In recent weeks there has been an active and persistent discussion on the Vanguard about the issue of workforce housing. The discussion has been interesting and impassioned. The emerging consensus places the number somewhere around $200,000 as housing that a substantial portion of the workforce can afford. While I am sympathetic to the viewpoint of the people who are advocating for more affordable housing for the Davis workforce, I think the discussion to this point has focused too narrowly on one number and one population segment.
I have long been an advocate of slow growth in Davis, and I think the 1% growth requirement set by the council majority is currently set too high. I also believe that any actual growth should not be based on a requirement number, but rather on two concepts: first, internal demand and second, quality of the project.
I note at the onset here that this is the first of two articles on this topic. This article looks exclusively at the notion of housing in Davis. The follow up article tomorrow will seek to apply the concepts developed in this essay to Wildhorse. The goal here is to have a discussion on workforce housing outside of the political hot potato of the Wildhorse Ranch discussion. To some extent of course that is shear folly, but to the extent that we can do it, it will make the follow up discussion more meaningful.
Any look at the internal demand includes (but is not limited to) the following:
- The portion of Davis’ internal demand that is for workforce housing,
- The idea of supplying housing to people who either live in Davis but rent or who work in Davis and live elsewhere.
- Supplying housing that includes school age children who would fill classrooms and help the DJUSD address the challenges of declining enrollment.
One of the realities of Davis that is a major factor in any debate about housing affordability is the fact that Davis is a place that has:
- Good schools,
- A relatively low crime rate, and
- A high quality of life.
The result is that the cost to buy a home in Davis is significantly more than in surrounding areas of the Sacramento/Yolo CMSA, but somewhat less than many of the more costly areas of the Bay Area.
I spoke to a Davis Realtor to drill down into those broad realities. She told me that she had just sold a 2,850 square foot home for $935,000. Another 2,000 square foot home in Willow Bank just sold for around $700,000.
Adding a cost to build a home of about $200 per square foot to the acquisition cost of land, one is realistically looking at around 1,000 square feet costing $300,000. To put that size into perspective, I currently rent an apartment that is between 1,100 and 1,200 square feet. While it is roomy for an apartment it is not exactly spacious.
Thus realistically to get down to $200,000 one would need to get around a 600 square foot home — half the size of my apartment, and $200,000 may not even be achievable given the per unit fees that the City of Davis extracts from each new development. If those fees were based on square footage then building small units would not be penalized, but for the immediate present discussion, one size fits all is the method the City uses to levy the fees regardless of unit size.
The other issue is one of financing. The Realtor told me that this year, as a standard practice banks have been requiring a 20% down payment. In previous years that number was as low as between 0% and 10%. With an FHA loan, a first time home buyer could purchase a house with 3 to 5% down money. One has to ask, how many people who can only afford a $200,000 home can at the same time come up with a 20% down payment?
Generally speaking about 25% to 30% of a household’s income could go to mortgage payments, less if the household has debt other than the mortgage. In a university town like Davis it is safe to say that lots of residents have student loans or car loans, or both. For a $300,000 mortgage with 10% down, the monthly payments would be about $2,023 per month. At $400,000 they go up to $2,628. Theoretically someone who makes about $80,000 should be able to afford a $300,000 home. That would probably be tight and would require limited debt, but that mortgage payment might be manageable. You probably have to go up to $100,000 per year to afford $400,000. Relating that to Wildhorse Ranch, where the townhomes are supposedly going to go for $350,000 to $425,000 is a point we will come back to in tomorrow installment of this essay.
The key question from a policy standpoint, independent of any discussion of Wildhorse Ranch is, how can we create affordable workforce housing in Davis? I see three possible solutions to that question, and each one of them is fraught with complications and difficulties.
- Produce 600 square foot townhomes that people can purchase and build their equity, and then some time in the future sell that first home and upgrade to one that is larger. The advantage of this solution is that it is a “market solution” that provides people with the opportunity to purchase market rate homes, build their equity, and then upsize. The downside is of course threefold. First, there are not a lot of these sized homes available in Davis. Second, 600 square feet is fairly small and might work for a single household or a couple, but would be increasingly difficult with children introduced into the mix. Third, the current City of Davis development impact fee structure means that fully one third of the cost of building a 600 square foot unit would be devoted to costs that add no tangible amenities or value to the home.
- Reinstate the tried and now discarded middle income affordable housing requirement, which required a development to have 20% of its units set aside for middle income residents in addition to the 25% that was to be set aside for low income residents. The problems with that program were myriad. First, the only way for developers to make a profit given 45% submarket units was to build huge units elsewhere in the development in order to cover the costs of the affordable units. This meant there was a large number of non-market units and a large number of huge units, but very few workforce units with fully equity. Second, if a person could purchase a home under this scheme, they were limited in the amount of equity they could build. Third, mortgage companies have recently changed their practices and are extremely reluctant to lend money for units that have the type of limited equity appreciation deed restriction that was a key part of the program. For these reasons, developers in Davis lobbied the city council to remove that restriction and given the housing climate at the time, the council, probably with good reason, acceded to that request.
- The third option is of course to build enough additional houses so that the members of the Davis workforce would be dealing with a supply/demand relationship that resulted in a higher level of affordability. The questions this option raises would be:
- How much additional housing would need to be built?
- What the cost of such housing growth would be in terms of city services?
- And . . . How much such a growth in housing would harm the character of Davis.
The assumption here is that the cost of housing is strictly a function of scarcity, and isn’t affected by quality factors such as good schools and a relatively low crime rate. The question boils down to whether A) building lots of new housing would really make an impact on regional housing demand in a healthy and functioning market by simply building homes or B) the quality of life issues would also have to decline in order for the price of housing to drop. Said another way, “Do we have to build like Elk Grove and/or Natomas and at the same time decrease the quality of life for every Davis resident?” If the answer to that question is yes, then the logical follow-up question is “Is the trade off of housing affordability vs. reduced quality of life worth it?” Some will argue that it is.
Regardless, all three of these solutions to workforce housing and affordability are fraught with uncertainty and risk. However, by no means is that uncertainty and risk enough of an argument that we should not strive to produce more affordable housing. To me it is; however, an argument that means we ought to focus on smaller units, greater density, restructured development impact fees, and if we do all of that, we may finally begin meeting the needs of Davis residents and those who work here.
For me the charm of Davis, the character of the town, the quality of the schools, our agricultural heritage, our preservation of open space are all treasures that need to be guarded. At the same time, we must also guard against become an elite community that only the very wealthy can afford. This dilemma should structure every discussion on housing.
To add into that, our legacy as environmental innovators pushes us to create more and more environmental friendly housing developments. That necessity is driven by the concerns about global warming and our community-based efforts to help design land use and development policies that will help to fight global warming. Obviously the community of Davis’ policies will have small impacts on the overall greenhouse gas and carbon emission on a global scale. However, the policies that we development can be implemented across the nation and the globe to mitigate some of the impacts of human society on our climate and overall environment. If we cannot change the way we develop in Davis, if we cannot lead the way who will?
And while that is all necessary, at the same time, we have to understand that sustainability comes with a cost. That cost means we must be all the more vigilant about developing homes that everyone can afford. Even the most milquetoast development, typical suburban sprawl model, will be costly in Davis. A highly innovative, green, and sustainable home, not only carries with it the cost of development in Davis, but the added features. If we wish to be both affordable and green, we have to devise strategies to achieve that.
Tomorrow we will examine these concepts within the more specific parameters of the Wildhorse Ranch development and see how that project fairs in providing housing to people who work in Davis and would like to own a home in this community.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
You entire discussion is predicated on the cost of land being 2000 a square foot but that is only true because we have restricted growth and strangled it to death. If you open up lots of land for development you can lower the cost by making development rights competitive. You don’t need to become Elk Grove or Natomas for two reasons; you already have a downtown infrastructure and you don’t need to build as much as these other places to achieve the goal of making homes affordable. Look no further than Woodland or Dixon where they overbuilt in the boom and now houses are only 120 to 150 a square foot. They didn’t need to build so much to meet supply needs and I suspect that a few thousand houses would do the same in Davis. That doesn’t turn us into Elk Grove.
This one percent growth rate is ridiculous. I just read that world population will hit 7 billion next year after hitting 6 billion around a decade ago. Places like Davis with a good quality of life and the educated workforce that can provide the innovation to support the educational needs and ecological needs of a growing population should be growing faster not slower. Any loss of farmland around Davis will be mitigated by the technological innovation provided by the university and its magnetic ability to attract biotech to the region. Yes protection of farmland is important but at some point it is not the most critical factor in determining what growth should occur.
“You entire discussion is predicated on the cost of land being 2000 a square foot but that is only true because we have restricted growth and strangled it to death”
200 per square foot, not 2000. And do you know that for a fact as opposed to the other factors that lead to high cost of housing–low crime, high quality of living, and good schools?
[i]I have long been an advocate of slow growth in Davis, and I think the 1% growth requirement set by the council majority is currently set too high.[/i]
Then you’re against providing more than token housing for the workforce in Davis at any price. Today’s workforce will be retired by the time you’re ready to provide housing for them.
[i]The key question … is, how can we create affordable workforce housing in Davis?[/i]
If that’s the key question, then the answer is easy: In order to create housing, you first have to want to.
David:
Your housing costs are very incomplete. I did this subject to death on Chiles (w/o the homeowners fees because unknown).
I am sick of the “more houses on the market in Davis means lower prices” foolishness. Market forces in badly planned, grossly overbuilt cities w/ lower median income do result in lower prices. Look around the Sacramento area. Davis is an affluent town (yes let’s admit it) w/ more people that can afford houses.
Full cost to own a house includes mortgage payments + insurance + taxes + city services. On a $400k house. Insurance is approx $80/month. Property taxes (1.2%) are $400/month. City is $75/month. That’s another $550/month. If you budget right, there are also repair costs. PITI+city (no repairs) on a $400k house w/ 10% down is $2,708/month. It’s $100k/yr to own a $400k house (if housing is 30% of total cost).
Oh yeah and there’s the $30,000 – $40,000 down payment. It IS hard for many first time buyers of “affordable” property to come up w/ this. This seems to be conveniently ignored. If you currently own a house, it’s much easier.
Look at the current proposed developments (including the much praised WHR). Notice that there aren’t any $300k housing units for sale there or anywhere else in Davis? No single story senior housing either.
Your small $300k condos do exist in Davis. They are 30 years old. Check the McKeon condos on Poleline Road.
What’s a major need in Davis? Rental properties. These places might be attractive to investors. Newer smaller properties are easier to rent and lower upkeep. Higher depreciation, higher potential rent. Lots of students in this town drive expensive cars and come from well to do families. If an investor has some cash and oays high taxes, a glitzy Davis “housing unit” might be attractive. Depreciation helps hold down taxes.
DPD, I think your numbers are way off. It doesn’t cost $200/square foot for new construction. Something closer to $100 or $125 per square foot is ballpark for new construction, and $150 to $200 for remodel, depending on what exactly is being done.
It’s also important to remember, that despite recent real estate market woes, housing prices are still very high compared to historical levels. When Mace Ranch was built up, less than 10 years ago, you could buy a new 2,500 square foot house there for $250,000. The early houses in Lake Alhambra were built for the low to mid $400,000s (including the land). We had a quote for a new 3,500 square foot house in Lake Alhambra in late 2001 for less than $600,000. The construction cost quoted was $100/square foot, and the lot was $150,000. The first house we bought in Mace Ranch in 2000 cost us $265,000, and it was a 1,500 square foot 3 bedroom.
