June 9 Council Notes: Budget and Crime Prevention

As I posted previously, every year, local governments in BC must update their financial plans to reflect their independently audited year-end financial statements. As part of this process, people have the opportunity to provide feedback. Langley Council did not receive any feedback and on Monday approved updating our 2024 - 2028 Financial Plan.

Every year, Langley City Council must provide an "approval in principle" letter to the RCMP for the upcoming year's budget. This letter outlines the upper bounds of costs. The federal government uses this to help with its budgeting, as it covers 10% of policing costs. City Council may choose to reduce the budget but not increase it during our budget process, which starts in the winter. The RCMP is budgeting a 4.7% increase in policing costs, rising from $15.7 million to $16.1 million in 2026 with no new members (officers).

In the next five years, the RCMP estimates that we may need 12 additional members. This number could be lower or higher. As such, City staff also included in the "approval in principle" letter asking for the federal government to set aside a budget for two new members this year, which would increase the 2026 policing budget by an additional $533,594 to $16.5 million.

Langley City's Crime Prevention Committee, which includes volunteer members from the community, asked City Council to dedicate eight hours of the City's communication staff time to help the committee with social media messages focused on crime prevention, personal safety, and existing RCMP programs for residents and businesses, such as Block Watch. Council approved this request.

June 9 Council Notes: Housing Matters

On Monday night, Langley City Council gave first and second reading to rezone 4505-4535 200A Street to accommodate a 27-unit, three-bedroom townhouse project.

Rendering of proposed townhouse project at 4505-4535 200A Street

I wanted to highlight a few things about this proposed project. The project, if approved, includes retaining clusters of existing trees along the 200th Street frontage, bordering the school property and the walkway connecting 200A Street to the school property. The walkway would also be widened as part of this project.

The project includes a small, common passive greenspace and six visitor parking spaces (one of which is accessible). 17 of the 21 units have side-by-side garages.

As per the City's Townhome & Plex-Home Best Practices Guide. The proposed townhouses are set back 8 metres from 200A Street or step down in height to two stories.

As part of any redevelopment of market rental buildings, the current number of rental units must be secured in the new building for the life of that building. 20675 Eastleigh Crescent is subject to a rezoning and development application. You can read more about this in a previous post. Twenty-one units in the new building must be rental units, comprising a mix of 11 two-bedroom units, four one-bedroom units with dens, and six one-bedroom units. Council gave first, second, and third reading to a housing agreement bylaw to secure these rental units in the proposed new building.

Council also gave final reading to rezoning and issued a development permit for a 6-storey, 80-unit apartment building located at 20130-20150 53 Avenue and 20139-20153 52 Avenue. You can read more about this project in a previous post.

New Draft Zoning Bylaw for Langley City

As I mentioned last week, Langley City is rewriting its zoning bylaw. The zoning bylaw is one of the primary ways that the City implements the policies of the Official Community Plan.

The last major update of the zoning bylaw occurred in 1996. I was in grade 7 at the time, and Langley City had a population of 22,523. The needs of 1996 Langley City are different than today, and over the years, the current zoning bylaw has become a bit of a Frankenstein's Monster of a document.

One of the primary goals of the rewrite is to simply and modernize the zoning bylaw. This simplification includes reducing the number of zoning.

Map of Langley City with new draft zones. Select the map to enlarge.

The new zoning bylaw also thoroughly bakes in all the recent provincial government changes, such as transit-oriented areas and the ability to build up to four units of housing on any residential lot in the City. The new zoning bylaw also enables the addition of inclusionary zoning and density bonusing in the future, which allow the City to leverage private development to build below-market rental units.

Within our residential zoning, the zoning bylaw will enable detached homes, duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, carriage homes, garden suites, and secondary suites.

Without limiting the ability to build quadplexes with at least 50 m² per unit in accordance with provincial guidance, the zoning bylaw also encourages less boxy designs of housing up to three stories in height. You can build up to three stories today in Langley City on any residential lot.

The zoning bylaw also requires that a minimum of 5 percent of all units in apartment zones have three or more bedrooms.

The zoning bylaw also reduces the parking requirements for below-market rental units and boosts the number of required bike parking spots in transit-oriented areas.

The zoning bylaw also enables more zones that permit childcare.

We know that there are many "spas" in the City, which, in our new draft zoning bylaw, are called "Personal Health Enhancement Centres." The zoning bylaw bans this use outright (though existing spas are grandfathered.) As a note, RMTs, hair and nail salons, and barber shops are not included in the "Personal Health Enhancement Centres" definition.

The zoning bylaw is in draft form, and the City is now seeking feedback from our community, as I noted in a previous post.

If Council approves the new zoning bylaw, just like today, rezoning would still be required in many cases.

You can read the draft zoning bylaw on Langley City's website.

Traffic Fine Revenue in Langley City

Since 2004, the provincial government has provided all traffic fine revenue collected in a local government area to that local government. In Langley City, we receive about half a million dollars in traffic fine revenue per year. In Langley City, we earmark the funding directly back to our local RCMP detachment.

The following chart shows the absolute amount of revenue we receive per year between 2018 and 2024.

It was interesting to see an increase in traffic revenue fines during the pandemic.

This next chart shows the per capita amount due to population growth.

Traffic revenue is an area where, if an equal amount of enforcement is applied, we want to see a decrease in fines as people change their behaviour. Although there has been a slight decline in per capita traffic fine revenue after the pandemic, speeding and distracted driving continue to be significant concerns in our community.