Davis, CA — In a unanimous vote this week, the Davis City Council approved staff recommendations to begin a feasibility study on the potential relocation of the city’s corporation yard at 1717 Fifth Street, a move that could clear the way for a major infill housing project in the heart of the city.
City Manager Mike Webb presented the item, providing historical context and laying out the next steps. The current corp yard — which has long served as the city’s operational hub — occupies over eight acres adjacent to Davis Manor, the community gardens, and several local businesses.
Webb noted the site’s prime location and its long-standing identification as a potential infill housing site, going back to the city’s 2008 Housing Element update. “It’s really ideally situated for creating some housing infill and some density,” he said. “It’s central to the city, it’s central to services, transit, and a whole variety of park facilities and so forth that are within easy walk and bike ride and transit distance.”
The council’s action authorizes staff to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) to study relocating the corp yard to the city’s former landfill and wastewater treatment site off Pole Line Road — land that now hosts a go-kart track, paintball facility, and other uses. Staff also recommended — and council approved — preliminary environmental sampling at the existing Fifth Street site to assess potential contamination from decades of industrial use.
Webb emphasized that the corporation yard’s current location is not operationally necessary and that relocating it could unlock significant housing potential. “In short, the answer is no,” Webb said, when asked if the corp yard must remain at Fifth Street. “It just has been historically… but the facility could operate in any number of locations.”
A preliminary 2019 study suggested the site could accommodate 240 housing units. Webb told the council that updated density expectations could support as many as 560 units, especially given evolving land-use patterns favoring higher-density developments.
“There’s a pretty wide range of potential — from 240 to 560,” Webb said, adding that “today’s lens” and Davis’ growing need for affordable housing make the site especially promising.
Environmental and Cost Concerns Surface
While the council expressed enthusiasm about exploring the site’s potential, the discussion also reflected community concerns, particularly about environmental risks tied to the proposed relocation site.
Longtime resident Nancy Price urged the council to include PFAS (forever chemical) contamination testing in the RFP, warning that the landfill site’s history could pose risks if disturbed. “Building there, excavating there, will certainly disrupt the cap,” Price said. “This issue of PFAS contamination of surface and groundwater is very important.”
Webb acknowledged those concerns and said environmental analysis — including potential PFAS testing — would be part of the feasibility study. “That’s part of the look too,” he assured council members and the public.
Councilmember Linda Deos echoed the concern but emphasized the study is a first step. “I think it goes without saying that before we would move a corp yard to a place with our employees and folks that we would make sure that it’s a safe place they’re going to,” she said. “But I think we’re putting the cart before the horse. Let’s start with the first step.”
Other public commenters, including Eileen Samitz and Susan Rainier, criticized the landfill site as a potential corp yard location, citing health, safety, and environmental risks. Samitz called the project “enormous” and costly, especially given the city’s budget constraints, while Rainier warned about legal liability from potentially exposing city workers to hazardous conditions.
Ron Glick, however, praised the city for finally prioritizing the site for redevelopment. “This property is your shot to do something great for this community,” he said, encouraging the council to move forward.
Connor Gorman advocated for keeping any future housing development public and affordable. “I support using the city’s assets and property to benefit the community, especially the most marginalized and vulnerable,” Gorman said. “I would favor building public housing at this location.”
Councilmember Josh Chapman questioned the projected costs of the environmental assessment. Webb responded that preliminary estimates are between $50,000 and $75,000, covering a Phase 1 environmental assessment. Any contract exceeding $50,000 would return to council for approval.
When asked if the investment was worth it, Webb responded firmly. “From my perspective, yes. It’s an investment that would pay dividends, irrespective of whether or not the city ultimately decides to move forward… At least then there’s knowledge.”
The council also discussed potential for state housing grants favoring infill development on brownfield sites, adding another incentive for thoroughly studying the Fifth Street property’s redevelopment potential.
The RFP will also explore the viability of relocating portable structures currently in use at the corp yard, which Webb noted could reduce overall relocation costs.
Vice Mayor Bapu Vaitla closed the discussion by reflecting on the scale of the opportunity: “There are other properties, including the property behind Design House, but the focus of the report tonight was just specifically the corp yard property,” he said. “There are city assets the council has expressed real interest in advancing.”
