When its hot, its hot.
Greater Sudbury, along with Alberta, are bucking both national and provincial building trends.
“Last year construction in this city in all five sectors, from residential to commercial and industrial, surpassed anything since we began collecting statistics in 1972,” said Guido Mazza, director of building services, Greater Sudbury.
Mazza reported 2,316 building and development permits were issued in 2007 with a construction value of $373.2 million, up from 2,124 permits in 2006 worth $233.7 million in construction work.
“The new hospital construction is responsible for the part of the rise in value of the work, but everything is up, too,” said Mazza.
On Monday, Statistics Canada reported the value of building permits in February in Canada, as a whole, declined by one percent, the fourth monthly decline on record. Despite an increase in Alberta of 11.8 percent, caused by a rush of new multi-family dwellings, declines in non-residential construction in Ontario offset those gains.
But according to a release Tuesday from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Greater Sudbury's building boom showed no slowdown.
“Even though there were only five starts in Sudbury recorded by CMHC in March, building permit activity, which is a leading indicator of housing starts, points to 2008 being a better year than 2007. 63 permits for single-detached housing were issued in the first three months ending March 31, compared to 57 one year ago,” said Warren Philip, northern Ontario market analyst, CMHC.
Of the four major northern centres - Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie, North Bay and Timmins – Sudbury had 22 of the 34 housing starts from January to March this year according to CMHC figures.
Greater Sudbury's building sector is so hot, city staff are having trouble keeping up.
“2007 was a challenging year for Building Services staff. The City of Greater Sudbury continued to experience a strong local economy with continued growth both in the residential and ICI (industrial commercial institutional) sectors,” wrote Mazza, director of building services in a report to be given at the Wednesday city council meeting. His report is entitled, City of Greater Sudbury, 2007 Annual Building and Development Report.
In November 2007, Council approved the hiring of four permanent staff in Building Services in order to meet the prescribed time lines for service delivery, said Mazza's report. In addition, a new software system will allow for e-permitting and electronic approvals which should help speed the process.
“Last week we hired the last of the four new staff - two clerical and two technical. Successful candidates have to be registered with the province and pass exams, so we feel lucky to have them,” said Mazza. There is still training involved but Mazza expected the new recruits to be ready for the heavy construction period approaching before June.
The new software system which will allow for electronic permitting will not be up and running until October, said Mazza.
“What we do offer now is that contractors can request building inspections by email to improve access to us. This will allow contractors to book their building inspections while in the field via their Blackberries. Once booked, a Customer Services Clerk in the Building Services Section will confirm the booking either by telephone or email.”
Contractors can go to www.mysudbury.ca and click on Request a Building Inspection.
Saturday building inspections have also been reinstated for members of the Sudbury and District Home Builders Association and the Sudbury Construction Association, he said.
“That is something we have not done since the last big boom in the early 1970s,” said Mazza.
New residential building permits climbed from 481 in 2006 to 572 in 2007. Though the goal for issuing a permit is 10 days according to provincial building code and city policy, staff took more than an extra day to process these permits, from 10.3 days in 2006 to 11.1 days in 2007.
“The number of new single family dwelling permits applied for, reached levels in 2007 not seen in over 15 years. The 20 percent increase in permits dealt with year to year resulted in an eight percent slippage in the turnaround times from the previous year,” stated Mazza's report.
The municipality is profiting from the increase.
“In 2007, $4.3 million in building permit fees was collected up from $2.7 million in 2006.”
