Transcript: Council Meeting - 2026/09/08

Speaker A · All right, and welcome everyone to Today's meetings for September 8, 2026. Thank you for joining us on this beautiful sunny night. We have a public hearing and then to closing the public hearing, we'll be starting a council meeting. And with that, I called public hearing for bylaw number 2292 to order. Councillor Wagner, can we have the territorial acknowledgment, please?

Speaker B · Thank you. The city of Langford sits upon the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Wasabson, Songhees, Chana nations, and the Wasanich peoples, represented by the Sarlip, Bocachin, Seot, Saint Sachem and Malahat nations. We thank them for sharing this beautiful land.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. I'm now going to turn it over to our Director of Community Planning and Development, Leah Stoneman, for comments.

Speaker C · Thank you, Mayor. The purpose of bylaw number 2292 is to amend Official Community Plan bylaw number 2200 by incorporating the key finding objectives and maps of the approved parks and trails master plan, economic development strategy, Arts and cultural development strategy, transportation master plan and active transportation plan, as well as some housekeeping policy clarifications.

Speaker C · More Specifically, bylaw number 2292 includes new sections that prioritize the implementation of the master plans and strategies, new and updated sections that incorporate key policy directions from each of the master plans and strategies, updated parks and green space inventory and land use and growth management maps to reflect lands that have been newly dedicated as park a new future street network map and housekeeping clarifications to policies.

Speaker C · In part six, land use and growth management strategy notifications and advertisements have been placed as required by the Local Government Act. And I will just note that an incorrect ad in minutes were initially posted in the Agenda on Friday, but these have since been corrected and they were placed appropriately with the local newspapers.

Speaker D · Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much.

Speaker E · Good evening, everyone. Just a reminder of how to participate tonight in the public hearing. If you're joining us through the Zoom app and wish to make a comment, please use the raise hand function in the app, keeping in mind that you're able to both raise and lower your hand and you'll be called on based upon your username. You will need to unmute yourself when it's time for you to speak. If you're joining us via telephone, you must press Star nine to raise your hand. You should hear a recording advising you the moderator will be notified that you wish to speak. Can you be called upon using the last 3 digits of your phone number?

Speaker E · Please press Star 6 to unmute your phone if you're attending in person, you can approach the podium one at a time. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. As a reminder to the public, you may speak to 2291 once the public hearing. Sorry, 2292 once the public hearing is closed. Council will not hear any more submissions on this item. This includes during the public participation of tonight's council meeting. I will call for first comments this time. Anyone like to come forward, please raise your hand.

Speaker F · Wendy Hobbs Good evening, Mayor and Councillor. I am speaking tonight regarding Bylaw 2292 at the proposed amendments to Langford's official community plan. An official community plan is one of the most important documents a municipality adopts. It guides how our community grows, where transportation connections go, how land is used, and what our neighborhoods could look for for years to come. The city's own public notice states in the paper that every parcel of land in Langford is affected by this amendment. That is significant. I recognize the city has conducted surveys, id, id, FAIR and other engagement during the development of the various plans being incorporated into the ocp. But my concern tonight is whether residents have had enough.

Speaker F · Meaningful engagement is what is actually being incorporated into the official community plan through this bylaw. There is an important difference between asking people to complete a survey about a plan and giving residents the opportunity to understand the specific changes being proposed to their neighborhood. Meaningful public engagement should allow residents to ask questions. It should allow them to understand the potential impacts. It should give them enough information and enough time to provide informed feedback back to you. And most importantly, residents should be able to see how their feedback influence the final decision. When several major plans are brought together and incorporated into our official community plan, including transportation, active transportation, parks and trails, economic development, arts and culture, and a future street network map, I believe the public deserves a very clear explanation of exactly what is changing.

Speaker F · Residents should not have to search through multiple plans and hundreds of pages of documents to figure out what a line on a map could mean for their street or neighborhood. If a future road connection is being identified near someone's home, residents deserve to know if land use policies are changing. Residents deserve to understand the implications. If a proposal could eventually require significant taxpayer investments. Residents deserve information about the potential costs. And if a public feedback has resulted in a proposal being changed or has not resulted in a change, council should explain why. This is not about opposing the plan. Planning is essential for a growing community. This is about making sure that planning happens with community. Not simple for the community. Transparency and public engagement should not be viewed as obstacles to getting things done.

Speaker F · They're fundamental parts of good local government. Tonight's public hearing provides residents with an opportunity to speak and I appreciate that opportunity. But a public hearing at the end of a lengthy planning process could not be the first time some residents realized how a proposal may affect their neighborhood. Especially just after summer's over and people have been out and about on holidays. Engagement needs to happen early enough that residents can genuinely influence the outcome. When decisions have long term consequences for our roads, neighborhood taxes and future growth, residents should have confidence that their voices matter. I am asking council to consider whether people of Langford have been given sufficient opportunities to understand these specific OCP's amendments and their potential impacts.

Speaker F · If there is uncertainty, if residents still have unanswered questions, or if neighborhoods affected by the proposed transportation connective have not had meaningful opportunities to understand and discuss those proposals. There is nothing wrong with you taking more time. Just because it's election doesn't mean you have to push it through. Good governance isn't measured by how quickly a plan is approved. It is measured by whether the process is transparent, whether decisions are well understood and whether the community has confidence in how these decisions were made. Langford is growing and changing quickly. That makes meaningful public engagement more important, not less. Residents deserve clear information, they deserve transparency and above all, they deserve a meaningful voice in a decision that will shape their community for generations. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Next person forward, please raise your hand. Is he hand raised back there? Come on up.

Speaker G · Hi, I'm also going to be talking about bylaw number 2292. My name is Darlene and I've lived in the Mill hill area for 22 years. I wanted to put on record my thoughts on the transportation infrastructure plans. Transportation plans for the region does not factor in all forms of transportation in the region. The plan to ship from single use vehicles to other forms of transportation does not reflect the current reality of the region. As per the report, in 2021, 84. 3% of people got around by their car and the goal is to bring that number down to 58%. So to put that into perspective, 50% of the current trips by car will shift to other forms of transportation. As per ICBC, the number of vehicles registered in Lankford increased to 37,000 vehicles in 2025.

Speaker G · Supporting that number of vehicles for the regions are increasing as the population grows. As per the report that was provided, the 2021 population data, 2020 CRD Housing and Transportation Survey data and the 2021 to 2024 traffic counts at peak hours which was 8 to 9 and 4 to 5 were collected at 45 intersections and that was provided by the consultants. I had questions as to why data was not accounted for. When data was when data was collected for the traffic counts, did it happen in September? Did it happen in June? Why isn't it the whole rush hour period? Because it's more than 8 to 9 and 4 to 5. So, you know, I wanted to see if the information was going to be updated when it became available.

Speaker G · So when the new CRD housing transportation survey is done, is that going to be updated? When the population, you know, is supposed to be, you know, almost 60,000, why isn't that reflected? Why is 2021 being used? So I'm concerned about some of the infrastructure and building changes that have been made to date. Adding planter boxes and taking it down to one lane in front of Ruth King Elementary School is dangerous for children, vehicles and bikes and I've heard that it's already been hit today. Adding no right turn on red lights or at some of the main intersection at Veterans such as Goldstream and Veterans causing people to rush to turn right before the light turns red.

Speaker G · Also, the sight lines when turning are not great and myself I'm worried that I'm going to hit a pedestrian and a bike because they're rushing to make the light. I'm concerned about bikes and pedestrian safety at that intersection. Not addressing the short left turn cycle at Veterans in Goldstream is a major concern. I normally have to wait two to four light cycles to turn. That causes major backup on veterans, but it also causes drivers to go when maybe they shouldn't as they do not want to wait for another light cycle. Increase in the risk of car accidents at this intersection, the lack of consideration for areas outside of the city core such as Mill Hill that have a poor transit system.

Speaker G · I wanted to provide actual examples of transportation issues in the Mill Hill area. In our area, the bus does not run frequently, so when I look on Google Maps it generally tells me to walk 25 minutes to Goldstream to catch a bus. It shouldn't tell me to walk 25 minutes to catch a bus. And that's not even accounting for the time on the bus and to get to the location I want to. When my daughter worked at the Cineplex out in the West Shore, I had to pick them up at 11 o' clock at night. There's no buses running late in our area. I wasn't going to let my teen daughter walk home in the dark alone, so my only choice was to pick her up and that was pretty much a 10 minute drive.

Speaker G · When my daughter worked at Hillside Mall, I made her take the bus. It was their choice to get the job there. It took multiple buses and it took over two hours for my kid to get home. So they were always eating dinner at 8, 28, 30 at night. When I worked downtown in a government office for 20 years, I had to do daycare, pickup, drop off, work full time. I'd have to take my kids to different sports things and just to morning and after school practices. So my kids hockey, lacrosse. So you know, 6am practices at the queue. There was lots of practices at West Hills JDF, the Q Center at 3:30, 4 o'.

Speaker H · Clock.

Speaker G · So you know, it was very difficult. I was changing my hours every day. I was trying to get my full time hours in, like I had no choice but to use my vehicle. And then not to mention, you know, when your kid's playing goalie, you can't really drag a full set of goalie gear, lacrosse gear or player gear onto a bus. They just don't allow it. And you know, being just a dual income earner, you know, you need hours. So you know, like this was all sort of impacted in like daycare only runs for nine hours. You know, I have to work eight hours a day. You know, it's.

Speaker G · And then you're wanting to do sports and of course you're trying to get them in as many activities as you can because you want them to stay out of trouble. So these were things that were directly affecting me. And I know when this came out, like my kids are growing up and you know, my, my son's going towards his carpentry, he needs his car so he can actually put in all his tools which is becoming more and more and more as he's going up in the levels. My daughter, she needs it for janitorial supplies and has to work to go to multiple locations. So to say like, you know, everybody can sort of change and do this is not realistic because it's not taking into account people's needs.

Speaker G · And I know myself personally, I'm always trying to minimize how many times I go out. So when I go out I'm combining trips like if I need to go to Millstream, if I need to go to petsmart and stuff, I'm actually doing one trip, I'm doing one loop. So I am trying to consciously do less traveling. But realistically I'm dependent on my car because the bus system in our area is really bad. There's a lot of people that are Elderly that own in that area and they don't like that huge long hill that's by our house. So there's so many factors in that neighborhood and it's just hard to just paint everything with sort of the same brush.

Speaker G · I do not support the plan because I don't believe that taking away vehicle lanes to put in bus only lanes or protected bike lanes. A plan that does not factor in all modes of transportation, including cars walking, bikes, buses, car sharing and so forth. Plan that does not support residents that live outside of the main hub, so outside of the downtown core. Plan that does not factor in that people travel from other cities such as Callwood, Machosin and Sooke. So, you know, not factoring in everybody that comes in that commutes to work, not to mention Costco and how many people love going to Costco and how much fun that is.

Speaker G · You know, I feel that for all these reasons I cannot support this plan because I don't feel that it adequately factors in all modes of transportation that people genuinely need based on their own criteria. Family, finances, everything. Everybody's going to have a different, everybody's got a different lifestyle, everybody's got different things to, to do. And like I said, I, I could go on with examples, but I just wanted to sort of show you just some of the ways that this would impact me and how it impacts other families and stuff in the vicinity as well. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Next person, let's come forward. Raise your hand please. Come on forward.

Speaker I · Lisa Fauxhall from Lankford speaking to 2292 is a long term blueprint for how community will grow and develop. I believe it's important to speak to the OCP amendments and the phrase reducing reliance on cars. I believe that it is unrealistic for Langford residents to reduce reliance on cars to the amount that is in the active transportation plan. Residents want balance for all modes of transportation not to give up their vehicles. Expecting cycling and transit to increase from 13 to 42% doesn't reflect the reality of how people in Langford want to live. This is why town halls and meaningful community consultation are important. For example, the residents of Mill Hill could be drastically affected by the changes that have been adopted in the active transportation Master Plan. We need balanced, practical solutions in a plan that makes transportation safe and efficient

Speaker J · for all of our Langford residents.

Speaker K · Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you. Next person, I'd like to talk, please come forward please or raise your hand. Hey, seeing no one right now, I see there's someone online

Speaker J · app user Chris Kale.

Speaker E · Please unmute yourself in the app. Provide your first initial, last name and municipality of residence for the record please.

Speaker L · Hi, my name is Madison Kail. I don't have a Zoom account so I'm one of my husband's. We live in Mill Hill in Langford. I just want to touch on the transportation master plan. One of the reasons we bought our house in Mill Hill was because of Stradland Ave and that exit there towards Costco. As a family of four living in this economy, we buy a lot of our groceries at Costco because it's more economic and it lasts longer for us. So to take away that Stradland Ave not only reduces the Mill Hill residents one entrance of Langford, you're forcing them all into Hoffman Ave to get to Langford or down by Thetis Lake to get to Colwood.

Speaker L · Realistically that's not efficient for all of the members of the community that live in Mill Hill. I would highly suggest we take a look at the lights that go across the highway interchange and as when you go from one light you get to the next one and it's red which causes a massive backup. And as someone who takes Stradland App every day I can easily tell you that there's maybe eight to 10 cars at the straddle and side at busy times. It is not like Pete Road or Veterans where you've got 30 plus cars trying to make that light. I would also like to point out that this interchange was built in 97 with minimal modifications done to it with the latest modification done in 2018 for a city that has as many residents as we do and however, I believe we get about 10,000 residents a year additional to what we already have.

Speaker L · I feel like that interchange should have had more modifications since 2018. So I don't approve of the Stradland Ave becoming a bus only area as you're leaving Langford residence with only one way into Lankford and it bypasses an elementary school which people aren't going to listen to speed signs regardless. So I don't want to put that risk out there. And so I'm going to leave this on a question of why make it a bus only lane when public transportation in this area is already unreliable as it is. Thank you for your time.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. See a hand raised. Come on up.

Speaker M · So on the same issue. Langford loves development. We love building buildings.

Speaker A · Can I have your name please?

Speaker M · My name is John, I'm a Langford resident. So you love building buildings here? We love development, growing city and none of that comes on a bus, it comes in trucks, comes on trailers. It comes with tools and equipment and does not ride public transportation to get here. And narrowing the opportunities for those people to get to our town, build the developments that we so desperately need. They're going to drive their vehicles and they're large and they're going to be coming fast. It's just what they do. We need to plan for the development with our infrastructure. Additionally, Sook Road is under surge. Obviously this is a provincial issue. Jacqueline at Sook Road is regularly a dangerous intersection. They're the hammer of cars that takes that right constantly. It's almost impossible to take a left going downhill onto Zuk Road.

Speaker M · You will being a conflict. I was in a conflict on my

Speaker J · way here at that intersection.

Speaker M · We can't leave it up to the province to come in with very dust and solve that for us. We need to include that in our plan. We need to build to build.

Speaker H · Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Okay. Call for a second time. See your hand raised.

Speaker N · Thank you very much. Fraser Johnson. I'm a Langford resident. I'm in support of the OCP amendments. I think I'm in the minority of

Speaker J · the public participants tonight.

Speaker N · I think it only makes sense to really incorporate some of the other planning work that has happened in the past term into the ocp. It crystallizes it, it brings it together. I speaking specifically to transit transportation. Sorry. I live in a neighborhood that is not well serviced by transit. However, I am strongly in support of the city's efforts to try and increase the proportion of trips that are taken in something other than a personal vehicle. It doesn't work in every neighborhood, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work throughout the city. And the 42% target to have all trips taken by something other than a personal vehicle is something that I was really happy to see carried forward from the previous council.

Speaker N · There was an OCP amendment made in June 2022 that established that exact target to be achieved by 2038. So I'm happy that there's some continuity in the policy making and I am in favor of this being enshrined in the ocp. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you. And I saw a hand raise there in the front. So come on.

Speaker O · Pardon me, I haven't read. This is Joanne Geddes. I live in in Langford. I haven't read the bylaw in its entirety, but I understand our transportation network is woefully inadequate. And I must admit every time I have taken the bus, it's not been a Great experience either sitting at the Lankford bus station, waiting for that bus to go out to Sooke Road, which only comes once an hour after rush hour. And I've noticed from some of the speakers here that they've said that Mill Hill is not adequately served. And I believe that. So although I, as the. Along with the person just before me, I am strongly in favor of putting more emphasis on public transit. I believe that is the answer.

Speaker O · I think in 10 years we're going to think we're crazy letting just anybody drive vehicles. But it has to be better, it has to be reliable, it has to be consistent, and there's got to be more money put into it. And actually, I agree it should be free. Because although the gentleman previous to me said nobody comes to Lightford on a bus, the people who are our baristas, the people who work in our retail industries, they don't drive their car. They take the bus. So the bus is a service for everybody, not just the people who take the bus. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you. Next person like to come forward, raise your hand, please. Okay, I'm calling for a third time online or in the gallery. Come on.

Speaker F · Hi, Wendy, HS 3442 Luxton Highway. Because I can talk about transportation on Luxton Road. It's terrible, it's fast, it's going fast. But I'm going to talk about. I've been doing ICBC for six years. I can tell you right now my job is getting more, not less. So there are more cars in the West Shore. So I think you have to be very careful. If you tell people we're not going to have cars in Langford, then we're not going to have residents in Langford. So I think you have to be careful for what you wish for, because we certainly don't want less people and higher taxes. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much.

Speaker E · And I see a hand map user, Desmond James. Please unmute yourself in the app. Provide your first initial, last name, municipality of residence, for the record.

Speaker P · Hi, Desmond James, Lake Bird resident. I want to express my support for the. For the plan. It's a plan. It's not going to be perfect. There are all sorts of areas that will needed some improvement. But the fact is we're trying to get somewhere that reduces reliance on vehicles, doesn't eliminate them as people are kind of alluding to. It doesn't shut down things. It gives people more options. And in conversations I've had with many people in different areas, people want more options so that they drive less when they Can. Part of that is the price of gas and part of it is it's very. It's just expensive to operate a vehicle. 60% of people have vehicles, meaning 40% of people don't have vehicles. And if we don't offer better solutions for them, we're not really serving all of our residents.

Speaker P · Part of that is public transportation. But you can only build public transportation when you have people who are going to use it. And when there's communication with a particular municipality or a region and the bus service, you can't just build stuff and expect BC Transit to suddenly show up. And it also has to be cost effective for people. So I appreciate the plan I'm supportive of. Gives me kind of some goals. If I can get out of my car and cycle safely or walk safely or use any other transportation, including carpooling, that will reduce the amount of vehicles on the road, allowing other people to drive and use parking spots that I'm not using.

Speaker P · Those people who need to drive to Costco or take their kids to hockey or lacrosse or whatever with big equipment, I get it. I did that with my kids. We had to drive. But I don't have to do it anymore. So if I can get out of traffic, other people can use it. And I believe that's the goal of this plan. More options for everybody, leaving cars in place for people who need to use and want to use them, but giving other choices for people. Thanks.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Next person, please raise your hand. Come on up.

