Q2Q Compromises

Posted on January 2, 2016January 4, 2016. by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

The Q2Q bridge is an important project for New Westminster, and one I support. It is, however, a project with major challenges, and I am glad we are at a stage where the next phase of public consultation is taking place, so we can talk about some of those challenges, and what they mean to the City.

First off, I need to put my comments on the Q2Q into context, in relation to my position on Council.

The Q2Q concept was developed long before I was elected, even before I started to rabble-rouse in the community on transportation topics. However, I have expressed strong support for the project for years, even piping up to challenge some of the past opponents of the concept. I have always believed, and continue to believe, that the Queensborough community needs to have a reliable, safe, and accessible connection to the “mainland” of New Westminster, and that connecting the beautiful waterfront greenways of Queensborough to the Quayside boardwalk will have huge benefits for both communities. When the topic came up during the election, I was quick to say I supported the project and wanted to see it built as soon as possible.

Now that I am on Council, and am (in part) responsible for getting this project done, the brutal reality of the project has set in. The bridge some of us may dream of may not be possible in this location, and the development of palatable compromises is daunting and frustrating at times. It is becoming a lesson for me about the reality of planning for community infrastructure when a local government’s power is so limited.

If someone were to ask me what I wanted to see in a Q2Q bridge, it would look something like this:

Click — (typical, ask an urbanist geek about a design, he takes you to Copenhagen)

The bridge would be approximately the elevation of the boardwalks on either side, fully accessible, would be at least 3m wide, and would have an interesting design aesthetic that creates some regional buzz when it is built. As marine traffic would need to cross, it would have an innovative swing style that was integrated in to the design, and was an eye-catcher such that the 5-minute wait for the boat to cross was not something that irritated you, but intrigued you. It would even have areas over the water where you could sit, have a picnic, drop a fish line in the water, or take photos of crossing trains, passing boats, or overhead eagles. It would also represent an easy connection for people commuting by bikes, people out for a stroll, people pushing kids in a stroller – a seamless connection across the river.

But that ain’t going to happen, because the City doesn’t own the river. Although the North Arm of the Fraser at that location is a significant industrial transportation corridor regulated by the Navigation Protection Act and Port Metro Vancouver. I cannot emphasize enough that the people who make a living moving things up and down the river would much prefer no bridge there at all, and due to the nature of the regulations, the people working the river get the say about what goes in, on, or over the river. If they don’t agree, nothing gets built.

The “they” in the case of the North Arm of the Fraser River are the Council of Marine Carriers. They use the North Arm of the Fraser to move barges, boats, booms, and all sorts of floating things. There are no alternate routes, and their business relies on it, so they are pretty motivated to keep the North Arm accessible.

If you haven’t noticed, the train bridge connecting the Quayside to Queensborough is open most of the time to marine transport, and only swings closed when a train needs to cross the river. This would not be a great situation for the Q2Q bridge if we want it to be a reliable transportation connection that pedestrians and cyclists can rely upon. We need a bridge where the default position is closed (to boats), that only swings open when the boats go by, with a cycle quick enough that it won’t cause major inconvenience for either user group.

For the bridge to operate like this, the Marine Carriers have determined a clearance of 14.5m over the water is required. This would permit enough boats to pass under without opening the bridge that a default-closed position is acceptable to the folks who work on the river. This 14.5m makes for a pretty challenging crossing for cyclists or pedestrians with mobility problems. Hence, we can’t have the bridge we want.

The question then becomes – how do we get people up to 14.5m? A ramp that meets typical mobility-access standards (i.e. no more than 5% grade – and yes, I am aware and frightened that 8% grades are shown on the rendering) would need to be about 250m long, even longer if we add standard landings at set distances. This would be expensive, and create a long visual intrusion for the Quayside residents next to the bridge. Stairs wrapped around an elevator column would have a much smaller visual impact, and if we can avoid the design mistake that led to a completely unacceptable delay on the Pier Park elevator (yes, we can), the size and scale of that structure is a good estimate of what the bridge landings would look like.

I would love to see some creative alternate approaches, and we may see some coming from the engineers we hire to build the bridge. The corkscrew ramps at the southern foot of the Golden Ears Bridge seem very effective to me, and are of the same scale vertically, although I’m not sure we have the footprint area to take the same approach:

…and I have my doubts whether Port Metro Vancouver would allow us to build such a structure over top of the water. It has already been suggested that the structure as proposed would require the highest level of environmental review (“Type D”) which makes it sound like a pedestrian and cyclist bridge will somehow have a bigger environmental risk than a coal terminal or LNG export facility.

You may also have noticed the plans for the bridge shifted from being slightly upstream of the train bridge to slightly below. The upstream side as a little better for the City, as both landings work better, but the downstream was deemed safer for boat traffic. Unfortunately, this means the landing on the Queensborough side is going to be much more complicated (read: expensive) to build.

Alas, we are stuck with what we have. I can complain about an industry group having more power than an elected local government about how our river is used, but as we learned in the Fraser Surrey Docks coal terminal discussions, the Port does not answer to local governments, but to their own mandate, and Sunny Ways are not likely to shift their business model any time soon.

So we will do what we can to build the most accessible, most convenient, and most user friendly bridge within the constraints given us, even if it isn’t as elegant as one we might see in a place like Copenhagen.

(non)-SimCity

Posted on December 24, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The City is having this on-going conversation about housing types. It is part of the consultation process for a new Official Community Plan. If you read this blog you probably care a bit about the future of the City, so you should take part. You can now do that without leaving the comforting warm blue glow of the computer you are looking at right now.

The OCP is a legally-required planning document the City produces, and it is usually updated every decade or so. The City is operating on a 1998 OCP that, despite regular updates and edits over the last 17 years, is getting very long in tooth. The process to update it has been going on for more than a year, and there have been several phases of public consultation, as open houses, as stakeholder meetings, and as special events.

Staff have gone out of their way to try to engage more people in this process so that resultant plan can better reflect the desires of the entire community, not just the easy-to-engage groups that are usually over represented in your regular City Open House. Now they have developed a new engagement tool, so you can sit at home on your computer or tablet and provide some useful insight to the process.

It comes at a time when the OCP is looking at housing types, and addresses what some have identified as a significant problem in New Westminster: we have a lot of apartments and an adequate supply of single family detached (SFD) homes; we have very little of the in-between housing types. Townhomes, row homes, du-, tri- and quad-riplex designs, and carriage/laneway housing. With the average SFD in New West selling over $800,000, young and growing families are running out of affordable options in our City, and it is the young, growing families that we need to sustain our community, our livability, and our community in the coming decades. If they leave (or are forced out by lack of flexible housing options), then our city will change in a way that few will like.

So the question to be asked right now is: How do those housing types fit in our community? Are there places this type of “infill density” makes sense, and places where it doesn’t? you can help answer this question by taking this on-line survey. But before you do, maybe I can explain a little more about how the survey works, and what you are being asked. So click this link, open a second window, and I’ll walk you through it.

When you open the survey, you can see there are 5 “pages”, and you are on Page 1, marked by a checkmark. As you go through each page, its page number will become a checkmark, so you can follow your progress.

Page 1 is just an intro with some factoids on it, and if you hit the “begin” button, it throws you to Page 2:Here is where various housing forms are shown, divided up into three categories: Low, Moderate, and High Infill. In each of those three categories, there are examples of housing types, (4,3,and 2, respectively). For each of those 9 types, you can select what you think about it (from strongly dislike to strongly like, with “neutral” in the middle). You can also provide some comments for each by hitting the “optional comment” section at the bottom. You might have a specific concern about the function of any one type, or talk about the measures that would need to be in place to make that form work for you.

Not sure what these housing types really look like? The City has provided a couple of walking tour maps, one of Queensborough, another of North Vancouver, where some of these housing types are already built. You can print them off and go take a look, or just go into Google Maps and Google Streetview and have a look around. We live in the future.

If you provide at least “like” levels for 50% or more of the housing types, you get your check mark and can move on to Part 3:This page gives you a map of the 1998 OCP (which you can zoom into and look around), and provides you three “Scenarios” for a new OCP. None of these scenarios are necessarily part of a final OCP, but they are models used to gauge opinion and each address different neighbourhoods differently. At the roughest form, Scenario 1 would provide little more growth than we have today, Scenario 2 would provide more opportunities around transportation corridors especially, and Scenario 3 would provide the most opportunity to diversify our housing types, spreading the potential growth around a little more.

You can zoom in and scan around the Three Scenarios, provide a simple 1-5 star rating, and provide optional comments on what you like or don’t like about each Scenario. If you open the Legend, you will see the shades of beige reflect the “Low-Moderate-High” infill that was discussed on the earlier page, and that is where the detail really hits the ground here.

It is important looking at this to remember, if a neighbourhood or street are zoned for “medium infill”, that in no way means every house on that street is going to be knocked down and replaced with a triplex or row homes. Development simply doesn’t happen like that. Houses belong to individual homeowners, the City cannot tell them to knock their house down and replace it. Looking at the existing OCP from 1998 (The “current scenario” map), there are many areas where higher density is permitted than currently exists. For example, the extensive “RL/RM” medium-density area around the 22nd Street SkyTrain station is still single family homes 18 years after that OCP was adopted. Changes permitted on a lot-by-lot basis on an OCP ware not changes required by an OCP on a neighbourhood basis, and with growth occurring at between1-5% annually, these changes are very gradual. This is why we need to look decades ahead in these plans.

So poke around those three scenarios, see what you like or don’t, add your opinions, and give them some “stars”. This earns you a check mark, and lets you move onto Page 4:Here, you can provide your own plan for how the City should grow. Starting with a blank map of the City (if you use the little pull-down menu that says “City Wide”, it will zoom to specific neighbourhoods). You can drag-and-drop any of the square tabs from the top row, from “Status Quo” up through density to “High Rise”, and drop in on a block in your map. Kind of like SimCity but less immediate feedback. You can also add comments on any block if you wish:

You can be creative about what you think the shape of New Westminster should be, recognizing that you are not looking at tomorrow, but 20-30 years in the future. Once you have dropped a few pieces, you earn your checkmark and move on:

Here, the survey collects a bit of demographic data. It is simple, and anonymous, but helps with understanding what groups are being reached with this tool, and which ones are not. You can provide an e-mail to receive updates (if you want), and add any extra comments. And you are done.

