We had our last Council Meeting of 2020 on Monday, with an agenda full of pre-Christmas fun:

We started with an item Removed from Closed:

Library Board addition
Council gets to appoint people to the Library Board, one seat became available and we had many great applicants from which we chose one!

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We then had a Special Hearing

Council Reconsideration of Tree Removal Permit Issuance for 309 Louellen Street
The City has a Tree Protection Bylaw we approved a few years ago after much public discussion. Recognizing that a healthy tree canopy makes a healthier community, the City put restrictions on the removal of healthy trees even from private property. Not a complete ban, but limitations. The owners of a house in the Brow of the Hill neighbourhood want to remove a group of mature Douglas fir trees from their back yard. Following the permitting rules, they hired an Arbourist who determined they could be removed for safety reasons, and they pose “moderate risk”.

The City’s Arbourist and an independent third party Arbourist were of the opinion that two of the trees were indeed in need of removal, but the other 5 are healthy and just need a bit of pruning care, so the request for removal of these 5 was denied. As is their right, the homeowner is appealing this decision to Council.

There is abundant technical information in the reports, including a robust discussion between arborist regarding the typical behaviours of these trees and resultant risks. I am not an Arbourist, and cannot assess on that data, I need to rely on the professional competence of people who are professionals. The consensus here is that there is insufficient evidence that the trees are unhealthy or constitute a significant risk to persons or property. The homeowner still has an option to do a higher-level assessment to demonstrate that a higher-level risk exists, but until that case is made to staff, they cannot recommend removal.

I voted along with Council to not overturn the recommendation of staff and to continue to protect the trees.

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We then had a review of a Development Variance Permit:

Development Variance Permit DVP00685 for 616 and 640 Sixth Street
A couple of years ago, Council approved a mixed-use building in Uptown. This was the first significant new residential development in the Uptown core in more than a decade, the first high rise approved north of Sixth Ave since Casey Cook and Jerry Dobrovolny were on Council. It was a mix of commercial at grade, and a 29 storey tower with a mix of market rental and market condominium ownership. At the time, it was in the news because a dishonest local businessperson tried to leverage it into a Facebook campaign against new residents moving to New Westminster (now in the “where are they now?” file) and because the mix of market rental and strata was structured as two buildings in a single envelope which raised the spectre of “poor doors”, though there was no affordable or subsidized housing component in the development.

Anyway, after some detailed design and number crunching, the owner would now like to make some changes to the proposal. There is no change in density here (same FSR and unit count), but they are proposing making the building slightly shorter (27 stories instead of 29) and slightly wider (a 6% increase in tower floorplate) and convert the entire residential component to market rental. They would apply for CMHC support to make some portion of the rental meet the CMHC standard for below-market (but not the City’s standard for “affordable”).

This requires that both the housing agreement that secures rental tenure for 60 years and the development permit be revised, which is where we are here. We received about 14 pieces of correspondence, almost all opposed to the original development, not the question before us now about condo vs. purpose built rental. One was from a resident of the neighboring tower who suggests shifting from condo to all rental is somehow a “tax grab” that will turn the area in to a circus, a few who have less that charitable things to say about renters as a class of people, and most of them concerned about the traffic impacts on Princess Street.

I think the shift to Purpose Built Rental is a good one, and hope that CMHC funding (always competitive) can lead to some subsidized rents here. I voted to support the change.

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Then we had a Presentation from Metro Vancouver:

Metro Vancouver New Westminster Sewer Interceptor Columbia Section Rehabilitation
Under Columbia Street is a great big concrete pipe that used to move a lot of TriCities sewage down to Annacis Island. With the new Pump Station at Sapperton Landing and that big underground chamber by the old Train Station that was built in the last couple of years that had Front Street closed by Hyack Square for a while, most of that regional sewage is now redirected through a new pipe under Front Street. However, the line under Columbia still moves a bunch of sewage from the Glenbrook North and Sapperton areas, and ties into lines across downtown, and though it moves less sewage now, it is still vital, and reaching the end of its service life.

Instead of replacing, the plan is to “slip line” it – essentially slipping a slightly smaller pipe into the existing pipe to reinforce and reline it. As non-obtrusive as that sounds, it actually involves digging up a bunch of Columbia Street, and Metro Vancouver wants to do this in the summer of 2021.

There is a lot to be concerned about here. Downtown is not going great right now, businesses are suffering and residents of downtown are feeling the brunt of COVID burnout. Assuming we are re-opening society next summer, the role Columbia Street plays in the events that bring community cohesion cannot be underemphasized: Will we have a Grand Prix nest July? Will there be a Pride Festival, a Foot Truck Fest, or other events that build our community. As we look forward to a return to being a City where people meet in public spaces, we cannot forget Columbia Street is one of our most important public spaces, not just for the businesses, but for the large population of people who live in smaller homes in that neighbourhood compared to their uphill neighbours.

