The Davis Enterprise is now the latest entity lending its voice to re-examining Mace 391, arguing that “conservation” and “business interests can both be satisfied.” This follows similar calls from the Vanguard, tech and business leaders and the Davis Chamber of Commerce.
“In a perfect world, there would be time for all competing interests to fully discuss important civic issues before nagging realities like deadlines set in,” the paper’s editorial writes. “In the real world, however, decisions sometimes must be made in haste, with far-reaching and unpleasant consequences.”
“That sounds wonderful, right?” the paper asks rhetorically, adding, “The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service grant secured by the Yolo Land Trust would place a conservation easement on the property, preserving it as farmland in perpetuity – one of Davis’ treasured goals.”
However, “Technology and business leaders have their eyes on that site as well, saying it’s the most logical location (among several ringing Davis) for a business park. It has freeway access, it’s situated well away from houses and it is adjacent to farmland that would serve as sites for research greenhouses for biotech and seed companies.”
“Two privately owned parcels of land adjacent to Ikeda’s fruit stand, combined with part of the city’s 391 acres, would be just what Davis needs for a business park, city staffers and business leaders say,” the paper continues. “Revenue from the sale or lease of the city land – assuming a positive Measure J/R vote of the people – plus taxes from the future tenants would infuse much-needed cash into our city’s coffers.”
The paper notes, “And, after years and years and years – OK, you get the picture – of talking about a business park to capitalize on the knowledge coming out of our world-class university, we’d actually be building a business park.”
“But accepting the grant would pretty much make this Mace/I-80 site unworkable,” they write. “The two privately held properties, which comprise about 200 acres, would not be big enough for the type of business park those in the know say we need, and could fill up quite easily. We’d be taking a bite of the apple but not getting the whole juicy fruit.”
“Back to Measure J/R for a moment. Yes, this project would need to go to a vote. And while the Davis electorate has rejected two residential projects – Covell Village and Wildhorse Ranch – by fairly convincing margins, we have faith that voters would see the value in developing a high-end business park that would keep thriving local businesses in town and recruit new ones to our community,” the paper writes. “With business parks come jobs, something Davis always could use more of.”
They continue, “And what of the goal of preserving farmland? Even without the federal grant, part of Leland Ranch could stay in agriculture, and business park developers could be required to offset their development with permanent conservation commitments.”
“The Davis City Council has a chance Tuesday night to take a step back from its June vote and ask city staff to put the matter on a future agenda for further discussion. That would be a win-win for everyone,” the paper concluded.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]That would be a win-win for everyone[/quote]
I want to preface my comments by saying that I am in favor of full discussion of all options. I do not have an opinion at this point about what would be the best use of this land. However, I do see that there is some deflection going on here with the business and economic growth community putting forth an article that says in essence, “all we really want to do is talk about this”….when what is apparent is that what they want to do is develop. Now we have the Enterprise saying this would be a “win-win”. I would hazard a guess that if someone truly believes that preserving the land in perpetuity is the best option, they would not perceive this as a “win-win”.
I am in favor of full community discussion. I am also in favor of calling a spade a spade.
medwoman, your point is well taken, and if a community discussion does happen, then one of the alternatives considered will almost surely be to “leverage” 300 of the Mace 391 acres into upwards of 3,000 acres of prime ag land conserved on Davis’ Urban Fringe . . . including significant acres of Swainson’s Hawk foraging grounds. If that happens — and I strongly believe that it can happen during calendar year 2014 — then the Farmland Preservation portion of the Davis community would see the dream of a conserved agricultural border transformed into reality. Said another way, the hope Davis had when it passed Measure O will become fully realized.
My personal view is that if any of the capital dollars realized from any portion of Mace 391 are not 100% plowed back into achieving the maximum possible Measure O protection of Davis’ Urban Fringe, then I will 100% support moving forward with the easement in March 2014.
The calling a spade a spade codicil to you Win-Win question is, [i]”What makes the Mace 391 acres 8 times more valuable than the 3,000 Urban Fringe acres?”[/i]
Matt:
“My personal view is that if any of the capital dollars realized from any portion of Mace 391 are not 100% plowed back into achieving the maximum possible Measure O protection of Davis’ Urban Fringe,”
Matt, would this be part of the contract?
Naively I thought the city and developers had other ideas for the profits? Comment?
[i]The calling a spade a spade codicil to you Win-Win question is, “What makes the Mace 391 acres 8 times more valuable than the 3,000 Urban Fringe acres?”[/i]
What is the evidence for your claim that 3,000 urban fringe acres are available?? You are trying to sell your fantasy as though it is actually an option on the table.