While real estate market prices obviously ballooned after that, the basic cost of materials and labor have not. In fact, with recent slowdowns, there is downward pressure on construction costs.
Those darn zeros add up pretty fast when they are on the end before the decimal point. A small typo with a big error.
Jim:
“I am sick of the “more houses on the market in Davis means lower prices” foolishness. Market forces in badly planned, grossly overbuilt cities w/ lower median income do result in lower prices. Look around the Sacramento area. Davis is an affluent town (yes let’s admit it) w/ more people that can afford houses.”
I agree. I threw that out there because someone is going to argue for it (and someone did). But the fact of the matter is we probably have to build tens of thousands of homes to reduce housing costs and at a huge cost to the city.
“Oh yeah and there’s the $30,000 – $40,000 down payment. It IS hard for many first time buyers of “affordable” property to come up w/ this. This seems to be conveniently ignored.”
I don’t think I ignored that, but I probably could have discussed it in greater detail. The FHA loan comes into play here and I use that to mitigate the 20%. But two Realtors told me 20% is standard right now given the credit market and the problems therein.
I also agree we need more rental property in Davis, I think a lot of that needs to be provided by the university for a variety of factors that have been discussed before.
“DPD, I think your numbers are way off. It doesn’t cost $200/square foot for new construction. Something closer to $100 or $125 per square foot is ballpark for new construction, and $150 to $200 for remodel, depending on what exactly is being done.”
I’m using the figure I got from one Realtor that was confirmed by a few others. I’d be happy to adjust it if you can cite the source and show me that it’s wrong. It doesn’t really matter for the bottom line which is the cost for the homes in Davis, which I think is accurate from my assessment.
Yes schools and crime are factors but the biggest factor is always supply and demand. When we discuss moving to a nearby community such as Sac or Dixon or Woodland we discount the cost of private schools.
Say a private k12 education has a net present value of $100,000. On a 1000square foot house that adds 100/ft on a 2000/ft house that adds 50/sq ft. So you can easily see that the increase price in Davis is more than just the schools because housing costs are more than the difference in the cost of an education. As for crime and quality of life these are mostly just illusions. We are only a freeway drive away from crime. Quality of life is dependent on whose life it is and what value they put on many things in their life. It is too vague to calculate without being more specific.
“Yes schools and crime are factors but the biggest factor is always supply and demand.”
You always argue that point, but do you have evidence to back it up?
Or to put it into other terms, how many houses would we have to build in Davis before the prices were comparable to Woodland or Dixon?
“I see three possible solutions to that question, and each one of them is fraught with complications and difficulties.
1. Produce 600 square foot townhomes that people can purchase and build their equity, and then some time in the future sell that first home and upgrade to one that is larger.” [quote][/quote]
As I am frequently compelled to do, I want point out that high-density housing does not and should not equate to 2-story (i.e., inaccessible) townhouses. Buildings with stacked, single-level units can provide high-density ownership housing without sacrificing accessibility to people with physical disabilities and many seniors who cannot use stairs.
We do have affordable housing for the Davis work force, it’s called Woodland and Dixon. Ask the receptionist in your local Dr. or Dentist office where their from. They will tell you they come over daily, begrudgingly, to wipe the stern of the pompous Davis elite. They report to work after dropping their off spring at a Davis public school!
Lenders are not apt to lend on properties under 800sf.
Oh, and there are other factors as well. The bigger the house the smaller the value added to the cost of a Davis house for the purposes of education and if you have more than 1 child the denominator gets larger so the increased costs are inversely related to the number of children. (I’m sure this really bugs the Malthusians out there.)Then we must subtract the fees paid to support the schools added to your tax bill. So while you can add something to the cost of housing due to schools it is not as much as you would think.
The $100,000 figure was from a friend who had his two kids in private school at a cost of $18,000/year for both this year.
“Lenders are not apt to lend on properties under 800sf.”
It would be helpful if people are asserting facts not in evidence that we cite a source for those of us who are skeptical but not knowledgeable about this topic. Thanks.
I honestly don’t know how many houses we would need to build but Spring Lake was planned for 4000 homes and that was too many for the market to absorb when the bust came. I’m sure that there are economists that can tell you how much you would need to build to get various impacts on the real estate market in Davis but I am not an economist although I play one on this blog. Maybe someone who knows how to calculate that will add to the discussion. Sue thinks 2000 is too many and David says he thinks it would take over 10,000. My guess is somewhere in between but it would be interesting to hear from the experts.
[i]I’d be happy to adjust it if you can cite the source and show me that it’s wrong.[/i]
It’s a misinterpretation from the beginning to suppose that there is one number for cost per square foot that can be proven “wrong”. A house costs more per square foot if it’s more complicated per square foot. A smaller house will generally be more per square foot, and a fancier type of house will generally be more per square foot. If a house has constructed space that does not count towards total square feet, such as a garage, then that also increases the cost “per square foot”.
It may be true that the type of houses that people build in Davis lately cost $200 per square foot. But that’s because the builders make the most of the square feet that they have in a limited allotment. It can’t always be true in the region, because it would mean that it’s flat out impossible to build an affordable house in Northern California. It isn’t. If you really wanted to, you could build for $100 per square foot.
Of course it helps if you don’t demand a $40,000 photovoltaic system for each house.
Yes, rental properties and university properties are two good ways to be more fair to the thousands of people who work in Davis or at UC Davis, but can’t find a home here. Not that that truly appeases those who think that 1% growth is way too much. The political solution is to blow hot and cold on affordability so that very little of anything gets built.
In a way, university housing is also a political solution, because it’s entirely divorced from city democracy. The university just has to fend off the lawsuits before it gets started.
It seems to me that the goal should be to pay a living wage. Frankly I think it is important to support those employers who are doing so now, and to pass a living wage ordinance so that those who do are not at a competitive disadvantage. I work for a union, and belong to another one – I believe that putting pressure on Target (when it is completed) to allow their workers to organize if they choose would be a positive step toward allowing the folks who work in Davis to live here, if they want to.
David: “I also agree we need more rental property in Davis, I think a lot of that needs to be provided by the university for a variety of factors that have been discussed before.”
At the pace that the university plans and develops new housing, it will be a decade before anything beyond West Village gets built. So in the absence of any more rental units being built in Davis, the vacancy rate will remain low, rents will remain high, and the people least able to afford housing will be the most squeezed. Remember, Davis is the only city in the region where rents are increasing this year. That is a sign of a rental market that is unhealthy for the consumers. That reflects an urgent need. There is no urgent need for senior housing. There is no urgent need for townhouses for people making $100K a year, no matter how energy-efficient they may be.
Davis needs to allow more apartments and other rental units to be built. The city needs something like 1000 more beds for students and young adults. That should be the first priority as the city council reviews any development proposal. A housing project which doesn’t provide significant rental housing should move back down the list. WHR was something like #22 on the ranked list of housing developed by the citizen-input commission last year. Yet it is the first out the gate. Why?
The fact is that steady peripheral development is exactly how Davis has grown for as long as I’ve been here. Stonegate was a brand new, peripheral development when I moved to Davis. Covell Park had been built very recently. A combination of infill and peripheral development, built at a steady pace, will allow for the housing that is needed and help to reduce the vacancy rate and local rents.
Davis doesn’t have to grow the way Dixon and Woodland did. The city council can assess each project for true affordability, even set clearer parameters if they wish. WHR barely meets the current city affordability limits, and does not really do so in a meaningful way. But it is very likely that some peripheral development, including more apartment complexes, will be necessary.
[i]I honestly don’t know how many houses we would need to build but Spring Lake was planned for 4000 homes and that was too many for the market to absorb when the bust came.[/i]
It may be true that they should not have planned 4,000 McMansions in the Woodland school district without good bicycle access to Davis. It may also be true that if you weigh down developers in Davis with affordability quotas, they won’t build. And it may be true (as Rich Rifkin noted) that the situation is even worse at most of the other UC campuses.
But none of that means that there is no shortage. The shortage is real. When we try to hire young new faculty, we end up apologizing to them for the cost of housing. The pay is not all that competitive, and the houses are much cheaper in Eugene, in Madison, in Urbana, in a lot of places. We wish we could tell them how wonderful it is to live in Davis, but sometimes we just can’t.
And if that’s how it is for faculty, it’s even worse for staff.
[quote]
“Solution” 1…
Lenders are not apt to lend on properties under 800sf. [/quote]
[quote]Source?…
It would be helpful if people are asserting facts not in evidence that we cite a source for those of us who are skeptical but not knowledgeable about this topic. Thanks. [/quote]
As a previous Realtor who sold a home under 800sf, my source is through personal experience. Even in a market where loans were given out like candy, we had trouble finding a lender to finance the purchase (the house was 798sf). Every lender we approached said that a loan on a home under 800 sf went through a different underwriting process and would likely not be approved. There is a lender concern about marketability on tiny houses and they treat the loan more like an auto loan. Of course, it is not impossible and the lender risk can be mitigated by a large down payment and an inflated interest rate.
4000 square foot McMansions would be at the extreme end probably 3 standard deviations above the mean of what has been built in Woodland 1500-3000 is a more accurate range.
[quote]Mike Adams said . . .
It seems to me that the goal should be to pay a living wage. Frankly I think it is important to support those employers who are doing so now, and to pass a living wage ordinance so that those who do are not at a competitive disadvantage. I work for a union, and belong to another one – I believe that putting pressure on Target (when it is completed) to allow their workers to organize if they choose would be a positive step toward allowing the folks who work in Davis to live here, if they want to. [/quote]
Mike, much like Greg’s comment on building costs, there isn’t an objective standard for what a “living wage” is . . . especially in the World Economy we live in. It really depends on your framing. My son is married to a Thai woman. Her framing encompases both Baltimore, where they live, and Bankok where her parents and brother live. As a result her opinions on what a living wage is is significantly lower than the opinions of virtually all of her Baltimore neighbors.
Taking that same concept a step further, do you believe the living wage in Davis should be the same as the living wage in Detroit?
[i]4000 square foot McMansions[/i]
I meant 4,000 of them (which was your number), not that they were 4,000 square feet. In fact many Spring Lake houses are 3,000 square feet. They are selling, by the way, for well under $200 per square foot without a separate charge for the lot.
Again, UC Davis assistant professors don’t want 3,000 square feet in Woodland, they want 1,500 square feet in Davis. In fact, half of a 3,000 square foot duplex would be great.
I moved to Davis decades ago, precisely because it was REALLY, REALLY, slow growth….supposedly. However, in all those decades, there has been continuous growth….most of it bedroom city. If people continue to want to work here and can not afford to live here, either by buying or renting, that is after all their decision. I am sick to death of the term ‘affordable.’ Either you can buy or not. In an economy where everything, every relationship, every personal and professional decision is based on money, it should be no surprise to anyone that lifestyle depends on one’s earnings. That housing is expensive here, should, also not surprise anyone given the community that we have. The University, alone brings the cost of housing way up…check housing close to any university, it will be higher.
So, we don’t want another West Sacramento, Dixon, or Woodland.
We also don’t want to give up the most valuable farmland in the state. We are already fighting development on that issue. And, I for one, do not want crops made up for by technological invention. I like things REALLY organic. I don’t want a fish gene in my egg yolk. I don’t know where ‘thru the looking glass is from’ but he is welcome to return there.
