Answer Depends on Whom You Ask
There is no simple and straightforward answer to the question of what happens to the pass-through agreement, now that redevelopment is on the brink of extinction in California. What appears clear, at least for right now, is that the county needs the money the city passes through to them through the redevelopment agency, and at least the current majority on the Board of Supervisors is opposed to developing between cities.
As of February 1, all assets and liabilities of an RDA will revert to a legally-designated Successor Agency. Davis recently voted to become the Successor Agency to its RDA.
The Successor Agency is charged with a variety of tasks to “wind down” the RDA and carrying out the duties and responsibilities, including preparing the Recognized Obligation Payment Schedule (ROPS), a document covering required payment obligations; creating a Redevelopment Obligation Retirement Fund to be used to receive property tax payments from the Auditor-Controller; control of all assets from the former RDA; and working with the Oversight Board to dispose of all RDA assets.
According to County Supervisor Jim Provenza, one of the first tasks the successor agency has is to pay their commitments and one of their first commitments is the pass-through agreement.
While there is a lot of dispute over the interpretation of the law, Jim Provenza believes that there is agreement between the Davis City Attorney and County Counsel that “the pass-through agreement is in force for the near future and that the redevelopment money can still be spent for these purposes.”
“In the near future it doesn’t affect the pass-through agreement,” he said.
“Eventually when everything is paid off and we get to a situation where there is no redevelopment money,” he continued, saying that money will revert back to the tax arrangements that existed prior to redevelopment agencies. “With regards to Davis, we believe we will be getting from taxes the same amount as we got from the pass-through agreement. So there would be no real change coming out of that.”
“In terms of what happens in the more distant future, I think it pretty much stays the same,” he continued. “I think it works well, we’ve decided as a county that the cities should make development decisions for development like houses and businesses, urban type development. They should make those decisions within their planning area.”
“We’ve also decided that we don’t want development between the cities, in the rural areas but we want development to be contained within the cities,” he said.
Supervisor Provenza believes, even after the pass-through agreement is exhausted because there is no more money to pass-through, that the county will not change its policies. Of course, that is a matter not up to one supervisor, and the current make-up of the board could change.
Supervisor Matt Rexroad, however, was also reassuring, stating that he “believes that based on the county’s history, even if the city of Davis fell out of the agreement, the focus of growth would remain within the cities.”
“I doubt you’ll see a rush by the Yolo County Board of Supervisors to start developing outside of municipalities,” Supervisor Rexroad told the Enterprise.
Fellow Davis representative on the Board of Supervisors Don Saylor spoke with the Enterprise, and while he believes the pass-through agreement remains in effect, he made no statement either way as to whether he agrees with the philosophy expressed by his colleagues.
“It’s our understanding that the successor agency to the redevelopment agency will continue to have obligations to the pass-through agreement amount to the county government,” Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor told the Enterprise. “So long as that remains in effect, the contract between the city and the county remains.”
The question is really how long that contract will remain.
Legislation introduced by Senator Alex Padilla would extend the mandatory dissolution date of RDAs from February 1, 2012 to April 15, 2012. However that bill is not likely to pass at this time.
County analysis argued, “With limited exceptions, the Dissolution Act expressly states that Enforceable Obligations to be paid by Successor Agencies do not include agreements, contracts or arrangements between Redevelopment Agencies (RDA) and its Sponsoring Community, and that such agreements, contracts or arrangements are invalid and not binding on Successor Agencies upon dissolution of the RDA.”
They added, “The County of Yolo is not the ‘sponsoring community’ of any existing Redevelopment Agency. It is plausible that some or all of the Pass-Through Agreement provisions may, in fact, be enforceable obligations. Analysis is ongoing on this point.”
Their analysis concludes, “As stated elsewhere, payments per the Pass-Through Agreements will continue to be made. There is no prohibition in the Act preventing the parties from negotiating principles or shared values for future operations.”
Davis City Manager Steve Pinkerton believes that the money just is not there for Davis to continue its redevelopment payments after the RDA is dissolved.
