by Matt Williams
As we discussed yesterday, the 2002 Davis Open Space Acquisition and Management Plan (the A&M Plan), which built on the 1989 Davis Greenway Plan, identified four types of open space categories for spending Measure O funds:
Accomplishments To Date
Including the efforts from the years before Measure O, Davis has protected, directly or through partnerships, over 4,900 acres of sensitive wildlife habitat and farmland. Since Measure O’s passage in 2000, 2,513 of those 4,900 acres have been protected at a cost of $4,566,000 but none of the parcels (shown in green in the graphic above) fall into the Urban Fringe category.
So the dream of controlling our Urban Fringe, the open space lands that help define the urban limits of Davis and provide an adequate buffer between urban and rural land uses is still only a dream. The graphic below does a good job of illustrating that Urban Fringe. The blue areas on the right side of the graphic are the FEMA 100-year flood plain.
Is There Something Special About Now?
The driver that got me started on this initiative had two key components . The first was the Bayer/AgraQuest announcement that they were going to move their company and its 250 jobs from Davis to West Sacramento. The second was a biproduct of the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan discussions I was participating in about the Yolo Rail Relocation. What became very clear to me was that there were four Davis companies that were facing the same business decision that Bayer/AgraQuest had just completed. They needed additional space to accommodate the successful growth of their businesses . . . and that like Bayer/AgraQuest they were finding it impossible to find space that would accommodate their needs. When I put that reality together with Davis’ current Municipal Budget deficit, I saw a future that was dominated by additional tax increases as the budget deficit got progressively worse because hundreds of jobs and hundreds of Davis residents were removed from the Davis economy when the companies (one-by-one) moved away from Davis.
What I saw was a crisis that was going to put the Davis Ag Farmland Preservation “community” into a Ground Hog Day scenario of challenges where jobs preservation was going to be pitted against farmland preservation . . . and that if we continued to approach these individual repeating challenges in the reactive, silo-mentality fashion that Davis does because it doesn’t have a current General Plan, then everyone would be the losers, and we would all be paying higher taxes for diminishing services. Bottom-line, the overall quality of life would decline in Davis.
So on August 9th I reached out to Pam Nieberg to see if the Ag Farmland Conservation community should take proactive steps to avoid getting caught with our pants around our ankles. Pam agreed that we would be better off thinking proactively rather than reactively, and I went home to transform our discussion of concepts into something that would facilitate future conversations
On August 14th Pam and I met again to review the first version of the Urban Fringe graphic. When we were done with that second meeting we both believed that there was the possibility that the threats to jobs in Davis could be the catalyst that allowed us to transform the dream of an urban boundary around the City into a reality.
Why did that possibility exist now any more now than it had in the past? Public-Private Partnerships.
If you look at the first sentence from the UCD news release from yesterday’s article , “It takes a village to save a farm. Two cities, a county, a land trust, a university, the state of California and the federal government have joined forces to preserve agricultural land. […] Said UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef. “We are delighted to facilitate the preservation of this land in partnership with our neighbors.”
What Chancellor Vanderhoef’s partnership doesn’t include are participants from the private sector. Our crisis brings those private sector participants to the table. Avoiding the disruption of moving by keeping their companies in Davis is valuable . . . otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to find a way to stay here. They also realize that that value doesn’t come for free. As a result the effort to keep jobs here will not only avoid tax increases and reductions of services, it can also provide a source of funding for addressing the Urban Fringe component of the A&M Plan.
As part of my meeting with Pam she suggested that I meet with Greg House. My meeting with Greg and his son Henry House, both of whom were spirited public commenters at the June 11th Council meeting, went well . . . they didn’t say “No! This is a bad idea.” What they did say was that I should meet with Marc Hoshovsky and look to get a discussion of this vision for permanently conserving the Urban Fringe added to the Open Space and Habitat Commission’s next meeting. My meeting with Marc also went well in that he too didn’t say “No! This is a bad idea.” He asked me to contact Mitch Sears, who is the keeper of the keys when it comes to the OS&H Commission’s agenda. Mitch asked me to come to public comment at the September 9th OS&H meeting and present my idea. Again, no one said “No! This is a bad idea.” NOTE: my public comment presentation to OS&H specifically excluded any scenario that included a revisiting of the Mace 391 easement.
