December 2, 2025, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting was called to order at 1:02 PM; it being noted that Councillor S. Hillier was in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

That Items 2.1 and 2.2, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

2.1   Heritage Alteration Permit Application by K. Darnell – 56 Albion Street, Blackfriars/Petersville Heritage Conservation District - HAP25-081-L

2025-12-02 (2.1) Staff Report - 56 Albion Street - HAP25-081-L

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, with respect to the application by the Owner, K. Darnell, under Section 42 of the Ontario Heritage Act seeking retroactive approval for the alterations of the front door and doorway of the heritage designated property at 56 Albion Street, within the Blackfriars/Petersville Heritage Conservation District, BE PERMITTED with the following terms and conditions:

a)    the transom be restored and reinstated atop the front door of the Contributing Resource at 56 Albion Street within six (6) months of Municipal Council’s decision on this Heritage Alteration Permit; and,

b)    the Heritage Alteration Permit be displayed in a location visible from the street until the work is completed.

Motion Passed

2.2   1702 and 1750 Stackhouse Avenue – Deming By-law - P25133

2025-12-02 (2.2) Staff Report -1720 1750 Stackhouse Ave- Deeming By-law

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of the London District Catholic School Board relating to the properties located at 1702 and 1750 Stackhouse Avenue:

a)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 2, 2025, as Appendix “A”, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting on December 16, 2025, to deem Block 231, Registered Plan No. 33M-475, formerly in the Township of London, and now in the City of London, County of Middlesex, not to be a registered plan of subdivision for the purposes of subsection 50(3) of the Planning Act; and,

b)    the City Clerk BE DIRECTED to provide notice of the by-law passing and undertake registration of the Deeming By-law, in accordance with the provisions in subsections 50(28) and 50(29) of the Planning Act.

Motion Passed

2.3   455 Highbury Avenue North - OZ-9739

2025-12-02 (2.3) Staff Report - 455 Highbury Avenue North

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Lewis

That, notwithstanding the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of Highbury Self Storage Equities Limited (c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd.) relating to the property located at 455 Highbury Avenue North:

a)    the proposed attached by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025, to amend the Official Plan, The London Plan, by ADDING Policy 1140B_ to the specific policies for the Brydges Street Area for the following reasons::

i) the requested amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 (PPS), which directs planning authorities to protect the long-term viability of existing or planned industrial, manufacturing or other major facilities;

ii) the requested amendment does satisfy the criteria for adoption of or amendment to Specific Area Policies, including, but not limited to having a positive impact on the integrity of the existing Brydges Street Area Specific Policy;

b)    the proposed attached by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, in conformity with the Official Plan, The London Plan, as amended in part a) above, to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Light Industrial Special Provision (LI1(22)) Zone TO a holding Light Industrial Special Provision (h-9*LI1(22)) Zone for the following reasons:

i)    the requested amendment is anticipated to have a positive impact on the character of the surrounding area; and, 

ii)    the requested amendment is consistent with the intent of the Brydges Street Area Specific Policy in preserving light industrial use;

c)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back on the possible removal of the Tree Protection area; and,

d)    the Site Plan Approval Authority BE REQUESTED to consider additional tree plantings on site, beyond the 66 required in the Tree Protection Permit, generally in line with the RKLA Landscape Plan, dated October 23, 2025, submitted by the applicant;

AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that 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 this matter:

  •    a communication dated November 28, 2025, from D. Hannam, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;

it being noted that the verbal delegations from D. Hannam and T. Pearson, related to this matter, were received.

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Lewis

That, notwithstanding the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of Highbury Self Storage Equities Limited (c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd.) relating to the property located at 455 Highbury Avenue North:

a)    the proposed attached by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025, to amend the Official Plan, The London Plan, by ADDING Policy 1140B_ to the specific policies for the Brydges Street Area for the following reasons:

i)    the requested amendment is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 (PPS), which directs planning authorities to protect the long-term viability of existing or planned industrial, manufacturing or other major facilities;

ii)    the requested amendment does satisfy the criteria for adoption of or amendment to Specific Area Policies, including, but not limited to having a positive impact on the integrity of the existing Brydges Street Area Specific Policy; 

b)    the proposed attached by-law BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, in conformity with the Official Plan, The London Plan, as amended in part a) above, to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Light Industrial Special Provision (LI1(22)) Zone TO a holding Light Industrial Special Provision (h-9*LI1(22)) Zone for the following reasons:

i)    the requested amendment is anticipated to have a positive impact on the character of the surrounding area; and, 

ii)    the requested amendment is consistent with the intent of the Brydges Street Area Specific Policy in preserving light industrial use; 

c)    the Site Plan Approval Authority BE REQUESTED to consider additional tree plantings on site, beyond the 66 required in the Tree Protection Permit, generally in line with the RKLA Landscape Plan, dated October 23, 2025, submitted by the applicant;  

AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that pursuant to subsection 34(17) of the Planning Act, no further notice be given;

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That the motion BE AMENDED to include a new part that reads as follows:

That the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back on the possible removal of the Tree Protection area.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the delegation request from D. Hannam, Zelinka Priamo Ltd. and T. Pearson, Malleum Partner, as appended to the Agenda, BE APPROVED to be heard at this time.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.   Scheduled Items

3.1   8th Report of the Community Advisory Committee on Planning

2025-11-20 CACP Report

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the 8th Report of the Community Advisory Committee on Planning, from its meeting held on November 20, 2025, was received; 

it being noted that the verbal delegation from J. M. Metrailler, Chair, Community Advisory Committee on Planning, with respect to this matter, was received.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.2   63 Byron Avenue East, Wortley Village – Old South Heritage Conservation District - HAP25-084-L

2025-12-02 (3.2) Staff Report - 63 Byron Avenue East - Demolition Request

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, with respect to the application by the Owners, K. Ojukwu & P. Doelman, under Section 42 of the Ontario Heritage Act seeking approval for the demolition of the existing building and approval for a new building using salvaged materials, as described herein and shown in Appendix C, on the heritage designated property at 63 Byron Avenue East, within the Wortley Village-Old South Heritage Conservation District, BE PERMITTED with the following terms and conditions:

a)    prior to demolition of the Existing House, features identified in Appendix E, be salvaged and inventoried, protected in storage, and reused on the Reconstructed House by the owner:

i) wood elements unfit for salvage and reuse shall be replicated like-for-like;

ii) reconstruction and repointing of the buff brick cladding shall be undertaken using an appropriate historic restoration mortar mix matching the existing in colour and composition as closely as possible. Mortar shall be lime-based, with minimal Portland cement, equal or lower in strength to the existing mortar. Type K or Type O mortar, or approved equivalent, may be appropriate; 

iii) reconstruction and repointing of the buff brick cladding shall not be undertaken at temperatures below 5°C or above 27°C and must be completed during a period of time when the temperature is not anticipated to fall below 5°C for at least 28 days;

b)    detailed drawings for the proposed covered one-storey front porch shall be provided to the Heritage Planner as an amendment to the Heritage Alteration Permit prior to construction;

c)    the Heritage Planner be circulated on the Building Permit application drawings to verify compliance with this Heritage Alteration Permit prior to issuance of the Building Permit; and,

d)    the Heritage Alteration Permit be displayed in a location visible from the street until the work is completed;

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

-    a communication dated November 25, 2025, from A. Doelman; 

-    a communication dated November 25, 2025, from D. Kenyon, Rev. V. Kenyon and C. Kenyon; 

-    a communication dated November 30, 2025, from A. Eagleson and J. McCaskill; 

-    a communication dated November 25, 2025, from J. and K. Smith; 

-    a communication dated November 24, 2025, from L. Byrne; 

-    a communication dated November 27, 2025, from L. Macdonald; 

-    a communication dated November 26, 2025, from N. Soave; 

-    a communication dated November 26, 2025, from P. Pityn; 

-    a communication dated November 24, 2025, from P. Prince; 

-    a communication dated November 25, 2025, from R. Dean; 

-    a communication dated November 27, 2025, from S. Hilderbrant and J. Guetter; 

-    a communication dated November 24, 2025, from S. Koster and J. Attema; 

-    a communication dated November 30, 2025, from S. O’Brien; and, 

-    a communication dated November 24, 2025, from S. Orme and S. Patton; 

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

-    K. Ojukwu;

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 (4 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.3   99 Oakside Street - OZ-25111

2025-12-02 (3.3) Staff Report - 99 Oakside Street

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of 2385868 Ontario Inc. c/o Siv-ik Planning & Design Inc. related to the property located at 99 Oakside Street:

a)    the proposed by-law as append the staff report dated December 2, 2025, as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025, to amend The Official Plan for the City of London, 2016 (The London Plan) by ADDING a new policy in the Specific Policies for the Neighbourhoods Place Type and by ADDING the lands to Map 7 – Specific Policy Areas – of the Official Plan;

b)    the proposed by-law as appended to the above-noted staff report as Appendix “B” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, in conformity with The Official Plan for the City of London, 2016 (The London Plan), as amended in the above-noted part a), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Residential R1 (R1-6) Zone, TO a Residential R1/Holding Residential R8 Special Provision (R1-6/h-9*R8-2(_)) Zone; and,

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

i)    screen any surface parking exposed to a public street with enhanced all season landscaping; and, 

ii)    provide different materiality for the accessible parking space located in the front yard; 

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

  •    a communication dated November 27, 2025, from L. Sooley, Siv-ik Planning and Design Inc.; 

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

-    L. Sooley, Siv-ik Planning and Design Inc.;

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 residential intensification that is appropriate for the existing.; 

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 (4 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

3.4   Public Participation Meeting - Not to be heard before 1:00 PM - 318 Piccadilly Street - Z-25121

2025-12-02 (3.4) Staff Report - 318 Piccadilly Street

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of London Bridge Child Care Services Inc. (c/o Harrison Pensa LLP) relating to the property located at 318 Piccadilly Street, the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 2, 2025, as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on  December 16, 2025, to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, in conformity with The Official Plan for the City of London, 2016 (The London Plan), to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Day Care (DC) Zone TO a Residential R2 Special Provision (R2-2(_)) Zone; 

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

-    J. Williams, London Bridge Child Care Services;

it being 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 facilitate the use conversion of the existing daycare to a single detached.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (4 to 0)

3.5   Public Participation Meeting - Not to be heard before 1:00 PM - 1164-1170 Richmond Street - OZ-25117

2025-12-02 (3.5) Staff Report - 1164-1170 Richmond St

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of Kap Holdings Inc. (c/o Zelinka Priamo Ltd.) relating to the property located at 1164-1170 Richmond Street:

a)    the request to amend The London Plan by ADDING a new policy the Specific Policies for the Rapid Transit Corridor Place Type and by ADDING the subject lands to Map 7 – Specific Policies Areas – of The London Plan, BE REFUSED for the following reasons:

i)    the requested amendment is not consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which prioritizes Strategic Growth Areas to be the focus of growth and development;

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

iii)    through the recent Heights Review, Council redesignated this segment of

Richmond Street from a Rapid Transit Corridor Place Type to an Urban Corridor Place Type, further emphasizing Council’s intent for this area to develop at lower intensities than those contemplated along Rapid Transit Corridors; and, 

iv)    the proposed development does not conform to, the Official Plan, The London Plan, including, but not limited to, the Key Directions, City Design, and Intensity and Form policies of the Urban Corridor Place Type, Protected Major Transit Station Areas (PMTSA) policies, and Near Campus Neighbourhoods policies.

b)    the request to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1 to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Residential R3 Special Provision (R3-2(4)) Zone TO a Residential R9 Special Provision (R9-7( )) Zone, BE REFUSED for the following reasons:

i)   the requested amendment is not consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which prioritizes Strategic Growth Areas to be the focus of growth and development;

ii)    the proposed development does not conform to the Official Plan, The London Plan, as the requested Specific Policy is not recommended for approval; and, 

iii)   the proposed development and requested zoning represent an over intensification of the site and are not appropriate within the existing and planned context; 

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

-     a communication dated November 28, 2025, from D. Sikelero Elsenbruch and H. Froussios, 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:

-    D. Sikelero Elsenbruch, Zelinka Priamo Ltd; 

-    J. Hurst; 

-    A. Kapalanski; 

-    M. Therrien; and, 

-    M. Blosh; 

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 (4 to 1)

Additional Votes:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.6   Public Participation Meeting - Not to be heard before 1:00 PM - 870 Jalna Boulevard - Z-25123

2025-12-02 (3.6) Staff Report - 870 Jalna Boulevard

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of Odell Jalna Residences of London (c/o City Planning Solutions) relating to the property located at 870 Jalna Boulevard:

a)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 2, 2025,  as Appendix “A” BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025 to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1, in conformity with The Official Plan for the City of London, 2016 (The London Plan), to change the zoning of the subject properties FROM a Residential R5 (R5-4) Zone TO a Residential R5/R9 Special Provision (R5-4/R9-7()) Zone and Residential R5 Special Provision (R5-4()) Zone;

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

i)    screen any surface parking or loading areas exposed to a public street with enhanced all-season landscaping; 

ii)    provide a high degree of transparent glazing for the façade of the proposed buildings facing Southdale Road East; and, 

iii)    Consider incorporating green development initiatives into the building design and site layout; 

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

-    a communication dated November 28, 2025, from J. Flemming, City Solutions; 

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

-    J. Flemming, City Planning Sollutions; 

-    R. Panzer, Homes Unlimited London Inc.; and, 

-    T. Smuck, APEX Property Management and Consulting Inc.; 

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 the regeneration of settlement areas and land use patterns within settlement areas 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, Place Type policies, and the Our Tools policies; and, 

  •    the recommended amendment facilitates the redevelopment of a site within the Built-Area Boundary and the Primary Transit Area with a scale and intensity that can be appropriately accommodated and will contribute to achieving a diverse range and mix of housing options within the area;

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

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.7   Public Participation Meeting - Not to be heard before 1:00 PM - 129 Meadowlily Road South - OZ-25118

2025-12-02 (3.7) Staff Report - 129 Meadowlily Road South

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the application of Damas Development Inc. & CHAM Ltd. (c/o Zelinka Primo Ltd.) relating to the property located at 129 Meadowlily Road South:

a)    the request to amend The Official Plan for the City of London, 2016 (The London Plan, by ADDING a new policy to the Specific Policies for the Neighbourhoods Place Type and by ADDING the subject lands to Map 7 – Specific Policy Areas – of the Official Plan, BE REFUSED for the following reasons:

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

ii)    there is no municipal sanitary sewer to service the site; 

iii)    the requested amendment is premature as it is contingent on the Development Charges Update expected to be finalized in 2028 and Meadowlily Environmental Assessment which has not been finalized; and, 

iv)    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;

b)    the request to amend Zoning By-law No. Z.-1 to change the zoning of the subject property FROM a Holding Urban Reserve (h-1*UR1) Zone TO a Residential R5 Special Provision (R5-7(_)) Zone, BE REFUSED for the following reasons:

i)    the requested amendment is not consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement, 2024, which promotes the efficient use and optimization of existing municipal sewage services and municipal water services and existing private communal sewage services and private communal water services;

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

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

iv)    there is no municipal sanitary sewer to service the site; and,

v)    the requested amendment is premature as it is contingent on the Development Charges Update expected to be finalized in 2028 and Meadowlily Environmental Assessment which has not been finalized; 

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

-    a communication dated November 28, 2025, from A. Richards and H. Froussios, 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:

-    A. Richard, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.;

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 (5 to 0)

Additional Votes:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by P. Cuddy

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

3.8   Public Participation Meeting - Not to be heard before 1:15 PM - Official Plan Review: Final Urban Growth Boundary Review - O-9595

2025-12-02 (3.8) Staff Report - Final Urban Growth Boundary Review

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by S. Hillier

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the Section 26 Official Plan Review of The London Plan and Urban Growth Boundary Review:

a)    the proposed by-law attached as Appendix “A”, to adopt the Urban Growth Boundary for The London Plan as part of the Section 26 Official Plan Review, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025, and BE FORWARDED to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing for Provincial approval; and,

i)    Schedule 1 to Appendix “A” – Northwest Urban Growth Boundary Expansion” Part B, BE AMENDED to read as follows: “This Amendment applies to lands located at 831 Sunningdale Road West, 975 – 1017 Sunningdale Road West, 1035 – 1125 Sunningdale Road West, 1185 – 1431 Sunningdale Road West, and 2329 Wonderland Road North, 2701 and 2739 Hyde Park Road, 1739 Sunningdale Road West, 1965 – 2215 Sunningdale Road West, 1720 – 1806 Sunningdale Road West, 1950 – 2140 Sunningdale Road West, land legally described as LONDON CON 6 S PT LOT 25 AND RP 33R12091 PART 1, 2260 – 2350 Hyde Park Road, 1525 - 1557 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1671 – 1753 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1773 – 1845 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1857 – 1949 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1802 – 1834 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1992 – 2034 Fanshawe Park Road West, land legally described as LONDON CON 4 PT LOT 26 RP 33R11344 PART 1, 1205 – 1393 Gainsborough Road, 1403 – 1445 Gainsborough Road, 1214 – 1316 Gainsborough Road, 1380 – 1440 Gainsborough Road, land legally described as CON 3 S PT LOT 27 AND RP 33R11058 PART 2, land legally described as CON 3 PT LOT 26 CON 2 PT LOT 26 AND PT ROAD ALLOWANCE, and 1425-1439 Oxford Street West in the City of London.”;

ii)    Schedule 1 to Appendix “A” BE AMENDED to include the land legally described as CON 3 S PT LOT 27 AND RP 33R11058 PART 2, land legally described as CON 3 PT LOT 26 CON 2 PT LOT 26 AND PT ROAD ALLOWANCE, and 1425-1439 Oxford Street West;

b)    the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing BE ADVISED that the Municipal Council declares that the Urban Growth Boundary Review does not conflict with provincial plans, has regard to matters of provincial interest, and is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement;

IT BEING NOTED THAT Appendix “A” under clause a) above, is based on the findings from the Council-adopted Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth) and Industrial Land Needs Assessment (Employment Areas);

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

-    a communication dated November 21, 2025, from Chief, R. K. J. Miskokomon, Chippewas of the Thames First Nations; 

-    a communication dated November 28, 2025, from Mayor J. Morgan; 

-    a communication dated December 1, 2025, from Councillor S. Franke; 

-    a communication dated November 27, 2025, from L. Jaimeson, Zelinka Priamo Ltd.; 

-    a communication dated November 27, 2025, from P. Hinde, Strik, Baldinelli, Moniz Ltd.; 

-    a communication dated November 28, 2025, from D. Bazargan, Amrize; and, 

-    a communication dated November 28, 2025, from N. Caranci;

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

  •    M. Wallace, London Development Institute; 

  •    P. Weigner; 

  •    C. Menocha; 

  •    L. Jaimeson, Zelinka Priamo Ltd; 

  •    J. Zaifman, London Home Builders Association; 

-    H. Jaswal, White Oak Developement Inc.; 

  •    L. Blummer; and, 

  •    E. Holder;

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.

