Why is a floating sauna causing waves — and is Burnaby politics about to change?

Looking for soccer analysis more knowing than a Carlo Ancelotti eyebrow raise with the

World Cup around the corner, join me, Max Rushton and the Guardians expert soccer journalist

on football weekly for all the latest soccer action and news throughout the week.

We'll cover more ground than Drew Bellingham and a Champions League final with conversations

sharper than an Arsenal set piece for fine margins, fun debates and full blooded tackles

football weekly.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts and watch the full episodes on YouTube.

This is a CBC podcast.

Well, this whole NIMBY-NB thing is ridiculous because I grew up in the 60s and 70s where

small is beautiful.

You take care of your own backyard because taking care of your own backyard, you take

care of the world and society in general.

That is the voice of El Viro Lounge, a long time Kitsilano resident, and concerns about

development proposals and arguments over whether somebody is a NIMBY or not have long been

a part of debates over land use in Vancouver, but the most recent issue isn't about what

could be put on land, but on sea.

A floating sauna in the middle of one of the city's smallest harbors right next to the Maritime

Museum.

Will the proposal sink?

Will it swim?

And why have sauna and other municipal uses of waterfronts become such a big topic in recent

years?

I'm Stephen Quinn and I'm Justin McElroy.

And you're listening to This Is Vancouver.

Well, in Vancouver, there are always fights over developing land, but a new controversy

is about what could be developed on the ocean.

A barge with a floating sauna is being proposed for one of the city's smallest marinas,

but Justin has found that not everyone wants to get on board and he's with us now.

Hello, Justin.

Hello, Stephen.

Should I say a hoi?

How did this proposal come around in the first place?

Yes.

I mean, we've been talking about Vancouver getting a floating sauna for a while now.

People might remember that last year, the group Haven, which operates as floating sauna

in Victoria, said, hey, we've been working on this proposal for around the plaza of

nations, but it has sunk.

We're going to continue with the barge metaphors for a while, said this morning.

And so council at the time, led by Sarah Kirby Young, passed a motion as saying, hey, we

want staff to fast track a new proposal in this city next to Heritage Harbor near

Kits.

So something like this can actually happen with a minimal amount of red tape by the city

and therefore a proof that it could actually happen.

This brings a great new experience for residents to enjoy as well as visitors.

They were looking to locate in Vancouver, though we're having some challenges in finding

a location.

And I just thought it would be a real shame that they might, for example, go to another

city or go to the North Shore or somewhere else.

And that Vancouver, who really are a waterfront city, it's part of our DNA, wouldn't have

the chance to have this sort of wellness experience right here in our own backyard.

Haven't forbid the North Shore get something, but you know, this was a situation where

the people looked at what they've been doing in Victoria.

Councilor said, how can we make that happen here?

And they've decided that Heritage Harbor is the spot that it could be at.

So the first round of public feedback just wrapped up yesterday with a potential vote for

a rezoning to potentially follow in the months to come.

All right.

Are there floating saunas elsewhere in the lower mainland or just in Victoria, does Victoria

or any other, pardon me, does the North Shore or any other city have one?

Oh, yeah.

There's one in the deep cove.

There's a few private.

There's a number of private ones here and there that are a bit smaller.

This one would be a little bit heftier in size on a barge, I imagine.

So what exactly does the proposal look like?

Yeah.

So it would be like I said at Heritage Harbor, the size of the barge would be about 45 meters

in length and 10 meters high.

The rendering some proposal says it would not take significant space away from about

the 15 or so heritage boats that are currently there at that marina right now, which is a

series of rotating older boats that are still in service and used by owners.

And that critically from the city's point of view, some of the proceeds from Haven would

go to the Maritime Museum, which is in a cash poor position, let us say, and is sort of

separate, but certainly very tied to the city in terms of finances and lens and things

like that.

So from the city's perspective, this is a win-win in the idea that the Maritime Museum

gets some money.

There's a place for this floating fauna that they seem to like.

And in their mind, at least in terms of how it's been talked about over the last few

months, everyone goes home happy.

Okay.

I can't imagine though.

I mean, I'm looking at a rendering of this now and the barge, you said 10 meters high?

About 10 meters high?

45 meters.

Yeah.

I mean, that would pretty much obliterate the view of those heritage boats from the water,

depending on where it was placed.

