Council – Jan 28, 2019

Our January 28th meeting started with a well-attended public hearing, which I am not going to talk about here, because the topic deserves another blog post on its own. So, other than the Public Hearing and resultant Bylaws, we started our regular Agenda with approving the following items on Consent:

Alternative Approval Process for Electric Utility Infrastructure Loan Authorization Bylaw No. 8041, 2018
We need to build a new electrical substation in Queensborough. The electrical utility needs to borrow up to $30Million to do that. Since it will take more than 5 years to pay that loan back (as it will be paid back out of the profit we make in electrical sales), we need authorization from the public to draw that loan. I hate the Alternative Approval Method, but it is the only tool given to us under the Community Charter to get this important infrastructure built, so here we are.

If you are opposed to the City’s electrical utility borrowing to build a substation, and are an eligible voter (New West resident or property owner, Canadian Citizen, over 18, etc.) you will have a 30+ day period to submit your opposition to the City. Come to the front desk at City Hall and fill out the form before March 11 at 7:00pm.

Recruitment 2019 Appointments to Advisory Committees, Commissions, Boards and Panels
This is the official release of the residents and stakeholders selected to serve on council Advisory Committees and other boards and panels in the City. If you applied for any of the above, look for your name here! If you don’t find your name, please don’t take it personally, we literally have hundreds of applications, and most of them were really good. It is hard to say “no thanks” to someone who is willing to stand up and take part in their community this way, but committees of 30 don’t work. Please apply again next year, as we are always trying to balance out experienced committee members with new brains to keep things fresh.

If you were named to ACTBiPed, Access Ability, the Electrical Commission, the Intelligent City Advisory Committee, I’ll see you at City Hall!

Recruitment 2019: Appointment of Council Representatives and Co-Chairs to 2019 Advisory Bodies of Council
This is some last-minute shuffles of Council Advisory Committee chairs and co-chairs, as the new Council figures out their schedules and attempts to find some kind of balance.

Recruitment 2019: Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) Rescindment
One of the appointments to the youth Advisory committee has to change, on account of the Terms of Reference.

Disposition of City Owned Lands: Road Allowances in the Queensborough Eastern Neighbourhood Node
The City is proposing to sell off two slices of roadway that are not, strictly, roadway, as they have never been opened up and paved and otherwise made road. These are both part of a larger vision for the Queensborough Triangle – a piece of land that has been under development review for a number of years. The City first advertised this land being potentially for sale through a public RFP in 2017, and staff entertained a few offers. They are now ready to move forward on the sale

2019 Community Grant Recommendations – Additional Information
Coming off of our approval of community grants, there were two items that were removed from the regular approval process to get more information about the applications and applicants. We moved the staff recommendations to provide some funds to a tumbling club, and to move New West TV to a different category and find a more appropriate way to support them.

2019 Festival Grant Recommendations
We spend a lot of money on Festivals in this City. But that said, the #1 positive thing people say about New West these days is that they love that so much is happening in this City. Every one of these Festival Grants is supporting a program or event that is primarily NOT run by the City, but by other organizations in the city, large and small. The City provides engineering and support services (though we need to account for them here as “in kind donations”), and we give a little bit of cash, concentrating the latter on supporting new up-and-coming events over more established events which we encourage to adopt more of an self-supporting model over time. Alas, New Westminster is a small City, and all of these organizers and events compete for limited sponsorship dollars.

Support festivals! Show up, spend money in their booths, send out social media messages about the event. And if you own a business, think about sponsoring the events that make New Westminster the funnest City in the lower mainland.


The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Amendments to Economic Development Advisory Committee (EDAC) Terms of Reference
The Terms of Reference of the EDAC is being adjusted to make the committee work better in the context of the new Economic Development Plan for the City.

Bylaw Notice Enforcement Housekeeping Amendment Bylaw No. 7960, 2019 and New Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw No. 8077, 2019: Bylaws for Consideration of Three Readings
Included in this report is a bit of information about the two types of power our Bylaw Officers have: the Bylaw Offence Notice (BON) process which is limited to a $500 fine and is basically an in-house operation that is adjudicated at City Hall, and a Municipal Ticketing Information (MTI) process, which is adjudicated by the courts, but can include a fine up to $1000. The City almost exclusively uses the BON model since it was introduced to the City in 2009.

