Wednesday, December 17, 2003
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Wednesday, December 17, 2003 |
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PTC leads in housing starts in ’03 By J. FRANK LYNCH Despite moratoriums on annexation and multi-family housing and continued talk that the city is at the brink of “build-out,” Peachtree City remained the new-home leader in Fayette County through October of this year. The pace of new home construction throughout Fayette has slowed only slightly in recent years, and in fact has held near steady since 2000 despite the onset of the War on Terrorism and a difficult recession. Peachtree City had issued 240 permits for single-family residential construction through the end of October, according to detailed information made available on the Census bureau Web site. During the same period, 231 permits were authorized in the unincorporated sections of Fayette County. Tyrone, meanwhile, continued to grow at a faster clip than Fayetteville, permitting 144 new homes during the first 10 months of 2003, while the county seat had issued 131. November’s figures are unavailable and two weeks remain in December, but based on permit history so far this year and recent annual trends, Fayette County could end the year with right at 900 new home starts, a slight decline but otherwise nearly dead-on the total for each of the last three years. In 2000, the county along with Fayette’s three cities issued 935 single-family permits, Census records show. In 2001, the number dropped only slightly, to 916 countywide. Remarkably, 915 single-family permits were issued in 2002. No multi-family permits have been processed in 2003, but three were issued for duplexes in 2002 and 11 were allowed in 2001, adding 85 apartment units to the county’s housing mix. Not surprisingly, the average cost of new home construction in Fayette, estimated as the expense paid out by the builder, and not necessarily the sales price, has risen steadily since 2000, when it was $171,924 on average countywide. This year, the most expensive homes are going up in unincorporated Fayette, with an average cost to the builder of $236,796. When the cost of all 746 new home permits issued so far in 2003 is averaged, it comes out to $193,874, the second-highest median price in Metro Atlanta, after DeKalb County. Average construction cost of new homes in DeKalb is $199,680, according to the Census. However, in sheer numbers, DeKalb had well over three times the number of new home starts than Fayette, with 3,353 permits issued year-to-date. Though not nearly as dramatic, the rate of new home construction in Coweta County is nearly twice that of Fayette. Through October, 705 single-family permits had been issued in unincorporated Coweta this year, while Newnan alone had registered a whopping 584. Adding in Senoia’s 76 housing starts brings Coweta’s total to 1,365. Activity continues to be brisk among South Fulton communities as well, reflected in the 189 housing starts in Fairburn, 308 issued year-to-date in Union City and 129 permits in Palmetto. In South Metro, however, no county comes close to matching the explosive growth that continues to challenge Henry County. Through October, Henry had registered 2,809 single-family permits and 244 units of multi-family housing just in unincorporated areas. Henry’s county seat of McDonough, meanwhile, had already seen 461 housing starts through October, in addition to 37 permits for apartment projects that will add another 450 units. But as it has for decades, Gwinnett leads the state in sheer volume of new home construction again this year, adding 696 homes in October alone. Through the first 10 months of this year, Gwinnett had authorized 6,542 new homes just in its unincorporated sections. According to the Census, 66,561 new homes were built metro-wide in 2002, while 55,322 had been permitted as of October this year.
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