Tag: Politics

Protest

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

This story picked up some regional media, and I was asked to comment. As is common and necessary, my lengthy thoughts were edited for a short TV news bit, so I wanted to expand on the discussion publicly, as there are a lot of details in this story that are relevant to how we do public engagement and discourse in the City. I wantto talk aobut the difference between community engagement, and the “white noise” of this astroturf anti-housing group.

I had never heard of “Lets Vote” or their colleagues at “We Vote Canada” until the BC Housing announcement of HEART and HEARTH funding and a Tiny Homes Village model for transitional housing in New Westminster. As BC Housing began its work of community consultation, there was clearly some community concern raised, which is not surprising or different than community concern raised when Mazarine Lodge, Moytel Lalem, or the upcoming housing at Sixth and Agnes were addressed at Council.

But there is something different this time.

There were suddenly small groups of people leafleting the neighbourhood, then at elementary schools across the City during student pick-up times. “Literally forcing pamphlets into parents’ hands” is how it was reported to me by a concerned parent. When one of these pamphlets was circulated to me, I scanned the QR code, and found an invite to join a WhatsApp group, which I briefly did to see what it was about before I was removed, presumably because the organizers recognized my name and their model of public engagement didn’t include engaging with decision makers.

Then a planned protest showed up at one of the BC Housing open houses. A small group with pre-printed signs and a “LetsVote” banner, along with a PA system to provide opportunities to speak for several members of the BC Conservative Party from Richmond and Abbotsford. At this point, some colleagues from around the region contacted me and let me know that this appeared to be the same group of people who protested supportive housing and shelter projects in Burnaby, non-market housing in Semiahmoo Village in South Surrey, and against the very idea of “supportive housing” being included in White Rock’s Official Community Plan update. Same people, same signs, same anti-drug rhetoric used to oppose four (now 5) very different housing proposals in four different cities:

The same members (carrying the same signs) then showed up at New Westminster City Hall to protest before a Council meeting when the Tiny Homes Village was not even on the agenda. A New Westminster resident sent me a note of concern, as they has also received the pamphlet at the elementary school and had been following along with the “protest movement” out of curiosity, and sent me this image of the agenda for this protest:

Again, it was courteous of them to leave space at the end of the program for “New Westminster Locals”, but I am going to suggest that the purpose of this protest at New Westminster City Hall was not to relate the concerns of New Westminster residents to members of Council or staff at the City or BC Housing, but to put up their banners and platform an organization that is using misinformation and fearmongering to drive membership for the BC Conservative Party, predominantly in the ethnic Chinese community.

Part of me thinks this is all fine and good. Folks can organize politically and use their messaging skills to drive engagement, and the public can decide if they like or don’t like that message, and react accordingly. That’s democracy.

The other part of me is disappointed that this “white noise” is drowning out an important conversation the community needs to have. As we in the City engage with community and BC Housing around the delivery of transitional housing (and all housing, for that matter) it is important that we hear from community members and have an opportunity to share information and address legitimate concerns. We had a delegate at the same Council meeting as the protest, a resident from the Riverview area, express heartfelt concerns with questions about the impact of this project on his community. You can believe or not believe his concerns are legitimate based on the scope of the project, but it is our job to hear them, and address them the best we can. Having people with a political agenda and partisan bone to pick shouting mistruths and fearmongering is not conducive to that respectful dialogue. I also should note there were several locals from New Westminster at the protest, and I’m not sure if they had microphone time, but many of them came to Council Chambers afterward even though the housing was not on the the Agenda, and Council had no decision-making to do regarding the project at that time.

I have received a lot of correspondence on this file, both raising concerns and expressing support. The overwhelming response is “we need to do something about homelessness”. Some would like us to do it somewhere else other than here (though the notion of “where” is somewhat fuzzy), some would like us to do it in a different way, but very few are telling us to do nothing. Though most unhoused people in New West – those who will be prioritized for housing at the Tiny Homes Village – do not have active addictions to illegal drugs, some of them might. Just as some of the people in the apartment building where you live, perhaps in your very home, may have addictions. Telling a person that they cannot have a safe place to sleep because they have an addiction – be that to alcohol or cigarettes or opioids – is not a solution, it is exacerbating the problem. A safe place to live while they work though their addictions, their trauma, their mental health challenge, and find support to deal with those issues is not only the right thing to do morally, it is the proven path to a healthier community.

I find it a bit ironic that much of the correspondence from outside of New Westminster is concentrating on the need for drug-free housing options, suggesting the City should instead support drug-free / sober living and the recovery community. These folks are apparently unaware New Westminster is considered a national leader by the recovery community, and does more than most cities in Canada to support the recovery community in words and action, including having more sober living beds per capita than any other City in the Lower Mainland. There is nothing in the Tiny Homes Village that takes way from those efforts, or directs funds from those efforts. The simple reality is that we need every resource we can get our hands on to address homelessness – which is a very different set of tools than needed to address addiction, because they are not interchangeable crises. There is definitely some overlap between them, and where they overlap we need a range of tools because people in addiction are not a monoculture. We need complex care beds for some, we need detox and recovery for some, we need stability and access to counselling for some, we need medication for some, and for most we probably need some combination of those things.

The Tiny Homes Village is a work in progress. As a City, we have engaged with the railways and industrial neighbours, and are connecting them with BC Housing to determine what measures can be put into the Operations Plan to manage existing security and safety issues around their operations, and to assure the transitional housing reduces these concerns. I say existing, because there is already a history of informal encampments near this site that have been challenging for the Province and City to respond to, and this project provides us an opportunity to bring new and different tools to that challenge.

We are also looking forward to the results of the BC Housing engagement process, and the City will be using that information to inform not just the Operations Plan, but the Neighbourhood Inclusion process we are setting up with BC Housing to provide proactive management of issues around the village once it is set up in the fall. We are taking guidance from other jurisdictions where this model has been successful in similar settings, and learning from the example of others where there were issues that needed addressing. And the conversation with the community continues.

Council – March 30, 2026

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Apologies to regular readers (Hi Mom!) for being so late at getting this Council report out. It has been a hectic week, with lots of exciting things going on, some big and public, some more about ongoing conversations that are just starting to see public news release, or aren’t ready for new release yet. It’s been busy!

Last week’s Council meetings was not without its drama (I could write an entire report just on the delegations!), and there will be some more fallout of that, but we also got a lot of great work done from a relatively concise agenda, and that’s what this report is about. It started with a Presentation from Staff:

People, Parks and Play: New Westminster Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Plan Update
This term of Council, following on the heels of the opening of təməsew̓txʷ, there has been a lot of work in the background and through several phases of public consultation on a new master plan for parks and recreation in the City. This is the culmination of that work, and sets the path for the next 10 years in recreation and parks investment in the City. It’s an exciting time of looking forward.

As our last Parks Plan from 2008 demonstrates, there has been a lot of change in 18 years, and the recreation needs of the community have evolved. It’s not simply a matter of “we need more of everything”, we have had to shift and adapt to long-term trends in recreation and parks use, driven by shifts in our demographics, to assure what we can offer in our limited 15 square kilometres best meets the needs of our residents.

Much like our Council Strategic Plan, this master plan is structured around clear goals (six defined goals in this case) and the three foundational lenses of Reconciliation, Equity and Inclusion, and Climate Action are used as lenses to define how we achieve those goals. Not surprisingly for a City that has grown in population by about 50% since 2008, out park-space-per-capita has gone down, though most residents still live within a 10 minute walk of an active park, only about half live within a 5-minute walk, and acquisition of new park land, especially in denser areas like the Brow of the Hill where most residents don’t have back yard, is a priority.