Every time we make and adjustment to a Bylaw that changes the type of offences or fines, we also need to amend the Bylaw that regulates these fines so the two are congruent. These amendments pile up to make the Bylaws unwieldy at times, and internal inconsistencies sneak in. So staff does these housekeeping edits to fix some of those inconsistencies.

While we are at it, we are boosting the fines for refusing to allow inspection of property (the cost of the City going to a Justice of the Peace to get an Entry Warrant is going up), and are adding Transit Police to our Bylaws to give them more flexibility to enforce City Bylaws around transit stations (i.e. smoking).

Happy to report we are also increasing fines for motorists that do things that impact pedestrian safety such as driving or stopping on a sidewalk or failing to yield for a pedestrian (which aligns well with our Master Transportation Plan). I support this move, but think we are actually not going far enough

[Trigger warning – War on Cars rhetoric coming!] According to the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit, and corroborated by research out of the City of Vancouver, the #1 cause of pedestrian injury and death is vehicles failing to yield in a crosswalk where the pedestrian had the right of way. Pedestrian collisions result in more than 2,000 injuries and 50 deaths on average every year in BC – all of those preventable and the majority to no fault of the pedestrian. I think a $125 fine for this violation is not high enough, compared to a $200 fine for blocking traffic or for fixing your car while it is parked in front of your house. I also feel the fines for other significant pedestrian hazards, such as parking too close to a crosswalk or an intersection, are too low. As an aside, I also suggest the word “jaywalking” needs to be removed from our Bylaws. The term itself is pejorative towards vulnerable road users, and has racist and classist roots that do not fit well with modern thinking about the residents of our city.

I appreciate the changes being made, and supported the recommended changes. But I wanted Council and staff to recognize that one of my goals for this council term is to prioritize pedestrian safety through education and enforcement so we can meet the goals of the MTP. This will include review of enforcement activities and fines related directly to creating safer pedestrian spaces. [Off my soap box].

Official Community Plan Implementation: Work Program for endorsement
We want to do it all. New Westminster, despite our visions and dreams, is still a relatively small municipality, and we need to allocate and prioritize resources based on our relatively small tax base. This includes prioritizing the workload of our planning staff. It is a busy time in the city, the OCP implementation is coming along at the same time as we are pushing the envelope on rental protection and affordable housing and development is happening at a pace that requires careful review. This report is about our Planning staff setting priorities for their work plans for the next couple of years, and giving Council a change to weigh in on whether the priorities are aligned with Council’s expectations.

We ended up sending back this report with a few recommendations about what our priorities are, specifically some of the policy work around creating infill density guidelines for duplexes and triplexes was identified as something some on council don’t want to delay on. I was a little challenged, because setting priorities is hard, for staff and for Council, and we cannot afford to do it all. We are going through some strategic planning work on Council right now, setting goals for the term, so perhaps that process will help inform this a bit before it comes back to Council. But the question will ultimately be – do we do a little less, or do we add more resources?

Queen’s [sic] Park Traffic Calming Review
Our engineering staff do these neighbourhood-level traffic reviews on a regular rotating basis, and Queens Park (the neighbourhood, not Queen’s Park the Park) came up in 2017-2018. After public consultation, on-site analysis and data-gathering, more public meetings, and engineering analysis by an external consultant, some modest proposals are presented to help address what are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty modest traffic management issues.

Not surprisingly , the 85th percentile speed on some of the wider roads exceeds the posted speed limits.

I did raise some questions about whether road narrowing was considered in a few places where road widths are really wide (i.e. Second Street at Queens Ave is 18m wide – crazy wide for what is ostensibly a two-lane road), and though it may cost more than simply installing a 4-way stop, it may improve the pedestrian experience while adding to the “friction” of the road that results in lower travelling speeds.

There is also an interesting trial proposed here – closing the bottom of Park Row to deal with high speeds on that road, and a difficult intersection and pedestrian space where Second Road, Park Row and Royal Ave all meet. I generally like the idea, but recognize that the impact on local residents and on Bonson Road (which is really just an alley) will take some monitoring.


