Below-market housing for working families, seniors, and young people is a noble goal. I believe government should be pursuing it. I also believe that good intentions aren’t enough, you have to look at what went in to determine if a project was worth it.
With election season underway, Mayor Woodward and Councillor Pratt are pointing to the Township of Langley Housing Trust as one of their signature achievements. They’re right that the goal is worthy but when you run the numbers, the housing trust isn’t a success story it’s a case study in destroying value while trying to create it.
When I talk about value in public spending I mean something specific: what came out relative to what went in. Not just whether the outcome is good in isolation but whether it was the best use of what was committed. A project can have a worthy goal and still destroy value if a better alternative existed for the same money. That’s the test I’m applying here.
The great thing about the housing trust is that its value is directly quantifiable. So let’s measure it.
What is the Township of Langley Housing Trust
The Township of Langley Housing Trust is a society owned by the Township. Through it, the Township is developing three properties totaling 368 units. Seventy percent of those units will rent at market rate. The remaining thirty percent will be offered 20% below market.
To make this happen the Township donated three parcels of land, waived development cost charges, and the project carries $177 million in debt.
Woodward and Pratt argue the rental income covers the debt payments. I find that argument dubious given how many private companies can’t make the math on building rentals pencil right now. If experienced businesses are struggling, why would government with no experience building be able to make it work?
With that said I will give it to them here. What I want to focus on is the $29 million in land and waived fees the Township committed directly, because that’s where the value destruction becomes undeniable
Does it Make Value?
Before measuring value we need to define it. Woodward and Pratt define it themselves in their campaign videos: the housing trust creates value by delivering below-market housing to seniors, teachers, and young residents. That’s a reasonable definition. So let’s use their own standard to measure whether it’s actually working.
What Went In
Three parcels of land went into this project. Based on land values from BC Assessment these total $17,697,000.
The Township also waived development cost charges for all three projects. DCCs aren’t a bureaucratic formality, they exist because every new home requires real infrastructure like water, sewers and roads. Based on the Township’s own DCC bylaw, roughly 96% of every dollar collected goes directly to building that infrastructure. Waiving those fees doesn’t make the infrastructure disappear, it just means existing taxpayers pick up the tab instead. The total DCC waiver across these projects is $11,635,000.
That brings the total direct public commitment to $29,332,000.
| Land Value | $17,697,000 |
| DCC Waiver | $11,635,000 |
| Total Cost of Housing Trust | $29,332,000 |
What is coming out
Now let’s measure what the housing trust actually delivers using Woodward and Pratt’s own definition of value: help with rent for Langley families.
The average two bedroom rental in Langley at the end of 2025 is $2,400 a month. A 20% discount on that is $480 in monthly savings per unit. Across all 110 below market units that’s $52,800 in total monthly rental savings for everyone in the program.
To understand what that’s actually worth we can calculate the present value of that savings stream over 25 years a standard way of measuring the value of future payments in today’s dollars. At a 5% discount rate that comes to just over $9 million.
So the housing trust committed $29 million to deliver $9 million in value to renters.
| Total Below Market Units | 110 |
| Monthly Rental Saving per Unit | $480 |
| Total Savings per Month | $52,800 |
| 25 Year Annuity (at 5%) | $9,031,000 |
Does it Make Value?
No. By Woodward and Pratt’s own definition the housing trust has destroyed value, not created it.
$29 million went in. $9 million in measurable renter benefit came out.
Instead of building this, the Township could have placed that $29 million into an endowment. A standard endowment earns roughly 7% annually, subtract 2% to keep pace with inflation and you’re left with a real return of 5%, or $122,000 a month in today’s dollars.
That’s enough to write $480 monthly rent subsidy cheques to 255 families every single month in perpetuity, more than double our current model.
What About Supply?
The strongest counterargument is that an endowment doesn’t create housing supply, building does. That’s a fair point and worth addressing directly.
There’s a better model that other municipalities are already using and is honestly even better than my endowment model. Instead of developing market rate housing themselves, they partner with non-profit housing societies that can access federal and provincial capital grants unavailable to municipalities.
Those partnerships deliver 100% below market housing using the same public commitment, so all 368 units being built could have hypothetically been below market (The Maple in Langley City for example). It’s worth asking why it wasn’t explored more seriously before committing $29 million to a model delivering less than half the benefit. Check out the numbers for a partnering model, this creates value!
Partnering Model ROI
| Total Below Market Units | 368 |
| Monthly Rental Saving per Unit | $480 |
| Total Savings per Month | $176,640 |
| 25 Year Annuity (at 5%) | $30,216,000 |
Some will say the mayor’s model works best because in 25 years we will own the buildings without a mortgage, but in the meantime 258 more families a year could have been helped to keep a roof over their head. We have a housing crisis right now, we need solutions right now. It is also classic Woodwardnomics of forgetting about maintenance.
So when Woodward and Pratt appear in campaign videos proud of the housing trust, this is what they’re proud of, choosing to help 110 families when the same money could have helped 368.
I support helping families with rent. I don’t support the lowest ROI approach to doing so.
Wrapping it Up
Good intentions aren’t enough. What matters is what we put in relative to what we get out and by that measure Langley is getting consistently poor value for what it spends.
Langley deserves better than half measures at twice the price. You can demand value without being anti-progress. You can support helping families with rent and still expect the math to make sense.
When you elect property developers to government you end up with solutions that involve developing property not helping people.