Moreover, no one knows for sure what is going to happen.
Mr. Pinkerton laid out some bleak scenarios, “One of the possible scenarios is the state’s going to say any county getting a pass-through in excess of what they would be getting without redevelopment, the state’s going to take that money.”
“There’s a theoretical possibility [of that happening],” and Mr. Pinkerton suggested that we are really in the early stages of any understanding of a very convoluted and poorly-written set of laws. He argued, “One of the critical questions is how the state is going to interpret our pass-through agreement…The state is going to do everything they can to maximize the dollars to them.”
His understanding of the way the law is written is that all of the money is going to the state. In theory, that money would go to the schools. But not for sure.
“Some of the more cynical legislators have said they want the schools to give us an extra $50 million in campaign donations and then we’ll make sure that money flows to the schools,” he told the Vanguard. He argued that the state will be the winner, not the schools, and “the county is definitely” not a winner in this scenario.
Bottom line is that if the state forces the money that has been going to the county through the pass-through agreement to go to the state, “the city would have a difficult time finding other funds to make the payment.”
He believes the money being paid to the county is at risk. There is plenty of legal backing to support the county getting the money, but “there is the risk that they could end up getting punished in this process.”
If the pass-through agreement goes, good will and commitment to smart-growth principles are all the City of Davis would have standing in the way of a long line of potentially opportunistic developers.
Remember, it was the developer Frank Ramos in the 1980s, whose development of Mace Ranch over the objections of the city, triggered the original pass-through agreement.
Right now, the Board of Supervisors seems content to allow the cities to determine their growth principles, but the real estate market has not yet fully recovered. It is a critical question about what happens when it does recover and exerts full pressure on the county to open up rural land for development.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]Legislation introduced by Senator Alex Padilla would extend the mandatory dissolution date of RDAs from February 1, 2012 to April 15, 2012. However that bill is not likely to pass at this time.[/quote]
How do you figure it is not likely to pass? The legislative expert that spoke at a recent City Council meeting didn’t seem to have that take on it…
[quote]His understanding of the way the law is written is that all of the money is going to the state. In theory that money would go to the schools. But not for sure.[/quote]
“In theory” is the important point. The state is doing whatever it can to gain control of funding streams, so that it can “skim off the top”. My guess is that much of the former RDA funds will never make it to the schools as promised…
Skim off the top? The state is already backfilling the money to the school districts that would be going to them if the RDA’s weren’t taking it. I realize that is a simplistic statement, but that is the only thing that makes this funding stream whole.
As I’ve said before, somebody needs to make a flow chart showing where the money goes (but the only one who I think could do it is Rich Rifkin):
county
cities
RDA
local school districts
county dept of education
special funding districts.
The pass-through funds would just be one arrow (city –>>county) in that flow chart.
Just as an aside, I was at another meeting the other day, and I saw the same pattern playing out – the state wanting to gain control over funding streams and take away local control in the area of programs serving seniors. “In theory” the rhetoric may sound good – let’s cut out administrative middle men and let the state hand the money directly out to whatever entity it is supposed to go to. But hearing from a legislative staffer, the reality is that when the state takes over a funding stream and away from local control, two things happen: 1) there is little oversight so the program is much less well run; 2) the state administrators take their “cut” of the pie, so that much of the money does not reach its appropriate destination…
Correction: …But hearing from a legislative staffer [b]and other members at the meeting[/b]…
Pass through is DOA but:
“Supervisor Matt Rexroad, however, was also reassuring, stating that he “believes that based on the county’s history, even if the city of Davis fell out of the agreement, the focus of growth would remain within the cities.’ “
This statement is consistent with Matt’s philosophy over time. So at least for the near term future, while demand for housing is low, it won’t make much difference.
The one place it would make sense however would be a joint development plan for the Cannery and Covell Village.
