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| Prince Rupert City Council continues to meet by Remote methods with Mayor Brain and some staff members at City Hall and Council members calling in from other locations |
Prince Rupert City Council members gathered for the first public session for 2021, though with COVID measures still in place, other than Mayor Brain who was in the Mayors Chair at City Hall along with some senior staff members, the remaining council membership participated by phone from remote locations outside of the Third Avenue chamber.
For the most part it was an evening that largely focused on how the Council wishes to move forward with plans for a Tax Exemption Bylaw towards development of the three newly renamed Districts of the downtown area.
Such was the passion for the topic, that the discussion on the themes of downtown tax exemptions consumed just over fifty minutes of the council session that lasted one hour and six minutes.
Council members also announced appointments to the Airport Authority and Library Boards, as well as to approve a variance permit for a property on Parker Drive.
A late addition for the Agenda which was not included in the public review documents of earlier in the day, saw Council begin the process of consideration for a proposed Retail Cannabis location for the Cow Bay Area.
Some background on the work of Council on the evening and the various Regular Agenda elements for the January 11th Council session can be reviewed here.
Council also hosted a Closed Session earlier in the evening, the first closed door session of the year, the details as to why they required the doors to be closed for the 5PM meeting can be reviewed here.
Further information from our overview and placement in the video archive can be found below, with the permanent record of the minutes added as they are posted to the city website.
In attendance Monday, January 11, 2021
Mayor Lee Brain -- Present ( in Council Chamber)
Councillor Nick Adey -- Present (by phone)
Councillor Barry Cunningham -- Present (by phone)
Councillor Blair Mirau -- Present (by phone)
Councillor Reid Skelton-Morven -- Present (by phone)
Councillor Wade Niesh -- Present (by phone)
Councillor Gurvinder Randhawa -- Present (by phone)
Video Archive for Monday, January 11, 2021
Regular Council Session
( 0:00 -- 1:30 ) Regular City Council Session for Monday, January 11, 2021 -- Mayor Brain called the Regular Council Session to order, with Council adopting minutes of previous meetings and the agenda and revisions for the night.
( 1:30 -- 3:00 ) Report from the Corporate Administrator related to a variance request for a property on Parker Drive -- Ms. Rosa Miller provided the background related to the variance request. Council members had no questions to ask of the Corporate Administrator and then voted to approve the motion, sending the application to public notification.
( 3:00 -- 3:30 ) -- Report from Corporate Administrator -- Resolution from Closed Meeting -- Council announced the appointments of Gloria Rendell, Knut Bjorndal and Kelly Sawchuck as representatives to the Prince Rupert Airport Authority Board.
( 3:30 -- 4:00 ) -- Report from Corporate Administrator -- Resolution from Closed Meeting -- Council announced the appointments of Andrea Wilmot, Dale White and Brendan Turner as representatives to the Prince Rupert Library Board.
( 4:00 -- 9:00 ) Report from Corporate Administrator towards an Application to obtain a trade/business licence -- Ms. Miller provided the background towards a submission from Five Corners Cannabis from October towards plans for a cannabis retail licence for a building located at 23 Cow Bay Road.
Council was advised that to date ten letters had been received since October by the city, either directly to City Hall or through the Rupert Talks online information portal. Of the ten, two were against the proposed retail cannabis location and eight were in favour of it.
Council's efforts on the night made for the first step of the engagement process, with the public to be offered further opportunity to provide comment related to the proposed retail operation.
Councillor Adey had one question related to the application related to whether this proposed location meets the spirit of the previous policy guidelines that had been put in place, Ms. Miller advised that it had been reviewed by Staff and did.
With no other questions council then moved forward with the application process, supporting the submittal of it to the Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch which will review the application and once returned move towards the public engagement part of the process.
Following the vote, Mayor Brain observed that the public would most likely hear more about the application later this year.
