Central Gordon Estates Neighbourhood Plan

The Township of Langley presented the Central Gordon Estates Plan to council on Monday night. The highlight of the plan for me was the mixed-use combined with live-work that is being proposed at the intersection of 70th Avenue and 204th Street. If the intersection will look anything like it does in the plan, it will be one of the nicest and highest-quality intersections in the Township.

Central Gordon Estates Land Use Plan

Mixed-used/High Quality 204th Street and 70th Avenue

Over the years, I’ve noticed that the Willoughby Plan has been evolving from a more suburban to a more urban plan, and I’ve been seeing more and more mixed-use in the sub-neighbourhoods plans in Willoughby. This is good news. The one thing that concerns me is TransLink's response to the provisioning of transit service in the area. Now I know that TransLink is in trouble right now, but there seems to be reluctance to provide transit historically in the Langley that I think is holding back the Township from being more aggressive with their urban designs and density in Willoughby. The following quote is from Council’s package on the neighbourhood plan:

Transit
The current lack of transit was high-lighted throughout the process. Transit routes will be indicated in the related Engineering Servicing Plan. However, TransLink has confirmed that higher density is required in order to obtain higher levels of service and there will likely be no service extension / expansion without an increase in population generating demand

When I look at the Central Gordon Estates Plan, the majority of the housing will be apartments and town/row houses. It actually has a pretty good mix of housing type. Does the Township need to build towers everywhere before transit will be provided? Because you don’t need towers to get the density required to provide high-quality transit service.

Central Gordon Estates Street Lamp Standard

I’m pretty excited about this neighbourhood plan and I look forward to seeing the 70th Avenue/204th Street intersection once it is build out.