A project of this magnitude has lots of moving parts and as a result there are quite a few possible scenarios. Some of those scenarios put the City of Davis in the position where the private sector’s desire for a place to put jobs is great enough that leveraging a portion of the 391 acres does indeed forge a public-private partnership that makes some sense in the scenarios where that is a component, but it isn’t the only way to accomplish the end.
The issue is transforming a long standing Davis dream into reality . . . and in the process making the fiscal health of the municipal budget significantly better.
Who have I talked to in this process? In addition to Pam, Greg, Henry, Marc, Mitch and the OS&H Commission, I’ve met with Ken Wagstaff, Dick Livingston, Bob Schneider, Alan Pryor, Eileen Samitz, Steve Souza, Michele Clark, Dean Kwasny and Michael Bilancione, from NRCS, Robb Davis, Sheila Allen, Mark West, Jeff Boone, Ron Glick, to name just a few. Jim Provenza and I reviewed it and he told me that I could feel free to say publicly that “as a private citizen interested in ag farmland preservation, I am interested.” From the City I have met with Mike Webb to both keep him informed and review the concept, as well as with Rob White to validate that the jobs crisis truly exists. It has been presented at Council and I’ve discussed it on-on-one with both Brett and Lucas.
Can We Have Our Cake and Eat it Too?
One way to look at this effort is to focus on “Yes” rather than “No” with all the core constituencies getting positive answers to their individual “What’s In It For Me” questions.
- The Farmland Preservation portion of the Davis community would see the dream of a conserved agricultural border transformed into reality, with upwards of 3,000 acres of prime ag land on the Urban Fringe conserved.
- The Riparian Habitat portion of the Davis community would see two riparian corridors rehabilitated.
- The Fish Spawning Habitat portion of the Davis community would see the efforts to restore salmon spawning habitat in the Putah Creek complex enhanced and expanded.
- The economic vitality community in Davis would see upwards of 950 acres of Innovation Park identified that would put Davis in a position to be proactive about keeping good companies in Davis rather than losing them to other cities/states.
- The Ag Technology Research community spinning out of UCD would see well over 1,000 acres of permanently conserved ag land made available for field research adjacent to the Innovation Parks (as in the current Harris Moran model on south Mace and the Bayer/AgraQuest model just committed to in West Sacramento).
- The taxpayers in Davis would see additional revenues generated by the increase in economic vitality that comes with retained/added jobs that match the UCD/Davis core competencies profile. As a result further tax increases should be forestalled.
- Thousands of individual Davis residents would see their homes that are currently in the FEMA floodplains removed from the risk of flooding, saving them whatever annual FEMA flood insurance premiums they are paying.
I’m sure there are other perspectives that those seven bullet points above don’t capture, and I’m equally sure that as the open, transparent community dialogue continues, those perspectives will step up and be heard. The objective is a well-informed community dialogue. We owe that to ourselves.
Matt, what exactly are you proposing??
Matt, have you or anyone else made an attempt at roughing out a budget? I know that’s a big task and that will necessarily involve a lot of assumptions that might be hard to reality-check — especially given the probable timeline of the project — but my initial question is where the $2M to cover the Mace 391 grant giveback would come from.
[quote]Matt, what exactly are you proposing??[/quote]
Matt is proposing that Mace 391 and parts of the Northwest Quadrant (red cross-hatched areas) be annexed and developed to provide funds for purchase of conservation easements on other properties (yellow areas).
Don describes one scenario, the one where the greatest number of Urban Fringe acres immediately adjacent to the Davis city limit are permanently conserved.
