Author: Patrick Johnstone

Council – Oct 16, 2017

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Aside from the actual human drama, we had some work to do at Council on Monday, and a pretty detailed Agenda.

We started with a single Report for Action:

618 Carnarvon Street: First and Second Readings of Zoning Amendment Bylaw and Three Readings of Road Closure Bylaw for Portion of Clarkson Street
This is a high-rise mixed-use development project in the part of Downtown designated as the Tower Precinct. The building would be 33 stories high with 253 units, including a mix of Townhouse and two- and three-bedroom units that exceed the City’s Family Friendly housing policy. Part of it would be built over the SkyTrain line where it emerges from under Sixth Street, and ground-based retail on the Sixth Street side would include a public “parklet” area. A thin strip of the Clarkson Street road allowance would have to be transferred in order to build the encapsulation of the tracks.

This project has been in the works for some, and has been through neighbourhood open houses, Design Panel, Residents Association and APC review. The required Zoning Amendment will require a Public Hearing, the date of which will be set once design approval from TransLink for the SkyTrain encapsulation is received. I’ll reserve my comments until after the Public Hearing.

The following items were Moved on Consent:

Designations to the Acting Chief Financial Officer
There are some staffing changes coming in our Finance Department, and the role of “Chief Financial Officer” has some regulatory duties, meaning they can do certain things like sign regulatory documents for the City. We need to make sure this authority is well defined and an actual person who works for the City has this authority during the anticipated transitions. Hence, this temporary designation.

Acting Mayor Schedule 2017-2018
When the Mayor is out of town or otherwise occupied, someone has to be able to sign documents, declare emergency, or operate the weather machine on behalf of His Worship. The rest of council shares this responsibility evenly, taking two months each every year. Once again, I’m in for March and August. Get your weather requests in early.

Recruitment 2018: YAC Appointments
People applied for the Youth Advisory Committee, and we let them in! First meeting is next week! As Council Representative to the YAC, I look forward to another year of feeling old and uncool, but being inspired by the youth that get involved in this City.

Recruitment 2017: SAC and NTAC Appointments
These are two Council Advisory Committee positions that are filled by other organizations, as they send member to represent their organization at the committee. Council still needs to approve them, though, so we did.

Parks and Recreation Fees and Charges Bylaw Amendments
Every year we adjust Parks and Recreation fees to keep up with inflation, changes in program costs, or to keep in line with what other cities are doing. Most of these changes are small, except the fees for groups using natural turf fields. We have not been charging while the surrounding cities have, meaning most users are now groups from other cities avoiding local fees. This fee increase better reflects the cost of maintaining grass fields, and should result in more equitable use of City resources. Council moved ot give the new Fee Schedule Bylaw three readings.

640 and 616 Sixth Street: Rezoning and Development Permit Application for Mixed use Development – Preliminary Report
Unless I miss my guess, this is the high-rise building application for Uptown since the Viceroy was approved back in 2011. Early days yet for this application (this is only a preliminary report), and much Public Consultation to come as it works its way towards a potential Public Hearing. So I’ll save my comments until it moves through the process.

312 Fifth Street: Proposed Heritage Revitalization Agreement – Preliminary Report
318 Fifth Street: Proposed Heritage Revitalization Agreement – Preliminary Report
These are two side-by-side (but unrelated) projects on the edge of Queens Park. Both houses are protected under the Heritage Conservation Area, but the owners are suggesting adding higher protection (through Heritage Restoration Plans and Designation) in exchange for some variances to allow laneway homes. Again, preliminary reports, Public Hearings to come, so I’ll hold my comments until the public has a chance to chew on the projects a bit.

The following items were Removed from Consent for Discussion:

800 Columbia Street: Report for Consideration of First and Second Reading of Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7946, 2017 to allow a liquor Primary Licensed Premises
The business planning to re-activate the old CPR station at the foot of Eighth Street wishes to run a food primary (restaurant) on the main floor, with a smaller liquor primary (pub/lounge) on the top floor. This will require a Zoning Amendment. That requires a Public Hearing which will happen on November 27th.

630 Ewen Avenue: Development Permit – Consideration of Issuance
Council moved to approve the DP for this small affordable housing project in Queesnborough. It will be a five unit townhouse development on land owned by the City, but leased to a not-for-profit operator called Women in Need Gaining Strength (WINGS). This project will provide independent family housing that will be affordable and designed for single mothers and their children, in support of WINGS’ mandate. I’m happy the City can help make this project a reality and do a little part to fill a huge need in our region.

231 Twelfth Street (Gas Works Building): Removal from the Heritage Registry
The semi-demolished Gas Works building needs to be removed from the City’s Heritage Registry, so it can be demolished the rest of the way and the province can get on with cleaning up the site. It was one of the oldest industrial buildings in BC, but the combination of decades of neglect and extensive heavy metal contamination make restoration and preservation prohibitive. We may have had a chance to save the Gas Works, but it probably had to happen more than 20 years ago.

Queen’s Park Heritage Conservation Area: Work Plan
After the Heritage Conservation Area was adopted by Council, there are a bunch of tasks we left on staff’s table, this report provides a timeline and strategy to get those tasks done. This includes amending the maintenance standards bylaw (to prevent demolition-by-neglect), development of incentive packages to both boost conservation and to allow infill density where appropriate, and evaluating specific approaches for “Special Limited” houses – smaller houses on smaller lots where the standards suite of incentives may not be applicable. Council approved a 2-year multi-phase work plan, and reiterated our commitment to a formal public Policy Review two years after implementation.

Assessment of Water Conservation Measures and Residential Metering
This is a hangover from the protracted drought we had two summers ago, and a public delegation we had asking the City to do more on the water conservation front. Although we had a pretty low-stress summer season this year, never moving past Stage 1 water restrictions, the City is moving forward on a few fronts. There will be more enforcement of lawn watering restrictions, there will be some new incentives for those installing water-conservation measures in their home, and the City will be ramping up audits of water efficiency in our own buildings.

The business case for universal metering is not well supported (most of our water is already metered, and the cost of implementing for the other 30% is challenging – potentially raising rates for everyone), however, Staff is going to do some more work on this, including doing some data collection on meter-ready houses that are currently charged flat rates, so we can better understand a rate structure we would need to implement if we go that way.

That said, Metro Vancouver’s water utility is doing a study right now, and will be providing a report in the spring of 2018 on universal metering – although it is not certain yet if they will mandate it, or how they envision it working. The work being done by staff right now will hopefully dovetail well into that study. As much as we can, we are getting ready for what we don’t know is coming!

2016 Corporate Greenhouse Gas Emissions Update
The City set the goal in 2008 to reduce out GHG emissions to 15% below 2007 levels by 2017. Until this year, it looked like we were on track. Now, it looks like we are going to miss the target. Our buildings, lighting, and utility GHG emissions are all on or ahead target, but out vehicle fleet has suddenly fallen behind.

The short-term spike we see in fleet emissions that is so challenging our target can be blamed on changes to our solid waste fleet and the extraordinary efforts put in for snow management and removal due to last year’s horrible winter. However, that is more the obvious symptom that the root cause – we are simply not shifting our fleet over to lower-carbon or zero-carbon vehicles fast enough. The technology is shifting fast, from biodiesel to electric vehicles, even for heavier vehicles, but the capital required for us to catch up and replace our fleet is obviously a challenge.

As we are approaching the end of our 10-year GHG plan, it is time for us to start planning for decade ahead. Our goals should be based on doing our part towards the nation’s Paris Agreement commitments, although as a built-out compact urban community, a City like New Westminster arguably has to do more than the “average” for local governments. We are going to start by reviewing our Fleet policy, as the 2011 one is clearly missing the mark.

