File photo.
Apartments breaking ground in Victoria and Nanaimo led the way in housing starts last month.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) November housing starts report shows construction got underway to 130 apartments in Greater Victoria, more than 53 per cent of all starts.
There were a total of 242 housing starts in Greater Victoria last month, which includes single detached, semi-detached and row housing.
CMHC says the pace was set in Saanich and Central Saanich where 104 apartment broke ground.
The corporation says year-to-date starts are not far behind the record-setting pace of 2017 in Victoria, with 3,498 starts to date which is just four per cent of last year’s mark at the same time.
Of the 60 housing starts in Nanaimo last month, 30 of those were apartments compared to just seven apartment starts in November 2017.
Overall year-to-date starts are down in Nanaimo, with construction underway on 790 homes in 2018 compared to 899 at the same time last year.
Single-family homes made up the bulk of construction starts in Courtenay making up 20 of the 29 starts.
Housing starts in 2018 are well ahead of last years number at this time, with 448 homes breaking ground compared to 269 through 11 months of 2017.
Although there was only one apartment start in Courtenay, that type of housing is way up from last year with 153 started in 2018.
Only 30 were started at this time last year.
CHEK News
