45:52] In respect of a pattern of behavior that is inappropriate, unwarranted, unwelcome, unprofessional and not conducive to respectful Council and staff relations, we have watched several public meetings and have interviewed relevant witnesses and have observed a clear pattern in which the Council takes the opportunity even where an issue only relates tangentially to homelessness or shelters, to ask questions in a manner which allows her to repeat her concerns around the encampments issue.

[46:28] Although her words and tone may be moderated and sound respectful, the constant revisiting of the issue amounts to a harping on something that has been well canvassed already. The questions she poses are often prefaced with lengthy statements by the Council reiterating her views. Typically the questions could have been asked of staff before the meeting, making it apparent that the purpose of doing so in the meeting is to once again make her disapproval of the city’s responses to encampments known. We find that the Councilor’s pattern of conduct and behavior and her host identifying the staff member are inappropriate in constitute harassment.

[47:11] Although reprimanded in December 2023 on the occasion of a previous report and cautioned regarding toning down her provocative social media posts, that advice has been generally disregarded. Her social media posts continue to be provocative. The Councilor has defended her conduct acknowledging that she knows she is engaging in provocative lines of questioning and an effort to clarify substantial matters within reports that appear in your agendas.

[47:47] And on occasion, the Chair has asked her to change her language or retract her statements. She advised us that whenever she has been called out on such matters by the Chair, she has immediately complied with the Chair’s requests, that she’s respectful of her Council colleagues and of administrative staff, and that to her knowledge, there have not been any more requests from the Chair directed towards her than towards other Councillors. During our investigation, it was made clear to us that while there have been occasionally instances where chairs or the Mayor must interject, in reaction to members crossing the line, there is no doubt Councillor Stevenson’s statements and questions in regard to the homelessness issue taken together are being experienced by administrative staff as harassment.

[48:39] The Councillor defends her conduct and behavior as warranted and appropriate as simply fulfilling her role under the Municipal Act. The Councillor, when given the opportunity to review our preliminary findings, has doubled down defending her conduct as necessary to carry out her duties, deflecting claiming that such pattern of behaviors were condoned under the leadership of the presiding officer and has shown herself to be unapologetic and defiant. From the perspective of fulfilling her role as a Councillor, it is simply unnecessary not to mention inappropriate and unproductive for the Councillor to maintain such a provocative approach.

[49:21] Staff are not there to debate members of Council. The debate is between the elected officials. It is not appropriate to bad your staff to make once point, nor are staff expected or required to endure a barrage of questions on matters which have either already been fully canvassed or are beyond the scope of the subject under discussion. These tactics are aggressive to the point of hostile and move quickly into harassment and bullying territory. There are certainly valid and legitimate questions that elected officials should be posing, but posturing for the public under the guise of representing one’s constituents and essentially using staff as the whipping posts to score points should not be condoned.

[50:07] It is quite possible to remain procedurally within the rules and yet be engaging in behavior which is in fact harassing towards staff. In other words, polite language and a professional tone can still be suggesting quite improperly that staff are withholding information and essentially not supporting being untrustworthy or neglecting to follow Council’s direction. The frequency or infrequency of caution or yellow cards by the chair does not shield or absolve the Councillor from a finding of harassment if that is what a review of the evidence discloses.

[50:49] The Councillor cannot simply claim to rely on the chair to know if her conduct is outside the acceptable realm of tolerance. She must be held accountable for her own conduct. It does not lie in the Councillor’s mouth to say she has received no indication that her behavior is problematic or unnecessarily provocative and it is absurd to claim that such behavior is necessary or that she’s entitled to conduct herself in this way in order to serve her constituents or to fulfill her duty as an elected official.

[51:28] In our view, it is necessary to see a significant change in behavior by Councillor Stevenson and we therefore recommend that the remuneration paid to Councillor Stevenson be suspended for a period of 30 days. Those are my comments Mr. Mayor and I hand it back to you. Okay, thank you for the overview of the report and the recommendation before us. I will just make a few comments for my colleagues as you know from previous reports and as outlined in the act, the integrity commissioner has the legislative authority to conduct the investigation and issue the result.

[52:08] Our responsibility is actually to decide whether or not to sanction be applied. Those sanctions can be recommended by the integrity commissioner and we are not bound by that particular sanction. We can choose a different sanction. We can choose no sanctions but our role is not to relitigate what is a process that has concluded now. Council’s role is to decide on the sanction piece. And so I will be keeping the debate tight to the motions on the floor, which will relate to those pieces. Should there be one moved?

[52:42] And I want to let colleagues know, I know a number of colleagues have reached out to the clerk about both the recommended sanction as well as possible other modifications of that. What I’ve done to try to organize it to accommodate all members of council who may want to consider and debate different pieces of this is I’ll look to see if someone is willing to put a motion on the floor that would be the integrity commissioner’s recommendation. I know there’s at least one member of council who would like to start there. If there are other pieces that colleagues would like to be added to that, we could move to have them added in as considerations so they could be amended to be all one piece.

[53:30] So you could have, say, a renumeration sanction, a reprimand, or I think the only other sanction that we have before us that we could do is a removal from a various council committee. But we could vote on them separately so colleagues could express their opinion on each of them separately. So also if the amount of renumer, excuse me, renumeration to be considered is different. If a colleague would like to amend that, they would have the ability to amend that piece to a different timeframe. On the renumeration piece, in the act, it is a period of time.

[54:07] It is not an amount of money. So there’s no ability to change it to a certain amount. It’s not meant to be a fine. It’s meant to be a period of time and that’s pretty clear in the act under review. So I’m gonna try to keep us tight to what is our responsibility here, but I’m just gonna try to frame the discussion in a way where colleagues can add in the pieces that they wanna consider through amendments, but we will certainly vote on them all separately. And so you’ll be able to express your opinion on those components separately. So I guess I’ll start with a member who’s willing to put the recommendation on the floor, which Councillor Cuddy told me he was willing to do.

[54:44] Thank you, Your Worship. Through you, I’ll put the motion on the floor and I’d like the clerk to read it. Yeah, so I can read it, so I’ll put it up. That with respect to the integrity commissioner’s recommendation report regarding Councillor S. Stevenson, the following actions be taken A, the integrity commissioner’s recommendation report dated November 29th, 2024 B received and B, that in consideration of the integrity commissioner’s findings regarding the breach of the code of conduct in the above noted report, the remuneration paid to Councillor S. Stevenson be suspended for a period of 30 days.

[55:21] It being noted that communications as appeared on the added agenda from Councillor Stevenson with respect to this matter were received. So that’s the part that we’ll start with. And then if colleagues would like to add in other things for consideration, they could amend that. Again, recognizing that we can vote on ABC wherever you want to get to separately. So, and my preference is once it’s all added in, that we have a debate on the whole thing, and then we just do the votes after. That way we’re not going through and innovating each and every component. So, if colleagues are okay with that process, I just think it’ll be the most efficient to allow everybody to express their opinions and we can stay focused on the decisions that everybody wants to make.

[56:04] So, this time I’d look for anybody who’s looking to, oh, I need a second direction for that. So, for Councillor Cudi’s motion, seconded by Councillor Plozen. Okay, Councillor Cudi, you move the motion so you get to speak first if you want, but you don’t have to, that’s up to you.

[56:41] No, thank you. Then I’ll, okay, Councillor Stevenson, you’d like to speak or move in addition to this? Go ahead. Thank you, colleagues. Based on the report that we have here, we obviously have a serious problem. According to the complaint, the senior management, including the city manager, so the senior management rank of the city, who speak for the employees of the organization, have felt bullied and harassed. And it’s important to note the expansiveness of the complaint that I received.

[57:15] It was that civic administration as a whole, and it wasn’t until October 31st that I got some clarity on that, but it still sounds like civic administration as a whole. I received the complaint May 31st, and the only thing that was there was the one tweet and the graffiti on the poll, in addition to a bunch of other things that were just my posts and other people’s. It wasn’t despite my asking for some evidence, like I, not evidence, but like, tell me what I did and where and with who. I didn’t get that information until November 22nd, with the draft of the final recommendation report.

[57:51] And I think that’s important to note, although we’re not. Could you just link it back to the motion on the floor, which is about the sanction, so I assume you’re against it, but just link your comments back to why you’re against the sanction for consideration. We’re not here to re-debate the report. The report is the report is the finding. We have to discuss the, we have to discuss the sanction, so if you could link your comments to the sanction, that would be great. E, but regardless. I’m against the sanction. And I think it’s important to note, I’ve heard colleagues say that they’ve supported the integrity commissioner report in the past, and that they’ll continue to do so.

[58:31] But I think it’s really important to understand that the municipal and act doesn’t empower the integrity commissioner. It, the responsibility lies with each of us, if I’m allowed to vote and I may not be able to. But the decision making is up to the counselor. It is not, this is a recommendation report. This is not a ruling. So this is for your consideration as you deliberate on how you want this counsel to perform and what standards you want them to be held to. So I don’t think you can deflect that responsibility by saying I just gonna go along with the integrity commissioner.

[59:05] We get reports all the time from planners, from heritage, from legal, and we take that advice under consideration and then we make our own decisions. So in this case, there was one tweet and a poster with graffiti on it. And I’ve got the public saying to me, like, did you do that? No, I did not do graffiti on a poll, but they don’t understand why it would be in a report against me, how that would be tied to me. November 22nd, when I got the examples of when and where this behavior happened, it was five SPPC and council meetings from December 23rd to April the 24th.

[59:41] And so, you know, that’s concerning because that means that that bullying and harassing that was experienced by senior management happened in these chambers with all of us present in recorded format that’s available for public viewing on the city website. So as council deliberates this, and I need them to understand that there are problems with the integrity commissioner that last time when we talked about this in December, I pointed out to see- So Councilor, it’s about the sanction. If you have an issue with our integrity commissioner through committee, just let me pause your time.

[1:00:20] Tie it back because the review of the integrity commissioner or the employment of the integrity commissioner or the contract, that is separate and goes through a separate committee. It’s not the matter of this before us. I understand that you’re wanna bring it up, but just tie it back to what we’re here for. All those things are legitimate things to discuss, but they’re just not part of this particular report. Okay, but I’m not getting into the details of it. What I’m saying is you’re relying on a recommendation report as you plan to do this sanctioning. And it’s important to note that last year, the integrity commissioner, there were issues around procedural fairness, there were issues around protocol.

[1:00:54] In that presentation, the integrity commissioner said that they were working on a timeline with staff to come back and address some of those. Nothing happened. In May, the deputy mayor and I brought forward a motion to review the code of conduct to avoid some of the issues that had happened. Nothing has happened with that. And here we are again with an integrity commissioner report. I have filed a complaint with the Ontario ombudsman in the first one, I will be filing before the end of this year a complaint on this one. There are serious problems with the integrity commissioner reports. And I think council gets to take that into advisement as you’re looking at this.

[1:01:32] So you look at the report and you get to decide what, this is all up to this council. We have a recommendation from the integrity commissioner, but it’s all up to this council to address this very serious concern we have that our senior management feels this way, regardless of what I think or what you think, we have an issue that gets to be addressed here as we move forward. In the municipal world and in many other articles, if you research it, penalties are not found to be effective when it comes to harassment. So as satisfying as it might be to apply a penalty, isn’t really gonna help us address the issue that we have in the next two years as we move forward on this term.

[1:02:11] 30 seconds. So the point is that there are other things that can be done. The integrity commissioner does not have the option to put forward any other recommendation, but a reprimand or a sanction of pay. And so we’ve had other councils who have fired integrity commissioners, who have rejected the findings of integrity commissioners as recently as Sudbury in November and Rideau Lakes in October. This is not uncommon. We’ve had counselors who have told citizens to f off or to have made rude gestures and they’ve been fined a day or two days pay.

[1:02:44] I’m encouraging my colleagues to come up with something that the integrity commissioner wasn’t able to put forward that would actually help us as a council and senior management team move forward in a productive way to address the crises that our city is facing. I’m open, I removed myself from the committee that the deputy city manager felt harassed in. And I’m open to whatever else this council wants to do to help us move forward, but I really want a path such that I can represent my residents and the city senior management can feel appropriate. Thank you.

[1:03:19] I give you a little bit extra time there ‘cause I think I forgot to pause one of those times when I spoke. So I just wanted to use it for so colleagues know that I said 30 seconds, but I gave a little bit of grace there just ‘cause I missed a pause at the timer. Okay, so we have a motion on the floor. Councillor Stevenson spoke to it. I’ll look to other speakers. Go ahead, Councillor Frank. Thank you. And I can appreciate the comments that the council made, but I do also think, again, given that we are discussing the report and discussing the sanctions regard with it, I do think there is a difference, in my opinion, of asking questions of staff and harassment of staff.

[1:03:59] And it’s clear that outlined in this report there, that is also outlined. And I personally have witnessed badgering and rear treatment of staff, points of order and points of privilege. So, Councillor El-Kashin, in the same way I caution Councillor Stevenson, link it to the sanction. So if you’re getting to, these are the reasons why you support the sanction. You just link it to the sanction for me so I can keep everything pretty tight. Sure, yes. I support the sanction and these are the reasons. Points of order and points of privilege have been invoked over the past two years to try and curb this behavior by members of council. And in fact, our previous city manager at one of our meetings. And actually, Councillor Stevenson just referenced that we have recorded videos of this harassment occurring at our various meetings.

[1:04:36] And I agree we do have the recorded evidence. I’ll admit that in the past year, we have let more and more of this poor behavior slide because I believe and I personally have felt conditioned to allow for this kind of behavior because we have kind of accepted it as the usual, which does not mean that it is the correct behavior to have and the decorum in this chambers. I think does need to improve. And I do apologize because I do think it’s a responsibility of council to protect our staff. And I apologize because I feel like I’ve not done my best job sometimes. And I’ve also personally experienced anxiety coming to council meetings.

[1:05:09] Okay, just pause for a second. So just so members of the gallery, okay, so you’re gonna call a point of order and exactly what I’m gonna say? Do you wanna do it or do you want me just to finish? Okay, go ahead. Just with the visitors and the gallery, the chambers is set up that all your noise travels down here and having issues hearing my colleague who sitting next to me. So asking the mayor to quell the chambers. Yeah, so that was taken as a point of order. So I will agree with you and I was about to do that. Just so members in the gallery know, just because of the acoustics in this room, you may think you’re just talking to the person beside you who actually projects quite well.

[1:05:49] And we can hear some of what you’re saying, especially councilors on the end. So it can be very distracting for colleagues who are trying to give other speakers their full attention and listen to what they’re saying. So I would ask, although you might have to say something to the person beside you, if you could be just very quiet about it because it does project very well in this room. So go ahead, Councillor Frank. Thank you. Again, I have experienced anxiety coming to council meetings when I know that the topic of discussion will be used as a platform to berate staff instead of an opportunity for us to debate ideas and solutions.

[1:06:24] So I’m feeling anxiety-dread and foreboding and coming to some of our meetings. I can only imagine that other staff members might feel similarly, if not worse. And so to me, this is an issue of workplace safety. And I believe it’s our responsibility to create a safe workplace for our staff. And given that this is the third report from integrity commissioner saying that this behavior is not acceptable and there’s different complaints that have been filed in different reasons. The reason why I’m supportive of the suspension of 30 days pay is because of the repeat offenses. If this was perhaps a first offense or if there was some acknowledgement of change or remorse, I don’t necessarily think I would have felt the need to support this.

[1:07:03] But I do think that at this point, we are being asked to hold ourselves to a higher standard to maintain accountability for the words that we say in this chamber. And I do think that this is a method of accountability if we are not seeing any kind of change from the Councillor in question. And again, I think that, as I said before, it is our job to make sure the staff have a safe and healthy workplace. And I think that staff are at an unequal playing field for us, whereas we have a lot more authority. And therefore, we do have to listen to what they’re saying. If they are feeling threatened and harassed, I do think that we have to speak on behalf of them and make decisions that validate the experiences that they’re having.

[1:07:45] So I think that, of course, a member of council is entitled to ask probing questions and to try and find more information. But again, I don’t think that it is our role to interrogate or to try and make staff look like they’re in trouble or berate them publicly. I do agree in some of the report referencing that there could be some more opportunity for stronger chairing in some of the meetings. I welcome the opportunity to reflect on how each of us can do a better job in providing those kinds of comments and making sure that we are, again, maintaining that to quorum.

[1:08:22] And in closing, I do appreciate the passion that the councilor brings to our role. But again, I do find that a lot of the behavior to be very problematic. And I do think that this suspension is valid and in order. Okay, thank you. And I just, to our security staff, I know the door closed once. Just make sure the door stays open for me. If there’s a disruption in the hallway, just move them down the end of the hallway for me. I just want the doors to remain open. It’s a public meeting, so they stay open. Okay, other speakers.

[1:08:56] You’ve already spoken, Councillor Stevens, and sorry. Pecuniary interest? Oh, of course, yes, you can rise on a point of— Thank you. I just wanted to say with this motion coming forward, I get to declare a pecuniary interest. Yes, and under the access to the colleagues know, usually when you declare a peuniary interest to you, you can’t speak, you can’t influence the debate, Councillor Stevens, there’s an exception in the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, which particularly allows her to speak and try to influence the discussion that prohibits her from voting, so we’ll note that, and we’ll continue on with other speakers. Any other speakers on the motion before us?

