By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Judging by the city’s number of new homes through the end of October, Ward 2 City Council member Bob Hicks said there is reason to be optimistic the city is clawing its way out of the 2008 housing downturn.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” Hicks said during a Nov 24 council meeting. “We’ve already exceeded our number of new homes from all of 2013.”

Through the end of October, the Alabaster Building Safety Department had issued 62 new home building permits in the city, compared to 52 for the same time period in 2013.

At the end of 2013, the department had only issued 61 new home building permits, meaning every new home building permit issued in November and December will top the total number from the previous year.

The city issued a total of 59 new home permits in 2012, 30 permits in 2011 and 29 in 2010. Alabaster’s number of residential housing permits took a nosedive after the nationwide economic downturn hit in 2008. Alabaster went from a high of 354 new housing permits in 2004 before ending the year with 100 in 2008 and 48 in 2009.