April 28, 2026

Original link

Official minutes have not been published yet. A meeting transcript is available below.

Meeting Transcript

Duration: 5 hours, 47 minutes

Source: Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive

Full Transcript

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

View full transcript (5 hours, 47 minutes)

Okay, thank you, please be seated. Welcome to the seventh meeting of municipal council for this session. I’m going to start with a land acknowledgement. We acknowledge that we are gathered today on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabak, Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwak and Adawandron peoples .

We honor respect the history, languages and culture of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. We acknowledge all of the treaties that are specific to this area. The two-row Wampum Belt Treaty of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Silver Covenant Chain, Beaver Hunting Grounds Treaty of the Haudenosaun ee Nanfant Treaty of 1701, McKee Treaty of 1790, the London Township Treaty of 1796, here on track treaty of 1827 with the Anishnabek, and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum of the Anishnabek and Haudenosaunee. The three indigenous nations that are neighbors to London are the Chippewaas of the Thames First Nation, Oneida Nation of the Thames, and the Muncie Delaware Nation who all continue to live as sovereign nations with individual and unique languages, cultures, and customs.

The London is also committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. To make a request specific to this meeting you can contact council agenda at London.ca or 519-661-2489 extension 2425. And with that it brings us to our national anthem. Sarah Weave is a core member of London Symphonia’s violin section.

As an active freelance violinist. She has recorded on Juno-nom inated CDs with both the National Youth Orchestra and the children’s group Splash and Boots, which I have seen many times, having four kids. While not performing, she is an active teacher, instructing both piano and violin at all levels. Please rise and join me welcoming Sarah, who will now perform the National Anthem for us.

We’re a turn ourselves to item one, which is disclosures of pain or interest. I’ll look for any disclosures the colleagues might have. Seeing none, then we’re on to recognitions. I’m gonna start with Councillor Hopkins.

Thank you, your worship and members of council. I would like to briefly acknowledge International Fallissimia Day, which will be observed on May the 8th. This day is an important opportunity to raise awareness of Fallissimia. It’s a serious, inherited blood disorder that affects individuals and families in our community and around the world.

It also recognizes the strength of those living with the condition as well as the caregivers, healthcare professionals and advocates who support them. I wanna thank members of our local community who have worked to bring greater awareness to this issue and to highlight the importance of access to care , treatment and public understanding. I’m joined here up in the gallery, Mr. Carlos Zaz uta, who is a board member of the Falissimia Foundation of Canada and is also a resident in Lambeth.

Thank you for being here. I’m also pleased that City Hall will be read on May 8th in recognition of International Faliss imia Day, supporting everyone that is afflicted with this disease. Thank you. Great, thank you.

I will do the next recognition. So just give me more. So I wanted to start today by recognizing that the National Day of Morning is a day where the nation remembers those who were workers , who were killed, or injured, or made ill on the job. I think we first have to recognize the family’s friends and coworkers whose lives have been forever changed by workplace tragedies.

As a community in a city, we recognize that every person deserves to be safe on the job. Everyone who leaves home at the start of a shift deserves to come back home. Each number or statistic on workplace injuries and fatalities is a person. A family and a story that must be told and remembered.

You can’t lose sight of the fact that workplace injuries and fatalities are preventable. As mayor and council, we all have the privilege of representing our city. With that comes the responsibility of being employers to thousands of people. And it’s vital that we work together with our employees to put them first, prioritizing safety, healthy and respectful workplaces each and every day.

many groups in the city who work to try to make workplaces safer. And we recognize their continued ongoing work, whether they’re organizing runs, raising money, raising awareness, or working to ensure that different organizations have the tools and training that they need to ensure that workplaces are safe. I want to recognize that there was a number of ceremonies today and a number of members of council were able to attend them, or recognize in their own ways. And as a city and a council, we certainly paused to remember all of those who were and workplace strategy, but those who are also injured or did not get to return home in the same way that they left.

I just wanted to end because even at the corporation, there have been lives who have been lost over the years, and so I just wanted to end with just a moment of science for all those who have lost their lives due to workplace tragedies. Please be seated, thank you. Good, Councillor Troso. Thank you very much, and I want to thank the mayor for raising that and recognizing it.

I was one of the people that was at one of the ceremonies today. And I just want to add that the special focus in London is looking at a very, very particular and emerging type of workplace injury, and that is psychological damage. And there were a number of people in attendance who were able to speak, the particular instances of that. And it’s also worthy to note that the Lifetime Achievement Award from the London Labor Council for this issue was awarded to Mr.

Steve Holmes, who many of you know, he’s an LTC bus driver. And Mr. Holmes recounted several instances over his career of bus drivers being in harm’s way with respect to these types of issues. So again, thank you, thank you Mayor for raising that.

And it certainly is an important occasion and I was very honored to be able to attend one of the ceremonies. Thank you very much. Thanks, any other recognitions? Yeah, seeing none, a review of the conference minor speaks to the room public.

We have none, that brings us to council in closed session. We have six items to go into closed session before. All the reasons are on the public agenda. I’ll look, Councilor Trostac, we just have your microphone.

I’ll look for a motion to move into camera for those reasons. Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor McAll ister. Any discussion? Okay, we’ll open that for voting.

Councillor Ferrera, Councillor Lewis. Councillor Lewis votes yes. Councillor Ferrera votes yes. No, thank you for closing the vote.

Motion carries 13-0. Okay, we’ll be moving to meeting room five colleagues for the public, you can stay here. We’ll return as soon as we’re done. Okay, thanks, please be seated.

Okay, we’re back in public session. I’ll just note, Councilor Frank is online. I believe both Councilor Hillier and Deputy Mayor Lewis will be joining us online potentially shortly. We appreciate the public’s patience that was a little longer than I had anticipated, but we’ll proceed with the agenda now and we’ll move into confirmation and signing of minutes of previous meetings.

We have the sixth meeting that was held on March 31st, 2026. I’ll look for a mover of the minutes. Councilor Hopkins, seconded by Councilor Van Mir bergen. Any discussion on the minutes?

Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Is it for eight votes, yes? No, did thank you. Those in the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Sorry, I was just trying to get out of some reading, but the clerk says no. So the first two items of the communication and the petitions are actually expropriations. So we’re going to proceed with those two items first, and then every other item in the communications, including all of the added, have positions placed in the agenda. They will be referred to those, but we’ll do that vote after we do 6.1 and 6.2 first.

And so, these are expropriations, just for Council and the public’s reminder. What we have to do is, we have to move into sitting as the approval authority. We then make a recommendation on the expropri ations. then move back out of the approval authority into municipal council, and then we accept and vote on the recommendation made by the approval authority .

So it’s a little bit procedural, but in a lot of reading on my part, but we’ll stick through it as pursuant to the expropriations act. All right, so I’ll read the motion. I’m gonna move in seconder. Move that council convene as the approval authority pursuant to the provisions of the expropriation act, RSO 1990 section E26 is amended for the purpose of considering communication number two from the deputy city manager environmental and infrastructure with respect to the expropriation of lands that may be required for the project known as the amended environmental compliance approval, ECA for the expanded W-12A landfill.

I look for a mover and a second urge to convene as the approval authority. Moved by Councillor Vameerberg and seconded by Councillor Cuddy. We’ll open that vote. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Okay, now sitting as the approval of approving authority, the motion is that on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager in Environment and Infrastructure with the Concurrence, the Director of Climate Change and Environmental and Waste Management on the advice of the Director of Realty Services with regard to the expropriation of lands that may be required to comply with condition 18 of the amended environmental compliance approval ECA for the expanded W12A landfill and that the following actions be taken in connection there with A. They’d counsel the Corporation of City London as the approval authority pursuant to the expropriation act, RSO 1990, section E26, as amended hereby approves the proposed expropri ation of lands as described in Schedule A, as appended to the staff report dated April 28th, 2026, in the city of London County of Middlesex. It being noted that the reasons for making the decision are as follows. I, subject lands are required by the corporation of the city of London for the administrative title cleanup associated with the expanded W12A landfill.

B, subject to the approval of A, a certificate of approval of B issued by the City of Clerk on behalf of the approving authority in the prescribed form. We’ll look for a move and a seconder for that motion. Moved by Councillor Cuddy, Mr. Van Mierbergen.

Any discussion? Okay, seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. All right, next, we will adjourn as the approval authority.

So that the meeting of the approving authority be adjourned and that council reconvene a regular session moved by Councillor Layman, seconded by Councillor Hopkins. We’ll open that for voting. Motion carries 12 to zero. Okay, now sitting as municipal council, we have a recommendation before us from the approval authority, approving authority.

And it reads as follows that on the recommendation of the deputy city manager environment and infrastructure with the concurrence of the director of environment and waste management on the advice of the director of realty services with respect to the expropriation of lands that may be required to comply with condition 18, the amended environmental compliance approval ECA with the expanded W-12A landfill and that the following actions be taken A, proposed by-law as appended to the staff report dated April 28th as appendix A, being a by-law to expropriate lands in the city of London in the county of Middlesex, the expanded W-12A landfill project B introduced that municipal council at the meeting to be held on April 28th, 2026. And B, the civic administration be directed to take all necessary steps to prepare a plan or plans showing the expropriation of lands and to register such plans or plans in the appropriate registry or land titles office pursuant to the expropriation act, expropriations act to RSO 1990 section E26 within three months of the approval authority granting approval of set expropriation. And see that the mayor and the clerk be authorized to sign on behalf of the expropriating authority, the plan or plans as signed by the Ontario Land Surveyor showing the expropriated lands. indeed that the city clerk be authorized and directed to execute and serve notices of an expropriation required by the expropriations act, RSO 1990, section E26, and such notices of possession that may be required to obtain possession of the expropriated lands.

Moved and seconded by Councillor Cuddy, seconded by Councillor McAllister, any discussion on that recommendation? Okay, seeing none, we can open that for voting. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 12-0. And just for colleagues, the E-Scribe is just a little slow, so it just might take a moment for those votes to pop up.

For sections 6.3 all the way through, 6.10. We have various parts of the agenda that those pieces of communications refer to. I have a consolidated motion referring all of those components to all of those parts of the agenda. I’ll look for a mover for that.

Councilor Vameerberg and seconded by Councilor Ferreira. Any discussion on the referral of those items? Okay, seeing them, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Okay, item seven, motions to which notice is given. There are none, courts. We have report 8.1, which is the sixth report of the Strategic and Priorities and Policy Committee. I’m gonna turn it over to the Vice Chair, Councillor ramen, to present the report on behalf of the Chair and Council.

Thank you and through you. I would like to present the sixth report of SPPC, that meeting so far, I’ve been asked to pull a few items from the list, I’ve been asked to pull five, six, and eight and I will just look around to see if there are any other pull requests from my colleagues. Would anybody else like anything done with separate? Other than five, six, and eight?

Seeing none, you can prepare a motion. Thank you, I’d like to put items one to four, item seven, nine to 12 on the floor. Okay, so those items are on the floor, I look for any discussion on those items from colleagues. Okay, seeing none, we’ll open those items for voting.

Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Go ahead, Councilor Roman. Thank you, I’d like to put item five on the floor. That’s 2.1, the micromodular shelter’s update.

Okay, that item is on the floor. I’ll look for speakers on that particular item. Go ahead, Councilor Stevenson. Thank you.

We did get a briefing note from staff with a breakdown of the details on the costs, both the monthly and the capital. But I shared it on Facebook and there’s a lot of feedback that people were expecting more detail. So I know, you know, our 13,500 a year in expense accounts are there item by item by item. And this was $7 million in property tax money.

I just wondered through you to staff, is it possible to get either publicly posted or shared with council a more detailed breakdown of the costs? Mr. Dickens. Through you, your worship, well, I can’t speak for the capital costs.

This is why we asked a committee, the level of detail that committee wanted, which was a high-level breakdown of the operating costs broken into the large chunks of where that operating costs go. So we are reflecting in that briefing note, what we understood to be the direction from council, should council have different direction, where in your hands. Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I appreciate that.

It wasn’t criticism we got what we asked for. I’m just sharing what the public is telling me, and I serve at the pleasure of them. So they’re asking, is it possible to get a more detailed breakdown? And so I’m just wondering if a motion is needed or if that’s something that could be provided publicly?

I think we had a motion last time. So if, I mean, Saf gave us exactly what we asked for. So if, I would say if colleagues were looking for something with a more detailed breakdown, that would likely be a motion asking for it at this point. only because staff responded to the previous direction and provided the information as we asked for it.

Okay, thank you, well, I’ll leave it with my colleagues to see, because the thing is, it would be around the wording of it too. I understand that the monthly is a budget at this point and it might vary month to month. So I guess it was looking for guidance regarding how best to get the clarity that the public is looking for. It’s something I can do offline as well potentially bring through caps.

I also, I was watching some of the videos around the new site and I believe there was mention that there might be TVs and stuff being purchased and put into the shelters. I just want to confirm if I heard that correctly. Sure, I’ll go to staff to talk about some of the components of the site. Mr.

Dickens, go ahead. Thank you, Your Worship. There are TVs installed in the common trailers. I believe those were donated items.

However, I will defer to Mr. Green, who I believe is on the call. Mr. Green, go ahead.

Thanks for joining us virtually. Good morning, just testing to make sure how do you video look good, okay. Yep, we can hear you good. Okay, thank you and through the chair, yes.

Mr. Dickens is correct. There is two televisions in the recreational trailers. Many of the residents, not many.

Several of the residents do have televisions in their own trailer, which they provided themselves as well. So yes, donation of two provided in the common spaces and there are several others in the cabin spaces. Councillor Stevenson. Okay, thank you.

So, you know, it’s generally I’m hearing from the public. They’re very pleased that 60 to 70 people have found shelter. We’re hearing some good stories from in there. It was supported unanimously at council.

I was, I only voted against the source of funding . But one of the things that is coming up with the public the cost because it is $4,800 per month per shelter when the capital costs were all funded. It is a little mind boggling to the public and to those who are trying to survive on their own on a low income on a pension or on ODSP or OW. I know I took a drive out to Hamilton about six months after the Tiffany Barton shelter site went up and I had an opportunity to speak with someone who worked there.

asked if there were any challenges and one of the things that they shared was that no one even wanted to go look in an apartment because they had maybe made it too good to be there and you know although that’s kind of a success that people are happy there it also maybe doesn’t set them up for the realities of living on their own on ODSP or OW we have to find your own transportation get on the bus get to appointments figure out your own food when when everything’s brought there, including medical care, pet care, and food is all prepared and everything. Again, I’m just sharing what I hear from the public in terms of their concerns in terms of what the conditions that they’re facing and they’re living with. You know, it was mentioned even by the mayor that a lot of people don’t have air conditioning. So although we want this to be, well, people are asking me what the transition plan is, why sort of basic life skills, such as food preparation, stuff, is there a way to bring the cost down?

Is there a way to help set people up for more independent living as they move forward, knowing that this is just a shelter. It’s not a long-term stay. So while I’m pleased that we’ve got another opportunity to help people who are living unsheltered, I’m gonna be voting no to receiving the report. And I just wanna explain why, And it’s because I’m hearing clearly from the public that there’s not enough transparency around the cost.

They want an itemized listing of costs and invo ices. Personally, I understand that. And they also want to understand why the cost is $4,800 per month and what the transition plans are to ensure that we’re treating people with the care and respect that they need, but also asking for some working towards the independence at least. So thank you.

Okay, I’ll look for other speakers. Councillor Troso. Well, thank you through the chair. I’ll certainly be voting to receive this report.

That’s all we’re being asked to do. I know from time to time, members of the public like to leave comments on social media posts. May I ask the clerk that we did we receive anything in the form of a added agenda item or some request to actually put these concerns in front of council with respect to this item on the agenda. Councilor, if you’re asking whether all the communications received are on the agenda, all the things that were given to the clerk are on the agenda if they were there on time.

I mean, the clerk will not, I mean, she’s not gonna comment on all those, but there are things we’ve received are on the public agenda as per the prescribed timeframe. Okay, well, thank you very much. I think it’s really important for those of us on council who engage in social media, to when people write in with concerns that should be forwarded to council, that they’re reminded that posting something on social media comment on Facebook, for example, doesn’t really get into our record and they might want to take the additional step of sending in an added communication item. I know I always do that when somebody says they want something on the record and I think others should do that as well.

