Brookswood Neighbourhood Plans Get Sent Back to the Drawing Board

By Mike Harrison

There are few neighbourhood planning sagas as storied as that of Brookswood-Fernridge in the south end of the Township of Langley, and unfortunately, all the work that was done to finally get the new Booth, Fernridge and Rinn neighbourhood plans (linked here) adopted last July was undone by the new provincial housing legislation. At the January 29^th council meeting it was decided that, although there were threats the plans would be repealed entirely, the plans would instead go back to planning staff to be reviewed and amended to ensure compliance with the new provincial housing legislation.

Background

Late last year, Bill 44 was introduced by the Province which set in motion housing legislation that would, among other things, permit up to 4 dwellings on any serviced single-family lot and up to 6 dwellings on a transit-oriented lot. The new Brookswood-Fernridge Neighbourhood Plans (NPs) are unique to most new NP’s in the Fraser Valley in that they contain a significant amount of land designated for single-family development – the density of which has gone up and down in various drafts of the Booth, Fernridge and Rinn NP’s. The implication of the new provincial legislation is that these new single-family lots will now be allowed 4 dwellings, effectively doubling or tripling the anticipated density. It’s no secret Metro Vancouver needs more housing, but this additional density was not accounted for in the recent neighbourhood planning process.

As a result, Mayor and Council voted on January 29^th to send the brand-new Booth, Fernridge and Rinn neighbourhood plans back to planning staff to be thoroughly reviewed to ensure land use, road networks, school requirements, parks, greenways and much more are sufficient to support the additional density. Once the land use planning is complete the engineering services plan will also need to be redone to ensure future water, stormwater drainage, sanitary and transportation infrastructure are built to support the increased population.

When to expect the revised neighbourhood plans

At the January 29^th council meeting Mayor Woodward noted the revised neighbourhood plans are to be completed by the end of Q2, before the summer break. There was no note of the timeline for the engineering services plan.

Given Mayor and council were considering repealing the three Brookswood NPs entirely, putting them back on the drawing board for edits to be complete inside 6 months is good news for the development community and appears to have quelled earlier concerns that development in Brookswood would be delayed again.

How to stay informed

The Township of Langley has a webpage dedicated to the Brookswood-Fernridge neighbourhood plans (linked here) and will likely be posting progress updates periodically.