WESTLOCK – In 2022, the Town of Westlock issued 81 development permits totaling just over $23 million, the highest since 2018, and 48 building permits with a value close to $4.5 million.
At their Jan. 9 regular meeting, town councillors got a look at the year-end figures during a report from development services director Krystal Fedoretz, noting the totals for both are up slightly, as 73 development permits and 44 building permits were issued in 2021. Fedoretz also stated that they have 400 active business licences in town as of Dec. 1, 2022, while her report noted there were 78 new ones last year — totals for other permits ranging from electrical, to gas and plumbing, was also included with her report.
For the development permits, industrial led the way with a total value of $18,799,000, followed by commercial at $3,410,000, residential at $1,061,100, parks and recreation at $77,000 and institutional at $20,000 — Fedoretz said the new $12 million Westlock Seeding Cleaning Plant “is a large, large portion” of the industrial figure, while the new $4.4 million public works shop is also included.
“We do look at our historic values every year typically in December and in the past eight years, I can report that in 2022 we did about $23 million of value in developments and the next closest to that was in 2018 when we did $9.6 million,” Fedoretz told council, noting the most development permits they’ve issued in a year since 2016 was 88. “So, our value far exceeded anything we’ve seen in the last eight years.”
In a follow-up interview, CAO Simone Wiley said while they’re excited by last year’s development permit numbers, it can be “a little deceiving to say that that whole value will transfer into physical buildings” while Fedoretz noted that the development permit numbers “are the exciting ones” although those projects don’t always proceed right away.
“Sometimes you need a development permit for something that’s temporary, like signage for example. Or something that becomes part of something else, like renovations would also be in the category. So, it’s not a one-for-one between development and building permits,” Wiley explained. “That said, these are significant investments into the community.”
For last year, Fedoretz said that building permits are “pretty much on par” at roughly $4.46 million. Of those, commercial led the way at $1,863,000, followed by industrial at $1,341,000, residential at $975,000, parks and recreation at $278,000 and institutional at $2,000.
