Photo: Colin Dacre / File
The development industry seems to believe that the current housing market in Kelowna will last well into this decade.
While apartments are being bought at record highs for record volumes, new apartment construction is also reaching a historic level.
Levels that are both a little surprising and not so surprising to planning director Ryan Smith.
“I think we’re surprised how much is happening because we also see Kelowna as one of the more desirable places in Canada for medium-sized cities, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that we are.” to see this ongoing pressure, “said Smith.
A report for the council meeting on Monday, which outlines the construction and development figures for the first quarter of the year, shows figures that are partly on the right track or that shake figures from the construction boom in the mid-2000s and the boom from 2016 to 2019 .
Factors that Smith cites in the report include increased demand for housing, low interest rates, and work from home due to COVID-19.
The development sector also pushed for building permits in the first five weeks of 2021 to avoid additional park DDCs that went into effect in early February.
Approximately $ 400 million of the more than $ 500 million building permit value in the first quarter of the year came in those first five weeks.
However, the building permit value of more than half a billion dollars in the first four months exceeds the building permit value for all of the last year and every year from 2010 to 2015.
By the end of March, the city had already issued 772 permits, dwarfing the previous high of almost 2,700 permits.
The housing applications are far above those of the 5 and 10 year average.
Approval applications have been received for nearly 1,800 units, compared to the five-year average of 388 and the ten-year average of 265.
The biggest leap was in multi-family permits with 1,203.
“I think it’s partly a rebound as parts of last year had less development activity due to the COVID uncertainty,” Smith said.
“Working from home, and being able to do it for the long term, is what makes people choose to move to where they really want to be. I think there is more retirement now, and boomers who talked about going here pull, implement this now. “
