Tag: New Westminster

Council – Feb. 6, 2017

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

The February 6 meeting of Council started with a series of presentations, including a discussion of the City’s Budget, and an Opportunity for Public Comment on the topic.

Draft 2017-2021 Financial Plan
As regular readers (Hi Mom!) will be aware, the City annually approves a budget in a form that is regulated by the provincial government. Those regulations require us to prepare a 5-year financial plan, and for the budget to be balanced. As part of the lengthy public process, this is the third or fourth time parts of this plan have come to Council, and there have been ongoing requests for public input from Council, on the City Page, and on the City’s website. Considering the importance, we get remarkably little feedback or constructive criticism from the public on this.

I will write further blogs in the upcoming weeks about the 5-Year Financial Plan, and the Bylaw that sets the Property Tax levels for 2017 will be coming back to Council next month. This will result in further conversation, I’m sure.

We had one person take the opportunity to present to Council on the 5-Year Plan, and I wanted to touch on some issues he raised. First, we are not hosts of “one of the highest Property Taxes in Metro”. Our average is 11th out of 22 local governments in the Metro Vancouver area, and our taxes per capita and per household are both below the average (here is a post I wrote last year, and another one, both covering this topic). I have also done a comparison (although this is a couple of years ago) looking at MLS housing values across the region and how our Mil rate compares, and again, we are right around average for almost every tax class. Second, the City is not permitted to run a deficit; we need to balance our budget every year. We are, however, allowed to borrow money, and we are allowed to put money in reserves. Currently, we have about $65 Million in outstanding debt that we are paying off. We also have a little more than $120 Million in our long term investments and in the bank as cash. If we were to cash in our savings and pay off our debt, we would be up more than $50 Million. However, that would not be a great long-term strategy for the City’s finances.

Quayside Park Redevelopment – Preferred Design Option Overview
The playground at Quayside Park (where the Expo86-era model submarine is) needs to be removed, because there is a major storm drainage line under it that is failing. Replacing that line is not an option, it needs to happen, and excavating around the park is the only reasonable way to do it.

Fortunately, the park itself is nearing the end of its design life, and doesn’t really meet modern standards for such a valuable amenity for the Quayside community. Our Parks staff have done a year of design and public consultation on this topic, and this report shows the preferred design that came form that process. Works will occur this spring, with the park out of service for a couple of months, but back in much improved order by June.

2016 Year-End Strategic Initiative Status
We received short updates on four of this Council’s Priority Initiatives, which are all making progress, although some of this progress is less visible than might be expected (hence these reports):

1. Arts Strategy: There is a lot going on in the City in the arts, between developments at the Anvil to activate the public space and programs, advancement of our Public art program, and strengthening of our partnerships with organizations from the Arts Council to Massey Theatre Society. The strategy has gone through a considerable amount of public discussion and is coming together, expected to come to Council in a draft form in the spring.

2. Truck Route Strategy: The City has tried to shift trucks to peripheral routes in the City for several years. This is not something the City has complete control over, but requires regional cooperation. We are cooperating well with TransLink and Surrey on the Pattullo Bridge project, and with Coquitlam on the Brunette Interchange project. We have also had discussions with the Port about sharing their GPS truck destination data, hoping to use that to developing data-based solutions to help with traffic flow. A work in progress…

3. Economic Development Strategy: We recently reviewed the Business Survey the City performed, which is an important part of data gathering for this strategy. There is also an event coming up in late February – Innovation Week – that will bring many aspects of the City’s ED file together with a broad group of partners to develop ideas about how Innovation will change our economic development, and our City in general.

4. Riverfront Greenway: The long-standing dream of connecting the Pier Park to Brunette Landing Park with a pedestrian and cycling route along the river is getting some legs beneath it (pun! I’m on fire today!). There are some significant engineering challenges here, including the general paucity of space for a trail between the Railways’ wide buffer zone, steep slopes above and below Front Street, and a river with large tide fluctuations. Then we need to thread the needle through or around a couple of bridges. We are hoping the Pattullo replacement project provides some opportunity to develop a collaborative design. So, not much more than a few lines on a map right now, but the momentum is definitely there.

Before those presentation, the following agenda items were moved on consent:

City of New Westminster Poet Laureate 2017-2020 Appointment
Welcome Alan Hill to the role of Poet Laureate, the fourth person to hold that position since the role was created. I am impressed by Alan’s work, and by his vision for making the written and spoken work a bigger part of our City’s arts scene. He also happens to be a great guy raising a family in Glenbrook North. Congratulations, Alan, and I look forward to seeing you at Civic Events!

630 Ewen Avenue: Official Community Plan Amendment and Rezoning from Queensborough Residential Dwelling Districts (RQ-1) to Comprehensive Dwelling Districts (630 Ewen Avenue)(CD-70)
This is a project to develop supported housing in Queensborough as part of the City’s larger affordable housing strategy. At this point, the project requires an OCP amendment and Rezoning. Council approved moving this through to the Public Process that will include committee reviews, public open house, Public Hearing, etc.

43 Hastings Street: Road Closure and Dedication Removal Bylaw – Council Consideration of First, Second and Third Readings; Zoning Amendment Bylaw – Council Consideration of First and Second Readings
This is another project to develop affordable housing, this time in Downtown. At this time, the project requires a closure of an unopened road portion, which (like most everything we do) requires a Bylaw. Council approved sending this to first and second readings.

Queen’s Park Working Group: Terms of Reference – Amendment to Add an Additional Member
This move resulted from discussions about how to manage succession planning in the working group, as its mandate has been extended since it was first put together, and the Queens Park Residents’ Association membership has changed. There is a balance here between making sure stakeholders are represented and losing momentum that has been generated by three years of working collaboratively.

After a rather exciting Presentation and Delegation period, which you need to watch on video to enjoy (seriously, it is worth going to 1:42:00 in the video and watching 5 or 10 minutes), the following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

2017 New Westminster Pipe Band Community Grant Request
Something apparently went wrong with this application, and the Pipe Band was not included in the review of grants that took place in the fall. This puts us in a difficult situation, as their $3,000 request was not assessed alongside the other Community Grant applications the Community reviewed, and I don’t know how they would view this request had they received it. The Community Grant Committee had $115,000 in grant requests, and had to say no to $67,000 in requests. There were 7 organizations had their grants refused outright and several others received significantly less than they requested. However, this organization does have a long history of successfully applying the Grant to their program. Council, attempting to divine the desires of a committee that no longer meets, and recognizing  it was likely a paperwork SNAFU that put us in this situation, approved granting them the same amount the group received in previous years, which is less than they requested, but should continue to support their program.

