What The Surrey City Election Means For Cloverdale

What the Surrey City Election means for Cloverdale.

Tomorrow, Oct.20 is election day for the Surrey Mayoral and city council race. As a Cloverdale resident, this one is going to be a huge one to watch unfold. I say this because more and more, Surrey is using Cloverdale as an absolute toilet, polluting the culture that I grew up to love and identify myself with, as im sure many people I grew up with have as well.

Some of the issues the leaders of the parties running for mayor are pitching are

-          -Developing a Surrey city police force

-          -Developing a true downtown core, like Vancouver, around King George and Holland Park area

-          -Expanding either LRT (light rail transit) or Skytrain services to the Langley border.

-         - Pumping money into affordable housing and halfway houses for recovering addicts

-          -Helping Seniors (but this is bogus, everyone says this but its just for the old vote)

-          -Employee per acre policy in developing Surrey

But heres the thing, Cloverdale is the pawn in this election. If you’ve been here a while I hope you recognize it. 

In the year 2004, the population of Cloverdale hovered around 28,000 residents. This year in 2018, that number has skyrocketed to over 75,000. How did this happen? Surrey having too big of a stick to care what the people of Cloverdale thought.

The Clayton area was built, townhouse and condo complexes went up as a way to showcase Surrey as a suitable area to provide affordable housing for first time buyers. The government of 2006 approved (with a few kickbacks I’m sure) development plans to absolutely sardine homes into a 40 acre area. This did not include increased infrastructure for the most part. The parking is an absolute joke. The policing hasn’t increased to cover these areas and all the vagrants, junkies, gangsters and other idiots that inevitably come with it. There is not sufficient, nor affordable childcare facilities or recreational areas. No, in a nutshell, a developer got rich by selling the idea of throwing more citizens in Surrey, to Surrey. These homes often feature illegal suites, coach house, legal suites and typically parking for 1-2 vehicles (not trucks). This phase is done, the property values have increased because they’ve run out of room and the demand is still there.

What the City of Surrey is intentionally doing is Ghetto-izing Cloverdale slowly to De-Ghetto-ize Whalley to make it a suitable and attractive area to create a downtown core and draw skyscrapers and corporate business HQs and jobs. In a nutshell, send the junkies east and let it run off into Langley.

The Fraser highway/188^th intersection is being slated for a potential bus-loop/LRT/Skytrain station of the future. Like Surrey Central, King George, or Gateway station now – which are all hubs of drug use, prostitution, property crime, gang violence. All coming to Cloverdale without you truly having a say. The other 500,000 Surrey residents get to speak for you to turn the old country town of Cloverdale into Whalley2.0.

-         New safe injection site slated for the building in the historical downtown core of Cloverdale, along with halfway houses to have somewhere to put these upstanding citizens.  Has your car been broken into in your own driveway in the past 5 years? If your answer is no, don’t worry, it will be. this merely hides the issue of homelessness and substance abuse, but does not solve it. 

Let’s look at the main platform points of the Surrey Candidates and see if it answers anything for Cloverdale.

Tom Gill – Surrey First – a $1.6 Billion is transit spending to expand LRT into Langley, developing and pioneering a true ‘downtown core’ to make Surrey a city that rivals Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary.

What this will mean for Cloverdale?

Send everything we don’t want to showcase away from downtown, aka Cloverdale.

Doug McCallum – Safe Surrey Coalition – Stop LRT and use $2 billion to expand skytrain services all the way to Langley City.

Eliminate the RCMP and create a new Surrey City police force.

What this means for Cloverdale?

Skytrain makes for an easy route for people to get in and out of an area. So, want to go to a population hub where there’s lots of cars to break into? Perfect! Let’s go to Cloverdale station and then dip.

A city police force to represent Surrey’s almost million people will not have a station, or hub anywhere near the 75,000 people in Cloverdale, it’s still too small to care about until things actually get ridiculous. Doug sort of rides on the fear mongering campaign – don’t wanna get shot? Vote for me!

Bruce Hayne – Integrity Now Surrey – Get big enough to have a pro sports team by developing a business centred downtown core, make rent properties more affordable for people who can’t own, put seniors somewhere safe to play bingo, have parking for the Semi’s and Dumptrucks owned by so many Surrey residents, BUT… not without building parks first.

What this means for Cloverdale?

Transit corridors and low rent properties are on the way! Goodbye old farm-town Cloverdale, hello hyper-subsidized suburb!

Tomorrow it is VERY important that we all vote, and my intention was not to try and tell you who to vote for. What I’m telling you is pay close attention over the course of whoever wins term. Make sure they listen to the 75,000 Cloverdale residents (hint: they won’t).

In 1957, people in a municipality of Surrey also weren’t being listened to and represented as they felt suited to their own identity and culture. They didn’t want to be a pawn in Surrey’s growth plan and get the short end of the stick on decisions made. That little municipality is known as the CITY of White Rock. The population of White Rock currently sits at under 20,000. They had a voice to prevent hyper development and sardining people in. They had a voice as to what facilities were built in their area. Their municipal taxes represent them, not the rest of Surrey. If Cloverdale continues to be treated like the dumping grounds for Surrey, and not being represented for the identity and culture that this little town has had for far over 100 years, it is seriously time we look at reforming the Surrey city limits and petition to secede from Surrey. Our property values, our taxes, our bylaws need to represent Cloverdale, not Surrey.

Pay close attention to the job that the elected Mayor of Surrey does – if they don’t consider the needs of the citizens of Cloverdale (hint: they won’t), plain and simple, we need out.

Start this conversation with your friends and neighbours in Cloverdale. Get the bug in the ear of everybody who voices their frustrations with how things are getting here. The responsibility of all residents of Cloverdale is to stand up for what we are, and what we want our future to look like.

If Surrey keeps failing and disregarding Cloverdale, sending its sons and daughters away for greener pastures (literally Chilliwack) I have every intention of seriously putting forth motion for referendum away from Surrey, and perhaps in an election not far away, you’ll hopefully vote Jegger for Mayor of Cloverdale.