Hold onto your hats folks, if last night was any indication of whats to come it is going to be a bumpy ride. The General Plan Housing Element Steering Committee last night heard two of the most controversial locations for future housing developments--the Covell Village Site and the Nishi Property.
As most people reading this undoubtedly know, Covell Village was the site of the first ever Measure J vote that would convert prime, class 1, agricultural land on the periphery of Davis at the intersection of Covell and Poleline into a housing development. The voters in November of 2005 overwhelmingly rejected the project by nearly a 60-40 margin. However, the Covell Partners, on this evening led by John Whitcombe, are bringing it back in a scaled down version.
The most alarming statement came from staff who suggested that according to City Attorney Harriet Steiner and City Manager Bill Emlen, if the Covell Property were combined with the adjacent Lewis Property (site of Hunt-Wesson), it would not need a Measure J vote. I have to greet that assertion with a good deal of skepticism.
According to John Whitcombe, instead of an 1800 unit project of single family homes designed to be affordable for families (if your family can afford 600,000 dollar homes), this will be an 800 unit site for senior housing complete with greenbelt access and oriented toward bikes, pedestrians, and electric vehicles. And, the seniors will have access to yet another golf course.
Mr. Whitcombe even stole a page from the Tsakapolous Stem Cell project, bringing in a geriatric medicine researcher to sell us on the need for a senior site that would provide housing and at-home medical facilities for seniors. Nevermind that the big need in housing is for new families. Nevermind that according to many on the Senior Citizens Commission we do not need Senior Housing, particularly on the periphery. Nevermind that these were many of the same reasons the proposal at Oeste Ranch was opposed by so many in this community.
The proponents of this offered several advantages to building on this property including that it is the peripheral property closest to the core of Davis, it would be contiguous with the city on three sides, it would free up other larger lots to go for families, and it would enable the completion of the greenbelt bikeway access across the northern part of town. Moreover, they argued it would create a permanent ag buffer along the northern line of the city to create an urban limit line.
One of the more interesting arguments came from Kevin Wolf, one of the chief proponents of the Measure X ballot measure in 2005 and chair of the committee. Mr. Wolf argued that by creating this development it would produce enough money to enable the city to fix the interection of Covell and Poleline that is going to be even more stressed with future traffic.
However, skeptics, and you can count me as one of them, argue that you are not going to fix that intersection by producing even more residences along the intersection. Furthermore you have at the Woodland end of Poleline the new massive Spring Lake Development, the new Costco, the Super-Target and other commercial developments that will greatly increase the traffic.
Furthermore, there is a question about how much revenue that this will produce because as county land, only a portion of the tax revenue goes to the city, even if annexed to the city.
Then, there are further problems of pollution that are exacerbated if they are planning to put seniors on that site. There is the wastewater treatment issue that sounds like a very big issue. Furthermore, other problems include a limited access to the site, previous agreements on housing mitigation along the Poleline corridor, and it's proximity to a flood plain.
Most vexing to me, is that the previous proposal was defeated handily by the voters of Davis. It has been less than two years and the developers cannot wait to go at it again. This is, class one, prime agricultural land, the infrastructure and access is extremely problematic. I understand the contiguity issue and the lure of having the core of Davis relatively close, but given these other issues, this is not a good place to build new housing, and I particularly have a problem with it being a senior housing project, which does nothing to solve the larger housing problems. So, they would develop this spot and still be looking for tracts for affordable and family housing. That makes no sense to me.
Overwhelmingly given the nature of the committee, this was approved, but the fight for this will go on for quite some time.
Meanwhile the Nishi property holds many strong allures to those looking to build high density housing near the city core. Kevin Wolf spoke very strongly about building this into a very high density property with over 1000 units, five to six story buildings, but no access to the Richards Blvd. This was a way to show as an example how new urbanism with environmentally friendly densification at the core would reduce the need for traffic. Or so he proposed.
But it's not clear that you can deny access to Richards Blvd, nor should you. The problem here is that they will be adding a large amount of traffic potentially to the Richards underpass as the only traffic outlet from this property to the core.
Proponents argued that it's proximity to the university and to bike paths leading directly onto campus make this an ideal spot for student housing.
However, there were a number of unrealistic assumptions brought into this discussion and it seemed clear as people such as Mark Spencer suggested there would need to be university buy-in to make access from this property by vehicle onto campus.
The assumption is that by providing housing here, less people would drive from the highway to campus via Richards. On the other hand, it is not clear what it would do to existing traffic flows to add a large number of people making a left at the Olive Blvd. intersection.
The problems of traffic and access are prohibitive. Several said problems with parking could be mitigated by charging for parking spots. It is my experience that this will not get students to give up their cars, rather it might impact the ability to rent the units at market rate since parking would become a built-in cost. Students indeed like easy access to campus and may utilize bikes. But, students also like the ability to leave town via the car and the idea that we could reduce traffic flow by adding housing seems to be very optimistic.
Another problem is that without an extremely high density housing, the project is not viable. So they are talking about a minimum of 462 units and now a high point of 770 or higher. The talk was of sacrificing views in favor of land preservation. Density is a laudable goal, particularly near the core, but this is an area that is characterized by bungalows and now they are talking about 5 or six story buildings?
