Refer Temporary Shade Permitting
Motion 15 · Standing Committee of Council on City Finance and Services, July 15, 2026
Summary
- Proposed developing a low-barrier, rapid-response permitting process for community-installed temporary shade canopies to protect vulnerable residents during extreme heat events.
- Mover noted the 2021 heat dome killed over 100 people in Vancouver, disproportionately in areas with less than 20% tree canopy coverage, and that existing permitting is not designed for emergencies.
- Community speakers supported the motion as a practical, low-cost interim measure while long-term canopy investments continue.
- Staff confirmed existing bylaws provide some flexibility for temporary structures but noted complexity varies by location and structure type.
- An amendment to refer the motion to staff as part of existing heat-response operations was approved; one councillor expressed disappointment at a reactive rather than proactive approach.
Vote
Public comments
Read all 2 statements
Transcript
41 segments
Okay, so the motion passed unanimously with Councillor Bligh, Fry, Meisner, and Mayer seem absent. Thank you. That completes motion two on the agenda. All right, motion three is enabling community-led installation of temporary shade for heat protection. It is moved and introduced by Councillor Maloney. Before we begin this agenda item, if anyone believes they have a conflict of interest, now is the time to declare it. Does anyone have a conflict of interest to disclose? Okay, seeing none, Councillor Maloney, you have two minutes to introduce your motion.
Please go ahead.
Thank you. This motion's about facilitating the installation of community-initiated temporary canopies to mitigate the impacts of dangerous heat. It seeks to empower our communities to install temporary shade canopies quickly wherever they are most needed. It also directs staff to develop options for a responsive low-barrier permitting process. so residents can act rapidly to create much needed relief in the face of dangerous heat events. This motion is based on what we learned during the 2021 heat dome, especially the importance of community partnerships. With significant gaps in our urban tree canopy, especially in East and South Vancouver, where the tree canopy cover is less than 20% of these areas, many neighbourhoods lack shade on the hottest days. This motion offers a cost-effective practical solution that increases our preparedness. It's a solution that communities can deploy themselves, especially as funding for other proactive protections is being reduced. While the city doesn't have a permitting process, sorry, while the city does have a permitting process for temporary canopies, it's not designed for emergencies and doesn't allow for the rapid response required during heat waves. Temporary shade structures are not suitable for long-term solutions, but they deliver a real immediate relief when it matters the most. And that's what this motion is about, acting collaboratively to protect our city's most at-risk residents. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay, do we have a seconder? Seconded by Councillor Orr. We will now hear from the registered speaker for this motion. So again, public speakers should stay, whether they're in support or in opposition of the motion. And I will also ask if they are registered in Vancouver, if it is not on the list. The first registered speaker is Iona Bonamis.
Hello, Mayor and Council. My name is Iona Bonamis, and my Chinese name is Kosi Wang. I am speaking in support of this motion as a long-time Vancouverite who's very concerned about the health of our residents and wanting to make sure we're taking care of everyone, including our most vulnerable populations, such as seniors and people with lower incomes, often most prone to heat-related illnesses and deaths. And I really appreciate this motion as it is very timely as temperatures are expected to rise today and we're expecting record temperatures this summer again. During the 2021 heat dome, which caused over 600 heat-related deaths across the province and over 100 deaths in the city of Vancouver, the downtown east side area and the city's eastern and southern neighborhoods suffered a disproportionately higher number of deaths. In Vancouver Coastal Health's report about the heat dome, this was largely due to a notable lack of tree canopy and green space compared to other parts of the city. While temporary shade canopies cannot bring all of the benefits of street trees, and street tree canopies should absolutely be increased throughout the city, they are a temporary solution that can be implemented quickly and can help save lives. And given that the city has stopped funding the distribution of cooling kits due to this year's budget cuts, they're even more important. I will also add that there are community organizations who are ready to install community-created canopies. They just need the city to issue them a permit to do so. The problem, though, is that, as Councillor Lucy Maloney said, our... These types of temporary structures are not covered by our city bylaws that govern the governance structures over streets. So as a result, the process to approve them is unclear and this is preventing community organizations from installing these important shade structures. So creating an easy to navigate system to permit. Community installed temporary shade structures would be very helpful, and so I hope you will approve this motion and help reduce the number of heat-related deaths we will see this summer and in future summers. Thank you.
