By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – Disappointing. Davis needs housing. The lack of housing and its accompanying rising costs are keeping young families outside of Davis. Davis has been struggling to put together enough sites of infill in order to get its Housing Element approved. While it looks like they will make it, the margin is now “rail thin” as one councilmember noted.
Mayor Arnold further warned, “I would just say to those who have said that we will be able to meet our next RHNA cycle numbers without going outside of the city limits… I suggest they tune in or watch the recording of this meeting as we really try to meet our current requirements simply with infill and the difficulty we’re having in doing so.”
The removal of the two church sites—one located on Mace and the other on Montgomery and Mace—meant that the city would lose around 175 units.
The churches claim that they had other purposes for the sites—that’s no doubt true. I think from the city’s position, however, the fact that both churches responded at the last possible second was most frustrating.
City officials told the Vanguard last week that there were multiple efforts to reach out to the churches and they heard nothing until literally the day of.
The city received a letter dated 12/4 (but received at 12:50 am the day of the council 
meeting) from the University Covenant Church, writing to “express our Board’s concerns with the action proposed” related to Housing Element.
The letter noted, “Our understanding is that this action would limit the use of the remainder 2-acre portion of our property only for high density housing. This action is inconsistent with the Church’s plans for this site, and because of this we are opposed to the proposal from the City.”
On Tuesday, the city received a letter representing the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sacramento, requesting that “the Diocese property be eliminated from this rezone effort for the reasons stated hereafter.”
That property is located at 1000 Montgomery.
They said, “The Diocese understands the City’s predicament with complying with State requirements, but the proposed rezone would wholly eliminate the Diocese intended use.”
But the city pointed out that the Diocese had owned that property for decades and that there have been no plans to do anything with it.
What makes it more interesting now is the news that came over the weekend that the Sacramento Diocese is declaring bankruptcy.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento announced Saturday that it is filing for bankruptcy protection, “joining dozens of others that have been financially battered by sexual abuse lawsuits,” the Bee reported.
“After much prayer and careful consideration, it is now clear to me that this is the only way available to me to resolve these claims as fairly as possible,” Bishop Jaime Soto said in a statement posted to the diocese website. “There are many victim-survivors awaiting compensation for the reprehensible sins committed against them.”
Obviously, the city is aware of the development and it is possible that this might change the thinking of the Diocese. One possibility is that they sell the land to divest in it. Another is that they develop housing as a way to help their financial situation. Both are speculative at this point.
The council on Tuesday was disappointed at this development.
“I’ll add my voice to the disappointed, that I’m seeing from that two sites that have said no to the rezoning for housing, and especially because they’re churches and especially because I am a churchgoing person,” said Councilmember Gloria Partida.
She noted that churches do a lot of things for the community, noting the work of the Cal Aggie House to support students.
“This is a great opportunity now where churches are losing young people, to keep these people,” she added. “I think this is very shortsighted.”
Councilmember Donna Neville noted that this year Governor Newsom signed SB 4, “which is designed to make it easier for faith-based organizations to build affordable and multifamily housing on their property. It streamlines the process for them.”
Mayor Arnold added, “I too was a bit surprised and disappointed that the two sites that are owned by churches in town were the ones that we were told in no uncertain terms, that there was no room at the inn, so to speak, for housing. So hopefully that’s something that gets reconsidered in the future.”
How much will this ultimately impact things? Hard to know. It does make the city’s margin rail thin.
Councilmember Bapu Vaitla warned that “the buffer is rail thin right now.”
But assuming the Housing Element now can get certified, the next step will be the city working on a new General Plan as well as focusing on the five peripheral proposals.
If anything, this whole episode illustrates that the next round of housing is not going to be accomplished with infill. Whether the voters are going to see that and cooperate will be another question altogether.
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The first four words of this article are disappointing. As is often the case with David’s broad brush stroke pronouncements about Davis this one is so high level that it misses the point. It is a bit like Beth Bourne’s and Keith Olsen’s pronouncements about what Davis believes/wants.
Davis definitely needs moderately priced and low-income priced housing … housing that is affordable for Davis teachers and the Davis workforce, who for the most part have very modest salaries. It does not need market rate ($850,000 and up) housing that is unaffordable for those same teachers and members of the Davis workforce.
“The Governor signed SB 4 by Senator Wiener, colloquially known as Yes In God’s Backyard (YIGBY), which allows a religious institution or independent institution of higher education to build a housing development project on their property “by right.””
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As I noted yesterday, the Diocese of Sacramento … the owners of the 10 acre parcel at the corner of Mace and Montgomery … announced on Saturday that it was declaring bankruptcy in order to shield itself from the financial liability of the sexual assault/abused claims of its parishioners. It is hard to conceive of any scenario where the Diocese won’t be forced to liquidate that land asset and include the financial proceeds of the sale in the pool of bankruptcy money. That should produce the “reconsideration” Mayr Arnold is looking for.