Month: August 2013

It is the end of another week in Davis and this fall, which officially gets underway either last Tuesday through the resumption of the Davis City Council meetings or on Monday through the annual Labor Day celebrations, figures to be big.

This week, we had a two-part interview with the spokesperson for the Cannery Development George Phillips (Part One, Part Two), as well as a statement of clarification from the North Davis Land Company (aka the Covell Partners) on their view of senior housing.

by Rob White

Last night at the Davis Farmer’s Market I had the distinct pleasure of talking with several executives and representatives from HM Clause, the 2^nd largest seed research company in the world.

Specifically, HM Clause is a portion of the farmer-based group in France named Limagrain (www.limagrain.com) and was created in 2008 from Harris Moran Seed Company (USA) and Clause (France). According to the HM Clause website (www.hmclause.com), they now have 17 subsidiaries in 15 countries and operate on all continents, with almost 1500 culturally diverse employees working worldwide. The company has a rapidly expanding Davis-based facilities of 2 major research centers and some executive offices.

I do not wish to detract from the Mission Residence project.  I think it is a good densification infill project that, taken alone and in isolation, would provide a great model going forward for an efficient use of space.  As Councilmember Brett Lee, the lone dissenting vote, suggested, it is an attractive project that he would not mind moving into in 15 years.

Moreover, the city planners and developers were innovative in creating a four-story building, that would largely not be noticeable from the street view that it is that tall.  Setbacks and location will minimize some of the visual impacts.  All of these are positives that are unfortunately drowned out by a series of negatives.

After listening to a mixture of different perspectives on the proposed project along B Street, the council went through three different motions before coming back to almost the place they started.  They voted 4-1 to approve the staff recommendation, with the modification from Mayor Joe Krovoza that the plan be site-specific and not impact the zoning of adjacent properties.

The project, put forward by downtown applicant and developer Jim Kidd, calls for combining two adjacent lots, removing the existing homes and constructing a four-story 14-unit condominium building.

George Phillips Addresses Three Critical Issues: Sustainability, Connectivity, and the Election Possibility – The Cannery Project has become one of the big issues that is facing this community, as the fall of 2013 rapidly approaches.  George Phillips, a long-time land use attorney and consultant for ConAgra, sat down with the Vanguard last week to talk about the key features of the project and to attempt to address some of its controversies.

This is the second of a two-part series.  In the first portion of the interview, we basically asked George Phillips to make their best case for the project.  In the second portion of the interview, we asked him specific questions to respond to some of the controversies.

The following is a letter to Elaine Roberts Musser, Chair of the Senior Citizens Commission sent by Lydia Dellis-Schlosser and Bill Streng of the North Davis Land Company (formerly known as the Covell Partners) advocating for their solution for senior housing.  We have repriinted this in its entirety.  It was submitted in response to Sunday’s article on Senior Housing.

They also clarified to the Vanguard that they are not advocating for a senior only (age restricted) neighborhood concept.  That was part of the original proposal several years ago, however, they believe based on input from the community, that multigenerational was what people wanted.

The Cannery Project has become one of the big issues that is facing this community as the fall of 2013 rapidly approaches.  George Phillips, a long-time land use attorney and consultant for ConAgra, sat down with the Vanguard last week to talk about the key features of the project and to attempt to address some of its controversies.

This is the first of a two-part series.

For several days now we have had the argument ongoing about the extent to which the availability of apartments either on or off-campus would fill the need for student housing, and thereby free up home rentals for families and low-income people.

There are some difficulties with the concept, of course.  First, a lot of students prefer to live in houses rather than in apartments or on-campus living quarters, so that hurdle would need to be overcome somehow.  For several years, there has been the need for UC Davis to provide its fair share of housing. West Village in some ways is a good start, but, as some of the statistical analysis has shown, only a start.