Project-Specific and Cumulative Impacts to Air Quality, Fire Safety, Noise and Traffic Were Found To Be Significant and Unavoidable
The Cannery project proposal has been slowly moving through the planning stages. Last month, the Draft Environmental Impact Report (Draft EIR or DEIR) was released for public review and comment. The comment period will end on April 12.
Next week, at the City of Davis Planning Commission meeting, commissioners will hear a presentation on the Draft EIR and receive comment.
The 100-acre property, under this plan, would see a project consisting of 547 residential dwelling units, with an average density of 9.5 units per acre. In addition, approximately 45 accessory dwelling units are proposed.
The city staff report argues that the mixed use site would “accommodate up to 171,270 square feet of uses and employment opportunities for 600 to 850 jobs.”
“The Project includes 20.8 acres of open space uses consisting of the open space/detention basin on the west edge, agricultural buffer on the north edge, agricultural buffer/urban farm on the east edge and greenbelts. The Project includes approximately 5 acres of parks in two park sites: a larger Neighborhood Park and smaller Southwest Park,” the staff report continues.
“Primary and secondary vehicular access to the Project will be from East Covell Boulevard. On-site bicycle and pedestrian improvements are proposed in the Project including 3.1 miles of on-street lanes and miles of off-street paths,” staff writes. “The Project proposes a grade-separated bicycle/pedestrian path at the southwest corner of the site connecting to existing bicycle facilities south of the Project site.”
Three routes are being considered for this access and are analyzed in the DEIR, with the developer’s preferred option crossing under the East Covell Boulevard overpass and proceeding due south along the railroad right-of-way to connect to the east end of the existing H Street tunnel.
The project site is the former location of the Hunt-Wesson tomato cannery and is currently zoned light industrial. The project would require a zoning change, however, because the area resides within the current boundaries of Davis and is zoned for urban uses; it would not require a Measure R vote.
According to executive summary of the Draft EIR, the project includes four off-site improvements.
First, on East Covell the project would see the “reconstruction of the existing East Covell Boulevard/J Street (Entry Road B) intersection to improve turning movements, reconfigure vehicle lanes, upgrade signalization and make safety improvements.”
Second, it would improve emergency vehicle access through an at-grade crossing across the tracks and the F Street drainage channel.
Third, it would create “bicycled/pedestrian path connection to link the Project to existing bicycle facilities south of the Project site to the H Street bike tunnel.”
Finally, there would be improved drainage as “a drainage outfall would be constructed within the F Street Channel near the northwest corner of the site.”
The Draft EIR addresses a number of environmental impacts, including some potentially significant impacts. “This Draft EIR addresses environmental impacts associated with the proposed Cannery project that are known to the City of Davis, were raised during the Notice of Preparation (NOP) process, or raised during preparation of the Draft EIR. This Draft EIR discusses potentially significant impacts associated with aesthetics, agricultural resources, air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, geology and soils, greenhouse gases and climate change, hazards and hazardous materials, hydrology and water quality, land use and planning, noise, population and housing, public services, transportation/circulation, and utilities.”
They note that during the Notice of Preparation (NOP) process, the city received 23 written comment letters.
Areas of concern included:
- Conversion of undeveloped land to urban use
- Traffic congestion
- Introduction of new housing units and residents to the City of Davis, and related impact on City-enacted growth limitations
- Loss or degradation of biological resources and habitat
- Noise associated with project traffic and train horns
- Project impact on City -provided public services and facilities. including parks
- Project contribution to global climate change/greenhouse gas emissions
- Bicycle and pedestrian connectivity
- Development of the site as a residential mixed use project versus a business park
Project Alternatives
The study also noted the impact of the project versus project alternatives, including the no build alternative. The DEIR concludes, “The No Build Alternative is the environmentally superior alternative. However, as required by CEQA, when the No Project Alternative is the environmentally superior alternative, the environmentally superior alternative among the others must be identified.”
Therefore, they find that “the Site Reconfiguration Alternative is the next environmentally superior alternative to the proposed project.”
However, the site reconfiguration alternative “would not meet all of the project objectives identified by the City, in that it would not provide for a wide range of housing types, including low density housing, to support the City’s goal of providing an inclusive multigenerational approach to residential development.”
“An EIR is a disclosure document,” staff writes. “The purpose of CEQA is to ensure that the public is aware of the environmental consequences of an intended action. The jurisdiction is required to mitigate impacts where feasible, but may still approve a project with significant impacts if it finds specific considerations supported by substantial evidence in the record.”
A number of the impacts listed in page 4 of the staff report would be “reduced to a less-than-significant level after mitigaiton,” however, “project-specific and cumulative impacts to air quality, fire safety, noise and traffic were found to be significant and unavoidable.”
The report notes that there would be violations of air quality standards due to vehicle trips which were “significant and unavoidable even after mitigation,” cumulative air quality impacts, and the placement of residences outside the five-minute fire response time (although that may change with council’s direction extending the response time for the fire department).
Again, the comment period on the Draft EIR closes on April 12.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
The Natural Resources Commission will also be deliberating about the Draft EIR on Monday night.
