2026-03-03 - Council

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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.

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Welcome colleagues, I’m gonna call the fourth council meeting to order and begin by acknowledging that we are gathered today on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabic, the Haudenosaunee, the Linne Paiwak, and the Adawanda in peoples. We honor and respect the history, languages, and cultures of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. We acknowledge all the treaties that are specific to this area, the two-row Wampum Belt Treaty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Silver Covenant Chain, Beaver Hunting Grounds of the Haudenosaunee, Nann Fan Treaty of 1701, the McKee Treaty of 1790, the London Township Treaty of 1796, the here on track treaty of 1827 with the Anishinaabic, and the dish with one spoon covenant Wampum of the Anishinaabic and the Haudenosaunee. The three indigenous nations that are in neighbors to London are the Chippewa of the Thames First Nation, the Oneida First Nation of the Thames, and the Muncie Delaware Nation, all who continue to live as sovereign nations with individual and unique languages, cultures, and customs.

The City of London is also committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. And to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact Council Agenda at London.ca or phone 519-661-2489, extension 2425. Colleagues, before we begin our formal part of the meeting, it is my pleasure to welcome today our Anthem Singer. Jag Kooligan is a Bahamian-born and now London-based recording artist who’s made an explosive impact in the Canadian music scene.

He has crossed several genres with hip hop, utilizing reggae and R&B influences. And since making his way to Canada, he has accomplished many accolades, such as the Sony ATV Songwriter Award in 2016, publications in several local newspapers and radio station interviews, and the passionate hip hop artist plans to bring his message and creativity on tour to further spread his positive message through his music. Please rise and join me in welcoming Jag who will now perform our National Anthem. ♪ Can native land trade love ♪ ♪ In all of us command ♪ ♪ With glow we’ve seen the rise ♪ ♪ The truth no strong and free ♪ ♪ From far and wide ♪ ♪ O Canada, we stand on guard for thee ♪ ♪ By last and free ♪ ♪ Canada, we stand on guard ♪ ♪ Canada, we stand on guard for thee ♪ Colleagues, I’m just going to begin by stating the obvious.

I am not Mayor Morgan. I am Acting Mayor today as the Mayor is in St. John’s Newfoundland for the FCM Board of Directors. However, I did hear from him an hour ago.

He is planning to join us by Zoom. It’s been an hour, so he should have had time to get screeched in because it is after noon in Newfoundland. So we’ll look forward to him joining us online as soon as he’s able to do that. I am going to begin by looking for any disclosures of pecanary interest.

Seeing none, then we will move on to item three. That’s a review of confidential matters to be considered in public. There are none. Item four, oh, sorry, I did miss one item.

Number two is recognitions. And I believe Councillor Pribble has a recognition to share with us today. I certainly do think future, and it is truly my great honor to stand in front of you and from my colleagues and to all the Londoners to recognize a great Londoner. Sheldon Aaron, a businessman, a philanthropist, and a universal respected Londoner, passed away on February 20th of this year.

Many Londoners knew Sheldon Aaron as the longtime owner of the land plider in a premium meeting, hotel, and banquet facilities in our city. Others knew him as a residential real estate developer. Mr. Aaron’s most profound and lasting impact in our city, however, was as a philanthropist and a charitable volunteer.

Almost every charity in the city is better off for if not indebted to Mr. Aaron for his support. From here in University College, the London Y and YWCA, LHC, the Alzheimer’s Society, St. Joseph’s Healthcare, the London Property Managers Association, the Museum of Ontario Archaeology, the London Jewish Federation, and too many more benevolent and charitable organizations to mention.

Sheldon Aaron made the lasting and profound contribution. His legacy of leadership, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy has simply made London a much better place. I would like to extend thanks and sincere condolences from our city council on behalf of all Londoners to the Aaron family on the loss of Sheldon Aaron, a man who has truly left a wonderful legacy in our city of London. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Pribble. Not aware of any other recognitions, so we are going to move on to our next item, which is council and closed session. We do have some items that we need to move in camera in closed session for. We will leave for members of the public who aren’t regulars at our council meeting.

We will leave, deal with these in another committee room. You’re welcome to stay in the gallery. We’ll return when those matters have been dispensed with. So I’m going to look for a motion to go in closed session and Councillor Van Meerberg and Hopkins have moved and seconded that, and I will ask clerk to open the vote.

Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 14 to zero. The reasons are as indicated on the public agenda. Thank you colleagues.

We will move to committee room five for closed session. Please be seated. Okay, all right. We’ll just let everyone know that Mayor Morgan has been able to join us now by Zoom from the east coast.

So welcome Mayor Morgan to the meeting. Our next item is confirmation and signing of the minutes of the previous meetings, looking for a mover and a seconder. Councillor Van Meerberg and Councillor Cudi. Any discussion?

Seeing none, then we’ll ask clerk to open the vote. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 15 to zero. Okay, that brings us to communications and petitions.

As colleagues, colleagues, we’re going to deal with this in three parts. So first I’m going to look for a mover and a seconder to refer 6.2 through 6.8. All of the communications with the exception of the integrity commissioner report and Councillor Palazzas added item. So we’ll look to refer those all to the appropriate items in the agenda.

Do we have a mover and a seconder for that? Councillor Hopkins and Councillor Ferrera, thank you. We’ll look to open the vote on that. Patressant, thank you, closing the vote.

Motion carries 15 to zero. We will deal with item six. This is the communication from the integrity commissioner. The report on code of conduct complaints 2025, zero for A, B, and C, and our Ms.

Cowan from our integrity commissioner’s offices with us. So I am going to go to you to provide a verbal presentation to us on this matter. Thank you very much. And good afternoon mayor, deputy mayor, and members of council.

My name is Megan Cowan. I’m a partner at Ayrton Burles LLP. Ayrton Burles is the interim integrity commissioner for the city of London, as appointed by council. As such, we have jurisdiction to review complaints against members of council made pursuant to the code of conduct.

As integrity commissioner, we act as an impartial, neutral, and objective investigator. We neither seek to shelter members from culpability from wrongdoing, nor attempt to punishment them when the objective facts do not support a finding of a contravention. We do not work for the municipality. We are an independent statutory officer pursuant to section 223.371 of the municipal act, and we report directly to council.

It is in that capacity that we appear before you this afternoon to present our investigative report on the complaints filed against councilor Susan Stevenson under the city’s code of conduct. I will provide a detailed presentation with respect to the investigative report thereafter. I would be pleased to respond to any questions that members of council may have as to our procedure. I’ll begin by providing an overview of our investigation.

Our investigation was conducted in accordance with our authority as integrity commissioner. Under the municipal act, the city’s code of conduct and the process and procedures outlined therein. Three formal complaints were filed with our office in accordance with the requirements set out in the complaint protocol to the code. Those complaints variously allege that the council are contravened a number of rules of the code in relation to her conduct at the town hall meeting for her Ward 4 constituents, held on September 10th, 2025 at the Boyle Memorial Community Center.

And by virtue of comments made to the media with respect to the town hall meeting. Specifically, the complaints alleged that the councilor had moved and touched camera equipment belonging to a member of the audience and asked that individual to stop recording the town hall meeting and had requested that city security staff speak to the same individual to ask them to stop recording or leave the town hall meeting. Now the individual in question, Mr. Ben Durham, posted an online video on YouTube titled, “I was forced to stop filming a public meeting, legal or not, about the town hall meeting.” I will refer to this as the online meeting commentary, a short from as I’ve done so in the report.

The online meeting commentary appears to have been viewed more than 2,000 times on YouTube and garnered a reportedly over more than one and a half million views on TikTok. It also generated substantial public interest in the town hall meeting. In the online meeting commentary, Mr. Durham shares video that he recorded at the town hall meeting and describes his interaction with the councilor.

This includes a video of the councilor asking him to stop recording and we did not exceed to the request stopping and moving Mr. Durham’s tripod mounted camera while he continued to film and comment on the interaction on the cell phone camera during the meeting. The online meeting commentary also contains video captured by Mr. Durham on his cell phone in which a member of the public advised so that people did not want to be filmed.

And finally also captures conversations with an individual identifying himself as a member of city security staff, asking Mr. Durham to stop recording the meeting. The online meeting commentary received a lot of media attention. In our report at page two, we cite some of the articles that we were made aware of which reported on the town hall meeting.

I will now turn to the investigative process itself. Our office received a large number of communications about the town hall meeting in September and October given the online meeting commentary and the news articles that we cited in our report. Now, a number of the communications purported to be formal complaints but did not actually comprise of proper complaints pursuant to the code’s complaint protocol. We believe it’s important to offer those individuals wishing to file a formal complaint and opportunity to do so.

Accordingly, we held our initial inquiry in abeyance so as to allow and address any complaints that be received in a collective manner. As we said out in our report, this is not an uncommon practice. Many integrity commissioners utilize such an approach when there are multiple complaints received on the same incident or similar factual circumstances in order to ensure that the complaint inquiry and investigation precedes both effectively and efficiently. We ultimately received three formal complaints which were validly filed pursuant to the code’s complaint protocol.

Given the similar subject matter of the complaints, we elected to investigate them collectively to ensure that they proceeded efficiently while at the same time ensuring that the counselor was afforded due procedural fairness. As I will describe in further detail shortly, this resulted in us holding the complaints in abeyance until November when we formally issued a notice of the complaints to the counselor. Now, I’ve set out in my report, I’m gonna briefly touch on some of the summary dismissals that we made early on in our investigative process. Our report provides a detailed overview of our decisions at page four.

Briefly, we dismissed complaint A in full as no response to our request for particulars was provided despite repeated requests. With respect to complaint B, certain allegations were summarily dismissed as they alleged that the counselor had infringed on an individual’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As we set out in our report, we determined that we did not have jurisdiction to inquire into those allegations as we are not a court of competent jurisdiction. Finally, with respect to complaint C, we summarily dismissed certain allegations alleging that the counselor had made comments to the media that constituted harassment and created a discriminatory environment for a citizen journalist.

I set out our report at page four. We were determined that the counselor’s comments did not rise to such a level as to necessitate an investigation, nor did they contravene rule 7.1 of the code. In particular, we viewed the counselor’s comments as containing her opinion, which we could not validate as either being true or false. Freedom of expression is a financial right in Canada.

As such, the code must be interpreted in a manner consistent with this right in a way that provides as broad interpretation as possible. Now, members can still be exercising their right to freedom of expression and yet be subject to reasonable limits as that may be set out in law, such as a municipal code of conduct. However, in this instance, we did not view the counselor’s comments as rising as to such a level that would constitute a breach. We therefore duly provided notice of the summary dismissals to all three complainants.

And we also provided notice to the counselor of the complaints and of the summary dismissals. In our notice to the counselor, we advised her that we could proceeding with an investigation with respect to her conduct at the town hall and whether that conduct contravene rules 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 4.1, 5.2, A, G and 7.1 of the code. And we invited the counselor to make submissions. The counselor wrote to us and requested a very brief extension to provide her submissions, which we duly provided.

The counselor ultimately provided submissions to our office that set out in part, she’d made arrangements to record the meeting for her own accurate record of events. She was not aware of any policies that pertain to this matter. She referenced the integrity commissioner’s previous report of December 8th, 2023, by which the city’s former integrity commissioner had set out that posting photos of recognizable individuals on social media fell below the standard expected members of council. Now, in referencing this former integrity commissioner’s public findings on her posting, she noted that once she realized the discomfort of some attendees, quote, “I approached Mr.

Durham “and spoke softly and respectfully, “I made requests not demands,” end quote. The counselor asserted that she asked Mr. Durham to turn his camera off and he replied okay, but then did not do so. She stated that it was only after this that she walked over to turn the camera forward the wall as a compromise to allow audio to be recorded.

However, Mr. Durham followed her in front of the room while recording her and narrating his actions. As a result, the counselor submitted that she requested Mr. Durham leave the meeting, quote, “in response to the escalation “of what I believe to be,” quote, “a behavior of defiance.” In her submissions, the counselor also advised us that she received a number of hateful messages as a result of the online meeting commentary, including a threat against the member of her family.

And as a result of the media scrutiny over this matter, she advised that she make necessary arrangements for future meetings. These submissions, in turn, were provided to all the complainants. One complainant filed a reply submissions and one complainant did not. In conducting our investigation, we duly considered all submissions and documentation provided by the complainants and the submissions of the counselor in accordance with the city’s complaint protocol.

This included the complaints, all supporting evidence, including review of the online meeting commentary and correspondence with city security staff and news articles, the counselor sworn submissions, one complainant’s reply submissions, correspondence with staff about city’s protocols and processes with respect to town hall meetings and various case law of other integrity commissioners as relevant to the complaint. Given that we held the complaints in abeyance and provided notice to the counselor in November, we duly advised the counselor and the complainants that we anticipated that our investigation would take longer than 90 days, pursuant to the requirements in section 7.1 of the code’s complaint protocol. These individuals were notified of this in December and we advised them that our investigation would be concluded in due course. I’ll now turn to our investigative report itself.

As with any investigative report, it distills and synthesizes the facts and issues and assesses them against the framework of the code, makes findings and draws conclusions. Our conclusion, based on a consideration of the totality of the evidence submitted to our office, is that the counselor did not contravene the code of conduct as alleged. In reviewing the entire matter, we find that the counselor did not contravene the code by virtue of her conduct at the town hall meeting. During our investigation, we made inquiries with staff on the process whereby members of council convene town hall meetings for their constituents.

We were advised that no fees charged for the use of this facility. However, we noted that this did not make the town hall meeting a public meeting subject to the requirements of the Municipal Act 2001, including the open meeting rule and other meeting requirements and formalities. It’s our view that as the organizer of the town hall meeting, that individual had the authority to run the meeting as they deemed appropriate and to address perceived disruptions as they considered to be necessary, including for the comfort of the attendees. We also note that each of the complainants provided addresses which indicated that they did not reside in ward four of the city, as such they did not appear to be constituents residing in the counselor’s ward.

This is not to say that they were not entitled to attend the meeting, but simply to indicate that they were not the core group that the town hall meeting was intended to host. While the complainants and reply submissions rightly draw attention to the fact that at the meeting, the counselor moved Mr. Durham’s camera. We found the counselor’s stated explanation and the video recording of her actions show she moved the camera to the front of the room for the state of purpose of not having attendees be recorded.

When the issue escalated and was perceived to be detracting from the meeting, she asked city security staff to advise Mr. Durham to either stop recording or leave the meeting. In our view, she was entitled to do so as the organizer of the meeting. She could control the meeting as she considered appropriate.

She encountered a difficult situation and attempted to address it. She appeared to be calm when she spoke with Mr. Durham and requested that he stopped his recording. She also appeared to understand that he would comply with her request, but when he did not, she decided to act on her own and move his camera.

Now, while in hindsight, this action might be viewed as inappropriate and dismissive, it is our view that the context is important. The counselor sought to find a solution to permit the meeting to continue, while also addressing concerns about the recording. That she was clearly frustrated in the moment can be understood given the circumstances. As such, we did not find that the overall comportment of the counselor at the town hall meeting rose to a level that contravened the provisions of the code as alleged.

And we went through each provision of the code at pages seven, eight, and nine of our report. With respect to the reporting process itself, we duly finalized our report and submitted it to the city on February 24th, 2026. This was done in compliance with our reporting obligations to the city under the code of conduct’s complaint protocol, section 223 of the Municipal Act, where the integrity commissioner reports directly to counsel itself, and is a standard practice amongst integrity commissioners across the province. The report was subsequently published as part of the agenda for today’s public meeting.

And at that time, the report was made public. Our final report was submitted to the city to fulfill our reporting requirements to counsel, as required by the Municipal Act. A copy of the final report was not provided to any single member of counselor, including the counselor, or to any person, including the complainants in advance, as this would have contributed our legislative obligations as integrity commissioner. We note that section 7.4 of the city’s complaint protocol provides that where complaint is dismissed, other than in exceptional circumstances, the integrity commissioner shall not report to counsel.

And presenting today to you, we wanted to specifically draw attention to this provision. We viewed the circumstances of this matter as rising to the level contemplated in the city’s code of conduct, given the level of public scrutiny and media attention this matter generated. And we wanted to draw this to counsel’s attention as the investigative process does not always result in a public report in all circumstances. There are many ways in which a complaint process may unfold.

And I’ll set out a few examples. First, when a complaint is filed with our office, it may be summarily dismissed, and the responding member may never be made aware of the allegations because we determined that the facts on their face as alleged did not demonstrate a breach of the code. Ultimately, a complaint may be investigated and terminated due to the facts not disclosing a contravention. In such a situation, if a member has been made aware of the process and been involved in it, they will be provided with notice of the termination or summary dismissal on a strictly confidential basis.

Alternatively, a complaint may be investigated and it may be found that a member’s conduct did not contravene the code. And we may still publicly report on the matter if our matter viewed as appropriate. As I said earlier, that is expressly such a determination that we’ve made in the matter before you today. Finally, a complaint may be sustained in whole at which time we would report our findings and make a recommendation to counsel as any reprimand or penalty.

That is not the case before you today. As I said out, based on our review of the entire evidentiary record, and for the reasons set out in our report, it’s our finding that the counselor is not contravene rules two, four, five, or seven of the city’s code of conduct. I’ll speak now to the conclusions and our recommendations. As counsel is the decision-making body for the municipality and is entrusted with enforcing its code of conduct.

As we noted, we’ve investigated the complaint and have produced a report that details our findings and conclusion. We have done so in accordance with our authority, mandate, and jurisdiction with an adherence to procedural fairness to all parties, including the counselor and complainants who exercise their right to file formal complaints. Given that we found no contravention of the code, there is no authority pursuant to municipal act for counsel to impose a penalty. This is confirmed by the city’s complaint protocol, which provides if the integrity commissioner determines that there has been no contravention of the code of conduct, or that a contravention occurred, although the member took all reasonable measures to prevent it, or that a contravention occurred that was trivial or committed to inadvertence or error of judgment made in good faith, the integrity commissioner shall so state in the report and shall recommend that no penalty be imposed.

I’d also like to draw counsel’s attention today to the divisional court’s decision in Asley and Town of Hoxbury, which sheds out that a counsel has no power to contest, or question the factual findings of the integrity commissioner. Our report is barely merely for informational purposes only. Council has no authority to substitute or question our findings. This concludes my presentation with respect to the investigative report.

I will remain present to answer any questions that members of council may have with respect to the process. But as I said out earlier, I respectfully remind council of the court’s decision in the Town of Hoxbury case I cited, and that integrity commissioner’s factual findings are final, and council has no authority to question or substitute our findings, and that our report is nearly informational. Thank you very much, and I’d be pleased to answer any questions. Thank you, Ms.

Cowan. So before we go to questions and comments, I need a mover and a seconder to receive the integrity commissioner’s report. Move by councilor Cuddy, seconded by councilor Layman. Okay, so that’s on the floor, and now we can move to questions and comments.

Councilor Trussow. Thank you very much, and through the chair, I have no intention of questioning any of the factual findings, but I am a little confused about a few things. Am I correct in assuming that you made a factual finding that the councilor did touch the personal property of the complainant without his consent? Is that a true reflection of your factual findings?

Ms. Cowan. Deputy Mayor, through you. Yes, that is not set out in our report.

And you, and furthermore, you did not get to the question of whether or not any damage was done to the equipment. You just said that it was taken. Through you, Deputy Mayor, to answer that question. That was not raised in any complaints set before us, and it was not a live issue in our investigation.

Okay, my other question through the chair deals with the matter of freedom of expression. You stated that there was a summary dismissal on the grounds that you do not have jurisdiction over constitutional issues. And I think that’s what you said. No, I’ll repeat that.

Just, you don’t have to answer that. Just correct me if I’m wrong. Furthermore, at some other point, you indicated that the counselor and all members of council are under obligations to follow otherwise what’s in the law. Is that correct?

And again, this is not a factual question. This is a legal question. Hey, I will go to Ms. Cowan for that.

Councillor Truss, although I will remind you we’re at council, so I do need you to stand. So your new chair makes me think I’m a previous group. That’s okay, listen, I forgot to, ‘cause I’m used to chairing SPPC, not this one, so. But we are at council, so I will ask you to stand.

Ms. Cowan, if you can respond, please. Generally, thank you, through you, Deputy Mayor. The question really was in two parts and referred to two summary dismissals that we made.

The first dealt with, there was an allegation and one of the complaints brought to us that the counselor’s conduct had infringed on an individual’s charter rights in the meeting and the way that she addressed and dealt with that individual. And with respect to that allegation, we set out that we had no jurisdiction to find or make a finding about that individual’s charter rights as we were not a court of competent jurisdiction. So it’s separate and distinct from the social media and freedom of expression issue that I’ll touch on briefly, but I just wanna set that out very clearly, that there was a specific allegation that the counselor had reached an individual’s charter rights and we had set out that we, that A, that individual hadn’t raised them with us, and we were not a competent court that could opine on that individual’s rights. The second part of the question related to the freedom of expression comments I made.

And that was with respect to a separate and distinct allegation made in the complaint that the counselor’s certain comments that she had made to the media, contravened an individual’s, excuse me, and contravened the code of conduct. It specifically had contravened section 7.1 in that they were alleged to be harassing or creating an environment that was not welcoming to a public self-proclaimed member of the public acting as a journalist. We, in looking at those allegations, made a comment of determination that in our view, they didn’t rise to such a level as to breach the code of conduct. And I touched there, I’ll bring your attention to pages four and five of our report that goes into creator detail on this.

But essentially, we noted that all members of council have right of freedom of expression, but that right can be curtailed by the code of conduct. So if comments rose to such a level as to contravene the code, we could have made a finding that they had contravene the code. In this case, we found that the comments themselves did not rise to such a level, especially as they contained the counselor’s opinion, which we can either validate as being true or false. Through you, Deputy Mayor, I hope that answers the questions.

It’s a bit more nuanced than sort of a two-part answer. Yes, and again, through the chair, I’m not questioning your finding that it didn’t rise to the level of et cetera. What I’m questioning is what I feel is a contradiction between the first statement that we don’t have jurisdiction to delve into constitutional questions, but in finding that it didn’t rise to the level of violating constitutional rights, you necessarily recognized that that was a matter that you were adjudicating. So I think that there is a fundamental disconnect, not one matters of fact, but one matters of law and the interpretation of your jurisdiction.

Is it your position that counselors have, at least for purposes of the code of conduct, the absolute ability to violate people’s constitutional rights and not face repercussions under the code of conduct? Through you, Deputy Mayor, and no, that is not my position or what I’ve set out in the materials. We’ve clearly set out that as long as the counselor’s comments did not rise to such a level as to violate the code, we would not make a finding with respect to them. So this does not mean that a member of council can make any kind of expression carte blanche.

