In recent weeks, the Vanguard has had a number of housing discussions with various folks in the community. Projects in Davis continue to come forward, including Lincoln40 which seeks to address student housing needs, Trackside which seeks to address needs of young professionals, West Davis Active Adult Center which seeks to address senior housing needs, and an emerging project along Chiles Road that could address work force housing.
Increasingly the focus has shifted to the fact that California itself is in the midst of a severe housing shortage. Experts estimate that statewide, about 1.8 million new units must be built by 2025 just to keep up. However, currently only about 80,000 units are built in California annually rather than the needed 180,000.
The result? Hundreds of thousands of Californians are now housing insecure. They are being pushed out of their homes, and evicted from apartments due to inability to afford to stay.
Housing advocates are now focused squarely on Davis for a number of reasons. First is that, while housing is a regional issue and a regional crisis, the housing crisis is more severe in Davis than anywhere else in the region.
Second is that UC Davis’ growth is rapidly adding to the housing crisis, as they have added, and continue to add, thousands of students along with thousands of faculty and staff to support those students.
As we have presented in previous installments, the university has stepped up somewhat by agreeing to provide for 6200 beds. However, the city of Davis, Yolo County and citizens have pushed for the university to house 50 percent of all students by 2027. That means, in addition to the 6200 the university has committed to, they would need to find housing for another 3800.
As discussed at the previous Vanguard Conclave, the university does not have existing space to accommodate that housing, which means that the university will be paving and building over green fields in order to accommodate the necessary housing.
While activists have repeatedly pointed to the number “5300 acres of land,” the developable land for the university is far less than that. Additional questions will arise if the university ends up building for 6,200, let alone 10,000 students. Will they also put in retail and restaurants to serve the growing population? Does Davis end up with a city on its periphery, outside of the city limits, directly competing with downtown businesses?
A third point is that Davis not only has the most severe housing crisis, it also has very restrictive land use policies. Measure R has effectively prevented the city from developing outside its borders since 2000 when Measure J was first passed.
Three projects have come before the voters since then – all three have failed.
Current conditions are bad. A vacancy rate of 0.2 percent is an unsustainable situation that leads to substandard housing and exploitative rent and housing conditions.
In April the City of Davis heard the desperate cries of students, as one student put it: “I struggle from April to August to find a place to live in Davis and I had to prepare myself to be homeless if I could not find a place.”
Back in April, during the Sterling discussion, Georgia Savage warned that “from a student perspective, not passing this project is risking homelessness for students, which I would argue is a significantly more pressing issue.”
As ASUCD Senator Daniel Nagey put it, part of making education affordable is making housing affordable because, “without affordable housing, students will spend all of their hours working and not studying to afford their house. Then the whole point of attending college is moot.”
Samantha Chiang, ASUCD Senate President Pro Tem, said that many students are “forced to start their housing search in November of their first year, only to not find a house and be forced to couch 
surf in the following year. We cannot be pawns in the game between the city and the university – we are consistently advocating on both ends to increase housing.”
Without access to peripheral land, where does the city go?
One answer has been to push for UC Davis to take on more housing. UC Davis has to this date said it would consider adding to its planned 6,200 beds, but has not committed to actually increase the number.
On the other hand, the option for the city is to go to infill, which means increasing density in existing city boundaries. That has, across the board, led to resistance from neighbors. We have seen projects come forward at Paso Fino, Mission Residence, B Street Residence, Sterling, Lincoln40 and Trackside – all of them have seen considerable neighborhood opposition, much of which stemmed from the high density that has embodied the projects and the perception from the neighbors of an incompatibility between current uses and proposed uses.
Infill that increases density will invariably have pushback. On the one hand, council maintains control over the process and the ability to approve projects. On the other hand, these projects have caused headache and consternation in the community.
The other option is to revisit Measure R itself.
Ron Glick has been pushing this point on Measure R for a long time and I think he has a point – if the city cannot grow outward because of the constraints of Measure R and the housing needs continue to expand, the city will have to find more creative ways to pack more housing into the existing city limits, and that means infill projects and the conflict between the existing residents and new development.
Ron Glick back in July noted that one of the reasons for unaffordability of housing is lack of supply. While there are natural reasons for lack of supply that will constrain a market, there are also “artificial reasons why you get lack of supply,” and in Davis that is Measure R.
“What’s driving everything,” he said, “is the risk to people in the mobile home, Sterling, Trackside, and B Street projects – all of these things – is Measure R because we can’t spread out.”
“You talk about densification as though densification is some great thing, but every time you try to densify something, there are people down here saying don’t densify my neighborhood, please don’t densify my neighborhood,” he said.
He said it’s a de facto thing that “if we can’t spread out, what are we going to do? We have to do infill. As long as we have this limit line – conversion on ag land is $15,000, Sterling $1 million an acre.” He said that “because of Measure R, land inside the line is now worth 100 times land outside of the line.”