Speaker Q · Hi, Mike Morton, Langford resident. Just a quick couple of comments. There's obviously been a lot of discussion about consultation regarding transportation plan as well as others. And I think that's something that this council has done a really terrific job at in terms of getting public feedback. But what I really wanted to say to you regarding the transportation plan, I think the one point that was well overlooked is the fact that probably 50% of the traffic that comes through Langford are not Langford residents. They're coming from a chosen, they're coming from Sooke, they're coming from Shonagin Lake, they're coming from Mill Bay and they're coming from Duncan. And that's the reality. And that is not going to change in the foreseeable future.

Speaker Q · So it's great we can have all these grandiose plans to reduce our traffic langford traffic to whatever, 58, 60% or whatever it might be. It's a much greater regional issue than just Langford, because that traffic is going to continue to come from seok. You see the development in Sooke today and they're coming through. So I just wanted to mention that it's something that seems to be continually overlooked. So thanks very much.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Anyone else like to come forward, please raise your hand.

Speaker E · See one more online app user, Sandy Seifert. Please unmute yourself in the app. Provide your first initial, last name and municipality of residence for the record.

Speaker R · Good evening.

Speaker J · Can you hear me?

Speaker A · Yes, we can.

Speaker G · Yeah.

Speaker R · Okay, so obviously I'm talking on 2292. I don't have anything prepared. I just thought I'd tune in and see what's going on on one of the last meetings of this term.

Speaker A · I think we've lost her, but we'll.

Speaker E · Sorry, Sandy, if you. You seem to have dropped off. If you could raise your hand again

Speaker A · while we're waiting there. Is there anyone else like to come forward? Okay, we'll wait a few seconds here for Sandy. Kind of like the media. No one loves dead air.

Speaker F · Mayor, if I may.

Speaker B · If you want to.

Speaker D · If you were.

Speaker E · If there's no other commentators, if you wanted to close the public hearing to comments from the public. Except if Sandy hops back on, you could do that.

Speaker A · There she is.

Speaker E · There she is. She heard me. Hey, Sandy, can you hear us? You need to unmute again.

Speaker R · Hi. Sorry, that was really weird. Anyway.

Speaker E · That's okay. Go ahead.

Speaker R · I, I'm glad. I. Sorry.

Speaker G · I.

Speaker R · And I had to log in again really quickly and so on. Yes. So I have nothing prepared. I just. I, as. As Mike Morton said, I'm just listening to the comments and so on, but just, Just watching this and listening to the people like Darlene, I mean, she, she and many thousands of. Of other people that live here are in her situation. I know that, you know, we are not a bedroom community. We are. We are a community that is thriving. And, uh, we have many other municipalities traveling through our, Our beautiful city. As again, Mike Morton had stated. I. I can't support this. This what you guys are doing right now.

Speaker R · I think it needs to be thoroughly looked at and vetted. I know you've done your best to do plans and plans and more plans with consultants and, and other things to, to, you know, achieve your goals. I get it. We are 39 days out of election. This is something that, you know, I don't want to see this kind of thing embedded in our OCP. Our OCP has been a fabulous tool for the whole, what, 30 some odd years of our. Of us being a city. So let's really look at this. Let's not embed These policies and these plans, we do need to have more thoughtful public input. And it's just something that needs to continue with whoever gets in. In after October 17th. Leave it to them.

Speaker R · They've got four years to. To do this. Doing this right now, I feel is just

Speaker M · it.

Speaker R · It's scary. So I do not support this. I ask that you guys consider leaving this alone and, and coming back to the table after October 17th. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Okay, last call behind the gallery. There's your chance.

Speaker G · So, Farleen, again, I just wanted to add that during this whole process, I sent tons of emails into engineering to the counselors, to the mayor, to pretty much everybody. I never got a lot of answers in regards to anything, if any answers at all in regards to the public input. The first survey that we got in regards to transportation, I read the little summary that said it was all about alternative modes of transportation, and it's. How can I actually comment and contribute to that when I don't use the bus? I don't, you know, I walk around, you know, I take my car. How can I contribute in regards to alternative transportation where when, as a resident, I don't use it? So, you know, that's the first thing I saw. The first time I did it, that's what I saw.

Speaker G · I didn't complete the survey because it usually takes me a couple hours to do them. Second time I did it, it's like, what's going on? Why is this affecting the Stretland Pete Road interchange? What are they doing? Why is it bus only? Why are they taking our access? And I did the survey and then a lot of people in the community were like, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? They're doing this to the inter intersection. And then a lot of people came out. There was a lot of people that provided feedback in regards to the surveys. There's a lot of people that, you know, actually participated in the surveys, sent emails and provided feedback.

Speaker G · But it's kind of sad that it took going on the news to bring that to light so people could actually give their feedback, because I don't remember seeing anything about information sessions. I don't remember there being like a big board anywhere saying, hey, we're looking at doing this. Because everybody's going to have their own life experiences, their own opinions. You can't get rid of one thing. You kind of got to look at everything as a whole. Like, I can't go to Costco with a bike and a little trolley to shop for a family of four. Like, it's not going to happen. Like, you can't just assume you're going to stick in a bike lane and it'll be okay.

Speaker G · So, you know, I would love to see a lot more communication with the public actually having like those big boards saying, hey, this is what we're looking at. How is this going to affect you, where you live? Do you like it, do you not like it? And with everything, it should be like a moving, dynamic thing because you'll try it, I. E. The whole planter thing on Ruth King, you'll go, oh, it's not working because kids are maybe getting hurt. Bikes are maybe, you know, hitting it, cars are maybe. But it's something where you're like, oh, okay, that didn't work, let's try something else. And that's what I would love to see in regards to this is actually, you know, listening to the community, actually engaging the community.

Speaker G · Like that's one big thing that I've always, you know, like for this council, it's a big thing that's been said, but I don't feel like it's been a follow through in regards to that. So I just wanted to add that. So thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you. Okay, come on forward.

Speaker I · Hi, Lisa Foxall again from Lankford. I just want to mention that there is a difference with the previous OCP goal of the 42% in 2021. So I just want to reiterate that that was a goal. So there's a difference between a goal and reducing reliance, between with traffic calming and implementing road diets. So there's a big difference between road diets and traffic calming and a goal. So I just want to add that in there. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you. Okay. Seeing no other hands, I'm going to close. Oh, no, no, I'm not. Sorry, I didn't finish that sentence there. See, we've heard from the public on our council has any questions or comments. I will start off with a sort of a question to engineering. It's. I sort of know the answer, but we should try and do through questions. We actually have no say on what happens with transit. It is only with meetings with BC Transit and honestly it's fully up to them to decide what changes. Correct.

Speaker S · Thank you for the question, Mayor. Direction to BC Transit comes from the Victoria Regional Transit Commission on which the City of Langford does not have a seat on that commission.

Speaker A · Thank you. Council, comments or questions? Councilor Harder and Councillor Wagner on deck.

Speaker K · Thank you. Through you there was a good question, I thought during the public hearing, just with regards to integration into the region. And I recognize that with the adoption of the Master Transportation Plan and the Active Transportation Plan and now the potential to integrate these into the official community plan, there's a lot of integration happening. Can staff comment on how transportation would be integrated, land use and transportation plans at this level into future regional changes? I understand the CRD is looking at a new regional growth strategy, so it would be just helpful to understand the process from here

Speaker S · through the chair. Thank you for the question. So it actually goes both ways. So the data that we collect from our traffic counters off of our signal lights, any of the data that was collected by our consultants through this process also takes into consideration what we would refer to as the background traffic or through traffic, regional through traffic to date.

Speaker S · So the model that we have is calibrated to all of the traffic that currently goes through Langford to date at different times of the day, different peak hours. And our plans, we bring forward to the CRD for the Regional Transportation Plan and OCP for Regional Growth Strategy. And then they engage us, we engage them through our processes to make sure that we're aligned and that the model that the CRD is now developing also aligns with our models that we up with hopefully similar results. And yeah, we're grateful for the region for putting together different committees that senior staff can participate in as well. And also again grateful for Mott staff, BT Transit staff and CRD staff for participating in our process as well.

Speaker A · Thank you. Do you have a follow up?

Speaker K · I don't have a follow up. I may have a separate question, but I'll yield the floor for now.

Speaker A · Sounds good. Councillor Wagner and then Councillor Cucho and Dec.

Speaker F · Thanks.

Speaker B · A couple of questions. First I would like to follow up on this transit line and then ask my own question, if I might. I was thinking that generally we think of these plans as a tool. So when there's presentations from BC Transit or various meetings I attended, the crd, the Transportation Planning Committee and that kind of thing, once you have the plan, that's then how you advocate for what you want for BC Transit or you advocate to the province. I wonder if staff could comment a bit more on the value of having the plan and then further to that, having the plan, having the map actually in the ocp, for example, that that might be if you could flesh that out a little more for people.

Speaker S · Thank you for the question. With regards to the importance of having a transportation master plan and active transportation plan for the whole city, it is absolutely an advocacy tool to those senior levels of government or Other agencies that maybe we don't have authority over, they would like to see that we have a one plan for the whole city so that we're, we're following the provincial direction to do true transit oriented development to meet our housing targets and do so in a way that's efficient use of public funds.

Speaker S · So this means that when we have these types of plans it opens us up for more grant opportunities from senior levels of government. And the importance of bringing those plans, what's in those plans back and into the ocp, putting that future roadway street way map into the, into the OCP is that we're showing that we're making a decision because as we know these public assets require capital investment and we're showing them that we're putting them in a place where it would be most efficient to serve those communities.

Speaker E · Thank you.

Speaker B · Yeah, I was thinking of the need to attract investment and coordinating with the CRD as well. I did have another question that I hear quite a bit about. The Strandland Feet veterans complicated intersection that is not working well for anyone. I wonder if you could clarify for people some of the comments made it sound that a bus lane would be happening even on the Strandland side. Perhaps it's not my understanding. Could you explain what and also the change that we made. So I just want to be really clear about transportation draft plan when did get changed based on public feedback. So could you comment on that through the chair?

Speaker S · That's correct. So what was shown in the public engagement survey was to see if the public understood, you know, what the trade offs were and how open they were to those level of trade offs. Obviously we heard from the community that that was too significant. So we went back to our consultants and we received such significant amount of feedback that it actually took us more time to go through all of that feedback and incorporate that feedback and very grateful for the, for the public for reaching out. And it was by far the most feedback that we've received from the public on any one of our surveys.

Speaker S · And we received a lot of written submissions and comments as well from the public which were all taken into consideration. Now the difference between what was proposed during the public engagement period versus what you see in the transportation master plan today is the left in to Mill Hill, so southbound left in to Stradland Mill Stream on that side. Again a member of the public mentioned going to Costco for example from the Mill Hill area using that intersection in the future potentially it could be a right in, right out and left in. The major issue with that inter. With that Intersection in particular is it being too close to the Millstream overpass.

Speaker S · And the only way to resolve that is of course to add another potential full turning movement intersection either further south. So between the Goldstream intersection and the Peat intersection there. So you'll see on the transportation map that there's an additional dot in between which we'd have to advocate to the Ministry of Transportation and Transit for. Or the other option would be to do a connection from Grainger to Atkins. Those were newly proposed after the public engagement. Another thing that was newly proposed was the Hoffman connection which again did not make it into the master plan because of the feedback from the public that council heard and had that removed.

Speaker S · So the two alternatives is that if we are going to make meaningful change to improve traffic flow at that intersection, it doesn't mean taking away people's ability to get into North Lankford or South Lankford from Mill Hill. The only way that that would happen is if we were able to successfully advocate to the province or with the CRD and the ICF for additional connections out of Mill Hill before we would ever consider giving a lane away for transit. And to answer the second part of the question there about where the post dedicated bus lane would be is just on Pete north of the of the Brock Larall roundabout there.

Speaker S · And that would again only be if the province hears our advocacy for the bus on shoulder lane to continue on the highway number one to the Millstream overpass.

Speaker B · So just to be absolutely clear for myself here and then I'll give the floor but saying we wouldn't take away a lane or have this bus lane on the Peat side unless there's a new connection and unless there's the bus lane down the highway. So this is quite far off in the future after major investment and change in our transportation network through the chair.

Speaker S · That's correct. And it's also if there's more density in our downtown core. So this is in a future where there would be towers down Pete Jacqueline Road for example, in accordance with our ocp. And this is what it means to do like true Transit Oriented Development. There are some trade offs. This is to prevent a future of gridlock if we just sit and do nothing.

Speaker C · Thank you Mayor. Just to add a few points specifically related to the content of the bylaw, the Transportation Master Plan and active transportation plan contain a lot of detailed technical analysis and different route options for some of these things that have been discussed such as the bus only lane on Peat Road.

Speaker C · But just to clarify, these are not being embedded in the OCP these are items that are addressed and governed by the Transportation Master plan. So the content of the bylaw on tonight's agenda is related to updating some of the very high level objective and policy language around, you know, what the future goals for the transportation network are, really solidifying the linkage between land use and transportation decisions, emphasizing mobility, choice. So it's not that we're expecting 42% of people not to have cars, but it's, you know, 42% of the trips that a household makes. So some of those might be in a car, some of them might be through other modes of transportation. So it's not, you know, cars and not cars. It's about the choices that are available through our transportation network.

Speaker C · So the content of the bylaw is quite high level. It doesn't get into the minutiae of some of these, some of these discussions and points that have been raised by the community tonight. Those are more specifically governed and will continue to be administered through the Transportation Master Plan, not through the ocp. And also the map being added, it just shows the current road network, a few of the key future road networks that we're aware of and that have been discussed to ensure that neighborhoods have appropriate access in and out in the long term. And a couple of the road closures, such as that one that has been passed in Veterans Memorial park on Aldwin Road and Humpback Road and such.

Speaker C · So it doesn't get into the very detailed minutiae of like signalized intersection changes, the bus only lane on Peaks, that is, as my colleague has explained, subject to a lot of other regional approvals as well as density. So anything that has, you know, those caveats where, you know, it can only proceed if, you know, those are not being embedded in the ocp, those will continue to be governed and analyzed through the Transportation Master plan. So the purpose of the bylaw and the maps being added through the bylaw are really just to ensure that very, very high level, like goal objective alignment between the findings and the technical analysis done through the master planning process and those again, very high level policy objectives that are in the official community plan.

Speaker C · So it doesn't get into that level of detail in the weeds that are in the individual master plans themselves. So I just wanted to offer that clarification as well.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Next is Councillor Yakutcha.

Speaker T · Thank you. That actually did just cover one of the big questions that I had, which was many of the questions coming out of the public hearing didn't seem to be directly related to what was coming forward in the bylaw here as well. And so just seeing what is actually being represented in the bylaw on our page, it is a lot to try to aim to address some of these issues being brought forward. Specifically there's a lot of concerns that I heard around transportation and we have multiple additions here that aim to say yeah, we will continue to advocate for public transit network that is reliable, efficient and attractive to residents and visitors.

Speaker T · We we don't address a lot of the mode shift as I believe that was already in the original OCP and continued in the refresh and so not part of this amendment. So I was just hoping to get some clarification on that. The only thing that maybe I would ask is there was the comment at the end and it was about the hey, as we're going through primarily with

Speaker J · the transportation plan, but most of them

Speaker T · the ability to pilot it. That is the look at it, try it, see if it works and pivot. My understanding through a lot of our transportation master plan discussion is that was built right into the transportation plan as one of our main routes to go through these projects. I just want hopefully some clarification on that confirmation if it might be

Speaker S · through the chair. That's correct.

Speaker A · Hey, I don't see any lights. Anyone else or for follow up, Councilor Harder, you had a question earlier, Councillor Wagner?

Speaker B · I might have had my questions answered. I had just thought there'd be maybe another question.

Speaker J · So if I could just.

Speaker B · Because once you close the public hearing I can't ask any questions. I just wanted to be absolutely sure. I think we did cover off that there's nothing new. So this is the transportation plan is already been adopted and had had its own consultation process and public feedback and was modified. So I'm wondering just for tonight it is just to put the plan that is already adopted. It is to put into the OCP words like instead of develop a plan, now it will say implement the plan. So I think the way you were talking about that high level language was helpful but I just, I don't want to stall but I just wanted to make sure I was absolutely clear on these amendments to the OCP and it actually a lot of them do refer to other plans as well.

Speaker B · Arts and culture strategy, the economic development plan, active transportation and transportation and the parks master plan. So the other map that would go in would have the parcels that were protected as park forever as well. So that those will be then in the map because I mean those will be in the OCP because they were already adopted. So again it's not really anything new. It's just putting things in a place that makes sense. Is that a good way to think

Speaker C · about it through the Mayor? Yes, that's exactly right. So the example that you gave around, instead of develop such and such a plan, implement the plan like that, that is a policy change that has been taken into all the sections that relate to those five plans. So that's a good example. And then when we looked at the kind of overall the objectives and the big moves and, and kind of the key actions of all the adopted plans, it was important just to ensure that the policy language in the OCP was fully aligned with those. So it's not introducing any new content, it is aligning and integrating the content developed through the master planning process for all those plans with their, you know, public engagement and key partner engagement and technical analysis that was formed form part of that process.

Speaker C · So yeah, it's alignment. It's not new content that has not been discussed with the community or at

Speaker D · this table through past meetings.

Speaker K · Thank you.

Speaker B · Yeah, that's. I just wanted to make sure I was understanding correctly. And the language seems to be more action oriented. It's more clear. Sometimes extra words are actually removed, you know, replaced with something that's quite clear and looks like we will be advocating for a better transit system. I appreciate hearing from the public about that. We do have a lot of work to do. Hopefully this plan will help us get there. I think that covers off most of my questions. Thanks.

Speaker A · All right, anyone else? Councilor Perry Nanakucha, are you on deck?

Speaker D · Thank you, Mayor. Through you it's really hard because I want to get into a lot of the great work that's been happening and kind of get that clarity because I think having a better understanding of the work that's happening is better for the community. It's better for our decisions. But I guess my question is given that we have a number of plans that we've highlighted that council has adopted and thus would infer that we believe in the work that's done, what would happen if we did not incorporate some of this language as far as like how staff incorporates direction and does the work of the community.

Speaker C · Thanks for the question. Through the mayor, there would be, there would just be a policy disconnect between, you know, the work that has been done, the technical analysis, best practices that were, you know, fully explored through the master planning process in the topic areas and that that high level policy direction of the ocp.

Speaker C · So the OCP since it was adopted first, it did give some cues as far as what the scope of work would be, what the, like how those plans would be developed and what they are trying to achieve. And then once we dug into, you know, the, the detailed work, the analysis, the engagement, best practice review and, and all that, the meat of those topic areas there, you know, there's just some small tweaks and alignments that would be beneficial. And in terms of the parks, you know, acknowledging the parks that have been dedicated over the past, you know, year and a half since the OCP was adopted, it's nice to show those in our parks inventory map, you know, will there be huge consequences if it's not passed?

