I was Acting Mayor last week for a few days, as Mayor Cote took a short vacation. As such, I got to enjoy media attention around the “Rescue Our Parkade” issue. This Meeting of Council included several delegations around that issue, so I guess I will need to write another blog post about that. The main decisions around the Parkade were already made months ago, so I will save this blog post for writing about the issues on our agenda.

We had a few announcements (interesting procedural note than one cannot both provide a Presentation and Chair the meeting, so The Mayor relinquished the Chair role to me as Acting Mayor, which caused general hilarity all around). After announcements and delegations, we started the meeting with an Opportunity to be Heard:

Development Variance Permit – 111 Wood Street
There were no delegations and no correspondence received on this Permit application, which was to develop a set of Townhouses in the southern part of Queensborough. This construction aligns with the adjacent developments, fills a bit of a gap on the South Dyke and obviously raised no hackles in the neighbourhood. We moved to issue the Development Variance Permit and the Development Permit.

We then moved on to Recommendations from the Committee of the Whole meeting of March 9, 2015:

YVR Request
Representatives of Vancouver International Airport sent us a letter requesting an opportunity to meet council and discuss their plans and visions for their operation and impacts on the Region. Council moved to formally invite them to our May 11th Council Meeting.

ICBC Representative to ACTBiPed
We formally approved the naming of the representative from ICBC to the Advisory committee for Transit Bicycles and Pedestrians. Welcome to the team (officially) Karon!

We then moved on to Recommendations from the Committee of the Whole meeting of March 23, 2015:

 KUDOZ – A City of Learning
We had a great presentation during the Committee of the Whole meeting from an organization that is working to get people who have employment or other social barriers into learning experiences throughout the City. We were happy as a council to endorse the project. If you want to make a meaningful change in someone’s life but just sharing an hour of your everyday work or volunteer life, you should definitely check out Kudoz at this link!

Amendment of Council Schedule
Legislative Services wants to adjust our schedule to accommodate a few larger projects that are coming to Public Hearing. Although Public Hearings typically happen at the last meeting of the month, the April Hearing looked to have a couple of high-profile projects, and staff are concerned that people’s ability to be heard will be limited by the schedule. They first suggested holding a second Public hearing on April 20, but the project proponent did not like the shortening of their schedule while they are still doing public outreach, and trying to address some concerns. Therefore, we have added a May 4 Public Hearing date. Mark your calendars!

Nomination to the FCM
Councillor Williams was unanimously nominated by Council to represent Mayor and Council at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for 2015.

318 and 328 Agnes Street
There is a proposal to put two new dedicated rental housing buildings on the old school property and empty lot 314 Agnes Street (kitty-corner from Qayqayt School). We moved agreement with the principles of the Housing Agreement, then the required Zoning Amendment passed first and second reading, and I will hold off on offering comment as this will go to Public Hearing on April 27, 2015. Come on out and tell us what you think.

26 East Royal Ave (Victoria Hill Parcel E)
This is one of the final pieces in the Victoria Hill neighbourhood development. This building will bring a bit of ground-based retail to provide some basic services to the Victoria Hill neighbourhood for the first time. This site has seen significant review since 2012, and the current design (two 4-story buildings with a walkway between them, mostly 2- and 3-bedroom units and 113 parking spots for 64 units) definitely reflects earlier concerns expressed about the earlier plans. This is a preliminary report, as the development will be going out to community consultation, design panel, etc.

Sewerage and Drainage Regulation Bylaw
Staff is also updating the Bylaw that regulates the City’s sewer systems. I deal with these types of bylaws in my regular working life, so I went through this with more interest than is strictly healthy. The good news is that I do support it.

An interesting note related to this bylaw and the provisions for source separation. The City of New Westminster is encumbered by a very old sewer system, a legacy of our being a 150 year old City, and a lack of infrastructure investments in the second half of the 20th Century – we have a lot of catching up to do. We have 70 km of storm drainage lines (21km in closed storm sewers, 49km in open watercourses – or “ditches” as they like to call them in Queensborough). We also have 33 km of sanitary sewers, all relatively new. The problem is the 150km of “combined flow” sewers. These are sewers that collect sanitary waste from houses and businesses, but also collect storm water from roof leaders and roadways.

