POULSBO — In a good year, the city of Poulsbo will approve an average of 60 to 100 residential building permits by the year’s end.

About halfway through 2015, the city has already approved 63 single-family residential building permits.

“I’m definitely on track to beat that record,” Cherlyn Haley, the city’s certified permit technician, said.

“Everybody’s lending again and the economy has come back. Everybody’s starting to build. All the projects that were put on hold because of the economy are now coming back.”

And those 63 approved permits are only those that have been approved in the 2015 calendar year. Some, such as large housing developments, won’t be complete for years, while others approved in past years may be completed this year.

“There’s good and bad with this kind of construction,” Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson said. “The good news is that it will provide new homes for new families.”

As those 63 approved homes are designated as single-family, Erickson said that means people will be moving with their families to the area. She said that kind of population increase can be “hard for some people to take.”

“We’ll have more people in our grocery stores and more people on our roads,” Erickson said.

To help keep the impact to a minimum, Erickson said every new house is charged impact fees, “so they pay their fair share coming in the door to help the infrastructure support them.”

Erickson also said there is a growth management act that helps shape how new construction can and should be done. For example, county property near the Poulsbo city limits “are supposed to remain rural,” Erickson said.

“We have strict landscaping standards, strict road standards, and they pay impact fees to the schools,” Erickson said.

But new families are welcome in Poulsbo.

“It’s not a question of benefitting the city,” Erickson said. “What it does is, it allows new people to have homes and raise their families here. This is a very nice place to live.

“Our challenge is to make sure that when this growth occurs, it occurs in the appropriate way.”

She went on to say that there is a goal of maintaining a balance between residential and commercial property in Poulsbo.

“We want to provide what people need in the community,” she said. “And that means places to live, places to work, places to buy goods and services.

“Balancing those three things is what we’re trying to do here, in a way that … keeps the town the same. We’re trying to grow, and yet keep it the same.”

She specifically mentioned maintaining the cleanliness of the city and the water, public open spaces and the small-town ambience.

“If we allow growth to occur correctly, I think we can achieve that,” she said. “In other words, Poulsbo will grow, but it will still stay innately the same.”

Sixty-three new residential properties have been approved so far in 2015, and more than half the year remains, meaning the number has plenty of time to increase. New houses means new residents, which means increased traffic and grocery stores that are more crowded. But it all works toward an overall goal of keeping Poulsbo a great place to live.

“I want Poulsbo to thrive,” Erickson said. “What that means is, it will grow, but it will grow in a responsible way. Cities that don’t grow … fall apart, and the houses get decrepit, and it’s not a thing you want to happen to any community.

“What you do is, you grow. You grow modestly, and very precisely, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”