[1:09:32] Go ahead, Councillor McAllister. Thank you, and through the chair, many of my comments, very similar to Councillor Frank. I do find it unfortunate that we do find ourselves in a situation where we have to look at a suspending pay of one of our colleagues. In terms of what I got from the report and what I have personally witnessed, I think I do see a pattern of bullying and harassment. I’ve seen it on numerous occasions. I myself have had to call point of order, point of privilege a number of times.

[1:10:07] And really, that’s where we find ourselves. I’m supportive of this because I do think, unfortunately, we need to do something to send a signal that we are accountable to a code of conduct that we hold our staff to, and that we ourselves should also be held to that standard. I want to take this opportunity to also say, I’m sorry that our staff feel this way. This is an awful situation, nobody wants to be in it. We want to have a welcoming environment. The people actually want to come to work and not feel threatened.

[1:10:40] Unfortunately, that is not the case. And I do think we have to send a signal to the public that this is not acceptable behavior. I understand the Councillor’s passion. I myself, a number of times, feel that. We all have challenges. I particularly challenge with homelessness as well. But I try to hold myself and that debate to a level that I think is professional. You can advocate for an issue without being disrespectful to staff. And I think, unfortunately, we have crossed that, and therefore, we do need to take some action.

[1:11:13] And I think I will leave it there, but it’s an unfortunate situation we find ourselves in, but we do need to take action. And I would advise my colleagues to all think hard about this in terms of if you were in this position, what standard you’d like to be held to. Thank you. All right, I have Deputy Mayor Lewis next. Thank you, Your Worship. So I’m gonna speak briefly in terms of the report itself and with the sanctions. So I’m speaking to Part A and B.

[1:11:48] With respect to the report, while I’m willing to receive it, I do find some specious ties in the report to the findings. And that’s why it’s difficult for me to support the sanction recommended. I find some procedural pieces and Councillor Stevenson referenced. I co-signed a letter with her earlier this year, asking for the code of conduct to be revised and taken under review and tightened up so that we had a better understanding of where the line was. I recognize that this is also a moment in time report, but I think that we have seen this council as a whole over the last several months take a number of steps to address some of the ways that meetings are run.

[1:12:37] We’ve had training sessions with the clerks for chairs. We have changed some of our council policy and procedure bylaws. And I’m gonna caution you too that that’s nice, but link it to the sanction, please. Coming back to that, we’ve changed some of our council procedure bylaws so that we recognize where it’s more appropriate for an intervention to stop a point of debate. So we have taken some steps. I will agree with my previous two colleagues that I think that there has certainly been a reason to feel that there is a pattern here.

[1:13:13] And this is a second report coming to us, but at the same time, I feel that the sanction is going from a reprimand to something that far exceeds what I’m comfortable with. Therefore, I’m going to look to amend part B and whether I have a second or not, I don’t know, but I would like to amend part B to report just a change in the last sentence. The remuneration page, Councilor S. Stevenson be suspended for a period of five days.

[1:13:53] Okay, I need a seconder for that. Okay, Councilor Ramen’s willing to second. Okay, so the amendments moved and seconded. So now I have the speakers listed on the amendment. Would you like to start on the amendment? So as Councilor Stevenson herself referenced, other municipalities have levied lesser penalties in 30 days, three days, one day, I think five days here is what I’m suggesting.

[1:14:31] It’s one week, one working week. And I’m selecting that number because I think that it still sends a strong message, but at the same time, recognizes that 30 days is quite honestly a sanction that I can’t support and is unreasonable. I didn’t go with any numbers smaller because I recognize that there has been both prior integrity commissioner reprimand report that was received in endorsed by Council and a separate conduct complaint through the police services board that was upheld in findings as well.

[1:15:12] So there has been prior opportunities to course correct. So I think that a suspension of pay penalty is warranted here, but I certainly cannot support 30 days. And I think that the five day option is something that is more reasonable as a next step. I’m a firm believer that discipline should be a corrective action process with increasing disciplinary steps as if behavior is not corrected. I think we’ve gone from a couple of reprimands now to a suspension of pay.

[1:15:47] So that’s why I’ve moved that. And I will save the rest of my comments on the report itself. I know you want to focus on the sanctions. So I’ll leave it at that other than to say while I recognize that the province has recently tabled some legislation to change the municipal act around code of conduct. I hope that we are going to participate in that as a municipality because Councilor Stevenson and I did bring forward a motion earlier this year that has not seen any substantial action while we were waiting for the province to respond.

[1:16:23] So I’m hoping that we’ll be participating in that. Keep it on focus, thank you. I have Councilor Hillier next. Thank you for recognizing me. And I’d like to thank Councilor Lewis for his motion ‘cause this one has been weighing on me heavily as well. All of us were elected. And in essence, we sometimes walk around with feels like a target on our backs, but staff was not. And that’s where the problem came. And when I review the recommendation, I also agreed, I don’t believe we should be starting at a period of 30 days.

[1:16:58] So I’m very appreciative of Councilor Lewis and his motion, I will be supporting it. Thank you. Other speakers to the amendment just to move it to five days. Councilor Stevenson on the amendment. Well, I guess I’ll tie it into the amendment, but I just wanted to clarify some of the things that were said, there was two. Okay, but it needs to be on the amendment. This is moving from 30 to five days. So you don’t need to clarify what else was said. You need to speak in support or against the amendment and the reasons why.

[1:17:31] And I’m gonna make everybody do this, okay? Go ahead. Okay, well, things are being said that are inaccurate. There gets to be an opportunity to correct it or maybe not. Listen, I appreciate the direction that this is going and I don’t feel that, I feel like this is worthy of a bigger discussion and that there’s still a problem that gets to be addressed at the end of this. I’m left as a Councilor not knowing how to move forward. I’ve been working under the direction of the chair and following the guidance and asking questions in advance, doing what I’ve been asked to.

[1:18:07] Maybe there’s more training, maybe there’s another amendment that can go on here. I don’t know, but I appreciate the direction that it’s going. Okay, other speakers on the amendment. Go ahead, Councilor Plaza and then Councilor Hopkins. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Speaking strictly to the amendment on the floor, I will not be supporting it. I did support the 30 days in both opportunities to speak. The Councilor didn’t speak to the burden of the pecanary fee and the rate set on personal finances or her home. They did speak to penalties not being effective.

[1:18:46] So I’m not so sure it really makes a difference of if it is the five or 30 from their comments that were made. So having heard this and I’m waiting to speak on the main motion, however it comes out, just not able to support this, we’re halfway through a Council term. And I think we can do better with behavior and happy to support the 30 if this fails. Councilor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship. I will reserve my comments to the main motion, but on the amendment, I will not be supporting the five days.

[1:19:22] I don’t think anything changes with the five days. I heard from the Councilor and I didn’t sense that much will change when we move forward. And this is about how we make our workplace, a safer place to come to work. And— Okay, just one second, a point of privilege. Go ahead, Councilor Stevenson. I am because I’m hearing that I’m not appreciating what has happened here. And I’ve said right from the beginning, we have a very serious problem here.

[1:19:56] It matters how senior management feel, okay? And I am fully open to what this Council brings forward to make this better going forward. And I didn’t say that the penalty isn’t effective for me or that it isn’t a burden for me. I said that if you look at the literature, that it says that it isn’t effective. So I just want to be clear that— I hear your point of personal privilege. So I’ll just go back to Councilor Hopkins. So I think there were some things that the Council did say about being open to training, being open to other things.

[1:20:28] So I just, if you could make sure that you speak to the amendment, but make sure the language is respectful of all of us in all of our opinions, which I think everybody is trying to do here as much as possible. Thank you for that. And I did hear that the Councilor is open to training. And I’m glad of that. I would like to just make a comment on the code of conduct ‘cause I know the Councilor and the Deputy Mayor brought this forward. And I know at AMO we have been advocating on changes to the— Okay, now I have to caution you too, Councilor Hopkins.

[1:21:04] We can have a discussion about the code of conduct and AMO and the integrity commissioner, and we can do that at a committee. But right now we’re on an amendment that moves from 30 days to five days. And I’m just trying to keep everybody pretty tight on that. Thank you for keeping us on a focused here. So I know there are changes coming forward and there are gonna be tougher penalties on Councils and the need for us to set an example and to make sure that we are following through on the code of conduct.

[1:21:47] So I just wanted to put that out there. It’s not that we’re going to be less, have less penalties. We are going to see more penalties set in motion. So I will not be supporting the five days. Councilor Ferra on the amendment. Thank you, Mayor. I’ll be very brief and I’ll speak a little bit more fully at the main motion when it’s amended. If it gets amended, I’m not gonna be supporting this amendment. I see that the integrity commissioner has completed an investigation and they have tied sanctions to that.

[1:22:22] And it is up to the integrity commissioner to do that. So I feel like if we were to depart from those sanctions that the integrity commissioners came forward with, that would not be really kind of within the scope that we’re trying to achieve here. And I’ll just leave it right there. I would not be supporting this amendment and I will be speaking further to the main motion when we get there. That’s a privilege. Thank you, and I will certainly be supporting the five days because I do consider that’s better than the 30 days. Having said that just to speaking and I’ll be speaking to the main motion as well, but just to this motion, I think that both sanctions doesn’t matter if it’s five or 30 days.

[1:23:03] I consider them not proactive, they are reactive. And I think there are other measures, if you just heard certain comparisons from last year to this year, that there are other initiatives that as an organization we can implement to actually proactively move us forward. So I’m supporting the five, absolutely. It’s better than 30, but I don’t consider neither one as a win and I will be talking to the main motion. Thank you. Okay, any other speakers on the amendment? We’ll see any speakers on the amendment.

[1:23:36] So this is the amendment to change from 30 days to five days moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor ramen. We’ll open that for voting. Opposing the vote, motion fails. Five to nine with one recusal. Okay, so that motion fails.

[1:24:09] So we’re back on the main motion. I’ve had four speakers. I’ll look for other speakers to the main motion that was moved by Councillor Cuddy. I heard a number of people say they wanted to speak to this so that now is the time. Councillor Ferrer, go ahead. Thanks Mayor, I guess I’ll start. For me, this is not a matter of freedom of speech. This is a matter of bullying and harassment. I’ve sat here and I’ve watched for two years now. And as Councillor Frank rightfully pointed out, this is a reflection on ourselves and how we conduct our business and how we do things here.

[1:24:44] And it doesn’t make me feel very comfortable when I see bullying and harassment. So that’s what this is. That is exactly what’s going on here. We don’t, I don’t condone any type of bullying and harassment. I have been bullied myself. I’ve been harassed myself in my entire life. I’ve seen it happen to others. And I’ve always taken the stance to not allow that and to stop that. And I believe that many people in this gallery and in this chambers and with staff have seen similar things happen to them before and have taken that stance. I would stop any type of bullying or harassment, regardless of who you are, to anybody.

[1:25:18] I just don’t support that. And that’s what this motion is all about. The integrity commissioner exists, so Council doesn’t have to debate or police another conduct. And that’s why we have the integrity commissioner bringing in their recommendations. This is what we should be doing. I see the integrity commissioner as an independent expert. And it is representing upwards of 50 municipalities. And it does this type of work. It has thoroughly investigated the circumstances here. And this is the second December before break that we have been discussing matters like this with the Councilor.

[1:25:55] So like I said, this is not a freedom of speech issue at all. I totally support freedom of speech. And if you look at the record, you would see that. And you’ll see the rest of Council doing that too. We can’t confuse the difference between freedom of speech and bullying and harassment. On the sanction, Councilor, bring it back to the sanction, please. So I will be supporting the sanction, the 30-day suspension. In the end, the goal is to ensure that we respect each other, that we have open debate, that people feel comfortable to speak.

[1:26:28] And that is what the goal is here. So I am gonna support the sanctions as recommended by the integrity commissioner. And I also hope to see my colleagues support the same thing. Okay, yes, no, there’s no, it’s not a public meeting. I really want you to stay. And you have to follow the decorum in the room if you wanna stay and observe. You don’t get to speak. No, you actually don’t get the fun.

[1:27:03] I’m sorry. Can you remove them from the gallery, please? No. (people clapping) I watch people in their home. I did public housing. So listen, this is so members of the gallery who would like to stay and watch the proceedings. Point of order chair. Yes. Chair, I’m gonna call a recess. No. Okay, we’re gonna have a 10-minute recess. And anybody who would like to stay can return.

[1:27:35] So all in favor of a 10-minute recess by hand, turn any opposed. Okay colleagues, I’m gonna call the meeting back to order.

[1:41:18] Let me just say a couple of things. One, I appreciate members in the gallery who listened to the decorum rules. I want you to know that with the exception of the one individual who would refuse to observe the rules of decorum in the gallery and is not welcome back, everyone else has been instructed by corporate security that if they’re willing to agree to the rules of sitting and observing the gallery that they are welcome to come back and stay and observe the proceedings of the meeting. So, but one individual has refused to do that and will not be returning to the meeting. Others are welcome back if they agree to decorum rules. And with that, that was a recess and Councillor Ferreira, I think you were in the middle of speaking when we had a recess where you finished, okay.

[1:42:03] Didn’t know if you had more to say. And then I’m looking, what we are is we’re on the main motion, which was not amended and I have one, two, three, four, five, five colleagues who’ve spoken already to that. I’m looking for other speakers on the main motion. Go ahead Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you Your Worship and I will be supporting the sanctions for that are listed out in B. I wanna just make a couple comments about the reasons why I’m supporting the sanctions and this has been a concern of mine since day one when this council started the feeling of not being safe and I can only imagine how staff must be feeling when it comes to the investigation that has been found that there is bullying and harassment going on.

[1:43:06] I feel that when I sit here as well, there’s that feeling that sometimes I’m not able to even say what I wanna say or feeling that I’m a hostage to having to sit through comments. There are opportunities for each and every one of us to follow up with staff if we have questions, before committee, before council, there are many, many opportunities. Staff are always available to meet with us and to answer our questions. I have found that our meetings have tended to go on in a lengthy manner.

[1:43:42] Councillor Hopkins on the main motion and the sanction, please. They are valid and they are in order. That’s why I’ll be supporting the sanction. Other speakers who haven’t spoken yet. Councillor ramen, go ahead. Thank you and through you, Chair. I did have some questions and they are procedural questions of staff in terms of next steps and such. And I’m just wondering if you’d like me to wait on those questions or if I can proceed right now.

[1:44:30] So Councillor, you need the answers to the procedural questions for your decision on the sanction. If so, I can, I think doing those now is appropriate. Okay, so go ahead. Thank you and through you. So before I make my comments, I’ll just ask a few questions. My first question pertains to what I perceive as risk associated with even the conversation that we’re having today as it relates to the corporation. We’re talking about the respectful workplace policy, how we engage with said policy, which we last updated on the end of March 2024, I believe. In that update, we included some language around social media and specifically around emoticons and things of that nature.

[1:45:15] That was included in the respectful workplace policy and some other changes. I’m just wondering, following that policy as it’s constructed and laid out, what happens next should Council make decision today to sanction? I look in between the city solicitor and the city manager on who’d like to take that. Okay, go ahead. Thank you and through you, your worship. Today’s decision is separate from any decisions that we take with respectful workplace.

[1:45:50] We will obviously support any staff that needs it. We do have measures in place that we take to protect employees from any reprisals or harassment. We take it from here. The city manager has delegated authority to deal with staffing issues. Go ahead, Councilor Raman. Thank you. And through you, and actually that’s part of my concern when I read the workplace policy. I’m not sure how in terms of elected officials that further step goes on. In addressing the overall concern.

[1:46:28] So outside of a sanction, how does the matter come to a resolution? To the city manager. Thank you, your worship through you. Further to the comments from the city solicitor, these matters that relate to the administrative activities are our responsibility. Council has a decision to make as it relates to the recommendation from your integrity commissioner. We are taking our steps and our actions outside of that process as long as it relates to our administrative processes. Rest assured and be confident that we will be ensuring that there is safety for all staff in every environment that they work in.

[1:47:09] And so I want to assure you of that and the measures that we take assure our staff of that. And to be quite frank, they assure safety for you as council members as well. Thus the reason we do things like clearing council chambers when there’s risks or concerns. I want to be clear about that. That’s our role as well to support you and that safety. Go ahead, Council Raman. And through you and thank you for that answer to city manager. So we have the respectful workplace policy. We have what’s in front of us today, which is tied to sanctions as the only available remedy that is in front of us.

[1:47:48] And the only other remedy would be a reprimand. Is that correct? Yeah, I’ll go to Ms. Pollett. Thank you and through your worship. Yes, our code and the Municipal Act provides for those two sanctions. There are measures that could be taken that are non-punitive, such as an apology, that sort of thing.

[1:48:25] But primarily the two options are either the suspension of a period of time or a reprimand. Go ahead, Council Raman. Thank you. Yeah. Well, a point of order would be part of the proceedings. A point of privilege would be something that you would take some sort of personal offense. Okay, well, point of privilege, I guess then, is that in the municipal world article that I read, there’s many different avenues and sanctions available to Council, just not to the integrity commissioner.

