Q&A: The Langleys are not a monolith, city mayor says

Everyone thinks Langley is a monolith. But the little urban centre that is Langley City really has more in common with places like White Rock, New Westminster, and Port Moody, Mayor Nathan Pachal says.

In a wide-ranging interview midway through Pachal’s first term as mayor, The Current asked Pachal about Langley City’s place within the wider region and his relationship with Langley Township Mayor Eric Woodward. We also asked him about how the city planned to balance environment and development within its borders, and touched on some of the progress he has seen in the city over the last two years.

This is likely the last in a series of mid-term interviews with the mayors of Fraser Valley communities. You can read the others here: Popove (Chilliwack) | Smith (Hope) | Horn (Mission) | Siemens (Abbotsford) | Pranger (Kent) | Talen (Harrison Hot Springs)

The Current has not been able to secure an interview with Langley Township Mayor Eric Woodward, despite multiple requests.

This interview has been very lightly edited for clarity and concision.

FVC: You're two years into your term. What are some of the successes and highlights of your time as mayor so far?

Nathan Pachal: One of the first things that I ran on that was, I think, really important, was working together, and that was with council itself and the provincial and federal governments. And that's been really encouraging to see that come to fruition.

When I look at our council, certainly we're all independent people, and we don't agree all the time, which is actually very healthy, but it's in a way where I know that it's always in the best interest of the community. I know everybody's taking it from that community approach, and that's been really refreshing for me. When you look at some other places—and I'm not naming any names—but even at the federal or provincial level, a lot of it seems more about, you know, zingers and personal stuff than maybe what's in the best interest of the community.

So having everybody agree on that was really useful. Really unsexy, but we've done things like having actual council strategic priorities. We review those annually to make sure it's still aligned with ourselves and the needs of our community. That's something we haven't done before, and what it does is give the city staff, and the city government itself, the ability to actually know what council and the community wants. Again, it's not like a shattering headline that council's working and we're moving together and having good dialogue. But I think in this age of divisiveness, it's really refreshing. So that's something I'm really proud of.

The other thing that I'm really proud of is there's a lot of investment in infrastructure that we've needed to do over the years and, for various reasons, that hasn't happened. But we've committed to doubling down on working on the basics and infrastructure. And certainly, if you're in downtown Langley, there's a whole lot of construction of water lines and renewing roads, and we have the big Fraser Highway one-way renewal project just getting started. So that's really, really exciting.

On working together too, we've gotten a good amount of money as well and support from the provincial government. So whether it's the new childcare spaces downtown at the expanded Douglas Recreation facility, [or] being able to advocate successfully for expanding Nicomekl Elementary School, these are things that I think are a result of working in a collaborative way with other orders of government.

Another thing that was really important is there's a lot of folks who rent in our community, and … we just adopted a new Tenant Compensation and Relocation Policy. Nothing is perfect, but it ensures that people are compensated appropriately if they're being displaced due to redevelopment. I think White Rock probably has the strongest policies In Metro Vancouver, in the south of Fraser at least, but we're like the second strongest, and that's just based on the economics of our community, and most importantly making sure that people are relocated into comparable accommodations before redevelopment can occur, and then giving people the right to move back at below market rent. That's something that's really exciting.

We've also been working on—and it's not quite done yet—but we're updating our zoning bylaw right now, and a huge component of that will also include how we encourage three-bedroom units more for families? [Editor’s note: A development in Langley City recently cut three-bedroom units from its design plans due to market factors, The Current reported in July.] I know the majority of people these days aren't families. We know the household sizes are a lot smaller than they were historically, but making sure there's affordable spaces for families is important. That's coming into play very, very soon. Having a percentage of below-market units as part of redevelopment is really exciting. There's a BC Builds project—I'm sure you know about it—but we have one where we're partnering with the province and a church in the area and some of our land, and that's going to provide worker housing, and it's going to be sort of like a mixed-use village south part of our community, which is really exciting as well.

