We had a short agenda on Monday, but a long meeting. This is because we started with two hours of public delegations, many of them speaking to items on the agenda. We opened by a presentation from the new MLA for Queensborough, Steve Kooner, and in hindsight I should have suggested to him that he stick around an watch Public Delegations, and even bring a motion to Legislature that the Province begin having Public Delegations in the legislature. Its not fair to the public that local government is the only level where they get to come and speak to Council for two hours on any topic they wish.

But I digress. Our agenda began with the following items that were Moved on Consent:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (Miscellaneous Zoning Bylaw Amendments) No. 8495, 2025: For Consideration
Our Zoning Bylaw is complicated, as we are almost constantly amending it and changing other bylaws that point to it, and at the same time the Province sometimes messes with language and their legislative levers, so we need periodic omnibus-type updates to fix the language, keep references up to date, etc. This is that amendment bylaw. It will come to Council for three readings, if you have opinions, let us know!

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We then talked to these items that were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Tenant Relocation Policy – Engagement and Policy Update
Last year, Council asked staff to bring back recommendations to strengthen our rental protection policies. The City has had strong anti-demoviction policies for some time that have prevented demolition of older more affordable secured rental housing even as we built more rental and ownership housing. However, there are concerns that recent Provincial regulatory changes (especially the Transit Oriented Areas regulations included in Bill 47 may erode these protections, while some others (Bill 16) have given the City power to extend these protections. So Council wanted an update, and recognized that Burnaby recently adopted some strong policy that may provide a good guide to strengthening our policies.

Staff are reporting back that our policy frameworks are different (every municipality is unique!) but that the Burnaby policies do demonstrate some areas where we can strengthen our protections of the most vulnerable renters in town. Burnaby’s own program is relatively young, but has already been applied to 34 rezoning applications representing over 2,000 eligible rental units, and they report there are already 700 tenants in interim housing successfully receiving support through their program. 700 people in more secure housing instead of being displaced by new development, while Burnaby staff report the policy has not put a noticeable chill on the building of new homes.

Council has a good conversations about some of the details of the framework, and asked staff to prepare a policy based on these principles. This is good work!

Zoning Amendment to Remove Mini-storage Use from M-1, M-5 and CM-1 Industrial Districts, and to Require Storage in Multi-family Residential Districts
There is a bit of a boom in the self-storage industry right now, and Staff have identified some concerns in our ability to regulate how they are built in the City, and are recommending zoning controls be adjusted to give staff and council more discretion here. The intent here is not to stop the building of new self-storage businesses, but more to recognize that this commercial space use has a different impact than most other uses (parking, traffic, massing impact, etc.), and assure Council has power to mitigate those impacts. There are currently three zones which cover a small portion of the land in the city, where self-storage is as-of-right would be removed. Developers are still able to bring a rezoning to Council if they wish to build that use, and Council will have stronger power to restrict shape and character, and to determine it the location is appropriate in light of surrounding land use.

As our industrial and job creation lands are increasingly valuable, and self-storage is a relatively low-cost but also low-employment use with large potential land use impacts, it behooves us to give them careful consideration, and this bylaw gives us power to do so. This is consistent with Metro Vancouver guidelines around planning self-storage in industrial areas.

That said, families increasingly are living in smaller apartments, and are facing increased storage challenges. I’m not sure self-storage helps with this fundamentally (self storage doesn’t help when you have kids lacrosse equipment to store, etc.) but creating standards for storage space in new apartments, and incentivizing it by not including storage in floor space ratio math, seem like positive moves to make smaller homes more livable for families. So staff are going to bring rezoning changes that support those changes as well.

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We then had two Motions from Council:

Placing the Naturalization and Rewilding Project in Queen’s Park on Hold
Councillor Minhas

WHEREAS there has been considerable feedback received by the City of New Westminster regarding the ‘rewilding’ and ‘naturalizing’ of the 5th and 2nd Street boulevards in Queen’s Park as part of our Biodiversity Strategy; and
WHEREAS it is important to properly consult with local residents before any further ‘rewilding’ or ‘naturalizing’ of the boulevards in Queen’s Park which is covered by a Heritage Conservation Agreement
BE IT RESOLVED THAT that the City’s Biodiversity Strategy, as it pertains to the ‘rewilding’ and ‘naturalizing’ of 2nd Street and 5th Street boulevards, be placed on hold until October 2026; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT a neighbourhood consultation plan be developed and shared with Council regarding any future ‘naturalizing’ or ‘rewilding’ of the boulevards in Queen’s Park or other neighbourhoods throughout the City.

This was quite the lengthy discussion in Council, and we receive many pieces of correspondence on it, along with some public delegations, both for and against the intent of the motion. It is worth watching the Council Video to hear how those delegations went, because it is clear New Westminster is passionate about public spaces, even if we don’t all share the same opinion about how those spaces should look or how they best serve the community.

