Tag: Acting Locally

This Happened – September

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I haven’t done one of these in a while, doing more of these types of community-happenings updates on my newsletter (subscribe here). But I am iterating how I use my communications channels with the community, and as will sound familiar to regular readers (Hi Mom!) I am working on how to keep loving, hopeful and optimistic in the face of a pretty negative political atmosphere online at every level of government. And being in the community in New West is what actually builds that hope and optimism in me. So here are some of the things I did last month that are only peripheral to my actual work:

A crowd of hundreds of runners start the terry Fox run on Westminster's waterfront.

I was honoured to give opening remarks at the annual Terry Fox Run. We had a solid turnout in New West yet again, thanks to the efforts of a strong volunteer force. In my remarks, I spoke about Terry’s perseverance and how only a hopeful vision of a better world could have motivated him though that first lonely 900 km through central Newfoundland. We feel the inspiration that is Terry’ gift, but rarely think of how hard it must have been for him to believe at times. https://run.terryfox.ca/55710

A crowd sits in the Sapperton Pensioners Hall with a screen on the stage that reads “PechaKucha Night”

PechaKucha New West was back with its 33rd edition, and it had a bit of a “getting the gang back together” feel. For those who missed this event, where people talk for a tight 400 seconds (“20 slides, 20 seconds each”) about something that inspires them or challenges them, from Philippine food culture to Boy Bands to public toilets, there is another event November 16th. https://www.pechakucha.com/communities/new-westminster

People meet in the round auditorium of the Wosk Centre for Dialogue as a woman speaks into a microphone and a screen behind reads "BC Citizens' Assembly 20th Anniversary"

The Wosk Centre in Vancouver was the host of a public forum on Citizens Assemblies, entitled Public Dialogue: How a Canadian Innovation Sparked Global Democratic Change. We learned about the history of Community Assemblies, from the initial BC Assembly on Electoral Reform to the current models with examples from Burnaby, Gibsons, and New Westminster. You can watch it here and be inspired! https://www.sfu.ca/dialogue/news/2024/bc-citizens-assembly.html

Several mean and women are assembled, many in traditional East African ceremonial clothing on the patio of Móytel Lalém.

In September, I was also witness to the opening of Móytel Lalém, the affordable housing development on Eighth Street belonging to the Lu’ma Native Housing Society and Swahili Vision. The building and landscape are beautiful, and features 96 truly affordable homes in the heart of the community. The opening was spiritual and inspiring, and helped reinforce the many partners that are required to make a project like this succeed. It was an honour to represent the City and thank everyone for making this happen in our community. More info here: https://www.lumadevelopment.ca/projects

Billy Brag plays guitar and sings, alone at a microphone in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery steps with protest flags around and a crowd watching.

September also brought the Climate Strikes to Vancouver, and it was apropos to walk over from the wrap-up of the UBCM meeting on the Friday and join many New Westies at the Vancouver Art Gallery to talk about Climate Action. What I totally didn’t expect was an impromptu performance by Billy Bragg, and a chance to meet and chat with him. So here is a link of him playing my favorite song of his (and Woody’s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMAq49dqNlY

Cassius Khan and Salil Bhatt perform on stage with a projection of an ornately decorated Indian hall in the background.

Every September, local Tabla virtuoso and cultural ambassador Cassius Khan brings the Mushtari Begum Festival of Indian Classical Music and Dance to Massey Theatre, and every year it is a remarkable showcase of music and dance. You don’t need to know your Satvik from your Mohan to be dazzled by the skill of the players, and the meditative quality of the music. You should see this next year! https://www.masseytheatre.com/event/13th-annual-mushtari-begum-festival/

A crowd looks on a takes photos as multiple tugs and other working boats cavort on the Fraser River.

World Rivers Day is also in September, and the Fraser River Discovery Centre celebrate with RiverFest, which includes one of those unique New West traditions- The Lucille Johnstone (no relation!) Tugboat Parade, which is a little bit parade, a little bit rodeo, a little bit dance performance. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sZZfpzxLGJw

Patrick, Peter Julian and Raj Chouhan stand on a stage with representatives of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of New Westminster.

This was the first year of a new event – Ukrainian New West Fest! A celebration of Ukrainian culture and traditions, and a coming together of the region’s growing Ukrainian community, hosted by the Holy Eucharist Cathedral on Fourth Ave. and the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of New Westminster. It was a great opportunity to tour the Cathedral with its remarkable art program, and to build solidarity with a community persevering through the horrors of a homeland wracked by invasion and war. https://www.heucc.co/

Hundreds of people, most in orange shirts, assemble on a grass field in Queens Park.

And finally, New Westminster really showed up for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Day events at Queens Park. I appreciate this event because I get to attend, listen, and witness without having to give a speech or speak for the City. This is a day where Indigenous people are centred and speak about their experience of colonization and residential schools, and those of us without those experiences are asked to listen, learn, and reflect on what it means to the work we need to do here on these unceded lands. Spirit of the Children society put together the program, which both inspires and challenges the community. It is a really powerful day. https://www.newwestcity.ca/calendar-of-events/events/7875/2024-09.php

Council – Sept 9, 2024

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

September’s first meeting continued our tradition of holding one fall meeting in Queensborough every year. It is a bit of a logistical challenge, and if you watch the video you see us managing as best we can with unfamiliar tech and layout, but I think staff did a great job in supporting us and it was good to see a full Queensborough audience at the event.

