This week, former Davis Mayor Mike Corbett submitted a letter to the Editor of the Enterprise that generated a good amount of controversy and has generated some discussion as well. Don’t get me wrong — some of the items in his laundry list of complaints going back to 2013 are concerning and troubling.
We long have been critical of the Cannery project — which is why the project was approved on a split 3-2 vote, and the CFD which was also approved on a 3-2 vote. Not mentioned among his complaints was that the original affordable housing plan counted granny flats that were not cost-controlled as part of their allotment.
We remain troubled by the BrightNight deal this year and the failure to fund roads and city infrastructure.
But overall what struck me was how detached the list of complaints is from what I think most people are worried about in 2020.
On Friday, a friend who does not live in Davis, a Black man, posted something on Facebook that was alarming. No one was able to reach him for hours. In the course of deciding what to do, we opted not to have the police do a wellness check out of concern for what might happen.
There is a robust conversation of shifting police resources to social services in this community — and personal experience this year shows we also need more resources for mental health crisis support.
As someone who lost a family member to COVID, the impacts of that remain a concern as the COVID numbers in Yolo County continue to climb. National news has reported that deaths from COVID now surpass the number of American deaths in all of World War II.
The economic slowdown is wreaking havoc on our downtown — many longtime businesses are gone and not coming back. Many people are having to cope without jobs, with reduced hours and pay, with the loss or reduction of government assistance over the next few months.
Students who were forced to sign early leases due to lack of vacancy, are now being forced to pay for living arrangements they do not need, due the cancellation of much of UCD’s in-person instruction. During a time when many cannot get the part-time jobs they once relied on, this is an additional economic hardship.
Parents of school age children are struggling right now to balance work and monitoring their children, as they attempt to distance learn.
The list that Mike Corbett put out does not compare to what I think are most people’s current day to day concerns here in the city of Davis.
In addition to these immediate concerns that many people in this community are facing — for a long time I have been warning about what I consider to be a huge looming crisis for this community — which is, How do we continue to provide high quality of life for the residents of Davis, as the city on the one hand faces fiscal shortfalls and on the other hand continues to price the middle class and middle tier out of this community?
A big problem that we have not addressed is the lack of any long term community vision. I would point out not only the slow play of the Downtown Plan and the long-expired General Plan, but also a coherent way to move forward. Why haven’t they finished the downtown plan? Why isn’t there a coherent way forward?
One of the things the recent discussion on the University Research Park made me realize is that we actually have no plan. Think about this — in the next 30 years, we are going to need to go from about 70,000 people to around 95,000, assuming about a one-percent growth rate.
We have effectively locked down most peripheral housing, so where do we put those people? Where is the housing going? What does this community look like in 30 years if we continue to grow at that rate?
By the same token, if our growth rate is slower, does that mean the community has fewer housing for families and workers? Does that mean Davis becomes even more unaffordable? Does that mean Davis becomes a retirement community?
We fight tooth and nail on affordable housing on every project while we fail to plan overall for how much affordable housing we need — where we can put it, and how does it gets built?
With proper planning on these fronts we can arrive at a shared vision for Davis, and a plan as to how to get there that can start to move away from the project-by-project battle and approval process.
Along similar lines, we should develop a 30-year plan for fiscal sustainability and economic development. We have been talking about economic development for years, and we are in the process of a contentious Measure J vote this year. What happens if that vote succeeds? What if it fails? What is our 30-year plan?
Meanwhile, we have under the best of circumstances suffered from a lack of retail sales base. What does our plan for the future look like there?
All of this relates to a long-term fiscal vision for Davis. How do we provide city services and maintain our infrastructure? What is the cost of doing so? Where is that money coming from — cost-savings, tax revenue and sales tax?
Along the lines of the long-term vision is a question about population trends. In recent years we have seen the growth in students and retired populations and the shrinking of the 30-55 age demographic. Those are the people who have the jobs and the families. Those are the customers of the brick and mortar retail businesses. I continue to worry about the ramifications for those trends.
Along similar lines we should be looking at jobs — where do people work? The university? The state? Do they have to commute to work? Are we creating enough non-university jobs?
Finally, all of this impacts our schools. We have slowly begun to shrink our parent population, because housing is not affordable or available for family-aged people—and neither are jobs that aren’t associated with the university available that enable people to live and work here.
My biggest concern along these lines is that this community is radically changing, and we have not taken stock or come to terms with the long-term demographic and economic trends — and how they will impact the fiscal health of our city and our schools and the overall community.
As a community we may not agree on the vision for the future. That’s fine. That’s why we have discussions and ultimately elections. My problem is that we are not even discussing the big picture here and putting these issues on the table for the voters to grapple with.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
What do you mean no long term vision? We have Measure J that has locked down the city limit for twenty years and yielded not one occupied bedroom to date. We are about to vote on renewing it with Measure D for another 10 years. That is a 30 year plan to do nothing.
