New West council talks core services, housing, Centennial Community Centre

After the holiday break, council was ready to get back to work, with a number of items on the agenda. Some familiar themes seen in the meetings from November and December came up on Monday night, including a discussion around housing, core services downloaded from senior governments, and train whistles, to name a few.

If you'd like to see the nitty gritty of the play-by-play, we've got you covered via Twitter. 

Coun. Nadine Nakagawa was not in attendance.

Neighbourhood representatives from council

This was one of two items pulled for discussion out of the consent agenda, and it pretty much went ahead as is, with the exception of Couns. Tasha Henderson and Jaimie McEvoy switching some of their roles: Henderson will instead take Glenbrook North and McEvoy will take care of the Downtown neighbourhood.

Coun. Daniel Fontaine wanted to know why councillors weren't permitted to represent their own neighbourhoods, with city clerk Jacque Killawee saying that it's done this way to provide councillors with maximum exposure. "We presume that you're exposed in your own neighbourhood, you have lots of friends and contacts. By assigning councillors to neighbourhoods that they're not residents in, you get greater exposure to city residents," explained Killawee.

This motion was carried.

Public delegations

• Train whistles. Sapperton resident Brin (who did not provide his last name) mentioned a previous forum in which residents from his neighbourhood talked about it being beneficial to re-establish a train whistle cessation committee, and asked if it would be possible to get former city councillor Chuck Puchmayr involved. Coun. Henderson mentioned that the Spruce Street and Brunette Avenue crossing had design approval from one of the three private railways that use the crossing, but did not mention which company had approved it. Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian National Railway, and Burlington North Santa Fe (BNSF) are the companies operating trains at that crossing.

• Centennial Community Centre. NWP's Karima Budhwani spoke about the need to keep Centennial Community Centre standing, with the city facing a lack of spaces for people to use. Budhwani mentioned difficulties getting her children into programs like swimming and gymnastics, while noting she'd heard from some seniors struggling to get into programs like pickleball. Budhwani spoke ahead of Minhas and Fontaine's motion to delay the demolition of Centennial.

• Core services. Dr. Elliot Rossiter, a professor at Douglas College in the department of philosophy said he was concerned about the distinction of what is and isn't a core service, a fundamental part of a motion that looked at quantifying the downloading of costs that would typically be the responsibility of other levels of government.

Four motions from Couns. Fontaine, Minhas

The first motion from Couns. Fontaine and Minhas looked at reducing the cost and time related to the development of new housing in the city. This included coming up with a report and plan by the end of April that would guide at least 15 standardized and pre-approved housing plans at the end of this year. Fontaine said the idea behind this motion was to show leadership and be creative when it comes to thinking outside the box with staffing shortages at city hall.

Some of the examples Fontaine pointed to came out of Vancouver, including laneway homes.

"This is not just about getting 15 pre-approved single family home designs. In theory, we should be able to do better than that," explained Fontaine. "We should be able to do better than that. We should have pre-approved town home, laneway, and even larger more dense developments like four and six storey apartment and condo units."

Coun. Henderson said she wasn't opposed to the idea of exploring such an initiative, but wanted to know if this was being asked for in the community by groups like developers, for instance.

"I'm a housing planner, and New West is very challenging. It's not easy to compare it to other jurisdictions," explained Henderson, who said that building in Queensborough would be different from building on the mainland. "The topography of our hills makes building here very complicated. I think we don't even know what's in the soil and what's underground in terms of most of our infrastructure because we have such an old city."

Henderson also mentioned the heritage rules that the city is required to abide by in certain neighbourhoods.

"I'm not saying there's not value in exploring [the idea of pre-approved designs] but I think we're sort of one step ahead of ourselves," said Henderson.

Coun. McEvoy suggested referring the issue to the housing task force, with Coun. Fontaine wondering aloud how long it would take to make it out of the hands of said task force.

The motion to refer this to the housing task force was carried 4-2, with Fontaine and Minhas opposing.

No backing for a snow summit

After at least two previous calls for a snow summit, Coun. Fontaine asked mayor and council to support the request for one after weather in late November caused gridlock around the Metro Vancouver region.

In mid-December the New West Progressives noted that Coun. Fontaine had not heard back from BC's minister of transportation or from Delta mayor and Metro Vancouver chair George Harvie.

"It's now January 9th, and we have few to no answers to the critical questions of what exactly happened on November 29th. We still face the prospect of more snow this winter ... which could once again trigger a repeat of the mess that we saw on November 29th," said Fontaine.

There was no discussion on this and it went straight to a vote. The motion to support the call for a snow summit was voted down 4-2, with McEvoy, Henderson, Campbell, and Johnstone opposed.

Status quo for Centennial Community Centre

Despite the aforementioned plea from Budhwani to take a second look at not demolishing Centennial, the motion put forth by Couns. Minhas and Fontaine was defeated 4-2, with Johnstone, Campbell, Henderson, and McEvoy opposing.

Henderson initially said she was confused about the motion because there was previously a tour that she, Coun. Minhas, and others attended. "On the tour ... we covered the rationale for demolition versus the opportunities to re-purpose. Feasability studies dating back to 2010 recommended its replacement," she explained, adding that she too supports public infrastructure be saved, but only if it is feasible. "We were informed that the building is at its end of life, that it is not accessible for all users, that it contains highly hazardous materials that if we're considering, the carbon footprint is highly inefficient."

Fontaine asked if, with the building of təməsew̓txʷ, the city will have satisfied the majority of its indoor space needs. Director of parks, culture, and recreation Dean Gibson said it would satisfy the space needs based on plans dating back to 2008. Gibson noted there is no hard and fast way to assess population numbers immediately, as they are continually changing.

Considering core services

Easily the biggest talker of the night was a motion by Couns. Fontaine and Minhas that looked at quantifying the downloading of costs from other levels of government. Fontaine and Minhas argued in the motion that the city was relying heavily on taxpayers and that inflationary costs would create even more of a challenge.

Fontaine cited similar actions taken in Vancouver, in which city staff there found the municipal government had spent about $219M on said downloaded costs meant to be the responsibility of senior governments.

This motion, along with the previous remarks by Dr. Rossiter, spurred a further discussion of what is and isn't a core service.

"I have no problem with a motion that says, 'let's look at it, the downloading costs on the city,' and take that to the federal and provincial governments," noted Coun. McEvoy, who said he had no issue with saying other levels of government hadn't been doing the work it should be on social issues.

Coun. Campbell added that the list would also need to include associated revenue and grants related to the downloaded costs.

There were also notes about logistics regarding how quickly city staff could turn around an itemized list.

After a splitting of the motion into two parts and some amendments, the motion went ahead, though council noted it would be important to define the term core services and to have an ongoing discussion about the term.

The next council session is scheduled for Monday, Jan. 30, and includes a public hearing along with a regular council meeting.