Thank you. Okay, I’ll look to other speakers on this. Go ahead, Councillor Ferrera. Thank you, Mayor.

I’m just kind of following up. So I’m looking at the monthly expenses. I do see it’s $288,000 a month for the entire site as it operates from the report. I just wanted to break that down.

So is that from what Councillor Stevenson is referring to? I think she said 4800. I broke it down to 4200 divided by 70 per individual. I just wanted to know for that 4200, What services do we provide in addition to just housing?

So I believe it’s not just housing. I believe we have further supports, whether it’s getting people paper ready, whether it’s I think employment services are included in that food. So I was wondering if staff could break down the extra numbers on that. Go ahead.

Thank you, Your Worship. I’ll start with this response. As we shared with council members, those operating costs include the staffing on site, contracted staffing agency, providing supervision , PSW, all of the services and amenities that have been articulated, daytime transportation services to appointments, scheduled transportation to appointments, custodial and maintenance services, meal service operations, and consumable supplies, cups, cutlery, things like that. Food services are included in that cost.

So the provision of daily meals in addition to snacks so that folks meet their caloric intake. We also have the necessary packaging and delivery of those meals. And then a large portion of the operating cost is also the rental of the trailer so that people have a washroom in a shower to access as well as the communal spaces. So rental of the support trailers, the maintenance materials and operational supplies that go into running a brand new city facility that opened up in about 70 days.

And then of course through the seasonal operating costs you have snow removal and garbage collection and things like that. Thank you for that. And the intent is it’s like a long term stay at these micro modular sites or is this more like a short term kind of stabilization state because I understand that most or if not all of the individuals who are staying there are were previously not with housing. Is that correct?

Mr. Dickens, go ahead. Thank you. Worshiping, yes , as is indicated in the SPPC report, every individual that is now benefiting from the services at that site was previously living unsheltered.

Experiencing direct either street level unsheltered homelessness or encampment, homelessness. All of those folks have come there. The intent was, as per the direction, come up with a plan to mobilize a brand new city facility with 60 sleep cabins in 60 days. So the cost is the cost for, and we hear it too, that everybody can build these things cheaper, but nobody was, and that, you know, services can be found that are better or different, but they weren’t available.

So we are in the reality we’re in, and I think it’s important for for the public to know that, that in order to move at the pace that we moved under the direction that we were given, you have to make trade-offs in terms of what is available and what that cost is. The intent of this space was to open it quickly, give people in off the streets and keep them alive, which we have done to this point. In fact, there are already a number of individuals willing to leave this site and move into housing. expect to potentially moving in by weeks and go ahead thank you so I guess you know like the cost is the cost and you have to have these trade-offs and I guess there is you know the social cost the human capital costs whether it’s individuals who are without shelter or neighborhoods around them I guess going pivoting to that just focusing on that I guess the financial costs though I did see from the last evaluation report that the cost of homelessness unsheltered individuals is around 70 to a hundred thousand dollars a year which would come out to about $8,300 a year.

Is that correct? And if we were to compare the two costs, whether it’s $8,300-ish per year for individuals who are outside on the street financially, and that’s only on the financial side, to the 4,200 in the micromodular side, I do see financial costs benefit there, it costs the city half. And I’m not even speaking about the social cost when it comes to individuals out on the street themselves. if staff could just kind of point that out with that evaluation report for how much it does cost the municipality and the provincial government and the federal government.

I guess all the taxpayers together how much it costs for one individual being out on the street per year and per month. Go ahead Mr. Dickens. Through your worship whether having that data handy but it does ring about that that would be correct.

There are significant costs of folks living on sheltered both on the municipal system and the provincial justice police and and healthcare systems as well. Go ahead. So I think these are fair questions to be asking by the counselor of the costs and everything. I would say that it’s not just housing.

There’s extra things that are involved with the micro modular sites. The cost when it comes to individuals right on the street, what they go through emotionally and without any housing or any stability is a big cost. The cost of neighborhoods and families who you have individuals in encampments in, there’s a cost there too. but when you were to, and those costs will be relieved if individuals are housed with the micromodular sites, having those available, that relieves those costs .

But if you were to look at the purely financial cost of it, $100,000 per year, or $8,300-ish per month per individual living on house to $4,200 in a micromodular site, I think there’s an efficiency there for costs. Okay, other speakers, go ahead, Councillor Prib ble. I think you’ll be very brief, but I’m gonna make some comments. And yes, I will certainly, we all would like lower expenses, and I certainly want to look at the being more effective and efficient at this facility.

Having said that, if I look at the cost, what is currently now and the services that we are providing compared to, again, what was already said, there are other costs on the street encampments, and also in the hospital. There’s actually much lower than that. This is actually very similar services at hospital provides. I’m very happy to hear that there are certain people I already ready to move on and I think that was our main purpose of this facility for us not to have say Let’s say the 60 plus individuals there, but to keep rotating get them stabilized the stabilizer stabilization cost some money Thank you I’m please let’s stay on track of us this making sure people remove them on to move them on for Better improvement of like point one point two to keep looking at efficiencies effectiveness Absolutely, but thank you for this project.

I really so far I know it’s at the beginning or first stages, but I think it’s a very positive initiative. Thank you. And I will certainly vote to accept this report . Thank you, I have myself next on the list.

I’ll turn the chair over to Councillor Lehman. Thank you, and I’ll go to the mayor. Thank you, so I was gonna ask a question Mr. Dickens, but he actually answered it in response to Councillor Ferrer’s questions, and that was one of the things we talked about early on was making this a pathway to housing.

I’m very excited to hear that two people are, you know, after only a few months of operation, not only moving into the micromodular site, but finding the right type of housing for them and potentially, you know, this week moving on to housing. You know, flow through on these sites is pretty important because it gives us the capacity to move people from the streets into proper housing where they can be successful. You know, I think we should be conscious of the costs of the things we do, right? Taking action municipally does cost dollars and taking action particular within the space of serving vulnerable individuals does require a cost to it.

The micromodular site is a unique shelter option that has a number of components to it. It’s a site that serves people much in the other ways that bringing people off the streets in the shelter does. We’ve got lots of data, lots of data, not just here in the city, but across the province to show that when you actually get people off the streets and with supports, with shelter, with space around them, with access to services, with people are gonna come out with connections to housing services. We take pressure off of lots of things, lots of areas, the cost, residents’ money, whether they’re paying it through their parental taxes or their federal taxes or their municipal taxes.

We know that emergency room visits go down. An emergency room visit is $1,400 a night. It doesn’t take long for someone accessing emergency room services to start to become very costly, a very costly, provincial cost in the system. Inpatient stays go down.

land ambulance transfers go down. Police interactions go down. CIR interactions can go down when you provide people with spaces. Business impacts are minimized when we have 67 people in housing, 70 people potentially.

There’s impacts from the public, encampments in public parks, encampments in public spaces. Bringing people into those spaces actually creates relief in a variety of different ways for the public. So yes, there is a cost to it, but there’s a benefit to it. Most importantly, there’s a human cost to not providing the service that we’re providing , right?

When we actually bring people from the streets, particularly in the colder months of winter, where every night is a decision on where can I find a warm place to stay? And sometimes that’s through warming centers, which have a cost to a two, or other options, or maybe no options. When we bring them into a space that is a pathway to housing, they get dignity, they get safety, they get survival, they get well-being. And when you stabilize an individual, they’re at a different point in their life where they can move on to other places in housing that are much less costly than being on the street accessing a large variety of services.

It doesn’t mean that one shelter system like the micromotor’s shelter site is going to solve the entire problem. But it certainly helps for those individuals who are in it and it helps for all the people who would have been otherwise serving those individuals out in the community in a different way. So what I love for this to be part of a system across the province where provincial knowledge put towards it for sure. And maybe we will build something here with the best practices of others that may be picked up by another level of government to be funded in the future in some way.

We may build a model much like we did with the hub system that evolved into the hard hub system across the province of which I just met with my OB/CM colleagues, the Minister of Health, who talked about the early successes that they’re seeing in the hard hubs across the province. We might do something that inspires other action in other communities or action across the province. So, I think that there is important work being done here. I think our staff have done exactly what we’ve asked them to do.

They’ve done it quickly and they’ve done it with professionalism and expertise and I think they brought us back the reports and information and if Council needs more reports or information, we have every ability to ask for that moving forward and I think, again, we’re in the early stages here still. I think it’s right, we’re only just evolving the cost. We also have other people stepping up and saying, I’d like to help too. Whether it’s the donations that Mr.

Green talked about, I know I mentioned Columbia actually donated some jackets to the individuals living there. We’ve got other groups saying, how can we help? Can we donate? Can we support in some way?

And that can also defray some of the operating costs ‘cause what I hear from the public and members of the public and businesses is we wanna step up and help too. What role could we play in interacting with our staff gives them the opportunity to support something that’s great. And I just wanna— - 30 seconds. 30 seconds, I just wanna say something really brief.

I know Chris Moss from London Carris is in the gallery tonight. I want to say through the presiding officer, thank you for being an early critic and providing some feedback on the micro modular site that we were able to incorporate and then coming back and saying we feel this is serving the people who we helped very well and I appreciate you writing the letter in your organization, writing the letter to recognize the success of our micro modular site. Early critic, but very happy with the way it’s going. Thank you for doing that.

Okay, I’ll return the chair to your mayor. Okay, I look for other speakers on this particular item. Okay, seeing none, then we’ll open this for voting. Opposed in the vote.

Motion carries, 12 to one. Councilor Robin. Thank you and through you I’ve asked Councilor Perble to present the next report since I voted against. Councilor Perble.

Thank you and through the chair, I would like to present the 2.2 Housing Acceler ator Fund and I just wanna let you know that during the PAC committee, there were two parts, part A, which was specific initiatives for the current program, and that one was passed nine to four, and part P was administration to report back with future initiatives, and that part was passed 13-0, so it was unanimous. So I would like to present this point, 2.2, housing accelerator fund. Yes, and just one second counselor because there was a memo circulated from our staff about a by-law that requires an amendment to this piece, before we get into maybe dividing things up or doing anything different. I’d like to take care of that.

So just give me one sec. Okay, so just so colleagues in the public are aware of the amendment we’re gonna make. In the original motion, Mr. Mathers, that we’re bringing forward a by-law.

It’s gonna be this by-law to do this. Actually, two by-laws were brought forward. So we just have to amend the motion to update it to reflect what’s actually being voted on tonight. So that’s what the motion before us is.

I, Councilor Pribble, if you’re willing to move that. I’ll move it. You can do that while you’re presenting. And I certainly will move that.

Thank you. to just get on the floor. And that’s going to come up in the e-scribe. And I’m just going to read it so people can actually know what it says.

It’s that the motion be amended to add a new part C that reads as follows. C, the attached proposed by-law be introduced at the Municipal Council meeting on April 28, 2026, to amend by-law number CP 1545-41 being a by-law to establish financial incentives for for the affordable housing, community improvement , project area to add sections 11 to 13. So those pieces are added into that bylaw. Okay, any discussion on that amendment?

Okay, we’ll open that for voting. Opposing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Okay, so now we have the as amended motion have councilor Pribble present that. It needs a second or so.

I’ll move it. Okay, now we can have discussion on this as amended motion. I’ll look to speakers. Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting.

Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 11 to two. Okay, Councillor Progall. Thank you for that.

And I would like to return to Chair Councillor Ramen, the Chair of the Committee. Thank you. Well, I have the Chair, but she can continue to present the report so you can relieve and Councillor Ramen as the Vice Chair of the Committee will present the further components of the report . Thank you and through you, I will put on the floor item eight, 4.2, the London Transit, Rapid Transit, Operational Readiness Review.

Okay, that is on the floor. I’ll look to speakers to this item. go ahead, Councillor Van Mierbergen. Thank you, Mayor, if you could call B separately.

So B, section B, Councillor, B. Okay, yeah, we can for sure do that. All right, but is there any debate or discussion on the overall item? Councillor Hopkins, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Your Worship. I just wanted to make a comment. This is on 4.2, but I know we’re receiving three items. And I’m really excited about the transit, rapid transit operational readiness as we go forward, it’s been a number of years.

I know we are directing LTC to come back to us with a report at the end of Q4. I just wanna make a comment. I know we may not be here as a council when that report comes back, but I would encourage LTC to even give us a bit of a progress report to this council. So very supportive of this going forward.

Okay. Thank you. Any others? Councilor Trossa.

Thank you very much, thank you to the mayor. I thought long and hard about putting forward a formal amendment on this. And I decided not to at the last minute, just in the interest of removing some complexity from our deliberations here. I am a little concerned that this, if this doesn’t come back until the end of Q4, it could be a new council, possibly Q4 is the end of December.

Yeah, a new council, perhaps at one of their first meetings. And I’m just wondering, short of making an amendment, is there some way we could nudge this a little bit to get it back before this council before we go? Because I just am a little uncomfortable with the length of time this is sitting out there . Well, I can go to Mr.

Chair. I’ll just note that it says no later than Q4 and transmission certainly could endeavor to try to do it faster, but it kind of be up to them at this point, basically the way the motion is worded, that I’ll go to this chair. Thank you, Your Worship. And you have stolen my answer, but agreed.

So this will now go to the London Transit Commission to further their receipt and direction to their staff. That would be an opportunity to have a discussion about whether those timelines could be flexible. The timelines we have in place are the ones that we’ve discussed with our colleagues, but certainly between council and its commission, there may be that opportunity. Okay, so what I’m hearing then through the chair is I would have the opportunity as a member of the L TC board to encourage them to come forward with a report earlier than the end of Q4.

So yes, I think that’s exactly what Ms. Sharon and I said. Council’s request is no later than. There’s nothing stopping somebody from doing something faster given it’s obviously a discussion, debate, resources, but that doesn’t need to be discussed here.

That can be discussed at the transit commission. That’s right, and I appreciate that. And in light of the fact that it would be a request to the transit commission staff, I think I’ll not take that matter up here, but I will take it up later with the transit commission. The only thing that still concerns me is that we don’t have a reflection of the receipt of the Stantec report in our minutes.

And I just wanna make sure that members of the public can access the Stantec report through our minutes or agendas. Is there some way that we could, without having to make a motion, just to agree that we’re gonna put that online with respect to these materials what I need to make a motion saying it’s further noted that we received the Stantec report and that be reflected in the minutes. Go ahead, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Your Worship. As per the discussion that I see or at just TPC, we are looking in a way to get that online and as soon as we have that link available, we will share it with all of Council. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I will not be making a motion then. I just want to strongly recommend to the public that I feel that the Stantec report was presented in a way of different people like to take information in different ways. And the Stantec report, I thought, was very strong in terms of its use of graphics, use of maps, use of charts, and I think anybody who’s following this issue, I would strongly recommend that you look at the Stantec report. With that, I’d like to thank Ms.

Shere and her staff and Stantec for the excellent report. I think that there are some items that need to be dealt with in somewhat of a — perhaps I think they’re more urgent than what’s in this motion, but I’m going to just show a little patience now, but these issues about how people are going to get one to the system through back doors, bear boxes, and other matters I think are very compelling. So I’m just going to leave it like this. Please read the stand deck, and thank you for indulging my questions.

Great, any other speakers to this? Okay, seeing none, so that’s, we’re gonna do this separate as per Councillor Van Mereberg and his request. So part A will be first, part A. So we’ll open that for voting.

Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. And next, we’ll do part B. Okay, we’re gonna open that now. Closing the vote, motion carries 10 to three.

Thank you, that concludes my report. Okay, thanks, that concludes the SPPC report. As Councillor Oman just indicated, We’re on to the seventh report of the infrastructure and corporate services committee. I will go to Councillor McAllister to present that report.

Thank you and through the mayor, pleased to do the seventh report of the infrastructure and corporate services committee. I have a request to pull item 10, but I will put one through nine and 11 to 13 on the floor. Okay, so 10 is pulled. Was anybody like anything else separated from this?