Vote no on D.
If you put up a projection of house Davis fills its housing needs over the next 30 years you have a chance to make your case more clearly
David, that was indeed a very bad decision by the Council, and Mike’s letter actually highlights it in his third point, which I have bolded below. One possible solution to that mistake is for the current Council to enforce the provision on Page 90 of the Cannery Development Agreement that states, “The Cannery will be consistent with the City’s Affordable Housing Ordinance (18.05 of the Municipal Code). Should ultimate unit counts vary The Cannery projects Affordable Housing Requirement shall be increased or decreased accordingly.” I spoke Friday to a real estate broker who has informally/sporadically tracked the rents of the Cannery ADUs and the results of her research were that rents in excess of $2,000 per month were typical … which certainly is not “consistent with the City’s Affordable Housing Ordinance.”
I served on the CC from 2014 to 2018. I never voted on a measure to make ADUs exempt from the affordable. That had to be in the original DA which was negotiated before I came onto the CC. Therefore, the 2017 date is wrong, unless it is referring to some other action related to affordable housing (which I cannot remember).
And to correct something on this letter from another post, the DA allowed for sides to re-open the agreement to consider a CFD. The DA did not require it. The City Council at the time was under NO obligation to grant the request. I voted against it.
Thanks for the clarification on the CFD Robb.
I don’t know the answer to this (or at what point in the process this occurred), but I wonder what would have happened if the city said “no”, regarding the CFD.
And if it was that simple, why didn’t the other council members follow the “just say no” approach? Did they simply want to “stick it to” the new residents of The Cannery? (Somehow, I doubt that.)
A good amount of that controversy was based on words that I never saw [redacted point], but were judged controversial by those that censored those words.
David misses the point of Mike Corbett’s letter. My personal reading of the letter (and I could be wrong) is that the letter isn’t saying that the issues on the list are more important that today’s issues, but rather that if the City Council members can consistently get these past decisions so clearly wrong, how confident can we be that they will make wise decisions on the current issues?
My read as well . . . sans the redacted point, which I have no opinion on, because I can’t.
While I understand the point of the letter and Matt’s point here, the purpose of my piece was to lay out what I see as the critical issues now and moving forward that this community somehow needs to address.
David… out of the issues mentioned, only one seems to have gained much traction… predictably…
It’s a problem. Cannot have a discussion on the key points raised here because one person wants to go to war over the projected growth rate (which I have stated several times is flexible) rather than disucss moving forward how we plan for future growth.
Those are inter-related topics. And if one is flexible, so is the other.
But, I’m not “preventing” you from discussing that further (or anything else you’d like to discuss on here).
.
Maybe it is because I have the feeling that our society appears to be morphing into a dystopia, I am very aware of the amount of polarization in our every day lives. I realize it is my personal bias, but when I see things presented in “either/or” terms, which I see your comment above doing, I ask myself, Couldn’t that have been presented in “both/and” terms rather than “either/or” terms?
So let me use the format of David’s response above to say,
.
In my opinion that is “both/and.”
The 1% “growth cap” is just that – a “cap” (not a requirement).
The only requirements are those issued by SACOG. And, they ain’t 1% per year.
And even then, it’s not a requirement to “build”.
Egggsactly, I don’t know why people always seem to use 1% in their projections.
Worst case scenario? Prepare for the worst, expect the best?
The need to use a figure as a baseline assumption.
David, would there be any problem using the historical growth rate as the baseline assumption?
I would say that – per some of our previous discussions – it would be a mistake to pick a single number as though we know what the answer is. Rather I would suggest a range or several different baseline assumptions. SACOG, Historical, 1%, maybe .5 percent, all make sense to me as starting points to look at where we need to go over the long term.
Hello? Looks like David and Matt W are responding to my comment… would hope it was actually was a response to the one I was responding to… Keith O’s…
If I’m incorrect, let me know, and I’ll share what I believe the planning growth rate should be…
I’m a little disappointed that you are fixating on the exact percentage which can change and we can model various different iterations rather than the need to calculate what 30 years looks like and how we get there in the way that is least disruptive. In fact, I think both you and the other Ron both miss the need to do this exercise. And maybe we can back up a half step – what is the 30 year annual growth rate and how do we get from here to there. That’s why we have to fight each and every one of these projects. And it’s also why we are stucking arguing about affordable housing on two VMU’s in the last month whereas if we had already calculated how much affordable we needed and where it would go, we wouldn’t have to.
That’s exactly what you did in the article, above. It was highly misleading to do so, so I was just pointing out the actual facts.
Of course, SACOG requirements are subdivided into various income categories, as well. Which is probably why the criticism regarding The Cannery’s “granny units” being counted as Affordable housing is a concern.
