We didn’t have a regular Council meeting this Monday in New West, but we did have a Council Workshop. This represents a bit of a shift in how we will be doing Council business for the next year at least. The goals is to try out various strategies to make Council more efficient and effective, while assuring time for all of Council to have comprehensive discussions around important issues and initiatives (even get into the weeds a little, if needed). These workshops replace our earlier Task Force model where a sub-set of Council worked with staff on specific topics of priority before the results are brought to Council for decisions. Workshops are more like Committees of the Whole (but for legislative and procedures reasons different) that include everyone on Council, but provide more flexibility and less structure than Council. Ideally, we can work out details, address concerns raised by Council members, and give staff a heads-up about how Council will receive upcoming reports so recommendations to Council can be better informed by the “mood of the room”. These are not replacing Council meetings, but enhancing them. Yes, we will have more meetings, but maybe fewer of them will fo until midnight.

As it was my regular pattern here to only report on actual Council Meetings, I’m not sure how much I want to report out on the Blog about workshops, but this one had a few interesting topics, so from this point forward, we’ll see how it goes. You can see the agenda and watch the video here.

Budget 2024: Service Enhancements, Strategic Plan Implementation, and Revenue & Funding Projections
This report form senior staff in the City went through department-by-department on pressures being felt and their approach to addressing Council strategic priorities in order to inform any enhancement requests that will be coming forward in the Operational Budget discussion. This speaks a bit to how we do budgeting in the City and how it is different than your household budgeting, or even how a small business manages their budget. But that is longer blog post discussion.

One of the major drivers to the budget this year is the opening of təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre. It is not only the largest ever single investment in community infrastructure in New Westminster, it is also going to cost money to operate. Detailed study suggests it will cost $1.4Million a year more to operate as it is much larger and more complex than the facilities it replaces. It will also recover more revenue, as use is expected to be much higher than the facilities it replaces, resulting in up to $500,000 more in revenue every year. This still leaves an operating deficit on the order of $900,000 per year, and we need to budget for that.

Yes, a large pool and recreation centre costs money to operate, and we cannot recover all of those costs, Indeed, we don’t want to recover all of those costs, because like a library or a skating rink or a public playground or a fire department – these are services provided to the community based on community desires and need, not based on whether we can make money running them.

We also talked about some significant restructuring work we are doing inside City Hall. One example is bringing the Electrical Utility and our Climate Action staff together to form a single department, recognizing that the synergy that will be found in having an electrical provider involved in the electrification push that all jurisdictions will we encountering over the decade ahead. This brings our utility that is really good at keeping the lights on together with the strategic drivers of climate action, so everything from retrofits of buildings to EV charging strategy are addressed in a synchronized way. Another example is the staffing up of a Housing Division in our Planning and Development department, which will allow us to be more nimble in responding to funding opportunities in housing while assuring we have capacity to meet the various new changes in how housing is regulated in the province. We are also amalgamating several functions in the City into a new Community Services department, so we can be more streamlined in how these various outward-facing services operate, and can fulfill our Strat Plan mandate around Community Connections and Belonging.

There is also a good memo in here worth reading about how successful we have been at getting senior government funding for various initiatives in the City, and our strategy to keep on that path as both the Federal and Provincial governments are getting into their respective election cycles.

Appointment of Chief Election Officer for SD40 Trustee By-election
Under the Local Government Act, the City is responsible for organizing a By-election when one is needed, and if it is a School Board by-election, we send the bill to the School District. This report was about the hiring of the Chief Election Officer and their Deputy, and set out the legislated timelines for the election. Election Day is February 3rd, and everything counts back from there!

Code of Conduct Review
Council has been working on an update of our Code of Conduct for many months. We hired an external expert to guide us through constructing a robust Code, and agreed with the best practice of having and an external Ethics Commissioner to adjudicate the Code in the event it is invoked. This has been an iterative process in developing the Code, as there is are necessary nuances in balancing rights and responsibilities, and in the complex relationships between elected folks, staff, and the public. We want people aggrieved to be empowered to invoke the Code, but also want to avoid the Code being wielded as a partisan hammer or a tool for harassment. It is actually a complex piece of policy development that required careful consideration by Council and the insight of a consultant with practical experience in operating a Code of Conduct in a political realm.

Council voted to give the empowering Bylaw Second and Third Reading, meaning the drafting of the Bylaw is over, we just need to adopt it at a subsequent meeting to make it law.

