Quote:
Originally Posted by logan5
The plan is fine n all, but I don't get the strategy behind preserving the 2 single family areas. Those wide lots are big enough for at least 3 row-houses each. The number of families given the opportunity to live in the City Centre is tripled.
Home prices in Surrey are rising very quickly, and soon Surrey will be a part of the million dollar club, like Richmond, Burnaby, and Port Moody are.
Every municipality needs to build row-houses. Preserving single detached homes will only make housing even more unaffordable.
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Not sure why either other than I know at least the South-West section of Single Family Homes are all relatively new aka built in the last 10 years. I'd imagine given many are still on the new side, they anticipate little redevelopment happening and want to, for now, keep the area from being faces with 5 2-storey homes next to a n 18 storey high rise next to 5 more 2-storey homes which would look pretty ridiculous. Also I'd imagine they want to force the dense development into the centers and leave those areas to the future.
Look at the Vancouver city's growth plans over the past 30 years or so. (1) they have changed several times and (2) areas like False Creek and such were 30 years ago put down as being single family or low density/industrial but look at them today.
Same could happen here. if Surrey Centre truly does densify and push up, eventually those SFH areas will be flanked and upscale I'm sure. There's a lot to be built though in the area already slated for higher density. If you take standard high rise measurements and go through all the Mixed-Use and Mid-Rise areas, you could fit a good 500+ high rises in that space so there's plenty of space to build. The "downtown Surrey" core area as marked out is roughly the same size as Downtown Vancouver. Downtown Vancouver is about 5.2 square km (up to Main Street). "Downtown" Surrey marked out is also about 5.2 square km.
Just my thoughts though on why they are leaving them in place. Focus development in the core areas so that density is close together rather than spread out. Deal with those other areas in 20-30 years when the center is far more dense and urban.
Sorry forgot to address your other point about rising house prices. Surrey unlike most other cities in the region still has a lot of overall space to build so the row houses and SFH are all being built outside the core. Vancouver (and to a degree Richmond and Burnaby) are effectively out of space so they really can't build new in large quantities. Surrey will eventually run out of space too that's for sure but it has a good 2-3 decades until then not to mention most of South Surrey is able to be subdivided to fit more SFH into the areas. So I'm less worried about the Surrey house price index. Clayton for example is all row houses and mid-rise. Panorama is the same. Morgan Heights, same. A mixture of row houses and townhouses in those 2 areas. Also tones of row houses and townhouses being built in South Newton between 72nd and Hwy 10 and there's a bunch starting to be built along King George between 64th and HWY 10.
Surrey isn't focusing on building that next to "downtown." If you want an affordable SFH you need to move away from the core. The problem regionally is an expectation that you can have a nice affordable detached single family home with a back yard right next to the downtown core. That doesn't happen in any city on the planet so it is a completely unrealistic expectation in Vancouver.
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