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Surrey to hold open house for truck parking task force

Council established new task force in December
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The City of Surrey is holding an open house for its Task Force on Truck Parking. (Photo: Now-Leader file)

The City of Surrey is moving forward with its Task Force on Truck Parking with an open house scheduled for March 9 at city hall.

According to a news release from the city on Thursday (Feb. 28), staff will be hosting the open house on Saturday, March 9 at the city hall atrium from 1 to 4 p.m. For more information, visit surrey.ca/truckparking.

The drop-in style open house will:

• introduce the project to a wide range of truckers and stakeholders

• share information on the current state of parking facilities

• gather information and assess preferences from attendees

• collect location, amenity and cost feedback

• provide a forum for attendees to diggest possible solutions

There will also be a survey, launching March 10, available on the city’s website.

The city introduced the task force for a period of one year during the Dec. 3, 2018 council meeting. Councillor Mandeep Nagra was appointed as chair.

RELATED: Surrey council refers ‘super committee’ back to staff, Nov. 30, 2018

According to the Feb. 28 release, the task force’s mandate is “to develop creative options and implement equitable and sustainable solutions for authorized commercial truck parking within Surrey.”

“If there is an industry many of us generally take for granted, it is trucking,” said Nagra. “Yet, every citizen and business rely on trucks to bring us inputs for our businesses or our final products. The movement of goods, and our hard-working truckers, are vital to driving our economy forward.”

To “generate practical and effective options by fall 2019,” the city said getting the input of a wide range of trucks and stakeholders “from the start is key.”

“Where semi-trailer trucks and other heavy-goods vehicles park involves multiple issues including land use, environmental and public concerns, and potential bylaw infractions,” said Nagra. “Shaping possible solutions is work that requires the efforts of many to address.”

According to the city, parking heavy trucks with a licensed gross vehicle weight that exceeds 5,000 kilograms is permitted only within industrial and agricultural zones, with specific conditions. Heavy trucks are not permitted to be parked or stored in residential zones.

Truck parking, reads the release, has been “a long-standing dilemma” in Surrey and in other Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley communities.

Back in 2015, the City of Surrey was looking at a co-op solution where instead of one person buying up an acre of land to park their truck, a person would buy a spot on an acre.

RELATED: Surrey works on co-op solution to tackle truck parking, March 19, 2015

Then in March of 2017, the provincial government announced North Surrey would be getting a truck parking facility as early as winter 2018. The $30-million facility would have room for 150 trucks, including monthly reserved spots and first-come-first-serve spots. It will also include washrooms, showers, a sani-dump and a cafeteria, as well as a number of security measures such as fences and lights.

RELATED: North Surrey to get a new truck parking facility, March 27, 2017

- With files from Amy Reid and Grace Kennedy



Lauren Collins

About the Author: Lauren Collins

I'm a provincial reporter for Black Press Media's national team, after my journalism career took me across B.C. since I was 19 years old.
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