Building activity close to last year’s high numbers
By Kat Lee – Terrace Standard
Published: December 02, 2008 11:00 PM
Local construction and permit value have slowly been decreasing in the last few months, but building activity for 2008 is still close to reaching the high building values gained last year.
The month of June saw 28 permits worth nearly $8 million, while July saw 29 permits worth $6.3 million. The 19 permits in August were valued at $934,500, September’s 24 permits were valued at $745,200, and October’s 24 permits came in at $440,500 this year.
But the city’s building inspector Bruce Miller says things are still going well.
“Last year was the highest dollar value we’ve had (in a long time),” he said. Last year, permit values reached a high of $29.1 million, while 2006’s permit value came in much lower at $11.5 million.
Miller is optimistic that the current and upcoming activity will be able to catch up to last year’s construction level.
“We’re going to be very close,” he said.
The permit value from January to October last year was $28.3 million, while the first 10 months of this year is valued at $24.3 million.
While in August 2007 there were 18 permits with a total value of $626,630, this August bumped up in both permit number and value with 19 permits worth $934,500. There were no commercial or industrial permit starts in August this year.
For the month of September, both the number of permits and value dropped this year compared to last year; the 33 permits handed out in September 2007 dropped to 24 permits for September 2008. Value also dropped from $2.4 million for September last year to $745,200 for September this year. Besides a few other commercial and industrial additions and renovations, the rest of the building activity in town was in residential renovations and additions.
There were 24 permits this October compared to 20 permits last October. Despite the four extra permits this year, last October’s $4.18 million permit value easily surpassed this October’s $440,500 permit value. The high difference in values could be due to the nature of the permits and type of construction; last October there were permits for four new industrial and one multi-residential on the go along with residential construction, while this October’s permits centred mainly around residential additions and renovations.
Miller says the construction is evening out in different areas.
“Generally we’ve been busy all over town,” he said.
He noted that last year there were a couple of big permit values from construction of the arena and Terraceview Lodge, while this year, smaller projects have brought in close to the same amount of money.
“We’re just having a good overall year for construction in all departments,” Miller said.
