by Alan Hirsch
The city is proposing to annex land for over 20 years’ worth of growth for Davis… i.e. negating Measure R growth limits for a generation.
This is a massive change to the city’s General Plan, a plan that reflects a consensus that citizens invested thousands of hours to review, discuss, compromise on. Yet this hard won consensus is about to be negated in a rush fashion: Council is allowing only weeks for the only, official, legally binding process for citizen input on this massive general plan change.
Consider: Interested citizens must first obtain and then sort through and read over 4,000 pages of EIR documents for two projects to see what their impacts are on traffic, schools, air quality, taxes and reducing our environmental/carbon footprint. And this is not for just one, but two large projects: the Nishi development sandwiched between the University/I-80, and an Industrial Park at the Mace Curve.
This will take weeks for even the most involved and concerned citizens to just read…not to mention to attend meetings, discuss and digest.
If the city council sincerely really wants thoughtful input, sincerely wants the final proposal to evolve to reflect DAVIS VALUES so they win the ballot box, they need to extend the period for legal input. This is important as it is the only legally enforceable input citizens will be able to give short of an up-or-down vote at election time.
Extending the analysis and comment period is particularly important as one of the projects is no longer as originally sold to council: the “Industrial Park” proposed on the Mace Curve has morphed into something that will include housing.
And there are new revelations that these projects may not be cash cows for the city revenues—which is why the idea of Revising the General Plan was proposed to begin with.
This is a lot to digest. In a short time.
Please, City Council…this is too important.
Give residents time to review this massive change to Davis’s future.
I agree with Alan that the change in the Mace proposal introduces a new element that has not had time to be thoroughly vetted. I am almost hesitant to say this since I am frequently critical of “sound bites” however this is appearing like a “bait and switch” to me. And I say this as someone who is not inherently opposed to a combined use development with employee housing on site if there were someway to ensure that the housing would indeed meet the needs of the local employees and not just end up being a draw for more people wanting to live in Davis while commuting to other communities for work which looks to me like a very tricky proposition.
I agree, this is a total “bait and switch”. The technology park was first presented as business only so many residents were willing to go along with that because we need revenue. That got the ball rolling but this gradual mission creep to housing is what many said was going to happen all along. I believe that will kill the project and I do want the business park.
I want to echo what Alan says, and also add that it’s SUMMER and so a lot of people are out of town, getting ready to go back to school, etc. Fall quarter doesn’t start at UC Davis until end of September. These are also reasons to give citizens more time to respond to the draft EIRs.
i don’t see the need. the eir isn’t the crucial choke point. it’s a measure r project. the key is the council vote and da