Speaker C · You know, probably not, but there would be not perfect and, and direct alignment between you know, those significant bodies of work and our overarching official community plan which is, you know, the, the legislated kind of requirement for a city to have. So that guides decision making and decide, guides kind of budgetary discussions during that time. Of course everything would still have to be approved through those different processes, but it just, it gives a cue to the community about what the priorities are, how the community will develop and look over the long term. And in this case as we grow to 100,000 residents, you know, what will that look like? What are the quality of life factors in terms of park and arts and economic development?

Speaker C · What are the key priorities of the community? So they would just run the risk of not having kind of perfect alignment between that technical deep dive work that was done and the overall policy driver for the city.

Speaker A · Okay. And Councillor Kucha,

Speaker T · that actually was my question and. No, that was perfect. What I heard was just really that these were holistic plans and we needed to start somewhere knowing fully well that each plan would then subsequently speak back into the others. And so this is just updating to make sure they all reflect and holistically complement and reflect each other.

Speaker J · So thank you.

Speaker M · Yep.

Speaker A · Last call for anyone once I close it. Okay, I'll just as been said before, these plans are very high level. They, they are not down to the, you know, the street level granularity on their own. So while you may see something in there that you like or do not like, that does not mean that is definitely happening. It's a theoretical possibility. There could be 20 years away and we are not setting forth that every single thing in that plan is automatically an option and going to happen in the ocp. Don't see any more lights going. So I am going to close public participation. Sorry, public hearing. Well, my mistake. Close public hearing for bylaw number 2292 and right away, we are going to call to order the Council meeting for tonight.

Speaker A · We have already had our territorial acknowledgment. Thank you, Councillor Wagner. And so Ms. Whatmore meeting conduct rules Good evening everyone.

Speaker E · My name is Marie Watmo and I'm the moderator for tonight's meeting. Participation by the public is in person or via Zoom, either using the Zoom app or telephone. If you're joining us through the Zoom app and wish to make a comment, please use the raise hand function in the app. Keeping in mind that you are able to both raise and lower your hand and you'll be called on based upon your username, you will need to unmute yourself when it's time for you to speak. If you're joining us via telephone, you must press Star nine on the telephone keypad to raise your hand. You should hear a recording advising you.

Speaker E · The moderator will be notified that you wish to speak and you'll be called upon using the last three digits of your phone number. Please press star6 on the telephone keypad to unmute your phone. If you're attending in person, you can approach the podium one at a time. And in all cases, please start by providing us with your first initial, last name and municipality of residence. During tonight's public participation, you may speak to any item on the agenda except for 16. 4 which was the subject of the public hearing, and all comments are subject to the three minute time limit. At this time. We remind the public that the City doesn't tolerate bullying or harassment of city staff, elected officials or members of the public during counseling committee meetings. So please keep your comments respectful.

Speaker E · For any matters not appearing on tonight's agenda, please contact City hall by calling 250-478-7882. During regular business hours. If you experience technical difficulties in getting through tonight, please contact City hall tomorrow. And as always, the city also accepts written submissions and comments.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Can I have an approval of the agenda, please?

Speaker J · I move that Council approve the agenda as presented.

Speaker A · Second, all those in favor post that passes. We're on to item number nine. Presentations 9. 1, the asset management plan Staff.

Speaker H · Thank you, your worship. It's my pleasure to introduce Christopher Payne, Principal from FIT Local Government Consulting. And Christopher will present the draft asset management plan and long term financial plan in alignment with Council strategic plan direction of 5H to finalize a comprehensive asset management plan. And once Christopher has done his presentation, he and staff are here to answer any questions that council may have. Thanks.

Speaker J · Thank you, Mr. Dilba. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you very Much for having me here today to walk you through the asset management plan. Really excited to be here and you'll see my accounting nerdiness drop up through the presentation. So you'll see why. So I just want to introduce myself to begin. I'm as Michael mentioned on the principal of FIT Local Government Consulting. We're a small shop. There's three practitioners in our shop. Previous to starting the firm I was a CFO for about 15 years at various municipalities. One being City of Colwood right next door and more recently the Director of Finance and Asset Management at ok.

Speaker J · In that time I kind of developed a niche for long term financial planning and so I really enjoyed working with that a little on the personal side. I'm a Lankford resident raised from a very young age. I moved here two years after incorporation. I had to go and double check when a corporation was and promptly was a trader and left and moved to Seattle or pardon me moved to Saanich where I now have a family with three children. But I come back to Lankford often and I and I see the community and I see all the families that are enjoying Langford and I'm very envious of the community that Langford has become.

Speaker J · So that's why I'm very happy to be here today as well. I also wanted to mention maybe this was the one that. Thank you very much. Appreciate that we partner with JW Infrastructure Planning. Principal for JW Infrastructure Planning is John Windinger. He's an engineer based on the at the mainland. He would kind of be an accountant gone wild if it wasn't for me. I'd kind of be an engineer gone wild if it wasn't for him. John has over 30 years experience working in the asset management field as a consultant previously with Urban and he has often focused on long term financial sustainability as well. So John sends his regards.

Speaker J · He's not able to attend today. He's got a personal commitment. Just want to take the time to acknowledge the staff at the City of Lankford who helped prepare and provide information to the consultants for this as well as Westshore Environmental Services and other folks along the way. So I just wanted to begin by introducing the scope of the project went a little bit too fast there. Lankford wanted to develop an asset management plan as well as a long term financial plan. We presented a couple different options to Lankford during the bid process and Lankford opted to do both concurrently which we thought was a cost effective way to go about it.

Speaker J · What I found throughout my career is that much of the asset management plan and long term financial plan overlap. So we're able to do a lot of what you would otherwise do twice in one plan. So that's why you see a combined plan. I also just want to go over some terminology to begin with because I'll just start spitting out financial numbers and talking about terminology. And a lot of folks benefit from a baseline understanding of some of the terminology that I'm going to use. When we say asset management or asset management program, we talk about how in general, what the activities that the city does in general to maintain its assets through their life cycle. That's what asset management means. Specifically.

Speaker J · An asset management plan itself is a very specific type of document. It's a type of document that outlines how a municipality goes about maintaining its assets through their life cycle. So it's not about the corporate activities that you undertake to improve asset management, maturity or knowledge, et cetera, et cetera. It's a specific document. A long term financial plan bridges what the asset management plan does with a funding strategy. So it takes the outputs of the asset management plan and paints for you a funding strategy or a long term financial strategy that you can use to achieve what you want to achieve as outlined in the asset management plan.

Speaker J · A capital plan is different. So quite often a long term financial plan can get confused with what we call a capital plan. So you can, you have a capital plan, you have a five year capital plan in your five year financial plan. But often municipalities will go and prepare a 10 year capital plan or a 20 year capital plan. That type of plan lays out the specific projects you want to undertake over that time horizon. You do specific class D cost estimates for each of those projects. You identify funding sources. A long term financial plan looks at what you expect to spend over all of your assets over the entirety of their life cycle. So it's not project specific, it's not a capital plan.

Speaker J · You can't go to, you know, year 2043 of the long term financial plan and say we're going to spend $10. 4 million. What are those projects? Now that's what a capital plan would achieve for you. It's more specific. But there are reasons why undertaking a long term financial plan are advantageous to you. And I'll show you some graphs later on that'll paint this really well. Often a capital plan in the time horizon that you prepare, a capital plan does not forecast a significant phase of asset replacement that follows that time horizon. So if you're looking down the road for 10 or 20 years. Municipal assets on average can last over 75 years. Though you might miss a huge wave of asset replacement that's coming due just by looking at a ten year capital plan.

Speaker J · So if you're pegging your financial strategy to that capital plan, it may not be sufficient. So that's what a long term financial plan can do for you. An asset management strategy is a document that outlines your roadmap for the various activities your organization is going to undertake to advance asset management maturity. So if for instance, you think, hey, we could, we could improve in this area of asset management, perhaps we could be onboarding people with asset management, perhaps we could be training people with asset management, perhaps we could prepare a long term financial plan, we could prepare all these other. An asset management strategy puts that together for you. So we haven't prepared an asset management strategy for you today.

Speaker J · Typically in, in there you would have recommendations around your asset management, but an asset management plan doesn't do that for you. It's kind of a state of the infrastructure report for you as opposed to a recommendation. And I will refer to the five year capital plan that's already been prepared and adopted by council several times. So you have a financial plan bylaw, that's your five year financial plan. So that's different than your long term financial plan. One thing I wanted to mention, Mr. Chair, is that I am more than comfortable being interrupted during the presentation because sometimes I move through the figures quite quickly and it could benefit anybody listening to pause.

Speaker J · If someone's thinking a question, I'm sure that other people are thinking of questions. So I'm more than happy depending on your convention here to be interrupted at any point.

Speaker A · All right, Council, just put your light on and we'll open you up there for the question.

Speaker J · Otherwise I have no problem filling the space with my talking. So it might be advantageous to actually stop. Pause me here and there. Excuse me. So as mentioned, an asset management plan outlines how an organization plans to manage its assets through its life cycle. You will quantify your assets so not only in terms of dollar values, but how much you have. So how much kilometers you have, for instance of drainage or road, you'll describe the condition of those assets. That can be important because if you're in the later stages of your life cycle and the condition is deteriorating, then your community is experiencing a lowering level of service and you have some decisions to make around that.

Speaker J · We will consider levels of service as well. So what service do we want to provide at what quality to our constituents using this asset? And it will describe Any risk management activities undertaken or recommended to be undertaken. It often outlines a financial strategy that's pretty high level. But this is where we can link the long term financial plan to the asset management plan. A long term financial plan on the other hand quantifies your assets. So you see there's already some overlap there. It forecasts life cycle expenditures. So we'd say in nominal value, for instance, you can be expected to spend $1. 6 billion over the next 75 years.

Speaker J · So on a very high level it forecasts total replacement costs over a life cycle. It quantifies existing funding. And so this is where it really is quite a bit different. Often you'll see standalone asset management plans that say he we need, I don't know, $14 million to sustain the current services and it just leaves it there and then it goes sits on the shelf. But coupling that with a financial plan, a long term financial plan with a funding strategy puts that asset management plan into action. And so it will compare your life cycle funding to your life cycle expenditure. So we're going to be able to collect this much in taxes, we're going to spend this much. How does that compare? Is there a gap and what can, what strategies can we undertake to close that gap?

Speaker J · So once again just wanted to emphasize that it's not a capital spending plan. So we utilize the asset management BC framework, which is your common asset management framework. I'm sure lots of you folks have seen this in, in your career and you'll notice that the framework is a continuous cycle of improvement. So where's the start point on in that frame framework there is no start point. You kind of start wherever you want to start. And I've highlighted here where the city of Lankford what we're focusing on here, your asset management plan and your long term financial plan. But there's lots of other things in respect of asset management practices you can undertake. You can improve your condition assessments if you want to undertake more condition assessments.

Speaker J · You can improve your onboarding and your staff if you so choose to do that. You can do a data audit and improve your data intake if you so choose to do that. And no matter where you start though, you'll never get it perfect, ever. And asset management for practitioners as well as elected officials is often could be daunting if you allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. So that's the point I want to make here, is that this is a first generation plan compared to not having a plan. It's a significant improvement. And then the next Time around, you're going to refine this plan and make it more precise and make it more useful for decision making.

Speaker J · This plan supports the council strategic plan, so it complements objectives already in the council strategic plan. I'll also mention that in the community charter there's, it's written that it's specifically our purpose of the municipality is for the stewardship of public assets. So your strategic plan complements already what is legislatively your obligation, which is the stewardship of public assets. And this asset management plan seeks to do exactly that. So I'm going to go through just a couple boring things real first, some of the assumptions and limitations. We put a full list of assumptions in appendix A. That's kind of useful. So for the next generation of your plan, you can say, okay, this is how we prepared the first plan. These are the differences, these are the improvement areas, the launching point.

Speaker J · Your CFO in particular noted that our the building forecast in the plan, the cost probably will be higher than what

Speaker Q · are in the plan.

Speaker J · And there's a couple reasons for that. One thing we like to do with as a starting point for long term financial plan is we assume that what your community looks like now you're just going to replace like for like. We know that's not going to be the case. The RCMP building is a good example. You know, the RCMP building reports indicate that you're going to expand the footage of the RCMP building when you rebuild it. But the forecast in here would just forecast the same square footage that you have now. It's replaced. So that's one example. For buildings, we used appraisals where that was available. A lot of buildings did not have appraisals.

Speaker J · So instead we used published unit rates from quantity surveyors and applied those to your square footages in terms of. And I also want to mention I was forwarded a question from a member of the public in terms of the tangible Capital Asset Registry. So the city did provide me with a TCA registry. That's an accounting register that we're responsible for having for making public sector accounting standards. And it lists all of the assets and the historical costs of those assets. And so we use that in this study. We compared the data from other sources to that. So it was kind of a quality review as well. But often your TCA register doesn't have the same quality of information that let's say your GIS would have.

Speaker J · So your engineers are relying on your GIS database in order to do planning around storm drain, for instance, and road. And so we believe that that's the best source of information for doing the financial modeling because it's the source of truth in the ground. But we would still compare that to your TCA register to ensure completeness. Often your TCA register doesn't have the same quality of data as other data sources. It might not have the type of material, it might not have the specific segment or the geolocation of that segment. So we're just using the best data source that we have. In terms of sewer, what we did was we used the aggregate totals to predict the total replacement cost, but we use the sub aggregate data to predict the replacement cycle distribution.

Speaker J · Your unit rates that we used for the replacement cost estimates were based on a compilation of class D estimates. John has, you know, combined between John and I, we probably have more than 40 clients that have undertaken class D unit rate studies. And so we have current information for what unit rates look like for a lot of the underground utilities, for instance. And then the estimated useful lives will be based on a modified National Asset Management Standard Survey, which is a national survey as well. All dollars are expressed in nominal values, and there's a reason for that. If we apply an assumption for inflation to, you know, 2101, the numbers become incomprehensible to talk about in today's dollars for capital plans.

Speaker J · Often what consultants will do is they will inflate the numbers using an, an assumption for inflation, and then they'll use a discount rate to bring it back. Incidentally, your discount rate would be close to what your inflation rate would be, so you'd just be going back and forth. But in order to talk about the magnitude of spending over 75 years, we're using nominal values so that way we can communicate this more effectively to the public.

Speaker M · So we'll go.

Speaker J · I'll walk you through some of the key financial findings here. The first thing is always interesting to know for a municipality that has its first asset management plan, like what are our assets worth? And oh, you know, small communities, large community, they're always surprised. Oh, well, we, we have, you know, your staff manage over $2. 2 billion worth of assets. That's what the study found. $400 million of that. Keep in mind our, our West Shore Environmental Services assets. So the non not owned by the city, we've separated that separately. So you could draw different conclusions if you so choose. So that would leave $1. 8 billion in depreciable assets. Compare that to your tangible capital asset total on your financial statements. That's $400 million in your financial statements.

Speaker J · So you see how financial statements under current accounting standards, they do not give you the reality of what the financial statement implications of your infrastructure are going to be. So you can't really rely on that for future planning for infrastructure. And I'm advocating with the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board to, to move to fair value accounting, which is adopted internationally. But anyways, we are where we are. You know, your financial statements say you've got 400 million worth of depreciable assets. Your strategic plan says half a billion. In reality, you're at $1. 8 billion of what you own and operate, and that doesn't include your land.

Speaker J · Your transportation assets are going to account for nearly half of that. So $950 million of that. And then if you add, you know, your storm, your sewer and your transportation assets up, you're looking at 87% of that value. The reason that I pull that out is because storm sewer, transportation, those are less discretionary services you provide. Right? We can, we can expect that the community is going to expect us to continue to provide storm well into the future, transportation well into the future. And you don't have much discretion to claw that back in any way, shape or form. Yes, you can perform less maintenance on your storm sewer, incur more risk, incur more backups, that sort of thing, but there's a regulatory minimum for you.

Speaker J · So what I'm saying here is you don't have a lot of opportunity to adjust service levels to save money. You just kind of have to plan to, to, to fund it at some point. The next thing we look at is how far are you through your, your assets? Because if you're in a community like I was at, at Oak Bay, which was incorporated in 1905, and if you're well through the, you know, you know, the average useful life of your assets, there's going to be more problems with those assets. So if you can measure where you are in your useful life, your assets, it provides a sense of urgency for

Speaker A · you

Speaker J · and it's a proxy for how soon the city will has to deal with the financial implications. And the reality is that most cities, new cities, cities that grow fast, they defer dealing with the financial implications of that until they're forced to. And that's the, that's the typical approach across Canada. And that's, and that's why you see infrastructure slowly failing, because we're slowly reducing service levels by not funding it. You can measure your consumption across entire asset class. So it's kind of some good information to know because you can walk around say, hey, the whole city, we're about this percent through our assets, or you can do it by particular asset class.

Speaker J · So in this case we're saying, hey, you're probably about 26% consumed. So that's really young infrastructure. And I love when I see communities with young infrastructure because it provides opportunities that communities with old infrastructure have not taken advantage of. They can't take advantage of it. And in reality, again, this also paints a picture of, in terms of the funding picture, you can avoid addressing funding for a long time if you so choose to do that and some communities to do that. In reality, when presented with this information, my experience is communities, they choose kind of a middle ground. Like we want to plan for the future for sure.

Speaker J · We want to be fair to existing ratepayers and we want to be able to bridge different opinions on that matter. So I took some of the non discretionary, I'll call them non discretionary services. Road, storm sewer. Again, same sort of picture here. You're like 20% through 30% consumed. So you got, you got a long way. So these things are like, they kind of, I'm the same age consumed, I guess maybe I'm more than 30 consumed by self. But your infrastructure and me are pretty well the same age. Okay, so the next concept I just wanted to talk about is, it's jargon. It's a counting jargon, right? It's called aaac. Aaac, we call it average annual asset asset consumption.

Speaker J · And what it really is is a measure of the cost of that annual consumption. So I always put it in a fire truck term because most municipalities, they know when their fire trucks are going to come due for replacement. They've got NFPA standards that tells them when they have to replace their fire truck so they can plan ahead. And they know exactly how much they need to set aside if they want to set aside. Or they know exactly how much they're going to have to take on debt. They want to do debt. So in this case, you know, suppose that you have a fire truck worth $2 million with a useful life of 10 years. Well, that's $200,000 a year, right? That's your AAA C. So that's your funding target.

Speaker J · You're going to have to pay that one way or the other. You can pay it by putting in money into the reserve for 10 years. That's the green there. Or you can pay it all at the end and take on debt and then pay it, you know, 20, 20 years after the debt and Both are totally acceptable. In the green option, you get to earn some investment income. In the red option, you have to pay some debt interest. We're really blessed in B. C. to have the Municipal Finance Authority. And so we have low debt costs compared to other municipal jurisdictions across the world. So when I go figure out your AAC for your depreciable assets, you're looking at 20 million bucks.

