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By Liam Verster

Building Development Permit Report

Development permits up in first half of 2025, but not expected to break annual records

Aug 13, 2025 | 12:12 PM

The City of Vernon has seen some investments in new builds recently, though not as much as it has in past years.

At the regular meeting Monday, August 11, Vernon city council received a building and development highlights report from the financial department that showed construction value of building permits totaled $105-million as of June 30, 2025.

“This is trending higher than 2024, which was only at $52-million for the same period,” Ann Hoolsema, Vernon’s financial planning acting manager, told council.

“Construction permit values for [all of] 2025 are expected to be around $200-million. This is due to the anticipated permitting of the RDNO Cultural Centre project, which is helping drive this. The value of the Cultural Centre is expected to be around $30-million.”

Hoolsema said there had been 146 building permits issued in the first half of 2025, compared to 163 in the same period the year before. The increases in permit values were seen in commercial builds, single-family homes, and single-family dwellings with suites.

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Though up in the first six months of the year, the report predicted the annual total would not reach the highs seen in past years, which included $218-million in permit values in 2024 and a record high $224-million in 2023.

“[This change] indicates that the market, the broad market for new development, is soft,” Mayor Victor Cumming told Vernon Matters following Monday’s meeting.

“That’s nothing new. Nothing new to ourselves, nothing new to our neighbours. That’s just an indication of that.

“We’ve had lots of proposals come through, lots of work by our planning department, lots of things have been approved, they just haven’t moved to a building permit stage because of the external market forces.”

The mayor added this dip in permit values should not have an impact to the city’s finances, saying the money collected through these go into an excess reserve that can be accessed for projects when needed.

The report was accepted alongside the revenue and expenditure report Monday.