I’m going to go right ahead and call the October 17, 2016, edition of Council the priorities and hard choices edition. Although there was lots of good news, there were some no-fun decisions, and saying no is never popular. I didn’t sleep well the night after, because the impacts of the “no”s stand out in your mind much more than the good feelings of the “yes”es.

The following items were moved on the Consent Agenda:

Parkade Public Art Project Lighting
The remaining half of the parkade is going to have an art installation that will be visible from the Pier Park and bridges crossing the river, to be paid for out of the Parkade renewal budget. However, there is an opportunity to use lights to accentuate the public art installation and make it more prominent at night. The Public Art Advisory Committee recommended that we spend the money to install the lights from the Public Art Reserve Fund. Council agreed.

Acting Mayor Appointments for December 2016 to November 2017
The role of Acting Mayor is to fulfill the legal role of the Mayor when His Worship is out of town or otherwise unable to do so. Mostly, this means reviewing and signing forms that take executive oversight, taking the occasional meeting, and (of course) attending official functions. The 6 Councillors share the load by each taking two months out of the year (mostly with the expectation that we won’t take extended vacations during those months). I have March and August again. Send your parking ticket complaints for those two months directly to me.

Establishment of a New Westminster Rent Bank Program
This item was passed on Consent, but our MLA came to Council to delegate on the topic, which lead to a discussion. This is a great program idea, one that has been successful in many other jurisdictions as a pro-active measure to reduce homelessness.

The idea is that a social service agency sets up a short-term loan office for the sole purpose of providing rent (or utility) relief to a person threatened with homelessness. With a high rental population and high percentage of people living close to the edge when it comes to housing affordability, New Westminster can really benefit from a program like this.

Judy Darcy’s office has done a lot of the legwork on this file, forging partnerships with credit unions and service agencies, and securing some seed capital. The City’s contribution will be to provide a small operating grant to cover some expenses, well within the amount of money the City could potentially save by not having to provide shelter or policing and emergency services to people who are made homeless by a short-term financial setback. I’m glad Judy brought this to us, and am proud the City agreed to provide some modest support.

612 – 618 Brantford Street: Official Community Plan Amendment – Consultation Report
This 6-story residential building project at the end of Bent Court in the Brow of the Hill neighbourhood will be going to another round of public consultation, and will culminate in a Public Hearing, so I will hold some of my comments until then.

258 Nelson’s Court (Brewery District Building 6): Consideration of  Issuance of Development Permit
This is a consideration to issue a DP for the sixth building (and third residential tower) at the Brewery District. The DP has no variances, as it is coming after a significant amount of public consultation related to the last couple of phases of the Brewery District development. The design, density, and height of the building are as presented in the earlier rezoning consultations, so no surprises here.

Queen’s Park Heritage Conservation Area and Control Period: Work  Plan and Related Terms of Reference
Work on the a potential Queens Park Heritage Conservation Area is progressing, and needs to happen quickly. The temporary protection period that provides Council the legal authority to turn down demolition applications will expire next summer, so we need something in its place, and need to extend our public outreach in regards to creating a defensible and workable process if the community wants to take action on this.

Some public consultation on this is coming in later November. If you live in Queens Park, you might want to start spreading the word to your neighbours. We are serious about reaching out to the public here, but the timelines are tight, and this is a pretty significant change to how the City regulates building form in the neighbourhood – it should lead to exciting conversations.

Exempt Properties – Review of Questionnaire Results
There are lots of properties in the City that don’t pay property taxes, either because of statutory exemptions (ones the province requires through the Community Charter) or through permissive exemptions (ones Council allows after determining the land use serves some public good worth subsidizing). Every year, we publish a list of the permissive exemptions for all to see. Read ‘em and weep.

Report on Major Purchasing Transactions for the Period May 1 to  August 31, 2016
Three times a year, Staff report to Council (and the public) what purchases over $100,000 they have made over the last 4 months, and all “sole source” purchases over $50,000. Note, these are not new costs, but budgeted expenses for already approved projects or equipment replacement, and they are being reported out mostly to demonstrate that our procurement practices are open and defensible.

337 Fourth Street: Development Variance Permit 00611 for Parking  Space Exemption for Secondary Suite – Consideration of Issuance
The owner of this home wishes to legalize their secondary suite, which is permitted by their zoning, however they would be required to provide a second parking spot on site. This would, in turn, require the removal of two mature trees, and even the removal of a City boulevard tree.

Instead, they are asking for a variance removing the requirement for another off-street parking spot, such that the trees can be protected: providing a relatively affordable housing option in the heart of Queens Park while protecting trees. This generally sounds like a good solution to me, but if you don’t agree, there will be an opportunity to be heard on October 24, 2016. C’mon out and tell us what you think!

725 Fifth Street: Development Variance Permit 00608 for Parking  Space Exemption for Secondary Suite – Consideration of Issuance
Similar to the item right above, except it is two trees and it is in Glenbrook North. Again, if you like this idea, or hate it, there will be an opportunity to be heard on October 24, 2016. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

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We then (after Proclamations) had a couple of Presentations on new development projects being proposed:

145 – 201 E. Columbia Street: Rezoning and Development  Permit (DPS00044) for Proposed Six Storey Mixed Use Commercial  and Residential (Rental) Building with Two Townhouse Units
This was a preliminary report, with the project still to go to public consultation in the neighbourhood, Design Panel, Advisory Planning Committee, and potentially to a Public Hearing if it makes it through those processes. The project is on the edge of Economic Health Care Cluster proposed for E.Columbia as peripheral development around the expanded RCH. Wesgroup is planning to make it a 6-story 70 unit secured rental building with retail or commercial on the ground floor along E.Columbia.

600 to 720 Quayside Drive: Special Development Permit Application and Development Variance Permit – Preliminary Report
This is the big project of the week, and the biggest pending project in town. This is again only a preliminary report, but the project as proposed meets the current Master Plan and Zoning as far as land use, density, parking and such, and would only need a DVP, which is generally less onerous process than a Rezoning and starting a new Development Permit from scratch – that work was done back in 2013-2014 and final Zoning awarded in November 2014. Short version: there will be a public Opportunity to be Heard, but the timelines for Public Consultation on this project are much shorter that you might expect.

I can maybe write more later about the various aspects of this project. It hits a lot of the right marks as far as public realm and completing the waterfront vision. The height (53 stories for the tallest building, which is 6 more than currently allowed in the zoning) is sure to raise a few eyebrows and will predictably attract the most media attention, but the density is the same as the previous three-tower proposal, and significantly less than the original 5-tower concept for the site. The reduced footprint means more public space and better opportunities for connecting people to the waterfront. People spend way more time interacting with the bottom 6 floors of a building than the top floors 6 floors, but you know which we are going to end up talking about.

The biggest concern I have with this project right now is the impact on the River Market, which I think is a keystone business in this City, and the defining element of our waterfront. It has had its ups and down in the 30 years since it opened, and its fate has paralleled the economic cycles in the City. However, I cannot overstate its symbolic importance to the recent renewal of our waterfront and the role it plays in making our waterfront active.

The River Sky development and the construction around Begbie Street to facilitate whistle cessation have had an impact on the businesses at the Market. They have been, like many of the businesses on Front Street impacted by the Mews development, patient and understanding that the short-term pain of being adjacent a construction site is offset by the long-term gain of promised improved streetscape, more customers, and more vibrancy in the neighbourhood.

There has been expectation, and even anticipation, of a new development project at this site, but the several years of latency has led to the impression that nothing is likely to occur until after River Sky is done. It now appears that next phase is going to come sooner than expected, and overlap with the River Sky construction is possible. There are details to dig into here, through a Servicing Agreement and Construction Management Plan, so I will remain optimistic that mitigation of these impacts is possible through adjusted timing or other accommodations, because the development as proposed brings a lot of good things to the waterfront, but we need a viable waterfront still operating when it arrives.

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The following items were removed from the Consent Agenda for discussion:

Quayside to Queensborough (Q2Q) Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge –  Cost Estimate and Crossing Options
This is the most disappointing part of the evening’s agenda. I have for years supported the concept of a fixed Q2Q crossing, since I was just a lowly bike blogger at 10th and Royal. It is only after getting elected and digging into the details did I start to understand the range of complications this project presents. There have been several proposed solutions taken to public consultations, none of them perfect, but each of them presenting a unique set of challenges and coming with their own group of critics.

I can’t simplify this enough: We don’t have $40 Million to build a bridge. It simply isn’t in the budget of a City of 70,000 people with numerous competing infrastructure demands. The potential for us to fill the funding gap with senior government assistance is pretty limited, and the ask is big.

I will need to write more about this in a future blog, as the public reaction is already filling with rumours and suspicion (rhymes notwithstanding), but the short version is that it isn’t quite time to put the pencils down, but we are no longer full steam ahead (wow, mix metaphors much?). We need to look at the cost drivers, both engineering and regulatory, and look at alternatives that serve the Queensborough neighbourhood. Meanwhile, we are looking at trialing a passenger ferry service, which is (in my opinion) not an equal alternative, but may be the only path forward.

Proposed 2017 Schedule of Regular Council Meetings
Time to populate your calendars, schedule your babysitters, set up your PVR, and book your vacations: the 2017 Council Calendar is live. Don’t miss a riveting minute. The gallery offers comfortable seats, but you will only need the edge. Please, no wagering.

New Westminster Child Care Strategy (October 2016)
The City is aggressively moving to address a chronic shortage of Child Care facilities (and most importantly – affordable child care options) in the City. There is a lot of absorb here in this report, and there are a variety of ways we can help support or facilitate the development of more spaces, and how to address the growing need for affordable spaces. However, we need to be strategic, because there is (and will always be) more need that we can hope to fund as a local government. This becomes obvious when you read down to the next two agenda items.

Fundamentally, this is a senior government responsibility, and we need them to start to invest so that we can concentrate on doing things within our jurisdiction to make spaces more available. However, failing a change of government to one that cares about funding the needs of families, we need to start having discussions locally about what the role of our Reserve Fund and Grants are, and whether the formulas are providing enough resources to address the growing need.

Funding Request to Address the Child Care Situation in Queensborough
As reinforced by a Public Delegation from one of the not-for-profit childcare operators in town, the situation for Child Care in Queensborough is dire, with lengthy waiting lists meeting the numerous new young families moving to the neighbourhood. The infant/toddler level of care is most troubling, as it is the economically most difficult to set up and operate.

Our Social Planner has worked on a plan to re-purpose an empty piece of City land that is already appropriately located and zoned, and has identified a potential source of grant funds to help with the capital setup costs. We moved to use the majority of our remaining Child Care Reserve fund to do the preliminary site prep work, and begin the process of securing those grants.