November 6th marks the 23rd meeting of the term and the last meeting of the first year. We had a relatively gentle agenda that got us out of there in time to watch the Canucks disassemble the Oilers in the third period. But we all know they will break our hearts soon enough. Before that, on to the Agenda, which started with the following items that were Moved on Consent

Appointment of Director of Finance/Chief Financial Officer
We have a new Director of our Finance Department and Chief Financial Officer. As this job has some specific regulatory roles under the Community Charter and some City Bylaws, Council has to formally make the appointment. Welcome Shehzad!

Approval of Growing Communities Fund Reserve Fund Bylaw No. 8415, 2023
We have not yet spent our $15.8 M Growing Communities Fund, but will be including it in our future Capital budgeting. In the meantime, it formally sits in a Reserve Fund that we need to create through Bylaw. This is that Bylaw.

Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: 660 Quayside Drive (Bosa Developments)
One of the construction cranes on the Bosa waterfront development is coming down, which requires some traffic disruption and work outside of regular construction hours to accommodate this disruption.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement and Heritage Designation: 441 Fader Street – Bylaws for First and Second Readings
The owner of this house in Sapperton wants to build a second infill house on the lot, stratify the property, and restore and preserve the current house through a Heritage Designation. The total density on site will be a little above what is permitted, and the stratification requires Council approval. It saw some community consultation, but will also come to a Public Hearing (as is required for HRAs), so I’ll hold my comments until then.

Housing Agreement Bylaw No. 8389, 2023 (810 Agnes St) – Bylaw for Three Readings
This is the agreement between the City and the developer that assure the new tower proposed at 810 Agnes be a rental property for 60 years or the life of the building, whichever is longer.

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We then had a couple of items that were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Anvil Centre Engagement Objectives
The Anvil Centre is working towards its tenth anniversary, and Council wants to have a conversation with the community about how it serves the community, and how it could serve the community better. This report outlines the engagement process and frames the questions the City will be asking the community. Watch Be Heard New West for engagement opportunities if you care about the Anvil and making Downtown better.

Motion Response: Increasing Access to Fresh Drinking Water for Local Residents and Their Pets
There was an earlier motion to have staff look at installing temporary drinking fountains attached to fire hydrants like they piloted in Vancouver. This is the report back from staff, and I can sum it up as “Uh… no”.

Vancouver had the ability to fabricate these in-house for their pilot, and have decided after the pilot to scale this program back and move back towards permanent stand-alone fountains. There are a bunch of reasons for this, from chlorine and sediment flushing requirements at the “dead end” that are often used for hydrants, interference between the hydrants use as a drinking source and as a firefighting source (meaning they were only installed where there was another nearby hydrant), and other technical and maintenance challenges. But most importantly, the cost to make and install these is equal to or higher than the cost of purchasing and installing off-the-shelf stand-alone permanent fountains. The temporary items don’t work as well, are more hassle, and cost more than the alternative. No surprise staff did not recommend we follow this less effective and more expensive path.

That said, we are going to do an assessment of where we may be deficient in water fountains (look! open data!), and will come back with a plan to prioritize installations of new (permanent) fountains as Council releases budget to do so.

We then read a few bylaws including the following Bylaws for Adoption:

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Anvil Theatre Fees and Charges Amendments Bylaw No. 8426, 2023
Business License Amendment Bylaw (2024 Fee Schedule) No.8420, 2023
Climate Action, Planning and Development Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8428, 2023
Cultural Services Fees and Charges Amendment Bylaw No.8430, 2023
Electrical Utility 2024 Charges Amendment Bylaw No. 8432, 2023
Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8423, 2023and
Fire Protection Amendment Bylaw No. 8431, 2023
These Bylaws that set the fines and fees for the next budget year, including annual adjustments for inflation, were adopted by Council.

We also had some delegations, and some direction given to staff rising from those delegations, but I will report those out here when we get some actionable items back from staff and know where we are going with the items. As always, you can watch the delegations and all of the meeting by looking up the video here. As you will see, we have Council working like a finely honed machine, and had a pretty quiet end to year one, let’s go year two!

We had a great Council meeting on Monday where I feel we really moved some things forward, some in the afternoon Workshop (which you can see on video here) but I only report here on the regular Agenda which started with a few Reports for Council:

2023 Point-in-Time Homeless Count: Key Findings and Messages
This is a local reporting out on the regional Homeless Count back on March, an event that occurs every three years. Several members of New Westminster Council took active part in the homeless count as volunteers, and this is a valuable experience in understanding the paths to homelessness, and the challenges faced every day by unhoused and precariously housed residents in our community. It is not just a “count” but an active survey that results in a long conversation, and once you meet folks, learn their names, and hear their stories, it can change how you view people who are without a home.

