Earlier this week, we attended the scoping meeting for the Aggie Research Center. The portion of the meeting that I viewed – which was supposed be in an open house formula – grew contentious as a small number of folks led by Roberta Millstein and Colin Walsh disrupted the meeting and questioned the process.
From the city’s perspective, with respect to the concerns being voiced by a very small fraction of community residents – they believe that by accommodating those community concerns and holding the scoping meeting at all, they were going above and beyond the legal requirements.
As it turned out, no good deed shall go unpunished and they likely succeeded only in providing another platform for dissenters to push back against the city.
There were three major objections raised on Monday by Colin Walsh and Roberta Millstein.
One of them was that the applicants are proposing the use of about 6.8 acres of the adjacent 25 acre city parcel that will not be developed as mitigation land. Under Measure R, the developers are required to provide 2 to 1 Ag mitigation, which means for a project proposed at 187 acres, they will have to provide about 374 acres for mitigation that would be put into permanent easement.
As the city has made clear that 6.8 acres – a tiny percentage of the overall mitigation land – is only a proposal by the applicants. And they would have to compensate the city for that land.
Assistant City Manager Ashley Fenney pointed out that the city has not accepted anything relating to the 6.8 acres, “all the city has done has been to accept an application” and they are preparing a CEQA analysis to evaluate the proposal. “There has been no agreement as it relates to the 25 acres, it is a project proposal that will be evaluated along with the overall project.”
The second objection is, “Why is there such a short window for people to respond?” They pointed out that they have until December 9 to have comments. “That seems like an incredibly short period of
time for people to get counseled, get legal letters written and environmental letters,” one commenter at the meeting said .
The city responded that this meeting was under the guise of the scoping meeting. Sherri Metzker pointed out, “A scoping meeting has a very limited purpose – it’s main purpose is for you all to help us identify what the changed circumstances might be that are out there, that we have to take into consideration.”
She said, “This isn’t by any means the last time that the city’s members are going to have a chance to comment.”
She pointed out that they still have to do a 45-day circulation when they publish the EIR, then they have to respond to the comments and circulate that.
“We’re going to have the exact same thing happen again,” she said, noting the comment periods in the previous EIR rounds.
Colin Walsh interjected, “We’ve been told that what we’re doing here is optional, that what the city’s doing is optional… Once you decided to do a NOP, and to do the scoping, under what authority is the city not following the legal requirements for notice and for comment periods?”
Roberta Millstein added, “Are these typically 30 days?” She argued, “We’ve been given a much shorter window. In fact, the window has only been extended because some people asked for it to be extended.”
The Rainey representative pointed out, “There’s no legal requirement when you do a supplemental EIR to have a scoping meeting.”
Ashley Feeney added, “This meeting is being done to solicit some additional comment and also have an opportunity for people to voice things that they want the city to take into account for changed circumstances.”
From the critics perspective – if the city is going to do a scoping meeting, they believe that they should follow legal parameters of scoping meetings. From the city’s perspective, they clearly believe they are going above and beyond their legally required course of action and therefore believe they are justified in cutting the process a bit shorter at this point knowing they still have plenty of opportunities for people to weigh in.
While I understand the concerns of the critics that this is shaping the project – I also know from past experiences, vast changes occur to projects at all stages along the way and perhaps most when it gets toward the latter stages and goes before the council.
Finally, there were complaints that the chart was not accurate in comparing MRIC to ARC. From what I could tell there appeared to be a few small discrepancies.
The issue of the parking spaces is a bit interesting – especially since the 4,340 number has become a rallying point for critics who believe that the project will add too much traffic and congestion.
The chart claims that the projected parking for the previous project was 6,032 whereas now it is 4340. I saw a comment from one of the critics that the actual number of parking spaces should have been between 8,000 and 9,000. They also question how the project proponent can decrease the number to 4,340 which they see as about half of the city’s requirement.
Strangely I could not find where the 6,032 parking figure for MRIC actually came from, there was never a number laid out in the MRIC EIR or project proposal that I saw. (Perhaps I missed it in the tons of documents from the previous project).
I have made this comment previously – but process is often a point hammered home by critics of projects – along with these kinds of issues involving the exact the number parking spaces and the like.
