City of Davis

The meeting was packed with folks, many of whom lined up to speak on the issue of the Mace 391/Leland Ranch Ag Easement.  A large number of them came out in support of moving forward with the easement, though members of the business and tech community offered powerful counter arguments.

In the end, the handwriting was on the wall and despite people providing strong questions about the actual impact on the closing efficiency of the city and Yolo Land Trust, the council was simply unwilling to take that chance and voted 5-0 for option one – finalizing the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) conservation easement.

2013 might go down as the year that the Davis City Council put a number of longstanding issues to bed.  If it seems like we have been dealing with Cannery, water, and the firefighters for a long time, it is true.  If there is one point that the Enterprise editorial raised that I agree with, it is that it has been a long road for Cannery.

However, it is also a road that may not end with a council vote – just as water did not end with a council vote and may not end even with a citizen’s vote.

By Tia Will

My story begins almost three years ago after I decided to downsize and bought a house in Old East Davis within direct line of sight of the east-west railroad line. I gave a lot of thought to cost, location, walkability, general neighborhood mix, and how I would adjust to the noise from the trains.

What I did not give any thought to was the safely, or ability to get out of my essentially cul-de-sac street should I need to evacuate rapidly. From what I have heard, it does not seem that many of us look into this issue prior to moving in. It seems that we just make the assumption that someone will have looked into the safety issues prior to approving or building the project. Or we simply don’t consider it at all.

Discussion Has Focused on Details Rather Than Core Philosophical Issues: The Davis Enterprise‘s editorial this morning argues that there has been enough talk and debate and that it is time to build on Cannery and “turn an old eyesore into a new neighborhood.”

“The Hunt-Wesson tomato plant shut down in October 1999. That’s right, Davis has been dealing with this crumbling, derelict eyesore on the northern end of town for more than 14 years,” the Enterprise writes, and they note all of the changes that have occurred since 1999.

When the Davis City Council voted 4-1 last month to reexamine the possibility of pausing the conservation easement process at Mace 391, one of the concerns that even proponents of the business park expressed was the possibility of harming the city’s reputation and thus prospects for getting future easements, and harming the ability of Yolo Land Trust (YLT) to do their work on behalf of communities like Davis.

A letter dated November 12, 2013, from the US Department of Agriculture’s State Conservationist Carlos Suarez, addressed to Mayor Joe Krovoza, indicates that the consequences would be serious and grave.

By Lee Bartholomew

The possibility of the property’s re-emergence as a business park is on my mind. Aside from the obviously bad business practice associated with a change of heart in respect to this property, I wonder at the economics of such a venture. First, as to data collection; have you, or has staff, seen any demand or feasibility studies for larger business parks in the region? Any meaningful absorption forecast?

It would seem as though these questions need some study prior to a sea change for the property. A change to spec development, in my view, reflects a major policy decision about the nature of land use in Davis.

For the last several months, one of my frustrations was attempting to figure out why it seemed like, every step of the way, the Covell Village folks seemed to trying to stop the Cannery.  It was all below the surface – no one could put a finger on it and no one would go on the record.

The most tangible thing I heard was that Tandem Properties would not allow an easement on their Cranbrook Property.  There were some suggestions that they were trying to leverage joint planning while, in public at least, they denied interest in developing Covell Village for another 20 to 30 years.

By David Morris

Donations target Davis Roots, Hacker Lab expansion, and Wet Lab Incubator: Capitol Corridor Ventures (CCV) announced today that it has pledged to donate 600,000 (USD) to support the Davis technology community in 2014. The pledge focuses on three specific areas of the tech ecosystem, and includes funds for Davis Roots, an expansion of Hacker Lab into Davis, and establishing the Davis Wet Lab Incubator Challenge Fund.

The CCV pledge highlights the increasing momentum of organizations that support Davis tech entrepreneurs. “We are very fortunate to have so many positive entrepreneurial activities happening in Davis right now, and it is important that we continue to build on this momentum,” said David Morris, CEO of CCV who also serves as Managing Director of the techDAVIS Business Association. “This pledge is intended to provide a boost to the Davis tech ecosystem that will have long term impact.”

Following the series of deals cut by ConAgra on Cannery, it seems likely that the council will approve the project at this point.  That, of course, does not quite give the project a green light because one of the biggest remaining questions is whether the deals struck by the food giant will be sufficient to diminish or eliminate the possibility of a group putting it on the ballot.

