In a letter that Mayor Pro Tem Saylor read aloud at last night’s council meeting, Lewis Properties told the city:
“The letter is to provide notice that Lewis is stopping all processing with respect to the Cannery Park application as well as any further discussions with respect to the sale of the 60-acre site located next to the land fill in Yolo County.
Since acquisition of the above-referenced properties in May 2004, Lewis has been engaged in the diligent pursuit of entitlements of the Cannery Park property along with the disposition of the Yolo County Property.
After five long years of extraordinary and indisputable commitment and faith by Lewis, we see no opportunity to bring about any type of project entitlements that would allow for an economically feasible development of the property in a reasonable time-frame.
Effective immediately Lewis will no longer be responsible for any costs incurred by the city of Davis or consultants under your control and we hereby withdraw our application for entitlements effective immediately.
…
We appreciate your immediate attention to this matter. We are all disappointed that we were not able to be successful in our efforts to develop Cannery Park.”
In December, the council contrary to the wishes of the developers asked that they develop an equal weight EIR that would allow the council to sift between competing visions for what ought to be done with that property.
Lewis Properties has been pushing for a mixed-used residential development which had a business park proposal and 610 units of residential development.
However, led by Councilmember Sue Greenwald, many in the community support leaving the property as currently zoned, light industrial, in hoping to bring in new high tech industry into the city.
The council was torn at the December meeting between those two visions for the property and decided at that time by a 4-1 vote, with Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor dissenting, that they should go forward with the equal weight EIR so as to fully consider all possibilities.
After a strange sequence of votes in January, that vote was upheld by the council who authorized the EIR to proceed.
The withdrawal of the application leaves uncertain the future for the property which remains the largest property within the city limits current zoned light industrial/ high tech.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Now that is the best news I have heard for that site in a very long time!
Perhaps this is a good sign that Lewis Homes will finally be heading out of town.
I just read the note above from Lewis Cannery….I’m VERY disappointed that they backed out and on the other hand I can understand why they would. Lewis Properties and the community of Davis have been working hand n hand together for years now….we have had town meetings where we stated what we would like to see changed or added and Lewis Properties have bent over back ward with all our ideas….they implanted them and worked with us. They have gone above and beyond the call of duty where others would of thrown up their hands and left a long time ago. I was at all the town meetings and all the council meetings regarding this wonderful addition to our community with such expertise planners and builders and with an abundance of community people who took an active part in sharing their ideas. Why the heck have the town meetings if what we say is going to be tossed out the window!?! Before I close I would like to say thank you to Lewis Properties and and everyone involved with your company who did everything possible to make this a go as well as the Davis community who spend hours and weeks and months picking this development apart to make triple sure this would be an asset to Davis. Our loss. So, on to the next and my hope is all will be good. I love my town and want the best for it. Thank you for hearing my comments. Sincerely, Carole Markese
Now is not the time to build housing even for developers, and the Lewis folks realized it. The site should stay zoned light industrial, and the City Council needs to make a concerted effort to bring business to that site. We need more business that will generate tax revenue.
I find it interesting that the Lewis Family drops their Cannery Project on the 17th, and the Wildhorse Horse Farm developers ramp up the approval effort for their project on the 18th*. Is this just an amazing coincidence or an example of impeccable timings? Just asking.
_________
*they are holding a public information meeting tonight concerning their project from 7- 9pm at Harper Jr. High School).
I doubt that there’s any connection there. My guess is that it’s a money issue, but I don’t know for sure.
I suspect there are land developers up and down California, from Smith River to Winterhaven, who are now withdrawing or contemplating withdrawing projects. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lewis Properties has pulled the plug (or is thinking about pulling the plug) on development propsals it has pushed for in other communities. That’s what happens in a down economy. However, the Cannery Park proposal may have risen to the top of Lewis’s axe list, because there was opposition to their project in the community and on the council. But even had all of Davis sang the praises of the mixed-use idea, Lewis may have not wanted to go forward, given the dearth of demand.
[i]”We need more business that will generate tax revenue.”[/i]
Speaking of tax revenue… the new buildings on F and G — where Cantina del Cabo was — look great. I just rode my bike past them this morning and was mightily impressed. The lot arrangement is awkward — there is a gas line running under there which affected what could and could not be done — but in spite of that, the owner (Pat Henderson) has a very nice project, there. I know that Fuzio (which used to be over by Border’s) is moving in. I don’t know if any other retailers or bars or restaurants are signed on, yet.
I agree with Mike Hart’s sentiments on this. While Lewis Homes did try to work with the community on this proposal, they started with the idea that this was to be mixed use and predominantly housing. The land set aside for a business park was too small to attract anything of significance. This is not the time to be talking about more housing developments. Davis needs something that will generate tax revenues to benefit our local economy. Housing developments do not do that. They cost more to service than they bring of benefit. Also, this project was being planned in conjunction with the adjacent property, and would have facilitated residential development at the Covell Village site in the future.