[i]I moved to Davis decades ago, precisely because it was REALLY, REALLY, slow growth[/i]
If so, how much can you really complain. Three years ago I joked that my house paid me more than the university did. That’s a slight exaggeration for several reasons, but it was almost true. What is true is that if we count home equity, we lived in Davis since we moved here in 1996 for better than free. We have lived here at a profit, no exaggeration.
[i]We also don’t want to give up the most valuable farmland in the state.[/i]
I agree, I love farmland. I love it so much that I would rather carve the Sacramento metro area out of the Sierra Nevada forest.
Not really. You should know that about half of California farmland goes to feed cows, not people. I, for one, would rather see more urban development, more forest, and less beef.
Yes Davis love it or leave it, now that makes for an interesting debate. As for innovation, just the discovery of one gene by UC scientists, that had been lost through breeding, for the uptake of iron by wheat will increase world nutritional values enough to offset the loss of all the farmland in Yolo County. Oh and what would all that precious farmland be growing without the invention of the tomato harvester by UC Davis ag engineers. How long have you lived here? Your against biotech what about recombinant DNA insulin? What about genetically engineered cancer drugs? You think its all about vitamin A in wheat and round up ready soy. What about celulostic ethanol and plug in hybrids? The benefits to society from the research engine of UC Davis far outweigh any loss of productive farm land needed to support the community.
I am not willing to approve housing that does not have at least 25% of the development at $300,000 or less in this economy. $300,000 seems to me to be what is the outside figure for “affordable workforce housing”. However, if you can show an INTERNAL demand for $400,000 townhomes, I might be willing to reconsider. The bottom line is we have enough housing in the pipeline already, so why do we need more now? Give me some reason that is sound for building more housing.
The reason this is important, and one thing that has been left out of the equation is the cost in city services/infrastructure costs of new housing. What good does it do to build new housing, if the cost to the city results in tax increases/fee increases that price existing homeowners right out of the city?
btw you can move too if this town is too big for you there are plenty of places that are as big as Davis was when you moved here. Try Winters or Esparto. What are saying that Davis should stay the same as when you moved here. How much more solopsitic can you get.
[quote]Greg Kuperberg said . . .
Again, UC Davis assistant professors don’t want 3,000 square feet in Woodland, they want 1,500 square feet in Davis. In fact, half of a 3,000 square foot duplex would be great. [/quote]
I completely agree Greg, especially if they have no children.
[quote]through the looking glass said . . .
As for innovation, just the discovery of one gene by UC scientists, that had been lost through breeding, for the uptake of iron by wheat will increase world nutritional values enough to offset the loss of all the farmland in Yolo County. Oh and what would all that precious farmland be growing without the invention of the tomato harvester by UC Davis ag engineers. How long have you lived here? Your against biotech what about recombinant DNA insulin? What about genetically engineered cancer drugs? You think its all about vitamin A in wheat and round up ready soy. What about celulostic ethanol and plug in hybrids? The benefits to society from the research engine of UC Davis far outweigh any loss of productive farm land needed to support the community.[/quote]
You present this as an either/or connundrum. Why can’t it be both/and? The research advances at UCD are not dependent on the presence or absence of productive agricultural land.
“btw you can move too if this town is too big for you”
Why would I allow the town to get so big that I have to move? That’s illogical.
Holy Moly! “However, if you can show an INTERNAL demand for $400,000 townhomes,”
The way to show that is if people buy it (assuming they aren’t buying it because they are told the way to wealth is to overleverage and if it goes bad the Obama administration will bail you out).
This whole discussion is about PURCHASING a home. That is wack. What are the low rents in Davis? Those rents are affordable because someone is paying them.
The term affordable housing is Orwellian. If the cost is not affordable then the price will go down… Hey isn’t that funny that the price of housing is going down but the government is doing its best to spend your taxdollars to prop up housing prices?
[quote]Lets Keep Those Already in Davis Right Here in Davis said . . .
I am not willing to approve housing that does not have at least 25% of the development at $300,000 or less in this economy. $300,000 seems to me to be what is the outside figure for “affordable workforce housing”. However, if you can show an INTERNAL demand for $400,000 townhomes, I might be willing to reconsider. The bottom line is we have enough housing in the pipeline already, so why do we need more now? Give me some reason that is sound for building more housing.[/quote]
I am in agreement with the points you have made. If internal demand can be clearly demonstrated, then the housing makes sense.
[quote]The reason this is important, and one thing that has been left out of the equation is the cost in city services/infrastructure costs of new housing. What good does it do to build new housing, if the cost to the city results in tax increases/fee increases that price existing homeowners right out of the city?[/quote]
For the record, the Revenue and Expense numbers provided in the Staff Report on WHR show that it generates a $1 million [u]positive[/u] net cash flow for the city over the 15-year analysis period. That jumps to an over $4 million positive cash flow when the City’s savings on the 40 Affordable Units is included.
[i]I completely agree Greg, especially if they have no children.[/i]
Or even if they do have children. We have a share more than 1,500 square feet, but 1,500 would have been good enough. The houses down the street have barely 1,100 square feet and a number of those people have one child; a few have more.
[i]I am not willing to approve housing that does not have at least 25% of the development at $300,000 or less in this economy.[/i]
But are you willing to build nothing, in the name of affordability?
Yes Matt we can have some of both but not all of both.
Why not? Where does ag land figure in as a research prerequisite?
I lived in Dixon until I could afford to live in Davis. It was economic reality. Davis was more expensive, but more personally desirable for a number of reasons. I was goal-driven to save and earn enough to be able to afford it. Why is this natural approach a problem for others? Why do some people believe they are entitled to anything that they don’t earn enough to afford? When did we lose our understanding that higher value products and services tend to cost more and requires extra effort and struggle to obtain? Our national economy collapsed precisely because of the proliferation of too many shortcuts to effort and struggle commensurate with the value acquired. Owning a home is a big deal and it should be a challenge and struggle to earn. Owning a home in Davis is a bigger deal and should be a bigger challenge and struggle.
I think it is common in college towns for the employees of the college to feel entitled to be able to live in the town. I don’t think there is any other employee group that feels so entitled… maybe wishful, but not entitled.
Other than the 15-20 minute commute in a Prius, or the 45-60-minute bike ride, what is the downside for a UCD professor to live in Dixon, Woodland or Winters and save his/her pennies until the smaller Davis home can be purchased.
We need enough high density rentals to support the student population. The city should work with the university on this need. Otherwise there is plenty of affordable housing in the communities that surround Davis. If the incoming professor is not paid enough to afford a Davis house of his/her liking and he/she cannot accept living 15-20 minutes away, then the problem will reveal itself when a number of profs start turning down offers. Until then it is a nonstarter to claim we need more affordable housing.
My wife and I started in an old house in Sac (less than 1100sf), then moved to West Sac, and then moved to Davis. We are staff at UCD and the home is a bit of a financial stretch (but we love it). I’m not sure why people expect to start in a new house, in the best neighbourhood, and have the payment be so easy that it requires no sacrifices. I agree with the economic reality, that if people are goal driven (vs. entitlement driven) and make sacrifices, they can buy here (eventually). It’s a natural approach.
[i]I’m not sure why people expect to start in a new house, in the best neighborhood, and have the payment be so easy that it requires no sacrifices.[/i]
If you own a house in Davis, this is really just another way of saying, “What’s in it for me?”
I’m not interested in pleading poverty on behalf of junior faculty; that’s not the point. The point is that Davis will be a greater success, California will be a greater success, and the world will be a better place if UC can hire good people who accomplish things. For instance, unlike UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara, much less Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD, no one at UC Davis has ever won the Nobel Prize.
If you always reduce everything that prospective faculty want to feeling sorry for them, no one ever will either. If the pay isn’t competitive and the housing isn’t competitive with the rest of the country, then our hiring simply won’t be competitive. It’s not just that Davis will play musical chairs with other research universities. In many cases, the guy who could have done great research will get fed up and become a professional gambler on Wall Street. I’ve seen it happen.
The same goes for Jeff Boone’s question, why faculty “feel entitled” to live close to campus. They feel entitled because at many universities in America, they are entitled. Just as they once were at Davis too.
Since Jeff is hazy on the “downside” of not living in Davis, it’s exactly the same as the upside of living in Davis. It’s not just that there is so little crime, that we have wonderful public pools, and public lawns called greenbelts. It’s also the school district, where academic-minded children can become friends and take very nice advanced classes. And it’s also the bike paths, that turn Davis into a giant freedom zone for any 12-year-old with a bicycle and a cell phone.
Many of these advantages, maybe not all of them, are also there at other university towns. Again, the Davis version is lately just too expensive for many of the people that UC Davis would like to recruit.
But again, if all you really care about is your own house and your own conveniences, then I make no argument that you should feel sorry for faculty or that housing for them will help you all that much. It’s not enlightened, but you have the right to want the world to pass Davis by.
Sorry I don’t see academics as a privileged class who are to be given special entitlements or allowances just because it is traditional. The university system and the attitude are archaic anachronisms. In the real world we get paid for what we produce, if we don’t produce we are soon looking for a new job.
Since Jeff is hazy on the “downside” of not living in Davis, it’s exactly the same as the upside of living in Davis. It’s not just that there is so little crime, that we have wonderful public pools, and public lawns called greenbelts. It’s also the school district, where academic-minded children can become friends and take very nice advanced classes. And it’s also the bike paths, that turn Davis into a giant freedom zone for any 12-year-old with a bicycle and a cell phone.
Greg, this was my point without having to state the obvious. These great “Davis” things increase demand and I’m sure you get that higher demand results in higher prices. Another way we could look at creating a solution to the problem of unaffordable housing is to destroy the bike paths and green belts, reduce the police budget, and stop passing special school bonds. Eventually this would result in lower demand for Davis living and housing prices would fall to the point that more UC employees could buy the house of their dreams. However (and I’m sure this is going to be argumentative) reduce the price of homes and you increase the number of less academic kids and cause the schools to have to devote more resources to baseline education and behavior problem-solving than AP classes.
It is interesting that all the upsides you mention (except maybe the kids having academic friends) are separate from what the university provides. I would add that the university adds a certain vibrancy and sophistication to the town that is lacking in these other non-university towns. For this, and the economic benefit, I think the city owes something back to the university to help improve the Davis housing options for UC students and employees. But, I think the city is already doing this with support for University Village and other past developments. However, I think we do need more off-campus apartments for the students.
Maybe my point can be strengthened looking at a more extreme example: San Francisco is one of the most vibrant and sophisticated cities and I know a lot of people that work in downtown San Francisco and could never afford to live there… including many UC S.F. employees.
could never afford to live there…
I meant “never afford to purchase a house there”
[i]Sorry I don’t see academics as a privileged class who are to be given special entitlements or allowances just because it is traditional.[/i]
I half agree with you. If society values higher education, then faculty privileges should be budgeted and granted by the university. I don’t believe in making homeowners and shopkeepers kowtow even for a noble cause, nor in robbing Peter to Paul.
But the fact is that it’s Davis homeowners, not prospective faculty, who have accepted the special privilege of severely restricted growth. And I’m not proposing reserving anything for faculty only. Although if the university builds houses because the city refuses, then it certainly can be faculty-only housing.
Of course Davis homeowners could curse those infuriating campus administrators who dare to wreck their dream of no growth. And that is what they did do in response to West Village. They protested, they lost their tempers, they sued. But a war between the university and the city is bad for both sides. The university has the right to want faculty housing, and it and the city ought to shake hands.
