Earlier this year, the province raised concerns about the city’s plans for the area around Moody Centre.
Given the consternation about the neighbourhood, we asked candidates for their thoughts on the area.
Ideally, what should be built around Moody Centre SkyTrain station? (Moody Centre Station TOD)
Dustin Chelen
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It’s time to revitalize our downtown with ground floor shops and patios, a walkable Spring Street, office space for workers who come to our city on the West Coast Express or SkyTrain, and a mix of affordable and market housing that lets people live in a complete community without needing to drive a car. A pedestrian overpass to Rocky Point Park and more parking capacity will help alleviate traffic and parking pressures along Murray Street. City-owned lands need to be used more thoughtfully for gathering space, a library branch, innovation hub and an art gallery.
David Stuart
I support transit oriented and more dense development in this area but it cannot be at the expense of jobs and in fact needs a creative approach that will enable residents to live and work in Port Moody.
Kyla Knowles
The area around Moody Centre SkyTrain is ripe for a refresh, and is the ideal place to add homes of all types to our community in keeping with our Housing Needs Report. Transit-oriented development (TOD) makes it easy to get people out of their cars and onto transit. That’s good for community building, the environment, and traffic.
Haven Lurbiecki
Moody Centre is the perfect place for a designated employment district with some mixed forms of housing. It’s time we rebuild our local economy and bring well-paying jobs to our community. Our current OCP plan for a few retail shops at the bottom of condo towers is not enough. The area around Moody Centre Skytrain offers a generational opportunity to create jobs spaces in Port Moody due to its highly desirable location for business on a main route next to rapid transit. A focus on transit-accessible business in this area creates an economic engine for our city while avoiding the harmful emissions and traffic grid-lock massive residential development in this area would create due to ‘one way’ traffic heading to and from work. It’s time for Port Moody to revitalize our downtown core and gain a much needed commercial tax base. As a City Councillor I will ensure that any new development around Moody Centre skytrain is focused on jobs, rather than residential towers, and work to promote Moody Centre as an amazing location for anchor tenants in areas such as innovation, technology and post secondary.
Samantha Agtarap
A complete community: one that allows for daily errands and life to be conducted without a car, community gathering spaces, green and open spaces, transit-oriented, variety of housing suitable for all ages and stages of life, and a mix of industrial, commercial and institutional uses. For more details, visit Ask Sam.
Amy Lubik (incumbent)
My priorities for the TOD are employment space (with the city helping to find anchor tenants), and ensuring enough green/ connection space for the health of residents. As the city and the province are part owners, this is also an opportunity for affordable housing which should be focused around transit.
Hunter Madsen (incumbent)
While I would expect it to include some residential density too, I believe the primary focus of that area should be to attract and enable a big boost in jobs density, for the long-term health of Port Moody’s economy, restoration of the city’s shrinking tax base (to provide homeowner tax relief and better amenities), and to shore up the city government’s dwindling finances. To get there, our city is in urgent need of rebuilding its downtown business district. 62 percent of our residents agree that the best location to anchor this activity zone – comprising both retail/entertainmentment/commercial shopping and space for thousands of new jobs in sustainable industries and sectors – is the Moody Centre Station TOD.
Callan Morrison
Moody Centre TOD is the perfect area for a complete community to be built that provides jobs, park spaces, amenities, rec centres and also provides much needed housing close to rapid transit. I envision a community there that not only benefits the people that live within it, but one that provides amazing gathering spaces and shopping options for the thousands of residents in the surrounding neighbourhoods to enjoy. If we work together and listen to our residents I know we can be proud of this neighbourhood when it is completed.
Steve Milani (mayoral candidate)
Let’s build a walkable, climate-friendly Moody Centre with more human-scale buildings that are better for the environment and better for our mental health. Let’s include residential, and a grocery store, but focus more on creating job-space and attracting good-paying jobs to help restore our business tax-base.
