Month: November 2009

The purpose of Measure J was to give citizens the ultimate say any time the city expanded beyond its current boundaries or converted agricultural land into urban use.  The Measure has been used exactly twice and both times the proposals were resoundingly defeated.  First in 2005, the Covell Village proposal lost by a 60-40 margin.  And most recently in November of this year, the Wildhorse Ranch Proposal was defeated by an even larger 75-25 margin. 

While I may have seen merit in the most recent proposal, the voters had the ultimate say and they resoundingly said that now is not the time for a new peripheral development and they probably said now is not the time for more houses at all.  I do not see any tweaking of this process that would have changed the result.  The people spoke and Measure J may not have produced my preferred outcome, but it reflected the will of those who caste their votes in November.

On November 19, 2009, the Davis Senior Citizens Commission met in a special meeting, to discuss city staff’s proposed Senior Housing Strategy. Bob Wolcott, Principal Planner, Community Development Department, gave a fairly extensive presentation. During Public Comment, various members and supporters of the group California Healthy Aging (CHA) were also allowed to give full input, as did Bill Streng, one of the proposed Covell Village developers. What follows is my perception of what happened at that meeting. In bold lettering were the questions posed by city staff, for commission opinion and any consensus that could be arrived at by the commission as a whole.

I read David Greenwald’s opinion piece and the many comments about my proposal that we consider an early Measure J vote.  I appreciate David Greenwald’s offer to let me respond and start a new thread where I will be more involved in responding to people’s concerns. I won’t be able to cover all the issues raised in this reply, but I will try to be more involved in the debate here at the Vanguard.

I chaired Sheryl Freeman’s city council campaigns in 1996 and also in 1998 when she won.  I was involved with most of the major issues she addressed while she was on the council. We both were sick of the type of growth that occurred in the 1990s in Davis. Sheryl advanced a proposal that had an earlier vote on Measure J, but the citizen committee that drafted the final Measure J language had three votes on the council to adopt theirs as they had written it.   Sheryl ended up joining council members Wagstaff, Partansky and Forbes in support of that version and both of us put time into the subsequent campaign for Measure J.  We believed the final language had problems but was better than the status quo, and it would be reconsidered in ten years.

Kevin Wolf has put together a proposal that might put a second and competing Measure J vote on the ballot.  The competing measure would put projects to a vote at a far earlier stage.  The question is what Mr. Wolf’s intentions are at this point.  One possibility that he alludes to in a guest opinion piece published on a local blog, is that he is trying to make it easier for projects to pass a Measure J vote–an interesting goal given his opposition to the recent Measure J vote, Measure P.  The other possibility is that he is placing a competing Measure J vote on the ballot in order to kill Measure J.

Regardless of the actual intentions, this represents a serious effort to muck up the waters on what would have been clear sailing for a pure renewal of the measure that enjoys around 75% support, a similar level of support as the last project was voted down.

After many months of unexplained delay, city staff finally pronounced its verdict in regard to a proposed assisted living facility, Carlton Plaza Davis. It would be located next to Konditerei, the Davis Police Department and Davis Waste Removal. The site is currently zoned light industrial, so a zoning change to public institutional use would be required. Cathy Camacho, city staff planner, made a formal declaration at the November 12th Davis Senior Citizens Commission meeting. The city’s Department of Public Works and Davis Police Department believe the proposed assisted living facility is an incompatible use at that particular site. The city believes it is a wonderful project, just not at that locality.

However, here is the curious thing. The city’s staff report to the Davis Senior Citizens Commission states “Staff is providing project details on the proposed Carlton Senior Assisted Living Care Facility proposal for informational purposes. Staff is soliciting comments from the Commission regarding the proposed use, but is not recommending any formal action be taken by the Commission on this item. The project will be reviewed at public hearings before the Planning Commission on Dec. 16, 2009 and the City Council on Jan. 12, 2010.” Nowhere in the city staff report to the commission does it state opposition to this project. Rather it sounds as if city staff is soliciting the Senior Citizens Commission’s input for consideration before any decision is made.

It is strangely interesting that just two weeks after the city voters overwhelming voted down a highly innovative Measure J project, the council majority is pushing forward with a 27-unit project that has almost no green features.  That they did not approve the project on Tuesday night only delays the inevitable.  There were serious enough problems with the current proposal that they simply could not go forward.

The most controversial portion of the proposal reduced the long-established 50-foot riparian buffer zone along the Putah Creek Parkway down to 30 feet.  This went against the recommendation of the Open Space and Habitat commission and was seen by the council as going too far.  It also went against what the Staff Report acknowledges went against general plan requirements.

In June, the question of Senior Housing was launched onto the Davis radar with the help of a developer-created and controlled group, CHA (Choices for Healthy Aging).  As a result, the issue of Senior housing has been pushed to the fore.

The Council had originally agreed to create a special committee to the develop the senior housing strategy, however this process was suspended ostensibly due to a re-evaluation by the City administration of workloads and staffing commitments.  So instead, the staff is taking these proposals to the Senior Citizens and Social Services Commission.

Back on September 8, 2009, the Davis City Council unanimously adopted a resolution that supported the implementation of a road diet on the Fifth Street Corridor which would reduce the number of travel lanes from four to two and incorporate bike lanes.

Last night at the Senior Center, the city staff introduced its conceptual plans for implementing the design changes to the roadway and then sought public feedback on a variety of elements.