Why am I going to hate this election (and you should too)? It’s not the falsehoods, the equivocation, or even the lies. It is the willful and purposeful denial of any kind of objective reality.
There was a blip of faux outrage last week when a prominent NDP candidate in Toronto suggested that the secret NDP plan was to shut down Canada’s oil industry (the sarcasm there is mine). In the Conservative social media echo chamber, this is how it played out:
“A lot of the oil sands oil may have to stay in the ground if we’re going to meet our climate change targets”
This is about as innocuous a statement as can be made about the future of the Bituminous Sands and their impact on Canada’s greenhouse gas targets. Nothing in that quote is the least bit controversial, except perhaps to the small number of people who still think Anthropogenic Climate change is a hoax.
Our current government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has committed to reducing our greenhouse gasses, meeting internationally-agreed-upon reduction targets by 2030, and to transitioning to a carbon free economy by the end of the Century. Those are the stated aspirational goals of the Canadian government, announced by the Current Prime Minister back in June. These targets exist, and every party running in this election wants to meet or exceed those targets.
Similarly, there can be no dispute that the complete extraction of all 168 Billion barrels of proven reserves from the Bituminous Sands of the Alberta Basin will result in greenhouse gas emissions that would not allow us to meet those targets – the ones set by the current government of Stephen Harper. If we take them out of the ground, those oil reserves will represent all of our countries’ GHG emissions in 20 years, where currently, oil and gas only represent about 25% of our total emissions. So if we want to extract all of the oil and gas and meet our targets, we will need to do none of the other stuff… no cars, no agriculture, no aircraft, no cement plants or burning coal or heating our buildings. If we wish to keep doing those things, and if we plan to meet our GHG targets, then, sorry, folks, some of the bitumen is going to have to stay in the bituminous sands. It is simple math.
Back to that quote, though. Note the statement “A lot of the oil sands oil may have to stay in the ground if we’re going to meet our climate change targets” is not a policy statement, it isn’t an aspirational goal or a controversial idea – it is a simple statement of mathematics. How can this be controversial?
If there is a controversy to be found here, it is in the fact that no-one from the current government (or, for the most part, the opposition parties) has yet made this math explicit to their supporters: the plans of this government are fundamentally at odds with the stated goals of this government, once you take the time to do a little math. Perhaps the controversy here should be that she equivocated by saying “may” instead of “must”, and “if” instead of “when”.
After watching the interview, it was clear that the concept was goaded out of the NDP candidate by the Conservative on the panel by placing a quote from arch-conservative former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed into her mouth in an attempt to re-direct the discussion from the topic at hand (that the Prime Minister had shifted his position on the existence of a recession). When confronted with the math, the Conservative somehow thought admitting that math to industry sends the wrong message, she suggests we should somehow “stand up for the energy sector” in the face of this math.
Which, I presume, means lying about the math. To the Industry, to the Canadian public, to your voting base, to pretty much anyone who will listen.
But when the social media took over, this was somehow a reckless “policy” that was going to cost Canada 100,000 jobs, a number either pulled out of someone’s arse, or (more likely) an appeal to Ontario voters who still remember the “100,000 Job Cut” quote from the disastrous Tim Hudak Conservative campaign in that province (which circles us back to here, ugh).
The entire meme is as idiotic as it is predictable. Instead of having a discussion about what our international commitments mean to Canada, instead of talking about what those commitments mean to our employment prospects, instead of discussing the multitude of other jobs that could be created by investing in the climate change solutions instead of doubling down on the cause of the problem, we have this stupid meme where people are raging about how admitting the math of the problem is Bad for Bidness.
Fortunately, since the “story” broke, a few sources have called out the math-denying tactics of the Conservatives here, but not enough. This raises the question of how our discourse degraded to the point where stating a simple scientific fact, even one littered with weasel words like “may” and “if”, really so controversial? Is it any wonder that message control is so tight in this new era? And what does that mean for representative democracy?
So as much as I want you to pay attention and get informed this election, I don’t want that topic to dominate this blog site, so after this post, you will (probably) not read much about the Federal Election here. If you really want to hear my updated and ongoing opinions on this topic (Hi Mom!), go over to my Facebook Page, where I will be counting down the days to the election, with a thought of the day. Or, you know, buy me a beer and ask me.
It occurred to me that I didn’t do a Council Report for the strange little council meeting we held on August 4th. It was so quick, I almost missed it myself, which is interesting as I (as acting Mayor) was the chair! (see photo above, courtesy Councillor Puchmayr)
The meeting was called to allow a public opportunity to be heard on Bylaw No. 7772, 2015. There is a bit of a background story as to why we called a special meeting for this.
There are various rules about how a bylaw can be adopted, and some require public Opportunity to be Heard. The public must be given adequate notice, and have the opportunity to provide a written comment or appear before Council to plead their case about why the Bylaw should or should not be adopted. “Adequate notice” is defined in the Section 94 of the Community Charter (which is why big billboard signs are in front of lots undergoing rezoning, and why there are all those boring drawings in the City Page in the newspaper). There is also a requirement (in Section 135 of the Community Charter) that there must be at least one day between the third reading of a Bylaw and adoption, meaning a Council cannot write up, read, approve, and adopt a bylaw all in one day.
As amendments to Bylaws take Bylaws themselves, the factors above caused us to not be able to amend Bylaw 7509, 2012 during our last meetings of the summer, as it require an amending Bylaw, the aforementioned 7772, 2015. The reason we needed to amend it is just as arcane and bureaucratic.
Bylaw 7509, 2012 was essentially a land-exchange deal between the City and a couple of land owners on Queensborough. You can go through the report and look at the drawings, but essentially, pieces of road allowance were sold to the adjacent land owners to rectify an historic alignment issue. Apparently, one of the landowners never executed the agreement, leaving a stranded piece of land, and was now ready to execute, with a fairly tight deadline for closure. Problem is, the Provincial Land Title Office requirements for registered drawings have changed since 2012, so the work had to be re-surveyed, and since the drawings referred to in the 2012 Bylaw are not the same as the drawings being used in 2015 for the land exchange, an amendment to the 2012 Bylaw was required to refer to the 2015 drawings.
