By Stephen Souza
The idea of a major new technology park on agricultural land has prompted significant concern within our community. Although intrigued with the potential economic benefits of a technology development, residents are concerned with losing the agricultural land and character of our community.
Davis has a long history of reconciling the interests of development with conservation of agricultural land. This has to be a process which understands the importance of stakeholder involvement to finding harmonious solutions for complex and controversial projects.
My ideal vision is one where community members, developers, entrepreneurs, farmers and designers are all working together transitioning from adversarial relationships to a more harmonious melding of common interests in creating visions for a Davis Agricultural and Technology Park.
The challenge is to establish a process that eventually leads to a world-class technology park, while ensuring that the development will be welcomed and supported by the community. An open, inclusive community engagement process should be implemented immediately.
If people with differing concerns and backgrounds share and resolve their concerns in a spirit of mutual respect an inspiring project will become a reality of the value of civility in pursuit of prudent community planning.
“There are six major attributes for a successful stakeholder process:
1. Have a road-map: At the start of the process, lay out the meetings, what will be covered, and what the rules of engagement are for the stakeholders.
2. Be flexible: All good processes need to adapt as the plan is being developed-don’t be afraid to alter the schedule if there is good reason.
3. Adhere to meeting times: Don’t go over the allotted time for each meeting-remember these are volunteers whose time is precious.
4. Don’t allow any one stakeholder to take hostage the process: All stakeholders need to be heard, but once a point or position is made, don’t allow a stakeholder to belabor the point-keep the process going.
5. Don’t be defensive: One of the most typical mistakes made in stakeholder meetings is when bureaucrats or agency staff are defensive-don’t feel it is necessary to correct or talk down to the stakeholders.
6. Follow up: If there are questions/issues brought up at the meeting, put them in a parking lot (giant pad of paper) and respond back to stakeholders in writing within a week or two-this keeps the meetings moving and shows a responsiveness to the stakeholders.”
– CDM Executive Vice President Paul Brown and CDM Vice President Dan Rodrigo
Matt Williams has put forward an open space plan map and asset allocations. I put forward the next map in our community conversation. Tomorrow I will put numbers to the map.
Stephen Souza was a member of the Davis City Council from 2004 to 2012. This is Part II of an ongoing series of articles.
Where’s the area for organic food to be grown for people who rent or don’t have a big enough yard to grow? The Davis Farmers Market? My family liked their food close to its source, not have to travel too far out of Davis, in a car, to get it. I’m not being facetious, Steve. I’d really like to know. Thanks. This was really well written, BTW.
Sorry, measure O doesn’t provide that. It locks up the land but denies access to the people supplying the money; the taxpayers of Davis. It also blocks housing development keeping Davis renters poor by keeping property values high. You may be as shocked to learn this as I was recently when i found out about it. Outrageous but true.
“My ideal vision is one where community members, developers, entrepreneurs, farmers and designers are all working together transitioning from adversarial relationships to a more harmonious melding of common interests in creating visions for a Davis Agricultural and Technology Park.”
that’s everyone ideal. but it’s hard to have “a more harmonious melding of common interests in creating visions for a Davis Agricultural and Technology Park” when those who put forward ideas or who express concerns are disparaged in the common discourse.
so rather than rhetoric, what concrete steps can push us pass this impasse?
Unfortunately, the map posted here represents an aggressive development proposal, with Mace 391 developed into a tech park and the land to the east as ag tech, with neither in an ag easement. As such, Stephen’s map is, from a land conservation perspective, even worse than Matt’s with respect to east Davis. It even has a large chunk of land in “reserve ag tech” rather than in ag protection, which raises the likelihood of leapfrog development nearly to the bypass.
An ag tech park could conceivably be developed as an urban fringe property [i]within[/i] an ag easement, subject to the questions raised previously; i.e., what level of on-site development is acceptable to the easement holder. That would reflect a compromise between development and conservation, creating a clear urban limit line on the east side of Davis while allowing some economic development. This proposal goes far in the other direction: development instead of conservation.
This clearly illustrates why I believe the council should move to place Mace 391 into an ag easement as proposed.
