Langley Strong: a detailed plan, with the costs to come

Langley Strong is the challenger slate in the Township of Langley's 17 October election. It is running Jay Lundgren for mayor and seven candidates for council. They include the four sitting councillors who are not part of Mayor Eric Woodward's Progress for Langley. The team's theme is restoring respect at Township Hall.

It has published a detailed written platform: 39 pages, built on ten pillars. What it does not yet say is what its plan would cost. The team says those numbers have to wait for an independent audit of the Township's books.

This profile covers the slate's candidates for mayor and council. Its six school trustee candidates will be covered in a separate article on the school board race.

At a glance

Each point is the slate's position, as it presents it. Under each, ✅ marks where we think it fits our values, and ⚠️ marks a concern. A point with no concern is not an endorsement. It means that part of the platform fits the values that guide all of our work, explained below.

• 🔍 Audit first, then hold taxes down. An independent forensic audit in the first 100 days, no new borrowing until it is done, tax increases held to the "lowest level the books allow," and a public timeline to pay down debt.
  • ✅ Every project would show its borrowing cost and its yearly operating cost before council votes. Borrowing by any Township-owned body would need the same approval as any other. That is the honest accounting for growth we want to see.
  • ⚠️ The team will not give a tax range for 2027, and none of its proposed savings has a dollar figure attached.
• 🏗️ Growth pays through amenity cost charges. Keep the Township's current rates, and cut the cost of delay instead.
  • ✅ Posted, lawful rates give builders certainty and keep growth paying its way.
• 🏘️ Faster approvals and homes families can afford. Firm deadlines for permit decisions and online file tracking.
  • ✅ Predictable approvals help get homes built. Candidate Lauren Chalus told us homes, not parking, should come first next to Willowbrook station.
  • ⚠️ The platform says little about rental homes, below-market homes or how many homes belong near the station.
• 🔑 Renters. End the exemption that lets the Township and its housing society skip the Township's own tenant protection bylaw.
  • ✅ A clear gain for renters. A landlord backed by public money should meet the same standard as any other.
  • ⚠️ The team would move the society's homes to a non-profit, but does not say whether rents would stay below market.
• 🚌 Transit and safer streets. A feeder bus plan for the SkyTrain station in year one, bus rapid transit on 200 Street, and sidewalks, lighting and bike lanes built with new development.
  • ✅ Bus priority and bike lanes built in from the start are what a spread-out Township needs.
  • ⚠️ Lundgren has called for widening 16 Avenue, and the platform adds bike lanes only where the Township judges them appropriate.
• 🤝 Langley City. No amalgamation. Shared services, and a district policing model negotiated with the City.
  • ✅ This matches what our own review of the evidence supports: cooperation without a merger.
• 🚒 Public safety. A SkyTrain station safety plan before 2029, more fire prevention staff, exploring Community Safety Officers, and a homelessness table early in the term.
  • ✅ Planning for station safety before opening day, with health and outreach groups at the table, is sensible.
  • ⚠️ The team has not committed to more supportive housing, which in our view is what ends homelessness for most people.
• 🌾 Farmland and nature. Farmland stays farmland, an updated Rural Plan, stronger tree protection, stream restoration and no sale of parkland.
  • ✅ Strong commitments to farmland and nature.
  • ⚠️ The platform also floats industrial use of federal defence lands which candidate Teresa Townsley says include wetlands that must be protected
• 🧭 First Nations. Work with the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo and Matsqui First Nations on shared issues, while protecting private property rights and public land.
  • ✅ Practical work together, on the Bedford Channel and the Fraser River, is welcome.
  • ⚠️ In our view, tying reconciliation to defending property against title claims sets a defensive tone.
• 🏛️ Open government. Closed meetings only when the law requires them, quarterly reports on legal spending, council meetings working people can attend, and a guaranteed turn for residents who come to speak.
  • ✅ Concrete, checkable commitments to transparency.

Two more notes

• ✅ Every candidate answered our questions, and the team has a written plan that voters can hold it to.
• 📊 The platform says Township debt rose fourfold this term. Measured the same way at both ends, the team's own figures show it more than tripled. The bigger number adds borrowing in progress or approved, and the housing society’s borrowing. Both are steep rises, and voters deserve to know which one is meant.