Councillor Stevenson, go ahead. Yeah, apologies. I meant to ask for 12 as well. Okay, we can do 12 separate too.

So 10 and 12 are separate so far. Other items, anyone? Okay, go ahead, Councilor McAllister. Okay, with that in mind then, one through nine, 11 and 13 of those.

Okay, the chairs put those items on the floor, any discussion on those items that are within it? Go ahead, Councilor Cuddy. Thank you, Your Worship and through you. I wasn’t able to attend committee that day, but I want to speak to six, the Clayley Road Infrastructure Project, and I want to thank the committee, I want to thank staff for the work they’ve done on this.

Tulalee Road is one of the fastest drawing areas in the east end of the city. Great deal of development going on out there. We had a fatality a few years ago. Young boy at a bicycle.

High speeds, narrow road, but we’re rectifying that with the infrastructure work. A word of maybe caution to staff. Webster is now our will be the through way. And I see Ms.

Chair shaking your head, yes. And we’re all aware of this. I’ve made it aware. I’ve had a lot of residents speak to me about this.

I will come back to you again, as you know, time and time again, please. Webster Street is a rural road in the city. It has no street lights and has no sidewalks. And it is narrow and people drive fast through there.

So I plead you, please take care of my residents on Webster Street during the construction. And again, thank you staff for the work you’ve done. Thank you, committee for the work you’ve done it. Okay, Councillor Hopkins, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Your Worship. And I’d like to ask my thanks through you to the committee on, let me see, number five, 2.4 , which was the contract amendment detailed design for Southdale Road. Thank you for allowing those additional improvements to complete Southdale Road West improvements. And I also want to make a comment on number 11, which is by Ontario Act Bill 72 municipal implications.

I wanna thank staff for including Amos report on building Ontario’s economy with flexible municipal procurement. There’s a lot of work that goes into that. Thank you to staff for sharing that with us. I have such respect for Amos staff and the work that they do and on behalf of not only the city of London, but all municipalities, so thank you.

Thank you, any other speakers to this set of motions? Go ahead, Councilor Trossan. I’m also not gonna make a motion, but I just wanna highlight and back up and share the concern that Councilor Cuddy raised with respect to the traffic on Webster Street. Not only is Webster Street all of the things he said, but there are also parts of Webster Street, as we know from our other agendas that are very dense, where there are a lot of cars coming in and out.

And I really, I’m going to be watching this. I really want to encourage traffic staff, which I know you have a lot of discretion here. But I really want to encourage traffic staff to take this very, very seriously. Because I think we could be creating some very dangerous and perilous impacts here.

I’m not going to raise today the question of where the cars end up going if they’re on their way to downtown from these northern developments. that’s sort of a broader discussion. But I just wanted to support and highlight what Councillor Cudi said, thank you. Okay, any other discussion?

Okay, seeing none, we’re gonna open this for voting. Opposed in the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Go ahead, Councillor. Okay, I’ll put item 10 on the floor.

All right, item 10 is on the floor. I’ll look for any speakers on item 10. Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I just wanted to quickly explain again my no vote and reiterate again, it’s not a criticism of the staff or the report that was written, it’s really just me trying to find an opportunity to share some of my concerns.

And I understand that they may not even relate exactly to this, but this is my opportunity where I have people reaching out to me around the procurement about some issues. I heard some concerns about last minute changes, about an inability to enter info, that the lowest bidder wasn’t awarded and there wasn’t a satisfactory for them opportunity to go through that process. I also heard from a local charity that lost a long time contract to a first time R FP. Again, I get this isn’t a criticism of the report before us.

It’s just my opportunity to put on the record that I have some concerns around the procurement as it is and also some of the things that are gonna be coming forward with the new procurement policy that we have. So I just, as I said, just wanted to be clear on why, what my no vote represents. And it’s not a criticism of the report that the staff wrote here particularly, just expressing some of my concerns through this vote. Okay, any of the speakers on this one?

Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to one. Councillor McAllister, to put item 12 on the floor. Okay, item 12 is on the floor.

I’ll look first, speakers on item 12. Go ahead Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. This one I spoke more about at committee.

I just wanna summarize again here. I’m voting no to receiving this report specifically because I just have a different idea of the level of transparency that I expect as a counselor and that the people that I represent are telling me that they want to see as well. We have a $1.4 billion budget and we are being provided one line with a net tax amount to compare. I understand that I’ve spent some time going back through the open data and some of the plans that are available online.

I just believe that first of all the level of data that it was available in 2015. I can’t find there. And second, in the plans, I just think it should be right there for Council on the public record, easy for the public, not necessarily a link for them to go research or try to figure out how to use an Excel file, but it should just be right there even as limited as the eight or so lines per area that we had in 2015. I think it’s interesting to see the decrease in publicly, easily available data included in the budgets over the last 10 years.

And so I really feel strongly about this. And so that’s why I’m gonna be voting no here. Okay, any other speakers? Go ahead, Councilor Pribble.

Thank you, I would like to make a comment because part of this report is a recommendation from RBC Place, our conventional center as a surplus. I really wanna highlight the last year at the RBC Place and the entire kudos to the entire team. Under the challenging situation that we have economic situation, this organization was able to deliver their record revenues throughout the history of this facility. So I would like to comment on that.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Any other speakers? Okay, we’ll open item 12 for voting.

Opposed in the vote, motion carries 12 to one. Okay, Councillor McAllister. Thank you, that concludes the seventh report of the infrastructure and corporate services. And I would now like to move on to the eighth report of the special infrastructure and corporate services committee meeting we help.

Yes, from all the way back to yesterday. Go ahead and present that, Councillor. Okay, we just have the two items, so I will move item one and two, and I have not been made aware of any pull requests. Okay, Councillors, put those on.

I don’t, well, we’re not gonna put in the dooms effort ‘cause it’s disclosures and one item, but I’ll look for any discussion on this one. I’m gonna say somewhere, and so I’ll turn it over to Councillor Layman to present. Thank you, I’ll go to the mayor. Thanks, I’ll be brief.

I didn’t attend the committee meeting yesterday on this. I had other matters, but I think it was a five or six minute meeting, which is, I think, great in that very thorough, very detailed report. But I think it’s important to continue to recognize that the city does have borrowing needs. We do have to issue debt to build significant infrastructure projects in the city.

And we do so at really good rates over the time that we borrow at because we have a AAA credit rating. And these are the moments where, I know we talk about its importance, but these are the moments where they actually are important because going out and getting debt that is fully subscribed, that is competitive, that is at good rates, that happens because people know that they have confidence in the city of London’s policies, the way that we do financial management of the city, even though even what we just passed is a council where we said with the operating budget monitoring report, a portion of that money is going towards debt avoidance, infrastructure gap, and the pieces that I know from the engagements I have with our credit rating agency, the things that they monitor fairly closely and that it continues to allow us to have a good credit rating, which allows us to do what the debentions report says and that’s borrow at a decent rate. Borrow at a decent rate on behalf of taxpayers where the principal and interest payments are manageable over the long horizon. Other municipalities have been downgraded across the province.

We are vulnerable, obviously, because we are subsidiary to the province of the general situation in the province, but in respect to above that, I think we’ve done a great job sticking to a long-term financial management plan that has allowed us to keep that credit rating in place, which allows us to borrow at the rates that you see in this report, both this current debt issuance as well as the historical rates that you’ve seen across that, which are very competitive in the industry. I’ll return to chair to you. Okay, anyone else excited to talk about the ventures? Just me, okay, all right, we’ll open that for voting.

Opposing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Okay, and that concludes the eighth report and we’ll have both my reports, so I’m all done. Thanks, Councillor McAllister, appreciate the presentations. We’ll go on to the sixth report of the Planning and Environment Committee, and I will go to Councillor Layman.

Go on, I got just a request. I believe I might have omitted pulling item 11 Windermere Road. Yes, you know, Leibn was not pulled. We did vote on it, so that would require reconsideration to do something different with item 11.

Well, we haven’t voted on the, no, we haven’t, we’re just getting to the report. Oh, oh, and you mean, in the PEC report, I thought you meant 11 from the last report. No, I don’t need to vote on the debentures, that’s great. No, okay, well.

  • Windermere Road. Okay, if you’re talking about planning an environment committee, we’re gonna circulate to ask you for that in the second councilor. Go ahead, councilor Leibn. I just wanna make sure we’re okay.

I’m not gonna do anything, I just wanna make sure . Councilor Trossow, can we have your microphone, please? Thanks. Thank you.

Please present the sixth report of the Planning Environment Committee, I’ve had a couple of requests to pull. Some items, item six, item 10, item 11, item 13, and item 18. Okay, that sounds like it accounts for Councilor Trossow’s request, so you should be good Councillor. So, so far that’s six, 10, 11, 13, 13, and 18.

Correct. Okay, anybody want anything else dealt with separately? All right, go ahead, Councilor Layman. So I’ll move items one through five, seven, eight, and nine, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17, and 19.

All right, that will be moved by the chair. Any discussion on all of those items or any of those items, I should say. Okay, we’re good, so we’ll open that for voting. closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero.

All right, go ahead, Councillor Layman. Thank you, I’d like to put number six on the floor, 2.3, regarding the deferred loan payments, Councillor Stevenson requested that to be pulled. Okay, I’ll go to Councillor Stevenson then, and I know there’s at least one other Councillor who wants to talk about this as well, so go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, yes, I’ve got an amendment that I’d like to put forward, the clerk has it.

I can read it out. Yes, if you could, that’d be fantastic. That the motion be amended to include a new part C and revise Part B to read as follows. The interest-free deferral of loan repayments under the facade improvement loan program and the upgrade to building code load program be extended for an additional 19th month period through March 31st, 2028, where the applicant is requested deferral in writing and all city of London property taxes owing are paid in full.

It being noted that the April 2028 loan repayment will proceed as planned. and that the civic administration be directed to undertake a one-time transfer of a 1.15 million, or of 1.15 million from the economic development reserve fund to the CIP reserve fund to offset the financial impact of the deferral in part B above. And I believe I have a seconder in counselor Prib ble. Yep, counselor Pribble indicated he would second.

So that’s on the floor. Would you like to speak to that now? Yeah, I’m happy to speak to that. So we started this amendment at planning and realized that we had an extra piece that we needed to address which was the impact that the deferral of the loan payments was going to have in the CIP reserve fund.

Staff let us know that it was going to take it too low and that there wasn’t going to be the money available for new loans. So I had committed to coming back to council with a cleanup on that and we let it go through at planning knowing that it needed an addition to this amendment. So I appreciated the support at planning around providing the businesses in these areas and the property owners an extension on the deferral of the loan payments. So that was really appreciated.

The fact that the CIP Reserve Fund is going to run too low gets to be addressed. And so staff provided us with two options. One was to suspend the loans for the period of the extension of the deferral of the payments. The other was to take money from the Economic Development Reserve Fund.

I really am asking my colleagues support that we choose this one, because we have strategic goals and commitments to business and viability of these neighborhoods. That’s why we did these programs and these loans. And so to suspend the ability for other businesses and property owners to take out new loans just doesn’t make sense when you see the conditions of our core area right now. So remembering that it’s a deferral of the loan payments.

Eventually these loan payments are gonna come in and I see a time in the future when we can put that money back into the Economic Development Reserve Fund. I believe that using this money right now helps address the urgent need of the property owners and continues the commitment that we made to them when we approve these loans. So it’s, although we’re taking the money, there should be the opportunity to put it back at some point once the loan payments are made. And if not, I still think this achieves an urgent objective and a commitment that we made as a council around the strategic plan objectives .

I would really hate to see us suspend the loans. We’re deferring loan payments because we recognize the crisis and the deterioration of this area. So to, you know, we’d be giving with one hand and taking away with the other. And I’d really like to see this council show full support for this area that we believe in its future.

And we want to invest and provide and allow people to invest in that area right now and not wait for the deferral to end. So hopefully that’s clear. This is taking money from the Act of Reserve Fund . I understand that, but it’s to allow the new loans to still be approved and applications to be received over the next 18 months.

Okay, I’m gonna look for further speakers on that. Go ahead, I’m gonna have Councillor Ferra and then Councillor Layman. Thank you, Mayor and thanks for the motion. I had a similar one that was very similar to this .

It is a different in a little one respect and that’s for the 1.15 million from the Economic Development Reserve Fund. The reason I have concerns from drawing from that fund is because we do have other commitments that are gonna be pulling from that fund as well, specifically the economic development strategy and funding implementations therein and the downtown master plan and funding actions therein as well. So I was wondering if we could just go to either finance or whoever might be able to speak to this on. When those plans come back, if we were to be drawing from the Ek Dev Reserve Fund, we potentially, is it true that we potentially might not necessarily have enough funding with the final ization of those plans coming back, and I understand those plans are coming in July, I believe.

So without that information, I’d be a little hesitant to be drawing from the Act of Reserve Fund, so I just wanted to know if I could get any information. Go ahead, sorry. I’m working to language. People are asking for things.

Go ahead. Thank you. Through the chair. So, yes, the master plan will be coming forward.

As I understand it. A lot of those costs and funding will be up to council to determine how to proceed and at what timing. I do suspect to that, particularly for the bigger ticket items, the ECDAV Reserve Fund will not have a balance sufficient enough to support those and that they will need to go forward through the next multi-year budget. I anticipate a large number of those because they will likely have bigger ticket potentially items that would need to be funded are likely not going to be sufficient through the Act to Reserve Fund to fund.

Mr. Murray is online. He can provide what the current balance is in the Economic Development Reserve Fund. But certainly, for an interim, this would be the only source if the desire to defer the loan repayments at this time would be available to allow those loans to continue.

Go ahead, Councillor, go ahead, Mr. Murray. Oh, thank you, and through you, I will confirm that the current balance of the Economic Development to Reserve Fund is in the ballpark of approximately $10 million. There are some approved commitments out into future years, but as noted, there is uncertainty as it pertains to upcoming plans that may require funding through the reserve fund into future years as well, subject to, of course, the multi-year budget process.

Councilor Ferrer. Okay, thank you for that. So speaking to both the economic development strategy that we’re working on in the downtown plan, they’re going to be interim items that we would be looking to action and those are coming from the active reserve fund. I understand the plan is not finalized yet, but I was wondering if I could get any hints.

Okay, Mr. May, let’s go ahead. Through you, Worship, I’ll just speak to the downtown program. So I do want to just highlight that the facade and the upgrade to building code loan programs are very important programs that are well utilized.

If there’s a decision to stop those programs, we may actually have to be going back and up making sure we update our downtown master plan because those are very important programs. So it may be that if you if this was removed, we’d be just adding it back in. So I don’t really see it as a net change from the downtown master plan perspective. Go ahead.

Thank you for that. I did see there were some other ways forward that I understood that the council spoke to and we did kind of get those recommendations to and one of them was to pause the implementation of those two CIP programs in the interim so we don’t have to draw in the active reserve fund. And with the pause like that, we would still be providing I guess the financial relief to those properties that pulled the CIPs, but at the same time we would still have the ability to I guess reverse course in the future if we did get deferral requests in writing if they were low or if they were high. So I do know that there’s other options here.

I’m kind of hesitant to support this. I did have another motion that’s very similar to this, but it just wouldn’t draw from the Act of Reserve Fund, ‘cause that’s really what I don’t wanna do. I don’t wanna draw from that fund, ‘cause I wanna keep as much of a balance in there as we possibly can for any of the items that come out of the downtown plan in the Act of Reserve Fund. I think not knowing what exactly is gonna come out, we could be tying our hands moving forward, and I worry about that.

So I would ask to not support this motion respectfully. I’m right with the Councillor on the direction that she’s going. I would just take a slightly different approach that would not be drawing from the Act of Reserve Fund. So I guess I’ll leave my comments there.

I think a report back would be in order as well. But I’ll leave it to colleagues to see what you have to say. Okay, I looked to other speakers. Go ahead, oh yes, Councillor Layman, sorry I had you.

Thank you. This is a question through you, to staff, when the monies are repaid on this program. Does it go into general coffers? Or is there a special block that these monies go into?

