Councilmember Heystek's Purchase of Affordable Housing Done Properly

At the request of one of the councilmembers, the city of Davis investigated the purchase of a home by Councilmember Lamar Heystek. After review of the documentation, the city was satisfied that the Councilmember's home was purchased through the standard processing steps.

A September 9, 2008, an item appeared in the consent calendar pertaining to the purchase of Councilmember Lamar Heystek's home in the redevelopment area of the city.

"When a City Councilmember and/or Board Member on the Agency Board purchases a property within the City’s Redevelopment Area, law requires that it be disclosed publicly. Additionally, the Agency is required to certify that the property being purchased is in a habitable condition. Habitability of the unit is to ensure that the buyer does not take advantage of an opportunity to benefit financially from the Redevelopment Agency’s projects and/or improvements within the
Redevelopment Area."

In the agenda item, Councilmember Heystek wrote:

"On July 25, 2008, I purchased a unit at Southfield Park as my personal residence. The address is 1126 Greene Terrace, Davis, CA 95618. This property is in the Redevelopment Project Area. The purchase of the memorandum is to inform you of this purchase and for this disclosure to be entered in to the minutes of the Redevelopment Agency Board of Directors. This disclosure is being made pursuant to the State of California Health and Safety Code sections 33130 and 33130.5."

However, this disclosure was not enough for one member of the Davis City Council. And so, Danielle Foster, the Housing and Human Services Superintendent of the city of Davis conducted an investigation into Mr. Heystek's purchase of an affordable housing ownership unit to determine if the proper processes were used or if Mr. Heystek had used undue influence to obtain the unit.

Upon investigation, Ms. Foster cleared Heystek of any implication of wrongdoing:

"After review of their annual reporting documentation and receipt of the attached letter describing the process used in processing and qualifying Councilmember Heystek for the affordable ownership unit at 1126 Greene Terrace, staff has verified that the standard program processing steps were used in the qualifying of Councilmember Heystek for an affordable housing unit at Southfield Park/ Greene Terrace."

The memo continues:

"Consistent with the program, he went through the following steps:

1. Submittal of a project pre-application to get onto the general waiting list for Southfield Park/ Greene Terrace
2. Submittal of necessary income documentation, homebuyer education certification, and pre-approval documentation of a home loan from the buyer’s chosen lender
3. Submittal of lender’s approval of deed restrictions on affordable housing unit (not all lenders will lend on these units), asset documentation, copy of loan application, 3 recent check stubs and documentation of any other income
4. Once all documentation has been collected by CHOC and the buyer(s) has been qualified, the buyer(s) is added to the Income-Qualified/Mortgage Ready list chronologically and wait for either a two-bedroom unit or three-bedroom unit
5. Buyers on the Income-Qualified/Mortgage Ready list are shown units as they become available and are offered the opportunity to purchase based on their list ranking"

It continues:

"Councilmember Heystek completed the necessary steps between the period of December 14, 2007 and June 2008. He was third on the two bedroom list when 1126 Greene Terrace became available. The two Income-Qualified/Mortgage Ready buyers ahead of him were not able to purchase 1126 Greene Terrace (one was leaving Davis for a job promotion elsewhere and the other buyer opted to wait for a later unit based on timing needs), so Councilmember Heystek was offered the unit and accepted the opportunity to purchase it."

Finally, it was requested that the city determine if Mr. Heystek had any conflicts of interest as the result of this purchase. The City Attorney's Office determined that Mr. Heystek would have the same conflicts of interest of any property owner--thus he could not take actions on items that were located within 500 feet of his property.

However, they found it unlikely he would have a conflict with future CHOC items:

" The City Attorney's Office is researching further whether Councilmember Heystek will be conflicted on future items related to the city's Right of First Refusal Contract with CHOC. At this point, it's unlikely since he does not have a financial interest in CHOC’s role running the program. Future changes to the city’s affordable housing program would not be retroactive to his unit and would not likely present a conflict. No other potential conflicts have been identified by the City Attorney's Office at this time."

The Vanguard fully appreciates transparency in government. It is necessary for full trust in the operations of government and the conduct of public officials.

While we applaud this transparency, it should also be mentioned that this document and investigation were produced at the request of one of Mr. Heystek's colleagues on the city council and it was done unbeknownst to him at the time. We find that implication somewhat troubling as though this were done in a manner to uncover improprieties on the part of the councilmember rather than to ensure transparency.

