Council Report – Jan.11, 2016

Posted on January 16, 2016. by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

After a very refreshing Christmas and New Years break, Council got back to regular action this week, with a new Council Chambers (more on that in a later post, but blame the few bumpy microphone movement on our inability to work the technology, not the technology itself) and an agenda that, after proclamations and guest presentations, starts off 2016 with a bang:

Urban Forest Management Strategy
I am really happy we have finally reached this point. This is a process that started long before I joined this Council, but I did attend several of the early public engagement meetings and workshops, and had many conversations on the doorstep while running for Council about the importance of taking concrete measures to protect trees in our City.

I thank staff and our consultants for putting together both an impressive body of research on the existing urban forest in New Westminster, and a solid 20-year plan to shift us from a place where the urban canopy is being eroded to one where trees are valued as an important part of our everyday urban environment. Few things impact more the health and vitality of an urban community than the presence of trees. And the next generation of New Westminster residents will be the biggest beneficiaries, as the old saying goes: The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today.

This is also timely, as the loss of trees in the City has been accelerating, and as we see more development pressure, and start talking about creative ways to accommodate the pending population growth through or new OCP, this Strategy will assure that tree protection is part of that planning, and that aspect of the livability of our neighbourhoods will be preserved.

I’ll write another blog post about this topic, suffice to say Council endorsed the Strategy unanimously.

Uber
We had an open delegation from a representative of the the Taxi industry talk to us about Uber, and members of Council were pretty clear where we stand on the issue: Between the Province and Uber, there needs to be some agreement on how to regulate the ride-for-hire industry. I will have to go on further about this in a follow-up post, but I have concerns around employment practices, safety, taxation, and accountability.

The following agenda items were moved on Consent:

Queen’s Park Neighbourhood Heritage Study – Update on “Speak Out
About Heritage” Public Consultation
Previous to coming to Council, the Land Use and Planning Committee had a really good conversation around this study, and the presentation from neighbourhood residents who lead the study was really advantageous to Council better understand the Community desires here. There are many ideas that come out of the Study, and we need staff to do some work and need more public consultation to evaluate ideas in our local context. For example, providing the “California Mills Act” model of tax rebates are preferred by some, but it is unclear if that is even legal under the Local Government Act.

The most important take-away, however, is that the Queens Park neighbourhood appears ready, even willing, to provide a more proactive protection regime to conserve the neighbourhoods important heritage elements, and I think that is a good thing.

335 Buchanan Avenue – Consideration of First and Second Readings
Proposed Heritage Revitalization Agreement and Heritage Designation
This is a Heritage Revitalization Plan and heritage designation for a rather unique house in Sapperton. Council moved to send this to First and Second Reading. This project will go to Public Hearing on February 29, 2016. C’mon out and tell us what you think!

The following items were removed from consent:

Request for New and Improved Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Across
Tenth Avenue Between New Westminster and Burnaby
This request came from the Advisory Committee for Transit, Bicycles, and Pedestrians, (ACTBiPed) following on our now-traditional summer walking/rolling tour. This year we looked at 10th Avenue above the West End, and identified issues in how the existing cycling and pedestrian crossings work (pretty poorly, unfortunately).

As there are currently some pending plans on the Burnaby side of 10th Ave to re-develop the old Safeway Warehouse and surrounding area as “High Density Mixed Use”, with re-alignment of the transportation corridors, it is a good time to make sure our established greenways through the West End align well with Burnaby’s long-term vision.

New Westminster Lawn Bowling Club Lease
The Lawn Bowling Club leases their land from the City, as they have for 66 years. Every few years we need to update and sign a new lease. Council approved the new lease.

Did you know the New Westminster Lawn Bowling Club is not only one of the finest such clubs in the Lower Mainland, with a reputation for the highest-quality natural grass greened in the region, it is now in its 99th year of operation as a Club. Every time I have attended an event there, it has been an inviting, friendly, and fun atmosphere. And the sport is easier than curling to learn, but just as hard to master. You should try them out when they have their learn-to-bowl events in the spring.

