Thursday, October 29, 2015

Mapping industrial land use (or not) in Metro Vancouver

Back in September, I posted about the shrinking industrial land base in Metro Vancouver. Because industrial land is in short supply due to the high demands for more retail and residential space, the regional district commissioned a high-level Industrial Land Inventory in 2010.

Metro Vancouver is now in the process of completing a detailed inventory of all land-uses that are occurring in regionally-zoned industrial land. The inventory will help Metro Vancouver and municipalities gauge how successful they have been in preserving land for industrial and light-industrial purposes. This inventory will hopefully help local governments update plans and bylaws to support the protection of the industrial land based.

While the full detailed inventory is not yet complete, detailed maps for the industrial area in Newton has been released.

There is both a detailed map and a consolidated map. The detailed map show some 23 land-use designations. The consolidated map reduces those designations to seven: building-intensive industrial, natural resources, land-intensive industrial, large-scale infrastructure/transportation, retail use, other commercial use, and other land use.

As you could imagine having a large amount of land-uses that preclude industrial uses, in an industrial area, would be a concern.

Draft consolation thematic map for Newton of industrial land base. Selection map to enlarge.

Draft detailed thematic map for Newton of industrial land base. Select map to enlarge.

As you can see in the preceding maps, there is a fair amount of red on the map. This red indicates that there are retail stores operating in the central Newton industrial area. With this information, Surrey could address the proliferation of retail shops in industrial zones.

For more information, I suggest you check out the Metro Vancouver Industrial Lands Inventory Presentation that was prepared for Metro Vancouver’s Regional Planning Committee.

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