It has been our experience with Mr. Heystek that he has always taken steps to operate above the board in all respects. In fact, he told the Vanguard that he went out of his way to follow all due process in the purchase of his home. The air of suspicion cast by a member of his own council toward him casts a chilling impact that threatens the civility by which Mr. Heystek generally operates on the council. In short, it appears that Councilmember Heystek would have happily divulged the full process by which he acquired him home had he been asked and would have himself submitted to the council the investigation that proceeded behind his back.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Analysis: Data Shows No Relationship Between Housing Prices and Rate of Growth in Davis

For those who are regulars on the Vanguard, these are the data that underlie a long time debate over the impact of the rate of growth in Davis on housing prices. Be forewarned, if you are allergic to math, you might want to skip to the graphs that illustrate some of the relationships between new building permits and housing prices. The data show in a number of different ways that building more in Davis does not reduce the price of housing in Davis when compared to Sacramento or other cities in the region.

The Mayor Sue Greenwald requested that someone analyze the relationship between the number of building permits and housing prices.

The price data come from RAND California through 2002 and since 2002, the data come from Trends in California Real Estate from the CA Realtors Association for July of each year.

The analysis looks at a number of different iterations here--current building permits, lagged building permits, all permits, or only single-family permits. None of these changes impact the overall findings.

The first chart here just shows the raw numbers.



There are some pretty interesting features of the raw numbers. You can see that housing permits peaked in the late 1990s with 1013 new permits in 1998 and 954 permits in 1999. Measure J comes in just after that and you can see the number of new permits really fall off after that point. You can also see the price of homes increases by a large margin after 1994. But as you can see, the price of homes in Sacramento increases as well over the same period of time. The last column is what is called the Davis premium--basically the ratio of housing prices in Davis divided by the housing prices in Sacramento.

Now that's the key variable right there, because that is used as an indicator for the regional housing prices.



As you can see in this graph, the two median sales prices of homes in Davis and Sacramento County track almost perfectly. Davis is higher throughout the period, but the increase in home prices is matched by the increase of home prices in Sacramento County. In fact, the correlation coefficient for the two is .99. The correlation coefficient for the non-statistics person is basically a measure of how interdependent two variables are to each other. The value indicates how much of a change in one variable is explained by a change in another. .99 means that 99% percent of the change in the Davis median sales price is explained by the change in the Sacramento County Median Sales price. That means it is almost a perfect relationship between the two. Frankly in my background in the social sciences, you are often happy if you can explain 30 or 40 percent of the relationship.

The next graph looks at the relationship between building permits and housing prices, once we control for the housing prices in other areas in the region. To do this, we use the Davis premium and plot it against the number of building permits. We use the lagged variable to approximate the time it takes for a home with an approved permit to actually hit the market. But as I said earlier, it does not matter if you use the lagged variable or unlagged variable.



Let's go back through this graph again. The Davis Premium is the median cost of housing in Davis divided by the median cost of housing in Sacramento County. The higher ratio means that Davis home prices are growing faster than Sacramento County home prices. The lower ration means that the Sacramento County home prices are growing faster than Davis home prices. Throughout most of the period the premium is between 1.4 and 1.6. That means that Davis home prices are 140% to 160% higher than Sacramento home prices. However, when we plot those ratios against the number of building permits we see that there is no relationship between the building permits and the relative price of housing in Davis. Even with two outliers, you have pretty much a flat ratio between the two.

Analysis and Implications

The argument on this blog has been that Davis is subject to the market forces of supply and demand just like any other community. That is correct, however, as some have contended the problem with such a simple view is that it does not take into account the much larger regional market. What we see in these data is that housing prices have gone up about the same rate in the fast growing market of Sacramento County as they have in the relatively slow growing market of Davis.

There is a differential between the cost of housing in Davis, but it is created largely by its desirability rather than its rate of growth.

It is important to note that these data do not resolve the issue of whether and how much Davis should grow. What it does suggest is that we cannot expect that more houses and more residential growth are going to result in a reduced cost of homes. Therefore, we should not tailor our growth policies in terms of number of units around the issue of affordability and the concern that middle class people are being priced out of Davis. We likely cannot change that by building more units unless we build so many units that we begin to reduce our quality of life.

If we built thousands of new homes, then we could possible begin to cut into the differential in housing prices between Davis and the surrounding communities. But how much would it take? And such an endeavor would likely result in a whole new set of problems. It is not as though much faster growing communities have fewer problems than we do in Davis. Nor is it true that they have better school systems than we do in Davis.

These data do have enormous implications for our land use policies however. They tell us that we are likely not going to gain affordability through growth. That means that if we are concerned about declining enrollment, we need to find ways to build the type of homes that young families want to live in. The natural starting point would be the university. The city of Davis clearly needs to work with the university in partnership to supply housing for young faculty members and staff--people who are likely to have children of school age. What we face in Davis is not unique to other college towns, we simply have to find ways to provide that kind of housing--not through faster growth, but through innovative approaches, that maintain the desirability of this town while providing real options for people who work at the university.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: A critical examination of our affordable housing program in Davis

The issue of affordable housing is clearly one of those issues that will likely arise in each and every debate for city council. That's not surprising and frankly it is one of those top four issues that is on everyone's mind. And frankly it is an issue that transcends the divide between those who are slow growthers and those who are a little bit faster growthers.