But to me the exciting part of this report and Council’s resolution to move forward rapidly on high priority projects is the commitment to the next phase of recreation infrastructure investment following təməsew̓txʷ.
New sports courts Simcoe Park, Grimston and Moody Park, and a new multi-purpose covered outdoor sport court, replacing our aging collection of outdoor lacrosse boxes; major upgrades at Westburnco; commitment to a third sheet of ice to compliment Queens Park Arena and Moody Arena; and commitment a new (2,800 square meters?) multi-purpose community center in the downtown.

The next 5 years are going to be a period of rapid parks and recreation growth in the City, and this plan is the roadmap we need to see that growth succeed.

The following items were then approved On Consent:

2026 Parcel Tax Roll Review Panel for Local Area Services
Parcel Taxes are the method through which the City collects money from some landowners to pay for a specific service, based on lots size or frontage as opposed to assessed value. In New Westminster that is limited to funding the BIAs Uptown and Downtown though a tax that applies only to members. As a matter of legal practice, we must review the Parcel Tax Roll every year, and province a venue for owners in the parcel tax area to appeal if they think it shouldn’t apply to them. This report is just outlining that process, and giving public notice that we will formally review the poll in an upcoming Council meeting.
FCM Resolution Amendment – Modernizing Federal Small Business Policy to Support Local Economic Stability and Succession
The way the FCM (our national advocacy body as local governments) managed resolutions is bit different than the Lower Mainland Local Government Association (our local body) and the Unions of BC Municipalities (our Provincial body). After reviewing the resolution we submitted, they are making some recommendations for modification of the resolution that doesn’t change the meaning or nature, just the process of its consideration at FCM. We approve.

Response to Council Motion: Municipal Practices for Allocation of Filming Revenue
There was some discussion in council recently about the “excess revenue” the City collects for filming in the City. Most of the revenue we collect is cost recovery (covering the costs of police attendance, traffic management, engineering support, etc.) but we do make a little but of extra revenue every year that goes into general revenues. This idea was whether some of this could be earmarked for new initiatives, likely through a reserve fund. Staff have looked around the region and found that the way we manage excess revenue is pretty typical region-wide, but will take the idea of earmarking some of the revenues to the ACEDAC.

Westminster Pier Park Westward Expansion- Additional Fee Request from PFS Studio
We effectively sole-sourced this phase of design work for the Pier Park western expansion, because there was a design team we were working with that knew the complexity of the site (building a park on top of a parkade structure!) and had been partnering with us through this work The total in fees now exceeds what were are able to sole-source without Council authorization, so here is staff seeking that authorization. This is not a budget change – the project is on budget, and will be completed this spring!

The following items were Removed from consent for discussion:

Budget 2027 Public Opinion Survey Methodology
Every couple of years, we pay for a formal scientific poll of the community as part of our budget consultation process. This is different that the workshops, opportunities to be heard, Facebook (oh, god) comments, and other processes we do, as it is actually a scientifically defensible survey of public opinion on the budget, taxes, and level of service in the community. The last poll in 2025 showed people are generally satisfied with the value they get for their tax dollar in New Westminster and are not in favour of cutting services to keep tax increases down. We will repeat this process in 2026 to survey the community and hopefully use that feedback to frame our discussion about the 2027 budget. Public polling like this, to get reliable results, costs money, but as part of a broader strategy of hearing from the community, it is worth while doing these check-ins every couple of years.

Business Regulations and Licensing (Rental Units) Bylaw Cooling Amendments and Next Steps
I don’t have to remind regular readers about the 2021 heat dome, and the devastating impact it had on our community. I wrote about it here, and after 33 coroner-confirmed direct deaths (and other related to the event), I am still committed to the City doing everything within our power to prevent a repeat. We have already taken many actions, from expanding our heat emergency response efforts, reevaluating how we operate and advertise cooling centres, and working with residential property operators on “one cool room” and other strategies to assure that older and less efficient buildings in the City don’t become death traps during the next major heat event.

We have done a lot of work, and have implemented several “carrots” to support residential property managers to make homes safer. We have struggled with the “sticks” part of that same policy goal. We have already passed a bylaw regulating that landlords cannot arbitrarily ban air conditioners from rental apartments, we are now moving forward with what we think is a pragmatic and defensible position that landlord are required to maintain safe indoor temperatures in at least one living space in a rental unit. We already have laws that require heating to a safe temperature be provided, we are adding to this that beyond a safe minimum temperature, there must be a safe maximum temperature.

Alongside this, and as part of our ongoing Vulnerable Buildings Assessment project, a pilot project is simultaneously being developed to support building owners and tenants to identify, access and implement indoor cooling solutions on a case-by-case basis.

This report brings the first three reading of the Bylaws, and we have some work and consultation to do prior to adoption, then we will have some communications work to do following adoption, but I think this is another example of New Westminster going above and beyond to protect the most vulnerable people in our community, and I’m proud that staff were able to find a bold and pragmatic approach that might just save lives.

Official Community Plan Amendment and Rezoning Application: 807-823 Sangster Place and 39 E Eighth Avenue – Application Update
This is a challenging project that has been under development for several years, and has run up against the deadline of June 30 that the City has for implementing our Bill 46-mandated funding structure for DCCs and ACCs. In short, after that date we are no longer able to negotiate Community Amenity Contributions, and instead must charge Development Cost Charges and Amenity Cost Charges to get funding for amenities from developers. This project was developed without the updated DCC and ACC costs included, and the developer was given the option to proceed under the new rules or under the old rules, on the condition that in the latter case all work required be completed in time for Council to provide approval before June 30th. The developer chose that second path. That has resulted in the unusual situation where staff are bringing the project to Council while not recommending approval.

To the biggest point here, the applicant has missed the deadline to provide the information necessary to prepare the Bylaws. As this project is not just a rezoning, but necessitates an amendment of the Official Community Plan, legislations requires significant external agency consultation and public consultation leading to an Public Hearing based on the prepared Bylaws, and now the timelines to get all of that done by June 30th are too tight.

That is a process problem, and what led to Council making the decision to vote against advancing this application, but there are some other problems with the development that can be summed up as it representing an OCP amendment without public amenity contribution sufficient to warrant OCP update. The applicant can re-apply at a future date, but the project will now be subject to the new DCC and ACC regulations.

Planning for the 2026 General Local Elections
Hey! There is an election coming in October! And the City has to run the election for both Council and the School Board, so this report outlines the election plan from the our Corporate Officer. There will be some changed arising out of the post-election summary provided to Council back in, and the only recommendation coming out of that that council did not agree with was moving the date for installing lawn signs forward to the start of the nomination period. Instead lawn signs will be permitted at the start of the 28-day campaign period to align with provincial practice.

And that was Council for March. I cannot believe it is April already. Happy Easter everyone.

IWD 2026

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Today is International Women’s Day, and it always feel weird to be “Mayorsplaining” the experience of women and girls to the majority of the City who are not cis guys. Especially as I am surrounded by so many smart, strong, and bold women who are leading in New Westminster. So I’ll take this opportunity to highlight a few of the books that have guided my learning about cities and hope some of the dudes who follow me do their own learning and work to support more equitable and just cities as a path to a more equitable and just world.