228 and 232 Sixth Street (La Rustica): Revised Submission – Preliminary Report
The old La Rustica restaurant has been boarded up for a couple of years, but it is a challenging site to develop, with some proximity issues on the lot and grade concerns. A new design team is now taking another shot at the design. Again, this project will be going through consultations and a Public Hearing before any final approvals are given, so I’ll save my comments until then.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw: Accommodation for Youth in Foster Care and Youth Aging out of Foster Care – Bylaw for First and Second Readings
Aging out of care is one the leading causes of homelessness in British Columbia. Few of us can understand the pressures of transitioning to adulthood at the same time that your family and community supports are cut off. It is a trap that is hard to escape, except for the hard work of a few support agencies that do their best to provide housing and guidance at that critical time.

Turns out or zoning makes it difficult for agencies like this operate in our community. Staff have identified this barrier and provided us a pathway to amend our zoning to allow them there organizations to work legally in our City. Council moved to give this amendment first and second reading, and a Public Hearing will happen on November 27.

We also read through the following Bylaws,:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (618 Carnarvon Street) No. 7949, 2017
This Bylaw to support the development of a mixed-use highrise in Downtown, as described above, was given two readings. The date of the Public Hearing has not yet been set, as the proponent needs to work with TransLink over the SkyTrain track enclosure.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (800 Columbia Street Liquor Primary Licensed Premises) No. 7946, 2017
This Bylaw to support the operation of a restaurant and pub in the old CPR Station, as described above, was given two readings. The Public Hearing will be on November 27th. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Road Closure and Dedication Removal (Clarkson Street) Bylaw No. 7950, 2017
This Bylaw permits the closure and sale of a narrow piece of Clarkson Street adjacent to the SkyTrain line to allow an encapsulation of the tracks. It was given Three Readings.

Parks and Recreation Fees and Charges Bylaw Amendment Bylaw No. 7955, 2017
The Bylaw supporting the annual rate adjustment for Parks and Recreation facilities and programs (as described above) was given three readings.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (Youth in Foster Care) No. 7937, 2017
This Bylaw to amend our zoning Bylaw and facilitate aging-out-of-care supports in our community (as described above) was given two readings. The Public Hearing will be on November 27th. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Zoning Amendment (43 Hastings Street Affordable Housing Project) Bylaw No. 7923, 2017
This Bylaw to support the development of an Affordable Housing project at the east end of Downtown was Adopted. I’m really glad to see this moving forward with support of the community.

Taxation Exemption and Exempt Properties Bylaw No. 7945, 2017
This Bylaw formalizing our list of property tax exempted properties was adopted.

Finally, reflecting the joy and sadness of the day, we had an emotional rollercoaster of an Open Delegation session. Some inspirational ideas, some challenging questions, and some pretty inappropriate comments by people who probably don’t know better. Altogether, it was an emotional night for many of us, and I can’t say I went home in a good mood. Lots of work to do.

Monday.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The most unusual Council Monday. Full of highs and lows.

It started out joyful with two great friends showing up to get married at City Hall (in a cyclist tradition going back at least to Moocher and Nancy in Breaking Away). They were married in the Mayor’s Office by my Council colleague who happens to be a Marriage Commissioner! I feel lucky to have met Jen and Simon through strange consequence of circumstances, and it was great to see their beaming faces on their special day. Good people.

A few hours later, all of Council was saddened to learn that a great friend and community leader in New Westminster had passed away from a pretty sudden illness. Bill will leave a big hole in our community, his contribution was huge. His career was saving lives, and his volunteer efforts were tireless. I feel lucky to have met him, shared many laughs, and to have taken his advice (although his attitude about maintaining a cleanly-shaved face was clearly a step too far for me). The only consolation this evening was in knowing that the community that he and Lynn spent so much of their time building is standing up to support Lynn at her time of sorrow.

Life is short, folks, but there is a lot of joy to be found in caring for others. And in the end, that’s all that matters.

UBCM 2017 – Day 3+1/2

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

This is part 4 on my reporting out on what I did at the 2017 UBCM conference. Part 3 is here

On the Thursday of UBCM 2017, I again caught the early train downtown for a morning clinic, this one on Socially Responsible Investing. The CAO of the Municipal Finance Authority and a gentleman from an Investment Management company came to speak to a pretty small audience about repeated calls from several local governments (including New West) towards divestment from fossil fuel industries.

Long story slightly shortened: most local governments in BC place most of their reserves in pooled funds held by the Municipal Finance Authority. Through pooling our savings, we can get pretty good returns, the investments are quite secure, and we can re-invest back into our communities – it’s a pretty good model. However, about 8% of these funds are invested in fossil fuel extraction companies, and another 4% or so in fossil fuel transmission companies – like the same Kinder Morgan that communities across BC are trying to prevent from fouling our landscape. We are paying to prevent Kinder Morgan from threatening the lower Brunette River, and at the same time, financing their fight against us. Many of our communities would like a better option – a fund where we can invest that doesn’t include that 12% of carbon-intensive industries.

The presentations were (alas) essentially a long justification for why this is not possible. Every tired argument against divestment was brought out, but the most bothersome was the industry-sustaining argument that the “fiduciary responsibility” of the fund manager will not allow them to make ethical decisions – they are required by law to return the maximum investment possible, and it isn’t up to them to make ethical judgement around climate change. This argument follows that it is up to legislators and regulators to remove impacts of unethical industrial activity, not the investor (which is strange, as *we are the regulators*, so our own investment is being used to battle our own efforts to regulate the industry). They also argue that it is difficult because we would need to divest from every industry that may produce greenhouse gasses like plastics companies and convenience store companies that share land with gas pumps… a familiar and bullshitty slippery slope argument. These arguments were, understandably) met with some pretty strong opposition from some members of the audience, but the circular reasoning used to prop up the oil industry is well lubed.

The MFA is attempting to put together a “Socially Responsible Investing” option for local governments, but are (perhaps not surprisingly) getting a lukewarm response, partly because the poorly defined and wishy-washy way the idea was presented to local governments. Altogether, a frustrating morning session.

A much more positive experience was attending an afternoon workshop on Transgender Inclusion: Preparing for the New Reality. This was an interactive workshop about evaluating whether our local governments are integrating inclusion to our operations and our infrastructure. The “new reality” part is not that transgendered people are living in our communities (they have for as long as communities have existed), but that both the BC Human Rights Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act have been updated (in 2016 and 2017, respectfully) to include the protection from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression. So what used to be the right thing to do is now the law.

The session included a lot of training for those less familiar with the modern reality of cultural inclusion, as simple as defining the difference between birth-assigned sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexuality. There were also representatives from Vancouver and Vernon, two BC cities leading the way in inclusivity. But mostly, the session left us with a bunch of questions to ask ourselves when we get back to our communities – how are we designing our spaces to be inclusive? Do our photos and written materials demonstrate an inclusive city? How are we addressing single-gender sport and arts programs? Do our Housing Agreements protect access for transgendered peoples? What are the feedback mechanisms we have put in place to make changes where needed?

We were also pointed to resources to guide our Local Governments (staff and elected types) to do more, and to do better. This was easily the best session I attended at UBCM this year.

Aside from these sessions, forums and workshops, the UBCM conference includes an Annual General Meeting, with things like Bylaws and Financial Reports and election of new Officers. These events occur throughout the week. There is also a Resolutions session which occurs on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning.

