Author: Patrick Johnstone

The Urban Academy Meeting

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 10 Comments.

We had a council meeting on May 4 (insert obligatory apology for being so late getting this out). We had a Closed Session, a Committee of the Whole meeting, and a few other things on the Regular Meeting agenda, but this meeting was dominated by the Public Hearing on two Bylaws that supported the proposed expansion of the Urban Academy campus in Queens Park. More than 6 hours of delegations and a very packed City Hall (the photo above is the overflow outside of the packed Council Chambers).

Not intending to bury the lede, the proposal was voted down by Council, six votes to one. I was the one.

I have complete respect for my Council colleagues. I have not asked them about the places where we disagree, and there is no reason for me to try to pick apart or translate their votes or their reasoning. Instead, I can only speak for myself, and say I disagreed with the majority vote here, and provide my reasoning for why I voted the way I did.

I did everything I could to learn about this project, and that started before the election. I attended an open house at the Olivet Church. I met with the Chair of the UA Board and with the Principal. On more than one occasion, I took a walk by the school (without warning the school) during the morning drop-off time to see how the traffic worked, and interacted with the Qayqayt traffic. I attended a QPRA meeting where the topic was discussed, and another private meeting in a home in Queens Park with about a dozen neighbours who opposed the project. I had conversations with people from the Advisory Planning Commission, the Queens Park and Downtown RAs, staff in the City and professionals who do heritage restorations. I went into all of these meetings and discussion to learn, not to tell people what I think or give advice. I tried to play the “devil’s advocate” in those conversations, with the intent of getting people to see the other side better.

I also received a lot of correspondence on this project. I have read and replied to more than 100 e-mails (remain neutral in my responses, cognizant of the upcoming Public Hearing), and have read about 50 more, to which I have yet to reply (sorry, folks, I’ll try hard to get back to you). I received written correspondence on old-fashioned paper, had a few Social Media exchanges.

The hardest part was the conservations with a person I consider a friend, and a community leader in New Westminster, who was heartbroken when her family was displaced by Urban Academy as they bought the neighbouring property and started handing out evictions.

Even after all of this, I can honestly say I woke up on Monday morning unsure about whether I supported the project.  I changed my mind three times between showering and shaving on Monday. I was struggling to understand how to put a project like this into a context that would allow me to make a decision that I could defend.

When I ran for Council, I told people they may not agree with every decision I make, but I will always provide a rationale, will do the research required to make an informed decision, and will do what I think is best for the future of the community. At the time, the Whitecaps Soccer proposal was front and centre with its lawn sign battles and divisive public hearings. However, this is the first time during my term on Council where I really felt the power of that type of divide. There were passionate communities for and against, and there simply was no middle ground to be found. So I couldn’t make a “gut” call or follow the crowd, I had to find something to hang my reasoning on.

Looking back at the Public Hearing, I know when I made my decision – when it solidified in my mind. I listened to the 60-odd delegates and took 8 pages of notes, but it was one delegate, somewhere in the middle, that created the context I needed (I won’t declare here who it was, but will send that delegate a thank-you email). At that point, I started to pare away the things I could not decide on, and get down to the things I could.

For example, I do not question the appropriateness of the HRA process. This project met the criteria and the spirit of an HRA as laid out in City policy and bylaws. Further, there was an impression created during the debate that an HRA is some sort of run-around of the “normal process”, giving the proponent a shortcut to approval. This is simply not true. An HRA requires the same committee reviews and public processes as a traditional Rezoning and Development. An HRA actually includes an extra assessment on heritage value and an extra committee review to discuss this. The heritage benefits of an HRA become part of the negotiation when it comes to variances or amenity contributions, but that is, as we learned, at the pleasure of Council, who are free at any time to say “no deal”. Staff and the Community Heritage Commission felt this was an appropriate application of the HRA process, and the process was applied properly. I cannot vote against a project because people don’t like the process the Proponent followed when that process was set up and supported by Council.

Another part I really had a hard time putting weight into for my own decision was the personal testimonials of all the parents about how good they thought the school was for their kids (here is the part of this blog where I lose any potential “political gain” I may have received by supporting the project). This rubbed against my personal conviction that Public School is a cornerstone in our civil society. Yes, Urban Academy provides unique programming not available in the public system, and the parents that run it take efforts to open their school to those who could not traditionally afford or have access to a private school, but I fundamentally believe those resources and efforts should be put towards making our public system a more effective and inclusive one. I do not support two-tier education. However, that discussion has to happen at the Provincial level, and within society as a whole, and cannot be decided on a case-by-case basis around the Council table during a rezoning application.

That leaves us with the topics that (in my opinion) are the sole duty of City Council – land use and urban planning. To be fair, many arguments against the proposal were around land use and urban planning. I just failed to find them compelling. Which I guess is going to take some explaining.

At the most hyperbolic, it was suggested that the expansion of Urban Academy would have a “devastating impact” on the Queens Park neighbourhood as one of the most valuable collections of heritage homes in British Columbia. I all honesty, I found this idea ridiculous. Not a single heritage home was being demolished or threatened, and the impact on the few adjacent ones was so minor that a direct neighbour who owned one of these heritage homes was a vocal supporter of the project. The location of this project is at the periphery of the historic Queens Park neighbourhood, immediately adjacent to an 11-story concrete building with zero heritage value, and on the same block as two other three story walk-ups with a similar lack of heritage value. As far as impact on the neighbouring community, I liken it to Queens Park West, the commercial Building at 5th Street and 6th Ave that effectively transitions the heavily-commercial 6th and 6th area and the high-rise residential Legion Manor to the adjacent heritage residential area.

Far from a “devastating impact” on the Queens Park neighbourhood, I saw the Urban Academy project as having some impact on a small number of residents in the Queens Park Neighbourhood. From a land-use planning perspective, it is those impacts I need to weigh against the benefits to the community of approving the project. As no project in the City, from Sapperton Green to my replacing my back fence, is truly “impact free”, we cannot set zero impact as the standard. We do, however, have to have an honest discussion about the impacts, and how they can or cannot be mitigated.

The mass of the proposed new building was an oft-expressed concern. The increase from an FSR of 0.38 (for the School site) and 0.85 for the existing apartment building to a combined 1.27 is a significant increase, especially when compared to the residential properties to the north with lower FSRs (generally below 0.3). However, the property directly to the south has an FSR of 2.36, and that includes the large parking lot area adjacent to it. The next two apartment buildings to the east are 1.96 and 1.41. Aside from the single family homes on far the east end of the block, the expanded school would still have had the lowest FSR on the block, which on a pure numbers basis, represents appropriate mass for the site.