Among our Bylaw readings was Adoption of the following:

Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8080, 2019
This Bylaw that updates the fees we charge for various engineering fees was Adopted by Council. Consider yourself CPI updated.


Finally, we had a single piece of New Business:

Sanctuary City
Council agreed with Councillor Das’ motion asking staff to report back on the feasibility of establishing New Westminster as a Sanctuary city. This seems an easy and appropriate step towards making our City more inclusive.

That was the end of a long night, and I will follow up with a post about the Public Hearing.

Council – Jan 14, 2019

The Happy New Year 2019 edition of New Westminster City Council had a packed Agenda, and started off with a presentation on Innovation Week, which is coming in the beginning of March and is something you should definitely check out.


We started our Council Action by moving the following items on Consent:

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act Report for 2017 and 2018
This is our annual report on how staff managed Freedom of Information requests and Privacy inquiries. The FOI applications are trending downward over the last few years, at least partly because we have an Open Data portal that makes more data accessible to the public without having to engage the FOI process. The other side of that equation is that we have more and more privacy protection concerns, and have to be pretty cautious with how we manage information so we don’t violate the “Privacy Protection” part of the Act.

The best news is that staff are processing the FOIs in a timely manner, and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner seems happy.

New Westminster Aquatics and Community Centre Loan Authorization Bylaw and Temporary Borrowing Bylaw
We need to get Loan Authorization Bylaws lined up so we can move ahead on the Canada Games Pool replacement project. Because of how the borrowing laws for local governments in BC work, we are preparing for two types of loans. First is a Temporary Loan Bylaw which will allow us to borrow cash to pay the bills as we are going along, which must be paid back within 5 years. The second is a longer-term Loan Authorization that allows us to amortize the costs of the project over 20 years. We will use this second one to pay off the first one once we have everything completed.

The plan is to secure the authority to borrow up to $93.6Million. This is, essentially, the maximum project cost ($114M) less the reserves we have saved up for the project ($20.4M). That does not mean we will spend all of the $93.6 Million, in fact we are going through this process right now to facilitate application for a Federal Infrastructure Grant. If we were to get that grant, it would come right off of this loan amount. We are also relatively early in the detail design of the new facility, and where cost savings can be found, they can also reduce this amount.

The Loan Authorization Bylaw will have to go through the Alternative Approval Process – meaning that we will ask the public whether they feel this is an appropriate expenditure (albeit through ha less-than-ideal negative-option process). So expect to hear more about this in the coming months.

Council Remuneration
Here we go again. Being an elected official responsible for budgets means you need to, at some point, authorize your own wages, and take the shit show that comes with it. Our current policy was adjusted by the previous Council, and involves a review every 4 years (i.e. once per Council term) to compare compensation to a representative cohort across the region. As there is a bit of a spanner in the regular works this year when the federal government made a significant shift in how local government elected officials wages are taxed. Most (all?) municipalities are increasing Mayor and Council wages to “make them whole”, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about how to handle this.

The recommendation by staff here is that we send this out to an independent HR consultant who can apply HR industry guidelines and make a recommendation about what compensation levels Council should get, and how we should implement future changes. This will be a public report, and at arms-length to Mayor and Council, which I think is the only fair and accountable way to deal with prickly topics like this.

Multi-Family Residential Rental Tenure Zoning: Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 8078, 2019 – For Consideration of First and Second Readings
The City has had a moratorium on conversion of purpose-built rental multi-family buildings into Strata properties (“stratification”) since 1978, part of our long-term commitment to protecting affordable housing within our legal ability to do so.

New zoning powers were granted by the province last year that mean local governments can now limit land use in some residential zones to only include rental-only tenure. There are several properties in the City that were built as purpose built rental, some even receiving zoning benefits or support from CMHC because they were rentals, but are not subject to the moratorium due to a variety of historic factors. The City is moving to rezone them as rental-only, in an effort to assure they are not converted. At the same time, we are pre-applying rental zoning to a tract of City-owned lands in Queensborough to help inform future use of the lands.

This will be going to a Public Hearing, which I suspect will be a spirited one.

