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Some tinkering still needed as city moves closer to updating its parkland dedication bylaw

Final vote scheduled for Jan. 28 as city looks to increase land or money received from developers for parkland
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Tony Saxon/GuelphToday file photo

The city has moved closer to updating its parkland dedication bylaw, but there’s still some work to be done before a final decision at the end of the month.

At a rambling committee of the whole meeting Monday that lasted nine hours, council voted 9-4 in favour of a staff recommendation that outlines updates to the city bylaw that dictates how much land, or cash-in-lieu of land, developers must give the city for parkland when they build new developments.

Council voted 9-4 in moving forward the proposed bylaw for final decision on Jan. 28 (voting against were councillors James Gordon, Leanne Piper, Cathy Downer and Phil Allt).

In a nutshell, the city will get much more land and cash from developers.

The city’s current parkland bylaw is 32 years old and hasn’t been updated since 2007.

But staff has plenty of work to do before then as councillors had many questions and areas of concern before the final vote happens.

Delegates (there were 15 of them Monday) also had some issues with the updates.

The updated bylaw greatly increases the amount of land or cash the city will receive, doubling the rate for high density development and quadrupling the rate for downtown residential. But it does not go as far as the maximum the city could ask for under the Planning Act.

Some delegates wanted it to go further,

“My recommendation is to go for the max,” said delegate Hugh Whiteley, saying there is a about a 20 per cent deficit in parkland inventory currently, but that could increase to 40 per cent in 20 years unless measures are taken.

“We haven’t kept pace,” Sandy Clipsham said in talking of the need for more parkland in Guelph.

Whiteley brought up the possibility of increased costs to developers having a potential negative effect the creation of affordable and social housing, but he said that shouldn’t stop council from getting the max from developers.

Lin Grist also touched on the affordable housing issue.

“Giving away parkland is not the answer to this much, much larger problem,” Grist said.

The proposed bylaw also puts greater emphasis on getting actual land from developers rather than cash-in-lieu of parkland, which has been one of the complaints of the current situation in the city, where cash is usually preferred over land.

But as one delegate from a local development company pointed out Monday, requiring land can be an issue for high density developments, in that the formula could equate to all of the land the development is scheduled for, given they are building tall condos on relatively small lots.

Another delegate appearing on behalf of the housing industry warned that going too high with parkland development fees could stymie growth.

Scott Hannah, speaking on behalf of the Guelph Wellington Development Association and the Guelph & District Home Builders’ Association, previously worked for the City of Guelph and the City of Oakville.

He said the parkland dedication bylaw in Oakville has led to some issues, with rising costs resulting in less growth in some areas and a monopoly for a handful of large developers because the cost of developing is pricing it out of the reach of smaller developers.

One amendment agreed upon by council Monday, put forth by Mayor Cam Guthrie, was that council would get a report on how the new bylaw was faring in two years.

While several delegates argued that the city will not be able to hit its parkland targets with the suggested new bylaw, manager of parks and recreation Heather Flaherty, in response to a question form the mayor, said the proposed new bylaw will hit those targets.


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Tony Saxon

About the Author: Tony Saxon

Tony Saxon has had a rich and varied 30 year career as a journalist, an award winning correspondent, columnist, reporter, feature writer and photographer.
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