This year there were something north of 150 Resolutions on the Agenda for 2017. These resolutions are put forward by member communities, and are voted upon by the membership in an open meeting, some on a consent process, some debated on the floor. You can read all of the resolutions for 2017 here, although note not all were passed by the Membership. You can search the database of previous resolutions here.

This year there was a rigorous debates on topics as wide-reaching as the fate of the Martin Mars water bombers to repealing Daylight Savings Time. The only resolution New Westminster put forward this year came to the floor for debate on Friday morning. It was a call for action to prevent a renoviction crisis in our City. The text was:

Whereas the practice of renovictions, by which some landlords evict their tenants under the guise of performing major renovations and then significantly increase the rent of those units, is on the rise in our province; And whereas this practice is very disruptive to those impacted, including the elderly, low-income families, and new immigrants, and contributes to housing unaffordability and homelessness; And whereas municipalities are limited in their ability to address this issue and many tenants are unaware of their rights or are reluctant to exercise them: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM urge the provincial government to undertake a broad review of the Residential Tenancy Act including, but not limited to, amending the Residential Tenancy Act to:
• allow renters the right of first refusal to return to their units at a rent that is no more than what the landlord could lawfully have charged, including allowable annual increases, if there had been no interruption in the tenancy;
• eliminate or amend fixed-term tenancy agreements to prevent significant rent increases upon renewal; and
• permit one tenant or applicant to represent and take collective action on behalf of all tenants in a building.

…and I am happy to announce it was passed by the Membership, after being well motivated by Councillor McEvoy.

There is one final aspect of the UBCM that isn’t really on the schedule, but is really valuable. It is an annual chance to network with local government types from across the province. I had great informal chats over coffee and/or beers with councillors from several other cities; told them my stories and they told me theirs, from dealing with internet trolls to frustrations of slow policy development to excitedly explaining how our City attacked a problem their City is having right now. Being a City Councillor is like any other job in that your cohort are often your best mentors and the best source of inspiration. They share your view and can see your challenges better than most. I always find inspiring people doing great work, and am re-charged by our conversations.

UBCM 2017- Day 2

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

This is part 3 on my reporting out on what I did at the 2017 UBCM conference. Part 2 is here.

My third day at UBCM had less of an educational component, more of a political one.

One aspect of UBCM is an opportunity for Local Government elected types and staff to meet with Provincial Government elected types and staff, so we can raise important issues, lobby for support for our initiatives or programs, or learn about how provincial government programs are going to impact us. These meetings are arranged ahead of time, and with hundreds of local governments in attendance and only so many provincial folks to go around, the scheduling is pretty difficult. Meetings are generally 15 minutes to a half an hour, and rarely result in immediate action on issues – especially this year with a new government so early in their mandate.

Part of having a collaborative approach on Council that extends to working with senior governments, we split up responsibilities for these meetings among the Council Members attending UBCM, with the Mayor taking the lead at most meetings. I was able to take part in meetings regarding transportation topics, on the future of childcare in New West and the provincial role in supporting it, and on several community energy and emission reduction initiatives.

Several members of New West Council and a few of our planning staff also had a sit-down meeting with representatives of AirBnB. Clearly, AirBnB are working all levels of government in Canada to assure their business model is not regulated out of existence, and (unlike Uber), this is an area where Local Governments can exercise some regulatory control, through Zoning and Business Licensing. They came prepared to talk to any city who would listen, including providing local stats. In New Westminster (according to AirBnB, there are 130 active hosts, with the average host opening a room for 54 nights a year, for a total length of stay of between 4 and 5 days. The case they were making is that AirBnB contributes to the local economy (guests frequent local restaurants, pubs, and stores) and make housing more affordable for some people, by providing a “mortgage helper”.

We were pretty frank with AirBnB, we are concerned about the impact on our affordable housing stock, about violations of our business license and zoning laws, and about some livability concerns expressed by community members. We had a good discussion about other jurisdictions (such as Nelson and Tofino) and the strengths and weaknesses of their attempts at regulating this platform. It should be no surprise that some concerns that AirBnb raise about different regulatory models are very different that the concerns we hear in some parts of the community. There is also, I think, a bit of a disconnect between AirBnB’s interest in operating within a better regulatory framework, and the limits they put on how they could help local government with that framework- often citing (debatable) privacy issues.

This is a topic I am interested in, and am not getting a lot of traction in my calls for the City to take a more proactive approach. I think there is a role for supporting expanded BnBs in our community (Really, AirBnB is just a platform, not the core business), especially as we have so few Hotel Rooms, no “Hotel Tax” to support our Tourism efforts, and so many heritage and cultural aspects that should make us a popular destination. But with our rental vacancy rate below 0.5%, renovictions burgeoning on crisis, and so many challenges maintaining our affordable housing stock, the answers here are not easy.

Wednesday was also the first day of Resolutions for UBCM 2017 – but I’ll talk about those in a follow-up post.

The afternoon saw several “Provincial Cabinet Town Halls” which were an interesting model for engagement by the new government. There were four Panels (Health and Safety; Investing in People; Infrastructure and Economic Development; and Job, Resources, and Green Communities), each headed by 5 or 6 members of the new Provincial Cabinet. They gave a brief intro to their Mandate Letters, and where they see their files helping Local Government, then the floor was opened in a Town all style for us to grill them on any topic we liked.

I attended the Jobs, Etc. session, where the Ministers of Agriculture, Energy & Mines, FLNROrd, Environment, and Jobs&Trade were in attendance. The introductory conversations were pretty high-level, with Minister Popham clearly excited about protecting the ALR, Minister Mungall equally excited about the future of mining and green energy in the province, and Minister Donaldson proud of the provincial response to the wildfires of the summer (and giving significant props to his predecessor John Rustad for working hard to not let the transition impact firefighting efforts).

Questions given to the Ministers were wide-reaching, including yet another visit from the same Mayor from a certain agriculture-focused municipality clutching pearls over marijuana taking over prime farmland already overwrought with freeways and million-square-foot factory greenhouses (though she didn’t put it that way), to concerns about the future of northeast BC’s ample natural gas resources.

On that final point, I recognized a place where our senior governments are sending mixed messages. Where the Federal Government (in defending the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion) is saying downstream greenhouse gas emissions of pipeline products are not our problem, because they are burned elsewhere, the BC Government (including, alas, the new government) are insisting that we need to support LNG because it will reduce overall emissions in the downstream by offsetting coal in the target markets. Am I the only one who sees the contradiction here?

UBCM 2017- Day 1

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

This is part 2 on my reporting out on what I did at the 2017 UBCM conference. Part 1 is here.

Tuesday, September 26, was the first day of the UBCM 2017 conference, and it started early for me with the British Columbia Municipal Climate Leadership Council breakfast. This is an annual opportunity to sit down with the Council members and provincial leaders (those laser-eyed folks pictured above) to share good news about what local governments are doing, and to find opportunities for partnerships across communities and with senior governments to meet the Province’s climate goals.

For my part, I was able to talk briefly about how our new OCP integrates climate change mitigation and adaptation, about developing plans for our District Energy Utility, about the Urban Solar Garden Project and the small research project we are working on with BCIT to expand curb-side EV charging opportunities. I also heard about similar things in other communities, and from the province about their plans to renew the Climate Leadership Team and a commitment to a renewed Climate Action Charter that was the source of much criticism at this same meeting a year ago. Again, much to feel optimistic about, but still early days of policy development for the new Government.

This was followed by the Community Forums part of the Convention. These are semi-plenary sessions where we are divided up into small, medium, and large communities. At 70,000+ residents, New Westminster is part of the Large Urban Communities forum.

