Next Wednesday, March 4th, Langley City residents will have another opportunity to shape the future development of the Nicomekl River District.
Scheduled to run from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Nicomekl School multi-purpose room, at 20050 53rd Ave., the event will see City staff present a “draft concept” of a plan that would create a four-zone district along both sides of the Nicomekl River corridor between 196th Street and 208th Street.
Zones would include the “Garden Wild” on the western end, which would see the area around Brydon Lagoon kept as natural as possible, the “Living Room” for residential development, the “Library,” where educational and interpretive programs would operate, and the “Front Porch,” on the eastern end, which would aim to encourage use of the corridor trails and other amenities.
City Chief Administrative Officer Francis Cheung explained the work on the Nicomekl District is taking place slightly out of the usual order, before the City completes an overhaul of its Official Community Plan.
“Given that’s there’s been a lot of interest in land development, we don’t want to miss opportunities for developers and the community,” Cheung said.
He described the Wednesday meeting as “very much fine tuning” the plan.
“For now, it’s really showing what we have heard from the community and different interest groups, and stakeholders, and see if we are heading in the right direction,” Cheung said.
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According to a City report summarizing response at two public forums on the plan, many participants felt a”mix of uses and increased densities (both north and south of the Nicomekl) in strategic locations may be appropriate” while a few were concerned with “increased densities in their neighbourhood and the impact it would have on the city’s infrastructure.
Some were worried that “any type of intervention within the floodplain could disturb existing plant and animal life.”
A report on the public input broke down responses into “hopes” and “fears” with the biggest hope being for “amenities for livability” and the biggest fear being “no change or progress”
A City online posting noted the word Nicomekl icomes from the Halq’emeylem language used by the Sto:lo people, meaning “the route to go” or “the pathway.”
dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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