In a recent comment, Matt Williams asks a fair and important question: how is Measure J making planning worse? Without Measure J, he argues, there would be no accountability in the planning process.
He points to The Cannery as evidence of what happens when projects move forward without voter oversight.
It is a reasonable challenge and I at least partially agree but Cannery at least got approved and built and represents largest nearly completely built out project in the city in the last 25 years.
Thus I would argue that Cannery illustrates both sides of the issue – the possibility of housing and the shortcomings of planning without sufficient community oversight.
The core problem is this: Measure J may increase procedural accountability, but it has steadily eroded outcome accountability – and over 25 years, the outcomes are unmistakable.
That’s the chief problem of Measure J.
Since the adoption of Measure J and its successors, Davis has built roughly 700 single-family homes (I know some people don’t like the metric, but it really illustrates that Davis hasn’t built much except for student housing and infill over the last 25 years).
In that same period, the city approved just two peripheral housing projects. One—a senior housing development—is only now being built decades later. The other—a student-oriented project—has been encumbered with such complex, fragile, and politically driven agreements that it may never be built at all.
Meanwhile, UC Davis has continued to grow, regional housing demand has intensified, rents and home prices have soared, and the state has repeatedly declared housing scarcity to be a crisis. (And for those who want to push this onto UC Davis – sorry but it’s a package deal, you probably wouldn’t live here but for UC Davis).
If this is accountability, it is accountability without responsibility.
Supporters of Measure J often argue that projects fail because they are flawed, because developers are insufficiently committed to community values, or because staff has not done enough.
Even if we take those claims at face value—and in some cases that generosity is hard to sustain—we still arrive at the same conclusion: the system is not working.
When a planning regime produces failure after failure for a quarter-century, it ceases to be credible to argue that the problem lies solely with individual projects. At some point, the design of the system itself has to be questioned.
This was the central argument of my Saturday article on the Village Farms debate.
The issue is not whether any single project is perfect.
The issue is that Davis has built an institutional structure that systematically rewards delay, amplifies risk, and almost guarantees political exhaustion rather than resolution.
Measure J is not an external check on that system—it is embedded within it, reinforcing its worst tendencies. I would argue it’s even worse than that – Davis can’t build significant housing to meet its needs because of Measure J.
Planning does not occur in a vacuum. It operates within economic realities: financing timelines, investor risk tolerance, construction costs, inflation, labor shortages, and market cycles.
Measure J inserts an additional constraint into this already fragile ecosystem—an electoral veto that operates on a rigid calendar unrelated to project readiness, infrastructure sequencing, or cost escalation.
The result is a “hurry-up-and-wait” dynamic that is deeply destructive.
Projects are rushed forward to meet election timelines, then stalled for years while costs climb and financing evaporates.
Calls for “more study,” “more refinement,” or “more negotiation” often ignore the basic fact that capital does not wait indefinitely. Inflation does not pause.
Construction costs do not reverse course because a city wants a better deal. Delay is therefore not neutral. Construction costs go up nearly 25 percent over a given four year period, that’s due to the fact that under “normal” conditions, construction costs tend to rise 4–6 percent per year due to labor, materials, insurance, and regulatory costs.
That means between a 17 percent and 26 percent compounded increase over a four year period, which would put 25 percent over four years is very much within the normal historical range, even without exogenous shocks.
Every time a project is delayed, therefore, the costs are going to go up – and so the same people who are complaining about the costs of housing being unaffordable are actually making that problem worse by arguing for delay or worse yet, defeating a project.
From this standpoint, Measure J normalizes that delay while absolving the system of responsibility for what follows.
This is where the accountability argument breaks down.
Measure J makes it very easy to say “no,” but it provides no mechanism to say “yes” responsibly.
It imposes no obligation on the city to meet housing needs, no consequences for persistent underproduction, and no feedback loop tying voter decisions to regional or state impacts.
Accountability without obligation is not accountability at all—it is veto power divorced from responsibility.
The Cannery is often cited as proof that Measure J is necessary, but this example is selectively framed.
The lesson drawn from The Cannery was not that Davis needed better planning capacity, stronger project standards, or clearer policy goals. Instead, it was that the city should further entrench a system that makes large-scale housing extraordinarily difficult to achieve.
The result has not been better projects, it has been fewer projects, weaker leverage over outcomes, and a growing disconnect between the city’s stated values and its lived reality.
Measure J supporters often frame the debate as a choice between democracy and unchecked developer power.
That is a false dichotomy.
