On Sunday, I presented five questions I would want to ask the community if I were the city council. To answer one person’s question posed off-line, no I don’t see these questions taking the place of some sort of visioning process. But, on the other hand, I’m not sure we are going to get to a visioning process.
What I see right now is a strong divide in the readership from those who believe that student housing is the problem of UC Davis, generated by UC policies.
Strangely, although I have taken a more middle position, my comments have been construed to mean that I “clearly have what seems to be a constant resistance to advocating for on-campus housing for the students.”
I have taken what I think amounts to a pragmatic approach. The university has preliminarily said they will provide for a certain amount of housing for new students. They have not pledged to take on more housing for current students, which is a problem. They do not have a good track record for following through, even on signed MOUs.
And we have no real enforcement mechanism – we’re basically in the proverbial “stop or I’ll say stop again,” with regard to UC.
So the pragmatic approach, from my view, is to build some housing for students in the city while pushing for the university to follow through on their commitments. How is that a resistance to advocating for on-campus housing for students?
The argument offered here is that UC Davis is creating this crisis by expanding admissions faster than it is building housing supply. That’s a reasonable point.
Yesterday, others have pushed back on this argument.
One argued, “The shortage of apartments in Davis is due to Davis failing to build sufficient apartments to meet the demand. Nothing more. We are completely responsible for the negligence of failing to meet the needs of our residents.”
The response: “No, Davis is building more housing, but UCD keeps expanding its enrollment faster. UCD has no plan for where its students live after they come to Davis. It’s time UCD takes responsibility for what they are doing. Davis can not be expected to jump to building more housing every time the University decides to expand enrollment.”
But, as others have pointed out, while Davis has approved some housing in the last few years and there is some approved housing that was delayed by the recession, that housing is primarily not rental housing.
As Don Shor argues, “We are thousands of beds short already, and they aren’t even going to provide new housing for all of the future students.”
But others seem to be arguing there is no shortage at all. They look at listings that show there are over 200 homes for sale and over 200 apartments for rent, as though that figure in July is more telling than the annual survey of available housing that shows less than 0.2 percent vacancy.
The argument put forward, “My point is that when you can chose between hundreds of homes to buy and/or hundreds of homes and apartments to rent no one (is) ‘forced’ to live outside Davis.”
But is that actually true? The projected student and staff population that will live out of town is 10,000. Clearly, the supply of housing that is vacant, even in July, is far outstripped by the number of people who live outside of town and commute in.
The point Don Shor has been making for a number of years now is that right now there is a gap between housing needs and housing supply. Right now, he surmises, “We are thousands of beds short already.”
The advocates of on-campus only housing seem to miss several key points. First, the current shortfall. Second, the fact that UC Davis is only stating (not promising yet, at least, not committing, etc.) that it will accommodate 90 percent of the new student growth in the next twenty years. Third, the unenforceability of that commitment as seen from previous commitments.
There are those who argue, oh, we’re not on-campus only. But when I asked for four locations where you would support housing in town – you offered none and pointed back to the UC Davis campus.
From that I have to conclude that you support on-campus housing only, and that not only do you want UC Davis to supply the 5400 or so beds they have suggested they would accommodate this spring, but another 3000 to 4000 beds that they are short now.
The irony is that I’m not opposed to more housing on campus. In fact, I would suggest that the folks at Nishi as well as UC Davis look into models like Poly Canyon Village in San Luis Obispo. Poly Canyon Village, built long after I graduated from Cal Poly, houses 2700 students with apartments, amenities, restaurants and retail on 30 acres. It consists of nine 4- and 5-story buildings (so you don’t have to go to steel frames) and 618 apartment units with plaza and other space.
Think about it, it has nearly twice the student population on only two-thirds of the acreage of Nishi. That could be built on Nishi or it could be built on UC Davis land to the west. But even that doesn’t get us anywhere close to 90 percent of the student population growth in the next decade.
But what worries me is these things do not happen overnight. West Village had a decade-long planning process. The planning got delayed by an unsuccessful lawsuit by a neighborhood group. That ultimately led to the lack of access directly to the city of Davis through Russell Boulevard. West Village is still not completed, nearly 15 years after planning commenced.
Recently, UC Davis has proposed converting the athletic and recreation fields along Russell Blvd. to 3-story housing. The neighbors are complaining and probably rightfully so. But it just illustrates that housing on the UC Davis campus may not end up being that much easier to complete than housing in the city of Davis.