There is an on-going and interesting debate on this blog about the extent to which the building of more homes will reduce housing prices. In the community there seems a clear ambivalence on the issue. On the one hand, about everyone is concerned with rising housing prices. On the other hand, about everyone is concerned with preserving the character of Davis. The thought is you build up, build out, or jack up the prices. Personally I don't think it is quite that simple and I'm questionable on the issue that we can grow sufficiently to reduce the cost of housing in real terms in the short-run. In the long-run, we could probably do it by reducing the character and appeal of Davis, but that seems a pretty high price to pay (no pun intended).

I actually am not that interested in rehashing this argument in this space today, although, feel free to debate it to your hearts content in the comments section.

There is actually another issue I want to talk about that I have been thinking about for a long time and it came up in the debates.

It comes from comments that Stephen Souza and Don Saylor made in the debates this week, captured nicely by the quote from Councilmember Souza:

“We implemented the fairest and toughest affordable housing ordinance in the nation.”

We certainly have a broad affordable housing ordinance, but I have had real concerns about the ordinance for quite some time.

The first problem with it, is that for the low income people the cost of housing is $177,000. Now in order to explain the problem we have to backtrack to the early portion of this decade. What would happen is that people would purchase these houses, and in some case fraudulently--wealthier people would get individuals who qualified to basically be squatters for a two year period that they were required to own and occupy the home, and then they could sell it. When they sold it was sold at market rate, for huge profits. Those who were around know this was a huge fiasco at the time and there were some city staffers in on it. Needless to say however, after two years, what was supposed to be an affordable home becomes just another market rate home.

The city fixed this problem by limiting the amount of equity that you could make on a home to a value based on the rate of inflation. So if you buy a house for $177,000, then in ten years, you sell it for $177,000 plus inflation. That achieves the goal of keeping the homes that were supposed to be affordable housing, affordable, but it also creates new problems.

One of the purposes of affordable housing is not merely to provide someone with a place to live that they can afford, but it is also to help them build up equity and be able to raise the level of their condition. The Davis affordable housing by limiting equity, pretty much traps individuals at these incomes into affordable housing because it does not allow them to build up equity.

There are other models of housing out there that might be better for the individual who is not able to afford market rate homes to be able to build up their equity so that they can better their conditions--while at the same time being able to keep what is an affordable home, affordable (and avoid some of the past scandals). That's really I think what this city needs to look toward.

The problem of workforce housing also comes into play. When most people think about affordable housing, that is really what they are thinking about--housing that people over moderate and middle incomes can afford. The city of Davis' ordinance provides people of this range about 20 to 25% of the housing. That means up to $464,000 or so.

On the surface again, that sounds very good. Except you start to realize quickly that over half of the housing is going to cost more than $464,000. And in fact, it may cost much more. Not that $464,000 is cheap. I remember when a former colleague of mine got a job in Lawrence, Kansas at the university there and purchased his home for $92,000. An assistant professor at the University of Kansas at the time made about $3000 less per year than an assistant professor at UC Davis.

As Sue Greenwald pointed out at the forum on Thursday night, the break even point for a developer to make money on a home is about $500,000 per unit. If half your homes are held below that mark, that means the other half have to basically be McMansions in order for the property owner to make a profit.

So you basically have an affordable action program which sounds very good, but you end up with about 25% of the units for low income people, 20 to 25% of the units for middle income people, and then half of the units costing more than $600,000. Those who believe that we can bring about affordability in this way, might want to re-think it.

And that leads to another point that Stephen Souza made both Wednesday and Thursday.

“The problem is if you don’t build anything about 25 units you don’t get that full 45%, you get a smaller percentage based on the number of units that you build."

In other words, we have to build larger developments in order to get the full impact of the affordable housing ordinance. We have to do it in terms of getting the full 45% of the units being in the lower and middle range. But we also have to do it in terms of overall numbers. In a project the size of Covell Village, you are theoretically talking about producing between 850 and 900 affordable units. At the same time you are producing another 900 to 1000 units that are costing more than $600,000. That means you have to build a lot just to increase the number of affordable units.

As one can see, the benefits of such of program are not nearly as clear cut as they appear on the surface. There are other ways to produce affordability, but it is clear that we cannot rely on this ordinance to do it. We need to start, I think by looking toward building more compact developments with smaller units--townhouses, duplexes, and condos. I also think we need to seriously look to address the student housing problem, because so many core homes are rental units now rather than owner-occupied, which takes those units effectively outside of the market.
The number that was thrown around on Thursday was 8,000, the number of students who reside outside of Davis. Another number that was mentioned was 1%, the apartment vacancy rate in Davis. A number that should have been mentioned would be 24%--the number of students who live on the UC Davis campus itself, lowest in the system according to the table I saw a few weeks ago. Of all the jurisdictions involved, the university is in the best position to provide housing to students at the very least. If they can do that, it frees up housing in the core of Davis to single-family, owner occupied homes.

