A slowdown in real estate sales and mother nature’s wrath may have had effects on permits in Norridge, according to information presented at a Jan. 24 Village Board meeting.
Roofing permits more than doubled in the village last year because of two significant hail storms that damaged so many roofs, Trustee Jack Bielak said.
Meanwhile, real estate inspections dropped by nearly 17 percent between 2022 and 2023, probably because of high interest rates and the likelihood that Norridge residents want to stay in the village, Building Commissioner Patrick Gorski said.
Those are just two of the highlights pulled from the Building Department’s first in-depth annual report to the Village Board, presented at the board’s regular meeting.
Bielak said he and Gorski decided to begin presenting the annual reports after discussing departmental statistics recently. Ultimately, the goal is to present monthly reports, Gorski said.
“This is something we will continue to do,” Bielak said. “We want to be able to track year over year, so we have an idea of what the department is doing and what’s going on in the village. We just want to provide a snapshot.”
Trustee Debra Budnik said she likes the idea.
“This is good,” Budnik said. “It’s informative going forward. It’s good to be able to share this information.”
Bielak said the department is trying to become more technologically advanced and provide more information to the board.
“As I like to say, information is important and powerful,” he said.
Gorski said a former Norridge building inspector started the process with paper reports during 2022, but the Building Department is now transferring its records into electronic form.
“It’s extremely readily available to us, as opposed to the manpower required for paper,” he said. “We’re able to pull reports and numbers and see how many permits or inspections there have been.”
The goal is to track community and economic development in real time and share the information with the board, Gorski said.
“We’ve got transparent tools that hopefully we can bring to the board on a monthly basis,” he said.
Gorski said Norridge experienced a slight decline in development between 2022 and 2023, because most of the property in the village is already developed.
However, he said, the village saw some retail development as the former Putting Edge miniature golf center and nearby property are being converted into single-floor retail space.
Other items in the report included:
HVAC permits declined by almost 41% from 71 in 2022 to 42 in 2023.
“My interpretation is that it’s because of milder weather,” Gorski said. “There was not as much need for upgrading systems or replacements.”
Fence permits increased by 18% from 100 in 2022 to 118 in 2023.
Flat work permits for concrete, paving and asphalt fell about 28% from 143 in 2022 to 103 in 2023.
Commercial fire alarm permits dropped by 50% from 20 in 2022 to 10 in 2023.
Fire sprinkler permits decreased by 78% from 18 in 2022 to just four in 2023.
Gorski attributed the latter two declines to the “plateau” of commercial development in Norridge.
“Most commercial spaces in the village are already state of the art and modern,” he said. “There’s not much else to develop currently other than the Putting Edge area.”