Democratic planning does not mean permanent stasis, outsourcing complex land-use decisions to low-turnout, high-cost elections, or treating housing scarcity as an acceptable byproduct of civic virtue.
What Measure J has effectively done is transform housing from a policy challenge into a symbolic battlefield, where projects become referenda not just on land use but on growth, trust, identity, and fear of change—a process that may feel democratic but is an extremely poor way to plan a city.
Elections are blunt instruments that reward messaging over substance, mobilization over nuance, and fear over foresight, ultimately discouraging serious proposals and attracting only those willing to gamble years of effort and millions of dollars on political survival.
This brings us back to the core question: how is Measure J making planning worse?
It makes planning worse by replacing clear policy decisions with periodic political fights, creating uncertainty that drives away serious builders, rewards obstruction, and allows the city to avoid its housing responsibilities while claiming moral high ground.
Most importantly, it is making planning worse by creating a system in which failure has no owner.
.When projects fail, the blame is scattered among developers, markets, voters, staff, and timing—while the system itself is never questioned, allowing hope to substitute for evidence even after 25 years of failure.
At some point, we have to acknowledge that what we are doing is not working..
No serious planning framework would measure success by process alone while ignoring outcomes for decades, and no housing policy that produced so little housing would be considered successful in any other city.
Under those conditions, it is hard to see how anyone can argue that Measure J is not harming planning, because the evidence strongly suggests that it has.
Moreover, accountability means more than the ability to say “no,” it also means accepting responsibility for what follows.
We are really good at saying no, but we have failed to deliver anything better in its stead.
After 25 years of chronic underproduction, rising costs, and growing exclusion, it is no longer enough to defend Measure J as a safeguard without confronting its consequences, because a system that consistently fails to meet the city’s needs—not just individual projects—deserves scrutiny.
The hardest form of accountability is not demanding more from developers, but confronting and taking responsibility for a system that does not work.
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“When projects fail, the blame is scattered among developers, markets, voters, staff, and timing—while the system itself is never questioned, allowing hope to substitute for evidence even after 25 years of failure.”
For the record I’ve been questioning the system for two decades while you have been reluctant to challenge the local dominant paradigm.
For the record, you’ve said that already – many times. Time to let it go.
David you said “…the system itself is never questioned.” But that is exactly what I’ve been doing for 20 years and that was the point of my post. You want me to let it go but you can never admit you were wrong.
I’ve said several times, I was wrong. Do you want a pound of flesh as well?
When? The post above is the first, full, flat out, mea culpa I have ever read from you about Measure J. Okay I’m good now but I’m curious when in the past you ever flatly admitted you were wrong about Measure J. If I had read such a remark in the past I would have stopped banging the drum at that time.
Ron G
So David was wrong. I’ve been saying the same thing for at least a decade about Measure J/R/D. So what do we do now going forward. Simply going back to the hands off process that got us into the mess in the first place isn’t an answer. Provide an alternative that will put checks on developers’ choices and actions.
We have two choices, changes by amendment at the ballot box, or, re-authorization by the City Council. The path of least resistance is re-authorization because the CC can make whatever changes and the voters vote up or down on the changes. If the voters vote no then measure J dies so the voters are in a take it or leave it situation. If people don’t like the changes the CC makes after they study it they could petition to put their own proposal on the ballot.
Now I know you and your friends want to do an amendment because it can be done sooner but there is one big pitfall. If you put something up in the next few years and it fails then when its time for re-authorization a valid argument will be made that the community voted down the amendment. Since voting no defaults to the status quo, if you lose an amendment, it undermines the re-authorization process.
The behavioral economics favor re-authorization just as under the current system behavioral economics favors no on Measure J projects.
I think the most harmful impact of measure J is the inability to master-plan anything outside of a specific project; transit most of all.
DCPG has written recently about how a transit-oriented design in our peripheral regions, combined with a long-term plan to deliberatley densify our arterial areas would produce a vastly suprior city form compared to the standard pattern of sprawl
https://davisvanguard.org/2025/09/op-ed-long-term-planning-corridor-development-beats-sprawl/
But this is GENERATIONAL planning, and not only is this kind of thing NOT rewarded by the incentives in measure J, a developer of a single property in this system has zero agency to try to affect coordinated city-wide evolution. They control what they build on THEIR property and thats it.
There are some primary things that absolutley need to be planned FAR above the individual project level – like transit coridors, bike networks, parks-on-greenbelts – the distribution of shopping centers. And then there are secondary things that need to be planned based on some anticipation of how / whenb the primary things will be built out: Wastewter / emergency services…
A city is an interconected web of services, utilities, different transit modes, different impacts… Measure J is ONLY a parcel-by-parcel view of development that by definition makes any coordinated master planing for ANY of these things impossible.
