Thank you for joining us.
Turn your mic on, please.
Well, that all is now.
Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to the Tuesday and November 3rd edition of the Community of the Whole Community Development.
We're in the township of downtown Hall in Svensson, Ontario.
After calling this need order, I'd like to have an approval of the agenda.
Do I have a mover to move the agenda?
Some moved.
Okay, and seconded by Councillor Spale.
There's only changes to the agenda that need to be addressed.
Nope.
Okay.
All right, we're that, then we'll call it to a vote.
All in favour?
Okay, unanimous. That's good.
Okay, moving on number 3, then.
The disclosure of machinery or interest or conflict of interest and the general nature there.
Does anyone have anything to declare?
Okay.
Okay. And number 4, business arising from previous community meeting minutes, if any.
Is there any member have anything to discuss there?
Okay.
All right.
Okay. And number 5 is delegations and presentations in tonight.
We do not have one.
So then moving on to 6A.
Actually, there's nothing on 6A either.
So 6B, work in economic development.
Number 1, easy connects update.
And I believe we're going to have the information presented to us by a community development coordinator, Wendy.
Actually, I'll change from your speaking notes.
All right.
I'll speak to this one.
So back in May, members requested regular EC connects update.
Be provided to the community, the whole community development.
Last report was presented in June, which included data for April 2025.
We continue to grow use of the platform.
In June, we recorded 26 visits from 26 unique users.
In September, we had 288 page views from 46 unique users.
And the August quarterly review confirmed data accuracy across the 591 listings.
Website integrity check has also been identified.
And we've corrected several broken or outdated links.
Ensuring that residents have a reliable access to the current information on the NVG platform.
We continue to follow the recommendations provided by helpseeker,
encouraging local service providers to review and update their listing each season.
Notices and reminders have been sent shared to help ensure that follow-and-winter program details in contact information
where main current on the EC connects platform.
And what you have is you've got just some of the analytics reports.
I'm not going to go into them in any great detail.
But if there's anything that you see or have seen in there that you'd like to ask any questions.
I'll do my best to answer them.
If not, I will pass them off to the community engagement coordinator.
And she will update you via email.
Thank you very much.
Do you assume we have anything to discuss in this report?
Yep.
Thank you.
One thing, actually two things.
I know just actually one is, I guess, half of these bad links or ours it looks like.
So are we fixing those?
Perfect.
And the other side of it is, is that's right?
Sorry.
Being a pain.
Yeah.
No, that's fair.
I just thought, you know, it's good.
They're defective, but we should notice that hopefully, in fact,
since so that's good.
I'm done running.
And the other thing was, I know I asked for this report to come up regularly.
Are we finding it quarterly as too much?
Because I mean, I think now that we've settled in to help, you know,
settled in, pardon me to this.
Is it, be I mean, too much of a burden to do it quarterly?
I don't think it's a burden to do it quarterly.
I think next year in January, if you want to give, give direction to staff,
we can, you know, provide you an update kind of at the midpoint of the year in a year end report.
If that was that works better.
I think when we talk later on about the communication strategy,
it might be quarterly update overload with this included in it.
So I think I think reasonable to do one year end report and a mid year report.
If that's, I mean, you're able to committee.
Okay, thank you.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes, Councillor Stale.
Thank you.
Through you, Mr. Chair.
I question about help, Seeker.
Is that something we own or something that we hire out?
What exactly is help, Seeker?
I'll let the community development coordinator and so that one.
Help Seeker is a company in Calgary that we work with.
So it's contracted out.
Okay, Councillor.
The answer to something.
Yes, thank you.
Through the chair to Wendy.
I'm reading the stats here.
It says list of listings per category and category clicks.
Do we answer back to everyone that clicks on there?
Do they ask you questions?
Who answers them back?
Through the chair.
So this is, it's more of a directory of social services.
So it's, they're clicking because they're looking for information.
They're looking for a social service.
Maybe looking for the food bank or maybe looking for child care services.
So they're not responding or they're not reaching out directly to us.
We just want to know what our residents are looking for.
So then they are looking back.
Yeah.
And through, through easy connects, they would be able to click about in an email,
that whatever service that they've found there.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Anybody have any other questions?
No.
Okay.
Good.
I'm going to thought Rachel did for a second.
For your hand up.
Sorry about that.
Okay.
Moving then on to six B2.
The 2026 communication strategy.
And that we believe we're going to be having the community development coordinator Wendy speak to.
I'm happy to speak to this.
Thank you.
Great.
Okay.
So we felt a really good foundation in 2025 for communications in Edwardsburg Cardinal.
Think back to like closer to the beginning of the year.
We read it.
Our writing style guide.
It's with our writing the laundry new website.
We updated our brand guide.
We developed a communications and engagement strategy.
And now we've got a communications plan.
And to the comments last at our last meeting.
That is a lot of documents.
They all serve their own unique purpose.
I was looking for duplication.
I think there's benefit to combining them all into one document, having them in one place.
There's not a lot of duplication across each of the four documents.
Some of them like the communications plan.
We're going to look at today.
It gets updated annually and some of them are meant to live for for years.
So just great timing that we got to update them all in one year.
I'm going to go through the.
