May 2025 on the Shore
Hello spring. Pump up the paddleboard. Weed the meadow garden. Walk through a cherry-petal snowfall. It’s so good to be here. Thanks for coming on the ride, Duncan, Martyn, Greg and Heather.
Deep Cove over the rhododendrons Photo: Ghislaine Courcelles
Living la vida local
Here on the Shore, the replacement of existing apartment buildings with new apartment buildings raises questions about genuine progress in addressing housing needs. The trend of building around existing commercial centers overlooks the benefits of distributing both growth and access to services in smaller centers.
Living close to shops and services encourages social interaction and reduces transportation bottlenecks. As the District of North Vancouver contemplates future growth, let's consider transforming more neighbourhoods into mixed-use beauties.
As we enter the dryer spring and summer months we are in stage 1 water restrictions. Source: Metro Vancouver
Water metering to be explored in the District of North Vancouver
At a recent council meeting, District of North Vancouver council voted to get staff to look into the costs and benefits of water metering. During the meeting, the Mayor expressed his opinion that water metering is unnecessary because we have plenty of water supply overall, just not in the dry summer months, when it makes more sense for Metro to control usage through pan-municipality restrictions.
Water is complicated!
Water costs for some people would likely go down if metered, based on the experiences of West Vancouver and Richmond, which have meters. Overall water usage was reduced by 40% in West Vancouver after meters were installed due to leak detection and changes in how people used water. However, after the initial 40% reduction, it's hard to tell from West Van data (page 41) if that full reduction persisted or not, and installing metering infrastructure and ongoing admin costs does add to taxes. A closer review of the persistence of water savings due to metering reductions will be an important part of the staff report from the District of North van.
According to Metro Vancouver, we will need more water supply in the long run, given population growth patterns and climate change, so conservation measures that work make sense. Just like with electricity, the cheapest water supply to add is water we don't use. If we need to build another dam on the Seymour or raise the existing dam (which is what Metro is recommending), we’ll all have to pay for that, and it won't be cheap. In any case, it will be interesting to see the details when staff come back with a report. We’ll follow this story.
Edit 18-May-2025: An earlier version of this article that mentioned “usage patterns returned to normal in West Van”. On closer inspection of the report link now included above, we aren't as confident of that conclusion. The staff report from the DNV comparing several municipalities will shed more light on that question.
More stories from betternorthshore.ca
Cargo bike curious? Try one for free at a North Van library
There are seven e-cargo bikes, with two and three wheels, available across participating libraries.
Better North Shore’s Duncan Wilcock dreamed up a cool scheme to help people try out an e-cargo bike. The idea was to allow people to borrow a bike from our local libraries to see how a cargo bike might fit into their lives. Today, thanks to the help and vision of a lot of other people, the program is live! Download the Evo car-sharing app to book your first ride, free.
Duncan was recently interviewed on the BC Bike Sense podcast about the cargo bikes at the library. Please share the episode with friends around BC. We want to see this program spread to other cities beyond the North Shore.
Citizen talks, gatherings, workshops
Grey to Green looks like an outstanding workshop
Join friends and families for a fun, safe ride around the neighbourhood in celebration of World Bicycle Day! Get creative — decorate your bike with balloons, flags and flair. Starts at the Queen Mary Community School playground, 230 West Keith Road. Read more.
Better Drinks #1 on Grand Boulevard was a sunset spectacular - maybe see you next time?
Where on the shore?
The first person to send us an email with the correct location of this drake will win a Better North Shore T-shirt. (Past winners are ineligible) hello@betternorthshore.ca
Photo: Heather Drugge
Better North Shore - chat server
Want to get more involved with Better North Shore? We’re growing and making an impact, and we’ve created a private chat server—a safe space to organize, exchange ideas, and work on making the North Shore better. If you’d like to get more involved, please join our Discord Server—it’s like Slack or MS Teams, but better. Join using this invite link.
If this newsletter and our stories resonate with you and your values, please forward this to a few friends, and suggest they join our email list. We're building a group of like-minded people who want to see the North Shore positively embrace and manage the many changes we face. Thanks, we really appreciate it, Heather, Duncan, Greg and Martyn.
