Looking back on 2022: New West's space crunch

Editor's note: in this four-part series to wrap up 2022, we're taking a look back at some of the major stories that emerged in the first seven months of The Anchor's existence.

You don't have to go too far in back in time to see that space in New West has been a hot topic, with the conversation continuing to grow momentum as the population increases.

Recently, you may have seen the coverage regarding daycare in Downtown New West: to summarize, 72 daycare spaces for infants and toddlers are officially going to be moved out of the core: care centres at Fraser River Middle School and Qayqayt Elementary will be relocated to Lord Tweedsmuir Elementary in the West End, and F.W. Howay, just a few blocks from the Burnaby-New West border.

The daycare spaces were relocated to make way room for classrooms, with a number of students—particularly at Qayqayt—attending school out of their catchment. At last check, that number was at 33.

Because the schoolboard has a mandate to support finding space for K to 12 learners first, the daycares were eventually required to leave the downtown core, along with New West Family Place.

At one point, previous school trustee Anita Ansari asked if there was value in reimagining the Anvil Centre as a place for the displaced New West Family Place program, which prompted The Anchor to ask school board chair Gurveen Dhaliwal if the same could be done for daycare spaces.

"I think that these are open dialogue that we're having with the city. I had the opportunity to speak with Mayor [Patrick] Johnstone ... in supporting our New West families. And really exploring all options that exist in the downtown area," Dhaliwal told us in November.

But these aren't the only groups struggling with space.

Food bank work is essential to helping hundreds in our community: the Don't Go Hungry food program helps 1200 people weekly between New Westminster and South Burnaby; about 400 of those are children. One of the first stories The Anchor covered involved the Greater Vancouver Food Bank—which runs separately from the Don't Go Hungry program—pleading for space, adding that it's common for them to lose time packing in and packing out the food they distribute at Olivet Baptist Church, since they don't have a permanent space to refrigerate fresh food.

“We have the food; we’re in a fortunate situation, and we have extra donations on top of our regular menu every single week, and these extra nutrition programs,” said Cynthia Boulter, the CEO of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. "All that’s needed is other ways to distribute it."

Reimagining the downtown core

All three mayoral candidates in the October election—the New West Progressive's Ken Armstrong, independent Chuck Puchmayr, and Community First's Patrick Johnstone—previously told New West Anchor that when it comes to space, there were far more opportunities to utilize the downtown core.

In the case of Johnstone, who is now mayor, he felt that the Downtown New West Business Improvement Association had done a good job of activating space in the core—mainly through events.

"...between those events, we have more work to do to make sure that a lot of the gaps in downtown get filled so that it can be more active all the time,” Johnstone told New West Anchor in October, adding that there definitely needs to be a much better way to activate the front of the Anvil Centre, describing the first floor as "kind of a hotel lobby."

New West Anchor reached out to the city to ask if there was anyone available to speak to the reimagining of the use of the Anvil Centre. In response, a spokesperson said that staff had not received direction from council to even consider, so no one was available to speak to the topic.

Not long after the election, Johnstone told The Anchor he'd brought a motion asking for staff to report back on what tools are available to activate some of the empty sites downtown—and while the report is expected "imminently" according to Johnstone, there's still no firm timeline.

"That may look like us getting very proactive with derelict buildings and forcing the owner's hand a bit, or it may look like incentives to help some of those sites pencil out better for developments," he'd said at the time.