701 Sixth Street: Glenbrooke Daycare Society Request for Financial  Support
Here is the harder part, and a decision I don’t think anyone on Council was happy to make, to follow a recommendation no-one on staff was happy to make. We supported the recommendation to not fund this project to begin evaluating the engineering/building code changes required to add more childcare spaces to the Glenbrook Daycare location on Sixth Street.

As discussed above, we invest a lot in Daycare here in New West, especially for an aspect of program delivery that really should be funded by senior governments. However, our reserve fund is going to be completely tapped, and Queensborough is the priority right now. This project carried too much uncertainty for us to place it above other needs in the community right now.

As mentioned in the discussion above on the Child Care Strategy, we are going to have to have a discussion in Council about the funding formula for our Childcare Reserve Fund, and whether it is meeting the needs of the community.

Utilities User Fees and Rates Bylaw Amendment: Utility Charge Exemptions for Unoccupied Secondary Suites
This Bylaw simply formalizes what has been a long-standing policy regarding utility rates for secondary suites. If you have a legal secondary suite in your house, you pay 50% more for your utilities, unless you submit an affidavit to the City that the secondary suite is not occupied by a renter.

Frankly, I feel like this is a ham-fisted way to try to create fairness in our water and sewerage charges. Our practice is to make broad (almost certainly false) generalizations about how much water people use based on their domestic / housing situation, then apply those arbitrary categories to determining how much they pay to support our water and sewer utilities.

Last year, at the end of the drought that led the region to Stage 3 water restrictions, and flirting with stage 4, we had a delegation come to council asking about our approach to managing our limited water resources better, managing them more responsibly. We luckily did not have such a drought this summer, but that has not made the problem go away, it has only delayed our urgency to act.

Experience around the region has shown that metering our water utility will create conservation, and will allow us to replace these arbitrary water use categories with a fair rate system. We need to get moving on a voluntary metering system for single-family homes, and for homes that have secondary suites. It’s time.

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We then processed a few Bylaws:

Parks and Recreation Fees Amendment Bylaw No. 7865, 2016 – Adoption
As discussed in our previous meeting, this Bylaw that sets our annual fee schedule for Parks and recreation programs was adopted, which makes it the law.

Engineering Fees and Rates Amendment (Secondary Suites) Bylaw No.
7861, 2016
As discussed above, this Bylaw that formalizes the way we manage utility charges for occupied secondary suites was given three readings.

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Short Term Rental (STR) Policies and Bylaws
Finally, I brought a motion to Council asking that our staff start getting the pieces in place to update our Bed And Breakfast, Secondary Suite, and home based business regulations to allow residents interested in operating on platforms like AirBnB or VRBO to do so legally in the City, while managing the potential neighbourhood conflict issues that may arise to keep our residential areas safe and livable.

This came out of some discussions I have had with AirBnB operators in the City, and after attending a lot of meetings and discussions atUBCM last month. I will have more to write on this soon, so perhaps I’ll hold off a longer discussion for a full blog post.

And with that, we wrapped a long meeting. See you at Public Hearing next week!

Back from the week in Victoria for UBCM, we were back at our regular Council meetings. Our agenda was not too lengthy, but there were some interesting Public Delegations you will need to watch the video to enjoy.

Council moved the following items on Consent:

Investment Report to August 31st, 2016
The City has money in the bank, almost $150 Million. This arises from several well-regulated situations, and more details are available in our Financial Statements. We collect DCCs from development to pay for the increased cost of servicing those developments with things like water, sewer, and roads, however, we don’t spend that money until actually works need replacing, so they sit in various reserve funds earmarked for specific projects. Those add up to just under $20 Million right now. We also have a bunch of other reserve funds, set up to pay for projected capital costs like the Canada Games Pool, or the public art program, some for specific future utility needs that you have been paying for through your utility bill, which combined together total over $100Million.

This report simply updates Council on how our investments are doing. We made about $1.6 Million in interest in the first half of the year, but are expecting to earn a little less than budgeted by the end of the year.

Amendment to the Parks and Recreation Fees and Charges Bylaw
This is the annual adjustment of our Parks and Recreation fees, for everything from swim lessons to renting Queens Park Arena. Increases this year range from 0% to 5%, with almost all increases below 2.8%. Appendix C of the report is worthwhile noting, as that is where we compare our rates to those in our neighboring cities. New West ice rentals are the lowest cost in the region; our gym and pool fees are on or below average across the region. Getting and keeping fit in New West is (relative) bargain!

1209 Hamilton Street: Proposed Rezoning to Allow 20 Child Care Spaces – Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7832, 2016 for First and Second Readings
Daycare spaces are a rare commodity in the Royal City. The current economics of running a daycare and the restrictive rules for their operation (important to preserve quality of spaces and protect the well-being of children) mean setting up facilities is sometimes an arduous process. The City, through its Child Care Strategy, is trying to facilitate the opening of more childcare spaces to fill this recognized need through a variety of policy and supports.

This application is for a daycare in a current duplex house, immediately adjacent to commercial areas, close to family neighbourhoods and transportation options. Current policy would allow 20 childcare spaces in a duplex such as this, and the applicant is requesting expansion to 20 spaces, 12 of which will be for toddlers (an identified need in the community).

This proposal will go to a Public Hearing on October 24th. C’mon out and tell us what you think!

1004 Salter Street: Development Variance Permit 00602 for 18 Lot Subdivision with Park Dedication – Consideration of Issuance
This development project in Queensborough requires a variance because of the shape of the lots. All of the lots are larger than the minimum required by the Zoning Bylaw, but they are deeper than typical, meaning that their frontages are less than 10% of their perimeter (following me here?). The proposed lots are 141 feet deep by 31 feet wide, where the 10% formula would require 34 foot frontages. They are not asking for bigger houses than permitted or reduced spacing between buildings, only frontages reduced by 3 feet. Doing it this way would allow better laneway and park dedication to make for a better designed family neighbourhood.

There is some public consultation and committee review to be done yet, but council expressed general support for this model being moved forward to those steps.

Recommendation from Advisory Committee for Transit, Bicycles and Pedestrians (ActBiPed): Public Seating Strategy to Encourage Walking & Neighbourhood Livability
This recommendation came from the ACTBiPed, who advise council on active transportation issues (transit, bicycles, and pedestrians). Perhaps counter-intuitively, ACTBiPed is advocating for more public seating. Just as parking is an important part of planning for car use, and bike racks are required to encourage bike use, adequate and attractive public seating is vital for pedestrians and transit users. In a City like New West, with hills that present challenges to a portion of the community, adequate places where they can be made comfortable to stop and rest for a few minutes can be the difference between taking a walk, or taking the car. It also creates opportunity for eyes on the street, for social interaction, and for making people more connected to their neighborhood, just ask Jane Jacobs.

ACTBiPed asked that the City create a strategy to support adequate and comfortable public seating, and have recommended several policies and measures to support that strategy. Council moved this recommendation.

Recommendation from Access Ability Advisory Committee: Proposal to change the Terms of Reference of the Committee
This recommendation came from the committee charged with advising council on issues of accessibility with the goal of assuring the public realm is accessible to all people in our community, regardless of physical or other barriers. The recommendation is to change the terms of reference a bit to encourage participation from youth in the city, and organizations in the City that no not necessarily have accessibility as part of their mandate, but are interested in taking steps to improve accessibility in their organization, or in the broader community. Council approved this recommendation.

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The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

718 Twelfth Street: Temporary Use Permit for Islamic Society
This organization has been trying to find a home in New Westminster for some time, and is requesting a temporary use permit for the Heritage Hall on 12th Street. There are some significant land-use concerns with permanently converting street-front commercial space to church religious assembly use. However, this is a temporary use to support a burgeoning organization that serves an underrepresented part of our community, so this temporary request is worthy of consideration. There will be some public consultation and an Opportunity to be Heard. Watch this space.

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We also addressed some correspondence:

Uptown Business Association of New Westminster letter dated
September 21, 2016 regarding Belmont Street Parklet
The merchants of and commercial property owners of Uptown have written the City to express support for the temporary Uptown Parklet that has invaded part of Belmont Street for the last few months. I think our Parks and Planning staff did a really god job turning a very small amount of money into a really friendly place that people seem to enjoy. There have been a few complaints, and a lot of kudos. Some early concerns about potential behavior issues on the site turned out to be a pretty minor issue, although some residents have been concerned about noise at night (seemingly more related to the nearby bar than the parklet). However, during the day it is apparent that citizens have started to occupy the space and make it their own.

As a trial, our second Parklet (remember, we installed one in Sapperton last year) can be called a success, and it is time to have a discussion about how the future of Belmont Street may be reshaped, and about where else in the City Parklets may work.

Letter received via email dated September 22, 2016 from Michelle Cunningham regarding Electrical Vehicle Incentive and Zoning Bylaws
The topic of this letter was referred to Staff. There are many opportunities to incentivize the installation of electrical charging stations for vehicles, and it is better to be in front of this trend than behind it. New West has some natural advantages: our own Electrical Utility, our central location, and our large number of people living in multi-family dwellings. At the Municipal Climate Leadership Council meetings at UBCM, I heard a lot about the programs that organizations like the Community Energy Association of BC are doing to promote initiatives like this, and senior government help that is available.

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We then addressed some Bylaws:

New Westminster Civic Infrastructure Temporary Borrowing Bylaw No. 7843, 2016
This Bylaw that provides the City some borrowing authority for various civic infrastructure projects, which passed the Alternate Approval Process (ugh) a few months ago, was adopted, and is now the law of the land.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (1209 Hamilton Street) No. 7832, 2016
This Bylaw addressing the daycare space off of 12th Street (discussed above) was given two readings.

Parks and Recreation Fees Amendment Bylaw No. 7865, 2016
This Bylaw formalizing the new Parks and Rec fees (discussed above) was given three readings.

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There were then a series of interesting Public Delegations, worth your time and energy to watch. It will be interesting to see what arises out of a few of those discussions….

This week was our annual City Council on the Road trip to Queensborough. This is just like a regular Council Meeting, except we hold it at the Queensborough Community Centre, and more people show up!

Our agenda was not too long this week, so we started with a couple of announcements regarding the LEED Gold certification of the Queensborough Community Centre, and a progress report on the Ewen Street upgrading project (two years down, one to go!) and a few smaller pedestrian safety projects we are fast-tracking in Queensborough.

We passed the following items on Consent

2017 Development Services, Planning Division User Fees and Rates Review
One of the Principles of local government in BC is that some things are paid out of taxes, and some things are paid on a cost-recovery basis (this is a “principle” that is often hard to be too strict about, because of the hugely complicated overlap between the two groups, and the cost and hassle of keeping the division strict would overwhelm the cost recovery, but we try the best we can). Fees for things like processing development permits are intended to put the City’s costs for working a development through the review and consultation process as much as possible on the developer, not on the taxpayer.