Although the framing of the motion was problematic, I was more concerned about how it was inconsistent with the commitments that staff had already made to the community about this project, and staff have had a considerable amount of correspondence with the community and with Council on this, so I think it is important that we keep that context in mind as we address the public concerns that were raised. I am concerned that this project is being politicized in the most egregious way, and that staff’s work to connect with the community here has been undermined by this. So I suggested the following amendment which (as requested in the original motion) pauses the naturalization work and asks for a more fulsome consultation with the community before expansion of the program in Queens Park:

BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff complete the revised naturalization work on the Fifth Street median between Third and Fourth streets, then take at least a year to allow the area to establish, and conduct an evaluation of the initiative with the neighbourhood regarding the initial work and any related next steps, consistent with the March 3rd, 2025 staff correspondence to residents and Council, and the 2022 City of New Westminster Biodiversity and Natural Areas Strategy; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT no further expansion of naturalized areas on Queen’s Park neighbourhood boulevards be undertaken until after this evaluation, and only after consultation with the community, including considerations of the Queen’s Park Heritage Conservation Area Landscape Guidelines, as per the March 3rd, 2025 correspondence.

To add to the context here for folks who may only have a passing understanding of just what’s happening here, changes to the grass-with-trees boulevard on Fifth Street began in 2023, more than a year ago, and I received a very small amount of both positive and negative feedback on it from neighbours. In my experience, people were more curious than concerned, and when talking about it, were willing to see where this was going prior to casting judgement. This until a month or two ago, when landscaping logs arrived on a second part of the boulevard. Once they started to receive more feedback on this, staff were quick to admit the landscaping features that were “out of scale” with previous work in the boulevard. They were also quick to acknowledge both that the visual impact was larger than they anticipated, and that they did not communicate effectively with the neighbourhood about the project. In their defense, after the placid reaction to the 2023 work, they might not have anticipated the push back they are seeing now.

The push-bask did arise, however, and in my observation, staff have been proactive at addressing the concerns raised by residents, and have been doing their best to respond to the community. On March 3rd, they distributed a letter to the community (which was, I note, distributed to Council before this Notice of Motion appeared on the agenda) that outlines what I think is a reasoned, professional, and respectful path in light of the feedback we have received. That they would not expand the program, they would de-scale some of the more challenging installations, and replant with a wildflower mix that meets some of the goals of the Biodiversity Strategy. It also committed ot taking a year to see how the new treatment greens in, and having a deeper consultation with the neighbourhood about the next step prior to any expansion to the program. To me, this is aligned with the stated goals of the original motion, but is clearer in language.

In the end, Council supported the amendment.

Providing Priority to New West Residents and Businesses for City-Operated Programs and Services
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine

WHEREAS the City of New Westminster faces a significant infrastructure deficit when it comes to public assets like sports and recreation facilities and community centers; and
WHEREAS local taxpayers should have the highest level of priority to access various programs and services offered by the City of New Westminster; and
WHEREAS the City of Delta offers their families a two-week head start to register for all recreation programs, including swimming and skating lessons;
BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff report back to Council regarding options for consideration to significantly enhance a “Priority New West” policy that provides local residents and businesses with priority access to City operated programs and services; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the report include a comparison of other jurisdictions in our region regarding what initiatives they have implemented to provide their citizens and business owners with priority access.

Council supported this motion, along with a couple of amendment brought by Councillor Henderson (the text of which I don’t have handy, but you can watch the meeting and see for yourself, and remember these posts by me are not official minutes!) to address some other concerns with the current recreation program registration system. The important part here is that this motion will result in a report back on opportunities and potential costs prior to Council committing to any change in how we currently operate.

I supported this reporting, but will take a few concerns into the discussion when this comes back to us. I don’t like the idea of getting into an arms race with other municipalities about “my city first”, when I fundamentally think it is better if we work together. I don’t see putting up walls around our City as a progressive approach. There are residents of other Cities who come to use rec facilities here in New West. If you are curler living in Burnaby, you come to New West to play, if you are a squash player in New West, you are likely to go to Burnaby or Richmond to play. This isn’t inherently a bad thing.

I am also concerned about what it may mean to some organized sports leagues and programs. I know Minor Lacrosse is almost 100% New Westies, but I’m not sure the same is true of Track and Field, Trampoline, or Baseball, and I would hate to be undermining youth sports programming by creating a two-tier registration system unless the sport itself sees value in that.

Again, these are uncertainties, and so I am happy to see a report back from staff on this so we can base our decisions on facts, and not presumption.

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Finally, we had a couple of Bylaws for Adoption:

Street and Sidewalk Patio Bylaw No. 8318, 2022, Amendment Bylaw No.8514, 2025
This Bylaw that expands patio service hours for one of two bars in the city was adopted by Council.