Additional Votes:

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That, on the recommendation of the Director, Planning and Development, the following actions be taken with respect to the Section 26 Official Plan Review of The London Plan and Urban Growth Boundary Review:

a)    the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 2, 2025, as Appendix “A”, to adopt the Urban Growth Boundary for The London Plan as part of the Section 26 Official Plan Review, BE INTRODUCED at the Municipal Council meeting to be held on December 16, 2025, and BE FORWARDED to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing for Provincial approval; and,

b)    the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing BE ADVISED that the Municipal Council declares that the Urban Growth Boundary Review does not conflict with provincial plans, has regard to matters of provincial interest, and is consistent with the Provincial Planning Statement;

IT BEING NOTED THAT Appendix “A” under clause a) above, is based on the findings from the Council-adopted Land Needs Assessment (Community Growth) and Industrial Land Needs Assessment (Employment Areas).

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That Schedule 1 to Appendix “A” of the proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated December 2, 2025, to adopt the Urban Growth Boundary for The London Plan as part of the Section 26 Official Plan Review, BE AMENDED as follows:

i.    Schedule 1 to Appendix “A” – Northwest Urban Growth Boundary Expansion” Part B, BE AMENDED to read as follows: “This Amendment applies to lands located at 831 Sunningdale Road West, 975 – 1017 Sunningdale Road West, 1035 – 1125 Sunningdale Road West, 1185 – 1431 Sunningdale Road West, and 2329 Wonderland Road North, 2701 and 2739 Hyde Park Road, 1739 Sunningdale Road West, 1965 – 2215 Sunningdale Road West, 1720 – 1806 Sunningdale Road West, 1950 – 2140 Sunningdale Road West, land legally described as LONDON CON 6 S PT LOT 25 AND RP 33R12091 PART 1, 2260 – 2350 Hyde Park Road, 1525 - 1557 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1671 – 1753 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1773 – 1845 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1857 – 1949 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1802 – 1834 Fanshawe Park Road West, 1992 – 2034 Fanshawe Park Road West, land legally described as LONDON CON 4 PT LOT 26 RP 33R11344 PART 1, 1205 – 1393 Gainsborough Road, 1403 – 1445 Gainsborough Road, 1214 – 1316 Gainsborough Road, 1380 – 1440 Gainsborough Road, land legally described as CON 3 S PT LOT 27 AND RP 33R11058 PART 2, land legally described as CON 3 PT LOT 26 CON 2 PT LOT 26 AND PT ROAD ALLOWANCE, and 1425-1439 Oxford Street West in the City of London.”;

ii.    Schedule 1 to Appendix “A” BE AMENDED to include the land legally described as CON 3 S PT LOT 27 AND RP 33R11058 PART 2, land legally described as CON 3 PT LOT 26 CON 2 PT LOT 26 AND PT ROAD ALLOWANCE, and 1425-1439 Oxford Street West.

Motion Passed (4 to 2)

Moved by S. Lewis

Seconded by P. Cuddy

That the motion, as amended, BE APPROVED.

Motion Passed (6 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Stevenson

Motion to open the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

Motion to close the public participation meeting.

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

4.   Items for Direction

None.

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

None.

6.   Confidential

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by S. Lewis

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

Matters pertaining to litigation or potential litigation, including matters before administrative tribunals, affecting the municipality or local board;

Motion Passed (5 to 0)

That Committee convenes In Closed Session, from 4:34 PM to 5:03 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by S. Stevenson

Seconded by S. Lewis

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 5:05 PM.

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (3 hours, 48 minutes)

Good afternoon, everyone. It is 1.02, I’d like to call the first meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee. To order, it’s the first meeting of our new cycle. I’d like to welcome Councillor Stevenson, our new member to PAC.

Please check the city website for additional meeting and detail information. The city of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishnabic. Haudenosaunee, Lettipaywak, and Adivondron. We honor and respect the history languages and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home.

The city of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit today. As representatives of the people of the city of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and live in this territory. The city of London is committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports from meetings upon request to make a request specific. To this meeting, please contact PACPEC@london.ca or 519-661-249 extension 2425.

At this time, I’ll look for any disclosures of pecuniary interest. Seeing none, I’ll move on to consent items. I will inform the committee that 2.3 regarding 455 have Highbury Avenue North will be pulled and we will, as is custom, deal with it after we’re finished the scheduled items. So I will look to committee now for the motion regarding 2.1 and 2.2.

Councillor Cutty, you’re moving those. I look for our seconder, Deputy Mayor Lewis. We have a motion moved and seconded to look for any questions or comments, those two items. Councillor Roman.

Thank you and through you. I just wanted to talk about 1702 and 1750 Stack House Ave. As we know from the Deeming By-law, this is around a new school for the Catholic School Board in the northeast part of the city, an area that obviously is in need of schools as well. So pleased to see this moving forward.

I know from a timing perspective, it would have been great to have known beforehand whether or not this was going to be part of a school block and how this was going to move forward, but here it is in front of us. So good to see this moving forward with a 401 people play school, thank you. Thank you. Other comments or questions from community members or visiting Councillors?

Seeing none, we’ll call the vote. Seeing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, moving on to 3.1 and this is a delegation from Mr. Matralia, the chair of our community advisory committee on planning.

Sir, please go ahead and you have five minutes. Good afternoon, members of PEC and visiting Councillors. My name is John Mark Metray. I’m chair of the community advisory committee on planning.

Thank you again for hearing my delegation. This will be a quick one. I just wanted to draw your attention to an item in our report in support of the application at 63 Byron, which is the next item on your agenda. Our support may be overkill given the letters you see there, the most of which I think are in support of the application, but I did want to highlight that we had the opportunity in the privilege to speak to the applicant at the advisory committee.

They attended and answered some of our questions, described the project. It’s clear they’ve put a tremendous amount of expense into that project. It’s called the demolition, but our understanding is effectively they’re demolishing quite a derelict building, rebuilding in a different location and adding an addition. So from our perspective, it’s largely preserving the heritage streetscape there out of what I imagine is a significant expense and effort from the property owner.

And so we fully support it. And we like to come to you guys with the positive news stories as well as the negative ones. So we just wanted to recognize that owner and express our support for that application. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Metray. The clerk has an updated motion to acknowledge that we heard from Mr. Metray.

You should see that in the scribe. So I’ll put it to the committee, Councillor Stevenson. You’ll move the acceptance of the report and acknowledgement of the thing. Seconder, Councillor Cudi.

Any questions or comments? Seeing none, we’ll call that vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, moving on to 3.2.

This is regarding 63 Byron Avenue East, Portley Village, I’ll look for someone to move to open the public participation meeting. Councillor Cudi, seconded by. Councillor Stevenson, we’ll call that vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero.

So look for the applicant. The applicant would like to address the committee? Yes. Okay, I hear you online.

If you could give us your name and you have five minutes. Good afternoon members of the committee and my neighbors who are attending. My name is Kings Lee Ojuku and I am one of the owners of property. I call on the property with my husband, Peter Domen.

I want to say thank you for allowing us the opportunity to speak at this meeting. So this home is a house that has stood there for a century and it holds a very important piece to London’s history. As I mentioned in my letter, my family has lived in Byron Avenue for over seven years. And during that time, we’ve restored several houses, neglected houses on the street and we’ve provided housing to Londoners and students in Watley Village and in London at large.

Current home no longer meets our needs and we are committed to staying in that neighborhood where we built deep roots and we have strong relationships. The current reality is that if you look through the images that we sent and the truly heritage impact assessments and the correspondence there that you have from other professionals, you would see that the current house is in severe disrepair. And I do not believe that, you know, the previous homeowners put in a lot of work to maintain the house. The roof has failed, the foundation is crumbling.

It has been a water line that has ruptured there for a long period of time that has just been fixed. And this has caused the foundation on the east side of the house to sink and majority of the bottom frame is so deteriorated that when you touch them, they actually did some of them turn to dust. The house is currently unhappy, Ted is, you know, I think we have a family of raccoon living there. It’s filled with faces who’ve tried to clean it up.

And it’s just been a lot of, you know, just been a lot of money going into that and we haven’t seen any results. We are hoping that we can get this project approved. Economically speaking, we think that approving this project is not just about saving the house. It’s about creating opportunities for Londoners and for what we economy.

This house is going to employ, you know, a lot of cabin trails, masons, electricians within the old South community and London at large. You know, sometimes we get questions from neighbors and friends, why are we doing what we’re doing? Why are we going to this lens to preserve this house? So because the plan is to de-break, de-break, lift, reconstruct the frame, put back the house, reuse the same car bowls.

And why can’t we just build a new house when we do this? So to answer that, you know, the answer lies in the story that we discovered when we bought this house, right? So this home owners and immigrants who moved from Cornwall, England to Canada to create a better life for his family. Although he’s not a well-known figure, this family became the acquired pieces of land on Byron Avenue East that was formerly called Armour Street.

Over the period of time, this family debuts about four homes on Byron Avenue East and lived in one of those homes on Byron Ave. And then in the late 1890s, they decided to build six-degree Byron Avenue East as their retirement home. They moved into the house and lived there for the rest of their lives. They contributed to London’s growth as a capital, as medical professionals and community members and provided housing as well.

We knew none of this story when we purchased the house. It was only after working with ACO and doing some research that we knew the history of this house. When we read the history, it felt as if we were reading a page from our own lives. I, myself, as an immigrant, I moved from London, England after my school and moved to Canada to settle here with my husband.

All of the streets of all of the streets in London, we chose Byron Avenue. And we rented a small apartment in a duplex to live on Byron Ave. Over the years, we worked very hard. We lived very quickly.

And just like the Thomas family who’s lived there before us, we acquired a few rental properties on the same street and provided safe housing for Londoners. So after several years and hard work, we hope to move out of our current duplex and move into our first single family home that would potentially be our forever home. You can’t make this the result. And so this is why we want to preserve every brick and every cobble on that house, every heritage piece on that house, just to honor the family legacy and ensure that the history lives on.

So in closing, I am urging the committee members and the members of my neighbors who do support my proposal to move this forward. This is our chance to act before it’s too late. If we don’t do anything with this house, it’s going to be sitting there for a long period of time. And eventually, it will be turned down and the history of that house and the history of the Thomas family will be lost forever.

By approving this plan, we preserve a piece of London’s history, we strengthen our community. And we set an example of what a sustainable restoration could look like. I just respectfully ask that you support this motion. And together, we can turn 63 by on avenue from an abandoned structure to a restored London to the city.

Thank you so much. Thank you. I’ll look for other people that would like to address the committee in a gallery or online. I don’t see anyone going to the microphones in the gallery.

I’ll just clerk if there is anyone online. It is indicated there is nobody online. So I’ll look for a motion to close the public participation meeting. Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Councillor Cudi, and we’ll call the vote.

Seeing the vote, the motion carries 5 to 0. OK, I’ll put this on the floor for committee members. Councillor Cudi. Thank you, Chair.

I’ll move the staff recommendation. I’ll look for a seconder. Councillor Stevenson has seconded. And I’ll look for questions or comments from committee members or visiting staff.

Councillor Frank, please go ahead. Thank you, yes. I just want to say I won’t be speaking on this item due to a conflict of interest for living in close proximity to the property. I just want to let people know because I know I have some residents watching.

So I want to share. I won’t be speaking to it. Thank you. I’ll look for other comments or questions.

The committee will permit me from the chair. Just a quick comment on this. Judging by the number of letters we’ve received from neighbors, there’s general support for the demolition of this property. It’s, I think, what we have seen many times is demolition by neglect.

So good job by the property owner to incur a considerable expense in demolitioning or demolishing this building and then using what can be reclaimed in the structure to replace it. So, OK, Councillor or Deputy Mayor Lewis had to step out. But we have a motion moved and seconded. So we still have a quorum.

So I will call the vote. Using the vote, the motion carries 4 to 0. OK, let’s move ahead to 3.3. This is regarding 99 Oakside Street.

I’ll look for motion to open the public participation meeting. Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Councillor Cudi. We’ll call that vote. Using the vote, the motion carries 4 to 0.

Thank you. So I will go to the applicant. The applicant would like to address the committee. Please, ma’am.

Give us your name and you have five minutes. Good afternoon, chair, members of committee and visiting Councillors, my name is Lauren Suely, and I’m an urban planner with Civic Planning and Design Inc. Here today, representing our client, 238-588-868 Ontario Inc, who are the owners at 99 Oakside Street. I’m also joined in person today by Bruce Huff and also joined by Jordan Huff, who is listening online.

Upon review of staff’s report, we are in agreement with the recommendation to permit the mixed-use apartment use within the existing building to allow for the four additional residential dwelling units while maintaining the artisan workshop and the two existing dwelling units. While we agree with the recommendation to allow the proposal to occur, we respectfully disagree with the holding provision that has been included in the proposed zone. We did submit a letter that had been included on the added agenda that does speak to this. Because this is a mixed-use building, it will be required to go through the site plan application process, even though it is less than 10 units, where staff will be able to request that stage one into archaeological assessment.

So they can request that regardless of whether or not the holding provision has been added to the zone. We believe that the holding provision will add additional process and cost to our client and to the city if it is included in the zone. And so we would request that the assessment— excuse me, that the holding provision consider— that PEC consider the removal of the holding provision and that the assessment just be requested through the site plan application process. So with that, thank you for your consideration.

And I’m here to answer any questions. Thank you. I’ll look for other members of the public like to address committee. I don’t see anyone coming to the microphones in the gallery.

I’ll also clerk. If there’s anyone online, nobody is online. So I’ll look for a motion to close the public speech meeting. Councillor Cuddy moves it, seconded by Councillor Stevenson.

And we will call that vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries 4 to 0. Thank you. I’m going to go to staff just who was noted some pushback on the holding provision.

I’d just like to hear the rationale from staff on why that was included. Through the chair, staff are recommending the holding provision. This is consistent with our standard procedures, where we have yet to receive the ministry letter or the stage 1 to 2 assessment at this time prior to playing environment committee. The process for the holding provision is streamlined.

It can be done concurrently with SPA. Through the zoning, we’ve also included the ability for the entire building to be fully residential, which may remove the need for site plan approval. So the holding provision would ensure that an archaeological assessment is completed, even if the development changes and does not require site plan. Thank you.

OK, thank you. So I’ll put this on the floor for our committee members. Councillor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair.

I’ll move the staff recommendation. I’ll look for a seconder, Councillor Stevenson. I’ll look for comments or questions. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. Just as a follow up through you to staff regarding the removal of the holding provision, are there any serious objections to removing it, even though it’s regular practice, given that the ask was made? What are the risks to the corporation if we were to remove it? I’ll go to staff.

Through the chair, the risk is that if the application does not go through site plan approval, then we have no ability to obtain the archaeological assessment. It would just proceed through a building where an archaeological assessment is not required at that stage. Councillor. Thank you.

So as a follow up, is that a financial risk to the city or just so that I understand what we’re talking about? I’ll go to staff. Through the chair, it’s a requirement over the archaeological master plan. So we’re following that practice.

But having said that, through normal planning act processes, if it’s not included, there may not be another mechanism to require it. And as through building permit process, that’s the clearing house of all the requirements that are of municipal interest, which would include the archaeological requirement. Councillor. OK, thank you.

I think I’m going to look into this further between now and in council. The project, it’s in my ward. And it’s been well received. There aren’t any complaints from residents aside from one that I can see here.

No one’s reached out to me. So I’m happy to support this. And I will look into the removal of the holding provision between now and council. Thank you.

Just a question from the chair. How much of a delay would this add to getting this project going? To the chair, there’s no delay, as staff have mentioned. It would be streamlined with the site plan approval if it goes through site plan.

But otherwise, it would be required prior to the issuance of building permit. OK, thank you. I’ll look for other questions or comments from committee members who are visiting. Councillors, OK, seeing none, we have a motion moved and seconded.

We will call that vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries 4 to 0. OK, moving on to 3.4. This is regarding 318 Piccadilly Street.

I’ll look for our motion to open the public participation meeting. Councillor Cuddy moves it. Councillor Stevens. Stevenson seconds it, and we will call that vote.

Closing the vote, the motion carries 4 to 0. Thank you. So I’ll look for the applicant. There he is.

Please, sir, give us your name, and you have five minutes. Good afternoon, members of PEC and other visiting— or sitting in Councillors. My name is Jacob Williams. I’m here as agent for London Bridge Child Care Services Inc.

We don’t have anything to add to staff’s report. Just want to thank staff for the work they did and supporting the proposal. And we’re here to answer any questions. Thank you.

I’ll look for other members of the public that’d like to address committee. That’s the clerk, if there’s anyone online. Nobody is online, and I don’t see anyone else approaching the microphones. So I’ll look for a motion to close public participation meeting.

Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor Stevenson, and we will call the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries 4 to 0. Thank you. So I’ll put this on the floor, Councillor Cuddy.

Thank you, Chair. I’ll move the staff recommendation. Thank you. I’ll look for a seconder, Councillor Stevenson.

I’ll open for comments or questions. Councillor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair, and through you. Just a quick note, it’s really nice to see properties like this being restored and return to their original use.

It’s a beautiful property. I’ll walk by it often. And I’m so glad that the applicant has decided to make use of it. And it’s just nice to see revitalization in parts of Old North and downtown.

Thank you. Thank you. A lot of further comments or questions. Councillor Pribble.

Just a quick comment. Very much support of this was in front of us. And thank you to the applicant. And looking forward to this moving forward to this project.

Thank you very much. OK, thank you. Any other comments or questions where I call the vote on 3.4? OK, I’ll call the vote.

Seeing the vote, the motion carries 5 to 0. OK, moving on to 3.5. This is regarding 1164 and 1170 Richmond Street. I’ll look for a motion to open the public administration meeting.

Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor Stevenson, and we’ll call that vote. Wasn’t the vote the motion carries 5 to 0? OK, I’ll look to the applicant if you would like to address the committee. Please give us your name and you have five minutes.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Committee members, public attendees. My name is Deni Alyssa Calero.

And I’m a planner with Zilin Capriamo. Together with my colleague Harry Fruzio, and the property owner, Arnon Kapalansky, we are pleased to be here to present the OPA and ZBA applications for 1164 and 1170 Richmond Street. First, we would like to thank staff particularly Elena for their work on this file. We also thank the community for participating in the open house held in early November and for sharing their comments.

We have carefully reviewed the staff report and take staff for supporting principal 15 story apartment building on this location. And despite the staff’s recommendation for refusal of the proposed 21 story apartment building, we respectfully request that faculty members consider our clients propose OPA and ZBA applications. The subject lands are located along Richmond Street, which is a crucial transit corridor in London. And it links downtown, Mays of View Transit Village, and also San Josef Hospital, and through various bus roads and active transportation options.

The subject lands are the only site currently available on this location that directly connects both entries of two King University College and Western University. And the plan for this property should prioritize high density development to maximize the potential use. Concerns about height, density, increase the traffic, noise, and infrastructure deficiencies are applicable to any high density on this location. And regarding the height of the proposed building, it’s important to note that it includes units designed with two stories.

