By Ramneet Singh
BERKELEY, CA – In a July 13 report, the Othering and Belonging Institute found correlations based on high levels of single-family-only zoning, and future advantages or disadvantages of children depending on where they live—noting the influence of Davis in a few categories.
The report, which also laid out contenders for zoning reform moving forward, was produced by Stephen Menendian, Samir Gambhir and Marina Blum, who found correlations that connected levels of “single-family-only zoning” to race, “household income,” property value, “educational outcome,” environmental conditions and “economic opportunity.”
The report featured numerous data tables, diagrams, and graphs which may be accessed through the link for the report.
Throughout the work, researchers compared this case to findings in their reports on the Bay Area and Los Angeles regions. They briefly referenced other U.S. 
cities.
But researchers focused on the Sacramento region, which involves six counties and 22 municipalities, including Davis, with about 2.5 million people overall. They noted that this population may increase with rising living costs in the Bay Area.
In particular, researchers found that “77.10 percent of residential land in the region is exclusively reserved for single-family housing…From a cross-sectional view of local jurisdictions… on average, about 81.1 percent of residential land is restricted to single-family homes only, with a median of about 81.2 percent.”
The city of Davis has 81 percent single-family-only zoning as a proportion “of all residential zoning.”
There is a breakdown by jurisdiction into three categories of increasing percentage of single-family zoning: “low to moderate,” “high,” and “very high”—the city of Davis fell within the high category, which is between 77.4 percent to 89.5 percent.
Concerning race, researchers found “a striking relationship between jurisdictions with an extremely high degree of single-family-only zoned residential areas and the racial composition of those communities.”
From this, researchers understood that “single-family-only zoning has a racially exclusionary appearance.”
Although similar to their other findings, researchers noted trends for Black and Asian populations were different between the Sacramento and Bay Area regions.
In looking at segregation, the researchers claimed that “the highest percentage of Latino and Black residents is found in the category with the smallest extent of such zoning.”
In a four-part series from early 2022, Ananda Rochita wrote a story on Sacramento segregation. Jesus Hernandez, who has a PhD and has been involved in real estate, discussed the history of race covenants.
Hernandez charged, due to these covenants, “‘you see this east-west pattern of affluence and this north-south pattern of racial concentration and poverty.’” The pattern of affluence was in reference to “‘deed restrictions on property that limited the ownership to White people.’”
In the second part of the series, the article noted the displacement of minority communities.
Rochita described how “[r]edevelopment and freeway construction started in the mid-1950s. Minority residents were forced to move from the West End to neighborhoods that had no race covenants.”
Moving to household income, the researchers found that the greater the single-family-only zoning, the higher the household income. This relates to property value.
Concerning affordable housing, the Sacramento Bee reported, “Construction is about to begin on a 150-unit apartment building for low-income seniors in…downtown Sacramento.”
The same article states that “Sacramento needs to build more than 16,000 housing units this decade for low and very-low income residents” but that progress has been slow.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg remained optimistic about the situation and stated the need to find “‘local funding sources to match the new amounts of federal and state money.’”
Moving to environmental impact, researchers utilized CalEnviroScreen in determining the relationship. Researchers looked at broad and specific characteristics, like “particulate matter.”
Generally, the report shows that risks are lessened with a higher percentage of single-family-only zoning.
An article by the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health also noted research for the correlation between race and environmental aspects of a neighborhood.
Specifically, the article noted “the standard linear method underestimated the severity of air pollution in areas with low percentages of Black residents.”
The article notes, “These differences are important because even a 1 µg/m3 increase in PM2.5 can increase risk of numerous health outcomes including adverse birth outcomes and cardiovascular disease.”
In Davis, authors noted a “similar relationship (to household income)” between that type of zoning and property value.
A deviation from that relationship is in the middle category, which they attribute to Davis, “the data point with the highest median home value.”
They noted that Davis has the only UC in the region and that there is low supply of housing with high demand.