Given the present design this seems like an attractive location--it's close to campus, close to the core, close to the highway, not building on prime agricultural land, but the problem of access and traffic could be fatal. Nevertheless, the committee overwhelmingly and enthusiastically endorsed the spot. I suspect the community will view this somewhat more circumspectly.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
As most people reading this undoubtedly know, Covell Village was the site of the first ever Measure J vote that would convert prime, class 1, agricultural land on the periphery of Davis at the intersection of Covell and Poleline into a housing development. The voters in November of 2005 overwhelmingly rejected the project by nearly a 60-40 margin. However, the Covell Partners, on this evening led by John Whitcombe, are bringing it back in a scaled down version.
The most alarming statement came from staff who suggested that according to City Attorney Harriet Steiner and City Manager Bill Emlen, if the Covell Property were combined with the adjacent Lewis Property (site of Hunt-Wesson), it would not need a Measure J vote. I have to greet that assertion with a good deal of skepticism.
According to John Whitcombe, instead of an 1800 unit project of single family homes designed to be affordable for families (if your family can afford 600,000 dollar homes), this will be an 800 unit site for senior housing complete with greenbelt access and oriented toward bikes, pedestrians, and electric vehicles. And, the seniors will have access to yet another golf course.
Mr. Whitcombe even stole a page from the Tsakapolous Stem Cell project, bringing in a geriatric medicine researcher to sell us on the need for a senior site that would provide housing and at-home medical facilities for seniors. Nevermind that the big need in housing is for new families. Nevermind that according to many on the Senior Citizens Commission we do not need Senior Housing, particularly on the periphery. Nevermind that these were many of the same reasons the proposal at Oeste Ranch was opposed by so many in this community.
The proponents of this offered several advantages to building on this property including that it is the peripheral property closest to the core of Davis, it would be contiguous with the city on three sides, it would free up other larger lots to go for families, and it would enable the completion of the greenbelt bikeway access across the northern part of town. Moreover, they argued it would create a permanent ag buffer along the northern line of the city to create an urban limit line.
One of the more interesting arguments came from Kevin Wolf, one of the chief proponents of the Measure X ballot measure in 2005 and chair of the committee. Mr. Wolf argued that by creating this development it would produce enough money to enable the city to fix the interection of Covell and Poleline that is going to be even more stressed with future traffic.
However, skeptics, and you can count me as one of them, argue that you are not going to fix that intersection by producing even more residences along the intersection. Furthermore you have at the Woodland end of Poleline the new massive Spring Lake Development, the new Costco, the Super-Target and other commercial developments that will greatly increase the traffic.
Furthermore, there is a question about how much revenue that this will produce because as county land, only a portion of the tax revenue goes to the city, even if annexed to the city.
Then, there are further problems of pollution that are exacerbated if they are planning to put seniors on that site. There is the wastewater treatment issue that sounds like a very big issue. Furthermore, other problems include a limited access to the site, previous agreements on housing mitigation along the Poleline corridor, and it's proximity to a flood plain.
Most vexing to me, is that the previous proposal was defeated handily by the voters of Davis. It has been less than two years and the developers cannot wait to go at it again. This is, class one, prime agricultural land, the infrastructure and access is extremely problematic. I understand the contiguity issue and the lure of having the core of Davis relatively close, but given these other issues, this is not a good place to build new housing, and I particularly have a problem with it being a senior housing project, which does nothing to solve the larger housing problems. So, they would develop this spot and still be looking for tracts for affordable and family housing. That makes no sense to me.
Overwhelmingly given the nature of the committee, this was approved, but the fight for this will go on for quite some time.
Meanwhile the Nishi property holds many strong allures to those looking to build high density housing near the city core. Kevin Wolf spoke very strongly about building this into a very high density property with over 1000 units, five to six story buildings, but no access to the Richards Blvd. This was a way to show as an example how new urbanism with environmentally friendly densification at the core would reduce the need for traffic. Or so he proposed.
But it's not clear that you can deny access to Richards Blvd, nor should you. The problem here is that they will be adding a large amount of traffic potentially to the Richards underpass as the only traffic outlet from this property to the core.
Proponents argued that it's proximity to the university and to bike paths leading directly onto campus make this an ideal spot for student housing.
However, there were a number of unrealistic assumptions brought into this discussion and it seemed clear as people such as Mark Spencer suggested there would need to be university buy-in to make access from this property by vehicle onto campus.
The assumption is that by providing housing here, less people would drive from the highway to campus via Richards. On the other hand, it is not clear what it would do to existing traffic flows to add a large number of people making a left at the Olive Blvd. intersection.
The problems of traffic and access are prohibitive. Several said problems with parking could be mitigated by charging for parking spots. It is my experience that this will not get students to give up their cars, rather it might impact the ability to rent the units at market rate since parking would become a built-in cost. Students indeed like easy access to campus and may utilize bikes. But, students also like the ability to leave town via the car and the idea that we could reduce traffic flow by adding housing seems to be very optimistic.
Another problem is that without an extremely high density housing, the project is not viable. So they are talking about a minimum of 462 units and now a high point of 770 or higher. The talk was of sacrificing views in favor of land preservation. Density is a laudable goal, particularly near the core, but this is an area that is characterized by bungalows and now they are talking about 5 or six story buildings?
Given the present design this seems like an attractive location--it's close to campus, close to the core, close to the highway, not building on prime agricultural land, but the problem of access and traffic could be fatal. Nevertheless, the committee overwhelmingly and enthusiastically endorsed the spot. I suspect the community will view this somewhat more circumspectly.
---Doug Paul Davis reporting