So there's a couple of things that, to me, kind of stand out. And then moving forward, we have our citizens’ assembly work. We've been spending the last few years really having deep, meaningful conversations with our community around issues that matter to them, whether it's around community safety, food security, poverty, housing, mental health. Then we're going to be convening that assembly this spring. And it requires deep engagement. You can probably Google ‘citizens’ assembly’ if you don't know what they are already, but [we’re] really going to the community and seeking their feedback on the direction they'd like to take on some of these really significant challenges in our community. [Editor’s note: You can read our story on Langley’s citizens’ assembly here.] For me, one of the things that I noticed is sometimes there's a disconnect between government, the people that we serve, and—I looked again at the provincial and federal levels. When you look at the United States as well, a lot of it is really divisive, and a lot of people believe government isn't working for them.

For me, I think how we combat that is making people a meaningful part of the decision-making process. And that doesn't mean hot takes, that’s bad decision-making, right? I think that's the world we live in today, a world of hot takes. But when we get into the citizens’ assembly model, you're getting folks from the community, you're bringing them up to speed on really complicated topics, and then asking for their insight. It takes a lot of work, but I think that's important for democracy. So there's a whole bunch of other stuff, but that's what's just on the top of my mind.

Development and environment

FVC: Langley City is really constrained by the amount of space that you have and what you can do with it. But you also have a lot of different priorities that you're trying to balance. I know you have your new urban forest management strategy where you are wanting to increase the tree cover that you have. But there's also the provincial legislation that is going to be potentially bringing in more development around the incoming SkyTrain stations and just more development generally. So as a city, how specifically are you guys working to balance the needs of development and environment and the lifestyle infrastructure people need when they're coming into Langley?

Pachal: You look at the worst way to develop, it's sprawl, right? When you consume a lot of land area for housing, the sprawl is bad, right? That's why we had the Agricultural Land Reserve come into place. So [Langley City is] 10 square kilometers. And so one of the ways you can deal with that is how we address our public realm. When people think of communities, they forget that roads are a huge chunk of our land mass. I'm going to give you probably a wrong number, but it's like something like a quarter of the land mass is roads. So that's a real opportunity there. So for the city, our new urban forest management plan not only speaks to needing to create more park space and making sure that we can get tree canopy on private property, but there's a whole heck of a lot we can do for the public sphere.

So if you look at how you get a good tree canopy—if you've ever driven down 12th in Vancouver, there are huge tree canopies on the street in Vancouver and that can make up a significant part of your tree canopy. We are very lucky. We have the Nicomekl floodplain and the power lines and the linear parks that connect that. We know we need to acquire more park space, and that will be part of new development in the northeast quadrant of our community. So greening and density definitely go hand in hand.

FVC: Aside from the forest management strategy, are there any specific tactics the city is going to be taking to ensure that those two things work together in the future?

Pachal: It's already in our Official Community Plan. So you talked about environment, there's a change in [problem] mitigation that's happening right now … Water management on site is important, and stormwater management is something that has to be incorporated into each of the larger-scale projects to make sure that they aren’t contributing to causing more water flow than would be typical into the streams in our community. So that's really, really important, and something we're doing. Surface parking lots aren't ideal. So as we densify, those become less desirable. There's no parking requirements now because of provincial legislation. But even if you decide to build a parking lot, there's new guidelines on building that. Like I said, street trees are important. How we create permeable surfaces as well, right? These are all things that are already incorporated.

I think the biggest challenge for us—if you look at our built out areas that are older, especially the industrial area in our northwest area, and that's been identified, and we know that—is there's so much hard surface. We know that area, as it redevelops, we need to change, because if you go there now, it's just all asphalt, right? We've already flagged that. So I think the opportunity now is with redevelopment that gives us the opportunity to make sure that we're redeveloping in a way that actually reduces the heat island effect. [It’s] making sure we're better managing storm runoff, making sure it goes to systems that naturally filter, making sure we're getting those tree-lined streets, all that good stuff.

It's certainly not an afterthought. It is very much embedded into our Official Community Plan, and will be in our new zoning bylaw as well.

The two Langleys

FVC: The other thing that I wanted to touch on is your relationship with Langley Township's mayor, Eric Woodward, and the city's relationship with Langley Township as well. People think of Langley as a monolith, but there's kind of two distinct governments working in that space that people consider Langley. So for yourself, personally, what kind of relationship do you have with Eric Woodward?

Pachal: I think it's always an interesting thing with names, right? Because you’d never have the same conversation if it was like, you know, Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge, or White Rock and Surrey. Because our elders decided that both of them wanted to call their municipality Langley—or in North Vancouver, both of those communities wanted to call themselves North Vancouver, we end up with this conversation. So for me, I think it's just sort of because we happen to share the same name, that these things always come up in my mind. Historically, I think there was sharing of services, and you can see that from the Township of Langley, they're definitely going in a more independent direction. And I suppose that's their prerogative.