Another scenario could leave Mace 391 wholly conserved and unannexed. In that scenario, because the public-private partnership is much more limited and generates much less value, the number of the Urban Fringe acres permanently conserved will be much lower.
SODA said . . .
[i]”Matt, what exactly are you proposing??”[/i]
SODA, more than anything I am proposing a community dialogue about what we want our near term future to be.
In past threads Don has very accurately described farmland and open space preservation as key principles of both the City and County General Plans. We should be talking about how we accomplish that goal instead of only dreaming about it. We should also be talking about how we balance our municipal budget and avoid burdening ourselves with more and more taxes that deliver fewer and fewer services.
We have an opportunity to proactively deal with the crises we face and the goals we treasure . . . but only if we openly and transparently talk about them as a community.
If that dialogue comes to a general consensus, then I would expect that a citizen initiative to update the General Plan might be a logical next step. The signature gathering process to get it on the ballot could serve as education and outreach to those Davis citizens whose personal lives have been too busy to know about the dialogue that had already been taking place.
Jim Frame said . . .
[i]”Matt, have you or anyone else made an attempt at roughing out a budget? I know that’s a big task and that will necessarily involve a lot of assumptions that might be hard to reality-check — especially given the probable timeline of the project — but my initial question is where the $2M to cover the Mace 391 grant giveback would come from.”[/i]
I am working on that Jim. I really didn’t want to put the cart before the horse. The first step was to see whether the people I was reaching out to would say [i]”No! This is a bad idea.”[/i] If they did, then putting the hard work into coming up with a budget would have been wasted effort.
The other thing is that I have been doing this as a “citizen planner.” At a meeting yesterday someone referred to me as a squeaky wheel. The reason I made public comments to Council at both of their last two Council meetings is that a budget is going to need a whole lot more participation than one squeaky citizen trying to ask a bunch of tough questions.
[quote]be annexed and developed to provide funds for purchase of conservation easements on other properties[/quote]
This money thing is what I have a hard time grappling with, and if this proposal is to get any traction with the public, the money thing has to be spelled out so folks like me can understand it.
It seems to me that the three major birds this stone is hoping to kill are:
1. Generating enough capital to pay off the budget hangover from the last 10 years.
2. Bringing the city’s sustainable revenues up to match long-term expenses.
3. Generating enough capital to buy conservation easements on the urban ring parcels.
I can understand how opening up certain lands for commercial development could provide some or all of items 1 and 3. Private-sector entities will gladly hand over dollars in exchange for the opportunity to make even more dollars by developing the right parcels. Whether they’ll be willing to hand over enough is an open question.
Item 2 is the one I have the hardest time understanding, because there’s so much that goes into the mix. The tax increment on the real property — the commercial developments themselves — wouldn’t seem to be anywhere near large enough to make up for all the cuts to services that we’ve sustained, and with more cuts likely to come. The tax on personal property is one for which I’m not able to even guess magnitude, so I’d like to see some projections for that. Things like the added sales tax intake resulting from having more high-paid jobs in town are also nebulous in my mind, but I’m guessing that’s not going to be huge.
Any thoughts on who’s going to put these numbers together, and when we might see them? It seems like a gargantuan task. Is it even reasonable to think that solving this puzzle before the March deadline for the Mace 391 grant is possible? This would appear to be a bird-in-the-hand situation.
Jim, I don’t understand your first bird. can you elaborate?
Your second and third birds are spot on.
Bird 1 is the unfunded retirement obligation. It hasn’t come due yet, but it’s looming out there.
Matt –
How does your plan alleviate the need for flood insurance for those home homes currently in the flood plain?
Thanks for that clarification Jim. That is a huge enough elephant that it has a life of its own. However, I do think you are right, there could be some progress on it simply by improving the overall economic throughput of the local economy.
Adam, part of what could be done on the west side of Davis would be to create some flood water conveyance infrastructure that intercepts the sheet flooding that puts those houses in the Flood Plain. The flood water conveyance would chanel the water south along Pedrick Road to South Putah Creek. It wouldn’t be cheap infrastructure, but it would be effective infrastructure.