This unique housing style offers a sense of an independent home, making it appealing not only for students, but also families and those who work from home. Additionally, a shadowy study has been conducted and concluded that the proposed building has the most significant impact during the winter months when people tend to spend less time outdoors. And also, the least impact is during summer months when individually seeks access to sunlight. Moreover, it’s our professional opinion that the application and proposed development is consistent with the PPS, and aligns in principle with the broader vision of the London plan.

The consideration of a special policy for the subject lands is a warrant, and these lands are uniquely positioned at the getaway of both Western and University King’s College. And this location presents an excellent opportunity to create an iconic landmark focal point while also addressing the critical need for housing, not only for students, but also younger professionals, professors, staff, and families in this neighborhood. We thank you for the opportunity to provide our comments, and we look forward to your favorite consideration. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them.

Thank you for your attention. Thank you. I look for other members of the public, I’d like to address the committee on this item. Please, sir, go to the microphone and give us your name, please, and you have five minutes.

Hi, my name’s Jason Hurist. I’m a doctor who lives in the neighborhood, and I’m not a fan of this proposal, for several reasons, which I’d like to give to you right now. The first is the size. On Upper Earth Street, which is a busy street, which a lot of people use to access the university and St.

Joseph’s Hospital. And no, building is currently higher than three stories. So a 21-story building surrounded by three-story buildings obviously doesn’t fit. You can see the picture that they use on their application.

It looks ridiculous. And the reality is, if this is permitted, there’s going to be a lot more apartments built in that area. This is an area which contains hundreds of houses. It’s an area of significant architectural value.

People have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in these houses. And they’re going to see their privacy compromised by the fact that there’s a 21-story building beside them. A 21-story building can cast a shadow as big as 90 stories. The size of a shadow depends on the time of day and the time of year, but it can be as much as 4.2 times the height of the building.

In addition to that, although they plan on putting in the additional 500 people in this apartment, they’ve only planned for an additional 20 parking spaces. The parking’s already congested in this area, and it’s going to become ridiculous. And we saw that with the building that was built at 1235 Richmond Street, which often converts Richmond into a one-lane street to its various times of day because of all of the Uber delivery drivers and guests and taxis going to that place. So there’s not enough parking.

The size is too ambitious, even though, in general, a smaller apartment building may be reasonable. Traffic is a real concern. Western has just approved a residence and built a residence with 800 more people. So you’ll have 1,300 more people at a suburban entry section, which is already busy.

And it’s going to take it over the edge. It’s going to ruin the value of homes for people who already live in the area. It’s going to make access to St. Joseph’s Hospital in the university, which the applicants identified as important points, much more difficult.

And we saw that with the strike that happened in the university and the effect that the lack of access had, people’s commute’s home increased by 45 minutes. But in addition to that, there’s the heritage of the neighborhood. There’s also disaster planning. There’s an emergency doctor.

I know the importance of evacuating people due to fire or flood. And this is floodplain land. And it’s going to be very difficult to evacuate people from the 21 story building. In addition to that, it may interfere with internet signals.

It will certainly interfere with privacy. King’s College has a lot of alternatives. There’s been a big decrease in the number of foreign students approved. So it’s unclear that there’s a demand for this.

But if it is, it’s going to be wealthy students and professionals and people who have their own car. And if you only have 20 additional parking spaces and 500 additional people, even if that’s technically permitted under whatever law, it’s still evidence of pro-planning. In practice, it’s just going to make the neighborhoods congested. And these neighborhoods can’t be congested because you need access to King’s and Western and St.

Joseph’s as the applicant said. In addition to that, I’m worried about the effect this will have on other developers. I can tell you that I’ve been harassed over the last year by people who want me to sell my property and have sometimes done things that exceed the law. And you’re going to take developers in London and encourage them to continue to harass people who live in the neighborhood to sell so they can build more apartments.

I do think there is a need for more apartments and there’s a need for 35 story apartments. And that need is downtown. And the city should be concentrating on having people living downtown to rescue downtown the way that Waterloo and Quechino and Guelph and Burlington and many other communities with similarities to London did. They were able to revitalize those downtowns by getting people living downtown.

And that should really be the focus of development. Not areas that are already congested. Not areas that don’t have the parking. Not areas that don’t need the traffic.

Not areas that have a lot of heritage. And not casting shadows and invading the privacy of hundreds of homeowners who’ve lived and invested in this area for decades and decades. I don’t know if the developer as a history of working with the city or antagonizing them and being spiteful, that’s not my concern. I wish the developer as well.

I think a smaller building may or may not be reasonable. But a 15 to 21 story is not. And that’s very clear, I think, to most of the residents. And I hope I’ve been able to bring up a few points to make one reconsider this.

And I think the city of London staff for their concern and for their dedication and keeping the city great and helping it to grow. Thank you. Thank you. Look for the next speaker.

Please sir, give us your name and you have five minutes. Thank you. My name is Ron Robertson and I’m a resident of Brofdale. I live approximately 400 meters from the proposed site.

And we do have in Brofdale some concerns, some of which you’ve already heard about. The Brofdale Community Association did submit a detailed report which was incorporated into the staff report which chose to reject parts of this application. And we hope that the PEC committee will respect that and think hard about letting this project go forward in its present form, present proposed form, I should say. Our particular concerns, at least my particular concerns, are height issues, units per hectare issues, setback issues and traffic consequences.

And by traffic I don’t just mean vehicular traffic, I mean pedestrian traffic, bicycle traffic and micro vehicle electric traffic, all of which are a problem and are growing in the area. The height, 21 stories, is just way too high. It breaks city rules. And because of that, it’ll be a precedent to allow more proliferation of very high buildings in the area, something we do not want.

Secondly, the height is dangerous. We are concerned about fire consequences of this height. Simply because debris falling down from that height can do serious damage to people and property. In combination with short setbacks, down to 1 meter, 1.1 meter, these setbacks mean that debris, burning debris and solid debris will fall on neighboring properties.

And that’s dangerous. We’re also concerned that these setbacks will make it very difficult for fire fighting equipment to be placed at certain aspects of the building to fight fire. So public safety is a big issue here. In the event that the building at an end of life needs to be demolished, this will be a big problem too.

Simply because you can’t drop a building into such a small packet of land safely as far as I know. The proposed building is too high for a shadow and a line of sight. So people will be upset by that. The setbacks are dangerous simply because we’ve mentioned fire.

Construction will also be difficult. Vehicles will have to impinge upon private property other than the building in order to complete this project. That may be a big problem. We’re also concerned about fire spread.

With such small setbacks, the fire could easily spread to surrounding properties, vegetation, structures, vehicles parked in parking lots— sorry, in driveways. And this could spread further and further. It’s a worst case scenario, but we have to consider that possibility. Worse still is the remote, but still real possibility of building failure due to fire.

If that building at 21, maybe even at 15, were to collapse, it would do tremendous damage to the surrounding area. And through wind dispersion, toxic particulate matter and toxic ash could spread far further. So we are very concerned about that. Finally, there are traffic concerns.

The proposed building has, along with the new Western residents, it’s going to increase our population by about 1,300 people. Now, not all of those people are going to have cars, but they’re all going to walk. And so we’re going to have real traffic problems from pedestrians, from bicycles, from electric micro-vehicles, and, of course, from cars. So this is also a real concern.

The conjunction of the new on-campus residents and this building coming online at approximately the same time will be a big shock to the neighborhood and may cause real, real damage to the neighborhood. Thank you very much. Have a good day. No.

Thank you. OK, I’ll look for the next speaker. Please, sir. Come to the mic.

Give us your name here for five minutes. My name is Arnold Kapplanski, I’m the applicant. My two comment is that I designed this building as a two-storey’s apartment to accommodate families also. And in regards to the traffic, the street light that is at the university gates should be split into two red lights.

One, to go north and one to go south, but the one to go south should be at airport. And that will create a ability to drive through while the two cars are parking on red lights. And Richmond Street is always been an arterial road in my eyes. The number of cars are driving down.

And for arterial roads, we should increase density. Thank you very much. Thank you. Look for others who wish to address the committee.

I want to let us clerk if there’s anyone online. We have someone online. Michaela. Hi, my name is Michaela.

You have five minutes, please go ahead. Good afternoon, members of council and the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I’m here to express my strong opposition to the proposed zoning and official plan amendments for the property 1164 through 1170 Richmond, file number OZ25117.

Now, we all know that this neighborhood is composed almost entirely of R1 properties. Moving the site from R2 to R7 or even R5 represents an extreme and incompatible increase in density. It does not reflect the existing character, scale, or typology of this long, established community. And like I said before, traffic in this area has increased significantly.

And we continue to see serious safety concerns at nearby intersections. Adding a 21-story or 15-story high density tower in the middle of the neighborhood will worsen the congestion and create even greater risks for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. The suggested alternative of a 15-story is not a meaningful improvement. It remains far too large and out of place.

This location is also highly important. It sits between Western University and King’s University and acts as a gateway into the city. The proposed design of facade are not appropriate for such a prominent, symbolic entrance. London is already losing much of the green space and historic architectural charm that once made it so unique.

And this proposal continues that troubling trend. I previously lived in these existing buildings. They’re attractive, beautiful, recently constructed, and renovated and architecturally compatible with the neighborhood. Their red brick character aligns with surrounding homes and provides housings suited to students, young families, and professionals, replacing them with the structure that resembles a generic hotel disregards the visual identity, history, and culture of the area.

Demolishing an existing student housing that’s in great shape right now is also incredibly wasteful. The quality, design, and scale of this project does not give me hope that the new proposal would be handled with the level of care, community engagement, or architectural integrity that this location acquires. Combined with the fact that the administration had to direct them towards a different option, it is difficult to trust that they understand or value the needs of this community. I’m afraid that this private transaction may only benefit the developer and not the existing community, the homeowners, the residents, the students.

This part of London is becoming too dense way too quickly. We risk turning a unique green welcoming neighborhood into an overwhelming concrete corridor. This proposal removes existing green space and offers little in return, something especially concerning in a city known for its parks, beautiful trees, and in stunning historic homes. I want to emphasize, I’m not opposed to development in these areas.

I’m opposed to irresponsible development. Any new project on this site, especially, should be appropriately scaled, respectful of the neighborhood’s character, high in design quality, and supportive of the community’s long-term well-being. A 15-story tower still does not meet that standard. For these reasons, I respectfully ask council to reject these amendments and both proposals.

I also urge the administration to possibly reevaluate the official plan and consider why we’re seeing so many similar unsuitable developments in these areas. And where did our green space go? Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

I’ll ask Kirk, I think there was someone else online. Is Blosh? Yes. Do you have five minutes, please go ahead.

Okay, thank you. I think a lot of what I would say has been said by very eloquently by some of the previous speakers, but just to reiterate a few things, there’s height of this building and the size of it is completely inappropriate. I would say, you know, I’ve lived in this neighborhood for over 20 years. And when I first moved here, there were two houses on that lot, two two-story homes.

And it was a significant increase in the density to get the four plaques at that total 80 bedrooms. And this is another ridiculously substantially huge increase that, and there’s nothing else like it around there. The rest have remained, well, many of them were rented. They remain single family homes and it will tower over everything to a ridiculous height.

The shadows in the winter that would completely cover some of the homes are, you know, they’re very dismissive and say, “Well, it’s winter. It doesn’t matter if you’re in darkness.” And frankly, that’s when you need the sunlight the most. So I found the attitude very dismissive. And also, but I think one of the most important issues is the lack of a lay-by off of Richmond Street.

There’s very little parking included with this proposed building. And it’s actually not required. And that’s something that I think needs to go back to the drawing board and look at, because this is not a neighborhood where you can easily walk to a grocery store. And so as a result, there’s a lot of deliveries.

And what I’m seeing more and more and more is the deliveries are parking on the sidewalk. They just drive right up. There’s no green barrier or meridian between the street and the sidewalk. So to get out of traffic, the delivery people just pull up on the sidewalk.

And time’s money for them. I don’t understand why they do it, but we can’t be creating situations where that’s just going to be worse and worse and worse. And certainly the intersection there at Epworth, who have long requested some kind of stoplight there, because it’s really quite dangerous for pedestrians. And we’re told it’s too close to the stoplight on Richmond Street.

So that really has to be considered. The new dormitory that Western’s building, the access will be Tower Lane, which is Tower Lane just, Epworth becomes Tower Lane on the other side of Richmond Street. And so there’s going to be increased traffic there with no traffic controls. And then to have even more going back into Epworth into this building, it’s just not going to work.

It’s frankly, it’s just simply unsafe. So that needs to be reconsidered the lack of parking. I know there was a public meeting, which I do appreciate the developer having. But when we said, well, there’s not going to be enough, you’re not providing any parking.

And they said, well, tell Kings to build a parking garage. And that’s sort of the attitude. It’s like, well, if there’s problems, well, let the university, let Western, let Kings, let the city come around after the fact and fix it. And that’s really kind of backwards.

It really needs to be addressed now upfront. So all of those issues really do need to be addressed. So, and I think a lot of people had said things more eloquently than I can, but basically this proposal is too big and needs to go back to the drawing board. It’s not something that you can just kind of send back and tweak it here and there.

It really just needs to be told no, go back to the drawing board and come back with something else. So I hope you take all of these comments from people that live in the area in your evaluation and say no to it at this time. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.

Blash. I’ll ask Clerk, there’s others that would like to speak online. There is nobody else. I’ll look in the gallery.

I don’t see anyone coming to the microphones. I’ll look for a motion to close the public participation meeting, Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Councillor Cudi and we’ll call that vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, I’ll put this item on the floor for committee members, Councillor Cudi.

Thank you, Chair. I’d like to move the staff recommendation. Okay, I’ll look for a seconder. Deputy Mayor Lewis has seconded.

So I’ll look for comments or questions from committee members or Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, so through you, Chair, I would say that while I would be willing to support intensification on this site, for me, the real issue is that we just, through the Official Plan Heights review, reduce this from a rapid transit corridor place type to an urban corridor place type. That was a very specific and deliberate decision based on the reality that the old version of the North leg of bus rapid transit will not be built. We see even in the new master mobility plan, an alternate route that’s proposed to run up Warren Cliff and Western Road and focus the intensification in more on the west side of the campus than the east side of the campus.

And so I do think that, and I know it’s noted in the staff report, that this would allow up to a 15 story based on the place type. It does not allow for a 21 story. I also do think, and I wanna share this ‘cause the applicant and representative are in the crowd. I do think that if a 15 story version is brought back, the comments that we heard from Ms.

Bloch about the lay by need are critical. I would need to see that in a future plan. We did see what happened with the Lux on Richmond. We have to take into account the ability for those delivery vehicles, as was mentioned by a couple of folks that are just coming.

And what I heard from Ms. Bloch is consistent with what I’ve seen around Fanshawe too. They’re just parking sometimes right on the sidewalk. Forget about the shoulder of the road, but literally blocking the sidewalk.

There needs to be a lay by plan. And I know that urban design and traffic engineering transportation don’t love those, but that’s the reality we live in. And I would wanna see that in a future plan. I would also like to see that something where we consider what Councillor Cudi and I proposed at Oxford and Erzwood, where we actually look at an at-worth address rather than a Richmond address so that the GPS on these delivery drivers takes them to a lay by off of the main corridor.

That’s something that would be up for discussion, I think, in the future. But I know we’re gonna look at that in a couple of other places. I think it should be considered here as well because we are in a different reality from a traffic engineering perspective in terms of how these skip the dishes and Uber Eats and every other delivery service is running. And there’s just not a respect for the traffic rules and regulations.

There’s not a respect for the no parking, no stopping zones. And it does have an impact, not just on residents at the building, but on the wider neighborhood when that happens. And the traffic flow of everybody else trying to get through. So, you know, I did hear some comments that even 15 stories would be too big.

Well, 15 stories is what the official plan would allow based on the place type. And that is a revision that has just come through and that’s actually a decrease in height. There is going to be intensification along this corridor. But I do concur with the staff finding that 21 is just beyond what can be supported here at this time.

So that’s why I’m gonna support the staff recommendation for today. Thank you. I’ll look for other comments. Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you. I’m not gonna be supporting this refusal. I do agree with what the deputy mayor just said about the lay by. We do see those issues.

But this was just recently a rapid transit corridor which would have allowed up to 26 stories. And I know we recently made the amendment, but whether this is a rapid transit corridor or a major transit corridor, I think Londoners recognize it as a very busy transit, a main transit line. I can’t think of a better place to live and use transit or bicycle or walk to work. Western is a huge employer.

And the comments about parking, I mean, if we don’t believe that there’s not a tremendous number of Londoners who want to live without a car, then I think we need to talk about that when we look at our master mobility plan. Otherwise, you know, a building on a main corridor close to bike paths, a short transit ride up to Masonville area or down to Richmond and Oxford, which is gonna be a transit, a major transit hub. I get that it’s a shock to neighborhoods to have these large buildings go in. But I was seeing it in my own ward, you know, when we approved 210 story buildings on Oxford Street, a huge, huge shock.

There isn’t a high, a tall building anywhere along that stretch of Oxford. We’ve got very small residential homes right beside what would be these towering buildings. On Mornington, we approved a 26 story immediately across the street from six or seven single story homes because it makes sense when we see the bigger vision of our city when we see it operating in a new way. And so somebody’s got to be first and to say that 21 would be ridiculously high when we had approved 26, not that long ago, 26 stories.

And we did make a change, but this is directly across, and like I said, a massive employer in our city and for students as well, I think it’s worth considering. If we have a housing crisis and we wanna keep housing costs down, we know that six more stories is gonna reduce the cost of those apartments. It’s gonna allow more people to live immediately adjacent to an amazing employer and school and transit corridor, a major transit corridor. Whether we call it rapid transit or not, most landowners would see it as such.

So I’m gonna be voting no to this, and I just would encourage council and the public to get involved in this and say what it is you want. As the resident said, people living next door are not gonna want 15 stories either. And it is a shock, and I do get that, but I supported it in my own ward, despite the pleas of the people who lived right beside, because I’ve believed it was the better long-term decision for buildings that will live most of us. So those are my comments.

Thank you, I’ll look for other comments from the committee or visiting councilors. Councilor Trassel. Thank you very much. I always like to sit in this seat when I come to PEC, ‘cause it reminds me I’m not a committee member, and I shouldn’t be making motions or doing things like that.

But thank you for hearing me. I had a very, very full discussion ready to go. I think I’m just gonna put that aside in light of the comments that the deputy mayor made, which I support. You know, people in this neighborhood, they know that there’s going to be massive intensification.

And they can read the changes that we made to the provincial policy statement. People understand we’re gonna be looking at, we’re gonna be looking at a lot of additional density on this lot, which is really too bad, because you’ve got four viable structures that are being used by King’s College. I worry about them being demolished and how long they would be offline, and the hardship that that’s gonna create for King’s College and King’s students. But I think the bigger picture here is, this is not just detriment and hardship to the immediate neighborhood.

