Skip to content

Chilliwack: From farming community to penturbia

Lower tax burdens, revitalization to the city's downtown and lower median house prices have bolstered Chilliwack from agricultural town to a modern city
chilliwack
Chilliwack is home to about a third of the Fraser Valley's population and a quarter of all farm operations in the province.

 

Chilliwack is morphing from a farming community into B.C.’s version of Penturbia, the idealistic U.S.-born concept of suburban living. Penturbia is defined by affordable housing, high-paying jobs, green space and population growth, all boxes ticked off in Chilliwack. The benchmark price of Chilliwack detached house is around $450,000, less than half of Metro Vancouver’s benchmark of $1.2 million.  Chilliwack’s economy ranked among the fastest growing mid-sized economies in the country between 2005 and 2012, with average annual increases in GDP of 6.2 per cent, according to the Conference Board of Canada. Buoyed by a revitalization of its downtown, an increase in public-sector and employment, single family home construction and several big industrial park developments, Chilliwack’s trajectory is set to continue.