by Rob White
This article is meant to be a broad illustration of innovation parks across the United States that may have similar context to one in Davis. To be clear, no specific project has yet been proposed for Davis. Based on analysis from the previous Innovation Park Task Force and the findings from Studio 30 during that effort, I will use the comparison target of a 200-acre park to be illustrative. Realizing that the details matter, some of this discussion is presented based on gross assumptions and the actual outcome may vary dependent on a specific project.
As some of you have read in my previous articles, there are several ways that Davis might gain financially from an innovation park. These include real property and unsecured property taxes, sales and business-to-business taxes, fees and permits, ongoing rate-payment for water and sewer services, and the need for an ongoing per foot assessment to generate constant revenue for the City. As you might surmise, the discussion of how much revenue for the City an innovation park might generate is dependent on many variables including overall size of the development, total amount of square footage, need for services based on design, existing infrastructure and length of time for development.
In a very gross comparison of the cost for services versus revenue to the City, there are many studies that indicate that commercial/industrial land is a net gain to a jurisdiction over time whereas residential is a net drain. A good summary by the Pennsylvania Land Trust Association on the ConservationTools.org website summarized it well by saying that “nearly all of the studies that have been undertaken show that the ratio for residential land is above 1.0, signifying that residential land results in a net drain on local government budgets. On the other hand, the ratios for the other two land use categories (commercial/industrial and farmland/open space) are usually well below 1.0, representing a net tax gain for the municipality.” (Click here for link).
But in order to really get a sense of what the potential for positive revenue flow might look like for a project in Davis, we need to first assess what the development might look like. This is primarily dependent on several variables that will need to be defined before a calculation of net benefit to the City can be accomplished.
One important factor would be how dense a project might develop. This is often expressed as FAR, or floor area ration. It is the amount of land that is covered by a building versus the amount that is left to surface parking, parks, greenways or open space. A building of 21,780 square feet on a single acre (43,560 square feet) would have an FAR of 0.5. A two story building on that same footprint (21,780 square feet on the ground floor on a single acre) would have a FAR of 1.0. So you can quickly surmise that two pieces of data are important here: the height (number of floors) of a building and the amount of coverage on the ground floor relative to the amount of open space for that same building envelope.
To extrapolate some simple calculations, if an innovation park included a mix of 2 to 6 story buildings across a 200 acre park (so an average building height of about 45 feet, or 4 stories), you can see that a FAR of 1.0 means we would expect to see about 8.5 million square feet of structures. Translated a different way, that means that for every acre, about one ¼ would be covered in a 4 story building. So a FAR of 0.5 would result in about 4.25 million square feet.
You can rearrange this many different ways, based on heights and layout, but we can at least get a magnitude of square footage. And over time, in a more metropolitan-fringe setting like Davis, densification can happen by converting surface parking into structured parking, which frees up more space for greenway and parklet amenities and the potential for additional building area to be accommodated within the existing development.
Another factor that will impact any proposed project (and will ultimately dictate the size of any development) will be the existing versus required infrastructure. This includes freeway access, roads, transit and alternative transportation routes, water, sewer, gas, electric, etc. The greater the amount of infrastructure that needs to be built to serve a potential innovation park, the less available funds in the overall project to accomplish some of the extras (like reaching for higher sustainability goals of LEED gold and platinum versus just LEED silver). There are also impacts on the type of design and layout of a park based on infrastructure. And the overall FAR of an innovation park will be dictated by the trade-off of infrastructure costs versus developer revenue from proposed structures.
There are other factors that future articles will discuss, but at this point in the conversation it might also be best to start to consider examples of what we want an innovation park to look like and what industries we are trying to serve.
Below is a short list of parks that are focused on the innovation economy and include close proximity to a research university.
Stanford Research Park – over 700 acres, anchored by Stanford University and Stanford Research Institute.
San Francisco Mission Bay – about 30 acres, anchored by the expansion of the UC San Francisco Medical Center.
Torrey Pines Mesa Technology Center – about 400 acres, anchored by UC San Diego, Scripps Institutes and CSU San Diego.