So this Christmas time, you are sitting around with the family, tryped out on tryptophan, presents are unwrapped, log in the fireplace, and it is a few days before the New Years College Football black hole opens up and consumes you whole, spend a half hour ~~playing~~ working on the computer and providing the City the data it needs to make the OCP vision fit your vision.

Merry Christmas! See you in 2016.

These people

Posted on December 17, 2015December 18, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Look at those two on my right. They aren’t just one of the cutest couples known to history, they are a big part of the recent history of New Westminster. I’m celebrating them here today because they just got on a plane, headed for Montreal and a new home, a new adventure, and a new community.

Will Tomkinson was born and raised in New West, in a heritage home on 1st street across from Queens Park. He is variously third- or fourth-generation or something the other, which makes him “Old New West”, and he has the sartorial style, baritone singing voice, and respect for traditions to fit the stereotype. Briana is a transplant to New West, with new-fangled ideas about creating local connections through social media and social justice, rarely hearing a new idea she didn’t want to throw up a flag pole, just to see who salutes. They met in Douglas College and eventually fell in enough love to start building a homestead in the West End of New Westminster. They started raising a gaggle of free-range kids, and started blogging about being a young family in New Westminster.

It was only a few years ago, but I cannot remember for certain when I first met them, or when I became aware of Tenth to the Fraser, or which came first. However, it must have been around the 2008 Municipal Elections when the Tomkinsons’ hyper-local Blog became part of my usual web surfing routine. I vaguely remember helping run an all-candidates event at Douglas College in what must have been the May 2009 Provincial election with Will and Briana (I seem to remember pulling audience-member’s questions out of Will’s fedora, but my memory is more photogenic than photographic), so we must have been friends by then.

What Briana and Will (and Will’s sister Jocelyn, and later Jen Arbo) did with 10ttF was create a social media nexus in New Westminster. It was a general-purpose Blog back when Blogs were the cool new thing. Instead of just being about them, they covered events in the city, politics, business reviews, and general interest stories about being a young family in a growing and changing community. And as with all really effective social media, it created digital connections that soon became human connections. They introduced us to, and induced us to support, new local businesses like Re-Up BBQ and new social enterprises like the Royal City Farmers Market. 10ttF was a glue that brought people together without the commitment of a club or the constraints of common interest, and their comments section was often where conversation took place amongst that in-between generation of young professionals and young families who found Letters to the Editor a little too quaint, and those who were too profane or silly to be committed to newsprint.

Through 10ttF, I was encouraged to start my own Blog, first on environmental issues as GreenNewWest (I was the President of the New Westminster Environmental Partners and an Environmental Scientist- “write what you know”, they say), then as NWimby, as my interests expanded. It was through 10ttF that I first met Jen Arbo, who once told me I had to do this Twitter thing (much to James Crosty’s chagrin), and who eventually became a huge supporter during my campaign for City Councillor. It was through 10ttF that I was encouraged to get involved on City advisory committees and other volunteer work around town, which was one part of what led to my Citizen of the Year nomination. I have a lot for which to personally thank Will and Briana.

So now the Tomkinsons are pulling up stakes and relocating to la belle province. A great job opportunity, and a chance to escape a bit from the frenetic property-value-defined lifestyle of the West Coast, they are going to raise that gaggle of kids in a wooded semi-rural area with actual seasons and where half the people speak an entire other language. Can’t say I’m not a little jealous for the adventure those kids are going to have. But even as they have been recently pulling back from their central-organizer roles in New West due to work commitments, an expanding family, and some other pressures, we will now truly feel their absence at the next New Westminster Scotch Appreciation Society meeting, at the next NEXT-NW soirée, at the next Brew Westminster kettle boil, when we need a line on a sweet artisanal axe.

The legacy they have created, however, will go on. Tenth to the Fraser has a new owner (the ubiquitous and omniscient Jen Arbo), and pieces are being put into place to create a new look and a new vibe to appeal to that larger group of digitally-connected people who are increasingly making New Westminster their home. The many connections Briana and Will made remain strong: on line, at Beer Friday, or just down at the River Market at a Saturday where we somehow find there is always someone to talk to, someone who is so familiar around New West as you consider them part of the furniture, but you can’t quite remember when you first met them.

Thank you Will and Briana. You are good friends, and great citizens, and you made New Westminster a better place for those you are leaving behind. We’ll see you again soon.

Council – Dec 7, 2015

Posted on December 13, 2015December 17, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Another week, another very late Council report. Sorry, but Theresa McManus sits through our sometimes interminable meetings, and I like when she gets the scoops! No, actually, in reality I have been busy with events, some political, some Christmassy, all much fun (except for the public meeting from which I was given the bum’s rush, but that is another story for another time!)

The final Council Meeting of 2015 began with Council passing the following items on Consent without discussion:

Preamble: many topics this week are around the various Community Grants the City awards to various groups in New Westminster for various purposes. All of these grant funds exist within a Terms of Reference, and a pre-determined budget. Each grant fund has its own committee that recommends to Council how the budget should be allocated, based on how their application meets the term of reference provided to the Committee by Council.

That said, ultimately, the decision on funding resides with Council. I really appreciate the work these committees do, and any changes that Council make to the recommended grant allocations represents either a failure of Council to set a Terms that properly reflect their desires, or an introduction of new information by Council that the Committee did not have access to (i.e. that the entire Grants budget was not awarded).

2016 Child Care Grant Committee Recommendations
This Grant has a $40,000 annual budget, and just under $40,000 was granted (of $44,630 requested) to support the needs of 295 children. Of course, that is not a good measure, because the grants are not for operations, but for capital projects that enhance childcare spaces and create an ongoing legacy, potentially helping thousands of kids in non-for-profit daycare across the City.

2016 Environmental Grant Program Recommendations
Only $8,310 was granted this year from $10,435 in requests, and out of a budget of $20,000. Let this be a message to burgeoning environmental groups or those with an idea to improve the City’s sustainability – there is more grant money available next year!

Information Access Principles and Guidelines
Move recommendation

Recruitment 2016: Appointment of Chairs to 2016 Advisory Bodies
This is the assignment of Committees for the members of Council. Not much has changed from last year. I chair two committees (ACTBIPed, Access Ability Advisory), Co-chair one (Environment Advisory), serve as Council representative on one (Youth Advisory), and am a member of three Task Forces (Public Engagement, Transportation, and Canada Games Pool Replacement).

Community Heritage Commission Amendment Bylaw No. 7808, 2015
The Heritage Commission is a Council advisory committee. This recommendation is to adjust the terms of reference such that the two-year terms are staggered between two groups of appointees, to create some continuity. An easy thing to agree to.

Arts Commission Amendment Bylaw No. 7809, 2015
This is the same change as with the Heritage Commission, staggering two-year terms to create more continuity.

Information Access Principles and Guidelines
After some public consultation ,we are moving forward with developing policy improvements to how the city manages our Freedom of Information files. The City is moving increasingly towards easier access and more openness of our data, which is a good thing.

Tenant Relocation Policy
This report came out of a request I made a few months ago for Staff to update Council on how well we are protecting the affordability and accessibility of rental housing in New Westminster. We have a Secured Market Rental Housing Policy which is helping us get more rental housing built as we battle against regional shortages. We also have an Affordable Housing Strategy that works to develop supported affordable housing options. However, we have a vacancy rate of about 1.3% in market rental housing, and as new rental buildings replace some of our aging rental stock, the rents increase significantly, with average rent for a building built after 2000 almost double that for a building built before 1980.

The challenges here are plenty. Rental stock must periodically be replaced, as aging buildings do not provide the safety, the energy efficiency, or the durability of newer buildings, and become more expensive to maintain at the same time as their value to renters becomes reduced. Still, there are instances where people live in the same rental unit for a decade or longer and truly establish homes in rental buildings. Forced removal, by renovation, by development, by demolition, is incredibly disruptive to their lives. Seniors are the most vulnerable, although young families with limited incomes suffer from stress as well.

I would like an evaluation of whether the policy can provide higher levels of protection to longer-term tenants, and what the implications are if we include this in a policy… will we disincentivize longer-term rentals, or are protections in the existing Residential Tenancy Act enough to prevent that kind of blow-back in policy?

I also want to have a little better understanding about how the tenant relocation and eviction process would dovetail with a typical Rezoning or HRA, where the review process and Public Hearings and bylaw implementation can take 6 months or a year. Does that get included in notice, and how to we sensitively facilitate the communications between landlord and renter over what can be a year-long process?

I see this policy as supporting an updated tenant relocation strategy, similar to those adopted in Vancouver and North Vancouver, but recognizing some of the unique characteristics of New Westminster, where we have a large stock of aging rental buildings, and where much of other rental stock is found in non-purpose rental and less formal arrangements like secondary suites. This is fundamental to the livability and affordability of our City, and am happy staff is continuing this work and bringing back a developed policy to Council early in the New Year.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7781, 2015 to Zoning Bylaw 6680, 2001
to Permit Commercial Storage Lockers in the C-4C Zoning District
There are a set of storage lockers in Plaza 88 near the loading bay on 8th Street, which have turned out to be not useful for the commercial or residential users of the building complex. The owner of the building would like to convert them to commercial storage units, which requires an amendment to the Zoning Bylaw to permit that type of commercial operation.

Animal Shelter and Tow Yard Facility – Task Force Recommendations
The City is building a new Animal Shelter, and is integrating it with a move of our tow yard to create a single civic facility in Queensborough under the Queensborough Bridge. This is part of our long-term strategic plan, and will be paid for by some strategic land sales as part of our long-term capital plan. The task force has been working on this for quite some time, I’m glad to see the City moving forward on their recommendations.

The meeting then proceeded with an Opportunity to Be Heard:

DVP No. 601 for 109 Third Ave
This Development Variance Permit is required to allow a resident to pave a thin strip of their land so that there is smooth asphalt between their three-car garage and the adjacent alley (which is, like many alleys in New Westminster, a named street, in this case, Emory Street). The zoning only allows paved driveways to be certain widths, and this is technically a “driveway” that exceeds that width, although it is only a foot or so long.

