Um, this meeting of the general governance committee is being held virtually. This meeting is also being livereamed and may be viewed online at ajax.ca/live. Friendly reminder to all of participants to please activate your microphone only when recognized by the chair. I'll now call this meeting to order. We'd like to begin this meeting by acknowledging the land on which we gather is situated within the traditional and treaty territories of the Missagas. More specifically, the Missagas of Skugog Island First Nation, signatories of the Gunshot Treaty of 1788 and the Williams Treaties of 1923. This land is and will continue to be home to the indigenous peoples. Let us acknowledge the mistakes and traumas of the past through authenticity and support truth and reconciliation. Let us engage and celebrate indigenous community by being leaders of action in acknowledging the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recommendations towards truth and reconciliation. Let us keep these principles close as we move forward as we continue towards truth reconciliation as we move forward with kindness and respect as a community. We'll now call this meeting to order. Any disclosures of community interest from committee? Seeing none, going to get a mover for the adoption of minutes. I see councelor Bower. Any questions, comments, concerns on the minutes of April 13, 2026? Seeing no none, we'll start the vote. And that passes. Can I get um A mover for the closed meeting of April 13, 2026. I see councelor Henry. Thank you. Does anybody need to go into close session to discuss the closed meeting minutes? Um, councelor Crawford, did you want to go into close session to discuss the minutes? >> Council Crawford. >> No, no, no, no, no. I was gonna Oh, we don't have We don't need a seconder. Sorry. I apologize. >> No. All good. Thank you. All right. Seeing none, then we will move the minutes. Start the vote. my stop vote button. There it is. Okay. And that passes. Um we're going to change the agenda a bit, council. Um before the consent agenda, we're actually going to go to um items six, which is all the presentations due to the fact that we have consultants on the call today. So, um, we're going to start with, uh, presentation 6.1, the financial sustain sustainability plan update from Hemson Consulting Limited. And we'll get Julie. Go ahead. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, so, good afternoon, Mayor, uh, Mayor Collier, members of council. Um, I'm happy today to present, uh, to you the financial sustainability plan update. And before I hand it over to our presenters, I'd like to remind council that this financial sustainability plan builds on the prior versions that were brought to council in the past, uh, with the first one being delivered in 2013. Delivering this update was part of the council strategic plan deliverable this term. The financial sustainability plan is a key uh a key part of the town's financial framework providing a long-term view to support uh our decisions on infrastructure services and growth and how budgets are funded. Building on our asset management approved levels of service and reflecting all the changing economic decisions, the legislative updates and the growing pressures on our resources. Uh this plan brings together the pieces to guide the town's long-term financial decisions. Today you will hear from Hemson Consulting and town staff outline outlining the analysis that was done and recommended policy directions for council's consideration. So Hemson Consulting was hired in November 2024 to develop a financial model uh bench benchmark Ajax to peers and provide a long-term outlook based on the 2025 uh 10-year capital forecast and the 2024 development charge background study. Christopher Blet and Andrew Mirabella from Hemson Consulting will be delivering a presentation and following that Kevin Douglas the acting supervisor of accounting for the town of Ajax will then present the staff recommendations and proposed policy updates. Um this will be for council's consideration and will include how we fund infrastructure, manage reserves, and use debt going forward. So over to Hempson Consulting. Great. Thanks. Uh, thanks Julian. Appreciate the introductions. Um, my name again is Andrew Mirabella. Um, I'm from Hemson Consulting and and alongside with me is uh Christopher Blet. I'm just sharing my screen. Um, can everyone see that presentation? Yes, we can. >> Great. Okay, thank you. Um, so one minute, one moment. Sorry, one moment. Uh, >> is that our agenda right now? We cannot see your presentation. Can you click again? >> Oh, now >> waiting for sharing source. >> Okay, try it again. There we go. >> There we go. It's the PDF. Yes, we got it. >> Okay, great. Thank you, chair. Um, and alongside with me, sorry, just with my introduction. I'm Andrew Rebella and I got Christopher Ble with me. There was a little technical glitch on the email on the connection side. Christopher never received the link. So, he's going to be he's in my office and we're going to you'll see me kind of slide over and pass him over part of the presentation as well here today. Um so to the point today is about uh presenting the results of the financial sustainability plan update. Um and and uh following this presentation um as indicated um town staff will have a subsequent um presentation on some of the recommendations and policy items. So really the Hemson part of the agenda is to go through some of the key findings. Um we'll go through the background and key assumptions that were used to develop the financial plan. We'll go through the financial forecast and some of the benchmarking analysis that we conducted. Um we'll provide an overview of the financial policy recommendations and we'll also just get into some of the key takeaways. And um as indicated, this was a a piece of work that's been in the development now for um well over a year with a lot of hard work and dedication from town staff in reviewing the models and developing the model in tandem with Hemson. So um just as a early thank you to staff for for this uh for the help and the ongoing relationship here through this process. Um so just as an overview some of the key findings of the financial sustainability plan update. Um one of the things that you'll see and kind of Christopher will allude through and he goes through some of the technical parts is the town is in a strong fiscal position. Um you know given some of the low debt that currently exists. um the reserve fund position as it stands and and some of the financial policies that have been in place largely due to the um earlier work of your financial sustainability plan that was done uh years ago. Um the forecast um however looks at a pretty substantial capital plan and a need of about $740 million through to 2034. Um, and we'll get into what that capital program looks like, but that is a higher level of capital spend than has been seen the town historically. And in order to do that, there are recognizing an increase or a level of tax increases um in order to kind of keep up with that capital plan. Um, recognizing that we'll need additional funding sources to carry out that level of investment. The infrastructure reserves and debt financing are critical tools here that are going to help the town moving forward. One, making sure that we sustain a significant or sufficient balance of reserves on hand. And two, we carry out the and we use debt finance in a very strategic way in order to um carry out that capital pro program and also kind of keeping that debt financing looking at that over the longer term and how that relates to the provincial requirements as well as the town's debt policy limits. Um and the town has been proactive in setting a strong policy framework for long-term financial sustainability, but recognizing some adjustments are needed um to modernize it and also to make some adjustments for the way the plan the town would like to do business going forward in order to manage their infrastructure and manage their um financial needs over the longer term. Um one thing I'll note just as a footnote here, the analysis itself was developed using kind of 2025 budget data. Um and and and that's kind of the basis for the fiscal plan here just because the timing of when the the work was undertaken itself. So just in terms of the financial sustainability plan, um really builds on the town's work first completed back in 2013 and it's a pretty um important document that the town has and and and quite forwardlooking in the sense that you've developed one back in 2013 and looking at an update and really kind of help drive some of those long-term sustainability requirements. And this is really a good framework and policy objectives to help make informed uh decision- making. It complements your budget process. Really helps the town identify where those challenges and opportunities are going to exist over the next 5 to 10 years. And also helps kind of test different policy directives. And that was one of the key things of this model of what we developed. we were able to test different different results and different um and different inputs to look at what those different policy impacts would do to the long-term sustainability of the municipality. Um so the the model itself is quite dynamic in that particular sense and the way we've structured it. So just with kind of some of the the background parts, I will now pass it over to my colleague Christopher Blet to kind of go through some of the background data assumptions and and some of the key results of the plan itself. Sounds good. Thank you, Andrew. I apologize for the bit of the switcheroo there on the seats, but nonetheless, we can get right into kind of the assumptions and the forecast side of things. So, really, the the FSP model is driven by a set of highle assumptions. Um, you know, we we really need these assumptions in order to formulate the entirety of the forecast. Really the basis here is a 10-year capital plan based out of 2025 with some adjustments based on the asset management plan and as well as the DC study. We also have a development forecast a development forecast of our housing population employment that helps drive a lot of the operating costs and as well as assessment growth in the analysis that we've uh that we've developed for the town. There's some other components as well. Uh we do reserve forecasting. We forecast those balances based on the capital program, all your needs, all your contributions to reserves, assumptions on interest rates and so on in order to understand the outlook of your reserves over the longer term. We also make assumptions on debt financing. You know, we recognize and you'll see some of this in the uh the rest of this presentation and some of the findings from from staff that you'll see uh subsequent to this. But ultimately we need to make assumptions on debt financing in order to undertake capital projects that are both critical to the town but also are um um you know significant in terms of the magnitude of the capital program. Debt financing is an important tool that we use as part of the exercise here that complements all your other funding sources and financing uh methodologies as well. We've also made assumptions on declining reliance to external revenues. Really what we're what we're talking about here are primarily the casino Ajax revenues and recognizing that those revenues have declined over time and potentially pose a risk over the long term. We want to make sure that we're planning for those risks going forward. One last point to make here like Andrew mentioned uh this is the analysis that we undertook as part of this retainer was undertaken in 2025. So all our costs that you see here are in $205. The first finding on the analysis, the 10-year gross capital program totals just under $740 million. So $740 million from 20 2025 to 2034. Quite an extensive amount of capital. A few things to notice here in 2025, for example, in terms of the budgeted spend just under $40 million. But going forward, looking at the actual needs of capital, significant increases in spending are needed in order to maintain those levels of service. So what we're looking at here is the cost of capital in order to be able to service new development. So all your new facilities, your new roads, anything in improvements that are needed as development occurs. But at the same time, your infrastructure is aging. The infrastructure requires maintenance. Those costs are also included in here in order to be able to undertake those uh capital needs and continue to provide service. To give that some more context, the green line here represents the historical annual average spending on capital of $29.3 million based on some of the his historical data from 2019 to 2023 adjusted to $25. Now, in comparison to what you've done before relative to what is projected and needs to be done going forward, that's represented by the blue line of just under $74 million. That's about 2.5 times higher than that historic average. So important to recognize that going forward there are additional needs that are required in order to be able to service development and undertake state of good repair capital. One last point I'll make about this chart is that this particular picture is not atypical. We are doing a number of these assignments for other mun other municipalities uh uh sort of across the province and the picture is very similar in terms in terms of looking at what the needs are. The needs are extensive, but they are needed in order to continue to provide services for residents. The town will need to utilize all its available financial tools to undertake that capital plan. So, what we're looking at here are the reserve balances for two of our critical reserves, our tax uh two of the tax funding reserves, particularly focused in the green, the asset management reserves, and in the gold, the development reserve. The development reserve really primarily used for uh funding nongc eligible shares of growth related projects while your green the asset management reserves really related to funding your state of good repair maintaining your infrastructure um um over time. The green represent the the the picture in the green in terms of our asset management reserves. You can see there's over the forecast period there is significant pressure over the few first few years of that forecast going from a balance of about $80 million down to just under $60 million. However, there is a buildup of reserves going forward beyond that fiveyear uh 5year period. On the development reserve side, we're generally maintaining that development reserve balance just over $20 million over that 10-year forecast period. However, in order to be able to achieve this picture, there's a number of assumptions and forecast uh uh findings that need to be uh kind of outlined. Number one, the 2% infrastructure levy is maintained over the 10-year period. So, we're assuming continued reduced reliance on those external sources. So, our casino Ajax revenues, which requires the need for those for the 2% infrastructure levy to continue over time. In addition to that, from the previous slide, you you saw the main driver of the kind of the picture here are those extensive capital needs. We do need those funds in order to be able to maintain our reserves from going into a notional or into a uh negative position. In addition to that for the development reserve and for the infrastructure that's that's growthreated but for those shares that can't be funded through development charges we've assumed debt financing in order to be able to undertake those works though that debt financing is needed to undertake major growth capital both DC funded and town funded portions. One important thing is we did a number of sensitivity testing scenarios around this uh sort of picture. One thing that we found is that without the infrastructure levy or without any debt financing and using those tools, the reserves would be depleted uh ultimately in terms of from a notional perspective doesn't mean that the town will ever allow that to occur. But from a modeling and theoretical perspective, that is the picture that we saw uh kind of going forward. The alternative would be without these tools, these financing tools, and without the 2% infrastructure levy, um, in the absence of of any other options, we would need to defer capital to future years beyond the 10-year period. The picture here shows the result of that, the real tax levy increase and what that looks like. So, the real tax levy increases are needed in order to maintain services. The bar there representing the 5-year forecast average tax levy increase from 26 to 2030. the uh the average annual increase of about 4.2%. That is an increase in the total tax levy. And I'll and I'll also add that that is a real increase, meaning inflation is not included as part of that picture. To give that some context from a historical perspective, the 10-year average real tax levy increase has been about 3.5%. So, a little higher um about 0.7% higher um sort of in the going forward forecast. Another point to make here, the green bar represents the forecasted real tax rate increase once again without inflation in the picture of about 2.6%. That's achieved through revenue from the assessment or or assessment growth of about 1.6%. So in order to to to kind of put the full picture here in the absence of assessment growth or perhaps in if assessment growth was to come in lower than our projection of about 1.6% 6% that tax rate increase would be higher given everything else equal given all the needs that we've identified previously. Now the outlook the outlook post 2031 t tax levy increases continue to be needed to meet operating and capital needs. They will continue to be higher than historical spending. The 2% infrastructure levy is needed in order to fund those taxf funed capital needs as well as an additional debt financing for those major capital works. While the town is expected to continue to grow over the longer term, that generates new assessment, but the cost costs will also increase demand for those services, which increases those costs as well. Just to finish off kind of the uh the presentation with a couple more slides here on uh some benchmarking that we've done. Uh this particular picture here shows the town's annual asset management contributions. So what you contribute to capital needs that are related to state or good repair. what you contribute to your reserves on a per capita basis on the left and on relative to the total replacement value of your tax funded infrastructure on the on the chart on the right there. Um in in summary, really what we're looking at here is when we compare uh the town of Ajax to or some of our uh kind of comparative municipalities, those contributions fall in kind of the mid-range of the municipalities, showing one or two things or showing kind of two things really that the town is comparable to some of some of our other municipal peers in terms of those contributions, but also uh this is a tool or a way in order to be able to measure over time how the town of Ajax stacks against uh other municipalities as well. Uh following from what we saw in the beginning and Andrew outlined, you know, the town has been doing an excellent job in terms of maintaining the fiscal outlook or the fiscal picture for the municipality. The town's current debt levels are on the low end of comparators. What you see on the chart here is a few pieces of information. The green representing uh policy limits of comparable municipalities. In the case of the town of Aex, you have a 7.5% policy limit relative to source revenues. That comparable policy limit with other municipality ranges from that range around 7 to 15%. However, in terms of your actual debt, you are quite low. You are on the lower end of these comparables represented by the gold bars. You know, kind of just in and around that 1 to 2% um sort of range. So that's well below your policy limit and well below the provincial debt limit of 25% and well below your your uh comparators um as well. What that means is that the town does have room or does have opportunity to undertake a lot of that critical capital that's needed especially your major facilities, major roads perhaps that you need to undertake in order to service development and maintain state of good repair on that infrastruure. >> Gentlemen, um just I'm going to stop you here. You are 16 minutes into the 10 minutes allotted. Do you mind just summarizing for the next 30 seconds, the next two slides? >> Sure. Sure thing. I have uh one slide left. Um so the to finalize here, the town is in a strong fiscal position. Um but some policy adjustments are needed to align with the future outlook. So to summarize really the the outcomes here, our reserve and reserve funds, the realloc there is opportunities for reallocation of casino Ajax revenues um to development reserve and strategic reserves, developing target balances and continuing to utilize that 2% infrastructure levy. in terms of the capital program, really looking at the capital program, balancing the first five years of that capital plan and aligning those annual budget spends um to uh to our reserves and our targets and as well as reducing reliance like I mentioned on the external funding. There's opportunities for additional debt financing as well. The town could consider increasing that debt limit up to 15% relative to the current uh 7.5% increase. So, I'll call it there. That's kind of pretty much my last slide and I'll open it up to questions if council has any. >> I appreciate that. We have many questions. We will start with uh councelor Tyler Mort. >> Thank you so much uh chair and thank you for this report. Um as per the report uh we really really recently received a report in another meeting how growth is not quite what we thought it was going to be. Uh we're looking at a region that is going to 850,000 by 20 early 2030s and reaching the million mark almost 10 years farther out than we thought. So how sustain my question is how sustainable is it for the town to continue relying on that growth to fund infrastructure and services? Is there a gap now that we see those numbers have changed and does this report reflect that? >> So I can I can start with that uh kind of question. So really in terms if the term from the kind of the looking at the analysis here if growth does not occur to the level that is being projected two one of two or two things really happen uh your assessment growth is not going to be uh projected coming out to the level the same level as those initial projections meaning you'll have less assessment growth than than uh than before. That means that you will be obviously producing less tax revenues in order to fund uh your services. However, on the other side of the equation, we need to think about, you know, if growth isn't occurring to the same level or magnitude that we're expected, perhaps some of those needs and perhaps some of those those services are not needed as soon as perhaps what we're projecting. So, for example, if growth has slowed down, do we really need to construct those new recreation facilities that are needed in order to be able to service that capacity? do we need to uh construct those roads that are needed in order to be able to service that new development? And I recognize that not not all infrastructure is built equal. For example, there are certain services where that's that's easier said than done. Recreation, for example, but in other services where you need to in place some of that infrastructure in order for that development to occur. That may