Another principle is that we do not want to have our permits completely out of line with other Cities in the region, but because we “compete” with other cities for business, commercial, and residential taxpayers, and because being anomalously high or low relative to other Cities is a sign we are probably doing something wrong.

The changes proposed will bring us back in line with the median across the region. I am happy to support this change, as it assures we are regionally in the right ballpark on our fees, but that doesn’t mean the entire region isn’t over or undercharging, or that being in the middle of the pack removes our responsibility to find efficiencies in our operations. And we want to be regional leaders, don’t we?

So to support these principles, it would be great if staff did a bit of a desktop exercise to estimate the actual cost to the City for processing these applications – how much time does it take staff to review the average application, how many staff are required, and what are the costs – are we recovering half the cost? 90%? Or are we making money? I suspect there is a huge range, as applications vary in their complication and in the sophistication of the applicant, but estimating a range would be a useful exercise for council, especially as we are re-evaluating where we fit in the regional context.

1016 – 1022 Fourth Avenue: Development Variance Permit for Five Lot Subdivision with Duplexes on Each Lot – Consideration of Issuance
This Permit is essentially a housekeeping exercise on some of the language of the existing development permit, previously passed by Council. A few issues were discovered during further planning by the site developer that required clarification of language, and a relatively small adjustment of setbacks was made to accommodate the mature tree that is extant on the property, in concordance with our new Tree Protection Bylaw.

1209 – 1211 Fourth Avenue: Development Permit for Eight Unit Townhouse Development – Consideration of Issuance
This application has been winding its way through the process. The owner does not appear to be in much of a rush as the Public Engagement and Panel Review work was completed back in 2012. It is an interesting site on a pretty steep hill, but a good example of “missing middle” townhouse development we need so much on the mainland of New West.

Sewer Pump Station Rehabilitation – 2016 – Budget Re-Allocation
One of the fun parts about developing on flat land like in Queensborough is that you need to lift your sewage. You install your pipes with a bit of a slope to keep ‘em flowing, but eventually you get too deep and need a pump station to lift the sewage to a new, higher pipe to get more slope. Sewage lift stations are expensive, and need quite a bit of maintenance to keep your pipes clean because you wouldn’t believe what people flush. A couple of the lift stations in Queensborough apparently need major servicing sooner, rather than later, so we are moving some budget money forward.

This is a re-allocation of budget not an increase, as we would have spent this in 2017 or 2018 anyway as part of the regular maintenance schedule, we are just expediting the process a bit due to need, and to get some economies of scale, we are doing 5 stations as part of a single tender.

100 Braid Street (Urban Academy School): DP – Preliminary Report
Up to now, we have seen the site re-zoned. At this step, we are seeing detailed design of the school building, which is the first phase of development for the site.

This project will go to Design Panel, Sapperton RA and to a public open house, so please show up and tell us what you think.

Intelligent City Advisory Committee Amended Terms of Reference
The next phase of the ICI is starting to unfold, now that fibre and BridgeNet are approved, and installations are occurring. It is time to talk about the other interesting possibilities related to becoming an “Intelligent City”. We have had some interesting discussions recently about using more intelligent traffic control technologies… but we’ll save that for future discussions…

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The following items were removed form consent

Sign Bylaw Update: Consideration of Public Consultation
The City is looking at its existing Sign Bylaw, and a few updates are intended to make the process easier and more consistent for businesses (we want to rely less on variances to the Bylaw). This is a pretty full re-write, but relies on the existing bylaw and its various edits and revisions to set the framework.

There are some mundane requirements, like having an engineer certify that the sign won’t fall and hurt somebody with the first puff of wind, or making sure lights meet electrical code. However, there is also the more complicated desire to assure businesses can install appropriate or needed signage, while limiting the visual intrusion of signage and maintaining an attractive streetscape for users.

This latter requirement is, of course, a challenging goal, and will rely on a lot of input from the business community, the Design Panel, and everyone else who lives, works, and shops in New Westminster. So we are sending this draft Bylaw out for some public and business input.

I asked that we also consult with the Access Ability Advisory Committee. I think they would want to provide comment on the types of signs that impair mobility on our streets and sidewalks, but also on making signs more effective for the visually impaired, and how signage impacts navigability for people suffering with dementia, as per our Dementia-Friendly community action plan, which may also include input form the City’s Senior Social Planner.

I have a few more comments in regards to some of the new restrictions, but I am happy to have this go to consultation as is, and hear what the business community and other stakeholders have to say, and reserve my right to comment when it comes back to Council!

701 Sixth Street: Glenbrooke Daycare Society Request for Financial Support
This Daycare is looking to expand, and the spaces are woefully needed in New Westminster. They are asking the City for some financial help as they have significant start-up costs if they wish to expand.. We have a Reserve Fund for these types of requests. However, our current reserve fund is mostly earmarked for addressing the situation in Queensborough, where daycare and pre-school needs are beyond crisis levels.

In the end, we need a little more info from this applicant before we can decide if it is the best use of some of our reserve fund, or if there is another source the City can dip into to support these very-much-needed spaces.

Metro Vancouver Regional Affordable Housing Strategy
I attended forum at Douglas College last Thursday hosted by Judy Darcy, our MLA, where representatives from the DSU and from Senior Services Society spoke about the challenges of our current housing crisis, and David Eby (the Opposition Critic on housing) and our own Mayor spoke of strategies to address it.

I think there were two messages I took away from that forum. First, as emphasized by Mayor Cote, is that the current housing crisis in BC is occurring at every level of the socioeconomic spectrum. There are tent cities popping up not just in Vancouver and Victoria, but in Abbotsford, in Prince George, in Maple Ridge. We have shelters filling up with the working poor – people with full time jobs who just can’t find a place they can afford. Waitlists for supportive housing through Housing BC are years long, and one of the cornerstones of affordable family living – the Co-Op housing system – is falling apart as their capital grants are stripped by senior governments. Rental rates are shooting up as the vacancy rates are below 1%, and even those fortunate enough to afford downpayments and mortgages in this overheated market are finding they cannot afford places large enough to accommodate families, as the $1Million line sweeps eastward across the region towards the most distant suburbs.

The second message was form David Eby, who emphasized that although the problem is multi-faceted and complex, the solution is really simple: we need a provincial government who believes housing is part of their mandate.

The regional government has a role in developing affordable housing strategies, and this document outlines a strategic plan for what Metro and the member Municipalities can do to alleviate the problem. I look at the 24 goals in this strategy, and more than half of them would be more achievable with the Provincial Government working with the cities of the region to make them more livable It’s an election year, maybe something good will happen.

Meantime, I am proud of the work New Westminster has done already. Again, much of this was brought in before my time on Council, but we are seeing the positive results now. When you look at this strategy and see that New West is already working on 23 of the 24 recommendations, there is no doubt we are a regional leader in almost every aspect of housing, punching well above our weight as the 10th largest Municipality in the region. But our powers are limited, as is our budget. Working with our regional partners on a regional affordable housing strategy is important to the current residents of New West, and to the future residents of New West, and I am happy to endorse this strategy.

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We then adopted the following Bylaws

Sewerage and Drainage Regulation Amendment Bylaw No. 7863, 2016
Bylaw Notice Enforcement Amendment Bylaw No. 7860, 2016
As discussed on August 29, these bylaws better regulating discharges to our storm drainage system for construction sites was adopted. It’s now the law of the land, and I would appreciate it if you adjusted your behavior accordingly.

HRA (508 Agnes Street) Amendment Bylaw No. 7866, 2016
As also discussed on August 29, this HRA extension was granted through adoption of this bylaw.

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And then I rode my bike home across the Queensborough Bridge, as the last rays of the sunset tinged the horizon orange (see banner photo above)… feeling like not just the end of a long day, but that the summer is ending soon. Grab a little more of September before it is gone, folks!

The first post-summer meeting occurred on August 29th, which is really only about 2/3 of the way through summer, but the levers and tubes in the Mayor’s Office that control the weather have been dialed back towards continued cooling and precipitation, and the days have shortened enough that it was dark outside before the end of the meeting.

As it was the last meeting of the month we had a Public Hearing at the start, with only one item on the agenda:

Zoning Amendment (Housekeeping) Bylaw No. 7862, 2016 (415 and 444 East Columbia Street)
When a couple of commercial properties in Sapperton were zoned, the specific use “pharmacy” was not included in the zoning language, although that same use is allowed in pretty much every other commercial space in the neighbourhood. It so happens one of the vacant spaces is a perfect fit for a successful pharmacy in Sapperton hoping to expand. The best way to manage this problem is to fix the zoning language for the two properties that were missed all those years ago.

We had two people present written submissions, one in favour (the proponent) and one opposed (who felt there were already too many pharmacies in the City). We had one person appear at the Public Hearing, requesting clarity about the change, without expressing an opinion for or against.

Council moved to give the zoning amendment a third reading.

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We then moved into our Regular Meeting agenda, where we started with the Bylaw just discussed in Public Hearing:

Zoning Amendment (Housekeeping) Bylaw No. 7862, 2016
The above-mentioned Zoning Amendment Bylaw was given Third Reading.

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The following Items were moved on Consent:

Hyack Square Dedication Brick Revised Layout and Budget
As part of the Wait For Me Daddy celebrations a couple of years ago, the City set up a Dedication Brick program, where you could purchase a brick with an inscription and have it added to the paving around the statue for perpetuity.

Sales of the bricks didn’t necessarily meet expectations, although we still expect something like 200 dedicated bricks to be installed. The numbers have led to a bit of a re-design of the paving plan.

Arts Strategy Update
The City’s existing Arts Strategy dates back to 2008 – it is time for a refresh. The City has grown a lot since 2008, as has the Arts scene. The Anvil Centre being the largest example of this change, along with the upcoming renovation of the Massy Theatre, but there is so much more. The hugely successful annual Cultural Crawl, the opening of interesting arts scenes from the Heritage Grill to Old Crow Coffee and 100 Braid Studios, the re-alignment of the City’s festival season, secure funding for our Public Art program…

There is a need to refresh the strategy to leverage the best we have for continued growth of the City’s arts and culture, and make the most of the support the City provides. A plan will be put together in the next year to inform the 2017-2022 planning window. Keep your eyes open for opportunities to take part!

508 Agnes Street: HRA Amendment Bylaw No. 7817, 2016
This Heritage Revitalization Agreement is a few years old, and the Owner has not been able to complete all of the work included in the agreement – heritage renovations often have their own timeline. The delays are well defended and reasonable, but the Agreement has an expiry date, and so Council needs to agree to extend the HRA to allow the owners to complete their work.