This is detriment and hardship to everyone who uses the Richmond corridor. I want you to think back to what the entrance to the university gate was like during the strike, which was temporary. I want you to think what it’s like now, where they’re building an eight-story dorm, which is almost complete. This is a much smaller property than what the university built their dorm on.

I guess I’m not gonna start by asking staff questions, because I think their report spoke to everything. But during the period of construction, what’s the staging area? This is an incredibly small piece of property, and I don’t see any vacant properties adjacent. This is going to create, and I don’t know how many years it takes to build a building of this size when you’re working on a small property.

This is gonna create very serious disruption and hardship and accidents and liabilities and injuries. We already have a recognized traffic safety problem in Old North, and it’s been recognized by the traffic division, which is now doing a study of the area. The last thing we need right now is to exacerbate many of the problems that not just this neighborhood, not just this neighborhood, but everybody using that corridor is going to be facing. So I certainly support the staff report.

In my view, 15 is probably more than I would like, but I understand what the rules are. Everybody should understand what the rules are. We went through this very long process, which had a lot of public participation. It was contentious, and this is where we landed.

And the city also made a determination that the BRT, should we be fortunate enough to get the funding for it at some point in the future, is gonna go someplace else. So I don’t think it’s okay to say, this could have been 21 or 26, but we landed at 15, but we should be able to go to 21 or more because that’s what it was going to be. Well, going to be isn’t good enough because that’s not what we adopted. And that PPS did go through a very rigorous process, and I think I’m running out of time.

So I just wanna thank the staff for the care that they took. I know how many of the residents of the area spoke to the staff and received very, very thoughtful courteous responses. We’re gonna be working, the neighborhood is gonna be working with the counselor and the staff, and whoever the developer might be, to look forward towards intensification of the neighborhood. But it’s gotta be done in a reasonable way, and this building is not reasonable.

So please support the staff report. Thank you very much. Thank you. I’ll look for other comments or questions.

Councilor Pribble. Thank you, Chair. I do have a couple of questions, sort of chair to the staff. And provincial policy prioritizes the SGA strategic growth area, and this was in the report from the staff was not classified as the SGA.

And when I read the paragraph, it states here, the efficient, promotes the efficient use and optimization of existing municipal suite services and municipal water services, and existing private communal water services. Based on this, based on this statement, would this 21 floor project, would this be considered not optimized within these guidelines, in terms of the two statements that’s made, that’s point one, point two, were there any additional reasons why this wouldn’t be considered and as GA? All right, staff. Through the chair, so staff’s recommendation is on the basis of the one and plan.

Through our consultation with engineering staff, there aren’t any engineering concerns affecting the development. But as mentioned several times, the intensity that’s proposed, the 21 stories does not align with that policy framework. The urban corridors are strategic growth areas, but there is a difference between the level of intensity contemplated through the rapid transit corridor versus the urban corridors, which are intended to be slightly lower intensification. So for those reasons, we are recommending refusal and but could offer support potentially for a 15 story building in line with those policies.

Councillor? Thank you for that answer, but I would like to have a follow-up. And as I said, the SGA states based on, if you look at the source, the water, the utilities that we are providing there, would you consider that this 21 story project development would be still within the guidelines of the need, of the maximization of the where it has strictly existing municipal services and municipal water services and existing private communal services and the efficiency and optimization. Would this project be within these guidelines as stated in your report?

I’ll go to staff. Through the chair. So generally speaking, intensification of these lands would maximize use of existing services. So would meet that intensification goal, but as mentioned, the height that’s proposed just doesn’t fit within the policy framework.

Councillor? Thank you, and last question. The comment was already made with current dorms being built on the west side of Richmond. Has this project been considered in coordination and the needs for municipal infrastructure with this proposed project?

I’ll go to staff. Thank you, through the chair. My understanding is that building is being constructed as of right now. So the transportation impact assessment in the servicing study that was submitted did incorporate that proposal.

And as Ms. Matton mentioned, there was no capacity constraints or issues with the 21 story proposal from an engineering perspective. Councillor? Thank you for that answer.

And I do have one more actually question going back to it and the SGA, the specifications that were listed. Would there be any other specific points regarding the 21 story development that would not qualify for the SGA or why for this area, for this building? We would not consider this as GA. I’ll go to staff.

Through the chair, if I’m understanding the question correctly, no, the urban corridor, as I mentioned, is a strategic growth area. So within that area. Councillor? Thank you very much.

No more questions? Other comments or questions from committee or visiting Councillors? I’ll ask Deputy Mayor to take the chair. I’ll make a few comments here.

Go ahead, Councillor Layman. Briefly, I’m just going to reiterate kind of what was said. I’ll support the staff recommendation here for a couple of points. One, quite simply, this used to be a rapid transit corridor.

It’s now been changed in urban, urban corridor place, which doesn’t permit this type of height. And the second point is along this section of Richmond from Oxford to Windham here, I believe it’s a unique place I recognize that there’s a lot of transit on there and student transit use. However, there’s a lot of single family homes along there and without a step down from a 21 story down to, you know, a lower story and then down to single family homes. I don’t think that this is a right place for that tall building right up beside one and two story homes.

So I don’t see the proper fit here and understand that the concerns of congestion right at the gates, especially with the recent development of the student resident right at that point. So I will support the staff report. Thank you, Acting Chair. Thank you, Councillor Layman.

I’ll return the chair to you. Thank you. One last look around to see if anyone else would like to comment. Seeing none, we have a motion moved and seconded.

I’ll call the vote. Seeing the vote, the motion carries four to one. Okay, moving on to 3.6. This is regarding H-70 John Boulevard.

I’ll look for motion to open the PPM. Councillor Cuddy moves it seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis. So we’ll call that. Seeing the vote, the motion carries five to zero.

I’ll look for the applicant though. Oh, Mr. Fleming. Please give us your name and you have five minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is John Fleming and I’m with City Planning Solutions. I’m here with my colleagues, Jersey Smalaric and Lauren Sulli from Civic Planning and Design.

Tim Wickens from Nicholson Sheffield is also part of the consulting team. And we also have here today Tim Smuck from Apex Property Management. We are representing Odell John, a residence of London and its sister organization Homes Unlimited. I’m also joined by Rob Panzer, who is on the board of Homes Unlimited and Chris Payne, who is with Ernst B.

Property Management, who managed the Homes Unlimited portfolio. So you’ve got the whole gang here. Homes Unlimited is an incredible nonprofit organization. I’ve really been pleased to be working with them and having that opportunity.

They own and operate approximately 700 portable housing units in London. And their mission is to develop and sustain safe, accessible and vibrant affordable housing communities in London. They are a unique organization for sure. I can tell you that.

In that they managed to pull off amazing development projects, but they do it with a single staff member who is an incredible staff member, but they rely on the strength of their board and the community to deliver these outstanding projects, as well as collaboration with the City of London and other partners. They recently completed a 154-unit mixed affordability housing project at Pond Mills. They are putting the finishing touches on Greg Playford Place in the Soho District, which is another 95 units roughly. And they also have just down the street, a project where they’re converting office space into about 100 residential affordable housing units.

The application before you today is a very positive intensification project that will regenerate and intensify an existing property in the Odell Jelna Homes Unlimited portfolio. And their 64 townhouse units on the site, 24 of them, will remain. And these are the ones that’s been strategically established. They will remain fronting onto Jelna Boulevard as townhouse units.

There will be no access from Jelna Boulevard through that complex of units to the other portion of the site, which will be redeveloped from about 40 townhouse units to two eight story towers, fronting onto Southdale Road. And that’s a 181 new affordable and mixed affordability apartment units. As per the homes unlimited philosophy, this will be a mixed income community consisting of rent, gear to income, affordable housing, and market rent. So this is the kind of thing I think that council has been asking for, an intensification project, very thoughtful, and in a mixed affordability community.

I want to say thank you very much to Michaela, who’s been the planner leading this. She’s been great to work with, as have Catherine Matin, the manager of the area, and Brad O’Hagan. We agree with the recommendation as before you today. I’d like to turn it over to Rob Panzer now to say a couple words.

And we know that tenant relocation is a real important piece of a project like this. So Tim Smock’s going to come up after Rob and speak to that very quickly. Thank you, John, and thanks to the committee for this opportunity to speak to you. On behalf of the homes unlimited and O’Dell jail and the residences.

This is a very good proposal that’s been brought forward to you. And I think yourself have done a great job of analyzing the application and coming forward with an application that is good for London. And it’s going to result in a very attractive development along this section of Southdale Road. In a lot of ways, it’s very akin to the project that the London Middlesex Housing Corporation has undertaken further east on Southdale.

It allows for an intensification of a property that quite frankly, under its current condition, is underutilized. And it entirely conforms with your official plan. And I think, as John has pointed out, tenant relocation is obviously a very important issue. And we recognize that right from the outset and have been engaged for almost a year in addressing that problem.

And I think Tim Smuck and Chris Payne, who is with our property management company, a spearheaded effort to very actively engage our tenant community in expressing their concerns and working with them to come up with solutions that are financially responsible, operationally feasible within the context of our service agreement with the city. And also very much in keeping with both the letter and intent of the landlord tenant act and your rental eviction by-law. So, having said that, I’d like to echo John’s thanks to planning staff. And also recognize that over the course of the last couple of years and on an ongoing basis, we’ve had a good relationship with your housing staff.

And we particularly like to thank Matt Felbert for his efforts in that regard. And we’ve had to complicate it in difficult issues to deal with. We’ve managed to sort them out. There will be other issues arise and sure, but I’m confident that we will be able to address those as well in the near future.

So, thank you very much. Thank you. I’ll look for other speakers. Please sort of give us your name and you have five minutes.

Thank you, committee. My name is Tim Smuck and I’m representing Apex property management. Mr. Fleming said, just want to speak a little bit to the tenant relocation work that’s being done at a semi-jona.

The board has made significant investments in this work, knowing how important it is to have to navigate this very necessary but disruptive process to grow affordable housing in our community. And so we have worked with tenants onsite to not only increase communications in terms of navigating this process, but to try to be very transparent with additional supports that can be brought forward as we navigate this. Such examples are we have facilitated three onsite community sessions with the tenants to try to get as early on this as possible to inform them of what was happening, inform them of this plan and to walk through the vision. And then of course, take the time to connect individually with identified households to minimize disruption for them and their families.

And that’s been a key piece of the work that we’ve been doing and that work continues to go on to date. Another key piece that was a part of this work is that we developed a tenant relocation policy that was provided to all tenants and a meeting subsequent to that was held to walk them through it in terms of laying out what kind of supports our organization will provide, the home’s organization will provide to help them relocate, but also to ensure that every tenant that is relocated has the first right to return back to the community. This is something we’re very proud of. Many of these families have been there for some time and of course we want to honor that right to have them return when possible.

So with these, there’s an ongoing commitment to tenant engagement as we go through this process. Again, taking both a community-wide approach but also an individual community approach, working through the unique needs that is present in on site. Thank you. Thank you.

I’ll look for other speakers. I’ll ask the clerk because there’s anyone online like to address the committee. He indicates there is not. I don’t see anyone else going in the microphones.

I’ll look for a motion to close the PPM, Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Councillor Cudi and we’ll call them. I was thinking about the motion carries five to zero. I’ll put this on the floor. Deputy Mayor Lewis.

I’ll move the staff recommendation. Look for a seconder, Councillor Cudi. I don’t look for comments or questions. I’ll go to Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Chair. And through you, I just wanted to say thanks to Home’s Unlimited and everybody involved in this project and bringing it forward. Rob, I’ve worked with you on a couple of issues and Chris certainly not only with respect to Home’s Unlimited property in my own ward, but in terms of the general round tables that we convene every couple of months to talk about issues that are going on in the sector with regard to our partners because LMCH is not the only affordable housing RGI rent provider in the city. We have multiple partners.

Home’s Unlimited is one of those partners. Obviously speaks to the strength of their application today that they didn’t bring out their big gun and left Kathy resting today and not having to bring her in ‘cause you wouldn’t have a better champion than her on these things. But this is exactly where we need to go. When we’re talking about affordable housing and how we support RGI housing, which is mixed model communities and intensification on land we already have.

‘Cause land is going to be the single biggest obstacle to those deeply affordable, those RGI level units. And you can’t support those purely on public subsidy. You need to have mixed markets that are supporting the costs of those RGI units as you move forward. You don’t have one with the other.

The intensification on this site makes a lot of sense. As you’ve heard, everything conforms to our OPA or to our OP, no amendments required so we can drop the A on this one. So I’m just gonna encourage colleagues to support this. This is not only an addition to affordable housing in the community, but to my view, it’s actually in the future of how we’re going to find the path forward that continues to support RGI level housing by creating these mixed model communities where there are different types of affordability on a site.

Thank you. I’d like to go to the Ward Councilor, Councilor Palosa. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for recognizing me as I was recently on committee and two days off of it.

So still back with you. Just thank you to the applicants. I know that their engagement with residents and tenants started before Council, before this come to Council ‘cause I had residents reaching out before, even I was aware of it. So I know they’ve really put that effort in behind the scenes, wanted to thank them as well for the meetings that they’ve done before it came to us to facilitate the exchange of information back to tenants and the meetings that they’ve had with me behind the scenes as the Ward Councilors.

We discussed the parcel of land in the area in general of what’s coming and what to be expected. I’m fully in support of this application. I really appreciate the renewal that we’re looking at, maintain the streetscape along Jelna of the townhomes that will undergo complete full renovations as part of this renewal of the site as we see the development on the front of an Artila Road around Southdale. So really appreciate the layout and the different roadway access to facilitate traffic as that was a concern from area residents.

Excited that there could potentially be some daycare as well worked into this building as it’s desperately needed in the area and the increase in 140 units as they redevelop it to make sure this is a sustainable long-term project with those various rents put in that sustainably it will be a success and it is a time for renewal and change. So really supportive of it. Hoping committee fully endorses it. If there’s any questions behind the scenes, happy to answer them.

Just thank you to the applicant and the work preparing it before they came that we can hopefully fully support it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

I’m gonna look for other comments or questions from committee members or visiting councilors. Committee would prevent me. I’ll just make a few quick comments from the chair. I just, you know, with our tremendous challenge of providing housing along with affordable housing, as was mentioned, we can’t do it without our non-profit partners and Holmes Unlimited has just been a terrific organization.

Thank you to the board that has done the heavy lifting, as was mentioned. We have 700 units where people are living and thanks to your good work and now 140 more once it’s completed. The deputy mayor referred to RGI as did Councillor Palosa. RGI is ranked year to income and we talk about affordable housing a lot.

And affordable housing sometimes gets misconstrued as, you know, what rental rate it’s, you know, luxury homes or mill market homes. But affordable housing in my mind is what people can afford and nothing can be said closer to that than ranked year to income is what you can afford to pay out of what you’re making. And so the fact that this project includes that, speaks volumes and hopefully, as was said, we can move those folks up as they make space for others that are coming in behind as they, you know, again, the better income situations. It’s a terrific location, it’s near one of the transit routes that was approved at Wellington Gateway.

So fantastic that folks there will have access to that. So just from the chair, thank you so much for your contribution to London from housing and a formal housing point of view. So I’ll obviously fully support that. I’ll look for any other comments or questions before I call the vote.

Seeing none, we’ll call the vote. Using the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, moving on to 3.7. This is regarding 129 Metal Lily Road South.

I’ll look for a motion to open the public participation meeting, Councilor Cuddy, seconded by Councilor Stevenson. And we’ll call that vote. Using the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Thank you, I’ll look for the applicant.

Please give us your name and you have five minutes. Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon, committee members, sitting Councilors, staff and members of the public. My name is Alia Richards, and I’m a planning consultant with Selenka Priema Limited.

And I’m joined here today by my colleague, Harry Frucios. And we’re representing Domus Development Incorporated and CHAM Limited as the proponents on this application. I’d like to start by thanking staff for their efforts in processing this application. Upon our review of the staff report, we respectfully request the committee to consider our clients OPA and ZBA for approval, notwithstanding staff’s recommendation for refusal.

We submitted a letter to PEG that is on the added agenda, which provides some additional context for specific elements of this application, including concerns related to servicing, density, bill form and setbacks. In regards to servicing, it is our opinion that the requested OPA and ZBA is appropriate given the recommendation to implement a holding provision in order to address servicing constraints. We acknowledge that the subject site may not have appropriate levels of servicing at this time. However, the intent and purpose of these lands is to be developed for residential purposes, as confirmed with the recent OLT decision relating to the Medalily Woods ESA boundary appeal, and considering that the site is within the urban growth boundary and entirely designated within the neighborhood’s place type.

Whether development take place in the short term or long term, the intent of this application is to provide appropriate permissions for development at such a time that it is feasible to move forward. Further, previous discussions with staff suggest that our proposed servicing strategy is acceptable, and we agree with their recommendation to implement a holding provision. Moving on to specific aspects of this application, or specific aspects of the site design, rather, an 11-meter front yard setback was recommended by staff for compatibility with the adjacent designated heritage property, and to maintain the rule landscape setting along Medalily Road. While we appreciate the staff perspective, properties to the north and south of the subject lands, which are located on the same corridor, have been recently approved with a six-meter front yard setback along Medalily Road.

A six-meter setback was requested as a part of this application in order to maintain compatibility with approved developments next to the subject lands, in keeping with the precedent design standards already established along the corridor. Further to this, the proposed six-meter setback still allows for significant landscaping across 84% of the frontage, which will maintain the established vegetated character of the area. Overall, the proposed site design with built forms consisting of townhouses and stacked townhouses are desirable dwelling types that align with current market demand for more cost-effective forms of housing. With a maximum height of three stories, in keeping with the neighborhood’s place type, the proposed development represents an appropriate transition to, and is compatible with recent developments approved in the immediate area for various residential forms and uses.

As the area remains largely undeveloped, the introduction of stacked townhouses at this location does not create any unacceptable impacts on existing or future uses. Lastly, in our letter, we have requested a revision to the proposed ZBA, primarily to permit the proposed development as per the submission material provided. The proposed density of 67 units per hectare was originally calculated using the entirety of the site area, inclusive of the 30-meter buffer to the updated ESA boundary prior to the conclusion of the metal elite ESA appeal. In reality, the proposed development is approximately 75 units per hectare, as we acknowledge that the buffer and the parkland trail area will likely be rezoned to a different category.

Notwithstanding, the proposed density of 75 units per hectare is appropriate as it allows for sufficient outdoor space and appropriate separation from the ESA boundary to the west. In our opinion, the proposed form and density will contribute to the much needed supply of missing middle residential units in the area, and is in alignment with the policy direction to make efficient use of the land and promote appropriate residential development. Thank you for the opportunity to present our comments this afternoon, and we remain available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. I’ll look for other comments from the gallery. I’ll ask Erketh, there’s anyone online. There is nobody online.

I don’t see anyone coming to the microphones. I’ll look for a motion to close the PPM. Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Councillor Cutty, and we’ll call that vote. I think the vote, the motion carries five to zero.

Okay, I’ll put this on the floor. Councillor Cutty, thank you chair. I’d like to move the stack recommendation. I’ll look for a seconder.