There is also something nice about holding a Council meeting in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a green park with young families and seniors walking by and kids playing on the playground equipment. It reminds you of the work we do, and how it impacts people’s daily lives, even if they don’t realize we are doing it right now on the other side of that window.

Our agenda started with the following items Moved on Consent:

Construction Noise Bylaw Exemption Request: 220 Salter Street (Metro Vancouver Sewer Inspection – Fraser River Crossing Project)
There are major regional sewer lines under Salter Street, and they need nighttime (when the water is low) inspection, which requires a construction noise exemption for two weeknights, which Council is granting.

2024-2034 UBCM Canada Community Works Fund Agreement
The City will be getting a grant of about $160K to support infrastructure investment in the City, but need to sign this agreement to get the cash, and agree to spend it on qualifying projects as per the agreement. Easiest grant ever.

We then had these following items that were Removed from Consent for Discussion:

2025 Permissive Property Tax: Exempt Properties – Review of Application Result
There are two types of properties that are exempt from Property Taxes – Statutory and Permissive. The first are by Provincial Law, and are why most churches and private schools are exempt. The second are at the pleasure of the Local Government, land use we can choose as a City to exempt from property taxes. These could include social housing, sports clubs, social service not-for profits, and the such. They must apply every year, and in my time on Council, we have not added many to the list of permissive exemptions, though we often get new applications. As a policy, the City directs not-for-profits to the City’s generous grant program if they need financial support, as that is a more accountable process.

The current list of permissive exemptions equals about $1 Million (this is reported every year as part of our annual report), and this year we got applications for 6 more, totaling $244,000 more. Two new applications (both established church properties with new congregations) totaling about $30,000 were added to the list of exemptions as per the established policy.

Budget 2025: Fees and Rates Review
As a normal part of our annual Budget process, we need to set fee bylaws fort next year. This has to happen early, because financial modelling of cost recovery is part of what informs the rest of the budget, and cost recovery is obviously impacted by fees. If we reduce business license fees, for example, that’s not “free”, it impacts the tax rates we need to charge next year. Most rates are adjusted annually to meet CPI, as a proxy for what I costs us to deliver the service, and to avoid larger and more intermittent price spikes. CPI estimate this year is 3.0%.

There are others that need bigger adjustments, like the cost of providing brass plaques for the cemetery have gone up quite a bit, requiring a 24% increase to recover those costs. Others have external controls, such as our towing charges being set by ICBC. Yet other fees are adjusted to align to market conditions (on street parking not going up this year, short-term parkade parking rates going up a bit due to demand increases), and yet other being shifted to better align with regional municipal comparators (e.g. Fire Safety Plan Review fees).

All told, these changes average aout to about a 3% increase, driving an extra $450k in revenue. For context, $450K is about as much revenue as we would draw from a 0.4% property tax increase.

Business License Bylaw Modernization Update
Staff have been working on a Business License Bylaw update for some time now. Not just looking at fees, but making sure our approach to issuing licenses reflects the modern reality of the local business community. Business license counts are way up, we issue almost 4,000 a year, which is about 20% more than Pre-COVID 2019. Still, staff want to streamline the license process, remove outdated requirements, and provide more flexibility for start-up businesses so it is easier to start a business in New West. Regular readers will also remember that a comparison with surrounding municipalities was conducted and changes to the fee schedule are proposed to align better with regional trends.

There has already been several stages of engagement with the business community here, but there will be another check-in now that proposed changes have been developed. This report simply to update Council before it went out to consultation, and to check in for any red flags.

Response to Council Motion Regarding “Tenant Protections”
As per a motion put forward in a previous meeting, staff are going to update our tenant protection measures. There is an ongoing rental affordability crisis, and recent changes to provincial housing regulations may result in increased pressure to demolish and re-develop our most affordable rentals, which puts a lot people in a very precarious situation. Alongside this the Province has brought in new tenant protection powers through Bill 16. It’s time to update our progressive-in-2015 Tenant Relocation Policy to assure we don’t exacerbate the homelessness crisis.

We then had several Motions from Council (not necessarily in this order, as we delayed a couple until after Public Delegations because we had people come to speak to Council in favour of a few motions).

Regulate the Unsolicited Distribution of Graphic Images Depicting a Fetus
Submitted by Councillor Campbell and Councillor Henderson

WHEREAS New Westminster residents have expressed concerns that unsolicited flyers showing graphic images of aborted fetuses are being delivered to homes and causing harm; and
WHEREAS a number of Canadian municipalities in Alberta and Ontario have established bylaws that; and
WHEREAS in accordance with British Columbia’s Community Charter, Section 8 (3) (i) A council may, by bylaw, regulate, prohibit and impose requirements in relation to public health; and
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT that staff provide council with proposed bylaw amendments to require all print collateral delivered to any premises or distributed to the public that shows, or appear to show, a graphic image of a fetus be delivered in a sealed opaque envelope with a graphic content warning, identify the name and address of the sender, and include measures to ensure individuals are not inadvertently exposed to graphic content on a leaflet, pamphlet, paper, booklet, postcard, or any other printed collateral.

This motion was driven by calls form the community we have received a few times over the last few years. I don’t have much to add to the wording above, except that this is just the beginning of a bit of a process Staff will have to go through to determine what our legal abilities are here, and how best to structure a bylaw so it is effective. I don’t know if anyone in BC has done this before, though local governments have been successful in Ontario and Alberta, so we will need to find a local context that fits with our Community Charter and Local Government Act. This was supported by all of Council, so more to come!