Bylaws
( 9:00 -- 1:03:00 ) Report from Corporate Administrator -- Re: Downtown Core Revitalization Tax Exemption Bylaw -- Ms. Miller outlined the nature of the bylaw which was up for is first three readings on the evening.
As part of her preamble to the review, the Corporate Administrator made note of some edits and amendments that have been put in place to date.
Mayor Brain observed how Councillor Mirau had raised an amendment in December and the Council had taken those and other changes to their lawyers. With the Council now looking to ensure that changes are in place to put the primary encouragement on housing in the Midtown district and more towards commercial in the New Downtown and Marina District.
Council then engaged in an extensive discussion revolving around the amendment offered up by Councillor Blair Mirau and how they may wish to change the amount of time available for incentives for the midtown region and that the larger tax exemptions would be in place for any potential housing proposals for that district.
The main thrust of the Councillor's overview was to express his concern that allowing for some of the tax exemption options in the Mid-Town District of the city would work against the city's desire to see housing take a primary focus for that district.
Councillors Niesh and Cunningham offered up the most push back towards those themes, with both seeking to ensure that existing property owners were able to fully benefit from the Tax Amendment proposals that are currently being considered.
Councillor Mirau spoke of the work of the last few years and the money spent ton the Redesign Rupert project and that the key takeaway was that the city's downtown as it currently is, is now three times too large for Prince Rupert's current population and how the city doesn't want to incentivize commercial development in the mid-town district.
Both Councillors Niesh and Cunningham observed that there has been much discussion in Council in recent years of how the city is destined to grow in population as the port expands and how the downtown area may be too small should that growth come to realization.
The City Manager also spoke to the topic on the night, with Robert Long observing for council that typically if you really want to change things you wold change the zoning and how council hasn't done that and how they haven't taken away no rights of anyone in those existing areas and all they have done is try to incentivize development in those areas and only incentivize those things that they wish to see developed there in the future.
With the fifty minutes or so of back and forth on the topic winding down, the Mayor offered up a compromise that took some of the suggestions from a few of the members who spoke to the topic on the night.
Towards that, the final amendment from Councillor Mirau would include encouragement of development of multi family residences in the midtown district, encourage the clustering of commercial developments in the Downtown Cow Bay Districts, as well as to encourage the development of existing commercial properties in the Mid-down, downtown and Cow Bay Districts.
As well, Council will modify the incentive plan to reflect that eligible exemptions in the mid-town, district are limited to multi-family residential and existing commercial redevelopment.
Council will approve the full Downtown Core Tax Exemption Bylaw plan at their next meeting.
The Mayor brought the topic to an end by hailing the proactive work of Councillor Mirau on the bylaw and how the discussion flushed out many concerns and themes of the council membership and how it helped to strike the right balance.
The Mayor added how he believes the community will be pleased with the direction of the program and how it will kick off development in the community, noting that the Tax Exemption plan is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle towards development in the community.
( 1:03:00 -- 1:06:00 ) Reports from Council
Councillor Randhawa relayed some commentary from the community related to COVID concerns, noting of the arrival of two patients transferred from Mills Memorial Hospital in Terrace to Prince Rupert Regional Hospital.
Mr. Randhawa also asked if the Mayor had any updates on when COVID vaccines will be available in Prince Rupert, particularly for health care workers in the community.
In reply, the Mayor noted that he had recently spoken with Northern Health officials and that they plan to provide an update for the community within the next two weeks and how any announcements are within their jurisdiction.
You can access our archive on the City Council Session here, where a number of items regarding the council session, including links to local media coverage, can also be found.
As always, our Council Timeline is only a reflection of our observations from the Council session of the night. Be sure to consult with the official minutes from the City, when posted to their website for further review.
Official Minutes of the Regular Council Session from January 11, 2020 (not available yet)
In addition to the city's official minutes, the City's Video archive provides a helpful record of the events from each public council session.
The next City Council session will take place on Monday, January 25th.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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