Long Island building permits see steep decline in 25 years
New housing construction in Suffolk county. April 10, 2024 Credit: Newsday
Long Island, once the model for suburban housing, is building fewer houses today than it did 25 years ago.
In the year 2000, builders obtained permits to construct 4,845 privately-owned residential structures that would have yielded 6,156 units on Long Island, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s building permits survey. There were 876 permits sought to build 1,535 units in Nassau and approximately 3,969 permits to build 4,621 units in Suffolk.
Compare that to 2024, when builders sought permits for a total of 1,818 privately-owned residential structures, less than half from the year 2000, to construct 2,190 units. Of those building permits, 666 were obtained to build 824 units in Nassau County and 1,152 permits to build 1,366 units in Suffolk. Each residential structure requires one building permit irrespective of the number of units it will include.
Analyzing building permits data is the most reliable way of measuring housing construction at the county-level. These are approvals given by local jurisdictions, such as towns, villages or the county, that allow a prroject to proceed with a residential construction project. A boom in permits implies builders see potential growth in the neighborhood while a decline in building permits is a sign of bottlenecks in the housing supply chain. Each residential structure could take several months or years to build, depending on the scale of the project.
Between 2000 and 2024, Suffolk County saw a 71% decline in overall building permits, and a similar 70.8% dip in single-family home permits, while Nassau County recorded a 65% drop in single-family home building permits and a 24% drop in total permits. Of the 57,272 privately-owned residential units slated to be built in the region between 2000 and May of 2025, 55,276 or 96.5% of those have been single-unit residential structures. Structures with more than five units made up 986 or 1.7% of all building permits, creating 13,547 homes.
Soaring home prices on Long Island is evidence that the demand for housing remains high and the market tight. Building on Long Island can be challenging. Soaring construction costs, opposition from residents to keep out multi-family housing projects along with regulatory hurdles builders need to tackle before obtaining required permits are all partly responsible for Long Island’s slow housing growth.
According to the National Association of Home Builders, construction costs have jumped from accounting for 60.8% of the average price of a new home in 2022 to 64.4% in 2024. Uncertainties from tariffs are expected to shake material costs as well, complicating planning for builders.