I think that’s a good point. The city has known they needed a new General Plan for some time, but chose to do the Downtown Plan first, which served to delay the general plan by another 10 to 15 years – minimum.
Economics should be the driving factor for planning. A plan for city tax revenue generation should be the most important part of planning. That tax revenue should then pay for quality of life needs in the city (infrastructure like road upkeep, parks, transportation). I’m guessing the focus on the downtown plan was a compromised plan to focus on city economics but with a the limited vision of trying to keep the economic efforts tied to urban planning focused on the downtown….because everyone hates the idea of peripheral growth….though it’s a necessary evil.
Keith E
No. Our community environment and culture is by far the most important aspect. Money, money, money is NOT why we live our lives. First decide what we want for quality of life and then figure out how we’ll pay for it. We passed a sales tax increase based on selling an improved quality of life (even if it may not have been an honest sale.) There’s more opportunities like that.
“Money, money, money is NOT why we live our lives.”
Well yeah, I was hoping the city would a mass so much money that it would build a money bin to rival Scrooge McDuck’s money bin. And since it would be a public money bin we could all swim in it.
So not focusing on making money? Good luck paying for things. It’s working out so well for Davis right now. Money pays for quality of life. Ya know fixing roads, upkeep for parks, recreational programs…etc…
Yeah…increasing taxes is not going to solve the problem.
Tim,
The lack of City transit planning is the City’s fault, not Measure J/R/D. Trying to scapegoat Measure J/R/D really is not working.
Eileen, I agree its the city’s fault… but its because the city has ceded planning to measure J. The incentive systemm that has been set up where we use measure J as an excuse to NOT plan, does stem from the simplistic structure of measure J.
Indeed our council should have been more proactive in planning, but in reality, politicians don’t have incentive to take on contentious issues such as “proactive growth”… not when there are a few dozen people willing to show up an holler at them pushing a council meeting to 1AM…
There is a similar thing happening nationwide: People say we “should” be trying to vote for more rational, moderate representatives if we dont like how partisan our system is… but the incentives in the system work against such moderates.
This is the same thing. The path of least resistance in our political reality with measure J is for the council to just let the developers do the developing and say “lets let the people decide”. Anything else takes leadership, and work and is actively punished in this town.
So if you want to change THAT reality… we need to change the incentives themselves, which likely means tweaking measure J to provide a path to saying “here is what we DO want”
Eileen
Measure J/R/D actually DISCOURAGES broader planning because each developer is in electoral competition with others and they don’t want to cooperate to improve the chances for another development. Why are VF and WG on the same ballot? Because they don’t want to compete with each other. Tim is dead on about this broader problem.
You guys already know what you need to do – vote against Village Farms and Shriner’s, so that Measure J is overturned.
Once the campaign begins in earnest, perhaps those on the “no” side can drop off some lawn signs for you. Also, we can probably use some help tabling at the famer’s market, and donations are likely welcomed, as well.
In any case, it makes sense to me – and it’s exactly what David claims will occur. I’m certainly willing to agree with that conclusion during the campaign.
:-)
” Without Measure J, he argues, there would be no accountability in the planning process.”
Well, that’s the accountability is when voters vote in or out City Council persons and their efforts and visions to lead the city…including future growth and development. OH…..but what he and the Davis Planning Group ACTUALLY MEANS is that they wouldn’t have a micromanaged level of say in projects like most other better run cities.
“Developers have theirs, but
What’s your vision for the future of Davis? ”
How much more of an adversarial relationship to the people that actually develop housing can you have….it’s stated in a bold statement on their website? And you wonder why stuff doesn’t get built here in Davis.
Keith E
The political reality is that voters want some direct say in the planning and approval process. The success of Measure J and its successors at the ballot box demonstrate that. Residents have been burned by previous developers and won’t trust the City Council entirely. And what happened at the Cannery doesn’t enhance that.
Further, Council candidates are rarely elected on a single issue. Housing may not even be the most salient issues for most voters. So why should we think that Council members will be held accountable unless they make a truly disastrous decision (as happened once before)?
So we’re left with creating an acceptable mechanism that have voter input and provides an electoral backstop if the project doesn’t follow the guidelines provided. Given developers guidance that differs from there own personal preferences is NOT creating an “adversarial relationship”–it’s creating a relationship with clear boundaries, which should be acceptable to everyone.
