To. Mayor Neville and Council Members
Fr. David J Thompson
Re. The most recent Village Farms Affordable Housing Plan
The latest iteration of the Affordable Housing Plan for Village Farms is still missing critical elements. Therefore, it should not be accepted by the City Council.
* I Have placed the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) numbers in a table at the end of this article. Clearly, Davis is most deficient in creating Very Low Income (VLI) and Low Income(LI) units
As an interested observer, it has been difficult to keep up with the numerous changed affordable housing plans for VF brought forward at the very last minute.
- I encourage the City Council to require the VLI and LI affordable housing plan to be specifically set in VF as close as possible to Covell Blvd. Please switch the MOD site to the most northerly of the three parcels. All the major competitive sources of funding for affordable housing are based upon a points system. Usually, each applicant scores 100 points and the winning applicants are those applicants which gain more in tie breakers. High points are for example given for categories with a quantified proximity to existing bus routes and to shopping centers with a supermarket. These points are critical specifically to the projects set aside for the categories of Very Low Income (VLI) and Low Income (LI). These projects will have a far better chance of being funded when set adjacent to Covell Blvd.
- Another point to make is that the specific sites to be designated for VLI and LI should be large enough (min 4 acres) to be built in two phases. The second phase will score higher when added to an existing phase because of increased scale and reductions in management, administrative, legal, architectural fees and in building costs. A community building and offices built in phase one will not be needed for phase two. This also frees up land in phase two to be used for income earning additional housing units rather than the additional non-earning expenses of a community building. Otherwise, each smaller site will have to have a community building and separate staffing and duplicate costs for the expense categories listed above. Every saved penny per unit wins additional award points in the competitions.
- If I am correct there will be no for sale single family units affordable to 80%-120% income category. This is a measureable weakness in the range of affordable housing products in the present application.
In general I am very puzzled by the new map in the Vanguard on Jan 10.
The plan states that “the affordable housing to be developed on the land dedication site will be permanently affordable in accordance with the requirements of the Davis Municipal Code,” with final housing types determined by the city in consultation with selected affordable housing developers.
- Having a still designated fire station
- Setting aside land for schools when we have the problems we do with enrollment
- Adding shopping when that concept fell through at the Cannery and we all look at that still empty undeveloped land
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The Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities will be the primary funding source, managed by the Strategic Growth Council. Since Davis has a CAAP, designing to comply fully and beyond with will be important to win what has become a very competitive process. As David points out, the design needs to be of the highest rank in sustainability to be competitive.
https://sgc.ca.gov/grant-programs/ahsc/
We probably need some local neighborhood retail embedded in VF to make is more walkable, but it does not need to be collocated with the AH project. That retail is better positioned in a central square built around the heritage oaks (and the corner park shrunk to be replaced with higher density housing.)