So in the interest of public service, Council agreed to a Special Meeting to allow for proper advertizing, an opportunity to be heard, and adoption of the Bylaw. As no-one submitted any written correspondence, and no-one took the opportunity to be heard at the Special Meeting, council voted to adopt the new Bylaw. The updated drawings are no the Law of the Land.
We also (since we were getting together anyway) adopted Bylaw 7771, 2015 (Development Agreement for Riversky, which was given Third Reading on July 13, 2015), and Bylaw 7740, 2015 (Zoning Amendment for 318 and 328 Agnes, which saw Third Reading on April 27, 2015).
And we were done in 5 minutes, my short tenure in the Mayor’s Chair over in the blink of an eye.
We will see you all on August 31st, where Council is Meeting at the Anvil Centre. Yes, we are taking Council on the Road at the end of Summer, meeting in three different neighbourhoods. After the Downtown meeting, we will meet on September 14 at the Queensborough Community Centre, then on September 28th at the Sapperton Pensioners Hall. Should be fun!
Yes, I am actually leaving New Westminster for a weekend. I’m visiting my favourite Mom-in-Law on Saturna Island and giving a talk at the Gulf Island National Park Reserve sunset stories series on one of my favourite topics.
That means I am going to miss one of New Westminster’s best annual events – so I am making up for it by encouraging you to attend in my place and give the organizers my regrets.
The New Westminster Cultural Crawl is happening Saturday and Sunday, has been powered by the indomitable Trudy at the Van Dop Gallery for 12 years now. The Crawl is an opportunity for you to have a New West weekend staycation, and interact with literally dozens of artists across several venues. It is self-guided, no stress, and many events are interactive, so like the best of Staycations: all fun, no pressure. It doesn’t matter what neighbourhood you are in, and there is enough variety to keep everyone entertained.
Yes, there are a lot of galleries, including the incredible Van Dop, the Arts Council one in Queens Park, where the current showing explores local LGBTQ artists (fitting for the start of next week’s New West Pride week), and the amazingly popular 6th Street Pop-up space brought to you by everyone’s favourite brick & mortar shop. There are also various other ways to interact with art and artists. I may be biased, but I share Gord Hobbis’ opinion that the craftsmanship in old bicycles is a beautiful expression of art. There will be a family-friendly outdoor movie at Port Royal Park, an interactive celebration of Irving House’s 150th birthday, and the entire City will be, apparently, awash in “Capital” Teas.
The entire program is available here, so stay near home, enjoy some creative local artists, have a cuppa tea, and be inspired by your neighbours.
As a bonus, if the artists inspire you and/or your kids, take that inspiration out on a concrete wall! Another amazing young community leader has coordinated a fun opportunity to help beautify a bit of Downtown. You and yours can take a paint brush and add to a mural to a currently-uninspiring concrete wall. This is a neighbourhood-driven neighbourhood improvement project that will leave a fun legacy, who couldn’t support this?
Or you can came to Saturna Island and snooze through some boring former academic droning on about geology.
PS: I’ll be back for the Rainbow Flag Raising at City hall on Monday, and hope to attend several of the New West Pride events, but maybe I’ll go on about that more next post…
PPS: Except to say if you like Whitecaps soccer, and who doesn’t, you can get discount tickets and a pre-game party in New West by going to the Pride Kick-off this Satruday! Enter here, and use the promo code PRIDENEWWEST.
FPS: And you should probably also pick up some tickets (while they are still available) for the 80’s and 90’s Dance Party at Match Pub next Friday. They are ridiculously cheap, and the Starlight Casino is a huge supporter of New West Pride. More on this next week, but I didn’t want to wait until tickets are sold out!
Contrary to the main narrative in the media this past weekend, the longest-ever election campaign in modern Canadian history was not launched by the Prime Minister’s speech on Sunday. It was just the moment when the longest-ever election in Canadian history entered a new phase. The election has been going on since the day of the first ham-fisted “He’s Just Not Ready / Nice Hair” video. We have now just entered a new phase of enhanced advertising, before the post-Labour-Day orgiastic full-court-press.
All along, you will be encouraged to vote for change or to stay the course; for the good of your children, for the good of your job; to protect yourself from terrorists or taxes or something called the TPP. I am not going to discourage you from voting for whatever is important to you, but I will suggest that voting on October 19th is the least effective thing you can do for democracy this election.
Your vote will be one of the 15,000,000 cast in October. It may even be one of the handful that swings a riding one way or another, but it is more than likely going to be lost in the crowd. Your chosen candidate will win or lose your riding by thousands of votes*, and it is only through accumulating those vote gaps of thousands across the country that we will determine who gets to make choices that impact your life, taxes, and the future of the planet.
Yes, the end of that previous sentence underlies the reason why you should vote, but it also emphasizes why you should do more than just vote.
Here are the three things you should be doing before October 19, all of which will be more important than voting on October 19.
1: Inform yourself. 15 Million people voted last election, but almost 10 Million who were eligible to vote chose not to. The most commonly cited reason for this mass disenfranchisement is that it doesn’t matter. That sounds vaguely like my initial point, but it is strikingly different: election results matter.
I have no doubt that Canada would have gone in a different direction domestically, regionally, and internationally if Michael Ignatieff or Jack Layton had become Prime Minister in 2011, or even if Stephen Harper was forced by minority status to find support across the floor. People who say “elections don’t matter” are cowardly avoiding the issue, and are shirking their responsibility to inform themselves about the issues in their community and their nation.
Informing yourself is hard. You need to get out of your echo chamber and hear opinions that disagree with your opinions, or even your deeply held convictions. The Social Media encourages these echo chambers, these individual bubbles, where you are so drowned by self-supporting noise that you can’t hear anything else. Two perfect examples from my Twitter Stream today:
The elections is going to be filled with this kind of hyperbole and ridiculosity**, and you have to filter past that stuff and try to find the core of the ideas. You also have to get past “I’ll never vote for X, because I’ll never vote for X” type of tautology, and understand what you are voting for. Do the policies offered by the Parties approach your concerns in different ways? What do independent organizations say about those approaches? What are the built-in biases of those independent organizations? Perhaps more effectively: What other nations have been more or less successful at dealing with these issues, and which Party’s proposed policies closest match those successful nations’ approaches?
