Councillors deny expansion of child care facility amid repeated temporary use permit applications in residential areas

In September 2025, a child care facility at 46265 Hope River Road, a residential home, sought a rezoning bylaw amendment to expand from 16 to 22 kids.

In June 2025, a child care at 46326 Strathcona Road, a residential home in Fairfield Island, sought to expand its operation from 16 kids to 55 kids. That specific application was denied given the substantial increase in the number of kids.

Councillor Jeff Shields asked city staff at their city council meeting this past Tuesday (Jan. 6) whether the market for child care facilities in Chilliwack is getting saturated, given the latest application at 46795 First Avenue.

“We’ve had a number of these temporary use permits come through for the commercial day care operations in residential areas, particularly in the last 6 months,” Shields noted. “Have we done a study? Have we got any updated numbers to see if we are in fact in need of more? Are we saturated, is there still a large demand for it? I’m just a little concerned about how many are popping up and how many we’re approving.”

Image: City of Chilliwack / Councillor Jeff Shields

Gillian Villeneuve, director of planning for the City of Chilliwack, said that in light of previous concerns raised by council, planning staff are currently reviewing a 2019 child care needs assessment and strategy report and anticipate bringing a report to council in late February or early March 2026.

“We anticipate there being some recommendations to potentially amend existing bylaws and policies to address some of the concerns we’re hearing from the public and council related to day cares, such as neighbourhood impact, number of children allowed in each facility, as well as creating a level playing field between commercial day cares and residential daycare spaces,” Villeneuve told Councillor Shields.

Councillor Nicole Read voiced additional concern about the application for 46795 First Avenue.

Image: Google Maps / The 46700 block of First Avenue, where a home had asked the City of Chilliwack to expand its child care facility from 8 to 30 kids.

She asked how the current location could support parking for six staff members on site.

“The staff report mentioned six staff on site, and although they may carpool, that may not always be the situation,” Read said. “How would this particular site be able to support potentially 6 staff to park in that location?”

Villeneuve advised Read that based on the zoning bylaw requirements for parking spaces associated to day cares, only three parking spaces were needed to satisfy the zoning requirements. The zoning bylaw requirements are based on the gross floor area of the facility, not the number of staff.

“I guess I have a few concerns around the amount if it were to be 30 children, and the coming and going off of First Avenue, which is one of our major thoroughfares, coming in and out of that spot 30 times in the morning, and 30 times at the end of the day,” Read said. “There’s some concern around the amount of traffic going in and out off of that main street.”

Councillor Chris Kloot, acting as mayor at Tuesday’s meeting in the absence of Mayor Ken Popove, sought to clarify whether there are parking requirements regardless of the amount of children that might be in the establishment. Villeneuve said parking requirements are based on the gross floor area for all permitted uses as opposed to the number of occupants.

“But that is certainly something we can look at in the future,” Villeneuve said.

Councillor Harv Westeringh said he didn’t have a hard time with eight kids at the First Avenue daycare facility, but said he couldn’t support the expansion to 30 kids. Councillor Nicole Read questioned the need for an expansion of up to 30 kids, and expressed support for leveling the playing field between residential and commercial daycare facilities. Councillor Shields voiced similar concerns around traffic coming and going from the facility.

Councillors wound up voting unanimously to deny the child care expansion at 46795 First Avenue.

by Mike Vanden Bosch

Councillors deny expansion of child care facility amid repeated temporary use permit applications in residential areas

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