Matt continues to link his greenbelt proposal to the Mace 391 development. There is no need for this linkage. We can conserve the greenbelt properties — if they are, in fact, available for that due to interest by the owners — without developing Mace 391. Thus, the question [quote]“What makes the Mace 391 acres 8 times more valuable than the 3,000 Urban Fringe acres?”[/quote]
is predicated on a false premise. The only purpose of making that linkage is to advocate for development of Mace 391.
[i]The only purpose of making that linkage is to advocate for development of Mace 391.[/i]
Exactly.
Question, are people getting paid to advocate for the Tech Park? There all of a sudden seems to be a concerted effort to push this.
As far as I know, no one is getting paid to advocate for the Tech Park.
What you have seen is:
1. Tech leaders come out to city council recognizing that if they have designs to expand, they need a destination
2. The Chamber
3. The Enterprise
Who do you think is getting paid in this group?
GI, you have it exactly backwards. The pertinent question is, “Are people getting paid to oppose weighing all alternatives?” I’m being a bit facetious here. There is no evidence, for example, that city staff or the council have weighed all possible alternatives. Indeed, it appears they have only focused on 2 alternatives: 1) NCRS grant & conservation easement; 2) a Shriner’s & Mace 391 land swap. Is it prudent to purposely avoid weighing all the alternatives?
The Chamber past chairs and the Enterprise editors unequivocally say “no”.
-Michael Bisch
I don’t think anyone is being paid to advocate for or against the tech park at Mace 391. I think our views arise from our values and our assessments of the facts before us. The folks who are pushing hard for a tech park to be built East of Mace are mostly our business leaders. I think their position comes naturally to them based on the things they value and the economic benefits they see arising from development. Others of us value different things, and don’t necessarily think that a straight dollars-to-dollars analysis captures everything that is at stake.
“Others of us value different things, and don’t necessarily think that a straight dollars-to-dollars analysis captures everything that is at stake.”
And that’s why an analysis should capture everything, all the benefits and all the costs, not just the dollars. As things stand now, no analysis of any kind has been conducted as far as I can tell. Instead of an analysis, we went straight to arguing the merits of only 2 of many alternatives, ignoring some of the pros and cons of those 2 alternatives, and completely disregarding all the other alternatives. It’s weird.
-Michael Bisch
What I hear being advocated for is an open discussion of the alternatives for the property, and how best to utilize this City asset. Some of those advocating in favor of this discussion are also in favor of seeing a Tech Park developed on the site. There are others however who advocate in favor of the discussion that have other preferences in mind for the site, including among them, those who prefer going forward with the easement. These are all valid and important positions that deserve to be fairly heard and discussed.
The position that simply does not make sense to me is the one that states that sufficient discussion has already occurred and that there are no reasons to question moving forward agricultural easement at Leland Ranch.
The potential financial impact of this decision is every bit as great, if not greater, than the impact of the water system, and orders of magnitude greater than the impact of the Cannery development. If we are to be prudent stewards of the City’s future, should we not give the disposition of Leland Ranch the same degree of scrutiny as those other decisions?
Michael: [quote]And that’s why an analysis should capture everything, all the benefits and all the costs, not just the dollars.[/quote]
Who would you suggest do that?
Mark: [quote]The position that simply does not make sense to me is the one that states that sufficient discussion has already occurred[/quote]
Part of it is that a lot of us [i]here[/i] have engaged on this issue in quite a bit of detail over many weeks. It is almost certainly true that the public in general has not. To that end, I agree that a public workshop or forum would be appropriate. I have real concerns about how the workshop would be weighted with regard to the different options, and who would be publicly representing the various viewpoints.
Its the timing that is causing this parcel to draw so much attention. If the conservation easement goes into effect the land is off the table forever. As a result if we decide to go another way we must decide quickly not to do the easement.
I think city staff ultimately should be the one doing the analysis based upon the input they receive from commissions, stakeholders, specific project proponents, citizens at large, CC direction, etc. Matt Williams, Dave Morris, Steve Souza, for instance, can take their best shots for all I care. The starting point, but by no means the end point, is a CC workshop. Public comment at a regularly scheduled CC meeting does not provide the necessary give-and-take, i.e. it does not provide an opportunity for vigorous debate.
Don, your concerns about how the workshop is weighted is not without merit.
-Michael Bisch
Whatever the process right now the council has to make a decision on whether to stay the course with the conservation easement or do something else. If they stay the course that is the end of the story. If they decide to do something else then there is time to decide what path to follow and Davis can fight about it in our usual dilatory manner.
Mr. Toad: “[i]As a result if we decide to go another way we must decide quickly not to do the easement.[/i]”
This is the another argument that makes no sense to me.