The slate in this election

Langley Strong formed early this year. In the team's own telling, its members kept coming back to the same concerns: rising taxes, growing debt and decisions made behind closed doors. They chose to run together rather than separately. The team calls itself a team, not a slate, sharing "a set of commitments, not a party line."

Its four incumbents took different paths to the same table. Kim Richter and Margaret Kunst were re-elected as independents in 2022. Barb Martens was elected that year on Woodward's slate, then called Contract with Langley. Blair Whitmarsh finished second to Woodward in the 2022 race for mayor and returned to council in the 2025 byelection. With all four now on the team, council is split five to four.

Twenty candidates are running for eight council seats. Langley Strong is running seven. Lundgren and Woodward are the only candidates for mayor.

Legal action. In 2025, Woodward and councillors Rob Rindt and Tim Baillie filed a defamation lawsuit over an anonymous website and a Facebook group critical of the mayor, CBC News reported.

Those named include Rich Coleman, whom Woodward defeated in 2022, and Councillor Kim Richter. CBC reported the suit centres on posts about two fire equipment contracts worth about $11 million, which Woodward's lawyer argues implied corrupt dealings. Woodward told CBC the claims were serious and posted anonymously.

Being named in a lawsuit is not a finding of wrongdoing, and none of the allegations on either side has been tested in court.

Richter told us the matter is before the courts and she cannot discuss it. She said she has a record of declaring conflicts of interest whenever she has a direct or indirect financial interest in a matter, and will continue to.

Who is running

Descriptions come from the team's website, the candidates' own statements and local news coverage.

Debt and taxes

This is the biggest issue in the Township campaign. Here is where Langley Strong stands, and how its numbers compare.

How much? The Township told CBC in April that it has authorized about $602 million in debt. CBC reported that is the highest debt per resident of any major BC city. "Authorized" means council has approved the borrowing, but not all of it has been borrowed yet.

Langley Strong counts higher: $797.6 million, citing the Township's 2026 capital budget. By our arithmetic, its figures for debt in place and in progress add up to about the Township's $602 million. On top of that, the team counts $17.6 million approved but not yet borrowed, and $177.3 million borrowed through the Township's housing society. The team says debt on the books was $177 million when this council took office in 2022, and $584 million at the end of 2025.

How much room is left? The team says the 2026 capital budget leaves about $11 million a year of room for new debt payments. The Chamber of Commerce described the same budget as leaving room to borrow about $134 million to $166 million more. The Township later told CBC that estimate was wrong, and that it can borrow about $350 million more.

What the team would do. An independent firm, chosen in public, would audit the Township's finances in the first 100 days, at a cost Lundgren expects to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There would be no new borrowing until it is published. After that, the team promises borrowing limits, reserve targets and a public timeline to pay down debt. To save money, it named legal spending, the mayor's contingency fund and advisers, naming rights and sponsors for new facilities, and a review of utility billing.

What it would not say. Lundgren declined to give a 2027 tax range before the audit. Asked which two commitments he would delay if money is tighter than expected, he named none. He said nothing under way would be cancelled, and new facilities would wait for published triggers.

Taxes. The team says property taxes rose about 22 per cent this term. Progress for Langley candidates put it at about 20 per cent. Council approved an increase of just under 4 per cent for 2026. The Township's five-year plan projects 22.8 per cent for 2027, as the Chamber of Commerce noted at its 29 September forum. Progress for Langley candidates said at the same forum that the previous plan projected about 17 per cent for 2026, before council adopted just under 4 per cent.

Rising rates. Long-term borrowing costs have climbed this fall. Debt the Township has already borrowed is locked in at older rates, for now. Anything still to be borrowed will cost more. As a rough guide, each extra percentage point adds about $700,000 a year in interest for every $100 million borrowed. The team's pause on new borrowing would limit that exposure. But Lundgren says nothing already under way would be cancelled. By the team’s figures, $200 million of borrowing is in progress or approved but not yet drawn.

In our view, much of this plan is sound. Showing what every project will cost to run, before the vote, is exactly the long-term accounting that municipalities often skip. Kunst summed up the problem in her reply: "Growth without a plan costs residents twice."