The session began with a panel on Transportation, Moving Commuters in Today’s Urban Environment. Councillor Kerry Jang from Vancouver chaired a panel consisting of Dr. Anthony Perl from SFU’s Urban Studies Program, and the CEOs of both TransLink and BC Transit. (yes, another all-male panel).

Dr. Perl started by showing a series of automobile ads with the same theme: “Buy Now, Pay later!”, and contrasted that with how we market transportation investment – we always ask for a new tax or other funding sources, on the promise that some new service will come later. No wonder we lose referendums. Aside from this, his main message seemed to be that we need to stop thinking more transportation spending means better transportation, when we need better transportation spending.

MORE ≠ BETTER.    BETTER = BETTER.

This was followed by TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond essentially saying that TransLink is doing better, at least in passenger counts. Ridership on the system was up 4.5% in 2016, and is up 6.1% so far in 2017, which is *way* faster than growth being observed in other urban areas around North America. This after a period starting in 2010 when service hours per capita and rides per capita was actually dropping. Some of this turn-around is due to the sometimes painful route optimization process that saw service hours cut but more emphasis on higher-ridership routes. However, more of it may be related to the Compass Card, and changing the way people pay for Transit use.

For anyone who took SkyTrain to and from the conference like I did every day, this measureable surge in ridership is not a surprise, nor is it making the system more comfortable, and Desmond was quick point out that managing overcrowding is now a priority, both in improving SkyTrain service and in the larger projects like Broadway SkyTrain. As is typical of any Desmond conversation about TransLink, he finished by reminding us that we need to start planning past the current Mayor’s Council 10-year plan, and have a serious discussion about mobility pricing as a stable capital funding source.

Manuel Achadinha , the CEO of BC Transit, is less familiar to those of us living in the TransLink service area, but BC Transit provides service to Vancouver Island, the Fraser Valley, and the vast interior of the province, where most communities with more than 10,000 residents have some level of public transit service. His talk was mostly on the topic of using technology to collect transit data, and to make service better. Ultimately, what Transit users really want is Frequency and Reliability – technology cannot replace these, but can make them more achievable.

During the Q&A session, there were questions about integrating service and technology between BC Transit and TransLink, and from the answers, it sounded like this was not on anyone’s workplan. Local Government representatives from Fraser Valley communities and the Sea-to-Sky corridor are anxious to see some better integration happen. Connecting Squamish and Whistler to TransLink’s core service area, and inter-community connections between Greater Vancouver and growing Fraser Valley town centres like Abbotsford and Chilliwack seems to be on neither agencies’ radar, but will be a major topic for the Lower Mainland Local Government Association this year.

The Panel wrapped with a short presentation from Selena Robinson, the new Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (and Minister responsible for Translink). Again, she had little new policy to announce, and it was clear she was the most-in-demand Minister at UBCM. However, she did reiterate her and her Government’s support for the Mayor’s Council 10-Year Plan, and to providing the promised 40% funding for every phase of the plan.

The second half of the Forum was a Panel called BC Kids – Changing Demographics and Needs of Urban Families with Dr. Bonnie Henry, Deputy Provincial Health Officer, Sharon Gregson of the Coalition of Child Care Advocates, Chris Bone from the City of Prince George, and the Minister of State for Child Care Katrina Chen. (Hey! An all-female Panel!)

Dr. Henry tweaked us to some demographics and trends in BC in relation to children. They are 20% of BCs population, up to 25% in some communities. But it was her deeper dive into how health indicators vary across the province that show some of the geographic gaps in health services for youth. A comprehensive ongoing survey of children’s health is compiled at ChildHealthIndicatorsBC.ca.

Gregson provided the background behind the 10aDay.ca campaign to bring affordable accessible childcare to British Columbia. This research provided the basis for the new Government’s Child Care Plan – a solution that is much more complex than the speaking points commonly heard during the Election. The current situation is dire – there are 364,000 mothers in the workforce in the Province, with 570,000 children between the ages of 0-12, but there are currently fewer than 106,000 licensed day care spaces. It costs too much to put a child in daycare or many working parents, yet most daycare workers are not paid enough to put their own children in daycare. The system, if that’s what you call the current situation, isn’t working.

Fixing this situation will require more spaces to be built, and it will mean training a new generation of daycare workers. It also means setting up a structure to administer both a fair payment system ($10 a day is a catchy slogan, but in reality the cost would be adapted according to a family’s income and the type of care needed) and a fair wage system to build the professionalism of child care.

The promise is there, the delivery will take time. This is starting to sound like a theme.

Finally, I attended an afternoon policy session on the Water Sustainability Act that unfortunately missed the mark somewhat. The presenters were from the two Ministries responsible for the WSA (Environment and FLNRO), and were clearly highly knowledgeable about the topic, but I felt they didn’t really understand who their audience was, or what information about the WSA as actually valuable to Local Government elected types.

The WSA came into force more than a year ago, but there has been a notable paucity of policy and regulation development to support the goals of the WSA, especially as it relates to the empowerment of (or downloading to?) Local Governments with the ability to develop Water Management Plans and better manage the protection of community water assets. This is not news. People working in environmental protection have been patiently waiting for the WSA to be put to practice, and aside from new regulation around well drilling, the wait goes on.

UBCM17 – Day 0

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

The annual UBCM Conference was in Vancouver last week, and I attended for only the second time in my term as a City Councillor. I reported here, here, and here on my impressions from last year, but I was among those going into this year with different expectations, what with a fresh new provincial government, and one that has emphasized the importance of working with Local Governments. Indeed, I expect many local government types had expectations going in they were unrealistically high, but let’s see where this went.

I will drag this out across a few blog posts, as it was a jammed week. I’ll try to keep it concise, though this may get pretty wonkish for some regular readers. There was a lot to learn this year, and since the citizens of New Westminster pay my registration, I think it is important to report out so you know what you got for that money.

Monday is a bit of a pre-conference day, as the conference in earnest begins on Tuesday, but I attended two education sessions on Monday, and am glad I did.

The morning session was on Cannabis Regulations from a Local Government Perspective. There were presentations from the new Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall, and Sukhbir Manhas, a Lawyer specializing in Municipal Law who put the legal framework in perspective. This was followed by a Panel Discussion with four Mayors from around the Province and a bit of a Q & A session.

It is clear that marijuana for recreational consumption will be legal federally in July of 2018. We also know that the federal government will be responsible for the regulation of production of marijuana, and the provinces will be responsible for regulating wholesale and retail distribution of product, regulating consumption, and for enforcement. It is not clear what role Local Governments will play, except in that we are “Creatures of the Province”, and will be given our roles either through direct regulation or by a local desire to fill a regulatory gap left by provincial action.

It was an interesting session, with a lot of topics discussed, but short version is that the Minister made the commitment to open public consultation and to engaging Local Governments in a constructive way to address our concerns. There will clearly be economic impacts of any regulation. But the Minister was warned by other jurisdictions with which he has been consulting (including Washington State and Colorado) that revenue generation cannot be the driver of regulation, or the important public policy implications can fall by the wayside while short-term costs of setting up the regulatory regime are often underestimated. There will be revenue, but perhaps the message is that we shouldn’t be in a rush to spend it until we understand its character.

Dr. Kendall gave us some interesting perspectives about the public health implications of different policy directions – what age is the right age to permit cannabis use? What to do about public smoking rules, and what to do with multi-unit buildings? How to manage edibles? How do we provide the right price-quality-convenience balance that we effectively cut organized crime out of the supply chain? Legislation must balance these out if we wish to have the best public health outcomes. He presented this compelling graph:

link to source.