Lower Mainland Local Government Association Tracking and Reporting of Votes on Motions and Resolutions
Submitted by Councillor Nakagawa

WHEREAS Local Government Associations, the Union of BC Municipalities, and the Federation of Canadian
Municipalities advocate for issues that impact their member municipalities; and
WHEREAS municipal Mayors and Councillors are financially supported to attend these conferences in order
to advocate on behalf of their local constituents, yet there is no way for constituents to know how their elected representatives vote on motions and resolutions,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of New Westminster submit the following resolution to the Lower Mainland Local Government Association:
“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Lower Mainland Local Government Association begins tracking and reporting how attendees vote on motions and resolutions and that they submit a motion to UBCM and FCM advocating for those organizations to do the same.”

Your local government is represented at these regional meetings by elected members of Council, and advocate to senior government for policy changes. It is probably a good idea for you to know what your local elected officials are advocating for – or against. It seems like a good step towards improving transparency and accountability. There are some technical challenges that might be easiert to solve at the relatively small Lower Mainland LGA than the much larger UBCM and FCM, and it will involve some investment of resources by those parties, so it is appropriate to structure this as a request for those organizations to evaluate if that is something they want to do. Council moved to approve this.

Selecting an Inclusive and Accessible Site for the 2025 Canada Day Celebration and Festivities
Submitted by Councillor Minhas

WHEREAS Canada Day offers the City of New Westminster an opportunity to celebrate and bring residents together in celebration and reflection; and
WHEREAS the Pier Park location for Canada Day festivities currently offers little opportunity for shade on hot days which often occur in early July; and
WHEREAS Queen’s Park has played host to previous Canada Day celebrations and offers more opportunities to keep participants cool on hot summer days;
BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff seek feedback from the public through our Be Heard system regarding their preference for the 2025 Canada Day festivities and celebrations; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT several locations across the City be offered to the public as a potential site for the 2025 Canada Day festivities including at least one site in Queensborough.

This was a bit of a complicated conversation as Council got a bit into the weeds, but it was nonetheless a good discussion that will hopefully lead to a good community discussions, and I think the direction is clearer with some amendments.

Be Heard New West is part of a community engagement toolbox, not a public survey tool. As Councillor Nakagawa said, “Public Engagement isn’t just asking if a hotdog is a sandwich”, it is a process of sharing information and asking for feedback in ways that have meaningful input into decision making. The decision by Council was to have staff report back with resource needs to do a proper engagement on this.

There was a bit of preemptive discussion about locations as well. There is a complex history why the “main”
Canada Day program moved from Queens Park to Pier Park, and those decisions were made in consultation with the many partners that are required to make the event happen. In the pre-COVID times we got to a point where there were two locations, with some overlap. Post-COVID the Pier Park location became the primary location, and the numbers reflected a much higher interest in people being there than Pier Park (thousands instead of hundreds in attendance). However, it is important to note that Pier Park festivities were not the only events coordinated by the City at Canada Day in 2024. There were activations all long weekend in Queensborough, at Queens Park, at the Anvil, and other locations.

Finally, The City’s festivals budget is fairly limited, and massive expansions of the event would require budget decisions, and increased staff resources. Many events in the City are primarily run by partners (Uptown Live, Pride, Hyack Parade and Festival, Fridays on Front, etc.) with some significant City support, but City-run events have been pretty limited to “civic” dates, like Remembrance Day (our largest City-run event), Canada Day and Truth and Reconciliation day, where partners support the City more than vice-versa. But it is clearly a spectrum between the two end members here.

Anyway, this will be an ongoing discussion. Let us know what you think!

Increasing Openness and Transparency at City Hall by Registering Lobbyist Activities
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine

WHEREAS lobbyist registries are intended to provide a public record that is accessible to residents of interactions between public servants, elected officials and lobbyists and to allow for rules regarding lobbyists to be enforced; and
WHEREAS British Columbia does not currently allow municipalities to use the provincial lobbyist registry nor does it extend the legal authorities municipalities would need to enforce lobbyist rules with a local registry; and
WHEREAS it is important for a functional local democracy that any lobbying efforts by entities such as corporations, labour unions, foreign governments or other similar foreign-based organizations be recorded and publicly reported in a timely manner
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City request the Province immediately take one of the following two actions:
The Province amend the Lobbyist Registration Act to cover the City of New Westminster and other similar mid-to-large-sized cities and administer the regulation of lobbying in the city; OR,
The Province amend the Community Charter to allow the City to establish a lobbyist registry and give the City the legal authority to register lobbyists, create rules for lobbyists’ conduct in their interactions with elected officials and public servants, as well as the power to enforce those rules. In addition, the Province further empower the Provincial Registrar of Lobbyists to work with the City to share information so as to reduce duplication and costs for both orders of government.

This was also a good discussion, and it was clear that everyone saw transparency and accountability as ideas worth supporting. There was a bit of procedural adjustment (to add this as an advocacy issue to the Lower Mainland LGA along with a letter to the province), but all in the interest in making our call for this louder.

I raised some concern about the difference between local politics and provincial/federal politics, and the need for us to clearly define what Lobbying is. I have dozens of conversations every week with people nt he community, residents, business operators, non-profits, and most some include discussions of City Bylaws or policies or practices. I would hate to think that every time I set up the Ask Pat booth at the Farmers Market that I would need everyone who asks me a question to register as a lobbyist. That said, there are clearly a few meetings I do have with people or organizations who are paid to advocate to me and fit the strict definition of Lobbyist. I just wonder if we can clearly draw a line between those two without finding exampled that straddle that line. So we have work to do there.