97 Braid Street: Temporary Use Permit for Off-Site Parking for Hospital Staff and Construction Workers during Phase 1 RCH Redevelopment
During the upcoming major works at RCH, the regular parking patterns will be disturbed, both for regular hospital employees who are losing part of their lot, and for construction workers. Fraser Health has swung a deal with the owners of 97 Braid to set up temporary parking in the big empty lot at Brain and Brunette in front of the Sky Train Station.

The City had concerns that charging Hospital staff and construction workers $40 a month to park in an outdoor gravel lot more than kilometre away then rely on a shuttle, is going to exacerbate the situation where RCH employees and contractors park in residential neighbourhoods around the hospitals. In light of this, Fraser Health will work with our Bylaws staff to step up parking enforcement in Sapperton residential neighbourhoods.

88 Tenth Street (Boston Pizza): DVP00610 to vary Sign Bylaw
Boston Pizza want to change some of their signage to make their business more visible from Stewardson Way, which requires a variance of the sign bylaw. The signage is not too obtrusive, and fits with the design of the building, so I have no reason to oppose the idea, except maybe that I have never forgiven, and will never forgive, the dirty stinking Bruins. F#*&$% Marchand and his fat, stupid face.

Proposed Sewerage and Drainage Regulation Amendment Bylaw No.
7863, 2016 and Associated Bylaw Enforcement Amendment Bylaw No.
7860, 2016
Our Sewerage and Drainage Bylaw is being updated to better regulate the discharge of water from construction sites. When they dig a hole and put a foundation for a building, construction crews need to get rid of the rainwater and (sometimes) groundwater they encounter.

This Bylaw change will allow us to better control the quality of those water discharges that go to our storm drainage system to reduce sediment that had negative impacts on our storm drainage infrastructure (pipes, valves, pumps) and contaminants like concrete fines which can impact water pH and damage aquatic habitat when the water is eventually discharged to the river.

2015 Annual Water Quality Monitoring Report
We have a regulatory requirement to test the water quality in the City to assure it meets provincial drinking water standards for things like dissolved metals, bacteria and chlorine levels. And we are required to report this out. The reports show the water is safe to drink. No need to buy the bottled stuff.

Appointment of External Auditor
The City, like most organizations handling public money, need to hire and pay for an external auditor to make sure our books meet all applicable accounting standards. We re-hire every 5 years, and the time is now.

1102, 1110, 1116 and 1122 Salter Street, OCP Amendment, Rezoning, Public Consultation
This mixed housing development in Queensborough will include small detached houses, duplexes, strata townhouses, and freehold row homes, and will result in the dedication of some land for a park.

This project has to go through several levels of review, including public consultation, and will eventually got to Public Hearing, so I will hold my comments until then.

1023 Third Avenue: HRA and Heritage Designation – Preliminary Report
Another Preliminary report, with committee and public consultation work to come, but this project looks interesting. The Heritage Home on the lot has been increasingly in bad repair over the last couple of years, so I am happy to see a serious effort being put into preserving it and yet finding room for more innovative and sensitive infill in the Brow neighbourhood.

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Consent Agenda passed, our regular agenda items were then discussed, starting with an Opportunity to Be Heard:

709 and 705 Cumberland Street: Development Variance Permit
These properties were created as a subdivision of a single lot as part of a Heritage Restoration Agreement for the Historic house on the lot. Unfortunately, during renovation of the heritage home, the conditions of the HRA were not able to be kept, and the heritage home was lost. Therefore, the City is taking away the subdivision that was granted. This requires a Development Variance to change the original development plan. No-one showed up to exercise their right to be heard.

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Amongst the Presentations to Council was a reporting out by TransLink on the recent Public Consultations for the Pattullo Bridge replacement project. There will be an entire blog topic here, coming soon, so check back in if you really want to hear my pontificating.

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Piling Noise
I don’t know if you noticed they are driving piles for two construction projects downtown. The City has construction noise bylaws that limit what times loud noises can be made, but we ae realizing that pile driving noise is different that the running of generators and powersaws. It has been loud downtown and on the Quayside.

Now, we recognize that many of the people most disturbed by this work live in building that are, themselves, built on piles. However, “we’ve always done it this way” is a terrible reason to accept any standard, so the Mayor has asked Staff to explore what other jurisdictions do in regards to regulating pile driving, if we can adjust timing or methods, and to ask if there are other technology solutions that are less disruptive (such as using vibration installation, drilling, or even noise suppression at the driving site).

It may not mean immediate relief, but there are still building lots downtown and on the waterfront, and pile driving is not ending with these projects, I am glad we are looking forward to reduce the impacts (pun!) of future development.

OCP – Draft Land Use Designation Map & Community Consultation
Yes, the OCP is back for more Consultation. I will have more to say in future blog posts about this, but we now have a Draft land use map, based on the consultation that came out of all of those earlier maps you may have seen if you took part.

To make sense of the new map, you need to read the new Land Use Designations. You also need to recognize that these changes have no effect on the current land use, and that zoning requirements about what kind of development will fit on what kind of lot are yet to come.

However, it is worth your time to look at the map, and to take part in the upcoming public consultation meetings coming up in late September and October to get your two cents in on the future of the City. All the info you want or need is here.

Fraser River Middle School – School Bus
According to the Ministry of Education, a Grade 8 student can get themselves to school 4.8km away. That means that, according to the Ministry’s funding mechanism, no student in New Westminster lives too far from the new Fraser River Middle School to walk there.

Some parents of the Connaught Heights and West End areas disagree, and have taken matters into their own hands. They plan to contract a bus service, and run it as a neighbourhood co-op. This after being frustrated by the Ministry’s refusal to fund a bus, and TransLink’s refusal to adjust their service to accommodate school routes (which must sound familiar to Queensborough parents of NWSS students!). They have approached some funding partners to reduce the burden on the parents, and to help get the proof-of-concept running.

The City doesn’t run school busses, full stop. It is not in our mandate, and no other City in the Lower Mainland does it (I don’t even know of any in BC that do). The Ministry of Education’s shift away from funding school busses over the last decade have been shameful, but the City stepping in creates all kinds of problems, from cost to liability, to basic fairness. Of the $5.48 per mil you paid in Property Taxes this year, $1.67 per mil goes directly to the Ministry of Education – we already collect taxes for them.

That’s not to say the City doesn’t have a role in school transportation from our $3.42 per mil. We need to provide safe sidewalks, crosswalks, and roads. We need our police to enforce school zones and encourage safe driving around schools. We have created Safe Routes maps, and continue to make infrastructure improvements. We also help promote safe cycling courses in the schools, and work with the local School District implement transportation plans for every school.

However, this initiative is not the City getting into the school bus business. It is providing some seed funding to a community- lead initiative, financed by parents to benefit a neighbourhood and (hopefully) reduce the number of cars running around our residential nieghbourhoods twice a day. A few months ago, the City agreed to provide a bit of seed funding to assist the Downtown-Uptown Connector shuttle bus (“DUC”), to help determine if this community-led initiative is viable and serves a populace. That is clearly within our mandate, and I am happy to support it.

New Westminster Civic Infrastructure Loan Authorization Bylaw No. 7842, 2016 – Results of the Alternative Approval Process
To the surprise of no-one, the AAP failed to receive the required number of submissions from the public to force a referendum on this loan initiative, with about 0.2% response rate (which falls short of the 10% required). The City is now authorized to borrow up to $28.3Million from the Municipal Finance Authority to fund several infrastructure initiatives.

Consideration of Heritage Alteration Permit Applications during the Heritage Control Period in the Queen’s Park Neighbourhood
This Item and two Demolition Permit applications were tabled by Council for consideration in a future meeting – meaning we will have more discussion about this in two weeks at our next meeting. For now the most I can say is that the types of concerns raised by delegates at Council in regards to the policy developed around the Heritage Control Period are a pretty good summary of the reasons why we tabled these discussions until staff can provide Council with more information to support decision making on these issues.

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We then did the usual Bylaws shuffle:

Sewerage and Drainage Regulation Amendment Bylaw No. 7863, 2016
Bylaw Notice Enforcement Amendment Bylaw No. 7860, 2016
As mentioned above, these Bylaws regulating discharges of water from construction sites was given three readings.

HRA (508 Agnes Street) Amendment Bylaw No. 7866, 2016
As mentioned above, this extension for the HRA to give the owners more time to complete their renovation work was given three readings.

Queensborough Special Study Area – OCP Bylaw No. 7822, 2016
Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7823, 2016
As last discussed in the Public Hearing on May 30, 2016, these changes to the land use in parts of Queensborough were adopted by Council.

Civic Infrastructure Loan Authorization No. 7842, 2016
As mentioned above, this authorization for the Infrastructure Loan was adopted by Council.

And that, but for some correspondence basically referred to Staff, was the end of summer exciting return to regular Council programming. See you in two weeks.

We had a short “Special” council meeting this week. This is a meeting that isn’t on the regular schedule, but we had a few time-sensitive items that came up, and a meeting was convened.

It happens that earlier in the day, a quorum of Council attended the Rainbow Flag Raising at City Hall and Proclamation of Pride Week in New Westminster (New West Pride President Mike Tiney, acting Mayor Lorrie Williams, and the Godfather of New West Pride Vance McFadyen seen above at the ceremony). Then in the afternoon, we had the following less glamorous tasks:

Housekeeping Amendment to Zoning Bylaw to Allow Drug Stores (Pharmacies) in C-CD-3 and C-2L Districts
Almost all commercial-zoned properties in the city permit pharmacies. There are a couple of established commercial properties in Sapperton near RCH that do not, because of historic inconsistencies in how the area was developed. It so happens an existing and successful pharmacy in the area wants to move to a larger property which is one of those few not zoned to permit it.

A logical approach is to do a “housekeeping” amendment, updating the language of the two zones in Sapperton that do not permit pharmacies. That is, effectively, a rezoning, requiring a Public Hearing. Council approved this moving to the Public Hearing stage.

709 and 705 Cumberland Street: Proposed Consolidation and Development Variance Permit Application for Consolidated Parcel
This property near Canada Games Pool had an unprotected heritage house on it, and the owner decided to protect the house with a Heritage Revitalization Agreement in exchange for subdivision, which would allow more density and the building of a second house. Unfortunately, the conditions for protecting the heritage values of the original house were breached, meaning the terms of the HRA were not met. Therefore, the City has come to an agreement with the owner to reconsolidate the lots, effectively taking away the benefits the owner received through the HRA.