Speaker J · 25 if you include your sanitary sewer from WSES. So if you wanted to have a sustainable funding target, this is it. You will achieve that target either proactively or reactively because you're going to have to replace your assets. So you'll incur those costs at some point. It's important to know that actual expenditures, they don't. They don't. They're not incurred on a uniform basis. So we're saying the average over the next 75 years is $20 million a year. But hey, you might spend 50 million in one year and then 3 million in another year and then 27 in another year. That's the nature of capital expenditures. And that's why you kind of want to establish a funding stream that's predictable, uniform even, because then you're not seeing big swings in tax increases when that happens.

Speaker J · So how does that compare to your current funding levels? Right now what we're saying is you got 16, not quite the bottom line there, but the third to the bottom, $16. 4 million. So every year you're getting about $16. 4 million in either taxation or gas tax revenue or other revenue that you can count on every single year that you can use for capital purposes. We have made an assumption here that you don't want to use all of that for existing infrastructure. You might want to use some of that for new infrastructure. I know you've got a sidewalk infill program and we talk about all sorts of other park improvements, transportation improvements.

Speaker J · So if we assume that you want to set aside $2 million of that a year for new infrastructure, then really you've got about $14. 4 million. Later on in the presentation. I recommend that council dedicate an amount. I recommend 14. 4 plus sing debt servicing from later on. You can play with that number a bit. If you dedicate less, then you're just going to be less sustainable and you'll earn less interest investment revenue now, you'll pay more debt later if you. I don't think there's a need to dedicate more than that, but you can as well. So using those numbers, we would estimate that using only you Know, if you're looking at your own infrastructure, you're 72% sustainable, or if you include, like, if you think we're going to be, we're going to be responsible for replacing sanitary sewer infrastructure currently owned by WSEs, then you're 56% sustainable.

Speaker A · Excuse me.

Speaker J · So it creates a bit of a funding gap to consider of between $5. 7 million and $11 million. So you can boil all of that down to, hey, can we find additional funding for that? If that's what you so choose to do. So here's, here's what I mean when it comes to capital spending being not even and being less predictable. So using the modeling from the infrastructure data that we were provided, you can see that your spending is relatively low on asset replacement until the 2000s. And then there's this huge wave of infrastructure replacement. So that's kind of indicative of Langford's very fast growth and fast development. And so it's going to come due all the compressed periods.

Speaker J · So you have a choice to sort of wait until that happens and then increase your tax rate significantly at that point, incur some debt, pay debt interest, miss out on the opportunity to, to achieve some investment returns, or you can gradually increase taxes before that and, and reduce the, what would otherwise be tax increases in the future.

Speaker J · So here's what we're looking at here. $14. 4 million, that's your red line here. Depending on whether or not you have WSES assets to replace, the actual sustainable amount is closer to 25 million. So you're looking at a $900 million funding gap over that period. But don't let that be daunting. I'll show you why that's not daunting. This is saying the same thing, just another way. It's the projection of your cumulative funding shortfall. And you see that you don't have much of a funding shortfall until that 2070 wave hits significantly. And then you're, you're going into the negative by approximately 900, 800 to $900 billion. So in reality, that would never happen when 2070 came around.

Speaker J · The council of the day will increase funding to pay for the replacement of its storm and its roads. And it's, you know, you can't avoid doing that. But this is hypothetical that if you just kept funding what it is today, there would be a funding shortfall. This is why I would say it's not daunting is because, you know, we went back and we looked at 2022 funding levels and there's been Some significant increases in funding since 2022 and those increases themselves have solved $742 million of the life cycle funding gap. So you've already done a lot of the work over a short period of time. And so similar adjustments moving forward would solve the would be $900 million funding gap.

Speaker J · So just to comment on your current financial plan, so this is a five year financial plan that council's already adopted, your spending authority, it increases debt servicing budget significantly through 2030, primarily for the Langford Aquatic center and the Woodlands park project. And then what it does is when those debt servicing payments retire, it converts that budget into reserve contributions. So I believe that council opted to pay down that debt over a five year amortization period. That saves approximately $15 million by my calculation, at current rates in debt interest. But more importantly, in my view, it allows the city to begin contributing to reserves much earlier than if you had done a typical advertisation.

Speaker J · So you know the local Government act allows you to pay down debt for capital over 30 year period maximum. So you're basically starting reserve contributions 25 years early, which is a significant opportunity for the city given that strategy. So if you maintain that strategy, you'll see the climb towards sustainability happens quickly. So your financial plan as laid out did my job for me. I normally come to municipalities and say, hey, you might want to increase taxes, here's a 10 year plan to increase taxes. And all I had to say was keep, keep doing it if that's what you want to achieve over that time. So I just want to talk a little bit about what we call sensitivity analysis.

Speaker J · As anyone can understand, when we prepare these very high level analysis, we use a lot, we have to incorporate a lot of assumptions. We have to kind of determine, well, what's the useful life of these assets so we can predict when they're going to be replaced. We have to figure out what the unit rates of it is. So if any of those assumptions are wrong, it can change the findings. So what we do is we conduct a sensitivity analysis to help authenticate the broad findings. So for instance, we'll say, hey, what does our findings look like? If actually the youthful lives are much longer, they're 20% longer. So we run that gap and then we figure out, oh, is there still a funding gap?

Speaker J · And there still is a, an annual funding gap. There's also some optimistic and pessimistic assumptions in here. For instance, we never integrated building life cycle capital maintenance. So you buy a building, you don't just wait for it to depreciate before you replace it, you have to replace the roof, you have to replace, do the cladding, all that sort of stuff, the flooring. So all that capital maintenance actually usually costs more than the cost of the building itself. So if you ever are in the market for a building, that's what a life cycle costing analysis is important. It's not just the acquisition cost, it's also how much are we going to have to spend to fund the capital maintenance? Well, if we had included that in our forecast, that would be an extra $300 million.

Speaker J · But again, you know, these are the high level projections. Ultimately the sensitivity analysis was conducted so that the public and anyone reading it can feel confident that the overall findings and recommendations that flow from those findings are accurate within the parameters. Some other asset management findings and as I mentioned earlier on the asset management plan is not an asset management strategy. So it just describes what you're doing now to manage your assets. It's not normally prepared with the intention of providing recommendations to how maybe you want to improve your asset management practices. But u city manager asked if I could provide just a couple recommendations.

Speaker J · So I have here on the slides your asset management, your levels of service generally are not, they're not, they're generally not formally documented. So this is the case for B. C. municipalities across the board. There's very few municipalities that have done a really good job of documenting specifically what their levels of services are. Most of the time 90% of your assets are regulatory, right? They're transportation, they're storm. So you're just like, well we'll make sure that you have clean drink and water. That's our level of service. So there's no formal documentation outside of the regulation. It's a lot of work. It can be of benefit to you but more, more likely it can be a benefit of you when you're at a higher level asset management maturity because you want to focus on, on the high impact things you can do right now.

Speaker J · Additionally, investment in data quality would improve the confidence in some of the modeling we have. You know, there's nothing, there is nothing out of the ordinary about the data that we received from, for the city of Lankford. And I do know that you, you've created positions to asset management positions to improve asset management quality. So you're on, you're on the path to that already. And, but certainly asset management data quality could be improved. And then generally there's no formal condition assessment or risk framework. Now your staff are undertaking risk assessment activities, they're undertaking condition assessment activities. For instance you know, you'll have storms CCTV done and that will provide a condition assessment framework.

Speaker J · But your, your buildings are new, for instance, so it's not normal for a municipality who has new buildings to then start doing, building our facilities condition assessments because there, it's all new, it's all good.

Speaker F · Right?

Speaker J · So at some point you'll want to have condition assessments done because it can save you on the lifecycle costs if you can proactively recognize when your asset condition is wearing and proactive investment would save over the long term. So those are, you know, in a nutshell, those are the high level recommendations I would make. Have a data and audit strategy. You don't have a centralized asset management database. Not that that I'm not saying go buy asset management software, but certainly now that you've got a centralized asset management function, that function should be empowered to ensure that there's standards maintained for all your asset management class classes.

Speaker S · Okay.

Speaker J · And if you do want to go down the levels of service path, I would highly recommend modeling one levels of service. I, when I was at Oak Bay, I just know, I just, all the characters that I met in my career, all the parks characters that I've met in my career, they love their job, they know their job so well. So I always modeled levels of service with parks because I could say, hey, what, what are your maintenance standards? Say, why don't, why do you, why don't you maintain Beacon Hill to that standard and this part to that center here, all the maintenance standards that we abide by.

Speaker J · And so you've got levels of service and then you know, you can provide those levels of service to council and you can provide to the public for transparency and then the public can say, hey, we really actually want to, we want a higher level of service for this park or we want a lower level of service for this park.

Speaker J · Yeah, we want to save some money. So we don't think you need to have this high level service for this park. And in that way staff know exactly what the elected body is requiring of them and the, the public has the opportunity to weigh in. So you know, I think I followed, if I follow, I followed your prioritization method for the infill. For instance, infill, sidewalk is that same sort of process except for your existing assets. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't do all of your levels of service for all your assets. It's too much work with too little benefit at this stage. So if you want to do it, Pilot 1 so onto the financial strategy. So all this Data, what does it lead to in terms of our recommendation? There's a couple options again, that you can undertake with increasing.

Speaker J · This is the normal path that municipalities take. So they just kind of peg their funding levels to exactly what they expenditures are at that stage of the life cycle. Then all of a sudden the replacement costs are incurred and taxes have to go way up to fund that. So in that scenario, you'd be looking at about $2. 6 billion in tax funding over the next 75 years. And that would include the tax funding required for debt servicing. The other option, which is your current financial plan trajectory, is increased taxes over the next five years. Maintain a steady state in terms of the funding for your infrastructure over the life cycle. And that would result in $1.

Speaker J · 6 billion in taxes over that same period because the remaining funding would be taken care of with investment returns. So that requires you to maintain a reserve balance throughout part of the life cycle of the assets, which can be frankly, politically difficult to do. So, you know, that's why municipalities very rarely peg it to perfect sustainability. There's some sort of bridge in between. The other thing that I think I would recommend highly is dedicate some of your current capital funding to existing infrastructure. Because as long as that funding is open to any sort of infrastructure, you really don't have sustainable, sustainable funding for your existing infrastructure. You can just spend that on new infrastructure.

Speaker J · And whenever you purchase new infrastructure, it comes with new life cycle obligations. So using capital funds to purchase new infrastructure obligates the city to even more of a larger financial gap. So the funding is not currently allocated between new and old. And you can reach 80% of AAA C by 2030 if you dedicate all but the $2 million. So that would include.

Speaker A · That would.

Speaker J · That would mean taking the $16. 4 million that you have in the current year of the financial plan, putting two aside for new infrastructure. That allows council and the public to have an infill sidewalk program or other new infrastructure program. And then as the debt servicing budget comes down for the Langford Aquatic center, convert that debt servicing budget into reserve transfers. And then the plan's already doing that, but that would be dedicated again to existing infrastructure. So it's difficult because it means that that funding is being used just to maintain what you have. And the status quo is kind of boring. I understand that every council is elected on arguably breaking status quo.

Speaker O · So.

Speaker J · But this way you have some funding to improve levels of service if you want, by. By spending it on new infrastructure, but also maintaining what you have. So I got that recommendation in there. The next thing I wanted to comment on was your reserve and investment strategy. And I just wanted to do a quick demonstration of what investment returns can do. I will mention BC is in a particularly advantageous spot compared to Canada, or I would say North America in terms of our statutory ability to create and build reserves. And there's really no limits to that. So if council says we want to create an infrastructure replacement reserve and we want to fund it sustainably for the life cycle, you can build up those reserves as much as you want.

Speaker J · Of course there will be constituent pushback on that because there will be equity issues that you'll have to grapple with in terms of that. But really, you know, when I look at the leaders in asset management, which would be Australia, basically New Zealand, they have statutory limits on the reserves they can establish. So they, they're pushing up against the ceiling. Across Canada, that's the same thing. The United States is the same thing. The BC has a significant opportunity to create the reserves in whichever manner the local government wants to do so. That's the first thing. The second thing is the Municipal Finance Authority, which I continually sing their praises, the Municipal Finance Authority themselves, they're able to invest in investment vehicles that you cannot invest in specifically.

Speaker J · So if you wanted to invest in Apple, you can't do that. You can only invest in Vic's bonds and Municipal Finance Authority funds. So Municipal Finance Authority can go create funds that have high yields. You can buy those. So indirectly you can invest in Apple through. I don't, I don't know if that's in their portfolio. I'm just using that as an example. So they have the opportunity to create funds that can produce greater yields while providing the diversification that you need to safeguard your principal. So just using a simple example here, if you take a piece of infrastructure and you assume that it's going to be replaced for a million dollars and you set aside the same amount for the full, I believe is 75, 80 years here.

Speaker J · How much of it would be funded by reserve contributions? How much of it would be funded by investment returns? And it turns out that 59% of it could be funded by investment returns if you just achieved a 2% return on investment. So the Municipal Finance Authority has products that, whose intention is to exceed inflation by 3%. So you're looking at 3 to 6% return on investment. So you can really form even much larger than, much greater than the last slide. So for instance, if you had 80 years of contributions with 5% return, you could fund 92% of the cost of infrastructure replacement with investment returns.

Speaker J · In reality, no municipality sets aside funds from year zero that you start halfway through. So we also modeled 40 years of cumulative investment returns. And again, with a 5% return, you can fund 67% of the replacement cost of that asset with investment returns. So you have that great opportunity that most municipalities in North America don't have. First of all, you're young. Second of all, you have the statutory ability to create reserves. Third of all, you have the municipal Finance Authority which doesn't exist outside of bc. Okay, and the next thing we want to talk about is development life cycle costing. So you know, what often happens is communities grow, they subdivide, etc.

Speaker J · So there's a lot of new property tax revenue that comes from that and a lot of new user fee revenue comes from that. But alongside that there's direct costs, there's new roads that you have to maintain, there's new park staff that you have to employ, there's new rec center staff you have to employ, new police, et cetera, et cetera. So it would be advantageous to have a development life cycle costing policy where you can look at the total financial impact of a proposed land use decision if it's significant. So this is just an example. There's a mist timing in terms of development. New taxes that come from development and the costs incurred that come from new development.

Speaker J · So for instance, you may rezone a property and as soon as you rezone that property, BC assessment says, hey, it's worth more money, you can get more taxes from it. That's, that's new tax revenue that you get. But you haven't incurred any costs yet as a municipality. Next thing you go, you do is you subdivide. So they put in services, services are turned over to you. So you, you have to, you have a little bit of obligation, but you get even more money in, in non market change revenue building permit is issued. As soon as that building permit is issued, someone moves in, you've got new citizens, you got new operating costs, and then later on you got capital maintenance costs. Then later on you got infrastructure replacement.

Speaker J · So there's a mistime in between the revenue you get from major land use decisions that roll into your tax base versus the ongoing costs that result from that. And so you may want to have a policy that says, hey, if we get a major land use application, maybe an OCP amendment, we want to see what the full life cycle cost of this development is. So we've got some recommendations there. This is Kind of a little hidden recommendation. But I will note that in your 2023 Pavement Management Plan, the folks that conducted that pavement management plan, they modeled what it would cost for the municipality to maintain the same PQI pavement quality index being 67.

Speaker J · And they said you need $5 million. I believe at the time your budget was $1. 5 million, is now $2 million. So our, our assumptions is that you're going to maintain the same pqi. So it basically, one of the baseline assumptions in our plan is you want to maintain the same levels of service. So to do that over time, you're going to have to fund the pavement management to that degree, if those projections were correct. And you can do that within the confines of the recommendations we've already provided. So you could, if you need to increase the pavement management budget to meet that target, you can do that with the sustainable funding targets we've already set here. So we're not talking about additional tax increase.

Speaker J · And one of our last recommendations is to conduct a sustainability study with respect to your sewer. Newer utility. Sort of some question marks there in terms of when you will incur those costs, if you will incur those costs, if they will remain in the city's or if they will remain not as a city asset, or will they become a city asset, and what are the implications of either that? So we recommend that you undertake that, that study in more detail. It would inform a business case in either way. Right. This is the type of information that I'm sure WSES is doing on their side as well.

Speaker J · You know, how much would it cost us to maintain the system? Are we able to achieve enough user fees to cover that cost? So they're doing that analysis. So when that decision comes to bear, having that information available will be very, very useful. And I know you're undertaking this sort of work in many different ways already.

Speaker B · There you go.

Speaker J · So I've arrived at the end of the presentation. I'm more than happy to take questions and I thank you for your other presentation.

Speaker A · Okay, thank you. Wow, that was a lot of information. I saw people writing stuff down. So, Council, right away, questions. Councilor Regner and then Councilor Harder.

Speaker B · Sorry, I have a lozenge.

Speaker G · Pardon me.

Speaker B · Thank you for the presentation. My one question came out of the. I think it was right out of the asset management plan. It says if existing infrastructure continues to be funded at unsustainable levels, growth will widen the funding gaps rather than solve them. So I just wondered if you could really flesh that out. There's sort of the idea that, well, growth is good growth, we'll have more taxpayers, that'll fix the problem because we collect more taxes. It doesn't seem to be working out for us when we do the math. But can you really spell that out clearly?

Speaker J · Yes, through your worship. You know, so I recently conducted a development life cycle caustic analysis to answer that question about a particular application. And of course you have people on both sides of the aisle saying, oh, growth is good, it's more financially sustainable, Growth is bad. Really, it comes down to how sustainable your tax rates already are. So if your tax rates, if you could only recover 43% of the life cycle costs of your assets, then any new buildings that you build will only recover 43% of it, of its, of its life cycle assets. Right. So we, we pegged you at about 57% sustainable. So if you build another building and you, and you get tax revenue from that building, presumably the tax rate applied to that building would only achieve 50% sustainability.

Speaker J · That really has nothing to do with the development in particular, it has to do with your tax rate. And again, in reality what happens is communities grow fast. They benefit from new tax revenue, new amenities, new infrastructure. And the cost of infrastructure isn't really incurred until later on. And that's when taxes have to go up because you have to continue providing those services.

Speaker A · Do you have a follow up?

Speaker B · I guess I'm just thinking about does it matter how many people or are we thinking about the build? Is asset the thing that matters or is it population or both? Because we'll need more services for more people. Just wanting to think about that a little more.

Speaker J · Yeah. So in my experience, actually

Speaker A · the new

Speaker J · costs that come with growth actually relate more to operating services. So protective services, etc are pretty significant infrastructure as well. But you may see a,

Speaker A · you may

Speaker J · see a benefit of scale. So for instance, if you're, if you're doing infill versus versus greenfill, there will be infrastructure there to already support that infill. So the cost might be less on a per unit basis. But ultimately it really, it doesn't come down to the number of people or the type of development. It comes down to how sustainable your tax base already is to be from, from the beginning.

Speaker A · All right, I'll go to councilor harder and then if you have further questions, we'll go back to. And then Councillor Cujo on deck.