[i]It is interesting that all the upsides you mention (except maybe the kids having academic friends) are separate from what the university provides.[/i]
That parenthetical is a massive exception and it’s not just as simple as friends. There is no question that a ripple effect from the university has raised academic standards at DJUSD. Great K12 schools go with great universities.
Actually the bicycle network isn’t really separate either. The bicycles were Emil Mrak’s idea first. It took the city 10 years to come around to what the university was doing, although to be fair there were big legal and practical obstacles.
[i]But, I think the city is already doing this with support for University Village and other past developments.[/i]
If you mean West Village, what support? That homeowners stopped suing the university? That’s like the joke about how to win the Nobel Peace Prize: Do a lot of bad things and then agree to stop.
[i]I know a lot of people that work in downtown San Francisco and could never afford to live there… including many UCSF employees.[/i]
That’s different, because San Francisco truly doesn’t have any direction to grow — except maybe up and it has already done a lot of that. My sister lives in a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, and it’s much more crowded than Davis. So UCSF needs a lot more money to achieve its goals. This is a model that makes a lot more sense for a medical school than for the main campus of UC Davis.
Property taxes in Davis are MUCH higher than listed by one letter writer above. The voters here have voted in all kinds of supplemental taxes. My taxes on home I purchased 7 years ago for 455K are nearly $7K a year, and my house isn’t subject to Mello Roos! Nearly one-tenth of my taxes goes just for the new junior high school. Now that my kids are out of school, I plan to move away from Davis (and the state, for that matter) within the next year – just to get out from under this ridiculous property tax burden.
Anyway, the whole faculty housing thing is moot at this point. I work at UCD and I know several faculty members who are leaving to take jobs in other states. The own houses here already; that isn’t the problem. It’s the constant state budget hassles and the axe that keeps being taken to the UC system that’s driving them out.
Jeff: “We need enough high density rentals to support the student population. The city should work with the university on this need.”
That would free up many of the lower-priced houses that are currently occupied by groups of students and other lower-income folks in Davis. The problem driving the Davis housing costs is excess demand, or lack of supply, at the entry-level. It doesn’t really matter whether those older homes, duplexes, mobile homes, or larger apartments are owned or rented. What does matter is that the supply of them is not sufficient to maintain a healthy vacancy rate.
If the city deals with this problem via the allotment of housing units permitted, the other problems will largely take care of themselves. A professor or staff person enticed to Davis who can’t find a newer home will probably happily rent or buy a nice-enough older home. But thousands of students and other young adults are competing for those homes in the rental market.
It would be great if the city could work on this cooperatively with the university. That would be an enlightened housing policy. It is better for the city if these rentals are developed within the city limits, near existing shopping, and along existing transit lines.
[quote]For instance, unlike UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara, much less Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD, no one at UC Davis has ever won the Nobel Prize[/quote]
Funny example. These Universities have far more expensive housing than Davis. So according to the cheaper housing principle, all the potential nobel prize winners would be turning down UC Santa Barbara and Irvine for Davis.
[quote]If the pay isn’t competitive and the housing isn’t competitive with the rest of the country, then our hiring simply won’t be competitive.[/quote]
Again, the main competition for potential nobel prize winners is not universities in Alabama or Missouri; it is universities in areas with even more expensive housing like New York, Boston, San Francisco, Palo Alto and LA. And assistant professors in these areas usually live in adjacent, cheaper towns or in university housing like West Village.
If you mean West Village, what support? That homeowners stopped suing the university? That’s like the joke about how to win the Nobel Peace Prize: Do a lot of bad things and then agree to stop.
Yes. Well you can’t stop some people, but in the end the project is going forward. I think West Village was probably the least attacked major development in Davis in the last decade.
That’s different, because San Francisco truly doesn’t have any direction to grow — except maybe up and it has already done a lot of that. My sister lives in a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, and it’s much more crowded than Davis. So UCSF needs a lot more money to achieve its goals. This is a model that makes a lot more sense for a medical school than for the main campus of UC Davis.
I think you are splitting hairs here. The fact that a high percentage of UCSF employees live away and commute to work seems to indicate that the same should be accepted in Davis.
Long time lurker – first post; My wife and I attended UCD in the late 90’s and we intend to settle down in Davis in the near future, which is why I have a vested interest in the cost of living.
I can’t possibly convey my frustration with this entire article and the ensuing responses. In general I find that the stories and commentary on this website are well informed and well intentioned, but this story misses the mark so badly I feel compelled to chime in.
The city of Davis is affluent, to be sure; however, I find it incredibly arrogant, almost conceited, that the people here don’t appear to understand the value of a hard earned dollar. To be clear, it is not the affluence that is appalling, but the manner in which some of the posters presume to understand the plight of young families without having experienced the realities of modern economics.
Furthermore, I feel that the typical arguments about housing are being regurgitated without critical thought and this disappoints me, especially considering the typical level of discourse is exemplary. Here are some examples of the topics I’m referring to:
1) Housing always appreciates.
Anyone that still believes this is true has been secluded from civilization for the better part of last 3 years. Traditionally, housing tracks inflation (see the Case Schiller index) and we’re currently experiencing a nasty reversion to nominal housing prices.
2) Renters throw money away, owners build equity.
Really? And what would you call the mortgage interest? You’re either renting a home or renting money.
2a) Yes, but owners have a home to show for their efforts in the end.
Indeed, and a renter has saved the difference between a mortgage payment and their rent payment for 30years. Depending on how large that difference is and how they’ve invested their savings the differences can be, and using current examples are, mind boggling. Not to mention that renters haven’t paid maintenance costs or property taxes for 30 years nor do they have an illiquid asset in the end.
All these variables may point to owning someday, but currently they’re so skewed toward renting that it’s almost trivial.
3) Interest rates are at historical lows.
Sure, but it’s better to buy a cheap asset with expensive money than it is to by an expensive asset with cheap money. In other words, you can refinance a mortgage, but you can’t renegotiate the price you paid for a house.
4) I saved and worked my way up, why don’t people just save and buy when they can afford it.
I’d love to; all I ask is for anyone to show me where a median income can afford a median home using traditional lending practices i.e. 3x annual income (i.e. the same environment you were likely facing).
There are many more examples of what I believe are flawed arguments, but these are a few I’ve observed here thus far.
Housing has nowhere to go but down and if you don’t agree then I would very much like to know where the money is going to come from? New buyers can’t get loans at current prices assuming they’re not worried about losing their jobs; move up buyers can’t sell their homes assuming they’re not underwater; and the elusive foreign investors have been hammered by the current economy at least as bad as we have.
In the end the people that choose to live in Davis value what Davis has to offer more than they value what Woodland, for example, has to offer. Schools, aesthetics, values, family, and low crime are a few of the attributes that attract us, but we have no intention of owning a home until the tides shift enough to bring fundamentals back in line. No matter how you slice it owning in Davis is not affordable, but why such an emphasis is placed on owning I’ll never know. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade and a half of socially engineering home ownership it would be that not everyone should be a homeowner and, conversely, some that possibly should be homeowners have been excluded due to unintended consequences.
I apologize in advance if the tone of my post is perceived as terse and, if you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading.
John Markley, I think your post on the whole was excellent. I would offer these few thoughts as rejoinders:
[i]”Traditionally, housing tracks inflation.”[/i]
My education on this may be dated — I earned by BS in Economics more than 20 years ago — but my recollection is that housing prices (under normal market conditions over the long-term) track wage inflation, as opposed to general price inflation. In periods when the productivity of labor is accelerating, that can be higher than general price inflation.
[i]”Housing has nowhere to go but down and if you don’t agree then I would very much like to know where the money is going to come from?”[/i]
In real dollars (for a good while) I agree. However, it is not unlikely we are in for some very serious general price inflation. I believe the U.S. dollar is going to depreciate substantially against other major currencies over the next 10 years. I quoted a well known UC Davis economist, Steven Sheffrin, in my Enterprise column recently to that effect: “(The decline in the dollar) might be 50 percent. So we are talking about a huge adjustment in order to bring the current account down to a manageable level. It’ll play out over the next 10 years.” If we have serious inflation, the nominal price of housing is going to go up, even if in real dollars it continues to decline.
[i]”In the end the people that choose to live in Davis value what Davis has to offer more than they value what Woodland, for example, has to offer.”[/i]
Can someone tell me a local place (not Starbucks) where you can get a good scone and a good cup of coffee in Woodland? I tried Timothy’s Bakery on Main, today. (Ick!) There used to be an excellent place across from the Army/Navy recruiting center (the IOOF Hall), but that is no longer there.
John you are right on. One thing I wonder is why is it assumed that a larger Davis equates to degrading the quality of life. I really don’t think they are the same maybe people could explain that to me.
Matt obviously when prices are so skewed due to restricted growth increasing supply makes Davis more affordable. Making Davis more affordable gives talented people a better chance to settle here. My point is that given the choice between value added by technological advance versus preservation of ag land technological advance wins everytime. This notion that ag land is more important than human habitat is rather extreme in Davis, so extreme that we have made the area less livable for everyone except those that are already landed.
What features of Davis are attractive to you and how would growth impact them?
Are there larger or faster growing cities that are *better* than Davis and if so how?
For me, the attractive qualities of Davis are as follows: small town feel, character of the town, low crime, good schools. I think all of these factors would be negatively impacted by faster growth. These are all subjective of course.
John Markley: “No matter how you slice it owning in Davis is not affordable, but why such an emphasis is placed on owning I’ll never know.”
Especially when you consider that 55.4% of housing units in Davis are renter-occupied, according to the US census in 2000; a figure that is likely increasing. Affordability of housing in Davis is a rental issue. Shortage of housing in Davis is a rental issue. Lack of rental housing in Davis should be the key focus of planning and development decisions.
Thanks for posting, and welcome to the Vanguard.
[i]The fact that a high percentage of UCSF employees live away and commute to work seems to indicate that the same should be accepted in Davis.[/i]
I don’t know where most UCSF faculty live. But I do know two things:
(1) They are doctors and they are paid a lot more than L&S faculty at UC Davis. And UCSF itself has more money to mitigate housing problems. (2) If Davis draws unmovable boundaries in the alfalfa fields and then says, “Hey, we’re crowded just like San Francisco”, that will look deeply arrogant to most outsiders.
[i]I think West Village was probably the least attacked major development in Davis in the last decade.[/i]
“Please thank us for attacking you less.” Again, it looks deeply arrogant outside of Davis.
Dear You tell us,
Its hard to compare Davis with other cities because few have major land grant universities but I was just in Columbia MO. home of the U of MO tigers. The houses were large and cheap with big yards shaded by trees. The differences between here and there are many but it does call into question what another vision of Davis might be like if we were to relax the borders and build out the town. The quality of life seemed pretty nice in Columbia and we talked about moving there but I just couldn’t see how I would get good fruit year round.
I’ve been to Columbia, MO many times, as some here probably know. You just cannot compare across states for real estate values and land use. If you go to most other states you are not going to pay the cost of housing like you do in California. It’s just not a meaningful comparison.
Growth only brings problems to our community. There are no benefits. Growth in American towns and small cities comes with its price. There is a point at which the price begins to overpower the benefits. I believe that we are near that equilibrium now ( I think that all of you realize this in your hearts also). Why not leave things at the price that we have already paid, and quit while we can.