We need land zoned for a business park/high tech facility. This land should remain zoned for that use.
Does this mean Lewis is going to try to sell the site to someone else? Or just sit on it? Or build a full scale business park? Or what?
All the talk of bringing business into Davis makes sense. I don’t see very many businesses (especially high-tech ones which generally pamper their employees) moving in to a city where the housing market is so restricted and prices so high. If the city wants to grow business it’ll have to grow housing as well.
Jonathon: Take a look at San Luis Obispo, almost no population growth in the last twenty years but a lot of business growth.
Thank God! Those houses and businesses would have been positively UGLY. It’s really a shame the site has zero appeal to high tech businesses though… they’d rather move to research park.
Still, the pavement and chain fences will be much nicer! I look forward to many more decades of using the site for high school carnivals and Davis FD practice for putting out burning automobiles!
[i]”Housing developments do not do that. They cost more to service than they bring of benefit.”[/i]
This is only true in Davis because the city forces all developers to include sub-market-rate housing. (Currently, 50% of all houses must be either low-income or down-market middle income.) If developers were permitted to build market-rate housing, it would bring in more in tax revenues than the expenses of added public services.
You might think: we don’t need a whole bunch of new McMansions. We need housing “people can afford.” Fair enough. That’s a popular point of view.
But what if we allowed private developers to build large, market-rate apartment complexes? (Just where they are built is another question.) Would those help anyone with “affordable housing issues”? The answer is: probably yes.
The last I heard, the apartment vacancy rate in Davis was something like 0.5 percent. A healthy vacancy rate is about 10 times that. What happens when supply is terribly suppressed, as our policies calling for “affordability” have done, is that with constant (or growing) demand, the prices paid by renters keep going up, and apartments — which should be the “affordable housing” in Davis — become unaffordable to many.
Now, given what apartment demand is, if a bunch of fancy shmancy new apartment complexes came on line — all allowed to charge a full market rate — we would suddenly have a lot more “affordable housing,” because the older, less attractive apartments in town, which are now able to charge top dollar, would have to lower their rents to compete. They don’t have to compete in a market with no vacancies. But when supply rises a lot, they would have to, and the winners would be the lower income renters, esp. students.
Contrast that model with our cockamamie New Harmony model. It was allowed to be built to provide housing for very low income folks. Only a small number will live there, and (according to the city’s data) almost all of the residents will be coming from other cities to live in New Harmony. So unless you actually get a unit there, you as a low-income Davisite are not helped at all by government funded public housing projects. They cost a tremendous amount of money to build, and most people who need affordable housing are not helped at all by their presence.
All of that said, demand is apt to fall in Davis soon, as UCD admits fewer new students due to the state budget cuts. And as student fees rise, their demand for housing will fall. Add to that, if West Village is built — I wonder how the state budget crisis will affect that — then supply should increase, too.
“This is only true in Davis because the city forces all developers to include sub-market-rate housing.”
That’s not true. In fact, the biggest factor is not the sub-market-rate housing but the cost of providing city services which is a net loss for most communities. Davis is worse than others because of the lower development impact fees, but those impact fees are generally one-time benefits, which mean that many cities and counties rely on continued growth to generate more one-time revenue.
I have talked extensively with Davis high-tech business owners and CEO’s, and they DO, in fact, find the Hunt-Wesson site “appealing”. The problem is that the land will be priced according to its speculative value as potential residentially-zoned land as long as the council signals that we will entertain a rezone. If the council makes a strong statement that we will not consider rezoning the land to housing, it will eventually be sold for its realistic price as high-tech zoned land, which will make high-tech development feasible. There has been interest in the land for high-tech, but it has not, to potential buyers’ knowledge, been on the market at prices consistent with its current zoning.
At the current time, of course, nothing is going forward. We have about 200 for-sale houses approved but remaining unbuilt.
[i]”That’s not true.”[/i]
That’s what I was told a couple years ago. I probably should check the numbers again. The number I recall was 95 cents on the dollar. That is, for every $1 in taxes (property, sales and fees) paid to the city, that new homeowner would add a marginal expense of 95 cents. By contrast, for submarket houses, the added expenses were higher than the added taxes and fees.
Davis gets 11 cents on the dollar in property taxes. Not counting school taxes or Mello-Roos fees, a new $600,000 house pays $6,000 in property tax — $660 of that goes to the City — plus Measure O $48 and parks maintenance $98. So that is $806 directly to the City. Additionally, that homeowner will have to pay the “public safety charge” which is now $56.64/year, and the “municipal service tax” now $71.88. Additionally, a percentage (I’m not sure what %) of the “storm sewer, sanitary sewer, water fees” is above and beyond the city’s marginal expenses for these: that’s the money going into the enterprise fund. But leaving that out entirely, that homeowner pays $934.52/year. In addition to that, she will pay a substantial amount in sales taxes. And as far as Mello-Roos fees go, I presume they net out to zero, but I don’t know.
