Surrey to withdraw from Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Strategy | Daily Hive

City of Surrey to withdraw from Metro Vancouver's Regional Growth Strategy

Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke. (City of Surrey)

In a potentially consequential move, Surrey City Council will remove its municipal jurisdiction from the Metro 2050 Regional Growth Strategy established by Metro Vancouver Regional District.

The direction was unanimously approved by City Council in a public meeting on Monday, with the city councillor Pardeep Kooner, who pushed the member motion forward, asserting that the regional growth strategy does not align with the City of Surrey’s priorities.

“This motion focuses on fairness and equity, as Metro 2050 places an undue burden on our residents while failing to deliver equivalent benefits. The City of Surrey is dedicated to ensuring that our residents have access to the services and resources they rightfully deserve without facing an unreasonable financial strain,” said Kooner in a statement.

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To emphasize, Surrey’s municipal government is not moving to withdraw its membership and decision-making powers within the regional government.

However, the Metro 2050 Regional Growth Strategy, which was approved by the regional district’s board of directors in February 2023 following consultation with the municipalities and the public, is a master plan for how the Metro Vancouver region will grow over the next three decades.

This strategy guides municipal governments in modifying their official community plans, and making other municipal policies and strategies. The final strategy was then subsequently endorsed by the member municipal governments and other local jurisdictions that form Metro Vancouver.

Land use in Metro Vancouver, Metro 2050. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

The Metro 2050 Regional Growth Strategy is not a brand new master plan, as it is based on the regional district’s Livable Region Strategic Plan created in 1996 and the Metro Vancouver 2040 Regional Growth Strategy created in 2011. This plan is updated roughly once every decade, with some of the biggest changes in the latest iteration emphasizing transit-oriented development while also refining high-growth areas and land uses.

Under the strategy, Metro Vancouver has two main metropolitan core areas — the primary metropolitan core area of the “Metro Core” within the combined areas of the downtown Vancouver peninsula and Central Broadway (Broadway Plan area), and the secondary metropolitan core area of the “Surrey Metro Core” (Surrey City Centre area).

Based on Metro 2050, along with a range of other variables, Vancouver is expected to remain Metro Vancouver’s most populous city for decades to come, going against other previous expectations that Surrey would overtake Vancouver as early as 2029.

Urban Centres in Metro Vancouver, Metro 2050. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

Frequent transit areas in Metro Vancouver, Metro 2050. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

Within the regional district’s board of directors, which is entirely comprised of mayors and city councillors across Metro Vancouver, Surrey has the second largest contingent of seats and decision-making influence after Vancouver. The number of board seat allocations to each jurisdiction is based on population, and decisions are based on a weighted votes formula that considers population.

According to the City, Surrey’s directors on the regional district’s board have been raising the issues of “cost, equity, accountability, governance, and scope creep” of the regional government.

Kooner and Surrey mayor Brenda Locke are among the six board of directors seats representing Surrey.

“Today, we are standing up for the interests of Surrey residents. The Metro 2050 strategy imposes unfair costs and expectations on our community, which do not reflect the unique needs of our growing city or Surrey Council’s vision for our city. It’s time for us to take action, ensuring that local governance truly serves our residents,” said Locke, adding that there is a growing desire among some jurisdictions to have the regional district focus on its core mandate and services.

“Surrey and some other cities, predominantly South Fraser, have stressed that MVRD move to delivering the core functions of water, sewer and solid waste cost effectively, keeping taxpayers at the forefront of decision-making.”

Locke says she will coordinate a “South Fraser Summit” to bring mayors, city councillors, and senior management together to discuss these concerns, which bring “unfair financial strain” on South of Fraser residents. City of Surrey staff will lead the summit.

One of the sticking points is how households across the region, including those in the South of Fraser, are seeing major hikes to various fees for regional services, including significant increases to cover the steep construction cost overruns of the new North Shore Waste Water Treatment Plant. There is pressure to increase fees even further over the coming years to help pay for other major capital projects, including the Iona Island Waste Water Treatment Plant.

Surrey City Council’s decision on Monday also follows last week’s board of directors meeting that discussed the first wave of cuts to the regional district’s costs and services.

In response to the concerns, Vancouver mayor Ken Sim has also announced that he will not be attending meetings of the board of directors moving forward, effectively boycotting the regional district, while Port Coquitlam mayor Brad West has proposed cutting back on the compensation the board of directors receive for attending each meeting and reducing the number of committees in the regional district.

According to the regional district, in 2025, residents will pay an average of $875 annually per household for the services provided by the regional government, including average annual costs of $510 for sewerage/liquid waste, $200 for drinking water supply connections, $71 for solid waste/landfill, $63 for regional parks, $7 for air quality initiatives, $4 for regional planning, and $20 for various other regional district services.

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