Surrey city council on Monday ratified a 2.8 per cent general property tax increase for 2025.
That's $77 for the average assessed single-family home.
"This is required to provide funding for general inflationary pressures, new resources for police services, fire services and bylaw services," Surrey's general manager of finance Kam Grewal explained as he presented the budget to the finance committee on Monday afternoon.
The budget also includes a one per cent road levy increase which works out to about $27 for the average single-family home, to cover maintenance and capital improvements related to Surrey's transportation infrastructure.
The finance committee approved the 2025 budget with Mayor Brenda Locke and councillors Pardeep Kooner, Gordon Hepner, Rob Stuff and Harry Bains voting in favour and councillors Linda Annis, Doug Elford, Mike Bose and Mandeep Nagra opposed.
This was confirmed by council late Monday night, with the same votes cast for and against. Related bylaws received approval at third reading.
In reply to Annis's question how much the average tax increase will be for Surrey ratepayers, Grewal replied that for a house assessed at $1.7 million including utilities, general property tax, the road levy and the drainage parcel tax, it "would be approximately $125 per year, all in, for the City of Surrey. So about $10, just over $10 a month."
Surrey is already one of the largest cities in the country, Grewal noted, and will outstrip Vancouver in the not-to-distant future.
He said this financial plan is "reflective" of the city's size, complexity and significant growth. The operating budget, he added, "is approaching $900 million and upon consolidation, almost $2 billion.
There will be no increase to the capital parcel tax this year, Grewal noted.
He added that the City of Surrey's target is to see 810 police officers working in Surrey by year's end. The budget will facilitate the hiring of 20 more firefighters, 10 bylaws enforcement officers and provide funding to hire an additional 25 police officers. Elford argued the City of Surrey needs to tighten its belt "a little bit here" and proposed the budget be amended to see 10 more firefighters hired instead of 20, and five more bylaw officers instead of 10, with the aim of reducing the tax increase to 2.3 per cent, but this was defeated.
After Grewal finished his presentation it was the public's turn to speak. Elford lamented that only two people had availed themselves of that opportunity, given the gravitas of a big-city budget.
"It never really fails to surprise me how we get such little public participation, our finance committees, on such an important issue," Elford said, "but they usually like to criticize us after the fact."
Captain Saverio Lattanzio, president of the Surrey Fire Fighters Association, voiced "strong support" for the budget on behalf of its 650 members. "This mayor and council's investment in the fire service is saving lives, preserving property and making the community safer for all who live and work here," he said. Deb Jack, of Surrey Environmental Partners, said Surrey needs park rangers, better protect fish habitat, better conservation measures and set up a $27 levy to help protect the environment.
City Clerk Jennifer Ficocelli said her department received three pieces of correspondence in support, two in opposition and five expressing concerns related to the five-year financial plan.
Locke called it "just a great budget for Surrey."
The General Capital Program allocates $701 million for 36 projects over the next five years. Among these projects is the $310.6 million Newton Community Centre, to include a 50-metre swimming pool and library three times the size of the existing Newton branch. It will be roughly 190,000 square feet (17,650 square metres). It's in the preliminary planning stage and a "design-build" team will be selected in the second quarter of this year.
Other big-ticket items include the Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre expansion ($65.5 million), design of the first phase of the Centre Block office development downtown, a total $132.8 million for the Cloverdale Sport & Ice Complex to be completed in early 2027, and an Interactive Art Museum downtown ($100 million).
Meantime, in February council approved utility rate "adjustments" related to water, sewer, drainage, solid waste, parking and district energy self-funded (ie. user pay) utilities that contained a "significant cost escalation" related to the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant (NSWWTP) that's estimated to cost $2.86 billion more than it was supposed to be.
This, Surrey city manager Rob Constanzo and finance manager Kam Grewal told council at the time, is "resulting in increased sewer levy amounts for a period of 30 years for North Shore residents and 15 years for residents of all other municipalities in the region, including Surrey."
In 2025, the Metro Vancouver (MV) sewer levy for Surrey increased by 37.6 per cent compared to 2024 with 76 per cent of this levy hike being imposed to fund the NSWWTP and "the remaining 24 per cent of this levy increase is the standard MV sewer levy increase for Surrey," Constanzo and Grewal indicated.
Also, Metro Vancouver sewer rates are projected to rise by an average 7.1 per cent per year for each of the remaining four years of the Five-Year Plan. The annual impact on sewer customers as proposed is $174.14 for metered single family accounts, $967.41 on metered commercial and $386.96 on non-meter residential.
Members of the public also had an opportunity to voice concerns at that particular finance committee meeting as well, but nobody showed up.
Last year, council ratified a 2024 budget that included a six per cent property tax hike, a one per cent increase in the roads and tax levy, and a secondary suite fee increase on top of increased utility rate fees.
Elford remarked that what's "really lacking" in the 2025 budget is funding for "deeply" affordable housing. "I think we should be setting aside money to kick-start some of these projects, because that is the number-one priority for people in this community is housing, and we hear it all the time."
City Manager Rob Costanzo told Elford a report would come before council Monday night concerning a supportive housing project where the City of Surrey will be leasing the land, City-owned property, "so we're not going to be paying for it out of our own capital per se but we will be partnering with the developer too so that will be the first of four sites where it will be truly supportive housing that will be supported by the City but not funded through the City. We're looking for funding opportunities through senior levels of government and partnering with a private developer."
Locke added that the Surrey City Development Corporation "is doing a lot of affordable housing with the new project that's going to be at Gateway, and we've talked about that many times. That will be well-received when that comes to life."