NASA Ames Research Park – about 500 acres, anchored by NASA, UC Santa Cruz, Carnegie Mellon, Purdue and Singular University. Includes expansion of Google campus.
Sacramento State’s innovation center – about 250 acres, south of Sacramento State (recently announced).
Other examples around the US include the innovation park being built next to the Champaign-Urbana campus of the University of Illinois, Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, the University Research Park at University of Wisconsin (Madison Campus) and the New Orleans BioInnovations Center. If you would like to take the time to educate yourself on the many variations on how cities and universities have tried to address the need for more research and development facilities (often call innovation centers), you can find lots to read about at the Association of University Research Parks (AURP) website: www.aurp.net
In the next article, I will focus on some very broad (and general) valuations as to how an innovation park might best serve our communities needs for growth space for tech companies (jobs and investments) balanced with a park that generates on-going revenue for the City.
In the meantime, let me know your thoughts on the different innovation parks highlighted here or from your own travels. You can reach me at rwhite@cityofdavis.org or @mrobertwhite on Twitter. You can also start following the discussion on tech happenings in and around Davis by following the Innovate Davis Facebook page, or the #InnovateDavis hashtag on Twitter. I also encourage you to post and tweet your own experiences and activities.
Thanks Rob, any fear with Sacramento announcing their plans? From your earlier posts it appears there are enough ‘customers’ for both cities?
SODA, the answer to your question is the catch phrase “Location, Location, Location.” No matter how hard Sacramento tries, it will never be able to leverage its ties with the research and innovation and technology transfer programs at UCD the way Davis can. Davis can drop the ball, but Sacramento will not be able to take the ball away from Davis if we forge and nurture a sustainable collaborative partnership with UCD that is true to the core competencies of the University and the existing character of Davis.
“Davis can drop the ball, but Sacramento will not be able to take the ball away from Davis”
Interesting analogy to a ball game, a competition. Now at the risk of upsetting the newly established points of agreement between Frankly and myself, I am going to make the assertion that competition is not always the best approach. You are right that Sac State is not a major research institute. So the logical approach to me for interaction within the region would be for UCD and Sac State to not engage at all in competition, but rather to assess how each could contribute to the success of the other thus strengthening the region as a whole.
An example from medicine. As a pelvic surgeon, I could have been in competition with my urology colleagues in some areas. However, within Kaiser, we have established a collaborative system in which our compensation is not dependent upon how many surgeries we do, but rather how efficiently we care for the patients actual needs. By collaborating rather than setting up a competitive fee for service model, we have established a win-win situation in which patients are cared for by the most appropriate surgeon and both groups of physicians are adequately compensated. Just think what a medical model we could establish if we were to collaborate in the same way with Sutter, Dignity and UCDMC with each developing its own center of excellence and always referring patients to the group best equipped to handle that patients particular problem. It seems to me ( pardon the heresy) that we would achieve greater innovation and societal advancement if we were to put to rest the idea that competition need always be the default concept in business as we are gradually doing in medicine.
Tia, I fundamentally agree with your points. The analogy I used was prompted by the form of SODA’s question.
With that said, you focused on the end of the analogy rather than the front of it … “Location, Location, Location.”
Your analogy of the possible allocation of resources between you as a pelvic surgeon with your urology colleagues, needs to be modified if it is to apply to SODA’s question … by replacing your urology colleagues with your neurosurgery colleagues on TBI cases. If the collaboration between UCD, the City of Davis, the private sector and Yolo County executes to plan a pelvic surgeon won’t be doing brain surgery.
One quick question Rob, what does “anchor” imply here (e.g. you wrote: (Stanford Research Park – over 700 acres, anchored by Stanford University and Stanford Research Institute.”)?
Does this have to do with physical proximity, some formalized relationship, shared costs of some kind, intentionality about linking university with the park?
Thanks for the ongoing education.
