Mayor Eric Woodward set out a long list of projects underway, and talked about managing the community’s growth at his first State of the Township address on Thursday, May 2.
The event, modelled after similar annual mayoral addresses in cities like Surrey, saw Woodward address about 400 people in the Langley Events Centre’s main meeting room.
The event had Janet Brown of Global News as a master of ceremonies, and Woodward was introduced by Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, who took a few good-natured potshots at Langley for having higher property taxes than his community.
Woodward ran through a list of the many things he and his Contract With Langley (CWL) slate ran on in the 2022 elections, including finishing Yorkson Community Park, cutting the time to get a simple building permit for a house, updating development plans, and a host of other issues.
“Finally, 208th Street is set to be finished next year, after how many years of staff reports?” Woodward said, referring to the work underway to widen the busy road to four lanes through its whole length.
The Township has been adding about 2,200 units a year, for an increase in the population of around 4,000 to 5,000 residents, every year for the past five years, Woodward said in answer to a question about growth.
Compact development would allow the Township to keep its infrastructure costs low relative to population, and to keep its property taxes among the lowest for a municipality of its size, Woodward said.
He went through a litany of statistics, starting with the Township’s burgeoning population.
“Staff estimate that we’ve passed 150,000 people this past January, with 55 to 65,000 people in Willoughby alone.”
The Township is now the sixth-largest municipality in Vancouver, out of 21 cities, and the eighth largest in B.C.
“We are not a small town anymore, and its time to stop thinking like one and acting like one.”
By 2040, the projected population is 220,000 people. By 2050 it will be around 250,000 people.
That means about 35,000 more dwelling units will be needed by 2040, about 2,300 per year at the current rate.
That doesn’t include any upgrades for the Brookswood-Fernridge area under denser provincial regulations, or areas near transit
There are 3,300 units currently under construction, 7,880 more are fully approved or approved in principle.
About 65 per cent of those are apartments, and 23 per cent are townhouses or rowhomes.
Woodward said during a question and answer session at the end of the meeting that the Township is started a process of phasing development in Willoughby. It’s intended to allow infrastructure to catch up to growth.
“Not necessarily slowing down, but not accelerating more than it already is,” he said.
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Woodward also discussed a number of provincial issues related to growth, including the construction of new schools and expanding Langley Memorial Hospital. He noted that the Township has five school sites ready for construction when the province approves new schools.
On the hospital, he said that expansion of LMH is on the province’s radar, and local officials are meeting with them to encourage investment in hospitals South of the Fraser.
He also said that an Arts Performance Theatre is part of the long-term timeline for the Langley Events Centre complex, tentatively to be a 1,600-seat facility.
The event touched on a number of other issues from expansion of business and industrial lands along Fraser Highway to Bus Rapid Transit to the Township’s relationship with Langley City.
The event is expected to become an annual one.