Eight objectives that are in the communications plan.
And I'm going to go through them relatively quickly.
So stop me if you want to.
If you want to slow down or talk about one of them in more in depth.
So it objectives we want to achieve in 2026.
The first one is get to know our audience.
We want to distribute a short survey and use targeted social media ads to better understand how our audience.
This is preferred to receive information and engage with the township.
And this initiative is going to help us update our strategy.
If you remember when we looked at the strategy.
We have those two kits at the back.
One of them was a list of all of our target.
And this will help us better understand those audiences.
We can update that toolkit and so that we can better communicate with them.
And in the way that they want to receive the information.
Those activities will take place at the beginning of next year.
Objective number two is our digital signage rollout.
We've got one sign that is on track to be put up in front of the cardinal library in the next couple weeks.
So I think I said December and I'm on track to meet that timeline.
And as much fun as it was to find a location for that sign.
We're going to do it again next year and try to roll that out to more more locations.
Okay.
So sorry one detail.
Yeah.
And maybe I know you had a rest of it later on.
But maybe I'll just ask it anyways.
Now that I've got you off.
I know you put a proposed number for a budget.
And with there for the next two digital signs.
And I know I believe both of those two two signs need some electrical work in order to get electricity to the sites where we're putting them.
Does that factor that in, you know, from a cost perspective or is that.
It might.
We don't have the locations that we're going to put them in yet.
Maybe we can find some that aren't going to.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Okay.
Also.
Yeah.
That's a good question.
I don't have the answer yet.
But I think.
Yeah.
No problem.
Okay.
I'll look at the third objective is the community improvement plan launch.
We're actually going to look at the community improvement plan later on in this agenda package.
But we want to make sure that we launch this to anyone who might be eligible to to make an application.
So that we get lots of applications for this plan.
And we make sure people know how easy it is to make that application and get funding to help with community improvements.
Within that plan, like it's going to last throughout the next year and be on.
But I thought we could do some like hosts and information nights where people can come in and just have casual conversations about with this project be eligible.
That'd be one way to reach people.
We can do social media campaigns.
This might be an area to use some paid social media ads.
We can target specific.
Like business owners are target specific demographics for.
For each plan.
We'll create some promotional material that make the CIP really easy to understand who used really plain language.
We'll make sure the application more of this simple as possible.
So we'll just make sure the process is really simple.
Objective number four is an expansion to our photo and video library.
We know that people engage more with content when it looks familiar to them.
They get excited sometimes when they see landscapes or things in Edwards for Cardinal that are.
Recognizable.
It's more authentic and it's more relatable.
So we're going to work at.
Building our photo and video expenses library.
And we can do this through having a photo contest.
We've got some talented photographers in our attention that may want to contribute or compete for as well.
Priser give away or shout out or and it'd be nice to have that local content to use throughout our communications.
Objective number five.
Sorry Wendy on that one.
I just don't know, you know, we've just keeping the conversation going along the way to with regards to those photos.
Is that something that other people can be able to get pictures or we can restore them in the clouds or things or the people can also also download those themselves.
Or is this just for our internal use the pictures themselves.
Well, that's a good question.
I think people could have some that are for everyone to use.
It's not a bad idea.
Some I'd probably like keep just for township communications and for our own content.
But that's something we could explore.
Okay.
That's good.
Okay.
Councillor Smith.
Sorry.
Thank you through the chair to Wendy.
There's a gentleman that has what's going on in Cardinal or picture is something.
His name is.
Disha.
Dishamps.
Tyler Dishamps.
He has all like more thousands of old age pictures.
Like if you contacted him, I'm sure he would donate a lot of them to re copy them.
Like every week he has pictures on there from right back to the early 1900s.
So he's got a quick collection.
That's really cool.
I think there are a lot of talented photographers out there and people who have those great historical records.
I think it would be easy to build upon the photo and video library that we've already started.
We started building this in back in 2022.
Once you see a photo that's used often on social media, you don't want to keep using it,
especially in different contexts and it kind of looks.
So it's nice to have some freshness to use especially this past summer.
We started using more video content too.
So that takes a little bit longer together and to edit appropriately.
But we get more engagement with that week.
Objective number.
Number 5 has to do with our community award program. I know that over the next few years we want to ramp up
this, our community awards and make it more event-like and from the communication side we want
to do our part to make sure that we tell the public about that and really encourage people to make
applications. See if we can get a more diverse group of applications, get people more excited to
come out and celebrate those community awards as well. So that's what this objective is all about.
Objective number 6 is making a submission to craft talkieville. We're all really excited about that.
Starting in January, we've got a really good head start already. We've got a good group
together from the Campville and South Grimville. Minor hockey associations are supporting us. We've
got some students from South Grimville District High School who are making some signs. We are ready to
film our submission video in the next few weeks. So we'll be ready to share that with craft talkieville in
January. A great community building objective, I think. Objective number 7 is to invest in staff
training. We're going to do this with IAP2. That's like a standard organization for communication
training in government and nonprofit organizations. If the training is done online, it's not an
exorbit cost and I think we should begin doing that training. At least for the first like core sessions
and then we can feel it and see how helpful was that and should be going with more sessions. But I think
having that, having that good framework for community, any staff who does communications that are public
facing would be helpful. And then the last objective here is to showcase our online services. We launched
a new website in June and it's doing really well and it would be nice if we could tell more people about
the services that are available right from our website. Things like EC connects and forms that are
available online so you don't need to come into the office or give us a call. You can do it like right from home.
