Council this Monday was long, and this week has been full of meetings, events, and surprising challenges, so I am late reporting out on it. We didn’t have a particularly long agenda, though there were a few thorny items that deserved lengthy discussion (see below), but we still ended the meeting before completing the agenda, and time management is again a procedural conversation we are going to have to have at Council.
The meeting started with an Opportunity to be Heard:
Business Regulations and Licensing (Rental Units) Amendment Bylaw No. 8525, 2025
The City has been doing a lot of different things to avoid a repeat of the 2021 Heat Dome disaster, where 28 members of our community died. As we are informed by public health estimates that a heat dome has gone from a once-in-1000-year event to a once-in-a-decade event due to climate change, air conditioning is becoming less of a comfort issue, and more of a health issue. To quote our Medical Health Officer directly: “Cooling related bylaws are a key policy lever municipal governments can use to protect their citizens from heat-related negative health outcomes.” In that vein, we are taking measures to make it easier for people to get air conditioners, and (in this case) make it illegal to forbid air conditioners in rental units unless the landlord can demonstrate they are not viable to the satisfaction of the City’s buildings staff. These bylaw amendments make that the law in New Westminster, with fines for landlords who don’t comply.
Staff are also proposing we provide some increased resources to our Bylaws department, specifically to address rental building support and enforcement and the protection of vulnerable renters. Two bylaw officers focused on tenant support and life safety, and one outreach worker to provide in-reach support to vulnerable tenants. These positions will be considered in context of our 2026 budget.
We received two pieces of correspondence on this, one from a building managers lobby group, and one from a tenants rights organization, I leave it to you to infer which was against regulating building conditions to save lives, and which was for it. No-one came to speak at the Opportunity to be Heard and Council voted to support these measures.
We then moved the following items On Consent:
Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: 1031 Quebec Street, New Westminster – Metro Vancouver Annacis Water Supply Tunnel, Fraser River Crossing
Metro Vancouver has been building a water supply tunnel under the Fraser River, which involved drilling a 2.4km tunnel. As they are wrapping this drilling up, the builders need to remove the Tunnel Boring Machine from the shaft on Auckland Street, which will require some work outside of permitted times over a four-week period. The work will involve running a crane and some generators, not particularly loud work, but a notice exemption is required.
Distributed Antenna System to Improve Cellular Network Coverage within Anvil Centre
The Anvil Centre is built in a way that makes cell phone signals weak inside. Telus already has antennae inside the building to boost their signal, this is an agreement to let Rogers do the same thing. The cell company pays us for the electricity they use plus a small monthly rack space rental fee, as the City needs to charge fair market value for use of public space to private entities.
Update of Section 72 Remedial Action Requirement for 1823 Hamilton Street
A property owner in the West End was served a remedial order by the City a few years ago relating to some renovations of his house/property that did not pass inspection. The City also put a notice on his title about these deficiencies to inform a potential buyer if the owner decided to sell. Though much of the work has been completed now, the owner will not permit inspection to confirm it was done to code, so the remedial action order will be removed, but the notice of lack of inspection will remain on the title.
Zoning Amendment Bylaw and Cannabis Retail Store Licence: 416 East Columbia Street
There is no cannabis retailer in Sapperton, because the one the City approved was not able to maintain a lease, but instead a second operator has tried to set up in the property identified in the process the City went through to choose the first tranche of cannabis retail locations in the City. This is not consistent with the spirit or letter of Council’s intent when we went through an extensive process to approve new cannabis operations. The successful applicant is hoping to open in another nearby Sapperton location, and Council is now moving ahead with removing cannabis retail as a permitted use on the original site. That would take a zoning amendment, so the only step we are taking right now is instructing staff to prepare that zoning amendment for Council approval.
The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:
40 Begbie Street: Good Neighbour Agreement and Issuance of TUP for Health Contact Centre
The Health Contact Centre downtown is a healthcare service that has saved scores of lives and made more than a thousand referrals to treatment and other health care services since it opened in 2021. But there has been a shift in drug use in the community, with smoking becoming the most dominant mode of intake. Though the HCC still provides lifesaving services to those who inject or orally consume drugs, they cannot provide the same support to those who smoke drugs in this location.
The City has been advocating to Fraser Health to include inhalation services, but we have been recently informed that it won’t work on this site for engineering reasons, so the City and Fraser Health are working on an alternative. In the meantime, the current HCC is applying for an 18-month extension of their permitting to facilitate the transition to a new service.
