Moody Centre: Modest growth in a shrinking City

Claim: Moody Centre experienced the most population growth in Port Moody during the last census period.

Verdict: True. Port Moody lost population overall between 2016-2021, but Moody Centre gained 572 residents.

Whatever his reasons for doing so, Steve Milani likes to point out that Moody Centre is the fastest growing part of the city. Thanks to the handy CensusMapper tool from Mountain Math, we can visualize 2016-2021 population growth (or decline) by census tract.

Green represents growth, and yellow through red represents population loss. It’s then easy to see: not only is Moody Centre the fastest growing part of the city, it’s the only growing part of Port Moody – which managed to lose 16 residents between 2016 and 2021, even as Metro Vancouver added 180,000 residents.

Moody Centre welcomed 572 residents, or 114 pear year (2.2% annual growth). That’s roughly the equivalent of one 50-unit lowrise per year. The rest of the city was either stable or in decline:

• Noons Creek managed to lose 194 residents.
• Heritage Woods/Mountain dropped 147.
• College Park lost 207 residents, probably related to the Woodland Park redevelopment.
• The oddly-shaped census tract encompassing Glenayre, Easthill, and part of Moody Centre gained 77 residents.
• Suter Brook / Klahanie lost 62 residents.
• The North Shore was stable, slipping by just 25 residents.

To further contextualize Moody Centre’s population dynamics, using Census Mapper we can check 2016-2021 population growth rates near other suburban SkyTrain stations north of the Fraser:

• 9% and 4.5% annual growth in Coquitlam’s two Burquitlam/Lougheed census tracts.
• 14.5% and 6.8% annual growth in the two Brentwood census tracts.
• 6.2% annual in Edmonds.
• 8.8% and 5.4% annual increase in the two Metrotown census tracts.
• Rates between 4.2% and 6.8% in downtown New West.

Since completion of the Evergreen Line, growth in Moody Centre has been a tiny fraction of what even more established transit hubs experienced. So much for hyperbolic rhetoric of massive development. And this is after 2011-2016 when almost nothing got built.

It remains to be seen whether the next council will maintain the Moody Centre status quo of approving a few 6-storey lowrises per year – which led to an admonishment by the NDP provincial government for wasting valuable transit infrastructure – or move towards legalizing a greater variety of development types that one would expect around a transit hub.