On Friday, Don Gibson and Aaron Latta did a good job of putting some faces behind the numbers that the UC Davis Apartment Vacancy and Rental Rate Survey by BAE Urban Economics brings us.
They write: “It means every day that passes by, more members of our community struggle to find housing. They are faced with difficult choices: dropping out of school, finding somewhere else to start a family, or resorting to extreme housing options like sleeping in their cars. The current lack of housing is the driving factor behind these rent hikes and increasing that supply will help students and families alike.”
One of the reasons I have become an advocate for student housing is my experience working with student interns and the hardships they face on the housing front. Some object to the term housing insecurity as a current colloquial buzzword, but I find it a very apt term to describe a range of housing challenges that many students face.
What happens when something goes wrong in the current system? I can tell you, having watched it happen to one of my interns a few years ago.
A bright young student, this intern did not come from a well-off background and thus, when something went south, her parents were unable to help her. She lived in a house in Davis with a number of 
roommates, but there developed a conflict and problems with one or two of the roommates and the landlord handled it by kicking everyone out on short notice in December.
One of the reasons I support bed leases is that, with a bed lease, this would have been easy to fix without uprooting the compliant tenants. Kicking everyone out exposed my intern to hardships trying to find a new place to live in the middle of the year in a market that is constricted, being unable to sign her own lease and without parents to co-sign the lease.
The result is that, while she tried to find housing in Davis and then out of Davis, without work and the ability to sign her own lease, she was in trouble. She ended up taking time off school, trying to find a job, and hoping to save enough money to return.
But times got tough, she had a mental breakdown, ended up in and out of institutions, on the edge of homelessness, and ended up dropping out of school shy of graduation.
A better rental system, more protections for renters, bed leases, more vacancy – all of that could have prevented this bright student from having to leave school.
Michael Harrington in his letter on Saturday (https://davisvanguard.org/2018/03/letter-city-affordable-housing-program/ ) argued that he was not “not anti-student or anti-student affordable housing” but the effect of challenging the Nishi affordable housing program is, in fact, harmful to low income students who would not qualify for state or federal subsidized affordable housing under existing law.
A $400 a month affordable apartment might have saved my intern from the hardship she endured.
Matt Williams in his comment to the Friday article writes: “This article misses the mark in one very crucial way … squandered opportunity to truly address the housing shortage.” He goes on to cite the lack of density compared to the previous Nishi project.
He argues: “If 2018 Nishi delivered the same amount of housing per acre as 2016 Nishi, then instead of 2,200 students having a roof over their heads 5,332 students would have a roof over their heads.”
A lot of people have argued that the 2016 Nishi mixed-use proposal with innovation space was superior to the 2018 model. And in a lot of ways it was. I have made the point that neither proposal is my ideal use of that space – I prefer the USC Village model of high density student housing combined with retail and R&D space, the likes of which we have not seen.
But that vision is not what the developer has proposed and so we should weigh the project on its own merits.
The new proposal responds to the concerns expressed during the 2016 Measure R campaign in which issues like traffic impacts and lack of affordable housing led to the downfall of the project.
The current project then addresses those issues by avoiding Richards Boulevard altogether and providing student affordable housing.
With that said, I believe the point that Matt Williams makes is completely wrong in several respects. The first problem is that we can argue over the ideal density, but right now the density is zero because Nishi is a vacant field and there is no housing, and if we cannot get something to the voters they will support that number will remain zero.
Second, he argues that if Nishi delivered the same amount of housing per acre as 2016, Nishi would have 5332 instead of 2200 students. While perhaps true, we can revert back to needing to pass a project, but, more to the point, we don’t need Nishi to be that dense to solve problems of housing.
In short, we are not looking at Nishi to solve housing by itself. We have already passed Sterling and Lincoln40. We will have the council in a month or so consider Plaza 2555 and there may be one or two other student housing proposals in town – although the council seems to be getting skittish on the concept.
The bottom line is we are looking at roughly 4000 or so additional beds in the city combined with 8500 supplied by the university, which gets us close to current projected housing needs for the next ten years.
Matt Williams argues that “Aaron and Don need to explain why they want 3,132 of their fellow students to remain homeless.” He writes that “3,132 minds are a terrible thing to waste.”
