Transcript: Special Committee of the Whole - 2026-05-25

Sam,

Look at this. Full bench strength up here. All right. Welcome everyone to the special committee of the whole. On May 25, 2026 I will call this meeting to order. There are no late items to add to this agenda. So I would look for a motion to approve the agenda move.

Approval agenda.

Thank you. All those in favor, Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. We move right into the period staff reports and I will look to Mr. Kanoki. Obviously there's nothing extra to add to your this report. So are there any questions for Mr. Kanoki with regard to the CAO report And he is going to do a presentation actually. Aren't you. Why don't we do that first?

Sure, yeah. As your worship mentioned, I don't have anything to add to RCAO's report but I am going to move through the Council strategy Priorities Plan update and so I think at this point council is aware of the priorities plan and the foundations of how it's made and how it's managed.

So I'll move through these slides and obviously we are going to be looking and our stars. Yeah and I'm going to start on page one with climate resilience and environmental stewardship. We do have a flag on this page which is the GHG emission and reporting and greenhouse gas reduction strategy. We are delayed on the corporate roadmap. So it appears as though Q4 will be when we work to complete that plan. Are there any questions on this slide?

Councillor Cavan?

One question you may not have an answer is just when we say Q4, how is that going to work in terms of the election and what are we expecting Q4? Do we assume it's going to come in right after the election or It's a good question.

It would be after the election and I would defer to Bill if Bill has any time timeline on this plan other than Q4.

It's more generic actually but I think

in Q4 no, I, I can't do a. There. There are no council meetings in October at all and two in September I think.

Okay, moving on to the next slide. Diversified and thriving economy options analysis for Park Place has been moved to Q3 and our short term rental policy analysis is actually is complete but part 2 has been moved to Q2.

Are there any questions on

seeing? None.

Moving on to engaged in healthy communities. This one has been completed and on the second portion of this service levels for enhancing Bylaw evening enforcement and I believe this report is coming forth for Q3 and the public safety building does have a yellow score or yellow circle and unfortunately due to timing and construction has been delayed for the completion of 20 or, sorry, 2027.

Q1.

Any questions? I'm going to be upset with that one, I can tell you, but other than that, can't do anything about it. Go ahead.

Next one is again, Engage in healthy communities. And this one is front yard deer fencing, which is, I believe on the agenda this evening. Is there any questions on this?

Nope.

Okay.

Housing, another complete slide deck and second, second slide for housing, Affordable housing strategy. And that has been not funded and not started, it looks like. Q. Q2, 2027 is when that would be anticipated. And our development capacity assessment is currently underway. And Q3, 2026. And Bill, I think we mentioned July would be when that would be coming forward.

Madam Chair. Yes. We anticipate bringing the. You saw the report a couple weeks ago. The interim. We anticipate bringing the final report at the last meeting in July of this year.

Thank you, Bill. And the final one on this page is the official community plan major review. And that would be moved to 2027.

Councillor Boardman.

Thank you. I just have a question about the Affordable Housing strategy report. So it says that the project is funded and that it was recommended to go to the future projects list. So I'm curious, what happens to the funding in the meantime? How much was that funding, if you could remind me? And what. What's happening to it? Thank you.

I believe it's $75,000. It's a grant and it will remain in place.

So it'll stay there until we need to use it.

Yeah, I'm not the finance guy, but in my understanding we need to get it done next year.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? I just want to ask about the official community plan major review. And so what is anticipated in terms of how that will move forward?

Staff will be bringing back a project sign off for council. So there's two things, precursors. One is the financial impact analysis, which the project sign off will come hopefully in the fall. And then the Scotland Road urban design guidelines. Both those reports need to be done first. And then we'll get started on the major review of the official Green plan. But council will see all three come forward as a project sign off before anything starts.

Okay, good. Thank you very much. Any further questions?

And there are no changes to this

slide

and the final slide? Oh, no, sorry. There's one more after this. This one just indicates that the pavement condition assessment and management plan has been completed. Any questions on this slide?

Any questions?

No changes to the following slide. And that concludes the update Any other questions?

Thank you. So if there are any questions. All right, seeing none. Thank you very much. We'll move on to corporate services. Ms. Hopkins, anything further to add to your report?

