Surrey Coun. Pardeep Kooner, who made the motion, asked questions in September about how development cost charges are calculated. She has been waiting six months for the answer.
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke is leading a revolt by municipalities south of the Fraser River against what she considers an unaffordable and unaccountable Metro Vancouver regional district.
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Surrey council voted unanimously Monday night to withdraw the city from Metro Vancouver’s long-term regional planning.
Locke is also calling for a meeting of south of the Fraser mayors and councillors to determine next steps in a campaign to press Metro for a fair allocation of services and costs to their taxpayers.
“Surrey and some other cities, predominantly South Fraser, have stressed that Metro Vancouver regional district move to delivering the core functions of water, sewer and solid waste cost effectively,” Locke said in a statement on Tuesday.
Surrey Coun. Pardeep Kooner, who made the motion, said that, as a director on Metro Vancouver’s finance committee, she asked questions in September about how development cost charges are calculated. She is still waiting to get answers.
“I don’t think they were difficult questions and I definitely don’t think it would take longer than six months to answer those questions. The fact that the City of Surrey — … second largest, soon to be largest city — can’t get basic information on how things are calculated to ensure equity for our residents, is something that is just not acceptable.”
Other Surrey councillors supported her view for more scrutiny of Metro. Among cities south of the Fraser are the district and city of Langley, Mission, Delta and White Rock.
“I have been calling for a big review of Metro for quite some time. Now, I think it has really blown out of control. I look at some of the infrastructure projects and what’s happened with those and many other issues with Metro,” said Coun. Linda Annis. For example, the budget for Metro’s North Vancouver sewage plant has soared to $3.86 billion from an initial estimate of less than $1 billion.
It is unclear whether Surrey as a member municipality of the regional district can legally unilaterally withdraw from the regional plan, called the Metro 2050 regional growth strategy.
The strategy, adopted by the Metro board in 2023, outlines how population, employment and housing growth will be managed in the next 30 years.
The province grants Metro Vancouver the legal authority to enforce a regional growth plan.
Ultimately, the municipal affairs minister could order division of a regional district into two, but such an order must specify how financial obligations and assets such as sewer and water systems are allocated. It would be an enormous undertaking since services for drinking water, management of regional parks, sewers and garbage disposal are highly integrated across the region.
“By working together to manage growth, we have better transportation, more efficient utilities, and we’ve protected important land,” Metro’s board chair, Mike Hurley, said. “Surrey is an important part of our region, and we will be reaching out to them to better understand their concerns.”
The region said that during the adoption of the Metro 2050 plan, Surrey registered objections, but after discussions, withdrew its objections and signed on to the plan.
“After nearly 30 years, we have engaged in non-dispute resolution with members prior to them signing on to a regional growth strategy, but we’ve never had a member seek to withdraw,” Hurley said, adding Metro will be talking to the province, responsible for the legislation governing regional growth strategies, to better understand how to address the situation.
The Surrey Board of Trade’s policy and research manager, Jasroop Gosal, said that for “the City of Surrey and for other municipalities to receive economic benefits, we need to all work together. We need to be promoting ourselves as a region.”
Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon told reporters Tuesday that Metro Vancouver is having a tough time right now.
“It’s easy to walk away, and I appreciate some of you are saying it’s easier to walk away, but what we need them to do is get to the table and find solutions, work together. We’ll see what Surrey proposes and what the next steps are.”
A UBC political science lecturer, Stewart Prest, said there is a lot of confusion that needs to be ironed out before it is possible to say what options there would be for Surrey to pull out of the Metro 2050 plan.
Prest said there are now signs of frustration with Metro in its two most-populous municipalities.
“We know that Ken Sim in Vancouver is also undertaking a personal boycott of Metro Vancouver,” said Prest.
Sim said in January he will not be attending Metro Vancouver meetings, citing spending and transparency problems.