Enterprise Pushes For Senior Housing On the Covell Site

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Last night, the Davis Enterprise ran a full-1200 word front page special on the push by the Covell Partners to re-package their failed 2005 project as Senior Housing. The push which began with a new proposal before the HESC (Housing Element Steering Committee), continued with a letter writing campaign that eventually nullified the HESC workshop, and continued this fall with a number of handpicked Seniors coming before the city council asking for a senior housing facility at the site formerly known as Covell Village.

The Enterprise article features Janice Bridge, the former School Board Member, who has been on the fore of pushing for a senior housing project. Of course those with a fairly good memory will recall that Janice Bridge was one of the leaders of the Covell Village project as well, serving as Secretary of the group Neighbors for Covell–a very different project that did not offer the senior housing and scale-down options that just three years later Ms. Bridge is now pushing for. The argument made by Janice Bridge is that their 4000-square foot house is too big for them and they need a smaller house.

‘If you could move us old fogeys out of our house and into an age-appropriate space, then instead of creating a new development that is family-oriented that needs new parks and new schools, the kids could go to the parks and the schools that are being underutilized in our area,’ said Janice Bridge.

Bridge and her husband, Adam, live in a 4,000-square-foot home on B Street. The house served them and their three children well, but now that the kids are grown up and out, the house is too big.

‘I am sitting in a house that is 4,000 square feet,’ Bridge said. ‘For me, my home is not appropriate for the lifestyle I want to lead. This house should have lots of active kids running up and down the stairs like it did 20 years ago. I look around and all I see are more houses like this one.’

The Enterprise goes on to write that the Covell Village developers have been meeting with almost 600 people who are “curious about or interested in a plan to build a senior-oriented community north of Covell Boulevard between J Street and Pole Line Road.”

Interesting that it is not until about halfway through the article that the real agenda appears(although as soon as I saw the article’s headline last night, it was obvious where this was going).

The Enterprise continues:

The community would include ‘micro-neighborhoods,’ a care-continuum, services for seniors and recreation options for a healthier, more active lifestyle than many senior communities offer, according to Project Coordinator Lydia Delis-Schlosser.

The concept has not yet been submitted to the city, but the developers – who also proposed Covell Village on the site, a 1,864 housing unit project that voters rejected in 2005 – hope to submit something to the city soon.

‘If we’re comfortable with how we’re progressing with meeting the needs of the community, then we would like to submit a pre-application in about a year,’ Delis-Schlosser said.

According to this article, the plan includes about 800 units and will be built out over 10 years. Sounds reasonable, until you realize it is only on the southern-third of the property, something that does not appear to be mentioned in the article.

The Enterprise continues:

‘The biggest benefit to non-seniors is these big houses are opened up,’ said developer Bill Streng, one of the owners of the property. ‘My block used to have 20 kids, and now it only has four.’

The biggest benefit to seniors, Streng said, is a neighborhood that would have all their needs in one place. Seniors, like everyone else, have different needs and desires, and Streng said he and his partners want to address them all in one place.

‘This is something John (Whitcombe) and I want to do, aside from financial reasons, you want to have something to leave,’ said Streng, who is 82. ‘The more we study and the more we see, the more we want to do it.’

The problem with this article is that it once again appears to slant the article. The article does quote Elaine Roberts Musser (senior citizens advocate and Chair of the Senior Citizen’s Commission) a few times.

They bury her skepticism of the project until the very end of the article:

Good transportation is key for seniors, said Roberts Musser, so a senior development would have to include plenty of options – other than personal vehicles – for getting around.

But Roberts Musser would also like the City Council to consider how to pay for all this. The question is, will Davis be able to support a large, senior neighborhood?

‘Honestly, and this is personal, but my feeling is I would like to have us worry more about commercial development right now, whatever generates tax revenue,’ she said. ‘We’re so strapped right now. I’m not willing to build more residential when we really haven’t built up our tax revenue.’

The problem with this article is that it portrays quite heavily the perspective of Janice Bridge and the Covell Partners. However, there is a whole other side of the story that is either buried in the case of Elaine Roberts Musser or completely untold.

Back in November the Vanguard ran a story on this and suggested that many seniors are not interested in this kind of housing. Much of this push appears to be developer driven. Indeed, Janice Bridge is not a developer, but does anyone else find it interesting that one of the strongest advocates for Covell Village I is now the leading spokesperson again, this time as a citizen pushing for Senior Housing as a means to downsize?

The developers of Covell Village have suggested we need a seniors-only facility. As the Vanguard suggested in November, many seniors do not want to live in a seniors-only community. They enjoy a more mixed community where families with children and even students also live.

That thought was backed up with a slew of email received from senior readers of the Vanguard, many of whom whole heartedly agree.

