It’s just a matter of time before those fighting the densification of their communities figure something out: When high-density neighbourhoods are being justified by planners because they are supportive of transit, what’s the justification when there won’t be any assurance of more transit?
From today’s Sun:
Townhouses replace trees in south Surrey neighbourhood
.
In Sunnyside Heights … a parcel of land has been stripped clean and covered with townhouses baking in the sun. A grove of trees shades an old rancher next door, but a city sign suggests officials will punch a road through those trees to connect with the city grid on the other side.
“It’s extremely worrisome,” said Clinker’s neighbour, Sybil Rowe. “The total character of south Surrey is being erased. This is one of the last beautiful parts of the Lower Mainland left.”
Such cries are coming from all corners of south Surrey, following massive transformations in areas such as Morgan Creek, Elgin and Sunnyside. Many residents lament the loss of the mature trees, while others like Clinker worry the city doesn’t have the infrastructure, schools or transit to handle a flood of people to the area.
City officials, often criticized for the pro-development stance, argue they have little choice. With Surrey welcoming 1,000 new residents every month, planner Jean Lamontagne said the city must create higher density around its town centres, including south Surrey.
This has led to a shift in zoning in some areas from suburban to urban, or bylaw changes to allow more units on two- or five-acre lots that have had just one home on them. Nearby Clayton, for instance, once a farming community bordering Cloverdale, is now wall-to-wall development.
“The reality is that with the price of land and the price of housing, if we want to provide an affordable product, the type of development is much more dense,” Lamontagne said.
Lamontagne acknowledges south Surrey lacks in transit and other infrastructure, but attempts to address those issues by building transit hubs and collecting development cost charges to build utilities and widen roads. The rest is out of the city’s hands, he said, as it counts on the province to upgrade Peace Arch Hospital, transit and build new schools.
The situation has led to a grassroots movement among residents, such as those in Royal Heights and Crescent Beach Annex, who have convinced the city to preserve their neighbourhoods’ character with special zoning to keep small homes on residential lots. Such zoning requires 80 per cent support of neighbours in an area.
.
What this seems to be saying is that Surrey will continue to zone for high-density transit hubs, but the only money on the table will be for widening roads – no doubt connecting to the widened freeways being funded by the Province.
How long before a Council, in the face of public protest, refuses to upzone – or more dramatically downzones – a neighbourhood plan because TransLink affirms that there will be no more service (unless it removes some from elsewhere in the region, leading to more protest)?
That would send a shockwave through the development community, which so far seems to think that it is business as usual; somehow money will be found to fund the transit on which their strategies are based.
In the event of a reversal, I wonder what they would then say to the Liberal Party fundraisers.
What’s the alternative?
To keep single family houses on 2 acre parcels and then increase pressure on the ALR to build similarly sparse residential districts?
It’s the classic chicken or egg question.
Likewise, Coquitlam and Port Moody densified and often questioned their densification because the Evergreen Extension was up in the air for many years.
Ultimately, I think that with today’s requirements for accounting “justifications”, the course is to build demand (i.e. build the denser housing to create demand) and then the transit will have to follow because of the demand.
Gone are the days of “build the transit line – and the density will follow” (read: Millennium Line), at least in sparse areas (as opposed to inner-city densification like Canada Line), because you need an economic justification for the transit service to appease all the naysayers and armchair critics.
Arguably the Millenium Line example is a *very* bad one if you’re looking to justify the mode of build transit first, density to follow. Because it has barely worked outside of a few stations. Many stations still sit with basically no development or change around them at all.
I like these new neighbourhoods in S Surrey. They. Look pretty nice.
As far as transit goes, Surrey is an expensive place to implement good transit, mostly because it’s low density, so higher density would be in everybodies best intrests.
And that transit will cost less per service hour because of that
The root cause of almost all our problems is over-population. But, our entire economy relies on continously increasing population. There really is no endgame except infinite density and overcrowding. Single family zoning can try to delay things, but they can’t hold off the inevitable.
Indeed, why is Surrey forced to welcome 1,000 new residents a month? A recent article on Harper’s dismal economic record pointed out we aren’t creating enough jobs for new arrivals already. The future of the planet isn’t more people, it is less.
