2025 ANNUAL REPORT | STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
STRATEGIC PRIORITIES | 2025 ANNUAL REPORT
Community Belonging and Connecting
Homes and Housing Options
The social and cultural make-up of New Westminster has fundamentally changed and is more diverse now than ever. The City aims to foster a community in which everyone feels they belong and has the opportunity to connect and contribute.
The City is a recognized leader in housing, advancing housing options across all spectrums, from emergency shelters to market units. The City will intensify its focus on housing by making a bold commitment to be even more ambitious in how it tackles the ongoing housing crisis.
In 2025, the City continued investing in community spaces, programs, and events that helped residents feel welcome, connected, and included. Free and accessible events such as Bright in the Park, Moonlight Movies, and Canada Day created opportunities for residents and visitors to gather and celebrate together. Exhibitions, performances, workshops, and programs at Anvil Centre fostered creativity, learning, and cultural understanding. New recreation offerings such as Women’s Only and All Bodies swims and gymnastics lessons in ASL improved accessibility and inclusion for residents. Social meals at Century House helped foster connection for seniors, while shared activity spaces at the Library created welcoming places for residents to connect over puzzles or chess. The Library also established an Interfaith Prayer and Meditation Space, helping ensure all residents and visitors feel welcome and supported.
The City expanded support for community-led initiatives through increased community grant funding, helping local organizations deliver programs, events, and services that strengthen neighbourhood connections and community involvement. Partnerships with schools and non-profit organizations also improved access to recreation, learning, and support services. A refreshed Be Heard New West platform helped make public engagement more accessible and inclusive, with a focus on reducing barriers and reaching underrepresented voices. The City also adopted a new corporate brand identity shaped through extensive public engagement and informed by reconciliation work. The updated logo better reflects the broad history of New Westminster, along with the values, diversity, and evolving identity of the community today.
In 2025, the City made progress on increasing housing choice and long-term housing planning across the city. More than 1,200 housing units received occupancy during the year, including major developments in Downtown and Sapperton. Work progressed on implementing new Provincial housing legislation, expanding Transit Oriented Development Areas, advancing the reGENERATE vision for the 22nd Street Station area, and rolling out the Townhouse Program. The City streamlined approval processes and implemented new Provincial financing tools to help accelerate housing delivery. Affordable, supportive, and rental housing initiatives also moved forward, alongside new protections for renters and vulnerable residents. This included approval of an 89-unit BC Housing project operated by Aunt Leah’s Place to support vulnerable young women, along with new rental
and student housing developments across the city. A new Inclusionary Housing Policy was developed to help increase affordable housing delivery, while Guiding Principles for a future Tenant Assistance Policy were created to support renters impacted by redevelopment. Climate-resilient and energy-efficient housing initiatives remained a focus throughout the year. In response to increasing extreme heat events, the City amended its rental housing bylaw to prohibit landlords from restricting portable cooling devices in rental units and progressed work on the Vulnerable Buildings Assessment project to address overheating risks in older rental buildings. Through Energy Save New West, homeowners accessed rebates, financial incentives, multilingual workshops, and pilot programs supporting home energy upgrades, heat pumps, and energy efficiency improvements.
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