Development Matters: Proposed Apartment on 54A Avenue. Securing Rental Units.

On Monday, Langley City gave first and second reading to rezoning 20256-20272 54A Avenue to allow a 6-storey, 114-unit apartment building. If approved, the building will have 18 studios, 69 one-bedroom units, and 27 two-bedroom units.

All development applications go through Langley City's Advisory Design Panel, which includes architects, landscape architects, and community members. The panel provides design recommendations to enhance development projects. The panel provided 18 recommendations, of which 15 the project applicant incorporated into an updated design. You can view all the recommendations from Langley City's website.

Langley City Council asked questions about traffic management and trades parking as the area has many active building construction projects. Council was assured that there would be coordination. Council reminded the applicant to be a good neighbour and provide easy-to-find contact information for people who already live in the neighbourhood.

As public hearings for residential rezoning are no longer permitted in BC, Council will consider third reading for the rezoning at an upcoming meeting.

Render of the proposed project at 20256-20272 54A Avenue. Select the image to enlarge.

You can read about this proposed project and follow its progress on Langley City's new development application portal.

Council requires that if a market rental building is redeveloped, the rental units must be replaced, one for one. To secure the replacement units for the life of a building, both the City and the applicant redeveloping a building sign a binding housing agreement. Council gave first, second, and third reading to a housing agreement bylaw for the proposed project at 20200 54A Avenue to preserve eight rental units.

Langley City $15 Million Loan Approval Process Continues. Property Tax Bylaw Approved in Principle.

Last summer, Langley City completed an Alternative Approval Process to allow the City to take out a $15 million loan to help purchase property to support SkyTrain and fund the Fraser Highway One Way renewal project. It can take more than a year for a local government to get that money in the bank.

Once it has gone through the municipal approval process, the provincial Inspector of Municipalities must approve allowing a municipality to take out a loan. Langley City received approval from the Inspector last year.

In BC, the Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia, a service of all Regional Districts in BC, provides long-term borrowing for municipalities. Munipicailites must submit their provincially approved loan request to their regional district. The regional district board must approve the request and submit it to the Municipal Finance Authority; the regional district gets the money from the Municipal Finance Authority and transfers it back to the municipality. This process is a lot, but it makes sense in the broader BC context. One thing to remember is there are a lot of small municipalities in BC. In fact, five regional districts have a lower population than Langley City! This lengthy process ironically ensures that we can pool loans more efficiently to get a better interest rate and lower borrowing costs, which means lower taxes over time.

Langley City Council approved submitting our loan request to the Metro Vancouver Regional District for the fall loan intact. If all goes well, we should receive the money in our City's bank account at the end of this year.

Regarding finances, Langley City Council approved our budget earlier this year, which included a property tax increase of 9.97%. Langley City Council must pass a bylaw annually to enable the collection of property tax for that year. Langley City Council gave the first, second, and third readings for our 2024 tax rate implementation bylaw. This bylaw sets the "mill rate" for 2024. A "mill rate" is the tax per $1,000 of property value.

Council approves tender for $4.2 million Douglas Recreation Centre Childcare Expansion

In May 2022, the provincial government provided $2.4 million to support expanding the Cookie Monster Preschool program at Douglas Recreation Centre, which would provide much-needed childcare space for our growing community. This expansion will create an additional 74 new childcare spaces, for a total of 84 spaces. The upgraded preschool program will have space for infants and toddlers, as well as before and after school care. Originally, the province provided $2.4 million, but due to increasing construction costs, the province topped up that funding to $4.4 million.

The total project cost is $4.2 million. It includes renovating the unused second floor, current multipurpose room, and preschool room of Douglas Recreation Centre to support childcare. It also includes a new elevator, a new multipurpose space, an additional playground for infants and preschoolers, and various building upgrades.

Langley City staff have been working to get the project to the construction stage. The City received 12 construction proposals and recommended that Council approve issuing the major construction tender to Edifice Construction Inc. for $2,763,861.39, excluding taxes. 

Langley City Council approved issuing the tender last night.

The project also includes furnishings and two passenger vans for $450,000 within the $4.2 million project budget.

The federal government provided $100,000 to support the installation of the new elevator.

Construction will start shortly.

TransLink releases bus congestion-busting plan to speed up service and lower costs.

Last year, TransLink spent $80 million to maintain existing bus service levels due to congestion. This number grows each year. For example, TransLink spent an additional $2 million in 2023. As congestion grows, so does the time for a bus to complete its route. So, more buses are needed to maintain the same service frequency.

Over time, TransLink has invested in partnership with willing municipalities on bus priority measures to speed up bus service, using those cost savings to invest in more bus service in our region. Speeding up service and saving money is why Langley City and TransLink added bus lanes around Downtown Langley a few years ago.

This year, TransLink plans to invest a one-time $17 million to speed up bus service along five corridors: Kingsway, 49th Ave, Granville St, Marine Dr, Hastings St in Vancouver and Burnaby.

Map of five selected corridors for bus priority investment. Select the map to enlarge.

This investment will pay for itself in under ten years as TransLink will not have to continue to add buses to maintain the same level of service on these corridors.

Based on a comprehensive evaluation of travel corridors that factored in congestion and transit ridership, TransLink developed the following map, which lays out where we should invest in bus priority measures to save money and speed up service.

Bus Priority Vision Map. Select the map to enlarge.

Corridors with Very High Intensity priority need all-day bus lanes. Such measures are needed along sections of Fraser Highway, 203rd Street, and Logan Avenue in Langley City.

Medium to High Intensity priority corridors would see some time-of-day bus lanes and intersection improvements to keep buses going. Low Intensity priority corridors would see smaller measures such as bus stop relocation to keep service speedy.

Reducing congestion will require the support of municipalities to install transit priority measures, which can be easier said than done, as sometimes this means changing general travel lanes into bus-only lanes in already congested areas. Though counterintuitive, swapping general travel lanes into bus lanes increases the number of people travelling along a corridor. TransLink works with willing municipalities to implement these measures.