Council pushed back a bit, asking Metro Vancouver to look at measures to either accelerate or push back this work to reduce the disruption during the emerging-from-COVID period that is to come, and to look at other ways to address the various impacts it will have on Columbia Street as a public space.

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The following items are ones me Moved on Consent

Recommended Actions in Response to Public Engagement Results on COVID-19 Recovery
We did a public engagement exercise to assess public feelings about the City’s COVID response and suggestions for what we need to do better. It was reported out to us on November 9th, and this report talks about next steps, and how we are going to act on those recommendations. We are keeping the Task Forces running and maintaining emphases on vulnerable populations, business continuity support, education and service delivery. We are going to renew our emphasis on moving things outdoors as much as possible, and finding creative ways to program outdoors in our famously damp winter and spring. We are also continuing to emphasize affordable housing projects and assuring Active Transportation in all its forms are supported with barriers removed.

I like this report because it I an important part of “closing the loop” on Public Engagement. We asked the public for input, more than 1,000 people took part and provided that input, now we are clearly saying “we heard you, and this is what we are doing to address your input”.

COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Update and Progress from the Five Task Forces.
This is our regular catch-up on the work of the City Task Forces on COVID response.

404 Salter Street (Summit Earthworks): Proposed Soil Transfer Facility and Gravel Storage Facility – Update
There is an industrial property next to the Derwent Street Bridge that is under Port of Vancouver jurisdiction. A business wants to use the site for two purposes: gravel storage on one part (404a Salter) and a soil transfer facility where waste soils from development around Vancouver would arrive, be stockpiled, and loaded by conveyers onto barges (404 Salter).

The City and neighbours have been informed of this and there has been some consultation, but the permitting is out of the City’s hands, and in the hands of the Port. As a City, we expressed some concerns about the buffer to adjacent residential neighbourhoods and impact of heavy truck traffic on Derwent Way. Apparently, the Port has already issued a permit for the gravel operation, with some conditions to manage dust impacts and reduced operational hours. The soil part is still being reviewed, has been slightly modified to reduce footprint and dike impacts, and the City will send some correspondence to the Port regarding some outstanding traffic management concerns.

Streets for People in 2020 – Final Report
This is a follow-up report on the work Staff did this summer to re-imagine some streetscapes in the City, and lead a conversation in the community about street spaces, active transportation, and improving the public realm. When we started installing temporary measures across the City, there was a lot of feedback. Some positive, some negative. The Facebook comments section perhaps the perfect distillation of the latter.

When you start to push spaces away from “cars only” to other types of use, the status quo pushes back hard. It was relieving that some of the more direct feedback, including at pop-up events throughout the City, was actually much more positive than Facebook would have you believe. There were many suggestions of how to make it work better, but overall people appreciated the work the City was doing to make the streets where they live and move around more comfortable for people who chose not to bring the comfort of a personal car along on their trip. This was encouraging, and reflected the experience of other jurisdictions across North America that have taken this approach of using the light intervention as a consultation tool.

There was also actual data collected to determine if the spaces were being used the way it was intended, and how the patterns of travel differed between streets that had an intervention and similar ones nearby that did not. This was a combination of surveys and noncontact observations of the patterns of users. So much of transportation feedback is based on anecdotes, it is great to collect more robust data like this. The report is a good read.

There are recommendations here on how we can do this better next time, on the types of interventions that people would like to see made permanent, and those they want to see go away. All fair comment. Remember we have set a goal for 10% of road space reallocation by 2030, so this important first step will help us on that path.

Update on Litter Receptacles Within Public Streetscapes, Parks and Open Spaces
This is the update requested on how the City’s street waste receptacle program is progressing since staff made some changes last year. Staff have removed some public waste bins and placed more in other areas and have been tracking impacts on the amount of waste generated and surrounding litter. Of course, people changed their regular patterns this summer because of COVID, including more parks and public space use and much more take-out food and resultant trash. Some extra waste receptacles were installed in some problem areas to address this. Alas, with the extra strain on some of our businesses, the outreach around this program came at a bad time.

The experience this summer was a slight increase in littering related to a few COVID-related shifts, and installation of a few more receptacles in strategic locations. We also had staff resources strained in mounting our own COVID response, so keeping ahead of litter and receptacle collection sometimes lagged a bit behind. Staff will continue to monitor and optimize the program, and look forward like the rest of us to a post-COVID world.

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The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

823 – 841 Sixth Street: Proposed Affordable Housing Project – preliminary Report
This is a preliminary report on a proposed multi-family affordable housing project across the street from the new High School. This would provide a significant number of truly affordable housing units for in Uptown where there are currently 6 single family houses. There is a lot of good potential here to fill a vital housing need in our community, though we are already hearing some push back from the community.

