Author: Patrick Johnstone

Housing & Bill 46

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I’m writing a series of posts about the recent changes the provincial government has introduced to drive the development of new housing in the region and province. In the first post, I wrote about Bill 44 and multiplexes, and some of the complications of putting 4-plexes on lots across New West. I sort of skipped past the 6-plex part of the story. While 4-plexes will be permitted on all “single family” lots in New West, the bill also suggests 6-plexes will be permitted on all residential lots near Transit stops with Frequent Service.

This may shake out in details, but it looks like “near” will mean within 400m, and I have no reason to believe the Province won’t apply TransLink’s “Frequent Service” designation, as show on this map:

I quickly drew 400m radius circles around Frequent Transit Service stops in New Westminster. By my admittedly preliminary assessment, all of New Westminster covered in blue here will be pre-approved for six-plexes:

Note this is a significant part of the Brow of the Hill, Moody Park, Queens Park, Glenbrook North, and Queensborough.  The unshaded areas will be permitted four-plexes in all residential zones under Bill 44. The gray-shaded areas are Transit Oriented Development areas that we’ll discuss when I get to Bill 47 in the next Blog Post. But first, let’s look at:

Bill 46: Paying for growth!
This Bill recognizes that local governments use the power of zoning to pay for infrastructure required to support that growth. With a de-emphasis on zoning, this raised some significant concern about how we will pay for the infrastructure needs that will only increase as we rapidly build new housing. This Bill both gives local governments more tools to do that, while also taking away some other tools.

The biggest tool local governments have for raising money for growth-supporting infrastructure is the Development Cost Charge, or DCC. This is a very prescriptive tool, and most large and medium-sized cities use it in some form, as do Metro Vancouver. In New Westminster, we use it for sewer, drainage, and water utilities, and for park space expansion. It works like this:

A local government identifies through its OCP the amount of growth the community or a neighbourhood will see in the decades ahead. They then evaluate some utility projects that will be needed to support that growth: bigger water pipes, bigger sewer pipes, pump stations, etc. They then (and this is important) plan and budget those improvements. They then make some determination of what percentage of the cost of that project should be allocated to new growth, and what percentage should be charge to existing users, after all we need to replace infrastructure occasionally even without growth.

So lets assume (and all of these numbers are false for simplicity, used just for example) we expect 10,000 new units in Queensborough in the next 20 years, and to support those we need to spend $20 Million in sewer upgrades. We could assume 50% of this cost should go to existing users, so we need to raise $10 Million in DCCs from those 10,000 units. We then apply a $1,000 DCC to each of those new units, and the developer pays that to the City before they are permitted to build. Meanwhile, sewer utility rates go up in the neighbourhood to collect the other $10 Million from existing users. The City puts that collected money in an earmarked reserve, and can only spend it on that sewer project.

Under the current legislation, Local Government can only collect DCCs for specific uses: mostly water, sewer, drainage, roads, and parks acquisition. Bill 46 adds other infrastructure to the pool of things Local Governments can fund through DCCs, including fire halls, police facilities and solid-waste facilities. This is good if you are of the belief that “Growth should pay for Growth”, though the jury is still out on that assumption.

Another tool local governments use to fund infrastructure and amenities in their community are the slightly-misnamed Voluntary Amenity Charges. As its basic level, this is a cash payment developers make to local governments to sweeten the pot of approving a development. Cities are not allowed to demand these (“voluntary” is right in the name!), but they are allowed to suggest what an appropriate contribution might be, based on the size of the development. Developers could offer it or not, but when Cities ultimately and say “no” t rezoning to any development, it starts to not sound so voluntary. And to many, it sounds pretty shady. So Bill 46 is going to do away with VACs. Whether that is good or bad depends on how the City has used them, I suppose.

The City of New Westminster is pretty transparent when it comes to VACs and base expectations on the type of development and location. The City and Developer also commonly work together to develop pro forma estimates of the value of land lift the City is giving a developer when they grant rezoning for larger density projects. The City expects some amenity for the community to come from that “land lift” value. If we are increasing the value of a developer’s land by Millions of dollars when giving them rezoning, the City wants its pound of flesh. Maybe the developer provides a childcare space for a non-profit, or park trail improvements by their property, or a portion of the development be given to a non-profit for affordable housing. These are the kinds of negotiations that happen typically at Rezoning. The VACs are part of that amenity package that the City uses to assess if the community got its share. The City of New Westminster does not put and cash received as VAC into general revenue, but puts it in pre-established reserve funds to pay for everything from Affordable Housing to Childcare to Public Art.

Bill 46 plans to do away with this, and with so much density increase not relying on rezoning, the lever we have as a local government to demand expect Voluntary Amenity Charges is going away anyway. The Province recognizes this and is bringing in a new tool called Amenity Cost Charges. In short, it looks like ACCs are going to operate more or less like DCCs, but will be applicable for a wider range of purposes, including those that VACs often funded, like community and recreation centres and libraries.

The positive side of this is that the charges will be more predictable and earmarked for specific uses, creating a more transparent process. The downside is that local governments will lose some flexibility in how these funds are used – we can’t load up a VAC reserve and apply it to a library or piece of public art or playground enhancements when we feel like it, but must pre-determine and cost the projects that will be funded. That planning a decade or more ahead on community needs and putting a projects cost on them is actually a LOT of technical work for staff in Planning, in Engineering, in Parks, in the Library, etc.

Ultimately, the increased transparency and predictability comes at the cost of more oversight and work required by staff, and perhaps some loss of flexibility in how a community decides to develop amenities. Overall, though, I think it is a better way to do governance and it creates more certainty for the development community and the community at large. If I have a concern it is in our ability to staff up that planning work in time to assure we collect sufficient ACCs if the Transit Oriented Development changes in Bill 47 lead to a building boom. Which I will write about in the next post.

Housing & Bill 44

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

There has been a *lot* going on in the housing file in BC over the last month. The announcements have been fast and furious from the Ministry of Housing and the Premier, and the responses from Local Governments, housing advocates, and status quo defenders have been all over the place – from this being the worst overreach in provincial history to a long-overdue response to a crisis 20 years in the making. My own feelings about it are similarly all over the place, so I figured I would take some time to unpack it all from a New Westminster perspective, and from the perspective of a local government elected person who has been advocating for serious action on the housing crises.

Maybe I should do one of those caveats where I say “all of this is my opinion, not the official position of the City or anyone else on Council”.  An additional caveat may be that this is all a work in progress, as the province has not provided the enacting regulations yet. Local governments have been told that more details on implementation of the legislation along with instructions and guidelines are coming over the next few months. So the thoughts below are preliminary, and I reserve the right to be corrected in point of fact or event point of intention as this new landscape evolves.

I will go through by headline legislation, dealing with one piece of legislation in each of three separate blog posts. At the same time, recognize that these are overlapping measures in how they will be applied by Local Governments. They aren’t as separable as described here, and need to be viewed holistically. So with that in mind, the first blog post is:

Bill 44 : Multiplexes and more!
There are several components to Bill 44, but the short notes are that it brings to an end the most restrictive form of residential zoning – single Single Family Detached zoning – and requires local government to permit 3, 4, or 6 units per lot. It also takes away the local government’s ability to require off-street parking for these developments when they are near frequent transit. This bill also requires Local Governments to complete standardized Housing Needs Reports, to update their OCP and Zoning Bylaw by the end of 2025 to accommodate the need outlined in that HNR, and prohibits Public Hearings on residential development aligned with the Official Community Plan.

I’ll start by saying all of these are (in my opinion)  good ideas. Much of this reflects good planning principles. We should be structuring our OCPs around a defensible analysis of housing need, and the OCP should be the part of the community planning process where the bulk of community consultation and input should occur, not the Public Hearing. The question put to the community can then be “how do we want to accommodate the need?” not “How do we feel about growth?”, because the latter has more often than not resulted decisions that don’t address the realistic needs of the community or region, and therefore a Plan that falls short in addressing a crisis. It is also clear that the era has ended where single family living on a 5,000+ square foot lot in the middle of a dense urban core is attainable for most people, or sustainable in the cost to service those lots.

Then come the details.

For New Westminster, this is mostly going to mean 4 units will be permitted as right without rezoning on every current “single family” lot. I use that term in quotes because most lots in New West already permit three units – a main house with a basement suite and a laneway/carriage house – although there are a variety of restrictions on overall size of the combined units and each component. We use the Development Permit process to manage the size, shape, and scale of laneway/carriage houses, based on guidelines developed through a lengthy process involving a lot of public consultation. We also permit (through Rezoning, Heritage Restoration Agreement or Development Variance Permits) some variance on these guidelines on a lot-by-lot basis.

Remember, the end of “Single Family Zoning” does not mean the end of Single Family homes. You will not be forced to build a fourplex if you would rather build a house, and you will not be forced to knock your house down to build a fourplex. These changes increase the variety of housing types that can be built, they don’t take options away.