The new agreement will not need a Public Hearing, but there is an Opportunity to be Heard on the issue scheduled for the next Council Meeting on August 29. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Arising form the first agenda item above, we had one Bylaw to address:

Zoning Amendment (Housekeeping) Bylaw No. 7862, 2016
As discussed above, this Bylaw to allow pharmacies in two commercial zoning designations in Sapperton was given first and second reading. There will be a Public Hearing on August 29, 2016. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

And with that, our special early august meeting was adjourned. Enjoy Pride everyone!

July 4th was our last regularly-scheduled Council Meeting of the summer, so we had a pretty lengthy agenda.

We started with a couple of Provincial awards recently won by our Parks and Rec Department, and another won by our Planning Department. I’m super proud of the work our staff is doing, and am happy to see them get some kudos.

Before the full load of announcements, we moved the following items on consent:

Moriguchi Delegation Proposal
Our Japanese Sister City is having a special anniversary in the Fall, and have invited members of our Council to attend as visiting dignitaries. I don’t see good ROI for the City from our Council going on these international trips, but as long as Council members are happy to pay their own travel costs, I see no reason why people shouldn’t go if they want.

2016 School District By-Election – Report of Election Result
Something like 4% of you bothered to take part in the School Board By-Election last month, as Mary Ann Mortensen mysteriously resigned from the board a year and a half into her term. Part of the process is for City staff to officially report out to us on it, because under the Elections Act, the City runs the election and sends the bill to the School District.

Mary Lalji deserves congratulations for eking out a 60-vote win over Dee Beattie.

I got to sit next to Lalji at the NWSS Graduation Ceremony last week, which was my first chance to chat with her. Apparently her first Committee and Board meetings were both epic long ones, so she has been thrown into the deep end right off. I suspect it is tough to join as a rookie mid-term and try to get caught up, but she seemed excited about the opportunity, and her heart is clearly in the right place, so I’m confident she will be a great Trustee.

809 Fourth Avenue: Heritage Alteration Permit
This ongoing project at 8th Street and Fourth Ave has taken a pretty innovative approach to protecting some heritage homes, and has raised some interesting discussion on social media.

The developer bought several lots, has lifted the three heritage homes that face 8th Street, and moved them around to facilitate the building of a multi-level underground parking garage. The garage will support the building of a mid-rise condo complex behind the houses (adjacent to the larger high-rise next door), and the three heritage homes will be restored and converted to strata-ownership duplexes.

This application is simply to alter the already existing and approved Heritage Restoration Plan in order to allow the preservation of all of the original windows, which in turn requires a shifting of the interior layouts of the three preserved houses. Council moved to approve this change.

188 Wood Street: Heritage Alteration Permit
This is another project where a heritage home was preserved as part of a higher-density development in Queensborough. Again, work on the restoration has required a change in approach to some of the siding materials, which is not strictly in compliance with the Heritage Restoration Plan that formed the basis of the agreement. Council moved to approve the alteration of the restoration plan to accommodate the change in siding materials deemed necessary by the restoration expert working on the house.

332 Eleventh Street: Demolition Application for a Pre-1900 House
As will become standard with our new policy (see below), any pre-1900 house where the owner has applied for Demolition will have that application reviewed by Council and the Heritage Conservation Commission. In the case of this 1892 house in the Brow of the Hill, there appears to be little of heritage value that can be conserved. Council moved the staff recommendation to proceed with issuing a demolition permit.

320 Fifth Avenue: Demolition Application for a Pre-1900 House
Same, but somewhat different. The Heritage Commission and Staff have recommended that Council move to protect this 1900 home in Queens Park for 60 days, providing time for staff to work with the owner on possible heritage conservation strategies. Council moved to support that recommendation.

Heritage Control Period Administrative Policy
Back on June 15, Council adopted the Heritage Control Period Bylaw for Queens Park. Although referred to as a “moratorium on demolition” by some, it is far from that. Instead, it is a new, and temporary, policy change that allows Council and the Heritage Commission closer oversight over demolitions and alterations that may seriously erode the heritage of the neighbourhood.

This report outlines the policy we will be using to manage that oversight. It’s worth a read if you are curious about the limits of powers that local governments have when it comes to protecting heritage.

258 Nelson’s Court: Development Permit Application for Third Residential Tower
Here is the preliminary report of the third residential tower at the Brewery District, There is a bunch of Public Consultation to come, so I’ll hold off my comments for now, except to say it seems to fit the Community Plan as recently amended.

Brewery District Master Development Permit: Update to Master Parking Plan
This has been discussed in earlier phases of the Brewery District development, as the developer works to manage the combined residential and commercial needs of the growing complex. There has been a desire on the part of the developer to increase the parking, and to shift parking access from Nelson Court to Keary Street. I am still of the opinion that this is better than the original access plan, but that Keary needs a better connection to Brunette, because Brewery District commercial traffic and RCH post-expansion traffic cannot be accommodated on East Columbia without seriously eroding the livability of Columbia as a street where we want people to be able to walk, shop, eat, and play. It would also exacerbate the neighborhood impacts in upper Sapperton.

Bring on the Sapperton Traffic Study!

Child Care in Queensborough: Proposed Action Plan
There is a profound lack of childcare available in Queensborough, even as family-friendly housing becomes the norm for that part of New West. Staff has a few ideas and strategies to bring more childcare on-line, as they fear the problem is becoming “critical”. This is becoming a strategic priority for the City, as the need speaks to so many of the City’s other policies around sustainability, and becoming more family-friendly and child-friendly as we develop, and “the market” doesn’t seem to be filling the need.

900 Carnarvon Street – Exemptions for Requirements of Flood Plain Bylaw
Some details around how the ground-level commercial development and the underground parking of the 4th tower at Plaza88 don’t comply with the strict language of the Flood Plain Bylaw. There are perfectly reasonable engineering solutions to manage these non-compliances, but specific exemptions are required to allow those engineering solutions to be used.

Structural Considerations for Food Trucks on the Parkade
Food trucks are now allowed to operate in various places in the City, and it seemed to some on Council (me included) that the 4th Street overpass area of the Parkade was a natural place for them to set up. Visible, lots of foot traffic, not blocking access to any business, ample parking, etc.

Staff have now provided us a bit of an engineering assessment, outlining the potential challenges with this plan. Apparently, the Parkade is not built to accommodate the types of total and point loads that many Food Trucks apply. (who knew those things were so heavy?). Accommodating lighter trucks on some occasions might work out, but it is looking like more hassle than it would be worth for any operators.

In short: great idea, not exactly practical.

Qayqayt Transportation Safety – Update
I blogged a little bit ago about increased concerns at the Third Street crosswalk across Royal Ave, and concerns that have been raised regarding the safety of students headed to and from Qayqayt School.

This report outlines some of the engineering improvements our Staff are proposing to make the intersection easier to navigate and safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Again, I am happy to see us taking some serious action and putting our limited transportation resources into the priorities set out in our Master Transportation Plan. Our staff deserve kudos for some good creative work here!

Access Ability Advisory Committee Request: City Council Support of the Barrier Free BC Motion
I’m the Chair of the AAAC, and that group received a presentation from Barrier Free BC, an organization lobbying the Provincial government to pass a British Columbians with Disabilities Act. In a similar model to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the desire is to make accommodation of those with disabilities a legal requirement for all public spaces and businesses.

The AAAC like the idea, and recommended support to Council, but staff has asked to be given a bit of time to assess the implications for City operations. Such a piece of legislation would be far-reaching, and would impact not just transportation, but how we design buildings, our public facilities, and almost everything the City touches. If we call on the Provincial government to do this, we need also to call on them to Partner with local governments to fund the necessary infrastructure changes. For some reason, I don’t think that is something the Provincial Government is quick to sign up for.

This issue is coming to the UBCM conference in September, and it will good for our Council to have a high-level report from Staff prior to that to have a fuller understanding about what the motion means from a City budget and operations viewpoint. As much as I support the intentions, responsible governance requires we need to do a little due diligence here.

Pre-1900 Heritage House Policy
Aside from the heritage protection period (and eventual Heritage Designation Area?) approach being used in Queens Park, the City is continuing to explore ways to preserve important heritage assets in the rest of the City. For all the talk of the importance of heritage to New West, very little legislation exists for us to protect those assets when they are private properties. This issue is important to address now so we can include these approaches as part of our larger OCP update, and the increased pressure caused by the current housing price blip bubble crisis trend.

This table shows the status of all pre-1900 houses in New Westminster.

With the ongoing Queens Park heritage protection work, all 100 of the houses there have at least some level of protection for the next year. All but 19 of the 145 outside of Queens Park have no protection at all, and not having limitless resources in the City, this is a logical place for us to concentrate our efforts in the next little while.

Placing all of the homes on the Heritage Register will identify their value, but will not actually do anything to protect them. While it would eat up a considerable amount of staff resources (each home would need an separate evaluation of their heritage value and character-defining elements, a potentially lengthy process), the Register has not regulatory protection attached to it.

Instead, staff are going to develop a policy through which pre-1900 homes are required to come through a Heritage Review and Council prior to demolition or heritage-impacting alteration, in a similar process to how the temporary neighborhood-wide protection policy in Queens Park operates.

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We had a couple of public delegations that related to issues coming up later in the agenda, but one item that we moved from Delegation:

NWEP Community Garden
The New Westminster Environmental Partners are the latest of several groups who have raised the idea of turning a portion of the front lawn of City Hall into a Community Garden.

The City has a couple of small community gardens, but every garden plot that is opened very soon is gobbled up and a waiting list is established. As New West continues to develop, areas like Downtown and the Brow of the Hill are seeing denser development, with few opportunities for people to have a little garden plot. The lawn at City Hall is expansive, and there is a natural area near the intersection of 4th Street that would be great for some community garden plots.

There are lots of details to work out: installing Community Gardens is not free, and there will be a need for some infrastructure investment (water supply, possibly storage, waste management), and the New Westminster Community Gardens Society or a similar organization will have to be brought in to establish how the plots will be used and allocated. So this is not a “done deal”, but Council did show strong support for the idea, so if all the stars align, we may have plots as early as next year.

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After Delegations, we discussed the following items that were Removed from Consent

Branding for New Westminster Waterfront Vision – “The Riverfront”
I don’t call out my Council colleagues too often when I disagree with them, but I am still of the opinion this was a silly decision made poorly.

I cannot emphasize enough: this has nothing to do with the Tin Soldier itself, nor is it another trip down the “Old vs. New” New West trope that has enlivened wedge-drivers for decades. Instead, this (for me) is about how the branding proposed was good, and scotch-taping the Tin Soldier on doesn’t add, but takes away by confusing and cluttering the clean look of the brand.