2016 Capital Budget Early Project Approval
There are some things we need to buy, part of our long-term capital budget, that we need to approve prior to the official Capital Budget period, because delaying will result in a loss of service. A good example is heater repairs for Moody Park Pool – if we wait for the regular budget cycle, the heater will not ordered, delivered, and installed until September, which kind of limits the use of the pool.

Councillor Harper pointed out one interesting aspect of this report – the drop in the Canadian Dollar means we are going to have to pay 30% more than we expected for the replacement turf for Mercer Field. That extra $300K is really going to be noticed in our annual capital budget, and it is not the only thing we need to spend money on that will come with a dropping-dollar premium. Something to watch when our Capital Budget discussion begin in earnest over the next month or two.

New Westminster Street Food Policy
The City is working on a policy to allow Food Trucks to operate on our commercial streets. Staff have done some research and outreach, and presented us their preliminary ideas.

The results show the public is generally in favour of this initiative, although there clearly needs to be a policy in place to address some of the concerns, especially from brick & mortar businesses that pay taxes every day in our City.

Practice in other jurisdictions shows that Food Trucks can do a lot activate public space – make your streets and sidewalks more “sticky” and attractive to people who will then go on to support other nearby businesses. This could be a great addition to the other things we are doing to activate our streets, from Parklets to seating areas and a general increase in the diversity of our pedestrian realm. They create interest and add to the impression that the streets of New West are a place to be, not a place to pass by. That will benefit all businesses in the City, and the residents of the City. I think the policy provisions introduced here support that goal, and balance well the needs of our established bricks & mortar businesses.

Council voted in support of taking this to public engagement ASAP, and I hope we can get a policy fully developed and in place in time for the Summer 2016 season.

Items Added to the Agenda

PEDAW and Anvil Centre LEDs
I added this to the agenda, as we had received a request to use the LED lights at the Anvil Centre to “Light Up Purple to support Provincial Eating Disorder Awareness Week”. We are beginning to receive more of these types of requests, and I would happily support them, but this is local government, so we need to develop a bit of a policy around them so that Council can approve what we “support” or don’t, and the related costs are put through the proper scrutiny.

The first issue should be obvious, if someone wants to light up a City building to support something inappropriate or offensive (say, the Habs winning a Stanley Cup), we can prevent that embarrassment. We also need to make it simple and obvious how a person or organization would even make the request. Random e-mails to Councillors is probably not the best system.

I was surprised to find it actually cost quite a bit of money have a lighting consultant come in and do the work to adjust the lighting scheme for the LEDs at Anvil. I simple-mindedly assumed a building maintenance person could just flip a switch or two.

So, like so many other things in local government, Staff will be reporting back.

Columbia Street pedestrian fatality.
There are (unconfirmed) reports that the victim of the pedestrian fatality last week on east Columbia Street had some mental health issues and had contact at Royal Columbian Hospital prior to the incident. Council requested a report from the Police on this incident to determine if there is any follow-up warranted by Council.

We then went through the ubiquitous list of Bylaws:

Tree Protection and Regulation Bylaw No. 7799, 2016
Bylaw Notice Enforcement Amendment Bylaw No. 7812,
Development Approval Procedures Amendment Bylaw No. 7815, 2016
Street Tree Repeal Bylaw No. 7813, 2016

This suite of Bylaws and Bylaw Amendments support all the provisions of the Tree Protection Bylaw. Council gave these Bylaws three readings.*

H R A (335 Buchanan Avenue) Bylaw No. 7802, 2016
Heritage Designation Bylaw (335 Buchanan Avenue) No. 7803, 2016
These Bylaws support the heritage restoration and protection of 335 Buchanan Avenue in Sapperton. Council gave these Bylaws two readings.

Arts and Commission Amendment Bylaw No. 7809, 2015
We made changes to the Arts Commission terms of reference in a previous meeting, and now we formally adopt the Bylaw supporting those changes. Adjust your behaviour accordingly.

And after reviewing a bit correspondence, we were done for the evening.