Critics of Nishi in 2018 hammered the project because of its compressed timeline and various other procedural and process-based issues.
But in 2016 the voters voted down Nishi by a narrow margin based primarily on perceived traffic impacts and lack of affordable housing. When the proponents fixed those problems – by avoiding Richards and by providing affordable housing – the voters approved the project on the basis of their calculation of the need for additional student housing in town.
That vote was overwhelming.
ARC is not going to come down to the host of procedural issues that are being laid out right now. There is an elephant looming and everyone knows it.
Hundreds of people have turned out for several public meetings in South Davis for the traffic impacts on Mace. Compare that to the less 20 people who turned out on Monday for this project.
This project will sink or swim almost entirely based on the perception of how long people believe that ARC will cause them to spend in their cars. Can the applicants solve that problem and convince voters that this will not inconvenience them or convince them that there are more important issues than a few extra minutes sitting in traffic a couple of times a week?
That’s the key to this project. Everything else is window dressing.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Why is the Vanguard against a good process that adequately evaluates the impacts of the project? And why isn’t the Vanguard concerned about the City pushing false information about the project that is coming directly from the developer’s attorney? As several Davisites who have taken the time to look at the scant material provided thus far have noted, the City’s “process” is shaping up to be a garbage in-garbage out analysis
When a handful of UCD students clutching flyers from the developers spoke in front of Council, the Vanguard claimed that students were “mobilized” for the project. Now, when the City holds an “open house” on the day after a long holiday weekend for which inadequate information was provided and for which the Vanguard didn’t even acknowledge the existence of for 12 days, the Vanguard tries to minimizes the number of people who did show up.
The article notes “Strangely I could not find where the 6,032 parking figure for MRIC actually came from, there was never a number laid out in the MRIC EIR or project proposal that I saw. (Perhaps I missed it in the tons of documents from the previous project).”
As I have pointed out previously, that parking figure does not appear at all in the EIR material for the previous MRIC project. It is not known where the developer’s attorney pulled that from. But that is just one of the many anomalies in the supposed comparison of MRIC vs. ARC that were hastily and sloppily pulled together for the “open house”. The developer’s table that supposedly characterizes the City’s parking requirements for the project gets almost every number wrong.
Anong the materials distributed by the developer’s attorney and posted without review or vetting on the Ciry’s website as fact, is a characterization of the amount of parkland/greenways and open space on the project site. The EIR for MRIC clearly shows that the ARC proposal needed 77 acres in these categories to meet City development standards. However the material for ARC drastically understates this figure in an effort to state the projects are substantially similar to avoid more detailed environmental review. There are only about 28 acres of parks/open space on-site in the current proposal.
The developers attorney also presented false information that single family housing was part the MRIC proposal when it wasn’t. This is another large change in the ARC proposal that they are attempting to obscure and minimize. The ARC proposal now contains more single family homes than The Cannery (and more overall housing units too). It is all part of a push by the developer to try to make the project financially feasible, as earlier documentation clearly showed that there isn’t sufficient commercial demand to support the project.
The article states “While I understand the concerns of the critics that this is shaping the project – I also know from past experiences, vast changes occur to projects at all stages along the way and perhaps most when it gets toward the latter stages and goes before the council.”
Do you really understand the concerns? Why do you keep criticizing and trying to minimize the Davisites who are expressing those concerns?
The developer had years to develop changes to the project. If they are contemplating “vast changes” to the project these should be presented before the updated environmental review is done.
I think the people objecting know and understand the process. They are smart. I believe that these three people are loudly attacking the process in order to keep their opposition in the news and to create a aura of distrust and suspicion around the project. They’ve done this before and they are pretty good at it – operating like a fine tuned machine and entirely predictable. Personally, I’m treating this like the upcoming Presidential election and not really engaging until it’s much closer and there is a clear picture of the pros and cons of the project. The accusations flung around about process and City staff job performance will not be a factor for me – at all. I’m just not interested.
Sharla C. said “not really engaging until it’s much closer and there is a clear picture of the pros and cons of the project.“
You have successfully identified that there is not a “clear picture” of the project. The developer has purposely released false information about the previous ARC proposal to try to rush through an inadequate environmental review process.