I personally didn’t need the WAC to convince me that the surface water project was the sound, prudent decision for our future. However, I will readily agree that as a result of the WAC process, the community was able to come to a more satisfactory final result. It was argued at the time that while the City should have undertaken the community review years before, the cost of further delay needed to have the full discussion was justified by the benefits of a more transparent process. At the time I believe that anyone advocating to shorten or foreclose the WAC process in exchange for a $1.2 million grant would have been laughed out of town.
But isn’t that exactly what is being argued today?
If the prudent thing to do is to have a complete, transparent discussion of the financial impacts of the disposition of the Leland Ranch, should we not commit the time and resources necessary to complete a thorough review? The idea of putting a Tech Park at Leland Ranch is such a radical shift in direction for our community that I cannot see how we can possibly have that discussion, and make a valid choice, in only a few short months. I wish the City had already completed a community discussion by now, but that failure is no reason to rush the decision now.
[b]The fact is, we do not need to make a quick decision on the easement; we own the land and can put an easement in place at any time in the future.[/b]
The supposed deadline for a decision, is a wholly artificial one put place by the NRCS grant. The only way that we can invest the time and resources necessary to fully analyze our options is for the City Council to immediately reject the grant, and by doing so, remove this artificial deadline.
The ultimate decision that the community makes will be worth far more, regardless of which direction we choose, than will the relatively meager value of this grant.
[quote]… should we not commit the time and resources necessary to complete a thorough review? The idea of putting a Tech Park at Leland Ranch is such a radical shift in direction for our community that I cannot see how we can possibly have that discussion, and make a valid choice, in only a few short months.[/quote]
Roughly how much staff time and what duration would you put on such a process? How much would you think we should spend on it?
As I indicated in previous posts, Council has directed staff to reconvene the Innovation Park Task Force Committee to talk about potential locations of an innovation park. This discussion does NOT include the Mace 391/Leland Ranch property, as Council has specifically directed staff to execute the NRCS easement and we are unable to consider other options for this property unless Council directs us by a majority vote to do so. That has not been done to date, so staff will continue on the path of easement execution with our partners at Yolo Land Trust. Tonight at the Council meeting, staff will be providing an update to the Council on where we are in the process of this easement. (Staff report here: http://city-council.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/CouncilMeetings/Agendas/20131022/06-Mace-Curve-Update.pdf)
As part of the process of identifying the next steps in executing the Council’s direction to reconvene the Task Force, staff are working diligently to bring a quorum of the 6 members back together for a public meeting to discuss the outcomes and next steps from the Nov 2012 City Council meeting. (Staff report here: http://city-council.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/CouncilMeetings/Agendas/20121113/Packet/06-Innovation-Park-Task-Force-amended.pdf)
It is hoped that the first Task Force meeting will be a revisit of the current status and discussion of interest by the various stakeholders. Staff currently plans to recommend that the Task Force Committee direct staff to hold a series of community workshops to get input and feedback from all sectors on where an innovation park should be (based on the recommendations adopted at the Nov 2012 City Council meeting). Though the details of any community workshops are subject to change at this time, it is probable that they would be hosted by the City and would include opportunities for all sectors and stakeholders to bring their views, values and input to the proverbial table.
More to come. Hope this helps.
Members:
Council: Rochelle Swanson, Lucas Frerichs
Planning Commission: Ananya Choudhuri, Rob Hofmann
BEDC: Steve Golemme, George Hague
[quote]1) Create an urban limit line by selling the northern halves of one or both of the properties with a conservation easement and sell the southern I-80 adjacent acreage “as is”. …
2) The City leads a successful Measure J/R vote for the entitlement of an innovation business park on the southern I-80 adjacent acreage while selling the northern acreage with a conservation easement. … sell the newly entitled land to the highest bidder for development …ut 2 acres under permanent conservation for every 1 acre developed.
3) As a variant to Option 2, the City leases the recently entitled, southern I-80 acreage while selling the northern acreage with a conservation easement. …
4) Do nothing and retain all options on the land. The City could continue to lease Leland and/or Howatt Ranch for farming or agricultural research…[/quote]
5) Break up the 391 acres into 20 20-acre parcels and lease them to organic and sustainable farmers. Use flexible terms that allow profit-sharing instead of a standard lease.
6) Develop a public park on the site, with community gardens, public paths and greenbelts, a botanical garden, and small leased areas for farm production, and a small campus area for studies of sustainable agriculture.
7) Re-establish native Valley Grassland habitat on the site. Develop an interpretive center for public education.
8) lease the whole property to a commercial vineyard to develop a Davis appellation wine label featuring the varietal grapes developed by UC Davis and Dr. Olmo. Share the profits with the vintner.
[quote]lease the whole property to a commercial vineyard to develop a Davis appellation wine label featuring the varietal grapes developed by UC Davis and Dr. Olmo. Share the profits with the vintner. [/quote]
More wine ! Now there is a win – win that I could believe in.