Residential Permits Hit 10-Year Low

NEW YORK CITY-Dovetailing with reports issued earlier this year by the New York Building Congress, the association said Tuesday that 2009 residential building permits plummeted 82% from the year prior, the lowest level in a decade. Although the dropoff is due partly to a 2008 spike in permit applications as developers sought to start projects prior to a tax break’s expiration, it’s not the only reason, says Building Congress president Richard T. Anderson.

Noting that “new residential construction has screeched to a virtual stop,” Anderson says in a report that the sunset of the J-51 tax abatement program across most of the city in July ’08 accounted for “some of the disparity” between ’08 and ’09. “However, that is just part of the story. Right now, the demand, and thus the financing, has not been sufficient to start new residential projects.”

The New York City Department of Buildings issued residential permits for 6,057 units across 1,014 buildings last year, compared to the ’08 total of permit for 33,911 units at 2,434 properties. The previous low point in the past decade was the year 2000, when permits were issued for 15,050 units.