The idea that an ag-tech park would be developed on a property with an existing ag easement is sheer fantasy. It won’t happen. If we really want to consider Stephen’s ideas, or any other idea for Mace 391, the first thing we need to do is rescind the decision to move forward with the easement and then take the time to have a thorough community wide discussion on how best to utilize this City owned asset to support the economic viability of the City and the region.
[quote]The idea that an ag-tech park would be developed on a property with an existing ag easement is sheer fantasy. It won’t happen.[/quote]
You could be right, but somebody should probably ask Yolo Land Trust about acceptable uses on an ag easement property.
Mr. Toad: [quote]Sorry, measure O doesn’t provide that. It locks up the land but denies access to the people supplying the money[/quote]
Measure O doesn’t deny anything regarding access. That is site-specific.
DP – In my view there is nothing that can be done to guarantee that various groups’ interests are melded. A more modest and realistic place to start is by creating public spaces where stakeholders come together and actually discuss their interests and explore areas of agreement and disagreement. Some of the latter are NEVER going to yield a “coming together”, not because people are intransigent per se but simply because there are different visions and interests around the table.
I think there is merit in exploring something like the 6-step process Stephen lays out to allow the interests of a diverse group of stakeholders to be aired publicly. I think a good facilitator could even challenge participants to move beyond statements of “interests” to the “needs” underlying their positions.
The outcome of such a process is a community that is better informed about competing needs and one that understands some of the tradeoffs involved in decisions (in this case about land use). Such a process also enables leaders to articulate their own reasons for decisions they make.
One thing lacking here (and in Rob’s similar call on the other post today) is the question of who has the ability (moral authority) to bring a disparate group of stakeholders together for dialogue (because, believe it or not, some stakeholders do not WANT a public airing and others harbor fears about how they will be treated or of not being able to control the outcomes). I think our City Council can and should act as a convening body in this case and establish a process in which sufficient time is allocated to a discussion. It is unlikely that a single meeting would suffice for such complex issues to be aired but one has to start somewhere.
Here are some of the codes that are pertinent to the discussion.
Yolo County codes:
http://www.yolocounty.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=15780
[url]http://www.delta.ca.gov/res/docs/20 Appendix 6 – Right-to-Farm Ordinances.pdf[/url]
City of Davis codes:
[url]http://qcode.us/codes/davis/view.php?topic=40a&showAll=1&frames=on[/url]
Robb Davis said . . .
[i]”DP – [b]In my view there is nothing that can be done to guarantee that various groups’ interests are melded.[/b] A more modest and realistic place to start is by creating public spaces where stakeholders come together and actually discuss their interests and explore areas of agreement and disagreement. Some of the latter are NEVER going to yield a “coming together”, not because people are intransigent per se but simply because there are different visions and interests around the table.
One thing lacking here (and in Rob’s similar call on the other post today) is the question of who has the ability (moral authority) to bring a disparate group of stakeholders together for dialogue [b](because, believe it or not, some stakeholders do not WANT a public airing and others harbor fears about how they will be treated or of not being able to control the outcomes)[/b]. I think our City Council can and should act as a convening body in this case and establish a process in which sufficient time is allocated to a discussion. It is unlikely that a single meeting would suffice for such complex issues to be aired but one has to start somewhere.”[/i]
Robb, I believe your bolded words above are right on the mark . . . and may very well be playing out in this issue as we speak. Specifically, the following e-mail was sent to all the members of the Open Space and Habitat Commission on Sunday, but to date there has been no response from either individual members or the Commission as a whole. Here’s hoping that they will choose to join the dialogue soon. To his credit, when asked on Sunday evening to share his thoughts on this same issue Stephen Souza has been quick to respond, as today’s and yesterday’s articles clearly demonstrate.
[quote]Sent: Saturday, October 12, 2013 6:45 AM
Subject: Opportunity For Public Dialogue about Open Space and Community Farms
Members of the Open Space and Habitat Commission, thank you for taking my public comment at each of your last two Commission meetings. As part of the ongoing dialogue about achieving the goals of Measure O, and in anticipation of the City Council’s scheduled receipt of an update on the Mace 391 easement process on Tuesday, October 22nd, the Davis Vanguard would very much like to provide its readers with the Commission’s perspective on all things related to this community dialogue on open space and community farms, et.al.
