Experts Debate Pattern of Area’s Growth

Twenty years ago, the Los Angeles metropolitan area stretched from the west San Fernando Valley to central Orange County. Today, there’s hardly any flat open space left from Ventura County to San Clemente.

Will the built-up area continue to expand or is a saturation point near? Independent consultants who study the Southern California real estate market say the former scenario is most likely--with certain exceptions. Here are some predictions:

S. Kelly McDermott, head of her own consulting company, Common Ground, thinks growth will slow in Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of the recently completed Interstate 15. The problem: insufficient job growth.

“A lot of people have moved out there, but local employment hasn’t picked up.” McDermott figures many residents of the outlying Inland Empire areas will find it increasingly difficult to keep making a two- to three-hour drive each way to jobs in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Conversely, she believes Corona and other cities astride or west of Interstate 15 will continue to expand and enjoy rising home values.

Jeffrey S. Meyers, president of the Meyers Group in Encino, anticipates that Palmdale and Lancaster will see some of the fastest population growth for an outlying area. “The Antelope Valley has a new regional mall and new commercial flights at the airport, and it’s starting to attract industry,” he said. “The key is to see an area grow as an employment center, so it’s not predominantly a commuter market.”

Marta Borsanyi, partner of the Newport Beach office of consultants Robert Charles Lesser & Co., predicts homes will eventually stretch across the desert floor from the Antelope Valley to Victorville. “The biggest change in the Southern California region is the shift of employment out of . . . Orange County and eastern Los Angeles County.”

Sanford R. Goodkin, head of the Goodkin Real Estate Consulting Group of San Diego, believes more people will work via computer from home. As a result, “they will be more willing to move farther out, to places such as Antelope Valley, the Coachella Valley and even the Central Valley and Sacramento.”

But Alfred Gobar, a consultant based in Brea, offers an opposing view. “Los Angeles County will account for a larger slice of the region’s population growth than it did during the 1970s and ‘80s.” In particular, Gobar anticipates new residential building on under-utilized industrial land south of downtown Los Angeles, in places such as Huntington Park. These complexes will feature high-density attached housing, heavy security and proximity to freeways and employment centers.