Well, and you might start thinking about why ship owners at Heritage Harbor aren't exactly

thrilled with this, even.

I can't imagine the ship owners at Heritage Harbor are thrilled with this.

They are not.

They talk about obviously the height and size of this.

They worry what would happen in a wind storm.

They say it would block views, not just for them, but people walking through Vany Park

and had an beach and the like and they say that ultimately this is supposed to be a public

piece of land where things all round are free for everyone to use and it's incongruous

for a large floating barge to be right in the middle of it.

Dwayne L. from represents the boat owners at Heritage Harbor.

And he says that fundamentally he sympathizes with the museum and they're funding these,

but he thinks it just doesn't work here.

It's a difficult one because we love the museum and we really want this museum to succeed

and we want this to be a community place that's intimate and welcoming.

And I think the presence of something that's kind of that out of scale, it's about 150 feet

long and 34 feet high. It represents a 5,000 square foot wall of steel that'll go between

the beach and the mountains.

I think people don't realize how big this is.

And I think it represents a kind of irreversible impact to this place.

I mean, it's interesting, you know, we talk about these development battles on land.

The rhetoric around when it happens on sea is ultimately very similar, right?

It's exchanged with the neighborhood. It's out of character. It's too big and the people

that are immediately in the area, which would suffer the biggest impacts, are the most passionate about it.

So this would be a private company operating this then.

Yes.

And so the city has said quite plainly that it's looking for public private partnerships

to generate revenue wherever it can.

Yeah.

And so do we have any idea how much revenue this would generate for the city?

That part, the exact details of that haven't been put forward in the rendering.

But this is something that the Maritime Museum has enthusiastically endorsed because they say

that over the past few years, they've lost a number of staff that they're at the mercy

every year of the fund grant and funding game from higher levels of government that happen.

And so if they have a stable revenue sharing agreement by something that everyone believes

would be fairly popular and these bonds tend to cost a minimum of $50, $60, $70 for a stay

and you go through the cold plunges and hot tubs as well, that that is something

that they can breathe a little bit easier in terms of both growing the museum

and providing the basic maintenance and operations, need it for the Maritime Museum to be successful.

All right. So where does this go from here?

So that public feedback process wrapped up this week.

Now we are in that period where staff take all that and then it's sort of a mystery box

as to when exactly it would go forward for some sort of public hearing and potential rezoning.

The rezoning is necessary to sort of permit of the number of uses of that parcel of land,

recreational sauna use.

But of course, in the meantime, people are campaigning and not necessarily for it.

If you live in the surrounding area, Elvira Lount is a Kitslano resident who has been

part of a number of campaigns against the commercialization of space.

You're nodding your head, Stephen.

Yes, well known.

And she organized a petition for this sauna being against it and she gives a fairly straightforward

reason. Why?

People like the idea of the barge.

I have a friend just called me and said, oh, I love the Victoria barge.

I would be happy.

But I said, think about it.

Just use your common sense.

This is not the place for it.

Just think about the impact.

The size, primarily, and what Dwayne talked about how far it will go out and how it will just

totally change and disrupt this hope.

Harbor and possibly take away the swimming beach.

Beaches are for ocean swimming.

That's a healthy city strategy.

Take away that to put people and hot tubs on a barge instead.

That makes no sense.

Okay, is that a fair characterization?

I mean, I don't know that this is taking away any beach.

It's kind of a rocky slope down to the water there.

There is a little bit, you know, it's depending on your definition of a beach is certainly

waterfront access.

And you know, the question of whether this is a healthy city strategy or not.

I mean, like there are more and more people that are trying to do stuff that involves

the watering creative ways, right?

All you have to do is spend a couple days in any European city to see

that there's a lot of different things.

Some of which are private part of public private partnerships going on.

Michael Weep is a former Vancouver City

counselor that has been involved with a number of these sort of like wellness projects

are opportunities to try and activate the waterfront.

And he says that ultimately this is the sort of thing that is very healthy for people.

There's a huge poll like coming out of COVID for wellness, right?

And so you've seen people wanting to take care of themselves.

So you're seeing cold plunging and sauna as employees and people are really recognizing

of taking care of their own health is so important.

And so we're seeing this movement and also it's a huge way of connection.