On Febraury 18 the Bee ran an article called Lower Home Prices Mean Higher Affordability. In they state that San Luis Obispo County has the lowest affordability rate 44% in California meaning that percentage of families could afford to buy an entry level home. I think this is relevant because while this blog seeks the perfect alternative to every proposal Davis remains unaffordable compared to the rest of the surrounding communities. I wonder what the affordability rate is for Davis and what people plan to do about it.
Thanks to a political staff director, Katherine Hess, who panders to Davis developers (like the Covell Village Partners who’s project she railroaded through in only one year) and an incompetent City manager Bill Emlen, the Cannery Park community-based project plan was sabotaged from the beginning. Then Sue Greenwald’s pipedream of wanting this site, instead, to be a million square foot high tech park was ridiculous. The commercial feasibility study clearly stated that a huge high tech park was infeasible. It is common sense to understand this especially in an economic downturn like we are having now.
Sue also ignored all of the neighborhood opposition to a 100-acre business park proposal at the Hunt Wesson site which would have far more traffic and other impacts. She discounted all of the community input over the last 3 years meetings designing the project. Sue clearly had no care or concern about the northern Davis neighborhoods. Even the No on Measure X campaign supported housing at the abandoned Hunt-Wesson site rather then having a huge 383 acre residential development at the Covell Village site. Sue’s destructive behavior has now opened the floodgates for Covell Village to be reintroduced. Also, the Wildhorse horse farm is now being pursued for development into a dense housing project.
Sue needs a reality check. She continues to invent her own “facts”. She claims that this site will now be more “appealing”. The abandoned Hunt-Wesson site has not been “appealing” for almost a decade when we had better economic conditions to any commercial outfit. The Cannery Park mixed use proposal was a good fit and compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods, unlike a 100-acre high tech park (even if it were feasible). All of Sue Greenwald’s destructive actions on this issue have just hurt the north Davis neighborhoods and the entire community.
I’m saddened to hear of this development. Davis desperately needs some high-density, mixed-use development. I’m an empty nester and would love to downsize to a nice, new, smaller housing unit, but there is nothing available in Davis. So I waste money and resources heating and cooling a house that’s too large for me. Infill is usually ugly, doesn’t blend well with the surrounding area, and all of the recent infill development has been so close to the train tracks that I wouldn’t want to live in it. So I’m moving to Chico, which has more housing choices, and the added benefit of my not having to drive 12 miles to shop. Ever tried to clothe a teenage boy at Gottschalks? You’re lucky if they have one pair of shorts in his size. Davis has cut off its nose to spite its face, and meanwhile Woodland is raking in our sales tax dollars right and left. It takes more than bike paths to make a town a desirable place to live.
I am very happy that Lewis has decided to drop plans for housing @ the “Cannery.” Our Council & citizens need to focus on bringing in businesses that will generate jobs and sales tax revenue.
We need retailers who can sell us, among other items, televisions, speakers & home theater systems. And what about appliances such as microwaves, ovens, range hoods, refrigerators and dishwashers. I’ll be buying many of these this year, but in Woodland, West Sac., or on line? Obviously not in Davis, because the only game in this town is more residential development!
And, by the way, how much are we paying city employees for “economic development?” (Guarantee it’s a whole lot more than any of them have generated in sales tax revenues from new businesses.)
“And, by the way, how much are we paying city employees for “economic development?” (Guarantee it’s a whole lot more than any of them have generated in sales tax revenues from new businesses.)”
This is a very good point!
[i]”That’s not true. In fact, the biggest factor is not the sub-market-rate housing but the cost of providing city services which is a net loss for most communities.”[/i]
My statement above that market-rate housing is a net positive to the tax-rolls in Davis was based on a conversation I had with a top city staffer, who had run the numbers. However, David, I found a published source for my claim. I never read this particular quote before last night:
“Higher-valued residential properties can be shown
to generate positive fiscal benefits – depending on service costs and supplementary taxes –
based on the higher property taxes generated by higher-priced housing. When the City undertook a fiscal analysis of the proposed Covell Village
project (based on 2004/05 service costs and housing prices) staff identified a “break-even”
point of approximately $350,000 – $400,000/unit.”
[url]http://cityofdavis.org/meetings/councilpackets/20080212/07_Long_Range_Planning.pdf[/url]
I should note that the same document says “multi-family apartment buildings” are a net negative. However, it does not say whether they would be positive or neutral if the city allowed a truly market-rate complex to be built. As I understand our ordinances, no one is allowed to build a large apartment complex and charge market-rate rents for all units. Thus, the “value” of the property is deflated, and thus the property taxes paid are deflated.
