Artist drawing of 58-unit building.

(CONTRIBUTED / iNFOnews.ca)

KELOWNA - Kerkhoff Construction, lead developers behind the high-rise projects One Water and 1151 Sunset, is getting ready to start another project just down the road.

While not of the same stature as its much taller concrete cousins closer to the lakeshore, the six-storey wood frame building will put 58 rental units into Kelowna’s beleagured rental market at the corner of Richter Street and Clement Avenue across from the new RCMP police services building.

The project will sit beside another six storey 58-unit purpose-built rental building recently approved by Kelowna council and will require the demolition of six single-family houses on Richter Street.

Those two buildings will join yet another 68-unit rental apartment building planned for nearby Fuller Avenue, which marks the first new construction in decades for that part of downtown.

Kerkhoff was granted an Official Community Plan amendment and rezoning to allow the development, but a restrictive covenant will be applied to keep the building no more than six storeys tall.

Kelowna has one of the lowest purpose-built rental vacancy rates in the country, estimated by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation at just 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Since 2012, council has set a target of permitting 300 rental units a year, a level it has met only once, in 2016.

While there has been rising interest in rental housing grants, it was only 2015 when the city finally saw a developer first take them up on the offer.

Since then, the city has permitted more than 2,000 rental units. CMHC estimates almost 1,400 units were under construction in 2017.

City staff estimate 863 of the 1,070 units that received grants last year are already under construction.

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