Finally, I think we need to revisit the affordable housing ordinance. It has some good properties to it, it is aggressive, but it also does not solve the overall problem of providing affordable homes to young families with children.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: Beware of the Growth Boogie Man in the School Budget Debate

In two days, there have been two letters to the editor in the Davis Enterprise that have linked the issue of growth to the issue of the school budget deficit that is projected at $4 million for this year.

On Wednesday, February 27, 2008, Larry Moore of Davis writes:

"The situation with the school budget, the charter school and the growth of Davis are serious issues that should be carefully and continually evaluated as they have been. However, I have not seen mentioned that maybe these issues are related to each other. Not withstanding the state budget, the plight of our schools is related in part to the declining enrollment."

He concludes:

"The plight of the school budget and the no-growth mantra of Davis are related."

Yesterday, a similar letter by John Foraker with a similar vein:

"Are you frustrated that Davis schools' educational programs are soon to be gutted, at least one school closed, while band and other 'non- essential' curriculum are also sacrificed? Me too! But even more frustrating is the inability, or intellectual unwillingness, of many to connect the dots from our recent city track record.

Allow me to help with the basic math: Virtually no new family housing or major developments for five-plus years equals fewer families buying Davis homes equals fewer kids of school age equals less revenue for daily operation of our schools. It is, unfortunately, that simple.

So, next time you stand up to decry a new development, or to sign a petition supporting small-footprint infill development over the kinds of homes more families actually want to buy, remember that your well-intentioned position is not without consequence."

It was only a matter of time before these two issues became intertwined--with the growth boogie man popping its head out to suggest we had better grow or our schools are imperiled.

However before we plunge head long into new developments let us take a brief examination of the problem.

It is interesting that both gentlemen focused on declining enrollment. And indeed with a steeper decline this year of 180 students, that is a concern. But even at 180 students, that only accounts for $1 million of the $4 million deficit. Or 25% of the problem.

$1.5 million are due to the budget cuts, but more concerning is the $1.5 million that is due to fiscal mismanagement under the previous CBO of the district. We will talk more about this problem next week, but the basics are that one-time monies were used to fund ongoing programs. When those monies dried up, the district was left in a budget deficit that ate away at its voluntary (as opposed to state mandate reserves).

The result is two-fold. First it caused a budget deficit that we have to correct for. But just as bad, it eliminated reserves that we could have used this year for a softer landing.

The state fundings cuts also amount to roughly $1.5 million. Experts suspect that Democrats will greatly reduce that number, but even if that $1.5 million is cut to $.5 million, the district will have to cut $3 million this year. So even in the best case scenario, that's a problem.

Declining enrollment is indeed the problem, but even under a rosier economic projection it only amounts to 33% of the deficit. Even if we had no declining enrollment we would be facing $2 to $3 million in cuts.

The second part of the picture is looking at the growth policies. The only substantial development project that was nixed was Covell Village. Are these two letter writers suggesting that declining enrollment is a reason that we should have passed Covell Village?

There are a number of reasons that Covell Village was a poor project. The average cost of a home there would have been between $400,000 and $600,000. It is true that there would have been affordable housing there, but realistically speaking, the majority of the units there would probably not have contributed much to the school district's population and it would have been phased in over 10 years.

Aside from Covell Village, what housing development has been nixed? So to attribute all of the declining enrollment to the failure of Covell Village seems to be a bit extreme.

I don't disagree with the premise that we need more affordable housing for younger families. Along those lines the best way to produce that would be to provide housing for young faculty members to move into the city. A project like say, West Village.

If the city would partner with the university to provide specifically for faculty and student housing, we could increase the amount of housing for particularly young faculty members who were just hired by the university. Those young faculty members are most likely to have young children and would then bring their young children to our district.

What is clear at this point is that they are going to attempt to use the budget deficit with the school as a wedge to demand new development. We need to keep in mind two things. First, that declining enrollment only accounts for a small percentage of the budget deficit. And second, that many of the projects proposed in recent years were not going to bring in a lot of families with children. We need to be smart in the face of adversity and not panic to try to implement simple solutions that do not solve the problem.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

News and Commentary: Council Majority Votes To Maintain 1% Growth Guideline

It was a debate steeped in philosophy, maybe a little too much philosophy if one agrees with Councilmember Don Saylor. But at the core of the 1 percent growth guideline are fundamental concerns about what kind of community we want to live in now and in the future.

The lines of the debate were at the same time simple and blurred. The council majority argument was essentially to keep the 1% growth guideline policy in place while at the same time moving their rhetorical position slightly to suggest that the 1% guideline was a cap and not a mandate. This, as we have argued in previously blog entries, represents in itself a glacial movement of the council's stated position in 2005--when they, and specifically Stephen Souza, implored the community to pass Measure X in an effort to remain in compliance with our legal obligations to grow.

