While I was working on my upcoming article regarding the challenge of building high rise towers in the suburbs, I was interviewed by Global News’ Janet Brown. Although only a small fraction of the interview was aired, I had expressed my concern with the grossly outdated 1991 Willowbrook NCP. How can we even consider putting any significant development, whether it’s Skytrain or high rises, without a proper street network? She mentioned that Mayor Woodward had said, during her interview with him, that there will be a plan.

Is this the same plan that was intended to be adopted by Council in Spring of 2024? Sure, the Willowbrook plan update was technically approved to move forward back in November of 2021 – which was last term – but what has happened since?

Backgrounder: The 1991 Willowbrook NCP

The current Willowbrook Community Plan was adopted in October 1991 and has been occassionally amended over the last 32 years. It has remained mostly in tact with many ad hoc variances occurring during the 1990s. The original boundaries of the Willowbrook plan included areas that later became the Routley neighbourhood (even showing a planned school that never happened…), much of the Southwest, Central, and Northeast Gordon Estate Neighbourhoods, and even all of Smith and some of Yorkson. The core of the plan was focused in the southwest, around the Willowbrook Shopping Centre, which had opened in decades earlier in 1969, with surrounding retail, office and light industrial zones. There was no mixed residential-commercial use considered. Residences would be relegated to the north, with the majority of the land designated to exclusionary single family homes.

The 2013 Willowbrook Transit Exchange & Conceptual Area Plan

In 2007, Translink adopted the South of the Fraser Area Transit Plan, which planned for bus rapid transit down Fraser Highway and “frequent bus network” down 200th Street by 2021. By 2031, it planned for bus rapid transit to expand down 200th Street as well. As a response to this 2007 Transit Plan, Golder Associates provided a conceptual area plan for Willowbrook to the Township of Langley and Translink in 2013. This was a fascinating concept with some “blue sky” ideas that could provide the basis for a future neighbourhood plan update.

This document appeared to have been shelved for close to a decade as Township of Langley council focused on the Willoughby and Brookswood OCPs and NCPs. Several development ideas for the Willowbrook area came and went, almost all including towers of some sort. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recent application for the 7 towers in Willowbrook took some inspiration from this plan, as the concept shows the highest densities in the western section of the plan. Although the draft concept shows a handful of 20-24 storey towers, the document does not provide a guideline for what the higher densities should be. It recognized the need for highest densities due to the planned rapid transit, which at the time was suppose to be BRT.

Skytrain Creates Urgency For Updated Plan

Although planning for rapid transit in some form was discussed as early as 2014, it wasn’t until the full commitment to build Skytrain to Langley in 2020 that it was known that there would be a station in Willowbrook. While the exact location wasn’t yet confirmed, it was obvious that the Willowbrook NCP needed to be updated in advance of Skytrain and the development likely to come with it. No one can say Langley’s retail center, home of the Willowbrook Shopping Centre and many strip malls, is walkable, cycling friendly, or transit-oriented.

The most recent amendment to the NCP, shown above, was significant: the introduction of the Willowbrook Land Value Capture System. This 2020 Memorandum of Understanding, under the Froese council, committed to a land lift, but in order for this to be executed properly, a significant update the plan was needed. So on November 21, 2021, Mayor Froese and the Council of the day unanimously approved the process for the plan update (Councillors Woodward, Richter, and Ferguson included; Long was absent).

The Willowbook Community Planning Team

On June 13, 2022, Council approved the terms of reference for the Willowbrook Community Planning Team. Although he had voted for the update to the plan, then Councillor Woodward was the only one opposed, without explanation. Included in the terms of reference was an updated map of Willowbrook, subtracting not only the areas of Willoughby that were now under newer Willoughby NCPs, but also the Langley Meadows residential neighbourhood (interesting enough, this would actually make Langley Meadows an orphan subdivison, not really part of any NCP). On July 25, 2022, the Planning Team was appointed, and I was one of 11 members. It was an interesting mix of people. There are very few households currently in the Willowbrook plan so this team was not your typical group of landowners (I believe I was one of representatives of Willoughby residents at large – not a landowner).

Before the Planning Team met, Township of Lanlgey long range planners got to work over Summer of 2022 with the first phase of public engagement that attracted people from all over the Township.

When the Willowbrook Community Planning Team first met after the summer in September 2022, there was an air of both excitement and urgency. We knew that Skytrain was scheduled to arrive in Langley by 2028 and we knew that there would be significant development applications that would move forward with or without a plan. We also knew that Willowbrook, as is, isn’t ready. The Willowbrook Plan update needed to get done and there was an aggressive timeline of having it complete by Spring of 2024. This would require substantial work over 2023.