We received one piece of correspondence supporting the DVP, and no-one came to speak against it. Council moved to support the DVP.

We then had a presentation from folks at Fraser Health to talk about the first stages of construction work at RCH, which includes the moving of the Helipad. Following this lengthy discussion, we wanted to delay the conversation about Grants until after the Public Delegations, we launched into other parts of the agenda including:

Recruitment 2016: Library Board Appointments
This is an approval of the recommended new members of the Library Board. Welcome, new volunteers.

DNA funding
This is a follow up to a recent federal decision to download the funding for DNA analysis to local police forces, and the unwillingness of the Provincial Government to step up and fill the gap. Police costs come right out of your property taxes folks, and this will add to that burden.

Commercial Storage Lockers Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7781, 2015
As discussed above, this Bylaw received two readings.

Community Heritage Commission Amendment Bylaw No. 7808, 2015
As discussed above, this Bylaw received three readings.

Arts and Commission Amendment Bylaw No. 7809, 2015
As discussed above, this Bylaw received three readings.

Inter-Municipal Business License Agreement Bylaw No. 7794, 2015 and
Inter-Municipal Business License Agreement Bylaw No. 7795, 2015
As discussed November 30, these Bylaws were Adopted. It is now the Law of the Land, please adjust your behavior appropriately.

Demolition Waste and Recyclable Materials Management Bylaw No. 7660, 2014
As discussed November 30, these Bylaws were Adopted. It is now the Law of the Land, please adjust your behavior appropriately.

After a short recess and some Public Delegations, we continued covering items removed from the consent agenda, which again launched us into talking about Grants.

2016 Amateur Sport Fund Committee Grant Recommendations
This grant is totally covered by two endowment funds, one from the Canada Games (1973!) and one from the Casino. More than $75,000 was requested, and the full allotment of $35,000 was awarded. This works out to about $10 per athlete for 3,500 amateur athletes over 10 different sports.

2016 Arts & Culture Grant Recommendations
I needed to remove myself from some of this discussion because @MsNWimby is the treasurer of the Arts Council, and filled out a lot of grant forms for them. Regardless, there was $42,000 requested from a fund of $20,000. After some compelling delegations Council decided to expand the granting envelope here and add $4,500 for the Royal City Musical Theatre request, and $2,575 for the New Westminster Symphony request.

2016 Heritage Grant Program Committee Recommendations
This grant allocation is $25,000, and we had $26,000 in requests. Uniquely, one organization was granted $4,000 more than they requested, which rubbed a couple of Councillors the wrong way (including me). So instead of granting them the $14,000 recommended, we dialed that back to $10,000. In total, we ended up granting $21,000.

2016 Community Grant Recommendations
There as a budget of $48,000, all awarded, from requests totaling almost $116,000. The recommendation was followed.

2016 City Partnership Grants
Again, there were some Arts Council requests here, which means I had to remove myself from that part of the discussion. This is the big one – $421,510 was awarded from a budget of $421,000, and there was $534,500 in requests. Some are multi-year agreements.

So after all is said and done, we came in a little under budget on Grants, but still awarded more than $600,000.

At that point, the meeting was all over but the singing. We Wish you a Merry Christmas, indeed.

Council – Nov. 30, 2015

Posted on December 5, 2015December 5, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The council meeting on November 30 was a little different in format, and it appears we are still working out some bugs of the post-Committee of the Whole era for New West Council. Part of the reason for the change of formats was to provide more time for open workshop-type discussions where we can dig into larger issues though a public discussion, the other was to try to push more of our day-to-day business discussion into the evening meeting, instead of doing it as a Committee of the Whole.

This week’s agenda had such an Open Workshop that ended up looking very much like a committee of the Whole meeting, including items passed on consent – not really the purpose of a workshop. We also had a remarkably light agenda including the Public Hearing and Workshop materials, so I may as well report on what talked about at all three meetings.

Workshop:

The New Media Gallery First Year
I’m not afraid to admit I am a big fan of the New Media Gallery, although I was at times wondering how it was doing as far as crowd-draw and regional impacts. Looking at the report, it is clear the answer is very good. Compared to any other regional publically-run Art Gallery (with the exception of the Vancouver Art Gallery), the NMG is pulling big numbers, and operating on a lean budget. The fact we are pulling in internationally-famous artists when the gallery is so new and limited in budget is a real testament to the knowledge and talent of Sarah and Gordon, our exceptional directors.

You should take the time to go to the NMG, it is free to enjoy for everyone, and open to all ages. The current show “the Scary”, and despite its title, looks pretty appropriate for all ages to me. I find a great way to enjoy the NMG pieces are to go in without a guide, and just sit and try to figure out what is going on. Some pieces seem very straight-forward, others completely baffling. After spending some time setting your own notions, you can have the host provide you a walk-around tour, which will usually change what you thought was straight-forward, and open up some of the things that didn’t make sense to you at first pass. It is a fun way to spend an hour opening up your mind. I’m really happy it is so successful. The fact it often challenges what I interpret as “Art” leads to the next topic we discussed in Workshop…

Public Art Workshop
This report brought us into a discussion about how the City’s Public Art program operates, and more specifically, what the role of the Public Art Advisory Committee, our professional Cultural Services Staff, a Public art Selection jury, and Council play in determining how our public art budget is set up.

In earlier discussions, I think I have made my position pretty clear on this (and I am digging deep into personal opinion here, speaking only for myself, and willing to hear counter-arguments). I think Council should approve themes, ideas, concepts, and budgets, but we should not be the final say on which pieces of Public Art are selected. I was not elected for my art criticism skills, and art, by its very nature, should challenge what we think we understand about aesthetics, about communication, and about community. To have 7 politicians look at something created by a professional and curated by a jury of professionals who were presumably provided clear conceptual guidance, and have those Council members “I don’t like it” is to undermine the professionalism of those persons so charged, and to have Council say “…therefore we won’t have it” opens the doors to all kinds of censorship and other issues. Sometime good governance is being able to step back and let people do their jobs.

I want our Public Art to be interesting, challenging, and iconic. To get there, it sometimes has to push the community out of its comfort zone. If given a choice between two pieces, one that Council unanimously endorsed, and one that Council turned down 4 votes to three, I can tell you which of the two would generate more interesting conversations and push the discussion of artistic expression into the daily conversation. It would be a shame if this or a future council, were to recommend against something for fear of facing some negative public reaction. Ironically, the best way for us politicians to avoid being in that situation is to rely on our professional staff and the jury of art professionals, with the guidance of our Public Art Advisory Committee, to determine what best fits the needs of the piece, the location, or the concept.

I have to admit, the WOW piece looks a lot better in context than it does is photos (or it did as concept drawings), and although I could not envision it, I supported the process that got the City to approving it over the last year or two, and I appreciate the positive and negative feedback I have received since it was installed. It makes a statement, it challenges our idea of aesthetics, and it created a new visual icon on our waterfront. It works.

Temporary Use Permit for Extreme Weather Response
There is an Emergency Shelter set up in Downtown New Westminster which is activated when the weather gets such that it seriously threatens the lives of people who are living outdoors (extreme cold, snow, protracted heavy rain), The permit for this site must be renewed every three years, and Council moved to renew the license.

Councillor Puchmayr further raised the issue that the hours of the shelter do not coincide with other social services in town, and asking about the potential to expand shelter hours so that in the worst of conditions, people at risk don’t have to spend a few hours every morning with no-where to go, exposing them to potentially hazardous conditions. Of course, funding and programs are stretched, but we need to find these opportunities to improve what services we provide.

There were also a couple of items that we, paradoxically, passed by Consent as part of the Workshop:

Anvil Centre Capital Budget Update
This is an administrative shuffling of budget amounts. There were several things at the Anvil fit-out that cost more than expected (AV system installations, LEED certification, etc.) and to pay for them, several other things (Installation of corridor, dishwasher upgrades, storage space modifications, etc.) were put off until future capital budget savings or a new allocation of capital funds.

Youth Advisory Committee Amendment to TOR
We agreed to adjust the Terms of Reference for the Youth Advisory Committee to include one more person, a returning member of last year’s YAC who made great contributions in the community and would make a great mentor for the new YAC members.

The evening’s meeting began with an Opportunity to be Heard on the topic of ne Inter-Municipal Business License Agreement. I mentioned this in a earlier report, where were are working with adjacent Cities to align our business licensing for building trades and contractors, such that it is easier for these businesses to work across municipal boundaries, but each City’s business license costs are still covered.

No one corresponded with the City on this issue, and no-one came to council to delegate on the topic, so we referred the two enabling Bylaws to Council for Third Reading.

The Public Hearing began at 6:00 sharp, with a single project up for discussion:

This is a townhouse development in Queensborough at the Corner of Boyd and Stanley Streets. This is essentially the western end of the higher-density part of the Queensborough west of Boyd Street, and is in compliance with the larger Queensborough Community Plan. It will have 80 townhouses, all 2- and 3-bedroom, averaging over 1,200 square feet each, with some green space in the block, special design considerations (double drywall, higher-buffering windows) to reduce the impact of nose from the light industrial area to the North (which, in the case of the way the Port manages its “industrial land”, means a truck warehouse, which will not generate a lot of noise other than truck traffic), and an established buffer between the buildings and the adjacent Riparian Management Area protected watercourse.

The Community Plan supports it, the Design Panel supports it, the Advisory Planning Commission supports it, the Queensborough Neighborhood Association supports it, the Port opposes it, and no-one else wrote or came to Council to speak about it, so I have no reason to oppose this project.

The Regular Meeting began right after the Public Hearing, and began with the Zoning Amendment Bylaw coming out of that Public Hearing:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7796, 2015
As mentioned above, this is a townhouse development in Queensborough at the Corner of Boyd and Stanley Streets, and Council passed Third Reading of the Bylaw.

This was followed up by several other Bylaws:

Inter-Municipal Business Licence Agreement Bylaw No. 7794, 2015
Inter-Municipal Business Licence Bylaw Amendment Bylaw No. 7795,
2015.
After referral at today’s Opportunity to be Heard, these Bylaws were given Third Reading.

