Decline a ‘natural variation in data,’ Statistics Canada says
Sun
The value of building permits issued by B.C. municipalities dropped by 24.3 per cent from June to July, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.
The drop, to $987.5 million from more than $1.3 billion in June, included an 11.3-per-cent cut in the value of residential permits and a 45.6-per-cent plunge in the non-residential sector.
Statistics Canada cited a sharp drop in the seasonally adjusted number of permits issued for multi-family projects as a factor in B.C.’s July residential-permit decline.
And a sharp drop in the value of Vancouver census metropolitan area (CMA) non-residential permits contributed to the B.C. decrease in that sector.
In the Vancouver CMA, total building permit values fell 26.2 per cent from last month, mostly due to a 55.9-per-cent drop in non-residential permits.
The value of commercial permits in the Vancouver CMA dropped 59.8 per cent, to $108.0 million from $268.4 million in June.
Industrial permits slipped 12.7 per cent to $10.7 million, from $12.3 million previously, while institutional-government permits fell 47.6 per cent to $32.7 million in July, from $62.4 million in June.
Vancouver CMA residential building permit values dipped 3.4 per cent to $432.0 million from $447.2 million in June.
A strike by civic workers has slowed the issuing of permits in the City of Vancouver, however, Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, said in a news release: “This [July] dip reflects a natural variation in the data and is not directly related to the civic strike,” which began late in July.
But for the first seven months of the year, the value of building permits issued in B.C. has risen by almost 20 per cent compared to the same period last year, topping $7.5 billion in planned construction investment.
B.C.’s increase in the first seven months included a 22.9-per-cent jump in the value of residential permits, to $5 billion, and a 14.2-per-cent rise in the non-residential sector, to $2.5 billion.
And in the Vancouver CMA, building permit values shot up by more than 27 per cent, to more than $4 billion, when comparing the January-to-July numbers to the same period last year.
That included a 25.7-per-cent increase in the value of non-residential permits, to $1.52 billion, while residential permits rose 30.4 per cent to $2.710 billion.
In the Kelowna CMA the value soared more than 40 per cent to $472 million, when comparing the January-to-July numbers to the same period last year.
The Victoria CMA recorded a 37.8-per-cent hike, to $631 million, comparing January-to-July to the same period last year.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