Yeah, this seems like a long approach, but we have an 11-week campaign, you have the entire world’s database of knowledge at your fingertips. Who knows what you might learn along the line. And you might just find a reason to vote.
2: Get Involved If you think you know the issues, and know how you want to vote, the biggest thing you can do is help your chosen candidate. Campaigns are run on money and volunteer energy, and you can provide both.
You can donate up to $1,500 to your chosen candidate, and for every candidate you would like to support, you can give each of them up to $1,500. Political donations qualify for tax credits, as well, so you get a chunk of them back in the spring with your income taxes. Donate up to $400, and you get 75% of it back in your tax return, regardless of your income level. Donate $1,500 and you get $650 back.
Volunteering is even more important. You can walk down to the local campaign office and there are any of a thousand tasks you can help with. You might be able to work the phones, collect and manage data, help coordinate other volunteers, go door-to-door with a candidate, manage data, stuff envelopes, deliver and construct lawn signs, bake cookies, sharpen pencils, drive a person to the polls… there are a million little tasks that take a bit of human help.
3: Spread the word Decided you are going to vote? Informed yourself on the issues, and chose your preferred candidate? Tell people about it, and take someone with you to the polls! We live in an era of social media where it has never been easier to spread and share ideas. If you like a candidate enough to vote for her, you probably like her enough to tell people why, in the hopes they also will vote for her. The best way to make your vote count more is to take a half a dozen people to the poll booth with you! Car pool, go for coffee or beer after.
So vote, because you can and because you should. There is a tiny chance it will shift a riding, or the fate of the nation, but more likely your favourite will win or lose by thousands of votes – one of them may as well be yours. The only way you are sure to win is if you get informed and get involved in the election, because you will be living and learning and taking part in this messy democracy of ours. And who knows where that will take you?
*In 2011, the two New Westminster ridings were won by 6,100 vote and 2,200 vote gaps.
**Yes, I made that word up. In combines the states of being so ridiculous it is beyond the scope of ridicule.
It’s been a while since I did one of these, and there are a few in the queue…
Vickie asks—
Hi Pat, I’ve been looking into NEVs lately to see if they could be a viable alternative to public transit for commuting to Vancouver. I’ve always been a huge fan and advocate of EVs but since I can’t afford a Tesla I’ve been forced to look at other options. I know that New West has a bylaw that allows for them but I’m not sure if it includes streets that have a 50km speed limit. Do you know if it does? What are your thoughts on NEVs and LSVs in general?
Frankly, I know nothing about them! For the benefit of others, NEVs are “Neighborhood Electric Vehicles”, which are essentially electric golf-cart like vehicles designed for general use, and are one category of “Low Speed Vehicles” that bridge the gap between mobility-assist scooters and automobiles. In New Westminster (and in the Motor Vehicle Act ) they are referred to as Neighbourhood Zero Emissions Vehicles (NZEVs).
Indeed, section 702 of our Street Traffic Bylaw makes them legal to operate in the City on any road where the speed limit is 50km/h or less. Perhaps strangely, they are limited to operating at no more than 40km/h by the same bylaw. The NZEV must also be labelled in compliance with the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act.
The Provincial Motor Vehicle Act gives municipalities the power to permit their use, so don’t ask me if you can drive them over to Burnaby, Coquitlam, or Surrey). They also need to be registered and insured by ICBC, just like any other car.
My thoughts on electric cars in general are fairly ambivalent. They address one of the issues related to automobile reliance (that of converting fossil fuels to airborne carcinogens and greenhouse gasses), but do not assist with all of the other negatives. Electric cars will do nothing to solve our regional congestion problem, or the ongoing road socialism that is putting so much strain in municipal coffers. They similarly do nothing to address the fundamental disconnect between building a sustainable, compact, transit-oriented and highly livable region, but are instead just another tool to facilitate sprawling growth into our ALR and surrounding greenfields.
We are fortunate in BC in that almost all of our electricity comes from sustainable sources, so electric cars do help reduce our greenhouse gas footprint, however we cannot separate the idea that moving 1000kg of metal and plastic around with you everywhere you go is simply inefficient. In places where less than 99% of the electricity is sustainably derived, the implications of a wholesale shift to electrics is daunting. Look at this diagram from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:
Yes, it is US data, but the narrative is applicable to most of Canada. If you take the 24.8 Quads of energy that is derived from petroleum and goes towards transportation, and shift it up to “electricity generation”, and suggest that we have pretty much tapped as much as we can from hydroelectric power, you will see we are going to need to build a lot of solar fields and windmills to power our transportation needs.
The way I see it, electric cars are a useful stopgap technology that can be useful in addressing some parts of our current climate crisis, but they are far from the panacea for sustainable transportation and communities.
However, my Mom-in-law lives on Saturna Island, where gas is expensive, electricity is cheap, and you never have to drive more than 20 km, but almost always need a truck. If someone built a plug-in hybrid small truck (think a Prius plug-in or Chevy Volt drivetrain under a small 4×4 pick-up), I would convince her to buy one tomorrow.
When the City decided to support our growing Pride Celebration week this year by painting a crosswalk with the rainbow symbol of Pride, the reaction was immediately positive. Aside from mentions in the local and alternative media, and a huge splash on social media, there was no big press rush or ribbon-cutting unveiling. It was a small but meaningful gesture, and we are far from the first community to do it.
@MsNWimby and I decided to take walk by after dinner yesterday so she could see it for the first time, and I was at first buoyed, then dismayed, to see a small crowd gathered taking pictures. Yes, somebody had splashed some household paint on the crosswalk, and all of the sudden, the regional media was interested.
I think it says something about where we are in Canada in 2015 that a City displaying an important symbol of inclusion, diversity, and acceptance is smaller news than someone defacing that symbol. Some might use this to critique modern media’s tendency to tell us what is bad in the world instead of what is good. I prefer to look at it from a more positive side.