In short, if your interest is in managing public health impacts, a well-regulated market is better than a completely unregulated market (like cigarettes used to be) or blanket prohibition (like Cannabis is now) – but finding that middle is the delicate balance we need to strive for. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health have provided some pretty good guidelines, and research in existing and potential policy tools, but we have yet to see what advice the federal government will be taking.

Mr. Minhas and the Mayors’ Panel both discussed some of the challenges and opportunities for local governments coming out of this, and the importance of us coordinating with the province prior to next July. We need to be ready for the inevitable change that is coming, if only so we are ready to address the inevitable community concerns in areas that Local Governments have jurisdiction – land use, business regulation, and nuisance management. Our tools are limited, but are most effective if we get ahead of the curve.

Unfortunately, there is lots of evidence, especially from the Q&A session, that this is an area where many local government attitudes lag far behind the progressive public policy work of other jurisdictions and even public perception. From the lame Cheech & Chong joke that opened the session to one long-serving Mayor of an certain agriculture-intensive Lower Mainland Municipality expressing fear that her City will become the “Pot Capital of BC” (causing me to question if she would feel that worried if it became the Craft Brewing Capital of BC, or the Winery Capital of BC?), it is clear that attitudes about cannabis will not change as quickly as the regulation of it will – which suggests some difficult conversations ahead.

My second session on Monday was on Green Innovation and new Environmental Policies. We had a presentations from Jonathan Wilkinson, the Parliamentary Secretary to the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and from George Heyman, the new provincial Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. They talked mostly of senior governments’ commitment to meeting the Paris Agreement goals to reduce emissions, and both acknowledged the role local governments will need to play to meet those goals.

A statistic oft repeated during UBCM was that local governments in Canada are responsible for about 66% of infrastructure, create about 50% of all emissions, but only receive about 6% of all tax revenue. This results in some pretty obvious math: if we want to reduce emissions, we need to update that infrastructure, which is going to cost money.

Which brought us to the topic of grants. There were some details on the Federal Build Canada Infrastructure Fund, and the process being developed through the Provincial Government to make these funds available to local governments. These funds may be applicable to help us fund a few projects in New Westminster where we are planning to reduce the emissions by updating our infrastructure (Canada Games Pool is our single largest emission source) or wish to shift the community to lower-carbon energy sources (The proposed District Energy Utility for Sapperton would replace gas-fired boilers for and expanded RCH and could provide ample carbon-free baseload heat for dozens of high-density residential and commercial developments).

This was followed by Panels on actions that some Local Governments are taking to reduce emissions or modernize their energy supply – from embedding energy sustainability in their OCP (done!) to helping strata complexes bring electric vehicle charging on-line, to implementing the Step Code to promote more energy efficient buildings.

Actually, there was a lot of talk about electricity and the transportation sector, from private cars to transit to heavy trucks. Some question whether the advances in vehicles are too fast compared to our ability to provide the infrastructure to support the shift. According to BC Hydro, if all of the 2.4 Million light-duty vehicles in British Columbia could be replaced with EVs today, and it would only result in a 19% increase in base load. As EV charging predominantly happens when other loads on the system are not high, (i.e. at night), this is less of a problem at the generation end than some may have you believe. On a per-year basis, the average Tesla uses about half the electricity as the average hot tub. Let that sink in for a bit.

The reality is we cannot build the plugs for all these vehicles fast enough for it to become a problem in the short term.

I also learned this:
EV or PEV or ZEV or CEV = PHEV + BEV.
In the electric car world, that’s a funny joke.

Finally, I want to note that today’s two sessions were informative, but I couldn’t help but notice I saw 23 presenters and panelists over the two sessions. Five of them were female, while two others were visible minorities.

Our City

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The new Official Community Plan for New Westminster was formally adopted on Monday. The longest and most open public consultation process in the history of the City culminated in a comprehensive re-write of the OCP, last done almost 20 years ago.

I’m really proud of the process this community went through and the work staff did to make it work. The end result is a huge step forward for the City. Although I get a sense we didn’t reach far enough in some areas, I am happy with the end result, as it was clearly driven by the community.

When this process started back in early 2014, I was not on Council. I spent a lot of time that summer knocking on doors, and heard a variety of ideas about where residents wanted the City to go. Some clearly wanted no change at all, others saw the need for a different approach to housing. These differences were not neighbourhood by neighbourhood, but were all over the map. It was clear that the new OCP would be a huge Public Consultation undertaking.

The City put together an advisory committee of a couple dozen residents from all neighbourhoods and walks of life. We brought in Residents’ Association representatives, business people, community leaders and everyday citizens to not just consult, but to help lead the intensive sessions that got the conversations going asking the first question of any OCP: “what do you want the City to be?”

This launched us into two more years of talking about how to get there. We had more open houses that I can count, some very open chats about general OCP concepts, some more directed to specific topics like the series of community discussions on housing. Staff created interesting on-line tools to help people engage, visited every Residents’ Association at least once, and went out to everything from seniors homes to daycare centres to survey for ideas and opinions. The “Our City” Pop-up-Planning booth was omnipresent at City events for two years, asking questions that changed as the process wore on. Staff consulted with 11 Council Advisory Committees, ran “travelling workshops” to community centres across the City, and reached out to agencies that serve those members of our community that are usually marginalized from political and planning conversations, such as Spirit of the Children Society and Immigrant Services Society. Feedback was received from the development community, Metro Vancouver, Provincial Ministries from Transportation to Health to Environment, the School Board, the Port, TransLink, and Qayqayt First Nation. Council received a lot of correspondence.

The result was literally thousands of interactions with members of our community, and I am thankful, once again, that New Westminster showed up and told us their opinions. We have 7,000 pages of documents backing up this consultation. That is an amazing amount of paperwork to distill down to a working 200-page document.

A successful consultation does not mean everyone gets what they want, that is impossible with so many contrasting opinions in the City. However, it does allow us to gauge the mood of the City and frame the bigger goals of the community, and in turn frame the strategies and tasks that will move us towards those goals in the decade ahead.

An important point missed by many is that an OCP is much more than a Land Use Plan. It is about the 12 Major goals that define what our City will be in the decade ahead, those goals supported by 61 well-defined Policy Areas and 182 concrete actions the City can (and will) take to achieve the goals. If the OCP works the way it is intended, these goals will drive future Council policy, the work of staff, and will even help define how the Land Use Plan develops over time. Indeed, of all the OCP products, it is the Land Use Plan that is most easily and commonly edited as the community evolves.

Still, the Land Use Plan map gets the most attention. I suspect because it more tangible than policy statements. I don’t think the friction sometimes generated between community-wide goals and parochial or political concerns is ever as hot as when talking about changes in land use – which is ultimately a local government’s primary responsibility and jurisdiction. So I guess I’ll follow the lead and talk more here about the Land Use Plan than the 12 Goals, though you will see them scattered about  about this post as constant reminders of where we are meant to be headed, like this one right here:

The first big point to make about the Land Use Plan is that it supports growth anticipated in the Regional Growth Strategy developed the best part of a decade ago. This plan does not open the floodgates to population growth – that growth is happening regardless of what we do here – but it does give us a more sustainable plan to make that growth fit within the community we want to be, in 10 years, in 20 years, and beyond. Most importantly, the OCP allows us to plan for building the roads, parks, sewers, schools and other infrastructure we need to support the residents of the future.