It seems to me that the current Board of Supervisors should and would support this type of policy:
“No fallow or agriculturally zoned land within one mile the nearest border of an incorporated city in Yolo County can be rezoned by the Board of Supervisors for a housing, commercial, industrial, mixed or other non-ag usage without a majority agreement of the city council of the most proximate city.
“No fallow or agriculturally zoned land one mile or more from the nearest border of an incorporated city in Yolo County can be rezoned by the Board of Supervisors for a housing, commercial, industrial, mixed or other non-ag usage without a majority agreement of the voters of Yolo County.”
If members of the city councils of Davis, Woodland, Winters and West Sacramento and the people who live in our county really care about preserving open space and or farm land, they should be pushing the Board of Supervisors right not to institute my proposal. Not doing so suggests that these elected officials and the people at large really don’t care so much about preserving ag land.
What is a terrible solution (as far as fairness goes) to keeping our county’s rural lands agricultural is to buy ag easements from the millionaires who who (and often do not farm) these properties. Some of these conservation easements are handing more taxpayer money over to the land owners for absolutely no public purpose than the farms are worth in the marketplace. What owner of a $1 million piece of farmland would turn down a $1.5 million conservation easement? And then Mr. Do-Good Farmer is quoted in a front-page news story, “My family is excited to have our farm remain a farm forever. Only in America, baby!” as he cashes his $1.5 million check. (Meanwhile, on the back page, the story that food stamps for poor families are being reduced appears, but no one realizes it would be far more equitable to give that $1.5 million to those who need it far more.)
Correction: “… pushing the Board of Supervisors right [b]now[/b] …”
[quote]”If the pass-through agreement goes, good will and commitment to smart-growth principles are all the City of Davis would have standing in the way of a long line of potentially opportunistic developers.”[/quote]Well, maybe at least one more thing–the County of Yolo government is [u]our[/u] government too.
That the county “required” the city to make this $1-million payment or face county-sanctioned developments on our city limits was an unseemly protection racket, even if it just was RDA play money.
That county leaders are making the point that we somehow could still be obligated to pay because of the agreement (even though the funds won’t be coming from the state to “pass through”) just starts a list of recall candidates.
And, even our own Don Saylor observes that the city “will continue to have obligations to the pass-through agreement amount to the county government…the contract between the city and the county remains” instead of talking about how he’ll promptly take the lead in dissolving the payment requirement for Davis.
How embarrassing.
Just Saying I think you are wrong. Saylor will not dirty his hands he will let the City of Davis kill it to save the city money. He doesn’t need to do anything but wait.
The real question remains to see if you could get the County to approve development on the border. Covell-Cannery will be the test case because it makes sense to plan them together.
Another question remains does this make measure j moot?
“No fallow or agriculturally zoned land within one mile the nearest border of an incorporated city in Yolo County can be rezoned by the Board of Supervisors for a housing, commercial, industrial, mixed or other non-ag usage without a majority agreement of the city council of the most proximate city. “
Why would they want to pass such a thing? They already have the power to defer to the cities if they choose. Also lands within one mile of an incorporated city are not rural.
[i]”Why would they want to pass such a thing?”[/i]
I think Matt Rexroad would vote yes, because he has said he thinks the 4 cities should be able to control the growth on their borders. I think Duane Chamberlain would vote yes, because he has said he wants to protect and preserve farmable land. I think Jim Provenza would vote yes, because he has said he believes in land, people and local control.
[img]http://jimprovenza.com/images/Prov_LawnSign.jpg[/img]
[i]”They already have the power to defer to the cities if they choose.”[/i]
Yet passing an ordinance (which shares power with the cities when the development in question abuts a city) fits with the values (see above) of three of the five current members of the Board. Without such fixed protections, later Boards could approve another Mace Ranch situation. This would stop that.
[i]”Also lands within one mile of an incorporated city are not rural.”[/i]
WTF? Almost all the land which abuts Davis is rural and agricultural. Go a hundred yards north of Sandpiper Lane and it is rural. Walk 50 yards west of Oyster Bay Avenue and it is rural. Look 40 yards south of Rosario Street and it is rural. Hop, skip and jump 100 yards east of Rockwell Drive and it is rural. The only real exceptions on the borders of Davis are UC Davis and the small number of urbanized unincorporated developments (Willowbank, El Macero, etc.).
