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Plan Context
Chilliwack Today
Chilliwack marks the start of the Lower Mainland Re-
gion, the valley plain of the Fraser River that extends
from the Cascade Mountains to the Pacific coast.
This physical setting orients Chilliwack to the lowland
communities to its west, and yet the one-hour driving
distance buffer allows the community to preserve its
character and lifestyle, distinguishing itself from the
metropolis of Vancouver. The establishment of the
Agricultural Land Reserve in 1972 has reinforced that
buffer and solidified Chilliwack’s identity as a “city in
a sea of green”.
Chilliwack’s gateway location and fertile valley floor
land have, from its beginning, established trade, ser-
vicing and farming as the local economic base. Its
modern settlement originated as a riverboat land-
ing (Chilliwack Landing) in the 1860s, which soon
relocated inland to the Five Corners, a wagon road
crossroads. By 1873 the Township of Chilliwhack was
incorporated as the third oldest municipality in Brit-
ish Columbia. Soon residential plots were laid out
around this crossroads and the pioneer core settle-
ment was known as Centreville, which latter evolved
into the City of Chilliwack in 1907. Chilliwack proper,
the main settlement today, owes its beginning to a
crossroads and a landing, and to a “gateway econo-
my” of servicing the river and land travellers.
Sardis, on the other hand, was born of farming which
has a distinguished history in farms such as Wells
Farm and John Haas hop fields. The urbanization of
Sardis recently took place from the late 1950s and
early 1960s when the Trans-Canada Highway was
built past its doorstep. Since then suburban growth
increased with the 1970s shopping centre develop-
ments on Luckakuck Way (parallel road to the TCH),
large scale subdivision developments between Luck-
akuck Way and Wells Road (1980s), and later exten-
sions south along Wiltshire and east along Higginson
Road (1990s).
Vedder was a boat crossing at the Vedder River in
the 19
th
Century, and later the location of an Old Yale
Road bridge. This gateway began with a small cluster
of homes and commercial buildings. It changed in
1941 when the federal government opened a mili-
tary training base, which after the war expanded into
the Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack. The influx of
two thousand military personnel essentially created
a new town in itself. Again, the closing of the base
in 1996 transformed Vedder Crossing as nearly 140
ha of prime development land was made available
to the City at a time when its valley floor urban re-
serve was near depletion. Today, Vedder (between
Stevenson Road and the Vedder Bridge) accounts for
two-thirds of the Sardis-Vedder population.
Over the last 150 years, these discrete communities
grew toward each other to form the urban corridor
we have today. Yet the original cores of these com-
munities have remained and they will continue to
serve as the business and civic centres in the future.
The focus of this Plan is to facilitate the continual
consolidation of the urban corridor while supporting
the original centres in their respective social, eco-
nomic and civic roles.
Regional and Provincial Planning
The OCP is required to defer to the Fraser Valley Re-
gional District’s Regional Growth Strategy (RGS)and
the provincial/federal legislation and regulations. In
the first case, the Plan has to comply with the RGS,
especially its eight Growth Management Goals.
More specifically, the OCP has to include a Regional
Context Statement, describing how its policies and
actions support, the Regional Growth Strategy.
Plan Context