Month: June 2022

Council – June 27, 2022.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Its summer time in New West Council, and things get a little more casual in the chambers, but we had a long Agenda and a decent crowd show up to enjoy the air conditioned spaces and to hear the presentation of the Annual Report. I will put off blogging about the report for a later post, because there is a lot of good stuff in there, and we had three Public Hearing items to get to:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 8341, 2022 for 735 Eighth Avenue (Massey Theatre)
The Massey Theatre Society wants to change their license to get more flexibility and less hassle at the times they want to serve alcohol as part of their events schedule. This is not going to change how they operate much, or any aspect of the building, but it will make it easier for them to operate For the Province to give them that license, it must be permitted in the zoning language, which means if the City supports it, we need to add this language to the zoning, which requires a Public hearing. Here we are.

We received 23 written submissions on this request, all on favour. We had no-one come to address the Public Hearing. The MTS has been operating with event licences for years with no problems, so no surprise. Council voted to adopt the bylaw.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement Bylaw No. 8339, 2022, Heritage Designation Bylaw No. 8340, 2022, and Road Closure Bylaw No.8350, 2022 for 108-118 Royal Avenue and 74-82 First Street
This project has taken a couple of years to evolve from a smaller iteration to where it is now. This will see 189 new strata apartments on Royal Ave in the Downtown, the preservation of a heritage house, and a pretty significant upgrade in the surrounding active transportation network. This includes a long-sought moderate-grade connection from Agnes to Royal via Cunningham and adjacent improvements that addresses some “gaps in the map” for active transportation in the downtown and safe routes to QayQayt.

Every project bring different benefits, this is decent density that will fill a need in the market, homes for 189 families, really important transportation connections, preservation of a couple of historic homes, and though there is maybe more parking than we might need in 2022, they will be 100% pre-wired for EV charging..

We had two written submissions and 6 speakers. Most speakers were in favor, but there was a discussion about the loss of trees on the site. It is very green right now with a variety of trees and almost completely surrounded by hedges, but the arborist report indicated most trees on site were in poor health due to a variety of issues (ivy infestation, historic pruning issues, root concerns, etc.). As per the City’s Urban Forest Management Strategy and Tree Protection Bylaw, the trees will be replaced on a 2-for-1 basis, with 56 new trees on site and another 64 planted around the neighbourhood to add to the citywide tree canopy.

In the end, Council voted to give the project and the Bylaws Third Reading.

Zoning Amendment (Blackley Street) Bylaw No. 8351, 2022 and Road Closure and Dedication Removal (Queensborough Eastern Neighbourhood Node) Bylaw No. 8347, 2022
This is a part of the larger Eastern Node project in Queensborough, which will (eventually, because it is taking some time) provide mixed use housing and some retail commercial to the border of the Port Royal neighbourhood. The Public Hearing today is only in regards to closing, selling off, and rezoning two undeveloped road portions to permit the re-planning of the neighbourhood to facilitate the Eastern Node concept. We had no written submissions or speakers to this issue at Public Hearing, and voted to approve.

Council then moved the following items On Consent:

2021 Statement of Financial Information
Every year we do the SOFI – this is the simplified but formal part of our financial reporting, along with the reporting out on salaries, benefits, and the Audit Report. Short news: The City collected about $244 Million in revenue and spent about $211 Million, meaning we put about $33 Million into reserves (which is there now to apply to our significant Capital Plan). The City has about $103 Million in investments with the Municipal Finance Authority, about $61 Million in long-term debt, and almost $700 Million in tangible capital assets.

My remuneration as a Councillor (which rises a bit every year with CPI) was just under $54,000, and I had $700 in expenses, which were registrations for on-line conferences like Lower Mainland LGA and UBCM.

Amendments to the Elections Procedures Bylaw No. 7985, 2018
The Bylaw required to set out voting procedures in the October election needs to be adopted by July 5. Staff have made some changes to the Bylaw to allow mail-in voting, and to set the dates for the advance voting opportunities. We approved in principle a few meetings ago, but they were run through external counsel, and a few minor edits in language to improve clarity were recommended. So here we are approving as amended. Get ready to get your vote on!