Unfortunately, the layout of the property and the preservation of the existing heritage building pushes the new mass to the north part of the lot and around the periphery, which may (as was argued by the school) reduce the noise and disturbance of a regular school on adjacent residential areas, but it does make the mass feel bigger than it is. The proponents took significant measures to reduce the massing impact to the north side, shifting the building south, installing a regulation-width sidewalk in Manitoba Street for the first time, reducing the total floorspace area (especially of the top floor) and creating a more articulated and softer interface. All things considered, I think the resulting building was appropriate for the space.

The concerns about the safety of the school, including the suggestion that children would be imperiled by a sunken gym or that access to the school was inadequate, were not concerns I shared. The building was designed to meet the BC building and fire codes for the number of students it planned to hold, just like the semi-sunken gym at Qayqayt School and the fully-sunken gym at the Century House Youth Centre. These are important questions to be asked, and are part of the responsibility of the architects, City inspectors and Fire Marshall, and no public building (especially a school) will receive its occupancy permit until these concerns are addressed.

The lack of adequate play area was another issue of concern to the neighbors. Again, I leave this concern to the childhood education professionals at the school and the parents who choose to send their kids to the school. They argue that the rooftop, paved surfaces, gym and play areas are adequate for their needs, and it isn’t for me or concerned neighbours who don’t send kids to the school to measure this.

The occasional use of Tipperary Park and other community green spaces is not something I see as a threat to the greater community. Parks are places set aside for community use, and Tipperary is never, even on the sunniest Farmers Market Day, crowded enough to make it unusable. Kids playing in a City-owned park is something this City should be excited about, not something we should see as a potential threat to our livability.

Looking at the proposal at a high level, I saw a reflection of the reality of modern compact school design in a dense urban area. Schools and other institutions are no longer going to be the sprawling low-rise complexes surrounded by acres of green grass that we grew up with. Land in a City like New Westminster is too valuable, and there are too many cost pressures on people operating these facilities, be they private or public sector. In the bigger urban planning context, this is the type of use that is absolutely appropriate for transition space between higher-density to the south and single family with a heritage character to the north. A school this size adjacent to a residential area is not unusual in urban areas across North America, and the scale, density, and character is common in those Northern European countries we look to for examples of high-livability urban planning principles.

I can see the benefits that this type of institution could bring the City, including jobs (this school would employ more people than the Fraser Surrey Docks Coal Terminal!) and the economic impacts of having school families using adjacent services (one just has to count the numbers of UA uniforms at the spring and fall Farmers Markets in adjacent Tipperary Park). I also see the broader community benefits of an arts-infused school program (I just wish our public schools were funded enough to provide the same opportunity). If the school fails due to an inability to grow, I cannot imagine what other use will come along for the site that will provide the same long-term stability and community benefits without similar or higher impacts on the neighbourhood.

Indeed, there would have been impacts on the neighbourhood, which brings us to the real issue at the middle of this discussion: cars. With all due respect to the Lancers, when is the last time any truly contentious topic in New Westminster didn’t come down the movement or parking of cars? Yes, the Urban Academy creates traffic, and they fully acknowledge that. They have also proposed several approaches to dealing with the traffic they will generate; from shifting school start times to developing more comprehensive carpooling and bussing program and using a code of conduct to designate “exclusion zones” to protect more sensitive neighbourhood areas. Unfortunately, it is difficult for the City to secure these voluntary approaches through the HRA/Rezoning process.

This is a school, which are institutions that have always lived in residential areas. There are traffic snafus around all schools, from the over-crowded 8th Ave sidewalk by NWSS to irregular road rage issues around Lord Tweedsmuir and Qayqayt teething issues. The nature of how we move kids to and from schools today (which few will debate is completely bonkers compared to when we were kids) creates twice-daily traffic challenges in the immediate area. We can work to mitigate those, but they will never go away. Traffic is an organic system that will adapt in ways we cannot foresee, but we can plan, manage, and adapt through partnership between the City and the Proponent. Which is the way we address traffic issues with other schools (partnering with the School District and PACs), and commercial developments (partnering with the developers and commercial operators). We do this through planning, infrastructure investment, education and enforcement (collectively known as “governance”).

To protect livability, which (to be generous) is the real issue people are talking about when hyperbolically discussing neighbourhood “traffic chaos”, we cannot only work on a project-by-project basis. Livability related to traffic needs to be addressed city-wide and region wide. I could go on at terrible length about this (as I have in the past), but this is why we need to implement the new Master Transportation Plan, emphasize pedestrian safety, alternative modes, and neighbourhood livability, and why we need a YES vote in referendum, so we can get on with building a regional system that supports our efforts to protect the livability of Queens and Third, and every other residential intersection in the City.

Urban Academy had a multi-faceted plan to reduce traffic loads, and made some solid suggestions around how to reduce neighbourhood impacts. The work they did satisfied the City’s Engineering Department, who has the professional expertise to review these things, and would have to pay for any costs related to the traffic. If there were specific issues that cropped up (i.e. student drop-offs in inappropriate places), then a combination of infrastructure adjustments, signage, and enforcement can manage that. Yes, Urban Academy would have neighbourhood traffic impacts, and yes, I believed they could be managed.

This leaves me with the issue of the evictions of the tenants of 228 Manitoba. I had several conversations with a tenant who felt bullied, belittled, and disrespected through the entire process. She lost the home in which she raised her family, and was both heartbroken by the loss, and felt violated by the treatment she received. When I discussed the eviction process with the Proponents, they clearly had a different view of what transpired, and felt they had bent over backwards to accommodate residents and met and exceeded their requirements under the Residential Tenancy Act for these situations. This was clearly a horrible situation, and I have no reason to doubt the experience of the tenant, whom I have known for several years and for whom I have a lot of respect. However, I cannot in good conscience use this terrible experience as a reason to deny an otherwise acceptable HRA application.

I see my role in making decisions not by counting polls, comparing the thickness of petitions (referenda are a terrible way to apply public policy), or weighing personal anecdotes, but to honestly measure the merits and costs of a project and vote based on that measure. I also think that those who disagree with me, and those who do not, deserve an explanation for why I vote the way I do. I am open to hearing your opinions, because at 6 months, I am clearly still trying to learn my role here.

Council Meeting – April 27, 2015

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The last council meeting of the month is usually a Public Hearing meeting, meaning we start a little early (6:00 instead of 7:00) and we provide Opportunities to be Heard on any pending Bylaws that, as per the Local Government Act require Public Hearings prior to adoption. This month, we had Public Hearings on two projects, one big and one small.

