riverview hospital (coquitlam) tours

Tree tours on former Riverview Hospital grounds may come to an end after 3 decades

Nonprofit says it cannot pay the $825 fee per tour that b.c. housing will start to charge them in 2024.

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A Coquitlam nonprofit may halt free tree tours it has offered for 30 years on the grounds of the former Riverview Hospital, as the province will require them to pay a $825 fee per tour starting next year. 

B.C. Housing, which manages the property with the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem First Nation), previously allowed the society to run tours for free. 

The Riverview Horticultural Centre Society's (RHCS) tours are volunteer-run, and organizers say the new cost would be prohibitive to its operations. 

"We provide a public service," said board member Allison Luke. "We're providing an educational service for people and a recreational outlet."

Luke said the society's volunteers also help tend to parts of the grounds, which were  renamed to səmiq̓ʷəʔelə in 2021. 

• In Depth Riverview Hospital: a brief history

She says səmiq̓ʷəʔelə has a unique collection of 1,800 trees of 160 different species, many of which were planted in the early 1900s and are considered "fine specimens" by arborists. 

"There's nothing like it in the Lower Mainland," Luke said. 

The two-hour-long tree walks, which have typically run once a month from April through October, attract between 50 and 100 people, she says. 

"There's not an Oscars or Grammy or an Olympics of trees, but if there were, the trees would be here," said Luke. 

In a statement to CBC, B.C. Housing said it will require the RHCS to pay the special events fee "in the interest of transparency, fairness and equity to other organizations and groups interested in hosting activities at səmiq̓ʷəʔelə."

It says other groups using the site for special events like weddings, photo shoots, reunions, and filming are required to pay the same fee — a fee it says covers the cost of processing an event application and providing a liaison officer to oversee the tour. 

B.C. Housing introduced the liaison officer requirement when it took ownership of the land in 2015. It says the role is intended to protect the privacy of those who live and work on səmiq̓ʷəʔelə and to ensure strict environmental and cultural protocols are adhered to. 

• Preserving the 'Place of the Great Blue Heron': cultural training for workers at Riverview grounds

Marilyne Andersen, president of the RHCS, says its guides take care to be considerate of those living on the grounds while conducting tours. 

"We do not go near the housing. We respect that," Andersen said. 

History of the tours

The tree tours were started in 1993 by a group of Coquitlam residents, including a nurse at Riverview Hospital, according to Andersen. 

As the hospital was winding down its operations in the 90s, Andersen said some residents were concerned the land would be developed and the trees cleared. 

"They felt that through educating the public and through inviting the public onto the grounds and getting them to walk there and see the magnificent trees, that they would want to save them," Andersen said. 

To this day, the society continues to educate the public and advocate for the preservation of the trees through its public tours. 

But Andersen says if they can't secure funding elsewhere, the nature walks will have to stop. 

"I get joy out of coming here. And to not be able to do that and share with others, it's heartbreaking, and it's sad."

She says the trees and gardens on the grounds also serve an important mental health purpose, providing a sanctuary and calming space for many — particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"The trees are life-giving."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michelle Gomez is a writer and reporter at CBC Vancouver. You can contact her at [email protected].

With files from Cali McTavish

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This abandoned B.C. hospital is one of Canada's most famous filming locations

An interesting history to say the least...

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There are impressive, beautiful, and awe-inspiring historic destinations all across Canada, and sometimes there are ones with rather controversial pasts. Riverview Hospital, an abandoned institution in Coquitlam, B.C., definitely fits into the latter.

Over the years, Riverview Hospital has become one of the most filmed locations in all of Canada. And now, the B.C. government is revisiting the future role of the site ( now named ‘səmiq̓wəʔelə’ ) in contributing to health care access across the region.

While the hospital is not open to public viewing without express permission from the landowner, it’s still a pretty neat piece of B.C. history to read up on.

Note: Riverview Hospital is located on private property. This article is for informational purposes only. 

Riverview Hospital

Photo via Google Earth

Opening in 1913, Riverview quickly became home to some of the province’s most “high-risk” patients. Given the inhumane medical practices used to treat mental illness throughout plenty of the 20th century, Riverview has gained a minor reputation for being haunted.

Clearly, this explains the in-demand nature of this filming location for popular TV shows and movies over the past couple of decades. But before we get into that, we’ll touch on the future plans for the hospital itself.

The future of the hospital

Riverview officially shut its doors in July of 2012 , and now has an “uncertain future” – if you ask Google Maps.

