I have spent many months listening and talking with hundreds of residents about their priorities and how a mayor and council can address them.

The result is an extensive, ambitious vision for the municipality. It touches on Taxes, Trust and Transparency in part one, Better Neighbourhoods and Stronger Business in part two, and A Plan for West Vancouver’s Future in part three. Each has five commitments and several supporting commitments as part of the plan.

Thank you for the generous input and insight that has shaped this document.

There are two versions in this file: a downloadable copy in the black bar below, and a full text version you can read below that.

I hope you’ll read it, print it and share it. My plan is really your plan.

The Plan West Vancouver Wants

After months of listening to the community, here is what I’ve learned are the priorities for West Vancouver I need to deliver as mayor.

Thanks, Kirk

PART 1 OF 3

Taxes, Trust and Transparency

Change how government behaves: lower the tax trajectory, restore trust, and make Municipal Hall and Metro Vancouver more accountable.

FIVE COMMITMENTS

1. Cut the planned 2027 tax increase by more than half. Conduct an immediate spending, service and reserve review to reduce the projected 2027 increase of nearly 7% to 3%, saving the average homeowner about $250 next year, and impose lasting spending discipline.
2. Control spending growth to no more than half the rate of inflation. Cap municipal spending growth post-2027 at no more than half the rate of inflation while protecting essential services.
3. Introduce strong community consultation to put residents back into decisions. Restore advisory committees, consult before preferred options are chosen, show how public input made an impact.
4. Open Municipal Hall to scrutiny. Reduce closed-door decision-making, publish contracts and ethics information, set service standards and report on them, and make accountability easier to follow.
5. Demand reform at Metro Vancouver. Press for an independent wastewater review, better project oversight, a smaller mandate and governing structure, and refuse extra Metro compensation.

HOW I WILL SUPPORT THESE COMMITMENTS

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

• Conduct an immediate comprehensive spending, service and reserve review to reduce the proposed 2027 tax increase. — Reduce the near-term tax burden by finding efficiencies and testing whether current services and reserve practices still make sense.
• Cap municipal spending growth at no more than half the rate of inflation. — Break the pattern of spending growth that pushes taxes higher year after year.
• Commit every year of the term that municipal spending will grow at no more than half the inflation rate, while protecting essential services. — Make the spending rule measurable, predictable and difficult to evade through quiet additions to the base budget.
• Stop using reserves to fund recurring operating costs or artificially suppress ongoing tax increases. — Prevent one-time money from masking the true continuing cost of municipal operations.
• Disclose short- and longer-term infrastructure needs and anticipate schedules, costs and funding requirements. — Give taxpayers early warning of major costs instead of allowing infrastructure bills to arrive as surprises.
• Require every new recurring program to identify a recurring funding source. — Avoid creating permanent obligations without identifying how they will be paid for.
• Require a published business case and funding plan before approving major new capital projects. — Make major investments prove their need, cost and financing before Council commits taxpayers.
• Pursue federal, provincial, philanthropic and private-partner funding before major new capital costs fall on West Vancouver taxpayers. — Use outside funding wherever appropriate so local property taxpayers are not the first and only source of capital.
• Publish an annual West Vancouver report card showing where the 53% of residential property taxes collected for other taxing authorities goes, what those agencies provide in return, and what additional costs they impose. — Make the full tax bill understandable and strengthen West Vancouver’s case when outside agencies increase costs.

CONSULTATION AND PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT

• Restore advisory committees where continuing community expertise can improve decisions. — Bring experienced residents back into the policy process before decisions reach Council.
• Consult the community before a preferred option is selected or a final staff recommendation is prepared. — Make consultation part of decision-making rather than an exercise after the direction has effectively been set.
• Provide adequate notice and accessible times for community input to Council. — Give residents a practical opportunity to participate rather than making engagement difficult by timing or short notice.
• Publish options, costs and trade-offs of spending initiatives under consideration. — Let residents see the real choices and consequences before Council chooses among them.
• Reform the budget process to provide a stronger multi-year spending forecast for public consultation. — Move the budget conversation beyond a single year and expose future cost pressures earlier.
• Report back to the public on what residents said and how their input affected decisions. — Close the consultation loop and show whether participation made a difference.
• Move Council meetings to neighbourhoods when their specific issues arise. — Bring local government closer to the people most affected by neighbourhood decisions.
• Hold twice-monthly Ask-Me-Anything meetings with the public at Municipal Hall. — Create regular direct access to the mayor and make questions and accountability routine rather than exceptional.

