By Corey Fischer

Residential Construction Booming In Vernon

Feb 15, 2018 | 8:04 AM

Vernon saw 130 million dollars worth of new building activity last year.

Economic development manager Kevin Poole says 69 million dollars of that was new single family homes, including 61 units at Predator Ridge.

“Predator Ridge, is no surprise, if you’ve driven around Predator Ridge or seen the Commonage properties. It accounted for 31.1 million of all the residential development that we saw,” Poole told city council.

The Foothills was next with 49 new units, worth 13 million dollars.

Poole says it was slower on the commercial side with 11 million dollars in activity.

Go Indoors When The Thunder Roars

Thunderstorm warning issued in the North Okanagan

11h ago

Mid to High 30s

Heat warning issued for the Okanagan

12h ago

Hazy Skies

North Okanagan air quality declined as wildfire smoke settled in the valley

14h ago

“The biggest one in 2017 was the major renovation of Walmart. That was over three million dollars in terms of building permit.”

Poole says proposed developments include new Sheraton Four Points and Best Western Premier hotels on Anderson Way, and transforming the former Liquidation World building downtown into six separate commercial units.

Poole also reported the hotel tax, which went from 2 to 3% in January, generated over 694-thousand dollars to the end of November, up 6.7% from the year before.

Those funds are used for tourism marketing.

Poole says the average price for a single family home in the city last year was $471,000, up from $430,000 in 2016.

The rental vacancy rate, which is announced each October, was at 1.5%, down from 1.9% the year before.

by Corey Fischer