Back at it! We had our first Council meeting of 2025, and our first with some changes in the schedule and procedures as approve by Council at the end of last year. Not sure if it was a result of the new scheduling, fairly light agenda, or everyone chilled from a good holiday break, but the meeting went relatively quick and smooth. We started by approving the following item On Consent:

Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: 1031 Quebec Street, New Westminster – Metro Vancouver Annacis Water Supply Tunnel, Fraser River Crossing
The big watermain tunneling project under the Fraser is facing a few delays, and need to extend their construction noise Bylaw exemption. They are anticipating the Tunnel Boring Machine will break through to the shaft in New West at the current construction site on Quebec Street early this spring, and they will need to work quickly to get the equipment out of the hole to reduce risk of flooding impacts on the in-ground works. This shouldn’t be too noisy at the surface, as it is mostly carne operations above ground, but bylaws be bylaws and they need an exemption.

We then dealt with the following items Removed from Consent for discussion:

Budget 2025: Proposed Consolidated 2025 – 2029 Five-Year Financial Plan
Council has held several open workshops covering the various aspects of the annual budget, operational and capital, utility and general, and now staff have consolidated that input into the (regulated) framework of a Five Year Financial Plan. In New West, we have all of these budget discussions in open meetings (unlike many cities) and if you are detail-oriented, you can follow along with those discussions with the reports, the spreadsheets, and the video here:

October 7 (Police Department provisional budget)
October 28 (Report on the Budget Survey)
November 25 (Utility Budgets and Strategic Plan update)
December 2 (General Operating Fund, proposed enhancements and tax rate impacts)
December 9 (Five-Year Capital Plan)

When it comes to the headline item – the annual operational budget and property tax impacts – Council reviewed a variety of budget options for the year ahead, ranging from a 4.5% increase (which would have required significant cuts in programs, something our public opinion polling clearly showed the vast majority of New Westminster residents and businesses do not support), a 5.5% increase (which would keep us at current service levels with inflationary increases and contract commitments kept intact), up to a 7.6% increase (which would support the requested 0.9% from the Police Department and a few other enhancements that Council had requested over the last year). We settled on deferring some of those enhancements and found a balance at 6.6%. of the enhancements that make up that 6.6% increase this year. For a typical New Westminster household, they break down like this:

More than half of the increase (shades of orange) are fixed and inflationary costs – work we have already committed to that is going up in cost around the 3% inflation rate. I broke out E-Comm (the organization that provided emergency communications for the Fire and Police Departments) because their increase is significant again this year, well above inflation, and we simply don’t have an alternative but to pay for it. The blue zones are the enhancements to services that Council agreed to and had a property tax implication. As you can see, most of this is police as we face higher recruitment costs and are managing a backfill strategy that will reduce burnout and assure we have adequate frontline folks at all times. The cost of software and cyber security is going up, as local governments are both moving to more digital services (such as building approvals) while we are increasingly victims of hacking and ransomware attacks, we can’t scrimp here.

We also approved a Capital Budget for the next 5 years that will include some significant investments in the community, from renovation of the Massey Theatre to advancing of the approved Active Transportation Network Plan and significant upgrades to our Electrical Utility to support higher reliability in Queensborough and expanded substation capacity to address anticipated demand growth. Those investments in the community will result in a drawdown of reserves, which we anticipate to be mitigated somewhat as we continue to work senior governments for support in infrastructure funding.

I will follow up through this month with more detailed posts about different aspects of the budget, but for now Council has asked Staff to write up the appropriate Bylaws to support this financial plan so Council can move recommendation. If you have feedback, let us know!

Follow-up Report on Council Motion: Strategy and Resources to Require Cooling in Existing Rental Buildings
The Heat Dome of 2021 still stands as a stark reminder (not that we need one this week with LA burning down) of the climate-disrupted future we need to address. The City has been doing a lot of work to reduce the impacts of future heatwaves, from our vulnerable building survey and one cool room programs, but these are responses that react to a situation, while better emergency management practice would be to use experience to prevent future vulnerability. We have not had people freeze to death in rental buildings of late, but we have had dozens of people die of heat exhaustion in their rental homes. Council has asked staff to explore what regulatory tools are available to the City to enforce maximum temperatures for rental buildings, much like minimum temperatures are already regulated.

This report outlines the work plan and gives Council a heads-up of the cost (mostly for external legal advice), which Council approved. We will also explore the appropriate fund (or senior government support tool) to pay for this, as it overlaps with climate mitigation work.

Response to Council Motion: “Cycling Sundays on Front Street” 2025 Pilot
As Front Street is planned for reopening in the spring after being closed for months for Pattullo Bridge replacement work, there was a request by Council to explore closing it on Sundays for cycling or walking, like done during 2020 as part of the City’s Safe Space to Move project during the COVID pandemic.

Staff looked at the request, and reported back that they recommend against it. The experience from 2020 was that it worked as a short-term pilot during the COVID times (reduced traffic, uncertainty about safety of traditional public gathering spaces) but also raised concerns from TransLink around truck capacity reductions, safety around the rail corridor and access to the couple of riverfront industrial properties on Front. Add to this the Pattullo Project already causing significant traffic disruption on adjacent streets (even after Front Street re-opening, they are going to need to start building and re-routing onramps) and a sense of general weariness in the local business community about these kind of closures (notably, they didn’t ask for this). There is also uncertainty if TransLink would even approve this change to a regional Truck Route, and it would cost time and effort to put the traffic impact studies together to make the case to them.