However, much like my expressed opinions on Public Art, Council sometimes needs to sit back and understand that *not all decisions need executive input*. We hire professionals for a reason, and in this case we paid professionals to do a professional job. When dealing with subjective matters of aesthetic and design and their use in marketing, we may need to admit that we have limitations (none of us mentioned our graphic design skills in our election campaigns) and should have a process that separates our subjectivity from the decision making. In this case, we did the opposite, and voted *against* the recommendation of both the professionals we paid to give us their professional opinions, and our own professional staff for no other reason that “we like it better”. We wouldn’t do that with an engineering recommendation of what size of pipe to use, we wouldn’t do that with the Fire Department when they recommend what type of oxygen mask to purchase, why is the work of design or art professionals not treated with similar respect? (I’ll be the first to admit – on sustainable transportation issues, I’ll push the envelope this way myself!)

The suggestion made after this decision that Council needs to get *more* involved in branding exercises like this is something I cannot disagree with more.
It was totally a coincidence that friend the day before sent me a link to this Ted Talk on Flags, and why City Flags so commonly suffer from bad design. The money quote: “Good design and Democracy don’t go together”. You can’t design by committee, or you get terrible results like a lurky guy hanging out on the edge of the bushes marring an otherwise good design.

Really, in the end the branding works, and in the great scheme of things, this is not something to get my knickers in a knot over. However, I think it is the pathway to the decision that irks me more than end result. Klaatu Barada Nikto.

Request for Funding to Host the Live Streaming of the Tragically Hip Concert
This is a great idea that mostly arose from social media chatter. Of course, the entire idea that the last Tragically Hip concert should must be broadcast by our National Broadcaster was something that grew from social media chatter. It points to this being a cultural touchstone moment.

There was some local talk of finding inside broadcasters when someone noticed that the StrEAT Food Festival was happening at that time in New West, and ideas collide!

The cost of the big screen is more than I anticipated, which is why I hope we can bring in a couple of corporate sponsors to share the load, but this could make for a spectacular day on Columbia Street, and ramp up the regional exposure of the Downtown BIA’s biggest annual event. The fact that even the suggestion that we might do this has already resulted n front-page news in some regional media is a sign that this is something beyond New West.

It isn’t a slam dunk, though. Whether we can actually broadcast this event to the public and how those broadcasting rights will be managed, is a detail yet to be worked out. There is no plan to charge for viewing, so the rights discussion might be easier, unless there was already a plan for others to make money charging for outside broadcasts. There are still unknowns here, but I hope we can pull it off.

I also hope it is an opportunity for the City and the BIA to work with the Cancer Society, the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, or another appropriate charity to help promote the event, and hopefully attract donations.

Keep your fingers crossed, and hopefully on August 20th the second best place to be in Canada (after Kingston!) will be downtown New West.

801 Columbia Street: DP for Three Story Commercial Building
This property at the corner of 8th Street and Columbia, previously referred to as the Kyoto Block, was sold by the City some time in 2014. Way back in 2011, I wrote this post about the Kyoto block, and still feel much the same way about it. We now have much less control over its fate, however I think it is still important that any building put on this spot be an amenity to the pedestrian realm, and create a useful and welcoming connection between Columbia Street and the concourse level at the Shops and Westminster Station.

I am as big a fan of craft beer as I am of the Tragically Hip, so I am excited that a solid regional brand like CRAFT is looking to set up shop in our downtown, but I hope the building can connect the Shops and Columbia street, not separate them!

Downtown Uptown Connector (DUC) Shuttle
This report was preceded by a Public Delegation from the River Market, who have been the brains, money, and motivation behind the DUC for the last 9 months.

The DUC fills what has often been considered a gap in our local transportation picture –a frequent and cheap connection between Downtown and Uptown. Notably, a connection that spans a significant hill. The River Market partnered with a couple of local businesses to try a pilot project connecting the waterfront market with a couple of uptown destinations with a free shuttle bus having a predictable schedule.

They have paid for the pilot project, and are starting to see some success, but the pilot period is coming to an end, and the River Market has approached the City to ask us to contribute (along with a couple of other partners, notably including the Downtown BIA), to help fund an extension of the Pilot at least through to Labour Day, so that we can make a more informed choice about whether this is a service that the community wants to continue to support. Seeing as Policy 3B in our Master Transportation Plan is “Continue to explore an affordable shuttle service that would provide residents and visitors with improved transit service between Downtown and Uptown”, I think contributing to this pilot is an affordable way for us to meet that goal.

Fraser River Middle School – Active Transportation Update
City staff, School District staff, and some active transportation organizations in the region have been working together to prepare for the opening of Fraser River Middle School.

By the very nature of its grade offerings, a Middle School should be encouraging active transportation. Students that walk or ride their bikes to school do better at school, have fewer behavior problems, concentrate better, and are healthier. It is the City’s job to make sure they have Safe Routes to School, and we are working to get as much in place as possible before Fraser River opens in September.

Tree Protection and Regulation Bylaw Status Update
The numbers are starting to roll in on the Tree Bylaw – and a lot of trees have been protected. We have also recovered quite a bit of money for trees lost to the community, with that money earmarked for planting and maintaining replacement trees on City lands.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few hiccups with the implementation of the new Bylaw. I (along with other Councilors, I’m sure) have heard from a few residents about specific quirks (why protect an invasive holly tree? When does a potentially damaging tree become a hazardous tree? Why does a homeowner have to give the City a $10,000 deposit, when you can always fine me if I don’t follow the rules and take it off my taxes?).

I had hoped that we could have a workshop with Council this spring to talk about some of these implementation concerns, but it looks like it is going to have to wait until the Fall.

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Finally, we moved on to the Bylaws portion of the evening’s festivities.

Housing Agreement (Brewery District) Bylaw No. 7838, 2016
Zoning Amendment (Brewery District) Bylaw No. 7841, 2016
The housing agreements and zoning amendments for the second residential building at the Brewery District are adopted. This is now the law of the land, as the Sappers would have liked.

Downtown Development Agreement (900 Carnarvon) Bylaw
The Bylaw that formalized the interface between City infrastructure and the 4th tower at Plaza88 is now adopted. Adjust your behavior accordingly.

Mobile Food Vending Licence Bylaw No. 7850, 2016
Bylaw Notice Enforcement Amendment Bylaw No. 7851, 2016
Development Services Fees Amendment Bylaw No. 7852, 2016
The set of Bylaws that regulate how Food Trucks operate in the City were, after more than a year of comprehensive and multi-faceted public consultation, adopted by Council. Free range barbequed quinoa tofu sundaes for all!

And after that, I hope you all enjoy a summer of fun in New West. Attend a festival, enjoy a Park, and be good to a neighbor. A community is what you make it.

Sorry I am so late getting this update done. I’m busy as ever with many evening events, and long hours contemplating how a leader who proposes a completely unnecessary and divisive referendum, then fails to win that referendum creating uncertainty and chaos, immediately resigns because of that failure,  relates to BC politics… but I digress.

Our June 20th Council day included a Workshop during the day where we discussed the branding of our Waterfront Vision, some long-term Capital Asset Management and had a pretty cool report outlining some visions for the “Public Realm” of Downtown New West – all topics that will no doubt be subject of future discussions here and in the community. We also had a pretty happening Agenda.

We also had a presentation of the 2015 Annual Report, which is a report on what the City did over the last year. You can read it all here.

The following Items were Moved on Consent:

228 Nelson’s Crescent: Housing Agreement Bylaw for Three Readings
This is the Housing Agreement that secures Market Rental use for the portion of 228 Nelson’s Crescent – the second residential tower at the Brewery District. This formally sets the terms that forces Wesgroup to only operate those suites as rental into the future.

This is a good thing for Sapperton, where the rental market is very limited. It isn’t subsidized housing, so the rentals will be “full market price”, but there is a good mix of more family-friendly 2+ and 3-bedroom apartment sizes, which should add another housing option adjacent to SkyTrain and the rapidly expanding RCH.

Consideration of Development Permit DPS00034 for Proposed GVRD Pump Station & Brunette Fraser Greenway Extension
This project has been a while coming, and Metro Vancouver was doing public consultation on park options at last year’s Riverfest in September. The new pump station that Metro is building at the end of the Brunette River will coincide with an extension of the Sapperton Landing Park and massive improvements for the public space at the mouth of the Brunette. As part of the City’s bigger Waterfront Vision to connect Pier Park and the Quay to the Central Valley Greenway along the Brunette River, this will be an important link and an important rest stop, as public bathrooms will be included in the park design. Kudos to MetroVancouver for having the foresight, I look forward to the City taking credit for this great amenity!

900 Carnarvon Street – Amendment to Development Agreement Bylaw  No. 7855, 2016
The work to get the last building in the Plaza88 development out of the ground is continuing. One of the things a City and a Developer have to do is agree on interface issues like sewer hookups and sidewalks and other boring details. In this case, we need to amend the Development Agreement Bylaw that sets out those conditions because of an adjustment in the location of the sound wall on the south side of the building.

Proposal for Temporary Street Closure and Public Realm Improvements on Sixth Street and Belmont Street
Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper, see if it works. If you have ever heard the current rock star of City Planning, Janette Sadik-Kahn, speak about how she worked in the Bloomberg administration to re-write how the streets of New York City work, you will recognize where New West is going here.

In her (great! Really, you should read it!) book Steetfight, Sadik-Kahn talks about how simple interventions in the public realm can make a big difference in how a street works, and improve how your City works. Her way of getting past the natural, and often boisterous, opposition to any kind of change is to pilot an idea in a temporary way – use paint and removable fixtures to see how the space works for a little while without committing huge time and cost to the project. If the pilot fails, it is cheap to remove, and no-one is worse off, if the pilot works, you can invest in making the pilot permanent. Instead of spending time and energy on a public consultation that is made up of drawings and people complaining about an intangible, you spend that public consultation money on a temporary installation, so people get to see how an idea works. Public opposition to change often become a public embrace of a new idea.

In New West, we have seen a few ideas like this creeping in. The Parklet installed in Sapperton last year (a few complaints, but far outnumbered by positive feedback!), the sand courts at Pier Park (who wants a beach with no water!? – apparently lots of people!), and now a partial closure of Belmont Street to make an expanded public seating area.

We are doing it cheaply and quickly, but the Farmers Market over the winter was a demonstration that road closures along Belmont are possible, so I have a good feeling. People’s inclination to oppose “loitering” will push up against people’s desire to have common spaces. It will be interesting to see how this installation works.

234 Second Street: Demolition Application for a Pre-1900 House
Yes, Council approved the demolition of a pre-1900 house in Queens Park the week after we passed a “moratorium” on demolitions of heritage homes in Queens Park.

