Saturday October 26, 2024 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The City of Langford’s Construction Impact Management Strategy will be a key component of the municipality’s ‘Good Neighbour’ Policy.
The ‘Good Neighbour’ Policy will provide direction and requires a commitment from all developers and businesses at the earliest stage of permitting on how to effectively mitigate potential impacts, inform residents, and address issues throughout development and operations.
Accommodate growth and development:
The overall objective of the ‘Good Neighbour’ Policy is to accommodate growth, development, and business operations in a way that is reasonably livable for neighbouring residents.
Complaints about construction:
Since the majority of complaints in a growing city are related to construction nuisances, the City is addressing this first through the Construction Impact Management Strategy.
Process:
Nuisances caused by on-going business operations will not be addressed through the Construction Impact Management Strategy but rather through the next phase of the ‘Good Neighbour’ Policy process.
The following is a representation of the order and focus of the strategy and policy:
- Construction Impact Management Strategy focus → Development/Construction
- ‘Good Neighbour’ Policy focus → Development/Construction + Business Operations
Public input:
A pop-up information booth was held at Langford Fire Hall #1 four four hours on Sunday, October 6.
For the business and development community there will be focus groups held during Winter 2024/2025.
At this time there is a public input survey on Construction Impact Management will take about 5 to 10 minutes to complete online through the Let’s Chat Langford portal.
The City wants to hear:
- how and where residents are impacted by construction,
- understand the community’s priorities for change, and
- learn about how some contractors are already being good neighbours.
The survey is open to November 3, 2024.
Background
Construction is essential to grow our City and provide affordable housing and amenities to residents. However, construction nuisances are sometimes a significant source of complaints in a growing city.
This is usually because there are gaps in our bylaws that prevent the City from mitigating certain construction practices.
To support the development of a Construction Impact Management Strategy, staff conducted a gaps analysis of the City’s existing bylaws against current complaints and a literature review of established ‘Good Neighbour’ policies in BC.
For a full background and more information on the preliminary results of the gaps analysis, see the Construction Impact Management Strategy Staff Report to the Sustainable Development Advisory Committee(External link) dated June 10, 2024.
The Construction Impact Management Strategy will balance the unavoidable impacts of construction, such as noise and road closures during allowable hours, with the expectation that contractors be “good neighbours” by communicating with residents and minimizing or making good on impacts to nearby homes and businesses.
Examples of Reasonable Impacts (considered legitimate disruptions)
- Noise during allowable times (7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays)
- Some dust or equipment exhaust
- Crane setup/take-down
- Hammering, drilling, blasting
- Equipment back-up beepers
- Extra-long concrete pours
- Planned and limited road/sidewalk closures or traffic changes
- Construction licences for street occupancy for extended periods of time, in agreement with the City
Examples of Unreasonable Impacts (considered poor construction practices)
- Noise outside of allowable times
- On-street parking violations
- Damage to surrounding properties
- Rude or offensive behaviour from workers
- Inadequate site security and safety
- Excessive dust and smoke
- Insufficient erosion and sediment control or environmental spills
- Improper storage of materials
- Unpermitted sidewalk/street blockages
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