These are all technical challenges, and though some may be hard to address in time for the 2025 summer season, they can probably be overcome with significant cost. In the end, staff are suggesting that adding $120,000 – $200,000 to our budget plus the additional staffing resources might not be the best way to promote active transportation, never mind extra cost related to any active programming if the City wanted to take that on as well. In the end, Council unanimously agreed to not support this for 2025, though we are not closing the door to similar programs after the Pattullo work is done or a special occasion arises where it makes sense for the community to invest a bit here.

We had one Motion from Council:

Strong Cities Network
Submitted by Councillor Nakagawa

WHEREAS the City of New Westminster has a focus on Community Belonging and Connecting as a core priority in the current strategic plan, and
WHEREAS division, extremism, and polarization are on the rise both locally and globally,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of New Westminster join the Strong Cities Network.

This discussion was framed by a delegation from the Strong Cities Network that talked about the work they do, and the partnerships and resources available to Cities who want to come along on the journey towards stronger community connections. There is not cost for us to join, but there are clear benefits. One of the most compelling parts of their presentation to me was discussion of the work they did after the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, 2023 and ongoing Israeli reprisals, where they sought to bring local Israeli and Palestinian communities together in North American cities to engage in dialogue and break the cycle of blame and polarization. We felt that polarization here in New Westminster (and in other cities in the Lower Mainland), and struggled to find ways to support constructive dialogue. I hope our joining with the Strong Cities Network (as Council voted to do) we can access some better tools and share our experiences, and not just make our City stronger, but support better social cohesion and understanding.

We then had a long raft of Bylaws for Adoption:

Official Community Plan Amendment (102/104 Eighth Avenue and 728 First Street Bylaw No. 8374, 2023
Zoning Amendment Bylaw (102/104 Eighth Avenue and 728 First Street) Bylaw No. 8375, 2023
These bylaws that support a 10-unit townhouse development in Glenbrooke North were adopted by Council. Infill coming!

Graphic Image Delivery Bylaw No. 8488, 2024;
Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw No. 7318, 2009, Amendment Bylaw (Graphic Image Delivery) No. 8499, 2024;
Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw No. 8077, 2019, Amendment Bylaw (Graphic Image Delivery) No. 8500, 2024
These bylaws that require printed material that shows or appears to show a graphic image of an aborted fetus be delivered in a sealed opaque envelope with a warning and the name and address of the sender was adopted by Council.

Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw No. 7318, 2009, Amendment Bylaw (Business Licence) No. 8489, 2024;
Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw No. 8077, 2019, Amendment Bylaw (Business Licence) No. 8490, 2024
These Bylaws that support enforcement of our updated Business Licence Bylaw was adopted by Council.

And that was the end of the work for the night. Happy 2025.

It’s Christmas time, but we had one more Council Meeting to get done before we take the year end break. Pa-rum pa pum pum. You can, as always, read the agenda or watch the video by selecting the date here. We started this meeting with a special presentation.

Recommendations on Cultural Observances from the Community Advisory Assembly
This was a recommendation to Council from the Community Advisory Assembly, a large group of regular folks from the community who the City has asked to come together once a month and make recommendations to Council. The model is innovative, and you can read about it here, but this report is about their suggestions on how we should address “Cultural Observances” in our remarkably diverse and growing city.

The way the City approaches Cultural Observances is some combination of “what we have always done” with occasional additions to reflect some identified cultural group in the community. We decorate City Hall with lights and poinsettias at Christmas because we always have, we light up City Hall at Diwali because we identified (relatively recently) that it was meaningful to the Sikh and Hindu members of our community. But we don’t really have a clear policy or practice around how we make these decisions, and we can’t mark every conceivable occasion or we would be doing nothing but that. So it is a good question to ask the community – how should we do this?

There are some great recommendations here, based on a better understanding the three types of events the City marks (Collective identity / Community led / Awareness-raising), and the different roles the city plays in each. Some of the changes suggested will require resources to action, and may lead to bigger discussions about how we allocate funding and support for events in the City, so we are referring back to staff to figure out how to function.

We then moved the following items On Consent:

2024 Capital and Operating Quarterly Performance Report
We get quarterly financial reports, so this is how we are doing today not directly related to the budget work we are doing for next year, but obviously informing of it.

As of the end of Q3, we have spent or committed $68.3M of our $199.8M Capital budget. Inflation and other pressures have increased capital costs by $5.1M (about 2.6%) but staff found internal savings and scope changes to reduce this impact to $500K.

On the Operating side, we are trending positively in both revenues (0.4% in surplus) and expenses (0.3% below budget), so overall very close to budget.

If you are a budget geek, there are about 50 pages of spreadsheets and departmental memos attached to this report about where we have spent money, where we are over an under budget. Fun part of about City budgeting is that we are about as open a book as possible, from who we paid $$3,645,435 to for paving services to the cost of the Crises Response Pilot Project or the cost for people to run recreation programs at təməsew̓txʷ. It’s all in there.

Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw and Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw Amendments (Business Licence) for First, Second and Third Readings
We updated our Business License Bylaw, and need to update our Bylaw Enforcement and Ticketing bylaws so we can enforce it.

Official Community Plan Amendment and Rezoning: 1084 Tanaka Court – Bylaws for First and Second Readings
The owners of this vacant property in Queensborough changed it from Heavy industrial to a Comprehensive Development to support public assembly and retail use back in 2018. With market conditions changing, they want to now rezone it to Light Industrial to match the adjacent properties. This requires an OCP amendment, and these are those Bylaws.

