During the discussion on the Mace Curve 391 parcel, the issue of a community farm came up, mostly coming from comments from the members of the Open Space and Habitat Commission. The concept of the community farm seemed to catch several councilmembers and staff members off guard, but the Vanguard, in doing a record request with the city, learned that this is far from a new concept.
In fact, the community farm concept was discussed at least as early as the Covell Village discussion back in 2004, with early iterations going back to 1989 and 1990 with the introduction of the concept of a transition zone from housing to agriculture at the urban edge, which led to the City adoption of the land use designation Urban-Agricultural Transition Area (UATA).
In February 2007, staff issued a report on the Community Farms Concept, which was revised from what was previously referred to as a “small urban farms concept.”
City Staff, then including Donna Silva, who was the Parks and Community Services Director at the time, and Mitch Sears, who was the Open Space Planner, wrote, “Since the late 1980’s City reports and plans have identified the area at the City’s edge to be of critical importance to the success of the community and local agriculture. This report introduces the concept of community farms and begins to examine their potential role as a City edge land use that can achieve multiple community objectives, including the development of a transition that protects both local farming and City residents.”
The report argued that there would be economic, community and positive benefits from the approach where “small scale sustainable farms tend to produce higher yields and value added agricultural commodities in comparison to an equal amount of conventionally farmed acreage.”
They added that the concept increases “opportunities for beginning farmers, increases understanding of food production, increases unique passive and active recreational opportunities.”
Finally, it would lead to “local food productions, potentially enriches biodiversity over existing conditions (generally), reduces local use of persistent chemicals, and reduces local use of non-renewable resources.”
In March of 2007 it was subject to discussion in a joint City Council-Open Space and Habitat Commission meeting. The minutes of that meeting reflect a staff presentation for a community farm concept as part of the urban-agricultural transition area.
The minutes reflect that staff would continue to develop the concept for future consideration by the commission and council.
By May 4, 2009, a working group in the community developed a 20-page white paper on the concept, which was presented to the City’s Open Space and Habitat Commission.
The community farm was seen as an asset for the community, rather than a for-profit business that would provide peripheral benefits to the community. They saw the need to acquire an amount of land necessary to make the farm fiscally viable, while meeting the goals of the concept. That placed the farm at a 1 to 50 acre size, situated well within city limits.
They wrote, “Given the lack of available land, the priority is to locate the farm at the edge of town where the farm remains accessible via walking, biking, and/or bus.”
“Originally the working group sought to develop a recommendation to the City Council in order to implement the concept. However, the working group has recognized that the location of the community farm will dictate in part, the farm’s characteristics and operations, and that acquisition of suitable land to implement the community farm concept presents a significant hurdle to concept implementation,” they added.
Thus, they decided at that time that “developing an informative recommendation to the City Council is not appropriate until there is a site available for implementation of the concept.”
They would recommend a General Plan amendment that would add “community farms to the intent of the UATA designation, and studied incentives to create community farms, the latter leading to an amendment to the Agriculture Mitigation Ordinance in 2010.”
In March of 2010, Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heystek put forward a substitute motion, passed unanimously to direct staff to process a General Plan amendment “to provide guidance on the development of community farms consistent with the June 2009 recommendations of the Open Space and Habitat Commission.”
In 2011, with city council approval, the Open Space and Habitat Commission “began work on establishing community farms in and around Davis, with the assistance of a UCD graduate student, Susan Ellsworth.”
As staff reported, a number of sites were examined and evaluated, such as the southern 5 acres of the Wildhorse Agricultural Buffer, and a 2-acre site at the southwest corner of Anderson Road and F Street.
They found that a community farm at these sites would conflict with existing uses, and thus they turned their attention to existing agricultural properties that might be suitable for a community farm.
As the staff report to December 3, 2012’s Open Space and Habitat Committee notes, “This work resulted in the present recommendation for the City to retain 27 acres of the Mace Curve property for use as a community farm.”
