Presented by Mayor Greg Moore

January 10, 2011

Once again, we’re combining our year-in-review for 2010 with a sneak peek at what’s coming up in 2011. I’d like to note that this is not intended to be a comprehensive list of everything we did or plan to do, but rather a list of highlights. More information about these initiatives is available on our website.

Improved Access
Let’s begin with one of the biggest highlights of 2010 – the opening of the Coast Meridian Overpass.  You could almost hear the sigh of relief around the community when the CMO opened on March 6 after two years of construction. The CMO has brought the two sides of Port Coquitlam together and has completely changed how residents, businesses and emergency service providers get around the community.

We also began reconstructing Broadway Street in 2010. Broadway is an important link between the CMO and Mary Hill Bypass, and part of the disaster response route. It’s being upgraded to full arterial standards, including four travel lanes and marked bicycle lanes. Two-thirds of the $11.7 million cost is being funded by federal and provincial grants.

We also focused on improving access for cyclists and transit users. We adopted a five-year bike lane strategy that in 2010 included new bike lanes on the CMO, a signed bike route along Wellington Street, and a new bike and pedestrian activated signal at Pitt River Road and Pooley Avenue. It’s interesting to note that prior to 2009 we didn’t have any dedicated on-road bike lanes. We now have six kilometres of bike lanes in addition to signed bike routes and other improvements, and the Broadway reconstruction project will add another 2.6 kilometres this year.

We also began working to make more of our bus stops accessible for people with disabilities. Fifteen bus stops were improved in 2010, with another 15 planned for 2011. As funding permits, we’ll continue working towards making as many bus stops accessible as possible. In some cases this isn’t possible due to steep topography, but we’d like to get as close to 100% as we can.

Community Safety
The RCMP continued to implement its Crime Reduction Strategy, which targets the people, places and problems that cause the most crime in our community. The results speak for themselves – we’ve seen a 42% drop in our crime rate since the strategy was implemented in 2005. The focus was initially on break and enters and vehicle crimes, but that has evolved to include fraud and identity theft. In 2010, a new Intelligence and Analysis Team was introduced to expand into these new crime areas, which require more resources to investigate.

Fire safety was another focus in 2010. We continued our aggressive public education plan, and saw a 25% reduction in structure fires and 20% fewer overall incidents from the previous year. Other initiatives in 2010 included updating the City’s Emergency Plan and securing a stockpile of first-aid supplies from the federal government to be used in the event of a disaster.

Managed Growth / Planning
We spent a good deal of time planning and looking ahead in 2010, as we started to develop our new Corporate Strategic Plan and continued to work on our Environmental and Heritage Strategic Plans.  All of these documents included extensive public consultation, to help ensure that the City’s future decisions are based on the community’s priorities. These planning efforts are critical to ensure that we meet the community’s needs today and into the future.

In 2006, Port Coquitlam was the first city in Canada to require green roofs – or vegetated roofs – on new large-format buildings. We’re now starting to see green roofs being installed on buildings in our industrial areas, including Brewers Distributor, ICBC, and Sysco, which has a 67,000 square foot green roof system. The new Walmart in Dominion Triangle will also have an extensive green roof, of approximately 150,000 square feet. This will be Walmart’s first green roof in Canada. Green roofs help mitigate the effects of development by absorbing rainwater, creating bird habitat and insulating buildings, among other benefits.

Major economic development projects in 2010 included the start of construction of Fremont Village and an Official Community Plan amendment that will help spur development in the Dominion Triangle area. As well, construction began this summer on our City’s first highrise at Shaughnessy Street and Lions Way.

Development also began on the Pitt River Intertidal Wetland, a 23-acre habitat for fish, birds and other wildlife. A section of the dike and trail along the Pitt River north of Lougheed Highway has been rerouted to accommodate the project, which is part of the environmental compensation requirements associated with the Broadway Street reconstruction and some Dominion Triangle properties. Private property owners paid for about 60% of the project, which will be completed this spring.

