By David M. Greenwald
Davis, CA – One of the points I have been trying to make over at least the last month is that important voices from our community have been absent the discussions on housing and growth—and I think that is to the detriment of the process.
My commentary from earlier this week on whether Davis is a bedroom community generated some very interesting discussion that deserves to be fleshed out a bit more.
Tim Keller made some astute observations.
Responding to another commenter, he said, “We don’t disagree THAT much I don’t think. And I don’t think that you and David are too far from agreement either… He is only saying that we aren’t a bedroom community in the ‘classic sense,’ and you rightly point out that there are a LOT of people who DO indeed use Davis as a bedroom community. I think both positions are right, at least, as I understand them.”
I think that point is largely correct. With UC Davis effectively attached to Davis, Davis is not the classic bedroom community where there is literally no big industry. UC Davis is the regional 
big industry and people can literally walk to work from Davis.
But my point was not meant to suggest that there are not many who do use Davis as a bedroom community. My argument for quite some time has been to point out that (a) Davis lacks housing for a lot of employees, especially staff, at UC Davis, and (b) Davis lacks employment opportunities for people who live in town and don’t work at the university.
Matt Williams is more correct to use this as a cautionary tale—that we have in fact created a de facto vision that creates at least a partial bedroom community effect. (I parse that as carefully as I can here).
As he quotes from Don Shor: “In a series of votes over a few decades, the voters of Davis have made their vision clear.”
— They want to constrain the physical size of the city.
— They want to restrict the growth rate of housing in the city (“grow as slowly as legally possible”).
— They want to have direct approval over most, if not all, major development projects.
— If they approve a project, it has to check a lot of boxes and benefit a demographic they feel positive about (seniors yes, students not so much unless they’re totally away from all other housing).
— It is also likely, based on the few projects that have come forward, that densification is going to be very contentious.
As he asks: “Is there any real question in peoples’ minds about what vision Davis residents have for the city, and how big they want it to be? It seems that Davis voters want Davis to retain its character (which means ‘like it was when I moved here’) and be as small as possible. They don’t want to be inconvenienced by the traffic generated by other people moving here.”
The danger of course is that, by limiting the size of Davis, we are in fact changing the community because the population is shifting older—away from child rearing stages, it is becoming more expensive, etc.
That leads me back to Tim Keller.
He makes six points in his comment worth fleshing out further:
1) There are people who can afford to live in Davis, but work elsewhere, and to the extent they bring money into our city economy that is a good thing.
2) There are people who retire here for a variety of reasons, and so long as they spend their money in our local economy, that is also good.
3) There are people who work here who can’t find housing here and to the extent that they take THAT economic activity outside of town, that is a loss for us.
4) The traffic produced by people who work outside of town is a negative for everyone, as is the traffic produced by the people who come to town from outside. We can’t really do anything about the former, but we CAN do something about the latter.
5) There are people who both live and work here in town who do shopping outside of town because we have under-developed our retail sector. This is also a loss for us.
6) There are companies that start here that cannot stay here because of a lack of commercial real estate. If they set up shop elsewhere, we miss out on their sales taxes which is also a loss for us. They will also employ people who do not live in this city and we thus also miss out on the secondary benefits of their economic contribution.
And as Matt Williams would and has argued, the consequence for this vision in part is that the community lacks the resources and the finances to be able to meet basic levels of service and, if that continues, it will induce additional tax burdens that will make this community even less affordable.
Tim Keller concludes: “So… I think that the answer is that we need to plan for balanced growth across the board. I for one would like to see it be VERY deliberate, well planned, and if possible, very high density. We can’t just do one kind of growth without considering the balance of other kinds of growth, nor can we do one of them ‘first’ and absolutely, positively, we cannot let ‘no growth’ even be on the table.”
One thing interesting is the use of balanced growth with “very high density.”
The key questions that we will have to answer, and perhaps less so in 2021 (although we should) while more so in 2028—how do we grow, how much do we grow and where do we put that growth?
Tim Keller argues that we cannot let “no growth” even be on the table. I think it is on the table at least in theory, and we need to have a discussion of what no growth actually would mean and what those consequences are.
The bigger question—what does that look like and how can we forge a community discussion that brings in all sorts of viewpoints to have a fair discussion on these issues?
—David M. Greenwald reporting
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I disagree (again) that a series of votes on individual projects somehow represents a “vision.” Why is this important? Because a vision is created by an explicit broader community discussion, not by a series of seemingly unrelated decisions or behaviors. We need to move toward creating a vision, which in turn requires community leadership stepping forward. I see the stirrings of that effort in various ways. Let’s see if that gels.
I agree that series of votes is not a de facto vision
Creating a vision through a process of ‘explicit broader community discussion’ is a huge, time consuming, and expensive undertaking that only makes sense if the resulting vision is going to be followed. Absolutely nothing in the past sixty year’s history of Davis suggests that any vision developed by such a process will be followed. In fact, looking at our history, you can nearly guarantee that any new vision will be completely ignored as soon as it is finalized. As a consequence, the demand for a new visioning process (in whatever form you propose) is really nothing more than an effort at delay and obstruction made by those looking to protect the status quo.
If the goal is to actually meet the community’s needs and fiscal challenges, that will require leadership from our elected officials. Considering that the current bunch just unanimously approved buying and staffing an unneeded ladder truck (with its associated $millions in additional costs) it is clear that the necessary leadership does not currently exist, making the entire discussion moot. ‘Planning’ on a project by project basis is really the only approach that we are currently capable of accomplishing. Sometimes reality sucks.
I don’t think that Mark is incorrect on the facts, but where would disagree is in the implication that the politics of this town cannot change.
I think that our council does what most elected bodies do: They listen more to the constituents who speak up and participate in advocacy than the silent ones that don’t. As my grandfather would say: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease”
Now, if you are a pro-growth citizen of this town.. where is the pain point that gets you engaged in the local process? It just doesnt work that way…
That is, until we realize that our failure to act proactivley FOR growth over time has created a crisis which DEMANDS attention.
And I think that is where we are now: The costs of our lack of growth are impossible to ignore, the short-sightedness of our past decisions are now painfully obvious, and it is enough that it has occurred to many of us that the status-quo CANNOT continue – we need to organize, we need to plan, we need to advocate if we are going to turn this around.
Which is why when I heared that there were people organizing a pro-growth advocacy group here in town, I was immediately interested.
Not to say that I wasn’t skeptical. Im not interested in being a shill for a developer, and I don’t want Davis to grow the way I have seen other cities grow: Just extending single family housing and strip malls out to the horizon. But as we had those discussions, it was obvious that everyone in that group was of the same mind: We want Davis to take its rightful place in the regional economy and live up to our potential – but we want to accomplish that growth correctly, sustainably, and intelligently. We named the group “Sustainalble Growth Yolo” and that is exactly what we will be advocating for.
So despite the observations that Davis has make a string of slow-growth decisions over the past decades, it must also be recognized that those decisions were all made in a political climate where the “pro” side of the debate was entirely up to the developer, and was thus, only concerned with to the issues surrounding that specific development. There was no organized base of citizens advocating for a cohesive, sustainable, coordinated plan for growth.
THAT is what is changing now, and it is my expectation is that this new political reality will indeed change the debates we are having, improve our City’s ability to create a comprehensive plan for growth, and allow our voters to understand those individual voting decisions in a more complete way. THAT will change the observed reality that Don, and Matt and Mark have all pointed out.
Our past does not have to predict our future. In the words of Margaret Mead:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
I don’t disagree with what Tim has said above, but it only tells a portion of the story. What Tim hasn’t discussed is the fact that the history of growth decisions in Davis is one where the incremental revenues generated by the growth for the government of the City of Davis do not cover the incremental costs generated by the growth for that same City of Davis government entity.
The $14 million annual budget shortfall (which includes Mark West’s referenced unfunded decision to buy and staff the unneeded ladder truck) is very clear evidence of the metaphor that digging a hole makes it deeper and therefore harder to get out of, and it is best to stop digging … in this case, continuing to make the same fiscally unwise decisions and thereby making the annual shortfall/deficit even worse.
The “comprehensive plan for growth” that Tim Keller references needs to be something other than a self-inflicted wound. We need to come up with a solution that actually makes growth produce more incremental revenues than incremental costs for our local government.
In addition we have to come to grips with the fact that even if we do increase the revenues the City government gets from incremental growth, those revenues will be very slow in materializing, and they will not help us with dealing our current annual $14 million hole. We are going to have to come up with other sources of revenues to accomplish that, and the most likely source of those “other” revenues is an increase in taxes.
The consequences of increased taxes is that Davis will become less affordable to live in, rather than more affordable.
The votes have also been on policy issues, specifically as to how fast the community can grow and requiring voter approval for any annexation or changing ag zoning. So it’s not just project by project. The voters have approved, in a series of votes, a slow-growth policy and significant constraints on land use.
I think the margin of the recent Measure R renewal tells you what you need to know about that vision.
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Based on their statements above, here is a question for Richard and David … What do you believe the vision for Davis has been during the current General Plan period (from 2001 through 2021)?
Based on a reading of the historical facts/events of that 20-year period, Don Shor appears to be answering that question as follows,
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Votes of the people only describe part of the story when it comes to the vision that any community has (or has had). The other part of the story comes from the actions of elected leadership during the period. Mark West gives us a concise summation of the vision that has come from Davis’ electeds during the past 20 years when he says,
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I will be interested to see if either Richard or David (or anyone else) can provide a better description than Don and Mark together have provided of what the vision for Davis has been during the 20 years from 2001 through 2021.
I don’t believe there is a vision for Davis. I believe that the public has voted on things – vote by vote. They have generally supported the right of the citizens to vote on peripheral projects. They have generally voted for more moderate councilmembers.
David, the condition of having no vision is being blind. Is your statement above saying that Davis has been “walking around blind” for the past 20 years?
I do think vision is not the same as policy preference.
What do you think vision is?
“Drill Baby Drill”
When I read that, I see these differences:
1) A vision implies something that can override majority preference in the future.
2) People who do not want to implement a vision are those okay with just letting whoever actually live in Davis decide what they want to do at that moment, not being bound by some rules people set in the past.
Good point Edgar.
I can see it now, the majority’s preference (vote?) doesn’t matter because it doesn’t jibe with the vision.
The ones who are now pushing for a “vision” are likely quite different than the majority.
[edited]
These discussions don’t seem important because it appears that there is no amount of discussion that would convince no-growth to accept growth. So if you want to help people without waiting on no-growth people to change their mind, maybe the Counties could develop North Dixon and South Woodland. If people WANT to move near Davis, but Davis doesn’t want people near them, then the boundary of Davis deserves to shrink and give to neighboring cities that accommodate those populations.
I think we’ve ‘had that discussion’ a few hundred times, right here on the old D.V. And the needle moving on anyone’s beliefs due to these discussions has been zero. But it has sure created a lot of animosity, so by all means, let’s continue the ‘community dialog’ with another exciting article about growth and housing.
“Very High Density” vs. “No Growth” – never the twain shall meet. Solution, according to TK: “we cannot let ‘no growth’ even be on the table.” In other words, shut them down, don’t even let them have a seat at the table. There’s an attitude for community consensus! Yippie I-O Ky-Yay!
We also need to bring the “negative growth” advocate folk to the table (yes there are some, including at least one who ‘sometimes’ posts here)… that would be ‘balance’…
And, inherent in ‘balance’, the question arises, where and what is the fulcrum? The 1%?
UCD is not geographically part of the city of Davis. UCD is not legally part of the city of Davis. In terms of the City’s finances, it’s not directly related to the city of Davis. Business on UCD land does not contribute to city revenues through business and sales taxes or fees.
The idea that students and faculty live here and spend money being a desirable goal is flawed. Without any other mitigating factors (of which I believe should be constantly analyzed), residential units are a cost to the community. So the idea that the city should plan for the housing UCD students and faculty because they’ll spend money in the community is like a store saying they should hire more employees so they’ll spend their money in the store. How are UCD students and faculty spending money in Davis any different than someone from Sacramento, Woodland or Vacaville coming to Davis to spend money? Shouldn’t that be the goal…..to get people to come to Davis to spend money and not have to spend the resources on infrastructure to support them?
Which brings me to the part where most of us agree; that the city of Davis should try to adopt a plan for economic. In the very least the city needs to expand economically to support the current infrastructure. What I still advocate in terms of “balanced growth” is residential growth that supports Davis economic development. An active measure of how housing impacts if businesses come or go in Davis. Obviously businesses would like to have their workers live in the same town that the business is in. But it’s not usually the deciding factor.
Residential development should support economic development and/or better the city of Davis and it’s community. This could come in the form of new infrastructure such as roads, or rec stuff such as parks, swimming pools, baseball fields, dog parks…etc… And no, infill and density is not a magical cure all solution to base future planning on. It’s an important component but not some over riding and comprehensive solution to housing and commercial development.
We did. Several sites were identified.
Nishi: voters rejected the plan with a commercial component. Came back residential only and passed.
Northwest quadrant: project team abandoned the plan and went to Woodland.
DISC: voters rejected the plan. Seems unlikely to come back at this point.
Fifth Street corridor: nothing at all has happened on this to my knowledge, and I think I’d be aware of it.
DJUSD headquarters: nothing at all has happened on that.
Making plans is all well and good, but property owners aren’t going to foot the bill for costly special elections if there’s a track record of complete failure on peripheral commercial proposals. That leaves sites in the city limits. I’m not sure we need a specific consultant-driven plan for economic development at this point, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a commission dedicated to the topic reviewing options and making specific recommendations to the council.
Oh, I’m well aware of the history of the voters and commercial development. I’m simply describing how I think things should be.
I’ve said that it won’t be easy for the city to grow as it should as long as the inmates run the asylum. Direct voting on land use issues was just an insanely bad idea.
It will take a serious change in leadership for a pro economic growth political agenda to move forward. It will take someone(s) to convince the voters that the benefits of growth outweigh the negatives. You have to overcome the dogmatic thinkers that believe all growth is bad. The best way to do that is give them all something tangible they want more than no growth. More money for schools? A new community swimming pool? Money for a reformed police department (how about commercial growth that directly funds social worker outreach programs for the police?).
Commercial development cannot even fund itself, without being subsidized by housing. That’s why you saw the DISC site changed into a semi-housing proposal.
It’s the reason you saw Nishi drop commercial development.
It’s the reason that the Davis Innovation Center moved to Woodland, where it will add 1,600 housing units.
It’s the reason that the Cannery owners wouldn’t even consider commercial development, and threatened to let the site lie fallow if they didn’t get their way (housing).
It’s the reason for massive commercial vacancies (and conversion to housing) of existing sites. Not just in Davis.
It’s the reason that there are no announced tenants on for the site in Woodland, let alone an imaginary one in Davis.
So the question is: why is that?
Was that because of that particular project?
Was it because of that particular developer?
Was it because there were no tenants set up ahead of time to be anchors of the DISC project?
Was it because there’s very little effort on the part of the city of Davis to attract and secure businesses to locate in the city of Davis?
Are there financial and regulatory problems with locating a business in Davis?
No demand, partly because there are MASSIVE amounts of cheap, vacant or totally undeveloped commercial space available in nearby cities.
Now, if you want to talk housing, you’ll be beating the developers off with a stick. As someone once noted, you can hot tar-and-feather them, and they’ll still continue coming back for more. They get pretty damn creative in their arguments, you have to give them that.
It’s not that simple. Businesses are relocating to the general Sac area. Large tech businesses often require specialized facilities that are built to suit. It’s simplistic to think of the situation as a bunch of commercial space available and it goes to whomever has the cheapest space. Yes the price is what is most important to many prospective commercial tenants. But it’s not the only factor. What it takes is business development on the part of the city. Partnerships and agreements with industries and companies that make it financially and politically viable for them to move to a city. That’s what gets large bio-tech (and other tech) campuses built. Davis has no such reputation.
It’s why the system misses good old fashion graft. You pay some city officials and you know you have them in your pocket. That makes you confident in moving your business to a city because you know the local politicians will have your back.
……I’m only partially joking…..
Given the Davis history, I can understand why Don says that Davis did adopt a plan for economic development. The City did indeed look at the supply side of an economic development plan, but it never really developed a serious look at the demand side of that economic development plan.
No partnerships or agreements with industries or companies ever happened. For that matter, despite all the sound bite rhetoric about the intellectual capital that is produced at UCD in Agriculture and other Research, no partnerships or agreements with UCD to leverage that intellectual capital engine ever happened.
It is not just that Davis has no such reputation, it is that Davis has not had any of the necessary follow-through needed to have anything other than half an economic development plan.
Just as important, when it came time for UCD to weigh in on the DISC project, all it could muster was a statement saying, UCD does not oppose the project. That was damning the project and the City’s economic development plan with faint praise.
I’d suggest that the mayor and another council member start shilling for a development. Or, perhaps another Studio 54-type report.
Oh, wait – they tried that.
But it all comes back to what Matt said, really:
And when you start adding housing to the mix (whether the additional demand is “accounted for” in the particular development proposal or not), the fiscal benefit becomes more questionable (as you noted). Essentially a “wash” (at best), with the city simply becoming larger (and costs/impacts shifted to existing residents). Not to mention environmental concerns, loss of open space/farmland, etc.
Davis is not alone regarding fiscal concerns – even when compared to the towns where growth monkeys run the show. In other words, “everywhere else” in the valley. (Though the Ponzi scheme can help hide it for awhile.)
I’d suggest examining how all of the cities throughout California got themselves into a fiscal predicament in the first place. And then, don’t do that again. Maybe something about pensions, ladder trucks, etc.