Saturday, March 15, 2025, is Langley City's 70th birthday! We had a cake-cutting event with Eric Vogel, the grandson of Langley City's first mayor, Hunter Vogel. It is rumoured that Hunter Park (in the southern part of the City) is named after our first mayor.
Eric gifted me a copy of Hunter's book "The Key and the Pork Barrel." You definitely won't find this book in the library.
Langley City's Advisory Design Panel, which includes folks from our community, architects, and landscape architects, provides feedback on the design of building projects in our community. They also provided input on the design of the Langley City Centre SkyTrain station.
Based on the feedback from the Advisory Design Panel and other feedback received, South Fraser Station Partners (the station builder) updated the design.
The updated designs are below.
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| Render of Langley City Centre SkyTrain Station with proposed design changes. Select the rendering to enlarge. |
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| Illustrative Landscape Plan of Langley City Centre SkyTrain Station. Select the rendering to enlarge. |
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| View of the Langley City Centre SkyTrain Station from the transit exchange showing wall design. Select the rendering to enlarge. |
There is also a Propulsion Power Substation on Industrial Avenue, which will supply power to the SkyTrain tracks. The original design was a blank concrete box. The updated design is below.
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| Rendering of proposed SkyTrain Propulsion Power Substation on Industrial Avenue near 201A Street. Select the rendering to enlarge. |
Please look through the Langley City Centre Station Design Submission #2 package for more information.
At its Monday night meeting, Langley City Council gave third reading to a rezoning bylaw which would enable the construction of a 10-unit "phase two" extension of a townhouse project at 5080 & 5096 208 Street. You can read more about this project in a previous blog post. After the applicant finalizes the project's details and pays the required fees and deposits to the City, Council will consider the final reading of the rezoning bylaw and issue a development permit.
Council gave final reading to approve our 2025-2029 Financial Plan or 2025 budget. You can learn more about the ongoing operating part of the budget and the one-time capital part of the budget in previous posts.
Council received a recommendation from our Accessibility Advisory Committee to consider creating a micromobility devices plan. While micromobility devices vary, the term generally refers to electric kick scooters in BC. These devices cannot be used on public sidewalks and streets unless you are in a "pilot" community. Langley City is not a pilot community. While several members of Council expressed that the committee's recommendation was broad and may have exceeded the committee's mandate, Council agreed to consider this recommendation during our upcoming strategic planning sessions.
Council also approved a recommendation to update our Environmental Sustainability Committee membership to include a seniors representative.
Like many municipalities, Langley City must submit reports to the province on its housing target order for net new completed housing units. Our community's cumulative ordered targets are:
Year 1: 251
Year 2: 541
Year 3: 890
Year 4: 1,318
Year 5: 1,844
Langley City is required to submit a six-month report to the province. We had a net increase of 237 units, or 94% of the province's one-year target for our community.
The 6-month net increase in units by bedroom count is:
Studio: 43
One-Bedroom: 123
Two-Bedroom: 56
Three-Bedroom: 14
Four or More Bedrooms: 1
As a note, the net number is new units minus demolished units.
Langley City Council also approved seeking grants from the Union of BC Municipalities for $40,000 to purchase supplies for Emergency Support Services and $39,870.25 for supplies for our Emergency Operation Centre.
The water in our region comes from the North Shore and Coquitlam Mountains. We depend on snowpack levels and their melt rate to provide enough water to Metro Vancouver during summer. Climate change is impacting our water supply and how we manage it. The Region District publishes a report that outlines annual weather and climate patterns. The following experts are from a report covering 2024.
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| An overview map of the Metro Vancouver watershed, including weather monitoring stations (orange triangles.) Select the map to enlarge. |
Temperature Trends: This year was the third warmest year on record at the Vancouver Airport since 1936 (behind 2015 and 2023). Despite being a warm El Niño year, the coldest temperatures ever recorded occurred during the January deep-freeze. The Orchid Lake weather station in the Seymour WSA dropped to a low of -22.7°C on January 12. December was a stand out month, averaging 2.7 degrees warmer than normal.
Precipitation Patterns:
Annual precipitation amounts were well above normal in 2024. At the Vancouver Airport, this was the wettest year of this century, and among the top 10 wettest years since records began in 1937. October was an exceptionally wet month, which included the record-breaking October 19-20 atmospheric river. The summer months were quite dry, but each month saw at least one moderate rainfall event. July was the driest month, with no rainfall recorded until July 29.
Snowpack:
This was a very poor snowpack year. There was almost no mountain snowpack until the end of February. Conditions did improve in March, but average snow water equivalent values were only half of the historical average at the start of the melt season. Fortunately, relatively cool and damp spring weather slowed snowmelt and kept reservoirs full for longer than expected.
Drought and Wildfire Risk:
Drought was a concern again in 2024, but it was not as exceptional as the previous few seasons. The Lower Mainland basin was at drought level 3 (adverse impacts possible) for most of the summer. There were fewer days in high and extreme fire danger this year than the previous few years. Fire danger was high for most of July; however, well timed storms provided relief when conditions were becoming very dry.
The short of it is that climate change is making it more difficult to predict how much water we will have available for use. Water conservation will continue to be an increasingly important action that we must all take during the summer.
For more information, please read "Water Supply Areas – Climate Report 2024 Annual Weather and Climate Summary" on page 101 of the March 12, 2025, Metro Vancouver Water Committee Agenda.