Though there doesn’t appear to be anything about it on the City of Langford’s website, as of this writing, the annual Mayor’s New Year Levee has reportedly been canceled. A levee is defined by Wikipedia as “a New Year’s Day social event hosted by the Governor General of Canada, the Lieutenant-Governors, military establishments, municipalities, and other institutions.”

Jack FM radio discussed the cancelation during their morning show today, and suggested it had been canceled due to actions by protesters in the past. If so, that is a strange reason, because the acrimony over the interchange and other things has largely been put behind us by the election (one of the reasons I advocated for a vote on the interchange financing in the first place, so that the people could decide and the debate effectively ended). The only actions of protest in recent times has been the defacing and theft of political signs, and that affected challengers to the status quo much more strongly than it did the incumbent candidates. The situation is stranger still in that the Mayor hasn’t attended his own levee in Langford for several consecutive years running, and perhaps that played into their decision on whether to hold it or not.

There are no agendas for meetings at City Hall for a second week in a row, so things have been quiet on the Langford news front. There is a note on the City of Langford’s website, however, that they have made arrangements with All-Fun/Western Speedway to let people dump snow off if you have snow you need to be rid of and a method of transporting it.

At the last Council meeting, there was an interesting exchange about a proposed mixed-use development across Hoffman from the Reflections development that’s taking shape along Veteran’s Memorial Parkway. The discussion boiled down to one of traffic, and an offer to covenant the existing character of the neighbourhood if all neighbours agreed. Read the rest of this entry »

Who was appointed to the City of Langford’s many committees is revealed. The appointments were done at the inaugural meeting of the new council on Monday Dec. 1, 2008, but for most people in attendance, including one past citizen member who wondered aloud if he had been reappointed, who was appointed was not disclosed publicly. However, with the holding of this last council meeting Dec. 15, 2008 we have the minutes of that past inaugural council meeting included in the agenda for the Dec. 15th meeting. The minutes note the appointments were circulated to the council in an attached Council and Committee Chart. Unfortunately the agenda has been taken down, since the Dec. 15th meeting has happened, and the minutes for the Dec. 1 meeting are not yet up on the Langford website, so the full list of appointments is included at the end of this article. If you know where to look, another other source for this information is on the Langford website in the section Mayor & Council, but you have to scroll down past the write-ups on the Mayor & Council, to get to the updated committee appointments.

Many of the committees, with some reworking of which councilor chairs or vice chairs, are the same members who were already serving. Interestingly, retired councilor John Goudy continues his lengthy service to the City of Langford by serving as the citizen representative on the Read the rest of this entry »

Lights are shining brightly this year on Crystalview Drive for a very special reason.

As suggested by the Inside Langford contributor Teresa, a news story well worthy of mention is seven year old Jessica Liggatt, who attends Crystalview Elementary School, and is fighting a rare type of brain cancer at Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. The story is also about how her friends and neighbours back in Langford are rallying and showing their support for her and her family.

The Goldstream News Gazette article by Edward Hill explains why there is a donation box for Jessica outside the Norris’ home. The Norris family’s light show and the entire neighborhood are raising money for Jessica. “This year is for Jessica. She can’t come home for Christmas,” said Evan Norris, mastermind behind the kaleidoscope of Christmas lights synchronized to music, transmitted on 89.1 FM, at 2692 and 2689 Crystalview Dr.

If you can, check out the lights, and drop buy a donation or a card of care and support for Jessica and her family.

Monday Dec. 15th, 2008 Council Meeting is lengthy and the agenda is broken into 6 sections for ease of downloading. And with all the snow, who knows if it will go forward, since it has something for everyone, and people should have a real opportunity to attend. The one page agenda has corresponding page numbers that sometimes help find items in the full agenda, but this time it is more confusing. Sections 1-4, are ignored in the page numbering. Page 1 happens in Section 5 of the full Council Meeting agenda with adoption of Minutes from the past meeting. So, here’s a quicker “where to find what,” based on the pages of the PDF documents. There is a lot of get through, from changes and corrections to the OCP covering definitions, maps and even cell towers, a note on a correspondence indicating Langford might be opting out of CRD sewage treatment, a letter explaining the resolution of the Highlands Regional Growth Strategy amendment, prices for using facilities at City Centre Park, 4 Public Hearings: 3349, 3355, and 3361 Happy Valley Road; 689 Hoffman Avenue R2 to the MUIA (Mixed Use Residential Commercial); 735 Massie Drive; and lot density, and parking requirement changes to Westhills or to all of Langford. Also Council and Committee appointments, Development Variance Permits for 2899 Kettle Lake Dr., 3326 and 3328 Happy Valley Road. The possibility of a motor vehicle branch in Langford on Goldstream Ave. Planning & Zoning Committee recommendations to Council regarding proposed developments, including 1018 Loma Linda Drive Read the rest of this entry »

The agenda is up for Monday night’s Langford Council meeting. The sizeable document has been broken into 6 parts, and I have spent over an hour attempting to decipher it but, as yet, I cannot make the page numbers work. There also seems to be some duplication in parts. In the past they have generally offered large agendas as either a single file or as a collection of smaller files simultaneously, offering readers a choice, but this time the choice is not on offer.

I will attempt to draft a reading guide to the agenda this weekend to help people scan for things of interest to them. In the meanwhile, I’d encourage people to take a look for themselves

In Thursday’s Times Colonist, the last page of the “A” section of the paper has an ad for Langford. Some of the language in it is similar to what we saw in posters that have appeared around town recently for the Festival of Lights. If the paper’s still in your recycle bin, it would be worth digging it out to take a look. It may be the only time you get to see our mayor with a Santa hat.

Last night’s Planning and Zoning meeting was a marathon session, lasting about 2 hours and 45 minutes, one of the longest, and one of the best attended, in years. It will be reported on in detail in the coming days, but highlights include:

- developer Malcolm Hall asking for several corrections of what he believed were inaccuraties in the documents presented at the meeting

- one of the major developments proposed was actually voted down, a rarity in Langford Council Chambers

- one of the proponents for a development proposal was absent, and the person who did the presentation on his behalf joked he was on vacation in a warmer clime “sipping tequila” instead of making the presentation himself

It was an interesting meeting and will be reported on, broken down by topic, in the coming days.

Tonight’s Planning and Zoning meeting has some unique issues to discuss, including:

- a church is proposing to move to and develop a “Greenbelt 1″ area to make five buildings include a Sunday school and two small assisted living buildings,

- a proposed development on Peatt, beside the “Blackberry”, is requesting some significant variances.

- a development proposes turning an “Agriculture 1″ area into 36 residential units on Loma Linda (near Bilston Creek), and dedicating a portion of the property with a 20% slope as park,

I’m quite interested in the church’s proposal, as it proposes a dramatic shift in the activities the church will be involved in.

In the second proposal listed above, the proposal is to “Vary the front yard setback from the required 7.5 m (25 ft ) to 1.23 m (4.03 ft),” “Vary the rear yard setback from the required 7.5 m (25ft ) to 3.60 m (11.70ft),” “Vary the side yard setbacks ( north and south) from the required 3m (10 ft ) to 1.5 m
(5.0 ft),” and Vary the maximum height of the principal building from the required 9 m (30 ft) to 10
m (33 ft).” The staff report notes that the developer help a public meeting and that the neighbours were reported to be generally in favour of the proposal.

The comments from Staff in the staff report are sometimes interesting. An example of that is in the third proposed development mentioned above, where Langford staff note “The proposed residential development is of higher density than the South Langford Neighbourhood Plan has conceptualized for the specific area.” That staff report also notes the following: Read the rest of this entry »