[quote]The flood water conveyance would chanel the water south along Pedrick Road to South Putah Creek. It [/quote]
“Pedrick Road”? Please, Matt, that’s so Solano County! “Road 98,” please.
First, before I post, let me say that any info I provide may seem incomplete and possibly avoiding the directness of questions above… that is purposeful. As a city employee, I am not the policymaker: that is our five elected officials. I am the implementer of their policy decisions through direction by the city manager. I do provide them with input and data for recommendations, but they make the decisions. So anything written below is meant to be in that context.
I wanted to get that out of the way, because it seems I am often quoted and sometimes out of context these quotes can appear to be something different than what they are. Just the hazards of the written word.
Jim – to provide some answer your questions about financial sustainability… The city council and city manager is VERY mindful of what the shortfalls are and are working diligently to identify ways to create a sustainable model. This takes time because it was avoided during the early warning signs and like any household budget with increasing costs and declining revenues, it can’t be fixed with any single solution. It also takes a thorough understanding of where things are out of balance, and this can take time to see the trends so that the cause is addressed and not just the symptoms.
In that framework, the city leadership are very cognizant of the competing needs for resources and do their daily best to balance these within the inputs and outputs made available.
Should an innovation park be approved at some future date by the city council and then the voters (because it will likely be on lands that require a Measure R vote), the city leadership are already working out shared revenue models that may be applied to capture several different lines of funding, both one-time and on-going.
To expand on that, we have the following traditional means of revenue for the city (the rates and subtleties to the tax calcs is complicated, so I am simplifying some of the parts):
•Property tax – changes to the land valuation will result in a property tax increase and will allow the city to capture a percentage (about 20 to 25%) of every dollar of property tax. The property tax rate in California is about 1% of total assessed value (though it is higher in many cities due to additional bonds and assessments for schools, levees, etc.). As a simple example, a $50 million commercial/research building can generate $500,000 in property tax, and Davis would get 20-25% of that (or about $125,000). One note: Commercial property is treated slightly differently that residential in that its assessed valuation is dependent on improvements AND leased space. And empty commercial building is therefore worth less than a full one if it stays empty for long.
•Unsecured property tax – this tax is on major equipment, like in manufacturing. As an example, many current day manufacturers use equipment that can range in the $100s of millions, and we get the same property tax rate on that equipment (though it gets devalued yearly as part of the usage). The good news is that equipment technology is changing so rapidly that many manufacturers upgrade frequently.
•Sales tax – equipment and retail goods purchased by commercial users gets charged sales tax and we currently get 1.5% on each $1 of sales in Davis. The extra 0.5% is due to the city measure that assessed the extra on each taxable sales and goes directly to the city (but ends in the near future, unless reenacted by a follow-on measure). Additionally, sales that are recorded in other locations by Davis residents (like cars, some things on Amazon, etc.) means that of the 1.5%, the 1% portion records to the other jurisdiction, but the 0.5% still comes to Davis.
•Fees – Most construction and renovation in the city has a set of fees associated with the activity. These fees are meant primarily to pay for the cost of delivering the service, so they are meant to create a net zero financial burden on the city for staff time. However, part of our fee structure contains some impact fees that go to current and future impacts created by the project. Again, I am way oversimplifying, but you get the idea.
•Trade-offs as part of a development agreement – these are typically negotiated on large projects and include things like traffic and bike-way improvements. They are part of the current development environment across California (and nationally) and are based on a negotiation of what makes the project acceptable to the community. These are a fine balancing act for a city as you want to ask for as much in a development agreement as you can to ensure that a project truly enhances the community, but asking for too much can cause the developers to give-up and walkaway (think Lewis Homes and the previous Cannery proposal – after spending $10 million in pre-development costs, they decided it was too much costs balanced against the requirements). We are having these discussions with the current Cannery development applicant, and there is a team of two Council members, the city manager, and city leadership working on what is the right balance of asks to make the project a truly Davis project and valuable to the community, while balancing the point at which the developer no longer believes the project in their best interest.
