Image: BC Housing via Instagram

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Downtown Chilliwack project

BC Housing claims downtown Chilliwack housing project will be done next year

Apr 1, 2025 | 6:30 AM

CHILLIWACK — The provincial agency that has been heavily criticized by elected officials in Chilliwack for repeated delays in a government-financed supportive housing project is making a bold claim about a new housing project currently under construction in Chilliwack.

According to a social media post dated March 19, BC Housing claims the 64-unit project on the grounds of the former Cheamview United Church at Main Street and Spadina Avenue will be completed by next year. The project will be available for low-income individuals and families, including Indigenous people and elders.

“Thank you to our partners Mamele’awt Qweesome Housing Society (MQHS), Cheam View for coming #Together4Housing!” BC Housing wrote. “B.C. is an extraordinary place, and we’re helping more people find a home they can afford in a community they love. The building will offer safe, quality, affordable housing, with construction expected to be complete by August 2026,” BC Housing boasted on social media.

In early March 2025, VanMar Constructors Incorporated wrote on social media that construction had begun at 45835 Spadina Avenue in partnership with Mamele’awt Qweesome/To’o Housing Society (MQHS). VanMar says there will also be ground floor community space for the United Church.

The site is about a half-acre in size near the downtown Chilliwack Save-On-Foods.

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The building will feature a first storey split into an indoor common amenity area with an outdoor patio and space for club or lodge uses. The upper storeys will contain 64 residential units including 20 affordable market rental units, 33 rent geared to income units and 11 deep subsidy units, and an outdoor amenity area. The main entrance to the club or lodge will be accessible from Spadina Avenue, while the main residential entry will be on Main Street. The L-shaped building design for the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth storeys will front both Spadina and Main.

Inasmuch as BC Housing claims the project will be done next year, their track record isn’t the greatest when it comes to an existing project at 45857 Trethewey Avenue that is years behind schedule.

In November 2024, Councillor Jeff Shields told fellow councillors that the delays to the 91-space supportive housing project were concerning.

“As we know, we’ve got one over on Trethewey that’s going on into its second or third year of sitting there not done,” Shields said in November 2024. “I certainly hope, and I don’t have great confidence, the province will do a whole lot better on this (downtown Chilliwack housing project) than they did on the last one. We proved over and over that we’re willing to commit to provide affordable housing, supportive housing, and we kinda get left out high and dry.”

In September 2024, Councillor Bud Mercer called the ongoing delays to the Trethewey Avenue project an embarrassment.

Image: Mike Vanden Bosch / Pattison Media / File photo of Trethewey Avenue supportive housing project currently under construction.

“It’s been mishandled since day one,” Mercer said. “It’s becoming an eyesore, and it’s going to continue to cost the taxpayers even more money as it lags. The province sits in a cesspool of bureaucracy.”

Mayor Ken Popove similarly criticized the provincial government for insisting that the City of Chilliwack build a thousand housing units a year when it couldn’t seem to finish one of its own projects. During a radio segment on 89.5 JR Country in November 2024, Popove was speaking about damage to a public restroom primarily used by street people, and expressed frustration over the lack of housing for unhoused Chilliwack residents.

“The province has gotta get their crap together and start creating more housing,” Popove said. “We have a project that’s almost 3 years behind and they’re putting targets on us to build a thousand houses a year. You guys gotta get your crap together and look after your own stuff that you’ve set in motion. It’s frustrating.”

As proof that this project has been slow to materialize, the late MLA Dan Coulter and former Chilliwack-Kent MLA Kelli Paddon announced the project back in June 2021, meaning it will have taken over five years to complete.