New Westminster is to Vancouver what Brooklyn was to Manhattan.

That’s Daniel Fontaine talking up New Westminster, where he and his family have lived since 2001.

Fontaine’s name rings a bell for many. He’s the CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Association. In his past life, he was chief of staff to then Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, and later a civic commentator with the former City Caucus blog.

Fontaine is hoping to run for city council in the fall with the New Westminster Progressive Electors Coalition, a party he cofounded last year.

“We love New West,” Fontaine said, relating to the Georgia Straight by phone how he and his family have come to adore the city they’ve called home for 17 years.

“Like New West is what I call the new Brooklyn,” Fontaine continued, “and you know, if you’re familiar with Manhattan and Brooklyn, when Manhattan got very expensive and when it got out of price for many people, the artists and all those folks, they all moved to Brooklyn. It was gritty. It was bricks.”

According to Fontaine, the new residents of Brooklyn were happy with Brooklyn and transformed it into a cool place.

“And now these parallels are eerily similar, like with Vancouver being so expensive, if you go to New West now, like it’s probably one of the hippest places,” Fontaine said. “Downtown you’ll see all these former Vancouver residents. They moved to downtown New West. And the restaurants are coming in now, and the nightlife. And things are really starting to pick up in New West. It’s becoming that new Brooklyn that I knew it would. It is such a gem.”

Based on April 2018 figures by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, New Westminster offers a more affordable choice for prospective home buyers.

Last month, the benchmark price for a typical house in the city was $724,380. In East Vancouver, a comparable home was $1.1 million. On the west side of Vancouver, it was a lot more expensive at almost $1.4 million.

Fontaine said that in addition to its central location in the Lower Mainland, New Westminster has a “good art scene”, and is home to the major LGBT community.

He also noted that its downtown is the second only to Vancouver in terms of being a dense and compact community.

Speaking about his party, Fontaine said: "We want to make sure that if there's new developments that take place in New Westminster, that it's going to benefit the entire community, not just the area adjacent to the building and not just the developer, but that the entire community will benefit."

The New Westminster Progressive Electors Coalition holds its nomination meeting on May 29.