Delta is made up of three distinct communities. In this special feature, long-serving mayor Lois Jackson speaks about North Delta, Tsawwassen, and Ladner.
What makes Delta such a desirable place to live?
"We have a lot of natural landscape here which is wonderful; people love it," said Jackson. "One of the most wonderful things about Delta is our people and the families who live here. They, and we at council, focus very much and recognize and appreciate our natural landscape which includes farming, fishing, the Pacific Flyway, Burns Bog (that we now have totally in hand), and the fact that we're surrounded on three sides by water, by the Fraser, Georgia Strait, and Boundary Bay."
Mayor Jackson knows that people also choose Delta for its excellent municipal services: its police force; its schools; and its leisure facilities. "Our police department is second to none; we have a very low crime rate," she added. "In fact, we were recently named the tenth safest city in Canada in which to live."
Forecasting growth
Delta does not have a lot of land outside of the Agricultural Land Reserve and if any development is to take place it will be some densification. Mayor Jackson: "Ladner tends to have residential lots being requested as a two-lot split, or maybe two or three lots are being split into four or five and densification is taking place carefully with good design. Captain Cove's Marina is continuing with its plan that is 20 or 25 years old. The development has been done and continues to be done in phases."
She added, "Tsawwassen is quite quiet at the moment. Of course, it's yet to be determined as to what will happen with the development that is on the table for the Southlands."
Turing to North Delta, the mayor was particularly excited about changes that are beginning to happen along Scott Road.
"This past January, we approved a 37-storey apartment building for Scott Road. The word from the people who have been talking to, including many seniors who have lived here and raised families here, is that they have no place to move to out of their single-family homes. They're very excited about the possibility of apartment dwelling at 80th Avenue where all of the amenities are walking distance from the proposed apartment. And through our review of the North Delta area plan there may be other areas that would also be considered for densification along the Scott Road strip."
Getting down to business
"We're fortunate in Ladner and Tsawwassen as we have a very active business community. The majority of businesses in their commercial areas seem to be owned by people who live in the community. Their business associations work very hard along with the Delta Chamber of Commerce," said the mayor.
"In North Delta, however, whether you're looking at Nordel or the Scott Road strip, the majority of landlords live somewhere outside of Delta. We have a major concern all along Scott Road, especially north from 80th Avenue where the landlords don't have a stake in the community. They simple lease out the properties without a real buy-in to the communities. I was very concerned about that and therefore I started the Invest in North Delta Committee on which we have appointed different people from the development community to try and help us bring more attractive business to the commercial strip. We've gone to several Urban Development Institute meetings to talk with people, asking them how we can turn a street, an undesirable looking street, into something that is more shopperfriendly and more neighbourly and appealing."
Getting around: transportation in Delta
Mayor Jackson sees the coming South Fraser Perimeter Road as a benefit to the community but has concerns about ongoing congestion at the Massey Tunnel.
"Because Surrey and Langley are growing so quickly, we have a situation at the Massey Tunnel which is not sustainable. It hasn't been sustainable for a long time. I'm very happy that I've convinced Premier Clark and the minister of highways to make a commitment that that tunnel will be replaced."
Jackson is vice chair of Metro Vancouver's transportation committee. She has proposed the use of PlaceSpeak, a location-based community consultation platform used to gather information.
"I think we should be trying this in the Lower Mainland relative to transportation; asking people, for instance, how far are you prepared to walk from your home to get a bus to take you to work every day? Why don't you take the bus every day? Why are you taking your vehicle everywhere? This is the kind of information we need."
Jackson admits to not being an advocate of TransLink.
"With all its attempts to try to service the region, I think it has not worked well for those of us who are in the urban areas and have to travel into the more populated business and industrial areas to go to work. I honestly believe that in order to mitigate the problem we've got to get the province to change TransLink's governance system. It must reflect what's happening on the ground, and what's happening with the official community plans in every municipality. Then we can take those plans and overlay them on the regional growth strategy to make sure we're covering the bases in answering people's transportation needs on an equitable and affordable basis."
What Delta residents want from their local Government
"The only reason municipal government is here is to oversee the spending of the dollars that we collect from people who own homes or through other means," said the mayor. "We have to work the very hardest we can to get the very best and the highest value for those tax dollars by delivering the highest level of service from all departments which include police, fire, engineering, parks and rec all of them. And I think that's what people are really looking for."
She added, "When I was first elected as mayor 14 years ago, I said we will do no more borrowing and, if we can't afford it today, we'll save the money up until we have enough to build a new firehall and that's exactly what we've done. We have not borrowed a cent since I've been mayor. In fact, we have paid down the old debt that I inherited and we will finally be eliminating it in a couple of years. The best legacy I can leave this community is to have Delta a debt-free community."