A Complete Community
2010 was a great year for dog owners in Port Coquitlam. We opened the City’s first off-leash dog area in January and the public response has been outstanding. Our beautiful dog park features a winding forest path, a fenced area for small dogs, benches and parking. If you have a dog and haven’t been there yet, make sure to check it out this year. And based on the success of this first dog park and demand, we’re looking at creating more off-leash areas in other local parks as funding becomes available.

We also began renovations at Hyde Creek Recreation Centre that included a new roof, exterior painting and signage, landscaping, and energy-efficient upgrades to lighting and other systems. Kudos to our Hyde Creek staff who did their best to minimize the impacts of the renovations on the public.

Towards the end of the year we released a new Community Sport Strategy that the City developed in partnership with School District 43 and the local sports community. A new Sport Alliance is now being formed to implement the sport strategy, bring the sport community together and increase sport participation in our community. The application process for board directors took place in December, and soon the new board will begin to make the sports strategy come to life.

Better Service Provision

We’re always looking for ways to serve our citizens better, and to do this we need to maximize existing revenue sources. In 2010, we conducted a successful neighbourhood canvass to increase the numbers of dogs licensed, and enforced a new bylaw that targeted unlicensed businesses. We also introduced early payment incentives to increase collections on our municipal tickets.

We were proud that our annual budget and Annual Report once again were recognized by the Government Finance Officers’ Association as meeting the highest standards of budgeting and financial reporting. We also adopted a long-term strategy for City finances that supports sustainable financial practices. This essentially means that we will consider the total ongoing cost of every expenditure – not just the startup costs – and that we will also look for more ways to leverage existing revenue and generate new revenue.

Other improvements to services included replacement of the 10-year-old artificial turf field at Gates Park, introduction of a fibre-optic connection to improve communications between the north and south sides of the City, and savings from the installation of a Voice Over IP, or VOIP, phone system.

Community Engagement
In September, we were pleased to receive the top Civic Engagement Award from the Union of BC Municipalities for our online outreach program. This award recognizes our ongoing efforts to use the website and social media to engage more residents and to encourage participation in City initiatives, decision-making and planning. We continued to leverage technology this year to engage the community, through our website, Facebook and Twitter, online videos, my Mayor’s blog, and online surveys and comment forms. Over 2,700 people of all ages now follow our posts on Facebook to find out what’s happening in our City.

And in December we made it easier for mobile phone users to access on-the-go City information when we introduced the first mobile website in Metro Vancouver. Check it out on your mobile phone or device at m.portcoquitlam.ca.

Olympic Spirit
Port Coquitlam certainly showed its spirit during the Olympics in February. Thousands of people filled the streets to watch the Torch Run come through Port Coquitlam, and then took part in ongoing activities that celebrated our community and the spirit of the Games. The entire community was decked out in red, and we had terrific participation in a variety of sports, arts and cultural events, nightly Games screenings at the PoCo Zone, community dinners, family skates and other special programming. We played host to First Nations youth from Prince George and a seniors’ curling team from Salmon Arm, and shared hundreds of event tickets with youngsters who would otherwise not have had a chance to see the Games.

It was a magical time, and it left a lasting legacy of partnerships between our community’s different interest groups, as well as some tangible legacies such as historical signage, an outdoor movie screen and a stage at Lions Park.

Environmental Stewardship - slide 1
In January, Port Coquitlam became the first city in Metro Vancouver to switch to an alternate-week garbage pickup schedule.

This new schedule works hand-in-hand with our recycling and food scraps collection programs, with the overall intent of reducing what we send to the landfill.

We’ve already seen a lot of success, thanks to the participation of our residents. In 2010 we sent almost 27% fewer tonnes to the landfill than in 2009, and saved almost $82,000 in disposal fees.

We’re now leading Metro Vancouver and BC in landfill diversion – we now recycle or compost almost 62% of our household waste, compared to 50% in 2009.

There’s still room for improvement, however.

At the moment, these programs only service about 11,000 single-family homes, because multi-family homes and businesses don’t currently receive City waste collection.