So the switch from 3-units to 4-units might not seem that big, but the work to develop new replacement guidelines on what can be built is actually a significant piece of work. Everything from set-backs (how close to a property line you are allowed to build), maximum heights, FSR (Floor Space Ratio – how many square feet of living space you are allowed to build relative to your lot size), maximum lot coverage (we currently only let you cover half a lot with a building or impermeable surface – change that and you need to change how our storm drainage network operates) will need to be worked out through guidelines. There are engineering and utility considerations to all of this, and more important details than you might think. We may need to set standards around how driveways cross sidewalks (we don’t want driveways every 33 feet on major roads or greenways), how solid waste receptacles will be stored and picked up by the City, and how we will address our Tree Protection Bylaw, etc.

All this to say, there is a lot of work to do to build these guidelines, and it matters a lot to how the City functions if we don’t get them right. This is also work that impacts not just our Planning staff, but folks in Engineering and Parks and Open Spaces. Our overall desire to have public consultation around the shape of guidelines that impact every neighbourhood is another timeline challenge. As currently proposed, we need to do all of this by June, 2024 – 6 months after the regulations that point us here are released in December. That is an incredibly tight timeline, and I fully anticipate we will not able to make it.

New Westminster is still a smallish city, and our planning department is a small team. We don’t want to move people off of new development approvals, affordable building projects, and major projects like the 22nd Street Visioning process to do this work, because those projects could bring hundreds of new units on line every year, while four- and six-plexes may bring on dozens a year in the most optimistic model. The long-term benefits are huge, I worry about the short-term capacity issue.

The deadline for a Housing Needs Report is December, 2024, and I am more confident we can get this done, as it would build on one we recently completed. We have yet to see what the Province’s “Standard” HNR looks like, but there is already a grounding for this work. One potential challenge here is that we, like many medium-sized cities, relied on a consultant to help with some specialized components of this work, and those consultants may be harder to hire (and more costly) when there are 100 municipalities on BC all clamoring for the same work on the same deadline. I’m not sure there are enough people in the province trained to do this work. I would hope the Province would look to the “Naughty List” of cities to be prioritized here, and may relax the deadline for cities like New West who have already been meeting their needs targets if there is a capacity crunch next year. We shall see.

Once we have the HNR in hand, we will need to update the three OCPs in the City (Yes, we have three – the main one, and separate ones for Queensborough and the Downtown) by December 2025 so the OCPs reflect a plan to meet those identified needs. This is a relatively straight-forward process, and should be doable, though again the public consultation part will be the critical path. Last time the City completed an OCP re-write, it took us two years because we really invited the public in for a conversation about the future of the City. I don’t see a reason to do less his time around, especially as how the OCP is going to inform the shape of zoning more now than before, with so much pre-zoning of higher density areas. We will not have two years to do this, so it will be an intense period of public engagement. And intense means staff resources and stressed out community wishing to engage.

The impact this will have on current OCP-related projects like the 22nd Street Visioning, Master planning the Lower 12th Street area, or Sapperton Green is unclear at this time. There is a similar concern here as with the HNR about province-wide resources available to do this work. Significant OCP re-writes often require consultant support for economic modelling, public consultation, utility planning, and such. If 100s of Municipalities in BC are doing this all at once, it might be a very good time to be graduating from planning school.

Coming next – Bills 46 and 47…with maps!

Council – Nov 27, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

We had a significant agenda for our regular New West Council meeting this week, and it all started with a Public Hearing:

Heritage Revitalization Agreement Bylaw No. 8406, 2023 and Heritage Designation Bylaw No. 8407, 2023 for 441 Fader Street
The owner of this property in Lower Sapperton wants to build a second infill house on the corner lot, while restoring and preserving for posterity the existing 1930 heritage house. Heritage Restoration Agreements require a Public Hearing, and here we are. The request here in exchange for the HRA is a slight increase in allowed density (FSR 0.662 instead of 0.61 permitted) and permission to stratify so the houses can operate like a duplex instead of one being rental. Overall, there will be three units here, as one of the Strata units will have a rental suite.

The Community Heritage Commission supported the application, and the applicant-led public consultation was pretty mixed, with a lot of people feeling that this was too much density for lower Sapperton (I might counter by saying these is more density coming with the upcoming change in Provincial Legislation, but that’s a blog to come) and expressing concerns about parking (though the existing house has zero off-street parking spaces, and the resultant three homes will have three off-street parking spots), and some pretty mixed feelings about whether heritage preservation is a good or bad thing (there is room to disagree on this).

We had four written pieces of correspondence, mostly expressing the concerns raised above, and a few public delegations, including the proponent, and neighbours both concerned and supportive. In the end, Council unanimously to support this HRA, and gave the empowering Bylaws three readings in the subsequent Council Meeting.

We then got to our regular meeting with a Report for Information pulled from a previous meeting for discussion:

Report Back on Motion Regarding Speed Limits for Motorized Devices Operating on Sidewalks
This is the report back form staff on a motion brought to Council in September asking them to look into putting speed limits on Sidewalks. There is little surprise in here to anyone who had read the City’s eMobility Strategy, the 2022 updates to our Master Transportation Plan that addressed this directly, or was aware of the ongoing provincial pilot program related to e-mobility. As I wrote back when this motion came to Council, “…these are action items already in staff workplans as part of the eMobility Strategy adopted back in June of last year”, and this report confirmed that. It also confirmed that this work really need to wait until the Provincial regulation is amended (presumably before the Pilot Program ends in April) so we can align any local regulatory change with the provincial one.

The following items were then Moved on Consent:

2024 Revenue Anticipation Borrowing Amendment Bylaw 8438, 2023
The regulations around how the City can borrow money are pretty strict – we can’t borrow without explicit Council support for that borrowing, even for the very short term. The nature of our business is that we spend money year-round, but get most of our revenue at tax time, which means every year we run a slight risk of not having enough cash on hand to pay our bills in the few weeks before those tax dollars arrive en masse. So we get a line of credit to cover us off for those few weeks, which means we need a Bylaw that allows that temporary borrowing, and it needs to be approved by Council every year. This is that approval.

Acting Mayor Appointments for November 2023 through October 2024
We always have to have an Acting Mayor designated in case I can’t do one of my functions as Mayor because I am out of town or under a bus. As I had heard no complaints about how we did it the first time, we are continuing the practice of rotating all 6 Councillors for 2-months stints, and because I find alphabetical order to be boring, I suggested we do it in order of poll results from the 2022 election. Everyone gets two months, so don’t read too much into it.

Approval of Parks Reserve Fund Bylaw No. 8439, 2023
When we have money ear-marked for a specific purpose, it sits in a reserve fund. Those reserve funds are empowered by a Bylaw that sets out how we spend it – the Bylaw is the figurative ear-mark. The insurance settlement for the Pier Park fire site is an example, and this Bylaw sets up the reserve fund so that money is transparently reserved. We report on the state of all Reserve Funds in our annual financial documents (see Page 24 of our 2022 Financial Statements here)

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Building Amendment Bylaw No. 8433, 2023: New Energy Step Code and Zero Carbon Step Code requirements beginning Jan 1 of 2024, 2025 and 2027 – Bylaw for Three Readings
We are moving to a Province where fossil “natural” gas will no longer be a tool for heating our buildings or cooking our food. That is explicit in federal climate targets, in Provincial Law, and in our own Climate Action plans. One tool to move us toward this transition is the Zero Carbon Step Code – a gradual change in the building code that removes fossil gas as a permitted energy source in new buildings. Much like the existing Energy Step Code, which gradually increases the energy efficiency rating of new builds, the ZCSC allows local governments to choose to move faster than the code requires by moving up “steps” faster than Provincial Regulation requires – “Opting In” to exceed minimum standards.

There is some technical stuff in these reports, with “Part 9 buildings” (houses and townhouses) and “Part 3 buildings (most multifamily homes), and about the balance between the Energy Step Code and the Zero Carbon Step Code. We want to incent people to move faster, we need to assure that there is a building sector that can meet specific standards and that we don’t price that building out of the market as we are in the throes of a housing crisis. For this reason, the city engaged a technical review and industry consultation that is included in this report. This bylaw outlines a stepped pathway to all new buildings in the city being Zero Carbon by 2027, which is three years ahead of the Provincial target, while at the same time incentivizing the immediate adoption of zero carbon by relaxing the energy step code requirements, which means it should be a little cheaper to build your building if you don’t use gas, while allowing the industry to catch up a bit on both codes. According to a recent Community Energy Association survey, this puts us on track with or ahead of every jurisdiction in BC, while meeting our Seven Bold Steps target for buildings. This is good work, and a huge part of our Community Energy and Emission plan.

City of New Westminster Guidelines to Promote Sex Worker Safety
Part of being a just society is recognizing people who are most at risk in that society, and addressing that risk in way that centres the experience of those facing it. The work to identify and address the risk sex workers face in New Westminster was perhaps overdue after several instances of appalling violence in the City, and several changes in Federal legislation following the Bedford decision. With sex work moving on-line and into hidden place, the risk has only increased.

The City’s response has been to look at what other jurisdictions are doing, and have peer-informed consultant determine the most evidence-driven approach for us to adopt. This includes a working group of peer-driven organizations, local non-profits, and City staff in Social Planning. They will keep communications with the NWPD open, though the NWPD is not explicitly a member of the working group based on the recommendation of the participants with lived experience. This will guide further internal staff straining to members of the City staff who may interact with sex work though their duties – predominantly Bylaws, Business Licensing, and First Responders.

