A commenter on the Vanguard yesterday made an interesting observation that it appears that the staff is recommending a General Plan Amendment.
The commenter noted: “The most interesting thing that came out at the planning commission is not in this article. It came in the exchange between Commissioner Hanson and City staff after public comment. The staff is actually recommending changing the business park zoning to allow for hotels, rather than changing the zoning of the site to a zoning that already allows for hotels. That means the staff is actually recommending changing the General Plan in a way that allows for hotels to be built in several other places in Davis as well.”
The Vanguard checked in with Katherine Hess, the City’s Community Development Administrator.
She explained, “The recommendation includes amending the business park designation in the General Plan to conditionally allow hotels. This would potentially apply to other areas designated as business park, but any other new hotel would be subject to environmental review and zoning consistency. Other business park lands in the City include Interland, the Research Park Drive area, and the 15-acre parcel at Chiles and Cowell.”
She further explained, “The current General Plan allows motels as a conditionally permissible use in the General Commercial area. General Commercial properties are primarily adjacent to the freeway, like the parcels on Cowell Boulevard west of the subject site. Permitted uses include auto sales, building supplies, nurseries, equipment rental, repair services, wholesale and storage, office, and similar service oriented commercial uses. Conditionally allowable uses include service stations, motels, restaurants, commercial recreation, moderate size community retail stores, warehouses, and similar uses.”
Ms. Hess also explained that the General Plan is separate from the issue of zoning. This refers to a General Plan Amendment. She explained, “The zoning change for the project (to conditionally allow hotels, and make other changes) would apply to PD #2-12, which is this site and the Davis Diamonds parcel only. Other sites with the Business Park GP designation might potentially require rezoning if a hotel were to be considered.”
There are a number of ways to look at this. Clearly, by doing a General Plan Amendment to conditionally allow hotels, it aligns current thinking with zoning.
Clearly, the city sees hotels as a necessary feature of innovation parks – especially an extended stay hotel that would allow an individual to come to Davis to work for periods of time without having to rent an apartment.
It also reflects some of the comments from the business community that they believe there is a shortage of current hotel space to accommodate things like conferences and to support innovation, startups and technology transfer from the university.
It is worth noting that Nishi had considered a hotel in its application to the city, and both the Mace Ranch Innovation Center and the Davis Innovation Center had hotel and conference centers as at least optional parts of the proposal.
The need for hotel space seems to be an important consideration, then, in the development of a research park with R&D space.
The city had lacked a hotel conference space (and still lacks one) – a place where larger scale conferences can be hosted and businesses and university related discussions can take place. In addition to the need for space to hold the conference, there is a need for lodging space for the attendees as well.
As Matt Williams discussed last night, “Prior to the opening of the conference center, the closest thing Davis has had to a conference center is Veterans Memorial. The UCD Conference Center has considerably more capacity to host visitors than the Hyatt Place has capacity to house visitors.”
As he sees it, the bottom line is that “the supply of convention/meeting/group gathering space is significantly greater than the supply of beds to house the attendees of those conventions/meetings/groups that are gathering in the available space.”
Indeed, it was pointed out that the Embassy Suites lacked the bedrooms to host a large-scale conference. Those individuals right now would either end up at UC Davis – where Davis does not receive the revenue – or in Woodland or Dixon, where again the city does not receive the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT).
Hotels, therefore, not only act as revenue generators for the city, they end up serving as support for business park activity, and therefore allowing hotels from that perspective makes sense.
At the same time, as we have seen with the Hyatt House proposal, there are complex land use decisions that impact neighbors and neighborhoods. A natural question will be whether a General Plan change would reduce the ability of the neighbors to get a fair hearing and a continued public process.
The language shared by Ms. Hess suggests that the recommendation is only to “conditionally allow hotels.” Again, she said that “this would potentially apply to other areas designated as business park,” but clearly adds, “any other new hotel would be subject to environmental review and zoning consistency.”
Moreover, most of the business park lands, like Interland and Research Park Drive, are away from heavily residential areas. However, the 15-acre parcel at Chiles and Cowell would clearly impact residents every bit as much as the current proposal.
It seems relatively clear that approval would still take commission and likely council action and, therefore, we might conclude that, while the change might impact expectations, it would not change the level of protection or lack thereof that a neighborhood has.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
More Hotels would be good for Down Town Davis (all of Davis really), but it seems like a strange thing to amend the General Plan so broadly to pass just one project when the City has just begun the process of updating the General Plan. I would think such a broad amendment should be considered through that process.
DTDavisite said . . . “it seems like a strange thing to amend the General Plan so broadly to pass just one project when the City has just begun the process of updating the General Plan. I would think such a broad amendment should be considered through that process.”
The above comment by DTDavisite sums up my “position” as well.
…where Davis does not share the revenue…
Is there no possible way to build a conference center on campus? Could the Mondavi Cntr be modified to accommodate a conference?
And why doesn’t the city of Davis share the profits of UCD?
There is a conference center on campus. Davis would not get any revenue for that conference center or the people who stay at the UC Davis Hyatt Place. Why doesn’t Davis get the revenue on UCD? Because UCD is not in the city. It is in the county.
