New home permit issuance skyrockets in Wendell

More than twice as many permits for single family homes were issued this fiscal year than were issued last year in Wendell.

Bryan Coates, the town’s planning director, presented the raw numbers before the Board of Commissioners on Monday evening. The town issued 636 new single family dwelling permits in fiscal year 2023. That same number jumped to 1291 in fiscal year 2024, which ended on June 30.

“We could see last fiscal year that permitting levels were increasing month over month, same as they were increasing month over month the year before,” Coates said.

Coates said that about 25% of 2024’s permits were issued for newly built homes in the Wendell Falls neighborhood, which added more than 300 homes during the fiscal year.

Three years ago, the sprawling neighborhood accounted for about 90-95% of the single family home permits that Wendell issued.

Coates said that the neighborhood’s shrinking share of the town’s total permits does not mean that Wendell Falls’s growth rate has shrunk. Rather, he said the rest of the town is growing so rapidly that hundreds and hundreds of permits are being applied for and being granted for homes not contained within Wendell Falls.

“Their numbers have not dropped, its just that the rest of the town has a lot of other new neighborhoods for permitting,” he said.

Coates also touched on the related topics of population growth and land acquisition within Wendell’s city limits.

This time last year, the town’s population was 14,400. Town staff estimates that that figure now stands at 16,750. By 2030, local officials estimate the population to exceed 31,000.

The town also annexed an additional 209 acres in fiscal year 2024, which was down from the 1,219 it annexed in 2023.

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