TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT AND THE MOODY CENTRE FRAMEWORK

Moody Station - SkyTrain

On Feb 10, 2026, and in a welcomed response to repeated and false claims that the TOD Framework was approved by this Council without community or public input, a Cllr. Lubik brought forward the following motion:

“That staff provide a brief timeline of the creation of the Moody Centre TOD framework including when, how and why it originated, goals, rationale for recommendations, and links to previous meeting discussion.”

The history of the TOD Framework goes back many years, and was always intended to guide planning in the TOD area across several landowners, as follows:

December 2016 - Translink launches its two brand new Port Moody Skytrain Stations – Moody Centre and Inlet Centre.

November 2017 - The planning process for the Moody Centre TOD Area begins around the updates to the Official Community Plan (OCP) specific to this future transit-oriented neighbourhood. Following the enactment of the 2017 OCP, and at the direction of then-Mayor Clay, the Moody Centre TOD Planning Group (comprised of landowners, the Province and Translink) met several times with City staff and related community organizations in its formation to establish parameters for Moody Centre master planning. This work continued through 2019 at which time the group commenced focused public and stakeholder engagement.

December 2017- October 2023 - engagement and public sharing events related to this planning included open houses (I attended one in 2020), publicly-offered TOD walking tours (I attended one in 2022), engagement opportunities, presentations to community groups, Council and Committee meetings, etc. In all, there were no less than fifty (50) public engagement opportunities provided to residents and stakeholders.

December 5, 2023 Regular Meeting - with the above inputs and meetings stakeholder meetings along the way, planning staff finally brought forward a framework visioning plan for Council review and vote on December 5, 2023.  Staff were clear that it would be helpful to have a clear framework against which to measure Moody Centre proposals. I encourage everyone in our community to go watch the framework discussion on the City website – it is an extraordinarily thorough piece of work and lays out expectations around urban design criteria related to artistic form, amenities, livable spaces, green space, employment space, road and pedestrian networks, view corridors and much more. As the old saying goes, failure to plan is planning to fail. The framework was approved 6-1 with Cllr. Lubiecki opposed.

February 12, 2025 Regular Meeting - Cllr Lurbiecki brings a motion asking that the City institute a moratorium on any development in Moody Centre until there has been a city-wide referendum to approve the framework. It failed, with only herself in favour. I encourage everyone to watch the video of that discussion. As I and others have stated time and time again, we are required by the Province to move landowner applications through City planning in a timely manner and recently received legal advice to confirm this.  We simply legally cannot "stop" development via a referendum or moratorium and all Councillors are well aware of this.  We need to just do our jobs.

Regardless of that fact, seeking a referendum to overturn a previous decision of Council is not good governance.  Since Feb 12, 2025, the Councillor and certain members of the community continue to insinuate that the framework was approved by Council without transparency, and without any public input. They refer to it as a "40-storey" framework even though none of the 5 buildings approved thus far are 40 storeys (two are 39 storeys). Further, based on the near and mid-term construction market outlook and financial viability analyses, future applications aren't likely to exceed 12 storeys for this area.

All this brings us back to  Cllr. Lubik's February 10, 2026 motion asking staff to provide a timeline of the framework development to put these accusations to rest.

Cllr Lurbiecki objects to Cllr Lubik's motion, saying it will result in a “curated story” by staff, and moved the following amendment:

After some discussion, Council voted not to include point #3 because the 2022 surveys (taken prior to the introduction of the provincial government’s profoundly transformational housing legislation regarding minimum density around transit hubs in late 2023) were soundly discredited by experts in the field (including in a presentation to Council in February of 2025 and two separate news articles - linking here).

Staff are going to report back on how long this detailed timeline will take and I hope we can soon have something in the public's hands that will - once and for all - end the repeated false messaging on this issue.