Mission overtakes Abbotsford & Chilliwack on new home builds

Mission and Abbotsford’s councils and city governments both want the same thing—more housing. But over the last year, the pace of home-building in the two communities has headed in very different directions.

For the first time in decades (and possibly ever), construction started on more new homes in Mission than its neighbour to the south. The change is sudden, dramatic, and caused both by a dramatic decline in new construction in Abbotsford and a spike in development in Mission.

Other Fraser Valley communities are also seeing building trends shift. Aside from Harrison Hot Springs, each municipality’s council has declared a need to bolster their supply of housing. But housing data analyzed by The Current shows some are doing a better job than others at meeting that goal.

Mission and Abbotsford

With more than 40,000 residents, Mission is not a particularly small town. But from its very-personal political fights to its charming main street, it often has a small-town feel.

That sense is only emphasized by its closer relationship to Abbotsford, its much-larger cross-river sibling. The pair share bus, water, and waste systems. Many Mission residents work (or play) in Abbotsford. A good number of Abbotsford residents head in the opposite direction.

Over the last two decades, Abbotsford has consistently grown faster than Mission, further cementing the big brother-little brother relationship. That was especially the case during recent building booms, when Abbotsford saw prolonged stretches of intense building, while construction activity in Mission remained comparatively light.

Today, Abbotsford has four times more people and an even higher proportion of the area’s businesses and government agencies.

But since the start of the pandemic, construction activity in Abbotsford has been on a dramatic decline, while Mission has seen a significant increase.

Last year, construction started on 743 homes in Abbotsford and 895 in Mission, according to data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. It was the first time this century—and the first time in the CMHC data—that Mission building activity topped Abbotsford.

Mission’s boom has been dramatic and sudden. Prior to last year, new home starts in Mission had never exceeded 300.

The construction boom rise has been fueled by large multi-family housing developments, with 90% of all new home starts being either townhomes or apartments. Most are apartments, but the 145 townhome starts in 2022 exceeds the number started in Abbotsford and Chilliwack, combined.

In Abbotsford, meanwhile, the pace of homebuilding in Abbotsford has plunged by around 60% since late 2019 and early 2020. It’s a dramatic drop for a city whose leaders insist they need to increase the supply of housing to keep up with demand and reduce the impact of rising house prices.

The city has seen a particularly severe drop in the number of new multi-family homes being built. Detached house construction has remained level, but far fewer townhomes and apartments are being built. In 2020, only around 15% of new units were detached homes. But last year, 45% of all new starts were single-family houses, the greatest share of such homes in any Fraser Valley municipality. That’s despite the city’s stated desire for more density.

Last June, council was told by staff that building permit applications had hit an all-time high the previous years. But wait times for permit approval had more than doubled since 2017.

Abbotsford can’t just blame a post-pandemic slump, because no other Fraser Valley community has seen such a decline. Council was told last year that other communities were facing similar issues, but the CMHC figures show that no other municipality in the Fraser Valley has seen such a dramatic decline in the number of residential permits actually issued each year.

New home construction in both Chilliwack and Langley is down slightly from previous peaks, but has remained mostly level. And Mission, of course, has seen an unprecedented building boom.

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Langley (Township and City)

Langley Township has continued to grow at an incredible rate, with construction starting on more than 1,800 new homes last year. That’s almost identical to its 2021 total. While those numbers are down slightly from the two prior years, the township has seen construction activity continue at a remarkable rate.

Construction has been driven by high home prices but also Langley’s relatively plentiful and accessible developable land. In Abbotsford and Chilliwack, most land is either located in the Agricultural Land Reserve, home to established neighbourhoods, or sited on tricky hillsides. But in Langley, a huge swath of flat developable land on either side of the 200 Street corridor is neither designated for farms nor perched on a mountain.

And while the growth has brought its own infrastructure challenges, the Township’s new Eric Woodward-led council hasn’t expressed an interest in slowing down the rate of building.

Langley City, meanwhile, has seen a building boom of a much-different nature. The city is largely already full of buildings and neighbourhoods, and that led to relatively slow growth prior to 2018. But since then, the city has seen hundreds of new apartment units constructed each year. On a per capita basis, the city has built more units per existing resident of any of the five large Fraser Valley communities since 2018. Almost all of those have been found in apartment buildings.

And both Langleys have also seen significant new projects break ground in 2023. Langley City has seen construction start on 232 apartment units (and one house). In Langley Township, the CMHC reported 612 housing starts in March; that is the most in a single month for at least three decades.

The timing of the CMHC numbers conflict with the township’s own numbers a bit, a spokesperson said. But it’s likely those numbers are linked to December, when building permits for an astounding 753 multi-family units were issued. The majority of those were located in the Vesta Properties development just south of Highway 1’s 200 Street exit.

Chilliwack

Chilliwack’s new home construction dipped slightly in 2022, but has been relatively steady for years, bouncing between 650 and 900 units each year since 2016. But building is beginning to lag.

But Chilliwack has seen a particularly significant decline in the number of family friendly townhomes being built.

Between 2014 and 2020, an average of 140 townhome units were built each year. But since then, those figures have fallen sharply. In 2021, construction started on just 52 townhome units and that figure only rose slightly to 65 new townhomes last year.

And there are some signs of a recent slowdown. The first three months of 2023 were particularly slow in Chilliwack, with construction starting on just 21 new homes, the lowest three-month total since 2009.

Whether that’s a blip that will precede a surge in activity, or a sign of a larger Abbotsford-scale decline in activity is to be seen. But both large Fraser Valley cities now lag behind modest little Mission. How things have changed.