Housing isn’t coming to any city parks in the near future, city council decided on Tuesday, while also calling on local developers to move ahead with approved but unbuilt housing projects in Guelph.
“There are thousands of homes that are approved and unbuilt in our community right now,” Mayor Cam Gutrie said, explaining that’s why he supports taking parks off the table as municipally owned properties are considered for housing. “If that wasn’t there, maybe we (would be having) a different conversation.”
Council unanimously approved a revised motion directing city staff to evaluate the possibility of adding housing to two, downtown-area municipal parking lots – one at the corner Neeve and Fountain streets and the Fountain Street lot across from Guelph police headquarters – as well as other city-owned properties, excluding parkland and land that’s been earmarked for greenspace.
Those lots are to be prioritized for evaluation.
“For me, the line is crossed at parkland,” said Coun. Leanne Caron, who proposed the amendment to exclude parkland and planned greenspaces. “We enter into a sacred trust, a sacred public trust when we acquire parkland.
“Right now, I don’t want staff doing any more work on evaluating parkland sites.”
At the end of 2023 – the most recent figures available – there were nearly 5,900 housing units approved on about 150 parcels of land that have not been developed, shows the semi-annual housing update report presented to council on Tuesday.
Caron and Guthrie each expressed a willingness to eventually consider housing in parks, but only after all other municipally owned properties had been exhausted.
“Until that time arrives, which more than likely won’t be for a very, very, very long time, it is good for direction to be given in this way,” Guthrie said of the exclusions.
Tuesday’s meeting also saw council vote down a staff recommendation to sell a vacant, city-owned property in the south end.
A motion to sell the Rodgers Road site, which backs onto Preservation Park, failed 8-4, with support from Guthrie and councillors Dan Gibson, Michele Richardson and Cathy Downer.
That vote followed a delegation from Rodgers Road resident Shirley Szilvasy, who said development of that site would worsen an already significant parking problem on the street.
She also raised concerns about emergency vehicles filling down Rodgers given the parking situation.
Szilvasy pointed to another nearby property designated for a pollinator garden and asked for the same to be considered for the Rodgers site. That other property, she suggested, is bigger than the one on Rodgers and would accommodate more housing.
In speaking against the recommendation to sell, Caron noted development of the site, combined with an existing pathway to Preservation Park, could produce a wind tunnel.