There has been for some time a belief that the neighboring Covell Village developers have been either passively or actively attempting to stop the development at Cannery.

By Matt Williams

At the beginning of Tuesday night’s Staff presentation Mike Webb stepped through the key components of the Development Agreement and then turned the microphone over to Ashley Feeney and Mary Jo Bryan for the announcement of the Monday agreement reached by New Home Company and Choices for Healthy Aging (CHA).  Taken together those elements represented the culmination of a whole lot of listening by the ConAgra/New Home Company team, and a whole lot of persistence by the many and varied interest groups around Davis that felt they had a vested interest in the Cannery project.

Although it often appeared to be more painful than it needed to be, that process is a textbook example of the old adage that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  It could also be called a Win-Win agreement.

By Matt Williams

Before a standing room only crowd, the Cannery hearing kicked into gear at 7:40 with a presentation by Mike Webb that “focused on public testimony” and that would include focused elements covering the EIR, Traffic and the plans for the Covell Corridor.

Based on the size of the crowd, I was expecting lots of entertaining fireworks as the evening progressed.  When the dust settled; however, there was indeed plenty of entertainment, but all the fireworks had been defused.

By Lydia Delis-Schlosser

Response to Eileen Samitz’s Op Ed Article last Sunday: Public discussion and vigorous debate are fundamental to the American political process. Analyses from differing perspectives can illuminate a path to reasonable compromises that result in fair, equitable, economically practical solutions. That process becomes subverted, however, when proponents of one view denigrate and disparage others who have legitimate but contrasting ideas.

That, unfortunately, has occurred throughout the past several years of deliberations about The Cannery project proposed for the site of the demolished Hunt-Wesson processing facility on East Covell Boulevard.

by Tia Will

My expertise is not in city planning or disaster management. My expertise is in the area of human health and prevention. From my thirty years in medicine, I do know that one would never design a hospital with only two exit doors, side by side onto a crowded thoroughfare. This is the basic design plan for a community projected to have approximately 1,500 inhabitants.  I have many reasons for not favoring this project. There is only one however, that I believe is both a deal breaker and which may or may not have been adequately addressed.

I do not know the answer, because I have not read the entire EIR. However, I do know that a previous concern I had about the proximity to the north-south rail line with unknown contents of its cars was not addressed in the EIR, nor were any of our city council members able or willing to respond with the answer although two did say they would look into it. This issue was only satisfactorily addressed by one of my neighbors with extensive experience with the railroads. Not an entirely reassuring omission on the part of the city, which prompts me to question what else might be both missing, and essential.

by Nancy Price

As the City Council decision over The Cannery project looms, those who wish to save the mature valley oaks and cedars are making the case that these trees have “value” – a different kind of value than total clearing and leveling of the site to build a project profitable for the developers and to provide specific economic benefits for the city.

It seems to me that implicit in the comments that these trees are mature, from about 50 – 150 or more years, have for years been thriving on their own without any special care or irrigation, have for years provided habitat for various species, and have provide other eco-system functions such as absorbing CO2, is another value – that these trees just have the inherent right to exist as they are. Furthermore, it seems to me that those who want to save these trees are also implicitly making the case that these trees are part of the living commons of nature within the city of which we are the guardians for present and future generations.

In an op-ed this weekend, Mary Jo Bryan, and Don and Merna Villarejo, former members of CHA (Choices for Healthy Aging), note that Cannery “will be the last large subdivision approved in Davis for the foreseeable future” and at 547 planned housing units, “it is large enough to provide something for everyone.”

“Unfortunately,” they write, “after more than two years of negotiations with ConAgra representatives, the owner of the property, and Davis City Council members, an agreement has not been reached to provide sufficient acceptable new housing at The Cannery for seniors or people with a disability.”

By Marc Hoshovsky

The process of maintaining open-space around Davis, and the use of your parcel-tax dollars collected specifically for open space conservation, are more at-risk than I have seen since 2000 (or before).

On October 22, the Davis City Council voted 4-1 (Krovoza dissented, thankfully) to consider using the 391-acre Leland Ranch, purchased in July 2011 with open-space tax funding, as a business park. The Ranch is located on north and east of the Mace Curve in East Davis, where Mace Blvd turns into Covell Blvd.