Thank you, Mayor. I'm pleased to be here on behalf of the department to discuss our activities during the first period this year. Corporate services activities are really heavily influenced by what's going on around us. So changes in legislation, impacts to other departments, matters of significant interest to the community and or council, for example. And this requires our team to be quite reactive, which is beginning to show in the data that we're collecting. As we now have three periods to compare to each other. What we're seeing is that there is no typical period for the department and it will be interesting to see how these comparisons evolve over time and to be able to compare the same periods over multiple valuable work.

That was the team this period, including partnership building, completing the citizen satisfaction survey, providing orientation to all new committee members who were appointed outside of the regular recruitment periods, and providing training on updated records and privacy management programs, elections preparations and supporting and tracking council's directions. I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Are there questions? Councillor Boardman.

Thank you. Just a quick question about attachment three, the analytics dashboard. So those are total numbers for all visits. So is there any way you can pull out how many people watch council meetings or committee of the whole meetings as compared to other times that they engage or is that what we're looking at here? I feel like this is inclusive of the committees and such as. Well, it is.

I'm not sure. Sorry, I. Through the chair. I'm not sure. Actually this is a feature that was disabled for a very long time, for a couple of years, and we've just managed to get back from our agenda management provider. So I can look into that to see if we're able to further drill down and get some more detailed metrics.

Sure, I think that would be most meaningful. And also, can I assume that the spikes might be like on a Monday when people call in to watch the kids council meeting? Because I'm sure there's hundreds of people watching us right now.

I think whatever assumption you want to make is fine.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Cabins.

Thank you very much. This is great. I love the detail, I love seeing the trends over time. Just a question about foi. Just curious if we have any sense of how much we see how much your department's working on FY requests. And I'm curious, are we tracking or do we have any way of knowing how much FOI Requests how much time in other departments are spending on it through the chair.

So one of the attachments we have is the FOI dashboard, which tells you which departments were involved. It's not tracking the time. I mean, I think that that would be something that if the departments were looking to track, they would do that tracking for us or for you. But it's not something that we're currently requiring different departments to provide us. I mean, sometimes we know if we. If it's a significant FOI request and there's a fee estimate that goes out with it because we need to know the amount of staff hours. But that's not usually. It's usually the exception, not the rule.

Okay, thank you. I think it would just great for other departments if they're putting in peer reports to let us know. So we have a sense of. Because my sense is FOI takes few a. An awful lot of staff time. And I don't know if the public understands how much time that is. So it's great to hear.

Thank you, Councilor Brain.

Yes, one follow up on Councillor Cavins. Like, I know, you know, we sometimes are also involved in and getting stuff and it takes considerable amount of time just for us to do it. So it would be interesting. I don't know how we can but to track that. Because it takes a village to do these fois. So I totally hear everything that goes on. I just had some questions on some language. What's a transferred FOI request?

What does that mean?

Yes, so a transferred FOI request is something that maybe came to us that belongs to another public body. Or a very classic example for us would be a request that belongs with BIC PD and they have their own FOI process that we would transfer to.

Okay, excellent. And my other one is on one of the graphs, it's an SI C CSS under Request by Department.

And I'm like, what department is that?

Great question. Thank you. Through the chair. It's Strategic Initiatives, Community Safety Services. And because there was. There's still a little bit of overlap, we're keeping them together just for a little longer.

Thank you,

Councillor Morrison.

So just, yeah, continue on the FOI theme. So the other thing is when we get requests, for example, as Councillor Brim said, we get them as. As well. We're asked to basically search our emails and any kind of communication for a specific topic. And I find, like, I don't know if it's just the way my phone or our iPads are storing things, but if it's a recent thing, it's very. It comes up very easily and you can just forward them onto the FOI department. But if it's an older request I find those emails are harder to access. Like they just seem to disappear and I don't delete them.

They're just not accessible after because of the volume of emails I guess that we receive storage just stops presenting them. Is there another layer that also checks the email system for topics? I know there's. Is it entirely on the email user to provide all their emails they can

find through the chair? Yes, it would be on the email user. So simply because I think our only other option would be to have it searching and we for obvious reasons don't want to send other people into individual email inboxes.