Fair Wage Policy at the City of New Westminster
Back in September, Council endorsed a motion to determine if a Fair Wage Policy is right for New Westminster. This would follow the lead of municipalities like Burnaby and North Vancouver, and would be an important augmentation to our Living Wage Policy. This is not the decision point, but a report back to Council on the work the City’s HR and Legal folks would need to do to allow us to make an informed decision. We are agreeing to tell staff to do that work, and we expect a report back in mid-2024.

Food Security Programs: Update and Proposed Next Steps
The Greater Vancouver Food Bank has been operating out of a church in New Westminster, serving hundreds of families every week. For a series of logistical reasons, they are no longer able to operate out of that location, and are asking those clients to shift to their warehouse location near the Production Way Skytrain station in Burnaby. The service at the door will be better as they will be able to provide a more diverse food supply, but there will clearly be transportation problems for many New Westminster families who rely on this service. City staff and the GVFB folks have been working to find an alternative location in New West that meets their operation needs, to no avail.

The Don’t Go Hungry food hamper program is a newer offering in New Westminster, operating out of three locations, including the Queensborough Community Centre, and also serves hundreds of people every week. They are feeling increased pressure to fulfill community need, and are challenged with fundraising capacity. Along with providing space in the QCC, the City has provided tens of thousands of dollars of grant money over the last couple of years to keep the DGH operation afloat.

There is a third food hamper program operating in the city and serving hundreds of people, with an emphasis on newcomers to Canada. Hope Omid is operated by Roqiya Ahmadi (recently named New Westminster’s Citizen of the Year) and is similarly dealing with increased need and limited fundraising ability. I think it is important that they are included in this discussion

Between the three of them, there may be thousands of people in this City whose food security and nutrition needs are linked to their services. With grocery prices (and profits!) increasing at unsustainable rates, this is not a problem that is going away. So the City’s Social Planning staff are going to work with the three providers to determine how best the City can support the work they do to improve food security in New Westminster. We are diving into work here that is not strictly “local government”, but food security is yet another area where jurisdictional battles do no-one any good, and the public expects all levels of government to step in where they can, as it is such an important part of community sustainability.

Pavement Restoration Policy
You know what pavement cuts are. Those strips of uneven pavement that crisscross roads across the city, connecting homes to water, sewer, or other utility services. They are necessary, but can quickly degrade the asphalt and reduce the life of the pavement, leading to increased paving costs. You would not believe how much pavement costs, and it is increasing in cost much faster than “CPI” inflation.

When a cut is made, the contractor has to restore the road to a Municipal Access Agreement standard, but this standard is a bit inconsistent, and does not reflect the true cost to the City related to cumulative degradation of the roads because of lower-quality cut and fills. We need to standardize this, and update our standards and costs related to this.

Staff Recommendations Related to the Council Motion Regarding the Chinatown Community Stewards Program
This is a follow-up from a resolution earlier this year that actually arose from some Strategic Planning discussions around alternate approaches to address some challenges in the downtown. The Chinatown Stewards program in Vancouver has been successful, so Council inquired whether something similar would work here, and asked how the City could support it.

The current I’s On the Street Program coordinated by the New Westminster Homelessness Coalition has significant overlap with the Chinatown Stewards, in that they provide employment for people with lived or living experience in homelessness and pay them to be stewards of public Urban space in Downtown, Sapperton and Uptown, assisting with litter management and sharps disposal, disseminated resource info to people living downtown, and being, as inferred, “eyes on the street”. Staff is recommending instead of a new program, enhancing I’s on the Street to fill more of the functions of the Stewards. This also means committing or finding funding, as the I’s on the Street program funding is coming to a close at the end of the year.

The Right Person, the Right Time, the Right Place: Council Motion Update
Earlier this year, we had a delegation from Century House present a report to Council on how we could better support seniors in the community through programs that better support aging in place and public health care for seniors, especially in light of the massive failures of Privatized Seniors Care during the Pandemic. As we see Alberta doubling down on the privatization route, the need for evidence-based policy that centres Seniors’ quality of life, not the profit model is as acute as ever.

Working with the Century House group, City staff have looked at a new Age-Friendly Community Strategy, with initial work to be launched to coincide with Seniors Week in 2024. At every step, the City will include the seniors who advocated for this work in the conversation, and will be looking to engage senior government to help with inevitable legislative change and resource needs.

Uptown Business Association and Downtown New Westminster BIA – 2024 Business Promotion Scheme Budget Approvals
The Uptown and Downtown BIAs both operate through the Community Charter model: the City collects a tax from their members (about $150,000/year for Uptown, $300,000/year for Downtown) and turn that money over to the respective BIAs to do programming that supports the needs of the BIA as identified by the members. Their spending is made transparent to the community through their “Business Promotion Scheme” budgets, which this report outlines. Council is asked to approve this spending, though it is a bit unclear in the Charter what it would mean if we chose to NOT approve it, as it is their money, we are just administrators. That said, supporting the BIA process is one of the ways the City partners with the Business Community for the betterment of the entire community.

We then read a bunch of Bylaws, with the following Bylaws for Adoption

Growing Communities Fund Reserve Fund Bylaw No. 8415,2023
This Bylaw creates a reserve fund to segregate the Growing Communities Fund proceeds provided by the Provincial government from other existing reserve funds, and it was Adopted by Council.

Code of Conduct Bylaw No. 8408, 2023
This is the Bylaw that formalizes our updated Code of Conduct for all Council Members. It took a lot of work with Council, staff, and our external counsel to put this together, and it will make us a stronger organization going forward. I’m really happy Council endorsed this, and am disappointed it wasn’t unanimously supported.

Finally, we had a single Motion form Council to consider:

Providing equitable funding to cities with municipal police forces impacted by the Surrey Police Service transition
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine

Whereas the Province of BC has committed up to $150M to the City of Surrey to cover part of the transition costs related to the transition from the RCMP to the Surrey Police Service; and
Whereas the City of New Westminster and other jurisdictions with their own municipal police force have been impacted by the Surrey police transition as it pertains to the recruitment and retention of staff;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT Council request a memo from the NWPD Chief regarding the current and anticipated future impacts of the Surrey Police Service transition on our NWPD staffing retention and recruitment strategies; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Mayor be asked to write a letter to the Solicitor General asking the Province of BC to provide additional funding to municipal police forces that have been or may be impacted by the Surrey Police Service transition.

I had to be careful to speak only as Mayor and not as the Chair of the Police Board here, but I was opposed to this motion simply because it is 100% a Police Board matter. Council does not direct the Police Chief, and the Police Act draws a strict firewall between the civilian Police Board and the elected City Council for exactly this reason – intentionally to keep political interference and partisan politics out of the operation of police.

The Police Board understands this division, and its duty. It also understands the value of working collaboratively with Council to assure the community’s interests are represented and understood. The Board and Council have started having formal meetings (we had one just last week) where we had a fulsome and meaningful exchange of ideas, but people stayed in their own lane. I suggest that as the appropriate venue for an elected member of this Council to engage with what are strictly Police Board items.

I also need to address some of the information being shared around this motion, as it did not (in my opinion) reflect the reality of the NWPD recruiting situation as reported to Council at that meeting last week. It is true that 15 members of the NWPD changed jobs to join the SPS in 2021 and 2022. However, none made the move in 2023, and over the same three year period, NWPD has successfully recruited 21 members from other police forces. Officers moving between services is a regular part of the business, but our Chief is clear in communicating that morale in our department is high, and we have become a service of choice for police officers.

In the end, Council decided to defeat the first resolution, and to refer the second half of this motion to Police Board, where advocacy about Police Funding really need to reside. That is not to say the City doesn’t have a role, indeed, in the Council / Police Board meeting last week, both organizations agreed that “joint advocacy” should be an area we work together on. Going around the Police Board to advocate directly to the Minister on police matters does not seem to be in the spirit of that agreement.

And that brought the meeting to an end. It was a meaty agenda with lots of important work on it, but we managed to get through it all fairly efficiently, while giving lots of space for discussion and dialogue. I think we are getting the hang of this council thing, one year in.

Workshop – Nov 20, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

We didn’t have a regular Council meeting this Monday in New West, but we did have a Council Workshop. This represents a bit of a shift in how we will be doing Council business for the next year at least. The goals is to try out various strategies to make Council more efficient and effective, while assuring time for all of Council to have comprehensive discussions around important issues and initiatives (even get into the weeds a little, if needed). These workshops replace our earlier Task Force model where a sub-set of Council worked with staff on specific topics of priority before the results are brought to Council for decisions. Workshops are more like Committees of the Whole (but for legislative and procedures reasons different) that include everyone on Council, but provide more flexibility and less structure than Council. Ideally, we can work out details, address concerns raised by Council members, and give staff a heads-up about how Council will receive upcoming reports so recommendations to Council can be better informed by the “mood of the room”. These are not replacing Council meetings, but enhancing them. Yes, we will have more meetings, but maybe fewer of them will fo until midnight.