I am one of the members of the Editorial Board of the Vanguard and we are all committed to the most robust possible transparent dialogue on issues before the Davis community. Clearly Measure O and Community Farms and Mace 391 are individually and collectively just such an issue. We have already had a series of articles on this subject and hearing from you as individuals and/or as a Commission would add to the community discussion. The two on Measure O can be accessed at
Part One http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7691:davis-urban-boundary-is-it-time-to-transform-a-dream-into-a-reality&catid=53:land-useopen-space&Itemid=86
Part Two http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7695:davis-urban-boundary-is-it-time-to-transform-a-dream-into-a-reality-part-two&catid=53:land-useopen-space&Itemid=86
We hope you choose to submit. Anything you do submit will be published as-is by the Vanguard publisher, David Greenwald, whose e-mail address is in the cc’s above.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Matt Williams [/quote]
[quote]…to date there has been no response from either individual members or the Commission as a whole. Here’s hoping that they will choose to join the dialogue soon.[/quote]
If you think about it from their perspective, there isn’t presently any reason for members of the OSH commission to engage in a dialogue, since the council has made a decision and the easement is proceeding. If the council pulls back from the current process, the easement is gone (and so is the grant). Further public discussion is likely to lead to loss of the easement.
As I said before, the time I would be interested in a broader discussion about conservation and business park development would be in April, once the easement is in place on Mace 391. I’d guess commission members may feel the same way. The push right now is to stop the easement.
Don Shor: “[i]If the council pulls back from the current process, the easement is gone (and so is the grant). Further public discussion is likely to lead to loss of the easement.[/i]”
This is absolutely false! The only thing that will be lost is this particular grant. The easement can be placed on the property at any time in the future. This allotment of $1.2 Million will be lost, but there is nothing to prevent the City from resubmitting the grant application in the future. There is no reason not to have a full discussion of the opportunities for this property before making a permanent decision, in fact, not doing so would be similar to moving forward on the water project without the WAC.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”If you think about it from their perspective, [b]there isn’t presently any reason for members of the OSH commission to engage in a dialogue[/b], since the council has made a decision and the easement is proceeding. If the council pulls back from the current process, the easement is gone (and so is the grant). Further public discussion is likely to lead to loss of the easement.
As I said before, the time I would be interested in a broader discussion about conservation and business park development would be in April, once the easement is in place on Mace 391. I’d guess commission members may feel the same way. The push right now appears to be to stop the easement, and the ‘broader community discussion’ seems to just be a means to that end.”[/i]
Well said Don. You have perfectly described how the current situation matches Robb’s paradigm.
The question that that seeming reality begs is, “At what point in 30 month period from late 2010 until the present did the Open Space and Habitat Commission and/or the Staff that supports that Commission engage in any [u]dialogue[/u] with the public?”
If the public was never dialogued with, then lets narrow the field a bit and focus on Commission-to-Commission dialogue and ask, “”At what point in 30 month period from late 2010 until the present did the Open Space and Habitat Commission and/or the Staff that supports that Commission engage in any [u]dialogue[/u] with the Business and Economic Development Commission (BEDC )?”
If there wasn’t any Commission-to-Commission dialogue, then what about dialogue with the Innovation Park Task Force?
Bottom-line, there is a very good chance that your explanation of why there isn’t presently any reason to engage in a dialogue is little more than a stage play in which “the ends justify the means.”
That is very sad if it is true. I sincerely hope it is not.
At what point does any commission engage in dialogue with the public? Don’t they meet every month? Isn’t there public comment every meeting? Isn’t every meeting agenda posted in advance? How often do any commissions hold joint meetings?