Finally, I added an amendment that asked that we engage the City’s new Ethics Commissioner, and ask them to report back on potential procedures or practices we could adopt as a form of practice disclosure for when we are being lobbied. I think the public is less interested in reading the names of lobbyists, and are more interested in what meetings we are taking and the purpose of those meetings.

So, more to come on that!

And with that we wrapped our Queensborough excursion, and considering the list of things above that ended with “more work to do”, I feel confident in saying we are back into the thick of it.

Labour Day ’24

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The days are getting shorter, the evenings are starting to cool off, the PNE rains have come and gone. Though the Equinox is three weeks away yet, most of us are looking back at the summer that was, while everything we put off until “after the break” is starting to loom large in our calendars for September. Labour Day always arrives with a mix of feelings: summer’s last hurrah, excitement of a new school year and a new recreation schedule, imminent pumpkin spice.

Labour Day is not just another day off, it is a day off won by working people organizing and asserting their rights. It is a celebration of battles won, a reminder of the quality of life granted to all working people because of 100+ years of work and sacrifice and solidarity though organized labour. It is also a call to assure that the rights won and economic prosperity driven by fair wages are not lost to the imaginary economies of neoliberal austerity.

Workers continue to build this City, this Province, and this Country. At the same time, right-wing politicians at every level are working to protect the record profits of multinationals at the expense of working people. They may talk a long yarn about “affordability”, but they are conspicuously silent when we discuss the erosion of real wages, or how austerity hurts the very social fabric that makes a society livable. They speak about supporting workers, but their votes tell a different story.

In New Westminster, our community is served every day by the professionalism and dedication of members of CUPE, the IBEW, the NWPOA and the IAFF. In the broader sense, our community is also served every day by the Teamsters who are right now fighting the rail multinationals to protect their hard-earned workplace rights and the safety of not only their workers, but all in their community. Our community is also served every day by the ATU members fighting right now to assure reliable and publicly-operated para-transit service remains available to the most vulnerable people in our community.

I was proud to spend some time up at Edmonds Park today showing solidarity with my friends in the Labour Movement: the leaders at every level, and the folks who show up every day and quietly build community while they provide for their family. The fight goes on. Not just on Labour Day, but every day.

This Happened

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I might have mentioned that I have a Newsletter. Over there, I talk a bit more about day-to-day events in the City, a bit of politics, a bit of opinion. You need to sign up to get it, which you can do by hitting this link. They come out (almost) every Wednesday night. Here is a preview of a few things that I wrote about this week, sign up if you want to know more!

It’s Pride Week, so we raised a few flags, including this one at Douglas College.
New Westminster has a vibrant Recovery community, and their family event in Tipperary Park last week is a manifestation of that community focus.
What is Brewhalla? A lot of sun, a bit of beer, a bit of music, a lot of fun.
The ‘Bellies are still in it, against all odds!
Sometimes that exotic looking thing is just a Lancia past its prime. Peripherally related, I wrote a bit about the history of the Show & Shine, and where it went.

Pride 2024

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

It’s Pride week in New West.

For the 15h year, New West is marking its own Pride Week with a series of events, you can check out the entire calendar here, because it isn’t just about the Street Festival on the 17th.

As the week kicked off with the Flag Raising at Douglas College (the DSU and the College itself have been incredible supporters of New West Pride, and were there to help it grow from a small, one-day walk to a week-long-plus event!), and a flag Raising at Friendship gardens at City Hall, and a flag raising at the NWPD department on Columbia Street. These events have had be thinking a bit more recently about the evolution of the Pride movement (represented in part by the evolution of the Pride Flag), and how recent events, locally and globally, have changed the context of Pride.

I think some of us (yes, there is a cis-normative and euro-colonial bias here) have felt that the “fight” has been won, and Pride is more of a celebration of that than a protest against continued injustice. Right to have your marriage recognized, protection from state discrimination or persecution, the end of sodomy laws, these were big fights worth celebrating. But there are active movements right now here in North America to move backwards on these rights, and to prevent basic human rights and appropriate informed medical care to people who are not cis-conforming, with Trans and Intersex people facing the brunt of the intolerance and hate. The inclusive pride flag reminds us that until we all have rights, none of our rights are safe.

It shouldn’t take the persecution of a cis-gendered woman on an international stage, simply because she didn’t conform to a Eurocentric standard of beauty or sense of gender stereotypes for people to speak out about the harms faced every day by Trans and Intersex people, but here we are.

I am not trans, I am not intersex, but I try to be an ally, and often don’t know what allyship looks like, especially when I have this bully pulpit (that term being used in the strictly Rooseveltian sense). It is one thing to say we will not tolerate offensive of discriminatory speech in Council Chambers, and to take action to limit that even with public delegates, but what about the broader discourse in the City? There are a few vocal anti-Trans activists in New Westminster, and a small number of familiar local Social Media denizens who post discriminatory and often hateful rhetoric about members of the Trans and Intersex community. What is my duty as a leader in the community to call this out? To call these people out?

Should I stay out of it or be more vocal? Would I only be calling attention, adding to their audience or even legitimizing their “alternate view” by daylighting it, considering they are operating in a small bubble? Do I run the risk of being a “bully” (in the literal sense) by punching down at people who are, in turn punching down? Or am I being complicit in my silence when I see it and don’t denounce it every chance I get? What’s the balance?