The obvious first book is Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”. Still relevant 65 years after it was written, the book was written as a critique (attack) on orthodox city planning and became an important part of the paradigm shift that changed the planning profession.  My own copy has suffered greatly from dog-earing and marginal noting, as I return to the many insights in here round the role of sidewalks as social places, the value of framing the experience of children in a public space, and the difference between a City designed for cars an one designed for people. https://tinyurl.com/5ezdpkx2

When Janette Sadik-Khan wrote “Streetfight”, she had just left her role as Transportation Commissioner of New York City, where she led bold (and ultimately highly successful) initiatives to give the streets back to the people of New York, a City where most people don’t include driving as part of their everyday lives, but most public space was still given to cars. She was instrumental in making New York a cycling city, in the redesign of Times Square and other public spaces to emphasize gathering and community in the most famous city in the world. And one quote in this book is burned in my head: “When you push the status quo, it pushes back. Hard.” https://tinyurl.com/bdaj7e8d

One thing these two books reference, sometimes obliquely, is that cities are traditionally designed to serve an outmoded ideal – the single male breadwinner of the nuclear family. This is simply not how most people live today, and we need to change how our cities work if we want to address the needs of today. This is more explicitly set out in Leslie Kern’s “Feminist City”. This book opens up new ways to see a city and a community (at least new to folks like me), and asks a lot of questions, even if I think it falls short of providing answers to those questions (I’m hoping for a sequel!) https://tinyurl.com/szt42f3y

Have a meaningful International Women’s Day, and pass the knowledge!

Council – Jan 26, 2026

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Monday’s meeting featured a Public Hearing. Two actually. This is something the City doesn’t do as much anymore since the Province changed the rules and limited our ability to hold them for routine rezoning applications. These OCP and Zoning changes were not routine, however, but represented a big step forward in housing variety and affordability in the City. So Public Hearing we go.

The full Public Hearing Reports are here, and there is much more info available here about the 18 month process that got us here, which doesn’t all fit in the Agenda. In this report I will try as best I can to stick the facts, and save most of the (good and bad) politics of the meeting for my Newsletter (Subscribe here if you want to read that stuff).

Public Hearing 1: Integration of Provincial Housing Legislation
Our First Public Hearing addressed three separate Bylaws:

Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 7925, 2017, Amendment Bylaw (Provincial Housing Legislation Integration) No. 8522, 2025
This change to the Official Community Plan related to Transit Oriented Development (TOD) that creates new “Land Use Designations” within the 200m, 400m and 800m buffers around SkyTrain Stations that meet the requirements of the Province’s “Bill 47” (which I wrote about here when it came out). There is quite a bit of detail in here about how we integrated these into our existing Official Community Plan, and I am comfortable in saying this is a made in New West approach and not the one size fits all approach that some other communities have been bemoaning. The most obvious example being that this does not apply to the TOD areas around 22nd Street Skytrain station, as that area is already going through an OCP update process, and will require extra technical work to address infrastructure, transportation, community needs and consultation before we can confidently move forward. Another example is how this OCP designation interacts with the Queens Park Heritage Conservation Area, where protected heritage homes are still protected and design guidelines for non-protected properties still apply, though we are not legally permitted to restrict density if builders can find a creative way to thread that needle.

Another change included here is to assure that the OCP accommodates the need for new housing outlined in the City’s Interim Housing Needs Report. This is really just a text adjustment, as the OCP (with changes required by legislation) already provides for sufficient homes to be built in the decade ahead, we just need the OCP to spell out that math clearly.

Zoning Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment Bylaw (Non-Profit Housing Development, Phase 2) No. 8528, 2025
This change to our Zoning Bylaw would pre-zone all areas in TOD Tiers 2 and 3 (areas already designated for 8- to 12-storey buildings) to allow non-profit affordable housing of up to six stores. This is a big step to assist non-profit housing providers in getting senior government funding approved for non-market housing, as the zoning step is often a barrier to funding commitments. There will be design guidelines, Development Permits, and other authorizations required, but this could significantly accelerate the approval of new truly affordable housing in the City.

Zoning Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment Bylaw (Land Use Designation Alignments) No. 8530, 2025
Finally, there are some administrative changes to the zoning bylaw required to update the language, to assure a few slightly complicated sites are aligned with the goals of the changes above, and to allow “Public School” in the majority of residential and mixed use lands, simplifying the School Board’s process for acquiring lands and approval of new schools.

We had about 50 pieces of correspondence on this item, about equally split between supportive and opposed, and we had about 20 delegates at Council speaking to it, a small majority of them speaking in favour. Concerns raised were mostly concerns around increased population density and its impact on infrastructure planning, while supporters generally spoke of increasing housing variety, the need to address a chronic regional housing shortage, and the need to streamline affordable housing.

Public Hearing 2: Implementation of Townhouse and Affordable Housing Accelerator Fund Initiatives
Our Second Public Hearing addressed the following two Bylaws:

Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 7925, 2017, Amendment Bylaw (Townhouse Accelerator Initiative) No. 8547, 2025
This change to the Official Community Plan would designate Townhouse as an additional land use for about 900 properties in the City that are currently designated Single Family. These properties are mostly the “edges” around the TOD areas above, and some other areas where it made sense from a planning and utility servicing perspective 9modified as a result of some public consultaiton). This is previous to adoption (in an upcoming meeting) of our Small Site Multi-Unity Housing (SSMUH) policy to support the Province’s multiplex rules from Bill 44. In short, the decision was to either designate these sites Townhouse, or to wait and designate them SSMUH at the Province’s June deadline.

This Bylaw also designated non-profit affordable housing projects of up to six storeys as an approvable land use within these Townhouse areas. Unlike the Bylaw above, this is not pre-zoning for affordable housing, these sites will still need rezoning, but it does indicate that Council would consider such a rezoning if a non-profit housing provider could make a project work on these sites.

Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 6680, 2001, Amendment Bylaw (Townhouse Zoning Update) No. 8524, 2025
This amendment to our Zoning Bylaw would pre-zone approximately 570 of the 900 Townhouse properties above for Townhouse development. This will speed up the approval process if people want to build townhouse form on these properties, allowing them to skip to the development permit process, removing some uncertainty and delay from the process. This pre-zoning is not extended to all 900 because some of the properties (based on lot size, availability of a back alley for access, etc.) are not appropriate for development as townhouse without more complicated servicing/design/access work that is best secured through rezoning.

We received about 55 pieces of correspondence on these changes, with a moderate majority opposed and we had about 27 delegates at Council speaking to it, a small majority of them speaking in opposition. Concerns raised were similarly around increased population density and its impact on infrastructure planning, though there were a number of people whose properties were directly impacted or adjacent who didn’t want townhouses near their homes for aesthetic or character of the neighbourhood reasons. The supporters mostly spoke (again) of increasing housing variety, the need to build “missing middle” housing forms between houses and towers.

In the end, Council in mostly split votes approved third reading for all bylaws. The need to meet Provincial housing requirements, and the interest in both housing variety and speeding up truly affordable housing approvals were cited as reason for support. You are better to listen to the video than read my summary of the reasons expressed by some other members of Council for opposition, but it was basically an anti-housing anti-growth message, peppered with misinformation around our infrastructure planning.

The Public Hearing feedback was indeed mixed, but the public consultation prior to the hearing was more firmly in support of the direction the Bylaws presented, including allowing infill and townhouses within Tier 2 and Tier 3 TOD areas (73% in support) and in supporting 6 storey affordable housing in the OTD areas (75%) and the Townhouse areas (63%).

To put some of the deliberating of these Bylaws in context, it is important to note that the Provincial Regulations came out in November 2023, and the City received a Federal Housing Accelerator Fund grant in February 2024 to fund our work toward meeting those requirements, and accelerating affordable housing approvals in the City. In response to this Staff developed a work plan to do the TOD and Townhouse work that was approved unanimously by this Council on May 27, 2024, and a work plan to do this Affordable Housing work was approved unanimously by this Council on June 3, 2024. I include the dates, because the motions and unanimous votes are a matter of public record, you can look this up.

