New home construction has made a dramatic return to the city of Warrenton, a decade after the 2008 recession brought the city’s expansion to a standstill.
City Building Commissioner Mike …
This item is available in full to subscribers.
We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.
If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, or you are a print subscriber who had access to our previous wesbite, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you have not yet logged in to your account on this new site.
If you are a current print subscriber and did not have a user account on our previous website, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Please log in to continue |
New home construction has made a dramatic return to the city of Warrenton, a decade after the 2008 recession brought the city’s expansion to a standstill.
City Building Commissioner Mike Cross said the number of new home starts in Warrenton tripled in 2018 compared to the year before, and that 2019 saw even more. There were 19 new home permits issued in 2017, 59 issued in 2018, and 71 issued in 2019.
“It keeps us busy,” Cross commented. “We also have 186 duplexes that are going to be built out here in the next two years at Orange Blossom.”
The development Cross was referring to is a senior living complex on North Highway 47.
Cross said the construction boom is providing homes for people who want to move to Warrenton from outside the area.
“Most of them are between 1,000 and 1,300 square feet. It’s more like starter homes, first-time homebuyers,” Cross explained. “(The homebuyers) are not people who already have a residence here, or who have lived here in an apartment. They’re usually people from outside Warrenton moving in.”
The areas seeing the bulk of new home construction are a mix of subdivisions that were put on hold after 2008, and other subdivisions that are now being expanded.
Even in places where construction plans had already been laid out and put on hold, Cross said developers shifted their plans, erasing proposed duplexes in favor of small, single-family homes.
“I don’t think there’s a particular reason for it, but I think people are getting back to more home ownership, than they are rental in apartments,” he speculated.
Cross added that in order to help developers, city staff have taken several steps to streamline the application process for home building permits and turn them around much faster. It currently takes a week or less to get permit approval, and from there about 90 days to actually build the house, Cross said.
There isn’t any one place Cross expects to see more development in the future. He said any vacant land could be fair game.
While Warrenton has been celebrating the surge in construction, Wright City is seeing a slowdown of its own housing boom.
City Clerk Abbie Ogborn said existing subdivisions in the city are near-full, and she expects a downtick in home building as they are finished.
That being said, Wright City was still the fastest growing city in the area in 2019, with 99 new home starts. That’s a relative decrease from 145 new homes in 2018, and 122 new homes in 2017.
“Subdivisions are filling up fast,” Ogborn commented. “There’s not land or subdivisions that are bought yet for future development.”
Most of the homes being built in Wright City have tended toward smaller, three-bedroom houses, Ogborn said. With each house that is built, she said the city is gaining multiple new residents.
“I would say three is probably the average (family size). We very rarely get just one-person households,” Ogborn said. “A lot of times, it’s couples’ first starter homes, and they may have one or two kids.”
Ogborn predicted continued development on the north side of the city, near Wright City’s schools and the future site of a new city park.