We're seeing a lot of community be building and a lot of these sauna spaces where people

are meeting friends, they're meeting others and they're doing something that they're

makes them healthy and feel good, but they're doing it with people.

And so I think the biggest thing is we want community and want connection.

And this is what these places do.

You know, I can imagine some people listening to that and nodding their head and saying,

of course, some people going, I still don't understand this large big

imposition on the waterfront, which would be much bigger than anything

that we see in that harbor right now.

It's an actual debate about what Vancouver's waterfront is supposed to be about and who is it for?

All right, ultimately, do you think the project is going to go ahead?

I mean, Lount thinks it is under this current council, but she does point out there is an election

and now six and a half months time when you look at the makeup of this.

But, you know, these things can take lots of time.

There's been so many different proposals for developments around Vancouver's waterfront

over the years.

You know, we'll have to wait and see whether this one, as I said,

and apologies for doing it.

Another metaphor here, sinks or swims.

Okay.

I guess, I mean, I'm still curious.

Amy is laughing.

I'm not.

I'm still curious about how much money it could raise for the city because, you know,

that seems to be, I mean, that has something to do with weather with weather.

It's there now.

Is it worth it?

Is my question.

Yeah, and I think part of the thing, there's two different parts of this, right?

There's the how do you fit.

There's many parts.

There's how do you feel about a big floating sun in the first place?

There's how do you feel about fundamentally to some privatization of the waterfront,

or at least a big for-profit thing in the middle?

And then there's the question of, is this sort of trying to do business

and public-private partnerships in public spaces?

Something that the city wants more of.

All right.

Justin McElroy, thank you.

Thank you.

Stay with us.

We will be back with more.

This is Vancouver in just a moment.

Are you noticing your car insurance rate creep up even without tickets or claims?

You're not alone.

That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant.

Jerry handles the legwork by comparing quotes side by side from over 50 top insurers,

so you can confidently hit by no spam calls, no hidden fees.

Jerry even tracks rates and alerts you when it's best to shop.

Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year.

Don't settle for higher rates.

Download the Jerry app or visit jerry.ai-slash-acast today.

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?

In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed,

hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it.

It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.

I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered

this story. What did they miss the first time?

The history bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

OK, well, now we are back on dry land and we are hopping across boundary road.

Burnaby is the third biggest city in the province, but unlike Vancouver or Surrey,

or even Richmond, its election campaign hasn't really started yet.

Until this week, that is, three Burnaby City Councillors made it clear that they will not be

running again, and the Burnaby Citizens Association announced their potential replacements.

But can the party keep the decades long hold on City Hall?

Well, our own Lauren Vanderbeen joins us now. Hello, Lauren.

Good morning.

And Justin is here as well. And Justin, did you bring in Lauren because you can't be objective

when it comes to the city of Burnaby?

Just because I've had a year's long riff about how the city may be a little bit boring,

maybe a little bit placid, but the trade-off being that you live in Burnaby and it's not quite

as exciting, but you get good surfaces, low taxes, and sort of like it's a cooler political

temperature. And indeed, for the last 45 years, a majority of council has been reelected the

next time election after election. There's been a stability to Burnaby politics for the longest

time that you could say is the envy of other places. You could say makes it an outlier in

the region, but it makes it fascinating that this time around, things might be a little bit more

shifting than we typically see.

And you didn't even talk about recreation and sports facilities, my goodness.

That's for Lauren and other Burnaby stands to plug away at.

Lauren, tell us who announced they're not going to be running for council again.

We have three councilors who will not be running in the upcoming election. So the first two have

served for a total between the two of them 48 years. Councilor Sav Daliwal and Councillor

Pietro Calendino both officially made their stance clear right now. And then the third was the

most popular council in 2022. Councillor Allison Gooh who was elected in 2024, pardon me, was

elected at the age of 24 in 2021. Okay. Was she elected in a by-election? Exactly.

Okay. I just think I remember that. How are we even going to know it's going to be council

if Pietro Calendino and Sav Daliwal are not there? It's going to look very different.

And so their replacements have been announced?

Yeah. They announced the BCA announced four people that will be their new council candidates

next time around and the other parties yet in the city haven't announced their people.

Joe Kefli, the famous punk rocker, racially with the Greens has shifted over to the BCA as well.

