Category Archives: Surrey Langley White Rock

Back in Langley City

April 19, 2019 By in Surrey Langley White Rock Leave a comment
Fraseropolis Langley City square

The central square in downtown Langley, where they have music and such when it is not raining

This is a promising urban village in Metro Vancouver’s South-of-Fraser, with a wide array of locally owned businesses and housing choices. The arrival of Skytrain, connecting with Surrey and Vancouver, is anticipated sometime in the 2020s, and this will bring new population growth and business activity.

We reported on the City of Langley’s urban centre in September 2013, and scored it at a relatively high 76.0 as an urban village despite the presence of too many car-dependent strip malls. At that time, the City’s government was working to achieve a greener feel and continued housing development in the downtown area. I would say they have made some progress. City policies have also discouraged chain stores and restaurants from locating in the core. Continue reading →

A new SkyTrain plan for Surrey

February 5, 2019 By in Surrey Langley White Rock, Transit, Skytrain, LRT Tags: 2 Comments
Surrey-Langley SkyTrain route fraseropolis

Route for the proposed SkyTrain extension from Surrey Central to downtown Langley, posted by TransLink in early 2019. The former light rail route from Guildford to Newton has been demoted to express bus status.

From 2011 until last year, city government in Surrey (population 500,000) worked diligently on a plan for light rail transit. This would be the first at-grade LRT system in British Columbia; similar systems are in service in Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa. By 2018, $1.65 billion in funding from regional, provincial and federal sources was in place, with construction teams to be selected in 2019.

But a new municipal government elected in October 2018 moved quickly to kill the Surrey LRT scheme. LRT, according to an active group of opponents, was too slow, and it would get in the way of cars and trucks. SkyTrain moves more people over longer distances, and it has big city prestige. Continue reading →

Trouble in Brookswood

June 3, 2018 By in Surrey Langley White Rock, Urban Life and Local Government, Urban Villages Project Tags: , , Leave a comment

 

Brookswood, a classic 1950s subdivision in the Township of Langley, has been locked for years in a dispute over the pace of development. It sits just minutes from malls and highways, but it has a deep country feel.

In late 2017, on the third try in four years, Township Council approved a plan that contemplates significant population growth in the Brookswood-Fernridge planning area. From fewer than 14,000 residents, the population is supposed to grow to 39,000 when projected development is complete. In percentage terms, Langley is growing faster than any other major municipality in Greater Vancouver, and it needs land for medium-density housing. The question here is whether the preservation of an old, sprawling suburb might be justified because of its special character. Continue reading →

Apartment development in Surrey: crowdfunding as a doorway to home ownership

March 18, 2018 By in Planning and Development, Surrey Langley White Rock, Uncategorized Tags: , , 1 Comment

Tower construction seen from alongside the proposed new development on 104 Avenue, Surrey

I recently joined our friend David Plug on a real estate investors’ bus tour around Surrey Central. The tour’s purpose was to encourage passengers to commit at least $25,000 in financing for a proposed apartment housing complex.

With a large number of smallish investments, the development company hopes to raise at least $7.5 million, a big chunk of the estimated $13.5 million cost of purchasing land. The project prospectus lays out three scenarios. In the minimum scenario, under present City of Surrey zoning, the builders would construct 210 units in a 6-storey wood-frame complex; with revised zoning, they might achieve 359 units, and a higher rate of return to investors. Continue reading →