The things we discussed in open workshop on February 25th will end up being more interesting than what we did in Council, but those will have to wait for subsequent posts. Partly because those things will come to regular council and I need to stick ti current business here, and we had a full agenda, starting with a Public Hearing:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 8067, 2019 Phase One of Infill Housing Program
As part of the implementation of the Official Community Plan, we have created zoning language around design of infill housing – laneway houses and carriage houses. After review of several applications that have been coming in coming in since the program was started, staff are recommending a few changes of that language to allow more flexibility in design while still addressing the design, massing, and parking concerns that may be presented by these designs. We are also making a few housekeeping changes (i.e. making our access requirement consistent at 6.0m when it was made inconsistent by a rounding error). These changes require a change in the zoning bylaw, which we are required to test in a Public Hearing.

No-one wrote us to opine on the subject, and no-one showed up to speak to the Public Hearing, so Council moved to give the Bylaw third reading and adoption.

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We then went on to a couple of Opportunities to be Heard:

Development Variance Permit DVP00660 for 1050 Boyd Street
The new Toyota dealership located next to Boyd and Howes wants to put fascia signs on more than one face of their building, and have a taller freestanding sign than strictly meet the limits of our sign bylaw. The highway-offramp location is not typical of New West, and that is why their design really doesn’t fit neatly in our Sign Bylaw, and why they are looking for a variance. No-one wrote to council to opine on the variance, and no-one came to speak against it. Council voted to approve the variance.

Commercial Vehicle Amendment (Taxi) Bylaw No. 8091, 2019
This Bylaw increases the number of permitted taxi licenses in New West, consummate with the number permitted by the Passenger Transportation Board. Not enough, and not enough accessible taxis, in my opinion, but this will marginally improve service and reliability of taxi service in the City. No-one wrote to us or came to speak to the Bylaw, and Council moved to approve it.

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The following items were moved on consent:

New Revenue Sources
It’s budget time, and we are reviewing many aspects of how we collect and spend money. Part of that is reviewing our non-taxation revenue sources: fees we charge for every service from building inspections to swim passes. Many are adjusted annually to match CPI, while others are given a more detailed review that tries to balance the sometimes-conflicting goals of cost recovery and being a price that reflects the regional market for similar services.

This report covers a variety of engineering fees, including parking in the downtown parkades going up in price for the first time in several years. We are also doing a bit of a revamp of development fees as that department is seeing increased work load with more complexity in the types of applications they see, and there is a general feeling that more of the cost of that work should fall on the applicants in the development community than the general taxpayer.

Revised 2019 City Partnership Grant Recommendations
The City’s Partnership Grant process is getting more and more difficult to administer, as we are reaching towards a half million dollars in annual granting and the dozens of applications are all for things we want to see happen in the City. The battle to manage within our budget inevitably means saying no to many worthy organizations and potentially great programs. The good news? We are giving a combined $493,000 to 22 organizations supporting the arts and varied social services in our community. These are all true social profits for our community, and I hope you will support them with your time or money (whichever you have more of), and help them keep our community connected.

Recruitment 2019: Economic Development Advisory Committee (EDAC) Appointments
The EDAC needs community members, so we appointed them! Thanks to the volunteers who give their time and energy to help us help the local economy.

Recruitment 2019: Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) Appointments
The Youth Advisory Committee needs a few more appointees for the year – so here they are getting appointed!

Recruitment 2019: Community Heritage Commission Representative on the Heritage Grant Program Committee
We have a volunteer committee that evaluates heritage grant applications, and one spot is reserved for a representative from the Community Heritage Committee, and here they are, appointed by Council upon recommendation from that Commission.

Light Industrial Zoning Districts (M-1): Text Amendment to Permit Electrical Utilities – First and Second Reading
The City expropriated a piece of light industrial land in Queensborough upon which it intends to build an electrical substation. The zoning does not currently permit that use, so we need a zoning text amendment to fix that.

Housekeeping Amendments to Three City Bylaws (Controlled Substance Property Bylaw No. 6679, 2001; Noise Bylaw No. 6250, 1999; and Construction Noise Bylaw No. 6063, 1992): Bylaws For Three Readings
Here we go with some omnibus changes to Bylaws under the category of “housekeeping”. We are not changing how the Bylaws work, you won’t notice any changes, this just updates the language and makes sure the language is consistent with language found in more recent Bylaws and with shifts in other regulations.