Bylaw 7740 – 318 and 328 Agnes Street

This is a pretty big rental-only development on a vacant lot at Agnes and Merrivale, which puts it kitty-corner to Qayqayt school, pretty much in the center of the City’s growing residential downtown. Two 6-story buildings, comprising 202 residential suites, all market rental. The developments will include a large number of family-sized suites (26 two-bedroom and 36 three-bedroom) and even the one-bedroom suites will be larger that is typically being built today.

The market is looking for this type of rental mix right now, and it supports the City’s Secured Market Rental housing policy, fits within the Downtown Community Plan and the OCP, and meets the objectives of the City’s burgeoning Family-Friendly housing policy. The City’s Advisory Planning commission and Design Panel both supported the development as proposed. Written correspondence on the project was, on balance, supportive.

I am happy to support this type of development in the downtown. My main concern with this property was how it integrates with the surrounding pedestrian infrastructure, seeing as it is locate immediately adjacent to Qayqayt, in a location where lots of people are going to be walking by (and indeed, through) the site every day. The townhouse-type street expression (where people enter their apartments from the front yard, not through the interior of the building) definitely increases the on-street livability and community connection of the building. With people facing the street, the “front yards” are activated, and pedestrians feel more comfortable. This is great, and a new direction for market-rental buildings.

In Public Hearing, we referred the Bylaw to the Council Meeting for Third Reading.

Bylaw 7710 – 223 Queens Ave.

This is a heritage home (1897) on a pretty typical 55 foot lot, with the exceptional depth of 206 feet. The plan is to subdivide the lot such that the back 85 feet of lot become a separate property, with a house that faces an alley that has already been re-classified as a Street and named “Gifford Place”, presumably as the adjacent properties performed similar subdivisions.

The public hearing raised a few concerns about this proposal. The immediate neighbor was concerned about windows staring into the windows of their house (they won’t), and about the grade separation impacting their land. The drawings were not obvious in how the basement suite of the new building would be accessed. After reviewing the drawings and clarifying with the applicant, the grade between properties would be flat, and the 3 foot slope-down is actually in the middle of the applicant property, which should keep it well away from having any effect on the neighbour’s fence. Another nearby neighbour did not like the position of the new property line, but shifting the new building forward on the lot to accommodate a change in property line would intrude onto Gifford Place in such a way that access would be challenging.

There are some concessions given in that this is a Heritage Preservation project. The preserved heritage home will have no off-street parking. Zero. That would never be allowed outside of a heritage conservation project. Simply put, you do not own the street in front of your home, so expecting it will always be available for parking is a bad idea. Secondly, Gifford Place itself is not much of a road, being narrow, with very small setbacks for the existing properties, and no sidewalks whatsoever. It has a name, and homes face it, but it really is not much more than an alley. This makes it a bit challenging for vehicles, but a covenant on the property will assure that there is always a “turn around” spot on the property for cars on the short stub that is Gifford Place to use. When this entire project is taken into account, both the heritage home and the new home will have secondary suites, which puts even a bigger pinch on the parking issues. However, the Advisory Planning Commission, the Queens Park Residents Association, and the Community Heritage Commission all supported the project.

In Public Hearing, we referred the Bylaw to the Council Meeting for Third Reading.

Bylaw 7711 – 223 Queens Ave

This is the Heritage Designation Bylaw for the project above. This makes the house a Designated Heritage Building

In Public Hearing, we referred the Bylaw to the Council Meeting for Third Reading.

After the Public Hearings, we resumed with our regular Council Meeting, including a couple of presentations:

We had a Moment of Silence to mark the National Day of Mourning for workers killed on the job. During my minute, I thought of my High School friend Johnny Hadikin, a guy with a great sense of humour, a penchant for hijinks, and a dream of flying planes, who died way, way too young in a sawmill accident at the age of 25.

We had a proclamation of Multiple Sclerosis Month – which is a good reminder of how Canada has by far the highest incidence of MS in the world, and how after all of these years, we really understand very little about the cause of MS, even when they are starting to find effective treatments to slow the onset.

It was also Public Rail Safety Week, which is rather apropos in a week with another train derailment, but the Week is about raising awareness around safe rail crossings and train/car/pedestrian interactions.

We also had a presentation on the Blue Dot Movement, which is seeking local, provincial, and federal support for the Right to a Clean Environment, which included this video:

I was happy to support this program, and it’s ideals. For those not in the room, here is a complete copy of the Declaration supported by Council:

Whereas New Westminster understands that people are part of the environment, and that a healthy environment is inextricably linked to the well-being of our community;

New Westminster finds and declares that:

1. All people have the right to live in a healthy environment, including:
The right to breathe clean air
The right to drink clean water
The right to consume safe food
The right to access nature
The right to know about pollutants and contaminants released into the local environment
The right to participate in decision-making that will affect the environment

2. New Westminster has the responsibility, within its jurisdiction, to respect, protect, fulfill and promote these rights.

3. New Westminster shall apply the precautionary principle: where threats of serious or irreversible damage to human health or the environment exist, New Westminster shall take cost effective measures to prevent the degradation of the environment and protect the health of its citizens. Lack of full scientific certainty shall not be viewed as sufficient reason for New Westminster to postpone such measures

4. New Westminster shall apply full cost accounting: when evaluating reasonably foreseeable costs of proposed actions and alternatives, New Westminster will consider costs to human health and the environment.

5. By Dec 31st 2015, New Westminster shall specify objectives, targets and timelines and actions New Westminster will take, within its jurisdiction, to fulfill residents’ right to a healthy environment, including priority actions to:
a. Ensure equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens within the municipality, preventing the development of pollution “hot spots”;
b. Ensure infrastructure and development projects protect the environment, including air quality;
c. Address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and implementing adaptation measures;
d. Responsibly increase density;
e. Prioritize walking, cycling and public transit as preferred modes of transportation;
f. Ensure adequate infrastructure for the provision of safe and accessible drinking water;
g. Promote the availability of safe foods;
h. Reduce solid waste and promote recycling and composting;
i. Establish and maintain accessible green spaces in all residential neighbourhoods.
New Westminster shall review the objectives, targets, timelines and actions every five (5) years, and evaluate progress towards fulfilling this declaration.
New Westminster shall consult with residents as part of this process.

6. New Westminster will call on the Province of British Columbia to enact a provincial environmental bill of rights to fulfill the right of every resident to live in a healthy environment by supporting favourable consideration of this matter at the Union of BC Municipalities 2015 Convention.

I also support this movement because of the history of the concept of the Pale Blue Dot, which you can read about here, and it should explain what that feature image at the top of this Blog post is. That’s earth, folks.

