New Denver, British Columbia
In a village of about 500 on Slocan Lake the municipality is the answer to "who owns the town": the Village of New Denver holds the halls, the park, the campground, the cemetery, the fire hall and the buildings of a national historic site, carries $1,221,201 of land at cost on its books, and its entire permissive tax-exemption list for 2025 is three churches worth $3,179.75 — while the community forest everyone assumes it has does not exist yet, because Council is only exploring whether to apply for one.
7 buildings · 4 with an owner established · 16 sources · 1 tier B · 6 tier A · prepared 2026-09-27
British Columbia's land title register is run by the Land Title and Survey Authority and anyone may search it, but each search is a paid transaction: $11.06 for a search under section 377 of the Land Title Act on the fee schedule current at 1 April 2026. There is no bulk owner product and no price-paid file. The Land Owner Transparency Registry — free to search, filings required from 30 November 2020, public search live since 30 April 2021 — names the individuals behind corporations, trusts and partnerships that hold BC land, but land held directly by a person is outside it. At the scale of a village of 500 the binding constraint is publication rather than openness: nobody publishes building-level ownership here, BC Assessment's site forbids commercial use of its values, and there is no municipal open-data portal. What New Denver does publish, and publish well, is its own estate: an annual report with the permissive tax exemptions named, audited statements with land and buildings at cost, a fees bylaw that prices every facility it owns, and a land disposal policy.
- bcassessment.ca — “Any commercial use of these data in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, including the use of such data for business, residential address or telephone directory services or any solicitation service is specifically prohibited except with the prior written authority of the owner of the copyright.”
The marquee buildings
The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.
| Building | Use | Owner | Owner type | Last price paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre 306 Josephine Street |
Institutional | Village of New Denver A National Historic Site on the site of "The Orchard" internment camp, with original buildings, the 1945 Shack, Kyowakai Hall and the Heiwa Teien Peace Garden. Two Village documents make it municipal: the 2025 Annual Report lists "NIMC buildings" among the "municipal buildings and public facilities" it maintains and tracks as assets, and Fees and Charges Bylaw No. 699, 2016 sets NIMC admissions ($9 adult, $7 student or senior, $20 family) and records that "Former internees are admitted free of charge upon advance request to the Village of New Denver". The centre opened in 1994 as an initiative of the New Denver Kyowakai Society; neither document states registered title, so tier B. |
Government | —B |
| Knox Hall (and the North Slocan Community Library) 521 6th Avenue |
Civic | Village of New Denver The Village's page gives Knox Hall a capacity of 50 and dimensions of 29 by 35 feet; the library sits on its lower level with four public computers. The Village prices its use in its own Fees and Charges Bylaw — $25 an hour, $75 a half day, $110 a full day, $350 a year for community organisations, $35 an hour cleaning, $50 for a lost key — and adopted a Knox Hall Rental Policy in May 2026. The 2025 Annual Report records that "Accessibility upgrades at Knox Hall were completed in 2025" and that the Village is "working with the North Slocan Library Society toward registered library" status, which is a transition of the service, not of the building. |
Government | —A |
| Centennial Park, the Kohan Reflection Garden and Centennial Campground Slocan Lake waterfront, New Denver |
Land | Village of New Denver The Village's Fees and Charges Bylaw has a schedule headed "Rental of Parks and Public Lands" pricing the Centennial Park gazebo, BBQ shelter, field, stage and propane firepit ($55 to $450 depending on size of event), and a Centennial Campground schedule at $30 a night regular, $50 lakeside, $40 serviced, $20 overflow, with a Municipal Campground Policy adopted in 2025. The 2025 Annual Report records the Village completing the Centennial Park stage, gathering space, servicing and accessible washrooms, and accessibility work at the Kohan Reflection Garden — a public Japanese-style garden established in 1989 honouring the Japanese Canadians relocated to the BC Interior in 1942. |