It is important to note that the “count” is almost certainly an undercount; even the most dedicated teams cannot reach everyone living without secure housing in our community in 24-hour period. New Westminster is small and dense, which means our undercount is likely smaller than in some larger and more sprawling communities.

Overall, this years’ count found 57 unsheltered people in New Westminster, which is an increase of 16 over the last count in 2020. There were also 146 sheltered homeless people counted (folks who have no secure or reliable home, but do have some access to emergency shelter or borrowed space) which is an increase of 64 people over the 2020 count. This totals 203 people, which is 65% more than just three years ago. This is equal to or lower than the increases in surrounding communities of Surrey (65%), Burnaby (69%), Tri-Cities (86%), and Richmond (91%). This report also includes a raft of demographic data, and is worth a read, and it helped inform some of the action in the next item on our agenda.

Responding to the Homelessness, Mental Health and Substance Use Crises: Proposed Two-Year Organizational Pilot Project and Implementation Strategy
Following on that earlier report, this is a report on a new phase of work proposed in New Westminster to address the myriad impacts of the three overlapping crises facing our community and our region. I say a new phase, because there has been a tonne of work done already. The City’s first responders, engineering and bylaws departments have been coordinating with local service agencies, Fraser Health, the Canadian Mental Health Association, BC housing, and others to bring resources and tools to the community.

With the Downtown Livability Strategy and the ongoing work of the Unsheltered Task Force, conditions have measurably improving over the last few months, but staff are feeling strain from the ongoing workload of this atypical work. We also have some longer-term proactive measures to address the bigger challenges, including planning around better shelter and supportive housing measures, but these are going to take some time to bring on line, and both staff and the community want to see some more immediate responses.

Staff have been connecting with some cohort commutes facing similar challenges, and are bringing back some best practices. Primary among these is to separate operations and response from the policy development and advocacy function, while ensuring ongoing communication between both functions. The work involves a New Crises Response Team to better coordinate existing resources in the community, including provincially-funded response and care teams, a new Operations Support Team that is made up of existing staff, and some Policy and Advocacy resources. There is no doubt these new resources are going to cost us money to provide, and we are going to see this in our 2024 budget planning, but this is what the community is demanding of us, and we are going to continue to lobby senior governments to provide financial support.

This is a responsible and evidence-based approach to the challenges facing us, and structuring it as a two-year pilot allows us to set goals around likely timing for new shelter and transitional housing coming on-line, while it also allows us to budget responsibly and provide clear requests from senior government with measurable outcomes and timelines. I am really glad the majority of Council are listening to the community, and endorsed this plan.

Canada Games Pool Tank Leak Causation Investigation Results
This is the report on the known causes of the failure of the Canada Games Pool tank. In the end, there were a variety of causative factors, but differential settling of soils likely related to shifting groundwater levels caused a previous weakness in the tank (related to the 1990s repairs and the decision in the 1970s to build slab-on-grade in a landfill area instead of building on piles or stone columns like the new pool) came together at an inopportune time. We knew the pool was end of life, this is what taking a facility past end of life looks like.

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We then moved the following items On Consent:

Budget 2024: Fees and Rates Review, Amendment Bylaws for Three Readings
As discussed in our September 25 meeting, these are the bylaws staff was asked to prepare to support our annual changes in various fees and rates in the City.

Electric Vehicle Ready Requirements for New Non-Residential Buildings
The transition to EVs from internal combustion vehicles is inevitable, and will be driven faster by CleanBC provincial mandates about ending the sale of new non-electric vehicles by 2035. One pressure stalling the pace of adoption is the availability of charging infrastructure. A recent report at Metro Vancouver provided a detailed analysis of the need for public charging stations (up to 90,000 needed regionally by 2050!), and the imperative to assure charging is available in homes and where people work or shop.

Back in 2018, New West mandated all new residential builds have to accommodate charging in all parking spots (that is, be pre-wired for it so installation of physical chargers is possible). This proposal is to bring similar but less stringent requirements to non-residential parking such as new commercial, industrial and office buildings. There is a bit of technical detail here regarding the type of charging infrastructure (e.g. dedicated vs. load-shared), but the proposal here for 50% of all off-street parking have access to charging is aligned with and slightly exceeds the recommendations in that Metro Vancouver report. This will be run past the building and development industry before we implement it, but initial analysis finds this will be a minor increased cost (~$500 per spot) compared to the cost of providing parking in the first case ($20,000 – $50,000 per spot).