In 2021, however, the hospital was officially renamed to səmiq̓ʷəʔelə. In a new partnership with BC Housing, the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm Nation and people are working to reconnect with their land and share their rich history and culture with the public.

Popular films

Now, let’s get into which movies you might recognize the hospital from.

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Photo via Deadpool 2

The Hospital’s West Lawn, East Lawn, and Crease Clinic buildings are the most popular filming spots. You might recognize them from such productions as Saw, Watchmen, Smallville, Fringe, Grave Encounters, The Butterfly Effect, Dark Angel, The X Files, Supernatural, Romeo Must Die, and Along Came A Spider.

The majority of Deadpool 2 was also filmed at East Lawn. Impressive list,  but there are many, many more .

Photo via The CW

Interested in a tour? Of course, you are. The majority of tours at Riverview Hospital are Tree Tours put on by the Horticultural Society, but sadly, they just had their last tour at the beginning of the month.

The good news is that Riverview Hospital has been back up and running with some new facilities and cash from the B.C. government . This will hopefully lead to further improvements in mental health care access in the area.

Photo via The Butterfly Effect

Riverview sits on 244 acres of lush forest and nature, which is likely why it has been referred to as the ‘perfect mental health haven.’ Its proximity to so much natural beauty surely can’t hurt!

Photo via Justus Hayes/Flickr

While the property still offers film and TV production crews plenty of filming potential, we’re hoping through continued funding that the hospital is able to resume operations and bring accessible treatment to patients across the province.

Curiocity Staff

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• Nov 15, 2020

The Ghost Tree at Vancouver's Abandoned Insane Asylum, Riverview Hospital

Riverview Hospital is a sprawling institutional complex in Coquitlam, BC. It's about a thirty minute drive from our house in South Burnaby, making it part of Greater Vancouver. I have visited many times over the years and have only seen a small part of it. It's a very rich and complex site, both geographically and historically. The major structures are four large housing units, or "pavilions." The oldest of these is the West Lawn Pavilion, pictured above, opened in 1913 and officially closed in 1983.

One day I will write an extensive piece about Riverview and my experiences there. I entered and photographed West Lawn on my own a couple of times around 2009. Some of those photos are online, and some of the best ones have been donated to the Creative Commons via Flickr . See this Atlas Obscura page for an example of three of those images being put to good use. Those online images are the only ones I have access to at the moment for a bunch of exhausting reasons, and I really want to rectify that before writing about this place in a bigger way.

In the meantime, there is this little, fun thing.

A couple of weeks ago, Lisa, Rowan and I drove out to Riverview on a sunny afternoon for a walk. It's a great place for walking, being very large and meandering, with many interesting buildings, lots of green space, and a variety of well-established trees. The grounds are, in fact, an arboretum featuring trees from all over the province. As always, we had a look at the West Lawn pavilion, although we only passed by the back of the building because a large film unit circus was parked in front of it. We saw the unit getting ready to film at another location, and Lisa thought she saw a sign that said, "Riverdale"

After leaving West Lawn and trudging up a hill heading behind the other pavilions, I turned around and took three photos of the old building. The image above is a processed, filtered, and edited version of one of those photos. Here's the original, raw out of my relatively crappy Motorola camera phone:

While I was working on the photo, I noticed something odd. In front of the building, there stood what looked like a ghostly tree, insubstantial and translucent. Zooming in:

I checked the other two photos taken from the same position - same ghost tree. Now, I realize that the area where the ghost tree is is in shade, and while I have a pretty open mind when it comes to the supernatural, I figured there was a logical explanation for it. That didn't stop me from posting these pics on Instagram for a laugh, and discovering that the hashtag #ghosttree had 10.5 K public posts. That's a whole lot of ghost trees out there. I didn't even know that was a thing.