I’m going to make a comment. Go ahead. Thank you, Chair. So the reserve funds for the CIP loans, essentially have a reserve fund, where there’s money that goes in.

So essentially the repayments are funding the ability to issue new loans. And that is why they’re all managed centrally together. So as money comes in and the balances are, but as the money is repaid, it replenishes the balance so that new loans can be issued. So all of the money is contained within the reserve fund and essentially it’s a revolving loan fund where the repayments are funding what those new.

That is why if you stop the repay ments, there is no ability to be able to issue new loans. Hence why there is a backfill to support the repayments so that new loans can continue to be issued. And which reserve fund are you speaking? Like when you say the loans are coming on a reserve fund, which fund is that?

Thank you through your worship. It’s the CIP Reserve Fund. Would it be possible to direct the temporary, the loans that are the forgiveness that we’re giving of I think it’s 1.5 million to have those funds being repaid instead of into the CIP, but back into the Act Dev Fund that we’re looking at for this motion proposes We’re taking money on that fund or that reserve fund. Would it be possible to direct initial payments back into that fund until that’s made whole?

Go ahead. Thank you through your worship. So by doing that, when those repayments are redirected elsewhere, then there’s nothing else going into that reserve fund to be able to support the issuance of new loans at that time. So as soon as you stop repayments from going in, that’s when you will stop the ability to issue new loans because that’s how new loans are funded.

So consider it a coffee cup when you finish it. You’re re-pouring, you’re filling your cup so that you can drink some more. It’s essentially trying to keep the cup full so that we can continue to issue new loans when and if they’re requested. Go ahead, Councillor.

So I appreciate that. The originally came out of the SAP fund. I guess what I’m saying is we are looking at using the ACT DEV fund, taking 1.5 million out of there if Councilor Ferra referred to the concerns there , and moving over to make whole what we are losing. I’m saying, let’s make whole what we are losing, but let’s not double down.

Let’s take the funds that are repaid of 1.5 million back into the Act Dev Fund. And once that’s made whole from that, then can’t continue back to going back to where the initial loans were from the CIP. CIP doesn’t that way contains no effect in the C IP. as far as future loans are concerned.

It’s the Act Dev Fund that we’re looking at reducing, but then once 2008, March 2008, then those funds will go there and it will be naturally replenished without a motion from council or anything to get that particular reserve fund back to where it was before this whole process started. Go ahead, oh, Mr. Murray, okay, Mr. Murray, go ahead.

Sure, let me through you, Mr. Mayor, take a stab at explaining it perhaps in a slightly different way, but basically reiterating what Ms. Barbone has said. So if we look at our reserve fund schedule for the CIP reserve fund, we have anticipated inflows for the repayment of the CIP loans.

We have a consistent amount for those assumed out into the future. We also have a consistent amount of projected issuance of new loans that effectively recycles the repayments to issue new loans. So that, if that cycle is interrupted, there is a need to ultimately backfill for those inflows that are not coming into the reserve fund. So, in other words, whether there is a disruption of the projected inflows in the short term or a reduction of the inflows in the future because those inflows are being redirected instead to the economic development reserve fund.

In either case, it’s going to put the CIP reserve fund in a precarious spot given that we have assumed into the future that those repayments are funding new loans. So unfortunately, there’s no ability to replenish , effectively the economic development reserve fund as has been proposed without causing constraints or problems to the CIP reserve fund. Councillor Layman, I apologize. I’m not making myself clear.

The concern raised by finance is that we don’t want to obstruct the inflows, which we would in this case because it’s used for outflows. I get that. What I’m proposing here is that ECDAV covers the inflows over to CIP. It’s the ECDAV fund that’s going to be affected has, you know, Councilor Fair are indicated.

The CIP’s gonna be fine with Councilor Stevenson ‘s motion. It’s gonna be fine. I’m concerned about the Act Dev Fund, and I don’t want a double dip. So I want, so the CIP Fund would be made whole, and then the continuing, once the repayments start, it will get an extra one, because we’re gonna throw in another 1.5 million right now to cover the loss of those payments.

All I’m saying is, let’s keep both funds the way they were by redirecting the first hundred one point five million of repayments back to the Act Dev Fund. So that the Act Dev Fund is not in the long term, it is made whole. The short term, yeah, it’s going to be down one and a half million. Mr.

Murray or Ms. Provost. So through the chair, so maybe I can try explaining this. So when those funds, so the deferral from a long-term sustainability is delaying those payments, so those payments are not being received over that period of time.

Over that same period of time, we expect to issue those same amount of loans. So at that time, when the defer ral ends, assuming that it will end at the date that is stated in the motion, those newer payments will begin to come in, so all of the loans will will begin arraignments at that time of the additional loans that have been also issued over this period of time. When those new loans come in, the repayments, once they begin, will then fund new loans. If those repayments are assumed to fund new loans but are now redirected to the Economic Development Reserve Fund, you will not have an ability to issue the loans or any new loans at that point in time that they are redirected because there will be no repayments going back into the CIP at that period in time.

So over the long term, if we’re trying to make it whole, with the delay, the only ability to actually make the fund whole would be to not issue loans for the defer ral period of time. Because we’re assuming that as the money comes in , it is being reissued as new loans over that same period of time. So that at the end of the day, the repayments will always be covering the outflows at the same time. If you stop those repayments, then without issuing new loans, you have to be ensure that that backfill continues.

So I’m not sure if I’m totally misunderstanding you’re saying something different, but hopefully that helped Elise clarify how we’re understanding it. So let me jump in, Councillor. I think with Councillor, and funny story, Coun cillor Lehman, I actually have language that might deal with this ‘cause I was thinking the same thing you were. Councillor Lehman is not saying, put every single dollar in March of 2028 that’s coming in into the Act of Reserve Fund.

I think what he’s trying to say is if we have, let’s pretend, 1.15 million dollars of loans out there that we’re about to defer and we think we’re going to issue 1.5 million dollars of loans because we’re transferring from economic development into CIP so we can issue them. Now we have 2.3 million dollars of loans outstanding, all of which will start to get repaid after March of 2028. And so what we could do if we’re only going to issue about $1.15 million of loans is start to restore the Economic Development Reserve Fund at that time with a portion of those returning funds, while using the other portion to keep the program going. I think that’s what he’s trying to say.

And that’s, I think, where he’s moving towards. And if that’s the case, I actually prepared some language to amend and add that staff would report back at that time to look into doing that, but you could give us your assessment at that time. But I think that’s what Councillor Layman is trying to say. Councillor Layman.

In a nutshell, yes. Like what this is doing, okay, how are we gonna fund this? ‘Cause you know, that was a concern brought up at PAC. We can’t just defer loans and say, it’s all about a cash flow situation.

So what Councillor Stephen says and says CIP, ‘cause it reserved funds so low, let’s look at act dev. Great, let’s do that, but that’s replenished the act dev funds being used for that because this is a loan not a grant right no loan that gets repaid. So the cash flow in should go for the one point whatever it is back to the fund where it came from to just forestall that deferment. So at the end of the day what the cost is to the city it’s just it’s the interest it’s the interest that it’s honest because it’s not a grant it gets repaid it’s the interest that we carry that extra charge for an extra period of time.

So I think the mayor is on the same track so being you have a language I apologize for I should have gone earlier on this and talked offline and this apologize for taking folks time up I’m next on the speakers list so I’ll turn the chair over to Councillor okay go ahead okay so following on this first let me say a comment I support and move came into this meeting supporting what Councillor Ferrer was saying and that’s maybe we just pause the program it sounds to me like there’s a significant appetite for people to continue the program and based on what Mr. and Mayther said about the importance of the program I’m inclined to try to find a pathway to do that. Given the structure of Councillor Stevenson’s motion which is still a you have to ask in writing to get to basically have your loan deferred we don’t know what the uptake will be on that maybe it’s 100% maybe it’s not we know what we do know is even when we we deferred them some people wanted to repay them , just get it off their books irrespective of the deferral period. So we don’t know what the uptake will be.

Maybe it’ll be significant. I think a pathway forward might be to propose an update in Q2 of 2027, which is, I think, Councillor Ferreira was going in that direction to get some information about, what’s this look like? How’s it going? Are people actually applying for the deferrals, to what degree, how many new loans have we issued if we go with Councillor Stephenson’s motion?

But I also think we should add a piece in 2028 to say, and I’m not gonna commit to just put all the money back in the Economic Development Reserve Fund, but let’s get a report from our staff at that time, or the municipal council of the day, we’ll get a report from our staff, to say here’s what’s happening now, and what is our ability to now start to repay the Economic Development Reserve Fund at that point in time? Because in theory, if we’ve got loans that are outstanding now of X value, and they’ve been deferred until March of 2028, and we’re gonna issue potentially another 1.15 million new loans, we’re going to have all of those loans , ideally being repaid at the same time, which is a larger inflow into the CIP Reserve Fund than we otherwise might have projected if we’re still issuing about the same number of loans each year. So that being said, I think that there is potentially capacity to both keep the CIP loan program going and restore a portion of the Economic Development Reserve Fund, but I’m not going to presume that we can do that. I would, you know, the motion that I’m going to propose as an amendment is have staff report back at the time that the repayments start on, you know, what they think about whether we could do that or not.

So with that, and through the presiding officer, I want to move an amendment that basically says the amendment be further amended because we can amend an amendment. The civic administration be directed to report back in a future meeting of planning and environment committee with an update on the community improvement plan loan program once payments resume to restore the draws to the Economic Development Reserve Fund. So that’s the March 2028th or after report. And further the civic administration be directed to report back at a future meeting of planning and environment committee by Q2 of 2027 with an update on the community improvement plan loan program.

So just give us a status update on how things are going about a year from now to say this is what it looks like. Are people actually taking us up? Are we still issuing new loans? But ultimately by March of 2027, you’re going to get back to us and say yeah you know we can actually we’ve got double the amount of money coming in or maybe 1.7 times the amount of money come in we can still keep the CIP reserve fund hole and put some money back into EkDev at a time when we might need to be spending it for things like downtown plans and economic development plans in the future so that’s the amendment that I would like to put on the floor if there’s a second okay I’ll I’ll look for a seconder for that.

Councillor Stevenson has seconded. I’ll look for comments or questions on that amendment. Can we get that up on the E-Scribe? Let me know when that’s up there so the Councillors can read it.

And I’ll just apologize. They should have just worded those in the opposite way so that the Q2 2027 report is first and the March kind of post March 2028 report a second, but they’re both there and we can clean up that language. Okay, it’s up on the E-Scribe. I’ll go to Councillor Stevens.

Thank you through you. Can I just clarify with the mover? That this is not changing the original motion. It’s just providing information back to council on what the uptake was on the loans, what the statuses of the reserve fund in March of 2027.

And again, in March of 2028, to see if there’s any opportunity to replenish the economic development reserve fund. Am I correct there? I’ll go to the mover. Absolutely right.

The only difference between the two updates 2027 is a general update. It doesn’t change anything you’ve done. 2028 is an update with a focus on could we restore the economic development reserve fund in some way, but it’s very open-ended for staff to report back on the conditions of the day. Can I ask, sir?

Thank you. And there’s a request for clarification that the 1.15 million is still transferring as of now to make sure the CIP reserve fund is there, ready for new loans, and that, yeah, there’s not any happening, okay, so thank you. I support this. It’s great.

It leaves options available and as updates, I think it’s a great compromise. I look for other questions, Councillor Ferri. Thank you. Thank you for the amendment.

I guess I got some questions here. So from what I understand, this is a direction to continue withdrawing from the Economic development reserve fund to fund the deferral and also have the program continue as it as it is and there’s also a report back by Q2 just on an update on the program but this is still deferring those repayments back till March 31st 2028 is that that’s am I reading that correct yeah okay so with these the same thing with the the draw from the act of reserve fund that’s kind of really what’s the sticking point for me. Can staff just come just tell me again. So I think I remember you said the balance in the Ek dev Reserve Fund is about 10 million.

What is the uncommitted balance? Sorry if you could just clarify those numbers again. I’ll go staff. Thank you and through you yes the current uncommitted balance to be clear of the economic development reserve fund is approximately 10 million dollars.

Councilor. Okay thank you for that and I know we don’t necessarily know what’s coming out of the downtown plan or the economic development plan. So I just need to kind of see if I can get some more information on that. Is there going to be any interim items that are going to require money for those two plans?

So when they come to council in July and get ratified at the end of July, any quick start actions or anything like that would that would draw off of the economic development reserve fund? I’ll go stuff through the presiding officer. We are still finalizing the plan and however, I I can just provide you information as far as the timing. So we’re actually bringing it back in June.

So there’ll be some time time associated with that. And as I mentioned, if if this was taken off as from a program, we’d likely be putting that back in anyway. So it really is not a net change to what we bring forward in June. Okay, I’ll go back to the to the counselor just to remind you that we’re on the amendment to the amendment, which is just a report back in the future, not to the original amendment, correct, correct, sorry, thank you for that reminder.

All right, if this is the amendment to the amendment, and then I get to speak on the motion as amended, I will, I guess I’ll ask those questions there. this just for the report back and for the loan program to, sorry, I’ll speak to the motion as amended when we get there. Thank you, I’ll look for other comments or questions on the amendment to the amendment, Council approval. Very brief, supporting the Mayor’s amendment to the amendment, I will speak later.

Thanks. Look for other speakers. I’ll just from the presiding officer. I would have preferred to see a direct commitment to it going back to the Act of Fund because this does open a door to taking those funds to another direction, depending on the actions of the future council on this.

That being said, this is good enough for me. I think different pressures will be at that time. And who knows, Councilor Ferre mentioned, we might need even more capital and get the plans that we had in time. So I will support this.

So I’ll look for any other speakers to this amendment the amendment and seeing none we will call the vote on the amendment to the amendment. Opposed on the vote motion carries 13- 0 and I’ll return the chair to the mayor. Okay and I’ll presume Councillor Stevenson and Pribler are willing to move the now consolidated amendment. Okay so we’re now on the consolidated amendment that Councillor Stevenson and Councillor Pribble with my changes all together we’re on that debate and discussion now and I’ll look to other speakers on this.

Go ahead Councill or Ferrer. Okay thank you. So this is the motion as amended. So I, like I said, I have the concern.

No, it’s sorry to do this. It’s the amendment as amended because that’s what we did. So there’s still going to be the motion as amended later. Don’t worry.

So, but you can go ahead and speak. So right now, Councillor Stevenson, Councillor Pribbles change, changes we just passed to add to them, all that together is what we’re debating now. that includes the 1.5 million, 1.15 million. Okay .

So, so still, same concerns. I, because we don’t know what these two plans are going to have in them, we could be pulling away from the coffers and reducing our ability to implement actions from those two plans when they come. And those plans are just around the corner. I understand, I guess I’ll go to staff, any possibility of a deferral of this decision for after those two plans when they come back, is that a possibility?

Mr. Mathers, I think. Go ahead. Through the chair, so the only strict timeline is that the September was when this was gonna be, when we’d be sending these bills to the businesses and the owners of the property.

So that’s the main restriction. Of course, you’d want to get people a heads up if you’re going to start making those billings for a very short timeframe. So that’s why we brought you the report right now . So that the most specific timeframe is that September date when we would have to, no, when we’re issuing those bills.

Go ahead, Councillor Ferra. Okay, thank you for that. So the answer is, if we defer it until after we get those two plans, which are coming at the same committee cycle on the same day, we may run into the risk of not being able to send out those letters to notify the property owners of whatever our decision is, that’s, is that correct? Okay, I’m, like I said, like I don’t, like I could go with this if I knew what those plans are gonna have in it.

And that’s my concern. You know, we have already been impacted with the downtown plan items with the unwaved steam decommissioning stuff. So we’re already kind of losing some of the ability to bring in some of these interim measures that could be potentially within the plan. Now I do hear that staff saying like if we go with this, the downtown plan may bring these items back, but then where does the money come from for that?