As it was my regular pattern here to only report on actual Council Meetings, I’m not sure how much I want to report out on the Blog about workshops, but this one had a few interesting topics, so from this point forward, we’ll see how it goes. You can see the agenda and watch the video here.

Budget 2024: Service Enhancements, Strategic Plan Implementation, and Revenue & Funding Projections
This report form senior staff in the City went through department-by-department on pressures being felt and their approach to addressing Council strategic priorities in order to inform any enhancement requests that will be coming forward in the Operational Budget discussion. This speaks a bit to how we do budgeting in the City and how it is different than your household budgeting, or even how a small business manages their budget. But that is longer blog post discussion.

One of the major drivers to the budget this year is the opening of təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre. It is not only the largest ever single investment in community infrastructure in New Westminster, it is also going to cost money to operate. Detailed study suggests it will cost $1.4Million a year more to operate as it is much larger and more complex than the facilities it replaces. It will also recover more revenue, as use is expected to be much higher than the facilities it replaces, resulting in up to $500,000 more in revenue every year. This still leaves an operating deficit on the order of $900,000 per year, and we need to budget for that.

Yes, a large pool and recreation centre costs money to operate, and we cannot recover all of those costs, Indeed, we don’t want to recover all of those costs, because like a library or a skating rink or a public playground or a fire department – these are services provided to the community based on community desires and need, not based on whether we can make money running them.

We also talked about some significant restructuring work we are doing inside City Hall. One example is bringing the Electrical Utility and our Climate Action staff together to form a single department, recognizing that the synergy that will be found in having an electrical provider involved in the electrification push that all jurisdictions will we encountering over the decade ahead. This brings our utility that is really good at keeping the lights on together with the strategic drivers of climate action, so everything from retrofits of buildings to EV charging strategy are addressed in a synchronized way. Another example is the staffing up of a Housing Division in our Planning and Development department, which will allow us to be more nimble in responding to funding opportunities in housing while assuring we have capacity to meet the various new changes in how housing is regulated in the province. We are also amalgamating several functions in the City into a new Community Services department, so we can be more streamlined in how these various outward-facing services operate, and can fulfill our Strat Plan mandate around Community Connections and Belonging.

There is also a good memo in here worth reading about how successful we have been at getting senior government funding for various initiatives in the City, and our strategy to keep on that path as both the Federal and Provincial governments are getting into their respective election cycles.

Appointment of Chief Election Officer for SD40 Trustee By-election
Under the Local Government Act, the City is responsible for organizing a By-election when one is needed, and if it is a School Board by-election, we send the bill to the School District. This report was about the hiring of the Chief Election Officer and their Deputy, and set out the legislated timelines for the election. Election Day is February 3rd, and everything counts back from there!

Code of Conduct Review
Council has been working on an update of our Code of Conduct for many months. We hired an external expert to guide us through constructing a robust Code, and agreed with the best practice of having and an external Ethics Commissioner to adjudicate the Code in the event it is invoked. This has been an iterative process in developing the Code, as there is are necessary nuances in balancing rights and responsibilities, and in the complex relationships between elected folks, staff, and the public. We want people aggrieved to be empowered to invoke the Code, but also want to avoid the Code being wielded as a partisan hammer or a tool for harassment. It is actually a complex piece of policy development that required careful consideration by Council and the insight of a consultant with practical experience in operating a Code of Conduct in a political realm.

Council voted to give the empowering Bylaw Second and Third Reading, meaning the drafting of the Bylaw is over, we just need to adopt it at a subsequent meeting to make it law.

Changes ahead

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I recently took part in an event put together by the Fraser Valley Current – a sister publication to the New West Anchor. It was a zoom interview, but the FVC opened up the zoom room to their readers. The theme was an interview with two Mayors who started a municipal bloggers. You can see the entire hour-long conversation here, including some surprising nods to Jordan Bateman.

It was a fun, off-the-cuff conversation, and at no time was it Official City Communications or the opinions of the City, Council, or anyone else. I emphasize that, yet again, because this interview came at the same time I am thinking about the role of Social Media in this the role of Mayor. After a year, I am ready to make some changes. Here’s some background.

Back in 2010 when I started, blogging was a thing people did. It seems to be a bit archaic now, with Podcasts and Newsletters and TikToks filling the void. The #NewWest of the late ‘naughts was a pretty active community on-line, and for the most part in a really positive community-building way, the blog I started fit right in, it was about the local community, about environmental issues, and about politics. Through it, and Tenth to the Fraser and a few other media, I was able to connect with a great community of folks just trying to make their corner of the community more fun and interesting.

In 2014 when I was elected, I was told by some more senior political gatekeepers in the community that I was going to have to stop all that. That it was inappropriate and politically dangerous. What if everything I write comes back to haunt me? But this was my on-line community, I had made many meaningful connections with people, some who volunteered and helped get me elected – how could I abandon them? So I kept blogging, though less frequently now as I am too busy. There is also the more difficult balance now about how I present myself personally, and as a representative of the City.

Problem is, when you are a city councillor, you can say “this is not the opinion of Council, and I don’t represent the City.” You obviously don’t want to say untrue things, and the council Code of Conduct requires you not actually undermine or mischaracterize a decision of Council. But when you are Mayor, you Have to layer on the role as spokesperson for the City and for the Council – it is much harder to make clear for the public when you are speaking on behalf of the City, on behalf of Council, on behalf of the Police Board, or just expressing a personal opinion.

Then there is legacy. I’ve been blogging for 14 years, thousands of posts. Deleting everything I wrote in the past might be the political expedient thing to do, like a notable local former political blogger has done more than once (and wow the Wayback Machine offers some nuggets there!). There are probably old posts I regret, or have changed my position on, but in my mind it is better to keep those there and show where I have changed or evolved than it is to hide from it. I just have to hope that people respect leaders willing to be an open book and talk about their evolution. The world has changed a lot in the last 14 years; if none of your opinions have changed in that time, you would have to be terrifyingly resistant to new information.

So the Blog will stay, and it will stay as it has kind of evolved: relatively straight-forward reporting on what happened at council, with occasional forays into longer-term strategic thinking and major policy stuff. For all the reason listed above, I am going to try to keep it less political, or at least less partisan, than in the past, though it will always be from my personal viewpoint, so “objectivity” is not guaranteed. I have no staff to write this for me, so it will be inconsistently copy edited and my own voice. You are probably used to it by now.

I am also making some changes in my Social Media. They have been brewing for a while, so I may as well pull the trigger. After something like 12 years and 30,000 posts, I am finally giving up on the Site Formerly Loved as Twitter. I’m a bit disappointed, because there are still many good people I connect with through there, but they are being increasingly drowned out of my feed by the porny spambots and alphanumerically named fascists (with significant overlap between), and even my gratuitous use of the “mute” button and blocking all bluechecks has not improved the experience. Instead, I am over where the Sky is Blue (search for PJNewWest). That is mostly social fun and local stuff for me, though I will occasionally use it to post updates on my life and blogging.

I am not (yet) leaving Facebook, but will continue not engaging much over there. I may post there once in a while, and it still has a value to connect with family and friends not living around here. The ad and spam saturation is brutal, and with legitimate news stripped from the site, the utility for information sharing has really declined. I have also started to curate my feed as I have recently found a few sites re-posting my posts and permitting a type of commenting that is not just offensive (I’m a big boy, I can take it), but in violation of the City’s social media policy ad all good taste. I don’t have time to sift through and find where these are, so best to avoid the trouble at the start my limiting access to some administrators who are lax in their administration, recognizing it looks to some like I am “censoring” them. Ultimately, it is a personal Facebook page, not a City asset, so I’ll deal with it the way my time, energy, and sense of propriety permit.

I also post occasionally on Instagram, and it is a pretty positive space, but I don’t particularly like the interface, and find it not a great space for conversations. So mostly post-and-ignore. I am also of the age where TikTok is not recommendedm and I am comfortable with that.

Finally, I am starting a new practice to compliment the Blog: a newsletter. If you sign up these will arrive in your inbox every week or two. First will be out in the next week or so.

My goal here is to talk about things that are happening in the City and my job as Mayor, as far from “Official City Communications” as I can get. These will be written by me, so they only represent me and not the opinions of anyone at the City (or anywhere else) except myself. My reasoning is that this is a medium where people “invite themselves in” more than the Blog or social media which are out there for innocents to drive-by. This frees me up to be a little more frank with my opinions and ideas, and even get a bit salty at times. We will see how it evolves, but I might dive deeper into politics from a more partisan lens.

If this sounds interesting to you, go here and sign up. If you are not comfortable with sauce I spill in the newsletter, I invite you to unfollow, and I won’t bother you with this stuff so you can still get the more straight goods here at the Blog.

As always, your access to me as the Mayor is not limited to this on-line world. You can email me at pjohnstone@NewWestCity.ca. You can come by Council and delegate. You can stop me on the street and say Hi, or drop by my booth when I set it up at community events. And I never stop doorknocking, so maybe I’ll see you on your porch. The real world is out there folks, not here on line.

