It’s time to disband the Downtown Guelph Business Association (DGBA), say several business owners who feel ignored and yet must still contribute financially toward the organization and its efforts.
“It’s not working anymore. It was fine pre-COVID, but the crisis has changed everything and our leadership needs to reflect that,” said Cara McKillop, owner of Plant on Wyndham Street. “I’m hoping (city) council will disband the DGBA, re-absorb that cost into another specific downtown committee … and have that be a specific downtown committee with absolutely new people, (with) no council involvement at all.”
Several downtown businesses confirmed McKillop was speaking on their behalf.
McKillop’s comments follow a recent city council decision directing staff to prepare an information report on the process of reviewing the DGBA’s governance, operation and mandate, including an outline of the dissolution process.
That report is expected to be ready for discussion during council’s Dec. 6 committee of the whole meeting. Any decisions made then would still need to be ratified by council at a subsequent meeting in order to move forward.
Coun. Rodrigo Goller, who was recently appointed as one of two city councillors on the DGBA, is hopeful that report will lead to changes in the way the DGBA operates, if that’s what business owners indicate they want in a membership survey underway, but he does not currently support disbanding it.
“It’s a brave new world and I want to see how our downtown and our downtown BIA is changing with the times,” said Goller, who brought forward the information report request on behalf of Mayor Cam Guthrie, who said he’d been repeatedly asked about it. “I am excited to see what the members say about the DGBA”
The DGBA is the city’s designated business improvement area (BIA), which sees property owners within its boundaries pay a special tax levy. Those funds are used to support the DGBA’s efforts to promote and beautify the downtown in an effort to attract prospective customers, as well as perform advocacy work and cover administrative costs.
Part of the problem, McKillop believes, is that the city has too much of a voice on the DGBA.
In addition to having two voting council members on the board, with only seven total voting board members, a non-voting position is held by the city’s general manager of economic development.
“Without a clear divide, there’s no way to say whose job ends where,” said McKillop, who feels there’s potential conflict between what councillors view as best for the city and the DGBA’s responsibility to downtown business owners. “At this point there’s pretty much no faith that they’re actually listening to us.”
McKillop spoke to GuelphToday on behalf of several downtown businesses, as confirmed by representatives of Aqua Salon, NV Kitchen & Bar, LaReina and The Mortgage Guys via email.
To illustrate her point, McKillop pointed to council’s March decision against a summer-long closure of the intersection at Macdonell and Wyndham streets, known in 2020 as the Downtown Dining District, as part of the extended patio program.
At that time, an online petition had collected 6,819 signatures calling for the seasonal closure and council heard from several business owners urging the same.
However, council also heard about disruptions to transit, including missed connections due to delays, and additional costs associated with re-routing.
Initially, the DGBA advocated for one lane of traffic to remain open, but later supported the idea of weekend closures, which is what council approved in the end.
Goller doesn’t feel there is a conflict with having council members on the DGBA, stating, “the heart of Guelph, our downtown, means a lot in terms of the culture of the city, in terms of the attractiveness of Guelph, so I think what’s good for the downtown is what’s good for the rest of Guelph.”
There are 310 BIAs throughout the province, according to the Ontario BIA Association.
"All of them, I believe, have somebody from council on them," added Marty Williams, executive director of the DGBA. "That's the nature of business improvement areas."
McKillop also questions the city’s decision to permanently close the municipal Baker Street parking lot for work in anticipation of the Baker District redevelopment project on Oct. 1, whilst the expanded downtown patio program was still operating (until Oct. 31) and before a report to council on the impact of the patio program, which is to include any parking issues that arose.
“The timing is wrong,” said McKillop, “they’ve already started actions now.”
A report on the expanded seasonal patio program is expected to be presented to council in the first quarter of next year.
(Editor's note: GuelphToday is a member of the Downtown Guelph Business Association)
