Port Moody council shoots down request for town hall meetings on incoming density changes

There’s a lot of change happening in Port Moody, but a series of town hall meetings to explain those changes are not warranted, council decided.

Coun. Haven Lurbiecki introduced the failed motion on March 12, asking staff to start planning meetings to provide an overview of the draft official community plan (OCP), new provincial housing legislation, and the new Moody Centre Transit Oriented Development (TOD) framework.

She said it was necessary to get direct public feedback on these transformative changes, especially as the city’s OCP engagement process has been paused for more than a year.

“All of what I just described has gone through with zero community engagement. Zero,” Lurbiecki said. “The key question has now become: when do we do this? Because the timing will either make that engagement matter, or make it basically moot.”

The city’s draft OCP was unveiled in December, 2023, and engagement was supposed to commence in spring, ahead of final approval in late 2024. Recent provincial housing legislation, however, has shelved all OCP work as city staff scramble to meet several legislative deadlines set by the provincial government.

Along with the draft OCP, council passed a new policy which significantly increased the number and height of towers prescribed for the Moody Centre TOD.

Lurbiecki said these changes have added three additional layers of density without any meaningful engagement with residents.

“If we do not hold these town halls now, by the time we engage with the community on the OCP next year, major decisions could have already been made,” she said. “I think that is just plain wrong.”

Council has already agreed to hold town-hall style meetings for the new OCP, and Lurbiecki said provincial funds granted the city could be used to hire consultants to help with capacity issues.

Democracy is founded on the principle of an informed electorate, Lurbiecki said, and if the public is confused, council should pause review of major development applications.

Lurbiecki’s fellow councillors voted 5-1 against the motion.

Coun. Amy Lubik noted the OCP engagement process, and its approved town halls, have only been postponed while staff work through the provincial housing mandates.

Kate Zanon, Port Moody’s manager of community development, said the “aggressive deadlines” of the new housing legislation was not anticipated, and staff initially thought they could work through both.

She said the city will be holding public information sessions in May regarding zoning changes, and staff will have a better indication of when OCP engagement can resume in early fall.

“This is very unusual, I completely understand council and the public,” Zanon said. “We don’t usually zone first and then come back and do OCP amendments. That is the opposite of everything I learned in planning school.

“But it doesn’t mean we can’t do it. And it doesn’t mean we can’t find a path through it.”

Zanon added staff would not want to confuse the public by engaging on OCP land use changes which are not aligned with provincial housing legislation.

When asked if staff anticipate council will be voting on any TOD applications, or receiving early input on the Flavelle Mill site prior to 2025, Zanon could not give a definitive answer.

She noted, however, that when staff receive an application, they have to process it on the same timeline as any other application.

Mayor Meghan Lahti reiterated the point.

“We have an obligation, we can’t legally (pause applications),” she said. “While I appreciate the sentiment of that – and at times, I’ve actually thought the same – it’s not a responsible statement to make.”

Coun. Kyla Knowles fundamentally disagreed with the notion that the city provides insufficient public engagement opportunities around development.

She described the election, city committees, a citizen advisory group, surveys, in-person and online input sessions, public hearings, public input periods, and emails to council as ample ways to receive feedback.

Knowles claimed Lurbiecki was likely trying to delay further development, leading to increased costs for buyers, legal liabilities, risks to affordable housing, and a strained relationship with the province.

She called the motion offensive, stating the town halls would come with “massive unbudgeted costs.”

“No resident or member of council should support it,” Knowles said.

Coun. Callan Morrison agreed the city provides a substantial number of engagement programs, adding the 2022 elections results gave council its mandate regarding densification.

He said if there was a major concern in the community, the makeup of council would be different.

Coun. Samantha Agtarap argued public hearings are not the best way of soliciting public feedback, stating they never provide a representative cross section of the community.

To Agtarap’s point, Lubik introduced her own alternative motion. 

She requested the city reach out to SFU Centre for Dialogue’s Renovate the Public Hearing program to ask for support with its OCP engagement process.

Lubik said the city’s engagement is generally lacking input from several key groups, such as renters, and institutions like SFU are trying to innovate civic processes to be more inclusive.

The SFU team had initially contacted the city in late 2023 regarding its participation in a citizen’s assembly, but council declined.

“We decided we didn’t have enough time originally. Now we do,” Lubik said. “The OCP is already changing a lot, and now we have these mandates. I think that’s caused a lot of anxiety.”

She added the SFU program receives funding from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which could alleviate costs to the city.

The motion passed 5-1, with Lurbiecki opposed. 

Lurbiecki argued the counter motion does not address the issue of timing and context in which decisions are being made.

“I’ve never heard so many excuses not to hear from our community in my life,” she said.