By Moses Leos III

A sharp rise in new residential building permits from 2011 to 2014 has helped ushered in an increase in growth in Kyle. 

According to Kyle city spokesperson Jerry Hendrix, while the city is expanding, he said it is now seeing a “more broad based and balanced” level of growth in town. 

“That’s what we’ve been looking for, to balance it,” he said. “Not only to provide services and jobs to people that live here and are moving here, but also to create Kyle into its own destination where they don’t have to leave the city.” 

Kyle’s spike, which began in 2012, has seen the city slowly grow from 241 residential permits in that year to over 500 in 2014. As of April 2015, the city has issued 238 new residential permits. 

 The numbers are still lower than the amount of permits issued during the city’s housing boom in the early 2000s. Between the years 2005 and 2006, the city approved a combined 1,892 residential building permits. Kyle’s average of 2.6 new building permits per day. 

A majority of the development during that time was in the Hometown Kyle and Plum Creek subdivisions. Between the years 2005 and 2006, 269 new permits were issued in the Plum Creek Subdivision alone. The Hometown Kyle subdivision had 259 new permits. 

“It was a hectic time,” Hendrix said. “It was everything (the city) could do to keep up with that.” 

He added the sharp increase led to increases in city staff. 

But a downturn in the economy saw the number of new residential building permits plummet. From 2005 to 2011, new residential permits dropped by 393 percent. 

“Even during the downturn, we still continued to grow,” He said. “It was at a smaller rate, but we continued to grow.”

Numbers have been on the rise since.  Included is the number of commercial permits, which rose from 23 in 2009 to 67 last year. The city has issued 39 commercial permits so far in 2015. 

But growth has now shifted to the east side of the city. Subdivisions such as Waterleaf are continuing to build out. Over the past two years, Waterleaf has been granted 208 of the 825 total residential permits issued in Kyle. 

The city, however, continues to battle the issue of unstable soil on the east side. Unstable soil has led to infrastructure issues in several east side subdivisions. It includes road degradation in Post Oak, which the city fixed in early 2014. 

Hendrix said staff is working with TxDOT to take measures to combat soil issues. At this time, he said solutions haven’t been identified, but that the city is “pursuing it.” 

“All that being said, it’s a hard problem to conquer,” Hendrix said. “We aren’t the only ones having that problem to conquer. We’re taking steps to mitigate that in the future.”