Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the special council meeting on June 15, 2026. Individuals interested in participating in today's meeting were eligible to register online using the delegation registration form at www.kitchener.ca/delegation or via email at delegation@kitchener.ca. Any written comments received prior to the commencement of this evening's meet or this afternoon's meeting have been circulated to members of council and will form part of the public record. The meeting live stream and archived videos are available at www.kitchener.ca/watch.now. Before we begin this afternoon's meeting, I'd like to acknowledge that today we're gathering on the traditional territory of the neutral Anesnabi and Hodeni peoples. We recognize our responsibility to serve as stewards for the land and honor the original caretakers who came before us. Our communities enriched by the enduring knowledge and deeprooted traditions of the diverse First Nations, Matei and Inuit in Kitchener today. Are there any disclosures of pecunary interest? You turned yourself off. Councelor Johnson, go ahead. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do have a conflict on item 4.1 due to my employment. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh and you're and that's on the whole item. Okay, thank you. Um, anything else? No other comments. Okay, that has been noted. Um, we'll now move into um we'll begin with staff's uh presentation. Um, and uh, Mr. Bloom, you'd like to bring forward Make It Kitchener 2.1. Well, good afternoon, Mayor and uh members of council. Uh I want to start by taking you back to the fall of 2020. Uh it was a time when the the economy was booming and our city was one of the fastest growing communities in Canada. It's also a time where affordability was a significant challenge and we're faced with uh with a global pandemic that we' never faced before being that there was significant uh uncertainty at the time. So following significant uh community engagement, you approved Make a Kitchener 2.0, a bold 10-year strategy uh aimed at uh tackling the challenges of five years ago. And so the strategy had six areas of focus which were aimed at balancing both the need for immediate response to the challenges of the pandemic for example as well as keeping our eye on long-term investments that needed to make sure our economy would continue to grow uh in areas such as health innovation which we knew at the time uh would be a major major growth opportunity. Uh since that time in the past five years uh this council and staff have made uh as many as 17 major investments into these areas to advance advance progress uh in all six areas of focus. And while 2024 brought a level of stability, 2025 essentially unearthed that stability. a global trade and tariff uh challenges, the onset of the true onset of AI being integrated into the workforce, uh rising prices at within industries, student uh immigration being limited, etc., etc., multitude of negative forces impacting us uh last year. I know I've said this to this this council before. In my 25 years, I have not experienced a time when so many negative pressures were facing our our community and our economy at once as it was last year. So, beginning in September, we started to engage our community to look at uh given this was a 10-year strategy, we're at the midpoint, what might it look like if we were to look uh at the next five years, what changes do we need to make to refocus where we're headed? And so what we've heard uh first and foremost both from residents, business leaders uh and businesses is that procarity and and uncertainty are really top of mind. Uh we you heard from our uh from a Canadian economist Eric Prozzer on the importance and the need for us to diversify our economy. One way we create stability and certainty is by continuing to diversify our employment base. We're fortunate that water region is one of the most diverse uh economies in Canada, but that doesn't mean we should uh rest on our laurels. We need to continue to push and diversify our economy. We heard from the business community the need to reignite private sector investment through catalytic investments from uh that the city can lead. We also heard very much that in in today's day uh talent is more mobile than ever and and we need to make sure to appreciate that talent matters and in order for our community to be compelling to talent, our downtown matters the most. And lastly, we heard the need for us to be bold in this time of uncertainty. Council, you recall at the strategy session in February uh where we shared with you uh results of the five areas of focus that we've we've we've been focused on four potential new areas uh you went through a prioritization exercise with us and what I can share what you hopefully have seen in the strategies those areas uh that are bolded and in blue have been translated into the new strategy. So, I'm excited to share with you today our proposed Make a Kitchener 2.1 uh with new areas of focus. And so, to be clear, today you're not approving any new initiatives. You're you're you are approving the focus that staff will take and the in the types of initiatives that we will bring forward to you in the coming years uh to make decisions on those at a future date. Uh core to make a kitchen 2.1 really are two what we're calling areas of impact. First and foremost, an overall area of impact around diversifying our economy. So, a call to action for us uh both as as a staff team and council to focus on these four potential areas of focus. So, first and foremost, uh leading a business attraction, retention, and expansion program. So, multi-year effort largely driven by uh an internal staff team. As you're aware, we've been realigning our business development team to to be able to make significant headway on this work in partnership largely with Waterl Economic Development Corporation. Uh so while that will will support the here and now and those those businesses that have been impacted by today's uncertainty, we also need to continue to look forward uh which is why we still need to focus on health innovation uh working with the University of Wateroo and the medical innovation exchange on a validation ecosystem which will will allow the 130 plus startups that are actively working in health innovation space now to get to commercialization. We also think this will won't just help the companies that are here now, but actually will create significant opportunities for companies around Canada to want to come to Kitchener uh to take advantage of that facility. Thirdly, we need to continue to look even f forward into the future knowing that AI and quantum will be significant impacts to our economy and will create new opportunities. And you'll hear more about the AI front from uh Mr. McCormack uh after myself. And lastly, to diversify our economy, we're suggesting we continue what we've started, which is a unique uh municipal network of micro incubators. We've already have three that are actively in place. Uh the fourth on health innovation will is set to open later this year, and we intend to bring you business cases on food and music later this year, enabling six unique uh subsets of small businesses and entrepreneurs to uh to advance their business. And so while we're diversifying the economy, we know we also need to make sure that our downtown is vibrant. And so a second area of impact is for us to have a bold vision for downtown Kitchener with with two distinct areas where we think we can make significant impact. And so first around arts and entertainment uh and why we've selected these two uh one because they obviously make strategic sense but also because of the asset base that we start with. So the teal circles are publicly owned assets or or public city supported assets in arts and entertainment and the purple ones are both public and private uh facilities that support innovation. So when you look at what we have downtown, we already have pretty extensive networks both focused on arts and entertainment as well as as innovation. So what will it look like to support those? Uh it it will be the need for potential need for catalytic investments. So a major investment for example on the arts and entertainment front uh in a major draw to attract large volumes of visitors and really bring uh that sector uh to full full potential. And on the innovation district front to ensure it remains as one of the top innovation districts in Canada looking at a potential uh additional innovation center much like the innovation arena or the community tech hub uh to really grow the next future of businesses. How will we fund this work? Uh fortunately, we would we we've built uh EDIFF 2.0. Uh so we have an ability to fund projects still out of that fund. Although I'll note that uh a large proportion of that was to come from our strategic land model. And given where uh uh land prices are today, uh we just caution council that our ability to to bring land forward and use it uh may not be as fast as we may have anticipated five years ago and we may need to be more cautious in in in our expectations around our ability to use and leverage that funding. Uh that said, uh we we're we're excited about the plan in front of you, uh because we also feel like it stays true to what the community asked us five years ago, uh when they when they gave us this model, which is not just growth for the sake of growth, but that that we stand up and be the city that does the most good in the world, because they feel if any community in the world can do it, it should be kitchen. Uh so that uh uh I'll be on hand after to answer questions. I think the next uh course of action is Sheldon McCormack who's going to come up and speak to the community component the proposal. So unless there's any emergent questions from the mayor. >> No, that's uh thanks uh thanks Corey for the uh the presentation. We'll come back to to questions uh for you. Um and uh before I invite Mr. McCormack up. Um I'll just do the normal blurb that we have to do for all delegations. So um to all delegations, the city values and encourages participation and dialogue in a democratic process that occurs in council and committee meetings and through written submissions and correspondence. It's important that these interactions remain respectful towards other members of the public, staff and council. In cases where dialogue is not respectful or a delegate interrupts the mayor, counselor staff or other delegations, makes derogatory statements about the mayor, counselor, staff, or others that are disrespectful, or uses language that is considered harmful or defamatory, the chair may interject and take necessary actions to maintain a respectful and inclusive environment for everyone, which could involve removal from the meeting. One last reminder, delegations are permitted to address council for a maximum 5 minutes, which will be displayed on the screens in front of you. When there's 30 seconds remaining in your time, you'll hear a small audio tone that will signal 30 seconds remaining. Please take that time to conclude your presentation as there will be a second tone at the completion of your time and the microphones will turn off automatically shortly after the exceeded five minute mark. Lastly, please do not take of offense if following your presentation there's no questions from council. This is council's time to really listen and reflect upon the opinions and ideas shared with us from our community members. And with that, Mr. McCormack, I'll invite you up. Don't be too harsh on us. >> As Mr. Mr. McCorm is getting set. Just to give you context. So, as a reminder, two years ago, council approved a 4-year partnership agreement with Communitech uh to continue to support uh the tech and startup ecosystem. Uh there was a request as part of that approval was that at the midyear mark or at the midpoint after two years that uh uh the city staff and community tech would revisit the purpose and the intention of of what would be delivered through that programming and given that we were also refreshing Mega Kitchener, it made sense to do both at the same time. So, uh Mr. McCormack who's the CEO of community is going to share with you uh what the next two years will look like. >> Well, thank you very much um mayor and members of council for for having me in this afternoon. Last year um was the first time I addressed you and you were a very intimidating group for a CEO of about I think 12 days at that point in time. your equally intimidating group, but I'm no longer the new guy, so can ask me all the difficult questions this year that you may held back last year. Um, I would say uh it has been a real pleasure uh getting to know the region over the last 12 months. Uh personally it's been a fantastic experience for myself and my family and um one of the highlights has been getting to know city staff who've worked very closely with community as well as you know several folks around the room tonight and I did want to start by uh acknowledging Brian who I think is close to uh to retirement um and has been a wonderful partner to myself and community tech so uh uh wanted to u give him a proper shout out when I had the opportunity. And now on to my uh you know official business. So, oh no, Corey, I thought you might have warmed this up. There we go. Um, Communite Techch, as many of you know, has been a long-standing partner uh with the city of Kitchener. Uh, we are a membershipbased organization representing the collective of founders and entrepreneurs and their teams building technology companies in Waterl region. And our vision is to foster a globally competitive technology ecosystem here in Waterl region that's anchored by local companies that start here scale here and stay here. And although we've been uh partner with the city of Kitchener for many many years uh as Corey mentioned over the last two specifically we had a focus on really reconnecting the the community of technology companies coming out of the COVID pandemic. and so pleased to share that we have uh over the last uh several quarters interacted with over 700 startup companies. Uh we have had over 150 companies participate in structured acceleration programming. We've had over 30 active peer groups of executives and leaders in the region convening here in downtown Kitchener. Um and almost countless uh large events uh some having two three 400 people here in downtown Kitchener. Uh we've also had some successes with procurement pathways with startup companies that we've been in a able to introduce to the city. Uh and the city has gone on to be an anchor company for them. And going off script, I'm happy to share that um this year actually we're trending to have the highest number uh of startup technology companies join community since any year since 2016. So a a 10-year high uh that we're on track for. And last year we saw a 60% increase in engagement with community tech over the year prior. So lots of momentum. We greatly appreciate the support. But as we look forward uh we are being just like the city uh responsive to what's happening in the world. We are now in the AI era and so we are ensuring that community stays relevant and current in convening the AI era here in downtown Kitchener. Uh so you'll see community is endeavoring to support over 300 companies with AI workshops, boot camps, acceleration programs, staying very responsive to the needs of those companies as the AI era evolves. It's become a critical uh piece of the technology industry. I would say software has become uh AI and AI will become the software industry moving forward. The critical question is whether we and Kiter will be able to compete and harness uh the opportunity and I think together we most certainly should be optimistic well set up to do that. Uh we will be building the next generation of AI companies but we also want to make sure that we do it in a way that uh has equity at the forefront and brings the entire community along. And so with your partnership we'll continue our fierce founders acceleration program which supports female non-barinary founders. We aim to support over 60 companies in this program over the next year. Uh 15 high potential companies will receive grants of between uh 30 and $50,000. Um and in fact one of the most successful events at downtown Kitchener's Tannery Event Center last year was our International Women's Day celebration over 200 female entrepreneurs. One of the things we're going to be doing over the course of the next year is turning our students uh into entrepreneurs as well. So pleased to share that our AI at work program now has a tremendous amount of momentum where we have teams of Laurier Konos College University of Waterl students actually deployed out into small and medium-sized businesses in the region. We have 21 students currently deployed across seven local businesses healthcare services manufacturing the defense supply chain and that program will scale up and continue with your support. Um greatly appreciate your time today and happy to answer any questions you may have. Wonderful. Thank you. Uh thank you very much uh Mr. McCormack and we do have a number of questions for you. Um hopefully they're not intimidating ones. Uh councelor Singh. >> Thank you Mr. Mayor Sheldon. You do have a lot more experience and I think you're fortunate this is election year. Most of us will be or most elect uh elected officials tend to become more shell shocked. So I don't think there's going to be any intimidation coming our way towards