New Surrey party long on ambition, short on details

Amongst Surrey’s crowded municipal election, New Surrey+ has emerged as a party with ambitious ideas, but few details on how they plan to achieve any of their goals that include expanding transit access to making the city safer.

The party is running a full slate of candidates, but their recently published website only includes the names of candidates with no photos or biographies — all other slates have had their platforms published for a while and include greater detail about their campaign promises. 

In an interview with the Citizen, New Surrey+ mayoral candidate Igal Ammons II said he is just an “average Joe” wanting to solve problems. But Ammons II declined to answer any questions about his background or experience prior to running for mayor. His biography on the city’s website notes he is a family counsellor. 

When asked how his party came up with their 12-point platform, Ammons II said they had surveyed community members and found these were the issues people wanted to see fixed.

Ammons II said he is not a politician and plans to achieve all his goals in one term and not run again. 

“We [are] the only party [with a] self-imposed one term to solve these problems.”

On housing affordability, the party wants to implement a rent-to-own program, which could especially aid young people trying to buy a home. 

Rent-to-own programs allow people to enter a contract where part of their rent goes towards a down payment on the property — when the contract ends, the renter has the option to buy out the property and own it. This allows people to save up while having their rent actively go towards a down payment and the program also does not require the same large up-front payment needed for a mortgage. 

Currently there are no government run rent-to-own programs in B.C., instead they are offered by private companies. 

Ammons II said the city would create rent-to-own housing, but would partner with a non-profit to manage the housing. He explained the city would set up a “trust fund” where the rent from the housing would go into and create “billions” in revenue for Surrey. 

It is not uncommon for cities to partner with non-profits to run city-owned housing, but this housing is usually subsidized or set below market rate to be more affordable — meaning cities usually break even and do not generate much profit from the units. Vancouver has been criticized in the past for building market rate housing using public money. 

It is unclear how many units Ammons II plans to build or what he would set the rent at to bring in such large sums of money. 

It appears Ammons II is relying on this trust fund to fund several of his other proposals, including expanding transit access. 

The party’s platform details wanting to expand public transit to have a continuous journey from West Vancouver to Abbotsford at one flat fee — however, when asked what this would look like, Ammons II did not mention a SkyTrain or bus route, but a highway. 

He talked about a highway built from steel that could be “bolted down” into the ground and could be set up and taken down at any time. 

When asked if there was another city that had this type of infrastructure, he said the vision is “inside my head.” 

“[The highway] can be removed, it can be expanded, it can be shrinked,” said Ammons II. To use this highway, drivers would have to pay 55 cents a day. 

Highway expansions have been criticized for not only having negative environmental impacts, but also not actually easing traffic in the long-run. This is because people often change their routes or stop using transit thinking driving will be faster and within a few years the congestion is back to previous levels.  

A highway crossing multiple cities would mean Ammons II would need to work with other municipalities as the roads outside of Surrey are not his jurisdiction.

The party also wants to improve Surrey schools by dealing with overcrowding and finally getting rid of portables. New Surrey+ was running two candidates for school board trustee, but they were ruled ineligible to run because of incorrect filing of papers. 

The Surrey School Board is independent, but does need approval from the city on some projects — like identifying future school sites — before it can receive final approval from the province. 

The district’s funding comes primarily from the province and the city does not actually fund schools. While Ammons II could work alongside the school board to pressure the province, he would have little ability to buy land or build more schools if the province refuses to provide more funding. 

But Ammons II believes he will not need provincial funding to fix the problem. He explained that he plans to build schools within the city-owned housing developments — this could look like a high-rise where the first two floors are a school and the rest is housing units. 

This type of development is happening in Toronto and has been discussed as an option in the Lower Mainland, but has yet to become a reality. 

“You will not see me begging … no province for money,” he said. 

Ammons II explained the funding for this would come from the housing trust fund. Again, this brings into question how much the housing units will cost and whether any of his plans will be financially feasible if he is relying entirely on one source of revenue. 

When pushed on the logistics of his proposals, Ammons II refused to elaborate and said he would “leave that for the [debate] stage.” 

The municipal election is a little over two weeks away and the New Surrey+ website includes little detail on specific plans or initiatives the party will actually take if elected to make their promises a reality.