The December 2012 meeting put in place a plan for such 27 acres as Mace Curve.
Staff writes, “The Mace Curve property is not within the city limits of Davis and therefore will remain under the jurisdiction of Yolo County. A small portion of the 27 acres will be used for community gardens, and a larger portion will be used for commercial farming purposes.”
They note that both uses require some development.
Staff argued that this site has numerous advantages for a community farm. “This particular 27 acres is unique among other properties owned by the City in its proximity to the urban area of Davis, in its size, and in its prior use as agricultural land. Clearly its location will permit easy access to the property by Davis citizens, and at the same time offers an excellent opportunity for the marketing of its agricultural products directly on the farm.”
“Other sites around Davis, including the proposed use of the UATA of the Cannery Project, are much smaller,” staff writes. “The larger size of this 27-acre Mace Curve property will permit commercial scale agriculture, while also providing much needed additional garden plots for Davis residents.”
Staff additionally notes, “Because the 27 acres are now being used for agriculture, the land is in good physical shape for conversion for use as a community farm, and it does not interfere with the uses of other sites, such as the wildlife habitat in the Wildhorse Agricultural Buffer.”
While the land is well suited for farming, staff wrote that the site needs some development.
“As the land is presently a portion of a larger commercial farm field and has no infrastructure for the community farm needs, development of the physical site for the community farm is necessary,” the report continues. “At a minimum the infrastructure required would be an irrigation water source, underground piping for an irrigation water delivery system, a water storage tank (to provide a continuous water source for the gardens), farm roads, and a parking area.”
They add, “A more intensive, second-phase infrastructure development might include bike/pedestrian/horse trails around and through the farm, tool sheds, equipment sheds, animal barns and corrals, pasture fencing, and a community meeting/educational center.”
The use would require improved access across Mace Blvd., as they wrote, “The City will want to consider an improved pedestrian and bicyclist access to the site. At present there are no developed curbs, sidewalks, cross-walks, or traffic signage near the entrance to the farm, which lies east of Mace Boulevard, abuts County Road 30B, and has no direct frontage on Mace Boulevard. The nearest signal crossing is at Alhambra and Mace, approximately 1,500 feet to the south of the subject property.”
The minutes for the December 3 meeting reflect the unanimous 7-0 vote for the motion, “As part of the resale of the Mace Curve Property, the Commission recommends that the City retain 27 acres for community farms as detailed in the Mace Curve Community Farm Plan.”
Given this context and the time and work put into developing the Community Farm concept and finding suitable property, we can now imagine the reaction to the proposal by city staff – and in this case, not Mitch Sears, the normal liaison to the commission who had been working with the commission and several councils on advancing the concept – to pull the grant to put the Mace Curve property into a conservation easement.
At that time, the commission was not even informed of the land swap proposal. Staff has since explained that, while there were talks about the land swap, nothing was finalized until CCV (Capitol Corridor Ventures) obtained the property days before the council meeting.
Unfortunately, it appears that the staff working on the grant and land swap was unfamiliar with the work done by the commission on the Community Farms, and the commission voted, as the council ultimately did, to keep the grant in place.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Only one mention of a UCD Grad student long gone I am sure….as working on the concept.
WHY NOT partner with UCD, a premier ag school, in this venture? What could be more innovative….talk about an innovation hub?
What about it Rob White?
Actually I am only partly kidding….I think Davis as a community, and our members do NOT think of UCD as a partner enough. Non profits can profit from the UCD expertise and provide students and faculty with ‘real life’ experiences and customers as they work their way through coursework. I think not only of ag examples, but Graduate School of Management students, Design students, Marketing, etc etc etc.
“Only one mention of a UCD Grad student long gone I am sure….as working on the concept. “
I’m pulling selectively from staff reports and minutes, so there might be more of this going on.
I think it’s a good idea to partner with UCD on things.
