Surrey Updates

[golog]

Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02

unoffically, surrey has easily over 450,000 people living within Surrey. Countless occupied secondary suites that aren't accounted for.

The Census does count all residents of a household, it even counts homeless people. The only people not counted are people who aren't citizens.

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by golog

The Census does count all residents of a household, it even counts homeless people. The only people not counted are people who aren't citizens.

I lived in Surrey last year, and never officially changed my address from my home in Ontario. Therefore, Surrey would have NO clue I lived in the City.

[golog]

Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02

I lived in Surrey last year, and never officially changed my address from my home in Ontario. Therefore, Surrey would have NO clue I lived in the City.

The census comes around every 5 years. You would have been counted in Surrey had their been a census in the last year. It's not just an aggregation of existing government datasets.

[invisibleairwaves]

Wanting to spend tens of millions on a new stadium when the city desperately needs tens of millions (or more) worth of road improvements and new sidewalks is nothing short of absurd.

Between opposing the Translink funding plan that would have given us the improvements to SoF transit she's been calling for, her constant failures to take action on her supposed vision of a pedestrian-friendly city, her bizzare light-rail fantasies, and now this unnecessary and expensive pet project, I can't help but feel that Diane Watts has just lost the plot (not to mention my vote) lately. There is astonishingly little to show for all her hype. Most overrated mayor in the lower mainland?

[Whalleyboy]

Most over rated my — she is the greatest thing to happen to surrey ever. This stadium Idea is a great idea for years I have been wanting to see some come to north Surrey. The fact we've been beat by both Abbotsford and Langley is horrible. Yes road work needs to be done but hey why dont you tell the mayor and get everyone else in Surrey to decide to pay more taxes. Just think of the pear size of surrey and with the lowest tax rate there doing pretty damn good keeping up with roads and creating a true city centre.

[invisibleairwaves]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

Most over rated my — she is the greatest thing to happen to surrey ever. This stadium Idea is a great idea for years I have been wanting to see some come to north Surrey. The fact we've been beat by both Abbotsford and Langley is horrible. Yes road work needs to be done but hey why dont you tell the mayor and get everyone else in Surrey to decide to pay more taxes. Just think of the pear size of surrey and with the lowest tax rate there doing pretty damn good keeping up with roads and creating a true city centre.

Watts might have been the best thing to happen to Whalley (which isn't really saying a heck of a lot). The rest of Surrey? Hardly. You have suburbs tacked onto unimproved rural roads, massive population growth in some areas with hardly any new public facilities, half-assed and dangerous implementation of pedestrian facilities in the few places where they've even bothered to implement anything, and of course the transit —. The latter, I would have blamed on the province and Translink, but now they've actually come up with a solution and guess who's standing in the way? Yep, Diane Watts. Of course, that might not matter so much in Whalley, the one tiny corner of the city that actually has decent transit, but it sure — for the rest of us.

You guys in Whalley have had more than your share of the pie, it's time for the rest of us to have our turn.

[Whalleyboy]

Have you ever looked at plans for surrey there are plans all over the place and plans for better public facilities all over i mean cloverdale has the new rec centre being built there was a recent upgrade at newton not to long ago, fraserheights has its own rec centre now too. The west newton athletic park has been under going upgrades, Guildford is getting a pool soon and a new one is being built out in south surrey and plans for a rec centre area is being built out in grandview area. But note with rec centres in a place where theres new appartments is less likely to be used since all new building require a certain amount of ammendities space for there own buildings. Routes have been promised for areas like that to but they all keep getting taken away due to out of no where transit does have money to run it. theres things like the b-line buses from the 98 that where promised to surrey all of a sudden they could run the bus cause they didnt have money but surprise surprise they had money to run them over in Vancouver surving metrotown to ubc...Also look at 96 ave thats being currently redone right now roads through out South Surrey are getting redone all the time just look at 24 ave which was recently redone. i could go on with more but i'm gonna stop there for now

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by invisibleairwaves

Watts might have been the best thing to happen to Whalley (which isn't really saying a heck of a lot). The rest of Surrey? Hardly. You have suburbs tacked onto unimproved rural roads, massive population growth in some areas with hardly any new public facilities, half-assed and dangerous implementation of pedestrian facilities in the few places where they've even bothered to implement anything, and of course the transit —. The latter, I would have blamed on the province and Translink, but now they've actually come up with a solution and guess who's standing in the way? Yep, Diane Watts. Of course, that might not matter so much in Whalley, the one tiny corner of the city that actually has decent transit, but it sure — for the rest of us.

