2026 Lower Mainland Local Government Association Conference

Last night, today, and tomorrow, elected representatives from local governments across the Lower Mainland are at the annual Lower Mainland Local Government Association (LMLGA) conference and annual general meeting in Whistler. About 190 people are attending the conference, including members of Langley City Council, Paul Albrecht, Mike Solyom, Rosemary Wallace, Leith White, and me. Paul is the current president, and I am the Metro Vancouver Regional District representative on the LMLGA board. Paul delivered opening remarks last night to kick off the conference, and then we heard from former Lieutenant Governor of BC, Janet Austin, on the role of local government and the lack of funding for it.

Paul Albrecht, the president of LMLGA, delivers the opening welcome.

Today and tomorrow, there is a series of educational panels. Some of the highlights included a panel on “Lessons Learned from Municipal Council Conflict”, which I will be moderating. Other sessions include how we can help build sustainable and inclusive government, the top concerns of people in BC, and how to strengthen citizens' participation in local government decision-making.

One of my favourite parts of the conference is the resolution session, where we debate motions submitted by local governments throughout the Lower Mainland that typically call on the provincial government to take action. Resolutions endorsed by the LMLGA membership inform our advocacy efforts to the province and are forwarded to the Union of BC Municipalities for debate by all local governments at its conference in the fall. Langley City has a resolution calling on the province to develop consistent rules for micro-mobility devices, such as mobility devices for people with disabilities, e-scooters, and the like.

One of the fun traditions is that each local government provide a small item that represents their community for a door prize. Langley City’s door prize is the book “On the Trail: 50 Years of Engaging with Nature” by the Langley Field Naturalist.

I always learn something new at the conference that can be applied back in Langley City.

April 27 Council Notes: Affordable Housing Fund and Community Standards

As I posted about a few weeks ago, Langley City Council now requires that, within an 800-metre radius of the Willowbrook and Langley City Centre SkyTrain station, at least 2.5% of all new housing units built be made available for rent for at least 20% below Langley City market rates for the life of the building. Under BC law, a builder can either provide this as part of their housing project or pay an in-lieu cash amount to the City, which must be deposited into an affordable housing fund. The in-lieu cash amount must reflect the market cost of building a housing unit.

Langley City Council has now adopted an Affordable Housing Fund bylaw and a new Affordable Housing Reserve Fund policy, which, among other things, guides how Council should use these funds. Council wants to prioritize any funds received towards constructing new below-market affordable housing units (rents 20% below Langley City market rates), and this is reflected in the policy. The funds could also be used for below-market:

• Seniors-focused housing units
• Indigenous housing units
• Family and youth housing units
• Special needs, accessible housing units
• Co-op housing units
• Temporary shelter and transitional housing units

The bylaw and policy include an annual reporting and in-lieu cash fee adjustment to reflect market costs.

Langley City Council also adopted a new Community Standards Bylaw that focused on securing vacant and redevelopment-ready property. You can learn more in a previous post.

The new Council after the fall municipal election will likely have to decide on major service changes, such as around street waste management. Council passed a motion asking staff to include a clearly defined “status quo” option, along with proposed new service options, to help Council make decisions on new service options. Sometimes this is called a baseline, and I’ve seen it used at TransLink in my role on the Mayors’ Council. It is usually presented in a table format.

Langley City 2026 Resident Property Tax Increasing Under $100

In December, Langley City Council passed the City’s 2026 budget. While you can read my previous posts on the ongoing service enhancements and capital projects, the short of it is that the budget included:

• Funding 2 Additional Firefighters
• Funding 2 Additional RCMP Officers
• Extending Al Anderson Pool to Open April 13
• Increasing the Annual Amount Contributed to Capital Projects
• Maintaining Current Service Levels

Council approved replacing the end-of-life City Operation Centre in the 2026 capital budget.

This required increasing the city’s expenditures by $2.54 million, resulting in an overall 5.82% property tax increase across all property types.

While the budget has been passed, Council still must pass an annual tax rate bylaw to enable property tax collection by the beginning of July.

