British Columbia leads country as value of non-residential building permits soar

Sun

The value of building permits issued in British Columbia rose by 47.5 per cent from July to August, by far the largest percentage increase of any province, helping boost the national gain to a higher-than-expected 7.2 per cent, Statistics Canada said Tuesday.

The value of building permits issued by B.C. municipalities in August rose to $912.7 million, up from $619 million in July. But B.C.'s increase was entirely in the non-residential sector, as the value of permits for home construction dropped by 7.4 per cent, dragged down by a sharp drop in multi-family dwellings. The non-residential sector increased by 131 per cent, led by institutional-government projects.

Ontario posted the next largest gain, at 21.3 per cent, with increases in both the home sector and the non-residential sector.

In Metro Vancouver the increase was just 8.7 per cent, but the census metropolitan areas of Abbotsford-Mission and Kelowna reported far bigger gains, with a 49.5-per-cent increase in the Fraser Valley and a whopping 380.8-per-cent rise in the Okanagan metro region.

The national gain of 7.2 per cent, to $5 billion, beat forecasts, Statistics Canada said. Most economists had expected permit values to rise five per cent in August.

This follows a revised 10-per- cent decline in building permits for July.

Millan Mulraine, economics strategist at TD Securities, said the August report "offers some encouragement on the state of Canadian construction

activity in the coming months, and appears to underscore the stabilization in home-building activity."

Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, said in a news release Tuesday: "Building permit values (in the Lower Mainland-Southwest region of B.C.) are up for the fourth consecutive month.

"While there may be some continued volatility ahead, the worst of the recession for the construction industry may be behind us."

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