Lucas Frerich is council liaison for the OSH Commission and was on the Innovation Task Force. It shouldn’t have escaped his attention that an easement was going forward that would affect the site.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”As I said before, the time I would be interested in a broader discussion about conservation and business park development would be in April, once the easement is in place on Mace 391. I’d guess commission members may feel the same way. [b]The push right now appears to be to stop the easement, and the ‘broader community discussion’ seems to just be a means to that end.[/b]”[/i]
Your bolded words are 100% INCORRECT. The push now is to set up two parallel processes that proceed simultaneously.
The first parallel process contains the continued processing of all the precursor steps needed to finalize the Easement on or slightly before March 31, 2014. That would mean a settlement date of the real estate transaction during the second half of the month of March 2014.
The second parallel process contains the necessary due diligence steps to determine if the conservation easement opportunity is really not 391 acres, but rather upwards of 3,000 acres . . . with real cash flow sources and real prime ag land property owners who are receptive and willing to be the cash flow recipients in return for placing the conservation easements on their individual parcels of prime ag land.
My personal opinion is that if by March 1, 2014 the second parallel process has not identified “reality” in both ends of the transactions, the the first parallel process would be carried through to its completion. If the second parallel process did in fact identify “real” cash sources and “real” cash uses, then the Council would have to make a decision about which was better for the “greater good” of the community, 391 acres of conserved prime farm land or 3,000 acres of equally prime conserved farmland. That is the kind of decision we elected them to make.
JMHO
[quote]The second parallel process contains the necessary due diligence steps to determine if the conservation easement opportunity is really not 391 acres, but rather upwards of 3,000 acres . . . with real cash flow sources and real prime ag land property owners who are receptive and willing to be the cash flow recipients in return for placing the conservation easements on their individual parcels of prime ag land. [/quote]
You continue to link Mace 391 to your greenbelt proposal. The greenbelt proposal can proceed without Mace 391. There is not a shortage of “real cash flow” for the purchase of ag easements. We have Measure O. I have shown this on previous threads.
[quote]Your bolded words are 100% INCORRECT.[/quote]
Possibly with respect to your motivations. But with respect to the motivations of others, I suspect my bolded words are less than 1% incorrect.
Recap from previous thread:
Spent to date from Measure O funds: $4,566,000
Grants and other funding: $12,000,000
Acres protected: 2513
Matt’s proposal: protect an additional 3000 acres.
Available for purchase of easements from Measure O thru 2030: $14,430,000
Additional funds available from grants: $12 – 30,000,000?
It’s hard for me to see why there should be any linkage between the greenbelt proposal and economic development proposals. Measure O, combined with grant funding, would seem sufficient to purchase easements on the land surrounding the city if it is done in a carefully planned, orderly manner between now and 2030. Assess the sites, determine owner interest, establish a priority list, and begin assembling the Davis greenbelt using existing funds.
I guess my real point was that no matter what happens with 391 we still need to have this kind of community conversation about open space and innovation park issues. We have to have a strategic conversation about balancing the needs for Ag land preservation with the need for revenue growth.
Don, you are not using your noggin. Let’s process your numbers through a small mathematical exercise. First, divide $4,566,000 by 2,513 acres. The resultant price per acre is $1,816.95. How realistic is that per acre price? Not very.
Given your substantial knowledge of current agricultural land prices, what is a realistic price per acre for prime soils in Yolo County?
My own educated guess is 8 times that for land that is outside the Urban Fringe of Davis, and in excess of 15 times that for land that is in the Urban Fringe.
Also, you need to go back and review Michele Clark’s public comment on June 11th. She very clearly stated that all public sources of funding other than NRCS have dried up, and that the total annual NRCS grant amount for the entire State of California was $3 million, with intense competition for those scare dollars from jurisdictions around the state. As a result your $12-30 million in grant funding is more than likely less than one tenth of that. More like $1-3 million rather than $12-30 million.
Lets parse out your $14,430,000 into annual amounts, which my math says are $900,000 per year. That means we will have enough funds to conserve 33 acres of Urban Fringe each year.
To put that 33 acres per year into perspective, how many parcels are there in Davis’ Urban Fringe that are 33 acres or less?
In this Don Quixote drama that you are spinning, it is clear that you are set to play the lead role. Who do you have in mind to play Sancho Panza?
Robb Davis said . . .
