Town of Golden year in review: highlights of 2024

The Town of Golden takes a look back on 2024, highlighting some of the departmental accomplishments of the year. Keep reading to learn more about what happened at Town Hall in 2024. 

2025 Town Council Meeting Schedule

The schedule of all anticipated regular meetings of Golden’s Town Council in 2024 is now available to the public. The full schedule is posted at Town Hall and is available on our website at golden.ca/councilcalendar. Print it and put it on your fridge to make sure you never miss a Council meeting! 

Executive Administration:

• Council Code of Conduct: in alignment with a growing trend across the province and in response to the Provincial government’s new requirements, Council developed and adopted a Code of Conduct bylaw, setting a framework for behaviour amongst its members and in the context of the community. These measures ensure professionalism and accountability at our local governing table. The initiative was spurred by examples in other communities and showcased in mainstream media of significant breakdowns in behaviour by members of Councils, disrupting municipal operations and otherwise providing poor governance examples.  Commensurately, a Code of Conduct for all employees of the municipality was also adopted to provide for professionalism and consistency amongst all departments and levels.
• Dogtooth Wildfire response: the Dogtooth Wildfire presented the first real live incident in recent memory causing the full activation of the Golden and Area Emergency Management Program’s Emergency Operations Centre. Staff were instrumental in ensuring relationships with first responder agencies and other authorities during the fire’s most intense period, including assisting with evacuation and preparation measures, and community communications daily for nearly a month.

• Resort Municipality Initiative (RMI) projects: the Town’s RMI entered the third and final year of its current expenditure plan, seeing the successful upgrade of washroom facilities at the Visitor Centre, and continuing financial support for mountain bike trail maintenance, snowmobile trail winter grooming, popular events facilitated by Tourism Golden, the winter shuttle service, online community ambassador training for front line workers, and completion works to the Post Office Plaza.

Corporate Services & Communications:

• Public information and events: we published over 240 news releases, public notices, ads and newsletters, and posted almost 450 times on Facebook and Instagram, about everything from job postings and public art to public education and special events. Staff worked on 65 Temporary Licence of Occupations in 2024 to support community events and local businesses and responded to over 20 Freedom of Information Requests. 
• Bylaw: Bylaw continues to focus on public education and enforcement, our education-first approach has proved successful in ensuring compliance with watering restrictions and snow removal requirements. Bylaw partnered with Public Works to address traffic signage and safety concerns downtown and along the Trans Canada service roads. Staff continue to work on identifying and prioritizing bylaws for updating and/or consolidation.
• Council Chamber AV Upgrades: Corporate Services and IT collaborated on a project to upgrade the audio-visual technology in Council Chambers to support an enhanced online experience for live-streaming and allow for the recording of open Council meetings. These upgrades will provide improved access to live-streamed and video-recorded meetings, enhancing transparency and information accessibility.

• Policy and Bylaw Updates: staff updated two key bylaws in 2024. The spring saw a modernized and clear Town of Golden Traffic, Parking & Streets Regulations Bylaw passed, and recently Council adopted a new Council Procedure Bylaw to update and clarify processes related to Council meetings. Three new policies were introduced and passed: the Council Meeting Live Streaming and Recording Policy, Notice of Motion Policy and Proclamations Policy, as staff work through new policies, they also started a project to review the process of indexing, reviewing, amending and rescinding policies and procedures to ensure the Town’s policies and procedures are up-to-date. 
• Social media: the Town’s social media audience and newsletter subscription list continue to see steady growth. Our audience has grown with over 2,700 new followers on Facebook and Instagram. Like or follow us at facebook.com/townofgolden or on Instagram @townofgolden or subscribe to the newsletter at golden.ca/newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything happening at the Town of Golden. 

Planning and Development

• Affordable housing projects: significant work occurred on two affordable housing project development applications. The Golden Community Economic Development’s 27-unit mixed-use commercial-residential “Downtown Housing Project,” which included a rezoning, variances and a discounted land sale from the Town, and BC Housing’s project on 11^th Ave S which included a variance application.  

