by Tim Keller
I have found it quite interesting to watch the debate over Measure H unfold, and watch as each side has rolled out various arguments.
While both sides have a collection of more and less solid arguments, there is one element of the issue that I have seen being discussed which really shouldn’t be up for debate: The question of demand.
As I have watched, I have seen voters call into question a number of things: Whether the companies that set up at Disc are actually going to be food / agtech / renewables (aka “sustainability”) kinds of companies, whether there is sufficient demand to warrant such a development, and some commenters have gone so far as to openly question whether there are any innovative / startup companies in our town in the first place.
Now, I believe that a degree of skepticism is a healthy thing in most elections. We shouldn’t take any campaign’s word at face value without engaging our brains, and I understand that “sustainability” and “innovation” are both buzz-words which have been overused in the past.
But to me, the evidence for all of the above is as plain as the nose on my face. But I do admit, I have something of a unique perspective: As the volunteer director of a business incubator here in town, I end up meeting with quite a number of the players in our entrepreneurial ecosystem, and If I don’t meet them directly, the “grapevine” for local entrepreneurship runs straight through my door… so I at least hear about most of them.
So I thought it might be useful to put the “demand” component of the current debate to bed by simply taking an inventory of the activity in this sector: past, present and future.
When you see this list, I hope that you will internalize it, I hope you will learn a little more about these companies and what they are doing and appreciate the impact that their success might have on the world. I hope you will be able to see the city of Davis the way that I do: As the epicenter of a number of industries which are not only of incredible value to our local economy, but which are absolutely vital to the success of our species.
So to that end, let me present you with the following series of lists of companies that have either started here, or come here, or tried to come here but couldn’t because they couldn’t find space… as well as a list of the next wave of startup companies that are currently in local business incubators.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, so please forgive any omissions, but I daresay that it should be sufficient to make the point.
Given the importance of these companies, and the economic benefits that having these companies in our town will bring, I hope you will understand as I do, how vitally important it is that we pass measure H.
Homegrown Hall of fame:
Arcadia Biosciences. Company started locally, involved in a wide range of products including enhanced varieties of wheat, and pain relief products. Raised over $160M went public on Nasdaq: RKDA
AgraQuest,- Bio-based crop protection products. Using microbes to do the jobs that farmers used to rely on chemical pesticides for. Started here, purchased by Bayer Crop Sciences for ~$500M
CalGene – Started in a garage in Davis developing GMO plant varieties, including the famous “flavor saver” tomato sold to Monsanto at a valuation of ~$520 Million
Marrone Organics – Started by founder of AgraQuest Pam Marrone. Multiple commercial organic crop protection products Went public on Nasdaq: MBII
Resonetics: Automated lean manufacturing of laser-cut medical devices. Davis-founded Aduro laser merged with Resonetics at an undisclosed valuation. Still manufacturing in Davis.
Expression Systems: Contract manufacturing of therapeutic and diagnostic proteins.
World-Class Companies that Came to Davis looking for World-Class Talent
DMG Mori: A global leader in automated manufacturing technology listed on Tokyo stock exchange. Came to Davis due to a design partnership with a UCD Professor.
Mars / Wrigley: Food / Candy giant has multiple partnerships and investments in on-campus research, also has labs in town for similar work.
Novozymes: A global biotechnology company headquartered in Denmark with products across a wide spectrum including food, agriculture and renewables. Has a major R&D center in south Davis.
Archer Daniels Midland ( ADM): American food giant ADM set up an enzymes laboratory in Davis in 2018 to collaborate with UC Davis researchers.
BASF: A giant company with products across the chemical spectrum set up a lab in Davis to work on seed and agricultural products.
Green Venus. Intrexon a wide-ranging company with products in very diverse fields from medicine to mosquito control, spun off its local operations into a company called Green Venus which is using “speed breeding” technology to develop new varieties of multiple crops.
Local up and coming technology companies:
Advanced Farm Robotic harvesting machines for automated picking of Strawberries and Apples. Raised $34 Million from major agricultural investors including Yamaha and Kubota
BioConsortia – Started by alumni of Agraquest –similar biopesticide products Has raised $37 Million.
Engage3. The only software company on this list! Engage3 works with online retailers to understand their pricing strategy and optimize their ability to compete. Has raised almost $60 Million in equity funding.
Sierra Energy. Renewable energy company which converts municipal waste and renewable feedstocks to hydrogen. Raised $33 Million.