215 Manitoba Street (Queen’s Park): Heritage Alteration Permit No. 82 to Permit New Construction – For Council Consideration
This is a follow up to the first demolition permit the City issued in Queens Park during the Heritage Control Period. Council approved the demolition after receiving reports that indicated the house had little heritage value, and that no significant loss of neighbourhood heritage values would result from its demolition. However, the replacement home requires a Heritage Alteration permit, which means it need to meet the rather strict Queen’s Park Historic District Residential Design Guidelines.

The replacement as proposed meets those guidelines, and also requires no variances from the current RS-1 zoning as far as size, FSR, height or such. The project was recommended for approval by the Heritage Commission and the Technical Review Panel.

Train Whistle Cessation at the Begbie Street and Front Street Crossings
The endless adventure continues. The engineering work for Whistle Cessation on the Begbie and Front Street crossings downtown is complete (at a cost of just over $1 Million to the City), we only need to go through the paperwork exercises. By passing this resolution, we are formally serving notice to the rail operators under the Railway Safety Act. They have 30 days to comply. Assuming no surprises, whistles should stop sounding in Downtown New Westminster as soon as March.

2017 Spring Freshet and Snow Pack Level
It is a bit early to start planning for the 2017 Freshet, but despite our wintry winter, provincial snowpacks were mostly at or below average levels at the beginning of January. The notable exceptions are the South Coast and Lower Fraser Valley, which are 14% and 11% above average – and note this is before this week’s extra snowpocalypse events. Lots of snow is yet to fall across the province, and so much of freshet risk is related to how quickly it melts as opposed to how much there, but no need to worry yet.

Environment Advisory Committee: Corporate Sustainable Food Policy
This discussion grew organically (pun!) out of discussions at the Environment Advisory Committee. Food security and the impact of our food choices on the environment were part of the discussion, and there was some concern that City Hall doesn’t appear to be taking a leadership role in this regard in how we provide food at City functions and facilities. The committee started with the simple question: are the ubiquitous tropical fruits and cured meats the most sustainable choices for City Hall meetings? It definitely expanded beyond that narrow topic to thoughts of developing more of a corporate-wide policy about food.

I think this is a discussion worth having as part of our City’s larger Environmental vision, and am happy to support the Committee’s recommendation

We then did our regular run through of Bylaws that needed Council action:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (Hastings Street Unzoned Right of Way) No. 7899, 2017
Road Closure and Dedication Removal (43 Hastings Street) Bylaw No. 7898, 2017
These Bylaws that support the closure and rezoning of an unopened road portion in Downtown, so they can be included in an Affordable Housing Project, were given two readings.

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Bylaw No. 7892, 2017
This Bylaw that supports the City’s updated Protection of Privacy policy was adopted by Council. It is the law of the land.

Finally, we had one item of New Business:

LEED Gold certification for civic buildings
The City currently has a policy that new civic buildings meet or exceed LEED Gold standard, however the LEED standard is now only one of several certification standards used to measure the lifetime environmental footprint and energy efficiency of new buildings, from LEED to NetZero to Passive House. As the city is considering a significant investment in capital projects in the years ahead (Canada Games Pool, new Animal Care Facility, a replacement for the Arenex), council has asked staff to provide us a report outlining the costs and benefits of different standards, to determine if our slightly myopic LEED Gold policy is still the best way to achieve our energy efficient building goals.

…and with that, we were done for the night, except for a couple of council members needing to dig their cars out of 12 hours of snow.

Ask Pat: Working together

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Matt asked—

So once again, the MOT (Ministry of Transpiration) rolls into town looking to save us from gridlock. I won’t bore you with my opinion on this strategy, but it got me thinking: Where and how does the wishes of the MOT mesh/clash with the wishes of the Mayor’s Transportation Plan.

I think you get my point, but let me expand. I understand the MOT is responsible for certain transportation needs, goods movement is one of them. So I know that truck corridors and the like are the purview of the provincial government and municipalities have to play ball. But on the other side of it, when and how does the Province have to place nice with the Mayors’ Council, or less formally, the wishes of Metro mayors?

There are clearly vastly different visions of how to move people and goods within our region between the current provincial government and the (some) regional mayors.

Square this circle for me.

It is pretty simple. Cities exist at the pleasure of the provincial government. Every power local governments have, including organizations of local governments like the Mayors’ Council and the regional government committees, exists at the pleasure of the provincial government. They have the ultimate ability to overrule any local government decision, and the only price the provincial government would pay for exercising that power unreasonably would be a political one.

This should be obvious when looking at the Vancouver School Board situation. A public body, elected by the public through open elections driven by politics, was fired by the provincial government for being “too political”, or more specifically, for acting in a way that was partisan and defiant of the provincial government.

In the case of transportation in the Lower Mainland, you are correct in identifying there are at least two ongoing visions, and some significant incompatibilities between them. The first is outlined in the Mayor’s Vision and TransLink Transport 2040 plan that it supports. This was developed by the region (with, notably, the approval of the provincial government) and was designed to reinforce the Regional Growth Strategy and the Official Community Plans of the 22 Municipalities that make up Greater Vancouver. The second is being driven by the Gateway Council, a business-government hybrid organization that is primarily interested in moving goods through the region by providing subsidies in the form of taxpayer-funded asphalt through our neighbourhoods and cities.

No point of hiding which of the two visions I support.

There is a lot of history to this transportation schism. It goes back at least as far as Skytrain planning and the setting up of TransLink. There are roots in technology choices for rapid transit that resulted in SkyTrain technology being chose, through the Mayor’s refusal to approve building the Canada Line before completing Evergreen, and the subsequent stripping of their powers by Kevin Falcon. It is reflected in the sudden interest in building a $4 Billion bridge to nowhere while putting every roadblock in place to delay funding of critical public transit expansion. It continues today in the Vancouver Board of Trade (a prominent member of Gateway) calling for a 6-lane Pattullo Bridge long after the regions’ Mayors and TransLink have already settled on a 4-lane solution.