Hello, Amanda Burrows, Executive Director of First United in the Downtown Eastside. I'm a resident of Vancouver and I speak in support of this motion. So just a few weeks ago, we marked the five-year anniversary of the heat dome. And like many people, I've been thinking about those days and being on the front lines in the Downtown Eastside. People who are unhoused had nowhere to escape the heat. People living in SROs came outside because their rooms were even hotter. So five years later, those moments haven't disappeared. Every summer, there are days where I'm back out helping people look for the basics. And of course, it can be incredibly frustrating because one of the things we're most often searching for here is one of the simplest, which is shade. And in the downtown east side where a tree canopy is among the lowest in the city, as we all know, that that shade can be incredibly hard to find. So That's why this motion matters and we know we need long term solutions, more trees, more climate ready buildings. more cooling centers, and we should keep investing in all those things like we're doing here at First United. And yet we know this takes time. And that's why I love this motion because it asks what we can do today. And we've already seen some examples like in places like Seattle where community organizations, artists, local governments, they've worked together to install safe temporary shade structures that provide immediate relief during extreme heat. They're practical and they can help bridge the gap while our long term climate investments continue to grow. And I can really imagine what this could look like here in Vancouver. And that's why I've gotten really excited and involved in this opportunity along with many of my colleagues in this community and some climate resiliency committees that I sit on for low income neighborhoods. Because I can really picture community groups coming together, peer workers, the artists, neighbors, volunteers gathering at places like First United in our cooling center to design and build these safe shade structures together. And I mean, imagine creating this type of shading and it not only would protect the people from the sun, but I think it could really reflect the creativity, dignity, and connection of the communities that made them. So of course, these structures must be safely installed. That's exactly what this motion is about. It's creative, flexible, it's cheap, and it removes unnecessary barriers so trusted groups can respond quickly when dangerous heat arrives. We know extreme heat is no longer rare. We know who is at most at risk, of course. And we know that something as simple as shade can save lives, but also really make people feel more comfortable. I hope you'll support this motion. Thank you so much. And I also want to extend my hope that all of you receive some rest this summer. I know some of you are going to have a busy fall. Thank you so much.
All right. Thanks, Amanda. All right. This is the end of our speakers list. Thanks again, everyone, for speaking to the committee. Committee members, is there any discussion? I saw Councillor Montague.
Yeah, thanks, Chair. I'll be super brief. I get where the motion is coming from, but I can't support. I do believe the city has a pretty robust plan when it comes to prolonged terms of heat in the city, and they do have a pathway already that... for people to install temporary shade measures. So I think, unfortunately, what this would only accomplish that the city doesn't have, already have a pathway for, is that it would provide a path for individuals and groups and organizations to set up what would eventually be encampments and for them to become entrenched. So it's something I can't support for those reasons.
Councillor Wu. Yeah, just processing sort of that last comment. Pretty interesting. I didn't get that at all from this motion. I support the motion. I do realize that staff said that there are provisions within our current bylaws to allow temporary shade infrastructure. and that there are varying levels of complexity depending on what type of infrastructure is being considered for on-street. There are permitting paths for temporary shade structures, but as Councillor Maloney said in her preamble, there isn't anything, you know, for an emergency. And heat domes, while we can predict, you know, some measure of the weather, you know, to be able to mobilize very quickly... is very difficult. The downtown Eastside is set up in many ways to do that with a lot of mutual aid and a lot of people really taking care of each other. And I did see some of that during the heat zone with hundreds of volunteers. I know Sarah Blythe at OPS handed out, I think, 5,000 or something, 10,000 bottles of water. and things like that, and that's sort of the spirit of this motion in terms of being able to mobilize quickly to create shade.
Nowhere does it mention encampments. It's literally setting up temporary structures for shade to keep people cool. I'm worried that this is a simple motion that is being politicized unfairly. based on the fact that it's an opposition motion.
You know, this is a process that we're already sort of following with the city. This just makes it a little easier for those community groups to save people's lives. I mean, we saw this council vote down funding for cooling kits early in the year, which was, again, kind of mind-blowing. This council, I mean, we have this opportunity to be good and we should take that. So I will be supporting the motion. Thanks.
Councillor Maloney. Thanks. Temporary canopies help with making the street accessible for everyone, including helping seniors who suffer from the heat, allowing them to go outside and get their groceries or, escape heat in their own homes or have a shaded space outside if they need it. It also supports businesses because in case of dangerous heat, people will be more inclined to choose businesses that have access protected from the heat. And it's a temporary solution for dangerous heat until we make progress on increasing the tree canopy. And it'll be a relatively small community installed canopy. So relying on, it'll rely on their own funds and they will still need to obtain permits from the city.
The idea is to have a responsive process in place to be better prepared for hotter climate conditions, not to change tent permitting. So I have confidence that staff can come up with an appropriate way of implementing this direction if we give them a chance, and that will provide life-saving shade in a way that benefits vulnerable folks and the community as a whole. Thank you.
Chair, if I might ask a point of information through you to staff. Sure. And thanks, Sandra. Can you advise what steps or what things the city is doing to provide cooling areas, particularly in more vulnerable areas like the downtown east side, et cetera, where it may be hotter, there's less parks or tree canopy for respite? What do we do in terms of opening up cooling centers? What additional investments are we making?