381 Keary Street: Development Variance Permit to Permit a Parking Space to be Designated in the Front Yard – Consideration of Notice of Opportunity to be Heard
This property owner wants to have a legal secondary suite, but has no back alley, and not enough sideyard to put a driveway to the back yard. As the City has a policy against front yard parking in residential areas, they need a DVP to permit a front parking pad. There will be an Opportunity to be Heard on February 4th if you have any concerns, C’mon out and let us know what you think.

341 Johnston Street: Development Variance Permit to Permit Lot Frontages of 8.9 Percent of the Perimeter – Consideration of Notice of Opportunity to be Heard
This property owner wants to subdivide their property in Queensborough to create two 32.5ft-wide lots, but because their lot is150ft deep, that means the frontage will be less than 10% of the total perimeter, so a DVP is required. There will be an Opportunity to be Heard on February 4th if you have any concerns, C’mon out and let us know what you think.

Energy Step Code and Building Bylaw Amendments: Bylaw for Consideration of Three Readings
We are moving forward with Step Code implementation. This sets the energy efficiency levels (as classified by the BC Building code) of new buildings being constructed on New Westminster. We have already adopted a Bylaw for single family homes, and are now bringing in a phased program for multi-family and commercial buildings.

One interesting wrinkle here is that we will allow a slightly less efficient building to be built if it’s primary thermal energy source is a low-carbon source (like ground source geothermal or sewer heat recovery). This recognizes that the GHG emission reduction is the most important part of energy efficiency, as GHG are the most pressing concern. Council moved to give this Bylaw three readings.

New Westminster Aquatic and Community Centre Grant Application for Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program
We are applying for the grant. Although the combined Federal/Provincial infrastructure program will fund up to 73% of eligible projects (40% from the Feds, 33% from the Province), the entire program is only $134 Million to be spread across BC, so the chance of us getting funding at that level is pretty remote. BC is a big province, New West is 1.5% of the population, every community has needs and many have projects they want to get built. Do the math.

The good news is that this project meets all of the criteria for a hefty grant. It literally checks every box: cultural, recreational, and community infrastructure improvement, it is a significant GHG-reduction project, it is a service to vulnerable populations, and it is developed to a point where we can be assured that the project can be completed. So we are going to ask for the maximum funding for which we are applicable, and see where it goes.


The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8080, 2019
There was a clerical error in the amendment to the Engineering User Fees Bylaw we passed back in late 2018. This amendment corrects that error.

Tree Protection Bylaw Administration: Update on Staffing Pilot Project and Potential Amendments and Incentives
The tree protection Bylaw is still being adjusted to make it work better. We have moved the administration of Tree Permits within City hall to make it more transparent to applicants when tree permit are required, and to help trigger to staff when tree protection measures are required. We are also making it easier for a resident to use a consulting arbourist in the cases where an arbourist is needed, and are creating a bit of a reliance model so we don’t have the City arbourist doing redundant work.

This is a work in progress, and Council remains committed to the tree bylaw, to tree protection, and the urban Forest Management Strategy, but that doesn’t stop staff from working on making the bylaw work as smoothly, efficiently, and transparently as possible.


We gave a bunch of Bylaws readings (Which I am not going to list in these reports anymore), but only one was a Bylaw for Adoption:

Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment (Cannabis) Bylaw No. 8076, 2018
This Bylaw adjusts our development fees bylaw so that we can collect the appropriate fees for the development of cannabis retail outlets in the City. It was adopted by Council.


We then had an extraordinary amount of New Business:

Fresh Voices #LostVotes Campaign
This Motion form Councillor Nakagawa was bolstered by a delegation from the Lost Voices campaign – young adults from our community who are immigrants to Canada, most of them not yet citizens but long-time Permanent Residents who would like to have a voice in how their adopted City and School District are run. They are asking cities to campaign to the province (through the UBCM) to extend local government voting rights to Permanent Residents.

Council agreed to take this issue to UBCM on their behalf, where I am sure it is going to be a spirited debate.