Subdivision and Development Control Bylaw No. 7142, 2008, Miscellaneous Amendments Bylaw No. 8515, 2025
This Bylaw that makes a bunch of minor amendments to our Subdivision and Development Control Bylaw was adopted by Council. Adjust your behavior accordingly.

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Now, actually finally, we had one item of time-sensitive New Business:

Rescheduling the April 28th Council Meeting
The Feds wen and scheduled an election on the date of our Council Meeting. This is uncomfortable, because people don’t really want to go to Council on that day, and because our statutory requirement to provide 4 free hours while the polls are open to all staff might challenge our ability to actually staff a Council meeting. So council is moving the meeting off by one week, making for a very busy May.

We had a pretty quick Council meeting on Monday, considering the length of the Agenda, though many items were under the category of “getting Council caught up on progress” so didn’t require lengthy discussion. We started with moving the following items On Consent::

707 Queens Avenue: Remedial Action Requirement
There was a fire that destroyed a house on Queens Avenue a few weeks ago. After a fire, it is important for a variety of reasons that the building be demolished ASAP, and normally this is the case because property owners and their insurance companies don’t want to deal with the liability of delaying this action. In the event that work is not moving fast enough, the City has the power to order the demolition and removal of materials, or that order failing, enter the site and do it ourselves sending the bill to the property owner. However, that Order needs to come though Council resolution, which is what we are doing here. Council agreed to the order.

Council Strategic Priorities Plan – First Semi-Annual Report for 2025
This semi-annual report shows that staff are making real progress on our Strategic Plan priorities. The areas we are falling short are related to some regional labour market challenges impacting staff recruitment and contracted services, the massive and unanticipated shift in housing regulations that require a lot of staff time and energy to implement, while some of them are aligned with our strategic plan. There are also a couple of IT projects that are falling behind because of recent shift in cyber security risk and other emergent IT challenges that simply need to take priority over some of the more strategic long-term initiatives. Overall, considering how disruptive and disrupting the last two years have been, this amount of green showing up on this dashboard is a testament to the incredible work and dedication of the city’s staff.

We are getting stuff done!

Proposed Revised Terms of Reference for the Arts, Culture and Economic Development Advisory Committee
A group of business owners in Sapperton have formed a registered society to co-organize business support and advocacy. This is not a BIA (which is regulated by the Province, has effective taxation powers of its members) but more of a “Business collective”, and they would like a seat at the ACEDAC table alongside BIAs. The rest of the ACEDAC said “sure, c’mon in!”, so we need to update the Terms of Reference to make it all official.

Subdivision and Development Control Bylaw No. 7142, 2007, Miscellaneous Amendments Bylaw No. 8515, 2025
This is the Bylaw that regulates how the City manages requests to subdivide and develop property, two of the fundamental land use powers of local government under the Local Government Act. At the heart of this is the City managing how properties connect to City services (like water, sewer, electricity) during development to assure we can provide those services sustainably, and how much of the cost providing those services fall on the individual property owner, as opposed to taxpayers or (in the case of utilities) ratepayers. One change here is that we are now happy to receive a “letter of assurance” from senior government on affordable housing projects instead of requiring other security, recognizing the province is not likely to go broke and leave us hanging, so in turn we can remove one more potential financial barrier to development of affordable housing.

It’s the little details that help.

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We then discussed the following items that were Removed from Consent:

Extending Patio Hours – Street and Sidewalk Patio Bylaw Amendment
Back in June of last year, we quickly approved a temporary policy to extend patio hours for pubs that have their patio on City lands. The temporary policy change was time limited and expired November 1, 2024 and was an opportunity to gauge public support and identify gaps. This time extension was applicable to only two liquor primary establishments, only one of which participated in the extended closing time. Regardless, there were no issues arising, so Council is moving to make the change permanent.

New Westminster Awarded $1.466 Million from Health Canada’s Emergency Treatment Fund for the Crises Response Pilot Project
This is a significant announcement for the City, and a demonstration of confidence from the federal government in our approach to the health crises that are impacting every community across Canada. I remembering it suggested in Council once that we should NOT take this work on, because we were letting senior governments off the hook, and they would never support us if we went ahead. That was of course wrong, and fortunately this Council chose to take the leadership position that the work needed to be done, and our advocacy is best done from that position of leadership, not from blaming out and finger pointing.

Being the only City in BC to get ETF Funding, and getting the second highest grant in the entire Country, are evidence that the feds recognized our commitment to the work, and that the plan put together by staff was viable, evidence-based, and defensible. This contribution will not only relieve some of local cost, but will allow us to expand the program and provide longer hours of service to people who need it the most.