Approval of Climate Action Reserve Fund Bylaw No. 8321, 2022
The City has a bold plan for Climate Action, with aggressive but attainable targets for 2030. These are more important (in my mind) than the 2050 targets, because the shorter-term ones reflect action we need to do now, and cannot rely on some future hopeful technology. If we want to make 2030 targets, it’s gotta be in our budget and operation plans today. It is the Decade of Climate Action according to my friends at the CEA, which means there is some capital investment we need to make today, recognizing in the longer term it will save us money overall ,and that there is significant funding from senior government and other sources to do this work today.

I often make the point to people who will listen that Climate Action is not as much an environmental concern anymore, it is an economic concern. Getting to 2050 with a climate that supports human prosperity will require re-structuring major parts of our economy, and local governments are where the real action needs to occur. The winners in this transition will be those who go into it with their eyes open, their ducks in a row, and (enter third “getting your shit together” metaphor here).

One way we do this in the City is set up dedicated Reserve Funds, like we have for other priority areas. Council can dedicate a portion of annual surpluses to this fund, or can determine other funding sources, such as selling low carbon fuel credits, money received through the CleanBC Local Government Climate Action Program and other senior government supports. This is a mechanism that gives Council oversight (and transparency to the public) to assure money being invested in Climate Action is going towards Climate Action, because it requires Council resolution to draw from this Reserve Fund.

Development Approval Procedures Amendment Bylaw No. 8342, 2022 and Delegation Amendment Bylaw No. 8344, 2022
One of the ways the City is accelerating the development approval process is by delegating some minor development variances to senior staff. If the variances meet established criteria, set out in the Schedules to the Bylaw, then Staff can approve without writing a council report, waiting for a slot in our Council schedule, and asking us to grant the variance. This is not only more efficient and saves everyone time, it is more transparent to applicants and provides more predictability for them, which saves everyone money.

Komagata Maru Dock water lot lease agreement renewal – Amending Agreement No. NEW326-10551F-002
The Dock where the QtoQ lands on the Queensborough side is on a water lot leased from the Port, with a 5-year renewal term. And it’s been 5 years. So we are renewing.

We then addressed the following items, which were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism (DEIAR) Framework
This has been a big piece of internal work in the City that has perhaps not been as visible outside of City Hall, but has been ongoing for more than a year. A DEIAR Framework is both a strategy and a workplan to assure we have a workplace and a workforce that reflects the diversity and values of the community. The report is worthwhile read to understand how and why the way we serve our community needs to be viewed through a lens of equity and justice – from the way we recruit new staff to the way we support employees of the City to the way we engage the public and deliver programs. There is a bit implementation piece to come here, but at this point we are just receiving the report for information. More to come!

eMobility Strategy: Adoption
Another big piece of work over the last year has been doing the strategic groundwork on how the City will adapt to the e-mobility transformation happening. The technology and public expectations are changing fast in this space, and how we adapt to this change will impact our ability to meet our Climate Action goals, as transportation represents about half of our community GHGs.

There are 10 goals and 36 actions in this plan, some we can start right away, some will dip into that Climate Action Reserve Fund we approved today, some are longer-term. There are infrastructure changes proposed, policy changes, and areas for advocacy to senior governments. I could probably write another blog post about this topic (actually there is an Ask Pat in the queue that applies!), so I’ll write more on this under that heading.

Proposed Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts 2022
The Feds want to change federal electoral districts, and it means New Westminster is once again getting diced as the Feds try to balance population growth in urban areas with vast spaces where the population is just not increasing. This time is a little weirder yet, because after losing part of Coquitlam last redistricting, New West looks to be gaining part of Surrey while Queensborough is separated off. The last time the feds did this 10 years ago, I wrote this blog (My god, I’ve been doing this for that long?!) about how My New Westminster includes Queensborough. I still feel that way.

But there is another issue here in how a solid local-serving MP like Peter Julian does his work, and how this proposal hurts that. A big part of the work at a constituency office is connecting residents with supports they need, be they federal, provincial, or local. An MP’s constituency staff needs to know what services are available in the community they serve, and many of those services are municipal-based. Asking an MP to serve three major Municipal areas with varying supports, like Burnaby, New West, and Surrey, strains their networks, making those supports less accessible to people. I note the proposed MP for the new Richmond East riding would also be asked to represent parts of New West, Richmond, and Delta. It is untenable. An MP does not have the budget to provide a constituency office in every community, or the staff to expand their work across three major urban municipal jurisdictions. MPs are also expected to understand issues impacting local municipalities, and attend events in all of them – spreading an MP across three major urban municipalities just makes them less accessible.

