Following last post, here is Part 2 of my long report from the Council meeting this week,. the “work we got done” part, starting with the items we approves On Consent:
22nd Street Station Area: Planning and Development Department Work Plan for Implementation of the reGENERATE Vision
The 22nd street Station area continues to be a work in progress. The City recognizes that single family homes adjacent to SkyTrain Stations are not a great way to support the Regional Growth Strategy, or any sustainable development principles of transit-oriented urban growth – not to mention the Provincial TOD legislation under Bill 47. However, the City also recognizes (and have heard clearly from the community) that we have one chance to get this area right, and community needs around infrastructure and amenities need to be addressed with any redevelopment of this area. This “study area” work involves Planning, Parks, Engineering, and other City departments, and is not done yet, though we have done quite a bit of public consultation around it.
The vision that resulted from more than a year of proactive community consultation was endorsed by Council in December of last year (unanimously) and the next steps are to develop design guidelines for new buildings to inform the Development Permit application process and design the eventual public space and streetscape design, This will coincide with high-level planning of a Transit Village around the 22nd Street Station, planning the shorter-term and longer-term vision for the BC Hydro lands that run as a green corridor (albeit, one with power lines over it) through the neighbourhood; and continued advocacy and collaboration with titleholders and stakeholders.
230 Keary Street and Royal Columbian Hospital Bridge Connection
As part of the last building in the Brewery District, the developer agreed to provide an accessible connection between RCH and the SkyTrain station through their property. For a variety of reasons, the best connection is an elevated walkway over Keary Street and the commercial fourth floor of the 203 Keary Street building. They would build this over City land, meaning we need to sell them an airspace parcel – 1350 cubic metres of air over public land. We are legally required to seek fair market value and balance that against the value of the public amenity. The value of a fully accessible connection between Sapperton Skytrain and the Hospital is clearly a valuable public amenity that would cost the City millions to build, so staff recommend we sell the airspace parcel for $1, with the agreement that we get it back if the bridge is removed when it meets end of life many decades in the future.
Construction Noise Bylaw Variance Request: 252 Brunette Avenue
TransLink needs to do some work on the Sapperton Skytrain Station to permit longer trains and improved service that can’t happen when the trains are running, and hoped to do it by now (we previously gave them a construction noise variance) but it has been delayed for a variety of reasons, including scheduling issues with the underlying railways. So we are letting then do construction work outside of construction hours to allow the work to get done.
Development Cost Charges Bylaw No. 8327, 2022, Amendment Bylaw No. 8539, 2025, and Amenity Cost Charges Bylaw No. 8540, 2025
The City is updating its Development Cost Charges Bylaw and creating a new Amenity Cost Charges bylaw to align with Bill 46, the new provincial legislation that changes how Cities can extract money from new development to pay for infrastructure and amenities to support that growth.
Both DCCs and ACCs are strictly regulated by the province, as we are required to identify and cost the projects that the monies collected from these charges are spent on, not just “we are going to buy more pipes” but “we are going to upgrade Pipe X to Y capacity and Z% of that is due to growth”, meaning it is a technical exercise involving Engineering, Finance, and Planning departments. As such, these updates represent work done so far, and we expect there will be another more comprehensive update in early 2027, informed by our imminent OCP updates and the upcoming Parks and Recreation, Solid
Waste, and Utilities Master Plans.
Staff took these proposed Bylaws to both the development community and the general public for feedback. Now we approve!
Provincial Housing Target Order – Year One Progress Report
A year ago, New Westminster received Housing Target Orders. At the time, I told the Minister we would have no problem meeting them, but we would need more support from the Province for infrastructure and amenities – and where the hell are the schools? As we look at our one-year report, I note that 10 more cities were issued orders last week, and Richard Stewart’s response was to steal my bit (I joke! This is a bit we have all been sharing as regional mayors! More voices the better! Though I wish he also had this level of concern about affordable and supportive housing need in his community).
The good news is that we (as predicted) are meeting our ordered Housing Targets. Indeed, in the first year we exceeded our order, which is a good thing because not only are the order targets based on only 75% of the current actual need in the community, the recent downtown in the development industry suggests that completions towards the end of our 5-year Target Order window will not be as easy to come by, so good to get out ahead a bit. In short, we are 170% of our 2025 target, but have just completed about 26% of our 5-year target.
The not-as-good news, we are slightly below our proportional rental target (42% of new units where the target was 52%), but projections are we will get closer to the target with buildings currently under construction. The worse news part is (as I said to the Minister a year ago) we cannot meet our affordable housing targets without significant increases in senior government funding for affordable housing. Though we currently have two non-market rental buildings under construction, and a third about to break ground, none of these show up in the annual report this year.
Rezoning Application: 140 Sixth Street (Royal Towers) – Application Review Process
The owners of the Royal Towers have been working on a redevelopment plan for the site, and are working through a process of staged approval and development in an uncertain housing market. Their current proposal is consistent with the OCP, but would be a substantial rezoning well exceeding the density envisioned for the Tier 2 TOD area (within 400m of SkyTrain). The proposal is to build two 6-storey buildings, one secured non-market (affordable) rental, the other secured market rental, then demolish the existing Royal Towers moving the residents into the new building. This would be followed by a larger phase of building two large strata towers to pay for it all. The project would also include a commercial area, courtyard public gathering area, etc. The report right now is to update Council on their phasing proposal, and to give the basic details before the developer goes to public consultation to get some public feedback.
Section 219 Covenant for Statutory Rights of Way for Metro Vancouver at TACC
Metro Vancouver has a major sewer line that runs in the old Glenbrook Channel in front of təməsew̓txʷ, one of the constraints on how the building was designed to fit 110,000 square feet and two large pool tanks between the old Canada Games Pool and this right of way. We are updating the rights-of-way to address two utility access areas Metro wants to assure they can maintain their sewer line if and when needed.
Temporary Use Permit Extension for Royal Columbian Hospital Phase Two Construction Parking: 97 Braid Street
During the construction of the new RCH tower, the City has granted a Temporary Use Permit to allow construction teams to park next to Braid Skytrain station in recognition of a lack of parking near the hospital, and the project team has been running shuttles from the Braid station to the construction site. They are asking for a one-year extension of the TUP to see this phase of the project through to completion.
We had one item Removed from Consent for discussion:
Updated Terms of Reference for Community Advisory Assembly
The City is recruiting for the second cohort of Community Advisory Committee members, and based on learnings from the pilot project and feedback from the Assembly Steering Committee, have drafted updated and slightly modified Terms of Reference for the Assembly.
And we had one single Bylaw for Adoption:
Housing Agreement Bylaw (1923 & 1927 Marine Way) No. 8507, 2025
This Bylaw that secures 89 affordable rental housing units in a six-storey residential development by 22nd Street station was adopted by Council. Yes, we continue to approve affordable housing.
Go enjoy your Labour Day weekend, and Go Bellies Go.