City breaks record for building, again
By Thursday morning, Penticton had issued permits for work valued at $199 million, topping last year’s record of $196 million
Make that two in a row. For the second consecutive year, the City of Penticton has set a new record for building activity. As of Thursday morning, staff at City Hall had issued permits for work valued at $199 million, topping last year’s high-water mark of $196 million, according to preliminary data from the local government.
Institutional work, such as the Penticton Regional Hospital expansion, accounted for $75 million of the total through November, followed by residential single-family construction at $29 million and residential multi-family developments at $22 million.
The city’s director of development services credits the hospital project with driving the record-setting numbers both this year and last.
“Construction values will decrease next year, as we won’t have the large value of the hospital contributing towards the overall total,” Anthony Haddad noted in an email.
“However, based on the projects currently in the works and 2017 planning approvals, we expect to see another busy year in the building department with the single-family housing developments on the east side of our community and the infill redevelopment especially within the downtown core.”
According to data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, there were 38 single-family homes and 174 multi-family units started in Penticton through the first three quarters of 2017, representing a 37 per cent bump over the year-ago period.
Haddad said the trend towards multifamily units is due in part to the city’s topography and development strategies, “which focus much of our growth around the existing urban areas, providing for an affordable range of housing types, which long term will be sustainable for our community.”
That will include approximately 100 units of affordable housing at two projects on Backstreet Boulevard and Brunswick Street that are expected to go up next year.
He noted, however, that the Sendero Canyon and The Ridge developments will add an estimated 340 single-family homes to the city’s housing stock at full build-out.
Meanwhile, real estate sales are also continuing at a blistering pace after entering record-setting territory back in October.
Fresh data from the South Okanagan Real Estate Board shows properties worth $513 million changed hands in Penticton through November, a 15 per cent jump over the year-ago period, with the average single-family home going for $544,000.
And the pace is hardly letting up, even with winter setting in, according to SOREB president Pamela Hanson. “We’re still busy,” she said. “The listings are still coming, which you think a lot of people don’t do that at this time of year, yet we’re still getting calls.”
A slowdown is likely in early January, however, driven in part by tighter mortgage lending rules that will be coming into effect. Hanson urged anyone who might be affected to lock in a deal before the end of 2017.
“It would be pushing it now, but it’s still doable.”
The listings are still coming, which you think a lot of people don’t do that at this time of year, yet we’re still getting calls. SOREB president Pamela Hanson