The economic growth or decline can be seen through the many types of permits applied for through local planning offices.
As far as permits and development goes for the city of Green River, residential permits this year and last year are at a higher level compared to years past, as well as some commercial permits as well.
“For mid year, we are still higher than what we were in 2010, 2011, 2012. We’ve issued eleven single family homes, and also townhouses,” Laura Profaizer, the city’s community development director said. “It’s lower than last year, but last year was kind of an anomaly. It’s hard to compare to last year. So if you look back, we’re still up for single family home and town-home construction.”
As far as commercial permits go, there hasn’t been a huge jump in those numbers.
“We don’t have a lot of commercially zoned property in Green River,” Profaizer said. “Commercial’s hard to compare to, because we just don’t see a lot of it in Green River.”
What Green River does have a lot of is in, addition, alteration, and conversion permits. Those permits include, replacing a roof, changing out a furnace or the hot water heater, and other renovations.
“For mid year, for the entire year in 2010, we only issued 187 and 197 the following year,” Profaizer said. “Last year was kind of an anomaly, it’s hard to compare to last year. But for being just the middle of the year, we’re not that far off for the total annual for here. So technically, we are down, but the year’s not over yet.”
Green River is not in a bad place as far as permits go. The city is in a good place, compared to years before. The area that is seeing a lull in some permit applications would be the county.
According to Eric Bingham, Sweetwater County’s land use director, construction permits are at it’s lowest in the last 10 years.
“Commercial and industrial permits are down, and so are oil and gas,” Bingham said. “A lot of the permitting that we do for commercial, industrial are businesses related to the oil field in the county. Compared to in the cities, we do a lot with that.”
Aside from the decline in oil and gas, and other smaller construction permits are down in the county. What is up, is large-scale construction permits, such as the ongoing construction of the new ammonia facility for the Simplot plant going up near Rock Springs.
Other than Simplot, the larger construction projects that are going on, have been on going for a few years now. Those include the TransWest Express Transmission, Gateway West Trans Line Project and Gateway South projects, which are large-scale projects to transfer power from wind farms to urban areas and other states including Las Vegas, Idaho and Utah.
Other ongoing projects are the BLM’s resource management plan which has also been in development for the last few years, and Hiawatha, an oil and gas development of gas wells. Hiawatha has been in development since before the drop in the oil and gas field.
“I guess this is not getting built tomorrow,” Bingham said.
Overall, Green River and Sweetwater County is having their ups and downs. For mid year, the city is doing well, and the county is seeing ongoing large-scale projects.
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