Opponents of a 77-acre commercial truck park on the Langley-Surrey border are taking a cautious view of news that the people behind the controversial project are looking at alternatives to the proposal.
Brian Coote, a South Langley resident and spokesperson for Friends of Hazelmere/Campbell Valley, noted there is still an active rezoning application for the site.
“It’s not off the radar screen at all,” Coote said.
Coote was reacting to comments by Patrick Giesbrecht, who speaks for truck-park proponents GG Metro.
Giesbrecht said they are now considering “other uses than industrial” for the site at 194 Street and 16 Avenue.
“It’s clear that the community doesn’t want the site there and GG Metro is interested in working with the community in finding a (different) use for the property,” Giesbrecht said.
GG Metro is holding discussions with representatives of area environmental groups who raised concerns with the application, he added.
“We … have entered into discussions to hear what they think their members would be more agreeable to in terms of land use,” Giesbrecht said.
Giesbrecht said in addition to wanting to engage with the community groups “to have a conversation about alternative uses for the property,” GG Metro has now also agreed to be involved in the Local Area Plan process.
Semiahmoo Fish and Game Club spokesman Ron Meadley described that as “good news.
“I think that’s the best way for anybody to go,” Meadley said.
“From our point of view, we’re happy, then everybody will have a part to play.”
Critics have warned contamination from the trucks could damage the Little Campbell River and pollute groundwater in Langley’s Brookswood neighbourhood.
“The aquifer supplies water for thousands of Langley residents,” Coote said.
Coote said a City of Surrey assessment shows there is no urgency to finding parking spaces for big trucks.
A Truck Parking Status update found there were approximately 6,000 trucks with a licensed gross vehicle weight greater than 5,000 kilograms registered to addresses in Surrey.
Most have legal parking places, but about 1,000 are parking in “unauthorized commercial/industrial sites,” and about 300 are illegally parked on farmland.
The report said “virtually none” are parking on developed residential areas, the result of a Surrey policy of immediate enforcement.
It also says there is room to accommodate at least another 230 trucks.
Coote said that shows there is no reason to rush the truck park through.
“The broader issue, I think, is the city of Surrey letting this proceed in advance of the LAP,” Coote said.
“This applicant should wait in line with the other property owners.”
An online petition by the Little Campbell Watershed Society against the truck park project has so far collected over 1,600 signatures.
It lists three main concerns:
1. Water Quality — The Society says the land in question recharges the Brookswood Aquifer which supplies most of the water for the Brookswood and Fernridge areas of Langley along with wells throughout South Surrey. A City of Surrey study said the aquifer was “highly vulnerable to contamination from surface sources.”
2. Fish and Wildlife — The Society said the area is a “critical wildlife corridor between two of the last remaining large stands of forest in Surrey” and home to at least 13 species at risk as well “as some of the richest spawning beds for salmon in the whole Little Campbell River, the most productive salmon river of its size in the Lower Mainland.”
3. Social Concerns — Traffic safety, increased air pollution and security issues for three nearby residential care facilities.
The society says the Little Campbell River is an important salmon spawning area, home to spring, coho and chum salmon, as well as steelhead and cutthroat trout.
— with files from Tracey Holmes, Black Press