SOS Lake Forest SOS

Last time we talked about the Feb 21 City Council meeting and how we were served up a big dose of the “Same Old Stuff”. The Gang once again displayed how money talks, and how they respond in a single voice. Today I want to talk about the staff reports that went along with the discussion about the Gateway hotel proposal.

Peak Demand

The City Council report said -

“…since the peak demand hours for the hotel and shopping center are distinctively different (the hotel’s peak hour is 7:00 p.m. and the shopping center’s peak hour is 1:00 p.m., a time-frame within the typical employee lunch hour), a hotel use at the Gateway Center would not compete with existing retail uses…” (un-numbered page 3)

This was simply not true. According to the Stantec report accompanying the proposal (page 7, Figure 2) the highest peak parking was at 7 pm for Friday 11/16/2016 – one of only 3 days in their study. In addition, 6 pm was the highest peak for Thursday 11/17/2016.

There is not a single peak period as the staff report stated. Instead there are two peaks, one between 12 pm and 1 pm and the other between 6 pm and 7 pm. More important, the “peak demand hours for the hotel and shopping center” and NOT “distinctly different” as the staff report claims – they overlap.

But let’s back up. What makes the staff claim that the “peak demand hours for the hotel” are 7 pm? Where did they get that data from? It turns out they got that data from the applicant. They did no independent research to find out what the peak demand time was for Lake Forest hotels. That would have been relatively easy to do. Had they done this research they might have found out that Lake Forest may not conform to the average city data base from which the applicants quoted. Here in Lake Forest it looks like we have two peak demand periods for our hotels – between 5 pm and 7 pm (arrival time) and between 11 am and 2 pm (departure time). Guess what? The two peak demand times for Lake Forest hotels are almost identical to the two peak demand times for the retail center! That’s pretty important information to have. Instead the staff report gives us the exact opposite, claiming that the peak demand times are “distinctly different”.

Business Growth

The Planning Commission report says

“In 2016, Lake Forest experienced significant business growth, with over 150 new businesses opening in the city. These businesses added over 800 new jobs to the City and increased Lake Forest’s overall daytime population.” (page 4)

This might be true (that we added 150 new businesses), but how many businesses did we lose? Staff says nothing about this. Look at all the empty store fronts and you’ll see that many businesses left the City. The real data we want is “What is the net gain/loss of businesses and jobs?” But staff either doesn’t know, or neglects to say. So we are left with a meaningless figure.

Parking Demand

In the Planning Commission report staff claims

“Constructing the approved retail building would create a larger parking demand than would occur by building the proposed hotel.” (page 19)

But doesn’t the parking demand depend on the type of retail? The problem is the Gateway center is too intensive on food stores. 60% of the retail space is allocated to food, which is why the two peak times are 12 pm to 1 pm and 6 pm to 7 pm. Suppose instead of another food store, the 13,000 sf of empty space was converted into a night club. Now the parking demand would be well outside the peak hours. But staff neglect to consider this possibility.

Tourists in Lake Forest?

The Planning Commission report says

“Lake Forest Gateway Center, because of its proximity to the freeway and City gateway, is an ideal location for a hotel given the many tourists visiting Orange County, San Diego, and coastal destinations.” (page 4)

Really!? Tourists? Have we become Anaheim? According to local hotel operators, the vast majority of hotel guests are business travelers. Had staff read the accompanying documents they would have seen that “The hotel, which caters primarily to business travelers during the week, would employ approximately 10 employees.” (Stantec, page 8).

Apparently everyone except the Lake Forest city staff knows that the hotel will cater to business travelers, so why does the staff stress the tourist angle?

SUMMARY

Elected officials depend on staff reports as part of the decision-making process. If the reports are poor, the decisions will be poor. IMO our staff produced very poor reports for the Gateway center discussion.

But everything is not so dim. Tomorrow I'll start a series on some good news for the City.

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 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be in May.