By The Numbers – Elk Grove’s 2013 Housing, Commercial Building Permits

July 2, 2014 |  At last Wednesday night’s Elk Grove City Council meeting, the consent calendar contained the city’s 2013 annual growth ...

July 2, 2014 | 

At last Wednesday night’s Elk Grove City Council meeting, the consent calendar contained the city’s 2013 annual growth report.

Although the item was not discussed by the council, the matter was put forward during the Silveraldo project hearing. As was pointed out, the report shows the city’s residential building continues to outpace commercial building.    
New home construction near the proposed Whitelock
Parkway and Highway 99 interchange

2013 Totals

Residential building permits in square feet – 1,175,808

Non-residential building permits in square feet – 71,945
Non-residential by category
Retail – 3,825
Office – 30,200
Industrial – 0

To view the summaries for the last five years, see page 9 at this link.

Perhaps the most revealing trend in the report is the lack of industrial building permits issued. According to the report, in the last five years, the city has issued permits for 42,851 square feet of industrial space out of a total of 829,333 total commercial. This represents only 5.2-percent of the total.  

If the city is laser-focused on attracting well-paying jobs, much less correcting the severely misaligned jobs-to-housing ratio, a multi-faceted effort and a large dose of political courage by the city council members is needed. The issuance, or lack thereof, of industrial building permits also gauges the city’s five-year record in attracting quality employers to the area. 

If the city really wants to resolve the imbalance, the final plans for the Southeast Policy Area will be the gauge by which to judge their sincerity. It will be the acid test that shows what the Elk Grove City Council is more dedicated to developing - jobs or rooftops



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5 comments

Anonymous said...

I think we already can guess what direction this city is heading in...SEPA has a majority of homes and low income housing. Not much in the way of substantial job inducing planning. A few strip malls for nails and fast food; not much planning being considered for large tracts of business generating, factory, manufacturing or retail space. And so it goes....homes/roof tops and more localized traffic nightmares as most homeowners in SEPA will be squeezing their way onto I-5 and Hwy 99 with the rest of us.

Anonymous said...

I believe the Plannng Dept. pretty much got that last month...the reason for the 4-0 Nay vote. Now we'll see where the City Council goes with it and if they have some brilliant fix for SEPA....and it does need a fix! Probably be like Silverado...they've never seen a plan they didn't like.

Mayor Davis, call the Citizen and save them some time...just Ditto your Silverado comments. Kinda like you tell us speakers, don't be afraid to say Ditto. Besides Channel 3 is waiting in the wings for a cuppa. Speaking to that..IMO an Honorable Mayor doesn't use news outlets for freebie advertising, he does like every other business in EG does...pays for his advertising. You are becoming an embarassment.

Anonymous said...

The Elk Grove Rural Area -- is being targeted for more growth. Based on the newly printed "Coming Soon" and "For Sale" signs located on Sheldon Road --29 lots -30 acres (15 2 ac lots) and several other acres. The Sheldon Road traffic is going to be like Bond Road, how much are the developers paying for traffic impact fees to improve Sheldon Road? Will the Planning Commission/City Council waive or reduce the fees because the developers contribute large sums to the City Council members or in so case like Mr. Hume pay for his re-election party, we know who Hume is going to support -- DEVELOPERS. Vote Mr. Hume out and keep "Elk Grove Rural"

Anonymous said...

SEPA - otherwise known as Mack Road, south.

Proud Heritage, Bright Future?

Elk Grove Thriving

A City by the developers, of the developers and FOR the developers!

Increase in armed robberies, assaults and various street crimes

More sprawl

$100 million soccer stadium

Garish 70 - 100 foot tall lighted signs

Sister city to the Kingdom of Zamunda

Octopus Civic Center

Amusement park right across from single family homes in Madeira "the Jewel of Elk Grove".

Visions of the Olympic Trials.

3,600 units of high density very low and low income housing on the way to "Meridian" (the Southeast Plan Area) - Hood of the future to be known as Mack Road South.

Bring on more low income housing projects, liquor stores, fast food joints, shooting ranges, gun stores, smoke shops and nail salons.

Elk Grove Thriving!

Proud Heritage, Bright Future?

Michael Monasky said...

Here's the dilemma that not just Elk Grove faces, but that is confronting the global economy.
Ag land is disappearing to suburban sprawl. That's the primary economy.
Industrial production has moved overseas; that's the secondary economy.
What we're left with in Elk Grove and throughout the USA is the tertiary economy of services.

Does anyone think that a Davis bureaucrat, a speculating Hume, a Cooper cop, a Detrick salesman, or a retired Trigg have the answers to bringing industrial production to Elk Grove? Hell, I don't think anybody does, because it's bigger than anyone and more complex than a soundbite response.

There was a time when, as Laguna developed, a lot of concern was expressed by the environmental protection community that Laguna would copy some of the industrial activities as have existed for many years along the 99-RailRoad corridor. Angelides hired Peter Calthorpe to plan the Apple complex in Laguna as a city center. Ha! That worked out, right?

There's been a lot of haggling over where the center of Elk Grove is (or isn't) on that first growth.
I never supported and actively opposed city incorporation because Laguna and Elk Grove should have been two, separate cities in the first place.
Then the Old City Association promoted its location as the town center, so as to have the Amtrak/multimodal train stop in Old Town. When I moved here 20 years ago, that was the plan (with a population of 30,000!)

You heard the weak-kneed argument Hume made about how the city paid a million for an acre of prime land in the Old Town area for that purpose, only to be dissuaded by Union Pacific so that the multimodal train station will instead be near Camden Passage.

You'd think a city council would at least want to barter and negotiate with the train company to ensure a bright future for commerce, trade, and travel in the city.
Apparently, not this crew.

You know, a lot of cities are more like towns, and can have very small footprints; one that can be literally covered on foot.
Even Manhattan is that way.
Elk Grove is too big to have an identity, a brand, an identifiable market.
Perhaps that's why the mere mortals on our city council seem like such idiots; it's beyond any human conception or solution.

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