Lake Forest, like many South Orange County cities, has a large proportion of the residents living in HOAs (Home Owner Associations). In Lake Forest the percent is about 70%. That’s a lot more than the national average (about 21%), but that’s because HOAs are a relatively new concept, started in the 60s. In 1970 there were a mere 10,000 HOAs and by 2016 the number ballooned to 342.000 HOAs, with 69 million people living under that umbrella.
California is #2 in the nation with 45,000 HOAs. Florida leads the pack with 47,900 and Texas is a long way back with a mere 19,900. Orange County is estimated to have nearly 5,000 HOAs with about 1 million people.
With so many people living in HOAs, I decided to convene an “HOA Roundtable”, bringing together Managers and Board members from our HOAs for a sit-down with city staff. The first meeting will be March 20 and hopefully this will be the first of several meetings.
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In anticipation of our first meeting, staff reached out to the HOAs to determine their top concerns – Parking, Code violations, Traffic, Safety, and Landscaping led the list.
For our initial meeting we’ve put together an agenda that will give each Department Head the chance to explain their mission and answer questions. Subsequent meetings will be based on feedback from the participants.
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Next month we plan to have a similar meeting with Business Executives with the same goal in mind – improving the communication between major stakeholders and the city.
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).
