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Melfort building permit numbers jump by $3.05 million compared to last year

MELFORT — Compared to last year, the City of Melfort saw a large increase in building permits, according to the Building Permit Report brought to the last council meeting. The report brought to the June 15 council meeting showed $7.
Melfort City Hall

MELFORT — Compared to last year, the City of Melfort saw a large increase in building permits, according to the Building Permit Report brought to the last council meeting.

The report brought to the June 15 council meeting showed $7.28 million in building permits from January 2020 to the end of May 2020. The same report noted permits distributed from January 2019 to the end of May 2019 totalled only $4.23 million. Both a near doubling of residential permits, mostly through new additional housing and duplexes, according to the report, and a $5 million industrial project contributed to this jump.

Mayor Rick Lang said this was a surprise since he was expecting COVID-19 to have a more negative impact on these numbers.

With everyone being urged to stay home and reduce the spread of the virus, this means that people have time for projects, he said.

“I heard that this is actually something that's not all that uncommon, because people have some time now and some contractors are hungry for work.”

The increase in residential permits alone is a good sign, he said, since this means a growth in Melfort’s tax base.

Brent Lutz, the development and planning director, was also pleased to see these numbers on the rise, especially a $4.7 million project that will upgrade the water treatment plant for the region.

Permit values have also increased, Lutz said, which means high quality homes are being built.

“People are investing in the community,” he said. “There's still confidence in spending, and certainly you know the information that we're receiving throughout the community is that local contractors are busy and finding work throughout this process.”

While this shows that anticipated projects have moved ahead as planned, Lutz said he hopes this trend keeps up through to the end of the year.