Council gave first, second, and third readings to the 2026 tax rate bylaw last night. The tax rate bylaw sets the mill rate. To learn more about mill rates, please read a previous post I wrote titled, “One residential mill rate causes uneven property tax changes in Langley City. Find out why.” One important thing to note is that mill rates should never be used to compare efficiencies or service costs between municipalities; you need to compare average municipal taxes and utility fees.

The bottom line is that detached home (single-family) owners will see their annual property tax increase by 3.12% or $99.55, on average, compared to last year. Attached home (apartments and townhouses) owners will see their annual property tax increase by 6.15% or $83.35 on average.

I believe that local government continue to deliver excellent value for money. For example, my strata fees increased by $1,020 per year this year for the same level of service. I live in a 1,600 sq. ft. townhouse.

Population Growth Stalls, Transit Ridership Declines in Metro Vancouver in 2025

While normally TransLink’s Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation meets monthly, the first public meeting of the Mayors’ Council will happen on April 30th. The heavy lifting for the Mayors’ Council happened last year as we moved towards approving the 2025 Transportation Investment Plan; the next Investment Plan must be approved in early 2027. Currently, the focus is on advocating to the province and the federal governments to increase funding for transit in our region and start delivering that funding as soon as possible.

Last year was an interesting year for population growth in Metro Vancouver. While we typically seen a 2% growth rate, in 2025 there was essentially no population growth. Of course, this isn’t evenly distributed. The City of Vancouver saw about a 1% population decline, whereas typically high-growth areas like Surrey saw only a 2% growth rate.

Overall, the transit system experienced a 1.5% decline in transit journeys in 2025 compared to 2024. Bus ridership declined 2.5%, and Expo/Millennium lines declined 2.6%. Canada Line ridership increased 1.1%, SeaBus ridership increased 3.8%, HandyDART service increased 6%, and West Coast Express ridership increased 11.2%. Over 60% of transit journeys are by bus. TransLink attributes the decline to fewer young adults in our region, resulting from changes in federal immigration targets, young adults leaving Metro Vancouver, and a smaller overall Gen Z population compared to millennials.

When you look at subregions, the largest decline was in the South of Fraser, though transit ridership there is still significantly higher than before the pandemic.

Annual Ridership Growth (First Number) between 2024 - 2025 & Share of System-Wide Boardings (Second Number) by Sub-Region in 2025. Select the map to enlarge.

Population growth will likely return to a stable growth rate in the near future, and transit ridership will likely resume growth as a result. There is no indication that transit is in a permanent ridership decline.

Fowl Play at Douglas Park, Earth Day Walking Tour at Sendall Garden

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of helping celebrate the installation of a new mural at Douglas Park with members of Langley City’s Arts, Recreation, Culture and Heritage Committee, members of Council, and the artist Jessica Fairweather and her family.

Councillor Wallace, Mural Artist Jessica Fairweather, and I. Select the image to enlarge.

The mural, titled Fowl Play, is located on the southwest corner of the recently renovated Douglas Recreation and Child Care Centre. The mural uses a combination of tile and stained glass. The grey tile represents the jet trails in the sky. The birds featured in the mural include:

The “Fowl Play” Mural. Select the image to enlarge.

• Bald Eagle
• Rufous Hummingbird
• Canadian Goose
• Stellar Jay
• Wood Duck
• Pileated Wood Pecker
• Mourning Dove
• Mallard Ducks
• Great Horned Owl
• Violet-Green Swallow
• American Gold Finch
• Great Blue Heron
• Loon
• Northern Flicker
• American Robyn
• European Starling
• House Finch
• Nuthatch
• Double-Crested Cormorant

You can see many of these birds throughout Langley City. Be sure to check out this mural next time you are in Douglas Park.

Councillors Wallace and White are the co-chairs of the Arts, Recreation, Culture and Heritage Committee. Councillor White was unable to attend due to a last-minute urgent matter. The mural was co-created with members of Raphael House, the Committee, and Grade 5 students from Douglas Park Community School.

The Urban Bounty team at the Earth Day Walking Tour at Sendall Gardens. Select the image to enlarge.

A bit later, I stop in quickly to the Earth Day Walking Tour at Sendall Gardens, which is part of the ongoing, pop-up Langley City’s Village Cafe series, where people can learn and share about local issues, and celebrate heritage in a low-key format. There, I learned about urban gardening, and I also learned about the React Now app for your phone, which provides multilingual guidance on how to respond rapidly to a drug overdose.

