This is a bit of a late issue – it’s been one of those weeks where I just didn’t have time to write up my notes from Council, so the report is late. Remember, you can always follow the link to the agenda, and watch the video the day after Council if you just can’t wait.
We had a relatively brief agenda, which started with an Opportunity to be Heard :
Business Regulations and Licensing (Rental Units) Bylaw No. 6926, 2004, Amendment Bylaw No. 8536, 2025
This Bylaw is essentially a housekeeping item, as we are moving fees from the two different Bylaws over to a new Bylaw that deals with any fee or charge administered by the new Community Services Department, which requires us to amendments to existing Bylaws to reflect this change. The fees themselves are not changing from what was previously approved by Council, so there are no financial implications here, but our procedures require us to provide the Public an opportunity to comment to Council on any change to the Business Licence Bylaw. No-one provided written comment ,and no-one came to Council to speak to this Bylaw, so it was Adopted by Council.
We then had a Presentation on the evaluation of year one of the Crises Response Pilot Project. I don’t usually report out on presentations here (there was no decision for Council to make), but this one led to some interesting discussion, and I will try to follow up with a bit of a breakdown of that evaluation, as it had good and bad news.
We then moved the following item On Consent:
Issuance of Temporary Use Permit TUP00035 for 8 – 30 Capilano Way
The arcade that operates as a front-door business to an amusement machine repair and maintenance business in the Braid Industrial Area has been operating under a Temporary Use Permit, and they are applying to extend that permit to the maximum time permissible under provincial legislation. The property owner has not applied for a rezoning yet, but will have to before the TUP expires in 2027 if they want to continue supporting this business. In the meantime, the City is going to be updating our industrial lands policy that should provide better clarity for these kind of mixed industrial/experiential uses.
And the following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:
Proposed 2026 Council Meeting Schedule & Response to Referral: Appointment of Acting Mayor
This report was referred from last meeting, and is our annual agreement on Council meeting schedule for next year. This one a bit weird because it is an election year, and the time around October/November instead of being a really busy time at Council will be a slow time to allow for election and transition. We are also going to move the start of our workshop meetings on the off-weeks to a little earlier in the day, as they often go long, and we want to save a bit on staff overtime and respect Council’s evenings in week when we don’t have regular Council.
There was a question raised last meeting about the Acting Mayor rotation and how that may be “de-politicized” for the election year. This is an interesting question, as prior to this term the Acting Mayor position had never been queerly politicized as it is now (such as Parties “congratulating” members of Council for being named to the role when their rotation comes up). However, the rotation practice we follow is similar to what is done in most municipalities, and there is no general practice here or elsewhere around adapting that for the election period.
Response to Council Motion: “Conducting a Review of the City’s Community and Neighbourhood Consultation and Notification Processes”
There was a referral from Council to staff about improvement of our consultation/communications during the implementation of capital projects; this is the response from staff. And we need to be clear here about the potential conflation between communications and consultation. Despite staff’s efforts to be distinct in their use of these terms, Council and the Public are not so disciplined, and that has created (sometimes by design, but that’s another story) confusion and disappointment in the community.
This reporting back is actually on work staff were already doing to address some recent “communication gaps”. Short version of the report: our practices are very similar to other cities, neither worse nor specifically better. There are a few more pro-active things some cities are doing, and we can look at these and do better. However, it will take resources to increase staff doing this work or potentially slow down capital project delivery (to redirect staff from building things to talking about building things).
One of the issues identified by Council and the Public is the time lag between public consultation and delivery of projects. With meaningful public consultation providing input into design, the time required after consultation for design, costing, council approval, and procurement can means that once the shovels start working, the public forgets that consultation took place the previous year, or the year before. Stopping to do more consultation as the work begins means further delay, and often at a time where any changes to design are near impossible, or require yet another costing and procurement exercise. This is why we shift to communication, and limited consultation on construction impacts as opposed to design. When we start digging, people often say they “were not engaged”. This shows a need ot be proactive in our communications during that lag time, which inevitably leads to the complaint that the City is always talking about it, never doing it.
You can see the many paths to frustration here.
Council agreed to implementation of some more proactive measures, and it is expected at least in the short term they can be included in current capital budgets (the ones we approved, well… some of Council approved, in principle last meeting).