As is the lack of Affordable housing at the University Research Park proposal, etc. By the way, if that developer can’t make that work, maybe he can sell or give the entire site to an Affordable housing developer, and possibly get himself a nice tax break for the latter.
Pick a different number. Create a model that calculates 30 year housing needs. And then plan for that. You’re trying to debate at ground level what needs to be a 30,000 foot consideration.
What’s the SACOG number, for the next 10 years?
And, how do the developments in the pipeline address that number? Do the megadorms count, for example?
Break it down for us – regarding what’s in the pipeline, vs. the SACOG requirements.
(I understand that multi-bedroom units count the same as single-bedroom or studio units, with “normal” apartments.) In other words, it’s “by the unit”.
Like I said – I’m not debating ground level here. Pick a number, justify it, model it out 30 years, use that.
I just did.
Actually, it’s not “my” number, so there’s nothing for me to “justify”. It’s already been justified.
And again, you’d have to compare that with what’s been already been approved or planned for (and will “count” toward that number).
And again, it’s not a “requirement to build”.
And, if you want SACOG to increase that housing number (the next time around), then approve DISC.
Because one of the things that SACOG considers (when setting its fair share growth requirements) is the number of local (projected) jobs.
SACOG’s allotment is 250 units per year or 500 units every two years which is roughly the size of Cannery. My purpose was to point to the need to project out what that looks like over a 30 year period and how we get there.
So assuming that’s correct, you’d have to compare that with what’s approved (or planned for), already.
I’d suggest not assuming what SACOG will allot the next time around. With the exception of understanding that the number would likely be larger than it otherwise would be, if DISC is approved.
Much of this is political in nature, and may very-well shift back. Last time, the number was lower. (I’m guessing that Newsom and Wiener’s plans are not working-out as they had hoped, due to Covid, the economic downturn, the declining birthrate, etc.).
SACOG does not consider land that’s not in the city, when coming up with those projections.
And again, it’s broken down by income level, so something like The Cannery isn’t going to address lower-income requirements.
I recall reading that California’s population growth rate has slowed significantly, so I dug-up this article (shortly before Covid and the economic downturn occurred):
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-21/california-population-continues-to-decline-with-state-emigration-a-major-factor
I suspect that it has slowed more than that, since then. And of course, there’s a shift away from cities, as a result of a permanent trend toward telecommuting.
As a result, Tahoe might have to “plan for growth”, but I doubt that they will very much. 😉 Regardless, that’s where the techies are moving, as well as the Napa area, etc. (Or at least, buying second homes in those places.) There’s lots of news articles regarding this, and it’s not just limited to California.
Paranoid, anyone?
Cautious is a better word. Do you have any idea how bad one of us would have felt if we called for a well check and it led to someone losing their life?
And of course by fixating on this narrow point, you miss the broader one: it is part of our consideration of how to address the issue. We ended up not calling the police.
Well, you don’t say what caused the concern, so I kind of glossed-over that.
Of course, if you didn’t call, I assume that the same concerns might have arisen (maybe even more so).
I’d probably call his family (first, depending upon the circumstances), if I knew who they were.
Did it turn out to be a non-issue?
It was a post that suggested suicidal thoughts.
So, what happened?
That is, in fact, a situation that police probably approach with heightened alert. Also depending upon the exact nature of the “suggested suicidal thoughts”.
There was a “murder/suicide” just last year, resulting in the death of a police officer in Davis. But, the perpetrator apparently wasn’t black.
Of course, we don’t know if all of that was “planned” (e.g., the suicide).
He posted later that he was ok. These are the type of situations where I don’t think the police do a particularly good job and I do think need to move toward alternative first responders.
I agree, and I think that most people do – possibly even the police themselves (for the most part).
How would you have felt if you didn’t do a welfare check and they died, having been alive when you didn’t call?
Majorly missing from your narrative is — did you have other options — such as, neighbors or family you called instead, or first? In which case, if you did so, is exactly what most of us would have done, and the not-calling-the-police-because-they-might-have-killed-him-because-he-was-black could be seen as gratuitous.
Of course, you didn’t mentioned what town he did live in. If it was Vallejo, I might not have called the cops either.
Alan… having spent ~ 2 years on a SP hotline… I was trained to, and got a good feel for judging ‘lethality’… dealt with the first question you posed, too many times… actually, when someone expresses ideations, they’re ‘asking’ for help… when they stop ‘asking’, often it means they’ve made a decision…
Your other questions are good, too… on a hot-line, we almost never knew what other ‘resources’ might be available… but if it was someone I knew well, I’d damn well mobilize them (other friends/neighbors), or myself, before I would call PD… not afraid of what the police would do, more afraid how the friend would ‘act out’, and feel pushed into making a fatal decision by their OWN hand… have heard many credible accounts of that…
WM, I hear ya . . .