ACCOUNTABILITY, OPENNESS AND SERVICE

• Introduce ethics-forward governance to restore trust and accountability. — Make ethical conduct and public confidence central tests of how Council operates.
• Reduce closed-door Council meetings and clearly identify the statutory reason when Council meets in camera. — Keep more public business in public and make every closed meeting easier to justify and scrutinize.
• Publish municipal contracts, procurement awards and contract amendments to the fullest extent permitted by law. — Give taxpayers a clearer view of who receives public money and how contracts change after approval.
• Establish published service standards and guaranteed response times for complete permit applications, with delays and their causes publicly reported. — Make municipal service performance measurable and give applicants predictable expectations.
• Use technology to provide services more efficiently, particularly renovation permits, with human oversight and privacy protection. — Reduce unnecessary delay and paperwork without surrendering judgment, accountability or privacy.
• Provide a clearer tax bill showing municipal and regional levies and where the money goes. — Help residents distinguish District costs from charges imposed by regional and other authorities.
• Support in principle the province-wide Code of Conduct as a common ethical floor, while ensuring West Vancouver maintains strong local standards. — Create a credible, fair process for handling serious conduct complaints.
• Make final findings and sanctions public wherever legally permitted. — Ensure accountability is visible rather than hidden when misconduct is established.
• Publish conflicts, recusals, Council expenses and outside-board compensation in accessible public registers. — Let residents readily see potential conflicts and the full compensation and expense picture.
• Report annually on the operation, cost and effectiveness of the ethics system. — Measure whether the accountability system works instead of merely creating it.

METRO VANCOUVER REFORM

• Demand an independent review by the Inspector of Municipalities of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant project. — Establish an investigation independent of Metro Vancouver into how the project reached its extraordinary cost.
• Fight for a new funding formula and longer amortization period for the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant. — Reduce the disproportionate financial burden on North Shore taxpayers and spread unavoidable costs more fairly.
• Refuse to accept income and per diem compensation from Metro Vancouver. — Treat regional representation as part of the mayor’s public service rather than a second source of pay.
• Support an independent review of Metro Vancouver core services within 90 days of the election. — Test what Metro should continue doing, what it should stop doing, and where its mandate can be narrowed.
• Establish an independent West Vancouver expert panel to scrutinize major Metro Vancouver projects, costs and financial impacts. — Give West Vancouver directors the specialized expertise they need before voting on complex regional projects.
• Support restoring an Auditor General for Local Government. — Restore independent scrutiny of municipal and regional spending and performance.
• Advocate for the transfer of Metro Vancouver housing activities to BC Housing where this would improve accountability. — Reduce overlap and place housing responsibilities where they can be delivered and scrutinized most effectively.
• Support reform toward a smaller, directly elected Mayors’ Council with oversight of Metro Vancouver, TransLink and E-Comm 911. — Create clearer regional accountability and a governing body residents can more easily understand and judge.

PART 2 OF 3

Better Neighbourhoods, Stronger Business

A safer, more walkable West Vancouver, and commercial villages that work for the people who own, run and visit them.

FIVE COMMITMENTS

1. Fix the basics first — sidewalks, streets and safety near schools and parks. Prioritize sidewalk and street repair on routes used by schools, seniors and transit, paired with a traffic-calming blitz.
2. Get serious about our bylaws. Enforce bylaws on term parking, traffic, e-bike and e-scooter use and noise consistently across the District, and end pay parking.
3. Revitalize our four commercial villages. A Local Business Districts Plan for Ambleside, Dundarave, Horseshoe Bay and Caulfeild, built with the merchants and residents, a commercial tax review, and a petition to the Province for an Empty Stores Tax to discourage vacant storefronts.
4. A wildfire plan exists. It isn’t being implemented. That puts neighbourhoods at risk without evacuation plans, and we need safety measures long before next fire season.
5. Build a Walkable Playground Strategy in year one. Identify gaps and set a concrete goal of convenient, walkable access to play space in every neighbourhood, not just some.

HOW I WILL SUPPORT THESE COMMITMENTS

STREETS AND SAFETY

• An immediate blitz to repair sidewalks and streets on routes used by schools, seniors and transit. — Address safety risk before deferred maintenance becomes a genuine hazard on the routes children, seniors and transit riders use every day.
• Establish a community advisory committee on street safety. — Give residents with direct experience of these streets a standing role in shaping the fixes.
• Fix 50 streetscape problems in 50 days in the spring of 2027, and show the community the result. — Prove the blitz is real with a visible, dated result, not just an announcement.
• Work with West Vancouver Police to deliver a traffic-calming blitz near schools, shopping districts and parks. — Protect the streets where children and seniors are most exposed, instead of leaving them for last.

ENFORCING OUR BYLAWS

• Strengthen enforcement of speeding, e-scooter and e-bike infractions. — Make sure rules that exist on paper actually change behaviour on the street.
• Enforce term parking limits so spaces actually turn over for customers. — A time limit nobody enforces isn’t a rule — it’s a suggestion.
• Enforce noise bylaws consistently across the District. — A rule that only applies when someone complains loudly enough isn’t being enforced at all.
• Eliminate pay parking. — Remove a persistent, everyday obstacle for merchants and customers before it costs another storefront its business.

