For years Nishi has been the alluring open space in Davis. Nestled in next to the university and within walking distance from the downtown, Nishi has been tempting. But aside from Measure R considerations, the major hold up has to do with access.
Nishi is an odd-shaped parcel that is more triangular than the standard plot of land, running from the southwest to the northeast. It is bounded on the north side by the railroad tracks and the university, and bounded on the south by I-80. To make matters more complicated, the only true access point is west Olive Dr, exiting at Richards – only the most heavily congested corridor in Davis.
Because of its proximity to the university, councils have been tempted to attempt develop here, but the 800-pound gorilla has always been access.
As Mayor Pro Tem Robb Davis put it in no uncertain terms, “I will not vote to put this on the ballot in June without conditions related to access. The cleanest way is to say no undercrossing at the railroad – no project. No improvements to Richards – no project.”
However, like his colleagues, he said, “I’m willing to see what we can come up with in terms of this other way that may allow certain things to go forward in phased way, but no further. With the idea that the actual, that’s on the table in front of us cannot be developed without the second crossing.”
The big line in the sand is the second crossing – ability for residents of Nishi to have an access point under the railroad tracks at the university. For their part, while UC Davis was initially partnering with the city on this area, looking at their own Solano Park in conjunction with Nishi, UC Davis has gotten a bit squeamish, based on some student protests back in 2013 and 2014.
However, as the university looks to work with the city on their own Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), it is probably more a matter of timing than lack of support at this point. Whether it will be ready for a June vote is anyone’s question.
Councilmember Brett Lee may have a workaround for this – offering the idea of a phased project. He called it “curious” that people referred to the second crossing as “the key event” in terms of the project moving forward. With a single access point, he noted, the draft EIR shows a Level of Service (LOS) F at the Richards-Olive intersection. However, with the two access points, there would also be an LOS F at the intersection.
He said he agrees with the notion that “that level of service F is unacceptable.”
He suggested a phased approach, saying that “the idea would be at each phase Level of Service F would not be encountered at Richards and Olive.” He said he would support a June ballot “provided that the applicant could produce a phasing proposal which would not trigger a Level of Service F at our intersections.”
This would allow the project to move forward and the public to have more certainty, as they wouldn’t have to worry about the university approving the second access point. The applicant could have an initial build and when a second access point or corridor improvements on Richards were implemented that would allow additional housing to be built at that time.
Councilmember Lee sees this proposal as having more teeth than it might first appear. Achieving a Level of Service of better than “F” would require more than just perfunctory approval of a second access point – it would require that the city and the developer find a fix for Richards Blvd.
Now, the council earlier in the evening approved a staff recommendation on light sequencing and pushed for staff, and UC Davis during the LRDP process, to work on changing the habits of drivers who are using Richards as their primary UC Davis access point.
From our perspective, merely having the second access point is not enough. Through that process we are simply building infrastructure to accommodate bad habits.
For their part, both Brett Lee and Robb Davis both made mention of the need and ability to discourage the use of automobiles.
The Vanguard has in the past pushed for a possible car-less Nishi. But we don’t really have to go that far. Nobody the Vanguard spoke to could put an exact number of the reduction of cars, but what if we had a goal of reducing the number of cars by 25 percent, 50 percent or even 75 percent?
There are a lot of ways to do that. One way is that the city could look into discouraging vehicles in all new developments. There is an interesting nexus here because climate action supporters see reduction in vehicles as a way to greatly reduce our carbon footprint. At the same time, there are those slow-growthers who have told me they would be more willing to accept development and density if we find ways to reduce the number of cars.
On a more localized level, this is something we could simply write into the development agreement. The developer at Nishi might be willing to support a reduction in cars if it makes it more likely that he achieves a victory in the Measure R vote outcome.
It would also be a way to quiet critics like myself who can conceptually support a project at this location, but have concerns about circulation and accessibility.
There is a legislative approach, but there is also a market-based approach. The developer could reduce the number of spaces, allowing those willing to pay a price for parking to have vehicles, while having many of the units designated as car-less.
I have personally noted a trend among many of the college students that I work with – increasingly, they do not have their own cars here. When they need cars, we could have accessible Zip Cars and car-sharing programs available to them. In the meantime, they would have easy access to UC Davis and the downtown.