It is not cynical to suggest MOT appears to take more guidance from the Gateway Council than from the Mayors. So it should be no surprise when a government so proud of its fiscal prudence suddenly finds $600 Million to build a highway expansion project, and that the residents of those communities are surprised at its sudden arrival.

I have some pretty significant concerns with the project that MOT has presented to New Westminster and Coquitlam. Efforts to improve the Brunette overpass have somehow brought the UBE back on the table, and it is pretty clear how our community feels about the UBE. That said, I also have reasons to hold cautious optimism about this proposal, because it has resulted in unprecedented conversations between the Cities of New Westminster and Coquitlam.

For the first time anyone can remember, staff and elected official from both cities are sitting down together to discuss our transportation connections, our concerns and needs, and are looking for the common ground, in the hopes that it can help define the best approach to the this project for both communities. I cannot speak too much about what is happening at those meetings (there will be press releases when appropriate), except to say that I have learned a lot about Coquitlam’s view of these issues, and I know they have heard and understood our community’s issues. I’m not sure we are going to come out with a perfect solution that satisfies all parties, but I am encouraged by the respectful and honest discussions going on, and the hard work staff from both cities are doing to make our political fantasies something that may be operational (that is more difficult that you may imagine).

If we hope, as local governments, to influence provincial policy as it impacts our communities, we need to work together like this towards practical solutions, and make it easy for the provincial government to agree with our vision. That doesn’t mean we need to fold over to political pressure when bad provincial policy hurts our communities, but it also means we can’t collapse behind our own borders and pretend our local issues have no influence on regional issues. In the end, we may fundamentally disagree, but let us at least assure we understand what the position is that we are disagreeing with, and why.

But to answer your original question – when does MOT need to play nice with municipalities? When the Minister determines it is required for political reasons. Vote accordingly.

Council – January 30, 2017

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

We had a relatively short Council meeting this week, partly because we had a long workshop during the day, and a Public Hearing in the evening. You never know how long a Public Hearing is going to go, so the Agenda was a little short. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t exciting and full of fun stuff.

We had 4 Public Hearings, but three were on different aspects of one project:

(612 – 618 Brantford Street) Official Community Plan Amendment Bylaw No. 7876, 2017; Heritage Revitalization Agreement Bylaw No. 7886, 2017; and Heritage Designation Bylaw No. 7885, 2017
This project is interesting for several reasons. It is a 6-story apartment building on a small street in uptown just north of Bent Court. The building includes a lot of 2- and 3-bedroom suites which meet our Family-Friendly Housing policy, and the ground floor apartments are designed to face the street and make for a attractive street interface. The HRA part of this is related to the 1898 house on the site, which will be preserved, move to the west (sunny) side of the lot, and restored into a three-bedroom family home.

The project was modified through discussions with the Design Panel and Advisory Planning Commission, both of which gave approval to the final plan. The Residents association was generally in favour. We received one piece of correspondence for the Public Hearing, which was in support of the project.

At the Public Hearing, we had one neighbour speak against the project. To paraphrase what I hear in her presentation, she was not convinced the restored heritage home was worthwhile, and was worried about the impact on street parking.

I did not share her opinion about the preservation of the house, and think that a project like this is an important component of how we, as a City, are going to accommodate growth and the need for housing with the desire to preserve heritage assets, especially houses more than 100 years old. I also noted the project has more parking than suites (50 parking spots for 42 suites, plus 7 guest parking spots) which is a few short of the zoning requirement, but a variance I am willing to support for family-friendly housing Uptown.

Council referred the applications to Regular Council for Third Reading.

Zoning Amendment (Housekeeping) Bylaw No. 7893, 2017
This Bylaw makes several minor changes to our Zoning Bylaws to reflect the reality of how commercial spaces are used in the City. It allows pet daycare at animal care facilities, adds Daycare to a few select commercial zones, and updates the list of Liquor Primary operators in the city.

Not surprisingly, no one sent us correspondence, and no one came to speak at the Public Hearing in regards to this amendment. Council referred the Bylaw to Regular Council for Third Reading.

We then moved into our Regular Meeting, where we discussed the aforementioned Bylaws:

Official Community Plan Amendment (612 – 618 Brantford Street) Bylaw No. 7876, 2017; Heritage Revitalization Agreement (612 – 618 Brantford Street) Bylaw No. 7885, 2017; Heritage Designation (612 – 618 Brantford Street) Bylaw No. 7886, 2017
Council gave these Bylaws Third reading, moving the project towards formal adoption.

Zoning Amendment (Housekeeping) Bylaw No. 7893, 2017
Council gave this Housekeeping Bylaw Third reading, moving it towards formal adoption.

The Following items were them moved on Consent:

Poet Laureate Emerita Award
Candice James’ terms as Poet Laureate came to an end, as the Terms of Reference for the position limit how long a person can serve. Her service as our third Poet Laureate was exemplary, and the Arts Commission recommended to Council that we officially offer her the honourary title of “Emerita” for perpetuity.

Applications for Grant Funding to the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development Infrastructure Planning Program
The City is applying for a grant to help pay for some infrastructure planning work – determining where we need tot spend and when to maintain our infrastructure. This is only planning work, not actual infrastructure repairs, as $10,000 doesn’t go very far, but well take it if we can get it.

Report on Major Purchasing Transactions for the Period September 1 to December 31, 2016
Three times a year, Staff report out on major purchases, as part of our open accounting. You can look at this report and see what we are spending your money on, and how the open procurement process worked out.

Investment Report to December 31st, 2016
The City has several Reserves Funds to pay for future capital works and commitments we have made under our DCCs, along with a bit of surplus money from previous budgets. We keep some of that money in the bank so it is readily available, and we keep some in Municipal finance Authority funds that give pretty good return and are very low risk. You can read the report for more details, but very short version: it’s about $124 Million, and we budget to earn about $2 Million in interest on that money.