The question is what type of housing would work best for seniors. Some have suggested instead of facility like an Eleanor Roosevelt Circle, a series of smaller condominiums and townhouses may be the best fit. An added advantage there might be that we could build a small amount over time which would serve the senior population.

The big issue here is that we are again facing the prospect of developer driven development. It is clear that the Covell Village partners are driving the discussion here and in so doing, we are not getting perhaps a clear picture of what seniors in this community actually want.

Thus my first suggestion would be to find out what seniors actually want. How many people are looking to downsize from their current homes? How many people would like to live in a Senior-only community? How many people would be willing to trade for a smaller existing home with another resident?

This type of inquiry should occur not at the behest of a developer, but rather with leadership from groups like the Senior Citizen’s Commission. Let us determine what the internal housing demand really is for seniors, what seniors really want, the numbers that we are really talking about, and the time frame that we are really looking at.

Unfortunately, once again, the Enterprise really only brings us one side of the story. They bring us the Janice Bridge story, which many have to view with skepticism given her past support for a very different Covell Village project. What would she have done had Covell Village I passed, pushed for a Senior Housing facility in the Northwest Quadrant?

The Enterprise could have interviewed others from the Senior Citizens Commission to give us a very perspective, perhaps someone like Tansey Thomas,a commissioner, would offer her a very different take. But unfortunately, we do not get that perspective.

For those who want to try to argue that this is a fair and balanced article, consider this, there was a total of 1269 words in the article only the last 79 words of the article expressed any kind of skepticism or alternative viewpoint to the dominant position. The only even remotely skeptical comments are buried at the end. That’s fair and balanced? That’s objective?

The Vanguard gives you the other side of the story here, talk to seniors, you find a variety of different perspectives on this issue, unfortunately we do not get to hear them in the Enterprise, maybe we will in the comment section of the Vanguard.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

Author

  • David Greenwald

    Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

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92 comments

  1. One more thought.One of the reasons why I opposed CV was that it literally tied up huge percentages of precious CC Commission and staff time for a project that I viewed as DOA. It mostly occupied city government for about 2 years. There was a real cost … for example, as the global warming debate heated up, nothing happened here. There was no excess CC or Commission or staff time to deal with the issue. Once CV failed in Nov 05, suddenly things started to happen on a range of other issues important to the city.Now, CV is going to do it to us again.There has to be a …loser's price… for what they did to the city up to Nov 05, and what is coming.

  2. Dear poster who has now had multiple post deleted:First, you are not a moderator therefore you do not get to decide what does and does not get posted on this blog.Second, if you cannot express yourself in manner that is more mature than an an 8 year old, then you do not get to register your dissent.The Vanguard has generally had an unwritten caveat that comments regarding public figures get more leeway here than comments regarding fellow members on the board. The rule is really in relation to the latter rather than former.You have two choices, you can register your dissent without the childish moniker or you can email the blogger.

  3. …In this case, clearly the Enterprise story is not fully balanced, nor is the Vanguard….I think you miss the point, I do not make an attempt to be balanced. I try to do four things primarily:1. Provide people with more information than they would get from the newspaper2. Cover the other side of the story3. Cover stories that the other papers do not cover4. Give my viewpoint on current issues and controversies in townThe newspaper claims to be impartial and unbiased and on multiple occasions I have argued that they do in fact take sides and most of the time it favors the developer/ more conservative side of issues. As a newspaper that is problematic. This is not a newspaper. This is a blog. I have always been up front about where I am coming from, but the views expressed here represent my viewpoint.The other advantage that the blog offers is that people can instantly respond. In some cases, they offer alternative perspectives. In others they add additional information. In still others, they have corrected errors or perceived errors in the main article. That dialogue is very valuable and it gives people a real sense of the issues facing Davis.That's what I offer this community and I stand behind it.

  4. …This is a blog. I have always been up front about where I am coming from, but the views expressed here represent my viewpoint….There is no confusion on this point. But given points 1-3, your objective is to be credible. If the information you are providing is MORE biased than the Enterprise, then, how are you MORE credible? As I stated previously, you don't combat bias with MORE bias, you combat it with more facts and more importantly more balance. Otherwise, you're still less credible than the Enterprise, which I don't think is your purpose as an information source. Unless, as I also stated, your only purpose is to draw in those who already blindly follow your viewpoint.Your position regarding yesterday's Enterprise, however, is well taken.

  5. I view it as me telling my side of the story. And I rely on my understanding of the situation, the issues, and my analytic ability to do it.I guess the question is: do you find value in editorials? Do you find value in magazines like the Nation? If you do, then this is the type of place where you want to get your information.