Royal Columbia Hospital Project: Request for Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption
Work at Royal Columbian is going to require digging up East Columbia Street to install electrical conduits, water pipes, and the such. Staff figure the best way to avoid traffic chaos of closing the street during the day is to allow some night work noise exemptions so the work can happen outside of business hours. They are asking for a noise Bylaw exemption for a few days in March and a few days in April, which Council approved.

Hey Neighbour Collective
This is an interesting program that has some solid academic backing and has proven to work in Vancouver where it was piloted. The idea is to improve social connectedness and public engagement in multi-family buildings. Anyone who has read “The Happy City” knows that creating social connections and engaged neighbourhoods in multi-family buildings is sometimes challenging, but is very much doable with the right kind of intervention. Council voted to approve this program on the recommendation of the Community and Social Issues Committee.

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These items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Sanctuary City Designation: Process and Proposed Next Steps
Back in January, Councillor Das put forward a motion requesting the City work towards Sanctuary City status. This report outlines the path the City will take to implement that recommendation including work with external agencies and the Multiculturalism Advisory committee. Council added that the NWPD be brought closer into the process, as their participation in this program will be vital to its success.

In short, a Sanctuary City is one where all residents are provided access to services regardless of their immigration status – or lack of immigration status. There are people in our community who may be reluctant to seek a variety of services, be it calling the police to report a crime, seeking health care, or even applying for a permit, because they may carry fear that exposing themselves to officialdom may impact their immigration status, or even cause them to be jailed or deported. This may seem absurd to many Canadians, but a portion of our immigrant community comes from places where governance and corruption exist in a very different space, and they may have good reason to mistrust people in positions of authority. We want to assure all residents have equitable access to municipal services, and that no-one should live with fear separating them from vital services.

Light Industrial Mixed Use Zoning Districts (M-5): Text Amendment to Permit Public Utilities – First and Second Reading
Metro Vancouver is boring a new water main under the Fraser River, and it will terminate and connect to a pumping station on a lot they expropriated on the Lower 12th Street area. The lot is zoned light industrial, but this specific type of utility operation is not named in the applicable use for M-5 zoning. So a text amendment or re-zoning is required, and staff figured the text amendment was minor enough that it was the easier way to go.

My only question was about the property tax implications. A lot like this pays taxes if it has an industrial or commercial operation on it, I want to know if Metro pays taxes to the city at that rate, or what the impact is if they get a different rate. Staff surprisingly did not have the answer on hand, so hopefully will clarify this before third reading.

660 Quayside Drive (Bosa Development): Request for Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption
The Bosa project on the waterfront is continuing to adjust how they manage the most challenging part of the project – driving a secant pile wall adjacent to fisheries habitat with uncertain ground conditions within a rapidly-closing fisheries protection window. I have a bit of experience in this type of work, and can attest it was much easier to manage (with better protection of habitat) before the federal government disassembled FREMP. Alas, there appears to be no interest in the new government for cleaning up that environmental review mess either… wait – I went off on a tangent there…

We continue to get complaints about impact driving, but not on the vibratory driving of the secant piles. This request to do non-impact-driving works outside of regulated construction hours in order to reduce the amount time spent impact driving is a reasonable request, and I think a net good for the community. I hasten to remind people – they could, under the existing bylaw, be doing 100% impact driving, 8 hours a day 6 days a week, but have spent a considerable amount of time and effort to reduce that impact in response to community concerns, and to reach out to the community to manage conflicts. To characterize this as “pushing us around” is, in the technical term, bullshit.

Proposed Speed Hump Policy
The use of speed humps to reduce speed in our residential neighbourhoods is something we receive occasional calls for. They are often seen as a bit of a panacea for other traffic-related concerns, when in reality, they are only one tool that needs to be fit into context of other interventions (traffic diversion, road narrowing, speed enforcement, education).

That said, the City receives almost constant requests for new speed humps where residents feel they have a spot speeding problem, so the Neighbourhood Traffic Advisory Committee and staff took on the task of developing a policy about when these requests would be reviewed, the process used when a request is received to determine if the intervention makes engineering sense, and then to prioritize installations of new humps within the available budget, based on that data.

Council bounced this back to staff, only because the public consultation part of it seems to emphasize homeowners, actually to the exclusion of renters. Almost half of residents of New West are renters, and we have been trying to better engage them – they care just as much about safe streets and traffic management as homeowners, so this need to be jigged a little to assure they are given a voice.

