For some time I had been wanting to do a story that captured the students’ view of the Davis housing crunch, and I think that the interview with Sara Williams, Georgia Savage and Daniel Nagey captured the crux of the student thoughts in very thoughtful and insightful terms.
I came away with a deeper understanding of the difficulty of the issue – the students are caught in between two powerful forces – on the one hand, the university and UC system which has been slow to respond to the housing crisis and has largely failed to produce large-scale and affordable on-campus housing at UC Davis, despite the availability of land.
But they also are caught in between the large community reluctance to build new housing. From their perspective, people complaining about an extra minute on their travel time is nonsensical in the face of the housing difficulties that students experience.
At the same time, the students very articulately explained their approach. They feel they can work with the planning staff at UC Davis and that protests and sit-ins will be time-consuming and ultimately fruitless activities.
As Daniel Nagey put it when I asked what students were doing to pressure the administration: “When I’m asked what are you doing for student housing – I feel like students don’t really like that question… it feels like almost threatening as though I should be doing more. We are students – that’s why we’re here. We pay gobs of money to be here and it’s not our job to be fighting for housing. That’s not really in the description of students.”
The students feel like their focus should be on education, not fighting for housing – and they are right.
At the same time, as Sara Williams put it, “I’m really tired of being used as a pawn (as) a student.”
She added, “While I think the city has really stepped up with their rental resources ordinance as well as approving Sterling – I’m very happy with the work they’re doing on that side – I don’t think that that’s an excuse for them to shunt us onto the admin, onto the university, and I think it’s time that university also steps up.”
“Students are really fed up,” Sara Williams stated. “We’re doing everything to combat this and we just really need support.”
Daniel Nagey added, “Students are used as political pawns on a lot of issues, housing being a big one in our city specifically because the city and (UC) Davis just point fingers at each other.”
“We are the ones that directly suffer from the lack of communication from the city and campus,” he said.
While I sympathize with the students’ plight here, and they used the term pawn back at the Sterling hearing a month ago, I think pawn is the wrong word. A pawn is “a person used by others for their own purposes.”
While they may feel that way, that doesn’t appear to be what is happening here.
There are really three different perspectives at play in addition to the students – who I agree are the politically weakest single actor (although they have the numbers to potentially change that).
The university, for whatever reason, has dragged its feet on housing. They agreed to go to 90 percent of new students this time which would increase their overall take to 40 percent of all students housed on campus. Twice in the last thirty years UC Davis has agreed to increase on-campus housing but failed to follow through.
The students and city want the university to house up to 50 percent of all students – another 4000 or so students, but the university has refused to go there thus far.
Community members have long been reluctant to grow and build housing for a variety of reasons. They see the university at fault here for failing to plan for their enrollment growth and build adequate on-site housing, and many opposed Sterling for that reason, as well as for various other reasons.
Finally, you have the city council which stepped up with Sterling, which will consider Lincoln40 and passed Nishi, which failed at the ballot box. The city council is legitimately sympathetic to the students and willing to do what they can to pass individual projects.
But they also recognize that their hands are largely tied. They can add a few projects and maybe as many as 2000 beds but the university in the end has to do the heavy lifting. The city cannot accommodate all 10,000 new beds or even the 4000 gap between the university’s 40 percent commitment and the 50 percent request.
In the end this is not a game of chess, but more musical chairs. The students are not pawns, but rather victims of circumstance and they are scrambling to find housing – each time only to have the music stop and the shortfalls push them to have to crowd into small apartments and go to two or three to a room.
It is not a good situation to be in. But they aren’t being used as pawns here, they simply have a university unwilling to expand their housing in an affordable and adequate way, and the people of Davis are likewise less than accommodating.
I asked the students what we could do to help – they want letters to the administrator, but I think the biggest thing we can do as a community is find more space to accommodate student housing. The more we can take up some of those 4000 units, the stronger a position we will be to push for the university to do more as well.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“Students are not pawns…”
How do you explain the student vote on Nishi in the context of your two part student-interviews? Did Nishi come up in these interviews?
We didn’t talk about Nishi
You spoke to three individuals and decided that they “captured the crux of the student thoughts”. Other than the fact that you choose people who have views similar to yours why do you think they are representative of the student body?
BTW I agree with the summation that we need to look for a town solution as the gown will not step up in a timely manner and history has shown that posting on the Enterprise and the Vanguard and bitter diatribes at the Farmer’s market has not built any houses yet but some people are still headed on that path.
