1. It isn't remote
2. It is in a major area that is seeing intense densification already
3. The general public does not want to live in 100sq foot boxes
4. Most people can't afford to buy North of Fraser
5. Density does not reduce housing prices, this has been proven in Metro Vancouver for the last 50 years, and is the only thing anyone actually cares about. Not the environment.
As for the residents upset, I just looked at their website and to me they don't provide any meaningful reason for being against it other than "we weren't consulted by the developer." Boo hoo. Unless I'm missing something, I don't even see any mention of something like "this will overload the new school" or "this will bring way more traffic to the area."
I mean I'll address their 3 main concerns right here:
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How can Vesta Properties market this as a master planned community, yet after selling almost all of this development decide to make such a significant alteration to the approved award-winning* community Master Plan without regard to the hundreds of families who bought into their planned vision and the existing community that was part of the original planning process?
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Well this happens all the time. Anyone following major developments here on the forum would know most master planned projects change many many times during the development process. Just in Surrey look at Hub, The Holland, even Park Place. Heck the development at Canadian Tire was 7 phased master planned and after 1 phase (first tower) they are completely redoing the master plan from scratch since they bought the Toys R Us property.
Happens ALL the time.
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When Vesta Properties submitted their application to rezone this particular area of the Master Plan to the Township of Langley in December of 2021, they were not required to inform the hundreds of current residents and pre-sale contract holders, so this did not become public knowledge until May 2022 when a Public Information meeting was announced. Additionally for the Public Information meeting held on May 16th 2022, there appeared to be no effort or requirement to contact the pre-sale purchasers of the many buildings under construction. As the Vesta marketing was across Canada, many of these purchasers may be far outside the Langley area and outside BC.
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I don't see any issue. It's not Langley's job to chase foreign buyers to inform them. Also current residents are not the developer. The only obligation is to notify for public information meetings or hearings.
Where I live right now is an example of that. It was 3 phased and the developer changed phase 3. Not drastically but there were some big changes. We the owners of previous phases had no idea, even Strata was not informed, until it went to public hearing. Would it have been nice for the developer to have let us know? Sure. But developers don't give a rats tail about you once they've sold you a place, don't kid yourself. 9 times out of 10 the nice marketing person you spoke to when they walked you through the show home and sold you your place doesn't even work for the developer.
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There is a precedent being established that developments approved and marketed as a planned community, even with most of the development already purchased based on that plan, actually are not required to bear any resemblance to what is built. This is not an extra story or a different driveway, this is a totally different concept with a 45 story tower. It is a significant change to be quickly swapped in at the end of the project replacing the final two approved 6 story low-rise buildings. At 45 stories, this building is taller than most in Vancouver and taller than those currently requiring significant planning and consultation for the Broadway corridor.
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See answer to #1. Has already been established and quite frankly it is understandable. In a multi-phased massive development, it takes a long time to sell and build and market conditions are constantly changing. When this specific project was planned, there was NO strain planned for Langley, no rapid BRT planned for 200th.
Now there is, that changes the landscape considerably. Willoughby is densifying like crazy and anyone that hasn't taken a drive through the area in the last 3 years at least would be absolutely shocked. It is definitely not in the middle of no where.
As for the height, would they be happy with 10 stories instead? What about 15? Or 25? I mean what really makes 45 bad? Everyone jumps up and down about the need for more densification, but then even in areas like Chinatown, they cap that at 6 floors ZOMG NO HIGHER!
It's not like a 45 floor tower has any more people than a 150 unit townhouse complex crammed into 1 acre which is what they are building dozens of around that very same development. The latter takes way more space...
It just seems like these residents are a little bum hurt that they weren't consulted and to that my response is, welcome to the real world where developers don't actually care about you.