So it really just requires us to try and do our best to find whatever is still available within our storage of emails.

That's right. And there's opportunities to create some folder systems within your outlook. But yes, however that works for you.

Okay, thank you.

Any further? Oh, sorry. Councillor Boardman, Councillor Brain. Okay, my list is cleared. No further questions. All right, we'll move on to development services.

Your worship. Members of council, first accidental omission in Table 1 Appendix A. The housing matrix accidentally deleted was 820 Scramwell Road which is 135 units of rental. So that'll be corrected the next time around. It was corrected in the previous reporting out period. Council may be Interested in Table 3 in that same appendix for total number of units completed since July 1st, 2024. It's approximately 953. In one and a half years we have blown past our five year target of 754. This is an unofficial number because it doesn't include the various homes that may have been demolished in that period. But even with those we have gone way past our five year target I believe. And there's an official report out in July.

Thank you. Are there questions for Mr. Brown, Councillor Bream and then Morrison

under when we talk about affordable units, and I know I've asked this before so I apologize because you know, quarter to quarter I seem to forget. But is that what are we counting as affordable and is it specifically ones that they've said these will be affordable units, 30% of the income or whatever?

That's correct, yeah. When a private developer comes forward we use the hilt housing income thresholds, I believe it is and put that into a section 219 covenant or more typically a housing agreement. The exception would be for Greater Victoria Housing Society like their Fleming Street Project was almost entirely affordable housing. So.

Okay.

And unless they specifically tell us, we assume zero in that kind of bracket

and it's council that tells them through the resign process.

All right, perfect.

Thank you, Councillor Morrison.

Yeah, so with all the change in development that's happened with the squamous, well, really over the last decade in a pretty expedited manner. And as Director Brown said, we've already met our housing targets way ahead of schedule. So I thought like one and I did send an email to staff to give them advance notice of this. But I thought one interesting stat to include would be where are we actually now in terms of count of housing types? So my question to the director is, as best we know, right approximately right now, what is the number of single family residences in Squamil? What is the number of strata townhouses and duplexes?

And that would include our new smuse that are getting built. And then what is the number of strata condos? And then finally what is the number of rental apartment units? And so if staff did we, if they did have that readily available. I'll ask that question through the chair now.

Okay, so this is a bit unofficial because obviously it would do a lot more work to get a more accurate number. But single family dwellings about approximately 1,780. There are an additional 615 that have suites.

So that would be a total number of single family dwellings is 2,400 more or less. And including those, and there's an extra 613 suites on top of that. So that comes to just over 3,000 including suites.

There's one purpose built SHMU that has occupancy that's on Parkland's Drive. You may remember more or less a duplex with suites, so four, but the others are on their way. Duplexes. Stratified duplexes is almost 500.

Non stratified is approximately 350. Then we have 12 strata triplex and 12 non strata triplex. Row house stratified is about 440 and row house unstratified is 183 more or less. And then we have multifamily stratified 1,860 plus or minus and multifamily non stratified. So those would be the typical rental apartments. 3730 more or less. Remembering that a stratified apartment can usually

be rented as well.

Institutional is 48. That's the memory care. The vista and senior independent living is 64. That's the salvation army on Arm Street. So Total, my approximate total, and this is not a official, Official number is 10,250, more or less

Interesting. I just. And I. Yeah, it's kind of. Traditionally you would sort of think of Esquimaux probably have been more of a single family home kind of zoning, you know, with some apartments along Esquimo Road. But you're seeing with these stats the dynamic is shifting quite a bit. And as I said, a lot of that's happened over the past decade with that shift. It'd be interesting to have those same stats included along with all the other really good stats that we have in the period reports. Maybe not every period because it's likely not to change drastically from one period to the next, but perhaps maybe at the end of the year, the final period report of the year or something just to see that same in a tabular format and see how the shift has happened for that year.

And, and we'll be able to look at it over a course of a term as well of council, say four years as well.

So.

But interesting numbers for sure.

Thank you, Councillor Boardman.

Thank you. I was just going to agree with Councillor Morrison that that would be great to see just those consolidated neat numbers on one of the period reports coming up. And I don't know if you can pull historic information or not, but it would be wonderful to see a few years worth just see what has changed in the, in the township as in terms of housing types. Thank you.