SODA – an innovation park in Davis will be a very unique circumstance due to proximity with a ‘research’ university and that it implies. Though the Sac State effort is commendable, they are not a ‘research’ institution in the same way as UC Davis. We have also been told by well over 10 major tech companies in Davis (and counting) that given the option to locate in Davis or other cities in the region, they prefer the proximity to the campus. Additionally, the Sac State site is land locked in a peculiar setting, away from easy freeway access, and is a reuse of an existing commercial/industrial zone.
Robb – By anchor, your are correct in your follow-on statements. SRP was an intentional effort by Stanford Univ. and they are heavily involved even to this day. There are other parks of similar scope (the one I mention in Illinois is the case) and then there are ones like San Diego where the academic and public sectors led the way. A more specific and directive role is always desirable, but not necessary for success. A construct like SF Mission Bay would be ideal. Completely thinking outside the box, wouldn’t it be amazing if the UC Davis World Food Center was a primary tenant of a new innovation park? This would be similar to the investment (though on a much smaller scale) that UCSF made in Mission Bay by moving their med center right into the heart of the innovation center. So we should dream big and find examples that demonstrate successful partnerships between the public, academic, and private sectors.
“One important factor would be how dense a project might develop.”
this is what really concerns me looking at existing stock, it just seems like no matter what we do we will have limited land, so the lack of density is a problem.
DP – I’m not sure I understand this point you are making.
First, we do not have limited land. We have a limited appetite for developing land.
Second, density is part a choice for how the park is designed, and part the property design for the individual businesses that locate in the park. I don’t see how we can lament density until we get to the design phase.
i think it’s more correct that you’re not agreeing with the point i am making, rather than a lack of understanding – you seem to understand it fine.
“First, we do not have limited land. We have a limited appetite for developing land.”
and that’s not going to change any time soon. so in effect, we have limited developable land.
in terms of density look at the downtown, look at other potential infill sites, look at places like interland. we can much better utilize that land if we don’t have single-level units and take up valuable real estate with flat single level parking structures.
dp, one of the challenges of moving from one story to more than one story at an existing site (like Interland) is that the existing structure is only partially through its useful life, so there are residual fiscal balances associated with the original creation of the building that need to be included in any decision about densification of said site.
Second, many of the single story structures do not have sufficient vertical wall load bearing capacity to support additional stories, therefore in those situations the only option if you want to go up on that site is to raze the existing structure.
“and that’s not going to change any time soon.”
That is just your opinion, not fact.
“so in effect, we have limited developable land.”
No we don’t And we should not keep saying that we don’t. We are 100% not like other developed cities actually and physically lacking peripheral land to develop. We have plenty of land. We are surrounded by open land on at least two, possibly three sides of the city. We are no different than Woodland or Folsom in that it is only a policy decision and election measure to change the use of a parcel of land from ag or nothing to something else. Said another way, it is a choice we can make.
I think the point is that most people are reluctant to develop peripheral land.
Most people “have been” reluctant. But times have changed.
So you believe. But any major change would require, as I’ve said repeatedly, a complete re-visit of the General Plan. Perhaps we would be better served by discussing the specific sites that are being reviewed by the Innovation Park Task Force, as they are likeliest to go before the voters within the next couple of years.
You want to argue that times have not changed? Where have you been? Have you been paying any attention to the economy and the city’s dire financial problems?
I don’t believe the voters of Davis would annex any more than 400 – 450 acres over the next 5 – 10 years.
Is this the same opinion you would have had in 2006?
It has always been my opinion, provable by election results, that Davis voters will approve steady, incremental change, but will generally oppose large projects or rapid expansion of the city’s boundaries. I think your belief that there has been a major change in how Davis voters view growth is unfounded.
But have times changed for others in the community. I keep reading people who seem shocked that the city is needing to ask for a sales tax.
Well we’ll likely test that theory this November. I think even Mace 200 is a tough sell, but feasible. I haven’t talked to anyone who wants housing or peripheral retail (slight exaggeration).
When I mention Schilling and Marrone, people tend to nod approvingly. That’s what is going to sell Mace 200.