I thought asking people where they might accept some housing in town was a modest proposal and modest question. Instead, I was told it was “pretty astonishing.”
So now I will back up a step and ask the following questions:
- Do we have a shortage of rental housing in town?
- How much of that rental housing do you believe UC Davis needs to provide for?
- How much of that rental housing do you believe the city of Davis should provide?
- Where would you like to see that rental housing on campus?
- Where would you like to see the city propose additional rental housing?
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I don’t understand why UCD keeps increasing admissions (the number od students) with nowhere to put them. We had three rentals on our street that were mini dorms. They were 3 bedroom duplexes with about 4 or 5 students renting. How can young parents afford to live in Davis when the rent is so high? Not to mention the noise. One group of noisy students was finally evicted.
Off the subject, but I must add, my daughter had excellent grades, but her counselor advised the only UC she stood a chance at was Merced. I do strongly resent foreigners getting preferential treatment. I had paid CA taxes for about 30 years, not to mention volunteering for many organizations, including the Designated Driver program in Sacramento. I also volunteered at both my kids classrooms and drove students to various field trips, including Ashland, OR. I worked on local campaigns, I was involved in neighbors night out, and I used to donate money to the police dept.
I didn’t expect special treatment for my daughter, but I do believe foreign students, paying much higher tuition, are given preferential treatment. Therefore, I don’t care if there’s a housing shortage for students.
Because of two issues – (A) the need for more revenue drivin by out of state students blew up on UC and they promised to allow more in-state students in. (B) Because access to education is more important (especially to UC) than inconveniencing a city’s land use policy.
UCD needs to stop imposing upon and disrupting land use planning not only in Davis, but surrounding communities like Woodland, Winters and even West Sac. ALL of these cities are complaining about UCD’s negligence in providing UCD’s own housing needs on-campus where it is completely capable to doing so.
UCD can provide the education to whom they should be prioritizing – California resident students, and providing housing for them and any other nonresident students that they would like to admit if they have space and not denied admission to in-state California resident students. That is UCD’s and UC’s job. Not spending multi-millions of dollars on a new music recital center, a new art center, and a new International Student Center, all under construction on the UCD campus currently. UCD needs to straighten out their financial priorities, their poor management and their abysmal planning.
http://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/sunday-best/our-sunday-best-mondavi-centers-opening-marked-turning-point-for-uc-davis-and-community/
it seems like this is all a boon for the university. are any of the new buildings being built with university money?
“UCD needs to stop imposing upon and disrupting land use planning not only in Davis, but surrounding communities like Woodland, Winters and even West Sac. ALL of these cities are complaining about UCD’s negligence in providing UCD’s own housing needs on-campus where it is completely capable to doing so.”
I haven’t heard these complaints from other communities. Can you please cite examples? I would be interested to read these complaints and see who they are from.
Delia wrote:
> I don’t understand why UCD keeps increasing admissions (the number of students)
For every twenty five (25) out of state and/or foreign students they let in UCD gets about a MILLION dollars ($1,000.000) in tuition and fees (enough to hire ten more friends and relatives to $100K assistant to the assistant vice chancellor positions).
> How can young parents afford to live in Davis when the rent is so high?
Most young parents moving to town both have advanced degrees and both have good paying jobs. I talk to a lot of parents in town at kids school and sporting events and it is rare that I meet another parent like me that “just” has a bachelor’s degree…
> I must add, my daughter had excellent grades, but her counselor advised the only
> UC she stood a chance at was Merced. I do strongly resent foreigners getting
> preferential treatment.
It is not just “foreigners” getting preferential treatment the rich “out of state” kids also get it.
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Audit-shows-UC-admission-standards-relaxed-for-7215364.php
My nephew at Cal tells me that the out of state kids are all noticeably dumber “and” noticeably richer than the in state kids that (like him) were almost all in the top 10 at their California high schools (in his fraternity the guys with the lowest SAT scores and nicest cars all all from out of state).
P.S. If you were super involved in town start asking around and you will find out how a lot of “borderline” Davis kids with politically connected parents end up at UCD (rather than the nightmare that is UC Merced)…
Yes, you don’t understand.
I don’t know your age, but when I graduated high school 14% of graduates went on to get a 4-year degree. Today about 70% of high school graduates go on to pursue a 4-year degree.
A four-year degree today is yesterday’s high school diploma in terms of employment opportunity.
