With a sharp drop in local new home construction during 2024, Mayor Cam Guthrie is eager to see shovels in the ground, stating he “will not hesitate” to override council in the year to come if it means approval for housing projects.
Guthrie’s pledge to put strong mayor powers to work in 2025 came during a year-end interview with GuelphToday.
“We've done the heavy lifting on policy. We're doing a lot of heavy lifting on internal processes,” he said of changes made within city hall. “If there are ways in which we can speed up housing (project approval), I will not hesitate to use the stronger powers to do that.”
Though he acknowledges the city has no control over when developers decide to build – as shown in the 2023 Growth Management and Affordable Housing Monitoring Report, there were nearly 6,000 approved but unbuilt units in the city, though developers dispute those numbers – he wants to see their proposals moving through the approval process and “get to yes” more quickly.
“If I have to use the stronger mayor powers to do that, I absolutely will,” Guthrie said. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.”
The provincial housing tracker shows 849 new housing starts for Guelph in 2024, with a target of 1,500.
There were 1,287 housing starts during 2023, which is 98 per cent of the new housing target set for the city by the provincial government. As a result, the city received a $4.68 million ‘reward’ from the province.
When it comes to recent policy changes and other internal matters at city hall, Guthrie heaped much of the credit on recently appointed CAO Tara Baker. She took over the city’s top job in September, following Scott Stewart’s retirement in July.
“I've never been more excited about the leadership under a Tara Baker CAO, about the vision and the direction she's trying to move the administration in,” said Guthrie. “Seeing her ability to listen and watch what's happening within the organisation and enter her desire of really pulling people together to accomplish really good things for the citizens and businesses of wealth has been just really nice to see.
“I just really feel like the culture is going to be set up for a lot of success under her leadership.”
With the potential for provincial and federal elections on the horizon, the mayor anticipates 2025 will be an important year for relationship-building.
“No matter the outcome, there are millions of dollars (for) programs and/or grants that are offsetting the property tax burden at the municipal level … from both the federal and provincial governments and I and so I want to continue to advocate and make the case for Guelph,” Guthrie said.
“If there are changes on the horizon, I'm going to continue to make those relationships with people on inroads with them, with whoever they are and from whatever party, but this will be an important moment, I think, for advocacy, for relationships.”
There’s also potential for local industries, particularly manufacturing, to be impacted by the recent presidential election in the United States, he noted.
“These upper levels of government and/or worldwide decisions like our neighbours to the south, they do impact our city and I cannot ignore that as the mayor.”
Last but not least, Guthrie is excited to see what the impact will be of coming transit changes. As confirmed through the city budget process, seniors will be able to ride for free on Thursdays; high school students will ride fee-free on weekends and during July and August, as well as weekdays after 5 p.m.; and expansion of the affordable bus pass program.
“When ridership goes up, we get more money from the gas tax,” Guthrie said, referring to provincially collected at fuel pumps – a portion of which is given annually to municipalities in order to improve transit.