We are in committee of the whole. But I would make a recommendation at the end of all of these reports if you wish to add something so that it can be formalized. Any further questions for Mr. Brown? All right, we will move on. And next up is engineering and Public Works. Mr. Clary?

Thank you, your worship. Nothing to add, but here for any questions.

Thank you. Are there questions, Councillor Bream?

In the report it said 10 service laterals were replaced already this year. That seems like a lot. Is that a lot? Is that more than normal or is

that about average

through the chair? This would probably be a good one where we could show some of those historical numbers in a future update

in

the last couple of years, I'd say that's about average. If we go back a few more years before that those numbers have been increasing, I think on. Because this question was previously asked, I believe, and I think we were around 10 to 15 a year and then in the last couple years I want to say we were 25 to 30. So it's certainly been going up and this is trending in that Similar direction.

And just a follow up if I can. So are these replacement due to we've planned, we're trying to get ahead of it or are these reactive versus proactive through the chair?

These are reactive. So typically how they come to be is a resident might notice a backup in their, in their residence and they would call the township. The protocol is that they actually have to call a plumber to determine if it's on the township side or on their side. If it's determined to be on the township side. And then we went and confirmed that and had to fix it. That would be one of the stats that's included in this number.

Okay, thank you, Councillor Kavitz.

Okay,

you mentioned the mentions biannual traffic counts. So that's every two years. I'm just curious, is that a standard to do that every two years or is there any value in doing it more often? I know we live in a world where everyone likes information yesterday about what happened last week, but I'm just curious how that reflects what else other municipalities are doing and is that enough to help us plan for infrastructure that we're looking into

through the chair? That's a good question. We certainly do more counts than just these, often more on a reactive basis. Trying to see say what's happening on Tilikum right now. Is there added traffic there? We would deploy a different traffic counter, one of our own to try to track that. We also do those types of counts as we look at traffic calming. These ones are the historic locations. We've been doing them for many years on a biannual basis at these 33 locations. So it's really intended to show long term trends. And so I think it's meeting that need right now. We could certainly reach out to other municipalities to see how they're doing that long term.

Look, I know CRD with the new transportation service will also be looking at data and data collection and that might be another opportunity to explore.

Thank you very much.

Any further questions? All right, seeing none. We do not have anyone here from finances, but if there are questions, the staff will take them away and get answers for us. Any questions on the financial report? All right, seeing none. We are lucky to have a representative from the fire department. And so anything further to add to the report?

Thank you, your worship. Greg Swan, one of the assistant chiefs, stand in for the fire chief tonight. For those who don't know me through the chair, we have nothing to add to this report but here for any questions.

Thank you very much. Are there questions? Thank you for coming all right, Human Resources. Mark, anything to add?

Yes, through the chair. Nothing to add but here and please

answer any questions or further information.

Okay.

Council, any questions? Seeing none, no. Okay, we move down to parks and recreation. Mr. Knoke?

Thank you, Worship. I have nothing further to add, but happy to take questions.

Any questions?

Councillor Cavins, I have one about Life passes. There's a table there in the report that shows the number of passes that are sold. I'm just curious how many with the Life program, which is the discounted passes for lower income residents, do we have a sense of how many of those we're providing and what percentage of it is overall?

I don't have the percent, but I can tell you in a ballpark how many we provide. So we do between 400 and 500 passes for an adult a year. That's the average. And there hasn't been a big shift. There was a change that happened to the program in 2024 where we bundled things into a two year process and we made the drop ins unlimited. That created a spike in the first year, but it's averaging out in the second year. So a lot of people applied. So we had higher numbers in 2025, but we're seeing, I think we've had 90 applicants this year, so the numbers are back down. So it's starting to balance itself.

But I can add those numbers to this report for council's information and I can provide the year over average.

Just interesting to see trends as well. If there's a change that's happening in that.

Good.

I have one more question and I guess the question is not in the report, but how is the replacement of the arena slab going? Are we still on track for September?

Things are on track. There has been a few delays right now. The biggest delay was the Cougars made it really far into the playoffs, which pushed us back about a week and a half. So we have communicated this with all users, but it's looking like it's going to be around an October 10th to 15th opening.