This is a very preliminary report, and more work needs to be done. Importantly, it would require an investment from the City’s Affordable Housing Reserve Fund of up to $2.4 Million, and we simply don’t have that much money in the reserve fund, so we would need to have a conversation about where that money comes from. Yes, this is downloading of some housing costs to local government from the provincial government so the province can bravely “hold the line” on taxes while putting the burden on less sustainable Property Taxes so your neighbours can have rooves over their head, but it is work someone has to do.

The timelines here are based on BC Housing timelines, and are aggressive, every change we propose along the way makes the project less viable, but we will see where it goes. On the project itself, this is a Preliminary report that will likely go to Public Hearing, so I won’t talk too much about it in this preliminary form, but we moved to let it advance to next steps, and to have staff report back to us on the implications for the Housing Reserve Fund if we agree to contribute.

Petition regarding Zoning Changes to Glenbrooke North
I took a bit of an unusual stand here and voted against even receiving this piece of correspondence. Simply put, it is full of misinforming and misinformed statements and makes baseless accusations about the motives of staff and Council when reviewing an affordable housing project in the City, and is below the standard of what should be considered useful input to the municipal governance process.

It also framed a petition that was circulated in a neighbourhood where almost 40% of households are renters (according to the 2016 census), and is on the topic of a rental development project, yet it is clearly stated that only the opinions of land owners are valid to represent the concerns of the residents of a neighbourhood. I cannot allow that to go unnoted. Considering the baseless accusations and outright falsehoods in the letter attached, I have very little faith that the petition itself was offered to the residents – oh, sorry, landowners – in a truthful and genuine way.

I want to encourage people to correspond with Council, and I appreciate grassroots activism – I did quite a bit of it myself before being elected. I have no problem receiving correspondence with political rhetoric or policy positions I don’t support for political or other reasons. Bu when a document fails to meet a basic standard of honesty and respect for your neighbours, I cannot receive in good faith.

New Westminster Police Department letter dated November 26, 2020 and report regarding Response to the Calls for Justice – Listening and Learning through Respect and Understanding
This report from the NWPD was a response to the motion put forward by Councillor Nakagawa and myself last year asking the NWPD to respond to the Calls for Action arising from the MMIWG Report that were relevant to policing. We referred this correspondence to a future Council meeting as it needs a more thorough review than we were able to provide this meeting. We have work to do as a City, and as a Police Board.

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We adopted the following Bylaws:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (34 South Dyke Road) No. 8087, 2019
This zoning amendment that you may not remember because no-one even showed up when it came to Public Hearing almost 16 months ago, but will nonetheless see 16 townhouses built on a vacant lot on South Dike Road, including a swap of some lands to make a better dike and waterfront park in that area, was finally adopted by Council.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement Bylaw (709 Cumberland Street) Bylaw No. 8233, 2020
This HRA that will see a replica heritage house to replace one lost, and another heritage house moved to a subdivided lot by the Canada Games Pool was adopted by Council.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement (631 Second Street) Bylaw No.8239, 2020 and Heritage Designation (631 Second Street) Bylaw No. 8240, 2020
This HRA that will see a “character house” in Glenbrook North permanently preserved and a second infill house build on the lot was adopted by Council.

Sign Amendment Bylaw 8182, 2020
This Bylaw that puts some further restrictions on Election signs in the City was adopted by Council.

DCC Reserve Funds Expenditure Bylaw No. 8244, 2020
This Bylaw that allows us to take the money we collected from developers and spend it on utility upgrades as per the DCC Bylaw was adopted by council.

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Finally, we had one piece of New Business

Increases to Disability Assistance and Income Assistance
Councillor Nakagawa brought the following motion:

BE IT RESOLVED THAT The City of New Westminster write to the Provincial Minister of Finance, the Premier, the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, the MLA for New Westminster, and the MLA for Richmond-Queensborough advocating that the government reinstate the $300 monthly top-up for people receiving disability assistance and permanently raise the rates of income assistance and disability assistance to a livable rate that is above the market basket measure.

Council was unanimous in calling for this measure. It don’t understand why this area was chosen for government penny-pinching at this time, but the recent loss of the $300 top-up really hurts people living in our community at a time they can least adapt. It’s never a good time to cut support to the lowest income people in our society, this is the worst time.

And with that, we broke for the holidays. Have a safe Holiday, help somebody in need, and think of the positive recovery ahead. Peace.

