Reconciling Fifth Street with Our Vision for Downtown

I was reading a letter published in yesterday's Davis Enterprise from the owner's of Fleet Feet Sports in Davis about the potential road diet for Fifth Street.

The gist of the letter is:

"While the safety of all who travel Fifth Street - be they pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists or skateboarders - is a concern for us all, the line must be drawn somewhere. Whatever the city decides to do, we can live with it only if further restriction of auto traffic is not part of the solution."

They argue that reducing the number of lanes on 5th Street to one in each direction:

"It will strangle the economic vitality of the downtown."

Furthermore:

"Downtown businesses depend on customers who drive from all parts of Davis, as well as Woodland, Dixon, Winters and points beyond. We already have a major bottleneck to downtown access for motorists on our south side with the Richards undercrossing. Adding a bottleneck to the north side will be devastating."

I am always interested in understanding other people's viewpoints on these things, especially when I do not have a hard and fast idea myself of how to fix a particular problem.

I understand the general view of downtown that they do not want anything that is going to prevent the public from coming into the downtown.

One of the things we were looking at during the election was the idea of having parking access before you get under the Richard's underpass. If you could create a multilevel parking structure off of Olive Drive that goes over the railroad tracks, people could park in that facility and walk to the downtown. That would bypass the bottleneck of the Richards underpass.

People have often suggested that we simply expand the underpass to two lanes in each direction, but to many that simply shifts the bottle neck from Richards Blvd to First Street and you end up dumping multi-lanes right into downtown.

I was actually thinking the same thing with regards to Fifth Street. Why not dump a huge amount of traffic onto B Street and use that as your east bound access to downtown. You can do the same thing West bound onto G Street or even before. In terms of traffic flow we could be a little innovative in terms of how to get the traffic that is actually coming into the downtown and get them into the downtown rather than continuing on Fifth Street.

Just a thought there, I am not going to pretend to have an answer there. While I can see the concerns of Downtown business, I have concerns about safety and there is also I think a move to get people out of their cars anyway. All of these points are somewhat in conflict. The real question is how do we resolve these conflicts.

One of the problems I see is what is our overall vision for the downtown. We have talked about walkability. We have talked about alternative fuel. We have talked about putting higher density near the core so that we can get people out of their cars. We have talked about bike paths and sidewalks. We have talked about expanding the basic function of downtown and having multilevel buildings.

But do we have one vision for the downtown and how would the Fifth Street plan gibe with that vision. The problem I am starting to see is that we may in the end solve those two issues independently of each other and thus produce a plan for Fifth Street that is not compatible with the overall downtown plan.

I think the letter suggests some this problem as it closes:

"Everyone who runs for City Council in this town claims to support our unique downtown, and declares that it must be preserved and protected. They now have the opportunity to follow through by keeping Fifth Street open with four lanes for auto traffic. If the council wants the downtown to continue to thrive as a retail center, it won't throw another obstacle to downtown access in front of the thousands of our customers who drive."

However, it does doesn't provide us with any resolution to this problem. Obviously downtown would love to have unencumbered traffic into it. Obviously. But they do not have that now and probably will have less of that in the future. So how can we protect the safety of people traveling on Fifth Street, work our vision for downtown, and achieve our goals of getting people out of their cars in order to protect the environment.

Again, I do not have the answers to all of these questions, but when we finally decide on the solution to Fifth Street, I hope these questions are very strongly considered.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Commentary: The Perpetual Problem of Parking in the Downtown

If there is one problem that the City Council has not adequately addressed it is the problem of parking. And really to be fair, this city council is not unique for the failure to properly deal with that problem, nor is this city unique.

However, in many ways, the solutions have not solved the problem. For instance, it is my view that the re-parking prohibitions are an unmitigated disaster. I have not seen it free up parking spots, what it does do is preclude long term parking and people from therefore doing longer term shopping or entertainment stops. That I think is the opposite of what you want to achieve.

Last year we discovered that this policy worked so well that it reduced the amount of parking tickets and therefore cut into the city's revenue.

