Building construction has surpassed the $200-million mark in Kamloops in four of the past eight years.

And that construction has shifted in the past decade, from 47 per cent being on the South Shore and 36 per cent on the North Shore, to 28 per cent on the South Shore and 58 per cent on the North Shore.

The remaining 17 and 14 per cent in those years was in the east part of town.

City development and engineering services director Marvin Kwiatkowski made these observations during his annual report to City council Tuesday. He included pages of statistics and information up to date to the end of 2012.

But he also predicted what might be ahead, including an expectation that multi-family housing will rise in the coming years.

Kwiatkowski noted that business licences have gone from about 4,300 in 2002 to 5,300 last year. His department handled 144,847 phone calls last year, which is less than the 191,646 in 2011.

While the difference between revenue and expenditures in his department has gone up $4.4 million since 2007 due to increases in activity and development, most of that is from transit costs and inflation.

Kwiwatkowski said only $2.4 million of that increase has gone onto taxpayers, with the rest coming from savings from efficiencies and reorganization.