Construction values in the City of Cranbrook continue to climb as $19.7 million of work was carried out in the third quarter of 2019, $13.4 million of which was residential development.
At the same time in 2018, Cranbrook had witnessed $36.3 million in construction, whereas the new third-quarter figures put 2019’s values up to $37.3 million to date.
Cranbrook City Council was impressed with the numbers, especially in the residential sector.
Mayor Lee Pratt said the building permit summary is good news for the community, noting that Cranbrook shouldn’t be slowing down anytime soon.
“Right now there’s three projects on the drawing board that I’m pretty certain are going to go ahead and one other fairly large project that if it goes ahead, we’re probably going to have another banner year next year too,” Pratt told MyEastKootenayNow.com.
“It’s good to always have projects forthcoming, I mean if we had these numbers and nothing in discussion that we’d be – maybe we’ve hit a wall here. Anybody I talk to when you look around, Cranbrook’s busy, the city is booming, it’s looking very prosperous.”
Aware of the “housing crisis” and a lack of rental units and affordable housing for residents or newcomers to the community, Pratt said the spike in residential development should begin to alleviate some of those concerns upon their completion.
In the third quarter of 2019, between July and September, $6 million of construction was completed on residential developments. That includes 11 single-family dwellings as well as additions and alterations such as accessory structures, garages, carports, or mobile homes. $7.4 million of multi-family residential development was also started in the third quarter which includes 51 suites, 39 suites at 6th Street North and 12 affordable suites for the second phase of the conversion at 326 Van Horne Street.
“You need the housing before you get the jobs, once you get the housing you can get the jobs, right now people look to coming here, where are they going to live? One begets the other and hopefully, you can get it all happening in a reasonable stretch of time so that it fixes the problem as it goes along,” added Pratt.
2019 appeared to start as a slow year with just $3.6 million of development in the first quarter, but the second and third quarters picked up with $14 million and $19.7 million in construction respectively.
The only downward trend seen from 2019 to 2018 is the reflection of building permits as 181 have been issued so far in 2019, compared to 211 in the same period of time last year.
Here’s the full break down of the 2019 Building Permit Values in the third-quarter and comparative totals to 2019:
| Category | 3rd Quarter 2019 (Permits) |
| Residential | $6.04 Million (34) |
| Residential (Multi-Family) | $7.40 Million (2) |
| Commercial | $2.59 Million (12) |
| Industrial | $3.22 Million (4) |
| Institutional | $382,000 (1) |
| Government | $0.00 (0) |
| Temporary Building | $0.00 (0) |
| Signs | $75,400 (9) |
| Totals | 2019 | 2018 |
| Q3 Totals | $19.72 Million | $6.94 Million |
| Q2 Totals | $14.05 Million | $16.02 Million |
| Q1 Totals | $3.58 Million | $13.34 Million |
| Year-to-Date Totals | $37.36 Million | $36.31 Million |