Sharla
Despite others’ comments re: yours, you are spot on… we won’t know all details until the process proceeds… yet some want ALL the details (and and the analyses?) before doing the DEIR. Let’s the project be more “attackable”.
I’ve already e-mailed my initial comments re: scoping to the City… well before the Dec 9 date. Easy.
Mainly related to traffic and circulation.
Opponents want nit-picky details ASAP, so that if details change as a result of the analysis, they can cry “foul”… seen it many times before… nothing new under the sun…
I’ve made my comments to the City, and await the analyses… after reviewing that, I’ll decide if I support, oppose, or am neutral on the project, as it morphs… in response to what the analyses show, and responses towards modifications, mitigations, constructive ideas, etc.
You are approaching this correctly, and rationally, Sharla.
Sharla C.: why aren’t you concerned that City staff is distributing highly-inaccurate information about the project straight from the developer’s attorney on its own website without oversight, review, or vetting? Do you think this is a reasonable way to allow for public input about a project? What do you think this says about “staff job performance”?
Didn’t one of the “frequent commenters” on here (who obviously doesn’t appreciate the efforts of those concerned about the development) claim that a scoping meeting was required for this supplemental EIR? And, then went on to state that it would have occurred regardless – even without the efforts of Rik, Roberta, and Colin?
Sorry that I couldn’t attend the open house. I appreciate the efforts of those who did.
To clarify, it looks like Bill stated that it’s “standard operating procedure” (but not “required”):
Then, Bill went on to make this comment regarding Rik:
And instead of expressing appreciation to Rik, Roberta and Colin for ensuring that the scoping meeting occurred (by the Vanguard or their ever-shrinking peanut gallery), it’s the usual personal attack.
Ron O.: yes, the commenter in question also claimed personal communication with City staff to state that it was “narcissistic” for the Davisites who successfully pushed the City to hold a scoping meeting in the first place to state that this is what happened. As the Vanguard stated in the 1st article on this meeting on Tuesday “The city of Davis and its consultants maintain that they were not required to hold a scoping meeting for the Aggie Research Campus – however, given feedback from some sectors in the community, they agreed to hold a scoping meeting ahead of what will be a supplemental EIR…”
Yeap.
It’s also strange that David acknowledges that traffic is a concern, but downplays the role of the scoping process which would disclose those impacts – assuming that the scope of study is adequate in the first place.
That’s a reason that “process” is critical.
As Dylan once said, “I don’t need to be a weather man to know which way the wind is blowing”
In that same song Dylan said “Don’t follow leaders, watch the parkin’ meters”.
One question about the ARC proposal is: where did all of the required parking go? If the overall land uses are the same (caveat: this is a big question: the new proposal adds in a bunch of single family homes, radically decreases parks\open space, and who know what else?–there is not an adequate comparison), and if there are no new proposals to address the assumed traffic mode split (there aren’t), then parking needs and parking requirements based on City development standards would be the same. But the developer is just apparently waving a magic wand and making this traffic/parking go away of their freeway-oriented, automobile-dependent development.
Dylan also said in that song: “Look out kid, they keep it all hid.”
This is a perfect description of the false information that the developer’s attorney has been trying to slip into the process, and for which attentive Davistes noticed and were able to bring to the public’s attention in the scoping meeting.
The point is that if a scoping meeting is supposed to identify issues of changed circumstance, they already know about traffic. So they don’t need a scoping meeting to study traffic impacts.
Not sure what your comment references, but I sincerely believe that the proposal is facing some serious “headwinds”.
The scope will/should address traffic conditions which have changed since the initial study was conducted several years ago. The scope will determine which streets, freeway access points, times of day, etc. will be studied.
The scope should also determine if the changes in the proposal itself will have an impact.
Other factors (such as the cumulative impacts of other new or planned developments in or near the city, increased regional traffic on I-80, and the impact of traffic-diverting cell-phone applications) should also be addressed.
If any of these types of factors are not adequately addressed, then the resulting disclosure will not be very accurate. (“Garbage in, garbage out.”)
