LOCAL : Orange County Building Slows
Residential construction activity in Orange County screeched to a near halt in August as builders, unable to chalk up quick sales of units already in their inventories, pulled the lowest number of building permits for any month since the recession of 1982.
“Figures for the whole state are pretty much down in August,” said Ben Bartolotto, research director for the Construction Industry Research Board.
But Orange County’s decline has been among the steepest.
In all, building officials in the county and its 28 cities issued permits for 488 residential units last month, bringing the total issued for the year to 8,671--or about 75% of the total issued for the first eight months of 1989. At the current pace, fewer than 13,000 residential permits will be issued in the county this year--down from 16,637 in 1989 and about half the 24,913 permits issued at the height of the building boom in 1986.
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