Princeton, British Columbia
A town of about 2,800 at the junction of Highways 3 and 5A where the Crown holds roughly three-quarters of the land inside the municipal boundary, the sawmill changed hands in September 2025 and is running under new family ownership, the copper mine 21 km away is now wholly owned by one listed miner, the railway is a Crown-owned recreation trail the Town is still trying to acquire, and the serviced industrial land is a 28-lot business park whose zoning already permits trucking yards, warehousing and distribution.
7 buildings · 6 with an owner established · 18 sources · 4 tier A · 3 tier B · 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 every search is a paid transaction: the LTSA Customer Fee Listing as at 1 April 2026 prices a title search, and a search under section 377 of the Land Title Act, at $11.06. There is no bulk owner product and no price-paid file. The unusual piece is the Land Owner Transparency Registry, which names the individuals behind corporations, trusts and partnerships holding BC land and is free — the same fee schedule prices a search of publicly accessible information under section 35 of the Land Owner Transparency Act at NIL. At the scale of a town of 2,800 the binding constraint is not the register's openness but publication: nobody publishes building-level ownership for Princeton, BC Assessment's own site forbids commercial use of its values, and the Town has no open-data portal. What the Town does publish, and publish unusually well for its size, is its own bylaws — an Official Community Plan, a zoning bylaw, an industrial-park tax-exemption bylaw with a parcel-by-parcel schedule, and an annual report that names the owner of every permissively exempt property with its PID.
- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Princeton sawmill Princeton, BC — civic address not stated in the sources opened |
Industrial | Gorman Bros. Lumber Ltd. Weyerhaeuser announced on 21 May 2025 that it had agreed to sell its Princeton lumber mill to the Gorman Group, owners of Gorman Bros. Lumber Ltd., "a family-owned wood products manufacturer headquartered in West Kelowna, B.C.", for approximately CAD $120 million in cash, calling Gorman a local buyer already the mill's largest customer. Weyerhaeuser's FY2025 Form 10-K (Note 20) records the sale completed 2 September 2025 for about US$85 million with a $29 million gain; its Q2 2026 Form 10-Q adds that in April 2026 it completed the transfer of the associated BC licences and received $22 million of escrow. The mill was not closed — it was sold, and runs under Gorman ownership. |
Family / private | approximately $85M 2025-09 Weyerhaeuser's own figure, inclusive of mill assets, the associated BC timber licences and working capital — not a real-property price. A |
| Copper Mountain Mine 21 km from Princeton by an 18.4 km paved road and 2.6 km of gravel; the claims straddle the Similkameen River and Highway 3 passes immediately west of the property |
Industrial | Hudbay Minerals Inc. 100% indirect interest, held through Copper Mountain Mine (BC) Ltd. Hudbay's FY2025 Annual Information Form states the property "consists of 135 Crown-granted mineral claims, 145 located mineral claims, 14 mining leases, 12 fee simple properties, and 7 cell claims, which together cover 6,354 ha (63.5 km2)", that "All claims are controlled by Copper Mountain Mine (BC) Ltd. (CMBC), Hudbay's wholly-owned subsidiary", and that "The CMM operation is the predominant employer in the area". Hudbay became 75% owner on 20 June 2023 via a plan of arrangement for Copper Mountain Mining Corp., and bought Mitsubishi Materials' remaining 25% of CMBC in a deal that closed 30 April 2025. The mine sits outside the Town boundary, in RDOS Area H. |
Public company | $4.5M upfront plus up to $39.75M deferred and contingent 2025-04 Price of the final 25% minority interest only; the first 75% came with the June 2023 share exchange for Copper Mountain Mining Corp. A |
| Princeton Industrial Park (Business Park) David Brown Way and Laurie Currie Way, Northeast Sector |
