From Panorama Ridge to Tynehead to East Clayton, Surrey has become home to practically dozens of cities within cities.
With more than half a million people living in Surrey, each of these communities has created its own identity.
With our series we call "Neighbourhoods," we are coming to your area simply because we want to tell its story.
Recognizing that every one is unique, both in their character and in the challenges they face, our series will look at each area's struggles and triumphs.
This ongoing feature will showcase Surrey's dozens of neighbourhoods through stories, photos and video. Click on the map below to access them.
To share your neighbourhood's story, email us at edit@thenownewspaper.com with the subject line "Neighbourhoods."
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EAST CLAYTON — Mike Bola lived in East Clayton for 16 months before he left in 2009 due to the stress of the area's parking.
"I just couldn't handle it there," the Cloverdale Community Association president said.
Bola, who lived at roughly 194th Street and 68th Avenue, found he could rarely have guests over because there simply wasn't enough parking
Bola says the parking havoc stems from the high densification of homes in the area. As well, many homeowners in the area are renting out one or two suites, and don't have adequate parking for those tenants.
While it's only legal in the City of Surrey to have one suite, many of the homes were built with a suite as well as a coach home.
Bola said some are "abusing that." "And that abuse is what's causing the problem." The city has expressed that it will look at ways to alleviate parking tensions in East Clayton and the matter was on the city's transportation and infrastructure committee meeting agenda Monday, March 17.
One idea being floated around for East Clayton is permit parking.
Bola isn't sure that's going to work, but is open to the idea. He has concerns about determining how many parking passes each homeowner would get, and how guest parking would work. Plus, he said, to work it would be dependent on enforcement.
In the meantime, Bola hopes to get "No Parking" signs installed in all of the neighbourhood's back alleys.
Bola praised the city for stepping up its game and enforcing secondary suite bylaws, but noted that it took a lot of complaints for the city to jump on the issue.
"They are making changes. I just think it's a little bit too late now. It's a bit more of a Band-Aid solution to the problem."
If the city could go back in time, Bola thinks larger lots would have prevented a lot of issues. While he understands the city's desire to densify with smaller lots to make housing more affordable, he would have liked to see a better balance.
"High densification is not a good thing," Bola said. "We want to see densification under control so it makes sense."
Aside from those issues, Bola said East Clayton is a family-oriented and pedestrian friendly community.
"I actually liked the atmosphere. A lot of young families live there, so you see a lot of children and all the kids get to play at the park there," he said.
He likes the concept of a tight-knit community.
"I used to go for walks in the summertime and it was very nice. You didn't have to worry about too much traffic. So it's a good feeling - it is a neighbourhood, no doubt. The concept from that point has panned out."
RESIDENTS WEIGH PROS, CONS
Connor Greenwell moved to East Clayton last April and has worked at the local Extra Foods for eight years. While she deals with parking stresses, even within the townhouse complex she lives in with her boyfriend, she said they get by.
"We've really liked it so far. It's a really great neighbourhood. You can go for a walk and people say 'hi.' There's a lot of young families and there's a lot of parks around," Greenwell boasted.
Crystal Litonjua's family moved to East Clayton in 2006.
"We were very happy to leave our townhome in Fleetwood and move into a single-family home," she said. "When we moved in, they were still building all around us, and then came the coach homes."
Litonjua said as development continued, and more coach homes came in, people in the neighbourhood began renting out suites and sometimes multiple suites, resulting in the parking havoc, as there wasn't enough room to accommodate on-street tenant parking.
"It can be a nightmare," she said. Litonjua said the close proximity to her neighbours can be inconvenient, and wishes the houses were farther apart.
"East Clayton may have been a good idea on paper for the person who designed it, and for the developers that made money, but it is really a high-density, congested mess," she said.
CITY LEARNED SOME LESSONS
Don Luymes, Surrey's community planning manager, said much worked well in East Clayton, but the city learned some lessons along the way. The community's planning began back in 1999 and was done in conjunction with UBC professor Patrick Condon, who has more than 25 years experience in sustainable urban design.
"It was seen as kind of a pilot for a new way of planning neighbourhoods in Surrey," Luymes said.
The idea was to create a pedestrianoriented area that utilized sustainable neighbourhood principles.
Some things worked out, Luymes said, pointing to a unique drainage system in the area, which allows for water to dump directly into the ground, as opposed to through storm sewer pipes.
Luymes said the goal of creating a pedestrian-oriented neighbourhood has succeeded.
In most of the area, driveways are placed at the back of homes, not in the front crossing sidewalks. The neighbourhood also has several parks and schools, all designed to be within easy walking distance.
Luymes said the core of East Clayton built out rapidly, proving to be popular with firsttime homebuyers and young families. "The majority of the neighbourhood was built very quickly within five or six years."
In no time, the city heard about parking stresses on the roads.
"The parking issue is real," Luymes said. "It is particularly an issue in single-family small lot areas of the plan. Part of the reason is that although at the time that the subdivision was built, secondary suites were not officially permitted in Surrey, many people put a suite in their basement as a mortgage helper. The amount of suites wasn't anticipated as much as we could have."
Coach houses added additional challenges to the neighbourhood.
"The rule was that you could either have a coach house or a secondary suite, not both. But in reality, what happened in many cases was that the coach house was rented out and the basement was also rented out," he said, adding that the suite problem has proven difficult to enforce.
Council has since put an unofficial moratorium on coach homes.
Further adding to the problem is that many of the garages were too small to comfortably fit two vehicles. And the third parking spot at the rear of the house turned out to be too narrow to fit larger vehicles like pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans.
Luymes said the city is now looking at how to plan the neighbouring West Clayton, and has increased the minimum lot size to be two-and-a-half feet wider, and deepened the lots, to allow for a bigger garage and a larger parking stall beside the garage.
Luymes added that "transit service in the area has lagged behind, resulting in a higher reliance on vehicles."
"If we get better transit, which we're pushing very hard for along Fraser Highway, which is one of our key priorities for a light rail system, that would be running right through the middle of East Clayton. And the hope would be that many people would be able to reduce the number of vehicles per household."
NEXT WEEK: We focus on the overcrowding of East Clayton's schools as well as the desire for more public amenities in the area.