By John Johnston
Editor’s notes: the following were comments sent to the city of Davis in advance of the Long-Range Growth Subcommittee Report and presented during public comments.
I appreciate the intent to apply some rational thought to choosing among competing alternatives. However, the tool chosen has some important shortcomings that should be considered. The LEED ND criteria were set up to determine whether a project was good enough for a certification, not which one is better for Davis, CA in 2023. Many items in the listings are not important to us in choosing a project. For other items, all projects will be nearly equally good or bad. We need to ask, what are the key elements of this decision? What is important to the city? Based on this, I’m suggesting that instead of a simple, all-inclusive point system, the Subcommittee should specify elements required of all projects (e.g., energy features or bike trails or parks or universal design or whatever), and then develop criteria that reflect the key issues of 
importance in deciding which is the “better” project. The LEED ND system has a lot of good ideas, but the decision-making process can be made more focused and relevant.
In letting project proponents score themselves, I fear you may get a Lake Wobegon situation in which every project is strong, good-looking, and above average. Staff will need to be scrupulous and skeptical in their checking of the responses. Ideally, the responses would be made public.
Some more detailed comments follow:
There is too much reliance on a points system that makes trade-offs that you may not want. A simple point summation compares apples to oranges to monkeys. For instance, a proposal gets a point for saving heritage trees (item 68) but if the trees are cut down, only loses a point. Are heritage trees only worth a point? Not providing universal design (item 63) loses one point but that can be regained by providing 80% of heat from a district heating system (item 73). Is district heating an important consideration in deciding between projects in this context?
Some items are irrelevant or not useful in distinguishing projects and should be eliminated. In item 86, solids waste, proposals get a point for providing 4 out of listed 5 items. However, 4 of the items listed are already provided via community services currently in place (recycling, hazwaste, composting, and receptacles).
Transportation and GHG are not given enough attention. The big-picture issue with providing more housing is that such developments generate more out-of-town commuter traffic which works against our CAAP goals. Simply awarding points (or not) for enrolling 20% of residents in an undefined TDM program (item 60) is an insufficient requirement or measure of proposal quality. We have transportation GHG goals and each project should be judged against those.
Building efficiency and renewable energy should be required, not placed on a point system. We know what we want – all-electric, ZNE, renewable energy produced onsite as described in the CAAP. Let’s require these features rather than awarding points according to how close projects get to the ideal.
Connectivity to local neighborhoods receives too little attention. The big-picture issue is that we are considering individual projects which are not well-connected and not integrated into a future urban neighborhood. For example, Palomino Place has no street connections to the west or north, or even to the adjacent Shriner’s property. Likewise, Shriner’s has no connections to Palomino, the north or the east. Someday, Davis will extend past these developments and these projects need to be able to integrate into the future urban fabric. Imagine what the city would look like today if we had built projects like these along the north side of 8th Street when it was the edge of town. Admittedly the lack of a GP is a hinderance, but roads can be stubbed off as they were in the Cannery (although even there the is only one non-Covell street that leaves the development).
Items that depend on simple dollar amounts should be minimized or eliminated. Items 88, 89, 90, and 91 (easements, community amenities, housing funds, and carbon mitigation) award points for simply contributing money. I appreciate the desire to bolster the city’s coffers, but this system tilts the playing field toward developers with deeper pockets and may skew evaluation of the proposals. Instead, these funds should be assessed against all projects at a standardized rate ($/unit or acre) so that everyone pays the appropriate amount.
All projects should be in the sphere of influence (item 92). We should not be encouraging leapfrog development.
I agree that using LEED-ND in this context is strange and not at all what it was designed for.
I think its helpful for evaluation, but it cannot, and will not replace PLANNING.
This hits on on of my larger complaints about our peripheral process in general. For one, you cant plan the inter-connectedness of multiple parcels that are developed by multiple people at various times and when whether one projects gets built at ALL is up to the whims of a measure J vote,
But more to the point – when develoers do the planning, they plan for a project they can sell for the highest return – which means catering to the more affluent college town commuters / teleworker refugees from the bay area, rather than our local workforce.
I’m okay with building for both, personally, but left to their own devices, the latter will get left out.
The answer is simple: Stop building projects dominated by single-family ( car-centric ) housing. We KNOW its a failed paradigm, we know it makes transit impossible, we know it is a long-term economic loser for the city, we know it increases traffic. WHY do we keep doing this?
First, John has made excellent points about the limitations of using the LEED ND rubric in this context. The Council needs a deeper dive into this before proceeding along this line.
Based on analysis that Tim Keller is conducting, this isn’t necessarily true. What has happened is that Davis has been building almost exclusively for commuters since the 1990s because we’ve priced locals out of the housing market with our growth controls. If we build the right amount of housing where we bring our supply in balance with demand, more locals can live here and our traffic per capita will go down. I’ll have more on this soon.
