B.C.’s building permit values on the upswing

The preliminary findings from Statistics Canada show that building permit values in B.C. rose in July.

StatCan data shows that an estimated $2.2 billion was collected in building permits during the month. That includes $1.6 billion for residential builds and $660 million in non-residential projects.

That total figure was up since June 2022 when the total permit value was $2.03 billion, and up from last July when the value was recorded at $1.6 billion.

The new figure represents a 12 per cent monthly increase and a 39 per cent increase on an annual basis.

StatCan did not provide figures for Vernon but said Kelowna had $168 million in building permit values in July, while Kamloops had an estimated $28.4 million.

Kelowna’s figures were up 35.5 per cent from June and 86.2 per cent from the previous July. Kamloops’ permit value was down 3.5 per cent on a monthly basis, and StatCan did not have data from July 2021 to compare with the latest figure.

Though B.C. saw the value of building permits rise in July, the national figure declined 6.6 per cent monthly to $11.1 billion. Though down from the month before, the national figure was still up 9.6 per cent from July 2021.

Nationally, residential build permits decreased 8.6 per cent monthly to $7.5 billion, while non-residential builds fell 2.1 per cent monthly to $3.5 billion.

Nationally, there were monthly declines in residential builds, which were mainly concentrated in Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, as well as the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

Despite the monthly decline of 23.4 per cent, Ontario still brought in the most money through building permits with $4 billion in July. Quebec brought in the second most through building permits at $2.3 billion, followed by B.C.

StatCan did not provide data breakdowns for individual provinces but did state that there were a total of 22,130 residential units permitted in July. Those include 6,421 single dwellings and 15,709 multiple dwellings.

That total figure was down 13.8 per cent from June, and down 14.1 per cent from the previous July.

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