Government | —A |
| New Denver Fire Hall and Village Office 115 Slocan Avenue |
Civic | Village of New Denver The 2025 Annual Report states "The Village Office is located at 115 Slocan Avenue" and captions a photograph "New Denver Fire Hall and Village Office"; the Facilities section lists "the Village office and fire hall" among the municipal buildings it maintains. The Village runs a volunteer fire department that answered 91 callouts in 2025 and also provides fire protection to the Village of Silverton and parts of RDCK Area H under service agreements. |
Government | —A |
| Silvery Slocan Museum (the former Bank of Montreal building) 202 – 6th Avenue |
Institutional | Not established a paid title search would answer it The Village's page states the museum "located in the former Bank of Montreal building on Main Street (202 – 6th Avenue), has been a fixture in the community for over 100 years" and holds exhibits on mining, logging and agriculture plus the restored Lancet motor launch. The Village's 2025 Annual Report lists "museum facilities" among the buildings it maintains, which establishes that it maintains them, not that it holds title. No document examined states the registered owner, and the museum is run by a historical society rather than by the Village, so this record leaves the owner blank rather than guess between them. |
Not established | —A |
| Bosun Hall 710 Bellevue Street |
Civic | Not established a paid title search would answer it "The Bosun Hall at 710 Bellevue Street has served as a gathering place in the community for over 100 years. Proceeds from The Donation Store support its operation", and bookings are made through a community member rather than the Village office. The Village commissioned both a 2016 structural assessment and a 2018 replacement-concept feasibility study — the study thanks New Denver's CAO and Recreation and Cultural Services Coordinator and the Lucerne Association for Community Education for their help, and records the existing hall at about 3,100 sq ft with a proposed replacement capacity of 276 people. None of those documents states who owns the hall. |
Not established | —A |
| The largest privately held parcel inside the village PID 012-165-921, 4.22 ha, parcel class Subdivision; no civic address published |
Land | Not established a paid title search would answer it ParcelMap BC returns 435 titled parcels inside the Village of New Denver, of which 346 are classed OWNER_TYPE "Private" and total 42.54 ha. The largest private parcel is 4.22 ha (PID 012-165-921), then 3.47 ha (011-307-030) and 3.39 ha (006-214-126). The layer carries PID, geometry and an owner class and no owner name; that is by design, and settling any one of them costs an $11.06 title search. |
Not established | —A |
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
New Denver's assessment base is published in full by the province, and it says what the eye sees: a village of houses with a thin commercial street and no industry at all. Not only is major industry nil — light industry, managed forest land and farm are all nil too, which is unusual even among small BC villages. Fifteen properties changed hands in the whole of 2025. The Village's own books are the other half of the picture: $1,221,201 of land at cost and $2.28M of buildings against $469,619 of property taxes collected in the year.
Who owns the town
At this scale the significant owner is rarely a trust or a fund: it is one or two local holding companies, a family in its second or third generation, and often the land around the town rather than the buildings in it.
In New Denver the largest identifiable owner is the Village itself, and the second tier is three churches. The Village holds the halls, the waterfront park and garden, the campground, the cemetery, the office and fire hall and the buildings of the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, and carries $1.22M of land and $2.28M of buildings at cost; ParcelMap BC records 16 parcels inside the village boundary as Local Government, 11.79 ha against 42.54 ha in 346 private hands. Beyond that, ownership is atomised: no company, family or landlord is named as a substantial holder in any public record examined. What the village does not have is a community forest — Council is exploring whether to apply for one and has not applied — so unlike Nakusp there is no municipally owned forestry company here. The Slocan valley's community forest belongs to a co-operative, SIFCo, not to any village.