So this objective, which is highlighted a different feature on our website every month, we can align
it with when it's building safety month, we can talk about building permits or so on. So that's
that's subjective number eight. And Chair, as you mentioned earlier, I do have a budget sheet
here. When we talk about the strategy, I know community members said it would be nice to see that
that budget piece. This does an include departmental advertising costs. So if our public works
department needed to post it out in the paper about road closures, something like brushing
leaf collection, like that goes to their budget. So this, what's included here is just for the aid
objectives that are listed in this plan. Not looking for approval on this tonight. We can put this into
our budget proposal and we can adjust this plan accordingly, however the budget goes. This is just
in response to the comments that we're heard when we looked at the strategy.
I also want to talk about success indicators. We have a KPI tracker from our strategy that had
specific key performance indicators for each of the goals in our strategy plan. There are additional
performance indicators in this plan. I think as we go through this plan, we start to do these objectives.
We're going to see the objectives in this strategy KPI increase because they're all based on the
same goals like increase awareness of township services, improve engagement and participation or build
stronger community partnerships. So we're going to see those KPI's grow, but I also wanted to make sure we
track those indicators and miles so that we have for each objective in the plan. I mean this is
here in print in this plan, but we've got an Excel sheet that will track it and I just highlighted
each of the months and each of the success indicators are listed here and each of the months where I
like I would expect to see something measurable. I've just put that goal box there so we know like
all we should check to see how that objective is is doing. And then the last part of this plan is a calendar,
which I think is a really functional piece, especially when one person is working on communications,
just to have like add a glance like what's coming up, make sure we don't miss things,
things don't sneak up on us and we can be consistent year of year, but it's types of things that we
speak to and we can plan for it. We can see when it's really heavy month or when it's later and more
things can be added into the calendar. All of the communication plan activities and those
aid objectives are listed in the appropriate month of this calendar and again this is in Excel so that
like internally from staff like we can work on this together and share it and it's constantly going to be
updated. Basically as soon as you print something out it's out of date and I'm sure this calendar is already
out of date by the time you're looking at it but I think that would be a great tool for staff to use as we go
through 2026. The last part I wanted to share is an actually part of the plan that's from the strategy but I remember
that committee members here wanted to look at those KPI numbers and you guys really interested in seeing
those quarterly. So I've got on page 61 of the Agenda Parkage it's the KPI tracker for 2025 and I went back
to Q1 back to January of this year just so you could see the progression and happy to call out of you
highlights on this page if that's helpful. Sure if you have some I mean yep okay I want to look at the
website traffic because we launched a new website in June of this year and if you if you look at where
we're getting our website traffic first of all it went from Q2229000 in July to September but we're
getting a lot of direct traffic which is people are have either bookmarked our page or they're typing
in twpc.ca so that shows up we're getting good brand recognition which is important because we just
have a new brand guide this year and then also one of the other ones that jumped up really high was
our partnerships so or like our referrals so if a partner has us on their website like they're finding us
through them so one of our objectives in our communication strategy is to grow those improve on those
partnerships and not showing that we are doing that. We have new website visitors from 11000 to 18000
we're reaching new audiences that's what that shows and that's really great with our new website and
also there's okay if I go down to average impressions per post this is one of the metrics that
committee said they really wanted to see so in Facebook you can see that jumped up from about 1000 in Q2
and Q1 up to 15 hundred over the to from July to September. I think I can think of here that
maybe a reason for that jump is we did a lot more video content over the summer but we are sharing more
also I guess that wouldn't affect the average but I think probably more engaging content and more video
content is probably helping that out. If I go to the second section where we're just focusing on metrics
that would improve engagement and participation take a look at our average engagement time per website
session the second column or the second row down there it's one minute and nine seconds people are
spending on our website on average which is a huge jump from Q1 eight seconds and Q2 22 seconds so
people are actually reading our website they're not just clicking through or leaving and we just
wrote a writing style guide to make our content more accessible and easier to read so I think
that increase shows that it's working people are reading. What we have to say there and then also
average post engagement rate and I want to point out here because it looks like it's saved like fairly
steady throughout the year which is actually really good because we've grown our followers through the year
but the engagement rate is staying the same. I think that shows that the growth we've experienced
is healthy and sustainable. It's not like due to one viral post so we're able to sustain that growth
and followers are still engaging with us and then also we showed it to our recreation team because that's
about 400 participants in summer programming just in one summer and those are meaningful
lasting interactions with people so those are important. Absolutely thank you very much
comments from anybody questions. You guys are good? Yep, Councillor Smith. I just like to
comment on what a great job you seem to be doing and like everything is so organized and it's easy to
follow and understand so I just want to congratulate. Thank you. Anybody else? No.
