(This post is being re-posted in July from a draft version as the original post (which I had split in two because it was so long, but that seems less important now) was lost through some website glitch. Please excuse any formatting errors, lost links or other weirdness, its here for the sake of completeness, and I just don’t have time to reformat everything)
Another long Council meeting as we have a lot of work to get done before the Summer Break, and we had a long agenda. I’m going to break this report up into two parts, and start with second half of the meeting, where Council deliberated on no less than five Motions from Council:
Development of a Public Commemoration Policy and Exploration of a Punch McLean Tribute at Queen’s Park Arena
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT Council direct staff to report back with a draft policy framework for the consideration, approval, installation, and maintenance of statues, monuments, and other commemorative works on City-owned property;
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT Council authorize staff to engage with the Punch McLean Legacy initiative (Punch McLean Foundation) to explore the feasibility, scope, and potential parameters of a commemorative installation at Queen’s Park Arena, including but not limited to design considerations, siting, funding, community consultation, and long-term maintenance implications;
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT staff report back to Council with findings and recommendations arising from this engagement following development of the draft policy frameworkwithin 90 days.
This follows on some community advocacy and recent news regarding Punch McLean’s passing. I really appreciate the way the motion was drafted, as it wisely puts the policy discussion in front of the specific, and I think that this is a policy gap in the City that might be a valuable thing for the community to engage in. We had a marking in this meeting of Elmer Rudolph’ passing, and have seen recently the loss of some other high-profile folks in the community, and we really don’t have any kind of structure to discuss even the simplest memorial. I’m not comfortable with this kind of thing coming down the politics or likes/dislikes of the Council of the day, but should have some way of bringing the community into the discussion. So I definitely support the first first clause on policy development,
On the second section Council was a bit split, but I think that there is a legitimate community-led initiative here, and I appreciate our need to respond to that. I support having staff engage with the community proponents, and that itself may be a useful in helping inform some of the policy work.
Finally, the third clause has a strike-though part (Councillor Fontaine agreed to remove it recognizing that with Mr. McLean’s passing, there is less urgency now), as we generally don’t concentrate this type of public engagement in the summer, and I think we want to give staff some space to engage with the community on this. It occurred me after that the bigger monument strategy might be a good topic for the Community Advisory Assembly, and it will be hard to have a meaningful engagement in the 90 day time period. The next step will have staff report back to us with a framework in the next few meetings as is practice for motions from Council, and give us a practical timeline then.
Local Government Climate Action Funding
Submitted by Councillor Campbell
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT UBCM call on the Province of British Columbia to immediately renew and continue direct to local government climate action funding as a long-term, predictable and noncompetitive program at funding levels no less than current levels.
I’m removing the whereas clauses for brevity here, but in short, the Province has not renewed funding to the Local Government Climate Action Program – a program through which New Westminster received $800K in the last round of funding. This baseline funding for local governments provides important support to climate action across the province in exchange for local governments demonstrating they are doing the work and reporting out there progress transparently. Baseline funding that is effective, accountable and transparent. Who can oppose this?
Indeed, back in 2021 when the Province looked to cancel the previous “CARIP” (Climate Action Revenue Incentive Program) funding model, it was advocacy led by communities like New Westminster to UBCM that shifted their mind, and brought in a better LGCAP model. It seems we need ot take up that fight again, and remind Province that their own independent CleanBC review completed last year recommended they “Continue to support local governments as key partners and contributors to CleanBC’s success… and extend funding for the Local Government Climate Action Program (LGCAP) and continue collaboration”.
So we are taking a resolution to UBCM.
Creating an Indigenous-Led, Cross-Sector Housing Alliance
Submitted by Councillor McEvoy
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the UBCM call on the Province to establish an ‘Indigenous-Led, Cross-Sectoral Housing Alliance’ composed of senior representatives from the health, justice, social services, and housing sectors, with strong and equitable urban, rural and northern Indigenous representation;
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the mandate of this alliance include the development of a provincial framework recognizing safe and adequate housing as essential infrastructure, and to coordinate sector-wide adoption and public endorsement of this position by professional, service, advocacy, academic, and industry associations and their member agencies.