“Other than the fact that you choose people who have views similar to yours…”
That’s interesting. I don’t believe I discussed my selection process on here.
“you choose people who have views similar to yours” is a results observation, not a comment on process.
You said I “choose” people, how do you I know I made the choice as to who to bring on and what their views were?
The students David quoted in the article are ASUCD representatives. 2 of them by their positions are the official representatives of ASUCD for issues like this. The third is a Senator from the ASUCD president’s party. “Students” is a large and diverse group, and one can certainly find a range of view points within that group on any issue, but the 3 students David wrote about are worth writing about.
Some of us have been doing this, already. Are students doing the same? If not, what impact would that have among non-student residents to change/compromise current zoning and plans within the city, to accommodate more student housing?
I appreciated the diversity of views expressed by some students, yesterday. However, I’m not sure why some students are able to find the time to engage in various protests (e.g., Kathehi, the Dakota Pipeline, etc.), but cannot find the time to engage more in an issue such as on-campus housing.
I understand that it’s “easier” for students (or anyone) to come to a city council hearing. However, given the amount of time required for construction (on-campus, or off), construction at either location will not occur immediately, and may not benefit the current generation of students.
They told me that they’ve sent a lot of letters and will organize to get more this fall.
They felt like they could spend a month protesting and get a ten minute meeting and it would go nowhere. The students protesting on Katehi and Dakota were not the ASUCD students who are working on this issue.
Flippant answer… all Liberal Arts majors….
Serious answer… except for the few who seek to be career activists, students only seem to be interested when ‘their ox is being gored’… pretty much true of all adults… ‘students’ is not a monolithic term…
Howard
I actually think that both your flippant and more serious answers have elements of truth. I had much more time, and engaged in much more civic activity as a social science double major than I did as a pre-med or medical student. There is a different level of rigor of class work in the hard sciences. However, that does not mean that those students are more “serious”, just more serious about different aspects of their lives.
The real point I was making in the serious answer, is one cannot be passionate and active in every issue, unless they are seeking a degree in “Activism”, but have not seen that as a degree program anywhere… I agree with your last sentence… it actually helps prove the point I’m making here.
David: “They told me that they’ve sent a lot of letters and will organize to get more this fall.”
“They felt like they could spend a month protesting and get a ten minute meeting and it would go nowhere. The students protesting on Katehi and Dakota were not the ASUCD students who are working on this issue.”
I am re-posting your comment (above), since I can’t see it when I log out.
I sort of suspected that those protesting are (for the most part) not the ASUCD students. For whatever reason, student housing has apparently not risen to the same level of concern as other issues, for many students. (Even though the other issues may not directly impact them.)
Perhaps the ASUCD students should focus their efforts on raising awareness among other students. (Seems like they’re planning to do this, in the fall.)
The bottom line is that students are “customers” of UCD, and this is ultimately their fight. If non-student residents “perceive” that students “aren’t doing enough” to influence UCD, it’s less likely that non-student residents would be supportive of efforts to compromise existing plans and zoning to accommodate even more student housing, within the city.
Ultimately, I suspect that the more “divisive” approach is to try to “force” the city to accept even more student-oriented housing, with all of the resulting impacts. (Of course, some pro-development types will continue to encourage this, regardless.)
Ron… another difference between you and me… I can’t always see David’s posts when I’m ‘logged IN’… depends on his device, am thinking… logged in, I can easily see ~ 70% of his posts. Can see 100% on another browser, where I am NOT logged in.
Thanks, Howard.
I just want to assure the students that the community has done much (and continues) to appeal to the UCD administration in the form of well over a hundred letters to the Chancellor, the Regents, as well as our local government and State legislators. Beyond that there have been Op-ed’s written, letters to the editor and testimony at City Council. We even have a petition and collected signatures at Farmer’s Market and on-line which the can help with by signing it on-line. The petition supports the 50/100 plan which even the UCD ASUCD students and included in their Resolution to the UCD administration. UCD ASUCD taking action like it did with their Resolution was commendable and did help.
The community, likewise, supported a City rental inspection ordinance which the students wanted. I encourage the students to continue applying pressure to the UCD administration because it is definitely in their best interest to help advance getting solutions to the student housing issue.
“community has done much”
Yes indeed! We have created the housing crisis through local ordnance. We have also suppressed many of UCD’s attempts to build housing like the dorms on Russell.
