Editor: In a recent letter to the editor from Councillor Kim Richter (The Times, Oct. 14), it was stated that more than 4,400 housing units were approved in Willoughby in the past three years. This certainly piqued my interest.
Having sat on council for the past nine years, I thought that number to be excessive and not a reflection of the actual facts. As such, I asked to review the information supplied to Richter, and was surprised by what I found.
In the language of municipal policy and process, an approved housing unit is one that has been given fourth reading and the development permit has been issued. Here are the actual facts as audited by our staff, and what you will see is that the number of housing units approved has actually decreased in the past term — in fact growth has slowed by 14 per cent, when comparing apples to apples.
In the Township of Langley as a whole:
– between 2008 and 2011 (the Rick Green era), 4,645 housing units were approved;
– between 2011 and 2014 (the Jack Froese era), 3,396 housing units were approved.
This is a decrease of 26 per cent in the number of housing units approved across the Township.
In the Willoughby area of the Township:
– between 2008 and 2011 (the Rick Green era), 3,451 housing units were approved;
– between 2011 and 2014 (the Jack Froese era), 2,971 housing units were approved.
This is a decrease of 14 per cent in the number of housing units approved in Willoughby.
This, in fact, proves that despite the rhetoric of some on council and in the public, the approval of housing units (and growth) has slowed substantially during the past council term.
In the residential construction industry, the typical time between final approval of a housing project and the actual ‘move in’ by a resident is around 24 months. With this in mind, the residential construction in the Willoughby area that occurred in the first two years of this past term, and in some cases continues to today, was likely approved during the 2008 to 2011 term.
In fact, between 2008 and 2011 the then-mayor (Rick Green) actually voted in favour of 3,298 housing units — 96 per cent of the housing units that were approved during that time. This in fact is more units than this council has approved this past term for its entire three-year term.
Then-mayor Greens’s voting record reflects he voted to approve 327 more housing units than were approved in total this past term. That is largely what you are seeing built today.
Saying that, the fact remains that during this term, only one councillor (David Davis) voted to approve less than 50 per cent of the residential approvals. He approved of 35 per cent of them.
Richter voted to approve 1,682 of the 2,971 housing units that came across the council table (56 per cent). All other councillors approved a greater number than that.
The facts tell the story. Those who say they are opposed to growth supported it the vast majority of the time. Meanwhile, the council in place this past term has slowed growth across the whole Township (by 26 per cent) and in Willoughby by 14 per cent.
Councillor Charlie Fox,
Langley Township