One thing I do very much agree with you, however, is that whatever costs a development imposes upon the collective, the developer ought to be responsible for that in impact fees. If ours are too low to meet these costs, they should be raised.
To Marcia:
Well, if you are looking for higher density, lower cost housing, you will be very happy to learn that just such a proposal is moving forward right now. A very well-planned, innovative, green (trying for 0 emissions,recycled/reused materials, etc.), 100% solar, smart-growth project called Wild Horse Ranch. And there will not be any business/industrial park to worry about. This project is between Wild Horse and open space! The town homes are 1400 to 1600 square feet and the single-family units are 1600 to 2000 square feet. No McMansions. Most would be “affordable” to those of us who are considered “work-force” and do not make 6 figure salaries. They are smaller, so affordable by design. Check it out.
To Disappointed:
Sue is exactly right on this one. The “value” of this property is artificially high because of its speculative value for residential development. Once we give a clear signal that it is not to be for residential and it is marketed for high tech, it will be utilized as a business park/high tech facility and will bring Davis some much-needed revenue. The issue of hugely more traffic is a being over-blown. There will be traffic in in the mornings and out at night, and that is it. A residential development of 610 homes would generate traffic at all times of the day and night. As to the word going around about generation of “dangerous” truck traffic, that is just not true. I have been to several business park/high tech facilities in Sacramento, and there is virtually no truck traffic. This is not meant to be heavy industry, which does generate truck traffic.
What neighborhood opposition? At all the council meetings I watched, only 3 or 4 people, and always the same people, showed up to protest the business park and support housing. I am a neighbor, and I support the business park, but no one surveyed me about the project. As to the No on X campaign supporting housing there. I was an active member of that campaign, and we did not actively support housing there. We just used the site as an example of where housing could go as an alternative to Covell Village.
Finally, the mixed use Lewis Homes housing project was clearly being planned in conjunction with the adjacent (Covell Village)property. The maps shows the connections for roads, etc. Building this as a housing project would have facilitated building of homes on the CV site. Building this as a housing project would also have made the CV site so much more obvious as a little wedge infill site.
I really object to personal attacks on this blog. I realize that politicians are fair game, but this attack on Sue is a little over the top and unwarranted.
I am very pleased to hear that Lewis Homes has withdrawn their plans to develop this housing project. I hope that we can convince our council to send the message that this is going to be marketed for high tech. And I have to agree with Rick Entrikin: Just how much are we paying our city staff for economic development? I have seen virtually no efforts by staff to see that this site is marketed for development that will bring much-needed revenue to our city.
To Disappointed:
I talked with many people who live near the project, and I found the vast majority to be either neutral about or supportive of a well-planned, attractive business park at this former industrial site. I talked with a few who were strongly opposed to a business park, but those with this sentiment were vastly outnumbered by those who were neutral or supportive.
I should add a bit about my thinking concerning neighborhood compatibility and well-planned high-tech business parks.
My own house is adjacent to the University, with its many research labs. This is an enhancement to my neighborhood. Over a decade ago, I supported a commercial business park at the Nishi property, which is only a few blocks from my house. I thought it would be an enhancement for my own part of town.
I am told that the Stanford Research Park is adjacent to a high-end Palo Alto neighborhood, and that it is an asset to the neighborhood. This is a huge business park — over 700 acres. Hunt-Wesson, by comparison, is only about 70 usable acres, according to staff.
I am trying to get the time to visit the Stanford Research Park to explore the campus-neighborhood interface. I have always thought that our business park uses in the Mace Ranch business park area are a benefit to the Mace Ranch neighborhood. Norm Rogers, who owned Z-World in Mace Ranch, bought a house a block from his work so that he could walk to work.
To Yolo Watcher:
There is nothing “green” about the proposed Wildhorse Ranch project (that’s just the development’s marketing spiel to entice the community to vote for it); it is taking a nice open space which was intended for (and should remain) a horse ranch; thus, the name “Wildhorse” and turning into a high density development that will add an additional 400-500 cars on Covell Blvd; not to speak, where is the water supply for all these new units going to come from in a drought year? higher water bills for exisiting neighbors??? And by the way, why do you think, now, in this horrible economy, voters in Davis would be any more hard pressed to vote YES for this project when two years ago, Covell Village, an arguably more “green” project proposed by local developers, lost 60% too 40%; voters will reject this one also…Save the Horses!!!