And so again, like we said, Vancouver, we have 7,000 parties that have announced what they're

going to do. Surrey, we have three or four of them. Also in Richmond, we have clear races.

Burnaby, it's still starting to sift, but you know, the big changes with Calendino and Daliwal

moving. And there's a lot of progressives that were very sad that goose stepped down after

just five years. Yeah. Doing it, saying that, you know, she wanted to focus on other things.

We see this a decent amount with very young people that get elected to the city hall. They

tend not to be around for a long time, whether it's conflict with older councillors or going,

you know, I don't want this to be my forever job and move somewhere else. But that's going to be

a gap in terms of advocacy on council that will be interesting to see whether cats are placed or not.

All right. And you mentioned how long the BCA has been in power. Why, Lauren, have they been in

power for so long? Yeah. Great question because you can't talk about Burnaby politics without

talking about the BCA. The city prides itself on being, quote unquote, the best run city in Canada,

which McLean's Danda in 2009 and they're still holding strong to that title. Yeah, they still have

it on their website. Anytime a municipality can claim they're the best in something, they're going

to grip on to that. Yes. Yeah. And they measure that. Bipes. Oh, dead, dead. I mean, this is a big

thing. Burnaby's debt free. Burnaby has a billion dollars in its reserves that it gets to spend on

big community center projects. They get to build a new theater. They get to build giant ice

ranks. They get to build giant pools. Meanwhile, other cities in the province are struggling to even

repair their facilities. So this is something that is important to Burnaby residents. They love their

sports, right? Joe Sackick Way is one of the major streets. Burnaby loves to do things. Burnaby

loves to get outside and they have the money to pay for new cool stuff. And does it have anything to

do with the rate of development in Burnaby that's helping pay for all of this? Well, and part of it,

too, is that, yeah, that development has happened. They could create it this bargain a long time ago

where we're not really going to develop these single family neighborhoods and cause the political

consternation that happens there. And instead, we're going to focus it around Brentwood,

Metrotown, Lowheed, Edmonds to a lesser extent. And that seems to have been a winning

combination. And at the same time, while the BCA is NDP affiliated, they've done a good job,

at least in Sav Dallywall's mind, of appearing fairly nonpartisan most of the time to voters.

And they couldn't care less whether we were wearing an organized voter in the red

or it didn't matter. They just simply wanted people to support people who are responsible,

who care, who are cognizant of the issues around their neighborhoods, their community. And I think

that's why we were elected. And so the tie reference, they're clearly a political stripe,

is what we're talking about, just to be crystal clear here. It is interesting that most politicians

like to say that they're not left, they're not right. They'll rather say, I'm a pragmatist,

I'm a common sense kind of person. I'm for the people. Yeah, I'm for all the people,

the little people. How true is that, though, with the BCA? I mean, did they not start as being

NDP affiliated? They did. And they certainly, if you would, to look at their decisions over the years,

you might say, well, some of them have been a little bit more center left. But on the other hand,

debt-free, and pay as you go, is traditionally seen as sort of a center right or more conservative

approach to city building. Certainly on the question of, do you take on debt, which cities can

for their capital projects? And Burnaby says no to. And they've also sort of been pragmatic in terms

of trying to move with the winds. You know, people might remember eight years or so ago, the

giant political backlash to some of the demovictions that were happening in the metro town area.

That cost Mayor Derek Corrigan, his job, losing to Mike Hurley, but voters still decided to

elect BCA seven out of the eight council seats to BCA. And in the years after, they sort of took

the hint from the voters and pivoted to putting in more restrictions and more, you know,

possibilities for renters to be able to go back to these renovated units or reconstructed

towers at their same rates. Calendino says that ultimately looking back in it, this is an example

of how his party tries to be attuned to voters. I, you know, guilty as charged for the early years

of the big development in the metro town. But, you know, once we saw the problem that arose,

we acted to remedy it. Took a little time, though. Just a little bit of time. But, you know,

at the end of the day, voters still elected him. They elected Savdali Walte, elected a score of

BCA people again and again and again. You know, it's that example of, you know, being flexible

in your politics and your approach to things over time. And so it was after that, of course,

that Mike Hurley took office as mayor. And Lauren, do we know if he is going to run a game?