To clarify, despite what the media may report, there is no “moratorium” on demolitions. Council passed a Bylaw that puts special protection on pre-1966 homes in Queens Park Study Area for a period of one year. Anyone with a 50-year-old or older house who wishes to demolish or significantly alter that house will need to go through a special permitting process, and demolitions will have to come through Council. Council has the authority, under this temporary Bylaw, to deny that demolition permit in order to preserve heritage values of the community.

In this case, the owner of the house and their architect made a case that the heritage value of the house is low, as it is of significant age, but has little character of historic significance. The building itself is in such a condition that repairs that would restore the heritage value are economically unfeasible.

Council moved to approve the demo permit, but I would not expect this to become a trend.

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The following Items were removed from consent for discussion:

2016 City Partnership Grant – Rivershed Society of British Columbia
2016 Community Grant Application – Royal City Curling Club
These were two “outside of the cycle” Community Grant requests that came to Council, both supported by Council. I voted for one, and against the other, which I leaves me trying to explain why my decisions were not arbitrary.

The Rivershed Society of BC asked for $5,000 to support their AGM and a one-day event at the Fraser River Discovery Centre (I voted against). The Royal City Curling Club asked for ~14,000 to support bringing the week-long BC Junior Curling Championships to New Westminster in December (I voted for the recommendation for a smaller grant amount of $4,000).

These are two groups I support! I curl at the RCCC, though I am not a member of the Board, nor am I in any way involved in the organization of the Juniors. I also support the work of the RSBC, and even gave a talk at one of their events not too long ago, along with generally being a supporter of the work Fin Donnelly has done to call attention to the importance of the ecology of the Fraser River. So If I have a bias here, it is for both organizations.

The RCCC was not able to apply during the regular cycle of Community Grants. The process CurlBC uses to determine hosts for provincial events doesn’t happen until the Spring, and as the Juniors is the first provincial event, it is held in the last week of December instead of early in the new year like seniors, mens’ and womens’ provincials. Our grant application and award cycle doesn’t work. for Juniors – although it notably would work for any other Provincial competition CurlBC. Otherwise, the Grant meets the criteria, is in line with what we offer similar organizations doing similar stuff (although, notably, more often through the Amateur Sports Grant), and there was a recommended award by the committee that oversees grant awards.

The RSBC did not indicate they were unable to apply during the regular granting period. Nothing about their request was extraordinary except they apparently chose to make it in June instead of in November when the applications were due. They should have anticipated the need, and made the request at the same time as the many organizations that *did* meet the deadline. Their annual event is at the same time as last year, when this Council extraordinarily granted them a similar amount as a one-time thing outside of the regular process. Once is an anomaly, totally understandable. Twice is a trend, though, and I cannot support continuing to support that trend. I don’t think it is fair to the other organizations that got their stuff in on time.

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We then, having hit the designated hour, moved onto our scheduled Public Hearings on two topics:

Mobile Food Vending Bylaw No. 7850, 2016
Staff have been working on a Bylaw to allow Food Trucks to operate within the City, outside of festival events. It is (typical of government) more complicated than just saying “yes”, as there are business licenses, health authority regulations, insurance and liability concerns, and of course, public consultation – especially with the business community.

On the positive side, I think food trucks are great addition to the street scene. They can activate commercial areas, adding to foot traffic for adjacent businesses and make our street more “sticky”. There is a philosophy in Urbanism, from Jane Jacobs to Charles Montgomery, that more people on a street makes a street work better, because it adds to the social character of a City, and therefore feeds the economic character of the City. You can double the number of people on a street by attracting twice as many people, or by making everyone already there spent twice as much time on the street. Food Trucks can contribute to both of these.

On the less positive side, I’m not sure how much uptake we are going to get from food truck operators. The industry is tough, with razor-thin margins. Every jurisdiction (including ours) has its own regulatory hurdles, and operators have to decide which it is worth their time to invest. The lack of off-truck support like commissary kitchens (which, if you are selling food to the public, can’t just be the stove in your basement suite) out here in the ‘burbs adds one more cost and hassle.

I’m happy to open the door and remain optimistic, but let’s see who decides to come in.

HRA Bylaw No. 7854, 2016 and Heritage Designation Bylaw No. 7853, 2016 for 1031 Sixth Avenue
The ongoing saga of the 1891 McLaughlin House finally came to Public Hearing.

The (shorter) history of this project is that the house was slated for demolition several months ago, and staff brought that information to Council, recognizing that Council had previously highlighted a desire to preserve and protect pre-1900 homes wherever possible. At the time of the demolition permit application, this house had no legal protection. The City had no legal ability to prevent the house from being demolished. Our only hope was to work with the homeowner and provide him incentives to protect the house.

Through months of work by staff, by the applicant, and by the architect hired by the applicant, a plan was developed that would provide long-term protection to a restored McLaughlin House, yet allow the homeowner to build a home on his property that fulfilled his family’s needs. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was a negotiated compromise between the City and the landowner.

It was clear form the correspondence we received (7 letters, all opposed), and from the presentations at the Public Hearing (more than a dozen presentations, only the representative of the homeowner in support), that the neighbourhood did not support this innovative approach of significantly increasing the density on the lot.

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Public Hearing over, we went back to our Regular Agenda, which started with us addressing the Bylaws we just covered in the Public Hearing.

Heritage Designation (1031 Sixth Avenue) Bylaw No. 7853, 2016
Heritage Revitalization Agreement (1031 Sixth Avenue) Bylaw No.  7854, 2016
As discussed above, Council moved to reject the Application and the Heritage Conservation Plan that was presented. We did this recognizing that demolition of the 125-year-old home is likely. The inability to reach a preservation plan that the community could support is disappointing. No doubt many in the community are going to be disappointed by the inability of a City Council to prevent the demolition of a privately owned house on private property, but we are regulated by the Local Government Act, and homeowners have rights, including the right to knock their house down and replace it with a home that meets the zoning of the property.

It is possible that a preservation plan will come together, however, the homeowner has already spent a considerable amount of time and money to get to this point, only to have his work rejected. Everyone has their limits.

Mobile Food Vending Bylaw No. 7850, 2016
As discussed above, Council moved to give the Bylaw that would permit food trucks to operate in the City on a regular basis third reading. Warm up your artisanal kale-and-cheese waffle wagon.

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We then had an Opportunity to be Heard:

Temporary Use Permit No. 00013 for 401 and 451 Salter Street
A movie Studio wants to use one of the big old industrial buildings in Queensborough near the Derwent Bridge to film some TV and Movie magic. This does not strictly meet the designated landuse in the zoning for the property, so short of doing a complete rezoning. No-one corresponded on the issue, and no-one came to speak to Council for or against the idea.

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And one final regular agenda item:

Potential of Obtaining a Liquor License to Sell Beer and Wine at the
Westminster Pier Park Concession Eats at the Pier
We asked for a report on the legislative outlook at being able to sell beer of wine at the Pier Park concession on a regular basis. The short version is that there is not liquor license model that works for the location. As the “restaurant” does not have inside seating, it does not fit the regular license criteria. It is possible to do “special event licenses” for one-off events like last summer’s Pecha Kucha in the Park with all the regular beer garden accoutrement (security, cordoned off area, identification protocols, etc.), but that can’t be a day-to day thing.

We need to change the Provincial Liquor laws. We still have this strange puritan idea that alcohol must be separated from public space, the last vestiges of temperance laws from a century ago. So far. this provincial government has been long on promise, short on delivery of moving us into the 21st century.

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We then moved onto the evening’s Bylaws for consideration:

Housing Agreement (228 Nelson’s Crescent) Bylaw No. 7838, 2016
As discussed above, this Bylaw formalizing the requirement for market rentals at the second Brewery District tower received three readings.

REGARDING Development Agreement (900 Carnarvon) Bylaw No. 7855, 2016
As discussed above, in order to fix the language in the Development Agreement Bylaw, we first RESCINDED the Third reading given to the Bylaw on May 30, 2016, Then gave Revised Bylaw No. 7855, 2016 Third reading.

HRA (313 Queens’s Avenue) Bylaw No. 7834, 2016
Heritage Designation (313 Queens’s Avenue) Bylaw No. 7835,2016
As discussed last meeting this Bylaw to allow renovation of the Heritage House on Queens Ave in exchange for permanent protection by a Heritage Designation was adopted. It is now the Law of the Land, please adjust your behavior accordingly.

Zoning Amendment (900 Carnarvon Street) Bylaw No. 7764,2015
As discussed last meeting, this Bylaw amending the zoning for the 4th tower at Palza88 is adopted. It is now the Law of the Land, please adjust your behavior accordingly.

Five Year Financial Plan (2015-2019) Amendment Bylaw No.7849, 2016
As discussed last meeting, this Bylaw amending our Budget is adopted. It is now the Law of the Land, please adjust your behavior accordingly.

We then talked about Correspondence from the Postal Workers, asking that we continue to support home delivery of mail in Canada, which this Council does.

And we were done until July 4th.

Our June 13 Regular Council Meeting started with a Presentation and Opportunity to be Heard on this Bylaw Amendment:

Five Year Financial Plan (2015-2019) Amendment Bylaw
The Financial Plan is, colloquially, the “budget” for the city, and it is a regulatory document that requires a Bylaw Amendment whenever we change it.

As we have just completed our 2015 Audited Statements, and due to the nature of budget forecasting, some adjustments to the existing 5-Year Plan need to be made to reflect the numbers in those Audited Statements.

Not surprisingly, no-one came to speak to the Bylaw Amendment, so we referred it to later in the meeting.

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We then passed the following items On Consent:

Anvil Centre Artist in Residence Program
As part of the ongoing evolution of our Community’s new Centre for Arts, this program will bring a local artist in-house to work on their practice with dedicated studio time, and to better activate the 4th floor studios. Watch for a call for submissions in the Fall.

Metro Vancouver Request for Exemption to Construction Noise Bylaw
Metro needs to do some sanitary sewer work on the 300 Block of Columbia Street. The work needs to happen in the middle of the night because that is when the sewers are empty enough to allow the work to take place without causing inconvenience to sewer users. We are all sewer users. Late night work needs a Noise Exemption, and we moved to grant it for two nights between June 15 and June 29th (depending on weather).

824 Agnes Street: Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) Park Visioning Consultation Report
The open lot at Carnarvon across from McInnes has been used in part as a dog run, but is also considered for Provincial recognition as a Chinese Historic Place, as it is a portion of the original “Chinatown” in British Columbia, and had a variety of uses in the Chinese community in the early years of the city.

Working with the Chinese Benevolent Association, the City is exploring a future park on the site to commemorate the site history. We are now engaging a landscape architect to develop concepts drawn from the visioning sessions.