I look forward to seeing what else we learn from this, I won’t pretend this is some sort of exhaustive analysis of the concept.
SODA – Great point. We are actively working with UCD in partnership through regular meetings and the DSIDE forum. The City is also working diligently to identify ways to link with UCD on projects, proposals, and new partnership opportunities. The University is a large institution and we have many opportunities for engagement, but these take time to establish and develop into fruitful outcomes.
And the City is rapidly developing relationships to work with UCD staff, faculty and students to identify many sectors for engagement, including Ag, Engineering, GSM, Bio, Med, media, marketing and community development. As you saw from my article last week, it mentions recent interactions with Engineering faculty, staff and students, as well as Davis Roots, which is an outgrowth of GSM.
thx Rob….glad to see the progress.
A local non profit I am involved with approached the Design Dept at UCD with a logo/branding project and the results have been very successful on both ends….it gave the students ‘real world’ experience in communicating with ‘the customer’ and we benefited from their expertise.
This idea has been raised at Davis Barnraising, a new crowdsourcing tool for Davis. Let’s get it done!
http://www.davisbarnraising.com/
“Given the lack of available land, the priority is to locate the farm at the edge of town where the farm remains accessible via walking, biking, and/or bus.”
Not to state the obvious, but the Shriners site is a much better location for a community farm than the Arkansas site. I think Matt Williams pointed this out as well.
There is a brand new bike undercrossing that connects Shriners to the extensive East Davis bicycle network. How many millions of dollars of tax payer money went into into building this underutilized public amenity? I’ll bet it was quite a bit more than the NRCS grant.
Which begs the following questions – Who is going to pay for the bike connection to the proposed community farm on Arkansas? And when?
And until then:
(1) How exactly does public transportation serve this site?
(2) Where is the pedestrian access?
(3) How are kids supposed to get to the site without being driven?
(4) How many more years does the community have to wait for this proposed amenity to materialize?
With respect to the “bird-in-the-hand” argument, it seems to me the council majority really dropped the ball here. A community farm on Shriners sounds like a realistic opportunity (presumably with a private funding source to boot). The Arkansas proposal sounds like pie-in-the-sky.
Found this online –
“The total project cost estimate for the Covell Boulevard Bicycle / Pedestrian Undercrossing
project is $2,166,000.”
“the Shriners site is a much better location for a community farm than the Arkansas site.”
That may be. The problem is that no one had the opportunity to evaluate that proposal that was put on the table Monday prior to the meeting. The second problem is that they would had to have allowed the grant to go away without any kind of guarantee on the landswap.
So yes, it may be that this is correct, but no one had the ability to evaluate the competing claims.
The claim that no one had an opportunity to evaluate the proposal is incorrect. Brett clearly stated that he had seen the proposal and liked it, but strongly objected to the process. It was obviously vetted by the council members and senior city staff or it wouldn’t have wound up on the agenda.
It’s very unfortunate that the process broke down to the point that the council majority walked away from a significant economic development opportunity (controlled by the voters) and better ag preservation land. Twofers like that don’t come along very often.
It’s very fortunate that the council continued with the proposal that had been before the council and appropriate commissions for a couple of years, and which has substance and great value — rather than buying into a vague proposal put forth in an underhanded manner by some guy who claimed to represent a couple of organizations that appear to be largely made up of him.
The problem wasn’t the process.
There was no actual deal.
There was no “significant economic development opportunity.”
There was no “twofer.”
There was nothing. But they almost bought it.
Don: Interesting conspiracy theory, but I don’t see much factual support – just opinions.
Why are you are so vehemently opposed to the community having an opportunity to vote on economic development outside the Mace curve? Forget the latest proposal, you’ve held this position for as long as I’ve read the Vanguard.
It just doesn’t compute. You are a small local merchant that lives on a farm in Dixon. There is plenty of ag land to protect all over the Sacramento Valley. Are you involved in protecting ag land around Dixon? 400 acres, while large in Davis terms, is a tiny drop in the bucket relative to the massive amounts of farm and ranch land that is routinely lost to development throughout the region.