Yeah, voters with direct input….that rarely works out well. It’s too bad there wasn’t something invented that represented voters. I mean if voters don’t consider housing and economic development (and they rarely do until it’s directly next to them) then let the leaders lead. Voters and the silly community activists aren’t usually the best at getting the bigger picture in terms of politics, economics and urban planning.
And yes, the whole tone of that silly website is adversarial to developers. Basically you’ve made Davis the Soup Nazi of communities. “No approvals for you!”
Keith, as you know many many inventions never succeed because they are in ineffective to implement. Representative democracy is spectacular in concept, but given the venal nature of human beings it is inefficient, if not perverted, in its implementation. That’s the reality that we face in Davis.
Our elected leaders may be very good at understanding politics, but they are woefully, lacking in terms of understanding urban land use, and economics.
I’d argue that John Q Public and the community activists know far less about urban land use and economics.
I stated in another comment that if I had to hazard a guess, that the leaders knew they had to focus on economic development but knew they would be restricted to infill or downtown urban and economic planning. I can see how even if you’re a city leader here; you’re painted into a corner by city politics and voter whim…..with Measure J a dangling sword of Damocles that opposed good economic development and urban planning.
Keith, is John Q Public the pertinent measurement? Let’s say that you are John Q Public. Is your urban land use and economics statement true if that is the case?
There is an old saying that “Smart is as Smart does.” The track record of what our elected have done is abominable.
I think you suspicion doesn’t hold water. If our leaders knew the community needed to focus on economic development they wouldn’t have sat on their hands for over two decades doing nothing. Our leaders haven’t led. When was the last time you saw our leaders conducting a community discussion about economic development? When was the last time our residents heard the words “economic development” come out of the mouth of one of our leaders in a public meeting? In 20 years our leaders have thanked Sutter Davis for expanding, and welcomed several new hotels. Those are the highlights. You could mention DMG-Mori and Schilling Robotics arriving thanks to hometown entrepreneurs wanting to be in their hometown, but if you do you would have to mention AgraQuest/Bayer and Calgene/Monsanto leaving. It is a pitiful track record. Textbook non-leadership.
When was the last time you saw our leaders conducting a community discussion about economic development? When was the last time our residents heard the words “economic development” come out of the mouth of one of our leaders in a public meeting?
We had commissions, public meetings, hours and hours of discussion about economic development over about 15 years. The voters rejected the proposals that emerged. The economic development strategies discussed by civic leaders and public officials were very detailed. There has been no lack of “discussion” about economic development in Davis. The voters of Davis have chosen not to pursue economic development, apparently preferring to raise taxes for services. The voters have made their vision for Davis clear.
Don, I’d be interested to hear from you what you think those discussions were. Back when Rob White was employed by the City the beginnings of those kind of holistic discussions started to happen, but they were aborted when the City Council terminated him. Even during Rob’s tenure those discussions never got to an evaluation of the pros and consequences of alternatives … like an EIR does. In fact alternatives were never either formulated or laid out. Requests for Innovation Park proposals were sent out pursuing one alternative, but no other alternative was either formed or articulated. Nor were the underlying reasons for the Innovation Park alternative explained. Nor was the largest employer in the community involved in any of the discussions. The reasons for pursuing economic development, as opposed to pursuing any other alternative were never honestly explained … the dismal and unsustainable state of the city’s fiscal affairs. Economic Development is a desperately needed source of revenue, and the consequences of not having/getting that revenue have never been honestly and forthrightly explained to the community.
Maybe we need a commission. Or you should run for city council and talk about these issues.
I don’t agree with any of your analysis. My point was simple. You said: “If our leaders knew the community needed to focus on economic development they wouldn’t have sat on their hands for over two decades doing nothing.”
That is preposterous. Flat-out untrue. Our leaders, political and civic, have discussed economic development endlessly. The voters have spoken. You just don’t agree with the outcome. But it is most certainly not for lack of trying on the part of the local proponents of economic development.
Don Shor said … “ The voters of Davis have chosen not to pursue economic development, apparently preferring to raise taxes for services. The voters have made their vision for Davis clear.”
My comment above got down into the weeds … which Davis discussions often do. Don’s sentence above can elevate the discussion back up to a higher level. The key word in that sentence is “apparently.”
The current chair of the Planning Commission when she was on the FBC stated the following. “We are a community that has promised ourselves a high level of services, but not stepped up with the financial resources needed to pay for those services.” Her statement and Don’s are a very informative pairing. When you look at them together what becomes crystal clear is that the voters “apparently” do not understand the consequences of their decisions as voters or the decisions of their elected leaders. Unfortunately, there is no apparently about the fact that the bill has come due, and we as a community are not talking about that harsh reality.