When the OCP process started 3 years ago, the idea of increasing our housing variety and finding opportunities for density increases in our residential neighbourhoods had to be framed in the context of bringing more amenities to neighbourhoods – making our retail areas more vibrant, supporting more frequent transit service. In 2014 when we started, the regional housing crisis was still on a low boil, at least in New West. The “Million Dollar Line” of average house values was still far off to the west, and New West was still (almost) an affordable option for young families – if we could build them the type of housing they wanted and needed.

I don’t have to tell anyone here that we are in a different place now. The housing crisis is boiling over, and though we have strategies in the City that are effectively creating a new stock of rental units and assuring family-friendly units get built, we are simply not keeping up with the region-wide demand. In hindsight, this should have been obvious, and maybe staff was ahead of both the public and Council on this front. I’d like to think this is why we had significant push-back on creating more opportunities for flexible housing choice, and why Council decided that this push-back was reasonable.

In the end, any single map or plan that comes out of such a wide consultation includes compromises. I don’t think this Land Use Plan is perfect, but I think it is a significant step in the right direction, and I was happy to support it. All such maps are living documents, subject to lot-by-lot revision and adjustment as the plan unfolds. It will be up to staff and Council to track how this Land Use Plan leads us to the larger strategic goals we outlined in the OCP, and not be afraid to make those adjustments when the case can be made for them.

From the start of the consultations, the theme of housing choice and housing affordability clearly led the discussions. Call it gentle infill, call it family housing, call it missing middle, it is clear that housing choice was a wide concern in the City, both in how to make it happen and in how to make if fit in our existing neighbourhoods. In this rests my biggest concern with the OCP. I am not convinced we got the formula right for incentivizing the growth of the missing middle housing form, townhouses and rowhomes.

In my mind, the best option at this point is to challenge staff and Council (not just this Council, but the one elected in 2018) to closely monitor the situation as the community reacts to the new land use designations. Did we get the incentives, rules and guidelines right, and create a healthy market for missing middle housing forms? Or did we fall behind the real economics of housing over the period it took for us to complete this plan?

That was my thinking in moving some direction to staff as part of adopting the OCP. The text of my motion was “THAT Council direct staff to explore additional locations that could be designated Residential – Infill Townhouse as part of a two year Townhouse and Rowhouse Monitoring Program, and include the outcome in a proposed Land Use Designation Map update at the conclusion of the Program”. The completion of an OCP isn’t the end of the planning process, it is the beginning of a new planning process. I wanted to put some expectations and timelines on the next steps in that process.

Council just attended the UBCM conference (blogs to come!), where housing was one of the most pressing topics – everything from homelessness, demo- and reno-victions, housing affordability, and an increasingly challenging market for people at every single level of the economic spectrum. The crisis is regional, and it is mutli-faceted, not doubt made worse by a decade of general indifference at the provincial level. As there is not a single problem, there is not a single solution. This OCP will not solve the problem, but it does give us a view of where some solutions will be found. And it will obviously need to be adapted as new solutions are found through collaboration of all three levels of government.

I feel positive about the future for New Westminster outlined in this OCP, and am encouraged that we got literally thousands of New West citizens involved in such a complex public consultation. There were almost as many disagreements within Council as there were in the bigger community about major aspects of the plan, but we worked together to find the compromises needed to achieve the common goals. Now we need to get to work putting it in practice.

Council – Oct. 2, 2017

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Our first October Council meeting was a little disjointed and diverse, as there were a variety of topics on the Agenda, and presentations and delegations were all over the place. I don’t usually report here on delegations and announcements that happen, but stick to the decisions made by Council, but you can always get the full deal by watching on the intertubes!

The meeting started with us moving the following items on Consent:

Capture Photography Festival 2018
Our participation in this project brought two great Public Art installations to the City, and our Public Art Advisory Committee is recommending we take part again in 2018 and fund that from the Public Art Reserve Fund. Council agreed.

Intelligent City Digital Inclusion and Marketing and Advocacy subcommittee update
Our “Intelligent City” initiative is meant to be more than just dark fibre in the ground and using smarter systems in the City, it includes many different programs to connect the entire population of New West to the advantages of Innovation and digital connectivity. We had a hugely successful Innovation Week last spring, and are gearing up for another in 2018. We also are developing various initiatives to assure connectivity is inclusive, which means we are finding ways to include people who may have barriers (education, economic, equipment, etc.) to connecting to the digital world have opportunities for access, for education, and for support. This report gives us an update of where those programs are.

Memorandum: Metro Vancouver Regional District acceptance of the City of New Westminster Regional Context Statement
This is a step in the Official Community Plan process, where the regional government essentially signs off that the OCP, after receiving Third Reading, complies with the Regional Growth Strategy. This is the last step to Adoption of the new OCP.

Recruitment 2017: ICAC Appointment
There is a shift of representation on the Intelligent City Advisory Committee, due to people changing job roles in one of our partnership organizations. Moved!

41 and 175 Duncan Street: Official Community Plan Amendment Consideration of Public Consultation
This project to develop a medium-sized townhouse development in Queensborough will be going into consultation, including a Public Hearing, so I will hold my comments until them.

900 Carnarvon Street (Tower 4): Construction Noise Bylaw No. 6063, 1992 – Request for Exemption
The construction of noise barriers over SkyTrain rails is challenging. It needs to happen when the train isn’t running (at night), and is pretty specialized work. Degelder have been trying to get the work done for the 4th Tower at Plaza 88 for a couple of months, and it is yet to start. We are approving a long construction noise variance, though the actual work will only take about 7 days within that longer window. The workers will need to provide 72 hours’ notice to nearby residents before evenings when works will actually occur.

Information Update re Recommendation from Ecole Glenbrook Middle School Student Presentation
Students from Glenbrook gave a memorable presentation to Council in May about how to make their community more fun and friendly. This report is a follow-up from staff. Short version: some improvements have been made as part of capital maintenance programs, there has been great feedback sought and integrated into a couple of bigger projects (Canada Games Pool and the Skate Park replacement) Spring, and we are going to continue to engage these students in future consultations.

Report on Major Purchasing Transactions for the Period May 1st to August 31st, 2017
Ternary report on what we have bought.

Downtown New Westminster BIA Extension
The two Downtown BIAs have been doing some really great work. It has been great to watch them become a more professional organization over the last decade with some really stellar staff. They have been proactive in developing a new Strategic Plan, and have been great partners to the City in our Economic Development initiatives. However, the Bylaw that enables them to be funded by a Parcel Tax on downtown businesses is expiring, and they have asked us for a renewal/update. I am happy to support this.

1319 Third Avenue (Steel and Oak Brewery): Proposed Increase in Seating Capacity
S&O wishes to increase their seating capacity, but have bumped up against the Zoning Bylaw maximums for their current zoning. This report will launch the Public Process to enable that, and I’ll hold off my comments until that happens.

Access Ability Advisory Committee: Consideration of the Effect of Demovictions and Renovictions on Low-Income and Disabled Residents
There was much talk at last week’s UBCM meeting (yes, I will blog about it soon!) about renovictions and the impact on homelessness, and it resulted in some promising action. This topic also came up at the last AAAC Meeting, and that committee wanted to assure Council considered the impacts of the housing and rental crises are harder on people with barriers – the lack of housing adapted to the needs of the disabled is even more dire than “regular” housing.

Access Ability Advisory Committee: Massey Theatre Universal Accessibility Design Review
Again, the AAAC heard about barriers in the existing Massey Theatre, and formally asked Council to invest in making the facility fully accessible when the High School project is completed and the Theatre property is transferred to the City.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Recruitment 2017: CHC Appointment
Unfortunately, a member of Community Heritage Commission passed away and we have to do the dry process or naming a replacement. However, Council did not want this to pass without the Council representative on the Committee noting that Laura Moodie was a long-serving volunteer in our community with a passion for the arts, heritage, and travel. She served on several City committees including as chair of the Public Art Advisory Committee. Her passing was sudden and untimely. All of Council wants to acknowledge Mrs. Moodie’s service to the community, and pass on condolences to her family.