You guys in Whalley have had more than your share of the pie, it's time for the rest of us to have our turn.

the unimproved rural roads in areas like clayton are based primarily on two things

1) traffic volumes on there are currently low enough to handle existing traffic conditions
2) heavy truck and construction traffic destroys roads. As soon as Clayton is complete, and development in the area is finished, you'll see 192 Street and 72 Avenue for example be widened out. Why build a nice shiny road, and have dump trucks run over curbs and wreck the landscaping?

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by golog

Statistics Canada - 2006 Census - Surrey

2006: 394,976
2001: 347,820

It's 2010, and Surrey is probably a little above 400k now but that has not yet been measured. I consciously chose to cite the most recent measurement.

Watts and her council always and deliberately cite misleading population figures by borrowing the population of neighbouring cities.

She ought to be fined for misleading the public, maybe make her pay Abbotsford's interest payments on their arena... after all, the communities South of Fraser are indistinguishable... right? presto, 'Surrey' has a 7k seat stadium

They do it based on population growth. The census is a measuring stick at that time but the city knows roughly give or take a few thousand people per y ear how many new people moved into the area and how many moved out based on real-estate, taxation, and building numbers.

Based on those projections and the growth from 1996 -> 2001 and 2001 -> 2006, the population of Surrey in 2010 is estimated around 440,000. If growth was maintained at exactly the same levels we saw from 2001-2006 we'd actually have a population next year of 450,000.

So it's not a far-fetched number to state Surrey has roughly 440,000 people currently.

You ought to be fined for not being able to correctly interpret statistical figures.

Here I'll help out:

1996: 304,477
2001: 347,820 (change from 1996 = 14.2% or 2.84% per year)
2006: 394,976 (change from 2001 = 13.6% or 2.72% per year)
2010: 434,473 (using a conservative growth of 2.5% per year = 10% over 4 years)
2011: 444,348 (using a conservative growth of 2.5% per year = 12.5% over 5 years)

I don't disagree with the point though that Surrey probably doesn't need a stadium yet. There are higher priorities and while the Surrey resident in me would love to have something major to go to like a Giant's game or something in Surrey, I'd much rather continue to see infrastructure and ammenity improvements throughout the city.

[sryboy]

Did anyone go to the Townshift open houses? IF so how were they?

[SFUVancouver]

Surrey Central Library

Taken by SFUVancouver, December 5th, 2010.

I lucked into an especially dirty Skytrain window during a moment of especially lovely light. Go figure.

[wrenegade]

New post over at Civic Surrey about the Surrey Memorial Critical Care Centre here. Perhaps it deserves it's own thread? I'm not a big Surrey person, maybe someone else who knows more about these things could set it up.



Looks like a pretty neat project, set up for a phase 2 as well.

[officedweller]

Here's the existing thread.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=164406&page=3

I copied your post over as a quote.

*********

I didn't expect those window mullions on the Surrey Library.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

Most over rated my — she is the greatest thing to happen to surrey ever. This stadium Idea is a great idea for years I have been wanting to see some come to north Surrey. The fact we've been beat by both Abbotsford and Langley is horrible. Yes road work needs to be done but hey why dont you tell the mayor and get everyone else in Surrey to decide to pay more taxes. Just think of the pear size of surrey and with the lowest tax rate there doing pretty damn good keeping up with roads and creating a true city centre.

As much as I like the idea of a stadium, there is definitely a bigger need for better roads in Surrey as a whole. Just lately in the Metro Vancouver Road Infrastructure thread we were discussing the Fraser Highway - backed up straight through from King George to 176th, possibly even beyond. Accident, no bus bays or just plain bad light timings, we don't know, but it's definitely enough.

