Replies from the City

April 2025 Update
Massey Victory Heights – E 10th to E 8th / McBride Boulevard to Chilliwack St

Construction update
Replacement of the existing street lighting on Massey Victory Heights area between E 10th to E 8th, and McBride Blvd to Chilliwack St will begin late May, 2025. This project is expected to take approximately six month, weather permitting.

Construction hours are Monday to Friday, 7:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Saturdays (if needed), 9:00 am to 6:00 pm.

Construction impact
We thank you for your patience during this necessary work. We will endeavor to minimize disruptions; however, given the nature of the work, some disruption is inevitable to allow safe movement of pedestrians, and vehicles and to ensure the safety of construction crews.

Please note that parking and vehicle movement may be disrupted during construction while the contractor is trenching and installing the lighting structure.

Background

The City have identified that the lighting infrastructures in the MVH area is aging and near the end of its life span. It is working fine for now, but it’s only matter of time before it fails, and is becoming difficult to maintain. The reason we would like to replace the entire system is that the lightings were installed decades ago, at a time when the City didn’t have the electrical code as we have today. The wires were directly buried, making them fragile and prone to damage. Also, there is a risk of electrocution from live electricity.

There are two main reasons for the replacement. First, because the wires are directly buried, it is extremely difficult for our Ops to locate the source of any outage in the area. They have to guess and dig between poles to find the issue. Second, since the City has established the updated lighting standard, we are no longer storing low post top style poles, bases, and fixtures. With our current budget, it would be challenging to provide the different styles for the different area of the City. The disadvantage of using the low post style compared to the new davit style is that more materials would be required. More poles, bases, and fixtures would be needed to maintain the same lighting levels as the davit style poles are taller, and we will be using warm colored LED. The davit style is more cost- and energy-efficient in the long run.

• September 19 2024
They have checked with the staff involved with this, and the consultant they’ve brought on is in the process of reviewing the current streetlights and inventory. They will have a plan on streetlights in the first half of next year.

• April 18th 2024
As noted before, staff will be looking to do a review of the street lighting in the neighbourhood. We’re close to retaining a consultant to assist staff with this, and will start this review sometime this spring.

From: Marc Rutishauser <mrutishauser@newwestcity.ca>
Date: February 27, 2025 at 5:39:45 PM PST
To: _Mayor & Councillors <_Mayor&Councillors@newwestcity.ca>, _CAO Directors and 2IC <_CAODirectorsAnd2IC@newwestcity.ca>
Subject: AMI Meters - Radio Communications

Dear Mayor and Council,

We wanted to provide answers to questions from the public regarding the AMI project currently in deployment. Questions have arisen around the radio communication safety of AMI meters, how often they transmit information, and what process is available to opt-out of radio communications.

The AMI meters used by the City communicate using safe, secure low-level radio signals that are compliant with all standards set by Health Canada. There are no health risks from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) from advanced meters, and further the radiofrequency EMF from AMI meters is very low because:

       AMI meters emit relatively low power signals every four hours for approximately 2 seconds.

       There is distance between your body and AMI meters.

       AMI meters transmit data in short bursts, not continuously.

       When AMI meters are not transmitting a signal, they do not emit radiofrequency EMF.

Exposure to radiofrequency energy below Health Canada s established limits is safe. To learn more about Health Canada s safety guidelines, please visit their website.

The City does provide residents of single family dwellings the option to choose an AMI meter that has its transmitting functionality turned off. If you choose the radio-off option, a new radio-off AMI meter will be installed at your home. You cannot keep the existing analog or digital meter. Approximately every two months, a meter reader will be dispatched to your addresses to take a physical reading of your radio-off meter. Your regular bill will be issued and will include the Meter Reading Fee in addition to the cost associated with your consumption.

The fees for a radio-off meter are as follows:

       Set-up Fee: $85

       Meter Reading Fee: $55 per read

For more information about radio-off meters, including the online application form, please visit: newwestcity.ca/ami/radio-off

Please feel free to share this information, and let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks,

Marc Rutishauser, P.Eng  |  Deputy Director of Electrical Services

T  604.527.4533  |  E  mrutishauser@newwestcity.ca

City of New Westminster  |  Electrical Department 

905 First Street, New Westminster, BC V3L 2J1

www.newwestcity.ca

Issues we have shared with council that are ongoing concerns by the residences of MVH:

• April 23, 2024
a. Short cutting between 8th & 10th
b. A workable Parking strategy from City within MVHRA neighbourhood needed
c. Status of NEXT Door APP discussion with NWPolice ongoing (this is in lieu of Neighbourhood Block Watch that ended)
d. Staff participation with in-person meeting on occasion would desirable

• July12, 2024
At the end of May, the Residential Associations of New Westminster had an opportunity to meet with the New Westminster Police Community Policing Department. As a follow up to that meeting, the NWPD Community Engagement Coordinator has provided updated information in response to some of the key issues raised during that meeting. Both can be found below.

