3 neighbourhoods running south from Pandosy along the lake and up onto the bench above it. Lower Mission is the flat, mature, tree-lined part. Beaches, the Mission Creek Greenway, and the schools that move families across the city. Upper Mission climbs the hillside behind it into newer detached housing with the biggest views in Kelowna. Kettle Valley, at the top, is a planned village with a design code, narrow streets and front porches, built from 1996 onward. Mission Recreation Park, 44.5 hectares on Gordon Drive, is the city's largest sports campus, and Lower Mission has five School District 23 schools inside it including a secondary.
Two things to weigh before falling for an address here. The first is the drive: from the top of the Mission, downtown is a 20-minute trip that becomes considerably longer at rush hour, and there is no rapid transit. The household car count here is the highest in the city for a reason. The second is fire. The 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park fire destroyed 238 homes on this side of the city and burned to the edge of what is now built-up Upper Mission; the parkland that makes the views is the same parkland that carries the risk. The other thing the top of the bench lacked until recently was a shop: Upper Mission got its first major grocery store in June 2024, at Mission Village on Frost Road, roughly thirty years after the first houses went in.
3 communities, guide by guide
Kettle Valley
A planned village on the bench above the Mission (narrow streets, front porches and a design code) with the Myra-Bellevue trailheads at the top of the road.
- 46.9 ha
- Lebanon Creek Greenway, City of Kelowna park open data
- 114 ha
- The slice of Myra-Bellevue Provincial Park inside the City's park dataset, along the neighbourhood's eastern edge
Lower Mission
The flat, leafy stretch between Pandosy and the Mission bench: the beaches, the Greenway, the schools people move here for, and the prices that come with all three.
- 1859
- Year Father Pandosy founded the Okanagan Mission here: the valley's first settlement
- 1973
- Year Okanagan Mission was amalgamated into the City of Kelowna
Upper Mission
The bench above the lake: newer detached houses, the biggest views in Kelowna, a long drive to everything, and the fire history that comes with living against the park.
- 2024
- Year Upper Mission got its first major grocery store, at Mission Village on Frost Road
- 238
- Kelowna homes destroyed by the 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park fire, most of them on this side
Photographs: Okanagan Lake looking West by jfransen, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons · The Mission Creek Greenway by Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.
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