THE NUMBER of building permits authorised in July 2014 stood at 449 compared with the 519 authorised in July last year; a fall of 14%, according to figures released by the Cyprus Statistical Service.
Compared to July 2013, the total area of these permits fell by 22% to 64,129 square metres from 81,682, while their value fell 9% to €82.5 million from €91.1 million.
During July, building permits were issued for:
- Residential buildings – 302 permits
- Non-residential buildings – 98 permits
- Civil engineering projects – 9 permits
- Division of plots of land – 35 permits
- Road construction – 5 permits
Building permits for new home construction
The 302 residential building permits authorised in July provided for the construction of 196 dwelling units comprising 125 single houses and 71 multiple housing units (such as apartments, semis, townhouses and other residential complexes).
This is a drop of 39% compared with July 2013 when building permits were issued for the construction of 321 new homes.
Year to date
During the first seven months of 2014, a total of 3,009 building permits were authorised; a fall of 7% compared to the 3,220 permits authorised during the same period last year. The total value of these permits has fallen by 30%, while their total area has fallen 32%.
According to the Cyprus Statistical Service, building permits constitute a leading indicator of future activity in the construction sector.
The number of building permits issued in Cyprus during July fell 14 per cent compared with the corresponding month of last year, while the number of new homes being built fell 39 per cent.
More importantly how many are still being built without a building permit? Not rocket science.
Phil
The realities continue to show through. Cyprus has enough housing stock, existing office and shop premises and government buildings to see it through another 3 or 4 years of austerity. Elsewhere in recession-hit Europe the focus has been on larger, infrastructure projects to try and stimulate some kind of longer-term investment – but we see little evidence of that here. I would suggest massive investment, including grants to house and property owners, in photo-voltaic cells, help move the island away from its inefficient and extremely expensive (the highest in the EU I recently heard), electricity costs, which continue to cripple households and industrial concerns, not to mention hospitals and other public buildings. I note Cyprus no longer features in many recent Surveys about the best places in the world to live, work and retire to! What a waste of existing assets, 320 days of sunshine a year, two very modern and currently under-utilised airports etc.