not be necessarily the case for like I mentioned in the examples of the road. So, there's kind of two sides of the coin. um um when you look at that type of kind of the the comparison of development activity. >> So if I may, Mr. Chair, so this report and and moving forward we council will have the flexibility to make conditions make changes of condition changes like this is not a where we have to keep referring back saying well you agree there is some flexibility here. >> That is correct. So one of our part of our retainer for this exercise was the development of a financial model for the town. So a model based in Excel. The intention of that model is it is a dynamic model. At the end of the day, situation changes um all the time. Uh we've seen slowdowns in development activities across the board. Uh we've seen uh changes to pricing and inflation as you as you may be aware of different situations occurring with our friends down south and across the world. These are the types of things where the model can be dynamic for that kind of sensitivity testing to see what the outcomes are in this changing environment. >> Okay. Um I've got a couple other questions here. I did my homework. Um if council, this is considered a very hypothetical situation and question for me, but if council chose to not to continue to not continue to put 2% into the infrastructure le that was uh uh changed for some reason. It happens. um how it would affect this projection. >> Yes, >> if I may step in here, um there is another staff presentation that does address some of these questions. So, I'm just wondering, are we able to go to the second presentation first and then take all the questions? >> Um do you think that would help answer a lot of Yeah. You know what? Okay, council, I have the queue. Please stay queued up. Uh, we will go into the second presentation and that may answer some of the questions preemptively. So, um, director Malcolm M, please go ahead. >> Sorry. I will ask Kevin um Douglas to sign on and deliver the presentation. Kevin, could you just turn your microphone on, please? >> Hey, Jacqueline, can you hear me? >> Yeah. Would you like to turn a camera on or no? >> Yep, I'll turn my camera on. All right. Uh, does everything look okay? You can hear me? Okay. And you can see my my presentation screen. >> Yeah, you're good to go. >> All right. Awesome. All right. So, good afternoon, members of council. So, uh, my name is Kevin Douglas. I'm the acting supervisor of accounting and I'll be going through the 2026 financial sustainability plan staff update to complement the presentation that Christopher and Andrew just did from Hempson. So the agenda the presentation we'll go through the FSP model findings. We will walk you through some of the policy change recommendations. And so that includes the funding allocation changes, the budget spending guidelines, uh some updates to the debt limits, and then we'll finish it off with some key takeaways. Uh so just some background. So as you just heard, uh Hempson uh developed a model uh based on the 2025 capital budget. What uh town staff did is we updated it for the 2026 capital budget. We did uh some adjustments to the 9-year capital forecast and based on the most recent information that we had to date, we did do some uh adjustments to the revenue findings. And I think Christopher did a very good job of summarizing that the FSP model findings are very similar to to what he just went through even after updating all of those metrics. So, I'll go through the policy change recommendations a little bit more in depth throughout the presentation, but just at a high level, I'll walk you through some of the main points that I think is really important for council and taxpayers to understand. So, we really need to achieve sustainable annual funding contributions through an infrastructure levy as well as a combination of investment income returns. We want to be able to utilize uh target or minimum reserve balances to guide annual spending instead of the 90% uh spending caps that are currently in place. So the current policy stipulates that uh for asset management strategic initiatives and town funded growth, we can't actually budget to spend more than 90% of the revenue that's coming in. And so we're recommending a little a change from from that perspective. And we really want to look to a balanced budget to require reserve balances. And what that means specifically is looking at at least the first four years of the long range capital forecast. And we want to make sure that it is fully funded. And in order to in order to do so, as Christopher already uh talked about, we are going to need to increase the town's debt limits. And then one of the uh other things that we're looking to do is to reallocate proceeds on the sale of uh property to strategic initiatives. So right now it's going to the CIP development reserve and I'll go into that more in depth throughout the presentation. So, in order to achieve all the recommendations that we are putting forward, there's going to need to be some adjustments to the funding allocation and we're really going to need to uh decrease the reliance on external funding for asset management needs. And so, when we say external funding, we're talking about casino Ajax and Alexa revenues that we don't really have control over. And as we've seen over the last number of years, they've gone down a bit. We're going to pause for a minute. I'm just getting notes that we lost the presentation. Council, can you nod? Is that correct? You guys do not see a presentation. Nod if you do not. >> Okay. Can we double check screen again? >> Can you share your screen again? >> Yeah. Sorry about that. >> Can you see it now? >> Yeah, we're working now. Thank you. Oh, okay. I promise I didn't touch anything. >> No one's blaming. We're all good. Go ahead. >> I did notice something was different. >> Okay. So um uh given that there's a decreased reliance on external funding uh we really need to start to rely on long-term investment returns uh for funding the asset management and the town fund portion of growth reserves. Uh one other aspect that we are recommending a change to is so the CCBF which is the Canada community building fund uh it has since been rebranded to uh building community strong fund- community stream. I know that's quite a mouthful, but uh we're recommending that be split uh between the asset management and the gross reserves to support housing, which is a new directive from the AMO. Okay. So, when we ran the numbers through the uh FSP uh it was very clear that uh there was insufficient funding for capital needs over the long term. Like I mentioned, that was really driven by the reduction in casino Ajax and alexicon uh revenues and given that it resulted in large draws on reserves which really limited the ability for the town to leverage its investment income and therefore there was a high reliance on taxf funded debt for growth related capital needs. So, we've kind of broken this presentation down into three different segments. We'll start out with asset management and we'll go through the policy framework changes that we're recommending. So, uh the council approved asset management plan did identify a total 10-year spend of approximately $260 million to uh meet the approved levels of service. Um, and so as I mentioned before, um, instead of the spending caps, the 90% spending caps that are currently in place per policy, what we're really recommending is, um, the annual budget spending guidelines for asset management related projects should be tied to the AMP given that's what council has approved from an approved level of service standpoint. And so what that means Oh, uh, sorry. Is is, uh, I think my present Oh, okay. I think there's there's a delay in the I I did change it, but it didn't go right off the bat. Okay. Um, so average annual spend for the 10-year long range capital forecast by service area should not exceed the average annual 10-year renewal need of $26 million per year. I'll wait for the screen to catch up because I just changed it, but I don't think it's catching up for my speaking notes. >> Um, don't worry about your slides if they're not catching up. Go ahead and keep we we have the presentation as well. >> Okay. All right. Uh so I'm going I'm on the asset management uh funding versus need slide for those of you that have the slide deck in front of you. Uh so really what what we wanted to communicate as part of this slide is that uh there is an impact that will be had uh based on what council's funding decisions are to deliver the approved levels of service. So if you look at the graph to the right, uh the blue line um that is based on a 2% infrastructure levy versus the gray line is no infrastructure levy. So you can see from the gray line it is basically going down to uh almost zero in terms of asset management reserve funds which is not sustainable. So, one of the recommendations that we are bringing forward, okay, there it is. So, one of the one of the recommendations that we're bringing forward is that the uncommitted asset management reserve balance should not drop below two years of average annual spending as forecasted in the town's asset management plan, which is approximately $52 million. Um, so if you look at the asset management reserve funding, uh, the table to the right. Yep, there we go. Okay. So, uh, as you can see, uh, we are really relying on, um, we don't want to rely on the casino Ajax and alexon revenues to fund asset management just given how important that is. There's not a lot of flexibility given the approved levels of service. So, we want to reallocate some of that funding when it comes to fruition to fund strategic initiatives as well as the town funded growth. We're looking to allocate approximately 50% of the CCBF revenues uh to growth projects. And then it's really important to keep in mind uh we're going to start budgeting in our operating budget um investment returns, equity investment returns. But uh the model does assume a fairly uh conservative return of about 5% per year. But you need to keep in mind that if reserve balances get drawn down, there's not going to be those returns. Uh just given the fact that we we can't invest as much as we would like. So it's very important to keep reserve balances at a healthy amount. So next I'll go through the town funded capital growth and the policy framework there. So I think one of the most important things to note even if we are reallocating uh some of the CC 50% of the CCBF as well as equity returns to fund town funded capital growth. We still are quite a bit short of what the needs are that were identified in the DC background study. So you can look at the uh proposed funding of about 5.7 million which is on the far right corner of the slide. But when we looked at what was identified per the DC background study in the model that equated to about $10.4 million on average per year. And so if we were to be able to afford that, uh, debt is going to be required to maintain existing reserve balances where they're currently at. So, one of the things that we did want to just throw out there is that uh we could consider allocating a percentage of assessment growth or increasing annual budget transfers to cover growth related needs and any potential uh DC or CBC debt related collection shortfalls. And so what we wanted to show here is based on the model um new debt to finance the town's portion of capital growth over the next 10 years. Uh we're forecasting about $67 million in taxf funded debt. So that's the town funded portion of growth. Uh and then an additional $285 million in DC funded debt. And so if you look at that chart on the right hand side, you can see that uh currently the all municipalities uh the the debt limit is 25% of own source revenues. That's the provincial limit. The current policy states that we cannot exceed 7.5% of our own source revenues and that's the red line that you see there. And as you can see by 2030 we are exceeding that. So uh given the needs that we have forecasted over the next 10 years uh one of the recommendations is to increase the town's own debt limit from 7.5% to 15% while restricting the amount of tax supported debt to no more than 5% which it stays below the 5% amount over the 10 years. uh and finally we'll look at the strategic initiatives policy framework. So the annual contribution for strategic initiatives, what we are recommending is that it should be greater than or equal to the four-year average annual need. And when we look at the model, that's about $1.5 million per year. And uh one of the reasons we're recommending this is ensuring that strategic initiatives needs are fully costed and fully funded will improve the town's ability to advance the priorities outlined in the strategic plan. So, it does give some flexibility to council and to town staff. Uh, you know, if we don't need to have as robust a strategic initiative or strategic plan uh framework, um we could potentially reallocate some of that funding to growth or asset management uh as needed. Also, as part of this report, we are recommending an amendment to the sale and disposition of a land bylaw. So, currently the bylaw states that all net proceeds from the sale and disposition of land shall be allocated to the CIP development improvement reserve and it can only fund capital projects within the downtown CIP area. So what we are recommending as part of the FSP report is that uh it that bylaw gets amended so that all future proceeds from disposition of land can be allocated to the strategic initiatives reserve. Uh the reason that we are recommending that is it will provide greater flexibility and options when deciding how uh funding for uh different strategic initiatives will be allocated. I'm not going to go through uh these last these couple slides in detail, but really what we just wanted to show council and the public is you know based on the assumptions in the model uh this is where the reserve balances would be as of today versus at the end of the 10 years based on what we know and I'll go through some of the key takeaways. So I think it's it's already been said but I think it's really important to just mention that uh the town is in a strong financial position. We have a wellestablished uh policy framework and we will continue to actively monitor and manage the evolving external revenues and investment variability uh throughout the forecast. Uh capital pressures do require increased use of debt to fund growth related assets. uh we're going to need to increase our internal debt limits and that is very comparable as Henson showed in their presentation to what other municipalities are doing. Uh debt ratios need to be managed to make sure that we're in a sound financial position uh growth projects do need to be prioritized. So I mean some of the road projects and our our core assets, you know, there's not a lot of flexibility there, but yeah, maybe other areas uh we need to think about uh what we're going to spend our money on. Uh current contributions to asset management reserves are insufficient to meet the renewal needs currently as approved by council. So uh yeah, maintaining the infrastructure levy is going to be very important moving forward. In terms of next steps, uh so the updated uh sale and disposition of land bylaw will be approved on the May 19th council meeting. Um so in in terms of the attachments to the to the report, you'll see there's a lot of adjustments to the policies and everything. And so there is going to be some dissolution of some of the reserves that are currently active right now. And so we will communicate that through the 2026 operating results and year-end reserve allocation report which will come to council in spring of 2027. And council will receive periodic reporting on the progress made towards reaching FSB goals with a more wholesome report in 2030 or earlier if warranted. And yeah, with that, uh, thank you very much, members of council, and, uh, we're happy to answer any questions you may have. >> Thank you very much. Um, so I'm think some of you may have questions for the consultant, some of you may have questions for staff. Just when you ask your question, please let us know where you're directing it. We'll start with Council Crawford. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your presentation, both of you. Um, my question, I believe, will be t will be more to the consultant. um on your page your presentation page eight uh you had uh comparable mid-range asset management contributions. So there's quite a jump from Whippy Milton and Oak uh Oakville. Can you tell me um what are those municipalities specifically doing? Do they have a a infrastructure levy? >> Yep. Mr. Bill. >> Uh, thanks counselor. That's a it's a good question. I mean, I guess part of it can be explained like there's they they do have their contributions to reserve built in. Um, when you look at one like relative to the replacement value, the one on the far right, it is really dependent also on the valuation of the infrastructure that's at least public from the asset management plan. So there is going to be variety in terms of the municipalities just in the comparables in that sense. So it's not as much as we try to make it an apples to apples comparison the valuation of each municipality's infrastructure is still and this graph is still subject to that. Um and then the contributions per capita um they do jump up and you get a place like Oakville. Um you know just the size of the municipality might be a bit different. You know obviously the economy scale the infrastructure that they've got and their budget and what they've worked into it. Um there are some nuances that aren't always reflected in a graph like this. And it could be also the municipality's debt levels and also where they are on their asset life cycle venture whether their assets are relatively new or if they're a lot older. um one might need to be contributing a lot more now um if they've got bigger infrastructure requirements in the near future. So those are some of the particulars that don't always reflect in this but you know when you look at a from a conceptual perspective that the town is kind of in the mid-range does it seem to suggest that they are you are doing your part at least in kind of investing in your infrastructure but obviously there's continued way to go as we kind of move forward and kind of keep that pace going forward into the future. So, not a fair comparator. In other words, >> it >> it's fair. There's just there's differences within each municipality and and and whether that's in Ajax or Oakville or Milton, there's just there obviously nuances within each community that we have to be cognizant of. >> So, uh I don't know if you can answer this question or if uh I can't remember his name, the other fellow there. Um, how many uh municipalities in Durham Region currently have an asset management plan or sorry, not an acid um the uh infrastructure levy. >> Um so through the chair, I can't give you an exact number off hand, but I do know that there are um certainly a number of them that do have it um >> in Durham Region. >> In Durham Region. Yeah. Yeah. and and ones that have just recently introduced them as well um in in Durham. Um I I have to get back to on the specifics of which communities have or don't have um but I I do know that there are communities obviously in Durham um that do have an infrastructure in place. >> Okay. Um one other Okay, I'll uh I'll let somebody else have a chance now. >> Um just one moment. Uh, director Meekum joined the conversation. Do you have that answer regarding the number of DUR municipalities that have um the fee? >> I don't have the exact answer on me right now, but I can definitely circulate it. We did do an analysis. I know there's um at least two two or three um but I can circulate that. >> Okay. Thank you. And thank you Crawford. Next we have Mayor Collier. Mayor Collier. >> Thank you, Chair. Um, I'll just go through my notes here and try and refer to the right people. Just with the casino revenues and the alexon, um, I would prefer to not include those at all. I think those are so precarious. I don't expect we'll see anything from Lexicon for probably close to a decade. And the casino, I mean, who knows? That could go next year for all I know. It just seems to be constantly declining. What would how much difference to the plan would it make if we did not put those in at all? >> Screw the chair. I can take that question. So, right now in the plan, I think we have about 3.2 million in casino um casino Ajax revenue. So, that would be a reduction of 3.2 million. Now, we've allocated the casino Ajax revenue um split to growth and um strategic initiative. So that does not impact or or the plan is that that this revenue will no longer impact the asset management plan but will is is more um uh indirect revenue that will that will help bring forward either a strategic initiative or the growth related uh plan which can be funded by by debt uh in you know in the absence of those revenues. But we don't we no longer want to propose relying on that revenue to fund asset management. >> Right. And and that's that's pretty much what I'm saying. I mean, I was around when the FB first came into effect, I think 2007. It's it's worked well for us, but obviously we need to pivot and and modify based on current. And I I don't and don't get me wrong, I I hope the the slots for revenues continue indefinitely. But I just don't want another um surprise like what happened when we lost our alexicon dividends and interest last year. So, just thank you for that reassurance. I want to talk about the investment policy because we talk about this a little bit and I see staff starting to use some of the investments for this year we used a little bit for operational but um in the plan you're talking about a a conservative 5%. I think we know that our combined um long-term and short-term rate of return is just in the last three years somewhere closer to 14%. Um I I think and I've said this before setting this at such a low amount fine but if we're going to do that I think we should have the 5% going in to the growth and or the infrastructure and the the strategic strategic initiatives or wherever it's supposed to go and the balance go into a separate reserve. We're going to have some negative years. We've been lucky so far, but we're going to have some negative years. And I don't want us to have to I I would prefer to have sort of like a tax rate stabilization fund with the extra than have to suddenly go out and try and make it up from taxes if we have a negative year. Can you speak to that, please? >> Yes. Through the chair to Mayor Collier. Um we so the plan is to include uh a 5% conservative estimate but we have the discretion to allocate anything over and above that uh through our year-end allocation report. We could uh potentially allocate that to a stabilization reserve if that is the desire of council or we can then uh top up any other reserve at that point. Um it is really uh the the point of not including a higher return is that there will be years that are positive and there will be years as you said that will be negative. So um we want to be conservative. We want to utilize some of that investment income but still have that ability to to uh direct where that surplus could go in any given year. So what would be your thoughts if if I directed or if council directed that that anything above the 5% go to a whatever you want to call it tax rate stabilization or or investment um surplus reserve and we put a cap to that reserve of say three or five million and