And the following item was Removed From Consent for discussion:

Report Back on Council Motion Regarding New Westminster Becoming a 15-Minute City
This is the staff follow-up to the motion that came to Council after advocacy by a youth group in town. When conversation about the “15 Minute City” idea came out here in New West, there were some who asked the obvious question: Aren’t we already? There are definitely some neighbourhoods in New West that approach this ideal, like Sapperton and Downtown, but there are also neighbourhoods that are still rather car-dependent and lacking in local services. Room for improvement.

Importantly, and outlined in this report, there are already many City plans and policies that move us toward a15-Minute City model, including much of our Official Community Plan. Reflecting this alignment, the suggested direction from staff is to incorporate the clearly indicated 15-Minute City principles into existing work and upcoming planning processes, as opposed to developing a standalone 15-Minute City plan. This was adopted by Council.

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We then read a bunch of Bylaws, including the following Bylaw for Adoption:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (902 First Street) No. 8418, 2023
This Bylaw to rezone 902 First Street to allow construction of a duplex was adopted by Council. Notably, this may be a type of bylaw adoption that is going away with the new announcement of housing changes by the provincial Government!

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Finally, we had a single Motion from Council:

Amending the City’s separation allowance policy to eliminate possibility of ‘double dipping’ by former Mayors and Councillors
Councillor Fontaine

WHEREAS the City of New Westminster compensation package for elected officials includes the payment of a separation allowance upon completion of their term(s) in office equivalent to ten percent of their highest annual remuneration for each year of service commencing after December 1st, 2008 (with a twelve year cap); and

WHEREAS there is no impediment for Council members to receive a separation allowance from New Westminster taxpayers even if they transition successfully into new employment within a short period of time;
and

WHEREAS the intent of the separation allowance ought to be limited to bridging the employment gap after a member has ceased to serve on Council;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT Council request legal counsel to draft an amendment to the Council Remuneration Policy such that the separation allowance be set up as a salary continuance for a maximum of 12 months that can be terminated upon a former Council member becoming gainfully employed full-time within the first year after ceasing to serve on Council, rather than as a lump sum payment at the time of separation.

I fundamentally disagree on the third whereas clause is here, and don’t know what the foundation of the assumption is. The Separation Allowance is a benefit elected officials receive at least in part to address the fact that they are not provided any pension access or ability to participate in the Municipal Pension Plan. Many people (including myself) give up some portion or all of their pensionable work to do this job. If we want younger early- or mid-career people to take on this work instead of reserving it for retired and independently wealthy people who can afford the privilege of doing this “as a public service” without fair compensation, we need to recognize that for many it means putting some other career aspirations aside. We live in a society where access to pensions are (or at least should be, but don’t get me started on the erosion of worker benefits) an important part of every compensation package. The separation allowance provides to people doing this work the opportunity to invest in an RRSP and achieve some “pension-like” benefit that makes up for the loss in pension access that may come with the job. Or they can use it to bridge their income to a post-council job. Neither is wrong.

However, the underlying assumption in this motion is not one I agree with, and I could not support the motion, nor could the majority of Council.

As an aside, it is important to remember the Mayor job is full time (plus!), but Council is not. Many (most) Council members do work aside from their Council jobs, because they have to pay a mortgage and support a household. This is not “double dipping”, this is having two jobs, each with their own independent compensation arrangements. I frankly found using a pejorative term like “double dipping” to describe this to be disrespectful to members of Council, current and past.

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And that was it for a pre-Halloween edition of New West City Council. Tune in next week for more scary content!

We had relatively quick and strangely uplifting Council meeting on Monday. Not sure what changed the energy in the room, but it went well and we had a full agenda that started with a couple of Information Reports pulled for discussion:

Train Whistle Cessation – Q3 Update
This is our regular quarterly report for information on train whistle cessation programs in the City. Though the technical group continues to advance work, the only real update is some identified challenges on the Spruce Street crossing that staff are working on.

Correspondence dated September 18, 2023 regarding Burnaby New Westminster Task Force on Sexually Exploited and At-Risk Youth – Invitation for Council member to join the Task Force
We have been invited by Burnaby to join a taskforce to address this risk in our community, with a suggestion that one member of our Council join. Councillor Henderson has experience working in this field, an interest in helping vulnerable youth, and a positive working relationship with Councillor Santiago (who sent the invite from Burnaby) and was nominated by Council to represent us on that task force.

