Victoria comes in second as B.C. construction continues to set record pace
Derrick Penner
Sun
The Abbotsford Hospital and Cancer Centre, built by PCL Constructors.
Construction is booming in British Columbia, with the value of building permits in the Abbotsford area rising faster than in any of Canada’s other large urban centres.
Statistics Canada reported Thursday that the Abbotsford metropolitan area, which is defined as including Mission and a portion of the Fraser Valley Regional District, saw contractors take out $31 million in building permits in October, a 64.9-per-cent increase from September.
Abbotsford’s growth rate has been strong all year. Between January and October, $265.7 million in permits were taken out, a 62.4-per-cent gain over the same 10 months of 2004. Non-residential construction gave a big boost to that total.
Victoria posted the next highest growth rate in permit values with $613.4 million in permits issued between January and October, representing a gain of 42.9 per cent over 2004.
“[Abbotsford] is way above the national trend, both in residential and non-residential [construction],” Etienne Saint-Pierre, an analyst in Statistics Canada’s investment and capital stock division, said in an interview.
“[The amount of construction] is almost $100-million above the highest figure we have had before,” he added, noting that the Abbotsford metropolitan area was only designated as its own urban region in 2001.
Abbotsford saw $126 million worth of non-residential projects started by the end of October, up some 147.8 per cent from 2004.
The number of residential permits were up 19.9 per cent to 1,014 worth $139.7 million, an increase in value of 23.9 per cent.
Jay Teichroeb, Abbotsford’s economic development manager, said the city’s new hospital and cancer centre is the biggest single project driving up its non-residential statistics accounting for some $59 million of $69 million in institutional construction.
However, Teichroeb added that commercial building permits, another category of the non-residential side, at $13 million are running almost three-times the value of permits in the same period of 2004.
“We’ll probably [review] more than 2,000 permits in 2005, which has us just running at full gallop,” Teichroeb said.
The city of Abbotsford, the biggest part of the Abbotsford metropolitan area, has grown to a population of 135,000 from 115,000 in 2001.
In Greater Vancouver, the value of permits taken out in October was down 8.9 per cent to $526 million compared with September.
However, the $4.7 billion in permits taken out between January and October was 17.7-per-cent higher than for the same 10 months of 2004 and the highest level that Statistics Canada has for the period on record.
Non-residential construction also gave Greater Vancouver’s numbers a significant boost.
The $1.5 billion worth of non-residential permits taken out between January and October represented a 63.2-per-cent gain from 2004 and the most since 1998 when builders took out $1.1 billion worth of permits.
On the new-home front, Greater Vancouver saw the number of residential permits issued between January and October slip 12.5 per cent to 15,934 compared with 2004.
However, the value of those permits shot up 4.3 per cent over 2004 levels to $3.2 billion.
Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, said October’s dip in permit applications is a negligible development considering the growing list in the provincial government’s Major Projects Inventory, which is reaching the $83-billion level of projects underway or under contemplation.
Sashaw added that office vacancy rates around the region are dropping, rents are climbing and the “underlying demand for construction services haven’t changed, and I expect it will continue to increase in 2006.”
Projects such as the $1 billion worth of upgrades planned for Vancouver International Airport and the $600 million worth of construction underway at the University of B.C. are just a couple of the developments.
He added that engineering projects, such as the Canada Line and recently announced Golden Ears bridge, are not captured in Statistics Canada’s survey of building permit value, which means “total construction activity is higher than indicated by just looking at building permits.”
“It really has been a zero-to-60 in no time flat kind of scenario,” Sashaw said.
“A lot of it has to do with what is going on in B.C. in terms of the economy.
“The economic climate in British Columbia is very positive and is spurring a lot of private-sector investment ….”
ABBOTSFORD’S BIG OCTOBER:
Abbotsford building permits rose 64.9% in October (see graphic below). Here’s how that number broke down:
31.6%
Value of residential permits in Abbotsford CMA, September-October
1,890%
Value of non-residential permits in Abbotsford CMA, September-October