What about your farm? Is it in a conservation easement? Is it protected under the Williamson Act?
It isn’t necessary to protect farmland in Solano County because of Measure T, which protects 440,000 acres by directing all growth into existing cities. Yolo County would do well to adopt a similar measure.
When you post under your own name, identify yourself, and tell us where you live and what you do for a living, you can feel free to discuss my personal details.
What doesn’t compute is all these people posting so vigorously supporting this annexation and development on the edge of Davis, but refusing to divulge who they are and what their interests are.
There’s no conspiracy. I didn’t imply that at all, at any time. There simply was no deal, and the entire process unfolded in a way that revealed there was simply one guy trying to promote a vague land deal, as quickly as possible and with as little light as possible.
[quote]Why are you are so vehemently opposed to the community having an opportunity to vote on economic development outside the Mace curve? [/quote]
The fundamental problem is that open land always has a higher economic value for development than any other use, particularly more than for farming, open space, or wildlife habitat.
If you want to preserve farmland, open space, or wildlife habitat, the way to do it is precisely [i]not[/i] to have the voters deciding on one project after another. Every land developer prefers to sell a single project than to try to deal with the overall policy issue. The way to do it is to have a firm policy in place to stop the relentless pressure for development on the fringes.
If you want to preserve that type of land, you need to have in place a broader policy limiting those other uses. Best is to have a regional policy, such as a county-wide measure like Solano’s Measure A/T (the orderly growth initiative which restricted development to existing cities). In the absence of such a policy, it is important to identify the most vulnerable sites that are likely to lead to further land speculation and development pressure. Those sites are open land next to existing cities. If you want to preserve farmland, you don’t develop prime farmland that is next to cities on one side and prime farmland on the other side. It’s that simple.
It seems to baffle proponents of annexation/development that I take these positions, because they can’t see any economic interest that I have in the issue. That is because they have difficulty understanding that not everyone takes positions based on economic interests. I’m acquainted with a lot of people who share my views who also have no stake in the outcome, one way or another, of these land use decisions.
Environmentalists, people who support orderly growth, and advocates for good urban planning – groups which overlap on many policy issues regarding land use — usually have no financial interest in the outcome of the policies they advocate. Small farmers often take an interest in these issues far from their own properties because they share the concerns of small farmers who might be affected. You don’t have to be very far from a peripheral development to feel threatened by it.
These annexation issues also seem to have blocked any progress or discussion of other economic development options. One of the reasons I keep saying these should be off the table is so we can get back to discussing and acting on the myriad economic development proposals that have broad consensus. The city council shouldn’t be wasting its time on land swap proposals or long-range annexation issues. It should be moving forward on other projects. But it seems all the discussion ceases, all the fervor falls away, all the pseudonymous posters disappear when we get back to mundane issues like Nishi, rezoning near downtown, collaborating with the university. You know: things we could be doing right now. They’re just not big, big, big enough, evidently. If you support all those things, but not some big land deal, you’re not in favor of economic development and jobs.
Accusations of elitism, NIMBYism, statism, anti-growthism, and all the attempts at guilt and shame, ‘what are you afraid of?’, ‘why don’t you want the people to vote?’ – all miss the point. Land use planning requires a bigger perspective. A couple of hundred acres here, a couple of hundred there – that is precisely how urban sprawl occurs. Given a chance to vote on those larger issues about the rate of growth, the protection of farmland, and sensible urban policy, Davis voters have been pretty consistent. If you want to develop and think a change in that direction is appropriate, then put that broader principle before the voters. I’m guessing you’ll lose. And I’m guessing you know that, which is why you want to fight it out one “small” project at a time.
Thank you, Don, for coherently providing the bigger perspective that is all too often missing from our public policy and project debates.
-Michael Bisch