A Performing Arts & Cultural Centre for Langley?

Both the City and Township of Langley have been talking about building a Performing Arts & Cultural Centre for as long as I can remember. From what I’ve been told, many projects have come forward, but all have died even before hitting the planning stage. It seems that building a space for artists has not been a priority for either municipality.

The latest attempts to start the process of getting a performance arts and cultural space started in 2007 when the City of Langley adopted its Cultural Master Plan. In 2011, the Township of Langley Council received an Arts & Cultural Services Plan. Both plans pointed towards building a space for artists in the greater community. Of course nothing happened at the time, and it seemed that once again an arts space was put on the back burner.

According to both the agenda from the latest City and Township of Langley council meeting, earlier this year “Mayor Froese, Mayor Fassbender, School Board Chair Johnson, and senior staff from the Township of Langley, City of Langley, School District #35, Trinity Western University, and Kwantlen Polytechnic University have held three informal meetings” to get the process started again on building a performance arts and cultural space.

It appears that the City of Langley, Township of Langley, Langley School Board, TWU, and Kwantlen will be jointly funding a task force which will report back on the following objectives by the end of this year:

a) Identify the need for the development of a Performing Arts & Cultural Centre in the Langleys.
b) Research and develop recommendations concerning the space needs for the Performing Arts & Cultural Centre.
c) Research and develop the pro-forma for the Performing Arts & Cultural Centre.
d) Research and recommend the preferred form of governance for the new Performing Arts & Cultural Centre.
e) Research and recommend to participating partners and their respective Council/Board the best location for a Performing Arts & Cultural Centre.
f) Research and recommend a proposed timeline for completion of the Performing Arts & Cultural Centre building.

Of course the next step after this would be to sort out how much a Performing Arts & Cultural Centre would cost, and how and when it would be paid for. In a best case scenario, it might be at least 4 years before ground was broken on this proposed Centre if all parties can agree on funding and location, and that might be big “ifs”.