On Tuesday, the city council took an important first step by making it clear that, without a grade-separated crossing to the university, Nishi is not going on the ballot. But why simply reinforce driving habits, when, instead, we can look at a model that increases density while decreasing the impact of vehicles?
Now is the time to start pushing this.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
When the subject has come up in the past about “legislating” a car reduction solution for Nishi, Barack Palin voiced the concerns of many current Davisites that having the Council impose a unilateral restriction was/is unacceptable. When BP raised that concern, I proposed a market-driven solution that would build on the very clear expectation that the vast majority of Nishi’s residents are likely to be UCD students.
The best way to describe that market-driven solution is “No residential dwelling unit comes with a parking space as part of its monthly rental fee.” For those residents who do not want to bicycle or walk to the UCD campus and/or downtown, an automobile parking space would be available for a monthly rental fee of at least $300 per month. That parking space rental fee would be separate from and in addition to the monthly dwelling unit rent.
Why $300 per month per parking space? The current parking fee at the Mondavi Center lot is $9 per day. Multiply that by 30 days and you get $270 per month. Setting the per parking space rental fee at at least that level is consistent with the on-campus UCD parking “market.” If we were in San Francisco the parking “market” rates are closer to $500 per month for a space. I would not oppose setting the monthly parking fee at Nishi that high to provide a strong incentive for the students to voluntarily modify their automobile use behavior patterns.
Zip Car can set up a facility on the Nishi site to provide the carless residents with on-demand access to an automobile to address their occasional need for auto transportation.
Legislating a “no cars” environment at Nishi will produce backlash from citizens like Barack Palin. Creating a market driven solution will not produce that backlash. In the past several months I have made public comment for that solution in the EIR reviews of almost half a dozen of the Commissions. Safety, Open Space, Finance & Budget, Natural Resources, as well as with the Council itself on several occasions, and in discussions with Cool Davis and the Valley Climate Action Center.
The Nishi developer has heard it from me probably two dozen times on this subject. The project probably makes more money for the developer if that solution is implemented. I believe it needs to be a traffic and carbon footprint mitigation measure in the Final EIR. I believe it needs to be a baseline feature in the Measure J/R vote … right along side the ag land mitigation plan.
Is there a typo there, Matt, or is that legalese?
I agree this may be an exclusive enclave for “residents” because you are proposing draconian standards which will encourage (as they already do) parking in residential neighborhoods, than walking or biking to UCD. Will their be moving sidewalks and such to keep the “traffic” moving?
the question is, will this end up being more dorms for UCD or will the City want permanent residents? They will have to make these family friendly either way, because many long term students seem to have kids and dogs which I know (from experience) better suited to houses than apartments. While the workers who commute may have an option of a place to live where they work, I doubt it will end up that way.
Yes that was a typo Miwok. It should say “No residential dwelling unit comes with a parking space as part of its monthly rental fee.”
Regarding your statement “will encourage (as they already do) parking in residential neighborhoods, than walking or biking to UCD” I have a question for you. What residential neighborhoods would Nishi residents drive to from Nishi in order to park their automobile and then walk or bike to the campus?
Regarding the questions you pose in your final paragraph, my suspicion is that the dynamics of the housing market will determine who lives in both the rental units and the for-sale units.
For the 440 rental units, I suspect that UCD students will make up over 95% of the residents. The evidence I believe supports that conclusion is that (A) the close proximity of the physical location of the Nishi residential units to the UCD campus will be much more valuable for UCD students than for any non-student demographic cohort, and (B) UCD students will be better able to aggregate into rental groups and make the individual monthly rental fees more affordable by spreading the total monthly rental fee across more residents. That is a dynamic that none of the non-student demographic cohorts can effectively do.
Fot the 210 for-sale units, the evidence isn’t as straightforward as the rental units, because UCD students will be much less able to come up with the capital down payment necessary to purchase a unit. However, there are indicators that will likely determine the make-up of the for-sale buyers. First, the kids and dogs demographic cohort is highly unlikely to want to subject their kids and dogs to the well over 1,000 student neighbors that will inhabit the rental units. Would you want to raise your kids/dogs/pets right next to a 1,000 resident fraternity/sorority house? If you are a married graduate student, wouldn’t you prefer living in West Village or Solano Park? If you have kids and a job in Sacramento same issue. If you have no kids and a job in Sacramento, would you want a daily commute from your home through the new tunnel to Old Davis Road and then westbound on Old Davis Road to I-80 and then through 7 miles of I-80 traffic until you get to the Yolo Causeway? Or would you rather purchase a house on the east side of Davis and avoid most of those commuting headaches? Workers (without kids/dogs/pets) whose place of employment is on the Nishi site, at UCD or in Downtown Davis will find the for-sale units at Nishi much more attractive.