Council – Nov 6, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

November 6th marks the 23rd meeting of the term and the last meeting of the first year. We had a relatively gentle agenda that got us out of there in time to watch the Canucks disassemble the Oilers in the third period. But we all know they will break our hearts soon enough. Before that, on to the Agenda, which started with the following items that were Moved on Consent

Appointment of Director of Finance/Chief Financial Officer
We have a new Director of our Finance Department and Chief Financial Officer. As this job has some specific regulatory roles under the Community Charter and some City Bylaws, Council has to formally make the appointment. Welcome Shehzad!

Approval of Growing Communities Fund Reserve Fund Bylaw No. 8415, 2023
We have not yet spent our $15.8 M Growing Communities Fund, but will be including it in our future Capital budgeting. In the meantime, it formally sits in a Reserve Fund that we need to create through Bylaw. This is that Bylaw.

Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: 660 Quayside Drive (Bosa Developments)
One of the construction cranes on the Bosa waterfront development is coming down, which requires some traffic disruption and work outside of regular construction hours to accommodate this disruption.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement and Heritage Designation: 441 Fader Street – Bylaws for First and Second Readings
The owner of this house in Sapperton wants to build a second infill house on the lot, stratify the property, and restore and preserve the current house through a Heritage Designation. The total density on site will be a little above what is permitted, and the stratification requires Council approval. It saw some community consultation, but will also come to a Public Hearing (as is required for HRAs), so I’ll hold my comments until then.

Housing Agreement Bylaw No. 8389, 2023 (810 Agnes St) – Bylaw for Three Readings
This is the agreement between the City and the developer that assure the new tower proposed at 810 Agnes be a rental property for 60 years or the life of the building, whichever is longer.

We then had a couple of items that were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Anvil Centre Engagement Objectives
The Anvil Centre is working towards its tenth anniversary, and Council wants to have a conversation with the community about how it serves the community, and how it could serve the community better. This report outlines the engagement process and frames the questions the City will be asking the community. Watch Be Heard New West for engagement opportunities if you care about the Anvil and making Downtown better.

Motion Response: Increasing Access to Fresh Drinking Water for Local Residents and Their Pets
There was an earlier motion to have staff look at installing temporary drinking fountains attached to fire hydrants like they piloted in Vancouver. This is the report back from staff, and I can sum it up as “Uh… no”.

Vancouver had the ability to fabricate these in-house for their pilot, and have decided after the pilot to scale this program back and move back towards permanent stand-alone fountains. There are a bunch of reasons for this, from chlorine and sediment flushing requirements at the “dead end” that are often used for hydrants, interference between the hydrants use as a drinking source and as a firefighting source (meaning they were only installed where there was another nearby hydrant), and other technical and maintenance challenges. But most importantly, the cost to make and install these is equal to or higher than the cost of purchasing and installing off-the-shelf stand-alone permanent fountains. The temporary items don’t work as well, are more hassle, and cost more than the alternative. No surprise staff did not recommend we follow this less effective and more expensive path.

That said, we are going to do an assessment of where we may be deficient in water fountains (look! open data!), and will come back with a plan to prioritize installations of new (permanent) fountains as Council releases budget to do so.

We then read a few bylaws including the following Bylaws for Adoption:

Anvil Theatre Fees and Charges Amendments Bylaw No. 8426, 2023
Business License Amendment Bylaw (2024 Fee Schedule) No.8420, 2023
Climate Action, Planning and Development Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8428, 2023
Cultural Services Fees and Charges Amendment Bylaw No.8430, 2023
Electrical Utility 2024 Charges Amendment Bylaw No. 8432, 2023
Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 8423, 2023and
Fire Protection Amendment Bylaw No. 8431, 2023
These Bylaws that set the fines and fees for the next budget year, including annual adjustments for inflation, were adopted by Council.

We also had some delegations, and some direction given to staff rising from those delegations, but I will report those out here when we get some actionable items back from staff and know where we are going with the items. As always, you can watch the delegations and all of the meeting by looking up the video here. As you will see, we have Council working like a finely honed machine, and had a pretty quiet end to year one, let’s go year two!

Year of Work

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Last month I wrote a blog post marking the one-year anniversary of the 2022 election that was mostly personal reflections and not about the work we did in Year One. Now that we are on the one-year anniversary of the new Council being actually sworn in, a bit of a summary is apropos. As I worked on this, I realized there is a lot to talk about, so I need to edit it down a bit and gather by themes. So this is more a list of highlights than a complete catalogue.

Inauguration
We swore in a new Council on November 7th, 2022, bringing in one of the bigger change-overs in recent years. Best I can tell, it has been more than 25 years since we had this large a change-over with a new Mayor and 4 new Councillors elected in the same year. This meant that onboarding for the new members (myself included, because the Mayor role is very different than the Council one) dominated the first few months of work. We held long onboarding seminars and site tours with staff getting everyone as up to speed as possible on everything from how the municipal budget works in reality (very different than how it works on some election platforms!) to details on the various areas of service delivery the City performs.

Following on this, we developed together and adopted a Strategic Priorities Plan that I wrote about here. It has the regular priority stuff – transportation and housing and asset management – but I am more proud in how Council came together to center the residents and communities (yes, plural) we are serving in this plan, and to emphasize community connectedness as a priority. This is what makes New West special, and what will truly address many of the challenges we face.

Housing Approved
The City continues to lead on housing policy, signing housing agreements on almost 700 new Purpose Built Rental units, and giving final approvals to 244 student apartments, 50 supportive housing units, more than 150 new townhouses and about 50 other units in several medium-density forms. We waived Public Hearing on projects promising more than 400 more rental units, and dozens of townhouses because they were consistent with the Official Community Plan and public consultation showed strong support. We are also working through initial phases of several larger developments in the City, as we strive to (and are so far successful at) meeting our Regional Growth Strategy targets. We are still struggling to get 24/7 shelter, transitional and supportive housing funded in the City, even those that we have approved, and continue to balance putting the pressure on provincial and federal purse-string holders while we work with them at the staff-to-staff level to develop fundable projects.

Crises
We have been proactive at addressing the overlapping crises of homelessness, mental health, and addictions that are challenging every municipality in Canada. Back in December, we brought in a Downtown Livability Strategy to coordinate efforts between staff from Community Planning, Economic Development, Engineering, Fire Services, Integrated Services (“Bylaws”), Parks and Recreation, Finance, and Police and added some resources to address general hygiene and cleanliness issues. We have continued to partner with Fraser Health, the Canadian Mental Health Association, BC Housing, and service agencies working downtown, have secured $1.7 Million from the federal Building Safer Communities Fund, $1.2M from the Provincial Government to support our groundbreaking Peer Assist Care Teams, $50,000 from the provincial Ministry of Public Safety to set up Situation Tables and Collaborative Public Safety Programs. We have also launched a new Homelessness Action Plan working with our partners in the Homelessness Coalition.

Staff have been working hard and making progress with the resources available to them. Just last week, we committed to a plan to increase these resources and set up a new structure to assure we are leveraging community partnerships and coordinating our lobbying and communications efforts to best serve the entire community.

It is a difficult time for many in our community, and everyone deserves to feel safe and supported however they live in this community. We are committed to a compassionate, evidence-based approach to addressing the needs of those most at risk, and to address the externalities related to too many people not having access to the dignified supports they need. We have also supported the building of new supportive housing in the community – recognizing the real solution to homelessness is safe and secure homes.

Capital Projects
Our Capital Plan is significant. The biggest item being təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre – a more than doubling of the recreation and aquatic space provided by the old Canada Games Pool and Centennial Community Centre, and the first Zero Carbon recreation centre of its kind in Canada. Considering that procurement and construction occurred during massive construction inflation, the regional concrete strike, unprecedented supply chain disruptions, not to mention a global pandemic, delivering this project within a few months of planned opening, and within 5% of the budget is a significant achievement. We are not across the finish line yet, but opening is planned for the spring, and that will be a great day for New West.

Flying under the radar a bit was a new $28 Million substation in Queensborough that we cut the ribbon on a few months ago. Not only will this provide secure long-term electrical reliability for rapidly-growing Q’Boro, but the Electrical Utility delivered the project for $2 million under budget, saving all city electrical ratepayers money. Serious kudos to the team who delivered this project.

You also probably noticed there have been a lot of roads torn up over the last year, mostly in Sapperton and the West End. This is the result of many overlapping utility renewal projects by the City and Metro Vancouver, with some of it supported by a $10.4 Million Investing in Canada grant from both the Federal and Provincial governments. Building a City is project that never stops, and we are investing more than ever on things that matter to the quality of life in this community, like sidewalks and trees.

Reconciliation
A Year of Truth is ground-breaking work on uncovering the history of colonization in New Westminster. We are informing a truth-based dialogue about our shared history with the original inhabitants of these lands to inform a more genuine approach to reconciliation. A new relationship with the 6 Host Nations, and a new commitment to co-develop the replacement of Pier Park in a vision shared by the original inhabitants of these lands and the community. This is sometimes challenging work, but we are leading with clear principles, and our entire community will be much stronger for having had these discussions, for having taken the time to listen and to learn. Only once we have truth can reconciliation begin.