This is still a pleasant town. Crime is minimal (or less). The police have nothing to do. Structure fires are a rarity. We still pay our municipal obligations(Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heysteck understands the real issues). And we are only beginning to fantasize about what volunteerism can do to reduce municipal costs. If we want to keep this atmosphere, we should be looking toward minimizing what we spend on municipal services, providing realistic payments for pensions, stopping growth outside our town’s boundaries, and developing a social alternative to the American suburban model. Earmarks of such a society might include frugality, responsiveness to peoples communal needs, repulsion of external pressures to grow, and pride in a different kind of civic experience…one that places the everyday lives of our town’s citizens first.
I am sick when I see neighbors selfishly trying to shut down the Davis Community Church’s assistance to the homeless. I resent the greed of developers who would impose their ‘project’ on our town, take their wealth, and go elsewhere. I am puzzled by councilmen/women that play to the tune of small special interests, over the desire of the majority who want things to stay as they are.
Growth goals are a fantasy created by those who hope to profit from them. They are read into the minuets of planning meetings as though the are a requirement of being part of this society. Nothing could be farther from the facts. Growth goals are objectives assigned by powers that have something to gain from them. There are no consequences if we don’t subscribe to them, or meet them. Our failure to meet a 1% growth goal is the voice of our community saying that we will not go the way of Elk Grove, Roseville, Fairfield, and all the rest. It is our united voice saying that we want to be part of the alternative American experience: a thriving community that is exploring ways to remain the same in size, with the same intellectual acuity, and sharing a satisfying cultural diversity.
Comment if you please.
I agree and said as much in the first line of the post but just as well you can’t easily compare Davis with other cities in California because there are few that have major universities in rural settings that don’t have growth restrictions and are growing faster. Those were the factors I was responding to in someone’s post.
[quote]The quality of life seemed pretty nice in Columbia and we talked about moving there but I just couldn’t see how I would get good fruit year round.[/quote]
And there you have it. UC Davis will continue to recruit good faculty even though houses are large, beautiful and cheap in Columbia Missouri, because you just can’t get good fruit year round in Missouri.
And UC Davis will continue to lose talented faculty to Universities in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Berkeley where the housing prices are even more expensive.
Quality of life seems pretty nice in Columbia. Lets do some brief comparisons.
Average Temperatures for Columbia
MonthLowHigh
Jan1837
Feb2344
Mar3355
Apr4366
May5375
Jun6284
Jul6689
Aug6487
Sept5579
Oct4468
Nov3353
Dec2342
Average Temperatures for Davis
MonthLowHigh
Jan3753
Feb4060
Mar4265
Apr4572
May5080
Jun5588
Jul5693
Aug5592
Sept5388
Oct4879
Nov4164
Dec3654
Bottom-line Difference = Winters are incredibly warmer and more comfortable, Summers have more comfortable warmer days and more comfortable cooler nights. Columbia is a refrigerator in winter and a steam bath in summer. Major, major quality of life differential.
MonthLowHigh
Jan1916
Feb1716
Mar910
Apr26
May-35
Jun-74
Jul-104
Aug-95
Sept-29
Oct411
Nov811
Dec1413
[quote]through the looking glass said . . .
Matt obviously when prices are so skewed due to restricted growth increasing supply makes Davis more affordable. Making Davis more affordable gives talented people a better chance to settle here. My point is that given the choice between value added by technological advance versus preservation of ag land technological advance wins everytime. This notion that ag land is more important than human habitat is rather extreme in Davis, so extreme that we have made the area less livable for everyone except those that are already landed.[/quote]
You must be a Reagan Republican. You have bought into Supply Side Economics, which in the Davis housing market is a significantly less meaningful factor than the Demand Side economic factors. Davis, like Santa Barbara and Santa Fe and La Jolla is a community that generates its housing demand from a far-reaching region. The UCD experience imprints its students with a subliminal yearning to one day return to the idyllic community of his/her college experience. There is no way to balance the Supply/Demand equation because there can never be enough supply to satisfy the demand. I count myself as part of Santa Barbara’s and Santa Fe’s housing demand. Similar to Davis, those two communities have a quality of life level that resonates. However, I don’t believe I have the “right” to live in either of those communities . . . and I don’t have the financial resources to afford a home there. I accept that. I don’t resent it. It is what it is.
Further, I do know that if I really want to live in Santa Barbara or Santa Fe, all I have to do is work harder and work smarter and earn more money. If I do that, I will earn the right to move there. I accept that because I am part of those cities’ “external housing demand.”
Now if I were a working contributing member of either of those cities’ economys, I would be part of their “internal housing demand” and the story would be very different. But chances are, if I were part of their internal demand, I would probably be a renter rather than an owner.
[quote]You tell us said . . .
For me, the attractive qualities of Davis are as follows: small town feel, character of the town, low crime, good schools. I think all of these factors would be negatively impacted by faster growth. These are all subjective of course.[/quote]
For me, the attractive qualities of Davis are:
the world class cultural resorces available at the Mondavi,
the high level of community engagement and intellectual discourse amongst the residents,
the superb Mediteranean climate,
the other worldly access to fresh fruits and vegetables,
the fact that when you grow a garden here the plants in that garden grow with vigor and exhuberance,
the incredible ethnic and cultural diversity of the residents,
access to a virtually unlimited supply of life-long learning opportunities,
access to a virtually unlimited supply of diverse outdoor activities that can contribute to better health.
Bottom-line, I find Davis to be a very spiritually rich place to live.
[quote]Anonymous said . . .
And there you have it. UC Davis will continue to recruit good faculty even though houses are large, beautiful and cheap in Columbia Missouri, because you just can’t get good fruit year round in Missouri.
And UC Davis will continue to lose talented faculty to Universities in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Berkeley where the housing prices are even more expensive.[/quote]
Indeed. The opportunity for a good shot at a Nobel Prize regularly trumps the opportunity for a good shot at good fruit.
I’m a supply and demand kind of guy unlike many who deny that restriction of housing has driven prices in Davis through the roof while arguing that its about more than supply and demand. It always is about more than just supply and demand its also about location location location but supply and demand are a large part of the equation.
[i]UC Davis will continue to lose talented faculty to Universities in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Berkeley where the housing prices are even more expensive.[/i]
Yes, sometimes, in the case of New York and Boston. But we do what we can to swim upstream. A number of departments on campus have had very good hiring records over the past 20 years or so. Certainly the math department has done a good job, on the whole.
But I don’t know how we will swim upstream now. I don’t see why we won’t wash downstream or even sink into the stream. Between the furloughs and Davis housing prices, we’re weighed down with a lot of rocks. West Village is the only significant good news, and it’s only just breaking ground.
It’s not the same climate as when I was hired. The university had hundreds of faculty openings and the houses were much cheaper. Back then Davis was the University of Opportunity. Now it’s the University of Sacrifice. And it’s not just the California economy. Michigan’s economy is even worse, but its universities are doing better.
Berkeley and San Francisco are in the same creek as Davis, though. With the key difference that they can’t do anything about their housing shortage even if they want to.
Different people value different aspects of being a professor and living his/her personal life. Sure, you may not be able to afford to own a small house with a yard within Cambridge, but the academic environment and prestige of Harvard or MIT outweigh the high cost of living in Boston area for many professors.
Some people here are suggesting that UCD professors can commute from Woodland or West Sac. Sure they can, but frankly, UCD doesn’t have the prestige nor the academic prowess that can convince the best faculty candidates to make such personal sacrifices. Naturally, UCD will end up with faculty who had little or no alternative choices, which in long-run, will seriously undermine the academic quality of the university. Greg says that wasn’t the case 10 years ago. Professors have family too, so the admittedly nice living environment in Davis (not Woodland) had been a great instrument in recruiting excellent people to UCD, but not anymore.
Well, I can understand Davis citizens wanting to preserve the status quo by limiting growth (though I don’t agree it is a good policy in the long-run, but it’s your choice to fail). What really pisses me off is the egoistic reactions against West Village (a move UCD had to make to take the housing fiasco into its own hands). On one hand, Davis residents initiate a frivolous law suit, and demand to cut WV access off Russell Blvd for perceived traffic increase. On the other hand, some City Council members use WV as an excuse for not meeting Davis’ growth target while even suggesting to annex WV to the City of Davis. I don’t know if I will or can move into one of the WV homes, but if I do, I don’t ever want WV to be absorbed into the exclusive City that pushed us (recently recruited faculty) out to begin with. Leave WV alone and I hope UCD will further expand the community in the future.
Let us all please not confuse affordable HOUSING with affordable HOME OWNERSHIP. We have always had affordable housing in most communities. They are called apartments, town homes, and rental houses. They exist here (note the high number of “for rent” signs on single family homes around town.) Good land use planning can create wonderful neighborhoods consisting of mostly renters. Heck, in a University town, that’s the norm.
Recall please that one factor in the recent real estate debacle was unscrupulous lenders pushing people of all income levels into homes and mortgages they could not afford. One truism proved false in the cyclical California real estate bubble is that houses always appreciate in value, and do so at a greater rate than other market investments. Not always true. In some markets, e.g., Davis right now, it makes sense for many people to rent their house and save their money – and then decide later if their financial situation makes home ownership the right move for them. There are many very affluent people in other markets, e.g. New York City, who’ve done that calculation and home ownership does not make sense for them.
Where is it written that everyone has to OWN a home? And why should I, a taxpayer, subsidize that premise?
Everyone needs a home. Living in the city where one works is highly desirable for many reasons. But that can as easily be achieved by renting as by ownership. This is a land use planning issue, not a home ownership issue.
[quote]I don’t know if I will or can move into one of the WV homes, but if I do, I don’t ever want WV to be absorbed into the exclusive City that pushed us (recently recruited faculty) out to begin with. Leave WV alone and I hope UCD will further expand the community in the future.[/quote]
I know it is frustrating to move to town at the peak the most extreme housing bubble in the nation’s history, but you’ll probably feel very differently when you settle into your new West Village home or buy a home in the city when prices fall a bit more.
You’ll be thanking your lucky stars that you didn’t buy into the peak of the bubble and lose your pants. You’ll be thinking that prices are more reasonable than in San Francisco, and perhaps you will even be enjoying the safety and the pace of life that a smaller city affords. You might start looking at all the new peripheral subdivisions being built, and noticing that the vast majority are commuters who work far from Davis. You might start wondering if peripheral growth is accomplishing all that much. You’ll probably support more University-built dedicated faculty and staff housing.
To UC Davis Faculty Member,
Obviously you were a great choice when they hired you. For someone who has been here a short time you really get it. I am glad you point out the duplicitous nature of Sue Greenwald’s support for annexation of West Village while now arguing that we should count WV in the SACOG growth numbers, the worst thing you could argue if you were really interested in WV becoming part of the civic life of Davis. Still I would argue that we should annex WV for civic reasons but either reaise the growth target to something reasonable and realistic or exempt WV from the Davis growth numbers.
To Anonymous,
What is so bad about people living in Davis and commuting to other communities. Is it any worse than people living in other communites and communting to Davis?
“What is so bad about people living in Davis and commuting to other communities. Is it any worse than people living in other communites and communting to Davis?”
In the strictest sense and taken literally, no, it is no worse. But that implies that both are alright and they aren’t.
[i]Sure, you may not be able to afford to own a small house with a yard within Cambridge, but the academic environment and prestige of Harvard or MIT outweigh the high cost of living in Boston area for many professors.[/i]
This is true; moreover the high cost of living is mitigated by the fact that Harvard and MIT pay more than Davis does.
