Monday - Jan. 6, 2025 - Langley berry farm looking to subdivide

☀ High 7C

Good morning!

Welcome, officially, to the start of 2025. I feel like those first few office hours after New Year’s Day don’t really count: everyone is still recovering from their food comas, and wading through the emails that saturated their inboxes during the break. But now, on this Monday, it is time to get back to work. And the first order to business is to give a special welcome to all our new subscribers!

Some of you may have joined because you wanted to find out about some holiday events—no shame in that—but I hope you will continue to find valuable information in this newsletter throughout the rest of the year as well. At the end of your first week with us, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the newsletter and the articles you’ve found interesting. (You can get in touch by simply replying to one of these emails.)

For those of you who have been subscribers for a while now—it’s so nice to be back in your inbox! Thank you for all your support over the years, and the many kind messages we received during our break. I can’t wait to share the stories we have in our docket for 2025.

If you want to support us more, we’d love if you became a paid member, which you can do here. But simply sharing this newsletter with a friend is helpful too! More really is merrier, especially for local publications like us.

Happy 2025!

– Grace

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope (We have had to temporarily change our forecast links to the Weather Network due to a technical error.)

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

Why a lower home value might not mean a lower tax bill this year

You might see your property tax bill rise, even if the assessed value of your home slightly declined over the last year.

Last week, BC Assessment released its new annual property assessments. (Delays due to the postal strike mean homeowners may not receive their assessments until much later.)

You can find your assessment online here. You can view an interactive map showing the changes in property values across BC here. And you can find a map of the 500 residential properties with the highest value here.

Across the region, home values were relatively stable. The assessed values of residential properties in Harrison Hot Springs, Hope, and Mission rose the most, but across the region’s largest cities, home values didn’t budge all that much.

The lack of movement in assessed home values coupled with projected property tax revenue increases in many municipalities mean that, in many places, a slight decline in assessed value may not be enough to stave off higher taxes come the summer.

• Today, Tyler writes about new home assessment figures, and upcoming local property tax hikes—and about why your tax rate may have decreased even as your tax bill has ballooned over the last decade.

Related

Need to Know

🚨 Human remains were found in a burning vehicle on Sumas Mountain; homicide investigators have taken over the case [Global]

🚂 A woman was killed by a train in Chilliwack early Friday morning [CTV] / She was struck near the Yale Road overpass, one of the deadliest sections of track in the Fraser Valley; she was the 124th person to die because of trains in the valley since 1983 [FVC]

🚲 A long-time Langley bike cop has retired [Langley Advance Times]

🚒 Hope firefighters extinguished a burning car in front of a home Saturday morning [Hope Fire Department/Facebook]

✉ Abbotsford students created and sent festive holiday cards to hospital patients in Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Mission, and Hope [Abbotsford News]

🌧 The Lower Mainland has had a soggy winter, but drought persists elsewhere in BC [CBC]

👎 Vandals did serious damage to a playground in Aldergrove [Aldergrove Star]

🏫 BC’s education minister wants defibrillators in schools, but not all school boards agree [Vancouver Sun]

🍎 The average Canadian family of four is expected to spend $800 more on groceries this year [CityNews]

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The Agenda

Driediger Farms looking to subdivide

Langley’s Driediger Farms is looking to divide its land and its operations in the near future, if the Agricultural Land Commission approves.

The farm, located on 240th Street in Langley, started in 1964 with approximately 10 acres of strawberries. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, the operation expanded to roughly 160 acres of raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries—creating a large wholesale operation, as well as a small u-pick. The farm is owned and managed by Rhonda Driediger, with its processing facility operated by Blueridge Produce.

Driediger applied to the ALC last year to subdivide the property, separating the berry fields and her house from the processing plant and worker housing. The goal, according to her application, was to allow the Blueridge company to take over ownership of its plant so it could expand operations without affecting Dreidiger Farms’ berry fields.

The subdivision is part of Driediger’s succession planning, according to the application. She owns both Driediger Farms and Blueridge Produce, and separating the land each company operates on may make it easier to transfer ownership in the future. Dreidiger Farms held its last u-pick season in 2024, on its 60th anniversary.

The Agricultural Land Commission is currently reviewing Driediger’s application.

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🗓 Things to do

Snowshoe session: The Chilliwack Outdoor Club hosts an Introduction to Snowshoeing seminar at the Sardis Library on Monday starting at 5:30pm. Details online.

Art class: The Reach Gallery Museum hosts a free tiny tots art class for kids and parents on Thursday starting at 11am. The class is geared towards children aged two to four. Details and registration online.

Dino play: The Clarke Theatre presents Jurassic Panto, a Jurassic Park-themed pantomime featuring science and magic. The play opens on Friday with a weekend of shows, and returns at the end of January. Details and tickets online.

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