Delegation Bylaw No. 7176, 2015
As discussed on November 16, This Bylaw was adopted. It is now the Law of the Land, please warn your neighbours and friends.

Development Cost Charge Expenditure Bylaw No. 7797, 2015
As discussed on November 16, this Bylaw was adopted. It is now the Law of the Land, please warn your neighbours and friends.

Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7798, 2015
As discussed on November 2, this Bylaw was adopted. It is now the Law of the Land, please warn your neighbours and friends.

Which bring to the end a very short meeting of New Westminster council.

Council – Nov. 16, 2015

Posted on November 21, 2015November 21, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Sorry it has taken so long to provide my summary of the Council Meeting of November 16th, but (insert random “I’ve been busy”-related excuse here). We had a fairly light agenda this week, which started with the following items being moved on consent:

City Hall Renovation
We are making some changes to the way City Hall works, and are doing long-overdue renovations of the physical building to make it work better. Staff and design consultants have been working on plans for most of a year now, and we now have an approved layout.

The renovations will also include significant age-related upgrades, including replacement of the HVAC equipment, lighting, and the fire alarm system, and all the related asbestos removal that goes with. However the part the general public will notice most is a re-design of office space to allow Development Services and Engineering to share public counter space, so those seeking permits or related info will have a one-stop shop, instead of running around the building for each different department. We are also bringing Parks, Culture and Recreation into the Hall to increase this integration of customer services.

The entire project will take a couple of years, and the required budget (about $6 Million) has already been included in the Five Year Financial Plan.

Delegation Bylaw
This Bylaw codifies some of the spending authority set out in the City’s existing Procurement Policy, and makes it law. Simply put, Council has ultimate spending authority, but the efficient operation of a $60+Million enterprise does not allow us to approve the purchase of every ream of special paper. So different staff have different authority to spend without seeking Council approval, within specific guidelines and while remaining within the Five Year Financial Plan.

Streamlining and codifying this practice will improve operational efficiency in City Hall, and is actually recommended by the Auditor General for Local Government and our own external auditor to assure it complies with best practices for local government.

Recruitment 2015: SSS Representative on the Seniors Advisory Committee
The Seniors Services Society has a representative on the City’s Seniors Advisory Committee. Former City Councillor Betty McIntosh will be replacing Helen Bodner as that representative.

Pattullo Bridge Construction Noise Exemption
Work to repair the deck on the Pattullo Bridge is ramping up, and will occur over about 6 months starting in May of 2016. To reduce delays and the impact on the all-important traffic, much of the work will occur at night and on the weekends. Although measures are being taken to reduce the noise generated at night (e.g. restricting jackhammer operation to daytime, installing noise barriers, etc.) there may be times when noise is generated at night in violation of the City’s Construction Noise Bylaw.

Council agreed to provide an exemption for this project, but will be asking TransLink to provide notice to adjacent residential areas, including contact information at TransLink if residents have concerns. This is related (kind of) to upcoming work on the SkyTrain Bridge (to be discussed below).

Sapperton Parking Study – Update and Notification of Open House
There has been an ongoing study of parking needs in Sapperton, reflecting concerns raised by residents (mostly) of the major residential streets adjacent to East Columbia in the vicinity of RCH. This study will be followed by a “Phase 2”, which will be more forward-looking into anticipated needs as the RCH expansion and development of the Economic Health Care Cluster occur over the coming decade.

There will be an Open house at the Sapperton Pensioners Hall on November 24 to get residents’ feedback on the report. I suspect the response will be interesting, as the report suggests (in summary) that there is currently no problem. Supply is adequate; there is appropriate parking available for residents, even during “peak times”. The online survey brought 600(!) respondents, which are the kind of numbers we only usually see when discussing dog parks.

It does confirm that parking demand on East Columbia is driven by visitors to RCH and by some RCH employees choosing to park in metered parking on East Columbia during their night shift as opposed to paying to use the Hospital lot. I find it interesting that residents are generally more satisfied than non-residents with the availability and cost of parking. Also, that the balance between availability, convenience, and cost is pretty much where it needs to be.

I’ll wait until after the November 24th open house to comment further.

Downtown Dog Off-Leash Strategy and Relief Stations
This looks like a good idea to me. With the existing dog park downtown a temporary structure (much of it is on land the City doesn’t own), and few obvious opportunities for larger dog parks downtown (we just don’t have that much available land), these relief stations may be a good measure to solve one (two?) of the more… uh… urgent dog needs in an efficient way.

I also like the idea of a “Bark-let” (I just invented that word!) but the details in the design and the location will matter. There is much information we need to clarify around how the hygiene works, and how we determine appropriate locations, but it is an interesting program idea, and I support its development.

Engineering User Fees and Utility Rates Bylaw Amendments for 2016
This is to formalize the new Utility rates starting next year, which we reviewed and approved in principle last meeting.

Queen’s Park Neighbourhood Heritage Study
A group of City Staff and Queens Park residents have been working on a Neighbourhood Heritage Study, developing a set of principles and strategies to preserve the heritage character of the neighbourhood. After almost a year of work, three open houses, a neighbourhood survey, and other outreach, a set of strategies have been developed and are ready for public comment.

The strategies are wide-reaching, and will impact all homeowners in Queens Park, but it is important to note these are ideas driven by the members of the community, not something the City drew up. I would encourage everyone living in Queens Park, if couldn’t get to the November 21 open house, to connect through the on-line presence of this group, and make yourself heard.

Heritage Register Update – Addition of Properties
Three Properties are being added to the City’s Heritage Registry, as they are subject to new Heritage Revitalization Agreements. Three more heritage homes [reserved for perpetuity.

We had a few special announcements, supporting BC Buy Local Week and the Arts Council of New Westminster, then covered the items removed from the consent agenda:

SkyBridge North Approach Construction Noise Exemption
Further to the lack of sleep soon to be felt by a few residents of the east end of Downtown due to Pattullo works, TransLink will be doing some strengthening and reinforcement work on the SkyBridge in the spring, which will again create a noise concern for some residents. I am hoping that TransLink can time this work to coincide with the Pattullo work, so that the length of anticipated Noise Bylaw Exemptions can be reduced.

It appears these two projects are run by completely unrelated departments at TransLink, but I am encouraging our Bylaw folks (who are issuing the exemptions on behalf of the city) can get them to coordinate – I would rather have two noisy operations on the same night than two nights of separate noisy operations.

Syrian Refugee Crisis – City Responses
Back in September, this Council asked staff and two Advisory Committees to report back to us on potential strategies for our community to help with the Syrian refugee crisis. If past patterns of settlement are maintained, we can expect over 100 refugees (of the 25,000 anticipated to be accepted by the federal government) to arrive in New Westminster in the next year or so.

This report outlines the many actions that are occurring already in the City to make our community more welcoming to new immigrants. Our Local Welcoming and Inclusive New West (WINS) working group is coordinating programs to reach out to new immigrants, and connect them with community services and social connections. The provincial Welcoming Communities Program is also active locally increasing awareness and reducing barriers to employment for new immigrants.

Aside from assisting the many service agencies (with facilities, financial support, and staff time), the City has prepared a series of communications tools to help both new immigrants connect with services they may need, and to help residents and businesses in the City identify opportunities for them to help make our community a more welcoming place.

The people coming to New Westminster from Syria have been through the worst horrors that humanity can create. They have been stripped of their homes, have lost family and friends, have been made impoverished and traumatized, not because of who they are or what they did, but simply because they were born in a place that is currently being torn apart by ideological and proxy wars. They are, unfortunately, just the latest in a long history of peoples with similar stories seeking peace and sanctuary in Canada, from the Irish to the Eastern Europeans to the Vietnamese and the Hondurans. We can’t imagine their struggles, but we can open our community and help make the next chapter in their lives happier, and (ultimately) our community stronger for having them here.

Alberta Street Diverter Review
The traffic diverters on Alberta Street have reduced the traffic on Alberta Street, but have caused increased traffic on Keary. This was not completely unexpected, but it was important to determine how much of the effect was impacting Keary vs. other adjacent streets such as Simpson (where the initial traffic count bump went away over a short time).

ACTBiPed have also talked about Keary Street as a more appropriate route up the hill of Sapperton for routing the Crosstown Greenway than the existing Sherbrook Street, mostly because the grade of Keary is more gentle, and the interaction with Richmond Street at the top and the Central Valley greenway at the bottom are both much better.

I hope these two issues can be brought together, and we can address these two issues together. Keary sees more traffic and higher speeds primarily because it is 9m wide (compared to 7.5m or so for Alberta or Simpson), with a wide boulevard, which encourages higher speeds than a tighter road with shorter sightlines. Perhaps this is a place for a two-way bike route if we reduce the parking to only one side of the street?

Canada Games Pool/Centennial Community Centre
The New Westminster Council has been spending much of the last year looking at strategic priorities, and the renewal/refurbishment/replacement of the Canada Games Pool was identified as one of those priorities.

The heart of the decision made this week is to stop fixing the old pool. This is being driven by the current condition of the pool, and the potential costs for ongoing maintenance and repair over the coming decade. Although some parts of the pool (notably the concrete tank) are in pretty good condition, there are a number of parts of the physical plant (the roof, the windows, the HVAC system, significant piping and pump infrastructure) that is at or past it’s serviceable lifespan. The current “business as usual” plan would see us investing more than $10 Million before 2019 on fixing the pool we have. At some point, this becomes good money after bad.

Council has decided that continuing to pour money into this aged asset is not in the best interest of the community, and have asked staff to accelerate their work on planning a replacement pool, in lieu of planning ongoing maintenance and upgrades in the millions of dollars.

The plan right now is to spend the next year working on design, costing, and public consultation. Hopefully by this time next year, we will have a project plan together, with some fairly robust cost estimates, and after having a comprehensive discussion with the community about what that new pool, recreation centre, and a community hub is going to look like. Work with key stakeholders has already begun, with larger public consultations starting soon.