Mr.Toad said . . .
[i]”Another question remains does this make measure j moot?”[/i]
How and/or why would it make Measure J moot? Any development on the periphery of the City of Davis will need to contract with the City for water and sewer. The City would be highly unlikely to provide such services without annexation. Annexation and a Measure J vote would be hard to pry apart.
[i]”Any development on the periphery of the City of Davis will need to contract with the City for water and sewer.”[/i]
Not so.
Say we are talking about a housing development: say 500 new homes on 500 acres of county land now zoned for agriculture. That land would have more than enough water from Clear Lake and the Indian Valley Reservoir by way of the YCFCWCD.* The water might have to be treated to be potable, but that is no big deal.
As far as sewage goes, each parcel might have to have a septic system. As long as the home sites are not too small, that wold not be too difficult. An alternative to that is a larger septic system into which the waste flows from multiple homes ([url]http://septic.umn.edu/factsheets/multihousesystems/index.htm[/url]). It might be the case that 500 houses could require only 50 septic systems.
*To the best of my knowledge, when farmland in Yolo County is urbanized, it does not lose its water rights ([url]http://www.ycfcwcd.org/documents/R&R2003.pdf[/url]).
We could better be described as part of an urban-rural continuum. Additionally our proximity to Sacramento effects how rural we are in reality. Drawing a hard line at the edge of Davis, a community with a high population density and saying beyond this point is rural, something many in this county would favor, denies the existence of development pressures.
I googled rural, it is an interesting search because rural is not something simple to define.
Even if a majority of Supervisors would not want development next to cities that are opposed to the development they are unlikely to codify this philosophy into law. Government bodies do not usually give away such powers.
Of course this would raise the issue of Davis having veto power over development at UC Davis something the University of California would rightfully oppose.
“…the county needs the money the city passes through to them through the redevelopment agency, and at least the current majority on the Board of Supervisors is opposed to developing between cities.”
Let the “Chess Game” begin. Here are the “Rules”:
(1) “Block” Cannery Park;
(2) “Block” the Pass-Through Agreement;
(3) “Push Like Hell” for the Surface Water Project (no water,
no development); and,
(4) “Crown” Covell Village
Steve, your paranoia is showing.
The company I work for provides small business financing and has covered all the underserved territories in California since inception about 25 years ago. One area we focused on was Ventura county… the area north of LA and south of Santa Barbara. What used to be exclusively orange groves and cropland has been quite developed over the last two decades.
This reminds me of one thing we seem to fail to notice… how development and population density in the state tends to build out from waterfront and follows major freeways/roads. When you drive east of highway 101 in Ventura County, it is almost all still farmland.
In my view, this is the opportunity for an agreement with the county and city for accomodating a reasonable growth strategy and protecting ag land. We don’t have waterfront to deal with, but we do have major freeways and roadways. We should loosen up on development of the I-80 corridor and also to a lesser degree highway 113.
Jeff, why looser on the I-80 corridor than on Highway 113? Virtually all of Davis’ frontage on I-80 is already fully developed.
Better yet, just build up Road 102 until Davis merges with Woodland, and then we can share services.
I urge the board of supervisors to give serious consideration to Rich’s proposal, or look at the Solano County Orderly Growth Initiative that has been popular with voters there which restricts growth to the existing cities.
[i]”Drawing a hard line at the edge of Davis, a community with a high population density and saying beyond this point is rural, something many in this county would favor, denies the existence of development pressures.”[/i]
The line does not prevent development. The line is about letting people who will be affected by changes in land use have a say over such changes.