But they don’t need to do that at all, because the big picture is the 2200 beds at Nishi combined with other projects in town and university on-campus commitments get us close to where we need to be.
As I point out, the realities of Measure R are that we need to figure out the best projects that we can pass.
Mark West, who is running for council, argues that this is a “perfect example of why Measure R is such a poor planning tool.” And he may be right.
Measure R does force a compromise between the best planning principles and what the community is willing to support. Given that Measure R projects are currently 0 for three, and that the community narrowly voted down the previous Nishi proposal, the developers here cannot possibly put forward what they think is the best project – they have to put forward something that solves some community needs with the possibility of passage.
For people like Mark West that means that they will vote for Nishi, even though they think there are better projects. For people like Matt Williams, they will oppose Nishi, in hopes that they can get a better project.
For me, the needs of the students have to be taken into consideration. We cannot hold them hostage to our land use battles or disagreements with the university.
There are several who have written me and pointed out each time one of these issues rises, that’s why we need to get rid of Measure R. I remain supportive of Measure R because I value our community’s character. From a practical perspective, if you cannot pass a project, how are you going to get rid of the ordinance?
Instead of worrying about that big picture, I think we need to focus on the small picture. We have a housing crisis, we need to solve it.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I expect the plan is to elect a City Council majority opposed to Measure R, then have them decline to renew it in 2020 — or put up a castrated version for renewal — and hope that a citizen’s initiative doesn’t get on the ballot. I don’t think the plan will work, and I expect an initiative effort will begin forming in June if the election results aren’t favorable.
I don’t see any of the three remaining on council supporting an end to Measure R – and besides Mark I don’t think there is anyone who clearly supports ending R of the candidates. I would say this is a non-issue right now.
“I expect the plan…” What plan? I participate in plenty of policy discussions with senior city staff, council members, the business community and land use activists. Apart from some student activists raising Measure R as a campaign issue (what the heck for?), Mike Harrington is the only one I’ve heard say he’s actively planning on doing something with Measure R. If there’s a “plan” afoot, it’s from those using Measure R as a campaign scare tactic.
Mark is a firm No. Gloria Partida wants it modified. Linda Deos has been all over the map, but most recently has supported amending it. Dan Carson is open to “improvements.” Mary Jo Bryan is noncommittal.
If any two of the above get elected, there’s at best a 1-vote majority unequivocally in favor of renewal as-is.
I’m really not sure if modifications improve Measure R or not, but I see no reason that the Measure has to be renewed as currently stands.
However, my point here was more that while i support R, I think we have to accept compromise measures if we are going to require a vote.
And there you have it, as has been hinted at for a long time.
What exactly do e have? Other than a vague statement in response to other vague statements. I support the general concept of Measure R, but why does it have to be renewed exactly as it currently reads? Even Mike Harrington wants to refine it. My comment is non-directional.
(Is there an icon which shows a laugh, instead of a smile?)
Yeah, some of the current candidates seem to be open to “improving it”, in a particular direction.
Perhaps some who are already on the council, as well. (And will continue to be there, after the election.)
For example, there are Mike always raises the issue of mitigation land and part of the problem has been that usually the mitigation land is not laid out up front and ends up being land in the middle of Woodland and Davis that has no chance of being developed. Isn’t that something worth discussing?
Another point that could be better clarified is the project baseline features and what constitutes a significant enough change to trigger another vote.
On the other hand, maybe we are asking for too much specificity in order for people to vote on a project and people end up micromanaging the project, when all we really need to know are more general concepts – units, density, types of uses, etc. So maybe that is something worth exploring.
Not necessarily endorsing anything, just pointing out possible changes that would be worth exploring – in both directions as they were.
Has anyone specifically stated what they would change?
David: The general “gist” of your comments, as well as those of some of the candidates, seems to be that Measure R has “failed”. And that each time voters reject a proposal (past, or current), that adds further “evidence” of its shortcomings.
Here are the points everyone miss:
(A) The reason Measure R has lead to no project approvals is that is what the majority in Davis want. If West Sac had a Measure R the results would be very different
(B) Measure R was a reaction to a growth surge in the 80s and 90s that was probably about to end anyway. There was a lot of talk that Covell Village was going to be the last major peripheral project for some time
(C) Sue Greenwald would often tell me that Measure R led to a more pro-growth council because people didn’t have to be as conscious of who they voted for.