Langley City First Team Running in Fall Municipal Election

In 2024, a group of concerned long-time Langley City citizens met to discuss the future of our community. Our goal was to ensure that Langley City continues to move forward, looking out for the safety of residents and growth for businesses from an accountable and effective local government.

“Seeing what was going on with politics in Langley, we wanted to ensure that Langley City remains an independent community,” said Rhianna Reddekopp, who founded Langley City First and is a long-time City resident and small business owner. “We want to make sure that every nickel of taxpayer money gets reinvested back into our community efficiently and effectively to address the priorities that make Langley City a unique community.”

Langley City First was formed as a Local Elector Organization under Elections BC to defend the things that make Langley City our home, and move our community forward. We believe in bringing independent voices to lead our community with strong community connections and responsible decision-making. We believe in a safe and prosperous Langley City, and in people who believe in our community, free of outside interference and partisan politics.

“With these values in mind, we reached out to several members of Langley City Council,” said Reddekopp, “We are proud to announce that Mayor Nathan Pachal, Councillors Paul Albrecht, Mike Solyom, and Rosemary Wallace are willing to be endorsed by our organization.”

As a registered Elector Organization, we hope to provide a united team in this fall's civic elections that is committed to defending and advancing the following values:

• Building A City for the Future
• Enhancing Green Space
• Investing in Safety and Livability
• Fostering Community Connection
• Creating a Resilient Community with Appropriate Infrastructure and Responsible Fiscal Stewardship
• Supporting a Team Where Independent Voices Work as a Cohesive Team

Langley City First believes in our community, its people, its businesses, and its potential, and we are committed to moving the city forward through collaborative leadership, safe communities, and responsible growth for today and future generations. We are excited to endorse our first candidates and look forward to announcing more in the coming months.

I wanted to reshare this post from Langley City First. To learn more about the team and its values, please check out the Langley City First website.

SkyTrain Pile Driving Operating Hours

I’ve received a few emails from residents about thumping or pounding sounds in the evenings over the last few weeks in Langley City. This is due to SkyTrain guideway pile-driving work occurring in and around our community.

I can also hear pile-driving work at my home and at City Hall, and I know it can impact people’s quality of life.

For the most up-to-date information, questions, and concerns, please reach out to the SkyTrain project team at 1-844-815-6111 or surreylangleyskytrain@gov.bc.ca. As this is a provincial project, they are not subject to local government bylaws, including those regarding noise and construction site hours of operation.

As of this post, regular construction hours for the SkyTrain project are 7 am to 10 pm Monday through Saturday. Noisier work, such as pile driving, is occurring between noon and 9 pm. To minimize the noise, the SkyTrain project team is using various techniques to manage it, including vibrating portions of the guideway columns into the ground. A project of this size will, of course, have impacts during construction.

Pile driving work is expected to conclude in mid-2027.

Project Black Feather - Helping Youth Exit Unhealthy Influences and Habits

Over the last little while, I've been posting about Project Black Feather. This program received its initial funding from the federal government through its Building Safer Communities Fund in partnership with Langley City and Township. The program is for students in the Langley School District who are at a high risk of becoming vulnerable to unhealthy influences and habits. Such influence could include gangs, and habits could include problematic substance use. Langley City Council previously received a presentation on the number of students helped and the positive outcomes. Last week, Council heard more, including about an outcomes report based on eight program participants who were followed for about a year.

The key outcomes for reducing vulnerability for young people in the program include:

• Crisis prevention through surge capacity: The program provided the right support when needed. Knowing that sometimes little support is needed, and sometimes a lot of support is needed.
• Trust durability exceeds expectations: Young people stayed connected to the program, where traditional programs would fail.
• Capacity-building, not dependency: Young people acquired transferable skills and reliance as part of the program to remain sober and stay employed.
• Youth began learning to set healthy boundaries on their own: Young people left harmful peer connections.
• Family stabilization enabled youth stabilization: The program also worked through coaching and supporting young people’s caregivers.
• Workplace integration emerged as a high-leverage pathway: Young people who got connected at their workplaces developed positive connections.
• Youth moved from being service recipients to contributors: Several young people in the program became peer leaders and even volunteered to support other program members.
• Partner corroboration confirmed distinctive reach: Other organizations and government ministries noted that Project Black Feather was reaching young people that they would otherwise be unable to reach.

