While much of the talk at Monday night’s Planning and Zoning meeting was about carriage houses, and the elephant in the room was the new gated communities on Bear Mountain, the topic discussed that garnered the most animated discussion of Westhills’ several proposals was their proposal to allow Westhills to create bachelor suites in their development.

Ryan McKenzie and Jim Hartshorne, there to represent the Westhills development to the committee, both agreed that they had no actual plans to create bachelor suites, but that they wanted to be able to should they see a golden opportunity to do so. At present they’re not allowed to as Langford’s secondary suite bylaw requires a suite to have a minimum of three rooms.

Committee member Norma Stewart noted that there appeared to be no definition, in the staff report on bachelor suites, of what a kitchen is. A kitchen “sometimes can be a sink and a hot plate, are there standards on what’s in a kitchen?”

Langford City Planner Matthew Baldwin answered that the bylaw only specifies that there must be Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, City Hall is closed for the Labour Day holiday. Langford Council has an unusual Tuesday meeting instead of their normal Monday meeting, with an agenda that’s only 138 pages. It’s been many months since they’ve had an agenda that’s anywhere near that small, with recent agendas being routinely 200+, and the worst of them being 967 pages.

There are several development proposals on Tuesday’s agenda, several reports from staff and committees, and a presentation by the Greater Victoria Velodrome Association that is likely to either be anti-climactic, or more politically charged than ever before, due to Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, an eight foot fence was erected around the velodrome, despite the track-cycling season still being in full-swing. West Shore Parks and Rec (WSPR) commissioned Aon Risk Control to assess whether the velodrome was dangerous or not, and concluded it was.

Interestingly, the bulk of the risks identified by the risk consultant are not new, and date back to the velodrome’s creation for the 1994 Commonwealth Games. Issues such as the moveable goal posts in the (previously closed) infield, and the lack of a barrier between the track and the turf, are reportedly among the alleged identified risks, features of the velodrome and its artificial turf infield since the facility opened.

The Juan de Fuca Velodrome is considered to be in good shape by those using it, who say Read the rest of this entry »

In a previous article, I talked a bit about Westhills seeking Leadership in Energey and Environmental Design Neighbourhood Development (LEED ND) certification. While LEED has traditionally been associated with high building standards, LEED ND is a new approach that rewards primarily how neighbourhoods are laid out. Westhills has agreed to live up LEED ND rules, but there are varying levels of certification and they are proposing a raft of changes to try to get a better score and, ultimately, a higher certification. The intention is to make higher levels of LEED certification a desirable thing for developers and consumers alike, so the financial implcations of Westhills receiving a good LEED rating might be significant to developments in the future.

Under LEED ND rules, less parking gets you more points towards a higher LEED rating. As a consequence of this, Westhills has asked for permission to offer less parking for the forthcoming phases of their development than Langford’s bylaws would normally allow, with some houses getting only one parking spot. Westhills representatives have indicated that they want to communicate to potential homebuyers up front that parking in Westhills will be less than it is elsewhere.
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The bulk of the time during Monday night’s Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Committee meeting was spent discussing Westhill’s new proposals, helped by the most controversial news of the night (Bear Mountain’s creation of gated communities) having been taken off the agenda at the last minute.

Ryan McKenzie of Westhills Land Corp. presented on behalf of the development, and explained that as Westhills had become more familiar with the principles of LEED ND (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighbourhood Development) they had realised that some changes to their plans would increase their LEED certification score.

The proposals are to add what Westhills calls “housing diversity”, to minimise standard lot size, and to reduce parking requirements, Mr. McKenzie explained to the committee. We will discuss Westhills parking proposals and the reaction from the committee towards basement suites in the coming days. Today’s post will look at the other elements of “housing diversity” that were discussed.

On that point, Westhills proposed to Read the rest of this entry »

The Langford Fire Department has removed restrictions on small campfires that they had put in place a month ago, in light of recent rain and a forecast showing more as of press time.

Comments on a previous article on this topic Read the rest of this entry »

The request for permission to narrow roads to allow for security gates onto three neighbourhoods on Bear Mountain has been put off for the time being at the request of the applicant. LGB9 and the Bear Mountain Master Partnership had requested approval after the fact for three gates that had already been erected, as well as a fourth neighbourhood, and for permission to narrow roads in the future for the purpose of creating more gated communities in additional Skirt Mountain neighbourhoods.

Langford City Planner Matthew Baldwin indicated at Monday night’s Planning and Zoning Committee meeting that the applicant had requested the delay in order “to Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight’s agenda for the Planning and Zoning meeting has an interesting detail with regard to the variance request for gates for Bear Mountain communities. The wording of the variance request is for “Four or More” gates. Whether this is just to keep the possibility of adding more in the future despite no plans to do so, or whether more gated communities beyond the existing three and the proposed fourth are planned, is not known at this time. None of the four neighbourhoods appear to require more than one gate each to be gated off from the rest of the community. Here is the full text.

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Westhills, the 5950 unit development proposed for the South and South-East sides of Langford Lake, has some proposals of interest for Monday’s Planning and Zoning meeting. Specifically, Westhills is interested in the following amendments:

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There’s a request for a variance to create gates for four communities on Bear Mountain. The staff report on this issue, attached to the agenda for Monday night’s Planning and Zoning (P&Z) meeting is clearly conflicted on what to recommend to the committee. City Hall staff note that the new Official Community Plan recommends an open and welcoming community, on the one hand, but advocates for security on the other, and that gated communities are seen as working both for and against those overriding principles by advocates and detractors. Further complicating the issue is the fact that three of the four gated communities have actually already been built, and these variances are being requested after the fact in those cases. But the facts to consider don’t stop there.

City Hall staff note that the gates prevent access to public parkland Read the rest of this entry »