Land Use/Open Space

The leading voice in that night’s consensus was Councilmember Stephen Souza, who dismissed the project as just not having a “wow factor.”  During the 2008 campaign in an article in the California Aggie, Councilmember Souza made “wow factor” a part of his core reelection message. In that article he outlined his four components of “wow,” saying:

This debate took place in 2006 during a very different economic time.  Nevertheless the Target Development Agreement included 100,000 dollars for “community enhancement.”  The Davis Downtown Business Association submitted a proposal to city staff for the the use of that money in order to conduct a multi-media marking campaign to help focus people on shopping in the downtown.

Members of the community came forward during the item to ask council to include 5th Street among the projects that they would seek money for.

This is another example of Councilmember Stephen Souza coming up with a clever idea during the council meeting but not having throught through the implementation of the process.  The form and structure of the committee changed drastically throughout the process, but the goal was for the committee to make a recommendation to the City Council by the end of 2009.  To do that, it was scheduled to meet nine times between July 30 and November 19.

Councilmembers Sue Greenwald and Stephen Souza repeatedly attempted to delay this discussion, in part based on the lateness of the hour and in part based on not only the complexity of the issues but also problems that they had with the project.

Staff recommends full approval of the project in each of its component parts. The request is to change the land use designations for the site from agriculture, where the property currently contains a horse farm, to residential.

After a lengthy period of outreach by the developers to the Wildhorse Each Neighborhood Association and other adjacent neighborhoods as well as the community at large, and working with city staff, the neighborhood association opted to oppose the project. Nevertheless, city staff believes that “this site plan configuration is acceptable, and addresses most of staff concerns expressed about previous plans.”

The motion approved by council was made by Councilmember Lamar Heystek and represented a compromise over the original staff recommendation which would require 10,000 dollars for a third party review of the process but come outside of the grant money.  This would come from the 43,000 but reduce the cost of the third party review to 5,000.

During the course of discussion there seemed to be no great sense to exempt a specific property for a business park proposal.  There was some concern that it would lead to an overly complicated process and a member of the public, Pam Nieberg, pointed out from the original legal advice that any exemption for a specific property could lead to a lawsuit unless all properties were considered for exemption.

The BEDC was reluctant to permanently recommend against this consideration based on the notion that they are in the midst of receiving a staff report on the city’s business park land needs.  Depending on the outcome of that study, they might wish to revisit the issue should the study show the definitive and immediate need for a business park.

The actions taken by the Planning Commission on Wednesday were fivefold.  First, they certified the Final EIR for the Wildhorse Ranch proposal, including findings of fact, statement of overriding considerations, and mitigation monitoring plan in the staff report.  Second, they approved the General Plan Amendment Resolution that establishes the land use designations for the Wildhorse Ranch.  Third they introduced the ordinance that rezones and establishes the use and development standards for the Wildhorse Ranch site.  Fourth, they approved the Affordable Housing Plan.  And finally they introduced the ordinance to approve the Development Agreement between the City and the Developer, Parlin Whildhorse Ranch.  Again, this item was approved as received as it was not complete at the time of the meeting.

DeLano’s Markets is coming to West Lake.  The talks had been on and off for much of the last six months.  The deal at one point appeared dead when the owners pulled the financing, however due to the persistence of DANG (Davis Advocates for Neighborhood Groceries), city staff kept the pressure on the owners to put something together.  Those talks had heated up for the past month and they made steady progress until last week when the Vanguard announced the two sides were close to an agreement.

The council in January decided to punt after the Natural Resource Commission recommended an ordinance that would ban woodburning.  Given the time of year and the fact that it was the end of the burning season, it made some sense to defer a decision in this case.  The council will now hear the issue once again and perhaps make some sort of determination.

In April, the Davis City Council passed a resolution recommending GHG reduction thresholds and standards for new residential housing projects.  It set as its initial goal a 2.4 metric ton reduction per residence, or a 44% reduction of GHG emission for new homes.  This project more than doubles the city’s goals.

The Vanguard had previously reported the deal between the Delanos Grocery Store Chain and the owners of Westlake to be dead after the owners pulled their financial offer to put up the capital necessary to re-fixturize the interior of the store that the owners themselves gutted following the closure of Food Fair.

This particular letter was sent to the Yolo County Commission on Aging and Adult Services.  It appears from the letter that the constitution of the committee has been altered since its inception.

There are four key issues in question.  First is the total number of units.  That number was agreed to as 107 units in an MOU signed in June of 2008.  However, city staff has recommended 21 second units (Granny flats).  The neighbors have argued that that constitutes an additional 21 units on the site, pushing the total number of units to 128, which violated their agreement with the developer and greatly increases density.  The developer has been willing to compromise at 10 units.  However, the neighbors continue to argue that they already signed an agreement for zero additional units, and thus they should not have to come off that number.

That is the issue of 215 acres of business park build out over a 25 year period.  Granted that is a long period of time, but the issue itself forces a discussion of peripheral development and building on farmland.  The city has only 140 acres of potential business park with Cannery included in the mix.  That means even considering Cannery the city is looking at 75 acres of development on agricultural land.