REVIVE OUR LOCAL BUSINESS DISTRICTS

• Build a Local Business Districts Plan for Ambleside, Dundarave, Horseshoe Bay and Caulfeild. — Create a task force to lead a long-term vision to make our shopping villages better places to visit, operate and invest.
• Examine commercial tax treatment. — Review the commercial tax rate to evaluate its fairness in current local business conditions.
• Petition the Province to introduce an Empty Stores Tax option for the municipality, as part of the same plan to revitalize our villages. — Give the District a genuine tool to discourage storefronts sitting vacant indefinitely, right alongside the plan meant to fill them.
• Create an Economic Office at Municipal Hall as a genuine point of contact for business, supporting the revitalization of all four villages. — Give the villages plan an actual owner inside the District, instead of leaving business attraction and retention to nobody in particular.

PREPARE US FOR WILDFIRES

• Implement the neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood evacuation plans that West Vancouver’s existing wildfire strategy still lacks — assembly points, evacuation routes and volunteer contacts for every neighbourhood. — Turn a wildfire strategy that already exists on paper into something residents in every neighbourhood can actually use in an emergency.
• Remove dead and hazardous trees on public land, and help residents do the same on private property. — Dead and dying trees are the fuel that turns a spark into a wildfire — reducing it is one of the most direct, immediate ways to lower the risk.
• Extend wildfire risk assessment to the private land the District’s current plan leaves out. — Roughly 40% of West Vancouver’s highest-risk land is privately owned and wasn’t included in the District’s own detailed wildfire analysis — even though it holds most of the community’s infrastructure and highest-value assets.
• Fund a full-time FireSmart Coordinator, rather than leaving it a part-time responsibility layered onto another role. — Give West Vancouver’s wildfire risk a coordinator whose full-time job is reducing it.

CREATE A WALKABLE PLAYGROUND STRATEGY

• Consult families to build a plan in year one. — Establish a task force to create a long-term playground vision at the centre of a strategy for children and play in West Vancouver.
• Fix the obvious deficiencies quickly. — Deliver visible progress while the larger strategy is still being built, with equipment, seating, shade or accessibility upgrades.
• Map every existing playground and identify the gaps. — Base decisions on population, walking distance, terrain and where families are concentrated or growing — not guesswork.
• Set a walkability objective — roughly a 10-minute walk to a playground or usable play space wherever practicable. — Give the strategy a concrete, checkable standard, while recognizing West Vancouver’s geography makes a rigid rule unrealistic.
• Create a recurring playground capital program. — Replace one-off projects and parent fundraising campaigns with a predictable program so neighbourhoods know when improvements are coming.
• Seek private support for the playground capital program. — Stretch public dollars further by inviting community and business partners to help fund the plan.
• Publish progress annually. — Show the gaps identified, playgrounds upgraded, money spent, and the share of West Vancouver families gaining walkable access.

PART 3 OF 3

A Plan for West Vancouver’s Future

Caring for the people who built this community, protecting what makes it special, and finally planning it with maps that aren’t a decade old.

FIVE COMMITMENTS

1. Support West Vancouver’s Seniors. A new Seniors’ Activity Centre in this term, volunteer-driven micro-transit, elder fraud and scam education led by West Vancouver Police, a poverty and food insecurity study and strategy.
2. Deliver Housing That Fits West Vancouver’s Future. Missing-middle housing prioritized for seniors, young families and first responders, engaging constructively with the Ambleside Centre Local Area Plan, and getting West Vancouver’s overdue Taylor Way–Park Royal compliance back on track.
3. Build the Community Facilities West Vancouver Actually Needs. An Urgent and Primary Care Centre as the first priority, with an Arts Centre, Skating Centre, Seniors’ Activity Centre, Youth Space and updated Sports Field Master Plan sequenced through published business cases.
4. Protect Our Nature and Build the Relationships Our Future Needs. An annual emissions report card, a tree canopy audit, a strengthened shoreline and climate adaptation plan, a formal Relationship Protocol Agreement with Squamish Nation, and foster genuine youth civic engagement.
5. Modernize the Plans Guiding West Vancouver’s Next Decade. Launch a renewal of the Official Community Plan, the Economic Development Plan, the Housing Action Plan, and a standing multi-year capital forecast tied to the OCP.