you. more of I think for us to really figure out a way to continue on making Kiter look and feel amazing. uh which comm community techch continues to lead in that landscape but the overall environment has shifted in the sense that um from outside perspective again I'm speaking only as an outsider myself uh there's more pessimism and uncertainty as to where the economy is leading and where the jobs are heading towards and what we can do locally continue on thriving and promoting our incubation and startup startup culture. So speaking of that scaleups, it's great that we are supportive, always have been for startups, but it's equally important to see scaleups happening here, which we've su succeeded and benefited in the past. What are we seeing now towards scaleups? >> Well, I'll answer it in in two respects. So one thing I'll share is you you you want to have your you want to be widening and growing the funnel of startup companies and also helping the companies that are already formed to succeed. Uh as a result of the support of council, we've been able at community techch specifically to unlock quite significant f federal funding uh from the fedev uh and from fedev we've been able to have dedicated sca what we call the scaleup platform which is a multi-million dollar investment in local scaleup companies. So that's actually serves as a very good example of what the continued partnership with the city of Kitchener can help us to unlock. Um, specifically now I would say there's there's cause to be optimistic because we have some of the highest rates of startup formation. Uh, 2024, 2025, now 2026 are record years relative to highs that we would have saw back in 2014, 15, 16. So you have lots of reasons to be optimistic for where the funnel of scaleup companies will be emerging in the coming years. Okay, I may not have enough time but I'm you know through as others asked questions I think uh if you could answer what can Kitchener do more towards a scaleup support? I know that feds obviously have an important role to play in the province as well but what can we do beyond what we're doing right now u the incubation but I'll quickly jump to another question um I'll mention a couple then you can just free flow answer it so um general sentiment of new graduates coming out of the universities uh or colleges who are going to be that uh formation of a startup uh ecosystem what's their feeling right now compared to past >> 3 four years ago second thing is going to be about philanthropy. Uh we have succeeded over the last decade of succeeding in growing businesses here locally and many have benefited through community tech through the city of Kitcher uh commitment and now that they have made their mark in the world. Are we at a point in time starting to increasingly uh tap them and say hey you got to come back you got to help us. You got to mentor. You got to coach you have to support the area that you grew out of. What are we doing in that? Um, the last question I'll ask is if someone else were was asking you why Kitner because we're not the the lone wolf anymore. Everyone's doing what we're doing. And h how could we still convince them why Kitner? Thank you. >> Well, in terms of scaleups, what can you do? Keep doing what you're doing in terms of making government anchor customer. I think there's good momentum in that regard. But if you can give uh entrepreneurs at the scale up phase revenue, uh there's nothing more powerful than that. So I'd encourage staff and and local politicians to continue to build procurement pathways for local government to be an anchor customer. Your question on uh students um we should be well aware that this is incredibly difficult time to recruit and retain talent because of the power of the US tech sector. Uh the tech sector in the United States has grown immensely. Look no further than the percentage of the S&P 500 that's made up of US tech companies, top 10 companies in the world. Most of them are large US tech companies and they have done a very very good job of finding sophisticated ways to recruit students who are being educated here. uh the more that we can do to connect those students into our community early so that they can experience the fullness of of what we have to offer I think is the way that you keep some of those students here. Introducing them not just into our community but also to worldclass leading work that they can find here. And remember that the students change over every two or three years and we may get sick of telling the same story but we have to maintain a high level of persistence in telling that story because we have a a wonderful story to share. Um specifically to your question on philanthropy, I think there's more we can do to encourage those who have benefited from the investment and the the density in our ecosystem. Uh to encourage them and make it easy for them to find ways to to give back. That's certainly something that I'm focused on and keeping top of mind and I stressed the membership nature of community is in part because I want uh mentors to be members to give back to that next generation. And then I think your last question was why Kiter uh there's no place that balances quality of life with the density of talent. So as a former entrepreneur myself and as someone who could uh build a business anywhere uh this would be top of my list because of that balance between quality of life and the density of people that you have. Councelor Schneider. >> Thank you, Mayor Sean. Thanks again for coming in. It's always great to visit community tech and feel the positive energy that's inside that building. Um, part of what we're doing here uh with making Kitchener 2.1 is is the new vision for downtown Kitchener. And uh I think it's safe to say that investing in community uh really helped our downtown, but we want to continue to help the downtown that we have lots of office space. Uh we want to know what people want in the downtown. Um, what are the the possibilities of working together with community to to develop a strategy to maybe have some scaleups, move into the downtown buildings we have and create the kind of downtown with the the kind of amenities that uh people would want downtown? >> Well, I've actually been quite encouraged with some of the work the city staff have been leading on this respect. I'm involved in a downtown U strategy um this summer and and I and I'm with quite keen interest looking forward to participating in that process. Uh as you know way ways have working uh in the technology industry have changed coming out of COVID. Um and so I would encourage just a high level collaboration between our local businesses, our technology ecosystem, uh government staff, uh local landlords. I think that kind of collaboration is critical in this moment. U I would say that there seems to be a um the ways of work have changed but there seems to be an insatiable appetite for folks to be convened together particularly in the early stage uh startup and scaleup ecosystem to be able to get into the same room and celebrate success build trust build networks. Uh that's a that's a critical piece of the early stage journey and so we look to uh to be working with city staff and local landlords to continue to uh to build that energy downtown. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Schneider. Councelor Davey, >> thank you. Thanks for your presentation, Sheldon. Uh just a quick question. Can you give us a um anecdotal reflection on um companies that are starting here but then leaving to go elsewhere? Is that still an area of concern? >> My bigger concern counselor is students who leave before we have a chance to even get properly introduced. If you look at the number of companies that are formed by students we had in this community for five or six years that ultimately look like a California based company but could have been Kitchener based company. It's it's a staggering number. And so I think we have quite a lot of success with companies once they start building here. There's so many reasons to stay pertaining to quality of life, access to investment, access to talent. It's that step earlier where I'd encourage us to focus. >> Okay. But are are companies still leaving though? >> I sorry just follow question too. When a company does start there and then um moves along and they they leave the country, they leave entirely. Is there any residual like tangible benefit for the local community once they do? Well, it's certainly a loss uh to the community if a if a if a company leaves. I'd say my greater concern at this time is not companies that are leaving the technology sector locally, but it's talent that leaks before a company forms. U the there's an opportunity to introduce more of our local students into this ecosystem. And if we can do that consistently, I think we'll see startup formation rates grow at a at a more significant rate. And ultimately we want more bigger anchor local companies here. To do that we have to consistently be building the funnel. >> Okay. Has there ever been any thought given because my understanding is a lot of the grants that are given come with literally no no strings attached. Has there ever been any thought put towards um like an equity investment or something along those lines? >> I think two things. I think outcomes orientation is critical to ensure that any investor, whether it's private or public, is getting a good return on the investment. And that's certainly something that I'm very keen to continue to build on at Community Tech is making sure that we've got quantifiable outcomes that I can come back and and share with all of you uh given the trust in the stewardship we all have for the public investments that occur. Uh it might be a question for the city staff or uh pertaining to whether there's ever been consideration of taking equity positions. It's not something that I've had conversations uh about with city of Kitchener staff over the last year, but it's possible that it may predate. >> Okay. Thank you. And last question going uh from the thousand foot perspective, just um you've been doing this for a little while now, so living and breathing it. I'm just curious on your perspective um going forward if you do believe that um artificial intelligence is the biggest economic growth um possibility going forward is the first question and the second question to not so you're so you're not necessarily criticizing us specifically but um is the government investing as much as we need to to make sure that we are have a part of that that pie? Well, I have high conviction on your first point. I think artificial intelligence will be one of the most uh transformative waves that has ever swept the technology industry and it will infiltrate every aspect of our economy. I suspect we will live through an enormous retrofit of our entire uh technology industry but also uh traditional sectors. And what we're seeing out of the US is a just unprecedented amount of u of investment um in the trillions of dollars that will continue uh in in in coming years. Um I've been encouraged with my conversations with Canadian uh policy makers. U we've seen uh the federal government announced its AI for all strategy just two weeks ago. I think there's lots of promising signs that we're not going to see the opportunity pass us by. U but and and you know the partnership we have here that staff are that are introducing with us today I would say would be evidence of of policy makers in Canada kind of stepping up to take advantage of the opportunity. >> Okay. Very diplomatic but thank you. >> Thanks Councelor Davey. Councelor Chapman. >> Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Um I also had a question about the startups but I think you answered it. Um the other question I had is regarding AI and um yeah it's wonderful um and I see you know it's around us everywhere and it's going to continue to grow but in your from your perspective how do we balance the growth of AI with the um building of data centers which require huge amounts of electricity and water? Um, and so what how do you balance that and what what would you suggest to to us as a city and and the region maybe more importantly? >> Maybe speaking personally um I think we would we need to ask ourselves in the technology industry what is it going to take to build trust with this technology. Uh I think the minister of AI and digital adoption and Solomon's very clear he has this line around AI you know moving at the speed of trust ultimately through our economy. I think it would serve the technology industry very well if it was not people like me who are talking about AI but actually the users of it. So, how does AI impact the life of a charge nurse who can save two or three hours a day because scheduling is more bearable or less cumbersome? Uh, or how does AI serve to increase safety on a construction site and have a somebody on site actually be able to articulate the benefits? So, I've been asking myself that question. How do you have the the users of the technology, folks who are benefiting, be able to be the ones who are championing it? Um, and so partially what we're working through at Community Techch is to try to accelerate the diffusion of the technology into the hands of of those people. Um, and so this program we call AI at work is endeavoring to do just that. It's trying to get our students to be deployed into the middle market. Um, which is a positive educational experience for them, but more importantly, uh, for our local businesses, it's also an opportunity for them to get access to talent that might otherwise that may accelerate their comfort and their understanding of the technology. >> And as far as the data centers, >> what does the future of data centers look like? >> That's a question way above my prey grade I would say counselor. Um certainly something that makes the AI economy different uh from what we experienced in the tech sector over the last 25 years is that AI more profoundly impacts the physical world. Um in that this is not a carbon copy of software that can be replicated millions of times at zero marginal cost. AI is a metered resource. Um and so from our critical minerals through to energy through to infrastructure and delivery uh we will see for the first time the real infusion of the technology industry with the physical world and I suspect it will uh cause us to ask some fairly profound questions. >> Councelor Dun. >> Thank you uh Mr. Mayor. Uh thank you Sheldon for coming out today. Uh a couple questions. And so we you mentioned uh students not staying here and going down south and and there are a lot of reasons why we can't necessarily compete with the big the big bad wolf down south, but there are we have distinct advantages, you know, um in our country, in our in our community. What do you think are some of the the biggest lacking uh amenities or um uh experiences that we're missing from our community that other communities have that that will attract young people? share an anecdote from the Socratica symposium which I think was a wonderful event hosted at uh center in the square back in March uh where you saw an example of hundreds of students kind of celebrating entrepreneurship but also the intersection of technology and art and uh creativity more broadly. Um, I asked one of the students who's an organizer of that uh event why she decided to uh leave uh and she said, "Sheldon, I'm I realized at the end of my fourth year that I was too old to stay here in this community." And I kind of had to take a double take on that and laughed. And she went on to say that she was aware of the incredible tech community that existed on campus, but she had no idea that there was something much bigger for her off-campus. And so I thought, well, shame on us. We have this incredible story to tell. And it served as a reminder that the students continue to come in and out of our community on a regular basis. We have to be very active to expose them to what we have. And so it's not so much that I think we're missing something, counselor. I think that we may forget to share what we have uh and to do it in a way that resonates in a very consistent way. That's a really good answer. Um okay. Um a few other questions. First of all, what industry do you think will see the biggest biggest positive impact from AI? and depending on what it is, what can we do as a as a city, as a municipality to support that? Similar to a question raised by your colleague, I would be um would be I'm purely speculating and and uh I would I'd suggest that it's almost impossible to predict which sector within our economy will be most impacted. I feel high degree of confidence in saying that there will be no sector unimpacted. Uh the question is how dramatically and I suspect it will be quite quite significant. Um I think this my experience working with uh the policy makers, politicians, councilors, city staff here is that we actually have quite a forward-looking perspective on this technology here. I encourage staff to continue to be asking questions, engaging in the material, speaking to experts. Um, but does feel to me um that this city is actually on the forefront of asking all the critical questions that uh that we that we should be asking on behalf of of the population at large. >> Okay. And my last question, you know, the last uh last year and a half, we've we've really the country's really leaned into buy Canada, buy local. Um, but I've I've read stories, you know, online from local entrepreneurs saying, you know, we can't get into the Canadian