Conference centers need flat open space that can be configured to meet the needs of the organizers. Multiple small conference rooms are also required for breakout sessions. Mondavi may be useful for general sessions of a large conference but then there no place to put the rest of the meeting. Conversely conferences that fit in the UCD conference center would not use a facility as large (and presumably expensive) as the Mondavi.
We’ve got an Embassy Suites conference center coming on Richards once we get past the litigation.
A few days ago I ate at Cafe Italia and asked the waiter if he knew what their plans were once the hotel gets built. He said he didn’t know but felt they might end up in Woodland. I hope not, it would be terrible to lose them.
Woodland has a hotel going in across from the new court house.
You know Frankly, that’s something I’ve wondered about. Why doesn’t Embassy Suites make a deal with Cafe Italia and make them part of the new hotel/convention center? They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and the food is great. I think it would make for a nice partnership and keep Cafe Italia in Davis.
A lot of reasons probably.
Embassy suites has a business model that might not support an arrangement like that.
Remember that Embassy suites includes free breakfast for their guests as part of their service offering differentiation. If they contract with a separate service provider then this would be more costly for them as they would have to include a profit margin for the service provider instead of running the food service business themselves and doing it at cost.
Also, Embassy suites has an employee customer service program that would be difficult to administer with a third-party contract that hires and manages their own employees… it can be done, it is just much more difficult.
Cafe Italia would likely stay in Davis if there were space for it to move to.
Don’t blame Embassy Suites for what is a problem caused by our resident NIMBYs.
Good a.m., Frankly.
Wondering-why don’t your out of town staff stay in that pretty hotel adjacent to Cafe Bernardo? My family / pals have stayed there before, and they loved it.
They do. Often booked.
Never been there. Is it a red sauce Italian place?
Just went to cache Italian. It was Judy what I wanted. Thanks
Mondavi has hosted a number of conferences and it does rent out the building to outsiders but at 1801 seats and its configuration it is not ideal.
I did not watch the PC Wednesday night so this might have been covered but since it seems the commenter’s question opened up this topic, maybe not. Was it then not apparent or explained by staff that they were recommending a more broad based change that could impact future hotel proposals? If Hyatt is approved and Cowell/Chiles parcel is approved down the line, we in south Davs (SODA) can claim hotel row AND auto row……
current thinking? by whom, developers and their pals on the CC?
and the most important question for me is will this require a vote by the populace?
and, if not, why not? it should >>>>
PS> my friends who watch the DV and no longer post, I hope you are getting the word out to our lists….
PS> South Davis does not want to be hotel row either….and certainly not up and down the only street left where there is not gridlock to/from downtown…
On that we can agree Marina!
YAYYYY – oddly enough, those who think they know me will be shocked when I show up on truly unexpected sides of the most odd of topics.. 🙂
There’s definitely extra traffic all around that neighborhood starting late Friday afternoons, when folks get off the freeway to go on the frontage road to the mountain for the weekend.
Some of them like to stop at the old Nugget for snacks. Others like the fast food choices. Others are just innocently curious about your community, & drive around to look at the neighborhood. Nothing cynister but more traffic starting late Friday afternoons.
or take Chiles to bypass the gridlock on 80… ….now that old safety net is always worse…than 80….
Why not put all the hotels on Olive and get rid of that broken down crap? Put a pedestrian underpass under the tracks to downtown.
Oh oh Quielo, I think you just started a firestorm.
Not sure why. Hotels have good soundproofing and most do not have openable windows so the train tracks are not much of a problem. The restaurants and entertainment venues are right there so it’s good for the people and the businesses and the access is right off the freeway so there is no reason to drive into town. Park at the hotel and you may never need to drive again. Also people can arrive via train. Much better than the proposed location and there is just some old broken stuff there now that will need to be replaced in not too long anyway.
See below…….
See below…….
Are you referring to the ridiculous comments like “Let’s reduce traffic by making people drive from one dispersed location to another and then to another and eliminate any opportunity to use mass transit” or were you referring to something else?
I run a business with headquarters in Davis (asking myself why every day now) and about 30% of my staff in So Cal. When we have corporate meetings and events my employees from down south stay in Davis hotels. Most of them are next to the railroad tracks and everyone complains that their sleep is disrupted when the trains roll though.
If you are next to the tracks and are not used to it, it is disruptive and no amount of hotel soundproofing will prevent you from hearing and feeling the trains.
“no amount of hotel soundproofing will prevent you from hearing and feeling the trains.” I am highly experienced in sleeping in hotels and have slept next to many airports, freeways, trains, etc.
I cannot comment on the current hotels but it is certainly possible to build a hotel proximate to a train that has quiet rooms.
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/oct/06/oceanside-considers-quiet-zones/
because Olive Drive serves a real purpose…and because the gridlock caused would also be in the worst spot….I would vote for the area on the Target side of the freeway….near the park and ride…..that area has a real interchange near it…..not houses nearby….etc..
it is not overburdened like richards and so on…
but the issue is that developers buy land cheap and want to maximize it…they don’t look at the various issues…..
Olive drive is not for sale….and so on…. until some developer shows up with bucks to convince those owners to move on…..
Marina, some readers assume every low income person is crap and every rich person is not crap. No use arguing with those posters. Waste of time for sure.