City council Meeting Aug 23 2023

The focus of this roundup is on the resolution before the City Council by Counselors Tasha Henderson and Nadine Nakagawa to have the city staff investigate ways to have the city adopt a bylaw that would require rental units to have cooling equipment or passive means that prevents at least one room in the unit from exceeding the standard recommendation of 26 degrees Celsius or 79 degrees Fahrenheit. Part of this resolution is a recommendation that the city include a letter to the Minister of Housing to request clarification and confirmation that these upgrades would not trigger legal renoviction or the above guidelines lead to increased rent beyond those permissible by the province.

The video begins with an introduction of several delegates who are in chambers to express their support for this resolution. They include impassioned stories of hardship caused by the lack of air conditioning in the past summer. They harken back to the heat dome of 2021, where 28 deaths from the heat in New Westminster, the most ever seen in this city, caused widespread concern and in fact triggered the creation of the resolution before city council on this day. 

Statements were heard from New Westminster residents Shelley Homer and Andrew Evans, Jessica Gillis and Margaret. Also heard were statements of support from Monica Bhandari, chair of ACORN New West and Tabitha Naismoth from Newton ACORN, both local non-profit organizations representing low-income renters. In addition, were statements of support from Brook Jensen of the New West Tenants Union and Rick Vugteveen from the Brow of the Hill Residents Association. All gave impassioned talks on why this resolution was important to their members and how it could in fact save lives. Some spoke of the resolution showing a respect for basic human dignity and supported this resolution as a logical extension of the current bylaws that require landlords to provide heat and security to tenants.

Upon conclusion of the delegates support statements, Councilor Nakagawa read out the resolution, as stated above, and was then invited to give her motivation for the resolution. Nakagawa then outlined how this resolution came from conversations at the Lower Mainland Local Government Association Conference in April of 2023. The City of Port Moody had proposed a resolution to ask the province to bring this very type of bylaw into the Residential Act, but it was defeated. This then moved Councilors Henderson and Nakagawa to see if the City of New Westminster could then perhaps lead by example in passing such a resolution for the city on behalf of its tenant residents. Nakagawa sees this as an example of how tenants have a right to livable housing, and the current solutions of simply providing air conditioning to tenants by the province isn't tenable as a solution when landlords simply won't allow them or have provisions in their agreements that state that air conditioners are not allowed in the units. This bylaw would allow a solution tailored to the building and create safer buildings for all tenants in New Westminster. After some discussion from Councilor Fontaine regarding the feasibility of the resolution and from Councilor McAvoy about the timing needed to get the resolution on the schedule for the spring provincial seating, the motion was passed. 

Mayor Johnstone, in getting ready to bring the motion to a vote, observed how " in New Westminster we have been innovative in the past in protecting renters, including using our business licensing laws to regulate what the Residential Tenancy Act has failed to regulate. Much of our work to protect vulnerable people from future heat emergencies has relied on us providing incentives or direct public health interventions and honestly those have taken us as far as we can right now. And some point people who own housing and rent out housing and make money renting out housing need to be held responsible for providing safe housing. We regulate that all housing must have fire protection, we regulate that all housing must have heating, we regulate that it must have a safe electrical system. When the heat dome became the biggest mass death event in this city, I think we need to vote like regulating cooling is as important as any of the above."