1968 New Westminster Salmonbellies Lacrosse – BC Sports Hall of Fame Induction Recognition
The 1968 Salmonbellies were one of the greatest lacrosse teams ever assembled, apparently. They are already in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame, but are about to be indicted into the BC Sport Hall of Fame, and the City is going to honour them at a reception at the Anvil Centre.

2019/2020 Electrical Utility Rates
The Electrical Commission is recommending a 2.8% increase in electrical rates. I do not support the recommendation, and would have preferred a 1.8% increase. This was discussed at some greater length in the afternoon workshop, where I went off on a pretty lengthy rant. I will write another blog post to follow up on this to explain my rationale, as it gets pretty philosophical, but short version is I was not supported by the majority of Council on opposing this.

Festival Grant Committee: Request for additional funding for Sapperton Day Street Festival
I recognize the value of Sapperton Day, and have enjoyed it for the many years it has been running. However, having just gone through the Festival and Partnership granting process where we gave out more than our ~$600,000 in budgeted grant money, Council was not in the mood to re-open the process and add another $25,000. To the best of my knowledge, Sapperton Days did not apply for this funding back in December when every other festival organization did, which led the Grant Committee (of which I was a member) to understand that they were satisfied with the $11,100 grant in cash and city services they were already granted for 2019 as part of the 3-year agreement with the City. I am hoping staff can connect with them around how to make things work within their existing budget, or they can work on alternative funding models, but to throw $25,000 more at them at this stage would be unfair to every granted festival in the City, not to mention the ones we found we just didn’t have the budget to grant in 2019.

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We then did our readings of bylaws, and many went through first, second, and third, but there are the Bylaws for Adoption:

Building Bylaw Amendment Bylaw No. 8084, 2019
This was the Bylaw we rescinded and fixed after second reading, and adjusts some of the fees and fines under the building bylaw. Council approved it, and it is now the Law of the Land.

Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8094, 2019
This Bylaw adjusts some of the fees we charge for various development process, permit application and the such. Council approved it, and it is now the Law of the Land.

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We then addressed a bit of New Business, as is becoming the trend:

Motion: Neighbourhood Learning Centres
Councillor Das brought forward this motion to ask staff to work with the School District to provide an update on “Neighbourhoods of Learning Pilot Project”, and to update us on plans for an integration centre as part of the new high School neighbourhood learning space plans.

Motion: Creation of Office of the Renters Advocate
Councillor Puchmayr brought forward this motion after Councillor Nakagawa raised the need for an independent provincial Renters Advocate at a recent community forum. The idea is that the advocate could work on the same models as the Advocate for Youth or Seniors Advocate to hold the government accountable for how their various programs and initiatives are impacts in housing affordability and the availability of rental housing in the province. For increasing numbers of our working population, renting isn’t a wacky phase of life, but their only foreseeable access to housing. New West will bring this motion to the Lower Mainland LGA and the UBCM, hoping to get more communities to call upon the province to make this a reality.

Another week, another long Council meeting, as we heard from the public about our efforts to address the renoviction issue. Again, there is much to say about the public delegation part of the evening, but I am going to hold that off for a follow-up post, while this one summarizes all of the other important stuff on the Agenda that you may have missed.

We started with Opportunities to be Heard on three issues:

Development Variance Permit for 381 Keary Street (DVP00659)
This property owner in Sapperton wishes to create a legal secondary suite, but their house has no back alley access, nor is there room beside their house for a driveway to a back parking lot. So they want to create a front yard parking pad, which is a violation our zoning. That said, Keary Street is one where almost every house already has a front driveway and many have front parking pads – actually, this house already has a parking pad over most of this area, so we are more permitting a non-conforming use that is common on the street.

We received three pieces of correspondence (two supporting the application, one against), and no-one came to speak on the Variance. Council moved to approve the variance.

Development Variance Permit for 341 Johnston Street (DVP00658)
This is one of those cases where a DVP is required because a proposed and reasonable subdivision of a lot will result in the frontage being less than 10% of the circumference of the property because of the unusual depth of the lot. This is one of those arbitrary rules that serves as a check on how lot lines are developed in the City, and one for which a variance is usually approved if the lot frontage is reasonable.

No-one wrote or appeared to address this variance, and Council moved to approve it. We also move that future parcels created from this property will be exempt from the same rule.

Business Regulations and Licensing (Rental Units) Amendment Bylaw No. 8085, 2019
This was the agenda item that got the most attention, and we had something like 30 delegations and even more correspondence on it, almost all in favour. I will write more about this in a follow-up post, but for now suffice to say we are taking some creative action to protect tenants from unnecessary renoviction in the City as part of our larger Rental Revitalization program.

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The following items were Moved on Consent:

Investment Report to December 31, 2018
The City has $163 Million in the bank, which is $6.6 Million more than at the beginning of last year. Our savings are in a combination of commercial bank savings accounts and Municipal Finance Authority investment funds. We are expected to make a little more than the $2.3 Million we budgeted in interest for this fiscal year.

I need to point out, this is more than the amount of debt we have issued, and we are making more on our investments than we are paying interest on our debts.

It is also important to note that most of this “savings” is not money we can take out and spend at will or use to reduce your tax rates this year. Most of it is restricted to a specific use, such as the $15 Million or so we have saved up to spend on the Canada Games Pool replacement, or the money we have collected from DCCs to invest in sewer upgrades when they are required. I wrote a primer on this here.

Major Purchases September 1st to December 31st, 2018
This is out three-times-a-year report on our major purchases, for those interested in the results of our public procurement processes, be that sole-sourced or tenured.

Recruitment 2019: Appointment to the Intelligent City Advisory Committee
We have named a representative from the Ministry of Transportation in Infrastructure to the ICAC This position exists for a couple of reasons: MOTI owned conduit and right of way through which much optical fibre stretches, and because intelligent transportation systems is a major area of interest for both the MOTI and the City.

Phase I Infill Housing Program: One-Year Update and Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 8067, 2019 – Bylaw for First and Second Readings
The City passed a new Official Community Plan in 2017 after more than three years of intensive community conversations. Once the plan was passed, staff moved onto creating policies that will see the vision of the OCP realized – the “implementation phase” in planner-speak.

Part of the OCP vision was to see more gentle infill density to increase housing choice in the majority of our City that is still designated for single family detached homes. This includes encouraging small townhouse (strata tenue) and rowhome (freehold tenure) developments around the periphery of the SFD zones, and Laneway and Carriage houses within the SFD zones. At the time, we asked Staff to track the success of this, and report back to us on how the guidelines and policies were going – recognizing the land use economics can shift quickly and best laid plans can age quickly.

Short version: we have had 22 formal applications for laneway and carriage houses after more than 100 inquiries. Some are being built today. The townhouse/rowhome side is not moving very quickly, with two applications in process (representing up to 59 homes), though both have local gradient situations that require some adaption from the guidelines.

At the same time, staff are proposing some modest changes in the bylaws and guidelines. A couple would follow under the category of “housekeeping”, the rest are subtle changes in how FSR is calculated in one of these developments to meet the massing-control and other goals of the original guidelines while providing more flexibility for the builder and designer to make a livable space. These changes would need to go to a Public Hearing, so watch this space.

Keary Street Sewer Installation (Royal Columbian Hospital Project): Request for Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption
Installing storm sewer upgrades on Keary Street below east Columbia as part of the RCH project will require some nighttime work during late February and early March, but not on weekends. They need a Noise Bylaw exemption to make this happen.

Building Bylaw Amendment Bylaw No. 8084, 2019: Rescind Second and Third Readings and Amend Bylaw – Consideration of Readings
We are getting sloppy. Once again we read the wrong version of a bylaw at first and second reading. So we need to rescind second and third, replace it with the right one, and do it again. We’re busy, stuff happens. Good to know we got it right the second time!

Development Services Fees and Rates Housekeeping Amendment Bylaw No. 8094, 2019: Bylaw for Three Readings
This is a follow-up to Bylaw 8084 where we do some housekeeping to assure the language is clear and the new requirements mesh well with existing regulations. Unless you are deeply engrained in the details of “Occupancy Certificates” and “Building Officials”, this may no impact your life.

Quayside Drive Speed Humps & Raised Crosswalks
Speed humps were installed by Metro Vancouver on Quayside Drive as a temporary measure in anticipation that the extended Front Street closure would result in heavier traffic and associated unsafe driving on Quayside Drive. Once they were installed, the City received both kudos and criticism from Quayside residents, as is to be expected. Some don’t like the rougher ride, some like the reduced speeds. Despite a few of them being installed in a way that actually made crosswalks less accessible (since fixed), the data indicated that the speed humps had a marginal effect on average and 85th percentile speeds, but did significantly reduce the number of excessive speeders. So in that sense, they work.

