Mayflower co-op residents in Surrey fear losing their homes

Mayflower co-op members worried about losing their homes attended a Surrey mayoral election debate at the Sheraton Guildford on Oct. 7, wearing yellow shirts and seeking answers from candidates. Resident Brandi Murphy said 92 families could be affected.

“The plan was to safely relocate 92 existing families. Instead, BC Housing and the current administration have hung us out to dry,” Murphy told the Now-Leader. She said many diverse, volunteer-run community members had lived there for more than 20 years and now faced total displacement and separation from loved ones. “We feel used. Our co-op was the bargaining chip used to secure city council funding, and now our lives are being turned upside down.” Murphy said the building is owned by a developer in Hong Kong.

Last December, Surrey council approved at third reading a proposal for a 24-storey tower with 230 rental units downtown, following a public hearing at City Hall on Dec. 15. Provincial Rental Housing Corp. planned to build it at the southeast corner of 104 Avenue and 132 Street, on vacant land formerly occupied by a gas station. The project includes three levels of underground parking. A BC Housing representative told council at the time that 92 Mayflower residents would have nowhere to live if the proposal were not approved.

Vanessa Wong, a senior development manager with BC Housing, noted in December that Surrey’s 2025 housing needs report forecast the city would need more than 53,000 additional dwellings to meet its five-year housing need. Whalley, including the city centre, is one of three neighbourhoods with the highest numbers of low-income households and has the city’s highest rate of renters. Wong told council the application proposed 230 affordable, accessible, quality rental units in Whalley to help ease those pressures and respond to those needs.

Murphy said residents left the mayoral debate no clearer about what was happening. Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke could not be reached for comment Friday. Chris Schuessler, an organizer with renters’ advocacy group BC ACORN, said about 20 people from Mayflower attended the debate.

Schuessler said Locke mentioned during the debate that BC Housing projects had been cancelled in February. The Now-Leader reported in May that Locke was “steaming” about the provincial government stopping 954 supportive housing units in Surrey while expecting the city to meet provincial housing targets. Locke told the paper in May that a February letter said all eight projects had been cancelled, affecting 954 units across women’s transitional housing, youth housing, shelters, supportive housing and Indigenous housing. She put the value at $421 million and said she was very angry.

On Feb. 19, Locke and council received a letter from Naomi Brunemeyer, BC Housing’s director of regional development for the Lower Mainland, about the “need to adjust the pace of housing developments” because of “fiscal constraints.”

Asked whether any Mayflower residents were in imminent danger of losing their homes, Schuessler said no. But, he added, residents felt they might have to find somewhere else in a year or two, leaving them with a vague, foreboding sense. They had spent the summer seeking clarity. Schuessler said residents thought they had been given special accommodation: they expected the 92 existing households to get 92 units in the planned 230-unit building, in a co-op section alongside BC Housing tenants. They are now being told they must enter the general BC Housing population, for which most do not qualify.

“They’re stressed out,” Schuessler said. Residents may think they have to sign something entirely new, he said, but want to keep the co-op together because it has a long history. He said construction on the 104 Avenue project appeared to be proceeding, with occupancy expected in February 2030, but relocation promises for Mayflower had disappeared.