This week we learn that the DDBA is in agreement that a solution to the parking in downtown is to meter the parking in the E Street Plaza. By itself, it is not a bad idea, I come from a city that has metered parking, but in order to provide enough of it, they had to build not one but two parking garages on both sides of the downtown and expand one of them.

The metering might provide some revenue, but I fail to see how it is going to deal with the broader problems of parking.

In isolation this problem would be somewhat of an annoyance. However, time is ticking so to speak because at some point there will be built Target out by Mace and Second Street with presumably a large amount of parking. That will take business from our downtown core. As some fear, the combination of parking problems and cheap merchandise at Target may imperil our downtown. And yet there does not seem to be a real sense of urgency among either the council or the downtown on this front.

Adding to the parking problems is the Amtrak Station that is attracting numerous out-of-town parkers who come here from the convenient and easy parking, leaving the residents of Davis high and dry.

We have a parking facility in the downtown, but in my view it is not located in the proper spot. It is on G and Fourth Street. That puts it on the east side of downtown and away from the main traffic flows and off the main track.

The parking situation calls for some more innovative solutions. We need to find a way to get parking into a central and convenient location, where it is easy for the traffic to access and easy for the pedestrians to walk to the rest of downtown.

This should not be an impossible problem. This past week, I had Matt Rexroad on the radio show, he mentioned problems with Woodland's downtown, namely that it was one long strip. Davis has a good compact downtown that should be walkable if you can find the right location to locate your parking that is.

At the end of the day, parking perhaps even more than Target or even combined with Target might be the biggest threat to the vitality of our downtown and that would be a shame because the downtown has the potential to be a really great community asset.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Examining City Council Goals and Objectives

The Davis City Council will have another public workshop this Friday. First they will conclude their workshop on "Improving Transactional Effectiveness" and then they will have a staff presentation on the status of council goals and objectives.

The council has eight goals and objective for 2007-08:

• Maintain and improve the infrastructure
• Achieve long-term financial stability
• Enhance the vitality of downtown
• Provide a mix of high-quality housing to meet community needs
• Conserve natural resources and protect the environment
• Ensure top quality fire, police and emergency services
• Ensure organizational strength
• Promote economic development

This article will look at some of the specific policy objectives under each heading to see where the council has succeeded at least in their own goals and also discuss things that should have been included but were not.

The big objectives under "Maintain and Improve the Infrastructure," deal with the water supply and the wastewater treatment plant upgrade. In both cases, the city has moved along about at the rate that they wanted to. Both of these projects are massive and will end up greatly increasing Davis residents' water rates. The key question right now is whether this is what the city should be doing.

Last year, the city council agreed to spend $50,000 to $75,000 upgrading the parks and facilities master plan. It took a reconsideration of an agenda item after the initial item was defeated, due to the absence of Councilmember Asmundson. Mayor Greenwald and Councilmember Heystek would have preferred to have spent that money on unfinished projects from the previous plan rather than updating the current plan with an expensive survey.

Missing from the list is any upgrade in the quality of the roads, the workability of some of the traffic intersections and traffic lights.

In terms of the next goal, "Achieving Long-term Financial Stability," the council had a workshop where they look at various revenue enhancements, mainly in terms of new taxes.

The big thing that they did not do was seek to look at areas where spending has greatly increased that will end up costing the city. One such area has to do with upper level employees pensions and health benefits. These current practices for people in upper management may end up either bankrupting the city in future years, or at the very least leading to a large cutback in other sorts of spending as the city needs to get on top of a wave of retirements.

The third goal, is to "Enhance the Vitality of Downtown." Here it does not seem that they have proceeded on a number of their goals. Moreover, the big one that they did proceed on was the 3rd and B Visioning Process. My concern with their direction on this and other projects is that they are looking for ways to revitalize the downtown that are threatening the character of the city and the downtown. Tearing down some of the more historic buildings in the 3rd and B district is going to do far more to destroy the character of the city than it is to help downtown. Moreover, they have enacted projects such as Target that threaten the vitality of downtown.