New Westminster has been a strong supporter of harm reduction, along with being a strong supporter of recovery and of increased funding for detox and transition beds here in New Westminster and across the province. Meanwhile, we are investing in direct crises response and non-clinical outreach. Befitting a public health emergency, we are taking every measure to keep our residents alive and assuring they have access to health care they need.
We have received feedback both pro and against this application (by my account, 60% of the correspondence we received was in support), as we do with many zoning application in the City. New Westminster is a compassionate community, and when I talk to residents and businesses downtown, they want the City to do more to help residents that are suffering, not less. Fundamentally, this is health care, and I have to follow the recommendations of the Public Health Officer, the coroner, and the health experts that say closing this HCC now will lead to unnecessary deaths.
Council spent more than an hour working though some details of the Good Neighbour Agreement, and amendments from several different Councillors were deliberated upon until we got to consensus on that language. In the end, the vote to support the TUP was not unanimous, but the majority supported the extension and the HCC will continue to save lives in New Westminster.
2024 Statement of Financial Information
Accompanying the Annual Report, here is our SOFI report, as audited by KPMG and required by Provincial regulation. This outlines our financial position at the end of 2024, and it is pretty solid.
Overall, the City is about $140 Million in the black, and our accumulated surplus (including the value of our assets after depreciation) is up 5% over last year, and just over $1 Billion. Our surplus last year was just under $50 Million, which is higher than the $38 Million budgeted. This is a result of a combination if higher than expected revenue, and lower than expected expanses. When you take assets and depreciation out of the math, our net financial assets went up about $27 Million. This is called a “surplus”, but remember this is the money that we use to pay for our capital plan for upcoming years. One big part of this is that we made more money than expected on our investments (~$18 Million) than we spent servicing out debt (~$8 Million).
We are still working on assuring we have sufficient reserves relative to the value of our assets, but overall the City’s financial picture is strong.
Massey Victory Heights Street Lighting Replacement Project Update
The engineering team have been working on replacing the lights in Massey Victory Heights for some time. For those who read my Newsletter, I described a bit of the history recently, but in short the existing light poles and wiring are from the 1950s, and well past their functional lifespan. Despite them not meeting modern standards for the primary job – lighting the street and sidewalk – and presenting challenges with uplight, backlight, and glare (“BUG”), they still have some aesthetic appeal to some folks in the neighbourhood.
Engineering were working on a replacement strategy, as even replacing the non-conduit underground wiring will be a technically challenging project, and the poles and bases are failing structurally – and it important to realize that there is a significant safety issue here. However after informing the neighbourhood about the first phases of this work, some in the community reacted that they value the aesthetic appeal of the existing light structures, though they had not been identified in the City’s heritage inventory (and had been significantly modified since their 1950s installation).
We did have the option to pause the safety repairs here while we talked more ot the community about the existing lights, but the report makes clear that the lights need to be replaced, there is no outcome here that has the existing lights preserved where they are and continuing to operate in the long term. They are simply end of life and becoming a safety concern. At the same time, pausing the first phases of this work will cost the taxpayers a lot of money for questionable gains. There is no heritage assessment that is going to tell us that the existing lights will become safe.
I have met with folks from MVH, and have heard their concerns, but I also talked with some people who were surprised to hear that the light upgrades might be delayed after all these years. I also went up there both in the day and in the evening to see how the lights along, for example, Churchill work as opposed to Jackson crescent and the area below Richmond where davit-style lights already exist. And it is easy to see the concern that Engineering has, and why this project is important for community safety.
So I moved a motion that might Community Services staff be directed to conduct the research and community consultation required to complete a heritage assessment of the street light standards in the Massey Victory Heights area and share the findings with council and the community. And in the meantime, Engineering Services staff proceed with scheduled Phases 1 and 2 while working with the heritage assessment and the community to protect and preserve the existing light poles as decorative elements where possible, in a way that celebrates the neighbourhood’s unique history. Council voted to support this.
Rezoning and Special Development Permit Applications: 611 Agnes Street – Preliminary Report
The owner of this office building on 6th and Agnes would like to replace it with a new building with 299 purpose built rental homes in a 37 storey tower with two levels of office and retail at grade, along with a childcare. That is a lot of density on the site (11+ FSR), exceeding by quite a bit that expected in the Transit Oriented Development Area. 300 rental homes near SkyTrain is a good thing, and consistent with many City needs, including the need for new secured rental in our Housing Needs Report. The ability to build new rental with zero displacement of current renters is a definite positive of this proposal.
