Williams Lake, British Columbia
Williams Lake is the sharpest illustration in this batch of the difference between a forest licence and owning forest: West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. holds Tree Farm Licence 52 over 262,996 hectares of Crown land around the city, and the province's own Schedule A layer — the land a tree farm licensee actually owns — returns 80.7 hectares. That is a ratio of about 3,258 to one, and the City itself owns more land inside its boundary than every private owner in it except by area.
8 buildings · 8 with an owner established · 12 sources · 8 tier A · prepared 2026-10-03
Can you find out who owns it?
British Columbia's land title register is open to anyone but priced per search: $11.06 for a search under section 377 of the Land Title Act on the LTSA Customer Fee Listing current at 1 April 2026, with no bulk owner product and no price-paid file. Williams Lake does not appear in LTSA's Tax Certificates table, so the cheaper municipal route to an owner that exists in Kamloops or Prince George is not priced for this city. The free part of the system is the Land Owner Transparency Registry, which since 30 November 2020 has required a transparency declaration on every new registration and a transparency report from corporations, trusts and partnerships naming the individuals behind them; a search of the publicly accessible part is priced NIL. The City fills part of the gap in its own annual report: its permissive and revitalization tax exemption tables name organisations and, in the City's own words, "if property is owned by other than exemption recipient, property owner and exemption recipient is shown" — which is how the owner of the town's shopping centre becomes a matter of public record. Everything about the forest around the city is published by the province, by name, free; none of it is ownership.
Is ownership public?Public, but one paid search at a time
Cost of one title search$11.06 per title search (LTSA Customer Fee Listing, fees as at April 1, 2026). A search of publicly accessible information under section 35 of the Land Owner Transparency Act is priced NIL on the same schedule. Williams Lake does not appear in LTSA's Tax Certificates table, which prices that route for most BC municipalities between $92 and $137.
Bulk ownership dataNone published
Sale pricesAggregates only — no individual sales
Sites that forbid taking their data
- 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.”
1
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boitanio Mall Williams Lake |
Retail | BC Retail Partners (Boitanio Mall) Ltd. The City of Williams Lake's 2025 Statement of Revitalization Exemptions names "BC Retail Partners (Boitanio Mall) Ltd." against an exemption of $10,787, and the table's own footnote states that "if property is owned by other than exemption recipient, property owner and exemption recipient is shown" — so the City is naming the owner. The company's registered name carries the building's name, which is what makes the identification safe. The City's table gives no address, no floor area and no price, and none is published here. Oliver Street Investments Ltd. appears in the same table at $25,081, the largest revitalization exemption after West Fraser's. |
Private company | —A |
| West Fraser Mills Ltd. property, downtown revitalization area Williams Lake |
Industrial | West Fraser Mills Ltd. The City's 2025 Statement of Revitalization Exemptions names West Fraser Mills Ltd. against an exemption of $34,414, the largest of the eight it granted and 42% of the $81,603 total. The City's footnote establishes the names in the column are owners. West Fraser's own locations directory returned no Williams Lake entry to an automated read, so the mill is not described or sized here; the City's table is what establishes that the company owns rateable property in the municipality. The City's aquatic centre is named the West Fraser Aquatic Centre. |
Public company | —A |
| Tree Farm Licence 52 Crown land surrounding Williams Lake, Cariboo 262,995.9 ha of licence; 80.7 ha of Schedule A |
Land | His Majesty the King in right of the Province of British Columbia The province's tree farm licence current-view layer returns TFL 52 at 262,995.9 hectares with West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. named as licensee. A tree farm licence is an exclusive right to harvest Crown timber, not ownership of the land. The province's Schedule A layer — the layer that maps land or timber the licensee itself holds — returns 80.7 ha for TFL 52, categorised "Crown Grant", with no retirement date. Reading the licence as ownership would overstate West Fraser's freehold around Williams Lake by about three thousand two hundred and fifty-eight to one. |
Government | —A |
| Williams Lake Regional Airport (CYWL) Williams Lake |
