City of Davis

The Cannery Project has in the last few months taken a side seat to the Mace 391 issue.  However, as the Davis City Council had its first workshop on the project last week and is scheduled for public hearings and questioning of the applicant, it seemed like this was a good time to look at some of the critical issues facing the project.

Much like we did over the weekend, these are not an exhaustive list of questions, but rather an effort to start the community discussion.

by Matt Williams

The first paragraph in last Saturday’s article on the upcoming Tuesday Cannery workshop read, “There will be no decision made on Cannery on Tuesday.  According to the staff report, “The purpose of the October 22 workshop is to introduce the project and applications to the City Council and the public. Although many of the materials will be available in advance of the meeting, Councilmembers are not expected to have fully absorbed the materials by the time of the October 22nd workshop.”

. . . no decision about Cannery was made.

I honestly believe, and have believed for some time, that the biggest mistake that was made in the lead up to the June 11 vote on Mace 391/Leland Ranch was that we didn’t get to vet the proposal in advance on a public site like the Vanguard.  Why?  Because every day thousands of people read this site and we get sometimes hundreds of comments.

Had we gotten to run a story – let us say on May 11 – we would have foreseen the problems that occurred just a month later.  We would have been able to discuss the ramifications of backing out of the grant process.  We would have discussed some of the concerns about the land use implications of building east of Mace, and the need for a business park and for finding new sources of revenue.

The Davis City Council has asked the Innovation Park Task Force to reconvene to initiate a community engagement process, providing opportunities for community dialogue about possible innovation center options and related issues.

The meeting, to take place on Tuesday night, will feature Rochelle Swanson and ostensibly Lucas Frerichs from the Davis City Council.  However, Councilmember Frerichs will be out of the country at this time.  It also will have Annaya Choudhuri and George Hague from the planning Commission and Steve Golemme and Brian Horsfield from what used to be the Business and Economic Development Commission.

by Rob White

With all of the discussion around a technology (or innovation) business park in Davis, questions that are often asked include the appropriate size (acreage), location, and justification. Though I can’t fully answer any of these questions, partially because some of the answers are dependent on community preference, I was asked by some in the community to attempt to provide a framework for some of the discussion.

Before we explore some of these parameters, I think it is important to note that this conversation in Davis (and the US in general) is not a new one. But there does seem to be a lot of energy lately, both at the local and national levels. And let’s make sure we are calibrated with the understanding that the terms tech park, innovation park, science park and business park are all relatively interchangeable for the purposes of our discussion.

Staff Gets an Earful on the Breakdown of Transparency Back in June – The agenda item may have said informational, but the decision that the council would make on Tuesday night was critical to the future of the possibility of a business park at Mace 391, or at least the discussion of its possibility.

The council would open that door by a 4-1 vote, with Mayor Joe Krovoza vehemently dissenting, on a motion made by Councilmember Rochelle Swanson.  Her motion moved to direct staff to bring back on November 12 an item “with a full range of options for the Mace 391/Leland Ranch properties.”

The Davis Enterprise is now the latest entity lending its voice to re-examining Mace 391, arguing that “conservation” and “business interests can both be satisfied.”  This follows similar calls from the Vanguard, tech and business leaders and the Davis Chamber of Commerce.

“In a perfect world, there would be time for all competing interests to fully discuss important civic issues before nagging realities like deadlines set in,” the paper’s editorial writes.  “In the real world, however, decisions sometimes must be made in haste, with far-reaching and unpleasant consequences.”

By Gregg Herrington, Rose Cholewinski, Jeremy Brooks, Dennis Lindsay, Chuck Roe, Dick Luna, Jeff Adamski, Michael Bisch and Kemble Pope

The City of Davis owns several hundred acres of land on I-80 at Mace Blvd. This land, north of I-80 and east of Mace Blvd, is arguably the most valuable asset in our City’s portfolio. Yet, in this time of extended economic uncertainty, it would probably surprise most Davis residents that this asset has not been subjected to a wide ranging community discussion and has gone virtually unexamined for the highest and best community benefit.

To be fair, two City commissions have discussed Howatt Ranch as a sports park and Leland Ranch as an open space preserve. City staff has also processed a federal grant application with our long time partners in open space preservation, the Yolo Land Trust, on the 391-acre Leland Ranch.

Yesterday we laid out for the public, in the Vanguard‘s Sunday Commentary, the notion that Davis’ most important discussion is its economic development picture.

At that time, we closed by writing, if we want to preserve the great things about this community, if we want the community to thrive, not just survive, then we need to have this full discussion and we need to have it soon.

For the last several months, Davis has been having a debate over the Cannery Property.  Make no mistake, there are a number of critical questions which will not be resolved this week and may not be resolved in a month when the council makes a final decision.

I’m not going to pretend like these are not critical questions in the community – do we need housing?  What kind of housing do we need?  Should we put housing at the Cannery site which has a number of serious limitations?  And then there are the project-specific concerns such as connectivity.

There will be no decision made on Cannery on Tuesday.  According to the staff report, “The purpose of the October 22 workshop is to introduce the project and applications to the City Council and the public. Although many of the materials will be available in advance of the meeting, Councilmembers are not expected to have fully absorbed the materials by the time of the October 22nd workshop.”

The city council has assigned a subcommittee of Mayor Joe Krovoza and Councilmember Lucas Frerichs, oddly both of whom are either opposed to or skeptical of the project, to work with staff to develop the Project Development Agreement. “As those discussions are ongoing, a Draft Development Agreement is expected to be presented for City Council consideration prior to the November 12th public hearing,” staff reports.