NANAIMO CITY HALL BLOG

Archive for June, 2010|Monthly archive page

Is the City planning for plug-in vehicles?

In QUESTIONS TO COUNCIL, STAFF on June 30, 2010 at 4:10 pm

email from NanaimoCityHall blog reader Gordon Scott

to nanaimocityhall@gmail.com
date Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 9:57 PM
subject: accommodation for plug-in hybrids?

I live in the Yellow Point area and frequently drive into the city of Nanaimo to shop and do business. I believe that in approximately 18 months we will see the roll out of plug-in hybrid cars and I would very much like to purchase one. But, once into Nanaimo where would I be able to plug-in? Without any ability to plug-in I would probably have to fall back onto the gasoline powered motor…has the City done any planning for a future with plug-in vehicles?

Thanks,

Gordon Scott

Reply from Nanaimo Environmental Planner Rob Lawrance:

Subject: RE: PLUG-IN FOR HYBRID CARS
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:47:43 -0700
From: Rob Lawrance <Rob.Lawrance@nanaimo.ca>
To: Frank Murphy

Hi Frank

Yes the City has been discussing the emergence of pure electric vehicles on the market and the need to place charge stations at convenient, accessible locations.

At this point I am involved in developing a Read the rest of this entry »

Council’s Budgetary Priorities: Unreported & Untested

In CITY FINANCE, EMAILS TO MAYOR / COUNCILLORS, FINANCE POLICY COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE on June 30, 2010 at 9:40 am

Ron Bolin —  June 30, 2010

Mayor Ruttan and Councillors:

At the FPCOW meeting on Monday, the following item was laid over pending further discussion.

“2011 – 2015 Financial Plan Priorities
Staff’s Recommendation: That Council either:
1. confirm the 11 budget priorities previously stated by Council;
OR:
2. provide alternate budget direction.”

I note that the 2009 Annual Municipal Report makes no mention of these budget priorities nor have I seen any analysis of the success or failure of their implementation in the 2009/2010 budget. Neither have I found the methods by which their utility could be measured. I would suggest that, in order to be truly useful, such measures and analyses should be implemented in the future and should be presented to citizens in the City’s Annual Report. I suggest this topic for discussion at the eventual seminar and would further suggest that a method of public involvement in this discussion be found.

As an aside, I note that the budget is one of the City’s primary activities which has no accompanying advisory committee. While one must recognize the primacy of Council in this area, in the end it is also primary in all other committee areas and appointed advisory committees are just that, advisory.

Thank you for your consideration.

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Nanaimo has a serious problem with poverty

In LETTERS TO THE LOCAL PRESS, SOCIAL ISSUES on June 28, 2010 at 2:15 pm

Gordon Fuller —  June 28, 2010
Letter to the Editor: The Daily News

So once again B.C. tops the provinces for the highest child poverty rates in Canada.

Since coming to power in 2001, the provincial government has ensured this dubious and continuous honour for British Columbia.

While the child poverty numbers may have dropped across B.C., it is important to note the statistics this is based on are from the boom times of 2007, they in no way reflect the reality of today in Nanaimo.

At 9% Nanaimo has one of the highest unemployment rates in the province. This is based on employable income assistance and employment insurance recipients.

It does not take into account the many income assistance recipients categorized as persons with persistent multiple barriers, persons with disability or the many families that are exempt from searching for work if they have a child under the age of three.

With all of the above we are looking at over well over 13,000 people.

Nanaimo’s overall poverty rate, when one takes into account low income cut offs, the income a person or family needs to be categorized above the poverty line, or based on a person or family spending more than 30% of their income on housing, would put poverty rates at close to 50% for the population in Nanaimo.

Don’t get me wrong, and lest I paint too bleak a picture, Nanaimo is a great place to live overall and its citizens would likely be well above average when it comes to volunteerism and giving back to the community.

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NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

In PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT on June 26, 2010 at 1:09 pm

THURSDAY JULY 8

7:00 pm

A Public Hearing will be held on Thursday, 2010-JUL-08, commencing at 7:00 pm in the

Shaw Auditorium, Vancouver Island Conference Centre

80 Commercial Street

to consider proposed amendments to the City of Nanaimo “ZONING BYLAW 1993 NO. 4000.”

This Public Hearing will include the Port Place Mall rezoning application BYLAW NO. 4000.480. Purpose:

To permit the use of land for a highrise building of 26 storeys.

