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St. Albert sees historic approvals for multi-family housing

City issued permits for 717 multi-family housing units in first six months of 2024
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Averton's Midtown development next to The Enjoy Centre.

Construction on multi-family housing is set to boom this year as St. Albert approved more apartments, townhomes, semi-detached homes and condos than at any point on record.

In the first six months of 2024, the city issued development permits for 712 multi-family housing units.

That’s a 175 per cent increase over 2023, when the city approved 404 multifamily units over the entire year.  

The bulk of the growth in multi-family is coming from apartments, said Colin Krywiak, the city’s development branch manager for planning.

“I think part of it is in keeping with national trends,” Krywiak said.  “The federal government has a new funding program to incentivize multi-family buildings.”

Multi-family homes tend to be more affordable, Krywiak said. That makes the housing type appealing for many first-time buyers, especially as home prices rise across Alberta alongside inflation-driven increases in the cost of goods such as food and gas.

These factors are not only encouraging more multi-family housing development, they’re also encouraging larger developments, Krywiak said.

Many mid-rise apartment complexes are already underway in St. Albert in new developments such as Riverbank Landing, Midtown, and East Village.

Single-family housing starts hold steady

Work started on 148 single-family dwellings in the first six months of 2024. That’s a slight jump from last year, when there were 137 single family housing starts between January and June.

“There's ups and downs every year,” Krywiak said. “It can depend if applications come in at the end of the year or the beginning of the year, so I would consider this to be fairly steady.”

But since 2018, the overall trajectory for single family in St. Albert has been upward.

In 2018, there were 145 single-family housing starts over the entire year, according to data from the city. That number dropped to 98 the following year but rebounded to 120 in 2020. There were 212 single-family starts in both 2021 and 2022. Last year saw 287 starts.

“This is likely the case due to the steady rise in population growth in St. Albert and the overall effect on housing demand,” Krywiak said.

Alberta saw recording housing starts in the first six months 2024 as more than 21,500 homes began construction, according to data from BILD Alberta.

That’s the highest number on record going back to 1990.

Some 91 per cent of those homes are being built in and around Edmonton and Calgary.

Year-to-date, housing starts in the province are up 54 per cent in comparison to 2023.

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