OCT 17
Election day
General voting day is October 17. Advance voting is scheduled for October 3, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
Billi Hu · Independent candidate for Richmond City Council
Billi Hu for Richmond City Council
Official facts. Clear municipal action. Results residents can measure.
22%
Municipal tax rate increase over one Council term
2022–2026: 5.89 + 5.62 + 5.86 + 3.04, compounded. Council’s own approved budgets.
See four key Richmond facts
Richmond, British Columbia · Municipal election
2026 RICHMOND ELECTION GUIDE
Richmond voters elect one mayor, eight city councillors and seven school trustees on Saturday, October 17, 2026.
8
City Council seats
Richmond elects eight councillors at large. Billi Hu is running as an independent City Council candidate.
4
Measurable priorities
Property taxes and spending, public safety, accountable supportive housing, and turning housing approvals into completed homes.
Official election information: City of Richmond 2026 Election
Open the focused Richmond Election 2026 guide · Review Richmond property-tax facts and the proposed target
Richmond election questions
When is the 2026 Richmond municipal election?
Saturday, October 17, 2026. The City has also scheduled five advance-voting dates.
What positions will Richmond voters elect?
One mayor, eight city councillors and seven school trustees.
Who is Billi Hu?
Billi Hu is an independent Richmond City Council candidate proposing published targets and results for taxes, crime, housing and city services.
The 2022–2026 Council term · every figure from the City’s own reports
WHAT THE LAST FOUR YEARS COST YOU
Not opinion. These are the numbers in the budget documents this Council approved — including the ones it did not put in a press release.
+22.0%
Municipal tax rate, one Council term
5.89% + 5.62% + 5.86% + 3.04%, compounded. About $1,144 more paid per average home over the four years than at 2022 rates.
$410M
Works Yard replacement, total estimate
Only $100M has been approved so far. A 1.00% tax increase is committed every single year to pay for it — $3.27M in 2026 alone.
+17.9%
Already planned for 2027–2030
The City’s own 5 Year Financial Plan: 4.55%, 4.41%, 4.03%, 3.82%. The election-year 3.04% is the low point, not the trend.
How the “3.04%” was actually built
The 2026 budget as tabled was 3.28%. Three of its pieces are one-offs the City says cannot continue.
Orange = one-off. The $1.8M rate-stabilization draw repeats a $2.0M draw used the year before — which then had to be re-funded out of this year’s budget. Each year’s headline is lowered by pushing cost into the next one.
“The one-time reduction included in the proposed 2026 Operating Budget cannot be repeated in future years. Therefore, the 5 Year Financial Plan projects that future year tax increases will be higher to maintain the same level of service.”
— 2026 Proposed Operating Budget, City of Richmond staff report, November 17, 2025
Four more things in the budget documents that were not in the press release
A federal grant runs out in 2027 — and you pick up the bill
Eight housing positions currently paid for by the federal Housing Accelerator Fund are being carried into the tax-funded budget so they continue after the grant ends in 2027.
An annual cost kept off the tax rate entirely
The yearly contribution to the Lulu Island Energy Company continues to be funded from appropriated surplus — the City’s words: “resulting in no additional tax impact.” It is a real recurring cost that never appears in the tax increase.
Richmond had no senior internal auditor for the whole term
The 2026 budget creates a Senior Manager, Internal Audit and Risk reporting to the Finance and Audit Committee — the first such position, added in the final budget of a four-year term that approved billions in spending.
$4.3 billion in assets, 1,250 staff over $75,000
The City reports a $4.3 billion asset portfolio. Its 2025 Statement of Financial Information lists roughly 1,250 employees paid $75,000 or more, 120 of them above $150,000.
2026 Proposed Capital Budget · Statement of Financial Information
What Billi Hu would do instead →
Sources: City of Richmond · 2026 Proposed Operating Budget · 2026 Proposed Capital Budget · 2026–2030 Financial Plan · budget approval releases for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026.
TAXES & SPENDING · PUBLIC SAFETY · HOUSING · TRAFFIC & INFRASTRUCTURE
RICHMOND PRIORITIES
Four issues that repeatedly appear in Richmond public feedback, Council debates and current City data.
Priority order is SmartRichmond’s synthesis of current City data, public engagement and Council records; it is not a scientific poll.
TAXES & CITY SPENDING
Municipal tax increase across the 2022–2026 Council term. 2026 alone: 3.04%. The Works Yard replacement is budgeted at about $410M, keeping value for money and major-project oversight squarely in focus.