Thank you.

Thank you. I was going to ask that question too, so I'm glad to get that update. Councillor Bream, not directly part of this quarter.

I guess it'll be technically next quarter, but the. The water being drained at Gorge Pavilion, is it the pond just in front? Is it the ponds at the gardens? And have we thought about maybe doing that at. Not in the middle of peak wedding season.

Sure, sure. So through the chair we're actually working. So on the timing question. The best time to glue tiles to concrete is in the summer. So unfortunately the winter time, it's difficult with the temperature and the moisture. So we want dry and hot. But what we're looking at, we're exploring to not impact the weddings is trying to do the work midweek and filling the pond back up. So there's an impact to water usage, but we also recognize the impact it has on the renter. So we're trying to balance that. We'll be reaching out to each contract and having a discussion with them and trying to manage that so that maybe they do have water in the pond. Yeah.

Excellent. Because I know it was hitting some wedding Facebook pages unflatteringly. So.

Yes, great, thanks. Councillor Morrison.

Also a question from. Not from the period report, but more current is some point this month, aquatics, the big digital clock disappeared and it's just, it's not displaying anymore. I was wondering if that basically shut down, it needs to be replaced or is there a cost of that or. And it's just on a practical level, it's so much easier when you're swimming lakes to see this big digital clock as to how much time you've been swimming and if you want to time yourself or what have you.

So, yeah, through the chair, we are working on replacing that and we will have a replacement coming and it's not an impact to the budget, but they're not on the shelf. We have to order those.

So.

So that, that current or the, the previous clock is it just. It's, it's ceased operating.

I can't tell you what happened to it, but if it's not operating, likely it failed.

Okay. Yeah, thank you. Good to know that it's being replaced.

Any further questions? All right, last but not least, we have Ms. Finnegan in for Ms. Kitz on strategic initiatives and also her own report.

Thank you. Yes. So here for duty kits and just reiterating that this department recently transitioned from community safety services to strategic initiatives and it is a good reminder for us to have that little overlap because there's still a fair bit that's coming in from sort of last year. So this is the first full four month report. Judy came in in August 2025. And this department oversees or has oversight by law enforcement, the Policing model and framework agreement with VicPD, economic development, first Nations Engagement Reconciliation Initiatives and the Council Priorities Plan. So just a few highlights from the report. Judy has given you quite a lot of summary notes there. Just wanted to add that the bylaw offence notices appeared to be more proactive and more visible enforcement.

So you'll see that from the statistics, 97% of the bonds are parking related. The actions taken by VAX also included more education and compliance. And just a note on my report under because I know this has been asked a while ago and we are now starting to track the home occupations. My staff there said 46. It's actually more in line with 79 and 52% of that 79 is crafts like product based artisan and 48% would be more under services, professional services. So definitely into future reports, I'll be having a bigger look at those stats, how we've been doing over the years. I had a quick look at the stats this week.

It looks like we had a big rush of home occupations probably five, six years ago and it kind of comes in waves but it feels like it's picking up again. So we'll just be keeping an eye on that, seeing where the trends are and how that affects any kind of zoning and working in neighbourhoods. So here to take any other questions.

Thank you. Are there questions, Councillor Cavan?

I have one which I suspect you won't be able to answer just because this is more. Ms. Kitces. I was just surprised as we're putting it out there for the public, just surprised to see that there weren't wasn't a substantial increase in bylaw tickets from last period or 2025, this period to 2026. Given the changes that we've done in terms of expecting more after hours and different bylaw parking enforcement. I'm just wondering anyway, that's. But just curious why that is and would we expect to see more as the year goes on?

I can attempt to answer that. So in the report it talks about us looking to bolster our ranks with an auxiliary bylaw officer which will help with the after hours, the event parking so that we will be going out. I think Judy's working on that right now. So we should hope to have more information at the next report or when that comes back to council. But yes, there was a 9% decrease in bonds from 2025 first period to 2026. Judy and I had a look at that and it might have even been just, you know, looking at the stats or counting somewhat differently. So as we do more year on year, we'll get more confident in those numbers.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Councillor ar.

