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Your new Ottawa home could cost $2 million.

Your renovation might cost more than you think

Bonjour, Ottawa! Simone Okafor-Bouchard here, bringing you the latest from City Hall, where the paper trail is always long, but the real story, as I always say, is never on the Hill — it's always just off it.

Let's talk about those numbers that just dropped from the City of Ottawa's building permit registry. We've got a lot of construction activity, which is not surprising, but one residential permit really caught my eye. Permit BP 9NEW 24-5505, issued for 865 Aviation Road in Ward 1, is for a new two-storey detached dwelling with a finished basement and walkout. The declared value for that project? A cool $2,066,986. That's a serious investment for one house.

On the commercial side, permit BP 3ALT 26-804 shows interior alterations on the second and sixth floors at 4701 Tahoe Boulevard in Ward 3, valued at $568,320. And yes, a Tim Hortons is doing some recladding at their drive-thru window at 780 Bancroft Drive in Ward 11, permit BP 3ALT 26-430, for $84,619. That's a lot of double-doubles to pay for that!

What does this mean for you? Well, with these kinds of costs, whether it's new builds or commercial upgrades, it trickles down. It speaks to the demand, the labour, and material costs across our city. Keep an eye on your property assessments, folks, because these permits tell a story about where our city is growing, and how much it's costing to build that growth.

Simone Okafor-Bouchard, MiTL Sports Desk, Ottawa.

P.S. Marc and the team talk about how this impacts your wallet every single morning — get the full breakdown live at mornings.live.

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