Staff Recommends 20 Acres Business Park, Ignores Elephant of Peripheral Development –
As we have written, Cannery Park is a tempting target for residential development, filled with pitfalls in terms of the city’s overall land use policy and residents’ reluctance to approve larger peripheral development.
While the Vanguard has called for the city to abandon efforts to change zoning at the Cannery site, at least until it can evaluate the ability of the city to develop other sites for business park purposes, so far the council has not gone that far.
First, council asked what the appropriate land use mix on the site was.
While city staff did considerable analysis, they point out that on October 26, [a different] City Council “directed staff to proceed with processing the Cannery Park application. After consideration of the recommendations set forth in the Business Park Land Strategy Report noted above, the City Council further directed that the business park component of the project be approximately 20 acres.”
However, staff also points out that a number of studies “also underscore the fact that there is limited land remaining in the city for either residential or business park development.”
Based on that, “Staff believes that this property has a unique opportunity to fulfill a portion of both the City’s housing and business park needs over the course of this decade and to serve as a ‘bridge’ between now and the next General Plan update cycle.”
Staff therefore recommends a 20-acre business park.
The problem with the staff analysis is that Cannery is the only parcel of land that is currently zoned and large enough for a sizable business park. Unfortunately, it is also the largest parcel of land within the city limits that could be re-zoned as residential and enable residential development without a Measure J/R vote. That makes it an inviting target to a developer that recognizes it has more to gain by waiting for the right council to re-zone.
However, the city needs business park land to execute the economic development that everyone believes is needed in the city.
Is Cannery a good site for a business park? Well, two decades ago it was a business. The city has since developed residentially, pitting the property with new neighbors. Moreover, it has drawbacks in terms of distance from a highway and other infrastructure problems.
Nevertheless, the alternatives may not be possible. The three listed areas are all peripheral and require a Measure J/R vote. Nishi is a small site and would be well-suited for this kind of development, were it not for huge infrastructure and logistical problems.
Right now it would produce huge problems with Richards Blvd should it be developed with eastern access. Western Access would require an expensive below-grade railroad crossing and cooperation from the University.
The other two sites are disasters, either east of Mace or in the Northwest Quadrant, both of which have been flash points for debate about development in the past and would be considered sprawl and growt- inducing.
With a Measure J/R vote, there is no assurance that anyone could develop at the alternative sites, and that creates considerable questionability about the viability of this plan.
This is why we suggest that the city attempt to either develop Cannery as a business park, or at the very least wait to re-zone until the issues involving alternative sites are sorted out.
Given the economy and housing market, “just what is the rush?” is a critical question that makes for issue two: “Timeliness of Application Review and Consideration.”
Staff writes, “A frequent comment heard at the Cannery Park outreach meetings, and appropriately posed by the City Council, is “Why should the City be processing the Cannery Park application now when there are entitled units in the pipeline?”
And then staff easily appears to debunk the issue, without acknowledging the real estate market component.
They write, “Based on the City Council established 1% housing growth cap, these entitled units, if constructed, will provide for a component of residential growth through 2013, with some project likely going beyond 2013. The time required evaluating and processing an application with the size and complexities of Cannery Park is considerable and takes several years, even under the smoothest of review processes.”
This is always staff explanation for why it has entitled properties well before they become ripe and why we are sitting with a huge backlog now.
The other issues are really technical issues, although the fiscal analysis is critical to the development of this and any site. Right now, of course, they are arguing that it is not yet time to do a fiscal analysis.
They write, “As the project description becomes more refined, staff anticipates conducting a more detailed fiscal analysis of the application and engaging with the Finance and Budget Commission in coming months. Commission review will include an initial update of underlying model assumptions, preceding a more detailed review of project specific results. The fiscal analysis would also continue to be refined in parallel with the EIR preparation, should Council direct undertaking these steps.”
Bottom line for me at least, there is nothing in this analysis that changes the basic nature of the problem here. We are taking out 100 acres of potential business sites without any degree of certainty that we can get them back.
At best, we are pushing development to the periphery where few in Davis want it. In short, it appears staff views Cannery as the possible wedge to open up east of Mace and the Northwest Quadrant, which would then weaken, at least potentially, resistance to new residential development out towards the causeway and northwest of town.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Just my personal view:
1) We need more businesses to generate sales tax revenue, not houses which are not needed especially in this abysmal market, and tend to be a drain on the city’s finances bc of the need for additional services.
2) This project must not be net fiscally negative for the city, in the current economic climate. The city is having to cut services as it is, bc of money problems.