Of course, I plan to return and investigate in person. In the meantime, though, I fired up Google Earth and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Riverview is 3D rendered (most of Greater Vancouver is), allowing me to have a good look at the West Lawn pavilion from a variety of angles and zoom levels. And, wouldn't you know, there is an actual, real tree in that spot. Click on the image to trigger Google Earth and this view:

I posted a follow up about it on Instagram, and I as did so I realized that while standing in the real, physical world I had captured a digital representation of that world, and then examined that image to discover a possible element of the supernatural world, and then investigated using the virtual world of Google Earth. That's the intersection of four worlds which, in my opinion, is pretty good. It occurs to me now that writing about it constitutes a narrative world. So five worlds. :-)

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Hey Christopher. Yes, X-Files, and so many other productions as well. The main building that sees filming inside is the Crease Unit, which is the big building that you can see from the highway. It's a more modern structure, and has stood in for hospitals, prisons, police stations, and just about any type of institutional setting you can think of. I've never been inside it, although it would be very interesting to do so, as I'm sure fragments of sets are everywhere and it would be a kind of surreal melange of locations. Nobody is allowed to film inside the West Lawn Pavilion anymore as it is too dangerous, although I think some filming did go on there for a…

My first introduction to this location was X-Files, am I right? Then my son & daughter-in-law lived in Coquitlam and we drove past it every time we visited. It is a towering, grand structure when view from the road. Curiously, we often arrived in the afternoon and passing it was an archetetual wonder, but going home after dinner and view the same building in the dark frequently turned our conversation to ghost stories. Your photos and the satellite shots reveal to me for the first time the expanse of the property.

As always, love to visit, comment & enjoy your many adventures. CAJ

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Say goodbye to tree tours at former Riverview Hospital grounds after 30 years

# Coquitlam Nonprofit Facing Halt in Free Tree Tours at Former Riverview Hospital

A Coquitlam nonprofit that has offered free tree tours for 30 years on the grounds of the former Riverview Hospital may have to discontinue the tours starting next year. The province has recently mandated that the nonprofit pay a fee of $825 per tour.

B.C. Housing, in collaboration with the k?ik?????m (Kwikwetlem First Nation), manages the property where the tours take place. The society was previously granted permission to run the tours for free by B.C. Housing. However, the proposed fee has raised concerns among the organizers of the Riverview Horticultural Centre Society (RHCS), as they rely heavily on volunteers to conduct the tours and believe that the new cost would significantly hinder their operations.

Board member Allison Luke stated, “We provide a public service. We’re providing an educational service for people and a recreational outlet.” Luke also noted that the society’s volunteers assist in maintaining parts of the renamed s?miq????el? grounds, which house a unique collection of 1,800 trees belonging to 160 different species. Some of these trees date back to the early 1900s and are considered “fine specimens” by arborists. According to Luke, there is nothing comparable to this collection in the Lower Mainland.

The two-hour-long tree walks, which historically occur once a month from April through October, attract a significant number of participants ranging from 50 to 100 people. Luke further expressed, “There’s not an Oscars or Grammy or an Olympics of trees, but if there were, the trees would be here.”

B.C. Housing explained that the introduction of the special events fee for the RHCS is to ensure fairness and transparency in comparison to other organizations and groups interested in hosting activities at s?miq????el?. The fee covers the processing of event applications and the assignment of a liaison officer to oversee the tour, as well as aligns with the requirements for other groups using the site for different events such as weddings, photo shoots, reunions, and filming. B.C. Housing adopted the liaison officer role in 2015 to safeguard the privacy of s?miq????el? residents and employees, as well as enforce environmental and cultural protocols.

Marilyne Andersen, the president of the RHCS, emphasized that their guides prioritize the privacy of residents during the tours by avoiding sections with housing. Andersen shared the history of the tours, which originated in 1993 when a group of Coquitlam residents, including a nurse from Riverview Hospital, initiated them out of concern that the land would be developed, resulting in tree clearance. The public tours have served as a means to educate and raise awareness about tree preservation ever since.

Andersen expressed her distress over the possibility of discontinuing the tours if alternative funding cannot be secured. She emphasized the importance of the trees and gardens on the grounds for mental well-being, acting as a calming and therapeutic space, particularly during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “The trees are life-giving,” Andersen added. Reference

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Riverview Hospital

The West Lawn at Riverview, which was completed in 1911.

Click on photograph for a larger picture and more information.

In 1904, 400 hectares of land in Coquitlam near the Fraser Rivers was set aside by the provincial government to build a new mental health facility. In 1909, the provincial government started to build the hospital and its first building, called West Lawn, was completed in 1911. On April 1, 1913, the hospital was opened under the name “Hospital for the Mind” and it would later be called Essondale, after Dr. Esson Young, who was responsible for its construction and was also the Provincial Secretary and Minister of Education. The hospital, later renamed Riverview Hospital, was considered state-of-the-art at the time and by 1913 it was home to 453 patients. The hospital continued to expand over the years and provided many in Coquitlam with work, both at the facilities and at Colony Farm (patients also worked at the farm as part of their physical therapy). Riverview reached its peak populations in thousands by the mid-1950s. However, by the 1980s, there would be a steady decrease in patients at Riverview. In 2012, the final 40 patients at Riverview were moved to different facilities in Surrey and Vancouver. Over a hundred years after its opening, Riverview was then closed.

