Dear Editor:
Thinking outside of the box: The former International Malleable Iron Company property has been vacant since the 1980s. The City of Guelph took possession of the site in 1997.
Following 14 days of hearings held in December and January, the Ontario Land Tribunal upheld a provincially issued certificate of permitted uses (CPU) for the city-owned site, meaning it can be turned into commercial, institutional and residential spaces as well as parkland.
The city’s CPU for this site requires the installation, inspection and maintenance of hard cap and fill cap barriers on the property, prohibiting construction without a soil vapour intrusion assessment and/or built with a vapour mitigation system; implement a groundwater monitoring program; and develop a health and safety plan for any intrusive activity that could potentially have contact with contaminants.
Now in light of all these allowances and taking the fact no developers have come forward, and taking into late news of the City of Guelph asking Wellington County to find a place for tiny homes for the homeless, I would think that Guelph just had an answer to the homeless problem handed to them by the province.
Now if the Guelph mayor and council can work with Wellington County, which is in charge of social services for both, maybe something good can come out this development.
Paul Roberts,
Fergus