Calgary is a growing city, and if the number of building permit applications received during the first quarter of 2024 is an indication, it’s growing by leaps and bounds.

The City of Calgary released quarterly statistics on May 8 that showed a 34 per cent year-over-year increase in the number of permit applications received (5,384).

“With a record number of building permits received in the first quarter of 2024, we have stepped up support for our customers,” said Ulrik Seward, Chief Building Official for the City of Calgary, in a prepared media release.

“We did this by issuing 4,736 building permits in Q1 2024. This is the highest number of building permits the City issued in the first quarter of a year in the past 10 years.”

Of those, 3,889 were residential building permits, containing 2,425 for new residential out of a total of 4,689 residential units represented for all permits.

A total of 82 per cent of all building permits issued during Q1 were residential, representing more than $1.01 billion in estimated value versus an estimated $277 million for non-residential permits.

Bill Black, CEO of the Calgary Construction Association, said that the announcement by the City of Calgary was welcome news.

“There’s a lot of bad noise out there, so it’s nice to see these signs of growth and activity and our city continue to thrive in the built environment. It’s nice to celebrate a little bit of good news here,” he said.

He said that looking at the ratio of how many permits have been applied for versus how many have been issued was a healthy number for the construction industry.

“We’re often complaining about the city not processing permits fast enough, and not getting things moving and creating a roadblock, and to me, that’s a fairly healthy relationship between actual issued and submitted. It does indicate that the city continues to be flat out in that area,” Black said.