Reports the DJC on permit applications for new developments around the city:

Seattle's Department of Planning and Development saw its revenues and permit intake value fall from 2007 to 2008, and Director Diane Sugimura said she is expecting this year to be even slower.

“The revenues and intake was probably as high as it was (in 2008) because we were seeing the second and third phases of projects that had been in for some time,” Sugimura said. “What we are not seeing is new projects.”

“2008 was clearly a drop but not, you know, off the cliff,” Sugimura said. “2009... we are concerned about that.”

But the anti-development crowd can hold their applause. Although applications for new developments have dropped off a cliff and the real-estate market is slower, for sure, I don’t think this means we’re going to see halt in neighborhood construction. Lots of projects—which submitted plans to the city in the last couple years—are still chugging through the design process. Fourteen large projects were scheduled for design reviews this month, and construction marches on around the city for four- to six-story apartment buildings. Meanwhile, developers for some of the more ambitious projects, such as office towers downtown, feel confident that they will begin construction before long. Kevin Daniels of Nitze-Stagen, for instance, believes his proposed 41-story tower on 5th Avenue and Colombia Street will proceed. “I’m looking at the end of 2012,” he said last week.