Speaker K · Thank you. Through you, Mayor. Thank you so much, Chris, for the presentation. It's great to see a local consultant come in and appreciate your context and your familiarity with the local Landscape. I just wanted to go back to something that was sort of in the middle of the presentation which was just describing the status quo and the work that we've done this term to close the gap. And I was just hoping you could clarify. There were two numbers there that I just want to make sure I'm clear on. 900 million and then 742 million. I don't know if we can maybe go back to slide.

Speaker A · Sure.

Speaker K · I'm just hoping you can relay sort of what the work of this term has actually accomplished in closing that gap. And I know you mentioned the concept of using retired debt servicing from Woodlands park and the Langford Aquatic Centre. If you can kind of link those two concepts together with this, that'd be great for sure.

Speaker J · Thank you. Through your worship. Yeah, so this is the graph and I know there's a lot of animation so I had to click that to get that quite a bit. But yeah, no, this, this shows how much of the long term funding gap was closed between 2022 and the 2026 financial plan being $742 million. So you have to think about every, every million dollars that you increase in taxes that goes TO infrastructure is $75 million over the life cycle.

Speaker Q · Right.

Speaker J · So you know, this is, that shows how cumulative tax increase has added funding for the entirety of the asset life cycle and that's $742 million. So much of the tax increase that the city has incurred since 2022 has helped to create sustainable funding streams which can fund that infrastructure long into the future. So you've done a lot of that work. And I know tax increases are painful, you know, same thing in my municipality, tax increases for infrastructure. But you've done a lot of the work to address the life cycle funding gap. The remaining funding gap we estimate to be $900 million. That can be addressed by continuing with what your five year plan already outlines, which is essentially take the debt servicing costs a budget.

Speaker J · So I'm just going to make up a figure here, but let's say that you were you budgeted to spend $10 million on principal and interest for the aquatic center. At some point you no longer have to pay that because the debt's paid off. Take that money every year and instead put it into reserves. And that's what your financial plan does. And because it does that, it solves that other $900 million gap over the next 75 years.

Speaker K · Thank you. I'm not an accountant so I'm going to try to make sure that I understand it. So I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago. People are telling me I should should save for retirement. So essentially, if I had a $300 car payment that I was paying down right now, I finished the payment, it could be advantageous to me to start using that $300 to save for the future. So that down the line, if I ever get the ability to retire, I wouldn't be left with no savings to live on. Is that sort of the same concept?

Speaker J · Yes, it's 100% the same concept. And in reality, whether you planned plan by saving in advance or take on debt and pay it afterwards, it's the same thing, except for one, you get to earn investment revenue and the other, you have to pay debt interest. And then there's also the equity question here, which I didn't touch on quite a lot. But the idea here is, hey, we're all consuming these assets right now, so we should be paying what the AAAC is while we enjoy that services. Now, that equity concept isn't perfect, though. You take for example, if you have assets that were constructed using a local area service, so people already paid directly for the construction of those assets, would it be fair then to ask those people to pay for the replacement of those assets?

Speaker J · Probably not. So equity is a much more subjective conversation for council to consider. But these plans consider evening out the cost on an annual basis so that everyone, the idea is everyone's paying the same amount, want to enjoy the same level of service throughout the entire life cycle.

Speaker K · Thank you. And I do have a separate question, if I might. Thanks. Through you, the piloting, the recommendation, pilot a level of service was really interesting to me because I am starting to hear more residents, you know, talk about the slow decline of their neighborhood park as it ages over time. And I guess establishing a sense of equity across the city to understand level of services sounds like a good idea to me. I'm just wondering if we will receive any further recommendations or information on potentially which service to focus on first. I think looking at the numbers, I noted it was the transportation assets, our roads, that seemed to make up the biggest bulk of our inventory.

Speaker K · But I'm not sure if it makes sense to kind of start there or if you would recommend a different approach.

Speaker J · That's a great question. I would say internally, if I were staff, I would say let's pilot something that we know we're not biting off more than we can do. And so that might not be the most impactful service and not the service that the public is more interested in. If you had the capacity, you would want to choose the service that the community cares the most about and start there. But that can be again, daunting if you're starting from zero. I think the, the basis behind that recommendation is throughout my career I've constantly asked, oh, can we do some budget consultation? And we do our budget consultation. And Lankford does it quite extensively.

Speaker J · But what's the point of asking someone, hey, do you want to pay more or less? And everyone wants to pay less. But if you don't tell them what you're going to get for more or what you're going to get for less, then it's almost like it's a leading question. So that's what levels of service does for you. It's like, hey, if you want to increase your response times for fire, that's an extra 25 bucks a year. If you're comfortable waiting an extra minute for the fire department to arrive, that could save you 25 bucks. I'm okay not saving my 25 bucks.

Speaker A · Right.

Speaker J · So people have a choice. And so the financial implications and the level of service, they go hand in hand. Otherwise they have quite significantly less effect, in my opinion.

Speaker A · All right, next we have Councilor Kucha.

Speaker O · Thank you.

Speaker T · My question is really to do with this slide and a little bit what was on the next one as well. Talked about a few different levels there, like about 57% sustainability, 80% sustainability, and then through around that we're pretty much on track to be fully sustainable with that. My understanding is that we were at 57. With the current increase we've had, we're up at 80. Once the debt repayment with the West Hills Aquatic center rolls over into asset management. Is that when we're at 100? Just some clarification on a few of those different percentages of sustainability we, we

Speaker J · were talking about for sure. Let's see if I can.

Speaker A · Oh yeah, here we are.

Speaker J · This is the one.

Speaker Q · Right.

Speaker J · So your current funding, right now you're at about 57% sustainability by my estimate. That includes the assumption that you will be replacing or required to replace the WSES assets. So if you for some reason don't replace those assets, you're actually higher. The next, the 80% there is basically if you continue with the current five year financial plan intention to use the debt servicing budget which will disappear to create transfer to reserves, you'll be at 80%. I say once you've achieved 80%, you're virtually at 100%. There's no point in going above it because the, the estimates are so high. Level you could be at 100%, but also you're going to be earning investment revenue that will take care of that 20%.

Speaker J · So there's, there's, you know, there's a graph in the plan that shows, hey, this is how much you fund by taxes. This $400 million is what you'll earn in investment returns. And those combined, you're 100% sustainable.

Speaker H · If I may, your worship, just further to that question. In 2022, as the screen shows right now, we were 20% sustainable. The increases that were put in place in 2023, 24, 25, 26 have brought us to 57% sustainable. So if we didn't increase our property taxes at all between 2026 and 2030, we would remain at 57% as long as we rolled those into reserves. Once those debts were complete. The plan requires us to increase those amounts even further in order to fully fund the debt repayment for the, for the langford Aquatic center as and Woodlands park, which will then get us to 80%. So it really did achieve what the intent and the discussion and the decision of council was at that time of the benefit of the short term borrowing versus long term borrowing is we saved interest on the borrowing and we also funded our asset management plan.

Speaker H · And this shows that and achieve both of those.

Speaker T · Thank you. And I recall that being the key reason when we were in the West Hills Aquatic center decision as to going that route was for this exact purpose. Kind of the follow up question that I had there. And first off, share your nerdy enthusiasm for this. I was super excited to see this come forward. Getting at the equity part that you were talking about saying that 80% is essentially 100 because of the interest and the rest that we earn. And then there is also that element of the equity, intergenerational equity especially. I don't believe we have very many, but there are a few local service areas in our city.

Speaker T · Is there a best practice as to a percentage of sustainability that should be aimed for in order to reach that and kind of maintain some level of shared burden as we look over 100 years in some senses here

Speaker A · through your

Speaker J · worship, there's no objective quantified percentage for best practice. No, the best practices are general in terms of, hey, you should balance earned affordability with the ability of future generations to afford that service? It's very, very general. Yeah, I will say there's many municipalities moving exactly in this direction. Personally at Oak Bay Callwood, when I was there, View Royal recently adopted a financial plan as well. And they're Very young as well, I think. I think they're a little bit older than Lankford, if I recall correctly. It's hard to believe, but yeah, they're a little. You guys seem like the big brother to view, but anyways, they're a little bit older, but very young again and they want to take advantage of those opportunities.

Speaker J · So I think it's becoming best practice to move towards, you know, at least 70% sustainable. And I think it'll be very difficult outside of B. C. for municipalities to achieve that because of the statutory limits they have. So we're talking best practice in bc.

Speaker T · And if I may last one on this point, I know it's a broad generality and perhaps different levels of density and the rest play into it, but is it generally right to say that if we are below 100% sustainability, that future growth is not necessarily bringing in enough tax revenue to pay for itself long term?

Speaker J · Yeah, I would say, let's say if we copied Lankford and created another Lankford that was exactly the same, they would be experiencing the same sustainability issues as the current Lankford. And because they copied and created it in 2026, they wouldn't incur that until way in the future, you know, not 2000s like the current Langford is. So, yes, you're, you, you're, you're importing the same level of sustainability in general, if everything is the same to new development, which, you know, you have to, you have to address that. It always gets addressed. It's just when that's really what the council decision is about, throughout council decision making.

Speaker B · Councilor Wagner, thank you. Yeah, this is really interesting topic and some of it does get a bit abstract and far off into the future. I wonder if we could go back to the roads, because when I talk to people day to day, they do want that level of service of roads, the potholes, the cracks, they are not popular and it might cost us more if we don't maintain the roads properly, if we have to replace them sooner or this kind of thing. You had some numbers specifically about that, that we should be having $5 million, was that per year for our road maintenance, but we're only right now at 2 million.

Speaker J · Yeah, and when I say 5 million, that doesn't necessarily mean immediately, but that was the target that was set in that report for you to achieve, to maintain the same pqi.

Speaker B · That's not accounting for new roads, for new development. That is just maintaining what we already have in 2023. Yeah, so we're. Yeah, so we're still not even maintaining what we have or you know trying to look at these, trying to get these sustainability numbers up. Is is the roads within this little graph here? Is it showing that we are getting there?

Speaker Q · Yeah.

Speaker J · And in fact the assumptions assume you're going to spend $5 million on roads to keep the same sustainability and the useful lives applied to the road base assumes because if you don't get to that level of maintenance the road base will need to be replaced earlier which would actually increase the annual amount that you need to pay over the long term which would change the assumption.

Speaker J · So yes, this includes you spending $5 million on roads maintenance. All the recommendations include you includes that assumption. And, and sorry if I could just make another point again I'm not the, the report isn't suggesting that you find another $3 million to add to road to road maintenance. It's more about transferring your existing funding over to support road maintenance in the long term. There's no difference between, there's only an accounting difference between replacing your road and just maintaining it throughout this life cycle. It's the same money and it's the same purpose.

Speaker A · Right, Right.

Speaker B · But we want to use the road so it would be good if we maintained it.

Speaker A · I would think

Speaker S · through the chair for some further added clarification. Some of this discussion came up around budget time of like what's our maintenance contract budget versus what is non contract maintenance budget. And a lot of that was debated this year. Non part of the non contract maintenance was debated as to whether or not we increase or decrease that level of service of maintenance of the road. So the both the engineering and parks departments have maintenance contracts, long term maintenance contracts and essentially the base level of service or the minimum level of service is baked into those contracts. And then we have a separate budget for non contract work orders.

Speaker S · And that's just because as previously discussed it's hard to predict how many potholes you're going to get into a year, how much ceiling you're going to get into a year regarding donated assets. So those assets that are being built today, you'll see that the roads maintenance contract or the parks maintenance contract increases with that with those donated assets that are being built. So they are being added to our maintenance contracts. However, it's that additional funding that's required to meet the established level of service that is acceptable to the community that is that non contract amount that we're talking about.

Speaker B · I had a different question but I'll see if anyone else wants to help

Speaker A · someone who hasn't asked any. Do you Guys have any questions? Okay, go ahead. I've got some at the end.

Speaker D · Okay.

Speaker B · Well, I wasn't totally ready.

Speaker K · You sure?

Speaker B · You know what, it's.

Speaker A · I don't mind asking mine right now. So looking at the same slide we have up here, you said when you first went through it that this is a combination of basically tax increase and gas tax. So for comparison, You've started at 2022. What percentage of that would have been gas tax compared to tax requisition?

Speaker J · Your worship, I will note that this doesn't predict or model increases to gas taxes. It's substantially the same gas tax that you were getting in 2022, plus some added increases through the new is is what you have now. So you know, the bulk of the increase has been taxes. In terms of how much was gas tax? I don't know. Off the top of my head it might be in the funding section of the report. So I can flip there if you'd like me to look and sure. Give you an idea. This current funding level levels are on page 10 to the report and we see there is. Community works fund grant is $2.

Speaker J · 2 million. So that gives you a sense of $2. 2 million of the 16. 4 or 14. 4 if you dedicate to new infrastructure. So you know, I don't know the percentage off the top of my head, but that gives you a sense of how much.

Speaker A · Yeah. And then you had a figure a couple slides later that was the 2. 6 and 1. 6 billion. Can you go to that slide? Is that possible? I believe I can, yeah.

Speaker J · That's where you are.

Speaker A · When I'm looking at this, I see a billion dollar difference in 50 years. Am I reading that right?

Speaker J · In 75 years? Yeah, it's a 75 year graph. Unless you're speaking about a particular starting point.

Speaker A · Well, I was sort of looking at the starting point here, 27 to 77. What, what is that difference that we'd be needing? So if I understand it right, because we went through really quickly, you know, roughly that 16 to say 22 million is the initial jump up and that would save us. I just want to clarify this. That's you know, a large number to say saving a billion dollars within the generation of people's kids or definitely their grandkids. So I mean we generally don't look at sort of for lack of a term savings in that size. So I mean that's a new thing for us to think about. Right. Yeah.

Speaker J · So I'm just doing some rough calculations on here. So yeah, that's the state. The AAAC sustainability is about 25 million, currently at about 14 million. So let's call that an extra $10 million a year. Multiply that by 75, you're at 750 million. So that's an extra $75 million to save an extra billion dollars. $750 million. Sorry, excuse me there.

Speaker A · Look at your NFC button and you

Speaker J · can see that this is sort of how the graph demonstrates that point is that, yes, constituents now would pay more. And because the green line is above the red line until 2070 and then 2070, you know, it goes way up, but it goes way, way up. So the amount that, you know, citizens pay over the life cycle is over a billion dollars more. If you wait to, if you defer increases until you absolutely have to.

Speaker H · If I may just in looking at this in perhaps a slightly different way or adding to what Chris just mentioned is that, yes, the green line certainly is an increase in the interim or in the short term. And that is actually what's currently in the financial plan. So that's not above and beyond what's in the current financial plan through 2030. But the difference in the $1 billion difference is effectively the difference of getting investment returns and not having to pay debt servicing and not paying interest. So the combination of the return that you're getting on the money that you're investing now and not spending over the first 50 years is added to the interest that you're saving on the debt in the latter years, and that equals a billion dollars, effectively.

Speaker A · Okay, so I did sort of more or less have that rate, and that is part of our present financial plan.

Speaker H · The green is in the current financial plan. Yes.

Speaker A · I guess a simplified example is that sort of proverb, you know, plant a tree now and your grandkids have shade. Councillor Wagner.

Speaker B · I guess I was just trying to muddle through. So if I wait throughout, kind of a concept question thing, people want to feel it's fair. They want to feel like they're getting something for their dollar. So this stuff is maybe a little hard to sell as a politician. So I'm kind of thinking of this building reserves versus deferring and what kind of tax increase are we avoiding in the future? Are we getting anything now that people can feel good about? Or it's just like, hey, the future people that live in Langford don't have to pay this billion dollars, but you have to pay, right? So I just want to figure out how do we get the feeling of the value for the dollar and what would be the tax increases in the future to meet some of these needs?

Speaker J · Well, a way that you could articulate it is basically the billion dollar difference over the 75 years. So what is that? $13 million a year, I believe you know, so 1 billion. I got my calculator in front of me divided by 75. I, I know I'm accountant, but making me do math on the fly is not good for my designation. But that's a way you could articulate it is by take the, the, the billion dollars divide by 75. And what is that as a percentage of your taxes? That's how much taxes on average will get avoided if you were to continue with the financial plan as it is now.

Speaker B · But if we could talk a little bit more about the building reserves versus deferring. I think one of your examples, you said you save 15 million of debt interest and it allows the city to begin to reserve contributions earlier. So that sounds good. If we're talking about our own personal finances in we plan to live till we're 90 and we want to have some savings and all that kind of thing. But if you're a typical Langford resident, you might be thinking, I'm going to move or I don't know if I care about my neighbor and their future taxes or whatever. Is there a way to sort of internalize that as the savings, like we're getting something for it, we're saving ourselves from future costs.

Speaker J · Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're funding what would be tax increases in the future with investment returns instead. So I think, let me just see if there's a good. In the report, in the report on page 23 of the report. Anyways, it, it demonstrates how much you're going to have to fund in taxes under both options and how much investment return you can, you can earn. And then also there's some debt interest on just going to chart. I don't have my glasses with me. But for instance, if you build reserves early, you can earn half a billion dollars in investment revenue from now until the end of this chart.

Speaker J · Whereas if you wait until 2070 when you're forced to increase it, so that's the defer option. You're only going to earn $200 million in investment return so that you know there's a $300 million their delta that you're, that you're avoiding. And then there's significant debt that you would pay under the deferred option as well. So all those costs add up, but they add up later on, which is what the fairness Question is who should pay what and when. And I try to, you know, with, with an equity question, I try to again put broad parameters on it. Is it fair that your, your tax rate is 20% sustainable?

Speaker J · Is it fair that your tax rate is 110% sustainable? Most people would say no. So somewhere in there is where the majority of people agree, fairness is and you have kind of a choice of where you want to be.

Speaker B · Great.

Speaker K · Yeah.

Speaker B · I'm a scientist, I love the numbers and I like the long term thinking and the evidence based approach. But I was trying to get the feeling in there too.

Speaker J · Yeah, thanks.

Speaker H · Just the other thing to think of in from that perspective is it's also people paying for the assets that they are consuming and using for the life of the asset rather than leaving it for a future generation to pay to effectively have paid for the asset that we are currently consuming.

Speaker H · So that's the other way to kind of look at it and consider it. The generational equity or at a broad level, as Mr. Payne mentioned, has various parameters and some assets are probably clearer than others. But generally speaking, that's another part of the aspect of it is that it is effectively people paying for the asset that they are consuming today in order to replace it when it's no longer useful.

Speaker A · Right.

Speaker B · That is helpful because user pays is something people, they get that. So you used it, you pay your fair share. I think that makes sense. Thanks.

Speaker A · All right, we're going to go to Councilor Gary because she hasn't had a chance to speak yet.

Speaker D · Great presentation. Thank you. And my colleagues have asked some very interesting questions around the ethics and some clarifying questions. So actually my question is not for you, it's for our mayor and our staff. And I'm just wondering if you're going to be around later on the agenda when this decision comes back to council. I'm noticing we have public participation still to come up and so I'm not going to make you do math on the fly even then, that that much I can, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do. But is this discussion that we could probably consider later in the agenda or. I'm totally leaving it up to you, Mayor, but I'm just.

