Surrey will and should always be a mix of suburban, rural and urban areas but today, we face major pressure to convert our rural areas into low-density suburban areas and we keep constraining our city core from becoming a true city centre with restrictive and outdated suburban planning rules. The time has come to stop our city from converging into a single mass of suburban sprawl and instead celebrate and intensify the differences in our city’s spaces. Real urban downtown spaces are not filled with miles of asphalt parking lots and widely-spaced store entrances set far back from the street; parking is scarce, businesses are close to the street and close to each other. Real rural areas are working spaces that feed the people around them, not patchworks of hobby farms and mansions.

Proudly Surrey will spur urban development downtown while taking steps to restore our food security and ease pressure on Surrey farmers.

We will permit the conversion of 50% of street-level parking spots into new low-rise commercial or mixed low to mid-rise commercial-affordable residential rental housing in all parking lots in the central business districts of South Surrey, Guildford, Fleetwood, Newton and Central City

We will permit the subdivision of large parking lots for the purpose of selling ground-level asphalt parking either to the City of Surrey or an approved non-profit housing society

We will provide berth space for private shuttles to commercial areas adjacent to major transit exchanges and Skytrain stations

We will partner with the Agricultural Land Commission and the BC Property Assessment Authority to begin regular inspections of agriculturally-zoned land in the City of Surrey to ensure agricultural use to obtain agricultural levels of taxation

We will require future building permits for additional or expanded structures on agricultural land to produce no net loss of arable land and no net loss of land in cultivation

We will initiate a program to provide property tax deferral for agricultural businesses impacted by fluctuations in global or regional commodity prices

We will create a Surrey Municipal Agriculture Corporation for the purpose of purchasing or otherwise acquiring productive agriculture land which will be leased to qualified producers

We will permit the subdivision of agricultural land should owners of the residence thereon wish to divest themselves of agricultural land, provided this land is sold to the Surrey Municipal Agriculture Corporation

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