[NewfBC]

Holy BIG led billboard on the south end of the Pattullo! Kinda distracting coming off the bridge!

Ron.

[mosup]

Originally Posted by NewfBC

Holy BIG led billboard on the south end of the Pattullo! Kinda distracting coming off the bridge!

Ron.

I kinda like it, drove by yesterday and it had the screen saver turned (random scenery and exotic birds) on lol. I think they put it up to match the guildford electronic billboard.

I am guessing this is the first of several projects to boost the image of the Scott Road Area

[jlousa]

The billboards are there to help the image of the area? Wow.

[stevai]

The billboards are a revenue generating program for the City of Surrey. Nothing to do with local area aesthetics..
There are a series of them, I think three have been installed now with an additional one coming to the South end of the Port Mann for North-Bound traffic.

[Whalleyboy]

looks like surreys getting back on track and fast
article from the surrey leader

Despite a B.C. economy that is still recovering from a recession, Surrey was home to more than a billion dollars in construction projects last year.

The city tallied $1.2 billion in building permit values in 2010, the fourth highest construction total in Surrey’s history.

Two-thirds of that growth ($804 million worth) was in residential development. Of that residential construction, high-density units are on the rise. Apartment building increased by 323 per cent over 2009 to nearly $90 million. Townhouse construction last year soared by 288 per cent to $167 million.

The prized commercial ($248 million) and industrial ($65 million) development made up 20 per cent and six per cent of the total, respectively.

Institutional development comprised the remaining seven per cent.

Don Luymes, Surrey’s manager of the community planning division, said the city is returning to its normal robust development.

“It really collapsed in 2009,” Luymes said.

“But on the commercial side, it was a good year – the best that I’ve seen.”

Commercial and industrial development bring in about three times the taxes as residential development, so they are seen as a healthier source of growth. At the same time, they draw on far fewer resources, such as libraries, community centres, garbage hauling and parks.

A staff report presented to council in 2001 – when housing stock represented 72 per cent of the total amount of taxes generated – indicated Surrey was not meeting sustainable levels.

“A ratio of 60 per cent residential and 40 per cent industrial and commercial is considered to be the minimum level necessary relative to the long-term health of the city,” the staff report said.

Burnaby draws 50 per cent from industry and commerce, Richmond 49 per cent and Vancouver 56 per cent. On the flip side, White Rock brings in only 10 per cent of its taxes from commerce and industry.

Currently, about 69 per cent of property tax in Surrey is generated by residential development, while the remainder comes from the commercial developments.

The amount of growth in each sector for 2010 is about on par with those historical taxation percentages.

Mayor Dianne Watts said good public policy at the onset of the recession created an environment where the city could bounce back.

An Economic Action Plan that included an investment zone in North Surrey helped create fertile ground for growth, she said.

Other cities throughout the region didn’t fare so well.

In Delta, building permit values dropped by 4.7 per cent in 2010, from $153.5 million to $146.3 million.

Again, residential development made up the lion’s share (65 per cent) of construction in Delta at $94.5 million, down almost $6 million from 2009.

Commercial development in Delta was up 55 per cent, bringing it to $8.2 million last year. However, industrial development dropped by almost 50 per cent west of Scott Road to $17.1 million.

In White Rock, construction values tumbled 7.2 per cent last year, dropping from $43 million in 2009 to $40 million last year.

Of that amount, only $1 million was commercial. White Rock currently relies on residential development for 90 per cent of its tax revenue.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/114297989.html

[dharper]

Has anyone driven down the newly widened 96Ave? Have you seen the eastbound lanes are fine, but the westbound lanes turn sharply around the Esso station at 168St. Albeit, the intersection isn't finished yet, but if you continue a straight line to the west and east of the intersection, at least half of the pumps will have to come out, and possibly half the access to the remaining pumps will have to go. Is this stations lease up soon, or did someone screw up big time?