The population of Japan is reducing. Many thousands of homes are now unoccupied and unwanted. Yet, the Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Plan 2040 has been taken as the local ‘bible’, dictating growth of an expected 1 million. Member cities are somewhat obligated to follow Metro’s call for accepting certain numbers of new residents. TransLink is involved but the province controls highway construction. The whole plan is therefore somewhat impossible to follow, except in spirit, since roads and population growth is not controlled by Metro (GVRD), neither does Metro control all the funding, as we recently noticed in the failed plebiscite. So, we still have jurisdictions forwarding their agenda, as in the case of Vancouver and the push for funding for a Broadway subway, while Surrey puts its hand up for light-rail. It was significant that Delta, Richmond and the whole north shore were to get nothing but a few buses.
This is the way a conglomeration of municipalities operates. Consolidation would, of course, mean that powerful figures wouldn’t have lots of small town mayors to argue over what was a priority but the experience of Rob Ford in an amalgamated Toronto has probably squashed that idea for metro Vancouver for 15 years, at least.
For some reason the question of a million more inhabitants in the region never has become something actively discussed publicly. The Metro 2040 Plan was slipped under the press and the public discourse radar, as a given. It was cleverly done, as a regional plan and that is normal. The accompanying legislation that really can’t be enforced, was subject to virtually no debate. As a UBC paper said, “While Metro Vancouver and its member municipalities are required to come to agreement on land use plans, there is a very weak legislative relationship with the provincial transportation component that is required for effective regional growth management. …”
As mayors and city councils change then new ideas and considerations will evolve. The mechanisms for adjusting the 2040 Plan still exist, even if they might involve mediation and arbitration and the involvement of other levels of government, even on the population numbers.
Japan has basically zero immigration. Canada could plausibly close our borders to almost all immigrants, too, though not without consequences. Either way, that’s not a decision our local politicians can make – they can’t stop people from moving here. They can only try to accommodate those people.
So while yes, we have “planned” for those people to come here, if we were to suddenly change our plan to not include any population growth, those people would still come here. Only then the cost of living would explode, as would the overcrowding of the existing housing stock.
Metro 2040 may have slipped under Eric’s radar, but the public consultation was far, wide and long. Every city in the Metro provided input and sought input from their citizens too, in effect it became double-layered consultation.
The million figure is merely a reflection or extrapolation of current demographics. They can be accommodated within the present urban containment boundary (possibly even a second million) without even meeting the comfortable density of London’s Kensington-Chelsea. That means the ALR, watersheds and parks remain intact. The main trip hazard will be no improvements to transit as long as cowardly governments fail to provide this vital public service.
I am a third generation Canadian, grandchild to immigrants. Ninety-seven per cent of Canadians are immigrants or the children of immigrants. We are taxpayers and participants in the national economy and have created a rich socio-cultural complexity not found in most countries. We are a wealthy country that has benefitted immensely from people arriving on our shores and thriving. To seriously advocate stopping the inflow of people to Canada or the region after you and your family have enjoyed the priviledge for decades and generations is pathetic and small-minded.
I welcome immigration and I am perfectly comfortable with the present number. Indeed, I have enabled immigrants by finding them work prior to them arriving in the country. My commentary does not call for any less immigration.
The lack of any option in the transit referendum means that we will now rely on the federal and provincial governments to guide and plan new transit. The massive mistake made by the Mayors Council will have resounding consequences, this includes their population plan. Since more ambitious transit plans, like rapid transit to the North Shore, Delta and South Surrey and extensions of the Richmond Line and the Surrey Line, etc., were not in the plan, the distribution of the new and the growing population looks right now to be somewhat anarchic.
As I mentioned earlier, this is the way a conglomeration of municipalities, often, operates.
You questioned planning for a million more inhabitants, then you welcome immigration. Some readers may find that contradictory.
Perhaps one regional governance model we should study is Greater London. There the London Council and the mayor often deal directly with the British Government which has, post-Thatcher, found great benefit in funding large transit projects directly, or as a majority participant. There is no mid-level meddling provincial government.