Speaker D · We have a very patient public that I think would like to contribute to the agenda as well.

Speaker A · If there's no other questions coming up. I asked mine and I don't see other lights. So if there's any further ones, we can definitely do that. I was giving everyone the opportunity. All right, sir, thank you very, very much.

Speaker J · Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker A · All right, we are on to item number 10, public presentation, public participation. You guys know the rules. I see a hand up right away, so come on forward.

Speaker N · Fraser Johnson, Langford resident, Speaking to items 15. 1, the asset management plan, which we just heard the presentation of, which was an excellent presentation from Mr. Payne. There is an unusual amount of accountants in the room tonight. And also to item 14. 1, which is the temporary use permit for honeycomb cannabis. Thank you, Mayor and council. Regarding the asset management plan, I'm very supportive of this plan coming forward. I'm appreciative of the work that's gone into it. Lankford isn't a small town anymore. It is a growing city and it's critical to have an asset management plan like this one, the long term financial plan, and I would like to see more in terms of asset management life cycle plan as well, to ensure that each step in the asset life cycle is being considered and that sources of funding have been identified to address not just the original acquisition of our assets, but also the ongoing maintenance, the operating costs and the eventual decommissioning and replacement costs that all need to be taken into consideration.

Speaker N · The city does not always take this approach. We can easily look at past examples where a lack of funding, a lack of planning, or simply a lack of willingness to spend money on maintenance of existing city assets led to their permanent closure or sale. This was the case with the City center park splash pad, which is now a patio for a restaurant. This was the case with the North Lankford Recreation center, which is now an expensive private facility. Going forward, I want to see the city take a more responsible approach of planning and funding for the total cost of ownership and renewal of our city's asset base.

Speaker N · Let's address the infrastructure funding gap and follow the recommendations laid out in the plan. You all are the stewards of the city's assets and infrastructure. I expect you and I expect any future councils to take the long view when it comes to asset renewal and to fiscal sustainability. We owe it to the future generations of Lankford residents to not leave them with a massive funding gap that they need to absorb with a huge tax increase once they come into home ownership of their own. Regarding item 14. 1, which is the temporary use permit for honeycomb cannabis, I am in support of the tup, but I am completely opposed to the fact that the city continues to require non medical cannabis retail stores to exist in a constant state of uncertainty that goes from one temporary use permit to the next These are legal retail stores.

Speaker N · They have been for many years now. Blankford does not have to regulate them this way. They just choose to. Please update your zoning bylaws and create a path for these businesses to exist without the need for a temporary use permit. Thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much. Next person to come forward, raise your hand, please. See hand way back there and then up in the front. My front right.

Speaker F · Thank you, your worship and council. My name is Rachel Sansom from the Highlands. I'm here to speak to items 11 and 13, which are actually the same thing. At the Aug. 31 Sustainable Development Advisory Committee, a recommendation to council was made in accordance with the committee minutes in the agenda tonight. We respectfully request that the council consider option one, Section one, but not section two, which authorizes the variance for the setback in number of units per block. We're confident that we can adjust the plan without substantially changing the project that was otherwise considered appropriate without these variances. Our concerns lie with timing. With municipal elections on the horizon and potential for a new SDAC to be formed, we're concerned this project might not be reconsidered until either late this year or even in the new year.

Speaker F · This proposal does comply with the new OCP for complete communities and is less than 50% of the support floor space ratio and 60% of the site coverage permitted in the zone. The project brings community benefits such as a public trail fairing protection and Walford road improvements.

Speaker B · Thank you so much.

Speaker A · Thank you very much and hand that came up earlier. Come on up.

Speaker I · Lisa Foxall from Lankford speaking to 15. 1. I came in here supporting the asset management plan, but after hearing several times, no disrespect to Chris Payne, thank you for your presentation. After hearing many times about tax increases and making constituents pay more, it made me take a pause. It has me apprehensive. So I think after hearing all of that, I'm a bit more in support of an asset management strategy plan at this point. Until, I don't know, until we can hear more about the costs to the taxpayers after 57% tax increase after four years, our homeowners, renters are still trying to recover from that and still absorb those costs going forward.

Speaker I · I believe we need to be on top of our assets and infrastructure, but believe we need to be mindful to our taxpayers and find that balance. And you know, I am in support of maintaining our assets and, you know, maybe getting back to basics, looking at, you know, what needs to be repaired, prioritizing that, the cost, having a list, definitely city center Looking at all of that, I just. I'm really concerned about the taxpayers right now. A lot of people are at the food banks, they can't put their children in sports. So I just want to find that balance, definitely, you know, maintain the assets as well.

Speaker I · A couple questions I didn't find the answers to in the right reports. I believe Chris did touch on it. The sewer. Why does the plan appear to treat the cost to acquire the sewers at the end of the contract as unknown? Given that the contract was put in place by previous council. It identifies the amount as a dollar and that also specifies the condition which the operator must keep the sewer infrastructure in the Lankford West Hills Aquatic facility. Just wanted to ask whether so little detail about an asset representing a cost. Approximately 26% of projected annual recreation facility spending. Thank you so much.

Speaker A · Thank you. Next person. Put your hand up, please. Okay. See your hand up there in the front? Nope. There was a gentleman on the front left here.

Speaker J · And then you can.

Speaker A · Excuse me.

Speaker M · Hi, I'm John Byrne again. I'm from Langford. I'm Speaking to Item 1311 2, Bylaw 2290, the application rezone 2639 and 2645 Souk Road. I'm not opposed to redeveloping that. I'm not opposed to a large building on that. I am opposed to it being six stories. This acts directly onto a quiet cul de sac of ranchers, many families, many elderly people. And this building will be directly against their fence. It is gigantic. I don't know if you've been next to a six story building before, but it's pretty hard not to notice it even from across the street, let alone from across the hedge. I was at a previous committee meeting where much concern was given to the effect of seven townhomes in one block. And that psychological effect when looking at it and people's comfortability around that.

Speaker M · And then we completely glassed over what six stories in your backyard looks backyard looks like. I was given no attention. The package the developers provided included a lot of lovely artistic renditions of the building. None of which were from a ground level, except for the front back was ignored. It was in fact imaged from about four stories up. Again, it gives no indication of what the reality of that building will be like for the residents of that street. This building will also sandwich several homes between itself and another six story building. It's a very uncomfortable position for these families as well as it will affect the value of their properties and their abilities to recoup that value. Should they need to move. People want to move to Lankford.

Speaker M · I wanted to move back to Langford. I wanted to move here for the childhood that I experienced and want to give my children a nice yard, a comfortable place to play in the sun. But it seems like a building like that would severely clamp down on that and in fact put me back in the position that I was at in other municipalities where planning and development seemed to go ahead without any concern for those living under those developments. Just up the street on the same block are two different development types. There's a large townhome complex, many homes, lots of tax revenue from those homes. But also buildings that are not imposing on the neighborhood next to them.

Speaker M · There is also a advertisement placard for development that is four stories. An example of a four story building on that block. Perfect. We have housing increased, the supply is increased. Development on that road increases. We convince the provincial government that the road needs to be updated. Fantastic. But there is also the example of 26, 27 sucrose. That other six story building. We see it's parking and exterior lights all through the night glows in our neighborhood. It is also directly against other single family dwellings, one of which is 6 meters away from it. It's not a lot of.

Speaker A · I am sorry sir, your time. Time is up.

Speaker M · All right, thank you.

Speaker A · Thank you very much for

Speaker C · foreign.

Speaker F · 42 Lexing Road. I just want to carry on with the other gentleman about 13. I've come up here many times throughout the last four years to talk to you guys about development on Souk Road. That intersection there is just. It's horrible. The traffic goes all the way down into by Belmont School. It goes all the way down to Circle K on Sook Road. You need to stop approving developments until you get the provincial government to do something on that corner. You recently approved a building right beside the fire hall. I think that was six stories with 63 units and commercial. You approved next to the fire hall your big commercial building. I don't know how you guys think the traffic is going to get on there through the lights and go.

Speaker F · Nothing in the reports do I see where you're advocating for the provincial government to do something with that intersection. It's. It's terrible. You have to stop. I'm not against development but my God, am I going to be stopped down at. At soup corners there probably corners because I can't get home. Because now you've got 63 cars and then another 73 cars. A commercial building, people coming in and out. I'm not opposed to any development. But I've seen nothing from this council to advocate through the provincial government about fixing that corner. I just want to go quickly on the asset management plan. Did that for 26 years in the school district. The difference was we had a budget, we had to stick to the budget, we couldn't raise taxes.

Speaker F · Nowhere on there did I see large amount of money being paid off like you did with the Y35 million over five years. I'm not seeing a consultant. He's talking about doing over years. No respect to the mayor. But before the grandkids come for the tree and growing, the families have to be able to feed their kids so they become grandparents. And right now the families are taxed to the limit. And you need to look at this plan. And I'm a bit shocked. Sorry. But for a consultant just to be saying tax, tax, tax. I'm sorry, you need to go back on the drawing board with that one too.

Speaker F · Again, I didn't see risk management plan in there. Was there risk management to go with the asset plan? I'm not sure. And Woodlands part again, you still don't know how much that's going to cost you. 16 months and waiting to see if it's contaminated. Nothing. And I wait and I will see you in mediation.

Speaker A · All right, next person up, please. I see a hand.

Speaker E · Online app user Megan Mondrell. Please unmute yourself in the app. Provide your first initial last name, municipality of record, sorry, municipality of residence for the record and indicate which item or items on the agenda you wish to speak to.

Speaker U · Hi, my name is Megan Mondrell and I'm in Langford and I'm wishing to speak towards the application for zoning Z26 0004. I believe that is item 13. When we're talking about development, we're speaking a lot in business terms with density and units and infrastructure development potential and economic growth. But we as the community are living this in lifestyle terms. We're talking about our backyards, our private privacy, our sunlight, our homes, our quality of life and the investments we spent years working towards and what is for many people their retirement plan. So my big question is, what is the difference between a four story building incorporating that commercial use first floor versus a six story building?

Speaker U · Is there a huge difference when it comes to provincial ability to to fund highways with six versus four stories? Or is this just for the benefit of the developer, who I believe is from Vancouver, not from within our community, not having to again live with that lifestyle of that big large building choice? So my question is what is the difference from the council's perspective? Four stories multiple multi use versus six.

Speaker B · Thank you, thank you very much.

Speaker A · Is there anyone else had to come forward please? Okay. See no hands and oh we do have one last one online too. There we go. It's good to get, good to get feedback.

Speaker E · App user Tammy Parkinson Please unmute yourself in the app. Provide your first initial, last name, municipality of residence and indicate which item or items on the agenda you wish to to speak to.

Speaker V · Hi there Tammy Parkinson, Langford resident speaking to 13. 11. I am not opposed to development either. I know that is part of what we have to do but in that subdivision on Walford Road with lots of single homes adding 17 more townhomes as well as a three story apartment is just adding more and more traffic to that area as well. The Sook Happy Valley intersection as well as Jacqueline and Sook as well need a lot of work to accommodate that. We have parking issues already on Hinks Road. Bylaw has been there multiple times and I'm just wondering how they will enforce residents to keep the garage available for parking.

Speaker V · There is also a property in between Laud Milled and this supposed talked about trail that they keep advising that will not be accessible for however long. That property remains private in between VOD Milled, Hinks and this proposed development at 953 Walford. So that is also a concern as a selling feature but it's not actually going to be reality. There's a lot of trees missing in the inventory such as multiple plum trees and other fruit trees. The tree map have most of the trees in the back and some of these smaller fruit trees are bigger than their replacement trees. So that was a concern. That's not really true to that report.

Speaker V · There's a lot of wildlife that will be displaced in those trees that have been living there for a long time. And just wondering about the variance variances that they need for this new lot and starting a trend if, if that goes through. Can we get that for our property on the west side of 955Walford to be approved to throw an apartment on there in the future and also want to know about the new road alignment and roadway going to affect. How is this going to affect access to my driveway on 953 and 955 and 953 wood with the new road alignment that they spoke about in there. So that is all.

Speaker A · Thank you, thank you very much. See we have one more

Speaker E · app user Desmond James. Please unmute yourself in the app Provide your first initial, last name, municipality of residence for the record and and indicate which item or items on the agenda you wish to speak to.

Speaker P · Hi. Hopefully I'm unmuted now. I wish to speak. Sorry. Desmond James, nightbird resident, wishing to speak to 15. 1 on the agenda. I am very appreciative of the efforts that went into this plan by everybody involved, including the people who identified the need for the plane in the first place to avoid kicking things down the road again. The financial implications explanation provided, I think, by Chris was very helpful. The sustainable funding slide was quite shocking to see in terms of where the city was in 2022 to where it is now. This presentation essentially verified what I suspected years ago and that was the city did not have an actual plan to address sustainability around the pace of growth.

Speaker P · We were growing, but didn't really have a plan to address how we were going to do this long term. So I'm very glad to see the efforts that the council has taken to essentially shore up the foundations of the city, including some of the tax increases necessary and some of the other building plans, including the development more towards the city core. I remember this from three years ago. I think some presentations to enable that greater tax base so that the city is now on a better path to more sustainable footing. Thank you

Speaker A · very much. Okay, last call for the gallery or online. All right, I'm going to close public participation. Thank you very much. It was a good number of people. All right, we are on to Paige. Councillor Artis.

Speaker K · Thank you, Mary. I actually would like to move that we amend the agenda to reorder item 15. 1 asset management plan to be item 11 and to reorder the remaining agenda items accordingly.

Speaker A · Okay. Any particular reason?

Speaker K · It does require a seconder.

Speaker B · I can second so we can hear.

Speaker K · Thank you. Just out of respect of our consultants. Time. We are getting very late in the evening and we are paying them, so I would appreciate that we respect taxpayers as well in this instance.

Speaker A · Okay, follow the question. All those in favor? All right, so we're going to bring 15. 1 up to number. You said 11.

Speaker K · Yes. Just the next item of business, which I believe was supposed to be consent agenda, which was item 11, which would now be reordered to be item 12 and so item 11 would now become asset management plan.

Speaker A · All right. Okay. We will go right away to the new number 11. Is that okay with you, Steph? All right, so double flip to page. For those following at home. We're 15. 1 is going to be now our new 11 and renumbered so the 15. 1 asset management plan staff have any final comments or council have any questions staff or the consultant. Thank you Worship.

Speaker H · This item's already had a significant amount of discussion so I'll just reiterate and highlight a couple of items perhaps. One is that as discussed and further to both comments from the public participation, the plan as it stands right now does not actually call for any additional tax increases beyond what is currently in the five year financial plan and required in order to fund and service the debt for the West Hills Rainford Aquatic Center.

Speaker H · So there would be no additional tax increases beyond what has already been contractually obligated on the city as of part of this plan. The other is just a highlight and a reminder that this is for current infrastructure. This plan does not include or build on future infrastructure that would be added. So it is as of today. But again, another highlight to the plan is that as Dr. Payne mentioned, we would become fully sustainable for assets based on the plan that was put in place on in the current five year financial plan and that would have gone from the 20% to 80% sustainable which in looking over a 75 year period is effectively fully sustainable.

Speaker H · Myself and staff are here to answer any questions as are the consultants.

Speaker A · Okay, Councillor Murray, Councillor Wagner, thank you.

Speaker B · Something that had some notes somewhere but I think I can just kind of remember, but I was going to ask earlier too was about risk management because that is mentioned in, I believe it's one of the recommendations. We didn't talk a lot about it in the presentation, but is looking at the risk management idea, if I recall correctly, the point was to be able to make strategic choices about which assets should be, you know, maintained or replaced, how fast to sort of that benefit to the community. And rather than an ad hoc approach, it would be very specifically looking at sort of what needed to be replaced when based on that risk to the community of what the failure might mean or something.

Speaker B · So something like a sewer failing I think is not great. So I just wondered if you could comment on that.

Speaker J · Thank you for the question. Through your worship, the plan does comment on the current risk management framework undertaken by staff. Right now there's no formal unified risk framework in place and I think that's indicative of an organization at this stage of the life cycle of his assets because risk management becomes much more prominent when you're approaching the end of useful life of assets. So there's nothing out of the ordinary about that. Now that doesn't mean that staff aren't engaging in risk management activities in their day to Day work. They certainly are. It just wouldn't be on a consolidated basis. And when you, when you do have an asset inventory of this size and when it approaches the end of its useful life, it becomes significantly more important to have a unified risk management framework in place because you're going to want to engage in prioritization and you're going to want to engage in cost saving activities across all asset classes rather than treating them as single asset classes.

Speaker J · So again, nothing is out of the ordinary in terms of where Lakeford is in its life cycle right now. You can definitely afford to look at roads sort of separately than sewer sort of separately. But your risk management framework becomes more necessary as assets age together.

Speaker B · Oh, thank you. Yeah. So basically it's good we're getting started on the asset management plan. If this does go forward, I would assume that would it be reviewed every five years, like typically these plans would be assessed as development occurs as we get new assets. Is that something that is sort of baked into the plan, is a report back annually or review every five years

Speaker A · or something like that through the chair?

Speaker H · I don't think there's anything specifically in the plan, but I would imagine that this would be something that, similar to many of the other master plans would be reviewed on, on a fairly regular basis and continued to be refined as per some of the recommendations and just in general, operations within the permit and within the city.

Speaker A · Okay, next we have Councillor Kucha.

Speaker O · Thank you.

Speaker T · I'd like to move option one, that council approve the city of Langford asset management plan and long term financial plan.

Speaker A · I'll second motivations.

Speaker T · Thank you. I've been a huge proponent of having this work done since the start of the term. I think this is a vital document for us to have to understand our long term financial sustainability and stewardship of the resources that we have been entrusted with. We see in this that we would have the potential to continue for another 40 years before we have to really face that mountain in front of us. Just while we could be able to continue for 40 years seems like a long time, that doesn't mean that that was sustainable. We see that a relatively small gap over that 40 years has tremendous impact and to many degrees we've already noticed that tremendous impact that has been had by a relatively small gap over the last 30 years.

Speaker T · So I think in this way here, as we're already starting to face some of these costs and some of these prices, it's best for us to start to actually deal with these. My family is set here in Langford. I see Myself here in that time where that mountain sets to hit. And I see it much better, especially at that point in time, hopefully retired, to be able to say that the city was stewarding its roots, the city was stewarding its resources and able to deal with that in advance rather than having to deal with a massive. And taking a look at that even in terms of what we've just had to deal with in closing some of the gap fail in comparison to what we've just witnessed.

Speaker T · So I see this, I see this as the primary part of our job which was as we brought forward being stewards of our community and of the assets that we manage. So very, very supportive of this.

Speaker A · Councillor Wagner.

