Revitalize, Rebuild, Replace: Investigating Socio-Economic Change in a Canada Lands Company-led Redevelopment in Chilliwack, British Columbia

Research on gentrification in Canada has been traditionally limited to large urban centres like Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal and more recently, into suburban areas adjacent to them. In acknowledgement of this gap, my research concentrates on a Canada Lands Company-led project known as Garrison Crossing in the City of Chilliwack. This project was selected for review not only because of its location in an ex-urban city, identified by its low-density housing, high population growth, located outside the immediate influence of Vancouver but also because of project was led by a crown corporation: Canada Lands Company. In 2003, Canada Lands Company began the process of transforming the former Permanent Married Quarters (PMQ) for Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Chilliwack to a new master planned mixed-use neighbourhood now known as Garrison Crossing. This project was one of many similar projects that occurred following the closure of CFB's throughout Canada.
Today, Garrison Crossing is a multi-award-winning neighbourhood praised for its quality of design, timelessness, and liveability. But while this space continues to shine for these reasons, there are unanswered questions about who this space was made for. Was this project's end result a diverse vibrant community or something more homogenous and if so, how? Using a multi-modal approach rooted in gentrification research, this paper explores the socio-economic changes that occurred because of this redevelopment and how Canada Lands Company's vision and mandate influenced these outcomes.