Don, I respect your opinion. To hopefully bring us to a common plane of discussion let me ask you a question. Do you believe the two DiSC elections qualify as discussions of economic development?
The reason I ask that question is that i believe that as such discussions they were structurally and fatally flawed in three very important ways (1) they were down in the weeds talking about tactical details of one specific alternative step of (2) the full economic development alternative, which was not being discussed, nor was the no economic development alternative being discussed, and (3) the vote was woefully short on accountability. The developers were held accountable by the baseline featured provisions of Measure J, but the voters were not shown what they would be accountable for if they voted “No.”
“Do you believe the two DiSC elections qualify as discussions of economic development?”
Yes.
Don, if they were, they totally incomplete discussions. They didn’t include any discussion of the goals and objectives of the full economic development strategy, nor the impacts of that strategy. The discussions were incredibly narrow, only covering the specifics of the singular DiSC tactical steps.
The format and approach of an EIR with impacts and mitigations and alternatives is a good model. There was never any discussion of any of those in either of the DiSC campaigns, and conspicuously absent from any of the discussions were (1) the developers and (2) UCD.
If it was a discussion of economic development it was a half assed one.
David Greenwald said … “ Thus I would argue that Cannery illustrates both sides of the issue – the possibility of housing and the shortcomings of planning without sufficient community oversight.”
The need for oversight is just a symptom of the disease. What is killing Davis is the perverted and directionless planning that our local government undertakes.
Look at Cannery. Yes there are indeed homes, but (1) those homes have only perpetuated Davis’ history of classism and racism in its housing policy. Our local government talks about being for social justice in housing, but their actions cause their talk to be simple virtue signaling.
Our local government has conducted and published with fanfare community surveys in which far and away the #1issue is housing affordability, and then the Council turns around and imposes a $21 million Mello-Roos Tax on the Cannery residence owners making those residences significantly less affordable.
Now in the case of Village Farms our local government has given the developers no indication that they want market rate affordability in the residences.
The disease is bad government actions, which has produced the necessity for accountability and oversight.
“ The need for oversight is just a symptom of the disease. What is killing Davis is the perverted and directionless planning that our local government undertakes.”
And in 25 years have things gotten better or worse?
Better (actually, “much” better) because it’s no longer up to “local government” – other than what they can screw up within city limits.
If you want to see what happens when it’s up to “local government”, look at every single city/town near Davis.
And look at what happened to Davis, before Measure J.
But as you yourself have claimed, it seems like you and others on here should vote “no” on both Village Farms and Shriner’s, so that Measure J is overturned. Seems like a logical conclusion based on your articles.
In fact, you should be out campaigning against those two proposals right now, to ensure that they’re defeated.
Welcome to the team! (Actually, the same team you were once part of in a more legitimate manner.)
I would say they are about the same. The level of directionless planning 20 years ago is pretty much the same as now. Where it has gotten worse is in the heightened level of virtue signalling.
Bottom-line there is no dialogue about what Davis wants to be as the years go by. The data says we have lost our ability to credibly call Davis a college town because the number of intellectual capital creation jobs in the City and the number of City residents filling intellectual capital creation jobs has plummeted. We have slowly but surely become a bedroom community for local retirees and people who commute to jobs outside the City Limits. If you think being a bedroom community is bad then Davis has gotten worse.
One area that is much much worse is that we can’t pay our bills or maintain our streets. More housing without a matching amount of new jobs in the City Limits only makes that insolvency worse.
“And in 25 years have things gotten better or worse?”
Worse. But less worse than if Measure J didn’t exist. Without Measure J we’d have single-family large-lot subdivisions covering the Northwest Quadrant, the Covell Village/Village Farms parcel, the Shriner’s property, and the Mace Curve property, and still wouldn’t have any affordable housing.
“Look at Cannery. Yes there are indeed homes, but (1) those homes have only perpetuated Davis’ history of classism and racism in its housing policy.”
I think the Cannery is more diverse than you realize. Maybe it perpetuates classism but not racism.
How many black people live in The Cannery? Actually, how many live in Davis (or even Woodland)?
Thought I’d look up the two cities, at least. Apparently, Woodland has a LOWER percentage of black residents than Davis does.
2.6 – 2.8% in Davis
2.2% in Woodland
David: “Thus I would argue that Cannery illustrates both sides of the issue – the possibility of housing and the shortcomings of planning without sufficient community oversight.”
