Our "Yes for Ladner Village" campaign...

was a big Success!

On December 14, 2021, Delta City Council approved a series of updates to the Ladner Village Area Plan after hearing from an array of speakers who urged council to vote in favour!

We want to thank City Council for taking action and to express our gratitude to all who spoke up and shared in this process!

It was clear that the existing regulations have cut off opportunities for more residents to make their home in Ladner Village and prices have jumped due to this scarcity. The regulations will be updated to unlock the door to provide more housing, retail, services, and activity for all within the Village.

Background to the campaign

An update to the Ladner Village Area Plan was prepared for Council consideration on November 22, 2021 and a Public Hearing on December 14, 2021. This update adjusted the height restrictions in certain areas of the Town Centre to allow for the introduction of housing and retail in a mixed use setting.

As should be clear to all who visit the Village, this is an ideal setting for homes to be located in the midst of a walkable neighbourhood that has transit service, a wide range of services and amenities, and considerable need for a new round of building activity. There are many dilapidated lots and neglected parcels in the Village that are ready to become homes, shops, and places to gather for residents and visitors alike!

Turning Unused spaces into much-Loved places

Expectations for Ladner Village

We want to encourage people-oriented places in order to see more of them – as it currently exists, Ladner Village is a people-oriented place that lacks a critical mass of people living within the core neighbourhood. The proposed changes to the land use regulations will go a long ways towards unlocking the potential for the Village.

Critically, the changes will still restrict the majority of the Village to 2-3 storeys, open up some areas to 4 storeys, and allow the frontage on Elliott St to rise to 6 storeys maximum. This means that the “movie set” areas of Ladner Village will remain as they are while the run down and neglected areas of the village along Elliott St will be permitted to have construction projects of a size and height that makes sense financially for a development project. The Village will continue to have fairly stringent style requirements in order to ensure that buildings are built to the standard & design of nearby structures.

Height limits will still apply (for a good explanation of why that matters, consider reading this brilliant piece over at the Strong Towns website) and design style requirements will definitely apply.

Will this change the things we love about Ladner Village?

That depends on what you love about the village I guess. If you like the dilapidated back alleys and the undeveloped lots and the gaps in the streetscape where buildings could but don’t exist, then you might want to revisit the village to fall in love with its better parts! 🙂 If you love the people, the shops with their nooks & crannies, and the variety of things in the Village (not to mention the events like the Christmas festival and the Farmer’s Market), this will be a great improvement that will add to and not subtract from the Village. The Village is and will remain a place that is walkable, bikeable, with attractive human-scale architecture, attractive greenery, and full of small storefronts that are suited to local businesses PLUS more housing and more retail spaces and public amenities along the waterfront!

As Daniel Herriges of Strong Towns explains, “We need to learn how to separate form from (current) function. In fact, our shortage of nice places is almost totally self-imposed. And it’s precisely because 98% of the North American built environment is so blah that the 2% of places that are really well-designed environments quickly get bid up by the rich and become inaccessible to the rest of us. The solution to this isn’t to stop creating such places, but to create vastly more of them.”

What Did Del-POP members Do?

We…

Emailed mayor-council@delta.ca to support the proposed updates to the Ladner Village area plan.
Told our friends and fellow Delta residents to speak up in favour.
Signed up to speak at the Public Hearing on December 14th.
Spread the word that good things are happening in Ladner Village!

Who stands to benefit from the changes?

We all Will!

Investment in the Village will turn underused and underappreciated spaces (the places no one looks at or takes pictures of) into vibrant residences and retail spaces. Investment in the Village will add value to the whole of Ladner Village.

The City will be able to make use of waterfront spaces through the introduction of new services and amenities and gathering places.

Upsizers, downsizers, and people relocating within our city will be able to find new homes to live in within a complete community.

Residents who are searching for low-income housing or specialized accessible units will have more access to units than there are at present (a percentage of the homes built in the Village will be available below market rates and some will be managed through non-profits that can allocate homes to those in particular need).

Locals will have more spaces to enjoy and mingle in and new public parks & features to appreciate.

Residents will see an improvement in the City of Delta’s taxbase with the added benefit of removing some of the tax burden on the existing taxbase.

What About Parking?

New projects will provide new parking for the residents who move in and for those who come to shop in the retail spaces added to the village.

Yet it’s also critical to assert that there is plenty of parking in Ladner Village. It is common for members of the public to perceive a shortage of available parking spaces but that perception is not based in facts. Study after study has confirmed this and visual inspection of the village will confirm this with a quick walkthrough.

What’s more, there has been a widespread reconsideration of the harms to local development and business viability caused by stringent and arbitrary parking requirements.

The City of Edmonton has adopted an Open Option Parking program and the results have been very revealing.

For more on parking, visit this site to learn more about the studies done by Donald Shoup, a parking guru and neighbourhood advocate who has contributed a lot to our understanding of what constitutes the ‘right amount’ of parking.

What are the Likely Outcomes of this Update?

* More Village Life to Enjoy Together!
* More Locals to Live in the Village
* More Access to the Waterfront
* More Supporters for Local Businesses
* More Spaces for People to Gather
...and more!

Why are these changes a good thing for Ladner Village?

The land use rules have constricted the supply of housing in Ladner Village and limited the # of retail spaces available for small businesses and customers.

The City’s extensive consultations with the community showed that change to the height limits and the relaxing of parking requirements will help the Ladner Village to thrive and become even more vibrant.

Speak Up With Us!

There are still plenty of pages to be written in the story of Ladner Village and we encourage you to be vocal, enthusiastic, and creative in sharing your vision for the Village. We’d love to inspire you to speak up at future public hearings when good projects are brought forward or to spend time explaining why we think this is a big step in the right direction!

We’re a bunch of volunteers and we love Delta and want to see our city become more inclusive and diverse. We’re raising awareness of the fact that the status quo is leading us deeper and deeper into a situation where our city is becoming more expensive and exclusive. If you’d like to join us in raising awareness of the housing needs in our City and in supporting good changes to our City’s land use policies, please get in touch!