FVC: We'll touch back on your personal relationship with the mayor over there. But there's been talk about, like you said, of Langley Township going in a more independent direction. Recently they discussed making the Langley Animal Protection Society just for the Township. How is that going to be affecting your plans going forward?

Pachal: It's an interesting one, because Langley Animal Protection Society isn't a Township organization, so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. But you know, if it comes to a place where they're no longer able to provide animal protection service for Langley City, we will have to provide our own animal protection service. We are paying a fee for service for it. So we just have to pay that out on our end and switch how we do it. We've already had that with the Langley Emergency Program. So we now have a Langley City Emergency Program. The Township pulled out of that, that’s one of the earliest things they did—I think that was two months after the election. I’m trying to think of—I mean, the RCMP thing, of course, but I'm trying to think of anything else that was an integrated service that they've pulled out of recently. But I think it's been that and LAPS is now the latest one.

That can happen in communities. In my hometown in Vernon, for the 18 years that I was there, there was a Greater Vernon Parks and Recreation District, and that was joint with Coldstream and Vernon. So Coldstream was the smaller municipality, and Vernon was the larger one, and they were attached. You wouldn't even know where the borders were unless you knew where the signs changed color. I think Coldstream was white and the ones in Vernon were blue. When I moved away, I think they both decided, or one side, decided to go in a different direction. Now there's a Coldstream Recreation Service and a Vernon Recreation Service. So sometimes communities come together, sometimes communities come apart.

FVC: Through your work with Metro Vancouver, and just more generally, because the two Langleys do work together closely on a lot of issues, I'm guessing you've had a number of chances to meet with the Township mayor. How would you describe your relationship with him?

Pachal: I suppose that as far as relationships, when it comes to the Metro Vancouver area, I think there's a lot more commonality that our community has, and that I have, with communities of similar size. So when I look at the conversations that I have and where there's opportunities for joint advocacy that's with communities like White Rock, like Port Moody and New Westminster and the City of North Vancouver. We are all very similar, being those sort of central core communities, and we share a lot of similar challenges and opportunities. So my efforts have been really working with and exploring the relationships with those communities, because I think there's a lot we can learn from each other and advocate together.

I think the City of Langley and the Township of Langley are very different communities. Langley City has been the original downtown and the original commercial center, going back to the early settler periods here, and we've been really a lot more urban. And that's been the case for a long time, and that's why we created our own municipality. It must be 70 years now? It's been a while, in our own municipality.

We look at the Township, there's definitely a lot of urban stuff going on, for sure, but it's a very different feel. If you go to Langley City and Langley Township—it's always been marketed as a community of communities, right? You have very distinct [places]: Fort Langley, Aldergrove, Murrayville, Brookswood, Walnut Grove. I would say that Walnut Grove’s pretty classically suburban, right? I lived there for a bit. They're all great communities, so there's no critique on that, but it's a different way of being. And certainly, Willoughby is probably going to be pretty urban over time, but it's a very different kind of way the community is constructed. I guess it's definitely more linear. I don't know how to describe it, but certainly the mix of uses, and maybe it's the historical road pattern, but it's just a very different design, and the scale of development is something that is significantly different than Langley City as well.

Into the future

FVC: You touched on this very briefly in the beginning, but what are some projects that you are looking forward to in the next two years of your time as mayor?

Pachal: We are moving forward with an Invest Langley City plan. So it may not be that we're building a project right away, but we know that as our communities grow, we need to make sure that our services, recreation services, cultural services, and our infrastructure are keeping up with our communities. Infrastructure was really kind of designed in an era where our population was in the 15,000, 20,000 range, and in the next 10 years, we're going to be like 50,000 people. We're going to be presenting over the coming year our vision for the community. And my goal, I think council's goal is to seek voter approval for some of those investments during the next election. So I'm really excited about that. SkyTrain won't be completed, but there'll be a lot of construction around that, getting to that will be really important, and just making sure construction management and all of that's done. The Fraser Highway one-way project will be complete as well. And then there's the BC Builds project, I'm hoping that moves forward in the next little bit as well.