Union of BC Municipalities Resolution Related to Tenant Evictions through Renovations
We have talked at council several times about the “renoviction” (and “demovictions”) problem in the region, and increasingly in the City. Our Council is taking a resolution to the Union of BC Municipalities to help address one aspect of this, hopefully reducing the incentives to evict residents for minor renovation and rent hikes. We will also be seeking support from other Municipalities in the regions.

Official Community Plan Review – Draft Policies and Revised Vision and Goals
“New Westminster is a caring, healthy, inclusive, sustainable, complete and prosperous city where investment, growth and development contribute to a high quality of life for all. Community members have opportunities to connect to the natural environment and to each other. The city is well connected by exceptional public spaces and is easily accessible by foot and by wheels. Each neighbourhood has a unique character and cultural identity, and exhibits a high quality of urban design that is well integrated with the city’s heritage assets.”

This report outlines some of the Vision and Goals statements and Draft Policies that will provide the backbone of the new Official Community Plan. We have spent much of the last year consulting on the eventual Land Use Plan, and a draft plan is nearing completion. However, as important in the OCP are the goals and visions that will define how our City will operate in the decades ahead.

The vision, goals and draft policies in this report will be going out the public for comment as the next stage of OCP consultation. We’re not done yet, folks. However, we are still hoping to have a new Official Community Plan ready for adoption in early 2017, and significant midnight oil is being burned to make that happen. More to come!

Heritage Control Period Bylaw and Heritage Alteration Permit Procedures Bylaw – For Three Readings
There has been increasing concern about demolition of heritage homes in New Westminster, no more than in Queens Park. The residents of Queens Park have organized a Heritage Preservation society, and have worked though their Residents Association with the City’s Heritage Commission and staff to develop a Heritage Study, review potential policy changes, and propose some strategies to preserve heritage homes. The proposed approaches have so far seen strong support from a large number of Queens Park residents.

There are limited things a Local Government can do under our empowering legislation when it comes to limiting the things you can and cannot do on your private property. We can (reasonably) prevent you from cutting down a tree, but we cannot (reasonably) prevent you from knocking down your house. Don’t blame me, blame the Community Charter.

One way a City can increase its power to protect individual homes from demolition is to establish a Heritage Conservation Area. The Queens Park group has asked the City to explore this option, and we are doing so. However, it will take time for the HCA to be developed, to draft appropriate legislation and set up internal policies and procedures to make it work. We don’t want a bunch of speculators to get in there and start knocking houses down while the City gets its ducks in a row.

Therefore, using powers the City has under the Local Government Act, we can establish a temporary Heritage Control Period over a specific area for up to one year. This will allow us to establish better oversight, and even temporarily prevent demolitions of individual homes until we get the HCA developed. The conversation should be starting now about whether this is the way the neighbourhood and the larger community want to go.

I suspect there will be a *lot* of conversation about this over the next 12 months, and I am curious about where this goes!

612 – 618 Brantford Street: Preliminary Report
This project to build a mid-rise apartment building adjacent to Bent Court in the Brow of the Hill is pretty early in the process. It will be going to review committees, to public consultation, and eventually to Public Hearing, so I’ll hold off my comments for now and wait to hear what the neighbourhood and general community think.

Sixth Street and Belmont Street Traffic Control
This is a follow up to the earlier report on the “Coffee Corner” which got a little tongue-in cheek press last month. After reviewing the recommendations and having discussions both internally and with the Advisory Committee for Transit, Bicycles and Pedestrians, a modified plan was put together that will see better lighting of the crossing without the need for “beg buttons” – a plan I can support practically and philosophically.

Alternative Approval Process for Loan Authorization Bylaw No. 7842, 2016
Ugh. I hate the AAP, but have yet to come up with an alternative solution for how we prepare ourselves for the capital projects our community wants us to get done.

We are starting the process to prepare the City to secure up to $28.3 Million in borrowing ability. We are not necessarily going to borrow this money, but we do want to get the equivalent of a Line of Credit in case we need to secure cash to pay for upcoming capital works.

Those who remember a few years back (when I was notably opposed to this very form of reverse-referendum) will remember that the City cannot borrow for more than 5 years without approval of the electorate, yet we are allowed to seek that approval by seeing if more than 10% of the voters in the city are willing to fill out a form in opposition.

There will be notices in the paper and forms at City Hall, c’mon out and let us know if you think this is a bad idea.

Sapperton Park Playground Redevelopment – Preferred Option
The playground of Sapperton Park is getting a re-design and upgrade. Read the report to see what the public consultation said about the alternate designs. We should see this park renewed by next spring!

Street Food Vending at Westminster Pier Park
We are going to pilot allowing Food Trucks at the western entrance of Pier Park, as part of our very coy flirtation with making Food Trucks part of our City’s street life.

PIKNIC ELECTRONIK 2016 Concert Postponement
The proponents who wanted to hold a two-day electronic music event at Pier Park have determined that they could not secure the right talent mix to make the event successful in 2016, so they are re-booting for 2017. This doesn’t change our festival funding situation for 2016, or 2017 for that matter, as the PIKNIC folks were going to pay their own way, they only asked that the City waive the fees that would have been charged for the use of public space.

Special Occasion Permit for New Westminster Minor Baseball Association
New West Baseball wants to sell beer in part of the stands at Queens Park Stadium for the 2016 Playoff Tournament. Who am I to keep baseball fans from beer and hot dogs?

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The following Reports were discussed by Council:

Update on Council’s Strategic Initiatives
We received a progress update on three of our Strategic Initiatives:

Canada Games Pool Replacement
With the Public Consultation process that will inform the design of the replacement for the CGP and Centennial Community Centre, it is timely to update the public on the work done already. As indicated, Council has decided that we need a new pool, and cannot invest in continued upgrades of the existing pool. We have also decided that the new facility will be built adjacent to the existing pool, although the exact locations and layout will be impacted by what comes out of the public consultation about what services, programs, and amenities the community is willing to finance in the new facility.

Those decisions were not made lightly. We went through a preliminary analysis of more than a dozen locations in almost every neighbourhood of the City, and shortlisted three primary locations for detailed analysis. Those three were evaluated for site layout, synergies with adjacent facilities, land ownership, geotechnical work, transportation options, user groups, and other factors. I was swayed by the body of evidence that the current location balances the various factors best. It isn’t the perfect place, but it is the best place available.

Housing Affordability Strategies
The City is moving forward on three Affordable Housing projects. Two will be smaller scale and will include some supportive housing and non-market housing, both in partnership with social service agencies in the City (Community Living and WINGS). The third will be a mix of market and non-market housing in partnership with Metro Vancouver at the current Muni Evers Park site.

As the most affordable housing is often the house people are already in, we are developing some enhanced protection policies for renters in the City. We are trying to reduce the impact of “Renovictions” within our limited Local Government Act powers, and are looking at a “rent Bank” support mechanism to keep people suffering from short-term setbacks from ending up on the street.

We also have a lot of market rental housing coming on line in the next couple of years, more than 1,200 suites. There have been very few new dedicated rental buildings constructed in New Westminster in the last decade, and vacancies are in the low single digit percentages. We have created the incentives necessary to make building market rental viable for the development community to get the stock back to where it needs to be to have some of that stock available and affordable.

Animal Shelter and Tow Yard
The City’s Animal Shelter is well past its replacement date, and the Previous Council developed a good plan to sell the land where the current tow yard is and use that money o finance the building of a new facility. We can expect the tow yard under the Queensborough Bridge to be coming on line next year, and a new animal facility across the street about a year after that.

New Westminster Fire Rescue: EMA EMR Certification and
Administration of Naloxone Signing of Collaboration Agreement
We had quite a lengthy discussion about these two related issues: the current opioid overdose crisis, and the current crisis in ambulance services. I think this is too big a topic to put in this summary, so I will save it for a future blog post – coming soon.

Except to say that I am shocked that this table is not front page news in New West:

Allocation of the Voluntary Amenity Contribution Funds
The City collects VACs from developers when larger developments occur. They don’t go in general revenue, but are earmarked for specific purposes. This report outlines how $395,000 of accumulated VACs will be spent, and include those in the Five-year Financial Plan as such.

1031 Sixth Avenue: Updated Heritage Revitalization Agreement Bylaw 7854, 2016
This on-again off-again Heritage Revitalization project for the 1891 single family home in brow of the hill will be going to Public Hearing on June 20, 2016. C’mon out and tell us what you think!

Downtown Dog Relief Station
This is a somewhat innovative idea- part pocket park, mostly outdoor convenience stop for dogs. A small park, the size of a parking spot, with an artificial turf surface and drainage to allow it to manage the waste it receives, in the downtown area where there is a general lack of places for dogs to go.

Many jokes here, and a few pooperational challenges, but we are not the first to try this, so I am interested to see how the pilot program goes!

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Finally, we went through our Bylaws for the night:

Heritage Revitalization Agreement (1031 Sixth Avenue) Bylaw No. 7854, 2016:
First and Second Reading of Bylaw No. 7854, 2016
Due to some changes in language since first and second reading, we rescinded those readings, paving the way for:
Revised Bylaw No. 7854, 2016
Our giving First and Second reading to a revised version of the Bylaw. This HRA for the 1891 house on Sixth Ave in Moody Park will be going to Public Hearing on June 20, 2016. C’mon out and let us know what you think!

Heritage Control Period Bylaw No. 7856, 2016
This Bylaw will extend temporary (one year) added protection to pre-1966 homes in the Queens Park neighbourhood while the City gets ideas for a permanent Heritage Conservation Area organized and discussed in the general public. Contrary to what some have reported in the Social Media, this is not a “moratorium on demolitions”, but a temporary process whereby people asking for demolitions or alterations of their pre-1966 residential properties will require an extra review, to assure that heritage assets are not lost. This Bylaw passed three readings.

**Note: The Bylaw was formally Adopted by Council in a special meeting on June 15 – it is the Law of the Land, folks, for one year.**

Heritage Alteration Permit Procedures Bylaw No. 7859, 2016
This Bylaw created procedures to empower the Bylaw above, and also received three readings.

Five Year Financial Plan (2015-2019) Amendment Bylaw No. 7849, 2016
As discussed at the beginning of tonight’s meeting, this Bylaw updates our Five-year Financial Plan to reflect minor edits coming out of the audited annual reporting. The Bylaw received three readings.

Electrical Utility Amendment Bylaw No. 7848, 2016
As discussed at our May 30 Meeting, this change to the Bylaw regulating our Electrical Utility was Adopted by Council. It is now the Law of the Land, and I would appreciate it if everyone adapt quickly to this new way of life.

Road Closure Bylaw No. 7824, 2016
As discussed at our May 30 Meeting, this closure of an unopened alleyway off of Fifth Ave near 12th Street was Adopted by Council. It is now the Law of the Land, adjust your plans accordingly.