City of Surrey Financial Plan 2020-2024

ECONOMIC OVERVIEW

SURREY’S FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE Despite the decline in the real estate market throughout the entire Lower Mainland, the total building construction value for the City remained strong for the 2019 year. The declining activities from the single-family residential sector were offset by the shift towards increased construction activity in multi-family residential projects, specially town houses and high rise apartments. The industrial, commercial and institutional (“ICI”) sectors have also experienced significant growth for the year, showing relative strength and projected to provide growth in the future years as Surrey continues to have available industrial lands and opportunities for growth relative to other municipalities in the Metro Vancouver area.

The total building construction value in 2019 has increased by 51% compared to 2018. This is primarily due to the significant increase in the ICI sector with several large offices, retail, warehouse businesses, as well as secondary and elementary schools being issued their permits for the year. Planning application fees collected in the 2019 year are 5% lower than those collected in 2018. Due to the economic downturn in the real estate market and stringent requirements for the mortgage qualification by the banking sector, this likely had a negative impact on the planning application fees received by the City in this year. Business License revenue for 2019 increased by 7% from last year to approximately $8.5 million dollars. This revenue stream is very critical for the City’s financial health both directly and indirectly in that as new business are attracted to the City and are successful they will typically inject further investments into the local economy, including creating new jobs.

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