Total starts fell 9.7 per cent year-over-year to 371 units, solely because of an 88.7-per-cent plunge in the heavily weighted highrise segment, to just 24 units.
CMHC said apartment construction had been particularly strong in January 2009.
As a result, multi-family starts declined by 23 per cent to 231 units, despite near-record numbers for both the row housing and semi-detached markets.
The number of new homes started in the townhouse sector more than doubled to 179 from 69, reaching a four-year high, CMHC said. Semi-detached starts also rose by a robust 55.6 per cent to 28 units, the highest January level in three decades.
As well, the single-detached segment, which is typically considered less affordable than the other housing types, recorded a strong 26.1-per-cent increase to 140 units.
It was the fifth consecutive year-over-year gain for the single-detached sector, marking an eight-year high for the month of January, CMHC said.
“Being the less affordable but traditionally more popular dwelling type, its recent trend clearly reflects the strength and health of housing demand in Ottawa,” said CMHC senior market analyst Sandra Perez Torres in a statement.
“Consistent with CMHC’s forecast for 2010, January housing starts heralded an early recovery phase for the local industry.”
The effect of the single-detached segment’s growth was mostly clearly seen in Kanata, where builders broke ground on 39 new homes in that category, pushing up total starts for the area to 65 from just 16 a year earlier.
Kanata had the second-largest year-over-year increase in starts in the city, after Cumberland, which recorded a 329.4-per-cent jump in starts to 73 units.
The area encompassing the old City of Ottawa, Rockcliffe Park and Vanier, however, was badly hit by the drop in apartment construction activity, the report showed. As a result, total starts in the city core plummeted to just six units from 215 a year earlier, and it was one of only two regions to see lower starts in January.