And I echo Councillor Smith's comments there for sure. In fact I've heard well in my close family
if you was also saying that as well they've noticed that it just seems easier to navigate and
and there's senior citizens and they're finding the well they didn't see it but the fun
direction to point that out. Oh that may be you know you never know but and it was that that was
pretty good as well and it did just the traffic alone has been good. I also want to comment staff
actually come from staff actually as well for some of our internal communications. A lot of that is really
improved. I find it really a big change as well as probably honestly that including we're getting
more depth in that coverage communication as well which I think is great so I think it's a good
job. So I'm really happy with how this is going so there we are. All right anybody else? Yeah so through
the chair I'll throw a few more. Thank you's out there. I really like the document and thank you for
addressing the putting it all together. I know that was my comments what's great to see and the KPIs look
great. Feedback that I'd have going forward. I love all the projects. One that I kind of highlight
and maybe I don't you know I'll leave it to staff's discretion but one I'd hopefully you know put
my voice behind adding a little bit more budget to would be the getting more stock photos. I see the
content in there and you're going to go do a contest and get photos. Yeah we're going to get lots of pictures
of ships going by on the St. Lawrence and stuff like that. We're not going to be at a picture of the
welcome to this Hamlet with a cornfield in the background which is great content like that stock photos
red words for a cardinal that we need. I don't think we're going to get from that project that you know
it's a pretty low budget item to you know put out a quick call get a couple of prices from still
local photographers and get that curated content of you know the welcome to a highman hamlet with a
cornfield in the background is useful to staff now. I don't know what you guys have in the back end but
a small investment that I think would improve you know when I look at the communications I want to be
able to really do it so it's that side of it and then I will also give out the shadow to the
calendar I love the calendar it was great and just put a little bit more recreation stuff in there as
the recreation guy. I hope that was a sample I mean it's it's probably soon come do your point.
Yeah thank you very much for that anybody else. I also met Dad as well that section at the bottom
we talk about the event registration and attendance. I guess that's the first thing we can capture
that data or is this the first thing we're actually able to collect it electronically.
Through the chair this is something our recreation team would have been tracking all along it's just now we
it's an easy way to track the goal in our strategy of improving engagement and participation that's something we
should look at so that's great okay and it sounds like I think we're done with questions and it sounds like
all right I'll move on then to six B3 and that is the community improvement plan review and again
by the community developer coordinator. Okay yep I can speak to this also so MPG gave us a new draft
of our community improvement plan and this one has track changes in it from the version we looked at
at the public meeting back on October 6th. MPG couldn't be here tonight I've read this draft
a hundred times throughout the process I'm comfortable speaking to it but if there's any questions
that I can't answer all I'll follow up with MPG and get back to you but I thought it was important to
take another look before possibly adopting it at the end of the month because there were some changes
in there and it's nice to have the opportunity to have some discussion if needed. So we got
draft of the CIP with track changes and we also have a comment response matrix and if it's okay
with you chair I just want to highlight a few items from the comment response matrix not all of them but
a few I think are with you. Okay so this is page 65 of what need to be of the agenda. The first few
comments there I think are really easy to implement through the launch of the CIP and our marketing so I'm
going to skip through those ones but I want to talk a little bit about program funding.
We know that in our this draft of the CIP we don't have a maximum per property of $10,000 for like the
life of that property and then you can't get any more funding like our last one did. So on this one it's
it's $10,000 per application. We added a clause into this draft of the CIP that says
only $10,000 can be approved for property like at one time. So we're not tying up with multiple
applications on one property that actually add up to $30,000 or $40,000 and then we don't have any funds because
they're tied up there. So $10,000 we could finish up those projects and then you could make more
applications or maybe you finish up part of that project and we're able to rebate some and then
you can make another application for your other $5,000 that's left over. So I thought that
update was important. Also well on the lines of program funding there's a few
comments that had to do with different programs and the funding like the first one there says update grant
caps many funding limits are modest compared to current construction costs. It is expensive to build right
now. I guess that there were other comments about the signage program. Maybe $3,000 was too much.
We might want to lower that. In fact this draft actually says $2500 instead of $3,000 and there was
a desire to add more to the accessibility program also. I think a good solution to this. I touched
based with MPG and if we could update in the plan to allow changes.
To the program, funding to be a minor amendment, or maybe not a minor amendment. If you look at section 6.2, it describes, okay, minor amendments like grammar change or just a change to be in line with the provincial policy statement.
Those types of changes staff can do on their own. They don't require council approval because they have to be made anyways. We could just make those amendments.
And then there are more substantive amendments which right now would include changes to program funding or changes to a program.
And that would require like a public meeting go through the planning act requirements and council of the amendment needs to be adopted by BILA.
But then there's also in section 6. If there's you can remove a program or like just want to take it off for a lot like that can be done by council not by staff, but it doesn't require a full amendment.
I think we should be able to change the level of project funding by council decision, not like a full substantive amendment.
But that way if we don't get the amount per program right this time we start to see some trends like maybe okay sign it should be 2000 instead of 3000 or we're really going to need a lot more for accessibility the 5000 dollars isn't cutting it then we can take a look at that year by year and we can make those changes.
So I'll suggest that changed MPG unless there's objections to that.
Anybody have a comment on that?
Okay.
We talked about having the funding being available retroactively and the closest I think we got to that and I think the committee seen this before is that if we do the pre consultation first.