We have a number of cooling centers around the inner city and around the city that we activate when there are heat certain levels of heat warnings and we do have information on our public website around the stages and when we start to activate our cooling centers. We're also piloting this year a transportation pilot to help people get to cooling centers when they need them and we do have a number of we have for example the Balmoral site activation which offers some shade opportunities as well. So we have a number of activations relating to shade.
Okay. And a follow-up, if I might, Chair, through you, and are we finding the community are using those?
They do tend to be very used. We could certainly provide counsel with data on last year. I don't have it with me now, but I could.
Generally speaking? Yes. Okay. Thank you. I see Council Clawson's on the queue.
Also, a question through you, Chair, to... to the Deputy City Manager. I'm trying to recollect, I'm going through my emails quickly and trying to remember the direction that Council gave to staff regarding, I won't call them permanent, but sort of semi-permanent shade options. There was a product that was from Europe that was being used widely and possibly being able to grow things on it. Do you have any recollection of where that work is?
Councillor, I recall the time when that information came forward. I don't have an update for you now. I'd have to go back to the staff and ask.
Okay. And again, I know you've underlined the work around the cooling centers work that's going on there. Do we have any kind of report back? We've had at least a few really warm days over the last month or so. Do you have any kind of sense of how these changes have been working out?
I would have to go back to staff. As you know, we activate the cooling plans and cooling centers based on... based on Environment Canada heat thresholds. So I'll have to go back and get some of that information for you around what we've activated, if we've activated this year. In terms of, if I may, in terms of this motion, there are opportunities for staff to, within our existing processes, demonstrate flexibility when applications come in. It's quite complex. It's going to depend. Is it public land? Is it private land? Is it a park? What's the shade structure that the organization wants to look at? Is it attached to a building? Is it not attached to a building? So there's health and safety and life safety considerations, egress access considerations. But certainly staff have the ability to be flexible and to be responsive to emergent situations.
Okay, so I'm going to call the vote if no one else on the queue.
Council, please register your vote on the voting panel.
Quick question, Chair, if I may. So what I'm hearing, to be clear, is we do have, despite, so I think there was a couple of councillors suggested that there was not provisions for emergency response, but there is, is what I'm hearing from this Deputy City Manager. But I guess my question to you, Sandra, is that... In the context of what you said, could this be referred to staff as part of the ongoing work that we do to make sure that citizens are responsive to citizens in the wake of heat issues? I guess that's the question.
Thank you, Councillor. I think that it would be consistent that staff does try to be responsive to community in the operationally in response to heat situations. In terms of a referral to staff, the interest of supporting community groups that are seeking to implement shade, whether it be a canopy in their parking lot or or something like that, certainly that is well within our operational, our regular services. Okay. And as I mentioned, when things are temporary, there's some flexibility, and of course we do try to pay attention to emergent situations.
Okay. So it sounds like we already have all of this in place. And I'm not going to go down the path of calling it out of order because I think it might be inflamed things, but it sounds like we already have all of these provisions in place that the motion's asking for.
I think we do have the operational capacity to implement what we need to, what is intended by the motion.
Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. That's helpful.
Thank you.
Thanks. I just wanted to make a couple of points that I'd like people to take into consideration. There are no costs to the city other than staff time on implementing this motion as envisaged. And it's also important to remember that cooling centres are only activated based on a heat threshold, not heat inside buildings or on the street due to lack of canopy. And I think that's a crucial factor in deciding to pass this.
Yeah, just sort of kind of the idea that, you know, like we already have this. You know, this has come up a number of times in this council in terms of, you know, the city already has the capacity.
But in multiple times where we've also seen that council direction, such as a motion on such a matter, kind of increases that urgency to have some of that planning and that it's our council's intention to support those systems that are already in place. And that it's just a sort of affirmation of the work that... city councils or so that city staff are already doing it's not necessarily saying you know the city's not doing good enough we have to we have to do this it's also like you know we can we can do a little better we can we can speed up you know permitting i think um you know i think it's this vote would be you know to say that we know we think that staff are already doing the work and let's, and let's also look at, you know, ways for, you know, to be better prepared in a heat zone. I think that's, you know, kind of what we can say here symbolically and that it doesn't create, you know, extra burden on, on, on the staff. It's just, you know, permitting. I think this council has been, you know, has looked at a lot of times where permitting, you know, we've looked at the streamlining permits. I think that's sort of one of the priorities of, of this council making things, you know, streamlined. So, I think it would be good if we all support this just in that spirit. Thanks. Thanks. Okay. Councillor Domonato.
Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the discussion around the table and appreciate the answers to some of the questions as well that were raised. In light of that, I'm just moving a motion to refer this to staff as part of their operational work. So I'm just going to do that and keep talking and use my time.
So bear with me for a sec.
Yeah, let's just take two minutes recess so Consul Domonado can prepare the language.
