High River is right on pace with last year when it comes to building starts.

Safety Codes Supervisor with the Town, Andree Lamoureux says for the first six months of this year there have been permits issued for 14 single family homes and nine multi-family units.

Permit values are just under $10 million in the first six months of the year. In 2016 residential permit values totalled just over $20 million.

She says there's also been an increase in the number of rebuilds.

"A lot of them in the Hampton's and as it stands today, only four rebuilds left from the houses that had been demolished in the Hampton's, so that is a really good sign that we're moving forward," Lamoureux says.

So far this year $18-million in building permits have been issued while in all of last year there were $49-million in permits issued, but that included the Medicine Tree Manor rebuild.

Lamoureux says there's been a jump in commercial construction as well.

"We've seen an increase in development along 12 Avenue," she says. "So you have the lands west of Co-op, there are two buildings under construction, they're commercial retail unit buildings, and again on the Canadian Tire lands where you'll also see construction.

She says the value of permits was a lot higher in 2016 when they topped $45 million, but 2016 also included permits for the rebuilding of the Medicine Tree Manor which had burned down in December of 2015.

Industrial permit values are also way up, from $56,000 last year to $2.75 million this year. FortisAlberta has applied for a building permit for an addition to their existing building.

 

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