Mayor Mike Hurley is playing coy as he always does. He would not respond to our request for comment.

This week, last time I spoke to him last month, he said that he always makes decisions with his

family. However, this isn't new to him. Just days before he was elected chair as Metro Vancouver,

he told media that he was quote unquote undecided. So this is very much part for the course with

Hurley. Okay. And do we have any other intel about anybody else who is lining up to run

against him? The sole opposition candidate currently on council right now is Richard T. Lee.

He also did not respond to our request for comment about whether he will run as a counselor or mayor.

Okay. There is a little bit of talk around him, though. And Lee was elected. People might remember,

he was called landslide Richard for his close victories as a BC liberal MLA in four straight

elections in Bernabé North. And certainly, you know, when you always look at well, who might

run from the opposition, the opposition counselor is generally a decent bet to be someone who at the

very least is going to be considering that sort of move. All right. And could Hurley face a real

challenge then? I mean, it is possible. Right. I mean, Hurley, of course, ran unopposed

four years ago. That's how much he had managed to put his stamp on things in Bernabé.

Since then, you know, being chair of Metro Vancouver means that he's been and the public

eye in a critical way a little bit more. And certainly after eight years, you stand to

accumulate a few battle scars. But given that the BCA has said that he'll support him. And given

how difficult it is to unseat an incumbent, you would have to think at least at this point,

he would be considered the favorite no matter who runs. But again, it's six months out.

If I can add one thing there, Mayor Hurley, if you have unyued campaigns or plus funds,

the city, if you're elected mayor, will hold them in a trust. Mayor Hurley has almost $200,000

sitting in a trust, accumulating interest, ready to go if he decides to choose to run for mayor again.

And what happens if he doesn't run for mayor? What happens with the money?

He goes right back to the city. Oh, pretty good deal for Bernabé finances.

Geez, I'll say. So no real challenger has emerged yet. Hurley has not yet said whether he's

going to run though. You never know. I mean, this isn't like he said, you know, not the youngest

person in the world at this point. He had retired as the head of the Burnaby Firefighters Union

when he decided to run for mayor eight years ago. The fact now, you hear a lot from incumbents

where in the old days, when there was two or three years between municipal elections,

you could say, yeah, sure, what's two or three years, but four years is enough time that people

start thinking about these things. That being said, he does clearly enjoy the job and has managed

to do a good job of navigating the minefields of the position. So, you know, I would be surprised,

but also I don't think given both the time that he served the stress of doing both that and

Metro Vancouver chair and everything else, you would have to, you would be completely 100% shocked

if he decided to say, you know, what I'm good. Okay, so if you had to wage your money then on

Mike Hurley running for mayor or his home country of Northern Ireland making it into the world cop.

This is polymarket, right? Yeah, this is polymarket. What are the chances? Come on.

I'm not a betting woman. Good answer. So I'm hearing then, after all of this,

that Burnaby Justin is not boring at all. It sounds like it's pretty much

one of the most exciting municipalities around with excellent recreational facilities.

Let's not go too far here. It's still, we don't have a race. We have a race in lots of other cities.

I will stand by that Burnaby is perfectly pleasant if it's generic as this a bourbon city,

but there's certainly more to talk about in Burnaby this election than maybe there has in previous

ones. And Lauren, in a previous iteration, you wrote a lot about Burnaby. We'll leave the last

word to you on this. I think Burnaby is always a worthwhile city to watch because of it's huge.

The money that isn't Burnaby is follow the money, look at where they're spending, look at how they're

able to spend it. And I hope we continue to keep eyes on this on the town and the vibes.

Always the vibes. The amazing, amazing vibes. Lauren, thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Justin McElroy, thank you. Thank you. Lauren Vandervin, reporter with us here at CBC Vancouver.

Justin McElroy, of course, our municipal affairs reporter. And that is it for this edition of

this is Vancouver. Thank you for listening and make sure to follow us so you never miss an

episode. Just click your follow button on Spotify or Apple or whatever platform you get your podcasts

on. By following us, you'll get notified whenever we upload a new episode. I'm Stephen Quinn.

I'm Justin McElroy. I'm Lauren Vanderdeen. And we will be back with a brand new episode on Tuesday.

Lauren's what is our producer, Burke Johnson is our technical producer. Have a great weekend.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.