Owen Sound Committee - Community Services Meeting Transcript — April 21, 2026

00:00:21 Pam Coulter: It is five thirty p.m. and I will call the Community Services Committee to order.

00:00:26 Pam Coulter: At number two, we have called for additional business.

00:00:28 Pam Coulter: Does anyone have any additional? business for this evening? Seeing none. Declarations of interest.

00:00:35 Pam Coulter: Does anyone have anything to declare?

00:00:38 Pam Coulter: You can always declare it if something does present itself.

00:00:41 Pam Coulter: At number four, we have confirmation of minutes.

00:00:43 Pam Coulter: At four a, the minutes of the Community Services Committee meeting held on March eighteen, two thousand and twenty-six, and four b,

00:00:50 Pam Coulter: the minutes of the closed session of the Community Services Committee meeting held on March eighteen, two thousand and twenty-six.

00:00:56 Pam Coulter: Both were presented and adopted at the last. council meeting, so I just need someone to move those minutes.

00:01:03 Pam Coulter: And Lance is moving the minutes.

00:01:05 Pam Coulter: So if there's no discussion, I will call the question.

00:01:08 Pam Coulter: All in favor, and that carries.

00:01:12 Pam Coulter: So at number five this evening, we have deputations and presentations.

00:01:15 Pam Coulter: At five a, we have a presentation from Tim Lanthier, Gray Sable Conservation CEO, regarding Bill ninety seven and proposed changes to the conservation authorities act. So, welcome, Tim. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Committee.

00:01:31 Pam Coulter: It's it's great to be here again.

00:01:34 Pam Coulter: Unfortunately, not the thing I'd love to be talking to you about, but here we are.

00:01:38 Pam Coulter: So, I prepared this to be pretty high level to go through some of the changes that are happening to the conservation authorities and changes to the Conservation Authorities Act that are allowing that to happen.

00:01:53 Pam Coulter: As we go through the presentation, though, recognize.

00:01:55 SPEAKER_095: Presentation though, recognizing that there are several members on the committee that are not members of council, I'll give a little bit of background too on what conservation authorities look like today,

00:02:03 SPEAKER_095: so you can better understand what these changes mean. So, very high level.

00:02:08 SPEAKER_095: On March 26, the province of Ontario, the government introduced the new budget bill, Bill 97, and within this bill is a section that includes the changes to the Conservation Authorities Act.

00:02:23 SPEAKER_095: These changes. do tend to come through budget bills, which is not, from our perspective, not the best mechanism because it doesn't provide the opportunity for comment and change.

00:02:33 SPEAKER_095: And so, what we are seeing is that the bill is stalled right now, or was the last time I checked, because it's been deferred to standing committee.

00:02:41 SPEAKER_095: But following going to standing committee, it will receive third reading and royal assent, and then be law.

00:02:47 SPEAKER_095: Some of the things that are included in changes to the Conservation Authorities Act, and I'll look at these a. little more closely as we go along.

00:02:54 SPEAKER_095: But are the statutory amalgamation, so the merging of Ontario's thirty-six conservation authorities into nine, the transition committees and project executive that will be set up to guide that process, prohibitions during the transition period,

00:03:08 SPEAKER_095: governance of the regional CAs, the new conservation authorities, and and some other amendments.

00:03:16 SPEAKER_095: So the timeline to date, starting from the fall when this all became. known to everybody, is well starting a little bit earlier in the spring of last year.

00:03:26 SPEAKER_095: The government, when they released their budget, included a statement that they were going to make conservation or common sense changes, essentially to conservation authorities, and they were silent after that.

00:03:37 SPEAKER_095: So, we spent six months waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were.

00:03:41 SPEAKER_095: In the fall, October thirty first, there was an announcement from the province that they were proposing to merge Ontario's thirty six conservation Ontario's thirty-six conservation authorities into seven conservation authorities,

00:03:53 SPEAKER_095: and they were announcing a new agency that would sit between the conservation authorities and the provincial government, called the Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency.

00:04:04 SPEAKER_095: On November sixth, they introduced legislation that made that happen to create that agency, and on November seventh, they opened up a public commenting period for the changes, the proposed consolidation to. the Conservation Authorities Act.

00:04:20 SPEAKER_095: What I will say about that is they received, my understanding is about fourteen thousand comments through the ERO.

00:04:25 SPEAKER_095: So if you're familiar at all with the ERO process, you'll know that normal commenting is in the hundreds.

00:04:31 SPEAKER_095: The Greenbelt, I think, was in the three to four thousand range.

00:04:34 SPEAKER_095: So fourteen thousand is a lot of comments.

00:04:37 SPEAKER_095: Only about forty-eight hundred of these comments are publicly available on the province's website, and a third party has reviewed those.

00:04:43 SPEAKER_095: And ninety-seven and a half percent of those objections.

00:04:46 SPEAKER_095: Percent of those objected to this consolidation, yet here we are.

00:04:53 SPEAKER_095: In through the fall, the province consulted on on these changes.

00:04:59 SPEAKER_095: On March ten th, they made their decision on all the comments that they received, and their decision was: we're not going with seven anymore.

00:05:07 SPEAKER_095: Now we're going with nine, and what that means is Thunder Bay is no longer grouped in with our region, and Lake Erie is.

00:05:17 SPEAKER_095: And Lake Erie has been split into two regions, and then on on March twenty sixth, as I mentioned, the budget bill was introduced, which provides the legislation that would make this change happen.

00:05:30 SPEAKER_095: So the statutory amalgamation is when we come to the map that shows the conservation authorities.

00:05:33 SPEAKER_095: I'll provide a bit of a background on that.

00:05:37 SPEAKER_095: But essentially, that statutory amalgamation that turns us into nine large regional conservation authorities would happen on February first of twenty twenty seven.

00:06:01 SPEAKER_095: Of 2027, in the period between now-ish and then, transition committees will be set up, and those will consist of the CAOs from each existing conservation authority, plus a board member from each existing conservation authority,

00:06:11 SPEAKER_095: and a project executive that's appointed by the province.

00:06:12 SPEAKER_095: Each of those transition committees will work through the process of developing a plan to get us from where we are today to what we will look like when we're consolidated.

00:06:15 SPEAKER_095: That's not enough time to actually consolidate.

00:06:20 SPEAKER_095: So it's my understanding, sort of speculatively, that over the next two-year period, that transformation period will happen.

00:06:26 SPEAKER_095: So systems will run in parallel and slowly be merged together over the following two-year period.

00:06:31 SPEAKER_095: For our area, I'll show you on a map in a second.

00:06:35 SPEAKER_095: But it would merge six conservation authorities. Graceauville being one.

00:06:38 SPEAKER_095: Graceauville is currently about thirty-two hundred square kilometers.

00:06:40 SPEAKER_095: It takes about two hours. to drive corner to corner in our watershed.

00:06:43 SPEAKER_095: The new regional Lake Huron Regional Conservation Authority that we and Owen Sound would be part of is going to be twenty-two zero square kilometers.

00:06:51 SPEAKER_095: So size of a small Central American country, four times the size of PEI.

00:06:58 SPEAKER_095: So large, very very large.

00:07:02 SPEAKER_095: So this is what conservation authorities look like today.

00:07:04 SPEAKER_095: You'll notice that they're predominantly located in southern Ontario, stretching from Windsor.

00:07:10 SPEAKER_095: Stretching from Essex Windsor all the way out to Ottawa, there are a few in the north in key areas.

00:07:14 SPEAKER_095: Largely, this is a couple of reasons: one, population density in the south is much much greater than in the north.

00:07:21 SPEAKER_095: Two, there's many unorganized municipalities in the north that would lead to difficulty in establishing conservation authorities.

00:07:29 SPEAKER_095: And three, there's a lot of crown land in the north that negates the need for a conservation authority.

00:07:34 SPEAKER_095: But essentially, the way conservation authorities were formed.

00:07:37 SPEAKER_095: Is municipalities, neighboring municipalities, came together because they identified a need to correct land use practices that were not conducive to a healthy environment and healthy communities, and ultimately, further down the road,

00:07:56 SPEAKER_095: also to deal with flooding.

00:07:58 SPEAKER_095: And so, the Conservation Authorities Act provided the tool to allow municipalities to do that.

00:08:02 SPEAKER_095: But it was municipalities that were the drivers of this change. and the creators of the conservation authorities, and this happened throughout the 1940s and 1950s for the most part.

00:08:11 SPEAKER_095: So Gray Sobel used to be North Gray region and Sobel Valley.

00:08:15 SPEAKER_095: From in 1958 to 1959, we merged or amalgamated in 1985, and the reason for that amalgamation is it was the same staff at both organizations with two different boards, so it just made sense. It wasn't.

00:08:29 SPEAKER_095: It was only an amalgamation on paper.

00:08:31 SPEAKER_095: So this is what we look like today.

00:08:38 SPEAKER_095: There's 36 conservation Look like today.

00:08:39 SPEAKER_095: There's thirty-six conservation authorities throughout the province of Ontario.

00:08:43 SPEAKER_095: You can see Grey Sable there in the area around Owen Sound, at the the base of of Owen Sound, covering about half of the southern portion of Georgian Bay and a bit of Lake Huron.

00:08:52 SPEAKER_095: In the new iteration, the green area will be Lake Huron Regional Conservation Authority.

00:08:55 SPEAKER_095: So it includes Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, extending into the city of Cornwall at the lakes.

00:09:02 SPEAKER_095: Nottawasaga Valley, Grey-Sable, and then down the lake here on shoreline, including Saugeen Valley, Manitoulin Valley, and Sable Bayfield—a massive area.

00:09:11 SPEAKER_095: You're probably looking at five or six hours to drive from one side to the other, and including communities that are very much like Grey County and Bruce County in terms of being rural,

00:09:22 SPEAKER_095: but also including communities like York Region, the City of Barrie, the City of Newmarket—huge, huge urban municipalities.

00:09:32 SPEAKER_095: So I'll speed through some of this a little bit because I do recognize time is ticking here.

00:09:36 SPEAKER_095: But in terms of what happens when we amalgamate, everything that exists in the current conservation authorities will continue to exist in the new conservation authority.

00:09:46 SPEAKER_095: So all agreements that we have in place, all liabilities, debt, reserves, permit applications, our jurisdictions, MOUs, everything that we currently have, just makes that. transition with us,

00:10:00 SPEAKER_095: so none of that will be lost at the outset.

00:10:05 SPEAKER_095: Big, big changes to governance, though.

00:10:08 SPEAKER_095: So what we're going to see is right now, Gray's Harbour for its three two hundred square kilometres has eight member municipalities represented by eleven board members.

00:10:16 SPEAKER_095: In the new iteration, there will be we will no longer be represented by lower tier municipalities.

00:10:22 SPEAKER_095: So Owen Sound will no longer be a participating municipality of the Conservation Authority.

00:10:26 SPEAKER_095: Instead, the upper tiers and single tier.

00:10:32 SPEAKER_095: The upper tiers and single tiers will be so.

00:10:36 SPEAKER_095: Gray County and Bruce County will be the representatives for what is now Grace Sauble.

00:10:38 SPEAKER_095: There are about fifteen upper tier and single tier municipalities within the Lake Huron Regional Conservation Authority.

00:10:41 SPEAKER_095: The province has said they want boards of directors to be fifteen to twenty members.

00:10:45 SPEAKER_095: So that means Gray County gets one member, Bruce County gets one member.

00:10:49 SPEAKER_095: Most of them get one member.

00:10:50 SPEAKER_095: We would expect that maybe maybe York Region might get three, City of Barrie might get two, things like that.

00:10:56 SPEAKER_095: We don't know what that. looks like for sure yet, but that's the expectation.

00:11:00 SPEAKER_095: So representation still by population, but obviously large urban areas that are growing quickly have larger populations, and we'll get more representation on that board.

00:11:21 SPEAKER_095: That new governance structure will take place February first.

00:11:24 SPEAKER_095: Apportionment will still be—it's our understanding—modified current value assessment, so still based on tax base and distributed out accordingly,

00:11:26 SPEAKER_095: except in year one. in year one we've been instructed to create our two thousand and twenty-seven budgets and to levy that to our lower tier municipalities,

00:11:33 SPEAKER_095: even though the governance structure starting February one st will be the upper tier municipalities.

00:11:38 SPEAKER_095: I'm going to be honest; I'm not looking forward to those conversations with with your councils for obvious reasons.

00:11:46 SPEAKER_095: So the transition plans: there will be a transition committee set up.

00:11:51 SPEAKER_095: I've explained what that will look like.

00:11:53 SPEAKER_095: We will create transition. plans to move us into the next phase.

00:11:57 SPEAKER_095: Ontario Provincial Conservation Authority, agency rather, will approve these plans or require changes.

00:12:03 SPEAKER_095: The minister is expected to issue temporary guardrails, so these may be things like don't sell any properties, don't buy any properties.

00:12:12 SPEAKER_095: We don't know what those will look like yet, but those types of things to make the amalgamation a little bit cleaner.