Even if committee hasn't approved the funding yet if you wanted to get started on your project as long as you've got the pre consultation and you'll have that pre consultation in writing.
You can go ahead at your own risk the funding isn't guaranteed until it's approved but you'll be able to go ahead with the funding without waiting for approval, especially if you were planning to do the project.
Anyways, that can be helpful with your timelines.
We're going to say that pre consultation document is good for 12 months because again we don't want it to tie up funding.
So you'll have that pre consultation writing is good for 12 months if 12 months you still haven't made your application yet you need to go through the pre consultation process again.
We also added the timeline of two years to complete your project as I think is in our current CIP also so you need to start once you have approval of your project you'll have a contract you'll have six months to start your project in two years to complete it.
I think that's all I wanted to point out on the on the matrix but if there's other items on there I'm happy to discuss those.
You guys wanted to see.
Okay, thank you, Woody. Mr. Ray, you're good.
Well first I just want to say thank you.
It certainly I believe reflects what we want it you know from a geographical sort of look it now encompasses the entire township instead of two two places.
It applies to home base businesses which is you know certainly.
I'm going to be helpful.
I think it encompasses like eight programs now versus six before and certainly in a much different way.
I think my biggest my biggest two concerns are what what you know the end valid dollar value that we're going to find ourselves you know.
Hopefully we get to a point where so many people are picking it we run out of money.
And and I'll still stick to what I said last time I struggle with the tax tax equivalent program I'm not a fan of the way that it's the way that it's done or the way that it's that it's written.
I worry about it in the 11th year versus you know the first 10 worry about you know if it gets sold in the first 10 years what that ultimately looks like how that.
Doesn't look like it costs a lot at that the beginning I suppose it's only the way that I read it it's only the increase that that they get the break on in taxation but if you're going from you know a building like.
The old grocery store and cardinal whatever its assessment is this year versus what its assessment would be if you put a four unit building on there the increase would be very large I would suspect and.
That could be 80% of that being refunded would be would be huge and by the time you got to the to the 11th year it would be.
I would be scared of what you know the difference that they would be paying in the two years from the 10th to the or at least over that that term so.
I don't know David if they've done anything and so thundest like that it seems to be very forward thinking seems to be very.
Not out of the norm maybe in city thinking it's just it's new to me and.
I kind of want to leave it in just to see I mean I don't think we'll have a lot of for big huge four things built but I kind of want to see how if it did ever somebody did go for it how it actually.
I actually paned out over over time so I don't think we're going to run into a situation where we're going to have hundreds of them being built.
So I guess in that sense maybe no for for a pilot program but the rest of it I think fantastic I like the work that's gone into it like the reflection of the changes we asked for that are there and there now and I don't know it looks good to me.
Yes Wendy sorry.
Through the chair to the mirror I just wanted to know that your comment about.
The changing commercial spaces to residential spaces that you made at the public meeting that's been clarified in this draft also in the housing improvement.
Yeah, but there was another changes to the housing improvement plan that I just wanted to.
Hi, light.
Can you point out where that is I do remember and I I didn't look through my notes when I looked through it so I missed I missed that.
No problem and I wouldn't mind speaking to this page anyway so it's on is on page 90 of these and a package or page 15 of the plan and it's the the program for called housing improvements grant.
So I noticed some changes here I think we're done with with good intent.
Originally this program was.
Was meant for a furniture and existing buildings into housing units so if there was.
I don't know like a building that was vacant or or if there was space above a commercial.
Shop that could be used for housing.
And then it would help with that we have a similar program in a CIP right now on the this draft now.
Seems to allow it and it would have been could have used for air use as well in the previous draft.
But only if it was an existing building so it would be transforming and existing building into housing units but in this draft it would be any ARU which I don't think is a bad thing will be.
And helping to fund more ARUs the amount of funding for this program is only $1,500 per unit to maximum of four units so it could be $6,000 if you were doing.
Four units there but if you were just building one area you want your property it would be $1,500 which doesn't really help you a whole lot if you're building a new building and other their expensive.
But in this in this draft they've made that apply just to within the urban boundary which typically for a planner that means like within a service settlement area and I think.
For this committee we would want that to apply to the rural area as well where you're also allowed to have.
And not just for a single dwelling you'd want an ARU is allowed for a single dwelling or a semi or a townhouse in our zoning by law and I think the intent here was because.
Additional residential units you generally want to direct towards areas where we have servicing or full servicing or at least partial servicing.
In our zoning by law we require that the density servicing is available anyways so if the servicing is available we won't get this far.
I think we should allow it in all areas where townhouse semi single dwelling so the rural area air culture area as well would be allowed so if that's okay with committee I'll ask them to make that change.
What's the thing?
In the the case of the ARU in the rural and in other areas when we're doing the second unit.
It had to connect to the existing services correct it couldn't be on separate services isn't then we not put that in our by law.
Or zoning rules that's in the official plan.
So it had to be had to be that way so it was not a severable piece right.
Yes.
Okay and that this is reflective of that.
We'll relate back to it.
No I think in general this is just saying.
I think that the authors are we're applying that just within the urban boundary because that's where it's like the PPS would want to direct development and that's where you have.