[i]”I guess my real point was that no matter what happens with 391 we still need to have this kind of community conversation about open space and innovation park issues. We have to have a strategic conversation about balancing the needs for Ag land preservation with the need for revenue growth.”[/i]
Absolutely!!!
Don Shor
[i]”Your bolded words are 100% INCORRECT.
Possibly with respect to your motivations. But with respect to the motivations of others, I suspect my bolded words are less than 1% incorrect.”[/i]
I literally don’t give a tinker’s damn about the motivations that are driving the various players in this drama. What I care about is an open, transparent, engaged process that produces the best possible outcome for the “greater good” of the community as a whole.
We need to turn on the klieg lights! We should have turned them on two years ago, but someone was busy unscrewing the bulbs and pulling out the electrical plugs.
Matt, your numbers are way off. Just for example…
We aren’t talking about buying land. We are talking about buying easements.
We didn’t pay that amount per acre for land.
I would prefer to hear from staff as to the actual likelihood of getting grant funding for easements.
But:
If your interpretation of Michele’s report is right, then we [i]absolutely should[/i] take the easement grant [i]now[/i] for Mace 391, because there will not be grant funds available ever again for that purpose.
But I’m guessing you didn’t mean to make that point.
[quote]What I care about is an open, transparent, engaged process[/quote]
Commissions such as the Open Space and Habitat Commission act in full view of the public, openly, transparently, and with the oversight of staff and at least one current councilmember.
There is a subtext here that somehow the Mace 391 easement flew in under the radar, out of public view. That is simply not true. It has been an ongoing, public, transparent process for three years now. It’s just that some people want to stop it.
Based on comments on Dave Rosenberg’s blog from the 1990’s, an ag easement can be purchased for about 1/3 the cost of the land.
At that time, land was, according to Dave,
Class I and II: $3000 per acre
Class III and IV: $2000 – 2500 per acre.
Cost of easement: $850 – 1250 per acre.
Those numbers have changed, obviously, but let’s assume the ratio is still similar.
There is currently a property (Leland Ranch) on road 30B, also known as Mace Curve: 363.9 acres going for $10000 per acre.
So an easement for that 364 acres, using a 1/3 cost, would be $1.2 million.
Measure O brings in approximately $635,000 per year.
So that 364 acre parcel would cost 2 years of Measure O funds, without any additional grant funding.
In other words, over the remaining 17 years of Measure O tax funding, if the land values and easement ratios were similar to what I’ve described, the remaining $14.4 million could purchase easements on over 4,000 acres of land.
Your plan calls for 3,000 acres.
Obviously there are many variables. It would be useful to know current per-acre costs of easements. But you get my point. You can buy a lot of easement for $14.4 million, and even more if you can get grant funds.
You don’t need to continue to link your greenbelt proposal to economic development proposals. Revenues from economic development will be needed for other things.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”Commissions such as the Open Space and Habitat Commission act in full view of the public, openly, transparently, and with the oversight of staff and at least one current councilmember.
There is a subtext here that somehow the Mace 391 easement flew in under the radar, out of public view. That is simply not true. It has been an ongoing, public, transparent process for three years now. It’s just that some people want to stop it.”[/i]
Don, you really did’t say that with a straight face, did you? This is no different than the Cannery project in terms of its impact on the citizens. How many Commissions have weighed in on the Cannery proposal? 12 . . . 13 if you include the Council. Add in 2 non-governmental “commissions” and the number rises to 15. Where was the Finance and Budget Commission hearing on this easement? Where was the BEDC hearing? Where was the Bicycle Advisory Commission hearing, given that the community will need to get to the Community Farm? Where was the Natural Resources Commission hearing?
Even Johnny Carson couldn’t have delivered your words with a straight face.
People don’t want to [u]stop it[/u]. They simply want the kind of fiscal analysis that responsible government has a fiduciary responsibility to deliver. If there is a fiscal analysis that was completed by the Open Space & Habitat Commission, then please share it and I will shut up. If there isn’t, then lets put one together between now and March 1st. Is that too much to ask?
Don Shor said . . .