Also, perhaps the “Mace Mess” might provide a lesson regarding proceeding without performing adequate analysis.
Mace Mess as you call it is not the problem. We would be in basically the same boat with the same configuration because guess what, Ron, ARC is north of the freeway and they didn’t touch Mace north of the freeway. The problem here is I-80 and it was unavoidable by the city.
Let’s see… back pedaling on an untruth (implied)… then adding personal slings…
Nah, no problems at all…
Way over the top (or below the bottom)… I do not appreciate untruths, to be sure… but it is you who…
Bill: It’s pretty obvious that you don’t appreciate such efforts, and seek to downplay them at every opportunity.
Yes – my first comment was based upon memory, and was phrased as a question. As such, there was nothing “untruthful” about it.
I then immediately found your original statement, which again questioned the value that Rik and others provided. (Not to mention arriving at unsupported if not outright inaccurate conclusions regarding what would have occurred regarding the scoping meeting – without the involvement of others.) I can find other comments that you made in the article (and elsewhere), which demonstrate your clear bias – if you want me to point those out.
I’ll assume that you have no interest in submitting comments regarding the scoping process, itself. Which is truly unfortunate, given your professional background.
Greenwald states:
Greenwald thus completely misunderstands this particular criticism voiced by the Davisites at the meeting. This is related to the required on-site agricultural buffer for the project, which is a 150-foot strip around the perimeter where it is adjacent to other ag land. They were not talking in this instance about the required off-site agricultural mitigation. As stated by City Code “The one-hundred-fifty-foot agricultural buffer/transition area shall not qualify as farmland mitigation pursuant to Article 40A.03 of this chapter.”
The developers are proposing to use part of a City-owned parcel for the requirement of their on-site agricultural buffer, which is completely contrary to the requirement in City Code. The Vanguard should be more cognizant of actual City development requirements before attempting to engage in a discussion of these matters and misinforming the public
By Davisites he means two people… Rik’s comment implies a groundswell.
And your comment was made by one person . . .
Interesting seeing the term “Davisite”… interesting double entendre… probably correct on three levels…
Perhaps spilling-over into Mace Ranch?
Cute, but not likely… and, it is “Mace Ranch Park”, thank you…
The comment wasn’t intended to be cute.
Mace Ranch starts right across the street from the proposed development. If there isn’t adequate parking on-site, what makes you think that residents, visitors, or workers won’t start parking in Mace Ranch? That’s likely the first place they’d look.
In general, Davis hasn’t (yet) made parking so difficult that people willingly give up cars. Especially when they’re living or working on the outskirts of town. (For that matter, that “strategy” to discourage cars hasn’t worked particularly-well in areas that are already much more dense than Davis.)
For that matter, what’s to keep this proposal from (once again) housing large numbers of students, who would also have cars? No lease is going to stop that from occurring.
David Greenwald wrote:
The problem here is that voters were not given enough choices and some choices were unclear.
Regarding the former, it was possible – and still is – to create parking for commercial developments at Nishi south of the railroad tracks and in way that minimizes impacts on surface roads. There would also be ways for people working at these places to get Downtown without using their car. A better and more imaginative scoping or other process would have identified more possibilities.
About the latter, everything’s been approved so far though – as far as I know as a Commissioner – there’s still not a interior air hygiene goals for the project.
I moved to Davis right after the “Nishi 1.0” vote, but myself and others discussed or supported the above ideas starting at least a year before the 2.0 project was approved. Around the time of the second vote peripheral parking – south of the tracks – was also considered for the Downtown Plan concept.
Sure, it’s simpler to take certain issues after the fact (of an election), and there’s perhaps no state requirement to be as creative and curious as fracking possible when handing huge choices like we are talking about. We are allowed to go further than the regs make us, and that’s good! That’s how we get ahead on progressive development policy, and then get other communities to lead. We need to do this WAY before we do any EIR. Otherwise, just the dull momentum of a project pushes it forward, rather than something more honest and robust.
I believe that traffic-related opposition to “ARC” will not only be about congestion-convenience, but all the other negatives of automobile-dependent development. A “transit center” and better crossing for bikes under Mace will not make this non-automobile dependent.
should be “there’s still not a solution for the interior air hygiene goals for the project”
As you previously noted, there’s about 200 people who apparently view the Mace Mess as a problem. As does the city itself.
By the way, did we ever figure out who did the traffic study for that – before it was implemented?
For one thing, they (ARC and the “Mace Mess”) would share a freeway access point, right before the Causeway.
I have yet to see any large freeway-oriented development, anywhere, that only impacts “one side”.
The traffic congestion on the north side is not related to the road re-design, period. It is related to the congestion on I-80 and one of the routes that apps are sending folks as a bypass.
Apparently, the city doesn’t entirely agree with your conclusion, after approving the “mess” in the first place. That’s why they’re now spending more money to “fix” it.
So, in your view – which is it? They made no mistake in the first place? Or they’re making one now by attempting to fix it?
And, is this the same city that’s now subjecting residents to yet another mess, in the form of ARC?
Regardless, ARC would interact with the Mace Mess. And, as one freeway access point (and the freeway itself) becomes more congested, it impacts all others – including those on the “mess” side.
I’ve talked to the city and I don’t think they disagree with my conclusion. They view the need to fix some obvious problems with Mace and approved the expansion to two lanes from Montgomery to Cowell as well. But if you read the traffic analysis, you realize that even their solution is going to be quite a bit worse than things were a few years ago and the traffic consultant acknowledged that without fixes on the I80 corridor, we’re fighting a losing battle.
Regardless, two points. (A) they are redesigning Mace again so I don’t understand how you then conclude that it “interacts with the Mace Mess” and (B) the road impacts have nothing to do with what is happening to the south, Mace frees up after the overpass and the traffic backups are independent of any backups to the south. I really don’t get your point. More importantly, if you support the project (which you don’t) you would want to be able to claim that there is local fix – but there’s not.
What a confusing comment you’ve made.
You’re stating that they made some initial mistakes that are “fixable”, and are fixing some other mistakes that are not “fixable”. (Including a return to 4 lanes, on Mace.)
You’ve already acknowledged that access to the freeway (and capacity of the freeway itself) is what’s creating the primary problem.
As I already noted, ARC will share at least one freeway access point with the Mace Mess side. And, as that access point becomes more impacted, traffic will shift back to other access points.
I honestly don’t know how folks like you (who claim to be concerned about local contributions to global warming) can support something like ARC. (Not to mention the fact that it will create even more demand for housing – another stated concern of yours.)
Kind of reminds me of how you’re so concerned about discrimination – but only up to the point that a discriminatory housing proposal comes forward. Of course, it “helps” if they’re also a sponsor/advertiser on here.
Some may wonder why the developer’s attorney was so desperate to provide a comparison that supposedly showed there is not much difference between the MRIC Mixed-Use Alternative and the new ARC proposal, even to the extent of supplying blatantly false data and information.
One of the answers is that the developer is extremely anxious to avoid environmental scrutiny. For an amendment to an EIR, there is no requirement to do another Notice of Preparation (NOP) if the changes are not significant. The threshold for “significant” is that, ultimately, the baseline used for the first EIR has not changed and there are not more mitigation measures needed or the severity of the impact has not increased.
If the lead agency (in this case, the City of Davis) feels that the changes in the project and surrounding circumstances are things the public needs to know, they can then require a secondary NOP process. One big question then, is why did the City of Davis publish hastily-prepared, sloppy, and factually mistaken documents from developer’s attorney, and do this without any oversight or vetting? And why is the City relying on these documents as the basis for its opinion about the noticing requirement, as well as the scope of the EIR update in general?
It is irresponsible and contrary to the public interest
Wondering if you could provide more information about this (e.g., the number, location, etc.).
Also, wasn’t one of the “justifications” for adding housing is that it wouldn’t be single-family dwellings?
Almost unbelievable, how this thing keeps morphing into exactly what some claimed it wouldn’t.
At some point, even the unquestioning/loyal supporters must be doing some questioning – even if they don’t show it on here.
Row houses, about 30 units per acre
Thanks. Each one with a parking space somewhere, I guess.
