Last month, Herman Surkis and I did a radio interview with Rick Habgood on CFUV. It focused on Langford issues, and how some of the things happening here are having significance across the whole region. Unlike previous radio interviews where one could not fast-forward (useful if you stop listening, then start again at a later point and want to jump back to where you were), this one is online in a format that lets you do so.

Here is the link:

2008.Mar.11 Hurdle and Surkis interview

- Steven Hurdle -

Late March was a very busy time for Inside Langford articles. Here is part 4 of our March summary. For earlier summaries, see:

January
February part 1
February part 2
March part 1
March part 2
March part 3

A number of people brought their concerns to Langford’s late-March Council meeting, and at least one promise was made early in the meeting and not kept at the end of the meeting.
Tonight’s Council Meeting (2008.03.17)

I noted a theme that seems to run through many things in Langford.
I’ve Noticed a Theme

The Gazette noted that City Hall was “Pouring fuel on the fire,” when bylaw enforcement went after a local resident for putting up signs promoting her political website.
Pouring Fueld on the Fire

Langford surprised everyone, including its critics, when it admitted it doesn’t have repayment terms in writing from the Bear Mountain developers for the taxpayers’ share of the Spencer Road Interchange.
Langford admits it doesn’t have repayment terms in writing

Finally, questions were raised over the fact that construction costs are up but the anticipated cost of the interchange is coming down, and how that could be possible.
Construction Costs are Up, but Interchange Costs are Down… Come again?

- Steven Hurdle -

A reporter has discovered that a few days after Langford Council passed the interchange financing bylaws at the now infamous unadvertised December 27th meeting, and started the process to borrow up to $25 million dollars without public approval, the Bear Mountain Master Partnership made a sizable donation to the BC Liberal party. Monday reporter Jason Youmans discovered that $38,329 has been donated to the BC Liberals by Bear Mountain and that fully 65% of that ($25,000) was donated on Dec. 31st, four days after Langford passed two bylaws that relate in no small way to Bear Mountain.

This is all the stranger given Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon was quoted in the legislature a year and a half earlier, regarding what was at that time called the Bear Mountain Interchange, saying the following:

The interchange largely benefits the developer. They’re creating all the traffic as a result
of their development. Therefore, they would like to see an interchange, and therefore,
most of the benefit will go to the developer….We will require the developer to pay most,
if not all, of the costs.

You know, they’ll make all the arguments — right? “Gee, it creates all this great
economic development. Taxpayers should get into this,” and blah, blah, blah. I remind
them that this is not a government that’s in the business of subsidizing business and that
we will look at every project on this basis: is there a benefit for the Trans-Canada?

Whatever the motivations for the Bear Mountain Master Partnership in donating sizable sums to the BC Liberals during that timeframe, it wasn’t because of how well they were getting along in public. Whatever the reasons, the optics look very bad indeed when you have City Hall rushing through a pair of bylaws at an unadvertised meeting, passing those bylaws on to the province for approval, and then having the developers that “the interchange largely benefits” making a sizable donation to the party in power whose Ministry then has to give final approval to the project.

The bottom line: if it was an innocent donation, then the timing was not well considered; if the donation was not innocent in its intent, then it raises serious questions.

- Steven Hurdle -

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Monday Magazine, April 16

A mountain of politi-cash

Bear Mountain critics have lately been decrying the apparent absence of provincial oversight, both in environmental stewardship of the sensitive ecosystem on which the resort community was built, and in monitoring the political machinations the have ensured its expansion.

Monday couldn’t help but wonder what the price tag is on a blind eye from the province.

A quick scan of the Elections BC political contributions system shows that Read the rest of this entry »

   The following news story asserts, among other things, that Langford has secured an agreement from the TD Bank to refinance our existing $11.4 million in debt.  It interestingly doesn’t have much to say about the proposal to borrow $9.75 more, which is what spurred Langford to go to the bank in the first place.