I see Councillor Hill here as seconded. So your motion move in the seconder. I’ll look for comments or questions. Councillor Cutty, your mic is on.

Do you like to speak to it? Councillor Stevenson. I just thank you through you to staff. I was just wondering if we can get an update on the recommendation to put a holding provision in to address the municipal sewer capacity.

Yeah, I get staff comment on the proposal about regarding holding provisions. Through the chair, the Lennickland contains policies which evaluate proposals such as this for prematurity. The policy states that where there’s no forecasted servicing within a five year period, development is deemed premature. The servicing in this area is not forecasted within that five year period.

So staff have deemed this development premature. And for that reason, we don’t feel a holding provision is the appropriate tool. Councillor. Thank you.

And what is the estimated time for that sewer capacity? A lot of stuff. Thank you through the chair. We are currently in the final phases of completing the Metalily EA.

You can expect to see a report on that in Q1 of 2026. That said, this project would not be completed until after the next DC study. It is part of the one water master plan that we are currently working on and finalizing as part of the development charge studies. So that timeline is at this point is outside of the 10 year window.

So we are well beyond that five year planning period for the London plan. Councillor, other comments or questions? Deputy Mayor. Thank you chair.

And through you, I just want to make sure as well when we’re talking about the 2028 development charges study, even that won’t be able to be finalized until we finalize the urban growth boundary discussion that we’re having later in this meeting, correct? I’ll go stuff. Through the chair, yes. Part of the leading the development charges, a background study includes an understanding of what the expansion would look like and then taking the costs associated with that expansion to include them in the final DC background study.

So that is part of the overall process for completing the DC studies. Deputy Mayor. Okay, thank you. So with that, I’m going to support the staff recommendation as well because I do think that this is premature.

No municipal sanitary service forecast in the next 10 years is not a holding provision. A holding provision is where we might have sewer capacity already, but we need to make sure that the capacity is sufficient or where we know we are doing a servicing upgrade in the next five years. And so this land would be able to be serviced by that upgrade capacity. Right now there’s not even a plan for this.

And this is an area where there has been some other developments approved. But again, this servicing has continued to be a challenge in this area. And I suspect will continue to be for some time based on, and perhaps it’s speculating in a little bit of commentary, but based on the topography of the land. And what I’ve learned from our water wastewater team, which is probably less than Ms.

Ramaloo’s already forgotten in her career. But nonetheless, given the slopes on these lands, the proximity to the Thames, the Talbot Land Trust lands, the Medal of the EAA, ESA servicing here is going to be a significant challenge and probably a significant expense if it’s even something that the development charges study and the GMIS recommend to move forward with. So at this point, I do concur. I do want to say for me and to share with the applicant as well, I don’t think the Stacktown House Forum is the problem.

In fact, I want to see as much flexibility in welcoming Stacktown houses to our community as possible because I think they are relative terms, unaffordable way of developing housing, generally lumber frame construction, not a lot of concrete and steel involved. And so it is a more affordable way of building some dense housing. So I’m not as concerned with the built form. But what I’m concerned with is that the lack of sanitary and capacity and where we are right now with the long-term forecast, I don’t think a holding provision captures it.

I think it is premature. And so I’m going to support the staff recommendation on this one. Look for other comments or questions from many members who are visiting counselors. Seeing none, we have a motion.

We’ve been seconded, I will call the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, moving on to 3.8. This is regarding the official plan review of the final urban growth boundary.

I’ll look for a motion to open the public participation meeting. Councilor Cuddy, seconded by Councilor Stevenson, we’ll call that vote. P.D. Mayor Lewis.

Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, thank you. I’ll go to the gallery now. I’ll look for people that would like to address this committee.

We need to start again. It falls to you. Please, sir, give us your name and you have five minutes. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. My name is Mike Wallace. I’m the executive director for the London Development Institute. It’s my pleasure to be here this afternoon to talk about the staff report, which we support, that supports going forward to the minister with the proposed urban growth boundary expansion of the 1,475 hectares over the next 30 years.

This has been a fairly long process. I can look up my first email to staff member who’s no longer here about getting this discussion started and that was in 2001. And we’ve been very active as an industry during the consultation period with staff. Staff done a very good job of engaging the industry on what’s feasible, what isn’t, and it’s taken a lot of time and effort to get here and expense, but we are happy to be here today.

Just a quick reminder, members of PEC and visiting council, this is a 30 year plan. The current urban growth boundary is over 30 years old. It’s just replacement of what is added to it. And I would encourage you to look at the maps that are publicly available in your agenda.

If you look at the pink section of this map, that’s the growth for next 30 years. The black outline is the city as a whole and the yellow line is the urban urban boundary. If you take this to your neighbors, I will gamble that they will say that well, that’s not much for 30 years. It’s not a lot of land, it sounds like a lot of land, but it’s actually not when you look at what it is compared to the size of the city.

The other thing I need to remind council is that you are in complete control of the growth pace within this next 30 years. Through your GMS program, you decide where the pipes go, when they go and how far they go. We have input in on it, but it is a staff decision that goes to you for your final decision on how fast things progress and it will depend on the marketplace and how fast London is growing over the next number of years. And our anticipation is that London will see, will continue to be one of the fastest growing communities in not just Ontario but in Canada over the next number of decades.

Part of this process sends this off to the minister. For their signature, there’s a public process that the ministry has to go through in terms of ERO getting input back. And you’ll see from the delegations today and the letters there, not everybody is happy. Most people want their land in that didn’t get in, including some of my members.

But in general, we are in principle, we are supportive of what’s being proposed here today. Individual landowners may have their own thoughts on the matter on their own particular properties. And there is still an opportunity through a mechanism which you’re developing for private landowners to apply to have their lands included in the future urban growth boundary change. There are letters there about the consultation process.

The consultation process has been extensive and it has been with all stakeholders. It’s been taken years and all stakeholders, including ourselves, have had our chance to put input and we received feedback from staff on our input. And we think the time is to come for counsel to make a decision on this urban growth boundary for the next 30 years. It’s well researched, well consulted, and it’s time for us to move it to the minister to get it in a place, to get the change to the land plan so we continue to see the growth and manage the growth that land engineers expected over the next 30 years.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I’ll look for the next speaker.

Please sir, give us your name and you have five minutes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My name is Paul Hind.

I’m a senior consultant to them as a planner with a strict balding L.E. Manaz. I’m here representing our clients tonight who own property at 3405 Dingman Drive and there was some correspondence that was submitted to the PAC agenda as added communication which you should have in your agenda. The property that I’ll be speaking about is that recognizes property 103 in the staff report.

SPM had provided information to the long range planning department for consideration of our clients lands to be brought into the urban growth boundary adjustment area. And we’d met with staff on August 19th as well as on November 3rd to explain our request that the November 3rd meeting was through council’s direction to have further dialogue with anybody who had made representation at the previous PAC meeting when it was a draft report being considered by PAC. We understand city staff were directed to review the urban growth boundary and determine additional residential and industrial land needs for the 30 year planning horizon. We did not believe that staff were restricted to considering minor boundary adjustments to accommodate entire land holdings from being included within the urban growth boundary.

Originally as presented at our October 1st public meeting to consider the draft official plan and the final urban growth boundary review, we had requested that our lands be included in the industrial place type setting. We met with the long range planning department on November 3rd and they were suggesting that our lands would be better suited to be placed in a future community growth place type setting to accommodate the recreational sports field facilities envisioned. We were not opposed to that. We were encouraged that we were going to be possibly having an urban growth boundary expansion and the future community growth place type setting.

Currently, this did not happen. The staff report has recommended refusal of the urban growth boundary and there is literally no narrative from our discussions that we had on November 3rd and the staff report detailing as to why they felt that they could not include the urban growth boundary expansion or the future community growth land place type setting. The site’s ideally located at the Highway 401-402 interchange. The subject property is one of only two in the London with frontage on both Highway 401 and the 402 and lands to the east have already been developed.

Our request is minor in nature and would allow for our clients property to be entirely included in the urban growth boundary. Currently, it’s the north portion of their property which is included in the urban growth boundary with access from Dingman Creek. Our concern is that with the uncertainty of the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, Dingman Creek studies and flood line mapping and restrictions, it could quite possibly be some adverse effects in terms of developing the entirety and having access ingress egress to the property if Dingman Drive is the only street available to access the property by including the urban growth boundary to include the entire portion of our client’s lands would allow access to be sought from Westminster Drive to the south. In summary, the inclusion of the entire property of the land south of the Dingman Creek or Dingman Drive to Westminster Drive reflects that the prior intention of the city to utilize these lands for purposes of development and given their unique location is appropriate to include the entirety of the subject property in the urban growth boundary.

Subject property provides a significant tract of land of allowing development to proceed in a comprehensive manner that meets the needs of the city and represents good land use planning as is in the public interest. I do have the land owner of the property that would just like to briefly speak regarding this matter as well. I’m open to any questions that may rise from PEC members after the public meeting is closed. Thank you very much.

Okay, you have about a minute to go to the total time, sir. Jugman Oja, I just want to thank you all for taking the time to listen to us and quite often I’m impressed that how much interest counselors do take when we come forward. I want to share that I’m passionate about this property. Mr.

Chair. Sorry. Yes, sir. Okay, I’m fine if anybody can all this, sir.

I’m good. Yep. Just a point of order. Yep.

I realize the prior speaker was trying to hand it off to Mr. Minocha and you said he had a minute left being it’s a public participation meeting. I would request that each speaker be given their full five minutes. That’s a good point.

I didn’t know where he was going to go with that, but the visiting counselor does raise a good point. You have a full five minutes, please go ahead. Okay. I’ll try to keep it shorter in that case.

I guess I want to share it with you. This is my vision from 25 years ago. What I want to do is do something that’s going to leave a really good legacy for the city of London. Leave a legacy for me as well.

So what I’ve envisioned is a project that actually does a lot more than just industrial or just commercial or just wetlands. So my proposal actually takes all of that into account and I’m hoping that this is actually caring to talk about the urban growth boundary. It seems they’re getting hijacked by different people in different ways, but we need an adjustment. And I think we initially came in, we thought we could extend our industrial lands to include what was needed for London, what they would happen to acquire new lands.

And we met with the planners and they were very good with us, but they said they’ve got their mind made up on some lands that they’re looking at. So put us in a really precarious position, but I think we could still manage it just with a slight adjustment on the urban growth boundary. And I think I really want to take advantage of the 401-42 quarter. This was what we had the matching orders 25 years ago.

The council said, look, we’ve got a great asset here with lots of vehicles that drive by every day. We can attract them. We can create some economic activity. And I think this is something I’m passionate about.

So I’ve spent the time, I’ve done the land assembly. I’m ready to go. This is private equity that’s doing this. We’re not coming to the council and asking you guys for money.

In fact, we’re hoping that we supplement the city industrial lands. And I hope that’s a positive thing. And we can do it on a private basis. So I’m looking forward to your support so that we can carry on a project.

We’re looking at some churches wanting to move in with us. We’re looking at industrial users. We have a letter from different groups that want to locate on our lands. And I think there’s some opportunities here.

And we look forward to working with the council and with the planners to realize a vision that I think is going to be really good for London. Thank you. Thank you for the next speaker. Please, ma’am, give us your name and you have five minutes.

Good afternoon, chair, members of committee and visiting counselors and members of the public. My name is Laura Jamison. I am a planner with Selenka Priammo. I’m joined by Michael Fargia of Southside Construction Management, the client that I am representing today.

I’m here to discuss the inclusion of Southside’s lands legally described as concession three, part lot 27, and registered plan 33R 11058, part two, generally located to the south of the CNCP rail corridor and north of the Thames River, just on the west side of the city. And we’re hoping to request the inclusion of those lands within the UGB. As you are aware, we have provided written correspondence justifying our inclusion of Southside’s lands within the UGB. And I wish to highlight a couple of points from this letter.

Firstly, these lands are ideally situated to optimize existing and planned infrastructure. To service these lands, the Oxford Street wastewater treatment plant is located just to the south and the lands have already been incorporated into the master servicing strategy for the area. To exclude these lands from the UGB would be highly impractical considering the known sanitary capacity constraints within the city. There are also options to access the subject lands, such as constructing a land bridge to cross the rail corridor, to connect these lands to Gainesville Road to the north, through lands that are also owned by Southside and proposed to be included within the UGB.

It is worth noting that the cost to service and access these lands would not be a public cost, but would be the full responsibility of the developer. Additionally, by excluding all lands to the south of the rail corridor from the UGB, the lands would essentially be fragmented from the greater agricultural system and surrounded by urban uses, which creates a keyhole in the UGB that does not represent good land use planning practice. Given that the developable area of the lands between the rail line and the Thames River represents a modest increase of the total lands anticipated for community growth needs are significantly less than the deficit anticipated to accommodate school lands. It is reasonable and responsible to include the subject lands within the UGB to meet anticipated growth requirements.

Thank you very much for your consideration. And as was stated previously, if there are any questions following the PPM, I would be happy to answer them, thank you. Thank you. Look for the next speaker.

Please serve you as your name and you have five minutes. Well, good afternoon members of committee. And Mr. Chair, thanks for your opportunity to speak.

My name is Jared Zafeman. I’m the CEO with the London Home Builders Association. Generally just echoing comments made in the past, but we are very supportive of this moving forward and very much appreciate all the work and effort put in by staff and stakeholders into this process. As Mr.

Wallace mentioned before, it has been a long process. We’re looking forward to getting to the end of this now. I did want to just make a quick comment. Mr.

Chair, you had mentioned how you look at affordable homes versus affordable housing. And I think this is something we kind of struggle with quite often and I would say we look at affordable housing really as more subsidized housing. And when we look at housing affordability as that broader spectrum. And I think this is a really critical piece that as Council looks at this land supply in London over a 30 year horizon.

It’s very important that we have ample supply of land to be able to provide all the housing that’s going to be needed in our community over the next number of decades. It’s critical and I think it’s very prudent that Council is looking at that over that longer term horizon and is looking at a substantial amount of land that’s going to be included in that so that we can meet the needs that are coming to this community. We’ve been growing in a substantial pace for a number of years, excuse me. And as noted by others in the province, including Mike Moffitt, we’re seeing significant out migration from the greater Toronto area.

It’s coming down the highway to places like here in London. And so ensuring that we have the supply available to be able to build all the houses that are going to be required now and into the future is critical. And so appreciate all the efforts on this and look forward to a final decision on this matter. Thank you.

Thank you. I’ll look for the next speaker. I see a gentleman coming to the microphone. Please sir, give us your name and you have five minutes.

My name is Hargi Jazwal, sir. Committee members, cheers and the consular, visiting consulars. I’m Hargi Jazwal from White Oak Development Sync. We have a land at 4563 White Oak Road and we requested to add that land into the urban growth boundary because we’re thinking that this is the perfect spot which is not under the floodplain according to the new maps which was updated in 2024.

And it is just one corner of the land. It’s the Dingman Creek. It is south of Dingman Road, but it is a high dry land wrapped around from three sides with the roads. One is Dingman Road, White Oak Road and Highway 4 Road 2.

It has very little portion of the land which is environmentally protected area. Rest of the land is usable. And there are services over there on the land. We see that TAF has rejected our request to add it and we have sent already a request to the committee to reconsider it.

And I want to bring few things before the committee. I understand that between 2014 and 2025 there is a lot of difference. But there are certain things which don’t change about the land. During 2014, this land was evaluated by the same city staff and parcel size, shape and topography.

It was said to be meeting the criteria. Now it is not. The services at that time, it was saying that there is no constraints on this one. So services were enough.

And now it is saying that services are not enough or services not meeting the criteria. Similarly, there are so many other things. I think the analysis has been done very objectively, subjectively, not objectively. I would request the committee to go through this one.

We have developed small houses which London needs we did in the small community of Valleville. We just completed 127 houses over there. Small houses, townhouses, three bedroom, two bedroom houses. So that will be very good for the starter home or new couples, young couples who want to buy that.

It is a very strategic application right on the highway. So I would request the committee to consider that either through amendment or requesting the staff again. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I’ll look for the next speaker. I’ll ask Clerk if there’s anyone online that would like to address committee. Layla Bloomer, your can hear me and would like to address the committee. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Mela Bloomer Award five. Thanks for providing another opportunity to provide a comment on this really important issue.

And I really appreciate the chance to restate some key points that I feel haven’t been given due consideration during the decision-making process. And I also have a few requests for PEC’s considerations. So first of all, a reflection that first point is a reflection that reflects a little bit of a different experience than what’s been expressed here just now, which is that the public information and engagement process around the urban growth boundary review has been from a citizen perspective, what I call an unflageable. So residents have been limited to speaking at a half dozen public participation meetings.

We get five minutes at each meeting. There’s no opportunity to engage in discussion. And there are a few members of the public are able to sort of take this afternoon off work to access this opportunity to speak to the committee or to council. And so there’s also the ability to submit written comments through the Get Involved London website.

But again, there’s no opportunity for discussion there. And one-sided opportunities like these are actually among the least effective ways to engage with the public. So just to say there’s still time to do this broader consultation before council approves the expansion, but at the very, very least afterwards, it’s clear that council is going to approve this the way it’s going forward. But at least afterwards, there needs to be more engagement of the public so that members of the public have an idea what this will look like in their communities and how it’ll impact them.

Second point, again, restating that, I feel like the updated population projections from the province should be used to calculate the amount of land needed. I mean, they were updated for a reason and the less that we can tie up prime agricultural land and wetlands and wild spaces, the better. And then third, again, I feel it’s a circular argument to say that there’s no way to avoid expanding on class one agricultural land as the provincial planning statement directs because London is on and surrounded by class one land. So that’s, I mean, exactly the reason it should be avoided.

We’ve just seen the annual hunger report released yesterday from Feed Ontario. And it shows that there were more than one million people in Ontario visiting food banks in the past year ending March 2025. That’s a huge number. And it’s 87% increase actually since 2020.

And at the same time, we’re finding that diet-related health issues are on a steady incline. It’s costing us not only our own health, but also millions of dollars in the health care and health care services. Food impacts every aspect of a person’s life. So yes, there is a need for housing, but the evidence is overwhelmingly obvious all around us that neighborhoods that are built outside the city’s core are usually designed around roads and parking lots for cars and access to big box stores and fast food outlets rather than areas to grow food for a growing population.

So it’s not possible to avoid expanding on prime agricultural soil. And we’re facing the food security issues that we’re seeing every day. Doesn’t that warrant a pause to consider options seriously? So those are the three key points I wanted to restate.

I do have a couple of things just to bring forward for PEC’s consideration. One is that I would like the committee to request council to ensure that the ongoing concerns that Chief Joe Ms. Kolkerman from the Chibois of the Thames First Nation are fully addressed to their satisfaction before proceeding with a final vote on the urban growth boundary review. The second is that I’d like council to be requested to provide an update on the motion that it approved in December, 2024.

