Economic Forecast for South Orange County

I attended an economic forum on Friday Feb 23, along with Council members Cagley, Voigts, and Robinson, and the City's Economic Development Director Carlo Tomaino. About 300 people were in the audience, from all the South Orange County (SOC) cities.

LAKE FOREST

Here is a summary of what they reported about Lake Forest –

• Among all SOC cities, Lake Forest is expected to experience the highest population growth, at more than 12% compared to an average of 4%. Some cities are expected to experience little or no growth (RSM, San Clemente, MV, AV) and one city to lose people (LB).
• Lake Forest is the third lowest in terms of average home sales price ($546,001), and the third highest in terms of how quickly our homes sell (about a month). In fact, across the board, less expensive homes sell quicker, and at $900,000 and above homes sell very slowly.
• Lake Forest has one of the lowest unemployment rates in SOC - 1.9% vs. 2.4%

SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY

In broader terms, they reported

• The region is losing school aged children and their parents, probably because of the cost of housing. We are gaining older people, especially people in the 65 to 75 age range.
• Older people are tending to “age in place”
• Commercial, industrial, and retail spaces have few vacancies and no new construction, causing a problem in job availability. Residential is the only area that continues to grow, but in general, the new residential homes tend to be in the luxury space. But without jobs being generated from new commercial,. industrial, and retail construction, affordable homes are disappearing.
• Available homes are shrinking. Usually 8,000 homes are for sale at any one time. More recently this number shrunk to 4,000.
• SOC is running out of “buildable space”, suggesting that new homes will be high density and multiple stories.

MY THOUGHTS

• The past tendency to convert retail, commercial and industrial spaces into high priced residential works against the best practices suggested from this report.
• Cities are still focused on serving children while the demographics suggest that we are getting fewer children and more older people. Design of parks and community service courses especially should take account of this.
• Aging in place should change our assumptions about property tax revenue.
• Future planning should look at high density affordable housing close to the 5 Freeway and include retail and office space.
• Promoting more and higher paying jobs should be a major goal of the Council.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest where he serves as Mayor. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His Twitter handle is @DrJimGardner. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a town hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be May 17 at 7 pm at the Lake 1 Clubhouse (Ridge Route).