Commentary: Business As Usual in Davis – When It Can’t Be

By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor

Davis, CA – On Tuesday night, the Davis City Council moved along the Village Farms project to the NOP stage and toward the launch of the EIR process.

What was most striking in a way was the color of some of the public comment—quite frankly, there were people acting like this was ten years ago.

They were acting like there was no housing crisis.  They were acting like the city had the ability to reject projects without consequences.  Like the state isn’t ready and willing to come in and take away at least a measure of local control.

If people had any doubt—simply look at what happened in San Francisco on Wednesday.

“I don’t know where any of you were when the Covell Village project was discussed,” one commenter said.  “But I wish there was a little more institutional memory about what’s been going on in this property.”

He continued, “I do not see much difference between the Village Farm Project, and Covell Village proposal that was so thoroughly defeated by the people. I believe at least in part of that huge defeat was caused by the city council insisting on more density and more homes. And why isn’t there a smaller version of this proposal? “

Jim Flanagan said, “I’m a local physician. I would just like to assert that I think congestion does matter, especially as far as safety of our families and our kids and that also if you actually have to work for a living and you drive to work, congestion of course matters too. Perhaps this project has some great merits to it, but I think the size of it, we should consider dialing it down a bit. It’s just awfully big.”

Another, commenter, Elizabeth Ray, said she’s lived in Davis since 1976, feels like she’s living Ground Hog Day right now, because “I’m back here talking against and just trying to get you guys to tone down the Covell Village or Village Farms or whatever it’s called. This proposal is just a rehash of Covell Village and really nothing much has changed as far as I can see and it’s still too big a project for the site.”

She noted, “The traffic in this area is now worse than when the original proposal was rejected by Davis voters by 60%.”

She added that “as far as I can see, there’s going to be very little affordable housing, that’s mostly going to be mega mansions and for very wealthy.”

Jim Watson said, “This is essentially Covell Village repackaged, it was unpopular with the conditions then, (now) we have more traffic. It’s going to be less popular now and it’s going to face substantial community opposition.”

Eileen Samitz called the project “probably the worst I’ve ever seen.  It’s worse than the Covell Village project.”  She argued for tonight, “You’ve got a no project alternative. You’ve got the 1395, but then you’ve got three versions of 1800 unit project in just, and actually one is 1800 plus. Putting 1800 units on 135 acres is not a reasonable alternative.”

She said, “They’re all going to be all these 1800, even the 1400 unit project at that site, given the impacts already now and all the other problems at the site, they’re all going to have seriously serious high impacts environmentally and on the community at large. What’s missing is a downscaled option, which the Covell Village project actually did have.”

For certain, the comments were mixed—there were a number of people who are supporting the project and understand that Davis is in need for housing.

But the concern is that people are not being realistic about what the alternatives are here.

The city still hasn’t completed its RHNA for the last cycle.  Part of the problem is there are insufficient sites.  And the city has now come out with a list of infill sites to rezone—including a number that were previously zoned commercial.

They need to get more than 500 affordable units on those infill sites which seems a very tall task at this point.

That’s for this cycle.

It seems like that at least the next RHNA cycle will be as aggressive—if not more so—than this one.  That means we are looking at probably 2100 more units of overall housing including 900 units of affordable housing.

The arguments made on Tuesday mirrored arguments made back in 2005 with the Covell Village project— too dense, too large and, oh yes, there will be traffic impacts and we don’t want that.

That led me to the obvious question: how is the city going to be able to meet its housing needs without impacting existing residents with traffic congestion?

There just isn’t a possibility.

The point I have been making for a long time is that if the city continues to show an inability to meet its housing obligations, the state is ready to come in and do something about it—probably taking out Measure J.

For a long time people have lived in a world of denial on this, I think.  Some people continue to believe this is like before.  The state will talk tough and then fade away.

But I think many people, including me, may have underestimated the determination of the state to fix the housing crisis.  We can quibble as to whether the new measures will be impactful—the most impactful thing might be strict enforcement of RHNA.

Let’s look at what happened in San Francisco.

I’ll admit I was more than a bit skeptical that San Francisco could meet its 82,000-unit obligation.  But what happened this week should send a clear message that the state is not merely content to talk tough; they are going to back up their actions and the report—and we have our story this week here  —makes that clear.

The state has already sent that message—they have filed litigation in places like Elk Grove, San Bernardino, Huntington Beach, Coronado.

The gauntlet, however, is San Francisco.

“It is egregious, the enormous amount of constraints and barriers they impose on new housing development,” said Gustavo Velasquez, director of the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development. “The cost of housing is exorbitant because there isn’t enough of it.”

That’s a pretty strong statement that Velasquez made to the NY Times yesterday.

San Francisco is probably the worst.  But Davis is vulnerable on Measure J.  This is a point I continue to make and some people continue to shrug off.

Do the math.  We have.  There are five Measure J projects and if they all get passed, the city would just have enough affordable housing for one cycle.  If the city finds a way to double that affordable housing, they can get through two cycles with those five projects.

If you want to oppose Village Farms because of traffic, where else are you going to put housing where there will be no traffic impacts?  If you want a smaller project, how do you make the math work?

People are going to argue that Village Farms is too dense and that it will cause traffic impacts.  The alternative can’t be no additional housing.  The mandates are clear and the space for infill is pretty limited at this point.

The city really needs to hold a Housing Element/RHNA/Housing Crisis workshop to lay out the math for the public.