Finally, we had a presentation on the City’s Waterfront Vision, which you can watch on the video, or I will post about later.

We then dispensed with the Bylaws that were addressed in the earlier Public Hearings, where all three received Third Reading.

Then we had an Opportunity to be Heard on two Bylaws:

DVP 00587, 610 6th Street.

This Development Variance Permit was to modify the signs in front of the Royal City Centre. No-one appeared to speak on this, as the Variance was only to modify a small portion of the existing large signs, the sign was not getting bigger, it was just adding some words to existing panels, with no added lighting.

Council approved the variance, with Councillor Puchmayr opposed.

Bylaw 7739 2015 – closing a portion of Boyne Street

This Bylaw would officially close an unopened piece of Boyne Street so that it can be sold to the adjacent landowner to facilitate a development that has seen Third Reading. A few neighbors wanted to be heard on this, as they were concerned about how this closure would impact their access and an adjacent walkway. It appeared through the discussion that the neighbor’s concerns were addressed by the clarification provided by Staff.

Council Adopted the Bylaw, but not until further down the agenda.

And then onto recommendations from the Committee of the Whole:

Recruitment for Animal Shelter Taskforce

This taskforce is going to oversee the details of the design and planning of the new Animal Shelter on behalf of Council, and comprises members of Council, Staff, and the Public. Council approved the appointment of two Community members, Leona Green and former City Councillor Bob Osterman.

Seniors Advisory Committee

With one Community member not able to attend the Seniors Advisory Committee meetings, we pulled another volunteer in. This town seems to have a LOT of volunteers!

Proposed Amendment to Definition of Commercial School

Zoning Bylaws are sometimes strangely specific in regards to the type of business that can operate in a zone, and there are, more often than not, very good reasons for that specificity. However, our current definition of “Commercial School” does not reflect the current breadth of training that takes place in the increasing number of commercial schools, especially in the heath sector. This edit of the Zoning bylaw reflects this broader group of activities, so it better reflects the current mix of schools in the City, and some who may want to come here to set up shop if there is (as expected) a bit of a Health Care Cluster boom in Sapperton with the long-awaited and hopefully-anticipated not-yet-announced RCH expansion.

Council approved giving the Amendment First and Second Reading, and scheduling a Public Hearing. (see below)

Industrial Building with Caretaker Suite

A proponent wants to build an industrial building on a vacant piece of industrial-zoned land in the City, but wants to include a two bedroom caretaker suite, presumably for security reasons. Our current Zoning Bylaw prohibits Caretaker Suites, which is an uncommon (but not unique) practice in Greater Vancouver. This is the beginning of the Development Permit process, and there are many steps including committee review and public hearing. The Report was received for information.

Queens Park Neighbourhood Heritage Study

This is just an update on the good work being done by a group of engaged volunteers and City staff from the Queens Park Neighbourhood to look at strategies and opportunities to protect heritage assets in Queens Park better than we have been doing. This was just an update report, but it looks like a good set of principles are being developed, and we can expect some solid recommendations to come out of the group later in the year.

Parkade Demolition

I have said enough about this project, and don’t want to belabor the point. It is good to see that the initial budget estimates for the work were in line with the budgets that came back from the tender process. It is time to move forward.

2015 Tax Rates Bylaw

Coming out of the 5-Year Financial Plan, we now need to pass a Bylaw to support the tax increase required to support it. Council moved to send the Bylaw, which calls for a 2.42% increase in Property Taxes, to receive Three Readings. I have been blogging about taxes, and will cover increases (in Part 3, I suppose), so I will hold off on commenting too much now.

Uptown BIA Parcel Tax Bylaw

The businesses in Uptown New Westminster volunteered last year to form a Business Improvement Area, and collected fee from all businesses (based on the footage of storefront) to fund streetscape improvements and business promotion in the Uptown. The process to create a BIA is described in Section 215 of the Community Charter, and it is important to note that municipal taxpayers outside of the BIA do not contribute at all the BIA. The BIA is 100% self-funded by the member businesses, but many of the benefits that come from the BIA, especially streetscape improvements, benefit all of the community.

Council approved sending this Bylaw to three readings.

Downtown BIA Parcel Tax Bylaws

Same story, but Downtown this time, and as there are two Downtown BIAs covering slightly different areas, there are two Bylaws, both of which Council sent for three readings.

European Chafer Management

It has been, by most reports, a bad year for the European Chafer beetle. Actually, a good year for them, but a bad year for the lawns impacted by them. This is a pest that kills grass lawns with a particular combination shot: the grub stage gets fat eating the roots, then the juicy grubs attract crows, skunks, and raccoons, which tear up the weakened turf to get at them.

If a green grass yard is important to you, then you can apply a natural biological agent to help beat the chafers back. Nematodes are microscopic worm-like bugs, of which there are thousands of species living in pretty much every media on earth, from the sea to the soil to your skin, but a particular species likes to infect and kill chafer grubs. The good part of this application is that the nematodes reproduce inside the grubs, so if you apply them successfully, they should pretty much keep killing grubs until the food source is exhausted, or at least for the full season.

The problem is they are a little expensive, and you need to take some care in how you apply them. The City will help you, though, by subsidizing your purchase of nematodes from local garden suppliers. Besides being a good service to the community, this helps the City out by controlling the spread of the bugs, so we are less likely to have to control them on boulevards and playing fields.

So if there are signs of grubs on your yard, or on your neighbour’s yard, come to City hall, get coupon, go buy some nematodes in July, and kill the nasty bastards while putting a skunk off his dinner.

Correspondence

We received mail, which we received for information, but required no specific action

Then we went through adoption and/or readings of a raft of Bylaws.

7739 2015 – Boyne Street Closure

Adopted. This is now the Law of the Land.

HRA for 708 Cumberland

Adopted. This is now Law of the Land.

Bylaw 7744 2015 regarding Council Procedures for Open Delegations

Adopted. This is now Law of the Land.

Bylaw 7747 2015 – 5-year Financial Plan

Adopted. This is now Law of the Land.

Three BIA Parcel Tax Bylaws

All received 3 readings. I count that as 9 readings total. It was exhausting.

Tax Rate Bylaw 7751 2015

Received Three Readings.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw 7756 2015

This passed two readings, and a Public Hearing will be held on May 25th. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

And we were done a night’s work.

Too Busy!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

This is another in my semi-regular series of excuses for not updating this blog in a timely enough manner. I have been busy.