Monday’s Council meeting was limited to three Public Hearing topics. We also had a workshop during the day where we made some decisions about the 2021 budget that threaten to overshadow the Public Hearing in their newsworthiness, but I’m going to stick to the Public Hearings in this report, and follow up on the budget later (as the it was a workshop, the “real” decisions will be made next Council meeting). We had three development projects up for Public Hearing:

Heritage Revitalization Agreement (835 Royal Avenue) Bylaw No. 8237, 2020 and Heritage Designation (835 Royal Avenue) Bylaw No. 8238, 2020
The owner of a very old house on a fairly large lot on the hill on Royal Avenue wants to preserve said house with an addition and build three townhouses on the back of the lot. Before the hearing, LUPC approved on consent, the Community Heritage Commission would prefer both houses on the site preserved but approved the plan, and a few neighbours had familiar traffic-related complaints in the limited public consultation. We had a single piece of correspondence from the neighbourhood (in support) and only the proponent came to speak to the Public Hearing.

I reluctantly supported this HRA. At the current time, the density we see here (6 residential units, 5 strata ownership and one rental) is probably appropriate, so I do not want to vote against adding this kind of housing choice right now. But I also note that this location is 5 minutes’ walk from the centre of a Regional City Centre highlighted in the Regional Growth Strategy – this is a place where the regional plan tells us in the decades ahead we will need to bring more density if we are going to achieve our regional sustainability and transit-oriented-development goals.

When people complain about towers right next to single family homes, they are usually complaining about the tower, but I think it requires us to be equally skeptical if  the market calls for a tower and we have single family houses. On a site like this, 400m from a SkyTrain station and the centre of a bustling commercial area, across the street from a school, I would rather see more moderate density. If the apocryphal four-floors-and-the-corner-store had come to me as an application for this site, I likely would have voted to approve it.

Instead, we were asked to protect *forever* a single family home build form a 5 minute walk from our busiest commercial centre, because the house met some narrow sense of aesthetic good – it is a preserved example of somebody’s tastes 100 years ago. Single Family homes are going to exist in our city for a very very long time, nothing wrong with that (I live in a single family home myself), but to permanently preserve one this close to a regional centre rubs me the wrong way in 2020.

The problem I’m going on about here is not caused by the proponent, it is the City’s HRA and development policies that push owners down this path. If I were to vote against this HRA and convince Council to support me, it would likely mean this addition of housing flexibility would go away, and there is no guarantee anyone would come with a plan that fits my notions of where we should be going here any time soon. At this point, the greater good to me is the housing choice this development provides, so I talked myself out of voting against it. Maybe I overthink things.

Council voted unanimously in the follow-up meeting to support this plan and give these Bylaws Third reading.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement (631 Second Street) Bylaw No. 8239, 2020 and Heritage Designation (631 Second Street) Bylaw No. 8240, 2020
The owner of a modest house in the Glenbrook North neighbourhood wants to preserve the house permanently through an HRA and build a second house on the subdivided side yard. As this is a corner lot, this will make for two compact lots with frontages that are pretty much consistent with the existing block, though both buildings exceed the allowable FSR.

We had several written submissions on this site, mostly neighbours in favour of the housing diversity, a few opposed for mostly over-densification arguments. We had the Proponent speak in favour and three neighbours speak in opposition.

Again, the HRA process is a bit funny here, as the original house has limited heritage value, even as admitted by the Community Heritage Commission, but is identified as a “character house”, which sounds like some pretty special pleading towards status quo to me. This process has exposed to me again that “heritage” is still sometimes used as a hammer to preserve some very personalized ideals of status quo as opposed to protecting limited and valuable assets. We really need a refreshed conversation about our goals around HRAs, but like the previous application, this is not the place to make that stand.

So the HRA part of this is neither here nor there for me. Compact lots that fit into the neighbourhood, located on a greenway, less than 5 minutes’ walk to a non-transit-oriented commercial area and a short walk to two schools, that provide some housing diversity in our established SFD neighbourhoods, should be encouraged, not discouraged by requiring special pleading about Heritage to get to Council. The current zoning entitlement for the land is for three residential units (A house, a secondary suite and a carriage house). This expands that to four (two houses with secondary suites). Any way you cut it, +1 is about a gentle a density increase as possible.

Council voted unanimously in the follow-up meeting to support this application and give these Bylaws third reading.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (100 Braid Street Text Amendment) No. 8245, 2020
The owners of 100 Braid Street have an approved development plan for 233-odd market condos in a 21 storey building at 100 Braid Street. They are requesting to change that to 423 units of rental housing, including sufficient 2- and 3-bedroom units to meet the City’s Family Friendly housing policy. This would require about a 50% increase in density (measured by FSR) and make the building about 390 feet tall. They would also apply to CMHC for partial funding to support 96 less-than-market units, which would be secured at less than market rates (though not far enough to meet the City’s definition of “affordable housing”) for 16 years. If the CMHC funding is not granted, Wesgroup will revert to the 21-storey 233-unit condo plan. Or, in theory, they could come back to Council with another plan to be assessed at that time. The proposal meets the City’s OCP land use designation, but requires a change in the zoning through this text amendment. It would require a slight relaxation from parking minimums, but one consistent with the parking need demonstrated by other rental buildings adjacent to transit centers. The inclusion of a community art space of just over 4,000 square feet is included in the application, and has not changed.

