Phase one of redeveloped Burnaby Hospital set to open this year

Burnaby Hospital’s brand new pavilion will open this year, according to a Burnaby Hospital redevelopment project delegation at Burnaby City Council’s Mar. 11 meeting. The new pavilion will include an extra 83 beds as well as a new mental health and substance use unit, maternity unit, neonatal intensive care, and a medical unit with negative pressure rooms and outbreak zones for infection control. 

“Our construction for phase one started in 2022. We’re sitting here now in 2025 and expect our phase one opening this year. Our construction of phase two is also expected towards the end of this year, with our renovations completed for phase one by 2026, and hopefully, we will be back here to announce the opening of phase two by 2030,” said Noor Esmail, chief project officer and executive director of the project on Mar. 11. 

Esmail added that once the project’s two phases are completed, the hospital will have 399 beds. 

“I was hoping it would be over 400,” said Mayor Mike Hurley. 

“It’s sitting at 399, but we’ll work on it, Mayor Hurley,” Esmail said. 

Other council members welcomed the update and were pleased with the news. In Oct. 2023, the Beacon spoke with Esmail about the project, and he said that the project will almost double the hospital’s current size and Fraser Health will hire nearly 1,000 new staff members. 

Heated discussion over increased sewage bill

During the meeting, council members discussed a proposal to remove the 20% increase on the sewage bills for 2025 for households that have not paid their utility bills yet. Council had approved the increase during its Nov. 4, 2024 meeting. The sewage bill was increased because Metro Vancouver had raised its rates by 49.84% for 2025. The city was to absorb the difference in the increase using its reserves. 

However, on Tuesday, a new recommendation came to council to eliminate the latest increase, calling it a “significant financial burden for residents and businesses, impacting affordability and economic stability” that would be “further adding to financial strain on taxpayers.” 

Some council members opposed this recommendation, saying it would be inequitable for Burnaby residents, favouring those who own single-family properties over the rest of the city’s residents. According to staff present at the meeting, the city has already billed around 58,000 properties for sewage use in 2025. 

“If you were to freeze the sewer parcel tax and not have the increase, that would directly benefit those in single-family homes without a suite because those are the ones who have not paid anything yet in terms of sewer, but everyone else, if you’re in a twin, if you’re in any property that has a rented suite that you’ve declared, if you’re in any sort of multi-family triplex, four packs, you have already paid sewer for this year,” said Richard Rowley, the city’s director of revenue services. 

Council was divided on the matter, with several councillors speaking against the recommendation. 

“I think this would not be equitable around the city, and I also worry that this would pass on too much of the cost up to next year,” said Coun. Daniel Tetrault.   

Coun. Alison Gu was also strongly opposed to the changes, saying it would be unfair to the residents who have already paid their utility bills. 

“Unfortunately, a deferral really amounts to unequal treatment of Burnaby residents depending on where you live. If you’re able to own land and live in a single family home or duplex, you are by virtue of that parcel charged the sewer parcel tax,” Gu said. “So by just only reducing the sewer parcel tax, this would only be giving a discount to just a partial portion of Burnaby residents, and many have already paid their sewer bill through the utility bill. And so this is just, to me, very inequitable in how we are trying to redistribute costs across.” 

The recommendation failed with a 6-3 vote during the meeting, with councillors Sav Dhaliwal, Richard Lee, and Pietro Calendino supporting it. 

City will work with BC Housing to build more supportive housing

Towards the end of the meeting, Coun. Daniel Tetrault proposed a motion for staff to work with BC Housing to obtain funding for supportive housing in Burnaby, identify a potential site, and coordinate with stakeholders on the type of services to be provided. 

“There’s still a need in the gap for affordable housing and specifically supportive housing, and this was identified in our housing needs report and most recently in the 2024 Burnaby homelessness task force recommendations,” Tetrault said. “Most recently, in the homeless count, we saw that Burnaby has seen an increase of 70% in the last five years. And we know this is not an issue just facing Burnaby. This is a regional issue, but much more can and needs to be done.” 

The proposal was met with mixed reactions from council members. Most of them expressed support for the idea behind it. 

“If BC housing isn’t carrying the can on this, I think we need to really rethink how much we can put into housing, meaning what we have done, what’s already there, how much exists,” Coun. Dhaliwal said. “We cannot continue to solve this problem on the city’s back. It is just becoming way beyond our capacity to do so.” 

Coun. Alison Gu attempted to clarify that the original motion does require working with BC Housing. “The motion is really asking council to support working with BC Housing, where BC Housing is providing the funding for supportive housing, where they are providing the funding for wrap-around supports,” she said. 

However, other councillors echoed Dhaliwal’s sentiments, emphasizing that BC Housing would need to fund supportive housing and that the city should not fund these projects alone.

“We can afford to provide land; that would be one thing, but we can’t afford to pay for the rest of the stuff. This is a significant case of more offloading by the provincial government. So BC Housing would have to carry the main load here,” said Coun. Joe Keithley.

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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