It appears Fort Langley’s Friday night market will no longer happen. According to the official narrative, a handful of troublemakers brought their own booze, wrecked a few things, and as a result the market became too risky to carry on. Interestingly, a rezoning application filed prior to the cancellation tells another story. The market site is being cleared to make way for a brand-new development.

The Fort Langley Project, a non-profit managed by the Eric Woodward Foundation, recently announced the market was finished. They cited liquor violations, minor vandalism, and some headaches that are to be expected and are usually managed without much fanfare.

On February 27, 2025, Township staff received a rezoning application for 9140, 9148, and 9166 Glover Road, plus the 9100 block of Church Street. That is the location where the night market was held. It proposes to increase allowable density from 47 to 76 residential units. According to Township records, this file is active and being processed. The property use as a park and a location for the night market was to serve simply as a temporary placeholder. In 2018, Woodward cancelled his boutique hotel plan after a dispute with Township staff. Instead, he put in some grass, picnic tables, and called it a pop-up park. 

In July 2023, his Council approved a heritage alteration permit for the project. His slate voted 5 to 2 in favour. Independent Councillors Kim Richter and Margaret Kunst voted against the application. Even Michael Pratt, who supported the proposal, said he did not like the position it put him in. But the vote carried. And now, less than a year later, the park is shutting down and the application to develop is moving forward.

The market’s cancellation came with a tidy excuse. Organizers said they just could not manage the crowd anymore. Too much beer, too little respect for the rules. But no police reports were cited. No public warnings were issued. And other municipalities seem to handle their beer gardens just fine. If the market was really becoming a hazard, someone forgot to tell the public.

The logical explanation is this: development is about to begin. The night market, while beloved, was always a temporary use. With a rezoning application on the table and permits in hand, it was time to wrap it up. The alcohol and vandalism story, well-timed as it may be, looks more like a smokescreen than a serious safety concern.

This would not be the first time a public event disappeared just before the bulldozers rolled in. Nor would it be the first time questions were raised about the mayor’s conflicting interests. Eric Woodward is not just the mayor. The Eric Woodward Foundation is intertwined with the development proposal. That same foundation that was responsible for the market. And its affiliate, Fort Langley Properties, is listed on the application.

Woodward has long said that development profits would be returned to the community through his foundation. Back in 2018, he announced that he was effectively putting $100 million worth of real estate into a charitable foundation. The idea was that all proceeds would go to local causes. The public was asked to trust the model. Trust that the Eric Woodward Foundation appears as a non-profit organization member on the Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce website. However, when I called to inquire about the foundation, its board, and website they did not have any information aside from an email address: rochelle@fortlangleyproject.org

Upon conducting searches on the CRA website the following results were found:

Statistics and data on the Charities and web pages are compiled by the Charities Directorate of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) for the sole purpose of providing the public with direct access to information about charities, national arts service organizations (NASO), and Canadian amateur athletic associations (CAAA) in Canada that have been registered under the Income Tax Act.

As of May 2025, a search of the Canada Revenue Agency database for registered charities shows this result:

A search of the federal database also returns nothing. No registration number, no financial disclosures, no filings at all (see above). The foundation may be a provincially registered non-profit, but that does not carry the same transparency requirements. Worth mentioning here that the foundation is not in good standing provincially. The BC Government Registry shows that it was registered as a society incorporated 2019, no annual reports filed since 2021. The Eric Woodward Foundation is active and was incorporated on June 27, 2019.

Trust the model! The development application is active. The site is earmarked for condos. And the market, which kept the space earning revenues for three years, is no longer needed. This is what progress looks like in Langley: community events giving way to construction fencing, and development profits routed through a foundation with no federal filings. As always, the public is invited to trust the process. Just do not ask too many questions.