ORANGE PARK – The quality of life in Clay County continues to be on an upward trend, according to a recently-released study.

The Clay County Chamber of Commerce released its third edition of the Quality of Life Progress Report during a breakfast meeting on April 17 at the Thrasher-Horne Center on the campus of St. Johns River State College..

“I think what this report certainly shows is that Clay County is a place people want to live and enjoying living in,” said John Tabor, who presented the report to attendees.

The report features data from 2016 and survey statistics from 2017 and according to Tabor, the report shows a general increase in the quality of life for the area. Despite a few negatives, most of the findings show a positive trend.

From 2000 to 2016, Florida’s population grew by 29 percent and that growth is reflected in Clay County as well which experienced a 7.6 percent increase from 2010 to 2016. As of 2016, the county’s population sits at 208,311.

As of last year, 51 percent of those who decided to call the Clay County home feel very satisfied while another 42 percent feel somewhat satisfied. The other 7 percent of people are not satisfied with their quality of life. While it is not wholly known, the 7 percent that are not satisfied might be feeling that way due to their annual wage as Clay County’s average annual wage sits more than $10,000 below the Florida average and at least $4,000 below the neighboring counties.

According to Tabor, despite a lower annual wage, people still want to move here and work within Clay County, demonstrated by a continual increase in employment growth.

“Employment growth in the area is definitely positive and we’ve experienced almost 30 percent growth since 2004,” Tabor said. “I think the factor that explains some of the other metrics earlier is that these jobs are lower-paying jobs. They’re here, that’s good and we’d rather have them than not but we’ve got some work to do with the higher-paying wage sectors.”

Tabor said people are taking the lower-paying jobs to be closer to where they live, which for many, is Clay County. In 2010, an estimated 57.2 percent of people worked outside the county. Now, that number sits at 48 percent. For those that work in the county, though, their commute has risen from 13 minutes in 2008 to 19 minutes in 2017.

“There are many factors involved with [the increase in commute time] but I think one of the biggest reasons for the jump in time construction,” said George Egan, president of the Reinhold Corporation, said. “As I’m sure you’re all aware, Clay is experiencing a lot of construction but that construction is to improve things like commuting in the future.”

Since 2012, the number of home sales has climbed 61.3 percent with the median home sale sitting in the mid-to-upper $100,000s and 81 percent of those homeowners feel safe in the neighborhood that they live in. According to Egan, this could potentially be attributed to the continued decrease in Clay County crime, a trend that follows holds true statewide.

Chamber officials formed a partnership with St. Johns River State to compile the Quality of Life Progress Report, which will be available online and in the Chamber of Commerce offices.

“It was an absolute blessing to work on this and I enjoyed this project greatly,” said Carly Culver, a family metrics student at St. Johns River State. “This project provided me the opportunity to really dive into [Clay County] to work with and meet new people. We got the facts and this is how it is.”

Culver worked with Organizational Management Professor Aaron Knowles and other students to complete the study.

“I’ve had a lot of fun and I would encourage more to get involved,” Culver said.

Chamber of Commerce President Tresa Calfee said the presentation was a success.

“I’d say this breakfast was a very successful event,” Calfee said. “We have over 160 guests and because we’ll be doing this every two years, which is how often we’ll release these reports, I’m already looking forward to the next one.”

For Egan, Tabor, Calfee and the Clay County Chamber of Commerce, the goal of the report isn’t to showcase only the positives or downplay the negative trends. Egan said the report is about providing the people of the area an in-depth and concise report of the county they chose to call home.

“What the report is about is informing people in this room and in our community about what’s going on in the county and to give everybody a holistic view, with both the pluses and minuses,” Egan said. “We want to make everybody a little more articulate, a little more thoughtful, about the issues that we have everyday in our county and overall, I think it was a great report. We know what’s working and we know what we need to work on.”