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City expected to set construction record in 2020, despite pandemic

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Despite a global pandemic that hampered some construction projects during its early days, a red-hot housing market is pushing London to a record building boom in 2020.

Construction values had topped $1.17 billion by the end of October, the most recent figures that have been made public, and the fifth consecutive year the city has eclipsed the $1 billion mark. A city hall bureaucrat revealed more up-to-date news at Monday’s planning committee meeting.

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“I had a bit of a sneak preview to the November building report. You will see when that comes to planning committee, we are surpassing an all-time high of construction value, an all-time high record, basically, for all the years we’ve been keeping track of building permit data,” Peter Kokkoros, city hall’s deputy chief building official, told politicians.

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The record, set in 2014 for construction value of all building permits issued that year, is $1.4 billion and even with the chaos of COVID-19, London will exceed that milestone this year.

Last year, the value of building permits hit $1.37 billion, aided by a Maple Leafs Foods poultry processing plant with a construction value of $330 million that’s now under construction on Wilton Grove Road.

The exact value of building permits issued so far this year is unclear. Kokkoros said he couldn’t provide the number until November’s building report is made public, when asked after Monday’s revelations in council chambers.

Building reports, which detail permits issued by city hall, are generally delayed about a month because of the time needed to crunch the numbers and prepare reports to council’s planning committee.

But even October’s statistics show momentum in London.

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Permits were issued for 2,773 apartment units by the end of October, which surpasses the number of new units created all of last year, as well as those built the year before. Permits for single and semi-detached homes also blew past 2019 and 2018 rates, with 760 issued by the end of October. Last year, 688 such permits were issued, and 656 permits for single or semi-detached were issued in 2018.

Mayor Ed Holder and Ward 8 Coun. Steve Lehman noted residential growth is far outpacing commercial and industrial building.

“I think we have to keep our eye on that to ensure we’re doing what we need to do to attract commercial and industrial business to our area,” Lehman said.

An average of more than 20 permit applications each day are coming to London city hall. Keeping up with that pace caused some challenges earlier this year, especially as COVID-19 limited staff — city hall put hundreds of workers on temporary layoffs to save cash when operations were cut to essential work only — but Kokkoros said those issues have since been resolved.

London switched to a digital application system amid the pandemic.

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“I’m sure there’s a lot of work and challenges to make these permits get through on time,” Ward 9 Coun. Anna Hopkins said Monday, thanking city staff.

Kokkoros joked with politicians that he didn’t predict such massive growth to continue in 2020, after a strong showing last year and with a pandemic entering the mix.

“His Worship (Mayor Holder) mentioned a crystal ball. I had one of those, and I can’t find replacement batteries for it,” he said with a chuckle.

“The reason I say this is, I was quoted in saying that the construction values for the entire year were hitting record numbers, and that I wasn’t foreseeing anything like this to happen again.”

The committee began Monday’s meeting with a moment of silence to recognize a recent tragedy in the industry, paying tribute to the two men who were killed in a building collapse on Friday and acknowledging the work of emergency crews that responded. Five others were injured as an under-construction building partially collapsed at 555 Teeple Terrace.

mstacey@postmedia.com

Submit your questions and curiosities below, and let LFP’s Curious London take it from there.

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