City Council appears poised to clear the way for the Guelph Humane Society’s new home.
The GHS has tentatively purchased a 2.7-acre piece of land at 190 Hanlon Creek Blvd. in the Hanlon Creek Business Park, just west of the Hanlon Expressway near Laird Road.
That property was sold by the city in 2016 to a numbered company. That company no longer has plans to build there and has agreed to sell the land to the GHS.
At Monday’s meeting of Guelph City Council, council is expected to approve a staff recommendation that a city option to repurchase the property that was a condition of the original sale be waived so that the sale to the humane society can proceed.
GHS Executive Director Adrienne McBride will appear as a delegation at the meeting.
The staff report says that the city has two options: repurchase the land for $696,526 and try to resell it, or waive the clause and allow the sale to the GHS.
The report says there is currently no other interest in purchasing the property, which they originally sold to the numbered company for roughly $766,000.
The GHS, which has been looking for a new location for several years to replace its overcrowded and aging facility at 500 Wellington St. W.
The GHS has been at its current location for almost 45 years, a property it shares with the city's wastewater treatment plant. That plant is scheduled to expand and the GHS has been told it needs to find a new home.
The exact cost and timeline for the new facility won't be known until it moves ahead into the design phase.
A fundraising campaign is planned once plans are firmed up.
"We've always been quietly fundraising for a new facility, but once we know more details we will definitely be fundraising in the community," McBride told GuelphToday earlier this year.