Full air partial servicing available.
I think in our case in what this committee's intent would want is to have to be able to rule as well as long as.
Yeah.
I'm just want to be clear though that it should connect to the existing well and it should connect to the existing sub.
Yeah.
And I would like the zoning by let take care of those.
And it will.
Okay.
All right.
And we're not asking for in the service areas.
For a separate connections.
I think our zoning by law does now.
The individual unit has to have a.
It's own connection.
I'd have to double check that.
But I think the zoning by look and take care of this not the CIP.
Okay.
All right.
Long as we're not creating an issue.
That's all.
Okay.
Thank you Mr. Mayor.
Anybody else?
Sure.
Thank you chair.
Through you two to Wendy and staff.
I just want to say thanks.
This is this is this is spot on.
I went to you know the workshops to every meeting.
It was available for this and heard all the voices.
And I don't think there's any of them that weren't heard.
This is like.
Very comprehensive.
Very complete.
And thank you.
Thank you.
Councillor.
Yes.
You're good.
You guys are okay.
Dave.
I'll echo.
A little bit of what Councillor Martell said.
Is that both stakeholder meetings completed the survey.
And I see that in this plan.
So seeing I come all the way to fruition.
And then to what the mayor said.
I think the biggest one was the tax incremental one.
But if I take off my taxpayer hat and I put on my developer hat.
I think it's a very attractive one for a developer.
Right.
So like if you're trying to attract a developer to come here.
And you offer this.
And it's typically only you know in a bigger you know.
The examples they did give were mostly bigger cities.
But you know we're trying to attract that.
Those developers to come here and.
Develop here.
So I think.
And just to clarify Wendy so ultimately if somebody applies for this.
Their grant application would still be reviewed and approved by this committee.
So even if somebody applied for it, we could still reject it at that face.
Through the chair actually that is the only program that needs council approval.
So the committee could make recommendation.
But that program requires an extra level of approval.
I also wanted to say that that program.
The grant you receiving is just on the townships portion of the tax.
Not what we pay to county or school boards.
80% of the township portion of the tax.
And that's just on the increase that the developer.
It's going to be the toughest one to administer.
But I think if we had an application.
Where they were going to build at least four affordable housing units.
We would want to put some extra work into it to make sure that we could support them.
So we'd probably go further if we needed to right.
Then then what this is to reach those affordable housing targets right.
So.
And so I'm glad we came back and circle back to that one because.
One of the things that I was sort of thinking because I thought I was I side with the mayor as far as.
You know can't get out of control what happens then is.
I'm assuming that because we're talking with the plan here,
but we're going to have some sort of a by-law that increments the various the dollar amounts and how we do.
You know action these messages here these items here pardon me.
And I sort of thought I wonder if we should come up with and I guess when I say we I guess staff would propose a.
A number how much how much you know hundreds of thousands or whatever the number would be.
Per year do we approve for this and then it's sort of first come first sort of basis and we can always.
If there's a big project that comes along we can always have a conversation to see if we wanted to then.
Do in addition to that but that way it sort of puts a puts a puts a goal in mind that we can manage.
And if we become a company we can always then go for what's that sort.
There is no direct cost for that other than administration.
Right we're just we're just giving them 80% of what the tax increase would be.
So there's no actual financial.
You know to that until the other group to the other seven there.
I guess what I was going is let's just say somebody comes along and says I want to build 40 units.
We probably don't want to.
Not get the tax revenue from part of that.
You know I think that's where I just I don't know what the limit is and now we you know I just I just foresee that you know.
Any of our subdivisions could then say we don't want to pay tax on the property pretend years and I think that.
That brings with it the cost to the taxpayer.
What's that story?
You're paying.
So you are paying for the tax you're paying the original tax just not paying you're paying.
Paying 20% of what each.
Increase would be per per year till your whole right.
So at least that's the way that I.
With it I get it.
We're.
Yeah.
Just put it out there.
Okay anybody have anything else then.
You're good.
It was good okay.
All right then I think thank you very much Wendy that was good.
And with that I guess we bring it to I do have a motion here on this.
So, the motion is, do we pass this alone with, with, with, with, with, with updates with changes with amendments.
Because there's a few things I think that Wendy was going to take back to the,
Now I get that.
Are any of the changes major? Are they just minor in, in nature?
Oh, I think those changes are pretty minor. You could say, um, okay, recommendation.
Committee recommends that council adopt a by-law to designate the entire geographic area of the township of
the head of your cardinal as a community project area in accordance with section 28 to the planning act.
That by-law has to happen first before we have by-law to adopt the plan.
And then second is adopt a by-law to approve the township of editors or cardinal 25,
community improvement plan prepared by MPG planning solutions, dated October 25,
I'd say, with appropriate amendments.
Discuss amendments.
Um, and then number three is to accept to post a final adoptive plan and program information on the township's website,
and promote available incentives upon adoption.
Perfect. Glad you said it, send me.
All right. Do I have a mover for that?
Move by Councillor Martell and seconded by Councillor Schmell?
Yep. Okay. Perfect. Okay. So, uh, with that any other discussion on this?
Okay. And then I'll call it to a vote. All in favor?
Unanimous? Okay. Okay.