The symbol of the Rainbow Flag was once a revolutionary one, born of the historic struggles for acceptance of homosexuality. The rainbow as a symbol of diversity and inclusion grew out of San Francisco as that City became the bulwark of “Gay rights” in the post-Hippie era. As is typical with symbols that challenge orthodoxy, many tried to ban it or belittle it. Fortunately, through the struggle of new generations of activists and community leaders, our society evolved, and the meaning of the flag has evolved with it. It is not just about “Gay rights”, or even homosexuality anymore; it is about recognizing that people are different. Colour, size, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, kinks – nobody is “normal”, because in a society of individuals there is no “normal”. Even I, as a hopelessly Wonderbread white, straight, monogamous, middle-aged, cis, professional male, exist within a spectrum. The rainbow flag reminds me that the privileges once bestowed only upon those within my narrow band of the rainbow must now be enjoyed by all, or we don’t live in a just world. Unfortunately, we do not yet live in that just world.
The good news yesterday was that several people were around the crosswalk when the elderly vandal started slopping paint on it. They were quick to contact the NWPD, who were quick to react, and the gentleman was quite literally caught white-handed. A couple of quick phone calls, and City engineering staff were able to get a clean-up crew out there before the paint had fully dried, minimizing the damage. I’m really proud of our Police and Engineering staff for their quick response, such that by the time the first TV camera arrived on scene, the mess was already disappearing.
I was also happy to see that when the vandalism lit up the social media, the reaction was again almost universally supportive of the rainbow sidewalk. Many people were disappointed that the vandalism had occurred, and some even expressed anger about it. My first Tweet was this:
In hindsight, that probably sounded angrier than I was, as mostly I felt disappointment. It was later I learned the vandal was an aged man whose faculties may not have been completely intact. There is no doubt the act was deliberate, and the man should have to pay restitution to the taxpayers who paid for the policing and clean-up, but I mostly felt sorry for the man who felt so desperate to remain in his own, narrow band of the Rainbow.
With the benefit of 24 hours, and thinking about the elderly gentleman who performed this flaccid protest, I’m reminded of the words of a great leader:
“Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
Perhaps, as some have suggested, we shouldn’t be angry at the gentleman who saw this as his only way to express himself. Instead, we can be hopeful that he will see that he is only fighting against a more just world. We can also be optimistic about a future where we don’t need this symbol anymore. We aren’t there yet, but we have come far enough that an act against the symbol is bigger news that the displaying of the symbol itself. We are moving in the right direction, and if we handle this right as a community, the step backward represented by this gentleman’s rash act can be far offset by the steps forward taken by the conversation his act precipitated. As was posted on Facebook last night by another New West resident: “We all need to paint more rainbows in the world.”
I hope you all come out and enjoy New West Pride August 8-15th. It is going to be a great series of events, culminating in the Pride Street Party on Saturday the 15th. Get your picture taken with the crosswalk, and use it to start your own conversation.
I hate that word. Second only to my hatred for the term “jaywalking”. Both terms imply that there is a better use for a public space that you being on it, even if you are not actually stopping those better uses from being exercised. They are (semi-) legal ways of saying “go away kid, ya bother me”.
But I don’t want to defend loitering (a very, very good essay on that topic, with that very title, was already written by Emily Badger), I want to talk about a specific place in New Westminster, where we have completely lost the plot on loitering.
The New Westminster SkyTrain station is the defacto heart of our City. Speak all you want about Queens Park, the Quayside Boardwalk or the Coffee Crossing in Uptown, I will argue that our central downtown transit hub is the centre of our new City. This is where compact, mixed-use, transit-oriented new urban development is centred. When Hyack Square was built to better connect it to the River Market, when hundreds of residential suites and thousands of square feet of retail were developed right on top of it, when the Anvil was conceived as a new community gathering space, it was all about the SkyTrain and New Westminster Station. It is the centre point in the “big vision” for New Westminster, and it is the new “front door” to our Downtown and waterfront, a mix of our Grand Central Station and our Times Square.
As such, New Westminster station needs to be a space where people are comfortable hanging out, walking through, meeting friends, having chats. A place people want to be in, without a particular purpose, which is pretty much the definition of loitering.
It has always been a little tough to love New Westminster Station. It is far better now than the empty parking lot ringed with marginal businesses it was in the late 80s when I first moved to New Westminster, but for the best part of the last decade, it has been a station under construction. Plaza88 / The Shops at New Westminster Station has taken a bit of time to find its character, but is now mostly leased up with an interesting mix of businesses, and is attracting customers. The Kyoto Block (the empty lot between the shops and the Anvil Centre) is still an empty lot and a signficiant missing connection, but despite some dreams I may have had, I’m afraid they will never be realized now that it has been sold. With the Anvil construction just wrapped up and now a year-long construction project on the SkyTrain station, followed by potential expansion of the McInnes Overpass to occur with the River Sky development, and building of the 4th Plaza88 tower, there is more construction to come.
Meanwhile, the plaza opening up to Carnarvon between the front of a Tim Horton’s and the back of a Spaghetti Factory presents you the best-used “grant entrance” to New Westminster. With all due respect to the fine people in the Pawn Brokering industry – is this really the best we can do?
However, it isn’t the walls around the space that we interact with as much as the space itself, and I have had two very different e-mail exchanges of late with New Westminster residents I respect about the “problem” with that plaza space. The interesting part is that they were two very different conversations. One complained about the loiterers and “gauntlet of smoke and dirty looks” they have to endure when walking through the station, the other spoke of all the unfriendly spikes and security presence that is making a presumptively public place less friendly for people to linger.
(it just occurred to me that I should get these two people together for a coffee at the Tim Hortons there and let them come to a solution instead of writing this blog…)
I am very much on the side of the second person: public spaces with people in them are safer, more friendly, better for business, and more fun. It is clear the space in that plaza was initially intended to be lingered in – the architect built bench-height structures around the periphery and decks in front of the restaurants, there was even initially some funky plastic chaise-lounges and benches on the site when the shops opened.
Now, the benches are gone. Metal fences have been installed to prevent sitting on one set of benches, glass wall installed ot prevent sitting on another. And in case you didn’t get the message, the ineffective No Smoking signs have been supplemented with No Loitering signs.
This concrete bench is no longer a place to sit.Similar to this space, which was once somewhere you could sit.And the sign is there in case you don’t get the message from the spikey metal.
Get away from me, kid, ya bother me.
