Costa Mesa hits a new high: 11,023 building inspections

There’s a new number in town that shows just how bustling things are in Costa Mesa: 11,023.

It’s in the log that keeps track of how many building inspections city staff completed between May and August. It’s the all-time high since records starting being kept in May 2005.

“That is a good indication of how busy we are in terms of inspection and construction activity,” said Khanh Nguyen, Costa Mesa’s building official.

The majority of inspections were for new housing tracts, Nguyen said. Each new home can need about 15 inspections for things such as utilities and electrical work.

Other inspections were for smaller things: air conditioning units, room additions, kitchen remodels, plumbing and new swimming pools. Solar panel inspections are also on the rise, Nguyen said.

Some inspections were for commercial enterprises, Nguyen added. South Coast Plaza and South Coast Collection alone need about 100 inspections each year.

Costa Mesa last peaked in May to August 2014, when the city logged 10,188 inspections. Prior to that, the high was in May to August 2006, at 9,510.

Following a downward trend that began in early 2007, inspections bottomed out in January to April of 2011, with 3,172 inspections. Since that four-month period, the figure has risen steadily to its all-time high this past summer.

Nguyen noted that during the last fiscal year, from July 2014 to June 2015, Costa Mesa developments had a total valuation of $125 million.

Countywide, construction is on a steady rise since the lows of the recession, said Esmael Adibi, director of Chapman University’s A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research

“From the trough, which was around 2007 and 2008, we have made a significant inroad in construction spending,” he said.

Following the recession lows, when little occurred, “Now we’re in a catch-up mode,” Adibi said.

Though the university doesn’t necessarily track each individual city’s inspection permits, Adibi noted that Irvine in particular is very busy with growth. There’s also a trend of more development in southern Orange County than north, he said.

Joe Kirkpatrick, an Irvine building official, said between May and August, his department logged about 66,000 inspections on a variety of projects, including new housing tracts and office buildings.