The Wasatch Front's building boom may be tapering off, but in Tooele County new home construction shows no signs of slowing down.

According to Construction Monitor, a Cedar City-based company which tracks building activity throughout the western United States, building permits along the Wasatch Front were down 59 percent in September when compared with the number of permits issued the same month a year ago. However, building permits issued by Tooele County so far in 2007 have surprisingly kept pace with the previous year.

Cindy Coombs, administrative assistant for the Tooele County Engineering Department, said large tracts of open land are still attracting developers and home builders. She said that as of the end of this September, the county had issued 340 building permits, with 171 of those being single-family dwellings — a rate of roughly 38 new permits a month. That compares with 2006's full-year total of 451 permits issued, with 238 of those being single-family dwellings — again, an average of 38 permits a month.

"Our biggest year happened just recently in 2005 when we had 565 building permits, with 287 of those being single-family dwellings and 37 of those being duplexes," said Coombs. "But we have new development happening here all the time."

Tooele County Economic Development Director Nicole Cline said Tooele County remains one of the top home building markets in the state.

"We're usually one of the top four in terms of growth, and we're currently growing by 4 percent," she said. "Salt Lake County is usually growing by 2 or 2.5 percent. Salt Lake County obviously has higher numbers and more permits than us because it has much bigger cities and a lot more people, but as far as the percentage of growth is going, Tooele's is higher than Salt Lake's."

Cline said the area's cheaper available land is a primary reason why the number of issued permits has stayed steady this year.

"Land is cheaper out here compared to the Wasatch Front, and for a substantial amount of money you can get more land and more house here than you could in Salt Lake," she said. "People are also looking for that rural character and atmosphere you find out here, and to escape from the ills of urban life. But they also don't want to be too far removed from the city, in order to find employment and take part in cultural events around the Wasatch Front."

Construction Monitor stated that builders took out permits for the construction of only 485 homes along the Wasatch Front this past September, down from a much larger total of 1,191 in September 2006. The last time residential building activity along the Wasatch Front was that low was in 1990, when builders pulled 396 permits for new housing units. And Utah's population in 1990 was also only 1.7 million, in comparison to an estimated 2.6 million today.

Bart Hamatake, owner of Hamatake Construction in Grantsville, said the building slowdown along the Wasatch Front has meant he's been able to find more subcontractors to help build homes locally.

"I've noticed there is a lot more availability for different subcontractors, and this year I was able to find four different framing crews," he said. "Two years ago, I had a hard time finding a framing crew, with there being a four- to six-week wait sometimes. My company has had a pretty steady volume of work this year."

Coombs said Tooele County's number of issued permits for the total year of 2007 may even match the number of permits issued in 2006.

"I have been keeping a tally since '94 and found that our highest year for building permits was 2005, which was followed by 2006 right behind it, but 2007 is looking like it might be very much like 2006 or right between '05 and '06," she said. "Those three years — 2005 to 2007 — have definitely been our highest years for building permits since I've been here."

Doug Radunich: dougrad@tooeletranscript.com