Skip to content

IN OUR VIEW: Have your say now on future of Brookswood

Neighbourhood plans and the fate of Horne Pit are up for debate
32776435_web1_copy_230512-LAT-MC-HornePit1
Horne Pit is a mixture of flat, empty land and treed areas and wetlands. (Matthew Claxton/Langley Advance Times)

Brookswood-Fernridge is again facing some major changes.

Three major neighbourhood plans are up for discussion, and all have gone through some pretty significant alterations from the last time we saw them. There’s more parkland in the plan, and also more density.

Alongside that, there are questions about what to do with Horne Pit, the former gravel pit and storage yard that covers a little more than 70 acres of land off 200th Street. Should it be partially developed? How much, how densely, and how much affordable housing should be in the mix?

These are big questions for those who live in Brookswood-Fernridge.

It’s been a long trek to get here – literally a decade. The updates to Brookswood’s Official Community Plan began back then, and the first version of that plan was so controversial, it was rejected by the very Township council that had shepherded it through to the final vote. It wouldn’t be approved until 2017.

Between the complexity of the task and the delays imposed by the pandemic, we’re just now getting to see three of the four neighbourhood plans for the area.

READ ALSO: IN OUR VIEW: BC Housing scandal an appalling mess

Those plans have a lot of details. There’s a lot of new work in there. And between the neighbourhood plans and the final decision about Horne Pit, it means the future of Brookswood is being decided.

Residents should come out to have their say, or send letters and emails to their council members.

These kinds of decisions shape neighbourhoods for decades. It wasn’t that long ago that the Brookswood we know today was a hodgepodge of farm lots, or that Walnut Grove and Willoughby were made up of numerous acreages.

Development can be good. B.C. and Canada are growing, and people need to live somewhere. Making sure that’s a good place to live is worth showing up and speaking up for.

– M.C.