INNISFAIL – The battered economy has caused a sharp decline in town of total building permits and construction values after a strong rebound in 2021 when Innisfail – excluding institutional construction activity - had its best year since 2014.
In 2021, the Town of Innisfail recorded a total building permit value of $11,271,751, compared to $7,143,906 in 2022, with more than half the value coming from industrial growth.
The totals in 2021, which included the $1.7 million construction value of the new Day Dental building, were the highest since 2014 when building permit values, excluding institutional, were $12,153,749.
“Certainly, we saw a decline in new housing builds this past year, which is disappointing,” said mayor Jean Barclay of the building permits report that was presented at town council’s regular meeting on Jan. 9. “There are headwinds that we cannot control. We've seen quite an increase in interest rates. There are inflationary pressures, and it's taking quite a while for houses to get built because of supply chain issues.
“Let's hope that 2023 sees some of these things start to settle out and we can move forward and see a lot more activity in the community,” added Barclay.
During the council meeting, council was presented with figures that showed a marked year-to-year decline in housing starts, and permits for garages and renovations.
In 2021, the town recorded 44 building permits with construction values of $876,013 for garages and renovations but only 10 in 2022 that were valued at $499,964.
As for low density residential, the town recorded 20 building permits in 2021 that had a total value of $5,169,210.
In 2022, the town recorded just seven building permits for single detached houses that had a total value of $2,320,126.
Meghan Jenkins, the town’s director of community services, noted overall commercial building permit value was “down a bit” and lower in previous years.
However, she added industrial building permit values were the highest since 2013.
In 2022, the town processed six industrial building permits with a total value of $3,747,816, which included an addition at Johns Manville that had a building permit value of $1.5 million. That compares to five in 2021 with a total value of $543,800.
In 2013, the town recorded seven industrial building permits with a total value of $4,830,000.
“So overall, yes, we were down in 2022 compared to 2021,” Jenkins told council. “We excluded the institutional permits from the graph just because they tend to skew the numbers if all of a sudden, the school does a big project or Autumn Grove gets built. It'll change the permit value substantially in one year.”
According to the report presented to council, there were no institutional building permits recorded by the town in 2022.
