Construction picking up again after slowing due to recession
By ERIN MIDDLEWOOD, For The Columbian
Published: December 9, 2015, 4:38pm
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Construction is in progress at Pleasant View Estates, a housing development on Northwest McCann Road. The 169-lot subdivision is one of many housing projects that are part of a new construction boom in Clark County. (Natalie Behring/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
Backhoes are digging to prepare streets and utilities for a 169-lot subdivision off Northwest McCann Road in the Felida neighborhood north of Vancouver.
The Pleasant View Estates development, just west of the upscale Ashley Heights subdivision, is one of the larger housing projects undertaken in Clark County since the Great Recession slowed homebuilding to the barest trickle. It’s not that homebuilding stopped, but most of what was built was a carryover from boom-time projects of the early to mid-2000s.
Home construction is picking up again, especially in unincorporated areas lying outside city limits but within growth boundaries intended to contain urban-style development.
“There’s pretty high builder optimism,” said Jack Harroun, president of the Building Industry Association of Clark County.
By of the end of the third quarter this year, Clark County issued 947 permits for single-family houses, the most since 2007, when it issued 1,245 permits for the year. The next year, the housing bubble burst.
“We tanked big time,” said Marty Snell, director of Clark County’s community development department. But the trend now is upward. Part of his job is to sign off when property in unincorporated areas goes through the subdivision process.
“I used to get them more sporadically, and I’m getting them fairly consistently now,” Snell said.
He’s not the only one affected by the uptick. Milada Allen, president of the Felida Neighborhood Association for the past 10 years, said her phone is ringing more often as projects like the one off McCann Road get underway.
“Our phone calls about transportation impacts and stormwater runoff have increased in the past year,” Allen said. She estimates they’ve quadrupled. This short-term upward swing in homebuilding occurred before the Clark County council’s late-November adoption of a revised long-range growth plan that would allow more houses in rural areas. The council has more work ahead to implement that plan, which may be appealed to the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board.
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