To be clear, the building is already approved, the question before us now is the existing 233 market condo plan or a bigger building with 423 secured market rentals (secured for 60 years), 96 of which would be CMHC below-market rates (secured for 16 years).

We received 22 written submissions on this application: some in favour, but mostly opposed. We also had about a dozen people connect into the Public Hearing and provide us comments, mostly in favour. If I can summarize, some in the neighbourhood felt the building was too large, and had concerns about traffic impacts. Supporters generally spoke to the need for rental in the neighbourhood and the proximity to Braid Skytrain station as being the right place for purpose built rental in our community. I note that one of the delegates at the Publci Hearing was speaking on behalf of LandlordBC. Notable, because the last time I remember that organization sending a representative to New West Council was two years ago when they argued that  if the City went through with its region-leading renter-protection bylaws (which we did go through with), then no-one would propose building Purpose Built Rental in New Westminster again. So, there’s that.

I voted in support of this change. I think discussion of “neighborhood character” here needs to be put in context of the Skytrain station 200 metres away – a station that has been there for almost 20 years now, with growth being essentially frozen around the station for those 20 years. This is going to change with the master-planned neighbourhood in development across the street, which will likely see a dozen towers and more than 4 Million square feet of residential and commercial space. 423 secured market rental suites across the street from a SkyTrain Station is completely consistent with our community plan, with the Regional Growth Strategy, and with the needs of not just renters and potential renters in our community, but the needs of employers and businesses in our community.

Council voted unanimously to support the zoning amendments.

We had Council on November 30th, and I have to say we are really getting used to this zoom meeting thing. Hardly an “uh…you are on mute” at all. We had a pretty lengthy agenda, starting with a waived Public Hearing:

Business License Amendment Bylaw (Amusement Centre) No. 8229, 2020
The owner of the Arcade in Sapperton has been trying to shift to a business model that the City has not allowed before, and one the Province’s liquor laws have tried to prevent. From the City side, that has to do with 1990s (public nuisance? moral panic?) issues about arcades that got baked into our zoning and business bylaws. This includes it not being in a Mall (where, I guess Paul Bart was going to prevent the youts causing trouble?), it being a larger footprint than currently allowed, not having controls on content (in the 1990s, most pornography was distributed by stores in similar business districts as arcades), and hours of operation (late night Arcades kept the youts from their assigned homework tasks). On the liquor side, it is generally not ok to have liquor, youth, and amusements in the same place. Any of the two, but not all three. Add to this a desire to have kids in a place where you can sell beer past midnight, and the Liquor Branch doesn’t know what to do.

So after a couple of years operating without a Liquor License on a Temporary Use Permit, all of the ducks have been lined up, and Amendment Bylaws have been drafted for our Zoning Bylaw, Permit Fees Bylaw, and Business License Bylaw. This would normally require an Opportunity to be Heard, but due to the length of the application process, the extensive public consultation the owner has gone through and the predominantly positive feedback from those consultations, Council has agreed to waive the need for this Council appearance. We moved to approve the Bylaw amendment.

Engineering and Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaw Report
We discussed Utility Rates in a Workshop a couple of weeks ago and I wrote about it here. This is the Bylaw that sets the rate changes for 2021. I look forward to discussions in the 2021 about the sustainability of our reserves and our current reserve-replenishing strategy, but in the short term full agree with the need to assure financial solvency of these utilities and that these rate increases are important to meet that goal.

For a “typical” single family house, this means $42 more a year for water, $60 more for sewer service and $30 more for solid waste, a total of about $11 a month more for your City utilities. Add to this about $42 more a year or $3.50 a month for electricity (based on typical household use).

Having already approved utility rate changes in principle, the debate before us here was whether to continue waiving the 1% Climate Action Levy increase as we did in response to the uncertainty of the COVID situation early last year. This, in effect, reduced everyone’s electricity rates by 1%, or about $15/year on average. There is a bit of history here, but the Climate Levy was introduced to offset the removal of the “Rate Rider” from our rates to match a similar move by BC Hydro in 2019. The idea behind the levy was to create a stable fund source to support various energy and emissions reduction projects in the community – the work we need to do to get to our stated Climate Action goals.

I very much support this fund, and think it is prudent for the City to go back to funding the levy as originally intended. There will always be a reason to wait one more year before we take these kinds of actions. There always has been a reason to wait one more year, and that’s how we got to where we are today where a problem we have known about for decades is a sudden emergency. The levy was a good idea before COVID, it is still a good idea, and it will pay for things that save the residents and businesses of New Westminster money in the long term. The cost of us not doing this is going to cost the average New Westminster electricity customer much more than the $15 this levy will cost.