So the City being asked for feedback on this proposal, and we are sending it: We want Q’Boro in the New West riding, and we don’t think our MP should be asked to also serve Surrey.

Temporary Working Space Agreement (GVSD590) for 590 Blackberry Drive to seek Council’s authorization to enter into a Temporary Working Space Agreement with Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District and Onni Development (Victoria Hill) Corp. (the “Onni”).
There is a big stinking valve in the ground under the top part of the Glenbrook Ravine. Stinking because it directs where combined sewer flow goes. And stinkin because it needs to be replaced. It is located in a part of the ravine that still technically belongs to Onni as part of the Victoria Hill development but is slated to be turned over to the City as Park. So Metro Vancouver needs to enter into a Working Space Agreement – kind of like a short-term lease – to work on the space that doesn’t belong to them. They hope to do the work during “dry season” next summer.

We don’t know the impacts on the trial at this time, but I suggested this needs to come back to Council with more detail on that. The language in the agreement makes reference to reducing inconvenience, but closing that trail for an extended period during the summer will be much more than that. The Glenbrook Ravine is a vitally important park space in the City, and access needs to be secured for residents of the Victoria Hill, Ginger Drive and Sapperton community. So I am asking that we get clarity on maintaining trail access during these works prior to singing the agreement. Perhaps a little stung by another recent Metro Vancouver sewer project, I am sensitive to getting commitments and understanding in writing here. So we will hear back (hopefully) next meeting.

And we read a bunch of Bylaws, with the following Bylaw for Adoption:

Parks and Recreation Fees Amendment Bylaw No. 8343, 2022
This bylaw to adjust our fees to address annual inflation and keep our costs in line with regional comparators was Adopted by Council.

This rapped out first meeting of the week. Yes, you read that right, we are back at it on Thursday for a special crossover episode of New Westminster Public Hearing!

Ask Pat: Renovation advice?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Darth asks—

If I wanted to add a second floor to my house where there is currently only an attic, what bylaws/restrictions/regulations/etc do I need to know about? Where is that information available?

This is one of those questions you probably shouldn’t ask a City Councillor, as there are better people to ask. Our work is to provide executive oversight of the City as a Corporation, and to set governance policy for the City as a Municipality. We approve changes to the Zoning Bylaw and make sure there is enough money to hire building inspectors, but the operational side of these things are managed by our professional staff. Though we interact with that every day, we are not (by sheer volume of the diverse things a City does) technical experts in every aspect of the City’s operations. But with that caveat, I’ll take a dive, because you asked.

The first thing you want to do is look up whatever info the City has on your house, and you might be surprised how much of it is publicly available on the City’s website. For example, you can go to the Property Information Inquiry page here:…enter your address and get a quick report on your house. It looks a little like this (note some redacted stuff because for some reason, it is de rigueur for folks to redact publicly available information like this to make it look like we are protecting our privacy):

From this you can learn some things, like your zoning designation (in this case, RS-1), your lot size (489 sq m), your floor space (220 sq m) and subsequently, your FSR (0.45). You can also determine whether that basement suite you have is legally registered (in this case it is, but it is not listed as a secondary living unit, meaning it is not being rented out), if that old shed out back is considered a “building” by the City (in this case, there is no secondary building on the site), or if there is specific Heritage Protection on your house (in this case, no).

You can also go to the City’s on-line Interactive Map called CityViews to do much the same by selecting “Run a report” on any property you select:

And you get some more info about the development of the property, including old building or development permits that may apply:

This is all interesting stuff, but how do you apply it? The thing for you to zoom into is your zoning entitlement. In other words, what does the zoning for your property say you are allowed to build as it currently stands, and how does that compare to what you have now? It really doesn’t matter if you are planning to renovate your existing house or build a new one, if you keep your plans within the zoning entitlement, your life is much easier.

