Lake Forest Economic Summit - Part 2

Last week we looked at some of the data covered by the Lake Forest Economic Summit held on March 6. Today we’ll look at some vacancy rates and explore some of the economic questions that arise.

VACANCY RATES

Here are the vacancy rates by sector –

· Industrial – 4.6%

· Office – 14.9%

· Retail – 4%

In terms of residential, Baker Ranch provided an indication of how well the 580 models completed to date are selling – 388 have been sold but only 240 have actually closed.

Unfortunately there was no discussion about what any of these vacancy rates mean.

ECONOMIC ISSUES

While the data is very interesting, what does it mean? Do our demographics suggest anything? Compared to other cities should we be exploring a different path of economic sustainability?

Beyond these questions there are some even more fundamental questions that could be asked –

· Given the nature of our demographics, our current business profile, and macroeconomic trends, what are the sorts of businesses we should be trying to attract to Lake Forest? Industrial? Office? Retail? Which will generate the best overall revenue sources?

· Given the nature of our demographics, our current land use decisions, the differential costs of servicing various sectors (residential, retail, commercial, office, industrial), and the impact of each of these sectors on environmental constraints (water, electricity, traffic), how should the City view future decisions on land use?

· What is the economic value of an acre of land with respect to the various sectors? How does this change as the size of the acreage increases? If there a place where the best use changes from one sector to another? To what extent do land use decisions depend on the specific local area or are there generalizations that can be made?

Hopefully the next Economic Summit will address some of these issues.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. 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 comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 2 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every moth. The next meeting will be March 14 from 2 to 4 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.

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