We are also going to have a serious community conversation about cost. We have about $13 Million (effectively) in the bank for this project, but any new pool of the scale of the existing one will cost significantly more than this. Comparison with some other recently-built or planned regional facilities suggests $50 Million is the scale of cost that other Cities have spent. Of course, this number will vary greatly with the size of the facility and amenities the community wants. I suspect the community wants a $100M pool, and wants us to build it for $10M, so the conversation will be about setting priorities and being realistic about what a community of 65,000 people can afford.

It should be an exciting few years on this project, and look for the consultation components coming soon.

Vancouver Biennale Update
Like em or hate ‘em, we own them now. WOW coming to the waterfront after some significant engineering work to make the situation work.

Development Cost Charge Expenditure Bylaw No. 7797, 2015
This is a Bylaw required to permit the City to remove almost $4 million from various Development Cost Charges (DCC) reserve account and to apply them towards various designated projects.

DCCs are monies collected from developers when they are increasing density in the City that are earmarked for specific types of infrastructure expansion related to the increased populations. They sit in a reserve account until the City is ready to install the infrastructure. In one sense, these reserves are like a savings account, but in another they are not, because we cannot spend them on anything we wish, but have to use them for the infrastructure that the DCC bylaw designates as required. This financial restriction is built into the Provincial legislation that allows DCCs to be collected in the first place.

This neatly dovetailed us into the Bylaws part of the evening’s events:

Development Cost Charge Expenditure Bylaw No. 7797, 2015
As just discussed above, received three readings.

Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7798, 2015
As just discussed above, received three readings.

Delegation Bylaw No. 7176, 2015
As just discussed above, received three readings.

Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7786, 2015
This Bylaw was discussed last meeting, and was Adopted. It’s now the Law of the Land, adjust your behavior accordingly.

Fee Amendment Bylaw No. 7787, 2015
This Bylaw was discussed last meeting, and was Adopted. It’s now the Law of the Land, adjust your behavior accordingly.

Fire Protection Fees Amendment Bylaw No. 7791, 2015
This Bylaw was discussed last meeting, and was Adopted. It’s now the Law of the Land, adjust your behavior accordingly.

Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7790, 2015
This Bylaw was discussed last meeting, and was Adopted. It’s now the Law of the Land, adjust your behavior accordingly.

Parks, Culture and Recreation Fees and Charges Amendment Bylaw, No. 7792, 2015
This Bylaw was discussed last meeting, and was Adopted. It’s now the Law of the Land, adjust your behavior accordingly.

Heritage Revitalization Agreement (327 Fourth Street) Bylaw No.
7712, 2015 and Heritage Designation (327 Fourth Street) Bylaw No. 7713, 2015
These bylaws were discussed way back in the June 22, 2015 meeting of council, and are finally ready for adoption. They’re now the Law of the Land, adjust your behavior accordingly.

After a bit of an intermission to get the Public Delegations timing right, we heard from the presenters for:

Parkade Public art selection
The Public Art Advisory Committee reviewed a couple of revised proposals for the Public Art installation on the water side of the remaining half of the Parkade, to be installed after renovation work was completed.

The design chosen by the PAAC is a good one, and less abstract than an earlier piece that met with… mixed reviews… at Council a couple of months ago. There are opportunities to add colour to the mix (and that is the plan), and I am pretty happy with the way PAAC went about this selection.

Surprise bonus motion!
As we are trying to adjust the Council schedule since our decision a few months ago to do away with Committee of the Whole and to bring more discussion to the evening meetings, we have been trying to make the Public Delegation part of the meeting work better. We don’t want to hold it at the beginning, because 5:30 is a difficult time for many people with jobs and lives, however 7:30 is a little too late ,as we are often through our agenda before then. Councillor McEvoy suggested we adjust delegation time back a bit to 7:00, and Council was happy to try that. Expect this to develop as time goes on and more adjustments present themselves. We’ll get this tuned in.

As an aside, did anyone else notice that Councillor Williams and Rudy the Reindeer have never been seen in the same place at the same time? I’m not saying anything…it’s just interesting…

Council – Nov 2, 2015

Posted on November 9, 2015November 9, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The Council meeting of November 2nd had a monumental agenda – 42 items, including Open Delegations and some longer presentations. The Public Meeting alone was almost 5 hours with intermission. However, many of us started at 9:30am with Task Force meetings, Land Use and Planning Committee, and closed Council sessions. It was a long day, but we really moved some important things forward.

After some preliminary announcements and proclamations, we go into the agenda:

2015-2018 City Council Strategic Priorities,
Council has worked over the last 10 months with staff to put together a set of Strategic Priorities for this term and beyond. It is big list, and a comprehensive report, but it gives the public and staff an idea of what this council’s priorities are: housing affordability, transportation, waterfront revitalization, economic development, better governance, and asset renewal. This is a big enough topic that I should probably cover it in it’s own blog post. If you just can’t wait, read it the plan here, and do your own blog post!

Fibre Utility Branding
The City is setting up dark fibre infrastructure to provide broad-band internet services to businesses in the City faster than the major telecoms are willing to invest. Part of setting this up is creating the branding and marketing materials to convince the ISPs to provide services through the dark fibre we are installing. We need them to bring the light and pay us for the opportunity, so they can provide better service to their customers (our businesses and residents).

I’m happy, if not wowed, by the branding results, but I’m not a marketing guy. The Intelligent City Committee did a lot of work to get to it here, and these folks are immersed in the industry we are talking about. I am happy to approve their recommendation. You will be seeing this around:

Ipsos Survey Result for the City’s 2016 Budget Survey,
The City does this survey every year as part of our budgeting and strategic planning process. It is one of many ways we measure how people feel about the City, and where we should be putting our priorities.

Right off the top, it looks good. When 98% of people asked about the quality of life in the City respond with good or very good, we can be fairly assured that people are increasingly satisfied with how the City is being run. Unlike most others on this Council, I am almost completely unable to take any credit for that, as I am still the new guy. However, it sets the bar pretty high if we want to keep that rating up in the high 90s.

It will be no surprise that transportation is topic #1 again. There is an interpretation problem in that the topic is so broad – some residents are concerned about afternoon road congestion that keeps them from getting their kids to swim practice, others more concerned about the future of the Pattullo, the impact of tolls, or lack of transit funding leading to a less reliable system Each of those problems may have different solutions. As a City, we are working hard on implementing our new Master Transportation Plan and setting priorities to address the largest concerns, and are working with our regional partners to try to get out of the current funding quagmire that is preventing some of the regional solutions from being realized.

The concerns are not a surprise to this council or to the Mayors Transportation Taskforce members, but maybe we can take these results and tweak the way we are approaching implementation in the upcoming capital budget.

The general opinion about taxes is a marked contrast from what one would perceive by following the general or social media (not to mention CKNW callers), but reflects something I noted during campaigning last year – people don’t mind paying taxes, as long as they feel they are receiving value for their dollar. Although we need to continue to be detailed about how we manage our budget, and need to strive to hold taxes as low as possible, we need to also do a better job demonstrating where taxes go, to show what you are paying for when you get that tax bill in the mail.

Overall, an interesting report, but only one part of a larger body of data we use to set priorities in the City.

Proposed Transit Service Changes,
I already wrote a blog post with my feelings about this change: mostly positive, but with a few significant caveats. We’ll see how it develops, but I am encouraged from our conversations with TransLink.

REPORTS FOR ACTION

Public Seating and Games Space – Public Space Pilot Projects,
I like this idea! We have talked about seating as an important part of the transit system and about creating Parklets. These support the new urbanism concept that spaces for humans need to be “sticky” – having more people on a street is great for community, for business, for safety, and for social connectivity.

I will resist going on a rant here, fueled by my current choice of reading material:

The “quality” of an outdoor space correlates very highly with the amount of human contact you can have in a space – contact being a simple as being able to see and hear other people. It follows that a linear increase in the number of people in a space exponentially increases the opportunities for that contact, and you can double the number of people in a space by bringing in twice as many people, or by encouraging people to spend twice as much time there. As a fundamental principle, “loitering” is the best thing you can do to improve a Public Space. I’m looking forward to seeing how we can make this change happen.

Action in Support of Declaration on the Right to a Healthy Environment,
This was an initiative brought to Council this summer by the David Suzuki Foundation, working with the New Westminster Environmental Partners. The Blue Dot is intended to provide local governments a framework commitment towards better environmental sustainability, but to also push the sustainability agenda up from local governments through to Provincial and Federal governments. The sad reality is that Canada lags behind most advanced nations on providing a guarantee of clean air, water, and soil as a fundamental right, and we can do better.

As far as our local commitment, the pledge the City made is not an particularly onerous one, as many of the items are things we are already doing or working towards. This is not a list of pie-in-the-sky green ideals, but pragmatic measures towards sustainability that represent responsible governance in the 21st century.

It also points to a few things that New Westminster can do better. My off-the-top-of-my-head example is how our legacy of policies from the Pedestrian Charter to the new MTP indicate our City prioritizes pedestrians and transit in the transportation infrastructure, but we are still commonly making infrastructure decisions that do not reflect that priority. I would also suggest we need to look again at how we use the Sustainability Checklist that comes with Development proposals and start talking about what the “Sustainability Scores” we produce really mean.

My amendment to the recommendation was in the spirit of the pledge, and was rooted in my science-based philosophy that you cannot manage what you don’t measure. We can make pledges and develop policies to support them, but I think it is important that we collect the data to track how successful we are being in achieving the goals of the policy. Therefore, I asked staff to develop a list of metrics that the City can use to evaluate progress on each of the points under Part 5 of the declaration. I further wanted them to recommend to Council 5-year targets for each of the metrics, so we can measure how we are doing. Metrics will keep this Council and future councils accountable for the commitments we have made here.

Urban Academy Update
A proposed expansion project for this school on the south edge of the Queens Park neighbourhood was turned down by Council back in May. The proponents have come back with a modified plan, with a building reduced in size and massing and a reduced number of students to address some of the concerns raised in the Public Hearing in May.

The modified proposal came to the new Land Use and Planning Committee both on September 14 and on October 5th.last month, and that committee heard from both the proponent and a group of residents who opposed the modified proposal.

The process that exists under the Local Government Act provides an owner of land the right to bring a proposal to Council for a fair hearing; however Council is equally free to turn down a rezoning or development proposal if it doesn’t meet community goals. Unfortunately, the way to process operates under the LGA is centered around the Public Hearing, and Council is encouraged (some say required) by that process to enter the Public Hearing with an open mind to the evidence provided.

