June permits worth $433 million, just short of record
Jim Jamieson
Province
Avtar Johl (left) of Platinum Group and construction manager Pat Burke stand outside Nature’s Landing in Langley. Photograph by : Jason Payne, The Province
Led by Vancouver, B.C.’s residential builders continued to post strong gains in the value of construction permits last month, Statistics Canada said yesterday.
The Vancouver area recorded a seasonally adjusted increase of 27 per cent in residential permits to $433 million in June, the
second-highest local level on record, StatsCan said.
Year to date in the Vancouver area, spending on residential and non-residential permits rose 11.5 per cent to $3 billion.
The value of residential permits across B.C. climbed 8.7 per cent in June to $641.1 million.
Avtar Johl, whose Platinum Group builds condominiums in Surrey and Langley, said the pace of the industry continues to be red hot.
“Everything is going on eight cylinders right now,” Johl said. “Demand is very strong and we’re seeing a lot of people moving from other provinces and other countries. That seems to be buoying the market.”
But Johl said he wonders how rising prices will affect the market.
“One thing that does concern me is the affordability index compared to the rest of Canada,” he said. “But that goes back to the lifestyle here.”
Johl said there are also issues regarding the increased development charges from municipalities that are passed along to buyers.
Overall, B.C. recorded $922.5 million in building permits for June.
That’s down 4.9 per cent from May but up 13 per cent at $5.48 billion so far in 2006.
On the non-residential side, the Vancouver area slid 0.4 per cent in June to $172 million.
Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, said there is a lot of volatility month to month in the non-residential sector figures.
“If you get a $300-million hospital coming on stream that’s obviously going to skew the month-to-month figures,” he said. “When you take a look at the Lower Mainland southwest region, we’re at a 10.2 per cent increase in year-to-date figures.
“We’re expecting the trend to continue. B.C. Hydro just announced $3-billion worth of power projects and more of the Olympic projects will be coming on stream in the next few months.”
Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association, said a big concern is administrative bottlenecks at municipal permitting departments due to high volumes of applications.
“When our builders apply for a permit and are told it will be ready and it’s not, they run the risk of losing their trades,” he said. “There is some strain there, but I think [the municipalities] are adjusting.”
Nationally, for residential and non-residential permits combined, towns and cities issued builders $5.3-billion worth of permits in June, down 1.4 per cent from May.
The national value of residential building permits fell by 1.3 per cent in June.
© The Vancouver Province 2006