Civic | City of Williams Lake The City's 2025 Annual Report states that "the Williams Lake Regional Airport (CYWL) has been owned and operated by the City of Williams Lake since 1997", that it serves Central Mountain Air and Pacific Coastal Airlines plus daily resource-sector charters, that it supports air ambulance and general aviation, that it is regularly used by the Canadian Forces for training, that heli-skiers used it twice a week through the winter and that it handles one to three medevacs a day. Airport Services is a reported segment in the City's audited consolidated schedule of segment disclosure. |
Government | —A |
| Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex Williams Lake |
Civic | Cariboo Regional District The City's 2025 Annual Report states that "the Community Services Department proudly operates the Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex (CMRC), owned by the Cariboo Regional District" — the City naming, in its own report, a building it runs and does not own. It is the cleanest published answer in this batch to the commonest trap in the section: the operator is not the owner, and here the operator says so. The complex holds a 25-metre lap pool, a leisure pool, a swirl pool, sauna, steam room, waterslide and a second-floor fitness centre. |
Government | —A |
| Cariboo Friendship Centre 99 3rd Avenue South, Williams Lake 2,188 sq m on 0.0883 ha |
Institutional | Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (Crown in right of Canada) The Directory of Federal Real Property records "Williams Lake-Cariboo Friendship Centre" at 99 3rd Avenue South as "Crown Owned" by Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada: one building, 2,188.00 sq m of floor area on 0.0883 ha, primary use Assembly and Cultural — the largest federally owned building in the city. The same custodian owns the "Williams Lake-Pregnancy Outreach Centre" at 624 Oliver Street, 230 sq m on 0.3355 ha, classed Residential. Published under the Open Government Licence – Canada. |
Government | —A |
| Williams Lake RCMP Detachment 575 Borland Street, Williams Lake 2,088.9 sq m in two buildings on 0.4072 ha |
Civic | Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Crown in right of Canada) The Directory of Federal Real Property records the Williams Lake Detachment Site at 575 Borland Street as "Crown Owned": two buildings, 2,088.90 sq m of floor area on 0.4072 ha. Williams Lake is the only city in this batch where Canada owns its police station rather than renting it. The RCMP's storage site at 555 2nd Avenue North (0.1575 ha) is held under "Lease or Licence", as are Canada Post's post office at 48 2nd Avenue South (1,340 sq m) and three Public Services and Procurement Canada offices totalling 1,165 sq m. |
Government | —A |
| Williams Lake landfill site Williams Lake 18 ha |
Institutional | His Majesty the King in right of the Province of British Columbia The province's Crown tenures layer, clipped to the legal city boundary and limited to tenures in good standing, returns 18 ha of INSTITUTIONAL / WASTE DISPOSAL SITE held under a LEASE — the only substantial Crown lease inside the city. The public view of the layer nulls the CLIENT_NAME field, so the lessee is not named, but the land under the city's waste disposal site is provincial and leased rather than owned by a local authority. Two further hectares are held under an INSTITUTIONAL / PUBLIC WORKS licence. |
Government | —A |
2
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
Williams Lake has a $2.09 billion roll, 44.9% of its land is titled private parcel and 19.3% is municipal — a higher municipal share than any other city in this batch, because the City owns an airport, a landfill approach, large parks and the Scout Island shoreline. The forest economy barely shows: major industry is $35.7 million on the 2026 roll, 1.7% of assessment, and managed forest land inside the boundary is nil. The province's residual "Forest Management Unit" class returns 766 ha, 21.2% of the city, and is NOT read here as Crown forest — unlike Whistler, there is no named Crown tenure under it to test it against.
City total assessed value, 2026 roll$2.09B
$2,092,682,408 for general municipal purposes on the 2026 roll: residential $1,641,962,334, business and other $372,977,535, major industry $35,742,600, utilities $25,574,100, light industry $15,161,200, recreation and non-profit $1,228,400, farm $36,235, supportive housing $4. Managed forest land inside the boundary is nil. BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Local Government Statistics Schedule 701 for the year 2026.
City's own land, at cost$28,746,182
The land column of the City's audited consolidated schedule of tangible capital assets at 31 December 2025, up $12,700 on the year, within $118,477,098 of total net book value — of which buildings are $14,035,838, roads $31,594,638 and engineering structures $27,192,409. Land is 24% of the City's gross asset cost of $236,680,374 and the single largest line in it.
