LETTER: Fort Langley engineer says townhouse project lost opportunity to build green

Dear Editor,

Re: King Street townhouse development

I am Dan Sundvick, a professional structural engineer and certified passive house consultant. I have retired from the BCIT Architectural and Building Technology department where I taught structural engineering for 18 years. I still have a structural engineering firm and am currently building a passive house that I designed at 9025 Royal St.

I just came back from the Vicini presentation regarding the townhouse development in Fort Langley. I would like to present a few of my concerns.

As the other residents in my area, I am concerned with the amount of overflow parking that will be realized from the proposed development.

The developer assures us that there is ample parking with two garage spot per unit and 10 visitor stalls. It is easy to compute that this won’t be sufficient particularly with no driveway parking available. Many of these garage spaces will be used for storage and the residents will be obliged to park on our and other streets.

The soil conditions at the site are very suitable for underground parking, and I feel this option should be considered. Extra spaces could likely be rented or leased to non-residents as an income source for the TOL. These extra spaces would help relieve the tourist parking problems.

The building scheme itself has been developed with little imagination or social understanding. The TOL had an opportunity to show its dedication to energy conservation and ecologically sensitive building. The step code energy level is only proposed to be Step 3. The TOL web site emphasis ‘Green Building’, this project does not exemplify this stance. It should be developed to Step 5 or passive house levels, and be a development TOL could be proud of and promote.

Now it is just another run of the mill townhouse complex. There should be no natural gas appliances in the development. Vancouver has already announced the discontinuation of residential natural gas connection – environmental leadership. Building material should be chosen with respect to reduced carbon production.

From a social respective there should be room for some social house units – subsidized for cost and/or units for handicapped living.

I realize this reflects my own NIMBY-ism but the project could be so much more/better. This development is just another embarrassing speculative townhouse complex for the TOL and developer to maximize profit with little environmental and social concern.

You could have done so much more.

Dan Sundvick, Fort Langley

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