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email received Tuesday June 29:

Did  you know that the public is invited to the Food Court area of Port Place on Wednesday, June 30th  between 4pm – 7:30 pm, for an “information session” ?

Four posters, were attached at the front of each entrance of Port Place Mall today (Tuesday) around mid-morning, announcing the Public Information Session for Wednesday.  The Bulletin doesn’t publish on Wednesday.  Maybe it ’ll  be in the Daily News ?

That speaks volumes of First Capital’s ethics.  Maybe they cannot  afford to advertise ? Or maybe they just want  to make a shamefull token effort, that they invited the  public to hear how they will lose their Mall and community.

In this case – the  fewer the  better

- Jerry

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Public Art is sprouting around downtown Nanaimo

In PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT on June 26, 2010 at 9:47 am

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Frank Murphy — June 26 2010
Public Art is sprouting around downtown Nanaimo this week. It’s a joint initiative of the City and the Nanaimo Art Gallery. Here’s the City press release.These are temporary installations, to be sold at auction in the Fall. It’s unclear if the intent is to encourage the new owners to leave the works in place.  The pieces intended for Muffeo Sutton weren’t in place when I went by earlier today. The palms pictured aboveare at MacGregor Park across from the Port Theatre. It has good scale and is carefully placed, effectively taming the space around it. As does the tuning fork at Krall Space if you forgive it the uninspired music motif. 

The sails at Pacifica are ok as architectural decorations but here’s what great public art looks like:Claes Oldenburg’s Cupid’s Span, Waterfront San Francisco.

Richard Serra’s Wave. Sculpture Park, Seattle.

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Comparing the High-Priced Help

In CITY FINANCE, CITY GOVERNMENT on June 24, 2010 at 9:01 pm

Ron Bolin — June 23, 2010
The Vancouver Sun recently published the second edition of its BC Public Service Salary interactive information data base. This data is collected primarily from the Statements of Financial Information (SOFI) documents which all public service agencies in the province must submit annually. This data base shows all those in the BC public sector who are paid from the public purse and earn more than $75,000 per annum, benefits nor expenses not included (to arrive at the total package cost one must add about 25% to the salary figures).

This service from the Sun will become increasingly valuable as time goes on in keeping track of changes in our public services and in fact increased greatly this year with the second edition of the data which allows annual changes to be identified. The web address for the province wide 2008 data can be found at:

The 2008 form provides a click to the 2009 data:

This page also provides some intriguing province and agency wide graphic comparisons.

The 2009 SOFI document for Nanaimo prepared by our Staff can be found at:

Nanaimo’s SOFI documents for 2006, 2007 and 2008 can also be found on the city’s web site. There is much to be gleaned from this data which sheds light on what is really going on in our municipal administrations. Also provided in Nanaimo’s SOFI are the expenses paid to Council and Staff as well as the names of persons or companies who have been paid $25,000 or more for products or services during the year.

There are interesting comparisons to be made between the high-priced help in Nanaimo relative to that in some of our comparable municipalities. These can provide guidelines for asking our Staff and our Council why we may differ from our fellow Municipalities. There may be good reasons. Then again maybe we are just too rigid – or too lax.

Let’s take a look at some comparative 2009 data. If we look at the following data:

	      A	   B   C    D   E
Kelowna	   120812 123 144  17  14
Kamloops    87017 103 107   4   4
Nanaimo	    84235  95 113  19  16
Victoria    82758 102  85 -17 -15
Chilliwack  76106  47  54  15  22

In Column A we see the population in 2009.
In column B we see the number of Staff Read the rest of this entry »

Port Place Mall: council approves short term, short sighted compromises

In PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT on June 24, 2010 at 12:40 pm

Frank Murphy — June 24 2010
At Monday’s Council meeting the development permit for the Port Place Mall was approved unanimously. If, like me, you’re confused as to what exactly that means, know we’re not alone. Councillors also seemed very unsure of what they were voting on.

Councillor Sherry indicated he was in support of the project in part because it would provide more residential units downtown. Phase 1 as far as I can tell doesn’t include any housing. The north side of the new strip mall  between Nicol and Front will have a second storey of offices.