Commercial Vehicle Amendment Bylaw (Increase in Taxi Licenses) No. 7943, 2017 – Bylaw for Three Readings
I think I ranted about this once before. Many of the issues with the current regulation around Taxi services is the many hoops they need to go through to get new licenses, even when it is clear that current service is inadequate. Royal City Taxi is applying to the province for more licenses to improve service, let’s see where this goes!

Review of City Snow and Ice Response: 2016-2017
We discussed at ACTBIPed, and I forwarded correspondence to Council from a well-known West End pedestrian advocate that came out of that meeting. 2016-17 was exceptional year, the worst and most persistent snow event since at least 2008. And although it was at times challenging, I think the City did an exceptional job keeping priority driving routes open and safe, especially compared to some adjacent communities. However, the pedestrian realm was a disaster.

I don’t use that term lightly, because I know it was a challenging situation and I do not want to come across as critical of staff for the hard work and extra hours they all put in, but we had people with mobility challenges, and a fair number of elderly people, who were trapped in their homes for weeks because they could not walk as far as the nearest pharmacy. Even in an extraordinary situation like last winter, this is not acceptable, and we need to make change. We need to assure that the pedestrian realm and transit access is prioritized alongside arterial and connector roads.

We have a Pedestrian Charter in New Westminster – one that puts pedestrian needs at high priority. We have a Master Transportation Plan that puts pedestrians at the top of our hierarchy for investment. Yet when we prioritize the clearing of snow from streets not used by transit above the clearing of sidewalks and the important pedestrian connections that make our pedestrian realm accessible, we fail to meet our own priorities. In the event of icy conditions, we don’t need people prioritizing driving as a way to get around – that simply doesn’t improve anyone’s safety if the only way to get to the grocery store is to drive because the sidewalks between home and grocery store are impassable two weeks after a storm.

I don’t have the answers, but we need to establish guidelines on what constitutes an acceptable response to sidewalk clearing, much like we have for roads, and a plan to meet those guidelines. In this case, I would even be happy to see cycling routes bumped down the priority list to make resources available. We need a map of priority walking routes and bus stops, as these may be different than the existing priority streets. The consultant report provided some recommendations towards this, but it would be good to know if additional resources or equipment are needed to address this. Clearly enforcement and proactive action need to be prioritized – there is work to do here.

That said, this is a good report as far as it goes, and I don’t want to slow the implementation of this response plan because it only gets us half way there – half way is better than going back to the start. However, I amended the recommendation to further ask that that staff continues to work on developing a snow response plan that prioritizes pedestrian safety, and address the concerns of the ACTBiPed. More to come here.

Exempt Properties – Review of Questionnaire Results
Remember when the BC Liberals extended the property tax exemption given to private schools, essentially asking homeowners to pay more for private schools in their neighbourhoods, at the same time they were fighting in court to keep from adequately funding public schools? Good times.

Anyway, this report is our annual update and Bylaw refresh to support mandated and permissive tax exemptions. The first are required by Provincial Law, the second are the $300,000 a year in Permissive Tax Exemptions for organizations doing good work in the City, be they social service (e.g. Honour House), Sports (e.g. Lawn Bowling Club), or education (e.g. FRDC).

Licensed Event Recommendations for Westminster Pier Park
I am happy to continue with the model demonstrated at Music on the River this summer. These type of low-key events should really not be exception in a modern City, but part of the regular fabric. Loosening of our provincial liquor laws make that possible. The most, perhaps, surprising part was the wide demographic range of people hanging out in the park during the event – it wasn’t just crazy Yoots with their skateboards and bling-bloop electronic “music”, it was it was young families, seniors, and those of us in the fuzzy and increasingly grey area in between. A strange mix to see at a public event where beer is served in North America, but just another day in most European Cities.

We also read the following Bylaws:

Commercial Vehicle Amendment Bylaw (Increase in Taxi Licenses) No. 7943, 2017
As discussed above, this Bylaw that supports the application to the provincial Government for more Taxi Licenses in New Westminster received three readings.

Taxation Exemption and Exempt Properties Bylaw No. 7945, 2017
As discussed above, this Bylaw that supports permissive tax exemptions for worthy organizations in New Westminster received three readings.

Downtown New Westminster Business Improvement Area (Primary Area) Bylaw No. 7951, 2017
Downtown New Westminster Business Improvement Area (Secondary Area) Bylaw No. 7952, 2017
As discussed above, these Bylaws that support the special taxation for our two Downtown Business Improvement Areas received three readings.

Official Community Plan Adoption Bylaw No. 7925, 2017
This is actually a big deal. Our new Official Community Plan, which was given Third Reading back on September 18th was adopted. It is now the Law of the Land. I will have to write another blog post about this, because this is both a great big step… and perhaps not a big enough step.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (Infill Housing) No. 7936, 2017
Development Approval Procedures Amendment Bylaw No. 7939, 2017
Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7940, 2017
This are the supporting Big Deals, as they support the new directions outlined in the OCP regarding Heritage, Laneway Housing, and Infill density. All three were adopted ,and are not Law of the Land. Adjust your behavior accordingly.

And other than a bunch of interesting presentations and delegations (seriously, go on-line and check them out!), that was a night of Council. I have a bunch of blog posts to follow on here, OCP and UBCM most prominently, so stay tuned!

ASK PAT: the Missing Link

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Tom asks—

Any news on the BC Parkway’s “missing link” between 5th Ave. and 14th St.? I understand that Southern Railways has given up its lease on the old Central Park Line, and so it’s reverted to BC Hydro and the tracks have been pulled up. Will TransLink be giving this stretch a proper surface any time soon? Can New West nudge them to do it? Or should we hold another “Worst Roads in BC” poll?

The answer to this one is short, but probably unsatisfying, so I’ll do that politics trick of shifting it to something I want to talk about and leave it with asking you another question that somehow makes you forget I didn’t answer your question. Hey, election time is coming up soon, I need practice!

But first, the answer is that it is a work in progress. The City has expressed its interest in making this connection better than it is, and the right of way on the other side of the SkyTrain pillars makes sense. However, complications arise in that the City doesn’t own that land, nor do we own the BC Parkway Trail. I’m not completely up on the details here, so don’t hold me to all of these interactions, but my understanding is that the land belongs to Southern Railway (or BC Hydro), and there are rights of way for TransLink and either Southern Railway or BC Hydro (whichever isn’t the owner). The BC Parkway is a TransLink asset, supported by surface Rights-of-Way, so I think their right-of-way is only for the SkyTrain guideway through that portion, which is why the BC Parkway was not completed through here more than as a sidewalk in the first case back in the 1980’s.

So as far as the rights to build things, including a paved cycling or multi-use path, there is some legal work to do on the part of the City and TransLink. It is in the City’s work plan, but I don’t know when all of the stars will align. I am pretty certain it won’t be this year, possibly next, but I’m not promising yet.

There is another work-in-progress in the same area also in the having-conversations-between-TransLink-and-the-City stage. When Stewardson Ave was re-aligned to build the Queensborough Bridge interchange, a link in the BC Parkway across Stewardson below Grimston Park was lost. There is a route across involving the ramps to the Queensborough Bridge, but it is quite a lengthy detour for West End residents interested in walking down to the Riverfront or Quayside. At one point, a pedestrian overpass below Grimston was proposed, but I’m not sure we should build one, which is where I turn this around and ask you a question.