00:12:18 SPEAKER_095: Following the amalgamation, the project executive. that's appointed by OPCA, will become the CAO of the regional conservation authority for a period of up to two years to go through that transition period.

00:12:32 SPEAKER_095: After that, the board will set their own CAO.

00:12:39 SPEAKER_095: So, what we can expect moving forward is, like I said, the the upper tiers, fifteen members expected, or probably twenty for our board,

00:12:57 SPEAKER_095: given the the size that we the area that we cover. the transition process and future regulations will define the details, and we are yet to see those.

00:13:06 SPEAKER_095: And we've been told by the province that we should expect the regulations in the fall.

00:13:08 SPEAKER_095: So timelines are just ticking along, and for us, it's really unfortunate because we would, if this is the direction that things are going, we would like to take action and get things going,

00:13:16 SPEAKER_095: but we don't have the information that we need. Program.

00:13:24 SPEAKER_095: We need programs and land management should remain the same.

00:13:27 SPEAKER_095: We've been told they will, and they're expected to be.

00:13:29 SPEAKER_095: What that looks like further down the road, when it's a regional body making these decisions, we can't say.

00:13:31 SPEAKER_095: And then each RCA, a regional conservation authority, is to establish one or more watershed councils.

00:13:38 SPEAKER_095: No detail has been provided on this at that at this point.

00:13:41 SPEAKER_095: The intent is to provide some sort of local input to the broader board, but we don't know what that looks like at this time.

00:13:50 SPEAKER_095: So the timelines moving forward is Bill ninety seven will eventually receive royal assent.

00:14:05 SPEAKER_095: The minister will issue those directions to set the guardrails.

00:14:08 SPEAKER_095: OPCA will ask us for information, which we will send to them.

00:14:09 SPEAKER_095: They'll appoint a project executive.

00:14:10 SPEAKER_095: The transition committees will be set up.

00:14:12 SPEAKER_095: We'll do the work of developing the transition plans. We'll approve the budget.

00:14:14 SPEAKER_095: So for Grace O'Bole, we expect to approve. our budget by September because the municipal election is an impediment to us approving it later than that.

00:14:32 SPEAKER_095: So we would be before City Council sometime in the summer.

00:14:35 SPEAKER_095: And then on before February first, the counties will have to appoint their members.

00:14:37 SPEAKER_095: And effective February first, they will take effect as the new board of directors.

00:14:41 SPEAKER_095: So some things to note is that there.

00:14:48 SPEAKER_095: There's good and there's bad, or there's opportunities and there's challenges.

00:14:52 SPEAKER_095: I think is a better way to think about it.

00:14:54 SPEAKER_095: There's opportunities in the fact that a larger organization like this provides more opportunity to recruit and maintain high quality staff because they can see a better career trajectory for themselves. So that's a positive.

00:15:04 SPEAKER_095: There's the positive opportunity in that expertise may be better spread across the province, and funding may be able to be. better distributed, the challenges are that funding may not be better distributed,

00:15:17 SPEAKER_095: and it may cost more.

00:15:19 SPEAKER_095: Municipalities will still pick up the tab, but their representation is going to be dramatically reduced.

00:15:33 SPEAKER_095: And in an area like rural Ontario, like we live in, I would say that our neighbors, the Long Lake Huron shoreline, are similar to Grey Southland in a lot of ways.

00:15:43 SPEAKER_095: Largely rural, with some small urban centers like we have, but as we move. eastward towards Lake Simcoe, that changes dramatically, and we're going from, you know, maybe a hundred thousand people in, in our area,

00:15:52 SPEAKER_095: to, you know, individual municipalities with hundreds of thousands of people, and that's not a good or a bad thing.

00:15:59 SPEAKER_095: It's just the needs of those areas are very different than the needs of the communities here, and that could be a challenge in terms of navigating that.

00:16:07 SPEAKER_095: So that's very quick, very high level of the changes. but through you, Madam Chair, I'd welcome any questions.

00:16:12 SPEAKER_095: I don't, I have some more questions and answers in a lot of this, but I can, I can certainly help.

00:16:20 Pam Coulter: Thank you for that presentation, and that's what I was going to say.

00:16:22 Pam Coulter: I'm sure many of us have questions, but I, I highly doubt that you have the answers at this point.

00:16:27 Pam Coulter: It'll be a learning process. Marian, go ahead.

00:16:31 Pam Coulter: Thank you, and thanks for your presentation, Tim.

00:16:43 Pam Coulter: How will the levy look after transition?

00:16:46 Pam Coulter: Is it this all municipalities that share the levy, the apportionment, or is it Gray County that apportions?

00:16:48 Pam Coulter: If you can answer that one first. Yeah.

00:16:50 SPEAKER_095: So the levy would be apportioned to the upper tier municipalities.

00:16:54 SPEAKER_095: The challenge that that we're going to be talking to our upper tiers about is how do you how does that translate back down to the lower tiers?

00:17:03 SPEAKER_095: So right now the lower tiers are earmarking X amount of dollars to go to the conservation. authorities every year, and suddenly they don't have to pay that you know directly to the conservation authorities anymore.

00:17:15 SPEAKER_095: Are they still earmarking it to give it to the counties to give it to the conservation authorities, or what does that look like?

00:17:21 SPEAKER_095: Because the relationship between how the counties and the municipalities operate from a budget perspective is different than the relationship between how conservation authorities and municipalities operate.

00:17:32 SPEAKER_095: So, short answer is, I think it will still find. its way to the lower tiers, but through the upper tiers, who will be the ones that are apportioned? Okay.

00:17:43 SPEAKER_097: My next question is: People who have so-called given their land to conservation authorities.

00:17:51 SPEAKER_097: I know they there are agreements, but what if they don't agree with the changes that are taking place and they want the land back? Is that a possibility?

00:18:03 SPEAKER_097: No. it's a short answer.

00:18:11 SPEAKER_095: I mean, it's it's like if if because oftentimes sometimes people give their land to conservation.

00:18:15 SPEAKER_095: Very oftentimes we buy the land, and so just like if if you bought your house off somebody else, they couldn't get it back if they didn't like how you renovated it.

00:18:25 SPEAKER_095: But that's sort of a coarse way of thinking about it.

00:18:26 SPEAKER_095: More realistically, right now we're not expecting change to that.

00:18:28 SPEAKER_095: So the idea is that all of those lands would continue to be protected.

00:18:30 SPEAKER_095: It's still a separate entity.

00:18:32 SPEAKER_095: It's just a. much larger separate entity.

00:18:38 SPEAKER_095: And I think the most important thing we can do as local communities is make sure that that larger entity continues to be informed of the value of these areas locally,

00:18:47 SPEAKER_095: so that they're not seen as surplus ever.

00:18:49 SPEAKER_097: And just a last one: Do you anticipate changing any of your programs that you offer as GSEA?

00:19:02 SPEAKER_095: So that's that's an excellent question, and that's one I don't have an answer to.

00:19:06 SPEAKER_095: So. what we do know is that in the short term, we don't expect those changes.

00:19:08 SPEAKER_095: In the long term, certain of our programs have been identified as mandatory.

00:19:10 SPEAKER_095: So, natural hazard management, land management, drinking water source protection, and some of the water quality work that we do.

00:19:19 SPEAKER_095: Other programs that are really important to the community are not considered mandatory programs.

00:19:32 SPEAKER_095: So, environmental education, environmental stewardship, and tree planting.

00:19:35 SPEAKER_095: Those types of programs. are at risk long term because right now we had to strike agreements with eight separate municipalities to keep that going.

00:19:38 SPEAKER_095: When we have you know seventy or eighty municipalities, those discussions become it gets a lot harder to get everybody on the same page.

00:19:45 SPEAKER_095: And the other six or the other five, I guess, conservation authorities also have their own programs.

00:19:50 SPEAKER_095: So one of the things that we're going to have to figure out in the early stages is how do we make sure that all of that community value continues.

00:19:56 SPEAKER_095: But in the long term, I don't have answers. Travis, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair.

00:20:05 SPEAKER_098: And again, you know, it's just a new week or a new month of the province overextending and and taking complete control and reducing the local input provided by municipalities.

00:20:18 SPEAKER_098: You know, I don't think that's what anyone voted for the conservative government.

00:20:21 SPEAKER_098: And again, they're clearly making it clear that they don't give they don't. They don't.

00:20:27 SPEAKER_098: Aren't taking in the perspectives of anyone in this province.

00:20:32 SPEAKER_098: It's a it's a sad sad state. What we're dealing with.

00:20:36 SPEAKER_098: I had a question, but regarding the funding models.

00:20:40 SPEAKER_098: But Marian asked that one. Local office. What's what?

00:20:43 SPEAKER_098: Do we have an idea if we're going to maintain our local office, local presence for when residents need to do permits, that sort of thing?

00:20:50 SPEAKER_098: What's has the expansion been placed on hold for the time being until you have a better direction? yeah.

00:20:57 SPEAKER_098: How are you handling those those pieces?

00:21:04 SPEAKER_095: So I'll answer those in reverse.

00:21:07 SPEAKER_095: So the renovation is not on hold.

00:21:08 SPEAKER_095: In fact, it's it's almost done. So yeah.

00:21:11 SPEAKER_095: So we'll be moving back in there in six weeks, and that's really exciting.

00:21:13 SPEAKER_095: In terms of will these local offices remain?

00:21:14 SPEAKER_095: Again, I can't say for sure, but I'd be shocked if they don't.

00:21:17 SPEAKER_095: And the reason for that is, again, this area is twenty two thousand square kilometers in size.

00:21:28 SPEAKER_095: The Owen Sound. office, our office, Georgian Bluffs, technically, but in the Owen Sound area, is very, very central to this region, and it's at least an hour to the next closest office,

00:21:37 SPEAKER_095: whether it's Ottawa-Saginaw Valley or Saginaw Valley, driving.

00:21:39 SPEAKER_095: So it's not realistic to not have, even if they're considered field offices, to not have those offices across the jurisdiction.

00:21:53 SPEAKER_095: In terms of if they decided to to not have those, again.

00:21:58 SPEAKER_095: The own sound office is very central, so it it does bode well to be that type of office.

00:22:00 SPEAKER_095: But as we go through the transition process, we'll be making sure that that those things are kept because it's really important to us that staff are maintained, that local expertise,

00:22:08 SPEAKER_095: which is the backbone of conservation authorities and the service that we provide to the community, is maintained, and that those offices that house those staff are maintained.

00:22:16 SPEAKER_095: Both so that we're not wasting time driving hours to get to somewhere for.

00:22:27 SPEAKER_095: Hours to get to somewhere, from a staff perspective, but also so that the person who lives in Wyarton isn't driving to Formoso or or Utopia; they're driving to Owen Sound.

00:22:37 SPEAKER_095: They're driving twenty minutes instead of you know an hour and a half.

00:22:39 SPEAKER_095: The other big thing for me too, though, is that Ingles Falls is our flagship property, and it sits on seven hundred acres of which that office also sits on.

00:22:47 SPEAKER_095: So I think that bodes very well too. So.

00:22:50 SPEAKER_095: I think the office will remain. Is the short answer.

00:22:52 SPEAKER_095: But again, as things move further along, I have no long-term answers. Thank you, Madam Chair.

00:23:00 SPEAKER_098: And I appreciate those comments, and I would 100% agree with you.

00:23:04 SPEAKER_098: Unfortunately, I don't think common sense is working at the provincial level.

00:23:06 SPEAKER_098: So, we'll guess we'll see what happens on that front.

00:23:10 SPEAKER_098: Because my biggest worry is they try to pull a Lynn or something like that, where they're just going to say, "Hey, we're going to just jam this somewhere." three hours away,

00:23:19 SPEAKER_098: and that works for us as the provincial government.

00:23:23 SPEAKER_098: So I'm glad to hear that you know you're going to be on the forefront and pushing those.

00:23:28 SPEAKER_098: How important that is to maintain that office for both staff and the expertise that's in our community.

00:23:32 SPEAKER_098: We've had a great relationship with Gray Sulphur Conservation Area over the years.

00:23:36 SPEAKER_098: You've done a lot of things for the municipality, helped with the multiple changes in the Planning Act that occurred throughout this process until we got to this point.

00:23:45 SPEAKER_098: You know, I can only imagine. how your workflows have been going over the handful of years of consistently changing policy.

00:23:51 SPEAKER_098: So, on behalf of the city of Los Angeles, we know thank you for the work that you've done.

00:24:03 SPEAKER_098: We appreciate the Great Seal of Conservation and and the office that you do, and you know, thank you for for everything you've done. Go ahead, Allie. Thank you so much.

00:24:14 SPEAKER_098: That was a great overview of what is going on.

00:24:16 SPEAKER_098: I feel like you get a lot from headlines, and this was great. summarizing what is actually going on in the timeline. It seems really clear.

00:24:18 SPEAKER_098: It's less bang for our buck and less representation, which is really disappointing.

00:24:23 SPEAKER_099: I had a technical question about how the board will work.

00:24:27 SPEAKER_099: You mentioned that it's the upper tier.