Councillor Pattje, whose support for this I find especially puzzling, seemed to indicate that there had been sufficient community consultation and the the proposal was much better than what it is to replace. He asked the developer representative, who he mentioned he’d met with over lunch, if he saw a problem with the privately owned road proposed. The reply: not from our point of view, though of course it won’t be as wide as a city street.  Councillor Pattje also was unclear on what had changed in the development permit application, apparently and not surprisingly, because neither Council or the public had been given sufficient time to review the latest version. (It wasn’t available until Friday afternoon on the City’s website.)

I wonder how we’ll like a privately owned road in the heart of our downtown when the owner puts speed bumps on it, restricts access to it and starts to remove from it the “undesirables”.  The city has offered this access road on private property as a reason they support this project. Imagine using this narrow connector as cars back out of  the angled parking in front of the stores. You don’t have to imagine though, you can go to First Capital’s Terminal Park Mall to see what they have in mind.

Councillor Kipp mildly chided staff for too often giving Council complex information on issues to be voted on without sufficient time to study it and weigh its merits.

Reference was made to a veiled threat by Thrifty’s and London Drugs to pull out of the downtown if this mediocrity didn’t get the blessing of the Planning Department and Council. A flimsy basis for such an important decision indeed. In small cities all across the continent expanses of parking asphalt are being renewed successfully incorporating retailers large and small. The key ingredients: vision and political will. Both in short supply Read the rest of this entry »

Three Neighbourhood Associations appear at Council to urge more community consultation

In CITY GOVERNMENT, PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT on June 24, 2010 at 10:34 am

Gord Fuller —  June 24 2010
The South End Community Association is going to be posting Nob Hill Neighbours Jacquie Howardson’s & my comments about our appearing at Council this week to speak to the lack of community involvement in the Port Place Mall redevelopment plans. They’re posted here below.

Also, The Nanaimo Old City Association, SECA & Nob Hill are jointly looking at having the developer give a presentation prior to the Public Hearing to rezone the property for a 26 story highrise.

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Three neighbourhood associations, I might add quite bravely, suggested to council last night that they felt they weren’t properly consulted prior to Port Place development permit approval coming to council. Several tacts were taken to get council to think outside the development box and be more inclusive. Gord Fuller of Seca spoke to the history of harbour park mall and the fact that the plans had changed so much since the original presentation months ago, no one was really clear on the scope of the development or what the changes were. I spoke to the importance of downtown development working within the context of old neighbourhoods and the knowledge that exists within those communities. Frank Murphy spoke to the process of the development permit process and read a statement from NOCA who agreed that neighbourhood consultation was a good thing and that it didn’t happen in this case.

Council did not agree with us, except for counselor Jim Kipp who felt that consultation with neighbourhoods was desirable and asked about the planning process in that regard. I don’t believe we had much of an impact on the rest of council. All approved the development permit Phase 1 and Phase 2 with very little discussion or questions to the developer. The 26 storey tower which is a rezoning issue was not addressed by any of us, as there will be public hearings on this later.

Jacquie Howardson

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It was interesting and hopefully council may take the unified efforts of the three Neighbouhood Associations, SECA, Nob Hill & NOCA, into account in the future.

One has to realize that First Capitol had no obligation to communicate with the Neighbourhoods as phase 1 & 2 are legitimate uses of the current zoning of the property. They did however have to communicate with the city and the design advisory panel which was a long process and their designs were rejected by the panel a number of times.

It is only when they move to phase three and rezone to allow for greater height Read the rest of this entry »

City follows through with Suit

In CITY FINANCE, CITY GOVERNMENT, PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT on June 18, 2010 at 1:37 pm

Ron Bolin – June 18, 2010
On Tuesday, June 15, the City Of Nanaimo filed a claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against Millennium Nanaimo Properties Ltd. and Suro Development Company (what ever happened to Triarc?) for the recovery of $3,045,058.02 in fees, cost charges and expenses provided to them by the city under the amended partnering agreement. A copy of the filing is here: [Court Filing No. Nan-S-S-60133]

It now remains to be seen when and how this suit proceeds. At best we recover our money. At worst we should learn a lot about the level of due diligence performed by our representatives in City Hall. Pay attention folks. We are talking a whole lot of money and a whole lot of responsibility.

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PORT PLACE PLANS IN FRONT OF COUNCIL MONDAY

In PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT on June 18, 2010 at 11:23 am

Here’s the tower proposed for the northeast corner of the site. Front Street across from Cameron Island.

This link will take you to the detail of what will be in front of Council on Monday.

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