*NOTE: Council held a special meeting on Wednesday, January 13 to Adopt the Tree Protection Bylaw and make the changes to the related Bylaws Final. Tree Protection is the Law Of The Land, folks. Adjust your behavior accordingly.

In your Backyard

Posted on January 13, 2016January 13, 2016. by Patrick Johnstone. 6 Comments.

There was perplexing opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun on Monday that referenced the City of New Westminster’s efforts to perform public outreach as part of its Official Community Plan process. Unfortunately, the writer (a New Westminster resident) seemed to take the position that the City was trying to sneak a bunch of changes through in defiance of our residents, and that any evidence of consultation is either “dilly dallying” with “fairy tale jargon” or evidence that planning is sprinkled in “pixie dust”.

It started with the complaint that a Dog Park had been added to Moody Park without her consultation. After two years of public calls for a dog park at that location and more than a year of open houses, council meetings, postings in the local paper, attendance by paid City staff at several Residents Association meetings, on-line call for input on the City web page, poster advertising at key park locations, stories in the local paper, draft models of various layouts, letters to the editor for and against, and a public survey that received more than 450 responses, apparently the City had not done enough to warn her that a pretty common amenity was being added to a park near her home. That sort of sets the stage for the 900 word whinge to follow.

At first, the writer seems concerned that the City is bent on destroying everything she holds dear. Part of it is a complaint, it seems, that either the City doesn’t engage, or people don’t get engaged. Fair enough. However, both underdeveloped theses are undermined by her closing paragraph, which demonstrates her contempt for the very ideas of planning and outreach:

“Because change will happen with or without us, as consultants, developers and urban planners rush to ‘transform’ the region’s long-established neighbourhoods, as if the word transform has been dipped in pixie dust, as if hasty artificial evolution somehow trumps organic natural evolution, which is the way neighbourhoods came together before Metro Vancouver real estate turned into a shell game.”

I cannot even understand what she is saying here, but it seems to suggest that, previous to this OCP, there was no previous OCP, or even zoning. It seems the writer imagines no previous city regulation or planning process shaped our community, and that somehow planning for any change will not only hasten it, but make it “artificial”. Perhaps it is a call to freeze all change in the region, because she has her “leafy enclave” and somehow those thousands of (current and future) New Westminster families who cannot afford adequate housing should just move into a lean-to by the river… you know, keep things “organic” like they used to be. It’s nonsensical.

For the record, the City is required by Provincial legislation to have an Official Community Plan, and to update it on a regular basis. Our current one was first developed on 1998, and has seen a significant amount of (ahem) organic evolution over the last 18 years. It is time for an update, because things have changed since 1998, not the least being a significant shift in the Metro Vancouver real estate market, and in the demographics of our community.

Do you want to know what bugs me enough about this article that I am writing an lengthy retort? Is it the laziness inherent in the lack of fact checking? Is it the failure of a person whose job it is to inform people to provide any useful information? Is it the condescending language and entitled whingy spirit of the piece?

No. What pisses me off is that the writer is somehow both ignorant and contemptuous of the incredible job that our City staff have done over the last two years making something as dull and arcane as an Official Community Plan update into something that people from across the City have found engaging, interesting and rewarding to take part in. Our staff have developed a comprehensive outreach plan unprecedented in the City, have created hard copy and on-line resources, have found a huge variety of inspired ways to take these materials out to the places where people are, and have begged and pleaded for people from across the City, from different walks of life, from different family and housing stages, to provide input. And the citizens of this city have responded in an equally unprecedented way, showing up and taking part in big numbers.