Industrial | Not established a paid title search would answer it Schedule A to the Industrial Park Revitalization Tax Exemption Bylaw No. 1004, 2021 lists 28 eligible parcels by civic address, folio and PID — 23 on David Brown Way and five on Laurie Currie Way — and applies the exemption "to property value based on land and improvements for Class 05 (Light Industrial)" at 100/80/60/40/20 per cent over five years. Zoning Bylaw No. 880, 2013 zones the park BP1 and BP2; BP2 "Business Park: General" permits "cartage, freighting and trucking yard", "distribution outlet", "warehouse", "storage facilities" and "works yard", minimum parcel 0.405 ha (1 acre), height 15 m. Tier B: parcels from Bylaw 1004, zone wording from Bylaw 880. Lot owners are unpublished. |
Not established | —B |
| Princeton Aerodrome Princeton, BC |
Civic | Town of Princeton The Town's 2024 Annual Report carries Airport as one of its service areas — "operation of the Princeton Airport terminal, and the supply of Aviation Fuel" — and reports two completed 2024 capital projects, new runway lighting and a replacement fuel distribution system, both under the Airport department. The Official Community Plan designates Airport lands on Schedule B, sets airport policies including "Consider the extension of water and sewer services to the airport", and identifies "Airport Housing Lands" for "housing on Town-owned land near the Airport" requiring a developer master plan. The Town's Fees and Charges Bylaw No. 1026, 2022 has a Schedule L for Airport Fees for Service. |
Government | —B |
| Kettle Valley Railway corridor through Princeton former Canadian Pacific Railway track bed, through the town centre |
Land | Province of British Columbia The corridor is not a railway and the Town does not own it. The Town's 2024 Annual Report lists four permissively exempt parcels whose owner is given as "Crown Provincial BC Assets and Land Corporation/Trails Society of British Columbia" with "PERMIT NO. 338090 For public recreation Trail purposes" — PIDs 015-015-645, 012-938-980, 012-939-366 and 012-939-099. The Official Community Plan records that the Town is still working "towards acquiring a corridor through the abandoned Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) track bed within the Town boundaries", and describes the KVR Trail as "one section of the world's largest trail (the Trans Canada Trail)". There is no through rail service. |
Government | —B |
| Princeton & District Multi-Purpose Arena Lots 2–3, Plan 4960, District Lot 1297 (PIDs 010-392-114 and 010-392-149) |
Civic | Town of Princeton The Town's largest single permissive tax exemption: the 2024 Annual Report states that $55,223.14 of property taxes would have been imposed on the arena parcels had they not been exempt. The Town replaced the arena roof, added rooftop solar generating electricity for the building, and bought an electric ice resurfacer in 2024. The same list shows the Town holding the curling club and parking lot ($27,580.19), two PXA Grounds parcels ($10,652.42 and $17,633.75), Memorial Park Grounds ($11,188.83), the golf club leased portion ($8,335.24), the Old Fire Hall ($2,569.76) and three Senior Citizens Branch #30 parking parcels. |
Government | —A |
| Interior Health Authority holding, District Lot 361 Lot 1, Plan 15643, District Lot 361, PID 008-757-232 |
Institutional | Interior Health Authority The largest non-municipal permissive tax exemption in Princeton: the Town's 2024 Annual Report names Interior Health Authority as owner and puts the foregone tax at $36,302.94. The adjoining part-parcel (Lot PT 1, Plan E14579) is exempted to the Princeton Long Term Care Society at $8,638.31. The Official Community Plan lists Cascade Medical Centre among the Town's major employers. The health authority's holding here is the largest single institutional property in the town on the published record. |
Government | —A |
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
There is no published highest-assessed-parcel figure for Princeton — BC Assessment's own site forbids commercial use of its values and no municipal portal republishes them — so the most valuable ground is described here by assessment class and by who holds the land. Two figures carry the record. Princeton has a major-industry assessment at all, which most BC towns of its size do not, and it is 7.3% of the whole base. And the Crown, not private owners, holds roughly three-quarters of the land area inside the municipal boundary.
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.
