Over a year ago, Cary partnered with other Wake County municipalities in a joint effort to promote participation in the 2020 U.S. Census. Early planning efforts were successful; however, the COVID-19 pandemic thwarted most public outreach events, and census takers were unable to go door-to-door to take counts. In April, Cary had a response rate of just 65 percent.

Toward the end of Q4, staff from various departments worked together to improve that response rate. Planning and Marketing staff created informational flyers, posters and ground signs that conveyed information about the value of the census and encouraged participation. Cary’s Police Department distributed material to dozens of apartment complexes and to several area churches where community events took place. Cary’s PRCR staff posted ground signs at public parks and along Cary’s greenway trails. Staff also provided electronic versions of messaging to apartment complex managers to distribute to residents. As of June 30, Cary reached a response rate of 74 percent.  

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, census workers will be back in the field mid-August. In the meantime, Cary is working hard to ensure a complete count of our population. With the goal of an 82 percent response rate, Cary will continue to collaborate with other municipalities and to promote the census on Cary’s web site, social media and BUD newsletter.  

Award-winning television host, best-selling author and celebrated chef Vivian Howard made a stop in Cary for an episode of her new PBS TV show, “Somewhere South.” In the episode “It’s a Greens Thing,” Vivian gets a saag paneer lesson from family friends in Cary. She describes Cary’s growth quite well when she said, “Cary, N.C. used to be the poster child for cookie-cutter suburbia, but in the last decade, it has evolved into the most culturally diverse community in North Carolina.” 

Cary took the top spot in financial information website SmartAsset’s study “Cities Where Women are Most Successful.” With a perfect score of 100, Cary ranks best for women in achievements such as education, income and business ownership. Of particular note from the study, more than 68 percent of women in Cary have a bachelor’s degree and nearly 54 percent of all business owners in Cary are women.

New single-family permits for Q4 totaled 164. While overall permitting remained strong, there was a slowdown of new residential construction at the beginning of the pandemic. Overall, this quarter’s permits for new single-family homes was 47 percent less than the five-year average for Q4. The top three subdivisions permitted were Brickyard (28), Courtyards at Kildare Farm (15) and Channing Park (14). 

There were 218 single-family certificates of occupancy issued in Q4, an average of 3.4 certificates per workday. This is a 2.3 percent decrease in comparison to the COs issued in Q4 of FY 2019. The subdivisions receiving the most COs were Brickyard (34), Channing Park (26), Savaan (20) and Courtyards at Kildare Farm (14). 

Residential alteration and addition permits for Q4 totaled 334. This is a 16.5 percent decline from Q3. These permits typically require contractors to enter the residence to perform the work. Therefore, due to the pandemic, this decline could be expected.