The application is aligned with City policy and adjacent land uses. The proponent completed their required community and regional consultation and no red flags were raised. As it’s an OCP amendment, it will require a Public Hearing, which will happen early in the new year. Send us a note and let us know what you think.

Temporary Amendment to the Vehicle Procurement Process
We had a report last year on some challenges our purchasing department had in acquiring new vehicles in a difficult time for the supply chain of some specialty vehicles, especially newer lower-carbon options. We approved a temporary measure to accelerate the purchasing process, and staff are asking us to extend this change until the end of 2026 to support our current Capital Plan.

Our purchase process is still transparent and accountable to the public – nothing is purchased until approved by Council in a capital budget, and the price paid and seller is reported in our quarterly financial reports (see above!) under Major Purchasing Report.

We then had these items Removed from Consent for discussion:

Cannabis Store Relocation Requests: North Root Cannabis Ltd. and the Queensborough Cannabis Company
When we introduced our first policies around the regulation of cannabis sales in New West, we are entering unknown territory, and were looking at a significant “gold rush” mentality where a lot of people were hoping to be the first in the door or a potentially lucrative but likely risky business area. Our response as a City was to limit the number of applications we would consider, and use a screening mechanism to determine which applications would be considered on the first tranche. Then 2020 came and priorities changed, and we have not had a second or subsequent tranche of applications.

Lots has changed in the cannabis business (the gold rush is clearly over) and in the City since 2018. We have had two of the originally-approved applicants ask us to revise their permits, for different reasons. Staff are recommending we wait until we have an opportunity to revise our approval program in 2025.

As neither of these operators are of any concern to the City, they both passed initial screening and have viable business plans, and we are not dealing with the same pressures as in 2018, I felt it was unfair to make them wait until we get a revision of the policy done. So we are asking that their applications be advanced ASAP, as they have both been waiting quite a while to get to this point.

The second question is whether we want to remove the cannabis retail use from the existing properties. If we don’t then there may be two cannabis retailers in Queensborough (the same as there is now) and Sapperton (where there currently aren’t any). If we do, there will still be only one cannabis retailer in Sapperton instead of two. Council made a decision (I was a dissenting vote) to remove the permitted use from the existing sites.

Graphic Image Delivery Bylaw No. 8488, 2024 for First, Second and Third Reading
The community called on us to do something about the deplorable practice of Anti-Women’s Healthcare Activists of dropping graphic abortion-related flyers in mailslots and mailboxes. After councillors Campbell and Henderson brought forward a motion on this, staff have drafted a bylaw that does not infringe on activist’s right to political speech, but requires that graphic images be inside an opaque envelope that clearly indicates what the contents are.

We are the first municipality in British Columbia (but not the first in Canada) to take this step, and I’m proud of the community for pushing this, and our staff for finding a clear legal process.

Response to Council motion re: Selecting an inclusive and accessible site for the 2025 Canada Day celebration and festivities.
Council moved a recommendation to review our annual Canada Day event back in September, or more to ask what resources would look like to review this. A proper engagement with the community will cost money, and will take several months. As Canada Day events themselves take several months to organize (is actually starting right now), we are not likely to have a fulsome consultation prior to July 1, 2025. So staff recommendation is to roll this work into the work coming out of the Community Advisory assembly discussion (above), recognizing this will not occur before the 2025 events.

Another advantage of this is that part of this engagement can happen at and around the 2025 Canada Day events.Of note, the event at Pier Park had some logistical challenges related to the construction at Pier West, but still had more than 6,000 people come and attend (compared to ~400 estimated at the last Queens Park Canada Day event), and this was a real boost for the Downtown businesses appreciated by the BIA, so it is important that we engage with them and not use anecdotal info to inform how we organize these events.

We then had the following Bylaws for Adoption:

Electrical Utility Bylaw No. 6502, 1998, Amendment Bylaw No. 8497, 2024
This Bylaw that sets the City’s electrical rates for 2025 was adopted by Council.

Engineering User Fees and Rates Bylaw No. 7553, 2013, Amendment Bylaw No. 8496, 2024
This Bylaw that sets the City’s water, sewer, and solid waste rates for 2025 was adopted by Council.

Revenue Anticipation Borrowing Amendment Bylaw No. 8489, 2024
This Bylaw that permits the city to use a line of credit to cover short-term cash shortages prior to taxes being received was adopted by Council.

We then had two Motions from Council:

Tin Soldier Time Capsule Opening
Submitted by Councillor Campbell

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED That Staff report back with a plan and budget to host a Tin Soldier Time Capsule Opening on Friday, February 14th(Valentine’s Day) that it is open to the public, invites individuals and associations who helped design and construct the Tin Soldier, and works with community partners, including Tourism New Westminster, River Market and the Downtown Business Improvement Association in order to promote the Time Capsule Opening and includes opportunities for local restaurants and services to attract event attendees to their establishments before or after the Time Capsule Opening.

This motion doesn’t need much explanation more than what is above, but if anyone has a cd-rom drive we can borrow to read what is likely inside a time capsule sealed in 2000, let us know!