| Name | Type | Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| Village of New Denver The Village's 2025 Annual Report lists the municipal buildings and public facilities it maintains: "halls, washrooms, the Village office and fire hall, NIMC buildings, pumphouses, museum facilities, playgrounds, the sand shed, and park infrastructure". Its fees bylaw prices Knox Hall, Centennial Park, the Centennial Campground, the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre and the cemetery. Schedule A of its audited statements carries land at $1,221,201 and buildings at $2,280,476 of $13,469,859 gross tangible capital assets. ParcelMap BC records 16 Local Government parcels inside the village, 11.79 ha, the largest 5.09 ha. The Village adopted a Land Disposal Policy in 2026 and a Temporary Licence of Occupation Policy in May 2026. |
Government | $1,221,201 of land at cost; 16 parcels, 11.79 haA |
| St. Anthony's Catholic Church, the Pentecostal Church and St. Stephen's Anglican Church The only non-government property holders named in any public New Denver record examined. The Village's 2025 Annual Report states that "for taxes imposed in 2025, the Village provided permissive tax exemptions to the following properties" and lists the Pentecostal Church at $1,705.25, St. Stephen's Anglican Church at $969.12 and St. Anthony's Catholic Church at $505.38. A permissive exemption is granted on property the organisation holds. Unlike Princeton's schedule, New Denver's does not publish PIDs. |
Institution | 3 exempt properties, $3,179.75 of tax forgoneA |
| Slocan Integral Forestry Cooperative The community forest of the Slocan valley is held by a co-operative, not by a village: the province's forest-tenure managed-licence layer returns community forest agreement K2R, licensee "SLOCAN INTEGRAL FORESTRY COOPERATIVE", as two active Schedule B blocks totalling 15,981.2 ha in the Kootenay-Boundary Natural Resource Region. A community forest agreement is a licence to harvest Crown timber; the co-operative does not own that land. A query of the same layer for any licensee whose name contains "Denver" returns zero features. |
Private company | 15,981.2 ha of community forest tenure (K2R)A |
| Interfor Corporation Inside a box around New Denver and Slocan Lake (-117.55 to -117.25 E, 49.90 to 50.08 N) the province's harvesting-authority layer returns four active Interfor forest-licence polygons totalling 542.5 ha, plus 18 retired ones (2,430.8 ha). Kalesnikoff Lumber Co. Ltd. holds one active forest-licence polygon of 222.4 ha and Valhalla Mountain Touring an active occupant licence to cut. These are rights to harvest Crown timber, not land ownership: the province owns the ground. |
Public company | 542.5 ha of active forest-licence cutblocks near the villageA |
Where property meets office
Recorded only where a public record states it — a disclosure registry, council minutes, a land-use decision. Stated as fact, with nothing inferred from it.
| Holder | Office | Holding |
|---|---|---|
| Village of New Denver | Village of New Denver Council (the Mayor and Council, 2025 Annual Report) | A community forest agreement the Village is considering applying for, over an area "generally extending from north of Silverton toward Hills" The Village publishes the state of play itself, and it is a negative: "The Village of New Denver is considering whether to apply to the Province of British Columbia for a Community Forest Agreement. No application has been submitted, no agreement has been approved, and no authority to harvest timber has been granted." A survey was run in August 2026 for preliminary feedback and "was not a referendum or approval". The page states that no management or harvesting plan has been prepared, no governance structure selected, no financial analysis completed and no area approved. The Mayor's message in the 2025 Annual Report records that "Council also continued to explore community forest opportunities." Nothing here is a private interest; it is recorded because in this valley a community forest is how a council comes to control land. A |
| Village of New Denver | Village of New Denver Council (2022–2026 term) | Municipal land and buildings, disposed of or licensed under Council policy Council adopted a Land Disposal Policy (published August 2026) and a Temporary Licence of Occupation Policy dated 12 May 2026, both published on the Village's bylaws and policies page, alongside a Knox Hall Rental Policy and a 2025 Municipal Campground Policy. Together they are the rules under which the largest landowner in the village parts with or lends out its ground. No disposition notice was found for 2025 or 2026. A |
Who builds the houses
New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.
There is no housebuilding industry to rank here and no builder-level data at any level of government: CMHC's starts series covers centres of 10,000 and over, which excludes New Denver entirely, and the village publishes no permit count in its annual report. What the Village does report is that Development Services spent 2025 answering "property, mapping, land-use, and development inquiries" and carrying forward the Official Community Plan and Zoning Bylaw review, the Housing Needs Report and a draft Downtown Revitalization Plan. Fifteen properties sold in the village in the whole of 2025. The 2024 Interim Housing Needs Report is published only as a scanned image, so no housing-need figure could be read from it. No builder is named in this record because no source names one with a figure.