The problem with “combined flow” sewers is that they have to be treated at the end of the pipe like sewage (because of all the nasty stuff we flush). When it rains, there is a huge volume of water that enters the system and is mixed with that sewage, causing us to have to treat it all. The sewer treatment plants in Metro Vancouver don’t like this – it costs them a lot of money to treat all of that volume (and they pass that cost on to us). Environment Canada doesn’t like it either, because occasional very large rains can overwhelm the system and allow some untreated sewage to enter the River.

The City has a decades-long plan to separate the City’s remaining combined-flow sewers, and we are putting some of your annual sewer bill away in a reserve fund to use for this work when it makes sense to dig up a road. However, separation also had to happen at the source. Many residences (like mine) have a single “out” pipe that directs relatively clean roof leader and perimeter drainage water to the same place as that decidedly unclean sanitary outflow goes. If the City wants to separate the systems, then homeowners are going to need to separate their systems as well. Doing the necessary in-ground work to install two pipes and an inspection chamber on residential properties is costly 9up to $10,000, which can be a surprise to homeowners who just want to repair their perimeter drains. The City takes a long view on this, and is not forcing people to do this work until they are performing major renovations, building new structures, or actually repairing the outflow pipes on their property.

Yeah, I probably care too much about sewers.

Statutory Right of Way for FortisBC
Fortis want so provide utility service to supply utility service to a development in Victoria Hill. Not much to discuss here.

Energy Save New West
New Westminster has an energy save program that is pretty cutting-edge. The report received shows they are meeting and exceeding their targets. You should go to their fancy new web site and see how they can help you save money on energy use for your home or business in New Westminster, and help you get rebates for the cost of those energy saving renovations. It’s good stuff.

Do I show my age by even using the phrase “fancy new web site”?

2014 Election – Disqualification of Candidates
A couple of candidates in the recent Municipal election failed to file financial disclosure statements. That’s against the law. There are penalties under the Act, including big fines, but that is the province’s problem. The part the City is responsible for enforcing is a one-election ban from running for local office again. Remember, these candidates are not in trouble for filing false or incomplete declarations, but for not putting anything at all in. They could have downloaded the form, left it blank and signed it, and they could have avoided this (at least until the review of the declarations is completed by ElectionsBC). The issue that one of these two candidates clearly shared advertising with a couple of people who were successfully elected, and those people did not disclose any such shared expenses, is also something I suspect ElectionsBC will deal with when they start reviewing the declarations.

This is separate from the concerns raised by Council around some of the concerns about polling stations last election. It seemed there were one or two polling booths that were not well organized and had long line-ups, some machines that did not work, and a few procedural and/or logistical problems around people needing assistance at the polling station, such as language interpreters. We have asked that there be a report brought to council to review what went right or wrong during the election, so we can do a better job in 4 years.

410 Columbia Street Upgrades
The building on the south side of Columbia at 4th is an eyesore. The owner is going to renovate and reduce the soreness. This is a good thing. I kind of hope it waits until after May 2, as there are some ugly, but interesting, rocks attached to the old façade.

Family Friendly Housing Policy
The City has been working on a policy to assure a supply of family-friendly housing. I wrote a bit about this previously, as we did some work-shopping on the topic. Council decided to endorse the recommendations in the staff report and take the Bylaw to Public Hearing on May 25, 2015. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

We received some correspondence.
The one from the Ministry of Transportation rather irritated a few members of Council. At some point, people are going to start to think that the Minister wants the Metro Vancouver Transportation and Transit Plebiscite to fail. I’m not saying that, because that would suggest he wasn’t being honest when he repeatedly said that he supports the YES side. But I cannot square that with the idea that the week we receive our ballots to decide if we will ask the Province to please allow us to invest $750 Million a year of combined Local, Provincial and Federal money to keep our struggling transportation system operating the right time for the Minister to announce he will be spending $2.5 Billion over three years to build bridges and pave highways and buy busses for everywhere in the Province except the Lower Mainland. You are paying for all of that $2.5 Billion, you are not allowed to vote on it, nor will you be allowed to vote on a similar amount spent on a Massey Tunnel replacement, just as you didn’t vote on a Port Mann bridge that is now $3.6 Billion in debt. Yeah, this is a rant, but as local leaders are busting their asses trying to get the word out that we need a little transportation funding here, he is taking a “hands off” approach while handing money over to Kamloops and Kelowna and Chilliwack. So yeah, that letter arrived at a sensitive time.

And that’s all I have to say about that, except maybe Vote Yes: at least that way some of your taxes will go to building something near where you travel every day.

