Good afternoon, Langley. It's a sunny day with temperatures at about 28°C, heading for a high near 29 before things ease back into the mid-20s through the weekend. Keep an eye on the air quality though, because wildfire smoke has settled across the region.
On the housing beat, condo sales in Langley cratered by 22 per cent in July, with prices sliding across every housing type. Over in Vancouver, a wave of SRO foreclosures has tenants organizing against a familiar pattern of buyouts and evictions, and one couple at the Empress ended up there after being renovicted from Surrey.
At the regional level, 92 per cent of Metro Vancouver directors want to merge the four sewerage areas into a single shared rate, which would spread the cost of major upgrades across the whole region. The Township, meanwhile, opens fall recreation registration on Friday at noon for residents, so verify your address ahead of time.
And on Vancouver Island, land defenders are back on the road blocking logging trucks as B.C. moves against the last of its old-growth forests.
Langley condo sales dropped 22 per cent in July
Condo sales in Langley fell 22 per cent in July compared to the same month last year, with just 64 units sold.
Detached houses also cooled, with 79 sales, down 11.2 per cent year-over-year. Townhouses barely moved, with 83 sales.
Prices kept sliding across the board. The benchmark condo price fell nine per cent to $534,200, townhouses dropped 4.9 per cent to $811,400, and single-family homes slipped 6.2 per cent to just over $1.5 million.
The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board says buyers aren't in a hurry, with plenty of inventory and little competition. One analyst points to weaker immigration numbers, mortgage stress tests, and the disappearance of investor-driven condo demand as the main forces cooling the market.
The takeaway for renters and first-time buyers is that homes remain badly overpriced relative to local incomes, and a market built on speculation has a long way to fall before it starts serving the people who actually live here.
Township opens fall program registration with day camps and swimming lessons
Fall recreation registration in the Township of Langley opens Friday, August 7 at noon.
Township residents go first. Non-residents can sign up starting August 14.
Fall programs run from September to December, and the full list has been viewable online since July 28.
Swimming lessons follow a separate schedule. Residents can register August 28, and non-residents on September 4.
The Township is using a virtual waiting room on registration day, so set up your account and verify your address ahead of time to keep your spot in line.
Langley City urges residents to stay indoors as wildfire smoke rolls in
Langley City's Emergency Program is asking residents to stay inside if air quality worsens, as Metro Vancouver issues a yellow alert for the Lower Mainland.
Wildfire smoke has settled across the region for more than 24 hours, with warnings now extended across Langley and neighbouring communities.
Officials recommend keeping windows closed, limiting outdoor activity, and checking on elderly neighbours, renters without air conditioning, and those with respiratory conditions.
Smoke events like these are no longer anomalies. They are the predictable consequence of decades of fossil fuel expansion and delayed climate action, with the heaviest health burdens falling on low-income residents and outdoor workers.
Metro Vancouver board backs single sewer charge, easing burden on ratepayers
Metro Vancouver may soon charge every household in the region the same rate for sewer service.
Right now the region is split into four sewerage areas, and your bill depends on which plant treats your waste.
Langley City sits in the Fraser Sewerage Area, where a typical household pays $795 in 2026. North Shore households pay $1,315 after that community was left carrying the cost of one massive plant upgrade.
Ninety-two per cent of Metro Vancouver directors now support merging the four areas into one, so future upgrades get paid for region-wide.
Langley's cheaper rate looks like a win today, but big sewer projects are already planned here, and pooling the cost keeps any one community from getting hammered by the next bill.
Vancouver SROs change hands as tenants get pushed out
A wave of foreclosures is sweeping through Vancouver's single-room occupancy hotels, and tenants say the pressure to leave is relentless.
Nine buildings with 483 low-income units are in foreclosure or receivership. Three of them, including the West Hotel and the Empress, were bought by longtime SRO owners Antonietta and Mario Laudisio in February.
At the West, tenant organizers say 57 of 98 rooms are already empty. Tenants report monthly eviction notices, daily cash offers to leave, and elevators left broken for days at a time.
One elderly couple at the Empress landed there after being renovicted from a Surrey apartment, a reminder that the Fraser Valley's affordability crisis feeds directly into Vancouver's last-resort housing.
Advocates have been asking the province to buy the remaining private SROs for years, and the ministry says it is "monitoring the situation."
Monitoring is not a housing policy, and the cost of doing nothing will be paid in the street by people who have nowhere left to go.
Land defenders return to the road for old-growth trees
Land defenders are back on the logging roads of southwest Vancouver Island, trying to stop the cut of some of the last old-growth trees on Earth.
About 20 people camped on Pacheedaht territory near Port Renfrew in late May, blocking a road before dawn. A logging truck rolled up, idled, then turned around.
Coastal temperate rainforest covers barely half a per cent of the planet's land. Scientists say only about 415,000 hectares of productive old growth remain in B.C., and most of it is still open to logging.
The province points to 2.4 million hectares of deferrals since 2021, but critics say most are temporary, and Premier David Eby's government has also pledged to increase timber harvests.
Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones, 86, watched these forests disappear for most of his life and started logging himself at 18 before he understood what he was helping to take apart.
"We're just fighting over the leftovers," he said, and a province that treats a thousand-year-old cedar as this quarter's revenue line is telling on itself about whose future it actually values.
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