And I understand that there’s a multi-year budget cycle coming as well. I just, I feel really hard pressed to make a decision here and pull money from that active reserve fund without knowing exactly what items are coming out of those plans. So I guess I would also say I do have a chance to speak again on the main motion as amended. Is that right or is this it?

I do. No, you get a chance later. Okay, like I, some of the questions that I asked staff, just so we’re aware of where we’re going, is what is the facade improvement loan principal amount? And those principal amounts are quite on the lower side of things.

I think the highest numbers that we had was from 10 to 15,000 in below. And for the upgrade to building code loan, those principal amounts that are still owing are largely around the $20,000 to $30,000 mark. It tapers right off once you get onto the high end of those. And I think maybe a big decision to really kind of focus here is the monthly repayment amounts.

And the biggest monthly repayment amount, which is right in the middle for the facade improvement loan, is around $200 to $225 per property. I see a really big increase on the lower end for the monthly payment amounts. And then for the building code, loan monthly payment, the largest amount is around the $400 to $500 per property. And then it’s below, and then everything is less than that.

So like if we’re considering potentially pausing this program, some of these amounts for these properties are quite low to pay back per month. The highest ones for the building or after the 400 to 500, we’re talking anywhere from 100 to $200 a monthly payment to bring that back. So it’s just, if we were to consider, you know, really what the impact will be, like I would be more willing to not pause the program. I would be more willing to have the program continue for the payments to come back, rather than pulling from the ECTIV Reserve Fund, just because we don’t know what pressures we’ll have on that within a month’s time.

So I’m a little hesitant. I know I get to speak again, so I guess I’ll hear what committee has to say, but I would just say just be mindful, or ‘cause I’m being mindful of, we’re gonna have these two big plans that are coming out, and these two big plans are really focused on, I guess the economic engine of the city, which is the downtown. And then the other plan is that economic strategy for the city, for the entire city. And we’re gonna need money to fund some of those programs and some of those implementations in there.

And if we kind of make this decision now, we could be at risk of not being able to fully fund those. So I guess I’ll speak again once the time comes. Okay, I have Councillor Hopkins next. Yeah, thank you.

And this is on the amendment, the amendment to the amendment. I appreciate my colleagues working together and coming up with a consensus on the amendment now. I hear the concerns from the— For clarity, Councillor, we’re on the amendment as amended. So what we’re debating now is, draw from Act of Reserve Fund to keep the program going, get some reports back.

And whether we wanna add those in, yes, B and C, plus the pieces I added on the reporting. Thank you for that clarification. And just understanding where the councilor is coming from and the two plans that we’re going to get in June , I wonder and needing a little bit more information. I’m always reminded here at council we’re making decisions on council when you know, this to me is like committee work.

If is there an opportunity maybe through your worship to staff if there’s an opportunity to refer this back to PEC and get further clarification. And I understand notices have to go out to businesses as well. So I’m just trying to understand that timeline. But again, is there an opportunity to have a go to PEC understand the numbers, knowing that we’ve got the two plans coming to us as well?

I’ll go to the staff on the timelines, Mr. Mather s. Through the chair, yeah, it’s always an option to refer things back to staff. And as far as the timelines, this doesn’t necessarily cause a problem with the timeline.

I just don’t know what additional or different information we’d be providing at that time. Yeah, and Councilor, I’ll just let you know, it went to the committee, but then I believe it was Ms. Barbone who provided some information about the possible options. So we can consider for council based on that.

And that’s why I think the Councillors are taking the action here rather than a committee because it was something that was discussed at the committee, asked for some information. Information was given for them to prepare to be here. So I just started to clarify that. That isn’t precluded referral.

I just wanted to give you that information too. Yeah. Thank you for that. And I also appreciate getting the information that maybe there is a little bit more of a timeline here.

Less pressure on us to make decisions if we have concerns about the Act of Reserve Fund. So I’ll put that out. That would be something that I would support. Sorry, you’re moving a referral or?

Yeah, I’m happy to move the referral, but. Okay, well, I just do, I was just clarifying when you said I’ll put that out when you talked about a referral, I didn’t want you to sit down, lose your speaking time, and then you say you moved a referral and you wanted to. Well, I know other councils have not spoken. I want to hear from my colleagues as well.

I just want to share with you, just making a decision right now. No problem, I’m just letting you know, you can do that if someone else can make a referral, but you wouldn’t be able to speak again at this time on this particular amendment. But you could refer when we get to the main motion, of course, so, okay, perfect. Councillor Stephenson.

Thank you. Just trying to make this a little clearer. I’m hoping that Council can sort of solve one problem at a time. We have a problem right before us, where we’ve got real issues in our court area that they’re not where we all want them to be.

Property owners and businesses need some support. There’s very little we can do for them. This is a very small thing that we’re able to do to ask them to start making payments again is not gonna go over very well when they haven’t seen the results that we’re all committed to. So we are all very committed to our downtown and to this downtown strategy.

And so if at the time that is short that’s another problem that could be solved at that time. and I think we get to trust that Council has that commitment. I also wanna ask through you to staff just to maybe reassure some of my colleagues who are concerned. If in June, we were to regret this decision.

Is there anything stopping Council at that time from transferring the money back and pausing the loan program? Because this particular amendment just says we’re going to continue the deferrals and we’re gonna take the money from the Act of Fund. But there was another option to us to pause any new loans, any opportunity for new loans, was option one which I set aside, I like option two. But if in June we wish we’d not done this, could, it’s not a decided matter because it’s something different, correct?

We could move a motion to say we wanna pause any new loans and fund that with, so I’ll let staff. but I’m just wondering if, rather than refer this back and talk about it more, if we could make this move and then have another option available to us in June to pause the loan program and do a transfer back. I’ll go to Ms. Barbara.

Thank you through the chair. I’ll defer to the clerks with respect to whether it’s a decided matter of council, but perhaps if I can be helpful. Daph had recommended given the complexity of this to do a report back. there’s clearly a desire of counsel to move forward quickly with the decision for a deferral.

From our perspective, having a sense of the timing on that so that we have enough time to ensure we get the payments and be able to coordinate the payments and have enough notice to the loan holders is certainly advantageous. The report back next year perhaps might actually be the most helpful because it would show very clearly what the state of the reserve fund is, what the identification is of the loans that are projected and what the repayments are in terms of based on the loans when the estimated repayments would begin. Certainly the reserve fund we manage on a consolidated basis for all CIP reserve funds . So there is some floating in balances and we look at average payments.

So as we identify, yes payments might be higher, that there are payments that will end, and we look at that over a period of time. The cash flow doesn’t match specifically of we have some assumptions, but it’s a little bit more complex in terms of the cash management on the reserve fund overall, which is why we look at the repayments to be able to keep that going. If there are, as Mr. Mathers had already alluded to, there are references to looking at CIPs and the importance of those through the master plans.

if there is intent to perhaps even, you know, provide more loans or have more of an emphasis on loans, that information and what council decides to make might actually be very helpful in terms of the report back to be able to take all of the information, give you all of those details so that the council in 2027 is able to make a very clear informed decision on the status of those reserve funds and would actually be ideal timing to inform how the multi-year budget would then move forward knowing if there needs to be top-ups, or increased reserve fund contributions going to the CIP reserve funds to ensure the sustainability of those funds over time. Good. Thank you for that. I do fully support this amendment and the motion, but just to acknowledge some of the concerns in the room, if we were presented in June with the downtown strategy, and we wanted to take this 1.15 million back, Could we as a council at that time, decide to pause any new loans and take that money ?

I just want it to be clear that I see anyway, that the door to that option that is being put forward doesn’t close, but we can make that as a decision as we’re looking at the downtown strategy as a whole. So I’m gonna roll on that ‘cause I’d be the one who would have to decide at the time. Given we are not passing a motion in the affirmative to pause the loans now. There’s not a decided matter of counsel on pausing the loans.

So you populated the Economic Development Reserve Fund with money, the loan program we’re taking no specific action on which means we’re basically saying, keep the deferrals going, think so. Let me just, let me consult with the clerk so I wanna be, yeah, so the part that we’ve decided is that we’d have to have reconsideration on is extending the loan deferral period. that the part that we could still take action on is pausing the program. So you’re 100% right.

We were not taking an action on that. We could pause the program as an alternate way to pay for it in the future. And that wouldn’t be contrary, in my opinion. Thank you.

I’m hoping that helps get consensus here because what we’re agreeing to, well, the motion that we’re gonna vote on in a bit is to agree to provide the relief of the deferral of the loan payments. This amendment, what came out of planning was we passed the motion that said we were gonna extend the deferral of the loan payments for 18 months. That passed. Staff cautioned us that we had a funding issue.

That’s what was before us. What came from city staff gave us two options. To fund the deferral of the loan payments, we could either a pause any new loans for 18 months, which means nobody else gets the facade or building code loan, which to me hinders our economic development. The other option was to take money from the reserve fund.

the Economic Development Service at 1.15 million. So that’s my motion here. I just wanna put it out there that if you support this, we’re not closing the door to the other option that staff presented and at the time that we’re making our downtown strategy decisions , that door remains open, that council could choose it at that time. So I’m hoping that eases any concern that my colleagues might have around supporting this motion now, supporting this amended amendment now.

Council approval. Thank you. So what the mayor just said a few minutes ago just confirms it that really we got nothing to lose potentially to, we got nothing to lose potentially to gain. I just want to stay, by the way, I just want to reiterate, I know I heard somewhere 1.5, some people mentioned it’s actually 1.15, just to clarify that part.

But I just want to like, and I totally understand that we have the plans coming back to us the downtown, the economic plan for the entire city and yes, that could be for quick starts. As the staff will have mentioned, any big stuff is going to go through multi-year budget anyways, they reiterate it, but everyone who’s been in business, they know that retention is much better, much easier, much cheaper than acquisition. And this is really a potential for retention. These are the loyal businesses that have been here and they have delivered for us.

And if there is a need, I believe we strongly need to be for them. And actually we even have the letter from both B IA’s that are 100% involved in this, and they are talking to the members on daily basis. They are very much supportive of this to continue , not just to defer the payments, but also to continue because the need is there. So again, especially what was said now in last few minutes, I really hope we can have a clear support for this, for the amendment, then for the full motion.

Let’s move to another point on the agenda. Thank you. Any other speakers on the amended amendment? You’ve already spoken to the amended amendment.

Okay, we’re gonna open that for voting. those in the vote motion carries 11 to 2. Okay, now the main motion as amended. Councilor Stevenson’s still willing to move that and Council approval’s still willing to second.

Okay, great, we’ll have debate on the as amended main motion, no. Go ahead, Councilor Ferra. Thank you, Mayor. So I can’t support the motion as it is.

Just because there’s still that concern with the draw from the economic development reserve fund. There’s some questions that I was writing down. Like if we were to come back in June, after we get the downtown plan and the active development strategy and say, OK, we know how much is this going to cost. We know this is going to draw on the active reserve fund.

We don’t have enough money now because we drew it from here. And then we can pause this. My original question about a referral and asking, do we need to make a decision now? Because staff have to do the work, have to identify the property, send out the mail outs, get the properties to respond back.

How will that impact that at that point? like should we not make a deferral now for the decision and wait until we get it back? Because I feel like if we were to come back and make that decision in June, we’ll be even more hard pressed to do that work, that administrative work. So I’m not gonna have a staff answer to, should we question what you said?

Let me just start to articulate what was mentioned before and that is the thing that we are deciding today is essentially loan payments don’t have to happen until March of 2028, but we’re not deciding whether or not we paused the program at some point for new intakes, but we’ve essentially backfilled the CIP program to prepare for that for new loans being issued. So if we paused the program in the future, there would be an excess of funds of the CIP reserve fund that perhaps could reallocate it to other, be other projects, that would be a future decision of council. So, but I don’t want our staff to answer should we do this or that, these are the options before us. there’s not a right answer, these are pathways that we can pursue.

Could I, I guess let’s confirm, just kind of reduce it down to like an administrative process. Like would staff have a greater difficulty in I guess processing this work and sending out the mailouts if we were to reverse course in June? So if we’re making a decision to cause the repayments, we’re not changing that, we decided that today, there is nothing on the repayment side that they need to provide notices for. Those notices will be given.

The work would be the advertising of the existing program, which could take new intakes, and then would not be taking new intakes at some point if we paused it. So I don’t, like our staff can answer, but essentially there isn’t any work after you’ve done the initial notifications on that you don’t have to pay until March of 2028, and you’ve got to tell us that in writing. But you can comment on the administrative work of advertising if the program was paused for new intakes. Through your worship, so as far as the advertising, that’s something that’s an ongoing thing that we’re always doing.

So that’s not a huge delimiter. Usually we would provide about 60 days in advance and notice to say that you’re a fee be required. So that’s really the only other timeframe that’s involved at this point. Councillor Ferrer.

Okay, thanks. Can staff tell me what the uptake was for both programs in this year compared to last year. Do you have those numbers? Mr.

Mathers Through your worship. I don’t have those numbers at this time. Sorry. Go ahead.

Hey, thanks. I have the numbers I don’t know mr. McCauley’s online, but the numbers that he gave to me was in 2026 for the facade improvement loan We’ve only had one applicant Look to get that loan with comparison in 2025. There was five and then for the upgrade to building code loan program We had two applicants in 2026 and last year was five as well I like I still have the concern of drawing from the economic development reserve fund I would much prefer to just pause the issuance of these new of these two CIPs moving forward considering We have the very low uptake so we don’t have that impact on the active reserve fund And especially my concern is again going back to you know I’m worried that we’re not gonna have enough money depending on some of the actions coming out of those two plans coming forward if we Could defer or refer the motion Until we can make that decision after especially if there’s a discussion about potentially flipping course once we find out That would be good.

Can I move a motion to refer? Yeah, motion to refer as our seconder for a referral this Councilor Trossa. Okay, we’re on a motion to refer or do you want to provide some rationale for that ? Yeah, the rationale is exactly what I was saying.

I think we should wait until we know what those two plans are going to have in them before we make a decision here, especially one that could directly impact those two plans and any type of interim funding actions that would come through. So it would be to defer the decision, this decision, until we find out what’s going on with those two plans. Okay, on the referral on the other speakers. Go ahead, Councilor Raman and then Councilor Tro ssa.

Thank you, and through you on the motion to refer, can I use my, I’d like to put the question at this point? Yeah, just give me one second, I think you can, but I wanna double check, ‘cause people will ask me about it. Chair, there’s a lot of side talk right now. I’m hoping that you can control the room.

Yeah, and I’m happy to ask Councillors, well, I’m doing this to not be having conversation with yourself that our colleagues will, they’re disruptive ‘cause I need to make just a quick ruling on to put the motion. Okay, sorry I had to take a moment for that. There is a piece here that I’m gonna make clear on my ruling. So I’m gonna say you can put the question, ‘cause I’m gonna say Section G does not apply to a referral.

If you were putting the question on the main motion, I would say it would apply, ‘cause it’s an expenditure of over a million, but the referral does not actually authorize an expenditure by the municipality. So you’ve met all of the pieces to put the question. So the Councillors ask for the question to be put . This is, can’t be amended, can’t be debated.

we just move to voting on, put the question, which will close debate, and then we’ll immediately proceed to vote on the referral. So this requires a two thirds vote to put the question, and the way it’s worded is the question shall now be put, which is means we’re gonna, if you vote yes, we’re proceeding immediately to a vote on the referral, okay? So we’ll open that for voting. And closing the vote, motion carries two thirds , and to three.

Okay, so that means we’ll immediately proceed to a vote on the referral, Councillor Ferrer’s referral, so we’re gonna open that for voting. Opposing the vote, motion fails, three to 10. On the main motion, I have for Councillor McAll ister next. Thank you to the Mayor for God.

It’s been a while, sir. Thank you for giving the chance to speak to this item. I was just waiting for everything to kinda work its way through the system. I know in terms of what Councillor Ferrer said, in terms of what he views as the uptick.

I would still say from an area that has a CIP, There is still a lot of benefit to this program. There are businesses that are on it and would definitely appreciate the deferral. Apologies that Hamilton Road BIA couldn’t submit a letter. I’m sure they would have as well, but they got other things to deal with right now.