Bylaw Updates to Permit Amusement Arcades in the C-4 and C-8 Zones, and to Update as a Permitted use Amusement Arcades in the C-3, C-CD-2 and C-CD-3 Zone: Zoning Amendment Bylaw 7881, 2017, Business License Amendment Bylaw 7903, 2017 and Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw 7904, 2017 – For First and Second Readings
The City is looking at taking a more open and adult approach to permitting video arcades/ pinball halls (depending on your generation), and getting rid of the current blanket prohibition.

Funny to read the regional bylaws where these types of operations are permitted with varying levels of control. It is easy to read the Moral Panic in the development of these bylaws. From Surrey’s: “No person under the age of 16 years is permitted to operate a pinball machine after 10:00pm, except Fridays and Saturdays or the night prior to a statutory or school holiday, unless accompanied by a parent or legal guardian”.

Council moved to give there Bylaws two readings.

The following item was removed from the consent agenda for discussion:

Privacy Management Program Approval
Freedom of Information is an important principle in governance today, and the flip side is privacy protection. They are so intertwined that they are regulated together under the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA). The City has implemented FOI procedures, even have a staff member whose job it is to manage FOI compliance (so Council or senior management cannot decide unilaterally when or why something is protected from public eyes).

A new, refreshed Privacy Policy is part of this. The City manages lots of information about homeowners, about users of our public facilities, about our own staff. The balance of how much of *your* information is public and how much is private, and the process to determine the difference, must comply with the provincial law. The policy being introduced here doesn’t replace or supersede the law, it provides guidance to staff on how to remain compliant, and makes clear whose job it is to assure compliance.

We wrapped our usual business, as usual, with reading of Bylaws:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw (Amusement Arcades) No. 7881, 2017
Business License Bylaw Amendment Bylaw No. 7903, 2017
Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7904, 2017
As mentioned above, Council gave these three Bylaws that support the operation of Arcade amusements in the City two readings. We will review these Bylaws at a Public Hearing on February 20th. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Bylaw No. 7892, 2017
As mentioned above, this Bylaw managing how the city will comply with Provincial Privacy laws, was given three readings by Council.

Development Cost Charge Reserve Funds Expenditure Bylaw No. 7900, 2017
As mentioned on January 16, this Bylaw that re-allocates some DCC funds to build some sewer infrastructure was Adopted by Council. It’s the law of the land, may the sewage be pumped to the benefit of all.

And that, excepting some somber discussion of current local, national, and international events that have us all looking for catharsis, was an evening at Council. It is a strange time with too much to get depressed or distressed about. People are good, be good to each other, and don’t let the bad out there change you, or convince you it is winning. It never has before.

More than the map

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I know a few people showed up at Council today, hoping to talk about the Official Community Plan and Land Use Map. Unfortunately, it was a Public Hearing night, as the last meeting of every month usually is, and as such we generally don’t have Public Delegations on those nights, saving space in the Agenda and reserving the floor for people who would like to talk to Council about items on the Public Hearing.

Worry not, there will be lots of opportunity for you to talk to Council about the OCP, as the entire draft Plan will be going out to Public Open houses in February. That was the decision made by Council today during our mid-day Workshop, which you can watch here, if you want to get a sense of where Council is on this topic, the conversation was wide-reaching and at times challenging.

You might want to look at the Land Use Map (as that seems to be where most of the conversation has been up to now), but you may also want to delve into the entire OCP document. This is a 150-page document that draws a much more detailed map of where the citizens of New Westminster see the City going over the next 10 to 25 years.

(You can click here to open the Council document from today’s Workshop, skip ahead to page 128, unless you also care about Heritage Protection in Queens Park!)

Under an overarching Vision Statement, there are 7 major Themes. These Themes support 12 Goals, which are descriptions of how we will describe the City in 25 years. To reach those Goals, there are 61 proposed Policies and 175 Actions that the City will take. It is only after reviewing those intended Actions that the Land Use Map and Land Use Designations make sense. The map should, if the OCP is on the right track, support those Policies and Goals, and ultimately, the Vision. And I want to talk about that.

“New Westminster is a healthy, inclusive and thriving community where people feel connected with each other.  This sustainable city showcases a spectacular natural environment, public spaces and unique neighbourhoods that are well-connected and accessible. Superior urban design integrates its distinctive character, heritage assets and cultural identity. Growth and development provide a variety of services and employment opportunities that contribute to a high quality of life for all.”

When we started this process, almost three years ago, there was a burgeoning housing crisis in the Lower Mainland. In the two years since, the situation has gotten measurably worse. Accessibility to housing and affordability of housing is at critical levels in New Westminster, with 30% increases in property values in the last 12 months alone – ground oriented housing increased at more than that rate.

Over the last decade (and notably, mostly before my time, so I get little credit here) New Westminster has made real progress in addressing homelessness, in creating incentives to address the critical rental shortage, and in supporting the development of more affordable apartments and sustainable densities around our SkyTrain hubs. However, the “Missing Middle” is still a challenge. This OCP, and drafted, will open up possibilities for a variety of housing forms in some areas, and I appreciate the increased flexibility offered in the “ground oriented Infill” designation.

Just two weeks ago, we had a Council Report on the City’s Business Survey, and one of the biggest concerns of our business community was the loss of affordable family housing: for their employees and for their customers. Affordable family housing and housing variety isn’t just the biggest issue in our housing file, it is the biggest issue in our business development file, our transportation file, and our sustainability file.

I hope that during this last round of public consultation, we can correct some of the misinformation that lead to some relatively concentrated but sincerely-felt push-back, and can continue the ongoing three-year-long conversation about the context of this OCP and the future vision for the City that it presents. As part of that, we need to ask ourselves – have we done all we can to assure our family neighbourhoods can remain family neighbourhoods, accessible to the young families that will make our City prosper in the future? Have we provided opportunities for people from all walks of life and from all stages of life, to live in New Westminster and contribute to the vibrancy of this great community? Have we addressed regional affordability challenges and shown the leadership our residents expect from us?

So we are taking this back out to Open Houses, and I hope our residents and businesses ask themselves if this plan it meets their vision for that “healthy, inclusive and thriving community”.

