February 26 Council Notes: Daycares in Downtown, James McMillan's 1824 Portage, and Socio-Cultural and Economic Development Advisory Committee

Over the last few days, I've posted about some of the things addressed at Monday's Langley City Council meeting, including third reading of the 2024 budget and issuing a development permit for an industrial building project. Today, I will highlight the remaining items in that meeting.

Over the last year, we've seen a clustering of daycares in the Fraser Highway One Way area. By law, daycare facilities must usually provide on-site, outdoor play areas. We have many examples of this throughout our community. A daycare provider can apply to Fraser Health for special permission to use an outdoor play area not connected to their daycare. Fraser Health has allowed Douglas Park to be that play area for several Fraser Highway One Way facilities, which is less than optimal. The Downtown Langley Business Association sent a letter to Council asking that the City look at daycare requirements and zoning in the Downtown area. At the meeting, Langley City staff said they would be investigating this request.

At the meeting, Council also gave final reading and issued a development permit for a 5-storey, 93-unit rental apartment building at the corner of 53rd Avenue and 201A Street. You can learn more about this project in a previous post.

Council also received a presentation from the Living Arts Society. They are looking to put on an event at Portage Park and the Michaud House to celebrate James McMillan's 1824 expedition to find a suitable location for what is now Fort Langley.

In December, Langley City Council approved creating a new Socio-Cultural and Economic Development Advisory Committee. On Monday, Council released the names of people appointed to the committee. You can read the complete list on Langley City's website.

Langley City Council Gives 2024 Budget Third Reading, Asks for Budget Surplus Allocation Framework.

On Monday night, Langley City Council considered giving third reading of our 2024 Budget and Financial Plan. I provided an overview of the proposed ongoing operating budget and capital projects in previous posts. You can also learn more about the plan on the City's website.

One of the first things that Council did was amend the Financial Plan to add $15,000 to the parks capital projects budget to fund replacing two sheds on the Langley Lawn Bowling greens. The City owns this facility and leases it to the Langley Lawn Bowling Club.

Because local governments must have balanced budgets by provincial law, these budgets are generally conservative to reduce the risk of becoming unbalanced and going into deficit. As a result, there are surpluses at the end of the year. The year-end surplus was $900,000 at the end of 2022.

Because City staff are still finalizing the numbers, they can only estimate that the surplus for the end of 2023 will be around $2,000,000. This surplus includes $700,000 from higher-than-expected interest from investments, with the remainder from unfilled job positions. The unfilled job positions included new positions from the 2023 budget, such as additional firefighters and recreation workers, whom the City can only hire part-way through the year as Council typically approves the budget in March. It takes time to hire people. It also includes vacancies due to people moving on from a job or going on leave.

By convention, any surplus has been rolling into the Capital Work Reserve. The Capital Work Reserve is one of the funding sources for capital projects. Other sources include grants from the federal government, the provincial government, and TransLink. These sources also include casino revenue and fees collected from development.

Council had a robust discussion on reducing the proposed property tax increase by 1% this year (about $12 per year for an attached property or $24 per year for a detached property) and using some surplus in place of the proposed 1% infrastructure levy. Money collected from this levy goes into the Capital Work Reserve.

After the discussion, Council decided to leave the infrastructure levy in place, primarily because we have an approximate $10 million per year gap in what we are currently putting into our capital projects budget annually and what we should be putting into the budget annually to complete public safety, water, sewers, parks and roads project identified in various City plans. This gap is growing. City Council is slowly trying to close this gap with an annual infrastructure levy.

This year, our proposed capital projects budget is $25.7 million.

Council Mack and White identified a gap in formal policy about how we allocate year-end surpluses, so Council unanimously approved their motion to "develop a year-end surplus allocation framework that considers taxpayer-borne costs associated with budgetary surpluses, continues to strategically allocate funding for specific infrastructure and other established priorities the Council has identified. (i.e. RCMP Reserve contribution, Capital Works Reserve contribution) while still upholding prudent financial planning practices."

Council will consider final reading to adopt the budget this coming Monday.

Council Approves Development Permit for New Industrial Buildings on Production Way

Rendering of proposed project, view from Production Way. Select the image to enlarge.

Recently, Langley City has seen an increase in redevelopment applications in our Production Way industrial area, which is bound by 56th Avenue, 200th Street, and the Langley Bypass. Last night, Council issued a development permit to enable creating a 2-building, 104,205 sq. ft./9,681 m2 industrial development at 5721 Production Way. Development permits govern the form and character of a project, not the height, use, or setbacks.

Langley City's Advisory Design Panel, which reviews most development proposals, provided feedback on suggested changes to the original development permit application as follows:

• Improve pedestrian access and safety into and within the site.
• Increase porous surfaces within the site.
• Update the signage, including keeping the signs on Production Way to a human scale.
• Increase the landscaping within the City right-of-way to mimic the curve of the proposed sidewalk.
• Provide more large-canopy and additional coniferous trees.
• Provide rain shelter/shade structures in outdoor break areas.
• Provide more secure visitor bicycle parking.
• Review site large-vehicle maneuverability for safety.
• Provide more design interest on the building roofs.
• Ensure sufficient soil volumes for all trees.
• Update landscape to ensure fire hydrant viability.

Besides changing the buildings' roof designs, the applicant incorporated all the suggested improvements of the Advisory Design Panel.

Council thanked the applicant for incorporating the Advisory Design Panel recommendations.

Council received one written letter from Westman Steel Industries, which is adjacent to the proposed project. They fully supported the project but had some specific construction-related and water-management concerns. Langley City staff told Council that the applicant would respond to Westman Steel Industries to address their concerns.

The BCFED Calls on the Province to Massively Invest in Transit Service

BC Transit Bus in Downtown Agassiz

Last week, the BC Federation of Labour released a report called “Connecting BC: A Ten-Year Vision and Investment Plan for Public Transit throughout BC.” The report’s authors called on the provincial government to make a generational investment in public transit. This investment into transit will help strengthen the economy, provide good jobs, and help the province meet its climate action goals.

The following is a summary of the proposed investments.

• Build a province-wide, intercity express bus network to replace Greyhound service lost in 2018.
• Outside of Metro Vancouver, double local transit service within the next five years and triple the service over the next decade.
• Expand HandyDART service province-wide.
• Develop new regional rail connections across the South Coast and Vancouver Island.
• Add new passenger ferry options between Vancouver, the Gulf Islands, the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island.
• Accelerate TransLink’s 10-year Access for Everyone plan for Metro Vancouver.
• Expand existing free transit programs to youth aged 13 to 18.
• Create a province-wide fare payment system for local, intracity, rail, and ferry transit services.

The capital projects in the report total $15.4 billion. The authors also call on the province to increase its ongoing operating financial support, about $350 million today for public transit, to $1.5 billion over the next ten years.

For more information, please read the full report.