I have taken to opening this conversation with folks I am chatting with at Pride events, especially to people I recognize from social media. Because I think I need to take some guidance from the community on this, and from the community impacted. What’s my role? Learning, listening and thinking about this is my work this year to exercise my allyship. I’m sure it won’t be a consensus on what my role is in combatting local on-line hate, but I’d love to hear from you if you have an opinion.

Housing and Growth

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The discussion around provincial housing regulations hasn’t slowed down, as the first of several deadlines related to bills 44, 46, and 47 came and went. Some Cities have complied, some have chosen a different path. In New Westminster we adopted two Bylaws in June that make us complaint, and staff are busily working on the next steps- a renewed Housing Needs Assessment, OCP updates, and revising our DCC, ACC, and Density Bonus programs.

City staff are also working with provincial staff on their Housing Target Order methodology, so we can respond on the expected timeline, likely in August. I was on the radio last week alongside the Mayor of Langley Township talking to Belle Puri about this (you can listen here!), and we had slightly different takes on the core issue. I actually agree with the Minister that the introduction of Small-scale Multi-Unit Housing and Transit Oriented Area regulations will be a good thing. IT is clearly a massive hassle and staff time suck to implement, and will likely slow down development for a short period of time while everyone finds their path through the massive changes, in the end it will be a positive for the reshaping of the next era of regional growth.

My problem remains that we have had some significant tools taken away that we have used to fund infrastructure and amenities in our community. Equally troubling is that our ability to compel developers to build childcare, to provide spaces for new schools or parks, or to include affordable housing as part of their developments, has been eroded at the same time that the cost for development has gone up. It is unclear whether the Province is going to give us the money needed to make up for these shortfalls, or expect property tax to fill the void.

That said, I did appreciate the Minister’s thoughtful responses the next day (you can hear them here!). We are all trying to get the same thing done on housing, and I hope that the province brings the kind of aggressive, proactive change to our funding model that they did to our building approvals model. Dare to dream.

There was another related piece of news that snuck out last week, and it was related to a report we received at Metro Vancouver Regional Planning Committee. Metro staff working with academic demographers have created updated regional growth projections. These are not “targets” the region is aiming for, but instead projections of what is likely to happen given demographic changes, birth/death statistics, immigration, and inter-regional and inter-provincial migration patterns. The numbers are all here in this report.

The local angle on this might surprise some folks, especially my colleague on the radio last week from Langley Township who always refers to his community as the “high growth region”, that the City projected to grow fastest over the next 6, 16, and 26 years is New Westminster. Here’s the numbers:

These are numbers for the medium-growth scenario, but both the low-growth and high-growth scenarios have us in a similar spot: top of the charts for proportional growth.

There are a lot of factors that drive this, including our commitment to Transit Oriented Development and the large proportion of our City that is near that transit, but also the balance of housing types, the “sweet spot” between affordability and location on the north side of the River, and the attractiveness to both young families in the growing stage, and new arrivals to Canada and the Lower Mainland – for every reason you choose to live here.

This speaks to our Housing Needs Report, but it also speaks to our need to invest in infrastructure now to support that growth, and the community amenities that residents want in a thriving, growing community. Adding austerity to this trend will be a disaster for the livability of our community, we need to show leadership to shape a community that serves today/s residents, and the people arriving tomorrow.

This Happened

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Every week or so I put out a newsletter to subscribers. Usually Wednesday afternoon/evening. It’s generally shorter-form than my posts here, provides updates on what I’ve been up to, with occasional opinion and politics that can get spicy. It’s free, no hassle to subscribe, just hit that “newsletter” link up at the top of the page.

And every once in a while I provide a reminder here, with a hint of what is in last week’s newsletter, where I wrote a bit more about these things:

ReDress day at Hyack Square to mark the annual National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirit People.
Attending the New Westminster Hospice Society annual River Walk for Hospice.
Standing at the Dias speaking during the Mayor’s State of the City address.
New Westminster won the Walk30 Challenge, and a class from QayQayt Elementary went the extra mile.
Taking part in the S&O Beer Run with a couple of council colleagues.

This happened

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Every week or so I put out a newsletter to subscribers. Usually Wednesday. It’s generally shorter-form than my posts here, provides updates on what I’ve been up to, with occasional opinion and politics. It’s free, no hassle to subscribe, just hit that “newsletter” link up at the top of the page.

Here’s a hint in what was in last week’s newsletter, where I wrote a bit more about these things:

Opening of an affordable housing project in the Downtown.
Business Roundtable with the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions on the City’s Three Crises Response Pilot.
Vaisakhi events, including a tour of Queensborough Gurdwara.
…and a walk in the Park that passed a baseball game.

Sign up here to find out more, and to keep track of what’s happening.

Mixing Business

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

As a follow-up to my Council report from last week, there were two items I promised to circle back to, like how I circled back to the preposition at the end of that sentence.

English teachers will find that last sentence fun. Hi Mom!

The two items spoke to supporting local businesses and streetscapes. We had a report on Bill 28, and the opportunity for us to explore whether Bill 28-style property tax relief might be a useful tool for our community, and we had a motion from Councillor Nakagawa to review our development and zoning policies to better support local community-serving small businesses. Both of these linked back to some recent chatter in the community around street-level commercial spaces, with people wanting to see more experiential retail and entertainment, and less service and office, to “liven up” the street (I got through all of that without mentioning dentists once). So I want to unpack each item a bit and discuss not just what a city/council can do, but more about the varying ideas about what a city/council should do.

Bill 28 – Property Tax Relief Legislation
I have written quite a bit over the last 9 years about how property tax works (examples here, here, and here). This new legislation changes this a bit for one category of properties, allowing us to provide some short term (5 year) property tax relief for some commercial property owners.

