One the major problems that we face as a community in Langley is that our local government and administration is corruptible..

There is only one reason why this OCP process has gone this far: GREED.

The Brookswood ∞ OCP Update

Brookswood OCP No Vote

The council No vote was the right thing. It was rushed and the document really is full of holes that will be exploited by developer greed.

Jack's vote never really counts since he ALWAYS votes FOR DEVELOPMENT.  He's still trying to push it through.

Maybe the council should now wait until late September when everyone is not away on vacation. Or is this summertime OCP timing by design?

There still isn't any trust guys. We've learned.

Mr. Fox's Perpetual OCP Machine...

TOL Back-Room Bias

Got Trees?

"Protect the natural environment..."

The policy in the proposed Community Plan that allows neighbourhood plans to consider a range of 4,000 ft2 to 7,000 ft2 lots in the Single Family 3 designation (in specific areas or under certain conditions) supports a number of the Plan’s Guiding Principles:

• #2 (protect the natural environment) by providing opportunities to cluster new housing on a portion of a development site to protect natural features, including trees, on the other part of the site.

"Protect the natural environment"...

Let's make something clear here.  Every house built is going to make the environment worse.  It will tear another hole in the ecology, create more open space and less animals, less trees, more carbon, more warming, more solid waste, less room, more people siphoning off the water from the Brookswood aquifer.  It protects nothing, but humans, and there is already 7.2 billion of them on this earth.

Ha! Protect the environment??  What BS!!

This statement is right up there with the AECOM consultant's comment that "development would be good for the aquifer" during the very first open house years ago. That comment spurred me to help protect our beautiful community from greed.

Once again those in charge of the Brookswood OCP Planning have stepped in it.

Once again, at the last possible moment, they have slipped in a change that wasn’t on the roster.

This is what triggered all the outrage last time.

Once again they think the residents are fools, but we aren’t.

This is our community!

You will listen to us, not those who don’t live here!

OCP FOOD FOR THOUGHT...

The following will be protested:

1. Density levels being more than Fort Langley and Murrayville.

2. Willoughby building practices including row housing and apartments.

3. Lot sizes less than 7000 square feet.

4. Any attempt to slip in 4000 square foot lots as 'Back fill' or On Site Density Transfers.

4. Brookswood-Fernridge borders being changed (without proper door to door public consultation) pushing Fernridge north well into the borders of Brookswood.

5. Widening of roads to 4 lanes which will destroy the character of the community.

6. Widening of 42nd, 40th 36th and 24th Avenue beyond the width they are now.

7. Town centres that go beyond the size and character of the Brookswood town centre as it stands not just add elements that emulates the look of a town centre while adding density like done by developers in Willoughby.

8. Non responsible and greedy developer practices.

9. Any attempt to change our wonderful, natural, community into a people packing, property racketeering, pocket padding, developer/planner playground like Willoughby.

This is our community not yours, not the planner's, not some planning consultant's, not the developers.

Respect us and the place we live!

Just because some plan has been created doesn't mean we stop - nothing is written in stone.

WE WILL STAND AGAINST BROOKSWOOD/FERNRIDGE BEING TURNED INTO ANOTHER HIGH DENSITY, DEVELOPER-CONTROLLED, WILLOUGHBY MESS. THIS IS OUR COMMUNITY! DID YOU NOT HEAR US THE LAST TIME??

OCP REDUX: the development serving questionnaire.

As a 'supporter' of development you can answer the questionnaire but if you aren't a supporter you can't.

Examples:

This community plan update will accommodate population growth in the Undeveloped Areas of Brookswood-Fernridge. (remember when the Frose gang expanded the 'Undeveloped' Areas to more than half of the community) Fig 1  When planning for population growth, defining and locating “centres” that will accommodate a large portion of population growth is a major strategy.  Centres are compact places that offer a mix of commercial uses, residential uses, and community amenities.  They function as the “heart” of the larger community.