And judging by your other posts, I am guessing that you are a Hillary Clinton supporter. Clinton has ripped off Bernie Sanders promise to make all 2 and 4-year college tuition-free for all students.
So how do you think that will work for your daughters chances of getting in to a good school?
It seems that there is a cerebral defect in some people understanding the simple principles of supply and demand.
There is more demand for people to attend college.
And because of that there is a greater demand for housing in college towns.
But college towns tend to be liberal and run by liberals and liberals like to keep their communities gated and exclusive.
So liberals artificially constrain the supply of housing in college towns… and hence liberals are directly responsible for the crushing student debt that is plaguing young people these days. (Note… housing costs are the largest expense for most students).
And then liberals vote for candidates that say they will make college tuition free. And then more students will compete for the low supply of housing thus raising the cost of education… basically eroding the benefit of government mandated free tuition that of course will be taxed.
i think you’d get more traction if you stop politicizing everything
Yes, Frankly would reach a larger audience if he didn’t politicize everything, but, in this case Frankly is mostly correct until the end where he says the free tuition will be taxed. It seems that he is confusing tuition with mortgage debt relief where people are getting tax bills for the capital gains on mortgage debt forgiveness, an obscene and ridiculous attempt by tax authorities to squeeze blood from an already depleted stone.
The only “traction” I am interested in is to note the destructive group think and destroy it.
If you really care about the results and not just political feelings, you would join me in denouncing the destructive political group think.
Reduce the cost of something and you will increase the demand.
If you increase the demand of student admissions and not the supply of housing, the cost of housing will increase.
And that increase cost of housing will tax students more… to eat up the benefit of free tuition received.
And some taxes are going to be added or increased to pay for the free tuition. Unless you know of those money trees.
Ok, I will answer the questions with some explanation.
1. We do have a rental shortage in town. And it is driven directly and almost solely by the university. As some posters have pointed out in the past, Davis without the university is Dixon. So to claim that our housing needs are not the direct result of university policy, or that this simply does not matter, is fantasy. Of course it matters that the university drives the demand.
2.”How much of that rental housing do you believe UC Davis needs to provide for?”
Since the university is responsible for the current shortage, and acknowledging that the past cannot be undone, I would say 100% of their new enrollment. Obviously the university cannot go back fulfill past unmet obligations. But what they could choose to do is to not follow the same path of empty promise and a good faith start would be to house those whom they choose to admit.
3. “How much of that rental housing do you believe the city of Davis should provide?”
I believe that the city and university should consider the housing of already enrolled students as a collaborative effort and that there should be a combined process to determine the sites for adequate housing. After all, our current “you do it”….. “no, no you do it” ! has worked so well for us up to this point.
4.”Where would you like to see that rental housing on campus?”
Answer deferred pending gathering more information.
5. ” Where would you like to see the city propose additional rental housing?”
I would support additional rentals on Nishi, Olive Drive, possibly the Sterling site, possibly near the hospital. For me proximity, public transportation availability, environmental and neighborhood impact are the major considerations.
You hit the nail on the head on those first two… the other two are “squishy”, ‘eye of the beholder’ things… they are certainly of some concern, but the latter two pale compared to the first two… yet, the first two support the third.
The ‘neighborhood impact’ thing is VERY squishy… gets to ‘details’, not the land use, per se. For some (many?) MF anywhere near them is anathema… some folk believe it degrades their property values, “quality of life”… it “always increases crime”, they’d say. BS!
Your point about needing more (concrete?) information is also spot on.
I call BS on your BS.
Not that squishy. That’s why our neighborhood and the other historic neighborhoods came up with the Design Guidelines. Sorry #sarcastic# to have done all that work with all the stakeholders to come up with how to deal with infill when it came to our neighborhoods. Sorry #sarcastic# to think ahead. Sorry #sarcastic# to plan. We saw that there would be neighborhood impacts, so the neighborhoods planned for how to deal with those impacts. So inconvenient for — some.
Let that be a lesson to everyone about to get to work on the General Plan — thinking it will solve the planning issues — when it becomes inconvenient to some, especially those wishing to make money into more money, whatever work you did to plan for the future becomes “out of date”, and dealt with by the City through “exceptions”. “The future” expires in the minds of some at the point that planning becomes an inconvenience to them.
everything is squishy because you are dealing with people homes and lives. there isn’t any agreement in this town. the idea that we’re going to reach some sort of consensus is foolhardy.
> the idea that we’re going to reach some sort of consensus is foolhardy.
On that, DP, we agree.