(D) It’s hard to get projects approved in Davis – period. We see what it takes to get infill projects approved.
(E) Everything has strengths and weaknesses. In 2000, we had too much growth and Covell Village would have been a problem for this community. Now the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction – students and young families and workers are being hurt by our housing shortage.
If we want to keep Measure R, we need to figure out ways to address these problems. If we don’t, then I think Measure R will eventually be gone.
Bottom line: I don’t believe that Measure R has failed. I do believe we need to figure out how to solve our housing problems.
Other than dealing with the demand created by UCD in some manner (and SACOG requirements, which we’re apparently exceeding), I’m not sure what you mean by this.
I believe that Davis is also exceeding its “one percent” annual growth cap, if population growth was measured (vs. units). For example, multi-bedroom structures still count as one “unit”, regardless of the number of planned occupants.
You really are locked into your own tunnel vision on this. It means that we can approve housing within the existing framework of Measure R.
When Sterling opens it will be the first market rate apartment complex since 2002. That’s a key example that it’s not just about units, but also about the kinds of units we build.
Regarding young workers and families, it’s been pointed out that the demand created by UCD (and the resulting megadorm structures approved, in response) is essentially displacing opportunities for young workers and families. (Something that you repeatedly deny, from what I recall.)
I’m not sure that I’m the one with “tunnel vision”.
It’s also been shown that UCD has been growing at historic rates, and that Davis has not over the last 17 years contributing to the shortfall.
That is factually incorrect. (Unless one chooses to disregard the Cannery and other developments, including Affordable housing.)
In any case, some of this was due to the recession. And (as the economy recovered), if the city had made it clear that they prefer new apartment proposals to be functionally available to a wide population, then perhaps we would have had housing that’s designed that way, vs. the megadorm proposals.
Perhaps more importantly, it points to the need to come to some kind of agreement with UCD.
Unless we figure out ways to build housing within the current system, we are always going to have housing shortfalls regardless of an agreement with UC Davis.
From above:
“If we want to keep Measure R, we need to figure out ways to address these problems. “
I am not sure that we have not, for better or worse, “figured out ways to address these problems”. Just off the top of my out of town head we have accepted the development of projects of various types such as the Cannery, several small complexes in central Davis and now Trackside in OED. We have accepted Sterling, Lincoln 40 and have Plaza 2555 and Nishi pending. All of these have been accompanied by UCDs promise of increased student housing.
So I guess I am a little confused about how this is not addressing the problems. Note I didn’t sy solving, I said addressing.
Measure R is a root cause of our housing crisis, preventing the City from responding to the changing economic environment. With 55% of our residents being renters and facing housing insecurity due to the 0.2% vacancy rate, it is fair to say that the majority of residents of Davis are materially harmed by the continuation of Measure R. I don’t see how anyone can justify supporting the continuation of a policy that harms a majority of the residents of Davis.
We should all take responsibility for the impacts of our advocacy, even when (perhaps especially when) those impacts were not our intentions.
Tia: I guess I find it interesting in light of your complaints about Trackside, my views of Cannery, the housing crisis in general that you believe the current situation is tenable. How long can high density infill sustain us? What about other housing needs and affordable housing?
David
“I guess I find it interesting in light of your complaints about Trackside, my views of Cannery, the housing crisis in general that you believe the current situation is tenable.”
What I find “interesting” is that in light of my positions over time, being in support of both Nishi 1 and 2, and in support of the Lincoln 40, neutral on Sterling, you would then cherry pick my opposition to Trackside ( which will help no one except the handful of affluent renters, builders and investors all of whom are wealthy enough to need no “help”) and use that to state that I “…believe the current situation to be tenable”. I have favored more projects than I have opposed and that is verifiable right here on the Vanguard. You are well aware of all of this and still claim I have called our situation “tenable”. Really?!!!!
You’re missing my point here. Trackside is a symptom of the larger problem here – we don’t have a viable housing policy. As you know, I agree with you that Trackside and frankly Cannery are not helping anyone who are experiencing the housing crisis, but the lack of viable alternatives, have forced us to look at greater density in the city, which has produced conflict and your case, Trackside. I’m not cherry picking your opposition to Trackside, I’m using it to illustrate the larger problem.