I did not question planning, I described the 2040 Plan and described what I consider to be problematic aspects of that plan.
Here in Canada the primary government in many respects is the provincial. Natural resources, education, health care, labour training, safety and protection, etc., etc. and some taxation are all provincial. This is not going to change for some time. We are a federation. The system of taxation in Britain is not coming soon to Canada. We are fortunate that the present federal government has dedicated substantial new funds, specifically for provinces to allocate to transit.
To allow certain countries to use Canada as an escape hatch is pathetic. It would be better for the planet if the prosperous from China had to stay in their home country and lobby for real change in their disastrous environmental record, rather than ship Mom and the Kiddies off to Vancouver where they can ignore it.
Canada admits 250,000 people a year. Not all of them are from China. The majority have gone through an extensive admission process and are legitimate and do not use our country as a temporary rest stop of convenience.
Surrey will continue to zone for high-density transit hubs [in south Surrey]
is Translink aware of that?
The mayors’ council plan had nothing for South Surrey. Worst the area could have lost direct connection with Surrey Central. So the outcome of the referendum is irrelevant here.
and then … it seems there is never a shortage of property tax to build road in Surrey (and elsewhere in Metro Van), but when come Transit, surprise…Surrey conveniently posture itself as a victim and expect the money to come from somewhere else
Surrey want to emulate the Portland model, but apparently it has missed the fact that the Portland stretecar is a municipal initiative.
Surrey is not alone, Coquitlam says it has no tax money to improve its buses, so it will spend tax money to build parking next to the evergreen line stations… Vancouver refuses to transform parking lane into bus lane…
The regional mayors expecting someone else to pay for Transit, while using property tax to build more car infrastructure, are the one doing damage to the region…
I agree with Guess: Gone are the days of “build the transit line …” and it is good because it is a gamble which could have worked well in Burnaby, but not so much in Surrey and part of Vancouver along the Expo line.
muncipalities need to build demand first…and they need to make sure this demand ensure financial sustainability of the transit service they envision (and have their transit vision to effectively meet transportation need).
We are not there yet… at least not in Surrey.
I have to disagree. If you build density first you have a serious problem. Either you have to build wide roads and lots of parking to support the density or you end up with an area nobody wants to move their home/business into.
To be successful with a density first model you must build the roads and parking which makes the area a poor candidate for transit.
The old model in which the private railroad developer made money selling/leasing land was a transit first model. The newer model (Expo/Millennium lines) was also a transit first model because those lines originally traversed low density areas where massive increases were possible. Unlike the 19th century when a successful line paid for construction of the next one, the 20th century Canadian model put relatively little money into the hands of the transit company making self-funded expansion impossible. Instead of using the new development to build the next line our governments are dependent on tax dollars for every km of track.
You seem to be saying that the Expo line is a partial failure because much of the route through Vancouver remains close to its pre-SkyTrain density. The reality is that trains are full by the time they get to 29th Avenue.
In other words transit and development should be planned together, two parts of a single package. I can agree with that. Otherwise our Canadian way is to suburbanize.
We’re doing a lot of (landscape architecture) work in South Surrey (some of the cited neighbouhoods have several of our projects in them). The replacement requirement for trees is 2:1 (two new to one removed). We regularly meet-and-beat the required replacement rate. And regularly create outdoor spaces around retained healthy mature trees. Outside of the drought conditions this year, most projects see those trees thrive… this years “new normal” climate changed conditions will have consequences to all trees in the Lower Mainland, but disproportionately negatively on new(er) installations.
Anyhow, the comparison between 50 year old suburban rancher “grove” of trees and 5 year-old nursery stock, newly installed is a priori disappointing. The instant gratification of development is equally and in opposite antagonized by the “instant nostalgia” for mature trees. With patience and time the 2:1 replacement trees will be 1.75:1 surviving and healthy, beautiful and grown in.
Errata: unfortunately, the city of Richmond wants instant gratification, and frequently requires very mature trees at installation. And while this temptation may please the layman/critic, the survival rate is dismal. At least Surrey calls for teenager-trees, who take to transplantation much better.