Bylaws: 
The Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaw which saw three readings on March 2, 2015 was adopted – it is now the Law of the Land.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw 7740 (318 and 328 Agnes Street) as discussed above, had two readings, and will go to Public Hearing on April 27, 2015.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw 7741 (Family Friendly Housing) received two readings, and will go to Public Hearing on May 25, 2015.

Sewerage and Drainage Regulation Bylaw No. 7746, as discussed above, received three readings.

And after a few Notices of Motion which will be discussed later, we were done for the evening.

Big important notice: The March 30th Meeting of Council will include a Public Hearing at 6:00pm. At 7:00pm, we will have an opportunity for Public Comment on the Draft 2015-2019 Financial Plan for the City. That’s usually a good one. Background info here.

You may have noticed I didn’t update on last week’s council meeting, nor on the week before. That is because we did not have a council meeting last week, and the previous week’s meeting was limited to a short “Closed” session to deal with some necessary business, and a Committee of the Whole meeting that was more of a workshop.

You can watch that workshop on the live feed, if you are interested in the two topics we dug deeper into. I will cover them a bit here, and share a bit of where my (early, and therefore very open to adjustment as information arrives) thoughts are on these programs.

Family Friendly Housing Policy

I seem to be at the certain age where a great many people around me are surrounded by children, increasingly their own. And the numbers keep growing (Congratulations Mike & Melissa! Rick & Lana!). Recently, there has been quite a bit of conversation having to do with housing affordability – not only of the low-income or supportive housing, but of affordable housing for middle-income families.

Many of my generation (and the next) who have chosen the urban lifestyle of a place like New Westminster as opposed to increasingly soul-crushing suburbia and commutes, are not necessarily expecting a big house with a big yard, but are ok with townhouses and condos. However, most lament the lack of 3+ bedroom places available for their growing families. Very few feel they can afford a detached single family home (even if they want one and the attached costs, maintenance issues, and hassles). Outside of the detached house model, 3+ bedroom options that do become available in the new building stock end up being tower penthouses or the token pedestal townhouses attached to a tower, both of which are unaffordable to buy (challenging the single family detached in price), and come with disproportionate Strata fee loads.

Some go so far as to suggest that this one issue is going to limit the City of New Westminster’s ability to attract and keep a stable population of young professionals with families – the very population we need to provide us a solid tax base, a vibrant school population, and that community feel we love so much.

Problem is, for a long time, no-one really knew what to do about it. Vancouver has already taken steps to encourage the development of family-friendly housing (although notably two-bedroom is only as far as they would go), and some other Cities (North Van, Burnaby) are looking at policies. New West has been working on this for a while, and has already reached more than 800 citizens through the initial outreach/consultation process, and collected a considerable amount of data on the national, regional, and local markets. The City even contracted a financial feasibility study of building more family-friendly units. It seems the City has taken a pretty comprehensive approach (something I can take no credit for, as this was all done prior to my joining Council).

The issue is (in my opinion) more complicated than just forcing new towers to have a higher percentage of 2-3 bedroom units, and I am thinking that may be the completely wrong approach. The cost of concrete high-rise construction would put those units on price competition with single family detached homes in New West, even if they were not the “penthouse” buildings. If we look at the neighbourhoods in New Westminster that have higher density family-sized units, we look at the low-rise areas of the Quayside, the Fraserview area, and Queensborough.

I suspect the solutions to family friendly housing are found in low-rise infill density, and will rely on more than just restrictions on bedroom counts, but on providing more prescriptive design guidelines to assure ground-based homes have adequate space for a family, including storage space adequate for a growing family (where to store the bikes, the hockey gear, the Lego!), adequate kitchen/pantry space (I have a former co-worker who always lamented the massive volume of “boy-chow” he had to supply his active growing kids), and that there are enough safe opens spaces and other community amenities so that growing kids have room to run.

There is quite a bit of data in the report (worth reading if you are interested) and this will be an ongoing conversation, I would love to hear your ideas about what the challenges are.

Canada Games Pool / Centennial Community Centre

There have been rumblings for several years about the Canada Games Pool. State-of-the-art in 1973 when the Canada Summer Games were hosted in New Westminster and showing its age, the pool is increasingly expensive to operate and some significant capital costs are upcoming as major components of the physical plant are reaching the end of their service life. If we keep the pool as it is, we will need to spend several million dollars in the next few years keeping it working. If we replace it or do a major refurbish, then those millions can be rolled into the larger project instead of being invested in a fading asset.