So, based on the above evidence, I agree with your bottom-line.
However, that isn’t all bad news for the people you describe as “permanent residents.” The reason is that they will not be competing with as many student groups for the rental and for-sale properties elsewhere in Davis.
I always appreciate when someone talks to me like you do, Matt. Thank you.
I figured out was, because it was so strange, The people who park elsewhere to save the $9 a day or monthly charge is vast, depending on their family and work schedule and situation. It is not cut and dried, but personal experience from people I used to work with tell me Parking Services with their License readers may be employed more accurately to asses traffic patterns instead of anecdotal and dated information.
Your big Davis real Estate investors and current apartment slumlord will buy up as much as they can, because that is what they do. Keeps the prices high, so the City is happy, and rents high as well.
Parents used to buy houses in the go-go years and then kept them if they did not profit from it in the years their student went there. Many homeowners employ lease agreements for each house, and a contractor I used to know in the 90’s spent several years converting houses close to downtown to dorms, as in making the garages and living room into small rooms. Many faculty members do the same things, and I know this from working on their computers for years, where they kept their real estate on their UC computers and laptops.
I agree the rental units will be filled by students and their spouses/friends. Security and behavior will have to be monitored, because the first sexual assault will sink the place. Apartments across in South Davis is 7-8 people in one apartment, two kids in every bedroom. ASUCD has ads all the time for these and other rental availability. They split the rent, or each one has an agreement with the landlords.
When you say students “won’t want to have a family in a student environment, I think the students will not want families and dogs around them, but I have lived in several places where the dogs and kids, usually infants, were right in the middle of it all. Regarding commuting, people do many things that do not make sense, since they value schools more than where they live or work, and commute be damned. I had the privilege of knowing some grads who worked their way through, and saw how they had to live close to be on campus all the time. Permanent residents? Maybe they will just be apartments that are to save them commuting a few days a week, maybe even a legislator or two. Retirement age people maybe who used to work at the UC or own other properties and want to downsize? I cannot see what they would build that would be attractive enough to get someone out of Wild Horse, and actually sell the house. But I envision even the Permanent part will be snapped up and rented to students as well, just like the rest of the town. For all the commitment to Greenbelts and open space, this place will not be that and the business part is being touted as “Innovation Park” when what it needs to have is a small grocery and amenities for the people that live there, since you don’t want them moving all around town to shop, right?
My pleasure Miwok. The two most important body parts for a public servant (a nod to Mark West’s comment a few weeks ago) are her/his two ears. My response to you is the result of listening to what you have said. Thank you for the input … and your insight.
There are few (or many, depending how you count) “permanent” residents in Davis… none of them drive, bike, nor walk. Most of them ‘reside’ to the northeast of the intersection of Pole Line and E Eighth. Just watch out if you see any of them vote!
“Legislating a “no cars” environment at Nishi will produce backlash from citizens like Barack Palin.”
yeah, but legislating a lower cars environment may help bring on board some of the town’s lefties.
My belief is (but I have no evidence to confirm that belief) that “the town’s lefties” are not going to be the swing votes in any Measure J/R vote.
My gut tells me the same thing… also have no citeable evidence…
This has to be accomplished via the baseline features in the Measure R language. Reliance on the Development Agreement won’t pass muster with the voters.
As most Measure J/R activists understand, a Development Agreement is a contract between the City and the developer – not the citizens and the developer. It takes three votes of a developer-friendly CC majority to amend a DA.
I’m skeptical that a legally adequate set of complex contingencies related to phasing and/or the LRDP outcome can be built into the baseline project features. I’m also skeptical that the Nishi Development Agreement can be negotiated and vetted through the Commissions before the CC has to decide on putting the project on the June ballot.
The best course of action for the CC, given the current facts on the ground, is to focus on (1) reaching a binding agreement with UCD on access and (2) fixing the Richards corridor. The current fire drill to put a half-baked Nishi proposal on the June 2016 ballot is likely to fail – with significant negative consequences to the economic development story the City is trying to tell, as well as the CM and current council members orchestrating this mess.
