By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – On Monday, the subcommittee of Bapu Vaitla and Mayor Will Arnold came back with an update to the Long-Range Growth “Davis Development Rubric.” That updated version of the “rubric” was passed unanimously by council on Tuesday.
Let’s be clear on this point—the new effort marked a vast improvement over what was presented over the summer.
These changes really do make the rubric easier to understand, quicker to complete and probably a much more useful tool than what had previously been formulated.
The changes shift to five categories with no single composite score, but rather scores for each category: housing, climate/environmental justice, circulation, conservation and land use.
In addition, they argue that this creates a foundation for a General Plan update, with the “rubric as one tool among many—including CAAP, Downtown Plan, Housing Element, and others—to help evaluate projects in the interim until General Plan is completed.”
In so doing, the council has taken this from probably a clear negative to at best neutral—with the caveat, again, that it is going to depend on what the council does next.
But let’s not kid ourselves—this is a tool that really doesn’t advance the ball much or even at all.
This goes back to the critical points I raised back on Monday—the real issue is Measure J. Without tweaks to Measure J, we are really stuck in the same place we have been all along—unable to move projects forward even if they adhere to the goals laid out in the rubric.
As I wrote on Monday, the reality is that the structure of Measure J is such that it 
will make it difficult to plan because (a) much of the housing we are going to need in the next ten years is going to require a Measure J vote, and (b) the principles of good planning are not necessarily what will get the votes at the ballot box to approve a project—if anything can get approved at all.
As such, while I greatly appreciate the improvements made to this document, without a commitment to address the structural shortcomings of Measure J, this still is tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Sorry but I still believe that Measure J is broken.
As I pointed out on Monday:
- The city has only produced 700 units of single-family homes over the last two decades. While it true that the housing market collapsed in 2008, that only accounts for at most five years. Since 2013, when clearly there was demand for more housing, the city has still been unable to produce significant numbers of single-family homes and most of the ones generated were at the Cannery, which was the last large parcel in town not requiring a Measure J vote. It was a hotly contested 3-2 vote and likely would not have passed a Measure J had it been required to.
- The voters have passed only two projects for Measure J. Neither project was a single-family housing project. Neither project had realistic traffic concerns. Every project that has generated concerns about traffic has been voted down—including Nishi in 2016 and DISC in 2020 and 2022—despite the community being aware of the housing crisis.
- The city has not been able to get its current Housing Element approved. One of the reasons is insufficient zoned properties for affordable housing.
- If the next RHNA numbers are similar to the current cycle, the city will need to find around 2100 total units of housing of which 866 must be affordable housing units. The only way the city can get to those numbers will be via peripheral housing. In order to have housing count, it must be rezoned. In order to rezone housing, it must pass a Measure J vote.
- The five peripheral projects are currently proposing around 5200 units of total housing and 866 units of affordable housing. If the city and developers can increase the affordable housing allotment to around 1800—again assuming constant RHNA numbers—the five projects could take care of the next two RHNA cycles AFTER the current one. In other words, they could provide for roughly the next 25 years of housing for the city.
In my view, the only way we can do that is to provide some sort of exemption process, either through an urban limit line or a high affordable housing exemption.
Can the “rubric” become a path to do that. I think it can and the simplification of the form clear helps.
The council can now use the rubric as a guide for peripheral projects to bypass a Measure J vote. Of course, that would take a vote of the public and as we have seen every time I have proposed changes, there is pushback and my efforts get labeled an effort to destroy or dilute Measure J.
I have a different view: This is the only way to preserve local control over growth.
If we cannot demonstrate an ability to meet our state required housing needs, then the state or another entity will emerge to challenge Measure J in court and, most likely, it will not survive.
So yeah, fine, we have a “rubric” that is reasonable at this point, but now we need a mechanism to actually use it.
Just put a regular housing subdivision on the ballot and see what the voters do. At least one is ready to go before the voters. You’re making a lot of assumptions about how voters will respond. I think it will pass, whereupon this whole conversation becomes moot.
One housing project doesn’t solve the problem.
The problem will mostly be solved by rental housing … supplemented by single family housing with a price tag no higher than $600,000 and permanent deed restrictions that ensure that the price does not increase at a rate greater than the overall CPI.