The council voted 5-0 to move forward with both the feasibility study for relocation and the preliminary environmental testing at the Fifth Street site.
The decision marks a major step in what could become one of the most significant infill housing projects in Davis — an opportunity to transform a centrally located industrial site into desperately needed housing.
“This is your shot,” Glick told the council. “Go for it.”
Actually someone burst the bubble yesterday pointing out that construction there would likely require prevailing rate wages.
There maybe a way to build there but just like West Village prevailing wage laws will likely make housing costs uneconomical.
“It’s central to the city, it’s central to services, transit, and a whole variety of park facilities and so forth that are within easy walk and bike ride and transit distance.”
And like the Respite Center, would be in close proximity to two liquor outlets !!! :-|
So now we don’t want housing near liquor stores?
No, we don’t want a place that is meant to house the ‘houseless’, who have a 37% (at least) rate of substance abuse and no place to go at night (despite the city’s promises five years ago for a night center not in District 3) in close proximity to liquor outlets.
Retain or expand the community gardens.
Three stories maximum height.
Main entrance on 5th Street needs to be a signalled intersection.
100% residential. No retail, no commercial.
Assume each housing unit will have a car and plan accordingly for parking.
Maximize shading of parking areas by trees. Goal of 100% parking shading is desirable.
“Retain or expand the community gardens.”
Let’s hope so.
“Three stories maximum height.”
I would suggest tapering high towards Fifth and down towards Duke after an appropriate shadow-study, but of course the developer will want brutalist painted blocks and I’m not sure anyone cares about neighbors anymore in the current Scott Wiener environment.
“Main entrance on 5th Street needs to be a signalled intersection.”
We need a signal at J Street as well — like it was 50-plus years ago.
“100% residential. No retail, no commercial.”
Yes indeed.
“Assume each housing unit will have a car and plan accordingly for parking.”
Yes, but . . . Modern thinking is to plan that no one will have a car, and no one will visit residents in a car. And then Duke Drive and most of Davis Manor will be wall-to-wall cars.
“Maximize shading of parking areas by trees. Goal of 100% parking shading is desirable.”
Yes, but . . . Modern thinking is that those pesky trees block the solar panels and prevent more efficient shade cover with solar-panel-covered roofs.
Did I mention that “Modern Thinking” is nutz?
“We need a signal at J Street as well”
That needs to happen now due to the number of collisions at that intersection.
I disagree Don
This is a major east-west corridor. It needs to be vertical mixed use and have as much housing as possible. Three stories would be a wasted opportunity. Its a housing “crisis” after all: 4 stories minimum. Arterial areas should be developed in an urban fashion. I love trees too, but unless there is something existing, mature and beautiful, developing this space low density with an emphasis on open space only serves to push our city outwards from the center.
Community gardens: We have land set aside for a community farm… 25 acres. On mace / above Disc. Lets expand the community farms there… bigger plots, shared tractor. and barn.. make a REAL thing out of it! Use the downtown space for shops and housing.
No parking mininums. Developers can provide parking if they want… but Transit already runs thorugh.. give lots of BIKE parking, make sure there is ground-level commercial space. People can bike / ride / walk anywhere they need.
Tim:
There is no need for “mixed use” here. There is retail across the street, retail/commercial zoning on the side of 5th street where my business is. Everything about this neighborhood is already walkable. There is zero reason to have “ground-level commercial space.” There is commercial zoning all down 5th Street.
Community gardens and “community farms” are two entirely different things. The community gardens have been there for 50 years. There’s a strong community of gardeners who have spent years building the soil and providing food security and diversity. There is always a waiting list. Don’t touch the community gardens. We need more of them around town.
A community farm is just a plot of land leased back to farmers.
5th and L is not downtown. Period. Not officially, not temperamentally, not demographically, not geographically. My business is not in the downtown tax district, which ends at H Street.
5th and L is part of Davis Manor neighborhood, one of the most demographically and economically mixed neighborhoods in Davis. It’s a cohesive neighborhood with a strong neighborhood association. Please don’t lump us in with any other neighborhood in your thinking.
