New Westminster council members are divided on whether the city has enough information about how its business licence and parks and recreation fees compare to the rest of the region.
At its Aug. 26 meeting, council considered a motion from Coun. Paul Minhas about how New Westminster’s business licence fees and parks and recreation fees stack up against other cities in Metro Vancouver.
Minhas said New West needs to know whether its neighbours, including Burnaby and Coquitlam, are providing better options and better pricing.
“We have to be very mindful as to how expensive or how much we are charging the people, especially the seniors,” he said. “We need to be competitive.”
Minhas’s motion was to direct staff to conduct a review of business licence fees to determine how New West compares to other Metro Vancouver cities. It also directed staff to conduct a review of the charges and fees imposed by the parks and recreation department for similar programs and services (such as annual gym passes, swimming passes, and exercise classes) and see what those fees are in other Metro Vancouver cities.
The motion also recommended that this information be incorporated into the city’s budget process.
Council voted 3-2 against the motion, with Coun. Daniel Fontaine supporting his fellow New West Progressives’ colleague’s motion. Mayor Patrick Johnstone and councillors Ruby Campbell and Nadine Nakagawa voted against the motion.
Campbell and Johnstone said the motion is unnecessary because New West staff already compare the city’s fees to other cities in the region and reports back to council with that information.
“We do this work, not once in a while, we do this work every year,” Johnstone said. “This is a normal part of our budgeting, and I'm surprised somebody would bring forward a motion asking us to do something we've already done every year. … I just can't support us spending time on motions that are redundant to work that staff is already doing and already doing really well.”
Campbell said it’s always prudent for the City of New Westminster to review its fees and charges but said that’s already being done.
According to Campbell, the arts culture economic development advisory committee discussed business licensing at its February and April meetings. In April, the committee received an update about the city’s business licence bylaw and a spreadsheet comparing New Westminster’s business licence fees to some neighbouring cities. (Campbell chairs the committee; Minhas is a member of the committee, but meeting minutes show he sent his regrets and did not attend those meetings.)
“Staff compared New West to nine other municipalities, and they listed 25 business category types,” she said. “And of the 25, 14 of the 25 are lower than the average of other municipalities.”
New Westminster’s rates were “a little bit higher” in five categories and “significantly higher” in five additional categories, most related to cannabis application fees and liquor primary application fees, Campbell said.
“That information is publicly available and has been publicly available since April 11. At the committee where this was discussed in April, staff also shared that they held a focus group for interested business owners to provide input,” she said. “I also know from the most recent committee meeting that staff are actually coming to us, council, with a more fulsome report with some recommendations. So that work has already been done and is well underway.”
The April report included various business licence fees for New Westminster, the District of North Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey, Vancouver, Burnaby, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody. It included fees for various businesses, including contractors, mobile food trucks, cannabis shops, restaurants, dentists, hair stylists and grocery stores.
Parks fees
Campbell said the parks and recreation department reviews its fees and charges annually.
“Of course, we want to review fees and charges all the time, but this work has been done,” she said. “It's available publicly, so I am not sure how to support this motion because the work's already been done.”
At its July 8 meeting, council received an analysis comparing New Westminster’s admission and fee pass prices to six other Lower Mainland municipalities, Campbell said.
“We were generally average. There was one or two areas where we were a little bit higher, not substantially; for instance, in the senior’s pass, we were $1.75 more for that month,” she said. “And I also know that the parks staff are going to be reactivating the Grade 5 and 6 Active Pass, which is great. And also know that they're doing some comparables from other municipalities again, so that we will be seeing more information from parks and rec.”
Fontaine said he has discussed the issue with Minhas, who is very aware of the information that’s been made available.
“The motion does refer to Metro Vancouver. So, there are, I believe, the last time I checked, 21 municipalities in Metro Vancouver,” he said. “I think what councillor Campbell is referring to is a select group, a subset of that Metro Vancouver region. So, I think the motion is actually much broader and more encompassing of the entire metro Vancouver region.”
Instead of comparing New West’s parks and recreation fees to a select group of cities in the region, Fontaine said the motion would have staff gather information from all 21 municipalities.
“I applaud the work that's been done; I think that's great,” he said. “But it's like kind of doing your homework and only really doing maybe three out of the five pages. We still have a few pages left of homework to do, and that's what this motion does. It just expands that.”
Fontaine said the motion also talks about providing information about fees to the public as part of the annual budget process.
“If, at the end of the day, out of the 21 municipalities … we're doing well, then that's fantastic. That's great. I think everyone will applaud us,” he said. “But like Councillor Minhas has said, there are members of the public who are bringing to our attention that in many cases, we're not competitive when it comes to the rates that we're charging for things like business licence fees and things like recreation passes.”
Earlier in the Aug. 27 meeting, council unanimously supported adoption of the parks and recreation fees amendment bylaw, which amends the bylaw to set out the fees for 2025.
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