[1:49:02] So, and they made many recommendations for harassment much better than a penalty. And there were many, there’s a list of five or six of them. And so I just disagree. There’s lots of options for Council that weren’t available to the integrity commissioner. Okay, so on the point of personal privilege, I, so that didn’t sound like a point of personal privilege. It sounded like your disagreement that there was a complete list of matters and remedies listed. So appreciate the comments, but it’s not really a— Well, just the privilege portion is that my limit, my options are limited by the response and I don’t believe them to be accurate, so.

[1:49:41] Okay, understood, so, so I’ll go just for clarification because I don’t want to misinterpret my understanding. And I think that the answer to Council Raman’s request was what, I think there’s a difference between what are the things that an individual could do and what are the things in the act that an integrity commissioner can recommend and then Council can make a decision on. So maybe you could clarify Council Raman, the parameters of your question and then I’ll get a clear answer on that.

[1:50:18] Thank you and through you. So I was looking for clarification on reprimand and sanction as it’s outlined in our Code of Conduct, excuse me, as a remedy in terms of what’s possible for the integrity commissioner in terms of recommendations. Okay, so this is scoped within, so everybody’s clear within our Code of Conduct and what the integrity commissioner could recommend based on the legislation, not every remedy that an individual could take. Go ahead. Thank you and through you. I am aware, I think the integrity commissioner may have a comment, but if you look at our Code of Conduct under 12.4, the integrity commissioner can recommend a written or verbal public apology, return of property or reimbursement of its value or of money spent, removal from membership of a committee and removal of as a chair of a committee, Section 12.5 of our Code of Conduct also provides that on receipt of a recommendation from the integrity commissioner, Council may impose either a reprimand or, sorry, in circumstances where the integrity commissioner has determined there has been a violation of the Code of Conduct, Council may impose a reprimand or a suspension of the remuneration paid to the member for a period of up to 90 days.

[1:51:43] Okay, go ahead, Councilor Raman. Thank you and through you and thank you for that answer. So again, with the limited information and not information, sorry, the limited ability to move this discussion to something that I’m more comfortable with at this point, I will not support the 30 days. I would be comfortable with a lesser day penalty, which is why I supported the amendment. I would also be comfortable with an action that’s perhaps related to removal from a committee or portion of a committee in order to address some of the other criteria related to discipline.

[1:52:28] Again, we’re here for the purpose of discipline at this point for this conversation. It’s not to go through the report and what’s contained in it. But I will say that I personally believe in progressive discipline. I do think that this 30 days is a bit too heavy-handed. At this time, and so I’ll look to my colleagues to see if there’s any further amendments. Okay, that was Councilor Raman on the main motion. Other speakers to the main motion that’s been moved. Okay, I don’t see any other speakers to the main motion giving you a chance.

[1:53:11] No, you’re gonna, main motion. Yes, Councilor Palosa, go ahead. Thank you, realizing it spoke on the amendment, but not the main motion. I will be supportive of this. I would say the report does outline behavior of concern that’s gone on for some time, as we’ve already seen in the reports. We’re halfway through our term of council. I know some of us said you’re new. We’re not new anymore, we’re halfway done. Also had followed a while-be-supporting part B. We’ve seen those behaviors as an appointed or as an elected official.

[1:53:51] Also saw the report that the behavior follows the levels of concern into an agency boarding commission which we’ve been appointed to as an elected official with the police board. And that came back as a positive finding as well. So that’s why I’m supporting this is a, I know it could’ve been up to 90 days, just supporting the 30 as it is ongoing. We’ve had training and other reports. There’s been an opportunity to do better.

[1:54:23] And as a chair of committee, I’ve not seen that to a level which I’d be satisfied. So I’m supporting this today. Okay, any other speakers to the main motion? Councillor Bribble, no? Okay, well you bounce around like you wanna speak. So I just, I was looking around. I was looking around to speak, so. So thank you for this. I will not be supporting the 30 days. And I’m gonna say a few things and in terms of the report that was brought to us. Couple of things. So the first one was in terms of the treatment of our staff. First of all, if that’s the way the staff felt or about it because by a guy I tell you, I feel that all of us in terms of around this horseshoe, we did have, and not just the chair of the committees.

[1:55:06] We did, if it felt if it was as far as it stated, we all of us had the opportunity to stop. So we have the measures, the power in our, in the bylaws, what Councillor can do that we could have stopped it. In terms of the negative or certain, as you all know, I’m not active on social media, which I consider because I wanna always stay concentrated. And social media for me is a distraction. But I wanna say one thing is as a business owner downtown, all the negative that’s out there, it doesn’t help.

[1:55:41] It really doesn’t help. And actually as a business owner, when I had Councillors and I’ll tie it back to the motion, when the Councillors came to my establishment— Councillor, on the sanction. Like I know you’re talking about business downtown, social media, but bring it back to, we’re talking about the motion before us, which is received report and an issue sanction. You said you were against it. You could provide your reasons, we’ll listen to them, take them into consideration. So keep, so I stick to that. I will stick to that. So the first part was what I was talking about, about the meetings.

[1:56:13] I don’t think that this is a way, proctor way for us to move forward. I think there are other measures that could be introduced. And as I said, I’m looking for last, if I look what was happening, I guess last six months, that’s not healthy for any organization. And I don’t believe that this sanction of 30 days suspended pay will move us any forward. So I’m looking for the future for us, everyone that’s on this floor, and the teams that are reporting to the senior staff, I want us to move forward in the best possible positive way.

[1:56:55] I don’t believe what’s in front of us will take us there. Please consider, please consider other options. Let’s move forward in the best possible way. We all were elected, we all reported through the half a million of Londoners. Let’s make it what’s the best for the half a million of Londoners. Thank you. Okay, any other speakers on what’s before us, which has been moved and seconded, lots of discussion. So this is two parts.

[1:57:28] Anybody want to divide it into A and B? Yes, okay, so we’re gonna do them separate. So I’m gonna attach all the it being noted and pieces to A, and we’ll deal with that part first. All right, so the first vote will be on the it being noted and A, which is received the report and noting the pieces of correspondence that Councilor Stevenson submitted.

[1:58:14] So we’ll open that for voting. Close in the vote, motion carries 14 to zero with one more key result. Okay, and the next will be B, which is based on the findings, the recommendation that the integrity commissioner made for a suspension of pay for a period of 30 days.

[1:58:51] We’ll open that for voting. I vote yes. voted, closing the vote, motion carries eight to six with one more key result.

[1:59:29] So that’s it on that matter, which is 6.1. Now what we have is matters 6.2 through 6.8, which are all pieces of correspondence that relate to different parts of the committee reports in the agenda. I’m gonna look for a mover for putting those and basically distributing those to the various parts of the committee reports in the agenda. Moved by Councilor Close, seconded by Council Frank. Any discussion on that? Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Close in the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

[2:00:40] All right, we have no motion to which notice was given. So we’re on to the report stage. The first report, 8.1, is the first report of the new composition of the planning and environment committee. I’ll turn it over to Chair Layman to present that report noting that Councilor declared a conflict on 17. And I think that I know of 22 that Councilor circulated a motion on or correspondence on. I’m not sure if there’s anything else that colleagues are looking for separate, but I’ll let you present the report and then I’ll make a call.

[2:01:17] Thank you, Mayor. And I will be happy to present the first report planning environment committee. And there is number 18, I had a request to pull as well. But that’s it from what I’ve been made aware of. Councilor Trossa, you said you wanted 14, maybe separate? I think you informed the 15, 17, 22. Okay. Yes, the reason why we’re pausing is there was correspondence from a developer that they wanted to withdraw their application on 20.

[2:02:38] And Councilor Layman, I don’t know. Yeah, so I didn’t, I want advice from the Chair. Do we pull that or how do you want to handle that? Well, maybe I’ll go to Mr. May, there’s about, or the clerk on how we handle someone who’s willing to withdraw an application and how do we dispense with the matter before us? Through your worship. So we have been received correspondence from the applicant that they’d like to withdraw their application. We are supportive of that as well. So the process would be to just to remove that from the agenda. We’re not asking for a referral.

[2:03:14] It’s just a complete withdrawal of the application at this time. So why don’t we receive the staff report? Like we’ll amend this to receive the staff report with it being noted that the application was withdrawn. Okay, so I think what we’ll do is we’ll pull that separately and then maybe chair at the time, you can make that motion when we get, ‘cause we have to take the committee report, put it on the floor and then you can amend it to receive the staff report and it being noted about the withdraw of the application.

[2:03:51] So that means we’ll deal with 14, 17, 8, 18, 20, and 22 separately. Okay Chair, I’m gonna let you make a motion. I’ll just note that what we’ve crafted here is a motion that has everything except 14, 17, 18, 20, and 22 in it.

[2:04:30] Okay, then I’ll just, I’ll put, as you said, on the floor. All right, discussion on that. Go ahead, Councillor McAllister. Oh, sorry, these aren’t the ones that are pulled, this is the other ones, right? This is everything that’s left. Okay, nevermind. No, okay, Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship. I just wanna make a quick comment on number four, which is 2.3, the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority Service Level Review, and I just wanna thank Upper Thames for providing a status update on their service review as well as the floodplain modeling and looking forward to information sessions going forward.

[2:05:09] So, thank you. Okay, I have no other speakers on all of those items, so I’m gonna open that for voting. Those in the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

[2:05:47] Councillor Layman. Okay, then I would like to put item 14 on the floor, which is a request removed heritage listed property at 19, 27, and Richmond stream. All right. The property heritage listing. Perfect, that’s on the floor. I’ll look for any speakers. Councillor Trostau, go ahead. I’ll try to keep this really short. I pulled this because I wanna be recorded as voting no. I don’t believe it’s appropriate to remove this property at this point, I believe it retains its heritage status. It deserves to be protected. And for that reason, I’ll be voting no on the motion.

[2:06:23] Thank you, any other speakers? Seeing none, we’re gonna open that for voting. Those in the vote, motion carries 13 to two. Councillor Layman. I would like to put number 17, which is regarding 19, 22 Highland Heights and 205 Commissioners Road East on the floor.

[2:07:02] Okay, that’s on the floor, any comments? See, yes, sorry. Oh, Councillor Hillier and Councillor Hopkins. I’ll go to Councillor Hillier first. Thank you for recognizing me. We’ve received a lot of communication on this file, as many of you know. And just so the residents know, I’d like to apologize for not getting back to them regarding the fire route, we just got the email this morning at 11.39 a.m. Now, with regards to the driveway, the driveway went at the entrance is 5.4 meters and expanding to 6.7 internal on the side with a fire route turn around proposed to the east of the proposed building, which should take care of that issue.

[2:07:43] Now, with the other regarding issues of the outdoor storage, if you refer to the by-law for said property, the outdoor storage shall not be permitted in the required area north and the interior side or the budding residential areas. So I’m hoping when we get to site plan with the H-101, we can address the rest of the residents concerned, but I would like to apologize for not getting back to them, but we did just get communication this morning. Thank you. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, I appreciate the comments from the Councillor to I know the fire entrance or the main entrance was a consideration and a concern in the community.

[2:08:19] I just want to go on record that as much as I appreciate the committee for putting on that holding provision for the public through the site plan process, I’m still not confident that the dislocation is the best location, so we’ll not be supporting it. Okay, any go ahead, Councillor Trozal. Very briefly, for the same reason, I will not be supporting this. I think this goes beyond what we can do with the holding provision, and I think it goes beyond what we can do with site plan. I would prefer to send this back for discussion, but I don’t think that’s something there were in a position to do given the legislation, so I am going to be voting no.

[2:09:01] I hope when this comes back, the applicant is more cognizant of the placement of some of these facilities. Thank you. All right, that’s all the speakers I have. Oh, Councillor Preble, go ahead. Thank you, Mayor, and even with the addition or amendment that was passed at the PAC regarding the H101, I will still not be supporting it, thank you. Any other speakers? Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship, and through you, I did move an H101 holding provision at committee, which of course actually opens up the site plan, which is normally a discussion only between the applicant and our staff in finalizing the plans, but in fact will be a public site plan process allowing for some additional public input, addressing of some of the concerns through some site plan feature designs.

[2:09:56] I just want to emphasize to colleagues though, staff recommended support for this, and while I understand colleagues may feel that because the community doesn’t support it, or some members of the community don’t support it that they shouldn’t either, but what I have not heard from colleagues is a planning act reason to refuse this, and I think that it’s incumbent on us to keep in mind that when we’re refusing a staff recommended support, there should be a planning act reason for it, and I have not heard anyone raise an issue that would justify refusal under the planning act, which will leave us, quite frankly, very much open to an appeal at the loyalty.

[2:10:48] Okay, any other speakers? All right, the committee recommendations on the floor will open that for voting. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries nine to five with one recusal. Go ahead, Councilor. Okay, I’d like to put number 18 regarding 2141, Middle Italy Road North, and 20 New Orleans Avenue by the floor.

[2:11:25] Okay, that’s on the floor, I’ll look for speakers. Councilor McAllister. Thank you, and through the chair, I did have a amendment with this one. Would you like me to read out the amendment? Yes, if you’re making any amendment, it would be great if you could read it out, and then I’ll seek a seconder, and then you can make some comments. Okay, I’m requesting that this item, B-I-I be amended to remove the current wording and replace it with the following, a donation to Urban Roots by Royal Premier Homes, the amount in specific project allocation to be determined by the respective parties at a later date.

[2:12:04] Okay, and that’s it, that’s the amendment. Okay, you got a seconder, and Councilor Cuddy, so if you want to provide some rationale, and then I will go to a speakers list if necessary. Okay, thank you, and once again, through the chair. So following the PEC meeting on December 3rd, all parties have agreed that a shared sewer line is not possible. I do want to express my apologies to Ms. Morello, Romello, and her wastewater team. They were correct in recommending against the shared service. It was also requested to provide any details available for the costing of the playgrounds, but I don’t know if I can speak to that now, or should I just amend this, and then speak to the main motion.

[2:12:47] I think you just stick to the parameters of the amendment that you’re on, ‘cause the amendment’s on the floor. Okay, I’ll reserve my other comments then, but just that in discussion with the parties and staff that the sewer line is not advisable, and that we are working on an alternative that they will determine at a later date. Okay, this is on Councilor McAllister’s amendment, which is moved and seconded. Any discussion? Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Yeah, I’ll just rise to take the opportunity to thank the Councilor for the amendment.

[2:13:23] So I want to thank Ms. Ramalu and Ms. McNeely for taking the time to meet with me and share with me why they would prefer that this come out as well. Some very good rationale there. I think it’s important to underscore that the water line still happens, so urban routes is still going to be supplied with a water line through this project for their needs in terms of meeting their urban agriculture. What it really impacts is their ability to install washrooms for sanitary service. They’ll still end up being on a septic bed rather than a sanitary sewer service.

[2:13:58] However, there’s been a commitment made by the applicant to continue discussions with urban routes. As we know, they’re enough profit. They’ve been doing some great work in the city. They’re also in a location where they’re fairly remote from a number of services and have a fairly long wish list of things that would improve their operation and support the work that they’re doing there to provide some additional food security in the community. I firmly believe that from the list that they’ve shared, ‘cause they’ve shared a communication with me, or I’ve been copied at least on a communication, I think that there is certainly ground to be met here and I have no reason to believe that through negotiations, they won’t reach a set of suitable community benefit to support one of our local not-for-profits.

[2:14:49] So supportive of this amendment, I think the Councilor for the work he did to get this lined up. Okay, any of the speakers? Go ahead, Councilor Plos. Thank you. Just speaking to this, in my opinion, I appreciate that they’re trying to give something at some point to urban routes, but it seems to have very vague parameters of little or no monetary value yet to be determined at a future date with no parameters set in. And they certainly could have made a donation to this wonderful not-for-profit without us setting up this parameter.

[2:15:25] So I’m gonna vote on a no, well, I guess I have to do a yes for this, and then I’ll speak to the main motion of why I have other concerns with the application, but I’ll clean this up and then it’ll be, ‘cause it has to be, but it has a little to value. Okay, so on the amendment, Councilor Ferreira, just the amendment. Thank you Mayor, just the amendment. So I do appreciate the work the Council has brought through with this. This is for the communal pumping station and the concerns I assume with staff on that.

[2:15:58] So like with the main motion, I guess I’ll have to speak to that too. I kind of missed that we’re on the amendment right now, so I apologize, but I do like how this is cleaning that up just with regards with the risk that the city could be undertaking with the original portion on this aspect, but I guess I’ll leave the comments there and I’ll stand up again for the main one. Okay, on the amendment, I have no other speakers. We’re opening the amendment for voting. I was gonna vote, motion carries 13 to two.

[2:16:43] Okay, so I’m gonna do like a rare change. Councilor McAlister, I really should have encouraged you to speak your other piece before. You made the amendment, but you had one other part that you did not get to say, so I’m gonna let you say that, but I’m going back to your time and this is not technically procedurally perfect, but I should have said that before. I said make the amendment now. So finish up your comments on the main, but you’ve already started speaking on the main motion, just so you know. Okay, thank you. I’m gonna try to be as quick as possible.

[2:17:15] ‘Cause I did speak to this a lot of committee, I’m not sure if I’ve had a chance to hear that. I do wanna note, there has been back and forth, obviously with the two schools that were in this. I did, as of 133, get approval to share, quote, I was able to share one amongst council. Unfortunately I couldn’t attach it to this for the public agenda, but that is now allowable. I got the approval from the school board. Sorry, for the back and forth on that, it’s been kind of difficult to deal with the school board and not sure if anyone else has, but it can be challenging at times. I would like to say, thank you again to the developer for working with schools, with urban routes.