In the case of the above house, the zoning is RS-1. To know what that means, you look at the zoning Bylaw which is available here. The RS-1 zoning Bylaw describes what you can do and build, but it is 7 pages long, and a bit complicated to read for someone new to this. For example, it is called Single Detached Residential, but you are typically allowed to have up to three living units on an RS-1 zoned property – A main house with a legal secondary suite and a laneway/carriage house – as long as they meet various size and design criteria.

One big criteria is FSR – the ratio of living space over the size of your lot. In the example above, the house has 220 sq m of living space on a 489 sq m lot, so 220/489 = FSR 0.45.  In RS-1 zones you are allowed an FSR of 0.5. Except you can increase this if you build a more energy efficient building (up to 0.55 for Passive House standard). This is assuming you can do so and meet the other criteria in zoning, like a maximum height (25 feet), minimum yard setbacks (distances between the building and the lot lines) and not exceed the maximum site coverage (35%). These numbers are all different for every zoning type, not all SFD in New West are RS-1.

So if you want to convert an attic to a living space, and if this attic space is not currently counted in your living floor space, turning it into living space may increase your FSR. If you already have 0.5 FSR, this may not be within your zoning entitlement. That is not to say you cannot do it – variances are requested and granted all of the time, and they are based on an assessment of the “reasonableness” of the variance. Yep, that sounds subjective, but it does relate to a bunch of policy the City already has in place, and you really need to sit down with a planner at the front desk at City Hall to find out what your options are. You can even set up an appointment to ask a planner this stuff. Don’t tell them I sent you, and as a tip, don’t say “Councillor Johnstone told me I can…”, because that is not something they want to hear. They don’t work for me, they work for the City, and are guided by policy and bylaws created by Council, not the whims of single council members.

All I’ve talked about up to here is zoning. There is also a bunch of Building Code stuff you may have to deal with, from assuring safe fire egress to assuring your site is prepped for sewer separation if your renovation exceeds a certain value. I can’t even get into that, except to say that the BC Building Code is enforced by the City, but not written by it. If it looks like staff are putting barriers in place to you getting the job done, they are more likely just pointing out the barriers that exist so you don’t trip over them. Neither you, your mortgage holder, your insurance company, or your neighbours wants you to be building something outside of building code.

If I was to give quick advice, it would be to hire a local Architect or Designer to guide you through this if the first chat with City Staff makes it look like your plan is viable. And architect’s job is to translate what you want (more square footage? a third bedroom? a brighter space?) into a set of plans that are compliant with the building code and the City’s zoning bylaws, or to help guide you through the process of seeking variances from either of those if needed or appropriate. They don’t just draw pretty pictures of buildings, they design functional and legally-conforming spaces, work with engineers and contractors to make sure they get built right, and act as liaison to the City to help interpret a pretty complicated set of zoning and building codes. They are worth the money for a project like this, and their advice is way more useful than that of a random City Councilor and his blog.

Council – June 13, 2022

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The Council meeting on June 13th had something a little rare these days – a full Council chamber! We had some folks there to speak to resolutions, a few other delegations, and others just there to watch the excitement of representative democracy in Local Government, and it was nice to see people out and engaged. Our Agenda started with a couple of Reports to Council:

Development Variance Permit No. DVP00699 for 823-841 Sixth Street
As I mentioned last meeting, The Province of BC (whom we afford is not going to fold up shop in the next couple of years) is indemnifying this Affordable Housing project in Uptown so they don’t have to provide financial security for offsite works, saving everyone money and hassle, but requiring a DVP because it changes the language of the existing Development Permit. We received no correspondence after giving notice of the variance, and Council moved to grant the DVP.

Library Board Letter
We had a presentation from the Library Board about mice, stick insects, and libraries, requesting we take a resolution on increased Library funding to UBCM and back it up with correspondence to the Provincial Government. We will not be the only city calling on the Province to do this, and I could get into a long diatribe about the UBCM resolution process and how this is a repeated resolution that seems to go unheard, but maybe I’ll find a less busy time to push those particular buttons. I support the Call, as did Council.