Of note is “the proposed plan would allow for the addition of 1,000 residential units and 600,000 square feet of nonresidential development in the area by 2040” by Davis’s Downtown Plan Advisory Committee.
The Vanguard’s David Greenwald also pointed out the DPAC’s 2019 recommendations. One of which is “DPAC unanimously voted to recommend that the Downtown Plan should support affordable housing downtown, but that it should be part of the larger city-wide efforts on affordable housing.”
Concerning educational outcomes, the researchers indicated that the relationship is “less clear.”
Areas with the lowest single-family-only zoning did the worst, with those in the middle categories doing the best.
The researchers stated “this result is likely due to the influence of Davis and Folsom, which have the highest (73 percent in Davis) and second highest (51 percent in Folsom) percentage of adults over the age of 25 with bachelor’s degrees.”
Lastly, researchers stated “a clear and consistent correlation between single-family zoning and positive outcomes for children across income distribution born” from 1978 to 1984.
This category is further divided into race. In all categories, those raised in areas with high single-family-only zoning do better than those raised with limited levels of such zoning.
However, they find that “White and Asian individuals raised in municipalities with middling levels of single-family-only zoning appear to earn more in adulthood than their counterparts in the top third of jurisdictions.” They attribute this to Davis and Folsom.
The researchers finished this report by providing a four-part identification of cities which could reform their zoning laws. These four parts involve: level of single-family-only zoning, level of opportunity, proximity to job centers, and “poor performance with RHNA targets.”
Concerning the level of opportunity, the researchers based it on the Tax Credit Allocation Committee information. They “chose municipalities with 85 percent or more neighborhoods designated high-opportunity areas.”
For proximity to job centers, they considered areas “40 minutes or less from the nearest central business district.”
RHNA stands for “Regional Housing Needs Assessment.” For areas that do not adhere to this, the researchers noted that “government agencies have already determined that they should shoulder a greater share of affordable housing developments.”
The researchers determined “Elk Grove, Loomis, Rocklin, and Folsom” were the top four areas which required zoning reform.
The what?
“ The Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley advances groundbreaking approaches to transforming structural marginalization andinequality. We are scholars, organizers, communicators, researchers, artists, and policymakers committed to building a world where all people belong.”
Sounds like the “Othering and Belonging Institute” isn’t aware that DJUSD poaches students from other districts, which would negate whatever they’re claiming.
Perhaps they’re also not aware that UCD isn’t in Davis.
Actually, I can’t even tell what the “Othering and Belonging Institute” is advocating for, based upon this article.
First, they say that single-family housing is associated with better outcomes. (But actually, only those with a “middle” amount of of it.) While simultaneously noting that Davis and Folsom do well because they have a high percentage of college graduates. (How did they jump from talking about single-family zoning to college degrees?)
But then, they’re advocating for “zoning reform” in one of the cities (Folsom) that they highlighted as having positive outcomes. Without even stating the reason.
And yet, they also attributed this to having more people with college degrees, in those towns (see quote, below). Again, how are they jumping from zoning, to college degrees?
How so? (I do believe that there are a lot of Asian property owners in both locations, but maybe a higher percentage in S.F.)
In any case, it sounds like this organization is (overall) advocating for “zoning to address inequities”, which reminds me of “zoning to meet a school district’s desires”.
Strange, how they didn’t even know that UCD isn’t in Davis, given that they’re “at” UC Berkeley.
In any case, this sounds like an organization that has no business being funded through the UC system:
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/
By the way, I flat-out don’t believe that this organization performed their analysis, correctly. The region is full of single-family dwellings (including Natomas, South Sacramento, Elk Grove, Oak Park, etc.) which aren’t necessarily dominated by “white” people with college degrees. And for that matter, you cannot lump-together white and Asian people “sometimes”, but not “other times” for the purpose of making some ridiculous claim or advocacy.
