GUELPH – A motion calling on Wellington County council to hold a special meeting to discuss the possibility of moving county administrative offices from Guelph to Centre Wellington was defeated at the Feb. 23 meeting.
Councillor Campbell Cork noted the impetus for his motion was a looming decision on a tentative plan to build a $28-million parking garage in Guelph.
“We’re talking here about really one of the biggest … if not the biggest, projects this county has ever contemplated or undertaken in its long history,” Cork stated at the meeting.
“And it’s at a critical decision point, because if we proceed to build this $28-million-plus parking garage, maybe with office space, in downtown Guelph, we’ll be committed to staying in downtown Guelph for the foreseeable future.”
Cork added the estimate on the parking garage cost is “way out of date.
CAMPBELL CORK
“We don’t know what it is going to cost. I certainly don’t know. And I’ve heard that we may or may not be buying more land in Guelph,” he said.
Cork stressed the motion was only for information and discussion.
“It makes no mention of making a decision,” he told council.
The motion, seconded by councillor Michael Dehn, called for council to hold a special meeting in 2023, or early 2024 “to have a full and public discussion on whether we want to move some or all of the Wellington County Administration Centre out of the City of Guelph and back into our own County of Wellington, to a central location at Wellington Place in Aboyne, where we already own land and have free land for parking.”
The motion also called for staff to provide estimates:
- of the market value of county-owned land and buildings in Guelph; and
- the cost of proposals for county facilities in downtown Guelph, including an updated cost of the proposed parking garage, complete with the number of parking spaces required, public or private, and the cost of proposed office space.
The motion further called for staff to provide three scenarios with costing for each:
- status quo, staying in Guelph and building a parking garage with administration offices;
- a partial move to Wellington Place, with suggestions for which departments might best relocate there; and
- a full move to Wellington Place, with recommendations for any departments “which must stay in Guelph, if any.”
While most councillors expressed interest in discussion on Cork’s proposal, several wanted to see it take a different form than presented in the motion.
“When we are looking at a full strategic plan, is this something that we could include in that plan? Or would it be outside the scope of the strategic plan for discussion?” asked councillor Mary Lloyd.
“What’s being proposed here is very specific … and probably goes beyond a strategic plan, although a review of that would be something that would normally be included in a strategic plan,” explained Warden Andy Lennox.
“But then there would be steps to follow that this kind of already outlines.”
“I think it’s a fair question to ask,” said councillor Chris White of the possibility of moving administration facilities.
White asked if Cork would be willing to add options beyond those listed in the motion.
“Staff, they may go through this process and see something else. Maybe there’s some other properties in the works, maybe there’s some other things in play,” White pointed out.
“And if we’re restricted to only these three options, and there might be a fourth and we follow the letter of the law in the motion, you’re locked in.”
Although Cork responded “that’s fine with me,” White did not present a formal amendment to the motion.
“I think most of us around the table probably agree with the over-arching thing … we need to have a discussion on our future plans,” said councillor Jeff Duncan.
However, he suggested acting on the motion as is, including “having us go through and getting appraisals of our property and having that as a public and open meeting,” would mean putting staff to “an incredible amount of work.”
Duncan said council should first determine, “is there sort of an acceptance around the horseshoe that we want to go to, call it a Phase B, or the next thing, or a more detailed analysis?”
Councillor James Seeley said, “I’m not sure I can support this motion as it’s penned.
“There’s a lot of costs associated with moving this facility and those costs could be staff.
He added staff retention could become an issue “if we move out facility further away from our neighbouring urban centres.”
“This was discussed last year in council and we’ve got the majority of council returned. And here we see it again, but there’s really no reasoning in there why we are wanting to discuss this,” said Seeley.
“To me, heritage is a big component of the county.”
Councillor Matthew Bulmer stated, “Leaders are required to keep their eyes on the horizon … to avoid costly course corrections.”
“Good leaders also should never shy away from questions that challenge the status quo.”
Having seen both the concept plan and a recently-developed master plan for the Wellington Place campus, Bulmer noted, “What’s consistent about the direction of both those plans is that we’re moving resident-focused services there, rather than administrative services.”
However, he pointed out the county has a strategic plan in place related to decision making.
MATTHEW BULMER
“So I think we have the tools at our disposal when we refer to our strategic plan, on how to deal with councillor Cork’s question, which clearly does challenge the status quo. So I’m not afraid to look at the question,” Bulmer stated.
“We shouldn’t be fearful of having these types of discussions,” agreed councillor Shawn Watters.
“They’re big discussions, but we are also big people in the sense we can look at these things and take in the information and make a good decision.”
Councillor Doug Breen said, “We’ve talked around this for many, many years, but we’ve never really talked about it.
“Most people kind of know how I feel about it. But I’m also malleable enough to think that faced with different information, different conversations, I might actually come to a different conclusion.”
Breen continued, “So I’m, again, not afraid to have the conversation. I think it’s high time that we did instead of sort of talking around it.
“Just to be historically accurate, we wouldn’t be moving back to Wellington County, we never left, we were here first, the City of Guelph sort of swallowed us up.”
Breen said he would like to see a more high-level discussion on the matter before spending too much money compiling information.
“I do have concerns about what it would cost to prepare for a meeting as laid out in this motion here,” he pointed out.
“Just the cost of having all of these buildings assessed would be a big number. It’s not something that our staff can do on their own. We’d actually have to bring in someone to do market value assessment on it.
Breen added, “Now if I’m wrong, and the staff can put together a report with some good numbers in it, obviously that will be better.
“I’m just concerned about how much money we’re going to spend before we really start having a conversation.”