But the plan stops short of numbers. Voters cannot tell how far the team's savings would go against a projected 22.8 per cent increase. The audit is a real reason to wait on details, but a team asking for a majority can still offer a range. The team’s borrowing-room figure comes from a budget estimate the Township has since told CBC understated its room to borrow. And its fix for a thin tax base is more industrial and commercial land. That can help. In our view, the bigger lever is the shape of residential growth. Compact, walkable neighbourhoods near transit tend to bring in more tax revenue per hectare, and cost less to service per home, than spread-out subdivisions.

Making growth pay

In June 2025, the BC Supreme Court struck down the Township's community amenity contribution policy. It found the Township was effectively requiring payments that BC law only allows to be voluntary. The Township dropped its appeal in May 2026 and has moved to amenity cost charges, a newer tool with clear legal rules.

Langley Strong backs those charges at full cost recovery, its website says. Asked whether he would keep, raise or lower the rates, Lundgren said: "Keep them." The lever he would pull is time. Every month a project waits adds to the price of a home, he said, and ending that costs the Township nothing.

In our view, that is a sound position. One cost the team has not addressed is development cost charges, a separate fee for roads, water and sewers. A City of Surrey report shows the Township charged about $53,000 per new low-rise apartment in development cost charges in 2024. Surrey's new rate is about $28,000. Fees at that level end up in prices and rents. We raised the same concern with Progress for Langley.

Housing, renters and SkyTrain

The platform promises homes young families can afford, faster approvals and fewer needless costs on new homebuyers. It also asks new buildings to fit the form and character of the neighbourhood around them.

Homes near the station. "Homes come first," Chalus told us, when asked whether land near Willowbrook station should hold homes or parking. She said provincial law already stops the Township from requiring residential parking there. What council still controls is where commuter and customer parking goes. She said form and character rules should shape how new homes look, not whether they get built.

The pace of growth. Whitmarsh did not give a target for homes per year. His test is sequencing: council should show, in public, that infrastructure for homes already approved is funded before approving the next phase. He said the Township approved about 2,500 homes in 2024 and 2,100 in 2025.

Renters. Township council passed its first tenant protection bylaws in May. The team says the Township exempted itself and its own housing society from those rules, and it would end that exemption. The housing society has borrowed $177.3 million to build rental homes on public land, the team says. Our Progress for Langley profile credited those homes. Langley Strong would move the society and its debt to an established non-profit housing provider once the buildings are finished and full.

In our view, there is real credit here. Chalus puts homes first at the station and accepts the provincial rules on parking and small multiplexes. Ending the tenant bylaw exemption is a clear gain for renters.

What is missing is just as important. The platform frames housing mostly around homebuyers.

Rental homes, below-market homes and the density the province expects near Willowbrook barely appear. Lundgren's levers are fees and approval times. Those matter, but in our view zoning and parking rules matter more, because they decide how many homes a lot can hold.

Whitmarsh's test answers a real failure in Willoughby, where homes arrived years before the facilities that should have come with them. But in a housing shortage, holding back approvals is the wrong tool unless infrastructure also moves faster.

Moving the housing society's homes to a non-profit can work well. In our view, the move should come with a binding agreement that keeps the rents below market. The platform does not say so.

Getting around

What the team proposes. Asked how people near the new stations could get around without a car, the team said to plan the feeder bus network now. It would go to TransLink in year one with bus routes into Willowbrook station, including bus rapid transit on 200 Street. It would require sidewalks, lighting and bike lanes with every new development near the station.

Whitmarsh said the feeder plan should reach Brookswood, Fort Langley and Aldergrove, with bus priority on those routes. Martens told us she supports bus rapid transit on 200 Street, with dedicated bus lanes where they make sense, but wants the design to account for traffic spilling onto 202 Street.

At the Chamber forum, Lundgren called for widening 16 Avenue, which he said has become a major truck route.

In our view, bus priority, bike lanes built into every station-area project, and transit to the Township's outlying communities are exactly what a place this spread out needs. Our concerns are roads and parking. Research on induced demand shows widened roads tend to fill with new traffic within a few years.