00:24:29 SPEAKER_099: Is that the county warden that will then sit on the board?

00:24:33 SPEAKER_099: And if so, I'm curious: are they involved right now, or is this new involvement for them in this board?

00:24:42 SPEAKER_095: So the. counties or the upper tiers and single tiers will appoint their members.

00:24:47 SPEAKER_095: So whether they're involved will depend on the member.

00:24:59 SPEAKER_095: So currently, several of our board members are mayors or deputy mayors.

00:25:02 SPEAKER_095: So they would currently sit on the county.

00:25:04 SPEAKER_095: So it is possible that we have members that come on that already have experience with CAs, and I would will probably be encouraging them to go that route.

00:25:23 SPEAKER_100: But obviously, it'll come down to. those nominations and appointments. Anyone further? Go ahead, Royden.

00:25:28 SPEAKER_100: Yes, thank you again for a very clear and informative presentation.

00:25:30 SPEAKER_100: It's clear, just with our region being grouped together with more the urban regions, we're probably going to face some challenges.

00:25:32 SPEAKER_100: Did they provide much rationale on why they wanted to merge?

00:25:35 SPEAKER_100: You know, our region with the regions that we've been paired with.

00:25:42 SPEAKER_095: At the risk of sounding crass, they haven't provided any rationale for anything at all.

00:25:46 SPEAKER_095: But I would suspect that it has to do with the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority being a larger urban CA and having more expertise on their staff and being able to share that expertise across

00:26:04 SPEAKER_095: a broader a broader range of conservation authorities.

00:26:07 SPEAKER_095: So, because smaller rural CA's don't have the same challenges as large urban CA's, the level of expertise needed is different on a day-to-day.

00:26:16 SPEAKER_095: But so I suspect it's to give access to that. Okay. Anything further from anyone? See none.

00:26:26 Pam Coulter: Thank you very much, Tim, for coming and giving that presentation.

00:26:29 Pam Coulter: A lot of good information, and we look forward to seeing how this all pans out. So at five.

00:26:43 Pam Coulter: So at 5B this evening we have a presentation from Miriam Fairs from the Owen Sound Tourism Development Fund.

00:26:50 Pam Coulter: She's the facilitator, and I see Tiffany James here in support from the Owen Sound Chamber. So welcome, Miriam. Thank you.

00:26:54 Pam Coulter: All right, let me get situated here and make sure this clicker works. There we go. Lovely.

00:27:00 Pam Coulter: This is my first time here in this building.

00:27:02 Pam Coulter: For those that don't know me, my name is Miriam.

00:27:05 Pam Coulter: So it's. lovely to be here this evening and talk further about the Owens Sound Tourism Development Fund, and also introduce myself because the last time it was our chair of our committee,

00:27:15 SPEAKER_101: and I was not hired yet. So here we are.

00:27:19 SPEAKER_101: We are going to go through strategic objectives in a very overview because this is what's driving the fund.

00:27:26 SPEAKER_101: We're going to talk about the funding streams that I created for the fund for people to be able to apply for, and that is the divvy.

00:27:38 SPEAKER_101: The money is divvy. the money is divvied up into those six streams, and that is how we decided to move forward of allotting those dollars.

00:27:47 SPEAKER_101: We're going to talk about funding overview from a comparison and where the money is projected to go in two thousand and twenty-six.

00:27:54 SPEAKER_101: And I'm going to give you a high level of the award notifications.

00:27:58 SPEAKER_101: We did a fall and spring cycle, and March twenty-three rd just wrapped up our second one.

00:28:00 SPEAKER_101: So we had eight organizations receive funds, and then the future of Owens. Sound Tourism Development Fund.

00:28:04 SPEAKER_101: So, I was told that you guys are all familiar with the strategic goals of the action plan.

00:28:10 SPEAKER_101: But essentially, these strategic goals that you see here on the screen, these are the pillars of how I created the scoring criteria.

00:28:17 SPEAKER_101: This is how we came up with how people were going to submit an application underneath the six funding streams, which I'll go through those six funding streams in just a moment.

00:28:27 SPEAKER_101: And this is how we decided on how are we if we have more. people that are asking for more money than we actually have, how are we going to divvy up that money?

00:28:36 SPEAKER_101: So these pillars of attracting more tourists and growing tourism-related spending, our main objective is getting heads and beds.

00:28:45 SPEAKER_101: This is how the municipal accommodation tax will continuously grow.

00:28:50 SPEAKER_101: The more tourism we have, the more people staying in accommodations here in the city of Owen Sound, supporting those investments in the tourism industry and supporting the development of the. demand generators, as mentioned,

00:29:02 SPEAKER_101: and supporting the investments in tourism infrastructure and improvement in the visitor amenities, and of course, the end goal is to empower champions to continue to drive this and create sustainable tourism.

00:29:15 SPEAKER_101: So I'm going to go through the six streams that we've created, and these are the funding streams.

00:29:21 SPEAKER_101: So if you haven't already visited OSTDF, which is short for a mouthful of Owen Sound Tourism Development.

00:29:35 SPEAKER_101: Full of Own Sound Tourism Development Fund.

00:29:37 SPEAKER_101: You can look at this information on the website underneath the funding streams and the criteria and the eligibility is also listed very clearly there.

00:29:39 SPEAKER_101: So essentially, just plugged and played with this information and put it here to give you kind of a higher level.

00:29:45 SPEAKER_101: So our first funding stream is major attraction.

00:29:49 SPEAKER_101: This is those large scale or high impact tourism offerings that will draw out of town visitors. think about visitor center upgrades.

00:30:01 SPEAKER_101: Think about accessible docks or platforms or something that is big and bold.

00:30:07 SPEAKER_101: The max funding for this specific stream is thirty thousand dollars,

00:30:12 SPEAKER_101: and we are encouraging people that apply for this stream to match twenty five percent of the funds that they are asking for in their application.

00:30:30 SPEAKER_101: In order to kind of meet. some eligibility requirements.

00:30:33 SPEAKER_101: A hundred percent of this fund, when somebody receives funds from this stream, it's going straight to capital expenses.

00:30:36 SPEAKER_101: You'll notice as we move through, there's some that is specific to the festival or event, and then there's some that's for marketing and promotion.

00:30:43 SPEAKER_101: This one's going straight to capital expense, and the project term is medium or long term.

00:30:50 SPEAKER_101: Number two, we have festival and events, which is our number one.

00:30:52 SPEAKER_101: This is what most. people right now currently are applying for.

00:30:56 SPEAKER_101: You'll notice when I go through all of the award recipients of the funds from fall and spring, majority of them fell underneath cultural, recreational, or seasonal festivals.

00:31:07 SPEAKER_101: These are the events that drive visitation and elevate Owen Sound's profile as a vibrant destination, and it's kind of self-explanatory.

00:31:14 SPEAKER_101: So, festivals and events, anything that's related to an experience, an outdoor event, bike race, paddling festival, and so on and so forth.

00:31:22 SPEAKER_101: The maximum funding for this specific stream I'm short, so I'm going to move this down a little bit.

00:31:27 SPEAKER_101: The maximum funding for this is twenty zero dollars.

00:31:31 SPEAKER_101: And although that there is no match indicated on the eligibility and the funding details here,

00:31:36 SPEAKER_101: we are encouraging obviously people to not just come and ask for money and not put anything into their festival and event.

00:31:45 SPEAKER_101: The use of these funds is seventy percent of the funds allocated to this funding stream for success.

00:31:55 SPEAKER_101: Funding stream for successful applicants will go to programming, and the other thirty percent can be used for marketing and/or promotion.

00:32:04 SPEAKER_101: This project term is short or medium term.

00:32:06 SPEAKER_101: New experience, which is our third, our second big one.

00:32:07 SPEAKER_101: Sorry, no third major attraction, festival and events, and new experiences.

00:32:09 SPEAKER_101: So this is development of new tourism products, programs, or services.

00:32:13 SPEAKER_101: This doesn't mean new as a new event or a new festival.

00:32:17 SPEAKER_101: It means a new experience within. an existing project.

00:32:20 SPEAKER_101: For example, if the Salmon Derby came forward, I'm going to use the example of their fishing pond.

00:32:27 SPEAKER_101: They had come forward for other things, and then now this year they were putting a fishing pond in.

00:32:32 SPEAKER_101: That would be a new experience within their festival or their event.

00:32:38 SPEAKER_101: Other examples could be any guided experience, any specific niche. So, for example, glamping.

00:32:48 SPEAKER_101: If you were hosting yoga or something that was in addition to at a glamping facility or a campground, funding details for this specific one is thirty thousand dollars.

00:33:00 SPEAKER_101: We are encouraging encouraging applications to meet a match of twenty five percent for business expansions.

00:33:08 SPEAKER_101: This is to create that sustainable strategic objective in the tourism development fund, and this project term is short, medium, or long. term.

00:33:18 SPEAKER_101: Number four, we have marketing.

00:33:19 SPEAKER_101: Not to be confused by the next one, which is partnership marketing.

00:33:23 SPEAKER_101: So marketing is pretty self-explanatory.

00:33:25 SPEAKER_101: We're looking for innovative and strategic initiatives within the festival event or experience that the tourism project comes forward with.

00:33:34 SPEAKER_101: So something that they're maybe wanting to create a new video to promote their tourism-related project, potentially digital advertising. something that they haven't already done, or something that is more creative and innovative.

00:33:49 SPEAKER_101: Funding details for this specific stream is ten thousand dollars, and we are not they are not required, but encouraged to match the funding.

00:33:59 SPEAKER_101: And one hundred percent of these funds must be used towards marketing, not for the event that they came forward for.

00:34:07 SPEAKER_101: This is a short term funding stream for their project, and the. other stream of marketing, which is partnership marketing, this is more of a collaborative effort.

00:34:18 SPEAKER_101: For example, if there was a dinner theater and accommodation package, this could come forward as one application underneath partnership marketing for potentially a hotel, a theater, and a restaurant.

00:34:35 SPEAKER_101: The funding details for this specific stream is ten thousand dollars, and we encourage applicants to match the funding. but not required.

00:34:43 SPEAKER_101: The use of the funds must be a collaborative partnership marketing, and it is going to be reflected in the interim reporting.

00:34:53 SPEAKER_101: This project term is also short term.

00:34:56 SPEAKER_101: And last but not least, this is our big kind of umbrella, which you'll notice when we get to funding details here.

00:35:04 SPEAKER_101: This is based on approval from the committee, so there is no specific set dollar for this. It's a.

00:35:16 SPEAKER_101: For this, it's for physical infrastructure projects that improve visitor experience.

00:35:20 SPEAKER_101: Think of a large project, something that will continuous year after year after year bring tourism to Owen Sound.

00:35:22 SPEAKER_101: And we successfully gave money to Lacrosse for their turf, and this would be funding that would be something that would meet that requirement.

00:35:32 SPEAKER_101: The funding details are, as mentioned, based on approval.

00:35:36 SPEAKER_101: Just because we wanted to see.

00:35:39 SPEAKER_101: We didn't want to put a dollar amount on this.

00:35:41 SPEAKER_101: We wanted it to be something that would encourage tourism year after year, phase after phase.

00:35:47 SPEAKER_101: And 25% is encouraged to match the funding, but not required.

00:35:52 SPEAKER_101: And 100% must be used for capital costs.

00:35:56 SPEAKER_101: This is medium or long term, just to create that sustainable tourism in Owen Sound.

00:36:04 SPEAKER_101: So those are our six streams that have been created. for us to divvy out the mat tax to put back into tourism in the city of Owen Sound.

00:36:15 SPEAKER_101: Should have worn my glasses.

00:36:17 SPEAKER_101: The two thousand and twenty-six budget.

00:36:18 SPEAKER_101: You'll see a graph up here, a little pie chart.

00:36:21 SPEAKER_101: I try to make it look pretty instead of more words because I am going to talk about it.

00:36:25 SPEAKER_101: So, forty-four percent is destination.

00:36:28 SPEAKER_101: That's your three big funding streams: so major attraction, festival and events, and new experiences. admin costs, which we're trying to keep very low.

00:36:39 SPEAKER_101: My position is very, very, very part time.

00:36:42 SPEAKER_101: I kind of work an hour here, a couple hours here, and a bulk of the hours is worked underneath the timing of the application process.

00:36:51 SPEAKER_101: That's ten percent of the one hundred eighty thousand being represented for two thousand and twenty-six, and eleven percent was marketing.

00:37:00 SPEAKER_101: Our reserve fund, which is seven percent, and then if you're looking at the. last little pie, our last little sliver of the pie is twenty-eight,

00:37:09 SPEAKER_101: and this is the dollars being used for the fall and spring cycles for the year of two thousand and twenty-six.

00:37:19 SPEAKER_101: I created a monthly comparison here, and I wrote some notes because I wanted to make sure I gave this information clearly because it's about dollars, and I'm going to be completely honest.

00:37:28 SPEAKER_101: I have moral support here, so if you have questions about the financials, Tiffany. will be glad to help us.

