Rural living within close proximityto Vancouver (condos, houses, neighbourhood)
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Hi, we are moving to Vancouver later this year and I am on a scouting trip there this coming weekend. Which areas around Vancouver would meet our criteria:
1. Acreage - 5 to 10 acres which will allow keeping horses
2. Community - Feels part of a community i.e. not in the middle of nowhere
3. Convenience - Close enough to shops etc that running out to get some milk isn't a mission
4. Commutability - Within 30-40 mins from Downtown Vancouver
5. Schools - Good elementary and secondary schools
6. Neighbourhood - Surrounding properties well maintained and not neglected
Not sure whether such a place exists, but would appreciate any guidance. Only areas that look like it may fit the bill, based on desktop research, are Pitt Meadows and Langley but would love to hear how these fair based on the above criteria. Any other areas?
The further east and southeast you get from Vancouver the more rural and/or agricultural properties there are to choose from, but some of them would put you outside of 45 minutes to commute.
Closer in to Vancouver there is Port Coquitlam, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Delta, Langley, Fort Langley, Aldergrove, parts of south and east Surrey and parts of Richmond that may fit the bill. They all have rural land regions, they all are within the Agricultural Land Reserve and are close enough for reasonable commuting time into Vancouver. Maple Ridge is considered the horse capital of BC and has a very nice Equestrian Centre.
They would all fit your stated criteria except I will make a comment about the very last item on your list: # 6. Neighbourhood - Surrounding properties well maintained and not neglected.
If you're in a place where you're on 5 or more acres then generally all of your neighbours are also on 5 or more acres and most everyone's properties has trees and you don't get to see much of other people's properties because of trees so you won't know what kind of condition they are in. Rural people here are friendly enough but are usually very private MYOB kind of people who like their trees for privacy. However, I've noticed that the people who own acreage and livestock in areas closer to urban areas tend to be quite 'house-proud' and conscientious about keeping their properties looking in good condition anyway. Of course, any very wealthy estates are going to look very posh. The kind of people who are sloppy with the care and maintenance of their properties are usually on wilder, undeveloped properties a lot further away out in the boonies in the foothills of the mountains where you can't see them. And even then, it's an extremely rare thing to see any properties in the boonies that look like trash heaps or are repositories of old cars or years accumulations of dangerous junk. It just simply isn't done.
Be that as it may, if appearances and the way other rural people keep their properties is important to you it will be your responsibility to look around and investigate neighbourhoods from the road and choose a property for yourself that's in a neighbourhood that has other properties that obviously meet with your criteria for appearances. No matter where you go there are never any guarantees that all of your neighbours properties will meet with your personal standards of what YOU consider to be keeping up appearances and well maintained properties and there's nothing you can do about that. You would just have to mind your own business, accept it, respect your neighbours choices of lifestyle and maintenance and live and let live. All you can do is set a good example yourself.
If you're going to live rurally and keep horses or other livestock it will be extremely important for you to have good fences because predatory wildlife can present a problem to livestock no matter where you live in the lower mainland.
Just out of curiosity, where will you be moving from?
Hong Kong and Australia - wow! Moving here is going to be quite a change in climate for you. Have you had a chance to visit BC before this?
Another location I forgot to mention is Belcarra and Anmore in case you're interested in looking for a rural property close to the Indian Arm seaside. They are small communities side by side. You can see info and maps at these links:
Would Horseshoe Bay or even Squamish possibly fit the bill? Or some of the lots around Deep Cove, Belcarra or Anmore might work. Not sure if anything is large enough around Lions Bay either. There are some large houses in north Coquitlam but not sure if it's suitable for keeping horses. Typically that sort of lifestyle would suit Pitt Meadows / Maple Ridge and further east, but you're going further and further from downtown Vancouver. You could consider Sunshine Coast but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as you'd be bound to riding the ferry back into town.
Do you need to do this every day? I would take the West Coast Express from Pitt Meadows which you can buy on a compass card. It's a very convenient and comfortable 45 minute ride to downtown and you're guaranteed a seat with a pretty decent view at that. You'd have to check the times, IIRC my colleague starts at 7:45AM and he gets on at around 7AM. Easy train ride back to Pitt Meadows in the evening.
I wouldn't drive from Pitt Meadows to downtown if the locations of the WCE and downtown skytrain stations and the times work for you, but that's just me. 7AM departure and 6PM return wouldn't be the heaviest of traffic but still wouldn't be anything close to clear.
I think Squamish is a bit far out and can’t find acreages in Horeshoe Bay.
Any idea how long the commute takes during peak hour to and from Pitt Meadows to DT Vancouver?
If I leave Pitt Meadows at 7am and leave DT at 6m, is that in the middle of peak hour?
You wouldn't find any suitable acreages in Horseshoe Bay, the peninsula is too small, and even if there were acreages they'd be no good at all for horses. The peninsula is just a bunch of steep, sharp rocks sticking up out of the water, with some trees and a bunch of small home lots and condos on it.
7 am is early and 6 pm is at the tail end of peak hours, they aren't the middle of peak hours.
I live in downtown Port Haney in Maple Ridge and I have only once used West Coast Express to go to downtown Vancouver, it took less than an hour, I seem to recall it was around 45 minutes. Most of the time I use the transit buses and/or Sky Train to get around the rest of the Metro regions. The WC Express and the Sky Train are both really fast and frequent enough, and the bus services are convenient too, but then I'm not commuting to work every day though.
Will be a daily commuter going to the vicinity of W Georgia st. Don’t want to commute more than an hour
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