Speaker B · Yeah, this was great to see all these details and just, even just to know what we own, really get those numbers out there. It's big numbers getting into the billions. And so I really appreciate that we took the time to have that discussion about that long term planning in the plan. There's talk about life cycle costs, making sure we don't have these funding gaps. There's the road network funding strategy, using non market change revenue policy, transferring to reserves. There's quite a few good recommendations in there that I was really pleased to see. I like that it's not just the asset management plan that it has that long term financial plan aspect to it. I think that you can see you save a little bit now.

Speaker B · It sure helps you out in the future. So I, I do think we addressed the equity question quite well. I was struggling a bit of how to put that into words and I like where it landed for me with we're using up these assets gradually, all of us right now, whoever's here now, we are using things and they are going to need to be maintained and replaced based on our use. So there is that fairness element of we should be paying our share to maintain some of the graphs. You see this huge thing in the future of spending. I don't even want to imagine what tax increase would be needed to cover some of that. So I'll probably leave it there. But I think this is great financial responsibility.

Speaker B · I think this is good governance and I'm very pleased. Thanks.

Speaker A · Thank you. Next is Councillor Gary and on deck, Councillor Arter.

Speaker D · Thank you. Yes, hugely supportive of everything that the presentation has brought to us today and what was in the report. And you know we have. Langford has a reputation of growing fast. We've been very opportunistic of what's been put in front of the city, which is, which is great. But now we have this Opportunity to have a legacy of stewardship and sustainability. We're at the point in our term where we have a lot to reflect on as far as some hard decisions that we've made that have had impact on the community. And what we see with the asset management plan is the broader impact, not just for, you know, the resources that we are seeing right now, but a sense of stability for potentially generations.

Speaker D · We have an obligation as a city to be able to show up for our community when times are good and when times are bad. I feel safer. Anyone would feel safer as a resident knowing that we had an asset management plan and we had reserves available. You know, we've. We've. We've been through a pandemic. We know how hard things can get sometimes, and that's scary. I feel a lot safer as someone making a decision for the community that we have. We're setting up the city for, you know, a stronger position to be more resilient to some of those unknowns in our future, the potential tax increases. While I.

Speaker D · We see we have a lot of good information about what could potentially happen 75 years down the road. I know that, you know, conversation around what's known and what's unknown right now and the revisiting about what. What is a good plan and coming back in that it's always organic, also kind of lends itself to not really knowing how big of an impact of not planning ahead can be. Councilor Wagner and I are both water commissioners. We are often grateful for the decision makers before us that made really tough decisions to make our water supply safe. I see this as an equal opportunity to set the city up for, like I said, being having a legacy of stewardship and sustainability. It's a wonderful opportunity. I'm grateful for the energy and for the forethought of our Mr.

Speaker D · Dilvo when we had these tough conversations earlier, and the potential to have this conversation before the end of the term. So thank you for that.

Speaker K · Thank you. It's getting late, and there's been a lot of great discussion and great comments from my colleagues, so thank you very much, and thank you, staff, for the report as well. It was really great to read it over the weekend, and I couldn't help but wonder how we've gotten this far

Speaker B · without having a plan.

Speaker K · I really appreciate the presentation from Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Recognizing that taxes are going to be one of our key mechanisms for raising revenues is, I think, important, but it was also really great to see that there are other opportunities. If we start now, we can realize investment revenue over time for when infrastructure does eventually need to be be replaced or repaired. We can explore utility fees and we can hopefully plan ahead so that we're more competitive for grants. I just want to flag one comment. I think that the discussion tonight really highlighted the point in time that we're at. But I do want to just emphasize that across the community there are, there is spatial variability and certain neighborhoods are experiencing infrastructure decline at a more rapid rate than other neighborhoods.

Speaker K · I know that Langford has certainly benefited from growth and development and we've leveraged development contributions to ensure that we have adequate sidewalk infrastructure in front of new developments. But we've also seen this term what happens when there's not infrastructure plans in place and aging infrastructure does reach its end of life. I think of, you know, the savory pedestrian bridge which although it wasn't ours, we heard from residents about the impact on the quality of life that that loss of infrastructure has. And over the weekend I was looking for other examples that would maybe be city owned. And I look back to as recent as 2022 when we to dip into our reserves to protect the ability to do an emergency repair on our boardwalks.

Speaker K · This is all really important infrastructure and it's is part of what makes Langford a really great place to live. So I think I agree wholeheartedly. It is our responsibility as elected officials to look at the future and look out for the long term success of our community. And so I'm really appreciative that this asset management plan and long term financial plan sets us out in the right direction and for the work that we've accomplished as a council this term to set future councils up to not have to make make those harder decisions.

Speaker A · Councillor Morley, thank you.

Speaker J · So I'm in agreements with everybody here. So I really believe that by planning and saving for those costs now, while our infrastructure is currently in good condition, we can reduce the future financial risk on taxpayers and avoid costly emergency repairs. Other municipalities have demonstrated the risk of delaying infrastructure and as cautionary tale, Calgary's main water system failures highlighted the consequences of aging infrastructure and the significant disruptions that can occur when critical assets reach the end of their life service and aren't addressed prior to. So right now we have the opportunity to get ahead of those challenges. And this plan, this asset plan and a management plan helps ensure that we maintain fiscal responsibility, maintain the reliable services and protect the long term interests of the current and future residents.

Speaker A · Thank you. I'm going to be quick. I don't want to be like Oak Bay where they have $300 million in asset and infrastructure deficit that is hard to just raise instantly. Or callwood which is $100 million just trying to get their areas hooked up to the sewer. This is looking forward and the fact that it's part of our five year financial plan, people know what it is and then we're set. So with that I'm going to call a question. All those in favor post that passes and then can I have a motion to extend please?

Speaker K · Thank you. I'll move that council extend the meeting to 11pm 2nd all those in favor?

Speaker A · Most that passes. Sorry to rush that. I had to get that in before 10:00'.

Speaker P · Clock.

Speaker A · All right. So now we are going back to what was originally 11 has been renumbered 12 and that is consent agenda. Is there anything that needs to be removed from consent agenda?

Speaker K · I will move that council adopt the recommendations for each item of the consent agenda as presented.

Speaker A · I'll second seeing nothing call to question. All those in favor proposed that passes. So the new 13 consideration matters removed is not in play. So we're now to 14 committee resolutions. The new 14.

Speaker A · 1 Sustainable Development Advisory Committee meeting resolutions 8-31-2026 13 byline number 2279 application to rezone 953 Walford Reform Road.

Speaker B · I just wanted to check in with staff. Is there any presentation or shall I just read? I had consulted with staff earlier just to have clarity on the way the motion was worded that came out of the committee. So I was going to read in a motion that captures the intent of what was said but it's just a little bit more clear her staff and then we can debate it. So I move that council take no action with respect to this application to rezone 953 Walford Road under bylaw number 2279 until such time as the following variances are removed from the application and the updated plans are reviewed by the Sustainable Development Advisory Committee.

Speaker B · A the proposed interior lot line setback variance and B the proposed variance to permit a seven unit townhouse building.

Speaker D · Second.

Speaker A · Okay, motivation.

Speaker K · Thank you.

Speaker B · So this is just slightly reworded because of the way that the discussion went at committee. There was some concern about the variances and when a motion was put on the floor the the way it was worded was I believe the intent was to have the variances be removed but it just wasn't as clear. So that's just a language change there. But the idea was a lot of public interest in this application and it's quite a neat area if you've been to Walford, you'll know that the sight lines are bad and the road is windy and it's also a beautiful area. And so there was a lot of neighbors that came out and had quite a bit to say about how they would be impacted. And some of the things about the application were quite strong.

Speaker B · There's a pedestrian path that would connect through townhouses are something we're seeing coming to this area. So there were mixed feelings about this application. So I might leave it there with my. Just trying to represent the will of the committee at this point. And we can then hear from the West Council.

Speaker A · Thank you, Councilor Gary.

Speaker D · Thank you. I have some thoughts, but I think I'm going to propose an amendment first. So I'll move that the motion is amended by striking the Sustainable Development Advisory Committee and replacing that with council.

Speaker A · Is there a second?

Speaker K · I'll second that.

Speaker A · Okay. Motivation.

Speaker D · Thank you. I do this, and this was discussed a little bit at committee about where we are in our term and the potential of another Sustainable Development Advisory Committee meeting. So I feel like it's a more. It's more fair to the community, the applicant and the process if it's rewarded to be considered by council.

Speaker K · Thank you. I would agree with that. I think it addresses the awkwardness of the election timing with this motion and I would be supportive of it coming back to council.

Speaker G · Thanks.

Speaker A · Okay, Anyone else? Mary?

Speaker B · I just wanted to comment to appreciate sort of the value of the committee, the space that we have to talk with residents and there's. There's just such a great back and forth that happens there. There's a lot of questions raised, a lot of concerns. Some things might not be necessarily right in scope.

Speaker A · Just for clarification, we're talking about the amendment.

Speaker B · Yes. And so this is why I'm. I'm still thinking of whether I would support the amendment because the amendment would take it to council rather than the committee and the committee had voted to send it back to committee. So that's why I'm talking about, I guess, the. The process that is different at committee than it is at council. So I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on that. The public participation at committee is so different than it is at council. So I just wanted to be careful with moving something forward that although the main issue were the variances, this would with the amendment, it would change the public participation opportunity.

Speaker B · And so I just wanted to think about that for a second and acknowledge that it is. Is a different process. And some of the people that came that were so passionate about it and the committee itself that had a robust discussion, if we choose this option, they won't have that ability to follow through on having that discussion on what the new proposal would look like without the variances. So I just wanted to acknowledge that we'd be taking away that opportunity. And on the other hand, there is the practical side of coming to the end of a term that there's no more SDAC meetings that are going to be taking place this term. So there is is the practical consideration.

Speaker B · So I'm just thinking that through.

Speaker A · I'd like to ask staff question just what is there any real time frame difference if this was to come back to council compared to Estaf?

Speaker E · Thank you for the question. Absolutely. If it's just a removal of the variances, and Leah can correct me if

Speaker J · I'm wrong, it could come back immediately.

Speaker E · Whereas if it goes back to sdac, we don't know when the next meeting for that will be.

Speaker A · And Councilor Gary, you're going to.

Speaker D · Yes, thank you, Mayor, I do. And just to. To provide some assurance to our chair, who is trying to be a very good steward of the work that comes at the committee, is that the committee was a bit divided in this vote. And so that was kind of part of how I felt comfortable bringing forward the amendment because it did seem to come out of the conversation and the dialogue that we heard from the committee at that meeting.

Speaker B · So if I could just have the absolute clarity, I believe we heard from the applicant that. And so through the chair to staff, perhaps confirming that the timeline could be as long as potentially six months or something very much in the future because there are no further sustainable development advisory committees this term meetings this term. And so then it would automatically then defer to the next term, which those committees haven't even been contemplated or struck or scheduled in any way. So it could be quite a ways down into the future. Is that correct?

Speaker C · Through the chair?

Speaker B · Yes, that's correct.

Speaker A · Okay, I'm going to call the question on the amendment. All those in favor, post. All right, so we now have a motion as amended. Councillor Gary, you still have the floor. Okay. Anyone else have comments on the motion as amended Questions, Councillor? Right now.

Speaker B · Yeah, just going back to the main motion. So the townhouses themselves and the riparian area, I guess I didn't talk a lot about this particular application yet. So if we're just looking at it, it's a unique site and there's quite a bit of interest in that riparian area also. So I just wanted to flag that for folks that There would be care taken with the riparian area. And that was part of our discussion as well as considering the amenity space, the type of yards that people might have. So just, it was a really thoughtful discussion. So I just wanted to give one more shout out to everybody that participated.

Speaker A · Okay. All right. Seeing other questions, I'm going to call the question on the motion as amended. All those in favor? Close. That passes. We're on to the new 14. 2 bylaw number 2290 application to rezone 26639 and 2645 Sook Rogan.

Speaker B · So I will read in the motion. Just wanted to let Council know that I had a slight variation under 1b including in the covenant that the drawing submitted for approval as part of the development permit application substantially comply with what has been presented to Council through this rezoning application Z260004 that is just being added.

Speaker B · So I will move that Council consider Bringing forward number 2290, the bylaw number 2290 for first, second and third readings at a future Council meeting in order to amend the zoning designation of the properties located at 2639 and 2645 Soup Road from the 1 and 2 family residential R2 zone to the mixed use 6 story MU6 zone subject to the following terms and conditions A and B with all of the subsections included here with the addition of under 1B that the drawing submitted for approval as part of the development permit application substantially comply with what has been presented to Council through this rezoning application Z260004.

Speaker A · All right, have a seconder.

Speaker D · I'll second.

Speaker A · Okay, thank you.

Speaker B · So the reason for this late change there is just that this application did have an entire ground floor that was considered to be commercial. And there was. The design was quite specifically to draw people around the side of the building with connected snow seating area that I thought had added value for the community. So for me it felt important to ask that it wasn't just something that was potentially put in front of us, but that that was part of the application. So I just wanted to pin that down as we could expect to get what we were thinking we were going to get in the application. So just generally though really again a lot of interest in this application.

Speaker B · So thank you to everybody who spoke on this. A lot of pros and cons to any application of the SEWP corridor is quite challenging. I'm feeling comfortable reading this in and opening the discussion here at Council because the application itself isn't about the suit Corridor and all the transportation problems that, that. That we have but is relevant. So we do know that people struggle with. With transportation here. There is some. As part of this application there is a road that would connect through around. So if people aren't as familiar with the site plan, there's. In the future there would be a road connection across from Anders Road where a light would eventually be. So there's.

Speaker B · Unfortunately right now there's not a lot of great options for people in this area for feeling, you know, really comfortable in how they're moving around. But this type of development may be part of the process of establishing this corridor according to our official community plan. So I was a bit hesitant to not see support it because it does fit with where the long term vision of this corridor has this commercial space. It's trying to be walkable, trying to encourage this gathering places. And so it was a. It's quite a unique application and I thought it had some merit so opening that for discussion.

Speaker A · All right, anyone else comments? Councillor Cucho, then Councillor Garrick.

Speaker S · Thank you.

Speaker T · Question about it really is in part with what came forward from public participation there, which is just around the advocacy and potential timelines for upgrades to the Souk Road corridor. If we do have any input or information along that as that is definitely a major concern for the traffic and just movement of people as we add more people to South Langford.

Speaker S · Through the chair, the city of Langford is working consistently with the Ministry of Transportation and Transit with regards to advocacy along Sook Road. City staff, along with college staff were also able to participate in the Sook Road Corridor study which was commissioned by the Ministry of Transportation and Transit. While that has yet to be published, it was very helpful between both municipalities and the ministry to do that analysis and agree on an ultimate road cross section which has been incorporated into our transportation master plan and active transportation plan so that we know as rezonings come along that we are taking the right amount of road dedication and then it just waits for that sweet spot in time where there's enough road dedication and funding in order to create that ultimate road cross section of the future.

Speaker S · This is an ongoing process. We are constantly in contact,

Speaker T · if I may kind of on the similar note of traffic along the Sioux Road corridor. I just notice 26, 27 is right in, right out. I know there's continual problems with that actually being exercised with people turning left across the double solid to access it just the same. Do we have any similar mitigation or thoughts as to how that is handled at the potential for this new site

Speaker S · through the chair. This is a discussion that we've had at committee with regards to that property that's been developed and then also this one. So the right in, right out is a non negotiable requirement of the Ministry of Transportation and Transit until such time as there is a solid barrier physical median curb down the middle of Sook Road. That means that there may be certain folks that choose to ignore the signs and attempt to make that left out. That is illegal and could be enforced by the RCMP if it was observed. And the Pork Chop island as we've spoken about does give that physical representation of actually directing the traffic toward the lane that they're supposed to go to.

Speaker S · Again, it's not a push perfect solution, but it is an interim solution until such time as the Ministry of Transportation and Transit has adequate funding and the adequate amount of road right of way to build four lanes with and create that limited access control highway along Souk Road as we see on Veterans Memorial Parkway.

Speaker A · Yeah, we continue. Councilor Garvey,

Speaker E · thank you.

Speaker D · Through you Mayor. The report and Councilor Wagner brought up again the access potentially through a neighboring property. And I'm just wondering how, how sure we are of that and what kind of timeline we could be thinking about

Speaker S · through the chair that is dependent on the development of that adjacent property and that would be a risk potential future reciprocal access easement through that other property which would have to be agreed upon by the property owner. There are no timelines that staff with request to property.

Speaker D · Further question through you Mayor, and my sincere apologies. I know I'm going to be putting you in an awkward spot with this question and it's about the requirement for the right in right out. And I'm just wondering again, we don't, we don't really know how long of a commitment we're looking at for having building functioning with potentially with right in right out before we have a divided highway that would more strongly encourage the the use of the access that is hoped.

Speaker D · What happens if it's folks can turn left there? Are we prepared in our transportation planning to kind of have an understanding that. I understand we've done a number of applications with this. So I'm kind of like just to kind of preface. I'm feeling pretty frustrated with not being able to share with the public what the plan is and, and just continually approving and saying across the province that it's going to work out in favor of supporting the growth here. So I'm just wondering about 10 folks turn left there if that if the province didn't have that requirement. Like, is that the way that we would have addressed it? But in the absence of this.

Speaker S · Through the chair, the city of Lankford, as I mentioned, is working with Mott and the city of colwood because Highway 14, which is Veterans Memorial Parkway and Sook Road, does go into Collwood again before it comes back into Lankford. The solution for as was brought up at committee with regards to the long detours around potentially is to have a turnaround somewhere or to have back roads that lead to a full turning movement intersection or turnarounds such as you see on other sections of the highways or roundabouts potentially as well.

Speaker S · So there are some solutions that are being worked on. Nothing is guaranteed and unfortunately, as mentioned, nothing has been published. And so all we know is that what we have put into our transportation master plan aligns with what we know to be the current state of the Sioux Road corridor study, which is all being coordinated by professional engineers.

Speaker D · That's a fair answer. Thank you. And I apologize for having the awkward question there. My comments. Mayor so this is one of the situations where I've really tried to be open to the decision as it comes to the table and hearing from the team, community from community and from my colleagues. And I think again, I've felt incredibly pressed about affirming what's in our official community plan for this area and the long term vision for this road and participating in adding to problems until we can get to a point where it's functioning at the way we would like it to function.

Speaker D · I hate setting up a development for failure. The whole idea about the work that I hope to do at the council table is to set up growth for success where we have potential new neighbors that are living in harmony with those around them. And then eventually we get to the point where we're grateful that growth has occurred without having the province's leadership and kind of being forthcoming with with what this corridor study is showing the public. It's, yeah, I feel really challenged with this decision to make the best call for this particular development so that it succeeds in Lankford, given what we know and the challenges and the continuing friction we hear from the public about, you

Speaker V · know,

Speaker D · can folks actually access this building if it's right in, right out? And honestly, I'm not sure. I hear that we have professional engineers, and so I'm trying to press the professions in this situation. And yet we see time and time again that it's just, I don't know if it's set up for success for the behaviors of folks that would be living here and accessing the building.