The City has gone out of its way over the last 2 years to make this OCP review process open, transparent, and accountable. It has not just received public comment, it has gone out for more than 16 months actively seeking public comment. Have we done enough? Let me provide a quick summary:

Staff have provided information and feedback materials while attending at least one meeting of every one of the 10 Residents’ Associations and the Quayside Community Board;

Staff have presented reports to 11 Council advisory committees and commissions, all made up of residents of the City, including the transportation, heritage, environment, planning, youth, seniors, multicultural, and economic development committees;

There have been no less than eight (8) public reports to Council on the process and preliminary feedback;

Over the last two summers, staff have set up “Pop up Planning” booths at numerous community events, including Uptown Live, 12th Street Music Festival, the Pride Street Festival, the Royal City Farmers Market, Sapperton Day, the Summer Sizzle, Pecha Kucha, Canada Day in the Park, etc.;

Staff put together a stakeholder group of a couple of dozen volunteer residents and business people from across the City, representing different neighbourhoods and demographics, specifically to advise staff on better ways to reach out to their neighbourhoods and cohorts, and improve how the public engagement operates;

Staff held an inspiring workshop entitled “Love Our City” where more than 170 people sat down for a full day with maps and pens and talked about the things they loved and didn’t love about their neighbourhoods. They identified key features, “community hearts”, and challenges that residents wanted to see addressed on the next 20 years;

More recently, a similar multi-hour open workshop was held to discuss different housing forms, the opportunities and challenges, and to discuss how or where different forms may fit, on a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood basis. More than 150 people attended this day-long event.

There have been more than dozen “travelling workshops” at places like Century House, the Sapperton Pensioners Hall, the River Market, and Connaught Heights School, organized on different days of the week and at varying times, sometimes mid-day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening, to make it as flexible as possible to fit everyone’s schedule. There are three more scheduled in the month ahead (see below);

There are current and ongoing efforts to connect better to underrepresented groups such as lower income residents, people with specific housing or transportation needs, and single parents, through organizations like the New West Family Place, Elizabeth Fry Society, Spirit of the Children Society, Immigrant Services Society, and the Interagency Council;

Feedback has been sought (and for the most part received) from Fraser Health, the Development Community (including UDI), Metro Vancouver, Adjacent municipalities, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Environment, Port Metro Vancouver, School District #40, TransLink, and the Qayqayt first nation;

The ongoing on-line surveys have generated (at last count) more than 700 individual responses, and those responses keep coming in;

Besides the native advertising of just being in your face at every community event over the last two years, staff have advertised on the City website and the City Page in the local newspapers, have purchased other newspaper ads, have put up posters at all City buildings (City Hall, Community Centres, the Library, etc.), have performed mail drops across the City, have even hand-delivered in some neighbourhoods where the mail drops were less effective, have used the illuminated billboards at every entrance/exit to the City, Facebook Ads and newsletters. They even arranged to have the School Board provide notices for every student in the district take home to their parents.

Personally (and I am not alone on Council here), I have tried to spread the word in any way I could. I helped organize an open house that brought together 50 young professionals – engineers, architects, chefs, software developers, marketing gurus, people with young families worried about their future housing needs and affordability, most who don’t traditionally take part in “City open houses” about planning issues. We got together at the River Market for a 2-hour workshop on housing types and density, and they provided incredibly varied, intelligent, and valuable input. I have written several blog posts, including one with step-by-step instructions on how to complete the City’s on-line engagement portal. I have attended dozens of workshops, open houses, and community meetings – not to do the job of staff in explaining the process, but just to hear what people are saying in response, and to encourage people to provide feedback directly to the City in any way they can. With the exception of the one meeting Christopher Bell kicked me out of because he felt he couldn’t have a “frank discussion” with me in the room, I heard valuable and sometimes surprising input, and have learned a great deal about the diversity of opinion in the City.

So if the author’s complaint is a lack of public engagement, my question is – what would she have us do? Because we are ready and willing to do whatever we need to in order to get a better sampling of the community. And the job is not done, as there is a bunch more public consultation to come.

If Ms. Fralic (as some have suggested) was just trying to goad people into getting more engaged, there are opportunities for you to take up her charge, which I whole-heartedly encourage you to do. Here are a few of the ways you can do so:

There are three more open workshops, January 30, February 6 and February 13, one of them only steps from the Dog Park of Concern. They are open to everyone – but it is way helpful if you register ahead of time so we know how many chairs to have and how much materials to prepare (you can even review the materials ahead of time). These are in the middle of a weekend day when most are available, and there will be both free childminding to make it easier for families to participate, and foodtrucks on site in case you get peckish during the three-hour event. We really want to remove any barrier to you attending.

