Finalists named for National Awards for Housing Excellence

Vicky’s Homes is leading the charge as a number of Edmonton builders are now finalists in the 2022 Canadian Home Builders’ Association National Awards for Housing Excellence.

Vicky’s with eight finalist placings and Averton Homes, with five, are just some of the local builders who made it through this year’s record-setting 800 entries from eight different provinces.

“This competition is Canada’s premiere awards for new homes, renovations, community development and residential marketing,” said Natasha Rombough, CHBA director of marketing and communications, who also manages the CHBA National Awards for Housing Excellence. “As a national competition, it showcases the amazing variety of housing types, design and architecture that we have in this country. It’s very interesting to see the different homes across Canada, and it’s great to feel a sense of pride in your local builders, renovators and other industry professionals.”

Vicky’s, which has wins at the CHBA’s national awards last year and from 2016 through 2019, has secured eight finalist spots, with six in the renovation section and two in the New Home Spaces segment.

Averton, which claimed five finalist spots, is up for five different awards for its Midtown project, a master-planned community in St. Albert.

Other Edmonton finalists include Canada Lands Corp. for Village at Griesbach (three spots, including Best Growing Community), Brookfield Residential with three, and City Homes and Rohit Group of Companies both with two spots each.

Meanwhile, Calgary builders also snagged a fair amount of the finalist placements. Some of the Calgary finalists, including a number of those with multiple spots, consist of Jayman Built with nine, including Best New Community for Westman Village, Ultimate Renovations with seven, Dream Unlimited with five, Brookfield Residential with four, including Best Growing Community for Seton, and Douglas Homes with three.

“Canada’s housing industry,” said Rombough, “continues to deal with supply chain and labour challenges but overall builder confidence is high according to CHBA’s quarterly Housing Market Index, which is an industry sentiments indicator. Housing starts and building permits are up, which is needed to address a lack of market-rate housing supply that’s been building for many years in many areas of the country, and which is contributing to high home prices.”

Overall construction costs are up more than $68,000 on a 2,484-square-foot home since before the pandemic, noted Rombough, and supply chain issues are resulting in delays in home completions. “That said, homebuilders and renovators are doing what they can to keep construction timelines as close to on schedule as possible,” she added.

Forty-eight awards, along with the Design Excellence Award, Renovation Excellence and Marketing Excellence Award, will be presented on May 13. This year, the Net Zero Home Award has been expanded into two categories, one for production homes and one for custom or renovated homes.

“While we’d hoped to return to an in-person gala this year, the lead time needed to put on an event of that scale, combined with ongoing pandemic-related uncertainty, meant we had to make the call to cancel an in-person event,” said Rombough.