By Cheryl Jahn

city hall

Building Inspectors badly needed

Jun 12, 2025 | 2:51 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – At first glance, the numbers for development permits show a rosy picture. And development permits and how they break down are an economic indicator.

“It’s a really interesting climate right now,” says Councillor Garth Frizzell, who traditionally pulls the development permits numbers from the Council agenda. “We have a tremendous amount of construction, of course, in Prince George. Construction, as with everywhere, is one of the best indicators of how the economy is going. So I think we all pay close attention to those numbers because when construction is down, it’s a good indicator that a lot of problems are either there or coming in the economy.”

Year-to-date numbers show that 84 permits were issued from January to April of 2023 with a value of $53,114,001; 125 permits were issued between January and April of last year at a value of $98,525,849. This year, from January to April, 109 permits were issued for a whopping $143,338,443. But those numbers can be deceptive, with one permit alone valued at nearly $108,722,472.

“What we’ve been seeing over the past few years is some very large projects that have a significant impact. It makes it hard to compare year to year, much less month to month, when you suddenly have a $200 million project that gets started or when the when the [surgical] tower comes for Northern Health, that new surgical tower is going to be $1,000,000,000.”

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But it was also noted during the discussion that there is a staffing challenge, specifically building inspectors, and the lack thereof.

“So when there’s a staff shortage and the process time, whether to issue the occupancy permit or to issue the building permit will be developed, the permit will be lengthened due to that fact, and hopefully we’ll get these problems sorted out in a little while,” noted Mayor Simon Yu.

But Mayor Yu says it’s a difficult position to fill with communities like Kamloops, Burnaby, Penticton, North Cowichan, Sooke and Nanaimo experiencing the same shortfall. And not anyone can fill the job.

“For example, the best candidate is the person working in industry, in construction for decades, and then for physical reasons, they can no longer wear the heavy carpentry aprons. And so these are the people who normally make a very good building inspector. Because when they go on the site, there’s a power beyond their knowledge. Right? And also they know what to look for.”

He’s also quick to add that the staffing concern is also the difference in procedure, which makes filling those positions a little more complicated.

To help address some of the delays, the City has secured short-term contractors to process inspections.