It was a split vote, but I voted with the majority to move us back to the full levy in 2021.

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The following items were Moved on Consent:

Budget 2021 Public Engagement Summary Report
The City led a Public Engagement exercise around budget issues, as we discussed in a recent Budget Workshop. Here we officially receive this into the Council record. Having more than 1,000 people engage in something like this is pretty good for New Westminster, but we do need to recognize this is not a scientific survey – people who choose to engage in this type of survey are by nature self-selecting. The cross-reference with demographic data is always interesting. Property owners were (as is typical) overrepresented compared to renters, youth were underrepresented, as were immigrants and visible minorities. Still, a good overview of how the voting base sees the City’s budget priorities.

Child Care Grant Update for 232 Lawrence Street and Next Steps
There is a piece of City land on 232 Lawrence Street that we were hoping to make available for a Childcare facility, as we have limited City land ownership in Queensborough, and it is the part of the City most lacking in childcare facilities. In applying for grants and doing some work assessing the land, we ran up against what is probably a typical reason why there is so little licensed childcare in Q’Boro: the difficulty of building an appropriate space with existing flood plain restrictions and geotechnical costs for that part of Lulu Island. Simply put, the cost per childcare spot is too high to meet Provincial criteria for support, mostly because the Province has shifted goalposts that make the Q’boro project no longer eligible.

I see where the Province is coming from, why spend $70,000 per space when others can be built for $40,000 per spot. But this builds in regional inequity – people in Q’Boro are just as deserving of local childcare (and have more dire need for it) as those who live on cheaper-to-develop lands on New Westminster’s mainland.

Meanwhile, staff are looking for other opportunities in Q’Boro. It seems that the owners of Queensborough Landing are not interested in leasing any of their many empty storefronts for this use, and there are limited other spaces available. We will continue to work with the School District as they have expansion plans for Queen Elizabeth School that may be able to accommodate Childcare expansion as well. Work to do.

COVID-19 Pandemic Response – Update and Progress from the Five Task Forces
This is our regular update from the internal Pandemic Response task forces in City Hall. Not much in here, actually, as things are pretty much on a new-business-as-usual status.

Grimston Park Amendment Bylaw No. 8219, 2020 – Results of Alternative Approval Process
Not surprisingly, the completely asinine “Alternative Approval Process” for disposal of a small part of City lands where MOTI has already built a piece of infrastructure had zero responses. What a waste of staff time and City resources, but at least the Record got some advertising revenue. So, supporting local media for the win, I guess. The land can now be transferred to the Province.

Acting Mayor Appointments for January to December 2021
We all take turns being Acting Mayor. That means during that month we do mayor things if the mayor is not around. That may mean chairing a meeting, or signing important paperwork, or cutting a ribbon. I sued to be March and August (I don’t have kids, so rarely take vacations in those months), but it looks like we are going to try two-month appointments for a change, so I will be February and March.

I note than every other Councillor gets 61 days as Acting Mayor, while Councillor Trentadue gets 62, and I only get 59. A travesty.

Reorganization of Task Forces and Appointment of Chairs and Council members to Task Forces and Advisory Committees
On direction from the Mayor, with agreement of Council, we are making some adjustments of Task Forces and Advisory Committees. There are small changes, but mostly a continuation of the existing work areas.

1135 Tanaka Court: Rezoning for Cannabis Infused Product Manufacturing Facility – Preliminary Report
The owners of this empty big-box commercial space in Queensborough would like to use it to manufacture food products infused with cannabis for the burgeoning market for this stuff. Aside from one of the ingredients of the foodstuffs being cannabis, the use is pretty much consistent with the current zoning, but a few changes are needed to comply with federal cannabis production regulations. This is a preliminary report, and it may go to Public Hearing, so I’ll hold further comments until then.

6 – 320 Stewardson Way (Pacific Breeze Winery): Application for Manufacturers Lounge
The little “garage winery” just off Stewardson Way wants to open a lounge area with 20 seats. They have been manufacturing on site for several years, and have offered tasters on site, but now want people to be able to enjoy their products like they do on nearby Steel & Oak Brewery. They are applying from the Province for an appropriate license, and require endorsement from the City. Done.

618 Carnarvon Street (Urban One Project): Request for Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption
A high-rise construction project downtown included in its plan the encapsulation of a stretch of the SkyTrain line just west of 6th Street. Construction of this requires installing forms so concrete can be poured, and for seemingly obvious reasons, some of this work cannot occur while the SkyTrain is running. This is a big job, and will take a couple of months. The builders will take some efforts to reduce the impact of this noise as much as possible, but there is no doubt it is going to cause some stress to some residential neighbors.

