West Grey is seeing an uptick in building activity for the first quarter over 2023
Council reviewed the building statistics for the first quarter during a meeting on May 21, which shows an over 30 per cent increase in building permits issued over the previous year.
During the first quarter, a total of 48 permits were issued, 17 of which were for new units, including 10 new homes, and five multi residential. Additionally, there were five permits issued for new agricultural buildings.
This is a jump from the 37 permits issued during the first quarter in 2023.
Building permit fees are also up 62 per cent and project values have increased by 33 per cent compared to 2023.
While beating out 2020 and 2023 in terms of the number of permits issued, this year does fall behind the 86 issued in 2021 and the 74 in 2022.
Director of Infrastructure and Development Karl Schipprack says, “the numbers do look very good for the year, but the Q1 does tend to be weather dependent, whether it’s either a good quarter or a bad quarter is sort of depending on what the weather is like in March, and this year it was tentatively on and off but there was a pretty significant thaw in February and March and we did see a lot of development moving forward at that time, at least for applications.”
A report from Schipprack adds the second quarter will be a better indication on how successful the residential construction market will be for the remainder of the year.