Coquitlam Public Library New Horizons for Seniors Committee.  Coquitlam Then and Now . Coquitlam, B.C.: Coquitlam Public Library, 2011.  

arboretum finnies garden achievements brochures & books contact us history links maps photos volunteer Riverview Tree Survey Riverview Hospital Blog RHCS Blog

2014 RHCS VISION

2003 RHCS Riverview Report

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SSBC RV Tree Vision Winter 2006/07

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Coquitlam's VISION-Health Campus-NEW Coq. Task Force Report BMN Riverview Report Tree Collection Vision

A Unique Collection of Heritage Trees ARBORETUM

in COQUITLAM, BC - 2601 Lougheed Hwy.

Riverview Horticultural Centre Society Como Lake RPO, PO Box 64616 Coquitlam, BC, V3J 7V7 604-290-9910

Site maintained by 'The Riverview Horticultural Centre Society 'Copyright 2007. All rights reserved

The SPARC museum is located on the Riverview Hospital grounds in Coquitlam, BC Canada, about 15 minutes east of Vancouver

Hours: Open from 10:00 am through 3:00 pm Sundays only.

Group tours may be arranged by contacting [email protected] to make an appointment.

Ample free parking is available.  Admission is by donation.

The Riverview Hospital grounds are a sprawling site with many buildings. It can be a little difficult to find the building containing SPARC. There are two main entry points to Riverview off the Lougheed Hwy (#7) between the Cape Horn interchange and Coquitlam Centre: one at Colony Farm Rd. and one at Orchid Drive. SPARC is located in a light-yellow-beige metal-clad, flat-roof building roughly in the north-south centre of the grounds, up the hillside from the red-brick East Lawn building and south of the white-and-blue North Lawn building.

Once you’re on the Riverview grounds follow the white and blue signs for BCAS.

If you are visiting SPARC on a nice day you may wish to allot some extra time to walk about the Riverview site with it’s arboretum of trees and old architecture, and/or visit Finnie’s garden. Another possibility is to coordinate your visit with one of the Riverview Horticultural Centre Society’s Treefest tours.

Our Sunday programming is transmitted to the radios on the display floor on AM 1240 and FM 89.1 at low power. You may be able to tune in when you get near the building.

© 2024 Society for the Preservation of Antique Radio in Canada. All rights reserved.

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The Eerie Past Of Coquitlam’s Riverview Hospital

Photo: Justus Hayes/Flickr

The historic Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam has an unnerving past dating back to when it was founded in 1913.

If you’re looking for a spooky story about a local building – this is it.

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Riverview Hospital

British Columbia’s very first treatment centre for those suffering from mental illness was opened in 1876, as part of Royal Hospital in Victoria. The hospital was later closed due to overcrowding and the 1,000-acre lot in Coquitlam was purchased to construct Riverview Hospital.

In 1913, the building commonly known as West Lawn began treating around 300 mentally-ill male patients. While the building was intended to house 480 patients, it ended up housing a whopping 919.

The hospital is adjacent to Colony Farm, where the patients would work to help grow the crops.

The acute psychopathic unit known as Centre Lawn opened in 1924, followed by the opening of East Lawn in 1930, which acted as a female chronic unit.

Then the Veteran’s unit opened up in 1934, with the second phase completed in 1949—making it the hospital’s most significant building. The final addition was the tuberculosis unit, known as the North Lawn opened in 1955. One of the buildings treated patients as recently as the Summer of 2010.

The hospital has had a number of ghost sightings by a former janitor and others who walked the mysterious halls over the years. It’s without a doubt a creepy place.

The West Lawn building has been abandoned since 1983 and it’s an especially chilling part of the hospital.

Riverview Hospital’s creepy appearance has been featured in many TV and film roles. They include: Smallville, The X-Files, The 4400, Stargate Atlantis, Halloween: Resurrection, Ghost Tour and more.

Looking for more spine-chilling places to visit? Take this road trip to BC’s most haunted and abandoned places.

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WalkBC - BCRPA

Search form, find walks & recreation facilities, riverview public tree walk.

Sunday, June 14 at 1:00 pm.