The program's success is based on how it works. Its foundation is to build trust with young people participating in the program, which means being reliable and there for a young person whenever. The report noted that bringing a sandwich to a young person helped them become fully engaged in the program. The program is also wrap-around, and if the young person needs to connect with another service provider, the Project Blackfeather team would make the arrangements, including transport, and be with the young person during appointments if required. The program also directly engaged the young person’s caregivers.

It was really encouraging to hear about the good work of Project Black Feather and how it is having a positive impact on young people in Langley.

April 13 Council Notes: Mobile Integrated Crisis Response, Slow Streets Program, and Long-Term Care

In 2015, Langley City Council adopted the “Community Crime Prevention Strategic Plan.” One of the action items in that plan was to call on the province to expand the Car 67 program to our community. This program is now called the Mobile Integrated Crisis Response program. This program pairs a police officer and a health care professional who respond to calls when people are in mental health distress. The goal of this program is to reduce repeated police calls for service for the same person and instead provide people with an appropriate, continuous health-based response.

A recommendation from Langley City’s Citizens’ Assembly called for continued provincial advocacy as well as for piloting a Mobile Integrated Crisis Response program in Langley. The City will continue to advocate for provincial funding. On Monday, Council passed a motion to include, in the 2027 budget consideration process, a one-year pilot program for a Mobile Integrated Crisis Response team, with an effectiveness evaluation report of the pilot. Based on the pilot's outcome, it could support a business case for the province to provide ongoing funding for this program, as they do in other communities.

Council also recently endorsed Transportation 2050, Langley City’s Transportation Plan. One of the priority planning actions in the report was to develop a Slow Streets Program for neighbourhood streets. A Slow Streets program, among other things, includes lowering the speed limit to 30 km/h on local side streets. As such, Council passed a motion to include developing a Slow Streets Program in the 2027 budget consideration process.

I hear from many residents about their concerns with the health system. While the health care system, including hospitals, is a provincial responsibility, Council has advocated on behalf of residents on matters we regularly hear about, even if it is outside our authority to take direct action. Back in 2024, the province announced a commitment to fund 300 new long‑term care beds at Langley Memorial Hospital. The provincial government has recently reduced its capital projects funding in the near term, so Council passed a motion asking me to write a letter to the province to inquire into the status of the announced long-term care beds at Langley Memorial Hospital.

April 13 Council Notes: Community Emergency Preparedness Fund, Day of Mourning, Regional Land Use Changes

Langley City staff are always looking for grants to help reduce the cost of providing services to our community. On April 13, Council approved applying for $69,800 through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund. If we are succesful in the grant process, the grants will be used to connect our Emergency Operations Centre to the Alertable notification system to ensure the timely delivery of emergency messages, including appropriate processes for using the notification system. The grants will also be used to provide training to staff, purchase communication equipment, and purchase beds for the Emergency Operations Centre.

Council received a presentation from the New Westminster and District Labour Council on the upcoming Day of Mourning on April 28, 2026. It is an annual day of remembrance for workers killed and injured on the job, and serves as a call to action to improve workplace safety, as one person killed or injured due to their work is one too many. Recently, there has been a focus on mental health with bullying, harassment, and workplace stress as a focus area to improve workplace safety. If you are an employer, you can encourage your staff to observe a one-minute silence at 11:00 a.m. on April 28th. Langley City will be observing this moment of silence.

I previously posted about Maple Ridge’s proposal to change regional land-use for its North 256 Street Industrial Land and Surrey's proposal to change regional land-use for the Hazelmere Golf Course. As part of any proposal for regional land use change, the Regional District seeks feedback from all member jurisdictions. Council directed staff to provide a response to these two proposed regional land-use changes.

Council appointed Lana Kirkwood as the member representing the Indigenous community and Liam McCarney as a youth representative for Council’s Arts, Recreation, Culture & Heritage Committee. You can learn more about Council committees and how you can take part on the City’s website.

