Dear Community Members,
Thank you for your continued support and engagement on this important issue.
New West Residents Want Safe & Efective Recovery-Oriented Sites and Safe Neighbourhoods
The City has used the Crisis Response Bylaw Amendments to locate a “Tiny Homes Village” in the
West End of New Westminster
- The 30-room “village” is made from 40’ shipping containers. The site is beside two active rail lines
and other heavy industrial operations at 502 Twentieth Street. Drug use is permitted.
- These Bylaws are meant to let the City respond quickly to crises like floods, earthquakes, fires,
pandemics, without the need for approvals like, rezoning, permitting or public consultation.
- These Bylaws were NOT meant to empower the City to define its own “crisis” and place homeless
shelters on land with no approvals or public consultation.
City Council is Developing Housing that Doesn’t Address New Westminster’s Needs!
- This 30-room shipping container village was brought here from Victoria. Victoria had (and still has)
multiple encampments. Duncan & Kelowna built their own villages and still have encampments.
- There are no encampments yet, in New Westminster.
- Encampments often form outside transitional housing so campers can be with friends, or
closer to drug distributors, who are at 22nd Street Skytrain and Grimston Park.
- The surrounding encampments bring disorder and crime to the area, and the Housing
Operator is not responsible for addressing these problems.
- Coquitlam’s shelter / transitional housing / encampment on Gordon Avenue gets > 2 EMS calls per
day. And not all issues get called in! Our City’s emergency services will be the ones responding to
encampments on city or Ministry of Transportation land, and we will be paying for this.
- The estimated cost to run this housing is more than $2.25 million or $75,000 per tenant per year.
The Tiny Homes Village site is listed on BC’s Contaminated Sites Registry!
- This site has been used by metal machining, blacksmithing, cedar products manufacturing and
other industries that are sources of toxic runoff, heavy metals, hydrocarbons and other chemicals.
No one living near the site remembers seeing the lot being remediated.
- BC Housing says the Crisis Response Bylaw Amendments exempt them from the need to assess
the site and claims the site is clean. On July 15th, we submitted an FOI request for the historical
assessment reports. We are still waiting.
Campers Living Under the Queensborough Bridge have caused Multiple Fires!
- The land under the bridge is owned by the Ministry of Transportation
- Fires were set and got out of control in May of this year as well as the Summers of 2023 & 2024.
These fires can only be fought from Stewardson Way or industrial land on dead end roads.
- The City has no power to remove campers from Ministry land. Don’t let an encampment be our
“Welcome to New Westminster” for cars, cyclists and pedestrians travelling Stewardson Way.
How Can You Help? Sign Our Petition!
- Demand Council (mayorandcouncillors@newwestcity.ca) & BC Housing (communityrelations@bchousing.org)
pause this project until all concerns are addressed.
- Demand Council change the bylaws and not use Crisis Response to site affordable housing.
- VOTE in the municipal & provincial elections and talk to your MLA candidates.
New West Residents Want Safe & Effective Recovery-Oriented Sites and Safe Neighbourhoods
What we are petitioning for:
We want City Council to stop the Tiny Homes Village project until BC Housing does
the following:
1. Holds a public meeting to discuss railway safety.
2. Conducts a study to determine the effects on tenant health from constant loud
noise & social isolation.
3. Provides the Contaminated Site Assessment Reports.
4. Works with the City to keep emergency & bylaw calls, to the surrounding 1 km
area, at the current levels.
Why These Are Issues for New Westminster
- Encampments of > 50 people have formed around low-barrier housing (where
substance use is allowed) in Kelowna, Duncan & Coquitlam. Large
encampments have formed under the Oak Street Bridge in Richmond.
Shipping container housing is supposed to be the solution to encampments,
not the cause of them!
- This “village” was brought to New Westminster from Vancouver Island after all
14 cities in Greater Victoria rejected it. BC Housing will not share any of the
“success” data from the 5 years this “village” operated in Victoria. The Mayor &
his Councillors made this $13.5 M (6 year) decision to accept this village.
- Crisis Response Bylaw Amendments allow the City & BC Housing to locate
low-barrier housing on any government owned or leased land with no rezoning,
permits or public consultation. Only one Mayoral candidate will not override
your rights in this way!
Please come & sign our petition.
We will be in front of City Hall every day from 4:30 to 5 pm Oct 8 to 16.
Come see us as well if you would like to help collect signatures!