Building permits up 400% in East Gwillimbury in 2016

YorkRegion.com
June 13, 2017
Simon Martin

Sometimes you have to see numbers to believe. While most people know there is major development currently underway in East Gwillimbury, numbers can illustrate just what change is taking place.

According to the town’s 2016 year-end summary, building permits were up 400 per cent from 2015. 

In 2016 staff issued approximately 1,960 permits with a total construction value of $432.6 million. Of the 1,960 permits, only four per cent were non-residential. The 2016 total was an increase in excess of 400 per cent over the 2015 total of 474 permits.

In 2016, the town received $8,915,097 in building permit revenue. These revenues not only covered the costs of the department, but resulted in a 2016 contribution of $6,611,878 to the building reserve fund resulting in a reserve fund balance at the end of 2016 of $5,725,465.

The bulk of staff’s time was spent dealing with construction inquiries, application administration, plan examination and building inspections. Typically, processing an application for a single-family dwelling takes one to two hours of administration time, three to four hours of plan examination time and many hours of inspection time.

Town staff completed 4,957 inspections in 2016, which was 60 per cent greater than the 2015 total of 3,038. Of the 1,960 permits staff issued, only 143 were occupancy permits, suggesting that inspection services will be undertaking a substantial number of occupancy inspections in 2017.

Earlier this year, town staff said there have been 253 new home occupancies, but those numbers grow almost daily. There have already been 2,352 permits issued for new construction with a total 7,000 units available to the town as part of the York Durham Sanitary Sewer extension.

Town staff broke down the numbers of where the growth was happening in town. The Queensville Properties development has 75 occupancies to go with 429 registered permits.

The Minto Queen’s Landing development has 42 occupancies with 212 registered permits.

The Sharon West development has 136 occupancies with 1,065 registered permits. The South Sharon development is in the process of registering 240 permits.

Holland Landing East is in the process of registering 193 permits. Holland Landing West has 213 permits to issue.