To clarify what that means, I think people know I have a job. Regular take-a-lunch-box-to-the-office 5-days-a-week three-weeks-vacation fill-out-timesheet type stuff. Fortunately, my employer has adopted a fortnight flex day schedule for all employees (meaning I work 7.75 hours for 9 days every fortnight, and get every second Monday off) and my employer has agreed to a small concession of unpaid leave for alternate Mondays when I have New West Council duties (which turns out to only be about 12 days a year). This still means I spend (on average) 35 hours a week completing Comfort Letter requests, administering dewatering agreements, reviewing Site Profiles, managing contaminated sites investigation and remediation projects and coordinating the technical aspects of PS3260 Accounting Standards compliance. It is fun and I work with a great team of people, so no complaints on my part. But it does eat into my time.

This week (as an aside, but to demonstrate the general chaos of my life right now), I took a couple of hours of my vacation time (with prior approval from my boss) to have a morning meeting with representatives from The Shops at New Westminster Station, Fraser Health, TransLink Police, NW Police Department, and New West Bylaw Enforcement to do a walkaround at New Westminster Station and the surrounding bus loops, retail areas and sidewalks to discuss a collaborative approach to making the area a more inviting pedestrian and public space, with an emphasis on how the various Provincial and City anti-smoking bylaws could be applied to address one of the primary complaints about the area (see pic above). Wow, that was a long sentence. I hope to be able to report an update on that meeting soon.

After work most nights, my schedule is rather chaotic. This week, I had a frustrating committee meeting with the Royal Lancers on Tuesday, and pinch-hit for Councillor Harper to chair a much more positive and productive Residents’ Association Forum on Wednesday. Thursday is free (hence me writing this), but I have, since Monday’s Council Day, received about 50 e-mails to my Council address, which will take some time to triage and decide what requires a response. Some may even require multiple e-mail exchanges with staff or others to gather the data required for a useful response. If you e-mailed me and I have not responded yet, my apologies. I have read it, and will try to get back to you as soon as practicable. And on Friday, I receive the Council Package I need to review in detail before Monday. I also have to organize my Jane’s Walk for Saturday, so that will have to be done tonight or Friday night, as I work Friday. I will probably get something figured out by Saturday Morning.

This is not meant to be a whine. I chose my path (and as has been joked, I went door-to-door begging for it!). So this is more an explanation why my blogging and other correspondence is, occasionally, less timely than I would like it to be. There are a few “Ask Pat” posts in the queue, and I am late assembling the April 27 Council Report. It also explains the lack of copy editing on this blog – any attempts at scanning for typos likely occurred after midnight.

On the plus side, I did get a great bike ride in on Sunday morning, and the New West Lit Fest last weekend was a great event, so it isn’t all toil. Actually, I am loving it.

Talking Taxes (pt.1)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

For those who were paying attention, the City of New Westminster’s new 5-year Financial Plan just went through public hearing, and passed three readings at Council. After months of work, several reviews by Council, and a not-terribly-exciting public engagement process, the Bylaw that supports the Plan will likely be adopted by Council this Monday.

But we really haven’t talked about it as a community. When you measure column inches in the local paper, hours of council delegation time and discussion, or conversation at coffee shops and pubs, Parkades and Lancers have by far outstripped this. Which is probably not good, as this is arguably the most important thing Council ever does – scheduling the spending of your money.

We, as a City, need to have a better conversation about this, and I hope the Mayor’s Public Engagement Taskforce can figure out how to make this issue front and centre in the City’s conversation for the next budget cycle.

It’s not like people in New Westminster don’t talk about taxes. It comes up every local election, and there will be a few letters to the editor complaining about the increase approved this time around. There was even a Facebook page that *mysteriously* popped up during the last election all about the untenable tax situation in New West. The general opinion is that New Westminster is either one of the highest-taxed communities in the Lower Mainland, or the highest. This spectrum of opinions is only partially true.

A few years ago (long before Council was a glimmer in my eye) I wrote a series of blog posts on taxes in the City compared to the rest of the region. I wanted to understand where we stand and wanted to cut through the rhetoric. I talked about what a mil rate really is, I expanded by talking about how that compares to actual taxes you pay based on typical house values, and for the fun of it, threw utilities into the mix. My conclusion at the time was that we were not the highest-taxed community in Metro Vancouver, but somewhere in the middle. As a general rule, people north and west of us paid more, people south and east paid less.

Now I have a new role, and although I do not agree with the opinion that taxes are “out of control” (as people continue to ask for the services that taxes provide), I do think I need to be more cognizant of how the tax system in the City relates to other municipalities with whom we compete for businesses and residents (with taxes being only one of the many factors that influence location choices for both of those).

So I started to gather data on taxes from various Cities’ 5-year Financial Plans. However, if you start to search through them, you quickly realize the varying ways financial statements are presented in the published plans. For fun, compare recent 5-year plans of Burnaby and Port Moody.

Fortunately, local governments are required to make disclosures to the provincial government every year, and through that process, a standardized set to statistics are collected. You can read them here. I’m not saying they are the perfect Stats to evaluate whether we get full value for our taxes, but it does give us a level playing field through which to compare New Westminster to our neighboring jurisdictions. And comparison, I will do.

This first graph below shows what a typical household should have paid in all property taxes to their municipality in 2014, and breaks it up by different categories. The number on the top of each column is the assessed home value deemed “typical” for that community by the province, and the value used to calculate the tax amounts based on mil rates.

Table1

By this analysis (and this is the province’s data, not mine), the typical New Westminster residential property tax bill is the 12th highest of the 21 municipalities in Metro Vancouver. Obviously, a huge driver of this placement is that New Westminster’s “typical” $675,000 home value is below average (14th of 21) and our Mil rate is higher than typical (5th of 21, but in a virtual tie with those that are 4th through 7th):

Table2

Recognize, these are averaged numbers, the Mil rate multiplied by the “typical” value. What about what people actually pay? You can calculate a “True Mil Rate” paid in a City by taking all of the Property Taxes collected by the City (in New Westminster in 2014 that was a bit over $65 Million) and divide it by the assessed property value of all taxable property in the City (in New Westminster, that number is just north of $12 Billion), then divide by 1,000. That makes our “True Mil Rate” about 5.32, which is the fourth highest in the region:

Table3

Note that municipalities with low land values cluster towards the left side of the graph, and higher-land-value places cluster towards the right, so this graph more displays relative land value than it does level of service provided or efficiency of the operation of local government.

Up to now, we have only been looking at taxes as compared to land value. Land doesn’t pay tax, people do. So it might be more meaningful to look at how much tax we pay per resident in the City. Lucky, the same provincial data provides population estimates by municipality projected from the 2011 census to 2014, so that is also an easy comparison to make. Here, again, New Westminster is up in the top quarter, finishing 5th of 21 municipalities.