Resiliency
Over the last year, we have seen a massive all-department response to the Heat Dome disaster of 2021. Our Emergency Planning staff have partnered with Fraser Health and Senior Services Society to identify and directly support vulnerable residents, have surveyed and identified the most vulnerable buildings in the City and initiated a One Cool Room program. Our Electrical Utility is augmenting the province’s free Air Conditioner Program with an enhanced program for New West residents. Our Parks and Engineering teams have brought a new emphasis on public cooling stations and relief centres to address the bad days when they come. Meanwhile, we continue to advocate to senior government for regulatory changes that will reduce the risk to vulnerable residents in the future.

We have also initiated a new Flood Resilience Plan that adopts the recently-updated 2050 Fraser River Flood Profile to address climate-change driven freshet changes and sea-level rise to the middle of the century in Queensborough, in the Downtown ,and the Braid Industrial area. We have been successful at pulling in senior government funding to support pump station and dike upgrades in Queensborough. This plan will help us direct the next phase of investments.

Climate
We have adopted new Zero Carbon Step Code levels that incent the building of new homes that are both energy efficient and zero carbon, a major step towards our 2030 and 2050 community greenhouse gas reduction goals. We made a major shift in minimum parking requirements in new buildings around Skytrain and frequent transit, to reduce the cost of building new homes and better support transportation and climate goals. Meanwhile, we have been putting together a decision making framework to prioritize spending of the Climate Action Reserve to assure we get the best bang for the buck as we apply that reserve to items in our capital plan that move the needle on climate emissions reductions and climate resilience. We also supported youth leadership in our community by adopting a 15-Minute City Strategy which will guide future development and planning.

Partnerships
As Council prioritized building strong relationships with organizations doing good work in the community, we have put this in practice. This includes building a stronger relationship with Sahib Sukh Sagar Gurdwara through shared emergency management strategy and resources. We are strengthening our relationship with Urban Indigenous residents and Indigenous Youth through partnership with Spirit of the Children Society through Truth and Reconciliation Day and hosting an Every Child Matters sidewalk mural in the centre of our Downtown. We cut the ribbon on the new K.I.D.S. Childcare space in Queensborough – a partnership between the development community, the City, and the Province bringing much needed childcare spaces to Queensborough. We supported seniors advocacy in our community by adopting recommendations that support dignified and affordable Aging in Place after a request from representatives from Century House. For the first time, we recognized Transgender Day of Visibility with flag raising and lighting up City Hall, and were the first BC City to recognize Ethiopian Day by raising the Ethiopian Flag at Friendship gardens and invited representatives of the local Ethiopian Community into City Hall to share food and ideas. Just today I attended the New West Hospice Society dialogue on Death and dying at Century House- an incredible and meaningful collaboration between the City and two volunteer-driven organizations in the City that are making our community stronger.

We also hosted the Mann Cup! OK, Council didn’t get them there, but it was a memorable event that fills me photostream for the year. One thing this Council did to to help was to designate the ‘Bellies as an Event of Municipal Significance, which allowed for a shift in how they manage their liquor license. This helped facilitate a partnership between the ‘Bellies and a local brewery, and providing more secure funding for their operations though an exciting payoff run.

Arts, Culture and Economic Development
Council made a $20 Million investment in the repair and upgrade of the Massey Theatre so this artistic jewel of the community can continue to thrive for another generation. We also secured a long-term operational agreement with the Massey Theatre Society so they can transform Massey Theatre into a multi-purpose arts centre called 8th and 8th Arts Spaces.

Meanwhile, Council initiated downtown renewal plans, including advocating for a Vacant Commercial Property Tax at UBCM, and adopting a new Retail Strategy to be implemented in 2024. We have also adopted a new Site-Wide Liquor Licensing policy to better support major festivals in the City. We have renewed our our Economic Development Advisory Committee by recognizing the importance of Arts and Culture in this space, and expanding the mandate of the committee to include it.

Engagement
We have launched several public engagement opportunities, from the development of a new Queensborough Transportation Plan to the visioning of the 22nd Street Station Area. We are also launching an innovative Community Advisory Assembly model of engagement, where a council of community members that represent the diversity of our city can weigh in on issues important to the community.

Incomplete as it is, for the first year of a mostly-new Council, I am pretty happy with this list. There are also many things that Council has expressed interest in working on that we have not really started yet. It’s a busy time in the City, in every City when I talk to me colleagues around the region, and we are still in a place where we need to balance the desire to get lots of things done while we are challenged for resources and staff are already fully tasked, and then some. Council recognizes that this work is being done by more than 1,000 hardworking people in City Hall, the Works Yard, the recreation centres and out in the community, and their dedication is appreciated.

It has been a year of excitement and frustrations, and more than one distraction, but the work never stops. Building a City is not a job that is ever completed, nor is it something a Mayor can do – it requires a team effort. I am so fortunate in this role to have a great team surrounding me, doing the work to make New Westminster more active, more connected, and more nurturing. I’m looking forward to what we can accomplish in 2024.

Council – October 30, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

We had a great Council meeting on Monday where I feel we really moved some things forward, some in the afternoon Workshop (which you can see on video here) but I only report here on the regular Agenda which started with a few Reports for Council:

2023 Point-in-Time Homeless Count: Key Findings and Messages
This is a local reporting out on the regional Homeless Count back on March, an event that occurs every three years. Several members of New Westminster Council took active part in the homeless count as volunteers, and this is a valuable experience in understanding the paths to homelessness, and the challenges faced every day by unhoused and precariously housed residents in our community. It is not just a “count” but an active survey that results in a long conversation, and once you meet folks, learn their names, and hear their stories, it can change how you view people who are without a home.

It is important to note that the “count” is almost certainly an undercount; even the most dedicated teams cannot reach everyone living without secure housing in our community in 24-hour period. New Westminster is small and dense, which means our undercount is likely smaller than in some larger and more sprawling communities.

Overall, this years’ count found 57 unsheltered people in New Westminster, which is an increase of 16 over the last count in 2020. There were also 146 sheltered homeless people counted (folks who have no secure or reliable home, but do have some access to emergency shelter or borrowed space) which is an increase of 64 people over the 2020 count. This totals 203 people, which is 65% more than just three years ago. This is equal to or lower than the increases in surrounding communities of Surrey (65%), Burnaby (69%), Tri-Cities (86%), and Richmond (91%). This report also includes a raft of demographic data, and is worth a read, and it helped inform some of the action in the next item on our agenda.

Responding to the Homelessness, Mental Health and Substance Use Crises: Proposed Two-Year Organizational Pilot Project and Implementation Strategy
Following on that earlier report, this is a report on a new phase of work proposed in New Westminster to address the myriad impacts of the three overlapping crises facing our community and our region. I say a new phase, because there has been a tonne of work done already. The City’s first responders, engineering and bylaws departments have been coordinating with local service agencies, Fraser Health, the Canadian Mental Health Association, BC housing, and others to bring resources and tools to the community.

With the Downtown Livability Strategy and the ongoing work of the Unsheltered Task Force, conditions have measurably improving over the last few months, but staff are feeling strain from the ongoing workload of this atypical work. We also have some longer-term proactive measures to address the bigger challenges, including planning around better shelter and supportive housing measures, but these are going to take some time to bring on line, and both staff and the community want to see some more immediate responses.

Staff have been connecting with some cohort commutes facing similar challenges, and are bringing back some best practices. Primary among these is to separate operations and response from the policy development and advocacy function, while ensuring ongoing communication between both functions. The work involves a New Crises Response Team to better coordinate existing resources in the community, including provincially-funded response and care teams, a new Operations Support Team that is made up of existing staff, and some Policy and Advocacy resources. There is no doubt these new resources are going to cost us money to provide, and we are going to see this in our 2024 budget planning, but this is what the community is demanding of us, and we are going to continue to lobby senior governments to provide financial support.

This is a responsible and evidence-based approach to the challenges facing us, and structuring it as a two-year pilot allows us to set goals around likely timing for new shelter and transitional housing coming on-line, while it also allows us to budget responsibly and provide clear requests from senior government with measurable outcomes and timelines. I am really glad the majority of Council are listening to the community, and endorsed this plan.

Canada Games Pool Tank Leak Causation Investigation Results
This is the report on the known causes of the failure of the Canada Games Pool tank. In the end, there were a variety of causative factors, but differential settling of soils likely related to shifting groundwater levels caused a previous weakness in the tank (related to the 1990s repairs and the decision in the 1970s to build slab-on-grade in a landfill area instead of building on piles or stone columns like the new pool) came together at an inopportune time. We knew the pool was end of life, this is what taking a facility past end of life looks like.

We then moved the following items On Consent:

Budget 2024: Fees and Rates Review, Amendment Bylaws for Three Readings
As discussed in our September 25 meeting, these are the bylaws staff was asked to prepare to support our annual changes in various fees and rates in the City.

Electric Vehicle Ready Requirements for New Non-Residential Buildings
The transition to EVs from internal combustion vehicles is inevitable, and will be driven faster by CleanBC provincial mandates about ending the sale of new non-electric vehicles by 2035. One pressure stalling the pace of adoption is the availability of charging infrastructure. A recent report at Metro Vancouver provided a detailed analysis of the need for public charging stations (up to 90,000 needed regionally by 2050!), and the imperative to assure charging is available in homes and where people work or shop.