. . . P.S. You didn’t mention race 😉
Alan… yeah… I wanted to forget about race… when on the hot-line, several times it felt like a race for time… oops, maybe you didn’t mean THAT race… I was thinking of the ‘race’ you alluded to first in your 9:37 A post… gets to judging ‘lethality’…
Altho’ am not recommending PD’s be ‘first responders’ for MH emergencies, I believe first responders (even PD and FD) should have at least 16-24 hours of training in MH/SP matters… San Mateo Co. had a great training program… mid 70’s… not quite ‘rocket science’ but the “de-escalation”/”learning how to show empathy” (if you haven’t acquired it naturally)/protecting the ‘client’ (and yourself, as one can ‘burn-out’ with TOO much empathy!), is a skill set that should be taught and used… PD/FD/EMT… I say that, being ‘burned out’ with a caller that I judged to be highly lethal… called their PD for a ‘welfare check’ … because I was about to move to Davis, and due to privacy/confidentiality rules/regs, I have no idea what the outcome was… I decided I could not do ‘hot-line’ again… drained me too much… said as an engineer who was/is prone to be analytical…
Not germane… PD had not been called for a “welfare” check…. apples and armadillos… the call was for “officer down”, while performing a traffic stop.
They are different, but both involved an apparently-suicidal person.
I am pretty sure that the police are concerned for their own safety (as well as the safety of the person making such threats, and those around him/her), when doing a welfare check on someone thought to be suicidal.
By the way, is Don (now) allowing you to initiate responses with me?
Note that I NEVER do so, with you these days.
That’s it guys – take a serious topic and turn it into a bunch of tiny little pieces on macro and micro aggressions……….(not that those aren’t real and important) …… it’s about being able to have a serious conversation and keep it on topic.
Hello! We’re heading into an election, not to mention a Covid induced fiscal calamity and there some extremely urgent issues before the community this election cycle – affecting the City and the residents of Davis.
This article was about Big Picture. It’s also about a town that grew at 2% population growth every year from 1950 onward. What do you think “paid” for and “paved the way” for our network of parks and bike paths and schools? Sorry, almost I forgot to give due credit to the the “home building industry” that dominated the cityscape and economy throughout the 20th century. Kind of like what the logging industry was to the economy of all those little mountain towns.
Well, here’s some news for you – that era is gone and the “seemingly” limitless border afforded by 10 square miles has hit its limit.
Little change like that – not worth talking about I guess. Now we must take stock of an economy built primarily on the back of a single employer – one not located in this city, not contributing anything to property taxes, not contributing anything to sales taxes from its purchases. Combine that with a city which built nothing in the intervening decades to accommodate and encourage new industries with well paying jobs that might otherwise sustain working families and serve to diversify the Davis economy.
It is any “wonder” the City is living on the equivalent of revenue fumes while its other peer, sister communities have somehow figured out how to build BOTH a University supportive housing stock AND create ample opportunities for COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL enterprises to help maintain a balanced and sustainable revenue stream to support municipal operations?
We’re supposed to take the topics seriously? My mistake, I’ve always thought of comments sections more as a bunch of drunk idiots sitting around a BBQ pit in lawn chairs. And to think, we’re supposed to try to SOLVE the problems of the City. Who knew?
What ever happened to climate change and sugary sodas?
Recycle bins?
Oh… you forgot plastic bags, and plastic straws…
Yeah, I yearn for the good old days where the big problems were things like plastic bags, plastic straws and sugary sodas. Not COVID and anarchists trying to take down our society.
Maybe we could get back on topic?… or maybe we can bicker about what the inflation rate should be? [Which is reflected in housing costs]
Actually, a national issue that will likely effect local realities… economic, mortgage interest rates, etc. Inflation hits the unemployed the hardest… and the ‘middle class’…
Record Federal deficits… ~ total GNP, by some accounts… ~ 45 years ago, interest rates were ~ 12-14% (BTW, one of the contexts for Prop 13)… more tax reductions, and more distributions of Federal/State funds to relieve those affected by the pandemic repercussions… and folk are arguing about precision of Davis growth rates?
Comical, and dangerous/ominous…
Oh, those are the issues we’re supposed to solve.
(Figured that I can respond to you, now.)
From the Public Policy Institute — projection from 2015
Growth rates have averaged less than 1 percent in each of the past 10 years, making this the slowest-growing period in state history.
By 2030, California’s population is projected to reach 44.1 million. Annual growth rates are expected to be just under 1 percent, similar to growth experienced in the first decade of this century.
The inland areas of California have experienced faster growth rates than the coastal areas for many decades, but coastal counties are still home to most of the state’s population. That pattern is projected to continue, with the Inland Empire, the Sacramento region, and the San Joaquin Valley projected to grow faster than other areas of the state.