In the framework of a new innovation park (regardless of size or location), several tools can also be used to create additional funding sources:
•Mitigation – most areas identified in the work of the Innovation Park Task Force and adopted by Council in November 2012 include areas that are currently outside the city boundary. In order for any of this acreage to be used for an innovation park, it would require two things: a vote of the community to support annexation, and an entitlement process that would identify what and how the development could occur. Part of that process also includes the designation of at least 2 acres of conserved land for every 1 acre of developed land. Conserved land is typically qualified as that that is open space, habitat or agricultural. The city currently owns some lands that would be appropriate to have easements placed as part of that mitigation requirement and the city could get paid for that action or even barter in trade. This has many details that would need to be worked out on where, how, when, but it is a revenue potential.
•Equity partner – since the city has some lands that may be used for mitigation, etc., we could require any new development proposal include the city as a type of equity partner to garner upside potentials from development. As the land gets more valuable from entitlement and development, we garner some part of that increased equity. This type of transaction would need to be extremely well understood, as it does include some risks and it needs to follow federal and state laws. But there are examples of cities doing this in places like Redwood City and Mountain View.
•Leasehold – the city could possibly retain the rights to some lands it owns in fee title that would be used for development and become part of the equity stakeholders through a leasehold arrangement. This would be long term leasing, but would potentially create annual and long-term revenue streams. As any development does well, we get more upside, so our interest become aligned. We could also potentially mitigate risks because under at least one scenario, we could just lease the land and not participate in the development costs. Our share is smaller, but we mitigate our risks.
•Development agreement – my early post about revenue sources highlighted that there are usually other requirements financially for the approval of a development. These are typically infrastructure and are tied to the nexus of the projects impacts on a community. But one area that city leadership are exploring is could we have an annual charge on a square footage basis for development in an innovation park? As a VERY rough example – if commercial and research space in a new innovation park is being leased at $1.50/square foot per month, could we add a 10% assessment that is revenue to the city for the opportunity to build? In this example, 1 million square feet of leased space would generate $150,000 monthly, or $1.8 million annually. Some have opined that there is enough demand in the tech world that as much as 5 to 8 million square feet could be realized over the next 15 to 20 years. To run this out a little further, that could be $9 to $14.4 million annually at full buildout and would be a percentage of the lease amount, so it would grow as values grow. And the typical commercial/research park has a lifespan of about 40 to 60 years (depending on construction). Such an assessment could legitimately generate about $360 million (low end) to over $864 million (very high end) in city revenue over the lifetime of the project. But before anyone runs out and spends this money, this type of assessment is very tricky from a land use consideration because it likely needs to be done under a development agreement and again needs to meet the federal and state legal requirements.
•Construction/Tenant improvements – Something that is often overlooked in the revenue discussions is the construction, tenant improvement and then refurbishment of existing spaces over time. The materials used in this activity often come with a sales tax component. And there is state precedence that we can require most of the sales tax to record in Davis as the end user, regardless of where the materials are purchased. And no matter what, we will collect 0.5% sales tax when it is taxed at the Davis rate. Again, this is a complex situation, but it is revenue and on something of this scale, we are talking millions of dollars over the life of a project.
I hope this helps. I apologize for the generalizations, but I hope its enough to help answer the questions.
Again, there are a lot of “ifs”, “ands” and “buts” and all of my comments are meant to be read as COULD, not should or is. The potential for any development of an innovation park is significant, and we have the demonstrated demand from local companies and those that would like to move to Davis. All of my examples are just that, examples, and they may mot reflect the actual situation at any future time if an innovation park is determined to be right for the community.
As we go forward, the city council, city manager, and community will continue to dialogue about what is best for the city of Davis. There are no easy answers and no slam dunk proposals. We will most certainly be discussing some of this is the reconstituted Innovation Park Task Force, which is planned to start meeting again in mid-October. We are finalizing dates and times now and I will let you know when that info is complete.