Without sufficient community oversight?
The Cannery was discussed in public over nearly a decade, went through ten commissions, was revised constantly in response to public and council input. It figured heavily in something like three council elections.
Do you think the public would have voted to support The Cannery if it had gone on the ballot? Does anybody think a Measure J vote would have improved the project?
Do you think a revised General Plan would have made any difference in the outcome?
Matt: “Look at Cannery. Yes there are indeed homes, but (1) those homes have only perpetuated Davis’ history of classism and racism in its housing policy.”
Between 2010 and 2020, per Wikipedia, Davis became substantially more diverse.
The 2010 United States census reported that Davis had a population of 65,622.
The population density was 6,615.8 inhabitants per square mile (2,554.4/km2).
The racial makeup of Davis was:
64.9% White,
2.3% African American,
0.5% Native American,
21.9% Asian,
0.2% Pacific Islander,
4.8% from other races, and 5.4% from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 12.5%.
2020
The 2020 United States census reported that Davis had a population of 66,850.
The population density was 6,703.8 inhabitants per square mile (2,588.4/km2).
The racial makeup was:
54.7% White,
2.5% African American,
0.7% Native American,
22.1% Asian,
0.2% Pacific Islander,
7.3% from other races, and 12.6% from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 17.0% of the population.
Don
The rise in diversity is almost certainly among students reflecting the rising diversity of the UCD student body. That’s an external factor.
Oh so “diverse”: 2.5% of the population is black, up from 2.3%. (Congratulations?)
Doing better than Woodland in that regard, though.
Pretty sure that Woodland has Davis “beat” in regard to the percentage of Hispanics, though (without even looking it up).
Don, you ignored my word history. As is documented by the historical record Davis has significant racist redlining in its past. Fortunately, we have escaped that dark legacy and eliminated those racist practices. However, the classism that existed side by side with the racism has continued to this day. The diversity you point to is not economic diversity. In that area we continue to discriminate against people with moderate financial means … and the vast majority of the workforce within the City Limits falls into that category. Those workers of modest financial means provide the services to the residents who are blessed with significant financial means.
If you look at the minority representation within the City, most of them are upper class.
I agree. At least many are doing well. I don’t know if it is most.
People of “moderate financial means” will be renting, not buying.
They’ll continue to live in Woodland, while one member of the household works at UCD. Nothing to do with Davis itself (and they don’t even drive through town to reach UCD).
Davis is not an employment center.
Working at a plant nursery is not a career.
Working at an oversized school district is an unsustainable/unstable career.
Those type of jobs are available in every town, and no one is holding a gun to anyone’s head – forcing them to take a flunky job within Davis itself.
The actual flunky jobs in Davis are held primarily by students – who are also not trying to make a career out of them.
There is no problem to be “solved” here; no housing shortage, and no shortage of flunky jobs or students willing to fill them.
And yet, every single day – we hear from those who seem to think they can speak on behalf of a non-existent population.
Ron O
If your household member is working at UCD, they are either working at the Med Center or they are flying, because coming down 113 requires driving through Davis.
Davis has 17,000 workers commuting into town, of which only 6,000 go to UCD. 1500 jobs at UCD use to be filled by Davis residents but now are filled by these commuters. DJUSD is a particularly attractive teaching job because of the quality of the students and programs. I work with teachers on campus and they express this opinion. (Have you ever had a conversation with a Davis teacher?) Those 17,000 workers represent the symptom of OUR (not your) housing crisis.
For the most part I agree with you, Don. However, what you are describing is not a universal reality. There are people of modest financial means who would be happier with a 900 square-foot owned property versus a 900 square-foot rented property …especially if they have the needed down payment with help from family or other places.. There also are retirees who have modest financial means, but definitely would like to be able to downsize from their existing larger home with no mortgage. Then there is a third group … people who currently are of modes financial means who are early in the process of building their lives. They are modest now, but they aren’t going to be modest forever. All of those would prefer to be building equity rather than renting.
“Do you think a revised General Plan would have made any difference in the outcome?”
Yes. A new GP would have given 1) more precise guidance and 2) would have held the Cannery to the original design promises because they would have been part of the city code rather than in development agreement variances that could be negotiated away and unenforced.
“The actual flunky jobs in Davis are held primarily by students – who are also not trying to make a career out of them.”
I don’t know about “flunky” jobs (denigrate much?), but I know that at many of the restaurants in Davis (and there are a lot of restaurants in Davis) the manager and kitchen staff consists mostly of adults who will hold those jobs for many years, if not an entire career. I think the same can be said for many of the retail jobs, too.
Most long-time restaurants I’ve visited consist of the owners as managers, cooks, etc. A couple of my favorites closed permanently, during the pandemic (and never re-opened).
Retail jobs, baristas, and clerks at the Nugget consist of students (in Davis, at least).
None of these are careers. (You can make a career at a fancy restaurant, but Davis has none of those.)
I was watching a rerun of a Dr. Phil episode the other day, regarding student loan debt. There was a young man on there who owed something like $140K as a result of going to a top-level culinary school, but couldn’t get a job that paid more than something like $12-$13 per hour.
We’ve all had flunky jobs – they are not intended to be careers, and are not intended to buy (or even rent) a house in Davis (or anywhere, for that matter).
Nugget employees (and employees at Trader Joe’s) do seem to be pretty friendly, though. Students, some older people who aren’t trying to make a career out of it, etc.
Almost all of those people will end up earning far more than I ever did, eventually -by leaving those jobs and pursuing actual careers.
Flunky jobs in particular seem increasingly vulnerable to automation.
Again, no actual problem to solve, here. Most of the commenters on here seem to be speaking on behalf of an imaginary population.
Ron:. “Davis is not an employment center.
Working at a plant nursery is not a career.
Retail jobs, baristas, and clerks at the Nugget consist of students (in Davis, at least).
None of these are careers. (You can make a career at a fancy restaurant, but Davis has none of those.)
We’ve all had flunky jobs – they are not intended to be careers, and are not intended to buy (or even rent) a house in Davis (or anywhere, for that matter).
Nugget employees (and employees at Trader Joe’s) do seem to be pretty friendly, though. Students, some older people who aren’t trying to make a career out of it, etc.”
Can you please tell me what you exactly mean by the word “career”?
It’s really frustrating when people make generalizations about whole categories of employment as you and others do here.
You and others keep making un-evidenced assertions like “Retail jobs, baristas, and clerks at the Nugget consist of students (in Davis, at least).”
No, in my experience and observation, they mostly don’t “consist of students.” They’re just young adults.
I’ve hired dozens of young adults over the years. They’re not UCD students (I can’t remember the last time I had a UCD student as an employee). Some go to community college, but not most. They live here for other reasons, like, for instance, being born and raised here, or moving here with a significant other. Like other normal human beings, they need places to live. Whenever possible, they will live in the community where they work. For those folks, we need rental housing. It does not need to be close to campus nor does it need to be close to downtown.
Davis hosts the largest employer by far in the region with thousands of employees. Most of the campus is not in town, but many of their offices are. Davis is obviously a huge “employment center” due to the presence of the campus. Worth noting also that Nugget Market and Safeway each have a couple of hundred employees and Sutter Health has several hundred.
Working at a plant nursery is, in fact, a career for many, and it also leads to interesting related careers such as landscape design, landscape architecture, landscape contracting, arboriculture, landscape management, pest management, and other fields. A number of my employees have gone into those fields, often while still working for me as they embark on their training or develop their own side businesses. I presently have employees who do free-lance consulting, design services, installation. Others have gone on to start their own businesses locally. This is true of many other specialty retailers and service providers in Davis: our employees are long-time residents, part of the fabric of our community, providing services and products that we all need.
Everyone who works anywhere needs a place to live.
Ron really needs to stop being so damned judgmental about people. It gets him in trouble, including yesterday.
Sean, who was a long time board member for the Vanguard, for example got a job at Safeway, become Shop Steward, and parlayed that into an organizer position with UFCW. That’s his career now. He still lives in Davis with his wife and kid.
“Can you please tell me what you exactly mean by the word “career”?
Jobs other than the ones I listed. Professional-level careers, or skilled blue collar jobs are examples of jobs that provide a “living wage” so to speak.
As a side note, I suspect that it’s easier to start your own (successful) business in blue collar trades, vs. the white collar field.
One can also work in law enforcement (including ICE for that matter), urban firefighter, etc.
“Ron really needs to stop being so damned judgmental about people. It gets him in trouble, including yesterday.”
I’m not “in trouble”. But note how I was talking about jobs, not people. As I mentioned every single time, I’ve worked at flunky jobs (and may do so again at some point). But I wouldn’t attempt to buy a house (or even rent one) solely on that income.
Though truth be told, I’m actually making fun of those who think that market-rate housing is going to be attainable for someone working in a “flunky job”, other than students who sometimes go into debt with the hope of “making up for it”, later.