This results in the need for Proponents to invest a lot of time and money on a project before they are told by Council whether they can proceed. If a community group is opposed to the project, it is equally difficult on them, as they feel they are constantly being dragged back in to address the project as it moves through steps. The difficulty of this process is only exacerbated as the passion of the people and groups on both sides of the debate increases.

I cannot speak for other members of Council, but back in May I provided my reasoning coming out of the Public Hearing for why I voted differently than the rest of Council on the first proposal. At this point, Council is not being asked to approve the revised project, but whether we want staff to continue to work with the Proponent to move it through the process. Alternately, if council could give the message that the project is dead in the water, and that Council approval was ultimately unlikely.

Unfortunately, Council once again gave a somewhat on-the-fence answer that satisfies the Process set out in regulation, but will not satisfy the Proponent, or the neighbourhood group in opposition. However, I think most of the Council provided some guidance to the proponent about what they see as the challenges this project still faces.

2016 – 2020 Draft Financial Plan – Utilities,
This is yet another step in our never-ending budgeting process. As our Utilities (Electrical, Water, Sewer, and Solid Waste) are regulated differently than the rest of the City, their budgets operate in parallel to the City’s other budget components. Short version: everything is going up:

Electrical rates: up 4% then 3.5%: This both keeps us in line with the residential and business rates changed by BC Hydro to customers outside of New Westminster, and reflects the anticipated increases in the rate the City pays for the electricity we re-sell to our residents.

Water Rates: up 5.5% then 5.5%: This is a direct result of the anticipated increases in water costs from Metro Vancouver, who supplies water to the City’s system. This mostly reflects increased capital costs to maintain the system, from a new filtration plant at Seymour to new and replacement major transmission infrastructure, like water main replacements under the Fraser River.

Sewer Rates: up 7.5% then 7.5%: Similarly, sewer rates are driven by significant capital investments being made in our major water treatment plants, including a completely new Lions Gate Treatment Plant , which are in turn driven by incoming and stronger federal regulations about the quality of discharge permitted from these plants.

Solid waste: up 1% then 1%: I am glad to provide this little bit of good news, as the costs to manage your solid waste (garbage, green waste, and recycling) will be increasing at a rate of less than inflation. It is good to know our decade-long pressure to divert solid waste and create a more fair pricing system is starting to show some positive benefits.

Front Street Mews
This is an update on the design plan for the improvements to the Front Street after the Parkade Removal is completed. After extensive public and stakeholder consultation, a master design for what will be called the Front Street Mews has been scoped, and a preliminary budget prepared. There are yet some details in regards to some final finish, but we can now imagine what Front Street is going to look like next summer.

Items Removed from the Consent Agenda:

20. Information Report on Uber Ride Sharing Services
This report addressed some correspondence between the City and Burnaby around the potential for expansion of Uber to the Lower Mainland. We have not had any formal request to permit Uber in New Westminster, and although they made a few early attempts to set up on Vancouver, as of today the service does not operate in British Columbia. There are a variety of reasons for this, including our unique automobile insurance situation, and the complex jurisdictional environmental that is the car-for-hire business in BC.

I have no doubt the Taxi industry has problems, mostly a result of an onerous and bizarre regulatory environment that probably made sense as it was being assembled, but is now so ridiculously contrived that it is hard to imagine who it serves – certainly not the drivers who have a hard time making a living wage, and certainly not the customers who often find the service inconvenient or otherwise unsatisfactory.

However, we have to recognize that Uber is: a $40 billion company that owns few assets and has few employees. It relies on an underpaid workforce – most commonly well below minimum wage – who have to provide their own materials for work, with few controls over the terms of their labour. I can’t even begin to get into safety standards, insurance, taxation, and other concerns about this business model. Uber may be convenient to use in some communities where the system operates in more laisse-faire regulatory environments, but it is not a solution to the Taxi Industry problem (whatever you define that to be) and it most certainly isn’t a solution to any of our pressing urban transportation issues.

If we want to provide more flexibility in Ride Share or Car for Hire, we need to first look to the main regulator of the Taxi industry, the Provincial Government, and the Passenger Transportation Board they appoint. All local Bylaws on the Taxi industry exist in within that framework – we need guidance form senior governments and ICBC before we make any changes in how we, as a local government, may license or otherwise authorize an operation like Uber.

23. Brewery District Site – Future Rezoning Application
This is the beginning of a process to rezone the second residential tower at the Brewery District. The deal being proposed by Wesgroup is to add some density (and potentially height to the third and fourth residential towers) in exchange for 9 stories of secured market rental in the second residential building. There is quite a bit of detail to dig into here regarding the potential height vs. width of the buildings and how those would impact the visual impact of the development, but the fundamental question is whether the City wants to accept another ~120 residential units in the form of secured rental.

As there is much to discuss here, I had no problem with this idea being developed and public consultation beginning (this would need to go to Public Hearing prior to approval of the Rezoning). I also felt the need to give Wesgroup the heads-up that a lot of people, including myself, were unimpressed with the recent removal of several mature trees from the property at 201 East Columbia (a property recently purchased by Wesgroup). As a developer about to enter into public consultation with a very active and engaged neighbourhood like Sapperton, that might not have been the wisest PR move. Hopefully, they can find a way in the amenity package they offer the community for this accommodation to replace some trees or greenspace in the community to make up for this loss.

28. Open Data Policy/Open Data Website
I’m happy to see the City putting together an Open Data site. At a time when senior governments are becoming more secretive, local governments have the option to go the other way. There is some interesting stuff here, and this is only the beginning of the multiple types of data the City has that may be shared. I encourage you to go to this site and poke around!

Back when this Blog was all me whinging about City Council, I often found it difficult to find the information I wanted on the City website. So much of what we communicate is through Council Reports, which can be impenetrable in their length (822 pages this week!), so I hope that in a later phase of the Open Data program, we can populate a searchable Council Report database.

However, for now this is a great move in the right direction, and I am happy to support it.

31. 228 Nelson’s Crescent (Brewery District) Master Development Permit
This is another request from Wesgroup regarding some changes at the Brewery District, but involves only a change of sequence of building construction. The original agreement would require more commercial space to be build prior to the next phase of residential growth, however the situation is now where the commercial is built to a point where developing some of the residential space sooner will actually assist the commercial areas to be more successful. Council voted to move this process forward and let Staff and the proponent develop the permit changes for us to vote on.

The following items were moved on the Consent Agenda without further discussion:

Acting Mayor Appointments for December 2015 to November 2016
We have now officially been served our notice of which months we will each be serving as Acting Mayor, doing all the work of the big Guy when he is not available during that month. I’m March and August, for what it’s worth.

2014 Local Government Election – Report on Various Election Issues
This report provided some feedback from the public and the Elections Staff on how the Municipal Election went. Although regulated by the provincial government, the local government elections are run by the local government: we hire the elections officers, set up the booths, count the ballots, etc. We were interested to hear how things went and if they could go better. The good news part is that there were no major concerns about the process, the ballot machines worked as they are meant to, delays were rare and far between. There were a few suggestions of how we can do better, and they will be reviewed going into the next election in 2018.

Recruitment 2015: Youth Advisory Committee Appointments
I am the Council Representative on this committee, which is organized by staff and essentially run by the youth who serve on the Committee. The youth chair it, they control the agenda, and they provide great feedback to Council on issues impacting their lives in the City. This recruitment fits more on the school schedule (October to May) than the other Advisory Committee schedules (February to January), so council had to approve the appointments now, not with the rest of the committees in December.

**Which reminds me, you should go to this website and see if there are any Council Advisory Committees you might be interested in, as we are recruiting until the 20th of November!**

Inter Municipal Business License
Some businesses (especially general contractors and builders) work in various municipalities, and require business licenses in various Municipalities in order to do some of the work they do. A group of cities have been working together to align their business license process so a business owner only needs a permit from one to be able to operate in all municipalities, yet the license revenues are shared between Cities. This will hopefully make it a lot easier for businesses to operate regionally, and will reduce a significant amount of overlapping bureaucracy and costs for those businesses and Cities alike.

After piloting a project with several communities to some success, the participating Cities are now working to formalize the arrangement, which requires each of us changing our internal Bylaws.

Proposed Rezoning of 430 Boyd Street, 350 and 354 Stanley Street
This is a preliminary report to start a process for development of an 80-unit townhouse development in Queensborough. The process will move forward, with a Public Hearing scheduled for November 30th. C’mon out and tell us what you think.

Demolition Waste and Recyclable Materials Management Bylaw 7660,
This report covers a pilot project where the City collected data on the recycling efforts of demolition projects in the City, in support of the City’s and the region’s solid waste diversion goals. The demo provided proof of concept, and staff are now ready to propose a Bylaw to codify the diversion goals and change the way demolition waste in the City is managed to promote recycling.

2014 Corporate Greenhouse Gas Report
The City is required to both set Greenhouse Gas targets and the measure our success towards meeting them. This report gives an update on how we are doing – which is pretty much good news. We targeted a 15% reduction over a decade where we have almost a 20% increase in population growth – an ambitious target for a small City.

Where progress is being made is in reduced use of natural gas (as natural gas for our buildings is responsible for almost half of all emissions). There are also significant reductions in the GHG per KWH for electricity, which is a spin-off result of BC Hydro initiatives to reduce its own GHG. The one anomaly to the trend of reduced emissions is the bump we got when the Anvil Centre opened. It is a fairly efficient building, but any new large building like that will result in higher emissions than not having a building at all, so we will need to find efficiencies elsewhere to make up for that bump. I suspect the eventual replacement/refurbishment of the Canada Games Pool will include a significant reduction in corporate GHG reductions which will by far make up for the Anvil.

Although we have made some modest changes in our Fleet (the second largest GHG source after buildings), there is much work to be done here…

Signal Pre-emption for Emergency Vehicles
As part of our ongoing efforts to support the expansion of RCH and specific issues around that project, the City is working with the BC Ambulance Service and RCH to help address the impacts of traffic congestion on ambulance response times. The City is piloting a program of signal pre-emption to allow emergency vehicles to always be meeting a green light on the way to he Hospital. We are using a proven and affordable technology for a few key intersections in the Sapperton as part of the pilot, and may be able to expand the system as need develops and funds become available.

