Grandview Heights Was Supposed to Be a Planned Community. The Plan Has Been Abandoned.
The Grandview Heights area plan promised a certain kind of neighbourhood. The development being approved bears almost no resemblance to what residents were told to expect. They are furious. They are right to be.
When the Grandview Heights Neighbourhood Concept Plan was developed, it contained commitments. Green corridors. Schools sized to the population. Commercial centres at appropriate nodes. A density profile that acknowledged the character of the area and the infrastructure capacity serving it.
The development being approved in Grandview Heights today is not that plan.
Heights and densities are being approved that exceed what the neighbourhood concept envisioned. Green corridor commitments are being modified or deferred. The school sites identified in the plan have not been acquired or funded at the pace that the approved residential development requires.
Residents who bought in Grandview Heights based on the representations made in the neighbourhood plan — who made financial decisions premised on a certain vision of what their neighbourhood would become — are finding that the plan they were shown was less binding than they believed.
This is a pattern that repeats across growing suburban communities. Area plans are presented to residents as commitments. They are implemented as guidelines. When development pressure conflicts with the plan, the plan yields. The residents who relied on it do not.
The City of Surrey needs to be honest with Grandview Heights residents about which elements of their neighbourhood plan are still operative, which have been modified, and what the process is for the community to hold the city accountable to commitments that were made in a public process.
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