On Tuesday night, UC Davis Assistant Vice Chancellor for Campus Planning and Community Resources Bob Segar presented to the Davis City Council a report on UC Davis’s LRDP (Long Range Development Plan), which is a comprehensive land-use plan to guide physical development of the campus, akin to a city’s General Plan.
In the coming months, we will undoubtedly focus on the statement, “Even in our highest on-campus housing scenario, we do not anticipate being able to house every new student.” Undoubtedly that will push the issue of housing back onto an already-impacted rental housing market.
However, an even bigger announcement likely would have slipped by many in the community unnoticed. On the south end of campus, southwest of Nishi and into Solano County, the area was previously designated as Research Park in the 2003-15 plan. Mr. Segar announced that that area is no longer being considered for a Research Park
The Vanguard was previously aware of fairly high level talks between UC Officials and local economic development interests and developers about the possibility of a large innovation center going into Solano County.
From the standpoint of the university this made sense. UC Davis is pumping $1 billion of research money and much of that research is being pushed out into the private sector through technology transfer. However, while UC Davis has the intellectual capital, the city of Davis lacks the space for some of these endeavors. That is one of the driving forces behind the innovation park push in the city.
However, as everyone knows, Davis’ citizenry is skeptical of growth. The city has policies like Measure R that require citizen votes to approve new development outside of the current borders. While Davis has some areas in consideration for innovation centers, like Mace Ranch Innovation Center and the Nishi Property bordering UC Davis, already one of the proposals has been put on hiatus.
By going into Solano County, UC Davis could have bypassed land use battles in Davis.
For Davis this might have been the worst of all worlds. Building a large innovation center, of potentially 1000 acres, would have dried up the potential for MRIC and others in the city. The city would therefore no longer have access to jobs in the city or the revenue generated by the center.
On the other hand, Davis would feel the crunch of traffic impacts and demand for housing and other city services. One scenario might have even seen residential projects cropping up in Northern Solano County to serve the innovation center, creating de facto sprawl that Davis would have no ability to control.
Clearly, this was a worst-case scenario – but plausible.
Why did UC Davis take the idea of a research park off the table? Assistant Vice Chancellor Bob Segar did not immediately respond to the Vanguard’s request for information on this.
One possibility is that the focus of UC Davis right now is developing the Sacramento Campus. Three weeks ago, the Sacramento Bee, covering the UC Davis Convocation Event at the Mondavi Center, announced plans to build graduate programs in downtown Sacramento as part of its “University of the 21st Century” plan, which includes an estimated $2 billion in construction projects.
The Bee quotes Chancellor Katehi stating, “As a land grant institution and the public research university of this capital region, it is our obligation to be at the cutting edge of these efforts and an additional campus in Sacramento is essential to those efforts.”
Writes the Bee, “Although Katehi made no mention of the downtown Sacramento railyard in the speech, she told The Sacramento Bee last week that the site remains among a handful being considered. The satellite campus would include two new schools, one focusing on population and global health and another a public policy institute. The schools would offer master’s degree programs, but could be expanded to undergraduate programs in the future depending on demand, Katehi said.”
“We want to be visible,” Chancellor Katehi said in an interview with the Bee. “We are the only UC so close to the state Capitol. … We need to create a name and a brand in the policy area. Whether it is food, water, energy sustainability or health, I think we can play an amazing role. That is my goal.”
While that seems to be the focus of UC Davis, clearly that is not a plan to develop an innovation park. The Railyards, located just north of the Sacramento Downtown, are a 244-acre site. Already Kaiser has agreed to utilize 18 acres of it. UC Davis is long-believed to be interested in that spot for the World Food Center. Whether it could become an innovation center for the university remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the Sacramento Business Journal gave a sobering view of the progress that Barry Broome, CEO of the Greater Sacramento Area Economic Council, has made in pitching the Sacramento region for moving San Francisco-based technology companies.
The Business Journal writes, “Broome still gave his investors a sobering outlook Wednesday on the long-term challenge of recruiting business from the Bay Area.”
They said about Mr. Broome, “He focused on economic data that shows Sacramento has an abundance of young, professional workers, many of whom commute three hours to the Bay Area each day because they can earn up to 50 percent more income. The data also showed the Sacramento region has a lower median age and far lower real estate costs than the Bay Area and Seattle.”
Right now, the region’s biggest assets are two major higher learning institutions – Sac State and UC Davis. “Executives were also interested in research occurring at University of California Davis,” they wrote.
Whatever the reasons, the decision by UC Davis not to push for its own research park on the south end of campus is good news for the city and gives current plans time to get public support for a vote perhaps still a year away.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Yes and no.
Sounds like the alternative is Sacramento. That would appease the Davis enemies of change.
Were the university to leave Solano County on the table for a future research park, those Davis voters would be in a position to weigh their impact concerns.
Sounds to me like UCD expects to end up with its research parks in Sacramento.
the city dodges a huge bullet on this – ucd wanted to take the decision out of the hands of this community but is going a different direction. even if they build an innovation park in sac, that’s not going to take away from what we’re doing.