Question 3:

To accommodate growth, Brookswood-Fernridge will need to have multiple centres that vary in size and scale. A community-serving centre would be the largest, providing a broader range of shops and services that serve the needs of the whole community. Neighbourhood-serving centres, would be relatively (relative to what?) modest in size and scale, consisting of smaller shops and services that serve the day-to-day needs of the local neighbourhood. 

Idea: Given that the area around 200 Street and 32 Avenue is relatively central and accessible to the whole community, a new community-serving centre should be considered near 200 Street and 32 Avenue.

I like this idea

I'm open to this idea, but need more details

I don't like this idea

Why not ask:  Do you want a shopping and service area built in the 200 Street and 32nd Avenue area?

Be clear and don't try to phrase things to your advantage, or for the purpose of future plausible deniability - even if you stick the word 'IDEA:' out front.

Remember, a development skewed OCP Planning process is what caused all the problems last time.

Considering the increased land mass of the 'Undeveloped Areas' this will become a greater concern to a greater number of people this time.

Is the hand picked Frose dream team taking us down the same road?

FIG 1.

WE DO NOT WANT TENT CITIES IN LANGLEY!!

Capeesh??

You already dropped the ball on meaningful measures against drugs and vagrancy while you 'studied' the issues.

Don't let this get worse.

Building developers are reactive and megalomaniacal.

"Building developers are reactive and megalomaniacal. Just like Trump."
--- Washinghton Post April 8th by Faroll Hamer

Very interesting article in yesterday's Washington Post.

What do you think?

From my experience most local developers are professional, courteous and very respectful like Quadra Homes as an example. They don't attack community groups or their thought leaders, municipal council decision makers, or the average tax payers at public hearings or on social media. Following are some of the most provocative quotes in this article.

"They view themselves as victims. They see regulations as getting in the way of what’s good for economic development and society as a whole, and believe governments exist to pick on them. Everything they do is for us, because they are building places for us to live, shop or work."

"The scary side is that they sometimes brush aside legal obstacles to what they see as a worthy goal. They know the difference between right and wrong, but often they aren’t particularly worried about the letter of the law."

"While tactically inventive, they are strategically unimaginative. They’re not people who enjoy creative thinking or the big picture; they’ll build the same building over and over, but they are endlessly flexible about achieving each project. It’s all about the next step. In negotiations they’re willing to get only part of what they want because they know they’re going to come back and get another part and another, until before you know it, they have it all. They’re into getting their nose under the tent."

"They have no interest in ideology. They value loyalty over principle — you’re either in the circle or not — and they’re usually generous to loyal friends...."

“...since they identify their projects with the general social welfare, they tend to be a little megalomaniacal. Almost any attention you give them is good. They don’t mind being teased, but pointed criticism is unacceptable.”

“And it’s when a developer encounters political resistance that his sense of victimhood really kicks in. Trump has called himself a “counter-puncher”; once offended, he reacts with little restraint. But Twitter insults are pretty trivial.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reactive-inconsistent-megalomaniacal-trump-fits-the-developer-profile/2016/04/08/ec302270-fb54-11e5-886f-a037dba38301_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c:homepage/story

When are Community 'Improvements' not Improvements...

...when the residents of a community don't want or need them...

'Improvements' such as road widening, intersection upgrades, destruction of parks and Township owned vacant land (that are well used by community kids to play in), and some tax payer funded new and expensive facilities that don't always improve the lives of the community, and have to pay for forever.

In fact road widening (such as proposed for 40th Ave.) for the most part just improve the lives of commuters and residents from other areas while destroying the character of a community that residents love. Also making it harder to get from point A to point B due to new medians, barricades and blockages, and shaving off and fencing off parks and school grounds just so people driving through the area can have a passing lane, when many residents just want some sort of traffic calming through the streets they call home.  You are just destroying communities while you think you're 'improving' them.