However, that only addresses half of “the problem.” If Davis is going to add any more market rate single family residences (currently $87,403, which is down 3% from what it was 1 year ago), it needs to add new jobs that are high enough to afford an $870,000 home. Otherwise the home buyer will be commuting to a job across the Causeway or down in the Bay Area. The level of earnings currently needed are as follows:
Results
To afford a house that costs $870,000 with a down payment of $174,000, you’d need to earn $188,537 per year before tax.
The mortgage payment would be $4,399 / month.
$870,403
3.0% 1-yr
One housing subdivision, one Measure J vote, will tell us whether the voters of Davis will approve a regular housing subdivision. So far the voters have approved projects aimed at specific demographics (young adults, seniors). Those who have been following the news may be aware that failure to approve a project might result in the state taking action against Measure J or, more broadly, against Davis. The voters will likely consider that argument as they weigh their choices. In my opinion, the voters will be aware of the risks, and IMO the voters are likely to approve Village Farms. Whether they would approve one or more of the other projects, I don’t really know.
Obviously people who want super-high-density, new urbanist lifestyles and want to mandate that only those types of homes be built will vote against these projects. Those who want to mandate the prices and put caps on the equity will vote against these projects if they happen to live in Davis. Whether this unholy alliance between urban planner idealists and slow-growth ideologues will be sufficient to block any or all of these housing projects remains to be seen. If they do manage to block them, it is probable the state would move in somehow. Some might be willing to take that risk.
The big thing is that they approved two projects that did not impact traffic. The projects that are likely to go up first will not have that advantage.
I have two objections to that approach:
1) The soonest that election will happen is spring of lawsuits and state processes trying to bring down J are happening NOW. And even if J doesn’t fall by that election, the odds are very very against that campaign being successful with that election timing.
2). We still be the problem of the fact that the voting pathway for a project like this ITSELF means the developer has to play “don’t rock the boat, low-density status quo”. Which I translate as: “perpetuating BAD urban planning practices from last century because it’s too hard to train the entire electorate in good urban planning concepts”
the farmland we consume in these projects, and more importantly the opportunity cost of what we COULD build if we were thinking about long-term sustainable city design, are just too important to do wrong.
No more sprawling low-density projects. No more car-centric planning in our supposedly bike oriented community. We can do better, we deserve better.
My comment above was supposed to say “spring of 2023”.
David do we need a gofundme campaign to get an upgrade on your website?
Well we always need more cash, but the new website is coming, hopefully early 2024.
Presumably you mean spring of 2024?
yeah, i cant even edit my edits 🙂
None of us can.
Surely you jest. Davis has never been a bike-oriented community and will take decades if ever to become one. Long-term residents are unwillingly to give up any of their vehicles. Outside of students and a few bike enthusiasts, there is literally no one riding their bikes in Davis. Parking lots, streets and nearby freeways are regularly filled with vehicles. Even if new developments are better planned for public transportation, biking and walking, that does nothing to address existing developments which will likely make the vast majority of Davis for several decades.
That is why I said “supposedly” Walter.
Davis is bike-centric only by American standards. When you realize that single family housing = CARS by definition, and then you look at the zoning map of davis which is predominantly yellow (R1) single family houses, you realize that Davis truly was built for the car, not the bike.
And I agree that there is nothing we can do about the existing development structure of all of these single family, car – centric homes we have already built… and that is EXACTLY my point!
Why would we continue to develop new parcels of land according to an out-dates neighborhood design that we KNOW doesn’t work, isn’t sustainable, wont cater to displaced local workers, etc etc… ?
We might not be able to do anything about the low density sprawl we have already permitted, but at the VERY LEAST we should stop doing so going forward.
I spoke about this with one of the developers, and he pointed to the sea of single family homes he had on his plan and said emphatically “THIS is Davis”… meaning what he was intended to build matches what has already been built in Davis.
And that is exactly the problem. How we have already built davis, the “status quo” for housing here is BAD. We should always have been planning for transit, always been planning a mix of housing types and arranging those housing types in an efficient way around that co-designed transit.
We didn’t do that. But we should have. It cant be un-done.
At the VERY LEAST we can avoid making the same mistakes going forward.
Davis has never been even remotely bike-centric, so how can it be “supposedly”. Perhaps only in someone’s imagination.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “bike centric”…
If you mean that the housing, the city layout, the stores and shopping etc were all designed with biking and transit in mind, then yes, I would agree with you. Davis isnt that…
But we HAVE overlaid a lot of bike infrastructure into our car-centric city design, and those investments shouldn’t be discounted. I use them every day and appreciate them.