And that is that the mayor be requested to engage in a discussion with local Southwestern Ontario mayors and wardens regarding regional growth. I’d really like to know where that is and what’s happened with that. Third, I think regardless of the final vote on the review, I would ask that council be requested to share detailed and accessible information about the urban growth boundary expansion with the public in a variety of forms so that can encourage and support interactive dialogue going forward on this. Fourth, I would like to request that council pursue becoming a signatory to the Milan urban food policy pact, which Guelph, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax have all already signed on to.

So for context, this is an international agreement and it’s a commitment to developing sustainable food systems that are inclusive, resilient, safe and diverse. The London’s position here, thank you. London’s position here is that we need to steward the land that we’re on, we’re very fortunate to be where we are and we need to make sure that we commit to protecting it. And then lastly, I would like to ask that support from the city be re-established for an urban agriculture steering committee, which existed previously and it was tasked with advising on implementing and developing urban agriculture strategy, which was previously approved by council.

I’d request that that be re-established on an ongoing basis. Thank you very much. Thank you. I’ll look for other speakers.

Oh, a very distinguished visitor, our honorable Ed Holder, past mayor. Thank you for joining us today, sir. Well, thank you very much. Please go ahead, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Councillor Lehman. And I’d like to thank committee members for allowing my opportunity to make a few comments. And I’d like to support the presentations that were made by Paul Heind and the owner of the properties at Dingman and Westminster, Mr. Jugman OSHA, who’s been a great corporate citizen of London.

Now, you will note that part of his property is already in the urban growth boundary. And so what he is looking to do, just to keep it very straightforward, is to ensure that the balance of his property is included in the urban growth boundary and what that does is it allows him access to all of his properties without environmental impacts. And I think that’s very important, certainly for Mr. Minosha.

But also when you look at it from a very practical standpoint, I think it deserves consideration. I’d like to acknowledge the work that our planners from the city have done and trying to do the impossible, which is to try to, I’ll say exact, the appropriate locations for the urban growth boundary. That’s not an easy task. And certainly when I sat on planning as part of the overall committee, I had some appreciation of what goes into their efforts.

But I’d like to acknowledge something that I don’t typically do, and that is acknowledge positively, Mr. Wallace’s comments when he says that what we need to do is look at all of the space and locations that are gonna be needed over the next 30 years and beyond. It’s a tough task, but we’re asking you as council members to look at that particular property and see if that just makes logical sense, not only because it’s already a part of his property, which then allows for at the 401 and 402 locations, appropriate development and beyond. If you look more extensively at what Mr.

Minosha’s recommending, he’s also suggesting that not just be industrial commercial, but opportunities to put in park area, to put in venues that will attract what we are as a city of London, not just the city of music, but we are also the regional sports hub for all of Southern Ontario. So when you look at his plan in full, I think what you’ll see, it doesn’t disturb what we’re trying to accomplish and what he’s trying to do with those properties, but allows him actually to do it, if not, he can’t. And as he’s indicated, he wants this to be his legacy project, if you will, his gift to the city. He’s not giving you his land, of course, but if you’ll appreciate that what he’s really looking to do is to develop that in a positive way without any financial impact to the city.

So council members, it does rest with you committee and all of council, and we appreciate any consideration that you would give to his request. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It feels funny to be on this side of the microphone, but I appreciate all of you giving me the time today.

Thank you, Mayor. I look for other speakers. I’ll ask Clerk if there’s anyone online. There’s no one online.

I don’t see anyone else approaching the microphone. So the promotion to close the PPM, Councilor Cudi, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis, and we’ll call the vote. I’m in favor, Chair. We’ll think about the motion carries five to zero.

Okay, that voice we heard was Mayor Morgan joining us online. All right, so I’ll put this on the floor for committee members. Deputy Mayor Lewis. Well, I’ll put the staff recommendation on the floor first.

I do have one small amendment to propose, but let’s get the main motion moved and seconded first. Okay, we’ll get started that way. I’ll look for a seconder. Councilor Cudi has seconded, and I’ll go back to you, Deputy Mayor.

Okay, thank you, Chair. So I do have one amendment to propose. And I’ve spent the last month looking at these maps, going over things. In this particular case, I’ve talked to some of our staff.

I’ve talked to the applicant. I’ve looked at the geography. We heard our presenter from Zalinka Priemo talking about the fact that’s already on the master servicing plan. So the amendment that I wanna propose, and I have submitted it to the clerk through eScribe, so she could load it in.

I also submitted it, or had it circulated with my apologies to committee members. I did leave for a meeting this morning, thinking I had clicked send and I had clicked save. So you got it during the meeting, not before. But it is to add the parcel that I have started to come to call the keyhole in the Northwest, the segment that was referred to south of the CNCP corridor, north of the Hunt Club lands that were referenced by our presenter from Zalinka Priemo.

And it comes down to, for me, looking at the map. In all other cases, I will say to staff, I know that there are folks in the gallery who want more added in. They may still come with OPAs and other things along the way, but this one to me is the one line on the map that just doesn’t make logical sense. It just leaves that one section that’s otherwise surrounded either by the city limits or all other lands within the urban growth boundary out.

It is a small parcel of land. There’s protected natural heritage features in there as well, so that we’d actually be adding to our natural heritage feature land accumulation in. And I believe if the numbers that I had worked out were right, it works out to about 16 additional hectares of developable land and approximately another seven or eight of natural heritage feature land that gets added in. Again, that’s rough math.

And if I have the number slightly wrong, that’s on me. And staff can correct me if I’m wrong on the size. But I did circulate that. So I think the clerk has it to put an E-Scribe.

That would be a change to schedule A. So I’ll see whether or not there’s even a second or for that. And then I can speak to it a little further or hear what colleagues have to say. Councilor Cuddy.

I’ll second that motion. Okay. The clerk has indicated that the wording is up on E-Scribe, is that correct? So you can see it before you.

All right, so we’re now speaking about the amendment. I’ll open the floor for discussion on the amendment regarding this particular property. Councilor Frank. Thanks.

I think I just saw Councillor Stevenson’s hand and I’m not a member of the committee. So I don’t know if she wanted to go. She was, she didn’t raise her hand. She looked like she might have.

I don’t have too much to say except that I’m happy to support the amendment. Okay. Deputy Mayor. So I’ll just draw to colleagues’ attention as well.

If you open the attached staff report and there’s 64 pages in the PDF that I have in E-Scribe. On page 27, you’ve got a map that’s got the dotted lines. And so just for a visual, if you’re looking at what piece of land it is, it’s that keyhole in the northwest corner where the north-south line comes straight down from the corner of the city limits. And then it’s met by an east-west line.

And then there’s that thumb printer keyhole piece that’s sticking out that’s missing. That’s the piece of land. And again, if you flipped page 28, it’s dotted in that corner there of what’s left out. So I hope that helps folks identify.

I did in the circulation to committee and clerks include a map of it as well. So again, hopefully that helps people understand. But if you’re looking in those maps from about page 27 to 32, you can see that section that sticks out there. Thank you.

I’ll go to Councilor Frank. Thank you, yes, mine is a bit of a procedural question. I’m just wondering, given that there’s a council endorsed number, I think it’s 1476, that it has been approved by council, would that not be a decided matter of council and adding more hectares to this parcel than require reconsideration? I will go to the clerk for that question.

Sorry, we missed the question. Yes, if I can reiterate. So my understanding is council decided specifically on 1476 hectares of land to be brought into urban growth boundary. And given this increases it, I know it’s only 16 and then some additional green spaces.

But I’m wondering, since the 1476 is a decided matter of council, if adding more violates the decided matter of council. I’ll go to the clerk. Dean, there’s more of an amendment to the current motion that’s on the floor. Can you repeat that?

We just got the last half of what you said. Sure, through the chair, I would deem this more of an amendment to the motion on the floor. This is deemed as an amendment to the motion on the floor, councilor. Thank you, then a follow up.

I don’t imagine it’ll happen here, but at council then would I be able to bring forward an amendment to reduce it by 245 hectares? That will be, I’ll let the clerk answer that, but that could be a question for when it does happen. But if the clerk wants to weigh in, go ahead. Through the chair, we can provide you advice prior to council.

Councilor. Thank you, yes, I appreciate that. If we’re going up, I imagine we can go down as amendments. So I’ll seek that advice before council.

Okay, I’ll look for other comments or questions on the amendment, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, chair. So just picking up on that, I would point out that this is very specific to a parcel. It’s not sending it back to staff to pick what comes in or out.

It’s a very specific piece based on a very couple of very specific arguments related to the fact that this is already in the master servicing plan. So it’s already contemplated for municipal servicing through DCs and GMIS in years to come. Again, we don’t have an application. So there’s no like holding provisions or assessment of total services, but it is part of the master servicing plan.

And so that is very specific to why this one is being brought forward. So I would just share that piece with colleagues. Otherwise, I would say that beyond that, again, I understand why others have made other presentations. I’m looking at this from a geographic perspective.

I’m looking at the pink and the green on the map that’s on page 37 that Mr. Wallace held up in the gallery. And I think I will send a note to the speaker of the House of Commons today that it being noted. Mayor Holder actually said nice things about Mr.

Wallace today. I’m not sure if that happened during their time in Parliament together, but that comes back to highlight as well where the green and pink are. And so I would say for Council’s information, I don’t know if staff are able to do this or not given the timelines, but I would ask through you, Chair, if for Council, if staff could highlight just that particular addition in pink and green to show us where the, just to delineate where the natural heritage features and EMG buffers are in that land. Again, I don’t know if that’s work that you can complete before Council, but I want to ask that through you, Chair.

I’ll go staff on that. Through the chair, can you repeat the question? Deputy Mayor. Just when we look at the map that’s on page 37, where the pink and the green highlight the lands that are being added, prior to Council, could you provide colleagues with the pink and green delineation in this addition should it pass, just so they can see where the natural heritage areas are versus the developable land.

I’ll go staff through the chair, that wouldn’t be a problem, the Deputy Mayor. Yeah, so if we could just get that, I think for a visual, it’d be helpful for people to see where the natural heritage features are in terms of and compare that to the developable land and where the other developable land to the north that’s in the same ownership as being proposed. I just think that that would be a valuable visual for Council colleagues to see. So that’s gonna end my comments on this.

To me, this is just the one spot where we’ve cut out a keyhole. It’s one of the objections I had in the last urban growth boundary sort of map as I looked at it years ago, not making sense in the Southeast, there was a corner. Now we’re recognizing to bring in some for employment and community growth land down around Old Victoria Road and Bradley and Highway 401. That was a keyhole in the past that we’re coloring in in a way that makes sense to me, and I think we should do the same with this one.

Thank you, other comments or questions? I’ll ask the Deputy Mayor to take the chair, please. I’m happy to take the chair, but since it’s my motion, do you want to give the chair to someone else? I’ll start cutting to take the chair.

Thank you, I’ll take the chair recognizing Councilor Lehman. Thank you. So what I do want to do is go against the will of Council as far as the overall number that was passed as Councilor Frank has alluded to. So I’m not gonna be supporting the amendment at this particular time, but I will, between now and Council, see where we’re at with that particular question.

If adjustments can be made to keep us within the limit that was set by Council, or I’ll also discuss with the clerk how this works within the will of Council as well. But I don’t want to take any chances at this point. That could change in my conversations between now and Council. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, I’ll return the chair to Councilor Lehman with no other speakers. Thank you. I’ll look for any other speakers on the amendment. Sorry, Mr.

Chair, virtually online, I’ve had my hand up, Councillor Palosa. Thank you, Councillor, I appreciate you speaking up. Go ahead. Thank you.

I appreciate what the Deputy Mayor is trying to do on this one. I have a few parcels I’ve been meeting with staff and developers on behind the scenes that pertains to War 12 while maintaining my full comments for the main motion when it comes back. But I share the comments and concerns of Councillor Frank and Councillor Lehman that depend on what we’re putting in and where are we just going to increase the number? Is it going to get scaled back in other ways?

So I do share that concern since we said a number already and I know it was a split boat and just how we’re going to manage that or how staff is going to manage those conversations. So I appreciate it. And like I said, I’ll reserve other comments for the main motion. Thank you.

I’ll look for one last time around to see if anyone else has comments. Okay, this is on the amendment and we will call that boat. Mayor Morgan. I’m against.

Seeing the boat, the motion carries four to two. Okay, thank you. Now we have that amendment dealt with. We have the main motion that has been amended.

So now we’re back to the main amended main motion. So I’ll look for comments or questions on the amended main motion. We need to have a mover and seconder for the amended motion. Councillor or Deputy Mayor Lewis moves it seconded by Councillor Cuddy.

So questions or comments on the main motion, amended motion. Councillor Pluzza. The mayor has raised his hand as well. I’ll yield to him as he’s an unofficial member of committee.

Mayor Morgan. He’s an official, he’s fine. Thank you. I’m happy to provide some comments now.

I just wanted to comment on a couple of letters. The one that Chief Ms. Sculkeman wrote and the one that I wrote to him and then copied committee. And I had a chance to speak with the chief today.

Well, he was attending meetings in Ottawa. The first is just echoing what I reiterated in the letter in that the concern about the 419 Hector area that was identified by Chippewa’s of the Thames First Nation actually has about 245 hectares that are planned to be protected through the green space place type. And another 42 hectares that have a buffer maintained to adjacent natural heritage features like the Dingman Creek and the Thames River corridor. And so the developable land there is 118 hectares.

You’ll also see in that letter that I reiterated councils and the corporations and staff’s commitment to working with Chippewa’s of the Thames First Nation and others on the work that’s being done on any sort of future servicing of the area including future locations of a suicide treatment plant or anything that would support the development in the area. In my conversation with the chief this morning and I will be very clear, I do not want to put words in the chief’s mouth. I’m just paraphrasing and providing my perspective and summary of the conversation. One of the concerns the chief had is he’s very forward thinking and a pretty visionary leader.

He’s very interested in discussing the idea of an urban reserve, special economic zones, taking advantage of some of the legislation like Bill 5 at the provincial government. And was concerned that if he didn’t participate in the urban growth boundary process now that he would be or they would be precluded from engaging in those opportunities and discussions in the future. They are interested in building housing within the city limits. They are interesting in owning land within the city limits.

They’re interested in creating an economic partnership and looking at this from a regional perspective as something that I’ve worked with the local communities and other municipalities to do. I explained to him what our staff have said is clear and that is this doesn’t preclude any future engagement on those. As you know, we’re developing a process for private landowners to bring land into the urban growth boundary. And then speaking with Scott Mathers and he can confirm this, we are contemplating and I strongly encourage this.

And if we need to add an amendment, I would do so, that there’d be a pathway for indigenous communities to participate in that process of suggesting or bringing land into the urban growth boundary for something like an urban reserve or a special economic zone or something like that, which would obviously have a process to it. But that would be the pathway to which these sorts of things could happen. And the chief, obviously, and I reiterated our commitment to working together on a number of strategic projects. So I think I’ve been able to clarify a number of the concerns that he had.

And again, just going back to the ultimate goal here is the forward thinking partnership within the city limits on how Chippewa’s and the Thames First Nation can participate with us on economic development and housing creation and not necessarily a concern about this urban growth boundary process as much because there was the false assumption that this would be very set in stone for the next 30 years. And there would be an inability to change those boundaries or add new lands in, which we know under the new provincial legislation is simply not the case. So I want to add that context to the discussion because I know there’s been a lot said and share that summary of my conversation with the chief this morning. Thank you, Mayor.

I’ll go ahead Councilor Plaza. Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few questions and a few comments through you to staff.

As we have approved the overall number of land as we’ve heard the mayor’s comments just now about a future process for private lands to be brought in, perhaps some indigenous land and land reserves that they’d like to see and bring in in London. What would that potential process look like for the overall number that we might actually be including in the urban growth boundary? I’ll go to staff on that question. Through the chair, just to make sure that it’s a top of mind for everyone.

So in October, we brought forward some draft of a privately initiated urban growth boundary application policies and guidelines. So very much that was structured at the very typical development application we might receive. And that’s something that we need to be able to create because the new PPS does provide an opportunity for people to come forward with private applications as well as our process that we’re undertaking right now with being the official plan review. So that process will come back to committee, be able to sign off on that process.

So what we’ll do having hit the conversation with the mayor today about this is also take a look at that from other lands of an indigenous partner that might be looking at trying to come forward and make an appropriate process that acknowledges those tree rights and the other responsibilities we have to be for reconciliation as well. So that might end up being two different processes or it might just be working within the process that’s already been suggested but having like a different opportunity to have that different type of a form of engagement as well. So that would come to a future committee to be able to be able to be considered by council as well. Councilor Palza.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess overall number of hectares wise that council has its approved number. If we have a bunch of applications for private land to be brought in, would we reduce the overall number for the urban growth boundary that we’re looking at standing in?

Or would it just be adding to that overall number? Good stuff. Through the chair, this would be a completely a process on top of the number. So if your council has before you a recommendation related to the current land needs, the process that was highlighted in October has an opportunity to look at the overall need at the time that the application comes through also requires like a consultant to be hired to be able to do that assessment.

So this would be over and above. And also would recognize that if it was an application that came in a couple of years, that might be considering what’s developed since that time. So it would be a little bit more of a time oriented opportunity to be able to adjust those as well. My understanding as well is that a lot of some of the consideration that would be given to some of the indigenous groups would be possibly like more of an industrial or commercial type of opportunities, which is over it, which is of course part of that industrial consideration and not the community growth consideration, which is probably the very much the focus, but also of the urban conversations today.

But there might be other opportunities to discuss industrial moving forward as well if there are major changes in our industrial needs. Councilor. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I was just trying to balance what we’ve already approved as our overall urban growth numbers and then the potential addition to that of future applications on an individual basis. Also contemplating some of the lands that they don’t make it in through the staff led process. If indigenous partners of interested parties want to partner with some of the people who’ve had those lawn epenixes in lists within it that we still might get them developed if they partner do separate applications. My main concerns still exist.

One, I think we’re still can’t too much land based on projected numbers and preferring still a certain amount of infill. We praised those applications earlier of tearing down and building back up. Secondly, still concerned with the Southwest section of the plan, I know that there’s not adequate servicing out there yet, but for a city not to be developing its highway interchange is an anomaly to me. I know that there’s opportunities out there for development.

I know that the landowners are interested. I know I have people interested in building on those lands. They’re just not currently set. I still struggle with when the city of London wants to build on some of these lands outside the urban growth boundary.

It’s green lights, no problem, full speed ahead. I have a question still outstanding of what we’re gonna do with the London Emergency Services Campus. Places out there running off septic, though they have municipal water, is that our intention for the London Emergency Services campus too, that we’re just gonna run the whole site off septic. Or we’re gonna bring services out to it.

If we bring services out to the London Emergency Services Campus, is it fair game that people along that corridor that we service can actually develop their lands? ‘Cause now there will be servicing in that area, which tends to be the point that holds them back right now. So I have other concerns and questions. I know some of the conversations are fluid, but for South London, I think it’s a huge opportunity for development.

It’s a gateway into London. It’s a regional hub. We have major projects going on out there and just no applications right now from staff of allowing the urban growth boundary to expand into it. So I have those concerns and continue to have them potentially working on something for council, just trying to work on things behind the scenes with staff.

