Tuesday - Nov. 21, 2023 - Fort Langley's heritage vibes

🌧 High 10C

Good morning!

When I bought a new-to-me car a few months ago, I was really excited to have a working radio. (The car, alas, is new to me but not new enough to have a built-in aux port. Bluetooth? Forget about it.)

Now, when I get stuck in traffic, I turn on CBC Radio 1 and learn about something completely random for half an hour. The other day it was a show on the economics and history of baseball cards, and it was fascinating. I know that this sounds like I’m being sarcastic. I swear I’m not. I was the kid in elementary school who threw a fit when social studies class was cancelled. (This actually happened. I was sent into the hall.)

– Grace

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

Fort Langley’s new look: how one building could change the town’s heritage vibes

Fort Langley is not all that old. 

The town itself has a long history as an early settlement on the Fraser River but many of the shops that line Glover Road selling jewelry, coffee, crystals, books or novelty mason jars aren’t actually old buildings. Instead, they were built in a particular style, largely since the 1960s—classic, vaguely-european, and old-looking—to preserve the town’s heritage theme.

What the town’s stylized heritage ought to look like, though, is a continuing debate—one that a new development on Glover Road is about to change forever.

• Today, Grace writes about a new building planned for Fort Langley and what heritage looks like.

Related

Need to Know

👉️ Is this your cocaine? RCMP are looking for owner of drugs found in a bathroom ceiling in Mission [CTV]

🧑‍🦳 The cost of living is driving some Langley seniors into homelessness [Langley Advance Times]

🚱 Hope’s boil water advisory is expected to stay in place for the rest of the week [Fraser Valley Today]

➡️ Guards at Mission Institution confiscated $21,000 in contraband [Mission Record]

🧥 The Langley Rotary Club is holding its annual warm blanket drive [Langley Advance Times]

🐔 Stress levels are rising on poultry farms in the Fraser Valley as avian flu spreads [CTV]

🏅 Tashme Historical Society in Hope won a national award for its work on Hope Station House [Hope Standard]

➡️ A rape case in Chilliwack ended in a jail sentence of 3.5 years [Chilliwack Progress]

📃 Mission is considering bylaws to regulate water metering in secondary suites [Mission Record]

🍖 Several non-profits in Abbotsford are providing Christmas meals to those in need [Abbotsford News]

The Agenda

Manufacturing businesses in Fraser Valley to receive provincial support

The province will spend $1.3 million on new technology and facility upgrades for four different manufacturing businesses in the Fraser Valley. 

The largest portion of the money, up to $775,000, will go towards automated equipment for Abbotsford’s Dynamic Windows and Doors. Tiger Tool International, also in Abbotsford, will receive up to $220,000 for equipment for precision production. 

To the west, Aldergrove’s Western Wood Preservers will get up to $300,000 to renovate its factory, which would double its production of treated lumber and move to year-round operations.

Finally, Agassiz’s Power Wood Corp. will receive up to $50,000 to plan for a new thermal modification facility that would double the company’s production of specialty wood products like siding, panelling, and trim. (Thermal modification is a lumber treatment process a little like pressure-cooking wood). The project could, eventually, create 44 new jobs.

The province highlighted the potential of this spending to not only create new jobs but to keep old ones from leaving the province for less-expensive shores. The spending would also promote made-in-BC products and “strengthen local supply chains and communities,” the province said. 

SPONSORED BY ABBOTSFORD TECH DISTRICT

Tech District brings affordability and opportunity

With people and families facing an ongoing affordability crunch, every community is working to do their part.

An upcoming Official Community Plan amendment will enable Abbotsford Tech District to build affordable housing for young people and families alongside high-quality education and well-paying jobs.

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🗓 Things to do

Comedy: The Comic Strippers will return to the Chilliwack Cultural Centre for a semi-undressed improv comedy show on Friday, Nov. 24. Details and tickets online.

Market: The Penny in Mission is hosting The Copper Market with several different local artisans and vendors. Entry is by donation. Details online.

Talk: Character Abbotsford is hosting a lunchtime discussion and interview with Abbotsford retiring police chief Mike Serr on Thursday, Nov. 23. Details online.

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Catch up

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