January 20, 2016
Housing on stable ground Recipe
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Perfect pops for every occassion
New homes are popping up left and right in St. Charles County. Here is a new home coming up in the Mid Rivers Mall Drive/Ohmes Road area of the county.
Around Town Best of Western DAR serves community St. Charles
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School Town Around
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School
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Photo by Brett Auten
New housing permits in St. Charles County remain consistent for third-straight year By Brett Auten Though it looks like it has become the new normal, it doesn’t mean it should go unrecognized or unappreciated. For the third consecutive year, new single-family housing permits issued in St. Charles County were in the 1,700 range, according to annual statistics just released by the County’s Community Development Department. When all the data was collected, the total single-family housing permits were 1,706 for 2015, 1,704 for 2014 and 1,742 for 2013. To see both sides of the spectrum, prior to the national housing bubble bursting, permits totaled 2,124 in 2007 and fell to their modern low of 939 in 2011. “We see 1,700 as something of a new normal for the time being in our community,” said St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann said. “But we still believe the area can return to the 2,000 annual range in the future.” The top five communities for new home construction in St. Charles County were Wentzville with 596 single family permits issued, O’Fallon with 357, St. Charles City with 171, St. Peters with 143 and Lake Saint Louis with 123. According to statistics from the Home Builders Association of St. Louis, 50-percent of all single-family housing construction in eastern Missouri happens in St. Charles County. “For more than 30 years, St. Charles County has established itself as the leader in new home construction in the St. Louis region,” Ehlmann said. “That remained true during the recent recession and it is still true today.” Obvious growth areas include Wentzville, parts of O’Fallon, St. Paul, Foristell and unincorporated St. Charles County. However, Ehlmann was especially pleased with the Villages of Provence development
in an older neighborhood in St. Charles. Nationally, rapidly rising household formations, mostly driven by young adults leaving their parental homes and a strengthening labor market, is supporting the housing sector. Although residential construction accounts for just over three percent of gross domestic product, housing has a broader reach in the economy, with rising home prices boosting household wealth and supporting consumer spending. Housing has contributed to Gross Domestic Product growth in each of the last six quarters and is absorbing some of the slack from a weak manufacturing sector. Nationally, housing is in short supply. For the 40 years prior to 2008, ground was broken on an average of nearly 1.6 million housing units per year. Starts over the past seven years averaged 788,000; even in 2015, a boom year, starts were only 1.1 million.
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Movie
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“Anomalisa”
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