sales are leveling off and inventory is up over last year on residential....this is another reflection of residential slowing down the increases we have seen in the past two years.

I would guess that one of the reasons building outside of city limits has slowed is the fact Regional District now requires septic and lagoons that cost $35,000 plus per lot. They won't even let you do your own perk test, you now have to pay $700 a hole for each perk test by an engineer...

"They won't even let you do your own perk test, you now have to pay $700 a hole for each perk test by an engineer..."

gee .. it looks like we are moving into the 20th century finally ... will the 21st century be next???

Most of my stuff I own and build meet the OSA rather than CSA ...

Owl's Standards Association versus Canadian Standards Association ...

;-)

Man are you in for a surprise on your next project!
The city won't let anything go now without a consultant, engineer or professional providing a paper. The paper usually says exactly the same thing as you said it would, but no matter, you have to buy it.
In today's world Prince George would never get started. Too much trouble. Luckily the settlers that came to PG didn't have to buy all the paper we have to do, just to do the same thing.
Nothing has really changed, except the regulatory creep is now equal to the development cost.

And if you stand up for yourself, OWL, they will dust off and reinterpret every regulation to make sure you don't come back.

YDPC .... My post was a tongue in cheek post.

While 70% or 90% or whatever of the population is honest if they are in a situation of doing their own tests, such as percolation tests, for instance. Others are not.

In addition, it is not something everyone can do poperly.

We must remember, government is not the only one doing this.

There are consumer groups who want to know that their products meet certain standards.

In yesterday’s sitting of the provincial legislature, Coleman was being grilled by Simpson on a new forestry bill. During estimates, Simpson was trying to push the province to higher standards. He uttered the words Victoria’s Secret in conjunction with their catalogue which they require to be made with paper coming from “certified” sustainably managed forests. Those are standards imposed on companies by the consumers. The same consumers who not only pay taxes, but also pay for the product and their demands tend to make the product more expensive. So, this is a self-policing by the consumer which has stepped into that industry. The same consumer who also pays taxes and may not be willing to set the higher standard through government intervention.

So, we have a bunch of people who, on the face of it, want the government to get out of the business of quality control, but take control of the quality control in another fashion. Then again, it is likely not the same people at all. Rather, it is a significant part of the population that wants stricter standards and they have been unable to move government to do that because they do not want to move out of office, but can get industry to do it because they want to stay in business.

Interesting.