In yesterday’s piece we conceived that what has happened is that changes in the city’s land use policy has thrown off the equilibrium that at one point existed between the city and university. At the same time, I made the point that even now, as the university is fully aware of the magnitude of the problem, they have been slow to increase their housing totals.
Matt Dulcich made it very clear on Wednesday that they will not commit to a higher number. His response to more density and heights was “we’ll try.” So they will allow builders to go to higher densities and build more units. They won’t constrain planning. But they will not add to the locations of growth and they will not commit to increase the number of units in the planning document.
Don Shor is right, “If they haven’t penciled out higher numbers now, they aren’t going to.”
The weird thing about that viewpoint is that the numbers they need to reach to “fix” this problem are not unreachable if they simply add one more student housing project.
Currently they have committed to adding 6200 beds, which is 90 percent of new projected enrollment by 2027. That once again gets them to 40 percent of all students housed on campus – which again means they will not accommodate all freshmen and sophomores with on-campus housing.
We have calculated the difference between 40 percent and the preferred 100/50 plan to be about 3800 beds.
When you consider that the city of Davis has already passed Sterling Apartments and likely will do so with Lincoln40, that is around 1500 beds that they are accommodating – which drops the total needed by UC Davis to be 2300.
That is not an unreachable number if UC Davis commits to building one more relatively large student housing project in the next decade.
So why won’t they is an important question – that question, someone pointed out, was actually asked during the Q&A section of Wednesday’s discussion.
Matt Dulcich had basically stated during his introduction that he would like to build more housing, but was worried about whether it would be viable or achievable. An audience member asked for clarification, and here was his response:
“Viable is the idea that we’re putting through a land use plan. A land use plan that has not completed any site-specific analysis of reach of the proposed sites where we would fit in student 
housing. We’ve also not done the financial forecast yet, and we won’t be able to do that until we’re ready to embark on each of those projects.
“Those two factors plus the two factors that are the other factors in a development process – everything from community feedback, student feedback. Any site could fail because there turns out to be some precious resource that a community member wants to have maintained on that site.
“So we don’t want to over-commit to a higher number because our land use plan is not that detailed. It is just a land use plan for proposed future development with the idea that we would bite off each of those future developments one-by-one starting now and continuing for the next ten years.”
The audience member them followed up asking, why not figure it out before you put together the LRDP?
Mr. Dulcich responded, “Right now if you looked at cost of construction and escalation of materials and escalation of labor and then try to say in eight years what are those factors going to be and could we deliver a concrete and still structure that students could afford to live in – I don’t know, but that’s what we hope we would be able to do. But forecasting that right now is not something that we’ve been able to do.”
The point was made, “I found the reasons provided for their lack of commitment to be pretty thin.”
I actually think that is an understatement. I found the explanation to be nonsensical and I will explain why. He is basically citing the uncertainty of costs projected into the future. Well, they have committed to 6200 units, I fail to see why committing to another 30 percent increase in the units is going to vastly change that calculation into the future.
Worst case scenario would be they commit to a goal of 8500 (rather than 6200 units) and if they don’t get there, they don’t get there. I don’t see the downside of committing to higher and failing to achieve that goal versus committing to the lower number and trying to increase it.
One of our posters posited that this was simply indifference on the part of the university – as in they don’t care about the student housing crisis and the impact on the community.
Personally I think the answer is more benign. It gets to a point students made to the Vanguard when I asked why they are not occupying Mrak Hall in protest to the lack of student housing provided by the university.
Part of the problem here is that Matt Dulcich is not the decision-maker on this. The students likened it to squeezing a bowl of jello – put pressure in one place and the jello doesn’t go under pressure, it simply shifts somewhere else.
It is one reason I don’t know that putting pressure on the university at all will make much difference. I have not seen evidence that the university responds to pressure. They came out with their initial number in 2016 and really haven’t moved off that. Sure, they have talked in vague terms about expanding beyond that, but have made no such commitment.
While everyone has seemed to be impressed by new chancellor Gary May, and Councilmember Lucas Frerichs sung his praises on Wednesday, it will be interesting to see if the new chancellor decides to step into this issue, or simply leaves it to the bureaucracy to absorb the pressure.
—-David M. Greenwald reporting
Summary of that question and answer:
Why haven’t you planned for other sites?
Because we haven’t planned for other sites.
Followup: please clarify?
Answer: (describes planning process, explains uncertainties of it).
Subsequent question: why haven’t you added more units?
Answer: we’ll try.
That is the university’s position on this issue after months of input from citizens and local elected officials. We know where they stand now. We know what they’re going to do and not do. There is no point in assuming there will be more units, except perhaps a small number, than what they have promised. So the city needs to plan with this in mind as the General Plan housing element is updated.
That’s a safe conclusion. The more difficult question is how the city finds an additional 2300 beds given the current availability.
Encourage 4600 students to get ‘intimate’? That would get us to another 2300 beds…
We and they should not be judgemental…
Also, we could encourage/incentivize more “empty-nesters” to rent out rooms (or have ‘boarders’)… my grandparents did that in the ’40’s’ , early 50’s… worked out well for all involved, in a college town much like Davis… much cheaper for students than luxury suites…
Very good summary, Don.