Ron O.: The ARC proposal adds in a LOT more of these single family house lots than were in the MRIC proposal. If you compare the two land use plans in the previous article… https://davisvanguard.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ARC-Scoping-2.jpg
… the Mixed-Use Alternative for MRIC EIR only shows about 134 of those lots compared to 194 in the ARC diagram–almost 50% increase in single family units, Contrary to Greenwald’s assertion, the “project description” posted on the City’s website portal for the project makes no reference to “row houses.” It does generically reference that the project includes “single-family units and townhomes” in addition to “multi-family units”.
Also contrary to Greenwald’s assertion: the 30 units/acre density figure is supposedly for all housing units combined– including multi-family units– not for the single family units. Keep in mind that they are trying to get development approval for up to 85-foot high multi-family residential and hotel structures (8 stories) and office buildings are proposed to be up to 65-feet tall (6 stories).
Looking at the diagrams, it also appears that total acreage of the housing has also increased substantially from the MRIC MU Alt to the current ARC proposal. No surprise there. The Ramos bait-and-switch operation is already in effect.
Thanks, Rik. Apparently, misinformation provided/repeated by David once again.
Definitely some significant changes proposed, compared to the mixed-use alternative. (Which wasn’t even the original project to begin with – which was originally intended to address the “shortage” of commercial space compared to the amount of already-existing housing in the city. Or so it was claimed.)
One might ask why the city is ignoring these continuing changes, via the limited scope of a supplemental EIR, and compressed scoping timeframe.
In a sense, I think the developers and their supporters are continuing to be their own worst enemy. It’s like a sitting duck.
Even outright supporters of the proposal owe you a debt of gratitude for your continuing analysis.
Cute. From the get-go, never have seen any bolded term folks (except, perhaps, the applicants)… can I buy you some spaghetti for the holidays? Will try to find some pasta that “sticks” after being thrown.
I, for one, neither support, nor oppose the proposal… I need facts…. which are attempted to be delayed by some “Davisites” who want to throw their rhetorical weight around… just my opinion…
I’ll be impacted… I just need to see cost/benefit, projected impacts, proposed mitigations… I resent those who would thwart the analyses… I’ve made my comments as to the scope and project comments… 3 days in advance of the end of the comment period… on the scope… still reserve my rights to comment on the DEIR analyses…
All you’ve done on here (over multiple articles) is criticize those who have provided you with an opportunity to participate in the analysis.
It’s the same type of criticism that you consistently and repeatedly put forth regarding anyone who favors slow growth. While simultaneously taking advantage of the opportunities provided via the efforts of these same folks (e.g., via scoping processes that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred, the opportunity to participate in Measure R elections, etc.).
And yet, you haven’t shared any of your own concerns, regarding the scope.
Ron O.: from your quote of Bill (“I resent those who would thwart the analyses…”) who exactly is he talking about? It sounds like he might be a bit confused.
The Davisites specifically mentioned in the article (as well as myself) have made comments to the City calling for the analyses of the project to be thorough and adequate. We have been arguing against the narrow process that the developer has been trying to rush through in complicity with the City.
The fact that Bill is able to comment at all on the scoping is due directly to our efforts. Still, the City has not provided adequate information required by State law for a Notice of Preparation in advance of the scoping meeting.
The City also has never provided an updated EIR schedule, and it is unclear how or even whether they will actually take any scoping comments into account. If they continue with their previously posted schedule, this scoping meeting and comment submittal process will be even more of a sham than it already has been, with the presentation of deceptive and untrue project comparison information.
The developers themselves are trying to prevent adequate analyses of the project.
Yes I have, clearly, with the City. In writing. Which I intended to do with or without a scoping period. That is/was the proper venue.
Untrue. Anyone can comment at any time… the City can choose, based on the nature of the comment (and commenter), whether to include it in the process… it is not like they are compelled not to. The City has done this, in the past, if in professional judgement, it is pertinent.
Comments made in ‘scoping’, or made on the DEIR during circulation, are supposed to be addressed, and responded to (sometimes, the response is “comment noted”) and made part of the record. Comments made outside those, are optional for formal response, but are often addressed anyhow. That is how the process works.
Any experienced land use professional knows this.