There is still the on-line survey, and if you take a bit of time to fill it out, it is actually quite fun and interactive. If you want a step-by-step guide on how to complete it, I tried to throw one together here. Let me know if you need more help with it.

If the on-line thing isn’t for you, and you want paper copies of the materials to mark up and send in with your suggestions, or if you have a group of people who would like a little more guidance to help go through the materials so you can provide feedback, you can Contact the City Planning Department (email ourcity@newwestcity.ca or phone 604-527-4532) and they will do that for you. Or contact me (see contacts below) and I’ll arrange it for you.

And of course, any comments you have, good, bad, or otherwise can be sent to the Planning Department above, or to Mayor and Council.

If, somehow, you have missed all of these opportunities to provide input, and still want to comment on the OCP, there will be another entire round once the framework of a new OCP is developed. Which is another point Ms. Fralic could have fact-checked: Up to now, we have been collecting people’s input into what they want to see, and we have (as part of that) put a few very draft concepts together, but we have not yet created a new comprehensive plan. Everything you have seen so far (and this was made explicit by staff at every event where they were presenting) is pure speculation used to provide media to gauge public opinion. It is not the actual plan for a new OCP. Because we are too deep into public engagement for staff to have developed that yet.

The draft land use plan for a new OCP will be developed by staff this spring, and if it passes a first trip past Council, it will again go out for more public consultation. You will, at that time, again have the opportunity to come to public meeting, read materials on-line, provide feedback by computer, by mail, by phone or in person.

Don’t let this be you.

Middle Aged Westminster

Posted on January 10, 2016January 12, 2016. by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I am just back from Vacation, and I am still trying to understand where the Royal City New West Record newspaper is coming from when they emphasize an alleged clash between the “New” and “Old” communities in New Westminster as their Story of the Year. Perhaps I am being obtuse, but it seems to evoke the divisiveness of the Old Stock Canadians dog-whistle message quoted in the article’s lead, and I simply disagree with the premise.

To suggest that “younger folks and families” filling new condos are somehow different than families living in houses is not only a false dichotomy, it creates an impression that one is better or more important than the other, and that somehow people (especially, as continually suggested in the story, the City’s government) are picking sides. It belies the reality of how mixed and diverse our City is, and how much blending there is in those two alleged camps.

I’m a resident of Brow of the Hill, not born in New West, but feeling very connected to this community I live in a house across the street from numerous apartments built in the 60s and 70s, predominantly full of renters, some more connected to the community as I, some less. On one side of my house is a family of “younger folks” who moved in at the end of 2015 after a decade of living in Vancouver, although one of them grew up in Queens Park and graduated from NWSS – are they “Old” or “New” New West? What about the retired couple across from me, one of whom was born in the BC Interior (like me) but had a career working for the City of New Westminster? I have friends who live in a condo on the Quay that has a demographic not far from your typical retirement village, I know young families filing more-affordable single-family homes in Queesnborough, some second-generation Canadians who first learned English at Queen Elizabeth Elementary, others the children of families that built Queensborough generations ago. Who has the hubris to draw the line between “New” and “Old” New West within this mix? Why would we want to?

Because between “New” and “Old” New West is a huge and growing number of “Middle Age” New West, those who have been here for a few years, or a few decades, and despite having not been born here, they have put down roots and are making New Westminster home. And they are raising a new generation of New West. At the the suggestion of conflict, most would say we are all New Westminster, whether our grandfather was born here, or we arrived as a refugee last week.

Our success as a community will be found in supporting each other, and embracing the diversity of our community. As the great Jane Jacobs reminds us in her treatise on vibrant neighbourhoods and cities, a diversity of people, families, buildings and activities are what create an economically viable and culturally sustainable community. Only that will make us strong enough to withstand threats external or internal, and avoid the stagnation that too often follows on the heels of urbanization. Just as we cannot stop innovating, we cannot throw away what is established, we need to make them work together.

So if building a great community means accepting all types of people sharing and working together, and if the line between “New” and “Old” is so fuzzy, what is to be served by trying to insert arbitrary lines, creating arbitrary categories, and watching for reasons for them to fight?