School Streets Pilot Program
Submitted by Councillor Henderson

WHEREAS one of Council’s Strategic Priorities is the Safe Movement of People, outlining a commitment to prioritize the movement of people on foot, cycle, and transit on streets that are safer for all; and
WHEREAS Bold Step #2: Car Light Community in the City’s 7 Bold Steps for Climate Action plan references school area improvements that support walking, transit, and cycling to school as potential capital projects; and
WHEREAS Bold Step #7: Quality People-Centred Public Realm states that a minimum of 10% of today’s street space that currently only serve motor vehicles, excluding transit, will be reallocated for sustainable transportation or public gathering by 2030; and
WHEREAS the streets around local schools experience marked increases in motor vehicle traffic at drop-off and pick-up times when there is a high concentration of children on and near roadways; and
WHEREAS there are both provincial and national initiatives that fund the creation of car-free spaces on streets in front of schools at the start and/or end of the school day;
BE IT RESOLVED that staff report back to Council on the opportunity for the City of New Westminster to partner with the Society of Children and Youth BC to explore safe streets initiatives around selected schools; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that staff work with School District 40 to identify which schools would be appropriate to launch a School Streets Pilot Program that would reflect the principles of the National and/or BC Active School Streets Initiative; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that staff report back on the capital and operating costs associated with the implementation of a School Streets Pilot program; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that staff be directed to work with SD40 and other partners to update our Safe Routes to Schools maps.

Councillor Henderson has been working with the local schools community around various aspects of road safety. This is one of the results of that collaboration.

School Streets programs are popular in other jurisdictions, where road around schools are shut down for car traffic for fixed times around school hours, creating safer walking and cycling spaces for students and parents alike. There is a provincially-supported pilot program, but we missed the deadline for application this year, which doesn’t mean we can’t explore doing the program anyway if the School District is onboard.

As an edition to this, it was recognized that the City’s Safer Routes to Schools maps, which were developed in the early 2000s, might need updating as school catchments have changed, as has some of the transportation network. So Councillors is asking staff to work with the School District to see what updates might be needed here.

And that was it for the last Council meeting of 2025. We’ve beed seeing Santa around a lot lately, so we have been reducing our shouting, crying, and pouting, as instructed by song. I hope you l have a great holidays, and that 2025 is good to you and your family. 

We had a pretty light Council agenda on Monday, though we had pretty meaty daytime workshop talking Budget. The evening Agenda began with approval of the following items On Consent:

2025 Revenue Anticipation Borrowing Amendment Bylaw 8480, 2024
The City spends money every month, pretty much the same amount every month, because most of what we pay is salaries. However we get a big chunk of our income over a short period of time in the middle of the year – tax time. That means we need to operate a “float” to get us through, and there is a small, but not zero, chance that a major expense happens right before tax time or that something interrupts tax time. If we were a business, we would manage tis with a Line of Credit. As the City is not permitted to borrow money without Council approval by Bylaw, we need to pass a bylaw every year that allows staff to borrow up to $3 Million for a very short period (<1 year) in an emergency if current cash-in-hand cannot cover an emergent expense. This is that bylaw.

Official Community Plan Amendment, Rezoning, and Development Variance Permit: 1135 Salter Street – Bylaws for First and Second Readings
The owner of 1035 Salter Street in the middle of Queensborough wants to build 45 townhouse units. This requires an OCP amendment, rezoning, and a DVP for tandem parking, which has been a pretty standard practice for townhouse developments in Queensborough. As an OCP amendment, this has gone through public consultation and consultation with external stakeholders and rights holders. Design Panel and ACP have recommended approval. This will go to a Public Hearing, and so I will hold my comments until then.

Response to Council Motion Re: Improving the public’s access to trees during the City’s bi-annual tree sale
Staff have looked at our annual tree sale program based on a council request from a few months ago to expand it. Staff reviewed the program and report that the current scope meets the goals of the program and the level of community interest (the current subscription rate is around 95%), so there is no compelling reason to expand the program, especially considering the taxpayer subsidy that would require.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Age-Friendly Community Strategy Update Work Plan
The City adopted an Age-Friendly Community Strategy in 2017, and were well into implementation of the plan when COVID forced staff to pivot to emergency-response then recovery work. Then came the Heat Dome, Wildfire impacts, food inflation, and ongoing housing instability among the factors that disproportionally impacted seniors in our community, and through our reactions to these crises as they emerged, it was recognized that our 2017 Strategy needs an update to meet the shifted needs of the seniors demographic. We received a grant from the Province to lead this work, and will be doing the background work over the winter that will lead to a fulsome consultation with the community next spring and summer, with a revised strategy prepared for the fall of 2025.

Budget 2025: Engineering and Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaws Report
We had an extended workshop discussion of the utility budgets last week, these are the bylaws that result. The reality is that the cost of providing utility services is going up, largely because the cost of building infrastructure that supports the delivery of water, sewer, electrical, and solid waste services is increasing at a rate much higher than CPI “inflation”.
I will follow up with a separate post that goes through these (if you just can’t wait, look at the flow diagrams I created previously, and see where the money actually goes), but here is the short info now.

Electrical rates will be going up by 3.5%, which is the same as predicted last year, and what the Electrical Utility Commission recommended. This represents a much smaller increase than BC Hydro is proposing this year (closer to 6.5%), and continues the practice of us trying to create consistency and predictability in our costs.

Solid waste and water increases are 12% and 6%, as we expected going into this year. The main driver in water is the increase in rates from Metro Vancouver for water (going up more than 10% this year), and the main driver in Solid Waste being our need to solidify our reserves as our vehicle fleet is coming up for renewal.

The sewer rates are going up more than anticipated (10%), as Council had a conversation about how to manage one-time costs related to major infrastructure costs from Metro Vancouver (mostly the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant). Again, smoothing it out so the impact is spread over several years was decided to be preferable than taking a big hit this year and lesser hits in the next couple of years.