I would like to know if the terms are the same between our existing MFA debt and the proposed TD debt. Are they both fixed-rates, or is one floating? Are repayment options the same? We need to know whether we’re dealing with an apples-to-apples comparison to know for sure if the, probably very slightly, lower rate we’re getting is truly a good deal for taxpayers, and none of City Hall’s press releases and comments to the media seem to address that.

Another thing asserted in this article is that Langford has “the best tax record of any municipality in the region”. What does he define as the “region”? The West Shore? All of Greater Victoria? From the numbers I’m reading neither seems true, so I can’t come up with a region where our tax record is the best. Our tax record is better than the City of Victoria, but it’s not better than everyone in the Capital Region, and not even better than everyone on the West Shore.

Finally, Young’s constant attacks on the MFA (constant in the sense that he now seems to attack them every time the subject comes up) are of questionable appropriateness. When Colwood councillors recently rejected the idea of looking into amalgamation with Langford, perhaps they didn’t (or correctly sensed that Colwood voters didn’t) want to hitch their wagon to a municipality known for attacking other government bodies, including some of it’s West Shore neighbours (witness Young’s recent attacks on Metchosin’s John Ranns as another example).

- Steven Hurdle -

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Langford pulls plug on Finance Authority, shifts $11.4-million debt to chartered bank

Bill Cleverley, Times Colonist Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this month, Shaw Cable’s “The Daily” carried a report about the purchase of the mineral rights by a protester of the interchange. Local MLA John Horgan and I both commented, as did Len Barrie’s lawyer. Stew Young was invited to participate but declined. I have had requests for it, and the video is now online.

- Steven Hurdle -

The following news piece was from January 21st, 2008, during a contentious Langford Council meeting. The meeting was punctuated by outbursts from the mayor, including him ordering me to “Sit down and shut up,” despite the fact that I wasn’t saying anything, which to this day I don’t understand. The news didn’t carry that clip as it elected to focus on the protesters inside council chambers rather than the petition canvassers. The news did carry a clip, however, of our mayor being terse with a speaker at the podium (“Yeah, well make it quick,”) and acting in a way many wouldn’t consider very professional.

More interesting is the explanation Mayor Young gave at the time for why he felt we as taxpayers needed to take out a loan of up to $25 million on behalf of developers. His explanation: “Why does Langford have to take out the loan? Because we are going to own it, they are going to pay for it. It’s very simple.”

Apparently it wasn’t so simple because I noted in a radio interview that usually the province would take possession of highway improvements, and at a subsequent council meeting our mayor did indeed admit the plan is to eventually turn it over to the province, and that the province is going to own it. And as for whether developers are paying for it completely, that is a matter of some dispute still.

- Steven Hurdle -

I support Langford’s Affordable Housing Programme, but I have a question about it.

Whenever its spoken of by the Mayor or referenced in the media, it’s stated that every 10th unit has to be an affordable housing unit. Mayor Young frequently, as he is quoted doing in the article below, also mentions that it’s not about taking money from developers and finding something to spend it on, it’s about building units directly. These statements aren’t the whole story.

As an observer in Council meetings and Planning & Zoning Committee meetings, I have many times heard it said, in lieu of creating an affordable housing unit, that such-and-such a dollar amount has been donated by the developer to the City’s Affordable Housing Fund. I most frequently hear this in reference to multi-unit buildings, but it’s also heard sometimes for more traditional subdivisions. The wording on Langford’s website says: “The Policy requires that 10% of the homes in any subdivision over 10 units is to be sold as affordable for $160,000.”

The word “subdivision” seems to be the key one, and raises a question (and perhaps a concern) for programme’s future. Only single-family dwelling developments, and only ones with at least 10 units within the development, are generating affordable housing units at this time. There are only so many new subdivisions going in, and Les Bjola himself in a CFAX radio interview earlier this year noted that the majority of West Shore development in the future won’t be of this type.

