The City of Victoria and Langford led the region in housing construction in 2017, according to data out today from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
CMHC Market Analyst Braden Batch says it was a record breaking year with 3862 housing starts of all types, compared with 2933 in 2016. "You're looking at the highest number of housing starts for the Greater Victoria area since all the way back to 1976."
Batch says the other notable takeaway from the 2017 numbers is that rental apartments made up one of the largest types of housing under construction, "the real news is the apartment starts aimed at rental. You have to go back quite a few years to see this amount of rental construction."
CMCH broke down the number of total housing starts by region:
Victoria - 979
Langford - 963
Saanich - 625
View Royal - 280
Colwood - 260
Sidney - 172
Sooke - 160
North Saanich - 135
First Nations - 91
Esquimalt - 57
Juan de Fuca - 43
Oak Bay - 42
Central Saanich - 32
Metchosin - 13
Highlands - 10