Tax exemptions the City publishes by name$370,633 permissive, $81,603 revitalization
The City's 2025 Annual Report prints both tables organisation by organisation. The revitalization table, where owners are named, is West Fraser Mills Ltd. $34,414; Oliver Street Investments Ltd. $25,081; BC Retail Partners (Boitanio Mall) Ltd. $10,787; 1198514 BC Ltd. $7,834; 1236420 BC Ltd. $1,242; Wave Properties Ltd. $1,099; TR Underwood Engineering Ltd. $837; Good Guys Gardening Centre Inc. $309. The permissive table includes the Nature Trust of BC at $36,847 and Williams Lake Developments Ltd. (Canadian Mental Health Association) at $8,132.
Whole-city turnover, 2025242 sales, $115.3M
242 market transactions in the City of Williams Lake across 2025 — 220 residential, 21 commercial — with $115,305,352 of total fair market value and $1,312,019 of property transfer tax paid. The corporate-transaction count was suppressed as not releasable in 9 of 12 months; 6 corporate and 40 individual transactions are reported across the three months that were released. BC Ministry of Finance property transfer tax data 2025, municipal monthly file.
City area and population3,603 ha, 10,947 people
Schedule 201, General Statistics for 2024: 3,291 ha of land and 312 ha of water, 3,603 ha total; 2021 census population 10,947 and BC Stats estimate 11,626; 112 km of roads and 118 km of water pipe. The province's legally defined municipal boundary layer independently returns 3,603.0 ha. The City also reports that its taxpayers pay $11.1 million in taxes to other jurisdictions.
3
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.
Inside the boundary Williams Lake is 44.9% titled private parcel (1,621 ha of 3,613 ha) and 19.3% municipal (697 ha), with 426 ha of provincial miscellaneous reserves and 766 ha in the land-designation layer's residual class. That residual is not published as Crown forest: unlike Whistler there is no named Crown tenure covering it to test it against, and the same class has been shown elsewhere to return for roads, parks and hospital land. Outside the boundary the picture is Crown land under licence: Tree Farm Licence 52 alone covers 262,996 hectares, seventy-three times the whole municipality, and the licensee owns 80.7 ha of it.
| Name | Type | Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| Privately held land (owner not published) Derived from our own 100 m grid sample of the province's Land Designations for Forest Management layer clipped to the legally defined City of Williams Lake boundary (3,613 sample points, against the boundary layer's 3,603.0 ha): 1,499 ha classed Private Parcel outright plus 122 ha in overlapping private classes, including 10 ha of Private Conservation Area. A further 3 ha is classed "Private First Nation Title". The layer is licensed "Access Only", so only this derived aggregate is published, and it records the designation and never the owner's name. |
Private company | 1,621 ha of 3,613 ha, 44.9%A |
| City of Williams Lake The grid sample returns 357 ha classed Municipal Parcels and 340 ha classed Local/Regional Park, together 19.3% of the municipality — the highest municipal land share of the five cities in this batch. The City's audited schedule carries land at $28,746,182 of historical cost within $118,477,098 of tangible capital assets at net book value, and it reports Airport Services and Cemetery Services as segments in its own right. |
Government | 697 ha, 19.3%; $28,746,182 of land at costA |
| West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. (as licensee, not owner) The province's tree farm licence current-view layer names West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. as licensee of TFL 52, 262,995.9 ha. The Schedule A layer, which the province describes as private land or timber owned by the tree farm licence holder, returns a single active feature for TFL 52: 80.7 ha categorised "Crown Grant". The licence is not ownership and the gap between the two numbers is the whole point of publishing both. |
Public company | 262,995.9 ha of Crown tenure; 80.7 ha of freeholdA |
| Province of British Columbia (provincial Crown) The grid sample returns 426 ha of Misc. Reserves, 36 ha of Watershed Reserve, 4 ha of Community Watershed and 18 ha of Misc. Lease inside the city. The Crown tenures layer adds, in good standing and clipped to the boundary, 178 ha of FIRST NATIONS / CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE reserve/notation, 136 ha of miscellaneous reserve, 95 ha of environment protection reserve, 71 ha of RESIDENTIAL / URBAN RESIDENTIAL reserve/notation, 40 ha of watershed reserve, 32 ha reserved for planning and development projects, 18 ha of waste disposal site lease and 14 ha for science measurement and research. |
Government | 426 ha of reserves inside the boundary, plus the TFL land base outside itA |
| Canada (federal custodians) The Directory of Federal Real Property records four Crown Owned federal properties in the city — the Cariboo Friendship Centre, the Pregnancy Outreach Centre and the RCMP detachment on 0.4072 ha with two buildings — against leased accommodation at an RCMP storage site, the post office and three PSPC offices. The grid sample returns 4 ha of First Nation Reserve under federal administration and 2 ha of other federal parcels inside the boundary. |
Government | 0.4238 ha owned, 2,418 sq m of buildings; 0.1575 ha and 2,505 sq m leasedA |
| The Nature Trust of British Columbia Named in the City's 2025 permissive tax exemption table at $36,847, the largest single exemption in the table after the City's own holdings — a land conservancy holding rateable property inside the city boundary. The grid sample independently returns 10 ha classed Private Conservation Area within Private Parcel land. The City's table does not state the parcel or its area. |
Institution | $36,847 of permissive exemptionB |
5
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.