Political expression is protected, but not such a level that rises to a level that would breach the code of conduct. There are integrity commissioner reports that have set out certain comments like those in support of slavery, for example, while it’s technically a stated public expression, it is one that would not be provided and viewed appropriately under the code of conduct and a rise to such a level that contravenes the code of conduct. So I want to be very specific here on the questions in that these are two specific areas. I, with respect to the individual’s charter rights, I don’t have any authority under the charter to look into those allegations, and that’s what we set out in the report.

With respect to the counselor’s rights to make public speech, we acknowledge that she has a right to make public speech, but it can be constrained by the code of conduct if it rises to such a level that would contravene the code. There’s a distinction and an element there. Okay, thank you very much. I will wrap up, I’ve tried to make my point.

I can’t accept this report as it’s written. And I do that very reluctantly, ‘cause I have the greatest respect for your process and your office and you and what you’ve done. But I think to say that we cannot look at whether or not there’s been a violation of somebody’s constitutional right, I just don’t think that can be right if we’re then going to look at the implications of the violation of that constitutional right in terms of your decision. So I want to be very, very specific.

My issue with your report is limited to the question of refraining from looking at the issue of whether or not the complainant’s freedom of expression was violated. And I just want to be very clear that I think that is something that cannot be made to go away on jurisdictional grounds. And I want everyone to understand that regardless of what the council does with this decision, Mr. the issue of whether or not the complainant’s constitutional rights have not been adjudicated here.

And he is free to continue doing that without any type of collateral estoppel or other other type of binding effect. But I do think we cannot just sort of close our eyes to whether or not a constitutional right has been impacted, especially if we’re in a public forum, whether or not it constitutes a public meeting within the meeting of the municipal act, it’s still a public forum. And he was told to stop engaging in expressive activity. And I think it’s very clear from the facts that you recited, which I’m not questioning, the councilor’s conduct resulted in, whether it was intentional or not, the cessation of the complainant’s ability to exercise his expressive activity under the constitution.

And I’ll just leave it at that. Looking for— - Just leave it at it. It’s Deputy Mayor, if I may through you, just one kind of— - Ms. Cowan, I’m just going to take that as comment from the councilor.

I don’t want to get into frankly, the two of you cross-examining, cross-debating one another on the finer points of law. We’re just taking that as comment. There was no direct question there. And so we’re going to leave it at that.

Look for other speakers. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. As I’ve stated, it was, I appreciated going through a process that followed our code of conduct.

It shows that it is possible. And I just want to say that I did appreciate that. The issue of the recording, I mean, I fully support being recorded at any point, being used any way that people want to do it. When I wanted to live stream one of my town halls, I was cautioned by civic administration that I couldn’t do that, that there were processes that had to be in place in order to do that.

And so I didn’t at the time. People are fully like, we know there’s cameras going or phones going at any time. One time I invited the media to one of my town halls and the media was, you know, they’re well advertised as to who they are. They also asked me to be sure was this a public space?

Was it, you know, to just triple check that it was okay that they be filming? And I took the opportunity at the front of the room to make everybody aware that the media was there, that if they didn’t want to be recorded to please let us know, we would put them in a different section. In this case, I was not made aware that somebody was going to be recording the town hall. And when I first saw the camera, I was okay with like, I didn’t know who they were, but I just didn’t see a problem with it.

Then I started thinking about it. I remembered the rules. Was wondering if I was breaching anything, then I had some residents tell me that they were uncomfortable with it. There was an assumption that it was mine, it was not.

I also had invited panelists for the first time who I had not asked their permission whether they could be filmed. And that was more important to me. The residents that were there to listen and discuss on topics for which it is very uncomfortable for people. And there is a lot of retaliation online that puts people’s livelihoods and businesses and family insecurity at risk.

I appreciate the report. I appreciate the learning in this. As far as I know, we’ve got some policies in place as a city now to preemptively have practices in place for town halls that cover us from the Civic Administration point of view. And then I appreciated in this report the fact that it says that I have the right as an organizer to address issues that arise and the discomfort or the comfort of the people who are there and the people who are there have a right as well to speak about the concerns that they are living with on a daily basis.

Concerns for which there is a lot of retribution at times. And I have done everything that I can since I’ve been elected to create a safe space for people to speak. Those who oppose me, those who want to say things that I oppose. And I’ve encouraged the audience and the people to come and be with each other and to hear opposing views in a respectful place, in a respectful way.

And it has worked well up until this meeting. And when I make a request and someone answers me and says that they’re going to do something and they don’t, and I address it in different ways without being able to address the issue. And at the same time, I’m respectful of the people who’ve come to discuss the issues and listen to the panelists that I had there. So I just want to be clear that as a politician, you can record me, you can put me on TikTok, you can get millions of views, that’s all fair and good.

I have a responsibility as a leader and an organizer of an event to protect the people who come and who listen and want to participate in a free and open space where their rights are protected as well. And that’s something that we may still need to figure out and talk about. How do we balance those rights? And I’m open to working with civic administration and my colleagues going forward.

But I do appreciate this report and the process through which our protocols were respected. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson, looking for any other speakers before I call the vote. Councillor Palosa. Thank you, Mr.

Presiding Officer, Acting Mayor. Followed this one with, I would say, great interest having watched the video online and waited for this report, realizing we feel a really unique role within our communities. And I hold my own opinions. When I host a war town hall meeting, it doesn’t matter to me what residents come, which resident, Trump’s another resident, they’re all London taxpayers.

And for me, it never considered one of my public town halls to be a private meeting, realizing how we host things here at the city. And when the city civic administration do pop up meetings for different engagement, I do appreciate the report and on page 17, acknowledging that the councilor’s husband was recording. And if people didn’t know that was her husband and I’m arranged ahead of time, they absolutely might have questions of who is this person? Why can they record and not me?

A question through you to staff, page 17 is outlining our direction to corporate security to intervene with it. I did watch the recording of some residents forming a human chain in front of the person recording. Looking for confirmation through you, do we have who controls corporate security at our events? Is it under their discretion of how they’ve been trained or counselors have that opportunity to direct them to engage with residents as we seem fit?

So— - Or to the IEC whoever can— Well— - Who directs it? I want to caution that I don’t think the IEC can opinion on which staff direct corporate security, but I also want to caution that we are on an IEC report, not on internal policies. I’m going to allow a little leeway and ask Mr. Latiser if he can respond briefly, but I need us to stay on topic which is the IEC report and not on internal policies, Mr.

Latiser. Through the chair, I can say that corporate security is looking at how we move forward with this information from an internal perspective. Obviously each meeting presents unique challenges. So obviously that’s something we have to take back.

Generally our staff take direction from whoever’s running the meeting, but in the event that there’s an immediate safety concern then corporate security would intervene. So that’s what I can say for now, but we are reviewing how we move forward. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, a more precise follow-up then of page 20 section 51, the conclusion in light of the tensions generated by the recording of the town hall meeting.

In our view, being the integrity commissioner’s view, it’d be prudent to identify protocols for future town hall meetings whereby there is clear in how much meetings will be run and whether individuals will be permitted to record any such meetings. Looking for you since the IEC is with us today, if they could elaborate on that a little bit or if our staff would be able to walk us through the process, I certainly don’t have a motion prepared today of what better policies and process would look like coming back to council, but definitely that for councilors and members of the public that we both know the direct lines, the next steps. Ms. Cowan.

Certainly through you, Chair, that comment was made in light of the media scrutiny surrounding this issue and that there appear to be uncertainty about the processes and protocols. As integrity commissioner, I can’t speak to city processes, procedures, policies, I’m not the lawyer for the city, but that comment was made given in light of our investigation, what we saw in terms of the uncertainty surrounding some of these issues, we wanted to draw it to all of council’s attention, which is what we intended to do by paragraph 51 at the report. Councilor Ploza. Thank you, I appreciate the report looking for transparency and accountability on this ‘cause we still use taxpayer funded time to do it and we welcome residents and just make it right, we can all do so across the board.

So regardless of what meeting a resident goes to or what councilor is hosting independently or jointly that we know our expectations, thank you. Any other speakers? You can make a point of order, Councilor. Is it possible to, I’ve already spoken, so I’m not gonna talk to the merits, but is it possible to pull out a paragraph and say, vote on that separately ‘cause I cannot accept paragraph 20?

No, that point of order is not in order. The report as a whole has to be received or not. Councilor Ferrera. Thank you, Chair.

So I see we’re talking about kind of two different issues here. We’re talking about whether there was a violation of our code of conduct and I’ve seen the debate kind of touch into whether there was a violation of someone’s charter of rights and freedoms, freedom of expression. And I do see from the conversation or what was presented to us from the I.C. That they’re not able to rule on a breach of charter rights or freedom of expression, they’re able to rule and look into whether we’ve reached our code of conduct.

And I do see that there was a good questioning from Councilor Trussel on whether that freedom of expression could be, I guess, restricted or inhibited by the code of conduct. So I would point that out. I do see the I.C. has said that there has been no violation with the code of conduct, sections two, five, hopefully I wrote this right, right, four, 7.1.

But it does seem that there was a freedom of expression violation here. And I do see that political expression is protected, but it’s not absolute and I would point that out. We are not protected with absolute privilege. We are protected with a qualified privilege and that qualified privilege should be shown to be made with no intention or no malice involved or anything like that.

And I do see that just watching the video, there were some areas that maybe weren’t captured ‘cause I do see in the video that the Councilor did maybe tried to turn off the camera or do something with the buttons on the camera. I’m not sure. I wanted to know if the integrity commissioner looked into that part ‘cause I do see that there was comments that the camera was turned away. So the audio could still be recorded, but I wanted to know if there was any look into the touching of the buttons on the camera and what was the intent on that?

So I will go to the I.C. on this once, but I think that this has already been addressed in that they did not look into any property damage or tampering, they just looked at the camera being moved. But Ms. Cowan, I think you’ve answered this, but I’m gonna allow you to a brief response on this again, but I’m just gonna caution colleagues that I’m not gonna entertain the same question to the I.C.

over and over from multiple speakers. Ms. Cowan. Thank you, Deputy Mayor, through you.

Our report sets out that the allegations where the camera was moved and touched. So both elements were raised with us, reviewed and investigated and commented on our findings in the report at pages four through seven. Councillor Ferrera. Okay, thank you.

So much like Councillor Palazzo’s comments, when I have a town hall, I open it for everybody. I don’t just have a select few of individuals that are able to attend or record. As far as I’m concerned, as a political official, as an elected official, I assume that everything is being recorded at all times. And that is just part of the gig.

So I respect the comments of Councillor Palazzo on that one. I would say that I do think that we should always be creating a safe space when we’re having a public forum, especially when it’s being paid for by the tax dollar. And I do believe that when we have a town hall or at any type of open forum, that is supposed to be accessible to everybody in the city. I do see that there’s some restrictions here on how the integrity commissioner can look into matters like this because it seems like we’re really restricted with our code of conduct.

I will say that creating a safe space, like I have been called Chicken Little online before. And I don’t think that really creates a safe space now as part of the gig. But at the same time, I would rebut some of the comments that I’ve heard when it comes to creating a safe space and really trying to make sure and promote that really exists. I have seen a lot of issues with some of the real levels of transparency.

And I do see some restrictions on real accountability. And I do want to see transparency and accountability, but I don’t just want that to be just words. I’d like to see that be turned into actions. So I do have a little bit of concern with some of the comments that I’ve heard on the reasoning why of what we saw, what we saw.

So this kind of leaves me in a weird position because I respect what the integrity commissioner can and can’t do, but at the same time, I just want to put it on the public record that this has nothing to do with the freedom of expression or a charter right violation. A charter right violation can only be really seen by within the courts. The integrity commissioner, it cannot absolve, whether this was a charter right violation itself. It can say that there was no breach of the code of conduct, but I just want to put on the record that there could be a charter of right violation here.

And the only real person that can actually oversee and make a decision on that would be the court of law. Thank you, Councilor Ferra. Any other speakers before we call the question? Seeing none, I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote.

Who’s in the vote? Motion carries 14 to one. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on, we are still on communications and petitions.

6.9 isn’t added from Councilor Palosa. You have that in your package. So that was in your package. The Councilor’s communication is there.

It’s a personal update from her. The Councilor does have a motion to move with respect to that as she’s indicated. The Mayor has issued a strong Mayor direction as well in terms of committee chairs to help accommodate this. So before we can proceed, we need to pursuant to section 20.1 of the procedure by-law.

We need to seek leave for Councilor Palosa to move a motion related to her communication. This does require two thirds. So I see Councilor Frank and Councilor Lehman moving and seconding the request for leave. And if I have no speakers, I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 15 to zero. Councilor Palosa leaves granted the floor as yours. Thank you.

I wanna thank Councilor Roman for stepping up to take on caps. It is not a late committee. Lots happening there. And Councilor McAllister for stepping up to serve as the chair of ICSC.

With Councilor Roman moving over, I’m asking that you receive my correspondence. The Mayor has already used strong Mayor directives to make those two chairs. Thus opening up a position on ICSC that I would like to fill as I still remain chair of budget and budget, but still like a standing committee to be part of. Assuming I’ll mostly be virtual from here, but looking for your support to fill out speak with my name.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Palosa. So the motion in E-Scribe is that Councilor E. Palosa be appointed to the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee for the term ending November 15th, 2026, being noted that municipal council received a March 2nd from Councilor Palosa with respect to this matter.

So that’s been moved and seconded. Councilor Frank and Councilor Lehman again. So that’s on the floor. Any discussion?

This is with regard to the appointment. Councilor Trussow. This is simply a question. Does this mean you’re no longer serving as a member of community and protective services committee?

‘Cause I think that could be stated in there for clarity. That is correct. Councilor Palosa will no longer serve on community and protective services. Her position there was as a result of the mayor’s appointment as chair.

With the mayor removing her as chair, replacing her with Councilor Raman. Councilor Palosa is no longer a member of the community protective services committee hence her request to be appointed to Infrastructure and Corporate Services. Yes, and I think that’s right. Well, I think that process is right.

I’m wondering if the motion might be clearer from members of the public who might be wondering if we have an extra person on the committee. Should it say, and she is no longer a member of the committee as a result for clarity? That would be captured in the strong mayor direction, which is accessible to the public online. My point is that without getting into the technical details of what documents incorporate by reference, other documents that are available online, it might just be clearer for the public trying to understand our process if it just included that extra little subclass.

And yes, you’re quite right. That if one wanted to look at the intricacies of the strong mayor powers and what by virtue happens when those are exercised, you’re absolutely right. But why don’t we just write into the motion and as a result, she is no longer a member of the CAHPS committee. And I think it would just assist the public in trying to sort out what’s going on here.

And I would request that that be added to the motion. And also move. Councilor, it can be added as an it being noted in checking with the clerk. So it being, what would the language be?

It being noted that Councilor Palosa will no longer be serving on the community protective services committee. That would take care of my concern. Thank you. Is there a seconder for that?

Councilor Ferrera. Okay. Mayor Morgan, I saw your hand go up before the amendments. Is this on the amendments or do you want to wait?

Yes, no, it was on Councilor Trossa’s concern. Okay, go ahead. Yes, given the direction and I made the direction of the request of Councilor Palosa when she wanted to step down as chair, given the direction I set basically caused the series of events that lead to the request today for simplicity. And I would ask through you to the clerk, can we just attach the mayoral direction to the council motion, isn’t it?

Like it’s not being noted, but can you just make it part of the, I mean, it’s a public record because it’s posted, but you know, we just attach it to it and then everything would be there. I’ll leave it with you. Okay, the advice of the clerks is no. That’s why you listened to the clerks, yes.

Okay, on the amendment only. Any other questions or comments? So we’ll open the vote on the amendments to add the being. Close on the vote, motion carries 14 to one.

Okay, so we are on the main motion as amended. Any other speakers before we vote? Seeing none, then we’ll open the vote. Close on the vote, motion carries 15 to zero.

Thank you colleagues. That will complete the communications and petitions portion of our meeting. Moving on, notice motions of which notice is given. There are none.

That brings us to section eight, which is reports. And I will turn to Councillor Layman to present the fourth report of the planning and environment committee. Thank you, Chair. I’m pleased to put the fourth report of the planning and environment committee on the floor.

I have requests to pull numbers 10, 11 and 13. Okay, so would you like to make a motion to move the rest? Yeah, so I’d like to move items one through nine, 12, 14, 15 and 16. Okay, those items are on the floor.

Any discussion? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open. And the vote, motion carries 15 to zero. Councillor Layman.

Thank you, I’ll move number 10, which is 550 right out street, north and 82, 90 Ken Street. Okay, that’s been moved. And Councillor Frank, you’ve circulated an amendment. Would you like to rise and introduce that?

Sure, I’d be happy to. I’m not sure if you need three separate motions or just one altogether, but be nicer to do it all together. But I’ll leave it up to you. On the advice of the clerk, you can move all three at once.

Wonderful, and would you like me to read them out loud? If you could please. Sure. Okay, so the first being a direction to site plan authority.

So A, the site plan approval authority be requested to consider the following issues through site plan process. I provide a landscape design, including a minimum 50% native species with no invasive species planted. I, I investigate renewable sources of energy, such as solar for the roof of the building. I, I investigate air source heat pump options.

I, V, utilize bird friendly policies using the CSA standard. Then the second being adding direction regarding tenant location. So that the motion be amended to add a new part C to read as follows. C, that the applicant be requested to prepare a tenant relocation plan, specifically addressing matters set out in the communication on the added council agenda, dated February 25th, 2026 from ASUFON, president of York developments.

And the third being add in it being noted regarding the park. It being further noted that the applicant has indicated in the communication on the added council agenda, dated February 25th, 2026 from ASUFON, president of York developments, that they are proposing a privately owned public space pops at 565 right out street north. And at such time when the site plan is submitted for 550 right out street north, the park at 565 right out street north should be included as part of the site plan and part of the overall development agreement process. And I can speak to it if I have a seconder.

And the chair is already indicated. He’ll second that for you. So if you’d like to speak to it, go ahead. Sure.

So I wanted to explain my decision making process because this took a little bit of a pathway for me. I attended the planning committee meeting but I did not speak at that time. But when the application first came forward, I was not in favor of it moving forward. For me at the time, the drawbacks to the application outweigh the potential benefits.

And my primary concern being the approximately 30 units currently living on site, many whom are paying rents between $1,000 to $1,500 range, which is as we know below market rate. I was also concerned about the deficiency in green space and whether the proposal was sufficiently balancing the private development return with public benefit. Since then we have seen as on the added agenda, York developments has submitted a letter outlining additional commitments. And the work that I did with this motion was to actually include that in the motion.

So that was part of the official record and process. They’re offering relocation plans, either to a comparable unit at a similar price point, either downtown or somewhere else in the city. Some of their units, they have our between $1,000 to $1,500. So it would be able to be a lateral move.

Those units are, some of them are new, some of them are current. So there’s a lot of variety for tenants. And I called to confirm that they actually had available units and they said they had about 60 to 70 available within their large portfolio. Additionally, folks would be given $10,000 if they wanted to instead move out and move somewhere else.

For the folks who are staying and relocating, they would still get the required three months rent for leaving, which would assist within moving costs. So I also consider that to be somewhat beneficial given the cost of moving as well. They’ve committed to delivering a privately owned publicly accessible park on adjacent property. So for folks just across the street, they own a parcel of land.

And they have agreed to putting a park on that, which would be available actually to the general public. And as we know, downtown, in my opinion, does not have sufficient park space. And they’ve committed to adding some small play facilities as well as benches. And I think that this would actually be an asset to downtown because we lack park space.

And it would be provided without the need for public funds. So those two commitments have meaningfully addressed my earlier concerns about tenant displacement and green space. And while no redevelopment is without impact, these measures demonstrate an effort to mitigate them. Additionally, I’ve included in site plan direction many green measures.

Folks are familiar. I add these to a bunch of different planning applications, although not recently. So maybe getting back into the thick of it. But you can see in regards to native species, renewable sources, air sort of heat pumps, and bird friendly policies.

So additionally, I think that will improve the building composition as a whole. The remaining tension for me still is the loss of relatively affordable units, which is kind of at odds some days with our clear policy to encourage infill and intensification. And I don’t consider it to be a simple trade-off. I think we have to protect affordability wherever possible.

But at the same time, we have consistently said that growth belongs downtown. And I think if we’re serious about intensification and supporting our transit system and strengthening our downtown, infill in the downtown area, I think is where it is appropriate. I do understand that this specific parcel is allowed to go up to 15 just on the other side of the street. So just south of this property can go up to 22.

But then just south of that, on the same block of Rideout, it can go up to 45. So I understand it’s not in that 45 zone. But I think that’s why they’re coming forward for a ZBA. And I do think 30 stories is appropriate and consistent with the broader planning framework for the area.

So after outlining all of those pros and cons, and reflecting on my commitment to intensification, I think with the additional commitments and including them into the motion, I am supportive of this application overall at this point. Thank you, Councillor Frank. I have Councillor Lehman next. Thank you.

I want to thank Councillor Frank for doing the work here and improving this particular application with some unique features. First of all, addressing the concerns we heard at PEC regarding the folks that live currently in that space, which I was pleased to see. The owner responding with finding comparable spaces are better at the same rent and lease terms that they currently have, or at their option, a $10,000 payo plus the added that Councillor mentioned. I also was really interested in the concept of a private park.

I think this is a unique thing that I can’t recall seeing downtown. And it brings to mind what we see in the other London, London, England, where there is a number of these smaller privately owned parks that allow for green space in a higher density, big city. And finally, with the added for native species, et cetera, why can’t we have a properly designed development? Even though it’s tall, why do we have to lose those things?

We can have it as well as we do in other building applications. So I definitely support this. Thank you, Councillor Lehman. Looking for other speakers on the amendment.

Councillor Ferrera. Thank you, Chair. So I guess the first thing with the site plan, this would have to be across the street because there’s no room on the site as it is. Because the setbacks are minimal.

It is too big. I’ve said this again and again. For the tenant relocation part. Now, I would say codifying this, does that make a difference?

Because the proponent has already said that publicly that they will be relocating the tenants and having a plan. So if this is something to make this more digestible, I would say this is unnecessary. I would say, what do the tenants have to say? Because the tenants for relocation, they may want to stay in place.

They may have jobs in the area. It may cost more to move out further out and find other ways of transportation to those jobs. They may have kids who goes to school in the area, which they do. That will still be an impact on them.

Like if this is something that we wanted to move along and codify it, I would say push it a little bit further and not only have a relocation, but it should be a temporary relocation during a build, which I’m still not going to support the application as it is. But it should be a temporary relocation and then a replacement in the same spot. And maybe that replacement should be with some type of agreement where we would still treat those tendencies under rent control. So they would be able to stay in place and still be able to maintain that rent control of affordable housing.