California’s largest population group is young adults in their 20s. Between 2015 and 2030, these young adults will become middle aged, 35 to 44 years old. These are the ages at which adults typically get married, start families, and establish their own households. As a result, housing demand will rise.
——–
From the State Department of Finance, 2020:
The CA Department of Finance has revised growth projections downward since 2017. Current growth projection for Sacramento County, which reflects the region where we are located, shows an expected population growth from 2019 – 2050 at 21.1% (down by 10.7%) which works out to about 0.7% per year.
With about 24,600 households in Davis, a growth rate of 0.7% per year would require 173 houses a year. Just about 5,190 houses or equivalent in multi-family units in the next thirty years.
Includes Natomas, Elk Grove, Folsom, Rancho Cordova, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_County,_California
My point is that 0.7% annual housing growth seems to be a reasonable expectation based on current trends.
Not sure that I’d use Sacramento county as a “model”, given the growth patterns in the communities it encompasses. Or at least, not a desirable model.
But, it is good to know that growth is slowing there, as well. (By the way, is that figure pre, or post-Covid)?
Then what rate of growth would you suggest? The Sacramento metropolitan region is expected to grow in population and jobs. What rate of housing growth do you suggest the cities of Yolo County adopt for planning purposes, and what methodology would you be using in arriving at your percentage growth rate?
I already answered that, above. Some (including David) started complaining about my responses.
I assume that you’re on the verge of doing so, as well. (Or maybe, starting a “count”.)
I understand that Lucas is on the SACOG board, for what that’s worth. I’m not sure if that’s “good”, or “bad”, but I might suspect the latter (if anything).
So just use the SACOG numbers from 2021 – 2029 for future planning? Ok, I guess, if you’re willing to extrapolate those forward.
The RHNA numbers for Davis are 2,075 units by 2029.
That’s actually more than I listed. I came up with 5,190 units over thirty years (so, through about 2050) based on the data that I presented.
Not what I said.
If you’re going to do stuff like this, then maybe you shouldn’t be complaining about or deleting my responses (or otherwise making harassing remarks).
But, someone really should look into Lucas’ role regarding this, as well as Don Saylor’s. Maybe those guys aren’t the best to have on that board.
Then please repeat what you said. That would help us keep the conversation on track.
You’re too lazy to scroll up the page? I thought you didn’t like repetitive comments.
In any case, here’s one thing I suggested:
Ok. No Department of Finance projections. No SACOG numbers. No Public Policy Institute numbers. What methodology would you suggest for estimating a growth rate for Davis to use for planning purposes, and roughly what number (.5%, .7%, 1%? 0?) would you suggest be used as a general guide in planning for future growth of the city?
I’d suggest addressing SACOG’s numbers this time, as I already noted. Much of this is likely already approved.
For next time, I’d suggest at looking at who is on the SACOG board. Those guys have some explaining to do, in terms of the numbers (as well as the proposals that they fund – such as the “Mace Mess”.)
The number was much lower, last time.
And again, the allotment that’s most difficult to fulfill is the lower-income allotment. I’d suggest strengthening the city’s Affordable policies (as needed), to address that. (Instead, they’ve been weakening them.)
And again, I’d suggest not approving DISC, unless you want the number to be higher next time.
I can provide a gigantic list of cities that aren’t expanding their boundaries (and are still subject to similar requirements), if you’d like.
Personally, I think the state is going to have a difficult time, with some other communities. If I had to guess, I think some of those communities have more power and influence than Newsom and Wiener have. If Covid, declining birthrates, telecommuting, etc., doesn’t already do them in, regarding their plans.
SACOG RHNA numbers for West Sacramento: 9,471.
for Woodland: 3,087
Both cities have smaller populations than Davis.
FYI, the methodology is explained here: https://www.sacog.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/proposed_rhna_plan_2020-1-27_0.pdf?1588205260
They’re going to have influence over county numbers, as well.
But, maybe they don’t have explaining to do, in terms of the numbers. I just know that both of those guys are relatively supportive of growth, which makes me uncomfortable with their presence on the SACOG board.
By the way, do the megadorms “count”? Because I’ve heard that they may/may not. And if they don’t, the entire council has some explaining to do. (We already know that it’s by the unit, so multi-bedroom units “count” less than smaller units, for the same increase in population. There’s also some issue regarding development fees, related to that.)
Davis had already exceeded the previous SACOG numbers. Not sure, but I think that Sterling doesn’t count for the “previous” incarnation of requirements, or the “current” one.
But the truth is that NONE of this is ever addressed on here.
By the way, do those numbers (for Woodland and West Sacramento) exceed the .7 growth that you advocate for across-the-board, and has been projected for Sacramento county?
(Since it’s by the unit, and I’m not sure how many they have.)
Just wondering.
