Mayor Diodati recognized the dedicated players and coaches of the Niagara Falls Falcons 14U, winners of the 2022 AA OBA Championship.

Congratulations to coaches Jason Cukierski, John Aanen, James Babin, Joe Covelli and players Marshall Aanen, Patrick Babin, Anthony Covelli, Luke Cukierski, Noah Etherington, Connor Garrett, Lukas Goodbrand, Hudson Kipp, Stirling Koppejan, Simon Sciarra & Jordan Wright.

Great work, team!

 

Mayor Diodati recognized Bob Pysher for his 25 years of service with the Greater Niagara Baseball Association (GNBA).

Vito Scaringi, GNBA President, thanked and congratulated Bob for his years of service to the association, players and their families.

Thank you, Bob, for making Niagara Falls a better community for youth! 

Andrew Bryce, Director of Planning, gave a brief presentation to explain the purpose of the proposed amendment No. 154 regarding the Implementation and Administration of the Official Plan and to recommend that Council approve the proposed amendments.
 
The goal of the amendments is to streamline and expedite the processing of development applications, to help Staff meet the timelines set out by the Province, and to facilitate new housing.
 
Council approved the following amendments: 

• Holding Policies
  • Addition of a policy to allow Council to place a hold zone to complete any necessary studies and implement recommendations of these studies.
  • The policies will assist Council in moving forward with a decision if it is satisfied a proposal is good planning, but one or more conditions need to be fulfilled before development.
• Community Benefit Charges
  • As a housekeeping measure current bonus zoning policies are proposed to be deleted and replaced with a new Community Benefits Charges subsection to reflect the Planning Act. This change will align with the new Community Benefits Charges By-law recently passed by Council.
• Site Plan Control 
  • Changes to the policies are intended to reflect Bill 109 changes (i.e. delegation of site plan approval to an officer/Staff).
  • Changes are also proposed to allow delegation of the preparation of site plan guidelines to Staff.
  • Policies have also been made to allow for conditional site plan approval (i.e. agreement may identify what further work would be done prior to a full Building Permit) to allow for staged approvals and ensure site plans are processed in an efficient manner. These changes will assist in meeting the new timelines and avoiding penalties.
• Pre-Consultation
  • To ensure timelines are met and applications are processed efficiently, it is important to ensure that complete applications and studies are submitted.
  • The City's current pre-consultation process, involving a meeting to identify study, plan, and other material requirements for a meeting, would be improved to specify the preparation of terms of reference where necessary.
  • Complete application review would take place under the current Planning Act provisions for deeming the application complete and may involve consultation with external agencies. Studies and information would need to meet the requirements of the Province, Regional and City policies and approved terms of reference.
• Complete Application
  • Adding recommended studies to the list of studies that may be required to formalize the request and ensure Council has the right information to make an informed decision.
  • A policy is recommended to allow the General Manager of Planning to determine if substantial changes to an application require a new application. This will ensure delays in obtaining studies to support the changes or to conduct new public consultations due to substantial changes are avoided.

To learn more about the Official Plan and the approved amendments, view the report or presentation.

James Dowling, Senior Manager of Capital Accounting, presented the capital budget. Staff's approach is to leverage debt financing strategically to help finance some of our more significant investments. 
 
The Asset Management Plan and growth management continue to be the key focus of the Capital Budget, as the City needs a solid foundation to grow successfully. This will ensure increased service levels, and growth will not be at the expense of existing services.
 
A Participatory Budgeting Pilot of $200,000 was proposed, where citizens will be able to participate and guide the decision-making of how this allocation of funds will be spent in the community.
 
The 2023 Capital Budget, including all funding recommendations totalling $61,425,481, was approved as presented at Tuesday's meeting. 
 
To learn more, please view the report, presentation, and the 2023 Capital Budget Book.
 

Council approved the following recommendations: 

In February 2022, triple majority approval was obtained to consolidate all municipal and regional transit services in the Niagara Region (the Region) into the Niagara Transit Commission (NTC).
 
On January 1, 2023, Transit services will be regionalized, and the responsibility of future growth-related transit investments will also be moving to the new Transit Commission. The new rates are established by the Region's Development Charges Background Study and By-law and will be remitted to the Region moving forward.
 
For greater certainty, the Transit Development Charges rates established by the Region will replace the existing Transit Development Charges rates currently levied by the City of Niagara Falls on January 1, 2023.
 
The Council received the report and filed it. You can view the report here. 

Bill 23, the More Homes for Everyone Act, 2022, is a provincial initiative that provides a framework to address this key issue of providing more housing faster through several measures. One requirement is to build 1,500,000 new housing units in Ontario, with 8,000 new units for Niagara Falls, by 2031. 
 
The City agrees with the goal of increasing the overall supply of housing to address the housing crisis. However, these measures come with changes to current municipal systems and impact the municipality's financial position. The City will need to assess these changes over the coming months and pivot our current practices and expectations to ensure we can assist in providing more homes faster.
 
This new legislation will modify the current planning process, the current levels of protection of natural and cultural heritage, and the current financial model of growth pays for growth that has historically been utilized. The timing of the commenting period for the Bill has limited the ability of the City and other stakeholders to fully comprehend the implications and unintended consequences of the proposed changes, which may include:

• a significant loss of incoming municipal funds through development charges, parkland dedication and Community Benefit Charges which will, in turn, place a greater burden on the City to fund services and infrastructure projects - that are necessary to support future residential development, this loss of revenue will be made up by an increase in the tax levy
• the reduction in green spaces and suitable parklands for an increasingly dense City
• increased cost to the taxpayer due to the need for additional Staff or outside consulting to assume the review functions of the technical Staff at the NPCA and Planning Staff at the Region.
• the elimination of good building design and the ability to comment on the exterior appearance of the development in all site plan control applications.

This is a large piece of legislation, and clarification is needed on some sections of this legislation so that the City can truly assess the ultimate impact on its planning process and its ability to fund current and future infrastructure needs.
 
Overall, the City supports the legislation's direction to increase the housing supply; however, Staff have some concerns and reservations. Specifically, Staff is concerned about whether the increased costs passed onto the City associated with this proposed legislation (as well as Bill 109 impacts) will lead to housing cost reductions.
 
Staff are also concerned as to whether the quality of the developments will be maintained at a high standard for all residents and if those developments will continue to protect significant natural heritage features. Staff will continue to work cooperatively with the Province and the development community if this legislation is passed to ensure that cost of housing is decreased, that development happens promptly and that the developments are ones that the community can be proud of.
 
Council approved the following motions:

• Council received staff report PBD-2022-73 for information and will be sending a copy of this report to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Region of Niagara and its local area municipalities.
• Council strongly recommends that substantial Provincial investment be provided to support municipalities to fund anticipated infrastructure upgrades to accommodate new intensification goals and compensate for the decrease of development charge funding opportunities as outlined in the proposed legislation.
• Council authorized staff to provide comments to the Environmental Registry of Ontario regarding proposed Bill 23, prior to November 24, 2022.
• Council directed staff to forward the report to the Premier and local Members of Provincial Parliament.
• Council directed staff to hold discussions in the near future with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to keep the dialogue of these changes moving forward.

For more information, view the report and presentation.

The 2023 Council Schedule was unanimously approved. 

Click here to view the 2023 Council Schedule. 

Upcoming Proclamations, Flag-Raising and Illuminations
(approved at Previous Council Meetings)