By Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
Metro Vancouver won’t stand in the way of Surrey’s plans to create a Punjabi market in the heart of Newton.
By Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun | Link to Article
Metro Vancouver won’t stand in the way of Surrey’s plans to create a Punjabi market in the heart of Newton.
Metro’s regional planning and agricultural committee on Friday approved a request by Surrey to change the land designation on a 6.5-hectare site in Newton from industrial to mixed employment under the regional growth strategy.
Surrey had argued the area, around 80th Avenue and 128th Street, had become a mix of quasi-warehouses, retail and commercial uses over the past decade and it was hoping to turn it into a South Asian tourist destination while protecting the rest of the industrial land around it.
“Frankly over the past decade or more it’s become a challenge to manage,” said Don Luymes, Surrey’s manager of community planning. “We want to consolidate it and essentially put a fence around this use.”
Committee chairman Derek Corrigan said there’s a need for the large number of banquet spaces in the designated precinct but said it might be hard to create a tourist destination at the site because of the “massive parking lots” in the area.
ksinoski@vancouversun.com