I remember a talk I heard last year by Susan Briggs, a prof at Douglas College, who discussed the loss of the public realm. We have replaced the town square with the shopping mall, the playground for the McDonalds Playspace, the urban space for the corporate place. Cash-strapped governments are only too happy to have private industry provide the plazas, the parks, the gathering spaces that governments cannot afford to buy, develop, or maintain. This space off Carnarvon is a prime example. It is the only access from the public street to public transit, yet the space is private, and beholden to the rules of the owner. In this case, the owner doesn’t want smoking teenagers and other ne’er-do-wells hanging about.
Actually, I as I went down to the area yesterday to take a few photos for this blog, I was approached by one of thee young toughs. He was not very polite in asking who I thought I was taking pictures and suggesting I might prefer a punch in the face. He was clearly posturing more than threatening, but the demonstration was pretty clear that this space is not a friendly one for many people.
I’m the first to admit I don’t know what to do about this. I want the entrance to New Westminster to be a welcoming space. But I have two suggestions, one in the control of the City, one not, and both successful in other cities.
The first is soft community policing. I don’t want to be in a place where we send cops down there to bust skulls or push “the wrong people” (whoever decides what that means) out of public space in New Westminster. However, the presence of community policing officers downtown could make it a better place for everyone. Police on foot, talking to people, saying hello and just being present and visible without being threatening, can make a big difference to how people experience the space. But the balance is hard to find, and this approach needs to be very cautious around that balance.
The second (and more promising) approach is to activate the space. The best way to make loitering (the pejorative term) into lingering is to give people a reason to linger, making the space “sticky”. This can include introducing some interactive public art, blending the restaurant seating space with the pedestrian space like you would recognize in the Spanish or French streetscape, or adding buskers or events into the space. The go-to reference for this type of urban space activation is Jan Gehl, and his writings about the “human spaces” between buildings.
Nuggets of these ideas can be seen in the slightly half-hearted attempt of placing the chaise-lounges in the square when it originally opened. A surviving example is the kids’ play area under the SkyTrain in the middle of the plaza level of the Shops, which (despite the shadowy look and roaring trains) has managed to remain an inviting space.
Unfortunately, the exact opposite of these ideas can be seen in front of the Safeway, where a “stickiness” opportunity is lost, and what could have been an active part of the public plaza became the best-defended coffee patio in history. What is the point of this glass wall? To keep people out, or in?
I’m not sure I know what type of “placemaking” can make this place more welcoming as an entrance to the City, but whatever it is, we will need to work with the owners of The Shops at New Westminster Station to make it work, because if it helps the City, it will help them as well. They need loitering for their businesses to be successful, and we want to be a City where people want to loiter.
I have been putting up boring council reports for so long, that I figure it is time to get back to a good old-fashioned NWimby-style rant here. It is about global warming, which I believeam convinced by the overwhelming scientific evidence is currently happening at a rate unprecedented in the last 2 million years, due directly to the accelerated introduction of fossil carbon into the atmosphere by human activities. If you are still in denial about this, you are either deluded or not paying attention, so before commenting here, please check your irrefutable factoid against this before trying to make your case.
That caveat on the old debate aside, we are not past the real debate about what to do about it. There is an argument that we should do nothing, but that is the deeply sociopathic side of the spectrum when we start to look at the seriously bad implications for the next generation of humans if we take that path (where do you plan to put 150 million Bangladeshis, not to mention 10 million Floridians?)
I also think there is a personal responsibility part – we (especially those of us in the rich industrialized world) need to take individual actions to address this real problem. We need to burn less fuel; we need support more sustainable farming practices; we need to stop buying so much disposable junk. But these individual actions will be meaningless without a coordinated government action, and societal shift to support those individual actions.
The Montreal Protocol was a good example of how this problem should have been addressed. Less than 15 years after the concept of ozone depletion by long-lived chlorofluorocarbons was proposed (and only a few years after that theoretical effect was demonstrated with a high level of certainty to be actually happening) the world’s governments took action, much to the protestations of DuPont and manufacturers of aerosol cans, and it worked. We have turned the corner on ozone depletion, DuPont still exists, as do aerosol cans. Industry adapted, society shifted, but it took government action.
However, those mid-80’s were simpler times. We had those socialist hippies Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan running the free world like a commune, and Russia were our best friends yet. So world governments getting together to legislate an industry-constraining action to prevent life-altering damage to the earth’s atmosphere was a doable thing. Thirty years later, almost all of which have seen the world’s science community increasingly pleading for the world’s governments to do something about a slowly-emerging disaster, the progress on greenhouse gasses has been dismal. If we cannot count on the governments of the largest economies to fix the problem, we need to shift the economy.
A couple of years ago, the NWEP held a showing of the Bill McKibbon short film ”Do The Math” that made the case for fossil fuel divestment. If interested, I wrote a long piece about it at the time. The short version: investing in stranded hydrocarbon assets is a bad idea for long-term financial reasons, and for ethical reasons.
So back to the question of what we can do. As a municipal government we can shift to greener fleets and more efficient buildings, we can encourage energy efficiency in the community and in our corporate functions. We can encourage a form of development that results in lower GHG production: transit instead of freeways and compact, pedestrian-friendly mixed-use city centres instead of sprawling suburban expanses. We can even ineffectually express concerns about pipelines being built to facilitate the export of bitumen, and try to resist the expansion of thermal coal exports through our ports. But these will not be enough if we are continuing to fight the tide of an economy that does not serve our future.
The City can, however, divest from the companies that are pushing that unsustainable future. We can make the choice to not invest our money in the stranded assets that will, if dug out of the ground and burned, diminish the ability of the next generation to prosper. It isn’t just something we can do, it is something we should do.
So I moved the following at the June 22 Council Meeting:
WHEREAS: The City of New Westminster’s financial assets are invested with the Municipal Finance Authority, which includes pooled funds and direct investment in hydrocarbon extraction and pipeline operation companies;
WHEREAS: The City of New Westminster recognizes the global concern and risks of Anthropogenic Climate Change and has taken efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas impacts of its internal operations and in the community in general, and
WHEREAS: Investments in fossil fuel extraction carry numerous risks, including economic risk to market value of fossil fuel companies based on stranded assets through increased worldwide transition to renewable energy sources, including Canada’s own commitment to moving towards reduced GHG emissions and the G7 commitment to a carbon-free economy by the end of the Century;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That New Westminster support ongoing efforts by communities and public institutions across Canada and North America to divest public investments from fossil-fuel related assets by calling upon the MFA to develop a plan to divest from these assets.