No builder league table exists for a city of 10,947 and the City publishes no starts series. What the City does publish is the names of eight owners in its revitalization exemption table and a line about a development with "estimated value exceeding $50 million upon" completion. The entries below are the owners of record the City names; none is a unit count and none is invented.
| Name | Type | 2025 tax exemption |
|---|---|---|
| Oliver Street Investments Ltd. The second largest revitalization tax exemption the City granted in 2025. Oliver Street is the main commercial street in Williams Lake, and a revitalization exemption is granted against new construction or improvement in the designated area — so the City is naming an owner building in its downtown. The table gives nothing further. |
Private company | $25,081A |
| Williams Lake Developments Ltd. Named in the City's 2025 permissive tax exemption table as "Williams Lake Developments Ltd. (Canadian Mental Health Association)" — the City's footnote convention means the company is the property owner and the association is the exemption recipient. A private company owning the building a mental health charity occupies is the shape of small-city social infrastructure. |
Private company | $8,132A |
| 1198514 BC Ltd. and 1236420 BC Ltd. Two numbered companies named in the City's 2025 revitalization exemption table at $7,834 and $1,242. A numbered company acquiring BC land since 30 November 2020 must file a transparency report under the Land Owner Transparency Act naming its interest holders, and a search of the publicly accessible part is free. No such search was run here and no individual is named. |
Private company | $9,076 combinedA |
| Wave Properties Ltd. Named in the City's 2025 revitalization exemption table at $1,099. TR Underwood Engineering Ltd. ($837) and Good Guys Gardening Centre Inc. ($309) complete the table. These are the whole of the City's published list of private owners improving property in the revitalization area. |
Private company | $1,099A |
6
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
The business and other class is $372,977,535 on the 2026 roll and only 21 commercial transactions completed in the city in 2025. There is one regional shopping centre, and the City's own exemption table names the company that owns it. No commercial landlord in Williams Lake publishes a floor area, and none is invented here.
| Name | Type | What the record states |
|---|---|---|
| BC Retail Partners (Boitanio Mall) Ltd. Named by the City of Williams Lake in its 2025 Statement of Revitalization Exemptions at $10,787, under a table whose footnote states the property owner is shown where it differs from the exemption recipient. The company name carries the mall's name. No floor area, tenant list or price is published by the City or by any source opened here. |
Private company | owner of record of Boitanio MallA |
| West Fraser Mills Ltd. The company holds the largest revitalization exemption the City grants and is named by the province as licensee of Tree Farm Licence 52 over 262,995.9 ha of Crown land, against 80.7 ha of Schedule A Crown Grant land it actually owns. It is simultaneously the largest industrial ratepayer the City names and, on the province's own evidence, a very small freehold owner in the Cariboo. |
Public company | $34,414 of revitalization exemption; licensee of 262,996 ha of Crown tenureA |
| City of Williams Lake The City owns and operates the Williams Lake Regional Airport outright and has since 1997, carries land at $28,746,182 of historical cost, and holds 697 ha — 19.3% of the municipality — as municipal parcels and local or regional park on the province's land-designation layer. It operates the Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex, which its own report states the Cariboo Regional District owns. |
Government | $28,746,182 of land at cost; the airport and 697 haA |
| Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada The Directory of Federal Real Property records two Crown Owned properties in the city under this custodian — the Cariboo Friendship Centre at 99 3rd Avenue South (2,188 sq m on 0.0883 ha) and the Pregnancy Outreach Centre at 624 Oliver Street (230 sq m on 0.3355 ha). Public Services and Procurement Canada rents all three of its Williams Lake offices: Hodgson Place (151 sq m), 79 4th Avenue (421 sq m) and 280C Third Avenue North (593 sq m). |
Government | 2,418 sq m owned in two buildingsA |
?
