Oliver construction and real estate in 'a real surge': mayor

Large projects in the Town of Oliver are driving a construction boom in the municipality, which has approved just shy of $12 million in construction value already this year.

That compares to slightly over $2 million for the first quarter of 2017, according to a building permit report from council last week, making a nearly 600 per cent increase year over year.

Much of that has come from some major projects, Mayor Ron Hovanes said, like the Kiwanis Seniors Housing expansion in the town.

But the biggest contributor, which makes up nearly two-thirds of the building permits’ construction value, is the upcoming Coast Oliver hotel, at $8 million in construction value.

The month of March, alone, generated more construction value in Oliver as the entire first quarter of 2017, at $2.5 million, with about half of that coming from the Kiwanis expansion.

“Our building inspector’s just worked off his feet,” Hovanes said. “Everybody’s busy; I think it’s healthy.”

But Hovanes said the boom is more than just large commercial projects.

“We have all kinds of single-family development going on right now. There’s two developments that are well underway. There’s other people kicking tires here seriously, as well, from business to residential,” he said.

“We’re very much in a real upswing with development, which we haven’t seen in a lot of years, decades even. Prior to 2008, we had a building boom there for a while, with residential mostly, and we had a new mall back then, as well. But this is a real surge, and we’re really feeling it.”

Hovanes named, in particular, the Okanagan Correctional Centre in the Senkulmen industrial zone on the Osoyoos Indian Band as part of the surge.

“While Corrections has been recruiting, they’ve always been coming to me saying they really wish there was more housing stock and more rental properties and more single-family homes that were available,” Hovanes said.

Hovanes said it has been years since local contractors have had to look for work out of town, which he pointed to as another sign of the economy being “really robust, right now.”

Osoyoos has often been seen as the stronger housing market, with the average single-family house going for over $100,000 more than the average house in Oliver last year.

Rather than a resort community, like Osoyoos, where the population fluctuates between winter and summer, Hovanes said the increase in Oliver’s housing is more for those looking to stay year-round.

“It definitely is more of a family, working-class, the high school is there, it’s more industrial, we’ve got the prison there,” said Linda Davreux, South Okanagan Real Estate Board president, adding that market is less susceptible to the bust and boom.

“It’s definitely catching up, mostly because of the work that’s going to be available there. A lot of new jobs there. It’s good to see it strengthening out there.”

And the town would appear to be the underdog in South Okanagan real estate, playing catch-up with Osoyoos on the housing market. The year-to-date statistics from the South Okanagan Real Estate Board notes Oliver’s average single-family house was just $14,000 shy of Osoyoos’s in the first three months of 2017.

In March, 16 single-family houses sold for an average of $457,000 in Oliver, topping the $448,000 average for the 13 houses sold in Osoyoos.

But Davreux said she wouldn’t expect Oliver to consistently top Osoyoos, where the lakeside appeal and resort-like atmosphere tends to draw the higher bidders.

“I think there’s always going to be a market for (Osoyoos). They’re so different, right? I think they’re both going to remain strong,” she said, adding that she’s glad to see new developments going up in Oliver.