The February 6 meeting of Council started with a series of presentations, including a discussion of the City’s Budget, and an Opportunity for Public Comment on the topic.

Draft 2017-2021 Financial Plan
As regular readers (Hi Mom!) will be aware, the City annually approves a budget in a form that is regulated by the provincial government. Those regulations require us to prepare a 5-year financial plan, and for the budget to be balanced. As part of the lengthy public process, this is the third or fourth time parts of this plan have come to Council, and there have been ongoing requests for public input from Council, on the City Page, and on the City’s website. Considering the importance, we get remarkably little feedback or constructive criticism from the public on this.

I will write further blogs in the upcoming weeks about the 5-Year Financial Plan, and the Bylaw that sets the Property Tax levels for 2017 will be coming back to Council next month. This will result in further conversation, I’m sure.

We had one person take the opportunity to present to Council on the 5-Year Plan, and I wanted to touch on some issues he raised. First, we are not hosts of “one of the highest Property Taxes in Metro”. Our average is 11th out of 22 local governments in the Metro Vancouver area, and our taxes per capita and per household are both below the average (here is a post I wrote last year, and another one, both covering this topic). I have also done a comparison (although this is a couple of years ago) looking at MLS housing values across the region and how our Mil rate compares, and again, we are right around average for almost every tax class. Second, the City is not permitted to run a deficit; we need to balance our budget every year. We are, however, allowed to borrow money, and we are allowed to put money in reserves. Currently, we have about $65 Million in outstanding debt that we are paying off. We also have a little more than $120 Million in our long term investments and in the bank as cash. If we were to cash in our savings and pay off our debt, we would be up more than $50 Million. However, that would not be a great long-term strategy for the City’s finances.

Quayside Park Redevelopment – Preferred Design Option Overview
The playground at Quayside Park (where the Expo86-era model submarine is) needs to be removed, because there is a major storm drainage line under it that is failing. Replacing that line is not an option, it needs to happen, and excavating around the park is the only reasonable way to do it.

Fortunately, the park itself is nearing the end of its design life, and doesn’t really meet modern standards for such a valuable amenity for the Quayside community. Our Parks staff have done a year of design and public consultation on this topic, and this report shows the preferred design that came form that process. Works will occur this spring, with the park out of service for a couple of months, but back in much improved order by June.

2016 Year-End Strategic Initiative Status
We received short updates on four of this Council’s Priority Initiatives, which are all making progress, although some of this progress is less visible than might be expected (hence these reports):

1. Arts Strategy: There is a lot going on in the City in the arts, between developments at the Anvil to activate the public space and programs, advancement of our Public art program, and strengthening of our partnerships with organizations from the Arts Council to Massey Theatre Society. The strategy has gone through a considerable amount of public discussion and is coming together, expected to come to Council in a draft form in the spring.

2. Truck Route Strategy: The City has tried to shift trucks to peripheral routes in the City for several years. This is not something the City has complete control over, but requires regional cooperation. We are cooperating well with TransLink and Surrey on the Pattullo Bridge project, and with Coquitlam on the Brunette Interchange project. We have also had discussions with the Port about sharing their GPS truck destination data, hoping to use that to developing data-based solutions to help with traffic flow. A work in progress…

3. Economic Development Strategy: We recently reviewed the Business Survey the City performed, which is an important part of data gathering for this strategy. There is also an event coming up in late February – Innovation Week – that will bring many aspects of the City’s ED file together with a broad group of partners to develop ideas about how Innovation will change our economic development, and our City in general.

4. Riverfront Greenway: The long-standing dream of connecting the Pier Park to Brunette Landing Park with a pedestrian and cycling route along the river is getting some legs beneath it (pun! I’m on fire today!). There are some significant engineering challenges here, including the general paucity of space for a trail between the Railways’ wide buffer zone, steep slopes above and below Front Street, and a river with large tide fluctuations. Then we need to thread the needle through or around a couple of bridges. We are hoping the Pattullo replacement project provides some opportunity to develop a collaborative design. So, not much more than a few lines on a map right now, but the momentum is definitely there.