Given some mixed reaction from the neighbourhood, staff is going to go to the Quayside RA and to residents in general to decide whether the speed humps should stay or go.

European Chafer Management Program Update
The City is going to continue the subsidized nematode program to keep a few dozen private lawns tidy and unsustainably monocultural in the City for another year. Insert expressionless face emoji here.

New Westminster Urban Solar Garden – Installation of Second Array
We have reached the point where enough people have signed up for a second array for the Solar Garden project. This might be the coolest little community action thing I have ever had the pleasure to approve. It shows that people, when given the tools, want to take personal action to find local solutions to global issues. You can still buy a panel here, but act fast.

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The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Pier West Development, 660 Quayside Drive – Construction Update
This is an update on the construction project on the waterfront that has been causing some disruption, both to the physical space and to the peace and quiet of the neighbourhood. I will probably write a follow-up blog on this, but the short version is that we all realized this was going to be a big and disruptive piece of construction, but recognized that the end result was going to be a great addition to our Riverfront. The developer and their construction contractors have had some challenges with the alternative pile driving strategy, and there were two incidents where the contractor on site violated the agreement they had with the City around construction timing, and both times Bosa was fined. They have subsequently worked with city staff to resolve the scheduling conflicts that resulted in the fines, and have taken efforts to reach out to the Downtown business community and residents. Meanwhile they are adapting their construction plans to address challenges as they arise in what is an incredibly challenging project – both in its technical nature and in the jurisdictional challenges.

The current secant pile work will be going on until March, and it is possible that the impact drivers will be operating one or two days a week during regular construction hours during this time. Bosa are working with the City to maintain accessibility to the River Market and the Pier Park, and have set up a project website to communicate with the community, and are even holding a community meeting next week (follow that last link for details) to let the neighbourhood know what is going on.

Royal City Taxi Ltd./Queen City (Bonnie’s) Taxi Ltd: Commercial Vehicle Amendment Bylaw No. 8091, 2019 to Add Vehicles – Bylaw for Three Readings
Once again the local taxi companies are applying to the City and the Passenger Transportation Board of the province to add vehicles to their fleets so you won’t have to wait a half hour for one to show up. Royal City Taxi was permitted 9 new vehicles, none of which is required to be an accessible vehicle. Queen City Taxi was permitted 2 new vehicles (they applied for three). Neither of which is required to be an accessible taxi.
The justification of the Passenger Transportation Board for the lack of new accessible taxis was, essentially, that 17% of the local fleet is accessible, and both of these operators have 17% or more of their fleet accessible, which is perfect circular reasoning. Unfortunately, it did not address the concern raised by this Council last year (brought to our attention by the Access Ability Advisory Committee) that the local accessible fleet is inadequate. Council even wrote them a letter to the effect, asking them to increase the accessible fleet next time they g o through this exercise.

Clearly they were no compelled by our letter, so we are going to send them another one, asking them why not. Because that would be the polite thing to do.

Short Term Rental Regulation: Proposed Approach and Next Steps
The issue of Short Term Rentals (AirBnB, VRBO, and the such) has been bubbling along below the surface for a couple of years. I even hosted a Metro Conversation in New Westminster on the topic two years ago, where we talked frankly about the opportunities, and potential problems, related to this “disruptive” industry and the regulation of it.

Vancouver recently passed a set of regulations for STRs in their community, and a few other communities from Nelson to Victoria have taken somewhat different approaches to the regulation. The City of New West has decided to take the Vancouver model, and use that as a framework to be adapted through a public consultation process in order to make a modified set of regulations to fit our situation. This will be going out to the STR operator community and the public, so watch this space!

Restorative Justice Committee: Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Motion for Support of the Indigenous Court System
Council is taking a motion to the UBCM asking the federal government to invest in a restorative justice and community based court system for indigenous peoples, as part of a larger effort to address the systemic flaws in our existing justice system that sees indigenous people incarcerated at an unbelievably higher rate than the rest of the Canadian Population.

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We read a bunch of Bylaws including adoption of the following:

Bylaw Notice Enforcement Housekeeping Amendment Bylaw No. 7960, 2019 and
Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw No. 8077, 2019
These Bylaws that clear up our ticketing bylaws and update our fines for a variety of offences, including some of the ones that make our pedestrian spaces less safe, as discussed at the January 28 meeting, were adopted by Council.