Also – if you know, can you break that down by “income category”, and possibly show what progress they’ve made on that (past or present)?
If Davis builds the housing they will come. The houses come first and then the people follow.
It’s not like Davis has people standing around in town waiting for housing to get built.
So building more housing will in itself cause the local Davis population to rise.
It’s like a self fulfilling prophecy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy
That ultimately is the bottom line.
Davis needs to provide its share of regional growth.
People are still stuck on the rate rather than my main point which was to model where that growth actually goes over a 30 year period. To me that’s the more interesting question that’s not getting discussion here.
Northwest quadrant for housing, along Chiles Road for commercial and retail, and eventually the Covell Village site.
You’ve got to establish a “rate”, before planning for it. We realize that you’re repeatedly trying to do so, here, for the purpose of creating an illusion of “pressure” to develop.
We know what the SACOG requirements are this time, and we (should) know how many of the current proposals should address them.
We know that SACOG cannot consider land outside of cities, when establishing requirements.
We know that there are lots of cities in California which aren’t expanding their boundaries, but which are subject to similar requirements. (Which may change, in the future, when Newsom and Wiener are out of office, growth slows further, etc.)
The more interesting thing might be how to meet the various income categories in SACOG requirements. And, how the city’s continued weakening of those requirements impacts this.
I meant to say, how many of the current proposals and sites within the city address them.
Because that’s ultimately what SACOG is limited to.
That’s probably why surrounding communities are “allocated” for more growth – they’ve already committed to it, beyond their current urban footprint.
Someone said something about a “self-fulfilling prophesy”.
Actually, we do. They are called “students” and “domestic workers” (to name 2 prominent groups). So the question instead is whether we are willing to welcome them to live in our community or are we asking them to leave?
So, to summarize….
1. How do we continue to provide high quality of life for the residents of Davis, as the city on the one hand faces fiscal shortfalls and on the other hand continues to price the middle class and middle tier out of this community?
Many residents seem unconcerned about the amenities they don’t personally use. Perhaps the city will have to raise user fees, if only to garner attention about the actual costs of amenities. Tax increases may be approaching the upper limit of what voters will tolerate. Economic development seems like an obvious answer, but Measure J is an impediment to actually fulfilling the goals of the planning process that we undertook a decade ago on that topic. As I’ve said before, it may be necessary for the city to initiate annexation and then entertain requests for proposals afterwards.
2. Why haven’t they finished the downtown plan? Why isn’t there a coherent way forward?
I have no idea. I lost interest in this a while ago when it appeared to become a consultant-driven process.
3. … in the next 30 years, we are going to need to go from about 70,000 people to around 95,000, assuming about a one-percent growth rate. We have effectively locked down most peripheral housing, so where do we put those people? Where is the housing going? What does this community look like in 30 years if we continue to grow at that rate?
Davis might uniquely somehow manage to find developers willing to spend more money to build housing as infill, charge less for it, and provide some large amount as affordable housing. Barring that magical occurrence, the answer is annexation.
4. If our growth rate is slower, does that mean the community has fewer housing for families and workers? Does that mean Davis becomes even more unaffordable? Does that mean Davis becomes a retirement community?
This is self-evident, since it is already occurring.
5. We fail to plan overall for how much affordable housing we need — where we can put it, and how does it get built?
It can’t be done in the current environment with the cost of housing construction and the lack of sites.
6. We have been talking about economic development for years, and we are in the process of a contentious Measure J vote this year. What happens if that vote succeeds? What if it fails? What is our 30-year plan?
The remaining site for economic development is Fifth Street. If the vote for DISC fails, my hope is that the developer will come back with a business-only proposal. There is no 30-year plan for economic development.
7. Meanwhile, we have under the best of circumstances suffered from a lack of retail sales base. What does our plan for the future look like there?
There is no plan for further retail development.
8. How do we provide city services and maintain our infrastructure? What is the cost of doing so? Where is that money coming from — cost-savings, tax revenue and sales tax?
Fees and property tax revenues as well as the three you mentioned.
9. Along similar lines we should be looking at jobs — where do people work? The university? The state? Do they have to commute to work?
In my opinion, the presence of the largest employer in the region will make it very hard for Davis to ever achieve a more ‘balanced’ jobs/housing ratio. This is a regional issue that IMO should primarily have transportation as a focus.
10. Are we creating enough non-university jobs?
Not sure who ‘we’ is, but I’d say: No.
11. Finally, all of this impacts our schools. [Question implied: how to deal with that?]
Any housing element should have a focus on starter and move-up housing.
All roads lead to Rome
and, eventually;
All conversations in the Vanguard comments sections lead to RO going back and forth with DS and DG over Davis housing minutiae.
It’s a wonderful world 😐
I don’t know – Don seems to be having a pretty good conversation with himself, at the moment.