Take this example: Say the County approves the construction of an automotive raceway and rock concert venue on the county land immediately west of Stonegate. None of the supervisors lives in Stonegate. They would not be affected by it. Only one of the four–Mr. Saylor–represents the residents of Stonegate. But the people who live west of Lake Blvd would most certainly be affected by it. Their quality of life would be degraded by the noise and dust and so on. Does it not seem reasonable to afford the people of Davis (or at least the City Council people elected to represent the people of Davis) a voice in such a change in land use?
Nothing I propose would prohibit peripheral development. The idea that the incorporated cities should have a say in what urbanizising projects the county approves on their borders–by way of a majority vote of their city councils–is based on the reasonable notion that such projects, inevitably, will impose some costs on the cities themselves and on the people who reside in those cities. They very well may impose benefits, too. As such, each city council could weigh the costs and benefits and decide what is best for them.
The idea that remote development–that is, urbanization more than a mile from any of the 4 cities–should be put to a vote of the people of Yolo County is based on the notion that any such projects have the potential to change the pastoral or agricultural character of rural Yolo County and that keeping such lands agricultural and or pastoral is a stronly held value of most county residents. It is also based on the notion that elected officials, whose campaigns for office are funded by developers and other private parties, are easily corruptible and that we cannot really trust them to uphold the values of the people of our county.
That said, the people very well might at some point think the benefits of such a change in zoning–say urbanizing more land around Dunnigan and I-5–brings more benefits than costs and they will support it.
[i]”Jeff, why looser on the I-80 corridor than on Highway 113? Virtually all of Davis’ frontage on I-80 is already fully developed.”[/i]
Matt, there is the Nishi property. Also, what about all the unincorporated land east of Mace on either side of the freeway.
I could support more commercial development around HW 113. However, this is not a highway busy with traffic.
It seems that we will begin to face more encroachment challenges from Solano county. At what point will we hear about a big development project around Pedrick and I-80?
The Nishi property is not suitable for development.
Jeff Boone said . . .
[i]”Matt, there is the Nishi property. Also, what about all the unincorporated land east of Mace on either side of the freeway.
I could support more commercial development around HW 113. However, this is not a highway busy with traffic.
It seems that we will begin to face more encroachment challenges from Solano county. At what point will we hear about a big development project around Pedrick and I-80?”[/i]
Jeff, I agree with David to a certain extent. Nishi’s development fate will be as a part of the UCD Innovation Hub if it gets developed at all. The timing of that will probably coincide with UCD building a new multi-story parking garage just to the east of the Hyatt Place. The ramp up to the 2nd floor of such a garage (if located on the edge of the garage rather than the center) could then be extended over the railroad tracks to give vehicle access to the site from the campus. The only housing that would be part of such a development would likely be for the workers at the Innovation Hub, and possibly some apartment style dormitory space.
Regarding the unincorporated land east of Mace on either side of the freeway, Angelo Tsakopoulis owns all the land on the south side, and he wants that to be pretty much all housing. Given the flood plain issues of all of that land, the Howatt Ranch (owned by the City) would be a very good relocation spot for the PG&E yard, but PG&E has shown no inclination to get up off its Davis location. The land between Ikedas and the Howatt Ranch has been talked about as a location of a solar farm by the owners. Bottom-line with a Jobs/Housing ratio of 1.02 (1.5 is considered the lowest for a healthy self-sustsining city like Davis) we are already “housing rich” so targeting that unincorporated land east of Mace on either side of I-80 for jobs creation would seem to make a whole lot more sense than for housing.
Bottom-line there really isn’t much available in Yolo County along I-80.
The Pedrick and I-80 corner is just over 6 miles from City Hall. Silverlake on Road 102 in Woodland is just over 7 miles from City Hall. I would expect a development at Pedrick and I-80 to have the same impact on life in Davis that Silverlake has had . . . virtually none.
Matt: Why would UCD be interested in Nishi when the property would require some sort of below grade railroad crossing to even be able to access it? There would seem to be much better locations from their perspective.
David, Union Pacific more than likely will not allow a below grade crossing. It will have to be an overpass crossing.