• New planning legislation: following significant changes to the planning section of the Local Government Act, Town staff familiarized themselves with the new legislation and met the Provincial imposed deadlines to rezone approximately 280 lots to allow for secondary residential dwellings (suite or carriage house) and to complete an interim housing needs report.
• Development infrastructure financing: as part of the completion of sewer and water master plans, considerable initial research into development-related infrastructure financing options has occurred as well as initial work on a new development cost charge bylaw.  
• Short term rentals: in 2024 the Town created an updated short term rental webpage at golden.ca/sts, including guidance and a new online application webform.  Education and enforcement will be ramped up in the new year.

• Inspection services: from a building perspective, major projects included Riverstone, at 901 7^th St N, and the Timber Ridge Townhouses, at 1444 Granite Drive. The Town brought development related Town owned infrastructure civil inspection in-house as well as relief building inspection.  

Public Works:

• Flood protection: 2024 marks the completion of earthen dike flood protection works along the Kicking Horse River to bring dikes into current structural compliance with provincial guidelines and to raise the crest elevations to the provincially recommended 600mm above the modelled 1:200 year storm flow event. This has been an ongoing project over the last decade or more and has received significant provincial/federal partnership funding for the work. 
• Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) boulevard enhancements: work was completed on the RMI-funded TCH boulevard landscaping improvements. This included installation of irrigation systems, strategically designed accent lighting and decorative large quarry rocks along the frontage areas as well as topsoil replacements, extensive plantings of trees and shrubs.
• New public washrooms at the Visitor Centre: RMI funded renovations and the expansion of public washroom facilities at the Visitor Centre on the Trans-Canada Highway to support increased visitation and enhance accessibility.
• Water and sewer upgrades: in 2024, the Edelweiss sanitary lift station at 11^th Avenue North was replaced and a 5-year program to renew all water and sewer system SCADA infrastructure for remote communications and control of systems and facilities was completed.
• Downtown Plaza: in March, the Downtown Plaza revitalization was officially completed, transporting this historically underused public space in Golden’s downtown core. The result is a vibrant plaza with improved functionality that will encourage community interaction and enhance pedestrian amenities.

Recreation Services:

• Keith King Memorial Park (KKMP) playground upgrades: in partnership with the Golden Rotary Club, funding was secure through ReDi Grants to upgrade the playground equipment at the KKMP Soccer fields with four new pieces of equipment, including a zip track, two monkey bar structures, and a wheelchair-friendly swing.
• Mount 7 Rec Plex block landscaping: pathway and landscaping work was completed at the skatepark and pump track, paving a connection pathway to allow users to roll into the park directly from the street and flow between the pump track and skatepark. The site was also subject to some finishing touches with the installation of an irrigation system and landscaping around the expanded skatepark.
• Swimming Pool condition assessment: A condition assessment was completed at the Golden Municipal Swimming Pool that will help guide future budgets, inform capital investments and leverage partnership potential with the Columbia Shuswap Regional District.

• Mount 7 Rec-Plex drop-in programs: public drop-in programming grew by roughly 60% during the 2023-24 operating season, with an estimated 14,477 visits. The most notable growth was from various fitness, kids multi-sport and camps programs, while traditional drop-in sports like basketball and volleyball attracted strong visits allowing these programs to run for the entire year.
• Golden Municipal Swimming Pool programming: despite environmental challenges this summer, swim lessons and key programs at the pool saw growth this past summer. The Junior Lifeguard program was a huge success, hosting 40 youths keen to learn the first steps associated with lifesaving skills and working to become future lifeguards.

Fire Department

• FireSmart: Golden Fire Resce secured a FireSmart grant in 2024 to hire a full-time FireSmart coordinator to help the community become better adapted and prepared for wildfire events through public education and FireSmart assessments.
• Training: Golden Fire Rescue continues to focus on training in an effort to get all members their NFPA 1001 Fire Fighting professional qualifications with 6 members getting certified in 2024 for a total of 16 members at the 1001 level. Members have completed over 4,000 hours of combined training throughout 2024 both in-house and with mutual aid partners such as Nicholson Fire Department, BC Ambulance Services and the RCMP.
• New engine: Golden Fire Rescue Engine 5 was up for renewal in 2024 and is currently being built. The new Engine will be labeled Engine 8 and be designed for Wildland and Mutual Aid calls.