Langley City Council adopted our current Official Community Plan back in November of 2021; the previous Official Community Plan dated back to the 1990s. Our current zoning bylaw dates back to 1995, when I was in Grade 6, and is outdated. Following the adoption of our current Official Community Plan, Langley City staff began work on creating a new zoning bylaw. The Official Community Plan articulates what we want our City to be, while the zoning bylaw defines what is allowed today. The City has held several open houses and provided in-person and online feedback opportunities regarding the zoning bylaw over the past few years. I’ve posted about these open houses and the feedback received.
On Monday, Langley City Council gave first and second reading to our new proposed zoning bylaw. There will now be an opportunity for people to provide formal writing and in-person feedback at an upcoming council meeting. After, Council will consider third reading of the bylaw and then, at a subsequent meeting, final reading to adopt it.
At a high level, the new zoning bylaw aligns with our Official Community Plan and provincially mandated height, density, and parking requirements.
For our lowest-density residential zone, which permits detached homes, ‘plexes, and two-storey carriage homes (accessory dwelling units), it now encourages sloped roofs and a third-floor setback to reduce the boxiness of newer homes in this zone. These changes are compliant with provincial law and will still comfortably allow up to four to six units per lot as the new zoning bylaw increases the allowed lot coverage from 33% to 36% in this zone.
Childcare centres will now be permitted in all townhouse, apartment, commercial, and industrial zones within our community, with separation distances in our Historic Downtown and in industrial areas.
The new zoning bylaw codifies our Townhome and Plexhomes Best Practices Guide, which the Council approved in 2023, including provisions for enhanced outdoor amenity spaces or local park improvements around new townhouse complexes.
As you may know, due to provincial law, Langley City cannot set minimum residential parking requirements in most areas north of the Nickomekl River, as they are within provincial Transit-Oriented Development Areas. The City is allowed to set minimum EV requirements. As such, the new zoning bylaw will require that all residential parking spaces be wired up for chargers, and 10% of residential parking spaces in buildings have EV chargers. Bike parking requirements have been increased within Transit-Oriented Development Areas. The new zoning bylaw will also allow people to park their RVs in their front driveways between May 1 and September 30 (this is currently not allowed).
To support below-market and non-market rental units, the minimum parking rates for these units outside of Transit-Oriented Development Areas are reduced to 0.7 and 0.5 spaces per unit. These parking reductions, combined with new density bonus provisions in the new zoning bylaw (which allow for slightly higher apartment densities in exchange for below-market rental units), will enable the private sector to construct these units.
Within Transit-Oriented Development Areas, the new zoning bylaw will require 2.5% of units in townhouses and apartments to be rental units priced 20% below local market rental rates, with the option to provide a cash equivalent that the City would put into an affordable housing fund.
The new zoning bylaw will also require that 5% of units in new apartment buildings must include 3 or more bedrooms.
The new zoning bylaw will also enable new uses in commercial uses, such as storefront-based vehicle rental, small-scale recycling, arcades, billiard halls, and containers modified for commercial or recreational use, such as pop-up coffee shops. The new zoning bylaw will not permit “spas” in our community, although current “spas” will still be allowed to operate in accordance with provincial law as non-comforming uses. If a “spa” closes, a new one wouldn’t be allowed to open.
|
| Proposed land-use changes to the Official Community Plan to align with the provincial government's Transit-Oriented Development Area. Select the map to enlarge. |
Running alongside the new zoning bylaw approval process is an update to the Official Community Plan. The proposed update aligns the zoning bylaw zones with the Official Community Plan’s land-use designations, codifies the Townhome and Plexhomes Best Practices Guide into the Official Community Plan, and resolves inconsistencies between the Official Community Plan and the provincial government’s Transit-Oriented Development Areas. Council gave first and second reading to update our Official Community Plan.
There has been a significant amount of public input, council input, and staff work over the last four years to develop this new zoning bylaw. I look forward to hearing and reading formal feedback from the community as we continue along this journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment