Even without COVID-19, Kelowna was off to its slowest start for new construction since 2014

It seems only natural to expect construction starts to be down all across the province because of COVID-19, but Kelowna was heading downhill even before the pandemic began.

The COVID-19 lockdown started in mid-March so the value of building permits issued by the city for first three months of the year would not have been impacted.

For those months, the city issued permits worth $99.5 million. That’s the worst first quarter of the year since 2014 when only $74 million worth of permits were issued.

It also follows the second biggest first quarter in the last decade in 2019 when building permits worth $195.5 million were issued.

The picture is not much different for April and May, which were at the height of the lockdown.

For those two months, permits worth $91 million were issued this year. That was worse than any year since 2015 when $68 million worth of permits were issued. Last year was the best April-May in a decade with $215.2 million issued.

For the five months combined, 2020 has been the worst start of the year in the past decade except for 2014 and 2015.

Permits totalled $190.5 million for that five month period. By comparison, Kamloops issued permits worth $288.3 million for all of 2019.

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