At the same time, members of the council majority argued for community support for faster growth rate.

Councilmember Stephen Souza:

“It has been a very slow and steady rate of growth, in fact some would argue too slow.”

However, community members such as Jean Jackman speaking during public comment spoke of a long list of community efforts to slow growth beginning with the Passage of Measure L in 1986 that indicates support for growth at the lowest permissible rate. There was also Measure O which was passed to tax the public in an effort to preserve open space. Measure J gave the public a vote on peripheral growth and finally Measure X put Measure J into action with a fundamentally resounding defeat of a large peripheral project.

To maintain the current levels of growth, the current council majority would seem to have to go against the grain of public opinion and against current trends in the housing market.

Councilmember Souza went on to argue that the system was to be a maximum number, and its goal was to smooth out the growth rate of the city to prevent years of zero growth (which implies it is indeed more than a cap) and a the same time to prevent years of huge growth (which would be more consistent with a cap argument).

It was always a guideline, he argued,

“nowhere does it say it’s a rate.”

And perhaps he is correct, but that was not what he and his colleagues argued in 2005. In fact, I would argue that their entire argument missed the key 800 pound gorilla of Covell Village. During the Covell Village and Measure X debate the argument was exactly what Mr. Souza now claims it is not--that we had to pass Covell Village to meet our 1% growth mandate. It was not treated as an option in 2005, it was not treated as a cap, it was argued that we would be out of compliance if we did not pass Covell Village. Now the tune has changed.

Mr. Souza then goes to a four-year exercise in showing the total numbers of housing permits by year. Why four years? One could argue because it seems likely that during the first portion of the General Plan cycle the majority of projects came through. And so, the half percent cited growth rate during the last four years masks the higher growth rate since 2001.

"I would think that for the vast majority of folks, the growth has not occurred.”

But there is more to this argument that is missing and again it comes down to Covell Village. Mr. Souza and his colleagues are consistently arguing that even with the growth goal of 1% we have not reached it over the last four years. This is an accurate, but misleading statement. If the council majority had had their druthers, their inclination, Covell Village would have passed in 2005. And Covell Village was stopped not by the council majority, but by the voters. So the council majority wants to take credit for the failure of a policy that they fought to the proverbial death to get passed.

Both Mr. Souza and Mr. Saylor argue that this low rate of growth suggests that this indicates that there is no pressure to grow.

Councilmember Saylor:

“Over the last four years, as Mr. Souza outlined, the city has issued 491 building permits, an average of 123 per year or less then a half a percent… If we’re concerned that this one percent growth parameter has resulted in increased pressure for growth in the city, it is difficult to understand why nothing has happened in terms of growth”

But there was pressure for growth in the city. The pressure came from the council majority and a group of developers in 2005. It was hard pressure. It took a long and concerted effort to turn back. It was pressure that was ultimately resisted by this community, but it was pressure nonetheless. Here again, Mr. Saylor rhetorically it seems, is using the fact that they lost the Measure X vote as an argument for there not being growth pressure as the result of their growth policies. There was pressure, the pressure came directly from the council, everyone in this city who was in town during this time, knows it. And, the only reason we did not grow by those 2000 units was that the people of Davis said no, not the council majority.

Councilmember Saylor then goes on to argue that we have increased housing needs--over and above those addressed in 2003, that led to the advocacy for Covell Village.

“In some ways the needs are more significant today than they were in 2003. We continue to have a low apartment vacancy rate for student rentals. It’s at one percent at this point, five percent is described by property managers as reasonable for friction—the frictional moving in and moving out that happens in a healthy economy. Seniors anecdotally are talking very actively—they’re interested in downsizing, but there is no place for them to downsize to. The result is that many continue to live in houses that are too large for their needs. And that means that house is not available to a family with children. We have more commuters now than we had in 2003. The social fabric that we live in, the community that we love, the quality of life that we enjoy here has begun to rand at different places.”

However, lost in this philosophical discussion of our housing needs, is that $10 million question--what happens if we build to accommodate these needs? Where do we put these new buildings? What farmland do we pave over to do so? What will this town look like when we are through? And the last point which is one that Mayor Greenwald raised--what assurances do we have that new housing is going to meet those needs.

It is instructive that the biggest project offered up by this council majority would have decidedly not met those very specific needs. Covell Village was not an affordable housing project. It was a housing project that primarily catered to the upper end--$600,000 homes. What needs would that have filled? Rhetoric is simple to use for the council majority, but at the core, their rhetoric does not meet with reality.

Finally the base of Councilmember Saylor's philosophy:

“We live in Davis for a high quality of life and a sense of community. And when we think about what causes that, how many of us actually think it has to do with how many of us there are.”