00:37:35 SPEAKER_101: So the monthly comparison that you see here, obviously, we only have the January, February, and March comparison because of where we are in the program and where we when we started.

00:37:47 SPEAKER_101: So if you look at the comparison, this is the dollars that was.

00:37:54 SPEAKER_101: I want to say this properly.

00:37:55 SPEAKER_101: Collected, received, received, not collected.

00:37:59 SPEAKER_101: So this is the comparison of the mat.

00:38:11 SPEAKER_101: Is a comparison of the MAT tax dollars that were received in January, February, and March.

00:38:17 SPEAKER_101: All right, the fun part. This was really exciting.

00:38:19 SPEAKER_101: So fall was our first time allotting dollars from the streams.

00:38:21 SPEAKER_101: So we announced the recipients of fall twenty twenty five for the funding intake on November third, and ninety three thousand dollars were was granted to ten different. organizations, project leads,

00:38:40 SPEAKER_101: and supporting new and innovative initiatives that enhance tourism.

00:38:43 SPEAKER_101: The funding stream, as I mentioned earlier, that took it away was festivals and events.

00:38:45 SPEAKER_101: So we might have to work on the different streams and the dollars that are in those different streams.

00:38:48 SPEAKER_101: So festivals and events, we had Dirt Road Revival, which was a concert.

00:39:02 SPEAKER_101: Owen Sound Salmon Spectacular, Owen Sound Minor Base.

00:39:04 SPEAKER_101: Owen Sound Minor Baseball, which is a baseball tournament, Harmony Center, which was a dinner and drama, a taste of Owen Sound, Georgian Bay Folk Society—they received funds for their summer folk music and crafts festival.

00:39:14 SPEAKER_101: And then we had a new experience.

00:39:16 SPEAKER_101: We had two new experiences.

00:39:17 SPEAKER_101: One of them being super unique: the Roxy Come Home, the Legend of Daddy Hall, and Bike Face Cycling.

00:39:24 SPEAKER_101: So this was a bike rental program. that was awarded dollars for a new program for bikes to be able to have for people to have access to them around Owen Sound, which is super exciting.

00:39:45 SPEAKER_101: And then marketing and partnership marketing.

00:39:48 SPEAKER_101: So Mudtown Station Brewery and Restaurant they receive marketing dollars to put Owen Sound on a map, literally for a beer tourism map,

00:39:50 SPEAKER_101: and it is accessible on a couple different apps and also on a website.

00:39:56 SPEAKER_101: If you are a beer lover and you don't have that app, maybe you should go check it out because Owen Sound's on it now.

00:40:02 SPEAKER_101: Partnership marketing: Georgian Bay Folk Society collaborated with the Roxy, and they received money for Play It Forward.

00:40:21 SPEAKER_101: And then, last but not least, Capital Tourism.

00:40:24 SPEAKER_101: We awarded dollars to Owen Sound Lacrosse, and they have our logo on it, and the turf is. in.

00:40:25 SPEAKER_101: I received an email a couple weeks ago, and we will.

00:40:39 SPEAKER_101: I will be there for their opening on June seventeenth.

00:40:43 SPEAKER_101: I think whatever Father's Day is, and then our second cycle a little less of dollars because, of course, when we started collecting the fund, there was nobody here giving the money away just as yet.

00:40:49 SPEAKER_101: So we have ninety three thousand in fall and fifty four.

00:40:59 SPEAKER_101: And fifty-four thousand went out on March twenty-third.

00:41:08 SPEAKER_101: Again, as you'll notice on these funding streams, festivals and events is really heavy, so we might have to look at changing this in the near future.

00:41:10 SPEAKER_101: But of course, this is a new program, a new fund, so we're learning. Festivals and events.

00:41:14 SPEAKER_101: The money went to Snow Folk Club, which is awesome because it will bring tourism in the shoulder season.

00:41:21 SPEAKER_101: This is a February event, motoring festival, and Oblivion Avenue, a new event and a new part. of their event is coming to Owen Sound. Major country concert.

00:41:24 SPEAKER_101: I was not allowed to talk about certain things because of legalities, but they will be announcing actually May fourth about their artists that are coming to to Owen Sound, and then Northlight Festival,

00:41:37 SPEAKER_101: which is essentially an electronic music festival that's coming to Owen Sound.

00:41:43 SPEAKER_101: We they weren't successful at receiving funds for this year, but we did really like the. creativity and the innovation, and the committee awarded dollars to the festival to let it happen next year.

00:41:58 SPEAKER_101: Twenty Twenty Seven Top OHL Prospects Game is coming to the Owen Sound Attack Arena, and Bandit Fest, which is all youth-driven and youth bands.

00:42:11 SPEAKER_101: So marketing and major attractions are last but not least in terms of our funding streams that we awarded dollars to in. spring, so Nature's Gateway campaign,

00:42:20 SPEAKER_101: which is a City of Owen Sound marketing campaign to get people here for all four seasons, and our major attraction.

00:42:30 SPEAKER_101: We awarded dollars to the Harbor Access Waterfront Improvement application, which is a dock system that is being led by the launch.

00:42:43 SPEAKER_101: We are currently looking for committee. member one for sure, potentially for more.

00:42:49 SPEAKER_101: As June will be a new term for committee members on the Owen Sound Tourism Development Fund, we're looking for anyone that is a lover of community events, festivals, anything that ties into tourism.

00:43:04 SPEAKER_101: So share with your network, contact me, share the word, spread the word.

00:43:10 SPEAKER_101: It is on the Owen Sound Chambers social media, as we don't have our own. we are—they're posting on our behalf.

00:43:18 SPEAKER_101: So at the beginning of every post that's own sound tourism development fund related, it will say on behalf of the OSTDF.

00:43:27 SPEAKER_101: And there's my contact information, and I will take any questions that you might have.

00:43:43 SPEAKER_101: Okay, thank you for that presentation.

00:43:45 SPEAKER_102: Does anyone have any questions for Miriam? Go ahead.

00:43:47 SPEAKER_102: Thank you, and thank you, Madam Chair.

00:43:48 SPEAKER_102: Great information, and I think I love seeing how it's going back into the community and getting more beds and beds in heads in beds, as you said. A couple quick questions.

00:43:57 SPEAKER_102: You mentioned okay, so you know, large scale projects, thirty grand festivals, twenty grand, that kind of stuff.

00:44:03 SPEAKER_102: Do we have a maximum allotment per six sections?

00:44:09 SPEAKER_102: Like for example, you have a hundred thousand dollars.

00:44:13 SPEAKER_102: Fifteen percent goes to this.

00:44:15 SPEAKER_102: Or is it just whatever applications come through? Great question.

00:44:20 SPEAKER_102: So that maximum fund that I mentioned underneath each one—that's the maximum fund for that stream.

00:44:29 SPEAKER_102: And then follow up if that's okay.

00:44:32 SPEAKER_102: The matching of the funds.

00:44:38 SPEAKER_102: So you know we would like you to match twenty-five percent or whatever it might be. if someone is ineligible to do that or isn't able to do that,

00:44:48 SPEAKER_102: does that does it have weight when you're reading and evaluating each of the applications?

00:44:53 SPEAKER_102: So if someone is able to match theirs, the contribution, and someone isn't, are they weighted more heavily, or how does that look on your scale? That's an excellent question.

00:45:05 SPEAKER_101: Yes, it is in the scoring criteria.

00:45:07 SPEAKER_101: So there is a scorecard that has qualitative. and quantitative data, so there's a sixty forty split, and with those things being factored in, so that you're not fully penalized for not getting any funds,

00:45:19 SPEAKER_101: but it is considered because it is on the application that says, "Are you able to match? If not, why?

00:45:25 SPEAKER_101: Are you able to show proof?

00:45:26 SPEAKER_101: If so, explain where you're getting other money from."

00:45:32 SPEAKER_102: And sorry, final one is the marketing.

00:45:35 SPEAKER_102: I think there was eleven spent on marketing.

00:45:40 SPEAKER_102: Eleven percent spent on marketing, in your little pie chart.

00:45:46 SPEAKER_102: Does that mean marketing from the tourism development fund, or was it eleven percent spent on marketing within those six streams?

00:45:54 SPEAKER_101: Yes, I'm going to look at Tiffany because I'm going to be honest.

00:45:58 SPEAKER_101: I took that data from her because she's the lovely financial person.

00:46:06 SPEAKER_101: Some of it was spent on the tourism fund, and whatever we had left went back to the community. Okay. Any other questions, Pam? Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair.

00:46:22 SPEAKER_101: And just when this idea came up in two thousand and twenty-two, we had a steep learning curve about what was the municipal accommodation tax, and going from developing the bylaw to how were we.

00:46:37 SPEAKER_101: To how are we going to collect it, and then turning our minds to finding a partner who would work with us to kind of make cool things happen.

00:46:46 SPEAKER_103: It's so exciting tonight to hear about the wide range and diversity of really great things that the funding has been able to support.

00:46:53 SPEAKER_103: And these, we often think about how do we lighten the load on taxpayers here in On Sound, and this is a really neat way to leverage. spending,

00:47:04 SPEAKER_103: often to visitors to to our community to support the things that they're going to enjoy.

00:47:10 SPEAKER_103: Maybe not a fair question, but maybe for the next time you guys come back, under the agreement we have kind of two presentations every year.

00:47:19 SPEAKER_103: One of the things that we think about when we report on community improvement plan spending is for every dollar that we fund, how is that leveraged into more spending?

00:47:30 SPEAKER_103: So. for a facade grant, if we give them seventy five hundred dollars, maybe they've spent twenty five.

00:47:36 SPEAKER_103: So every dollar we spent is three or four dollars leverage.

00:47:45 SPEAKER_103: So it might just be interesting to to hear that.

00:47:47 SPEAKER_103: I'm sure you kind of know what their event cost and what it's spending.

00:47:53 SPEAKER_100: So, but thanks thanks for the presentation.

00:47:58 SPEAKER_100: It's great and so rewarding to to see it actually happening. Ryden, thank you.

00:48:04 SPEAKER_100: And then just a question around. like the current application cycle versus like future applications.

00:48:08 SPEAKER_100: You mentioned that Northlight doesn't receive funding now, but they will in the future.

00:48:12 SPEAKER_100: So, does that mean someone can apply for like this year, and if it's if they are favorable, they are kind of like pre-approved for future funding?

00:48:21 SPEAKER_100: Is that how that works? That's an excellent question.

00:48:23 SPEAKER_100: I'll be a little bit more specific.

00:48:24 SPEAKER_101: So that festival was very ambitious, and they wanted to create this festival. in July of this year, and we were as a committee not sure that that could happen.

00:48:39 SPEAKER_101: So, but we didn't want to turn down this young man that had this amazing idea.

00:48:46 SPEAKER_101: I guess we wanted to keep him like ah like in Owen Sound and not go find somewhere else that's going to host his festival.

00:48:50 SPEAKER_101: So the committee came up with an agreement that we would allot a certain amount of dollars, not his. requested dollars, to confirm the festival event ground rental for twenty twenty seven.

00:49:06 SPEAKER_101: Does that answer your question? Yep. Go ahead.

00:49:12 SPEAKER_101: My apologies, I forgot I had another question.

00:49:14 SPEAKER_102: Are we able to request, and maybe this is just my interest, to see who received what allotment and the amount they received?

00:49:25 SPEAKER_102: The only, and we don't need it now, but for futures.

00:49:27 SPEAKER_102: And the only reason being is because a lot of people come back to us and say, "Hey, can you help support us?"

00:49:32 SPEAKER_102: And it's nice to know what they've received already from you or what streams they're utilizing.

00:49:40 SPEAKER_102: So that's just a helpful. Thanks.

00:49:44 SPEAKER_101: Yeah, we can do that for sure.

00:49:46 SPEAKER_101: I do have the list.

00:49:47 SPEAKER_101: I I didn't put that in the press release, but I can share that with you guys. Yep. Anything. Frederick? Go ahead, Mary.

00:49:55 SPEAKER_097: This is probably way off base, but anyways, is there any collaboration when you're having requests for funding with Community Foundation Gray Bruce, for instance, and their kind of grantings streams that they do?

00:50:14 SPEAKER_097: I have a meeting with them on May fifth. Any more questions?

00:50:22 Pam Coulter: so I sit on this committee with Miriam and Tiffany.

00:50:31 Pam Coulter: So it it is a new program, and we're all learning, and we'll definitely look at the the funding streams going forward.

00:50:40 Pam Coulter: Just to give maybe committee a little basis when we get all of the applications in front of us, and we have to make the decision.

00:50:47 Pam Coulter: We see that we have twenty applications under the the festival and events.

00:50:50 Pam Coulter: We have two under marketing, and we have one. under capital.

00:50:53 Pam Coulter: Let's say so we start at the bottom, we eliminate from there, and then we we try and move all the money that we can up to the the festival and events.

00:51:04 Pam Coulter: So it's not like we're we're saying marketing is ten thousand dollars in that stream.

00:51:08 Pam Coulter: So we we earmark it, but it has to stay in that stream. We don't.