anything above that at the end of the day gets reallocated. What effect would that have and would you be supportive of something like that? um through the chair, we could definitely take a look uh at doing that. We have um currently in our stabilization reserve um a requirement to fund uh or to to save a minimum of 5% of of total um uh total own source revenue that we collect in uh in a year with a cap of 15%. We're always at the lower end of that of that 5% mark. So that could definitely be something we take a look at and and we bump up that reserve uh with that in mind and we can build that into the policy. We can we can take a look at that. >> Okay. I I may give that uh bring that as an amendment. Uh you've set the 5% or sorry the debt maximum debt at 5%. What is that in dollar value? Because we're talking about having a linear 26 million per year for the next 10-year capital program. the 5% I don't have >> or so >> I don't have the exact dollar value because that's based on payments. Um so the the 25% cap or the 5% limit that's in our uh policy would be based on the annual payment and the payment of course varies depending on whether it's a 5year 10 year 15 20 year debenture. Um, so we would have to take a look at approximately what that means as far as a debt limit, but um, I can definitely get back to you on that. Um, >> well, let me >> I'll see if I can find it. >> We're we're proposing through this new revised FSP a $26 million a year linear capital budget. And if we're capping our debt to 5%, does that mean we could only debenture 10 million of the 26 million for instance? I will get back to you on numbers, but it would be a a certain percentage. And now I I will have to caution that the um the the debentures that were forecasted in this presentation um were the debentures primarily from our growth related reserves. So funding our growth assets. if we are going to continue to continuously fund the um capital asset uh uh projects whether it's building or vehicles and equipment um that will use up a little bit more of that room uh quicker. >> The only where I'm getting the 10 million from is when you talk about doubling our debt ceiling from 7 and a half to 15%. If you look at the chart it looks like 15% is about 30 32 million. So I just assume 5% was about 10 >> in annual debt payments. Yes. >> Annual debt payments. Okay. >> In annual debt payments. Yeah. So you're you're correct. Well, it would be so the the 5% yes would be around the 10 million 10 to 12 million in annual debt payments. >> Okay. And I'm and I'm not concerned about incurring some debt. I I think that's actually a good idea. We have our deenture policy for vehicles with longer lifespans of eight years and and whichever else. We're going to have 17,000 new homes coming online over the next 15 years or so. I think the taxes from that are going to more than be able to handle the the debt payments. So, I'm not concerned about that. On the recommendations, can you give me an example of what you know quote more stable source of revenue are? Are you just referring to property taxes when you talk about more stable sources? >> Okay. Okay. So through the chair uh when we speak about that with respect to the capital reserves that comment is more about relying less on external revenue. So the casino the alexicon revenues to fund those ass those those needs that we do have and um make those yes more stable funding from the tax base rather and and you know from a conservative investment um allocation rather than external revenues and subject to fluctuations. Okay. Uh I already talked about the investment piece um to the spending caps and I'm not a big supporter of removing the spending caps. I know you you know uh I wasn't really supportive of increasing it to the 90%. Because that's what made sure under the old FSP that our reserves grew each year by that delta from what we put into the spending cap. Um at the same time having the new um sort of linear model doesn't take in into account the investment growth over the 5%. I I feel like they contradict each other a little bit. Um can you speak to that? Like I mean I would prefer to still see a spending cap in there a linear 26 million or 60% whichever is less for instance. So through the development of this of the policies our our caps are based on our reserve balances now right. So we instead of um limiting ourselves to the revenues coming into the reserves every year the known revenues or anticipated revenues um we have been conservative in in putting investment income in there which we previously did not include as part of our capital planning. um it was al always an after-the-act uh contribution to reserves whereas now we are um proactively putting that in where we so that it's both taxpayer uh funding as well as the investment um in the investment um income funding our capital. Yes, we will have to draw down on our reserves uh over the first few years until the uh infrastructure levy catches up or if we have additional investment revenues that we do contribute to those reserves um that will help balance out those um um the es and flows over the years. I'm not sure if that answers your question, but >> kind of well I I'm going to be meeting I'm going to be meeting with you to discuss the investment strategy as you know at a later date anyway and part of this works together. So we can talk about those other things after. I want to talk about the change of reserve from the CIP for the sale of buildings to the to the strategic initiatives which I absolutely support. I just wonder how much is in that CIBC reserve CIP reserve right now. um through the chair. I have that in front of me. I think it's about uh 8 million, but let me just double check. >> Okay. So, >> yes, we do have about eight and a half million. >> Yeah. Significant amount. So, if we're going forward under the new FSP going to be putting any sale of of um capital assets, I guess buildings into this new strategic initiatives reserve. Why why aren't we transferring the $8 million balance is already in there as well? Is that already allocated? uh through the chair note the full amount is not allocated. We can take a look at the contributions that were made to that reserve with respect specifically to the CIP and we believe those will have to stay in there. Um and as part of our our reserve um review at the end of 2026, we can take a look at all the funding that was contributed and the funding that is not was not contributed specifically to the downtown CIP. We can make a recommendation to see if we can move that out. Okay, that would be my recommendation because I know we sold the uh pavilion last year that went in there and I don't think that that was meant to go towards CIP projects since we wrapped up the CIPs. So, I think that should go over as well. And finally, I just want to talk a little bit about assessment growth because in the report on page 65, it talks about um key finding number four uh identified a funding gap and town funded consideration should be given to additional contributions to allocating a percentage of annual assessment growth. So what percentage are you considering? I would consider well what what percentage have used so far? Because I would recommend use 1% and anything over and above 1% would be going to asset. So through the chair we haven't identified any specific percentage. This was a recommendation for council's consideration as to whether some of the assessment growth could be allocated more towards the growth related uh um uh reserves rather than asset management. So asset management um contributions are forecasted to be be to be um generated through the infrastructure levy whereas growth reserves do not currently have a sustainable funding source that would um match the needs that are required over the next 10 years. So this was an additional um a recommendation for consideration and based on best practices from uh other municipalities that uh we've reviewed with HSN. Well, I I agree with it. Um given the situation we're in and knowing um the pressure on our reserves, I think we need to make some of these tough choices. Right now, if I'm if I'm correct, we use the assessment growth to reduce the tax impact. >> That is correct. >> And I mean, that's a nice short-term solution, but it's not going to help us long term. So, I would suggest that that does get implemented. And as I said, make it if you want to use a percentage to reduce the tax impact, that's fine. But I suggest you cap it at say a 1% or 3/4 or percent and put anything above and beyond into the asset management would be my my suggestion or the asset whatever you call it reserve. Does that >> sound that kind of what you're thinking of? >> It it it does sound very plausible. I think that'll be up to the next uh mayor or next council to identify um how much from the budget uh will be directed to the um uh to will be used from assessment growth. >> Okay. So, you don't think it's a good idea to hardwire this into the FSP? You want it to remain as a council decision each year? >> I I will take my direction from council as a whole. So um if that is I don't know if that's a a separate motion or um how we go about that but I will I will take the direction from okay from from council. >> Thank you uh for the presentation. Thank you for answer my questions and thank you for your leniency on the time chair. >> My pleasure. Next we have um for the first time councelor Henry. >> Thank you chair. So I was just making some notes here. some great questions here um with regards to 6.1 um and the report references a 2% levy I'm noticing. So I wanted to ask about that because back in December at our budget meeting I thought there was a motion brought forward by regional counselor Lee with regards to a reduction uh from a 2% infrastructure levy to 1%. Is that the same infrastructure levy we're referring to in this report >> through the chair to councelor Henry? Yes, it is. Um, we did when we updated the 2026 FSP, we did uh reduce the 2026 capital infrastructure levy to the 1% but through the review that was prepared by Hemson and our subsequent review. A 2% uh capital infrastructure levy is what is required to maintain uh our asset uh our our reserve balances for asset management up to the sustainable levels they need to be at uh in order to fund all of the required maintenance work uh in the long term. So it is it is still a need even though it was reduced to 1% it is it it is a requirement um uh in order to meet the established uh levels of service and then start growing our reserves after the the 10-year time frame. So just to clarify um the motion did go through as it was intended in December. The levy has been dropped. There's no few um uh policies updates or anything needed to make that happen. It has happened. Correct. >> That is correct. >> Yes. >> But the information in slide eight and um subsequent slides that I'm looking at nine and so on refers to the 2%. So we're stating that if we want to maintain uh what we have been we're going to need to be at the 2% not the 1%. Yes. Like how how is that affecting? Yes, >> that is correct that it is a new recommendation through the review of this uh the financial sustainability plan that we maintain the 2% infrastructure levy. >> So where does that leave us now? Is there a recommendation in this report to put that back up to what it was because it's just been taken down >> through the chair. The uh infrastructure levy has never been um entrenched in policy. Uh it it is something that it we know is required and is subject to approval on an annual basis uh by the mayor and council um at budget time. Um you know this plan is is provided to provide a guidance to council to make those decisions. Um but nothing I mean if you would like uh a 2% infrastructure levy built into this plan we can certainly include it uh directly in policy. uh it has not been practiced in the in the past uh but it is the recommended course of action. >> So does the report change if you use the guise of a 1% levy like how much would it have changed? How much difference would we have seen here? Cuz the information is based off 2%. >> That is that is correct. So through the chair on one of the um on one of the slides uh that Kevin presented I'm just trying to find a number here. Uh he did go through the impacts on our asset management reserves if we had a a 2% a 1% and a 0% infrastructure levy. Um if we put in no levy he did mention we are going down to reserve balances of zero which is not sustainable. Um we do not want to be at that stage. Um and and the 1% infrastructure levy brought us mid mid uh mid-range. So our reserve balances would decrease over time. Um and again with reduced reserve balances that means we have less money to invest. Therefore there will be an increased reliance on the tax base as well to fund the asset management plan in the long run >> which means taxes go up. >> Correct. >> Sorry. Um councelor Henry uh you're these are great questions. Uh, Director Mat, where's that slide you're referencing on the 1% 2%? >> It was uh slide >> slide nine in um >> the town portion >> in the town's uh presentation. >> Okay, thank you. Uh just staff want to put that up. Uh go ahead, councel. Thank you. >> Sorry. So you're saying that if we have a 1% levy over time, we will have to increase taxes. >> Well, what will happen? Yes, >> I I I I am saying that it will we will likely have to increase taxes in the long run because we will have lower reserve balances to invest, meaning lower returns uh to help us offset uh the the the uh tax rate or sorry the the capital levy. Um, and our reserve balances, as you see on that slide there, would would go from approximately, you know, close to $und00 million in the $90 million range, all the way to just about $60 million. So, um, and that's that's with the 1% infrastructure levy. If we applied a a 2% infrastructure levy, um we we would our balances would go down in the near term as we deal with our asset management needs, as we um uh address the those higher risk capital projects. But with the the 2% infrastructure levy and the investment income that we earn on our reserves, it would bring it back up over time so that we can start saving for future needs as well. So, what year are we looking at that we'd have to increase taxes in order in order to um replace the the 1% infrastructure levy that would be lost in what year? Well, I I would think it we would have to take a look at that, but the 2% infrastructure levy is is a levy as well. Like it is we we can't avoid um tax increases when it comes to dealing with our asset management. um they are assets we need to maintain and manage and replace on a cyclical basis. Um so if if >> I understand that, but I guess I'm trying to I'm trying to figure out which is the which is you know the worst of the two is we take away the 1% now and what what does that look like for for a tax increase? It's like at what year and what percentage? Is it better to keep the 1% now and then we don't have a 3% increase later or do we take away the 1% now and have an additional 3%? Like what are we looking at here? What's the percentage? Is it apples to apples 1% to 1%. Give me some guidance here please. Um to councelor Henry I mean tax increases like I said to deal with asset management. I can't give you numbers on like the more you can do upfront um um the better as you're as you you can invest that those funds or spend them on the needs that are in front of us. Um deferring capital projects also cost us money. So if we don't do the right maintenance work at the right time um in all likelihood that will end up costing more from an from an asset replacement uh in the future as well. So I think you know the the the plan was put that was put before council today uh puts forward a sustainable um plan that we can build upon. So to have that 2% infrastructure levy every year is probably better than doing nothing for a number of years and then having to increase taxes by 7 8 9 10% in a year that we may really need those funds. So I think um we're trying to be um uh you know part of it is is to have some sort of predictability and sustainability long term and that's what we're uh proposing. >> Okay. So the these reports here today are they for to receive for information only? >> No, they are for um for approval. Um and the the reason we are um asking for your approval is so that with the 2027 budget can be built using this framework. Um the reason we did not put any numbers in the policies is that those are up to council when budget comes before you in 20 in 2027. Um so that you can make those decisions. that uh the guidance that is provided by the this document is really important so that those fiscal decisions can be made um for the taxpayers in the long run. >> So if we accept this report as is now does the infrastructure levy automatically increase backed by the 1% or is there a motion required to do so? there is no impact on no immediate impact on the infrastructure levy. What we would um build into the budget would be 2% and then if council were to um not agree with that then that can be amended um at a f at a future date and we would work with um the mayor uh post election to develop that as part of uh the budget. So right now if if nothing is done and this council accepts a report as is 2026 goes with a 1% infrastructure levy and you folks go away and plan for a 2% infrastructure levy for the future accepting this report as is. Correct. >> That is correct. The budget for this year has been adopted. So there's no changes uh to that budget at all. >> Okay. >> All right. So there is the 1% infrastructure levy that's been set by council when the budget was adopted. Okay. So, I'm going to leave my questions here for now. Um, and, uh, depending on the outcome of this meeting, uh, yourself and I, I'd like to schedule a follow-up meeting. Thank you very much for all your answers. >> Thank you. Um, for the first time, Council Bower, >> wait. >> Thank you, uh, Deputy Mayor Lee. Uh, good afternoon, everyone. Uh, thank you for the presentations. some excellent excellent information and thank you to my colleagues for asking some really great questions. Um so on the positive side uh congratulations to the town for coming creating this policy in 2013 that because it seems to have um really formed a strong foundation for us to make decisions and also for the um change to on the town staff report about the fully funded budgets for current year and the and the four um following years of long range forecast. I love that it will be fully funded. Um I think that's a really positive um just even it's an it's an assurance to see that we can we can budget these things. So, I just want to confirm um so all of this data I know we're talking about reserve funds, capital programs, debt financing. This is all info that is based currently on our existing um levels of service throughout the town. Right. So through the chair, yes, the asset management uh plan is uh reflected in in these studies based on what was approved by council. Um I will note though that the the framework for the FSP when with respect to growth was built using 100% of all the assets uh that are going to be built in our DC background study. Right? So council does have some discretion as to the timing of those projects. Um and as um or as Andrew and Christopher alluded to, you know, should growth not materialize uh as quickly or if it goes faster, there is some discretion in advancing projects or moving them out. So yes, the growth piece is is more based on, you know, that long-term growth vision for the town. Um but the the rest of it is is based on approved levels of service that council um uh made back in May of of last year. >> Thank you very much um acting director meth. So then my question and I think this is probably a crazy question but I'm going to ask it anyway. Um was there scenario testing done for you know the level of service is something that council does have control over. Do these numbers um does it have huge impact? Like I know if we were to look at a reduction of service levels >> are you speaking with respect to asset management or other other types of service levels like operating budget? What what type of service? >> Right. So for example, I know in recent years there was and correct me if I'm wrong. We looked at the condition of road to set the service level of when certain repair works were done. And I think we actually made an adjustment and it I I believe it was an adjustment down. So is that something that would be a realistic uh and I'm just thinking from the perspective of like these are huge numbers we're talking about and huge need for more revenues based on what we are delivering now and we often hear well you know it's either a choice of raising taxes or lowering service. So, I'm just curious um you know, is that exercise something that would be a logical or practical or even realistic exercise to think about? >> So, through the chair to councelor Bower, uh my understanding is that exercise has been done. When the asset management plan was presented to council, um operations staff, uh and uh finance took a look at the the long-term outlook of what asset management uh activities were needed to replace our roads and do the ongoing maintenance. And if you recall at that time, we did lower uh levels of service. So to to bring some affordability uh to the required activities that would have to be done on our roads. I don't believe and I can hand it over to director Meredith uh if he wants to add anything but I don't believe that um staff would recommend uh further reducing the the levels of service because uh at that point you know we're at a point where if we reduce them any further the maintenance costs will go up meaning our operating budget cost uh may go up. um deferring assets uh the replacement of assets any longer uh you know will cost more than actually uh reinvesting and maintaining our assets at this point. Yes, thank you for that answer. Yeah, I appreciate that answer because and I understand that answer because although it sounds like maybe we could do that kind of reduction um you know if you don't if you don't take care of things the it costs more in the in the long term for rep reparation right so I appreciate that answer no thank you for that um if anyone if any other director wanted to add to that director Meredith I'm happy to listen to it but I'm I'm satisfied with your answer Um, and the other question was, sorry, go ahead. I saw a screen flash up there. Was that you, director? Um, >> uh, that was me. Councelor Bar, please keep going. >> Okay. Thank you. And then the other question about debt financing was to increase the town's debt limit from up to 15% from the current 7.5 with regular review of debt levels, which of course we know are needed. Is that so I just wanted to understand how did we pick 15? Is that an arbitrary number? is that tested against something. >> So through the chair to councelor Bower, we did take a look at comparable municipalities and uh 15% is a very common and average uh debt limit that is self-imposed uh across municipalities. Some are higher, some are lower. Um and we we definitely do not want to be at the maximum 25%. Um we we do want to keep keep debt reasonable and also keep in mind uh the debt split between um you know what is taxf funded versus what is required to deal with our growth related assets. >> Okay, thank you very much. Um let me I think I think all pretty much I have all the other information that I was looking for. Thank you very much. Uh those are my questions. Uh Chair Lee, >> thank you. uh for the second round. Councelor Tyler Warner. >> Thank you. Uh I think I'm good. My my questions have been answered. Uh just very quickly on the 2% infrastructure levy. My question was going to be how critical is that? Obviously uh director metham it is very critical uh for this possibly is the most critical for the financial health of this whole system. Would you agree with that statement? >> Yes 100%. >> Okay. Something we will have to remember in the future. Thank you so much, chair, for letting me back in for the second time. >> Thank you, Regent Crawford second time. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just curious to the consultant, were you aware that our infrastructure levy was 1%. >> I may add to that. Um, sorry. the the consultants um did their work uh based on 2025 data and at the time there was it was not 1% it was 2% at the time. >> Okay. Okay. So this whole report was done based on what they knew at the time not what was done at the budget time >> in 2025. So the report serious concerns about this consultant. Uh okay thank you. I appreciate you clearing that up. Thank you so much everybody. Oh, councelor Henry for a second time. >> Hi, thank you. Um, knowing that knowing that information that the consultant was basing it off the 2% prior, um, and without going into a whole thing where we're causing, um, a huge cost expense here, uh, what's the likelihood of getting an updated report based off the 1% um through the chair to councelor Henry staff um have modeled what it would be like with the 1%. We will not be asking our consultants to uh to update all of their data with the 1%. Um their engagement has pretty much come to a close. Um but we have all the the the model that was provided to us and we can do that analysis in house. >> Excellent. When can we as a council expect to receive that updated information? through the chair. What what exactly are you looking for as as to the impacts of the 1% because we did show you the impacts on that chart. Is there anything more that you're looking for? >> Well, I just asked about if it was if the whole report was modeled after 1% instead of two and you said you could do that in house. So, I don't know what further information you could do in house. What does that look like? And would >> uh let me help you out here. uh because that graph if I'm reading the director graph correctly uh maps out uh the one and 2% scenarios. So um there's no kind of you can follow that forecasting uh from that graph. >> Thank you. So, is there any further I guess what I'm trying to ask is had there been a 1% basis to go off of, would there been any additional information that was not rep provided in this report that staff could inhouse give us? Um, we could take a look back at that. there would be additional a slight additional information but I I we can take that back and take a look at what we can do and provide any additional data that uh we feel was not included as part of this report. >> Thank you. And and do we need a motion for that or is that something you can just do and when could we look at receiving that? Um, I would prefer to do it through a motion if possible and um, we could probably look at that. Um, you know, uh, we could try for June. If not, maybe September. >> So, can I bring that motion forward now at this time, clerks? >> Um, a motion is always in order, but right now we're only at the presentation. I haven't brought forth the recommendations yet. So, council Henry, now on that note, why don't we put a hold for now and let me bring forth the recommendation. So, we have report number FIN-2026-11. The recommendation is one, the council received for information the financial sustainability uh plan final report as prepared by Hemson Consulting Limited for the town of Ajax. Two, the following updated policies included as AT-4 to AT- be approved um and list A through E. Three, that the draft procedure for sale of dis disposition of land bylaw attached as AT-9 be brought forward to the May 19, 2026 council meeting for consideration. And four, that the director of finance be authorized to make administration changes to other policies identified under 120 financial stability plan to align with the goals stated in this report. Let us start with the mover. Can I get a move for this please? Mayor Collier, do you want to move this? Okay, I see collier moved. Um now as part of this councelor Henry you had an amendment first. Go ahead. >> Yes. So the amendment would be to have um what we just discussed further information based any further information that's missing from this report based off um the 1% levy versus the two. However that needs to be worded by clerks. Just give me a moment looking at clerks to see if they've one moment. We're just typing it out. Are you going to show it on screen? And it's coming on screen for you all. >> Senator required or no? >> I'm gonna ask that you Vicky, size that because I cannot see it. Can you enlarge that, please? >> Thank you. >> Okay. Motion to amend moved by um councelor Henry that the motion be amended to add the following. The staff be directed to provide council with further information based on the 1% instead of 2% levy. Is that okay for wording? Councelor Henry. >> Yes. >> I I I think the director understands what I'm looking for. >> Did you want to give time on that? Uh the director's asked for as late as September. Are you okay with that time frame? >> I'd like to allow the director the the time needed. >> Okay. So by the September, >> the appropriate standing committee in September 2026 >> GTC. >> Okay. Um, any questions, comments, concerns from council? Um, Mayor Collier, I'm gonna Oh, uh, sorry, CEO Baker's joined. CEO Baker, do you want to comment on this? >> Um, through you, Mr. Chair. I I'm I'm just confused as to what information staff would be looking to bring forward and I I want to make sure that um acting director meth has she knows what she's going to be trying to to bring forward. I I because I I as you have noted, Mr. Chair, the the graph is there. You can see that there's a difference between the 2% and the 1%. It's projected out. I don't really know what else we would be bringing forward. And and and to be clear as we talked about already these the the FSP is a financial it's a it's a principled report. So it's bas these are recommendations from the consultant from staff about what we believe should be brought forward for council's consideration regarding the infrastructure levy in in the budget. And at that time council can make the council can ask questions then they can ask for you know numbers then as to how it would affect that year's budget all that kind of stuff and make their decision based on that year's budget. But what this would simply do is it would direct staff that the if if approved that they're going to come forward with a recommended 2% and then council could debate it at that time. But as far as this motion goes, I'm really not clear as to what we're expected to bring back. Um, councelor Henry. Um, so you know I mean it's always appropriate to amend what information is there any kind of specific information you are looking for that the graph does not address because again the consultant used the information they mapped out a a one and 2% option and a zero I believe and so um I guess staff is looking for that clarification of what what more are we looking for exactly? uh the consultants had the information to to map it out. So I think your concern is that they were work they were not working off that information. Am I phrasing that correctly for you or no? Yes, they they are not they were not working off the correct information and thus although a graph was provided, it could have changed other things in the report and uh staff has already indicated that they are in the position to handle um any adjustments that would have been needed in the report with the information given. So, I'm just asking to make sure that we take a onceover on this and that there's clarity on it. I don't think that's too much to ask. I'm not putting pressure on staff in any way to do it in a in a you know I need this tomorrow timeline. Sorry, director you have a question. I see director's hand up. >> Yes, through the chair. I do want to >> go ahead. >> Am I am I able to speak? Um through the chair. Um I I do want to make a correction that the consultant did have the correct information when they did the analysis. So, the the 2% infrastructure levies that were approved until 2025 um and the anticipated um uh infrastructure levies going into the future, that is an estimate that is is is uh is provided and I would not say that they had incorrect information. The analysis is is sound and you won't see much changing from those those base numbers. Um it's you know an infrastructure levy is approved on an annual basis uh through the budgeting process and council does have discretion to increase or decrease those uh on an annual basis at at this point. Um but what I'm confused the the question that uh regional counselor Crawford asked were they aware of this uh reduction in the levy to 1%. I thought you said they were not. their modeling was based on 2025 data. So when so yes, we did not they they did not include a 1% infrastructure levy going forward in their modeling. Uh they had the 2% infrastructure levy which is still what is being recommended uh today in the staff recommended plan after we made that that change for the 2026 levy. Yeah. >> So, councelor Henry again um you again this is I'm going to this is in in this is a fine but I guess what staff is trying to address is that all this information you're asking for is there any sort of update will not drastically present you any new information that is not in the current report. So sorry when I asked a minute ago about the um about having the consultant um adjust the uh report accordingly knowing of the 1% I was told that all the information that the the staff uh sorry that the consultant uh we weren't going to retain them any further and this was something that staff could do. That led me to believe that there was information that could or would have been changed had they had that update. So is that not the case? It's kind of been a mis uh communication on our part of just like uh understanding the question as asked. I think right now the director's giving you the most clear question. So um again if you want we can put this to a vote if you want but again what we're saying right now in this meeting is you will not get any substantially different information than the report provided and the graph provided which offered a two one and 0% option. >> Okay. So uh uh sorry director uh that is correct >> right? >> That is correct. >> Yes. >> Okay. I just want clarification on that before proceeding. >> Then then required >> then no motion is required. I just wanted the way that it was worded did not lead me to believe that conclusion. >> Understood. And we're sorry for that miscommunication. We're all on the same page now. Thank you. Okay. Uh Mayor Collier, you were on the list, I'm assuming. Um Go ahead. Thank you. Last 10 minutes. I have sent to the clerk. >> Okay. >> Um, yeah, we're hearing some feedback from you, but I believe you said you sent a motion to the clerk. Clerk, do we have that >> on Can we put that on the screen? >> I don't think the feedback's from me. I think it is but not to Jacuse. Um okay. Um council can we all see the amendment um provided by the mayor? Obviously this move by himself those just two through seven correct >> two um I think I only sent two through four but it's been um revised a little bit by the clerk. Let me just read it quickly. >> Go ahead. Okay, this is followup to the questions that I posed to the treasurer commissioner of finance and sorry director of finance and um uh towards the consultants report and the report in the agenda um just and and this is asking and and I was trying to get in before councelor Henry's motion because this also asks staff to put all this new information in and come back to council. with the revised numbers based on some of these amendments. I'll just go through the amendments quickly. First, I talked about the investment reserve being created. So, an investment reserve be created and any realized investment revenue in excess of 5% peranom, which is what the report says they're going to conservatively fix it at be allocated to this reserve on an annual basis up to a reserve balance of $5 million. Once the target has been met, any further revenues be allocated to the asset management reserve going forward. The the allocation and this is very similar to our um tax rate stabilization or whatever that's called now where we had a cap where in years where there is perhaps a negative growth or um a need you can tap into that reserve but once the balance is reached then then the rest goes in. Uh number three, which probably should be number two, that the allocation of assessment growth used to reduce the tax impact be capped at 75% annually and the amount above that be allocated to the asset management reserve. As I talked with the treasur about, we use those funds on an annual basis to reduce the tax impact. Um they're usually somewhere between half percent and 1% lately. So I chose in the middle 75. This will still maintain the relief to the taxpayers as we've been doing in the past by including assessment growth. But once we do start realizing some higher assessment growth, that extra funding will go into the asset management reserve. Uh four, which should be three, that staff review the proposal to eliminate the spending caps. Um this really troubles me, removing spending caps completely. Um, I would propose a revised portion where we still have a spending cap and I've used 70% that's variable. I want the treasur to go back and work with the numbers and report back to council or the 23.5 million whichever is less going forward. Um, I think this works to if we have better growth from reserves going forward the money is there. If not, then we we go with the caps. Um that any non-allocated balance of the CIP reserve, which is where the sale of our buildings goes, um there's 8 million in there now. Whatever is not already already allocated to CIPs be transferred over to the strategic initiatives reserve where the new money is going anyway. And that staff report back to council with the revised FSP and associated policies based on these changes. And this was added um that draft updated procedure sale and disposition of land bylaw attached be brought forward to the June 22nd meeting for consideration. I guess that's based on some of these revisions. Thank you, chair. I'm hoping to answer any questions. >> Um sorry, uh region Crawford, I'm going to get to you just from a clarification point of view to the mayor. Are you removing the staff recommendation too completely which has the updated policies? >> Uh that wasn't my intent. What my intent through these amendments was to take these changes and go back and revise them in the policy and then come back to council >> and then come back to council. So um you want in a sense just I need to clarify for everyone. You want a sense for staff to kind of go through this exercise present it to council to see something that's we we want to adopt. Is that correct? >> Well, we have we have recommendations in the agenda today, chair, to basically receive the report from the presentation information and revise these policies. I wasn't able to in the time to go through each policy and excerpt where this should go and make that sort of much more in-depth amendment. So, I guess I'm sending these to staff and let them put them in where they need to go and then come back. I don't know if that's >> come back to us and allow council to make that final decision. >> Correct. Based on the new numbers and at the same time if there was any discrepancy with the 1% reduction this year and the million dollars that maybe did or did not get put in that would be corrected at that time as well. >> Okay. I just want to clarify warning. Thank you very much. Uh on the amendment we'll start with M. That's Crawford. >> Uh thank you. Um that was actually what I was going to ask. Um, Mayor Collier, this is a really good motion and I like I like what you're where you're going with it. I was just wondering if it was replacing what the staff's recommendations are. So, thank you, Chair Lee, for clearing that up. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, Councelor Bower. >> Thank you. And, uh, thank you to Mayor Collier for bringing these forward. I support I just wanted to friendly question uh, your cap on qu on item number three. you I know you've sort of arrived in the middle of 0.5 and one. Um I would like to ask could it be capped at 1%. >> Well, councelor Bower I'm going to leave that I mean I just chose an arbitrary number. I think when this comes back we'll be able to look at the numbers and see what the actual be based on this and then council can decide at that point whether we wanted to to revise it. That was my intent. I'm not saying it has to be. I just picked a number in between the half percent and the 1%. So, okay. I mean, I I I think maybe it might be better to do that when this comes back. Just my thoughts. >> Okay. Yep. Fair enough. Thank you, >> Mayor Collier. Just one more question on wording. Did you want this for the June GDC meeting or is this for the September GDC meeting? >> I would prefer I think June um through you to director Mattham. Is that achievable to punch these in and come back in June? Is that enough time? >> It's through the chair. I believe it is sufficient time. Yes. >> Okay. So to the June then. Thank you chair. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Clerk has all that language. Looking over clerk. It's captured including the June date. That is a nod from clerk. I see no more questions from committee. Um okay. We will go ahead and start that vote right now. Sorry. Okay, that passes. Um, we have Mayor Collier again and I guess on the main motion as amended. >> That's right. Just moving the main motion as amended. Thank you, chair. >> Thank you. Any questions, comments, concerns on the main motion as amended in this and since it's going to come back to us next month. Looking at the speaker list, there is none. So, we will start the vote. Thank you. Just waiting for regional counselor dies. Okay. Um, that passed. Oh, she did vote. Okay, great. Sorry, we weren't sure if regional council dies had voted. Thank you everybody. That was exciting. All right, we've now finished presentation 6.16.2. Um, we're now uh still in presentations. We're at 6.3 OES-2026-10. the ACC recreation master plan renovation concept plan approval report contract award for the detailed design for the ACC recreation master plan renovation. We have director Dave Meredith to set the table. >> Um thank you chair. Just just really quickly I'm going to turn it over to Jackson Christian to lead us through the presentation. Um I don't have much to say in terms of introductory comments so I'll just turn it over to him. Awesome. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you Dave. Uh good afternoon Mayor Collier, members of council and everyone present today. Uh just before I begin I wanted to update that Diamond Smith who's our consultant lead architect working on this project. We're having some technical difficulty earlier and I just want to check if they're able to log in now before I share my screen. Um just calling out for Marchin if he's able to um able to access his audio controls. >> So we're doing a test. Can you hear us? >> Good afternoon. Yes, I can hear. >> We can hear you. Go ahead. >> Awesome. With that said, I'm going to go ahead and and share my screen. Um and let uh through chair if you can please confirm if you're able to view that. >> Yes, we can see it right now. Yes. >> Awesome. So just before I hand it over to Martin just a quick introduction. uh as we sit today. So town along uh with Diamond and Smith have been working in the background developing the conceptual plan for the ACC master plan renovation project. Today we are here to review and uh request formal approval for the preferred concept plan and to move to the detailed design phase of the project. So those are the two recommendations. Um and I'll hand it over to Margin. Well, thank you very much, Jackson, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today afternoon uh telev uh uh the project was developed with the town management group of the council project from uh initiating ing the project concept back in August of 2025. Uh running through some of the stakeholder engagements. Uh we will be talking a little bit about existing building conditions that prompted a lot of the development or con development uh investigations. Uh we will share information on the public information center that occurred in December of 2026 2025. I'm ahead of schedule here. Um, and uh, then lead you through the proposed concept of the design that will then uh, we're having some audio issues. I'm not sure if you're using headphones of some sort. Um, but it's very garbled. >> On the left hand side of your screen under audio settings, could you take a look and uh, see what is selected as your microphone there? Do you have a microphone option there? >> I just the speaker just has the regular laptop speaker. Does that sound any better? >> No, we have >> uh No. So, sorry. I'll ask the chair if we can take a fivem minute recess and we'll troubleshoot your audio and we'll come right back. >> Hey folks, let's say we do a fiveminute recess and come back at 255. 