At this point, I still have absolutely no clue! But I do believe that to ascertain what the economic impact may be, one needs to know how many people might live inside Ponte Vista. Once I can give you an estimation of how many people might live at Ponte Vista, I can then begin to break down the economics of those potential residents.
I am about to begin a journey with this post that will probably find you as confused as I am. In my preliminary studies I have found the Mr. Bisno’s prediction of a potential population of 4,313 is too low based on comparisons to actual residents in like type homes.
I will first break down why I have selected the comparisons I have chosen and how they compare to the structures and population Mr. Bisno envisions at Ponte Vista. This post will use verifiable documentation from the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro development, as well as the Initial Study for the project. I will also be using data collected by the United States Government during the 2000 census.
All the facts and figures I am about to write are in the public arena and available to anyone seeking to view the documents. After I compiled the figures I am going to state, I got out my trusty calculator and double checked each and every computation I made. This post is fact based and I will attempt to avoid opinions beyond my reasoning for establishing the criteria I have chosen to use.
Mr. Bisno has stated that the projected population of Ponte Vista, based on the Draft Environmental Impact Report, is 4,313 residents. 575 homes of the proposed 2,300 home development are scheduled to be set aside for Senior Housing, for residents aged 55 and older.
As far as I know, there has not been any ruling that only persons aged 55 and older will be the only residents allowed to live inside the Senior Housing section. I do not know if an older father of a minor child would be allowed to purchase a home in the Senior Housing section and have his child reside with him. Mr. Bisno has stated that the number of residents per Senior Housing unit would be, on average, 1.5 residents per home. I have been unable to find any comparable type of owner-occupied senior housing in a development of 50 units or more in the 90731, 90731, and 90275 zip codes which are three of the closest zip codes to the Ponte Vista site.
I am therefore unable to make an independent estimation of the projected population of this type of housing but the 2000 census does break down the number of senior citizens residing in each of the three zip codes listed. This type of data is not broken down into specific types of housing for senior citizens.
Mr. Bisno estimates that the population of the Senior Housing section of Ponte Vista will be approximately 863 residents. Mr. Bisno intends to build 1,725 homes in the non-age restricted portion of Ponte Vista. According to his estimation, there would be 2.0 residents estimated per unit in this section.
Because I cannot accurately project the number of senior residents that my purchase homes in the Senior Housing Section, I am going to use the 1,725 homes in a number of separate buildings to attempt to report what the estimated population might be.
A law firm representing Mr. Bisno’s interests sent out a response to a comment made by John Greenwood on behalf of the Community Advisory Committee. The response dealt with the committee’s assertion that the population estimation for the development is lower that what actually may become true at Ponte Vista. The author of the response used tables H32 and H33 of the Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF3), Sample Data which can be found by visiting http://factfinder.census.gov/home/en/data/datanotes .
The author used zip codes 90731 and 90732 to present data on owner occupied homes of various building sizes. The author included units per building sizes of 2 units per building all the way up to 50+ units per building.
I am taking the option of comparing buildings of 50+ units per building because that is what is proposed to be built at Ponte Vista. I do not feel the inclusion of lesser units per building would help understanding these issues because Mr. Bisno has stated he is not interested in buildings other than the types he has included in documentation, presentations, and advertisements concerning Ponte Vista.
Mr. Bisno also seems to consider that all the homes at Ponte Vista will be owner occupied during their existence. I cannot state that all the homes will always be owner occupied. I do not know the number of residences in The Gardens that were originally owner-occupied but now are occupied by folks who lease or rent. For this reason I will include both owner occupied data and rental data in this post.
I will also break down the data using three zip codes. There are multiple building developments in the 90275 zip code that are closer to the site than multiple building developments in the 90731 zip code. It is true that the 90275 zip code encompasses a much greater land area than both 90732 and 90731, and many multiple building developments are much farther away from Ponte Vista than most of the developments in 90732 and 90731.
I have constructed a table below, based on the tables available on the 2000 census Web site. I decided to add residents per unit rates together then divide by either 2 or three depending on the circumstance. The figures would be slightly different if I had chosen to add raw numbers and then divide from there.
So, what the heck does this table really show? It depends what you want to see, I’m afraid.
If you choose to use Mr. Bisno’s contention to only count owner-occupied homes for measuring the projected population of Ponte Vista, based on buildings with 50+ units per building, each home in the 1,725 non-age restricted component would have an average of 2.2623 residents, based on the three ZIP codes. 2.2623 times 1,725 units give us a total of 3,902 possible residents in the non-age restricted units.
If you factor both owner-occupied and renter units to base your figures on, then this is how it would look; 2.1754 residents per unit in the 1,725 non-age restricted homes would allow for 3,752.56 residents.
Now, how should I factor in the Senior Housing component? I can do it two ways. I can use Mr. Bisno’s estimation of 1.5 residents per unit even though that ratio doesn’t appear anywhere in my calculations or I can suggest that we estimate based on the lowest ratio found on the particular tables I used for my calculations. So as you may plainly be able to see, the projected population of Ponte Vista at San Pedro will be, 4,313, or 4,690, or 4,841, or some higher number.
Some higher number? Where does it report a potentially higher number?Christopher A. Joseph and Associates prepared and submitted the Initial Study for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro project and the document is dated, July 2005. Section 12 of the study reports on “Population and Housing”.
“Would the project: a. Induce substantial population growth in an area, either directly (for example, by proposing new homes and businesses) or indirectly (for example, through extension of roads or other infrastructure)? This is listed as a “Potentially Significant Impact” caused by the development.
This is the “Discussion” dealing with this point.
“a) Potentially Significant Impact. The proposed project would induce direct population growth by adding 2,300 multi-family residential units and approximately 7,343 new permanent residents to the project site. 15 Compared to the most recent use of the site, in which 245 residential units and approximately 880 residents occupied the property (based on the same Community Plan demographic estimate), the proposed project would represent a net increase of 2,055 units and 6,463 residents. Therefore, the potential for the project to induce substantial population growth in the area, either directly or indirectly, will be addressed in the EIR.”
15 Based on a ratio of 3.59 persons per dwelling unit for the non-restricted multiple-family units (Source: Wilmington-Harbor City Community Plan, SCAG community projection for 2010), and an average of 2 persons per dwelling-unit for the senior-restricted units.
The report in the Initial Study is very important to this discussion for several reasons:
It is significantly higher in number (3,030 residents) than the Draft EIR estimates.
One source, SCAG is being touted by individuals in the Bisno Development Co. due to a recent report supporting Mr. Bisno’s plans for the development. It is proper to note that Bisno Development has acknowledged pleasure in receiving an endorsement from SCAG (Southern California Association of Governments.)
It is also noted that it is a source for the projection of 7,343 residents at Ponte Vista. In a future post you will read that the economic impact reported in the Initial Study is repeated in the Draft EIR, even though the estimation of permanent residents differs by 3,030 residents.
In fact, representatives of Mr. Bisno’s organization have been very dismissive of the 7,343 number even though it is listed in a public document drafted by the same company that produced the Draft EIR and will presumably draft the Final EIR.
I have made some earlier “guesstimates” of possible numbers of residents based on the number of bedrooms Mr. Bisno suggested to me would be found at Ponte Vista at build out. Since the estimates I calculated were not based on verifiable resources, I will not include them on this post. You are welcome to review prior posts and use your calculator to attempt to estimate the number of homes that may be built at Ponte Vista at San Pedro.
The next post on the potential economic impacts of the development will be based on possible population counts documented in this post and reviewed in the Scoping Study and the Draft EIR.
No comments:
Post a Comment