By Jason Taormino
The Davis Vanguard is hosting an important forum this evening on Downtown Davis.
I can not attend but wanted to add a few thoughts to the conversation.
Where we, as a community, should start is with an over arching question. What do we want our downtown to do for us economically & socially?
Parking (meters, structures, enforcement etc) and building heights are distractions to the important planning the needs to happen based upon desired outcomes. If we want to be in a better place in twenty years then we must have measurable goals.
The downtown can be transformed to increase property and business taxes in many ways. Office space for highly paid workers, retail and bars and restaurants plus housing. We should set revenue targets that we need to be a vibrant community. 60% of City revenue comes from property tax and 40% from business in various forms. We lack approximately $20,000,000 in annual revenue. Should the downtown deliver 20% of that goal or is this too much to ask?
We need to do the math in each of these areas and then let those answers drive the conversation. For example, if we determine a need for 1,000 highly paid office workers and the experts tell us that requires 200 square feet per person we are looking at a need for 200,000 square feet of office space. Is that going to happen without a few ten story buildings? Whether one likes that option is a different subject than what is needed to reach our goals.
Do we want to provide new housing downtown for students, adults or both? I would suggest that adults spend four times the amount of money as college students which would bias me to more housing for adults. In the past fifteen years Davis has added 4,200 seniors to the population. This is in large part the reason I am working on a new neighborhood in West Davis focused on older adults. Downtown is also a great place for older adults. How many new residents in each category do we need to make a substantial difference? If the answer is 2,000 then how many new building with what capacity will allow the achievement of the goal. Three stories may be fine or ten stories may be needed.
We also need to listen to the developers who invest and build and understand their economic drivers. If we come up with rules that don’t work for developers then we will have few proposals or the continuation of proposals that don’t fit neatly into the zoning.
If we had a plan fifteen years ago that considered if converting 60,000 sf of office and retail to bars and restaurants, without collecting any fees, would lead to increase parking demand the we would likely not have a parking problem today. Does continuing this free conversion help or hinder our goals? If it helps us then lets have a comprehensive plan for parking.
Without these community metrics we are mired in controversy with every proposal. We focus on aesthetics, self interest, feelings and style over content.
Lastly, he/she who defines the downtown boundaries is in control of the agenda. I suggest downtown should be defined so that it can deliver real change for Davis. East to West we should be talking about L Street/PGE to the University. The Northern boundary should be Eighth Street and the Southern boundary should be South of highway 80 and include the Interland development.
“Lastly, he/she who defines the downtown boundaries is in control of the agenda. I suggest downtown should be defined so that it can deliver real change for Davis.”
I agree with Jason’s first sentence, and disagree with the remainder of the paragraph for the simple reason that it is based on the assumption that the “change” that he favors is the “real change” that is best for Davis without consideration of the impacts on those who have invested in the neighborhoods surrounding what has previously been defined as “downtown”. I respect his right to his opinion on what is best, and request that differing opinions also be respected and taken into account.
This proposal to extend downtown borders has been floated many times recently and is clearly a strategy to undermine the influence and clearly-stated-in-Davis-planning-documents *importance* of the adjacent Traditional Neighborhoods.
The purpose of the Neighborhood Association’s joint request for voting representation on the CASP Committee was in response to these repeated calls for downtown “swallowing up” the Traditional Neighborhoods. The only reason for this proposed change would be a strong-arm tactic to tank the Design Guidelines and begin the wholesale conversion of the Neighborhoods into ultra-dense downtown appendages.
Thus I was baffled by Brett Lee’s claim last night that all neighborhoods of Davis have an equal share interest in the Core Area Specific Plan, regardless of their adjacentness to the Core. Were the CASP to include strictly the downtown core A-1st-H-5th block, I would agree with that assessment. But the Core and the OED Neighborhood jointly share the 3rd to 5th transition block along the east side of the railroad track, and the planning in the CASP clearly has stated potential to extend CASP planning to 8th and L Streets, whether “defined” as “downtown” or not (NOT, in our opinion).
Thus the Traditional Neighborhoods, as part of the potential area of CASP planning, must be included in the process. The City Council did the right thing last night by voting to include a voting member from each of the three Traditional Neighborhood Associations on the CASP Committee.
As for anyone ever calling anything South of Highway 80 “downtown”, my response –> “when pigs fly”.
“Thus I was baffled by Brett Lee’s claim last night that all neighborhoods of Davis have an equal share interest in the Core Area Specific Plan, regardless of their adjacentness to the Core.”
I actually tend to agree with this point. The CASP is not just about land use impacts, it’s about the vitality of the downtown, the economic and fiscal well being of the city, that’s not the exclusive purview of adjacent neighborhoods.
Yes
I agree with the statement, and of course it is not the “exclusive” purview of the Traditional Neighborhoods. The point is, the planning will include the physical area that is the Traditional Neighborhoods, thus the reason to have a voting seat at the table. This doesn’t give the Neighborhoods, even if united in voice, which may not happen on all issues, anything near a majority, even if that mattered, and as we all know, the entire thing will then go before the City Council for vote. The Traditional Neighborhood physical space is being planned in this process, and this makes the Traditional Neighborhoods a direct stakeholder in the outcome in a way that neighborhoods not physically included in the CASP process are not. Disagree with our argument all you want, there is a difference.
This is a valid argument if we were talking about a single shared representative for the three traditional neighborhoods. 20% of the vote gives unwarranted weight to the views of a ‘special interest’ on this relatively small panel.
We are scraping a detail at this point, but in response:
That’s 20% of the vote for 75% of the area. The Traditional Neighborhoods — even if united — will not be able to sway policy via a vote on their own without significant support, and as stated elsewhere, cooperation and consensus are preferred (thought not always possible). As well, the Traditional Neighborhoods do not always have the same interests or see eye-to-eye.
I agree this is about the health and vitality of the Core, and as such having a super-majority of the stakeholders representing the Core does make sense. By Core I mean the Core as defined today, not what some wish it to be.
You think that the traditional neighborhoods represent 75% of the area of Davis? I guess it is no wonder, then, that you have such an outsized view of how important your neighborhood is to the rest of the community.
If the Core is going to be the economic engine of the City, as is described in our planning documents and enshrined in our Municipal Code, then the health and vitality of that core are of great importance to all the residents of the City. In that regard, it may not be beneficial to have the process controlled by a super-majority of stakeholders from the core as those stakeholders may have personal desires and expectations that are ultimately detrimental to core area (and the City) as a whole. No one special interest group should be given an outsized role in this process, as the health and vitality of the entire City may be at stake.
I think we’re down to how many stakeholders can dance on the head of a pin stuff.
I don’t think extending the boundaries of the downtown is likely to go over well. Probably mentioning ten-story buildings twice wasn’t a great rhetorical idea, either.
Yeah… a 45 cal slug in the foot… which was then placed in the mouth to control the blood loss…