Cuts down on conflict, that way.
Tomorrow: Back to whether or not protests are “violent”.
Depends on what the word “is”, is
Alan… yeah… I wanted to forget about race… when on the hot-line, several times it felt like a race… for time… oops, maybe you didn’t mean THAT race… I was thinking of the ‘race’ you alluded to first in your 9:37 A post… gets to judging ‘lethality’…
Altho’ am not recommending PD’s be ‘first responders’ for MH emergencies, I believe first responders (even PD and FD) should have at least 16-24 hours of training in MH/SP matters… San Mateo Co. SP had a great training program… mid 70’s… not quite ‘rocket science’ but the “de-escalation”/”learning how to show empathy” (if you haven’t acquired it naturally)/protecting the ‘client’ (and yourself, as one can ‘burn-out’ with TOO much empathy!), is a skill set that should be taught and used… PD/FD/EMT… I say that, being ‘burned out’ with a caller that I judged to be highly lethal… called their PD for a ‘welfare check’ … because I was about to move to Davis, and due to privacy/confidentiality rules/regs, I have no idea what the outcome was… I decided I could not do ‘hot-line’ again… drained me too much… said as an engineer who was/is prone to be analytical…
That’s a bizarre comparison. Worldwide COVID deaths at around 900K certainly outnumber the 400K American casualties in WWII, but U.S. COVID deaths are closer to 200K.
Worldwide casualties during WWII would make the comparison even dumber — the Soviet Union alone lost around 10M military personnel and another 15M civilians.
You been reading Fox again?
Nope, it looks like it came from a meme on an Impeach Trump Facebook page.
It seems they left out World War II because it didn’t fit the narrative.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/30/fact-check-us-covid-19-deaths-surpass-combat-fatalities-many-wars/5535450002/
Not to be insensitive to those suffering from Covid (which I realize is serious), but it seems to me that the vast majority of Covid deaths are not part of the same “cohort” that typically fight in wars.
So, I’m not sure why anyone would compare it to war casualties, unless they’re doing so for political purposes (one way or another).
In the boomers’ generation they used to teach those stats on lives lost in WWII – in high school and college – lest we forget the savagery of those regimes.
Fifty Million, plus or minus, total lost in WWII.
There is no way to compare that to Covid 19 as of today. Still the question of how many have died from Covid 19 who wouldn’t have had Trump performed better is a significant, albeit unknowable number, susceptible to the vagaries of speculation..
Just happened upon this:
https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article245472305.html
I love it, and I’m not surprised.
Seems to me that the big housing push is over, for a number of reasons. With only a limited amount of damage, to show for that effort.
Stick a fork in it. The tide is shifting, partly due to reasons that can’t be controlled.
Shifting in what way? You mean that we’re just not going to build much more housing and let housing prices to continue to rise through the roof? That’s naive. The fact that the two bills came within minutes of passage probably sets this up for easy passage early in the next session.
Shifting politically, economically (regarding Covid, economic conditions, telecommuting, etc.), and environmentally.
I’d put declining growth and birthrates under all of those categories.
If I had to guess which one will continue to “do in” Wiener and Newsom’s plans, it’s shifting economic conditions.
Housing prices will not reflect anything more than what supply and demand will support. Since we’re talking about California here, we are also referring to “competition” from within the state, and from out-of-state.
In my opinion, the days of big housing cost increases (both for-sale, and rental) are over.
I do believe that there’s bigger problems, regarding the capitalistic system. Then again, how would one compare the U.S. to say, Somalia?
Too early for declining birthrates to have an impact yet–the second largest generation is still in its home buying period.
It may be that the economic bubble is bursting with the pandemic and we’ll have to see how that plays out. I’m not making any predictions on that.
However, we still have a near term housing crisis that I don’t think is going to be relieved quickly, so that will keep the pressure on for a solution for a while.
The state growth rate has dramatically slowed, partly as a result of people leaving the state. As they are doing in cities, due to telecommuting.
It’s not up to any individual community to “solve” a “housing crisis” (however that’s defined). I tend to think of it more as an “affordability” crisis, for those who insist upon staying in an area where salaries are not keeping up with housing prices. (This is not the case, everywhere.) Even “locally”, if anyone wants a cheaper house, they can find one within about 7 miles of Davis (e.g., in “build everything Woodland”, for example).
But, it’s one reason I advocate against DISC. Demand is “flexible”, as well.
I would go even further than that, although I’m probably in the minority regarding this view.
Take some place like Marin. High housing prices are the way that our capitalistic society “determines” that a given locale is as “full” as the residents choose it to be, except for those people who can afford it. Wealthier people can ALWAYS find a place to live in such a locale – even if they don’t build a STICK of new housing.
(And quite often, that’s as full as it can or should realistically be.) Using Marin as an example again, I (for one) wouldn’t want them to screw-up their own county, to make it “cheaper” (assuming that would actually be the result in the first place).
