Right now, rising land values in Metro Vancouver are making our cities and their residents poorer as people struggle to meet larger and larger mortgage obligations either directly or indirectly through rising rents. Huge financial windfalls are being made but those windfalls are being enjoyed, first and foremost, by the banks that finance our mortgages and, secondly, by developers who are able to rezone and redevelop property.

It is time for a system of public policies that allow everyone in Surrey to benefit from the growing wealth our city contains, not just when it comes to land and its development but also in other ways our city not made the most of its wealth.

Proudly Surrey will thoroughly review the city’s assets and financial options to better enable direct investment in desperately needed public services and social housing.

We will consolidate the self-insurance schemes of the City of Surrey and Surrey School Board into a transparent municipal insurer that invests its equity in worthy, profitable projects, especially rental housing

We will enact a mansion tax for single-person or single-family properties valued at over $4.5 million

We will tax land value increases per the joint BCGEU-CUPE BC study and enact its recommended municipal land value capture tax to curb speculation and ensure rental housing investment

We will supplement the provincial government’s property tax deferral system, allowing homeowners under retirement age to defer all or a portion of their annual property taxes until sale or probate to mitigate or eliminate tax increases for disabled and employed, adult residents

We will prohibit future public-private partnership (P3) agreements and remove the P3 provisions from the Surrey LRT project so as to ensure all borrowing for public projects take place at government rates and to eliminate private profiteering on government projects

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