Speaker A · Thank you Councilor Regner.

Speaker B · I did want to ask a couple more questions as I was just reviewing this because we're taking our time a little bit here. You know, it's getting late, but also just want to be careful to take that time. I just wondered through the chair to ask the staff about the official community plan. This the context here. So the six story. We did hear questions about why not four story, why is it six story? And the closeness of the buildings to the other buildings. But I just wanted to think about the setbacks a little bit more and why not go down to four stories? You know, we had our official community plan process.

Speaker B · I think the Sioux corridor used to be allowed even taller buildings if I recall other zones. So I believe this is one of our newer zones, the MU6. So I just wanted to think about that zoning and the context of the OCP that it is still a bit new and how far away are these buildings really from the neighbors that are feeling that it's going to be oppressive.

Speaker C · Thanks for the question. Through the chair, Council may recall through the OCP development process and consideration through public engagement that that sucroad corridor was initially designated not as the six story kind of corridor designation, but as an urban center which would have allowed much taller buildings up to 24 stories. Through engagement we got a lot of feedback about that. So the urban center was kind of pulled back to the old kind of Glen Lake Insight that had already been zoned for unlimited height under the previous application. But since that had already been in place, the urban center was kind of pulled back to just that particular site and the rest of the corridor was kind of put into that corridor designation with, with a mandatory mixed use requirement.

Speaker C · So that that Happy Valley to Jacqueline Road component of Sook Road was seen as being kind of very important to have that mandatory commercial as a primary kind of design consideration just to create that kind of goldstream like mixed use hub for the South Lankford area. So that was seen as being really important. The six stories is kind of a, you know, the very. It's a very typical built form that we see. And really in all the work that the the city did with the inclusionary zoning and amenity cost charge bylaws where we did a quite a deep dive into development viability. And you know what kinds of charges in that context could apply to development while not compromising development viability? It's very tight to be viable right now.

Speaker C · I mean I can't speak for the developer, but just based on some of the work that the city has done, I would suspect taking two stories off and cutting half the residential units would be quite significant and possibly make this development not viable in one of our, you know, really key growth areas.

Speaker C · So that, that's something that council would need to consider from a policy perspective and, you know, where is the right area for that type of growth? The zone itself, yes, was one of the ones that was introduced in June in response to the provincial legislative changes around density bonusing and development financing and such. So it was developed to kind of fill that six story, mixed use built form and work in conjunction with our amenity cost charge and inclusionary zoning bylaws. It does include some of those other objectives, such as the live landscaping which creates that, that great natural kind of landscaping area contributing to urban forest management objectives that will also be subject to the standardized private amenity, private shared amenity space requirements that were also added to the zoning bylaw at the same time.

Speaker C · So this is one, it was described in the report where, you know, it was submitted under kind of an old framework, adjusted to the new framework, but it will all of the requirements of the new zone and then the new inclusionary zoning and ACC bylaws will all be kind of addressed through the building and development permits process if council does wish to proceed with that.

Speaker C · I don't know if I touched on all your questions there, but let me know if there's another gap that needs to be filled.

Speaker B · No, thank you. I think that was the main idea there is that there's multiple objectives with our official community plan. And for members of the public who hadn't gone through the process, they may not realize that there could have been 24, 28 story towers here. So I, which I didn't agree with personally, I was glad to see that we, we heard from the public that they wanted to see that come down a bit and pull it back to the corridor level. So if you know what it could have been and what it got scaled back to, it may seem less shocking to you, the six stories. So I think the context matters.

Speaker B · I'm thinking of when we do our formula for inclusionary zoning and amenity cost charges. It had this in mind because we've already done the official community plan work. So it is, I am feeling kind of caught in the middle of this transportation problem, but that this application doesn't have any variances requested and it does align with our official community plan. So.

Speaker F · Thank you,

Speaker A · Councillor Kucha.

Speaker N · Thank you.

Speaker T · I'll just Say, although I hear what is being said that yes, it was significantly higher height before. Reflecting on what was brought forward by Councillor Guyrie, given the temperament of the province over the last little bit, seeming that they are out of money and not really interested in engaging in large capital projects, the amount of development we've done on this which has provide. Provided extreme strain on this local infrastructure. I'm very hesitant to actually add to this given the unknown timelines from the province and being that that is the main hub there that we're adding to. So given the information that I've heard tonight, while I'm extremely supportive and actually I really love the OCP plan for this area, I can't be supportive of this until we see some significant steps forward from the province to address the significant transportation issues that we're having along this corridor.

Speaker T · And to date I just haven't seen that good faith that movement from the province. So I'll leave my statement there.

Speaker A · Anyone else? All right, I've got a couple questions here. So we, we've heard about the setback or the view from the rear property line. And so this was something that was confusing me before. So if I look at the site plan, rough math, it's looking like the building is roughly 55ft feet from the rear property line. Recognizing that's on an angle, but the, the point where the, the line comes through. Yet when I look at the renderings on the southeast side, it shows sort of a patio, an elevated patio, I guess that's on the second floor. We don't see that on the site plan. So I'm curious, where does that patio come out when I look at the site plan? Because is it 55ft to the edge of the patio or 55ft to the edge of the building?

Speaker C · The site plan indicates a seven and a half meter. Sorry, I'm a metric.

Speaker A · Yeah.

Speaker C · And that's the full setback between the furthest extent of the building to the rear property line. So that there's a portion of the building that would be set back greater than that and that would be the ground floor portion and then the portion above the ground floor. So floors six or two through six would be set back further and kind of overhang a portion of the parking and dry bile area beyond what's shown on the ground floor. So it is a minimum seven and a half meter setback between the closest portion of the building and the rear property line.

Speaker A · Okay. Yeah, it's slightly confusing because it's not a straight property line. It, it's got the angles there and where I'm looking sort of just off the plan, we've got like 5500 mils, 6700 mils and 4500 mils or millimeters.

Speaker A · And so there's a difference of you said said seven meters.

Speaker C · Seven and a half.

Speaker A · Seven and a half. So you're looking, you know, 21, 22ft or I know Imperial or 55ft. And I struggled with the previous application with a right in, right out because I watch people all the time turn left there in my like at

Speaker P · we

Speaker A · have a plan and this matches the plan. The problem is the, the rest of even as we had today, the rest of the infrastructure isn't meeting the city's needs. And it could be 5, 10, 20 years before the city or for the province really says hey, we're gonna take care of that intersection. I'd be lying if it was then wasn't conflicted. You're late on. I don't know if you have any answer, Councilor Wagner.

Speaker B · I just wanted to note and I'm not sure how much to, you know, stick my neck over this, but I do think context, because we're not a committee, we don't hear the full presentation. But just to remind people of the galloping goose trail that came up at committee, there's the bus along the Sikh road there that these, this type of development does fit with the long term vision and potentially the sort of active transportation of the area would this particular application could be helping with where we're trying to get to go.

Speaker B · So in terms of following a plan, I'm hesitant to not follow the plan, but I hear all the concerns as well.

Speaker S · Thank you.

Speaker B · Mayor.

Speaker S · Just a clarification. The Ministry of Transportation and Transit does have significant operational funding. They did just recently pave all of Veterans Memorial Parkway in Lankford. So it could not necessarily be that far in advance in the future. But if we don't have the adequate road right of way with to allow for those improvements to happen, then it will take longer. So I understand that this is challenging from the chicken and egg perspective, right. Is that there's this interim, you know, growing pain. But this is what it does mean to deliver on these plans. And the cheapest way to get road right of way is to obtain it through rezonings, which is what we've been doing through these partnerships with MOTT consistently along the Sook Road corridor between Jacqueline and Happy Valley Road is to obtain these road right of ways to allow for these improvements to happen.

Speaker S · And MOTT will not Prioritize the paving of these four lanes with the median down the middle until such time as we have adequate road right for to do so.

Speaker A · So what you're saying is we can't get changes to the road until we do development that is going to need changes to the road. Isn't that fun? Councilor Yakucho, thank you.

Speaker T · Just a quick question on that statement there. Is it possible to move forward with rezoning by but to not issue a development permit until such time that the roadway has been upgraded by the by the ministry?

Speaker E · That's not a question that I'd be

Speaker J · prepared to answer without looking into it.

Speaker T · Thank you.

Speaker A · Okay, see a lot of faces here is any last questions or comments Councillor Wagner?

Speaker B · I guess just a little more context because we started talking about the road right of way and I have been trying to be so disciplined about only considering the application at hand and because this one fits then I feel I should support it. But if we're worrying about the transportation corridor then just a little more context of what road right of way do we have nearby this area and can the province do a portion of or is it not cost effective? Are they going to wait for a lot of connected road right of way before they can start? If that makes sense.

Speaker S · Through the chair the ultimate road right of way for Sucre which I've spoken about at the stack previously is to have the sidewalk, the 2. 2 meter brick paver sidewalk at property line and then to have the bike lane behind boulevard beside that sidewalk. So it's hard to do that in bits and pieces. It all it does need to be all done in one go in partnership with the Ministry of Transportation and Transit when it's necessary to have a four lane highway in this area and again you need a certain level of density in order to have that trigger require a four lanes as opposed to a current two lane.

Speaker S · So this is in alignment with our transportation master plan and active transportation plan. And this is what it it means to in order to if we want those improvements in the future we're going to have to continue on with development.

Speaker B · So yeah, just a comment on that is also SEWK is growing really fast and this is the SIOUX corridor. So I would say if we don't follow our plans we won't get where we want to go. So I'm putting that out there.

Speaker C · Thanks Mayor. Just another point of clarification around some of the requirements embedded in the resolution that Councillor Wagner read out which is the access easement through the site. So it was noted there's a tiny little, not even a half portion, but just a little snippet of road kind of dedicated already across from Anders Road from a previous development. And there's an access easement requirement embedded in the motion for this site which would direct development not just from this building, but from some of the adjoining properties to the east to the ultimate kind of light that will be at that where there's a little snippet of road across from Anderson, there's a.

Speaker C · In our transportation master plan and the Sook Road corridor, there would be a plan for an intersection there at light. So a critical part of this project is to take some of the traffic that would be, you know, potentially doing those illegal movements and directing them all to this intersection, which will provide kind of relief for all those folks that want to turn left but. But can't really do that legally with the current configurations and accesses that have been approved through the ministry. So once the median goes up and a light is there, this project would kind of be the main thoroughfare for quite a lot of the adjoining properties on that side of Sioux Road, directing them to that intersection.

Speaker S · So if I may add, the Ministry of Transportation and Transit is required to approve these rezoning bylaws and there was a hesitancy prior to the city having its own transportation master plan and prior to the ministry commissioning the Souk Road corridor study, the Ministry of Transportation and Transit had some hesitancy with regards to agreeing to increase densities in these area because they didn't know what the impact on the highway was going to be.

Speaker S · But now that we have coordinated plans and agreed upon where future signal like lights, alternating movement signal lights are going to be, staff in both organizations are comfortable.

Speaker A · Councillor Harder, thank you.

Speaker K · I haven't had any comments. Just recognizing that we are at the stage of considering bringing this forward for first, second and third reading. I feel comfortable moving the application forward. I do think that there are some concerns perhaps to be addressed around ensuring that there is adequate servicing to the site in the form of roads and access. And I would agree that I am a little uncertain about moving forward without having a better understanding of the Sook Road section ultimate build out and ultimately the phasing of everything. I appreciate the Director of Planning and Director of Engineering providing some additional comments, but I just want to note that I am still a little bit clear but wanting to move tonight forward so.

Speaker K · So I will support the motion.

Speaker A · Anyone else just looking to online maps. There's about 18 properties in that section, size zeros that aren't developed yet. Give or take, more or less housing. Now, some of them may be obviously already zoned. What percentage of all that has got to be like, do we have to wait for all of those properties to be developed before the ministry will work? Or is it 80%, 60%? I know that's asking you to crystal ball and that's hard and if you can't, I understand, but I mean we're looking at a unique section of road here and we need that eventual improvement. But that could be two years or 10 years, depending on what the development requirements are.

Speaker S · Thank you for the question, Mayor. As you have mentioned, a significant amount of road right of way has already been obtained in this area through previous rezonings and we plan to continue that forward. We're aware of potentially other land assemblies in the area that would also achieve these goals. But as you mentioned also none of us have a crystal ball as to when that all will happen. Don't necessarily need to have 100% of the road dedication in order to move that forward. And that is 100% up to the ministry to decide when they would initiate those projects and how to obtain that remaining road right of way in order to complete those projects.

Speaker S · But it's not something that has hasn't been done in other municipalities, including ours along Veterans Memorial Parkway.

Speaker A · Okay, anyone else? Again, as Councilor Wagner mentioned, if this goes through, it's just for first, second and third reading and there would be an opportunity for more consultation of the public. I don't, I didn't think this was going to be that long of a discussing. This is good. I'll call the question. All those in favor? Opposed? All right, that is Councilor Kucha and myself against and everyone else for.

Speaker A · Okay, we are now on to. Let me change a couple pages here. We're on to item number 15, notices of intent 15. 1 TUP 26 004. Number 10723, 17 Millstream Road.

Speaker B · I'll move that. Temporary use permit number TUP 260004 is issued by Consul for the City of Langford to Honeycomb Cannabis Inc. To operate a non medical cannabis retail store and the property legally described as Parcel 1 Plan VIP 81886 Section 1, Range 3W Highland District being a consolidation of lot a and b c a 346-8036 PID number 0292-1353-3107-2317 Millstream Road in accordance with section 493 is the local Government act subject to the following terms and conditions and notwithstanding section 302025 of the zoning bylaw number 300 with the following conditions.

Speaker B · One, and including signage. Oh, and there's two and three.

Speaker F · Second.

Speaker B · So briefly, we've seen this before. Thank you for the public participation that flags that this is a sort of an outdated practice, that we are treating these businesses differently. I'm hopeful that when we look at our zoning bylaws in the future, we might update this. But at this time, this is the process that we're. That's available to this business. So I am supporting this business in their current location.

Speaker D · Yeah. Just to reiterate, I do. We. We have had numerous conversations. That committee does come up, as it came up in public participation again, and just acknowledging that it would be a body of work to take that on. And it just didn't fit in within the framework of the strategic plan and with any new urgency. And so I do agree that we should probably be really thinking hard about maybe next term doing this. But that'll be up for the next council to decide what priority that is.

Speaker A · Anyone else? Okay, call the question. All those in favor? Opposed that passes. We are on to the new 17 bylaws. 17. 1. Bylaw number 1665. Fire Prevention and Regulation bylaw number 1665. 2026. This is for adoption.

Speaker E · Sorry, just a correction. It's 16. 1.

Speaker T · Thank you all. Move council adopt fire prevention regulation bylaw number 1665. 2026.

Speaker K · I'll second

Speaker A · any motivation.

Speaker T · We've had lots of discussion about this in committee at first, second, third reading. I don't think any farther is needed.

Speaker A · Okay. Call to question. All those in favor. Most that pass, We are on to 17. 2. No. It's changed.

Speaker L · No.

Speaker A · Or back on track. Well, I renumbered stuff incorrectly. 16. 2.

Speaker T · Move that council adopt fire prevention and regulation miscellaneous amending bylaw number 228-62026.

Speaker F · Second.

Speaker T · And again, no additional motivation I feel is needed at this time.

Speaker A · All those in favor post that passes 16. 3. Bylaw number 2248. Lankford zoning bylaw number 300. Amendment number 750 for 1234 Goldstream Ave. Rt 1. Tax amendment bylaw number 2248. 2026. Again, this is for adoption.

Speaker B · Now move that council adopt Langford zoning bylaw number 300. Amendment number 750, 1234 Goldstream Avenue for our T1 text amendment bylaw number 22482026 as presented second.

Speaker A · Okay, call the question. All those in favor, opposed that passes. That was the opposition. Okay, so one Opposition. That is Councillor Herter. And we are now on to 16. 4. Bylaw number 2292.

Speaker A · Lankford Official Community Plan byline number 2200. Amendment number two, omnibus number one. Byline number 2292. 2026. This is second third readings and adoption.

Speaker K · Thank you. I will move that council give second third reading. Sorry. Give second and third readings and adopt Lankford official community Plan bylaw number 2200. Amendment number two, omnibus number one, bylaw 2292, 2026.

Speaker D · Second.

Speaker K · Thank you. This was definitely a lengthy item for the evening and one of great significance. So I appreciate the discussion that we heard during the public hearing and discussion that we heard tonight. I'm happy to adopt it and move it forward.

Speaker J · Thank you.

Speaker D · Just understanding that we this is a public We've had a public hearing and can't have any new information. I will just express support for what's been put on the floor.

Speaker A · I'm going to call the question all those in favor post that passes 16. 5. Bylaw number 2296. City of Lankford Housing Agreement 2615 Sook Road. Bylaw number 2296. 2026. And this is for adoption.

Speaker B · Yeah, I'll move that council adopt city of Lankford Housing Agreement 2615 Sucro Bylaw Number 2296. 2026.

Speaker D · Second

Speaker B · I just want to celebrate the housing agreement for affordable housing units. Thank you.

Speaker A · Okay. Call to question. All those in favor Most that passes. We are on to 16. 6. Bylaw number 2297. City of Lankford Housing Agreement 2124 Longsburg Drive. Bylaw number 2297. 2026. This is first, second and third reading.

Speaker B · I'll move the council give city of Langford Housing Agreement 2124 longs for drive. Bylaw number 2297. 2026. First, second and third readings.

Speaker A · One second any motivation?

Speaker B · Another win for affordable housing.

Speaker D · I'm just grateful. I know this is a normal part of our process to having housing agreement, so I'm happy to support another one.

Speaker A · Sounds good. All right. Call the question all those in favor post that passes. And we are on to 16. 7. Bylaw number 2298. City of Lankford Housing Agreement 2797 Scaife Road. Bylaw number 2298. 2026. First, second and third reading.

Speaker B · I'll move the council give city of Lankford Housing Agreement 2797 Scaffold Bylaw Number 2298. 2026. First, second and third readings. Second, and not to be left out, supporting affordable housing.

Speaker D · And I'll just for all these applications, thanks staff for working with the applicants in order to find ways forward that works with project.

Speaker A · Okay, now I see another hand. I'll call to question all those in favor that passes. And that is our last bylaw. I thank everyone who has stayed on gallery and stayed online. Thank you very much. And can I have a motion to go on camera, please?

Speaker T · Thank you. I'll move the council close the meeting at 10:49 to the public pursuant to section 91B and K of the Community charter to consider personal information about an identified reliable individual who is being considered

Speaker A · for a municipal award or honor or

Speaker T · who has offered to provide a gift to the municipality on condition of anonymity. Negotiations and related discussions respecting to the proposed provision of municipal service that are at their preliminary stages and that in the view of the council could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the municipality if they were held in public.

Speaker A · Second call to question all those in favor that passes. Thank you very much, everyone. We will see you in a couple weeks.