2024 Davis City Council Candidate Question 1: Key Issue Facing the City

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Every week between now and the November Election, the Vanguard will ask the District 2 Candidates (the only contested council election this year) one question.  They are asked to limit their response to 350 words.

Question 1: If elected, what key issue would you most like to address—please explain why you chose that issue and how you would address it.


Linda Deos

If elected to the Davis City Council, the key issue I would most like to address is the availability and affordability of housing. Affordable and accessible housing is fundamental to our community’s success and future. Davis faces a critical housing problem, with home prices and rental rates outpacing the financial capabilities of many residents, particularly students, young families, and seniors. This shortage of affordable housing threatens to erode the diversity and inclusivity that make Davis such a vibrant place to live.

The housing issue is a fulcrum for so many other problems. Families struggle to stay in Davis, local businesses find it harder to attract and retain employees, and economic inequality deepens. We are seeing the impacts of lack of housing already; we have fewer families going downtown and our schools are facing declining enrollment. We have shuttered storefronts resulting in less diversity of business types. Our schools are facing difficult decisions with cutting classes and curriculum. We must ensure that Davis remains a place where people from all backgrounds can find a home and contribute to our community.

To address this issue, I will focus on a multi-pronged approach. First, I will advocate for increased development of affordable housing units through both public and private partnerships. This includes working with developers to create mixed-income housing projects and implementing policies that incentivize the creation of affordable rental and ownership opportunities. I will also support efforts to streamline the development process while ensuring we maintain high standards of community input and environmental sustainability.

Second, I will push for policies that protect renters, including expanding tenant protections and addressing rental affordability through targeted programs. This is crucial to prevent displacement and ensure that those already living in Davis can afford to stay.

Finally, I will collaborate with regional partners to address housing needs on a larger scale, recognizing that affordable housing is a regional issue that requires regional solutions.

Affordable housing is essential to the health and future of Davis, and I am committed to ensuring that everyone who wants to live here can find a home.


Dillan Horton

There’s no question that the statewide housing crisis is hitting our community hard. As a renter who has experienced the harsh impacts of this crisis, my primary focus will be to expand the supply of quality-affordable housing. The truth is, we’ve recently built more housing, but it’s still not enough to catch up to decades of not building in town or to serve all those who need housing. When there aren’t enough homes, landlords and developers can increase housing costs without penalty because they know they’ll always have someone who needs that space. Our community as a whole will benefit when people who work, study, and start families in our city can find a home in Davis.

We can move forward by:

  1. Prioritizing building more affordable housing, including workforce housing, medium density housing, affordable housing, and market-rate housing, so students, families, seniors, and working people have access to housing options that best fit their needs.
  2. Strengthening the Davis renters’ ordinance, by increasing fees levied on non-compliant landlords. Current fees are a slap on the wrist, not providing a credible disincentive to bad behavior, and it brings in so little money that we can only afford to hire 1 part-time city staffer to manage the Renters Resources Program.
  3. Expanding the city’s affordable housing trust fund, ensuring that developers pay their fair share towards funding affordable housing projects.
  4. Returning full funding to the city’s First Time Homebuyers program to address the disparity of homeownership for working-class Davisites & particularly people of color, to help transition them from renting to owning their first home and building generational wealth.
  5. Encouraging smart development within the City of Davis (not on agricultural land), particularly on city-owned land where there are fewer roadblocks to developing workforce housing, and in areas where public transit is accessible.

Like all efforts on issues exacerbated by inequality, we must proactively work to include the voices of those hardest hit by the housing crisis in the policy development process, including students, working families, and seniors who are struggling to stay afloat in Davis. Together, we can build a city that works for everyone.


Victor Lagunes

When I talk to fellow Davisites across the city and across different ages, one issue constantly rises to the top: housing. The scarcity and high cost of both ownership and renting in Davis has a pervasive impact on every level of our community and connects to other issues important to Davis voters: climate, open spaces, schools, the unhoused, and more.

I have been a teacher in Davis for 11 years, and am serving my third term as President of Davis Teachers Association. I have seen how our lack of available and affordable housing has affected students’ and teachers’ families alike. Young families just starting out have to buy in Woodland, West Sacramento, or Sacramento. Renter families can’t save enough to transition to becoming homeowners. Seniors can’t afford to downsize and struggle with their family-sized homes as they age. UC Davis students struggle to stay housed while they get their degrees, then can’t settle here after graduation even if they wish to.

