108-118 Royal Avenue and 74-82 First Street

Thank you for your question. The proposal seeks to balance multiple needs and priorities including the creation of new housing, heritage preservation and creation of an urban forest canopy. The development applications and corresponding Tree Permit application includes the removal of all 71 on-site trees as they are located within the building footprint and underground parkade. While three high value trees would be lost, a majority of the trees have irreversible structural health defects and are not good candidates for retention. A total of 120 replacement trees would be required with 57 trees proposed to be replaced on-site.

The City arborist has been working with the applicants’ landscape architecture team to develop a replacement tree plan that best achieves the City’s goals to improve canopy cover. This work involves achieving increased soil volumes to support medium/large sized trees rather than multiple smaller sized trees. For replacement requirements that cannot be accommodated on-site, a cash-in-lieu contribution would be made to allow the City’s Parks Department to plant trees on civic lands. Replacement trees would be prioritized in the vicinity of the development.

As per the City’s Downtown Development Permit Area Design Guidelines, residential buildings are designed to provide connection to the street to animate the street frontage. The Downtown Building and Public Realm Design Guidelines also encourage passive surveillance of the street through active uses like unit entries. 

Along Royal Avenue, the development is designed with a 3.9 metre setback from the property line that includes stepped planters to enclose the patio areas as well as a gated entry to each unit. This provides an area outside the door and gate before leaving the property to the sidewalk. In addition, a 2.5 metre multi-use path (sidewalk) and 1.3 metre landscape boulevard area is provided between the property line and the roadway on Royal Avenue.  The widened sidewalk will provide a more comfortable connection for the people walking along Royal Avenue. 

The proposal at 108-118 Royal Avenue and 74-82 First Street would include two levels of underground parking providing 252 spaces for the development. This would exceed the parking requirements of the City’s Zoning Bylaw. Parking during construction would be coordinated by the City’s Transportation Management Plan which is used to guide and manage traffic impacts including potential road closures, detours, flagging personnel etc. The City’s transportation division also issues Street Occupancy Permits for any activity that requires the closure of a segment of road, travel lanes, or loading areas. Staff also work closely with project owners, and when applicable, encourage project owners to work together to minimize neighbourhood disruptions. The timing of the construction of this project would be dependent on a decision of Council on the Heritage Revitalization Agreement and issuance of the Special Development Permit. 

With regards to heritage, the design seeks to complement the heritage house through the use of brick along the lower levels of the building. The heritage house was also sited to create prominence and a cluster of heritage houses on the southeast corner near First Street and Agnes Street. New buildings on sites with heritage assets are designed to be in accordance with the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada which looks for those new buildings to be visually distinguishable from, though respectful to the historic asset. 

The application at 108 -118 Royal Avenue and 74-82 First Street has proposed to include 168 stratified condo units. The proposal does not include either market rental or subsidized (affordable) rental housing. 

The City’s Inclusionary Housing Policy secures new affordable rental housing for very low and low income renters through the provision of below-market and non-market housing units in a variety of circumstances. The policy also outlines some application types and circumstances in which development applications would be exempt from the requirements of the policy. These exemptions currently include wood frame buildings and, as this proposed development is wood frame construction, the City would not require that inclusionary housing units be provided in this case. The City also offers a variety of incentives in the Secured Market Rental Housing Policy to encourage provision of market rental housing units within new developments which applicants may choose to use.

The development is required to upgrade portions of the street frontages that surround the property including First Street, Royal Avenue, and Cunningham Street. 

All construction activity in the City of New Westminster would follow the standards and guidelines outlined in the Good Neighbour Protocol as well as comply with applicable bylaws such as the construction noise bylaw. The City’s Transportation Management Plan is used to guide and manage traffic impacts including potential road closures, detours, flagging personnel, etc. The City’s Transportation Division also issues Street Occupancy Permits for any activity that requires the closure of a segment of road, travel lanes, or loading areas. Staff also work closely with project owners, and when applicable, encourage project owners to work together to minimize neighbourhood disruptions.  

A Transportation Management Plan is required for all stages of construction of land development projects. This plan requires identification of all road closures or disruptions to vehicle movements, walking, cycling and transit. The Plan must account for needs of surround activities such as drop-off and pick-up activities around the school, and minimize impacts to these priority needs and functions.

Redevelopment and improvement along Agnes Street falls under the Agnes Greenway project. For more information of the project and timelines please visit: www.beheardnewwest.ca/agnes-greenway