The schedule ahead:

schedule

Pedestrians matter

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

The City has been doing a lot under the new Master Transportation Plan to re-prioritize our transportation system. As New Westminster is increasingly a compact, mixed-use urban centre, our public spaces become more important to the comfort and safety of residents, to the attractiveness and accessibility of our businesses, and to the building of community. That means our public spaces have to be safe places for people; that safety cannot be compromised in the interest of “getting traffic flowing”. Freeways are for flowing traffic, streets are for people.

I’m proud of the work that the City’s Advisory Committee for Transit, Bicycles and Pedestrians (ACTBiPed) has done, and the collaborative attitude that City staff has adopted when discussion transportation issues, be they local traffic improvements or large regional projects like the Pattullo Bridge. However one piece of the political puzzle around transportation has been notably absent, not just in New Westminster, but regionally, and that is an independent advocacy organization to support the rights of pedestrians, and assure their voice is heard.

We have had various regional “straphangers” organizations over the years, and greater Vancouver has not one, but two separate cycling advocacy groups: The BC Cycling Coalition and HUB. The cycling groups have demonstrated that adding political voices together multiplies the volume, but also shows that advocacy can be constructive and collaborative. Their hard work over the last decades has resulted in millions of dollars in work making cycling a safer and easier alternative to driving in our region, and their work goes on.

There hasn’t been any such organization regionally working on protecting pedestrian space, or helping governments make better decisions regarding pedestrian rights. Perhaps this is because pedestrians are not seen as an under-represented minority. When you think about it, we are all pedestrians. Even if the only walking you do is to get from your car to a parking space, you need outcross a sidewalk to get there, and want that space to be safe (To expand out to truly everyone – the definition of “pedestrian” in modern transportation planning includes those who need mobility aids like walkers of chairs to help them get around). But politically, pedestrians are almost silent.

When the Ministry of Transportation, TransLink, or a Local Government design a new bridge or overpass, they seek input from the BC Trucking Association and the Gateway Council, organizations like BCAA and HUB use their political influence and the voices of their membership to assure that the interests of their member groups are added to the discussion. But pedestrians, for some reason, are absent. Because of this, sidewalks, crosswalks, and other aspects of the pedestrian realm are too often tacked on afterward, not integrated into the primary design thinking. The first thought is “how do we move cars”, then followed by “ok, let’s fit in some sidewalks”. Imagine how we would design our transportation system differently if we started with “how will a pedestrian use this space”, then decide what spaces we can allow for cars? Shouldn’t that be the default mode in a dense urban area like New West? Where is the organization to advocate for this shift?

The good news is that some local people are starting just this type of organization. They are calling themselves New Westminster Walker’s Caucus. They are a small group started by a few people familiar to the ACTBiPed as strong advocates for pedestrian rights, and for walking as a transportation mode. They have had a couple of meetings, and would love a little support from other walkers in New West and the region – show up at a meeting, lend them your skills, share the conversation.

We are all pedestrians, it’s time we stopped being so damn quiet about it.

Ask Pat: short questions

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Sleepless asks—

A few short questions :

1. The trains are still whistling downtown as of the end of September. Any update on the progress w.r.t. whistle cessation?

Answered, for the most part.

2. Will New Westminster be following in the footsteps of Vancouver to require business licenses for Airbnb rentals?

I don’t know, but I suspect so.

I have done a lot of research and had a lot of discussions around Short Term Rentals. It was a big topic at the UBCM conference this year, I have brought the discussion to Council, and even organized a community conversation on the topic. It is an interesting topic from a Local Government perspective, and something I think we need to act on.

From what I have learned (and I reserve my right to change my opinion here if presented with better reasoning of evidence), I think Cities should regulate the practice of renting out residential properties to short term users (i.e. any rental situation not already regulated by the Residential Tenancy Act or the Hotel Keepers Act). I think a business licence should be required, and the City should be performing inspections to assure that rental suites meet building code and fire safety requirements. We also need a regulatory structure to manage the inevitable neighbourhood concerns and conflicts.

That said, I don’t think Vancouver’s regulatory approach is the most effective, and may be more punitive that necessary. I look instead at the approaches of Tofino and Nelson. New Westminster is unique city in that we are a small city in the middle of the metropolis. We also have a high rental population, and through progressive policies are seeing much more rental coming on line over the next few years, so although our rental vacancy is still low enough that it is a serious housing affordability issue, I think we are on the right track towards addressing that. We also, as City, have very few hotel rooms, and no serious intent (that I know of) for anyone to build more. With our walkable neighbourhoods and high transit connectivity, our well connected small business community and burgeoning “cool” factor, Short Term Rentals can be a positive economic driver for the City. We can make this a good news story – if we do it right.

3. Has the city considered moving the library downtown into the Anvil building? I grew up in a town where the city council built a white-elephant ‘civic center’, much like the Anvil building, but after seeing it going mostly unused for a couple of years, they converted one floor into a large and modern public library, and the resulting increase in traffic resulted in revitalization of the center and eventually the surrounding downtown area as well.

No. There is no room in the Anvil for a Library. And in that sense, I take exception to the idea at the Anvil Centre is a “White Elephant”. For the most part, the Anvil Centre is fulfilling expectations for the uses it was intended. The Museum and Archives are settled in their new home, the New Media Gallery is regionally lauded. The convention and rentals side of the business is doing great, and the theatre program is finally starting to come together. The community arts spaces are programming up, and although there is still more work to do on this aspect of the centre, it is already serving its intended role providing opportunities for residents to practice arts, with more positive development to come.

Yeah, the restaurant space is still empty, but we now have a solid tenant with a great vision. I remain a little disappointed about the street expression of the space – I think we need to find more effective ways to open up the ground floor to the street and vice versa to make that space more lively. Hopefully the restaurant will start that process, but I don’t think that the complete solution. I have a few ideas here, but will hold them close to my chest until we have a better opportunity to work with the Anvil staff and develop some of these ideas. However, the main point is that there simply isn’t any “unused” space in the building to allow for something like a remote library.

Conversely, we are investing quite a bit of money in the existing Uptown main branch of the library to fix some building issues and fit customer needs better. The Library is the City’s most used public facility, and it is suffering a bit from age and traffic, necessitating the investment of a few million dollars in repairs and refit. The second “satellite” library in Queensborough is by any measure a success serving a community separated by a bridge and a little too much distance from Uptown.

