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HOUSING
Council reaffirms support for rental-only zoning
Theresa McManus tmcmanus@newwestrecord.ca
New Westminster city council is standing by its plan to use rental-only zoning on six strata buildings in the city – despite warnings that the move could end up costing taxpayers millions of dollars through court action. In January, council approved a zoning amendment bylaw that designated 12 city-owned properties and six private properties for residential rental tenure.While the six private properties had been built as stratas, they have been op-
erating as rentals for years – and the city wants to keep it that way. In addition to clarifying some aspects of the residential rental tenure zoning, the new bylaw corrects some errors by the city, according to staff. Emilie Adin, the city’s director of development services, said the zoning restricts the occupancy of the units to rental only, so residential units with this zoning cannot be occupied by the owner.The exception is where a unit was already occupied by the owner of a property before the zone was put into place.
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As part of Monday’s public hearing, the city received more than 200 pieces of correspondence, including many form letters from people supporting the bylaw. Representatives of the six buildings and the Urban Development Institute (UDI) and two local residents spoke against the proposal at the public hearing. “The impact of your decisions, as well as the result of the petition currently against this council (for) this policy is being watched very closely. Our members, investors, financial institutions will now question whether the city in the
future, without consultation, will quickly downzone other properties in terms of tenure, land use or density,” said Anne McMullin, president and CEO of the Urban Development Institute. “New Westminster’s previous deserved reputation as a reliable municipality for future commercial, industrial, strata or rental housing projects is at incredible risk.” Through freedom on information requests, McMullin said the UDI learned the city had been working on the initiative prior to the October 2018 civic election and had identified the impacted
property owners, something she said contradicted what city officials told the UDI and building owners after the city introduced the original bylaw. “This is the most unfair, not transparent consultation and communication we have had with any municipality in my years working at UDI,” she said. “The trust between the development community and the city has been deeply eroded by this. I can’t recall another time we have had to rely on FOIs to decipher the intent of local staff and council.” Continued on page 3
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