00:51:11 Pam Coulter: We move it up, and we try and utilize all the money that we can in the other streams where all of the the applications are coming,

00:51:18 Pam Coulter: so that we get the best bang for the buck.

00:51:20 Pam Coulter: So that's the way we've been doing it so far.

00:51:23 Pam Coulter: We'll look at it going forward.

00:51:25 Pam Coulter: Maybe moving some money around in the streams, but we've we've, I think, done a good job for the first year and three months that we've been doing it.

00:51:32 Pam Coulter: So, thanks for coming and presenting, and we'll look forward to the next one. Thank you.

00:51:35 SPEAKER_101: I will say just so that you guys have some information about the dollars, we were we had a hundred and ninety-six thousand dollars requested,

00:51:45 SPEAKER_101: and we only had less than sixty. that we could give out because that's all the money we had.

00:51:50 SPEAKER_101: So just to put that into some sort of perspective, and then to speak to Melanie's comment, I am keeping notes, and as we go through, because this is obviously a new program,

00:52:02 SPEAKER_101: it's only our first year of going through it.

00:52:04 SPEAKER_101: So, as she mentioned, we do need to maybe move some money around because it's very heavy in the festival and event section.

00:52:12 SPEAKER_101: So, moving forward, we will be keeping.

00:52:19 SPEAKER_101: We'll be keeping an eye on those things and going to committee and and figuring out what we need to do. Thank you, everyone. Great. Oh, one more. Yeah, go ahead.

00:52:29 SPEAKER_101: So you grant twice a year, do you?

00:52:30 SPEAKER_104: And is the funding sort of equal in the in the spring and the fall? Yes. So fall.

00:52:36 SPEAKER_101: So our next cycle will open September one st. Moving forward, we will continue to do one fall and one spring, and we are trying to keep it. equal for fall and spring, but again,

00:52:47 SPEAKER_101: we can only give out the money that we receive through the municipal accommodation tax of our portion, which is the two percent.

00:52:54 SPEAKER_097: So, those who weren't successful in the spring, do you encourage them to reapply in the fall, or do you just move their applications over?

00:53:01 SPEAKER_101: And if it fits within that time, so we ask them to reapply unless they were, for example, like Northlight Festival, that application. will kind of stay put, and will unless anything changes,

00:53:17 SPEAKER_101: then I'll work with the individual, and we'll move forward that way.

00:53:21 SPEAKER_101: I the first round fall cycle, I did work with each individual person, whether they were successful or unsuccessful, and gave them feedback because it was also helpful for me as the facilitator,

00:53:33 SPEAKER_101: and then also to report back to the committee for feedback so that we can create a better program for the community, and then.

00:53:47 SPEAKER_101: We do ask them though to reapply if they weren't successful.

00:53:51 SPEAKER_101: So, for example, Motoring Festival—they applied the first time, they weren't successful, and they changed their event a little bit more and made it more specific to tourism in the city of Owen Sound. Then they were successful. Okay, great. Thank you for coming.

00:54:06 Pam Coulter: All right, at 5C we have a verbal presentation from the senior.

00:54:10 Pam Coulter: Advisor, External Relations and Investment Attraction, regarding updates on economic development initiatives. So we welcome Rebecca.

00:54:36 Pam Coulter: I said verbal, but then I made you guys some really. pretty pictures.

00:54:51 SPEAKER_106: All right, thank you so much, Chair Middleborough.

00:54:53 SPEAKER_106: I'm very excited to tell you all what I've been up to the past two months because you had a short reprieve from my reports.

00:54:56 SPEAKER_106: So this presentation is really intended to act as a bit of a supplement to the Q1 economic development quarterly. newsletter that kind of goes out through the city website.

00:55:12 SPEAKER_106: It is called the Owensown Economic and Industry Brief.

00:55:16 SPEAKER_106: Thank you, Carly MacArthur, our communications advisor, for helping me to synthesize all of the activity that's happening within the External Relations and Investment Attraction Department because it is significant.

00:55:30 SPEAKER_106: So, just going through a few of the highlights.

00:55:36 SPEAKER_106: The report is linked there.

00:55:37 SPEAKER_106: You can also find it on the city website.

00:55:40 SPEAKER_106: We submitted the federal research grant for the Community and College Social Innovation Fund in partnership with Georgian College.

00:55:50 SPEAKER_106: This was in the January report before this committee.

00:55:53 SPEAKER_106: As part of that effort to apply for that three hundred and sixty thousand dollars in federal grant support for a Future of Belonging initiative and a.

00:56:07 SPEAKER_106: And the effort to establish a local community impact lab, we were able to collect 14 letters of support from cross-sector partners.

00:56:17 SPEAKER_106: This indicated that there is a broad appetite for this type of initiative.

00:56:18 SPEAKER_106: We're very excited because next week at the Healthy Communities Conference, which is taking place here in Owen Sound,

00:56:26 SPEAKER_106: the members of the Georgian College Department of Social Innovation. will actually be on site to provide tours of the proposed Community Impact Lab space at Sedona Campus for conference attendees.

00:56:42 SPEAKER_106: They will also be leading an exercise in rural innovation as part of the day two of the conference on April 28th at the Bayshore.

00:56:52 SPEAKER_106: So we're really excited to see what this space could look like if this initiative, you know, continues, and we are very keen to hear back from.

00:57:08 SPEAKER_106: Enzirk on the the success of the grant application.

00:57:12 SPEAKER_106: Finally, we also did a rural Ontario Development grant application.

00:57:14 SPEAKER_106: This was part of the February report before this committee.

00:57:16 SPEAKER_106: We acted as a partner.

00:57:18 SPEAKER_106: We submitted that as a joint application between us and Grey County for some feasibility studies and and other investment readiness initiatives.

00:57:34 SPEAKER_106: A couple other little updates.

00:57:36 SPEAKER_106: The Ontario budget was released, and it included a new funding model for colleges, which was one of the issues raised in our pre-budget submission.

00:57:44 SPEAKER_106: That was part of a January council update, and we also submitted comments as part of the federal impact assessment process for the proposed Ontario pumped storage project.

00:58:14 SPEAKER_106: And it was literally the letter that was approved by council or this committee in, I believe it was. 2024.

00:58:24 SPEAKER_106: Okay, so one of the initiatives that we wanted to do, since this is a brand new role for the City of Own Sound,

00:58:25 SPEAKER_106: was to conduct some site visits to go out into the community and visit some of our major employers, some of our motivated entrepreneurs, and business owners that are at the small, medium, and large scale.

00:58:28 SPEAKER_106: So this is. just a few of the photos from the first quarter site visits.

00:58:35 SPEAKER_106: In January, we visited BWXT's facility here in Owen Sound, alongside Grey County.

00:58:42 SPEAKER_106: In February, we visited well, February and March, we visited the Grey Bruce Maker Space, and I would encourage anyone to go and check it out if you haven't.

00:58:50 SPEAKER_106: It's been open for about 18 months, and the amount of activity is truly extraordinary.

00:58:56 SPEAKER_106: And my mind is blown every time.

00:58:57 SPEAKER_106: I I walk through those doors.

00:58:58 SPEAKER_106: And finally, we have Naked Basics, a local entrepreneur who has opened up shop on First Avenue West.

00:59:08 SPEAKER_106: If you walk in, you are immediately transported.

00:59:11 SPEAKER_106: It is this apothecary style space.

00:59:13 SPEAKER_106: Her workshop sells out immediately, and I can vouch for a number of her products because I have gone back repeatedly since going for this site visit.

00:59:25 SPEAKER_106: We visited a number of sites also in April.

00:59:28 SPEAKER_106: I'll explain a bit of the story behind this later.

00:59:31 SPEAKER_106: But effectively, through some contacts that we developed with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Gaming, we, through a you know fortunate circumstance,

00:59:44 SPEAKER_106: were able to invite a couple of our regional development advisors to have a short tour of the city.

00:59:50 SPEAKER_106: This was thrown together very quickly. and I would like to emphasize how grateful I am to our internal and external stakeholders for coming together around the parameters of a four-day holiday weekend to pull this

01:00:05 SPEAKER_106: tour together and make it such a success.

01:00:09 SPEAKER_106: You really got to see the creativity, the innovation, and the collaboration that makes our community thrive.

01:00:15 SPEAKER_106: And further to the the previous presentation, there was a strong appetite for that kind of capacity building, specifically around grants and funding initiatives. We visited. I have the list.

01:00:31 SPEAKER_106: We visited the Owensown and North Gray Union Public Library, the Tom Thompson Art Gallery, the Roxy Little Theater.

01:00:38 SPEAKER_106: We had lunch at Jasmine's.

01:00:40 SPEAKER_106: You can see in the top right corner there.

01:00:42 SPEAKER_106: It involved a number of local community stakeholders in the arts and culture and tourism sectors.

01:00:50 SPEAKER_106: We went to the goods for coffee, visited Georgian Bay School for the Arts.

01:00:55 SPEAKER_106: We poked our heads into Artists Co-op, into Intersections, and we got a personal tour of Noagan.

01:01:03 SPEAKER_106: Thank you, Chef Kishig, for accommodating us.

01:01:06 SPEAKER_106: We visited the Harmony Center.

01:01:07 SPEAKER_106: We spoke with the Georgian Bay Folk Society.

01:01:10 SPEAKER_106: We visited the Gray Roots Maker Space and Citadel Campus.

01:01:13 SPEAKER_106: Unfortunately, Gray Roots had to be left off the tour, but they are coming back for a multi-day visit. next time,

01:01:19 SPEAKER_106: because they were so enthralled by our community and everything that we have to offer here.

01:01:23 SPEAKER_106: They kept saying that we had introduced them to everyone with the biggest hearts, and we had to keep saying, "Oh, we're so sorry, Colleen Trustyman was busy serving at OSHaRE,

01:01:33 SPEAKER_106: so she couldn't join us for lunch today."

01:01:35 SPEAKER_106: And it was just a remarkable day to watch everyone come together,

01:01:39 SPEAKER_106: and that lunch at Jasmine's was such an interesting way for the ministries' regional development advisors to really. get to know our community in a way that they don't typically get to do.

01:01:50 SPEAKER_106: So we kind of hallmark movieed them, but they love us and they're coming back.

01:01:58 SPEAKER_106: All right, so that tour came as a result of the Energy Innovators Leadership Forum.

01:02:04 SPEAKER_106: We had extended an invitation to a number of our ministry colleagues to come up for this event, which was held in March.

01:02:12 SPEAKER_106: And as they were unfortunately unable to attend that event.

01:02:16 SPEAKER_106: That's how the April eighth visit happened with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Gaming.

01:02:21 SPEAKER_106: This was a very successful event.

01:02:24 SPEAKER_106: We hosted it in collaboration with the Owens Sound and District Chamber of Commerce.

01:02:29 SPEAKER_106: They mercifully handled handled a lot of the event organization and details,

01:02:34 SPEAKER_106: and we really supported through programming and using our contacts within the clean energy sector and through the Clean Energy Frontier to. draw a very high-quality panel together,

01:02:48 SPEAKER_106: and it effectively served as a briefing on local opportunities and regional opportunities in the clean energy sector.

01:02:57 SPEAKER_106: And I just like to point out the the various technologies that were represented on this panel.

01:03:04 SPEAKER_106: We have beside me in the magenta jacket Herb Shields.

01:03:08 SPEAKER_106: He is with the Ontario Pump Storage Project. project by TC Energy.

01:03:13 SPEAKER_106: Beside him is Bryce McConacher with Hydrogen Optimized.

01:03:18 SPEAKER_106: You'll recognize the man in the center—that is Mayor Ian Body.

01:03:22 SPEAKER_106: We have Chad Richards, formerly of the Nuclear Innovation Institute, now with Bruce Power.

01:03:28 SPEAKER_106: Bill Walker, former MPP, now BWXT's VP of Government Relations.

01:03:34 SPEAKER_106: And right beside him is Shannon Douglas with Atkins Realis, a CanDo Energy Inc. company.

01:03:40 SPEAKER_106: Now we had the initial panel set, and then Atkins Realis reached out to us to ask if there might be a role that they could play.

01:03:49 SPEAKER_106: And I would just like to emphasize that moment of and thank Mayor Boddy again for allowing us to bump him to closing remarks instead of opening remarks,

01:03:59 SPEAKER_106: because that is the kind of of of energy that I am hearing when I go out into the community when I talk about the investment attraction. and the investment profile of Owen Sound.

01:04:11 SPEAKER_106: The feedback that I am getting is that the people that can make significant impacts in our area, they are looking at us, they are watching us, they are listening,

01:04:22 SPEAKER_106: they are getting really excited about what they're seeing locally.

01:04:26 SPEAKER_106: And I really need to emphasize that the story we've been telling about ourselves for the past fifteen, twenty years,

01:04:33 SPEAKER_106: is not the same as the story that's going to be told for the next. twenty years.

01:04:41 SPEAKER_106: Okay, and this is where I talk about how busy you're keeping me.

01:04:45 SPEAKER_106: So, this is a list of the upcoming events.

