Ashley Ford
Province
Housing starts may have taken a slight pause across the Lower Mainland, but the the overall construction industry in B.C. is going gangbusters.
Statistics Canada says intense housing activity in the province is now being matched by the non-residential sector.
Spurred on by B.C. and neighbouring Alberta, the Canadian non-residential sector hit a record high of $7.6 billion between April and June, StatsCan said yesterday.
“B.C. posted the largest increase in total investment, with a 19.1-per-cent jump to a record $932 million,” the agency said.
Meanwhile, on the housing front, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reports there were 24 per cent fewer housing starts in Vancouver in June from a year ago, while the Fraser Valley starts increased by 3.5 per cent from a year ago.
However, on a year-to-year basis starts are down 12 per cent across the region at 8,574 from 9,762 a year ago. Housing officials, however, are not surprised or concerned by the slight dip and say it was expected as the region was coming off a record year in 2004.
“Home builders are still extremely busy working on the record number of projects already under construction. During the first half an average 18,565 housing units were under construction across greater Vancouver, the highest number ever recorded during the first two quarters of the year,” said Cameron Muir, CMHC senior market analyst. Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association has welcomed the “small breather and we are not concerned.”
He said the industry is working at virtual capacity, but with careful scheduling of trades, it is managing to cope with the situation.
“While there is some continuing concern about future skilled-labor supply we can maintain these levels of activity and our builders are managing it well.”
Simpson said he suspects by the end of the year the housing start numbers will be fairly close to last year’s performance.
Everyone agrees that continuing low interest rates and consumer demand will keep the industry operating at high capacity for the foreseeable future.
The resurgence of the non-housing industry is just further icing on the cake for the B.C. and Alberta economies.
StatsCan says the biggest contributor was record spending in the two western-most provinces.
The story, however, is different in Central Canada, CMHC said.
“The biggest declines occurred in Quebec, where investment fell 2.9 per cent to $1.3 billion and Ontario was down 1.1 per cent to $3.3 billion.
© The Vancouver Province 2005