Before those presentation, the following agenda items were moved on consent:

City of New Westminster Poet Laureate 2017-2020 Appointment
Welcome Alan Hill to the role of Poet Laureate, the fourth person to hold that position since the role was created. I am impressed by Alan’s work, and by his vision for making the written and spoken work a bigger part of our City’s arts scene. He also happens to be a great guy raising a family in Glenbrook North. Congratulations, Alan, and I look forward to seeing you at Civic Events!

630 Ewen Avenue: Official Community Plan Amendment and Rezoning from Queensborough Residential Dwelling Districts (RQ-1) to Comprehensive Dwelling Districts (630 Ewen Avenue)(CD-70)
This is a project to develop supported housing in Queensborough as part of the City’s larger affordable housing strategy. At this point, the project requires an OCP amendment and Rezoning. Council approved moving this through to the Public Process that will include committee reviews, public open house, Public Hearing, etc.

43 Hastings Street: Road Closure and Dedication Removal Bylaw – Council Consideration of First, Second and Third Readings; Zoning Amendment Bylaw – Council Consideration of First and Second Readings
This is another project to develop affordable housing, this time in Downtown. At this time, the project requires a closure of an unopened road portion, which (like most everything we do) requires a Bylaw. Council approved sending this to first and second readings.

Queen’s Park Working Group: Terms of Reference – Amendment to Add an Additional Member
This move resulted from discussions about how to manage succession planning in the working group, as its mandate has been extended since it was first put together, and the Queens Park Residents’ Association membership has changed. There is a balance here between making sure stakeholders are represented and losing momentum that has been generated by three years of working collaboratively.

After a rather exciting Presentation and Delegation period, which you need to watch on video to enjoy (seriously, it is worth going to 1:42:00 in the video and watching 5 or 10 minutes), the following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

2017 New Westminster Pipe Band Community Grant Request
Something apparently went wrong with this application, and the Pipe Band was not included in the review of grants that took place in the fall. This puts us in a difficult situation, as their $3,000 request was not assessed alongside the other Community Grant applications the Community reviewed, and I don’t know how they would view this request had they received it. The Community Grant Committee had $115,000 in grant requests, and had to say no to $67,000 in requests. There were 7 organizations had their grants refused outright and several others received significantly less than they requested. However, this organization does have a long history of successfully applying the Grant to their program. Council, attempting to divine the desires of a committee that no longer meets, and recognizing  it was likely a paperwork SNAFU that put us in this situation, approved granting them the same amount the group received in previous years, which is less than they requested, but should continue to support their program.

215 Manitoba Street (Queen’s Park): Heritage Alteration Permit No. 82 to Permit New Construction – For Council Consideration
This is a follow up to the first demolition permit the City issued in Queens Park during the Heritage Control Period. Council approved the demolition after receiving reports that indicated the house had little heritage value, and that no significant loss of neighbourhood heritage values would result from its demolition. However, the replacement home requires a Heritage Alteration permit, which means it need to meet the rather strict Queen’s Park Historic District Residential Design Guidelines.

The replacement as proposed meets those guidelines, and also requires no variances from the current RS-1 zoning as far as size, FSR, height or such. The project was recommended for approval by the Heritage Commission and the Technical Review Panel.

Train Whistle Cessation at the Begbie Street and Front Street Crossings
The endless adventure continues. The engineering work for Whistle Cessation on the Begbie and Front Street crossings downtown is complete (at a cost of just over $1 Million to the City), we only need to go through the paperwork exercises. By passing this resolution, we are formally serving notice to the rail operators under the Railway Safety Act. They have 30 days to comply. Assuming no surprises, whistles should stop sounding in Downtown New Westminster as soon as March.

2017 Spring Freshet and Snow Pack Level
It is a bit early to start planning for the 2017 Freshet, but despite our wintry winter, provincial snowpacks were mostly at or below average levels at the beginning of January. The notable exceptions are the South Coast and Lower Fraser Valley, which are 14% and 11% above average – and note this is before this week’s extra snowpocalypse events. Lots of snow is yet to fall across the province, and so much of freshet risk is related to how quickly it melts as opposed to how much there, but no need to worry yet.