In the fall, we launched a pilot project to test the feasibility of expanding food scraps collection to the apartments, condos and townhomes. That’s another 7,000 households that are currently sending all their food scraps to the landfill.

Council will address the results of the pilot study this year.

Environmental Stewardship
Visitors to our downtown in the evenings this year may have noticed our new LED streetlights, which were installed in February as part of a pilot study we conducted in partnership with BC Hydro. These energy-efficient lights, along with a high-tech control system, can use up to 65% less energy than normal streetlights. As part of the study, we ran an online survey to collect public feedback on the LED lights. The study wrapped up in December and Council will be discussing the results early this year.

Climate change was also on our agenda this year. We met the province’s legislated targets for greenhouse gas and carbon emissions, and we adopted a Climate Action Plan that sets out actions for the community and the City to reduce our carbon footprint – things like reducing energy use, driving less, and increasing our diversion from the landfill.

2011
2011 also promises to be a busy and productive year.

We’ll be improving access around our community with a variety of transportation projects, including completing the reconstruction of Broadway Street, and making improvements along Coast Meridian Road and the Pitt River Road corridor – both of which are important feeders for the CMO. We’ll also continue to improve how cyclists and pedestrians get around, including new bike lanes along Prairie Avenue and a multi-use path along Kingsway Avenue.

You can expect to see a lot of activity in the Dominion Triangle this year, including the Fremont Village development with its large-format shopping centre.

Work will also begin on the new Master Transportation Plan, replacing the existing plan developed a decade ago. This new plan will take into account the impact of the CMO, and will ensure that our transportation systems for drivers, pedestrians, transit users and cyclists continue to meet our needs as our community grows.

We’ll also be adopting and implementing our new Corporate Strategic Plan, and our Environmental and Heritage Strategic Plans. As mentioned earlier, these plans reflect what we’ve heard from the community and will help guide Council’s decisions.

The facelift at Hyde Creek will be completed this year.

In 2011, we’ll also be initiating a litter clean-up program that allows citizens and groups to adopt a park, street or trail and be responsible for keeping it litter-free. This program will not only keep our community clean and beautiful, it will help boost community pride.

Our downtown sidewalks will also be safer for pedestrians after we complete the replacement of five trees whose roots have cracked the sidewalks and created tipping hazards. The six new maple trees will grow tall and narrow and so are well suited for urban sidewalk plantings.

We’ll continue to proactively plan for the future in 2011 by setting aside 1% of our tax and utility revenue for the future replacement of roads, sewers and other ageing infrastructure. You may have heard us talk about the “infrastructure gap.” It’s a problem being faced by many cities, because the lifespan for much of our infrastructure will reach its end in about 20 years, and that’s going to come with a big pricetag. Essentially the infrastructure we use now was paid for by our parents, and we need to do our part and start saving for its replacement so that our children aren’t left holding the bill.

We’ll be encouraging everyone to get out and vote on November 19 to select City Council and School Trustees. Like we did in 2008, we’ll be working with other cities on a publicity campaign to encourage voter turnout. And for the first time, we’ll also be holding a workshop for prospective candidates so that they can make an informed decision about running for office.

And of course we’ll continue to look for more ways to use our website and social media to encourage more citizens to participate in our programs, initiatives and decisions.

In terms of environmental actions, we’ll continue to provide leadership in environmental management in 2011. Our new Environmental Strategic Plan will guide our decisions and actions to help us achieve our goal of being an environmental leader.

As well, we’ll be considering expanding food scraps collection to condos and townhomes as well as to businesses. This would again make us a leader in Metro Vancouver, in terms of increasing the diversion rate in multi-family homes.

The Pitt River Intertidal Wetland will also be completed this spring. It will be a great place to observe wildlife, so make sure to take a walk or ride along the dikes this spring and check it out.

This has just been a sampling of the exciting work happening in Port Coquitlam.

Make sure to stay informed about City initiatives by checking our website regularly. And don’t forget, you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.