And they would have that confidence in that. I would also say, we’re still going to lose affordable housing here. The demolishing of these units will lose affordable housing. If we move people from that housing into another area, into other affordable housing, not only are they going to be having to be displaced, but we’re still losing that affordable housing.

So there’s still issues here. And again, what do the tenants have to say? I would just wonder if there is some issues or concerns whether the proponent’s going to follow through with what they said publicly by codifying this. And I would just think that this is not a necessary thing.

I will speak to the application when it comes up, I guess I’m as amended. I’m not going to not support this, of course, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s necessary. I would say the site plan has to be across the street. The building is just too big, there’s no room.

There’s no room for anything when it comes to native species, no invasive species plants that I appreciate that, but we just don’t have the room there. And I would say, again, what do the tenants have to say? Because at the same time, no matter what, if we support this application, we are going to lose the affordable housing. It should be a temporary relocation and a replacement in the same spot.

That would be better, I think. Any other speakers on the amendment? Councillor Trossow. Question on the amendment.

Could the site plan authority be requested to be changed to the site plan authority shall be directed? Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, so that’s not an option.

This is a delegated authority to the site, to the approval authority. So you can provide recommendations or request that that be considered, but the authorities with that individual, ‘cause that’s what, as per council’s direction. Councillor Trossow. So do I understand it that if I made such a motion to substitute those words, it would be out of order?

That is correct. Then I won’t take people’s time to make that motion. But I will point out, there is nothing binding here. We’re requesting the site plan authority to do something.

And even if they do it, they’re requesting the owner to do it. My next question is supposing the site plan authority agrees to engage in this process. Is there anything binding in this resolution regarding the owner’s obligation to follow through on the promises that were made? Legally binding.

Mr. Mathers. Through the deputy mayor, as far as the site plan approval components here, there isn’t anything that’s necessarily legally binding. The site plan approval portion is just the C part.

So those are the items related to site plan approval authority. And then that additional section, it would just really be based on the comments made by the developer at the time and through that letter. But there isn’t anything that we can do from a planning process and a planning act perspective to actually enforce that or force those things to happen. Thank you.

And sorry, Councillor Trossow, just before I go back to you there, Mr. Mathers, I’m just gonna ask you on follow up to further expand on your answer. That direction was lost when bonusing was removed by the province. Is that accurate?

Just asking you to confirm there used to be unability, but that was removed. Through the deputy mayor, absolutely. There used to be an ability to be able to provide and compel affordable units, but that has been removed from some changes in provincial legislation, thanks. Councillor.

Thank you. I’ll save my diet tribe about how the province that are real injustice to municipalities by taking that bonusing away, ‘cause I’d probably be out of order, so I won’t say that. Okay, here I am with us. I’m gonna vote no on this project, ‘cause there’s nothing in these nice things.

These non-obligatory nice things that are binding. These are things that should have been brought forward before, but maybe we didn’t even have the authority to do it. For me, this points to a lot of deficiencies, not only in provincial law, but in the city’s demolition control by law and other things that are beyond this motion, so I won’t go into detail on. However, I’m gonna support the amendment, but I’m gonna support it really reluctantly, ‘cause I don’t really think that it provides the level of protection, that not only the tenants in this building, but the neighbors and the city, and the city’s process deserves.

So I don’t wanna say it’s meaningless. That would be too harsh, but it’s not meaningful. It’s not substantially meaningful, and I will support this. I appreciate the Councillor trying to make this a little less worse than it could have been, but it’s still like worse, and I’ll save the rest of my comments for the main motion where I’ll be opposing this application.

Thank you. Well, Councillor, if it’s any consolation, rather than having to rule you out of order, I’m always happy to share diatribes of both provincial or federal concerns over a pint after a meeting, but I appreciate you restricting it in the meeting, and I’m looking for any other speakers. Councillor ramen. Thank you and through you in a similar vein, I guess.

I just wanted to ask about the it being further noted part where it connects to site plans, whether or not or how that is interpreted, taken forward and addressed. Mr. Mathers or Ms. McNeely on the it being further noted?

Through the Deputy Mayor. So we, of course, take that into consideration as it’s part of a Council resolution and that we want to try to honor the requirements that then set forth. We would really be relying on the applicant to pursue some of these that this park IDM, this item, so we would help them, of course, through that process, help them through that process, but again, there’s no way for us to compel that, but we would work with them on that option. And I’m just wondering before you sit down, Mr.

Mathers, if in terms of the implementation piece, it would be the registering of a public easement over private lands for the establishment of such park land, is that correct? Through the Deputy Mayor. So there might be a few different aspects, but that would be one for sure. Councilor Rowan.

Thank you and through you. So I’m sorry, just in the last part of that, where you said that there was an easement portion. So can I get more clarification on that, please? Ms.

McNeely or Mr. Mathers, whichever one of you wants to take that one. Thank you, through the Deputy Mayor. Yes, that’s correct, there would be reciprocal agreements and easements over both the 550 Rideout Street, as well as the 565 Rideout Street.

Those would be elaborated on through the development agreement, but that would ultimately be registered on title. So then we have to get to that process. And so there may be the liability on the owner, the property owner to take on for insurance and things like that for the public entering onto the property, but that’s not the city’s responsibility. It would remain with the land owner.

Councilor Rowan. Thank you and through you. So I wanna say first, I appreciate the work done by the Councilor on this. And I understand the rationale for what’s in front of us.

My challenge is that I don’t believe that we have the tools available to enforce D, nor do I feel that we have enough of an ability to really enforce the it being noted either. With respect to the easement portion of the discussion, why can’t the it being noted be a conditional clause where the site plan authority can’t grant unless these things are met. Ms. McNeely.

Thank you, through the Deputy Mayor. What’s before Council is dealing with his zoning bylaw amendment, not a site plan. So at this point, that’s why we have to focus on the zoning and it’s not a conditional zoning. There are matters for the site plan approval authority to consider, which are outlined in clause C, but the request for the private park would be a separate request, the obligation on the applicant to follow through.

Once the site plan is submitted, then we could tie those parcels together through that process. But as part of the zoning application, we don’t have that mechanism. Councilor. Thank you, and through you, so I guess my issue here is that this part, again, does not feel like it’s firm enough for us to stand on in a way that compels action.

And it sounds actually, in my opinion, rather difficult to actually construct and put together. And instead of creating opportunity for our staff to work with the developer through the site plan process, I feel like some of this may be things that overcomplicate the issue. And we’re doing that to fit a larger floor plate and a larger building in place. So I understand the rationale and I appreciate my colleagues doing this work, but for D and the if being noted, I couldn’t support either.

So I’d like those called separately. Okay, we can have the clerk separate C and D and the if being noted into two separate votes. That’s not an issue. Councilor Hopkins, I have you next.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Presiding Officer. I wanna thank the counselor for doing her due diligence, trying to make a some kind of a consensus for council to support this application. I wanna thank the developer as well for bringing forward to supporting tenant location.

But we have absolutely no tools through the site plan process to make sure that this goes forward. So I’ll support the amendment. I’ll speak further on the main motion, but I feel that we’re not at council thinking this through and supporting the community as a whole and up policies. We’re just sort of doing this with no follow up, no community participation through this process, which will, this goes forward drastically change this area.

So I’ll support the amendment and I’ll speak further to the motion. Thank you, Councilor Hopkins. I’m Mayor Morgan next on the list. I am, however, going to just caution counselors now that there has been a public process through the public participation meeting at the planning and environment committee.

So I wanna reflect that we have followed the legally required public participation process under the Planning Act to the Province on Ontario. Mayor Morgan, you are next. Yes, thank you, Chair, and not only have we done that, I believe the application has been strengthened through that public process based on the concerns raised. The work that Councilor Frank has done and the proposed amendments before us today.

Listen, I’m happy to join you when you wanna talk about Section 37 Bonusing, but it doesn’t exist anymore. And so, what alternatives do we have? We have the alternatives like the one that’s before us and is it perfect and is it 100% binding? No, it’s not, but we have, it is a letter on the agenda that says we’re willing to do these things.

It’s very clear and transparent at a public meeting what they’re offering to do. I’m sure the applicant and their staff are watching this meeting and seeing what Council’s expectations are, and they bring a lot of applications through Council. So, if we don’t have the legislative tools to enforce, that doesn’t stop us from working with an applicant to get some community trade-offs for increased heightened density through the process that Councilor Frank has pursued. And I think that that is fair for us to try.

It won’t be binding, but it is the best we can do in the interim. So I’m gonna support the amendments. I think that the work is good. I think the changes are great.

And I think it makes the application better. So that’s where I’ll be voting jail to support the amendment and because the amendment will support the application as well, we’ll get to that debate. Thank you, Mayor Morgan. Any other speakers on the amendment before we call the vote?

And we will call it separately per Councilor Raman’s request. We will deal with clause C and the four bullets under that before we move to clause D and the it being further noted. Seeing no other speakers. This is not a public participation meeting.

This is a Council meeting. So I’m going to have to ask you to please take your seat back. It’s not a public participation meeting. The ma’am, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave if you can’t remain quiet.

I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote, please. This is on clause C. Close in the vote. Motion carries 15 to zero.

Okay, now on clause D from Councillor Frank and Councillor Layman. This is the D, the relocation plan and the it being noted on the parkland. That’s the clerk to open the vote. Close in the vote, motion carries 14 to one.

Okay, so the main motion as amended. Councillor Layman, you move the original motion. You’re happy to remain on as the mover. Councillor Frank, are you willing to second?

Okay, so we have Layman and Frank on the main motion now as amended. And I’ll look for speakers. So for Rara. Thank you.

So as was said, that amendment’s not binding. It does point to deficiencies. It is some good PR, but it’s not enough to carry a vote here. I don’t see how this changes anything.

Obviously I’m going to support it. Okay, I’m not going to say it’s meaningless, but it’s not meaningful enough. And I did hear some points about across the street at Ken Street. It’s 22 stories, that’s correct.

It’s on the periphery of the downtown place type. In the core, the TSA five zone, that’s 45, but that’s a TSA four. Can I go to Miss McNeely and just confirm that? What is the height limit across the street of Ken?

Miss McNeely. Thank you through the deputy mayor under the TSA four zone, directly across the street, it’s 22 stories. Council for Rara. Thank you, 22 stories.

This is 30 plus one. I did hear from the move on the last amendment that on the other side of Rida, it was 45 stories. What’s the height limit of that area? Miss McNeely.

Sorry, could you, through the deputy mayor, could you repeat the question? Councilor. Don’t count that towards my time, please. What’s the height limit on the other side of Rida?

Miss McNeely. Through the deputy mayor, it’s a varying height from the existing zoning today of four stories up to about 12 stories. Councilor for Rara. Okay, I gotta clarify that on the record.

It’s not 45. Councilor Frank. Thank you. I said just further south along Rida is 45 stories.

Not on the other side of Rida. Thank you, Councilor Frank. That’s technically a point of personal privilege to clarify your remarks, not a point of order, but recognize Councilor for Rara, go ahead. Appreciate that clarification.

That just goes to my point, because we’re on the periphery of the downtown place type. So now we’re gonna have zoning where we did all this work on how the intensity and height should be, and it’s supposed to go down, and then we’re gonna have one big tower, and then it’s gonna continue to go down. It doesn’t fit within our planning policies. I would also say, I wish I saw something like this for the chemistry departments, ‘cause there was 11 households displaced there, I heard nothing.

The city and the people of London want us to listen to them. They wanna know that their council is fighting for them, that their council is holding to their word when it comes to saving support or affordable housing, when it comes to making sure that the city is affordable, when it comes to good planning, when it comes to good governance, and when it comes to making decisions that are within the public interest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a planning report, maybe I’m wrong, say that the proposal, as it is, does not constitute good planning. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a planning document, a planning report, say that the proposal, as it is, is not in the public interest.

So, I’m just wondering, this, what we see here, the amendment, doesn’t change anything. The proponent has already said that they’re gonna do this, and I hear that this is enough to sway us towards supporting the proposal as it is. I don’t understand, I don’t hear anything. I don’t hear anyone saying we need to speak to the tenants, or we need to speak with staff.

Staff did give us a pathway to approval. We’re not talking about that. We’re just talking about supporting a building that is way too big for the site that is there. We see a report that says it’s gonna push services out to the public space.

We see the report also saying that it is not gonna be conducive to the walkability. Not using the words specifically, but it alludes to that. It does say things about how the frontage is going to be. If it’s friendly to people walking along on the space, it’s just completely out of proportion for the area.

And these amendments aren’t enough to push us into supporting this. We should go back to the proponent and say, we have a concern of a loss of affordable housing, a real concern. And if we don’t wanna see that loss of affordable housing and we’re trying to find a way of compromise, we should say temporary relocation. If you have to demolish the building, bring those people back to the building.

Bring those people back to the site and make sure that they’re still within a rent controlled agreement and framework so they don’t have to worry. Because in that case, we’re still gonna lose the affordable housing, but at least we’re not taking over other affordable housing elsewhere. And in that case, we’re not moving people away from where they live. Like this is about where people live.

This is about people’s homes. This is about their livelihoods. And I think Council Trusso said to this, there’s a real human cost here. And I don’t see that being discussed enough.

So I really would like to see us really use our staff’s expertise, really use what is said in the report and take that direction. 30 seconds, Councilor. So I would say the city of London and the people are not gonna accept this amendment as a reason to support this application. It’s not binding.

It’s already been said it’s gonna be done. And we’re not pushing hard enough. We’re not fighting hard enough for London. So that’s what I would say to you.

Don’t support this application. Thank you, Councilor Ferrer, looking for any other speakers. Councilor Trusso. Well, thank you very much.

This will be my last word on this matter. It’ll be the last time we look at this. I guess I have a question for staff. And I wanna go back to your original staff recommendation.

If we adopted your original staff recommendation, and that was challenged at the tribunal, would we have a sustainable position or is the original staff recommendation a frivolous position that will be struck down in your view? And I know I’m asking you for somewhat of an opinion here in terms of what’s likely to happen. But do you think your staff recommendation is viable and sustainable at the level of an appeal? So I’m not going to ask staff to speculate on what they feel they could or could not achieve at the Ontario land tribunal.

We do not have staff here to engage in a position on debate with us or to answer speculative questions. You will have to make that judgment yourself, Councillor, based on the knowledge you have. In that case, my next question is to direct the same question from a legal point of view to the city solicitor. And if you wanna go into closed session to talk about whether you think the staff recommendation would be viable on appeal, I think it’s something that we need to hear.

‘Cause I don’t think the staff would put forward a recommendation that is reckless and not viable. I will go to Ms. Pollett to see if she wants to provide any public response to OLT processes. Thank you, and through the chair, staff put forward recommendations using their best professional opinions.

What the OLT does with any individual appeal depends on a number of factors. It’s quite speculative, and I really couldn’t predict with any certainty. Councillor. Could this matter go to the OLT?

How would the city deal with? Well, no, Councillor, let me just go on to say, I really want to impress the public and my colleagues with the fact that underneath all of this, this is a bad planning application, and it should be rejected. Not only that, city staff has given them a path to approval, and we’re not there right now, but what was the purpose? And I asked this every time.

What was the purpose of going through this extensive planning process? If we say, well, if it was across the street, it would be different. Boundaries are boundaries. I can’t show up on Election Day in Ward 3, and say, well, I live in Ward 4, but I’d really like to vote in Ward 3, and I’m just across the street, so why don’t you just, let me make that change.

I think boundaries are important, and they’re part of the law, in terms of what’s in our official plan, that went through extensive process, and was approved by the province. So I’m urging people to vote no on this application, and again, I appreciate the Councillor trying to make this a little easier to go down, a little easier to take, a little, and I will say this, a little less horrible, but not a lot, and I say that with respect to the Councillor. There’s nothing enforceable here. There’s nothing that’s going to protect the tenants.

I also want to point out in the added, we have a letter from Borden, Ladner, and Gorese, which I think raises some very excellent legal points. I’m sure all the Councillors have read that and considered it, and that law firm also included a very extensive planning report from Ramsey Planning, which I also think I would have preferred to have seen that earlier in the process, but it’s here, so on our record. And I guess the question I have is, how can we support this Floyd by the words of our staff? Recommendation, and look our residents in the eye, and say, you know, when we hold public participation, when we do get involved in public participation sessions, and we ask you to come out and get involved in these long processes, at some point, people are gonna just look us back and say, because whatever we tell you, you’re just going to ignore later, when a developer comes to you and says, nah, let’s just do this anyway, even though it’s not in keeping, even though it’s not in keeping with our policies, and I really wish I could pull back the curtain and see what was going on, and I’m not making any in situations here, but how did we get to the point of having this plan adopted, having a staff report say no, and having this planning committee, and apparently from what I’m hearing today, the council, say yes, how did we get from one point to another?

It raises serious questions, so in any event, I’ll be absolutely opposing this. 30 seconds, councilor. And I hope that there are people who have standing, who will be able to take this matter up on appeal. I wonder how the city is going to conduct itself at that appeal when you’ve got our staff sort of in line with who the opponents would be if you pass this, and I won’t get into the question of standing at that hearing right now, that hasn’t happened yet, but please vote no on this application.

Thank you very much. Thank you, councilor, I have councilor Frank, and then I have myself next. When I do that, I’ll ask councilor McAllister to take the chair, since you’re the newest chair of a committee, as of a few, well, a couple of items ago, I’ll ask you to take the chair when that time comes, but I’ll go to councilor Frank first. Thank you, yes, I just want to start with a question through you, staff.

So at this location, the developer could do 15 stories as of right and kick out all the tenants and demolish it. I just want to confirm that that’s possible within our framework. Ms. McNealy.

Thank you. Through the deputy mayor, they could build 14 stories with the high density residential overlay from the 1989 official plan. Councilor. Thank you, and to confirm then also, there’s no additional requirement for a tenant relocation if they are going with, like in this suggested amendment, there is a process and a pathway for that.

I’m just wondering if they’re able to do the 14 story one, there is no mechanism for us to enforce that. Ms. McNealy. Through the deputy mayor, under the planning act process, there is none, but the applicant would be obligated to follow the tenancy act.

Councilor Frank. Thank you, yes, I just wanted to point that out that in this case, I think actually it is better that we have on written record and codified into this language and I understand fellow councilors’ perspectives the inability to further enforce it. I share the same worries. I at first tried to make it a holding provision and then tried to put stuff into the site plan authority and tried to put stuff wherever I could where there was some sort of staff jurisdiction and oversight.

And it being that this having it in the motion and having approved by council in the motion, at least that is a point and a reference point that staff can point back to when they’re discussing the site plan in the next steps with the developer and that if there is staff turnover or if this parcel gets sold, it will carry on with the approval at the motion level. So this was the most I could do and really the least I could do to get it into some sort of formal arrangement. That being said, I do again recognize the concerns that councilors have. And in that vein, I think it is a struggle for us because we see more and more of these info projects.

This isn’t the first one where we’ve seen the potential for displacements of tenants. And in fact, at 145 baseline in my ward, we did add some additional conditions that required the landlord to put in some relocation programming. So this is actually the second one I’ve seen that we’re trying to make do with what we can given the limitations that the province has provided us. One of the things I do hope to move forward on and I think that will actually help all of us and codify this is a tenant relocation assistance program.

And I think that’s something that potentially we could have a discussion about having an actual policy in place that we would have to follow and developers would have to follow. We do not have that here right now. Other cities in Ontario do. And I think that this demonstrates to me that we should.

All of that to say, I think that we know that the developer at this point could move forward with an application that’s 14 stories at this location and have no further responsibility to provide for extra green space or for tenant relocation. So I prefer to approve something that carries both of those. And again, I do, I personally, again, this is my personal perspective. I do not mind 30 stories at this location.

It is literally 30 second walk from somewhere that could be 45 stories. And I do not see that to be, again, in my opinion, a significant jump when it is so close to being within the infill catchment for 45 stories. Thank you, Councillor Frank. Councillor McAllister, can you take the chair please?

Okay, recognizing that I have the chair, go ahead, Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Councillor McAllister. As a presiding officer, appreciate you over seeing this while I speak. Just wanna share a few points.

First of all, thank you, Councillor Frank, for doing the work. I had mentioned at committee that there were a couple things that I wanted to see technically adjusted beforehand. And you beat me to the work. You already had it underway by the time I got around to it.

So you saved me some time. And this is not the first time you and I have been supportive of things like the native species planting and the bird-friendly window compliance. So happy to support you on that in the amendment and see it in the main motion. I also agree quite substantively with everything that Councillor Frank has articulated here.

There could absolutely be a 14 story and likely an 18 story with no accommodation, with no requirement or with no request for a public ease of mental or private park to create some extra green space downtown with none of that. And I know from talking to alternate builders in our city, just to get a different opinion, that when you’re talking about a floor plate, the floor plate size between an 18 and a 30 really doesn’t change. It’s pretty standard. There might be some additional shoring pieces, but in terms of the dimensions, when you’re going high, the laws of physics sort of take over and you need a certain base to do that.

I also appreciate that we’re actually losing a surface parking lot to create some green space. That’s actually a nice little bonus from the perspective. But I’ve heard a lot of talk about the policy and done a look back even in the past year. Every single member of this horseshoe has at one time or another voted against a staff recommended planning application or voted for a staff refusal for approval of something the staff had recommended refused on.

Every single one of us, all 15 of us have voted against a policy at one point or another during our term with council and I can get to most of us within the last 12 months because we have neighborhood pressures, because people feel differently about things. There’s nothing wrong with that. But when we’re voting against these things, we have to keep in mind that people are going to bring different perspectives and the policies are there to provide guidelines. They are there to help with good planning, but there are times when staff have said that this doesn’t represent good planning and we have still gone ahead and done it.

I know we have because I myself have moved an amendment on another application that said the same thing and Miss McNeely said yes, that’s our recommendation, but not withstanding. If this is what you want to do, councilor, then this is the path that you take to do that. And so when we look at these things, all of us as council get to bring our ideas and opinions to the table, but the policies are there to provide guidelines for planning. They’re there to make sure that things like sanitary and storm sewer servicing is adequate, things like that.

That’s where to me, those weren’t issues that were raised. Servicing’s not an issue. I agree with councilor Frank, the downtown core of our city. That’s where we want to see the heightened density.

And so I’m going to be supportive of this application as I was at committee. I’m more supportive of it now because of the work councilor Frank’s done. I want to thank her for that. Again, I know I’ve done that already, but I want to thank her for that again.