But I’m not really making fun of the jobs themselves, either. I’m making fun of those who think that making a career out of that is something that will enable one to obtain market rate housing. In other words, people like you and Don.
“Working at a plant nursery is, in fact, a career for many, and it also leads to interesting related careers such as landscape design, landscape architecture, landscape contracting, arboriculture, landscape management, pest management, and other fields. A number of my employees have gone into those fields, often while still working for me as they embark on their training or develop their own side businesses.”
The first group you mentioned (who don’t move on) are not engaging in viable careers that will provide a living wage. The second group you listed are those who ARE pursuing actual careers.
Since you already provided examples of what you asked from me, it seems that you already knew the answer (in the field that you’re most familiar with).
If someone’s lifetime goal is to work at a plant nursery (or as a barista) for example, they will never, ever attain market rate housing on their own (unless they leave those jobs).
Is this actually news to you or David?
David provides an early-stage launching pad for those who will go on to sue cities and police departments by representing others (an actual career, albeit not always in the interest of society in my opinion). Probably indirectly increasing costs for those who never leave their “flunky” jobs.
R.O. You denigrate work and workers. Would you rather people were on the dole? I find it shameful. I worked for many years before I saved enough to buy a home. During that entire span ,over many years, I lived within my means and scraped and saved. Some years I treaded water economically. I never went on the dole but when I was young there were times. Still I always found dignity in working and carrying my own weight and think people who are doing that today and doing what they need to do don’t need to be told they have flunky jobs.
Pretty sure I explained my comment on here, but you apparently weren’t listening.
Flunky jobs are only “flunky” if people try to make a lifetime career out of them (and aren’t developmentally-disabled).
Again, I’ve worked in such jobs (and may do so again at some point). But they aren’t necessarily “flunky” for someone like me. Instead, they would be “supplemental”.
They simply don’t pay a living wage, and aren’t actually intended to.
“If someone’s lifetime goal is to work at a plant nursery (or as a barista) for example, they will never, ever attain market rate housing on their own (unless they leave those jobs).”
First of all a lot of home buying in Davis is done with inter-generational wealth so there is nothing wrong with someone who grew up here moving up that way. Second among those with blue collar jobs they can often advance. Third in America anything is possible. Maybe they get a tip on the next Nvidia or buy crypto or some silver dollars now worth $100 each.
The big problem with the know-it-alls around here. They think they know what will happen in the future and mostly they are likely to be wrong.
“First of all a lot of home buying in Davis is done with inter-generational wealth so there is nothing wrong with someone who grew up here moving up that way.”
That is not the goal, regarding some of those who comment on here (and elsewhere). In a sense, I’m with you on this because I already know that there’s pre-existing housing (constantly for sale) to accommodate that group. I’d go further than you, in that there’s also nothing inherently wrong with someone from the Bay Area moving to Davis/Sacramento, using the wealth they’ve accumulated in the former.
“Second among those with blue collar jobs they can often advance.”
Already noted. But “skilled” blue collar jobs are already “advanced”. I admire those people, and many of them start their own business. I also admire developers, in a different way (though most of them probably have a pretty good understanding of the trades).
“Third in America anything is possible. Maybe they get a tip on the next Nvidia or buy crypto or some silver dollars now worth $100 each.”
Them young’ens beat us to it, in regard to crypto. It’s boomer dummies like us who would have bought it at $130 (though it could certainly surpass that in the future). Perhaps I’m “speaking for myself only” regarding this.
I’m not as far apart from you as you might think – I just arrived at an opposite conclusion. It’s embedded in my DNA at this point, from what you derisively call a Malthusian perspective (if you want to simplify it). Two Ron’s, from alternative universes. Though perhaps neither one of us is actually the “evil twin”.
Ironically? – I did “plan” for the Covell Village site to remain as scenic farmland. I also have the same “plan” for Shriner’s (and DISC, for that matter).
Regarding “economic development”, the technology park in Woodland still hasn’t broken ground (and has no announced commercial tenants that I know of).
Apparently, even the planned 1,600 housing units hasn’t been sufficient yet to cause construction to commence. (That site is a very easy commute to UCD, straight down Highway 113. Easier and probably faster to get to UCD than the DISC site would be.)
This proposal consists of the remains of the technology park that was initially planned in Davis (at the site now being covered with housing as a result of the Bretton Woods development). At that time, the proposal (the Davis Technology Center, I believe) did not even include housing.
There doesn’t seem to be much demand for commercial space in this area, and those who want it can probably already find it in places like West Sacramento (or the vast, unbuilt commercial areas within city limits on the north side of Woodland).