As is typical these days, Canada is lagging behind the United States on this important environmental and social justice issue, as San Francisco, Seattle, Eugene, Boulder, an many other US Cities Seattle have already committed to fossil-fuel divestment.
Divestment does not have to be a sudden move to be effective. Although it represents less than 5% of our GDP, the oil and gas industry is still important to some regions of Canada, and we are going to be using hydrocarbons for the foreseeable future. However, if we agree that we need to continue to improve the quality of life of people on earth, we need to start the transition away from burning of coal, petroleum, and gas for our energy needs right away. We also need to give the industry, and the customers, a chance to adapt to the new reality, while easing the market forces into the right direction. A broadly-supported divestment strategy that rolls out over five or ten years will change the economics of the industry, and allows investment in alternatives, instead of continuing to invest in squeezing the last bit of prosperity out of last Century’s energy sources.
This is the second part of my July 13 report, the first part covered the Public Hearing topics and this one starts with a presentation from the Royal City Farmers Market.
You know who they are, but you might not know about all of the things they do aside from bringing a Farmers Market to Tipperary Park every week. They provide a bursary to a NWSS student, they work with the Province to fund a Nutrition Coupon” program to get access to affordable, nutritious food for people who might not have access, they run a shuttle for seniors, they contribute to City festival events – they are a real social enterprise in the City. There are a lot of reason you should support them, buy buying a few groceries every week , and by becoming a member by going to their website here.
We then launched into a very long list of Committee of the Whole recommendations from earlier in the day.
Recruitment for Board of Variance
We had a retirement from this Advisory Committee, and advertised in the City Pages and on our website for new applicants. Council made a unanimous recommendation after reviewing the applications
Christmas Events.
The City has held a Christmas event of some sort for several years. A Santa Clause Parade has, in the past been the centre of these events, first in the evening (to facilitate a “Parade of Lights”) then in the mid-day (to encourage people to come downtown when businesses were open so they can, hopefully, spend some money at our local businesses). For the last two years, the weather was not great, although sort of what you expect for December in New Westminster: one year it was bitterly cold; the next it rained, hard. Last year, there were a number of indoor “Santa’s Workshop” activities for Kids at the Anvil Centre as well, which increased turnout. The businesses downtown appear to appreciate the increased traffic around the day, and are interested in partnering with the City again.
The question is whether the Parade is still necessary, or indeed even a draw. With a good set of coordinated family-friendly Christmas events at the Anvil, the Shops at Westminster Station, the River Market and the Fraser River Discovery Centre, and the coordinated efforts of the BIA and Tourism New Westminster, there is some question whether the effort and expense put into the Parade adds to the event, or if those efforts could be put to use making the other events better.
However, I threw the idea out to Twitter after the Monday meeting:
…and I have to say the response was pretty strongly pro-parade, although everyone had a slightly different idea of what they wanted from a Parade ,and people definitely liked the other events. Regardless, the Parade will happen in 2015, as will other Christmas events for the entire family on December 5th. Mark your calendar.
LUPC and new Council Format
We are trying to make Council Meetings operate more efficiently, balancing the need to have open and public discussion of important issues while managing Council and Staff time as best we can. An idea we are launching is something that several other Municipalities already have: a separate “Planning and Land Use Committee” to give a more detailed open discussion of land use and planning topics prior to taking them to the full Council. This will serve both the public and developments by allowing for a more frank discussion of potential issues related to developments coming to Council before they get there. This will hopefully result in less conflict at the Public Hearing stage, by addressing conflict issues earlier in the process, when they are easy to manage.
We’ll see how this goes.
Wait for me Daddy Programming
We will be unveiling a Canadian Heritage plaque at the Wait For Me Daddy sculpture in October, in order to complete the requirements for our Federal Grants. Mark your calendars for October 3, 2015.
Celebration of QEII’s Longest Reign
A few organizations have approached the Royal City to partner for a one-day series of events to commemorate the day that Queen Elizabeth’s reign will surpass (at 63 years, 216 days) that of Queen Victoria, and become the longest-serving English Monarch. Mark your calendars for September 9, 2015.
Sapperton Green
Sapperton Green has the potential to be the single largest development in the history of New Westminster. Taking advantage of its location on a SkyTrain station, this project could see 7,500 residents and more than a million square feet of commercial development across a 38-acre site.
An important step at this point is for the City to amend the OCP to allow a new Development Permit Area to be created. At that point, a Master Plan and Design Guidelines will be developed. The proposed Sapperton Green Transit-Oriented Mixed-use Community (SGTMC) is described in the official plan as:
…a mix of medium to high density residential, office, retail, open space, and public and other community serving facilities in a transit supportive, complete community. The area will support office uses (750,000 sq. ft. floor space minimum to 1,500,000 sq. ft. floor space maximum), residential uses (3,400,000 sq. ft. floor space maximum equating to approximately 3,700 dwelling units and 7,500 residents) and retail commercial uses (approximately 150,000 sq. ft. floor space). Public and/or private community serving facilities will be provided as appropriate. Floor space for non-profit community serving facilities will be excluded from the maximum floor space allowable. A minimum 15 % of the site will be publicly accessible open space, including plazas, squares, parks, playgrounds and other open areas that are accessible to the public. Building heights will range from three storeys to a maximum of 35 storeys.
There has been a lot of preliminary work done as far as conceptual planning and community consultation (you can see some of it here), but this is a decades-long project, and we are still a ways from the first shovels entering the ground. More community consultation will be happening this fall, both with the stakeholders required by Sections 879 and 881 of the Local Government Act, and with New Westminster’s’ larger community.
Development Bylaw – 900 Carnarvon Street.
Also required for the 900 Carnarvon development is a Zoning Amendment Bylaw. The plan is for this Bylaw to be prepared and through two readings before the September 28 Public Hearing. When you can come out and tell us what you think.
Development Agreement Bylaw – 988 Quayside Drive
The Bosa River Sky development was rezoned and is actually selling units as we speak, but they cannot build a building until we give them a building permit. To do that, we need to have a Development Agreement that outlines what off-site engineering works the developer will complete to make their building mesh with the City’s engineering works: water, sewer, sidewalk, gutter, storm water management, etc. This (like pretty much everything else we do in the City) requires a Bylaw.