Finally, in my conversations with the Provincial Minister of Health last week, she expressed strong support for this program, and we will be working with Fraser Health teams to integrate the many services Health are already providing in the City, as the CRP model outlines. The road to addressing homelessness and untreated mental health crises is long, but we are committed to the work, and appreciative of our partnerships federally and provincially in making this work happen. We are leading from the front in New West!

Provincial Housing Target Order – Six Month Interim Progress Report
You may have heard that the Province gave many cities in BC “Housing Target Orders” last year – setting fixed targets that they expect the City to reach. We are required to report out on our progress toward these targets every six months. This is that report.

The City is “required” to complete 656 new housing units in the first year of our target order (Aug 2024 – July 2025). In the first six month of that period, the City saw 702 net new homes, exceeding our year one target by 7% in only the first 6 months.

Excuse me for not taking a victory lap, because this demonstrates how misguided the BC target model is in the first place. Almost all of that net increase is due to the occupancy being completed on the Bosa Pier 1 project, which was approved by Council no less than 7 years ago. An unsophisticated look at the headline “we doubled our target in the first six months!” would suggest that we are moving faster than the province requires and should slow down, except that decisions made now will have ZERO effect on the number of units that come on line over the next 6 months, or two years for that matter. We are ahead now, but the gap between Council approval and occupancy can be 3-7 years, and is 95% mediated by market forces outside of the City’s control. The project we approve or deny today will be the statistic in some future Council’s targets 5 years hence. That’s why to the tool is bad.

Of course, there are other issues – most of the units approved were market ownership units (again, it was almost all one project) when we need more rental and affordable housing. The 52 units of subsidized housing downtown that Council approved in early 2022 will likely contribute to our 2026 targets, and the affordable housing we recently approved in the 22nd Street area will contribute to 2027 targets. It’s just not a good tool.

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We then had a single Motion from Council:

Support for a New High School in Queensborough
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine

WHEREAS there has been significant growth in Queensborough over the past decade with the population now estimated at over 11,000 people; and
WHEREAS Queensborough high school students face significant challenges getting to and from New West Secondary School each day; and
WHEREAS the School District 40 has been asking for capital funding to construct a new high school in Queensborough since 2022; and
WHEREAS New West Secondary School is over capacity with more than 2600 students – making it the largest high school in British Columbia;
BE IT RESOLVED THAT a letter be written to the Minister of Education in support of School District 40’s ongoing requests for site acquisition to build a new high school in Queensborough.

This motion led to a lengthy discussion, one that was ironically made much longer by Council actually agreeing on the main issue – that we need more schools, including in Queensborough. However, the School Board took the extraordinary step of sending Council a request to NOT approve this request, as their board unanimously asked that we instead stay aligned with them on advocacy to the province. I think we need to respect not only their authority, but also in the work they are doing to advocate for new school spaces in New Westminster. Writing the letter as requested here would likely create confusion, and risks sending the impression to the Ministry that this Council is not 100% aligned with the School District on the priorities they have identified. That not only undermines the advocacy that is ongoing, but puts at risk important an pending capital investment decisions being made right now to support expanded elementary and middle school spaces at Simcoe, in the Downton, in the West End, AND in Queensborough.

No-one wins here is we play neighbourhoods against each other, we need to work to assure the resources we are asking for address the most pressing need, and work together to improve space and programs across the entire school district.

In meeting with the Minister of Education last week, I supported the School Districts capital priorities as set out by the School District planning team. I reiterated the priorities of the SD, which included addressing secondary needs in Queensbrough, but only after the more pressing elementary needs downtown and in the West End, and a new middle school are addressed.

The City has a role here, both in site approval and in advocacy. This is why this Council, only a few months ago, approved unanimously the 2024-2025 Eligible School Sites Proposal presented us by the School District, and committed at that time to continued collaboration and joint advocacy on the School District’s stated priorities. It should be no surprise to members of this Council what those priorities are, and how disrespectful it is to the School Board and disruptive it is to long term planning to arbitrarily shift the focus of this work. So Council amended this motion so instead we write a letter endorsing the School District’s Long-term capital plan, which includes, as everyone in Council agreed during the deliberation, a new school in Queensborough. Council unanimously supported the amended motion.

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We closed with a few Bylaws for Adoption:

Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 7925, 2017, Amendment Bylaw (1084 Tanaka Court) No. 8483, 2024 and
8.2 Zoning Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment Bylaw (1084 Tanaka Court) No. 8484, 2024
This Bylaw that rezones a lot in Queensborough back to light industrial at the request of the owner was adopted by Council.

Development Cost Charge Reserve Funds Expenditure Bylaw No. 8513, 2025
The Bylaw that authorizes staff to spend up to $1.53 million from the Development Cost Charge Reserve for designated water, sewer, and drainage projects was approved by Council.