Monday - June 17, 2024 - Kent housing rules spark parking worries

🌧 High 18C

Good morning!

This time of year is a curse. Why? You ask, with your perfectly functional nose clear of mucus, do you despise the brilliant sun and blooming flowers?

I don’t. I despise the pollen, the devil’s powder that gently floats through the air and settles in a yellow film on every surface.

I want to like the outdoors in late spring. I want to go and weed my garden, or lay on the grass, or smell the flowers without getting itchy all over. But I cannot. My body is too busy fighting pollen to consider that maybe, just maybe, it’s not actually our enemy.

To all my fellow allergy sufferers: solidarity. We will make it through this season.

– Grace

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

How to drum with the Chili Peppers

On a sunny west-coast day last June, Brandon Toews plunked himself down in front of a drum kit and started banging away to a familiar song: the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Suck My Kiss.” Toews was good. He had been practising for weeks and had it down to the point where an average listener would think he nailed every snare, tom, and kick.

But Toews wasn’t jamming in his Chilliwack home after a hard day at work, or playing in a tribute band at the Jolly Miller. He was playing the song for Chili Pepper drummer Chad Smith, on Smith’s own drum kit, in Smith’s own California home. And when he was done, Smith would tell him what he did right and what he did wrong. On camera.

Mostly, Toews has a normal life. The 26-year-old Sardis Secondary grad has a job in an Abbotsford industrial park, walks his dog along the Vedder River in Chilliwack, and performs in his church band.

Then, every so often, he finds himself talking shop with some of the most famous drummers on earth. None of it, though, is by accident. You’ve got to be pretty confident in your own ability to dare to handle Chad Smith’s living room kit. You also have to work your butt off.

• Today, Tyler writes about Toews, and how he went from studying jazz in university to talking with drummers like Smith, Blink 182’s Travis Barker, and even Phil Collins.

Related

Need to Know

🌪 Saturday’s storm created a funnel cloud above Sumas Prairie! [CTV]

🍞 Chilliwack’s Salvation Army food bank only has enough donations left for two weeks [Fraser Valley Today]

⚽ Aldergrove’s Joel Waterman has been called up to play for Canada at the Copa America, the continent’s largest soccer tournament [TSN] / We previously profiled Waterman before the 2022 World Cup [FVC]

⚽ A player for the Langley-based Vancouver FC will play for Canada in a series of international U-20 friendlies this month [Langley Advance Times]

😋 One of Abbotsford’s most popular restaurants is moving to Langley [Facebook]

🔥 A fire damaged a central Chilliwack medical office [Chilliwack Progress]

🍄 Temporary foreign workers at Fraser Valley mushroom farms are hoping to unionize [Langley Advance Times]

🎭 A Mission theatre group can’t host productions until they either move or fix their building [Mission Record]

👉 Abbotsford Middle School will be expanded with 200 additional student spaces [Abbotsford News]

🚧 All three lanes on a rebuilt bridge near Jackass Mountain, one of the last reconstruction projects from the 2021 floods, will be fully open in time for Canada Day [Fraser Valley Today]

👉 Highway Thru Hell star Jamie Davis had his Hope-area property rezoned to light industrial at the town’s latest council meeting [Hope Standard]

⚖ A Chilliwack pastor is in court to argue that banning in-person worship during COVID was an abuse of Dr. Henry’s power [Chilliwack Progress]

🛶 THIS SATURDAY AND SUNDAY: Catch North America's biggest dragon boat race and the region's first public drone show at the Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival! Plan your weekend now!*

*Sponsored Listing

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SPONSORED BY COASTAL JAZZ

Kassa Overall and Odario headline free Downtown Jazz

The 39th Vancouver International Jazz Festival offers 150 performances with 50 free events, including Downtown Jazz, a free concert series outside the Vancouver Art Gallery on šxwƛ̓ ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square, June 22 and 23. Free performances by Kassa Overall, Odario, Jason Winikoff Hot 5, Blue Moon Marquee, Y La Bamba and more!

The Agenda

Kent’s new housing rules already causing council consternation

Even before the District of Kent formally approved new zoning rules to increase house density, the plans were causing debates among council.

The provincial government passed Bill 44 last fall to force municipalities to change their zoning bylaws to make it easier to build more homes in more communities. For municipalities across the province, that requires changing zoning bylaw to allow single-family homes or duplexes to have as many as three units on lots less than 280 square metres, and four units on larger lots. (It does not affect the district’s rural residential zones.)

The biggest worry for Kent councillors, like for many politicians across the region, is parking. The new small-scale multi-unit housing zone, which replaced single-family homes, allows for two parking spaces for each standalone house and 1.5 parking spaces for each townhouse. Those parking spaces are allowed to be in a garage, as long as there is a covenant that prevents the garage from being used for living space. (Previously, all house parking spots had to be separate from the garage.)

The District of Kent passed the new zoning bylaw at a meeting in Late May, with Couns. Duane Post and Susan Spaeti opposed. Spaeti and Post both said parking was the biggest reason for voting against the change—which is required by law to take place before June 30. Post noted that the province said certain parking restrictions might not be suitable for more rural communities, and argued that should be the case for Kent.

But even before the bylaw was approved, it had already been influencing a potential development on Morrow Road, which was approved at a council meeting earlier that month.

That development would see a seven-unit townhouse complex built on Morrow Road, with both parking spots located inside the garages, plus a few visitor spaces. Post and Spaeti both spoke against the parking at the development, saying the lack of driveways and on-street parking options would negatively influence neighbours in the area. In response, Mayor Sylvia Pranger said that BC was currently in a housing crisis, and asked how Kent could justify turning down densification applications like this one.

The development permit for the townhouse project was ultimately approved, with Post and Spaeti opposed.

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🗓 Things to do

Family trees: Volunteers from the Mission Genealogy Club and the Aboriginal Genealogy Network will be at the Mission Library every Tuesday to answer questions about your family tree. Details online.

Free jazz: Enjoy free jazz every Sunday in Fort Langley with the Youth Concert Showcase Series. Young musicians will be sharing their creativity at the heritage CN station at 1pm each Sunday. Details online.

Ann Davis conference: The Ann Davis Society will host its annual conference at Cottonwood 4 Cinemas in Chilliwack on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 11:30. The conference will show the film The Better Man, and include a conversation about violence against women. RSVP online.

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Catch up

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