But first, a public hearing

We looked at two lots at 102/104 Eighth Ave. and 728 First St. The project includes 11 off-street parking spaces, and is a family-friendly build, with 100% of the units being three-bedroom.

Tara Gronlund, principal at GDP Architecture, spoke on behalf of the development team. Saying that she has lived in the city for the past 20 years, she’s excited to give back to her community by working on this project.

The related bylaws made it to the regular council meeting, with Coun. Nadine Nakagawa wanting to correct Larry Church’s remarks. Nakagawa says she did not approve the OCP Church was referring to during his presentation; she wasn’t on council at the time. In her opinion, the 10 homes were in the right place, because it is close to parks, schools, and rapid transit.

“Something I’ve been thinking about lately…is not always putting density on arterial roads…it’s our instinct to always want density on main roads…having these on this corner is an interesting opportunity for the neighbourhood,” Coun. Nakagawa elaborated, before affirming her support.

Mayor Johnstone noted he’d also be supporting it, pointing to the idea of missing middle housing. “It’s the kind of build people in the community in New Westminster people tell me they want to see,” he said.

Like Jones, Coun. Jaimie McEvoy wanted to know about the well-being of the raccoons in the area, but he otherwise supported the project. Coun. Daniel Fontaine also supported the project, but noted he didn’t have the nicest of experiences with his previous home when it came to raccoons digging through his garbage.

A minute of silence

Mayor and council opened the meeting with a moment of silence, to recognize deaths in the workplace. When the minute of silence wrapped, Mayor Johnstone invited the community to attend an event that would acknowledge these tragic losses. It will be happening on Friday, April 28 at 11am at Pier Park.

Youth Week

It’s Youth Week! Well, OK, it’s not Youth Week yet, but it’s certainly coming up. The City of New Westminster is celebrating—and commemorating our fine, young folks with a proclamation.

For those who are not aware, Youth Week profiles issues, accomplishments, and the diversity of our young people, with events going from May 1 to 7 this year. This also includes the Youth Awards, which is a pretty awesome event celebrating all the great things the city’s young folk are doing to make our community a better place. Five of them were on hand to give a presentation.

To learn more about Youth Week, be sure to give New West Youth a follow on Instagram. 

Train whistle cessation update

We actually wrote about this after the April 3, 2023 council meeting recap here, but the wonderful thing about the internet is that we can simply rehash the previous work if you’d prefer to keep scrolling and not click on the above hyperlink. 😉

The update from city staff (which was posted to last meeting’s agenda package; council ran out of time to go over it in chambers) was categorized into three sections: short-term opportunities, mid-term opportunities, and long-term opportunities, referring to the amount of time it could take to achieve whistle cessation.

There’s just one area where whistle cessation could happen by end of 2023: at Furness and Duncan streets in Queensborough.

Those in the mid-term opportunities category, for a variety of reasons, include:

• The 20th Street crossing (West End)

• The 4th Avenue crossing (West End)

• Spruce Street (Sapperton)

• Cumberland Street (Sapperton)

For Spruce and Cumberland streets, the implementation of whistle cessation is slated to be done by 2025.

In the long-term opportunities category:

• Furness Street at Ewen Avenue (Queensborough)

• Mercer Street at Ewen Avenue (Queensborough)

• Ewen Avenue at Stanley Street (Queensborough)

• Salter Street at Derwent Way (Queensborough)

• Braid Street at Brunette Avenue (Sapperton)

• Braid Street at Vulcan Street (Sapperton)

City staff noted in their report that these particular crossings were “highly complex, resource intensive … projects that will require further examination to better understand the technical implications, resource and capital expenditure impacts, as well as implementation time frames.”

Things to know from the Consent Agenda

City Hall art exhibition program

This follows a council meeting that happened in November of 2021, in which a motion was put forward to make the space outside council chambers at City Hall more welcoming. Since then, the city’s Arts Advisory Committee reviewed the suggestion, and the idea of a city hall art exhibition program is now on the table.

The goal would be to work with the Arts Council of New Westminster (ACNW) to put together a rotating exhibit that would feature ACNW members, along with other local artists.

Along with putting together exhibits, there is also a request for more signage to direct people to the second floor—where the doors to the council chambers are—to make sure they take a look at the work on display.

The next steps include making sure there is no asbestos within the walls of the mezzanine, remediate the walls if needed, and to also install a hanging rail to support the exhibitions.

There will be a one-time cost of $3,000 for the hanging system and signage; checking the walls would cost about $5,000.