April 13 Council Notes: Affordable Housing Fund, Securing Vacant Properties, Development Process

Last month, I posted that Langley City Council is looking at updating its Community Standards Bylaw. The short version is that the new proposed updated bylaw will have stronger requirements for fencing and securing vacant buildings and properties. It will also allow the City to take remedial actions if a property owner fails to comply with the bylaw (at the property owner's cost). Council provided some feedback about the proposed bylaw last month. As a result, City staff added buildings that “may be in a derelict state or state of disuse” to the vacant building definition in the bylaw and provided more examples of acceptable secure fencing. Council gave first, second, and third reading to the bylaw.

Examples of Secure Fencing

Council gave final reading to adopt an updated bylaw that enables certain development applications to be processed by Langley City staff without going through a Council approval process. This process only applies to resident projects with 6 or fewer units, small commercial projects, and minor development variance applications. Council also gave final reading to update its Fees and Charges Bylaw as a result.

Council is in the process of creating an affordable housing fund, which is needed as the City now requires all new residential projects within an 800-metre radius of the Willowbrook and Langley City Centre SkyTrain stations to have at least 2.5% of the units available for rent for at least 20% below Langley City market rates for the life of the building. As previously posted, two things are required to enable the fund: a bylaw and a Council policy. Last night Council gave first, second, and third reading to the bylaw. The bylaw includes language to ensure that the fund will be used only to create non-profit or government-owned below-market, non-market, subsidized, and special-needs housing units. If the bylaw receives final reading and is adopted, Council would then consider adopting the enabling policy.

Spring Extra Yard Waste Collection in Langley City

If you receive organics collection service from the City, between April 13 and May 22, 2026, you can put out an unlimited number of paper yard waste bags to help with spring yard and garden maintenance. These paper yard waste bags can only contain yard waste and must be placed by your organics bin on your regular collection day.

You will know if you have a City-provided organic collection if your bin looks like the one in this post. This is a pilot program to help the City understand how many households put out extra bags, how many extra yard waste bags each household puts out, and when the peak yard waste collection times are. This will help the City plan for future fall and spring peak yard waste periods with the recent induction of the collection system.

For more information about the pilot, please read the City’s news release. For general information about organics collection, please visit the City’s website.

Reducing Odorous Air Contaminants in Metro Vancouver

Many people don’t know that the Metro Vancouver Regional District is responsible for regulating air quality in our region.

The Regional District is in the process of updating its air quality fee bylaw, which sets fees based on the amount of regulated air contaminants released. The goal of the bylaw is to use these fees to encourage facility owners to reduce the contaminants they release into the air.

Not surprisingly, the top air quality complaint the regional district receives is about odours. The following graph shows the number of complaints received since 2011.

Number of air quality complaints by complaint type from 2011 to 2025. Select the chart to enlarge.

The jurisdictions with the most complaints are consistently Vancouver, Burnaby, Delta, Richmond, Surrey, and the Township of Langley. Interestingly, complaints from Vancouver have been steadily increasing, while those from other jurisdictions have been fairly consistent.

Number of air quality complaints received each year by jurisdiction from 2021 to 2025. Select the chart to enlarge.

Given the number of complaints around odours, the proposed updated bylaw includes a list of odorous air contaminants and associated fees with the aim of reducing the release of these substances.

If you are interested in learning more about air quality and proposed changes to its regulation in our region, please check out the Metro Vancouver website.

Central Fraser Valley Search and Rescue 2025 Annual Report

Langley City was part of the now-defunct Central Fraser Valley Regional District, along with the Township of Langley and what is now Abbotsford. There are a few vestiges of this past, including the fact that Langley City has received services from the Central Fraser Valley Search and Rescue Society since 1978.

Central Fraser Valley Search and Rescue Society Vehicles. Source: Facebook

The Society covers Langley City, Township, and Abbotsford, and its recently released annual report noted that its volunteers responded to 38 incidents in 2025, with about 2 in Langley City. When you think of search and rescue, you likely picture wilderness areas or natural disasters, and while the Society's largest response was to the Sumas Prairie flooding in December 2025, they also search for people who go missing in urban settings like Langley City.

