North Carolina Construction News staff writer
In 2022, Greensboro council approved about 6,900 potential housing units throughout the city through rezoning and annexation, according to the planning department’s annual growth and development figures.
Combining 2021 and 2022 numbers, there have been about 10,795 potential housing units approved through rezoning or annexation in the past two years.
Key points from the 2022 annual data:
- 1,581 acres annexed in 2022 – 56 percent are intended for residential use and 40 percent for industrial. Of the residential property, 55 percent is slated for multi-family residential use and the remaining 45 percent for single-family residences.
- 386 acres rezoned in 2022 – 37 percent are intended for residential use and 29 percent for industrial.
- Of the residential property, the vast majority are for multi-family residences.
Under the current state annexation laws almost all annexations are the result of a request from the property owner. State law no longer permits forced annexation where the property owners protest the annexation but are annexed anyway.
The annual Growth and Development Trends report recently released by the Greensboro planning department showed a 10.6 per cent growth in population from 2011 to 2021. Greensboro has a younger population than Winston-Salem and Durham, but slightly older than Raleigh. In Greensboro the median age is 34.5 while in Winston-Salem the median age is 35.9, in Durham 34.6 and in Raleigh 34.2.
From 2021 to 2022, there was a 21 percent decrease in the number of residential building permits issued. In 2021, 3,546 residential building permits were issued compared to 2,810 in 2022. Commercial building permits showed an increase of 2 percent during the same period.