[i]I can understand Davis citizens wanting to preserve the status quo by limiting growth (though I don’t agree it is a good policy in the long-run, but it’s your choice to fail).[/i]
Exactly. It’s your choice to fail. So little growth doesn’t look good for Davis in the long run to me either. People have the right to vote this way, but that’s all that can be said for it. Having the right is not the same as being right.
[i]What really pisses me off is the egoistic reactions against West Village[/i]
Yes, the polity’s reaction to West Village has been incredibly self-centered. I was going to say that I feel like turning the other cheek, because annexation would at least be an act of cooperation. It would also expand the city’s tax base and possibly improve its voting patterns. I’m also not sure whether whether West Village residents will be eligible for DJUSD without annexation.
But actually I had missed the basic reason that the anti-growth faction is so eager to annex West Village. Duh, as you say, the motive is to take credit for it as growth, so that they don’t have to allow home construction themselves. I agree, if they want to seize every last excuse not to grow, then it’s hard to like annexation.
Why not?
[quote]
through the looking glass said . . .
I’m a supply and demand kind of guy unlike many who deny that restriction of housing has driven prices in Davis through the roof while arguing that its about more than supply and demand. It always is about more than just supply and demand its also about location location location but supply and demand are a large part of the equation. [/quote]
I hear you ttlg, but the realities of the Davis housing supply over the last 10 years is that there have been over 3,500 units added, which is an over 17% increase. That surely is [u]not[/u] in any lexicon a “restriction of housing.” How do you reconcile those numbers with your position?
Greg,
There are three supporters on the council for annexing West Village: myself, Steve Souza and Lamar Heystek. We do not share the same views on growth.
I can only speak for myself. I support annexation because I want University faculty, staff and students to share in the civic life of Davis. I want to remain a University-oriented town. I should add that SACOG counted the University growth when they calculated Davis’ growth targets, so annexation will make no difference whatsoever to SACOG. The impacts on the city will be the same whether it is annexed or not, so people who want slower growth will take into account University growth when they vote regardless of whether or not it is annexed.
To address you comments that
[quote]It would also expand the city’s tax base and possibly improve its voting patterns. I’m also not sure whether whether West Village residents will be eligible for DJUSD without annexation.[/quote]
First, new housing is net fiscal liability. Expanding our tax base doesn’t help if that “tax-base” costs more money to service than it brings in revenue. The only reason to annex West Village is to support the University and create a richer community.
Second, from my partisan perspective, I agree that annexing West Village would “improve the voting patterns” of the city. I think that University students, faculty and staff will be generally more supportive of progressive city planning. Incidentally, I suspect that they will be as slow growth as the rest of the city.
Finally, the school district boundaries are not the same as the city boundaries. The school district boundaries include the unincorporated area around Davis, including the University land.
The points being missed by the “if we build more they will be cheaper” crowd are related to the fact that Davis’s high house prices are largely a factor of the city’s quality of life… which is largely a factor of the city’s slow growth mode. The demand pressure is not just housing in Davis, it is first and foremost just Davis. It is not just UC employees desiring to live in Davis creating the demand, there are many people working east and west that would prefer Davis to their existing location. There is in fact, pent up demand that applies upward pressure on Davis home prices unless and until we build so many that we lower our quality of life.
I have lived in this area for 35 years and Davis for about 30 of those. Traffic and crime has increased substantially from when that number was about 50k or even 60k (with UC in session I think it is 80k today). How will it look when we are 100k or 120k? We have protected the downtown and resisted peripheral shopping development. This forces outlying residents to have to travel into the core area. Every new home built on the periphery adds 1-3 cars that will come into town. That is unless we allow more commercial development to sprout up with the new homes so new residents can buy things closer to home. Take a look at downtown Dixon to understand what that type of development plan looks like.
Traffic is only one example. Crime increases exponentially with an increase in population. There are several reasons. One is that the expanded geography of the town means a lower ratio of cop-to-territory. Also, if we succeed in lowering the price of housing we will have a higher percentage of lower income residents. Just check statistics on the correlation between lower income residents, crime and other problems. Now, we can handle many of these problems by hiring more cops. How does having a much larger police force sit with the average resident’s vision of Davis living?
There is another simple argument against the idea to build out Davis so more UC employees can afford a home. If we build north of town Woodland homes are only a couple of miles away. So what difference will it make if the home buyer purchased in Davis or Woodland other than the Woodland home likely being more affordable?
If the dream is for UC employees to live close to campus, well we are already built out and those homes are likely to continue to be higher cost as they are today.
[quote]First, new housing is net fiscal liability. Expanding our tax base doesn’t help if that “tax-base” costs more money to service than it brings in revenue. The only reason to annex West Village is to support the University and create a richer community.[/quote]
What’s in it for the future WV residents? Higher taxes for the parks and schools in Davis whose people don’t even want WV residents to drive on their streets? Future fiscal liabilities for the overcompensated city employees? I don’t see how it’s worth it from the WV residents’ perspective.
WV is a chance for the university employees who were rejected by City of Davis to build their own community that is not focused on equity appreciation. Don’t ruin it by making it a part of the self-centered city.
[quote]Second, from my partisan perspective, I agree that annexing West Village would “improve the voting patterns” of the city. I think that University students, faculty and staff will be generally more supportive of progressive city planning. Incidentally, I suspect that they will be as slow growth as the rest of the city.
[/quote]
I wouldn’t count on that if majority of the WV residents are those who are priced out of Davis housing market. WV houses do not gain equity at market level, thus the residents have no incentive to support the policies motivated by the desire to preserve Davis home owners’ equities.
Wow, I didn’t know there was UC faculty with their underwear still in a bunch over West Village. They should take a look back in history and review the UC’s predatory land grabbing and development practices. This is the reason the Glides made it clear that not one inch of their land trust would be sold to the university after their passing. Don’t make UCD the victim here… it won’t work. The Davis citizens that fought West Village managed to get beneficial design changes that would have otherwise not occurred because UCD has always had the egotistical view that Davis should bow down and give thanks for their benevolent existence. The law suit came after UCD made it clear that there was not going to be any compromise. It worked.
However, I agree that I don’t get the benefits for annexation.
Jeff Boone said “Traffic is only one example. Crime increases exponentially with an increase in population. There are several reasons. One is that the expanded geography of the town means a lower ratio of cop-to-territory. Also, if we succeed in lowering the price of housing we will have a higher percentage of lower income residents. Just check statistics on the correlation between lower income residents, crime and other problems. Now, we can handle many of these problems by hiring more cops. How does having a much larger police force sit with the average resident’s vision of Davis living?”
Ironic but no surprising that on the 46th anniversary this sort of stealth class and race issue would manifest itself in this debate.
46th anniversary of the march on Washington
Oh, so now I get the picture. “A UCD Faculty Member” wants the benefits of Davis life-style without paying the taxes, whining “because you rejected me”.
[quote]Oh, so now I get the picture. “A UCD Faculty Member” wants the benefits of Davis life-style without paying the taxes, whining “because you rejected me”.
[/quote]
No. As I wrote, I think Davis voters have the right to choose slow growth, be exclusive, and pay high taxes to keep it that way. I don’t want you to impose that attitude and burden on West Village.
Stop and think about it. “UC Faculty Wants Benefits Without Taxes” is being a bit harsh, but there is some sense buried beneath the snark.
Davis taxes are high because they pay for the nice parks, greenbelts, after school and childrens’ programs, safe streets, etc., all of which West Village residents will want to use. They do not come from being “exclusive”, and fact, one of the biggest fiscal drains for the city is that our affordable housing requirements are much larger than the affordable housing requirements of other cities that where highly educated professionals reside. The city fiscal problems arise from the fact that we are more inclusive and less elitist, not more elitist exclusive.
Just like moderate-priced housing in the city, moderate priced housing in West Village also does not pay for itself when it comes to needed services. It is actually less expensive for the city to service West Village than it is for the county to service West Village, and the West Village residents will be paying for service whether they are in the city or county, via assessment districts, etc.
To Jeff Boone,
What are the benefits of annexation? Nothing other than the fact that we are a University town, and we want to remain a University town. The residents of West Village will be our friends and colleagues, and what makes Davis so special is our sense of community. Whether you feel that the University housing was well thought-out or not, it is a done deal, and we should include its residents in our civic life.
[quote]Davis taxes are high because they pay for the nice parks, greenbelts, after school and childrens’ programs, safe streets, etc., all of which West Village residents will want to use.[/quote]
“Davis is such a wonderful city so you would be lucky to be part of us”…” That’s precisely the arrogance that I’m tired of. Go ahead and charge WV residents if they want to use your parks, green belts, or childrens’ programs etc. I’m sure there will be enough amenities and cultural activities within the campus to keep WV residents busy.
You are the one who has been most vocal about how bad the city services and city finances are, and now you are telling me that WV would be better off with Davis servicing them? It just doesn’t sound right.
Besides, the motivation to build WV was to affordable housing for faculty in the first place. High taxes imposed by Davis would defeat the purpose.
[i]I support annexation because I want University faculty, staff and students to share in the civic life of Davis. I want to remain a University-oriented town. I should add that SACOG counted the University growth when they calculated Davis’ growth targets[/i]
I concede the point. Your first comment sounds completely reasonable, of course. Your other point reasonable, at least if it is true that SACOG is the main wider authority that expect Davis to grow.
I suppose that I was wound up by “A UCD Faculty Member”, since I do feel sympathy for his/her position.
[i]First, new housing is net fiscal liability. Expanding our tax base doesn’t help if that “tax-base” costs more money to service than it brings in revenue. The only reason to annex West Village is to support the University and create a richer community.[/i]
Now this does quite add up. It’s one thing to claim that new housing is a net liability, if otherwise those people would live in Woodland and use Woodland’s city services. Since as you say, the impacts to the city would be the same whether or not you annex West Village, surely the tax revenue would be a net bonus.
It also doesn’t add up because it can’t always be true that growth is a net liability. Towns with 5,000 people have very few resources to get things done. It can only sometimes be true, or true under certain assumptions. I have never seen how people became so convinced that Davis is somehow the optimal size, or maybe already larger than it should be. Just pointing to a cost estimate on paper doesn’t work as a complete explanation.
A much simpler explanation is that residents enjoy high home values by choking the supply of housing. I know few people who wouldn’t be angry to lose $100,000, whether their lifestyle changed or not. If it happened for no clear reason, they might shrug it off as something that might reverse. If they can blame the city council for it, certainly everywhere other than Davis it is enough to make voters furious. Outside of Davis, rallying cries like “ag land” and “open space” and “densification” are fancier explanations than necessary.
It is true that people also do care about road traffic and crime and things like that. But if not for the law of supply and demand, you would think that it would be mitigated by cities getting more interesting as they get larger. Maybe not crime, but what Jeff for instance says about crime is clearly a wild exaggeration. Size only loosely correlates with crime; there are much smaller towns than Davis that have far more crime per person, and larger Davis-like towns with about the same crime.
[i]What’s in it for the future WV residents?[/i]
“UCD Faculty Member”, if Sue is right that WV already counts towards the city’s growth, then I don’t think that it makes sense for you to be so negative. What you would get from annexation, of course, is enfranchisement. For instance with annexation, a connection to Russell would probably be inevitable.