Thanks for the discussion. Please let me know if you have questions.
As you look at land to put together into an urban boundary and greenbelt via conservation easements, purchases, and zoning restrictions, one part of the process would be setting priorities based on the conservation value of that land. It’s not just a numbers game (total acreage) or lines on a map; the land conserved has varying value in each category, greater or lesser degrees of vulnerability, and so on.
In some cases we have actual tools for this. The LESA analysis of soil, for example, gives a numerical rating of ag land that is more detailed than the soil maps and ‘prime ag land’ designations. There has been a LESA analysis done on the Shriners parcel, for example. I can almost guarantee, by starting with the soil maps, that the Mace 391 parcel will probably have a higher LESA score than any of the parcels outlined in yellow.
Unless you have literally unlimited financial resources, any conservation proposal would include the process of setting priorities by identifying which soils are best and most vulnerable, and by using similar measures for wildlife habitat, open space, and the other lands that are being considered. The sites would be ranked, matched against the likelihood of landowners cooperating, and then an orderly process would be put in place for committing financial and staff resources. Other agencies would be cooperating, so their input as to the qualities of the sites would be sought.
A conservation plan that begins by trading off the most valuable, highest-priority ag conservation site in exchange for a large number of acres of other sites needs to show that those have equal or greater need for conservation. This is not a cost-benefit basis, it is a land- and site-quality analysis.
If you use just a strict dollars-generated cost-benefit, you also won’t consider the intangible values that many residents seek. In the 1980’s the voters of Davis were given an option of developing retail on the Arden-Mayfair lot next to Central Park, or expanding Central Park. By a lopsided margin, the voters chose the park expansion. An analyst could tell you how much revenue that site would have generated in sales tax revenue over the last 25 years, but the voters chose the intangible values associated with open space, community gathering site, and trees and lawn. I doubt Davis voters would revisit that choice and come to any different conclusion, regardless of the budget situation.
My opinion is that the Mace 391 site is the most vulnerable, the best soil, and hence the highest priority for conservation – as the city has begun the process of doing. I am very concerned that Matt’s proposal has been put forward with the clear intent of annexing and developing Mace 391 for the revenues it could generate. Linking business development to conservation of soil and habitat and open space tends to lead to a devaluation of those intangibles.
I was just asked offline what the typical costs of commercial and research space is to develop and how that translates to the numbers I used in the above examples.
Let me step back one point further and say that our General Plan and business park guidance documents (including backup to the Innovation Park Task Force recommendations) describe that a business park would need to be a floor area ratio (FAR) of as much as 0.5 – that means for every square foot of land, one half needs to be building. I suspect we will truly want something greater if we want to envision a “park of the future”, but let’s do that math for the sake of discussion.
If we have 200 acres of business park, at 43,560 square feet per acre, that means we can build a maximum of 4,356,000 square feet of buildings under our current planning documents. The rest is open space, streets, parking lots, etc. And if you build two stories or higher, then you have more room for open space, etc. But I suspect to be meaningful to the current investment community, we would want to increase the FAR to .75 or even 1 to allow for 3 and 4 stories and better infrastructure. But that is another discussion, so let’s stick with 4.356 million sq feet.
At the average cost of construction for commercial of $150 per square foot, that means we have a business park (at its maximum buildout) that would be worth about $653 million. If you use a higher buildout rate for research space, LEED buildings, energy efficiency, better quality finishes, etc, of $250 per square foot, that number grows to about $1.089 Billion. If you truly create something unusual and innovative (like the Torrey Pines Mesa in San Diego or Mission Bay in SF), that number can easily reach $1.5 to $2 Billion.