Parking minimums (minima?) are necessary to prevent this development from becoming a problem for the neighbors. Everyone knows full well that people occupying these residences will have cars. You need to plan for them.
A thermal imaging map will show you that this part of Davis is a tree desert at the moment. The bare PG&E corp yard, the wide street, and the absence of shade trees at the intersection of 5th and L all lead to higher local surface temperatures.
The most important thing we can do right now to make our neighborhoods habitable 50 years from now is plant trees wherever we possibly can over exposed hardscape surfaces. “Emphasis on open space” is for the benefit of the current and future residents. The goal of cooler, more livable neighborhoods in a hotter future is directly at odds with the desire for high density. Anything that leads to fewer trees in the future will make problems worse.
We cannot avoid “pushing our city outwards from the center” because the downtown can no longer provide the shopping needs of the community. The neighborhood shopping centers which already exist, including little strip malls like the one on L Street, are going to become increasingly important.
Anything taller than three stories will have a significant impact on the houses to the north of the corporation yard. Greater respect for the existing community would be appreciated as the planning process goes forward.
Don,
Before I go further, I need to eat my hat because on review I see you were only calling for 100% tree cover over PARKING… And my comment missed that… I thought you were calling for a lot of trees throughout and prioritizing tree cover at the expense of housing density… so firstly, I owe you an apology there.
That said, we need to approach housing discussions from the big picture perspective and from the long-term perspective. Making decisions based on short term expediency and avoiding conflict are not going to give us the best results.
I feel for people living in areas that need to be densified. Its the dilemma from the pixar movie UP…. but what is unavoidable is that what is best for the city is to have the most people towards our core as possible, to have mixed use zoning and frequent transit so that those people do not even need a car for most trips. If we cant do that, we are doomed to expand outwards, which means more cars, worse parking downtown, which ALSO impedes our ability to densify downtown as well.
Its a generational shift in the way we think and live, but the experience of the last 60 years in urban planning proves it is the only sustainable path. The car-served suburban experiment has failed. We need to swallow that lesson and start acting like its true, because it is
The way to split the difference here is to do a GOOD job of long-term planning: Give people 10-20 years worth of heads-up that a 6-story building is going to appear someday at the south edge of their neighborhood, or that the community gardens are going to move to the edge of town. Most people only live in a given house for 16 years… so you give them plenty of time to decide what to do.
Now I realize that is NOT what is being discussed here… but it IS how we need to be approaching the densification issue in general, else we will always be having unproductive fights about how many floors a development should have which compromises our ability to provide the housing we need.
“A preliminary 2019 study suggested the site could accommodate 240 housing units. Webb told the council that updated density expectations could support as many as 560 units”
There was no number given on how many stories buildings would be to accommodate 560 units.
Although DG didn’t quote my comments before Council (as usual), I pointed out that first Duke drive residents get a directly-adjacent Respite Center to take-one-for-the-team for the entire City of Davis, and will then be rewarded by having the sunlight blocked for all houses on the south side of Duke by having a wall of housing on their south (sun side).
Of course, if they can get past the environmental cleanup, building a new corporate yard, line up funding, mitigate the neighborhood effects, and line up a new sun in the sky on the north — say in 30 years, at least that means the Respite Center may get moved by 2055.
“building a new corporate yard, line up funding”
I was wondering about that too. How much to build a whole new corporate yard?
KO say: “How much to build a whole new corporate yard?”
Can you say “another sales tax increase” ?
Sure. I knew you could.
Was there any discussion at the meeting about how you go about building a on a closed landfill site? I’m assuming that they’d have to excavate all the buried trash (along with all the overburden) and relocate it, but I’ve never run into a project like that, so I’m curious as to how it works.
I think every aspect of this proposal is going to be much more expensive than people might think. There’s a major hub for the city’s storm drain system right in front of the property on 5th Street. I believe there’s an important water supply line just along the south property line. Reconfiguration of traffic on 5th and L would be complicated. The new site has major pollution issues, more than likely, and mitigation will be very costly. My guess is the outcome of this initial evaluation will yield a price tag that delays it for years. And then the debate about exactly what to build and how to finance it will be endless.