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New home construction drops since last year
By Justin Goble
Recent construction statistics paint a less rosy picture than commissioners heard during a March meeting.
Despite total local building activity being above national and regional averages, new home construction in Jackson County is down, based on figures obtained from the Building Inspections office.
Permits for residential units are down for the first quarter of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007.
According to inspection office tallies, permits were issued for 71 new single-family homes and two new multi-family homes from January through March of this year. Twenty-one of the single-family permits were issued in the Cashiers area, while 50 were issued in the northern end of the county. Both of the multi-family home permits were issued in Cashiers.
Those numbers show a 40 percent decrease from the first quarter of 2007, when permits were issued for 118 new single-family homes and four new multi-family structures. Fifty-five single-family home and three multi-family home permits were issued in the southern part of the county during the first three months of last year, while 63 single-family and one multi-family were issued in the northern section.
The number of mobile home permits issued is also down. County officials issued 13 single-wide mobile home permits during the first part of this year, all of which were in county’s northern section. Of the 15 permits issued in the same period of 2007, all but one were in the northern section.
Eight permits for double-wide trailers have been issued this year – six through the Sylva office and two in Cashiers. That number is down from the 13 issued during the first quarter last year – 10 in Sylva and three in Cashiers.
However, the number of home addition permits has gone up during the first quarter of the year over the same time last year. Officials granted 34 of those permits throughout the county from January to March – 24 in the southern end and 10 in the northern part. That’s a switch from last year when just eight of the 22 permits issued were through the Cashiers office.
New work permits (for buildings neither commercial nor residential, such as garages and storage sheds) have also seen an increase. Twenty-eight were issued during the first three months of this year – 12 in Cashiers and 16 from the Sylva office. That’s up from 21 issued last year, with 13 of those in Cashiers.
The overall number of building permits issued has decreased far less than new home permits in the same time frame. The county has issued 313 building permits thus far in 2008, down 13 percent from the 357 issued in the first quarter of 2007.
County Planning Director Linda Cable March 17 updated commissioners on the current state of construction in the county, saying that while the number of permits being issued is down, the county was topping regional and national averages.
Information Cable gave commissioners did not break down the total into the types of permits issued. Cable’s assessment also compared figures for the last quarter of 2007 with the same period in 2006.
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