It was a cool, crisp, and sunny late-fall afternoon. It was the perfect weather to enjoy a little time outside, learning about the vast swath of land that the City of Guelph wants to develop for 25,000 new residents.
This past Sunday, the Protect Our Moraine Coalition - a group made up of the Wellington Water Watchers, Nature Guelph, and several others - hosted a bus our of the area affected by the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan. The details of the plan have been controversial, but how many of us are familiar with the land itself?
About 50 people got a little more familiar with the area and it's unique challenges as the bus stopped at South End Community Park, went along Maltby Road, and down Clair to Gordon and finally to the Marcolongo Farm, where tour guide Mike Marcolongo would like to see the creation of a new heritage park and affordable housing. Marcolongo has been one of the loudest skeptics about the City's plans for Clair-Maltby.
For this edition of the podcast, you'll hear excerpts from the tour, which in the end was about three hours long and a bit unwieldy to hear unabridged. What's in this podcast will hopefully provide insight into the important issues being considered in crafting the finished Secondary Plan in terms of density, wildlife and water protections, traffic, parkland, and community design.
Before beginning, let's be clear: this is not a protest. No one's saying to put the brakes on the development completely, but what the Protect Our Moraine folks are suggesting is that the plan, as it stands, falls short in terms of the what people have come to expect from a public policy leader like Guelph. Has the development of the secondary plan so far met the aspirations we have for our City? I guess we'll see.
So let's tour the lands of the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan on this edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can find all the materials for the development of the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan so far here, and you can stay up to date about any and all future consultations by emailing clair-maltby@guelph.ca. In the meantime, the City will be accepting feedback about the Policy Directions for Clair-Maltby through January 2nd, and you can learn how to communicate your thoughts and concerns here.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here.
Remember that the Politicast Podbean channel is also the host for podcast versions of Open Sources Guelph. The previous Thursday’s episode of Open Sources will be posted on Mondays.
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