01:04:48 SPEAKER_106: I'm not going to go through them all individually, but there are a couple that I would like to flag.

01:04:54 SPEAKER_106: We already spoke about the Healthy Communities Conference, May 5th to 8th.

01:04:57 SPEAKER_106: We are going to be in Hamilton for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative Annual Conference.

01:05:02 SPEAKER_106: This is really exciting because this year we have representatives from.

01:05:06 SPEAKER_106: Here we have representatives from the Township of Georgian Bluffs, the Municipality of Meaford, Township of Blue Mountains.

01:05:11 SPEAKER_106: I will be going as a representative for the City of Owen Sound, and a number of representatives with Grey County as well.

01:05:18 SPEAKER_106: So all of the kind of waterfront municipalities across Grey County will be attending the conference together.

01:05:28 SPEAKER_106: Canadian Innovation Week last week, or this would have been early April.

01:05:36 SPEAKER_106: I had the opportunity to meet with the members of the Rito Hall Foundation.

01:05:42 SPEAKER_106: We were all in Toronto at the same time, and they invited me to attend a very special event at DMZ.

01:05:47 SPEAKER_106: It's part of the Toronto Metropolitan University's venture-like investor firm.

01:05:57 SPEAKER_106: It's like an incubator, a very, very, very good tech incubator. They're one.

01:06:04 SPEAKER_106: They're also a Canadian Innovation Week partner, and we were there for the first ever Ingenius Plus Spark program, where the youth that are involved in the Ingenius Plus program,

01:06:17 SPEAKER_106: where Canadian youth aged like fourteen to eighteen, are given awards for their innovative ideas, and at this event, one hundred thousand dollars in funding was awarded. to three of the student teams,

01:06:35 SPEAKER_106: and in a few years, I want to see someone from this area getting that funding for their innovative projects.

01:06:42 SPEAKER_106: It was incredibly exciting, and I would also like to note that former Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dadswell was there and spoke very positively about her experience at Owen Sound earlier this or last year.

01:06:58 SPEAKER_106: Oh, and finally. this is kind of something to flag for your future notice, particularly for the councilors.

01:07:04 SPEAKER_106: Yesterday, we found out that the deadline for AMO delegation requests will be May twenty one st. This is a little earlier than we were expecting,

01:07:14 SPEAKER_106: and so we are going to be coordinating with Gray County to determine which of the issues that we have flagged will be advanced at the county level versus the lower tier municipality level,

01:07:26 SPEAKER_106: and we are also working on a plan to coordinate. across the different member municipalities to advance the joint delegations wherever possible. All right.

01:07:39 SPEAKER_106: So this is very exciting.

01:07:42 SPEAKER_106: This Canadian Innovation Week partnership is a effectively a free national marketing campaign that we get to be part of because of all of the innovation happening locally.

01:07:53 SPEAKER_106: We reached out to Rideau Hall Foundation to become a partner in January. We were successful.

01:07:58 SPEAKER_106: They are incredibly excited to see a rural Ontario municipality participating in this.

01:08:05 SPEAKER_106: I believe that we are the first, and definitely the smallest, and it's it's part of their initiative to reach out into more rural, remote,

01:08:15 SPEAKER_106: and northern communities in order to talk about the innovation that's happening in those communities.

01:08:19 SPEAKER_106: That it's not just happening in the big cities.

01:08:22 SPEAKER_106: It's not just happening in tech.

01:08:23 SPEAKER_106: It's truly about innovation across. Canada.

01:08:27 SPEAKER_106: So, as part of this, we are going to be working on a week-long social media campaign.

01:08:32 SPEAKER_106: In addition to, on May 12th, we are going to be hosting a celebration of local innovation at Cidnam Campus in partnership with Grey County.

01:08:42 SPEAKER_106: And I can tell you, for the first time, that the programming is going to include updates from the Southwestern Ontario Isotope Coalition on the Isotopes for Hope campaign,

01:08:53 SPEAKER_106: talking about the local effort that's having a global impact on nuclear medicine, and that panel will include Mary Ann Body.

01:09:01 SPEAKER_106: There will be a fireside chat and a forged drinks sampling with a local culinary icon who shall go, who I will not name at this point, and a really exciting collaboration by the health, education,

01:09:15 SPEAKER_106: and arts communities to advance end of life care training.

01:09:19 SPEAKER_106: This event will also include networking with local innovators. is going to be completely free to attend, so please register early.

01:09:26 SPEAKER_106: It will require an RSVP, and if this is successful, I would love to see this become an annual event.

01:09:32 SPEAKER_106: But again, we're going to trial it this year.

01:09:35 SPEAKER_106: We're working very closely with our partners at Gray County to advance this initiative, and we're really excited to celebrate and tell people about some of the incredible innovation happening here. All right. and more.

01:09:51 SPEAKER_106: So we have new rack cards.

01:09:54 SPEAKER_106: These are to promote the community profile.

01:09:57 SPEAKER_106: In lieu of printing out a number of additional booklets, we decided for something that was a bit more eco-friendly and portable.

01:10:05 SPEAKER_106: And we're going to be using these until we may do a short print run for the booklets again.

01:10:11 SPEAKER_106: But effectively, we're going to be gearing up for,

01:10:16 SPEAKER_106: as you will hear in the report later today. a refresh of that community profile once we have the 2027 release of the data from the new census survey.

01:10:28 SPEAKER_106: So in the meantime, this is a super portable way of promoting the community profile.

01:10:33 SPEAKER_106: It includes the QR code to drive people online, and we are planning a number of website updates based on the report you will see later tonight,

01:10:41 SPEAKER_106: as well as incorporating more of you know the site visits and the the kind of tone and the. nature of our investment attraction portfolio and the other investment readiness activities that we are developing.

01:10:55 SPEAKER_106: And that is it for me for this presentation.

01:10:58 SPEAKER_106: Do you have any questions?

01:11:00 Pam Coulter: Thank you for all that great information.

01:11:02 Pam Coulter: Does anyone have any questions for Rebecca? Seeing none. Okay.

01:11:07 Pam Coulter: I guess we'll see you in a bit. Okay.

01:11:12 Pam Coulter: So that brings us to number six public forum, and I'm seeing no one here. tonight.

01:11:17 Pam Coulter: Correspondence received for which direction is required.

01:11:20 Pam Coulter: We have nothing this evening, which brings us to number eight reports of city staff.

01:11:25 Pam Coulter: At eight a one, we have report CR twenty six zero thirty nine from the committee and executive support coordinator regarding two thousand and twenty six community services fees and charges update.

01:11:37 Pam Coulter: So we will go to Christina. Thank you.

01:11:42 SPEAKER_001: So our deputy treasurer David was unable to. be here tonight, but I also worked closely with staff this year and last year through the fees and charges process.

01:11:52 SPEAKER_001: So I'm going to present this update in his absence tonight.

01:11:57 SPEAKER_001: I don't usually have to speak this much at these meetings, so I'm going to keep it pretty quick.

01:12:02 SPEAKER_001: So this is part of the annual spring review that happens every year, and any changes take effect July 1st.

01:12:10 SPEAKER_001: Beginning in 2025, fees and charges reviews are. now taking to each standing committee, which was a direction from council.

01:12:18 SPEAKER_001: And prior to that, they just all went directly to council together.

01:12:23 SPEAKER_001: Each standing committee reviews only the fees relevant to their portfolio.

01:12:28 SPEAKER_001: So tonight, this committee reviews the fees for building, planning, cemetery, and parks and recreation.

01:12:35 SPEAKER_001: Similar reports are being presented to the operations and corporate services committees this month as well.

01:12:41 SPEAKER_001: So. this ensures that all departments have the opportunity to receive committee-specific feedback before the new bylaw is finalized.

01:12:50 SPEAKER_001: So all proposed changes, including those from other departments, will be consolidated and brought to council in May, and the updated bylaw will be presented in June,

01:13:00 SPEAKER_001: with changes coming into effect July one st. Last year, all departmental fees and charges were divided into three-year review cycles.

01:13:10 SPEAKER_001: This was implemented as part of a service review project and aims to ensure that all fees are looked at at least once every three years,

01:13:18 SPEAKER_001: while also ensuring that no department has to conduct an in-depth review of their entire fee schedule in any given year.

01:13:25 SPEAKER_001: This will promote a more full, summer review of each fee as they come up through the cycles.

01:13:29 SPEAKER_001: And it's important to note that this is a minimum review.

01:13:32 SPEAKER_001: Even if a fee isn't noted as up for review that year, sometimes it might still be changed. due to operational changes or service levels or legislative requirements that come up.

01:13:46 SPEAKER_001: When reviewing fees, many factors are considered, such as comparators' costs, cost recovery for the service, and consideration of which fees are subsidized by the tax base.

01:13:57 SPEAKER_001: A large portion of fees are increased by approximately three percent annually.

01:14:03 SPEAKER_001: In this year, there wasn't too many changes to the community services. fee schedules last year, we saw quite a few more changes than this.

01:14:12 SPEAKER_001: So, some of the main updates that you'll see here tonight include an increase to fees related to special event conversion costs.

01:14:19 SPEAKER_001: So that's like glass removal and wooden floor installation at the Bayshore, and those were increased to reflect actually actual recorded staff time and costs.

01:14:30 SPEAKER_001: The addition of a fee for the installation and removal of the newly acquired lacrosse turf at the Bayshore, which. looks really amazing if you haven't seen it yet,

01:14:39 SPEAKER_001: and the addition of a special event deposit fee, so this will be used to tentatively hold dates for concerts and large special events.

01:14:48 SPEAKER_001: The consolidation of some bandshell and gazebo fees to include more flexibility and provide the ability to reserve additional open spaces,

01:14:58 SPEAKER_001: and the removal of some administrative and booking fees that are either no longer relevant or no longer used.

01:15:05 SPEAKER_001: One other thing that I will add is that going forward, the plan is for the annual fees and charges review to begin in the fall, in alignment with the operating budget process.

01:15:16 SPEAKER_001: This will give more time for staff to actually do a more in-depth review of fees, and it'll also help in turn to inform the operating budget. And that's all.

01:15:26 SPEAKER_001: So with that, we have the recommendation, which is to receive the report for information purposes.

01:15:30 SPEAKER_001: And if you have any questions, I will do. my best to answer them with the help of the director. That's great.

01:15:38 SPEAKER_108: Thank you for that report.

01:15:40 SPEAKER_108: Does anyone have any questions or feedback on any of the fees?

01:15:46 SPEAKER_108: Seeing none, so I will call the question. Oh, sorry. Yes.

01:15:51 SPEAKER_108: Thank you, Travis, for moving the recommendation.

01:15:54 SPEAKER_108: Now I will call the question. All those in favor?

01:15:57 SPEAKER_108: And that is carried unanimously.

01:16:00 SPEAKER_108: So that. brings us to eight B one, which is Report CM two six zero one seven from the Senior Advisor External Relations and Investment Attraction regarding Economic Health Report Card,

01:16:14 SPEAKER_108: and I will turn it back to Rebecca.

01:16:16 SPEAKER_108: Thank you again, Chair Milgrom, Committee. Thank you once again.

01:16:25 SPEAKER_106: I'm here tonight to present Report CM two six zero one seven.

01:16:35 SPEAKER_106: CM twenty six zero seventeen regarding an economic health report card.

01:16:36 SPEAKER_106: For those of you who were on the committee in the fall, as part of the external relations and investment attraction action plan,

01:16:38 SPEAKER_106: we committed to developing more data informed practices to support and promote economic growth.

01:16:45 SPEAKER_106: This economic health report card was one of those initiatives that was initially proposed as part of that action plan, and so. we are advancing it here before you today.

01:17:01 SPEAKER_106: The recommendation before the committee is to receive this report for information purposes.

01:17:11 SPEAKER_106: So the Economic Health Report Card was really prepared in order to provide that at-a-glance snapshot resource using a combination of data sources.

01:17:20 SPEAKER_106: The goal of the initiative is not to duplicate data collection efforts.

01:17:25 SPEAKER_106: It's more to collate the. available information from external and internal resources for the purpose of making informed decisions.

01:17:37 SPEAKER_106: So, Christine, if I could ask you to pull up the Economic Health Report Card, thank you.

01:17:45 SPEAKER_106: So, for the baseline two thousand and twenty-five Report Card, we chose nine metrics across three categories.

01:17:52 SPEAKER_106: So, for demographics, which largely Graphics, which largely pulls on data from Environics Analytics.

01:17:58 SPEAKER_106: That's the subscription that we use through a joint initiative with Gray County and the member municipalities.

01:18:08 SPEAKER_106: And in demographics, we look at total population, the median age of the total population, and average household income.

01:18:17 SPEAKER_106: Under affordability, we are looking at the cost of housing, both purchased housing and. average rent.

01:18:24 SPEAKER_106: We are also looking at the living wage for the region.

01:18:27 SPEAKER_106: Under development, which is mostly internal data, we are looking at a commercial residential tax rate ratio, new residential units by permits issued, and construction value.

01:18:39 SPEAKER_106: So I want to talk a little bit about why we chose these specific metrics, and it was to provide that baseline understanding that you know these metrics are going to shift over time.