Environment Advisory Committee: Corporate Sustainable Food Policy
This discussion grew organically (pun!) out of discussions at the Environment Advisory Committee. Food security and the impact of our food choices on the environment were part of the discussion, and there was some concern that City Hall doesn’t appear to be taking a leadership role in this regard in how we provide food at City functions and facilities. The committee started with the simple question: are the ubiquitous tropical fruits and cured meats the most sustainable choices for City Hall meetings? It definitely expanded beyond that narrow topic to thoughts of developing more of a corporate-wide policy about food.

I think this is a discussion worth having as part of our City’s larger Environmental vision, and am happy to support the Committee’s recommendation

We then did our regular run through of Bylaws that needed Council action:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (Hastings Street Unzoned Right of Way) No. 7899, 2017
Road Closure and Dedication Removal (43 Hastings Street) Bylaw No. 7898, 2017
These Bylaws that support the closure and rezoning of an unopened road portion in Downtown, so they can be included in an Affordable Housing Project, were given two readings.

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Bylaw No. 7892, 2017
This Bylaw that supports the City’s updated Protection of Privacy policy was adopted by Council. It is the law of the land.

Finally, we had one item of New Business:

LEED Gold certification for civic buildings
The City currently has a policy that new civic buildings meet or exceed LEED Gold standard, however the LEED standard is now only one of several certification standards used to measure the lifetime environmental footprint and energy efficiency of new buildings, from LEED to NetZero to Passive House. As the city is considering a significant investment in capital projects in the years ahead (Canada Games Pool, new Animal Care Facility, a replacement for the Arenex), council has asked staff to provide us a report outlining the costs and benefits of different standards, to determine if our slightly myopic LEED Gold policy is still the best way to achieve our energy efficient building goals.

…and with that, we were done for the night, except for a couple of council members needing to dig their cars out of 12 hours of snow.

We had a relatively short Council meeting this week, partly because we had a long workshop during the day, and a Public Hearing in the evening. You never know how long a Public Hearing is going to go, so the Agenda was a little short. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t exciting and full of fun stuff.

We had 4 Public Hearings, but three were on different aspects of one project:

(612 – 618 Brantford Street) Official Community Plan Amendment Bylaw No. 7876, 2017; Heritage Revitalization Agreement Bylaw No. 7886, 2017; and Heritage Designation Bylaw No. 7885, 2017
This project is interesting for several reasons. It is a 6-story apartment building on a small street in uptown just north of Bent Court. The building includes a lot of 2- and 3-bedroom suites which meet our Family-Friendly Housing policy, and the ground floor apartments are designed to face the street and make for a attractive street interface. The HRA part of this is related to the 1898 house on the site, which will be preserved, move to the west (sunny) side of the lot, and restored into a three-bedroom family home.

The project was modified through discussions with the Design Panel and Advisory Planning Commission, both of which gave approval to the final plan. The Residents association was generally in favour. We received one piece of correspondence for the Public Hearing, which was in support of the project.

At the Public Hearing, we had one neighbour speak against the project. To paraphrase what I hear in her presentation, she was not convinced the restored heritage home was worthwhile, and was worried about the impact on street parking.

I did not share her opinion about the preservation of the house, and think that a project like this is an important component of how we, as a City, are going to accommodate growth and the need for housing with the desire to preserve heritage assets, especially houses more than 100 years old. I also noted the project has more parking than suites (50 parking spots for 42 suites, plus 7 guest parking spots) which is a few short of the zoning requirement, but a variance I am willing to support for family-friendly housing Uptown.

Council referred the applications to Regular Council for Third Reading.

Zoning Amendment (Housekeeping) Bylaw No. 7893, 2017
This Bylaw makes several minor changes to our Zoning Bylaws to reflect the reality of how commercial spaces are used in the City. It allows pet daycare at animal care facilities, adds Daycare to a few select commercial zones, and updates the list of Liquor Primary operators in the city.

Not surprisingly, no one sent us correspondence, and no one came to speak at the Public Hearing in regards to this amendment. Council referred the Bylaw to Regular Council for Third Reading.

We then moved into our Regular Meeting, where we discussed the aforementioned Bylaws:

Official Community Plan Amendment (612 – 618 Brantford Street) Bylaw No. 7876, 2017; Heritage Revitalization Agreement (612 – 618 Brantford Street) Bylaw No. 7885, 2017; Heritage Designation (612 – 618 Brantford Street) Bylaw No. 7886, 2017
Council gave these Bylaws Third reading, moving the project towards formal adoption.