Yeah, I'm setting an amendment.
Good. Councillor D'Amato, you're good? Circulated it. So we need to bring other councillors back. We don't have quorum.
Yes. Chair and Council, I've circulated a referral that Council referred the motion to staff as part of their operations for responding to heat incidents in the city.
Second. Okay. Yeah, I think everyone received the amendment. Second by Councillor Clausen. Okay, Councillor Maloney?
Um... So the amendment reads that council refer the motion to staff as part of their operations for responding to heat incidents in the city. I mean, it's not really what my original motion envisaged, which was specific direction to develop a streamlined permitting process for temporary shade structures. You know, I'm heartened by the... deputy city managers' undertakings to be responsive and to react. But I guess I'm pretty unhappy that we are reacting rather than being proactive when it comes to extreme heat and protecting vulnerable residents from negative health effects. I'm going to... vote in support of this, but I think that the concerns with the original motion were easily overcome by directing staff to undertake the work in the motion. So it's disappointing, but I'm going to vote in support in any event.
Statement Watch
Hello, Mayor and Council. My name is Iona Bonamis, and my Chinese name is Kosi Wang. I am speaking in support of this motion as a long-time Vancouverite who's very concerned about the health of our residents and wanting to make sure we're taking care of everyone, including our most vulnerable populations, such as seniors and people with lower incomes, often most prone to heat-related illnesses and deaths. And I really appreciate this motion as it is very timely as temperatures are expected to rise today and we're expecting record temperatures this summer again. During the 2021 heat dome, which caused over 600 heat-related deaths across the province and over 100 deaths in the city of Vancouver, the downtown east side area and the city's eastern and southern neighborhoods suffered a disproportionately higher number of deaths. In Vancouver Coastal Health's report about the heat dome, this was largely due to a notable lack of tree canopy and green space compared to other parts of the city. While temporary shade canopies cannot bring all of the benefits of street trees, and street tree canopies should absolutely be increased throughout the city, they are a temporary solution that can be implemented quickly and can help save lives. And given that the city has stopped funding the distribution of cooling kits due to this year's budget cuts, they're even more important. I will also add that there are community organizations who are ready to install community-created canopies. They just need the city to issue them a permit to do so. The problem, though, is that, as Councillor Lucy Maloney said, our... These types of temporary structures are not covered by our city bylaws that govern the governance structures over streets. So as a result, the process to approve them is unclear and this is preventing community organizations from installing these important shade structures. So creating an easy to navigate system to permit. Community installed temporary shade structures would be very helpful, and so I hope you will approve this motion and help reduce the number of heat-related deaths we will see this summer and in future summers. Thank you.
Statement Watch
Hello, Amanda Burrows, Executive Director of First United in the Downtown Eastside. I'm a resident of Vancouver and I speak in support of this motion. So just a few weeks ago, we marked the five-year anniversary of the heat dome. And like many people, I've been thinking about those days and being on the front lines in the Downtown Eastside. People who are unhoused had nowhere to escape the heat. People living in SROs came outside because their rooms were even hotter. So five years later, those moments haven't disappeared. Every summer, there are days where I'm back out helping people look for the basics. And of course, it can be incredibly frustrating because one of the things we're most often searching for here is one of the simplest, which is shade. And in the downtown east side where a tree canopy is among the lowest in the city, as we all know, that that shade can be incredibly hard to find. So That's why this motion matters and we know we need long term solutions, more trees, more climate ready buildings. more cooling centers, and we should keep investing in all those things like we're doing here at First United. And yet we know this takes time. And that's why I love this motion because it asks what we can do today. And we've already seen some examples like in places like Seattle where community organizations, artists, local governments, they've worked together to install safe temporary shade structures that provide immediate relief during extreme heat. They're practical and they can help bridge the gap while our long term climate investments continue to grow. And I can really imagine what this could look like here in Vancouver. And that's why I've gotten really excited and involved in this opportunity along with many of my colleagues in this community and some climate resiliency committees that I sit on for low income neighborhoods. Because I can really picture community groups coming together, peer workers, the artists, neighbors, volunteers gathering at places like First United in our cooling center to design and build these safe shade structures together. And I mean, imagine creating this type of shading and it not only would protect the people from the sun, but I think it could really reflect the creativity, dignity, and connection of the communities that made them. So of course, these structures must be safely installed. That's exactly what this motion is about. It's creative, flexible, it's cheap, and it removes unnecessary barriers so trusted groups can respond quickly when dangerous heat arrives. We know extreme heat is no longer rare. We know who is at most at risk, of course. And we know that something as simple as shade can save lives, but also really make people feel more comfortable. I hope you'll support this motion. Thank you so much. And I also want to extend my hope that all of you receive some rest this summer. I know some of you are going to have a busy fall. Thank you so much.