01:18:49 SPEAKER_106: We've already seen that with, for example, the population figure.

01:18:53 SPEAKER_106: For example, the population figures, where the twenty-two seven hundred and thirty-two figure was pulled from a two thousand and twenty-five environics analytics data set,

01:19:03 SPEAKER_106: which since it's been updated now based on the new modeling that they put out a couple of times a year, it now says that our population is twenty-four thousand one hundred and ninety.

01:19:15 SPEAKER_106: When we dig into that data a little bit, and I asked Kalina Sand.

01:19:19 SPEAKER_106: And I asked Kalina Stanford, who is our data person at the county level, to to really help me understand why there was such a significant jump in like one year,

01:19:30 SPEAKER_106: because all of us who live here know that that's probably certainly not completely accurate to like the exact conditions on the ground right now.

01:19:41 SPEAKER_106: But it's important to understand that these are projections; these are data projections.

01:19:46 SPEAKER_106: They're they're essentially an educated guess. that these modeling companies use for those intersensual periods between the official Canadian census.

01:19:58 SPEAKER_106: So, when we say projected to be twenty above twenty-four thousand, that's what we mean is that there is a very confident data projection that our population has exceeded twenty-four thousand.

01:20:11 SPEAKER_106: We will know in early twenty-seven twenty twenty-seven when Statistics Canada releases their updated census figures.

01:20:19 SPEAKER_106: What the most accurate picture is of our population in 2026.

01:20:26 SPEAKER_106: Right now, this is our best guess.

01:20:29 SPEAKER_106: And I also want to emphasize that when we look at when we're talking to entities like Invest Ontario, when we are logging into the partner portal and looking at the different properties that are available,

01:20:42 SPEAKER_106: when investors look at us, this is the data that they see.

01:20:46 SPEAKER_106: When you go into the Invest Ontario Partner Portal, you are looking at properties, and they have demographic data that is pulled from Envirodex Analytics specifically.

01:20:57 SPEAKER_106: So anyone who is looking at our community, anyone who is looking at available employment lands in our community, this is the picture that they're seeing,

01:21:05 SPEAKER_106: and that's why it's important for us to be aware of it too.

01:21:09 SPEAKER_106: So that's why if that number is making you know causing some discomfort, that's where. it's coming from.

01:21:15 SPEAKER_106: It's our our best, most educated guess from a highly reliable source.

01:21:21 SPEAKER_106: Going on to the median age of the total population, because this was quite interesting to us.

01:21:28 SPEAKER_106: When we're looking at the demographic shifts that we either are seeing in our community or expect to see in our community, we know that we are an aging population,

01:21:38 SPEAKER_106: and you are expecting to see that that age go up.

01:21:41 SPEAKER_106: The fact that that age is going. down means that we are probably seeing a couple of things happening at the same time.

01:21:47 SPEAKER_106: Number one, there is a a population decline in terms of the you know the natural death rate of a population.

01:21:55 SPEAKER_106: We know that our natural birth rate in our population is not necessarily keeping up with that, which means that we are seeing in migration from other communities, other parts of the province,

01:22:07 SPEAKER_106: other parts of the world into the area.

01:22:10 SPEAKER_106: So we're going to be keeping an eye on that. median age of the population because it's going to help to inform what kind of resources our new residents are going to need in our communities.

01:22:20 SPEAKER_106: And when we get to the prison profiles later, you're going to see that a lot of these are family-forming households involving that, you know, 30 to 40 year age group,

01:22:33 SPEAKER_106: and the needs of that age group and the needs of a household with small children is very different than you know,

01:22:41 SPEAKER_106: the needs of of different demographics who are looking for a different kind of experience in the city, and we'll get into that with the prism profiles. In terms of affordability,

01:22:52 SPEAKER_106: we reached out to the Grey Bruce Poverty Task Force for some assistance with this because I was getting wildly different numbers from the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation and the the data that you can see through other resources,

01:23:05 SPEAKER_106: either newspaper. reports, there's seriously an unending sort like the fount of data out there that's available.

01:23:15 SPEAKER_106: So I checked in with our community partners, found out which resources they were using, which ones they trust, and in the end, instead of using the CMHC data,

01:23:25 SPEAKER_106: I opted to use third-party data sources for this, and I want to be very clear about why.

01:23:30 SPEAKER_106: And it's because when you send out a general survey about what people are spending on housing, and you want to do that as a measure of like what people are spending right now, that's great for understanding.

01:23:39 SPEAKER_106: You know, if someone moved into our community fifteen years ago,

01:23:46 SPEAKER_106: they would be spending a different proportion of their annual income on that rent or those housing costs than they would if they were moving into our community today.

01:23:55 SPEAKER_106: So I chose to prioritize the the current market realities,

01:23:57 SPEAKER_106: so that this information would be more useful to people considering. our community versus capturing the picture of the of people who are already living here and may have lived here for some time,

01:24:14 SPEAKER_106: in which case that data would include you know historical housing costs versus current market realities.

01:24:22 SPEAKER_106: Finally, the development data, because this is really exciting, we actually I calculated it.

01:24:30 SPEAKER_106: The city saw a one thousand and ten percent increase. 10 percent increase in the number of permits issued for new residential units last year.

01:24:40 SPEAKER_106: It is so significant that we are skewing other data growth sets.

01:24:44 SPEAKER_106: I was in a meeting with the Bruce Gray Catholic District School Board where their growth projections were talking about the, you know,

01:24:54 SPEAKER_106: the amount of high density development housing developments that were happening across Bruce Gray County, and when I Yorke County, and when I looked at the figures, I was like, "I'm sorry, that's us. That's all us."

01:25:02 SPEAKER_106: And it was really interesting because you get to see a really clear picture of how these data models and this data modeling efforts that may be a good option for some larger urban centers can

01:25:24 SPEAKER_106: be significantly thrown off by a shift like our development success last year in smaller. communities,

01:25:32 SPEAKER_106: where when you look at that, like that figure of like five hundred and forty new apartments, condos coming into our housing stock, when you are a community with around eleven thousand households,

01:25:46 SPEAKER_106: adding over adding five hundred and sixty six new households into a community of that size is going to have a significant impact, and we may not see that this year, obviously, although.

01:26:00 SPEAKER_106: I can see from the March development update that there is progress being made on those housing developments, but we are going to see that that growth realized at some point in our future,

01:26:12 SPEAKER_106: and we still have a number of development projects that have the the site plans mapped out, and we're just waiting for those projects to have the shovels in the ground status. So,

01:26:24 SPEAKER_106: the final part that I want to draw your attention to. is the the prism profiles because when I was looking at the the reports that I pulled back in early 2025 versus the ones that

01:26:41 SPEAKER_106: we pulled in November 2025 with the new data,

01:26:44 SPEAKER_106: I started seeing the the prism profiles shift.

01:26:49 SPEAKER_106: Christine, I'm not sure if you can go to attachment to page seven.

01:26:57 SPEAKER_106: So when we look at yeah, so this is the the Prism Profile system is a proprietary categorization system by Environmentx Analytics.

01:27:13 SPEAKER_106: I know that that text is really small to see, but essentially they've grouped everyone in Canada into about like I think around sixty to seventy different. kind of profiles,

01:27:27 SPEAKER_106: and so in Owens Sound there were five prism segments that made up about a little over seventy-five percent of our population.

01:27:38 SPEAKER_106: And when you look at it, it's you know yes, twenty-five percent is the suburban recliners, consisting primarily of older individuals and couples living in affordable suburban neighborhoods surrounding smaller and mid-sized cities.

01:27:52 SPEAKER_106: But we also have fifteen of a segment called "just getting by," which features younger adults and single-parent families living in large urban centers.

01:28:05 SPEAKER_106: You can see from these profiles I won't read them all out to you that the economic realities of the people who live here shift wildly depending on which segment you're part of.

01:28:15 SPEAKER_106: And by digging into the variety of these segments, we have juggling acts, which is a vibrant blend. of young singles, couples, and families, particularly in small and medium-sized cities such as London, Kitchener, Cambridge,

01:28:29 SPEAKER_106: Owen Sound, slow lane suburbs is another one that's around that 14% older singles and couples, primarily over the age of 55, residing in mid-sized cities, and old town roads, which sounds so charming,

01:28:44 SPEAKER_106: and it is a segment of older couples and individuals living in Canada's quaint small towns.

01:28:50 SPEAKER_106: So, digging into these profiles, you really get a sense of who your neighbors are and what they might be dealing with on a day-to-day basis,

01:28:59 SPEAKER_106: especially if that experience is different from the one that you are experiencing.

01:29:02 SPEAKER_106: This is the majority of of our population, and you can see that from the the other data sets.

01:29:09 SPEAKER_106: You know, we have forty-two percent rented households in our community, and that represents forty-five percent of the rental housing across.

01:29:19 SPEAKER_106: Grey County, which means that Owen Sound residents are disproportionately affected by things that impact our rental housing stock.

01:29:28 SPEAKER_106: The fact that we are adding a lot of the high-density housing into our region means that we are set up well to, you know,

01:29:37 SPEAKER_106: absorb a lot of those new residents coming from other small and mid-sized cities who have historically rented, aren't yet ready to buy, but may be wanting to save up for like.

01:29:46 SPEAKER_106: Maybe wanting to save up for like a first home,

01:29:49 SPEAKER_106: being aware of what our current profile is and why our city is attracting those individuals helps to inform the plans that we make when we're looking at resident attraction initiatives and other things like that.

01:30:06 SPEAKER_106: So with that, I've shared a lot of data with you tonight.

01:30:10 SPEAKER_106: As a next step, this, along with the site visits and other investment readiness activities. that we are doing are going to inform a future resident attraction marketing campaign that we're putting together.

01:30:23 SPEAKER_106: We're not funding it yet.

01:30:25 SPEAKER_106: This will probably be part of a ROD application in the future, and we're going to be working with our internal and external partners to develop that campaign.

01:30:33 SPEAKER_106: But basically, the impression that I want to leave you with is that we are paying attention to the signals,

01:30:39 SPEAKER_106: and they are telling us a different story than the one that has happened historically in our town. it's a really exciting time to live here,

01:30:48 SPEAKER_106: and I can't wait to see what the next five to ten years bring. Thank you. Any? That's great.

01:30:55 Pam Coulter: Thank you for that, and it's great to see all the development happening and and where we're headed.

01:31:05 Pam Coulter: Kudos to councils before us who've set the conditions, and we're reaping the rewards.

01:31:09 Pam Coulter: Does anyone have any questions or comments? Go ahead, Allie. Thanks for that.

01:31:13 Pam Coulter: I was curious about on page three.

01:31:15 SPEAKER_099: You mentioned that there's interest in getting commercial or residential residential vacancy rates in the future, but it wasn't feasible for this time.

01:31:22 SPEAKER_099: I was curious when that happened and what would it take to get that information because it it seems like really worthwhile for us to know, especially with looking at like housing crisis.

01:31:34 SPEAKER_106: How much of a crisis are we in? Through you, chair. My under.

01:31:43 SPEAKER_106: My understanding of the the vacancy rates, we we're too small of a community to really get that data.

01:31:52 SPEAKER_106: I believe that the Statistics Canada, the the new census, is going to give us better insights into that.

01:32:00 SPEAKER_106: But a lot of the the data out there is through the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation.

01:32:06 SPEAKER_106: So we're really reliant on, you know, third party entities to provide us with that. that you know, bigger picture outlook on those things.

01:32:16 SPEAKER_106: Ideally, the census, the statistics, the Statistics Canada data is going to give us a clearer picture.

01:32:22 SPEAKER_106: But one thing I can say is that my understanding, and perhaps the director could correct me if I'm wrong, but in the past, particularly around when the the River District action plan was developed,

01:32:41 SPEAKER_106: there. was people who were able to go door to door effectively and catalog like, oh, this this shop is vacant.

01:32:49 SPEAKER_106: This shop is not vacant.

01:32:50 SPEAKER_106: There was a lot of work that went into the development of those plans and strategies, and that work was part of that.

01:33:24 SPEAKER_103: And so, in the future, there's the possibility that as those action plans come up again or are reviewed, that that amount of effort could be included in them. but for a report like this,

01:33:33 SPEAKER_103: where we're really just looking at the data that was available, it wasn't feasible to go around knocking on everyone's doors at this time.

01:33:35 SPEAKER_103: But we will take that into consideration. Oh, go ahead, Pam. Thank you, Madam Chair.

01:33:37 SPEAKER_103: And if I could, I was just looking at the links in a Teams meeting I attended last Friday.

01:33:39 SPEAKER_103: The Affordable Housing Community of Practice.

01:33:40 SPEAKER_103: We had a presentation from CMH.

01:33:58 SPEAKER_103: A presentation from CMHC, and I will get that presentation because they did have vacancy rental or rental vacancy rates for residential in On Sound.

01:34:08 SPEAKER_103: So I think we can get that.

01:34:09 SPEAKER_103: In terms of River District, we have an unsophisticated data collection method, but we apply it consistently.

