Water and Wastewater Servicing Allocation Policy Development
Project information
A Water and Wastewater Servicing Allocation Policy is a document which identifies the organizational practices and procedures we use to allocate and approve water and wastewater servicing for private lands where a growth/ development proposal has been submitted.
At this time the City does not have a formal Water and Wastewater Allocation Policy. Requests for new growth servicing are assessed on a first come first serve basis through site plan and subdivision planning approvals and the issuing building permits.
Recognizing how important it is to have policies to manage how servicing is allocated, the Province of Ontario implemented changes to the Municipal Act in 2024 through Bill 185 to promote municipalities to create service allocation policies to help with growth management. Included in changes implemented through Bill 185 was a “Use it or Lose it” provision which would allow municipalities to reclaim approved capacity if construction of the planned development does not happen in a suitable amount of time. This would allow the City to reallocate capacity to other growth proposals which are “shovel ready” for construction.
City of Guelph would like to get feedback from the community to develop a local Water and Wastewater Servicing Allocation Policy.
Objectives of Policy Development include the following:
- Provide transparency to the process by which water and wastewater servicing allocations are approved and attributed to new growth proposals.
- Engaging customers early as part of growth proposals to understand servicing needs and provide confirmation on ability to service new growth proposals.
- Manage community growth within the environmental approval thresholds of our local water supply wells and wastewater treatment plant.
- Maintain levels of service to existing water and wastewater customers.
- Enabling additional policy tools to advance community housing goals of our Strategic Plan.
Review the Water and Wastewater Servicing Allocation Policy and Bylaw
Other related City projects include:
Who's Listening
Wayne Galliher, Division Manager, City of Guelph
Phases
Project Launch and Notice
The City of Guelph is one of Canada’s largest communities to rely on groundwater for our drinking water source. The City holds Permit to Take Water and Environmental Compliance Approvals from the Ontario Ministry of Environment Conservation and Parks. These define the amount of servicing capacity that is available from water sources and through treatment processes at the Wastewater Treatment Plant. These approvals are law-based volume thresholds and form the available amount of servicing capacity to apply to future community growth.
To support future community growth, the City continues to work to implement new well water sources, expand treatment processes at the Wastewater Treatment Plant and undertake work on water and wastewater systems. However, as we improve our water and wastewater systems to support a growing city, we also need to keep a close watch on how much capacity we have left. That means investing additional time and care in tracking how we allocate water to growth to best manage our limited resources.
Stay tuned, engagement starts tomorrow, Tuesday May 27, 2025!
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