Photo: Colin Dacre / File
The uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and an increase in development costs negatively impacted development applications and overall construction in 2020.
This emerges from a report that sets out both planning and development figures for the city council.
Compared to the boom years from 2016 to 2019, the numbers for 2020 were consistently declining.
Development permit applications were down nearly 15 percent, the total number of building permits issued was down 7 percent, but dollar value fell nearly 50 percent from about $ 900 million to just under $ 500 million.
The main factor behind the decrease in permit value was a sharp drop in large projects such as apartments, townhouses and commercial mixed-use projects.
The number of residential units built in 2020 was well below the five- and ten-year average for all types of construction. In 2020 it was 1,096, while the five-year average is almost double that.
However, staff said that while home construction starts were below the 10-year average, they rebounded in the final half of 2020.
“In 2020, low risk building and development was the dominant topic emerging from Kelowna’s statistics,” the report concluded.
“While fewer large multi-family, commercial and industrial projects began, single-family residential projects were less affected by the uncertainty of COVID-19.
While 2020 started slowly, employees say 2021 was anything but.
Building permit values for January, typically around $ 50 million, were $ 114 million this year. Permit values of more than $ 319 million were achieved in the first ten days of February, compared to normal values of between $ 28 million and $ 40 million.