We then moved the following items On Consent:

Bylaw Text Amendment for Secured Market Rental Housing: 616-640 Sixth Street – Bylaw for First and Second Readings
There are 4 things going on here, rescinding two Housing Agreements, amending a zoning, and waiving a Public Hearing, but the short version is that the owner of this property in Uptown is requesting a change in their development plan. As approved, it was a 29 storey building with 237 secured rental units. The request before us now is to boost the number of units to 338, and accommodate the extra density by adding a storey to the podium (without an overall increase in building height) and a 9% increase in tower floorplate. This will also allow a small number of developer-funded below-market rental apartments, and a below-market commercial space.

This being one of the few applications for new housing in the Uptown we have seen in my 8 years on Council (the other being the 6-storey building on Bent Court completed in 2020), and it being so well aligned with OCP goals, staff are recommending we waive the Public Hearing. This building has been through a Public Hearing regarding the DVP issued in 2020 when it went 100% rental, Design Panel supported the change, and the public engagement on this change has resulted in mostly neutral feedback and several supportive pieces of correspondence. My main interest right now is in getting the housing built. Council agreed to waive.

2021 Annual Water Quality Monitoring Report
We get an annual reporting to Council (and the public) on our water sampling program to assure our potable water system is safe, high quality, ad within senior government health standards. We have 15 sampling stations in the City from which 1,215 individual samples were collected and analyzed for bacteria, but also for residual chlorine, turbidity, metals, and other parameters. Despite a couple of recent turbidity events related to Metro line breaks, the water is safe and meets all health standards.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement, Heritage Designation, Road Closure and Land Sale: 108 – 118 Royal Avenue and 74 – 82 First Street – Bylaws for Consideration of Readings
This is an interesting project to build 189 market strata units on Royal Ave, just east of Qayqayt School. It would preserve an historic house on the site, and would provide new active transportation links around the building where currently there are some sub-optimal pedestrian and bike routes. These connections would include us selling some land to the developer where there is currently a seldom-used laneway, and in exchange their dedication of some surrounding land for refreshed Active Transportation routes.

The request here is to support two readings and sending the project to Public Hearing, so I will hold comments on the overall merits of the project until then. However, this is an important location in regards to active transportation between downtown and uptown, and between the surrounding neighbourhood and Qayqayt, so the efforts to make the routes around the proposed housing accessible and safe, and as comfortable as possible, is a huge potential win for the City.

Housing Agreement Bylaw No. 8316, 2022 for 823 – 841 Sixth Street (Affordable Rental Housing) – Bylaw for Three Readings
The City sometimes approve Affordable Housing projects, like this one in Glenbrooke North, and a “Housing Agreement” is the legal agreement between the owner of the property and the City to guarantee it will remain subsidized/affordable housing for the “life of the building”, which in this case is 60 years. The agreement is secured with a Section 219 Covenant, which is a reference to Section 219 of the Land Title Act – securing that this commitment not only legally binds the current owner. But all future owners of the property. As the details of the Housing Agreement have been worked out, and now needs to be read into a Bylaw.

Official Community Plan Amendment Application, Heritage Revitalization Agreement, Heritage Designation Bylaw, and Housing Agreement: 514 Carnarvon Street – Bylaws for Consideration of Readings
This project would see a 30-storey residential tower built downtown adjacent to the Holy Trinity Cathedral. It would mostly be a market strata building, but would also include 14 market rental units. The proponent was not able to secure BC Housing support to include an affordable housing component in the plan. The main amenities offered to the City are a new plaza to connect Church Street (and The Columbia SkyTrain Station) to Carnarvon though the site with a fully accessible (via public elevator) breezeway and some Indigenous-themed and sources Public Art. The significant investment here in the seismic and energy efficiency remediation of the historic Cathedral means there simply isn’t enough money on the table to leverage more community amenity out of this site. Arguably, the provision of 285 homes immediately adjacent to a Skytrain station is in itself an amenity to Transit-Oriented Development.

This is a significant change in land use for the site that will require an OCP amendment, and will go to a Public Hearing, so I will hold my further comments until then. If you have opinions, let us know!