We may not explicitly verbalize our character and quality of life in terms of size of city, but would this city look the same with 120,000 people in it. Would we still have the same sense of community? Would we still be able to bike around our town? Would we still be able to walk in our core area of town? Would we still be safe in our homes? Would we still preserve our agricultural heritage?

At the end of the day, needs and affordability are alluring arguments, but we have not made concrete what our community would like. What would our community look like adding developments the size of 1.5 Mace Ranches every seven years. Is that the community we want? Because, that is the implication of the 1% growth rate. And the council says we will not grow at that rate, well that's because they were stopped by the people when they tried.

Mayor Sue Greenwald showed statistical analysis that demonstrated that Davis' housing growth rate had no impact on the cost of housing. The economists argue supply and demand. The problem with housing is that city supply does not necessarily curb demand, because demand is not a closed system that ends in Davis, it's a regional demand. Any increase in housing would be a mere pinprick in a vast system of demand that extends to millions and even tens of millions of people. The charts presented by the Mayor showed that housing demand is inelastic, it is not abated by increased supply. Housing prices went up continuously and show no apparent reaction to the yearly ups and downs of new housing provided by Davis.

I would argue that we bring down the cost of housing in Davis only by making Davis a less desirable place to raise one's family and to live. I have no desire to see that happen.

As Ruth Asmundson argued, affordable housing necessarily means growth. The only way to supply more affordable housing is to build more housing overall. We cannot simply build 100% affordable.

The tough questions were disappointingly not undertaken at this point in time.

However, Councilmember Lamar Heystek laid out from my perspective the crux of the argument:

“When I first ran for the City Council, I knew that this was the bread and butter of our business here at City Hall. I am glad to be here on the council to be part of this discussion twenty-two years after Measure L has been passed. And so I think we have a unique opportunity to reflect in a meaningful fashion the will of the people of Davis when they voted that the growth of Davis be as slow as it is legally permissible. And that the future growth of Davis be concentrated on lands already incorporated into the city with future annexations to be discouraged. There was a small discussion of economics 101, as a renter I can attest to the fact that we live in a community where the vacancy rate can go up, as will rents. And that has always puzzled me. If our solution to market rate affordability is compounded growth, I believe that strategy will fail miserably.”

He then cites language from the resolution that

“the number of units allowable based on the 1% guideline shall increase based on city growth. Built into the current policy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We currently have a resolution that said that the guideline will call for more units of growth as the city continues to growth. That is, I believe, irresponsible. I believe that the city, in adopting this policy, I respectfully disagree with Councilmember Souza and former Councilmember Puntillo. But I do say that this policy has created artificial pressure on the community. It is incumbent upon us to relieve that pressure if we receive that opportunity—and that opportunity is tonight. I do implore my colleagues to identify the fact that there is a gross disparity—gross relative to our standards—between the SACOG Regional Housing Needs Assessment Allocation as well as our 1% growth guideline as it is currently phrased. To have a policy that calls for more growth than we are otherwise being asked or requested to accommodate, is I think, hypocritical and antithetical to our philosophy as a slow growth community.”

Commenting after the meeting was Eileen Samitz, a member of the HESC who also spoke during the meeting as a member of the public.

She writes to the Vanguard:

"The Council majority's (Saylor, Souza, and Asmundson) action of merely adding a "cap" tonight fell far short of what was needed to protect Davis from accelerated growth. Although it was requested, language that was not added to the Council majority's growth ordinance that also should have been added was: "Davis' growth should not exceed any RHNA number for housing units requested by SACOG".

For instance, our current RHNA number for housing units is only 498 units yet no language change happened tonight to avoid 2,300 units from being built by 2013 which is almost five times more than SACOG's request of Davis. (Note: 2,300 units is 1.5 Mace Ranch developments every 7 years.) In turn, building 2,300 units would motivate SACOG to assign Davis a higher RHNA number for housing units into the future. Clearly, the concept of growing 325 units per year is terribly flawed and is in direct conflict with the citizen-based Measure L "to grow as slow as legally permissible".

The Council majority of Saylor, Souza and Asmundson who voted for the inadequate language change to merely substituted the word "cap" for "guideline, all ran on slow-growth platforms during their Council campaigns. Apparently, they are to be trying to redefine the term "slow-growth". The Council majority-based 1% growth ordinance may sound slow, but is not slow growth. Furthermore, there was never a fiscal study, nor an environmental impact analysis done for this new ordinance, ands most importantly the citizens of Davis never got to vote on this Council majority-generated growth ordinance. This new 1% growth ordinance conflicts directly with our citizen-based 2001 General Plan. Tonight was the night to correct the problems with this growth ordinance, not later."