To review, the City sets tax rates, but the tax paid on property is based on BC Assessment Value, determined by “Highest and Best Use” – not necessarily the current value of the property, but the value the property would have if the owner sought to maximize that value. The change with Bill 28 is pretty specific, limited to properties where the “Land-value ratio” greater than 0.95, which means the value of improvements on the land (the existing building) is less than 5% of the total assessed value of the property. Where it is flexible is in how the local government can apply tax relief, and how much.

Some folks would suggest any tax relief for business is good, but we need to be clear this tool provides us a potential tax shift – giving one type of taxpayer some relief transfers that taxation to other taxpayers – not an overall decrease in the revenue on the part of the City. We are taking a more cautious approach here, because not only are there more devils in details, there are likely perverse incentives in there as well.

There is a general feeling that high lease rates and tax rates make it harder from small neighbourhood-serving business to set up shop, and that is surely a factor. The diversity of business types on Twelfth Street is almost certainly a product of low per-foot lease rates. So one part of the thinking here is that if the lease cost (including taxes) was lower, we would more likely get smaller, more diverse, and more interesting business types setting up. Instead of dentists (there, I said it).

One potential challenge with the Bill 28 approach is the recognition that property owners pay taxes, not business owners. Sometimes a business also owns the property they operate out of, but for most small neighbourhood businesses in New West a lease is paid to a landlord. It is the common practice for the landlord to pass the property tax bill directly to the tenant (through “triple net leases”), but there is nothing in Bill 28 or elsewhere that forces a landlord to pass any tax relief savings down to the small business person, so a tax incentive may not get to the small business types we are trying to support, and might actually make the situation worse for the business owner, but better for the Landlord. It may also be a disincentive to upgrading, repair, or improvement of marginal buildings, reducing the attractiveness and safety of commercial spaces.

The City of Vancouver is the only City that has taken on a Bill 28 approach, and we are going to hope to learn from their example as staff bring some data and analysis back to council to see if this approach can be made to help. It may be a useful tool, if we can wield it creatively enough.

Ensuring that ground level retail spaces in new developments prioritize community-supporting businesses and organizations
This motion from Councillor Nakagawa was a bit more all-encompassing, and completely within our jurisdiction. It was asking that the City “review and refresh current policies relating to ground level retail” and “develop policy to ensure that future ground level retail spaces in new development are built to prioritize community-supporting businesses and organizations in alignment with the retail strategy.”

When people ask what Council can do to assure a (insert type of business you want to see) opens in a specific location instead of a (insert type of business you don’t want to see), I often retort with the question: are you sure you want to give me the power to do that?  Council has some power to restrict different business types through zoning, but do you really want 7 elected people picking and choosing the businesses in your downtown? Are we the wisest ones to choose this, or is this somewhere we need to ask “the market” to address? Clearly there is a huge spectrum between completely hands-off and being so prescriptive that we end up with streets full of unleased spaces because Council of the day fails to understand the market. Personally, I would love to see a small hardware store downtown. But we had one for a few years, and it was really great, but it was not supported enough to stay open and now you can buy discount shoes in that spot. The reasons for that specific store closing may be complex and global (as they were part of a nation-wide chain that changed its focus and has now closing many Big Box offerings across Canada as well). The City saying “only hardware stores here” would not change those global forces, and we would likely have an empty space in its place, and angry landlord, and a decaying business district. That said, we do exercise limited powers to restrict uses like cannabis or liquor stores (for example) to address perceived or suspected risks.

Nothing against dentists, but mine is Uptown and on the second floor, which is probably a better space for the kind of use that doesn’t really “activate” the street or lead to good walking-around experiences. One thing we can all agree is that a street is more fun to live near and shop on if we have a variety of interesting retail and service experiences along it. As part of our Council Strategic Priority Plan, we talked about supporting a people-centered economy, supporting retail areas that address the needs of the local community.

When Starbucks made a global decision to close thousands of stores including Columbia and 6th, people lamented this loss. Since that time, three new coffee shops have opened downtown, and the old Starbucks location is a popular Italian deli. There are literally dozens of businesses Downtown that were not there at the beginning of the Pandemic, and there is not a lot of lease vacancy. By many measures, the business environment Downtown is pretty healthy. Still, the community is engaged in a conversation about retail mix, though it’s not clear how the community wants to get there.

There are two policy areas inherent in this motion we can look at. We can look at how we approve new street-facing spaces in new mixed use developments like 618 Carnarvon, where a brand new dentist office is opening in a space where folks might have wanted to see a coffee shop, or boutique, or other more experiential use. The other is to look at policies that rezone existing spaces to limit the variety of uses possible when businesses turn over, much like we do with liquor stores. To traditional businesses this sounds like a lot of “red tape”, and may result in an incredibly complex zoning bylaw that makes it harder for any business to find the right space. One can imagine this resulting in any new and innovative business types wanting to set up in town having to come to Council to ask permission, because their specific type that doesn’t fit the Bylaw. We went down that path with a video-game arcade that wanted to serve alcohol – and it was a massive pain in the ass for staff, a difficult challenge for the business owner who felt unsupported, and left everyone feeling soured. And that was for a business idea that that everyone on Council liked!

