Is Surrey’s West Clayton Neighbourhood Finally Going to Develop?

 

By Mike Harrison

In a brilliant move by the City, Surrey is using its Housing Accelerator Funding (HAF) received from the Federal Government to front-end the cost to construct major offsite servicing infrastructure in the West Clayton Neighbourhood Concept Plan (NCP). This particular piece of infrastructure is reported to allow over 1,000 new townhomes and condos to proceed to construction.

The West Clayton NCP has been complete since 2015 and while many developers have since submitted applications for thousands of new homes, many of those applications stalled at 3rd Reading due to a lack of sanitary and stormwater drainage infrastructure. In 2022, the City used DCC funds to build the first stretch of sanitary trunk sewer under Fraser Hwy into West Clayton and a detention pond at the western extent of 74 Avenue but the cost for the next leg of servicing remained too high for any single development to front-end. 

Earlier this year, Surrey committed $21 million of its HAF to the “construction of infrastructure to accelerate the development of new housing.” $15.3 million of that has now been allocated to front-end the construction of sanitary and drainage sewers along 74 Avenue between 181 Street and 188 Street. The following images show the location of the new sanitary and drainage sewers along with the properties benefitting from the proposed infrastructure. 

Sanitary Sewer and the Benefitting Properties
 

Source: (City of Surrey)

 

Storm Sewer Extension and the Benefitting Properties
 

Source: (City of Surrey)

The brilliant part is that the City is establishing a Local Area Service (LAS) cost recovery program that will fully recover the $5.5 million cost of the sanitary sewer extension. Additionally, Surrey will use DCCs to recover the $9.4 million cost of the drainage sewer. The HAF is only used to front-end the project and will be reimbursed over time as each development pays its DCCs and LAS fees. Once replenished, the HAF can then go on to fund the next project. 

For land owners in the area, there are no upfront or mandatory payments due for the LAS. The LAS fee is due at the time of re-development. 

As the West Clayton NCP overlaps the new Clayton Corridor Plan, this servicing infrastructure will also unlock new transit-oriented development, including land in the future Hillcrest-184 Street SkyTrain TOA announced earlier this year. CLICK HERE to read more on that. 

CLICK HERE to read the City’s full corporate report on this West Clayton servicing project.