  6. BTW, I disagree with you on the Target issue.The way I see it, the EPA's position was that this is not a danger, there is no reason they can't lay the foundation.The community group said, wait a second, let's find out what is down there and then see what we need to do.The Enterprise basically took the EPA's view of that situation verbatim and gave lipservice to the community group.I said look, let's find out what's down there, I don't think the delay is going to throw off the schedule, let's be on the safe side, if there is no problem, then lay the foundation.I don't see how my position is more biased than the Enterprise's position, and they clearly took a stance.

  7. …I guess the question is: do you find value in editorials? Do you find value in magazines like the Nation? If you do, then this is the type of place where you want to get your information…I hear you. Where I see a distinction is when you're covering or …reporting… a previously unreported issue. Your obligations to objectivity, in my opinion, are greater when you're the first to cover the story. Excluding facts or failing to cover multiple angles of the story reveals an insecurity in your own position and a lack of faith in your readers' intelligence.In general, I like editorials. I don't like it disguised as reporting, and that is how you sign off your daily stories. Blogging is at its best when it's responding to stories or issues that are actively being covered. It contributes to declining media credibility when the line is blurred between reporting and editorializing. Obviously this is your blog and you're fit to run it how you wish. I'm also fit to point out weaknesses in it (for as long as you allow!). I just think that now there is still a vacuum for credible in-depth information about Davis issues.

  8. …I don't see how my position is more biased than the Enterprise's position, and they clearly took a stance….You're more biased in that they contacted the regulatory authority, you did not. That's the whole ballgame for me and a huge omission by you, IMO. You ONLY covered the local community group's perspective. They covered both, though not with equal weight. That defines more bias to me.But that's probably enough detour of the discussion…..

  9. I had the letter from the regulatory agency. I'm not convinced that the Enterprise did use the letter as well. What they quote is verbatim what was in the letter. Given when I got the information, and the fact that I ran the story on Monday, I was comfortable that I understood the EPA's position fairly well and do not believe that the Enterprise conveyed any better information than what I had access to.

  10. …I had the letter from the regulatory agency. I'm not convinced that the Enterprise did use the letter as well. What they quote is verbatim what was in the letter….That is a switch from your opinion the other day, which is fine. It wouldn't be the first time the Enterprise has done what you state either.But you weren't certain and you didn't contact them. Do you strive to achieve the Enterprise's standards or surpass them? Again IMO, contacting the EPA yourself would have been the most basic thing to do since you broke the story. If you were interested in where the story takes you and not so much where you intended to take the story, I would consider your blog a more credible source of information. You're a post-secondary graduate. Even in a blog, it's okay to be forthcoming with weaknesses in your own argument. It actually improves your credibility. Failing to conduct due diligence when breaking a story undermines it.

  11. …and finally how much of the Enterprise EPA article should have been dedicated to the …community group…? Given that the community group was essentially Pam Nieberg's letter and it was not clear whether it actually represented the views of FFOG, the Enterprise probably covered the story correctly. Perhaps you can remind us what Pam Nieberg's professional expertise is in the area of ground soil contamination(?).

  12. To the last post re whether or not my letter to EPA represented the FFSOG. Indeed it did. I brought this issue to the FFSOG at a meeting, as I always do, and it was abundantly clear that all of the FFSOG and the community members in attendance wanted the letter written and for this issue to be made public asap. The letter was sent to the FFSOG board and community members prior to going to EPA, the electeds, and the news media.My back ground is in working for many years in toxicological research at the university. In addition, though, with the roughly $200,000 in grants we have received from EPA to do this oversight work, we have hired a technical advisor who is an expert in this type of soil and grounwater contamination and in its clean-up. We rely heavily on his expertise.

  13. Can we separate the issue – senior housing needs – from the other detritus? I don't know Ms. Bridge but I do know that a person's bank account or home square footage should have no impact on the relative merit of their opinions. My spouse and I are 55 and planning for the future. We want to stay in Davis. We can't find suitable senior housing that would allow us to age in place. (and no, as former residents of an East Davis Stanley Davis home, they are not really suitable. the halls are narrow, the bathrooms tiny, and to refit them to ADA standards for wheelchairs would be cost prohibitive. We went so far as to get bids until we abandoned the idea because the Stanley Davis floorplans are not easily modified to ADA standards.)It would be great to survey people (and by people, I mean more than 600). We want a single-story floorplan (hard to find in Davis, lots of flex space and storage for the inevitable returning kids and eventually, for medical equipment, but we don't need formal living rooms and dining rooms. We will need garages for cars. When we can't drive, our caretaker will need somewhere to park. We're not interested in living in a neighborood of only seniors. And we are not interested in tiny spaces. We're sure that others have different needs for their golden years. We should ascertain what they are.Another approach is for any new housing to meet all ADA standards so that it can be used for families and/or seniors.The houses in Mace Ranch are mostly two story and not amenable.I'd like to see a discussion of these senior issues without it always reverting back to the anti/pro development issue.

