One of several homes under construction in Nanaimo's Wellington area. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

housing demand

Nanaimo’s residential construction sector maintains steady pace during pandemic

Mar 3, 2021 | 5:30 AM

NANAIMO — COVID-19 doesn’t appear to be a major hindrance in building new homes in the city.

A presentation Monday night from the City’s director of development approvals Jeremy Holm showed permitted values of all construction projects in Nanaimo reached $243 million in 2020.

“Down obviously from $445 million which was a record year in 2019. Again it’s still above an average year, with an average value being $222 million,” Holm told council.

Holm said 217 single family homes received building permits in the city last year, eclipsing the 208 detached homes to receive the go-ahead to be built in Nanaimo in record-setting 2019.

Well over half of new single family homes in Nanaimo in 2020 included a secondary suite, in line with previous years.

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Building permits were approved for 1084 total new residential units in 2020, nearly 200 more than average.

A steady diet of new multi-family housing stock continues in Nanaimo with 638 new units permitted throughout the city last year.

“The total construction value tracks very closely to the multi-family trend. That’s kind of interesting, it definitely took off in 2014,” Holm said.

2020 saw hammers swinging at dozens of multi-family projects all over Nanaimo, particularly the downtown area.

Despite a consistent stream of new multi-family projects, including purpose built rental buildings, an already low vacancy rate tumbled even further.

“It was two per cent in 2019, down to one per cent in 2020, which is extremely low,” Holm said. “The Canadian average is 3.2 per cent so we’re quite low, that’s for municipalities over 10,000 [people].”

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