“Based on comments on Dave Rosenberg’s blog from the 1990’s, an ag easement can be purchased for about 1/3 the cost of the land.
At that time, land was, according to Dave,
Class I and II: $3000 per acre
Class III and IV: $2000 – 2500 per acre.
Cost of easement: $850 – 1250 per acre.
Those numbers have changed, obviously, but let’s assume the ratio is still similar.
There is currently a property (Leland Ranch) on road 30B, also known as Mace Curve: 363.9 acres going for $10000 per acre. You may have heard of this site. So an easement for that 364 acres, using a 1/3 cost, would be $1.2 million. In fact, the grant for the easement on that property is $1.125 million, so our ratio for the easement to the sale price is 31%.”
Don, you are forgetting two key components. 1) the price per acre is set by the seller and in most cases by the market, and 2) the price per acre contains three components, which are first the agricultural value per acre, second the mitigation value per acre, and third the development speculation value per acre.
In the case of Leland Ranch, for reasons that are not completely clear, the seller has chosen not to use a current market price in listing the property. Recent sales of agricultural land comparable to that of Leland Ranch have been much closer to $15,000 an acre. Because of the terms of the listing the value of Leland Ranch has a mitigation value of $0 and a development speculation value of $0. The mitigation value is also $0 because the owner does not have any potential mitigation use for the land. If on the other hand Leland Ranch were owned by a private owner other than the City, the mitigation value would no longer be $0 because the owner would be able to use it for mitigation. The two parcels immediately west of Leland Ranch aren’t currently listed, but if they were, a fire sale price for them would be $40,000 an acre. Given the presence of Measure J/R, that $40,000 has virtually no development speculation value. It is simply the agricultural value plus the mitigation value.
The two parcels west of Stonegate are currently listed for $25,000 an acre. If you speak to their owners, you will find that one will consider an easement and the other isn’t even vaguely interested in an easement, they simply want to be rid of the property. So in the one case you would need $10,000 per acre to purchase the land plus approximately $3,000 an acre to pay Yolo Land Trust to administer the easement ($1,125,000 divided by 391). For the 160 acres of that parcel the easement-only total at $13,000 per acre is $2,080,000. That means over three years of Measure O money. For the other 160 acre parcel at $28,000 per acre the total is $4,480,000, which is over seven years of Measure O money.
Oh, man, Matt, your numbers are so far off. Please do this privately, then we can discuss it. You’re getting deeper into the weeds, and most of your examples aren’t really relevant to the greenbelt you are proposing.
Example:
[quote]So in the one case you would need $10,000 per acre to purchase the land plus approximately $3,000 an acre to pay Yolo Land Trust to administer the easement[/quote]
You don’t need to own the land if you have the easement on it.
We can buy a lot of easement for $14 million.
We can probably get grant money to increase that.
That’s the bottom line Vanguard readers need to understand. Measure O funds are very likely sufficient to buy easements on most of what you have proposed. We don’t need funds from economic development to buy protection for your proposed greenbelt. And we don’t need to develop Mace 391 into a tech park to finance your proposed greenbelt.
Sorry, Matt, your linkage is not appropriate.
[quote]Don, you really did’t say that with a straight face, did you? This is no different than the Cannery project in terms of its impact on the citizens. How many Commissions have weighed in on the Cannery proposal? 12 . . . 13 if you include the Council. Add in 2 non-governmental “commissions” and the number rises to 15. Where was the Finance and Budget Commission hearing on this easement? Where was the BEDC hearing? Where was the Bicycle Advisory Commission hearing, given that the community will need to get to the Community Farm? Where was the Natural Resources Commission hearing? [/quote]
You want every commission to review everything? Good lord, we’d never get anything done in this town.
[quote]People don’t want to stop it[/quote]
Oooooohhhh yes they do.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”You want every commission to review everything? Good lord, we’d never get anything done in this town.”[/i]
Anything that affects the City Budget as massively as this 391 acre decision does should at the very least be reviewed by the Finance and Budget Commission. Cannery only has a 100 acre impact on the Budget, just over one fourth of the impact of Mace 391. What logical reason can you come up with for why the Finance and Budget Commission shouldn’t review it?