Building permits up over 2019 in the City of Marion
by Robyn Ireland [email protected] · June 18th, 2020


One of the few things the novel coronavirus has positively impacted is the number of building permits in the City of Marion, reports Gary Hanson, building official. Eliminating the requests related to the hail damage, the numbers are still up by more than 300 permits compared to the same time last year.

"We are slammed," Tom Treharne, community development director confirmed.

The new home permits are up 45 over 2019, and each new building has three sub permits to file, bringing the total of filed permits to 180, just for new homes alone. Commercial remodels remained the same, with single family zero lot lines went from none last year to six this year. There are two new apartment buildings and four townhouses, neither of which were built in 2019.

"I'll give you an example of how much things have picked up," Hanson said. "One of our employees had nine requests in her email when she left for lunch. She came back an hour later and she had over 20. We were almost to the point where we were down to 24 hours in putting requests into the system, but not now. It's just phenomenal."

In the roofing category, roofing requests went from 48 to 661, and siding from six to 103, largely due to the hail storm back in early May.

Porches, pergolas, decks, and remodels were all up in March through May.

"That tells me that people were quarantined and did home projects," Hanson said. "I heard that many times from citizens."