On November 4, 2024 Council unanimously endorsed the approach to early and ongoing consultation, which included in the Spring of 2025 on-line consultation with a survey and an on-line Zoom information event, and a series of Community Open Houses that were well attended and outlined preferences and concerns. On October 27, 2025 Council unanimously, and item-by-item, approved the bylaws above to be prepared for readings, and on December 15, 2025 Council unanimously endorsed the detailed plan, and gave first and second readings to the Bylaws.

Everyone on Council is of course free to vote their conscience or change their mind, but I think it is fair for to ask members of Council raising serious objections to these Bylaws at 50 minutes after the 11th hour (literally and figuratively) why they did not take any of those five previous opportunities over the last two years to raise concerns to staff and Council. If they had, staff and the rest of Council could discuss those concerns, understand those concerns, maybe even make changes and seek consensus on solutions to address them. How are staff able to develop policy that meets your concerns if you have never, over 5 meetings and almost two years, raised a hint that you had any concerns? They are not mind readers. In my opinion, sitting on your hands and ignoring staff in multiple meetings over two years when they are asking for input, then telling them they did it all wrong at the end is not just bad leadership, it is disrespectful to the public service, and to the community.

And I’ll stop with the politics now and put the rest of that in the newsletter.

After the Public Hearing Bylaws were approved, we had one more piece of business which was a Bylaw for Adoption:

Development Cost Charges Police Reserve Fund Establishment Bylaw No. 8570, 2025
This Bylaw that establishes a reserve fund for Police infrastructure that will be funded through development cost charges (and is one small part of the answer to the questions “Are we planning for infrastructure growth? How are we going to pay for it?” was adopted unanimously by Counicl.

And with that we were adjourned a few minutes before midnight.

CRPP update

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

As I mentioned in my last Council report, we had a presentation on the first annual evaluation of the Crises Response Pilot Project. I don’t usually report out on presentations here (there was no decision for Council to make), but this one led to some interesting discussion and is centre of mind for many people in New Westminster. It is worth taking the time to unpack the report a bit, it had both good and bad news.

For those folks new to the scene, the Crises Response Pilot Project is a collection of actions and resources meant to address the three overlapping crises impacting New Westminster and communities across the province in the echo of the pandemic: homelessness, untreated mental health conditions, and a toxic drug supply. Like Many cities, we were putting a lot of resources into clean-up and “public order” responses, and were into making progress, while staff got more overwhelmed and the community got more frustrated. It was clear doing more of what we were doing wasn’t going to get us further ahead.

Working with the province, the health authority, non-profit providers and the broader community, The City adopted a three-part pilot project, the details of which you can read about (or watch the video) here. We also committed to having an external evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the project, and to let us know what is working and what isn’t. Last meeting we received our first report from that external evaluation.

Dr. Anne Tseng, a Sociologist from Douglas College is the person performing this evaluation work, and also used hew academic expertise to develop the evaluation goals, metrics and methodology for analysis, and as some of those were challenged by members of Council during last week’s meeting, I felt it important to remind them that these metrics were agreed upon unanimously by Council back in April. It is frustrating and counterproductive to attack a person working for the City for doing the very thing Council asked her to do. But such is politics today.

“The pilot project is designed to be trauma-informed and people-centered in responding to individuals with lived and living experience of the harms associated with the three crises. Furthermore, the pilot project also incorporates strategies to address the externalities of the three crises that have spillover consequences for residents, businesses, and interest-holders in the community.”

There is good and bad news in this report, but there are also recommendations to improve data gathering and progress tracking, and recommendations to improve upon the deliverables. There is the raw data in here that tells one story, such as the hundreds of referrals to health services, including IHART and ICM, and the 135 applications to transitional and supportive housing that CRPP staff have helped facilitate. There is also, unfortunately, a bottleneck in transitional and supportive housing that means most referrals are not resulting in people getting into a housing stream. The completion of 52 units of housing at 6th and Agnes will help significantly with this, but it is still under construction, and the need for shelter services will remain unabated until housing investments ramp up to meet the need.

The operations team have also been effective, and we are receiving positive feedback from a lot of residents and businesses downtown that the streets are much cleaner and better maintained in some “trouble spots”, but we are not around the corner completely on this, and it is still a place where significant resources are being spent.

The Community Liaison Officers are responding to calls (you know about the One Number to Call, right?) and addressing issues, but increasingly they are being proactive – getting out to problem areas before the complaints or concerns come in, and again we are starting to receive some positive feedback from the community on this work. Most concerns are related to encampments and tents, and I again refer you to the point above about the desperate need for safe accessible shelter space in the short term, and more robust housing investments in the medium term.

One part of the report that is strong on recommendation (that is, where we are falling short) is where we are not effectively getting the information about this project out to residents and businesses. Simply put, not enough people know about the program, and are still asking “what is the City doing about all this?” It is also clear that in the absence of good information, misinformation inevitably fills the void. With a topic as politically charged as this one, fear and stigma are amplified through that misinformation.

“…residents mentioned the stereotypes and stigma attached to individuals experiencing the crises and the need for better education and awareness to combat misinformation. Several participants also mentioned the need to not only spread awareness but to foster empathy and understanding. A participant attributed misinformation to the media, which they described ‘drives fear and feeds into stereotyping.’”

Council has heard clearly from downtown businesses that the false narrative being presented about downtown – that it is a dangerous place where businesses are failing – has been harmful to both businesses and to people needing support. It is incumbent on all of us to fill that fear-based information void with good information about the work being done.

On the good news side, the communication upwards to senior governments has brought positive results. Advocacy to the Ministry of Housing and Housing BC has created better staff-to-staff collaboration, investments to improve shelter services in the City, and ongoing work to develop the next phase of supportive and transitional housing. Similarly, the advocacy to health partners has brought increased and improved resources to the City, including collaboration toward an adult Situation Table (to coordinate resource supports in a client-focused way).

We were able to recently announce that our original $1.4 Million grant from the federal Emergency Treatment Fund has been enhanced with another $290,000 grant from the same fund. This demonstrates that the Federal Government recognizes we are doing something innovative and proactive here in New Westminster that will ultimately save the health care system more than this ETF contribution, while building community resiliency. The Federal Government is noting that New Westminster is taking a more proactive approach to the same challenges that are impacting communities across Canada, and that the model of inter-governmental and inter-agency collaboration we are showcasing here is scalable to other communities facing the same challenges.

This report comes as the CRPP is still in its initiation phase. We have a lot more work to do, and we are continuing to measure our work so we can adapt as the need on the ground requires. Having an external evaluator hold us accountable to the community, and to our funders, is an important commitment we have made in launching this pilot.

I’m really proud of the work staff in the City and our partner agencies are doing, and am proud of New Westminster residents and businesses in supporting us in this approach. This is what it means to live in a City that is a community.

Zombie Bad Data

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

It’s been a while since I saw this kind of comparison, but it is circulating on local social media again, seeming to point back at some politicking by a certain group who obviously know the truth, but have little interest in honest discussion, preferring to ask leading questions instead of seeking seeking answers when they have just as much access to all of the data as I do. Here is the graphic:

There are two problems with this comparison, which was generated by the City of Port Coquitlam for their own political reasons.

One is that the numbers include electrical utility charges collected by New Westminster because we own our utility, and does not include household or business electrical utility costs for any other municipality (because they buy their power from BC Hydro). I call this zombie data because every time this bad comparison rears its head I knock it back with the facts, but it gets back up and starts grunting again.  Like back in 2018 when the Fraser Institute did the same lazy comparison, somehow claiming we had the second highest taxes while the very same report showed New Westminster having the 12th highest taxes of 17 municipalities in the Lower Mainland.