Coun. Fontaine took issue with the cost, and said he’d preferred to see the art be displayed in the community. To that end, Fontaine put forth an amendment related to this idea, later during discussions asking if ACNW was offered $8,000 to use the money for something else related to the group’s initiative.

Couns. Nakagawa and Ruby Campbell both disagreed with Fontaine’s suggestion, with Coun. Nakagawa noting that this was a motion from a former councillor who has deep ties to the art community. Mayor Johnstone followed up, noting that the motion came from Coun. Mary Trentadue. Johnstone said a lot of work went into liaising with the arts community to develop the idea while also promote the other spaces in town that showcase the arts.

Coun. Jaimie McEvoy, who chairs the related committee, noted that there was unanimous support for the idea related to the exhibition in city hall. While he liked Fontaine’s idea of getting out into neighbourhoods, he felt it shouldn’t come at the cost of foregoing the city hall idea.

This motion went ahead as is, without any amendments—Fontaine’s amendment was voted down 5-2, with only Couns. Fontaine and Paul Minhas supporting. The original motion was ultimately supported unanimously.

Fixing the New West courthouse

It’s simple: the roof, walls, and windows at the New West Law Courts need to be upgraded. Signia Construction, which will be handling the project, notes the fixes are being done to make the building more energy efficient.

There will be construction, which means noise. That means the project needed an OK for a noise exemption. You can’t really have much of this work going while court is in session, so there will be some noise in that part of the Downtown area from 8 to 11pm Monday to Friday, as well as alternating Sundays from 9am to 6pm. There will be no work on Saturday nights and stat holidays.

This goes into effect as of this evening’s council meeting, so expect that construction to start any day now. This was approved as part of the consent agenda, and it was not pulled for discussion.

Studying the Anvil Centre

There was a study on the Anvil Centre that was supposed to be done, namely focusing on economic impact. There was a previous study in 2011, but there was supposed to be an update to this that would have started in 2018. “Due to extenuating circumstances with the consultant, the study was never completed,” a staff report reads. “Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, staff were anticipating re-initiating the update, however it was paused due to the re-prioritization of workplans.”

Staff here are looking for an endorsement of the scope of work that would need to happen for the economic impact model to take place. This includes a request for proposals so that a professional can take on the task of figuring out the Anvil’s impacts.

In a somewhat related point, Coun. Fontaine wanted to know what the measurement would be for staff output to be able to take on this, while Coun. Nakagawa wanted to flag some additional ideas that would create a learning opportunity, citing the instance of triple bottom lines where people, community, and the environment are also considered. The mayor agreed with Nakagawa, saying that fundamentally, council is a local government, not a business. He added that he took issue with the idea of the expenditures related to the Anvil Centre being characterized as a “loss.”

This went ahead with no one opposing.

Queen’s Park master plan

There’s been some additional feedback since a previous report from December 2021, as well as from last month’s meeting and presentations regarding Queen’s Park—if you need a recap, take a look at our piece here.

Basically, the idea is to create a “habitat and grow” space that would play a role in local programs and activities in the former petting zoo space.

Coun. Fontaine pulled the report to voice his disagreement with the motion. All but Fontaine and Minhas voted in favour of the report.

More housing in the Downtown area

Coun. Minhas wanted to strike the “no public hearing” part of the recommendation to explore the development and rezoning of 810 Agnes St. and 815-821 Victoria St. Coun. Minhas noted that he did not want the public to be denied the opportunity to speak about it.

Ultimately, the original idea to not hold a public hearing related to this motion went ahead.

Red Dress Day proclamation

May 5, 2023 will be Red Dress Day in the city. New Westminster is still looking for dress donations for displays put together by the city.

Heat wave response

This appears to have been a late addition to the council meeting, but it was flagged in relation to the upcoming Emergency Preparedness Week. This would include an update on the city’s heat wave initiatives, with Coun. McEvoy asking whether there would be further clarity on what is to happen in the event of a heat wave or heat dome, whether there’d be an opportunity for the public to ask questions, and whether there were tangible deliverables like refrigerator magnets people could keep in the event of such an emergency.

For those unfamiliar, New West had the highest mortality rate in June 2021—the summer a heat dome descended upon Metro Vancouver, killing many in buildings—particularly older ones. The BC Coroners Service reported 41.8 deaths per 100,000 people.

(Note: we did cover some initial planning by the City of New West to try and beat the heat last summer—you can find that piece here.)

Mayor Johnstone took it a step further by suggesting city staff explore what tools there are available to the city to see if there are rules similar to the ones they use in multi-family buildings to mitigate fires.

This eventually became a motion that was moved and seconded—with the next steps involving staff trying to figure out what the options are.

The next council meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 8.