User Fees and Rates Review Bylaw Amendments for 2016
This is the Bylaw that regulates fees for various City services, such as business licenses, hooking up to a fire hydrant, or others of the numerous services a City provides where we do “cost recovery” as opposed to paying for the service from general tax revenue. The fee increases are generally very modest, and reflect inflation.

Digging deep into the details, it is amazing what you can learn about the City. Did you know that we have a fee for a “Tea Cup Reader”? $45.78 to get a licence to read a tea cup. Amazing.

Amendment of the Parks, Culture and Recreation Fees and Charges
This is the Bylaw that regulates the Fees we charge for Parks, Culture, and Recreation programs. As we do annually, the City is reviewing these fees, and suggesting small increases in several fees to keep pace with inflation and increased costs. Most of the changes are of the order of 2-3%, though many fees are not increasing this year.

The report had some useful comparisons to fees charged in adjacent municipalities for similar programs, and New Westminster looks very affordable. When it comes to ice fees at our arenas, we are not just below average, but we the lowest in the region by far. Swim fees are typically 10% lower than any other City. Almost across the table we are the lowest or well below the average for program fees. Residents of New Westminster get good value for these fees, and credit goes to our Parks Culture and Recreation staff for keeping costs low for our residents.

Development Variance Permit Application for 109 Third Avenue
This is a request by a resident in Queens Park to have a strip of pavement on their land that covers the entire width of their laneway-accessed garage. They have a three-car garage (permitted and legal) but the Bylaw does not allow them to have a “driveway” as wide as the garage. There will be an Opportunity to be Heard on November 30th in case you have any opinions on this request.

Finally, we had a raft of Bylaws to go through, so put on your seatbelts:

Inter-Municipal Business Licence Agreement Bylaws No. 7794, 2015 and 7795, 2015
This topic was discussed above, and both bylaws received two readings.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7796, 2015
This is the bylaw to support he Boyd and Stanley Street Townhouse development mentioned above, which received two readings, so it can go to Public Hearing.

Demolition Waste and Recyclable Materials Management Bylaw No.7660, 2015
This topic was discussed above, and the bylaw received three readings.

Engineering User Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7786, 2015
Fee Amendment Bylaw No. 7787, 2015
Fire Protection Fees Amendment Bylaw No. 7791, 2015
Development Services Fees and Rates Amendment Bylaw No. 7790, 2015
These are the Bylaws regulating the various engineering and permit fee changes discussed above. All received three readings.

Parks, Culture and Recreation Fees and Charges Amendment Bylaw, No. 7792, 2015
This topic was discussed above, and the bylaw received three readings.

Official Community Plan Amendment Bylaw No. 7783, 2015 [97 Braid Street]
This was discussed at the Public Hearing on October 26, and was officially adopted this meeting. It is now the Law of the Land, adjust your behaviour accordingly

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7785, 2015 (800 Twelfth Street)
This was discussed at the Public Hearing on October 26, and was officially adopted this meeting. It is now the Law of the Land, adjust your behaviour accordingly.

Five Year Financial Plan (2015-2019) Amendment Bylaw No. 7776, 2015
This was given three readings at October 26 meeting, and was officially adopted this meeting. It is now the Law of the Land, adjust your behaviour accordingly.

Transit Service changes

Posted on November 5, 2015November 4, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

In case you haven’t heard, TransLink is making some changes to bus routes in New West, and have been doing public consultation, You have until tomorrow(!) to go to this website and fill out the survey if you have any concerns or questions.

My quick notes (which I based on the info provided in our Council Report from staff on Monday):

These changes need to be approached carefully. Last time we had service “optimization” in New Westminster, an apparently reasonable re-orientation of the east-west routes across the north part of the City resulted in a serious erosion of service to one very specific demographic. The large population if seniors that live in higher-density housing near 8th Ave and McBride suddenly found themselves disconnected from the Royal City Centre at 6th and 6th, which was a major social hub for them – it was a significant disruption to a social network to a very transit-dependent community. So I tried to dig through these route changes to see if I could find similar breaks in social connections that may impact our community.

The change to the 106 is probably a good thing. It will make one of the primary connections between Downtown and Uptown New West more reliable, as Kingsway traffic will no longer delay the return route. There will still be the same connection to the Highgate/Edmonds Pool areas, but if you want to go further up Kingsway, you will need to switch buses.

Combining the C8 and a portion of the C3 route into the new “J” route will probably adress one of the biggest capacity concerns – the high number of pass-ups on the C3. This 24-passenger shuttle commonly has 40 people lining up at New West Station to board. with it’s destinations split between the new “J” route and “H” route, some of that capacity headed for Victoria Hill should be better served.

Similarly, re-routing the C4 into the “H” route should make the service more reliable, with the bonus of returning that direct connection between McBride and 8th and the 6th & 6th area that was undone in the last changes. The “H” route shuttle is fully accessible, which is really important for the population using that route.

The modified C9 route causes me a couple of concerns. The side-route on Jamieson Court that the current C9 takes will, apparently be eliminated, and this is a bad idea. There are two important destinations to seniors on Jamieson Court- the Glenbrook Amenities Centre and Royal City Manor. To make people bound for either of these go up to Richmond Street is quite a steep hoof for people with mobility issues. If they with to catch the bus northbound, the crossing of Richmond is not the safest spot in the City – with a steep, curvy hill and problematic sightlines. The Jamieson Court stop makes sense for all sorts of reasons, and should be preserved.

The other problem I have with this route is the plan to have the C9 go down Cumberland and turn left on East Columbia. This is already a tough little intersection, as it is where there is already a challenging crossing for cyclists and pedestrians for the Central Valley Greenway. the intersection is right turn only, so re-routing the bus will require some sort of activated signal to allow a left turn, which will completely change Cumberland. The only thing keeping this from already being a significant ~~rat-running~~ alternative-route-commuter corridor is the unlikeliness of pulling off a left turn onto East Columbia during rush hour. It is the lack of a signal, not the little “no left turn” sign, that keeps Cumberland from becoming a through-route. I cannot support any changes here that will make Cumberland a rat-running alternative-route-commuter route, as that will have effects all the way up Glenbrook to the Canada Games Pool area. This streets and neighbourhoods cannot handle that traffic increase.

That is my condensed take on the good and the bad – hopefully you can take 10 minutes to look at the routes and provide some feedback to TransLink by on-line form or mail before the end of day on November 6th.

Can ya help a City out?

Posted on November 4, 2015November 6, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

People who read this blog are, I presume, more interested than most on how the City of New Westminster operates. Unless you are here to correct my grammar (note this sentence fragment), or out of some sense of obligation (Hi Mom!). Since I got elected, there isn’t even that “What crazy thing is he going to say next?!” aspect, and I hardly even swear anymore. So unless you are just stockpiling my comments to undermine my political future, I am thinking you care a little more about the City we know and love than the rest of the masses.

Since you care so much, I also presume you want to help make things better, or at least shape aspects of the City into something more to your liking. According to some guy named Ipsos, New Westminster residents are a pretty contented lot (except when stuck in traffic), but if we don’t strive for improvement, stagnation sets in, and we and up like Eddie Murphy zipping up a fat suit, wondering where the it all went wrong. So here are three things you can do in the next couple of weeks to make this City better, with increasing levels of commitment.

The Survey: The City is currently running an on-line survey around Public Engagement. We are asking people how they interact with City Hall, and how they want to. This includes the full range of “engagement”, from informing residents and businesses about what the City is doing all the way to collaborative decision making, where we assure that stakeholders in the community are truly listened to in making plans and forming policy. Hit that link above, and give 5 minutes of your time to answer some simple anonymous questions, it is the least you can do, so do it now!

The Workshop: The City’s “Our City” Official Community Plan update project is ongoing, and we are now at a point where we need to have a conversation with the community about housing types. Currently, 95% of the housing units in New Westminster are either apartments or Single Family Detached houses. We have a distinct paucity of the “in between homes” – townhouses, row homes, du-, tri- and quad-plexes, or carriage/laneway homes. The new OCP will hopefully open more opportunities for these types of housing options.

I live in a Single Family Detached in the Brow of the Hill, one of the more affordable parts of New Westminster. When we bought it something like 8 years ago, I joked “it’s a little old, in a slightly sketchy location, but we can almost afford it”. Truth be told, it has turned out to be a sold house causing us very few problems, and I absolutely love my location halfway between Uptown and Downtown, with a 5-minute walk to the SkyTrain (alas, the walk home is 10-minutes – can’t do much about the hills in this town), and have great neighbours. Recently, however, three relatively modest 1930’s vintage homes on my block, ones you would have traditionally considered “starter homes” for young families or “fixer-uppers” have sold for more than $800,000. The ongoing regional housing affordability crisis keeps creeping up into higher and higher income brackets, and New West is not immune.

One approach to help young families grow in our community is to provide a rich diversity of housing types, those “in between” types that balance affordability with a large enough living space for kids and their accoutrement, and maybe just a small patch of grass or garden, without the bells and whistles (and costs) of a single family detached.

However, the process of fitting these housing types into our exiting single family neighbourhoods is concerning to many people who already have their Single Family Detached dream. They worry about parking, about green space, about visual intrusion and proximity, and about the oft-cited but difficult to define “character” of residential neighbourhoods. This is the conversation we need to have right now.

It should be a good conversation on November 7th, whether you are a young family looking to move out of the two-bedroom apartment and into something roomier, or you are a family in a Single Family Detached wondering what carriage homes or duplexes would mean to your block, you should come out and help the City understand your needs and concerns. It is free, you will get fed, but you need to register to take part. Do it now.

The Committee. Finally, if a 5-minute survey or a 6-hour workshop (with lunch!) isn’t enough for you, the City is currently doing its annual call-out for Advisory Committee volunteers. There are no less that 22 separate Advisory Committees, Boards, or Panels where you can serve the City by showing up to anywhere from a few to a dozen meetings per year (depending on the committee, see the 2015 schedule here to get a sense of the workload). You get to give us advice on specific policy ideas or other happenings in the City, and can really influence how decisions are made, mostly by having closer contact with the people (staff and elected) who are making the decisions about how our City runs.