Table4

However, the comparison here is (yet again) not fair, because all taxes are not paid by residents. Businesses and industry also pay property taxes. The Province helpfully divides out local government tax revenue by land use, and if we limit the comparison of residential property taxes paid per resident in their municipality, we see that New Westminster falls back down to the middle – coincidentally 12th place among 21 municipalities:

Table5

I say coincidentally because although New West finishes 12th in the first and last graph here, none of the other 21 municipalities fall in the same location on both graphs. There are many ways to look at the numbers, but by various apropos analysis, New Westminster residential property taxes are pretty much in the middle regionally. Our $572 per person in 2014 puts New Westminster well below the $660 regional average, and essentially equal to the regional median of $573 represented by Langley Township.

So why do some graphs show New West so high? That has to do with how we use our land in New West, and how we tax residents, businesses and industry differently. To see more analysis of that, you will have to stay tuned for Part 2, coming soon.

Ask Pat: Anvil restaurant

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

John A asks—

When is the Café/Restaurant at the Anvil Coming? Is there an issue with the contract demanding Fair Living Wage? Using CUPE staff to overcome this issue like done at Pier Park concession, needs to be discussed.

This was sent as a comment on a recent Council Report, but I thought it worked better as an ASK PAT, and hey, it’s my party, so I can post how I want to.

There are some things I simply cannot talk about on this forum, because of Section 90 of the Community Charter. However, I am confident that we will soon have a tenant operating a restaurant in the Anvil.

The Living Wage Policy is not an issue. You can read the policy here, and see that it only applies to organizations providing services “to the City on City Premises.” As is a practice I try to use here, the “City” with a capital “C” strictly means the corporate entity, not the general populace (“community”) or geographic locality (“city”). Companies that lease property from the City to operate a not-for-profit or for-profit business venture in the city that offers goods or services to the community are exempt from the policy.

Ask Pat: bike lanes on bridges.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Matt C asks—

My bike commute has got me thinking lately…thinking about bike lane design on bridges. I’ve had some close calls on the Queensborough Bridge with cigarette-wielding, headphone wearing pedestrians travelling in the same direction, totally oblivious to their surroundings. I also had an accident on the same bridge while passing a fellow cyclist who urged me to go around him. And I’ve never understood the unwritten rules of passing etiquette on the Pattullo Bridge (“I’ll stop if going up” or is it “I’ll stop if on the inside”, or maybe it’s just a game of chicken).

So, what is the best design of cyclist/pedestrian shared pathways on bridges? Is bigger better? Is there a secret formula for success?

New West will soon have two new shared bridge pathways: the new Pattullo and the drawbridge from the Quay to Queensborough. I am curious if these will be built to ensure a pleasurable experience for all.

I feel qualified to answer this, because the Queensborough is on my regular commute, and indeed, a little sidewalk etiquette would be in order. The only real conflict I have ever had was with a defensive dude on one of those electric fake-mopeds which I ranted about previously. However, I am commonly bothered by two things: inattentive pedestrians with earphones that are impossible to pass, no matter how much you ring a bell, slow down, say “ahem” or “excuse me”; and downhill-travelling cyclists who have a distorted trust in our combined ability to prevent collision as they blow by me at high speed.

I would generally suggest we need a bit of common courtesy here, and two sets of rules seem to make sense to me. Those established in the early years of mountain biking by advocacy groups like IMBA, where cyclists *always* yield to pedestrians:

mtb_trail_courtesy_yield_sign_v1

A second suggestion would be the old skiing standard that lower traffic always has right-of way. Meaning if you are going downhill and approaching someone else also going downhill, you slow down and only pass if they wave you through. If you are going downhill and someone is coming uphill, the person going down always yields (makes sense as it takes more energy to stop and start while climbing than it does while downhilling).

That would deal with 80% of conflict, common courtesy with another 15%, and the last 5% are jerks you just gotta put out of your mind – there’s no helping them. At least you only have to deal with them 5% of the time. Imagine how hard it must be for them being jerks 100% of the time!

In my experience, the best bike-path-on-a-bridge is on the Canada Line Bridge, and yeah, the secret is width. There is enough room that people can get out of each other’s way, without having to squeeze over next to an irregular fence that is as likely to catch your handlebars than stop you from falling into traffic. Even there, common courtesy is needed, but I have never had anything close to an uncomfortable experience on that bridge. Given adequate room, people just seem to stay right and chill:CLbridge

The new Q2Q bridge is initially being designed to accommodate a police vehicle or ambulance in the event of emergency, so I am pretty sure it will be wide enough to be comfortable (like the Canada Line Bridge). Initial design of the eventual Pattullo Replacement hasn’t even started, to my knowledge, but considering the Canada Line Bridge is the last piece of water-crossing cyclist and pedestrian infrastructure that TransLink has designed and built, I hope for as high a standard.

Until then, just be careful and courteous, and recognize that although the Queensborough crossing is not “state-of-the-art” or quite wide enough to be perfect, it is a pretty well designed pathway as far as access at each end. Maybe we just need to think about some basic courtesy signs at each entrance establishing yield rules/suggestions. I’d love to see a design that might work that we could take to the Ministry of Transportation for approval…

Council Meeting – April 13, 2015

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

This was quite the meeting. We had a relatively light agenda, but there was an annual special event where Elementary students are awarded by Council (with generous sponsorships from several Architecture Firms and other businesses in town) for their winning Heritage Poster Contest entries. We had presentations from the Labour Council on workplace safety (with continued depressing stats about worker deaths in British Columbia) and the Arts Council (an organization that is going through some exciting changes right now). We also had a presentation from the Mayor and CAO about a future vision for Sapperton as Royal Columbian Hospital sees expansion (this is something people should be paying attention to, as it could be a significant re-shaping of our City). Then we had more than 2 hours of delegations on two topics.

The Parkade issue is one I have already discussed at length, and as the delegations really brought nothing new to the table, I have little to add to my earlier comments.

The Lancers issue is something I have not written about. Actually, that is not true, I have sat down and written quite a bit on the topic, but cannot find a way to write my feelings and opinions without risking throwing more fuel onto the fire, so I have not posted those writings. Instead, I have been having conversations in the community, with people in strong support of the Lancers, and with those who wonder what all the fuss is about. I always found those discussions circling back to two terms: “tradition” and “patriarchy”, and those discussions have been thoughtful and respectful. So I am going to put the on-line discussion aside for now, and may write something more after next meeting, where Council will be discussing the Lancers.

