Once again government puts its boot on the proletariat as Surrey looks to reduce parking that’s available to renters in market housing in an effort to entice developers to build more rental dwellings here without being encumbered by the cost of incorporating parking stalls into their projects.
What’s next, toilets?
If you offer less, they will come?
We are by no means a car-free society despite city bureaucrats and politicians trying to push a Jetson-esque utopian vision where people of limited financial means will just have to do without having a vehicle if they want the privilege of existing in modern cities.
Let them use public transit, well-heeled senior bureaucrats might muse while sipping Chablis from their Belcarra balcony towering above their four-car garage. Also, perhaps, while enjoying the company of a faithful pet dog, the kind of which many renters are not allowed to have.
READ ALSO: Surrey to reduce off-street parking around market rental housing
Public transit, including SkyTrain, is not a sure fix for residents’ transportation needs.
Yet many renters, not by choice but rather necessity, must find themselves relying on often unreliable buses to get themselves to the kinds of jobs, like low-paying retail, they might find along public transit routes.
What if your job requires you to have a car? Many do. Where are you supposed to put that car? What if your dream job is located nowhere near a bus stop or SkyTrain station?
Such policies, while designed to entice builders to build more rental dwellings, also result in restricting many people to a certain lot in life that’s much less desirable than that enjoyed by citizens who don’t have to worry about where they’re going to keep their darned car.
– Now-Leader
edit@surreynowleader.com
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