Go to that list above, check out the Terms of Reference for the Committees, and see what might pique your interest. You can serve on more than one, and as competition for some of the Committees is pretty fierce, you might want to apply for several.

So if you are tired of sitting on your front deck, shaking your fist at the passing clouds, and writing angry letters to the editor, start making the City yours by taking part in shaping it. You will feel much better, learn a bit more about how the City works, and maybe meet some new , interesting, like-minded people.

UPDATE: I was told that this Saturday’s Our City event is completely booked full, which fills me with joy. That so many people are willing to spend their Saturday talking “Urban Planning” and helping inform the future of the City reinforces my love for this community and its desire to engage! If you didn’t book, don’t panic, because after the Workshop, the show is going on the road. The dates are:

Nov. 10, 1:00–4:00pm Century House

Nov. 12, 5:00–8:00pm Sapperton Pensioners Hall

Nov. 14, 1:00–4:00pm New Westminster Public Library

Nov. 18, 5:00–8:00pm Unity in Action Church

Nov. 21, 9:00am–12:00pm Sapperton Pensioners Hall

Nov. 28, 9:00am–12:00pm Connaught Heights School

Council – October 26, 2015

Posted on October 31, 2015October 31, 2015. by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The longest road show in the history of City Councils continued October 26th at the Anvil Centre, and as it was the last meeting of the month, it was our customary Public Hearing night, where the public can give us their opinions on specific bylaws, as is their right under the Local Government Act.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7778, 2015
This proposal to add a Caretaker Suite to a planned industrial building below Stewardson Way adjacent to the Queensborough Bridge seemed like a completely reasonable request. It facilitated an increase in useable employment space in the City, while providing a level of security to a relatively isolated location.

There was no written correspondence on this project, and the only opposition came from Southern Railway, as they wanted to be on the record opposing any development in places that might cause their operations to disturb people, what with the noise and all. I had to bite my tongue a bit here, as Southern are great corporate partners in the City, and have worked very diligently with the City to address whistle cessation needs and enhancing safety at their crossings in the Quayside and Queensborough. However freezing from redevelopment all land that might be within some ill-defined disturbance zone of the train operations, when train whistles can clearly be heard across the City, is not a reasonable request.

Council moved to recommend this project move on for Third Reading, but are holding Adoption until the Proponent and the City can work out language around a covenant placed on the title of the property indicating that the owner (and future owners) acknowledges the presence of an active rail line adjacent to the property.

OCP Amendment Bylaw No. 7783, 2015 [97 Braid Street]
Sapperton Green is a large, long-term vision for the area around Braid station. I really expected some people from the Sapperton community to come out and speak on this plan, but this did not happen. This is still (even after 4 years of work) an early stage in the development of Sapperton Green, as this OCP amendment will lead to a Master Plan process (with public open houses and stakeholder engagement), multiple rezoning (each with a Public Hearing) and Development Permit applications, which all have to get past Council. This will not be your last chance to speak to Council and the Proponents about Sapperton Green over the couple of decades it will take to develop this site.

To me, the larger transportation problem here has not been fully addressed, though I do not expect it to be addressed at this stage (given the decades-long build-out process). The Burnette Overpass, the Braid-Brunette intersection, and Braid Street through to East Columbia are not functioning as we would like right now, and we have existing plans to work with Coquitlam, TransLink and the Provincial Ministry of Transportation to find solutions. The approval of an OCP to start the design process for Sapperton Green does not change the current situation, but it does set the context within which the longer-term solutions have to be measured.

I am very optimistic that we can work with Coquitlam and achieve our common goals around the Burnette overpass and bringing traffic relief to both historic Sapperton and Maillardville neighbourhoods, and we shouldn’t be constraining our options. In their comments, Coquitlam suggested that access to the Crane Site is something that they are concerned about long-term; perhaps that’s a place where we can work with them. I think those conversations will be positive for both cities.

I note also that Metro Vancouver and TransLink are supportive of the OCP Amendments in general terms, as they see this development as meeting the spirit and goals of the regional growth strategy, of the regional Transport 2040 plan. Both of these speak of concentrating working and living space at transit hubs, of which braid Station is definitely one. It is by developing the compact transit-oriented communities that we reduce the traffic load and growth pressures on other areas where existing neighbourhoods are most at risk.

This form of development, like Coquitlam’s great new developments adjacent to the new Burquitlam Station and Richmond and Vancouver’s projects around the Canada Line are part of the regional plan, and are part of the regional solution to making transportation more efficient in the region. Far from being part of the problem, they are fundamental to us finding regional transportation solutions.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7785, 2015
This amendment adds boarding of a small number of cats to the language of the Zoning Bylaw to permit this activity to facilitate the moving of a business to 12th Street. We had two written submissions on this project, one in support, and one opposed, but with no reason stated for the opposition. Council moved to recommend this change in wording.

REGULAR MEETING

Immediately after the Public Hearing, our Regular Meeting began with Council moving the recommendations from the Public Hearing that just ended:

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7778, 2015
Received Third Reading.

OCP Amendment Bylaw No. 7783, 2015 [97 Braid Street]
Received Third Reading.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 7785, 2015 (800 Twelfth Street)
Received Third Reading.

We then provided an official Opportunity to be Heard on two Development Permits. This provides neighbours, or anyone else with interest in these projects, a chance to provide feedback to Council before we issue the permits.

Development Variance Permit No. 00599 for 520 Twenty First Street
This is the DVP to support the development of the Industrial site with a caretaker suite, the rezoning of which we just gave Third Reading to. The DVP takes care of some of the minor variances for the building that do not strictly fit the zoning or other regulations for the site, such as a modification of the driveway width. Hearing no opposition, and acting on the recommendation of our planning staff, Council moved to issue the Permit.

Development Permit for 26 East Royal Avenue – (Parcel E, Victoria Hill)
This Development Permit sets the rules under which the new Mixed Commercial-residential low-rise development at “Parcel E” in Victoria Hill will be built. This will be a 4-story building, which will finally bring a bit of local retail to the Victoria Hill neighbourhood. Again, hearing no opposition, and acting on the recommendation of our planning staff, Council moved to issue the Permit.

We then dealt with a few Bylaws:

Five Year Financial Plan (2015-2019) Amendment
Every time our budget estimates change, for the positive or the negative, we need to pass a Bylaw that effectively edits our Five Year Financial Plan, as the Community Charter requires us to keep that plan as updated and transparent as possible. This change makes some amendments:

• There were two changes made related to the Anvil Centre Office Tower sale. There has been some back-and-forth between the purchaser and the City over what the level of fit-out of the Tower belongs to each party. Completing this work has delayed the occupancy date (resulting in a reduction in taxes paid to the City) and some costs for the extra fit-out items the City agreed was its responsibility;

• There is a major new expense for the Electrical Utility when BC Hydro decided it was no longer going to perform maintenance on our Royal 2 substation;

• We have set a bit more money aside for anticipated land transactions;

• GVRD water main work on Ewen Ave is going to cost us $2.7M, and GVRD are going to pay us $2.7M for it, meaning New West taxpayers are not affected at all, but these two line items need to be added to the plan; and

• Changes are being made to how we pay for a portion of the renovations at City Hall, taking the money from reserves instead of accruing more debt.

Council gave this bylaws three readings.

Temporary Borrowing Bylaws No. 7788, 2015
I mentioned this Bylaw in my October 5 Meeting Report. With Council moving Adoption of this Bylaw, it is now the Law of the Land. Adjust your behaviour accordingly.

Tax Exemption and Exempt Properties Bylaw No. 7784, 2015
I also mentioned this Bylaw in my October 5 Meeting Report, and it has since been confirmed to me that I am not in conflict here, so I didn’t leave the table when Council moved Adoption, and it is now the Law of the Land. Adjust your behaviour accordingly.

Development Cost Charges Amendment Bylaw No. 7770, 2015
I mentioned this Bylaw in my September 14th Meeting Report, when we gave it three readings and sent it to the Province for approval. Clearly, it met approval, as we are now moving Adoption. It is now the Law of the Land. Adjust your behaviour accordingly.

Then we had four items that were discussed at greater length during a Council Workshop earlier in the day (which you can watch here): and we were prepared to take action upon:

City grants allocation for 2016
We have, as a Council, made a few decisions in the last year that impact how grant funding is allocated. Staff has asked Council to clarify what the Grant budget will be for next year, in light of these changes. Council agreed to increase the Grant budget consummate with these decisions, of which there were two types.

In some instances, we have taken items that were normally covered by other parts of the City’s budget, and moved them into the “grants” category. For example, there are expenses related to the transportation of the City’s parade float that have always come out of the transportation/fleet budget, and we decided this year that this should instead be included with Partnership Grants, because it represents an in-kind contribution to a partnership organization. This simply creates more transparency about how that money is spent, instead of having it buried somewhere ins a department budget.

The second instance is where council, outside of the regular granting process, has approved money for an organization. This year, that means the extra money Council approved for the Fraser River Discovery centre to support their Working River Project. The main question was whether we take that from other grants, or expand the funding envelope. Council chose the latter.

Uptown Live
Council moved to approve a grant to the Uptown BIA for the Uptown Live event next summer. This issue received a little press, and resulted in some good discussion at Council. I will write another blog post this week to discuss my position on this at more length.

Proposed 2016 Schedule of Regular Meetings
This is the formal acceptance of a schedule for Council Meetings for 2016. Adjust your social lives accordingly!

Capital Budget Amendment
As was mentioned in an earlier post, the Police station change room and washroom facilities need to be upgraded. These changes are overdue, and the plan reflects the actual gender mix of the staff (both civilian and the ones with the badges). The budget to make the changes looks reasonable, considering the age of the building and the scale of the re-construction that needs to take place (including major plumbing and HVAC changes). Council approved the budget to make the renovation happen.

And that, except for the huge media scrum (pictured above), was all for one night!

Patrick Johnstone

Fan of cities; Mayor of a great one.

Tag: New Westminster