Money →PUBLIC SAFETY
Violent-crime rate per 100,000: 798.78 → 937.46 from 2022 to 2025. Richmond’s public-safety debate also includes shoplifting, drug use, homelessness and accountability around supportive housing.
Safety →HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
Richmond households on the BC Housing Applicant Registry in 2025 — still about 56% above 2021. Separately, about 4,500 approved homes had not yet started construction as of March 2026.
Housing →TRAFFIC & INFRASTRUCTURE
Richmond’s 2026 capital program includes work on its Top 20 Collision-Prone Intersections. Public engagement also repeatedly calls for road upgrades, better traffic signals, transit and walking connections as Richmond grows.
Infrastructure →Supportive housing & neighbourhood safety
WHAT THE CITY HAS NOT REPORTED
Council renewed the supportive-housing permit, but the City has not published site-level police, fire or ambulance call data. Here is what is known and what is still missing.
What residents said
4 hours
The July 20, 2026 public hearing on Aster Place — 40 units at 2520 Smith Street, open since 2022 — ran about four hours with roughly 25 speakers. Those opposed raised social disorder and rising demand on emergency services after the building opened.
How many signed
7,500+
Reported signatures against the 90-unit Cambie and Sexsmith proposal. A February 2025 rally at City Hall drew more than 100 people. Council revoked that project on February 13, 2025, and BC Housing is still seeking a Richmond site — so this returns.
Published call data
None
A speaker at that hearing asked whether there was any evidence on the building’s performance — how many police, fire or ambulance calls it generates. The City has never published that figure for any Richmond site.
Residents were asked to accept a three-year extension without being shown a single call-volume number. Council then voted to extend, and — unanimously — referred reporting to staff. Everyone in the room agreed the reporting was not good enough.
July 20, 2026: the temporary use permit was renewed for three years, March 15, 2027 to March 15, 2030. Carried, with Councillors Heed and Loo opposed. An amendment for a two-year term was defeated. A referral to staff on the BC Housing memorandum of understanding, operations, reporting and resident programming carried unanimously.
A neighbourhood that is asked to host a facility is entitled to see how that facility is performing. Residents were not given that, and neither were the people living inside. Publishing the numbers is how both concerns get taken seriously instead of argued about.
Publish a quarterly public report for every City-supported site: police, fire and ambulance call volumes at the address and in the surrounding blocks, with a like-for-like baseline from before it opened; complaints received; MOU compliance; and resident transitions and outcomes in aggregate. No renewal without that review on the public record first.
What is known, what is not, and what others say
On the public record
- Aster Place: 40 self-contained units, 2520 Smith Street, opened 2022, operated by Community Builders Group, BC Housing-supported.
- Permit renewed to March 15, 2030; Councillors Heed and Loo opposed; MOU and reporting referred to staff unanimously.
- Cambie and Sexsmith, 90 units, revoked by Council on February 13, 2025 after the Province reinstated it.
- Richmond’s 2025 Point-in-Time count identified at least 175 people, 104 sheltered and 71 unsheltered.
Not published by the City
- Police, fire or ambulance call volumes at any supportive-housing address.
- Before-and-after incident counts for the surrounding blocks.
- Resident outcomes, transitions or length of stay.
- Whether the memorandum of understanding is being met.
The City controls the temporary use permit, the lease of City land, the memorandum of understanding with BC Housing, and what it requires to be reported in public. It does not run the building, fund the operator or set provincial health policy.
100% of City-supported sites reporting publicly, where legally possible, within the first year — and no automatic renewal without a published performance review.
Stated on the other side: BC Housing says people living in supportive housing are more often victims of crime than perpetrators, and where RCMP mapping has been cited publicly — for the separate Alderbridge Way modular building — it showed no concentration of crime around it. Smart Richmond does not treat either the residents’ concern or these statements as settled. Neither can be checked at the Richmond building level, because the City publishes nothing at that level. That is the whole point.
See the four-year commitment →
Sources: City of Richmond · July 20, 2026 Public Hearing minutes · Supportive Housing Announcement, Feb. 13, 2025 · Homelessness Strategy 2025 Update · Province of B.C. · Aster Place opening. Petition, rally and hearing-speaker counts are as reported by local media.
Billi Hu
4-YEAR GOALS
Four specific commitments on taxes, crime, supportive housing and housing approvals—with public results residents can check.
0%
Lower the municipal tax burden
Target: Annual municipal increase ≤2.0%, ≤1.0%, ≤0.5%, then 0% or below by Year 4.
