Burnaby cancels proposed green organics waste facility at Fraser Foreshore Park

Burnaby’s city council has walked back a proposal that would have seen the removal of parkland at Fraser Foreshore Park for an organic waste facility.

Council members voted unanimously to nix going ahead with the Green Recycling and Organics (GRO) project at Fraser Foreshore Park during a special meeting held Monday afternoon.

Several council members thanked the public for making their feelings on the project known and said they had learned a lot about the wetlands in Fraser Foreshore Park in the last few weeks—and said they now understand that while the project may be the right choice for Burnaby, the proposed location was not.

Coun. Alison Gu said climate change has massive implications for her generation and will require governments to make choices they haven’t thought about before—but said she felt limited by the choices she thought councillors had on this project.

“Everything I had been told was that it had to be here, or it wouldn’t get built. I want to urge the importance to this council and staff that we cannot allow this false choice to exist. As municipalities, we are limited by legislation, jurisdiction, other players, private and public, and much more,” she told her fellow councillors.

“But all these limitations are human-made. And because these limitations have been drilled into me, I lost a little bit of the reason why I ran for Council in the first place: to be able to respond to the climate crisis with the urgency and the science of what is required of us. To be able to challenge deeply-held assumptions. To be able to do what is right, not what is easy.”

She suggested that the city should work with partners to overcome those “human-made limitations” and get the facility built somewhere else.

Coun. Daniel Tetrault, meanwhile, said that while the project itself is necessary for Burnaby’s climate goals—”this should not come at the expense of unique wetlands and dedicated park space.”

Coun. Sav Dhaliwal told councillors and a crowd of residents gathered in chambers that while he believes the facility is the right way ahead, the last few weeks had shown him that the alternative approval process (AAP) chosen by council to go forward with the project, should never again be used to take parkland dedications away.

“I support the project and I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t have proceeded [with it]. To make up that I didn’t know about it, I didn’t know all that—that would have been a lie. … [On the] AAP—I didn’t do a good job on that. I misjudged how well that would be supported,” Dhaliwal said.

“…. People thought we were trying to be sneaky. We’ve heard that people felt this process isn’t good enough. Today I would say what I’ve learned is that this council [needs to] commit to not having an AAP to take the land out. It needs to be a full referendum. … We chose to use [the] AAP. All of us did. We didn’t do our homework, none of us did.”

Coun. Pietro Calendino ended off by saying that council had underestimated the public attachment to Fraser Foreshore Park.

“None of us anticipated the level of reaction and public passion about the location. … I think this is a case when the public can claim a win.”

The proposed GRO facility would have taken up 21 acres of undeveloped parkland, roughly 12% of the riverfront park’s area.

The proposal saw fierce opposition from members of the community, who said the project should be placed on land already zoned for industrial use.

The city launched an alternative approval process (AAP) earlier this month, following provincial legislation that requires local governments to gain the assent of the electorate for projects where parkland needs to be undedicated.

The AAP required anyone opposed to the project to send in a signed electoral response form by mail or in person—those in support didn’t need to take any action, and no vote was counted as being in favour.

If the city received less than 16,250 submissions (10% of the city’s electorate) voting against the project by April 28, then council could proceed.

Community members who spoke out against the AAP process said it placed too much onus on people who were opposed to the facility, and said the city hadn’t done enough to engage the public before going ahead with the proposal.

“When only 32,000 Burnaby citizens voted in the municipal election (with all the city's resources to get them out) it certainly doesn't appear fair to force volunteers to somehow get 16,000+ citizens to get, fill out, and deliver AAP forms,” Burnaby resident Paul Cipywnyk told the Beacon earlier this month.

Monday’s special meeting to reevaluate the issue had been called by Mayor Mike Hurley, who said council had “heard loud and clear” that the public didn’t support the project going ahead in Fraser Foreshore Park.

“We appreciate the people who have engaged with us in a thoughtful and respectful manner on this issue. I am hopeful that City Council will be unanimous in this reconsideration motion so we can cancel this AAP process,” Hurley said in a press release Thursday evening.

“It’s time for us to let staff get back to work so we can work together to find a better location for this project or to find other innovative solutions to address Burnaby’s urgent climate action needs.”

The project was originally touted as a key step in achieving Burnaby’s climate goals by converting organic waste into high-quality soil that could be used by residents, community gardeners, and local farms.

According to the city, the facility also has the potential to generate renewable natural gas to heat 5,000 homes per year and process up to 150,000 tonnes of organic waste from Burnaby and the Metro Vancouver region.

Currently, Burnaby sends its organic waste to private facilities in Delta and Pemberton—and Hurley told the Beacon in an earlier interview that the construction of a facility here would take “many diesel trucks off the road” because they would not be driving to other parts of the province to deliver waste anymore.

An environmental assessment report commissioned by the city said the facility would result in the loss of habitat function for many wildlife species that live in the park—including “loss of habitat for amphibians and lost foraging and breeding habitat for migratory birds”—although Burnaby had committed to restoring and creating new habitat and waterways to mitigate the impacts of the facility.

With files from Simran Singh