The time to decide what to do is now, as whatever decision is made, there is going to need to be construction happening in this council term. So the public consultation is beginning, and staff came to council to start putting a framework around that consultation, and assure their consultation vision aligns with ours.

Disclosure: I am not a swimmer. I like to swim in warm oceans and lakes, not pools. I see swimming as something one does to cool down in tropical heat, to observe colourful sea life through a mask from a respectful distance, or to prevent oneself from drowning, but I don’t do it for exercise. I don’t even use gyms. I like to exercise outdoors, and see no point in picking weights up and putting them back down again when I could instead be out on my bike or climbing a mountain. So I personally have no skin in the Canada Games Pool game.

I do, however, hear from a lot of people about the pool. The ever-suffering MsNWimby uses the CGP several times a week, as she does like picking weights up and putting them down and such activity. My car pool partner grew up swimming laps with the Hyack Swim Club, and now lives a block away and trundles her kids off to Poirier where the water is warmer. I have heard many people talk about how great Edmonds pool is for their kids (despite the terrible change rooms and sometimes terrifying dumping bucket), but how CGP is still the place to go if you want to do serious laps.

I also know the current pool is not only the largest source of corporate Greenhouse Gasses of any City operation, it is also expensive to operate. For every person who walks into CGP, the taxpayer subsidizes that entry to the tune of more than $1 each. To me, there is no problem with that, we subsidize library users, people at Century House, the Youth Centre, the Anvil, and for that matter everyone who drives and park on our streets or walks on our sidewalks – society is a socialist enterprise. However, I want to know if people feel they are getting good value from the CGOP, and how we can make that value better.

To get there, I want to hear from people in New West about what they want from a Canada Games Pool. This is not the official public engagement, but I want to hear peoples’ opinions on a few questions:

What kind of pool do you want? Do we want a “competition pool” (50+ m, cooler water, proper dive tank with high platforms), a family swimming centre (25m, warmer, more play-time amenities), or both (recognizing the increased cost that comes with having it all).

Besides the pool, what other uses? As the Centennial Community Centre is also reaching the end of its life, the question of how we manage the combined amenities is also a good one. As this is the only community centre in the Glenbrook North / Massey Heights/ Upper Sapperton area – what kind of services should we include? Remember, again, that every new service costs money to build, money to program, and money to operate, and there is no chance that an accessible community centre will ever operate at 100% cost-recovery. What are the priorities for the facility?

Where would you put the pool? Right now, the only discussion is where on the current footprint of the block between McBride, Cumberland, on East 6th Ave. I have been wondering –f we were to build a new pool starting from fresh, would we put it there? Or would we put it nearer more population density, where the future population growth is expected instead of in what is essentially a single-family-detached neighbourhood. Should it be closer to a SkyTrain station? I have to admit, I don’t have a location in mind, and it could be hard to find another 100m x 50m footprint in the City to build a centre like we have (or 100m x 80m to build something like Edmonds), but I think it is important for us to have this discussion before we build an asset that will set in stone for 50+ years. This opens up the floodgates towards innovative approaches:

What other delivery approach could we use? I could see a model where the pool was moved and replaced with a smaller community centre (think a new Centennial type facility, a gym or two with meeting rooms, maybe a pocket library), and excess land on that lot sold off to finance part of the cost of the replacement pool and centre. I could also imagine locating the pool in a denser neighbourhood and selling off density, or even co-developing a larger lot with a residential component to share some costs.

I have to emphasize: I am spitballing here. It is very likely that the pool will be built adjacent to the existing site, and the institutional and neighbourhood momentum that exists overpowers any other option (or, more likely, any other option is deemed too risky or too cumbersome in the relatively tight timeline of the project). But I am open to hearing creative ideas.

So there you go, a couple of weeks without regular Council activity, but lots for council to chew on, even outside of the ongoing “Vote for a livable Transportation future” campaign work. Oh, and I took a 2 hour walking tour with people who want to “Save our Parkade”, attended a celebration of the 58th anniversary of Ghanaian Independence, attended a couple of Residents’ Association meetings, chaired meetings with the Environmental Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee for Transit, Bicycles, and Transit, had a meeting with the Downtown BIA around their exciting new strategic plan, and attended the 100th Anniversary Concert for the New Westminster Symphony. Back to regular council life next week.