There’s at least one thing that most Sookies (Sookites? Sookers?) can agree on, and it’s not our name, but that we as a town do not want to develop into the next Langford.
We don’t want high rises consuming our roads, blocking access to our forests and oceans. We don’t want astro-turf filling medians. We don’t want houses with no yards priced beyond reach and crammed close together. We don’t want an OCP that lets people develop unchecked. I like to think that we would choose to remain the place ‘where the rainforest meets the sea’, and not ‘where high rises and dense suburbia meets the sea.’
Sooke on the whole values our indigenous and rural history. Those values help ensure that as we grow in population the changes of municipal infrastructure reflect our diverse small town community in the midst of nature. The process of responsible development while keeping to our values falls to our current and soon to be elected officials.
What I want to look at here is this idea and value of “We don’t want to be the next Langford.” How did Langford get to where they are, and do any of the same pitfalls loom in our Sooke future?
An anti-roadmap if you will, a path labelled “Caution, beware, do not follow!” Okay, I’m dramatizing but you get the idea. If we know we don’t want to be developed like Langford, let’s look at how they got there and choose differently.
While the factors for a completely different city are obviously not all going to be relevant, there are a few that I think bear consideration for us in Sooke and that’s what I’m going to look at. The first pitfall we can look at is power and the money in Langford. Who was profiting off of developing land? Were people on council being lobbied by developers? Were there kickbacks for council? For developers? The beauty of municipal record is we can follow the money to answer some of those questions.
The second thing to look at is the composition of the council of Langford, and the state of OCP that allowed for development in a way that we as Sooke, are generally not fans of (and if you are a fan of it, please disregard this entire thing, it will be irrelevant to you.) Whose values and motives guided the decisions?
And lastly, possibly the most important question, are we in Sooke subject to any of the same circumstances that lead to the current state of Langford as it is now? If we’re electing officials who align with our personal values it’s important to see if spoken values match actions. We want to see if any pitfalls are in front of us that we can avoid, if our values are to not be developed like Langford.
I’m hoping that delving into some of the changes that a neighbouring city went through will help us chart a course of careful consideration as we elect our next council, mayor, and school trustees.