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We had one Report for Action:

ON TABLE Council Code of Conduct Bylaw No. 8408, 2023
This was a presentation on the work done for the Code of Conduct, and a proposal to bring next readings to the empowering Bylaw, but a clerical error meant the heading was not included in the Council Agenda that went out on the City’s website (though, notably, all of Council were provided the report last week). To be real sticklers, adding it to the agenda after the Agenda has been Adopted needed a unanimous motion of Council, but unfortunately some on Council chose to not approve its addition for reasons that were not really made clear. So this important work to improve accountability for our Council will be delayed until we can arrange another Council meeting where external legal counsel will be available.

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We then moved the following items On Consent

Amendments to 2023 Schedule and Proposed 2024 Schedule of Council Meetings
As previously discussed, we are looking at a new Workshop model to replace some Council Task Forces we had over the previous couple of terms. This hopes to provide more opportunities for deeper discussions of topics aligned with the Strategic Priority Plan, and to make for more efficient Council Meetings as more longer-form deliberation and discussion can occur in workshop with staff present. This does mean more meetings for most of Council. It looks worse than it is, as many of these new meetings are replacing task force meetings that did not have the power of Council, but it is still a more full calendar. So update your schedules folks!

Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: 1031 Quebec Street, New Westminster – Metro Vancouver Annacis Water Supply Tunnel, Fraser River Crossing
You may have noticed a construction site in the Lower 12th area at the foot of the hill. Metro Vancouver is burrowing tunnel from Surrey to New West into which will be placed a significant new water supply pipeline to serve expanding communities South of the Fraser. This work started late and is behind schedule, so the Construction Noise Bylaw extension needs to be extended. Most of the heavy work is happening on the surrey side and by the Tunnel Boring Machine underground, and we have not had a spate of complaints related to the work so far, so Council is permitting this extension.

Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: Columbia Street at 8th Street (New Westminster SkyTrain Station)
I expect this application is going to result in more complaints, but it is hard to determine an alternative than to allow this work to occur outside of permitted hours. The Columbia Street Skytrain platforms need to be expanded to accommodate longer trains and to assure the safety of passenger on what has become one of the busiest platforms on the original Expo Line. Much of this work cannot occur during operational hours of Skytrain for a variety of safety and function reasons.

Response to February 6, 2023 Special City Council Motion for Utilities Commission Open Minutes Extracts regarding the Advance Metering Infrastructure Project
This is a report for information based on a request made at Council to collate older minutes of the Electrical Utility Commission about the AMI program. Share and enjoy.

Uptown Business Association Business Improvement Association Renewal: 2024 – 2028
BIAs exist under Provincial legislation, specifically Section 215 of the Community Charter. In short, the City collects extra tax from businesses within the BIA area, and turns that tax revenue over to the BIA to do BIA things – mostly street and public space improvements, events and promotion of the commercial neighbourhood for the benefit of their members. The agreement that empowers this needs to be updated every five years, and a new tax rate set based on what the BIA members want to charge themselves. We are starting that process for the Uptown BIA as their existing agreement ends at the end of the year.

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The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Arts, Culture and Economic Development Advisory Committee – Draft Terms of Reference
The Economic Development Committee is being somewhat updated, partly as the Retail Strategy and Arts Strategy recognized the economic development impacts of investment in the Arts and Culture, and many of the organizations involved in Arts and Culture and Economic development in the city overlap. This is the updated Terms of Reference to reflect that change, and we will start recruiting community members and representatives from partner organizations. Council has a good discussion with staff around how this new Committee will be structured.

Support for TransLink’s Bus Rapid Transit Action Plan
The Access for Everyone plan from the Mayor’s Council for the future growth of TransLink transit service leans heavily on new bus infrastructure, including Bus Rapid Transit. BRT is a hybrid between light rail which uses roads and tires instead of rails, but moves near the same capacity of people though dedicated lanes, station-type boarding, and limited stop routes. This service serves as backbone transit service in many jurisdictions, form Asia to Europe and Latin America, but is relatively uncommon in North America (though several faux-BRT systems are touted in places like Boston and New York that are really just TransLink B-Line type service).

Though all mayors at Mayors Council have fully endorsed this plan, staff are now working through prioritization of routes for earlier implementation, and one of the factors will be the willingness of municipalities to endorse BRT on their roads. We don’t want to end up in a West Vancouver B-Line situation where advanced transit service is turned down by a local government, stalling implementation for other municipalities, so TransLink is asking for statements like this for endorsement of the lines that impact communities.

This doesn’t mean the 22nd-to-Marine BRT will be first. There are other factors such as buildability, cost, integration with the existing system, and projected ridership needs that will go in to the mix of prioritizing routes. I also note that TransLink currently has no money to deliver even the first BRT line, and conversations with senior government continue. Let your MLA and MP know!