Ownership in Princeton is concentrated in four hands, and only one of them is a local family firm. The Province holds about three-quarters of the land inside the municipal boundary and effectively all the forest around it; Hudbay holds the mineral ground to the southwest; Gorman Bros. holds the mill and, since April 2026, the timber licences that feed it; and the Town holds 10% of the town, including the industrial park's services, the arena, the airport and the exhibition grounds. Private owners hold 963 parcels but only 15% of the land area.
| Name | Type | Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| Province of British Columbia ParcelMap BC records 169 Crown Provincial parcels (1,533.8 ha) and 26 Untitled Provincial parcels (635.3 ha) among the 1,310 active titled parcels inside the Town of Princeton, out of 2,933.4 ha in all. The Crown is also the landlord of the forest: the province's forest-tenure records show all harvesting around Princeton taking place on Crown land under licence, not on owned land. |
Government | 2,169 ha — 74.0% of the land inside the TownA |
| Hudbay Minerals Inc. Held through Copper Mountain Mine (BC) Ltd. (BC1519310 on the BC corporate register, active), Hudbay's wholly owned subsidiary and, per Hudbay's FY2025 Annual Information Form, the controller of all claims on the Copper Mountain property. Copper Mountain Mine (BC) Ltd. also holds six active cutting authorities over 918 ha in the Cascades Natural Resource District. Hudbay reached 100% on 30 April 2025. |
Public company | 6,354 ha (63.5 km²) of claims, leases and 12 fee simple propertiesA |
| Gorman Bros. Lumber Ltd. Weyerhaeuser's FY2025 Form 10-K lists 1,147 thousand acres of British Columbia licences and footnotes that "All licenses in British Columbia will be transferred to the purchaser of our Princeton lumber mill, pending regulatory approval"; its Q2 2026 Form 10-Q confirms the transfer completed in April 2026. Gorman Bros. Lumber Ltd. is BC0469899 on the BC corporate register, active since 1994. The province's cutting-authority records show 61 active authorities over 4,725 ha in Gorman Bros.' name, all in the Okanagan Shuswap district, extracted before the Cascades licences would appear. |
Family / private | the Princeton sawmill plus the BC timber licences transferred in April 2026A |
| Town of Princeton ParcelMap BC's local-government count for the municipality. The Town's own 2024 Annual Report puts the net book value of its tangible capital assets at $41,247,785, of which $4,073,845 is land and land improvements and $11,986,679 buildings, and carries $1,762,129 of "Land held for resale" plus council reserves for Industrial park ($142,539), Land sales ($248,152) and Parkland ($82,472). In 2024 it purchased a municipal lane from the Provincial Government and installed a water main loop within the industrial park. |
Government | 294 ha across 86 parcels — 10.0% of the TownA |
| Aspen Planers Ltd. The largest holder of active cutting authority in the Cascades Natural Resource District, the forest district Princeton sits in, on the province's Forest Tenure Harvesting Authority Polygons layer as extracted in September 2026. This is a licence to harvest Crown timber, not ownership of land. |
Private company | 7,706 ha across 63 active cutting authoritiesA |
| Similkameen Forest Products Ltd. Second-largest active cutting authority in the Cascades district. The province's Tree Farm Licence current-view layer names Similkameen Forest Products Ltd. as licensee of TFL 59 with a mapped area of 46,232 ha; the record establishes the licensee and the area but this research did not establish which drainages the licence covers. Again a tenure over Crown land, not fee-simple ownership. |
Private company | 7,376 ha across 41 active cutting authorities; and Tree Farm Licence 59, 46,232 haB |
| Vermilion Forks Community Forest Corporation A BC company, BC0886801, incorporated 27 July 2010 and active on the corporate register, holding the fifth-largest block of active cutting authority in the Cascades district. Community forest agreements in BC are tenures over Crown land held by a corporation, commonly with municipal or First Nation shareholders; this research did not open a document establishing who holds the shares of this corporation, and the record therefore does not say. |
Private company | 1,897 ha across 15 active cutting authoritiesB |
| Interior Health Authority The largest non-municipal permissive tax exemption on the Town's 2024 list, $36,302.94 of foregone tax. |
Government | Lot 1, Plan 15643, District Lot 361 (PID 008-757-232)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.
