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The removal of red tape from the development permit process in the City of Langley is paying big dividends, according to the mayor.

Ted Schaffer said, on average, it takes ten weeks to approve a development permit in his city — it can take years in some other cities across the region.

One business owner even says he was granted a development permit in only 13 days.

“We don’t want developers to be hung up under bureaucratic red tape, so the faster we move along, the better it is for the development industry and the more business they want to do here,” said Schaffer.

He said the city is booming as a result.

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“Our downtown core, there’s hardly any vacancies if there is any. We’ve got the luxury automall, Canada’s first luxury automall, they’re extremely busy even the BMW dealership is putting on an addition,” he said.

“For a lot of the people in Vancouver and Burnaby… they have kind of forgotten what’s on the south side of the Fraser River.”

He said the other factor making the city attractive to families is that the majority of new home construction is three-bedroom townhouses — as opposed to one-bedroom builds in higher-density cities.

The icing on the cake?

“We’re doing this and still maintaining a debt-free community, the City of Langley still does not owe anybody any money.”