Senior Government Costs Download Review Work Plan – Response to the Council Motion
Senior government downloading has been a political talking point since at least Confederation. In recent reading of Barry Mather’s “New Westminster, the Royal City”, it appears it was a common political talking point here in New Westminster before the City was even named.
Back in the early part of this term, staff were asked to report back with this clearly-rhetorical request: “an itemized list of expenditures and senior government revenues the City of New Westminster has incorporated into the Operating and Capital Budgets, which are typically considered outside of municipal jurisdiction and are not part of our ‘core services’”. I call it rhetorical, because the weasel words “typically considered” and “core services” lack clear definition, and belies the faux-precision of an “itemized list”. Staff have spent some time researching this, and have come up with a proposed approach, complicated by the unusual financial implications of the COVID response from 2020-2022, and provided us examples of the two cities that have tried to do something similar. And that’s where the obvious problem arises.
The City of Vancouver approach is seriously flawed. Legalizing of cannabis has costs for local government, but including it as a “download” to local government is a stretch; it is certainly a “core service” wholly within our mandate to regulate and permit retail business. If we follow this logic, every legislative or regulatory change at any level of government impacts the lower governments. Next-Gen 911 might be a Federal mandate, but it is also a vital public service that local governments are required to provide. The Federal government requires us to have an integrated stormwater management program before they will fund our sewer separation programs – is that a download? We can certainly pay for our own sewers, and not do the ISWMP, but that would cost us more. In this case, the mandate is the opposite of a download. One place I might agree with Vancouver (though I’m not sure all on council would) is that our need to spend money addressing a disrupted climate and the emergency response costs when , for example, 30 people in New Westminster die in a heat dome because the Federal Government has steadfastly ignored it’s Paris Agreement commitments and are down dooming us to a PetroState future… is that a download, because almost a third of Vancouver assessed download is exactly this.
In the Kamloops example, they included lost revenue from downtown parking due to COVID restrictions during the height of the pandemic, and the slow transition of back-to-office work – they itemized this as a $1.5Million download. This borders on comical. Aside from this, almost 85% of Kamloops’ estimated download coats were the cost of dike maintenance and upgrades – clearly a “core service”.
These are examples of how the determining what is a “download” is a political determination, there is not technical response staff can provide, and I am uncomfortable sending staff down rhetorical rabbit holes when there is no clear purpose. If a politician wants to make a political point about it, they are free to go through our budget (a public document) and make their own determination, we don’t need expensive and busy finance staff doing this homework for them.
There is no City in Canada that Vancouver could find that defines “core service”. That’s the work of every Council – we determine our strategic priorities for a term, and every Council decision, every budget line item, is a discussion of what we are willing to do for our community, and where we don’t want to do the work. Every Council determines its “core service”. Vancouver’s budget task force made an attempt at doing this exercise, and have nothing useful to show for the work. It has not informed their budgeting or decision making, and I can see no evidence it has pushed senior governments of change how they support local government.
When we advocate to government, we do our math first. We don’t go asking for funding unless we know what it costs, and what our funding strategy if (and what proportion we expect a senior government to fund, and even what funding tool we expect them to use). This is important finance work with a purpose, and I want staff doing that instead. In the end, Council agreed and decided it was not a good use of staff time to chase this rhetorical white rabbit.
We then had one Travel Request:
Strong Cities Network Sixth Global Summit: December 9-11, 2025
The City was invited to take part in this event in Toronto in a couple of weeks, and consistent with our new travel policy, Councillor Nakagawa put forward a request to attend. The cost to the City is minimal as there is a grant provided by Public Safety Canada for a Council representative. Council voted to approve this travel, and the local internet this week provided ample examples of why this work is important.
We finished up with Bylaws for Adoption:
Zoning Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment Bylaw (102-128 East Eighth Avenue and 721 Cumberland Street) No. 8394, 2024
This Bylaw that facilitates the development of 55 new townhouse units across eight buildings in the upper edge of Sapperton not far from təməsew̓txʷ was adopted by Council. Missing middle, here they come!
Development Approval Procedures Bylaw No. 5658, 1987, Amendment Bylaw No. 8512, 2025
This Bylaw that updates how we approve development including new timelines and conditions for applicant submission was adopted by Council.