I think I have read more about Benkelman Beam testing in the last few days than anyone not directly involved in the installation of asphalt should.
Tanaka Court Development
A developer would like to build a commercial building on an undeveloped piece of land in Queensborough, across the street from the Lowes parking lot. The City owns a big chuck of unopened road (40 m wide!) that is in the way of this development. This would meet the City’s land use designation plans for the site, as we generally want employment-oriented land use in this area.
There are multiple steps this proposal would go through – we need to appraise the land, determine if the City might need it, consider whether we want to sell it, then go through the entire rezoning, development process with all of the regular public engagement and Bylaw development. At this point, we are just letting staff know if this is even something that Council would consider. And we passed it, so we will.
Proposed Pump Station and BFG Extension
Metro Vancouver is upgrading its sewer infrastructure through the Brunette area, and need to build a new pump station. Like anyone else, they need a Development Permit to build that pump station in the City. As a bonus, this station sits right adjacent to the proposed Brunette Fraser Greenway extension that is part of both New Westminster’s Master Transportation Plan and Metro Vancouver Parks, and will connect Sapperton Landing Park with greenways east.
There are a lot of site constraints here, and there is going to need to be a comprehensive plan to enhance the Burnette River setbacks to comply with the spirit of the Riparian Areas Regulation (although, as a utility work, the RAR does not strictly apply, it is important from a sustainability point of view that the City and Metro Vancouver respect the principles and apply them as best we can).
Queens Park Heritage Study Update
This working group is doing good work, looking at programs, incentives, and regulations that the City can adopt to better preserve the Heritage qualities of Queens Park. This report is just an update, as the final report is due at the end of 2015. By all indications (and from the Open House that I attended back in May), this process is going really well, and much credit goes to both our staff and the volunteers from the community who are putting so much energy and creativity into their city.
Heritage Revitalization Agreement – 1407 Sixth Ave
This is a plan to subdivide a 66’ lot into two 33’ lots, to restore and preserve the 1890 house on the lot, and to build second similarly-sized house on the second lot. The City would receive a lane dedication behind the house. This is a preliminary report, and the HRA would require a multi-step process with Public Hearing, but it is an unusual approach for the West End, where these smaller houses are usually replaced with much larger single family homes, often to the chagrin of the neighbours.
This is a preliminary report, and staff will proceed with the application process.
Street and Traffic Bylaw
This is an update to the existing Street and Traffic Bylaw, which regulates parking and road and sidewalk use in the City. the Bylaw was overdue for an update, and has been bounced between committees and up to Council once. I think we have made some pretty good changes, especially (and you saw this coming!) in the areas of encouraging active transportation use in the City. There are still a few things in there I have my doubts about (is “jaywalking” really a thing?), but I am happy to see this move forward as is.
Someday, I will blog about what a failure “Schedule D” is, and how hard it is to make it right.
Sale of 323 Fenton Street.
There is a residential piece of City land in Queensborough that no-one in the City can imagine using, so we are looking at selling it off. After marketing the land, we received an offer that is fair relative to its assessed value. We agreed to make the sale happen!
Queensborough Road Closing and Land Sale
This is to amend a Bylaw that was adopted in March of 2012(!), but the land transfer and sale has been delayed, and apparently, we need to change the bylaw because of this delay. There is a bit of a back story here, as the delay by the proponent overlapped a change in standards by the Land Title Office, so the original application is no longer in the format the LTO likes, so we have to go through the entire exercise again. As the delay caused by the delay and the delay are now causing some distress to the landowner, we are going to have a special meeting of Council on August to just move this forward after the legislated Public Notice period is completed. We are here to serve.
City response to Regional Water Shortage.
This report explains a bit about why City Hall’s front lawn still look greener than most lawns. Actually, more than that, it outlines the numerous ways the City conserves water during Stage 2 restrictions, and how our use is much lower than the maximum permitted under the regulations. On a per-capita basis, the City of New Westminster is one of the most frugal users of Metro Vancouver water. We are doing pretty well right now, but without a significant change in the weather, we might need to start planning for Stage 3 restrictions this August. More info here.
Exempt Properties
Some properties don’t pay property tax – some of those exemptions are statutory (i.e. regulated by Provincial legislation) like Churches and schools, others are discretionary for Council (Social Service agencies and sports facilities like the Curling Club or Tennis Club). Staff was looking for some guidance about potential changes in policy here, and Council essentially said “steady as she goes”.
Budget Survey
Every year, the City commissions a public opinion survey from a polling firm as one of the data points for public engagement in the annual budgeting process. We were asked to approve the questions, although major changes are not well advised, as we want to be able to track changes in opinions over time. Council approved the questions that will be asked in 2015. If you get a mysterious phone call asking you about the City’s budget; that would be us. Tell us what you think.
If you don’t get the call, there will be other opportunities for public engagement in the Budget process, but look to the city’s Community Engagement Taskforce to present some better ideas about how we can make these consultations more meaningful for the citizens of the City, although some of those will probably not arrive until the next budgeting cycle starting in 2016.
Front Street Parkade Public Art
After last week’s rejection of the Public Art installation for the Parkade, Staff recommended another approach, with more information about the selection process and constraints up to here. We should be making a decision about this in the August 31, 2015 meeting.
City Grants Program
We give a lot of money out in New Westminster through our grant programs. This allows community groups to do many of the things that make the City better to live in, without the City needing to run everything. $685,000 is about $10 per resident, so it is a relative bargain for all the diverse events and programming we get.
Staff has been working with the Grantees to make the process easier to navigate, and evaluation more objective and fair. Council always gets “final say”, but the review process needs to be as accessible and transparent as possible. At the same time, we do not want to make the application process too difficult, as it may dissuade many otherwise worthy applicants.
Housing Agreement – 900 Carnarvon Street.
The proposed fourth building at Plaza 88 is going to Public Hearing in September. For more info on the project, you should go here. The building is planned as a secured rental development, meaning the City needs to create a housing agreement with the Developer to assure the terms of the rentals meet the City’s Rental Housing Strategy, and the building is not converted to “Strata” after the City provides incentives for rentals.
