Surrey council has approved a childcare centre for 32 children in a single-family house at 15010 Ashby Place, in Fleetwood. The architect argued for 40 spaces during a public hearing on May 26, and the original application was for 52.
Architect Manica Grover told council Surrey has 17.9 licensed childcare spaces per 100 children, "far below the national average and the shortage is even worse in high-density neighbourhoods.
"This gap," she said, "deeply affects families, professionals and our city's growth. Today we seek your support for a 40-space childcare facility in a newly constructed house."
"In a community facing urgent need, this ready-to-go solution is both timely and essential," Grover said.
There were no other speakers at the public hearing. Prior to that, city hall received 10 letters in support and three opposed.
Council granted third-reading approval that night to rezone the property from urban residential zone to comprehensive development zone so the house could run a 32-children childcare centre as an "accessory use."
Coun. Doug Elford said he originally objected to the application coming forward and was the lone council member to vote against it on May 26.
"The reason is we traditionally in our zoning have allowed 25 childcare spaces," Elford said. "Now, I'm not against childcare, believe me I know we need it. This change to the bylaw puts staff into very precarious positions because from my understanding they wanted 50 spots, right, and it puts the staff into a position where they've got to start negotiating numbers when we do this kind of zoning and I feel it's very challenging for staff when people are coming because I think this opens up a bit of a can of worms too here.
"There's going to be other groups coming and it's very concerning to me," Elford warned. "I think we need to have that hard cap on residential so it allows staff the ability to deal with these applications equally and fairly."
Coun. Mandeep Nagra supported it, though he's "not satisfied" with the parking "and everything around it.
"I think parking is going to be an issue here," he said. "We're going to start getting a lot of complaints. Thirty-two kids in a small cul-de-sac? I think that is going to be a problem in future."
He said council needs to set up "minimums and maximums" for parking ratios per child.
"I think that's the only way moving forward. We are going to see a lot of these, and we do need childcare spaces, I understand, but I think we should set up a parking requirements and policies in place so we can avoid this in future," Nagra said.
The house is in a established residential neighbourhood near the intersection of 150 Street and 86A Avenue. It's 716 square metres and two storeys with 4,203 square feet of floor space.
On April 28 council had sent the application back to staff to work with the applicant toward increasing the capacity of the daycare beyond 25 children.
According to a City planning report, city staff recommended council support a total of 32 children, reasoning this would be a "modest increase with minimal impact on the neighbourhood."
On the applicants' original request to accommodate 52 children, the document reads, this would require a significant reduction in parking because there are only seven off-street parking spaces available there and the expected pick-up and drop-off for 52 children "may overwhelm the available parking. Staff suspect parking to spill on to the street which would cause disturbance to the neighbourhood as there is only limited on-street parking available along Ashby Place. Staff anticipate that parents will use 150 Street to facilitate drop-off and pick-up."
The house was recently built and contains a secondary suite. "The proposal for 52 children would utilize the majority of the existing dwelling on ground and second floor levels, with a two-bedroom suite (approximately 500 square feet in size) retained at the ground floor level," the document reads. "The entire rear yard is dedicated to outdoor child care play space. As per the Fraser Health Authority, the outdoor play space would need to be separated from the residents鈥� outdoor yard space and be fenced. This will result in no yard space available for residential use."
Meantime, council on April 28 granted third-reading approval to a childcare centre for 25 children within an existing single-family dwelling at 5860 188 St. in Cloverdale, with no debate, following a public hearing earlier that night.
One woman who said she lives a "stone's throw" from the house, said while she's "all for" in-home daycares for a few children in residential neighbourhoods, she opposed the rezoning from urban residential zone to childcare zone.
"This will create a substantial amount of noise coming from the daycare's small backyard, echoing throughout the quiet neighbourhood from 7 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. and that's an unbearably long 10 hours for anyone wanting peace and quite in their own yards and homes," she told council.
"The owner should really look into leasing a building that can appropriately accommodate that large number of children and would have a much bigger play area where they can be as boisterous as they want, and that would bring peace and respect for our neighbourhood."
Resident Donna Peterson wondered aloud why council would consider "such a huge proposal of 25 children.
"I'm all for daycare too, but 25? That's a lot."
"I cannot imagine myself or our neighbours living next to a home with 25 children in their backyard every day," she said. "We enjoy seeing young families move into the area and I'm sure they research the area to see how it was zoned before they bought. They can see it is an established neighbourhood and perhaps that is why they decided to buy in Rosewood, and now you want to change it."
"This is not what the residents of Rosewood estates want. It looks for the sake of one piece of property you're upsetting a whole community and mayor and council, I would ask you not to approved this bylaw."
Speaker Annie Kaps also spoke against this particular application.
"This is 25 kids in a single family dwelling," she noted. "That's like a classroom."
The architect for this one told council the applicants "have chosen to serve the community by offering care to others, in this case childcare. It is a modest but noble and needed endeavour."