And you shouldn’t think that all of Davis is against you. Some of the homeowners north of Russell have gone overboard. To appearances, some of them just don’t know how to share. But it’s not accurate to lump all Davis voters or even all anti-growth voters together with them, as admittedly I started to do.
In particular, take note of the point that WV children are eligible to attend DJUSD with or without annexation. That’s very important.
[quote]You are the one who has been most vocal about how bad the city services and city finances are, and now you are telling me that WV would be better off with Davis servicing them? It just doesn’t sound right.– A UCD Faculty Member[/quote] Let me try to explain it. West Village is now located in the county. The county will provide services. The county is in even worse fiscal shape than the city. The county is also not set up to deliver municipal services, so the county cannot provide these services as cost-efficiently as the city.
West Village will cost more to service than it will bring in revenue for either the city or the county to service. But the annual O&M deficit will be greater for the county than for the city.
[quote]Now this does quite add up. It’s one thing to claim that new housing is a net liability, if otherwise those people would live in Woodland and use Woodland’s city services. Since as you say, the impacts to the city would be the same whether or not you annex West Village, surely the tax revenue would be a net bonus.[/quote]This is a valid point.
[quote]It also doesn’t add up because it can’t always be true that growth is a net liability. Towns with 5,000 people have very few resources to get things done. It can only sometimes be true, or true under certain assumptions.[/quote]
Very true. The flip side of this argument is that towns with 5,000 people tend to have lower housing prices (and less property tax revenue) than towns of 100,000 people. In fact, I have often used precisely this observation to illustrate that growth doesn’t lower housing prices, at least in the long term.
On this same note, a SACOG president once told us that he has great success in convincing his constituents to embrace growth by explaining to them that there is empirical evidence that growth will increase their property values (i.e., housing costs).
Today, a house has to be assessed at around $500,000 to break even. Since apartments are assessed at much less and our affordable rental housing is assessed at zero, the remaining houses have to be very expensive for a project to break even. This is a relatively new situation, and it has to do with both increasing costs and with a shifting revenue distribution between the state and local government. It’s a huge problem, and is a symptom of the impending train wreck.
[i]The flip side of this argument is that towns with 5,000 people tend to have lower housing prices (and less property tax revenue) than towns of 100,000 people. In fact, I have often used precisely this observation to illustrate that growth doesn’t lower housing prices, at least in the long term.[/i]
So what you’re saying is: It may look ungenerous to choke off supply, but don’t worry, in the long run it will depress prices.
Maybe it’s just a difference in interpretation. I think that it is ungenerous to choke off supply. I think that the best you can do is to share a good thing. If you’re rewarded for it in the long term, so much the better.
[quote]Let me try to explain it. West Village is now located in the county. The county will provide services. The county is in even worse fiscal shape than the city. The county is also not set up to deliver municipal services, so the county cannot provide these services as cost-efficiently as the city.[/quote]
I don’t see Yolo county to be in any worse shape than Davis which is going to be anti-growth in the foreseeable future. Besides, out of the several California cities I have lived in, Davis provides by far the worst services at the highest cost. I also expect UCD to provide some of the services such as police and fire, for which the residents will pay their share but would be better off than the City counterparts.
Why should WV residents pay the high Davis tax when the city hasn’t and won’t invest in the infrastructure, parks, or other amenities in WV? Also remember that the WV residents will not be profiting from the future boom in property values, on which the current city politics revolves. Therefore, I think being (political) part of Davis would conflict with the interests of WV residents.
WV started largely due to the anti-growth nature of Davis. I wish that UCD will consider its expansion if WV becomes successful, but I think UCD will lose its flexibility to meet such demand if WV is incorporated into the city that has been hostile to virtually all development within or outside the city limits.
[quote]West Village will cost more to service than it will bring in revenue for either the city or the county to service. But the annual O&M deficit will be greater for the county than for the city.[/quote]
I don’t argue the potential cost to the City. I hope this will turn enough Davis residents off of the idea to annex WV.
[i]Besides, out of the several California cities I have lived in, Davis provides by far the worst services at the highest cost.[/i]
I can’t say that I know what you’re talking about.
A Faculty Member: Let me try again. First, the county is in worse fiscal shape than the city, even if you find it hard to believe.
Second,you might hate the city of Davis, but I think you will be in the minority. Students have always wanted to be annexed, and I think most faculty will too.
Third, the vast, vast majority of supplementary taxes that you will pay go to the school distict, which will be paid in West Village whether or not it is annexed.
El Macero, a conservative golf course community adjacent to Davis didn’t want to be annexed because they didn’t want to pay the modest city taxes, but I think that this sentiment will be not be a majority sentiment in the more liberal university neighborhood.
[i]Today, a house has to be assessed at around $500,000 to break even. Since apartments are assessed at much less and our affordable rental housing is assessed at zero, the remaining houses have to be very expensive for a project to break even. This is a relatively new situation, and it has to do with both increasing costs and with a shifting revenue distribution between the state and local government.[/i]
Mmm…I have to acknowledge this point. Many political economists have said that California makes all of its cities anti-growth by both capping and robbing its property taxes. In fact I read one economics paper that basically said, if the state government has to flail with its greedy paws, it should take more sales tax and less property tax. It said that in general, California is under-housed and over-malled because of state policies.
That is the one of the few arguments against growth in Davis that does not come across as false or self-centered.
Greg:
No, I am not saying that if we stop growth, prices will decrease; I am saying that growing doesn’t necessarily decrease prices. Those are two separate concepts. Historically, our rate of growth has not affected our prices relative to surrounding towns, except during this current collapse.
And I said that some people, like a former SACOG president, go a step further and actually think that growth increases prices. I don’t necessarily share this opinion. I was just trying to illustrate that the commonly held and intuitive believe that building more houses always lowers prices in any given community in any sustained way is not a universally accepted principle.
(I feel like a broken record) This is because enough people perceive the quality of life to be better in Davis that external demand tends to outpace even rapid growth. Again, if you walk the streets in our newest subdivision, you will see that many, if not most, individuals work outside Davis. Most of my friends work outside Davis. I certainly don’t think that this is a bad thing. I just think it explains why our housing prices have tended to rise even when we build at a rapid rate.
typo correction: I mean newest subdivions, not newest subdivison.
[i]Historically, our rate of growth has not affected our prices relative to surrounding towns, except during this current collapse.[/i]
It reminds me of this joke:
Alice says to Bob, “History shows that real estate is always a good long-term investment. In every century in the past thousand years, real estate has gone up.”
So Bob says, “Yes, but the past thousand years have been very unusual.”
I don’t like to be short-sighted either, but it is possible to just look too far in the past. Davis only passed Measure J ten years ago, and even then there was a lag before all of the homes sold and no more were built. So the current collapse says a lot! This is when Davis real estate pulled away from other suburbs in Sacramento and became a patch cut out from the Bay Area.
Again, in principle I understand the argument that the state takes too much in property taxes for growth to be worth it. In principle I understand the argument that too much growth would make it tricky to maintain the city’s quality. I do not understand the argument that the law of supply and demand isn’t important.
Maybe it would help to discuss price elasticity. There is a certain slope at which prices go down in the short term for each house you build. E.g. an economist might say, for each average-sized house that you build in Davis, the next year the average sale price will be $100 lower. For all of the work that the consultants put into the development models, I haven’t seen a forecast like that.
I agree that prices are less elastic than you might think because Davis is in the orbit of Sacramento. I shouldn’t be thick on that point and you don’t need to be a broken record. But price elasticity is what it is and it would make things clearer to estimate it.
[i]E.g. an economist might say, for each average-sized house that you build in Davis, the next year the average sale price will be $100 lower.[/i]
To be clear, lower than they would have been otherwise, not lower than in the present year.
[quote]A UCD Faculty Member said . . .
WV started largely due to the anti-growth nature of Davis.[/quote]
That is a patently incorrect statement. The UC Office of the President formed a UC-wide Housing Task Force in 2002 and in the November 2002 UC Housing in the 21st Century report committed every single UC to housing 40% of its students on-campus by the 2011-2012 Academic Year. UCD currently stands at just over 20%. WV was a step toward meeting the 40% UC Office of the President goal.
You can read the whole report by going to [url]http://www.ucop.edu/busops/init.html[/url] abd clicking on the UC Housing for the 21st Century: Report of the Housing Task Force (2002) (pdf) link.
report smort. After Sue was elected and the no growth types took over the city it became clear that UC needed to build on its own property so they hired away the planning guy from the city and had him plan WV.
Greg thank you for your perspective its nice not to be the lone voice of dissent.
Sue I don’t understand this SACOG thing maybe you could clarify. I thought that the university building wv was not counted in the 1% growth rate.
Typhoid Mary: The 1% growth rate was not a SACOG figure. It was a figure created by the council, and they later clarified that it is merely a cap.
SACOG took into account West Village when they issued their guidelines for Davis.
Greg,
It would be interesting indeed to have some notion of price elasticity. Mark Siegler and I spent some time a year or two ago charting rates of growth vs. price over time among various cities in the region. I’ll see if Mark can find that data for you.
But I was unable to find documentation on SACOG taking WV into account, can you please point me towards it. Thanks.
[i]After Sue was elected and the no growth types took over the city it became clear that UC needed to build on its own property so they hired away the planning guy from the city and had him plan WV.[/i]
To be fair, you shouldn’t just draw a line from Sue to “no growth types”. Sue was elected along with Measure J; it was the previous city council that put Measure J together. All of it was just plain popular at the time.
And to be fair, the university already needed to build more student housing, and it had even already started Aggie Village, which is a faculty project similar in spirit to West Village.
But yes, they did hire away the city manager, a capable guy to boot. And the anti-growth revolution probably did change the university’s planning attitude.
[i]Sue I don’t understand this SACOG thing maybe you could clarify.[/i]
SACOG means “Sacramento Area Council of Governments”. They impose an RHNA, “Regional Housing Needs Allocation”, on each of their member cities. This is pretty much the entire Sacramento area and of course includes Davis.
Sue’s statement, “I should add that SACOG counted the University growth when they calculated Davis’ growth targets, so annexation will make no difference whatsoever to SACOG,” refers to a confusing bit of give-and-take, but it has truth to it. I found city council reports that say that on the one hand, West Village does not count towards the city’s RHNA unless the city annexes it. But on the other hand, the University also has an RHNA, and a city report says that if West Village is annexed, then SACOG “may shift the University’s share to the City…The end result will likely be close to a neutral change.”
Likely, but maybe not certain. SACOG clearly would prefer not to credit Davis just for growing on paper instead of building actual homes. But, depending on the timing of RHNA decisions, the city of Davis could try to delay growth demands by annexing West Village.
On the positive side, annexation would require a lot of cooperation between the city and the university and would further intertwine their interests. That is a good thing in and of itself. It could also create a pro-growth pull spring to balance the anti-growth force.
Reference: [url]http://cityofdavis.org/meetings/councilpackets/20070605/07_UCD_West_Village.pdf[/url]
(But has there been more news since that council packet?)
So if you make the city count them if they are annexed it means the city can’t build as much so if you are really interested in annexation and know that the city won’t go along if you include WV in its growth numbers you give on the issue. If you want to demand that WV be included and know that the city won’t go along if the numbers are included you are really just using annexation as a red herring, this I believe is what Sue is doing.
[i]So if you make the city count them if they are annexed it means the city can’t build[/i]
No, “mary”, the RHNA is the [b]minimum[/b] that Davis (or another city) has agreed to build. The understanding in SACOG is that most of the cities accept that they don’t want to grow. They assign growth as a chore, like washing dishes.