To break costs down for your own amusement, here are typical Sacramento costs to initially construct based on building types:
* Commercial – $150 and up/ square foot (nicer finishes, energy efficiency, etc. means it will costs more to initially construct)
* Warehouse – $50/ square foot
* Research dry lab – $200 and up/square foot
* Research wet lab – $250 and up (usually $350 and greater)/square foot
* Retail – $150 and up/square foot
* Retail with kitchen – $200 and up/square foot
These numbers are ONLY guides and are dependent on location, vendors, type of construction, quality and finishes, architectural details, amount of infrastructure, height (need for elevators, etc.), and the list goes on. But it will help you with big round numbers in determining your own calculations.
Others may have more refined info based on recent construction, but since we haven’t built very much commercial in Davis recently, these numbers are probably up for debate and likely represent the floor, not the high side.
Rob, do you have access to rough numbers for the incremental cost to a city for additional business park space, e.g. costs of fire service, police protection, street and utility maintenance?
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”As you look at land to put together into an urban boundary and greenbelt via conservation easements, purchases, and zoning restrictions, one part of the process would be setting priorities based on the conservation value of that land. It’s not just a numbers game (total acreage) or lines on a map; the land conserved has varying value in each category, greater or lesser degrees of vulnerability, and so on.
In some cases we have actual tools for this. The LESA analysis of soil, for example, gives a numerical rating of ag land that is more detailed than the soil maps and ‘prime ag land’ designations. There has been a LESA analysis done on the Shriners parcel, for example. [b]I can almost guarantee, by starting with the soil maps, that the Mace 391 parcel will probably have a higher LESA score than any of the parcels outlined in yellow.[/b]”[/i]
Don, regarding your bolded words above, without any specific LESA knowledge about the Shriners site or the lower 236 acre parcel in the Mace 391 complex, I’m willing to bet you a draft beer at Davis Beer Shoppe that Shriners has the higher LESA Score of those two parcels. Are you willing to bet?
The reason I’m willing to make that WAG bet is as follows. The LESA Score is comprised of multiple factors that are grouped into factor categories, specifically LAND EVALUATION (LE) and SITE ASSESSMENT (SA). Thus the name (LE)(SA).
Here is an example of how one computes a LESA Score.
Factor Name ______ Factor Weight
Land Evaluation ___ 0.50
Site Evaluation ____ 0.50
Land Evaluation is broken down into three subfactors
Subfactor Name _______________ Subfactor Weight
Land capability classification ___ 0.30
Soil productivity________________ 0.20
Site Evaluation is broken down into six subfactors
Subfactor Name _______________ Subfactor Weight
SA-1 Agricultural Use
Acreage of farm _______________ 0.15
Farm investment ______________ 0.05
Surrounding uses _____________ 0.10
SA-2 Development Pressure
Protection by plan or zoning __ 0.06
Distance to sewer _____________ 0.05
SA-3 Other Factors
Scenic quality ________________ 0.09
The Land Capability Classification (LCC) for both the sites is quite good. Overall Shriners has more Class I soils, but I expect the LCC Subfactor scores to be close. Shriners has a smidgen of Class IV soils at the top of the parcel (Merritt complex, saline-alkali) and The Mace 391 Lower Parcel has a smidgen of Class IV soils at the bottom of the parcel (Willows clay, alkali, drained). The rest of the Mace 391 Lower Parcel is Capay silty clay (Class II) at the top, Willows clay and Marvin silty clay loam (both Class II) in the middle, and Sycamore complex, drained (Class I) at the bottom The rest of Shriners is Yolo silt loam and Sycamore complex, drained (both Class I) at the top, Sycamore silt clay loam, drained and Sycamore complex, drained (both Class I) in the middle and Sycamore silt loam, drained (Class I) and Reiff gravelly loam (Class II) at the bottom.
Shriners has been productively farmed every year since I arrived in Davis in 1998. The Mace 391 Lower Parcel hasn’t been as consistently farmed in part due to the transition in ownership from Northwest Arkansas Bank to the City. But again, I expect the Soil Productivity Subfactor scores to be close.
One site is 234 acres and the other is 236 acres. Call that a tie.
The Level of on-farm investment is very similar on the two sites.
