Surrey city council endorsed an updated land use concept for Anniedale-Tynehead on Nov. 20 and authorized city staff to move on to stage two of the plan for that neighbourhood.
A corporate report before council identifies the Anniedale‐Tynehead Neighbourhood Concept Plan area as a “significant new development area in North Surrey, with the capacity to accommodate significant new homes and jobs.
According to the report, “facilitating a speedy resolution of the NCP update will catalyse development while ensuring the plan addresses the city’s long‐term servicing and community amenity needs, including adequate and well‐located school sites.”
The report notes that the Surrey School District has a purchase deal in place for a school site at 9307 to 9375 – 176 Street (Highway 15) with subjects are expected to be removed shortly and that a small 0.7‐acre park at the corner of 173 Street and Anniedale Road was deemed redundant and has been subsequently “eliminated” as the City of Surrey’s plan also includes a 19.6‐acre park a block away.
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Stage two of the planning process for this neighbourhood will aim to designate “adequate area” for mixed-use and commercial development to support a “sufficient resident to job ratio, and future opportunities for specific commercial needs including grocery, pharmacy, and local servicing office” and will also “refine parks and trails network as needed, and update population, unit, and employment growth projections” as well as ”ensure adequate fire, service access, equitable distribution of roads, and movement for all modes.”
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Coun. Doug Elford asked city staff if “all these updates” will be revisited as the city has been mandated by the provincial government to re-do the Official Community Plan into next year.
Don Luymes, Surrey’s general manager of planning and development, replied that the bill requiring this has not yet passed royal assent, “so we’ll see how that goes.”
He noted the neighbourhood concept plans are generally approved by resolution and then the land uses are embedded in the OCP. Luymes said he expects Surrey “will be looking at” its OCP to make sure it meeting the provincial government’s mandate if the legislation passes.
“In essence it calls for a 20-year supply of housing to be embedded in the OCP,” he explained. “To be honest with you, we’re well in excess of that within our existing land use designations so we may be doing some tweaking of some of these OCP designations but I would not expect that we would do an update on 36 of our neighbourhood concept plans in a year.”
Coun. Pardeep Kooner said she appreciates city staff working hard “to make sure this community will get what it deserves.”