” I have not seen evidence that the university responds to pressure.”
I have seen the university respond to pressure, but it’s not the kind of pressure that it’s getting from the city. When state legislators start calling and complaining or when enrollments start falling, then there may be pressure to supply more housing.
Thanks for covering this part of the Conclave, David, and I agree with what you say here:
I disagree with Don that there is no further pressure can be brought to bear on the University, and highlighting their lack of good reasons for refusing to commit to building more housing is one piece of that. So, again, thank you.
I didn’t say that, though I can certainly see how it could be construed from my commments. Keep up the pressure, by all means. Enlist local legislators. Contact the Chancellor. Go to these conclaves and meetings. Comment on the draft EIR when it gets posted. Just don’t get your hopes up about changing the university’s position on their current LRDP. They’ve made their position clear on the current LRDP. Any pressure brought to bear at this point, in my opinion, will largely affect future planning efforts by UC, not present ones.
I am glad to hear you say that and I agree. I think it always bears repeating, as it is all too easy to get discouraged and give up. I don’t think we should give the impression that the situation is hopeless.
Changing the direction of a large organization is never easy, but if it’s going to happen, it requires the ongoing and dedicated commitment of a large number of people.
Also worthwhile, but I haven’t given up hope yet on affecting present ones.
And yet, students did exactly that, when it came to Katehi. (Ultimately seemed quite “effective” to do so.) Also, issues like cost of tuition, pepper spray incident, picnic day incident and even the oil pipeline in other parts of the country seem to generate much more interest for students.
The real reason is that the city council has, so far, shown a great deal of deference to students. (At the expense of the city, in my view.) Think about that, when the “worst intersection in town” is further impacted, or if funds aren’t available to build the bicycle/pedestrian overpass that will be needed there.
Somehow, developers are able to propose developments which “pencil out” in the city”, but not on campus. (Something awfully strange about that.)
Also, think about the impacts when sites are “used up” for housing designed exclusively for students, preventing other needed uses from occupying the space (e.g., workforce housing, commercial development, etc.).
Might also want to remember this if/when the city determines that development fees were too low to offset costs. (Not to mention the unreasonable parcel tax structure, between apartments and single-family dwellings.)
“The real reason is that the city council has, so far, shown a great deal of deference to students. (At the expense of the city, in my view.)”
I’m curious about that statement
That’s good to know. (Some of the impacts of this approach are already noted in my post, above.)
That’s not an answer
You didn’t ask a question.
Ron, I think David is asking: “What are your grounds for saying that the City Council has shown a great deal of deference to students (at the expense of the city)?”
Roberta: It can be seen to some degree with the site of Families First (which could have been designed to appeal to a wider variety of residents, for example). Or, perhaps used for commercial activities, which is closer to its original zoning. Or, for other residents “in need”, as Families First was intended.
It can also be seen in (what appears to be) probable approval of Lincoln 40, despite the impact on the “worst intersection in town”, inadequate funding for a bicycle/pedestrian overpass, probable inadequate development fees, and a parcel tax structure which favors apartment developments, at the expense of other residents and the city.
And, of course, it might also prematurely “use up” space that will be needed to meet upcoming “fair share” growth requirements, which (as a result of recent state legislation) will have real consequences if disregarded.
The real tragedy is that such developments won’t even provide affordable housing, for students. (Despite the concerns outlined, above.)
Roberta and Ron have made excellent points here, which I agree with, particularly how important it is to continue pressuring UCD to produce far more on campus housing than they are proposing.
But, I find it interesting that what is not pointed out in the article and was asked several ways of the UCD rep (Matt) was:
“How is it that so many other UC’s are moving forward with committing to 50% on-campus housing except UCD, which is the largest campus with over 5,300 acres?”
It is just astonishing that other UC’s are making significant progress and are so successful producing much more on-campus student housing, but when asked, UCD just responds with excuses. These other UC’s are facing the same challenges yet they are moving forward, while UCD continues to stall. Why isn’t UCD reaching out to these other successful campus like UC Irvine which is at 44% on campus housing new, and ask them how they did it, and then use some of those strategies? If UCD cannot seem to figure this out, they should be asking for help from those who can.
Also, the other UC’s realize that construction is not going to get cheaper, so kicking the can down the road like UCD is trying to do, is not going to solve a thing. It will just allow the problem to get worse. The other UC campuses are also smart enough to understand that on-campus housing is the most sustainable way to build student housing since it drastically reduced commuting, therefore traffic, circulation and parking issues, and so on-campus housing is the only realistic way to control rental costs into the future for the students.
This is why the other campuses are building as many student beds now while UCD still is minimizing the number of beds they are building. Look at how UCD just went to the large expense of demolishing Webster Hall off Russell Blvd. (on Oxford Circle) only to add just one story from 3-stories to 4-stories? What a complete waste of an opportunity to provide more student beds by UCD. To further contrast UCD’s inability, there is a private developer who is building a 5-story multifamily project right next to the Webster Hall site. So obviously, it can be done.