What I didn’t mention was that we had our annual Parcel Tax Roll at 6:45. This is when we formally review and approve the list of properties that are voluntarily part of a Parcel Tax. These are generally BIA members who have allowed the City to collect the BIA fee on their behalf, and residents in areas where a special local tax was applied to pay for a local amenity, such as enclosing a ditch in Queensborough.

On to Recommendations from the Committee of the Whole meeting from earlier in the day:

Appointment to the Environmental Advisory Committee

One of our committee members has moved out of town for job reasons, so we went back to the original applicants and found a promising replacement! We also had an applicant for the vacant “representative from a local business”. I co-chair this committee with Councillor McEvoy, and we will be seeing good things come out of it this year, I hope!

Council Representative to the Community Social Issues Committee

This was another committee with two Council co-chairs, and one of the Councilors ended up having an unmanageable timing conflict, so this committee is back down to one Council representative.

E-Comm appointment 

The regional emergency communications organization (E-Comm) has a board of directors which includes representatives from Local Government. Councillor Trentadue was nominated by our Council to be one of those representatives.

Council Procedure Bylaw No. 7744, 2015

This amendment to how the City does public delegations was recommended to Council by staff, specifically by the City Clerk. To understand the change, it is helpful to understand the role of the City Clerk, and the law around Public Hearings.

Amongst other jobs, the City Clerk is responsible for assuring that Council does things legally. Provincial Legislation gives relatively broad guidance about how a Council runs meetings, but at times the rules are very strict. For example, when Council discusses things in camera it is on the recommendation of the City Clerk and her understanding of Section 90 of the Community Charter that requires us to have those conversations in camera, and actually limits our ability to speak about those deliberations.

Public Hearings are a required aspect of many types of Bylaw changes, including Rezoning. Appropriate notice of must be given of that Public Hearing, and Council is not supposed to take any kind of position on the topic prior to the Public Hearing. Of course, that is a rather silly game we play saying we have a completely “open mind” and no opinions prior to the Public Hearing (if there is one thing politicians have an excess of, it is opinions). However, there is clear intent in the law that Council members should not prejudice the process prior to a full Public Hearing.

Staff were concerned that the open delegation process we have at New Westminster Council, where anyone can come to a Council Meeting and take 5 minutes to talk about anything that concerns them, created a challenge at protection of the Public Hearing process. A small but vocal group could overwhelm the public conversation about a project headed to Public Hearing, and potentially derail the ability to provide a project (or, for that matter, those opposed to a project) a fair hearing.

The way this Bylaw change is drafted, no delegations would be permitted once the date of the Public Hearing has been announced. To put that in perspective, most development projects will come to Council once or twice, see committee review, and go to public consultation (open houses, Residents Associations, etc.), and be publically “in the pipeline” for a year or more before we get to the point that a Public Hearing is scheduled. The Hearing is usually scheduled when the final report is received from City Staff which summarizes the project, as adapted (or not) by public engagement, committee review, and the long push-pull between developers and staff as the project is compared to various City policies and bylaws. A Public Hearing is usually scheduled one to three weeks after that final report is received, and a special day is set aside such that people cannot delegate on other topics on that date..

During the entire year-or-longer process, people and groups can delegate to Council on any aspect of the Project. However, once the Public hearing date is set, there will be a one- to three-week window when no delegations will be permitted. You can write letters to Council (yes we read them), you can write Letters to the Editor, write a blog post or tweet to your hearts content. You can call us on the phone or corner us in a coffee shop (yes, we are that small a town!). However, if you want to provide a public presentation to Council on that topic, you need to save it for the Public Hearing.

We referred this amendment to Council for three readings.

Urban Academy – Robson Manor Heritage Restoration

This proposal is for an Official Community Plan amendment and a Heritage Restoration Agreement to permit the building of a second structure at adjacent to Robson Manor at 101 Third Street which will allow this local private school to realize expansion plans from about 150 students today to about 450 students by 2022. I have received more correspondence about this project in my short time on Council than any other topic, and I can safely say the community is divided over this project. I have continued to learn about the process, the project, and the pros and cons.

In Council today, we did not approve or oppose the project; we agreed to allow the process to continue forward to Public Hearing, which will be held on May 4, 2015, and I expect it to be a long one. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

HRA Amendment Bylaw 7752, 709 Cumberland

This is a Heritage Revitalization Agreement that lapsed due to a short timeframe allowed in the original Bylaw, and staff underestimating the time it would take to get through the procedure of subdividing the Lot. We need an amendment here to extend the deadline. No conditions have changed, we have just given the City and proponent a bit more time.

Regulating Heat Pump location and installation

Heat Pumps can be super-efficient ways of heating a modern house. They are becoming more common as people seek to reduce energy prices, to use electricity instead of fossil fuels, and to get both heating in the winter and cooling the summer from the same unit. Air-to-air heat pumps are basically air conditioners in that they move heat by compressing air and taking advantage of the Ideal Gas Law (my favourite gas law, because it rhymes: PV=nRT!), and they can move that heat into our outside of your building, depending on the season. The only down side is that they contain a bunch of mechanical devices (compressor, condenser, pumps and fans) in a tight space and can sometimes be noisy. Installing one on the side of your house might put it right under your neighbour’s bedroom window, and they don’t want to hear it pumping away all night.

The City is currently limited in their ability to enforce noise bylaws around heat pumps, and the ways a homeowner can address a heat pump that disturbs their neighbor are sometimes unreliable or expensive long after the unit is installed. Best if we address the problem when the heat pump is installed, as other cities have done.

Council authorized Staff to go ahead and start researching and drafting a Bylaw to address this issue.

Heritage Register update

When the City designates a property as a “Heritage” building, road, wall, etc., we list in in the City’s Heritage Register. It is in turn sent to the provincial Heritage Branch, where they may be added to the provincial Heritage Registry, and from where it is forwarded to Heritage Canada’s Register of Historic Places. So far, the UN is not involved (don’t get me started with UNESCO!)

Properties that receive a Heritage Revitalization Agreement are, by policy, added to the Local Register, which is what we are doing here for Dontenwill Hall, The MacKenzie Residence on Cumberland, and the Shymkovich Residence on Ewen. Meanwhile, the Royal City Glass building on Carnarvon has not retained much of its heritage character, so it was removed from the Register. And the Hansen/Emery Residence had an address change (it didn’t move, the roads did). Glad we got that all cleared up.

Boyne Street Closure

This is an unopened portion of the Boyne Street alignment in Queensborough that will never actually become a road because of the way development around it has been organized. But to close the road and sell the land, we need to pass a bylaw and have a public hearing. We will hear from the public on April 27. C’mon out and tell us what you think!