I don’t disagree, but I think it’s going to be a heavier lift than Frankly would like to believe.
And your point about density.
Davis = 6,637 people per square mile
Palo Alto = 2,695 people per square mile
Santa Cruz = 4,705 people per square mile
Santa Barbara = 4,541 people per square mile
Berkeley = 10,752 people per square mile
San Francisco = 17,179 people per square mile
This demand for greater density is quite absurd and irrational. You would rather we cram together more people rather than develop peripheral land? Why would we all want to live like that? We are already one of the most dense medium-sized cities on the west coast. Apparently I mean that both figuratively and literally.
In this case the call for density relates to business park lands with single-level structures.
But isn’t it all related? Why would we care what the density of a business park is if not in consideration of city density in general?
You cannot dictate to a business what their space needs are. If they need single story, they will acquire single story.
You’re operating from the belief that you can get more land to build a business park, I think that’s going to be close to a one-shot deal and we’ll need to better utilize existing land.
“This demand for greater density is quite absurd and irrational.”
Not necessarily if you are willing to look at both the pros and cons of densification.
The pros:
1) Maintenance of separation of towns in the area retaining a sense of individuality for each rather than a So.California type development
2) Increased walkability/bikeability thus minimizing the need for the use of automobiles with improved health and environment with less obesity and diabetes and less auto emissions
3) Increased community interactions as people spend less time in their cars
4) Increased disposable income as people spend less money on gas and car maintenance and for the community, road maintenance leaving more for other pursuits.
I leave an exposition of the cons to you since you seem to feel that the downsides to densification are self evident.
While I completely understand that some people will prefer a more suburban, car dependent lifestyle, I think it is important to understand that for others such as myself, a lifestyle in which I can walk almost anywhere I want to be is far preferable. For many years, Davis has concentrated on the auto dominant, bedroom community model of which the Cannery is the most recent entry. I strongly believe, in the interest of balance, it is time to work on densification for those for whom this is the preferred lifestyle.
There is such absurdness in the conflict in your stated desire to preserve Davis’s small town look and feel, and your rejection of peripheral development. It makes me question if you really know what you want/like, or if you possibly don’t have the ability to accurately connect the dots for cause and effect related to an assessment of quality of life. Or, if you have some hidden agenda pushing back on growth. You say you don’t want to live in a big city, yet you opine for increased population density that will make us look and feel more like a big city.
Sprawl is not a concern for Davis, and you and others should stop using the term until you learn what it really is. Sprawl does not just mean expansion. It is when cities connect without a buffer. Do you know know that Yolo country already has 5000 acres of ag easements… most of which preserve the buffer around Davis (our farmland moat)? None of the land use ideas being debated put us at any risk of losing our buffer.
Negative impacts of population density…
Population density and noise can have a variety of effects on people. When privacy, personal space, and territory are infringed upon by other people or short-term or chronic noise, the effects can range from simple annoyance to severe intrusive anxiety-producing illness (Straub, 2007). As population density increases and territory, privacy, and personal space are accroached, such accommodations demand acknowledgment to prevent the psychological effects of crowding, and to prevent aggression, anxiety, and frustration.
Population density affects people, and it also contributes to the psychological effects of crowding whereby people feel confined and limited with less access to necessities. Crowding has been linked to aggression, social withdrawal, increased criminal acts, and inappropriate social interaction (Stokols, 1972). To decrease the symptoms of crowding, it is essential to preserve privacy, personal space, and honor territoriality as a basic human social need. As the resource of space decreases, privacy and personal space demand greater acknowledgment to prevent psychological affects. Without privacy and personal space people tend to feel less control, more competition, and have an increased tendency to react negatively to minor annoyances (Straub, 2007).
According to Straub (2007), investigation into chronic noise effects in laboratory settings showed louder noise can disrupt short-term memory and decrease the ability to perform simple tasks. Individuals vary in their appraisal of noise, and the more disturbing the individual finds the noise, the greater the affect the noise will have on the individual. Even though noise may not be directly responsible for stress, the affects on sleep, anxiety provoked, and subjective attitude toward the noise has a direct effect on individual health (Straub, 2007). Noise, over which individuals have little to no control has a more severe affect on stress levels.
