2 THE VOICE, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2015 EDITOR XIAO XU tlarge Simon Fraser University Surrey campus SFU students seek expansion Students want to double the size of Surrey campus by 2015 Colin Knowles's flickr photo 66 By TANYA COMMISSO 2006 agreement between the province and Simon Fraser Uni- versity promised to double the ize of the university’s Surrey campus by 2015. Now, the campus is still exactly the same size as it was nine years ago, prompting students and one business group to take to Twitter to pe- tition for progress. Currently, the campus has enough seats for 2,500 full-time students. How- ever, the campus population has grown to over 7,000 students, often forcing Surrey residents to commute to SFU’s Burnaby or Vancouver campuses. “From the students’ standpoint, it’s important for them to access education within their own community,” said Elizabeth Model, CEO of the Downtown Surrey Business Improvement Associ- ation. In partnership with the business as- sociation, SFU Surrey co-op students created a social media campaign with the Twitter hashtag, #GrowSFUSurrey. The movement aims to raise awareness of the lack of funding needed to expand the campus. “We are currently very underfunded for students south of the Fraser [Riv- er],” said Model. “Really, [the campus] should be funded for a minimum of 5,000 students to be able to grow the campus and meet the needs of our growing population.” One SFU representative acknowl- edges that Surrey has a shortage of post-secondary spaces. According to Stephen Dooley, execu- tive director of SFU Surrey, the region’s two post-secondary institutions com- bined - Kwantlen Polytechnic Univer- sity and SFU - have less than half the seats of other areas in the province. “We have 13 post-secondary spaces for every one hundred 18- to 24-year- olds in the region - the rest of B.C. has 38 seats,” Dooley said. Though the university is not in- volved in the #GrowSFUSurrey move- ment, Dooley acknowledges the stu- dents’ push for expansion. “The expansion of the Surrey cam- pus remains the number one priority for SFU,” he said. Dooley says that the memorandum of understanding signed by the univer- sity is still in place, even if there has been little movement on it. “That agreement was done in 2006, and government priorities sometimes have to change and shift, so we under- stand that, but we’re still hopeful.” Since the agreement, the university has grown modestly by leasing tempo- rary spaces around the campus. The timeline for large-scale expansion is still unclear. “We've got some support to do some planning, so we’re encouraged by that, but there is no formal timeline. We look at the support for planning as a good sign moving forward,” Dooley said. We have 13 post- secondary spaces for every one hun- dred 18-to 24-year- olds in the region - the rest of B.C. has 38 seats STEPHEN DOOLEY SFU SURREY EXECUTIVE DIREC- TOR Critics decry Cambie plan The city and South Van- couver residents are divided over the Cambie Corridor Plan By BEN BENGTSON neouver City Council insists de- VYecvrmen to Cambie Street are beneficial to the whole city, spe- cifically with regards to public trans- portation, despite residents’ concerns. The Cambie Corridor Plan, which guides long-term growth in areas along Cambie Street, has entered its third phase. Phase three aims to im- prove and expand housing options for the many neighbourhoods surround- ing the Cambie Corridor. The plan states that it will focus on townhomes and ground-level alternatives to de- tached residences. Vancouver city councillor Geoff Meggs said that the Cambie Corridor Plan benefits all Vancouverites due to improved access to public transporta- tion. “The Corridor Plan is a benefit to ev- erybody in the city,” he said. “It starts to improve access to transit and helps support that massive investment in transit.” Meggs added that investments in transportation have led to property values going up “very sharply.” He ac- knowledged, however, that as the proj- ects move forward residents have ex- pressed some apprehensions. “T think there’s often concern about the size of the buildings that are close to single family districts,” he said. “We could do a better job at that, but phase three of the Cambie Corridor study should come to grips with a lot of those problems.” Tomas Rice, a construction worker who lives next door to a highrise that is being built along Cambie Street and W. 49th Avenue, reluctant- ly accepts the changes happen- pail ing to the neigh- ‘TOMASRICE bourhood. Cambie St. “They’re tak- resident ing homes _ that New LSO o come 1 Victoria Chilliwack Mission Abbotsford Campbell River Williams Lake Langford CON oO G1 & G NO Fort St. John 9 Colwood WO senicr Source: Canada Post's Five-point Action Plan Mailboxes that are outside and far from home have Delta residents worried By BAILEY NICHOLSON couver’s first community mailbox- es in a suburb that used to have home delivery is provoking fears of mail theft among Delta residents. Ladner will be the first in the region to lose door-to-door service as part of a plan that will eventually stretch across Canada. Kristin Crouch is among the 4,900 residents who will be affected in the first stage. She is concerned about the security of her designated mailbox, which holds some particularly valu- able mail. “Because I am a volunteer in the community,” she said, “I get a fair amount of cheques in the mail from vendors, and so going forward I hesi- tate to do that.” Delta Coun. Heather King said she has heard an outcry from residents fearing mail and identity theft. She said that seniors, who make up about 20 per cent of Ladner’s population, are Te imminent arrival of Metro Van- especially worried and will have a harder time accessing their mailboxes. “Elderly and wheelchair users [will] RS ah Sie) oi oe CANADA POST submitted photo find the access to be challenging, par- ticularly if their mailbox number is the top. It is unreachable from a sitting po- sition,” King said. The growing number of community mailbox plan sparks fear of theft mailboxes could create hotspots for thieves, said Sgt. Sarah Swallow. “Tf [they] can get into the main door of a mailbox, then they have access to however many mailboxes are in there, and at that point it’s just a one-stop shop,” Swallow said. “It gives them a certain bang for their buck in terms of what they can potentially obtain from one place.” Swallow is currently in the process of creating bulletins for the community mailboxes to provide residents with tips on how to avoid theft. According to Canada Post, one of the best ways to avoid mail theft is for residents to pick up their mail on a daily basis. But that poses another problem for Crouch, who said her designated mail- box is not close enough to home. “Tl probably drive because it’s that far,” she said. “Our mailbox is actually being placed in a fairly low-income area, and it’s not like I can see it, so I wouldn’t even know if it was broken into.” Swallow said police will watch for suspicious activity as community mail- boxes multiply, and that “hopefully neighbours will look out for each other and their mailboxes.” people live in and turning them into multi-million dollar projects to make lots of profits,” Rice said. “Tt will obviously benefit the people who run the project - a regeneration Cambie Street thing, isn’t it?” Rice added. Another Cambie Street resident Manu Aggarwal said that he doesn’t like a lot of construction that caused by the city’s plan, but he can understand the necessity of the development since “there’s not much land out there.” On Monday, Oct. 26 and Thursday, Oct. 29, Vancouver residents are invit- ed to attend a Cambie Corridor phase three workshop at 4925 Cambie Street from 6-9 p.m. BEN BENGTSON ‘photo A new highrise is being built at Cambie St. and W.49 Ave.