If you think New York is starting to feel like a massive construction site, you’re not crazy.
The city could be facing the biggest building boom in a generation, the Wall Street Journal reported. And the trend is showing no sign of slowing.
During the first half of the year, 42,088 residential building permits were approved for apartment and houses in the city, the most since 1963, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by the newspaper. The approved projects follow an increase in permit applications that were rushed through before June 15, the official expiration of the 421a tax abatement program.
“This is an astounding figure, so far ahead of anything the city has experienced in 50 years,” said Richard Anderson, president of construction industry group the New York Building Congress. “We are heading into the stratosphere.”
Michael Slattery, senior vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said the tax program’s expiration was mostly responsible for the spike in permits.
The city issued nearly 18,000 permits in June, more than the average annual total across several decades, the newspaper reported. Half of those projects were located in Brooklyn, the other half in Manhattan and Queens. [WSJ] — Claire Moses