Fact, method and source
Fact: 2026 municipal increase is 3.04% (about $71 for the average residential property).
How / accountability: Publish operating growth, compensation, overtime, consulting, contracts, savings, non-tax revenue, reserves and tax-funded spending. No essential safety or infrastructure cuts disguised as one-time reserve draws.
−25%
Reduce property crime
Target: Four-year reduction of 25% in shoplifting and 15% in overall property crime, locked to official full-year 2026 statistics when available.
Fact, method and source
Fact: Richmond RCMP identifies property crime as an official priority and notes historical-statistics recalculation in January 2026.
How / accountability: Request a quarterly City/RCMP scorecard for property crime, shoplifting, break-and-enter, auto theft, theft-from-auto, funded positions, vacancies where available and targeted initiatives. Council funds and measures; police deliver operations.
100%
Make supportive housing accountable
Target: 100% of City-supported projects have public aggregate performance reporting where legally possible; no automatic renewal without a public performance review.
Fact, method and source
Fact: July 20, 2026 continued Aster Place’s existing 40-unit temporary modular supportive-housing development for three years from March 15, 2027; Council separately referred MOU, operations and reporting improvements to staff.
How / accountability: Publish complaints, emergency calls, neighbourhood incidents, MOU compliance, transitions, outcomes and corrective actions without personally identifiable information. Future sites should disclose criteria, alternatives, operating model and renewal review where legally possible. Supportive housing is not a drug facility.
−30%
Turn housing approvals into homes
Target: Reduce median City-controlled approval time 30% using documented, like-for-like baselines; track Approved → Permit → Construction → Completed.
Fact, method and source
Fact: The Province requires 6,753 net-new completed homes over five years (1,013 → 2,093 → 3,343 → 4,862 → 6,753). City staff reported about 4,500 approved-not-started and 1,800 under construction with active permits in March 2026.
How / accountability: Report City-known barriers separately from financing, market, developer and senior-government factors. For growth areas publish road, water, sewer, drainage, flood, parks, transit dependencies, capital funding and sequencing.
B.C. Richmond Housing Target Order · March 2026 housing progress
Taxes, budgets and major projects
TAXES & SPENDING
A larger budget only makes sense when residents can see what service improved and what a major project actually delivered.
Annual increase approved by Council Cumulative, compounded Billi Hu’s Year-1 ceiling
Council approves operating, capital and utility budgets and service levels.
Residents should see what a higher cost delivered, not only what was budgeted.
For every major project, show the approved budget beside the latest cost and completion date. Flag major changes for staff review and explain the reason publicly, including change orders and long-term costs.
Cost per service result, schedule variance and resident-facing service level.
Sources: City of Richmond · 2026 Financial Plan · Operating Budget · Council remuneration · 2026 utility rates.
Community safety
CRIME & PUBLIC SAFETY
Track crime rates, how many cases police clear, and road injuries—not just the raw number of incidents.
Violent crime rate / 100,000
+17.4%
2022 → 2025 · 798.78 → 937.46 per 100,000
Raw incidents: 1,824 → 2,246.
Current property-crime signal
+9% property crime · +46% shoplifting
2026 YTD vs. same period 2025 · April report.
Latest operational data is subject to change.
Property crime rate / 100,000
+4.2%
2022 → 2025 · 3,066.80 → 3,194.70 per 100,000
Raw incidents: 7,003 → 7,654.
Open clearance detail
Total weighted clearance
202210.75202316.01202413.66202510.19
Violent weighted clearance
202246.19202334.11202441.59202530.88
Non-violent weighted clearance
20226.79202312.1520249.5320257.49
Cleared by charge or otherwise is not the same as conviction.
Council sets RCMP priorities and budgets; policing agencies deliver operations.
Report standardized crime, clearance and road-safety outcomes together.
Publish annual baselines, targets and results for Council-endorsed safety priorities.
Rates per 100,000, weighted clearance, injury collisions and priority outcomes.
Sources: Statistics Canada · crime table · clearance table · Richmond RCMP April 2026 report.
Homes and capacity
HOUSING & GROWTH
New homes need roads, transit, water, sewer, drainage and community services. Growth decisions should show whether that capacity is ready.
New dwellings · 2025
1,910 apartments; 135 single-family; 83 townhouses.
Median purpose-built 2-bedroom rent
CMHC 2023 — the most recent verified purpose-built figure. No newer official Richmond series is published; current market asking rents are materially higher.
Population projection
241,375 (2025 estimate) → 311,236 (2050 projection).