01:34:11 SPEAKER_103: Unsophisticated, and we do that a couple of times a year.

01:34:13 SPEAKER_103: So Vivica will collect that, report it through the River District.

01:34:14 SPEAKER_103: This year, prior. to the work we're going to do to update the River District Action Plan, we're hoping to work with our GIS and make that a more interactive and visual layer.

01:34:17 SPEAKER_103: So we'll be able to, as Rebecca has described, see what's occupied and what's vacant. So, great.

01:34:29 SPEAKER_100: Does anyone have any other questions, comments? Righten, go ahead.

01:34:34 SPEAKER_100: Just looking at the report card here, it does show a lot of information, kind of where we have been and where we're. going.

01:34:36 SPEAKER_100: Is there any consideration for future report cards, just to include like benchmarking or goals on where we want to reach?

01:34:42 SPEAKER_100: Just one like kind of example.

01:34:43 SPEAKER_100: Thinking about like the commercial residential tax rate ratio, we see one point seven two.

01:34:48 SPEAKER_100: How does that maybe compare to similar communities? Is that good?

01:34:51 SPEAKER_100: Do we want it to be different?

01:34:53 SPEAKER_100: Just to kind of give us a little more context with some of the numbers that are in the report.

01:35:01 SPEAKER_103: Through chair, I think those that tax ratio information is nicely packaged and presented as part of the BMA study.

01:35:09 SPEAKER_103: That report is wrapped up by the director of corporate services and presented through I'll forget the name, but I'll say corporate services committee for now.

01:35:17 SPEAKER_103: But we can certainly make sure that Rebecca has access to that and if she can integrate it into the work she's doing, absolutely. Anything further?

01:35:31 Pam Coulter: So there is a recommendation to receive the report for information purposes.

01:35:34 Pam Coulter: If I could get someone to move that, Mary, go ahead. Thank you.

01:35:38 Pam Coulter: So I will call the question. All in favor? And that carries. That's great.

01:35:43 Pam Coulter: So that ends our reports for this evening.

01:35:46 Pam Coulter: At number nine, we have no matters postponed.

01:35:48 Pam Coulter: At number ten, motions for which notice was previously given, we have none.

01:35:52 Pam Coulter: At number eleven, correspondence provided for information.

01:35:55 Pam Coulter: There are three items of correspondence. on the docket tonight at 11 a.

01:36:01 Pam Coulter: Memorandum from the chief building official and manager of planning and heritage regarding the development update for March.

01:36:09 Pam Coulter: Pam, are you speaking to this? Thank you, Madam Chair.

01:36:16 Pam Coulter: A bit of a slower start to this year,

01:36:18 SPEAKER_103: but I can't tell you how exciting it is to drive along either East Bayshore Road or the Eddie Sargent and see SkyDev coming out of the ground and why.

01:36:27 SPEAKER_103: Out of the ground and watch the foundation work that's happening at Harbor West.

01:36:33 SPEAKER_103: So, for me, those projects are really exciting.

01:36:34 SPEAKER_103: Next week, the chief building official was so you'll see here they had one hundred and fifty-nine inspections in March.

01:36:42 SPEAKER_103: Next week they have two hundred inspections booked.

01:36:45 SPEAKER_103: So that team of three is going to be extraordinarily busy.

01:36:50 SPEAKER_103: And with that, I would also note that Alexandra Del Deegan, our new development coordinator, started this. week.

01:36:55 SPEAKER_103: She came to us from Hamilton, and we're really excited to have Alexandra here.

01:37:00 SPEAKER_103: You'll see in the permits the alteration and tenant fit up at Heritage Grove.

01:37:04 SPEAKER_103: So I think everybody wondered what was going to happen in the PetSmart building.

01:37:09 SPEAKER_103: So that's a Best Buy and a new SpecSaver.

01:37:12 SPEAKER_103: And you'll see work, you know, moving along really well on the Princess Auto.

01:37:20 SPEAKER_103: Something else of note is a new medical clinic in the. Keystone building.

01:37:24 SPEAKER_103: So, not only is it a great permit, but a really amazing service for the community.

01:37:30 SPEAKER_103: Planning applications on the next page.

01:37:32 SPEAKER_103: It's been a really busy start to the year.

01:37:36 SPEAKER_103: So, while building permit revenues, these things go in cycles, and I think we'll finish finish the year.

01:37:44 SPEAKER_103: Certainly won't promise five hundred and sixty-six residential units this year, but we're we're busy and expecting another good year. Okay, that's great.

01:37:54 Pam Coulter: At eleven B this evening, we have correspondence from the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario regarding heritage helping housing grant.

01:38:05 Pam Coulter: I'm actually going to turn it over to Ali because she's the one that flagged this correspondence for committee. And go ahead. Thank you.

01:38:13 SPEAKER_099: Yeah, I wanted to see this brought to committee.

01:38:15 SPEAKER_099: It seems like a really worthwhile kind of advocacy campaign that the ACO. is undertaking.

01:38:21 SPEAKER_099: They first released it last fall, and it kind of sprung back into my mind, seeing that Soggy Insurers actually passed a motion that they were going to formally support this initiative.

01:38:33 SPEAKER_099: So, with that, I they've attached some information regarding this.

01:38:37 SPEAKER_099: It's basically encouraging the repair and reuse of existing buildings.

01:38:42 SPEAKER_099: This offers a faster, cheaper, and more sustainable path to affordable housing.

01:38:47 SPEAKER_099: It seems kind of like a win-win, really. and encouraging us to use the existing building stock of what makes Owen Sound unique,

01:38:56 SPEAKER_099: and I think so much of our downtown could also be reimagined through this lens as well.

01:39:03 SPEAKER_099: There's a lot of arguments you could be making for in terms of thinking about the embodied carbon of all the materials that are within the buildings that already exist,

01:39:12 SPEAKER_099: but I think ACO is making a pretty great case for that.

01:39:16 SPEAKER_099: I do have a. motion that we could be bringing forward.

01:39:20 SPEAKER_099: It replicates a lot of what we saw at Soggy Shores.

01:39:24 SPEAKER_099: If I don't know if we want to have more discussion or if I should just jump right into that.

01:39:30 Pam Coulter: Why don't you make your motion, and then it allows people to speak to the motion and have some discussion before we call the question on that. Sounds great.

01:39:39 Pam Coulter: I'm going to take a sip of water before I start.

01:39:46 SPEAKER_099: Whereas older buildings have inherent sustainability and provide economic, environmental, and social benefits for Ontario communities, and whereas reuse of existing buildings reduces the need for increased infrastructure that accompanies new builds,

01:39:58 SPEAKER_099: such as sewer and water services, new roads, and sidewalks, and whereas reuse of existing buildings can reduce construction waste and extend the expectancy of landfills,

01:40:08 SPEAKER_099: and whereas keeping older buildings helps a community remain visually richer and enhances identity while building its tourism brand and. appeal, and whereas creating a new application-based matching grant program of $10 million a year,

01:40:20 SPEAKER_099: modeled after an existing Alberta program, would incentivize owners and smaller developers to keep, fix, and reuse heritage buildings to create new housing,

01:40:29 SPEAKER_099: and whereas a grant program would provide an alternative to the Ontario Heritage Property Tax Relief Program, which has limited impact on developers and reduces municipal revenues,

01:40:38 SPEAKER_099: and whereas such a grant program would provide a simpler and more direct way for heritage building owners to fund renovations. or conservation efforts,

01:40:45 SPEAKER_099: and whereas Ontario developers surveyed by the National Trust of Canada in two thousand and fourteen ranked a heritage revolving fund as the top incentive to encourage heritage development,

01:40:53 SPEAKER_099: if the grants are simple to apply for, to and to administer, and the fund is large enough to meet at least thirty-three percent of the demand,

01:41:00 SPEAKER_099: so that applicants have a reasonable chance of recovering the cost and effort of applying.

01:41:05 SPEAKER_099: Therefore, in consideration of item eleven B listed in correspondence on the April twenty-one, two thousand and twenty-six community services.

01:41:15 SPEAKER_099: 2026 Community Services Committee agenda.

01:41:15 SPEAKER_099: The Community Services Committee recommends that City Council one endorse the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario's proposal to include $10 million a year in the 2026 provincial budget for the Heritage Helping Housing grant funding,

01:41:25 SPEAKER_099: and direct staff to send this resolution to the Premier, Minister of Finance, Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism, MPP Paul Vickers, and the Association of Municipalities across Ontario. Okay.

01:41:38 Pam Coulter: Does anyone have any questions or comments? on that motion? Go ahead, Lam.

01:41:44 Pam Coulter: Just very quickly, I support this.

01:41:46 Pam Coulter: I think it's a tremendous initiative, and I'm really grateful that the member brought it forward in this fashion.

01:41:54 Pam Coulter: So I certainly support it. Great. Anyone else? Okay.

01:42:01 Pam Coulter: So she's brought forward the motion, and that like we don't need a second or a mover. So.

01:42:09 Pam Coulter: I can just call the question.

01:42:10 Pam Coulter: Okay, there's nothing further, then I will call the question.

01:42:13 Pam Coulter: All those in favor, and that carries unanimously.

01:42:18 Pam Coulter: Thank you for doing that, Ali.

01:42:19 Pam Coulter: At 11C, we of course. Oh, oh, sorry, Pam. Go ahead.

01:42:24 SPEAKER_103: No, it's been a long night, but I just I you know really appreciate the motion coming forward this evening, and I just wanted to share with the committee.

01:42:34 SPEAKER_103: Just sitting here thinking tonight about. this is a great way to incentivize reusing old buildings.

01:42:41 SPEAKER_103: But what has the city done already that this sort of builds on?

01:42:45 SPEAKER_103: And the new official plan and zoning bylaw support this.

01:42:49 SPEAKER_103: The zoning in the River District does allow residential in a certain area of the main floor.

01:42:55 SPEAKER_103: Council has waived the requirement for new parking spaces for ARUs.

01:43:01 SPEAKER_103: There's a heritage property tax rebate where there's does.

01:43:05 SPEAKER_103: Where there's designated buildings, DCs and existing buildings usually have credits pretty well equal to any DCs that would be owing, and then we have a CIP grant for vacant buildings.

01:43:17 SPEAKER_103: So, I don't want to pick on the sort of constant legislative changes, but these types of things are small and they lead to incremental construction.

01:43:32 SPEAKER_103: So, anyways, I think it's a a great plan. Okay, great.

01:43:38 Pam Coulter: And again, at eleven C correspondence from Community Heritage Ontario regarding spring quarterly newsletter.

01:43:46 Pam Coulter: Did anyone have any questions comments on that? You do. Okay, go ahead, Ellie.

01:43:51 SPEAKER_099: Sorry, a bit of my wheelhouse, so it's draws questions.

01:43:55 SPEAKER_099: I saw that this newsletter talks a lot about the extended deadline for designation of heritage properties. As of right now.

01:44:03 SPEAKER_099: January twenty twenty seven is the deadline for properties to be registered, or the heritage register will be effectively removed.

01:44:10 SPEAKER_099: And I was curious to know in this.

01:44:13 SPEAKER_099: There's a headline that says, "Would your municipality want an extended deadline?"

01:44:16 SPEAKER_099: I'm curious if Owen Sound is considering any of that.

01:44:19 SPEAKER_099: I know there was this deadline has already been extended, so I have a bit of a two part question: Is do we want an extended deadline?

01:44:25 SPEAKER_099: Is that something we'd like to support?

01:44:27 SPEAKER_099: The second is, when the deadline was initially. two thousand and twenty-five, January two thousand and twenty-five, we had sent a pushout to properties on the list. Register?

01:44:37 SPEAKER_099: Are we interested in doing that again?

01:44:39 SPEAKER_099: Because maybe there's someone who missed it the first time and is encouraged to now.

01:44:43 SPEAKER_099: Yeah, those are my two questions.

01:44:46 SPEAKER_103: Through the chair and thanks for the question.

01:44:48 SPEAKER_103: We would absolutely support an extension, and yes, we could do another sort of reminder.

01:44:55 SPEAKER_103: There was a couple of designations that actually came out of that. At least one.

01:45:00 SPEAKER_103: So great that you remembered that old report and our strategy, and we're happy to do a push again using our communications team and and just a letter.

01:45:09 Pam Coulter: So, if there's nothing further, do we need a motion to receive?

01:45:17 Pam Coulter: Does someone want to move receipt of those?

01:45:20 Pam Coulter: I'll go to Morgan for that. Nothing further.

01:45:24 Pam Coulter: I will call the question. All those in favor? And that carries.

01:45:30 Pam Coulter: All right, so that moves us to number twelve.

01:45:32 Pam Coulter: Discussion of additional business, which we have none.

01:45:34 Pam Coulter: At number thirteen, notices of motion.

01:45:36 Pam Coulter: Do we have any notices of motion?

01:45:39 Pam Coulter: Seeing none, then we are officially adjourned. Thank you, everyone. It is seven fifteen.

01:45:45 Pam Coulter: That was a great meeting.