There is a guy I have had lunch with (Hi John!) who suggests the City should simply open more restaurants downtown. I don’t think it is that simple, because I don’t know what the role of the City is in doing that. Restaurants are permitted in almost every business storefont on Columbia Street, there are no rules or regulations preventing them from opening now. At the same time, we cannot force the landlord to kick out the current tenant and put in a restaurant. Reducing taxes of set-up costs will not have any positive effect on a restaurant business model that it doesn’t equally have on a nail salon or dog grooming business model. Further, we are limited by Section 25 of the Community Charter (the part that says it is illegal for a City to “provide a grant, benefit, advantage or other form of assistance to a business”) from directly incenting a specific business owner to do a specific thing. We could, I guess, buy up the land and start leasing it to the business types and business owners we like, but I’m not sure that is the best role of a City government.

All this to say, there is an interesting bit of policy work we can do here, but we are also limited in our powers by legislation and common sense. This also speaks to and augments existing work we are doing around the recently-adopted Retail Strategy.

Year of Work

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Last month I wrote a blog post marking the one-year anniversary of the 2022 election that was mostly personal reflections and not about the work we did in Year One. Now that we are on the one-year anniversary of the new Council being actually sworn in, a bit of a summary is apropos. As I worked on this, I realized there is a lot to talk about, so I need to edit it down a bit and gather by themes. So this is more a list of highlights than a complete catalogue.

Inauguration
We swore in a new Council on November 7th, 2022, bringing in one of the bigger change-overs in recent years. Best I can tell, it has been more than 25 years since we had this large a change-over with a new Mayor and 4 new Councillors elected in the same year. This meant that onboarding for the new members (myself included, because the Mayor role is very different than the Council one) dominated the first few months of work. We held long onboarding seminars and site tours with staff getting everyone as up to speed as possible on everything from how the municipal budget works in reality (very different than how it works on some election platforms!) to details on the various areas of service delivery the City performs.

Following on this, we developed together and adopted a Strategic Priorities Plan that I wrote about here. It has the regular priority stuff – transportation and housing and asset management – but I am more proud in how Council came together to center the residents and communities (yes, plural) we are serving in this plan, and to emphasize community connectedness as a priority. This is what makes New West special, and what will truly address many of the challenges we face.

Housing Approved
The City continues to lead on housing policy, signing housing agreements on almost 700 new Purpose Built Rental units, and giving final approvals to 244 student apartments, 50 supportive housing units, more than 150 new townhouses and about 50 other units in several medium-density forms. We waived Public Hearing on projects promising more than 400 more rental units, and dozens of townhouses because they were consistent with the Official Community Plan and public consultation showed strong support. We are also working through initial phases of several larger developments in the City, as we strive to (and are so far successful at) meeting our Regional Growth Strategy targets. We are still struggling to get 24/7 shelter, transitional and supportive housing funded in the City, even those that we have approved, and continue to balance putting the pressure on provincial and federal purse-string holders while we work with them at the staff-to-staff level to develop fundable projects.

Crises
We have been proactive at addressing the overlapping crises of homelessness, mental health, and addictions that are challenging every municipality in Canada. Back in December, we brought in a Downtown Livability Strategy to coordinate efforts between staff from Community Planning, Economic Development, Engineering, Fire Services, Integrated Services (“Bylaws”), Parks and Recreation, Finance, and Police and added some resources to address general hygiene and cleanliness issues. We have continued to partner with Fraser Health, the Canadian Mental Health Association, BC Housing, and service agencies working downtown, have secured $1.7 Million from the federal Building Safer Communities Fund, $1.2M from the Provincial Government to support our groundbreaking Peer Assist Care Teams, $50,000 from the provincial Ministry of Public Safety to set up Situation Tables and Collaborative Public Safety Programs. We have also launched a new Homelessness Action Plan working with our partners in the Homelessness Coalition.

Staff have been working hard and making progress with the resources available to them. Just last week, we committed to a plan to increase these resources and set up a new structure to assure we are leveraging community partnerships and coordinating our lobbying and communications efforts to best serve the entire community.

It is a difficult time for many in our community, and everyone deserves to feel safe and supported however they live in this community. We are committed to a compassionate, evidence-based approach to addressing the needs of those most at risk, and to address the externalities related to too many people not having access to the dignified supports they need. We have also supported the building of new supportive housing in the community – recognizing the real solution to homelessness is safe and secure homes.

Capital Projects
Our Capital Plan is significant. The biggest item being təməsew̓txʷ Aquatic and Community Centre – a more than doubling of the recreation and aquatic space provided by the old Canada Games Pool and Centennial Community Centre, and the first Zero Carbon recreation centre of its kind in Canada. Considering that procurement and construction occurred during massive construction inflation, the regional concrete strike, unprecedented supply chain disruptions, not to mention a global pandemic, delivering this project within a few months of planned opening, and within 5% of the budget is a significant achievement. We are not across the finish line yet, but opening is planned for the spring, and that will be a great day for New West.

Flying under the radar a bit was a new $28 Million substation in Queensborough that we cut the ribbon on a few months ago. Not only will this provide secure long-term electrical reliability for rapidly-growing Q’Boro, but the Electrical Utility delivered the project for $2 million under budget, saving all city electrical ratepayers money. Serious kudos to the team who delivered this project.

You also probably noticed there have been a lot of roads torn up over the last year, mostly in Sapperton and the West End. This is the result of many overlapping utility renewal projects by the City and Metro Vancouver, with some of it supported by a $10.4 Million Investing in Canada grant from both the Federal and Provincial governments. Building a City is project that never stops, and we are investing more than ever on things that matter to the quality of life in this community, like sidewalks and trees.