The project has evolved quite a bit since first pitched to the City in 2018 (!), but essentially found this form just before COVID caused the proponent to put the project on pause in 2020. The developer is now concerned that the provision of two floors of office space totaling 32,000 square feet might make the project unviable. The current building has 55,000 sqft of office. So the question in front of Council at this early stage is whether we want to hold firm on 32K sqft of office, or whether we are willing to see flexibility in that part of the project.
The provision of office space here was established back before the Pandemic, and there is a good question if the current estimates of office need have kept track with the changes in how office space regionally is being developed. According to Colliers, New West has one of the lowest office vacancy rates in the region, well below the regional average.
In the end, Council referred this back to staff to work with the property owner and determine if there is an option to add supportive affordable housing in lieu of office. So expect this to come back to Council sooner than later.
Rezoning Application: 140 Sixth Street (Royal Towers) – Preliminary Report
The owner of the Royal Towers wants to replace it with a new residential development, and have come up with an innovative way to protect the existing affordable housing. They are proposing a two-phase development where they build two buildings on the north side of the property, one purpose built market rental, one affordable non-market rental. They would then offer the current residents of the towers a move to the new affordable housing building at the same rent they pay now (with inflationary increases as permitted by the RTA) before they tear down the Royal Towers to build 850 condo homes in two towers on the Royal Avenue side of the site, along with 65,000sqft of commercial space.
This project would provide a mix of market ownership, rental, and secured affordable homes that meets our housing needs and goals as a City, and avoids displacement of residents while a very much past its lifespan building is demolished.
This is the first Council review of the complete project (though Council saw an earlier draft and unanimously approved the 40-storey tower heights in principle last year), and there needs to be quite a bit of planning review and public consultation before Council can provide third reading to the Zoning Amendment, and as the market is very tight right now, there is a sensitive timeline on this project. This report is really to get Council familiar with the proposal so that planning and consultation work can begin. That said, there is some time pressure to get to third reading to secure the affordable housing commitment from the funder.
We then had this Motion from Council:
Transparency in Business Improvement Area Levy Communication
Submitted by Councillor Minhas
WHEREAS Business Improvement Area (BIA) levies are collected by the City of New Westminster through property taxes on behalf of designated BIA organizations;
WHEREAS many business owners may not be fully aware that a portion of their property taxes is allocated specifically to fund BIA activities, particularly when taxes are paid by landlords rather than tenants;
WHEREAS improved transparency and communication can help strengthen accountability and awareness of how public funds are being used to support local business areas;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of New Westminster develop and implement a process to proactively inform all commercial property owners and business tenants, on an annual basis, of the amount of property taxes allocated to Business Improvement Area levies, including a clear breakdown with their property tax notices or through other direct communication methods.
I do not understand the motive of this motion, or why the mover is suggesting that BIA operations are anything but transparent and accountable. BIAs are strictly regulated under sections 215 and 216 of the Community Charter. All members of the BIA are already “proactively informed” of the levy charged to them on behalf of the BIA. It is line item on their tax bill under the category “City of New Westminster Municipal Taxes” with a line item that reads “Business Improvement Area” with both the rates and calculation of their charges.
Further, the BIA publicly reports their finances to their membership every year in an annual general meeting, which Members of Council are routinely invited to. They also provide reporting to the City when they do levy setting that sets the rates to be charged to their members, and include a public budget for Council’s review. Council should recall the November 4 meeting of last year when this Council unanimously and on consent approved those budgets for the City’s two BIAs.
Council did not support this motion, and speaking only for myself, I fear it sends the wrong message to the community about how this Council supports and values the work of our two Business Improvement Areas. It may even send the impression that they are anything but transparent and accountable to both the public and their members. And I leave it to others to interpret what it means when a Council starts challenging the funding mechanisms for organizations in the City that may coincidentally be outspoken about issues in the City.
We had a few more items on the agenda, but at 11:30 Council decided to adjourn. We had started out (closed) meeting at 1:00 in the afternoon, and after a dinner break, had been at Council for 5 -1/2 hours. Our regular Public Delegation period, where up to 10 people can sign up to talk to Council for up to 5 minutes each, took us 2 ½ hours to get through. With short breaks, we spent about the same amount of time dealing with items on the Agenda, but our Procedures Bylaw requires that we need Council to approve going on past 10:30. We added a half hour at 10:30, then another at 11:00, but the 11:30 vote failed, and we adjourned. All of the remaining items will be added to next agenda on July 7.