This ambiguity extends to the idea that there is some sort of fundamental transition happening in New Westminster today, or that suddenly the town that time forgot is being trust into a new era. The reality is that (for lack of a better word) “change” has always defined New Westminster as much as stability. Over 150 years we have gone from a Quayqayt (“Resting Place”) on a pristine river to a Capital City on the edge of the colony. We were at times largest port on the west coast, the home of the pacific fishing fleet and a regional commercial centre. We were eventually outshone by an upstart western suburb, then gradually enveloped by its growing metropolis. Over time our commercial dominance waned, then our waterfront industry declined. Soon the Quayside led a new residential focus based on waterfront location and condo living, while our transportation spine went from streetcar to automobile to Skytrain. There were good times and bad, and most of the time there was a little of both. These changes were most often gradual, shifts were generational, as were the waves of new immigrants putting their cultural stamp on our community – English, Chinese, Punjabi, Filipino, Honduran, Somali, Syrian…

Through all those times, transitions, and shifts, which should we stamp as the optimum, the one we must not move away from? I know I can’t make that call, and it would suggest it is silly to try. Because over that time all of our strongly-held traditions have adapted – including the oft-cited example of May Day. A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post about a study that outlined many of these “transitions”, including the way May Day and the festivals around it have changed, sometimes back and forth, based on the economics and attitudes of the day. Most interesting to me was the part that talked about a new upstart group of young business leaders who came in 40 years ago and re-drew a bunch of traditions to modernize the City’s May festivals – the group that came to be known as the Hyack Festival Association.

I only use this as an example, and don’t want to dwell on it, for fear I am playing into the narrative that I don’t believe.

Far from suddenly transitioning to a New New Westminster, we are continuing to evolve. I love some of New Westminster’s “Old” traditions (the Anvil Battery Salute? Who can’t love that?) and am completely uninterested in some others. I also love some (not all!) of the “New” traditions being developed (PechaKucha Nights!) and hope they survive to the next generation. Of course, in between there have been many Traditions that have come and gone, and some in that intermediate stage between “Old” and “New”. Some people like the RC Musical Theatre, some like the Symphony, some like comedy at the Columbia and live music at the Heritage. I think the Royal City Curling Club is a 50-year cultural and sporting tradition in the City that not enough people appreciate, but to love it doesn’t take away from the legacy of the Salmonbellies. Why do we have to choose and put ourselves in camps?

We are all New Westminster. So let’s keep embracing the things we love, and not be afraid to try new flavours. Because it is the combination of “New” and “Old” that makes us special, not an alleged conflict between them.

Q2Q, again.

Posted on January 4, 2016January 4, 2016. by Patrick Johnstone. 7 Comments.

This Post is actually an extended response to the comment by Ken, a Quayside resident and community builder, to my previous post about the Q2Q bridge. I thought his comments raised enough issues that I couldn’t do it justice just replying in a comment field!

Thanks Ken,

I will try to address your questions, but recognize that much of what you talk about occurred before my time on Council (so I was not involved in the discussions) and I respect that you have a much more intimate knowledge of the conversation on the Quayside over the last decade than I do.

The project has indeed gone through various iterations in its history, and the initial plans ( here is a link to a report from the time) were to reach 22m of clearance to develop a fixed link that would get adequate clearance that we would not need Navigable Waters permission (read- not specifically need Marine Carriers permission) which required essentially the same height as the Queensborough Bridge. Conceptual drawings were developed based on the site conditions and some baseline engineering, and very preliminary cost estimates prepared. That concept was indeed reviewed by the Port (at that time, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority) and note they even at the time preferred an upstream (east of the train bridge) location (see page 12 of that report I just linked to). Note also: that report suggests elevators at each end to improve accessibility. This is the concept that first went to public consultation, and concerns were heard about the need for long ramps that would have nonetheless been very steep, the overall height, the fate of the Submarine Park, etc.