Update on Council Motion Regarding “The Right Person, the Right Time, The Right Place”
Back in June, a group of representatives from Century House delegated to Council asking for the City to implement and advocate towards the recommendations of a report arising from work that the CHA and United Way had previously done. Council moved to support this call, and this report outlines what progress we have already made on the recommendations directed at Local Government, and speaks to a plan to evaluate and potentially address, the others, including senior government advocacy towards the things that are not in our jurisdiction.

Some of these actions will require partnerships and longer-term planning, and there may be some significant work plan and cost implications if we go it alone, so this proposal is to take those items back to the Century House Association, and determine priority and partnership potentials before we commit.

Westminster Pier Park Fire Site – Next Steps
Alas, most of us can remember the Pier Park fire of 2020, when we lost 2 acres of public park space. The clean up after was very complicated – old asphalt and creosote treated wood burned over sensitive river habitat, meaning the environmental remediation of those soils and sediments cost the City millions. Fortunately, we were insured, though “replacement value” is a difficult thing to determine with a 100-year-old pier built of materials that are no longer available, and not exactly replaceable under current environmental, seismic, and building codes. This required a marine engineer and negotiations with our insurer.

We have settled on $30M, including $10M that has already been provided and was mostly used to fund the cleanup and remediation work. When all is said and done, the City will have about $22M to start working on the replacement plan. Now we need to start planning what the community wants to put in the place, because exactly what was there is probably not what the community wants, and the Park will be very different when the (coincidentally) 2 acres of new space opens next year on the west side of Pier Park as the Bosa project is completed.

This report outlines the next steps in envisioning the replacement. As any site on the shore of the Fraser River is of incredible historic importance to First Nations, we are going to first connect with host nations and discuss what they would envision for this space. We are also going to go out to the community to engage on their vision or dreams for this place. We are also going to start developing a funding strategy in anticipation that we will need more than $22M to build the community’s vision, and senior government partners will want to participate in a city- and region-defining project.

This is going to be a big thing, an important conversation in the community, so stay tuned

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We then read some Bylaws, including adoption of the following:

Permissive Tax Exemption Bylaw No. 8419, 2023
Certain properties within New Westminster such as places of worship, hospitals, and those with charitable/ philanthropic uses are eligible for an exemption from property taxes. This bylaw lists the properties exempted in 2024, and it was Adopted by Council.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (376 Keary Street) No. 8404, 2023
This bylaw that rezones a property in Sapperton to permit a duplex was adopted by Council.

And that was about it for business. Except that we also had an afternoon Workshop on the 2024 Capital Budget that is worth watching here, and a great presentation in the evening meeting from the Canadian Mental Health Association on the PACT program first year success. Maybe this is what lifted our spirits.

We had a relatively quick Council Meeting on Monday, everyone probably nursing UBCM exhaustion, but we nonetheless got quite a bit done. The Agenda started with a Public Hearing:

Official Community Plan Amendment No. 8399, 2023 and Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 8400, 2023 for 909-915 Twelfth Street
The owner of these three properties on Twelfth Street want to bring more medium-density housing to the commercial strip. This is consistent with the OCP and neighbourhood plans, but there is a bit of a complication. To develop the property, they are looking to purchase a small strip of City owned land around the back of the property. It is a short laneway that belongs to the City, but only accesses these properties. This is not atypical, and the owner will have to pay the City the fair market value of that land, but the situation here is that the 5m wide laneway falls under a different OCP designation, so we would need to do an OCP amendment on just that small strip to bring it into the same land use category as the rest of the properties. So we go to Public Hearing.

The project itself is for a 5-story residential building with 40 units. The OCP would allow up to 6 stories here, but the zoning does not, so it needs a rezoning. The current buildings are older commercial with some upstairs suites, and a used car lot. 9 units are “ground oriented”, meaning they are townhouse-style with individual openings to the street to improve the vitality of the streetscape along that stretch, and half of all units meet our family friendly criteria with 2 or three bedrooms. The building will be highly efficient as it is built to Step 4 of the Energy Step Code, and yet will have 62 off-street parking spots. The City’s tenant relocation policies do not apply to properties with fewer than 6 rental units, nor to commercial units, however the applicant has agreed to and the City has secured relocation standards for both.

The project saw separate City-led and Applicant-led public consultation, including First Nations consultation appropriate for the OCP amendment, with a few people in the neighbourhood raising concerns about traffic impacts for the most part. The project was approved by the Design Panel, the Heritage Commission approved the demo of the existing buildings that have no significant heritage merits. We had six written submissions and about the same number of delegates at the Public Hearing. Concerns were related to increased density and traffic impacts.