I also think that we need to keep in mind when we talk about affordable housing. This isn’t a building right now, the current one, that has any sort of public subsidy, 20 year, 25 year, 50 year AMR agreement in place. When we’re talking about this type of affordable, we’re talking about a building that is subject to the maximum manual increases under provincial rent controls. That does not in and of itself make it the same as an RGI unit at LMCH or high supportive unit or 70% of AMR.

It’s just a preexisting condition. When we talk about affordable housing, there’s actually a whole gamut of things that constitute affordable housing in our community. And so for me, I think we need to be careful when we’re talking about affordable housing to focus on our municipal housing and our partnerships with our not-for-profits and our social housing providers, which we absolutely need more of. I think that’s one thing we all agree on, but that’s not something that the private sector provides.

So I know I’m almost out of time. I’m going to finish it there. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Yeah, you have 15 seconds left and we’ll return the chair to you.

No speakers on the list, go ahead. Oh, Councillor Palosa, go ahead. Okay, I’ve got Councillor Palosa and then Mayor Morgan. Councillor Palosa.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just through you to staff realizing it’s been different conversations and the media and appreciate the staff report and the close proximity to transit that’s already nearby and to higher zoning. Is there any concerns with this property for emergency vehicles being able to access it at the increased density?

If they’re able to speak at this time to that. Would that be Mr. Alata sewer or Ms. Share?

Mr. Alata sewer? Mr. May, there’s put his hand up.

I’ll go to whichever one of you wants to take the first crack and then you can pass it to the other one. How about that? Mr. May, why don’t you start?

Through the chair. So we would ensure as part of the site plan process that anything that is brought forward that to be able to get that approval that it meets any kind of requirements from London Fire or other service providers. So we would ensure that that’s the case. We wouldn’t approve a site plan that is inherently unsafe.

Councillor Palosa. Thank you. I know that’s part of the conversation as we move through different spaces and things go off to site plan to make sure that those provisions were accounted for. I know back in the day a developer took the opportunity to explain to me that kind of once the base of a building is done, it gets to a certain height and you just keep going up that the foundation is the foundation and supports much more on top.

I also appreciate their willingness to work with the tenant relocation. I had a project on Southdale that went a little bit, maybe not so much as easily that way. And making sure that the housing stock is available is important at this time leading towards it, recognizing some of these concerns regarding accessible vehicles, emergency services, waste disposal will be dealt with during site plan and it might just be garbage because we picked up twice a week instead of once. And I know that site plan would take care of those and that would be out of our jurisdiction.

And some of the bonus thing that I did enjoy in the past is currently removed from our purview. I do miss it, I thought it was very impactful and interested in the green space adding some things to downtown as well as we know that vibrancy needs to be there. Thank you, Councillor Ploza, Mayor Morgan. Yes, thank you.

And I appreciate the comments of my colleagues and I also appreciate the perspectives of those who are looking to try to balance things. Here’s the challenging piece that we have, like we face this across the city in multiple different ways. In this case, it’s residential intensification in, you know, generally the downtown and core area. We face intensification along rapid transit lines.

We’ve even expropriated lands along rapid transit lines and use those for municipal purposes in those cases. You know, what we’re trying to do in the downtown area though is create some density and I still support that. And if we have the ability of having a builder in the area who says I want to build 30 stories in close proximity to where businesses can be supported, where there’s walkability, where there’s transit, you know, that’s going to strengthen our downtown and core area. That 30 floors of people are going to shop at local businesses, eat at local restaurants, utilize municipal facilities, create feet on the street and create a vibrancy and safety in the core.

At the same time, you know, we recognize that affordable units are important. We have just down the street from city hall an office of residential conversion. We’re converting office into residential units of which a good portion of those are a meaningful portion of those are in the affordable category. And we have to continue to do that work and everything has to work in balance with each other.

So, you know, I think this is certainly a difficult one, but I go back to what I said on the amendment. You know, I think, you know, Council Frank has made some good adjustments here. And I agree with her comments wholeheartedly that there are as of right permissions that displace tenants and they get not much of anything for it and you don’t get the other additions that are being added in here. And so, you know, I like the commitments that are being made.

We give a little bit more density. It feels a little bit like the bonusing process we used to have. And I think that that was an advantage to the city we created. We created a lot of units across the city through that.

We got a lot of public trade-offs for it. So, I’m going to support this. It’s hard for me to say no to increase intensity in the downtown area. This is the kind of things that, you know, my mayoral colleagues in other cities would say yes to in a second if they had that opportunity to build that sort of density in their downtown course to support that revitalization of those areas.

So, I’m going to be a yes on this one. Thank you, Mayor Morgan. I have Councillor Lehman next. Thank you, Chair.

I first want to say thank you for the debate and viewpoints expressed by all of us around the horse. You know, we’re not always going to agree. And I think that’s very important between the 15 of us. We’ll somehow, the more often not, the right decision will bubble to the top.

So, I want to give my viewpoint. And I’ll say this, I believe strongly in our downtown. And I also believe the key to a vibrant downtown is the high density of people living in the downtown. If you look at cities with successful downtowns, the commonality, you’ll see high density population living there.

But with that comes high buildings for those folks living as expansion space is not available. We spoke a bit tonight, we’ve turned today, we’ve touched on different policies, et cetera. I think if you look at the London Plan’s base is up and in. High density in the core mitigates urban sprawl, traffic congestion, as we’re not seeing people having to travel to and from work using upper road space.

And as I mentioned, a vibrant downtown. With thousands living downtown that can walk to the work, entertainment, restaurants, parks, Dundas place, and all the events that are held there. When you have people living downtown, business will follow the people that are living downtown. And those businesses will create more attraction for people coming downtown, which creates that vibrancy.

It’s also important for our downtown employers as parking becomes more expensive. Our downtown players are more concerned with the cost of their employees. So I think having high density downtown offers a lifestyle to those that wish to work downtown, be able to walk to work, and then to be able to walk to all the other amenities. I’d like to speak more specifically to this particular location.

You know, we’ve talked about boundaries and it’s across the street, few steps. But to bring things into perspective, this is a block and a half from Richmond Street. It’s a transit corridor. It’s a block away from a 40-story apartment building and two 29-story apartment buildings.

It’s Kitty Quarter from a tall office tower at another apartment building. It’s a five-minute walk to Canada Life. It’s a seven-minute walk to the Grand Theatre. I think this is the type of downtown and residential space that the London Plan spoke to and that I believe strongly that will make our downtown a vibrant place.

I’ve supported all housing in the downtown area, regardless of where it’s been in the core, old East, along York Street, Hamilton Road. Because of that belief that the more people we have living downtown will create a better downtown. And that’s why I support this particular application and I encourage those at council to support as well for that reason, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Lehman.

We’ll see if there’s any other speakers before we open the vote. Seeing none, then I’m gonna ask the clerk, Councilor Hopkins, sorry. I didn’t see your hand behind Councilor Lehman there. Go ahead.

No need to be sorry. I was just waiting for more councillors to give their comments and their perspectives. I wanna thank the councillors that have already done so. I’d like to just make some comments on this one from my perspective.

So first of all, I support intensification. I support the London plan, our official plan. I support development in and up. Intensification should happen in the downtown core, without a doubt.

I support true affordable housing. I think we get really, really stuck though as a council and as a committee. When it comes to not understanding our policies and following through, we really get stuck. We get stuck because if we’ve approved something over here, it said yes.

And then we say no over here, we get stuck. That’s where I rely on our policies. And of course, they can be flexible. We get them updated, we can change them.

But I rely on them to allow me to explain to residents in my ward, for instance. We have had many, many applications. Throughout the past three years in ward nine, that if you really look at those applications and if those buildings are gonna be built, they will drastically change our neighborhoods. And I see this application doing the same thing.

As much as we could try, we could request, we could plead to the developer. We can, we need to really step back and understand the consequences to the decisions. We are not the experts here. I rely on staff recommendations.

Yes, plans can be flexible, they can change. Why not 35? Why not 25? Those are the conversations I’ve had with myself.

When we as a council have approved drastic applications that will change our neighborhoods in my ward. And I’m trying to do the same thing here, supporting intensification, understanding our policies. Again, I’m not the expert. I think everything, if you go to a planning committee, everything gets approved.

Most things get approved, most refusals even get overturned. I have never, throughout my years on council, seen how much we have gotten away from our policies. And I will be the first one to say, you don’t like the policies then let’s change the policies. I agree, Councillor Frank, you know, the need to put in more programs, our tenant assistance programs, there’s a lot more work that we can be doing.

But doing this right here at council, just changing things, is not the place to do it. I don’t have confidence in us making these decisions. So I won’t be supporting it. Any other speakers?

Councillor Roman. Thank you and through you. And I just want to follow up on Councillor Hopkins’ comments. First, I want to say, I do agree with a lot of what you said, Councillor Hopkins, in my support for those things, intensification, building and seeing our downtown, revitalized and looking for opportunities to do so.

And I will say, when I evaluate a proposal, I do look to staff’s recommendation and I do take into consideration that pathway to approval that’s outlined there when a refusal comes through. And what I saw in the pathway to approval was a way to find a way forward. And I understand that that way forward may not have been in agreement with the neighbourhood. And I understand that that way forward may not have been fully supportive of what the developer had put forward as well.

But I did see that there was a balancing act there in that pathway to approval. And part of that balancing act, in my opinion, was that it outlined there that if 18 stories was contemplated, it should be contemplated with appropriate setbacks and the step backs as well as the site functionality. That was our way to move forward with this application in a way that demonstrated a compromise, in a way that demonstrated that we were able to meet the context of allowing for more development downtown, increasing intensification, but not doing so in a way that was as obstructive. And my challenge here is we had these comments about the floor plate.

And my understanding is at an 18 story, you can have a reduced floor plate. So I just wanna ask staff if they can clarify that for us. Ms. McNeely.

Thank you through the Deputy Mayor, yes, that’s correct. But in terms of the application that we were looking at, the floor plate could be the same notwithstanding the height. But with the path to approval where staff were looking at was basically a different design development altogether that would incorporate those sensitivities, the mitigative measures for the surrounding lands. Councillor.

Thank you. And through you, I’m just wondering, through pre-consultation and consultation on the application, how long would this process have taken potentially? Ms. McNeely.

Thank you through the Deputy Mayor, no consultations, no longer requirement under the Planning Act. So we have 90 days to process an application. Councillor. Thank you.

And in that 90 day conversation and in any pre-consultation that may have happened on the application, these ideas of the pathway to approval would have been discussed with the applicant. Ms. McNeely, through the Deputy Mayor, yes, that’s correct. Councillor.

Thank you and through you. So the applicant is aware that there was a pathway here to find common ground. And so when we’re talking about the fact that we have developers in our community that are willing to work with our staff, willing to work with the community to find a way forward to build something that fits within the context of our neighborhoods, that fits within the context of our downtown, that is something that our communities will benefit from and find livable. I think that within the pathway for approval, there was an aspect of that consideration here in.

One of my challenges with what’s in front of us with the 30 stories is I don’t see those additional conversations or ability to compromise. I do appreciate that, you know, other Councillors have amended what’s been brought forward to include some of those other elements. But for me, the challenge is how do we then hold ourselves to hold the developer in this case to account on these extra items? And I still think that that’s going to be a challenge.

And I think that it’s going to create even more sensitivities in the neighborhood. We have from the community, a letter from a community members legal lawyers, as well as a planning application or a planning reviewed story of this application from their perspective as residents next door. And I think that has to be considered as well because what we’re doing is we’re going to have to, in a way, rely on the community to take up the mantle on the concern if we don’t or if we move forward with what’s amended here and put on the floor. So I think for me, I’m still at the same place where I was when I heard this debated and discussed at PEC and that is, I’m supportive of the pathway to approval and would support moving forward with that, but I cannot support this application at 30 stories.

Thank you, Councilor. Any other speakers before Councilor Stevenson? Thank you, I wasn’t going to speak on this, but I would just like to say a couple of things. And that is that what any one of us feels is appropriate for our downtown or for that location is an opinion and it varies.

I mean, some have said this is 30 seconds from 45 stories. I personally think 30 stories is appropriate here and I do appreciate the attention to the tendency plans and like to see what’s come forward. When CMHC brought a development plan for 644, 646 here on street, I had calls, there were 12 to 15 people displaced there and developers often do their best to take care of people and we don’t always get involved. So I’m interested in certain developments we get involved, certain ones we don’t.

There’s been mention of a plan or policy, maybe that’s something to look at, but this does happen and it was mentioned that this could happen a different way without us being able to advocate here. So I am supportive of this and just wanting to remember that it is differences of opinion here and as was said, we’ll come to the best decision usually as a council. Councilor Preble. Thank you and I would like to thank my colleague, Councillor Frank for these amendments because when this application came forward, my actual number one concern or the biggest one, what’s gonna happen is the 30 plus individuals thing at this property.

Having said that, I knew some years ago individuals who state that these properties who are actually my customers and there were many, many, many issues at this property that they were dealt with. I don’t know what happened in the last few years if there were any upgrades or not. I really appreciated the letter that came back forward from the developer in terms of having a plan for these individuals who would be moving from these premises. I’m gonna take this from, if I look at the intensification and high density, I really think that downtown and core is the place to do it and I like to see maximizing the opportunities of developers more downtown than in some other parts of London, which actually we have and we have these application coming through where the neighborhoods are even more, I would say low density or lower grade bungalows, et cetera.

Not saying that they are not here in this area as well, but again, downtown, I don’t wanna repeat again, how many seconds it’s walk from kind of where we can go even over 40. I think with this, there will be improved and by the way, our staff said and my colleagues as well in terms of the services, how they are in place, et cetera. With the higher intensification, more people, as we can see and we will see more businesses coming in. I know there’s always requests from downtowners for a grocery store.

We keep talking about the grocery stores and we are getting close to that number, magic number for the grocery stores to be in there. Park space and we always hear from people that there’s not enough athletic and sports facilities grounds. I will believe that these are the things that will be both private and public sector that we will have to come together and deliver these amenities. So I do see certainly classes on this side.

Also see when it’s busier and we see it already. When the Dundas place or the downtown core, it’s busy and special events. The homeless individuals are not at these places. They move away because they don’t feel comfortable around this area.

The crime is down as well and we do know that because again, if the people are around, there is less crime. So I do see positives. I honestly do and I like to see the maximization for the developers downtown core area. And I will be, I’m just looking at my notes.

I think I did address all of them. Thank you and I will be supporting the application. That’s it for us. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Pribble. Any other speakers before I call the vote? Seeing none, then I’m gonna ask the clerk to. Those in the vote, motion carries 11 to four.

Thank you, colleagues. Moving on, Councilor Lehman, your next item that was pulled. Thank you. I’d like to move item 11, which is regarding, it does additional residential unit permissions.

Thank you, Councilor Raman. I believe you have an amendment or an addition. I’m not sure which is appropriate language. I know you ran it by me and the clerk.

Okay, thank you and through you. So yes, I am looking to amend and it would be to add to the existing motion, the part C and that relates to the interim control bylaw, portion that reflects the study that was part of the original motion on November 4th, 2025. So I’m happy to read that out. If you could please.

Sure. The staff report to the Planning Environment Committee dated February 18th, 2026. We received to fulfill Municipal Council’s direction on November 4th, 2025 that a land use study be undertaken in regard to appropriate restrictions for the use of ARUs within the city of London in accordance with section 38 of the Planning Act 1990 and that no further notice be given is included in the rest of the preamble below as well. Okay, and do we have a seconder for that?

I’m happy to second that. Oh, I also see, Councilor. Oh, Councilor Hopkins, are you seconding or you want us? Okay, we’ll put Councilor Hopkins as the seconder and then we’ll look for speakers, but I’ll start with you Councilor Raman so you can provide your rationale.

Thank you and through you. So I’m looking to provide my rationale on this motion. When we first introduced this ARU motion and then the interim control bylaw, the purpose of the bylaw was to basically create a pause at that time in the applications that were coming forward on this item until we had agreement on how to move forward with the ARU. So in front of the ARU motion, sorry, and what we are going to be allowing in ARUs in terms of bedroom count and as well as the gross floor area.

So once that was put in place in this motion contained, my point here is I don’t believe we need a further study. The study was really just a combination of what’s in the existing interim control bylaw language, which basically states that we needed to have a study to have the interim control bylaw. So this just kind of negates the need for that because we now have the information ready from staff with full discussion at planning already around where we should head with the ARUs. And so in front of us is the next steps in that and I don’t believe that a study is further needed to help us to make that decision.

Thank you, Councillor ramen. So I just want to be clear, you’re putting the whole thing on the floor, right? Thank you, I’m putting the whole thing and then the amount of time. Okay, so we’ll look for speakers on that.

Seeing none, oh, Councillor Layman. Yeah, just through your chair to staff. As far as process is concerned, my understanding is we did consider this, but there is some need for a public participation meeting or something along those lines before we went ahead with it. So I just want to confirm that from your perspective, this is okay to proceed.

We’ll go to Mr. Mathers. I believe the staff’s comment was that we just needed to bring back the study as part of the process, but it will get Mr. Mathers to confirm that.

Sure, absolutely. Through the deputy mayor, this is an appropriate process mechanism to be able to bring this forward and happy to procedures, Council, which is regarding that study. You’re good, Councillor? Councillor Frank and then Councillor Trussa.

Thank you, yes, I’ll be quick. Similar to at committee, I won’t be sparring this motion. I’ve had, since the interim control bylaw was in place, I’ve had three different residents reach out who were in the process of doing ARUs and now are unable to, having, despite spending lots of money and doing all the planning works and submitting different permits, they’re not able to finish the work that they’re doing because specifically the 80% gross floor area limit. We did try to change it to 90%, that was not approved at committee.

So specifically for that reason, I won’t be supportive of this. I think that we had been doing good work on ARUs. I know that there was an exceptional case that really caused the desire to make these changes. But I do think that we had been doing good work and giving flexibility to folks to be able to fit the ARUs within different complex situations and existing neighborhoods.

And I was enjoying the move towards that gentle density. I understand my colleagues’ perspectives on it, but I won’t be supporting it. Also, trust out. Thank you very much.

And I hate to admit what I’m confused, but confused, at least I’m honest. So if staff could, in a nutshell, in your own words, explain to me the difference that this amendment would bring about in terms of the actual substance of what is going to be permitted. That’s the first part of my question. The second part of my question goes more to process.

And that is, what’s the downside of holding another public participation meeting? So we’ll go to Mr. May, there’s for that. If you’ll allow Councilor, I think it might be helpful if I just said Mr.

May, there’s you in the lead up to the committee knowing that the repeal thing was coming. You did explain to me that essentially staff, the study means staff just have to go back and count all the bedrooms in the previous applications, which is a lot of manual labor. Perhaps if you can help explain that, the way you did to me, for Councilor Trust out, might actually clear up a lot of, might make things very clear, ‘cause the explanation you provided me was very helpful. I think Councilor Trust, I was asking the same sort of question I asked before.

Through the Deputy Mayor. So the change is being made here. We’ll ensure that we’re not bringing back a report with a further background study. That was a requirement of the interim control by-law.

Part of the difficulty in doing that work is actually going back in time and looking at all of the ARUs and specifically by the floor area, by the number of bedrooms. A lot of that information isn’t something that we collect in a table or as part of our systems. We have to manually go back and pull that information as you probably noted from the actual report that was submitted. It’s a fairly limited time that we selected and mostly because it was very time-intensive work to be able to do that.

The by-laws that is before you to be able to approve highlights very specific elements that are directed to staff to bring back. So if that is the direction that Council is going and you’re not looking at making further edits or further changes, then moving forward with this today and not having that background, that more further background is possible if you remove that need to have the background study. And otherwise, for public participation meetings, we’re always happy to have those meetings really very much at the direction of Council. Thank you, thank you for that through the chair.

For me, the issue with the public participation meeting is are there going to be any substantive changes anticipated in terms of what people can or can’t do in their properties with respect to ARUs? Because if the answer to that is no, I’m not going to push for another PPM, but if the answer to that is yes or even maybe, I would like to have that ability for the public to look at this again. Mr. Mathers.

Through the Deputy Mayor, so at this time that the answer would be no, there’s no further direction to take any, look at any other further changes. Of course, as part of our monitoring and work moving forward, we would consider if there was some changes in legislation bringing something back to Council for your consideration but this time we’re not, we wouldn’t be looking or actively pursuing any changes to the rules related to ARUs. Okay, perhaps I’m being overly cautious or protective of PPMs, but this sounds okay. I can support this, thank you.

Thank you. And sorry, my device timed out, so I don’t see my speaker’s list. Oh, Councilor Trussi, you were the last on my speaker’s list at the moment. Councilor Ferreira.

Thanks Chair. So to confirm, this is the expiry of the interim control bylaw and then a new bylaw, which looks like the interim control bylaw that we had before. Mr. Mathers.

Through the Deputy Mayor, yes, that’s accurate. Councilor Ferreira. Thank you. So can I just get, and I know I did, I had this conversation with staff like a month ago, but I just want to put it on the record.

Can you tell me just the distinction, the differences now with the new bylaw with respect to the near campus neighborhoods and what the differences are between the two? Ms. McNeely. Thank you through the Deputy Mayor.

It would apply city-wide with the exception of the Western near campus neighborhood. Councilor. So the near campus neighborhoods has a maximum of five bedrooms per main dwelling unit with a maximum of three additional residential units with a maximum of eight bedrooms total on the property. So if you were to have, let’s say, the full amount of three additional residential units, you’d have one bedroom breach with a maximum bait, but if you had two additional residential units, you could have two bedrooms in one and one bedroom in the other with a maximum of eight, is that correct?

Ms. McNeely. Thank you through the Deputy Mayor. Yes, that’s correct.

It would be the maximum within any configuration, within those, and I’d also like to clarify, it applies to both near campus neighborhoods, so fan shot and Western. Councilor. And the distinction between the city-wide part relative vis-a-vis to the near campus neighborhoods is that with this interim control bylaw, the main dwelling unit does not have a maximum, a bedroom, it does not have a maximum bedroom limit within the main dwelling. Ms.

McNeely. Thank you through the Deputy Mayor. Yes, that’s correct, and then the secondary units would be limited to 80% in terms of their square foot. Councilor.

Thank you, and then this is where my knowledge is gonna get a little hazy, ‘cause I know this is the new part. There’s a maximum of two ARUs. I think, how many is the maximum of ARUs now with the new bylaw, not in the near campus neighborhoods, for any property? Ms.

McNeely. So again, are you talking about bedrooms or the units, and that’s the challenge. There’s variation within, and so it’s a maximum of five, and different iterations, but maybe you could clarify for me. Councilor.