There are also going to be some disturbances of traffic on Clarkson Street, but Engineering are working with the builders to mitigate the impacts on neighbors.

Agnes Greenway Phase 1 Implementation & Engagement Update
The long-awaited Agnes Greenway is going to start rolling out this winter. It will arrive first with some temporary protection measures (the glue-down flexi-posts instead of concrete) to allow for a bit of a trial and active consult with the changes before we cast it in expensive concrete – which is better installed in the summer anyway. It is also going to involve some re-adjustment of traffic patterns on Agnes and Carnarvon, partly to simplify the conflict zones and make it safer for all users, partly to continue to protect the vast majority of street parking for residents. I think people angry about the changes will blame the bike lanes, not the free street parking. Such is the way with these things. That said, there is going to be a lot of attention paid to loading zones, accessibility, and transit system function through this trial, so don’t be afraid to give us some feedback. We want to get this right.

Revenue Anticipation Borrowing Amendment Bylaw No. 8243, 2020
This is our annual just-in-case borrowing bylaw. As the bulk of our revenue as a City arrives all at once at tax time, we maintain a cash flow with that in mind so we can make our monthly payroll. That said, we are usually pretty tight to break even, so it is possible that we would need to borrow for a short period of time (weeks) in the event an emergency happens at the worst possible time that draws us down. The best way to manage this is through a line-of-credit we can draw on if needed. Council need to give authorization for that line or credit each year. Here we are.

DCC Expenditure Bylaw No. 8244, 2020
The City collects Development Cost Charges to help pay for infrastructure improvements that are required because of increased density in the City. (I talked about DCCs in detail here). In order for us to spend from those DCC funds, we need to pass an expenditure Bylaw. This assures transparency and assures the people who paid DCCs that the money they gave us didn’t get spent on other stuff. In 2020, we spent $16,000 from DCCs on Queensborough drainage projects, $350,000 on Queensborough transportation projects, $250,000 on mainland transportation projects, $180,000 on Queensborough parks and $350,000 on mainland parks (those last two mostly in debt repayments for parks expansions already done).

New Normal Staff Committee: Mandatory Face Masks update and New Health Orders
This is just an update on the Public Health Orders around mandatory mask use in public buildings and businesses, and how it impacts our operations.

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The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

2021 Proposed Capital Budget and Operating Budget – Additional Information
These are some reports to follow up on requests Council had from last week’s budget workshop. These were added in part On Table, so Council will use them to inform our Budget deliberations next week

Amendments to the Sign Bylaw: Amending Bylaw No. 8182, 2020 for Second and Third Reading
The big debate of the night was whether those big 4 x 4 foot election signs were really needed, and were more clutter and hassle than they were worth. There were some suggestions out of the 2018 civic election on how we can adjust the election rules and function for next time around. One of the suggestions from that was suggested improvements to our election sign bylaws. After some discussion, the idea of limiting election signs to the smaller 2×2-foot lawn signs and the banning of larger billboard-sized signs may help with some issues around visual clutter and equity.

We had two rounds of sending requests to comments to all recent local government candidates and provincial and federal riding associations, and they all seem to agree that limiting signs to 3.0 square metres (as the current bylaw is written) has never caused anyone any concerns, limiting them to the lawn-sign-standard of 2×2 feet “runs counter to the principles of free association and free expression enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” In retort, I would suggest all Sign Bylaws act as a legal limitation on free expression, and yet every City has a sign Bylaw. The Charter gives governments the right to limit expression in a reasonable way. The Province gives Local Governments the right to regulate signs in the City. I find the charter argument to be spurious. I would also argue that one would have to be *very selective* in their reading of the election sign laws in adjacent municipalities to assert that these changes “are considerably more restrictive than those in neighbouring municipalities”.

We had a pretty good debate, and Council was split about this, both arguing their side was the one that afforded most equity. I was on the side of thinking that the large signs, by their nature, require infrastructure and resources that are difficult for smaller independent candidates to muster, and they tip the balance towards larger more sophisticated campaigns (and, by nature, incumbents). I noted 100% of the feedback we got opposing the change was from established and well-funded political organizations, and all thought that restricting the size of signs represented an unfair harm to small independent candidates. Not a single independent candidate in any of the last few elections or a third-place or worse party replied to our inquiries, so take from that what you like.

Council voted in a split vote to no longer permit 4×4 signs and limit election signs to the standard 2x2foot lawn variety and to residential property (including rental properties).

Zoning Relaxations to Allow On-Site Patios to Support Business Recovery: Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 8246, 2020 – Bylaw for Two Readings
Back in the Summer of COVID, we relaxed some zoning requirements to make it easier for restaurants and pubs to have outdoor patios. Those provisions were necessarily temporary at the time, and we are now extending to January 2022. Specifically, these are the provisions that reduce by two the amount of off-street parking required for these businesses. We are also waiving the need for a public hearing.

