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Nanaimo’s strata landscape has grown steadily since the first condominium plans were filed here in the late-1970s, and Depreciation Report requirements have become a central part of long-term asset management for these properties. Municipal records held by the Land Title & Survey Authority indicate just over 1,200 active Strata Corporations within the City of Nanaimo today, a figure that underscores the popularity of multi-family and bare-land developments across Vancouver Island’s second-largest urban area. Because each new subdivision must register a unique strata plan, this count is drawn from filed plan numbers rather than estimates, ensuring that Depreciation Report providers work from an accurate universe of clients in Nanaimo.
Of those filings, residential projects dominate. Building-permit data for 2022 show that residential strata work represented 73 per cent of the total permit value issued, while commercial strata construction accounted for almost 5 per cent and industrial strata projects about 0.3 per cent. The remainder of the year’s construction value fell into public-sector or mixed-use categories. Although permit values are not a direct proxy for the number of corporations, they confirm that Nanaimo’s strata market is overwhelmingly geared toward homes—principally apartment and townhouse complexes—where Depreciation Reports are now mandatory.
Regular (building-based) strata corporations still outnumber bare-land corporations, but bare-land developments have become common in south-end hillside subdivisions such as Cinnabar Valley, Westwood Lake and Extension Road, where developers use the strata framework to cost-share private roads and utilities. By contrast, commercial and mixed-use strata corporations are clustered downtown along Front, Commercial and Victoria Cres., and in the Diver Lake light-industrial corridor, while purpose-built industrial strata units concentrate in the Duke Point and Boxwood Drive areas. High-rise inventory remains limited—Nanaimo has no true towers above 25 storeys—but several medium-rise (10- to 18-storey) condominium projects approved since 2022 will add to the skyline and increase demand for Depreciation Report updates.
Looking ahead to 2035, the City Plan, updated in 2022, earmarks the downtown waterfront, Harewood, and the Metral Drive transit corridor for further densification, with policy support for at least 5,000 new residential strata units and a modest expansion of strata-titled flex-industrial space near the port. Taken together, strata properties already account for roughly one-quarter of Nanaimo’s taxable real-estate base—a share expected to rise as green-field land for fee-simple lots dwindles. Common strata-plan prefixes found here include “VIS” (Vancouver Island Section), “EPS” (Electronic Plan Strata) and, in older complexes, simply “SP” (Strata Plan); knowing these abbreviations helps owners locate their filings when commissioning or updating a Depreciation Report in Nanaimo.