In Summary:
The NWPD Resources document provides a quick brief overview of some phone numbers and websites you can reach out to. As NWPD states, "We are here for you"
Note: MVHRA has tentatively secured the NWPD Community Engagement Tema for our next MVHRA General Meeting in September 2024.
The Nextdoor Settings Configuration document provides suggested notification settings which the NWPD has shared with the intent to improve the notification function of the Nextdoor Application

NWPD Resources
Nextdoor Settings Configuration
16 Neighbourhood Designations Map
Last Update: July 12, 2024

A bit of background regarding the NEXTDOOR app use

NWDP has been using this app since April 2020 for posting items for New Westminster’s residents info on a regular bases. Per my correspondence with the Communications Officer at NWDP, over the last three months of 2024, NWDP has posted 9 times in April, 11 times in May, and 13 times in June. This doesn’t include when they respond to a question someone asks in the comments section of their posts. The majority of the time, posts from NWPD go out to all of New Westminster. There are times, however, when NWPD will post to a specific neighbourhood. As of July 9th NWPD has advised, they have 5,552 members on Nextdoor. 4,291 claimed households in 16 different neighbourhoods. With 461 claimed households in the neighbourhood called “The Heights.” per their delineated boundaries ( reference NWDP Zone map).

MVHRA executive notes at this time, based on anecdotal replies, the MVHRA has received from a handful of members a few months ago, this App has not been received with glowing reviews to date. However, If you are stilling using the app and make these notification changes let us know at: Nextdoor App Comments

• February 29th, 2024
a. We are hoping to hear back from NWPD’s latest NEXT DOOR app evaluation at the May 30th meeting with the RA presidents
b. All comments shared with the MVHRA president regarding Next Door were forwarded to the NWPD community engagement department

Traffic short cutting 8th to 10th / 10th to 8th
1. Preliminary numbers shared as received from City, but City still studying.
2. No significant movement, but sharing the latest correspondence from the City.

Replies from City Engineering:

• September 19 2024
They had checked the recent volumes, vehicle types, and speeds along several locations, and had mainly found that trucks volumes were a bit higher than desired. We’ve had our commercial vehicle enforcement unit of the police watching and enforcing where possible, and advised that the last while they haven’t noticed anything of note. We’ll be continuing to monitor the volumes and vehicle types here, but do let us know if there are any further concerns.

• Apil 18th 2024
We are currently summarizing our traffic survey data but I can give you some high level findings. We collected the data last autumn and reviewed them on their own as well as comparing them to previous surveys from 2016/17. We found that the vehicle volumes and speeds for the most part had actually dropped compared to the past, with Chilliwack having the highest traffic by far of the streets with around 60 vehicles per hour (about one per minute) during the weekday afternoon period. Speeds had also gone down, with the 85th percentile speeds in the mid-30km/h range; a little higher than the 30km/h we desire for local streets, but not to the point where we’d prioritize additional measures to slow traffic. What has gone up is the presence of larger vehicles – vehicles such as larger multi-axle trucks that most people would associate as heavy commercial vehicles –with some locations having more than five a day on an average weekday.
This isn’t desirable, and we’ll be reviewing the findings in more detail to come up with appropriate remedies. I will also provide this info to the NWPD’s Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement team. Note that observed truck violations can be reported in to the NWPD non-emergency number at 604-525-5411 or reported using the on-line system at: https://www.nwpolice.org/onlinereporting

• February 6th 2024
We had done surveys along Laurel St, Churchill Ave, Chilliwack St, and Chestnut St late last year (2023), and are currently being reviewed. More information will be provided as we continue to analyze this data, noting that currently staff efforts are onto other priority items.

Non-residents parking - in particular Richmond St - City still studying

Replies from the City

• September 19 2024
We’ve kept on top of reminding development projects in the area to not park on the streets in the area. Bylaws hasn’t noted anything significant.

• April 18th 2024
As mentioned earlier, we considered a “no parking except for residents” type signage, but from conversations with others that had implemented similar restrictions, we were told that after a short time the effectiveness was minor. It was also difficult if not impossible to monitor or enforce. As such, it’s no longer considered a workable solution. We’re continuing to remind known construction projects in the area about not parking on the streets in the area. We’re also currently discussing other possible measures; I know that residents have brought up permit parking before, but please let us know if there are any other thoughts or ideas that may be suggested.

• February 6th 2024
We had instructed some known construction projects in the area to not have trades personnel park in the area, acknowledging that this doesn’t necessarily cover all non-resident parking in the area, and based on your e-mail it appears that it’s still an issue. Strategies such as time-limited parking except with permit as you’ve suggested has previously been done in other neighbourhoods in New Westminster in the past, but as a policy this isn’t something that we do currently. An idea that I have seen Vancouver do is put in signs that say no parking except for residents of said block. This strategy doesn’t include permits or decals indicating residence on the block, but uses the wording of the parking signs as a deterrent to would-be parkers. It could also involve residents identifying known non-residence parking to bylaw officers as a means of deterrence/enforcement. This idea is something that staff here have been discussing, but I’m not sure of its potential effectiveness nor whether it is something that residents along Richmond St are comfortable with. If we have other thoughts or if there’s a measure that we’re implementing, we’ll let you know.