October 6 Council Notes: Grade Crescent Presentation, Cooling, Art, and Traffic Calming

On Monday, Langley City Council received a presentation from Metro Vancouver Regional District staff on what local governments can do to support cooling, especially in older apartments, given the increasingly hotter summer we are experiencing due to climate change. I posted about this earlier in the year, specifically the concept of the “right to cool.” In new buildings, the BC Building Code requires that at least one living space in a unit have a temperature that does not exceed 26°C. This does not exist for older buildings. While there is limited provincial funding to help retrofit older buildings, considerable work remains to be done. For more information, please read the report “Thermal Safety in Existing Multi-Unit Residential Buildings.”

Council also received a presentation from Grade Crescent resident Bruce Downing. He provided a list of improvements he and neighbors would like to see, including full sidewalks on both sides of Grade Crescent, bike lanes, enclosing the current drainage ditches, traffic calming from 200th to 203rd, on-street parking, upgraded bus stops, having Grade Crescent be designated a Disaster Response Route and Heritage Road, underground the hydro lines, improvement to water quality in creaks in the areas, and some general mainatiance tasks. He also asked for residents in the area to be invited to fully participate in the redesign of Grade Crescent. Council was pleased to inform Mr. Downing that an expanded multi-use path between 203rd and 205th Street is being considered as part of the 2026 capital projects budget. Council committed to sending a letter to Mr. Downing within 30 days, providing a comprehensive response to his requests and outlining potential next steps. Some of the requested items would be “Request for Service” items; others, such as traffic calming, would follow our traffic calming process; and still others would potentially be significant projects.

Council approved installing a new three-panel mosaic tile mural on the exterior southwest corner of Douglas Recreation Centre.

Langley City has a traffic calming policy that requires at least 10 people or 50% of the residents on a segment of street (whichever is lower) to sign a petition if they wish to see traffic calming measures implemented on their segment of street. This is the first step for the City to consider implementing traffic calming. As I posted back in 2020 when Council adopted this policy, this is a low barrier, but a barrier nonetheless, to ensure that there is some level of support for traffic calming on a section of street.

Council received a petition for traffic calming on 201A Street between Michaud Crescent and 53rd Avenue; however, it did not have the required 10 signatures from residents who live directly on this segment of the street, as determined by City staff. Councillors Mack and White, who submitted the traffic calming petition, submitted a motion essentially asking Council to waive this section of the policy. After discussion, the Council decided to uphold this 10-signature requirement.