On that first and only – as we would later find out – meeting, senior planners Jason Chu and Russell Nelson spoke passionately about a potential grid street plan, European-style urban villages, significant mixed use, and bylaws to encourage multi-modality. They were speaking my language. With possibly a couple of exceptions, it seemed like the other members of the public on the planning team were well in favour of this vision. There were going to be challenges with aeronautic restrictions due to the airport, how the current road plan was laid out and how it could transition to something more appropriate for transit-oriented development – but these were challenges that Township staff and the team seemed excited to tackle.

Willowbrook NCP Since the 2022 Election

Despite Woodward and Ferguson’s initial support for adopting the planning process, the new Mayor and his Contract with Langley slate dissolved the planning team on the first meeting of council in November 2022. The reasoning was simply to provide for “broader engagement”. It is obvious to me that this was for some alternative plan, which he must have been formulating since at least before his vote against the process in June. However, since then we’ve heard almost nothing about the Willowbrook NCP. Even as of today, in December 2023, there has been no update on the Township of Langley website since September 2022. The planned Phase 2 Engagement for Willowbrook was cancelled. While I’m sure there has been discussion behind closed doors about the Willowbrook NCP, there has been no updates available to the public – not until at least the Mayor went on air with Global News to provide a sound bite.

This is why I found it interesting when Global News reporter Janet Brown told me that the Mayor said the the plan is underway.

“I think its appropriate to really start that Willowbrook community plan update along with considering this application and let council have a chance to make that decision about how we are going to look at the Willowbrook area.”

-Township of Langley Mayor Eric Woodward

The interview with the Mayor went on with him “concerned” about the growth within the Township, despite his Council approving close to 6000 units – over twice of the 5 year average for the Township – in 2023 alone. Much of these units required significant variances or upzonings from current designations outside of established plans.

Regardless of the truth behind Woodward’s words, we know that there will be no Willowbrook NCP update approved by Spring of 2024. In fact, I’d be surprised to see any plan adopted before 2026, unless its severely rushed. It had been shelved in favour of other council priorities and it’s likely that Skytrain will arrive before any major applications are completed, for better or worse. The so-called “200 Street 2040 Plan”, which is an attempt to provide some cohesion between a multitude of Willoughby NCPs seems to fall outside of the scope of the Willowbrook NCP. What is perhaps most concerning is that Mayor Woodward, who still operates as a developer while being elected, has never had a problem with moving forward on significant applications to an important communities without updates to the neighbourhood plan (as such can be seen with his own developments in Fort Langley, which is still under a 1987 plan).

Willowbrook is Langley’s Urban Heart

One idea that came up during the one and only Willowbrook Community Planning Team meeting was that Willowbrook is really where Langley’s future is defined. I agree. Willowbrook has been the center of Langley’s commercial core for at least two generations now. It was built in a typically American surburban pattern that did not anticipate the population Langley has now, much less the future. The entire neighbourhood is built around single occupancy vehicle traffic. It is largely dependent on arterial roads and mini-highways. It does not have a porous street grid network. It has no cycling infrastructure. It is abhorrent for a pedestrian to get anywhere and has some of the highest levels of congestion in the region, while also having the highest traffic collision rates. What do you think the ratio of pedestrians to automobiles is in Willowbrook? I doubt anyone likes driving in Willowbrook. Or cycling. Or walking. If driving is the only viable option in an area, more people driving is what you will get.

Skytrain is a rapid transit system that will force many changes on Langley and housing isn’t the only concern. We can put up a bunch of towers with 1 bedroom units and have a bedroom community in the sky where people sleep, then leave the community to work, play, etc. Growing up in Surrey and Langley throughout the 1980s and 1990s, I witnessed a generation of failures at the Scott Road and King George Stations that continue to this day. Designed improperly, as I believe some recent applications are, the streetscape will remain inhospitable to pedestrians and cyclists, which induces even those in towers to drive and create even more congestion in the already traffic-infested center.

Yet, if there is any vision, we could have a highly walkable, vibrant, human-scale urban downtown village that people not only want to live in, but also eat, shop, play in. Personally, I don’t believe we need 28-44 storey skyscrapers for this. In fact, I believe the towers, as proposed, could make Willowbrook far worse (I’ll address that next week). Willowbook, with our shopping centre, multiple highways, and future skytrain, is already a crucial hub for the Township of Langley and yet it still hasn’t been given the necessary priority at this point. This plan should arguably have been done much earlier, and it certainly should not have been slowed to a crawl by the current Mayor and Council. Development will move forward, with or without an updated plan, as we have seen in the recent history of Salmon River, Fort Langley, and Brookswood.

“By failing to plan, you are preparing to fail.”

-Benjamin Franklin