Delia
“I didn’t expect special treatment for my daughter, but I do believe foreign students, paying much higher tuition, are given preferential treatment. Therefore, I don’t care if there’s a housing shortage for students.”
I was in agreement with you throughout your entire post until you made this last statement. My son was in exactly the same situation as your daughter. I had contributed many hours, and financially a number of times to ensure that all of my son’s classmates were able to go on special trips and yet when it came to the promise of a UC education for all qualifying students….that was not the case. Deeply disappointing.
However, I believe that we should all care about the housing shortage for several reasons. First, it is clearly not the fault of the entering students that the university has not chosen to meet their needs. Also, the fall out from the lack of housing affects the well being of all of us economically, environmentally, temporally, and socially. It is simply irresponsible for any entity to keep adding additional population without being able to meet the needs of that population. For a university to be the culprit is especially ironic as these are the institutions that are supposed to be educating our youth on responsible behavior as well as the particulars of their area of study.
Make the campus build it. If I were on the CC I’d organize a sit in on the top floor of Mrak. National news … UC would fold in a week.
and yet, they didn’t cave when the organizers held it for a month.
Suspect you’d do it the Bob Black way… instigate the protest, then have others ‘sit on the tracks’ … true “progressive”…
If you are serious, you’d do it without being a CC member… but that would require an actual commitment, rather than just spouting off… today is a “smart day”, so please spare us your hot air…
2 to 7. I don’t actually save because my wife says the house gets too hot without the AC on and we end up going out to an extra long lunch and a movie.
Mike, instead of occupying Mrak, Orchard Park should be occupied. There is no better symbol of UCDs negligence on student housing than those empty apartments. It could be turned in to a squat, and those willing to risk it would have the benefit of not having to pay rent.
If we can’t agree on that, there truly is no absolute truth.
well there probably are absolute truths, but this is in fact an opinion.
The 0.2% vacancy rate is not an opinion.
but what it means is.
>but what it means is.
What it means is that students attending UCD have to pay outrageous housing costs. When you pin near zero vacancy, rentals spike. Why do you think some major apartment owners in town opposed Nishi? Money, money, money.
Even with its excellent sales staff, and special offers, and Target gift cards, The U on Cantrill is still trying to rent its rooms — it’s been FIVE full months of phone calls and emails to rent up for the fall, and they still have rooms not yet taken.
The comment I hear from students is that they want housing closer to campus.
> The comment I hear from students is that they want housing closer to campus.
Gawd, break out the tiny violin. I can bike from one side of Davis to the other (Mace to Lake) in half-an-hour. The U is slightly west of half way. Davis just ain’t that big, and Cantrill just ain’t that far, like a 10 minute bike ride to the M.U.
If they can’t attract enough students to fill their rooms, they need to be more realistic about what they are charging for rent considering distance, amenities, etc.
Here is how the U looks on Yelp.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-u-apartments-davis?utm_campaign=yelp_feed&utm_medium=feed_v2&utm_source=bing
Thanks for the link. Those Yelp stories are sad. I would think the owners in a small town wouldn’t want such negative things said about their property but with the housing shortage in Davis I guess its a sellers rental market.
The market imbalance caused by UC’s need to take on more students and the city’s residents opposition to building have left all these renters at the mercy of Davis landlords. It makes me sick.
tj,
This is good information. Thank you. Also, I have heard that they have vacancies on campus at West Village. So it takes quite a bit of nerve for UCD to try to pressure our community to build rental housing for their needs, when they have on-campus housing not even being utilized.
Also, now that Orchard Park has been vacant 2 years, how much income has UCD lost as well as considering the additional housing needs that were pushed off the campus to our community and neighboring cities? So a big part of the discussion is the public understanding that UCD claims to be a world class university, well it needs to focus on dramatically improving its campus planning. Campus planning is getting an F- grade right now and that needs to change. There is no excuse for it.
The vacancies at West Village have been running high because the rents have been very expensive there. Hence the recent decision to allow students to “double up”, dorm room style.
I appreciate and agree with some of Tia’s points such as:
It boils down to finally having a conversation with UCD and the public making it clear that UCD has an enormous amount of land and they can and need to build high density housing (apartments primarily) on it for their student population. They should be slowing down their increase in student population until they do have a plan in place as to where to house them instead of trying to force their housing problem off campus onto other communities including Davis, Woodland, Winters, etc..
