April 13 Council Notes: Community Emergency Preparedness Fund, Day of Mourning, Regional Land Use Changes

Langley City staff are always looking for grants to help reduce the cost of providing services to our community. On April 13, Council approved applying for $69,800 through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund. If we are succesful in the grant process, the grants will be used to connect our Emergency Operations Centre to the Alertable notification system to ensure the timely delivery of emergency messages, including appropriate processes for using the notification system. The grants will also be used to provide training to staff, purchase communication equipment, and purchase beds for the Emergency Operations Centre.

Council received a presentation from the New Westminster and District Labour Council on the upcoming Day of Mourning on April 28, 2026. It is an annual day of remembrance for workers killed and injured on the job, and serves as a call to action to improve workplace safety, as one person killed or injured due to their work is one too many. Recently, there has been a focus on mental health with bullying, harassment, and workplace stress as a focus area to improve workplace safety. If you are an employer, you can encourage your staff to observe a one-minute silence at 11:00 a.m. on April 28th. Langley City will be observing this moment of silence.

I previously posted about Maple Ridge’s proposal to change regional land-use for its North 256 Street Industrial Land and Surrey's proposal to change regional land-use for the Hazelmere Golf Course. As part of any proposal for regional land use change, the Regional District seeks feedback from all member jurisdictions. Council directed staff to provide a response to these two proposed regional land-use changes.

Council appointed Lana Kirkwood as the member representing the Indigenous community and Liam McCarney as a youth representative for Council’s Arts, Recreation, Culture & Heritage Committee. You can learn more about Council committees and how you can take part on the City’s website.

April 13 Council Notes: Affordable Housing Fund, Securing Vacant Properties, Development Process

Last month, I posted that Langley City Council is looking at updating its Community Standards Bylaw. The short version is that the new proposed updated bylaw will have stronger requirements for fencing and securing vacant buildings and properties. It will also allow the City to take remedial actions if a property owner fails to comply with the bylaw (at the property owner's cost). Council provided some feedback about the proposed bylaw last month. As a result, City staff added buildings that “may be in a derelict state or state of disuse” to the vacant building definition in the bylaw and provided more examples of acceptable secure fencing. Council gave first, second, and third reading to the bylaw.

Examples of Secure Fencing

Council gave final reading to adopt an updated bylaw that enables certain development applications to be processed by Langley City staff without going through a Council approval process. This process only applies to resident projects with 6 or fewer units, small commercial projects, and minor development variance applications. Council also gave final reading to update its Fees and Charges Bylaw as a result.

Council is in the process of creating an affordable housing fund, which is needed as the City now requires all new residential projects within an 800-metre radius of the Willowbrook and Langley City Centre SkyTrain stations to have at least 2.5% of the units available for rent for at least 20% below Langley City market rates for the life of the building. As previously posted, two things are required to enable the fund: a bylaw and a Council policy. Last night Council gave first, second, and third reading to the bylaw. The bylaw includes language to ensure that the fund will be used only to create non-profit or government-owned below-market, non-market, subsidized, and special-needs housing units. If the bylaw receives final reading and is adopted, Council would then consider adopting the enabling policy.

Spring Extra Yard Waste Collection in Langley City

If you receive organics collection service from the City, between April 13 and May 22, 2026, you can put out an unlimited number of paper yard waste bags to help with spring yard and garden maintenance. These paper yard waste bags can only contain yard waste and must be placed by your organics bin on your regular collection day.

You will know if you have a City-provided organic collection if your bin looks like the one in this post. This is a pilot program to help the City understand how many households put out extra bags, how many extra yard waste bags each household puts out, and when the peak yard waste collection times are. This will help the City plan for future fall and spring peak yard waste periods with the recent induction of the collection system.

For more information about the pilot, please read the City’s news release. For general information about organics collection, please visit the City’s website.

Reducing Odorous Air Contaminants in Metro Vancouver

Many people don’t know that the Metro Vancouver Regional District is responsible for regulating air quality in our region.

The Regional District is in the process of updating its air quality fee bylaw, which sets fees based on the amount of regulated air contaminants released. The goal of the bylaw is to use these fees to encourage facility owners to reduce the contaminants they release into the air.

Not surprisingly, the top air quality complaint the regional district receives is about odours. The following graph shows the number of complaints received since 2011.

Number of air quality complaints by complaint type from 2011 to 2025. Select the chart to enlarge.

The jurisdictions with the most complaints are consistently Vancouver, Burnaby, Delta, Richmond, Surrey, and the Township of Langley. Interestingly, complaints from Vancouver have been steadily increasing, while those from other jurisdictions have been fairly consistent.

Number of air quality complaints received each year by jurisdiction from 2021 to 2025. Select the chart to enlarge.

Given the number of complaints around odours, the proposed updated bylaw includes a list of odorous air contaminants and associated fees with the aim of reducing the release of these substances.

If you are interested in learning more about air quality and proposed changes to its regulation in our region, please check out the Metro Vancouver website.