The Langford Coalition has produced a reader’s guide to tonight’s Langford Council Meeting. The agenda is 227 pages, and has a number of items of interest in it (such as a new plan. The reader’s guide will assist people in zeroing in on the pages that interest them, and corrects the page numbering (which differs between the scanned-in pages and the page numbers in the electronic document). Highlights of the document include: Read the rest of this entry »

At the beginning of Monday’s Planning and Zoning meeting, the agenda was modified by meeting Chair Lillian Szpak to add an innocuous-sounding “Text Amendment to Zoning Bylaw”. At the end of the meeting, it turned out to be a far more interesting proposal than its name suggested. And while there has been a limited amount of media coverage of the issue, there are elements of this story that have not yet been reported.

The proposal was to limit where stores selling “adult paraphenalia” can be zoned, and it was added to the agenda at the last minute at the request of the City Clerk Administrator. The initial proposal was to not allow them to be zoned within “half a mile” of schools, parks, and recreational facilities. Immediately upon the proposal being detailed to the committee, visible surprise showed on the faces of many of the committee members. Read the rest of this entry »

The City of Langford is looking at establishing a “Legacy Policy”. This has been highlighted by the Communities in Bloom organisation as something that would get our community more points in the annual Communities in Bloom rankings. A legacy policy is one that is designed to encourage and reward donations to civic beautification. Examples of this would include someone donating something as simple as a park bench (that perhaps they would dedicate to a loved-one) all the way up to a fountain or other major improvement.

This policy is going to make the rounds from committee to committee, and each committee will probably consider different aspects of it, but its first stop was Planning and Zoning. The discussion in P&Z had an interesting element to it, as much of the exchange focused on who should be responsible for maintaining the donation, City Hall or the person/group making the donation. Deciding that didn’t prove as simple as it may have seemed on the face of it. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most talked-about elements of Langford’s new Official Community Plan (OCP) was it’s broad-based focus on mixed-use buildings (such as residential/commercial, commercial/industrial, etc.). The first mixed-use development since the OCP was adopted was presented at the recent Planning and Zoning meeting, and there were a few interesting elements discussed. Read the rest of this entry »

At Monday night’s meeting, a developer spoke to the Planning and Zoning committee expressing his concern about connections to the Galloping Goose trail. The proposed development is at 3326 and 3328 Happy Valley Road, and City Hall staff had asked him to provide a connection to the adjoining Galloping Goose trail. The developer expressed his concern about this, noting that the 2.5 metre-wide pathway staff were asking for might reduce the number of units he could build on the properties by one.

The committee is made up of approximately 1/3 city councilors/school district representatives, 1/3 citizens, and 1/3 developers. As is common during the summer months, a number of committee members were absent. Read the rest of this entry »

The TC is reporting today on Langford’s (and the CRD’s) first fee-simple (strata-free) townhouse proposal, as Inside Langford reported yesterday, suggesting there’s region-wide interest in the proposal. This fits with comments made Monday night that there will be more like this to come.

That wasn’t the only issue discussed at Monday’s Planning and Zoning meeting, there’s another (potentially more controversial) issue that was added to the agenda during the meeting. Watch for coverage of it on Inside Langford later this week.

– Steven Hurdle -

Last night, the Planning and Zoning Committee looked at Langford’s first “fee Simple” (ie. strata-free) townhouse project. Having not met for five weeks, there was a relatively lengthy agenda that lasted an unusually long time, approximately two hours. A lot of this time was taken up discussing the “rowhouses” (aka “brownstones”) that are characteristic of “fee simple” housing. Langford’s first proposal for this kind of development is at 980 Fire Hall Creek Road (in the Happy Valley/Sooke Road area), and it was recommended for approval by the committee, complete with a covenant to recognise the pre-existence of the South Vancouver Island Rangers shooting range. It wasn’t unanimous, however, as a citizen member of the committee raised concerns about this development contributing to the elimination of commercial space (and with it jobs) in the neighbourhood. Read the rest of this entry »

The first Planning and Zoning committee meeting since June 9th is happening Monday night at 7PM. The agenda is now posted on Langford’s agenda hub, where it will stay until the meeting occurs and then will be removed.

It’s a heavy-ish agenda as P&Z meetings go, perhaps due to the late-June meeting being cancelled. The agenda addresses a series of proposed development variances to make smaller lots, and a proposed mixed-use development (residential/commercial) on Hoffman near Boston Pizza. Most interesting of all is that there is a proposal in south Langford for a “Fee-Simple” townhouse development. Fee-simple is strata-less multi-unit towhouse-style developments, also known as “rowhouses” or “brownstones”. It will be interesting to see how this first fee-simple development is received by the committee, the council, and the community.

– Steven Hurdle -

The Times Colonist ran an article yesterday on a report entitled The Langford Rebellion. The report is interesting because, for the most part, it quotes people on the issues it addresses (a similar format to the CBC documentary Canada: A People’s History, for those who are familiar with it). Also interesting is the document quotes people both in favour of and against the issues discussed. Some of the quotes come from people who have made comments on articles on Inside Langford, which was a bit of a surprise.

Those interested in reading what all the fuss is about, can read the article here.

– Steven Hurdle -

I work in Langford’s downtown core, and we had recently noted that Langford seemed to have installed a new WiFi service, but that it was inaccessible. According to a post on Langford’s website, that reportedly has changed. Here is the press release below.

- Steven Hurdle -

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Langford launches Wi-Fi hotspots in downtown core!

The City of Langford is excited to announce a free community Wi-Fi network in the downtown core. This new network runs along Goldstream Avenue between Jacklin Road and Veterans Memorial Parkway. Read the rest of this entry »