Clothing and Donation Bins
This is once again a topic that popped to the top of regional interest as yet again (in another community) a person died by getting trapped in a clothing donation bin. Some Councils have banned them outright, which I think is a knee-jerk reaction. As proposed by Councillor Trentadue, we have asked staff to report back to us immediately with steps we can do to improve safety. This may result in us banning some types, and we did make it clear to staff that they should not wait for us if they feel they need to act to protect public safety. However, I know we will also be hearing from agencies that rely on the donations, and from those who feel a safer bin design is possible.

Proposed Rental Housing Revitalization Initiative
Some of the most affordable housing in New Westminster is the housing most under threat: our older purpose built rental stock. This is where the risk of demoviction is highest (see the Rental Zoning item about) and this is where we are seeing a distressing amount of rennoviction. We have struggled to create policy to prevent rennoviction in the City within our limited powers, but our Planning and other staff have brainstormed and come up with some potential actions the City can do to prevent these rennovictions from making people in our community homeless.

There is a lot to digest here, and some of it is in relatively preliminary form, but the multi-prong approach includes a Rental Replacement Policy that will formally dictate how much and what type of rental tenure housing will have to be built if a developer plans to demolish a purpose-built rental building. We are also looking at using our Business Licensing powers to make rennoviction more difficult. Finally, we are going to look at a Rental Revitalization Program to make it easier for owners to perform necessary upgrades, efficiency improvements and repairs to our lower-cost rental stock without the need to evict the current tenants.

There is going to be quite a bit of talk about this over the next few months, but I am happy that our staff are finding creative solutions to protect the most vulnerable part of our current housing spectrum – the important gap between subsidized housing and new market rental.


Happy New Year, New West!

ASK PAT: a two-for-one

Bill asks—

I enjoyed the Bikes on the SFPR piece. Riding over the Alex Fraser is treacherous – the deck is slick in parts and the guard rail is not high enough to prevent you going over the edge if you fell off your bike – what can I do to influence change?

The Alex Fraser was a pretty cutting-edge piece of cycling infrastructure when it was built in the 1980s, now it is a sorry excuse for cycling access. With the Canada Line Bridge, the Port Mann, and the recently-refurbished Ironworkers Bridge, the remaining pieces of terrible infrastructure like the Pattullo, Knight, and Alex Fraser really stand out.

It was unique back in the 90s for having well-graded entrances and a uniquely grippy surface. It was almost enough to make us ignore the too-low barriers and narrowness, made worse by the occasional road sign pole in the middle of the path. Now the surface is worn so there are slippery parts, and the access paths at the Delta end are disconnected and disintegrating from neglect.

The bridge belongs to the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, so that is the place to go to raise concern. I would start by contacting your MLAs office with a respectful letter. It is timely, as there is currently a $70 Million project to expand car capacity on the bridge, and the same ministry is currently touting their new Cycling Infrastructure Program. I think the work recently completed at the Ironworkers is a great example of how a smart intervention into existing infrastructure can make the bridge safer for all users.

However, one voice is never as powerful as collected voices. If you really want to help cycling infrastructure not just in your neighbourhood but across the region, you should think about connecting with the two “All-Powerful Bike Lobby” groups in the Lower Mainland. I am a member and regular donor to HUB, who are great on-the-ground cycling advocates, with local chapters in every community in the Lower Mainland. The BC Cycling Coalition is a more of a coalition of local groups (including HUB) that do more provincial-level lobbying. Both organizations do great work, and are excellent resources for cycling advocacy info. If you want to push the needle forward on cycling infrastructure in the region, join one of both, and help them raise our voices.

In the meantime, keep the rubber side down!


Nicholas asked—

Hey Pat, I was just wondering if you knew what was happening with the old Commercial/Occidental Hotel on Columbia, across from the Westminster Block. Hoping theres some rehabilitation in the works!

No idea. It is a 120-year-old registered heritage building that has been under renovation for as long as I can remember now. There seems to be some slow progress on restoration based on my anecdotal observations, but I do not recall anything coming to City Council regarding the property in my time on Council. There is nothing shown in the City’s “Projects on the Go” listing for that property, and there are no applications for the property that I can see on the City’s public GIS. So your guess is as good as mine.

Ask Pat: 660 Quayside

Back from vacation, refreshed and ready to rock 2019, and no better start than banging off a couple of Ask Pats!