Back in 2018, New West mandated all new residential builds have to accommodate charging in all parking spots (that is, be pre-wired for it so installation of physical chargers is possible). This proposal is to bring similar but less stringent requirements to non-residential parking such as new commercial, industrial and office buildings. There is a bit of technical detail here regarding the type of charging infrastructure (e.g. dedicated vs. load-shared), but the proposal here for 50% of all off-street parking have access to charging is aligned with and slightly exceeds the recommendations in that Metro Vancouver report. This will be run past the building and development industry before we implement it, but initial analysis finds this will be a minor increased cost (~$500 per spot) compared to the cost of providing parking in the first case ($20,000 – $50,000 per spot).

And the following item was Removed From Consent for discussion:

Report Back on Council Motion Regarding New Westminster Becoming a 15-Minute City
This is the staff follow-up to the motion that came to Council after advocacy by a youth group in town. When conversation about the “15 Minute City” idea came out here in New West, there were some who asked the obvious question: Aren’t we already? There are definitely some neighbourhoods in New West that approach this ideal, like Sapperton and Downtown, but there are also neighbourhoods that are still rather car-dependent and lacking in local services. Room for improvement.

Importantly, and outlined in this report, there are already many City plans and policies that move us toward a15-Minute City model, including much of our Official Community Plan. Reflecting this alignment, the suggested direction from staff is to incorporate the clearly indicated 15-Minute City principles into existing work and upcoming planning processes, as opposed to developing a standalone 15-Minute City plan. This was adopted by Council.

We then read a bunch of Bylaws, including the following Bylaw for Adoption:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (902 First Street) No. 8418, 2023
This Bylaw to rezone 902 First Street to allow construction of a duplex was adopted by Council. Notably, this may be a type of bylaw adoption that is going away with the new announcement of housing changes by the provincial Government!

Finally, we had a single Motion from Council:

Amending the City’s separation allowance policy to eliminate possibility of ‘double dipping’ by former Mayors and Councillors
Councillor Fontaine

WHEREAS the City of New Westminster compensation package for elected officials includes the payment of a separation allowance upon completion of their term(s) in office equivalent to ten percent of their highest annual remuneration for each year of service commencing after December 1st, 2008 (with a twelve year cap); and

WHEREAS there is no impediment for Council members to receive a separation allowance from New Westminster taxpayers even if they transition successfully into new employment within a short period of time;
and

WHEREAS the intent of the separation allowance ought to be limited to bridging the employment gap after a member has ceased to serve on Council;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT Council request legal counsel to draft an amendment to the Council Remuneration Policy such that the separation allowance be set up as a salary continuance for a maximum of 12 months that can be terminated upon a former Council member becoming gainfully employed full-time within the first year after ceasing to serve on Council, rather than as a lump sum payment at the time of separation.

I fundamentally disagree on the third whereas clause is here, and don’t know what the foundation of the assumption is. The Separation Allowance is a benefit elected officials receive at least in part to address the fact that they are not provided any pension access or ability to participate in the Municipal Pension Plan. Many people (including myself) give up some portion or all of their pensionable work to do this job. If we want younger early- or mid-career people to take on this work instead of reserving it for retired and independently wealthy people who can afford the privilege of doing this “as a public service” without fair compensation, we need to recognize that for many it means putting some other career aspirations aside. We live in a society where access to pensions are (or at least should be, but don’t get me started on the erosion of worker benefits) an important part of every compensation package. The separation allowance provides to people doing this work the opportunity to invest in an RRSP and achieve some “pension-like” benefit that makes up for the loss in pension access that may come with the job. Or they can use it to bridge their income to a post-council job. Neither is wrong.

However, the underlying assumption in this motion is not one I agree with, and I could not support the motion, nor could the majority of Council.

As an aside, it is important to remember the Mayor job is full time (plus!), but Council is not. Many (most) Council members do work aside from their Council jobs, because they have to pay a mortgage and support a household. This is not “double dipping”, this is having two jobs, each with their own independent compensation arrangements. I frankly found using a pejorative term like “double dipping” to describe this to be disrespectful to members of Council, current and past.

And that was it for a pre-Halloween edition of New West City Council. Tune in next week for more scary content!

Council – October 15, 2023

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

We had relatively quick and strangely uplifting Council meeting on Monday. Not sure what changed the energy in the room, but it went well and we had a full agenda that started with a couple of Information Reports pulled for discussion:

Train Whistle Cessation – Q3 Update
This is our regular quarterly report for information on train whistle cessation programs in the City. Though the technical group continues to advance work, the only real update is some identified challenges on the Spruce Street crossing that staff are working on.

Correspondence dated September 18, 2023 regarding Burnaby New Westminster Task Force on Sexually Exploited and At-Risk Youth – Invitation for Council member to join the Task Force
We have been invited by Burnaby to join a taskforce to address this risk in our community, with a suggestion that one member of our Council join. Councillor Henderson has experience working in this field, an interest in helping vulnerable youth, and a positive working relationship with Councillor Santiago (who sent the invite from Burnaby) and was nominated by Council to represent us on that task force.

We had one Report for Action:

ON TABLE Council Code of Conduct Bylaw No. 8408, 2023
This was a presentation on the work done for the Code of Conduct, and a proposal to bring next readings to the empowering Bylaw, but a clerical error meant the heading was not included in the Council Agenda that went out on the City’s website (though, notably, all of Council were provided the report last week). To be real sticklers, adding it to the agenda after the Agenda has been Adopted needed a unanimous motion of Council, but unfortunately some on Council chose to not approve its addition for reasons that were not really made clear. So this important work to improve accountability for our Council will be delayed until we can arrange another Council meeting where external legal counsel will be available.

We then moved the following items On Consent

Amendments to 2023 Schedule and Proposed 2024 Schedule of Council Meetings
As previously discussed, we are looking at a new Workshop model to replace some Council Task Forces we had over the previous couple of terms. This hopes to provide more opportunities for deeper discussions of topics aligned with the Strategic Priority Plan, and to make for more efficient Council Meetings as more longer-form deliberation and discussion can occur in workshop with staff present. This does mean more meetings for most of Council. It looks worse than it is, as many of these new meetings are replacing task force meetings that did not have the power of Council, but it is still a more full calendar. So update your schedules folks!

Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: 1031 Quebec Street, New Westminster – Metro Vancouver Annacis Water Supply Tunnel, Fraser River Crossing
You may have noticed a construction site in the Lower 12th area at the foot of the hill. Metro Vancouver is burrowing tunnel from Surrey to New West into which will be placed a significant new water supply pipeline to serve expanding communities South of the Fraser. This work started late and is behind schedule, so the Construction Noise Bylaw extension needs to be extended. Most of the heavy work is happening on the surrey side and by the Tunnel Boring Machine underground, and we have not had a spate of complaints related to the work so far, so Council is permitting this extension.

Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: Columbia Street at 8th Street (New Westminster SkyTrain Station)
I expect this application is going to result in more complaints, but it is hard to determine an alternative than to allow this work to occur outside of permitted hours. The Columbia Street Skytrain platforms need to be expanded to accommodate longer trains and to assure the safety of passenger on what has become one of the busiest platforms on the original Expo Line. Much of this work cannot occur during operational hours of Skytrain for a variety of safety and function reasons.

Response to February 6, 2023 Special City Council Motion for Utilities Commission Open Minutes Extracts regarding the Advance Metering Infrastructure Project
This is a report for information based on a request made at Council to collate older minutes of the Electrical Utility Commission about the AMI program. Share and enjoy.

Uptown Business Association Business Improvement Association Renewal: 2024 – 2028
BIAs exist under Provincial legislation, specifically Section 215 of the Community Charter. In short, the City collects extra tax from businesses within the BIA area, and turns that tax revenue over to the BIA to do BIA things – mostly street and public space improvements, events and promotion of the commercial neighbourhood for the benefit of their members. The agreement that empowers this needs to be updated every five years, and a new tax rate set based on what the BIA members want to charge themselves. We are starting that process for the Uptown BIA as their existing agreement ends at the end of the year.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Arts, Culture and Economic Development Advisory Committee – Draft Terms of Reference
The Economic Development Committee is being somewhat updated, partly as the Retail Strategy and Arts Strategy recognized the economic development impacts of investment in the Arts and Culture, and many of the organizations involved in Arts and Culture and Economic development in the city overlap. This is the updated Terms of Reference to reflect that change, and we will start recruiting community members and representatives from partner organizations. Council has a good discussion with staff around how this new Committee will be structured.

Support for TransLink’s Bus Rapid Transit Action Plan
The Access for Everyone plan from the Mayor’s Council for the future growth of TransLink transit service leans heavily on new bus infrastructure, including Bus Rapid Transit. BRT is a hybrid between light rail which uses roads and tires instead of rails, but moves near the same capacity of people though dedicated lanes, station-type boarding, and limited stop routes. This service serves as backbone transit service in many jurisdictions, form Asia to Europe and Latin America, but is relatively uncommon in North America (though several faux-BRT systems are touted in places like Boston and New York that are really just TransLink B-Line type service).