So I question our Southwest area of this plan based on what the city’s, ourselves are doing out there for development. Thank you. Thank you. I’ll look for other comments or questions from many members or visiting councilors.

Councilor Pribble. Thank you. I just have a couple of points. And the first one is actually that’s, oh, sorry.

The first one is that was just that we just heard. I do think that 401 and 402 is an area that we can really develop and we can really, it’s an on top, on top era, on top market that it really can bring a lot to our city in terms of the growth. And when I say that, I don’t mean really residential. I’m looking at what commercial industrial and really looking for bigger picture developments in this area, which some of them were already mentioned.

So that’s one thing is second thing is to the staff because I did hear it a few times and we did receive emails in terms of the participation, in terms of the public. Could you please kind of summarize that there were additional opportunities than the ones that we have here, public participation meeting, the five minutes. I really would like to have a feedback on this. Thank you.

I’ll go to staff. Thank you through the chair. So through the land needs assessment and the urban growth boundary review, there were four community information meetings open to the public. There were three development industry consultation meetings specific to the development industry, as well as through the land needs assessment.

There was approximately monthly a housing supply reference group that met. Indigenous consultations with staff of Chippewa, the Thames, occurred one, two, three, four. There were four of those, one meeting with Oneida Council rather than Oneida administration. And then I would note that as of last weekend, a couple of us were invited to an open house for the public of the Chippewa of the Thames.

In addition to that, there were also six public, of these public participation meetings, as well as one-on-one meetings with interested landowners who requested them. Councillor. Thank you for the sense, and thank you for the summer, because I do think there’s important public information that there were really other opportunities than this. And I do know that we promoted it through our social media and on our website as well.

So thank you very much for the update, and no more questions or comments at this time. Thank you. I’ll look for other comments or questions from visiting Councillors or committee members. Councillor Frank.

Thank you. So I’ll just start with a couple comments, and I’d be delighted if someone from the committee would move my motion. I included my letter, but I will make my comments and absence of that at this time. I too had a conversation with the Chief on Friday, and based on that conversation, recent interview clips that I’ve seen, I’ll be making the following comments, that I believe we should be more fulsomely consulting our Indigenous neighbors, because Council endorsed properly consulting Indigenous nations on land planning items in our Reconciliation Action Plan, as well as Chippewa’s of the Thames First Nation, does have a consultation protocol that includes municipalities as proponents, and I believe our stated commitments should match our actions.

And I can appreciate all the work that staff have done, doing staff to staff liaisoning with the Indigenous nations nearby. I did hear from the Chippewa staff that our staff have done a good job of keeping them informed, so I just want to highlight that I think that is a key factor. But nonetheless, I think that given we have the Reconciliation Action Plan, and I want to highlight a few items from that plan on page 11 in regards to treaty rights and land acknowledgments, it includes ensuring meaningful consultation with Indigenous communities regarding land use and resource management decisions. On page 20 in regards to duty to consult, ensuring municipal development projects respect Indigenous rights and governance.

On page 31, build Indigenous consultation to the Lennon Plan to ensure Indigenous communities are consulted on planning projects and on significant changes to the city’s official plan, which this would be. Page 41, continue Indigenous engagement consultation related to major studies, environmental assessments, and projects. So I do think that we have committed through the Reconciliation Action Plan to doing really meaningful consultation. And again, hearing from the chief in his letter, given that they’re on a different election cycle and their council was brought in in the summer and was getting up to speed and have only had this information provide to them in the last couple of weeks.

Again, knowing our staff have done a job liaising with staff to staff, I think it’s appropriate for us to defer this. I’m hoping in January that all parties could have convened and provided additional comments, because I think that in regards to this consultation process, again, staff have done what they can, but just given the election cycles are different, I think that we have a bit more due diligence to do. I also think understanding that the urban growth expansion is not minor. It is a significant major undertaking with generational impacts.

I think it’s important that we get this right now. It’s major decisions that shape how land is used, where it will occur, make land use plans for next 30 years, or if you use current calculations, it’s actually 45 years, and evaluate how environmental systems are impacted. So all of these factors, I believe, could warrant a better decision in discussion with the indigenous proponents who have indicated they’d like to have further discussion. And I don’t see this as a significant delay.

I did chat via email with staff in regards to the DC master plan process, ‘cause I know that is of concern of trying to make sure that we get everything done so we can do the cost estimates and that we can fit into that process. So I know that staff are hoping to get summary estimates of costs and projects out for feedback by April, 2026, and then hoping to get that all together by year end of 2026 for the DC by-law. So I think by having additional consultation to do our due diligence, and still aiming to have that back by January for approval for council with all of that feedback, and then being able to get those cost estimates and by April, 2026. So I have faith in our staff to do that.

I don’t love making tight timelines, but I do think it’s important we get this right. So again, I don’t think I have a mover at a committee, but I just wanted to highlight that was the rationale that I provided in addition to the letter that I submitted to committee. So thank you for the time. And we’ll see if this moves anything.

Otherwise, at council, I plan to bring this forward unless there’s any additional information that I’m missing. Thank you. I look for other speakers. Deputy Mayor Lewis.

I’ve spoken once. Councilor Truss, I’ll raise his hand. So I’ll let him speak more again. I didn’t see the councilor’s hand over there.

Not used to seeing him hiding in Councilor Ferris seat. Please go ahead, Councilor. I would like to indicate that I think the question of the duty to consult is a very serious and pressing issue that this Council asked to address. In saying that, I am not derogating the staff or the mayor or anybody else who has worked on the process so far.

But I think it’s important to emphasize, and I may ask the city solicitor just to verify some of my points here. The duty to consult arises from federal case law, the federal constitution, the honor of the crown, which applies in certain circumstances, and it goes beyond the technical requirements of the planning act. So in addition to getting that verified, what I would like to understand is, and if we can’t get a response to this now, certainly I can wait till Council, ‘cause it doesn’t seem as if this is going on the floor today. What are the differences between the level of engagement that we would have under the duty to consult above and beyond the planning act requirements?

I’ll go stuff. Through the chair, so of course, it is our requirement to conform with the legislation. So we want to add a minimum, ensure that any duty of consult requirement is that we’re aligning with that requirement. Of course, we do have the city’s reconciliation action plan, so that is something that we also want to be considering and going over and above any kind of requirement that is actually just the bare minimum statutory requirement.

That’s one reason why our team has been working very closely with reaching out to staff at the different indigenous communities and actually going and visiting the community and having some of those conversations. So what our take as far as what the expectation of Council is to go over and above those requirements, but we are only required to, of course, the municipalities only required to meet the bare minimum of the legislation. Downswear. So through the chair, my more direct question is, does the duty to consult, which is a broad doctrine that’s developed, require a municipality to go above and beyond the requirements of the Municipal Act as a matter of federal, constitutional, and indigenous rights law?

Don’t go to staff. Thank you, through you, Chair. To get into the details of what our duty is and how it might compare to the legislation, I’d be happy to give that advice in camera. Downswear, do you?

Yes, at which point I would, I can’t make a motion to go into camera. I can’t at Council. You can at Council? I can at Council.

I can at Council. And my view would be that this is a better, this would be better to take up a committee and Council, so I would ask if there’s anybody on the committee who would be willing to make a motion to go into camera to have this broad discussion. Well, I’ll ask committee, do we want to go in camera and get the Councilor’s questions, deal with it? I don’t see any appetite for that, Councilor.

Okay, well, I wanna say two things. I will raise this at Council, and I will try as a courtesy to our Council to provide a list of questions, which will include what would be the implication of us not engaging in the duty to consult, what potential liabilities could we be looking at, what additional parties would have grounds to come in and consult with that. Now, the other point that I wanna make is that we should be very careful that we don’t shortcut this question. And I know that this committee and our planning staff and our legal staff have a lot of expertise that they’ve accumulated over the years in terms of the requirements of the PPS and the planning act.

But I really want to urge everybody here to understand that separate and apart from these requirements, there is a new, very recent emerging body of law that we cannot afford to ignore. So I’m disappointed that I’m not getting a request from a member of this committee to go into closed session, ‘cause I think this is important information to us, for us to get. And I will be making this request at Council. I do think that we need to be very, very careful that we are fully engaging with our constitutional obligations and to engage in the duty to consult, which again is very different than the requirements of the planning act.

So I think with that, I’m gonna leave it and I’ll come back at Council with more information about this. But I do wanna thank Councilor Frank for raising this. And I think that in the long run, the idea of having a protocol, which to me, it would just make good sense to at least use the protocol that we’ve been provided as a starting point for what our protocol should be. I know that you don’t wanna have delay, but if we don’t do this right, this can be significantly delayed.

I won’t get into that until we’re in closed session, but I’m very worried about this. Thank you. Thank you. I’ll look for other comments or questions.

Deputy Mayor Lewis. Thank you, Chair. So number of items that I’m going to speak about here. First of all, I will say with Councilor Pribbling, Councilor Pelosi’s comments, particularly around the 401 and 402 exchanges and developing those, particularly as industrial and employment lands, I do think that we still maybe have not hit the target dead on on this one.

And we heard a couple of presenters speak to that as well. However, there are some servicing challenges and also to the Mayor’s point earlier, Bill 5 actually requires us to bring forward a new process by which those individual requirements can come forward. I suspect some of them will. As soon as that process is in place, and I do hope that that does include some employment lands because I agree with my colleagues on that particular matter.

But I’m going to really rebut and take some exception to some of the comments that I’ve heard from my previous two colleagues. When we talk about we haven’t met our duty to consult, there hasn’t been enough engagement. On a typical municipal project, there’s one PPM. We’ve had six.

On a typical municipal consultation with Indigenous communities, there’d be one set of discussions. We’ve had four with Chippewa of the Thames First Nations and one with Oneida. We’ve had four public information center opportunities that are open to everyone. Three specific meetings with development sector and the monthly housing process improvement table.

There has been more consultation on this issue than on any other issue that this council, or frankly, the council before it that I was a member of have had on any issue. It’s been a year long process. Chippewa of the Thames First Nation has had the maps for the community growth and protected natural heritage feature lands, not just to the west that they raised some issues about but the full map since June. We’re not rushing this folks.

We have had consultation and I recognize that there are some folks who aren’t even happy with the number that we have arrived at. But even after we approve this, even after we approve this, if we do approve this at council as is, the process doesn’t end. And to say that we think that staff can still get the calculations back to us by April. I’m not even confident in that because when it leaves council, it goes to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

They have to review it. They have to approve it. And they too have a duty to consult with our local First Nations communities. So the consultation doesn’t even end.

And the consultation hasn’t ended. We heard earlier today, earlier on this agenda item, that the Mayor spoke to Chief Masculkeman earlier today. The dialogue continues. And that some of the issues that they’ve raised are actually dealing with federal opponents as well.

When we talk about an urban reserve, when you look at the land back program in Western Canada, that’s funded by the federal government. Discussions have to happen there before that opportunity comes forward. And certainly under bill five, as the Mayor referenced, if the chip off the Thames was able to acquire land that they wanted to develop into indigenous housing in the city of London, that would fit under the bill five auspices as a special project to bring forward for inclusion within the city limits, whether it’s land in or outside of our urban growth boundary, even after we approve this. So to me, what we’re talking about here is really about whether or not we like the fact that we’re expanding the urban growth boundary.

And I know we have differences of opinion on that. And that’s okay. That’s part of how the democratic process works. We don’t have to agree on whether the number is right, whether the number should be bigger or smaller.

But our job is to make a decision. And I’m quite comfortable with the decision we’ve got before us right now. I think we have done, and we heard Mr. Mather say, we have to meet the minimum legislative.

We heard about the value of going above and beyond, and we have gone above and beyond. We have gone above and beyond. So we can have different opinions on whether or not we’ve met our duty to consult. Frankly, there are times when I think that individuals would prefer to consult until the end of the term, but we don’t have the luxury of time.

We have to make a decision on these things. We have to send this to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, who then has to do their duty to consult, who then has to do their calculations and sign off, and still get all of that back to us in order for staff to start the DC charges study in April with the proper calculations. So we know that we have the proper money coming in to pay for the infrastructure that we need to build any of the housing. There’s an order of operations here, and when we talk about the pacing later down the road, once we know how much we’re bringing in through DC charges, then through the GMIS, we decide how much things are advanced at what pace.

The discussion doesn’t end today, doesn’t end at council, but we do have to, as a council, make a decision. And I think we’re in a very, very good spot. I think we have gone above and beyond, and staff have given a lot of time to consultation on this. Listen, there are components here where I could look at a couple other parcels and say, I really think those should come in, but I’m not doing that because I don’t have the same logic that I had on the one piece that I did think that should come in.

And I referenced some of the 402, 401 corridor access, and that’s a couple where I personally might feel a little bit differently than where staff landed, but I see the logic of where they landed. So I’m gonna support them, and I’m gonna let others pursue their changes through bill five applications, through OPA’s, through MZOs, because there are other opportunities to make those changes. But I don’t need to delay this any further. We’ve had a lot of discussion, both in this chambers.

Lots of us have had discussions out in the community. The mayor has had multiple discussions with Chief Muscokeman, and some of those communications have been on the public agenda, and some of them have been through phone calls, one of which was this morning. There comes a point where there’s a decision point, and we’re at that decision point. And we can talk about agricultural land, and we can just as easily talk about ex-urban growth, because ex-urban growth happens.

It’s happening right now all around us, and we don’t have to drive very far. You can go 10 minutes outside the city limit and see the consequences of not having enough developable land in the city, driving subdivisions out into the county, and paving over agricultural land out there. So we either build it in the city limits, or we let the county build it outside the city limits, and then we have longer commutes for people to come in to the city for products and services, and increase our GHGs and defeat our climate emergency action plan by having longer commute times. We can’t have it all.

We have to strike a balance. I think this has struck a balance. I know there will be folks today who are disappointed their land isn’t coming in, and they will go back, and they will pursue other processes to try and bring their land in, as is their right to do. But we are at that point, you know, and I recognize even Ms.

Ballmer’s comments, the food insecurity is an issue. It is, but the land that we’re bringing into the urban growth boundary today isn’t land that’s putting food on our grocery store shelves. It’s actually land in large part that’s producing product that’s being exported, because Ontario is a multi-billion dollar exporter of agricultural products. So we have to balance.

I think we’ve struck a balance here. There’s folks in the gallery who are gonna go home unhappy that we didn’t add more land in. There are folks who are gonna go home unhappy, ‘cause they think that the number we have is too large, but it’s the balance. So I cannot say strongly enough.

We’ve done our due diligence. It’s time now for the province to do theirs, so let’s support this. Here at committee, and let’s support it at council and get it done. Thank you.

Look for any other speakers. Councilor Trussa. Just to say, thank you. And I understand the deputy mayor’s passion about this.

This has been a long process. I want to assure everyone here that I’m not raising this extra provincial law doctrine as a mechanism to delay this. Quite the contrary, because I think we do run the risk of having delays if we don’t consider this. I feel more comfortable with what has been said, and I’m saying this with respect to the deputy mayor and his comments.

I feel more comfortable about this if we had the benefit of a fulsome closed session first, because I do think that there are some aspects of law that goes beyond the law of this province that we don’t understand and we’ve not had on the table. So I just want to say I am not doing this for delay. I’m doing this in good faith based on my reading of some of the case law and commentary on the emerging doctrine of the duty to consult and possibly accommodate. So thank you very much for hearing me out.

No, thank you. Other comments or questions from many members? Okay. Councilor Ramen.

Thank you and through you. First, I want to take a moment to thank staff for all their work and their continued discussion with councillors as well as the community on this matter. I do appreciate the amount of effort that you’ve put into the report that has taken what feels like decades, but probably has only been about two years to put together. I want to thank the development community for the engagement that they’ve had with the community in general about this process.

In my ward in particular in the northwest part of the city, there’s a considerable amount of land coming in and that has been a difficult conversation with residents in my ward. But a lot of that has to do with mobility planning more than anything. So I recognize the need for our urban growth boundary to expand. I will be very much looking at as we move forward, ensuring that leapfrogging doesn’t occur so that we can have development that is orderly in development that follows patterns.

But I do think that after we and again, presuming what council, not presuming what council will do, the province will do, but if this moves forward in all of its ways, I do think that this requires us to go back and look at our mobility master plan again because for the northwest part of the city, I can tell you the pressure that’s already there in this area because of the growth and looking at how this growth then overlays with transit, it overlays with our lack of schools, our lack of community resources, libraries, community centers, et cetera. I can’t go back to my community and say, we’ve approved the urban growth boundary for the next 30 years, but you’re going to have to wait 30 more years for your community center or 30 more years for your roads to be expanded. I think we’ve learned a good lesson from the development that’s happened so far that we need to be more proactive. And I understand how DCs work.

But I do think that if we put it into the plans that we are going to do things that make orderly sense, whether that’s in the West, the Northwest, with the way that we grow the city, people will understand and they will have patience. When it comes to our discussion about the duty to consult, I really do appreciate the engagement that we’ve had in the conversation that has happened here today. It was something I had concerns with. I do appreciate the ongoing conversations the mayor has had as well as the ongoing engagement from indigenous communities nearby.

I will say that I appreciate the map that the chief submitted that shows the buffer zone. And I appreciate the fact that staff and the mayor in his letter have articulated how that Western buffer can be accommodated within some of our development plans moving forward. So I think that there’s a point for discussion to continue the consultation. This is still, there are still stages of this decision that have to be made, not just here at council, but then with the province.

And I think that idea of the duty to consult, we have to allow for that to happen at the provincial level as well. And we have to ensure that we can point to what we’ve done here constructively, locally, to start and facilitate that engagement. And from there, move that decision to where it also lies, which is the province and under the Provincial Planning Act. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for any other comments. I’ll ask Deputy Mayor Lewis to take the chair. I’ll take the chair, go ahead Councilor Layman.

Thank you. So I first of all, I want to thank committee members, both as current committee and past committee members and visiting councilors for good debate, respectful debate. I know there’s very strong opinions on either side of this and even down into the micro. The debate that we had, I appreciate that.

I want to thank staff for this incredible year of hard work, like this is very complex and sets of direction. 30 years, that’s 2055, if my math is correct. This does set a direction. Thank you for all the engagement that was done.

It was good to hear how much we reached out to the community, to our Indigenous partners, to our development community, to citizens, et cetera, to get kind of some sort of census of where we want to go. I’m confident in that consultation with our various partners, including the Indigenous community. But I want to reiterate that this doesn’t stop there. While we might set a new urban growth boundary, within that, as has been mentioned, we have GMS, which dictates where we go with infrastructure.

We have zoning. We have MZOs for RSLN, they’re outside, and other vehicles to get included. And during all those processes, we have consultation. So it’s a living breathing document.

But what it does provide is a direction, kind of a general direction, where we know where we’re headed. To answer such questions as roads and infrastructure, community centers, schools, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as opposed just one-offs, which I think creates chaotic cities. I think a well-planned city has a good general direction of where we’re going over time. So thank you to staff for that incredible work.