CalAg said … “The best course of action for the CC, given the current facts on the ground, is to focus on (1) reaching a binding agreement with UCD on access and (2) fixing the Richards corridor.”
CalAg (and anyone else who wants to weigh in), if there is no access for automobiles to West Olive Drive from Nishi (only access for emergency vehicles, buses … and possibly delivery trucks), then does issue (2) become moot?
“… then does issue (2) become moot?” As to Nishi, mainly… but bikes/peds and EV’s are still an impact to to corridor, but not “significantly” as it relates to Nishi. If I lived in Nishi, and had a hankering for an “In-N-Out burger”, whether on bike or on foot, I’d “impact” the corridor. Pedestrian transit times can significantly affect signal timing. When the peds are present..
(1) Richards needs to be fixed regardless of any future development/redevelopment. Like our decaying infrastructure, it’s a mess that has been neglected by the City for a long time.
(2) A UCD-only access plan would make it much cheaper to fix Richards, but that’s not on the table. If I’m not mistaken, this alternative was not analyzed in the DEIR. To go down this path would require a new land plan and a new EIR process. It’s not as simple as putting up some bollards.
(3) To go down the UCD-only access path, the City should drop the “Innovation Center” charade and look at 100% residential. In a perfect world the property should be 100% tech with UCD access and an FAR >1.0, but at least 100% residential would be an honest proposal for the voters to consider.
(4) Under the 100% residential scenario, it would probably make more sense for UCD to annex the property and bypass the City planning process.
(5) There’s also the bait-and-switch issue. Assurances would need to be crafted that provided the voters with certainty that some future Council could not open an Olive Drive connection. Developers routinely create site plans that allow for future connectivity.
I agree that Richards needs to be fixed regardless, but that doesn’t answer the question I posed to you, which was ” if there is no access for automobiles to West Olive Drive from Nishi (only access for emergency vehicles, buses … and possibly delivery trucks), then does your issue (2) become moot?”
I wholeheartedly agree with you that the pre-existing conditions on Richards needs to be fixed regardless of any future development/redevelopment. Richards is part of our decaying infrastructure, it’s a mess that has been neglected by the City for a long time independent of the Nishi proposal. How does a Nishi project with no access for automobiles to West Olive Drive contribute to that pre-existing City infrastructure problem?
“It takes three votes of a developer-friendly CC majority to amend a DA.” Not exactly, but basically true. Even a “developer-UNfriendly” CC majority could propose and execute a DA amendment, but the Developer (or its successor in interest) has to agree.
“I’m skeptical that a legally adequate set of complex contingencies related to phasing and/or the LRDP outcome can be built into the baseline project features.” Good call. Individual purchasers of the parcels may or may not be “successors in interest” as to amendments, but they (technically, their land) are ‘bound’ by the DA. Enforcement is another issue, related to subsequent buyers.
CC&R’s are also ‘legally binding documents’. Yet, except in very limited instances, is there a will or ability to enforce?
Skepticism as to what can actually be accomplished in a DA, based on individual behavior later, is the ONLY rational view.
i think the real question is whether the council is going to give lip service to the need to reduce not just vmt, but the use of vehicle itself.
Well, since the CC cannot now, or ever, CONTROL individual behavior, I believe that question is moot.
Oh yeah they can! If they allow a six story “mixed use” edifice on the West Border of Old East Davis, the residents will not reside in the “dens”, will not double up on rooms, and only 1/4 of them will have cars! They will all ride bikes and walk, because they won’t have a place to park the car they don’t own. Even more amazing, the expanded retail space downstairs will have patrons who *only bike and walk*, even on stormy days, because now, when you put a building in, the new patrons are magic happy bike riders, because the owners of the building will only rent to businesses that cater to people who don’t drive cars, even on stormy days! It’s a miracle! It’s an F—ing miracle!!! In fact, when you build buildings like this at the advice of SACOG goals which rule developer and City goals above zoning laws, then cars start magically disappearing from City streets! It’s a miracle, the City Council *can* control our behavior!!! IT’S AN F—ING MIRACLE!!! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!
Dorothy! Dorothy! Your little dog is dead. Stop clicking your F—ing heels together. DOROTHY!!!!!!