This is another motion for UBCM resolution, and another that resulted directly from community activism. Indigenous people are way overrepresented in the unhoused population province-wide, and right here in New Westminster, while barriers exist for much affordable and supportive housing for indigenous people. Assuring we are building appropriate housing that proactively addresses this is not only the right thing to do, it will save governments money in the long run, but requires an interagency response that would benefit from a roundtable or alliance model within government, and includes key non-governmental partners working in this space. Council unanimously supported taking this call to UBCM.
Calling for a Cumulative Health Impact Assessment of the BC’s LNG industry
Submitted by Councillor Henderson
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT New Westminster supports the call for an independent, cumulative health impact assessment of BC’s LNG industry by sending a letter to the Minister of Health, the Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions, and local First Nations requesting that this assessment be completed before any further expansion of LNG facilities or infrastructure in the Province, and include a resolution to UYBMC to this effect.
We received a considerable amount of correspondence in regards to this motion, and had a series of local residents delegate to Council asking us to join other communities in British Columbia (from Dawson Creek to Squamish) in calling for or this basic assurance that long-term health effects of this rapidly expanding industry are being evaluated and taken in to consideration in the government subsidizing its growth. The stories of unanticipated flaring impacts in Kitimat and unassessed upstream impacts from fracking and leakage deserve at least a response from government as we seem to be institutionally putting all our chips in the LNG pile. I expect this will be fractious debate at UBCM and seen as an attack on a safe industry, bereft of the analysis that a safe industry should have nothing to fear from such an assessment.
Restoring Funding for Road Safety
Submitted by Mayor Johnstone
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that UBCM request that the Province of British Columbia immediately reinstate the BC Active Transportation Infrastructure Grant Program and improve it to provide stable, long-term funding to support local governments in delivering safer streets and reduced climate impacts across the province.
This was another surprise out of the 2026 Budget. Local governments have been calling for years for increases in this important baseline funding program, and in the last few years, it appeared that was the direction the Provincial Government was going. I even provided a keynote at the Active Transportation Summit a couple of years ago in part celebrating the potential of this expansion. Alas, budget 2026 includes a pause of this funding. Or a re-pacing, maybe.
New Westminster has been a successful recipient of these grants to a tune of more than a million dollars in recent years, it provided important baseline funding to the Agnes Greenway and other projects. But when you see the list of projects in municipalities large and small across the province that this program has supported, it demonstrates that Active Transportation investments can be cost-efficient when local governments are empowered to deliver them – the entire Program cost the Province $130 Million over the last 10 years, but delivered more than 400 projects. That means upgraded sidewalks, multi-use paths, bike lanes, and safer active transportation in communities across BC. Compare that to $140 Million being the amount they spend on a single highway overpass project.
The notice of cancellation/pause/re-pacing on the Provinces webpage states this is “due to the independent review of all CleanBC programs,”. However, in reading that review, it clearly states “Develop a sustainable funding model to ensure sustainable funding to support investments in increased active transportation and public transit use., as this funding PALES in comparison to the amount spend on even a single highway overpass project”.
So we are taking this fight to the UBCM again.
There you go, five resolutions, all passed, generally collaboratively. You can draw your own conclusions on what it means when the “back to basics” “lets concentrate on core services” member of Council was the one asking for a statue, not the one addressing climate action funding, affordable housing, public health care, or active transportation.
A few regular readers (Hi Mom!) have sent me notes concerning the irregularity of this website recently, and the simple explanation is there has been some back-of-house challenges with malware that we thought we had solved but keeps coming back. I’m not an IT guy, I am barely a content provider, and I have no staff support or such for this website, so it’s been challenging to find time to fix things, especially when I don’t really know what I’m doing in the WordPress back end of things and don’t have time to learn. Anyway, I now have a person who is professional and able to provide a bit of tech support here, so hopefully things will stabilize. Here is the second half of the last Council meeting, where all the good stuff was!
We had a long agenda on June 8th, I already covered the Motions from Council here. Before that our regular agenda started with an Opportunity to be Heard:
Business Regulations and Licensing (Rental Units) Bylaw No. 6926, 2004, Amendment Bylaw No. 8585, 2026
As part of our ongoing response to the climate disruption that is threatening the safety of residents in the city, we are bringing in province-leading regulations and enforcement powers to assure that rental apartments are safe and we can avoid repeating the disaster that was the 2021 Heat Dome. As we are using our Business Regulations Bylaws as a tool towards this, we are required to provide an opportunity for those affected to make representation to Council regarding the Bylaws prior to their adoption. No-one took the opportunity to make a presentation, and Council moved to adopt the Bylaws.