Evolve Biosystems. Nutrition company providing gut microbiome products for infants. Has raised over $125 million.
Eicosis. Has developed a non-opioid pain medicine which is currently in human clinical trials has raised over $20M between grant and equity investments.
Joywell. developed protein-based sweeteners which allow sweetness without sugar and is marketing a number of novel products using their technology, has raised almost $7 million.
Innerplant Uses plants as living sensors to detect environmental stresses in commercial agriculture. Recently raised $6 million.
Companies we missed out on.
These are companies that were Davis-founded or who came to Davis looking for space because they wanted to hire Davis talent – only to set up shop elsewhere because they couldn’t find appropriate space. This list is probably the most incomplete of the set, because if they came here to town and didn’t end up meeting with me, I might not have known. If you know other examples in this or other categories, let me know.
Some of these companies we may be lost forever, but others might very well be willing to move back to Davis if adequate facilities were available.
Re-Purpose Energy – Davis founded company who are converting end-of-life electric car batteries into home electrical storage systems. Ended up in Vacaville.
BiomeMakers – A soil health monitoring and health company founded in San Francisco, tried to find space here, and ended up in West Sacramento.
Origin Materials – A Davis-grown company creating renewable plastics from biomass feedstocks. Set up shop in West Sacramento after failing to find a place here ( twice ) went public recently on the Nasdaq: ORGN
Digestiva Commercializing UC Davis originated research on proteins which help with digestibility. Digestiva moved to lab space in west Sacramento after not being able to find lab space here in Davis ( we DO hope to get this one back).
BCD Biosciences. BCD is another company from the founders of Evolve Bio, working on oligosaccharides which can be used as therapies and for enhancing digestive health.
TurtleTree: Well funded startup creating a variety of future food products. Their team is highly Davis-based, but they ended up only finding lab space in Woodland and are building a production facility in West Sacramento.
Molecular Matrix – Developed a novel surgical bone graft material and their own rapid Covid-19 Tests. Moved to west Sacramento when forced out of their west Davis location.
TacSense – Wearable sensor technology spun out of UC Davis. Set up shop in Woodland and now also has operations in Shenzhen, China.
Up-And-Coming Companies we need to hold onto:
These startups are currently in Davis doing initial R&D work.
Ariz Bio: Highly targeted cancer therapeutics using multiple techniques to get the right treatment to the right place in the body.
Landscan: Agricultural informatics company that helps farmers understand their fields and make better water management and other decisions.
FloraPulse: Tree or vine-mounted sensors that directly measure plant water stress, allowing farmers to conserve water by giving their crop exactly what it needs. ( and no more ).
Balletic Foods: Company developing efficient ways of creating muscle proteins for food supplements.
Bindkin Bio: Drug discovery platform technology helping to identify the next generation of pharmaceutical compounds.
Peak B: Developing a organically-derived blue food coloring ( existing blue food dyes are chemically derived and problematic ).
SensIT: Gas-Sensor technology that can detect a variety of compounds. First applications are in the egg-handling ( poultry ) sector as well as the early detection of fungal spoilage in food storage silos.
Optimized Foods: cellular agriculture company leveraging mycelium manufacturing to create foods that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water usage.
On-Site Technologies: Robotic inspection systems for utility-scale solar installations. ( coming here soon).
Matribuials: Developing milk-derived therapeutics for the treatment of infectious disease.
Ravata: Developing tools for analysis of embryos in research, livestock and Human IVF applications.
AmCyt: Medical robotics company enabling telemedicine for cancer biopsies. (this one is mine).
ParaMag: Developing novel therapeutics and diagnostics for Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
California Cultured: Company innovating cell-cultured chocolate production, helping eliminate West African deforestation and child slavery. Recently raised $4 Million.
NuCicer: A company developing chickpeas that have 75% higher protein content.
Pheronym: A company developing pheromone based products for the control of nematodes.
Sensei Ag: A company backed by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison developing crop varieties that are well suited to indoor vertical agriculture.
There are also a number of UC-Davis originated startups that are currently at lab incubators in nearby towns. These are companies that would most likely love to come BACK to Davis if they could find the space.
Startups in the lab @ Agstart: (list of companies included).
The Bayer Co-Laborator (website does not mention companies that are there).
Summary: I hope this list has impressed you. These companies might not be obvious when you walk around town going about one’s daily business, but once you realize they are here, I think you cant help but start to understand just how special Davis is.
I also hope that you come away from this list of companies understanding that Innovation and Sustainability are NOT just marketing phrases. There is no denying that Sustainability, Food and Agtech are the undeniable theme that runs through these lists.
Finally, I hope these lists help you understand the utter falsehood of the No campaign’s final argument: That a project like this is simply “way too large for a small college town like Davis.”
Davis is NOT a small college town. We are home of the #5 best-funded public research university and the #1 agricultural school in the world. Amongst our peers are Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Michigan and MIT – and all of those institutions have substantial innovation centers dedicated to the translation of that research into the private economy.
This is the truth of why Davis absolutely must pass DiSC, and why I am sad that DiSC returned to the ballot at only half-size. Not only have we been holding back the potential of our University, but we have also been hurting ourselves.
As I have said many times that when it comes to economic development: “Davis is sitting on a winning lottery ticket… we just haven’t summoned the political will yet to cash it in.”
Please join me in making a local home for these incredible companies, created by Davis scientists, run by Davis residents, for the benefit of us as a city, and for the good of our species as a whole…. By voting “yes” on Measure H.
Tim Keller lives in Davis and founded the incubator Inventopia.
So Bayer/Monsanto, Genentech, and CalGene are now considered “sustainable”?
No, sorry.
Those companies are poisoning us and denying our kids a livable world.
Hardly “sustainable”.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/02/13/uw-study-exposure-to-chemical-in-roundup-increases-risk-for-cancer/
Christ Almighty – you REALLY PUBLISHED THIS.
Setting Joseph’s skepticism aside for a moment, I’d like Tim to take this long list to the next level and give guestimates of the square feet of space these companies need, needed or currently use. I’ll use BCD Biosciences as an example of the value of that kind of drill-down into demand for space. Tim’s listing of BCD discusses lab space in Woodland and production space in West Sac. It would be interesting to know why they didn’t locate both of their forms of demand for space in the same location. That is what DMG Mori did. They acquired the Davis-based design company DTL and then added the production facility at the same site several years later.
.
With that said, what Tim has put together should be a key component of the Economic Development Plan of the City of Davis. Unfortunately there is no such Economic Development Plan.
It’s not skepticism. JW is pointing out what these mega-corporations are about, and asking if that is what we want, and if having such corporations ‘on the list’ is acceptable to the values of the people of Davis, and worth the economic benefits . . . or do we want to take a stand as a ‘sustainable’ community in who we want to ‘invite’ here as our economic engine? A perfectly legitimate question, and definitely not skepticism.
Matt.. the question you are asking is difficult… because these companies change quickly…. If you were to try to make a list of the total square footage, needed by everyone, the list would be obsolete almost immediately. But I’d be willing to cheer on anyone who wanted to try!
TK, a reminder that raising funds does not a successful enterprise make. (Maybe a few years of leased space, however.) Take Moller International, which has been ‘two years away’ from creating a flying car — every year since 1974. Even collected — what was it about $40m? — from investors over the years and got a slapped-hand fine from the SEC. And how sustainable is that concept? Just the physics of the energy consumption to hover a human being and vehicle against gravity makes any environmental benefit of such a concept of everyone in the sky a joke. Drone deliveries of fresh almond butter to your driveway is a possible future, however.
BTW, where is the Sierra Energy hydrogen fueling station located? I need my zeppelin filled up. Planning to fly it to the Robert Plant concert in Berkeley. Hopefully no unwanted collisions with a Moller flying car on the way while passing over Dixon and crashing into an almond orchard.
Alan, Moller raised closer to 200 million…. yeah… For something that defies common sense… (and physics)
I spent a year in that building trying to convert moller’s old space into “Area 52” the incubator concept that preceded inventopia… the real estate part of the deal didn’t work, but I spent a year working on it, and played racquetball with Moller every week at his court inside that building during that transition…. he was ~82 years old and kicked my butt pretty much every time!
That building is now Sierra Energy – and they are building their waste-to-hydrogen pilot plant at Fort Hunter Liggett. Hopefully your zeppelin can make it that far…
Back on topic…
You are entirely correct that not all ventures, (including well financed ventures) are ultimately successful. Of all the small companies that I listed, the odds are that only 1 in 10 will actually make it to profitability.
But that really isn’t the point here… Even the companies that fail in the long term bring huge amounts of money into the economy, they create jobs, they pay property taxes, they eat downtown, they shop at our grocery stores…
That is all that really matters from the city’s point of view.. it is about the activity. The ones that do make it, the few, end up being extremely valuable if they pay their corporate taxes here too…. so we DO want them to succeed…. But the inherent risks of the startup aren’t a risk of the city… so long as they are working here and spending here, the city benefits.
Tim, if you think in terms of city (the community we live in) and it’s economy, three of the four examples you describe (they create jobs, they pay property taxes, they eat downtown, they shop at our grocery stores) incrementally add to the local economy, but paying property taxes doesn’t. There is no net addition there. Property taxes are not discretionary and the rate is predetermined and virtually all of the companies you have listed are renters. Their landlords pay the same property tax irrespective of who their tenants may be.
Also, given the dismal state of Davis’ restaurant choices, I doubt many of the employees of the companies you have listed eat many meals downtown. How often do you eat downtown?
How do the employees of those companies create net additional/incremental grocery shopping? You lost me on that one. Help me out of my confusion.
And none of those categories you listed generate incremental additional revenue for the City (our municipal government).
Matt
The valuation of the property changes depending on the use of the property. Most notably conversion from ag to industrial increases the valuation by a 100 fold. A portion of the increment accrues to localities.
You’re looking at a static snap shot of downtown. And downtown has changed dynamically, up and down over the years. Before 2019 there was quite a selection of dining spots, but now there are 7 large spaces empty that were filled then. An influx of new employees would support a revitalized downtown. Do you have another plan to revitalize downtown? All of those generate net sales tax revenues locally. In addition, visitors who stay over night generate transient occupancy tax revenues.
BTW, Tim is correct that the expected success rate of R&D start ups is about 10%.
Commercial operations pay property tax on the value of their equipment and furnishings inside the building in addition to the taxes paid by the property owner for the land and improvements. For a company with a large amount of high value equipment those additional taxes may be quite significant, and will indeed add to the City’s revenues, just as Tim stated.
Which is why Mori Seiki is so valuable.
Please remember what you wrote here… particularly if it turns out to be a tax dodge, a chimera (less substantial than a zeppelin)… please cite any ‘output’ from the plant… I’d not buy stock…
sierra energy stock – Search (bing.com)
Leadership – Sierra Energy
If I’m incorrect, would like to know… pretty sure Ron White bailed when he discovered the truths..
Bill, the sierra energy stock you linked to is a completely different company.
I dont know what you are referring to with the question of a “tax dodge” or even how that would work, but I used to work there and can assure you “taxes” have nothing to do with it.
The US Army has issues with solid waste, especially at overseas bases and forward areas… google “army burn pit” and you get an idea of the issue… Disposing of waste by converting it to energy is a win-win for the army, which is why they are the first, most interested customer.
I don’t disagree with anything you said in your reply, TK. And much as I love to criticize Moller and his flying cars, I can’t fault anyone who can compete in racquetball at age 82.
Looks like Tim Keller left out Schilling. Here’s an old article I just found:
http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/turner/
Of course, the most important variable that Tim (and others) leave out of their advocacy is the price difference for commercial space in places like West Sacramento, vs. Davis. (Especially for a brand-new facility, built on prime farmland outside of city limits, with no infrastructure currently in place.)
Then there’s the possible lack of natural gas delivery, etc. at DiSC. Which Tim has acknowledged is key for labs. Whereas probably every space/building in West Sacramento has access to gas (in addition to cheaper space). For that matter, their new employees can get cheaper housing there, as well. (This is what you call a “win-win” all around, for companies that move.)
There’s also the proximity to Sacramento, from West Sacramento. And a vast pool of potential workers (and housing opportunities) which are closer to that site.
Your link is from 2009.
Really? Your ignorance is showing… and the “etc.” part? Do you even know what utilities are/are not reasonably available? I wonder… if you do, please elaborate, lest folk find your missive completely dismissive… I’ll be ready to give the facts, as opposed to the spaghetti/untruths/speculation/innuendo… you made the assertion, so ball is in your court, not mine… in a battle of facts, you appear to be unarmed… but strut like you are “armed to the teeth”… stick to your areas of expertise, would be my suggestion…
According to Dan Carson (and the campaign itself), 100% of the energy onsite at DiSC would be renewable. And yet, natural gas is a fossil fuel.
Tim Keller has previously acknowledged that he does not know if natural gas would be included, and acknowledged concern regarding that in regard to the needs of labs.
All of that was posted on here previously, more than once. Have you forgotten, or do you simply see what you prefer to see? (The answer to that is painfully obvious.)
Not to worry, though – the document below also mentions bringing utilities to the other sites that Tim Keller is attempting to obtain from the city, if DiSC is approved.
Yeah, schilling was a big one to leave off that list…. mea culpa. They are normally one of the first or second companies that I refer to when talking about the value of our local innovators and ecosystem. Cant believe I missed that one.
By the way, I’m in possession of two recent documents (obtained via a public records request) which shows that Tim Keller is attempting to obtain the following from the city, if DiSC is approved:
Property: The parcels indicated in the image below, including the parcel known as “the mace 25” and the westernmost two blocks of the larger Davis property known as Howat Ranch. Depending on the level, and the nature of the response from industry, and the specifics of their needs, we would like to be able to execute this option on all three parcels – or on select parcels individually.
Form of Option: We would like the ability to select between either a purchase OR a lease of the land. Depending on the partners we find and their financial constraints / needs, we can see scenarios where either a lease or a purchase of the might be found preferable, but we won’t know which until we have those conversations – so we would like to be able to entertain both.
If there’s some way I could upload these documents to the Vanguard, I’d be happy to do so.
Ron, incorrect. Im exploring if we can use that land, whether or not DiSC is approved. It has nothing to do with Disc.
With all of these agricultural companies in town, there is a very real need for “test fields” and greenhouses.
The city set aside the Mace 25 for potential use as a “community farm” Although nobody has a plan for how to finance such an endeavour.
My idea was that if we can lease out that land in small parcels to the community AND slightly larger parcels for local Agtech companies, then I could find sponsors to put in the greenhouses, set up a barn or two, get the irrigation setup… all of that. and the small-plot community farm would get underwritten in the process. Really just expanding the concept of the “community farm” to include our local “business community”
If you want people to know about the proposal, Im happy to write that vanguard article myself. If you are trying to take my inquiries out of context so as to form some kind of conspiracy theory out of them… then just don’t. I work too hard to try to help this city to put up with disingenuous personal attacks.
Either way, its been months and the city hasn’t even responded on the proposal, so Its probably not a relevant discussion anyway.
I don’t believe that what you have in mind coincides with the purpose of that parcel (or the others that you’re pursuing).
One of the documents literally states the following:
“Providing access to farmland in small quantities creates a powerful incentive for young AgTech companies to headquarter themselves in Davis, and if the DiSC proposal is successful, the sites we have selected are even more ideally suited as they will help incentivize the colonization of that development by exactly these kinds of companies we are trying to encourage.”
The documents speak for themselves, and are not a personal attack. It’s unfortunate that you (and the Vanguard) don’t seek to publicly disclose such documents, yourself.
If there was some way to upload them, I’d be happy to do so.
I am leaving the comment and these replies, but this is veering off topic.
I’m pretty sure Im the ONLY one in town who has suggested a viable solution towards actually achieving that community farm. If you have a better idea.. please feel free to reach out to city hall yourself.
I don’t know how… I hope someone can… I’d be very interested to see the documents/records you purport to have… until then, the “grain of salt” applies, for me…
Howitt Ranch is an interesting topic, on its own… but that would be off-topic, so am not going there…
How about this… the mace 25 proposal is only a part of a larger economic development whitepaper that I have drafted and shared with a few people around the city… Matt Willams is one of the people who has seen it.
After Disc Im going to update it and I will share the grand plan with everyone. If you want to see the draft version in its current form, just email me tim at inventopia dot org… happy to share.
Five comment rule is in effect. Author is excepted.
Please monitor your own comment count.
Great list, Tim. Thanks for posting it. It illustrates the range of science/technology that surrounds UC Davis. Obviously heavy on ag sciences, but not exclusively.
If you believe that money is a good metric of how well someone had helped society, then a decision of this kind would be decided by an auction, where the winning bidder buys the control from the public (i.e. everyone gets a per person payout including the winning bidder).
Otherwise:
Another way to move forward is to divide the decision per eligible decision-maker (aka eligible voter). Say a piece of land in question has 100 acres, and there is a list of companies that want to build there. The decision-makers individual select which company(ies)/usage(s) they endorse. The result is a list of approval ratings. Starting with the most approved, the community checks whether the amount of land requested fits within the approval rating.
