Fewer home building permits issued in York Region last year

Yorkregion.com
May 14, 2015
By Lisa Queen

The number of residential building permits issued in York Region dropped 17 per cent last year, according to a new report.

But don’t get your hopes up that the construction of new subdivisions is coming to an end any time soon.

“These things go in cycles,” Paul Bottomley, manager of policy, research and planning in the region’s economic development department, said.

“There are going to be troughs. There are going to be peaks and valleys.”

The decline in permits issued is a timing issue, a reflection of where developers are in the long development process, Bottomley said.

“It’s just that one year, I think, we’ve seen it drop. What’s coming through for next year, it looks like they will be up,” he said.

There were 6,339 residential building permits issued in York in 2014, a 17-per-cent drop from 2013, the growth and development report said.

That put York in seventh place nationally, behind Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa and ahead of Peel Region, Winnipeg and Quebec City.

Toronto saw the number of residential building permits it issued drop by 25 per cent, while Ottawa issued almost 38 per cent more residential building permits.

Michael Pozzebon, chairperson of the York chapter of Building Industry and Land Development Association, isn’t concerned about the decrease in York’s residential building permits.

Building permits are issued by the local municipality and annual statistics can vary depending on a number of factors. One of the primary factors for the low issuance of residential building permits in York last year was that a number of projects were in the planning approvals process and, on the commercial side, a few significant projects were granted approvals, Pozzebon, vice-president of DG Group Development, said in an email.

“BILD members continue to invest in York Region, creating complete communities where people live, work and play and last year alone, the industry created more than 43,000 jobs and paid out more than $2 billion in wages.”

Meanwhile, York saw the value of industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) construction jump by 32 per cent last year to $963 million, putting the region in seventh place in Canada.

Montreal, which came in first, saw the value of its ICI construction skyrocket 70 per cent to more than $3.3 billion, while Toronto, in second place, had a 21-per-cent drop in ICI construction to $2.7 billion.

“It’s a good sign it went up,” Bottomley said.

“The trend prior to that was a slight decrease over a number of years, very slight. That is because of the economy. We haven’t been firing on all cylinders for a number of years (so last year’s increase) is good news.”