Councillor Earl Campbell agreed with the need for a discussion on the topic.
“I support councillor Breen’s comments that this could be a fairly expensive process,” noted Campbell.
However, he added, council needs to determine if “we even want to have the conversation.”
Campbell noted, “The 10-year capital forecast says a $28 million expenditure in 20 years … what’s really driving this whole conversation is at what point do we sit down and discuss that potential capital expense?
“To my mind, that needs to be this term of council. Does it need to be in the first year of this term of council, not necessarily.”
“The question has been in the room forever,” said White.
CHRIS WHITE
“But I don’t want to spend $50,000 on this thing. I mean, the real question is, why would we move anyway? Maybe it’s a little more central. Maybe there’s some specific building parts right now that are causing us to have the conversation … but there may be some other parts that are coming in that may address that particular issue.”
White suggested a high-level discussion “ballparking” some figures might be useful.
“In fairness to members of the chamber, it’s been around a while, maybe it’s time to put some numbers to it. I can’t see the logic behind it,” he said.
“I’m not prepared to spend a lot of money to make the move.
“But I think it’s fair that the question be answered. But it should be focused. I don’t want to get into counting pencils.”
“I wouldn’t support the motion today, but I support, in spirit, having the conversation and I think it makes sense to have that in the strategic plan discussions that we’re going to have in the next couple of months,” said councillor Diane Ballantyne.
“And, just to be historically accurate, we’re on Indigenous land.”
“Touche,” responded Breen.
Councillor David Anderson said the key question is, “What are the advantages of staying here, as opposed to moving outside of the city?”
Anderson noted the county has contractual agreements with the City of Guelph and neighbouring municipalities that could be impacted by a move.
He also pointed out, “We are already moving some of our department heads out of the City of Guelph.
“Like social services. We’ve set up services in … in Wellington North, in Centre Wellington, just to bring forward more services to all of the county …
“We’re already doing that already … You can do it internally, without spending a lot of money.”
Dehn said he thinks there’s “bigger economic weight to just what the real estate is here in Guelph versus what the real estate value is in Centre Welling that could be really driving this conversation, rather than the fact that people don’t want to move, or want to leave the city.
“It might just be an economic decision with a paper showing $250 million worth of real estate in Guelph and that builds up a big centre up north.”
Dehn continued, “So don’t discount the history, but don’t discount the value of the real estate and how that can benefit the taxpayers of the County of Wellington because having more money in their pockets, reducing the rate of taxation and everything …
“I don’t think that comes into the discussion often enough.”
Cork suggested concerns about the cost of gathering the requested information are overblown.
“Frankly, I don’t think it should cost very much … What I’m asking for here are some best-estimate type numbers,” he said.
“We have numbers on how much these properties are valued at by our insurance companies, what they’re worth from that point of view. Any real estate agent can tell you what land is worth.”
Cork added, “In terms of the building, I’m sure, we could hear from staff quite quickly how many square feet we need.
“And there’s standard numbers for multiplying that, by the cost per square foot, that gets us in the ballpark.”
White replied, “I think that the numbers will tell the story without drilling down too far and if it’s that we get $10 million for selling this (the administration centre in Guelph), and building a new building up there is $50 million, that does it for me.
“So there may be a lot more in your motion that we don’t necessarily need to drill down into.”
“I’m hearing a consensus, or pretty pretty close to a consensus, that we need to gather more information around this issue and have a discussion around it. I think that’s pretty broadly accepted,” said Lennox.
“The question that I’m hearing is around timing and what form that discussion needs to take and what the costs associated with it may be.”
WARDEN ANDY LENNOX
Lennox continued, “In our last strategic plan we outlined the fact that any major projects like this should be dealt with in a White Paper. I think that’s entirely appropriate in this situation.”
He asked Cork if he would consider withdrawing his motion and making a new motion to have a White Paper produced “on our long-term staff accommodation needs.
“If we’re going to consider something as dramatic as a move, we need to be looking at longer term, as to what the needs will be the future so that we don’t build something that’s outsized as soon as it’s done,” the warden added.
“I think that definitely needs be part of it,” replied Cork.
“But the intent of this motion is to get some numbers of what it’s going to cost; what the plan is for here, what it’s going to cost for here, but what potentially the plan would be for Centre Wellington and what it would cost there?
“As councillor White said, is there is possibly another alternative?”
Cork added, “I think it asks for staffing in here and what kind of staffing that you might be anticipating. So I guess what I’m saying is I’m wanting to hold to the motion.”
The motion was defeated 8-5 in a recorded vote requested by Cork.
Voting in favour were: Cork, Lloyd, Dehn, Watters and Lennox. Opposed were: Duncan, Seeley, Anderson, Campbell, Ballantyne, Breen, White and Bulmer.
Councillors Steven O’Neil and Dave Turton were absent from the meeting. Councillor Gregg Davidson left the meeting before the vote to attend a Federation of Canadian Municipalities function.
Contacted after the meeting, Cork said he would still like to see the move thoroughly investigated, but isn’t sure what the next step should be.
“There was some solid support for the motion, but I’ve had two kicks at this cat and both times it was voted down,” said Cork, who presented a council with similar motion, which was also voted down, in January of 2022.
“I accept the vote, although I don’t understand why there is such reluctance to simply talk.”
He continued, “I’ll be pleased to see any suggestion for getting a discussion going from a different angle.
“Maybe it’s time for someone else to take a crack at it who sees things differently. If calling it a White Paper is what it takes to make this fly, I’m all for it.
“I’ve had more support from the public on this than for any other issue in my time on council.
“And I have not received one negative comment except from some councillors.”
