Commentary: What a Simple Vision Could Look Like

Photo by Hunter Newton on Unsplash

Yesterday I asked the question: “Should There Be a Community Vision?”

As I pointed out in my piece on Monday, it is likely that a vision will emerge from the General Plan update process—though it remains unclear exactly what that would look like.

I remain reluctant to engage in a new visioning process outside of the General Plan for reasons I articulated yesterday.

I wanted to add a couple of thoughts here.

First, as one person put it: “Davis does not have a lack of vision, as we have demonstrated several times over the years. What we lack is the will to implement those visions. Calling for another visioning process is simply a call for more delay, or in other words, a call to continue doing nothing.”

As another person put it: “A visioning process outside of a new general plan while Measure J is in effect is a waste of time.”

I tend to agree with both of these thoughts.

That said, the only path forward for a vision appears to be a General Plan update process.  That could bring the community together, create whatever type of shared vision can occur and, most importantly, it could get cemented through a vote of the people.

I would argue that part of the General Plan update needs to set aside land that could be exempt from a further vote to allow the community to meet both the sixth and seventh RHNA cycles.

How feasible would that be?

That’s a big question.  There is a segment of the population that would be dead opposed to any effort that would facilitate the building of housing—even if that is housing required by the state of California and likely to be enforced through litigation.

This notion of Davis as a bedroom community is not so much of a vision as it is a de facto vision if we do nothing.  This notion that we can preserve the community as it was in 1970 or even 2000 I think is fatally flawed.  The world has changed and the community is going to change as well.

As I have stated a number of times, my top priorities for Davis are as follows:

  1. Davis needs to at least adhere to state guidelines on housing and work to create workforce and family housing that can ease the housing crisis and allow families with children and UC Davis faculty and staff to live in this community.
  2. Failure of point 1 will lead to an inevitable decline in the quality of our schools and put additional strain on the community.
  3. Davis needs to present a path forward for economic development, capitalizing on the proximity of a world class university.
  4. Failure to provide housing and diversify the economy will in fact lead to Davis becoming a community where people commute to UC Davis to work during the day, and then leave at night.  While community residents increasingly commute to Sacramento and the Bay Area for their jobs.

In my view, this negative vision, will harm the fabric of the community—it will lesson community engagement, harm the schools, and hollow out the core of the community.

Given that, I would like to see the General Plan focus on housing, transportation, and economic development with an eye toward stabilizing our schools and revitalization of our downtown core.

As such, the idea that we need to know what we want the community to look like in 5 or 20 years isn’t the driver; rather it is taking the steps to avoid the dystopic vision I laid out above by creating a mechanism by which we can actualize our vision of more affordable housing, jobs, and good 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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1 comment

  1. David, you have just put forth a Vision Statement. It is rough around the edges, but it is reasonably clean and understandable. There will be other Vision Statements that come forward to compare yours to.

    One thing that you have done is include an evaluation of the consequences of the Bedroom Community Vision Statement.

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