And as Donald Shoup's work shows, the cheapest way to handle all-day parkers near a station is to price the curb, not to build commuter lots on land that could hold homes. Chalus already puts homes first, and her parking plan should follow that order.

Amenities, community by community

The platform lists projects for each of the Township's seven communities, from a Willoughby community centre and library to a replacement fire hall in Walnut Grove. Each would come with a public price tag and funding plan before construction. Both Township slates promise the Willoughby community centre.

Kunst told us she voted for the Langley Events Centre arenas, the 212 Street connector, the new Brookswood fire hall, and park plans for Walnut Grove and Aldergrove. She pointed to new accessible playgrounds as the term's best work. Richter said she opposed much of this term’s borrowing, but not the projects. "My fight has never been with the buildings," she said.

Richter wants the long-promised performing arts centre built once there is a public funding model, but would not give a date.

The platform would give children under 12 free admission to Township recreation, paid for partly by doubling drop-in and program fees for people who live outside the Township. Kunst said the fee is aimed at summer crowds from out of town, not Langley City families, and that the team would discuss a reciprocal arrangement with the City in its first year.

In our view, publishing a price, a funding plan and an operating cost before construction is the right discipline. A reciprocal arrangement would answer our concern about charging City families more. But the list is long, and with no new borrowing until the audit is done, voters cannot yet tell which of these projects would arrive this term.

Policing, safety and Langley City

Amalgamation. Asked whether it supports amalgamating the Township and Langley City, the team answered in one word: no.

Policing. The platform would negotiate a district policing model with the City. Each municipality would keep its own frontline officers and share administration, detectives, tactical teams and cells. Team members reached that position from different places.

Martens told us she voted in favour in May 2023, when council voted to end the shared detachment, because she believed dedicated policing would improve response times. She still supports that principle.

Whitmarsh opposed the split and still does. He said it has added about $900,000 to the City's budget, while the Township has never said what it costs. Rather than reverse it, he backs the district model, which he summed up as "two front doors, one back office."

Safety and homelessness. The team would bring police, transit police, bylaw staff, outreach agencies and businesses together now to plan for safety at Willowbrook station before 2029.

It would add fire prevention staff, explore Community Safety Officers, and set up a table early in the term with the RCMP, Fraser Health, outreach workers, non-profits, businesses and residents to work on homelessness.

Javed told us treatment beds are the province's and Fraser Health's to fund. On supportive housing, he said he would first look at how the first supportive housing project in Willowbrook has done.

In our view, the team's no on amalgamation, and its push for shared services, match what our review of the evidence supports. The station safety plan and the homelessness table are sensible.

Wanting to learn from the first project is fair. But the evidence is already strong that stable housing with supports ends homelessness for most people, and enforcement alone does not.

Farmland and nature

The platform says farmland stays farmland. It would update the Township's Rural Plan, which it says is 33 years old, and ask the province to give farm status to horse boarding. It also promises never to sell parkland to cover shortfalls, and to strengthen tree protection and restore streams.

It would also open talks with Ottawa about industrial use of federal defence lands south of the 264 Street interchange.

Townsley told us much of that 1,220-acre site includes wetlands that must be protected. "We're promising the conversation, not the answer," she said.

On the Fraser Highway employment lands, she said development should start with land fronting the highway, in phases. Each phase would come with public servicing costs, buffers for nearby homes, and consultation with neighbours first.

Townsley owns a winery, and the platform would change some farm business rules. She told us she would declare a conflict and leave the room on any decision that affects her business directly. On rules that apply equally to every farm, she would vote, and she would ask the Township's lawyer when it is close.

In our view, these are strong commitments to farmland and nature, and phasing the employment lands with public costs is sound. On the defence lands, Townsley's own description is the reason for caution. Any talks should start from a full map of the site's wetlands and wildlife corridors, not from a target for industrial land.

First Nations

The platform promises to work with the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo and Matsqui First Nations on issues of concern to residents. It also commits to protecting private property rights and public land as court and political views of Indigenous rights and title shift.

Lundgren told us that in practice this means showing up. He said treaties, rights and title are decided between First Nations and the Crown, and the Township is not the Crown. What the Township controls is the working relationship, on issues like the Bedford Channel and the Fraser River.

