By Cheryl Jahn

Building Stats

Building stats both surprising and not

Jun 19, 2020 | 3:58 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The City’s building stats for the month of May have been released and they show some interesting, if not surprising, results.

While the year-to-date numbers show the permits for new homes remaining static to the past two years, while the numbers of permits pulled for renovations to existing homes has doubled. Not a surprise to Al Jones, General Manager of Rona Capital Building Supplies.

“A lot of people, they’re plans have changed. They’re not travelling. Can’t travel, actually. Their discretionary spending has gone toward their house. Whether it be interior renovations, exterior renovations. The weather is starting to cooperate so people are doing outside stuff.”

But there were some around Council Chambers who were surprised by the numbers.

“Judging how shut-down we’ve been and people are staying at home, we were expecting there would be a bit of a downturn in construction or maybe even a dropping off,” explains Councillor Garth Frizzell. “If you look at how our GDP is, how our employment numbers are, they’ve all been off a cliff. But what we say with construction was a real pleasant surprise.”

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Frizzell says that is, perhaps, an indication of the changing professional demographics of the city, with more people working in health care and education than in the more traditional forestry-based fields.

Jones says while many think at these numbers are directly in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s more to it, locally.

“One of the struggles that our area has at the forefront is the lack of properties. There’s a lot of subdivisions that are full. There are two that I know of that are being prepared [for development], but they won’t be ready for lots until next year. Land is in short supply right now.”