market, we can't get into the Ontario market. And so are there any outside of those other barriers, is there anything we can do from again from our end to say, you know, to put pressure on on upper levels of government to support that by Canadian? You know, we have a place I work at, we use Trulu um uh toilets. It's an American company. There's no reason why we we don't have something like that up here. Now, is there a barrier um literally is there a barrier from preventing companies from working sorry from selling and doing business in Canada? >> If I think there's much much positive intent uh and positive rhetoric and to the degree that you can continue to reinforce now the practical implementation of those by by Canada by Ontario policies uh that would be my uh my hope. um and thinking broadly uh and critically about what is the definition of a local company. I think that there's lots of ways to characterize a multinational company as local when in fact we stare at it. We kind of know uh that it may look like a US or other global company. So being critical about the definition of a local company and ensuring that we take into consideration the economic impact uh and not just the uh cost of production when evaluating options would be my hope. >> Thank you. Thank you >> councettis. >> Thank you mayor Verbanovic and thanks Sheldon for for coming in. Um, I guess my questions I have I have I have several, but my first question would be how has affordability affected our market compared to the other tech markets? >> Well, I'll use the opportunity to perhaps share another anecdote. Uh, I get to spend a lot of my time with students. Uh I think students are a wellspring of innovation in our community for for and uh you know one of the struggles that many of those students have is they'll say that the cost of uh rent is similar here as it is in other major metros. Cost of buying a home is obviously significant. Um the impact on an entrepreneur is it's very difficult to go without a salary if you have a very very expensive rent to pay. And so I do know that that is uh weighs heavily on the mind of a lot of local students which There may may have been a time a decade or two ago where when they looked at the tradeoff between Toronto or California or Kiter uh there was uh there was more of a gap in affordability than than there may be today. So I do think to that extent it does impact the uh leakage of talent that we need to be fighting against. >> Okay, that's kind of what I thought. My sec my other question would be with regards to I know some of our other members of council here or committee here have mentioned but tariffs can you just give me a straight up opinion how tariffs have affected the market in general because if it seems like to me that's a huge barrier why would I stay here and deal with tariffs when I can just go down south >> it certainly creates a level of uncertainty and paralysis that makes it more difficult to raise capital. And so I' I'd suggest in the technology industry where I spend most of my time, the impact has been more indirect than direct. Um the two areas in which they're very impactful is number one your customer's customer is likely impacted directly if not you and that has takes a toll and then as I said on the investment climate the ability to raise capital when there's lingering uncertainty it's very difficult to get a yes from an investor and that impacts our local ecosystem. >> Okay. Uh my third question would be have we looked strategically uh with other markets to to partnership for example like uh I know in the past and I feel like it's we've sort of slipped a little bit here but we had several organizations working together with a common goal to to to to attract business here. I don't feel like that's happening. But again, I would like to hear your perspective. >> Actually believe that one of the things that struck me in the first year here in in working professionally uh Kitchener more broadly in Water Region if there is uh sense of collaboration amongst several of the the organizations locally. In fact, uh over just in the last uh 48 hours, my my Thursday and Friday has completely been blown up because we have a very exciting uh technology company who is planning or at least considering a move to this region. This is a company well well over a billion dollars with hundreds of staff and they're considering moving their HQ here locally. Um, and what I've experienced in that last 48 hours is many organizations locally, including several entrepreneurs that don't even work in the sector getting together to do to kind of line up and do whatever they can to help support uh the broader sale uh uh that we can all make as a region to have this company relocate here. Uh so as I reflect on my first year at community, I'd say one of the most pleasant things uh pleasant surprise has been the the level of collaboration and the willingness to work together. >> Okay. I guess my last question and it would be with regards to what do you want from us like in the sense the mayor goes out and does economic development and and all that stuff but there's 10 other members here that would be glad to help advocate for this community. In fact, it used to happen but it doesn't happen anymore. And so what I'm what I'm getting at is do you need a more comprehensive strategy from this council to help advocate for for for your for your s for your needs? Like do you need more active involvement from members of council or do you does this council in itself should take on a greater responsibility to support you and your organization is what I'm trying to get at. >> I think this council has done a tremendous job in supporting our organization. U and so I I' I'd value the uh the level of support that we have received historically. Um, I think as I said, I'll end perhaps where I began, which is I also think city staff as well as uh, you know, many folks around the room here have been incredibly supportive to to our organization and many others and I hear that from entrepreneurs as well. So, I'd get I'd encourage you to be doing more of that. U, I think the region overall has an incredible story to tell. uh uh we can't take for granted uh that we have all these incredible assets from universities and colleges to anchor employers, private sector, uh startups, scaleups. Um the critical thing that I think about is how do we make sure that for a community that has all the ingredients, how do you make those ingredients compound? Um and so critical that we continue to collaborate and amplify all the the amazing assets that we have in the region. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Council Stretch. Stephanie, go ahead. Can you say something? >> Maybe not. >> There's something going on with your sound. Your >> Yeah, your sound. Try turning off your um try turning off your uh your video. Try turn try speaking now with your video off. Okay. Uh Stephanie Sta staff will send you a message and uh we'll we'll see if we can figure it out. Force comes to earth. Turn your machine on and off. Um >> I thought it only ever happened to me, so I'm happy to see this. >> That that always works. Uh, councelor Singh. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think the questions have been so broad, Sheldon, that uh you may not want to take up us on this, but we this council definitely needs to take you out for dinner and just pick your brain cuz I think there's just so much more understanding and learning of the overall market and just figuring out of box some solutions that goes beyond what this type of opportunity really allows. Um I want to touch on some things that came out of this discussion which um I'm quite uh um supportive of as well. What councelor um Davey touched on is how do we so going to my initial question which was scale up and his question how do we potentially take an equity share. So the question would be where a company is not necessarily just on the preface of uh looking for seed funding so looking for venture capital out there but they're just before that scale up opportunity and that's always the best time for maybe a local partner like a municipality potentially to come and say hey there's some extra dollars would you want to for an equity stake do you think there would be uptake on something like that competing later end it's just too much and the amount of money that we would have at play is insignificant to what the needs are. It's really the question is right before they reaching the scale up phase where they'd need some support, but again, they just don't know where they're going yet. >> Well, I feel reasonably confident in saying there'd be a number of local venture capitalists who'd love for the municipality to invest in their funds. I'm not so sure that they'd be excited about the municipality competing with them directly on getting onto the cap table. We do have some world-class venture capital investors here in Waterl region u and that was not always the case and and I do think as difficult as it is to raise capital for an early stage entrepreneur we should celebrate the fact that today there has there has never been a time like it is now in terms of availability of early stage capital for locally based general partners of venture capital funds u and there may be a unique opportunity to help to continue to to build that uh that strong bench by investing directly in them. They have expertise and capability in building funnels and watching companies and providing advice uh that would be otherwise very difficult to replicate. >> Okay. Look uh as much as we can dream and hope I'm not talking about us uh investing in a future SpaceX where we can completely go off the tax base because we have made enough money from one one company alone. It's really about uh us having some stake where there's some sense of influence once they uh scale up for them to stay local. The second aspect is that there's some skin in the game where the city has come in where we are able to just the very least continue on growing that pot and sustaining that initial seed funding so it can be dispersed to a larger group. So you don't have to answer on the spot, but this would be something I really encourage you to answer back maybe at a later time or engage with our staff because your insight would be crucial in this because we're talking about economic development 2.1 and looking as beyond what staff have outlined. I want like councelor Davey to look for us to look outside the box and this is one of those avenues. The second thing you touched on this is we are so unique. The fact that we have we're maturing and growing talent here in this area. We don't have to track them from anywhere else. They're just coming out of university. Sorry, University of Wateroo, Laurier, Konos Stoga College, uh G University, but sometimes once they graduate, we may have already lost them. Is there any program in year three where there's you know entrepreneurial-minded students where there could be potential city investment in this area as well but through community tech there's more integration to the university where you're g gathering them training them before they know what their idea is. >> I think this is an area of immense opportunity. If I take for example the University of Wateroo world famous for its co-op uh program where at any given time thousands of students are out working and it's part of the reason that those students are uh are valued so highly in the workforce as they get those those reps throughout their term. I think there's more we could do as a community to create conditions for them to do more of those co-op terms here with local companies. the degree that we can facilitate uh working with local medium small businesses that may not have the resources to recruit and train uh and pay for those students. I think that's an enormous opportunity for us and one that we intend to pursue. >> Yeah, the co-op is low hanging fruit. I'm I'm really talking about nurture beyond the co-op programming that the University of Water Lauria whatever other uh institutions may have going outside of the co-op and rather than uh touching and saying hey there's a veil opportunity if you're entrepreneurial minded you have some idea you're thinking about developing some idea this may be a program outside of your studies that's through community tech through the city of Kitchener that's unique next to none that's a kind of what I would love to touch on and hopefully we can talk to our staff later on as well and ask you Just one last question. Uh I'm not trying to put you on the spot because this is important for us cuz beyond asking overall questions about broad things, the thing is how do we make economic 2 development 2.0 for city of Kitchener better? Which is beyond you coming here and saying yes, city of Kitchener's on the right road. As you're thinking about a lot of different things, what's something that you may have thought about asking but haven't asked yet, but you think, you know, might even be afraid of asking the city of Kitchener and you may not have asked yet. you have receptive 11 individuals that are supportive and willing to listen. Thank you. >> So you're that's it's a meta question. It's a what question would I ask you? Um I think we are in the AI era. So to the degree that the city of Kitchener can invest to support our ability to support entrepreneurs as they adapt to the Aera, every net new company needs to be AI native built uh on a new technology stack and every existing company needs to adapt. So that is I would say the theme for now. Um and almost certainly years from now we'll be asking ourselves something very similar with quantum uh computing opportunity. And so, u I'd be asking ourselves, how do we as city of Kitchener continue to stay on the forefront of the adoption of disruptive technologies and I'm very encouraged by what I see from city staff in terms of their commitment to both AI and quantum. >> Okay, we'll try councelor stretch now again. Councelor stretch. >> Hi. Can you hear me? >> We can hear you now. >> Okay, great. Um, I missed a little bit of counselor Singh's the beginning of his question. Um, and it may be the same question, so please forgive me if I'm repeating it. Um, my question really was about retaining talent, and I'm clear on what we as a city can do, um, to retain talent. Um, but I'm curious what community tech can do. I I I heard you talk about there is a need for that and how to connect with those students. So I'm wondering clearly what are what are your ideas to help make that connection earlier and hold on to talent and I'm also curious about where is that talent coming from? Um I'm assuming there are some programs at the University of Wateroo or Laurier that we're referring to or that we're drawing a lot of of talent from. Um but as you know as things change does that talent draw get bigger? Is it getting smaller? And you know what what can community be doing to help uh retain that? I think community can do quite a lot to build uh a what I'll call talent pipeline right between the students and the local businesses that are here. As I alluded to earlier in my remarks, many students whether it's Connoissur College or Laurier or University of Wateroo are simply unaware of the depth and the richness of the local technology ecosystem. And so the degree to which community can act as a as a convenor and a connector cross uh postsecary to the private sector and the startup scaleup technology ecosystem. I think that is an area where we can add a tremendous amount of value. Uh, as I said, we we cannot take for granted that students know about what opportunities are here. Nor can we take for granted that it's incredibly time consuming and resource intensive to recruit those students uh for local small businesses and startup companies. And so, if we can do more to make it easy for them to connect and screen and recruit those students, I I think that could be very valuable. Uh beyond this notion of a talent pipeline, I think we need to get them introduced to uh our community at large, right? Social connectivity. So the degree that we can get out on campus, make sure they're aware of the events that we have happening in downtown Kitchener across the region so that they're exposed to the richness and the diversity of what our community has to offer. Um and so that they see outside the walls of campus. Uh but we cannot expect them to go looking. We need to find ways to uh pull them broadly, you know, into our community. Uh, and then I'm very very uh enthusiastic about our ability to retain them. >> Okay. Um, so Sheldon, what are some of those ways then? I I totally agree with you. Um, so what what are some of those ways community is doing or is currently wanting to do? >> One thing we have in uh in market today is something we call AI at work. That's a program where we recruit students, we screen the students and we place them in local, medium, small businesses so that the students can work in teams to do uh the diffusion of of AI, build custom software or agentic workflows for local small businesses. We announced that uh about four months ago. We had room for 21 students for our first cohort. We had 1,200 applications within five days. So that tells you that there is demand from students uh to work in this community. Um but it is no small feat to then actually uh find the placement opportunity for all those students. So students are ready, they're eager, uh they're willing. Uh what we now need to do is build the pipeline of medium and small