Reconciliation
A Year of Truth is ground-breaking work on uncovering the history of colonization in New Westminster. We are informing a truth-based dialogue about our shared history with the original inhabitants of these lands to inform a more genuine approach to reconciliation. A new relationship with the 6 Host Nations, and a new commitment to co-develop the replacement of Pier Park in a vision shared by the original inhabitants of these lands and the community. This is sometimes challenging work, but we are leading with clear principles, and our entire community will be much stronger for having had these discussions, for having taken the time to listen and to learn. Only once we have truth can reconciliation begin.

Resiliency
Over the last year, we have seen a massive all-department response to the Heat Dome disaster of 2021. Our Emergency Planning staff have partnered with Fraser Health and Senior Services Society to identify and directly support vulnerable residents, have surveyed and identified the most vulnerable buildings in the City and initiated a One Cool Room program. Our Electrical Utility is augmenting the province’s free Air Conditioner Program with an enhanced program for New West residents. Our Parks and Engineering teams have brought a new emphasis on public cooling stations and relief centres to address the bad days when they come. Meanwhile, we continue to advocate to senior government for regulatory changes that will reduce the risk to vulnerable residents in the future.

We have also initiated a new Flood Resilience Plan that adopts the recently-updated 2050 Fraser River Flood Profile to address climate-change driven freshet changes and sea-level rise to the middle of the century in Queensborough, in the Downtown ,and the Braid Industrial area. We have been successful at pulling in senior government funding to support pump station and dike upgrades in Queensborough. This plan will help us direct the next phase of investments.

Climate
We have adopted new Zero Carbon Step Code levels that incent the building of new homes that are both energy efficient and zero carbon, a major step towards our 2030 and 2050 community greenhouse gas reduction goals. We made a major shift in minimum parking requirements in new buildings around Skytrain and frequent transit, to reduce the cost of building new homes and better support transportation and climate goals. Meanwhile, we have been putting together a decision making framework to prioritize spending of the Climate Action Reserve to assure we get the best bang for the buck as we apply that reserve to items in our capital plan that move the needle on climate emissions reductions and climate resilience. We also supported youth leadership in our community by adopting a 15-Minute City Strategy which will guide future development and planning.

Partnerships
As Council prioritized building strong relationships with organizations doing good work in the community, we have put this in practice. This includes building a stronger relationship with Sahib Sukh Sagar Gurdwara through shared emergency management strategy and resources. We are strengthening our relationship with Urban Indigenous residents and Indigenous Youth through partnership with Spirit of the Children Society through Truth and Reconciliation Day and hosting an Every Child Matters sidewalk mural in the centre of our Downtown. We cut the ribbon on the new K.I.D.S. Childcare space in Queensborough – a partnership between the development community, the City, and the Province bringing much needed childcare spaces to Queensborough. We supported seniors advocacy in our community by adopting recommendations that support dignified and affordable Aging in Place after a request from representatives from Century House. For the first time, we recognized Transgender Day of Visibility with flag raising and lighting up City Hall, and were the first BC City to recognize Ethiopian Day by raising the Ethiopian Flag at Friendship gardens and invited representatives of the local Ethiopian Community into City Hall to share food and ideas. Just today I attended the New West Hospice Society dialogue on Death and dying at Century House- an incredible and meaningful collaboration between the City and two volunteer-driven organizations in the City that are making our community stronger.

We also hosted the Mann Cup! OK, Council didn’t get them there, but it was a memorable event that fills me photostream for the year. One thing this Council did to to help was to designate the ‘Bellies as an Event of Municipal Significance, which allowed for a shift in how they manage their liquor license. This helped facilitate a partnership between the ‘Bellies and a local brewery, and providing more secure funding for their operations though an exciting payoff run.

Arts, Culture and Economic Development
Council made a $20 Million investment in the repair and upgrade of the Massey Theatre so this artistic jewel of the community can continue to thrive for another generation. We also secured a long-term operational agreement with the Massey Theatre Society so they can transform Massey Theatre into a multi-purpose arts centre called 8th and 8th Arts Spaces.

Meanwhile, Council initiated downtown renewal plans, including advocating for a Vacant Commercial Property Tax at UBCM, and adopting a new Retail Strategy to be implemented in 2024. We have also adopted a new Site-Wide Liquor Licensing policy to better support major festivals in the City. We have renewed our our Economic Development Advisory Committee by recognizing the importance of Arts and Culture in this space, and expanding the mandate of the committee to include it.

Engagement
We have launched several public engagement opportunities, from the development of a new Queensborough Transportation Plan to the visioning of the 22nd Street Station Area. We are also launching an innovative Community Advisory Assembly model of engagement, where a council of community members that represent the diversity of our city can weigh in on issues important to the community.

Incomplete as it is, for the first year of a mostly-new Council, I am pretty happy with this list. There are also many things that Council has expressed interest in working on that we have not really started yet. It’s a busy time in the City, in every City when I talk to me colleagues around the region, and we are still in a place where we need to balance the desire to get lots of things done while we are challenged for resources and staff are already fully tasked, and then some. Council recognizes that this work is being done by more than 1,000 hardworking people in City Hall, the Works Yard, the recreation centres and out in the community, and their dedication is appreciated.

It has been a year of excitement and frustrations, and more than one distraction, but the work never stops. Building a City is not a job that is ever completed, nor is it something a Mayor can do – it requires a team effort. I am so fortunate in this role to have a great team surrounding me, doing the work to make New Westminster more active, more connected, and more nurturing. I’m looking forward to what we can accomplish in 2024.