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
The whole business-and-other class is assessed at $11.0M on the 2026 roll and produced one commercial transaction in 2025. No private commercial landlord is named in any public record examined. The documented landlord is the municipality: it lets Knox Hall by the hour, the day and the year, prices Centennial Park's gazebo, shelter, field and stage by event size, runs the Centennial Campground at $30 to $50 a night and charges admission at the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre. Ownership of the 6th Avenue commercial frontage is not published anywhere and would need title searches parcel by parcel.
| Name | Type | Documented holdings |
|---|---|---|
| Village of New Denver Schedule B of the Village's 2025 audited financial statements: sales of service $267,021, of which the Parks and Recreation segment earned $159,871 plus $75,126 of other revenue from own services, and Environmental Health Services $103,381. The Parks and Recreation segment ran a $454,871 surplus on $954,215 of revenue, the largest of any segment. These are the campground, the halls, the park rentals and the museum-and-heritage operation the Village runs commercially. |
Government | $267,021 of sales of service; $159,871 of it Parks & RecreationA |
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- Who holds registered title to the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre site at 306 Josephine Street. The Village sets its admission fees by bylaw and maintains "NIMC buildings" as municipal facilities, and the centre was founded by the New Denver Kyowakai Society in 1994; no document examined states the registered owner, and a search of BC's corporate registry through OrgBook returns no active society whose name contains "Kyowakai".
- Who owns the Silvery Slocan Museum building at 202 – 6th Avenue, the former Bank of Montreal, and who owns Bosun Hall at 710 Bellevue Street. The Village maintains both and commissioned studies on Bosun Hall; neither its annual report nor its fees bylaw states title to either.
- Ownership of the Slocan Community Health Centre and its long-term-care beds in New Denver. Interior Health's location pages render client-side and could not be read by script, and BC health-facility title may sit with the health authority, the province or a legacy hospital society.
- The registered owner of the largest private parcel inside the village, PID 012-165-921 (4.22 ha), and of the ten parcels ParcelMap BC classes "Crown Agency" inside the village boundary — the layer gives the class and never the agency.
- New Denver's housing need. The 2024 Interim Housing Needs Report is a scanned image-only PDF from which no figure could be extracted.
- No open BC dataset names the owner of any parcel: ParcelMap BC's public extract is geometry, PID and owner class; BC Assessment's roll is licensed to named users and its site forbids commercial use of the values; LOTR covers only land held through corporations, trusts and partnerships, which in a village of 500 is a small minority of it.
- BC publishes no price-paid file. Property transfer tax data is monthly counts and aggregate fair market value by municipality, with small counts suppressed as "not releasable".
Sources
- Village of New Denver 2025 Annual Report, with Statement of Financial Information and audited financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025 — Village of New Denver · openA
- The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre — Village of New Denver · openA
- Fees and Charges Bylaw No. 699, 2016, consolidated February 2026 — Schedule A, Recreation and Cultural Services Fees — Village of New Denver · openA
- Silvery Slocan Museum, Knox Hall, Bosun Hall and Kohan Reflection Garden amenity pages — Village of New Denver · openA
- Bosun Hall Feasibility Report, 18 October 2018 — Cover Architecture for the Village of New Denver · openA
- ParcelMap BC Parcel Fabric (PMBC_PARCEL_FABRIC_POLY_SVW), Village of New Denver — Land Title and Survey Authority of BC via BC Geographic Warehouse WFS · openA
- Forest Tenure Managed Licence (FTEN_MANAGED_LICENCE_POLY_SVW) — community forest agreement K2R, Slocan Integral Forestry Cooperative — BC Ministry of Forests via BC Geographic Warehouse WFS · openA
- Forest Tenure Harvesting Authority Polygons (FTEN_HARVEST_AUTH_POLY_SVW), New Denver box — BC Ministry of Forests via BC Geographic Warehouse WFS · openA
- Proposed New Denver Community Forest — Village of New Denver · openA
- Bylaws, Policies, Mapping — Land Disposal Policy, Temporary Licence of Occupation Policy, Knox Hall Rental Policy, Municipal Campground Policy — Village of New Denver · openA
- Local Government Statistics — Schedule 701, Assessed Values for the year 2026, and Schedule 201, General Statistics for 2024 — BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs · openA
- Property Transfer Tax Data 2025 — municipal monthly file — BC Ministry of Finance via BC Data Catalogue · openA
- Fees — LTSA Customer Fee Listing (fees as at April 1, 2026) — Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia · openA
- About the Land Owner Transparency Registry — Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia · openA
- BC Assessment homepage and copyright notice — BC Assessment · openA
- BC Corporate Registry search for societies named "Kyowakai" (no active registration returned) — BC Registries and Online Services via OrgBook BC · openA