I find it ironic that in an article stating that the “perfect prevents us from addressing community needs”, you’re suggesting the Cannery does nothing to meet those needs.
My point is not to defend the Cannery, nor do I know if it’s serving the “community need” that you so often refer to. (Whoever/whatever that is.) But the Cannery is relatively dense, primarily middle-class housing, and is functionally a peripheral development. It is almost a “poster child” for that type of development. And, it likely helped saved us from Covell Village.
Also still wondering what the delay is, regarding the Chiles Ranch workforce-housing development.
“, you’re suggesting the Cannery does nothing to meet those needs.”
Define our needs – I would argue that Cannery doesn’t meet any of them. It doesn’t provide housing to young families, it doesn’t provide housing that is affordable, they allowed ADUs to count for their affordable count even though there was no assurance that the ADUs would be utilized by income qualified individuals, they don’t provide housing for students. So it’s not a case where it provides housing to critical needs but isn’t net zero energy or not dense enough, it simply provided large and expensive homes on a peripheral site and low density way to people who were living in the Bay Area.
I’m not the one who is slicing and dicing “our needs”. In fact, I’d suggest that it’s fluid, and depends somewhat on what’s available in terms of housing. (I’d also suggest that this term is incorrectly brandished about as if it were some entirely objective/factual reality, with distinct and non-overlapping “categories”.)
I’m not sure that’s true. And, what about older families? Are they not a “need”, per your definition? Also, if they’re “shut out”, wouldn’t they compete for the same housing as younger families?
Entirely subjective.
True, regarding income-qualified. Not sure that it’s true, regarding housing for students.
A subjective statement (e.g., regarding “large, expensive, and low-density”). In fact, I’d argue the opposite.
Not sure if it ultimately attracted primarily those who lived in the Bay Area. Do you know that for a fact?
But, even if it did, is that not a “community need” (as you define it) e.g., those now working at UCD (perhaps as a result of their expansion), or those with some connection to Davis, etc.? In general, do you think folks just “up and moved” to Davis from the Bay Area, without any reason or connection to Davis? Simply because the development was built?
is that not a “community need”
A community need would be to provide housing for people who work in Davis but have to commute – that includes in my view – students, young families, workers. A secondary need would be to provide housing for people to downsize from existing housing and therefore free up larger housing for others. To my mind providing additional large, expensive homes, is not high on the list of needs.
I do realize, however, that many newcomers (as well as “oldcomers”) in Davis end up commuting/traveling to somewhere else (e.g., Sacramento, or the Bay Area). If not true for one family member, perhaps true for another. Probably driving, for the most part.
We live in a relatively fluid, mobile society.
So, you’re stating that no one (or few) who move into the Cannery are students, young families, local workers (including those associated with UCD or Davis), or those moving from one dwelling to another within Davis (or from nearby). They’re all just interlopers from far-away places, who heard about the latest development in Davis and rushed to buy, there. Including (but not limited to) those in the Cannery’s townhouses, apartments, and auxiliary units.
And, since they’re expensive (in your view), that also precludes “internal needs”. And, you somehow expect future developments to be cheaper, I guess.
If Davis were an island, it would be a lot easier to define and plan for “internal needs”. But, it is not an island.
“(or few) who move into the Cannery are students, young families, local workers (including those associated with UCD or Davis), or those moving from one dwelling to another within Davis (or from nearby).”
Primarily is what I’m stating
Personally, I blame those “postage-stamp-sized” yards, for driving up the cost, reducing density, and wasting water in the Cannery.
Should have really stacked folks in there – I’m sure that they want to live that way, and have no other “choices”, regardless.
Well, I’m not sure that it’s true.
You seem to be unsure about a lot – just saying
I was trying to put it nicely.
Let’s say it more directly: You’ve provided no evidence to back up your statement.
Not sure that’s true
Pretty funny. 🙂
Found an interesting nugget in an article that otherwise reads like an infomercial for the project in the SF Chronicle: “It’s tempting to view the Cannery as a cynical appropriation of the farm-to-table movement to sell $800,000 homes. If you ask around in Davis, a town that historically shuns new development, you’ll find plenty of naysayers who slam it for profiting off the region’s agricultural roots without offering housing that most ag workers can afford.”
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Welcome-to-the-agrihood-Farm-to-tableau-living-9151307.php
Are “ag workers” on your list of Davis’ internal needs?
Do all of the dwellings cost $800K plus? And, isn’t some rental housing included? (Can’t remember if it’s “Affordable”, or just “affordable”.)
You don’t like urban farms?
That was a point specific to the article on the Farm to Fork movement. My point – more broadly – is that the paragraph illustrates the perception of Nishi and then never refutes its accuracy even as they play up the farm to fork aspect.
I believe you meant the Cannery, not Nishi.
My broader point is that it’s nearly impossible to create a definition of “internal needs” which is both accepted and logical, and it’s even less likely that a particular development will then meet and be occupied by the specific, targeted population.
(Perhaps the Cannery provides an example of that point, but apparently no one knows who those folks are, what connections that might have to Davis, or where they came from.) All we really know is that we “don’t like ’em”. In addition, they’ve already had the “nerve” to complain about changes to the development. (Just kidding.) 🙂
(I’ll leave housing that’s specifically oriented toward students out of this discussion, since the conversation would then drift back into what UCD’s responsibility is, lack of agreement between the city and UCD, etc.)
Another thing folk seem to miss… students often (but nowhere near a majority, but a significant minority) are married, and/or have kids, and the student(s) and/or spouse often work as ‘minimum’/low wages. Students are not all single, some have children… they are not “monolithic”, as some would categorize them.
Not part of our reality, as students, as I was the first person in my immediate family and ancestors to go to college and graduate… spouse had one or two that did. My familily’s tradition was that you don’t marry (much less have kids) until the guy/couple were able to pay all the costs thereof. Yeah, a ‘dinosaur’… or, a ‘mythological being’…
Spouse and I waited until I had the job that could support a family, before we married or procreated….some folk don’t do that, and they are very important, too.
Not sure of your point. The number of students is fairly small. Graduate students are much more likely to be older and have kids.
“Measure R is a root cause of our housing crisis”
Respectfully, I do not believe that Measure R is the “root cause” of anything. In my view, Measure R was a response to the perception of over growth, or perhaps “growth for the sake of growth”.
What I see as a “root cause” is lack of planning and collaboration. For at least as long as I have been in Davis ( 1979), there have been two entities ( the city and the university) making separate decisions as though the actions of one did not fundamentally and inextricably affect the realities faced by the other. When convenient to one or the other, either UCD or the city has acted essentially as though the other did not even exist. This lack of proactive collaboration leads to increased cost in terms of both money and time, needless distrust and animosity and an unnecessarily adversarial relationship. For me, this is a root cause, not only of the housing crisis, but of some unnecessarily expensive services (firefighters), same with policing, and probably a whole host of lost opportunities of scale that have not even occurred to me.
Ahhh… David’s 8:25 post, plus some of which is also espoused in the ‘candidate thread’, and others, seems to clarify what “folk”want in town… for new residential development…
Dense; zero net energy; positive income, over time, to City; exclusive bike/pedestrian amenities greater than for MV (and as/more direct and convenient); aesthetically pleasing; not affecting any neighborhoods, except for the better; no change in the City footprint, unless there is a vote of the people; and affordable to students and minimum wage earners and their famiies. And, the sooner the better.
Want fries with that? No charge.
Damn good we have measure R to make sure each and every one of those items are covered… to everyone’s satisfaction… we now should adopt a measure I… to make sure the Measure R provisions apply to infill sites.
It’s the lack of density, not measure R. It’s the fear of density due to parking minimums, which make dense bad. It’s a non-belief in density: People will visit someone in a new small footprint home, and wonder where the bedrooms are (upstairs, kids!).
Now it’s time for Create-Your-Own-Interpretation-of-a-Metaphor: Jesus calls for an Uber to take him across the Bypass. It arrives, it’s a solar-powered Easter Bunny; Moses is the driver. However, Uber – now just a brand and a shell, formally-speaking, of its former Neo-Liberal clusterf*ckeritude – is a legitimate public transit provider fully integrated into the region; the drivers are unionized. Jesus is happy to pay a considerable sum for the trip to his rent-controlled apartment in Davis Downtown.