10 work updates Over the last 6 months
- Alison Gu
- May 31
- 4 min read
The past (almost 4! Years) of my time in office, I’ve focused more of my time and effort on the work at Council than in writing to the public about it through social media and this website. But, with the recent closure of the Burnaby Now and the challenges that brings to transparency and awareness, I’m recommitting to more frequent updates on the work my BCA colleagues and I do at Burnaby City Council.
It’s been a busy first half of 2025 at Council, so I’ll first give a select number of updates I’m most proud of, and then brief updates on all the work that we’ve been doing as a Council.
Bike playground!
I first learned about this concept when I travelled with a delegation to Copenhagen, funded by a research grant on how to build healthier cities. Bike playgrounds replicate small-scale urban infrastructure such as bike lanes, crosswalks, and bike lanes in order to give kids a fun and engaging way of developing bike and road safety skills while promoting physical activity through play.
At the Council meeting on May 27, 2025, Council supported my amendments to develop a permanent bike playground at the most affordable cost of approximately $100-150k, to begin applying to other sources of funding from TransLink, the Ministry of Transportation and Transit, ICBC, and Vision Zero, to explore a City-incorporated non-profit to run the operating, and to move forward with community engagement. Thank you to the BCA and rest of Burnaby City Council for your support!
Climate adaptation lens in the Official Community Plan
The BCA team and I successfully moved and passed a motion in January 2025 to include a climate adaptation lens in the Official Community Plan, which is currently in its last phase of engagement. The motion directed staff to map where regional hazards exacerbated by climate change, such as flooding and wildfire, will be, and appropriate zoning designations for areas impacted to prevent harm as much as we can. It also directed staff to update Development Permit guidelines to make sure that new construction is prepared for the extreme weather that’s ahead of us — such as ensuring electrical equipment in new housing doesn’t go into basements. We then protected this work from getting cut during budget discussions.
Burnaby Housing Authority milestones
We’ve been working hard to get our first housing project identified, designed, and all the work required to go through the rezoning process. We’ve successfully submitted the rezoning application to the City, and hired our inaugural CEO — John Brenden McEowen, who was previously the VP of Development at BC Housing. We’ve been working hard to ensure that we can maximize affordability in these units and that as many family-friendly units can be built as possible.
Using policy to boost affordable housing and child care in East Burnaby
The provincial government changed legislation that governs density bonus in legislation back in November of 2023 restricting its use to amenities that must be delivered directly on site. In March of this year, I moved (seconded by Cllr Tetrault) “THAT staff be directed to target affordable housing and childcare as amenities to be provided through the Community Benefit Bonus policy in the Eastern quadrants of Burnaby.” This is to account for the increased need in these areas of the city, and because we are building a new Cameron Community Centre in Lougheed, and the Edmonds Community Centre is our most recently completed community centre.
Safe schools pilot
In November of 2024, I found out about a grant opportunity to fund road closures in front of elementary schools to support kids being able to walk, roll, and bike to school — while promoting awareness and engagement about traffic safety. I moved a motion for the City of Burnaby to apply and work with PACs and the school board to identify appropriate schools to participate. Not only were we successful in receiving the grant, it looks like we’ll be able to run the pilot on not one, but two elementary schools in Burnaby!
Equity in our Transportation Demand Management Strategy
Staff updated our Transportation Demand Management strategy that comes alongside rezonings, which supports alternative forms of transportation. Unfortunately, the recommendation included $0 of transit support for rezonings that included 0.0-<0.3 parking spaces per unit. Not only could this potentially have negative impacts on the principle of TDM (that when developers save money on parking, there’s more to support those living in the units to take alternative forms of transportation and not have parking impacts on neighbouring streets), for me, specifically this most inequitably will affect residents living in affordable rentals — since these types of units are the ones that see this tier of parking ratio.
I moved an amendment for staff to change the requirements to $1000 per unit for a transit pass for units with 0.0-0.5 parking spaces per unit. Thanks to BCA and Council for passing this unanimously.
Quick general Council updates:
Council approved the use of 6515 Bonsor Ave (City-owned facility) as a space for community to grieve and hold community events after the Lapu-Lapu tragedy.
Council approved the much-needed Brentwood Community Centre, coming online in 2029!
Council approved the Urban forestry strategy! Now we must successfully implement (https://pub-burnaby.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=81568)
Council approved working with TransLink to improve bus speed and reliability on Canada Way through upgrades to traffic signals! https://pub-burnaby.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=78399
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