I would say there’s a lot of value in these programs. As an area where often, unfortunately, I have to resort to demolition. I think having these options available in areas that are really struggling is very important. And I would say from my experience with discussions, with these programs specifically.

I think we could do a better job advertising them . I take the opportunity whenever it’s presented to me to bring this up, especially in buildings where they could have tenants, they could do the facade improvements, upgrades of the building as well. These are important things, especially in areas where we’ve got older buildings that really need the work. So I would suggest to all my colleagues when these discussions happen, if you’ve got a C IP, please absolutely put this forward.

appreciate what the Councillors put forward as well and all the discussion that happened today and I will support this, thank you. Okay, any others on the main motion as amended? Councillor Stevenson. Thank you, I just wanna quickly ask for support again on this, it shows Council’s continued commitment to this area and it allows, we want people to get the facade loans and the building code loans.

We want them to invest in our core area. This is our way of doing it. And again, as Councillor Prabble said retention is easier, cash flow is everything to businesses and even $200 a month makes a difference. Sending the signal that no, we start to expect loan payments in September when we haven’t achieved the objectives that we all want in this area, I think would have very negative consequences.

So I really hope for your support. And I will just say again to my colleagues who have concern that the door has not closed to options. This is a support of the deferral of the loan payments. Cause of the loans is still available to this council in June.

So I’m hoping we get as much support as we can on this. Thank you. Okay, any others on the as amended main motion? Go ahead, Councilor Troso.

May I ask before I start? What time did we start this matter? I don’t know. And that’s just gonna take time to look up.

So do you want me to do that? No, it’s all right. Let’s proceed then. We have a rhetorical question.

I’m gonna vote no on this. And gee, we were doing a lot of committee work here today. And I think that when people bring forward emotion, especially if it deals with a couple of different neighborhoods, it would really be great if people could sort of consult with each other before coming to council. And I just, I really feel as if we’ve lost the audience, people have come here to hear about policy matters that are on the agenda.

And here we are, here we are. It’s been over an hour, I’m not sure how long it ‘s been. But I just think we have to be better about not doing committee work at the council table. So I’m just gonna vote no on this.

And I’m sorry it wasn’t referred, but that was the vote. So there we are. Thank you. Okay, other speakers.

Okay, we’re gonna open the as amended, main motion for voting. Opposing the vote, motion carries 11 to two. Listen, I’m going to ask colleagues if we could take a 10 to 15 minute break. We have staff in the room as well as ourselves.

We’ve been doing this for four hours. I get that the public is waiting for matters, but we’ve got to give everyone a chance to do that. So I don’t know if someone can move at 10. We’ll say, say I want to do 10.

All right, 10, 10 minute break by moved by Coun cillor Hopkins, seconded by Councillor Van Mereberg, and we’ll do that by hand. All those in favor of a 10 minute break. Any opposed? Motion carries.

  • Okay. Okay, thanks, please be seated. Appreciate this short break. We’ll continue on with the agenda.

I’ll go back to Councillor Layman. Thank you, Mayor. Moving on to number 10. This is regarding 63 Greenfield Drive, Councillor Cudi requested this be pulled.

Okay, thus is on the floor. Councillor Cuddy. Thank you, worship and through you. I have a motion and I’m presenting it on the floor for Councillor Palosa.

Shall I read the motion or is it on the board? Yes, it’s not on the added agenda, so I’m gonna need you to read it out. Okay, I will need to read it then. Thank you.

Oh, you, I’m sorry. Sorry, could you read it if you have it there? Yes, I have it here. Thank you.

It being further noted, the applicant requested to consider the following design matters through the development of the site. Number one, six-foot privacy fencing along the North Line, two non-transparent materials used on all north-facing second and third floor balconies. And number three, coniferous replacements for any trees damaged or removed along the North property line to ensure year-round privacy. Sure, and I’ll second that to get it on the floor so we can proceed.

Did you want to provide any rationale or are you presenting on the CAF Council proposal ? No, thank you. Your worship, this is brought, as I mentioned, this is brought forward by Councillor Palazzo, it couldn’t be with us today, and I think it’s an excellent motion. Thank you.

Go ahead, Councillor Layman. I’ll speak briefly to it. Councillor Palazzo would like to get this as an amendment. Normally we’ll go to site plan, but site plan is not available option on this particular development.

Okay, any questions or comments on these matters? No? Okay. Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting.

Closing the vote, motion carries 13 to zero. Okay, and now I need the motion as amended, Councillor Layman, you’re willing to move that. Okay, Councillor Cudi willing to second it. Okay, that’s moved and seconded.

This is the same staff report with the pieces we just demanded into it. Any discussion on that? Right up in just a moment. Now we’ll open that vote.

Opposed in the vote motion carries 13-0. Councillor Layman. Thank you, moving on to number 11. This is regarding 50 to 356.

When do Mayor, that was referred to PAC? Councillor Trusso would ask this to be pulled. Okay, go ahead, Councillor Trusso. Yes, I may or may not through the chair have an amendment depending on the answer to my question.

So I might want to amend this to say we should deny it without prejudice so it could come back, but if the motion’s okay, as it is, I won’t make the amendment. So my question is, do we run any risk that this matter due to time be taken up on appeal before you’re able to complete the request? Thank you, through your worship. The matter, if it’s referred back, will not meet the statutory timelines.

it will not meet the statutory timelines if we refer it back. In that case, given the intention, there was a clear intention to try to sort of get a better traffic study here and also think about the effect on the hospital. In your view, what would be the best way of us doing that without risking, without taking undue risks? ‘Cause I’m inclined to support this, but I would prefer to, If that’s going to just get us a trip to the, to the, to the, to the appellate body, I’d rather just deny it without prejudice and have it come back.

And can you advise? Well, I, that’ll put it. I mean, I don’t want you to speculate. You can’t possibly know if we refer it whether the applicant would appeal or not, but you can provide any context you can, where we certainly can’t hold you to that on behalf of that third party.

Thank you, through your worship. The staff recommendation is in conformity with the London Plan and staff supported the application. Now it was standing, a committee’s decision to refer back that does cause delay in terms of meeting the timelines. So that does allow the applicant the opportunity to appeal for a non-decision.

Having said that, there is no mechanism other than that to require the applicant to do anything else, but to make a decision by council, if council should choose to deny the application, that the applicant could also appeal. Okay, well, I’m sort of at a loss here because it’s my strong belief that the matter of the effect on EMS and the general traffic in that corridor is something that should have been dealt with much more robustly in the application and it wasn ‘t. So I would not be supporting the application at this point. I’m happy to have the application come back after discussion with the EMS.

I think this is a very serious public safety problem and being familiar with that strip of land at the north part of the university and the kind of traffic that we see at the own wind the mirror, from Richmond going all the way back, I just think that it could could have a devastating effect if someone in that area needs to access EMS services. Or if EMS services from a patient out of the area needs to get to or fro from the hospital. We need to be giving better consideration to how these land use applications affect public safety. And I think we failed to do that.

And I was just so happy that so many, I think very reasonable people came from the neighborhood to point out a lot of the concerns. and I just want to once again support what they did and ask, I think I’m just going to support this recommendation and hope for the best, because I think in the end , the position we’re taking about having more regard to emergency services is very reasonable. Thank you. Any other speakers to this one?

Okay, seeing none, we’ll open this for voting. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 12 to one. Councillor Lehman.

Thank you. Moving on to 13, it’s regarding 845 to 875 commissioners, Robert East, Councillor Hopkins requested this to be called Councillor Hopkins. Yeah, thank you, Your Worship. I’ve been struggling with this one all week.

It’s, I’m still not sure where to go, but I’m getting there. You know, four apartment buildings, right next to winning USA, 868 units go towards housing agreement, which is great. The intens ification is 275, which is pretty high. I was pleased to hear from the applicant that there will be no development on the ESA and the extra buffering around the development.

I’m pleased to hear that, but I’m still really stuck on this one and I’m very supportive of the changes of the 50% native species in the recommendation and of course the bird friendly using the bird friendly policies. This is what I’m disappointed in though is that we have removed a part of the recommendation which allows the building entrances are to be oriented towards the public street with pedestrian connections to commissioners road east and consideration of a maximum floor plate as well above the 8th story to mitigate shadow and provide a slender tower portion. That’s not in that recommendation. I think these are important components of having this go through.

The other thing I just want to make a comment on the updated EIS. I know in the recommendation it refers to an updated EIS . So it’s in there. But I think we could have made the recommendation a little bit stronger as we develop and tend to supply around an ESA.

So for that those are just my comments and I won’t be supporting it. Other speakers, go ahead, Councillor Troso. Again, through the chair, I gave a lot of thought to some potential amendments but being mindful of people’s time and the fact that this was sort of discussed, I think, at some length at the committee. I think I’m just going to state my objections, at least some of them, at least the ones I can get into five minutes, about this project and then just say, “I’m going to vote no.” I am exceptionally disappointed in the way this has come before us.

I think that there were some serious flaws in the staff report, which I believe some of them were addressed, but some of them were made worse. I’m very concerned about the fact that there is not a complete EIS. Apparently, others don’t share that concern. Not only is there not a complete EIS, but there are some really good recommendations in the EIS.

Did you know that there are actually 50 recommendations for mitigation measures in the EIS? And I guess I would ask without without going through each 50 , each of the 50, which I wouldn’t have time for it. To what extent are those 50 recommendations in the EIS, in complete as it was , but in the completed part of the EIS? To what extent are those recommendations going to be incorporated into the project?

To what extent are they binding , or are these just recommendations that the developer can or cannot adopt? Go ahead. Thank you. Through your worship, just like to clarify, the EIS was complete enough to establish the zone boundary, and that’s why staff recommended approval of this development.

With respect to the EIS recommendations, that’s the consultant’s report prepared for the applicant that’s shared with staff, and while it may not be fully accepted yet, there’s a second part to it. Those recommended mitigative measures will be incorporated either on the site plan or in the development agreement conditions and so that’s how it finds their way. The next step would be to refine the elements of the EIS and that’s the part that I believe that the council is referring to that will find its way on map five and that’s part of a housekeeping matter that staff would be dealing with in the second stage around the site plan approval. So thank you through the chair.

I’m not to the mayor. I’m not getting the kinds of assurances that the substantive recommendations in the EIS are actually going to be adopted. They may be, they may not be, and it’s up to the site plan process. As we know from our further discussion, past discussions about the site plan, we know that these are not binding conditions as would be in the case of a holding provision for example.

So I’m very concerned that some of the good work that was done in the EIS, and I want to point to with the fact that I think there was good work done in the EIS. I’m concerned that that good work may or may not, may or may not, get incorporated into the final project. I’m also very disappointed that at no point was there any kind of discussion about, okay, you ‘ve got three 14 story, well, three 14 or so story, high rises, along the main road and you got one in back. Was there any discussion about saying, okay, do the ones on the main road but not the one in back?

Was that ever a serious discussion of negotiation between staff and the applicant? Go ahead. Thank you. Through you, Your Worship, the development application that was submitted showed four buildings and that’s what staff had reviewed and recommended approval.

That’s a true sound thing. I’ll take that if I may take that as a no, no. I think that in many in many ways, this application raises very troubling issues about our relationship to to open space and open space that is particularly near and adjacent to sensitive areas, and I understand that we have a lot of constraints in terms of what we have to do because we don’t want to be taken back to the to the panel and lose and lose. but I just feel as if we need to do better.

This council needs to do better to protect the environment. This is a failure of policy, and I’m certainly gonna be voting no on this application. And I would urge others to really consider voting no. Now, we could unfold a discussion that could last , oh, an hour or two, talking about amendments, which might give rise to amendments to amendments , and et cetera, but I can read the room.

I can read the room. So I’m just going to say I’m very disappointed with how we’ve treated this application. I’m very disappointed that we’re going to put so much density in this area, and I’ll just simply be voting no. And I’m sorry that it’s come to that, but I don’t think I have a lot of choice.

I cannot support this application. Thank you. Okay, other speakers to this application. I’m gonna speak briefly to it.

I’ll hand the chair over to Councillor ramen. Thank you, I have the chair, go ahead. So I certainly understand the concerns that colleagues and even members of the public raised, but we actually have to be pragmatic here and recognize the history of the site and what’s allowed to be developed on it. There are over six hectares of the site can currently be developed under the existing permissions and including significant portions of the site that under this application would be donated and given to the municipality for possible future inclusion into the ESA.

So I disagree that this is a failure of policy. I disagree that this is bad environmental policy decision making. This is rational decision making based on the circumstances that we have before us. And we have an opportunity to see some height and density focused on the north and west portions of this site, the furthest parts of the site away from the existing ESA, and a significant over three-hector donation of the more sensitive parts of the site, some of which are zoned light industrial, to the city, to be protected in perpetuity.

This is an opportunity for us, yes, we have to give up some heightened density to move beyond the existing permissions on the site, but this is a rare opportunity for us to expand a really critical environmental asset in the city through a three-hecter expansion into city ownership of the USA. You heard, and I don’t think it was one of the best public engagement sessions because there were a lot of people showing up saying, don’t do this at all because we wanna protect the USA. It doesn’t recognize the existing decision that was made and the existing binding development opportunities on that site that we don’t have much of a choice it could move forward without any council decision making. So that’s why you heard people who are staunch environmental supporters, staunch supporters of the ESA, stand up in the gallery, even though other people are standing up in support of it and say, although I don’t want to have to say this, council should support the staff recommendation because it is that opportunity to take into public ownership a significant new asset that we can turn into an expanded ESA over three hectares.

So I get that this is a difficult one because we have to navigate circumstances and decisions that were part of tribunals and previous decisions that were well before our time. But we have to recognize an opportunity when it comes. And so the proposal before us allows that to happen. And I think that that is an opportunity that we should seize.

I would also say with density in the area, we’re talking about a significant public investment in rapid transit just steps down the block at Wellington Road from this site. You know, the density in this site near significant, one of the most significant employers in the city , the hospital, and access to the BRT. This is not a bad spot for density. When you take into fact that we can create a new significant permanent municipally owned buffer to the ESA or even incorporate as part of the ESA on parts of the site that were zoned light industrial and for other commercial uses.

So I’m gonna support the recommendation for you. I would strongly encourage you to. A rejection of this means we’re back to the unknown and possible six hectares of development on this site without any municipal decision-making by this council whatsoever. So I encourage colleagues to support this one.

Thank you, returning the chair to you with no one on the speaker’s list. Anyone else on the speaker’s list? If not, I have, I need someone to move to just a small tactical amendment. And that is just the words attached revised by-law because the by-law that was before us at the committee didn’t have all the pieces in it.

So we just need to put that wording in because it will refer to the by-law that actually came before council. Councilor Stevens is willing to move that and Councillor ramen is willing to second it. I don’t presume there’s any debate on that. No.

Okay. We’ll open that small technical amendment for voting and then we’ll vote on the main motion. Motion carries 13-0. And I’ll have Councillor Layman move this and then I’ll second it and we’ll open the main motion for voting.

closing the vote motion carries 10 to three. Councillor Lehman. Thank you. I’m moving on to number 18.

This is regarding the Midway Valley environmentally significant area at a wander on road encroachments. Then Councillor Hopkins requests this to be pulled. Okay, this has been requested to be pulled by Councillor Hopkins. Happy to go to you first, if you’d like.

Or wait, up to you. Yes, I was not at planning committee for the debate that I am just looking at the recommendation that came out of the committee and I do have a concern as it relates to D, that civic administration be directed to report back to a future meeting and look at options two and three. I am supportive of option one, which was the staff’s referral. So I would maybe just for now share my concern concerns that if we are going to get a report back, we should understand the consequences to the whole city.

And not only — we should get further information if we are going to go with options 2 and 3. And the other part of my concern is that, you know, we have to be very, very cognizant of allowing opportunities that probably don’t even exist now of encroachment. And I would really prefer that DEB referred back. So those are my comments.

I have Councillor Lehman next. Yeah, thank you. Sure, some of those concerns. So I just would ask that DEB pulled separately please for the vote.