He argued if we had built Nishi and Covell Village “maybe there wouldn’t be so much demand.”
But my sense is that Measure R is not going anywhere, which probably means more infill and more clashes between existing neighbors and developers.
The Vanguard will look to continue this discussion on September 27 from 6 to 8 pm at Sophia’s Thai Kitchen on E Street, as we hold a discussion featuring, among others, councilmember Lucas Frerichs on student housing.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Horse-puckey. This has all been argued and counter-argued repeatedly, on the Vanguard. (However, the Vanguard is clearly becoming more one-sided toward growth/development, and often does not even acknowledge counter-arguments in its articles.)
Seems like an effort to drum up interest in the Vanguard’s upcoming forum. (However, it won’t represent the city’s view, as a whole.) It seems to be yet another effort by the Vanguard to stir the pot, and promote its rather singular point of view.
Not worth getting sucked into this, again.
“Seems like an effort to drum up interest in the Vanguard’s upcoming forum. ”
Yes, this was an introduction to the topic of discussion for this month for those who aren’t completely immersed in it.
Well, it appears that the Vanguard is hoping to “immerse” some. (Seriously, I think most people already have a general point of view.) There’s nothing new, here. (Except that your articles are becoming more one-sided.)
By the way, who are the “housing advocates” that are now focusing on Davis (per your article)? (In other words, not related to the need to resolve the situation with UCD?)
Our view is that there is a narrow group that simply is engaged and the majority of residents are not at this point.
When the housing advocates are ready, they will make an announcement. The housing advocates are less about UCD and more about a regional housing need.
They’re coming out tonight
They’ll be here soon
They want to be here with us in our glorious times
And when they start to laugh, we’ll laugh too
But when they start to cry, they’ll ruin it for everyone
We’ll ask them to leave
And they’ll pull out their knives and kill us all
They’re here now
Close the gate
Lock the door
Bring the lights down
Put the lights out
Close the bar
Maybe they’ll give up and go next door
Lets pretend we’re gone
Pretend we’re not here
Let’s pretend we’re gone
“The housing advocates are less about UCD and more about a regional housing need”
Most of these groups are developer fronts so they like anything that is profitable for a developer.
Not necessarily. Here’s an example: http://www.sachousingalliance.org/
I agree, phony organizations with paid participants.
“Most of these groups are developer fronts so they like anything that is profitable for a developer.”
Not this group
Not what group?
Shhhhh, it’s a secret.
Really? The reporting style of the Vanguard has devolved to the 7-year-old’s chant, “I know something you don’t know” ???
LOL, seems that way. I guess I shouldn’t feel so bad being called an 8 year old.
http://ivegotasecretonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/paul-newman.jpg
Can anyone name this show?
Keith… if I recall correctly, it’s Gary Moore in “I’ve Got a Secret”… can’t remember the guest’s name, though…
[before the surgeon general’s report]
And if you can attract anther developer sponsor so much the better. You do have bills.
Two points:
1. “Infill that increases density will invariably have pushback.”
I do not believe this is necessarily true. It makes an assumption that all projects are seen as equally good or equally bad which is not the case. I will use OED as the example since two of these projects affect my neighborhood directly. Trackside has met a great deal of opposition both because of the nature of the project, (size and scale far exceeding zoning and guidelines), and the process by which it was proposed, ( essentially sprung on the community with no advance outreach). Lincoln 40, on the other hand is a project that while much larger, fills a clear community need ( student housing) at an appropriate location ( easy walking distance from campus) and has followed a process that took into account immediate neighbor and community concerns from the beginning. Thus while I have joined my neighborhood in opposition to Trackside, I am cautiously optimistic ( after a fourth meeting with the development team about Lincoln 40 even though it is much closer to my own home than Trackside.
2. “Trackside which seeks to address needs of young professionals”
I question the accuracy of this statement. When Trackside was first publicized in the pages of the Enterprise, it was billed as a luxury apartment complex ( complete with concierge). This claim was subsequently dropped for unstated reasons. Next it was claimed that the apartments were intended for seniors seeking to downsize thereby presumably freeing up larger homes for young families. Now you are stating that it is designed to address the needs of young professionals. While I do not know the exact intent of the developers/investors, what is clear to me is that the intent at least as portrayed to the public has been shifting. Also clear is that it will be aimed for the more affluent. I am very enthused about an upgrade at this site including increased densification and infill, within the zoning and design guidelines. I believe that this can be done in a way that is advantageous to the developers/investors, the city, and the immediate neighborhood and hope that the City Council will be able to see such a possibility also.
There are others who don’t share your point of view/conclusions, regarding this proposal. (Actually, your statement doesn’t address the concerns.)
Don’t have time to repeat the concerns (and engage in subsequent arguments with others who might chime in), at the moment.
Ironically you’ve proven the point that Tia was responding to.
