Twin Cities home construction permitting weathers shutdown

Twin Cities builders continued to pull permits for new home construction in July, despite the state government shutdown.

The Builders Association of the Twin Cities says residential construction permit activity didn't change much from June.

However, permit activity was up this month compared to July of last year. The number of permitted units pulled last month was up 40 percent over that period, and the dollar value of the permits pulled was also significantly higher.

Still, year-to-date permit activity is lower than it was at the same time last year.

BATC reports 257 permits for a total of 370 units during four weeks in July. That puts year-to-date figures at 1,581 permits issued for a total of 2,294 units.

Farmington led the metropolitan area in building activity for the month, followed by Blaine, Chanhassen, Plymouth and Prior Lake.