businesses that want to take them on, make it easier for them um and scale up that program. And that program actually I'll share more in the in the coming weeks about that. Um, but we have uh secured funding from uh government uh not this one uh but another one to uh to scale that program substantially in the next several quarters. >> Great. That's good news. Okay. Thank you. >> Wonderful. You've uh you've been through the ringer in terms of questions today. But uh that's that is all the questions we have. I I do just want to uh to thank you for taking the time to to come in and and also for the leadership that uh you've shown in in the past uh uh year or so since you've taken uh taken the helm. Um it's really been uh great uh working together with you and your team and uh I know we we look forward to continuing that in the in the months ahead. >> Great. Thank you everybody. >> Thank you. Okay, we'll we'll now deal with uh with questions of staff. Um going back to Corey's presentation. Any questions of Corey? Councelor Davey? >> Yes, thank you. I do have a few questions. Um, I want to start by saying like I I do love like 99% of this, but I do have some concerns um that I just wanted to raise now or maybe just maybe just clarifying questions. Um, the first one is the um diversifying um our economy and I read through the report. I'm still like I'm not completely clear. There's there's diversification in terms of you know we want to diversify away from a bunch of large companies to smaller ones which is what our startups does program does which is great. There's also diversify away from what we're known for, which is the tech industry, which I'm not so comfortable with. So, if I could just get some more clarity on what what we actually mean by diversifying our economy as part of the strategy. >> Go ahead, Mr. Blue. >> Yeah. So through the chair so I'll start sort of big picture is that what we know what makes our community successful is we've got diversity across multiple sectors manufacturing finance tech etc we also know what makes us successful is we have significant diversity within each sector multiple different kinds of manufacturing companies multiple different times of technology companies uh yeah so I think my my simple answer is I wouldn't want it to give an impression that we're moving away from that I think the more diversity we can create within sectors uh and introducing new sectors is the path to the greatest stability. So yeah, I would say no intention to step away from any of our existing core sectors. >> Okay, thank you. And with the the health innovation, this is something I've been warming up to and I think it is referenced in one sentence as well. I also want to be clear on that and actually stemming from the consultants presentation we had some time back which I thought was yeah it was very enlightening. Um the intent here with health innovation is to focus on medical devices like patentable engineering type medical devices not not drugs not vaccines not uh disease research that that's not we're focusing on that's not our strength. it is primarily like the hardware medical devices when we're looking at health innovation that's our core focus is that correct >> through the chair correct that as well as we know that uh just the software data side of of health is there's a big growth opportunity there but if recalling from if you recall from the economist's presentation the hardware component is the least likely to leave community as in it's least likely to be done virtually it's the least likely to be automated and so Yeah, obviously with the work with uh the innovation arena, medtech being a key focus of of that work. >> Okay, that's reassuring. And I guess I was just going to speak to it in comments as well, but the last thing that's just kind of I guess throwing me for a bit of a loop is the um the reference to uh food a food incubator. And I I think I've heard that in the past. I'm still not entirely sure what spurred this or what the base is for this, but again, this is one of those causes of concern for me. in that I think we're too small of a community to try and be everything to everyone and I just want to try and understand why that's in here and we're not just doubling down on our broader tech envelope. uh so through the chair I two reasons there's a small and a big terms of small uh as we've seen the vibrancy of your community matters from a talent standpoint so having successful independent restaurant tours important for downtown for the community and so at this point there really is no program that helps to nurture those types of businesses beyond the sort of classroom type programming we give at the small business center so that's sort of localized opportunity number on uh but beyond that in terms of food production uh we know that Konosoga College specializes in this work. They have facilities that can support uh companies that want to to actually do the manufacturing of food. And so I think there is an there is an opportunity. So I think what we'd be looking at is a is a facility and program that can support both uh not just sort of the typical food industry we would think of like restaurants but also major manufacturers. And I think just given we've got a resource in town, it's worth at least exploring to see what that might uh look like. >> Okay, >> those are all my questions. Thank you, Mr. Bloom. >> Thank you, Chad. Councelor Chapman. >> Yeah, thank you. Um my first question has to do again with data centers. I don't know if you'd like to speak to that. >> Uh so through the chair, uh I don't know that there's an answer that I can give you. I think it's it's it's a challenging um subject and there is no probably right answer. Um what I would stress I think what we've heard from Sheldon is whether we love it or not it is going to dramatically impact our economy and think as government or as as city leaders uh yeah I think we need to figure what is the most responsible way we can do it but I don't think we can ignore it. I think we it's going to transform our economy and we either uh support companies in that growth or not. Um I don't have an answer on how we do that in the most responsible way. I think that's a that's some thinking that that needs to be done. Uh I was thinking about the sort of the equivalent parallel. I'm sure when the railway when when industry lived off the river and we went to the railway, there was probably similar challenge about the impact that the railway would have. Uh, and I just look back on communities that didn't didn't get on board with the railway approach became obsolete and those that were connected to the railway grew. And I don't know that that's the same equivalency here. But I just think I would fear that if we don't support companies looking to grow in the AI field, uh, I worry that our community may be at risk if we weren't if we weren't supportive of that. So, >> right. And and I'm not suggesting we don't go down this road. I'm just saying we I think we need to be very cognizant of the the impact that it it can have on our water supply and on our electrical um services. >> Um the other thing I had um so in one of the slides it says our call to action remains the same. Let's stand up and be the city that does the most good in the world. Um I'm not quite sure what that means first of all but I'm not that's not my question. It's more in the context of that statement. And when we talk about um business attraction and retention and expansion, we talk about defense. What does defense mean in the context of this action item? >> Uh so through the chair, so clearly the federal government is going to make significant investments in in defense and that means many things. I think for for our community it's looking at what are the areas that we have strength in that could lend itself to the federal investments in defense and given that we are that cyber security is a major component to me that is that is an opportunistic area that I know community is also looking at potentially as well um so I think that that's where what I would stress that our focus would be is is uh on where tech and innovation align with with defense as a a key growth opportunity for us to to work with community tech to see if if there is room for growth there. >> And um because I I I do have concerns that there would be many advocacy groups in the community that would not support this. Um personally, I wouldn't support it, but um I hope there'll be some greater interaction or um engagement with the community before we go down that road. Thank you, Councelor Chapman. Councelor Singh. >> Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I really do appreciate the the concerns laid out by Councelor Chapman related to defense uh spending and what that means us as a community if there's going to be local jobs that supports that sector. But equally, I think it's important because she said it, it's important to to identify there are many in this community that are fearful or worrisome about the general um reality of the environ the employment landscape and they would love to have more job opportunities. And if that is the investment that our federal government who has that mandate towards national defense wants to invest back in local development and it would be important for us to ensure that development happens in the city of Kitner as well uh so that we can ensure that that investment translate to more jobs. So I think there are many many in the community that feel that equally as well if not more so. So speaking of that, what I felt was missing was a strong focus on advanced manufacturing because much of that defense spending will be advanced manufacturing. I know community tech addresses it but stuff happens through the private sector through catalyst. What more can 2.1 or will it do towards that being a important pillar going forward? >> Uh and so so through the chair uh so we uh in 1.8 business attraction, retention and expansion. I think that is our greatest path to support advanced manufacturing in our community which is to support existing companies helping them expand and grow as well as finding uh new companies looking to locate here in that field. Uh and I say that only because we we have historically looked at is there a role is there a community version that is supportive that is advanced manufacturing focused. I think the challenge we've come up against is u it's so capital intent very few communities have done sort of a a manufacturing incubator because it's uh complex capital intensive and requires machining and things that are well beyond our kind of knowledge and skill set. So, uh it's not to say that we would never, but I think we've looked at in the past and just believe it's probably beyond our ability to do and that's why typical uh traditional business attraction retention expansion support is likely our best option to support that. >> I think so. I know that we're going to be ratifying this at a special counsel, but I I think there can be some increased work as you um broaden like you know not necessarily develop but promote the strategy and I think articulation and specification to advanced manufacturing and bringing that relation to you know u the defense sector as an investment being made by the federal government would be important. So something I would like for you to take away um the later part is I think two things that came out of discussion with Sheldon is one how can we play important role with investing into our startup culture where there could be a way of sustaining self sustaining a fund that could invest in future companies as well brought up by councelor Davey and I think that strongly support that direction how can 2.1 do that that's one uh second thing is um all the The thing we talked about how do we uh ensure that we are able to create an environment where we're in conversation or through some sort of training or opportunities towards um you know third-year university students before they're graduating so that they can see exactly the extra benefits of them retaining and staying here locally. So that would be sec uh second one and um the third thing I mean similarly the food incubator I think you calmed my concern at something similar the fact that this is related towards food manufacturing as well. So, as great as I think it's important for us to have a thriving restaurant culture, that culinary aspect in our community, but I think again it comes down to job growth, job growth, job growth. Uh, and that is also I think uh maybe a greater focus in that food manufacturing aspect rather than the culinary sciences of it. There are a lot of private sector that touches on that. We can we can address it and we can be a supporter but that shouldn't be a significant aspect of that food incubation. Thank you. >> Um, so through the chair, in terms of uh the fund, I knew that the municipal act limits us in many ways in terms of what we can do, but I think it's something that u Miss McDonald and I can take away and probably send a note to council to see are there any opportunity is any opportunities and if so, what would that look like? I'm not opportunistic there are just because understanding the limitations of the municipal act. I think in terms of students, yeah, I think there's a greater role we can do. I think Sheldon is right. the offerings that we uh provide as a broader community and including what we offer as a city, events, etc. There's some storytelling that we needed to do and and make sure that the message is getting to students while they're here. Uh and lastly, yeah, agree with your comment on on manufacturing. Uh as context, we actually ran a pilot version of a food incubator through our existing community centers. So using two commercial kitchens, uh we actually had a number of entrepreneurs come through that program whose focus was on manufacturing. One who uh now actually uh mass produces and is selling at I think five different grocery stores hoping to eventually get get national. But I think that's that is a uh in terms of you know major job growth. I think that's one of the big opportunities of a we'd look at as a part of a food incubator program. >> Councelor Schneider. Thank you, mayor. Uh Corey, just wondering too um about the downtown uh bringing more reasons to people to bring people downtown like uh more restaurants, more more activity. Uh is there anything in in this plan that uh can help deal with that? I don't know if there's there's ways of maybe even uh doing things like subsidizing rent for a year or a certain period so a restaurant can get off the ground. Uh business coaching and mentoring um uh not just downtown but throughout the the city. Um you know a big event something that and we we do have great events are not ours. we support them like Oktoberfest, but just big events that that bring people down here uh to our city. Is that covered in this and um sort of maybe engagement from from the the general public and with experts in the fields of this? >> So, so through the chair, so uh area focus 2A arts and arts and it really transforming downtown into a true arts and entertainment destination. There's a few potential actions we've noted. One is we will be actively leading uh and starting very shortly with a comprehensive uh retail and restaurant attraction strategy which is uh our team actually out looking for prospective uh uh restaurant tours, retailers, etc. that we think if if added to some of the vacancies downtown really change the the vibrancy and and uh appeal of of downtown. So that work will will start shortly. Uh but I think in large part what we're trying to say uh when our focus at downtown is we've already got a lot of core ingredients and and through the launch of Kitchener Live we're going to bring new life to that. But at the end of the day for businesses to be the most successful we need to bring customers to them. And so uh you know continuing to invest in uh our special event strategy which you which council approved uh a couple weeks ago uh is is important. uh but also looking at what major catalytic investments can we look at that might b draw perpetually and continuously draw large volumes of visitors. So that's a major body of work that we're going to be doing over the the the coming year to really look at what might those be and then bring back to council options on how we could actually make that that happen. Okay, that's encouraging because I I really think we have to go after things and and bring really be strategic in bringing what we want to the downtown and support that. So, thank you councelor Deno. Um and no other any other questions. Okay. Um somebody care to move this Councelor Singh, thank you. Um, go ahead, councelor Singh. >> Thank you. Do I have a seconder? Councelor um Schneider. Thank you. Go ahead, Councelor Singh. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I I get this is not a, you know, a fundamental shift to our economic development strategy, and that's why it says 2.1. So, it's uh it's a light refresh that I think continues to nurture this, you know, the direction that the city of Kitchener has already endorsed and is promoting. So, I'm supportive of that. I don't see a drastic change to our overall work plan. I think we we did touch on some things that you know some of us have have looked upon and saying hey we continue making substantive strides towards affordable housing but that's across all corporate uh strategies does it really need to be in the economic development strategy that needs to be nearly focused so my comment is I think through this 2.1 should be that direction towards where we are realizing that we got to hunker down uh we got to hunker down to uh a very rapidly changing employment landscape that's affecting globally and we will uh we have to be more prepared for that. We have to be prepared to the outcomes uh for example as trade policies change uh south of the border and we have to be prepared towards opportunities when it comes through towards AI and quantum computing and I think on both ends um you know uh leveraging on opportunities and becoming more risk averse towards um some pitfalls that do exist in the marketplace. Now, um I would strongly encourage that we we this not come in years in advance back again. We didn't go through a a a lengthy dialogue with this council through a committee where you know overall work plan was done. You guys gave some ideas. We were able to translate back as we did today. you went back draft reddrafted that work plan came back and the council endorsement again we're kind of speeding that process and I think there's an opportunity with a new term of council for you to come back and us looking at the next budget and realizing exactly okay what does that strong substantive direction is going to be towards that 2.1 2.2 to whatever the the next iteration is. Um the last bit I really want to touch is I again no criticism. I think this is all great because it aligns with everything that we've been doing. But what's important is again realization realization to the local reality. What worked before may not continue working as well for us going forward. I think what we're doing as an investment in our um arts and culture or events planning is phenomenal. I think that has been our biggest success the last three years is towards the uh the events that happen in downtown. That has brought more crowd to our downtown where we're showcasing exactly what our downtown is. But this is where our worry was decades past. The fact that there weren't enough feet on the ground every day. It's not about just the 50 events that we have. It's about the 365 days that we don't want to see that those those dark spots or seeing that stagnation. And one of the things that we realized was initially we had the jobs, we didn't have the residents. And so we try to figure out a way to have more development happening in our core. We started having that and unfortunately just the way the market has shifted that's come to a standstill. We unfortunately have all the planning policies aligned that can encourage development to take place but unfortunately the market is not supporting that. So we may need to revisit is how do we instigate or stimulate that housing to proceed forward because we need the housing. two things that will revive our downtown and support our downtown going forward to the next 10 10 years is going to be job growth, jobs here as well as um residents, more residents in our core. Again, that's not saying that we don't need to do the other things, the events, the cataly cataly catalytic, you know, business development, you know, supporting community tech or whatever, right? But what we got to do is ensure how do we have again our vacancies filled in our uh commercial and how do we have more people living if we have more residents that automatically will have supported businesses that are supporting those residents in our core. So I think that's something we got to start thinking our mind around is how do we have reinitiate kickstart that housing being built in our core that's density is there that's supporting community tech because that's what we heard from Sheldon that density is what's worked for us we need that greater density in our core thank you >> thank you councelor Jen >> thank you Mr. Mayor uh along councelor Sings um speaking of downtown you know what what resonates with me is the bold vision for downtown and uh Ray Canella back in 1989 heard the whispers as we do here you know if you build it they will come you know obviously it's from a movie but we've heard the whispers um talking about a downtown entertainment uh arena or or a convention center and I think Um, being bold and having that vision of having something downtown is is we're a big enough city. We need to I think we I'm surprised we don't have that already, but I think it's something we really really need to uh to source out in the next few years. Yeah, it's going to be expensive. Um, but I believe if you look around the province and I gave a few of you um an article from the Hamilton Spectator, you know, uh the the Cops Coliseum just had a big redo. It was already there, but because of the refurbishment, you know, the amount of uh economic um impact downtown around that around that core is significant. Um and it will help. You know, we've heard before people don't necessarily feel safe downtown. You know, more bodies will will allow people be to feel more safe. That's just the the nature of it. And so, um I I support this. I think it's again I think it's bold. I think it's it's something that we need to um really really put into place. Um just doing something big. Um Cowan was big. This this needs to be bigger than Cowan. Um I I really believe that and we've took because we've talked about that around this the la this horseshoe the last four years about being bold. I also love the the food incubator program. Um I think that's a way to uh partner there's a way to partner with uh local post-secondary institutions who have those programs you know food uh processing but also allow a wannabe chef to to ply their trade and and and again you know um if they can develop something that can go out to the stores and then you know they can say hey I started that in Kitchener uh the city of Kitchener gave me gave me help in producing this product. I think uh that you know we're missing out on some some fantastic food opportunities across the city. So again, thank you for the for the work you guys have done. Um and and hopefully going forward we see this a lot of this come to fruition. >> Councelor Initis. >> Yeah, thank you Mayor Verbanovic. economic development quite frankly is the most frustrating aspect in this role that as council I would recall in the last 15 years we've had such tremendous successes and quite frankly I feel like we let go on the gas pedal a little bit here and I I don't think it's the fault of any indiv individual or any staff member or anything like that. But I just I think the circumstances of where where we are today is based on many outside factors that have put us in this position. But I don't think we're doing enough. And I'd like to talk I like hearing the cataly catalyst catalytic investments. I think I agree. We need to be bold and we need to we need to do something to to jumpstart where we are because quite frankly I'm very very frustrated where this is where this is. Um, and that's where I was leading our questions to to Sheldon is I feel this council should be taking on a f on more of an active role in delegating and looking at how we need to move the move our city forward with regards to economic development. Um, anyways, I am supportive of the of the work that's been here. I think the work that is here has is you know, a solid strategy. Um, but this ain't enough. We need to we need full-blown pedal to the metal. Um, yeah. Like we had Dragon's Dens coming here. We had everything. It's now like poof and it's all gone. And that's the frustrating part. And again, it's not any individual. It's not anything. It's just the circumstances that you know, we went through a pandemic. We going through tariffs. We're going through all kinds of things. And we're not the only ones experiencing this. But, uh, I think the next term of council, we need a solid strategy. We need some catalytic investments. And quite frankly, downtown, we need to rein focus because I just don't see the improvements that I'm that I want to see. But anyways, thanks. Thank you. I'll start with the the small the too too late for part of the strategy, but I do want to make note of it um in the future and that is again looking at uh our granting opportunities and and I'm very supportive of the actual dollars that are being like where the dollars are going as part of this report. Um but to as councelor Singh mentioned as well looking at um ways that we can possibly if we're giving out grants possibly taking um equity stakes in some of these on a very small scale obviously not a a hard hard uh negotiation lucrative scale, but mostly so that we're not taking advantage of really um in terms of you know using Kitchener's resources and then moving down to the valley because that's something I think we should be a little bit concerned about. Um and again since we've had you know we have investments in UNOVA we had investments in things like Atria in the past. I'm sure that there's a way that we could figure that out but again that's for a future discussion. I want to be clear on this as well. In terms of economic development, the way I see it, unlike the other things that we do, like, you know, recreation um and our events, we really should try to be all things to all people. That's our job, right? We're supposed to address um equity. When it comes to economic development, a big part of it is really marketing ourselves outside of our local area. And in that respect, I'm not afraid to put a whole bunch of eggs in one basket. I think that's how we get our most bang for our buck. And that's what I meant by the the diversity. I don't mean that we ignore, you know, the food sector and the arts and entertainment sector. Like these are very important, but I'm saying when we're um putting our our focus on we're trying to market ourselves the rest of the world, it's very very difficult um when we're a small municipality like we are to be known for just even one thing, right? We're not Toronto. We're not New York. We can't be all things to all people when it comes to economic development. So that's why that that's really what I've always meant by let's focus on what we are known for and that is technology. And that's not that's not a narrow scope, right? Technology is it's not even just AI and quantum. It is software. It's it is chips. It's medical devices, automotive devices, entertainment, um video games, that sort of thing that we're known for that we do right here locally. So that's really what I'm I'm most concerned of when I look at this stuff is that a lot of the things that are in here are very very important. I just want to make sure that when we try to go outside of the city of Kitchener that we're really focusing on one thing because once we're known for that one thing um you know it's like Marty GR New Orleans right like everyone comes for that one thing and while they're there that boosts the restaurant industry that boosts the hotel industry that boosts the other recreation um industries that are around here. Right. So that's really my focus and I I'm I'm hopeful uh and confident that that's the way that we're going to go. Thank you for this. I'll be supporting it. Councelor Chapman. >> Yeah. Um I just want to say thank you for this. I think it's um a great um I I like the two areas of um that you're proposing for Kitchener 2.1. The diversifying our economy. I've spoken to my concerns already, so I won't repeat them. Um I think business attraction, I know there's a lot of work being done behind the scenes to do that together with the your team and and also the BIA. So I I I'm I'm sure that will continue and um I look forward to seeing you know what comes out of that. Um and that will in turn help to address some of the the office vacancies. Um I also think you know certainly exploring AI and and quantum I think are are good directions that it could take um time to to bring forward and to to make effective but I think that's um also good direction. And of course the continued investment in health innovation. I think that's been on the the table for a while. I also like the the part about the downtown vision. Um and I think that's been spoken to by others as well. I think um you do you know the city is doing a a good job in in in growing that that file right and so I I commend you for that. So thank you >> councelor Schneider. Thank you Mayor Vanovvic. Uh again another great body of work. There were so many things outside of our control. I think we had a great plan and then uh stuff happened and uh now it's it's time to pivot and uh take another shot at it and uh consider the current situations that are out there. So, uh, it is a time to be brave as as we always have been and, uh, really I I think we have people on staff and people on community and people in the BIA and our friends at community that I think together we can do some really great things and I'm excited for it. So, thank you. >> Okay, there don't appear to be any others in the queue, so I'll uh make a number of comments. Uh, I too want to uh thank staff for the uh the work that's uh been done here and it builds on significant successes um in our community over many years and significant investments that have been made um in the downtown and more broadly in general in terms of um economic development. And I'll go back to um the very building that we're in. Um in the in 1989 1990, this building was the uh the investment and and the catalytic investment of the council of the day was $65 million back then representing in current dollars about $125 million. Later on, the market block was developed. In 2004, there was the original e economic development investment fund of 110 million which represents $174 million in current dollars. And then in uh coming out of co we have the current economic development fund of another $110 million. So, you know, by some quick math, um that's over $400 million in investment uh over the last 30 plus years um in terms of um the downtown and on economic development as uh as as a priority. Um and and quite frankly, I think the successes speak for themselves. I I think the other piece um that is is that speaks to the successes that we have and I think it's important for council to remember while we focus on Kiter and I'm uh the first one to speak to that we can't lose sight of the fact that we are actually part of a broader uh economy that works together with our partners um in uh through in the other municipalities throughout Waterl region um and along the Toronto Waterl Region Innovation corridor and we can't um ever start thinking of ourselves um as being a you know exclusive on that front. Our strength actually comes in the work that we do together from an economic development point of view. Um and it's that diversity across the economy in fact that has um helped us be successful where we have you know roughly you know 17 to 20% that's focused on tech and innovation 17 to 20% that's been focused on um uh on financial services sector uh 17 to 20% that's been focused on um on manufacturing and it's that diversity of the economy that's allowed allowed us to work through the ups and downs of different sectors at at different points in time. Um, and and then obviously the the remainder that's across a variety of sectors and and I think that's important because it also allows us to uh capitalize on um the the strengths of different parts of our region. So while Kiter doesn't isn't the host municipality for the airport for example um and Woolitch is is is the host municipality and obviously gets some of the most direct economic benefits. We know there's companies like Karu DeFtech, which originally was in Kitchener, had to grow to build um the landing gear for the uh Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Um needed to expand, was either going to expand in Kitchener somewhere in the region or out of this province. And in the end, we handheld them because there wasn't space available in Kitchener at the time. Uh and they built a facility in Cambridge. in the meantime um found new contracts and kept both their their new facility in Cambridge open and the facility in Kiter. Um we think about the priorities that are happening with the federal government right now in defense as an example uh to meet our our NATO commitments and and protecting our sovereignty and recognizing some of the geopolitical realities in the world. Um there's a reason why a company like Colt in Kiter uh got almost $300 million in contracts from the federal government um in in the defense space. Uh a company that's located in in in Ward 3 in uh in in Kitchener. There are others that are making components for things like the LAV personnel carrier that's manufactured in London, but things like the steering column are made here in Kitchener and and the list goes on uh of that. And so I think it's it's important that we we think of these things in that broad um in that broad picture. I am um pleased with a with the document that's in front of us and and the engagement that happened uh both with our advisory committees and different sectors of the economy and helping shape um the update that's uh that's before us that builds on some of the successes and partnerships we've had with community w velocity mix rec and while also recognizing the opportunities in spaces like AI and quantum um because these are these are areas that are both uh unique both not only unique in some respects to this area but are also strengths of our area and areas where we know there's going to be significant economic growth and job opportunities in the uh in the future. Um, I I will also say, you know, I I think it's it's important as we think about uh areas such as creative industry, social entrepreneurship, retail, the food sector, and so on, not everyone in our community is going to be destined for a career in tech and innovation. Um when we think about immigration that's coming to our community, men much of that immigration is coming uh from people who are entrepreneurial in and of themselves because they've chosen to to immigrate to a new country. They're risktakers, but they also come from countries and cultures where small businesses are very much a big part of the economy. And so, you know, looking for ways that we support that and create those opportunities um is uh is is absolutely key. and and that's where you know things like our small business center um the SDG idea factory and others uh play a play a key role in that. So I think those are things that we want to we want to um to to build on past successes recognize the the changes that have happened um and also focus uh on the on the heart of the city. I will tell you just coming out as my last point um coming out of uh the big city mayor's caucus at at FCM downtowns um and um the the ongoing investment and revitalization of of downtowns is something that um is uh is going to be a a national priority for for BCMC um in the uh in the in the foreseeable future. Um but I will also say that many people recognize that despite you know the fact that we do have some challenges we also have a lot of strengths in comparison to uh to other municipalities our size and larger and I don't think we want to to to lose sight of that um and you know lose sight of um the importance of finding the the the right balance between um you know job opportunities and employment. um residential and then it's the the important role that um arts and culture plays um in the downtown um not just for downtown residents but everyone broadly. So with that um it has been moved and seconded. All those in favor? Any opposed? That's carried. Um moving on. We'll now move on to we'll move to item 4.2. Oh. Uh with uh yeah with the noted conflict. Sorry. Thank you. Uh we'll now move on to 4.2 development charge reduction program. Uh there have been two written submissions from Madame Holmes and Cashache Homes. And I will turn it over to Katie to uh Fischer. Welcome, M. Fischer. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mayor and members of council. I'm very pleased to join you today to present the development charges reduction program or DCRP for our short acronym for today. Uh, this program was announced by the province on June 1st and is part of the Canada Ontario Partnership to build, which is an 8.8 8 billion provincial and federal joint funding program towards housing enabling infrastructure over 10 years. This is a very significant investment opportunity in housing development in Ontario. In recent years, the city has made significant progress towards implementing our growth supporting infrastructure as laid out in our 2022 development charges background study. at the same time maintaining low DC rates compared to our uh counterpart municipalities as demonstrated on this slide. This competitive landscape has enabled lands to be ready to for housing on both an infill and suburban green field basis and has helped the city meet its housing targets for three years in a row now. These past investments, prioritizing investment uh prioritizing development infrastructure have contributed in part to some of the shortfalls that we've been talking about in recent months on our DC funding availability. But given the competitive DC rates already in place at the city of Kitner, it's not believed that uh the DCs themselves are a barrier to housing development as seen by us meeting those housing targets targets three years running. However, the DCRP does provide an additional layer of incentives and further uh supporting housing enabling infrastructure and housing development locally. Participating in the DCRP has the potential to unlock funding for the city of Kitchener to proceed with the next iteration of growth investments uh in infrastructure that otherwise may be delayed due to some DC cash constraints. The DCRP was launched, as I mentioned, on June 1st, and it has an application deadline of June 19th. So, a pretty quick window there. It was designed to advance municipal housing enabling capital investments that will unlock additional housing development. In exchange for a 30 to 50% or more reduction to residential DC rates over a three-year period, The municipality could see funding of up to 90% of eligible costs on up to five growth supporting capital projects that we submit. The program guidelines state that applications will be evaluated and prioritized based on set criteria. These include the level of DC reduction committed to the ability to move quickly to construction with shovel ready projects with construction to start no later than 2030 and be completed by 2035. the amount of housing unlocked not only in the city as a whole but within each specific project area. And while the program allows for applications on community building infrastructure such as recreation and fire, uh it's very much emphasized in the program guidelines that housing enabling infrastructure is prioritized that being roads, water, sewer, storm. So, as I mentioned a few times, the DCRP is very much focused on housing enabling um incentives here. And so, we took that one step further with uh the proposal in front of you today that staff have developed uh aligning housing enabling end to end throughout the program. With the grants being focused on housing enabling services, we propose all housing enabling infrastructure DC rates. So those rates in those same areas that grant funding could be seen would be 100% eliminated down to zero under the program. The city's main DC rate with all the relevant lower tier municipal services that we're responsible for providing is a little over 31,000 currently for a single semi- detached unit. With the proposed incentive program, should the city partake and the uh program be approved as as we've submitted, the DC rate would be reduced by 38% to a little over 19,000. We currently have an existing incentive for the central area that already provides a 33% incentive lower than the suburban uh or main DC rate and this would be further reduced by an additional 7%. So, with these rates proposed, it would mean a 100% elimination of all hard infrastructure DCS for residential new housing development over the three-year window. And that's an significant incentive to support housing development within our community. The commitment to reduce DC's would be held for three years over the program uh life from March 2026. So a bit of retroactivity there under the program guidelines to March 2029. The amount of impact that that has on our loss DC revenues depends on how much growth is realized over that time period. Using growth forecast from our last DC background study, staff forecasts that DC revenues impact would be a loss revenue impact of 37 million. Of course, the actual amount that of that impact varies depending on how much growth is actually realized under a more constrained growth scenario as we've seen in just the recent few months. Uh that would mean lower lost revenue impact. On the other hand, if the program does work to incentivize housing as it is designed to do alongside the HST break on new homes, then the lost DC revenue impact could be higher. Using our best estimates, however, we're forecasting that impact to be about 37 million. At the same times, uh the proposal in front of you would have us apply for grant funding of 37 million as well. This means that the program could potentially work on a net break even basis where the lost DC revenues is offset by the provincial funding or sorry by the grant funding from the pro province and feds and that would mean there would be no increase to tax or utility rates through our participation in the program. With the investments already made to date, there remains only a limited number of projects that are housing enabling and shovel ready from our 2022 DC background study. We propose submitting the five projects as itemized in the report and shown on this slide with the city funded portion covering the ineligible costs as well as a mandatory minimum 10% of eligible costs. The funding that the municipal portion would uh contribute is 23% well above the 10% minimum of the thresholds. Sorry, a lot of numbers that I'm throwing out there at you today. The grant submission would seek 37 million in grant funding as I noted and that middle column on this slide. The projects are currently fully funded from development charges as they are 100% related to growth and therefore it's proposed that the non-grant portion will continue to be funded from DC's. There does remain some uncertainty in the program parameters as to rules around that source of funding whether DC's would be eligible for all of that or a portion of it or none. Should that 10% contribution be required to be sourced from nonDC components, the city would adjust to using other capital reserve fund balances. As noted, the city's proposed approach would have alignment end to end on incentives. The grants are focused on housing enabling services and so our program would see 100% elimination of the housing enabling card infrastructure DC's. This would be done using agreements under section 27 of the development charges act. And through these agreements, we would contain some accountability for developers to actually proceed through to construction and to occupancy of those housings so that we are ensuring that we are developing and building those housing on a timely basis within our community. doing a different approach such as 30% across the board of every DC uh service area would not have that N10 alignment on housing enabling. Additionally, if we applied the discount to other services like the soft services as they're common commonly referred to such as indoor and outdoor recreation, fire library services, we would have lost in DC impacts in those areas that we would have to make up for through taxpayers uh funded dollars as we would not be getting grant funding to offset th those impacts. That equates to about $25 million of taxpayer dollars that would be needed to supplement the program over three years. Uh which is a tax rate increase of three to five percent depending on how much how many years we would fund that impact over and that's uh hence why we recommend focusing on the housing enabling uh aspect to continue to have alignment end to end. Overall, the DCRP acts as a multi-layered incentive program to advance housing enabling infrastructure at the municipal level and to incentivize developers through lower DCs in order to unlock more housing. The program provides flexibility for municipalities to make proposals on their own targeted approach as long as it works within the program guidelines. With that in mind, we have prepared a very thoughtful program for the city of Kitner with alignment from the capital projects for which we would seek grants through to incentives provided to developers through to holding developers accountable for following through on construction of those housing units. While the program proposal we developed is designed on a net break even basis, there does remain significant risk. The lost revenues impact is just a forecast at this time and could shift resulting in lower or higher loss revenues impact than what's estimated. Projects could also come in under or over budget and the there could be face significant delays beyond what is allowed in the program and that could lower the amount of grant funding actually realized in the end. We also have limited DC funding available to advance the city's uh portion on the projects at this time, but we would be seeking to prioritize them in light of the significant grant funding available. Should the actual amount of grant funding be approved in a different amount than what is submitted or the terms of the agreement are or alter any of the analysis or recommendations, staff would report back to council on August 10th as outlined in the report. In conclusion, staff have worked to develop develop a very thoughtful program within the DCRP parameters. We believe that we have put together forms a strong application that aligns well with the program evaluation criteria and strongly supports housing development. The city would be providing a 100% elimination of hard services DCS and in those hard infrastructure areas with alignment and 10 on the focus of housing enabling infrastructure. This is a reduction to the city's main residential DC rate of 38% for three years. The central rate, as I noted, already has an incentive and would be further reduced by 7%. The discount will be provided through section 27 agreements under the DC Act with a requirement to ensure housing is constructed on a timely basis. Overall, the city's application and amount of grant funding, if it was approved um as it is submitted, that would work on a net break even basis with no increased tax or utility rates. The application deadline is this Friday, June 19th, and it's anticipated that decision decisions would be made and communicated in July or August. Uh and as noted, staff would report back if there was any significant alterations to the application. I want to thank you for your consideration of the proposal and I can now take questions that you may have. >> Okay. Thank you, councelor Singh. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, it's it's a really unfortunate circumstance where we're finding ourselves because we we need to participate to ensure that we have access to funding, but we have hardly any time for us to look at any adjust the levers to figure the right strategy for us. So speaking to that, my concern lies and I'm just trying to understand why where we differentiated from any other municipalities is we incentivize development within our urban boundary or at least the urban already built areas as opposed to suburban growth. Right now there's no incentivization left anymore. We're making it the same build downtown, but we talked about for an hour and a half before. for how do we animate a downtown where you build all the way to the very end of southwest Kitchener. So why not look at a deeper discount in urban where we're still ensuring the exact strategy the province and the feds want of us while maintaining a smaller discount for the suburban so we can continue seeing more growth in a built area where we already have the infrastructure as opposed to getting less and building more out there. uh through the chair. So the program guidelines um focus on applying incentives and uh holding rates consistent across each area. Um currently we do have that 33% incentive in the central area as you know council sing um and that's through a reduction on the hard infrastructure through this proposed program. We would be eliminating the hard infrastructure DCS across all areas uh in order to achieve that. So uh if you wanted to go further on the central rate that would be touching into the soft services DCS as they would be already eliminated under that 7% and that would have then a taxfunded portion that would be required. >> So are you saying what's being proposed right now is the bare minimum that we have to achieve? >> No. uh our proposal is to uh reduce 38% um through the focus of hard infrastructure DC's. So if I'm gathering correctly, you're suggesting that we would only reduce 30% on the suburban area. >> I was saying continue on having but you've already answered saying that I think the province wants to be the same across the board. They don't want to see a differentiation between urban and suburban. Uh what I wanted to see in my mind was a continued on in incentivization for us to see development progress in our built neighborhoods as opposed to in the suburban sprawl. >> Right. And so through the through the chair uh if we were to further incentivize the central area um that would be going into this the soft service area DC's and we would have to fund those differences from >> so the 7% reduction right now in the in the urban areas that is the hard infrastructure the 7% that's what we're reducing >> correct >> okay and the 30% 33% or whatever the number was sorry that's the hard on that That's the maximum that we can do >> without impact >> without impacting the tax base. >> The tax rate. >> Okay. Last question. Impact 37 million. We're happy to get 37 million. Where's the win here? >> Unlocking additional housing. Um the alignment that we've sought to build into this uh proposal in front of you is we are able to move forward on these projects that are itemized here that otherwise might have faced some delays because as you're aware we do have some DC cash flow constraints so we can leverage the program to realize some grant funding to move those forward so that housing can advance for our community. >> And u I'm asking rudimentary questions because the public needs to understand this. It's not a matter of us or some of us that might have a better deeper understanding. It's the average person needs to see, wait a minute, why are the developers getting a $37 million gift? Um what we're saying what we're so what I'm hearing from you is this 37 million we would be eligible upfront as opposed to if we wanted to see that development happening through the progress of time that those DCs would have comes you know over a prolonged period as opposed to the immediate DC funding that's available as