Then the story resurfaced three years later with another FI news release where they compared revenue and spending between cities. The fun part this time was digging into the data that the FI used and (after removing electrical revenues and spending) seeing that New West’s spending (the services we deliver to community) are higher than the regional average, but our revenue (the money residents and businesses pay for those services) was lower than the regional average. You would think the folks at FI would appreciate New West delivering more for lower costs. The FI also had a chart showing New Westminster spending increases for the decade were among the lowest the region. So thats good news?

Follow those links to see the data, with links to the sources! As we all learned in math class: it is important to show your work!

The second problem with the graphic above is that the chart is the “tax on a representative house”, not tax on the average or median household. That is the average single family detached house, which in New Westminster is estimated (in 2025) to be about $1.6M. But in New Westminster, we have one of the highest proportions of renter households (45%) in the region, and the vast majority of  New Westminster households are in multi-family. This means the average residence is closer to a $700,000 condo that would pay half this amount of tax and much less in utilities. Taxes on a “representative house” does not reflect the typical tax or utility bill here.

The numbers on this chart come from some massaging of Provincial government stats reported out as “Schedule 704” which you can read yourself here. If you don’t want to click through an download the spereadsheet, I have extracted the part of the table that is only Metro Vancouver municipalities (as our tax regime is different here than the rest of the province, due to TransLink and the fact we don’t pay Hospital tax as they do elsewhere). I also used the 2004 table, not the more recent 2025 one, because the graphic above uses this 2024 data:

I highlighted in green the numbers that PoCo used in that chart above, and added a column summing these up to show how PoCo came to their conclusion. Naturally, they chose the comparison most generous for their purposes, not including all the taxes and fees people pay, after all, PoCo is not the lowest taxed city even in this flawed comparison.

In my mind (and you may disagree) the more fair comparison is the taxes per capita, because ultimately people pay taxes not houses, and people receive the services that the City pays for with its taxes. I explained this a bit more here (again, older numbers, but comparison still fits), with an update with 2024 numbers displayed in a different way here.

In short, and I know there is a lot here (remember Brandolini’s Law), most apples-to-apples comparisons show New West is about average of the region for property taxes people pay both per capita and per household, and over the last few years, our annual increases have been slightly below the regional trend. Spread the news.

UBCM 2025

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

If you follow my social media, you might note I was at UBCM last week. The Union of BC Municipalities is the annual conference/convention for local government leaders from across the province, and as you can see here, here, and here, I like to report out on events I attend on behalf of the City, and give some updates about the City’s advocacy to the Province.

By its nature, UBCM is political, but I am going to avoid some of the more pointed politics of the event here, and hold those for my Newsletter (subscribe here – its free), and try as best I can to stick to the facts and summarize a week as concisely as possible. Still, you might want to warm up your tea, because this is a longish one.

It is worth, at the start, talking about the tone of the meeting. I was at UBCM events in the waning days of the BC Liberal government where local governments were feeling very ignored by the province, and anger was stewing. I was also there when a new BC NDP government came in and Selena Robinson (one of us!) was the Minister responsible for local government and it was a love-in. There is no doubt the shine is off the apple a bit for the BC NDP, and it would be fair to expect a chilly tone at UBCM, but that was not the feeling in the rooms in Victoria even if there were protesters and an ongoing BCGEU strike at the front door off the meeting. Workshops and roundtables with Ministers from the government were generally friendly and David Eby got a decent reception (with a standing ovation) of his speech.

A big part of UBCM are the Learning Sessions, the opportunity for learning through panel discussions, workshops, townhalls, and information sessions. Here are the ones I attended:

Climate Hazards and Housing: we learned about the impacts of climate disruption, with emphasis on the retreat and recover response in Merritt to their atmospheric river flood (with lots of support from the province while the federal government have been shamefully absent), and the ongoing challenges an uncertainties still impacting largely rural Fraser Valley communities as a result of the same flood event. The big take-away from this was the presentation from the Insurance Bureau of Canada explaining how climate-related insurance losses in 2024 exceeded $9 Billion: three times the average over the last decade, and ten times the average form a decade before. You may or not believe that Climate Disruption is a thing, but the Insurance Bureau has the receipts, and your insurance rates tripling in the next few years is a possible outcome of our keeping our national head in the sand about this. But I guess one more pipeline will help pay for this?

Disordered Downtown: Rethinking Care for Those in Need: This was a session that got a lot of media attention, but was also an example of how media narrative shapes community impressions, because the lengthy discussion about needing massive health care investments because people are being harmed every day did not make the headlines, a Mayors comment about “compassion fatigue” and “law and order” did.

FIFA World Cup 2026 (FWC26) – Community Opportunities: The province is working with local governments to provide opportunities to activate our communities through next year’s World Cup games in Vancouver. This is the most watched sporting event in the worl, bigger than the Olympics by far, and clearly the larger community loves the event, but it is also a FIFA property that comes with a bunch of challenges, such as top-down control over marketing (we cannot, in New Westminster use the words World Cup or FIFA in any way promoting our events, we also can’t use outside sponsors for our events unless approved by FIFA) to strict control over the actual media (We cannot hold large public watch parties without TSN/CTV approval – and that approval comes at a cost). There is a lot to work out here before next summer.

Cowichan Tribes Aboriginal Title Court Decision: Implications for Local Governments
This was the most interesting panel discussion of the event for me. The implications of the Cowichan decision are not yet fully known (and there will be several appeals), but it is clear that this is a very important ruling, but not the panic time that the conservative pundits are claiming. The case was very specific to the lands it covered (clearly illegally sold out from under the Cowichan by Colonel Moody, acquired by the City of Richmond under tax sale) that is not broadly applicable to privately owned fee simple lands, but the negotiations ahead for the Province will represent a new phase of reconciliation in BC.

Modest Growth & Big Challenges: The Road Ahead for BC’s Economy
This panel conversation started with an update on the Provincial economy from the Minister of Finance and some economist guy to unpack the information for a more general audience. Our deficit is notably high and our debt is creeping up, but compared to GDP we have fairly low debt compared to every other province and the cost of borrowing is not yet a big concern – but it might be if we keep on this trend. The conversation was wide-reaching about our strengths (relatively buffered against US trad weirdness) and challenges (the sudden stop in immigration growth means we are technically in a per-capita recession). The big takeaway was that the economist on the panel (and the CCPA economist who as not invited to this) both disagreed with the Business Council guy on the panel – we are not in a spending crisis, we are in a revenue crisis. Nonetheless, the “we have no money” theme was repeated all weekend.

Cabinet Town Hall: Strong Communities: This Town Hall was just that, local government folks asking questions of three key ministers: Housing and Municipal affairs, Health, and Transportation. It was a broad conversation, including Tasha Henderson pushing Minister Boyle and bout school funding in New West – and how schools need to be art of the housing policy now. It is also interesting to hear similarities and difference across the province about the biggest issues ot put in front of Ministers while you have them cornered, and a healthy reminder that we in the Coast have good access to Ministers, but for much of the province this is their one time a year to get face time with important provincial decision makers.

On that topic, we had Council-to-Minister meetings with Minister Kang (on funding challenges for local festival and community organizations, and FIFA World Cup opportunities), Ministers Kahlon and Bailey (on support for local small business, including giving local governments more tools to address some local challenges), Minister Boyle (updating her on our Housing targets, on our financing growth model and infrastructure costs, our OCP update approach, and our need for more investment in affordable housing), and Minister Parmar (on some reconciliation and land use issues in the community). I also had a good meeting with BC Hydro folks in my role on the Electrical Commission to talk about partnership opportunities for infrastructure and climate action.

The message almost across the board – to the point where it was the theme of the week – was “we don’t have money right now”. Working with the City’s Intergovernmental Relations team, we knew that was coming, so pivoted much of our our advocy to include the many non-monetary supports that we would like to work towards, such as regulatory and legislative changes to meet common goals, which I think landed really well in several of these meetings.

