Surrey council leads revolt against ‘unaffordable, unaccountable’ Metro Vancouver

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.

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.