[i]”There is nothing “green” about the proposed Wildhorse Ranch project”[/i]
This is what the developer says about his proposal:
[url]http://cityofdavis.org/cdd/projects/wildhorse/pdfs/0808-Revised/02-Vison-Statement-final-20080815.pdf[/url]
Implement energy saving design features into the home and community design to maximize solar orientation and water conservation and treatment;
Incorporate sustainable design features into the design of the homes and the site plan. Use of renewable materials, cutting edge energy efficient design and reducing the amount of impervious surfaces will be used in both the home construction as well as the site infrastructure;
As the saying goes: “You can put lipstick on the pig, but it’s still a pig”….
Now you are changing your tune, you said:
[blockquote]”There is nothing “green” about the proposed Wildhorse Ranch project”[/blockquote]
Rich refuted that statement.
Instead of amplifying on your point, you come back with:
[blockquote]
As the saying goes: “You can put lipstick on the pig, but it’s still a pig”….[/blockquote]
I have no dog in this fight, had no opinion going in, none now. However based on what I read here, I’m on Rich’s side. You have to convince me with evidence, not sarcastic rhetoric.
[i]”I’m on Rich’s side.”[/i]
I’m quite neutral on the Wildhorse Ranch proposal. I spoke with the developer one evening for about an hour at a city council meeting — David Greenwald, in fact, introduced us — and he told me about his project. He told me that it would be “the most environmentally friendly housing development ever in Davis” (paraphrasing). His original design had, in effect, been rejected for (to use Stephen Souza’s phrase) “lack of a wow factor.” However, he said the redesign exceeds all of the green building standards the council has adopted; and its energy efficiencies are a large part of its new “wow factor.”
The Horse Savior is right that the land is zoned for agriculture, and thus (I think it) needs a Measure J vote. However, WHR is currently inside the city limits of Davis, if that affects anyone’s thoughts on this subject.
One thing I would suggest to the Savior is that — long-term — more housing is going to be built in Davis or on the periphery of Davis. (We might not need much built for a number of years, given the economy; but that, I’m sure, will ultimately rebound.) So the questions are where and of what sort? You have every right to think this is a bad location or that they types of housing are inappropriate. However, if none is permitted by the city, it seems inevitable that the university is going to convert ag land into housing, as they are planning with West Village. Also, our lack of available housing (down the road) might cause more homes to be built in Woodland and Dixon (on farm land). Thus, insofar as your goal is to preserve farm land as farm land, opposing a project in Davis might not accomplish that goal; and it might have the deleterious effect of forcing workers in Davis to commute, or causing UCD to build housing which causes impacts on Davis, but over which we have no real control.
All that said, for a number of years, it appears, growth in Davis is a moot point. We have a lot of extant homes for sale for which there are no buyers. We have many others which are approved to be built, but the proprietors are holding off. The university, right now, is shrinking, not growing, and growth in the city of Davis will mostly come from university growth. So you can reasonably oppose any new projects involving single family houses for the time being, no matter their positive qualities, and the normal negatives of overly constraining supply will not play out.
I can not disagree more with Sue Greenwald and I agree with the comments that losing the Cannery Park proposal due to the endless obsticles created by city staff and Sue Greenwald’s is a huge loss to the community. What a tragedy, after the years of community input to design the project which had so much support by neighbors and non-neighbors. Even the No on Measure X campaign supported development at this site rather than paving over ag land like at Covell Village. The concept of a high tech park touted by Sue Greenwald was included in the commercial feasibility study which was clear on the conclusion that a high tech park was infeasible. City staff was as much to blame since it did not follow the direction of the Council to continue processing the project. Instead there was stalemate. Planning director Catherine Hess and City Manager Bill Emlen should be fired due to pulling this stunt.
Sue has continued to be in denial of the neighborhood opposition to a 100-acre high tech park to be dumped into the middle of existing neighborhoods because of the massive impacts The EIR parameters made this clear.
It is no surprise that city staff members like Hess and Emlen sabotaged the Cannery Park application process to benefit the Covell Village partners. It is tragic that Sue Greenwald opposed a community–based plan for Cannery Park which, in turn, will bring another 383-acre Covell Village forward.
Sue,
You’re the only one that continually preaches the site should be high-tech, and maintains that the site is “so appealing” to these businesses. Everyone else knows that’s a load of BS, except for Lamar when he’s following you like a puppy.
Furthermore, Lewis Communities owns the property outright. In other words, you could get an MOU from Intel saying they’ll move onto that crappy site, and Lewis can give this city the finger – which they just kinda did in their letter.
I wonder if I can pay some of the kids at the upcoming carnival to tag “this site will be an ugly craphole for years because Sue Greenwald is nuts” on the front gate area?
There are plenty of people in this community that agree with Sue and Lamar on this. Insulting Sue and Lamar is probably not a good way to win people to your position.
