October 2, 2017 Council Meeting Notes: Langley City residents in opposition to Urban Agricultural Demonstration Project. Land-use contracts discharged.

Earlier this year, I posted about Metro Vancouver’s Urban Agricultural Demonstration Project. This project is funded from Metro Vancouver’s Sustainable Innovation Fund, and Langley City and KPU are both partners.

There has been a series of open houses about the project, including the most recent open house which took place on September 19.

Many residents near the Urban Agricultural Demonstration Project study area are opposed to the project. At last night’s Langley City council meeting, around 50 residents attended the council meeting and expressed their opposition to the project being implemented.

A resident speaking on behalf of residents who are opposed to the implementation of the Urban Agricultural Demonstration Project. Select image to enlarge.

They presented four main points:

• The green space in the study area is already heavily used by both people and wild animals.
• This part of Langley City does not need urban agriculture as the area is surrounded by large-lot housing where gardens can be built on private property if desired.
• It will create new problems.
• It will cause increased traffic, and increase vehicles using on-street parking.

The presentation was professional, and the people that attended the meeting were respectful. The message of opposition to the project being implemented was certainly heard loud and clear by me. The residents also delivered a petition to council.

The public consultation period for this study is still on-going, and council will be presented with a full report which I look forward to reveiwing.

This deliverable of this project is an urban agriculture plan. All council will be receiving is a plan; no funding has been approved to implement the plan.

There was also a public hearing on the discharge of land-use contracts at properties located at 5040 205A Street and 20215 44A Avenue to allow for secondary suites. The City’s residential zoning in those areas allow for secondary suites, but many properties in our community have land-use contracts from the 1970s which supersede zoning. Land-use contracts haven’t been used for close to 40 years, and at the request of owners, the City will terminate these contracts.

There were no people at the council meeting who wished to speak to, or correspondence received about, land-use contracts. Council approved the discharge of the land-use contracts.