The City of Surrey held an open house Jan. 28 to update residents about its latest draft of the Clayton Corridor Plan (CCP)
The planning process for the CCP began in 2022 in an effort to support the development of the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain line down Fraser Highway. The plan has had to be dramatically updated because of new legislation from the Province (see below).
The city shared info about the updated CCP and as currently asking for feedback via an online survey.
Paul Orazietti, the executive director of the Cloverdale BIA, attended the open house. He said feedback from residents wasn’t very supportive of city efforts so far.
“It was different,” Orazietti said of what he was hearing from people. "The turnout was huge. Quite a few of them were trying to find out what is going on because the growth is huge.”
He said the folks he spoke with lived in the corridor catchment area. He said everyone is concerned about the new density targets. The biggest thing he heard was people saying they moved into a green suburb and now all of the sudden they're going to be living next door to towers, like in a downtown area.
“Unfortunately, a fair amount of detail was missing in the presentations," he said. "They talked at a higher level. They talked about best practices and trying to make that area more pedestrian-oriented, with walkways and greenspaces at a minimum, because it was never planned to be like a downtown.”
The result, he said, is that the city owns very little land with which to build parks and walkways on in the corridor catchment. And now, of course, the land is very expensive.
Orazietti added the city’s presenters, numerous people in green, city T-shirts, kept talking about transit-oriented development.
"That means they don't want people to drive," he explained. "So, in doing all of that, there will be less parking.”
Orazietti attended the meeting because he wants to know how downtown Cloverdale can link up with the Clayton corridor and SkyTrain via transit. He said there won’t be any “park-and-rides” built in Clayton, so he wondered how it will all work out.
“They were encouraging you to take the bus, but they didn't say that they had any of the bus lines figured out,” he explained. “Normally, transit (planners) wait for an area to be developed before they provide bus service. But the SkyTrain's an anomaly, because it's politically driven. So there's still a lot of details missing.”
He added the open house gave residents an idea of what's being proposed, but ultimately there were more questions at the end of it than there were answers.
"They would have a board that said "affordable housing" and then they wouldn't explain it, just that it was coming,” Orazietti noted. “Then they had another part where they talked about supportive housing and that B.C.Housing was going to buy several floors within these towers, but then they didn't say where or how many. So it was really kind of vague and high level. "
Many folks were saying these weren’t the reasons they moved to Clayton.
“They want to go high density, but there's no density," he added. "The people that are living there are now saying, ‘Well what does this type of density mean? You're going to put 25, 30, 35 storey towers in? And there’s not going to be any parking?’ So when you compare it to other communities that have gone through this development, there is a shortage of parking.”
NEW LEGISLATION
The first CCP draft was shared in 2023, before the Provincial government introduced new legislation to be incorporated for development around transit stations.
In 2024, the government created housing statutes for so-called Transit‐Oriented Areas (TOA). Bill 47 mandated TOAs be designated around transit stations—both bus exchanges and Skytrain stations.
The bill binds local city councils in regards to the TOAs in that councils cannot reject developments up to a certain density and height “solely on the basis of density and/or height.” Densities and heights vary by transit station type. The bill also “restricts local governments from requiring residential off‐street parking within TOAs.”
SURVEY
The city is also hosting an online survey. The survey offers residents the chance to view the updated draft plan and to give feedback in a few areas. The online survey takes about five minutes to complete.
To take the online survey, visit engage.surrey.ca. The survey closes Feb. 9. Visit this city web page for hi-res image of the parks map from above.
City staffers will summarize the feedback and update city council at some point in 2025.