Parks and Recreation 2023 Fees and Charges Bylaw Amendment
Annually we adjust our recreation fees for things like room or ice rentals. We have put off a few increases over the last few years due to COVID, but like everything else inflation is starting to be more noticeable, so fees are being adjusted in line with CPI, on average about 4% across the board. New West still has some of the lowest rental rates in the Lower Mainland, and waives or reduces many fees for youth and not-for-profit organizations.

Q1 2022 Capital Budget Adjustments
The City’s 2022 Capital Budget is $170Million. We are building a *lot* of stuff, from a big new pool and rec centre to a new electrical substation to sewers and water mains throughout the west end, active transportation improvements Uptown and improved greenspaces in Queensborough. In part because of the number of capital items we have going on, and in part because we often have capital projects the stretch beyond a single budget year (we had $56M in carry-over from 2021 as part of that $170M) the Finance Department is now giving us quarterly updates on progress with the plan, and we are going to start doing adjustments on a more frequent basis, as is better budgeting practice. We are also putting more budget room in the contingency for təməsew̓ txʷ and increasing the sewer separation budget, moving our 2022 Capital Budget to $189M.

Rezoning and Housing Agreement: 1321 Cariboo Street – Bylaws for Consideration of Readings
This proposal would see a 5-storey Purpose Built Rental apartment constructed on an abandoned lot on the western edge of the Brow of the Hill. 15 rental units, secured for the life of the building. This project will go to a Public Hearing, so I’ll hold my comments until then.

Road Closure and Disposition Bylaw and Zoning Bylaw Amendment: Surplus Road Allowances Queensborough Eastern Neighbourhood Node – Bylaws for First and Second Readings
The oft-discussed but slow-to-develop Eastern Node in Queensborough would bring mixed use development, and (finally!) some local-serving commercial buildings, to the edge of the Port Royal neighbourhood. The redevelopment will also re-align the road and drainage of the triangle of land where the development occurs, and this means “closing” some City roads. The roads in this case were never really developed, but were pieces of land being held aside with the intent of putting roads on them. So “closing” means changing the lot designation from road allowance to fee simple, and selling them. The City needs to do a Public Hearing to dispose of surplus roads, if you have opinions, c’mon out and let us know.

The following item was Removed from Consent for discussion:

Council Resolution in Support of the City of New Westminster’s Application under the Age-Friendly Communities Grant Program
The BC Government has a new grant program to support “Age-Friendly Communities”, which sounds weird (we don’t have height-friendly or width-friendly grants) but relates to efforts to support older people aging in place and achieving better health outcomes. As the City already has an “Age Friendly Community Strategy”, this grant is designed to fund some of the efforts described in that, and we are paying for some money. The emphasis here is connecting seniors to make the community more resilient in the face of events like last year’s heat emergency.

We then had a grand total of 32 Readings of Bylaws, not including the following Adoptions of Bylaws:

Heritage Designation Bylaw (328 Second Street) No. 8310, 2022
To designate the 1889 house at 328 Second Street as a protected heritage property.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (122 Eighth Avenue) No. 8325, 2022
To enable construction of a duplex at 122 Eighth Avenue.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (817 St. Andrews Street) No. 8323, 2022
To enable construction of a triplex at 817 St. Andrews Street.

…and we closed with this Motion from Council:

Advocacy for Legislation to Protect Biological Diversity and Ecosystem Health, Councillor Nakagawa

BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of New Westminster calls on the Province of British Columbia, in partnership with Indigenous leadership, to develop and communicate in a timely way the process and timelines through which they will develop new legislation to protect and restore biological diversity and ecosystem health, in a manner consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and with the involvement of local governments, civil society groups, Indigenous and western scientific experts, and the concerned public.

We had a presentation from West Coast Environmental Law during Public Delegations to speak in favour of this resolution, and you should watch the video</>A, because they frame this much better than I can.

A year later

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

It’s been 11 months since the Heat Dome descended over the Lower Mainland. Despite the seemingly-endless spring we are having, thoughts are turning back to the ugly heat of last year because of the recent release of the Coroner’s report on heat related deaths from 2021.

I wrote some thoughts about the New West experience of the Heat Dome last summer while the information was still raw, and have not stopped talking about it since. At the Lower Mainland LGA and UBCM, to the media, and to a much-esteemed panel of subject matter experts:And we have been talking about it in the City as we review our Emergency Response programs and work with our First Responders to assure we are more prepared next time. I talked on CKNW this week about the Coroner’s report, and about what Municipalities are doing now.