Ron
Of course I agree with your statement as written. Obviously there are many points of view. I was expressing only my own and thought I made that clear. I do not think that the Lincoln 40 process was perfect either. Ideally, I would like to see pre design outreach to assess the communities willingness to accept even the concept being presented, but we are a long way from that and I am willing to accept steps in what I consider to be the best path to a fully collaborative process.
“Why people like dense, mixed-use neighborhoods” would be a great topic for a VC, though I assume it will be one of the first discussions in the DCAP process.
I invite everyone responding to comments today to give at least one reason (positive; no caveats).
Alan Miller (why I like dense, mixed-use neighborhoods):
“Why people like dense, mixed-use neighborhoods”
I’ll start. Walkability. I foresee a car free future with the ability to get to virtually everything I like/need on foot.
If you mean a car-free future for yourself, brava… hope you find that… as long as it is not imposed on me and mine…
All my car-lite present imposes on you is:
* Cleaner air
* Safer streets
* Lower cost of housing
* Healthier people that smile at you
* More space for your car in movement and public storage (parking) because clearly you need it
* More people walking on the street, acting as passive security for your parked car
All of which is fine… but was not addressing you…
I also support and use walking, bicycle, transit (bus and train)… not clear why you felt the need for a direct reply… probably don’t care…
Oh, yes, your ‘piousness’ was noted and acknowledged…
I tend to respect all “religions”… if they do not impose their views on others…
Missed the gratuitous ‘swipe’ the first time… I very seldom park in public r/w… so you are obviously ignorant and perhaps more (or much, much less)…
BTFO
“Healthier people that smile at you” Like Manhattan?
Jim… have you been to Manhattan in the last 10 years? Have been 5 times… folks were very pleasant and helpful… don’t remember smiling, per se (I don’t smile much, so not important)… they might have been… I used subways (big time), buses and walking… am looking forward to returning, but now that my daughter moved from there, it is not a priority… daughter, spouse and I never even contemplated having a car there… not even a rental… a few times, our daughter used a taxi… rarely…
Have no clue as to your “point”… if any… Davis is not Manhattan… never will be…
Todd actually makes more sense than your comment… but I just don’t want his views imposed on my behavior…
“have you been to Manhattan in the last 10 years” Off and on though I used to stay in the east village before it was fashionable.
“Todd actually makes more sense” Sign of the apocalypse.
If you also see “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes”
You might want to get a bug-out shelter.
A vehicle operated unnecessarily is an imposition.
Scientologists?
I think those who advocate against housing growth in or around Davis need to be aware of something that David has alluded to in this article:
The biggest threat to slow-growth and growth-control city policies right now is not coming from developers or pro-business interests. It is coming from advocates for affordable housing. These folks have the ears of the legislators, especially those from urban districts, and probably have the governor’s support in principle due to his years as mayor of Oakland. And I think I can surmise that they have the ear of the editor and publisher of the Vanguard.
There will be measures at the state level to constrain the abilities of cities to restrict growth, and I think a coalition of uber-liberal legislators with development-friendly Democrats and some Republicans could pass those restrictions.
Don’s looking in the right place now.
Still not going to tell us where the Afikoman is?
Amazon is looking for a second headquarters, why not Davis? They can build it here, we have plenty of land and will bring in 50,000 new employment opportunities with an average of over $100,000 per job. We have a great employee pool too with the UCD campus. Note to council, get cracking and get your offer on the table.
All you have to do is ask! . . . . . Instant Amazon headquarters.
for an extra $35 we can the HQ2 here on Monday
Sidebar… saw the poll about where “the majority of new ownership housing be located for new UCD Faculty and Staff”…
Key word is “ownership”… talk about implicit bias! Would not assume new faculty or staff would necessarily need/want/be ‘entitled to’ ownership housing… city/DJUSD/state staff don’t…
Housing, yes… “ownership”, not so much… UC is very unlikely to sell land to individuals… 99 year leases with ability to gain equity (ala Aggie Villas) maybe…
Who instigated/paid for the poll?
I didn’t understand the poll either. I guess the idea is that UC Davis might build new on-campus housing for faculty. I doubt they’d be motivated to do that. They already offer housing programs to faculty (e.g., low-interest mortgages through the UC) so that faculty can buy in expensive cities like LA, Berkeley, Santa Barbara, etc. And then they just draw staff from surrounding cities.
They are already building some at West Village just as they did at Aggie Village.
I didn’t know that. That’s great. I wonder if it’s for new hires or any faculty/staff.
https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/uc-davis-build-first-50-new-homes-faculty-and-staff-west-village-2018/
Another sidebar… the poll results show that more votes are favoring “city”, yet the bar graphs show the opposite… curiouser and curiouser…
That is odd, but the number is the more accurate measure.
Ok… but since the VG is ‘hosting’ it, you may want to check into it… as it stands, it is inconsistent and perhaps deceptive…
That might be what an investigative journalist would do on his own site [in particular]…