Maybe that’s the most efficient way to actually accomplish that.
It is perhaps not the most “fair” system in the world, but it goes to the heart of capitalism. But it is one way that any given locale doesn’t try to house the “world’s population”.
If there weren’t consistently cheaper places to live, this would increasingly be a problem for less-wealthy people.
But, there are cheaper places (so far). Not all of which are hell-holes, either. Usually, with better salary/housing cost ratios.
That’s why people MOVE. That’s why (I’d estimate) about half the population of Davis moved FROM a more-expensive place, to begin with.
You could probably say that about the entire Sacramento region.
So when people start complaining about high housing prices in ANY given area, my first reaction is apparently not what some others advocate on here. Unlike them, I don’t feel that any given locale “owes” anyone anything, in terms of screwing-up its own plans (and limitations) to accommodate them.
And actually, let’s define this further.
We’re talking about people moving TO Davis, from other places. That’s what new development (primarily) accommodates, regardless of the locale we’re referring to.
And, those “hanging around” waiting for prices to get cheaper usually get further priced-out, by that new development.
If you want prices to stop rising, then stop supporting activities that increase “market demand”.
Alternatively, support efforts such as Affordable housing and rent control. (Despite the complete lack of discussion on here regarding this subject, statewide rent control was implemented for the first time in state history – as of January 1st of this year. It is a moderate measure, but nonetheless significant.)
As a side note, I know someone in the Bay Area who lives in a VERY desirable location, in a large rent-controlled apartment – who pays less than most new homeowners pay in annual taxes/fees alone!
We can have a discussion about the thesis of this article:
As I’ve written several times, I agree that we are missing the long term vision. But we don’t start the conversation with choosing a growth rate and then picking a set of projects that fit into projection.
We need to start with asking a set of questions that derive from the thesis:
– What is the composition that we want of this community? What type of diversity? How do we accommodate students? What are the ranges of statewide population growth that we need to plan for?
– To achieve that community composition, what is the range of target housing price? Given the projected UCD enrollment targets (which are basically out of our control), how much additional housing is needed under different scenarios of additional on campus housing?
– What is the jobs mix that supports that community composition under different scenarios? What’s the job mix that minimizes commuting and associated GHG emissions?
– What’s the mix of businesses, jobs and housing that move toward fiscal stability for the City in these scenarios?
– Then in the end we arrive at a set of preferred growth rates that are appropriate for the scenarios that we’ve constructed. We can then develop our general plan to accommodate these preferred scenarios.
My wife and I put forward one vision for Davis to focus on sustainable food development as an economic engine. I’m sure there’s other viable ideas. We need a forum that dives into these and formulates our economic plan rather than just bumbling along as we seem to be doing now. This is only likely to get worse
I’ll go further to say that one of the roots of this problem is the increasing opaqueness of City decision making. “Playing it safe” is the byword for City planning, just when that’s what is most likely to hurt us. That’s why we proposed a fix to the fundamental way decisions are made by the City. (See https://www.facebook.com/DavisCitizensforTransparentGovernment and https://www.change.org/p/city-of-davis-a-proposal-for-improving-city-of-davis-decision-making-cdfea38b-0754-4cd4-b068-dbdfa3a3ff9d)
Michael Corbett’s letter has a short list of the problems that have arisen from this opaqueness, but there’s a much longer list that shows how this has cost the City tens of millions of dollars. He points out symptoms of a much deeper problem that is impeding us from developing a long term vision.
It may seem like so much “inside baseball” to focus on the nuts and bolts of process, but its that process that is at the root of the crisis, as boring as that may seem.
Note: The key problem along with the God-blessed solution that will cure all of Davis’ ills, was redacted because it could not be fact checked. Or not. We’ll never know. We’ll just take the word of ‘editors’. The redacted text may have been the ‘missing tablet’ of Davis.
Why do you think that was the “key problem” when it wasn’t even true?
I like to judge for myself what’s “true” 😐
Vanguard: Fire is hot.
Miller: we’ll see about that
Alan… your 7:39 (and 8:16) post(s)… moi aussi, je d’accord… like the 15 minutes of the Nixon tapes, which were arguably ‘accidentally erased’… here there is a ‘teaser’ but no movie… talk about ‘transparency’… not… apparently submitted to two ‘media outlets’, but suppressed/redacted… guess journalists/reporters/editors are smarter than the rest of us…
Yet, on another thread, folk pour it all out even if it is untrue or libelous (VBM), and repeated, expounded on, here… go figure…
I remember Johnny Carson’s joke when the tapes were released and they discovered the erased sections which were described as having a “humm”: “The question is, who ran the Mazda across the . . . ”
A really low-quality joke, yet oddly remember it 1/2 a century later.