Also, I agree with the sentiments of the excessive number of non-resident students being accepted to extract high tuition, which has come at the expense of UCD reducing acceptance of well qualified in state students. In 2015 UCD accepted 35% more international students and 25% more out-of-state students totaling 60% non-residents students, while denying acceptance to 11.2% California resident applicants. Our State legislators got so many complaints that they are working on AB1711 which would reduce the percentage non-resident acceptance per campus which makes total sense. The opportunistic behavior of UCD and other UC’s increasing the number of non-resident students while decreasing resident students get denied whose families paid the taxes to help build and support the UC systems should be their priority and providing on-campus housing for UC students. UC’s outrageous acceptance policies were audited by the State when it was discovered that the non-resident students were being accepted with lower grades and standards than the California residents so that UC could extract the higher tuition’s from them! UC and UCD needs to clean up their act and (mis-)management practices which have just contributed to exacerbating the housing problem at UCD and other campuses.
UCD has plenty of planning staff and they herald supporting “green and sustainable” planning principles. Well they need to start with the simple math of keeping up with providing the needed on-campus housing for their growing population. They also need to catch up with the backlog of what they were supposed to build but dragged their heels on for years. Other campuses have done it, and if UCD is as good and innovative a school as it claims, it should be leading the way in high density on-campus housing particularly since they have an enormous amount of land in excess of 5,000 acres. Our City does not have that volume of land, but UCD does. The UCD’s integrity and the UC system is at stake and they need to follow through with their responsibilities and commitments.
“they can and need to build high density housing” not sure where this comes from. They don’t “need” to as far as I can tell. “their housing problem” as far as I can tell they don;t have a housing problem. It won’t be a problem until they can’t fill the open spots in the upcoming class due to housing. Compared to UCLA or Berkeley UCD is a great housing market. Many students at UCLA cannot find housing around Westwood and have longer commutes than Dixon or Woodland and worse parking. UCSB is not so great either. “UCD has an enormous amount of land” from my understanding so does Davis. Perhaps we could annex the Binning tract and adjacent space and build there. It would put traffic on 113 and the hook-up to the bike path would be easy. Buses could run up John Jones and down Sycamore. There is plenty of room on both sides if the 113. Otherwise just build around Russell and relocate the fields.
UCLA houses 43% of its students at college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing compared to only 19.4% at UCD. If the UCD made a comparable investment on campus there would be no shortage of rental units in Davis.
I’m not certain of the percentages but there is no real problem for UCD as asserted by a previous poster. Compared to UCLA UCD has numerous less expensive housing choices in the surrounding towns. I would presume that compared to native Californians out-of-state and out-of country students are less likely to have automobiles and therefore are more likely to live in Davis.
UCD bought a number of off-campus apartments in the past, to “meet their quota”. Web-Em, an apartment complex on Wake Forest, etc. Those properties came off the tax rolls, but the residents could vote within the City. Nice.
AB1711 has been amended and no longer does what it originally did with respect to nonresident admissions. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1711
UC’s response to the complaints received about nonresident admissions was to increase total enrollment in UC by 5000 more CA resident students for 2016-17, with 1000 of those slotted for UCDavis. Which makes the local housing problem worse, although they are going to try to mitigate that somewhat by doubling people up in rooms on campus.
AB1711 has not been finalized yet. The original version passed the State Assembly almost unanimously, but it is being discussed at the State Senate level now.
The bottom line here is whatever total number of students are being admitted to UCD, then UCD needs to plan to provide the housing for them on-campus for the time they attend UCD, so that means a lot more on-campus apartments. I don’t agree with the elevated number of non-resident students that UCD has admitted to extract the higher tuition from, but you would think that UCD would be at least trying to provide on-campus housing for these non-resident students since they are far from home. But UCD has wanted to get away with having it both ways, extracting higher tuition from non-residents, yet trying to ignore the fact that they did not need on-campus housing. That is not ok on SO many levels. Particularly when they were rejecting good California residents applying to UC with excellent grades being rejected only to have non-residents with lower grades be admitted.
Ab1711 is not finished yet. It passed the State Assembly with almost unanimous support and is still being addressed at the State Senate level. It needs to prioritize acceptance of California resident students and to at least keep the criteria equal and fair on acceptance standards for California resident or non-resident students to UC . I understand the problem and agree that state resident students should not be denied admission to instead allow UC to admit non-residents instead in order for the University to extract the high tuition’s from these non-resident students.
