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Prince George, BC – A jump in new housing starts in Prince George is in line with the positive forecast projected by Canada Mortgage and Housing for the 2015 construction season. (click here, for previous story)

CMHC expects new home starts in the city to be up 9-percent over last year.  Stats released for the month of March, show that outlook becoming reality as the spring construction season ramped up considerably over the same period in 2014.

Work began on eight new single family homes last month, compared to just three in 2014.  And there are two multiple family dwellings underway, where there had been none last year.

Year-to-date totals for single family homes are double first quarter totals for 2014 – from 17 to 34.  There were no new multiple family starts over the quarter last year, compared to three this year.

Across the region, 250News had a story earlier this week about a townhouse development underway in Terrace to fill a need and the CMHC statistics put it in black and white – there were four new multiple housing starts last month, compared to none in 2014.  The number of new home starts dropped from eight last year to just two last month.

Fort St. John saw construction begin on a whopping 74 multiple-family dwellings, compared to 14 in March of last year, while single family starts held steady at 14 and 13, respectively.

And Dawson Creek shows an easing up – after 40 new multiple-family dwelling starts one year ago, there were just four last month.