New Westminster started to make changes right after the scale of the event became evident last year. As we learned our existing Heat Plan was effective for the type of heat events we expected and experienced in the past (a few days of 32 degree heat with significant cooling in the evening), we were like everyone else in being unprepared for 42 degree heat and nights staying in the high 20s. So as early as last July we ramped up the scale of our Heat Response to include 24-hour cooling centers including accommodation for pets and toward more proactive communications. We have also looked at Vancouver’s lead in public misting stations and strategies to make more open spaces more accessible refuges for people across the City.

This was only the beginning, though. The City has been completely re-vamping our Emergency Response Centre operations plan so we are more coordinated in the face of a regional challenge like this. Our goal is to be more nimble and more resilient in the event systemic shortcomings in Ambulance or E-Comm response re-occur. We are also looking at a different communications approach, though we still identify some potential barriers to reaching the most impacted – the elderly, the socially isolated, those with disabilities and people with language or cultural barriers.

The Report by the Death Review Panel is itself a good read (despite some shortcomings, discussed below). The actions coming out of it I lump into three themes (because I’m a lumper), and I in turn am thinking about the Municipal role in each of the themes.

Coordinated Response System. There are two pieces here, the setting up of a more functional and robust response program, and the execution of supports when the event occurs. Fortunately, the Province has rolled out (through the UBCM) a Community Emergency Preparedness Fund with $189 Million to help local governments do this prep work. There is also some active work both locally in our EOC review and in the Province to assure funds for immediate response are available and accounted for. 24hour cooling centers need staff, working in shifts, need to supply cots, food, water, pet supports – it is the management of these resources that requires the EOC function. We also need to fund transportation and outreach work, which again requires both staff and physical resources.

Identify and Support Vulnerable Populations: Again, the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund will help local governments in the  “Identify” stage here with specific funding for Heat Risk Mapping, but the lack of disaggregated data on who was impacted in the last event is harming our ability to identify needs next time around. Especially in New West, the experiences of people with precarious immigration status, of recent immigrants, or people with language and cultural barriers was missed in the Coroner’s report. We don’t know what we don’t know, but at least anecdotally this was a challenge in New West. We have some work to do as a local government in mapping out these communities and finding the community connections that support our response.

Prevention and Mitigation: Building Code changes are a long-term solution to this emergent problem, as is planting trees and expanding green spaces to reduce urban heat island effects – this is work we are doing, though it will take a decade or more for the results to emerge. The need to renovate our oldest, lowest cost, and most vulnerable housing stock is a more medium-term response, and the speed of getting that done is mostly dependent on the money made available to make it happen. We need rapid deployment of a massive amount of senior government funds if we want to save lives in the next event. The Coroner’s Report talks about this, the Provincial government in their response talked directly to this, but we will have to wait to see what the action plan is.

One of the big flaws in the Coroner’s Report is in the Mitigation theme, and between my being on CKNW and me hitting publish on this, I have spent a couple of days talking local government climate action at the CLI, so you know where I am going here. This was a 56 page report about 619 people dying as a direct result of the Climate Emergency, and there is no reference to the need to rapidly address the cause of the Climate Emergency. No reference to plans to accelerate our decarbonizing of the economy, our building stock, our transportation systems, or our industrial incentive programs. This is a stunning gap, and a demonstration of how many parts of government still don’t understand Climate Disruption. MOTI, Ministry of Health, the Coroner, they see climate as that other Ministry’s problem. I don’t know what it is going to take to shake this cognitive dissonance off.

In the end, this report is about government response to a tragedy, and the number 619 is used to indicate severity of the problem, But 619 people is an abstraction, it’s a number, just as 33 people in New Westminster is a number. It’s the job of the Coroner to provide the count, but it isn’t their job to tell the stories of the people who died, or of the thousands of people who were traumatized by their loss. I am glad a few news stories are putting faces and names to the victims, to our neighbours and friends, to the humans and members of our community we lost in this shocking mass death event. And I’m hoping that recognition will shock governments at every level to action, perhaps even eat away at that cognitive dissonance.