Despite the city exceeding its housing target for 2024, both building permit values and applications were down.
Permits issued in 2024 totalled $646 million, compared to a record $1.756 billion in 2023. The number of building permit applications the city received decreased for the third straight year. Both numbers are below the 10-year average. The city issued permits for only 1,603 units in 2024.
At city council鈥檚 meeting on Feb. 10, Director of Planning and Development, Ryan Smith, said that, historically, higher levels of building permits translate into higher levels of occupancy permits.
鈥淗aving said that, we do see a higher level of building permits that get applied for but aren鈥檛 acted on,鈥� he noted. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 because of the economic conditions out there in the Okanagan and Canada right now."
For 2024, Smith told the council that building permits acted on from 2022 and 2023 resulted in 2,800 units occupied in 2024. 鈥淲hich is great news,鈥� he added. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 just above our Housing Needs Assessment (HNA) upper-end target of 2,650.鈥�
While units occupied were above the 10-year average last year, they were below average for 2023. 鈥淐ouncil should expect to see this trend continue, and we鈥檙e measuring these things as we are being measured under the provincial Housing Supply Act (HSA),鈥� Smith said.
He also pointed to 麻豆精选鈥檚 vacancy rate reaching 3.8 percent in October 2024.
鈥淎 lot of housing had to be approved, permitted, and built in the city over the last few years to get there,鈥� he added. 鈥淚 think the good news is there is lots of rental housing still in construction and yet to be occupied in 麻豆精选.鈥�
Smith expects the vacancy rate to go higher in 2025.
