A new business survey confirms what many Lawrence residents already know: Housing in town isn’t inexpensive.

Affordable housing was a top concern cited by leaders of 72 Lawrence businesses surveyed by the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber’s annual Business Retention Report, released Tuesday, found that 13 percent of businesses surveyed cited cost of living — primarily lack of affordable housing — as a community weakness.

The lack of affordable housing was topped as a weakness only by the community’s “business unfriendly climate,” which was cited by 21 percent of respondents this year. It also held the top spot a year ago.

The housing dilemma didn’t surface on last year’s report, giving chamber leaders a new focus to turn its collective effort toward addressing in the months ahead.

“We do take this information seriously,” said Lynn Parman, the chamber’s vice president for economic development, who presented the report Tuesday night to Lawrence city commissioners. She is scheduled to brief Douglas County commissioners tonight. “We will work with the community to build an awareness of these issues.

“It’s not a report to put on the shelf. It’s to make the community officials aware of what the issues are, so that we can find solutions.”

Last year’s report unearthed concerns about negotiating the bureaucracy of City Hall and the need for technical training in the Lawrence area. In response, the chamber created task forces to study and form recommendations, and its efforts already are making a difference.

This year’s report — in-person surveys ended in July — found “community planning” operations received below-average rankings from 29 percent of respondents, down from 46 percent a year earlier.

Eight of 10 new jobs and investment in the United States comes through expansion of existing businesses. In Lawrence, Parman said, the rate has been nine in 10 during the past couple of years.

Among the survey’s other findings:

• 58 percent of respondents expect to expand their businesses during the next three years. That’s up from the optimism cited by 55 percent of businesses surveyed in 300 communities nationwide that use the same surveying software.
• 73 percent of respondents rated the productivity of their work forces as good or excellent, a number cited by Parman as “pretty phenomenal” considering that business leaders were asked to rate productivity of their Lawrence operations against other company locations elsewhere.
• 70 percent of respondents do their research and development in the Lawrence area, up from the average of 50 percent from other communities nationwide. “Having (Kansas) University here and having the intellectual capital here is something that has a lot of potential for us,” Parman said.