Chilliwack hopes to end speculation on abandoned homes

Drive through Chilliwack Proper, and you’ll probably pass an abandoned house. The lawn is tangled and overgrown. Some have broken windows. Others are decorated with fading graffiti.

More than 100 homes are deserted throughout the city—and most sit empty for the same reason.

Abandoned homes cause problems, city staff said. Without upkeep, the yards and buildings themselves deteriorate—and are sometimes intentionally damaged. Unauthorized occupancy (or squatters) and “perceived crime and safety issues,” create nuisances in the neighbourhoods that house the 110 empty homes in Chilliwack proper. Fires are not uncommon. There have been at least ten blazes in empty homes in Chilliwack in the last decade.

Many of the houses are the result of Chilliwack housing policy—and speculators who bet on it.

As it has tried to encourage the construction of denser housing, the city has made it easy to get properties rezoned for it. But the city ran into speculators less concerned with building more homes than profiting from the process. Would-be developers would rezone a property, its value would spike with its new potential for more homes, and the lot would be put up for sale again without any redevelopment. In the meantime, the homes would often sit empty and unkempt.

“There’s a number of rezonings that we’ve done, and [then] see it in the Real Estate Weekly a week later, rezoned, looking for a lift in the value of the home,” Coun. Jeff Shields said during a May council meeting. “That’s not really what the purpose of [rezoning] is…It’s for providing housing.”

Now, Chilliwack council is changing the policy to try to keep developers from “flipping” properties via rezoning and encourage them to follow through with construction plans. The new rezoning policy will require developers to submit more information, including expensive professionally-made plans. It will also be more in-line with processes in nearby municipalities. Shields said the new policy will force applicants to “have some skin in the game.”

Previously, the information would be required in a later application for subdivision. Now, it will be needed up front.

“It takes the speculation out of it,” Coun. Harv Westeringh said.

City staff say the change will also streamline the process and allow developers to apply for subdivision at the same time as rezoning.

The policy was popular with council.

Council found less consensus about whether the policy should be applied not only to any new applications for rezoning but also to the 33 applications currently underway.

Westeringh voiced reservations about the change, saying it would be “like pulling the rug out from under the feet” of applicants already working towards rezoning.

But Kloot and Coun. Nicole Read said that because the requirements themselves are not new, any applicant who did intend to subdivide and build has these requirements in mind—or in progress—already.

An amendment passed, but it divided the six councilors evenly. Mayor Ken Popove split the tie in favour of requiring the information from those who have already applied.

“The developers who are serious about this kind of work will understand that the work that is asked of them to do now will be work that they would do and carry forward,” Popove said.