If UCD gets a viable proposal for a node of its Innovation Hub for private land adjacent to their campus, why wouldn’t they listen?
Which better locations?
[b]Dave:[/b] [i]”Why would UCD be interested in Nishi when the property would require some sort of below grade railroad crossing to even be able to access it?”[/i]
Matt specifically answered that question before you posed it:
[b]Matt:[/b] [i]”The ramp up to the 2nd floor of such a garage (if located on the edge of the garage rather than the center) could then be extended [u]over the railroad tracks to give vehicle access to the (Nishi) site[/u] from the campus.”[/i]
The owners of the Nishi site–Norcal, the same company which now owns the Wildhorse Ranch site–have told me they want to primarily develop Nishi into housing–I think they said multi-story condomiumns designed for couples and individuals from age 50 and up who no longer have minor children living with them. They think these residents would be happy with pedestrian and bicyle access into town by way of the bike path which goes to Aggie Village and with automobile access by way of an overpass that arrives on the west side of the Solano Park apartments and enters Davis at First and A Streets.
[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-iCrgpX1jNM/S8uwSNzZ0AI/AAAAAAAAAag/ycHGyrWEgA8/s1600/nishi.bmp[/img]
Note that where cars pass through Solano Park, they could also turn left at Old Davis Road and access I-80 past the Mondavi Center.
To me, it is far from obvious that this site, sandwiched between Interstate 80 and a very busy rail line, is ideal for housing. I would think it will be loud and it would have bad air.
But that said, insofar as one goal in Davis is to enliven the downtown, to make the events and businesses of downtown walkable to more people, this plan would accomplish that.
Also, housing at Nishi would effectively be “infill,” but unlike most other dense, infill projects, I don’t think it would cause any real problems for its neighbors (such as the Simmons Ranch project likely will).
Although I would not want to live there, I don’t think the city council should reject it because they don’t think living between a railroad and a freeway–much like Olive Drive residents now live–is ideal. That decision should be left up to the property owners and their prospective tenants or condo buyers.
If the council rejects what Norcal wants or voters of Davis in a Measure R vote reject it later, I think there are more reasonable things to base that denial on:
1. Maybe it would work better for everyone as a commercial* or light-industrial project; or
2. Maybe the pedestrian and bike or auto connections seem infeasible; or
3. Maybe the finances are such that the Norcal idea will impose more costs on Davis than the money coming in from the project would provide.
*I also don’t think Nishi–once considered for The Gateway Project–makes much sense as a commercial development. Ingress and Egress will be too tough for that. And even though it is close to downtown, I don’t think any shopper whose destination is a hypothetical retailer at the Nishi site would next go downtown to shop or eat. The connections between the two for shoppers, in my opinion, would always be too cumbersome, save for people who are bicycling to where they are shopping.
Well said Rich. With an already low Jobs-Housing ratio of 1.02, putting all housing on the Nishi site makes very little sense if Davis is to be a self-sustaining economic entity. Nishi is an ideal place to be improving the Jobs-Housing ratio not making it worse. In my opinion, that reality will be the key driver in any Measure J/R vote on the Nishi site.
“The Nishi property is not suitable for development.”
There are a lot of smart people that have an entirely different opinion.
DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez for 1 more week)
[quote]”The Nishi property is not suitable for development.”[/quote]What an odd, yet definite, assertion. Short for sure. With not even the tiniest attempt to support it. In fact, the property was one of three finalist sites being considered for development when the Feds were selecting the headquarters that ended up at 5th & G.
Wish to expand a little, David?
Steve, I’m horrible at chess. Perhaps you can explain the reasoning underlying your “Rules”; I’m not following them at all. Most of the people blocking ConAgra are also blocking the surface water project and they’re most certainly blocking CV. As for the pass through agreement, who the heck is blocking it? And why isn’t Harrington going apeshit over all your “blocking” talk?
DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez for 1 more week)
Matt, are you suggesting there’s a housing/jobs imbalance due to too many houses? And are you taking the student housing needs into account?
DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez for 1 more week)
Michael Bisch aka Downtown Julie Brown,
Re: your assertion that erstwhile city council man Michael Harrington, no known relation to former buidling super on One Day at a Time, Pat Harrington or Poker superstar Dan Harrington:
I wonder if apes, when they see a lady going apes**t on a city bus ([url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksEzm1Kudw&feature=fvst[/url]), wonder, “Why the eff is that human going apesh*t”?
“With not even the tiniest attempt to support it. “
I have written on it extensively on multiple occasions so that is not a fair indictment. There are two huge problems, the first is the access point would be Richards which is of course already extremely congested. The alternative would be a campus-only access point that would require a grade-separated crossing the same grade-separated crossing that we cannot afford on the other side of Olive Dr. It’s a small property, it’s largely inaccessible and therefore, it is in my view unsuitable for development though it will always look alluring. It’s also outside of the city and zone ag, so it would require a Measure J vote – and good luck getting that.
From Steve:
[i]Let the “Chess Game” begin.
Here are the “Rules”:
(1) “Block” Cannery Park;
(2) “Block” the Pass-Through Agreement;
(3) “Push Like Hell” for the Surface Water Project (no water, no development); and,
(4) “Crown” Covell Village[/i]
1. convert Cannery Park to housing zoning.
2. cancel the pass-through agreement? Doesn’t matter for this scenario.
3. Peripheral Innovation Task Force concludes there is no longer sufficient commercial zoning with the loss of the remaining large parcel.
4. BEDC agrees, pushes for rezoning of peripheral property. Cites sales tax leakage, lack of commercial “shovel-ready” properties.
5. annex, rezone Mace curve for business park, retail.
6. houses never actually get built on cannery property due to economic conditions.
Michael Bisch aka DT Businessman:
[i]”Matt, are you suggesting there’s a housing/jobs imbalance due to too many houses? And are you taking the student housing needs into account?”[/i]
Michael, In my opinion the jobs/housing balance as reported in Table 10 of the September 2007 [i]BAE Davis General Plan Housing Element Update Needs Assessment Background Report[/i] is what it is because of [i]both[/i] 1) a failure over the past 20 years to bring to Davis as many new jobs as new housing units, and 2) the significant impact of student housing needs on the calculation of the ratio.
Table 13 of the same report shows that only 45% of the 25,269 housholds in Davis are Single Family residences. Another 10% are Condominiums. The remaining 55% are apartments of various numbers of units.
In a study of the UC Davis population in 2002, 23 percent of students lived on campus and 57 percent resided in Davis. The remaining 20 percent commuted from elsewhere, primarily from locations in Sacramento County, Solano County, and other Yolo County locations. That means that approximately 5,800 students were (at that time) housed on campus in residence halls and/or apartment units. The remaining 16,300 students residing in the Davis area find housing within the City. A substantial portion of those students work part-time or even full-time, and their employment is included in the 35,427 jobs included in the 1.05 Jobs:Employed Residents ratio. The way part-time jobs are handled is described as follows, [i]Based on employment figures from UC Davis, the University employed 17,183 full-time employees and 10,633 part-time employees in the Fall of 2005. BAE treated all part-time employees as half-time employment, resulting in a total of 22,500 University employees for 2005.[/i]
So bottom-line, the answers to your two questions are “Yes” and “Yes.”
Michael to be crystal clear, I am not against adding new housing to Davis, but any added housing needs to follow the addition of new jobs to Davis. The new employees who fill those new jobs will definitely need housing. Right now we have significant inventory of homes for sale, apartments for rent, and entitlements granted for new houses that have not as yet been built. Those three factors will provide homes for a certain number of new employees coming to Davis for new jobs, but as those inventories decrease, new housing will need to be provided.
