Wednesday July 2, 2025 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The Langford Official Community Plan (OCP) has been long in coming.
The previous full OCP was drawn up in 2008.
City of Langford council at their June 25, 2025 meeting Council formally adopted the new Official Community Plan for the municipality.
The council had undertaken an intensive 18-month process which the city describes as creative.
The “innovative and inspiring” new OCP is designed to strategically support a growing population and create a more sustainable and livable community where everyone can thrive, the City stated in a news release today.
Land use and policy document:
An OCP is an important long-term land use and policy document that guides how a municipality grows and develops.
Over the past year and a half, City staff and advisors created a “Made In Langford” OCP that the city feels reflects the community’s priorities and that it responds to evolving provincial initiatives, including housing targets.
Consultant and public input:
“The new OCP marks a significant milestone in the history of Langford, ensuring quality growth, densification in the right locations, and diverse transportation choices”, says Langford Mayor Scott Goodmanson.
“Developed through extensive public engagement and collaboration, the updated Plan reflects our shared values and addresses the challenges posed by a growing population. Together, we are creating a vibrant community where everyone can thrive,” says Goodmanson.
Public engagement has been the cornerstone of this process, enabling community input and feedback to shape the Plan along with in-depth research on current and future challenges and opportunities, best practices, and technical analysis.
The first open public event held was held at the Belmont Secondary School gym, followed about six months later by a larger event at held at the Legion. Both times, the lead presentation was given by the city’s urban planning consultant Brent Toderian.
Smaller engagement sessions were held along the way. Feedback was gathered at every stage of the process from thousands of community members, including conversations at events, formal survey submissions, public hearings, and Council deliberations. At every stage, the community response has been largely supportive and encouraging.
Big ideas:
In addition to public input, one of the most important best practices used to develop the new OCP was to structure it around a set of “Big Ideas.” These Big Ideas, introduced during the engagement process, aim to strategically meet the needs and improve the quality of life of a population growing to 100,000 residents.
The Big Ideas of the new City of Langford OCP are: The Five Crises; Quality City Building; Parks, People-Places and Urban Nature; Transportation and Mobility; Measuring Success; New City Centre Policy; Centres, Corridors and Complete Communities; and A ‘Made in Langford’ Approach.
They also tackle critical challenges, referred to as the ‘Five Crises’: climate change, housing affordability, social equity, public health, and rising infrastructure costs. By planning for population outcomes rather than a fixed timeframe with uncertain results, the City can more efficiently manage growth patterns and ensure that development addresses these issues, irrespective of the duration required to achieve them.
Over time the idea of ‘crises’ may have become tiresome for some. Just dealing with matters at hand is more of a Langford approach.
Several aspects of what the OCP broadly covers were also further explored through strategic plans including transportation, active transportation, parks, and others. For some reason — while urban food security is a stated council priority — it was not given a full strategic plan as council seemed to think it was already covered well enough.
Dealing with growth and mobility:
The updated Plan introduces a clearer, more predictable approach to growth in general (the population is expected to double over the next 25 year), and building height and density specifically, one that supports Langford’s response to the Five Crises.
While tall buildings remain enabled in select, strategic locations, the Plan emphasizes more mid-rise and ground-oriented housing choices.
For the first time, the OCP also sets specific height limits to ensure clarity and consistency in decision-making. These changes are grounded in public interest objectives and aim to support a vibrant, walkable downtown and smart, transit-supported urban areas that balance livability, sustainability, and economic success.
The refreshed Plan also prioritizes greater mobility choice by reducing reliance on cars, and supporting more transportation options that lower costs, cut emissions, reduce pollution, use space more efficiently, and support broader public benefits.
Looking to the future:
With the adoption of the new OCP, the City has established a Plan that integrates collaborative planning, one that is rooted in the community, guided by evidence, and prepared to meet future challenges.
The new OCP will be made available for review in the next few days. For more information visit: letschatlangford.ca/ocp
This council which was elected in October 2022 faces their first re-election test in October of next year. How the OCP, strategic plans and public engagement has been done will be one area of review by the Langford voters.
===== RELATED:
- City of Langford statement on BC housing targets assessment (May 29, 2025)
- Upbeat participation at Langford OCP Refresh Phase 2 open house (November 3, 2024)
- Langford OCP Refresh Phase 2 includes Nov 2 open house (November 1, 2024)
- Langford population to double by 2050 – public survey to Sept 15 (August 25, 2024)
- Opinion: Langford OCP refresh faces some challenges (January 26, 2024)
- Well-attended intro to Langford OCP refresh (January 24, 2024)
- Langford OCP refresh presentation Jan 23 (January 18, 2024)
- NEWS SECTIONS: LANGFORD | MUNICIPAL ELECTION 2026