Surrey tenants rally against proposed ‘demo-viction’

Residents in Surrey’s Whalley neighbourhood say low-rise buildings are being scheduled for demolition, leaving little affordable housing in the working-class community.

They’re looking for protection from new construction, similar to recently passed protections in Burnaby and in the Broadway Corridor in Vancouver.

“If a developer wants to demolish an older building to put up a new building, then the tenants who are living in the existing [building] have to have the right to move into the new building, at the same rent,” said Gary Rodden of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Carlos Sandoval is one of the people living in the neighbourhood who would be displaced by what they call “demo-victions” — evicting tenants to tear down and rebuild units that are usually much more expensive.

He lives with his partner, their child, and his parents. He’s been told they’ll have to leave in the summer.

“We’re just all crowding in that small apartment, so I’m already looking at options, because we know that this is coming and I’m going to have to pay at least twice as much as what we’re paying right now,” Sandoval said.

It’s a grim outlook for people living in this community.

“Everyone is thinking the same thing: If this one is going to go, how far along are we along the line,” said Patricia Harrison, who lives in the neighbourhood.

“So it’s like if we are quiet and watch this building go down and say nothing, there’s nothing you can do when they come for you.”

The whole neighbourhood is near the Surrey Centre Skytrain station, an area targeted for so-called transit-centred development in the province’s fastest-growing city.