Surrey mayoral candidate Mike Starchuk says no AI data centre will be built in Surrey unless it meets four strict conditions on land, water, power and community benefits, his Imagine Surrey campaign announced Thursday.On land, Starchuk says an Imagine Surrey council would never apply to remove farmland from the Agricultural Land Reserve for a data centre or support such an application, and data centres would not be allowed to crowd out industrial land needed by local employers. Every proposal would be decided by council in public, according to the release.On water, data centres would have to use closed-loop or recycled-water cooling, pay the full cost of any water upgrades they need, and report their water use publicly, the release says. On power, no city approval without a confirmed BC Hydro allocation, with the company paying the full cost of its own grid upgrades. Homes and local businesses come first, Starchuk says.Fourth, no property tax breaks: every data centre would sign a public community benefit agreement with local construction and operating jobs written in before any permit is issued, according to the release. Starchuk also wants Kwantlen Polytechnic University and SFU Surrey’s School of Sustainable Energy Engineering to independently review each major proposal’s impact on land, water, power and jobs.Starchuk challenged every other mayoral candidate to answer one question before the October 17 vote: “Will you trade farmland for a data centre?” With farmland protection and utility bills both live issues for Surrey households, including South Asian families in Newton and Fleetwood near the city’s industrial and farmland edges, the conditions land directly on local concerns.Source: Imagine Surrey release, Oct 8, 2026 (imaginesurrey.ca).
Starchuk sets four conditions for any AI data centre in Surrey, challenges rivals
