New homes being built in Tobiano are again pushing up the construction value in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.

Chief building inspector Pat Luscombe says the value of residential building permits issued is $27.4 million at the midway mark of 2019.

“We had quite a good month of June with regard to residential construction, which brought us back up fairly close to the numbers that we were seeing last year in 2018. We’re down slightly from 2018 numbers, but we’ve got a significant number of residential applications that are coming down for issuance in the near future.”

The construction value overall for the year in the TNRD is just over $40.4 million, which includes the 10 electoral areas and seven smaller municipalities.

Commercial construction is the second-most valuable sector so far this year in the regional district, at $8.6 million, which is largely driven by an $8-million-dollar building permit issued new hotel under construction in Clearwater.