Provincial housing target
Net-new homes required by Aug. 31, 2030; target is not the same as completed or occupied homes.
Land use, approvals and municipal infrastructure—not interest rates or immigration.
Before approving major growth, compare the expected population with road, transit, water, sewer, drainage, flood-protection and community-service capacity—and show the cost to the City.
Planning staff and Council make the decision. Data helps them compare options. Publish approval times, completed homes and infrastructure readiness for each major growth area.
Completed homes, processing time and capacity milestones—not approvals alone.
Sources: City of Richmond · 2025 Annual Report · population strategy · CMHC · 2025 vacancy table · Provincial housing targets.
Transportation · roads · traffic · road safety
TRAFFIC, ROADS & TRANSIT
As Richmond grows, the City should show where trips are getting slower, where roads need work and whether people can travel safely and reliably.
The City operates signals, counts traffic, maintains roads and plans active transportation. The latest complete-year RCMP report recorded 455 injury collisions and 2 fatalities in 2024; a 2026 YTD report records 97 collisions and 1 fatality through February.
Local roads, signals, traffic calming and active-transportation facilities; regional transit service is shared with TransLink.
Growth plans should disclose expected travel, reliability and road-safety effects.
Use traffic and road-condition data to spot congestion and maintenance problems earlier. Publish when upgrades are needed, what each project is meant to improve and whether it worked.
Travel-time reliability, injury or fatal collisions, maintenance delivery and transit access.
Sources: City of Richmond · Traffic Signals · 2025 Active Transportation · Richmond RCMP · road-safety report.
Community services & amenities
COMMUNITY SERVICES
Richmond is planning for 29% more people. Residents should know whether community centres, recreation programs and libraries have room to keep up.
Community centres, recreation facilities, parks, public spaces and municipal service planning.
Facility budgets should be paired with access, use and capacity results.
Publish participation, wait-list and utilization measures alongside major facility plans.
Registrations, drop-ins, subsidy access and capacity relative to population growth.
Source: City of Richmond · 2025 Annual Report.
Flood protection & resilience
FLOOD PROTECTION
Richmond averages about one metre above sea level. Dikes, drainage and pumps are core safety infrastructure.
Dike, drainage, pump-station and local emergency planning and maintenance.
Resilience funding should show which risk, asset and service level improves.
Publish priority, schedule, completed elevation or capacity and remaining risk.
Dike length upgraded, pump capacity delivered, schedule variance and readiness checks.
Sources: City of Richmond · Flood Protection · 2026 budget.
Vulnerable persons & homelessness
HOMELESSNESS & COMMUNITY SAFETY
Richmond counted at least 175 people experiencing homelessness in 2025. The one-day count is a minimum, not the full number.
Local coordination, outreach partnerships and public-space management within other governments’ responsibilities.
Measure safety, service connection and community impact without stigmatizing people.
Publish the City role, intervention target and outcome for funded responses.
Service connections, shelter outcomes and repeat demand where data is appropriate.
Source: City of Richmond · Homelessness Strategy 2025 Update.
Budget · Schedule · Latest update
MAJOR CITY PROJECTS
See the latest public budget, schedule and status for major Richmond projects. If the City has not published an update, this page says so.
Open the project tracker
City Works Yard · Phase 1
Approved / design- Budget
- $410.0M total estimate — only $100.0M approved so far
- Timeline
- 10 years · $230.0M sits in the 2026–2030 capital plan
- Latest update
- 2026 budget
Steveston Community Centre & Library
Construction- Budget
- Current approved budget not identified in cited record
- Timeline
- Latest cited status: on time · Sep. 2025; current status not identified
- Latest update
- fixed-price contracts
Steveston Highway MUP · Phases 3–4
Design / funding- Budget
- $2.2M City + $6.3M external
- Timeline
- Phase 4 after interchange
- Latest update
- no added City funding
Local economy
PERMITS & LOCAL BUSINESS
The City publishes estimated processing times, but residents and businesses also need to see how long applications actually take.
Richmond already operates MyPermit and is developing AI/BIM-assisted automated Building Code and Zoning review. Smart Richmond supports useful automation already underway.
Measure whether new technology actually shortens the full approval process and reduces delays between departments. Keep human review whenever a permit requires judgment.
Report where permits, infrastructure or a shortage of commercial and industrial land is holding businesses back. Use that evidence to remove City-controlled delays and make Richmond easier to invest in.
Median and upper-range days, percent meeting target, delay reasons, departmental handoffs and published turnaround trends.
Sources: City of Richmond · 2025 Annual Report · Business Licences · permit reports · MyPermit · Automated plan-review contract.