The Surrounding Uses scores are probably pretty similar with Covell and I-80 playing substantial roles in making each parcel lower scoring.
The Protection By Plan or Zoning is where Shriners will get a big advantage in LESA scoring over the Mace 391 Lower Parcel. The fee title ownership by the City of Davis provides considerably more protection and as such a lower LESA score.
The Distance to Sewer is another subfactor where Shriners will get a big advantage in LESA scoring over the Mace 391 Lower Parcel. There is no sewer on the Mace 391 site, while Shriners has a sewer trunk line on its southern border, which will qualify it for a higher LESA score.
Scenic Quality is probably a push, although the number of people who look out over Shriners is orders of magnitude greater, and as such the scenic quality of Shriners is much more frequently appreciated.
So, given the above, are you willing to bet that draft beer?
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”A conservation plan that begins by trading off [b]the most valuable, highest-priority ag conservation site[/b] in exchange for a large number of acres of other sites needs to show that those have equal or greater need for conservation. This is not a cost-benefit basis, it is a land- and site-quality analysis.”[/i]
Don, regarding your bolded words above, what is it that makes the Mace 391 Lower Parcel qualify for that designation. Why is it more valuable that the two parcels above Waldorf School off Sycamore Lane? Why is it more valuable than the two parcels above Waldorf School off Sycamore Lane? Why is it more valuable than Oeste Ranch off Covell between Lake Blvd. and Road 98? Why is it more valuable than Shriners?
I agree with you that this is not a cost-benefit basis, it is a land- and site-quality analysis. Which of the yellow sites do you think are deficient with respect to land-quality or site-quality?
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”If you use just a strict dollars-generated cost-benefit, you also won’t consider the intangible values that many residents seek. In the 1980’s the voters of Davis were given an option of developing retail on the Arden-Mayfair lot next to Central Park, or expanding Central Park. By a lopsided margin, the voters chose the park expansion. An analyst could tell you how much revenue that site would have generated in sales tax revenue over the last 25 years, but the voters chose the intangible values associated with open space, community gathering site, and trees and lawn. I doubt Davis voters would revisit that choice and come to any different conclusion, regardless of the budget situation.”[/i]
Again we agree 100%. What are the intangible values that the Lower Parcel of Mace 391 has that each of the yellow parcels don’t have? All of those parcels are defined by the 2002 Davis Open Space Acquisition and Management Plan (A&M Plan) as Urban Fringe. Some of the yellow sites are even more “Fringy” than the Lower Parcel of mace 391 because they abut the City Limit, while it does not.
The Lower Parcel of Mace 391 addresses three of the A&M Plan categories (Urban Fringe, Agriculture, and Scenic Resources) Some of the yellow parcels address four of the A&M Plan categories (Urban Fringe, Agriculture, Biological and Natural Resources, and Scenic Resources) because they contain Riparian corridors and habitat.
Nowhere in either Measure O or the A&M Plan is “a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush” stated as a criteria, but that appears to be one of the criteria you are weighting most heavily. Am I right?
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”My opinion is that the Mace 391 site is the most vulnerable, the best soil, and hence the highest priority for conservation – as the city has begun the process of doing. I am very concerned that Matt’s proposal has been put forward with the clear intent of annexing and developing Mace 391 for the revenues it could generate. Linking business development to conservation of soil and habitat and open space tends to lead to a devaluation of those intangibles.”[/i]
I respect your opinion Don, but respectfully disagree. How is the Lower Parcel of mace 391 any more vulnerable than any of the other yellow parcels? My soils analysis above based on NRCS soil maps appears to show that the Lower Parcel of Mace 391 is predominantly Class II soils, while at least one yellow site is predominantly Class I soils.
The issue is not development. This is about a balance of 1) our community’s fiscal health, 2) the tax burden Davis residents may face in coming years, 3) an arresting of the deterioration of community services and 4) realization of the Measure O dream of a permanently conserved Urban Boundary around Davis.