He pointed to Port Coquitlam's mayor, who said last year his city would defend public land and private property while the province leads talks on a title claim. Lundgren said that is the team's position for Langley.

In our view, Lundgren is right that the Township is not the Crown, and the practical cooperation he describes is welcome.

But opening a reconciliation commitment with a pledge to defend property against title claims sets a defensive tone. Reconciliation asks local governments to start from relationship and shared stewardship, which the rest of his answer describes.

How the team votes

Open government. Beyond the commitments in the glance above, Lundgren said the budget would be built in public, with an open house before first reading.

Why the councillors joined. Kunst said she joined after watching motions from independent councillors deferred or defeated, and less information about Township finances reaching council. She said that in May 2024 she asked for a report on what the Township had borrowed and how it would be repaid, and the majority voted it down. She voted against the current five-year financial plan. Martens said December 2023 was the turning point in her break with the mayor's slate. She had asked council to delay a vote on changes to the Williams neighbourhood plan, linked to an expansion of Martini Film Studios, so it could get legal advice. The delay was voted down, and she voted against the changes.

A bloc? The team says no. "Nobody on this team is whipped," it told us. Members share the platform's commitments, and on everything else, it said, they will debate and explain their votes. The team did not name a vote where its councillors split. But the candidates' own answers show differences. Kunst says she voted for the 212 Street connector, while Richter says she opposed a $5.8 million loan tied to it. Martens voted to end the shared detachment, while Whitmarsh, who was not on council at the time, opposed it. A full roll-call analysis of the term is beyond the time we had. We will publish one separately.

Every voice. Asked which residents council hears least, the team named people who cannot attend a weekday afternoon meeting: renters, shift workers, young parents, newcomers and people working two jobs.

In our view, these are concrete, checkable commitments to open government. Whether members vote independently can only be judged on the record. We ask this of every slate, and these answers suggest real differences among the team's members.

What we asked

All eight candidates answered. A few parts of our questions went unanswered:

• The team did not say whether it would require a binding vote of residents in both Langleys before any merger.
• Lundgren did not give a 2027 tax range or name two commitments he would delay.
• The team said its councillors have voted against each other, but did not name a vote.
• Richter did not say directly whether she would step back from indemnification decisions. She pointed to her record of declaring conflicts.

All eight were asked about lowering property taxes, amalgamation, Township debt and borrowing limits, getting around near the new SkyTrain stations without a car, how the team decides its votes, and which residents council hears least. Each also received questions about their own record or background.

References

• Langley Strong: Our plan to restore respect (full platform)
• Langley Strong: About
• Langley Strong: Jay Lundgren
• Langley Strong: Fact Check, "Illegal, Illegal, Illegal" (30 Sept 2026)
• Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce: Township all-candidates forum (29 Sept 2026)
• Langley Advance Times: 20 candidates vie for Langley Township council (11 Sept 2026)
• Global News: Municipal election 2018, Langley (Township) results
• CBC News: Langley township mayor sues political rivals (Sept 2025)
• CBC News via Yahoo: Why Langley Township's $600M debt is city hall's biggest debate (23 Apr 2026)
• Bank of Canada: Selected bond yields
• Investing.com: Canadian bond yields rise as global rate pressures weigh on debt markets (28 Sept 2026)
• Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce: Township draft 2026 budget released
• Lorval Developments Ltd. v. Langley (Township), 2025 BCSC 1148
• Fasken: BC Supreme Court sets aside Langley's CAC policy
• Langley Advance Times: Langley Township drops appeal of overturned development fees (15 May 2026)
• Township of Langley: Amenity cost charges
• City of Surrey: Corporate Report R098, 2026 Development Cost Charge Bylaw
• BC Government: Construction starts on nearly 250 rental homes in Township of Langley (2025)
• Global News: Langley Township doesn't want to share the RCMP anymore (May 2023)
• City of Langley: City responds to termination of shared policing agreement (May 2025)
• The Langley Union: Should the Langleys amalgamate? (June 2026)
• The Langley Union: Progress for Langley profile (Oct 2026)
• Donald Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking