Sunday Commentary: Development Issue Returning as the Real Market Recovers

In November of 2009, Measure P, Wildhorse Ranch, went down to a resounding defeat at the polls by a 75-25 margin.  That margin dwarfed the 2005 Measure X 60-40 margin, that was a handily-defeated proposal for Covell Village.

One of the huge differences in the two projects is that Measure X occurred while the real estate market was still humming along.  The massive 2000-unit project, however, concerned city residents worried that the city had not properly accounted for huge increases in traffic volume.

Four years later, it was a far smaller project of about 200 units, during one of the worst economic downturns and real estate market collapses, that was defeated even more heavily.

While both projects had their own flaws and critics, the consensus that seemed to form was that peripheral growth in Davis was out. Indeed, for two election cycles, development was almost a non-issue.  While CHA (Choices for Healthy Aging) attempted to push for a senior housing project at Covell Village at a candidate’s debate, none of the candidates engaged in the debate and the proposal largely died.

Joe Krovoza and others would run on a platform of densification and infill development.  Issues like fiscal sustainability would replace land use as the burning issue, but the issue was not dead.

2013 would see a renewed focus on land use and development in a big way.  Part of what triggered it, ironically, was fiscal sustainability.  The city, looking at their long term prospects for a sustainable budget, recognized that the city’s current economy is problematic.  The city in the 2000s decade relied mainly on a half-cent sales tax and the booming real estate market to balance its books against surging employee compensation.

But the city’s sales tax base was, ironically, heavily relying on automobile sales with little in the way of other retail, point of sales revenue, or the kind of industry the city is now willing to look into developing – high tech university spinoffs.

Part of the shock to the system was losing Bayer/AgraQuest which was looking to expand but stay in Davis.  When Davis could not accommodate Bayer/AgraQuest with enough land, reality sunk home.

While Davis has looked into this issue for some time, whether it is the Innovation Park Task Force, DSIDE (Designing a Sustaninable and Innovative Davis Economy) or the most recent hiring of Rob White as Chief Innovation Officer, Davis has skirted around the issue of development, but avoided it for the most part.

That, of course, only forestalled the inevitable.  The Vanguard has long noted that the city is looking to convert the 100-acre Cannery parcel to mixed-use housing.  The Cannery site, currently zoned as light industrial, is the only large parcel zoned for a business park.

So, at the same time the city is looking to expand its economic development, it is looking to pave the only parcel of land zoned for that use.

The city has identified three possible locations for business parks – Nishi which is a relatively small parcel but strategically close to the university and downtown, the Northwest Quadrant, and the land east of Mace Blvd.

The downside of all three is that, while Cannery is already in the city and has a zoning for urban usage, the other three would require a Measure J vote.

In June, the development issue exploded when the city floated the possibility of swapping a conservation easement on Mace 391, east of Mace Blvd, for the Shriner’s property which is north of Covell and east of Wildhorse Ranch.

Process issues led that effort to be defeated 3-2, however, the proposal has at the very least been refloated.

This month, Cannery may well go forward with its mixed-use proposal – although between threats from rival developers, uncertain council support and a movement to put it on the ballot, we are no longer predicting the passage of Cannery, at least not this month.

Cannery is far from the only development proposal coming forward.  The council will hear an update on Nishi.  There is a new proposal from Wildhorse Ranch.  Discussions have perhaps renewed on the PG&E property.

The bottom line is that the issue of development and land use has reignited.

Longtime residents have often cited the fact that Davis has boom and bust periods of development.  The 1990s saw explosive growth, but that was followed by very little development in the 2000s, and proceeded by a relatively quiet period in the late 1980s.

Critics will note that Measure J, which was renewed in 2010 as Measure R, has artificially stifled development.

That is a more complex issue.  Some progressives believe that Measure J allowed the populace to elect more growth-friendly politicians, knowing that the people would get the final say, as they did in 2005 despite a 4-1 council approval of Covell Village.

Developers believe that the Measure J process has made development more uncertain, more expensive, and thus led to it being more likely that developers would float larger projects.  Had the Covell Partners simply moved to entitle the lower third of the property at Covell and Pole Line, it is entirely possible that they would have built a project – it’s also entirely possible that it would have bankrupted them when the economy collapsed just as the first wave of homes had gone online.

At the same time, it is not that the community has said no to all development in the past.  Wildhorse was approved by voters in a quasi-Measure J vote that was actually a referendum put on by opponents.  Voters would approve Nugget Market and Target.

So the idea that Davis voters will forever oppose Measure R votes and development is not well-founded with history.

We are comparing votes on a massive project and during a tough economic stretch, and extrapolating rather widely.

One thing I would say is that we need a plan – whether it is a formal general plan process or simply a series of workshops to lay out which land should be developed, which land should be put into conservation easements, which land should become housing, how much housing we will have, and how much business park land we will have.

If we can make the process predictable, it is possible to make community-based and informed decisions on our future.  One of the fears that many in the slow-growth community have is that moving development to a new boundary will inevitably mean sprawl and development beyond that boundary.

If we can preclude those fears, the voters may be more willing to approve development.  But they have to see the full picture first.

Unfortunately, the city is often its own worst enemy here.  Five years ago, the citizens living in the B St. area engaged with the city on the visioning project.  They agreed to densification.  Then the city received a proposal from Jim Kidd, and instead of adhering to the agreement, they arbitrarily reneged on it.

So now the city cannot be trusted to live up to its agreements, when the council and city management changes.  The residents have no legal recourse, and so the city’s credibility to limit development has been harmed.

The B St. residents were called NIMBY’s, but in fact they were even willing to go beyond the guidelines – but not to four stories and not to as many units as were proposed here.

This is the kind of demonstration that will make it more difficult for the city to operate in the future and, sadly, only one person on the council really seemed to understand that.

There has been a long period of distrust between the citizens and city hall.  That was starting to change.  It needs to change if the city hopes to gain public support for a variety of future projects.  But the city has to adhere to its own agreements or else this process won’t work.

What is clear now is that times are changing, we can see tangible evidence of an improving economy.  However, we never settled our former lines of dispute on development and therefore the city threatens to be bogged down by the same infighting as before – and this time it will not just be progressive versus developer, it will also be developer versus developer, which could be much more harmful to the fabric of this community.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

Categories: