CHANGING FACE OF NEWTON
Rapid growth has intensified social woes in the neighbourhood. »
Decades ago, there was a saying in Surrey that the only thing tougher than a Newton boy was his dad. Rootin’ tootin’ Newton was a rough town back then, longtime resident Doug Elford recalls, with black- jacketed youths and the notorious Newton Inn.
But there was something else: A sense that your blue- collared neighbour had your back.
That sense of community has all but disappeared in pockets of Newton today, with some residents so fearful of certain neighbourhoods that they drive everywhere, and others won’t even walk their dogs past their back fence.
The recent beating death of 53- year- old Julie Paskall outside the Newton Recreation Centre, in one of the roughest areas of the community, has raised fear levels even higher.
“Being a male, I didn’t realize how bad it really was,” said Elford, who has lived in Surrey for 35 years and has run unsuccessfully for council. “I’m not afraid, but I do carry a knife. I’m packing.”
Tensions growing
Tensions have been growing in Newton for about three decades, residents contend, spurred in part by development pressures and a wave of new immigrants in the 1980s that saw the transformation of bluecollar homes and farmland into large houses with cheap, illegal suites, strip malls and big- box stores run by unseen corporate strangers who never set foot in the community.
Prostitutes arrived, followed by panhandlers, pawnshops and cheque- cashing kiosks. At the same time, a raft of social service agencies — parole offices, mental illness centres, recovery homes and a homeless shelter — appeared.
City officials acknowledge that Newton — Surrey’s most dense town centre — has its challenges, especially in terms of its unshackled growth.
Over the past 30 years, the population of Newton — loosely defined by The Vancouver Sun as between Scott Road and 152nd Street, and Colebrook Road to 88th Avenue — has more than quadrupled, from 31,565 people in 1981 to 146,341 today. In contrast, during that same period, the population of Metro Vancouver as a whole rose by 85 per cent.
Nearly half of Newton’s population are immigrants, compared with just 40 per cent in Metro. In 1981, only a fifth of Newton residents were immigrants, according to census data.
The Newton community has also become poorer. In 1981, according to census data, the average income in Newton was $ 33,852 in today’s dollars, almost identical to the Metro Vancouver average of $ 34,007. Since then, however, the average income in Metro has risen 21 per cent to $ 41,031, while the average income in Newton dipped slightly to $ 32,033.
The average Newton resident now makes less than 80 per cent of the Metro Vancouver average, compared with 99.5 per cent of the Metro average in 1981.
“Newton is a complex and very polycentric community,” said community planner Don Luymes. “There are parts that are very healthy and parts that need help.”
He blames this partly on Newton’s “natural evolution.” The community, like Whalley, straddles King George Boulevard — a former provincial highway that has left a legacy of gas stations, motels, tire and lube shops and fast- food joints scattered along the corridor, similar to what’s seen on Kingsway in Burnaby.
At the same time, commercial economic centres have popped up throughout Newton, creating sub- areas along Scott Road, West Panorama and at 128th and 80th Avenue. The city itself is planning an Indo- Canadian Centre at 128th and 80th.
All have contributed to sucking the life out of the designated heart of the Newton town centre at 72nd Avenue and King George, where the city hopes to one day see a pedestrian, transitoriented community with wide sidewalks and a formal park and plaza east of the Newton Wave Pool.
The area is challenged, Luymes said. It is pinched in between the railway tracks, has a lot of vacant land, and doesn’t even face King George.
“That has tended to delay the kind of vital thriving centre of Newton,” he said. “It hasn’t attracted the degree of commercial private- sector interests to be kick- started yet.”
Resident Liz Walker said the town centre area, where Paskall was beaten to death outside the Newton Recreation Centre, is not only economically depressed but the “most dangerous part of town.”
People drive everywhere
She blames this on a proliferation of social services, which by her reckoning are now on par with those in Whalley and far higher than elsewhere in Surrey.
On a rainy Thursday morning, 10 days after Paskall’s death, few people walked in the town centre area, while cars whizzed by on King George. The Newton Recreation Centre parking lot was full of vehicles, while the only people on foot seemed to be waiting for a bus.
Sheila Watt, who was rushing three boys from the ice rink to her vehicle to get them back to school after a field trip, said it is “a real shame” to see the increase in drugs and shady people around the neighbourhood.
But John Schollen, who lives at Chelsea Gardens, a stone’s throw from the town centre, said he hasn’t noticed many changes in Newton during the past 15 years.
“There’s more panhandlers than there were, but I’ve never really been harassed,” he said. “Everywhere has issues. You could be vulnerable anywhere in the Lower Mainland. I’m not going to move out of the community, that’s for sure.”
Still, Schollen said he never walks at night around his neighbourhood. And it seems more people are doing the same.
Lisa Hamilton used to walk and take the bus around the area as late as 1 a. m., visiting friends and running errands. She would see groups of young men drinking in the park and on the benches in the loop, but “I would avoid them, I’d just pick another route.”
But after Paskall’s death, Hamilton has imposed a curfew on herself, saying she won’t stay out past 10 p. m., even with the increased police presence in her neighbourhood. While she is happy to see extra police, Hamilton said “it’s just too bad that it took something like this to make it happen.”
Walker figures it was in the early 1990s when she stopped walking her boys to the park or the local bakery for a treat.
It was about the same time as the Surrey pre- trial centre went in at the City Hall precinct. Or maybe it was after she realized there was a federal halfway house kitty- corner to her home — she only found out when she heard the men talking about their dirty deeds on their deck one night.
There were also some other “interesting incidents,” she said.
A shotgun was found under her laurel hedge that apparently had been used in a robbery and tossed there. Two youths were found by police, passed out, with stolen pennies in their bulging pockets, after swiping a case of her neighbour’s champagne that was intended for their wedding.
Then the drug and alcohol recovery centre, Phoenix House, opened at the end of her lane. But when her teenagers were stopped near the local parole office and offered drugs, it was the last straw.
Walker drove her boys everywhere until she could start handing them the keys. She gave up walking the neighbourhood as Block Watch captain. These days, she drives to South Surrey or Langley to shop, and never walks at night.
“It’s like the Wild West here. They don’t pay attention to the bylaws. Everybody just does what they want,” Walker said, adding she was appalled that the city allowed slot machines in Newton. “It’s fine and dandy to have services, but you have to realize there’s a risk that comes with them.
“It’s a sad state of affairs here. I don’t see it getting any better.”
Walker and others claim they have been lobbying City Hall for decades to clean up Newton, and argue their community has been forsaken for the new City Centre to the north. As the city gentrifies Whalley, they say, it has ushered the “degenerates” into their community, prompting renewed calls for an increase in police foot and bike patrols.
Stumbling block
They point out none of the city council members or the mayor live in Newton. Even City Hall itself will move from Newton to Whalley in February.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts insists the city isn’t ignoring Newton, nor shuffling the problems from Whalley, noting that “Newton’s had problems for quite some time.”
She maintains the city has vetoed any new social services in Newton, but needs some support from other levels of government, noting that Surrey has the highest number of aboriginals in B. C., and is also the largest receiver of federal government- sponsored refugees. In 2012, Surrey welcomed 33 per cent of refugees destined for B. C. — most of them from some of the most troubled countries in the world: Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan.
“That’s been our biggest stumbling block in terms of trying to grapple with all these folks being placed in the community,” she said.
Luymes predicts Newton will eventually cast aside its crimeridden coat and become the “pre- eminent centre” that Surrey has tagged it as part of its 2008 town centre plan. But he notes it will take some time for the city to acquire the necessary properties.
For now, undeveloped parcels sit vacant in the town centre, which Luymes said are likely being held by speculators who hope to cash in on increased density and higher land prices when rapid transit finally comes to the area. He also points to a few aging and badly managed mobile home parks on King George Highway that would make a huge difference to the community if they were redeveloped.
“That tends to take away commercial vitality of the region as a whole. The energy of Newton Town Centre is challenged a little bit, but that is one of the issues over time that will dissolve,” Luymes said. “It’s obvious, though, that the pace of development and interest in development is less than in the City Centre.
“Our hope and intent is that by doing the right kind of planning the town centre will emerge as a pre- eminent centre. It’s intended to be a centre for commerce and civic and cultural life for the Newton community.”
Luymes noted some work is already being done, citing the transformation of the old fire hall west of King George into an arts centre and expansion of the Newton Wave Pool. The city is also working with TransLink to relocate the bus loop to King George so it is more visible.
When it comes to social services, Luymes notes that people need housing and care. “People go where they can afford shelter,” he said. “There are always areas of the city more affluent than others, that’s the reality.”
Philip Aguirre, owner of the Old Surrey Restaurant which is celebrating its 40th anniversary Sunday , agreed, noting that recovery homes like the Welcome Home Society are providing much- needed services to people who are already here. He noted that times have changed since the restaurant opened. He used to be able to ride his bike around the neighbourhood or grab a towel and walk to the Newton Wave Pool while his parents fed and watered the mostly local clientele.
Demographics changed
At the time, the restaurant was a draw for the well- heeled families of corporate companies like Ritchie Bros. who were based or lived in Newton. But as the community income level dropped, the restaurant started seeing fewer locals and began pulling from Abbotsford, Richmond, Coquitlam and White Rock.
“The biggest change is the demographics of the neighbourhood that live in the area,” said Aguirre, who lives in Vancouver.
He maintains that sometimes it takes a horrific event, like Paskall’s murder, to galvanize a city to action. While Elford has pulled together the Newton Community Centre, Aguirre is among several business owners who are hoping to start a Newton Business Improvement Association to help boost and promote the much- maligned town centre.
Crime has been on the upswing, he acknowledged, with his restaurant broken into 11 times over the past eight years. But he has no intention of packing it in.
“One of the biggest complaints is our location,” he said. “But we’re proud to be here, and have been successful here. It can become better. People like us are working hard to make Newton better.
“We’re only as strong as we are together.”