Finally, there was a lengthy Resolutions Session where the assembled membership of the UBCM decide on common advocacy goals. There were ~275 resolutions on the agenda, and managed to get through (by my count) 168 of them. New Westminster Council was well represented in the discussions of the resolution, with Councillors Campbell, Henderson, McEvoy and Nakagawa all actively involved in the debates. New Westminster had two resolutions up for debate, both passed, though in slightly different ways.

NR60 Regulating Vape Shops
Whereas Health Canada has stated that they share the concerns of parents, educators, youth and public stakeholders regarding the increase of youth vaping in Canada;
And whereas the Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch oversees provincial liquor and cannabis regulations, including licensing and monitoring of private cannabis retailers:
Therefore be it resolved that UBCM ask that the Province of BC include retail stores used primarily for sale of electronic nicotine or e-cigarettes under the Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch and thereby include restrictions that regulate where and how many of these retail stores are able to receive business licences in a community.

The author of the resolution, Tasha Henderson, spoke to the resolution from the floor, and got a solid majority (though not unanimous!) vote of the members.

RR36 Lobbyist Registration Vancouver
Whereas the Government of BC has recognized the potential impact of lobby activities for its public office holders and introduced the Lobbyist Transparency Act to provide the Government of BC legal tools to oversee, monitor and enforce lobbyist activities in pursuit of open, accessible, and accountable government;
And whereas unregulated lobbying activities at the municipal and regional district level can lead to undue influence from special interest individuals, groups, or organizations and BC municipal governments and regional districts are not afforded the same statutory authority to moderate local lobbyist activities:
Therefore be it resolved that UBCM ask that the Government of BC introduce legislative reform that either: (i) enables municipalities and regional districts to use the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for BC, or (ii) enables municipal councils and regional district boards to establish, monitor, and enforce lobbyist activities within their jurisdictions parallel to mechanisms available under the Lobbyist Transparency Act.

This resolution along with a similar one from Vancouver was deemed redundant because a nearly identical resolution from the City of Saanich was passed though the Endorsed Block (without any debate), so in the end result, the advocacy is approved by the membership, and we were happy to cede the space to our colleagues in Saanich as long as we got this over the finish line.

As for the rest of the meeting (other than the many networking opportunities), we had speeches from the leaders of all four parties represented in the House, David Eby concentrating on the economy and generally well received (excepting a couple of vocal protesters on Gaza), Rustad turning heads by suggesting he would dissolve a Regional Government because it was getting bad press (bizarrely suggesting it is just a utility company), a new Emily Lowan bringing a message of hope from youth, and Dallas Brodie pining about the good old days when she was a child and there was no crime (and residential schools were still in operation). So yeah, that.

Finally, New Westminster won a Climate & Energy Action Award for building the first zero carbo certified aquatic and recreation centre in BC. Which was a nice way to put a cap on the meeting.

Council – August 25, 2025 (part 1)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Our Council meeting on Monday had a Back-to-School feel after our short summer break. The late august meeting always is a strange one, feels more like getting a few things out of the way before the real works starts in earnest in September, but we actually had a lengthy agenda and lots of good discussion on important issues, so I’m going to split this reporting out into two posts. It all started with a Presentation:

Building Safer Communities Fund Program – At-Risk Youth Update
The Federal Government provided the City a grant through the Building Safer Communities Fund to work with local non-profits and youth to develop a Youth Resilience Strategy, and over the last almost two years staff and partners in the community have been working to make this happen through the New Westminster Youth Hub, Dan’s Diner, the New Westminster Situation Table and preventative programming for middle schools across the City.

There was some good news coming out of this work – youth involvement in crime and gang activity is lower than pre-COVID levels, there are a lot of youth at risk getting support at the key time when they need it, and the better coordination between service providers means fewer cracks for youth to fall though. This report provides a lot of statistics about the number of youth served and the measurable success of this suite of programs.

We now need to move this momentum into a sustainability model – and yeah, that means funding beyond the $1.7 Million offered by the federal government and approved by Council in 2023. We will start now hitting senior governments for the ~$600K/ year in sustainability funding, and worst case scenario, look at City providing some funding in the 2027 budget.

We then had a few items of Unfinished Business after the last meeting in July unexpectedly ended early:

Supporting Longstanding Civic Non-Profits through Prioritized and Multi-Year Funding
Submitted by Councillor Minhas

WHEREAS non-profit organizations such as those behind the May Day celebrations and the Hyack Parade have been delivering signature community events in New Westminster for over 50 years, contributing significantly to the city’s cultural identity, civic pride, and tourism economy; and
WHEREAS over the past decade, funding for these legacy events has been dramatically reduced, including a decrease in annual City support for the Hyack Festival Association from $150,000 to just $15,000 per year; and
WHEREAS these long-standing non-profits are now forced to compete for limited grant funding against newly formed organizations, creating barriers to sustainability and threatening the continuity of historic civic traditions;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of New Westminster direct the Grants Review Committee to prioritize funding for long established non-profit organizations that have demonstrated sustained contributions to civic life and cultural heritage over several decades;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the Committee explore the implementation of multi-year funding agreements, for up to three years, to support the financial stability and long-term planning of eligible legacy organizations.

I amended this item to add the following two clauses:

THAT staff be instructed to include a 50% increase in the Community Grant funding envelope for 2026 as part of the 2026 Budget deliberations; and
THAT the City continue to actively advocate to the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport to increase the B.C. Fairs, Festivals and Events Fund and also advocate to the Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation to provide increased support to local festival organizations, including arts and business improvement organizations who activate our communities, support cultural exchange and connection, and boost small business prosperity through festivals, fairs and events.

This was a bit of a divisive conversation last meeting, but Council had ( I think) a much better discussion of relative values this meeting. My main emphasis was that over my decade on Council, we have made a conscious shift to get the politics of favoritism out of community grant awards. We have created a system where grant criteria are approved by Council and are then provided to applicants through staff. We then have volunteer members of the community work with staff to review applications and determine how best allocate the funds. As much as possible, we have tried to take Council’s finger off the scale, because successive Councils have felt it was perilous for elected folks to play favorites with different groups in the community through funding, and I stand by that principle.

Directly to the first “be it resolved”: I think what an organization delivers to the community is a more important criteria than how long they have been around. The Hyack Festival Association has done great work for this community, the Hyack parade was great this year, a tonne of people loved the fireworks last weekend, and those volunteers and staff work hard to deliver great events. But so did the Dia de Campo folks who are relatively new grant applicants, delivering something new and exciting to the City, and they should not (in my opinion) have to wait 50 years to get equal access to funding.

And it’s not just me who thinks this. Council did a review of the Community Grant Program last year (it was reported to Council on July 8, 2024 if you want to read the report). This included a community survey, focus groups with grant recipients, an Arts Culture and Economic Development committee review, and more than 600 people in the community taking part in the consultation. The first recommendation was and I quote “evaluate grant applications using a values-based matrix, rather than Council priorities, to remove any potential political component”. Further, the results of that public engagement specifically said the City should continue to provide balanced support for established and emerging organizations. Only 9% of the public felt we should prioritize longstanding organizations through this mechanism. The question was asked, and this motion appears to be diametrically opposed to how the community wants us to allocate grant funds. For these reasons, I could not support that part of the motion.

On the Second “be it resolved”: the City grants program already has a multi-year grant process, with many organizations already applying for three-year terms, others choosing only one year grants, the resolution is moot as the three year grant option already exists, and the program is actually expanding to permit five year terms starting this year.

