Fort Langley is not all that old.
The town itself has a long history as an early settlement on the Fraser River but many of the shops that line Glover Road selling jewelry, coffee, crystals, books or novelty mason jars aren’t actually old buildings. Instead, they were built in a particular style, largely since the 1960s—classic, vaguely-european, and old-looking—to preserve the town’s heritage theme.
What the town’s stylized heritage ought to look like, though, is a continuing debate—one that a new development on Glover Road is about to change forever.
A new building is planned for the heart of Fort Langley. Two shops next to the rainbow crosswalk and 50s diner on Glover Road are slated for demolition. In their place, A developer will build a sleek, glassy two-storey building in a more modern style than the surrounding shops. The building will have apartments on the upper floors and retail space on the bottom. In plans for the construction submitted to council, the building is simply labeled as “Cool Small Building.”
Last month, Langley Township Council approved a heritage alteration permit, one of the steps required before a building permit can be issued for the location.
But council was split over what Fort Langley should look like and how best to display the town’s heritage through the style of the buildings. While some said the heritage style should be maintained and buildings should match, other councilors maintained that more modern styles would contrast well with the rest of the street.
The new building on Glover Road was supported by Couns. Tim Baillie, Misty Van Popta, Rob Rindt, and Steve Ferguson—all members of the Contract with Langley slate that won a majority of seats in the municipal election last fall. Township of Langley Mayor Eric Woodward leads the slate and also owned Statewood Properties, the company planning the new building. (Woodward transferred his assets to his foundation before his run for the mayor’s chair.)
Woodward recused himself from the council meeting, but the members of his slate did not.
Baillie acknowledged that the building didn’t fit into the surrounding neighbourhood, but didn’t consider that a mark against it.
“While it doesn’t exactly conform, it brings an aspect that I think will complement the heritage of Fort Langley and further serve to revitalize [it] even more,” he said. “Quite a while ago, Fort Langley was rather dead. And now, Fort Langley is thriving.”
Baillie imagined a future where Fort Langley was pedestrian-centric and more European. Van Popta focused on a precedent closer to home, with the blend of heritage buildings and modern construction in New Westminster.
“We have to contrast true heritage against other more modern forms,” she said.
The town has seen plans like this one before. While some, like the Coulter Berry Building (also a Statewood Properties project) on the corner of Mavis and Glover, are finished, others triggered significant controversy and were never completed.
Another project, with Woodward at the helm of Statewood Properties, sparked debate and frustrations over three buildings in the middle of town in 2019. Eventually, one of the buildings was painted hot pink to protest the council's requirements.
The buildings, which had been boarded up for two years prior to the decision and have since been demolished, were almost immediately across the street from the future site of the “Cool Small Building.”
The drama of the previous project wasn’t revived with the new plans for development across the street—but its approval was not a unanimous decision. Council members not part of the mayor’s slate opposed the buildings, but they were outvoted. Council approved the building’s heritage alteration permit (a sticking point in the last set of plans) in a meeting at the end of September. The decision, though, went against the recommendation of the township’s Heritage Review Panel, which did not support the plans when it saw them last spring.
The review panel is made up of council members and locals who advise council on heritage matters. Although the panel said the new building would be attractive and a good size, members declared that “the design does not fit with the established context or character of the Fort Langley Heritage Conservation Area and would set an inappropriate precedent for future development.”
Several council members agreed at last month’s meeting that the building did not fit in the area.
“The evolutionary part of the architecture of Fort Langley has been abandoned with this [building]” Coun. Micheal Pratt said. “On this specific instance, I think that the charm of Fort Langley is both the newly built-to-look-old buildings, as well as the old buildings that are currently there.”
Couns. Margaret Kunst and Kim Richter agreed that the building would stick out in the neighborhood. Richter noted that the building looked particularly modern in comparison to surrounding shops.
“To me it looks like a couple of shipping containers, and I don’t think they had shipping containers in the early 1900s,” she said. Richter wanted to send the plans for public input, similar to the process used if the plan required rezoning.
Since the building already adheres to the lot’s technical limits (it didn’t require any variances or rezoning) it wasn’t immediately clear to council if it could stop the building, if it wanted to. Staff instructed council that, if they wanted to, they could send the plans back to the developers but would need a good reason and examples of what council wanted to see changed. Kunst made such a motion, but it was defeated.
Concerns from the Heritage Review Committee about the “Cool Small Building” focused not just on how the building itself would look, but on how that building would change the precedent for the heritage theme of Fort Langley.
The 1987 Fort Langley Community Plan, developed in part to help revitalize the area, outlined several guidelines for new developments in the village. The plan highlighted the significant historical role of the community and the need to retain a “rural small-town feel.” Its ambience was prized not only by locals but by visiting tourists whose presence formed a key part of the town’s commercial area.
At the core of the guidelines was the requirement that all buildings fronting Glover Road and Mavis Avenue adhere to a “heritage building theme.” The plan required that heritage buildings be restored, and new buildings be designed with elements that complemented the heritage theme.
But a “heritage theme” is not the same as a heritage building. As such, that theme is open for interpretation, and precedents become important guidelines for the future. Previously, council largely agreed that the Coulter Berry Building (on the corner of Mavis Avenue and Glover Road, also a Statewood Properties construction) had set a major precedent for future developments. The three-storey building is big, brick-fronted, and stately. The new building on Glover pushes that architectural precedent a step farther with a modern glass front, shifting the parameters of Fort Langley’s “heritage theme” once again. Future new builds in Fort Langley could look very different but, with the new precedent in place, they wouldn’t necessarily be off-brand for the town and, thus, against the community plan.
Behind pushing the precedents lives the goal of boosting the commercial and tourist appeal of Fort Langley. Woodward has sought this revitalization before, and councillors supporting the new building echoed their desire to keep the current growth going.
But Pratt noted that there could be an upwards limit of development required for the commercial needs of the village. Fort Langley needed the revitalization push at one point, he said, but the rationale may no longer be as pressing. Fort Langley fills with people and cars most weekends. Restaurants have waits. Parking is hard to find.
“You can see on your average Saturday afternoon, any time of year, how well Fort Langley is doing.”
