By Adam Williams
Kamloops This Week
Despite a $17-million drop in building-permit value compared to the previous year, Ron Popoff said construction in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District fared well in 2015.
“When you’re looking at our neighbouring jurisdictions, we’re holding fairly close to the same trends that they’re having — we’re not seeing a really sharp downward trend, which is a good thing,” the director of building inspection services said.
“It’s like I’m really looking at more of a flat line over the last five to six years and that’s fairly good news for now.”
Construction values in 2015 came in at $33.2 million, down from $50 million the previous year.
But, Popoff said, a large part of the difference was a $7-million permit issued in 2014 for the Clearwater Shopping Centre.
Commercial construction was down in 2015 — only 15 permits were issued compared to 32 the year before.
However, residential projects held close to steady, with 97 units — down from 112 in 2014 — created last year.
Popoff said it is all part of the ebb and flow of construction in the region.
“You get these little anomalies and blips over time, but when you look at a five-year average, it’s fairly constant,” he said.
“Nothing extraordinary, a little bit lower than where we would like to see it.
“For this year, hoping for somewhere in the $40 million range and we’ll call that fairly average.”
Institutional and industrial permits both doubled in 2015 and projects in the “other” category saw a slight bump, increasing to 139 last year from 135 permits in 2014.