an offset from the feds in the province that can help us build that hard infrastructure. Am I right? So I if I've gathered correctly the program is designed uh through the chair uh under two two way separate ways and the two aren't tied. So we presented nicely that the offset 37 million offsets the other side of the coin. Um we would be committing to reducing the DCs over the next three years. So any building permits issued March 2026 to March 2029 uh for residential building permits. the grant funding would be realized based on the project milestones as we complete and deliver those project works that will unlock then housing. So if we're constructing, you know, Strawburg Road, that will unlock housing potentially beyond those three years. So it's a long-term investment opportunity that the province has aimed to arrive at. >> I think there's a there's an answer within my question and a reply, but it's still not easily understandable by the average person. I'm going to allow others to ask, but I may key back in to get to that point so that we can uh transfer that and translate that better to our community. >> Well, to to be clear, I think there is a a a clear answer. the um the amount that's being contemplated uh yes is net neutral in in terms of the scenario that staff have developed and it's taken a lot of work on staff's part to try to get it to that point. Um I'm not arguing for the the direction of uh the provincial government on this but I would say the intent is that any reduction in DC's and or in the HST uh is a interest uh that would benefit anybody who is purchasing a new home or building a new home whether that's a individual who is um putting a second unit at their at their existing residence or a third unit at their existing residence or whether it's someone, you know, looking at building a a a multi- uh unit. And and those uh advantages would then be passed on to the purchaser uh is the anticipation uh of the both the provincial and the federal government. Councelor Schneider. >> Thank you, Mayor Vanovvic. Um, thanks for bringing this forward. Um, this is will be helpful in bringing the cost of building a home down and uh, I do really appreciate our developers because they take all the risk and they do need to make a profit. But do do we have asurances that uh, these reductions will get passed on to the first-time buyers? >> Uh, thank you. through the through the mayor. We it's difficult to build in any parameters even into our agreement that that would be the case as we're in as you know the housing market is what largely drives the sale price of new homes. So indirect it does reduce the cost of constructing those new homes but how it flows then into the price of that home that is the developer area. >> Okay. So, okay. I'll I'll I'll make comments later, but and Okay, thank you, Councelor Davey. >> Yeah, thank you. Thank you. This I've already asked a lot of questions offline, Mr. Mayor. Only one I wanted to clarify on though is um this is a competitive process, right? And I think some of the terms still aren't completely ironed out. So, I just want to make sure what we're approving here. So no matter what, like if we approve this as is, is it come going to be come back is going to come back to us for like final approval regardless of any province any changes the province makes or if it goes exactly like this will it just will it not come back to us at all? >> Yes. Through through the mayor the way the motion is written if the our application is uh accepted exactly as as submitted then uh the delegated authority would be provided to the CFO to and and move forward and we would let council know. Um but we would not require to come back for a secondary motion. And that's largely because this is a commitment that we're that that we're asked to make by submitting the uh application. The province has used language such as um it is an agreement in principle. Um but municipalities then clarified if we got grant funding at lower amounts than what's been applied for that would make it a challenging scenario then to continue to proceed and we would want to re-evaluate that. So they have it clarified that yes it's an application uh sorry it's an agreement in principle that you are submitting but if the parameters changed in their approval of what they uh send back as their approval then you would be able to um reconsider at that time. So hence all to say if everything was approved as is we would inform council but we would not seek reapproval of that application. Okay, that that's helpful. I'll have comment as well, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. >> Councelor Chapman. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, so I asked a few questions earlier, but um, one of them said that that I'm still not clear on um, does this apply just to the five um, development projects that are listed in the report or any development project that comes to us from now till whenever. >> Okay. So, sorry. Thank you. Through the mayor. So you're asking if the development charge reduction is only in those service areas of where those projects support, >> it would be citywide. All residential development charges over those three years would be reduced. >> So not just So that means what we're proposing here is only going to recover the loss of development charges for those five sites, but there will be other development charges that we will also lose. Is that correct? >> No. Just just to be clear, Councelor Chapman, No. No, it it's a good question. The the reduction would happen across the city. The dollars um that are are that we would get from the provincial and federal governments would go to those five specific projects because they are in our um DC background study and are eligible to be funded through this program. >> Okay. So, um >> does that help? >> Right. So if we don't approve this, we won't lose those development charges across the board. >> So if if we opted to not apply and live in the current scenario, >> the development charge rates would continue to come in. We would collect development charges in roads, sanitary water, so forth. that would then you know in theory we're saving up those or and using debt financing to then pay for the project works that are involved on those five projects. So now counter to that how the program would work is we'll use grant funding instead to for large part there is a municipal portion but grant funding would pay a large portion of those projects. So then we wouldn't need to raise all the development charge revenues from across the city to help fund those. >> Right. Okay. I think I've got it. Um my other question has to do with why are we applying this retroactively to March 1st. >> That was uh through the mayor. That's part of the program guidelines by the province. that was their announcement date of the Canada Ontario partnership to build um and when they um created that HST incentive as well. They want the alignment with that HST incentive. >> Okay. Um I think that's all for now. Thanks. >> Thanks, Councelor Chapman. Councelor Deno. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Cold over there. Hey. Um, thank you, Miss Fischer. Uh, so this is also in addition to the DC deferrals under bill 17s, right? So they get the deferrals and then this partnered with it. Okay. And by signing onto this agreement, would you did the city take all the risk >> through the mayor? Uh, the risk there are risks for the city. I don't know that I would say we take all the risk as you know developers uh I think one of somebody already mentioned developers uh take risk in housing development um but yeah there is risk associated with that that estimation of the 37 million um if we're if the loss to revenue impact would be higher because our growth exceeds our forecasting at this time we would see more loss revenues than what we gain in grants there's potential for that scenario Uh, as I noted, the construction of these projects must be completed by 2035, must begin by 2030. There are risks on these projects that may be outside of the city's control that we will actively work to manage as best we can. Um, but these are large complex projects as well. And if if that was to occur, we could lose have the lost revenue impact um and not realize the full amount of grants in the 37 million. um that we anticipate. So there are different risks um going into the program uh such as those. >> Okay. And and so you mentioned if we have an increase in growth, it's the higher loss of revenue. There isn't any little fine print that says that we can, you know, go back and ask for more that you're aware of. >> Not that I'm aware of there. It's a single intake program. >> Okay. And you may not know this. Um, but when it says what is it says there's a by Canada by Ontario criteria. Do you have any idea what that is referring to? >> Uh, through the mayor. I'm just looking over at Jonathan. >> Sorry. Go ahead, Jonathan. >> So, through the mayor, um, the by Ontario legislation was actually legislation that just came into effect. So it actually requires um the use of of lo in construction uh a local factor in terms of evaluation of a proposal. So it will be something that will affect all municipalities and all projects going forward. So it's really just reflected in the program because it is something that uh the government has recently passed and expects as part of the grant funding. >> Okay. Would we monitoring of that or is that the province that would monitor that? So through the mayor, we're actually required to comply as a municipality to uh the Bio Ontario regulations that were um in effect and they came uh in effect as of I believe middle of May. Okay. >> Uh for the first uh for her fleet vehicles and construction I believe it's middle of June. Um so we are working through our process to make sure that we are compliant. So we don't have any concerns that we wouldn't comply with those factors related to participating in this program. >> Okay. I may maybe I'm a little bit confused. So when I'm talking about like the construction of of the sewers and and the homes, is that apply to that as well? So we're getting Ontario made or locally sourced materials for our infrastructure development, but also the development of the homes as well. >> So through the mayor that the regulations apply specifically to municipalities. So it's in terms of our procurement of those services. So, as we're constructing those five projects, ensuring that we're factoring uh waiting in terms of uh local companies and and supply chain in terms of what that looks like as part of the regulation. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Councelor Chapman. >> Yeah, I just wonder if staff has considered looking at just one of the five projects to see how it plays out rather than throwing five out there all at once. uh through through the mayor. Um the challenge with submitting just one project would be that the the numbers don't um aren't large enough in terms of the grant funding that we would be seeking to offset even a 30% reduction. Uh we'd still be looking at, you know, over $30 million of lost revenue impact to maintain a 30% minimum reduction um over three years. And we are allowed to submit up to five projects. So we did look at what projects do we have on the shovel ready basis that are in our DC background study. That was a requirement as well. Um and we these five uh were the ones that kind of made made sense under the program parameters. And is there any risk of um other development projects going to the OOLT arguing that well we didn't get it or like is are we setting oursel up for bigger problems >> through the mayor um we we did not prioritize you know projects one like one over the other the when we developed this list of five projects they were the list of five projects there's not you know a six project that didn't quite make the cut there are additional projects that are in our DC background study, but the timing doesn't align well. They're still a little bit further out um to have that construction start by 2030 and construction complete by 2035. Okay. Thank you, >> Councelor Singh. >> Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I think your explanation helped to pretty much outline exactly what I was trying to say is like how do we uh make a residents understand, you know, how this will unlock housing being built faster. So coming back to the same thing with those five projects, the fact that we can put forward um more shovel ready projects that can help build that infra infrastructure out absent this type of program would have been challenging for us to proceed those five projects and accelerate timeline to see those housing starts happening faster than over a long uh period of time. >> Yes. through through the mayor. Um as as I had uh reported to council on March 30th, also the date that the program was uh announced. Uh ironically, um we because we have the cash flow constraints, we have been undertaking work to review our DC modeling and part of that would be looking at the timing of capital projects and prioritization. And so that work was going to come to back to council as part of the 2027 capital budget. still will, but uh through those cash flow constraints, this this funding would unlock uh the opportunity to move those forward or at the timelines that they do currently exist instead of us looking to defer them um due to our cash flow constraints. >> So I think that's the narrative of the story which we can really articulate effectively to show exactly, you know, this is a win for the entire community to unlock housing and ensure affordability across the board, right? So that's good. I'm glad that we were able to kind of re-ransate that. Thanks. >> Okay. Thank you. So, those are all the questions we have. Thanks. Uh, thanks, Katie. Um, do I have a mover, Councelor Davey? Thank you. And do you want to speak to it? Okay, go ahead. >> Yeah, thank you. This is one where I have to I really have to credit staff's work. >> Oh, sir. >> Yeah, second. >> Forgetting. I need a seconder as well. Councelor uh Oduni, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Um, when I first when the first sort of like light details of this program came out, I was fairly convinced that I would not be able to support it. it just um effectively put too much of a strain frankly on our either our DC projections which are already um seeing some repercussions from moves that the province made uh and or putting this on on the tax base which we have to at some point we're going to have to have a broader conversation I think about the appropriateness of DCs but what I love about this is that all of the DCs here are for the hard um subsurface infrastructure which benefits no one else. No one else except for the the new homes that we're building. I think that's really really important. Like to use an analogy, I don't while you know housing and lowering the cost of housing is important, if someone builds a new house in your subdivision that, you know, everyone else that lives in the subdivision shouldn't pay for your plumbing, right? So the people that buy the house should pay for the plumbing. And that's really what what I think is the middle ground here in terms of what we're doing with our DCs. But anyway, suffice it to say that um this is not we're looking at in terms of hitting either our DCs in the long term or our tax rate payers. And again, I have to give credit to staff on this because um if it was going to hit out of those two things, I wasn't prepared to support it. So, they found a way to do it in a revenue neutral way. Um you know, assuming they're that you know, everything works out, but they use their financial skills and their modeling skills to make sure that um and our their best estimate is this is going to be revenue neutral. At the same time, we are hopefully going to be lowering the cost of housing um for some folks because it's still extremely challenging out there for for residents to to purchase homes. So, I think all around this is a win-win. We still have some DC work to do in the future, but this uh should have uh very hopefully very little impact on the city's finances and I will support it. >> Thank you, Councelor Stretch. >> Nope. Okay. Uh, if you want to use your phone and in the meantime, I'll go to Councelor Chapman. Thank you. Go ahead, Councelor Chapman. >> Yeah. So, I I I continue to have concerns. I I don't like the the word could in the report that it could be approved for funding. I think it this is quite a risky um initiative that we're signing on to here. Um the report says clearly the city's DC rates are not believed to be a barrier to housing developments locally. So there are multiple factors but DC charges in particularly are not the be it all and end it all end it all reason of um the housing stagnation that we have right now and it also says that there will be significant administrative costs that will not be recovered through the program. So to me, there are too many unknowns and um too many risks um in moving forward with this because we could end up with um a huge debt that we're not um accounting for here. Um so I I'm I'm not going to um support this at this time. >> Okay. Thank you, Councelor Stretch. Actually, just before that, I just will um clarify um one thing and and certainly, you know, you're free to vote how however you you choose to. um where it says could the agreement the agreement that's what council is approving tonight I if they choose to is to move forward um with this and it's conditional