November 17 Council Notes: Improving Outcomes for Young People, Zoning Bylaw

On Monday, Langley City Council received a presentation from Dr. Patrick Thomas from Project Black Feather. Project Black Feather is a joint program between the City, Township, and Langley School District to reduce the likelihood of young people going down a dangerous path of gang and gun violence. This program was funded by the federal government’s Building Safer Communities Fund. This program uses various clinical interventions to help improve the outcomes for young people. Now, many programs offer interventions, but this program is unique in that it tracked and quantified changes for people who were part of the program. The following slide from the presentation showed the various aspects that the program addressed.

Slide showing Project Black Feather Epigenetic Stacked Interventions. Select the slide to enlarge.

The program to date has helped over 400 young people, with over 150 experiencing positive changes, including addiction recovery and reduction in gang-affiliated behaviour. A full report on this program will be released in a month or so, with more details. Federal funding for this program is coming to an end. When some members of Langley City Council were in Ottawa this fall, we flagged this with MP Taleeb Noormohamed, who is chair of the Liberals' Pacific Caucus. We will be following up, as this is a program the federal government should continue funding.

Council also received an update from Superintendent Dosange of the Langley RCMP Detachment. We know that providing positive after-school activities for young people helps improve outcomes. He outlined some of the activities their youth section of the Detachment has hosted, including hockey programs in partnership with the Canucks, and their partnership with the Langley School District.

As I posted about earlier, Council is going through the process of adopting a new zoning bylaw with associated updates to our Official Community Plan. On Monday, people had the opportunity to provide formal feedback. We received one email from a resident expressing concern about a proposed change allowing RV parking in people's front driveways during the summer. This is already happening in our community. A couple attended the public hearing and asked a question about flexibility in siting carriage homes on people’s properties.