Why are there almost no condos in Walnut Grove or Fort Langley?

Direct answer

Two reasons compound here: both places were built out before apartments were the answer, and the Township pointed its apartment density somewhere else. Start with the zoning history. Walnut Grove built out mostly between 1985 and 2005, and Fort Langley grew around a village core founded in 1827 that now sits under Heritage Conservation Area rules. Both were planned around detached houses and townhouses rather than apartment blocks, and the Township of Langley pointed apartment density at Willoughby and Langley City Centre instead. The second is servicing. Fort Langley water and sanitary lines were not sized for high-density loads, and the heritage overlay makes a four-storey building very hard to permit. Walnut Grove has no SkyTrain station and no bus exchange, so the transit-oriented areas the province created under Bill 47 in 2023 do not reach it. Apartments are a minority here, but they are not missing, and the usual advice about them is backwards. Roughly one active Walnut Grove listing in six is an apartment, and they are the cheapest way in: in the current listings they run around the low $500,000s against a townhouse median near $850,000. A buyer working under $700,000 has more apartments to choose from in Walnut Grove than townhouses, not fewer. Fort Langley is the opposite case, where the few apartments that exist price alongside the detached market rather than below it. Bill 44 added provincial rights to as many as four units on a single-family lot, but those produce ground-oriented multiplexes, not apartment buildings. For a wider apartment selection, Willoughby has purpose-built product in Yorkson and Carvolth, and Langley City Centre is building around the future SkyTrain stations.