The fourth goal, is to "Provide a Mix of High Quality Housing to Meet Community Needs." This is an area where I do not think the city has done enough. They have appointed a Housing Element Steering committee. We shall see what that process yields. What this city needs in my view, is a commitment to developing housing that families and younger and new home owners can afford. Not just an allotment of "affordable" housing for low income people that are really limited equity homes. We're talking about moving away from the model that has produced $500,000 to $600,000 homes. That means producing smaller houses on smaller lots and greater density of that housing. However, this is nowhere to be found on the city's goals.

The fifth goal, is to "Conserve Natural Resources and Protect the Environment." They have a list of items, most of which I have not heard of and most of which I do not believe have been acted upon. They do talk about recycling and composting. But I think the city needs to go further here. They mention the Davis Greenway Concept that includes locally based sustainability farms at the city's edge, but there needs to be, in light of county proposals, an all-out commitment to ag land preservation. Second, there needs to be a push for more electric vehicles for in-town use rather than internal combustion engines. Third, there needs to be a stronger commitment to solar power in new housing and perhaps even incentives for existing homeowners to purchase solar panels. Fourth, as they do in the north, they should convert all city road signs to solar energy.

The sixth goal, is to "Ensure Top Quality Fire, Police and Emergency Services." Here they have achieved a good number of their goals. It took them much longer than anticipated but they got the cameras and computers fully operational and for the most part reliable. They hired a police chief. For my purposes the top needs of the city are that we need more police officers hired and on the streets. I would like the city to look into higher standards for training in exchange for higher salary. The city is looking into a fourth fire station, and while I understand some of the concerns of a fourth fire station, particularly with regards to money, the suggestion has been made that the taxpayers could vote on it. I think that's a reasonable proposal from my observations. I can also see the need for a city-owned ladder truck, especially as the city continues to build taller and taller buildings.

The seventh goal, is to "Ensure Organizational Strength." This deals primarily with city staff. As I have suggested previously, I just do not like the city manager driven model of city government. I think it leaves elected council members, especially those who are in the minority, without the resources they need to do a good job of representing their constituency. Reliance on city staff has proven problematic at times. So one of the things I would like to see are reforms and changes to the overall structure.

A goal that is listed on their list of goals is to have in place by 2008 a living wage ordinance for City contracts and contract workers. This was a suggestion made by Councilmember Lamar Heystek that I strongly support. Will the current council majority support this goal? We shall see.

Finally, and this all appears to be future oriented, "Promote Economic Development." So far, I think this has not been an area of success. The first item listed there, is continue to work to ensure sustainability of Westlake Shopping Center. It has been over a year since Food Fair left this shopping center, and amazingly the existing businesses have primarily survived. But I do not think the city has acted aggressively enough to maintain this shopping center.

Second, they mention Trader Joe's. Here I think the city has really squandered opportunities by allowing the situation at University Mall with RAS. I talked to councilmembers after the lawsuit was announced and they felt that people just wanted Trader Joe's and did not care how it got here. Since that time, I have spoken to many people on the street and on the blog and I do not sense that type of attitude. Most do not understand why it has to be where RAS is currently located and most sympathize with RAS. The city lost a lot of their leverage by providing a zoning change prior to an agreement between University Mall and RAS.

Third, is the pursuit of the business and high tech research park. This is the issue that was postponed from last meeting's agenda. It figures to be an interesting battle on the slow growth side as to whether it is better to develop that as a residential development or a high tech research park. The latter has gained more prominence since the Tsakaopoulos proposal has emerged, although that is mainly a proposal for housing developments in exchange for the Stem Cell Research facility, it is unlikely to be available without the housing development.

Finally, we can put the Davis Manor in the same position as Westlake Shopping Center. Both of these locations would make far more sense for Trader Joe's and other additions than the University Mall. The council is seeming to allow two key neighborhood shopping areas lie underutilized for a substantial period of time.

A number of the goals on this list are laudable if overly ambitious. However, my sense over the last two months is that much of these are taking place at the expense of the existing character of the city. I do not oppose housing development, vitalization of downtown, or economic development, but I would like to see plans that integrate these projects into the existing character, rather than what I think is a rapid destruction of existing character. Make no mistake, Davis is under siege in a lot of ways. The question for Davis residents, is "Do you want a city that continues to look and feel like Davis? Or, "Do you want a city that looks more like Fairfield, Vacaville, or even worse some of the more rapid growing Central Valley Communities like Elk Grove and Natomas?" These are the key questions we must ask ourselves as we try to go forward with many of these laudable and necessary goals.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

The Future of Reparking in Davis

On August 14, 2006 the city implement strict rules against "reparking" based on a new city ordinance. The idea at the time was that by forcing cars to move to a different block every hour and a half to two hours, it would ease up some of the strain on the limited number on street parking spots in the downtown area. At the time, I thought it was a very Orwellian concept that would not work as planned, but nevertheless, they went forward with it.

Well now here we are in January, and apparently this is one of the topics under reconsideration. There are apparently two problems right now with the "reparking" program. The first problem is that instead of actually freeing up parking spots, you are just rotating cars around to the next block at various intervals. So you have the same amount of cars parking for the most part, they simply move from one block face to another. Rather than saving parking spots, it is probably creating more traffic problems.

The second problem came up during a budget item in November: the city is running short in revenue from parking fines. What has happened is with such a strict enforcement system with the new reparking prohibitions coupled with the GPS units (that really look Orwellian) on top of the parking enforcement vehicles, is that people have been complying with the law. Now that may seem like a good thing, but as we discovered in November, the city actually used to count on that revenue source in their budget. The stricter regulations have led to a decrease in a source of revenue for the city. Only perhaps in Davis is it a bad thing that people are being more diligent about following the law.

In short, it appears that the tougher restrictions have not met either the objective of cleaning up the parking problem of downtown streets and they have resulted in the unintended consequence of actually reducing city revenue collected in fines. On the other hand, they may have the drawback of discouraging people from having lengthy shopping visits to downtown by putting an artificial or psychological cap on the amount of the time they spend.

These factors would seem to be a strong incentive for the downtown businesses to find other solutions to the perpetual and growing problem of parking. Not to mention, we need to figure out a way to make people use the under utilized existing parking structures for their parking.

It is our opinion that the city of Davis ought to abandon the "reparking" prohibition in the downtown area and work towards encouraging people to utilize the parking structures and alternative forms of transportation into the downtown core. With the inevitable development of the new Target facility on the periphery, it is all the more imperative that these solutions be developed sooner rather than later so that we can preserve the character of our downtown and allow it to continue to thrive into the future.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

City Running Short on Parking Fines

There was an odd moment last night when Finance Director Paul Navazio was presenting an update on the budget, one of the areas that had a shortfall was in public safety. It turned out they were running a deficit on parking fine and vehicle infractions. And we're not talking about chump change, it was in the tens of thousands if not higher.

Basically right now the city relies on the enforcement of parking violations as a steady source of revenue. What has happened however is that as they have gone to more and more strict systems of enforcement, the revenue has fallen off. With the implementation of the new GPS system and the no re-parking policy, the number of parking citations that have been issued has apparently fallen, moreover the expense of the system has risen. And so there is now a budget shortfall because the number of violations fell short of projections.

You have a catch 22 system going--you have a system that relies on people breaking the law in order to finance it. That seems archaic at best. You want to people to commit fewer not more violations of the law and yet you have budgeted the revenue from parking violations. It is just an odd system.

It seemed that the council acknowledged that this system is problematic at best and that you should not be relying on the revenue from parking violations to make your budget, and so I would guess that in the future they will fix the system.

So this is an item more of bemusement than of true criticism, but you still have to say... only in Davis is a reduction of traffic and parking violations a bad thing. (Actually I'm pretty sure that other cities problem have similar problems).

---Doug Paul Davis reporting