My only question was why we were not doing this permanently. I would much rather pubs and restaurants use parking spaces to serve customers food and add to the street scene than use them to place cars. Every part of that is consistent with our OCP goals and our Climate Action goals – if it a good idea during COVID, it is also a good idea in the port-COVID world. Staff will be coming back to us with a report about making this permanent, as it may have implications about the provincial liquor license process, which is set up for temporary permits, and we need to assure things are aligned.

Uptown Streetscape Vision – Final Report
The City has been working on a visioning process for the streetscape of the major commercial nexus Uptown. This is not about immediately going out to build the changes, it is about creating a coherent design and engineering vision for the area so that when we make changes, they fit the bigger vision. That could be the City going in to improve a pedestrian space, or it could be a developer re-building a block face, we want everything to fit together, and this streetscape plan provides that.

There are some principles baked into here that I strongly endorse. The major elements of Uptown were designed at the time of peak car supremacy, and in some places cars have 4.5 meter-wide driving lanes while pedestrians are asked to share a 1.8m sidewalk with benches, trees, mailboxes, signs and other “furniture”. This balance needs to be shifted, especially if we hope to bring more activity to the space. We also need to re-balance curb space allocation so priority uses (bus stops, accessibility, and business loading zones) take priority and are more optimally located. We also want to support businesses with parklets, patios, and bicycle parking, and we want to assure safe pedestrian movements are prioritized at all crossings.

I love the design for the Belmont and 6th intersection, and think the “raised” crosswalk with special pavement treatment is a real game-changer about how this space is used. I also think the treatment at 6th Street and 7th Ave is a really big step in making 7th Ave a safer route – but the cul-de-sac closure may work better on the east side than the west, but that’s a detail we can work out.

That said, I fundamentally don’t agree with the routing of the east side cycling connection to NWSS, and do not think routing bikes down a narrow back alley is the best option for us as we are creating a raft of visibility and conflict and issues. That are just as present in a residential neighbourhood with wide boulevards as they are in busy commercial areas. I can rant about this at length (and I did in the meeting, you can see in the video), but we need to build better than this in connecting our premier greenway with the new school.

So all this to say, we have more work to do on this critical two-block link, but I don’t want that to take away from all of the good in this plan. So I will endorse the plan today, with the asterisk that the school connection is not the one I think the City should build.

Pumping Up Savings in Heating Pilot Program
The City may partner with the Community Energy Association to pilot a residential Heat Pump program. I recused myself from this discussion as I am the current Chair of the Board of the Community Energy Association. Though the City of New Westminster is a member of the CEA, my position is a volunteer one, and I have pecuniary interest, to avoid the perception of conflict I am happy to step out of this conversation.

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We then ran though the Bylaw readings of the day including the following Bylaws for Adoption:

Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8247, 2020
This Bylaw that annually sets our rates for a variety of fees for service in the City was adopted.

Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaw No. 8248, 2020
As mentioned above, this Bylaw that sets next year’s Electrical Utility rates was adopted.

Revenue Anticipation Borrowing Amendment Bylaw No. 8243, 2020
As mentioned above, this Bylaw that empowers staff to draw up to $3M on a line of credit to get us through an unanticipated cash crunch was adopted

Grimston Park Amendment Bylaw No. 8219, 2020
As mentioned above, this Bylaw that transfers over to the province a small portion of Grimston Park under the footings of the new pedestrian overpass was adopted.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (909 First Street) Bylaw No. 8188, 2020
As discussed in a Public Hearing back on June 22nd, this zoning amendment that would see a small set of townhouses build in Glenbrooke North was adopted by Council.

Housing Agreement Amendment (616 – 640 Sixth Street) Bylaw
As discussed back on November 9th, this amendment to the housing agreement that shifts the market condo portion of this planned development in Uptown to secured market rental (along with slightly reducing the height of the building) was adopted by Council.

Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaw No. 8226, 2020
This Bylaw that annually sets our rates for a variety of fees for service in the electrical department was adopted.

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Finally we had one piece of New Business:

Review of Firework Policy and Regulation in New Westminster
There was a lot of conversation about fireworks around Halloween this year, and lots of fireworks. Although New West already has pretty restrictive rules (no sales, and use limited to specific hours without a permit), some cities are getting more restrictive on their use, and more people are raising concerns about nuisance, impact on animals, and other issues. At the same time, these is a significant cultural component to fireworks, and if we want to be an inviting, inclusive city, we need to think about how to balance those concerns. So we are asking Staff to report back on us about what other Cities are doing. This should be the start of an interesting conversation.

And that was it for the evening. Next week is already looking like a doozy…