Both ARU, maximums on a property, and I guess the maximum amount of bedrooms per ARU, or the maximum amount of bedrooms per ARU, or maximum amount of bedrooms on all the ARUs total, if that’s how we do it. I’ll start with the first, the variation would be a maximum of five, and the maximum of four. Councilor. Thank you, maximum of five ARUs, or maximum of bedrooms.

Ms. McNeely. Through the deputy mayor, maximum of five bedrooms. Councilor.

Then the last one, sorry. That’s a maximum of how many ARUs? Ms. McNeely.

Through the deputy mayor, it’s a maximum of four units. Councilor. Okay, so last thing, it’s a comment, it’s not a question. So maximum of four ARUs, with maximum of five bedrooms total, within all of the ARUs, and it could be distributed in different ways, or variations within those ARUs.

Ms. McNeely. Through the deputy mayor, yes, that’s correct. Councilor Ferrer.

Thank you. Any other speakers on this? Seeing none, then I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. Just to be clear, this includes the revised by-law, and the additional by-law.

So it’s both, like Councilor Ramen has moved the whole thing, so we’re voting on everything at once. Excuse me, Chair. Yes, I just wanna, could you repeat that? Are we voting on the whole motion as a member, or are we just voting on the Councilor’s amendment?

The whole motion, when Councilor Ramen moved it, she moved the whole thing, like the repealing of the current interim by-law, the new draft by-law that came through PAC together. Go ahead. Did I not move the original PAC recommendation? Was that not the original motion?

Did, you did put the original motion on the floor, then Councilor Ramen moved an amendment to the whole thing. If you want us to call them separately, you can, but the way the clerk has it in E-Scribe, they’re just all together. So right now, the way the vote is set up, we’d vote once, prove the new draft by-law that came through PAC from staff, and we would repeal the interim control by-law at the same time, with one vote, rather than do two. And Councilor Plaza, have you joined us online yet?

Just checking. Can Councilor Palosa absent, closing the vote, motion carries 13? Thank you, colleagues. And Councilor Palosa did let us know if she was leaving, but she’s going to join remotely.

Sorry, Councilor Lehman, back to you. Thank you. I’ll move 13, which is regarding the zoning by-law amendment. Parking changes.

Thank you, so you’ve put that on the floor, and Councilor Trussau, you and I circulated an amendment, so I’ll turn to you to see if you’re willing to move the amendment. Yes, I would very much like to move the amendment. I’ll save my comments for once it’s on the floor. Is it an E-Scribe or do— It is, but can you just give us the, the X-book list, doesn’t count towards your time, can you just introduce the language?

Yes, I don’t have it in front of me on the screen, but the gist of it is, with respect to parts B and C, not A, not D, just B and C. The New York campus neighborhood, the University of Western Ontario, only portion of the New York campus neighborhood, is excluded from the amendments in B and C, with respect to the driveway changes. Thank you, Councilor Trussau, and I had indicated to you that I would second that, so that’s been moved and seconded, and is now on the floor for debate. Councilor Cuddy.

Thank you, Sharon, for you. I’d like to thank Councilor Trussau for bringing this motion for the amendment forward. I think it makes a lot of sense, and what I mean by that is, it makes more sense for it to be applied for this motion to be applied in the East End, close to the Fanshawe, where we have more land available, more driveways and so on. But to your point, Councilor Trussau, in your area, around Western, you have limitations.

And I think this is a perfectly good motion, and I’m happy to support it. Thank you. Any other speakers? Councilor Ferrera?

Thank you. So the Western New York campus neighborhood is a big portion of my ward as well. And like this motion, looking at this, I am gonna support it, and I’m gonna support it for the reason that it is gonna preserve the frontages of the properties there, because I fear with the main motion, which I’m not gonna support, but I’ll speak to that a little bit more in that motion, is that we didn’t actually have a proper report coming back. We were kind of blanket slating this application city-wide, and I fear that in the future, especially when we started kind of trying to track up to our mode share targets, especially when I hope that we see a public transit system that is able to accommodate, especially in these areas.

If we have private residences kind of changing the widths of the lots of their driveways on their front lawn, we can’t change back. We can’t change that back. There’s a cost, there’s an individual personal private cost on that. So this motion, as I see it, does preserve the status quo within those near campus neighborhoods, and I do believe in the future we won’t need this.

I do believe in the future we will have a transit system that actually does support individuals who wanna take public transit in a way that’s reliable for them. So I don’t wanna try to get too much into the main motion, but with this, I see as a preservation of the status quo. I do have concerns because on the end of it all, we don’t have the ability to actually see what type of tenants are placed in the near campus neighborhoods, and I did speak to Council Trust so vocalist, but I see why you’d wanna do this. And I say on the end of it all, especially with respect to the public transit system as it is right now, there are a lot of students who come in, and they do still bring their cars, and those cars still park on the neighborhood roads.

And there’s a lot of issues with that. Like I live in a near campus neighborhood, and I see these issues every single day, and I see cars parked on the road every single day at nighttime getting parking infractions. So I guess there’s a source of revenue there, but still it is an issue when it comes to the neighborhood. Sometimes I can’t even get to my place without knocking on doors to get someone to come out and move their car because it’s literally blocking the way.

The route is just not big enough to get there. So I do have that concern, but at the same time, I do believe, and I have faith in the future, that we are gonna be making some real tangible moves towards a public transit system that won’t necessarily need to have this in the first place. So we are preserving the status quo within the near campus neighborhoods because of that. I just fear, when it comes to the citywide applicability of this, we will be reducing those frontages, and I have real concerns when it comes to the storm runoffs and the, you know, the percolation of water being able to infiltrate into those front lawns.

We already have lots of pavement as it is, and we are now reducing even more permutation of water when it comes into just the, when it comes to raining alone. So I have fears with that. That’s why I’m not gonna be sporting the main motion. Maybe I spoke to it just a little bit too much, but I am gonna sport this because it does preserve that status quo.

I fear the rest of the city will be irreversible in a lot of respects, but this side, we are protecting those areas for that. And I do have faith in the future that we’ll have a transit system that eventually you won’t need to have this. So I’ll keep it up. Thank you, Councilor, anyone else on the amendment?

Sorry, Councilor Robin. Thank you and through you. So I was not consulted on the amendment, but I do have near campus neighborhood for Western University in my ward. And so I won’t be supporting the amendment because now I feel like I’m going to get back a bylaw that has two sets of different operations that perhaps wouldn’t necessarily address the concerns of residents I’ve heard from that are in the near campus neighborhood portion of the ward.

So at this time, I’m not prepared to support it. Thank you, Councilor. Any other speakers before we call the vote? Seeing none, and I will ask the clerk to open the vote on the amendment.

Opposed in the vote, motion carries 11 to three. So we now have a main motion as amended, looking to see if somebody wants to move and second that, just so that it’s on the floor, Councilor Cuddy. Councilor Layman, you’d put the committee recommendation on the floor, are you okay still doing that? Okay, so we’ve Cuddy and Layman on that one.

Okay, so the main motion as amended. Now, I’ll look for other speakers. Councilor Frank, did you, you had suggested you might be moving an amendment, so I’m going to go to you next, ‘cause I’d like to deal with amendments before we deal with main motions as amended. Yes, yes, thank you for the reminder.

So I circulated, did we circulate? Yes, we did circulated two amendments, mostly in reference to some of the communication we got. Would you like me to read it before I get going too far? Yes, please.

Okay, that the motion be amended by adding a new part E and F to read as follows, E to map the relative availability of on-street parking in different parts of the city and evaluate on-street parking capacity to determine if on-street parking can be absorbed in areas, F to explore best practices for spatially differentiated policies and report back about options, including but not limited to policies that can link any minimum parking requirements for larger high density developments to site specific characteristics, such as the proximity of public transit, the zoning designation of the site and availability of on-street parking. And I will speak to it if I have a seconder. Is there a seconder? Councillor Ferrero, Councillor Frank.

Thank you, yes, so generally, and folks probably already know this, I’m not very supportive of moving from 0.5 spaces per unit to one space per unit. I think that the right direction that we’ve been moving in is trying to encourage folks to live in more compact, transit supportive, walkable neighborhoods. And I think that increasing parking and forcing higher investment from developers into parking infrastructure, which we know is quite costly, I don’t think that is necessarily in the right direction. I think it further entrenches car dependency when we’re trying to give people viable alternatives.

And parking minimums quite rightly by definition, I think is market interference, which I know we’ve talked a lot about this council, how we don’t like to stack the deck in any direction for any mode share. But it requires that developers build fixed number of spaces, regardless of whether or not the future residents will actually want to use them or need them. And structured parking, as we know, is very expensive. So the further you go underground, the more expensive the parking spots are per parking spot.

And they’re embedded in the price of the rent or ownership. So we know that folks who potentially don’t even own a car, they are subsidizing folks that are using them if you’re forcing there to be more parking spots that are actually necessary. And I think that if the market believes that one spot per unit is necessary, developers will build it. And again, I’ve heard this discussion at council before in the past.

So that all being said, I would like to have more information, ‘cause I’m not totally convinced, and I haven’t actually seen very compelling evidence that we have a parking shortage. And so the two motions, the amendments would actually provide more information for us to understand if there are certain areas where there are hundreds of cars parked on the street versus there are some areas where potentially there are none. And I’m speaking from my perspective, but I actually don’t mind cars parking on the street. I know some folks don’t, but I think one, it reduces the width of the street.

So it actually forces people to drive slower because the streets look a little bit smaller. We’ve already paved and paved for all of that asphalt that just sits there, essentially wasted when people aren’t using it as a parking space. And we are actually able to collect revenue from people parking on streets. So we know that there’s a certain number of free parking on streets overnight, but eventually they start having to pay to park overnight.

So again, I’m actually okay with on-street parking. That being said, I would like to understand from staff where in the city, there’s potentially some empty areas for on-street parking to happen and where there is not, and actually make a case-by-case deliberation on that. And I know that included in the motion was a request for them to come back and provide some of that data, but I would like to see it in a map format so I can feel I understand what we’re committing to. And I appreciate that this is a future report back.

So that is explanation of the amendments. Thank you, Councillor Frank. Any other speakers on the amendment? Councillor Ferrer.

Thank you. So I’m supporting this because this is kind of what I was asking for, so I appreciate the work on that. I understand Councillor says that she is okay with on-street parking, but it doesn’t apply. You can’t just have a blanket slate city-wide.

Like at the end of my street, it’s a dead-end street. And more often than not, cars park right at the dead-end in the street, like as though it’s a parking lot. And I do call city staff to come out and you guys are great, you come out real fast when that happens. But when you have one person park that way, you have another person park that way immediately after and then another one, and then another one.

And it literally is like, you know, an effect where people are just following suit ‘cause they think it’s okay. So I do think that there’s definitely areas. I know that there’s definitely areas that just doesn’t apply. And I think that the report back and just a little bit more of a review and an analysis here would kind of help us differentiate between those areas that would be more sufficient for capacity in areas that just don’t work.

I also see the part about how it’s such a proximity to public transit. And I do think that if we do have a report back, we will get information that shows that, you know, a lot of these issues when it comes to parking is because, you know, public transit may not be necessarily sufficient in that area. And I’m hoping that this report back will speak to that. And this report back will kind of help us in our decision making in the future.

So we actually have more data and more information on how much more of a benefit it is when we start really trying to expand the capacity of public transit. So those would be the two things that I’d really point at, but I think this is really good because I’m just not comfortable of making like a full, you know, blanket slate, let’s do this direction with no real information on that, especially considering a lot of things have changed since we’ve had this last as a policy in the city. And especially considering we have those mode share targets that we just set, I don’t know, a year ago or something like that. So I’m supportive of this.

I hope that council supports this as well. Yes, I suppose I asked you but I should hand it to you. Councilor Raman, can you take the chair please? Yes, thank you.

Chair, go ahead. Thank you. So through you, Madam Presiding Officer, I am not inclined to support these two additional amendments for a couple of reasons. I hear a lot of justification that well, we need to see if on-street parking can absorb.

Through you, I’d like to ask staff, not counting where they’re parking meters. When we’re talking about residential on-street parking out in subdivisions, how does staff even envision measuring absorption capacity with the staffing resources you have? Thank you, I’ll go to Mr. Mathers.

Through the Presiding Officer, that would be an intense activity of just mapping throughout the city, it’s fairly broad, but it’s very broad when it’s suggested here. So it would be us going through systematically street by street just assessing where there’s parking available. And then coming up with some other kind of a strategy that would be something, yes, we would highlight in a report, but it would be very time and staff intensive effort. Deputy Mayor.

And through you, Madam Presiding Officer, with that method, not just be staff and time intensive, but would it really be something that would require, realistically, on all four seasons evaluation, noting different changes through school years, noting different changes of guest patterns and things, because ultimately on-street parking is meant not to accommodate residents living there full time, but is actually meant to accommodate things like guest parking when you have visitors, delivery parking, perhaps. And so time of day and seasonal changes would actually be something that you would have to evaluate through that process, would it not? Mr. Mathers?

Through the Presiding Officer, yeah, it would be a multifaceted element, that would be looking at that, because holiday related parking would be times of year that would be ups and downs and springs of parking, ‘cause we’d have to come up with some kind of a strategy to determine that and evaluate that as well. Deputy Mayor? Yeah, so that right there is, for me, the reason I can’t support these, staff don’t have, they’re actually gonna have to create from scratch a way to map out and then evaluate the use, and we’re gonna have to look at it from seasonal changes, time of day changes and everything else. We have problems today in neighborhoods in our city, and we don’t have, honestly, in my opinion, the luxury of waiting five years ‘til BRT’s up and running, or waiting to see if patterns change as different transit roads come online over the next few years.

We have a problem today that residents complain about. We talk about, again, I’m trying to state the amendment and not to the main motion yet, but we’ve seen when we talk about trying to change the ratios and the higher density, and when we look at spatial differentiation and site-specific changes, that’s how we actually used to do things before we went to the point five. Planning justification would report would come in for a reduced amount. Unfortunately, what we’re seeing now is that we’re seeing a lot of standardization, and then we’re seeing neighborhood impacts, particularly away from neighborhoods where there’s transit service, and I know Councillor ramen, when we designed the original motion, I know we talked about some of the neighborhoods in your wards that don’t have transit service and thus are impacted by some of the higher medium and higher density developments that are happening in the Hyde Park area.

So I can’t support tying a studies that staff aren’t even, have a mechanism yet to try and advance. I can’t support asking for those kinds of studies on something that we need to start to find a way to address. When we talk to the main motion, I’m gonna talk about how we’re actually going back to something that we had previously, because for me, I think where we made the mistake was when we made some changes, not just in the reduced parking minimum ratio outside of the primary transit areas, but also going back before any of us were even here, some of the changes that were made under a previous regime around so-called front yard parking for urban design guidelines, which were put in place for after decades of allowing front yard side parking. And so I’ll talk to that more in the main motion, but that’s why I’m not supporting either of these amendments.

Thank you, returning the chair to you with no one on the speaker’s list. I think we had Councilor Trust out next, so I’ll go to Councilor Trust out next. Is this motion with respect to part A only, or is it with respect to parts A, B, and C? The way it’s written, Councilor, it would apply to everything.

Is there a reason why, in part F, there’s the words report back, and in parts either is not the words report back. I can only ask the mover of the motion. Councilor Frank? Sure, yes, so these are intended to come back at the same time that all the other by-law amendment stuff that was included in A to D is coming back, so that is the reference to report back.

Like I want this information at the same time, all this other stuff comes back. Councilor? Yeah, that confuses me a little bit because you want to use the words report back in one, and not in the other, if it was happening anyway. So it worries me that the two are not being treated the same way, report back when, that would help.

I just find this wording to be a little confusing. Anyway, that’s just me, thank you. Any other speakers on the amendment? Seeing none that I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote.

Opposing the vote, motion fails four to 10. Okay, so this brings us back to the main motion as previously amended, and we hadn’t started speaking on that, so that we are now on the main motion as amended to go ahead, that’s approval. Thank you, I’m sure the chair to the staff. Even though it’s quite clear that it says bring forward a zoning bylaw amendment in the future.

I just want to verify because there were few residents of mine that asked me if we are approving anything today. No, we are just approving, giving the direction to the staff to come back with us. I know it’s quite clear, but can you please confirm them to me, thank you. Ms.

McNeely. Thank you through the deputy mayor, yes, that’s correct. The purpose of this is to initiate that process, which is a public process and a public participation meeting. Councillor, perfect, thank you.

And the second question I have is, I do have some houses, and especially those are rental, rentals where usually it would be students or more workers staying. And currently there is kind of one and a half, let’s say, driveway, let’s say one and a half of the car. And we do have an issue that they park right wheels could be on the pavement, left wheels could be on the grass. And our enforcement seems to be going back and talking to the car owners, finding them, et cetera.

How will when you come back, how will this be reflected that let’s say in this example I’ve given you, let’s say they are not going to put like a break on the grass or they’re not going to bring some line around and they say, oh, we are within the six or nine meters. You know, is this going to somehow address so we don’t have potentially these occurrences? If it comes back, if you pass it, thank you. Mr.

Mathers. Through the deputy mayor. So we’ll include a portion of that report just to speak to the enforcement elements of it, but to innovate, if it is something that is approved by council, we’ll ensure that it’s enforced as per the direction of the zoning amendment. Okay, thank you for that.

I will just make it, I will end it by making a comment. I certainly hope if this does go through, if we do approve it, that the driveway would be certainly same solid material or interlocking block, asphalt, whatever it is, but it’s not going to be kind of just grass. So I just, in the by-load that’s going to be coming back, I hope it’s going to be quite clear that people will not be advantage of just the size, but also the quality. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, councilor Priblin. And just to be clear, the motion that’s on the floor is about driveway widths, not about parking, like front yard parking and front lawn parking are actually two different things. Front yard means you’re on a hard, like on an approved driveway surface in front of the dwelling, front yard would mean you’re parking on the grass. So there actually is two different things.

So I just wanted to clarify, that’s why the motion was written the way it is about driveway widths, ‘cause that doesn’t change the requirement to your point about interlocking brick or asphalt or anything like that. That would have to be something, when the staff comes back, if we wanted to make some other change, we’d have to consider it at that time. Thank you. Councilor Cuddy.

Thank you, Chair, and through you, and I’ll be very brief for fear that Councilor Lehman may fade or pass out in the next few minutes after an hour and a half of being on his feet. Deputy Mayor, I wanna thank you for, once again, working with me, post-sponsoring a motion, and also Councilor Raman for coming on board with us. Once again, Deputy Mayor, this is a time when you and I both had incidents happen, almost simultaneously, where residents came to us and asked us for a solution, and we came to them with one. And I won’t talk to you colleagues about my residents and what they said to me, but this is a solution that they need.

And in Councilor and Deputy Mayor Lewis and Councilor McAllister’s words and my own word, we have these happening every day where residents have children who wanna go to the university can’t afford to leave the city, look for ways to accommodate them in the city, in my case, one of the children going to Western, needed to buy another car, didn’t have a place to park it. So again, we’ve come up with a solution that I think is really reasonable and will work for us, and I’m so grateful to Councilor Trossow, and I mean this Councilor Trossow for coming up with a solution to your ward that works, but I’m also grateful to my colleagues for supporting this because this is really gonna help a lot of our residents in the East End. Thank you. So I’ve got Councilor Hopkins, Councilor Ferrer, then Councilor McAllister, Councilor Hopkins.

Yeah, thank you. And I wanna thank the Councillors for putting this forward. Unfortunately, I don’t see this as being a solution. I do understand the problems.

I have the same problems in Ward 9 when it comes to young adults now living at home and there are three or four cars in the driveway and they don’t fit. I also understand areas such as areas in Ward 9 that don’t have transit routes, but I think when we try to fix things now, we really don’t understand what may happen in a few years from now. Things may be completely different and we may be back changing bylaws again. And that’s my concern here.

Even though I appreciate the Councillors trying to fix it, but I don’t think it’s gonna really make a substantial difference. What I have concerns though is that it’s gonna change the look of our neighborhoods. I’m a big fan of Joni Mitchell, Yellow Taxi. They pay paradise and they put up a parking lot.

She came up with those words they say when she looked out of her hotel room and when she was in Hawaii and saw a parking lot. And it kind of jarred with the natural green spaces that are around and I see the same thing happening in our neighborhoods and I’m very cautious. I’m a big supporter of minimum parking, 0.5, minimum. It’s really up to developers and the planning application and process to figure out how many parking spaces will there be when we do infill projects and development.

But I don’t see this right now. It may solve one or two problems right now, but we’re not solving the problems for the next generation. We’re down the road. So again, I think the Councillor is coming up with trying to find a solution.

But again, I don’t think this is the solution. Councillor Ferrer. Thank you. So I will say thank you to the Councillors for trying to find a solution.

I think that this is a little way more complex than we are making it out to be. I appreciate Councillor Hopkins’ comments. And I think that if we dive in a little deeper, you can see some of the nuances that are kind of approaching us. First thing I will say, I’ll ask, I guess.

So this is a PPM, so there is a report coming back. And in that report, what are we gonna expect? Are we gonna get the impacts that may arise out of this motion? Are we gonna get impacts with respect to, I guess, the cost of housing, where it would kind of bring in extra costs?

Would we get any information on the impacts with respect to the ARUs? I know we just proved a motion for ARUs, but I do see this as one lot per residential unit. So I would assume ARUs are included there. I would assume that this could be a restricting factor of how many ARUs could be added to a certain lot.

Mr. Mathers. Through the chair, just looking through the resolution here. So it is specific that it’s asking us to bring back these zoning by-law changes.

And of course, with any report that has second zoning by-law whom would component of it, we’re gonna provide some analysis and details from a planning perspective, whether those are justifiable, as far as the opinions of our planning staff. We’re not intending to do a huge amount of research, just from the planning perspective and looking at the PPS, like we usually would. It’s not for us to go and look at reasons or rationales of why these may not be appropriate. We’re taking the council direction and then just providing from a planning rationale, whether it’s something that’s supported by the PPS.

Councillor. Thank you. So I guess with respect to the ARU comment or question that I just had, like it does say that there’s a minimum of one parking space for each residential unit while providing exemptions for the developments of affordable housing. So for each residential unit, there could be an impact here that that could constrain the amount of additional residential units we’re looking at with the last motion that we just approved.

So there is some issues there. We should look for more information because this is very explicit and clear of the issue. Another issue that I would like to ask I guess would be, I guess it would be with respect to what I was saying before, with the stormwater management system that we have. So currently, as I understand it, our stormwater is not treated.

We have stormwater grates that collect stormwater runoff from driveways, from roads, and that goes in to the system and it goes out into the Thames, is that correct? Ms. Chair. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. That is correct, stormwater is generally not treated by any cities in Canada. Councillor. Thank you.

