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“I think affordability is a huge factor. When you look at the cost of housing, comparatively, Surrey may be more affordable than some of the other urban areas,” Heer said. The city is also geographically large with plenty of undeveloped land.

What planners see in Surrey is growth that is concentrated in transit-supported areas. The city typically wants at least 40 per cent of its growth in urban and transit centres, and it is now tracking at around 43 per cent, Heer said. With rapid transit plans in the works, that trend may continue.

“I imagine that with the SkyTrain plans we’re going to see, potentially, higher growth in those areas once we have some land-use plans established,” she said.

Photo by Jason Payne / PNG

For planners, it’s important to be able to capture that growth as it is happening. While the census provides the city’s primary source of population data, that demographic information is only available every five years. What the city uses to supplement that data with the most up-to-date information is a so-called “population and employment model”. That model can take granular looks at specific geographic areas and can cover the in-between periods that broad census figures do not capture.

Data from the model is used by staff for land-use planning, traffic modelling, transit corridor studies, and for planning by school board and police and fire services, according to the city, and it is updated monthly, Heer said. Ensuring transit closely follows growth patterns is one of the biggest challenges planners face, she said.

The city’s population model is fairly accurate when measured against census findings, Heer said. But it is complex and suffers from methodological drawbacks, and staff hope a contractor can improve on it. The city has issued a request for proposals with the hopes of getting starting on a more efficient and responsive model by September.

B.C. government population projections suggest Vancouver will grow more slowly than Surrey through to 2041, but that Vancouver will remain the more populous city.

mrobinson@postmedia.com