Jeff asks—

How long will the Waterfront detour at 660 Quayside be in place? For the entire duration of the build or are they getting the Waterfront walkway done before the full project gets underway? More importantly, where could I find this information? I see a lot of info online regarding the 660 Quayside project, but nothing about the required closures / detours.

The project at 660 Quayside, known as Pier West, is going to be a big, disruptive construction project. There is no way around that. Everything I write below is based on my current understanding of the project plan, but need to add the caveat that any construction project at this scale will no doubt see some changes and adjustments as they go along. The reality is that there will be a variety of factors (ground conditions, the regional building market, unknown unknowns, etc.) that will impact any timelines being proposed so early in the process. And quite often a lone City Councillor is the last to find out about things like this.

What I do know is that the developer agreed to delay the start of the project and adjust their construction staging to better accommodate the needs of the community, both by delaying the closing of their existing parking lot until the River Sky project has an operating public parking lot, and by adjusting how they do their major dig so that the inevitable closure of the railway crossing at Begbie Street is as short as possible.

There is some good news here. When this project is complete, it is going to be transformative for our Riverfront. What is now a pretty scrubby parking lot will become a newly-designed and better working Quayside Drive, two residential buildings and a daycare/commercial building, a completed waterfront boardwalk/esplanade connecting Pier Park to the River Market, 2 acres of new public greenspace expanding Pier Park to the west, and a new accessible pedestrian/cyclist overpass from the Parkade at 6th Street over to the expanded park. There will be a few surface parking spots around the base of the new buildings, but the bulk of the parking will be below grade (including something like 80 public parking spots), assuring that views of the Riverfront from Front Street and the intersections at Columbia are improved over now – we have avoided a big above-ground parking pedestal that can overwhelm public spaces. I think the project is going to be a great addition to the City’s Riverfront.

Between then and now, however, the entire 3.5 acre site is going to need to be excavated. Dug up, fill and contaminated soil removed, shored and sealed, and underground parking and mechanical spaces built. There is no way around the need to build a “bathtub” to accommodate the new landscape and underground parking. To make the situation worse, a big section of Quayside Drive that connect the River Market area to Begbie Street does not belong to the City (it has belonged to the owners of 660 Quayside for as long as anyone can remember, with the City has operated the road on a right-of-way). That area is going to be dug up to re-align the streets and build access to underground public parking. There no way to do this that isn’t disruptive, but the disruption will result in a great Riverfront improvement.

With that background, we can get to the essence of your question. The agreement the City has with the developer is that access to the west end of the existing Pier Park needs to be maintained. Until the Sixth Street overpass is built, that means that some form of pedestrian walkway needs to be maintained from Begbie Street. As installing sheet piles secant piles along the waterfront is an early part of the project, the access is not likely to be along the waterfront, but through the parking lot as it is now. Once the overpass is built and the bigger dig begins, you will need to cross at the Begbie intersection, go along Front or Columbia Street to access the Pier Park via the new overpass. How long this type of diversion will be in place is not an answer I have for you right now, but expect it to be for more than a year.

Secant piles being installed today. These are going to keep the underground garage and the river from interacting.

I suspect as the project moves along I will be able to give some better answers to some of these questions. Right now, the buildings are approved as far as zoning, and they have a partial building permit for the shoring and piling work currently happening (you can track this kind of stuff on the City’s “Projects on the Go” page) but a lot of the other details around the construction are still being worked out. Any kind of work like this that includes the River will trigger a bunch of Federal and Provincial environmental hoops for the builders to get over, work on the overpass and intersection means the Railways are going to be involved, and of course there will be legal agreements around rights of way and access relating to the redesign of the Begbie Street and Quayside Drive intersection. The developer has, up to now, shown a great deal of patience and willingness to work with the community (including the River Market, who are being impacted the most here), and I think that, in recognition of the high level of disruption this project may cause, Council will have reason to be kept more aware of progress than with a typical building project.

I don’t have a site contact yet, but once the project begins in earnest, I expect that there will be a person at the construction company who will be able to answer inquiries from the public. In the meantime, best to send specific requests to our planning department at the City (follow this link for the contact info)