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Scottsdale Building Permit Snapshot Highlights Real Estate Trends

By December 22, 2022January 17th, 2023No Comments

By Richard Dyer | Daily Independent

Houses and commercial uses dot the landscape at two of the East Valley’s largest municipalities — Scottsdale and Mesa — with many more planned or under construction, according to building permit records maintained by both cities.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its myriad restrictions imposed to keep everyone healthy did not hamper building permit filings, which are done online for both cities.

“Permit applications in the form of construction documents always had the ability to be submitted online. During the pandemic, all submittals were required to be made online, and that practice continues currently,” said Michael L. Clack, development services director for the city of Scottsdale.

In Scottsdale, a building permit is required for all residential construction work including additions, patio covers, carport enclosures, walls/fences, retaining walls and accessory buildings. Storage buildings of 200 square feet or smaller only require a site plan, according to scottsdaleaz.gov/planning-development/permit-services.

Residential buildings

Except for a decrease in 2018, 400 to 500 new single-family residences have been approved for construction a year since 2017 in Scottsdale. For the same period in Mesa, the numbers were lower in 2020-22 since a high of 2,214 in 2018.

The addresses of where single-family residences are being constructed or are planned in both Scottsdale and Mesa is one of the many columns of data on spreadsheets that can be downloaded from each city’s website.

The Scottsdale data for single-family residential home permits has information in columns such as issue date; permit type — custom and standard homes, with many being part of housing subdivisions; address; subdivision; air-conditioned square feet; covered square feet; owner; and builder.

Total number of single family residential home building permits in Scottsdale since 2017 and for the first nine months of 2022 are:

  • 2017: 453
  • 2018: 386
  • 2019: 409
  • 2020: 410
  • 2021: 500
  • The first nine months of 2022: 452.

The above statistics were cleaned from data at eservices.scottsdaleaz.gov/bldgresources/BuildingPermit/reports.

Commercial buildings

Scottsdale includes fewer types of commercial buildings in its issued building permits lists than Mesa. For the first nine months of 2022, there were 74 commercial building permits in Scottsdale, which ranged from pool houses and barns to new — and additions to — commercial businesses.

A variety of work fall under a commercial building permit for the city of Scottsdale, said Clack.

“Basically everything except single-family residences,” he said. “Cell towers are considered commercial, but may not be included in this report. I’m not sure why.”

Commercial interior tenant improvements, such as remodeling and school buildings are included, but not items such as fire extinguisher systems.

“All of these are considered commercial with the exception of fire extinguisher systems. That is a broad term and could be applicable to commercial or residential buildings,” he said.

Scottsdale’s online portal was added within the last 10 years, Clack said.

The Scottsdale spreadsheet for commercial building permits has multiple columns such as issue date, permit type, subdivision, zoning and builder.

Total number of commercial building permits in Scottsdale since 2017 and for the first nine months of 2022 are:

  • 2017: 88
  • 2018: 103
  • 2019: 73
  • 2020: 82
  • 2021: 52
  • The first nine months of 2022: 74

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