By Navar Watson
The number of new homes in Westfield has boomed recently, a new report finds – coming as a surprise to few.
The economic development department presented its second quarter report at the city council meeting July 13, which illustrated the city’s extreme growth in recent years and in 2015 alone.
As of July, the city has seen 326 single-family new-home starts this year, according to Director of Economic and Community Development Matthew Skelton. This is already a 24 percent increase from the same time last year.
To put in perspective, this is more single-family starts than all of 2012, which saw about 300 total.
“Westfield continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and [we]are excited by the information found in this report,” Mayor Andy Cook said.
The economic development department is scheduled to issue around 650 new single-family housing permits by the end of this year. If this happens, the city will have succeeded last year’s total by about 200—a 46 percent increase.
The number of new homes, however, was not the only achievement.
According to the report, the total value of permits issued stands at around $121 million so far, with an estimated value of $242 million by the end of the year. This would make for a 38 percent increase from last year’s total.
Again, the value of permits within the first six months of 2015 succeeded the total value of 2012.
Cook credits much of these results to the development of Grand Park and the Grand Junction Plaza.
“The investment we are making in our community through Grand Park and Grand Junction Plaza is paying off,” Cook said. “We will continue to work hard for all the residents of Westfield to make sure they have the best quality of life possible.”
