Waterfront & Outdoor Pool

PURPOSE

The waterfront in Fort Langley is a significant opportunity. The heritage building Haldi House, nbuilt in 1895 — otherwise known as the Bedford House — has been left to sit as it for over 10 years. It's time to move forward. We want to help with that with a cool, ambitous plan we can all be proud of.

The purpose of this concept is to stimulate conversation, debate, and future consideration of our waterfront. We want to advocate for Fort Langley.

in 2019, the Fort Langley Outdoor Pool was removed without any plan to even consider replacing it. The waterfront is an obvious, natural spot to locate it within a natrual setting, proximity to the Fort to Fort trail, Bedford Landing higher-density development and downtown Fort Langley.

For any public asset, especially for recreational purposes, we believe that taxpayers and the community deserve an open, fair transparent process to consider the future of its waterfront, and all recreational amenities. We want to help with that too.

KEY COMPONENTS

• restoration of the Haldi House registered heritage asset in situ (where it has always been) for waterfront user groups and other community purposes, such as exhibits, meetings, or other community gatherings (Item 7).

• covered, outdoor 25m pool with cover, with washroom and changing facilties (Item 11).

• skateboard park, ideally with a partial cover and lighting added for more seasonal, wet weather use (Item 12).

• spray park adjacent to the outdoor pool (Item 11b).

• a location for a new mixed-use building with restaurant, retail, offce, daycare and/or residential uses located between Glover Road and the vehicle connected to Church Street (Item 3). The Fort Langley Project and the Board have no interest in particpating in the design or ownership on any commercial buildings that may be considered.

• additional community parking expanded throughout and within the mixed-use building (to de determined) within an underground or structured parking option.

• completed pedestrian overpass to the Fort Langley National Historic Site, preferrably with a natural earth mound connection, not the more typical concrete-based switchbacks (Item 15).

• new, updated and expanded warfs, expanded canoeing and rowing facilties throughout (Items 2, 5, 8, 13, and 17).

• public plaza (Item 1).

• waterfront trail access with seating, picnic, and outdoor spaces as currently exist within Marina Park.

FORT LANGLEY BOAT LAUNCH

In this concept the Fort Langley boat launch at Marina Park is removed, but only on the premise that it will be replaced elsewhere to the east of Fort Langley.

The boat launch in Fort Langley has been left to fall apart, doesn't have enough staging and parking areas, and conflicts with canoeing and rowing user groups within the Bedford Channel. Langley needs a new one elsewhere that addresses these issues.

MIXED-USE DEVELOPMENT

Any concept for a mixed-use building on the waterfront should be confirmed within a fully transparent, inclusive process that involves the community as a whole. This proposal sets aisde this area with an approximate 0.75 acre area for this, with its exact size, height, scale and uses to be determined.

The Fort Langley Project and the Board have no interest in particpating in the design or ownership on any commercial buildings that may be considered. We are only presenting this plan for public input, revision, and potential, future submission to the Township of Langley for its consideration, similar to the process for development of the development sites within the village itself.

FUNDING

The funding sources for this proposal include the potential return from the development of a mixed-use building at Glover Road, Community Amenity Contributions from development, neighbourhood park funding options, and other surpluses and reserves.

Up to $750K in funding could come from the cancellation of the spray park currently planned to replace the Fort Langley Outdoor Pool.

The Fort Langley Project would also consider a significant Community Amenity Contribution from the development of its Glover Mary Church and Glover Road West proposals for downtown Fort Langley to see this proposal move forward with long overdue renewal that contemplates an outdoor pool and other waterfront amenties such as these in Fort Langley. We believe profit from our porposals should be used for community and charitable purposes.