Yes, we can do that. And I think we’ll do D for first when we get to it. But we’ll do debate on the whole thing until the vote, and then we’ll pull it separate. Other speakers to this?

Councillor Troso. Mayor, through you, I think that we had a very, very clear and persuasive staff report regarding the desirability of adopting option one . And that is continuing along the lines with our encroachment program that has been undertaken by city enforcement authorities. I do not think that this council should be substituting its judgment for how we should be dealing with these code enforcement issues.

I’m not gonna make the claim that it’s illegal or inappropriate, apparently we can do it ‘cause it’s on the agenda and it would be the direction of council. I’m very worried about what the implications of going anywhere besides option one. And I wanna talk about the fact that a lot of people are watching this. There are a lot of people, not just on how to wander on, not just in Sher wood Forest, not just in White Hills, not just in the other areas that back onto parks, people around the city are watching this.

And what we should not be doing is sending out a signal that says, “Yeah, do you wanna encroach?” Well, you shouldn’t do that, but if you do, don’t worry about it, ‘cause we may just decide to come back and excuse it if enough pressure’s put on you. And I think that is a really bad way to be making policy. I also have concerns about how we’re going to dispose of with or without a public participation meeting, the matter of the nature of the trail, the nature of the park versus in ESA. So I would be in favor of reinstating the staff report.

I would be in support of substituting the staff report for this recommendation. And I’m a little bit unclear procedurally. Maybe I could get some guidance from the clerk. If I tried to make a substitute motion to reinstate the staff report, would that be considered contrary to this?

And would it be necessary to vote this down before proceeding to the staff report? I think that’s what the answer is gonna be, but I need to check. This is great. Yep, just give me one second.

So Councillor, I think if you wanted to put a different recommendation on you’re probably going to have to defeat what the committee approved because it’s relatively substantive and then you could put something else on. Thank you. And that’s into the entirety. There’s the encroachment issue here.

There’s also the future disposition of the nature of what’s going to be in that land. So I’m just going to be voting against the entire package that came from planning. I do want to ask legal staff if you could just sort of tell us worst case scenario, or what do you think is going to happen? If we go along and start negotiating with under option two or option three, what could some of the implications of that be in terms of people’s expectation that the encroachments be excused or in other methods of enforcement?

Well, I will have to ask the solicitor if she would answer that or not in an open session, so go ahead. Thank you, and through your worship, I think those would be questions for a closed session. Councilor. Would it be fair to ask whether or not you concur with the recommendations in the staff report?

Yeah, so Councilor, I’m not. So civic administration wrote a report that has concurrences on it. I wanna be cautious about you asking the solicitor a question that might get into revealing what might be her advice in camera on something or not. So I’m not gonna allow that question, what you have is an original staff report with multiple concurrences and signatories on it and staff reports are reviewed by legal regularly .

So I just want to be cautious that the, ‘cause the solicitor just answered, there are components of this that she would answer questions in camera. And I want to just express caution in the way that you’re asking that question ‘cause it might lead to her essentially providing legal advice and public by answering a question in a way that you’re wording it. Then let me recognize that the code enforcement authorities have a certain amount of authority, even though this is somewhat of a legal matter. May I ask code enforcement staff, whether they have any concerns about how proceeding with option two or option three, might or might not compromise their ability to enforce encroachments in the future.

Mr. Vaylers? Through your worship. So just going back to that, the committee report that we brought forward.

So we were very clear. We recommend option one, which is to ensure that we keep these lands as public lands. It makes it much more clear when we’re trying to negotiate and work with residents, but that was the staff recommendation. Okay, well, I think I’ve made my position pretty clear here and I’m not going to make any amendments.

I don’t think I can. I’ll reiterate, I believe very strongly, that we should go, that we must go with option one and that this council is going to have to return through some type of amending process, possibly including a public participation meeting with respect to the disposition of the nature of the land. And I’ll leave it at that for purposes of this discussion. I really want to urge my colleagues to reject the motion that’s on the floor and return to the staff report.

I believe that we’re going to be suffering a lot of pushback, a lot of loss of confidence in our boundary system, and perhaps additional litigation, although I won’t ask about that now, but I think there is going to be a loss of confidence in what we do if we do not go with option one. So please vote no, and it’s entirety on the motion that’s in front of you. Thank you very much. Okay, other speakers to this?

Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you. I just wanted to point out that this does not preclude option one, that we’re asking for information back to get a report back to a future meeting to explore options two and three and report back on an alternative mechanism. So this is about getting back information.

It’s not about making a choice. We’re not doing anything drastic. We’re simply asking for more information back. And I think the specifics of this area warrant that extra time and consideration.

So I will be supporting. Okay, other speakers to this. Go ahead, Councillor Ramen. Thank you and through you.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this item. So to start, I just wanna say, I spend as much time as possible in the Medway Valley. I walk it frequently during the week, clean it up when I can, including this coming weekend. And I’m generally supportive of the CMP.

The motion in front of us at this time is to request a report back to assist residents and council to understand the opportunities and consequences to addressing the boundary issues. Personally, I would lean towards a case-by-case assessment for option three, which is an encroachment agreement where the city maintains ownership, should residents not comply. My understanding in my conversations with residents in the area is as of March 25th, the letters included in our package, residents have been encouraged to comply with enforcement, meaning option one is actually still live. There is a cost to comply for homeowners.

And this is something we can’t and haven’t really discussed. We haven’t discussed the financial implications for people in this area to comply with the enforcement order. So a few things. One, and you see it in the letters from ARNA, the Adawandran Residence Neighborhood Association .

A survey of this area has not been done other than an aerial photo. So when markers are placed in their backyards, they are very unclear at this time as to whether or not those markers are as accurate as possible when it comes to the encroachments. They’ve been told and they’ve been told that they are to comply with the orders. There are things like trees and shrubs.

They’re not sure if they’re native or non-native. And they’re trying to figure out what’s going to be the implication for those trees and shrubs if that fence that they had comes down. And in their minds, some of them, in my conversations with them, they’re incensed by the fact that the city may require those trees and shrubs, some of them very old and mature to come out of their yards. There’s an issue with the slopes in those back yards in some of the backyards, about five or six, where the fence line and the slope line, again, is very unclear.

And if they comply with the order, it doesn’t actually, may not actually allow them to put a fence in their backyard at all. So there’s lots of unanswered questions, but yet they feel like all they’ve been told is to comply. So we’re a report back actually buys us time to give people more information as we continue to explore the conversations with the area. Conversations within the letters that we’ve received, the communication you’ve received, people have been very clear in this area that there has been very limited communication, 1978 subdivision agreement, 2024 enforcement action.

And in between that, there was a conservation master plan and the conservation master plan had one neighborhood representative who doesn’t live in the neighborhood anymore. So the agreements around the trail, the level three trail and all the different components of the CMP may not have made it to residents in that area. And because of that, they’ve asked for more information. And so again, this is not a decision point on what happens next, whether or not we decide on option two or three, it’s another report back to give people more information, more time to ask their questions from within those boundary disagreements and to find out more information about the options that are in front of them.

The speakers, Councillor Pribble. Thank you, I also had a chance to visit this area , like most of us actually even last year when we were there before and it was on our agenda. I just want to say that I will support, I will support what is in front of us because I do want to receive the report back and again as already was stated it’s not that the number one is not of the table but I do want to evaluate the reports back. Thank you.

Okay before I get to the next speakers I have enough people on the speakers list that I need a motion to extend past six o’ clock move by Councillor ramen seconded by Councillor Stevenson we’re going to vote for that in the system. Opposed to vote motion carries 13-0. All right I’ll go to Councillor Freira next year next on the list. Thank you Mayor.

So I’m here in the debate and we spoke to this at PEC as well but I don’t want to like convolute like everything that’s going on to it let’s just reduce it right down to what is this about and it’s about property owners who are a budding parkland or or environmentally significant areas and building whether they build a fence or something on it and they encroach on the area. And now there’s a dispute between whether that land should be, I guess, owned by property owners or licensed and whether the city should continue on its enforcement for any type of encroachment on the city lands. I think that, you know, like with options two and three, you know, like I understand that this is a report back for more info, this is not making a decision right now, but it’s also a signaling of council being, I guess, up for the discussion on are we gonna consider this potential encroachment? Are we gonna consider potentially finding the lands to be either surplus, selling it to the property owners or licensing the land as some type of agreement and allowing these encroachments to take place?

And I think that’s it, that signaling is an issue . I think what we should be doing is just signaling right now and saying, you know, it is not okay for publicly owned lands to be taken over by property owners. It is not okay to basically see these public lands, especially park lands, especially environmentally significant area lands, and potentially give them up to property owners. I think these lands are the entire, they belong to the entire city.

should be enjoyed by the entire city and I think this would set a precedent and it would open up the discussion and remove our ability to enforce any types of encroachments in the future. Like if we were to signal this direction right now that we are willing to have this conversation, who’s to know in the future a potential property owner who decides to build a fence or put a patio stone down on publicly owned land and say okay that’s mine now and then point to this item and say you guys you did this in the past what why would you say no to me now this will hurt our ability to to enforce such encroachments in in the future this does set an a precedent that will undermine our ability to enforce city-owned land to enforce publicly owned land we should signal right now that this is not something that the city is willing to to look into we should remove any type of encroachments, we should recognize that this is publicly owned land available to everybody in the city, and if someone were to say, you know, I put my fence down here, this is now my land, we should say that no, it is not. This is a city owned land. And I think that we should just, you know, be consistent with our enforcement practices like we have in the past.

I worry on how that will tie the city’s hands in the future. And if we were to make a decision with respect to option two or three in the future, that is not going to help the city’s enforcement practice as well. It could lead to a whole bunch of items that are just going to not necessarily work in the city’s favor. So I am not going to be supporting the motions.

I think we should go with option one. I think we should signal right now that this is city-owned land. This is park land. This is environmentally significant land.

belongs to everybody. And if someone were to build something there from their private property and approach onto the land, that doesn’t mean it’s your land. You know I worry about that. What’s to say, private property owner who abuts a park land moving forward after this decision doesn’t decide to build a fence that goes out into the park land and say that’s mine now.

And I’m willing to have a conversation with the city on how that will happen. No, we shouldn’t be doing that. Mr. Speakers, I have a request to vote on D separately, which we’ll do first and then we’ll vote on the rest of it all together, okay?

So we’ll open D for voting. Close in the vote, motion fails, four to nine. Okay, and we’ll open the rest of it. Close in the vote, motion carries 10 to three.

Councillor Layman. Thank you, Mayor, that completes the six report of the Planning Environment Committee. Okay, that moves us on to the six report of Community and Protective Services Committee. I’ll turn it over to the chair to present the report, Councillor Ramen.

Thank you, and through you, Chair, I’m looking to present the six report of caps. I was asked to pull item four, item seven and item 10, but I’ll look to see if there’s any other items. Okay, anyone like anything else pulled separately besides four, seven and 10. Okay, go ahead, Councilor.

Thank you. I will put on the floor items one through three, five, six, eight, nine and 11. Okay, those items are on the floor. I’ll look for any speakers to those items.

Okay, seeing none, we’ll open this for voting. Hold on. Sorry, in the added agenda, Councillor Frank had an item for 11. I just remembered.

It’s her item didn’t require any sort of action . It was simply a letter she wanted attached to it. There’s no decision she’s asked us to make. It’s her signaling some future.

About a future audit. Okay, perfect. Yeah, it doesn’t need to be separate. Okay, so we’re gonna proceed with the vote on all the items that the council mentioned.

Please vote, motion carries 13-0. Thank you, I’ll look to put item four on the floor. Okay, item four is on the floor. I look for any speakers.

Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. Thank you and through you. I just had a couple of questions for staff. I did send them ahead of time.

Not sure if we can get answers tonight or if they’ll come later, but on page 10 of the report, it talks about a reduction in the urgent wait list by 942 and yet only 321 housed from that same urgent list. So just if the public’s looking at this wants to know I just wondered what happened to the other 600. Mr. Dickens.

Thank you Your Worship and thank you for the questions ahead of the meeting today so we can have a response. For the urgent status so prior to staff the stopping of the taking of urgent requests council had actually directed us that applicants had to be residing in London or Middlesex County for the past or prior nine months in order to be eligible for the urgent status. So the team did a list clean up where individuals were removed from the urgent status or removed from that list for anyone that was no longer applicable for that definition. Additionally, there are folks who perhaps found housing elsewhere that they didn’t respond to or they refused an offer, which means they get removed from the list.

That’s actually a legislative piece that came in to play shortly after January 2020. Or the application becomes ineligible due to a change in income and a few other various reasons. So there’s a whole host of variables. Okay.

Thank you for that. That’s really helpful. I did have another. Well, I’ll just have a few comments, I think, that I’m really concerned, as I think everybody knows, about the housing, The tenancy, placement and profile, the terrible apartments that I’m seeing and the conditions that people who are living in some of these buildings are enduring.

On top of the fact that we’re getting damages to apartments and we’re losing those units and we’re losing funding that we could put towards other units. So this change was done in September 2024, and I was really looking forward to this update to find out and hear the good news, hopefully, of what was happening. But I’m disappointed that we don’t have the feedback back. It says that the request for feedback just went out in March of 2026, and we don’t have the information back yet, just really would have liked to have seen that, and I know it says that it is coming.

I’m not sure when the next reports are going to come. We’ve talked about this before, too, about how the act requires individuals to be able to live independently, but being able to assess this seems to be a challenge. But it’s having devastating impacts. It’s having devastating impacts on the people who are living in these houses, and they’re not able to live independently, the people who live near them, the cooperative housing buildings that are trying to maintain these buildings, and in the neighborhood quite frankly.

So in here it says that there’s challenges related to mental health related behaviors, substance use and addiction, hoarding and extreme clutter behaviors, aggressive conflicts with others, cognitive or developmental challenges, social isolation and disengagement, trauma-related behaviors in general non-compliance with tenancy obligations that are leading to a loss of housing . It says many traditional housing providers are not designed to deliver the required housing that many on the waitlist now need and about how there’s staff are going to need to go through the waitlist and try to reassess and reevaluate that which is crucial and I’m looking forward to hearing how we can support with that, but the immediate need is how do we stop putting people into these buildings who really just are not capable of living independently and need those additional supports. Stopping that is what I was hoping to see in this report, was that what we had done with the change in in ratio was working when I talked to some of the housing providers they’re saying that they’re still finding, even with like taking really great care around assessing the people themselves off of the wait list, they’re still finding that 40% of the people that they’re putting into the building are really having devastating impacts. That’s just not sustainable.

And we’re seeing that in the toll pedal situation . We’re seeing it. I’m hearing about it in others. report that we got back said that I don’t know if it was 25% of the buildings were you know at risk and we’re only just looking at one what is the depth of the issues that we’re facing at 122 baseline and I’m not even sure if it’s an RGI housing but it’s on this wait list issue and in terms of placing people.

We created brand new affordable housing and what ‘s I believe understood is based on bad tenancy profile and placing people who couldn’t live there independently. We have ourselves lost affordable housing units. A one-bedroom that used to be $592 a month is now 1,039. A two-bedroom that was 689 is 1,238.

A three- bedroom that was 709 is now $1490. And this This is our affordable housing by guns are in the past, but we can’t afford this. We all want affordable housing. We want to maintain it.

We have to identify the problem and fix it. I’ll be voting against this report because I just don’t feel I have the answers that I’m looking for. Other speakers to this? Okay.

Seeing none, we’re going to open this for voting. Opposed in the vote. Motion carries 12 to 1. >> Thank you.

I’ll look to put item 7, 2.7, the approval of service agreements with White Oak Heritage Housing Corporation, Inc. on the floor. >> Okay, that’s on the floor. I’ll look for any speakers.

Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson. >> It’s me again. I’ll try to keep it shorter this time. And for the clerks, although I’m going to be voting against this, I don’t need the bill pulled separately.

And this, I just want to be clear too that my vote against this is in no way disparaging this white oak heritage housing cooperative ink. It’s consistent with my past votes, no against these agreements. And my concern is that I just don’t have confidence in the system. I feel like the system is broken, the model is broken, what we’re doing isn’t working.