8 minutes. Thank you everyone. Okay, council. We are going to get started in 10 nine. Still want the 3 2 1 countdown. Okay, everyone. Welcome back to today's meeting of the GDC uh May 11, 2026. We are on um item 6.3 OES-226-10. I believe the consultants worked out our tech issues. Please go ahead. You have 10 minutes. >> Good afternoon. Again, I apologize for uh the earlier technical issues. Uh so I'll just jump right back into the agenda. Uh we're going to be looking at the road map today. Just quickly skimming over uh where we've come from. uh talking about the stakeholder engagement uh looking at the existing condition of the building and how the concept derived from that. Uh we'll talk about the public information center uh that occurred back in December of 2025 and then we'll um go dive into the proposed concept and the expansion that was chosen. Can you do me a favor? Try turning off your camera or may perhaps it's an internet connection not a microphone issue because you are still coming up a little staticky. So we're going to try that. >> Is my camera off? >> Okay. And go ahead. >> Okay. Perfect. Um so the road map for the ACC uh began first with uh the recreation master plan back in 2022 from which the proposal came our into our um possession back in 2025 Q2 and then from there we went into the design concept stage. Next slide please. Uh we've uh over the following months we have spoken to a number of uh stakeholders. Uh these include the accessibility committee group, the seniors club uh group, uh fitness and health and group, aquatic club, boxing club, snack bar and concession as well as YMCA and early years childcare. So looking into the existing building conditions, skimming that over. Uh so from the early days 1967, the first uh inception of the community center with its ice rink and community hall. And now looking at uh current day status. Uh so the ice rink still exists uh in its current where that cursor is located. Uh everything else around it has changed including the context of course. The existing building uh has been a renovation process uh and has gone through over at least four major renovation uh fields uh renovation periods starting from 1967 into 1972. major renovation in 1991, the addition of ice pad 3 and four uh during the 1999 renovation. Uh as it as it happens uh to be and because of the multiple renovations, the condition of the ground floor uh inside the uh ACC is actually quite varied throughout. So there isn't a stable sort of one level. It's multiple levels that are connected through the multiple generations of renovations that have happened. So there's a great variety even in the ground floor of being at zero all the way up to 1.4 where the banquet hall is and down to minus.7 m uh which exists uh within the boxing rink and squash courts. uh that that is illustrated here in the sort of uh three-dimensional graph indicating the levels and its connectivity. I think this would what mainly this illustrates is the uh accessibility and the communication at least in terms of physical connectivity between the spaces and between the levels and how difficult the transitions are. We then reviewed the current and existing program. So, we looked at uh the banquet hall and the multi-purpose areas. Uh a few of the large and medium and small rooms. Uh current tenant areas with the early years. Um rock climbing, boxing, snack bar, and hockey team. Uh we looked at the existing nudiatorum areas. This is the 25 mm uh meter lane pool. uh along with the salarium, the current fitness center and squash courts which are existing on the facility. Um of course the administration offices, camp offices and administration facilities are housed within that building and then there's the four ice rinks. uh in terms of the proposed uh program additions uh coming out of the discussions and the stakeholder engagement um as well as the prop uh proposal that was issued to us is uh so first of all in auditorium areas which is the pool areas uh there's a requirement for a new warm water therapy pool uh that will go adjacent to the existing uh to the uh lane pool that is going to be there with addition of a small teaching um multi-purpose room. With regards to the tenant areas, a key component of that was the enlarged food and snack area which currently is undersized and um is not working to its efficiency. Um, next we looked at the fitness areas where we looked at the double gymnasium, uh, an indoor pickle ball court. That was the addition require requested. Uh space for stretching conditioning, a brand new walking track, uh fitness rooms that could be associated with the fitness um program, and also increase the size of the existing fitness area uh to allow for uh accessibility type of equipment as well as uh a full sort of full allocation of space that is required. And lastly, we looked at uh the seniors group and area group areas. Uh and what I mean by that is looking at the uh current St. Andrews Community Center and how that program might be able to fit into the future ACC and be housed under one roof uh by sharing all of the amenities and sharing all of the programs. In terms of the public information center, uh again occurred on December 16, 2025 uh along with the public survey that uh was spearheaded in December and lasted until January. uh the uh large engagement that occurred uh with uh over a thousand uh thousand members uh joining uh participation from uh and both in person as well as online. Um I think the key thing to uh highlight here is uh three concepts were provided for review for the public information center at that time and uh overwhelmingly the west expansion option. Concept one was preferred as the one uh was preferred by uh by this both the stakeholders the group as well as the members that viewed it. So I'm going to lead you into the proposed concept at this uh point and I'll start off with the master plan. Uh so here just to contextualize uh where we are. Uh so on the north upper right hand corner we have the two ice uh four ice rings which are sort of identified in the gray boxes. Just below that we have the ACC uh which takes into account the current uh location of the ACC plus the expansion that we envision. Uh looking uh just south of that of course we have the existing parking lot and the tennis courts. Based on the discussions that have occurred to date, it was also realized that uh the parking capacity at the ACC uh both being utilized for the variety of programs on site as well as the ACC and potentially being uh taken over partially by some hospital users is uh an inadequate uh condition. uh whereas uh in order to supplement that potentially we can look at a parking lot to the west uh where it would be expanded and it could create a a connectivity from the east as well as from the west in that sense into the ACC. Uh the move that will allow for that to occur as well and for the ACC to expand to the west is to relocate the current public tennis courts uh to be adjacent to the the members tennis courts rather than be north of them. Next slide please. Next slide. Uh this is a rendering a very conceptual rendering of early thoughts of sort of entry point. This is a view from the south. Uh viewing to the to the uh to the north view from the southeast. Um looking at the lobby. Uh the west expansion again has a multi- uh story lobby and a drop off area which is located now to the south. Uh it has wide interior circulation routes uh clear connectivity and focus on accessibility. uh the niatorum areas, the pool areas uh will have an increased capacity of eight lanes as per our stakeholder engagement and the requirements of the programs uh with of course the addition of the warm water pool. In the gymnasium, we would have the double gymnasium dedicated to multisport and then uh the a third gymnasium dedicated strictly to pickle ball courts. Uh all in all the the courts themselves can be transformed. So we could have um sort of a scenario where we have a setup of 12 pickle ball courts if need be. Uh the existing banquet hall will be relocated in order to facilitate a greater con activity to the site uh and uh its capacity to fulfill um the program uses. Uh just diving a little bit more in in terms of where things are located. So now we're looking at again uh ice pad 1 2 3 4 just to give you a sense of relationship where we are on this just south of that we will be then developing a gymnasium that is centrally located. Um west of the gymnasium we'll have the nudiatorum with its uh two pools along with its uh change rooms and then joined by uh fitness. And on the east side we will have the banquet hall uh senior uh senior area, senior groups area as well as early years connected to an outdoor landscape uh uh portions. Uh this would this is a uh concept view of being inside the lobby on level one. So we are looking east here towards uh the banquet hall and in front of us we have the gymnasium which is highlighted by the sort of the orange wood glow. Diving further into the plan um starting off from the south. The concept here really again stressing the connectivity and accessibility is creating one multi- uh one guiding principle where you connect the existing ice paths on the north with the new expansion to the south. So really creating an internal LA that uh connects uh we call it the Galleria that connects the north and south and through that is able to connect all the programs from the east to the west. So really one guiding sort of organizing um spine that allows for easier access and easier connectivity. Again off of that spine going to the east there's the two pools inside the nuditorium. um the change room uh both for both uh public as well as excuse me uh as well as the membership group uh along with any monitor rooms and and aquatic rooms that are required. Uh fitness center is located centrally next to the galleria. So visibility is uh quite good from the from the central spine uh and so is the gymnasium. So looking from the south, we have the two gymnasia that house multisport with the last one on the north being the pickle ball courts. What we managed to also do is uh keep two of the squash cords that we currently have within the program. locate those north of the uh pickle ball courts. So that really the fitness area is centrally located and here highlighted in that light uh purple uh color. And then moving towards the east uh they're now relocated banquet hall which is uh down at the south corner uh has uh good proximity to both uh parking drop off and the outdoors. uh has its own separate entry point, but is still connected to the rest of the uh proposed ACC program. Just north of that would be the seniors group area uh where we would have the games room, the lounge, the main hall, as well as any of the the spaces that are required. And then following that, it would be early years again nestled into the corner likely very similar to its current condition except being connected to the outdoors as well. Uh this is a view down that central galleria. So we're looking south here towards uh reception. So on your left we have the uh double story gymnasium. So uh with a walking track up above uh and then the playing surface on the ground floor of if you're looking down the corridor from that view that's okay. But basically looking at the fitness would be on the right hand side along with a development of the wall of fame as well. Uh on the second floor uh we have uh the building again is split along the galleria into the two sort of zones. The eastern zone uh has the current has the boxing club which exists as part of the current program. It would also house the youth room, the fitness center, the wellness studios, uh really being on top of the spaces down below. So, close proximity. Uh moving towards the east, we have the walking track will which will circle around the three gymnasia components down below. And then further off to the for the the east we'll be having the administration office uh the facilities offices along with the larger multi-purpose rooms on the south end connected again to the outdoors. And this is a view on the second floor uh in the lobby. So, we're looking at the walking truck just uh in front of us and down down to the first floor of the lobby and the banquet hall off in the distance. And that uh concludes my summary of the presentation today. Thank you uh all for allowing me to present this. >> Um we'll start with C. Tyler Warren. >> Thank you. Um this is everything. It's exciting. It's scary. It's um I have a question. So just to get my bearings straight on your third last slide where it has the map. Um just confirming a few things for my perspective and I understand that uh this is not hardcore the last we'll hear about this design. There'll be different designs or tweaks to to everything assuming this comes to all to fruition. So my question is this. The four ice pads are not moving. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. The south entrance um if we go to that slide again and what would be in the middle is currently where the doors are for the HMS room. Is that right? If I go to the middle of that and everything to the left of that would be a new built. Correct. Like >> that's correct. Okay, now that's where I'm doing good so far. And then the um HMS room uh for the the bottom right hand corner. Uh you're saying that it will be the same size or even bigger as the one we know now. If we want to there probably be options to to close it off. >> It will be the same size as what you currently have. We've taken we have not increased the program area or was not requested at least to increase it. >> Good to know. Um now again as I often say very quickly um so the cost estim estimates at this stage for the overall which I know there's there's a lot more to come but if there's shortfalls in those cost estimates um how would we deal with that? Is this going to be done incrementally as per your report? Can you speak to that a little bit how that's going to work? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. >> Um, I can actually take this one, counselor Tyler Moran, sort of through through the chair to to yourself. At this point in time, we are at the conceptual plan stage and obviously as we move and hopefully receive authorization to move into detailed design, what that will allow us to do is prepare a formal class C estimate which you know as we go through the process that's information that we would share with council. Obviously, as we get costs and we look to fund this, we're going to need to come before council and it will in all likelihood he in all likelihood be early in 2027. Sort of we would want to have the next term of council having current numbers and dollars and identifying this project within the strategic plan over the next four years. So what we will be doing is is we're planning to make sure that the new council will have the information to make an informed decision as it relates to their strategic priorities during the next four years. So between now and sort of December of this year, we're obviously seeking author authorization to advance the drawings to get into some more details so we can get some more accurate pricing while at the same time it opens us up to apply for some grant opportunities which obviously have a huge impact in terms of the overall uh financing of this project. So there's a number of things at play. Um, as you know, not all of this, this is sort of a combined project where a large percent of it is growth related and a significant portion is asset management. Right? So, you've got an existing pool that's been there for over 60 years that require or about 60 years that requires replacement. A lot of the original components um if we didn't proceed with this project would result in capital projects that we'd be looking to fund. And I think if you remember when Mr. Williamson did his asset management plan um update to council at the previous meeting at the time I believe it was regional counselor Crawford there was a sort of a $20 million value of critical assets requiring replacement and she had asked sort of what those were and we said roughly 10 million of that was attributed to ACC based on the life and the age of the building. So this type of project sort of it deals with some of those asset management needs that we have regardless. So I think there's a number of things that come into play in terms of asset management growth um growth related infrastructure. Obviously accessibility is first and foremost given the challenges that we have in this facility. Um and then potential grant opportunities. So, it's it's a multifaceted sort of financial package that we would have to put together and bring all of that information to council. >> Okay. And um would you say it's fair to frame this financially when it's all said and done, we snap our fingers, we have this, the designs look great, that it would cost a third or maybe half of a tear down brand new from scratch uh community center. I wouldn't be able to give you a percentage. We know we've monitored what's going on in other communities with respect to new community centers. We understand the costs of a new facility being, you know, I'm going to say 175 to 200 some odd million dollars. So, >> yes, sir. they they are they are substantial in terms of what we're seeing in the um in the municipal world for a new community um center. So I don't know what this would be as a percentage of that but um I do think there is a benefit to this approach and second we we don't we don't have we don't have land elsewhere to build from scratch and this area is also in our prime growth area within the downtown area. So forecasting and building this facility for the next 20 to 30 years. >> Okay, appreciate that answer. I know put you on the spot a little bit. And finally, um the facade of the building, uh especially on the east side where we we're now is the main entrance where we all walk in to go skating and that what is is that going to be ripped down or is that going to be sort of built within the new uh structure or can you answer that now? Just just wondering >> um it'll the entire facade will have a a refreshed look. I'll I'll let March speak to that perhaps in a more architectural detail. >> Please just to repeat my question. Just wondering if the facade overall will stay. >> The the fac the facade overall it's going to need an overhaul in terms of what it is. The the building was last built in 1991. So the building code in itself has been uh updated. So the current facade and it's and and the energy audit of the existing ACC uh is is basically stating us that we we're dealing with a facade that is not compliant in today's codes. So touching this facility we will need to renovate and upgrade facads both from a user comfort as well as environmental stability uh point of view in sustainability. you're going to stay as they are uh at least in in for in where they'll be. Okay. Uh that that question was already answered. I'll leave it at that chair. I'm sure everybody else has more answers. I could ask another hundred questions, but thank you. Thank you for >> Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Henry. >> Thank you, Chair. Um thank you for the plan. I was at the consultation in December and it looked great. Uh lots of uh great input and feedback during that time period. I want to ask about the parking lot. Um are we touching the existing parking lot as far as lessening the number of spots? Did you say yes or no to that? >> No. Um through the charity councelor Henry, we would be actually looking to increase the number of parking spaces with the addition programming that we would be bringing to this facility. We are looking to basically retain what's there, not reducing any spots in particular to the south. There'd be some reconfiguration to the drop off area that you have along the existing main entrance along the east side of the building. So there may be a row that gets replaced through that slight expansion to the east. But the primary area would be a new parking lot west of the ice pad south of the existing fireh hall where there's an existing soccer field on Monarch. So that would essentially be able to provide a few hundred parking spaces that would be able to support the increased programming requirements for this site. >> And to the just to clarify to the south of where we're building that large parking area almost attached to the hospital, we're not taking away any spots in there. We're just adding spots to the west. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. That's all I wanted to ask. Uh it's a great plan and uh fully support it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Regional Councelor Crawford. >> Thank you. Uh thank you, Dave, for remembering about that asset plan because that is a very important piece of that that our massive uh asset plan management. This is 10 million of that plan, right? That's what you said, correct? Yeah, I'm I'm ballparking it, but there's a number of capital projects that are in the range of $10 million that we'd be looking to do regardless sort of over the next five plus years. Yes. >> I I mean I don't mean to be jumping around on the agenda, please. And do you mind if I take a little bit of latitude? Uh Mr. Chair, >> I what what did you want to reference? >> Never mind. I'll wait till the I'll wait till the report comes out. Um >> thank you. Uh so the the number is six 60 million at this point that we know of. Correct. Um and we're hoping and anticipating that we will be able to get some grants that are going to help us with that project. Correct. >> Yeah. We're aware of some grant opportunities that seem to be available or have been announced in adjacent or GTA municipalities that we would hope this project would be would be eligible for. >> Okay. Um and okay, I think I'm going to I'll hold to my uh to the other reports, but thanks Dave. I appreciate it. The the only other part that I I wanted to add on to that is we've obviously added the the seniors component to this site based on the previous discussions with respect to St. Andrews. So there has been um some additional scope of work that we've added to this um to this project as well um over the past year. So just wanted to to clarify and remind council of of what we're doing and how we've engaged the the older adults community. Would you ask? >> I'm sorry. One question. Like currently right now this uh ACC is, you know, it's rentable as far as hockey rinks and those kinds of things, but we do anticipate being able to generate some revenue from the improvements that we're going to be doing over time. Correct. So, you're touching on an important point because all we seem to talk about are the capital dollars associated with community centers and sort of what they've been costing. And as I mentioned, we hope to have relatively good cost estimates to provide the new term of council prior to them um identifying and establishing their priorities for that year. As part of that, working with Chris Vita and his team in recreation, there's also going to have to be an operating business model. So as part of that, it won't be just the capital cost alone. It'll also be a business case that'll look at the facility upon buildout from from an operating perspective. So you're quite correct in terms of revenue opportunities, sponsorship or licensing opportunities. Um there's obviously going to be some additional costs from from a staffing and resourcing perspective. So we think council needs to see all of that information sort of packaged together when making your decision. So um so you're but you are correct. There are there are we feel substantial revenue opportunities as part of this development >> that we would never get in its current state. >> Correct. >> Thank you. >> Thank you um councelor Bower for the first time. >> Uh thank you uh chair Lee. Thank you very much for the presentation and uh director Meredith I don't really have any question. I love it. I love it. Thank you for um the comments that you've made so far about this is really a plan that focuses on the growth and the asset management. Those are very important and especially when we look at our ward um and the intensification specifically in Ward 3 that's going to happen and these folks are going to need um updated um and plentiful amenity space. Um and just the question that uh regional counselor Crawford just asked about revenue opportunities, you know, if I just think offhand, we can now hold basketball tournaments, hold pickle ball tournaments, there'll be more rental space for parties and and family events. So, I think there's just some great great opportunities here. And thank you for including uh the wall of fame. And uh that's all I'll say. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you, councelor Bower. Uh, councelor Henry for a second time. >> Thank you. Sorry, I did have another question about parking. Going back into the parking since we're increasing parking and we're talking about increasing programming um available space at this location. Uh, will that include increased accessibility spots? >> Yes, it will. >> It will. And is that in the current parking um uh structure where it is now or in the new space? >> We will look in all honesty we have to and we've engaged as part of the design process a a traffic consultant because while we expand the parking we're going to have to look at internal access and traffic flow upon buildout of this facility. So as part of that, we will ensure that there will be more than enough accessible parking spaces that will be provided in proximity to the to the main entrance doors. Until we get to that site plan level of detail, I can't be um specific in terms of locations, but as part of everything relating to this facility, accessibility is at the front of our mind. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. reach dies. >> Hello. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. Go ahead. Oh, Joanne, stop hitting that button. Just hit it once and >> we can hear you now. Go ahead. >> Thank you. So, for Mr. Meredith, I mean, thank you for including the seniors in this uh plan moving forward. And you mentioned that in there going is going to be a games room, a lounge, and a main hall. And I'm just wondering if you've had any, you know, preliminary discussions with the seniors regarding this move, potential move. >> So through the chair to regional counselor dies, yes, there have been discussions with um the older adults group. There's obviously going to at this point in time the concept plan really allocates the space. There's going to be continued dialogue and meetings with each of the stakeholders from the aquatics club to the older adults to our our fitness um staff in terms of actual designing the space. So by awarding this contract today, it allows us to advance those discussions with all of our stakeholders. So people can start a lot of the detailed questions that we're getting that over the past 6 to 8 months we saying you know it's somewhat preliminary. We're just at a conceptual stage that they'll have the opportunity to provide their feedback. They will over the next six months we will have a full communication strategy and a stakeholder um group that will that will meet and they will now get more involved in what they want to talk about which are the specifics of of the space. So that that will happen between now and the end of the year. >> Well, thank you for that. And I think it's a a really great opportunity for the seniors going into the Ajax Community Center where with where it'll open up many more opportunities, you know, for recreation and other things. Um, also it's so much easier for them to get there via transit. So, thank you very much for that. I'm I'm looking forward to hearing what they say and and what the discussion will will work out at the end of the day. I think it'll be positive. So, thank you. >> Thank you, council. That exhausts all the comments and questions. We're going to move up the report. Report number oes-2026-10. Um recommendation is number one, council endorse the preferred concept plan to the Ajax community center master plan renovation. Number two, council award the contract for the detailed design of the Ajax Community Center renovation expansion to Diamond Schmidt Architects in the amount of 2,861,160 inclusive vault taxes. Any questions, comments, concerns regarding the recommendation and report. Seeing none, we're going to start the vote. Sorry. Thank you. Councelor Bower is going to move this. Thank you, Councelor Bower. Sorry, we're going to reset it, everyone. Yeah, it passed. It's fine. It's fine. Okay, we're good. Never mind. Everyone voted. It's moved by Council Bower. I forgot to get it over. Clerks were modering to me. Um, all right. Uh, council, just give you a bit of a spot check. We still have one more presentation and then we still have the entire consent agenda because everything was pulled. Uh, I only mentioned this because I'm going to be a bit less lenient on going over our prescribed times. So, we're on PBS-2026-14 stormwater master plan update. I'll leave it to director Romani 217. >> Uh thank you chair Lee. Uh I'll just going to turn it over to Stephen Ready uh manager of development engineering to introduce the consultant and the storm water master plan update. >> Thank you. Uh good afternoon mayor and members of council. My name is Steve Ruddy, manager of development engineering. I'm happy to be here today to present council with an update on the town's ongoing storm water master plan. I am joined today remotely by our consultant, Aquafer Beach Limited. They are an industry leader in storm water management and low impact development. In fact, several of the team members we have working with us on the master plan were also involved in the original rain gardens design and construction down at the waterfront off Lake Driveway, uh which of course have been very successful. So, we're excited to be working with them again. Uh this project is bit of a macro extension of that rain garden project in that we're looking at storm water strategies for the entire town. So with that I will turn it over to our team uh Chris and Megan at Aquafruit Beach to walk us through a quick update of the plan after which I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Um, Megan, hit your request to speak. That's the middle button with the head, three lines. Okay. And now, don't touch it again. It's all yours. Go ahead. >> Great. Thank you, Stephen. I will share my screen. My name is Megan Dustin. I am a senior water resource engineer for Aquafer Beach Limited as Stephen mentioned. And share my screen. window. This one it still says waiting for sharing source. I'll just give it a minute. Okay, I'll try again. Change screen. >> There we go. We got it now. >> Oh, >> I was impatient. Okay, great. cancel. All right. Uh so as Stephen said, I'm going to give an overview of the ongoing storm water management master plan. Uh we'll start with the need for this study, some key background information, uh some of the current findings again ongoing and some of the future recommendations that you can expect down the road. So the master plan is being completed following the municipal class environment assessment. Uh we're following approach two which means that schedule B projects can proceed to detailed design following completion of the master plan. The project started in spring 2024 with a characterization of the current current condition. We're currently in stage two which will be developing the preferred alternatives for the town consisting of different projects and programs. Once this stage is complete, we'll move on to the implementation plan which is stage three which will be developed to include the actual implementation of all the recommendations from the master plan u over the next 10 years. So this p this project focuses on storm water which is water originating from rainfall and other precipitation events. uh when it runs off buildings, roadways, and other surfaces, it can bring pollutants to storm sewers, which ultimately outlet to water courses or directly into natural areas, which can harm wildlife, reduce aesthetic value, and can also cause flooding. Storm water requirements in Ontario started in the early 80s with flood control uh and then quality control became more of a thing in the '90s. Ajax was incorporated in 1955. So again, building before even then. Uh and this is before storm water management requirements. So there are areas of Ajax with no storm water treatment at all. Which brings us to this master plan again. Uh the system in Ajax includes catch basins, sewer pipes, ditches and treatment facilities including dry ponds, wet ponds, wetlands, lone pack development like the rain gardens along the waterfront that Steven mentioned and oil and grit separators. So, storm ponds um can be dry or wet and they collect and store storm water to reduce flooding and erosion by limiting the release of water to nearby creeks and rivers and allow for settling of pollutants. Uh low impact development or LIDS mimic natural water cycles by encouraging infiltration or providing filtration and then reducing runoff. And finally, oil and grit separators are underground devices that are attached to the storm sewer uh that provide mechanical treatment to remove pollutants such as sediment and oil and grease. Um as you all know, Ajax is growing which will increase the demand on the existing infrastructure. There's also new provincial legislation requirements that need to be reflected in town policies. Uh climate change projections show increased precipitation events which will also increase the demand on the existing infrastructure and then there are historic flooding in issues in parts of Ajax that will be accounted for in this in this plan. As of 2022, the town has a consolidated linear infrastructure environmental compliance approval document uh for storm water management. This is from the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks. And part of this document, appendix A, includes all of the uh storm water management criteria requirements that are applicable for development and redevelopment projects. So these include water balance, water quality, erosion control, water quantity, flood control, and uh erosion and sediment control. LIDs are an approach to storm water management that use natural features to absorb, filter, and slow runoff um at the source. And L features aim to reduce storm water contributions to the municipal storm sewer. And these are particularly relevant because as I just talked about the CLICA, there's a requirement within that document to provide quality control for the 90th percentile storm event for retrofit scenarios. And LIS are designed and widely accepted across Ontario to provide this control for the 90th percentile event. And the town has some, but they're also easy to incorporate throughout the town. So some examples include we have a perforated pipe on the top left which is a long infiltration trench that conveys and infiltrates runoff. Uh biosphil on the top right temporally stores and treats runoff by passing it through an engineered media within the biosphil itself and takes advantage of the chemical, biological and physical properties of plants, microbes and soils to remove pollutants from the runoff. Similar to a bioail, a bio retention bumpout is a vegetated curb extension that includes that engineered media that also temporarily stores treats and infiltrates runoff. Um, and that can be used in conjunction with traffic caling measures. So, there's different aspects for all of these LEDs. And finally, a permeable pavement layby allows water to drain through the pavement and into the ground. So it reduces overland runoff caused by imperous surfaces such as parking lots, driveways, laneways, etc. Uh and it also reduces the risk of flooding where it's applied. Within the master plan, we're looking at many different measures. Uh some of which include end of pipe measures. So facilities that are at the end of the storm sewer system such as wetlands, dry p dry dry ponds, wet ponds that reduce erosion, improve water quality and reduce flooding. Uh conveyance infrastructure and controls which move storm water away from the source. So examples would include a traditional curbon gutter system but also bioil like we just looked at, a grass channel or a subsurface perforated pipe system. Again like the slide previously, uh stream restoration can look at stream erosion issues or just bank stabilization and natural channel designs. And then we have source control measures which help water soak into the ground again at the location that may include rain gardens like the ones at the waterfront, permeable pavement and so uh the town has a current storm water fee based on a study done in 2021. We'll evaluate it based on the costs of the projects and programs uh to be implemented in the next 10 years that have been identified in the study as well as the life cycle costs of those projects and programs. um funding alternatives will also be assessed and this fees needed to implement all these projects and programs but also to continue inspecting and maintaining the infrastructure that already exists in Ajax including the 50 town ponds, the 30 OS units, the six rain gardens and other drainage related issues like complaints, erosion and sediment control. Um and again just all the inspections that are required with that. So some of the potential solutions that um that we're looking at include source controls for empty town owned areas where there's little to no quality control being provided currently. Um conveyance will be recommended in the right of way for all capital road construction and reconstruction projects. And this is done to reduce costs but also to align with the CLICA. So, we'll increase quality control with all of those projects that are already being planned as part of the capital plan. Um, 62.3% of the town urban area doesn't have any form of water quality or quantity control. So, we've also identified some new end of pipe facilities for five areas that will improve that water quality, bringing the area without control down to 57.6. Uh so this map shows the blue, green, yellow and red are or not red, yellow and orange are different types of existing facilities within the town. Um and then our light pink shows the five proposed locations for new end of pipe facilities. Uh the left has an example of what a site we worked on in Missaga looked like before there was an endpipe facility and then the bottom is the the after picture. So some of the future outcomes of the master plan will be to update the engineering criteria and guidelines the town has to align with our findings to apply recommendations to leverage potential potential synergies with other town initiatives. uh to continue integrating source and conveyance control practices into road projects uh including construction and reconstruction and to develop a public outreach and education program regarding storm water management. So again, we are currently in stage two, which means we're working through an assessment of the town's infrastructure and future condition to develop a preferred strategy. um all of which will be presented to the public at a second public openhouse. Uh and then that leads us to stage three where we'll develop the implementation plan and finalize the master plan and that is the thank you so much for your presentation and you kept it within 10 minutes. You are an allstar. First question goes to reg Crawford. >> Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, will the capital the 10-year capital plan uh confirm that the current storm water fee is sufficient? Do you see I mean we've been doing this now for has it been three years going into four >> uh through the share to councelor Crawford? Yes, that's correct. So we'll be looking at the entire uh budget and the 10-year forecast and you know many of the same principles that have been discussed already regarding funding capital projects will be applied ex in the exact same way to the the storm water projects in that we'll be making sure they're all fully funded uh for the for the forecast. So >> So sorry uh we also have the consultant I think you might want to chime in on that question as well. Uh, one moment. Chris, go ahead. >> Uh, Chris, you you're requested to speak. >> Okay, we'll just leave you here for now. Uh, sorry, Rach. Keep going. >> Okay. Um, are any of the storm water um I mean I consider them to be assets assets, right? Storm water assets. Are they included in the acid management plan at all? >> Absolutely. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. So, that was all part of that. Okay. Cool. Um, so you know water water storm water ponds better than anyone I know of. Uh, you must have already identified your priorities in what needs to get done. Correct. In the like 50 ponds. I can't believe it. In my neighborhood, we don't have a single one, but >> uh through the share again. Yes, absolutely. So, initially when developing the the budget and forecast, you know, years ahead of this master plan and even the recently completed condition analysis that we that we did in 2025, uh, you know, just from when some of the facilities were constructed, we knew which ones were most likely to be full. And we confirm that with baometric surveys, which is just a they go out in a little boat and they they survey how deep the sediment is in it. And then uh you can do the math to see the volume and then from that you can form a budget and and uh you know work on the project of of rehabilitating that stormwater pond. So we had a pretty good idea already of what storm water ponds needed to be cleaned out and it was really easy at the beginning because the answer was essentially almost all of them. So um we've been able to you know kind of move our way through uh our first few pond cleanouts. There's one going on right now on off Rosland Road as part of the Nottingham subdivision. And uh with the recent uh surveys that we had on on all of the wet ponds that we have, uh we've reorganized the forecast to more um more better address the the ponds that are in highest need. So, of the 50 ponds that uh were in that were identified in the report, are those only ponds that the town now has responsibility for? Um, are there does that include ponds that we don't have yet? Assume we haven't assumed. >> Correct. There's about 62 or 63 ponds and about a dozen of those are private or unassumed. So, they're they're either owned by, you know, for instance, the the Costco pond or the Chapter's Pond. Um, Amazon has a pond, H&M has a pond. They're all privately owned, so the town doesn't have to go in and really take responsibility for those. U, but the the other 50 we do own and we are responsible for maintaining them, >> right? And so the the ponds that are currently in in that are are currently in development right now that we haven't assumed, not private ones, but ones we haven't assumed. Does the developer have a responsibility to clean them up before we take over? Like we don't get a bad pond and then have to clean it up. >> That's correct. Uh we make sure that we get a baometric survey uh ahead of assumption, well ahead of assumption. and we um have their engineers certify that it's within uh specifications of the original design. And then we review the survey as well to make sure that it's, you know, in line as as much as reasonable with the uh with the original approved design. >> Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you, Council Tyler Moore. Questions to the presentation? Thank you, chair, for letting me in. A very quick question to you, Mr. Ruddy. The storm water fee that was initiated about three years ago now, four years ago. Um it was earmarked on our uh annual taxes as a onetime fee, but we were able to bring in um places of worship, other places that weren't um necessarily contributing and have huge multi- uh areas of non-permeable services uh surfaces I should say and they now contribute. So I believe what I just said is is is sort of right. So would you consider it a success that we did this and there's now a more realistic funding model for the cleanup and maintenance of storm water pods? >> Uh through the chair. Yes, absolutely. Um, previously there was there was no dedicated funding stream for uh funding storm water management and and with the um implementation of the stormwater fee, we we can now you know with confidence forecast out 10 years uh knowing that that funding will be there. Yeah, I was very happy to see it as a somewhat of a break or a fairness to residents that were already paying it and others in the community that uh as I said, ironically, have these massive, you know, non-permeable services uh to contribute uh to the funding. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to get that on record. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Councelor Henry. >> Thank you. Uh thank you for your presentation. What qualifies um for storm water to move up on your list? What type of things would make you rejig your list and say, "Hey, I need to move this pond up to be clean." Now, >> uh through the chair to councelor Henry, uh the the primary driver is volume of sediment relative to the permanent pool volume. And so if you think of the pond as having two portions, the portion above the water that fills up when it rains and and drains slowly, and then the portion below water, which is where all the the gunk and the dirt and the grit and the sediment fall out of the water and and end up on the ground. And over time that fills up and fills up and fills up and it it hits um kind of a subjective tipping point to to essentially not be in compliance with our our provincial CLI ECA which allows us to own maintain and operate these facilities. So at some point the water is so full of pardon me sediment that the pond isn't doing its water quality job anymore. So, for instance, if we're looking at actual numbers, we might have a pond that's say 30% full of sediment, which is plenty enough to warrant uh a cleanout or a rehabilitation of that facility. Whereas, a a facility that is more new might only be five or six or 7% full of sediment. And by doing the condition assessments every so many years, which is what we've um laid out in the forecast right now, we'll be able to develop trend lines that show how fast each facility is filling up. And we'll be able to forecast, you know, much more accurate cleanout dates uh to to help guide the the spending of the storm water fee. And does um the sediment buildup does that cause any type of odor or offging? Like if I have residents in a particular area saying there's a a particularly pungent odor arising from a storm water pond, is is that an indication? >> Uh generally no. Uh mostly what they're if residents are are smelling things from a pond, it's probably all the biological aspects of what comes with a pond. So all the plants that are living and dying in it, all the frogs that live and die in the facility as well. All of that, it just it really smells like an ecosystem. And it it a lot of residents might say it smells like sewage, but like sewage isn't going into it. It's we find that a lot of the complaints are they just smell like outdoor ponds and they're not really full of sediment, per se. Got it. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Seeing no other questions, we're going to move the report up. We have report number PBS-20226-14, storm water master plan update. Recommendation is council received for information. I see moved by council Tyler Morren. Any more questions, comments, concerns regarding the report? Seeing none, we're going to start the vote. And that passes. Thank you everyone. We're now going to shoot right back to the top of the agenda and do the consent agenda. All items have been pulled. So we will start with pardon me for one moment. Item 4.1 PSA-20226-8A lean impact report. This is uh pulled by councelor Regional Crawford. Councelor Crawford. Region councelor Crawford. >> Thank you Mr. here. Um, thank you for this report. Um, I'm just uh curious uh the the primary objectives of lean are to reduce effects and reduce costs. But in the report it says the primary objective in adopting lean is not to solely focus on achieving automatic efficiencies or immediate cost savings. That seems counter to what mean is. Am I right or am I wrong? >> Through the chair to regional counselor uh Crawford um it's it's it's counterintuitive in terms of like that is our like if you say it like um like that immediately. However, we're talking about a long-term plan here for the return on investment, right? So um it's like we have to develop that skill set across the organization. And so our immediate goal today isn't for those large massive wins. It's to develop people who can continuously identify waste and improve processes and prevent issues as they grow. So without lean thinking, like without getting everyone trained, improvements depend on a few people and we're less likely to see those efficiencies. So we want to take the time to make sure that prop people are properly trained, they have the skill set. So in the long run, this is part of their day-to-day. And then we are seeing that long-term return on investment which would which would see those efficiencies and and um improvement in waste. >> Okay. Because it sounds like from today's report we're going to need to use a lot of lean processes to get some efficiencies. Um the senior management team who's how much time was spent like by senior management team and who is on the lean team from senior management? So um senior management was trained just like the regular workforce was trained in yellow belt. So there's two days of training associated with that. The lean team itself is made up of representatives that wanted to be part of um organizational corporate reviews like larger projects. Um there isn't a set defined team per se. it's only um as required and as on a volunteer basis. As for directors, it would only be if um it impacted a specific department and they wanted to be part of that. Some can step away. They don't need to be part of it if they don't want to. Um I know that the CEO is our champion, so he often um checks in and wants to be involved and understand how these projects are going to progress. >> Um okay. So, who is uh who's currently is there like there has to be like a lead person that kind of coordinates this? Is that correct? I know nothing about lean. I'm just from what I've been reading over the last little while. So, is there one person who's in charge of this project? >> Yes, there is. There's one person in charge of this process. It's part of their overall duties, the position itself. There's other pieces to their position as well. And they do rely on like they're the facilitator, the lead, the coordinator, but they do rely on the subject matter experts within the departments and and how they're going to go about doing this particular review uh of a project and um yeah. So go ahead. Sorry. >> Okay. Um my next question is for CEO Baker actually. Is he online? >> Sure. >> Yes, he is. Hey, so this was brought to council uh to replace the ISS iso designation, correct? >> Mhm. Mhm. >> Um are you trained in lean? >> Yes. Yellow boat. working >> and and how have you been using it day-to-day for the I don't know in improving the processes for the CEO's office? >> Well, all of staff that have been trained in it uh range from senior management now down through managers and and it's been open to all of our staff actually who want to receive the training. So, all staff are encouraged to use lean principles when looking at all of their processes. And so I I often hear from like recently we had an update in SMT about the different processes that were going on and and uh different senior managers also me talk about processes that have changed within their departments and uh actually I was just reading a report on uh facility booking and different lean um improvements in that process as well. So so they're it's all through the organization. >> Okay. Um, and have you has this so far met your expectations as to what you were hoping for from Lee? >> I I'm hoping Well, first of all, I was very uh happy and impressed with how many staff actually wanted to receive the training. Uh, we made it we made it clear that uh we become a better organization uh with more people who take the training and and the corporation pays for the training. So, uh people saw that as an advantage for themselves and the organization. So I was very very happy and impressed with that as well as the senior management team as well. Um but we're still in the early stages. We're still uh we're we're now moving towards green belt training which is a little bit higher more int uh intense training uh which we hope our our uh uh our lean team will have in the future. and uh and then they will be able to go to different departments and each department head the idea is that each department head will identify a process that they want review and the lean team will come in and do that review and the the idea of lean is that you don't just have people that are involved in the process itself right now actually it's better to have people that aren't and then they ask all kinds of questions to try and understand you know what the objective of the process is and then they can come up with ideas well have you ever thought of doing this have you ever thought of doing that because they're not involved olved in it every day. So that's that's where we want to get to and we're moving to that training I believe this year. Christie would know better than I but I think we're moving to the green belt training this year which is more limited. Um I'm curious so as we have retirements come through the organization is there an opportunity then through lean to actually look at positions to say you know are there are there areas that perhaps a position was you know doing certain processes that really don't make any sense to be able to lean down that position itself is that is that like I would never want to look at reducing staff, but I mean if people are retiring anyway, do we look at instead of immediately replacing them, but looking at the job itself and trying to um establish, you know, different processes instead of hiring again. Though every time we somebody leaves the organization whether it be through retirement or decide to leave or whatever the reason is we always look at our organizational structure and determine whether or not we can do that that if that job is still required if pieces of that job if all of the pieces are still required and if it's in the right place the right department all of those things are examined uh every time somebody leaves the leaves the organization. >> Great. Thank you. Um, I noticed in here it said that that lean there was a streamlining of the AMP system in bylaw. Christy, I don't know. Can you walk me through what that streamlining looked like and how that how lean streamlined it? >> Um, so I did unless and Cooper is there. There she is. I was just going to recommend that uh I needed someone from bylaw but I didn't have them here. So, okay. >> Thank you. Uh I can comment on that just at a high level. I think it primarily relates to um the how cumbersome it was to prepare for POA charges and for going to court in the POA system. Obviously the court system is quite cumbersome and slow where now that we have the AMP system here the hearings and the whole sort of like documentation preparation that goes into that is a lot leaner than what you would find within a court system. I think that's the main driver for the time and cost savings here. Was that done before lean or after lean? >> Uh well lean has sort of been ongoing for a couple years. It was in the midst of lean. It certainly the imple implementation of that would have been after I took lean training but I was one of the early ones to get training but I think many of these things are happening in parallel. >> Okay. Um so do we have any planned milestones for the lean imple implementation over the next you know one to three years? like are there like I heard today's report. I could see many opportunities for lean to be applied in some of these areas and I'm just wondering if there's if there if you have any milestones that you're looking at. >> Um so um currently um we are developing a program that allows for more um information on who is undertaking what on a daily basis and how they're used utilizing that. So that's through the lean tool piece that that need we need to get that set up. So we are uh measuring how we're doing on a day-to-day basis. From there um on an annual basis we identify those corporate projects that need to be undertaken. Um last year the big one was facility booking. That is going to be um something that we continually do on an annual basis and we want to get better at that and bigger at that. So we'll have more and more projects hopefully as as CEO Baker mentioned they could be happening um uh um ongoing together in different departments at the same time and those will be um as part of any annual report that we do as part of the budget process in the efficiency report that that we do provide council. So all of those projects will be outlined and we'll get better at quantifying um the improvements as we go forward. there is the additional training that we're providing as well that will beef up um that lean thinking and the ability to dig deeper into some of the areas that require um more and more um examination. However, I would just like we would encourage any staff member um Council Crawford, if there's if there's an area that you would like us to look at and use the lean process on, I would encourage you to identify those to CEO Baker and perhaps we can find some capacity to review those. I I mean, you mentioned the reports today. If there's anything that jumps out at you, I would encourage you to uh speak to CEO Baker on those. >> Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you. We have councelor Tyler Moore next. >> Thank you chair. Um to staff to Christie sorry to director Mclardy. Um where do you think we are with this? Do you think it's uh infiltrated love the program? I mean everything about it improved servicing you know less cost where are we into the into the system about 20% in 30% in with lots more work to go. >> Um I think the as CEO Baker has mentioned like the pickup on this has been amazing. the um uh people feel like they belong. They want to be part of the solution. They want to find those efficiencies. Uh they want to have these discussions with not only their department but uh cross-dep departmentally as well. The motivation has been there. You can see it in the pickup of the training. Um a lot of people are curious about it. Um they want everyone wants to improve the way they do their work and if they have easy ways of doing that, they're going to apply it. And this is something from, you know, CA CEO Baker down is everyone's been encouraged to participate and to begin thinking about um how they can improve their day-to-day um operations. And I think that the more and more we utilize it and we celebrate and recognize those achievements, which we're slowly doing in in 2005, I think, was like the first real year that we've been able to at least um bring to light some of those achievements in a way um that you see in this report today, but also in the the budget. We want to go further with that as well in this particular report. You see the way that Barry celebrates it. We're not there yet, but I mean they are communicating some of their achievements right out to the public uh through their um tool that they have. So, um if I look at where we are compared to like the 20 other 21 other municipalities that are currently utilizing lean, I think that we're like in like the mid to higher level of the pack in in the conversations that we've had in terms of where we are. I think people saw um how difficult and cumbersome uh lean was and that that recommendation to go sorry ISO was um and that decision to move to lean um people um like I've said are very motivated by it and think it's something that they can just apply. So they're encouraged. >> Thank you. Thank you for that answer and for the work that's being done. Thank you, Councelor Henry. >> Thank you. Uh when looking at the report, I'm noticing on page 13, um we've got a high volume of folks trained from operations, corporate services, planning and develop in a lean program. But in the CEO's office, I'm only noticing two folks. Is that am I reading that right? >> Yes, you are. Because there's only two in the CEO's office. Um there's uh the CEO and uh and his administrative assistant. >> Is that not an opportunity that's offered to all of the staff the CEO campus? >> Yes, there's only two >> council. Sorry, councelor Henry. We have to differentiate. I think you're mixing up PSA with office of the CEO. Office of the CEO I think what the director is saying is only two people. >> I understand what you're saying. I got you. I got what you're saying. Oh, strategic public affairs. Okay, that's on me. Thank you. That is totally on me. Thank you for that. >> Thank you. >> That's it. That was my question. Thank you. >> Uh thank you, uh, Chair Lee. Thank you for this report, Director Mclardy. Very interesting and positive results for sure. It's uh it's great. I'm pro I'm a pro trainer. So I think the train more trainer the more training the better and it really creates the it motivates staff and it gets the buy in of staff to to make improvements across the board. So my question is the process of a review when an item or process is chosen to be reviewed by a lean team. Is this uh something that is done during office hours as part of someone's job or is this extra work requiring overtime or like how long what is an actual review process look like? We encourage um uh employees that have been trained to undertake their own um undertake their own process reviews um and incorporate it into their their daily um work lives. So I mean between office hours um and to look at it um if uh if it's moved to some sort of corporate level like through the SMT process where we're identifying the larger scale reviews um that would be um a conversation that would be needed to be made as part of that team. For instance, um if a review needed to be reviewed outside of hours in terms of on a weekend on on how a process went or in an evening and and people wanted to be part of that, I know that the corporation would compensate them accordingly or there's flex time. It all depends on what's required. But if they have volunteered to be part of this team and they've been selected to to work on this particular project, um a terms of reference is always outlined in terms of what's required from them and and you know in this case if you're talking about compensation that's outside of their hours, they would be definitely uh compensated for their time and their effort. >> Thank you. And can you just talk just a little bit more about this lean calculator that's seem that's the next big project. Tell us about it please. It's it's at its infasy. Um so it's something that um our IT department is uh has been lined up and I I think our one of our second meetings is happening tomorrow. So it's really really fresh. But the idea is that um people across the organization can submit when they are working on something because it's hard for us to even know when that's happening. And we want people to be uh proactive in letting us know that they are working on it, letting us know what their expectations are of their program uh project are, what they're expectating, what they expect out of it, their outcomes. Um and then we want to be able to evaluate that. So we want to see at the end um so you'd always have like your current state and your you know your that finalized state what does what does that look like your future state and are you achieving what you wanted to achieve and then we'll be able to quantify uh how well they met um um the objectives that they had they had set out and we'd be able to quantify it better back to council in terms of efficiencies found you know savings found hours saved those type of things >> right Okay. Okay. No, that's great. It's it sounds very proactive and very empowering. So, I think that's that's wonderful. Um, thank you so much for this information. That was it for me, chair. Thank you. >> Thank you. The recommendation from staff is to receive this information. Can I get a mover, please? Show of hand is fine. I see councelor Bower. Thank you. Any questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, start the vote. Thank you. And that passes. We're now item 4.2 PSA-2026-09 housing accelerator fund update. This was pulled by C region councelor Crawford and uh councelor Henry. Region councelor Crawford. Do you want to select to speak? Thank you. >> Okay. Yeah. This is uh one of the questions I had. Uh okay. Um under the Pickering Village Municipal Complex, a large amount of money was put towards this $4 million uh were used in this section. Um and I was just wondering, can you give me a breakdown of the cost per I'm apologize. I probably should have sent this to out ahead of you out ahead to you. Um, but if you can give me a rough idea of the breakdown of that $4 million. I think your mic is off. There we go. Is that better? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, so through the chair to regional counselor Crawford. So in uh the report it indicates that $1.4 4 million has been spent on the Pickering Village project to date. Um that encompasses uh all of the work that's gone into the site so far. So we have retained a um consultant uh to support the town through the public private partnership uh process. So that's everything from providing us a background report on how uh best to engage. Um it has uh involved some procurement uh guidance on uh public private partnership which is of course a new uh initiative to the town. Um it includes uh the uh eventual and and it will include the eventual uh legal support uh that is required uh as we kind of go down this road. The um funds have also been used to um provide some of the preliminary work that's required for the project site itself um including things like surveys, geotechnical studies um and other uh sort of work related specifically to that site. Um there are some funds that will be committed to kind of the future state as we go further into uh the engagement with the preferred development partner once one is selected. Um but at this time uh the bulk of the costs are and and to clarify the costs that are included here are a mix of they're what has been committed. Um they're not necessarily what has been spent. Uh so that's a kind of a summary of the work that's been completed to date, but we do anticipate that given the scope and scale of the project um that is uh that's what we have uh committed to and council approvals so far. >> And do you think that um more money will be committed to that? I mean it's a housing project, right? So, uh, it's perfectly within the lines of the of the half funding. So, do you, uh, anticipate maybe that we would be able to do more to help that project along >> through the chair right now? Uh, what staff have committed, uh, to this project is sufficient at this time. uh for the project in its current form where what the project will become once a preferred development partner is selected and uh the development partner has kind of come to the table with staff and there's been a discussion about um you know what uh town elements are required as part of the project or um what the community center would look like what the actual town owned portions of this development would be. Once that um full process is is outlined um and agreed upon by staff, a presentation will be made to council that has a whole uh a holistic uh presentation of the business case um to for council's consideration of what the town's uh responsibility would be and then through that process would recommend some funding sources which may include half they may include um other related funds including um some items that are currently in the town's DC background study. We have a number of funding sources uh that would be uh considered and recommended um as we as we embark on the project. >> Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you, Councelor Henry. >> Thank you. Um I just wanted to touch base. I'm going through my notes here. I'm reading something about staffing in this report. Is that correct? a number associated with staff. >> Yes. So through the chair to uh councelor Henry. Yes. The the final number I think in the financial implications section is approximately uh $764,000. Um so this has been staffing that has been um is has been currently used for the life of the housing accelerator fund and is projected to continue until the end of the sort of engagement that the town has on the how um on the half funding until the end of 2027. So this as noted in the report is is three positions and these positions are in mostly in the planning department. Um but also um so including a sorry including a uh planner that has been retained for a 5-year contract. Uh there's another planner that's retained for a shorter contract. Um and these are for initiative specific engagement. So these include things like the official plan um and other um other elements uh of the sort of broader housing portfolio. Um that's what that funding is for. So it's not just a one year um it's up to five years. >> Was there also a communications person that was staffed for this or is this all in the planning? Like are you saying that the three staff members all work out of the planning department? No, through the chair. One of the positions uh is in public and strategic affairs and that is a communications coordinator position. So, uh that position did a lot of work to get the um accessory dwelling unit program up and running. Um and the next step from there is uh that this individual will uh turn their mind more to uh housing and um the general kind of advocacy work and all of the communications work required to communicate effectively the town's um initiatives and uh programs related to housing. >> So this is not a staff member that we already had on board. This is a staff member we had to bring in for this role. So through the chair of the temporary communications coordinator position was um established with the onset of the uh housing and funded by the housing accelerator fund. That position will continue through until the end of the housing accelerator fund engagement which is the end of December 2027. >> And then what happens at that time? That position is no longer there. >> So that position Yeah. At right now that position is to be funded by the housing accelerator fund. Um any extension of that position would be subject to um our internal processes related to uh staffing which may include a a business case to council or um other kind of uh whatever processes required to extend contract staff. And and just to clarify, um a month or so ago, council was asked about another position within the within our office. Um and we said no to that position for I think it was naming rights, something with naming rights. This is not the same position. This is not the same person >> through the chair. No, that is not the same person. So what was proposed was a um it it wasn't even proposed. It was included in a in a consultants report that recommended that the town could um retain a full-time contract person for two years to uh proceed with the project. At that time, council did not indicate um that that was something uh that they wanted to look at at that moment. Uh so that position has not been further contended by staff at this time. Um, this position was approved by council at the outset or the funding for this temporary contract position was approved by council at the outset of the housing accelerator fund uh grant program. >> Okay, thank you. I think that's all my questions. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councelor Tyler Morren. >> Thank you. Um, the unit targets um are we under construction? Do you have a as per the report do can you give me a very brief uh percentages how many are up and running right now and how many are coming as far as the it's 3613 I think >> just through the chair to council Tyler Moore and this is likely um more of a question for director Romanowski but I do um what is included in the report uh indicates that we've kind of done an overall um snapshot of housing uh and what we'd like to accomplish. So um the town has uh agreed with CHC to uh commence 3600 approximately 3600 units as part of this program. Um as a result of kind of the current landscape of housing uh we are not uh close to 3600 at this time. Um, however, there is as as mentioned, you know, on multiple occasions is the market uh the market dictates when h when and how housing is built. And so, this report really outlines all of the pieces that the town and staff are are pushing to advance housing uh in spite of the market conditions. And that includes everything from the seven initiatives approved through HAF um as well as some partnerships that staff are um facilitating and seeking out as well as the mayoral directives um and other elements that council has um council has kind of supported through that process. So, it's really a snapshot to demonstrate that, you know, while the actual number of completed units, and I'd defer to Director Romanowski for those numbers. Um, it really has been an ef consistent ongoing effort to in spite of market conditions, try and facilitate as many units as possible. Um, but at the end of the day, the town has uh in a bit of a precarious situation because we do not physically ourselves as the town of Ajax build housing. >> Absolutely. But just really quickly, as I often say, the maybe to director Romanowski, the four that I know that are building now in the town of Ajax, there's Pat Belly Square and Salem and Bailey, there's um 310 Kings Road West, there's the um Rosen Road at Oddly. Those are four that, you know, off the top of my head I can think of. Are they associated with this 3600 unit target or is that something else? I'd have to uh through the chair to councelor Tyler Mo. I don't have the exact numbers right off the top of my head. I'm just looking through kinds of the housing reports that uh Sean McCulla issues to me, but I can definitely follow up with you. Um >> yeah, >> following this to kind of give you the breakdown, identify that we we have our reporting and stuff that we could we could share that information with you. >> Yeah, that'd be great. I'd like to know that. Thank you very much, Chair. >> Thank you. And Dr. Dr. Ron, why don't you copy all of council on that because I'm sure we'll all want to see those numbers if that's okay. Thank you. So, the recommendation is to uh receive information. I believe I jumped ahead. Yes, it is. Can I get a mover through hand wave? I see councelor region councelor dies. Thank you. Any questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, we'll start the vote. And that passes. Thank you everyone. We're now item PSA-20226-10, the winter warming town hall. This was pulled by councelor Henry. Councelor Henry. >> Thank you uh through the chair. Uh I just want to ask a question. So, we know that uh we were the only municipality um that stepped up and offered their facility, their actual um headquarters, town hall facility uh for the winter warming center across the region. So, my question would be, and I know this is a regional file, but what's being put in place to prevent um to accommodate uh for next year? because we know like this was a band-aid emergency solution that our staff uh did very well with and thank you to everyone involved. But uh moving forward, this is not the answer to the problem um for folks being out on the street and we need other solutions for next winter. So is there something being talked about, a round table, something being put in place? >> Uh thank you through the chair to councelor Henry. Um right now those conversations as you mentioned are the region's responsibilities. Staff have you know as a debrief from the warming center this year um shared very clearly with the region of Durham that our expectation is that we be at the table to facilitate um a more suitable solution for winter warming um sort of in Ajax to support this project next year. Typically those conversations kind of start over the summer months as it has in several past years. Um but one component of this that I think is worth noting is that uh the region has uh sort of struck a a working group of of staff um and at different agencies uh including both the region and the town obviously but also DRPS Lage Health um uh Germ community health center as well as um the CFOC themselves. um at which point we are discussing what um what kind of the future state uh currently looks like related to homelessness uh and h and uh winter warming in the downtown area. So out of those conversations we do expect that um there will be some direction but at the end of the day um this will require the region to identify suitable space. Um in other municipalities places like Pickering use the Peace Lutheran Church. Um downtown Ashawa has the backdoor mission and other locations. Um but I do think that finding a suitable location, the town is there to be a partner with the region. The town is there to uh make connections as we did uh last winter as well. Um but ultimately the decision on where winter warming is operated lies with the region. >> Yes. Um so you know not to be a bad host but you know that that was not ideal as we all know and we did our best. Um, but yeah, you know what? I'm just going to leave it at that. I I'm I'm glad to hear that the conversations are coming in the in the summertime. And uh so when you say the conversations, um does that mean that our Ajax staff will be at the table even though it's a regional issue? We we'll be there, right? Like to have this voice >> through the chair to council Henry. Yes. Consistently. Um I would you know go so far as to say that in the absence of advocacy from town staff um particularly um in uh across our across the organization in the absence of that um I do think that this the the severity of the issue uh and the impacts that we've seen uh in the downtown area would not be um brought to the forefront in the way that they have been um both from town staff and from members of regional council and local council alike. Um this is an issue that you know we continue to advocate on uh in in an area that is not our primary core responsibility. Um and so um the town and and our team's role is really just facilitating that coordination um and making sure that all the affected parties are actually together. Um we you know in a lot of cases we're offering to host the meetings. Um we're offering to say hey instead of a team's meeting why don't we all get together in the same room why don't we host it at one of our community centers or a town hall. um hey can we get this meeting together? It it's an ongoing uh effort that uh the town takes and um it's it's one of those pieces where we you know uh it's incremental gains. It's it's um furthering the the needle on a very very complex uh issue. So we uh we do try to remain as a part of the table um to to see what we can do to um be a part of the solution. I would go as far as to say, "Hey, why don't we have the meeting at the Ajax Library Rotary Room?" That would be a great place for them to see everything going on. I want to thank our entire staff in um I call it the CEO's office, uh PSA, for all your hard work on this file and and for trying to move the needle. Thank you. >> Thank you, Luigi. Go Crawford. >> Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. I am very proud of this project. I'm sorry this that we saved livesund was it almost 2,000 people had access to a warm space in an extremely wind really really uh cold winter long winter. Um, I I sincerely want to thank CEO Baker, um, Christy Cass for moving this in a very short period of time. And I also want to again thank and recognize Daniel for the cleanup that he had to do at the end of every or at the beginning of every day. So, I know that this was a lot of work and I'm uh I know that it was um it was not it didn't it didn't go without its lumps for sure, but um but we did save lives. We kept them warm. They had a chance to have a good sleep in a cot, which makes an incredible difference. People that have houses and beds don't realize how important it is to be in a cot and having a good sleep. uh it it it improves their mental state and uh and so for you know I know I'm just proud of our town for stepping up and um I did have a question uh the $9,000 that it did cost the town are we uh are we confident that that will be reimbursed is there something that we need to push at the region >> uh through the chair regional counselor Crawford no staff are confident that it will be reimbursed um there were conversations at the outset that the region would cover um all costs related to this. Um, and a memorandum of understanding was signed between staff as well. So, uh, we're very confident that the funds will be received. We're just waiting for, um, all the final invoices and accounting to, uh, to finalize before we send off the bill. >> And I and I do want to, you know, I want to give Cass a shout out. I think probably every single morning we text. It's been a new thing that we do. And, uh, and I want to thank you for uh, staying. This is a a file that never gets closed. It's a new day every single day and there's always something else that we're we seemingly have to deal with. So, I do appreciate um your availability and uh and taking on this that is never ending. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you. The staff recommendation is to receive for information. Show of hand. Can I get a mover, please? I see region councilor dies. Thank you. Any questions, comments, concerns, additional? Seeing none, we'll start the vote. And that passes, I'm sure. We are now on to item FIN-20226-10, the 2025 annual investment report. This was pulled by, excuse me, uh, region councelor Crawford. Region councor Crawford. >> Thank you. Um my question the first question is is how does this um allocation compare to other pure municipalities or best practices >> for the chair to councelor regional counselor Crawford um I have not had the opportunity to go through the other municipalities investments uh reports and how we compare. So if that is something that um you would like us to to to do and report back on we we would take direction. Um but I um I have not been able to compare that at this point. >> That's fair. That's fair. Um and o since over half the cash is tied up in restricted funds, what portion is truly discionary or available to the town? So at this time of the $139 million about 66 million is being held um uh in in town reserves uh that are not uh development charges and and uh parkland and so on. uh approximately 13 million of that 66 is committed to existing capital projects and the balance of the funding is really being held you know as working capital uh to pay our our invoices um with the fluctuations of the the tax collections as well as it it's held in reserves uh such as our stabilization reserve and uh Matt tax reserve and so on. So those are those are funds that we don't want to put at risk because there is an immediate need for that. >> Right. Perfect. Um, so the investment income did drop. I mean, we've done very very well. I'm, you know, not not not questioning that at all. But it did drop from 2024 to 2025. Um, what were what were the was what were the key drivers on that? >> So largely uh through the chair um largely the differences were the Bank of Canada uh cutting their overnight rates aggressively from the beginning of 2024 to 2025. Um, if you recall back in 2024, we were investing in GIC's earning 4 and a.5 to 6%. Uh, that is no longer the case and uh we're we're we're investing our short-term cash in high interest savings accounts, you know, earning approximately 3% just uh shy of 3%. But that is largely the the difference between the income uh change from 24 to 25. >> Okay. Okay. Um uh what percentage of our reserves currently are in are in uh investments >> are in investments um from the total town reserve. So excluding the dis the non-discretionary reserve uh we have about 62% uh of our total reserves um in included in investments and that includes all of our reserves capital tax rate stabilization and so on. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Chair. happy to move it. Uh if there's no other questions, >> recommendation is um annual investment report for the period January 1st to December 31st, 2025 be received for information and then the net c net cash reimbursement of 798,917 to 29 cents from the 2025 equity investment transaction fund be allocated to strategic initiatives reserve moved by regional councelor Crawford. Any other questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, we'll start the vote. And that passes. Thank you everyone. We're now into OES-2026-09 contract award RFT number T 26036 accommodation upgrade project phase 3. This is move by regional councelor Crawford and councelor Henry. Councelor Henry. >> Thank you. Um, I just wanted to start by asking, it says the wards that are affected by this report, one and three. And am I reading this wrong or are we looking at uh wards two and two? >> Who's speaking on this? Dave, is that you? >> I can respond >> um through the chair to councelor Henry. It impacts I guess ACC, MCC and the operations center. So those three locations in their respective boards >> and the operations center. Okay. >> So the fireh hall one that we're referring to uh fire station one headquarters is located at >> Saleomon Rosland. >> Okay. And the building that we're not upgrading is located at >> Salem and Rosland. >> It's the same >> two there were. So what's happened with respect? >> So how does it affect WS one and three? >> I I'm not sure on the >> Dr. Meredith, at the beginning at the top of the report, it says subject and then wards wards one and three. So, is it possible that we're taking money from the fire station to accommodate the other recreation centers? Is that or is it just we should ignore the wards one and three because that's where councelor Andy's referring to >> there. There could be a misreerence in the ward. >> Okay. >> Section of the of the report. I'm not 100%. >> Yep. No problem. >> I don't have I don't have the report in front of me right now to see how it's it's referenced. So, but >> Okay. No problem. >> So, it's it's on page 43. >> Yeah, 43. Page 43. >> Let's assume it's a typo then. And can we move on? >> I just want to clarify. So, >> yeah, it's it's it was clarification to make sure I'm understanding where the project where we're taking money from and putting it to because I know there was a change in the name of fireh halls and that's why I'm making sure that I am understanding correctly from the report which fireh hall we're referring to. It looks like it's not a gotcha moment. It's a do I understand it correctly moment. >> Director clarification to make sure >> fire station one is on Salem and Rosland and operations on Salem and Rosland. >> So that's it. >> Okay. So I am understanding it correctly. >> It is the fireall headquarters at Salem and Rosland. >> Okay. I needed to clarify because I know there's been change in the naming of these of these stations. So, can I ask then um when these buildings were built? Like I'm noticing that you're that in the report it's referring to, I guess, a more predominant um type of renovation coming up in the near future and that this money could be used right now for ops versus headquarters. Does that mean headquarters is getting a bigger renovation in the near future? So within the budget in 2026, there was design money that was allocated for a moderniz modernization of of the fireh hall headquarters. What we're saying is part of that modernization project, we would look at dealing with the administrative area and the office improvements as part of that project which although council has not approved the 27 budget, we have it budgeted for 2027. Oh, so the fireh hall budget's moving to 27 and we're trying to keep ops in 26. >> We have money in 2026 for design with respect to fireh hall headquarters and then we will do and look through the budget process to receive council approval in 27 to complete the works. >> Okay. And this is for the office area only. >> Well, there's this money that's that we're reallocating is for the administrative area. Yes. >> Yes. Because it talks about creating an office. It talks about creating a landing um desk station for those that are part-time coming and going. I think the report refers to some kits available for those that work at home. Is that correct? >> Yeah. And those are similar implementation measures that we did for phase one and phase two for all office space at town hall and it will include the administrative areas at MCC and ACC as part of this award. So the the back area behind your office that's being expanded or that's just being changed >> where everyone sits in that in that landing space. >> There's nothing physically changing within that area. That area was completed as part of phase one. This impacts more of the fleet and the building maintenance area that wasn't affected as part of the first phase. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you. Good. >> Thank you, councelor Henry, regent councelor Crawford, you're up. >> Thank you, uh, chair. Thanks. Thanks, uh, dear Dave for this, uh, or Director Meredith for this report. Um, can you tell me why we would do any form of renovations in the ACC when we are looking at $60 million of renovations like 60 minutes from now? like I don't understand why we put any of this money into it >> through the chair to regional councelor Crawford. So we have scope reduce the scope of this project and sort of what we're doing in the administrative area none of it is throwaway cost so anything that we would look to do and sort of how we scope the work is all of the investments that would be made now would be utilized as part of any renovation through the ACC project. So, it's not a complete revamp of the administrative area that we originally contemplated. It is more narrowly focused and will just serve sort of the immediate needs of recreation staff over the next couple of years. In all likelihood, it if the ACC does proceed, it's it is a multi-year project, right? So, so what's being proposed right now um as part of this award um is is minimal in terms of what was originally contemplated and as I said there's no throwaway cost associated with this. >> Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Happy to move it. >> Thank you. So moved by reach councelor Crawford. Um we have sorry let me zoom OBS-2026-09. Um, I'm just going to go ahead and you can all see the recommendations. It's a lot to read. Any questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, we'll start the vote. Thank you. That passes. We are now on to OES 2026-08 contract award T26038 MCC parking lot restruction, Contract Administration, Inspection Services, Geotechnical Services. This was pulled by, excuse me, um, regional counselor, uh, no, excuse me, councelor Henry pulled this first. >> Thank you, chair. Quick question. Um, with regards to the parking lot, when I look at the map, I just want to know if there's an opportunity during this reconstruction, because it's a reconstruction, not a resurfacing, to add more accessible parking uh to this space. Is Is that a possibility? Yes, having spoke to the project manager earlier today, um without any difficulties, we can accommodate a couple of additional accessible parking spaces off the east entrance. >> Excellent. That's my only question. Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Tyler Moore. >> Thank you. Um the patio area uh at the south or sorry northwest corner uh that's part of this reconstruction. Um it looks tired. Uh you see some you know grass growing through it. Do we know how much that gets used? I I'm there quite often and I don't ever remember seeing anybody sitting in there. But do we have like user uh numbers on that area or do you plan on it being better than it has been? Uh I might refer this to director Vita who would have a better handle on the usage of that space. Director Vita, do you want to speak on this? Director Vita, if you're speaking, we can't hear you right now. Is your audio settings lined up to your mic? >> Sure. I can go offline on this if uh if he's not available. >> I very much appreciate that. >> Yeah, >> he'll leave us all the >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm glad to see that it's part of this improvement because I've had complaints about it and how it was to shut, but I just wanted to know my question. I can talk to director V offline if that is better. Okay. Do you have any more questions, Council Morn? >> No. >> Did you want to move this, Cyl? >> Thank you. Well, you raised my hand. I appreciate that. Um, we have three recommendations. We can all see them on our respective agendas. Any further questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, we'll start the vote. Here we go. And finally, we're at RCS-226-02 St. Francis Center rebranding and 15th anniversary programming. This was moved by councelor Henry. Councelor Henry, >> sorry, this was poll. >> Thank you. Um, >> I knew what you meant. Don't worry. Uh, thank you. Um, I wanted to ask a question. So, first of all, I want to say that I agree with the report 100% everything in the report. Very well done. Uh we get this all the time that folks think that it's the church and it's not. I was telling folks about the event and uh recently I've been meeting with some folks from the international black and diverse film festival that I connected with some artists um from the states bringing them here and even having the conversation folks are assuming it's a church. So love the rebranding think it's great. I wanted to ask again about the cross and where that is going. That will be removed. >> Uh we see Robert Guber on the line. Robert, please. Mr. Gerber, please. >> Hey. Uh sorry, Mr. Gerber. We also cannot hear you either. Um this is a prank that Wrecken Culture is pulling on us. No, I'm teasing. Um do you want to try again? Go ahead. No, we see that you're speaking, but we cannot hear you right now. >> I can't even see him. >> Uh, sorry. I have the um the Brady Bunch screen. Uh, Director Vita, do you want to try? >> Okay. >> You know what? If if it'll help at this time, if it'll help at this time, I'll take my question offline and I'll be happy to move the report. >> Thank you. And please share that answer with us. Councelor Henry, we're also interested. Councelor Tyler Mourin, I'm sure you have a question. I just wonder who can respond. >> I do. Uh from the um heritage advisory committee. Uh I recognize that this the physical alterations have been raised via the art and cultural plan, but the immediate action in the GC seems to be focused on renaming and the anniversary program. However, in the upcoming GCC meeting, uh if there are any um changes to the physical building, Heritage Advisory Committee has asked me to uh remind staff to include them if it that is possible as they have a vested interest on buildings and knobs and windows and doors and the the history of that building. Thank you, >> Mr. Gruber. You want to try again? No, unfortunately we do not. >> So mine is just an ask of staff to include uh honor. Consider that feedback given. I appreciate that. This has been moved. Sorry. Any other questions, comments, concerns? Seeing none, this has been moved by councelor Henry. Appreciate that recommendation. Recommendation. Council approve the renaming of the St. Francis Center to the Ajax Center for the Arts. that the Ajax Center's 15th anniversary programming taking place on the 4th and 5th of July, 2026 be received for information. No further questions, comments, concerns. We'll start the vote. And that passes all that's left for this meeting is um get a mover to adjourn. Show fans, please. I see councelor Tyler Moore. Thank you very much. Any questions, comments, concerns on adjourning? Seeing none, we'll start the vote. Great. That passes. I want to keep this going. Everyone, have a fantastic day. Thank you, staff and council. We'll see you at the next meeting.