Tia – you have argued against having utility pole installed around your neighborhood because you don’t want to see them. Apparently you have some yard space that gives you some sense of privacy and nature. But then you say we need to cram more people into our tiny footprint… basically eliminating their opportunity to have any yard space like you have. Is that fair? Is cramming more people together really going to improve our individual and collective quality of life? No it won’t.
If I wanted that type of life I would move to a big city. And so would you.
I realize that it must be exhausting to try to make up stories about my hidden agendas and ulterior motives, but I do think we should at least be accurate. To the best of my knowledge, I have never argued against utility poles in my neighborhood. I may have noted that I do not find them aesthetically pleasing, but i recognize their necessity and bought a house with one directly in front. I am not sure who you are quoting, but it isn’t me.
So here is my actual position. Yes, I acknowledge the downside of densification that you have mentioned. And, I believe that there is a “sweet spot” in which the pros and cons will be well balanced. Different people will identify that spot differently. I stand by my statement that the predominant form of population growth over the preceding decades has been peripheral “bedroom” community type growth. Most businesses using new construction have also been on the periphery. What I am arguing for is what I perceive as a better balance which certainly would entail densification.
Your definition perhaps, but not the common one. For most, urban sprawl means the spread of low-density development away from an urban/suburban center, a pattern that enforces dependence on cars for basic transportation. So yes, tacking on parcel after parcel at a spreading perimeter of Davis would constitute sprawl.
For the most part I agree Jim, especially with respect to housing. Cannery was an interesting test case in how to use a peripheral parcel away from the urban center in a way that did not enforce additional dependence on cars for basic transportation.
Growth Issue and others have decried the bicycle community’s efforts to maximize non-automobile connectivity at Cannery. The success of those efforts made Cannery’s “sprawl index” significantly lower in my opinion.
One question I have for you (and anyone else that cares to weigh in) is, “Do you think that a higher prevalence of electric cars (with a matching lower prevalence of gasoline cars) reduces a parcel’s ‘sprawl index’?”
I don’t. I think it makes for better local air quality, but the cars themselves are the problem: they eat up enormous amounts of resources in the form of roads, parking and capital expense. We’re stuck with them to a certain extent, but urban areas oriented toward walking, biking and mass transit are much more people-friendly.
We are of the same mind. With that said, trying to make better that which we are stuck with, is a worthwhile effort.
Well, that has been the definition, but of course beecause the term has been exploited by those against change as their emmotive to fight change, it has exanded.
“Peter Gordon, a professor of planning and economics at the University of Southern California’s School of Urban Planning and Development, argues that many households in the United States, Canada, and Australia, especially middle and upper class families, have shown a preference for the suburban lifestyle.[5] Reasons cited include a preference towards lower-density development (for lower ambient noise and increased privacy), better schools, less crime, and a generally slower lifestyle than the urban one.[5] Those in favor of the current pro low-density land use policies also argue that this sort of living situation is an issue of personal choice and economic means.[5] One suburban Detroit politician defends low-density development as the preferred lifestyle choice of his constituents, calling it “…the American Dream unfolding before your eyes.”[63]”
So what we are really talking about is some forcing their lifestyle preference on others. The absurdness of this is contained in the fact that many pushing this demand for densification live in expensive property with space for gardens and privacy.
Did you note the outcry over the four-story senior residential development on 1st street? People really don’t like living packed in like sardines. They irrationally romantisize it. That was my point to Tia. She likes her gardens and her privacy. So do I. I think I just better reconcile what I really want in life ignoring any ideological inpriinting.
But let’s get to the heart of the issue here. We are talking about economic development. Business requires land. If you restrict the amount of land that can be used to develop business on, then you will have less business and less tax revenue.
So your vision of a small and compact hyper-dense little city is very expensivve. Can we aford it? I think not.