Though all mayors at Mayors Council have fully endorsed this plan, staff are now working through prioritization of routes for earlier implementation, and one of the factors will be the willingness of municipalities to endorse BRT on their roads. We don’t want to end up in a West Vancouver B-Line situation where advanced transit service is turned down by a local government, stalling implementation for other municipalities, so TransLink is asking for statements like this for endorsement of the lines that impact communities.

This doesn’t mean the 22nd-to-Marine BRT will be first. There are other factors such as buildability, cost, integration with the existing system, and projected ridership needs that will go in to the mix of prioritizing routes. I also note that TransLink currently has no money to deliver even the first BRT line, and conversations with senior government continue. Let your MLA and MP know!

Update on Council Motion Regarding “The Right Person, the Right Time, The Right Place”
Back in June, a group of representatives from Century House delegated to Council asking for the City to implement and advocate towards the recommendations of a report arising from work that the CHA and United Way had previously done. Council moved to support this call, and this report outlines what progress we have already made on the recommendations directed at Local Government, and speaks to a plan to evaluate and potentially address, the others, including senior government advocacy towards the things that are not in our jurisdiction.

Some of these actions will require partnerships and longer-term planning, and there may be some significant work plan and cost implications if we go it alone, so this proposal is to take those items back to the Century House Association, and determine priority and partnership potentials before we commit.

Westminster Pier Park Fire Site – Next Steps
Alas, most of us can remember the Pier Park fire of 2020, when we lost 2 acres of public park space. The clean up after was very complicated – old asphalt and creosote treated wood burned over sensitive river habitat, meaning the environmental remediation of those soils and sediments cost the City millions. Fortunately, we were insured, though “replacement value” is a difficult thing to determine with a 100-year-old pier built of materials that are no longer available, and not exactly replaceable under current environmental, seismic, and building codes. This required a marine engineer and negotiations with our insurer.

We have settled on $30M, including $10M that has already been provided and was mostly used to fund the cleanup and remediation work. When all is said and done, the City will have about $22M to start working on the replacement plan. Now we need to start planning what the community wants to put in the place, because exactly what was there is probably not what the community wants, and the Park will be very different when the (coincidentally) 2 acres of new space opens next year on the west side of Pier Park as the Bosa project is completed.

This report outlines the next steps in envisioning the replacement. As any site on the shore of the Fraser River is of incredible historic importance to First Nations, we are going to first connect with host nations and discuss what they would envision for this space. We are also going to go out to the community to engage on their vision or dreams for this place. We are also going to start developing a funding strategy in anticipation that we will need more than $22M to build the community’s vision, and senior government partners will want to participate in a city- and region-defining project.

This is going to be a big thing, an important conversation in the community, so stay tuned

We then read some Bylaws, including adoption of the following:

Permissive Tax Exemption Bylaw No. 8419, 2023
Certain properties within New Westminster such as places of worship, hospitals, and those with charitable/ philanthropic uses are eligible for an exemption from property taxes. This bylaw lists the properties exempted in 2024, and it was Adopted by Council.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (376 Keary Street) No. 8404, 2023
This bylaw that rezones a property in Sapperton to permit a duplex was adopted by Council.

And that was about it for business. Except that we also had an afternoon Workshop on the 2024 Capital Budget that is worth watching here, and a great presentation in the evening meeting from the Canadian Mental Health Association on the PACT program first year success. Maybe this is what lifted our spirits.

Year one

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

It has been an intense fall in the work/life balance front, and I almost forgot that I should probably mark the date on the calendar – one year since the election of 2022.

I haven’t had a chance to sit down and think about what “one year” means. I often feel dates like this are arbitrary, and so much of the important work we do in the City is incremental and based on long-term and system thinking that it doesn’t lend itself to tracking arbitrary dates. I also recognize years-in-review suit the listicle thinking of modern communications. However, I am instead going to do a bit of public self-reflection instead of talking about accomplishments that I might share with my incredible Council Team and the staff of the City. Maybe those will come in a follow-up.

Yesterday I spent several hours at the New West Fire and Rescue Open House at Glenbrook Fire Hall. Doing what I occasionally do – sitting in a booth taking questions from everyday folks, hearing concerns and talking about the City and the work of Council. One of the most common questions (after “are you really the Mayor!?”) is something around the theme: “What’s it like to be Mayor?” or “Is it what your expected?” or “How are you enjoying it?”

I usually quip an answer around “I’m experiencing it, that’s for sure” (chuckle), because it is hard to describe what something is like when you are so immersed in it, and it is hard to remember what I expected before I got here. The line of questioning does inspire some thoughts that are probably appropriate to go through after year one and it almost looks like a listicle.

First off, it is busy (and busy is rarely a good thing).

An interesting shift from time on Council to this job is how more all-encompassing this job is, and I thought Council was intense. The challenge is when things are coming at you in a constant stream, it is hard to know what actually needs current attention and what needs to be ignored – or what you can afford to ignore. If you are always reacting to what just arrived, you never have the time to do any long-term planning, or to concentrate on a single thing for a long enough period of time. The risk is you slip into a mode where you are reacting instead of thinking or planning.

There are many ways this manifests. I cannot possibly reply to every email I get, and can only reply to very few in timely and meaningful ways. I like replying to emails, and feel most people deserve a thoughtful response to their concern if they took the time to write. But there is only so much thoughtful time in a day. This is why I simply don’t have time to write blogs like I used to. I committed to the Council reports, but the longer discussions about bigger topics are just too hard to take the time to sit down and write.

As for the constant small decision making, it can get tiring, mostly because of the vast array of topics the City’s work touches. It seems every decision requires a shift in gears – from discussing sewer grants to community consultation scheduling to housing advocacy to discussing sidewalk repairs to flag raising events or parking rules – you never know what you will be asked next. It is exciting and dynamic, but at the end of the day, it is exhausting.

Secondly, it is at times emotionally difficult.

Bad news is all around us; global bad news and local bad news. Some I have no control over, while some are right in front of me. There is also some over which I have limited control, but have a responsibility to address. There are no two ways about it, some people in our community are suffering. Some lack a home; some lack support for their health care needs; some lack resources to feed and fully care for their family. These residents are not abstractions, they are people I see every day and talk to when walking around the City. The idea that I carry a Naloxone kit in my walks should be terrifying, but instead it is banal.

I was pointed to a radio show last week where people in my community with power and voice used those privileges to contribute to the stigma thrust upon the most vulnerable members of this community. Conflating not having a home or living with an addiction with criminality. Dehumanizing the people who most need help in our community. Framing them as the problem and propagating untruthful messages about the actual problem while providing no solutions. This both angers and saddens me, and I struggle to find a positive response, because the dehumanization is the entire point of that narrative. Separating community into “us” and “them” gives people reason to not care about their neighbours and makes it harder to build support for and do the work we need to do, stops us from acting with the optimism and hope we need to make a positive difference in our community.

Fortunately, it is also rewarding.

There are algorithms culturing negative narratives in social media and shock radio, but talking to people in the community gives such a different impression of what this community is and aspires to be. I sit at the Ask Pat booth or run into people on the Quayside or at the Brewery, and people love New West. Overwhelmingly, people appreciate the work the City is doing during challenging times, love our spaces and places, and like the balance we strike in NewWest. There is optimism.

This is shown by the growing number of young families settling here, by the way people show up when events occur, and by how engaged folks are at community meetings like last week on the 22nd Street Plan. It also shows up in the public surveys and polling where we find (for example) that the vast majority of New West residents feel safe in this community, and appreciate the way we find balance in our annual budgets.

When people come to me and say “thanks”, be it for the support their organization received or because they had a good experience at City Hall or just because they got their question asked at the booth, it is nice to be able to be at the receiving end of gratitude for the work that many, many people do together.

And it is Uplifting.

I have said it so many times over the last year, this community is about connections. There are so many people and organizations doing good work in this community to lift their neighbours, it is hard not to have a full heart. Sports clubs, social services, arts groups, businesses and non-profits, collections of caring neighbours, and staff in the city doing the everyday work of keeping the community moving forward.

This Friday after the radio made me grumpy, I attended the New Westminster Homelessness Coalition Community Party, where there was food, music, prizes, and the laughter and conversations of people getting together for no other reason than to be together celebrating community. After this I rushed up to the Massey Theatre for the launch of the 20th(!) annual Cultural Crawl where artists and art lovers from across the region gathered to support one another and showcase the talent in our community, and our MLA spoke eloquently about the importance of art in bringing community together at the toughest times.

There was no being grumpy after this.

One year in, we have a lot of work to do, but we have also done a lot of good work. We face challenges in our community, in the province, around the world, but we have made progress on many fronts, and can see the path forward to a community where more of our residents can thrive and live their best life. We need optimism and hope to do that work.

So I’ll close by thanking you for the work you do in your own community (however you define that) to make it stronger. It might be taking the time to be a good parent, it might be attending yet another strata meeting to talk building envelope. It might be supporting a local business or helping with a charity, or doing your little bit to make a community event happen next year. Thanks for being part of the great fabric of New West.