The fourth quarter report stated there were 99 approved permits issued in the last three months of 2022, bringing the annual building permit total of 415.

That was the third highest permit approval total on record, down from the high of 434 approved permits in 2021 and below the previous high of 433 in 2017.

Among the approved permits in 2022 were 193 for multi-family dwellings, 103 single family dwellings, 96 institutional (senior care) units, 66 single family dwellings with suites and 13 addition of a suite to a single family dwelling.

“A good array, strong in the multi-family, strong in the single-family, strong in the commercial and industrial, so just a real broad spectrum of projects with most of them getting underway in 2023,” Mayor Victor Cumming told Vernon Matters following Monday’s meeting.

“There is a housing demand that exceeds supply and a number of these projects that I’ve seen come forward will be sort of mid-priced, which will be a really critical thing for the community.”

Cumming noted the inflationary pressures and an increase in multi-family developments may have played a role in the permit value record being set, but still refered to 2022 as “a significant year” and marking a trend that he expects to see continue.

“All the data shows that we’re going to continue to be an area of focus, particularly on the residential side. We see some industrial catching up in terms of new development that is already planned and building permits have been let,” Cumming said.

“We have a surplus of demand for employees in a number of our operations, so you can’t have employees with places for people to stay, so I suspect we’ll see a pretty strong trend here in terms of the residential side.”

The report noted residential transactions dipped in Q4 while commercial transactions remained relatively flat, but Cumming stated that is a typical trend for that period of the year.

The presentation was accepted unanimously by council for information.

by Liam Verster

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