The solution is a better balance and smart development. Toady we are way out of balance in terms of developable land. If you don’t want to agree to add some… probably 1000 acres over the next 15-20 years, then open your wallet and be prepared to have your senses asaulted with the standard probllems of highly-dense urban livving.
Frankly,
One thing that never seems to get discussed is WHO will be doing all of this developing if it required to be HI DENSITY INFILL with all its attendant costs – including parking infrastructure.
Sooner or later, it will become necessary to find tenants for this space which is often most often occupied by professional service providers who first assume they will find a base of qualified clients before they make that commitment.
To my simple way of looking at the equation, we first need to determine who will constitute the client based for those whom we assume will be eager to occupy the higher density downtown infill.
I think you are back to the basic discussion of who are these employer-clients and where will they be located.
Doby – Those are great points.
When you look at other communities doing infill development and redevelopment, in addition to zoning, you would have a developer proposing the types of tenants to be included. The developer would certainly be motivated to do his research about demand and returns before investing his capital and effort. And there would most often be community input and requirements.
But we are talking about bit development here. A little parcel here and a little parcel there. So, you are correct that this fragmented approach to appease those that cannot handle much change, will be more difficult to connect with a city-wide comprehensive growth and development plan. I suppose it can be done, but I certainly don’t know of any other communities the size of Davis that have done so or could even make it so.
I think we will develop and grow small and slow and haphazardly if the only major focus is infill lacking RDA or other redevelopment tools.
Frankly,
Responding to your reply, I would like to amplify on the issue of clients. It is foundational to the discussions of a viable “innovation district” or Innovation Hub concept.
Each example that Rob White has suggested is located in the “context” of an ecosystem with a diverse base of pre-existing mother-ship employers. In essence, such companies and their spinoffs are what constitute the client base – both of the innovation hub and for the professional service providers that often populate thriving downtown business districts.
Sometimes it seems that the essential presence of this employer group is lost in the translation.
Each time I read your post, I end up with the same phrase running through my brain … chicken and egg.
Bottom-line, we need to start somewhere (or decide we don’t want to start at all). What Robb has laid out my not be perfect/ideal but it is a solid starting point.
Although I didn’t follow that project closely, my sense (mostly from friends who live in the immediate vicinity) is that the objection arose primarily to the fact that the City Council chose to ignore several years of work by staff and neighbors developing a specific plan for the area. They approved a project that was egregiously out of compliance with that plan, and one that seems likely (to me) to result not in owner-occupied units, but in a high-density student ghetto — and one with woefully inadequate parking — instead, precisely what the neighbors don’t want.
There is a considerable amount of “what goes around, comes around” in the process that produced that specific plan for the area. The major reason that the proposed project was egregiously out of compliance with the specific plan was that the specific plan assigned a FAR (floor area ratio) of 1.0 to that site, while assigning FARs of upwards of 2.0 for the virtually identical properties. Drilling down into the reason for that statistical anomaly in the specific plan illuminated that the owner of the two parcels in question was not present at the planning sessions facilitated by staff and attended by Council member Stepehn Souza.
Further, the parking was not woefully inadequate for the “all seniors” (defined as over the age of 62 by law) occupancy/ownership proposed by the parcel owner. Staff blind-sided the Planning Commission by recommending against the age restriction for reasons that never were clear. Staff might not have prevailed in scuttling the parcel owner’s “senior-only” plan if the neighbors had weighed the difference between and age restricted project vs. an unrestricted project. They have no one to blame but themselves … and staff.
I don’t think that infill and peripheral development are mutually exclusive. Pretty much everyone I know who’s talking about this seems to be focusing on a couple of specific sites for Measure R consideration, and also would support greater infill and greater density of existing sites. Downtown, along Second Street, in South Davis, or wherever the land is zoned correctly or could be rezoned for greater flexibility.
Yes Don–If we are talking broadly about “economic development” (which, I believe we should) then densification of downtown is very much a part of the picture, in addition to the IPTF sites AND the neighborhood shopping areas.