I do favor adding new housing to Davis in the category that has been historically insufficient here. We need more apartments, duplexes and quad-plexes, mobile units. We need housing for the people who live here that work in our small businesses, who work on campus in support staff positions, and for the students who can’t afford the pricing at West Village. Our inventory of apartments for rent is not sufficient. Projects which are primarily single-family homes should be lower priority than those that provide higher-density lower-cost housing. I urge the city to abandon their attempts at affordable housing and instead simply seek to encourage more apartments. The university is not going to provide what is needed.
Matt, wrong answer. Don, wins the Cracker Jack prize. There is a tremendous shortage of high-density housing which is forcing high density housing demand into SFRs. Which in turn chases young working families out of Davis due to insufficient supply of housing suitable to their needs. I’m surprised this is in dispute. This in turn leads to what I’ve decide to call the “Davis Paradox”. We have a very high percentage of the Davis work force commuting here to work (I’m guessing 50% or so across the spectrum of UCD, City, and private sector). Meanwhile, we have a high percentage of Davis residents communting to high paying jobs in other communities because we don’t generate enough high paying jobs here (25%?). All the while we claim to be greenhouse emission reduction champions.
DT Businessman (aka Julie Brown, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez for 1 more week)
Meanwhile, the people who work for me and live in Davis are seeing their rents increase year after year.
I await the daring developer who comes forward with a proposal for high-density housing that they aren’t trying to sell by greenwashing it. Just affordable housing in reasonable quantity. Put [i]that[/i] to a Measure J vote.
DT Businessman said . . .
[i]”Matt, wrong answer. Don, wins the Cracker Jack prize. There is a tremendous shortage of high-density housing which is forcing high density housing demand into SFRs.”[/i]
Michael, we actually were all saying the same thing, only from different angles. What I said was that UCD at 5,800 students housed on campus (23% of 25,200 students at the time) is short 4,300 students short of their committed goal of 40%. At 2.5 students per housing unit that means the University needs to add over 1,700 housing units to support a 25,000 student population. Since UCD has already topped 30,000 students and is headed quickly to 35,000 according to Mrs. Katehi’s plan, that 1,700 housing units jumps to 3,300 when you add 40% support of the 10,000 students above 25,000.
A quick step in that direction would be building two 8-9 story highrise apartment-layout dormitories on the A Street Intramural Field just south of Toomey Field. The students who live there would be restricted by UCD to not have an automobile during the academic year. The resultant infusion of business into the west portion of Downtown would be huge.
UC Davis stepping up to do its part to support its own students would free up those SFRs for families and apartments for non student tenants.
The likelihood of UC Davis stepping up to provide any housing more than West Village in the near- or mid-range future is very slim.
What we would like UCD to do, and what they will or can do, are two very different things.
“Just affordable housing in reasonable quantity. Put that to a Measure J vote.”
How does one keep rents affordable without constructing sufficient units to drive the vacancy rate to 5% or higher? And doesn’t the ConAgra project help do just that? Not that I have any skin in the ConAgra game.
DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez for 1 more week)
[quote]The likelihood of UC Davis stepping up to provide any housing more than West Village in the near- or mid-range future is very slim.
What we would like UCD to do, and what they will or can do, are two very different things. [/quote]
Excellent point…
DT Businessman/Michael Bisch said . . .
“How does one keep rents affordable without constructing sufficient units to drive the vacancy rate to 5% or higher? And doesn’t the ConAgra project help do just that? Not that I have any skin in the ConAgra game.”
The problem I see with the ConAgra project is that there is a conspicuous lack of transparency with respect to just how many apartment units will actually be available. The High Density Residential (HDR) breakout in the most recent documents submitted to the City lists,
o Multi family apartments (rental),
o Townhomes, condominiums (for sale)
o Loft units
as the “Housing Choices” for the 274 HDR units. Adding condominiums rather than apartments does nothing to address the housing shortage in Davis for the people who work in the service businesses in Davis. That group of workers who contribute to the quality of life we all enjoy in Davis are squeezed out of the Davis housing market much more than any other group. If The Cannery is to move forward its plan needs to be very specific about how it addresses rental housing for Davis workers.