The Rural Municipality of Ste Anne is seeing sustainable growth again this year.

“This year we’ve issued 105 permits and last year we were sitting at 93,” informs Chief Administrative Officer Jennifer Gilmore.

The numbers, however, can be a bit deceiving.

“Those permits are not all for single-family dwellings,” explains Gilmore, “they also include commercial uses, farm buildings and uses, and then all of the decks, detached garages, and sheds.”

Gilmore says the RM has already issued 25 single-family dwelling permits, just 6 behind what they had issued at this time last year. “We don’t see that six permit discrepancy as being huge,” offers Gilmore, “because we know we have those applications waiting to be processed in the queue.”

According to Gilmore, permit applications generally are submitted in the spring, however, with everyone waiting to see how the pandemic was handled, the numbers spiked mid-summer.

Gilmore says they have seen increases in single-family dwelling permit applications for the last eight years, but that the last five or six have been extremely consistent.

“We’re always looking for development in our municipality,” says Gilmore, “but we’re always looking to make sure that we do it in a sustainable manner.”

Gilmore says the RM is always encouraging growth and hopes to see the increase remain incremental in the coming years.