This article was originally published on Nov. 8.
The city can’t afford to do all the work previously planned to happen in the next few years, even with a draft 10.3 per cent tax increase for next year, city staff told council while presenting the draft 2024 to 2027 budget on Tuesday.
With that in mind, staff reduced the scope of several projects, including the York Road reconstruction and downtown revitalization plans, while pushing back the timeline of others – some even beyond the city's 10 year capital forecast.
“Many infrastructure renewal and facility projects were de-scoped and deferred. This means extending asset replacement timelines, often beyond their useful life,” said deputy CAO Trevor Lee. “These deferrals and de-scoping have increased the city’s risk of failure as an asset’s useful life is extended beyond when replacement should have occurred.”
The altered and deferred projects resulted in the removal of $693.7 million from the 2024 to 2027 budget before it was publicly released.
Many of the projects come from the capital side, meaning they don’t have a direct impact on property taxes, though they still use up city dollars.
Council was presented with staff-selected highlights of those changes, but not a complete list. That’s something Mayor Cam Guthrie asked for and staff agreed to provide as the budget process moves forward.
Some projects were postponed or downsized in order to prioritize others that support residential development, noted deputy CAO Jayne Holmes.
Among the highlighted projects is a reduction in the plans to reconstruct the next section of York Road, between Victoria and the city's eastern limit. That section had been set for widening from two lanes to four, but will remain as two lanes.
The project has also been stretched to include 2028. It was expected to be done by winter 2027.
“It’s been a longtime coming for us in the east end, looking for that project to be done,” said Ward 1 councillor Dan Gibson. “I’m a little disappointed. That’s a heartbreaking one to hear.”
Because the road won’t be widened, staff noted Clythe Creek won’t need to be moved.
“That makes me happy,” fellow Ward 1 councillor Erin Caton said of not moving Clythe Creek.
Also among the highlighted reductions in scope is taking the downtown revitalization effort to “good” from “great.” That, Holmes explained, largely involves removing streetscaping aspects of the project such as widened sidewalks, benches and trees.
“It’s essentially what you see on the street – whether it’s super fancy or it’s essentially what you have now,” said Holmes. “What we’d love to do is to make the downtown the heart of our city, to make it a destination place.”
A report on those downsized options is to be presented to council for consideration this coming spring.
“We’ll be coming with you with options about what you’d like to spend your money on,” Holmes added.
Asked by Coun. Carly Klassen about the timeline for doing those additional enhancements, if not now, Holmes noted these types of large-scale projects typically happen every 50 to 100 years.
“They are big, complicated, disruptive projects. We’d like to be one and done – get in there and do it all,” the deputy CAO said. “If you did something that you weren’t quite happy with that you wanted to go back and do it later, again you’re disrupting the business and the traffic and all the residents in the downtown once again.”
Other projects staff highlighted as having been reduced in scope or deferred include:
- Planned upgrades to Guelph Central Station, which were pulled from the 2023 budget, are set to be pushed off again, stretching into the 2028 to 2033 range
- The prospect of establishing regional transportation connections has been pushed beyond the 10-year forecast
- Postponed electronic records management initiatives
- Slowed implementation of the parks and recreation master plan, as well as the trails master plan; the same goes for the Guelph Transit action plan and others
- Removal of the city’s ability to adopt and explore emerging transportation methods
- Delayed service improvement initiatives
- Reduced renewable energy projects intended to bring down greenhouse gas emissions
- Delayed implementation of policies to protect Guelph’s watershed or grow the urban tree canopy.