[2:17:50] I know to Councillor Palazzo’s point, she’d like more clarity. But to be honest, we’re in a situation where we don’t have a cash-in-lue policy. It’s actually something that I had previously directed to council in terms of bringing back a policy when affordable housing is no longer possible, that we work to have some benchmarking in terms of what can be provided as community benefits. So in the interim, I kind of have to work on this ad hoc basis. I think what we’ve come to is an amenable agreement that will really help the community.

[2:18:24] I know both the schools. They’ve really needed this for a while. They’ve really struggled in terms of fundraising. I know, I can already hear council saying, “Don’t backfill for the school board.” But I don’t think it’s fair enough to punish kids for something which I think at the end of the day will be very beneficial to the community. With urban routes, they’ve done a lot of good work in the community. I think there will be a way forward in terms of something meaningful that both the developer and urban routes will be able to take from this. Those discussions are still ongoing, but again, it’s not something, you know, it’s always perfect. I’m still hopeful in terms of what will be there.

[2:18:59] There is the water line, as the deputy mayor said. But as I said, imperfect system we’re operating in right now with a lot of the bonusing being removed. We all want affordable housing built, but unfortunately, it’s not gonna work in every circumstance. So I think what we’ve come to is something I’d like colleagues to support. I know the community is very much looking forward to this, so I look for your support on this. Thank you. Okay, so this is on the, so I need to move the same mover and seconder for the as amended motion, potentially you’re willing to move.

[2:19:37] I need a seconder for as amended. Councilor McAllister, yes. Okay, so we’re gonna count that. Councilor McAllister, as you speak, in the as amended motion, so it is procedurally correct. And others on the as amended motion. Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship. I could just say yes and be really brief, but I’m gonna say a few more words. We’re dealing with a plan here that’s been in flux for a while, we’re dealing with a developer who’s already got contractors sort of lined up to get the work started in the new year, get shovels in the ground and get these units completed.

[2:20:19] There’s multiple community benefits being provided here that, well, I’m one of the first to say, I don’t wanna backfill for the school board. I also have seen these sort of community benefits happen in my own ward. I don’t wanna hold that back from community benefits in Councilor McAllister’s ward. And I know that these are certainly schools that would benefit greatly. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how much cookie dough and frozen pizza as you sell. Raising $85, $90,000 for a playground is inexpensive and daunting process for moms and dads who are just trying to make ends meet at home.

[2:21:02] The plan, the site plan itself on this site has always looked good. And Councilor McAllister referenced this and I wanna come back to that point as well on the affordable housing piece. There are other community benefits that we should be considering. There’s a list of them in the London plan. I think that this fits those lists. And as Councilor McAllister alluded to, depending on the size and scale of a project, affordable housing is not always going to be the thing that we’re going to be able to get.

[2:21:35] I’ve sat down and looked at this project. I’ve looked at a couple of other projects that are happening in the city as well. When we start talking about some of the formulas that are applied by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, they actually don’t work. They make it fiscally unattainable for affordable units to be created, particularly when we’re talking about, not today, if it was just today, it could work. But when we’re asking for 25 and 30 year and in some cases previously, we were asking for as much as 50 years, it doesn’t work.

[2:22:11] And so there’s, and I know your worship has ongoing discussions with the federal and the provincial ministers of housing as we continue to work on the housing accelerator fund and some of the rapid housing initiatives. But there’s another piece here that’s a barrier. And I don’t think that we can realistically say, well, we don’t want to go with this now because we don’t have affordable housing in it. We’re getting some other community benefits. And we are still getting housing. And so, and affordable housing in terms of the fact that where this is located in the east end of the city, the land is still relative to other parts of the city.

[2:22:51] Cheap, the units that are being created, townhouse model, cheap compared to a single family home. Cheap compared to a high density 35 story tower. We talked about this when we were talking about the heights plan review, how the townhouse component of the housing mix is really critical to let it meeting its targets. And so I think when we’re looking at the 90 units of housing that are going in here, we need to say yes to those. And we should accept the community benefits that are here and trust that our partners in this community, both our not-for-profit and our for-profit builder in this case, will come to an agreement that finds a suitable replacement.

[2:23:31] I know, I don’t want to presume where it’s going to land. I know there’s been talk about a generator because the power supply is not always necessarily reliable on-site for them. I know there’s some other things that everyone roots had on their list. But the partners here, both parties, are established organizations that have shown to us they deliver what they say they’re going to do. So I’m comfortable moving forward and letting them sort that out as they will in getting the site plan approvals done and getting the work started on the site. Okay, Councilor Pribble next.

[2:24:06] Thank you, numerous benefits, positive initiative, very positive project for London, big yes for me. Thank you. Thank you for your concisance, Councilor Pribble. Go ahead, Councilor Palosa. Thank you, I’m not going to be quite as concise, though hopefully just as efficient. Question through you to Mr. Mathers. As this staff report came looking for refusal and Council had already dealt with this, that would have been four units of affordable housing. If we decline this application today, what are they already authorized to build should they choose?

[2:24:42] I’ll go to Mr. Mathers or Ms. McNeely. Through your worship, there was a previous approval for unzoning on this site. So we’re just going to pull that up, but it’ll just take us a moment. Okay, just take a moment, we’ll pause the time. Go ahead. Through your worship, there would be 80 units. Thank you. Just want colleagues to hear that direct from staff. I will not be supporting this application today.

[2:25:15] I raised concerns at committee. I want to thank Councillor McAllister for the work he did with the school board hearing my concerns and getting communications back and absolutely dealing with the school board and playgrounds is a lengthy process. So thank you for that. I highlighted at committee that donations to the non-profits or school boards can be direct and done outside of this process and doesn’t need to come through Council for our direction. They can have that directly into the community, which is always a welcome benefit. I do believe it’s provincial backfilling of schools and playground and equipment, not saying it’s not needed by the community, but I need affordable housing.

[2:25:55] Council already approved the units in intensification with bonusing of affordable units. Now it’s looking like we’re losing the affordable units in exchange for a playground. Like I said, both are needed. Just we have the ability to get the affordable housing. I would prefer the original approval that Council did to get the four units of affordable housing, not to exceed 80% of average market rent. If that really is such a strict monetary divide of building 80 units, but 50 years of usage for affordable housing isn’t viable, I would consider from the applicant if they want to come forward with less timeframe of 50 years, if that makes their builds.

[2:26:47] A point of order, go ahead. Yes, just a point of order. Councilor Plosas referring to 80 units as with affordable housing, but I’m thinking the staff needs to clarify the 80 units would not include the previous four. Those four were part of a bonusing agreement that increased the total, I believe, to 90. Okay, no, so unfortunately, there’s not really a point of order, but the Councilor is saying something that might not be, whatever, in any ways of being factually correct, we don’t actually have a point of anything for that.

[2:27:20] People can say what they say in the debate, staff have provided a clarification, but I can’t start to let Councilor jump in and then ask staff to clarify a point that a Councilor is making. So I’m gonna have the Councilor proceed. I’m gonna say, not a point of order. There’s someone else who needs to speak to clarify things that they gotta get on the list, but if you’ve already spoken, you can’t. So Councilor, you can continue with your comments. Thank you. Based off the information for us, and knowing that it was already approved by Council for if we’re worried about getting new neighbors and people’s housed in affordable units, they already have approval to build.

[2:27:54] I’m happy with that, and I’m not interested in trading in four units of affordable housing for a playground. Thank you. Councilor Farra, I think Councilor Farra, you’re next. Thanks, Mayor. So I guess further to Councilor Palosa’s comments, I’m not gonna be expanding too much on them, but when it comes to the affordable housing and all the work that we’ve done with the bill and the same, and how it’s been approved already, I don’t wanna be losing that affordable housing. I would, I guess, pose a question to staff.

[2:28:28] I know Mr. Philberg’s not here, but with our roadmap to 3,000, just, I see this as we’re gonna be removing four units to that roadmap for the work that’s in progress right now. So I guess I’ll just pose that question first. So maybe just ask the question, like what is the question you’re asking? With the roadmap to 3,000, the units that are in progress right now, those four units would be within those numbers. Is that correct? Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Mathers. Through your worship, yes.

[2:29:00] We include all of the previously approved units within that value, so we would be deducting that if this was passed today. Councillor Ferra. Thank you. So with that, you know, just, I don’t wanna be losing any affordable housing. I do appreciate the work that Councilor has done. Thinking outside of the box is exactly what we need to be doing here, but I just, I wouldn’t be supportive of this just because I don’t wanna be using, losing those affordable units. Just touching quickly on the backfilling of provincial responsibilities, I’ve seen this Council say time and time again that we will not be filling in or I guess, you know, putting funds towards anything to do with the school board with the Ministry of Education when it’s their purview or when it’s their responsibility to do that.

[2:29:43] I do see that’s happening here. I don’t wanna be supporting that as well. So the main thing is the affordable units that I don’t wanna be losing. You know, we do need housing, but we also need affordable housing. So with that said, and just kind of with the priorities that I see this Council is supposed to be going when it comes to the strategic plan and with my own priorities personally, I wouldn’t be supporting this because I don’t wanna lose those affordable units. Councillor Cuddy. Thank you, worship and through you. Question of clarification from staff. Wondering if the 80 units includes affordable housing or that sector?

[2:30:22] Go ahead. Through the Your Worship, actually for further clarification, there was a minor variance application that it up sewn the number of units to 92 units, but it’s, but including the four affordable housing units. What this application is to have the 92 units without the four affordable housing units. Thank you. So that’s 92 units and not including the affordable or that is including the affordable. Under the minor variance, it was 92 units with the affordable, four affordable housing units.

[2:31:01] Thank you. Okay, I put myself on the list. I’ll be brief, I’ll turn the chair over to Deputy Marlous. Thank you, Your Worship. I will take the chair and please go ahead. So I’ll be brief. So I’ll support the motion as amended. I appreciate the work that the council has done on affordable units, just really briefly. It’s great that when we approve the zoning that we count them towards the total, but at the end of the day, what actually matters is getting them built.

[2:31:33] And, you know, at some point, some units have been approved that because of market conditions or changes in the economic conditions of the projects may never get built. And so I think we need to continually monitor how we can get community benefit, how we can get housing. We may have to make adjustments here and there. So although I agree with the council’s who don’t want to see it come down by four units, four units on the books that never gets built, doesn’t actually help anyone from affordability perspective. So I appreciate the council are finding another community benefit that can allow a project move forward and we’ll pick up another four affordable units somewhere else, but we’re probably going to have to make some of these decisions from time to time.

[2:32:15] And I appreciate that we found another community benefit through this process. Thank you, worship. I’ll return the chair to you. Any other speakers who haven’t spoken yet? Okay, Councilor Raman. Thank you and through you. So I appreciate the work of the councilor as well as the discussion that happened at committee. However, I want to just put on the record that I personally would prefer that when we’re talking about community benefit, that when we’re taking affordable housing, we’re looking at either supportive or affordable housing and sticking to the premise that we are supportive of our moves there because it’s very important to the community.

[2:33:02] My challenge with the amenities at the playgrounds and urban routes, very worthy, I think, within the community, however, we have had conversations at the school level, but some of those conversations need to happen at the board level. So the board is undergoing an attendance area review for Trafalgar because of low enrollment. We are looking to support a project at the school. We don’t know what that attendance area review could mean. These are not discussions that should be happening here, which is why we should not be deciding on things to do with playgrounds at schools that are under review right now.

[2:33:45] So I think that this is part of the challenge with looking at community benefit and how we look at community benefit. It’s why we need more of a policy or some framework around how we do community benefit as I think it can get us into unclear and unchartered waters. I’m not happy with donor agreements happening on the floors here and this back and forth between a developer and a community organization to ensure that that benefit level matches what was promised with affordable housing ‘cause ultimately, there was some calculation done around what that benefit was worth as affordable housing and whether or not it’s the same, what I’ve had come forward so far on a school board built is actually an undersized playground for a smaller school population, but also for a smaller part of the yard.

[2:34:34] I personally would want a commitment that the amount is to the level of what we looked at with the affordable housing. Otherwise, basically what we’re doing is we’re giving a developer the same amount of support for the 92 units with less actual community benefit and that’s not what we’re here to negotiate away. So I think we have to be really, really crystal clear about this. So my hope is that we actually amend this to say that the community benefit, whatever it should be deemed, matches the amount that would have been put forward for affordable housing.

[2:35:13] Now, having been in conversations with our pH before, I know that this is something that they will hear and take away, that they will note that we are looking for the same amount of community benefit and I hope that they will stick to that. Thank you. Okay, any other speakers? Okay, so this is on the main motion as amended. We’ll open that for voting. Worship, sorry, can I pull apart parts of this?

[2:35:49] To vote on separately? Okay, which part do you wanna pull the part? Thank you, I’m just looking to vote on I and the amended I-I separate. Can they be done together?

[2:36:33] Okay, so that’s an it being noted. So yes, we can deal with that it being noted clause separate because it doesn’t change the structure of any of the other components. So, okay, so we’ll do everything but the it being noted, everything but the staff, Councilor Ramen, wanted separate first and then we’ll do that it being noted second. So, this is everything with the exception of the it being noted that we’re looking for voting now.

[2:37:39] Was in the vote motion carries 11 to- Now, okay, so now it’s the it being noted clause. Was in the vote motion carries 11 to four.

[2:38:35] Okay, Chair. Thank you, moving on item 20, which is regarding 415 Oxford Street. So the moving of staff are committee recommendation. So put the committee recommendation on the floor and then we’ll move an amendment to it. Okay, and I will put the committee recommendation on the floor. And then you’re willing to move the amendment to his chair? Yeah, so I’d like to make an amendment to in addition to receiving the staff report, have it being noted the applicant’s intention to withdraw the application.

[2:39:08] Perfect, we have language for that. I need a seconder for an amendment. So, Deputy Mayor Lewis, any discussion on the amendment which is changing it? Yes, go ahead, Councilor Troso. Could I just ask for clarity, what the legal difference between with the amendment and not with the amendment? ‘Cause I’m not seeing any but I’m missing something obviously, so what’s the difference? Go ahead, Mr. May, there’s. Through your worship. So with the amendments, this decision isn’t being made at this time.

[2:39:43] The application’s being withdrawn and then they would have to make a new application that would be brought forward to Council in a very similar manner. So with this, there would be no Council decision being made today. And through the chair, in your view, do you see any potential prejudice to the city by doing this motion? I’d be inclined to support the motion if that’s their wish. I just wanna make it clear that I’m not missing anything. Mr. May, there’s. Through your worship. So I wouldn’t suggest that we are.

[2:40:16] If you did make a decision today to refuse, that does make things more complex with a new application was to come in subsequently. So this would be less likely to cause any kind of a problem moving forward. Then I’ll certainly support the amendment. Thank you to the chair. Thank you, any others on the amendment? Nope, seeing none, we’re gonna open the amendment for voting. Those in the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

[2:41:03] Okay, and now we need a motion for as amended. Chair Layman, if you’re willing to move as amended. If you’re willing to move to second. Okay, that’s a mover and a seconder. So any discussion on it now as amended? Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Those in the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Go ahead, Chair. Okay, I’m doing number 22 regarding the land needs assessment. I’ll move the committee recommendation.

[2:41:38] Okay, the committee’s recommendation is on the floor. I’ll look for others. Councillor Frank, you submitted some correspondence. I’ll go to you first to address that. Thank you, yes, I have circulated three amendments and I’m happy to speak to them and I have a couple questions for staff, but I’m not sure if perhaps you’d like me to have a second or first. Yes, so you’re willing to put the amendments on the floor. I don’t think, are they on the added agenda or not? Okay, if they’re not on the added agenda, then I would like you to read them so that members of the public can hear what your amendments are.

[2:42:10] Sure, so the motion will be amended to be to include new parts G, H, and I to read as follows. G, the civic administration be directed to develop an alternate scenario of approximately 1,130 hectares of developable land to accommodate planned growth. H, the civic administration be directed to demonstrably utilize the climate emergency screening tool as part of the urban growth boundary review and I that the mayor be requested to engage in a discussion with local southwestern Ontario mayors and wardens regarding regional growth. And then the rest would be from the original motion committee. Well, we’re just dealing with amending to add your G, H, and I right now.

[2:42:48] So if you want to speak to that, if you have questions on that, we can certainly address those, but you have the floor. Okay. And I’ll know Councillor Hoppens put up her hand a second. Oh, great, okay. There is a seconder. Great, I was like, oh, got a free card today. Okay, so a few questions for staff through the mayor. I was curious before I kind of dive into my comments if you could explain the rationale for the 2,000 hectares number and if it aligns with current planning principles. Go ahead. Go through your chair. So through a previous request by council, we undertook a housing supply marketplace analysis.

[2:43:26] We are using consultant. So the consultant came back with a recommendation, as a recommendation that’s before you and was brought forward by committee as well. So that 2,000 hectare value came from their analysis and their interviews and some other work that they’ve done as well. It highlights for the most part, three of the main items that were considered as part of actually developing that value. One is the high cost of land that’s currently financed for development with the urban growth boundary. Also the capacity and the inventory that local developers have to be able to provide and accelerate housing and then looking at the ratio of applications to council permissions versus the actual amount of permits that come full on an annual basis.