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- Where West Fraser's Williams Lake operations are and how large they are. West Fraser's own locations directory at /about-us/locations returned no Williams Lake facility to an automated read and /our-locations 404s, so no mill, plywood plant or capacity figure is published. The City's exemption table establishes that West Fraser Mills Ltd. owns rateable property in the municipality; it does not say what.
- Boitanio Mall's address, floor area and tenants. The City names the owning company; it publishes nothing else, and the province's address geocoder does not resolve the building name.
- Tolko Industries Ltd. The City's 2025 Annual Report thanks Tolko for donating wood for a community bonfire, which is not a property record. Its Cariboo operations are outside the city boundary and no holding inside it was established.
- Cariboo Memorial Hospital. The City's report refers to the Cariboo Memorial Hospital project and to parking issues associated with it; no health-authority page was opened, so nothing is claimed about the largest institutional building in the city.
- The Williams Lake generating station. No source was opened that states its owner or status, so it is absent from this record rather than guessed at.
- Who holds the Crown leases inside the city. The public view of the province's Crown tenures layer returns purpose, type, stage and area for every tenure but nulls CLIENT_NAME, so the 18 ha waste disposal site lease and the 2 ha public works licence have no named lessee.
- Who stands behind 1198514 BC Ltd. and 1236420 BC Ltd. A free Land Owner Transparency Registry search would name the interest holders behind either if it is a reporting body; it requires an LTSA account, which was not opened, and no individual is named here.
- The City's own report totals its two exemption tables at $370,633 and $81,603 and then prints "TOTAL TAX EXEMPTIONS $319,567", which does not reconcile with either. The subtotals are quoted as printed and the combined figure is not used.
- No open dataset names the owner of a BC parcel, and BC publishes no price-paid file: Williams Lake's corporate-transaction count was suppressed as not releasable in 9 of 12 months of 2025.
§
Sources
- Fees — LTSA Customer Fee Listing as at April 1, 2026, including the Tax Certificates table — 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, terms of use and copyright notice — BC Assessment · openA
- Local Government Statistics — Schedule 701, Assessed Values for the year 2026 — BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs · openA
- Local Government Statistics — Schedule 201, General Statistics for 2024 — BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs · openA
- Property Transfer Tax Data 2025 — municipal monthly file — BC Ministry of Finance / BC Data Catalogue · openA
- Annual Report 2025 and Audited Financial Statements — City of Williams Lake (tangible capital asset schedule, permissive and revitalization tax exemption tables, airport and recreation complex) — City of Williams Lake · openA
- Tree Farm Licence Current View (FADM_TFL_ALL_SP) and Tree Farm Licence Schedule A (FADM_TFL_SCHED_A), WFS over a box around Williams Lake — BC Ministry of Forests / BC Data Catalogue · openA
- Directory of Federal Real Property — full XML extract, properties in Williams Lake, British Columbia — Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat · openA
- Crown Tenures — TANTALIS (TA_CROWN_TENURES_SVW), WFS, clipped to the City of Williams Lake boundary — BC Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship / BC Data Catalogue · openA
- Land Designations for Forest Management (ANA_LDFM_LND_DESIG_FOR_MGMT_SP), WFS, clipped to the City of Williams Lake boundary — BC Ministry of Forests / BC Data Catalogue · openA
- Municipalities — Legally Defined Administrative Areas of BC (ABMS_MUNICIPALITIES_SP), WFS, City of Williams Lake — GeoBC / BC Data Catalogue · openA