Editor: I am frustrated by recent letters to the editor calling on one Township councillors to cancel the work being done on the new OCP in Brookswood and calling our mayor and council corrupt for doing what they are legally required and were elected to do.
I don’t know what is so difficult to understand. There are two totally different processes happening in the Township today.
While they are related, they are not bound to each other.
1. People that own property have applied for development in Brookswood under the existing OCP.
The plan has been in place since 1987 and legally council must hear and consider every single application just like they currently do in every other part of the Township.
2. There is an appointed community team looking at and working on updating the failed 2014 OCP, based on community input.
Results from that team and all of the public input will be presented to council in the form of an update in about 18 months, but who knows how long it will take to make its way through the system to the approval stage if it ever does.
And, if it does get to council, it could fail again.
And then what will happen? You guessed it, the 1987 plan will still be in place and Brookswood will develop based on that.
People that own property in Brookswood have every right to apply for development under the existing community plan today because it is possible it might never change.
With development also, unfortunately, comes the need to cut down trees.
Every single person in Brookswood, in fact, in Langley, is living in a house that exists because trees were cut down.
Brookswood is not being clear-cut. Langley still has an abundance of park space and will remain about 73 per cent ALR land. That is not going to change.
Change is coming and there are two choices:
1. Live with the current plan and develop like it is 1987;
2. Support and encourage the quick completion of a new plan and develop like it is 2016.
Brookswood is not going to be “left alone,” that is abundantly clear.
Owners that have been waiting decades for change are not waiting any longer nor should they be expected to.
M. Mantro,
Langley