[2:44:12] So their focus wasn’t necessarily, it wasn’t the PPS related items. They looked beyond that and also considered the ability to be able to accelerate housing and move it forward more quickly and the economic components. So the work that they provided is not the same as the rationale or criteria that provided in the provincial planning and planning statement. Go ahead, Councillor Frank. Thank you and just to follow up on the second part of the question regarding planning principles. So my understanding is that 2,000 hectares is about 42 to 45 year horizon, is that correct?

[2:44:48] Councillor Frank, I’ll just, right now you’ve got the amendment. So if you can just link your questions to the amendment, sounds like I just wanna make sure ‘cause we’ll have a main motion too. So just link it a little more for me and then I can— Sure, in regards to part G where I request alternate scenario of 1,130 hectares, I’m asking about the 2,000 hectares number in order to be able to compare the 1,130, 1476, and 2,000 to have three different options to look at. And this is part of the rationale as to why I want a third option.

[2:45:20] Thank you, that’s very clear, I’ll go to our staff. Three year worship, so our very high level estimate is that it’s over 40 years of development would be that 2,000 value. We’re using the approach in the provincial planning statement. Okay, go ahead. Thank you, and just to reconfirm that then we would have to ask the provincial government for special exemption because they have a 30 year horizon as their planning principle. I believe that’s exactly what the main motion says, is it’s submitted that, but also has a backup of the 30 year number.

[2:45:55] But if you want staff to confirm that— No, please don’t, okay, yep. Okay, and then further question for staff, is there any way that we can ensure by expanding our urban growth boundaries that development and surrounding communities will stop or be reduced? Any policy that we can have that would enforce that? Go ahead, Mr. Mathers. Through your worship, so the London plan and any kind of policy basis that we would have can control and provide opportunities for growth in London, but we can’t provide any kind of rationale or change in growth in other communities.

[2:46:33] And that’s usually done through a regional policy and planning policy process. Go ahead. Thank you, and final question is, when will we understand the full financial impact to the city for the various options? Mr. Mathers. Through your worship, I did mention to this that committee as well that there’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing that happens with this approach. So what you’re doing today would be looking at providing the overall amount of land, then we will bring you forward to you a mapping that will show our recommendation as far as where that growth would occur.

[2:47:12] And then as part of a development charges process and our GMIS process, we’d be looking at assessing those costs and ensuring that there’s an appropriate collection from the development communities for the development charges process to be able to fund those costs. So that would be something that would come subsequently as part of our charges update process. Go ahead. Perfect, okay, those are all my questions. And then I’ll just explain the rationale for these amendments using some of that information. So in my opinion, I would be able to support a minimal addition, if any, to the expansion of the year and bring growth boundary.

[2:47:44] And I believe that if we’re using more realistic population growth numbers, although I know that our hands are a bit tied with the province, proper density estimates based on current medium and high density projections. And if we did include land that was likely to be rezoned as residential anyway, then it would support, in my opinion, almost no need for an expansion. However, I am realistic and that is why I’ve circulated some amendments to try and make some lemonade. I do understand the argument that if we don’t build neighboring communities well, but I also would argue that if we do build, neighboring communities will still build. So there’s no ironclad argument that we, if we build they shall not, which is why I’ve included a request to the mayor to engage in discussion with mayors and wardens because I do think it’s really important.

[2:48:23] We have a southwestern Ontario regional plan because I am quite worried about farmland. And I do understand again, the land for the urban growth boundary expansion would be within the city limits, but much of it is still farmland. And in Ontario, 319 acres of farmland are lost every single day on average. That’s almost, and that was from 2021. And that’s almost double the rate from 2016. And the main reason cited is urban sprawl. And again, I know my colleagues and I differ in opinion about what defines urban sprawl. I define it using Wikipedia’s definition that the spreading of urban developments on undeveloped land is urban sprawl.

[2:48:59] And I do worry that we lose farmland we can never recover and would prefer to focus our efforts on intensifying instead of expanding. Again, except for minimal requirements and alterations, which is why I put this amendment for 1,130 hectares, which is completely defensible under the Provincial Policy Statement and under the new guidelines and still would allow for some new development. I also included amendment regarding using climate screen tool because I want to understand the various climate impacts and scenarios. I do hear from colleagues that if we don’t expand, we will see more commuting from the neighbouring communities.

[2:49:34] And I want to understand which version of these options is actually best for us from a climate change perspective. I’d rather have data on that as opposed to opinions. And finally, I would like the option to review the 25-year projection with the 2024 Provincial Numbers. So that’s the 1,130 hectares. Because I personally have seen leapfrogged development occur across the city. A couple examples, including the Sifton development near Clark and Kalele, which we’re going to actually be using half funding to bring servicing to. So that’s taxpayer money to bring servicing to private development because it’s far away from any adjacent neighbourhoods.

[2:50:10] As well, the Hamilton Commissioners Road’s eSubdivision, doesn’t have transit, doesn’t have sidewalks, doesn’t have grocery store, doesn’t have schools. And I worry the higher the number we get, the more pressure we will get from developers to leapfrog to their property and request that we use taxpayer dollars to do it servicing. I understand the GMIS is in process, but we have already had that. And yet we have still seen leapfrog development under our current planning processes. Again, I think we all have different opinions on how we build the city. But I think we all share the same desire to see a livable and successful city.

[2:50:42] And I want to reiterate that I respect my colleagues and differences of opinions, but I’m looking for a path forward for that reflects the city I see that’s growing inwards and upwards. So those are my amendments and the rationale. Thank you. I look for speakers on the amendment. I have Councillor Lehman next though. Thank you. And yeah, I’m one of those people who fundamentally disagrees, I agree with the fact of where you want to get to. But I disagree about how we can do that. As I said, our committee, it’s about our control and of our destiny of where we want to go.

[2:51:17] If we give up that control, no matter how much we don’t want to pave over farmland, no matter how much we want to have certain intensification strategies to address global climate change and other ways of getting around, we give up that control. And the reason we do is because the market will go to where the market needs to go to get what they want, the price they want. If you restrict growth within London, it’ll drive the cost of land out.

[2:51:53] That for people looking for certain housing, they’ll go to where the cost is the cheapest and that is around our city. They want to move to London because our jobs are here. It’s a great city, all the benefits of living in town. However, they will move around to the surrounding communities. I see it. I see it in Kilworth in the West End. Unbelievable growth of single family homes out there. And guess what? We’re all coming in Oxford Street on the bridge that we now have to expand and spend public London public dollars to handle.

[2:52:28] Talk about leapfrogging, they’re leapfrogging. They’re leapfrogging outside the city boundaries going to where land is the cheapest and where they can build without coming to this council. ‘Cause when we do the land needs assessment, that doesn’t mean we’re rezoning land to be built. Developers still have to come here with zoning applications where we would have the final say of how we want things built. We will have control of intensification, we will have control of transportation, how we get around. I would like to see that control where we have it in these chambers elected by Londoners.

[2:53:12] It’s great that this motion or this amendment that we could talk to other areas of town or other areas, regional areas. But quite frankly, it’s not a regional government. It’s each community, St. Thomas, Elderton, et cetera. They all act within their own special interests as do we. So let’s not drive building out to the farms outside of London. Let’s keep it with our urban growth boundary within London where we have control over the things, very things that the councilor is concerned about.

[2:53:47] So I will not be supporting these amendments. Yeah, I’ll leave it at that ‘cause we’re talking just about the amendments. Okay, Deputy Mayor Lewis, you’re next. Thank you, Your Worship. So I’m gonna start by just saying, I’m gonna ask for you to call the clauses separately on this because I will support part I. I know that Your Worship you already engaged with the mayors, other mayors in the region about regional transit and things like that.

[2:54:26] And so if we wanna talk to them about regional planning a bit better, I’m fine with that too. I think that’s assigning work to you, not to us as council. So I’m okay with that too. However, I won’t support G or H. For me, G is a non-starter. We already know that that number is too small. To me, I’m satisfied already from the information I’ve had from the initial staff report, from the feedback we had from the people who actually build and from the economic impact analysis that that number is too small.

[2:55:04] And we’ll only bottleneck our ability to meet our housing targets. I heard about leapfrogging, but interestingly, the Southeast subdivision that was being referenced hasn’t been assumed yet. And until we assume a subdivision, we don’t start to look at providing municipal services there. If we want to look at that in terms of whether there’s transit service or those kinds of things, then let’s talk about where those things fit in terms of when we assume a subdivision or not, whether we move services in before, we assume it or whether we don’t.

[2:55:39] Leapfrogging and the Kalele area or the Clark Road area was referenced, but interestingly, one of the reasons there is a leapfrog there is because there’s some delay with upper towns and floodplain mapping and assessment of, and so yes, there’s a break, but there’s a break because there’s land that looks like it might not be developable there at all. And that’s one of the reasons we need the extra contingency because we’re still awaiting for a floodplain mapping that was supposed to come in 10 years ago. And I suspect and I strongly believe that when that report is finalized and comes in, some of the land we’re counting right now as developable will not be.

[2:56:19] So if we want to protect environmentally sensitive lands and those have buffers and those sorts of things, we also need to have more land than we’ve currently factored in. Because when we did the urban growth boundary 25 years ago, we were using a far different set of standards in terms of all of those factors. And I think that’s the other pieces, last change to this growth boundary 25 years ago. So for me, that number in part G, it’s just a non-starter, it’s too small.

[2:56:53] And I know we can’t control the ex-urban growth, but we can create the conditions by which the pressure for ex-urban growth is lessened. And it’s not just on the West End in places like Kilworth, Kamoka. I see it in Thornedale. I see it in Dorchester. I shared this at committee. I know a family from hockey that comes in and plays hockey at Aria Arena, but they live in Thornedale. Because that’s where the house prices was cheap enough for them to afford to upsize from a townhouse into a single family home. Because there was nothing available for them in London in the neighborhood that they wanted to still have access to, which thankfully was our guide.

[2:57:31] I appreciate them still coming and using our arena and being part of the community. But they’re driving in every day to work and play. So what my concern with H is the language demonstrable. And through you, Chair, I want to ask Mr. Mathers and Ms. Sharer, I think probably both of them. Because from a GMIS perspective as well as a planning perspective, when we are bringing forward secondary plans, when we’re bringing forward GMIS information, we’re already applying our climate screening tool to the recommendations you’re bringing forward.

[2:58:07] Are we not? Go ahead. Through your worship. So that is one of our standard practices to apply the screening tool whenever we can to any of these opportunities and that we bring forward prior to making a recommendation to council and committee. Go ahead. And that applies to our infrastructure development as well as our planning and zoning development. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Your Worship, sorry.

[2:58:39] Yes, we do for major infrastructure projects to evaluate different climate options to ensure that they’re appropriate using the tool. Deputy Mayor, go ahead. Thank you. So we’re already doing it. And what this motion seems, the only thing that this motion seems to do is say, demonstrably. Well, what is demonstrable to Councillor Frank? And what is demonstrable to myself or demonstrable to any other member of council is going to be subjective. It’s not empirical, which is the data we get back from our staff, which may or may not satisfy a particular individual member of council.

[2:59:14] But as part of an earlier discussion we had today, those individual members of council can go to staff and ask questions about more technical details on that. That may not be in a report that necessarily is going to be translatable by the public, but the councilor can get the information for. So I see G as asking our staff to do more work for a number that I’m not even interested in. I see H as just redundant for the work that they’re already doing. And I see I as assigning the mayor some extra work, which I’m happy to do.

[2:59:46] So I’ll support, hi. Okay, I have Councillor Hopkins next. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship. And I’m happy to second this motion. I was at the public participation meeting at PEC and really felt that it was important that we have further dialogue. I would have even liked to have seen a deferral go back or a pause and there is an opportunity to do that. But I’ll stick with the amendment, Your Worship, and really appreciate differences of opinion.

[3:00:20] Obviously, you know where I stand on this. And to me, it’s not too small. It is, to me, a compromise as we go forward. And I’ll just speak to G. Looking at the 25 year range, we know it could be a lot smaller as well. When it comes to H, it’s already there in our screening of the GMIS as we look at the climate emergency screening tool. There’s nothing wrong with confirming that that’s what we’re gonna do.

[3:00:54] In fact, I’d like to see it there. It’s a reminder to me as we look at moving forward as a city that we are looking at everything in place and really appreciate I, too, Councillor Frank, that the mayor be requested to engage in discussions with Southwestern Ontario, mayors and wardens regarding the great growth. I represent the West End. You see it all around us and you also see it to the self and it will continue. But I think it’s really important that we understand the agricultural land that we have in our city and how it has to be protected to appreciate that.

[3:01:33] And glad to have this opportunity to speak to this. Thank you. Okay, on the amendment, Councillor Ferriero. Thanks, Mayor. So for me, you know, I heard a great comment earlier. What is empirical, what is subjective? And I do see, you know, with the motion that Councillor Frank has brought through with the 1,130 hectares, that has been developed by data and a whole bunch of analysis from staff. And that’s where that number came from. You know, if you were to compare that vis-a-vis with the 2,000, that’s a very round number.

[3:02:09] And for me, that, and just reading the housing supply marketplace analysis, I don’t really see too many data that’s really kind of substantiating that number. So that, when I look at this and when I see what staff’s recommendation is for that 1,130 hectares, I do see that, you know, we’re using the Ministry of Finance’s population projections. I do have concerns with that because I do feel like it’s a little inflated, but it’s still something that we are doing within the provincial policy statements. And I do see that with the other side of things, with the housing supply marketplace analysis, we are going to have to go to the province and get a little bit of approval if we were to do this.

[3:02:46] So I do see what Councillor Frank is doing and I do agree what she’s bringing forward. I am a supportive of that and I do like to see figures that are substantiated by deeper data. Data that has developed and brought up that figure to the table of how we’re supposed to be selecting things. So when it comes to that, like I do like data-driven decision-making and that’s what I see here. I did see some comments regarding the agricultural land and things like that. So maybe I’d like to expand on that just a little bit. I want to ask, is there evidence, or maybe I should say it in a different way, do we have any targets for preserving agricultural land to meet the needs of a growing population?

[3:03:29] Do we have any targets that we might, any numbers or any data or anything like that of how much land we would actually need for agricultural? Okay, Mr. Mathers, go ahead. And Councillor, you’re linking this to the need for the alternative scenario. Okay, go ahead. Through your worship, one specific targets related to cultural land, but that wanted to find a speed to the protection of the class A lands as well. So that would be part of the consideration and bringing forward recommendations to committee and council.

[3:04:05] Go ahead, Councillor Ferrer. Thanks, Mayor. I won’t go too far into that line of questioning. I just do see what Council Frank is bringing to the table. And I do see that there is both a look on the outside of the current urban growth boundary and on the inside. So with that, you know, just to keep it all concise, I do support what she’s brought here. I really like what she has. The 25 here horizon, even though the ministry finance number seemed a little bit inflated, in my opinion, this is the lower number. So I like that. So I’ll be fully supportive of both G or sorry, GH and I. Okay, I have, this is on the amendment.

[3:04:41] Councillor Troso on the amendment. I spoke at length at the committee about why I felt it was appropriate. And through the chair, I just wanna say, I appreciate the work that the Councillor has done on this. I think it’s a very reasonable compromise. And that’s why I’m going to support it. It was made clear to me, at least in terms of what I understand, that we could defer this decision for a year or two without any prejudice.

[3:05:18] So I think this in a way, it’s premature, but I think I’ll save that line of argument for the main motion. So for now, let me just thank the Councillor for putting this on the table. I think it’s a generous compromise. I believe it’s probably more than I would like to give away right now, given the detrimental effects that I’ll speak to during the main motion, but I certainly can support this. And thank you. Okay, that’s all the speakers I have on the amendment. It’s been asked to be called.

[3:05:51] It is not. Sorry, oh, Councillor Closick, go ahead. Thank you, I’ll be brief. I’ll be supporting this today as the original staff recommendation was for the 1,130. Thank you. Sorry, anyone else on the amendment? Got ahead of myself. I just got excited about moving to the next step. Okay, so now I see nobody on the amendment. So it’s been asked to be called separately. So all three components separately. So we’ll start with G, which is the part about the alternate scenario for 1,130 hectares.

[3:06:24] We’ll open G for voting. Who’s in the vote motion fails seven to eight. Okay, and now we’ll go to H, which is the part about the climate emergency screening tool. Councillor Peruzza, closing the vote.

[3:07:16] Motion fails six to nine. Okay, and now we’ll go into I, which is the request for me to engage with local Southwestern Ontario mayors. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to one. Okay, and given one part of that asked, I need the chair to move an as amended main motion, which now includes, we’ll say it’s part I, but it would be renumbered to be the next relevant letter.

[3:08:00] So if you’re willing to. Yeah, I’ll move it as amended. Okay, I need a seconder for the as amended component. Councillor Cuddy. All right, discussion on the as amended piece, which is all of the committee’s recommendation with the Councillor Frank I, which will be re-letered to fit into the sequence. I’ll look for speakers on that. Go ahead, Councillor Palosa. Thank you. I’m gonna start off as everything’s on the floor now. But the question through you in regards to F, and that this is civic administration to receive landowner requests for candidate properties to be evaluated for potential inclusion.