This affects the tax base that funds our schools as well as city services that so many Davis residents want, such as road repair and maintenance of our parks and greenbelts. It also has climate and traffic impacts, as children are more likely driven to school since they can’t live within walking or biking distances. And it harms our local businesses as their client base shrinks and rents rise, forcing those businesses to close.

While we have struggled to gain voter approval for housing developments in the past, I believe the dire situation is pushing voters to shift attitudes. My background in community advocacy with DTA and the Davis Community Action Network—which seeks to find affordable and climate-smart housing solutions—can make the difference. I plan to draw on my skills in organizing, community engagement, and communication, to work towards greater consensus and progress on more missing middle housing, infill projects, and responsible peripheral growth.

I pledge to bring this same grit and persistence to the Davis City Council as I have as a teacher and a union president, delivering results for our city as I have for our schools.

Author

  • David Greenwald

    Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

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2 comments

  1. OK: I don’t live in the district. I am hopefully not basing my opinion on any personal relationship with the candidates.

    The responses are generally similar. All three prioritize supply as the solution. There appear to be some differences…

    “Landlord” is only mentioned by Horton. Most – if not nearly all – candidates in recent elections here never mention the “L” word. All or nearly all of these candidates are owners. (Nothing against owners, per se, and e.g. it’s great if they support policies that enable home ownership).

    However, it’s limited: Horton only mentions it in the context of market forces – “… increase housing prices without penalty…” and in relation to “fees” (fines?), but I am not clear if Renters Resources is funded solely through this mechanism. Addressing all the candidates: It should not be, for multple reasons. It should be funded solely a tax on rental income…. a tiny tax could support a fully-enabled staff, with continual outreach at Farmers Market and on campus, an app, a monitored Reddit, etc. Money from fines should go to Legal Services of Northern California (Yolo) and possibly to Yolo Conflict Resolution Center. Both of these non-profits are hugely burdened by the “business” of landlordism in Davis. (Surely, there’s some details to work out, and perhaps a County-based tax makes more sense.)

    Deos mentions the general issue without the “L” word – “… expanded protections…” but doesn’t specify which “…targeted programs…” they* have in mind. I do like the word “fulcrum”.

    Lagunes… I know less about them than the others. (I assume that people who have or had have kids in Davis schools are more familiar). Do they avoid it intentionally? To their credit, they do mention “… biking distances…” (I suppose this really means “inside or outside Davis”, but a fully crosstown trip on a fast e-bike takes 30 min, at minimum… this is more of a question for the DJUSD Board candidates, and is more about the lack of bus options for kids too young to ride Unitrans solo.)

    But also Lagunes – and Horton – mention “infill” and/or “agricultural land”. The problem with this is the location of this infill. Right now there are two medium-sized (Greenhaus, Plaza 2555) and one mega-project (Promenade) under construction or final approval steps. All are very or relatively close to campus and Downtown as the crow flies, BUT all three still have challenges by walking, rolling, or cycling (the Research Park Drive projects indirectly esp. to Downtown with problematic or undefined infrastructure) and Promenade with nearly all of these trips constrained to the existing tunnel along the Putah Creek Parkway, because in 2018 a unanimous Council didn’t get an agreement with Union Pacific about an undercrossing before the project went to the voters. (By the way, part of the proposed mitigation for the I-80 widening is a widening of the multi-use path on the Arboretum side of this corridor, but the tunnel itself won’t be widened… so this won’t increase capacity and might actually worsen safety.)

    And the bigger problem – for all residents, no matter how they get around – is emissions from I-80. Particles, gases, vibrations (noise through ground and air). EV adoption also addresses part of this. The I-80 is the hyper “elephant in the shared room” and bete noire, etc. of Davis. A stupid, cheap ass surface level interstate. If we’re not going to re-direct it to the south of Davis, contain it with structures to at least reduce some noise (and generate solar), then we should not be building within at least 500 ft on either side. (Really, imagine the children living at the higher floors of Plaza 2555 looking out on I-80 traffic everyday!)

    But I do not digress here: If I-80 is moved think of how much central housing could be constructed here! That’s a huge ask, but it’s the kind of thing I want candidates to at least acknowledge dreaming about (covering 113 is easier and housing could be built on top of it.) At the very least, we should be building dense housing on large parking lots close to campus and Downtown, and the same on mobile parks close in, with strong financial protections for current residents).

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