on all 37 million or all five projects being approved and if that is the case then it would proceed. If that doesn't happen, then it would come back to uh council for further consideration based on any recommendation. So, I just want to make sure that there's there's clarity on that um for you. So, uh yeah, we'll leave it at that. Councelor Stretch. >> Okay. Can you hear me now? >> We can. >> Great. Okay. Um I'm glad to support this. Um I can see a direct um a direct way that this will support more housing being built and in a balanced way, not purely focused in the downtown core, but also in the suburban areas. So, um yeah, I'm I'm thankful for staff for for working really hard to figure this out. Um and really happy to see where this goes. Thanks. >> Thank you, Councelor Initis. Yeah, thank you, Mayor Mayor Mayor Verbanovic. Um, I guess the way I look at this is if we don't participate, then it's going to be 100% on the tax base. So, uh, to me, we don't have a choice other than to to accept this. Okay. Well, and just to be clear, I I want to make sure that we're all being we're all being clear in terms of what we're saying. um it wouldn't be 100% on the tax base, it would be 100% on development charges. Um and and and so projects might be delayed until we collect enough development charges, but it wouldn't be on the on the tax base. Councelor Schneider, >> thank you, Mayor Vanovic, and thank you uh staff for this. Um, we do need more homes and uh partnering with the provincial government, we just uh received over $8 million from the building faster fund because we've worked collaboratively with them. It's uh we always say the housing challenges are not something just one order of government can fix on their own or address on their own. So, uh, this is another collaboration where, uh, everyone's doing a little bit to hopefully do a lot for the housing situation that we're in. So, proud to support this. >> Thanks, uh, Councelor Schneider. Those, uh, are all the comments. I'll just, uh, add my own. Um, I I want to begin by, uh, again thanking staff. Um, Mr. Lenbach and Miss Fischer along with others literally burnt the midnight oil. um in in order to um do all of the various calculations, work with the province and and and they need to give um you know the team at MMAH uh kudos on that because they've been very responsive in terms of working with our staff uh recognizing that every municipality has some nuances. Um is this a perfect solution? Absolutely not. But is it a step in terms of, you know, potentially together with things like the HST reduction and so on, reducing costs, making it more accessible and affordable for people to purchase homes? Yes, it is. Um, and and with the work that was done to create a situation where um we we have a balanced situation essentially where the the 37 million nets out against the 37 million. Um, I think it's prudent for us for the exact reasons that councelor Schneider just talked about as part of our, you know, ongoing collaboration with other orders of government um to try to to have a positive impact in terms of housing affordability. And at the end of the day, it um it it really boils down to to that very point that no one of us, private sector, local government, regional government, provincial government, federal government, nobody has the, you know, has the the perfect solution to to solve this or the ability to solve this on their own. But all these individual little pieces can have a a a positive impact. And um you know, we're already starting to see because of some of the successes, for example, that we've had in our own community um around, you know, seeing new construction moving forward, we're starting to see rents come down a little bit. Um and obviously, if you're the property owner, that may not be a great thing, but for in terms of affordability for uh for residents, that is a positive thing. Um and you know, you're starting to see some adjustments in in the real estate market. um and so on. Um there's a lot of things at play and you know what I think what we're trying to do here is is simply um you know work with our colleagues to try to find uh pathways to to see additional successes. So with that uh it's been moved and seconded. A recorded vote. Sure. and that is carried. Okay. Thank you. We'll now move on to item three. Um, building faster fund, Mr. Lenbach. So to the mayor, there there's no presentation for this item. U but it is a um recommendation in terms of what our investment plan would be for the the third year of funding that we did receive which is in the 8 million range. Uh and it is required to be submitted by um Friday of this week and that's why it's in front of you today. >> Okay. Thank you councelor Davey. >> Thank you. No questions but I would move it and I'll comment at the appropriate time. Mr. Mayor. >> Okay. Um I'll let you comment. Right. I presume nobody has questions. Okay, counceloritis. >> I guess my Mike my thanks mayor. I guess my question is with regards to the funding towards streets uh and all that stuff accelerated which I'm loving this. It's fabulous. I just want just understanding is that part of the that that is allowable part of the program >> Mr. Lenbach. So through the mayor in the first category in terms of the use of the building faster fund, it does indicate that rehabilitation or repair of existing infrastructure uh is part of that category and and it provides examples of roads, bridges, water, wastewater and storm water. Uh there obviously is a a focus on housing enabling. Um as you just noted in the previous report, all of our DC related products are essentially um in that grant funding uh uh opportunity that we just talked about. And so um we have shifted from not just the one project which has some DC funding which is the Hidden Valley full culvert replacement but then looking at existing infrastructure and so we thought that the the roads was the next uh area to focus on. >> Okay. Um I guess can I can I make my comments >> to you for comments? >> Thank you. >> Um okay. Do you have a question or comment? Okay, councelor Davyy you were first in with your comments. >> Yeah. Thank you so much. I I was really really I got to say really happy to see this report. Um in our role there's a lot of pressure to always look for, you know, some new way to, you know, to spend money at the shiny bobble, that sort of thing. And oftentimes, um our core responsibilities, um they're not as popular, but we have to do them, right? Like we don't do ribbon cutting for, you know, road reconstruction. But the fact of the matter is, you know, for for reasons I'm still not completely clear on, um I've had more concerns about potholes, for example, this year than I've ever had in my my 16 years on council. So, while this may not make uh you know, headlines, uh this is this is what we do. This is very very important work and I could not be happier to see that we're going to be doubling the road reservicing program uh with these funds and instead of uh spending it on new infrastructure, we're spending it on the very important infrastructure that we already have. So kudos to staff and I hope this is unanimous. Thank you. >> Thank you councelor Singh. >> Thank you Mr. Mayor. I I I want to challenge the media. This councelor Davy should absolutely be in the headlines the fact that the city of Kitchener is going to enable be enabled by the build faster fund to you know double the resurfacing uh of our roadways. I think that's um we've all felt pain after this very harsh winter of the challenges of a infrastructure that over time ages and in a harsher environment um can impact uh our underground infrastructure uh as well as obviously just the uh the general livability of our residents and in the end I think the attractiveness of towards additional housing in our community ensuring that we have a faster uh replacement ment program uh enables us to address all those things because the since the beginning of this year one of the biggest complaints that I've heard from residents has been related to road infrastructure and this addresses all of that. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Others have probably heard it the same. Um and I think the compliments goes to the province of um outlining a program that is nimble in a grant process that ties faster housing growth to improvements to the those uh successful communities as well. And that's not related to direct to housing but this overall infrastructure and what's bigger than anything which is a road network and the infrastructure under under it. and congratulations staff to put this forward and hearing from council where the priorities lie and I think this report really addresses that and where the complaints are being heard from our residents and so the headline should be our residents are being heard so hopefully they'll catch on. Thank you. >> Thank you counceloris. >> Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm super pleased with uh where the where these funds are being directed and that's why I asked that question. I knew you knew the I knew I knew the answer, but I just wanted to to make sure that we heard the the community we heard from the community with their concerns about our infrastructure and uh I couldn't be more pleased and uh again building anything faster if if we have folks or investors or or companies wanting to look in into our community if we have bad roads but where we go to where to work and wherever ever the new development is is the only place where it's good roads it doesn't it you know it's not it's not a good community so this is a great investment and and I really appreciate where this is coming from so thank you >> councelor Schneider thank you mayor vanick this is great news as councelor Davia says it gets down to the core of what we do parks pavement and you know it's really important that that we do this and again, we've heard from residents, we pass that on to staff and we're seeing staff bring this forward. Uh, you know, we'll see something nice posted about the city and in the comments, fix the roads. So, um, this is is a big news story and again, I want to thank fellow counselors, want to thank staff because of the collaboration we've been doing with the provincial government in meeting the housing targets they've set for them. Uh it's not easy, but collaboratively we've done it and we received our third building funer building faster fund check this past week. So uh good work by everybody on this. >> Councelor Misho, >> thank you. I too want to thank staff for this. Um I I I would like to just add that this year I think the roads have been the worst that they've ever been. I get number one calls I get is around potholes. And it would be nice if we could put this into context how far these dollars go as far as fixing roads go. Like is there any possible way we could just um just kind of give a guesstimate how far? Yeah. How much how many kilometers? Okay. How many kilometers do we get for $6 million? >> Miss McGold. Uh so through the chair the doubling of the road resurfacing program takes us to approximately 9 kilometers worth of resurfacing. >> Councelor Chapman. >> Yeah. No, I too want to say that I I I agree with this the um the way that this money is going to be spent and it's great when you've got the money in hand and you can make these decisions. So, um, thank you to staff for for this report. >> Councelor Johnson. >> Yes. Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just wanted to say to you that I am I am thrilled to see this. It's certainly something that we've all talked with, uh, with staff about and around the horseshoe. So, great collaboration. As uh, councelor Davey said, this is kind of back to basics. Maybe that'll be the maybe Mr. mountain buck. That can be the uh the title of our budget this year. But um anyhow, you probably already have one. I'm I'm just wondering if uh perhaps we can even uh have our residents send in, you know, ideas about their favorite road to get fixed. I don't know. That might be way too much. Oh, just Yeah, it might be fun. Anyhow, thank you so much. This is really great. all >> it might be fun but I think it's important to remember that staff actually staff take a very technical approach to this and uh and look at uh look at ways you know what are the roads that need it the the most in terms of our asset management program. Um, but I I will uh say that uh first of all, I want to thank um I want to say how pleased uh I was that we were able to to host for the third year in a row um the the announcement for the uh the building faster fund um last week. And I just want to take a moment to um to actually reference what our successes have been. In 2023, we had 3579 housing starts, representing 139% of our target. In 2024, we had 3,67 housing starts representing 105.1% of our target. And in 2025, we had 3005 housing starts representing 85.8% of our target. But I think most importantly is um all of that has led to the city receiving uh just shy of 32.3 million in building faster funding over the last three years. money that we've been able to invest back into the community in terms of purchasing land for housing in investing in uh infrastructure that's necessary for new housing and now investing in infrastructure that supports growth that's happening um around the community and existing infrastructure that needs to be improved. So I want to uh I want to congratulate staff on um the the doubling that is happening uh in these dollars to uh uh to invest in something that we heard in our ab in was a priority for our residents in our recent abacus survey. You know, we saw in that survey that resident satisfaction in the city of Kitchener was in the 70% range, but when it came to infrastructure, as many of you have indicated this evening, um the the the challenging Whiter and the potholes that were created by it um were a priority for our residents and um I think, you know, this clearly demonstrates that um you know, Abacus has not only accurately reflected that but that uh both council and staff are responding uh with the doubling of those dollars. So I am pleased that it's here and I will now call it to the vote. All those in >> I didn't have a seconder again. Do I have a seconder? Councelor Chapman. Thank you. All those in favor opposed. That's carried. Okay. Um I do have uh one item um under um mayoral business and and and updates. Um council recall that uh the region has continued to um deal with the the water issue as recently as as last week. We'll be dealing with it again um this uh this Wednesday um and then again in in early July. And um our I I do want to speak to it briefly um that one of the things that our council will be dealing with on the 29th is our water allocation policy. um which is an important step to manage new water supply responsibly and transparently while continuing to uh support the the the building applications that that come before us. This follows the region of Waterlue's approval of its interim risk management framework um at the the meeting last week and the regional water uh allocation policy which set the structure for allocating capacity and allow development activity to gradually resume across the region. Building on that, Kitchener's draft policy creates a clear and transparent approach to prioritize projects with the greatest community benefit, especially housing, including affordable housing, along with the essential services and economic development. It reflects strong collaboration with the region, our municipal partners, and the development industry, and reinforces that Kitchener remains open for business with applications continuing to be reviewed so projects are ready to move forward as water becomes available. While demand will exceed capacity through 2026, regional repairs and infrastructure upgrades are expected to add significant capacity by early 2027, which will help move projects already in the pipeline forward. In the meantime, this policy will provide a fair and consistent framework to guide decisions, giving greater clarity to industry and the community. And it will introduce our commitment to meeting housing needs responsibly while supporting investment in economic growth and being careful stewards of our water resources for the exist for existing population. Um, so I do want to acknowledge all of the work that our staff team has been doing um over the last six months since we uh originally learned about this issue. working collaboratively with our regional partners. Working collaboratively um with our uh area municipal partners and working uh collaboratively uh with uh various sectors um of uh the economy uh that have been impacted by this. from uh home construction to uh frontline workers that are uh you know skilled trades people uh to those who are looking to uh invest and grow their their um grow their business in the community and uh and create jobs. So that is something that uh we will be dealing with um on the on the 29th. I know staff have been communicating and consulting with the industry on this and will continue to do so um ahead of this coming to us on the uh on the 29th. So we'll leave that at that and we will now move on to the bylaws. Do I have someone to move three readings of the bylaws? Moved by counceloritis, seconded by councelor Schneider. Any discussion? All those in favor? Hang on a sec. Try that again. All those in favor? Any opposed? That's carried. And motion to adjurnn. Councelor Deno. Councelor Misho. All those in favor? Opposed. That's carried. Thank you.