Not so much a question as a quick comment. Just looking at the business license trends. I just want to note that of course it is quite positive the fact that we're seeing increased number of increased growth and increased renewals and fewer closures. So that all seems positive. And I'd like to think, and I don't know if you want to respond to this, it's accreditation is always a challenge. But I'd like to think part of this stems from the work, the excellent work you're doing. And I know it's hard for you to be objective but let me rephrase it. The implementation of our economic development strategy I would like to think is contributing to that.

And I was just wondering if you had any thoughts.

I'd love to chat about that. Yes, thank you. Just having recently come back from the BC Active Association Summit, obviously economic development was. There was 288 people in the room all high on ED and I think what was warming to hear, not just in this community but in every community, the impact that these functions have on the business community. Having a resource to come to, to ask questions, to have support, to interpret, you know, business lingo back internally and local government lingo back externally. I think it is a highly prized function and I think particularly given where our businesses are in the economy with uncertainty, tariffs and you know, ever increasing headwinds.

I know from what I've heard the business community say they highly value myself and every other Edo out there. So really thank you to Council for supporting that work.

Thanks so much. And just echoing what you just said is interesting outside a meeting with some officials from SIP South Island Prosperity Partnership and they echoed that the importance of economic development officers and I will say they particularly flagged the excellent role you play and how much they enjoy working with you and the value they think the strategy and your work brings to economic development within Esquimaux.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Any further questions? I just want to ask about. We've had a short conversation about the Hotel Development Working Group and the report that came out. Is there going to be an opportunity for us to hear about how that report, how how esquimalt reflects in that report and how that. How or what esquimalt needs to do or can do with regard to hotel development through the chair.

Yes. Cascadia consultants are more than happy to come and do a presentation and it's something that we're chatting to them about. Bill Brown's also been involved in those conversations and there's obviously some sort of chatter around STRS hotel development and how we can position ourselves. So we will be looking at bringing them to council for a more in depth conversation. Whether we do that pre or post October. I'll chat to the CAO about that and see which is going to be More strategic.

Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions? All right.

Councillor Kevin I have a general comment and it was about the last slide of the CAO's presentation which we actually skipped over. And it was just to say it's the potential future projects. I know we're always impatient or I'm always impatient about how many projects. But going through the Strategic Priorities Plan is actually very impressive to all staff how much we've accomplished in the term. And now when I look at six things being on the future projects list, that's a huge change from four years ago. And just want to say thank you so that we always bug you for the things that aren't getting done, but it's worth recognizing all the things that have gotten done.

It's pretty impressive when you see it put this way.

So thank you for bringing that up. We do need a motion to receive these reports. So moved. Seconder.

Second. Should I add my amendment at this time or.

I would do it separately.

Okay.

I'll just reserve.

All right. Any discussion on receipt? All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. Councillor Morrison?

Yeah. So I guess the request would be that committee hole recommends that future development services period reports include tabular data on the number of housing types by category.

Councillor Boardman, I'm going to look to you because you were interested in that as well and you can either second it or add to it.

I would add over time. So we don't just get a moment in time but get a chance trend.

Oh, I see. Yeah. So I. Because I didn't say that it might be more relevant to have it on an annual basis. So not every period, if that's what you're. Is that. Or I mean I suppose you could have it every period, it just wouldn't change.

Make the recommendation and then staff can come back and say whether this is.

So I'll just stay. Stay with the motion which was.

And of course staff can then come back and say it would be more relevant to have it at this point time and. Or this frequency.

Okay.

All right.

And it's recommendation to council, is that right?

Yeah.

Okay. So.

So I just like it read back because we kind of went into questions right after it.

I can depends if staff have it or not.

But I could try rereading through the chair. I'll let you know what I have and then you can do it. So as it stands, that committee of the whole recommends to council that staff be directed to include tabular data on the number of housing types per category on future development services period reports that captures it.

Thank you. All right. And Councilor Boardman, you've seconded discussion and staff. Any concern?

No concern.

Lasky up front. All right, all those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motion is carried. And with that, I will look for a motion to adjourn this meeting.

So moved.

Second.

Thank you. All those in favor? Any opposed? Not opposed. Motions carried. Thanks, everyone, for. For coming.

It.