And some of the, I guess what I’d say, the surface area that captures that is that non-permeable surface area. So that’s driveways, that’s roads, but some of the areas that do capture that, that don’t go into that system, is front lawns. Is that correct? Councillor, sorry, Ms.

Chair. I was gonna call you Councillor, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I’m fine with Ms.

Chair. (laughing) So our stormwater system is a combination of major and minor engineered systems. So those are our retention and channel works, our underground pipes and storm grates. And then there is also infiltration, which will reduce the amount that is carried into those systems in any given subdivision, yes.

Councillor. Thank you, so infiltration can happen with permeable surfaces, that’s the grass. And that’s exactly what we could be taking out. Now we are the forest city, but sometimes it’s referred to as we are the city cut out in the forest.

And I’m worried that the more surface area we take away for infiltration. And the more we expand driveways in this blanket slate, the bigger impacts will have the more surface area that will capture storm runoff, especially on driveways because cars leak oil. And that oil is untreated as it runs off and goes directly into the Thames River. So I would ask, and I know, and I’m sorry to put you on the spot, Ms.

Chair, but here’s another question. What would the impact speed? Do we have any idea of how much more surface area we’ll be creating with this motion that would be eventually capturing more runoff and going into the Thames? Ms.

Chair. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. It would be impossible to speculate that on that without knowing the current state of permeability of those lawns that could potentially become driveways, as well as the degree of uptake that happens throughout the city.

So I’m afraid I’m not able to answer that. Councillor. Thank you, and I thought you were gonna say that. And that’s why we need a report.

And that’s why this is more complicated than it seems to be. You know, we do have problems today. And one of the biggest problems we have is with waste materials going into the Thames. And we can’t take away more areas of infiltration and then just say, you know, this is the problem we have now.

This is a solution, but it just goes into our watershed for the future to deal with. We used to do that. We used to do this, but, you know, we’ve smartened up a little bit and we’ve learned a little bit more. So going back to the old ways and saying the old ways is, you know, it happened to work before.

We should do it again. It doesn’t apply. I think we need to be approaching this with a different lens. And we need to be getting a little bit more information on this because we don’t know what the impacts are going to be.

You know, this pollution that goes into the Thames is permanent and it will go downstream and it affects everybody. The biggest thing that I would say is it doesn’t necessarily affect us today, but it will affect everyone’s kids tomorrow. It will affect my kids tomorrow and it will affect everybody downstream in the watershed. That’s not just in London.

And we need to start looking towards solutions that don’t necessarily do that because we’re just kicking a problem down the road that’s inevitable right now. So I really think a report looking into this is a smart way to go. And you may think that maybe, you know, it’s just a little bit of widening here, a little bit widening there. But when you look at it into accumulation of how many driveways could be widened, I think the impact would be a lot more than we’re expecting.

But we don’t have that information before us. And I really think that it would be wise and prudent to look into a report. That’s why I supported a Council of Frank’s report. At least it was something.

I don’t see that this public participation report is really gonna speak to that. It obviously is not gonna speak to the fact that it most likely is going to constrain how many additional residential units we’re gonna have. So that goes against us all that policy as well. But I think that there’s a lot of different issues here.

And that’s just what I kind of came up with just looking at this motion as it is now. There’s probably more, but I think maybe having staff look into this would be a wise choice. ‘Cause it’s not as simple as it looks. Oh, and that’s why I’m not gonna support it.

Councilor McAllister, thank you through the chair, my train of thought. Gone here, first time speaking, actually. This afternoon, almost this evening. So I appreciate in terms of where the Councillors are coming from with this.

It’s an issue I’ve heard as well. And I’m just kind of speaking to my own experiences and my thought process with this. I mean, I’m curious to hear from the PPM, people coming forward. I know Councillor Cuddy kind of touched on this, but in terms of the East portion I have, it’s a real mixed bag of housing and a number of issues in terms of parking come up with that.

When you have older neighborhoods, there really wasn’t a lot of thought in terms of a driveway back in the day anyways. They’re very narrow. I personally think the shared driveway model is hell for a lot of homeowners, and I’m sure that they all get very creative in terms of where they put their cars. I think some of the older ones also, they might have smaller homes and a larger lot.

So if we’re trying to encourage some ARUs, having some parking spaces would probably be beneficial, because really the issue that I hear the most is in terms of the spillover of the parking onto the street itself. And I think we probably all have cases of this happening where the streets themselves, I know Councillor Frank wanted to see more information on this, but I can assure you just from even my neighborhood that the street parking is unreal. I mean, if you live near a school, you have your own hell when it comes to drop off some pickups and dealing with that situation as well. And the parking situation has just really become untenable.

I think in an ideal situation, I would have loved to have seen a better functioning transit system years ago than what I think would have addressed a lot of this, but with the housing issues we’re facing in the current climate, I think people have had to find creative ways in terms of parking. You’ve got multi-generational families. You’ve got students living in larger situations, almost into boarding houses. There’s rental homes around near campus.

People have had to really get creative with their housing these days. And parking is a reality of that. People are staying at home longer. And I mean, I don’t love necessarily going back on this.

Like I hear the comments about, you know, paving over green and I don’t love that either, but I also find having our streets jammed with parking is not helping the neighborhoods either. So it’s a bit of a catch-22 that I mean, there’s good and bad with this. I’m curious to see what the folks for the PPM want us to say. I haven’t seen the final bylaw, but I think we need to explore it.

So I’m willing to support this currently, but I just wanted to share my thoughts in terms of the reality that my ward’s facing, and I hear it a lot of the time that the parking has just become brutal in a lot of neighborhoods, and we really need some options on the table to address that. Thanks. Thank you, Councilor McAllister. I will ask Councilor Raman to take the chair for me.

Thank you, I have the chair, go ahead. Thank you. I’m gonna try very hard to not repeat everything colleagues have said. We’re already over three hours in, and I don’t think the repetition is necessary.

What I will say is this, I’m going to share an example for one family in my ward. When we talk about cost, I don’t know, Councilor Frank referenced, great, we got some revenue, sure, we do. In the winter months, when they have to pay to park on the street overnight, at $5 a night, if they’ve got to do that for three months, that’s $450. So that is an impact on families, right there.

And then there are nights, they can’t park on the street because Ms. Cher’s team needs to clear the snow off the road. And while they can’t do every road within three to five a.m., they need that time when they can go do cleanup. So we already don’t allow that.

I could not disagree more that we’re going to see, you know, the fears realized of somehow there’s gonna be a massive uptake of this, and we’re gonna pay over the city. There’s gonna be a cost to the homeowner to widen the driveway. But if a family has to pay $450 for winter on-street parking every year versus having a one-time cost of $3,000, maybe $5,000, maybe to do a driveway widening, and we have materials that are permeable today for driveway services. That’d be up to the owner to decide what they wanna do.

That’s an option for them to pursue. A one-time cost makes a whole lot more sense. And then when that multi-generational family situation changes, maybe they do pursue the ARU. But I know that there are people who won’t pursue an ARU because they have no way to provide parking for their tenant should they have one.

Not every ARU tenant is going to come without a vehicle, not every neighborhood, as we’ve all mentioned, in some way, shape or form is gonna have transit. And I can’t, I respectfully, I understand where Councillor Hopkins is coming from, but I don’t agree that we need to wait because if we change this today, we’re in paralling future generations. We need to solve the problems of today, today. We can, yes, we could change the bylaws again in the future.

We did that and we have a problem now. So I think we have to step back from what we did and move forward, especially when we think about how, and we’re not talking about the one-to-one parking ratio or the 0.5 parking ratio here. I’m talking specifically about the driveway bump out spot or the extra lane of driveway for width. You know, that was frankly driven not by anything more than urban design guidelines of a previous regime.

Like I said, long before any of us are here, it’s not a comment on any decisions we’ve made, but it was about people thinking that we should just not allow people to park in front of their house and that a parking spot had to be defined by leading to a garage or rear yard. That side laneway, as Councillor McAllister said, those narrow laneways in many neighborhoods, there is still going to be permeable surface in front yards even where this is taken up because there’s still maximum limits. And it’s based on frontages. So you can’t go the entire width of your yard.

You can’t turn your entire front yard into a parking lot. What this ultimately does, and we have to think about what our current by-law is, which is an eight meter end point something. But basically, the current by-law says you can’t do double-wide if it’s not double-wide all the way back. So if you’ve got a narrow side yard, you can only be single.

This would allow for a double-wide where a car might be parked in front of the living room window or the kitchen window or the bedroom window with what I call the bump out. We’re not talking about widening curb cuts or impacting boulevard trees. That’s a street spy law thing. It’s only on private property.

So there’s no cost to us as a municipality for letting homeowners widen their driveway on private property. We will continue to have opportunities in new subdivisions, in existing subdivisions to retrofit things into create ARUs, to create units of housing that people are going to take because there is a parking spot included. And we know that some of our vacancy, and not all of our vacancy, but some of it is attributed to the fact that we’re building with less than one-to-one or we have an ARU without a parking spot, and now it’s hard to find a tenant. So I encourage folks to let staff come back with a by-law.

We’ll take some public input and we’ll go from there, but let’s move this forward today. Thank you, returning material to you. And if there’s no one else on the speakers list, Councilor Raman. Thank you, and through you.

So I wanna talk a little bit about A, and then a little bit about the changes that have been made in B and C. So A is something that in the last few months, and actually in the last year or so, I’ve had a number of applications that have come through, and this has been a concern around one-to-one parking. And so this helps to address some of those concerns, especially in where we’re planning to put a lot of growth, which is the Northwest part of the city. You know, when I look at the current, the changes that we’ve made, and that are planned for the Urban Growth Foundry expansion, if those are to be changes where we’re seeing more high-rise, mid-rise in those areas, we are going to need parking in order to address the needs of residents in those areas, because we do not have transit around where we’ve approved the expansion of the Urban Growth Foundry.

So I understand that we can have a desire for people to ride transit, but when transit stops at a point in my ward, where there’s no access to transit for a good almost quarter of the new subdivisions, and in some cases, as I’ve said, these subdivisions have been in place for 15 years. We’re not moving fast enough to be able to accommodate the type of growth that we’ve already seen in the city, and the planned growth that we have in the city with the Urban Growth Foundry. So we’re making changes to things like assessment growth so that we can put transit where we’re going to put housing, but until such time as we can meet those requests, we are going to have to plan better, and to do that, we are going to have to make sure that we have adequate parking, and that’s why you’ll see in that language, again, around changes around located in protected major transit station areas, and other recommendations for potential exemptions to come back with for the by-law. In part B and C, I was supportive of us looking at this and bringing this by-law forward.

The changes to the near-campus neighborhood, though, complicate this from my ward considerably, and so I’m going to have to pull B and C apart because of that. And D, what I hear from a lot of residences, you allowed an ARU, or a neighbor is considering an additional residential unit, but they’ve already have parking challenges in the area, so this is something to help address some of those concerns. So thanks to my colleagues for the discussion. I really do appreciate it.

I think there’s opportunity for more of that, as well as public consultation, as this information comes back with an updated by-law. Okay, do we have any other speakers before we call the question? And we will separate it out per your request, Councillor ramen. So seeing none, we’re just going to give the clerk a moment to get the vote separated deal with a independent from B and C.

Sorry, A and D, you’re okay with D. Just so colleagues are aware, this is the last vote on planning committee. So after that, I will look for a motion for a brief recess. We’ll have been at it for three and a half hours.

Folks may need to refresh for a few minutes, so we’ll look to do that after planning committee. Okay, so the first vote we’re going to call is B and C. These are the driveway widths that we’re amended to exempt the Western University near campus neighborhood, and we will open the vote on that now. So Farara, do you close in the vote?

Motion carries 11 to three. Colleagues, and now we’ll open the vote on A and D. Close in the vote, motion carries 11 to three. Thank you, colleagues.

Councillor Layman. Thank you, Chair. That concludes the fourth report of the planning environment. Okay, it’s 4.30.

I’m going to look to see if there’s a motion for a brief recess. Councillor Vameerbergen, did you have a time you wanted to move, Councillor? 10 minutes, 15. What’s your?

I’m going to rule an hour and a half out of order because we would need a motion to extend past six for that. 10 minutes? Okay, is there a seconder for a 10 minute break? Councillor Stevenson, by hand, all those in favor?

Can you please keep your hands up? We will return at 4.40, please. And colleagues, we are going to call the fourth council meeting back to order, and community and protective services is next, Councillor Palosa has taken her leave, so I will turn to Councillor Pribble. Thank you, Chair and dear colleagues.

It’s my pleasure to present to you the third report of the community and protective committee. And I just want to let you know that we had, during the committee, we had actually six members because the Mayor Sean Lewis, he was acting married that day. And I was asked to pull out four and four from the committee 2.5, affordable and community housing update, five from committee 2.6, 2025 Ontario Works participant and service delivery profile, both pulled by Councillor Stevenson. It was approved under the consent agenda 6-0 at the committee meeting, then 0.8, 2.4, residential unit licensing license display.

The committee was unable to reach a majority decision on this matter, and it is being reported to the council today without a recommendation, so we’ll be voting on that. And then also 4.1 request for reimbursement for private property cleaning and graffiti removal services by all these village BIA. And at the committee, it was voted to be referred to the next ICIS meeting. And this was pulled also by Councillor Stevenson.

So, your worship, sorry, your deputary, we can vote on 2-1, 2-2, 2-3 and 2-7. We can vote currently right now, and then we have four points at the agenda to go one by one. Okay, so Councillor, I’m just gonna refer to them by the council numbering rather than the committee, so you’re moving 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7. 2, 3, 6 and 7.

And one, which is the declosures of community interest. Yes, that is correct. Okay, so we have 1 through 3, 6 and 7 moved on community and protective services. Any speakers to those?

Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and through you, just a quick question on perks and recreation master plan annual report. I notice there’s a large dollar value assigned to the multi-year budget, but nothing in the plan says, “This is what was spent so far on which projects.” Just wondered if that shows up in another report, or is that something we’d have to request in the annual updates going forward? Ms.

Smith. Thank you and through your worship. For part of the report, the recreation and programming side, we have item I in the budget lines for recreation programs and our community centers, so we can articulate if there’s any big facility builds. For example, we are going forward with Silverwoods, so we can articulate or put in brackets afterwards the budgeted amount.

Some of them we also get funding from the provincial and federal government, so we’re happy to articulate what those are and let Ms. Shear speak to the parks projects. Ms. Shear.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do not currently report out in all of the multiple renewal and new capital projects for parks. Often they end up being a parks party where we invite everybody to come and be part of that new space.

We would report back if there was a requirement to change the funding beyond what we’re able to manage within our contingencies. Councillor, any other speakers on the consent items? Can I just do perhaps a point of order? Councillor McAllister.

Is it possible to do a change of order within the report in terms of items, or do we have to, I know we’re voting on these ones, but the pulled items, can we do a change of order once we get to that? I’m just looking for clarification. Do you mean that a change of order in the items that are not yet on the floor? Yeah, when we get to them, sorry.

So a change of order can absolutely be considered. I would suggest we just deal with the consent first and then we can proceed. Seeing no other speakers, I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero.

Okay, before I go back to Councillor Pribble, I’ll go to Councillor McAllister. Thank you. And I’m just hoping to kind of flip the order and deal with number nine and number eight, just as we have people in the gallery who have been waiting a while, so if we could deal with those first. So you want to deal with eight?

So you want to deal with eight, nine, then five and six? Just go backwards, nine, eight, and then deal with the others. Okay, I’m just going to look to see if there’s any objection to that. If there is, then we’ll have to put it to a vote.

I don’t see any objection, so I’m seeing consensus on the change of order. So Councillor Pribble, can I ask that you just, we’re going to accept that as consensus of council. So if you can deal with nine, eight, six, five, rather than five, six, eight, nine. Thank you, Chair.

I certainly will, so I would like to put up point nine at the committee 4.1 request for reimbursement for private property cleaning and graffiti removal services, which was presented by all these village BIA at the committee meeting. It was referred to the next ICIS meeting, and it was asked to be pulled by Councillor Stevenson. Okay, so you’re putting the community recommendation referral on the floor, and now Councillor Stevenson. Correct.

Thank you very much. I put a submission in to the added agenda, and basically it’s asking my colleagues to say no to the referral, and then I have an alternate motion ready to pay the 14,152-33 from the Community Investment Reserve Fund and just be done with this. And basically in the communication, it says the old East Village BIA came in the summertime, said, can you reimburse us for the amount from January to April? It was 34,000 and something.

It was actually denied at committee, but then at council, we were able to put it through and say, let’s just get that paid. At the time, it was mentioned that there would be another additional invoice coming. This is the additional invoice. That program has been stopped.

So there will not be another invoice. It’s not part of the old East Village BIA, 2026 budget. This was for non-levvy paying businesses. It was a Goodwill gesture to try to bridge through a difficult time in that area to address critically important historical buildings like Aiolian Hall, Banting House, Palace Theatre, Clay Works.

It’s a very small amount of money. If we want to refer it to committee and talk about it for a long time and have delegations, I am more than happy to talk about the problems in the old East Village and what needs to be done. If that’s what council wants, it’s fine. I’m offering a shorter path to, say, no to the referral, reimburse the money.

And that’s my request. Councillor McAllister. Thank you. Through the chair, I’ll be brief.

Titto to what Councillor Stevenson just said. I’d like to deal with this item now. We’ve done that previously. I don’t think this needs to go to ICSC.

And I would also, I’ll second the motion that Councillor Stevenson said is an alternate to this referral. Thank you. Okay, well, if we get to that motion, I will look to you to second it. We have the committee recommendation on the floor first, looking for any other speakers to that.

Councillor Ferrera. Thank you. At the committee, I was not necessarily a favor of the recommendation. I did have another alternate motion I wanted to bring for requests to kind of just have a cleanup in the whole area.

So we wouldn’t have to go and use the BIA. I would say, no, just because the amount of money is small, doesn’t mean that it’s insignificant and we should be spending it. All money is meaningful and all the money, especially taxpayer funds, we should have a full fiduciary responsibility in how we spend that. So just because it’s small, relatively speaking, not small for me, I would also say that these are non-lovey paying members that we’re trying to reimburse with the old East Village.

That should come through council. It shouldn’t be an old East Village BIA thing. I think the best course of action would have been to come to a Councillor and the council would bring it to council and maybe we could discuss it there. And then looking to pay it back retroactively, yeah, just because that we did do that in the previous committee and the committee said, no, and I was one of the ones that said no to that in the previous committee.

Does it mean we can come back and ask for it again? Like, you know, the downtown BIA got $1.16 million. Maybe I’ll come back and say, well, we got $1.16 million in the past. Maybe you should get another $1.16 million.

I would say that kind of thinking, you know, could snowball into something that I know council wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable for. Because of that, you know, with the referral going to ICSC, then I guess just send it to ICSC. So I’m just gonna go with the committee recommendation. And we’re on the, yes, so the motion from the committee was the referral to ICSC, Councillor Hopkins.

Thank you for clarifying that. And I supported, I second this at committee. I do think it’s really, really important that we try not to do a lot of this committee work here at council. You can see how our meetings have extended.

And this is not the first council meeting, but the referral should go to another committee where they receive the financial statements from the BIA and then have that conversation at committee. So that’s why I seconded it. I don’t think we should start again doing committee work here at council. Other speakers, Councillor Pribble.

Thank you, Chair. After our committee meeting, I did have conversation with the BIA, with the members, merchants and other businesses in all these village to confirm that the work was done. And certainly there was an improvement during the last year. My talk also to BIA, they do have this cleaning budget line in their budget.

And they do expect to use it up or spend it all based on the current situation there during this year. Based on that and some of the things that were said, I will be voting and defeating the motion, sorry, defeating the committee’s motion that was passed. I would like to take care of it right now and for us to put this again. This is the last one, they were very specific about it.

And as I said, actually, I think that when I look at the amounts, after they don’t do it and we start doing it as a city or this, I think that there’s a potentially even fair chance that it’s going to be in higher amounts than this. But I would encourage as well, let’s put this behind us. Yes, there were some said it should have been done this way, should have been done that way. That’s not a situation we are here, it’s in front of us.

Let’s deal with it, let’s deal with it, let’s get it done and let’s move on. Thank you. Councillor Trusson. I was in favor of the referral at committee and I’m in favor of the referral now.

I think we’re doing too much committee work here. Any other speakers on the referral as it stands? Seeing none, Mr. Raman, I’ll ask you to take the chair, just briefly, I’ll be really quick.

I have the chair, go ahead. Thank you. So I do appreciate the communication we received from Mr. Morrison with respect to the focus on the non-levvy paying members.

I also appreciate the comments that this program has ended. I would actually prefer in the future if non-levvy paying members need support, but they make a direct ask. Don’t think, honestly, with all due respect to the BIA’s and I have a couple of non-levvy paying members in my BIA too, I actually don’t think the BIA should be doing non-levvy member support work. I think that those two things should be separated.

So I supported the referral at committee. I’m inclined to just deal with this today because I’ve been told we’re not coming again, we’ve removed it from our budget. This is non-levvy paying members, Banting House, a couple others that are involved. But it does spur for me as well the importance of the conversation about what a BIA is supposed to be doing, which to me is not doing all, it’s supposed to be there to support the businesses.

So it’s a discussion I think we have to have around our BIA’s and the budgets they bring forward and what they’re doing with their money. But at the same time, I’m also inclined to put this issue to bed. So I just wanted to share where my thought process is. I understand colleagues have a couple of different opinions and I’m okay with that.

Whichever way this goes, moving forward, we’ve got to figure out this non-levvy paying members of the BIA situation. It’s not, to me, it’s created a very difficult conversation in wards across the city. Turning the chair to you, if no one on the speaker’s list. Okay, last call for any other speakers.

Seeing none, then I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. We are voting on the committee recommendation to refer. So if you vote yes, it’s referred to ICSC. If you vote no, then we’ll have to have an alternate motion.

Opposed in the vote, motion fails, five to eight. Okay, Councilor Stevenson, you indicated you had an alternate motion, so I’ll go to you. I do and it’s with the clerk. I can read it out if you like.

That the following actions be taken with respect to the communication from Kay Morrison, Old East Village Business Improvement Area with respect to a request for reimbursement for private property cleaning and graffiti removal. May the civic administration be directed to immediately reimburse the Old East Village VIA in the amount of $14,152.33 from the Community Investment Reserve Fund for previously expended costs related to private property cleanups, graffiti removal, and enhanced safety and security measures. It being noted there’s another communication from the Midtown Community Organization. Councilor McAllister, you indicated you were seconding that.

Okay, so that’s been moved and seconded. Now that’s on the floor for discussion. Councilor Ferrer. Thank you, so how much do we have in the Community Investment Reserve Fund and is there any commitment to that balance and are we where we should be on that reserve fund?