The good news here? New Westminster is once again leading in protecting vulnerable renters. Following the patterns we saw with our innovative rennovictions bylaws, other cities (currently Victoria and Kamloops) are following us on these cooling bylaws, and with a little luck this will ramp up the pressure on the Province to make legislative changes as it did with rennovictions.
We then had a Presentation:
Public Art Plan
The City has a small Public Art budget, funded mostly from a 1% line item added to capital projects and through property taxes (about $2 per person a year). The Plan that informed how we identified public art opportunities and prioritizes its placement needed an update, so we engaged with the local arts community, local heritage community, and our Economic Development committee, and together developed and drafted an update. It has been a bit of a slow iterative project, delayed somewhat by staffing changes and simple capacity issues dealing with other arts file priorities, but through three years of public engagement and consultation, here we are. Council endorsed the plan.
We then moved the following items On Consent:
2026 Capital and Operating Q1 Performance Report
This is our quarterly update on our operating and capital budgets. The operating side is pretty straight-forward: we are a little bit ahead on revenue projections, and may have a slight (about 0.1%) surplus.
The Capital budget is a bit more complex in that we have to “bring forward” $22.3 Million in budget from last year into this year for projects that have started but have not been fully competed or invoiced yet, and are also seeing a bit of inflation totaling $2.4 Million (less than 1.5% of the overall) on some other projects this year meaning we need to re-allocate some budget from future years to cover the increase we are seeing today. This means re-prioritizing some future projects, which will inform our Capital Budget planning or the next budget.
There is another item below that talks in more detail about one of the biggest changes, and that is increasing our Pavement Management budget for the year to $6.6 Million. Yes, we spend $6.6 Million a year paving roads, which takes me back to 2017 when we started talking about anticipating pavement management costs going up seriously in the decade ahead because of previous underfunding. Here we are!
Erosion and Sediment Control Bylaw No. 7754, 2016, Amendment Bylaw No. 8586, 2026
This is an update/modernization to our policy to manage dirt. Whenever someone digs a hole in the City (to build foundations, fix sewers, pave roads, etc.) there is a risk rain will wash sediment from the hole into the storm sewer. This is bad for the environment (turbidity is bad for fish when washed into the river, and potentially carries other contaminants), adds to treatment cost at the sewer plants (if they end up there), and costs the City quite a bit in sewer maintenance as it gums up our pipes and pumps, while also increasing flood risk. So we have bylaws that require hole-digging comes with a plan for sediment control to reduce those costs for taxpayers.
Excavation and Shoring Policy and Licence Agreement
This is a new Excavation and Shoring policy, because whenever someone digs a hole in the City (for building foundations and sewers and such) there is a risk of slope failure or that part of the wall will cave in. This is managed through a variety of engineering controls, sometimes including anchor rods driven into adjacent property or shotcrete walls that create groundwater barriers to adjacent properties. This means risk to public and private infrastructure on adjacent properties, and potential unanticipated future problems. This Policy outlines the need for licence agreements, indemnity, etc. related to these works. The proposed Licence agreement has been adapted from examples in adjacent communities to reflect the City’s requirements while aligning with industry best practices.
Metro West Inter-Municipal Business Licence (IMBL) – Expanding to include the Township of Langley
The City is a member of the Metro East Inter-Municipal Business Licence program, and the township of Langley wants in. Which we are tacitly agreeing to, though there will need to be an Opportunity to be Heard, as it is a business licenses issue. Watch this space for that conversation coming soon.
Issuance of Temporary Use Permit TUP00040 for 102-128 East Eighth Avenue and 721 Cumberland Street (Sales Centre)
The builder of an approved Townhouse project on Cumberland and Eighth wants to use one of the existing houses as a temporary sales centre, requiring an Temporary Use Permit. We are issuing notice to the community that we will consider this TUP. If you have opinions, let us know!
Letter of Commitment Signing Authority: 800 Queens Avenue (Simcoe Elementary)
We are about to issue all the approvals to the School at Simcoe Park, as the School District and City staff continue to work together on engineering and design details. Some of these details will require a Letter of Commitment from the School District to make clear the requirements needed, and the District has agreed to the terms of the LoC, so we need to authorize City staff to sign the LoC and make it all formal.