I would suggest, if we were looking at more of these satellite library locations, that Sapperton has a more compelling case for need than the Downtown. However, We also need to put that idea into the perspective that we are a small City: 70,000 people within 15 square kilometres. There is a serious question whether satellite campuses for the Library make sense across that space, or whether the significant investment should be better spent in making our single branch work more effectively. However, that bigger idea may be a question for the Library Board, of which I am not a member.

Keeping Busy

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

My New Year’s goal of writing more frequent blog posts – even just short ones – is being challenged by my schedule. So as part of ongoing lemonade-making efforts, I will make a blog post out of my too-busy-to-write-anything-useful day today.

I attended a meeting this morning where the lead researchers of the Southwest BC Bioregion Food System Design Project reported out results of the first phases of their ongoing study. There is a lot to digest (pun!) here, and the actual reports are going to be made publicly available in a couple of weeks, so I will wait until then to have a longer discussion about what this research project means, to the region and to a City like New Westminster (we were one of 8 Local Governments that provided a little funding to help bring this research to life).

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Long version short – we are challenged to supply all of our food locally in this rapidly growing region, and without significant change in how and what we eat, the region will never be self-sustaining no matter how much ALR we protect. However, there are some significant economic and other advantages to encouraging increased use of ALR land for local food crops, and less reliance on food imports. There are also (somewhat paradoxically) some potential environmental/ecological disadvantages to this approach. It is a complex problem, as might be expected from an analysis of so many interweaving complex systems.

After this meeting, I took my first ever trip on the Evergreen Line to Coquitlam City Hall to meet with members of Coquitlam Council and staff to continue our discussion of the Brunette Overpass project. Nothing exciting to announce yet here, except for continued progress in finding common ground on the principles and challenges of the project. I remain positive about this file.

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It may be telling about our biases that the New Westminster contingent (Council members and Staff) rode the Evergreen together to and from the meeting, reducing at least by one or two the number of vehicles trying to get through the constricted interchange that connects our City. Its almost as if there are alternatives to more lanes…

Finally, this evening members of the New Westminster Advisory Committee on Transit, Bicycles and Pedestrians, and the Parks and Recreation Committee had a joint meeting to talk about potential design and functional elements of a waterfront connection between the Pier Park and Sapperton Landing.

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We are *really early* in this process, and although making a connection here is a Council priority, we have a lot of jurisdictional, engineering, and budget issues to work through. However, some high-level understanding of what people would want or expect from the connection is useful in setting some terms and developing concepts.

These are all projects I hope to be able to write more about soon. I’d love to hear your opinions about any of them.

NW Station glass

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

After several months of disruption, it is with little fanfare that the New Westminster Skytrain station was fully re-opened after renovation. Immediately noticeable in the new station is the mural stretching up the staircase to the eastbound platform.

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In a nice understated nod to local history, the glass mural is an amalgam of images from New Westminster history, some familiar, some not. The photos were drawn form New West Archives and the Vancouver Public Library collection, and collaged with colour effects by artist Sean Alward.

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The overall effect down the staircase is to mimic the flow of the Fraser River itself, with various pictures of “nature” juxtaposed with “resources” that we have created from nature through a 150+ year history of New Westminster’s development. And the people are more shadows, impressions imposed on the background. A really nice piece. And what’s with the blimp?

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Ask Pat: Whistle cessation update.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 6 Comments.

I’ve been a little behind on my “Ask Pat” responses. There are a few questions on different aspects of the Whistle Cessation theme, so I’ll cover them all with my answer to this one:

J.S. asked—

RE: new westminster train whistle cessation

I do not understand this project. There is a law saying train has to sound its horn at every crossing. Is there a law require it to be so loud that the entire town can hear it? Instead of throwing money on all these cessation projects which seem to be going nowhere, can’t train horn simply be modified so it is less aloud like a car horn or even a bell? Canadian train travels slower than a car. And I believe the law meant for it to be heard at that intersection only.

Yes, that would make total sense, but the answer to your first question is a completely absurd “yes”.

Train horns are designed to call attention to a train approaching a lonely rural road on the Canadian Shield at 80km/h, and therefore blow at something exceeding 100db for a regulatory more-than-20-seconds-for-every-crossing. That might make sense on a snowy rural crossing 100 miles east of Thunder Bay, but in the middle of a busy urban area the volume of the horns is clearly absurd. Especially then the crossing already has gates, bells, flashing lights, and the train is rolling along at 20km/h with a gigantic diesel engine chugging away at the front of it.

But the Railway Safety Act has a tendency to err on the side of caution, probably for good historic reasons. So we are stuck with this absurdity.

I would normally say “call your MP”, except that I know your MP has been working on rail interface issues for years, and has been stonewalled by successive governments and the simple intractability of trying to get the rail industry to behave as a good neighbour in urban areas. There is a bunch of long history here, related to the railways that built the Nation thinking and such, which was at one time, when railways were part of the National Enterprise, compelling, but now seem so much hollower now that the rail companies are just another multinational corporation charged with the holy duty of returning shareholder value… but I digress.

The City is, as you may have heard, working on bringing “Whistle Cessation” to our level crossings. This requires a significant amount of safety engineering, most of it patently absurd, to provide redundant safety measures enough that the Act and the railway operators are satisfied that absent-minded pedestrians and drivers won’t physically be able to wander into the path of a train. The City needs to pay for these works, and the rail companies that own the crossings both have to approve them, then decide (after the work is done, natch) if it now constitutes adequate protection to no longer require every person in a 5km radius to be alerted of the trains’ presence.

The works in New West have been painfully slow. There were a few engineering challenges, including the need to order some special equipment that could only be provided by a supplier approved by a railway. The multiple steps of design, pre-approval, engineering drawings, waiting for clearance, approvals to work in the right of way, waiting for the rail company to do the bits only they are authorized to do, getting authorization to do the bits we are authorized to do… it was painful.

However, I am happy to announce that the City has officially notified all of the stakeholders who need to be informed* that the City will officially request that Whistle Cessation be brought into effect for the two Front Street crossings through a resolution at Council scheduled for February 6th, 2017.