3) This site has access issues, bc of being bounded by the railroad on one side and Pole Line Road and Covell on the other sides. Access with at grade or undercrossings will be extremely costly – which takes us back to concern #2.
4) Rezoning this site takes it out of commission for a large business park, forcing economic development onto the periphery – and houses will follow. Leap frog urban sprawl will be the result, rather than well planned expansion.
It would be nice if Davis could attract one large tech company to develop the entire Cannery site. I thought of this when I saw Steve Jobs’s presentation of Apple’s plans to build a new office/research facility in Cupertino ([url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M[/url]). The best thing about what Apple is doing on that 150 acre site is burying its parking underground. As a result, most of the 150 acres will remain native habitat; and they don’t need a hot zone tarmac on the surface.
[img]http://i1.phonearena.com/images/article/19432-image/Watch-Steve-Jobs-pitching-a-new-futuristic-Apple-HQ-in-front-of-Cupertino-City-Council.jpg[/img]
Even if we could attract a business like Apple, we would still face the ingress/egress issues on that site.
I have wondered for awhile what it would take to lower the rail line 20 to 25 feet from Anderson Road to Covell Blvd, so that an at grade crossing would be feasible? Has anyone ever heard of a city doing that?
“4) Rezoning this site takes it out of commission for a large business park, forcing economic development onto the periphery – and houses will follow. Leap frog urban sprawl will be the result, rather than well planned expansion.”
No actually not building houses on the edge results in leap frog development. Spring Lake is leap frog caused by Davis’ no growth policies. Ask anyone who lives there but works in Davis and has their kids in school here.
Davis doesn’t have a “no growth policy.” No developer has ever proposed a development like Spring Lake here since Mace Ranch, which the voters approved.
Toad: What did Spring Lake have to do with Davis’ growth policy? Nothing. If you want to assume elastic local demand for Davis homes, if Davis had approved more housing, Woodland would just be in even deeper fiscal trouble than it is now, with even more unsold homes. And remember, this is our financial partner for our historically most expensive capitol improvement project.
I meant to write: If you want to assume inelastic local demand for Davis homes, if Davis had approved more housing, Woodland would just be in even deeper fiscal trouble than it is now, with even more unsold homes.
David Greenwald: The last time this project came forward, I said exactly the same things as you have said above.
One thing to keep an eye on is the fiscal analysis. If staff has used any portion of the shopping center-sized commercial area to claim that the project has broken even, then we cannot claim that economic development can help solve the city’s budget problems.
In other words, if new commercial development is just off-setting the costs of new residential development, then we can’t even hope to improve our fiscal situation.
Elaine’s point 2) should be (and should [u]have[/u] been) a condition for any development that doesn’t project becoming a net fiscal positive within, say, 20 years. (P.S.: has anyone evaluated the new economics to find out what kind of development can best help out with our future water/sewage costs?)
Yet another elephant in this picture is our citizenry, upon whom we now can depend to vote down [u]any[/u] future attempts to develop housing.
If it’s true that “the city needs business park land to execute the economic development that everyone believes is needed in the city,” wouldn’t we be likely to approve a Measure J/R ballot for that purpose?
I just can’t understand all of our concern about the financial well-being of local housing developers–trying to keep them from stupidly moving forward in the face of these difficult economic times. They should know better than any of us how to time housing construction.
And, it’s a shame that folks pushing to bring in business don’t have any business-park developers champing at the bit. What’s the basis for thinking there’s any business demand that can’t be met by the acres of land along I-80 that’s been sitting idle for years?
So, we’ll keep hoping for businesses to relocate or to expand to a town that’s unable to offer affordable housing for their employees. We’ll keep ignoring the effect Davis housing practices (closing the door to younger families) have on our changing demographics.[quote]”If staff has used any portion of the shopping center-sized commercial area to claim that the project has broken even, then we cannot claim that economic development can help solve the city’s budget problems.”[/quote]Sue, why are you preemptively criticizing an analysis that could show if the project is “net neutral” for the city? It would be surprising if any analysis didn’t include the total project impacts. Davis has felt free to do all kinds of trade-offs with developers with an eye to making the overall development more acceptable.
The word “claim” makes it appear you view City staff as the enemy, much as David does:[quote]”…it appears staff views Cannery as the possible wedge to open up east of Mace and the Northwest Quadrant, which would then weaken, at least potentially, resistance to new residential development out towards the causeway and northwest of town.”[/quote]David, how do you know this new conspiracy theory to be accurate? How do you think staff benefits by trying to provide other than objective analysis, as flawed as it sometimes is?