Tim Keller asks WHY do we keep doing this? That is a great question and THE question that should be asked about every proposed project, be it peripheral or ‘infill.” The answers will vary, even for a single proposal, depending on who constitutes the WE in the question.
The short answer for the plethora of peripheral proposals along Covell and Mace is, “WE, the developers, who bought large swaths of agricultural land along major thoroughfares in Davis and surrounding areas, as automobile-friendly, speculative investments. And WE will keep trying to maximize our financial return on that investment.”
So the WHY of those folks is MONEY, pure and simple. They want to make as much profit as possible on their initial paltry (by today’s prices) investments. The first question they ask is not what would be good for the Davis community? They do not ask, “what is best for the existing residents, for the neighbors of such proposed projects or even for the long-term quality of life and fiscal health of the City.”
Developers have become adept at using polls and well-meaning residents to establish needs of our local workforce, teachers, seniors and students. But, typically, those “needs” are used merely as marketing tools and the proposed project actually does not meet those needs. So voters reject the project and the project proponents cry foul. And the developers do it again and the voters do it again. The solution in that case, is NOT to remove or modify the power of our vote (Measure J/R/D). It is to tell the city and the developers what WE want. As Tim Keller wrote, PLANNING.
And. as a community, we have done that repeatedly: to remain a compact city and grow as slow as legally possible. And that is the crux of the conflict. The desire of most Davis residents is diametrically opposed to the goals of speculative investors.
Davis residents have acknowledged that lack of affordable housing is a major concern and a real obstacle for many local workers who would like to live here. And many existing residents are empathetic. But many of those same voters will continue to fight developments, peripheral or otherwise, that do not focus on affordable housing.
In fact, this is no time to even consider huge, sprawling peripheral developments that do not focus on a remedy for our affordable housing needs. And it is absolutely shameful that our City Council would even consider additional project proposals by owners of approved, yet still unbuilt projects such as Nishi, Chiles Ranch (E. 8th Street) and Breton Woods (formerly WDAAC). Collectively, those projects could have a huge impact on housing availability in Davis. So why the rush for all of the proposed development on Covell and Mace?
Many people have proposed ways to address our housing issues and, in my opinion, Jim Frame’s is most promising. Meanwhile, here are four steps that the City can take immediately:
(1) No additional proposals from developers of already-approved projects will be considered until complete build-out of that project’s affordable housing component; (2) A minimum of 25% affordable housing will be required for all proposed projects; (3) Projects will be ranked on the basis of highest percentage of affordable housing, with 25% being the absolute minimum; and (4) In lieu fees will be prohibited as substitutes for affordable housing in all residential and mixed-use projects.
One foreseeable objection to a 25% affordable floor is that it “won’t pencil out” for the developers – “and nothing will get built.” And to that, I say too bad for the developers. And great for us who want affordable housing without unnecessary sprawl. If we truly need affordable housing and the current landowners won’t build that, then let them sell their speculative land investment to someone who will build what WE need.
“One foreseeable objection to a 25% affordable floor is that it “won’t pencil out” for the developers – “and nothing will get built.” And to that, I say too bad for the developers. And great for us who want affordable housing without unnecessary sprawl.”
This is what I would call “the affordable housing paradox”
We naturally want to demand affordable housing
But what if affordable housing levels are set to high and nothing gets built?
Rick says, “I say too bad for the developers.”
But then what happens to the cost of housing – it goes up.
So by setting levels of affordable housing too high, we actually can increase the cost of all housing
To say nothing of the possibility fo the state of the state coming in, taking out Measure J, and opening the door to all sorts of sprawl.
In the minds of prospective for-profit developers, if you are not reasonable they will just turn to other cities. The list of alternative locations is lengthy. They include Woodland, Winters, West Sacramento, Sacramento, Elk Grove, Folsom, Roseville, Vacaville, Fairfield, Yuba City, Marysville, Clarksburg and Lodi. For-profit developers are usually in the business of making as much money as possible. They aren’t charities.
What are needed are willing non-profit developers. One of the major hurdles for non-profits is raising the enormous funds necessary to pay for land acquisition and building construction. For 17 years I served on the board of directors of a local non-profit adult mental health services provider. During that period we built a small apartment complex for mental health clients that were eligible for Section 8. We didn’t have to buy the land because we already owned it. It took a lot of work by our executive director to cobble together the necessary grants and loans. We tried to fund raise from private individuals, but that didn’t go so well. For part of that period it was my honor to serve as board president. My father volunteered to be in charge of our capital campaign. He possessed much fund raising experience which I lacked.