The Langley City Council is considering a zoning change that could decrease the amount of commercial area in the Village by the Sea.

This week, the council reviewed a request from the owners of a Cascade Avenue property, who are asking for the zoning of their property and adjacent parcels to be changed from “central business” to “residential single-family 5000” as part of the city’s comprehensive plan update.

In a letter to the council, Terry Sankey, who owns the vacant lot with his son and business partner, Peter Sankey, pointed to the increased value of a residential versus commercial property, the lack of infrastructure to accommodate any new structures and the scarcity of interest from buyers wanting to build anything commercial.

Meredith Penny, the city’s planning director, explained that honoring this request would remove 1.6 acres from the central business core and eliminate the potential for mixed-use development in this location, since central business zoning allows residential uses above ground-floor commercial.

To further complicate things, there are three existing single-family homes that do not conform with the area’s current zoning.

The city’s citizen-led Planning Advisory Board suggested not moving forward with the rezoning request, a recommendation that city staff also supported.

“I think my recommendation would still be to remain with central business because we know that we have to accommodate a fair amount of commercial development over the next 20 years and this is the more underdeveloped parcels that we have adjacent to our central business district,” Penny said.

The council expressed some interest in instead pursuing neighborhood business zoning, which would allow for commercial and residential uses, such as multi-family housing, but retail is not a requirement.

Councilmember Chris Carlson said there is a shortage of commercial space, according to what he’s heard from the Langley Chamber of Commerce meetings.

Many of the property owners impacted by the proposed zoning change were present at Monday night’s meeting.

Laura Weeks said she and her husband Brad bought their property specifically for its commercial use and development potential. They both opposed a zoning change to residential use only.

“If we had wanted to buy a purely residential property, we would not have chosen that location,” she said.

Brad Weeks echoed this sentiment.

“We appreciate that this is before the council now, because the gentleman and his son who bought the property next to us are having a hard time, and may have some regret about their purchase, but I feel like their decision to buy that property and then their problems should not burden us as neighbors,” he said.

Others, however, spoke in support of the change, recounting a time prior to the 1980s when housing was an allowed use in the area. They suggested “grandfathering” in the existing homes.

Terry Sankey told the council that whatever anecdotal evidence there is of people wanting to move businesses to Langley, there’s a long way between that and making any money. He said he didn’t expect people who are buying at depressed prices relative to residential land prices will invest in the city’s infrastructure. The vacant lot he owns with his son is currently listed for $180,000 and was last purchased in 2021 for $200,000, according to Zillow.com.

“Langley is a great place for people to live. I’m not sure that a lot of businesses would agree that it’s a great place to have your business,” he said, pointing to the number of banks and drug stores that have left the city and moved closer to the main highway.

Councilmember Rhonda Salerno suggested holding off on a decision and asked the planning director to come back with another proposal for neighborhood business zoning. Her motion passed unanimously.

The council was divided, however, when it came to another topic on zoning, the city’s Buildable Lands Analysis. Concerns arose about a PAB meeting with procedural and technical difficulties that prevented the public from speaking, so Cyr suggested the citizen committee redo the hearing. His motion failed in a 2-3 vote, with only him and Councilmember Harolynne Bobis supporting it.

The others on the council instead supported a different motion, 3-0, for rezoning a property south of Edgecliff Drive to protect critical areas. Cyr and Bobis both decided to abstain from the vote, citing a lack of public input and not enough information to make a decision.