Guelph’s Priorities for the
2025 Provincial Election
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Introduction
The proposed priorities for the provincial election advocacy campaign focus on urgent issues facing the community – namely housing and community safety and wellbeing. These priorities are aligned with major provincial party platforms and reflect key local areas of concern as identified through the 2024 Guelph Satisfaction survey. The three key priorities that Guelph is amplifying throughout the 2025 provincial election are for the province to:
Collaborate with municipalities to build housing for everyone
Invest in community safety and wellbeing
Reduce reliance on municipal property taxes to support affordability
In 2024, 1 out of 3 Guelph residents reported that housing affordability was the most important issue facing the City, and over half believed that the quality of life in Guelph has decreased, largely due to affordability issues. This is a significant shift from the findings of the 2022 Guelph satisfaction survey and reflects the growing scale of the housing crisis across the entire housing continuum.
The following three sections outline the key housing-related issues facing the City, and the provincial actions that are needed to support Guelph in enabling affordable housing supply, from emergency and community housing to market rate rentals and ownership units.
Infrastructure Growth and Renewal
The City of Guelph requires flexible, predictable, and long-term provincial funding to address the municipal infrastructure renewal backlog and make investments necessary to support growth.
One of the main ways that Guelph enables housing is through high-quality municipal infrastructure. Population growth and limited funding tools have made it challenging to keep up with the growing infrastructure needs facing the city. Over the next decade, Guelph will need to spend nearly $2 billion to repair and replace existing infrastructure, of which $354 million is earmarked for work that is overdue and has been deferred from prior years. This issue is not unique to Guelph – across Ontario, it is estimated that it will cost $52 billion to bring all municipal infrastructure into a state of good repair.
While Guelph continues to address these near-term challenges, the City has also identified major infrastructure needs on the horizon. One example is Guelph’s water supply system which, in its current state, does not have the capacity to support the projected population growth into 2051. While expansion works are planned to address this shortfall, Guelph is a groundwater community, which means that there is a limit to local water availability. Even with robust conservation practices, up to 70 per cent of Guelph’s drinking water is currently supplied through a single aqueduct. Addressing these challenges and bringing in external water capacity faster will require significant investment and provincial support, as these costs cannot reasonably be borne by municipal taxes.
While one-time provincial funding programs have been helpful in getting specific projects off the ground, they have not been able to address the major infrastructure funding gap faced by Guelph. Going forward, a shift away from special purpose and competitive grants towards long-term stable funding will be required to meaningfully address Guelph’s infrastructure growth and renewal needs without exacerbating affordability concerns for current residents.
Affordable and Community Housing
The City of Guelph and other local governments require sustainable and increased financial support to enable and provide affordable and community housing.
Guelph is facing a significant shortage of affordable and community housing for individuals and families at risk of homelessness. Across Guelph and Wellington County, the number of families accessing emergency shelters has more than doubled between 2023 and 2024, and nearly 6000 families live in housing which is unaffordable or inadequate.
Provincial funding to communities has not kept up with this growing demand. With an increased number of people using housing services, provincial funds have been increasingly diverted to operating expenses, leaving little funds available for the construction of new affordable and community housing.
In response, local governments have increased contributions to support housing supply. Guelph has contributed $3.63 million for local supportive housing projects since 2021, and has provided City-owned land to support new developments. Across Ontario, municipal housing spending has doubled since 2017 and now represents 65.1 per cent of all housing expenditures. While communities are working towards addressing these needs, this level of spending is unsustainable, and cannot be supported by local governments in the long term.
Faced with growing demand, predictable financial support is needed to allow communities to enable and provide deeply affordable and supportive housing.
Provincial-Municipal Housing Collaboration
The City of Guelph calls for provincial-municipal collaboration to develop housing policies which respect municipal jurisdiction, reduce reliance on municipal property taxes for growth, and meaningfully address the barriers to developing housing supply.
Housing start numbers are not keeping up with the need across Ontario. In 2024, only 9 out of 50 municipalities were able to meet their provincially-assigned housing targets, with others falling behind largely due to economic forces outside of their control. Construction costs have risen at a significantly higher rate than most other goods and services since 2020, and high interest rates have made it harder for people to afford mortgages, and for developers to finance construction.
In light of these challenges, improving housing supply is a top priority for Guelph. Over the past year, we have made significant progress towards meeting our Housing Accelerator Fund commitments, including the following actions:
Approving zoning by-law amendments in December 2024 to allow up to four units on low-density properties to encourage “missing middle” housing,
Developing a new Housing Affordability Strategy which outlines 30 actions to facilitate the construction of 6,060 new affordable rental units and 2,640 affordable ownership homes by 2051,
Developing a draft Community Planning Permit by-law, which would provide more flexible development standards for adding affordable housing units to new buildings in key growth areas.
Developing an incentive program to promote affordable housing development to be launched in spring 2025
Additionally, the City has made essential progress in expediting approvals and cutting red tape. Since 2022, we:
Reduced Official Plan Amendment approval times by 142 per cent,
Reduced zoning application approval times by 117 per cent, and
Reduced site plan application approval times by 481 per cent.
These are just a few of the actions that we have taken to remove barriers and improve housing supply and affordability in Guelph. Unfortunately, provincial planning legislation changes that took place since 2022 have introduced uncertainty into the municipal planning environment and have made it more challenging for Guelph and other municipalities to maintain momentum to meaningfully enable growth. These major legislative changes, which often occurred without sufficient municipal consultation, have redirected municipal time and attention towards understanding and responding to the shifting policy environment, and have made Guelph more reliant on property taxes and utility rates to fund growth.
Looking forward, provincial-municipal collaboration will be essential to address housing supply and affordability. By leveraging municipal experience and provincial jurisdiction, future housing initiatives and legislative changes could accelerate housing, while minimizing unintended impacts, and reducing reliance on municipal property taxes and utility rates for growth.
Community Safety and Wellbeing
Following housing affordability, social issues and wellbeing were the second most reported priority for Guelph’s residents in 2024. 15 per cent of those surveyed indicated that poverty, homelessness, and social issues were the top issues that should receive attention from local leaders.
A significant portion of the Guelph community is facing housing barriers, affordability concerns, or health challenges that are negatively impacting their quality of life. Local governments are increasingly stepping up to compensate for lack of funding on areas of provincial responsibility in health and social services, however, municipal property taxes cannot sustainably fund these essential needs.
The following calls to action reflect the key issues on community safety and wellbeing that can be addressed with provincial support and coordination.
Homelessness, Mental Health and Substance Use
The City of Guelph calls for intergovernmental collaboration to address systemic gaps in mental health and substance use services, and to integrate health and housing to reflect the complex nature of community wellbeing.
Guelph and other communities across Ontario continue to face an unprecedented level of homelessness, substance use, and mental health challenges. The recently published report on homelessness by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario paints a stark picture – in 2024, an estimated 81,515 Ontarians experienced known homelessness, of which over half are experiencing chronic homelessness. These numbers demonstrate systemic failures which extend beyond housing, reflecting gaps in healthcare, mental health services, and more.
In Guelph, there are significant gaps in the availability of mental health, substance use, and homelessness services. The 2023 Review and Gap Analysis Report found that those seeking affordable psychotherapy, substance use counselling, or psychiatric services find themselves with no readily available options or long waitlists. Furthermore, a lack of integration of various support services makes it difficult for vulnerable individuals to navigate the system and find necessary support.
The Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub model represents the type of integrated, wrap-around support service that is needed to stabilize the most vulnerable community members. However, there is a need for systemic change and system-wide integration of healthcare and housing to meaningfully address this crisis. Looking forward, continued funding to communities and intergovernmental collaboration will be essential.
Community-based Health Initiatives
The City of Guelph seeks permanent and predictable funding for community health initiatives, including the Community Paramedicine for Long Term Care program, to address healthcare gaps and reduce strain on hospital and emergency resources.
Community-based health initiatives have a proven track record of proactively addressing health needs in vulnerable populations, improving public health outcomes, and diverting individuals from hospitalization.
In Guelph, the Community Paramedicine for Long Term Care (CPLTC) program provides cost effective and high-quality at-home care for individuals with long-term care needs. Community paramedics provide monitoring and basic care, act as liaison to other medical professionals, and help reduce strain on hospital resources and caregivers. Guelph community paramedics visited an average of 18 patients per day in 2023, helping individuals with complex needs live independently and maintain a high quality of life.
Currently, the CPLTC and other programs are funded by the province under a contract model, with funding often allocated on a year-to-year basis. This unpredictable funding model makes it challenging to plan for the future, budget for capital investments, and hire permanent staff – all required to provide consistent and high-quality levels of service. With CPLTC funding scheduled to end in March 2026, any program expansions planned by Guelph Wellington Paramedic services are highly limited.
To support the provision of innovative community health programs which increase quality of life and proactively address health concerns, the province will need to provide predictable and sustainable funding to local governments and service providers.
Renter Housing Security
The City of Guelph calls for operational improvements to the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, and centralized provincial coordination of Residential Tenancies Act enforcement efforts to ensure housing security for renters.
Renters account for 34 per cent of all households in Guelph – a percentage that is expected to grow as immigration contributes to new population growth, and home prices remain high in the coming years. While renters in Ontario are afforded various protections under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), enforcement of these rules remains a challenge. The Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) – the tribunal responsible for adjudicating cases and enforcing the RTA – is facing significant backlogs and operational challenges, with over 36,000 cases awaiting trial as of March 2024. This backlog has created a threat to tenants facing unfair evictions and unsuitable living conditions, with some waiting for months for action on situations threatening their housing security.One emerging threat to renter housing security are renovictions – a tactic used by bad faith landlords to evict tenants under the guise of major renovations. Under this practice, tenants are made to vacate their unit to allow for major renovation work, and following the completion of work, the unit is re-listed on the market for a significantly higher price. While tracking the true scale of this problem is challenging, the number of N13 notices received by the LTB – a proxy measure for renovictions – has more than tripled since 2017. Apart from threatening the housing security of affected tenants, renovictions also shrink the already limited supply of affordable rental housing.
Municipalities are on the front lines of this crisis and are exploring local solutions. Some municipalities in Ontario have developed their own anti-renoviction by-laws and enforcement programs, however those efforts are costly, and see municipal resources being used to enforce matters of provincial responsibility.
Looking forward, the province must continue investing in reducing backlogs and streamlining operations of the LTB and ensure centralized coordination RTA enforcement to proactively prevent illegal evictions across Ontario.
For more information
Kimberly Krawczyk
Manager, Policy and Intergovernmental Relations
Strategic Initiatives and Intergovernmental Services
City of Guelph
519-822-1260 extension 3464 [email protected]