Imagine a four lane highway going past YOUR front yard on 52nd with a major intersection at 248th St.  I bet that wouldn't feel good...

I call it Politician 'Bronze Plaque Fever' or 'Surreyfication' - look at what all the sprawling 'Improvements' have done for that city.  You have a good example of what not to do just to the west of us, if only you would stop listening so much to the developers and instead honestly listen to the community residents BEFORE the survey tape goes up.  After all we are people you must respect and not just planning board markers.

You can't call it 'improvement' when you're shoving it down people's throats...

Have too much tax money? Put it towards building sidewalks traffic calming and maintenance, or study what basements do to a community given the probability of illegal suites and the attending stress on utilities, and congestion.  Just a suggestion there.  :)

Better yet, these days while the Township is gorging themselves on property tax, put the windfall into investments so you can actually gives the residents a Tax Break when a recession next kicks in again instead of raising the taxes like you did the last time.

A Promise for the Protection of Brookswood/Fernridge

The world overpopulating is bad for all of us.

'Pack em in' like they did in Willoughby IS NOT a good policy for Brookswood/Fernridge.

We will always oppose urbanization and maximum population growth (maximum developer profit) in the area.

The developers cannot have their way like they did with Willoughby.

Yes it seems our mayor has been bought, but it doesn't mean he and his buddies can get their way. They will have to be responsible and moderate in their approach.

The developers and builders must reject their base profit making instinct and use a more European, well planned, lower population approach that leaves most of the trees and land untouched instead of the slash-and-dash, English row housing, condos-and-townhouses-everywhere-blocking-out-the-sun approach that is not in keeping with the natural state of the area.

The residents wont stand for anything else.

I cannot believe that we have to deal with the magnitude of crap that is being built in Langley, especially after the poor example that Surrey provided us over the last several decades.

Come on!  You could have done much, much better.   

Poorly done people, poorly done.

Question: Is changing the boundaries of a community without public referendum or consultation legal?

Pocket Politician - Definition

1. Having a political leader at your disposal to help further your own agenda. Usually involves kickbacks, the promise of present or future perks or peddling of influence due to political donations.

2. Buying politicians.

3. To keep a politician 'in your back pocket.'

So they want to push north to 32nd east of 208th. Well that's just pushy.

This is my neighbourhood.  I was going to just watch and encourage responsible development.  But now...

Builders of Harmony

This is excerpt from book I recently read.

'Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds'  Olds upon discovering the English countryside:

"I realized that the trees and fields, the buildings and barns, the small villages and narrow winding roads all fit together seamlessly, blended by time into harmony.  No one thing intruded on each other.  Each fit the scene as though a natural process had ordained symmetry."

Kind of sounds like what Brookswood and it's trees have become over time.

This is what I want Developers and Planners to realize.

Development doesn't have to be Progressively Invasive.

You don't have to destroy the character of a community by widening beautiful two lane country roads everywhere.  You don't have to crush and tear things apart to build, and you don't have to bulldoze everything and then leave a few sprigs behind in your wake after replacing every tree on a lot with a 'Unit.'  You can be more than just builders plugging homes and apartments into the earth, you can be sculptors creating something you can be proud of, and finally rid yourselves of that nagging feeling of discontent over what you are slapping together now.

My dad was a builder.  He and his crew made many of the cottages and homes in Ontario's Cottage Country.  Today's builders jokingly say they hate him for it is always much harder to tear apart the places he has built for they were always solid and true, and he guaranteed that not a mouse could squeeze into them.  Looking back at him I can say that he was a craftsman in every sense of the word, he built structures to fit with the land and he maintained that harmony.  He built around, not through.  He could teach much to todays builders, even the ones who THINK they are good builders.

You can either create or destroy communities.  It may eat a little more into your profit margins, and may take more of an effort but I think it's worth it.  Maybe it's time to consider more closely your role in the community...

...and set the bar higher.