However, the point is that the main issue is that UCD needs to address its total student population housing needs regardless of the composition by providing adequate housing on-campus for them. And it would seem logical of the university to realize that they need to provide even more on-campus housing for non-resident students whose families are so far away.
That said, the University needs to step up all of its on-campus housing for resident students as well as its other students. It is UCD’s job to do so and they cannot neglect their responsibilities any longer on this since UCD’s lack of on campus housing is negatively impacting city planning for Davis as well as other nearby cities such as Woodland, Winters and West Sac, all of which are complaining about UCD’s negligence to provide on-campus housing as well.
Eileen –
Interesting info about Woodland , West Sac and Dixon. I’ve actually been hearing that those cities are quite happy to have the students living in their towns — it’s helping their real estate values and economies. Can you please provide links or references to those cities or towns complaining about UCD’s housing situation?
“Woodland, Winters and West Sac, all of which are complaining about UCD’s negligence to provide on-campus housing as well.” When I drive to COSTCO I see a lot of new houses being built in Woodland. If they don;t want new people they have a funny way of showing it.
Crickets with respect to verification that Woodland,Dixon and West Sacramento are complaining about having students from UCDavis live in their town. Perhaps it’s only a few people in Davis who are upset that all students at UCD don’t live on campus.
Eileen wrote:
> while denying acceptance to 11.2% California resident applicants.
UCD told a LOT more than 11.2% “California resident applicants” that they didn’t get in:
https://theaggie.org/2016/01/19/uc-davis-breaks-applications-record-with-86041-applicants/
Where did you get the 11.2% number?
South of Davis:
Here you go:
Eileen:
Thanks for posting the link but I want to make sure you know that the 11.2% number was the change from the previous year and had nothing to do with the actual acceptance rate. The site below says that UCD said “no” to 63% of the California kids that applied and “no” to just 37% of the (richer and dumber) out of state kids that applied (but who pay more).
http://admitguide.com/
South of Davis,
You are welcome, but yes, I did know it was a difference from the previous year but the statistics are still astonishing. That plus the scalding State audit report about how UC accepted non-resident students with lower grades comparatively was pretty revealing about how UC was turning a “blind eye’ to the non-residents actual grades and prioritize getting the higher tuition from them, while denying California students. It is simply disgraceful behavior by UC and UCD.
Seems there isn’t enough inexpensive housing for students with non-affluent parents. Perhaps UCD can help fill the need for inexpensive housing by building modest dorms and modest student apartments (the fancier and very expensive housing in west village is not a good model for this; how about modest new units like the old Orchard Park units?)
tribeUSA wrote:
> Perhaps UCD can help fill the need for inexpensive
> housing by building modest dorms and modest student
> apartments
Even without the prevailing wage laws and expensive union labor required for government projects it is not possible to build inexpensive new housing or inexpensive new cars without someone else paying a MASSIVE subsidy.
I bought my last car used for 15% of what it cost new. As long as we allow people to make new cars we will have rich people buying expensive new cars and selling modest priced cars to middle class people who will sell cheap cars to poor people (and people like myself that like a bargain).
If the Davis residents got together and required a vote to bring any new cars in to town the value and rent for the cars currently in town would skyrocket (just like the value of homes and rents for apartments have gone up and will continue to go up as long as people vote no on any new development).
If the people of Davis let the developers build at Nishi the kids at the U would all move there to get away from the crappy management and be closer to school and the owners of the U (and other older apartments in town) would have to keep lowering rents (and stop turning off the water) to get kids to move in…
South of Davis,
I think you forgot the part about the unaffordability of housing at Nishi (every-which-way) as well as unhealthy air quality impacts, plus the traffic gridlock and costs to our community.
Its a shame something like the Berkeley Student Co-operatives haven’t developed in Davis. They house, 1300 students in 17 houses and 3 apartment buildings, and are some of the most affordable housing for students. The co-ops that are in Davis are good, they just don’t house very many people comparatively.
This is a good example of what UCD should have be doing and with even more density than this on-campus. It just shows that if it is being done elsewhere, why not at UCD which prides itself on being one of the top university’s in the United States? UCD can and must do SO much better.
Its an interesting situation. The BSC recently gave a $10,000 grant to the Davis Solar Community Housing Association to help bring the UCD Tri Co-ops under the Solar community housing association umbrella. So the students at Berkeley are actually helping to fund housing at UCD.
The BSC are independent from the UC so it might be hard for UCD to replicate it, but there are certainly things that could be included in the LRDP that would provide opportunities for more Co-op housing on campus.