To Save the Horses:
Is your intent really to save open space? Or do you live in Wild Horse and oppose a higher density project next to you? In the first place, the horse ranch property was never intended to remain open space as some have been saying. That is false. The Development Agreement for the Wild Horse development says nothing at all about retaining that property as open space. It is still zoned as ag land and its land use designation is ag, so it requires a Measure J vote, but it was never intended to remain open space. Futhermore, as Rich says, there is going to be more development in Davis. In my view it is much better to build homes on land already in the city than to sprawl out onto farm land. If you really want to save farmland, then you should be supporting infill projects such as this.
The Covell Village proposal was about as far from being green as you can get. It was classic sprawl with McMansions on Yolo County farmland. That is one of the arguments we used to help defeat it. We argued, among other things, that it made much more sense to build on land in the city than on county farm land. We all have to take our hats off to Eileen Samitz who led the initial charge against the Covell Village proposal.
The Wild Horse Ranch proposal is on land within the city and the developers propose many green features that were never even a remote possibility with CV, including 100% solar, use of recycled/reused building materials, bioswales to retain runoff for reuse. They have provided a huge buffer between existing homes and the new community. If you are concerned about the density, the developer could always just eliminate the big buffer and and build the home closer to Wild Horse. That way the density is closer to 7 to 8 homes per acre. Same traffic though.
I cannot disagree with “What a loss more”. I ask again, what neighbors opposed the business park? As I said, I watched the council meetings and it was 3 or 4 opponents and always the same people. Where was the huge outpouring of opposition? Putting a business park there is not exactly dumping it into the middle of existing neighborhoods. There is nothing to the north or east, Covell Blvd. to the south and the railroad tracks and F Street to the west.
I believe that city staff and the council did what was best in this difficult situation. It really was not that clear what pluses and minuses the two proposals would bring to the community, so they ultimately decided on equal weight EIRs. Lewis Homes did not want to spend the money, so they withdrew. They bought the land knowing it was zoned for high tech. They gambled and lost. Let’s put this to bed and move on.
If you want to focus on that, go ahead. Some of us are pissed at the continual failures of Sue as she adheres more to her rhetoric and ideologies than reality. Furthermore, anyone who follows the city council knows exactly where the split is – Sue and Don are the wings, Lamar does whatever Sue tells him to, Stephen’s the swing, and Ruth is somewhere between Stephen and Don.
Doesn’t change the fact that the city now screwed when it comes to making that site anything but a concrete wasteland. Any thoughts on that part?
“You’re the only one that continually preaches the site should be high-tech, and maintains that the site is “so appealing” to these businesses.”
Either that, or City Staff have been pushing a pro-developer stance, making people think high tech isn’t feasible. Much the same thing has happened with West Davis and our failure to get a grocery store – the city has been complicit in helping the developer evade his responsibilities, nor has the city actively recruited for a grocery store to come to West Davis – but didn’t have a problem throwing out existing businesses to bring Traitor Joe’s to University Mall!
Right, Davis and its pro-developer City Staff – I dare you to find a city staff within 100 miles that’s less “pro-developer” than Davis. The site analysis said 38 years for build-out as a high-tech business park. You can insist that your 1992 Ford Taurus will sell for $30,000, but it aint’ happening.
Same goes for your grocery store. Like it or not, the developer gutted the site, maybe even on purpose because he didn’t want to deal with locating a grocery store there. You now have a site that cannot reasonably appeal to any even modestly-sized grocer. Do you sit and whine about it while it rots, or find a compromise that makes something useful?
Anyone who says Lamar does whatever Sue says, doesn’t know Lamar.
I know Lamar. He says one thing, but he still votes with Sue 99% of the time.
Sorry, should have said on development issues. Occasionally he goes the other way on non-dev subjects.
When I did the Council Scorecard ([url]http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1237:2008-vanguard-city-council-scorecard&catid=57:city-council&Itemid=80[/url]) back in December, we found that both Lamar and Sue voted the same way as the Vanguard on the 20 items we looked at 95% of the time. Does that mean that the Vanguard does whatever Sue tells us? Or does it mean that we just happen to agree on the issues?
Thanks Captain Obvious for pointing out that correlation does not imply causation.
Saying he does whatever Sue tells him to is clearly hyperbole – but the fact that he has seized on her dogma and follows her example isn’t. Sue has been around a while and is highly opinionated with clearcut viewpoints. Lamar is green around the ears, and isn’t half as vocal as Sue is. If the players were different, I don’t think you’d be arguing this point. When it comes to development issues, Sue and Lamar are as close as any other clique, even more so than Don and Ruth.
Also, thanks for proving my point with your link. I was just going off personal experience and memory, but your chart illustrates my point pretty well. It shows that Sue and Lamar voted the same way on every single vote.
Hell, even Don and Ruth are less attached at the hip than that.
Yolo Watcher:
“Is your intent really to save open space? Or do you live in Wild Horse and oppose a higher density project next to you?”
