The Council meeting on Monday started with a Public Hearing (well, two actually), which is less common these days since the Province changed the rules a few years age and prevented cities from holding public hearings for residential rezoning that are compliant with the Official Community Plan. I’ll write a bit of a summary of the Public Hearings and follow up with a Council meeting report in a subsequent post.

Our City, Our Homes: Implementation of the Infill Housing Program
The first Public Hearing addressed the City’s updated response to Bill 44 Small-Scale Multi-Unit Housing (“SSMUH”) regulations from the province, and our Infill Accelerator program sponsored by the federal Housing Accelerator Fund. This requires an OCP update (hence, requiring a Public Hearing) and an amendment to the Zoning Bylaw.

The effect of these changes is to update the Land Designation under the OCP for about 3,000 properties in the City to permit up to a sixplex where there is currently a single family home or duplex, and to change the zoning of about 1,900 of those properties for four-plexes, and the remaining 1,100 for six-plexes. Most of the differentiation between four- and six-unit areas are related to the provincial regulation (six-plexes are required within a certain distance of frequent transit), though a small number (~200) are different that provincial requirements to fit specific technical context such as access to a laneway or unique lot dimensions, and the result of public consultation.

These changes are not simple integration of the provincial regulations, they represent a made-in New West response that addresses our specific context. This means significant technical analysis was done around managing the infrastructure impacts and buildability issues related to our unique geography. We did three rounds of Public Engagement on these changes as they were i9terated over time, in spring and winter 2025 and with a final round in March of this year. We have some infrastructure challenges here, in that most “single family’ neighbourhood are designed to allow up to the three units per lot (a main house, rental suite, and a laneway/carriage house), and increasing to 4- or 6-units means increased in-ground infrastructure needs. Though the City will be gradually upgrading these systems, this will be an economic and practical delay on wide-spread implementation of these changes, as it will put extra onus on boulders to pay for upgrades if needed before the City has done the work.

At the Public Hearing, we received about 9 pieces of correspondence, all opposed in one way or another to increased density in New Westminster, and we had about 25 people come and delegate at the hearing: a few in support, several with concerns, and the majority expressing opposition.

Issues raised were not surprising, but are worth exploring a bit more.

Several folks raised concerns about growth happening faster than schools can plan. However, City’s OCP and the Schools long-term Capital plan are in synch and nothing in this update to the OCP will substantially shift that. The schools are not lacking for planning, they are lacking for investment by the Province in new school sites. Fortunately, this situation is changing as there is a major expansion of Queen Elizabeth happening right now, the District is about to break ground on a new downtown elementary at Simcoe Park, and they are now in business case development for major expansion in the West End that will end an era of portables for the district.

The schools discussion was aligned with a general notion that infrastructure can’t keep up with this growth, and the report clearly outlines (as I mentioned above) how the City plans to deal with this. Simply put, we are upgrading and expanding infrastructure as growth occurs and are expecting much of this cost to be covered by the growth. There was some concern raised about the Burnaby experience, with concerns that these multi-plexes will be built to the four corners of the lot and completely change the streetscape. However, the reports details the guidelines that will be applied, with 50% lot coverage and property line setbacks consistent with current practice to make sure these plexes fit the existing streetscape, though they are likely to be taller than previously seen in single family lots.

The one challenge we don’t have an immediate answer to is the parking challenge – there is no doubt over the long-term these changes will put more pressure on street parking, especially as the province limits our ability to require off-street parking for much of the area, and for all buildings with the TOD areas (see below). This is ongoing work Council has asked staff to work on recognizing that it will be years (likely a decade or more) before multi-plexes arrive in most places at enough concentration to create these challenges. A City-wide review to residential parking and curbside management is a major piece of work the City is beginning now, and will inform our response to this.

In the end, Council approved third readings to these bylaws, and added an advocacy part about reminding the Province that we will need investment in their part in infrastructure to support this shift in our OCP.

Our City, Our Homes: Implementation of Transit Oriented Development Area Extensions and Regional Planning
The second Public Hearing followed on our previous work meeting the letter of the law on the Province’s Bill 47 changes to encourage higher-density use around SkyTrain stations (“Transit Oriented Development” or TOD). Here the City is trying to make the circles fit better into the mostly-square street grid context by squaring off the circles created by the 800m buffer the province drew around SkyTrain stations. We don’t have the legal ability to skim some properties off the periphery where it might not make sense, so in effort to adapt them to the street grid, existing subdivision and neighbourhood patterns, or topography, the circle was slighty expanded in a few places along the edge – meaning about 100 properties just outside 800m are included within the TOD area designation.

At the same time and attached to this, we are updating the OCP for a few regulatory reasons. We are required to draft a new Regional Context Statement that aligns our OCP with the Regional Growth Strategy, and are now required to integrate our Community Energy and Emissions Plan to the OCP, both of these to meet regulated Metro Vancouver requirements.

Much like the item above, we did multiple rounds of public consultation around these changes, and it showed that 70% of people who engaged supported these changes. We received a few pieces of written correspondence, and had about a half dozen delegates raising concerns, though some also expressed support. Council voted to support the Third Reading of these changes.

That ended the Public Hearing, and as mentioned, I’ll write another post about everything else that happened at Council in a follow-up.