If the university builds West Village and the city annexes it, then as far as SACOG is concerned, the university has washed some dishes for the city. Probably, as Bill Emlen says, SACOG would credit the university and still make the city build more houses. But it gives the city of Davis a chance to ask to build less in total.
Yes, but as you see, Sue is already using it as an argument against other construction. Don’t get me wrong I’m in favor of annexation but I think that Sue’s argument is counterproductive to annexation while she claims to support it.
[i]Yes, but as you see, Sue is already using it as an argument against other construction.[/i]
No, it’s okay for Sue to include West Village in the growth equation. It’s really true that West Village amounts to city growth even if it isn’t annexed and even if it is restricted to students and faculty.
The real question is what the total should be.
SACOG expects Davis to create (I suppose) 140 units per year until 2013, not counting West Village. I don’t know if it’s good enough to just issue permits and not build the units, or maybe whether the city has already met its RHNA until 2013. If it’s not good enough, then I don’t see where the units are being built.
Yes its the 1% growth target that is unrealistic. As Matt Williams points out that the growth of housing stock has been 17% over 10 years. Even though it is a front loaded number and growth has dropped to almost zero in the last few years it demonstrates that the 1% number is unrealistic. Sadly there are people who think the 1% number is too high and so the council plays this game of appeasement with the numbers while trying to push the growth to meet the needs of the town. Of course a 1% growth rate implies a doubling time of 72 years a number that far exceeds the doubling time of both world and California population growth as would even a doubling time of 42 years an amount of time implied by a 1.7% growth rate. This growth rate is a betrayal of the mission of UC Davis to train the human capital of California for a productive future. I guess the real question should be what is the needed growth rate for Davis as a host city for one of California’s great land grant universitirs. By looking at UC Davis’ role in the context of the greater needs of the state instead of the provencial needs of the citizens of Davis we could arrive a more responsible growth rate.
Greg you are a Math Professor
Matt you have an MBA from Wharton
Mark you are an economist
You all should have the expertise for a discussion of the effect of supply and demand on housing prices in Davis. My contention is that the price differential between Davis and the surrounding communities has grown to an unreasonable disparity and the way to fix it would be to build and add supply until the price comes down to a more traditional ratio of about 1.2:1. I would be interested in what you guys think it would take to achieve my goal?
[i]Of course a 1% growth rate implies a doubling time of 72 years a number that far exceeds the doubling time of both world and California population growth as would even a doubling time of 42 years an amount of time implied by a 1.7% growth rate.[/i]
Actually, California’s growth rate has only been 1.1% in the past 7 years, while the US growth rate is 0.9%. The world growth rate is estimated at 1.2%. The real issue is the Sacramento area growth rate, which has been something like 1.7% over the past 7 years, even though growth in Davis has been 1%. That is the level at which Davis is trying to grow less than the average.
[i]You all should have the expertise for a discussion of the effect of supply and demand on housing prices in Davis.[/i]
Since I am in pure math, I can’t do any more than introduce the phrase “price elasticity”, which exactly means the effect of supply and demand on prices. I would have to Google to find an estimate of price elasticity of Davis houses, and I don’t think that there is one posted.
[i]My contention is that the price differential between Davis and the surrounding communities has grown to an unreasonable disparity and the way to fix it would be to build and add supply until the price comes down to a more traditional ratio of about 1.2:1. I would be interested in what you guys think it would take to achieve my goal?[/i]
Basically SACOG and UC Davis would have to crush democracy in Davis for that to happen. You would be asking Davis home owners to lose about $1 billion in property value. Understandably, they just don’t want to do that.
(Also, not to be too snarky about this, but it might help any goal of yours if you posted under your real name.)
[quote]Greg Kuperberg said . . .
SACOG expects Davis to create (I suppose) 140 units per year until 2013, not counting West Village. I don’t know if it’s good enough to just issue permits and not build the units, or maybe whether the city has already met its RHNA until 2013. If it’s not good enough, then I don’t see where the units are being built. [/quote]
Greg, SACOG only needs to see that its respective districts have the ability to handle growth. There is no requirement that the growth actually happen. Yolo County has 6 SACOG districts, the 4 Incorporated cities (West Sacramento, Woodland, Winters and Davis), UCD and the remaining Unincorporated County. Each had a SACOG allotment. If West Village were to have been annexed into Davis, both the UCD allotment and the entitled units would have come into Davis’ combined allotment. The net effect would have been a wash.
Mary, here’s a stab at it. I would take the 10-year lagging UCD net student population (excluding Med School), divide it by 4 to get the individual class size, then divide that number by 3. That would give me the number of additional housing units that would need to be added each year. That works out to the following annual additions
2009 (based on 1999’s enrollment of 22,282) = 1,838 additional residential units
2010 (based on 2000’s enrollment of 22,506) = 1,857 additional residential units
2011 (based on 2001’s enrollment) = 1,936
2012 (based on 2002’s enrollment) = 2,030
2013 (based on 2003’s enrollment) = 2,170
2014 (based on 2004’s enrollment) = 2,262
2015 (based on 2005’s enrollment) = 2,244
2016 (based on 2006’s enrollment) = 2,210
2017 (based on 2007’s enrollment) = 2,271
2018 (based on 2007’s enrollment) = 2,276
2019 (based on 2008’s enrollment) = 2,334
The bottom-line affect of that growth on Davis would mean that the number of households in Davis would rise from the current count of 24,632 to a count of 48,031 in 2020. That works out to a 6.25% increase in households each year.
2009 24,632
2010 26,470
2011 28,327
2012 30,263
2013 32,292
2014 34,463
2015 36,725
2016 38,969
2017 41,179
2018 43,450
2019 45,726
2020 48,061
Since there is no way jobs in Davis will increase by 6.25% a year, virtually all of those 23,000 additional households will have their breadwinners commuting to jobs outside Davis.
[i]SACOG only needs to see that its respective districts have the ability to handle growth. There is no requirement that the growth actually happen.[/i]
That begs the question of whether a city could meet these RHNA numbers in bad faith. Could a city issue permits that miss the mark in various ways and don’t get used, and then tell SACOG, “See, we allowed for growth, but there were no takers”?
One complaint I hear over and over on campus is that once we get someone trained, they leave. The faculty complain constantly that the knowledgeable don’t stay. This is most visible in a depts like Office of Research, extramural accounting, etc. It’s not just faculty that can’t afford to stick around.
A faculty person on a previous thread said that staff are replaceable, basically cattle for the campus. I’d beg to differ.
As a case in point, we hired someone with a background in healthcare, who had FDA, IRB, and clinical trials experience as an AA3. If you’ve tried recruiting these people, you know they are not easy to find. We lost her to Vanderbilt precisely because she couldn’t afford to live here. We still haven’t found a replacement.
Up until we bought a Sacramento house, we were searching for bio/ag & research positions nationwide so that we might relocate ourselves. This is because I couldn’t afford Davis either and as soon as we can find positions at the Med Center, my husband and I are leaving the Davis campus too.
The campus has a bigger problem with brain drain then locals realize and the locals are making it worse. Soon the only people living here will be snotty old faculty, lawyers, and bankers. I’d hardly call that a great place to live but it will certainly allow Davis to live up to it’s white, wealthy, and elistist agenda.
[quote]El Macero, a conservative golf course community adjacent to Davis didn’t want to be annexed because they didn’t want to pay the modest city taxes, but I think that this sentiment will be not be a majority sentiment in the more liberal university neighborhood[/quote]
After seeing city and the city council run, can you blame them? I wouldn’t want anything to do with the city either.
You crack me up!! 8>)
“For me, the attractive qualities of Davis are as follows: small town feel, character of the town, low crime, good schools. I think all of these factors would be negatively impacted by faster growth. These are all subjective of course.”
yes and those qualities are to be made availabLe to those that are wealthy and Privileged
Matt,
I don’t know if it was me you said cracked you up but I’m going to assume it was me. See you can be paid dirt to work in the city and still have a shred of ego left ;}
My slogan for the city, after living here for years has been
” We want you as consumers, but not as residents” and if you read through all the commentary over affordablity on this blog, I don’t think it’s hard to imagine how I came up with this.
The students and working community have the ability to starve the beast in Davis if they choose to. You’d think the the citizens would take that into consideration before putting their contempt for the working class into print. I’m guessing they are not as smart as they’d like to think they are **winks**
PRED, we’ll have to have a cup of Java some time. I bet we could keep each other laughing for hours.
What are the benefits of annexation? Nothing other than the fact that we are a University town, and we want to remain a University town. The residents of West Village will be our friends and colleagues, and what makes Davis so special is our sense of community. Whether you feel that the University housing was well thought-out or not, it is a done deal, and we should include its residents in our civic life.
To Sue:
I think you missed my point or I missed pointing my question.
I don’t disagree with these sentiments. My question was more in the cost-benefit mindset: as in what will it cost in dollars and benefit in dollars. I don’t have a problem with West Village and support the need for university housing. I do have a problem with the notion that we can build our way out of high house prices in Davis. I think what they (UC employees for cheaper Davis housing) value is the thing they would destroy by building enough to have a material impact on home prices. Also, their romantic vision is living close to the university. Core area homes are a fixed supply and demand will continually be driven up by the expansion of the number of UC employees. Look at just about every college town and the real estate gets more expensive the closer you get to campus.
If there really is a significant talent drain as the result of too high home prices, then the UC system will need some cost-of-living adjustments or other tools. I know Stanford was giving out zero interest loans to incoming faculty to offset the hyper-high house prices in the South Bay. Maybe something like that is necessary in Davis. Of course, this will cause more upward pressure on house prices too as more can afford them.
[quote]yes and those qualities are to be made availabLe to those that are wealthy and Privileged[/quote]
Here we get to the heart of the question: is living somewhere a right or a privilege? I have friends and family that would like to live in Davis but do not make enough to afford it yet. I think it should be my friends’ and family’s right to live in my neighborhood in Davis, don’t you? Personally, I like 17-mile drive in Carmel, or oceanfront in Santa Barbara. I think I should have the right to live in one of those places, don’t you? It seems absurd to me that folks would make homeownership a class argument.
I think this is not a Davis problem, it is a UCD problem. Maybe instead of all the fundraising for building ego shrines, the UC should have been building a fund for zero or low-interest loans to help faculty purchase homes.
I basically agree with Jeff. Davis has no obligation to serve the interests of UCD and its employees. It’s the responsibility of the university to address its employees’ (especially faculty’s) housing needs. WV is one of the answers.
What is bothering me is that Davis and some of its residents are overreacting to what UCD is doing. Davis can choose not to grow and end up with old rich people without enough children to fill the classrooms of the wonderful Davis schools. That’s your problem. But when you choose not to serve the needs of UCD workers, the least you can do is not sticking your nose into what the university is doing to keep its faculty and staff who are in demand.
What is bothering me is that Davis and some of its residents are overreacting to what UCD is doing.
It bothers me too; however, I’m not sure we can ever stop small groups of hyperactive nimbys from doing their thing. I think the majority of Davisites supported WV or at least didn’t care enough to be opposed.
The university is culpable for some of this. It was a poorly managed project on the PR front. UCD has a history of almost hostile land-grabbing and development. There is a lack of trust here. For some people with strong memories of past UCD behavior, they have a right to be agitated when a new project is unveiled. Other than that, some people are just wacked and they can find wacked attorneys to take their case. What are we going to do about that?