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Five years after a deadly heat dome claimed the lives of 33 New Westminster residents — the most heat-dome-related deaths per capita in B.C. — city council has passed a bylaw requiring landlords to ensure at least one room in every unit in a multi-family rental building stays at or below 26 C.
“It’s really putting the onus on the building owners, and it’s not prescriptive,” said Nadine Nakagawa, a New Westminster councillor.
“We’re not saying that you have to have an air conditioner or heat pump — there’s lots of potential solutions for this — but ensuring that everybody in our community is able to survive the kind of extreme heat events that we saw in 2021.”
Temperatures reached over 40 C in some parts of the Lower Mainland during the six-day heat dome in 2021, when an unusual weather pattern trapped hot air and temperatures didn’t cool down as usual overnight.
In British Columbia, 619 people died of heat-related injuries, making the heat dome Canada’s deadliest weather event.
The BC Centre for Disease Control later determined residents whose units reached over 26 C inside were most at risk of heat-related injury or death.
In New Westminster, this included a lot of older three- and four-storey rental buildings, where the majority of residents did not have air conditioning units.
A coroner’s report later found nearly all of the 619 people who died in B.C. during the heat dome were found inside, and two-thirds did not have air conditioning.
Last year, New Westminster council prevented landlords from banning personal air conditioning units in their buildings after some renters spoke up about getting pushback from their landlords.
Nakagawa said this latest bylaw is part of a motion she and Coun. Tasha Henderson introduced in 2023 asking staff to research the potential for a bylaw to require rentals to contain cooling equipment or at least one room that stays at or below 26 C.
“In a time where I have heard colleagues from around the region oppose this kind of move because of a potential cost to the landlord, I really feel strongly and am so proud that the city will hopefully tonight support tenants’ right to live, honestly, in buildings,” said Henderson, supporting the bylaw during the Monday council meeting where councillors unanimously voted in favour.
“It is just unthinkable in 2026 that people could die in their homes.”
B.C.’s building code already requires cooling rooms in new rental buildings, Nakagawa said. This bylaw is to ensure those living in older multi-family housing buildings are also protected during extreme heat.
“The areas where the deaths took place were in our older rental stock from the ’70s and ’80s,” she said. “I myself lived in a four-storey building at the time, and I lived on the fourth floor. Deathly hot.”
The cooler room cannot be the bathroom, Nakagawa said, because it’s unrealistic to ask people to stay in their bathrooms for days. But there are no other parameters over which room is made cooler.
While future tenants may see the cost of cooling upgrades like installing heat pumps in their monthly rent charges, the costs cannot be downloaded onto existing tenants.
It will take time for landlords to implement these changes, and the city has not set a deadline for compliance. But while it wants to work with landlords to achieve this goal, the city can deny a business licence to landlords who refuse to co-operate.
“This is, in my opinion, country-leading work. I don’t know any other municipalities that have done this,” Nakagawa said, adding New Westminster is forecasted to have a hot summer this year.
“Talking to folks who are thinking about extreme heat and thinking about impacts of climate, they’re very excited to hear that New Westminster is contemplating this.” ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
Read more: Health, Municipal Politics
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