[3:08:39] I’m assuming our intention is that it’s people who have land who would like it developed. I’ve had some residents reach out that there’s land around them, they don’t know who owns it, but they would like it developed to have neighbors. So a different, yeah, I know. So just a different request of, can those residents reach out to, or was this process looking like? Mr. Mathers. Through your worship. So this is an open process that would allow both applicants that are interested in having them included, but also people who are looking into fill-in components of the community as well.

[3:09:13] So we would be willing to accept all of those requests. Go ahead. Thank you for that. It’s interesting when both sides are interested and what about us? Sorry, I appreciate that. If I can let residents know how to contact you. At committee, I’d ask for D and E to be called separate. I’ll do the same. I was obviously supportive of the 1,130. Committee settled on the 1476ers on the floor. Not interested in 2000 at this time.

[3:09:46] Not interested in having staff do work that I’m not interested in supporting at this time. We can always expand later, but once you’ve expanded it, you really can’t take it. In realizing that development has changed over the decades and that we’re seeing more medium and high density housing. We’d like to still trend on that. So hoping that we can keep doing more with what we have, recognizing some areas of the city don’t have city services to them yet. And thinking about my words in that it would be quite costly to deliver some in those areas.

[3:10:26] So I know we have a lengthy conversation at committee. I appreciate staff’s work on this. And thank you for the clarification of residents who would like neighbors and how to put that on a wish list. Thank you. All right, Councillor Layman. Thank you. I think this is an important step forward for London. London is experiencing incredible growth right now. And I think the province has acknowledged that in our long-term forecasts. Staff has done numerous studies on population expectation.

[3:11:04] And then council sent them back to do even more studies with economic bent. You know, this is important. London is the center of this region. And it will play a predominant space going forward. And we have to make sure we have affordable housing. If we don’t have enough land, quite frankly, we’re gonna have a city where those lucky enough to already have owned land in the city will be fortunate.

[3:11:36] But those who wish to live in the city, the same as those who wish to live in downtown Toronto, you’ll be forced to live out in Etobicoke and Mississauga and commute in. This is supply and demand, folks. More supply that’s on the market, it keeps the price in check. And like I said in my earlier argument, the city amendments, we do have control over zoning. We have control over what we’ll get built and where we’ll get built. So let’s, this is a great roadmap, I believe, for the potential to be unleashed for this wonderful city.

[3:12:11] Thank you. Okay, any of the speakers to the as amended motion, Councillor Trozau and then Councillor McAllister. Thank you very much and through the chair. One of the main contentions that I wanna take issue with in all due respect is that this is going to induce, create affordable housing. I don’t see any evidence that it’s gonna do that. Other than the most basic concepts of trickle down economics, which I don’t think works.

[3:12:46] If we want affordable housing, we have to say this project is going to be affordable. And to say that we’re going to give developers this whole big huge swatch of land out there, build market rate, luxury houses. And somehow that’s going to induce affordable housing. I just don’t see any evidence for it. And I mean, I’d certainly be open to seeing the evidence, but I don’t think this is about creating affordable housing.

[3:13:22] I think it’s about creating more housing. I think it’s about increasing the supply. And I think it’s about increasing the supply in an area where it’s demonstrably likelihood. It’s likely as a demonstrable likelihood that these are going to be large track single family homes. Because I do not think we’re putting any other restriction on it. So let’s not do this in the name of affordable housing. Let’s do this in the name of the developers, want to be able to have more options in terms of the land that they can use.

[3:14:02] They made the case, and that’s what they’re doing. The other argument that I think is a little troubling to me, a lot troubling to me, is that somehow if we don’t do this, that’s going to stimulate the construction of this type of development further out. And there’s no reason why both can’t happen. The market has demonstrated time and time again in the last 20 years that it is incapable of providing the kind of affordable housing that we as a society need.

[3:14:48] So for us as a council to grant this amount of an extension to the urban growth boundary makes no sense from my point of view. And I understand the influence and the persuasion that the development industry has in this room. But I don’t understand how that is going to help us meet these other goals. So I’m going to certainly vote no on this, to be no surprise, been saying this all along. I talked about this during the political campaign.

[3:15:25] And I think this is one of the most significant votes that this council is making. And I want to make a marker for that. Because you see, if we overshoot, we can’t take it back. And I ask these questions. I’m not going to go through rehearsing, asking staff these questions as if I don’t know what the answer is. We went through this at the committee. We can’t take this back. If we overshoot, we can push it forward. But we can’t take it back. So we are committing to a loss of green space. We are committing to a loss of farmland.

[3:16:00] And we are committing to a course of action that is going to overnight like that, increase the market value of real estate. So I think this is a pro speculation measure. And I think it’s an anti environmental measure. And I would urge my colleagues to vote no, although I think I can count. But I did want to put that on the record. Thank you very much. I’ve counted many times, Councilor, and been wrong a bunch of them.

[3:16:35] So you never know who’s persuasive in the room when they speak, so appreciate your comments. Sometimes everybody is. I’ll go to the next speaker. I have Councilor McAllister, Hopkins, so far. So if someone else would like to go just flag me while Councilor McAllister speaks. Thank you and through the chair. I’ll be supporting the 1476. I won’t be supporting the 2000. I think it’s been said a number of times just in terms of, I think, overshooting. I think I’m trying to exercise an abundance of caution in our approach, especially with the long horizon.

[3:17:11] I don’t know, I feel like I’m having a bit of deja vu. I remember years ago, some of my father was an urban planner, talked about urban sprawl in the 80s. And I hear a lot of the same arguments being made then that I hear now. I like the approach in terms of densification and intensification. I think we need to stay the course on that. I’d be more inclined to maybe go with a higher number if I’d seen more proof in terms of the building. And I don’t buy the argument that having more land is gonna lead to more building. I think it just creates, as has been said, more lucrative environment in terms of speculation and becomes more of an exercise and who’s got the more valuable land and where people wanna build and the types of housing, which I think the single family home is definitely more lucrative on the fringes of the city.

[3:17:55] I think London has traditionally always had a lot of people move here. As someone who recently entered the housing market, I can say it’s not a city, I would say, is the first time housing market. I think a lot of folks move here later in life, establish a family, more establish in their career. And you do need those higher salaries to make a go of it these days. I don’t think necessarily the supply is gonna address the longstanding issue of pay in the city. I think that that’s a pain point for a lot of folks and try to enter the housing market. And just having more land is not necessarily gonna lead to the conditions that we want.

[3:18:29] I understand those arguments, I’m not contesting that, and I know some people support that, but I’m just expressing where I’m at on it. And I also wanna thank Councillor Frank in terms of that addition with I, unfortunately the other ones didn’t pass, but with I’d like to say to the mayor, I fully support having those conversations with our regional partners. We do see that growth, I think specifically speaking for my own ward, I think we’re gonna see a massive surge in terms of a long hybrid, that’s obviously gonna be some more commercial industrial, but there will be residential that goes along with that. And I wanna make sure that there’s alignment between our regional partners on that as well.

[3:19:05] So thank you. Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you again, Your Worship. And I really appreciate everyone’s comments and on the main motion and maybe to make it easy for clerks, Your Worship. I will not be supporting D and E, but also B as well and I’ll make comments. B is in the 1476 sectors. Yeah, you can continue with your comments. Yeah, and my reasons, I think it’s just really simple.

[3:19:41] This is going to be very costly for us as a city going forward. I really agree with the decision that we’re making here today is going to directly impact the urban Gulf boundary and how we go into spalling again and mainly single family homes and agricultural land. Those are the concerns I have right now. And I really think that it’s going to be quite a significant challenge for us going forward.

[3:20:22] So won’t be supporting the 2000 or the 1400. I’m okay with everything else more or less in the recommendation. But again, I do want to make a comment as we go forward with the urban growth boundary. I know there’s many, many interested Londoners that would like to be engaged in that process and looking forward to that public consultation as we go forward. But I really do not want to set up that conversation by supporting the added land that we are deciding on here today.

[3:21:04] Thank you. Councillor Ferrer. Thanks, Mayor. Just to confirm, are we able to break that vote out into the difference? Yes, yep. So it’ll be, right now it’ll be everything but B. Sorry, it’ll be everything but B, D, and E. And then we’ll do B and then we’ll do D, and E. But we can debate the whole thing now ‘cause we’re just going to do votes later. We’re not going to redubate. Sounds good. I’m just going to kind of make my comments in general. I do like the comments about, are we creating affordable housing or not?

[3:21:39] ‘Cause we’re not, it’s very true. Even if you look at the density of low density development, I’m pretty sure the housing supply marketplace analysis was calling for a reduction from 20 to 15. So those are big houses on big lots. Are we bringing in supply that may be part of the demand? Yes, I agree with that, but at the same time, I do want to see those numbers be substantiated in how we come about with these numbers. My big, one of the big issues that I have is the fact that we’re going outside of the provincial policy statements.

[3:22:13] We are going beyond what we’re legally able to do, and we’re now doing a very weird process where we’re going to be going to the province and requesting to add these extra lands beyond what the province has regulated us and given us the authority to do. So I would like to see the process go the right way, and my question would be in general, I’m not asking anybody to answer it, but why doesn’t the province change its provincial policy statements so we can come up with numbers if the province wants more land to increase on. The public consultation part, I believe that because we have such a big change, and this is a very significant, as has been said several times, we do need a little bit more public consultation, a lot more, we need to really engage the public on this because this is a very significant change.

[3:23:00] We haven’t seen this change happen for years, for decades, and we may not see any changes again for years or decades, so the public consultation portion of this is very important to ensure that we’re just going in the right direction. I’d also say that I do know that there’s no deadline. I watched the Pet Committee meeting, and from what I understand, we need to have this requested by 2027, so there’s no rush, and maybe it would be wise to go back and have that public consultation back and have these conversations again so we can get some numbers that are substantiated by the data.

[3:23:36] So that’s what I would say. There’s this principle called the precautionary principle. We were to take that principle. That would be a very good way to go, because as far as I’m concerned and how I’m feeling, and from what I see from other councillors speaking to, there’s many concerns on the direction that we’re going. So I guess I’ll leave it there. I do see that this will be broken out. I don’t think I can support anything on this other than councillor Frank’s amendment. So I guess I’ll be voting as the items come up. All right, other speakers on this?

[3:24:11] Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship. So I appreciate the debate. I appreciate there’s a difference of opinion here on how we move forward. I don’t think anybody has actually suggested though that expanding the urban growth boundary is about affordable housing. It is about inventory, absolutely. No matter what we think in terms of where we need the mix, where we need affordable, what we need is high density, what we need is medium density, what we need is low density, an expansion of the urban growth boundary is about inventory.

[3:24:49] It’s not about affordable. And I think that we’re actually mixing our water and wine when we start talking about affordable and the urban growth boundary, because they’re actually separate. And when we talk about we’re moving forward with land that we can’t guarantee is affordable. And it was mentioned by Chair Lehman earlier, there’s still a zoning process that will determine are these four-story stacked towns? Are these single families? Are these medium density residential as lands are eventually added in?

[3:25:23] And I think I heard, and I’m gonna disagree with Councilor Trussow respectfully, I don’t think this is a win for speculators. I think it’s quite the opposite, because the last time we did this was 25 years ago. And when we set the target for the next 30, there’s no sense buying land outside of it and sitting on speculating that in 25 years we might bring it in. Because once we go to this 30-year target for the next couple of decades, there’s no reason to buy land and sit on and speculate, ‘cause you know it’s not coming in anytime soon.

[3:26:01] I appreciate talking about the intensity and wanting to have infill. And I think that that’s the part of the discussion. (clears throat) I think it’s really important to highlight in the back and forth with the partnership between our staff and the industry in terms of the tables that they have discussing these things in the initial assessment, staff was asking for a yield that was gonna be significantly higher. I think it was 20 units in a subdivision. I forget the exact numbers.

[3:26:35] The developers are saying right now we’re only yielding 12, not 20. And this new number would actually still only yield 15. So it’s a meet in the middle situation here. But that was based on actual lots built in recent times in the city of London. I appreciate the desire to have more public input. I think the public input comes in terms of the discussion around what land is actually coming in. I don’t think the public is actually all that engaged in how many hectares. I think what they’re engaged in is, how’s this gonna impact my neighborhood?

[3:27:07] Are we bringing it in the Southwest? Are we bringing it in the East? Are we bringing it in the South? That’s where people are going to have a general level of engagement, not on the number we pick, but on where the lands actually get added, because that’s what actually impacts their day-to-day lives. And I think we saw that a number of times in other engagement processes that we’ve done, as much as I appreciate the interest in public engagement, I think that we have to focus on what the public is actually wanting to engage us on. And for me, that’s about where the land is added, not how much land is added.

[3:27:43] Now, I will say, I don’t think we have time. And I’m gonna ask through you, Chair, Mr. Mathers, with this current timeline, or if we approve this today, if you go out and do the other pieces that this would direct you to do. And then we have to look at what land is actually being evaluated to come back in. When do you anticipate coming back to us with potentially a map that shows this is the land we think we would bring in under approval today? Mr. Mathers.

[3:28:19] Through your worship, so with the proposed approach, we’re looking to bring it back by Q2 2025. Some line works so that people can see the mapping and be about to make some decisions. Go ahead. And then with that line work, what are the processes around appeals, around people bringing things in and out before we finalize that? Because I know that there’s a process. What you bring back as the line work has to allow for some additional property owner appeals and things before we are making a final decision.

[3:28:54] Mr. Mathers. Through you, through your worship. So there’s a little bit of uncertainty with the approach with regarding the 2000. So we can speak to the PPS approach, the PPS approach for the 1400 value. That is not something that can be appealed. So that is like a, would be able to expedite that. And then anything beyond that, we would be working with the province to understand what the perspective is on the economic work that’s been done. And that might be a different approach, but with regard to the 1400 hectares, that would not require, it would not allow for an ability to be able to appeal.

[3:29:35] So it could be a faster process. So that would likely, and there is a ultimately with any of these pieces, they are approved by the province, like what they are the approval authority. So the council would provide the recommendation to them. So that could be like a six month process. So in my ideal timeframe, it would be finalizing the entire process by the end of 2025, so Q4. And you got about 39 seconds. Okay, so Q4 of 2025. We have to have this done by January 1 of 2027, chair through you to the staff, January 1 of 2027.

[3:30:14] Go ahead. Through the chair, through the chair. So I’m sorry, I didn’t catch the entire question, but I’m assuming that it’s related to that mandated timeline to be able to complete it. So we’d be looking at trying to conclude this whole process by ideally the beginning of Q1, 2026, that would be ideal, so that would give us some timeframe as well if council wants to make different decisions, or if there’s any other kind of implications. So that’s why we’ve suggested moving forward with the timeline that we have right now.

[3:30:51] Thank you, so really quickly, that’s great to hear, because I think what we need to keep in mind is Q1 of 2026, while in Q2 of 2026, the next municipal election starts. And there is a potential for this to be a lame.counsel, and not to be able to make some of these decisions in a lame duck status situation. And then we’re passing it on to the next council, who will get sworn in in late 2026, and then have to make a decision on this massive document for the 2027 year. So I don’t think we can afford to delay.

[3:31:24] We need to make a decision today. Thank you, and that’s your time, Councilor Roman. Thank you and through you. So I agree that we do need to make a decision. And what I heard, and I appreciate the deputy mayor for his questions just now, what I heard was more rationale to support B and not to move forward with D and E. With part D, what I heard quite clearly is that we have the ability to move forward with B, the 1476 hectares within the timeline to appreciably meet our deadlines.

[3:32:03] What I heard, I believe, is that the extra steps that are required for D and E are still a bit unknown at this point. So with all the uncertainty that we have right now around politics in the province, federally, everywhere, I do feel that what we need to do is we need to provide more certainty. So for that reason, I think it’s incumbent on us to look to support B at this point so that we have a way to move forward.

[3:32:44] And as well as from a staffing, and I know that other Councillors have brought this up, from a staffing perspective, at time perspective, I do think we have staff with very full plates and to give them more to do with part D and E seems at this time, like we’re also asking a lot. The other piece of this is, I understand that, you know, the mayor would be, would already be in conversations with the province around the 2000 Hector component of this discussion.

[3:33:19] But I do think we have to set the tone for what we wanna see the mayor and this council advocate for. And when we take an advocated position, which we would in this case on the 1476, if we were to approve it, that’s a reasonable position for us to say, “Let’s move forward.” And this is something we can support and get behind when we start to talk about the 2000. Now we are looking at a discussion with the other levels of government or the provincial government and we’re looking at what kind of an advocacy strategy do we want to engage in around that.

[3:34:00] So I think that what I’m very comfortable with at this time is I was comfortable with a lower number. So we had a high low and a medium, but now I’m comfortable with a medium number at that 1476. I did have a question though for staff. Thank you. My question and through you, I just wanted to understand for the MMP, what number or what did we tie the MMP to in terms of the urban growth boundary.

[3:34:36] I know we were in this process. We’ve already got the MMP in the maps, but how does that relate to the urban growth expansion discussion that we’re having, and if that might be able to be asked to this year? Yep, go ahead. Thank you through your worship. So we are working closely with our planning colleagues related to the intensification targets and the modal splits for the MMP. They are in sync to the extent that the road network that’s identified can be extended out into areas that are not currently contemplated in the current urban growth boundary.

