The regional government in Metro Vancouver has narrowly approved the City of Surrey’s plan to turn rural lands into an industrial park, despite objections from the Semiahmoo First Nation and environmentalists.
A slim majority of Metro Vancouver directors voted Friday to change its Urban Containment Boundary so Surrey can build an industrial park in South Campbell Heights.
The plan affects hundreds of acres of land near a watershed on the Surrey-Langley border.
After more than three hours of debate, directors voted 69-65.
Consultation at the heart of debate
The question of whether Surrey had done adequate consultations about the plan was at the forefront of Friday’s discussion — largely because the board debated the same issue within the last month.
Three weeks ago, the same regional board sent Surrey back to do more consultations on the project, specifically with the Semiahmoo First Nation.
The city came back to the table Friday saying it had done the work, but the nation said there has bee no consultation.
“As far as an intergovernmental conversation, there’s been zero,” Semiahmoo Chief Harley Chappell said in an interview Thursday ahead of the vote.
“We’ve never been opposed to development in our territory. We are opposed to hastily made decisions or pushing that decision without any input,” he said.
“And thus far, we’ve had no input on it.”
Surrey’s plan, first presented to the regional board last July, is to change the zoning designation for about 600 acres of land to allow for industrial development in the area.
The Surrey Board of Trade said rezoning the land directly south of the Campbell Heights industrial business park would create more than 20,000 jobs in the region and attract up to 135 businesses.
However, to proceed with the plan, Surrey needed the approval of Metro Vancouver because the land falls outside Surrey’s urban containment boundary which is intended to preserve agricultural and undeveloped areas.
The debate took place over a series of Metro Vancouver meetings the past few months, with a number of different regional issues informing the discussion.
Several directors argued that the region’s Urban Containment Boundary needed to be respected, particularly given questions on how the industrial park would impact the Little Campbell River watershed. Concerns were raised about the lack of rapid transportation to the area and the precedent it could set for promoting further sprawl in the Fraser Valley.
At the same time, a number of mayors and councillors believed that Surrey should have the right to make its own land-use decisions, and that they had made significant changes following the 2018 rejection of the original proposal.
It meant the yes and no votes did not break down along traditional political lines, or with all members of municipalities voting one way.
River is a major concern, chief says
For months, conservation groups and the Semiahmoo First Nation have lobbied to draw attention to how rezoning the natural area would negatively affect it, particularly the salmon-bearing Little Campbell River.
The nation is concerned that the amendment is contrary to the regions’ objectives, will lead to an increase of water run-off and pollution and harm municipal services such as sanitation for the nation.
“There’s so many contributing factors. There’s water quality. There’s obviously environmental concerns. There’s salmon habitat. There’s the fish hatchery that is on the Little Campbell. So it’s a multi-faceted approach to saying, ‘How do we really ensure that this project is beneficial and has zero net loss to an already at-risk tributary?’ ” he said.
