In a little over a week, city council gets back to its regular schedule of meetings. Councillors are heading into the second year of this term of office and there is a lot to be done. Apart from the routine paving and potholes governance, there are a few key issues that need to be settled.
Some deal with matters in which the provincial government needs to get involved.
Two key ones here are the public health board and the Ontario Municipal Board. It is too late now for anyone to prevent surrounding municipalities from spending our money without our consent. It is not too late to ask our MPP, Liz Sandals, to step up and do what it takes to make sure this can’t happen again. Let’s hope it is not too late for the municipal board to change its focus away from the health of large developers and towards supporting the goals and objectives of cities.
We are going to be coming up against this very soon. The company that wants to build two gigantic rooming houses on the corner of Gordon and Stone has already announced its intention to go to the OMB. The city has not issued a formal decision on their application, but did go beyond the established deadline for doing so. Council should now clearly and firmly express its opposition to the proposal and commit itself to a vigorous defence of its position at the OMB hearings.
The residences are clearly rooming houses, not apartments. Bedrooms with private baths and shared living rooms are rented to individual students. It is a clear violation of our rooming house bylaw. The university, the Central Student Association and the surrounding neighbourhood association all expressed valid objections to the construction. The Ontario Municipal Board should not have the power to come into a community and run roughshod over its wishes.
I am not the first person to say this. Dalton McGuinty did in 2002 when he was leader of the opposition. He called for reform of the municipal board as recently as the last provincial election. But it still hovers around in the background, substantially unchanged.
When local politicians consider planning and development issues, they should look exclusively at where they want to bring the city. They can’t do that if they must constantly have an eye out for what the OMB might decide. They are second guessing themselves before coming up with their first guess. That’s not fair to anyone.
The time has long passed for the provincial government to live up to its promises. Both the Liberals and the NDP are officially in favour of OMB reform. They should make it happen now.
There are other relationship repairs in the hopper, for which we should all be grateful. The city has told the County of Wellington that it  “is interested in being an active participant in the development of the 10 year Housing and Homelessness Plan” required under the new Housing Services Act. This is the Liberal legislation that finally replaces the old Conservative Social Housing Reform Act.
The County of Wellington is the defined “service manager” for social housing providers in the city and the county. They do a good job of it. While the city moves forward with its own affordable housing strategy, it should also look for more ways to work closely with Wellington and Guelph Housing Services. It is much better to co-operate and share resources than to reinvent the wheel.
If the city is still in the mood to fix things up and do business differently, I have another renovation to suggest. It’ll have to wait until next week, though.