And until I can feel confident that we’re moving in the right direction and we’ve dealt with the issues. I’m not going to continue to support this. I did want to point out that I loved on page 99 that it says we’re going to have a public web page that’s going to have the agreements and subsequent amendments and be available publicly. So I just wanted to say thank you for that.

But we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars a year for this one cooperative housing building. And we ‘re looking at them contributing to their capital reserve fund. $378 million in year one. $ 385,000.

I apologize. I apologize. That makes a big difference. $378,000, $385,000.

The point was to meet their capital shortfall of $2.5 million over the five years, which I get. But it’s hundreds of thousands. It’s late after 6 p.m. I’m doing millions instead of thousands.

We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars each year of taxpayer money that’s going to organizations that are now going to be making capital investments, spending big contracts, I’m just nervous. And it could be just a lack of information on my part, I still need to dig into it, but I’m concerned about the governance, the oversight , the risk of fraud, the risk of making bad decisions with this money and like I said nothing to do with this cooperative specifically my concern is with the system in the model and until I have confidence I’m going to be voting no. Other speakers okay seeing none we’ll open this for voting. Was in the vote motion carries 12 to 1.

Councillor Ramen. Thank you and I’ll look to put item 10 which is 4.2 the report back on basic needs and pathway options feasibility of contract extension 519 pursuits umbrella relief programs on the floor. Okay that’s on the floor I’ll look to speakers for that. Go ahead, Councillor Stevenson.

Okay, me again then. So for this one, I just want to be really clear. This is nothing negative about the agencies who are doing amazing work with their staff, with their volunteers, meeting a desperate and dire need that’s out there, that they’re witnessing firsthand, that they’re doing everything that they can to address that need, to fight for the plight of people out there. And they’re doing what they need to do coming here and asking us for money.

So I just this idea that I’m not wanting that I don’t honor the work that’s being done out there. I just wanna make perfectly clear that I honor all the work that is being done out there by everybody. My concern is the system and the model that we’re using and the lack of confidence that I have to do my job, which is to make funding decisions and I feel that we don’t have the information. We knew this funding was short term.

We knew it was coming to an end. We knew the need was going to continue. These agencies are dealing with all kinds of uncertainty every single day. This is an uncertainty that I don’t think needed to come to us this way.

I feel like it should have been very clear months ago that the funding was going to end or that the motion was gonna come to council and ask us for the funding. This could have been done months ago. So to be dealing with this after the fact that the funding has already run out and that we’ve got uncertainty in the vulnerable population. I have a problem with it.

The funding that ran out, we had a bunch of them. It wasn’t just these two. We had the London Cares 602 Queens that received 437,000. I’ve emailed staff and I found out that the previous year it was done through life stabilization funding.

Then in last year it was done through this temporary funding. Now they’ve found the money through life stabilization again, but I’m I didn’t know this. The at Losa also had two full-time equivalents for their outreach funded through this temporary funding. Have they been able to continue?

Did their funding end? I don’t know. We have been told that there’s a funding cliff coming. We know that and we also have predictions from the agencies from staff.

Everyone says the problem is going to get worse. I have a difficult time making decisions in little piecemeal bits where it’s coming from motions from colleagues that maybe sympathize with an agency. I’m not sure where this is coming from, but we have one that we supported to say come back and now it’s come out of committee with another agency with funding. So I look at the added agenda to see if another colleague added another agency or is somebody going to bring it on the floor?

Is this this doesn’t feel like a well-run city? It doesn’t feel like a well- managed crisis. I want to know what are the needs? What are the gaps?

What are we prioritizing? What’s coming in the next year? We’ve got winter response coming in June with options to us. Are we going to have the funding for that?

What was the 300, 000 in the reserve fund originally planned for? Because staff and the whole of community system response have not come to us and said we should continue this funding. We got a staff report months ago saying the funding was going to end. We’re letting you know.

There was no direction, no advice given to continue it. And now before council, we’re making a decision as to whether to continue it or not. And somehow if we vote no, it’s like, oh, we don’t think they deserve the money when that’s not how I feel. But how are we making decisions?

How are we assessing the need? And we still haven’t addressed the issue of the drop-in service in Old East Village. So for three years now, I’ve been saying it’s a problem. It’s not working.

We’ve talked about good neighbor agreement that got rejected. When compassion needs to be widespread, we’ve got taxpayers and residents and seniors and people on ODSP and OW living right there. Every single day, they are emailing me in tears. As a city counselor, as a ward counselor, I can’t support this.

I want better solutions. I want to hear from and be a part of it. I just want to say in terms of the drop-in service, we’re meeting with Arcade and Kevin from the Old East Village BIA and myself. We already have a meeting booked.

I appreciated Sarah reaching out to me. Hopefully, out of that will come some suggestions. I’m assuming this is going to pass, but we can’t continue the way that we’re going. It’s unfair to the people who live in that area, so I hope to be bringing forward solutions in the future.

Okay. Other speakers? I have Councillor ramen. I ‘ll look for other speakers after that.

Thank you. And through you, a well-managed crisis is an oxymoron to me. Let me just say that the reason that the letter that was part and parcel of the caps agenda was in front of us was because of the federal government announcement that came out on April 1st. So it was a response to that announcement that there was potentially a way forward where organizations can access funding.

And so that $125 million announcement didn’t come with a lot of details yet. And so as we await the details, we have a number of organizations that had come forward, had been repeatedly coming to engage in conversation about what are the funding options available. And so what’s in front of us today is a way for us to move forward alongside these organizations with some monthly commitments until such time as that UHEI funding or other funding from the province or federal government is realized because this money is coming from reserve funds. And so it gives us a way forward with an up-to-limit of about 350,000 and again the drawdown from that social service reserve fund added to that motion.

Councilor Hopkins amended to add that conversation with other organizations which staff said they would continue to have so so again I agree this feels like an imperfect situation it feels like a response that maybe came at the last minute but sometimes when things are out of our hands from a funding perspective we have to pivot and find a way and this was a way for us to do so so I’m hoping my colleagues will support what’s in front of us I know that many of my colleagues are having really good dialogue with organizations in this community about the good work they’re doing, and they’re looking to work collaboratively. So I really appreciate that effort. I think that it’s really important. It’s the way we move forward together.

And so, again, what’s in front of us today is a way forward. Obviously, you know, it’s a step in a direction, but it’s not the full answer. We need more support. We hear that continuously in order to, and we need, sorry, consistent support in order for us to help address some of these bigger problems.

Okay, I have myself next, so I’ll turn the chair over to Councillor Lehman. Thank you, please go ahead, Mayor. Yes, so I appreciate the comments by my colleagues. I wanna echo a couple of things that Councillor Ramen said at the end there, good of a challenging situation when there’s a funding announcement for renewal of funding after the funding has ended.

It creates gaps in a system and creates a tremendous strain on those who could potentially benefit from the funding. I wanna go back though to the genesis of UAGI renewal, leading up to meetings that the federal big city mayors had in Ottawa with Prime Minister Mark Carney and his team, I met with all the various agencies in the city who were utilizing the previous funding in conjunction with support of our staff to say, we’re going to go advocate for necessary funding that the federal government has put on place and the renewal of that funding might be under this program, might be a renewal of the program, might be an increase to reaching home funding. But what are the impacts on the work that you’re doing of this funding ending? a number of them have been mentioned today, and there’s a variety of organizations impacted.

But I wanna commend, although it would have been great to have the announcement a little sooner than the end of the funding, and I wanna commend the federal government for actually renewing the funding. And I wanna credit the big city mayors federally for their advocacy on this, particularly the mayor of Montreal who essentially spearheaded some of our advocacy with the federal government on this, given the impacts that her city is also facing, and the agencies in her city and the way that they’re using this funding. So again, I agree with Council Raman. We deal with many imperfect situations all the time.

To know that funding is going to be renewed, but not have a lot of detail, puts us in a very difficult situation to try to find ways to allow agencies to continue their work, recognizing that we don’t want to backfill federal dollars on an ongoing basis. But we do want to position ourselves very well to try to get those dollars. And I want to thank Ms. Campbell and others who, when they said, what can we do to help, my response was help us advocate to other levels of government to try to secure dollars.

Ideally, permanent long-term stable dollars so that we’re not in this situation time and time again. And so to their credit, I appreciate the work that they’ve done in that advocacy piece to meet with others and to share their voices. It is difficult for the municipality to be in a situation where we do not have enough resources to do all the good things we want to do. And we come out with situations and motions that sometimes are not perfect and could, you know, could be better or could be five different versions of it.

But I think the motion that’s on the floor before you recognizes a couple of things. One, the ongoing need in our community for the services that we’re being provided under the federal funding. Two, that the municipality can’t be the long-term funder of this, which is why there’s a cap on it and why there is a desire that should we achieve the funding to restore the reserve fund with the dollar that we can use it for other priorities that we know we already have in the city and support other work in the space. And three, the need for continued advocacy on this at all levels of government.

This is only a challenge that will be solved when we can all get on the same page, when we can all pull in the same direction. I appreciate Councillor Hopkins work at AMO, appreciate the work of my colleagues across the country at Big City Mayors and through the FCM, but also the work of agencies and Councillors in the city to advocate to our local representatives for the resources that are necessary, and we will take steps forward when we pull in the same direction. This is absolutely necessary federal funding, but it is great that they renewed it, and I have to say the city of London and the agencies here desperately need to secure our share of it to continue the work that’s being done in our city. So the motion today is just one step to give us some time to do that advocacy, but I want to be clear.

The work is not done to try to encourage the federal government to say, “You need to to flow these dollars as you did before, into the communities that were utilizing them for the work that was being done, because that is where the gap is, and that is where the gap has to be filled. Steve, I’m gonna need that chair. Sorry, I’m gonna return the chair to you. Thank you.

I’ll go to any other speakers on this. Okay, then we have the committee’s recommendation before us, we’ll open that for voting. Posing the vote, motion carries 12 to one. Councillor ramen.

Thank you, that concludes my report. Okay, we’re on to added reports, And I have, I think he volunteered kind of, Councilor McAllister volunteered to read out the report out of closed session, and there are two items that Councilor McAllister will present today. Thank you, Your Worship. If I volunteered to be in the piece of paper that was put in front of me, then yes.

Here we go. This is the central report of Council in closed session. This is number one, property acquisition 141 Highbury Avenue, North Highbury Avenue and Hamilton Road intersection improvement project that on the recommendation of the deputy city manager, finance supports with the concurrence of deputy city manager environment and infrastructure. On the advice of the director, Realty Services with respect to the acquisition of property located at 141 Highbury Avenue North, and the city of London further described as South 22 feet on lot 142, North 22 feet on lot 143, plan 511, in the city of London County of Middlesex, being all of pin 08340-0247, containing an area of approximately 0.1 acres as shown on the location, a map as appendix B for the purpose of future improvements to accommodate Highbury Avenue in Hamilton Road intersection project.

The following actions be taken. The offer submitted by David Ernest Wilkes and Mary Louise Wilkes, the vendor to sell the subject property to the city for the sum of 340,000 be accepted, subject to the terms and conditions is set out in the agreement as appendix C and the financing for this acquisition be approved as set out in the source of financing report here too as appendix A. Sorry, I’ve tried to go as fast as I can with these but I’m plating a little bit here. Two, Western Fair Association and City of London, JAR Expo Center, Redevelopment Construction and Contribution Agreement.

That on the recommendation of the deputy city manager, neighborhood and community-wide services and the concurrence of the deputy city manager Finance supports the following actions be taken with respect to the staff report, dated April 13th, 2026, related to the Expo Center Redevelopment Construction and Contribution Agreement. A, the Civic Administration be directed to apply the financing for this agreement as set out in the source of financing report as appended to the above noted staff report. B, the construction and contribution agreement as appended to the above noted staff report appendix B between the Corporation of the City of London and the Western Fair Association, regarding the redevelopment and operation of portion of the Expo Center, formerly known as the Agripl ax into three core gymnasiums be authorized and approved. C, the mayor and the city clerk be authorized execute the above noted agreement.

D, authority be delegated to the deputy city manager and neighborhood community wide services or written delegate to approve the further am ending agreements to the above noted construction and contribution agreement. E, the deputy city manager neighborhood and community-wide services, or written delegate be authorized to undertake all administrative steps and execute financial reports, as required, under this agreement that progress was made with respect to items 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, and 4.6, as noted on the public agenda, 6.2/7/ICSC6.1/6/P EC, 6.1/6/6/PEC. /6 / cpsc and that is it okay you get to stand up Councillor because your rocks so we are presenting that report I’ll look for any questions on both of those items that colleagues might have or any discussion okay we’re gonna open that for voting those in the vote motion carries 12 to 1 okay we’re on to deferred matters or none inquiries see any no one can for me of any okay emergent there are none. Okay, we’re on to bylaws.

So I’ll say eScribe is being a little slow so these might take just a little longer than normal but we might only have nine votes depending on what people want holds. Right now I have it organized as Bill 181 which is from the Planning Committee, the Commissioner’s Road Peace. That’s gonna be separate and we’ll do that first. Then we have the items related to SBPC and M2.2 which is the Housing Accelerator Fund items and then and I was gonna try to do everything else, including the confidential items that came out of CPSC and ICSC that Councillor McAllister just wrote.

If you want something separate beyond that, I’d need to know now. Otherwise we could proceed with those three votes in that way. So anybody want to do it differently than that? Okay, these are someone willing to support all that.

I’m willing to second all of it. Someone willing to, Councillor Layman’s willing to move. So we’ll use you and me as the mover and seconder for all that to speed things along. Okay, so the first thing we’re gonna do is the commissioner’s road item, and we’re gonna start with first reading moved by Councillor Layman, seconded by myself, and we will open first reading for voting.

Motion carries 10 to three. Okay, we’ll just have one sec ‘cause we are faster than e-scrap. Okay, second reading, and I apologize, it might take that long for every vote ‘cause that’s how long e-scrap is taking to refresh. Any debate on second reading?

Same move for seconder. Seeing none, we’ll open that for voting. It’s a purple motion carries 10 to three. Okay, and we’ll go to third reading, same mover and seconder and we’ll open third reading for voting.

Motion carries 10-3. All right the next one are the two by-laws related to the housing accelerator fund report from SPPC moved by Coun cillor Layton and seconded by myself wait a moment and then I’ll open first reading bills are 182 and 183 and I believe it’s from item 2.2 of the SPPC report. This is a memo that Mr. Mathers circulated to.

All right we’re all good. Okay we’ll open first reading. It carries 12 to one. Okay, and in a moment we’ll do second reading.

Is there any debate on second reading? I don’t see any, but we’ll just wait for the system and then we’ll open the vote as soon as it’s ready. Okay, that should be open now. Motion carries 12-1.

Okay, we’re gonna open the next reading for voting. Motion carries 12-1. Okay, next we’re gonna do everything else, including the stuff that was presented by Councilor McAllister. All right, I’m gonna ask because this might take a bit if we have to reboot the system.

We’re voting on all the rest of the stuff. Is anybody actually opposed to all the rest of the stuff together, like, OK, because it makes it really easy to record the vote if we’re all in favor. I’m still going to call the vote by hand, but we want to have recorded votes. So if someone’s opposed, I’m going to wait and let people put it in the system.

OK, I don’t see everybody’s in favor. OK, all right. So we’re going to do first reading of everything else that’s left, by hand. All those in favor?

And that looks like, are there any opposed? OK, none opposed. Come on. We’re going to record that as everybody in favor as everyone present.

Second reading, any discussion on all of those in favor on second reading? And anybody opposed? Motion carries. Okay, and no one was opposed there too.

And third reading, all those in favor, and anyone opposed? Motion carries, not opposed. Okay, so we’re gonna record that as it would have been done in these scribe there. Otherwise, we probably would have had a 10 minute refresh there.

So everybody can enjoy whatever weather’s left out there. Okay, which means we’re on to adjournment. I’m gonna look for motion to adjourn, Councillor van Merebergen seconded by Councillor Cuddy. All those in favor of adjournment?

Motion carries. All right, we’re adjourned.