Princeton's housing stock is overwhelmingly single-detached — 81.6% of private dwellings against 44.1% for British Columbia as a whole on the 2016 census figures the Official Community Plan uses — and the 2024 Housing Needs Report puts the five-year need at 202 new units and the twenty-year need at 675. Who builds them is answerable only from a licence register, not from output: British Columbia publishes no homes-per-builder table, and BC Housing's New Homes Registry does not expose per-builder counts. What is public is the Licence Registry, which on a By-City search for Princeton returns eleven residential-builder licences in good standing. Nine are companies and are named below; two are individual licensees and a third trades under a personal name, and those are not named here.
| Name | Type | Licence status |
|---|---|---|
| AJIA Canadian Building Systems Inc. Also returned on a By-City search for Vernon, so it is licensed across the Okanagan and Similkameen rather than Princeton alone. |
Private company | Licence 37302, in good standingA |
| CEJ Mussell Enterprises Inc. BC Housing Licence Registry, By-City search for Princeton, all licence types, in good standing, September 2026. |
Private company | Licence 39010, in good standingA |
| EXL Homes Inc. BC Housing Licence Registry, By-City search for Princeton, September 2026. |
Private company | Licence 53126, in good standingA |
| Faserit Construction Inc. The lowest licence number of the Princeton set, so the longest-standing licence of the group. BC Housing Licence Registry, September 2026. |
Private company | Licence 23666, in good standingA |
| Fred and Company Builders Inc. BC Housing Licence Registry, By-City search for Princeton, September 2026. |
Private company | Licence 22915, in good standingA |
| Otter Valley Developments Ltd. BC Housing Licence Registry, By-City search for Princeton, September 2026. |
Private company | Licence 45677, in good standingA |
| Vedder Mountain Homes Inc. BC Housing Licence Registry, By-City search for Princeton, September 2026. |
Private company | Licence 46877, in good standingA |
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
There is no commercial landlord list for Princeton and no source that would support one: no REIT reports a Princeton asset, the Town publishes no commercial-property inventory, and BC Assessment's values may not be reused commercially. What is documented is the shape of the commercial ground rather than who owns it. Business and other assessment is $86.8M on the 2026 roll, 11.7% of the base. The Official Community Plan puts current commercial uses at 34% of all non-residential land by hectares (41% by parcels) and projects commercial to overtake industrial as the larger share of new non-residential development, focused in and around the Town Centre. Development Permit Area No. 1 covers the Town Centre and No. 2 the Highway 3 and 5A corridors, where the Highway Commercial designation expressly contemplates "truck stops and vehicle service centres" alongside motels, gas stations and large-format retail.
| Name | Type | Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| Town of Princeton The only landlord in the town whose holdings are itemised in public: the 2024 Annual Report's permissive-exemption schedule names the Town as owner of the arena, curling club and parking, two PXA Grounds parcels, Memorial Park, the Old Fire Hall, the golf-club leased portion, three Senior Citizens Branch #30 parking parcels and the Little Folks Nursery School site, each with its PID and foregone tax. |
Government | 294 ha across 86 parcelsA |
| Princeton Industrial Park lot owners (28 parcels) Schedule A to Bylaw No. 1004, 2021 identifies every eligible parcel by civic address, folio and PID, which makes the inventory public even though the owners are not. The Town's five-year revitalization exemption runs 100/80/60/40/20 per cent on land and improvements for new construction, capped at the declared construction value on the building permit. |
Private company | 28 Class 05 light-industrial parcelsA |
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 owns each of the 28 lots in the Princeton Industrial Park, and how many are vacant. Schedule A to Bylaw No. 1004, 2021 gives the addresses, folios and PIDs but no owners and no vacancy status; the Town's economic-development site (discoverprinceton.ca) returned no HTTP response at all, and princeton.ca/economic-development/ 404s, so no industrial-lot availability list could be opened. A title search at $11.06 per PID would answer ownership.
- Whether the Town of Princeton itself still owns unsold industrial lots. The 2024 Annual Report carries $1,762,129 of "Land held for resale", an "Industrial park" council reserve of $142,539 and a "Land sales" reserve of $248,152, and records a 2024 capital project to "install signage identifying the Princeton Industrial Park" — consistent with the Town having developed and being selling the park, but no document opened states it.