While we don’t exactly hate students here in Davis we do understand how you could get that idea.
Actually, I personally worked with students and community members to get the small number of apartments moved from Russell Field to another location on campus. Russell fields was saved with no expense to over all student housing. Saving Russell fields was a pro student, pro community collaboration.
I personally have nothing but respect for students (as a group), and the efforts and skills that are needed to successfully earn a degree.
Davis is a “slow-growth” community, regardless of whether it’s students, or non-students. The problem is that UCD doesn’t respect that, and is ALSO unwilling to assume the responsibility of their decision to increase enrollment even further. (Primarily via international students, who are apparently willing to pay significantly higher tuition costs to attend). I still wonder how long that “gravy train” will last.
Why should the University of California make enrollment decisions based on what the town of Davis wants? That would be crazy.
Jim: And vice-versa, in terms of planning and goals.
Ron, I don’t think so. The driver is the Regents who allocate both money and enrollment. UCD does the best they can with what they are given, they do not control how many students they will admit. The city does whatever we do with what UCD gets and we overflow people, needs, and revenue to the larger catchment area which includes Woodland, Dixon, and Winters among others.
Trying to push back upstream seems mostly pointless. Are we going to listen to complaints from Woodland about how we don’t build enough housing and people have to drive up the 113?
I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. For example, the “2020 Initiative” was UCD’s decision, and consists of 5,000 additional students (4,500 of which are non-resident students who pay triple tuition). (I understand that the initiative started in 2013, and ends in 2020.)
Jim Hoch said . . . “Ron, I don’t think so. Trying to push back upstream seems mostly pointless.”
Jim, may I suggest an alternative wording? “Ron, I don’t think so. Pissing up a rope seems mostly pointless.”
Matt: If the pressure that’s mounting on UCD ultimately fails to achieve the goal of on-campus housing for 100% of new students, and 50% of total students (rather than the already- proposed 90% and 40%), I understand that there may be other options that the city could ultimately pursue to ensure the best outcome.
The chancellor’s letter makes it clear that anything that delays the EIR will delay the provision of housing. That includes lawsuits.
Don: Since you brought that up as one of the options, I would think that “limiting enrollment increases” until sufficient housing is available on campus is another possible outcome.
But, I’m probably not the best person to discuss this with. Anything that you or I might discuss is pure speculation.
In general, I’d encourage everyone to keep an open mind.
It is almost a certainty that enrollment increases will occur before housing increases on campus. That’s the way the UC system usually works because of how housing is accounted for. Any decision to fund housing construction before enrollment increases would probably require the chancellor to get approval from the regents. Judging from the minutes of the key committee that oversees that, it would require a significant effort to develop a site specially for that purpose. Something like another West Village, which would have to be designed from scratch and work through the whole planning and approval process. Just speeding up the current planning process probably wouldn’t do it.
UCSB and UCSD appear to have done that, but in neither case was the process rapid. For example, UCSD does have a goal of providing for 50% of their campus enrollment in their LRDP, but as best I can tell they are only at about 38%.
It is hard to see how a lawsuit would make any of that happen more quickly. If your goal is to provide housing to those who need it in a timely fashion, lawsuits aren’t the answer.
“Pissing up a rope seems mostly pointless.” It will help pass the time as you sail down Putah creek to the sea.
Don:
I understand that you’re trying to drag me into a conversation regarding options that neither you, nor I have expertise in. It’s not the first time that you’ve speculated, or downplayed options (other than to “build, baby, build”).
Precedents already exist (which you’ve also criticized and downplayed).
But, I will note again that if enrollment does not or cannot increase, then the need for additional housing is decreased.
Quoting from myself above, I’d encourage everyone to keep an open mind. Seems like that’s quite a challenge to do, for some.
Good one Jim. I will leave all sailing, pissing and pushing back activity to Ron.
Davis isn’t anything. Just as war is defined by the aggressor, so is growth defined by regional growth pressure plus local growth pressure. The growth ain’t slow.
What a ‘slow growth community’ does is put a cap on the growth. This also happens in areas like the Bay Area when communities hit their physical boundaries.
The result is the same: increasing rent for renters, increasing home value for owners.
Most students are renters; most voters are home owners.
Thus, students pay high rents. When the vacancy rate hits zero, home prices spike and rents spike.
Students lose by paying ever-spiking rents. No solution in sight, not for many years. If you own, everything’s rosy.