September 23rd is one of the most important days in the calendar (Happy Birthday Mom!), but for New Westminster Council it was another day at the office. Not just another day, but a relatively low-key return to Council of Jaimie McEvoy, which is a great thing for us as an organization, and for the community. The Agenda was fairly short, and started with us moving the following item On Consent:
Budget 2025: Fees and Rates Review, Amendment Bylaws
We received memos last meeting on the annual fee adjustments, and discussed them then. Staff has now taken that work and drafted bylaws to implement the changes. These are those 7 Bylaws. Council gave them all three readings today.
The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:
2024 Capital and Operating Quarterly Performance Report
This is our regular quarterly update on the capital and operational budgets. We are making a relatively small ($0.7M) adjustment to our annual Capital budget to $199.8M, but are not changing the multi-year budget (are just moving anticipated expenditures across years). There are lots of details in these reports about everything from the last phase of work (street front improvements on East 6th Ave) for təməsew̓txʷ starting this fall to where we are in our $4.5Million pavement management plan for the year. Our annual operating budget is trending a bit high in both revenue and expenses, but well within 1% of budget.
Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: New Westminster Interceptor – Columbia Street Sewer Maintenance Project
Camera inspection of sewers generally has to happen at night when sewer levels are low, and we are granting a construction noise Bylaw exemption so this work can happen at night.
Council Strategic Priorities Plan Quarterly Status Update
This is the first term where Council is actively tracking progress on our Strategic Plan on an annual basis. The red-yellow-green stoplight model is a good visual of where progress is being made, and where we are falling short. The overall result is demonstrably that we are getting the work done, though have much more to do. Our major challenges are staffing and workload (which we knew was going to be a challenge from day 1, and managing the work load surprise of the Provincial Housing regulations.
We had a short debate at Council about whether these reports should be annual or semiannual, and council decided the more frequent option was useful.
Interim Density Bonus Policy and Revised Interim Development Review Framework
The introduction of Bill 46 (along with Bills 44 and 47) has thrown a bit of a curveball into how we finance infrastructure related to growth in every municipality in BC. Though the bills are now enacted, the Province has provided cities the ability to use an “interim approach” for pending applications while we get all of our updates done – they don’t want all housing approvals to stop while cities figure out how to make the new regime work. This report provides a proposed “interim approach” for the City to use until last 2025 when a more permanent regime aligned with Bill 46 will be brought in.
Quick recap: Cities used to collect Development Cost Charges and Voluntary Amenity Contributions from development to pay for infrastructure needs required to support population growth, under the philosophy that “growth pays for growth”. The VACs are no longer permitted in the new regulations, though we will still be able to apply Density Bonusing (DB), and have a new tool called Amenity Cost Contributions (ACCs). There is planning, engineering, costing and finance work to do to inform these approaches, so this interim approach will give staff the time they need to get there.
In short, we are going to apply a Density Bonus charge of $50.sq.ft for most development above existing entitlements. For this short period of time until the more permanent financing model is completed, all funds collected by DB will go into a reserve fund earmarked for land acquisition for future City projects (Parks, community amenities, etc.). Developers could also have this charge waived if they provide non-market (“affordable”) housing that meets the standards of our existing Inclusionary Zoning policy.
The debate that arose at Council was whether the City should continue to provide DB waivers to Secured Market Rental (or “PBR -Purpose Built Rental”) development. This is a significant part of how the City has managed to encourage Secured Market Rental to get built in the City, as it fundamentally shifts the economics of Secured Market Rental to make it viable even where strata condos may not be. In a split vote, Council decided to change this policy, which will have some repercussions for how the City develops that I simply cannot predict now. More to come.
Metro 2050 Type 3 Amendment Application: City of Surrey (7880 128 Street)
Cities hoping to amend the Regional Growth Strategy can apply to Metro Vancouver to do so, and some of those applications (“Type 3”) amendment. Asking all 20 municipalities in Metro to comment is part of this process. Staff recommended against this application for a variety of reasons, mostly around erosion of viable industrial lands and potential transportation and GHG impacts.
Honestly, I could go either way on this application. Though it meets many Metro needs around integrating commercial space with other uses, and meets several Metro2025 goals, the uses are as in demand as the industrial use it is displacing, and there will be a significant increase in trees and green space, and there is little anticipated impact on the regional water and sewer networks. In general, I am reluctant to oppose local zoning requests unless there is a clear and notable regional impact (like an earlier Surrey Proposal to expand heavy industrial land into greenspace outside the Urban Containment Boundary), and this doesn’t meet that threshold for me.
In the end, Council decided to defer the decision and ask Surrey if they want to provide us a presentation or more detail than exists in the reports received by Council. We will see this again next meeting, presumably.
Report Back on Council Resolution to Develop a City-Wide Public Toilet Strategy
The topic of Public Toilets is never boring. I’ll extract straight from the report here, because I can’t say it any better:
“Access to public toilets is a human rights, dignity and public health issue, and is essential to facilitating independence for seniors and people living with disabilities and underlying health conditions. It is also often the only option for people who are unhoused, who otherwise must use public and private spaces, which negatively impacts overall community health and wellbeing.”
The community needs better access to public toilets, including the ones we already operate and very likely some new ones we need to invest in building. They are not cheap to build or operate (and as we recently learned) are not without community concern. So we are taking a holistic view to how we enhance the service we have, and will ask the community and subject matter experts in gerontology and disabilities, and come back with some recommendations for us to do better in meeting this vital need.
That all said, Public Toilets are a challenge in most of North America, and I have (believe it or not) read a couple of books that delve into why this is. It’s a long complex history rooted in ableism, patriarchy and austerity, and if you are interested, here’s a really great summary with lots of links for a little bathroom reading
We then had a single Bylaw for Adoption:
2025 Permissive Property Tax Exemption Bylaw No. 8474, 2024
There are some properties in New Westminster whose exemption from property taxes is permissive (not statutory), and this bylaw lists the properties proposed to be exempted in 2025. This bylaw was adopted by Council.