- The civic address and assessed value of the sawmill site. The Town's major-industry class is $54,596,100 on the 2026 roll and the mill is the obvious candidate, but no opened document assigns that value to a parcel, and BC Assessment's values may not be reused commercially.
- Who holds the shares of Vermilion Forks Community Forest Corporation. It is BC0886801 on the corporate register and holds 1,897 ha of active cutting authority, but no ownership document was opened; vermilionforkscommunityforest.ca did not resolve and the BC Community Forest Association member list could not be read.
- Whether any Princeton officeholder holds property relevant to their office. Nothing was recorded because nothing was found: the Town's 2024 Annual Report states under section 98(2)(e) of the Community Charter that "There are no Council members, past or present, that are subject to be listed under this section" for disqualification declarations, and no conflict-of-interest or financial-disclosure registry entry was opened. The record makes no claim either way.
- Whether the Kettle Valley Railway corridor outside the Town boundary is under the same tenure as the four parcels inside it. Only the in-boundary parcels appear in the Town's exemption schedule.
Sources
- Fees — LTSA Customer Fee Listing as at April 1, 2026 — Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia · openA
- About LOTR — Land Owner Transparency Registry — Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia · openA
- ParcelMap BC Parcel Fabric (PMBC_PARCEL_FABRIC_POLY_SVW), Town of Princeton — 1,310 active parcels by owner type — Land Title and Survey Authority of BC via BC Geographic Warehouse WFS · openA
- Forest Tenure Harvesting Authority Polygons (FTEN_HARVEST_AUTH_POLY_SVW), Cascades Natural Resource District, active authorities; and FADM Tree Farm Licence Current View (FADM_TFL_ALL_SP) — BC Ministry of Forests via BC Geographic Warehouse WFS · openA
- Bylaw No. 1004, 2021 — Industrial Park Revitalization Tax Exemption Bylaw, with Schedule A, List of Eligible Properties — Town of Princeton · openA
- Town of Princeton Official Community Plan 2022–2042, Bylaw No. 1044, 2023 — Town of Princeton · openA
- 2024 Town of Princeton Annual Report, including the audited financial statements, the list of permissive tax exemptions with owners and PIDs, and the development cost charges report — Town of Princeton · openA
- Town of Princeton Zoning Bylaw No. 880, 2013, and Zoning Amendment Bylaw No. 1049, 2024 (Business Park) — Town of Princeton · openA
- BC Housing Licence Registry — residential builder licences in good standing, By-City search for Princeton (11 results) and for Vernon (160 results) — BC Housing, Licensing & Consumer Services · openA
- Weyerhaeuser to Sell Princeton, B.C., Lumber Mill to Gorman Group, 21 May 2025; and Weyerhaeuser Company FY2025 Form 10-K, Note 20: Princeton Lumber Mill Divestiture — Weyerhaeuser Company / U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · openA
- Hudbay Minerals Inc. Form 40-F for FY2025, Exhibit 99.1 — Annual Information Form (Copper Mountain Mine property description; CMMC and MMC transactions; subsidiary list) — Hudbay Minerals Inc. via U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR · openA
- Weyerhaeuser Company Form 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026, Note 16: Princeton Lumber Mill Divestiture; and FY2025 Form 10-K Summary of License Arrangements — Weyerhaeuser Company via U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR · openA
- Local Government Statistics — Schedule 701, Assessed Values for the year 2026 — BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs · openA
- Property Transfer Tax Data 2025 — municipal monthly file — BC Ministry of Finance via BC Data Catalogue · openA
- BC Assessment homepage and copyright notice — BC Assessment · openA
- Princeton Housing Needs Report, 28 November 2024 — Town of Princeton · openA
- BC corporate registrations via OrgBook BC — Vermilion Forks Community Forest Corporation BC0886801, Gorman Bros. Lumber Ltd. BC0469899, Copper Mountain Mine (BC) Ltd. BC1519310 — BC Registries and Online Services via OrgBook BC · openA
- Official Community Plan — Bylaw No. 1044, 2023 adopted 20 December 2023, and Official Documents index — Town of Princeton · openA