Financial Plan 2015-2019

For lack of a better term, this is the City Budget. Provincial legislation requires that local governments have a 5-year plan that is updated annually. You can read the Financial Plan here, and I will write in future posts about taxes in the City, because there is are some strange ideas out there about how New West measures up when it comes to Property Taxes. We had one (1) person delegate to council about the Five-year Financial Plan, which should send some sort of message, but I’m not sure what it is!

In the short term, we have moved the Bylaw that adopts the Plan for three readings.

Correspondence

We supported taking a resolution supporting the Westray Act to FCM

There was a correspondence we acted on from the City of Richmond. I removed myself from this discussion, not because I had a fiduciary interest or this in any way interferes with my ability to do my job in Richmond or remain impartial at New Westminster Council, but because Richmond is my employer, there may be some perception of conflict, so better to step out and avoid that perception.

Anvil Centre Budget

We received a Report for Information about the operational budget for the Anvil Centre. We are early on in operation of the Anvil (2015 will be the first full year of operation), and this is a facility with multiple overlapping purposes, which makes integrating them an interesting challenge.

The Convention Centre portion of the operation is doing very, very well. They are booking ahead of expectations and are receiving kudos regionally as a place for conferences medium to small, weddings small to large, and meetings of every shape. The Media Gallery, Hall of Fame, Museum, and Art display spaces are things that will not generate as much revenue, although they are a major part of the attractiveness of the facility overall and dovetail nicely into the Conference Centre operation. On the other side is the new home of the City Archives, which is not a revenue-generator, but is an important part of the operation of a City as historic as New Westminster.

The part we are still ramping up and need to make successful if we are going to call the Anvil Centre a success are the public use spaces: the dance studio, arts spaces, meeting rooms and classrooms. These are the parts of the Anvil that the City will always subsidize, for the same reason that we currently subsidize use of the Canada Games Pool and Queens Park Arena and other City amenities. I hope that in 10 years, we see the types of talents being developed in the Anvil Centre towards the arts being as valued in our community as the types of talents being developed at Canada Games Pool or Queens Pak Arena towards athletics.

That said, we moved (very late into the evening) on the Bylaws:

Bylaw #7743 2015 – Plumbing Fixtures in Accessory Buildings

I discussed this previously, and it was formally Adopted. It is now the Law of the Land.

Bylaw #7744 2015 – Council Delegation Procedures

As discussed above, this saw three readings.

Bylaw 7747 2015 – Five-Year Financial Plan

As discussed above, this saw three readings.

Bylaw #7739 2015 – Boyne Street Road Closure

As discussed above, this saw three readings.

Bylaw #7752 2015 – 709 Cumberland

As discussed above, this saw three readings.

Bylaws #7753 2015 and #7704 2015– Urban Academy

As discussed above, these saw two readings, and will go to Public Hearing on May 4, 2015. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

And that, after a Notice of Motion and Announcement on the Blue Dot Movement, at some time just short of midnight, was a Council meeting.

Been busy…

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Yes, I have been a little slow on updates here, but it has been a busy time. I actually had to send my Mom an e-mail, as updates here are the only sign she usually gets that I am alive.  I will try to get my update of last week’s Council Meeting before next week. Fortunately, we don’t have an evening meeting next week so that will hopefully help me get caught up!

In the meantime, I had a great day today down at the River Market, enjoying the last “winter season” Farmers Market of the year in decidedly non-wintery t-shirt weather, while talking to people about the Transportation and Transit Plebiscite, and reminding those who have not yet received their ballots how to make sure they get one (short version – go to the ElectionsBC website, or call 1-800-661-8683. No salesman will visit your home!).

While I was there, I also got to fill in my “Experience Card” for a great new organization in the Lower Mainland called “Kudoz”. The idea is to link people in a variety of work, volunteer, or hobby fields with a person with a traditional work barrier or disability, and give that person a learning experience, and see if that experience piques an interest in further learning. I’m not sure if any of their applicants think local government or committee work is interesting, but I’ll do my best to make it seem that way! Have an hour a month to share with someone, teaching them something while you do whatever it is you do? Send Kudoz an e-mail. KudozExperience

They had great free lemonade, and it was definitely a free lemonade kind of day.

Voting Yes

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Finally got around to dropping those ballots in the mail on Saturday. Yes, I voted yes, and if you are wondering why here are a few posts that should explain my position:

My 1,500-word Case.

A vision for the future of the Region, based on how we built the region we all seem to love so much.

On hating the process, but finding a way to make it positive.

On working with our regional neighbours to solve our unique local traffic problems.

On supporting a regional Plan, and asking why we can’t have nice things like Ontario?

Ahh… just go to my archives and search under “transportation”, there are more than 200 posts, all talking about the regional and local transportation mix, and solutions that need ot be found locally and regionally. A No vote provides no solutions, solves no problems, and makes no promise moving forward. I like solutions, I like regional collaboration, I like good public policy. The YES vote is obvious.

Ask Pat: Parkade and Noise

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Someone asked—

Hey Pat, read your save the parkade post. Agree with all your points, but my main concern is the possible increase in noise since we will be removing a barrier to it. Is the city doing anything to mitigate this possible impact as a result of demolishing the west half of the parkade?

thanks!

Hi Someone (if that’s your real name!) Sorry to be so late answering. Busy times.

I have heard several opinions about the effect of the Parkade removal as far as noise goes, but there are several stories to be told in regards to the noise. When it comes to trucks, most of the noise is generated low down in the engine and (in the case of container trucks) the undercarriage. For trains, you have shunting noises and the whistles (and general wheel squeak). Each need to be addressed differently.

The City is currently looking at how the Front Street Mews will be developed, and there is every possibility that a low-level noise barrier that addresses most truck noise will be part of that plan. Improving the pavement and aligning the road better will also help this. The train noise is currently aside the Parkade, not below it, although the Parkade probably acts as a bit of a barrier to a few residential buildings in the Downtown. The City’s Whistle Cessation Strategy will hopefully see the end to whistles along that stretch of the rail tracks in the next year or two – but that requires that the crossings are made safer, which removal of the Parkade will assist with. There is no doubt that the noise level at ground level of Front Street can me significantly improved for very little investment, once the Parkade is gone.

Both of these, however, need to be put into context of the longer-term vision for the City’ waterfront. Ultimately, Front Street will not be a regional truck route, but will be a local road serving the needs of New Westminster. There has also been some discussion about the long-term fate of the rails (of which I have a pretty strong opinion).

We are not there yet, but long-term visions need a starting step, and investing in another 20 years of the west half of the Parkade is a step in the wrong direction – good money after bad.