Sunday, October 6, 2019 ~ LANGFORD | Updated March 10, 2021: BC Government office now open in Langford
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
Thanks to the Internet — and 25+ years of politicking — Langford will be getting some BC government offices.
Putting provincial government offices where the workers live is the baseline premise of Langford Mayor Stew Young’s idea that now over 25 years later is unfolding into something big.
It means less commuter traffic — which is good for families having more time together and less carbon emissions into the environment. And it means that office space will be cheaper for government to build or lease compared to operating its present cluster of again offices in downtown Victoria. Langford’s commercial tax revenues will go up, certainly a plus.
Premier John Horgan has revealed that a pilot project to be launched in spring 2020 will see government workers who live in the west shore and sometimes already telecommute from home using secure office space in Langford set up with Internet connections to secure government servers.
“That’s going to relieve pressure on our transportation infrastructure,” said Horgan. “And if it’s successful, if a lot of government employees take up offer to work in Langford, then we’re going to see more purpose-built buildings to take the pressure off the commute into town,” the Premier said in a CTV news interview.
“It was in my first speech 28 years ago,” said Langford Mayor Stew Young. “It’s the smartest thing to do. Everybody talks about it. Why would you put government offices where the people don’t live?”
Young suggests that about half of the provincial government workers who work downtown live in the west shore. But with much of today’s business done over the Internet, the time has finally come to “put the offices where the people are”. He has asked the Premier for an assessment of where the government workers in at least five ministries commute from.
Mayor Young has told West Shore Voice News that a new 11,000 sq ft property will be developed in the Westhills area of Langford as a future government office space. (More to come on that.)
“Workers are living in the community. To work in Langford they will save about one-and-a-half hours of commuting and not have to pay for dowtnown parking (about $200 to $300 per month),” says Young.
“Commuting is not conducive to families and community, and it’s not good for the environment. It’s a time loss to family and we have to pay attention to climate action. In Langford the housing is affordable and so is the office space,” he said this weekend.
“Today it’s a natural option to telecommute,” said Young. He was told by government decades ago that it was important for government Ministries to be able to have documents delivered quickly from office to office by courier within the Victoria core area. “That was before the Internet,” he says.
“We have a traffic problem and no solution in sight,” says Langford’s mayor, referring to the backlog of vehicle traffic on Highway 1 that is presently additionally challenged by construction zones into 2020 at the McKenzie Interchange and from Leigh Road to the West Shore Parkway.
The BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is working on their South Island Regional Transportation Plan (first announced by Minister Claire Trevena in January 2019), the delivery date for which keeps being pushed further into the future as many consultations and planning gets done to consider options for the movement of passenger vehicles, buses, trains, bicycles and pedestrians.
Components of the province’s transportation strategy could include use of the E&N rail corridor (Victoria to Courtenay) for paved transit space by buses or back to the use of trains has been dragging its heels for years, mired in organizational politics. A west shore passenger ferry from the Colwood seashore to Victoria harbour areas is possibly in the mix, something the City of Colwood in pushing for at their Royal Bay oceanfront area, but that could still take time.
Premier Horgan barely mentioned his Langford home turf in his closing remarks at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver on September 27. But now Langford gets this plum that altogether makes for happier residents, less frustrated commuters, a stronger commercial tax base, a positive contribution to reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and some political capital for ultimately helping BC keep their office overhead down.
Premier Horgan barely mentioned his Langford home turf in his closing remarks at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver on September 27. But now Langford gets this plum that altogether makes for happier residents, less frustrated commuters, a stronger commercial tax base, a positive contribution to reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and some political capital for ultimately helping BC keep their office overhead down.
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This article was first published on page 1 in the October 4 to 6, 2019 weekend digest of West Shore Voice News.