Tuesday - June 10, 2025 - An Abbotsford church plots a housing project

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Good morning!

I tried to take the bus in Chilliwack on Friday afternoon but mistimed my walk to the stop and ended up walking halfway across the north side of town. It turns out, Chilliwack is a much larger city than you remember when you aren’t driving. But it’s also a lot more interesting. I walked by one field where workers were tending something that looked a bit like rice. I saw folks scrambling this way and that. And I got an extended glimpse at just how misguided some of our city planning rules are.

As I walked through the city, I saw all these massive new homes built with tiny patches of grass and pavement in front of them doing… nothing. The front yards are so small as to be useless. And so, inevitably, instead of parking their cars in their garages, people park their vehicles in front of them, since what else are you going to do with that valuable land?

– Tyler

P.S. If you came across a green hat with a chunk missing out of the brim somewhere downtown, that would be mine. Please get in touch.

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope 

🚘 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

First look at First Blood

A mountain bike trail that is more than a mountain bike trail.

That’s the dream for a new trail in Hope.

Thomas Schoen has spent a decade building mountain bike trails throughout BC, but he has never had a project quite like that which faced him when he came to Hope.

Last year, Schoen and a team of more than a dozen trailbuilders started carving a five-kilometre route down a Hope mountainside. The trail cost more than $400,000 to build, with numerous bridges and wooden features facilitating a drop of more than 1,000 metres down Hope Mountain. But local riders and tourism operators hope the trail does more than delight bikers.

• The trail’s grand opening will take place June 28, with a celebration at the parking lot on the Mt. Hope Forest Service Road. The weekend will feature additional events on June 27 and 29.

• Today, we’re sharing a story from US mountain-bike publication Singletracks about a route that it dubs a “single-track masterpiece.” 

Related

Need to Know

🏒 The Abbotsford Canucks are headed to the Calder Cup finals, but the cheapest available tickets cost nearly $100 as of Monday afternoon [Ticketmaster]

🔥 A large fire at an Abbotsford apartment building forced dozens of residents from their homes [Abbotsford News]

⚖ A Langley man who killed two people in 2022 has expressed no remorse [Vancouver Sun]

📝 After the Queen died, a Hope women sent a poem to the King—and then received a response from the monarch [Hope Standard]

👉 A man has been charged with arson, causing unnecessary pain to an animal, and resisting arrest in connection with a barn fire in Langley on Friday [Langley Advance Times]

🚔 A masked man assaulted two teen girls and stole a phone in Mission’s Centennial Park on Friday evening [Global]

🚒 Three people were hospitalized after a motorhome caught fire and destroyed a gas station at Bridal Falls [CBC]

💰 A Chilliwack man won a free scratch ticket—and then more than $600,000 on that free ticket [Chilliwack Progress]

⚡ Langley residents worry that the expansion of a BC Hydro substation will harm Brydon Lagoon and its surrounding ecosystem [Global]

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SPONSORED BY CITY OF ABBOTSFORD

Help shape your city

The City of Abbotsford is in the final phase of updating the Official Community Plan. This plan will shape how our city grows over the next 25 years. Attend an open house or complete the online survey by June 27 to review the draft plan changes and share your feedback. To learn more visit here.

The Agenda

Abbotsford United Church plots seniors housing project

An Abbotsford church wants to redevelop its property to build apartments for low-income seniors, a new childcare centre, and space for people with developmental disabilities.

Gladwin Heights United Church has applied to the city to build a six-storey mixed-use building on its Gladwin Road property. The ground floor would include worship space and a childcare centre, while the floors above would house seniors and developmentally disabled adults.

The project would be one of the first of its kind in Abbotsford, but similar to the redevelopment of the Cheam View United Church property in downtown Chilliwack.

To proceed, Abbotsford council must approve rezoning and an Official Community Plan amendment. Council will vote later today, but staff and politicians have previously shown support for allowing large church properties to be developed—particularly for desperately needed non-market housing. Proposed new revisions to the city’s Official Community Plan would clarify how and what type of housing could be built on sites previously zoned for worship or institutional uses.

In consultations for the OCP, the vast majority of respondents said they supported the use of church land for non-market housing. But an online survey for the United Church property elicited more opponents than support, with respondents—some of whom seemed to think the project would specifically house people with mental illness—concerned about the potential for more crime, the proximity to hydro lines, and uncertainty about the definition of “non-market housing.” Visitors to an in-person open house were far more receptive, with 18 of 20 respondents in favour.

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