Frankly Speaking

It is most fitting that Langley Township is putting its public engagement strategy to its first test, with the establishment of a community planning team (CPT) for Brookswood-Fernridge. It was in Brookswood-Fernridge where the last Township council ran up against the wishes of the community, when it dealt with the deeply unpopular Griffith Neighbourhood Plan. Hearings on the plan were lengthy and the level of interest was very high. While council eventually rejected the plan by a 7-2 vote, its approach to public engagement was judged by many to be severely challenged. Three members of the last council were defeated in November, 2014 - the first councillors to lose their seats since 2002 – and this was at least partially due to the pro-development impression they left with residents. Only one of them, former councillor Grant Ward, had supported the plan at the final vote. The Brookswood-Fernridge debacle also gave rise to the very successful Unelection campaign which played a...

Speakers at a housing forum sponsored by the Urban Development Institute brought a measure of common sense to the often-overheated rhetoric about housing prices in Metro Vancouver. As they pointed out, the price of townhouses and condominium apartments in the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board area (which includes Surrey and Langley) has actually fallen since 2008. Only the price of detached homes is rising. The significant change is the development of a two-tier market. There is one market for detached homes, no matter what size the lot, and another for multi-family units. The gap between the two has risen from $200,000 in 2009 to between $300,000 and $400,000 today. It continues to widen. In some ways, this should not be a surprise. Ever since the Agricultural Land Reserve was created in 1972, there have been significant limits on land available for urban development. Up until recent years, there has been enough supply available. But that has changed. Much of Surrey has been develope...