Ms. Barbone. Mr. Murray is on the line and I believe he had that information, so.

Mr. Murray, go ahead. Thank you, through you, Mr. W.

Mayor. So the current projection for the Community Investment Reserve Fund is a balance in 2026 of approximately 1.6 million dollars that does decline over the next couple of years beyond 2026, you’ll recall we recently approved the Transit Pass Secondary School Transit Pass pilot program that utilizes some funding from that reserve fund. So that does draw on that reserve fund over the next couple of years, but as of current projections for 2026, the balance is about 1.6 million. Councilor.

Thank you, so that 1.6 million does not include the Transit Pilot Project or it does. Mr. Murray. Through you, Mr.

Chair, that does include the cost for 2026, the balance in that reserve fund, though, is projected to decline to approximately a million dollars as of the end of 2027, and then decline to approximately $650,000 or thereabouts by 2028. I will note, however, that that does not include any projections as it relates to infusions into that reserve fund from any year-end surplus in accordance with the surplus deficit policy. So any inflows associated with that, which are not yet finalized, of course, for 2025, are not reflected in those numbers, Kevin. Councilor.

Thank you. Well, I hope we don’t have another surplus that puts money into that. Is that the only source of funding we have in the community investment reserve fund just through any type of surpluses and the deficit surplus policy? Mr.

Murray. Through you, that is correct. There are no other tax-supported contributions that go into that reserve fund. Councilor.

Well, I don’t want to speculate, but it does seem like we’re just kind of using this reserve fund for one-offs here and there, and I feel like if we were to take the balance down to, I think, Mr. Murray said, $600,000, we’ve kind of pretty much tied our hands with any uses of what the community investment reserve fund is supposed to be used for, so we are not gonna be able to necessarily have any kind of initiatives or funding for the community investment reserve fund coming out of that, and I hope that we don’t have huge influxes of money with another surplus. I would also say that, you know, Council is supposed to make these decisions and Council should be helping, you know, anyone that’s not necessarily a member of the BIA. I agree with the Deputy Mayor’s comments on BIA’s should be focusing on BIA members.

We, any type of specific ask for non-members, you know, they can come to us. We would be more than willing to help that. So I’m worried on kind of what direction that takes us. I guess I would also go to this.

What type of funds would be available in the old East Village BIA as it is if we were to pay that money back? Do, is the old East Village BIA, are they depleted of funds or what are the balances in those accounts? Do we have that information? Ms.

Barbara? Thank you, through the chair. Perhaps to clarify, the BIA budgets that you’re referring to are approved by the Corporate Services. The reports that we presented were brought forward to the ICSC Committee in January.

There is, as part of that report, there was noted there was funding from previous COVID relief funding that did show a balance that was outstanding. Is that the fund that you’re referring to? I appreciate the clarification. I’m sorry.

I know we’re supposed to be doing committee work at committee and I didn’t see this motion coming. I would say yes, and what are the current reserves in the balance now? And I guess I would expand on that would be, was this also something that was part of the BIA’s budget? Point of order, Councilor McAllister.

This is for reimbursement for past years. We’re not rehashing budget discussions at this time. This is a very specific item for a reimbursement that’s already occurred. You are correct in that it is a reimbursement for 2025 expenses incurred.

My point is we’re not discussing 2026 budget. The current balance is irrelevant when we’re discussing 2025 reimbursement. So I agree with you on that. I think that’s a valid point of order in terms of staying on what’s on the floor.

But I think if Councilor Ferreira is asking about— I didn’t say 2026 budget. So okay, Councilors, you don’t engage in cross debate on a point of order, so please stop. I was about to say if Councilor Ferreira was asking, is there a 2025 surplus from the OIV BIA that has just been carried forward that could have otherwise reimbursed this? That would be in order.

The 2026 budget moving forward, which doesn’t include a line item for this, would not be relevant. But if you’re asking specifically, was there unspent funds in 2025, that’s in order. So yes, Councilor McAllister, your point of order is valid. But Councilor Ferreira, if you can clarify your question, it may be in order.

I’m looking for two questions. Number one, in the budgeting, in the past budgeting, where this money came out of the funds that we’re looking to, or potentially discussing for refunding, I wanna know if we can know if that was in the budget, first of all. And I also wanna know what the balance would be after that fiscal year before 2026 starts. Basically, I wanna know is the remaining funds left over, does the BIA need these funds?

I don’t have the information. This is why I’m looking for this, this is why I’m asking the questions. Like how I need this, so I can make a judgment here. Ms.

Barbara, and I don’t know whether you can provide that information, or Mr. Murray, if you have that information, I will go to staff though to see if they can provide any additional details. Thank you, through you, Mr. Deputy Mayor.

So what I can advise and as was reported in the BIA budget report for all these village back in January, the operating fund of all these village BIA has a projected balance as of the end of 2025 of approximately $260,000. However, 189,000 of that is projected to be drawn on in 2026 to support the BIA’s budget and initiatives. So that leaves a remaining operating fund balance of approximately $71,000 or thereabouts for all these village, which aligns with, as Ms. Barbara was referring to, the remaining approximately $70,000 of COVID relief funding that was previously provided by the city to all these village BIA.

Councillor? Yeah, thank you. Do you know what was budgeted for the last budget? Like, was this something that was budgeted or was this kind of a discretionary expense by the BIA?

Mr. Murray, was there a line item for this in 2025? Is that what you’re asking, Councillor, for seeing a nod? Three, Mr.

Deputy Mayor, I can confirm that in the old East Village BIA budget for 2025, there is a budgeted line item for private property cleanup. I can’t speak though, however, to the specifics or details of how that funds were intended to be spent or specifically on what properties they were intended for. Thank you. So if there is a line item for that, and we did provide funding for that for this exact specific thing, but it didn’t have the clarification whether it would be a member or not, I think we’ve already given the BIA the money to spend this money.

I don’t understand why the BIA is coming back and asking for reimbursement. When we did give that money intended for this exact purpose, the money was spent, there’s a line item in the budget, and then there’s a reimbursement request. So that’s kind of where I’m held up here. Same issue that I was held up on the last request.

I’d also say there comes a time when we kind of have to put our foot down and say, no, enough is enough. If there is a request for non-members, they should come to council. I’m sure we would have more than the ability to say yes and help them out. I’m just concerned on some of our decisions and our hands being a little tied when these decisions are made outside this horseshoe and then a reimbursement request comes up.

So I will finish there. Looking for other speakers. I have Councilor McAllister, you haven’t spoken on this yet, go ahead. Thank you and through the chair.

Appreciate the opportunity to speak on this. Recognizing the challenges that OAVs face, understanding that this program was intended to kind of help the area. Struggles are going through my BIA similar issues. We’ve had to devote a lot of resources to cleaning graffiti.

Yes, we have the business paying members, but when you’re in an area such as this, there’s a lot of crossover in terms of the community. These funds, I’m sure in terms of the intentions, OAV is good. They’re trying to clean up their area. I also understand that completely.

In terms of refunding these funds, I think it’s incumbent on us to look at something like this as a community benefit. I think this is still an appropriate source of funds. They’re trying to improve the area. These are important historical landmark sites within their BIA district.

And I agree with what the deputy mayor had previously said. I think this has spurred a lot of discussions amongst the BIA’s in terms of what their roles should be. In terms of some of the comments that Councilor Ferris said, parking helps the whole area. We have previously had that discussion in terms of the downtown BIA, and we have approved funding for them.

And that is not exclusive to business paying members. That is something that brings people downtown. They stay, they use the services, the businesses. Could it even be residents?

There are a lot of services where there are some crossover. I do think that the conversation warrants more discussion amongst all the BIA’s in terms of what they want to provide, but the city could provide. But I think this is an appropriate ask. It is a program that has since ended.

But I do think it has spurred a very important discussion in terms of cleaning up certain areas that really need the investment. And so leave my comments there. And I’ll pass over to Councilor Stevenson. Thank you.

Thank you. I don’t have Councilor Stevenson on the list yet. I am looking for other speakers, though. I don’t have other speakers unless Councilor Stevenson wants to get on the list.

I do. I’m going to keep it really short. I just wanted to thank the executive director for the old East Village BIA for being here today for this meeting, for also for the submission that went in, along with my own from Banting House and National Historic Site, the Palace Theater, and Alien Hall. I appreciate their submissions.

I also appreciate their understanding that this program had to come to an end at the end of December. And despite the ongoing despair and cleanup and all that kind of stuff, this was a short-term thing that was done in the hopes that there was going to be more progress than there’s been. So the references, I kind of laugh with the committee work should be done at committee. I got my own comments about how we can’t, as non-members, do committee work at committee.

And it’s not very easy to do that. And there’s also— there was the ability of people felt really strongly that we didn’t want to make this last payment. That could have been done at the last committee. It was very clearly said there was going to be one more payment coming.

It’s actually half the cost of the last one. I understand this is why it’s been ended. This is a unique situation in a unique neighborhood with unique needs, many of which are not under the control of the BIA or the business owners there. Their funding is needed for them.

The problems are still very, very serious there. It’s not about— we didn’t come and say we don’t have any money. Can you pay our bill? This was done as a community benefit.

The understanding was there that this would be taken care of. And so I’m asking for committee support around just finishing this off, finishing it well. And thank you to everybody in advance. No other speakers.

I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. Closing the vote. Motion carries 10 to 3. Councillor Preble.

Thank you, Chair. And I would like to put a 0.8 to 0.4 residential unit licensing license display. And just so you know, the staff recommendation was defeated, which was BRC for information. And no future action be taken.

It was defeated by Thai to 2. Then there was an alternate motion in front of us, which was felt as well, 2 to 2. So what I would like to do is I would like to put on actually the motion recommendation from the staff right now in front of us that to be here, see for information and that no further action be taken. OK.

Just give me a minute while I just check in with the clerk here. Sorry, I just had to check on something with the clerk. So your correct, Councillor, there’s no recommendation coming out of committee. You can put that on the floor.

I should have asked you to wait until I came back to recognize on that. But you want to put that on the floor? All it would have required is for you to put your hand up when she said nothing’s coming out of the committee. So discuss it with clerk.

Fine, go ahead. So you can put that on the floor. Thank you, Chair. So currently, I would like to put on the floor the recommendation that came to the committee from the staff, BRC for information, and then no further action be taken.

Thank you, Chair. And Councillor Stevenson, you indicated your seconding. Point of order, Councillor Ferreira. All right, so with no recommendation from the committee, what is the proper procedure to bring something forward with no recommendation?

Do we need to seek leave? Do we need to— what do we need to do there? No, that’s what I was talking to the clerk about, whether we needed to seek leave, whether there’s anything. But any member of council could put anything on the floor.

So the acting— sort of the vice chair has put the staff recommendation back on. Proceeds, really. Would this be considered an emergent motion or additional matters because we didn’t have a recommendation from the committee? No, the item is simply forwarded from the committee without a recommendation from the committee.

So there’s no deadlines or anything like that that are applied here? Councillor Cutty. Thank you, Chair, through you. This was actually a motion that I brought up a while ago and Councillor Trossa was helping me with it.

And I wasn’t able to attend the committee meeting, although I wasn’t a member to vote. I guess my question is similar to Councillor Ferreira’s and just for procedural matters. If this is received, where does it go from there? Are we able to bring it back in a year’s time?

Or at another committee or to council? So the staff recommendation in their report, which was neither— which was not endorsed by committee, but neither was anything else, was to receive their report for information and take no further action on it. Should we prove that, then it is a decided matter of council for at least a year. And something else would have to be brought forward in its place.

And I’m just going to check with— because I think I know where you’re going, Councillor, because I asked staff the same question. So just let me check and see if Ms. Feffers available to us on the line, or Mr. Mathers.

OK. So our chief of municipal by-law officers is not available to you. And I’m sorry if I’m being presumptuous, but there were some other directions given around— or there were some other discussions around other components that council was asking Ms. Feffers to look into.

But this would not preclude other items. She’s not here to answer, so I can’t really— but this is very specific to posting public information about landlords, the contact information. If you’re asking about other things, like having a website that lists outstanding— that is not part of this, that is a separate item that’s being looked into. So I hope that helps.

Thank you, Chair, and that does help. So this could be brought back to council in a year’s time. So that’s— that’s fish— thank you. Point of order again.

I believe with the new council’s term, that year doesn’t go for a full extent. You are correct, Councillor. That is— yes. It is a decided matter of this council.

The clock resets as soon as the next council is sworn in, anything can be brought back up. Councillor Truss, I want to point of order. My point of order is, would it be in order to make a motion to just pass that motion, but delete the words and no further action be taken? In which case, we would not have to wait the year.

And it would go back to committee if somebody wanted to put it on the committee agenda, which— which here we are doing committee work. And I want this to go back to the committee. And that’s my point of question order, whatever it is. But if that’s OK, I’d make that motion.

So I will rule on that. As a point of order, it would be substantially different from what the Councillor has put on the floor, because he’s specifically put on the floor, take no action. So you can’t amend it to just delete that. You have to defeat this.

And then put it just to receive on the floor. You can’t remove a take no action from a motion, because it’s substantively different. It’s actually contrary to what the intention of the Councillor is when they put that language on the floor. I’ll speak now if I can.

I truly believe that this needs to be sent back to CAPS Committee for a full discussion. Now, if this passes, this Council will be done. We won’t be able to do this during this Council. And I think that would be too bad.

So even though I’d prefer to make a motion to whittle down that less motion, which I would oppose, I think what I’m going to be asking Councillors to do in the interest of this getting this back to a committee discussion, where it belongs in my view, is just to defeat the motion that’s on the floor. And I think that’s the cleanest way of doing it. And if the motion is defeated on the floor, I would then suggest that this be referred to committee being that it’s 5.30. We still have a lot of things to do on this Council agenda.

We’re doing too much committee work, people. And I see we got people here who are waiting for items. We could talk about this for an hour and we will have committee. So let’s defeat this motion.

And then there’ll be another motion to refer it to the next meeting of the next available meeting of. So please vote no on this motion. I got that street. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Trussa. Looking for other speakers, getting my list mixed up here. So bear with me for a moment with that. Councillor Ferrer, go ahead.

Thank you. So I guess point of clarification. I know that’s not necessarily a point, but just a clarification for the clerks. There was an alternate motion brought that was substantially different from this recommendation.

If we were to, and I do want to defeat this, but if this were to pass, that wouldn’t preclude that other motion coming to committee. Is that correct? It was a motion with a business, or forget the exact language or website with business licensing or landlord licensing with businesses, I forget the exact language, sorry. You’re gonna get me to give us a moment.

Just need to make sure we’re on point. Sorry about that. Okay, so we went back and looked at the other motion that came to committee because it speaks to professional or business contact of rental owners. It is still tied to CP 19.

So if what we have on the floor passes, then that other motion could not come back before the next term of council. So this would have to be defeated before a new motion could be introduced. It’s the scope matters here because it’s specific to rental property owners, and CP 19 is the governing over rental property owners. So that’s where the clerks and I in reviewing that were looking specifically to, whether it was germane to CP 19, or whether it was to a more general bylaw matter, but it’s the way it was written, it’s tied to CP 19, which is the rental licensing bylaw.

So that’s, if the receive and take no action is passed, then it’s done until the end of council. The other motion would be out of order to come back to committee. So if it’s relating to CP 19 bylaw in general, any changes would be a decided matter of council would not be able to come forward. Changes that are related to the owner’s information being posted, whether physically or online or because it’s all tied to CP 19 and the rental license.

So if it helps, what it doesn’t prevent is excluding the owner contact information, and this may tie into Council Cutty’s previous comment as well, it does not prevent, for example, the posting of simply through the residential property lookup portal or through a website map or something, doesn’t necessarily prevent the posting of a notice of a bylaw action. So, one, two, three main street has an open property standards complaint about unmanaged garbage. That is different from posting John and Jane Q public are the owners of the rental at one, two, three main street. That’s helpful.

So there’s different components that could still be brought forward, but it would be around the posting of the owner’s information. I could think of a whole bunch of examples with other motions that we passed that would be very similar to that, and then they would have been considered not a decided matter of council. So I’m a little confused. So I won’t take any more time, but I will say we don’t have, I don’t want to support this.

I’m not going to ask you not to. I know what you’re going to do, but I don’t think we have a balance when it comes to who it is we’re looking after. You look, I’m a landlord myself. I don’t have a problem with the original intent of the motion that we brought a few months ago or whenever we brought it.

I don’t have a problem with the amendment that we brought to committee. I think when it comes to the fact that a rental property license is very similar to a business license, and there is an income associated with that rental property, just like any other business, why are we saying no to providing extra information for transparency and accountability? I think this is a real step that we should bring forward because I just don’t see why not. There’s no balance, we do it elsewhere, but we won’t do it here, and that is concerning to me.

So like I said, I won’t take too much time. I do have some extra questions on that ruling, whether this is your main or not, with respect to by-law CP-19, but I’m not gonna hold the committee here and ask those extra questions, but I do feel that there is some work we can do that would not be a decided matter of council here, ‘cause I do have a few examples off the top of my head that that wouldn’t apply, and then that would make those last decisions, those last decided matter of councils, I don’t know what that would do to those decisions, because we’ve made decisions before that I think are direct comparisons here that would go against that. Councillor Hopkins. Yes, so a committee, I supported staff’s recommendation.

I still do, but I hear the concerns from the two councillors, one in particular that maybe more work needs to be done. It is committee work, not council work, so I am okay with defeating this committee. Motion, and then seeing if there’s a referral to go back to committee. Councillor Pribble.

Thank you, dear colleagues. I hope you will support what’s in front of us. The staff did a really good report coming back to us. We asked them to come back.

They did a couple of things that I would like to mention. The staff did say an option how individuals can find out this information. No doubt, if it would be on the front window, it would be much easier accessible. I would like to correct a couple of things.

The business licenses that we issue, there are no names. Here would be actually names of the individuals. And during the meeting, or it was in the report, the staff did ask, will be kind of the purpose because our steps, our bylaws, stayed very clearly. If there is an issue with a certain property owner, it’s done by our enforcement team.

Our bylaw enforcement team, they do have this information. So they were actually saying, first of all, protecting privacy for the privacy of the individuals. But again, it’s not just hiding. Point of order, it’s been determined in the staff report.

Okay, Councilor Trassau, please wait until I recognize you. You have called a point of order, but Councilor Pribble has to relinquish the mic. You have to ask your point of order on mic because it’s not captured on the video feed if you do not. My point of order is that as a matter of what was in the staff report, the staff indicated clearly that this was not a matter of personal privacy.

So for him to say that it is, it’s really the story that’s in the report and we should stay away from that. Will they make a point of order? Okay, again, the side conversations back and forth between members about what is and isn’t a private point of order need to stop because that’s a determination of the chair. Please and thank you.

So I’m just gonna relate back to Councilor Pribble. Hold on, there’s a point of order that I need to rule on. So, Councilor Trassau’s point of order, I think is, sorry, now I’m gonna sound like Mayor Morgan. I think it’s a matter of opinion on how the Councilor is expressing himself.

I think it’s more a point of personal privilege than a point of order. Nonetheless, Councilor Pribble, if you can frame that you feel rather than the staff feel because it’s not up to Council to reflect what staff are intending. Staff’s own language communicates that. Councilor Pribble, go ahead.

And I will refrain to my comments as my opinion of the privacy, not staffs. But my bigger thing is that going back to the licensing and we do not have business licenses, they say specific names of the individuals is the corporations, it’s the businesses. And again, I’ll repeat one more thing, what the staff said. If there is an issue with such properties, we do have a process by law that goes to our by law officer and they are the ones who are addressing these issues.

So if we do have it in place, yes, it could be potentially that some could be potentially addressed more prop, more faster if you have such experiences. But I would, again, if you have the report from the staff was quite clear and recommending what they did because even if they stated, even if it was posted, we still still have the same procedures policies. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Pribble.

Any other speakers to the motion that’s on the floor? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Close in the vote, motion carries seven to six. Okay, colleagues, we still have two more items on CPSC.

It’s 543, I need a motion to extend past six p.m. Please, Councillor ramen, Councillor Cudi, I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. Close in the vote, motion carries 12 to one. Councillor Pribble.

Thank you, Chair, and I would like to table the 2.5, 2.6, 2025 Ontario Works participant and service delivery profile, which was asked to be pulled up by Councillor Stevenson. Committee was under consent, 6-0. So because we’re working backwards, this is item five in the CPSC list in e-scribe for you, item 2.6 from the committee agenda. And that’s what I said.

Sorry, just out of Councillor, I’ll ask from the side. So that’s on the floor, Councillor Pribble, speakers looking for speakers. Seeing none, I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. Close in the vote, motion carries 12 to one.

Councillor Pribble. Thank you, and the last 1.5, affordable and community housing update, and at a committee, it was under consent 6-0, being for speakers. Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, on this one, I wanted to ask a couple of questions about Appendix B.

So it talks about liquidity in the first part, and it says, “Based on 2024 data, “more than 40% of housing providers do not generate “and retain enough cash to pay for short-term debts. “It’s an area that needs attention.” So if I could get an update from staff on what we’re doing about that. And would that be Mr. Mathers?

The Deputy Mayor. So related to this item, we are working with all of the housing providers to try to make improvements. And part of what you’ve seen in that of Independence is ratings that we’re starting to collect information on, to be able to be able to give good advice to the various housing providers. So it is something that’s part of our work plan, and we’re working with these providers one-on-one to be able to improve those metrics, and ensure that they can ensure that liquidity moving forward.

Councillor. If they are unable to pay their bills, what’s the process and when is Council involved or informed? Mr. Mathers.

Through the Deputy Mayor, the process would be if there is a housing provider, that cannot make those important payments, then they will work with us as the service provider to be able to ensure that there’s opportunities to be able to, if there’s other funding sources that they can use, if it gets to the point where they’re no longer able to sufficiently work through themselves and work through their board, then that’s, we indicate that as a project in difficulty, and that’s something that we bring back or report directly to committee and council, to be able to provide some background and information on that specific project and look at different ways that we can try to ensure that the housing provider is brought back into conformance with their agreement with the service provider. Councillor. Thank you, how soon after being informed that they’re no longer to pay their bills, would it come to Council? Mr.

Mathers. Through the Deputy Mayor, as soon as possible, that we can have that information, so definitely that’s something that we’d want to make sure that Council’s aware of as soon as possible. Councillor. Thank you, I’m aware of one, at least, that says that they won’t have enough money to last the month and that the city’s been informed.

So I’m just wondering, do you have to wait until it actually happens before it comes back? And I’m also wondering, like it says, 25% of housing providers have an accumulated deficit, significant risk to the future survival of providers in this category without attention on how to correct for this moving forward. There is a risk that the business can become insolvent and require service manager intervention. By my math, that could be potentially 16 providers.

I’m just wondering, again, the KPIs and the percentages are good, but they could hide that we potentially have 16 buildings full of units that potentially are on the brink of bankruptcy. Mr. Mathers. Through you, Your Worship.

I can’t speak about specific housing providers at this point. I will note that if there are providers that are in this situation, we would be bringing back a report as soon as possible. So it could be as soon as it’s this April, if there was something that was imminently happening. So I can’t speak to the specifics ‘cause that’s between the city and the service provider and these housing boards.

But if there is anything that’s important, we’ll bring that back to council as soon as possible. Councillor. Thank you. I’m gonna just make a few comments that this is an annual update report that we’ve got in the appendix saying that potentially there’s some very, very difficult situations coming for organizations.

And I’m aware of one that is on the edge right now that does not have the money to pay their bills and doesn’t know what to do and is wondering how to get support. And I’m just feeling that when we get a report like this, we’re talking about hundreds of units. In this particular building, there’s 94 units. There’s five that are damaged so badly structurally.

It’ll probably be years before they can be occupied. There’s 12 that are damaged and they’re unable to afford to repair them and two that are coming online shortly. They’re telling me that this is a baseline, a 122 baseline situation in a cooperative housing building that we’ve got vulnerable people and families in these buildings and affordable units that are sitting empty while we’ve got people on the streets. And so I guess my concern is that this report is a lot of data, but it’s not highlighting to council how many buildings are at risk, how many units are empty, how long have they been empty, what amount of dollars is needed to be able to get them occupied again?

I’m very, very concerned that the quickest way for us to get affordable units in this city is to repair the damaged units that are there. And the best thing we can do to prevent homelessness is to ensure that our affordable housing buildings are safe and that we don’t have 122 baseline situations. So the other concern that I have is regarding the Coachee funding in Appendix C. So again, I’m in communication with the building in my ward that fortunately had reached out to me.

I don’t know, I’m gonna maybe need to make some phone calls to all the rest of them in my ward to make sure they’re okay and find out what I can do to support. But in this one, it says specifically here that there’s funding available to them and for two critically needed projects. So I saw this and I was so relieved because it says approved and I know they need these when I met with them in December. But then after this report came to committee, I was informed that they were informed by the city that those two things that they critically, critically, critically need were only going to be paid if another thing that they didn’t want paid was also paid.

So I guess I’m very confused. And then when I’ve clarified with staff, this approved listing is actually just preliminary ones. So I guess this isn’t actually what is gonna happen. That’s not clear in this report.

And so I guess my last question through you to staff is who makes, are these housing providers submitting requests for funding? How is it the city is telling the provider that they are going to pay a bill that they don’t want paid in order to get the funding for the stuff they do want? I just want to understand the operations around that and how we can assist from a policy perspective. Mr.

Mathers? Through the deputy mayor. So I can’t speak of its specific applications as part of this process. There, I think I understand with the property that’s being referred to at this point, but I can’t get into that without a lot of other contacts and background and that’s not, this is an appropriate time to share it as part of this report.

Councillor. Thank you. And I understand and I hear that, but I mean, just from a policy perspective, who are the providers submitting requests or is the city making some decisions there and pushing projects or recommending projects? Okay, Councillor, I am going to say, I will go to Mr.

Mathers for this response, but I think that the questions you’re asking really need to be taken when you’re talking about getting into policy changes that might be needed to operationalize something that’s really beyond the scope of the item that’s on the floor and needs to be dealt with by meeting with staff and discussing ideas with them at that point. Mr. Mathers? Through the chair.

So as the service manager, we’re responsible for allocating and distributing the funding from Coachee as part of, as outlined within the requirement. So that’s our role. There is processes that we follow through an application process and there’s also a specific criteria that we need to ensure that we’re maintaining at the same time. So we do work very closely with all of the service providers to be able to provide what they need as well.

So that’s part of the conversation and part of what we’re trying to do moving forward to ensure that people have the funding to be able to do this great work in the community. Councillor? What’s my time? Good, the clerk and I have the same time.

420 is how much you’ve used up, so you got 40 seconds. My concern is about this annual report. I appreciate all the work and the challenges that are out there, but this does not transparently represent the problems that exist potentially within our city if the provider that I’m in contact with is any indication. We need to know how many units, we need to know how damaged they are, we need to know how much money you need to fix them.

We need to address the security concerns and we need to make sure that families and people are safe in our buildings and it needs to be a top priority and this annual report does not give Council, in my opinion, the information that we need. Councillor, any other speakers? Councillor Ferreira. Thank you, Chair.

So this is something that I’ve been on for a while. There’s a few reports in the past that you could go to. I would point the Council to the roadmap 2.0. I believe has it and I believe that there was a report on this for the end of mortgage agreement specifically.

I think January or November of 24, but if the Council wants, she can send me an email and I’ll give you those reports. I do see that there is concerns here. I agree with the Council’s concerns. We have a lot of subsidized housing that was affordable housing that was provincially operated that have been downloaded to us and no longer have that subsidization.

They’re also in huge capital disrepair because those capital upgrade or those capital maintenance didn’t actually exist. So the issue is multi-prong. We don’t have that operational money for that subsidization. We have units or buildings that are in capital disrepair that require that.

We have boards that may not necessarily be willing to serve on the board. They may be a little bit later in their career or in their age and they don’t want to be or they don’t have the capacity to be able to serve all those boards. There’s lots of issues here. But I also would point out, just from memory, I’m pretty sure that the intent was, and I think this might have been in the roadmap 2.0 or in that report from, and I can’t remember when sometime in 2024 or early 25, that it’s gonna be pretty much falling on the city and the taxpayer base to be able to fund both the capital repair and the operational parts of it and the subsidization.

And that’s gonna be falling on us, I think, within 2018, I believe, I didn’t prepare for this ‘cause I didn’t know that these questions were coming, but I’m pretty sure we are gonna be paying for all of that within the next couple of years. And the way I understand that it works is if those private housing providers aren’t able to get subsidization from us, then as a tenancy ends, that’s affordable, most likely they will be going into your average market rate tenancy, which means we lose affordable housing. So I agree that there is a concern here, but I do have that information. This has been coming to committee for the last year and a half, two years.

And there are subsequent reports that the council can look at to get that information. Any other speakers? Seeing none, then I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote. Closing the vote, motion carries 11 to one.

Councillor Perbeau. Thank you, Chair, and this concludes the report. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor ramen, I’m gonna call on you for SPPC. Thank you for standing in my place today. Thank you. I’m pleased to present the fourth report of SPPC.

I have not been asked to pull any items at this time, but I’ll look around the room, see if there’s anything that I would like to pull. Hey, looking to colleagues to see if any items need to be dealt with separately. I think you can put the whole thing on the floor, Councillor. Wonderful, happy to put the whole thing on the floor.

Questions and comments. Just wanna make a comment, and I’m really glad to see people here in the audience who— Don’t just wanna say that. Yeah, and you’ll need, you’ll, Councillor Trussau, sorry, you just need your mic. Councillor ramen, can you turn yours off so he, Councillor Trussau, can offer his comments.

Councillor Trussau, go ahead, please. You see that we have representatives from tourism London here, and they’ve sat through the whole meeting very patiently, and I just wanna say I appreciate you coming. I don’t think it doesn’t sound like anything’s being pulled on your item. I don’t know if other people on this, Council have any comments or questions, but you look like you’re falling asleep, and I feel really bad for you.

But thank you, thank you for coming, thank you for coming, that’s all, okay? Councillor McAllister, Councillor Firdre, do you want on the list as well? Okay, Councillor McAllister, and then Councillor Ferrer. Thank you through the chair, I don’t wanna take up time, but I just also wanted to thank Mr.

Chisholm for sticking it out for our own CEO. Your back’s probably killing you, but again, thank you for being here. Councillor Ferrer. Thank you, so nothing was pulled or speaking to everything.

So, thank you Mr. Chisholm for standing there and sitting. We’re gonna be out of bed full of them, I’m sure you’re gonna be out of here right when that’s done, to tourism and to the music office, or the music office, thank you for sitting also through this, and I know it’s gonna be a little uneventful. I wasn’t there at SPPC, so I just wanted to make some comments here.

I do appreciate the tie with the downtown plan and the economic development strategy. I do appreciate the motion that was brought forward, just five new spaces, and just make sure that we can activate citywide, ‘cause I do know that this is not just a downtown thing, obviously I’m excited for it to be downtown, and we do have the Dundas place, and we do have everything ready to go to activate things, but I do wanna point out that this is obviously something that we will have citywide, and we can have activations and kind of just leverage our music talent citywide. So, I just wanna say thank you for the work, I’m sorry, I wasn’t here for SPPC. I could go on, but I’m not going to, ‘cause I know you wanna get out of here, so I just wanna say that, thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Ferra, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I did have a couple of pull requests that I pulled my pull request just to try to keep things moving here tonight, but I did want to speak to a couple of things. One is the, you know, SCO City Music Action Plan. I did wanna mention that there is a request, I know we’ve got some amendments that we got put through, and it’s gonna be coming back to us.

I just wanted to put in the public records so that people who are working on this can keep in mind that there’s, I heard general consensus around more communication from the London Music Office related to supports for venues, grassroots organizations and artists, stronger definition and communication regarding the London Music Office mandate and reviving engaging the London Business of Music Committees. I was gonna try to move this amendment, I don’t think I’d support for it, but I am just gonna put it out there in the hopes that those who are working in this will take that into consideration that that’s what I heard from several people. The other thing was the 2026 Assessment Growth Funding Allocation. I’ve really been given that a lot of thought since I heard that this is not the normal thing that’s done across the province, and it troubles me a little bit that, you know, seven million, like $14 million gets just, we’ve delegated that authority to staff with very little oversight.

And in fact, you know, it was kind of like, we’re not supposed to have any input into that. And half of that is corporate services. So half of that funding goes to the people who have the delegated authority to make that decision. And I just think that it’s worthy of consideration, I’m gonna be bringing forward something potentially at some other time to say, can we have a report on that and relook at that decision that was made?

Is it in the best interest of taxpayers given the financial pressures that are on us, given the fact that, you know, other municipalities have not followed our lead on that, other than I hear there’s two. It does concern me that it’s, it does, the delegate who spoke made a good point about it almost being off-budget allocations. And it does make it a little harder for the general public and for councillors to understand the overall picture. And so I’m not really happy about it, I didn’t pull it, but I don’t think that we should be allocating seven million dollars to corporate services, increases without some debate and discussion about the four hires, why those four that employee FTEs have gone up 354 employees in two years.

I do think we need more information, which departments, where is that happening? Is it frontline? I just have a ton of questions and I think the public wants more details. We want a lot of details, like I just said about the other report.

Give us the details, give us the information, and so I’ll be moving motions at another time, but I did not pull it today. Thank you, Councillor Stevenson, looking for any other speakers. Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Who’s in the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Councillor Robin. Thank you, that concludes my report for SPPC, if I may move on to ICSC. Yes, I was gonna say congratulations on the shortest standing up for a report today, and now you get to do it again for standing in your own place. Thank you, always looking to set a record.

Okay, so let’s get started with ICSC. I’m looking to put items one through six, eight, nine, 12, 15, and 16 on the floor. Those are the ones that I have not been asked to pull as of yet. Sorry, can you just repeat that?

Sure, one through six, eight, nine, 12, 15, and 16. So those are on the floor, looking for any discussion. Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Okay, that’s now open, sorry, we’re in big motion, so it took a moment.

Sorry, there’s an error in that, we’re just gonna cancel and then we’ll fix it and reopen it. Councillor Robin, can you just clarify? Absolutely, and through you. So I’m just clarifying with council that item 15 was not requested to be pulled.

Those in the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Thank you, I’ll look to put item seven on the floor and just noting for my colleagues that the wrong bylaw had been attached, and that’s why I pulled it to introduce the clerk. And item seven is the fiber connect three municipal access agreements, and I just wanna make sure it relates to bill 100, correct number, okay? Any discussion?

Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Those in the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Okay, and then we will need a motion now for the as amended. Councillor Robin, you’re willing to move that.

We have a seconder, Councillor McAllister, thank you. And we’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Those in the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Councillor Robin.

Thank you, the next item is item 10, which is the FCM Green Municipal Fund Agreement for Accelerating Community Energy Systems, and it’s related to bill number 97. Looking for any discussion on this one? Seeing none, then I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Those in the vote, motion carries 11 to one.

Councillor Robin. Thank you, I’m looking to put item 11, sorry, 2.3, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Green Municipal Fund Agreement, for municipal fleet decarbonization, feasibility study related to bill number 98 on the floor. And looking for any discussion on that one. Seeing none, I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote.

Those in the vote, motion carries 11 to one. Thank you, colleagues, Councillor Robin. Thank you, I’ll put item 13 on the floor, 2.9, contract award tender number RFT 2025, 2023, Wellington Gateway and municipal infrastructure improvement phase two A Wilkinson Street to Wilkins, sorry, Street to baseline road. Looking for any discussion, seeing none, clerk to open the vote.

Those in the vote, motion carries 11 to one. Councillor Robin. Thank you, I’ll put item 14 to 10, limited tendering and cooperative procurement for LTC’s purchase of nine new buses. And looking for any speakers on that one.

Seeing none, I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote. Those in the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Councillor Robin. Thank you, that concludes my fourth report of ICSC moving on to the fifth report of, which was a special Infrastructure and Corporate Services report and I’d like to put that item on the floor.

Okay, so we are on the fifth report of ICSC now and Councillor Robin has moved that. Any discussion? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Those in the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Thank you, colleagues, Councillor Robin. That concludes my report. Thank you, moving on item 8.6 is audit committee, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I have the pleasure to present the first report of the audit committee.

I am going to pull six for just a housekeeping item that was circulated. I haven’t been asked to pull anything else. I’ll just do a quick check. So I will put on from one to five and seven to nine, put that on the floor.

Okay, making sure nobody wants anything else to deal with separately. Seeing none, so that’s on the floor for discussion. Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Those in the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I would like to put six on the floor with the amendment that I had circulated as a housekeeping item. Or I think I have to pass the chair, right? Yes, you have to put the original on first, and then you have to move an amendment.

You have to, we didn’t have to do that for the other one. It got moved, changed. So it’s slightly different. I get what you’re saying, Councillor Stevenson.

The challenge is in terms of, so it’s to be received, but your amendment is actually changing the order of which audit’s coming, in which order. So— - I don’t see, like if the other one was able to move the motion with an amendment, what does it matter in this case? It’s just a housekeeping item to put it back to what was already— - Well, I’m gonna respectfully, Councillor, just give me a moment here with the clerk, because what you’re describing as a housekeeping amendment is not, in my view, as a chair, a housekeeping amendment. You’re actually asking to swap which audit is done and which order, which would require those of us who don’t want to switch the order to vote differently.

And if it’s just to be received, there’s a challenge— I was just trying to move it fast and we did the other one, so whatever you need. Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out how we can do this. Well, and I’m gonna share. The reason that I am trying to figure out how to do this is because I don’t wanna change the order.

I paid attention to the discussion that was had at audit committee about the concern around the election and clerk resources for staffing. But that, I can speak to it when I move it, but that’s all been addressed. Okay, ‘cause the motion, well, and the other thing is, the motion I have in E-Scribe is just that the communication from NMP with respect to the summary update for internal audit be received. So I need to know, like, I know you— If it’s faster, let’s just, I’ll put the original motion on and then I’ll move in a minute.

Okay, let’s do it that way. I’m gonna pass the chair to Councillor Preble so that I can— So that you can then move the amendments. Okay. I have the chair and I recognize Councillor Stevenson.

Thank you, so I guess did the motion get on already and now I’m moving the amendment? (laughs) Motion’s on, so now you wanna amend the order. Okay, I’ll slow it down a little. I was trying to just get this last thing done.

So the amendment that was circulated is moving the audit schedule back to what we originally had. There was a debate and discussion at audit committee, which I appreciated. Since that time, there’s been further emails back and forth and the clerk’s office graciously has been able to figure out a way to accommodate that staffing and MNP has also said that they can do it. So I’ve been informed that it’s not an issue at all to put this back to the way that it was.

And so that’s my amendment. So that’s on the floor. Is there a seconder for that? Okay, seconded by Councillor Preble.

Councillor Preble. Thank you. I do have a questions for you, Chair, to the staff. This order, if I remember correctly, was changing the fall, which the new order was approved by the council.

Does it make any difference in terms of do we have to vote two thirds, because it was a decision? That’s a question for me to the staff. Through you, Mr. Deputy Mayor, no, I don’t believe that it requires reconsideration.

Councillor. Thank you. And one follow up, even though Councillor Stephen stated it, I know when we had the meeting, we were talking about the election staffing issue. And directly from the clerk, this could be, this change could be accommodated and you feel comfortable in terms of the staffing issues.

And let’s go to the clerk. Thank you through you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. Yeah, since the meeting, I’ve had discussions with staff and MNP, and we can accommodate the move with minimal impacts to the election.

Thank you very much, Chair, no more questions? Looking for other speakers, Councillor Ferrer. Thank you. I’m just, like when I heard this was a housekeeping item, like when I hear housekeeping, I think issue with the by-law language or some kind of clerical error, that this was presented as a housekeeping item, but it doesn’t seem like it’s a housekeeping item.

This is something that was discussed at the audit committee. And I would just say, presenting this to us as a housekeeping item, when it is not a housekeeping item, frankly hurts my trust. And I also followed the audit committee discussion. So when I first heard it being just at the housekeeping item alone, you lost me, because I’m just wondering what’s the goal?

What’s the reason? I think the approach would be to not say to us it’s housekeeping when it’s not, because I have been Chair. I have seen housekeeping items come forward, but there are never items that I am trying to push myself. That is not housekeeping.

That is something that should be debated with full transparency and your reasonings for that. Coming to us saying, this is a housekeeping item, I think is not the way to go. Because of that, just right there, I’m not supporting that, because I don’t know what the intent is. And I can see that the intent has not been forthcoming to us when it is described as a housekeeping item.

So I’m not supporting this. Thank you for other speakers. Seeing none, on the amendment, which is the change of order piece, to change the submission dates for the privacy audit from December to October, and the submission date for the continuous improvement audit from October to December. And Councillor Stevenson, can you just confirm that that’s the language in the e-scribe?

You may have to refresh, but just, okay, we have no other speakers, so I’m gonna open the vote on that. Closing the vote, motion carries eight to three. Okay, so now we have a main motion as amended. So Councillor Stevenson, now you’re presenting, your amendment’s done, so if you can take back over for Councillor Preble.

Perfect, I will then present the motion as amended if there’s any speakers. And we will need a seconder for that, ‘cause it is now amended. Okay. Councillor Cuddy, I see you seconding.

Okay, so main motion as amended, moved and seconded, looking for any speakers. I just wanna say thanks to the clerk’s office for helping me with that. Thank you, Councillor. I’m gonna ask the clerk to open the vote.

Closing the vote, motion. Councillor. Thank you, that’s the first audit report complete. Thank you.

Moving along, Councillor Layman, I’m gonna ask you to report out from closed session. This is a fourth report of the council in closed session. Report that progress was made with respect to items 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4, as noted on the public agenda, 6.1/4/pack, 6.1/4/SPPC, 6.1/4/ICSC, and 6.2/4/ICSC. Thank you, Councillor Layman.

We’ve no other added reports. We have no deferred matters. Third matters, we have none, inquiries. I’m not aware of any emergent motions we have none.

So that moves us on to bylaws. The clerk has broken things up into a series of votes for us. So the first two bylaw votes will be bills number 97 and 98. These go together and they are the green municipal fund grant agreements.

So I’m looking for a mover and a seconder for ideally, can we get a mover and a seconder for all the bylaws or is anyone posed to any of the bylaws? Sorry, Councillor Layman and Councillor Hillier, that’ll just make it easy. We’ll use those on all the votes. So now we will move to the votes on bills 97 and 98.

So there’s no debate on first or third, so we’ll open the vote on first reading. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 10 to one. And we will now open the vote on second reading, 98, communicable funds, any speakers. Seeing none, we will open the vote.

Motion carries 10-1. And third vote on bills 97 and 98. We will ask the clerk to open the vote. Motion carries 10-1.

And using the same mover and seconder, we will now move on. The next votes are bills number 105 and number 123. And these are related to 550 right out street north and 82 90 Kent Street. So we will move the introduction and first reading of bills 105 and ask the clerk to open the vote.

All the dice, can you just repeat that one more time? Yes, this is bills 105 and 123. This is 550 right out street north and 82 90 Kent Street. Motion carries 83.

And second reading, any speakers? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. Motion carries 83. And third and final reading, I will ask the clerk to open the vote.

Motion carries 83. Hey, our next bill is 108. This is the travel and business expenses by law. And we will move to first reading and ask the clerk to open the vote.

It carries 92. And we will now look to second reading, any speakers? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. It carries 92.

And third and final reading of bill number 108. I will ask the clerk to open the vote. It carries 92. Next vote will be bill 109.

This is the municipal alcohol policy. And I will ask the clerk to open the first reading. Apologize late, which one is this again? This is bill 109, the municipal alcohol policy by law.

It carries 10-1. And moving to second reading, any speakers on bill 109. Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. It carries 10-1.

And our third and final reading of bill 109. I will ask the clerk to open the vote. It carries 10-1. Okay colleagues, the next two bills are revised bill number 124 and added bill number 125.

These are the two bills related to the ARUs and the limit bedroom counts and gross floor area. So I will look to have the clerk open the vote for first reading. It carries 10-1. Moving to second reading of bills 124 and 125.

Any speakers? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to open the vote. It carries 10-1. And moving on to the third and final reading of bills 124 and 125.

I will ask the clerk to open the vote. It carries 10-1. And the balance of our bills. This will be first reading of bills 95 through 122 with the exceptions of 97, 98, 105, 108, and 109 as we’ve already dispensed with those.

And I will ask the clerk to open the vote on. It carries 11-0. And second reading of the balance of all of our bills with the exception of 97, 98, 105, 108, and 109. Any speakers?

Seeing none, I will ask the clerk. It carries 11-0. And third and final reading and enactment of bills 95 through 122 with the exception of 97, 98, 105, 108, 109. I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote.

It carries 11-0. The vote concludes our meeting. We just have two minor, what I will call housekeeping items on this one. The first is the opportunity to wish Councilor Cuddy a very happy birthday.

I’m glad you got to spend so much time with us today on your special day. And then the second item is looking for a motion to adjourn. Councilor McAllister and Stevenson, we can do this one by hand, all in favor. Motion carries.

Thank you everyone.