[edited]
And by the way, what happened to Roseville, in this scenario? Lots of single-family housing, lots of white people. You’d think they not only would have brought it up, but that they’d also be out there with picket signs. Did they not perform well-enough for this organization to be “worried” about?
“Zoning for Equity”
Assuming that’s what this organization is advocating for, what evidence are they presenting to support the premise that denser, market-rate housing in a comparatively-expensive city will attract the skin colors that they’re looking for, in the first place?
How do they know that it won’t just be filled by younger, professional white people and Asians – who are willing to pay a premium? (As occurs in places like San Francisco?)
Since when has increased market-rate density increased skin-color equity? Usually, the opposite occurs (gentrification and displacement) – see the lawsuit that Oak Park initiated against Aggie Square, San Francisco’s Mission district, etc.
Increased density increases square-foot value. It’s actually a boon to long-time (primarily white) property owners. At least, if they want to take advantage of it by selling, etc.
But then again, it’s not possible to actually determine what this organization is advocating for, based upon the article above.
Another question I have (e.g., in regard to the title) is what “influence” does Davis actually have? In regard to what?
And of the total number of degrees awarded by UCD since its existence, what percentage of those were actually awarded to current Davis residents? (I’m guessing it’s far-below 1% of the degrees issued by the institution.)
Leaving aside current graduate students who have already received one degree from the institution, and are pursuing another. Or, include them – probably doesn’t make much difference.
One thing is certain: If you want the government to start interfering with land use (and all other decisions) based upon skin color, then go ahead and accurately “volunteer” that information, when asked. (Assuming that the categories presented actually reflect yourself, in the first place.)
No doubt, one of the first places the government (at various levels) looks (besides the census) is from university-based organizations like the one referenced in the article.
Ron O
Given your complete lack of expertise on the subject matter, your slapdash critique isn’t particularly insightful. But of course, since the analysis came out with answer that refutes your stated positions, it MUST be wrong! Instead it confirms what so many of us have been saying all along, using different analytic methods. When different researchers come to similar answers with different approaches, the conclusions are generally true.
Yes, zoning to address inequities is a valid objective, especially since zoning has been used historically to create inequities. We should be working to correct those historic mistakes.
UCD has the 95616 zip code. That makes it part of the definition of “Davis” for most official uses, like how El Macero and Willowbank are included in Davis.
The argument that “UCD isn’t in Davis” is one of those technicalities that is true, but is functionally meaningless and only gets brought up to try to distort some other reality.
If you and Richard don’t understand the difference in city responsibilities between land that is within its borders, vs. land that isn’t – I’m not sure I can help you.
The state itself does not consider housing specifically-designed for students to be a “city need” in regard to RHNA requirements. If it did, the city’s housing element would have been approved by now.
And as a developer recently noted, a lot of residents in “North, North Davis” have connections to UCD, without any connection to Davis itself. (Except for, perhaps, dropping their kids off in Davis’ school system.)
[edited]
Ron O…
Way out of line, in spite of the edit.
Tkeller is right… UCD is ‘joined at the hip’ with the City… UCD is one “why” we returned to Davis after graduation… historically, faculty, staff, students @ UCD have lived in the City, contributed to its revenues, participated in the weal of the City in many ways over the years…
But that is only the opinion/observation of a “newbie”, who came to Davis 50 years ago as a UCD student, and have been a continuous resident (and taxpayer) for 42+ years… those are my weak “creds”…
I think Tim and Richard both understand the differences… but you are absolutely correct, that you are of no help.
[edited]
So have others who never had any connection to UCD. Believe it or not, some Davis residents work in places such as downtown Sacramento. These folks have as much connection to UCD as someone living in Roseville. Though they might have paid a premium for a Davis house anyway, compared to Roseville.
At some point, perhaps we could list all of the comments that folks like you, Richard, and (perhaps to a lesser extent) Tim have made, and “compare” them to the comments I’ve made. And then let others not involved “judge” what’s out-of-line.
Indeed – I agree that it’s weak.
It’s also irrelevant.