The answer to both is an emphatic YES; and who cares where I live; I oppose this project and believe the majority of the city will too, because it is a high-density project being proposed in the middle of a rotten economy, when surrounding home projects (like Heritage Park) can’t even sell their units; if you so confidently believe it will pass a Measue J vote, I look forward to the fight, we are mobilizing our opposition citywide to remind voters to save Davis open space, and fight new sprawl and traffic; we will not sit back and allow these developer-funded talking points about how environmentally wonderful this project will be for the City. (Parlin development owns Binning Ranch and another Covell property, according to their website; after this project either passes/fails, where do they go next with their “environmentally sensitive” agenda?
Best wishes on the fight:
Horse Savior (as I have now been annointed).
I am not sure how we got on a discussion on the Wildhorse farm proposal starting with a discussion about Cannery Park. The Cannery Park site makes FAR more sense to have a mixed use on then developing the Wildhorse horse farm. The fact that the Wildhorse project “facilitator”, Bill Ritter is good friends with the Vanguard editor and his wife, and was her City Council campaign manager, is no reason for the Vanguard to become an advertising blog for the Wildhorse project. It becomes a bit more clear now why the Vanguard slammed the Cannery Park project just before the Council vote and started dubbing the Wildhorse project “green”.
The Cannery Park proposal never even got the the point of specifics on the project details since city staff and Sue Greenwald kept sabotaging the project (as a commenter posted earlier). The biggest come-on these days and using the term “green” to describe a project whether it is or not. There is nothing innovative about the Wildhorse project. Just a jam-packed subdivision with lot’s of impacts to the community. The site is a very nice horse farm! Keep it that way.
Also regarding Sue Greenwald’s wishful thinking for a huge high tech park at the Cannery park site. I never heard of a more absurd idea than wishing for a 100 acre high tech park in a economic downturn! Even the commercial feasibility study said that a high tech park was infeasible and Sue just continues to deny the facts. The abandoned Hunt-Wesson cannery site has been dormant for almost a decade. NO commercial group is interested in being at that location in the middle of neighborhoods and so far from I-80. The only reason that Sue supported the idea of a business park at the Nishi site (near her downtown home) was to prevent a retail development there. (Also, remember that Nishi is ON I-80, NOT in the middle of neighborhoods.)
No high tech park at the Cannery site and please preserve the Wildhorse horsefarm!
“Bill Ritter is good friends with the Vanguard editor and his wife, and was her City Council campaign manager, is no reason for the Vanguard to become an advertising blog for the Wildhorse project.”
And has it?
I am not sure how the Cannery Park site made more sense than the Wild Horse Ranch site. People are concerned about traffic? Cannery Park was for more than 3 times the number of homes plus a business park. This would have generated more than 3 possibly 4 times the traffic that the Wild Horse site will generate. Plus, there was absolutely nothing innovative about the Cannery proposal. It was a standard cookie-cutter Elk Grove type development. Anyone who continues to contend that the Wild Horse Ranch proposl is not innovative or green needs to sit down and see the proposal. The Wild Horse Ranch design team has been bending over backwards to try to make their proposal a really innovative project that can be a model for future Davis developments.
Horse Savior: I love horses. Used to ride all the time as a young person. But, if you want to argue to save open space and fight sprawl and traffic, you will want to SUPPORT small infills like this and fight devopment proposals like the Covell Village sprawl project and other large, peripheral spawl proposals that would generate a night-mare of traffic and other huge impacts. Even the Cannery park proposal would have generated 3 to 4 times the traffic as the Horse Ranch proposal.
I feel confident that when folks are faced with a choice between continuing to sprawl on peripheral parcels with huge developments vs small ,infill projects, and with a choice between saving true farmland vs saving a piece that cannot be farmed and a choice between thousands and thousand of vehicle trips (like that that would have been generated by the CV proposal and will be by other large peripheral developments vs the couple hundred generated by developments like the Horse Ranch, that they will support this innovative project.
I am well aware of what Parlin owns, and they backed off any discussion of developing any of their other parcels in this SACOG cycle during the Housing Update Committee meetings, unlike some of the other developers. And as far as this development, if you have been listening at the meetings, you will recall that they do not intend to build any units until 2012 or 2013. They are also very aware of the economy, since they have a vested interest in whether or not they can sell their homes!
How does the relationship between Bill Ritter and the blog editor affect the content of the blog? Reading back through the posts, it is obvious that it is the blog posters, not the editor, who have turned some of the discussion to the Horse Ranch proposal. And, please, please, please see the presentation by the Horse Ranch design team before stating that there is nothing innovative about the proposal.