For example, if the highest approved usage is “farmland” with 40%, and the practical minimum farmland is 10 acre, then “farmland” would be allotted 40 acres, and those who endorsed this use consume their corresponding rights to choose for the remaining 60 acres.
Say the next highest approved usage is for Company A which requested 10 acres, and the approval rating is 30%. Then Company A gets 10 acres and its endorsers are reimbursed with unspent decision rights. (In a dynamic endorsement process, people can see whether a company already gets enough endorsement and get adjust their weights before the decision period ends.)
With an endorsement method, if a company only asks for 10% of the available space, then it only takes 10% approval for the space to be granted. The endorsers lose their rights to decide on the remaining 90% of the available space.
The fact that an endorser would *spend* and *use up* their decision power is missing in a simple majority rule decision method. Simply majority rule is anti-autonomy because it prevents the minority from having their share of decision power, aka autonomy.
Therefore, if you consider the entirety of the available lands in Davis and use an endorsement method, there will be land left for research companies proportional to the number of people willing to endorse it. The majority does not make all the decisions. The majority cannot use divide and conquer to decide on every piece of land.
The simple reply is that the City of Davis has simply completely let down all worthwhile companies by not enabling a truly sustainable way for them to do business here. DISC is not it.
Question: How many of these companies relocated to commercial space that has housing on-site?
I don’t doubt that there’s demand for commercial/innovation/whatever-business-term-you-want-to-call-it space. And I’d like to see that demand met at the DISC site. But if that demand is so strong, why are we considering the inclusion of housing at the site, why not maximize the commercial element in order to maximize the tax increment? When I asked the latter question of Dan Ramos at a public pitch meeting for DISC version 1, he turned to one of his consultants who stated plainly that they don’t believe there’s sufficient demand. So when I see housing in the current proposal, I see a tax-depleting housing project rather than a tax-generating commercial project.
I still haven’t decided for sure whether I’m a yes or no on Measure H. But I did get sufficiently offended by Dan Carson’s actions to toss a few bucks to the No campaign.
When you add-in the 350 acre proposal in Woodland (which moved after failing in Davis, adding 1,600 housing units during its 7-mile move up Highway 113), as well as whatever they’re proposing in Dixon, one really might ask how many companies there are who are stepping-up for the purpose of “helping” these cities. (Not to mention the railyards in Sacramento, the site of ARCO arena, etc. Of which I haven’t really been following.)
“Innovation centers for everyone”! (I’d suggest one every 10 miles or so.)
Do you think Davis can land Twitter, now that Elon’s in control?
(Probably my fifth comment on here.)
Jim, I’m pretty sure they only included housing because Brett Lee asked to include it.
Housing is in short supply in this town for sure.. but if it were up to me I would keep the uses seperate. If the housing is too close to the industrial they may have a hard time permitting backup generators or other things like metal-cutting type applications. Maybe if the housing was apartments / condos and put over the retail areas up at the front of the complex near the transit plaza… that would make a lot of sense… but the example layout that I have seen has the residential towards the back… which I think would be a mistake.
Something to talk about in the planning process afterwards I guess…
I don’t think that’s accurate.
And if it’s too close to the edge of the neighboring farm there are going to be conflicts. And it reduces the value of the project to the city. It’s a huge mistake to have housing on this site.
No, it’s something that should be removed when they come back with DISC III after the election.
“How many of these companies relocated to commercial space that has housing on-site?”
I don’t know a direct answer but I do know that in Vacaville housing was built a short distance from Genentech and Kaiser so that employees have the opportunity to live a few blocks from where they work.
Vacaville likes to build things, including houses. I bet Genentech and Kaiser would have built where they did even if new housing hadn’t been planned nearby.
It’d be interesting to know how many of those nearby houses are currently owned by Genentech or Kaiser employees. I would expect that after 10 years or so the the ownership mix would look a lot like the rest of the area.
The ‘boogey-man’ of the housing/affordable housing debate… differentiating between rental housing and ownership housing… makes a lot of difference as to ‘affordability’, ‘estate building’, etc.
I strongly suspect Jim F is right… absent ‘company housing’/deed restrictions, 10-15 years out, the ownership and/or rental occupants would likely “look a lot like the rest of the area.” True in all the communities and neighborhoods I’ve ever lived in….
One example: in Davis, many Davis City employees chose to move/buy in other communities, not just for cost, but because they want to separate their work and home lives…