Join the Riverview Horticultural Centre Society for a free walk through the heritage trees at Riverview Hospital. Walks are led by a volunteer arborist, and last about two hours, depending on weather and walkers' preference. Dress for the weather, and wear comfy shoes or boots. Children to adults welcome. Dogs on leash are also welcome. For more information, see the Riverview Horticultural Centre Society's website) or phone 604.290.9910.

Meet on the uphill side of the Henry Esson Young (HEY) Building.

Riverview Hospital is located at 2601 Lougheed Highway, Coquitlam: To reach HEY building take Holly Drive through the hospital grounds, then go uphill on Oak Crescent, and the HEY is on your right on Kalmia Drive. Find parking, and meet at the front door. Buses do go through the grounds (#177). Ask to be let off at Holly Dr and Lilac, or Holly Dr and Sorrel, and walk uphill to Kalmia. Please remember, no cameras unless you obtain written permission in advance. Note: Special tours for groups can be arranged by contacting trees (AT) rhcs (DOT) org, Mary at 604-939-7769 or Norma at 604-942-7378, or leave a message at 604-290-9910.

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Planning for future of B.C. psychiatric hospital site quietly halted

A years-long planning process to determine the future of the Riverview psychiatric hospital grounds in B.C. was quietly halted at the start of this year, CTV News has learned.

The site in Coquitlam was renamed Sumiqwuela in 2021 when the Kwikwetlem First Nation signed a partnership agreement with the province, and the website posting joint updates with BC Housing still says parallel master planning processes are underway.

But in an interview with CTV News, BC Housing’s Director of Land Development for Sumiqwuela/Riverview revealed that the agency had halted that planning earlier this year with no timeline for resumption.

“Reconciliation is really important to be seen as a journey and not a milestone,” said Lauren English, describing the focus being on developing the relationship with the Kwikwetlem First Nation.

Despite years of consultation, announcements, and meetings, BC Housing has nothing to show taxpayers or people desperate for access to intense mental health and addiction treatment.

“There is not a plan for its redevelopment right now,” said English. “There is not a plan for what buildings will be maintained, what buildings will be removed, what kind of uses will be introduced on the site– that does not exist at this point in time.”

HUNDREDS GETTING CARE ON SITE

Despite the Riverview Hospital being officially shut down in 2012, a handful of the historic buildings on the campus are still in use for psychiatric treatment, as are two new facilities opened in recent years. 

In total, 289 people are receiving in-patient treatment on the site, including programs provided through Coast Mental Health and the Red Fish Healing Centre – a model the NDP government plans to expand throughout the province.

The provincial government turned the property over to BC Housing when the hospital was shut down in 2012 and the agency had conducted years of public consultations and meetings to collect input from hundreds of members of the public, former patients, and various stakeholders.

In a 2015 report titled, A Vision for Renewing Riverview , BC Housing acknowledged that while there was public interest in building social housing on the site and paving the way for economic opportunities for the Kwikwetlem First Nation – mental health services were the community’s top priority. 

Coquitlam’s mayor points out that while most of the buildings are clearly crumbling and unsuitable for use – aside from a number of administrative buildings used by government agencies – the sprawling Centre Lawn building was upgraded a decade before the hospital shut down and is still in good condition with the heat on.

“It won’t be perfect, but it would be way better than having none of these facilities,” said Richard Stewart, suggesting up to 200 people could be housed there. “It can be a big part of reconciliation, but it can also serve a great many other needs.”

KWIKWETLEM ENCOURAGED BY THE PAUSE

The 244-acre parcel sits on a ridge in what the Kwikwetlem First Nation says is a section of their traditional territory; BC Housing has acknowledged the Nation's 8,000-year history on the site. 

A knowledge keeper and former councillor tells CTV News the community is encouraged that the provincial agency isn’t rushing the process and giving his elders time to consider what they’d like to see at Sumiqwuela.

“BC Housing is our partner, we’ve agreed to that, we’ve agreed on a process, we’ve agreed on a journey,” said George Chaffee. “We’re going to work hard to get there. It’s going to take time.”

As for families and individuals who have been looking to the hundred-year history of psychiatric support at that location and hoping there would be good news for expanded care there, English said they “recognize there’s a tremendous interest in the site” and had this message for them:

“I would encourage them to consider a province-wide approach to mental health treatment as well as housing. I think everyone is in agreement in recognizing the crisis that is underway and also understands that it needs to be a multi-pronged approach, not a single-site solution.”