I don’t live in Wildhorse and didn’t really know much about this Wildhorse Ranch proposal; I was hoping maybe that Cannery Park would go forward in the future (as opposed to another attempt to revive Covell Village); however, I am concerned about the need to push Wildhorse Ranch now by some (other than the obvious monetary greed of developers, and it now sounds like their paid community operatives; aka “community outreach facilitators”) do we really need to develop NOW, or can we take a long collective break and see how the economy goes, UC Davis employment/enrollment trends and what happens with the other proposed projects outside of the city limits (like the UC Davis Housing Project); open space is becoming endangered in our town, and why raze and develop it, if there is no pressing need to do so…
While the landed gentry of Davis debates if we should build more housing you should ask yourself what should be a fair premium on housing prices to live in Davis. Restricting supply in Davis has driven up the price to a point where it is more than twice that of the surrounding communtities. Of course this is why developers still want to build here. Since Davis did not build during the bubble years pent up demand makes Davis the last place where building houses is still profitable.
Sauras: What you seem to be ignoring is the fact that there are 200 un-sold units in the city that have been on the market for some time. There are also additionally approved units in the city–roughly 200 or so between three projects. One of those projects, the one owned by Ramos is undeveloped even though it was approved and went through the whole process. Ramos is looking to sell right now because he cannot afford to develop the site and he doesn’t think it will be profitable. So I think your statement is utterly without merit. But you find good company with Don Saylor on this.
Fast:
What should the premium ratio be?
No idea. I’m not one who believes that scarcity is the only thing driving the price. I think desirability has driven the price. Now the problem may be that people overpaid for their homes and are asking for far too much. People need to adjust to the new market.
“Right, Davis and its pro-developer City Staff – I dare you to find a city staff within 100 miles that’s less “pro-developer” than Davis. The site analysis said 38 years for build-out as a high-tech business park. You can insist that your 1992 Ford Taurus will sell for $30,000, but it aint’ happening.
Same goes for your grocery store. Like it or not, the developer gutted the site, maybe even on purpose because he didn’t want to deal with locating a grocery store there. You now have a site that cannot reasonably appeal to any even modestly-sized grocer. Do you sit and whine about it while it rots, or find a compromise that makes something useful?”
Seems to me City Staff was right beside the City Council majority in trying to push through Covell Village. City Staff has done zip to bring high tech to Davis. I agree w Sue, if your real desire as a developer is to make money, then you subdivide Lewis Cannery site as residential if you can get away with it. One way to do that is keep the price artificially high, by floating out a plan to do mixed use, even tho you know the property is zoned for light industrial commercial. Lewis people are gaming the system, and the city isn’t doing anything to recruit business to that site.
Same is true in West Davis. The owner was allowed BY THE CITY to let his property become blighted, so the developer could say no grocery store would consider going in there, which we now know is NOT TRUE!
The reason the homes aren’t selling is price… it’s not like that is rocket science. Now that Yolo county has hit 11.6% unemployment, watch those prices come down even more with distressed sales. But it’s too late for us. We bought a home in Woodland after waiting for years for something affordable in Davis and took our bikes and school age children with us. Same with many of our friends and collegues from campus who have departed outlaying cities or universities out of state.
Lewis has financial problems, all the developers do. Also, I don’t find it surprising that they finally gave Davis the finger. After years of making the business environment downright hostile, the city of Davis is reaping what it has sown and I for one am smiling.
As to insulting Sue and and the rest of the NIMBY no growth folks in Davis, you folks made my day. I thought I was the only person who doubted her pie in the sky claims and I’m glad to see I’m not alone.
Or is it because there is no credit market?
And btw, I can’t say I’m sorry to see you go. I don’t think you contributed much to this community. You seemed like a self-hater and Davis didn’t seem like a good fit for you. I’d rather people live here who have a commitment to protecting the unique character of this community, not destroy it for your own selfish ends. However, I suggest you move to Natomas or Elk Grove, that seems more your speed.
Few things:
Yes, Lewis did “gamble” that they could buy the site and rezone it. There’s little business for light industrial, the site is a huge hole in the northern area of Davis, and it’s an eyesore to boot. They expected Davis would realize Sue’s claims of courting Genentech or whatever for the site were about as likely as me selling my bicycle to Lance Armstrong for $3 million. Clearly, they were wrong.
Gimmie: “Same is true in West Davis. The owner was allowed BY THE CITY to let his property become blighted, so the developer could say no grocery store would consider going in there, which we now know is NOT TRUE!”
Well, my question to you was: Do you sit and whine about it, or do you try to make the best of it and do something practical and productive?
Sounds like whining to me.
The heart of this is that there are two integral parts of development – the city’s control through zoning, use permits, and building permits, and the actual landowner, who has rights too (though nobody here seems to ever acknowledge them). Purely equivocating to building McMansions in the Cannery or a 7/11 at the West Davis shopping center would be absurd and be a complete concession to the landowners. The obstructionist attitude of this city towards development is the equivalent of that, in the other direction. It would be wonderful to actually see compromise on development issues.