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Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2009 > January > 19 > Entry
New lots, building permits WAY down in townships
In addition to the county’s major cities, growth in the rural and suburban areas of Butler County has nearly ground to a halt amid the ongoing recession and housing slump.
Creation of new buildable home lots in the county has nearly ceased, dropping from 325 new lots in 2007 to five last year. There were 1,250 lots created in 2005.
This dramatic drop hints at little construction in 2009, according to Butler County Planning Director David Fehr.
“That’s pretty telling to me,” Fehr said. “In all of last year, basically nobody created any subdivision streets or subdivision lots.”
Question: When do you think the local housing market will turn around
The new lots created were in Oxford Twp, not the county’s formerly booming southeastern townships.
But there is a backlog of available lots ready to go if the market turns around, Fehr said. “When things were going pretty good a few years ago, we were recording more lots than we were issuing building permits for,” he said.
Single family home building permits from 2008 reinforces that turnaround hasn’t happened yet.
Here are the numbers on new home building permits over the past five years
(Click on the upper right corner to enlarge)
Analysis
By year’s end, there were 346 new building permits issued in the county’s townships, down from 567 in 2007 and 1,542 in 2004.
Again, growth in Liberty and West Chester townships showed the largest decline last year, cut nearly in half from 2007. These areas are still growing much faster than the county’s northwest corner, though minimal growth in Oxford and Milford townships has stayed steady.
Across the county, new permits in 2008 were a fraction of what they were three years ago.
The areas that formerly saw the biggest growth are seeing the biggest bust and face the largest challenge to adapt, according to Christine Matacic, Liberty Twp. trustee and president of the Butler County Township Association.
But Matacic said the silver lining from this housing drought is it gives the townships that have raced to keep up with a deluge of growth a chance to revise their plans and make sure they’re growing smart.
“It gives us that time to take a look at that a little more seriously and catch our breath,” she said.
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