The only alternative to all of that height was a swing/bascule bridge. To explore this option, the City asked some engineers to sketch and (very preliminarily) price some alternative concepts, including a bascule and a sidewalk attached to the rail bridge. The City again took these preliminary concepts to public consultation, and the bascule design clearly came up as the preferred approach, even recognizing it was potentially more expensive.

Now that a preferred concept was (hopefully) found, and the Q2Q crossing once again received endorsement from the new Council, it was time to actually pay a little more money to engineers to further develop the preferred concept to a level of detail that would allow screening for Port review. Not enough development for a full review, mind you (that will likely take several hundred thousand more dollars in engineering and environmental consultant fees and will no doubt also result in adjustments of the concept), but enough that it is worth the Port’s time to look at our concept and provide a detailed regulatory screening and provide us a pathway to approval.

That is pretty much where we are right now, and for the third time, this concept is coming to the public for review. The only thing I can guarantee you at this point is that if (and it is still an “if”, despite general Council and public support) this project is completed, it will not look exactly like the drawings you see on the page today. There is much engineering to do, environmental review to perform, and more public discussion to be had. Satisfying the Port’s environmental review will be months once we get to that point, and we can guarantee it will require some design adjustments.

There are also other adjustments I think we need to see based on public feedback this time around. Although I have held my cards close to my chest because I don’t want to prejudice the public consultation, I will admit up front that there are two things in particular I cannot tolerate in the plans as presented at the open house: the 8% ramps simply do not meet modern standards of accessibility; and the closing of the bridge at night is not an acceptable way to treat a piece of public active transportation infrastructure. I’m prepared to accept that we cannot have the Copenhagen-style transportation amenity I would prefer, but I am still hopeful we can find a compromise that provides an accessible, reliable, and attractive transportation connection. We are not there yet. (And please remember, I am only one member of a Council of seven, and I cannot speak for them).

To answer what seems to be your main concern, I don’t know when the Marine Carriers were first consulted on this project, but the Port (who provides the Marine Carriers their authority) were clearly involved from day 1. They preferred an upstream location (now prefer a downstream one) and created the 22m by 100m “window” that led to the original 22m-high bridge concept, and have now led to evaluation of several swing/bascule concepts. Clearly, the City and our engineers have been searching for a creative solution to make what the politicians and public want mesh with the rather strict requirements of those who regulate the river and transportation. But serving those two/three masters is why the City is taking this iterative, slow approach, and why “plans that keep changing” are a sign of progress, not failure.

One thing to think about is that every step of this process costs more than the previous step, and moving backwards costs most of all. As engineering analysis and design gets more detailed, it gets more expensive, so we don’t want to do the detailed work twice. We could have asked for a ready-to-build concept a decade ago, and done enough detailed design that we just needed to pull the trigger and we could have it built within a year, and then taken it to public consultation. But if things are found that don’t work (i.e. the initial 22m height), we have spent a lot on a concept we now need to spend more on to change. Instead, we do feasibility studies, take it to stakeholders, the public, the regulators, and are given feedback. We then develop the concept to get more engineering done, and again have a look at the result and either move forward or change track depending on feedback.

This is a responsible way to plan, design, and pay for a public amenity. It is an iterative process, because as a government, we need to do our best to meet the needs of residents, of taxpayers who are footing the bill, of the regulations at 4 levels of government that have a thousand ways to limit our excesses, and of people who may be impacted by every decision we make.

If a government claims to do three years of stakeholder and public engagement, detailed engineering analysis and business case development, then turn around and deliver to you the exact same proposal they managed to render in a 3D model three years ago when the analysis started, then you know their consultation was bunk.

And I guarantee you, for every person who complains “this project has changed since the public consultation”, there are two who will say “public consultation never changes anything, they are going to ram their idea through regardless of what we say”. Actually, the same person will often say both, completely unaware of the irony. And that is why I appreciate your honest comments Ken, it sounds to me like you are trying to understand, not just complaining. So please provide your comments to the Engineering department and to Mayor and Council, and you will be heard!

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…

Patrick Johnstone

Fan of cities; Mayor of a great one.

Tag: New Westminster