Development Variance Permit for 230 Keary Street (Brewery District Building 8): Notice of Consideration of Issuance
There is a bit of detail in here, but Building 8 of the Brewery District (see the overhead walkway discussion below) is nearing completion, and has a mix of residential and commercial use. The request here is to shift the parking allocation to reduce the number of residential parking spaces, while providing more commercial parking spaces. The building still meets the parking minimums that were in effect when it was approved (though there are no longer parking minimums so close to SkyTrain) and re-allocating some parking to commercial seems to make sense next to hospital. So this is notice we will consider a DVP to allow the shift.
Development Variance Permit for 800 Queens Avenue (Simcoe Elementary School): Notice of Consideration of Issuance
As mentioned above, the new elementary school at Simcoe Park is about to start construction, and it will require a Development Variance Permit for building height (6 stories), setbacks (very limited on three sides) and some parking details with their underground parking This is the notice that we will consider this DVP at an upcoming meeting. This is exciting to see, and the result of a lot of intense design and engineering work by the School District team and City staff! If you have questions or concerns, let us know!
Vulnerable Buildings Assessment Pathway Three – City-Funded Stay Cool at Home Pilot Program
Yet another aspect of our response to the increasing heat emergency danger in our community, this part of the plan is to assemble and distribute cooling kits to vulnerable populations. This is remarkably similar to the cooling kit program recently cancelled by Vancouver to much concern from advocates in the community, and ironically, it is was the demonstrated value of this program (and similar programs in Montreal, Seattle and New York) that guided our staff in developing the program.
We will have about 500 kits available, and they will be distributed based on the vulnerable building assessment that staff completed during earlier phases of this work to assure they are getting where they are most needed, and it will be funded through our Climate Action Reserve Fund.
The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:
Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: 330 East Columbia Street (Royal Columbian Hospital Redevelopment Project)
The new Acute Acre tower at RCH is now open, and there will be a “Phase 3” of the RCH project that involves extensive renovations of the existing tower. At the same time Wesgroup is finishing up the new mixed use commercial and residential tower at 230 Keary Street (Tower 8 of the Brewery District), and these two buildings will be connected together by an overhead covered walkway over Keary Street, making a fully accessible entrance from the SkyTrain Station to RCH for the first time. This will require some night work, because the construction involves a common wall with existing operating rooms, and the noise and vibration of construction is not something they want happening during surgery, so we are approving their noise exemption to allow this work.
‘Growing Communities Fund’: Allocating Remaining Funds for New Recreation Amenities Investment
As mentioned in a couple of recent semi-informing Facebook posts by a local political party, the City received $15.8 Million from the Provincial Growing Communities Fund in 2013. As pointedly NOT mentioned in those posts, the majority of this money ($12.35 Million) was allocated for a variety of capital projects in the City, including transit access, sidewalk, crosswalk, and street safety improvements across the City. The allocation agreed to by Council back in 2024 included the remaining $3.5 Million invested in non-specific recreation-related amenities, and a group of New Westminster amateur sports organization provided a “wish list”.
Now that the People Parks and Play plan is completed, Staff are recommending that $2.5 Million be allocated to the upgrade of the Grimston Park lacrosse box to a multi-sport facility, and the remaining distributed among several smaller projects to be delivered in the next 12-18 months.
People, Parks and Play: Resource and Timeline Analysis for Accelerating Four High-Priority Projects
When the Parks and Recreation comprehensive plan came to Council in late March, Council asked that staff initiate work to accelerate the delivery of several of the key recreation investments. This reports back with a timeline and plans to address these requests. We already knew the Moody Park lacrosse boas was being replaced this summer, and the item above sets the timing for the Grimston Park box replacement, there will also be a covered box (likely at Hume Park) in 2027.
Feasibility studies on the bigger projects, the third sheet of ice, and the downtown recreation centre, will be starting soon. I did ask that public engagement on the needs of downtownnot wait unti la site is secured, as we have a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue where the needs may inform the appropriate land, so best to start the community conversation first. Similarly, for the third ice sheet, I asked that we engage with amateur sports organizations (especially Minor Hockey and Minor Lacrosse) to talk to them about opportunities and constraints on location. There are advantages to co-location with existing facilities, but there are also cost and space limitations with our existing two ice locations, and I think the conversations about those compromises needs to include those youth sports organizations. Let’s engage them early, so that they feel included in the process.
