Mayor Cam Guthrie was “extremely disappointed” that a huge development being proposed for Guelph’s west end was rejected by city council Monday night.
The development, Paisley Park Community, would have seen a mix of 678 apartment and townhome units built in a vacant piece of farmland at 361 Whitelaw Rd.
Council rejected the staff recommendation that the city approve the proposal for the necessary Official Plan and bylaw amendments by an 8-3 vote (For: Guthrie, Bob Bell, Cathy Downer; Against: Dominique O’Rourke, Mike Salisbury, Christine Billings, June Hofland, Phil Alt, Rodrigo Goller, James Gordon, Leanne Piper; Absent: Dan Gibson, Mark MacKinnon).
“I’m struggling, as the Mayor, to understand where this council is sitting when it comes to planning decisions of this term, and I’ll just leave it at that,” a visibly disappointed Guthrie said at Monday night’s planning meeting of council as it wrapped up around midnight.
The Mayor had calmed down a bit by the time he discussed the issue Tuesday morning with GuelphToday, but still felt the vote was the wrong move.
Guthrie said he is “concerned about the reputation of the city” when a developer listens to the concerns of council, staff and surrounding citizens and makes adjustments to their proposal and it still gets shot down by council.
The proposal for 361 Whitelaw Rd. was originally 800 units.
“New things are starting to arise that weren’t stated in advance,” Guthrie said.
“That’s why I’m concerned about the reputational issues around these types of decisions, when all planning matters on an application are being met,” he said.
Guthrie said that it’s at the point where he needs to have some conversations with the other members of council about what are the lines that are not going to be crossed when it comes to planning applications.
“When it seems as if everything is being addressed and vetted through our professional staff, it doesn’t mean that things are rubber stamped, but it does mean that it follows the process and the planning principles that we have here.
“We have to drill down as a council to find what is it that is not connecting with councillors around these planning documents before they come for a final vote so that they can be better satisfied.”
One of his concerns now is that the developer might appeal council’s decision to the provincial Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT).
“That ripple effect can potentially start a process of appeal that can be very costly, not only from a financial point of view, but from a reputational point of view, to the City of Guelph,” he added.
If they do, the city’s own planning staff could be subpoenaed to speak on their behalf.
“This, if it goes to the appeal process, could cost the taxpayers of Guelph hundreds of thousands of dollars because of this decision, if it has to be fought at an appeal board,” Guthrie said.
“I’m only one vote and I have voted against planning applications in the past myself where there was planning justification to decline, but I’m starting to struggle when the reasons why applications coming forward that seem to be meeting all of our stated goals for the city: compact, focused, walkable, density, pedestrian-focused, environmentally built developments … But obviously there are other criteria not being met.”
For the benefit of the public, council, staff and the developers, those “other criteria” need to be identified in advance to try and address them, he said.
“So that we do not continually have these issues where our professional planning staff are recommending approval and council is turning them down.”
Most of the objection to the Whitelaw Road proposal on Monday stemmed around the density of the proposal and traffic issues.
The proposal included includes four apartment buildings close to Paisley Road (two nine storey, two eight storey) totalling 445 units, two apartment buildings in the middle portion (both five storey) totalling 107 units, 126 stacked townhomes and a 3.5-acre open space parkland at the southern end of the development.
Coun. O’Rourke was uncomfortable with “the unknowns,” given that the community will be built by someone other than the one making the application for the Official Zoning and bylaw amendments.
Coun. Salisbury had many concerns with the traffic flow, noting that Whitelaw Road is considered a collector road, not a through road.
Coun. Billings said it was “too high” and “too dense.”
Coun. June Hofland said she was “very uncomfortable with the very high density.”