The Society is 100% volunteer run with about 31 active members on average. Its 2025 total expenses were $134,904, funded through all three municipalities, among other sources.

The two capital projects in 2025 were for a new water rescue boat and savings for a new command vehicle.

Beyond search and rescue operations, the Society also does public outreach, including at community events and through its wilderness survival education for young people.

For more information about Central Fraser Valley Search and Rescue Society, please visit their website.

Improving Accessibility on Langley City Sidewalks and Streets

While Langley City is currently developing an Accessibility Plan, the City has been working for some time to address physical barriers to access on our sidewalks and streets.

For as long as I’ve lived here, the City has also been slowly making all bus stops accessible. An accessible bus stop has sufficient width and depth to allow someone in a wheelchair to board and exit a bus. Currently, 98% of bus stops in the City are wheelchair accessible, one of the highest rates in Metro Vancouver; the City is looking into making the remaining stops accessible.

In most communities, you’ll see curb letdowns at intersections, which allow people with wheelchairs and other mobility devices the ability to cross a street. While curb letdowns are important, at an intersection with traffic lights or a flashing crosswalk, people also need to be able to push the crossing button. The City has also been working to make sure these buttons are accessible. The following is a recent change at Michaud Crescent and 200th Street to make the crossing button accessible.

I remember going on a day trip years ago with a friend of mine who uses a wheelchair. As I walked with him, it heightened my awareness of the small things that can create big barriers to people accessing our community independently.

Langley City’s new Transportation 2050 plan continues to address improving accessibility in our community, including bringing all curb letdowns to modern standards, getting the last 2% of bus stops accessible, completing the sidewalk network, ensuring more accessible parking on-street and in private development, and making other small but important changes, such as for accessing crossing buttons.

Wrangling Solid Waste in Metro Vancouver

While a combination of public and private service providers in our region collect garbage, recycling, organics and other solid waste, it is the Metro Vancouver Regional District that manages the overall solid waste system. The Regional District is in the process of updating its Solid Waste Management Plan, which, if adopted, will impact Langley City.

I’ve posted about the overall goals of this proposed updated plan last summer: rethink, reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover. In short, it means thinking about how we design products and packaging to prevent waste in the first place and do everything we can to prevent waste from being burned at an incinerator or buried in a landfill.

To that end, the Regional District is proposing new waste-reduction targets for the next decade.

The plan’s target is to:

• Reduce per capita waste generation by 10% from 1.22 tonnes to 1.1 tonnes
• Reduce disposal per capita by 30% from 430kg to 300kg (burned or buried)
• Increase the recycling rate from 65% to 70% (material recycled into new products, including compost)
• Increase the diversion rate from 65% to 75% (includes all material recycled, plus any material used to create alternatives to fossil fuels)

Recycling and diversion rates have always been lower in our region for attached housing (townhouses and apartments) than detached housing, so one of the focus areas is to boost these rates. There is also significant waste generated during the demolition and construction of buildings, so another focus area is preventing the disposal of valuable building materials.

Our region has a strong track record of reducing waste. I’m optimistic that we will now be able to address reducing waste generation and further reducing disposal under this proposed new plan, if it is adopted.

Extending Funding for Project Black Festher: Keeping Langley Students Out of Gangs

Last fall, I wrote about Project Black Feather. The federal government funded this program through their Building Safer Communities Fund, and it is a joint program between the City, Township, and Langley School District. Project Black Feather’s mission is to reduce the likelihood of young people going down a dangerous path of gang and gun violence.

Project Black Feather, as of last fall, has worked with 400 young people in the Langley School District, with over 150 experiencing positive changes, including addiction recovery and reduction in gang-affiliated behaviour. By all accounts, it has been a success.

Funding for this program was set to expire at the end of March. In the fall, Langley City Council went on an Ottawa mission, where one of our goals was to see the extension of Project Black Feather.

The federal government has extended funding for this program, which is great news, though Council would like to see it become permanently funded. With that in mind, Council approved sending a letter to the federal government, including the Minister of Public Safety, asking for an opportunity to meet to talk about making the Building Safer Communities Fund permanent to support programs like Project Black Feather, and to help support a Canada-wide knowledge sharing network for programs like Project Black Feather.

I look forward to hearing back from the federal government.