I added the amendments because in discussing this issue with staff and applicants, I found the issue is that our grant program is over-allocated. Though we have slowly increased our grant amounts over the last decade and are now over $1 Million a year, we had only enough in the budget to support 55% of the requests received. So when a valued community organization doing great work like Hyack received 90% of their requested funding from a program that is only only 55% funded – isn’t about political bias, it’s about an underfunded grant envelope relative to what we expect organizations in our community to deliver. This is why my amendment would ask Council, as part of budget deliberations for 2026, have an option that increases this funding envelope by 50%. And we should take this opportunity to remind senior governments that this is a great investment in community, and they might be able to help us.

In the end, Council did not support the two original clauses, but supported the amendment clauses unanimously.

Review of City’s Speed Hump Installation Policy
Submitted by Councillor Fontaine

WHEREAS the City of New Westminster’s current speed hump policy primarily relies on resident-initiated requests, which may unintentionally favour areas with greater resources or civic engagement capacity;
WHEREAS traffic calming measures, including speed humps, are an important tool for improving road safety and livability—especially near schools, parks, and in high-pedestrian areas;
WHEREAS a more equitable and standardized approach to the installation and design of speed humps would ensure consistency, fairness, and prioritization based on need and data;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT Council direct staff to undertake a review of the City’s Speed Hump Installation Policy, with a focus on improving equity in access, standardizing implementation practices, and incorporating data-driven criteria for identifying priority locations, and
report back with findings and recommendations.

The City has a Speed Hump policy that is about 5 year old now. When it was established, it represented regional best practice, and the description in this motion describes exactly how the program was designed: to assure equity in access, standardize the decision making, and be data-driven in prioritizing locations. So we don’t need an all-new program, our existing program meets these criteria the best we know how. That said, any program like this that was rather innovative when we launched it and has been operating for 5 years can benefit from a review to see if we are meeting our established criteria, so I support this motion, as did all of Council.

We then did our regular Consent Agenda work, which I will report on next post, so I can skip down to the end of the meeting when we considered a few new Motions form Council:

Ukrainian Sister City Proposal
Submitted by Mayor Johnstone

WHEREAS New Westminster has previously identified Moriguchi, Japan (1963) Quezon City, Philippines (1991) Lijiang, China (2002) and the six communities of the Tŝilhqot’in Nation (2020) as Sister Cities; and
WHEREAS New Westminster has both deep historic ties to the Ukrainian community and a growing population of more recent arrivals from Ukraine, centered around the Holy Eucharist Cathedral and a burgeoning local Ukrainian business community; and
WHEREAS Canada has been resolute with our NATO allies in supporting Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in the face of illegal occupation and horrific destruction wrought by the deadliest war in Europe since WW2; and
WHEREAS since 2022 communities across Canada have sought twinning agreements with communities in Ukraine to show support for the Ukrainian people, and as a means to stronger cooperation between communities to the benefit of both nations;
BE IT RESOLVED that New Westminster work with the local Ukrainian community to identify an appropriate partnership city in Ukraine with whom to develop a Sister City relationship.

This motion, I think speaks for itself. It arose from discussions I had with Rev. Ozorovych at Holy Eucharist Cathedral after a meeting with him and (then-) Member of Parliament Peter Julian. The Reverend spoke about the experiences of many Ukrainian people who are finding refuge in Canada because of the illegal occupation by Russia, and the thousands who are finding home and community connection in New Westminster. We discussed how the City can help folks here feel more welcome and supported, and how we can support them as they try to support their loved ones and friends back in Ukraine. When Rev. Ozorovych mentioned Ukraine’s interest in developing Sister City ties to help forge connections, cultural sharing, and pathways to support, I recognized that the City of New Westminster does not yet have a Sister City relationship with a European city, and I suggested that I would take this idea to Council hoping that the rest of Council would agree this would be beneficial.

The government of the Ukraine has a process they have developed to connect Cities there with appropriate Canadian counterparts, and now that Council has approved this motion, city staff can work with Father Ozorovych to identify a candidate City in Ukraine, and we could draft a formal agreement to be approved by Council at the appropriate time.

London Street Active Transportation Route
Submitted by Councillor Campbell and Councillor Henderson

WHEREAS the City is considering improving parts of the London Street Active Transportation Route and in addition to these options, other active transportation improvements are being proposed along the London Street route.
WHEREAS input will be reviewed following the community engagement and will be used to adjust and refine the proposed improvements along the London Street Route and final designs are expected to be completed in the fall, and construction of the new active transportation route is expected to begin in winter 2025.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff report back to City Council with London Street Route public engagement results prior to tendering any work.

We had another delegation from folks on London Street irritated by plans to make the London Street Greenway safer for all users. The London Street section of the ongoing Active Transportation Network Plan was planned for some upgrades this year, and through the public consultation we have heard back from an activist group in the neighbourhood who don’t want to lose their free street parking and have some other concerns about how the changes would impact circulation and traffic patterns in the West End. This is why we do public consultation (more on that below) and like many of the other projects in the ATNP, staff put out some draft designs and expected to iterate the design based on feedback prior to building. There usually isn’t a role for Council in that iteration (the Network Plan is approved and is Council policy, this is staff operationalizing that policy). However, as this particular section has garnered an unusual amount of feedback, Council is asking that staff check in to Council with the results of the public consultation prior to tendering any work. Council (even those who oppose bike lanes) agreed unanimously to this approach.

Listening to Residents and Temporarily Halting the London Street Bike Lane Capital Improvements
Submitted by Councillor Minhas

WHEREAS the residents of the West End have started a petition and have asked this Mayor and Council to reconsider the decision made by a previous Mayor and Council in 2022 to implement significant enhancements to the bike lane on London St; and
WHEREAS over 100 residents attending a regular meeting of Council on June 23rd to voice their concern regarding what they perceive to be a severe lack of consultation and communication regarding the London St bike lane project; and
WHEREAS the two options put forward for consideration regarding the London St bike lane project do not necessarily reflect the desired outcomes for a significant number of West End residents;
BE IT RESOLVED that Council direct staff to temporarily pause the London Street bike lane improvement project until an enhanced communications and community consultation plan can be developed and implemented; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the public survey be reopened for at least another 60 days with the addition of a “none of the above” option for residents to express their dislike of either option should they wish to do so; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that it become city policy moving forward that all public surveys, where practicable, include a ‘none of the above’ option to allow residents to express their desire to not support any of the options put forward for consideration.

Yes, a second motion on the same topic. My understanding is that staff and Councillors Campbell and Henderson attempted to set up a meeting to amalgamate these into a single motion, but that effort was to no avail.

The first part here is somewhat redundant after Councillor Henderson’s motion, except that it requests a new round of consultation, which at this point I cannot imagine would garner any different results. It is safe to say after months of consultation (and a preliminary extension of consultation earlier in the year) and several delegations to Council that the opponents of any change on London Street have been heard, and the commitment to bring this back to Council with a reporting out on the public engagement so far gives Council the ability to decide next steps when the information is available to them. As this motion was “severed” (each clause was voted upon separately), this first clause was not supported by Council, nor was the one asking for yet another round of consultation, at least until Council has an opportunity to hear the results of this round.

The third clause led to some interesting discussion and but for the presence of the weasel words “when practicable”, I was not keen to support it. For clarity, our Public Consultation teams already include the do-nothing option when it is appropriate. If we are doing public consultation about something “nice to have” like closing roads to hold a Canucks viewing party, then staff include that option – “is this something the City should do?”. The same question is disingenuous when talking about things the City needs to do, like sewer separation and upgrades, adding green infrastructure to new drainage projects, or important road safety upgrades. Even projects like our Urban Reforestation program, the 22nd Street visioning project, or the Massey Theatre upgrades (as three recent examples from Be Heard New West) where there is significant senior government funding and/or the project is aligned with City policies, long-term plans, or commitments that Council has already made to the public, engagement can be helpful in developing program details or how to prioritize different parts of the work, but it is disingenuous to ask “none of the above” when the City is already committed to and vested in the work.

In the end, Council supported this last clause, with an emphasis on the “when practicable”, as it is fairly well aligned with our current practice.

That’s long enough for now. I will follow up with a post about the rest of the agenda in the next couple of days.

Our City Our Homes (Non-market, etc.)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

As I mentioned when I started this series on our OCP updates, the provincial legislation we are trying to catch up to is almost exclusively about market housing. This means it is working to accelerate the approval and development of primarily strata ownership and purpose-built market rental – the houses over on the right side of the housing spectrum:

In New Westminster in 2025, that means houses that will sell for $1.5 Million, townhouses that will likely be $1 Million, apartments that will be over $700,000 if they are large enough for a bedroom and rents in new market units are not affordable to the average working person.

To be clear: as a City and as a region, we need this market housing despite its apparent unaffordability. much of our current housing affordability crisis is a supply issue – there are simply more people moving to this region than we are building housing for – and cutting off new supply of housing won’t make that better. The last Housing Needs Report we did in New West showed the need for almost 5,000 market ownership and market rental units in the next 5 years. However, the same report showed that we need 2,700 non-market (shelter, supportive, and non-market rental) affordable homes over the same period:

And in reporting out to the Province on our Housing Target Orders, we see that New Westminster is meeting its targets, except in the mon-market part of the spectrum:

The province has introduced more Inclusionary Zoning support, which provides incentives to the market housing sector to build a few affordable housing units with new market buildings. This is a useful tool, but the scale of need is disconnected from what inclusionary zoning can actually supply. The City’s own analysis suggests that asking the development community to build 10% affordable rental units along with market strata may make most market projects unviable. If we ask for more than 10%, we end up with neither the market or non-market need addressed, if we ask for less than 50%, then we need to find another way to get non-market built.

That way, of course, is for the Federal (and to a lesser extent Provincial) Government to invest directly in building affordable housing, at the scale of tens of thousands of units a year like they did from the early 1960s until Paul Martin’s disastrous 1993 austerity budget that got the feds out of the business of affordable housing. Smaller Local Governments don’t have the finances (or the mandate for that matter) to build affordable housing at the scale needed. What we can do is make it easier for the governments with deeper pockets to get the housing built. Pre-approving projects, saying “yes” without creating unnecessary hurdles when projects come to us, providing grant support to reduce the cost of City permits or utility connections, investing our own city-owned land where possible to support affordable housing projects, and actively lobbying the Province and BC Housing for more investment.

The City of New Westminster is already doing all of these things.

We have an Affordable Housing Capital Reserve Fund to provide strategic support and reduce development cost for non-profit builders, we have said “yes” to all of the non-market affordable housing projects brought to Council in my time at the table, and we have amended our Zoning Bylaw to pre-zone areas in the City for secured non-market affordable housing up to six storeys. Now we are taking this the next step to open up more areas of the City for 6-storey secured non-market housing.

In the amendments before Council now  we would allow non-profit affordable rental housing of up to six storeys to be built on sites designated in the OCP for Residential Townhouses, and anywhere in Tiers 2 and 3 of the designated Transit Oriented Development area (that is, anywhere within 800m of a SkyTrain Station). Overall, this would mean the majority of lots in New West would be effectively pre-zoned for affordable housing projects like Móytel Lalém, taking a significant planning risk out of the way of non-profit housing providers, and making it easier for them to apply to senior governments for the funding, as that funding is often tied to meeting zoning requirements.

There are also several other smaller changes Staff is proposing to make during the OCP update, some needed to clean up all the small changes and make it a more cohesive plan and map, some to meet other City polices that make sense to formalize at this time. This includes designating “public schools” as a permitted use in the majority of residential and mixed use areas to speed up approval process for new schools when the Province and School District identify new school locations. It is also proposed to update our Frequent Transit Development Areas map to better reflect Provincial legislation and recent updates in the Regional Growth Strategy.

Other changes seem a little more technocratic, but are appropriate at this time. We are integrating the results of our most recent Housing Needs Report into the OCP, to make clear that the OCP provides sufficient planned capacity to accommodate the housing need identified in that report. We are also integrating Climate Action strategies and targets into our OCP (as the Local Government Act now requires). Finally, staff have drafted a new Regional Context Statement to integrate our OCP with the Regional Growth Strategy, which if approved by Council will then go to the Metro Vancouver board for approval.

All told, this is a big piece of planning work that includes not just the City’s planning staff, but engineering and other departments have provided technical background and support, all resulting in the policy and bylaws that back up this map. There has been quite a bit of public engagement that gave some clear feedback on some items and some mixed opinions on others, and all of this will end up in front of Council, then to a Public Hearing, which will no doubt be a big topic of discussion in the fall. If you have opinions, be sure to let us know!

Our City Our Homes (Intro)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The City of New West is facing the same housing pressures as every other City in the region, and as most large urban areas in Canada: not enough housing to meet increasing demand, housing priced out of reach of most working people, inadequate rental housing supply, and a paucity of supportive and transitional housing to lift people out of homelessness. Looking back at my own words from seven years ago, I can confidently say we have made some progress here in New West, but the scale of the regional problem has expanded faster than our response.

Over the last year or two, we have seen more action from senior governments, mostly directed at the market housing end of the Housing Spectrum, and directed at getting housing approved faster, presuming that local governments not approving housing is the main challenge we need to address.

Of course, New Westminster has met its Housing Orders targets and exceeded its Regional Growth Strategy estimates for new market and rental housing need. We have approved every unit of supportive and affordable housing that has come across the Council table. At the same time we are falling far short of our Housing Needs for affordable and supportive housing, and our unsheltered homeless numbers are going up. I’m no more an economist than Patrick Condon, but this suggests to me that serious investment in transitional and supportive housing from senior governments is what is needed to bring housing security to all residents, not what they are currently offering:

So while we work on getting more investment in non-market housing, we are also doing the work that senior governments demand of us to assure our housing policies, Official Community Plan, and permitting processes are updated to support housing growth concomitant with regional population growth.

Back in June, staff brought to Council a set of proposed Official Community Plan changes that, when taken together, assure the City is meeting both the letter and the spirit of the Provincial housing legislation changes (remember bills 44, 46, and 47?) in a way that fits our local context and addresses our local housing need, and at the same time addresses the various initiatives around infill density, family-friendly housing, and affordable housing under our Housing Accelerator Fund commitment to the federal government. This is bringing to culmination a big body of work that included Public consultation framed under “Our City Our Homes” that has been going on for about a year now.

The implementation of this work (and adoption of the OCP changes) has been delayed a bit by some weirdly technical procedural issues (some of which I talked about in my last Newsletter but wont unpack again, subscribe here). This means the timeline Council unanimously agreed to last November will be a bit delayed, and the OCP updates won’t be considered until early in the fall. This gives a bit more time to unpack some of the work that was presented back in June. The final reports when they come back to us in September might be structured differently to address those procedural issues, but the intent is to ask Council to consider the questions raised in the June report.

Over the next week or two, I will write some more posts here that go through the sections of that report, hoping folks can better understand the City’s approach to the new legislation when consideration of the OCP update happens. There are some details in here Council will need to consider, and I cannot predict where those discussions will land, nor am I taking a position on where they should land. On some issues the public consultation has provided a pretty clear idea which way the community thinks the City should go, on others the feedback is less clear, but staff have strong technical recommendations. Ultimately, these details are a discussion for Council and going into them with an open mind, it will be fascinating to see where we land.