Accountable City Hall
COUNCIL DECISIONS & ACCOUNTABLE AI
See how Council handled major housing, safety, infrastructure and budget decisions—and the rules Billi Hu proposes when AI helps City Hall.
Open decision records
Supervised consumption analysis
Decision record- Date
- Feb. 13, 2024
- Opposed
- Named opposition not reproduced: source page does not expose a verifiable roll call.
- Outcome
- City did not proceed · record
Lansdowne Phase 1 readings
Carried 6–3- Date
- Feb. 13, 2024
- Opposed
- Councillors Day, Gillanders, Wolfe
- Outcome
- Amendments advanced · record
OCP 2050 targeted update
Major citywide land-use decision- Date
- Dec. 3, 2025
- Decision
- Bylaws 10724/10725 and updated land-use map advanced.
- Source
- official minutes
2026 operating and capital budgets
Annual budget decision- Date
- Dec. 8, 2025
- Decision
- $245.724M proposed capital budget approved.
- Source
- official minutes
SSMUH zoning bylaw 10573
Citywide housing regulation- Date
- July 15, 2024
- Decision
- Small-scale multi-unit housing zoning response recorded.
- Source
- official minutes
Compare
Alternatives, cost and trade-offs.
Measure
Baseline, target and result.
Track
Owner, money and schedule.
Publish
Sources and actual outcome.
Richmond already has ethical-AI guidelines addressing privacy, transparency and accuracy, with early uses in analysis, automation and service improvement. Smart Richmond’s proposal is to measure, compare, explain, track and publish results more systematically.
AI can help staff search records, compare options and spot possible problems earlier. A person still makes the decision, and residents should be able to see the evidence and the result.
For a major decision, show the proposal, cost, alternatives, relevant past decisions, expected result and what happened afterward. AI may organize the records; Council remains responsible for the decision.
Every important AI-assisted process needs a responsible person, visible sources, a record that can be checked, privacy protection and human review. AI must not issue a penalty or reject a permit on its own.
For every AI project, publish the current problem, the goal, how success will be measured and the actual result—for example permit time, project overruns or service response time.
Source: City of Richmond · 2026 Mayor’s Annual Address.
Source-backed site assistant
ASK SMART RICHMOND
Search this site for verified information on taxes, housing, crime, roads and City decisions. This is a fixed search index, not a live AI chatbot. Every answer links to its source.
Choose a topic or ask a question.
Answers link to the relevant section and source.
The candidate
ABOUT BILLI
Who he is, why he is running and how he would work on Council.
Billi Hu
Independent Candidate for Richmond City Council
Billi Hu has lived in Richmond for more than 20 years and brings over 20 years of experience in business and finance. He is focused on how AI and modern technology can help build a better, smarter Richmond.
Independent means: decisions are evaluated issue by issue, using public evidence rather than a party line.
Relevant approach: public data analysis, clear comparisons and communicating complex evidence in an understandable form. No unverified biography claims are added.
On Council, he would apply Compare / Measure / Track / Publish to budgets, projects and service outcomes.
Contact Billi HuOctober 17, 2026
BILLI HU’S FOUR PRIORITIES
Every City-supported supportive-housing site reporting call volumes, complaints and outcomes in public — before any renewal.
A municipal tax increase brought down year by year to 0% or below by Year 4, with the spending detail published.
A quarterly City and RCMP property-crime scorecard, targeting 25% less shoplifting and 15% less property crime over four years.
Approvals tracked through to completed homes, with median City-controlled approval time cut 30%.
Every number on this site links to the City, Province, RCMP or Statistics Canada document it came from. Check any of them before you vote.
Questions and feedback
CONTACT
Ask a question, challenge a number or suggest a Richmond issue for the scorecard.
X · @billtheinvestor Facebook · Billi Hu for Richmond City Council
How we use data
SOURCES & METHODOLOGY
Open methodology
AI is used here as a governance and access tool only — to help find and explain sourced material. People remain accountable, and sources and limits stay visible.
This is a candidate’s case for change, not a neutral audit of City Hall. It argues that Richmond needs different decisions, and it selects the evidence that supports that argument. What it does not do is invent, estimate or round in its own favour: every figure links to the City, Province, RCMP or Statistics Canada document it came from, rates and counts are kept separate, dates and units are shown, derived figures are labelled, a budget is never presented as a service result, and where the City publishes nothing that is stated rather than filled in. Check any number against its source before you decide. Last reviewed August 29, 2026.