I supported this project, as I think it strikes the right balance of density, family-friendliness, and a refresh of a streetscape that could use one. It not only complies with the OCP and community plans (including the Retail Strategy), but was shaped by those policies and plans. Which brings us to the regular council meeting, where we started by addressing the Bylaws form the Public Hearing:

Official Community Plan Amendment (909-915 Twelfth Street) Bylaw No.8399, 2023
Zoning Amendment (909-915 Twelfth Street) Bylaw No. 8400, 2023
Road Closure, Dedication Removal, and Disposition (909-915 Twelfth Street) Bylaw No. 8401, 2023</b.
Council unanimously supported giving these Bylaws Third reading.

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We then had a Development Variance Permit to consider:

Development Variance Permit DVP00701 for 311 Ash Street
I recused myself from this discussion, as I live right across the street from the subject property, and there is a perceived conflict of interest (if not a direct pecuniary interest). We generally use the 100m rule to say if you live within 100m of a rezoning of development project, you probably have the perception of interest, but it is up to members of Council to make that determination under advice of the Corporate Office and City Solicitor.

So I don’t know what happened here and to find out, you will have to watch the video or read someone else’s blog.

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We had this Report for Information:

2023 New Westminster Intersection Safety Study
The City has thousands of intersections used by cars, and all of them are dangerous, because cars are dangerous, and getting more dangerous. We have to ask the Feds and the Province to deal with the vehicles, but one of the jobs of our Engineering department (in cooperation with ICBC, the Police, MOTI, and others) is to make the intersections less dangerous. Of all these intersections in the City, at 1,089 of them had at least one ICBC-claim-generating collision over the 5-year period from 2015 to 2019. Doing engineering safety assessments and improvements for a single intersection can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, and we don’t have billions of dollars to spend locally, so how do we prioritize that work? This report answers that question.

Staff have combed through the data to infer what the most dangerous intersections are based on that ICBC data. They have prioritized 51 locations with the highest collision risk, and further filtered out locations that have already seen significant change since 2019, or are under work. From this they prioritized 25 intersections for detailed analysis of traffic operations and potential design changes. Demonstrating the difference between anecdote and data, the first intersection I always think of as crash-prone is right near my home, and it didn’t even make the top 50 list.

A traffic engineering consultant was then engaged to make safety recommendations for each of the 25. Common issues like traffic volume or gradient changes are hard to address, others like poor visibility because of parking near the intersection or inadequate lighting are easier. So interventions can be similarly prioritized, with some near-immediate changes like signage, line work, light signal timing that can be incorporated into our existing budgets as part of regular maintenance. Medium-term changes will require a capital budget to be developed and approved, while longer-term major projects require land acquisition, agreement with outside stakeholders (like TransLink or MOTI) and longer-term capital planning.

This report is a good read for transportation safety geeks, but one interesting data point I was able to pull out of it: Rear-enders are the majority collision type in all of our highest-risk intersections, ranging from 55% to 66% of all collisions. To me, this demonstrates we can’t engineer our way out of all bad driving practices. Slow down out there folks.

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We then moved the following items On Consent:

Decriminalization – Update to the exemptions to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
The province and federal government are taking preliminary tentative steps into drug decriminalization, as you may have read in the news. There was a lot of conversation at UBCM last week around this, and a lot of common understanding between Local Governments and the Provincial Government on reducing harms for all residents. A few months ago, New West put forward a resolution to UBCM asking for a small change – that playgrounds and park spaces be included in the “exemption” to decriminalized spaces (meaning, possession of small amounts of these harmful drugs is still illegal in those place). On Thursday I was able to withdraw that resolution as the Province and Feds had recently come through and made the change. It was unusual to hear the UBCM delegates cheer when a City withdrew a resolution, but that’s the weirdness of where we are.

Permissive Property Tax: Exempt Properties – Review of Application Result
Some properties don’t pay property tax in the City. Churches and a few other specific uses have a “statutory” exemption under provincial law, some other users can get a “permissive” exemption at the grace of local city councils. Since my time on Council (and for some time before that) we have continued legacy exemptions, but have been very reluctant to hand out new permissive exemptions, as they represent a significant subsidy to groups that operate in the City. Many of these orgs are doing good things in the community (including providing some services that should be funded by senior governments), we have taken the position that organizations doing good works in the city should avail themselves of our generous community partner grant process, not the permissive tax exemption process. This report asks Council to review new applications and continue this practice.

Rezoning Application for Duplex: 902 First Street – Comprehensive Report
The owner of this lot in Glenbrooke North wants to build a duplex; that is two residential units where the current zoning would permit three (a main residence, a secondary suite, and a carriage home). It is the duplex form itself (two front doors, strata title) that does not currently fit zoning, though there are no other variances in regards to FSR, setback, height, or other regulations, and it is consistent with the OCP. Three pretty beat-up trees on site would be replaced with 7 new trees. There was City-led and applicant-led Public Consultation with not a lot of feedback, and Council moved to approve the application going to Bylaw readings.

Update on Council Motion Regarding the Chinatown Community Stewards Program
The City is going to work with Partners to see if the Is on the Street Program can be expanded to provide some of the enhanced ambassador-type services that the Chinatown Stewards, but this report also highlights that the Is on the Street program itself is not funded for the long-term. This report was asking if we want Staff to do the work to find a longer-term solution here.

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The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Budget 2024: Fees and Rates Review
Every year as part of our Budget process, we review rates of various fees in the city, because those rates impact our revenue that impact our tax rates that are always centred in our budget deliberations. This report asks our endorsement for rate changes so Bylaws can be drawn up in time for budgeting.

Most rates are increased to keep pace with inflation (based on CPI). There some that have different forces on them, such as towing fees being based on ICBC rates and therefore no going up in 2024. There is a suggestion to change Street Occupancy Permit fees to better reflect the framework used by MOTI, and to increase some higher-impact SOPs related to heavy construction impacts to better match adjacent communities, n dot reduce fees for projects that provide enhanced pedestrian access through sites. We are also continuing the “Five Year Approach to On-Street Parking Fees and Rates” from 2019. There are also a number of inspection and permitting fees we try to align with other cities and reflect as best as possible the cost of delivering the service the fee is paying for. Finally, some fees have not gone up in several years, and we have some catching up to do, like increasing the cost of a replacement garbage bin or Development Permit application fees.

Overall, the average rate increase is equal to about 3% (which is CPI inflation for the last year), and will bring an extra $700,000 into the City in increased revenue.

Massey Theatre Working Group
We are working through developing a new relationship with the Massey Theatre Society as they are going to be operating a major asset that the City owns, and the City is committing Millions to capital improvement of that building that will be disruptive to the operations of the theatre and arts spaces at 8&8. A working group is being established to help keep communication between the two entities functional and positive during this time of transition. Council moved to approve the terms, and appointed Councillor McEvoy (for consistency, as he was on the working group during the ownership transition) and Councillor Campbell (as Chair of the Arts Culture and Act Dev Advisory Committee) to the committee.

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We then read a bunch of Bylaws (but for brevity sake, I only report the Adopted ones here, of which we had none this week), before addressing a couple of Motions form Council:

Implementing speed limits for motorized vehicles operating on sidewalks to improve pedestrian safety
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine

BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff report back to Council regarding the operational and budget considerations pertaining to the implementation of a by-law that would impose speed limits on our sidewalks to help reduce the risk of pedestrian injuries

This was an interesting conversation at Council, and I think I am going to have to write up a follow-up post about it, and by “it”, I mean about the conversation at Council, not the motion. Council moved to agree to have staff do this preliminary work, and added a part about discussing better education programs around new mobility. The fact both of these are action items already in staff workplans as part of the eMobility Strategy adopted back in June of last year, it was a bit of a strange thing to bring forward in this form, but that speaks to the conversation that occurred and a biit about how Council is working these days, hence the follow up to come.

Increasing trust and accountability for civic officials in New Westminster
Submitted by Councillor Minhas

BE IT RESOLVED THAT Council call upon all elected officials to engender public trust by abiding to such key principles; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the City’s Chief Electoral Officer report back to Council on the City’s state of readiness for and budget impacts pertaining to a possible school trustee byelection.

This motion was weirdly phrased, though I leave the political dogwhistle aspects of it to the reader’s interpretation. Asking elected officials to abide by a Code of Conduct is rather unassailable, as Council has been working on updating our Code of Conduct and introducing proper accountability measures including an independent Integrity Commissioner. It is perhaps ironic that the mover need to be reminded about the Code of Conduct and proper procedure during their motivation of the motion.

The second part is (in my opinion) an email, not a motion requiring Council deliberation. The simple answer to the question, which was asked and answered Council (therefore the second motion was defeated as now being moot), was there are no budget impacts on the City of a School Board by-election.

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Finally, we had one piece of New business:

Extension of the Terms of Reference of Economic Development Advisory Committee
We are extending the term of the EDAC so we can develop new terms for the newly-proposed integration of Arts and Culture into the EDAC scope of work.