There are also three level crossings in Sapperton, and I have no idea when whistle cessation will be brought to those. The engineering requirements as far as sight lines and approach angles for cars under the Skytrain pillars are such that it appears simply impossible to meet any existing regular whistle-free standard. We will try, and new road infrastructure along that corridor will be viewed through a lens of whistle cessation, but barring radical ideas, I’m not making any promises about when that will actually occur.

*The list of Stakeholders who were officially served letters informing them of the City’ intentions for the February 7th meeting included the four rail companies that regularly operate on that line, plus PLM Railcar Management Services (Canada) Ltd.; PROCOR Ltd.; General Electric Railcar Services Corporation; the Canadian Fertilizer Institute; the Canadian Chemical Producers Association; the United Transportation Union; the Transportation Communications International Union Systems Board; UNIFOR; Teamsters Canada Rail Conference; Travailleurs Unis Transport (1843); the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen; the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union; GATX Rail Canada; Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 279; International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the Propane Gas Association of Canada Inc. Dear God I hope we haven’t missed anyone. It’s absurd.

Council – January 16, 2017

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The January 16 Council Meeting was mostly memorable for me as I was still feeling the lingering effects of some sort of exotic fever that had me bedridden for the entire weekend. It is flu season at City hall, we are on a bit of skeleton staff because of it, but we soldiered on and did the City’s business.

The meeting began with presentations on the following topics:

2016 Business Survey
The City hired a polling firm to do a fairly comprehensive survey of the City’s businesses. This was part satisfaction survey, and part research to find out where the City needs to put more emphasis in its economic development plans.

Perhaps surprising to some was the level of overall satisfaction the business community has with the City of New Westminster. Yes, businesses have concerns with traffic, real estate costs, taxes, and a lack of affordable housing, but the responses were overwhelmingly positive about the experience of doing business in the City, and dealing with City Hall. Again, our strengths are our sense of community and “small town” connections in the middle of a big city customer base.

I was also happy to see many of the ideas businesses had for improving the business climate in the City were aligned with initiatives the City is already working on – a sign that our staff already had a pretty good sense of the needs. Overall a positive survey, and a good guide towards improvements.

City of New Westminster Innovation Week Overview
Continuing on the theme of business development, this is a great initiative developed in partnership with the Federal Government and several important local partners. Attracting innovative businesses, new-tech small industry and research & development to New Westminster is fundamental to our longer-term Intelligent City and IDEA Centre programs.

As this is all coming together, New Westminster was able to attract an event previously held in the City of Vancouver to bring emerging businesses together with federal technology grant agencies, Angel Investors, and other stakeholders. This being New West, we are spinning the one-day Innovation Forum into a week-long celebration of innovation, including a special PechaKucha evening, a Hack-a-Thon at City Hall, events for families, kids, innovators, and pretty much everyone in the City.

Follow the links here and see how you might take part.

New Energy Efficiency Initiatives for Multi-Residential Buildings and Strata Condominium Buildings in New Westminster
Energy efficiency programs have for several years that provided one-stop-shopping for homeowners looking at renovations or appliance replacements. Programs like Energy Save New West hooking homeowners up with different subsidies, rebates, and other support programs to reduce costs and encourage making our housing stock more efficient and sustainable in the long term.

However, most people in New Westminster don’t live in single family detached houses, but in Strata-managed or rental multi-family buildings. Providing them the economic and environmental benefits of more efficient housing is a bit more of a challenge, but New West has been working with regional partners to expand efficiency and retrofit programs to these housing sectors.

There is much more good stuff in this report, and coming down the pike, so I guess I’ll have to write some blog posts on the topic in coming months…

Drone Policy
We have not exactly been overwhelmed with complaints about remote control flying devices, but some Cities are taking a proactive approach to regulating them. I’m generally opposed to the idea of outright banning emergent technology, but am not opposed to laying out some community standards in how the tech is used, within the limits of our jurisdiction. Council referred this to staff to see if they can give us a little guidance.

The following items were moved on Consent without discussion:

2017 Committee, Commission and Panel Appointments
Council officially released the list of 2017 Committee appointments. If you applied and were selected to serve on a Committee, congratulations, and get ready to do some interesting work. If you applied and were not selected, Please don’t take it personally. We had a lot of great applications this year, and every committee selection is a difficult balance between viewpoints, experiences, and talents. The worst part is when someone has been a really great committee member, but you need to let them go to provide some opportunities for new members. This is an unfortunate result of having a really engaged and activated community – we always have more applicant than we know what to do with.

100 Braid Street: Development Variance Permit No. DVP00620 for the East Side Yard Setback Requirement for the Existing Building to Remain on the Site
The urban Academy / Wesgroup development at 100 Braid Street will be a two-phase project, with the school half starting pretty soon and the residential half not anticipated for a few years. The plan included subdividing the property, however the existing building at 100 Braid is too close to the proposed property line to allow such a subdivision under the current Bylaws. This variance will allow Phase 1 to proceed without the need to demolish the building that houses the current art gallery.

This variance request will have an Opportunity to Be Heard at the February 20, 2017 Council meeting. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Queen’s Park Arenex: Removal from the City’s Heritage Register
The building was on the Heritage Register. The Building is no more. We need to remove it from the Register officially. Alas…

New Westminster Age-Friendly City Strategy
Council supported staff’s intention to move forward developing this strategy to assure that our City is a place where people are able to live at all stages of life. It fits with so many of the City’s existing goals, and will help prepare us for the demographic shifts that are coming the New West and the entire region over the next couple of decades.

DCC Expenditure Bylaw No. 7900, 2017 for Sanitary Works in the Queensborough Special Study Area
A Development Cost Charge (DCC) is a fee we collect from developers when they apply to increase the density of a piece of land through development to cover the larger cost to the City’s infrastructure resulting from the density growth. More people mean bigger water pipes and sewer pipes, so we collect water and sewer DCCs, and use that money to increase the capacity of the utility system when it is more appropriate to do so. Sometimes this is before a development is built, sometimes it is after, but the City’s ability to pool DCC money, and borrow from it in anticipation of future DCC money being collected, provides the financial leverage to make the sure developers cover much of the cost of servicing population growth.