Let’s get on with it. We got a number. We’ve got an idea of how to fit into that number. We’ve got a motion, movement, and seconded to accept that.

I’m forgetting on with it and getting this to the province. And there we go. And so now it’s over to the province. The province is going to be looking at these other considerations, including the communities, indigenous communities, et cetera.

But I think now they can look at it from a regional perspective. How does this impact our regional neighbors? And bigger questions of transportation infrastructure from their mindset. And it helps, again, the province to go to handle the incredible growth migration that I think that’s coming from the GTA further west down into southwest Ontario, of which London is the largest city and the regional center, in my opinion.

So thank you, I think, sure. Say it to my province. - Thank you, Councillor Layman. I will return the chair to you.

Hey, thank you. I’ll look around one more time before I call the vote. We’ll just second. You don’t see any way you saw a call the vote.

Think the vote, the motion carries six to zero. Thank you. Now we do have, let’s finish as our scheduled items. We do have that one item from consent that we pulled 2.3 regarding 4555 Highbury Avenue North.

So I will put that on the floor. Councillor Stevenson, welcome. Just a second, please. My apologies, we do have requests for delegations.

So I’ll look to committee right now to move that we hear from both of them. Councillor Stevenson moves it. And Councillor CUNY seconds, we’ll call that vote. Morgan, marking the mayor as absent.

Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, we have two delegation requests, Mr. Handem. Good afternoon, Mr.

Chair. I regret to inform you that Mr. Handem is under the weather so I’m here to take his place. You didn’t look like.

Well, if you change your name. Well, I thought about it, you have five minutes. Good afternoon, Chair Lieb and members of the committee. My name is Harry Frucio, some of Principal Planner was the link of preamolimited.

And as I mentioned, I’m here filling in for Dave Handem. I was under the weather for this unable to attend. Also with me today is Mr. Tyler Pearson on behalf of the ownership group for the subject lands.

Tyler will be providing his own submissions as soon as I’ve completed mine. The subject application seeks to expand existing self-storage, used to include self-storage detached buildings on the undeveloped, underutilized, southerly portion of the subject site. Back in August, 2024, Council did grant our deferral request to give us some time to speak with city staff about their concerns for the project and an opportunity to see if we could come up with a solution on coming forward. Sadly, those discussions have not had favorable results.

And while staff continue to recommend refusal, we are hopeful about positive endorsement from committee this afternoon. Respectfully, we feel that staff’s analysis of the proposal is somewhat narrow and unpractical and it does not place enough weight on the fact that there is an existing self-storage facility on the property, albeit within an existing building. It uses established, it is permitted. And that coupled with the proposed expansion will be a catalyst for continued net gains for the site and surrounding area.

Furthermore, there are no negative impacts associated with the existing use on surrounding lands. As you may know, this property has had historical challenges for nearby residents, city staff and bylaw enforcement. Mr. Pearson will touch more on this in his delegation.

You will note that we provided additional information and materials for the committee’s consideration in the added agenda, including a summary letter, site photo, a conceptual rendering of the property, and the latest landscaping plan prepared by Ron Cowder’s landscape architects. The enclosed conceptual site rendering shows how the proposed low-rise detached buildings and the landscaping areas integrate appropriately within the existing self-storage facility. The overall design is high quality and it’s intended to convey a modern appearance, which is complementary to the recently updated self-storage facility, while being respectful of the streetscape and maintaining the character of the surrounding neighborhood. The proposed buildings are positioned with their entrances facing away from the street with vehicle movements generally screened from public view.

It is not anticipated that there will be any undue impacts on the surrounding land uses through this design. It is also important to note that matters pertaining to the detailed design, engineering, and landscaping will be refined through the required site plan approval process, application, and secured through the associated development agreement. With respect to the replanting strategy, in May 2023, most of the trees, including invasive species, were legally removed in accordance with the permit granted by the city’s forestry operations department. As per the site photo that we enclosed, 12 of the trees that were retained are distributed throughout the site and generally fragmented from any other vegetated areas.

In support of the proposed applications and updated landscape plan, which we have enclosed, it was prepared and confirms the replanting of 140 native trees throughout the site, which is double the 69 trees that were to be replanted under the approved permit. In addition, the owners will explore relocating the 12 remaining trees as well. So we believe the revised replanting strategy aligns with the general intent of the original tree planting plan and resulted in that ecological benefit. We would point out to this committee that is if it is considering support of the application, given that the property is still technically identified as a tree protection area, we would respectfully request that staff be directed to make the appropriate modifications to the by-law scheduled to remove the TPA from the subject lands.

Further, we note staff’s request to add a holding provision for the archaeological assessment, which our client is agreeable to. Of note, there are no objections that have been received in the public to date on this application. So in conclusion, it remains our professional opinion that the proposed expansion of the self-storage use, coupled with the proposed enhanced and robust landscaping scheme is appropriate, represents good planning, and is in the public interest. We believe the proposal meets the general intent of the relevant land use planning framework as it seeks to expand an existing permitted use in a complementary form that is in keeping with the character of the area.

And due to the predominantly internalized nature of the self-storage operations, it is not anticipated that excessive amounts of noise, odour, or other Hindu impacts will result for surrounding land uses. As such, we respectfully request that this committee endorse the applications and recommends approval. Thank you for your consideration. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have now or after Tyler’s presentation.

Thank you. Harry, you must have practiced. It’s four minutes and 53 seconds, so well done. Mr.

Pearson, please go ahead and do it five minutes. Good afternoon, Councillors and members of the committee. My name is Tyler Pearson, and I’m one of the partners behind the redevelopment of 455 Highbury Avenue North. First, I wanna thank Councillor Stevenson and Deputy Mayor Lewis for the ongoing engagement over the last several years.

From day one, we’ve approached this project with a collaborative mindset that absolutely continues today. When we acquired this site, it had been derelict, underused, and widely known as a very problematic property. The wooded area on the south side was a documented hotspot for illicit activity, and during the early stages of construction, while we were investing nearly $15 million to reposition the existing building and manage environmental concerns, we dealt with constant break-ins, theft, and nightly police calls. Even with 24/7 remote monitoring, we would often watch people enter the facility.

Police would arrive, and the individuals were simply sent along their way. It was taking a real toll on the project. And at one point, as Councillor Stevenson knows, we were very close to walking away from it all. Through the proper permitting process, we removed the trees, the majority of which were well-documented to be invasive species, and cleaned up the corner of the property.

Almost immediately, the criminal activity stopped. The change was dramatic, and the community noticed. Neighbors would often stop to thank our contractors and employees, and share how much they felt the corner, or how much safer they felt the corner was since that wooded section had been cut back. Property has also been impacted by environmental challenges, stemming from the London Transit Facility across the road.

We worked closely with our environmental consultants to manage these issues on our dime, and we plan to continue doing so for Phase 2. It hasn’t been easy or inexpensive, but it’s the right thing to do for the property and for the surrounding area. Since completing Phase 1, the transformation at the site has been obvious. We revitalized a vacant building.

We brought back a site that was basically dormant. We created a safe, clean, well-designed facility that is already being used by hundreds of residents and small businesses. A facility like this has become a critical amenity in growing urban areas. Much of today’s new housing, including the intensification plan for this corridor, does it include sufficient on-site storage.

Just as importantly, these facilities have become proven incubators for the small and medium-business-sized communities. Many entrepreneurs don’t have the credit stability or visibility into their future space needs to take on a long-term commercial lease. Flexible, affordable, month-to-month space that can scale with their business is essential now more than ever. At many of our facilities across Canada, more than half of all units are occupied by small and medium-business operators.

This isn’t a fluke. It reflects real demand and the meaningful role these facilities play in supporting local economic development. Our proposal for Phase 2 reflects the same mindset we brought to Phase 1. Do it well, design it properly, and contribute something meaningful to the area.

The new buildings are low in scale, internally-orientated, and designed to complement the existing facility. On the landscaping front, we’re proposing something that meaningfully improves the site. We’re working with Ron Cootie’s landscape architecture. And as such, we put forth a plan for staff to plant more than 140 native trees.

This is double what is required under our existing permit. This represents a significant ecological upgrade compared to the invasive species that once dominated that section of the property. In addition, the safety and the environmental improvements already made, Phase 2 will deliver a meaningful financial benefit to the city. We engage Ryan and Associates, one of the most respected tax consulting firms in the country, to provide an independent assessment of the projected tax uplift.

The report confirms that the annual property tax contribution from the site is approximately $86,518 as of 2025. With Phase 2 completed, that figure is projected to increase to roughly $250,000 by 2029. A rise of more than $160,000 per year, or nearly tripling the current contribution. We’re not trying to avoid replanting, far from it.

We simply want to do it in a way that is thoughtful, ecologically beneficial, and aligned with how the site currently functions. At its core, our ask is simple. Please allow us to continue the revitalization of work we’ve already started. Please allow us to complete this property so it serves residents, supports local businesses, and aligns with the city’s goals for this corridor.

We’ve invested heavily in this site over the last number of years. We’ve addressed environmental concerns that weren’t of our making. We’ve eliminated a longstanding hotspot for crime, and we’ve brought a troubled property back into a productive, safe community serving use. Phase 2 is a natural continuation of that work.

For these reasons, we respectfully ask the committee to support our OPA and ZBA request. Thank you, and I’m certainly happy to answer any questions. Thank you. All right, so I’ll go to our committee.

Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. I’d like to move an alternate motion that the clerk has. Okay.

So it’s the one that was distributed to committee without the first it being noted. It’s quite lengthy. Do you need me to read out the whole thing? I’ll ask the clerk if you have it.

It’s up on the screen. So I think committee, if you refresh your e-scribe, you can, we can read it, so you don’t have to read it out. So the, it being noted, the second it being noted there shouldn’t be there. Do you understand the clerk once you say the second?

Just give us a second here. The first it being noted paragraph is fine. It’s the second it being noted you don’t wish to be there regarding the trees. Just give me a second.

Okay. Vote three. Three. Oh, it’s, Councilor, it’s vote three.

So go all the way down to the bottom. It’s the last, there’s two motions. Go to the last one. Motion three.

It looks good there. In the one that I have, there is and it being noted that the above noted amendment is being recommended for the following reasons. Is that one there? Through the chair, I can make a comment on that.

Since the recommendations were included under A and under B, we didn’t feel it was prudent to include another section listing those reasons. Okay, thank you, I appreciate that. So that is the alternate motion that I am going to move. And I believe I have a seconder in Deputy Mayor Lewis.

Deputy Mayor Lewis has indicated he will second that motion. So I’ll go back to Councilor Stevens. Thank you. I just wanted to thank staff for all their work on this and I understand the limitations that they work under.

I also want to thank the property owners and the planners for their tenacious willingness to work through this process. That development has had a significant impact in a positive way in that area. There is a noticeable increase in safety. This additional development would allow full usage of that land, allow it to provide more services to area neighbors and businesses.

It provides for more trees than we have right now. And it provides the city with $160,000 a year in recurring revenue going on, which is something that I think I look forward to being on planning and talking about that more, that as we approve these developments, we are helping our budget at the same time that we’re a value add for the neighborhood and a full usage of, like I said, a prime spot at Bridges and Highbury. I’m gonna leave it there for now, but I do look to committee support for this. It’s been very positive thus far and if there’s a way that we can move forward on this, it’s a win-win-win-win-win all around.

Thank you and I’ll look for any other speakers, Deputy Mayor. Yeah, so just picking up where Councillor Stevenson left off, we’ve both had many conversations with Mr. Pearson, this property kind of, well, it will align with our word boundaries in the word, once the word boundary review boundaries come in, it’s fully in Councillor Stevenson’s ward right now, but it will abut Ward 2 in the new boundaries. I’m very familiar with this property, frankly, every day that I come to City Hall, I go past it.

And it has been a tremendous improvement to what was there prior in terms of what was basically vacant and sterile land that was a problem for the neighborhood. So from a neighborhood perspective, it’s been a wonderful addition to the area. Its use in a light industrial zone is consistent with the light industrial zone along Bridges. That’s very important.

We’re providing continued viability for that LI zone. In there, these small businesses that are there, and you heard Mr. Pearson reference the small business incubators, and just for those who might not be familiar, he’s not alluding to the fact that small businesses are operating out of storage units, but he’s alluding to the fact that we’ve got small businesses who don’t have the ability to store their inventory at home, they might still be running a home-based business, they might be a small general contractor who needs to store tools, and in some cases, potentially even a work vehicle. Securely, again, always viable at home.

And so that provides them the opportunity to get that business viable so that they can grow, and then ultimately move out of those home-based businesses and into commercial spaces that we need filled up in other parts of the city. So it is tied to an LI use. It is consistent with our ECDAV goals in the long run, so very supportive of this. I did want to ask through you two questions to staff around, and I did see it.

I wanted to make sure that the H9 holding provision was still in there, but I see in clause B holding to a late industrial special provision H-9 asterisk LI1 bracket 22, so the H9 is in there to capture clearing the archeological concerns. I just want to get clarity myself around the request that was made around the tree protection area, and the 66 trees that were referenced in the staff report versus the 140 that were referenced by the applicant. And I mean, RKLA is kind of the gold standard in the city when it comes to the private sectors, landscape and tree planting design. So the 140 and the 66, I just want to make sure that what we’re doing with this is allowing the 140 that are proposed by the applicant, ‘cause there is in clause C, there’s the site plan approval authority be requested to consider the additional tree plantings on site beyond the 66 required in the TPP, generally in line with the RKLA plan.

So what we’re saying to site plan is that you can count the 140 as part of the 66 that were required under the tree protection permit that was issued before. And I just want to make sure that we’re really clear that we’re saying you can count these, the 66 as part of that 140 that’s proposed in the plan. So that’ll go to staff. Thank you through the chair.

The answer would be yes in terms of that, but I just want to also caution committee that there is an ongoing enforcement matter, and that’s part of the challenge with this site. And we just pretty much don’t want to presuppose an outcome and then push it to site plan where this ongoing matter is being dealt with. Having said that, I also heard about the tree protection area and the applicant wanting to have the tree protection area removed from this site. There’s a process that needs to follow with that.

It’s not reflected in here, and it’s not something that we had provided to the councilor when we were looking through this. So that would be my suggestion that, and it wouldn’t be this committee that would come back through, but there would be direction to staff to review and bring back a report to a committee that the clerks can identify in terms of the tree protection area. That will then set up for how we deal with this matter and that last clause clause C to deal with the site plan approval authority. So what the plan is showing is perimeter trees, but the tree protection area is actually a cluster.

It’s not about the stem count. It’s actually about replanting in a cluster format within that tree protection area. So that’s the challenge that we’re dealing with here. So we need to have that step in the process that then council can choose or not choose to remove that tree protection area.

Then we will know how we from the enforcement part and also through the site plan where those trees would be planted. Deputy Mayor. Okay, so following up on that, just looking for a little more clarification in terms of what that process is, just for our information. Rather than directing staff to prepare a report, is this something that the applicant self initiates?

Or is this something that we have to direct in this decision? I’ll go staff. My suggestion I can refer to legal as well, but the direction would be through this to staff, but staff would potentially be the forestry group within engineering infrastructure. So that’s why it would come back through another committee.

It’s not a planning or planning act matter. Deputy Mayor. Okay, so it would go through forestry, which would report likely through infrastructure and corporate services on their corporate services policy around the tree protection area. So hearing that, then just to make it really clear for direction, I’d like to add an amendment, another clause, I guess that would make, it needs to be, so C would have to become D, and there would be a C clause in between that civic administration be further directed to report back on the potential removal of the tree protection area identified in this application.

And I’m gonna let you check with staff to make sure that that captures what I just heard. Does that encapsulate what you’re up to, Ms. Pink? That would work.

Yes, thank you. All right, Councillor Stevenson, you’re okay. So the Deputy Mayor has made an amendment. Clerk is entering right now, Councillor Stevenson.

I’m willing to second. I’m just wondering if we should take the potential out of there and have the amendment say to work towards removing that. And I’m fine, two to second, whatever language, as long as the direction is clear, that that’s the direction we’re moving in, is to remove it. To the chair, if I may.

Yes. Even the word possible would be a good word. We use that anytime we do a zoning by-law amendment, it’s a possible amendment. It’s for Council to consider.

The challenge is there’ll be science behind it. There’ll be other things beyond just, it would be nice to have. So that’s where the forestry folks will be able to provide that evidential material and for Council to consider. Deputy Mayor, following up on that, sorry, we’re getting into the technical forestry weeds here a little bit, but would that also potentially come back to say, okay, what we’re going to do is alter the tree protection area so that we’re not looking for the 66 cluster, we’re going to recognize, and essentially is it possible that what would come back is an alteration, that would say, well, if we’re gonna plant these 140, we want those 140 to be maintained under protection, or would it just be a yes, take it off or no, leave it on?

Ms. McDilliam. Thank you, through the chair, it would be the area. In terms of the litigation matter that’s before the enforcement, that’s the 66 trees that have been identified under the permit, but having said that, it’s removal or alteration of the area, which is a, we’ll say, a geographic area within the property, potentially scoped, or removed altogether.

Okay, so the clerk has typed it out, I’ll let you know when it’s an e-scribe. It is. - It is an e-scribe, so refresh your screens and have them. To the chair, if you could just review what’s on the screen and let me know if there’s any other changes.

So if you go down, it reads that the motion be amended to include a new part that reads as follows, that the civic administration be directed to report back on the possible removal of the tree protection area. May I suggest that we add the word area to the end of its capitalized tree protection area? Does that amendment look good for both the mover and the seconder? Any discussion on the amendment?

Okay, we’ll call the vote on the amendment. Seeing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, so I need to move as amended, the motion as amended, both Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis, but now we’re talking about the motion as amended, any further discussion, Councillor Stevenson? I’d just be remiss if I didn’t thank the Deputy Mayor for making himself available so often and guiding through the process.

Thank you, other comments or questions? And I will from the chair, yeah, welcome to PAC. I’m glad to see you’re using the resources. It’s a big learning curve, but it looks like you’re doing a good job going up fast.

And I appreciate your fresh perspective, quite frankly, on the comments, which I also notice is the additional revenue that comes into the city through property tax increases. Once these are built, we focus on the units to address our housing, short crisis, but sometimes I think it goes under the radar, a bit of the additional tax revenue that takes the burden off our existing tax payers. So always good to have a fresh perspective on our committee, good. Okay, any other comments or questions for our call about?

Seeing none, let’s call the vote. Willing the vote, the motion carries five to zero. Okay, there are no deferred matters. We do have two items in camera, so I’ll just declare to prepare the room for those items.

Oh, we have to make a motion to go on the camera. Move by Councillor Cudi, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis. We’ll call the vote. Closing the vote, the motion carries five to zero.

Deputy Mayor, can you report out, please? I am happy chair to report out that we made progress on the two items for which we went in camera. Thank you. The motion to adjourn.

Councillor Stevenson, seconded by Deputy Mayor Lewis. Call the vote. Motion carries. We are adjourned, thanks.