Thompson-Okanagan cities lagging behind housing needs

There needs to be 4,500 new homes built in the Central Okanagan every year for the next 20 years to keep up with demand.

That’s what West Kelowna city council was told last month by Jenn Podmore, a vice-president with Rennie Group, a real estate and market advising company.

READ MORE: Pace of Central Okanagan housing construction needs to pick up dramatically

According to Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation figures, that’s 1,100 to 1,200 fewer than what was built in each of the last two years despite significant increases in housing starts over pre-pandemic years in the Central Okanagan.

While Podmore did not provide figures for Kamloops, Penticton or Vernon, for the most part they’re not keeping up with pre-pandemic averages let alone picking up the pace.

The data shows that Kamloops averaged 624 new housing starts in the five years from 2015 through 2019. That was bolstered by 1,052 starts in 2018.

Over the past two years, Kamloops averaged 487 starts.

Vernon averaged 394 starts in each of the five years but dropped to 368 for the last two years.

Penticton did better. It averaged 342 starts during the five pre-pandemic years but climbed to 359 over the past two years.

The picture was more impressive in the Central Okanagan where there were 2,367 housing starts per year, on average, from 2015 through 2019.

That jumped to an average of 3,324 over the past two years. While that’s an impressive 1,000 homes per year gain, it’s still far short of what Podmore says is needed.

Out of that, Kelowna had about 72% of the new starts and accounted for almost 900 of the 1,000-home increase. West Kelowna had 13% of the new starts and accounted for the rest of the increase, averaging 371 over the past two years.

Lake Country and Peachland starts went down, on average, over the past two years in comparison to pre-pandemic years.

Of the region’s five largest cities, Kelowna had 63% of new housing starts. As of the 2021 census, it had 45% of the population.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation defines a housing start as the date when the concrete has been poured for the whole of the footing around the structure or an equivalent stage where there isn’t a basement.

Average number of housing starts, 2021-22

• 2,677 – Kelowna
• 488 – Kamloops
• 371 – West Kelowna
• 368 – Vernon
• 359 – Penticton
• 4,263 – Total of 5 largest cities

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