Building activity in the Estevan area was at its lowest level in years, according to the year-end building permit report issued by the City of Estevan.
There were 75 permits worth a little more than $11 million last year, compared with 157 permits worth $34.9 million in 2014. The dwindling permit numbers weren’t a surprise, thanks to the slowdown in the local economy that left people leery about investing in building projects.
“Obviously we knew it was going to be a slower year, given the local economic conditions, so it wasn’t totally unexpected to see what we did in terms of permit numbers and valuations,” said land development services manager Rob Denys.
Denys expected about $15 million in building activity last year, so the final figure was lower than expected.
In recent years, Estevan has usually eclipsed the 100 permit mark, and it has surpassed $40 million in value on a number of occasions. The numbers for 2015 were the lowest for Estevan since 2007.
The bulk of the building activity in 2015 was also for lower-value categories. Thirty miscellaneous permits worth $787,132 were issued. Another 18 permits were issued for garages; they had a value of $498,589.61.
As for the other categories, seven single-family residential permits were approved, with a total value of a little more than $2 million; four multi-family permits for more than $2.8 million were issued; one secondary suite for $50,394 was approved; six commercial permits for $1.8 million were granted; four industrial permits for $551,200 were issued; and six institutional permits worth nearly $2.5 million were approved.
The total number of new housing units created by the permits was 23, which was a significant decline from the 108 new units for 2014.
The single-family residential category appeared to suffer the biggest losses. The seven permits represented just a fraction of the activity seen in 2014, when 73 permits worth more than $9.9 million were granted.
Denys expects 2016 will result in a similar number of building permits as last year, but that will be dependent on the local economy.
“Obviously businesses are being a lot more cautious, and as far as new building investment, it’s really hard to say what will happen, because it’s generated by the local economic conditions,” said Denys, adding that new residential construction was very robust for a number of years.
Based on his conversations with developers, there is still some willingness to invest in commercial properties, retail services and retrofitting existing commercial buildings, so Denys expects there could be an uptick in that
category in 2016.
