The City of Guelph successfully addressed some issues in 2023 while being challenged by others.
Mayor Cam Guthrie reflected on this year and told CJOY that supportive housing had the most positive outcome.
He said the city approved more than 1,200 permits for residential homes, the most since 2016.
“We had all but two applications, unanimous votes from council, and I think that speaks well to the focus on making sure that we’re approving the housing that is needed,” Guthrie said.
He said council was very united around housing in 2023; staff approved more than 2,200 units.
The city also opened two supportive housing projects for people experiencing homelessness.
Guthrie said there will be more of those projects going into 2024.
“Those were really important projects that we started a few years ago and supported. To have them open this year was very exciting and good to see for the city.”
The city also met a challenge in this year’s multi-year budget. The budget was passed at the end of November and saw an 8.52 per cent property tax increase for homeowners.
Guthrie said it remains one of the most difficult budgets he’s ever been a part of.
He said he doesn’t like the outlook of the budget over the next couple of years after hearing about the community’s struggles with affordability and is very committed to making a lot of changes to it.
He said the provincial government played a large role in making the process so difficult.
“When it comes to homelessness and the lack of supports, when it comes to having to support our hospital, when it comes to the housing regulations and legislations, the legislations changed from the province, those are all impacting the doorsteps of taxpayers within cities,” he said.
Guthrie said the province recently announced it is looking to “alter these impacts and the downloading of costs around the housing portion” to municipalities.
He said consultations on the matter will get underway in January.
“I’m hoping that when the provincial legislature comes back together in February that one of the first bills presented could be one that starts to not have those financial impacts at the doorsteps of taxpayers,” he said.
If the legislation is passed in the new year, and it doesn’t financially impact local taxpayers, Guthrie said he’s open and committed to reopening the budget next year and reducing it so there’s more affordability for taxpayers right away.
As the city heads into 2024, Guthrie said he’s going to concentrate on housing, homelessness and overall affordability again.
Although it successfully addressed some challenges, those issues persist and continue to impact the Royal City.
He said housing is still a priority.
“We made all these changes in 2023 and we reaped some benefits for housing in 2023 because of those changes. What more can we do in 2024? So that is something I’m really looking forward to,” he said.
With regard to homelessness and the budget, Guthrie isn’t wasting any time. He said he’s concentrating on that first thing in January.
“Much of the time, for years, we’ve had budgets really come together in the late fall as we start to actually take a look at things and I’m going to be changing that for myself,” he said.
“That’s a January goal, that’s not a late October anymore because of the affordability issues. We need to have some focus and lens on affordability immediately and not try to figure things out at the last minute. So, I think that’s one area that I’ll be having to use every tool in the toolbox that we have available to try and help with affordability.”
Also in 2024, Guthrie said he wants to focus more on intergovernmental relations.
“The amount of downloading, underfunding and the lack of financial and revenue levers that municipalities have has really come home to roost this year, but it’s been a growing problem for several years,” he said.
He said it’s to try and get “some big wins” from both the provincial and federal government to help many of the issues the Royal City continues to struggle with.
And if the city does get help from both levels of government, Guthrie said it’ll lessen the burden of taxes required from the property tax level.
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