Why would you say, “that’s not going to take away from what we’re doing.” The demand for innovation/research parks is not local. It is regional. Despite what many folk believe, Davis isn’t all that damn special (when it comes to research/innovation parks), but perhaps we could make a movie about what plays out… I’m thinking, “They’re Not That Into You” would be a great working title.
And I say that as a supporter of the research/innovation parks, particularly the Mace one.
look at the region – davis is a place that is actually performing quite well. companies want to come to davis. some will inevitably end up at the railyards, but building a park on mace will be a good draw.
Not even close to true.
Constructing the argument around a false premise – particularly one so shockingly misinformed and naive – is not helpful.
Now for some facts …
1. Only a tiny fraction of the research conducted at UCD results in technology transfer.
2. The overwhelming majority of the aggregate research output does not even meet the bar for the campus to file for patent protection.
3. Of that that does, only a small fraction is ever licensed by the private sector and/or used by a startup.
4. A large fraction of the research budget flows to UCDMC and other operations outside the City of Davis.
5. The annual research funding for 2013-14 was $700M (off it’s peak of of $750M during the two year span of 2011-13). I would like to see the source of the claim that the annual research budget is now $1B.
so you don’t believe uc davis is going to push for a research park somewhere and that davis can benefit from one?
Huh? You’re putting words in my mouth.
The point of my post is that there are a bunch a bulls**t arguments (not to mention questionable technical reports) being used to try and sell the “innovation centers.” While the voting public may not be engaged enough to fully understand the debate, they can smell bulls**t a mile away. Just responding to a unusually massive pile.
Davis would benefit greatly by:
(1) MRIC with no housing.
(2) Nishi with no housing (100% technology park) and a front-loaded connection to Old Davis Road (on-campus, north of the tracks).
More specifically on Nishi, I would advocate for requiring a Specific Plan that includes redevelopment of West Olive Drive and Research Park Drive south of the tunnel (i.e. joint integrated planning of the Nishi development, West Olive Drive redevelopment, and the Embassy Suites project). A huge high-density student housing project should be built on Solano Park (campus side of the tracks).
Regarding UCD, it’s pretty clear Katehi is looking at a dispersed campus model – in my opinion a direct adaptive response to being surrounded by a hostile non-collaborative host city. I don’t think she finds our economic development potential/strategy credible, so if we give up our prime opportunity site next to downtown to build student-focused housing it’s a win for UCD.
Whether the Solano County site is really dead or not is anybody’s guess. If Mars or one of the other big WFC donors decide they want a Research Park at that location, it’s going to happen.
Very well said, CalAg!
Per a public comment at UCD’s LRDP presentation to the council:
http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/ucd/city-council-gets-its-first-look-at-ucds-growth-plan/
So as to your suggestions for Nishi —
It’s clear that won’t happen. Any answer that involves UCD building significantly more student housing instead of the city providing more rental housing is just another way of saying ‘nobody’s going to deal with the rental housing crisis in Davis.’
We need both. And the council needs to reiterate to UCD officials, over and over, that they need to keep the commitment they made to house 40% of the students. They aren’t anywhere close, and they aren’t making progress on it.
The West Village housing that is on hold is for faculty and staff. I’m not aware of any unbuilt student housing. This needs to be fact-checked.
There’s no evidence that Solano Park is off the table for student housing. It’s slated to be torn down in 2016. I’d like to see the City demand it be devoted to high density student housing.
UCD has been exploring putting synergistic private companies on university (i.e. county) land (e.g. the Solano county site) for years and there is a risk that Katehi will try to put research park type uses on the Solano Park site if the City is asleep at the switch.
Don,
Probably neither would you if you had to build everything at union scale per Governor Davis!
As far as I can tell, the prevailing wage law has been on the books for at least a couple of decades. I find reference to it in UC policy documents back to 1993. So it predates any of the planning for West Village, it predates the Chancellor’s 2020 Initiative announced in 2010. It should have been a factor in all planning for the housing that is being constructed and reconstructed on the Davis campus. If the university doesn’t have the funds to build out West Village, they should stop adding more students until they can provide housing per the agreements they made with city officials and long-standing UC policy. They need to provide 40% of the housing for their students; presently I believe they are at about 25%.
It makes it difficult for city leaders to work with UC when they won’t keep their word or address the impacts of their enrollment expansion on the city.
The solution to the problem is not to give up our economic development opportunity sites like Nishi. That’s just fiscally irresponsible.
We need jobs and a diverse and sustainable economic base more than we need to try solve Katehi’s student housing problems.
Let’s see some good faith efforts on Russell Field, Orchard Park, and Solano Park before we start to densify to help accommodate UCD over-enrollment.
personally i think we need to solve both the housing issue and the jobs issue
CalAg: “We need jobs and a diverse and sustainable economic base more than we need to try solve Katehi’s student housing problems.”
Exactly!
DP: “personally i think we need to solve both the housing issue and the jobs issue”
And how do you propose we house the incoming 5,000 new students UCD will bring to the community? AT BEST, there are 2,000 planned units of housing for them. Where are we going to put the other 3,000, or get the money to do it?
Don Shor: “If the university doesn’t have the funds to build out West Village, they should stop adding more students until they can provide housing per the agreements they made with city officials and long-standing UC policy.”
Spot on!