The final Committee of the Whole meeting of 2020 appropriately deals with matters of the future. Waste collection, government priorities for the new year, and the City’s real estates assets are three of the four areas of discussions along with the latest on Guelph’s COVID-19 response.

NOTE #1: Delegates will be able to appear at this meeting via telephone, but you do have to register with the clerks office before 10 am on December 4. You can also submit written delegations and correspondences for agenda items.

NOTE #2: The meeting will be closed to the public, though it will be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.

STAFF RECOGNITIONS:

1) The Smart Cities/Our Food Future team for being a 2020 Smart 50 Awards Recipient in the Community Engagement Category.

2) Two awards for the Community Plan team from the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Canada, one for Project of the Year at the 2020 IAP2 Canada Core Values Awards, and another for “Extending the Practice through Creativity, Contribution and Innovation in the Field.”

Managing the Impacts of COVID-19: Update #6 – This will be the first specific report about the corporation’s response to the pandemic that council has received since August, when they passed a directive to staff to bring a quarterly update to council until the end of the state of emergency. The report was not included with this agenda, but it will be included in the amended agenda on Friday December 4.

Intergovernmental Relations Strategic Framework and 2021 Advocacy Plan – This strategy outlines how the City of Guelph can combine its efforts with other municipalities in our area along with advocacy organizations like the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and representatives from upper levels of government, to achieve strategic goals. For 2021, those goals include brownfield remediation, economic recovery, interregional transit, housing availability, and modernizing systems. The advocacy goals are also meant to line-up with the priorities outlined in the City’s strategic plan, and a report will come back on its success in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Transition of Blue Box and Electrical and Electronic Equipment Programs to Individual Producer Responsibility – As you may recall, Ontario municipalities are transferring responsibility for the removal of solid waste to a producer-funded model, and this report establishes the deadline of January 1, 2023 to make it happen. The recommendations will also include the direction to enter negotiations with producers and organizations to develop transition strategies, and to allow for the continuing of collection of electronic waste at the public drop-off for the first year of the new program to determine a direction.

Real Estate Assets Update – You will recall that last October city council received a report about eight properties that are considered underutilized assets. Part of this was the faculty needs assessment for the proposed operations campus, but part of it was because the City has some properties that they need to dispense with. This latest report comes with a series of options for council to consider.

The recommendations in this report consider the future fate of three properties. First there’s the the old isolation wing next to the hospital at 65 Delhi Street, which is now looking like that it will be declared surplus and put on the open market by the City. The old Drill Hall still has several thousands of dollars in repairs to suffer though before the City can decide what to do with it, and staff are asking council to authorize a market sounding study. The old home at 341 Forestell Road might be used for a future pumphouse, but the historic porch will be removed and catalogued for future restoration.

Work on the other five  properties is continuing, and staff are expected to being an update back to council sometime in the fourth quarter of 2021.