[3:35:08] There will always be adjustments. The MMP is not a final document to 2050. It’s going to need to be updated. So iteratively, if there’s changes that come out of this discussion, we would address that in a future update because those areas would likely follow further out from areas that are currently contemplated for more urgent development. Go ahead, Councillor. Thank you and through you. So with that in mind, the MMP is a 25 year document. We’re looking at a 30 year planning horizon with B, but we would be looking at for D and E a 40 to 45 year planning horizon in terms of those numbers.

[3:35:48] So I do see that we’re looking at things from a different lens. I like when we’re syncing up our plans, where we’re looking like we’re taking this in a coordinated fashion. I know in my part of the city in the northwest where we’re still awaiting a lot of services, where we still have developable lands, where we still have, you know, some concerns from residents who are wondering when they’re going to get certain amenity services, road construction, et cetera. This is difficult for me to say, hey, but guess what?

[3:36:22] We’re going to add more land. Thank you. Thank you. I have myself next. So I’ll turn it over to Deputy Marlous. And I will recognize Mayor Morgan. So thank you. I also, I know one comment’s made, appreciating the debate in their perspective, as well as the amendments that were made. Maybe I’ll start with the amendment. I’m happy to, and I voted for it to take the suggestion. As was mentioned during the discussion, we’ve already had great conversations about regional transit and moving people who are already in surrounding communities around a little more efficiently.

[3:37:05] That conversation has even turned into joint advocacy with the province on some of the work that Middlesex County is doing through Mental Sex Connects and some of the bus services and transportation services between our communities. So at our last discussion, this actually concept came up and was raised briefly. And we identified as something that we would like to come back to in the future. So this amendment that is now incorporated into the suggestion is already something that I can tell you will not be a surprise to local mayors and wardens that I’m engaging with them and continuing to engage with them on that matter.

[3:37:42] I want to mention a couple of things in the debate. And so a couple of times it said that if we expand the urban growth boundary, we’re going to have market rate, luxury homes, large track, single family homes, big homes on big lots. Like those terms were used. I don’t know if colleagues realize, but the nature of development has actually changed already in our city. I mean, we’ve seen the reports about where the development and the demand is, and there are single family homes are not the thing leading the charge.

[3:38:14] We led the province in at one point during the year, year over year with some CMHC data on high density development in the city. We have increases in medium density. And so I recently went and took it by myself a tour around a whole bunch of developments in the city, took a whole day, went around and visited some high density developments in the core, visited some medium density developments in a number of areas. And then out into some of the farther parts of the city, the developments that are happening there to see what’s happening.

[3:38:49] And I can tell you, there are lots of really intense developments happening now on Greenfield lands. I toured a Greenfield land that had six story apartment buildings with stacked townhouses and townhouses on it. Where there are single family homes, there are developers putting alternate dwelling units in, recognizing that there are multi-generational families and trying to provide products that create a level of affordability, whether it’s purpose built rentals or units where you can rent out some of your space to try to address some of the market conditions that buyers are facing.

[3:39:25] So I don’t think we can jump to a conclusion one way or another, what is gonna happen if we expand the urban growth boundary? We already see where you can develop within the city a more intense form of development. And I’ve heard several developers say, you know, we might build some million dollar homes, but that’s not where the market is right now. That’s not where people are demanding. You know, we’re talking about small lot homes or more intense Greenfield developments. The fact that we approved stacked townhouses is seen as a great advantage in Greenfield sites to be able to put multiple families stacked on top of each other in a more intense form and compact form development.

[3:40:02] So where you don’t see that more intense form of development is in the surrounding communities, right? So again, I recognize that we cannot guarantee that we’ll be able to pull development into the city, but where we are providing a product that is more intense than you see out in the surrounding communities. And so I think there’s an opportunity for us here to continue to try to meet our obligations on meeting housing targets, not just that we’ve made for the next 10 years, but the demand that we will see in a community like London over the next 30 to 40. And on the length of time for the different components of the motion, yes, you know, we have what is a supportable, easy to move forward with component in B on a 30 year planning horizon that aligns with the way that the provincial policy statements contemplates things.

[3:40:49] And we are also going to the province, if approved, to say, oh, we looked at this from a market standpoint and we need to have a serious discussion on how you want to approach the market demand component of this to actually get the housing that we actually think we need. And part of this work that staff is going to do is actually contingent upon it if the province even supports it, right? So there’s a discussion that will be had. We’ve got a position that we can fall back on on the provincial policy statements. The staff will continue to work forward on and they can prioritize that work knowing that the other pieces are an unknown. So I don’t think we’re adding a tremendous amount of staff work until we know the province is supportive and then it will shift to that component.

[3:41:29] And on the piece here, and I’ll speed my time up because I can time myself here, I’ll conclude by saying whether it’s a 30, 35 or 40 year time horizon that we’re putting land supply in the city, the city’s not going to stop growing for the next 100, 150 years, right? This is a part of the world that people desire to come from. And so just doing something that might be 40 years just means the next urban growth boundary review isn’t going to happen for a little bit longer. Thank you, Your Worship. And right on time, good job having your own time and running there, I’ll return the chair to you.

[3:42:04] Okay, I’ll look for other speakers who haven’t spoken yet on this. Okay, then what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna divide this out as I suggested. So we’re gonna do everything except B, D and E. So we’re gonna take a B, D and E and we’re going to consider all of the other pieces, which is the original motion plus the new piece that was added in through the amendments. So B, D and E are not in this, but everything else is. I’ll use the same mover and seconder for, or I’ll just use the same, yeah, but this is the mover and seconder ‘cause it’s as amended for all of them.

[3:42:40] If everybody’s good with that, okay. And we’ll open that piece for voting. Opposing the vote, motion carries 14 to one. Okay, now same mover and seconder will do B, which is the 14, 176 hectares, 30 year, we’ll open that for voting.

[3:43:30] Opposing the vote, motion carries 10 to five. And now, and we’ll do them together, D and E, which are the two components related to the 2,000 hectare and market analysis and engagement with the province on that and the directions to our staff on those pieces. We’ll open that for voting. Opposing the vote, motion carries eight to seven. Okay, I’ll go back to Chairman Lehman.

[3:44:06] Thank you, that concludes the first report. Okay, I’ve had a request from several members of council if we could take just a 10 minute break. I know we’ve got lots of other community reports to deal with, the motion to move a 10 minute recess, 15. Sorry, 15, okay, fine, 15. Moved by councilor Ferra, seconded by councilor Frank. We’re just gonna do this one by hand. Okay, well, this one by hand, all those in favor. And keep them up because some people might be opposed. Any opposed? My motion carries.

[3:44:39] All right, 15 minutes, be five. All right, thank you, please be seated.

[4:02:32] We’re in the community reports and you can tell which one’s next because council Raman is already ready to standing because as our last meeting, I’m sure everybody’s excited to get through the remainder of the agenda today and get on to your other business over the next few weeks. So I’ll turn it over to councilor Raman for the first report of the infrastructure and corporate services committee. Thank you and through you. And I will treat this as red. So I will look to move items one through 10 having not received any other requests to pull anything else.

[4:03:12] I’m just pulling 11 at this point. Oh, okay. Yeah, 11 separate council member Bergen. Okay, so would anybody like anything separate from one to 10? No, so you’re willing to put that on the floor, councilor? Okay, one to 10’s on the floor. Any discussion? Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Councilor Palazzo.

[4:04:14] Yes. Thank you, vote noted. Close in the vote. Motion carries 15 to zero. Go ahead, councilor Raman. Thank you, I’ll look to put the final item, 11, 2.7, expropriation of lands, Wellington Gateway Project Civil Works Phase Two relates to bill number 22. All right, that’s on the floor. Any discussion on that? Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Mr. Palazzo votes yes. No noted, thank you, councilor. Close in the vote.

[4:05:14] Motion carries 14 to one. Thank you, that concludes my report. Great, you can give Councilor Lehman lessons next time. 8.3, first report of the Community Protective Services Committee. Councilor Ferra, we’ll turn it over to you. Thank you, Mayor. I can put down the first report of the Community Protective Services Committee. I have no disclosures of the community interest and I had no pull requests. So I’ll move one to 16. Oh, okay, nevermind. I think, Councilor Trossai, you want a 14 separate? Or no?

[4:05:48] Sorry, I had 19. Is that it? I wanted to vote on the building, I’m going to ceiling height. Oh, 14 and 15? Okay. Yeah, 15. So we’re looking for 14 and 15 separate. Anyone else? I had Councilor Ferra. Thank you. Okay, I will move items one through 13 and item 16. Okay, that’s on the floor for discussion.

[4:06:20] Any discussion? Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Chair, and just through you, a question for our staff. I can support this, so I don’t need to pull it separately. But with respect to item 10, the life stabilization, purchase of service agreements. Certainly during the budget, we had the great news that the Extreme Clean Hoarding Program would get some assistance from the provincial government. And I know we still have to deliver it where the service provider in terms of or the service manager for the area. So through you, I’m just wondering if staff can indicate because this, I know when I asked it at a budget time around the potentials of amendments on this, whether or not there’d be an RFP.

[4:07:05] And I know that I doubt that we’ve had time to go for an RFP to see if there were any other interested parties. And we’ve got a single source procurement recommendation here, which I’m okay with for the time being. I’m wondering if this is anticipated when this agreement, ‘cause I’m assuming that the reason for not going out right away is so that we can have a continuation of services. But I’m wondering if when this expires, if the intent would be to issue an RFP for purchase of service, so that we see if there’s more competitive bids out there to provide this, I’m just wondering if staff can comment. Mr. Dickens.

[4:07:43] Through you, you’re worshiping consultation with our procurement teams here. This is the best approach forward at this point for the continuity of services. Understanding the service has been funded by the city. This is essentially a contract amendment, if you will, from the service we had already been purchasing. We have earmarked in the report that it is a one-year funding agreement. A lot of that is based on still the uncertainty of continuation of funding, and we need to work through the ministry partners this year to understand what that looks like going forward. If we get an indication that there is a more long-term viability on the funding side, then we can look at what procurement options if any are necessary at that point.

[4:08:26] Go ahead. Great, that answers my question. It makes a lot of sense until we have some surety in terms of the sustainability from the province. Let’s not overextend ourselves. So thank you to Mr. Dickens for that update, and I’m supportive of that. Okay, anything else, one to 13 and 16? Go ahead, Councillor McAllister. Thank you, and through you, to this year, pass along my thanks to Mr. McRae and Mr. Hall. I know they put a lot of work into the Fairmont neighborhood connectivity plan, and anyone else who worked on that. And I’d just like to say we have crosswalks to know where, so the sooner we can get some of those high priorities, sidewalks in the better.

[4:09:02] Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Councillor Frank. Thank you, and I just wanted to say, I was really happy to see item 13, the publicly accessible washrooms as being able to do a pilot with Gibbons. I think that was really delightful, and I just want to thank staff for looking forward and already kind of thinking about doing that and offering that, so thank you. Great, anyone further? Okay, one through 13 and 16 is on the floor. We’ll open that for voting. Yes. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

[4:09:45] Councillor Ferrer. Thank you, Mayor. So, I’ll put item 14, that’s the amendments to the minimum headroom and information regarding tenant landlord form. Okay, that’s on the floor. Any discussion? Sorry. 14. Council, item 14 of the community protective services committee, it’s property standards by-law related to minimum headroom. Thank you very much, Mayor, through the chair. I just wanted to pull this to indicate that I was opposed to this at the committee.

[4:10:20] I came to the committee with a number of concerns about this matter, both in terms of it on its merits and on the makeup of the underlying committee that brought it to the committee, that didn’t make sense. The makeup of the underlying task force that brought it to the committee. I don’t feel as if I was given the opportunity to ask the questions that I wanted to ask. I asked for additional time, I didn’t get it. And I just wanna say, I don’t think this is a good way to be making policy.

[4:10:57] And I just wanna pull this so I can indicate my no vote. I’m not going to debate the merits again. We did that at the committee. So thank you, thank you on that. Thank you, Councillor. Any other speakers on this matter? Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Your Worship. So I didn’t attend the committee when this item was brought forward. But I do want to take the opportunity through you and through Mr. May, there’s to thank the property standards team and the bylaw team in their review on this.

[4:11:32] I can remember from 2014 to 2018, when I was serving on the committee of adjustment, seemed like every single committee of adjustment meeting, we had a minor variance coming in for headroom height. We’d want six, five in a basement unit. And the way the building was, six, three was all the property owner could attain, or six, two was all the property owner could attain. Older buildings, support structure beams, heating ducts, those kinds of things. This really will make a difference in terms of the viability of some ARUs in basements, as secondary units.

[4:12:10] I have seen it in my own ward, where the homes are older, and to align it with the Ontario Building Code and the National Building Code, and make everything really nice and clear for people to understand when they’re undertaking those renovations to create those secondary suites, makes a lot of sense to me. So I just wanted to say thank you. I know back when I was serving on it, I think the minor variance for something like this at the committee of adjustment was somewhere around $700. That was a while ago, I don’t know what it is today, but if we can save that property owner $700 on something that, quite honestly, we always granted, because it met the fire code, it met the Ontario Building Code, it just didn’t meet the city’s own by-law, and so we always granted it.

[4:12:54] It just makes sense that we take this out of the way, remove it from committee of adjustment work, just make it an as of right, and align it with the other building codes applicable. So thank you to Mr. Mather’s team that worked on this. Okay, any other speakers? All right, we’ll open this one for voting. That’s our close of votes, yes? Close in the vote motion carries 14 to one.

[4:13:30] Councillor Ferrer. And that leaves me with the last item, item 15, special events policy update, I’ll put that on the floor. Okay, that’s on the floor, any discussion? The special events policy. Go ahead, Councillor Troz-ao. Thank you, Chair. As at the committee, I just want to indicate that I appreciate a lot of the work that went into this. I’d say I support the bulk of what’s in the committee report, and we’ve spoken about some of the things that were really important to me.

[4:14:03] You put them in there, the water, the cycling. I can’t support, as it’s written, I cannot support the hour’s extension. I think I could support a tentative hour extension if it was written differently, but as this came through the committee, I did vote no one, and I want to carry that forward now, because I went to people in the neighborhood who will complain about this to know that this was not unanimous, and hopefully restraint will be used. Thank you.

[4:14:34] Okay, thanks. Any other speakers? Go ahead, Councillor Ferriero. Thank you, Mayor. I’ll be quick. I echo the comments from Councillor Troz, so I’m not going to get into why the committee recommendation has my vote on it, but I’m not going to be supporting this at this time either. Okay, no problem. And Councillor, if there’s something you have to present, you don’t want to support. You can always have the vice chair presented. I appreciate that you’re willing to move it. You’re allowed to vote against it, but if you’d like to have someone else put it on the floor, you can in the future. If you’re comfortable, that’s no problem, but I just thought I’d let you know. Thanks, Mayor.

[4:15:07] Should I? It’s already on the floor now, so if you’re okay this time, I’ll just give you that option for next time to consider. Okay, okay. Great, okay, so we’ll open that for voting. Councillor Palose votes yes. Glows in the vote. Motion carries 13 to 2. Go ahead, and that concludes the first report of the Community and Protective Services Committee. Thank you very much, appreciate it. We’re under the first report of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee.

[4:15:40] I’ll go to Deputy Mayor Lewis to present. Thank you, Your Worship. Councillor Pribble earlier declared a conflict on item four that’s 2.1, the film London LEDC purchase a service agreement. I’ve not been made aware of anything else colleagues want pulled to vote on separately. We had a number of fairly substantive debates, but no one is indicated they want to have an item dealt with separately now other than four. So I’m prepared to move one through three and five through eight unless colleagues want anything pulled from that list.

[4:16:16] Okay, let me just pull. Does anybody want something dealt with separately? Sure. That will help you decide whether you want to pull it. Okay, go ahead. Thank you, through you. Just on the ward boundary review, my understanding is we’re still dealing with something on January 14th, just to clarify. You got to pull the ward boundary review. There needs to be a more specific motion on that one. Okay, so we’ll pull seven as well.

[4:16:50] So I’ll move one through three, five, six. It’s five. Five is the ward boundary. Yeah, five is the ward boundary. So one through three and six, seven, eight. Okay, so anything else separate? Okay, so we’ll do one through three, six through eight, any discussion? Okay, we’ll open that for voting. That’s our proposal.

[4:17:40] I vote yes. You noted, thank you, closing the vote. Motion carries 15 to zero. Go ahead. I will now put item four, the film London office, LEDC purchase of service agreement. Okay, that’s in the floor, any discussion? None, we’ll open that for voting. That’s our proposal.

[4:18:19] Yes, I vote yes. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 13 to one with one recusal. So there was a memo circulated on the ward boundary review piece. There’s council needs to consider this as one of two options. One is the final option one with no amendments. The other is the final option one as amended, which were the two pieces forwarded.

[4:18:54] So there’s bylaws drafted for both of those. Now, if someone wants to make changes to any of those options, that’s where we would have to send something to January because we would not word Smith word boundary descriptions on the floor at council. That would be just a very bad idea. So I’ll go to you if you wanna put something on the floor and then we can— Yes, and fails, the other one could come forward. Yeah, and I will note that perhaps some of the confusion is that we also included the hit being noted pieces as we were approving the various amendments for January 14th.