Staff will be drafting the Agreement in parallel with continued work on the development, in hopes the terms can be agreed upon before Public Hearing.
Street Activity Program Update
The City has a Street Activity Program that was developed in 1997 (!) to bring some activity to the streets in retail areas in the City. Given its heritage, the Program was thinking Buskers and Hot Dog Stands. This was expanded slightly in 2009 to include perishable foods (RCFM anyone?) and in 2012 to areas outside of Downtown and add a lottery system to replace the first-come-first-served process.
It hasn’t been a hugely successful program, with less than half a dozen licences issued per year, and the Lottery system probably was never required. Further, the system is limited to 7 locations, which staff is recommending we reduce to 5.
The lottery system was easy for Council to nix, but the reduced number of locations was not supported. Instead, I suggested we allow the vendors to decide what locations might be appropriate for their type of activity. Perhaps the east entrance to the Anvil Centre, or the entrance to the 4th street overpass, or 6th Ave and 8th street at the entrance to Moody Park is a spot some vendors might find promising. The point is I don’t know as well as the vendors do, so we should give the people who know best what these businesses need the ability to make location choices. I recognize that there are several factors that might not make any specific location appropriate, so we agreed to let staff develop a policy through which selected locations would be considered.
Food Truck Pilot Project
On a related note, Food Trucks are the Hot Dog Stands of the new generation. There are a few challenges towards making them viable in the City, and I am of the opinion we shouldn’t be making it tough for them. The StrEAT Food Festival shows this is a trend that is still peaking, but outside of this and other special events, we don’t have Food Trucks operating in the City, simply because our business licencing does not permit it except through day-to-day street occupancy permits, which are a hassle for everyone involved.
This proposed pilot project of allowing a Food Truck to set up on City land in front of an accommodating local business (Steel & Oak Brewing) will let staff and the business community iron out any potential problems that may arise. The Food Trucks will need a valid business license in New Westminster, a certificate from Fraser Health, and insurance, and the host business will coordinate their operations. I hope this goes well, and we can expand opportunities for these small businesses in our community.
And that, my friends, was a very long Council Agenda for the last meeting of the Summer. We will be back at it the last Monday in August.
Yeah, I am a little late again with this report, but have two good excuses. First, it was a big Council package with much to say (and consequently write). Second, The Tour de France is on, so I am writing this while sitting in front of the TV as I watch the race on PVR. Yes, I am a little distracted.
Actual photo from my laptop while I write this. Yes, I need a new TV.
So I will break this report in two, talking first about the Public Hearing, and cover the rest of the meeting details in a following post.
As is typical for a Public Hearing meeting, we started at 6:00, and invited people to speak on a couple of Bylaws.
Zoning Amendment Bylaw No 7767, 2015.
This is a “housekeeping” amendment, making several changes to our existing Zoning Bylaw to correct discovered errors, or to modify it to reflect actual practice based on the implied intent of the Bylaw. Those include:
A change to reduce restrictions on childcare use in multi-family buildings;
A change to make child care parking requirements similar to commercial;
A change in the Density Bonus table to correct an error;
A change to allow live-work use for 11 units at 246 Sixth Ave, as was originally intended, but was left off the permitted uses in the rezoning bylaw; and
A change to clarify the type of single detached zoning that is permitted in a C-3 zoning.
We had no correspondence on this Bylaw, and no-one came to the Public Hearing to speak on it. Council moved unanimously to refer to the Council Meeting for Third reading and Adoption.
Zoning Amendment Bylaw No 7759, 2015 (210 Durham Street).
This was a pretty standard subdivision of an RS-1 lot to two RS-5 lots in Glenbrooke North, to facilitate the building of two houses where there is currently one non-heritage house.
We received one piece of correspondence opposing the project, and 5 residents come to speak in opposition for a few different reasons. Although one Councillor telegraphed a lack of support, Council did move unanimously to refer the discussion to the main Council Meeting.
The Regular meeting followed the closing of the Public Hearing, and we launched right in to the Bylaws discussed in the Public Hearing. The first was non-controversial and received Third Reading and Adoption – it is now the Law of the Land.
The second item was not as well received. The residents who came to speak on the subdivision and development had a variety of concerns. The parking issue always comes up in infill density, and is not a compelling argument on this property, where a single-car garage is being replaced by two 4-car garages and driveways that cover a large portion of the property. Other than simply refusing any type of infill density at all (something that flies in the face of the existing OCP, and does not reflect most of the public conversation around the OCP consultation currently taking place) I cannot see an approach that would include more parking than this. People are going to park on street, just like they do everywhere else in the city, and will fill their garages with other stuff until there is no parking available on the street.
The development was also modified significantly from the first iteration taken to the Residents Association to improve the street presence, and the resultant 33’ lots would not be anomalous in the neighbourhood, or even on the block. The changes brought the Advisory Planning Commission into support, mostly around how the street presentation fits the “character” of the street (there is that term again!).
I was not strongly opposed to most aspects of this project. I think it fairly represents the type of sensitive infill density we are going to be seeing more of as the City grows and our new OCP finds ways to accommodate our share of the anticipated regional growth. I am a little concerned about the large paved area, and wondered if permeable pavers could be used (an opinion shared with the APC)
The bigger sticking point for me, and one reinforced by residents at the Public Hearing and by a few of my Council colleagues, was the loss of the trees on the back of the property, including one very significant 75’ cedar. The City is working towards an Urban Forest Strategy for this exact reason – neighbourhoods are concerned about the loss of significant trees during infill density. There is no doubt the loss of those trees would have a significant impact on the neighbouring properties, and continued erosion of our urban forest hurts the entire community. I think there were opportunities here to build what the developer wanted while preserving the most significant of those trees, through shifting the position of the garage on one of the new houses and doing a modification of the driveways. however, it became clear that this was not going to be a simple change, and may, in the end, result in some bigger changes in the configuration of buildings on site. Unfortunately, this was more than could be clarified at Public Hearing.
As always, I cannot speak about the reasons that other members of Council opposed this development at this stage, I can only tell you my thinking. I also note the developer did not choose to present at the Public Hearing to address the concerns raised by the neighbours, as would have been their right.
In the end, Council voted unanimously to not support Third Reading for this project, which means the developer will need to go back to the drawing board.