HOW I WILL SUPPORT THESE COMMITMENTS

SUPPORTING OUR SENIORS

• Create a volunteer-driven micro-transit plan for seniors. — Give seniors a reliable way to get to appointments and community life without relying on a diminishing pool of family and friends.
• Launch elder fraud and scam education, in partnership with West Vancouver Police. — Protect residents who are disproportionately targeted by phone and online fraud, before they become victims, not after.
• Undertake a rigorous study to identify and combat poverty and food insecurity in West Vancouver. — Many seniors on fixed incomes face real hardship in a high-cost community, and the District doesn’t yet have a clear picture of the scale.
• Advance a new Seniors’ Activity Centre with senior-government support and a credible capital and operating plan. — Give seniors a dedicated place to gather, stay active and stay connected, built on a plan that’s actually funded.

HOUSING THAT FITS OUR FUTURE

• Protect neighbourhood character while accommodating reasonable growth. — Balance the housing West Vancouver needs with the character that the community values.
• Set aside a defined share of new missing-middle housing approvals for seniors, young families and first responders, tracked on a public dashboard. — Make this commitment specific and checkable, not just a general aspiration.
• Use implementation of the Ambleside Local Area Plan to encourage ground-level arts, cultural and community uses. — Shape a provincially mandated plan, to deliver community benefit as redevelopment occurs.
• Publish a clear timeline to bring Taylor Way–Park Royal compliance current with the Province. — The District missed its December 2025 deadline and is now under quarterly reporting; residents deserve a public account of where this stands and when it will be resolved.
• Focus municipal control on traffic mitigation, built form and community amenity contributions, not on relitigating a density target the Province has already set. — This corridor sits at the Lions Gate Bridge approach next to a regional mall. The resident concern is traffic and design, and that’s exactly where the District still has genuine say.

ADVANCE THE FACILITIES WE NEED

• Prioritize an Urgent and Primary Care Centre as the first public-private partnership pursued. — Address the most acute, most immediate gap first, given the health-care need already identified.
• Advance an Arts Centre, Skating Centre and Seniors’ Activity Centre through published, costed business cases, sequenced by funding partners secured. — Be honest about what depends on partners we don’t yet have, instead of promising everything at once.
• Support development of the Youth Space project for the West Vancouver Library. — Deliver a project already underway with real community demand behind it.
• Update the Sports Field Master Plan. — Match field capacity to how demand has actually changed, rather than planning around outdated assumptions.
• Require a published business case and funding plan before approving any major new capital project. — Make sure every major facility proves its need, cost and financing before the District commits taxpayers.

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

• Create an annual District report card on emissions from municipal buildings, vehicles and facilities. — Hold the District’s own operations to the same standard it expects of residents and businesses.
• Conduct an annual aerial audit of tree canopy. — Track a real, measurable indicator of environmental health year over year, not just when a development application raises the question.
• Strengthen the long-term plan for shoreline erosion, creek health, stormwater management, habitat protection and climate adaptation. — Protect the natural assets that make West Vancouver what it is, especially where public access and private development collide.

SQUAMISH NATION

• Initiate a formal Relationship Protocol Agreement with Squamish Nation. — Close a real gap — Vancouver, the City and District of North Vancouver and the District of Squamish have already taken this step; West Vancouver has not.
• Review whether West Vancouver’s servicing agreement with Squamish Nation reserve land remains adequate. — Confirm this arrangement is keeping pace with the scale of development already underway across the North Shore.
• Include Squamish Nation directly in West Vancouver’s wildfire and emergency evacuation planning. — Make the relationship functional in a real emergency, not only symbolic.

YOUTH ENGAGEMENT

• Introduce participatory budgeting. — Give young people a real voice in decisions before they’re made, not a survey after the fact, through an initiative involving high schools.
• Seek provincial approval of a parallel 2030 election vote for ages 16 and 17. — Encourage early civic engagement through a non-binding vote, coordinated with schools.
• Create a youth ballot on issues for the 2030 election that affect them. — Test real appetite and turnout for a youth voting mechanism, ahead of any push to lower the voting age.

MODERNIZING OUR PLANNING DOCUMENTS

• Create a standing multi-year capital and infrastructure forecast tied directly to the OCP. — Give residents one integrated picture of what’s coming, instead of infrastructure and land-use decisions made in isolation from each other.
• Launch by 2028 a full renewal of the Official Community Plan, not just the housing-policy amendment the Province required. — The rest of the OCP — transportation, land use, community facilities — hasn’t had a comprehensive look since 2018.
• Renew the Cycling Network and Greenway Plan. — The plan was last substantively reviewed in 2012, predating e-bikes, e-scooters and today’s active transportation conversation.
• Refresh the Economic Development Plan. — Completed around 2017–18, the plan is now roughly a decade old and hasn’t kept pace with how West Vancouver’s economy has changed.
• Renew the Housing Action Plan. — Adopted in 2013, it predates the current OCP entirely, along with the housing pressures West Vancouver faces today.

kirklapointe.ca | kirk@kirklapointe.ca