When is a pedestrian overpass a pedestrian amenity, and when is it an automobile amenity?

This is not an academic question. Our City’s Master Transportation Plan puts a priority on pedestrians, with other active transportation forms and transit next, with automobiles at the bottom of the priority for new infrastructure investment. We still spend an order of magnitude more on maintaining automobile infrastructure than other forms, but when investing in new stuff, our budgets are shifting towards supporting MTP priorities.

So when asked to partner with TransLink to build a new overpass, we need to ask the question: are we building this to serve pedestrians, or are we building this to move car traffic?

The easiest and least expensive way to move pedestrians across a street is a stoplight and crosswalk. This is especially true if we want to assure the infrastructure is as accessible as possible, as any grade separation inevitably results in a compromise between slope and distance, making a simple walk across a road either impossible for those with mobility challenges or unnecessary long and complicated for everyone else. The engineering required to put active transportation users 5m in the air so cars have unfettered free passage below is always counted in the millions.

However, if we build a level crosswalk with lights and buttons and paint, that means cars need to, occasionally, stop and let pedestrians by. It also means that we need to design a crossing to reduce the chances that a driver will fail to stop and kill a pedestrian, which may mean improving sight lines and reducing vehicle speeds in general. When we consider building a pedestrian crossing on this part of Stewardson, will it be the couple-of-hundred-thousand dollar signalized crossing, or the couple-of-million-dollar overpass? If the latter, should we pay for it out of the pedestrian amenity budget, or out of the car amenity budget?

The question may be academic, because it is highly unlikely the City’s engineers or TransLink will sign off on a crosswalk on a City Street that is part of the Major Road Network (as this part of Stewardson is) where the traffic typically moves at 80km/h, despite the 50km/h speed limit. This speed issue is also part of the reason why the existing cycling connection you originally asked about feels unsafe for all users.

And this, multiplied by dozens of places throughout the City, is how we still, for all the best efforts and good intentions, lose our pedestrian spaces to motordom. It is frustratingly slow making this change, it represents a cultural shift in three levels of government and society in general, but that’s our goal.

Council – September 18, 2017

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The September 18 meeting of Council was an all-caps-worthy BIG ONE, and I pretty much am going to not talk about the BIG topic, which was the Public Hearing, for reasons below. But before that started, we went through a few Agenda items.

The following items were Moved on Consent:

Recruitment 2017 Committee Appointments
We have had a couple of changes in representatives to City Committees, both in the persons representing another group on the City Committee. This happens once in a while, but Council officially has to approve, which we did.

Investment Report to August 31, 2017
The City has about $160 Million in the bank, mostly with the Municipal Finance Authority. Note, most of this is restricted money (that is, we have already committed it to a specific purpose, such as future sewer upgrades or road projects). This is our regular reporting on how the investments are doing, which I would characterize as “pretty good”.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Fire Escape Stairs at 642 Columbia Street – Review of Alternative Options and Appearance Mitigation Approaches
I’ve already opined about this fire escape. I recognize the need for it to exist, and can see the engineering rationale for it, but am frustrated about how some siloed thinking in City Hall resulted in a design that was incongruous with the great planning and design work being done on the Front Street Mews. I feel a solution that fit the bigger vision could have been found through a more collaborative design approach.

This report outlines a better approach moving forward, and we can hopefully use this experience to enhance how we develop our public spaces.

Sale of Tanaka Court Properties
There is a piece of surplus City land in Queensborough with an adjacent unopened road portion that only makes sense to develop in concert with the commercial properties. The Community Plan designates this property for commercial use, which is not something the City is likely to do. This report outlines the negotiations that have taken place to sell the lands so that they can be developed and start contributing to the community through retail opportunities, jobs and taxes.

BCIT Smart Microgrid Applied Research Project for Street Level Electric Vehicle Charging in New Westminster
This is a pretty exciting pilot project the City is proposing to undertake in collaboration with BCIT and their Smart Grid Microgrid Applied Research Team. They are researching the implementation of curbside charging electric vehicles, and want to testbed some technologies that would connect EV chargers to existing City electrical infrastructure like streetlights, in order to develop reliable engineering specifications and systems for wider adoption of the idea.

This could, in the short term, result in up to a dozen more Level 2 public charging station in the City, and contribute engineering designs and data to the seemingly inevitable transition towards a fully electrical transportation system towards the middle of the Century.

The following item was a late addition to the Agenda:

647 Ewen Avenue: Temporary Protection Order
The oldest extant building in Queensborough is privately owned, and threatened with demolition as the landowner wishes to redevelop the property. The City is limited in what we can do to prevent this, but we can develop incentives to make it easier for the developer to maintain the building or portions of it through a Heritage Restoration Agreement. This temporary order protects the building from destruction while staff work with the proponent to find if these opportunities exist.

This work out of the way, we started our Public Hearing, which had three items, eliciting (in order), one, fourteen, and one delegations. All three items were referred to the resumed Council Meeting following the Public Hearing, and all three were given Third Reading. They were not, however, Adopted, because there needs to be some procedural work done by staff between Third Reading and Adoption. Because of the quasi-judicial nature of the Public Hearing process, I don’t want to get into a discussion about the items between now and formal Adoption. For that reason, I am only describing the items at a high level here and will reserve longer discussion of them until after (and if) they are Adopted by Council.

Zoning Amendment (43 Hastings Street Affordable Housing Project) Bylaw No. 7923, 2017
This Bylaw changes the zoning for a piece of land at the east end of Downtown New West to allow its use for a housing project that will combine housing adapted for people with disabilities with family-friendly townhouses, all operated by a not-for-profit to keep them affordable (through a separate housing agreement with the City).

Official Community Plan Adoption Bylaw No. 7925, 2017
This Bylaw would make Our City 2041 the Official Community Plan for the City, after more than three years of public consultation, Council wrangling, and staff work. Council moved to give the Bylaw Third Reading.

I added an amendment to the referral, which is not a change to the OCP in any way, but provides some direction to staff about measuring the success of one of the most significant aspects of the plan: the rapid introduction of Missing Middle housing forms. The motion read as:

THAT Council direct staff to explore additional locations that could be designated Residential – Infill Townhouse as part of a two year Townhouse and Rowhouse Monitoring Program, and include the outcome in a proposed Land Use Designation Map update at the conclusion of the Program, should the OCP be adopted.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (Infill Housing) No. 7936, 2017
This Bylaw would make changes to our Zoning Bylaw to facilitate many of the changes discussed in the Official Community Plan, including setting parameters around which laneway and carriage houses will be introduced ot our existing Single Family Neighbourhoods. Council moved to give the Bylaw Third Reading.

We followed the Public Hearing with an Opportunity to be Heard on a Sign Bylaw Variance:

Development Variance Permit No. DVP00634 to vary Sign Bylaw requirements at 610 Sixth Street (Royal City Centre)
This Sign Bylaw Variance would allow a new anchor tenant at the Royal City Centre to affix signage to the outside of the building that is congruent with the exiting signage. Even with our new and refreshed sign bylaw, there are exceptions, including one of only two indoor malls in New Westminster, and a variance is best way to manage this type of application. There was no correspondence and no-one came to speak on this item, and Council approved the variance.

Finally, we had a single Bylaw adoption:

Local Area Service Bylaw No. 7942, 2017
This Bylaw formalizes a cost sharing agreement between a group of property owners in Queensborough and the City for some streetscape improvements on their block. It was adopted by Council, making it the Law of the Land.