[4:19:30] However, if we were to prove all the amendments as forwarded from SPPC today, nothing the hit being noted would be struck, would not have to come back on the 14th. So I am prepared to move final option one as amended. I do know that the clerks have the various amendments we made broken out into clauses in eScribe. So certainly if people wanted to vote differently on one amendment than another, they could be called separately. But I’m prepared to move what’s in eScribe as the final option one as amended, if we can just have the clerks remove the, it being noted return to SPPC on January 14th.

[4:20:19] So yes, there are separate clauses, but I will tell you if we started pulling this apart to vote separately and part fails, we can’t pass the by-law tonight because we would have to reword the by-law. So this is, you wanna do it or not, right? Motion, and if you don’t, you refer it, right? And with some direction. So you could put the whole thing on the floor, but I’ve been advised against just because it’s really important for the wording and the by-law to be very specific to the boundaries, and we don’t wanna make a mistake on that for all the reasons that would be bad.

[4:20:54] So this is, you’re putting final option one as amended on the floor with all those amendments. And so we’ll debate that, we can vote on that. That’s voted down. Someone could put final option one, the original, that’s voted down, then we would just have the same word boundaries, or someone can refer this with some direction. So those are the options, but you’re willing to put this in its entirety on the floor, right? Yes, I am willing to put this final option one as amended in its entirety on the floor. I was suggesting that colleagues may wanna just record their vote differently, but to your point, I realized colleagues did record their votes differently at SPPC, so they can certainly reflect that.

[4:21:38] Should people question why they supported it in its entirety today? That they did oppose it at committee, and I will note that none of the votes at committee on the amendments were particularly close. They were all fairly substantive margins of support for those, and just to remind colleagues that the changes that were made move a small portion of ward 13 into ward 11. That was moved by Councillor Frank. A portion of ward, what was assigned to ward one, the Rhone Tree neighborhood was moved into ward 11, and then a portion of what was assigned to the proposed one, ward one, was moved from Oxford Street to the railway tracks into ward four, just in very general terms in terms of reminding people the three changes that we made at the committee level.

[4:22:29] And so I’m prepared to put the whole thing on the floor with just that quick sort of reminder to folks of the three changes we approved. So just don’t look at the version in the e-scribe, because it’s actually the version with the being noted’s in, because you’re putting it on the floor this way, it’s gonna be a version if you refresh in a moment without the being noted’s ‘cause they’re not relevant to be past it tonight.

[4:23:06] Maybe while we get that up, everybody knows what it is, I’ll see if there’s any discussion. We’re just gonna wait, and we’ll make sure you can see it. So you wanna look at vote two, which is what’s being put on the floor. We have a by-law prepared for that.

[4:23:51] Any discussion? Yes, go ahead, Councillor McAllister. Thank you, and I did circulate this letter to Council prior to the meeting as well. Time myself so I wanted to be able to speak to it today. So I would like to take this opportunity to provide Council with my reasons for abruptly leaving on December 10th, and my thoughts on the ward boundary review more broadly. I’ll be honest that I had some misgivings about the ward boundary review. When the report first came back with the four options from Watson Associates, I was immediately surprised by how much ward one was altered in a number of these scenarios.

[4:24:31] Many of my residents expressed concerns about how the criteria was being used, and whether the consultants understood the various neighborhoods of London, and we also heard that from other wards expressed similar concerns. The two amendments I put forward were based on trying to keep communities of interest connected and addressing the high population, the 42,000, which was originally proposed for ward one. When my first amendment was defeated, I was very frustrated, especially considering it was one of the lowest population changes that was put forth at that meeting. I think all of Council would have benefited from more clarity on what constituted a minor and major population change much earlier in this process.

[4:25:08] What I was trying to do was connect an island of industry in ward one to neighboring ward 14, so the industrial communities of interest could be combined and no longer isolated. The way the debate went led me to believe the Council would not be open to making any changes, and having witnessed this before, I initially seemed like my efforts would be pointless. I wanna thank my colleagues for approving me wrong in this instance. Thankfully, it does appear that some of my concerns were acknowledged and addressed. Firstly, thank you to Councillor Frank for adopting my second amendment and making the neighborhoods of border Wellington Road a whole, and also to Councillor Stevenson for keeping Carling Heights intact.

[4:25:45] These two amendments also helped address my concern with the high population figure of 42,000 by bringing that down to a more optimal range of around 35,000. I must acknowledge sometimes it can be incredibly frustrating and I can get defensive, especially when decisions are being made that affect communities that unfortunately have been marginalized and ignored previously by the city. It should come as no surprise that East Enders are fighters, but sometimes it’s necessary to retreat so you can recoup your strength and come back to fight another day. I’ve always tried to stand up for Ward 1 and I will continue to do so with whatever configuration we adopt today.

[4:26:21] I know how proud and resilient the East can be, so I wanna finish by welcoming the new areas to Ward 1. Whether you hail from Hamilton Road, Fairmont, Glencairn, Chelsea Green, Pawn Mills, or even OEV, together we can achieve great things as the new Ward 1, thank you. Yep, and I’ll just make one clarification in your comments, you can welcome them now, but they won’t be there until 2026, so you get to stick with what you got now for now. So any other discussion on this? All right, go to head Council Raman.

[4:26:55] Thank you and for you. So my understanding was the January date that we set was not only to bring back some population information, but also to give the community a chance to comment on some of the changes where they wouldn’t have had a chance to comment potentially before, and I’m just wondering if we do that today, it seems as though we’re not giving that opportunity, which is what we discussed at SPPC, so I’m just wanting to clarify that at this point, this would be a final decision and they would not have a chance to weigh in. That’s correct, this would be a final decision now.

[4:27:30] As you know at committee, we incorporated a number of it being noted in case when it got to Council, we were not going to make a final decision, make some more changes, and if there’s more changes to be made, we would have to refer to that, so it was a bit of a catch-all. If Council’s prepared as it seems like they are to make a decision on those boundaries today, then there is no need for those it being noted clauses, which is why the motion on the floor was put in the format that it was. So I don’t know if the clerk has anything to add, okay. Thank you, and the appendix B, how is that used in the final option memo?

[4:28:05] Option one memo? Yes, so there were two bylaws prepared, one if the changes weren’t adopted and one if they were. So the bylaw that would be forwarded is the one that is relevant to the changes, not the other one. So that’s appendix C will become the bylaw.

[4:28:40] So those appendices are just for your information to see what the different bylaws would look like depending on the option that was chosen as outlined in the memo. But the only bylaw we would vote on tonight is the one that is relevant to the motion that is on the floor. Now. Thank you, so just to clarify that appendix C would be used as mended as the descriptions. That’s correct. Okay, thank you. I’m just wondering if some of the language used is the best way to describe the boundaries.

[4:29:14] So I’ll give you just, for instance, on ward seven, just some of the language on the west side, on the west by the Westerly city limit. I don’t think is actually, in my opinion, clear enough as to what the boundary of that ward is. And I have more examples. I’ll go to the clerk. Sorry, through the chair, we use the meats and bounds in the bylaw, but we also attached an appendix that’s a map. So we have the legal descriptions of the wards, the physical descriptions, but then we also have a photo of a map so that it could be visually seen.

[4:29:59] Go ahead, Councillor Roman. Okay, and through you, I thought we were going to have a little bit more time to work with staff to get some of the language correct. There’s some other pieces, the central line of Stony Creek. For instance, in ward five, I just want again to just to get better clarification on what exactly we’re talking about when we’re using some of the terminology. I think that we could be a little bit clearer for the public as this is new information. And even for myself, when I’m explaining these, I’d like to use the word descriptions as well. So I want to make sure I’m just as accurate as possible when I go through these.

[4:30:34] But if there’s no time, and this is what’s in front of us today, I just won’t be supporting it. All right, any other speakers to this? Okay, seeing none, then we can open that for voting. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 14 to one. Go ahead.

[4:31:07] That concludes the first report of SPPC. Thank you. That moves us to added reports. So this is the added report from Council on closed session that Councilor Raman has agreed to report. So I’ll have her rise and present that report. And then we can have a vote on that as well. Thank you. Your Council on closed session report, 4.2, offered to purchase industrial lands has majesty the king and right of the province of Ontario, represented by the Minister of Transportation for the province of Ontario, part of lot 16 concession two in the geographic township of Westminster pin 08404-0071 LT, shown as part one on the Ministry Plan P-3052-273, that on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager finance supports on the advice of the Director Realty Services with respect to the city owned industrial legal land legally described as part of lot 16 concession two in the geographic township of Westminster pin 08404-0071 LT shown as part one on the Ministry Plan P3052-273.

[4:32:18] As outlined in red on the plan attached here too, as Appendix A, the agreement of purchase and sale, the agreement in brackets attached as Appendix B submitted by his Majesty of the King, represented by the Ministry of Transportation, the purchaser to purchase from the city the subject lands containing an area of approximately 0.361 acres at a purchase price of 99,220, be accepted subject to the conditions and terms is set out in the agreement 4.3, disposition of surplus city owned land part of 50 rolling woods circle that on the recommendation the Deputy City Manager finance supports on the advice of the Director Realty Services with respect to the city owned vacant land, municipally known as part 50 rolling wood circle and legally described as part of block B in registered plan 837 subject to final reference plan as outlined in red on the plan attached here too as Appendix A, the agreement of purchase and sale, the agreement in brackets attached as Appendix B submitted by Dorothy Poole and William Poole, the purchaser to purchase from the city, this subject property containing an area of approximately 3,745 square feet subject to final reference plan at a purchase price of 38,500, be accepted subject to the conditions and terms as set out in the agreement progress was made also with respect to 4.1 of the first report of the planning environment committee and that concludes my report.

[4:33:45] Okay, that’s on the floor. That’s moved by Councilor Raman, any discussion? Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Lewis and then Councilor Cady? No, no discussion. Oh, you guys are just trying to move it? No, we’ve got that covered. Any discussion? All right, we’ll open that for voting. Councilor Trossal, just wait until the vote’s called before you leave, otherwise we can’t vote.

[4:34:37] Okay. Flows in the vote. Down to. Motion carried, 15-0. Just colleagues, don’t leave your seats while a vote’s being called out, just that’s what we’re supposed to do. So I appreciate that people might need to get up and move around, but just not while we’re processing a vote. Okay, so we’re on to deferred matters. There are none, increase, any increase. Okay, seeing none, no emergent motions. We’re on to bylaws. I’m gonna tell you how we’re gonna divide bylaws. You flip to the other screen, the ad. Here’s what I’m gonna do.

[4:35:17] I’m gonna do everything with the exception of bill number eight, which is LEDC. Bill number 18, which is headroom heights. Bill number 19, which is special events. Bill number 22, which is the Wellington Gateway. Bill number 36, which is the 1922 Highland Heights. Bill number 42, which is the Wardbounder Review. All of those will be dealt with separately. We’re gonna put everything else on the floor. Does anybody have any issues with that? Go ahead, Councillor Hopkins. No issues, but could you pull 37 as well? Okay, that’s great.

[4:35:59] Well, sorry we missed that one. We just need another minute then. And I appreciate all the colleagues who sent that information to the clerk kind of as we went, ‘cause that’s very helpful for us going a little faster at the end. Nope, no, it’s no problem, we can always make an adjustment. We just, I just try to get it as best I can. Okay, so everything except all the things I mentioned and what Councillor Hopkins mentioned, that’s what we’re gonna put on the floor.

[4:37:15] I need a mover and a seconder for this, Councillor Cuddy and Councillor Troceau. I’m gonna ask you to move in second, all three readings, okay? So we’re gonna open first reading as soon as it’s ready. Councillor Palazzo, seconded call. Councillor Palazzo, thank you very much.

[4:37:53] Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Okay, second reading, same mover and seconder. Any discussion on second reading of any of these bills? Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

[4:38:28] Okay, and third reading of the same bill, the same mover and seconder, same bills, I should say. Same mover and seconder, we’ll open that for voting as soon as it’s ready. Closing the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Okay, the next one we’re gonna put on the floor is bill eight.

[4:39:00] This is the one with reference to film London. I’ll need a mover and a seconder for this bill, Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Troceau. We’ll open first reading for voting as soon as it’s ready. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to one with one recuse. Okay, and second reading, same mover and seconder.

[4:39:35] Any discussion on second reading? Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that as soon as it’s ready. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to one with one recusal. Okay, third and final reading, same mover and seconder. We’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to one with one recusal.

[4:40:25] Okay, next is bill 18. This is the headroom heights item. So I’ll look for a mover and a seconder on this one. Moved by Councillor Layman, seconded by Councillor Hopkins. We’ll open that for voting as soon as it’s ready. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to one.

[4:40:59] Okay, and second reading of this, same mover and seconder. Any discussion on second reading? Seeing none, we’ll open this for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to one. And third and final reading, same mover and seconder.

[4:41:35] We’ll open that as soon as it’s ready. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to one. Okay, next is 19, the special events item. Mover and a seconder for that.

[4:42:10] Councillors, Lewis and Cutty. All right, we’ll open first reading for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to two. Second reading will be the same mover and seconder. Any discussion on second reading? Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to two.

[4:43:07] Okay, third and final reading of this bill, same mover and seconder. We’ll open third reading for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to two. All right, next bill will be bill 22. It’s the by-law associated with the Wellington gateway. I’ll look for a mover and a seconder on that.

[4:43:39] Councillor Ferra and Councillor Hopkins will open first reading for as soon as it’s ready. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to two.

[4:44:28] Okay, second reading of that bill, same mover and seconder, I’ll look for any discussion. Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to two. Okay, and the final reading of this bill, same mover and seconder, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to two.

[4:45:36] Okay, next is bill 36. This is the bill associated with 1922 Highland Heights and 205 Commissioners Road West. There was a conflict declared on this. So we’ll deal with it separate. I’ll look for a mover and a seconder. Moved by Councillor Cutty, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis. I’m first reading for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries nine to five with one recusal.

[4:46:12] Okay, second reading, same mover and seconder. Any discussion on second reading? Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. I believe I made a mistake on that mover. Could I just double check that, please? You might have, there’s two more readings.

[4:46:45] So we can undo that or we can vote at different— Yeah, I’ll just, yeah, let’s just continue with the rest of the readings at all. Okay, okay, okay, and we’ll double check that as soon as this vote closes, Councillor, but it sounds like you’re okay proceeding two of your three votes. Councillor Trussell, closing the vote.

[4:47:30] Motion carries eight to six with one recusal. Okay, and then third and final reading of this bill. Same mover and seconder, we’ll open that for voting as soon as it’s ready. Closing the vote, motion carries eight to six with one recusal.

[4:48:19] The last bill will be bill number 37. It’s related to Melolily Road North and Norlin Avenue. I’ll look for a mover and a seconder for that. Councillor McAllister and Deputy Mayor Lewis moved and seconded. We’ll open first reading for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 11 to four.

[4:49:25] Second reading of this item. Okay, second reading of this item. Same mover and seconder, any discussion on this? Seeing none, we’ll open that. Closing the vote, motion carries 11 to four.

[4:50:14] Third and final reading of this bill. Same mover and seconder, we’ll open that for voting as soon as it’s ready. Closing the vote, motion carries 11 to four. Okay, bill 42 is the ward boundary related bill.

[4:50:55] If you need to look at it, it’s Appendix C in the staff memo, which is final option one as amended. And the map attached to that is Schedule A. So that’s what will be on the floor for this bill. I’ll look for a mover and a seconder. Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Hopkins. We’ll open first reading for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to one.

[4:51:40] Second reading of this bill, same mover and seconder. Any discussion on second reading? Seeing none, we’ll open this for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 14 to one. Third and final reading of this bill, same mover and seconder. We’ll open the third reading for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries.

[4:52:32] Okay, that concludes by-laws. That means we only have a German left before I call for a motion to adjourn. I just wanted to say this is our last final meeting of this year. I hope everybody gets some well-deserved rest or relaxation with friends and families, whatever you may be doing over the next few weeks. So we have a break in our meetings. Thanks to all of you for the incredible work you’ve done throughout this year and that you will do for the remaining weeks out in your wards. Thank you to our staff for all of your work through 2024. There was a lot of things that occurred, a lot of discussions we had, and we appreciate all of your support in allowing council to make the decisions that we make each and every day.

[4:53:12] So with that, I’ll look for a motion to adjourn. Move, motion to adjourn. Happy to move a motion to adjourn your worship with your indulgence. I appreciate that all of us always thank staff for the work that they do, and when we’re looking out, we’re looking at the deputy city manager departments and the various people who work under them. But I’d also like to particularly take a moment to just thank our city clerks team who do a tremendous amount of lifting. They often sit on this side and don’t see the thanks coming towards them, but they’ve done an awful lot of work this year.

[4:53:47] And so I just wanted to thank Mr. Schultz and his team for all of their hard work, often wordsmithing things for us at the last moment so we can get our work done. So I just wanted to particularly single them out for a job well done this year. Thank you, well said. And they also have to deal with me and you and every other committee share, which is more than enough work. Okay, a motion to adjourn moved by Deputy Mayor Lewis, seconded by Councillor Cady. All those in favor of adjournment? A motion carries.

[4:54:19] Thank you, we’re adjourned.