This DCC expenditure will be to replace a major sewer pump station (an expensive piece of infrastructure!) in the Queensborough area adjacent to the proposed mixed-use development just west of Port Royal.

Internet Service Provider Agreement with Wi-Band Communications
Our BridgeNet dark fibre utility has a fifth client hoping to sell services to the community by putting light in the fibre. Wi-band has a slightly different business model, using the fibre backbone and line-of-sight through-the-air service delivery to not provide the highest possible speed, but a relatively economic and highly flexible service model. You can go to the BridgeNet website for more info to find out of fibre is right for you!

720 Second Street: Heritage Revitalization Agreement and Heritage Designation – Bylaws for First and Second Readings
This interesting project in Glenbrook North, which will restore an existing historic commercial building and build an adjacent residential home, will be going to Public Hearing on February 20, 2017. C’mon out and tell us what you think!

Delegation to Lijiang, China
I’m reluctant to support Sister City trips, I don’t generally see the ROI to the City for such things, as the opportunities for learning or business development are rarely realized. However, this student exchange program has been happening for several years with some success. Council moved to support this trip by Councillor Williams from the Sister Cities budget.

The following items were Removed from Consent for discussion:

Interpretive Signage Policy – Objectives, Principles and Workplan
Staff will spend a bit of time putting together policy guidance for the interpretive sign program in the City. Frankly, we have various interpretive signs, but not much of a program, resulting in a bit of a mish-mash of sign styles and purposes, mostly arrived at through one-off developments or events. As things like branding and marketing become more important for Cities, and as technology changes how we deliver interpretive signage, it is probably a good time to throw some best practices and guidance into a policy package.

Intelligent City Project Update
This is a peculiar report, as it seems to feature an all-time high concentration of buzzwords and catch phrases. However, it does outline progress in the city’s Intelligent City initiative, and deals with things perhaps less tangible than the dark fibre in the ground. I am supportive of the initiative, as I see it as an important aspect of our business development strategy in post-resource economy we are trying to build, but I wish I knew more buzzwords.

Metro Vancouver’s Food Action Plan
The City of New Westminster has been supportive of several regional food security initiatives, including providing support for a large KPU-led study of the regional food system known as the Southwest BC Bioregion Food System Design Project. This is because we, as a City, see food security as a significant component of sustainability.

The City is continuing to support this ongoing regional initiative, that moves the food security question far beyond the simple “protect the ALR” foundation, and expands ot include advocating for, supporting and protecting the entire local food supply chain, from assuring we have healthy riparian zones to support wild salmon stocks to assuring we have adequate food storage, processing, and distribution systems to support a health food supply economy, to assuring food waste is managed in a more sustainable way.

There is a lot to unpack here, but I wanted to call special attention to the Royal City Farmers Market, which has received support from the City in the past, but has now grown into a self-supporting and thriving 4-season portal for food security in the City. Beyond just providing marketing for locally grown and healthy food, they have created a variety of programs to get healthy food education into the schools, to get senior citizens and those with mobility issues access to the market, and to promote better living through better food throughout the City. They are a real shining star, and you should support them if you have any inkling of concern about food security locally, regionally, or nationally. You might even think about volunteering a few hours with them, I know they can always use more hands!

Official Community Plan Review: Land Use Designations for the Area Around the 22nd Street SkyTrain Station
Staff are continuing to refine the Land Use Plan map and other aspects of the proposed Official Community Plan. This report was a follow-up on numerous discussions about the 22nd Street SkyTrain station area. Most on council are pretty comfortable with seeing significant density around this SkyTrain hub, including mixed-use development at both medium and high density. These changes would re-imagine how the entire Connaught Heights neighbourhood would look and operate, potentially making for an entirely new and relatively compact mixed-use neighbourhood.

Council expressed support for a draft land use plan around the station, but I am frankly not all that convinced that change will be coming soon to Connaught Heights. The lot values are pretty high, there is a fairly new stock of single family homes in the area. To my knowledge, no-one is rushing to assemble land in the area despite the fact that the existing OCP has designated multi-family medium density development around the station for more than a decade now, with no action. However, an OCP that looks forward for several decades (to 2040 and beyond) should begin to sketch out what eventual development in that vitally important regional transit hub may look like.

326 Arbutus Street: Heritage Alteration Permit No. 86 to Permit Demolition – Council Consideration
This is the fourth application for demolition of a pre-1966 house in Queens Park that has gone through our detailed and technical review process since the start of the Heritage Conservation Period. We have granted one demolition and denied two others in that time. In this case, the home is again found to have very low heritage value and both the Heritage Commission and the Technical Review Committee found that there would not be a loss of heritage value to the neighbourhood if this demolition was permitted to proceed. Council supported allowing the demolition.

Environmental Strategic Priority Update
The City is working to update and consolidate many of its environmental policies, and to bring them in to line with the commitments made by the City by endorsing the Blue Dot initiative.
I like the vision statement, but when it comes to environmental action, it is always the Metrics I am most interested in. We collect various types of data on our environmental impact, through our CEEP, through our Urban Forest Management Strategy, through our waste management department and fleet budgets. I would like to see us find creative ways (perhaps through our Open data portal, or a more interactive Environmental Dashboard) to collect and report data on environmental performance, set realistic goals, and measure our progress towards them.

That is what has worked with Greenhouse Gasses, it can work in other areas. I thought up a shift to more permeable surfaces and less asphalt, measuring our consumption of resources such as water, electricity, or paper, or even just counting our native plant populations vs. invasive species. I’m not sure where the limits are in this type of direct measurement and reporting, but an excited about the opportunities.

Finally, we once again dispatched with some Bylaw business.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement (720 Second Street) Bylaw No. 7887, 2017
Heritage Designation Bylaw (720 Second Street) No. 7888, 2017
These Bylaws to support the proposed mixed commercial and residential project in Glenbrook North were given first and second readings. This project will go to Public Hearing on February 20th. C’mon out and tell us what you think!

Development Cost Charge Reserve Funds Expenditure Bylaw No. 7900, 2017
This Bylaw to support the spending of DCC monies to build the pump station Queensborough as described above was given three readings.

And with that, the evening was complete.