All right. Thank you very much again.
All right. Moving on to six C, uh, play recreation.
Recreation highlights and updates presented by Rachel from Blade.
Thank you. Um, so the Recreation Department participated in the John's Town
Trunker Tree event held in John's Town on October 26.
The township is now offering a senior's exercise class twice a week from 9 to 10 a.m.
In Spencerville and in John's Town. Each class averages about 15 participants and this program will
continue throughout the winter months.
Our adult fitness class in John's Town began in October on Wednesday evenings from 7 p.m.
to 8 p.m. This program will run until November and hopefully have another session in
December, January area. Our kids art class is also began in October from 6 to 7
30 p.m. in John's Town. We had 11 participants in the last session and we will be offering
another session starting November 13th. Um, the holiday cookie decorating event will be held
again this year on December 7 in John's Town from 12 to 3 p.m. This program is for all ages
and registration is required. Um, we will be offering a sensory friendly Santa visit.
It will be hosted on December 20th in John's Town from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Registration is required. Each reservation will have a 15 minute time slot to see Santa
and just a low stimulation quiet environment. Um, skating with Santa will be hosted
at both arenas this December. Um, the event will take place in Cardinal on December 19th and
in Spencerville on the 21st. And finally our holiday skating will be offered at both arenas
throughout the holiday season in December and January. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Any comments, anybody? Councillor Smell?
Through the chair to Rachel. The holiday skating will have to be free.
Through the chair to Councillor Smell? Yes, all public skating is free.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Smell.
Councillor, can you tell you good? All right. How are you doing? You're good? All right.
Dave, Dave. Good. Thank you. Rachel, can you speak to, um, numbers? Like, how many people do you expect
or they all, like all the programming that you're doing or they, the programming is going to be full.
Like, seniors are row wicks. Um, the classes that are going to be running the painting classes. That's sort of stuff.
Um, are we working to fill those still or are they filling up? That's really.
Through the chair to the mayor. So, our seniors exercise class was full within the first few days
it was posted. I originally limited to just ten to begin because it was a new program for me to teach myself.
Um, so then we have upgraded to 15. Um, and then again, with like art class, it's been relatively full for all of our programs.
That's good. That's great. That's I thought that was a good news story for you to add to it.
And then it should be, you know, heard so. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I have a couple of questions as well. Actually, so I noticed there was an exercise class in
Johnson and his dispenser. Well, did that not take us for this year for the special one or is that?
Through to the chair. Um, we would do have a seniors exercise class in Spencerville.
Um, we don't offer one in Spencerville for adults. There's just more room in Johnson.
Um, but yeah, we offer it. Okay.
I just realized actually that I missed it. I was reading the wrong one, but I didn't see one of the special.
The Spencerville one in here. So that's fine. Okay. Good. Appreciate that.
And then the sensory friendly said, I think that's a great idea. By the way, I mean, as as a as a parent of kids on the spectrum, for instance,
they would have, they would have loved that for sure. So I'm glad you're doing that.
Uh, and I didn't think we'd do a help for sure. Let me know. Um, and are we pushing that message somewhere? I mean, I know there's a lot of clubs and associations out there that might not know about that.
But they might really, you know, join in to this if they could. Right. So.
To the chair. Um, we haven't advertised.
Some of these programs yet, so like a holiday stuff. We are currently working on that to get it out soon.
Okay. Great.
Uh, I think is all the questions I had.
Uh, yep. That's that for that. Thank you very much, Rachel. Any other questions before we move on to another. Okay.
So moving that on to number seven, increase and notice is a motion. Does anybody have any clear notices motion?
Councillor Matel.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, through you to the CAO.
I had a couple of discussions with the gentleman on.
Um, Adelaide Street that there's beside the Burnt Head of the House. He's looking for updates on when something will be done.
And he's concerned with.
Creatures going in there and just, uh, he's looking for an update on what's going to happen when it's going to happen.
Uh, through the chair to Councilor Martell.
Uh, I did receive an update and, uh, tomorrow they'll, uh, will be issued in order to comply in order to remedy and unsafe building.
Um, you usually give a bit of a time load on that for them to do it.
Uh, we'll have someone come there and, and, uh, board it up as best we can tomorrow.
Uh, what has been done so far.
Uh, the water and sewer has been cut and capped.
Hydros been disconnected back to the pole and natural gases isolated before the meter.
So, um, there's, there's no, um, all, all the utilities are, are protected and, uh,
um, just to, to say that it does take time to, to clean up these things and, uh, there was an active investigation on this property as well.
So that has to conclude as well.
So that's why we're only now issuing the order to comply in order to remedy.
Um, but, uh, we will follow in due course and, uh, hopefully get the property short up and, uh, safe until it can be demolished.
Oh, that's right on. Excuse me. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks for my tell.
That was just now. You good?
Oh.
Is it good?
It's rare. You okay?
Nope. Okay.
Uh, I just have, I guess, an inquiry.
Um, and I feel like it's about the right time of year.
Uh, and I also have not been, I've had some issues lately, but not been on social media much, but, um,
Um, are we, are we putting out, um, our requests for the, uh, the, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
The, the, the, the, the, the business of the year and things like that.
