In its own understated way, the City of Kelowna says 2016 was a 含羞草研究社渧ery strong含羞草研究社� year for residential development here. And 2017 is shaping up to be the same.

According to city hall, there was a 36 per cent jump in the number of residential housing units built in the city last year compared with 2015, and a whopping 90 per cent more than were build in 2014.

So far this year, the number is up an astounding 216 per cent over the first quarter last year.

And it含羞草研究社檚 not just residential development that has seen an increase. Commercial, industrial and institutional development were all also up according to the city含羞草研究社檚 latest development summery report.

And all that is good news for the city含羞草研究社攅specially when a closer look is taken at the type of residential development the city is seeing.

With astronomically low vacancy rates, 64 per cent of the 1,950 housing units built in the city last year were in multi-family developments, with 47 per cent of those being rental units.

All those numbers mean development is helping the city grow at the rate predicted by Kelowna含羞草研究社檚 latest Official Community Plan, about 1.5 per cent per year. And by doing so, the city can basically keep doing what it含羞草研究社檚 doing when it comes to planning.

In the 1990s, growth in the city took off at such an unprecedented rate that planning became almost secondary to dealing with the harsh reality of what seemed like out-of-control growth. As a result, mistakes were made that took years rectify in terms of getting development plans back on track and cleaning up what seemed to be the Wild West of planning at the time.

Of course, growth含羞草研究社攅ven at break-neck speed含羞草研究社� is far more preferable to no growth at all for any city. But it does pose its own unique set of challenges.

In a market where house prices are rising, rents are going up too and the availability of rental accommodation is low, much of the positive used to sell the community to potential newcomers can be lost because of a seemingly lack of truly affordable housing.

Recently, the Capital News published a number of stories about the explosion in development across the Central Okanagan. In the words of Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran this week, 含羞草研究社渢here appears to be no slowing down right now.含羞草研究社�

So the city has to be mindful that while Kelowna may be a place where people want to come to, the challenge of housing them remains.

At this point, the economic slowdown of just nine years ago含羞草研究社攚hen development project were put on hold in this city含羞草研究社攕eemsto be a distant memory.

Alistair Waters is the assisstant editor of the Capital News.