  14. …In addition, though, with the roughly $200,000 in grants we have received from EPA to do this oversight work, we have hired a technical advisor who is an expert in this type of soil and grounwater contamination and in its clean-up…Now this is very interesting. DPD spends most of the original article setting up the case to discredit the same agency that is funding the technical expertise of the community group that is questioning the integrity of the EPA.

  15. …Now this is very interesting. DPD spends most of the original article setting up the case to discredit the same agency that is funding the technical expertise of the community group that is questioning the integrity of the EPA….In your opinion, has the EPA been effective under the Bush administration? Aggressive in tackling pollution and polluters under Bush? In short, is DPD wrong on this point?

  16. …In your opinion, has the EPA been effective under the Bush administration? Aggressive in tackling pollution and polluters under Bush? In short, is DPD wrong on this point?…The question is really, why would the EPA fund local technical expertise in something they are trying to hide. I'm sharp enough to know that of all the EPA superfund sites, this one may not be highest on the list for W.

  17. …The question is really, why would the EPA fund local technical expertise in something they are trying to hide….I doubt if they are trying to overtly hide it, they just aren't prioritizing or being aggressive with it. It's benign neglect rather than a conspiracy.Besides as I understand it, the two things are done independently, and the one decision was made long before the other.If the EPA can look like it's doing something without really doing anything, that's the best of all worlds.

  18. …Besides as I understand it, the two things are done independently, and the one decision was made long before the other….But this is the …Bush EPA…. Conspiracy flows from the top down. Don't make accusations or defend accusations you're not capable of verifying.

  19. …Bashing the Davis Enterprise nearly daily with your free ink sounds like an 8 year old whining everyday !…Last seven days, only one mention of the Davis Enterprise. How can that be?Previous seven days, only two mentions of the Davis Enterprise.Previous seven days, only two mentions of the Davis Enterprise, neither one of them critical.Previous seven days, one mention of the Davis Enterprise, and it was a positive mention.So in the month of December and the first three days of January, there is a grand total of six mentions of the Davis Enterprise and only three of those are critical relating to the two issues mentioned here–the Covell Village site and the EPA.That's in a month of coverage. Hardly as you describe near daily.That's three out of 45 postings over that period.

  20. …I doubt if they are trying to overtly hide it, they just aren't prioritizing or being aggressive with it. It's benign neglect rather than a conspiracy….And what does this exactly mean? Please answer why the EPA would fund a local level community group expertise to scrutinize something they're trying to hide? Whether it's from the top of the Federal food chain down or not, please explain this. If you cannot draw a direct connection, then do not attempt to connect dots that likely do not exist.

  21. …But this is the …Bush EPA…. Conspiracy flows from the top down. Don't make accusations or defend accusations you're not capable of verifying. …The question was NEVER answered:In your opinion, has the EPA been effective under the Bush administration? Aggressive in tackling pollution and polluters under Bush? In short, is DPD wrong on this point?

  22. …In your opinion, has the EPA been effective under the Bush administration? Aggressive in tackling pollution and polluters under Bush? In short, is DPD wrong on this point?…Comparatively speaking, no. Now answer my question. Why would they fund a local grassroots oversight group in an a politically active college town if, of the thousands of superfunds sites across the country, they had something to hide at this one?

  23. ……In your opinion, has the EPA been effective under the Bush administration? Aggressive in tackling pollution and polluters under Bush? In short, is DPD wrong on this point?……I'll also add that most of the Bush ineffectiveness resides with high-level policy issues. Do you claim that the Bush administration has tampered with Federal policy at site-specific superfund sites?

  24. One example is that the Bush administration ended the polluters pay portion of the superfund program. So that has taken away funding for the portion and shifted the burden onto the taxpayers. That's just one example of how the Bush administration has weakened superfund cleanup.Pam describes the money for the advisor as a grant, which leads me to believe it is a separate fund.Doesn't matter if they do provide money for advisers if the EPA is less aggressive in their enforcement of environmental laws.This is not limited to Davis, it's nationwide, it comes from the top and is passed down.You saw this in the initial article where this very employee, name escapes me, mentioned that the rules have changed under Bush.

  25. Sorry folks about getting back to the main subject, but having just looked over the many comments earlier, I noticed the posting (12:55pm) by Sue Greenwald. In light of Sue's recent strong advocacy for preserving commercial zoning within the city I find it a bit odd that Sue is recommending …good quality… condos which would require changing the commercial zoning to residential. If she is worried that the city might be running out of commercially zoned land, then why change the commercially zoned P,G and E to residential? I can understand why Sue (being a downtown resident) always advocating for downtown issues, but this seems to be a bit of a conflict of interest. It certainly contradicts her position on preserving commercially zoned land within the city.