Is that going to get sued?
Yes. To the chair. We will be doing that this week.
This week. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Uh, and that is all I have.
Nobody has second thoughts.
Okay.
Uh, then moving on to number eight members report. Does anybody have a,
A member's fourth they would like to bring forth.
Sure.
Have three or four things, chair. If that would be.
Okay. Absolutely.
Uh, just, um, the deputy mayor and I attended the spirit of giving kickoff, uh, on Saturday at independent
Grocer in, uh, press got, um, uh, you know, the need is greater this year.
We've heard that from our local food banks, um, the expectation of the spirit of giving last year.
They had over three, I think it was 335 families, they're expecting over 350 families, uh,
to help this year. So, uh, for those that can, uh, I encourage them to, uh, to donate. Um,
we're just another quick reminder to the last meeting, but I'll do it again tonight.
I guess the mayor's breakfast. November 7th this Friday. Um,
Remember in stay ceremonies, um, next week, obviously on Wednesday, both Cardinal and
John's Town, um, 10 o'clock. I think out here at the United Church for the church ceremony.
I'm not a 100% sure about the church ceremony and Cardinal, but I know it's 11 a.m. at the, the
Senate have for both, uh, and a little update for United counties, um,
a little some controversial stuff going on and tomorrow.
I think we'll see a delegation from the community, um, care center, the Cooperative Care Center,
regarding the reallocation of funds for, um,
from the shelter to reallocate those funds to more of a supportive housing, uh,
the institution as brought forward by uh,
the United County Social Services staff. So, so there's a bit of a shift there.
It's, you're going to see it in the news. There's a rally planned before meeting tomorrow, uh,
to try to get the, uh, the mayor's to change, uh, that that decision.
So just so that everybody's aware you will, you will see it in, I think, in the media.
And here about it, there's, uh, something called a 10 year homeless plan that the United
County staff have put together. It's based on, uh, sustainable, um,
supportive housing solutions for those that, that, that search and, and want help
or that or at risk of, uh, homelessness and actually ask, uh, and need, need help.
So, um, it's a little bit of a shift, um, in funding, but, but there is a plan.
If you read the plan, it'll stop a lot of the, uh,
it'll stop a lot of the things that you're reading in the media that aren't quite accurate and aren't quite correct.
And, and I think adding to that on Wednesday, the planning committee is, um,
hopefully, as chair of that, um, hopefully going to pass our earlier discussion and, and have it put
forth for an official plan, um, um,
amendment before applying for the new official plan next year.
So hopefully that happens on Wednesday morning.
Okay. Any questions regarding any of those?
Yep.
Council.
Does Council live stream County Council?
Yep.
Yep. If you, um, if you go to, I think it's leads.
I think is the, is the County Council's, uh, website, but I can,
I can definitely make sure that you, you have it so that you can see the, uh,
the discussion in chambers.
Um, and it's, it, it's worth going back to the September fifth or something like that,
as well. If you have the time, just to go through, I think they're time stamps.
So you don't have to watch the whole meetings.
They're under the joint services committee.
You can hear the staff presentations about the 10 year plan.
And it's worth going on and reading about the 10 year plan and how it,
it, you know, works towards unlocking provincial and federal dollars,
capital dollars to help create sustainable solutions for homeless,
you know, people at, at threat of homelessness or people that are homeless that,
that are trying to, uh, get a hand up, you know,
whereas, uh, the CCC is seen as, you know, sort of an unsustainable model, um,
the operationally, right, just cost after cost after cost and going up.
And there is a solution for the folks that, that would utilize that service.
Yeah.
There is a solution there.
It's, it's all written in and it is part of it.
But, but it's, uh, it's worthwhile watching the, the discussion.
Tomorrow might be a different, you know,
tomorrow's going to be the hard part of the, the, the discussion.
But, um, I think it's worthwhile going back and, and looking over the last couple meetings to see
the rest.
All right.
Anybody else have any questions?
You'll free to ask.
Okay.
Any other questions in?
If you could, could, could, could, could, could, could.
Okay.
Um, at the risk of not turning this into a discussion.
Uh, did they do anything differently about our conversation we had about, um,
once, uh, our, our rural property gets,
reasoned was, we had some discussion here about the fact that they were talking about turning it into
cultural impossibility of that.
Get interested all of this.
I, uh, I will confirm that, uh, I will confirm that before Wednesday and all.
I'll send you message.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
I believe the answer to that is yes.
But, um, uh, I know Timmy emailed me, uh, something in regards to it.
But I, uh, I honestly, uh, off top my head.
I don't remember.
Okay.
I will.
I did get an email back though.
All right.
Uh, okay.
Uh, with that, um, no other thing else I've never reported.
So we'll move on to number nine.
The question period.
There is nobody in the audience.
I'm assuming nobody from the media.
Okay.
Okay? There is no closed session tonight, number 10. So moving on to adjournment. I need a move for a seconder to the committee does now adjourn at 7.30 p.m.
So moved by the mayor and seconded by Deputy Mayor. Deputy Mayor Sveil.
I kind of against the smell and, okay, I'm getting scared of this meeting if I can now. All in favor? All right, good to unanimous. All right. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a good night.