West End Utilities and Green Infrastructure Project Budget Funding Reallocation Request
In this report, Staff outline a plan for the next phase of sewer separation and water infrastructure replacement in the West End – a project that is seeing the installation of 8.4 km (!) of new storm sewers, replacement of 3.3 Km (!) of water mains, along with attached storm water detention, traffic management, and other accessory infrastructure that makes sense to install while you have the roads torn up.
The headline buried in here a bit is that the project is months ahead of schedule, and $3 Million under budget!
This means we have to adapt our capital plan, and staff have recommended we move forward with an accelerated paving schedule, moving some of the funds anticipated to be spent in 2027 up to 2026 and re-allocate the budget savings to a more comprehensive paving plan. Instead of restoration paving (essentially, paving where we have dug trenches), it makes more sense to do full curb-to-curb restorations on the roads between 16th and 20th streets.
Lots of pavement restoration in the west end in the months ahead, which might be one more round of disruption, but will provide relief to the residents when it is done.
Zoning Amendment Bylaw and Special Development Permit: 809-811 Carnarvon and 60-70 Eighth Street – Bylaws for First, Second and Third Readings
This is a proposal to active one of the last lots in the section of downtown designated as the “Tower Precinct” in the Downtown Community Plan (a plan that surprisingly dates back to 2010 and Mayor Wayne Wright!). There are two major components here: a 44-storey residential tower with 468 market homes, and new major market Hotel with 145 rooms directly across the street from the New Westminster SkyTrain station. It would also provide 12000 square feet of at-grade commercial space, and a dog park (desperately needed downtown) and public plaza on the Agnes Street side. This along with $7.4 Million in DCCs, streetscape improvements on lower Eighth and Carnarvon, and new traffic circulation patterns around Blackie Street.
We had quite an extensive discussion about this project, but in the end, Council decided to defer the decision until the next meeting, so we’ll talk about it next week.
Zoning Amendment Bylaw and Cannabis Retail Store Licence Relocation: From 540 Ewen Avenue to Unit 260 at 800 Carnarvon Street
One of the current operators of a Cannabis Retail business in New West wants to relocate to a vacant spot at the Shops at New West Station. It is a former restaurant space that seems to have been hard to lease, and the operator’s record in Queensborough has not been problematic.
This has been the second change in our Cannabis Retail policy since it was developed in 2019, after the adjustment of locations in Sapperton. There is certainly a very different landscape for cannabis retail than there was in those early gold rush times of excitement with legalization, and the established players have established histories and abilities to manage the regulatory environment. There is already a Government cannabis store in Queensborough, and the growing and dense downtown only has a single retail outlet well to the east of this one (>700m Manhattan distance), so I am less worried about market saturation than we were in the early days.
We received quite a bit of correspondence on this application, initially quite opposed for a variety of reasons seemingly more related to the illegal drug trade and concerns around crime that do not relate to the experience at the 5 legal cannabis stores in the City, however demonstrating that 7 years after legalization, there is still considerable community concern around cannabis. Overall the balance of correspondence we received included as many notes in support as opposed.
In my mind, Cannabis is a legal, tightly regulated, and non-disruptive retail business in the City, preferable to some others. This location seems appropriate when it comes to distributing the business across the City, this operator has an established history of safe and responsible operation, and it is preferable to an empty retail space. Council voted to support the rezoning.
Finally, we had the following Bylaws for Adoption:
Business Regulations and Licensing (Rental Units) Bylaw No. 6926, 2004, Amendment Bylaw No. 8556
This Bylaw that requires landlords to take measures to maintain safe temperatures in at least one living space in all rental units was adopted by Council.
Official Community Plan Bylaw No.7925, 2017, Amendment Bylaw (Infill Housing Program) No. 8573, 2026
Zoning Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment Bylaw (Infill Housing Program) No. 8578, 2026
Planning & Development Fees and Rates Bylaw No. 7683, 2014, Amendment Bylaw No. 8580, 2026
Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw No. 7318, 2009, Amendment Bylaw No. 8582, 2026
Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw No. 8077, 2019, Amendment Bylaw No. 8583, 2026
These Bylaws that collectively update the OCP and Zoning Bylaw and give us enforcement mechanisms to support the Infill Housing Program were adopted by Council.
Zoning Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment Bylaw No. 8575, 2026
These changes to our zoning Bylaw that enhance active uses of retails street space (as opposed to dentist offices!) was adopted by Council.