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What will Riverview 2.0 look like for Coquitlam? You can have a say

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The səmiq̓ʷəʔelə/Riverview Lands should’t return to a sprawling institution to treat people with mental health challenges, says an expert about the Coquitlam grounds.

Rather, Dr. Julian Somers — the founding director of SFU’s Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction — believes the land stewards, BC Housing and the Kwikwetlem First Nation (KFN), should look at creating a Centre for Excellence where best practices about mental health can be followed by practitioners around the province.

Somers, who has advised agencies about how to shape policy to address severe mental health and homelessness, said that the redevelopment of the century-old acreage off Lougheed Highway has been “a stop-and-start story for decades…. It was very clear when I started my training as a psychologist in 1985 that it was planning to pack up.”

But now that the master planning process is underway, Somers said the concept about how to care for people with mental health challenges has changed: It’s better to have patients live in their own communities instead of “living out their days at Riverview.”

“There are options that help people immensely,” Somers told the Tri-City News last week. “Having stable housing, giving them autonomy. These are things some of them have never had…. The calls to reopen Riverview [as an institution] would not be taking advantage of a lot of what we’ve learned recently, and what makes them comfortable.”

Somers said that having the səmiq̓ʷəʔelə/Riverview Lands be a model of service to guide practitioners around B.C. — and providing them with additional community resources to replicate what’s happening on site — would be less expensive than having people with mental health challenges be in police custody or in the hospital with chronic ailments.

MASTER PLANNING

Indeed, the future of the səmiq̓ʷəʔelə/Riverview Lands has been top of mind with many professionals as BC Housing and KFN invite the public to be part of the master planning.

Last month, before they launched the process, BC Housing and KFN renamed the site to səmiq̓ʷəʔelə (pronounced suh-mEE-kwuh EL-uh) to reflect the Nation’s ancestral ties.

Still, BC Housing’s Carol De Paoli said the Crown corporation has received less than 100 responses since the survey came out ; as a result, the deadline for the first survey is now extended by a week, to April 30.

The site renewal will address mental health treatment as well as affordable housing; protection of open spaces (including trees); building heritage; and the role of reconciliation with the KFN on property of which it has an active legal land title claim.

That claim was filed in 2016, and is separate from the provincial government’s 2019 Declaration of Indigenous Rights and Titles ( DRIPA ) law when B.C. was first provincial government in Canada to align with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ( UNDRIP ). It is because of DRIPA that KFN will receive səmiq̓ʷəʔelə/Riverview Lands land transfers, with the remaining property staying in public hands.

“We do not know, at this time, what lands may be transferred and/or if our current land title claim may affect any of the transfer of lands,” wrote KFN project lead Jill Stauber, in an email to the Tri-City News . “The Kwikwetlem First Nation will continue to have open and meaningful dialogue with BC Housing and the province of B.C. in determining resolution over what accommodations may be negotiated for the loss of these unceded lands which are within our core territory. Accommodation could potentially take many forms, but cannot be determined at this time.”

“The Nation is also unable to comment on whether any lands that may be transferred will form reserve lands as the Kwikwetlem membership would need to be engaged and consulted,” she wrote.

OTHER STAKEHOLDERS

Meanwhile, the film industry also has a keen eye on səmiq̓ʷəʔelə/Riverview Lands.

“B.C.’s motion picture industry values Riverview and the long history of it being an anchor location,” Creative BC wrote. “Over the years, industry has been involved in ongoing conversations with BC Housing around the future development of the səmiq̓ʷəʔelə/Riverview Lands on which the industry works. This conversation includes consultation and discussions to include filming as part of its redevelopment and infrastructure.”

As well, the federal government is eyeing the site for its National Housing Strategy.  

“At the same time, protecting the arboretum and ensuring continued support for mental health and addictions is essential,” said Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam Liberal MP Ron McKinnon. “I look forward to working in partnership with the Kwikwetlem First Nation and our local community members to move forward with this important project." 

Port Moody-Coquitlam Conservative MP Nelly Shin , whose constituency includes the səmiq̓ʷəʔelə/Riverview Lands, declined to comment to the Tri-City News.

De Paoli said BC Housing is aware of the impact the redevelopment will have on Tri-City residents. “We really want to hear from them about how this landscape will change. We understand there’s going to be a lot of different interests for this site, and we want to find the synergies. What I’m hearing is that people are seeing the signs for opportunity.”

• Fill out the BC Housing survey via letstalkhousingbc.ca/sumiqwuelu-riverview by April 30. 

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