Blogathon #4: Murrayville--The Good, The Bad, & The Future

Council decisions matter. The antics and policies and personalities in Ottawa and Victoria get a lot more press, but local government is where the rubber really hits the road in terms of shaping communities. A poor Council decision can cause all kinds of unexpected side effects, and it can take years to make things right--if ever.

When I was a young journalism student at Langara College, Sun reporter Frances Bula (now with the Globe and Mail, and a blogger) came and spoke to our class about local government. She was passionate about it, and it shows in her stories. Frances knows that what happens at City Hall matters to local residents. Victoria and Ottawa affect us too, but that effect is watered down over a massive geographic area, which makes them seem detached from us. It's hard to figure out and to communicate exactly how a federal budget will really affect a family of four living in Murrayville. It's almost as tough to explain how a law passed in Victoria will change your every day life in Walnut Grove. But building a park, filling a pothole, tending to your sewer and water and garbage and recycling--this is the grassroots stuff. This hits you where you live.

So in the next ten posts or so, I'm going to look at various Langley communities and recap the good and the bad of how they were planned. The things that worked, and what didn't. And I'll look at the future, and where I think these communities may be headed.

I'm going to start with Murrayville because, well, I live there.


Murrayville: The Good

Murrayville is one of the oldest parts of Langley, with the town there predating even Langley Prairie (City). It was also one of the first areas to have a rudimentary zoning bylaw. While the whole municipality wasn't zoned until 1973, Murrayville and Fort Langley has had zoning since the 1940s.

Two brilliant policies really shaped Murrayville--the civic core and the Five Corners heritage area. No single Council can take credit for this, as each has built on the work of past councils.

Township Council and staff over the years worked very hard to centralize institutional services in Murrayville. We call it "Hospital Hill," but it's more than that: there is Langley Memorial Hospital, the Township's Fire Department headquarters, the RCMP building, the School Board Office, WC Blair Recreation Centre and, until 2005, Township Hall itself. We also have an operations centre there, the Langley Regional Airport, a library, and the compost demonstration garden. These core uses attracted some higher-density housing (condos and townhouses) and community-level commercial, like IGA, the Aldergrove Credit Union, and the Wired Monk. This has made for a very walkable, friendly community. Murrayville works, with a good mix of housing types (even some social housing that goes completely unnoticed by people).

The work to protect the historic area around Five Corners also deserves mentioning. The 99-year lease of the old Traveller's Hotel to Wally Martin was incredibly controversial in the late 1990s, but the Martins have fixed that building up beautifully. (Before Wally started his renovation, I toured the building. It was a wreck, but they brought it back to life.) Add some of the covenants and heritage revitalization agreements on the older houses around Five Corners to the old pumphouse, Porter's Store, and Murrayville Hall, and you have a very nice heritage area.


Murrayville: The Bad

Moving Township Hall out of the civic core has left a hole in Murrayville's heart. It was the right thing to do--the new building in Willowbrook was simply too good a deal to pass up, and the old building was so bad that they couldn't keep file cabinets in certain parts because they feared they would fall through the floor--but it still left a hole. It also spread out our civic facilities. Three and a half years later, we still get mail with the old Murrayville hall address on it.


Murrayville: The Future

Work is underway on the old Township Hall site. Crews are busy remediating it (in the old days, it housed a Township gas station and mechanics shop, so it needs to be cleaned). I see that space as a great place to add some more density to Murrayville--a mix of low-rise condos for seniors and young couples. In a perfect world, we would have a seniors centre on the ground floor of on e of the buildings, and perhaps space for a library/meeting rooms in another (the Township currently leases space in Murrayivlle for these uses). This project could generate enough revenue to help us renovate and expand WC Blair Recreation Centre, and better equip the Murrayville core park (which we should probably rename "Murrayville Dogwood Park" at some point, as, historically, I believe there was a Dogwood Park where RCMP Headquarters now sits).

On the heritage side, two issues must be addressed. We need to decide what we are going to do with Old Yale Road leading into Five Corners. It's believed to be the oldest paved road in the province and our Heritage Committee is convinced it has important value. At the same time, it's an active road, so we need to meet certain standards.

The second heritage issue is the old Murrayville Elementary School. The School Board closed it last year. There is both a heritage building and more modern school on the site. I'd like to see us hold on to the heritage portion somehow, perhaps using it as a community daycare or preschool. The rest of the site may end up with some more housing, but I'm not sure that much density would fit well into that area, and Denny Ross Park needs to be protected.

We moved to Murrayville in 2005, and we love it. It's a great place to raise kids, and a wonderful community to be a part of.

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