These core services of the City, clean water, responsibly managed wastes, and reliable electricity to heat and warm our homes, are highly valued by our residents according to the recent ISPSO survey of the community. They are not inexpensive to deliver, but overall 87% of New Westminster residents think they get good value for their dollar for utility services.

We had a single Bylaw for Adoption:

Council Procedure Bylaw No. 6910, 2004, Amendment Bylaw No.8493, 2024
This Bylaw that shifts around the order of how thing happen in our Evening Council meetings was adopted, so next meeting it will be a bit different, but more of the same, just hopefully a bit more efficient.

We closed our meeting with two Motions from Council:

Vape Shops
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine

Whereas there has been a significant increase in the number of vape shops that have been opening in the City of New Westminster; and
Whereas a proliferation of vape shops throughout our city does not support the City’s efforts at creating a balanced and community-based retail market; and
Whereas dramatically increasing easier access to vape shops could result in more youth regularly consuming a product that has known and serious health risks
BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff report back regarding what options are within Council’s jurisdiction to limit the overall number and locations of business licenses issued for new vape shops

This motion was adopted by Council with Councillor Henderson adding an amendment asking that we take a resolution to the Lower Mainland LGA asking the Province to step up regulation of Vape shops to be more akin to the regulation of liquor and cannabis, which would give the City better tools and create a province-wide approach instead of city-by-city whack-a-mole approach.

Vision Zero
Submitted by Mayor Johnstone

Whereas many jurisdictions have adopted a Vision Zero strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all; and
Whereas a true Vision Zero strategy requires cooperation and coordination between agencies of the municipal and provincial governments, of the likes not yet achieved in British Columbia; and
Whereas Council’s 2023-2026 Strategic Priorities Plan includes a focus on “Safe Movement of People” which identified the need for collaborative relationships across agencies to advance a Vision Zero mindset; and
Whereas traffic calming and management was identified in a recent survey of New Westminster residents as one area the City needs to demonstrate more progress;
Therefore be it resolved that Council strike a Vision Zero Task Force including but not limited to representatives from engineering staff, NWFR, NWPD, ICBC, Fraser Health, TransLink, the Walkers Caucus and the disability community to make recommendations to Council to achieve Vision Zero.

This motion was also(!) amended by Councillor Henderson to include further potential representatives form community organizations, then queerly amended by Councillor Minhas to add his BFF Councillor Fontaine to the task force, which was strangely premature considering we haven’t even developed a Terms of Reference yet, but I am glad to see this work beginning and appreciate the community groups who came to speak to the need for a new approach on road safety. I will write more on this in a subsequent post.

And that was the end of the agenda. We have daytime workshops next Monday and the week after to discuss budget work. And though I don’t report on those here explicitly, they results will come to council and I’ll report on them then, or you can always go here and watch them in live action internet colour TV action!

As the days get shorter, as do the length of Council meetings. We had a fairly compact agenda, though longer days are coming with Budget Workshops in the upcoming Council Calendar. We started with consideration of a Temporary Use Permit:

Temporary Use Permit for 502 Columbia Street
There have been a number of different activities in the building at 502 Columbia Street since all five Army & Navy retail locations in BC and Alberta were closed during the COVID-19 downturn. The front street side has hosted an emergency overnight shelter for a few years operating under a Temporary Use Permit.

They are now looking to a new and different TUP because the envisioned use is different, and we anticipate that this shelter will be converted to 24/7 operation as soon as funding is made available by BC housing. We will also create a community Advisory Committee similar to the successful model used in Queensborough to address community concerns around operations.

There has been a lot of community conversation about this shelter, and some concerns raised about the external impacts on the wider community. It has been clear that the current operation is not ideal. A night-time only shelter does save lives, reduces the occurrence of outdoor encampments, and other issues like warming fires in the winter. However, people using the shelter have to leave the shelter early in the morning and be present to check in early in the evening. Between these times they have nowhere to go, and face numerous challenges with no secure place to keep their belongings, no “address” for services to connect with them, no place to use the washroom, etc. Converting this to 24/7 will help address these needs, and reduce the need for folks to set up daytime “encampments” to stay warm and dry during the day or to gather as a community.

Over the last few months I have had hundreds of conversations with businesses and residents downtown, and the Crises Response Team and City staff have also connected thought the BIA and the Downtown Residents Association. The clear call has been for 24/7 shelter to replace this nighttime-only shelter, as most folks downtown see that as the right balance between compassionate support for people unhoused in our community and managing the numerous external impacts of the three overlapping crises. We received a fair amount of correspondence on this TUP, and on balance it supported what we have heard from the business community and residents.

There are some steps yet to get to 24/7 here, and we need BC Housing to provide some supports to make it viable, but this TUP was a necessary step in that direction.

This is still a Temporary Use Permit, because no-one (the City, BC Housing, the operator) think this is a long-term solution to unsheltered people in our community. We need transitional and supportive housing, along with a more permanent purpose-built shelter. This is set out clearly in our Housing Needs Report, and is an ongoing discussion with BC Housing. More will be coming on this soon.

In a split vote, Council approved the TUP.

The following items were Moved on Consent:

Community Advisory Assembly Update and Reports
The Community Advisory Assembly has met on a few topics, and this is a preliminary report back on two. They had a staff-led discussion on the city’s Road Reallocation goals under our seven bold steps and provided some feedback on how we might approach this goal. They then had a discussion that we led by the Assembly on the intersection between climate action and equity that our engagement consultants described as groundbreaking and inspirational. Having a disparate group of community members work to find common ground with each other when they don’t share their experience or opinions is what this process is all about.

This is a preliminary reporting out, with some recommendations to Council, and the next step is that staff will review the recommendations to report back to Council on opportunities towards implementation.

Local Government Climate Action Program 2023 Reporting Year and Program Funding
LGCAP is a funding program from the Provincial government to support local governments in climate action, with the only string attached being that we set goals and report back our progress to the province every year. This is that report. This is the third (smallest) contribution to our Climate Action Reserve Fund which is being used in the City to support implementation of our corporate and community emissions reduction plans. Starting in the 2025 budget year, allocation of the LGCAP funds along with the rest of the CARF will be supported by the Climate Action Decision Making Framework to assure we are spending them in the most effective way possible.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

New Westminster Chamber of Commerce – Request for Funding
The New West Chamber, like several other Chambers and Boards of Trade in the province, had some struggles through the COVID response with waning membership and tight finances. The New West Chamber is, by their own admission, in a rebuild phase, and have been doing excellent work over the last year+ in re-engaging business members, in providing value to their members and the larger business community.

The City has provided grants to the Chamber in the past, initially without performance indicators, though this model was ended a decade ago at the Chamber’s request and adopted a more fee-for-service model that relied on annual requests and agreement on deliverables, on the order of $25,000.year for the last few years. This report is about a request for a significant increase in the scope of support and resultant level of grant. This includes support in hosting an Economic Forum in the spring. Council voted to support the chamber in these requests, recognizing the value of the relationship.

Proposed 2025 Schedule of Council Meetings and Proposed Updates to Delegation Protocol and Notice of Motion Process Policy
This is partly an annual update report where we set the Council schedule for next year, and partly an update on some procedural changes for Council meetings that were proposed by our (still relatively new) Corporate Officer. They are experienced at running City Councils, and see some ways ours can run more efficiently, and as such are asking us to review a few ideas.

The first part is a new Council Schedule for next year, which will rely a bit more on Workshop style meetings in the off-weeks when we don’t have regular Council. Our current workshops on Council days often feel rushed and add to the chaos of a busy day, and moving them to the off weeks (as we have intermittently done over the last year) makes things work smoother, and gives Council more time to dig into meaty discussions in a public forum but in a less formal structure than Council.

On my recommendation, I also suggested that Workshop Meetings be chaired by the Acting Mayor instead of me. This is not an uncommon practice for Committee of the Whole type meetings in other Councils around the region, gives each member of Council an opportunity to experience the excitement and challenge of chairing this unruly bunch we all love. During these meetings, I’ll be just another member of Council.

For reasons confused by time, we have a practice of starting meetings at 6:00 and not starting public delegations until 7:00. This presents some sometimes strange procedural issues, but also leaves delegates confused about what time they are actually expected to start. We are going to put delegations at 6:00 right at the start of the meeting to make that clearer for guests.

The final recommended change was to our Notice of Motion procedures. The Corporate Officer made the case that NoMs are a bit resource-intensive, as they must be reviewed for a variety of policy and legal matters prior to being placed on the agenda. Most NoMs are simple, some are actually jurisdictionally complex, and the Corporate Officer’s job is to assure everything on the Agenda in its proper form. Last term, we had about a half dozen Motions from Council per year. This has shifted to more than 75 since we implemented the now NoM procedure last year (and it was up to 7 per meeting before the NoM procedure was brought in). Our current policy allows up to 154 per year, which means a significant workload just to manage the Notices, never mind the impact on workplans and budgets of Council approves most of them. Something had to give.

That said, I think in the last 6 months or so, Council has been pretty responsible in use of the new NoM procedures, and we have managed to find a functional balance in Council around giving Councillors space to bring new ideas and managing the existing workload. That, however, is in Council Chambers, and the increased resource needs of back-of-house required here is not something we can ignore. So Council agreed to a late motion that is essentially status quo, recognizing that there will likely be a requested budget enhancement in 2025 for Legislative Services staff to help manage this workload.

We then had two Bylaws for Adoption:

Zoning Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment Bylaw (Family Friendly Housing Policy) No. 8486, 2024
This Bylaw that updates our Family Friendly Housing requirements was adopted by Council.

Zoning Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment By law (Electric Vehicle Ready Requirements for New, Non-Residential Buildings) No. 8494, 2024
This Bylaw that requires 50% of all off-street parking in new non-residential buildings be EV ready was adopted by Council.

And that was the end of the meeting. Next week we start our budget workshops. I don’t usually report here on workshop meetings (there are only so many hours in the day and I have 400+ unanswered emails in my inbox), but you can tune in and watch along here.

Some called it weird (it was a little), some called it unprecedented (it wasn’t at all), I call it another day at the office. We had a long and at times challenging council meeting on Monday, but we got a lot of good work done, and managed the full agenda.

It started with us moving the following items On Consent:

Acting Mayor Appointments for November 2024 through October 2025
Every year we create a schedule of acting mayors, members of council who do the specific things Mayors do (chair meetings, sign documents, represent the City at events) in the event that the Mayor is not able to do them. This is a repeat of last year’s schedule where every member of Council gets two months in the role.

Rezoning and Development Permit: 140 Sixth Street – Consideration of Additional Building Height
The Royal Towers site has been awaiting redevelopment for a long time. It is a large but challenging site for a number of reasons, and we don’t have a current development proposal in front of us, but regular council watchers (Hi Cathy!) may remember a pre-application report came to the City back in 2018 with two significant condo towers on the Royal Ave side, and two mid-rise rental buildings on the north side. At the time, the Land Use and Planning Committee (the project never got to all of Council) asked that tower heights be reduced, and the project appeared to have stalled.

As the owner is back looking at redevelopment of the site, though the only question in front of Council right now is whether we wish to maintain a 30 storey height limit on the site, or would permit up to 40 storeys to increase economic viability and the amenity value derived from the site. I have been consistent in having less concern for overall building height, as a few more floors 300+ feet in the air is much less impactful on the community than the groundscape and amenities that make up the bottom 5 storeys. Council agreed that additional height may be acceptable here.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Business Licence Bylaw No. 8473, 2024 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd Reading
Staff have been working to update and modernize our Business Licence Bylaw. We issue more business licences than ever before (up to 4,000 a year now). Though it was constantly being revised, this is the first top-to-bottom rewrite in almost 40 years, and definitely streamlines and simplifies the Bylaw while assuring staff still have the tools to regulate public safety and nuisance. There are also some new tools, like conditional licensing, which will allow businesses to start up quicker. There has also been consolidation of regulations to make things easier to interpret and enforce, and a wholesale review of our business licences fee structure to better match our cohort communities.

The most notable change is a reduction in most fees for liquor licensing, the one category where we were higher than our cohort communities. There is also some relaxing of regulations regarding moral panics of decades past (arcades, billiards rooms, etc.). Overall, Council supported these changes unanimously.

Rezoning: 88 Tenth Street (Columbia Square) – Zoning Amendment Bylaw for First, Second and Third Readings
This was our most complicated and time-consuming agenda item of the evening, and in the end we didn’t make a decision. The redevelopment of Columbia Square has been a project in development for almost three years, with the recognition that a (mostly) single-story auto-oriented strip mall within 100m of a SkyTrain Staion entrance does not fit with the model for a vibrant mixed-use urban centre envisioned in the Regional Growth Strategy or our Official Community Plan. That said, it is a challenging site with significant redevelopment challenges, from soil conditions (anyone else remember the old London Drugs here having a structural failure?) to the need to support the existing community-service businesses during redevelopment.

The proposal before Council was to replace the strip mall with up to 3,000,000 square feet of residential space in (up to) 8 towers, none taller than 53 storeys. 20% of the residential space would be Purpose Built Rental, all of the retail space (125,000 sqft) would be replaced with current tenants relocated through a complicated multi-phase development scheme. There would be 42,000 sqft of new office, between 9,500 and 23,000 sqft of childcare space, allowance for a new school, and 25% of the ground space dedicated to public green space including a 50,000 sqft public plaza. This would generate something between $20 and $30M in DCC funds for transportation, utility, and parks upgrades, and about $60M in Density Bonus money to the City as required under the Interim Density Bonus strategy and in lieu of non-market housing being provided.

This decision was to give the proposal three readings, and the process here is a little unusual because we are taking a pause between third and fourth readings (“adoption”) to do the master planning and hammer out details of the development plan.

In the end, Council decided to defer making the decision on this until a special meeting next Monday, so I will hold my further opinions on the merits/challenges of this proposal until after that, though I think I very tiredly telegraphed where I am at about 2:37 into the meeting video here. So tune in on Monday and see where this goes.

Rezoning and Development Permit: 140 Sixth Street – Consideration of Additional Building Height
The Royal Towers site has been awaiting redevelopment for a long time. It is a large but challenging site for a number of reasons, and we don’t have a current development proposal in front of us, but a pre-application report came to the City back in 2018 with two significant condo towers on the Royal Ave side, and two mid-rise rental buildings on the north side. At the time, the Land Use and planning Committee (the project never got to all of Council) asked that tower heights be reduced.

As the owner is back looking at redevelopment of the site, but the only question in front of Council right now is whether we wish to maintain a 30 storey height limit on the site, or would permit up to 40 storeys to increase economic viability and the amenity value derived from the site.

I have been consistent in not having concern for building height, as a few more floors 300+ feet in the air is much less impactful on the community than the groundscape and amenities that make up the bottom 5 storeys.

Rezoning and Special Development Permit: 65 First Street – Preliminary Report
Speaking of challenging sites, 65 First Street is an end-of-life strata residential building where the owners decided to “wrap up” the strata a couple of years ago and sold to a development company. At the time, many of the existing residents chose to remain and rent their suites until the development plan was put together, including a deal made with the developer and a housing agreement about what parts of the City’s tenant protection policies would exist between the 2021 sale and the approval for redevelopment.

We now have a report on the development plan for council to give a first review. As it currently looks, it is complaint with the Official Community Plan, and would have two towers, one strata and one market rental (with 10% below market rental). It would exceed the city’s requirements for family friendly units (2- and 3-bedroom). Parts of the adjacent streets would become redundant and be re-purposed as park space in a slightly expanded Albert Crescent Park.

Council agreed to move forward with this is a preliminary application, and it will go to both public consultation and internal review. If you have opinions, let us know!

Temporary Use Permit: 28, 32, 34 Sixth Street and 606 Clarkson Street (the Cliff Block Residence) – For Emergency Winter Shelter Use
This is an application to operate an emergency winter shelter in the Cliff Block for the winter of 2024-2025. This would address some capacity issues at the existing shelter on Front Street, and help keep people alive during dangerous winter weather. It would operate as a 24/7 shelter from November to the end of April.

The Cliff bock currently offers 23 transitional and supportive housing units, and this area of the building has previously served as an emergency winter and extreme weather shelter. This would temporarily add 25 winter weather beds.

This is a preliminary request – notice will be sent to adjacent properties, and Council will consider issuance on November 4th. If you have opinions, let us know

We then moved on to Motions from Members of Council:

Increase Affordability by Temporarily Eliminating the New Westminster Developed Climate Action Levy on Electricity Bills in 2025
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine

WHEREAS according to a staff report dated April 20, 2020, the City’s Climate Action Levy imposed on New Westminster Utility “costs electrical customers approximately $15 per 1,000 KWH” and
WHEREAS in 2023 the temporary removal of the Climate Action Levy would have helped local residents and businesses deal with inflationary pressures by reducing their electrical costs by almost $2M; and
WHEREAS there is no clear evidence that imposing ‘made-in-New Westminster’ levies, taxes or fees on green energy generated by BC Hydro will reduce our carbon footprint; and
WHEREAS even the BC NDP government has now backed away from its support of the costly and unaffordable carbon tax currently imposed on consumer products;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff incorporate into the City’s 2025 Operating Budget a temporary one-year elimination of the 3.5% Climate Action Levy imposed by the New Westminster Electrical Utility.

Here we go again. For the fifth(?) time in less than a year, the same Councillor has brought the same request. It is tiresome because every time it comes back, it seems to be less informed (or more misinforming) than the previous time. Every “whereas” clause here is factually challenged, rhetorical arguments made with no basis in fact, and Brandolini’s Law makes it challenging to unwwrap it all, so I’ll keep it brief.

The Climate Action Levy was a partial replacement of half of the 5% BC Hydro Rate Rider, it was not a new charge, but a shift from a rate rider that went into general electrical utility funds to one that was earmarked for a Climate Action Reserve Fund. After a COVID hiatus, it was lifted from 2.5% to 3.5%. The Levy costs electrical utility users about $4 per 1,000kWh, not $15. It collects about $2 Million a year, but removing it won’t “save” taxpayers $2 million, unless we stop funding the things the levy pays for: Climate Action staff and programs in the City. Primarily, the Energy Save New West program, which is funded from this, and saves New Westminster homeowners and renters money every day. It also demonstrably reduces greenhouse gas emissions in the community, because that is what the Energy Save New West program is designed to do. It is one of the very few tools we have to reduce community emissions (as opposed to corporate emissions, which will also be reduced through the Climate Action Levy, but I digress). This is not a carbon tax, nor is it an income tax or an inheritance tax or a property tax. To purposely conflate it with provincial or federal Carbon Taxes is intentionally misleading.

The mover of this motion has repeatedly opposed Climate Action in the City, and has tried several times to remove funding from climate action in the City. During his defense of this motion, he even invoked the John Rustad argument that “Taxes can’t fix the weather.” This is late-stage climate change denial writ large, folks, and has no place in serious discussion for policy makers in 2024. Council, for the 6th time in the last 12 months, agreed with following the Electrical Commission recommendations here and voted this down.

Produce at least One 2025 Operating Budget Option that is Pegged at No More Than 4.5% for Property Taxes
Submitted by Councillor Minhas

WHEREAS Canada’s inflation rate is now 2%; and
WHEREAS property taxes have increased by almost 15% over the past two years and if this continued at the same pace property taxes could increase over 30% this term; and
WHEREAS countless property taxpayers in New Westminster are struggling under the weight of an increased cost of living;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff be directed as part of the Budget 2025 process to develop at least one budget scenario for Council’s consideration that incorporates a property tax increase of no more than 4.5%.

In preparation for this discussion, I went through the motions and amendments just in 2024 that were moved or seconded by the mover of this motion, some that were endorsed by Council, some that were ultimately not supported by this Council, but all of them had a material cost for the city – a cost of staff time and resources, or a significant reduction in specific revenue streams in the City. My Back-of the envelope math adds all of the silent spending of these 20 motions up to $1.4 Million in new spending, and more than $3 Million in lost revenue. That’s an estimated $4.5 Million budget impact. Eerily close to a 4.5% tax increase on these motions along. And that does not include the $2Million potentially removed from our budget if the motion we just debated on the Climate Levy was supported.

This motion is an example of, as was mentioned in a previous meeting, council trying to “suck and blow at the same time”. The Member wants us to spend, spend, spend, and to not raise taxes. It’s either disingenuous, or an example of someone really now knowing how budgets work. I’ll leave it to you to interpret which.

That said, I support this motion (as did all of council), because it is completely in line with how we have done budgeting for the last few years (and the mover, having been in those rooms, must know that). It was our December 11 workshop last year when staff provided us the first budget numbers related to tax rates, outlined what the “baseline” number must be to meet our contractual requirements, then three options (5.5%, 6.6%, 8.5%) with different levels of program enhancement and demonstrated exactly what we could deliver or would need to cut to meet those levels.

It was always clear when we settled on 7.7% what we were paying for that put this above the baseline. including staff resources to do the business license program update (delivered this very meeting), a backfill strategy to address staff shortages in Police, the Crises Reponses Teams that are addressing the challenges in our downtown and across the City today, new Firefighting resources and more. What I like about the way we do our budget workshops in the City is that we are 100% transparent about what the public services people demand of us cost, and when we agree to provide them, we agree to pay for them. So, yeah, 4.5% might be one of the option next year, but I’m not sure the public is going to like what they see under that option.

And two months from now when we reach that stage in budget discussion, be ready for when a certain member of council starts saying “our tax increase was going to be 4.5%, now it has ballooned to [whatever number is actually possible]”, pretending that 4.5% was an actual budget proposal, and not a random number thrown at the wall long before any of the actual budget information was available to Council.