City Council heard at the regular meeting on Monday, Jul. 12 that the quarterly building report, reflecting permits that have been applied for and issued so far this year, indicates Kimberley is well ahead of the pace of the past two years.
“Council will recall that two years ago was one of our busiest years in quite some time,” said Troy Pollock, manager of planning services. “So we’ve already surpassed that in terms of construction value and number of permits so far.”
Mayor Don McCormick added that 2019 was one of the biggest years since the buildout of Kimberley Alpine Resort. Currently on a year-to-date basis the total is at just under $16 million, consisting of manly smaller-scale projects, whereas at this time in 2019 the total was sitting at around $13 million.
Pollock explained the bigger projects in that total are new homes as well as some multi-unit buildings such as duplexes.
“There’s still some other multi-family residential and hopefully plenty more to come to try and meet some of our housing needs,” Pollock said.
“It should be a very good year overall I think even if for some reason it does slow down a bit here in the last half of the year.”
McCormick commended Pollock and the rest of the planning staff, saying he’s heard nothing but positive reinforcement from talking with developers and builders for the work staff has been doing.
“It’s a big part of what makes the community what it is, is being able to process and get people who want to live here living here,” McCormick told Pollock. “So thank you for all the great work to you and the staff.”
2019 wound up having a total of around $34 million in building permits. This high number so far this year is reflective of both people and businesses wanting to invest in the community, McCormick said.
“Quite a fair number of those building permits relate to multi-unit residential housing, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, etcetera,” McCormick said. “This is much, much needed housing in the community. It’s all under construction right now and what it will lead to is increased inventory for folks looking for places to both buy and rent in the not to distant future.”
paul.rodgers@kimberleybulletin
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