Williston Sets 3-Month Record for Permitting; Dickinson Permitting: Picking Up

Well, despite the best efforts to stop growth in Dickinson by faux environmentalists, permitting and growth is picking up significantly in that city.

The Dickinson Press is comparing apples to oranges in its lede:

Williston set a three-month record for building permit values from January to March with more than $33.55 million, but Dickinson beat them out with almost $36.11 million in March alone, according to code enforcement reports.

The big story: the Bakken boom has been going on since 2007 in North Dakota (it started earlier in Montana). I had thought by now Williston would have started to level off with regard to permitting, with regard to growth, so I almost missed the real headline in this story:

Williston Sets New Record For Permitting

Some data points:

• Williston does not count permit fees for manufactured homes, and the three-month period showed it allowed 103 to be built.
• Dickinson counts the values for the homes, which could make the totals higher than Williston.

Growth in Williston started in 2007.

• 2010: $106 million, Williston
• 2011: $358 million, Williston, a record

• 2009: Dickinson started to see growth
• 2011: $144 million, Dickinson, a record

• March, 2012: $36 million, Dickinson
• September, 2011: $41 million, Dickinson, the monthly record

That's an interesting statistic that the $33 million is a 3-month record and the yearly record is $358 million for Williston. I can't do the math. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. Maybe they mean the January-March quarter set a record for that quarter, but it seems difficult to hit $358 million/year without any single quarter exceeding $33 million?