Zoning Amendment (Housekeeping) Bylaw No. 7893, 2017
Council gave this Housekeeping Bylaw Third reading, moving it towards formal adoption.

The Following items were them moved on Consent:

Poet Laureate Emerita Award
Candice James’ terms as Poet Laureate came to an end, as the Terms of Reference for the position limit how long a person can serve. Her service as our third Poet Laureate was exemplary, and the Arts Commission recommended to Council that we officially offer her the honourary title of “Emerita” for perpetuity.

Applications for Grant Funding to the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development Infrastructure Planning Program
The City is applying for a grant to help pay for some infrastructure planning work – determining where we need tot spend and when to maintain our infrastructure. This is only planning work, not actual infrastructure repairs, as $10,000 doesn’t go very far, but well take it if we can get it.

Report on Major Purchasing Transactions for the Period September 1 to December 31, 2016
Three times a year, Staff report out on major purchases, as part of our open accounting. You can look at this report and see what we are spending your money on, and how the open procurement process worked out.

Investment Report to December 31st, 2016
The City has several Reserves Funds to pay for future capital works and commitments we have made under our DCCs, along with a bit of surplus money from previous budgets. We keep some of that money in the bank so it is readily available, and we keep some in Municipal finance Authority funds that give pretty good return and are very low risk. You can read the report for more details, but very short version: it’s about $124 Million, and we budget to earn about $2 Million in interest on that money.

Bylaw Updates to Permit Amusement Arcades in the C-4 and C-8 Zones, and to Update as a Permitted use Amusement Arcades in the C-3, C-CD-2 and C-CD-3 Zone: Zoning Amendment Bylaw 7881, 2017, Business License Amendment Bylaw 7903, 2017 and Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw 7904, 2017 – For First and Second Readings
The City is looking at taking a more open and adult approach to permitting video arcades/ pinball halls (depending on your generation), and getting rid of the current blanket prohibition.

Funny to read the regional bylaws where these types of operations are permitted with varying levels of control. It is easy to read the Moral Panic in the development of these bylaws. From Surrey’s: “No person under the age of 16 years is permitted to operate a pinball machine after 10:00pm, except Fridays and Saturdays or the night prior to a statutory or school holiday, unless accompanied by a parent or legal guardian”.

Council moved to give there Bylaws two readings.

The following item was removed from the consent agenda for discussion:

Privacy Management Program Approval
Freedom of Information is an important principle in governance today, and the flip side is privacy protection. They are so intertwined that they are regulated together under the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA). The City has implemented FOI procedures, even have a staff member whose job it is to manage FOI compliance (so Council or senior management cannot decide unilaterally when or why something is protected from public eyes).

A new, refreshed Privacy Policy is part of this. The City manages lots of information about homeowners, about users of our public facilities, about our own staff. The balance of how much of *your* information is public and how much is private, and the process to determine the difference, must comply with the provincial law. The policy being introduced here doesn’t replace or supersede the law, it provides guidance to staff on how to remain compliant, and makes clear whose job it is to assure compliance.

We wrapped our usual business, as usual, with reading of Bylaws:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (Amusement Arcades) No. 7881, 2017
Business License Bylaw Amendment Bylaw No. 7903, 2017
Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7904, 2017
As mentioned above, Council gave these three Bylaws that support the operation of Arcade amusements in the City two readings. We will review these Bylaws at a Public Hearing on February 20th. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Bylaw No. 7892, 2017
As mentioned above, this Bylaw managing how the city will comply with Provincial Privacy laws, was given three readings by Council.

Development Cost Charge Reserve Funds Expenditure Bylaw No. 7900, 2017
As mentioned on January 16, this Bylaw that re-allocates some DCC funds to build some sewer infrastructure was Adopted by Council. It’s the law of the land, may the sewage be pumped to the benefit of all.

And that, excepting some somber discussion of current local, national, and international events that have us all looking for catharsis, was an evening at Council. It is a strange time with too much to get depressed or distressed about. People are good, be good to each other, and don’t let the bad out there change you, or convince you it is winning. It never has before.