Surrey city council’s Safe Surrey Coalition members have awarded more than $16.2 million in construction contracts related to the 84th Avenue corridor project to connect King George Boulevard and 140th Street at the south end of Bear Creek Park.
Council voted on the matter early Tuesday morning. Staff recommended Tybo Contracting Ltd. be awarded a $15,524,250 contract for work on the corridor and “associated park improvements” and Aplin & Martin Consultants Ltd. be awarded $682,500 for related engineering construction services.
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The project was originally estimated to cost $12.25 million to $13 million.
A corporate report by Scott Neuman, the city’s general manager of engineering, says there’s funding approved in the 2021 transportation and utilities budget that includes “the unforeseen $3 million in park and environmental enhancements and $2 million for landfill soil disposal.”
Councillors Steven Pettigrew, Brenda Locke, Jack Hundial and Linda Annis voted against it.
“It’s clear the community doesn’t want this road going through,” Annis told council.
The contract work is expected to begin in August 2021 and be done by September 2022, one month before the next civic election. Construction will be permitted from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, in compliance with Surrey’s noise control bylaw, and 24 hours a day, seven days a week for work that’s not adjacent to the strata property at King George and 84th.
READ ALSO: Surrey council approves design contract for 84th connection as divide grows
Neuman stated in his report 63 trees measuring at least 30 centimetres in diameter at breast height will be removed. Fifty-five are Alder and Cottonwood, and to “offset the trees removed,” he said, “the city will plant all trees at a three-to-one ratio,” exceeding that required under Surrey’s tree protection bylaw.
Locke, who is running for mayor in the 2022 civic election, said she thinks the 84th Avenue project is “completely wrong.”
“We don’t need that road there,” Locke said. If she’s elected mayor and the road is not finished by then, she said, “the road will not be finished.”
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