Once again, this draft environmental impact report fails to address loss of the only remaining rail access property in Davis, with it’s potential to generate sales taxes. This is the only property left where Davis has the chance to create clean industry (which would benefit tremendously from rail access) and help obviate increased taxes/fees on existing residents.
seems there are some serious problems here – no one cares (give the lack of comments?)?
“the placement of residences outside the five-minute fire response time “
i’m concerned that this gives the firefighters a new opening on a fourth fire station.
DP
Speaking only for myself, the lack of comment reflected lack of time this am, not lack of caring:
As was previously the case when this project was put forward, I will again be informing the CC and staff of my concerns about this project, but will summarize here.
1) Need – I have not yet done a current review of the housing units available on the market as I did previously
when I felt that based on the types of houses already available at that time, the project was heavily weighted
towards more upper income single family homes than was warranted by the market. I think that first and
foremost, current need should be reassessed prior to moving forward.
2) Safety – I remain concerned about several safety issues regarding this development
– Fire and emergency vehicle accessibility to the entire development
– Proximity to the train tracks – we already have a community in town that faces problems of isolation and
a single exit route from their community on Olive Drive. I question the wisdom of knowingly planning
another such community with similar challenges
– Having a single public entrance/ exit from the development on Covell. At best this will create increased
traffic at peak times, the likelihood that students heading to North Davis Elementary, Holmes and DHS
would “cheat” and cross the tracks to take the “short cut” to school, and at worst a hazard to the entire
community in the unlikely event of the need for community evacuation. This concern in itself would seem
to me to preclude the project without mitigation, which at previous planning meetings has been deemed
not feasible.
3) Environment
-This is by location and design, an automobile based and dependent community. The addition of many,
many private vehicle trips daily as well as the lack of “walkability” for many of the proposed residents is
a serious environmental and health concern.
– The lack of full utilization of environmentally friendly design ( solar power for example) could and should
be mitigated prior to consideration
– Impact on other species that have inhabited the area. I pose this only as a question since I do not know
whether with the green areas, parks and urban farm this would be a net gain or loss for the non human
inhabitants, but do believe it is worth consideration.
4) Impact on existing neighbors and the city at large
– Increased traffic
– Increased infrastructure needs including water, road quality ( already a major problem), other utilities
– Decreased air quality ( any consideration of limitations on wood burning capabilities….for example )
It’s mostly, but not all about cars.
– Increased social service and health care needs
– School impacts
– Best use ? Again I question whether this project in this location is the best use for this previously
industrial property. Is it our best choice financially, logistically and strategically overall for the entire
community ? As currently configured, I would feel it is not but would be open to re consideration of
the factors I have outlined with view to further mitigation.
Most of the concerns I have about this project have to do with the fact that it achieves nothing in terms of our housing affordability issue, and removes the one remaining business site of any size other than Nishi.
It needs to have higher housing density, to provide more rental housing at market rates.
A larger portion should be retained for business uses.
But neither of those things are going to happen, and it is clear to me that the project will pass the current council more or less intact. So we will be losing the one remaining parcel within city limits that is of sufficient size to help reduce housing cost for entry-level renters, and there will be no site suitable for a business park other than Nishi. We’ve debated all of that on this site, and I see no likelihood of any significant change to this design or broad-based opposition to the project.
Because of this, the housing situation for young adults in the rental market is going to get worse as UCD increases their enrollment over the next few years.
Good luck with that emergency access crossing of the railroad tracks. UPRR, which owns the right of way, just rejected a similar request at Olive Drive. Though this is a much less used line, they are very unlikely to add a crossing no matter what the definition. The railroad will also require horns to be blown here, even it is only for emergency access, if they do approve it.
The single access point for entry into the property with that many residents is troublesome. Despite the tremendous costs involved, a road to the north or east for an alternate access would allow for alternatives both for circulation and safety.
Good luck with that emergency access crossing of the railroad tracks. UPRR, which owns the right of way, just rejected a similar request at Olive Drive. Though this is a much less used line, they are very unlikely to add a crossing no matter what the definition. The railroad will also require horns to be blown here, even it is only for emergency access, if they do approve it.
The single access point for entry into the property with that many residents is troublesome. Despite the tremendous costs involved, a road to the north or east for an alternate access would allow for alternatives both for circulation and safety.
“The single access point for entry into the property with that many residents is troublesome. Despite the tremendous costs involved, a road to the north or east for an alternate access would allow for alternatives both for circulation and safety.”
Sadly, this is an unintended consequence of measure J. If Davis were to address its housing needs honestly, instead of through the bottleneck that no-growth has created, we would be master planning this and the Covell Village site together. We could also better plan for all of our housing needs for some time, rental housing, starter housing, senior housing, single family and multiple family housing. Instead we will deal with this project in isolation with poorer traffic flows and emergency access. C’est la vie.
i think you’re completely wrong here toad. master planning cannery with covell village doesn’t solve the problem, it exacerbates it. because your still putting massive new population on essentially landlocked land. the access points are still pole line and covell, far from the freeway. only if you masterplan it you add 5000 to 7000 people into that area, planning cannery alone nets you 1200 or so.
compare that to west village – right at the freeway on-ramp and right at the university. IF you believe davis has to add housing, that’s where it should be.
This is such a mistake. It should be kept as it is zoned. It would be better to develop Covell Village and leave this as industrial.