New Westminster has exceeded housing targets imposed by the province — and is interested in setting some infrastructure targets of its own.
At its March 10 meeting, city council received a six-month interim progress report about the provincial housing target order for New Westminster. The update showed there were 702 net new housing units completed in New West in the six-month reporting period from Aug. 1, 2024 to Jan. 31, 2025 – exceeding its Year 1 target by 46 units.
Under the provincial housing target order that the province issued for New Westminster in July 2024, 4,432 net new units must be completed in the city between Aug. 1, 2024 and July 31, 2029. (The calculation of net new units is based on the number of new occupancy permits issued, minus demolitions.)
“The city will continue to strive to meet the targets, however, the completion of new units relies on developer timelines, which are in turn largely driven my market conditions,” said a staff report. “As such, completion of projects is largely outside of the city’s control and projects may not reach occupancy within the housing target order timeframe, despite every effort taken by the city.”
At Monday’s meeting, council voted 7-0 to receive the six-month interim report about the provincial housing target order. The province requires council to receive an interim report within 45 days of a reporting period’s end date.
According to the interim report, almost all of the 702 new housing units (678 or 95 per cent) were owned units. The report stated no new below-market units were created in New West during the reporting period, but the city recently issued a building permit for 52 supportive housing units at 602 Agnes St.; that project received zoning approval in February 2022.
Coun. Daniel Fontaine said the city continues to advocate for affordable housing, but it relies on partnerships and funding from the provincial and federal governments.
“It says in the report, very clearly, that without senior orders of government, the gap between the demand and the supply of affordable housing units in our city will continue to grow,” he said. “So, all the more reason to highly encourage … other folks who have much, much deeper pockets and have primary responsibility on these files to get moving on this.”
Infrastructure targets
While the interim report speaks to the issue of densification and density targets, Fontaine said it lacks targets for infrastructure.
“I have heard time and time and time again from the community that we're building, building, building, and yet what's not being built are the pools, the rec centres; we're not doing enough on park space, green space, etc.,” he said. “And while I appreciate the province's aim at this target and getting cities to reach a certain target, there's a target that's missing, and that's the target on the funding for the infrastructure.”
Fontaine proposed an amendment to the motion to have council write to Ravi Kahlon, B.C.’s minister of housing and municipal affairs, recommending that a target for new infrastructure development be accompanied along with the housing targets.
“New West is punching above its weight,” he said. “We are the second most dense city in all of Canada, and as such, I think that we should be front of the line when it comes to these infrastructure dollars.”
Coun. Nadine Nakagawa supported Fontaine’s amendment, saying it’s very much aligned with what the mayor has said.
“There was some not so nice language that used at one point publicly about this very issue,” she noted. “And I also know that the mayor was in Victoria advocating … to the provincial government.”
In 2024, the province announced housing targets for 20 B.C. cities, including New Westminster.
At a press conference at the site of a future supportive housing project at Sixth and Agnes streets, Johnstone said he was “calling BS” on the province for providing New Westminster with housing targets. He said the city was “well ahead” of targets in all of the housing sectors it's responsible for and is only falling short in the creation of subsidized and supportive housing, which requires provincial funding.
Instead of delivering supportive housing, he said the province was delivering housing targets to a city that’s already working hard to “do the right thing” and build housing.
“Meanwhile, my community every day is asking, and I hear them loud and clear: Where are the schools? Where are the daycare spaces? Where is the commitment to our overcrowded transit system?” he said at the press conference. “And the community is right to ask those questions.”
Today the Province of BC issued a Housing Target Order for several cities, including New Westminster. The Order requires the City to build 4,432 net new units over five years. More info about the order and what it means for #NewWest can be found here: https://t.co/JTRzo3PTKI
— City of New Westminster (@New_Westminster) July 30, 2024
Time delay
At Monday’s meeting, Johnstone said the city exceeded its Year 1 housing targets, but he noted that those units were all approved about seven years ago by previous councils.
“To me, this model of having targets for occupancy is still a challenge for us because, essentially, any decision this council makes today is not going to result in housing meeting a target within the next three or four years,” he said. “It's going to result in (housing) years down the road and to a future council.”
Johnstone said he had a “very good meeting” with the housing minister last week that included a discussion about the city’s financing growth strategy, which is expected to be considered by council by the end of the year, and about the update to the city’s official community plan.
“He encouraged us to continue on the path that we're on, encouraged staff to continue on the path that they're on, as far as the OCP path goes,” he said. “But we do all know this is not a conversation that's at the end. It's a conversation that's quite in the middle and quite live right now.”
Johnstone said the debate should not be about housing or other infrastructure, because “housing is infrastructure” and more housing is needed to address citizens’ current and future needs.
“Yes, they need schools, they need hospitals, they need recreation centres, they need green space, they need roads, they need sewers, but they also need housing. … We can't play one type of infrastructure people need against the other,” he said.
When it comes to density, Fontaine said he thinks provincial and federal governments should acknowledge that New Westminster has been densifying “for a long time” and is now the second most dense city in Canada.
“We've already got a lot of density in this,” he said. “Other cities have a long way to go to catch up to being anywhere near New Westminster in terms of densification. So, from a policy perspective, I'm hoping that the government can look at beyond just new densification and new builds and look at factoring in the existing density that's there.”