So I absolutely support the Affordable Housing Programme, and I support is strongly. However, despite the way the programme is pitched as being one that avoids bureaucracy, in the future the developers themselves are telling us to expect the programme to change as the nature of development becomes mostly multi-unit buildings as opposed to traditional subdivisions. At some point Langford will have a pot of money building up and there’s no talk of there being any plan for it, and at that time Langford will have to find ways to make sure there aren’t, as Stew Young puts it below, dollars “that are put into a program and disappear into a bureaucracy.”

I would like to hear from our elected officials what the long-term Affordable Housing Plan is, because the way it’s being pitched is not entirely the current reality, due to the growing prevalence of multi-unit buildings, and it’s certainly not the programme’s future with multi-unit buildings being the norm going forward Read the rest of this entry »

For earlier summaries of significant posts on Inside Langford, select the following links:
January
February part 1
February part 2
March part 1
March part 2

The third week of March began with new civil liberties and censorship concerns being raised.
Protest Signs are Litter in Langford?

Then Mayor Young did something unusual, complaining about Victoria commenting on Langford’s affairs, but then he turned around and made quite the comment on Metchosin’s affairs.
Inter-municipal hypocricy

This week was mostly about the sign bylaw, and there were concerns that it was being selectively enforced against City Hall’s critics.
Selective Enforcement of Sign Bylaw?

Finally, Cheryl McLachlan did an editorial on something very important that she thinks some in Langford Council may have forgotten.
Is there something very important Langford Council has forgotten?

- Steven Hurdle -

Now there’s talk about pedestrian overpasses as a consequence of the Spencer Road Interchange. I am unaware of any talk of that up until now, not at any of the open houses nor in any of the documents I could find at Langford’s Spencer Road Interchange hub.

The original plan had the following to say about the Spencer Road Interchange regarding pedestrians and cyclists:

“Spencer Road Interchange will:
- Serve areas north and south of Highway 1 equally – projected traffic split is 50% north & 50% south
- Help to relieve Veterans Memorial Parkway congestion
- Provides a safer Highway 1 crossing for pedestrians and cyclists”

This announcement leaves us unclear about what the plan for cyclists is, especially with recent reductions in the anticipated cost of the interchange opening up questions as to whether the design is being scaled back.

I find it striking that City Hall has announced they’re looking into this now. Why was this not considered at an early stage since there is broad agreement in the community that pedestrian and cycling infrastructure is important? Or, if it was considered at an earlier stage, why are we only hearing about it now? It is frustrating that the plan keeps changing, now so long since the last public open house and so far after the public was invited to comment on the plan, much like the financing changed from the developers paying directly at the last open house to Langford taxpayers loaning them $9.75 million under the current plan.

One of the questions that comes to mind with the imminent construction of the interchange and subsequent closure of Spencer Road’s access to the highway is, what happens if the province doesn’t sign on for building the overpasses, or if construction is delayed well after the interchange’s completion? Do pedestrians (and cyclists?) lose out?

And will the developers be covering Langford’s share of these new pedestrian overpasses, since the building of them is necessitated by the closure of Spencer Road?

- Steven Hurdle -

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Langford seeks win [sic] overpasses

Bill Cleverley, Times Colonist
Published: Friday, April 11, 2008

Langford Mayor Stew Young would like to see at least two pedestrian overpasses over the Trans-Canada Highway to link north and south Langford. Read the rest of this entry »

I found developer Jim Hartshorne’s comments at the recent Planning and Zoning meeting quite interesting. He raises an interesting concern about the community-wide mixed-use that the OCP proposes.

- Steven Hurdle -

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Langford OCP touts density, sustainability

By Edward Hill – Goldstream News Gazette – April 09, 2008

Downtown Langford could be in line for highrise buildings and greater density with the 2008 official community plan, the City’s guiding document for the next two decades. Read the rest of this entry »