At the end of the day, I think that the council majority made some good arguments. I am not one that believes we need zero growth. I am also one that recognizes that we need to do a better job of providing housing that people, that families, that students, that faculty can afford. Where I think their arguments fall short is on how we accomplish that. Covell Village would not have accomplished that. The council majority's arguments use that failure ironically to argue that the growth guideline is merely a cap not a goal and not a requirement. This is a marked change from 2005 and it becomes a convenient pressure-valve for them to suggest that we are not growing at 1%--when the fact remains the only reason we are not growing at 1% is that the public said no, not the council.

Finally, particularly Councilmember Saylor argued for some very specific housing needs while Councilmember Souza suggested that we were growing too slowly. What they did not say is where we would put these new student housing units, these new senior housing units, these new family housing units. Are we talking about a new Covell Village? Are we talking about the I-80 corridor? Are we talking about the Northwest Quadrant? Are we talking about Nishi? And if so, what are the impacts of these new developments? Both Councilmember Saylor and Souza opposed county proposals in three of these areas, do they not owe it to the public to be more forthright about where they intend to put all of this new housing that will meet our needs?

In the coming weeks the HESC will come forth with their site proposals, it is my hope that the council majority will then show us where all of this new housing will go as it relates to these sites. It is my guess that that particular discussion will not happen for some time.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: Densification Does Not Mean Ignoring Neighbors

It was an interesting experience on Thursday going to the last portion of the Housing Element Steering Committee meeting and listening to Chair Keven Wolf railing about the need for densification and demanding that the HESC include in its report language that instructs the council to ignore the pleas of neighbors for less densification and preserving neighborhood character.

Then I went home and read Bob Dunning who was whipping the neighbors of the Horse Ranch development proposal who live on Caravaggio, at least I think that's what we was doing, because suddenly almost in midstream he turned the whip on the City Council for packing the development like sardines.

Do we ignore the pleas of neighbors as shear NIMBYISM? Do we drive for denser and denser because that means we will be more compact and less sprawled? Or is there some middle ground here?

I understand and even appreciate some of the logic behind Kevin Wolf's densification drive. The idea here is that we protect the periphery of Davis, preserve the farmlands, and yet we still need to grow, at least in Kevin Wolf's world (which I don't mean derisively, just to say it's his world view, as opposed to say my own. On the other hand, I am about to use Mr. Wolf as a convenient foil here.).

The problem with Mr. Wolf's vision is that it is flawed and contradictory. He was a leading proponent of Covell Village. Covell Village was perhaps the antithesis of this vision. Whether or not we need to grow, and whether or not we need densification, Covell Village encroaches onto farm land, builds a large number of big homes, which means less density, and oh yeah, creates traffic problems at the corner of Poleline and Covell that leads to more, not less, emissions. In short, if carbon neutral is what you are going for, Covell is not the way to go.

But back to the densification issue at this point. I understand both Mr. Wolf and Mr. Dunning's concerns about density. I also understand their concern that the neighbors out of NIMBYISM are often going to oppose all new development on their own borders, adjacent to their neighborhood. That they will attempt to get the smallest and least dense project they can get for a variety of reasons.

At the same time, why the hell should they not? It is not like most of these people are wealthy people developing lots haphazardly. Most people who live in Davis have put their life's savings into buying their home, living in a nice community with a good quality of life. Why should they not fight to protect them?

And maybe we do not grant them veto power over projects, but the idea that they get no say, as Kevin Wolf suggests, that we instruct the City Council to ignore the pleas of neighbors, is shear arrogance on our part. They have the right to weigh in and be heard. The city council has the duty to take their views seriously as they are just as much a part of this city as anyone.

If we are concerned about the character of this city, don't they have the right to be concerned about the character of their neighborhood?

I do not see this as a Manichean struggle for good and evil. I do not think this needs to be a zero-sum game where someone wins and someone loses.

As someone else pointed out on Thursday, look we can have a dense project in a high rise but as long as we surround it with open space it is not going to be a problem.

That gets me to the next point. We need to talk about densification. We need to listen to the neighbors. But at the end of the day, there is no reason why we cannot build highly dense developments that maintain the nature and character of the adjacent neighborhood. At the end of the day, the neighborhood should fit like a zig saw puzzle, interlocking into the existing landscape, while at the same time looking to maximize both density, open space, greenbelts, etc.

And those are not antithetical views. They are not in contradiction to each other. The problem is that we have allowed our planning to become complacent and lazy. And we also need to understand that we do not fix densification issues by jamming people together into the new developments. That doesn't fix the issues of sprawl. If we do this, we will be looking like little Manhattan.

Finally the biggest question we need to answer is not how dense we are to become, it is not how dense we should make it, but rather how much we ought to grow and how fast. Everyone talks about fair share growth. A city of Davis' size should not be forced to become a city of 100,000 or 120,000 people. That's not fair share of growth, that's allowing certain interests to turn this city into something it is not. There many other cities with the infrastructure and the drive to take on more growth than we do.

However, that point aside, at the end of the day we cannot simply ignore the cries of neighbors. They have bought into a promise of this city. They invested in the fact that we have safe streets. They invested in the fact that we have good schools. They invested in the character and the quality of life in Davis. In fact, they overpaid -most likely- for those features. So if we are about to pull the rug out from under them and change the landscape of their investment, do we not at least owe it to them to hear them out?

When I hear it said that we ought to direct the council to ignore complaints of neighbors it makes me very nervous, because as soon as we become arrogant enough to ignore one group of people, we begin to ignore all. And then, we cease to be a democracy.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Guest Commentary: Home on the Range

by Matt Williams

DPD began yesterday’s column by stating, “It is not altogether clear what the results of the workshop were and how much they will affect the final decisions made by the panel.” Thanks to some superb work by Planning Department Staff in producing several Summary documents, the Housing Element Steering Committee was able to quickly decide that Community Workshop #2 essentially ratified the decisions the Committee had made in the 12 months leading up to the Workshop.

One of the Summaries the Committee reviewed, listed the nine ranking changes on six different sites that were suggested by 15 or more people at Station 4 of the Workshop. Although it was clear by the Covell Village comments numbers that any attempt to “hijack” the workshop had failed (and failed badly), the only meaningful takeaway from the ranking change suggestions was that the Public had a hard time understanding how the Committee could be looking at “unrealistic” sites like PG&E. “Come on guys and ladies, get real. I know you think this exercise is hypothetical, but believe me there are people (even in Davis) that believe everything they read – including rankings of future housing development sites.”

Any person who is interested in Housing in Davis should consider the Additional Summaries of Comments at Workshop #2 a must read. It was handed out in paper-copy draft form to the Committee last night. Hopefully, Staff will get the finalized electronic version of this Summary on the HESC website soon, so everyone has access to it. For those who could not be at the meeting, in the draft paper copy, Staff grouped the 285 Comments they received at Station 5 of the Workshop into the following categories. Each category included the text of all the comments in that category.

• Housing Density and Intensity near Downtown and Neighborhood Nodes

Supportive of Higher Densities (11 comments)
Concerns about Density (6 comments)
Infill and Sprawl (4 comments)
Affordable Housing (1 comment)
Location (5 comments)
Other (3 comments)

• Housing Development Within the City as Compared to Peripheral Sites

Infill (16 comments)
Conditions for Development on the Periphery (14 comments)
Neighborhood Design (2 comments)
Agriculture Related (5 comments)
Other (4 comments)

• Variety of Housing Types

Affordable Housing (10 comments)
Moderate Housing (2 comments)
Compact Housing (11 comments)
Student Housing (2 comments)
Senior Housing (24 comments)
Mix of Housing Types (3 comments)
Other (4 comments)

• General Comments (159 comments in total)

Growth (46 of the 159)
*** Opposed to 1% Guideline and/or No Growth (38 of the 46)
*** Neither Pro nor Con the 1% Guideline (3 of the 46)
*** Conditional Pro Growth (5 of the 46)
Supportive of Son of Covell Village (5 of the 159)
Opposed to Son of Covell Village (9 of the 159)
Comments About Other Sites (8 of the 159)
Site Development Feasibility (1 of the 159)
Lewis Cannery Site Timing (3 of the 159)
Agriculture (1 of the 159)
Infill (4 of the 159)
Housing Needs and Groups (7 of the 159)
Affordable Housing (2 of the 159)
Housing Mix, Types, Densities, Sizes and Prices (1 of the 159)
Downtown and Neighborhood Centers (1 of the 159)
Mixed Use (3 of the 159)
Business, Industry and Jobs (5 of the 159)
Sustainability (6 of the 159)
Taxes, Revenues and Fiscal Impacts (9 of the 159)
Community Design (4 of the 159)
Infrastructure (1 of the 159)
Transportation and Parking (5 of the 159)
Neighborhood Impacts (6 of the 159)
Preserve Community Character (8 of the 159)
Miscellaneous Comments (8 of the 159)
Other Comments Too Risque to Print (2 of the 159)

In yesterday’s column DPD raised a very interesting point, “In some ways I feel that this process is almost ad hoc. And that decisions are being made on each of these steps independently. There are different maps and different processes. And the result will be what exactly? Does the public or even our leaders on council know?” What I heard and read last night was that the Davis community took this Workshop seriously, and has given the Committee, the Planning Department Staff, and most especially the Council well-thought-out feedback on possible approaches to Housing in the coming days, months and years. Hopefully, that message will be carried to all the individual processes that deal with Housing. The reality is that unless we the people make that happen, it won’t happen. I guarantee that the comments on the 1% Growth Guideline will be used at Tuesday’s Council meeting when they discuss the 1% Guideline.

Now that I have covered the factual content of last night’s Committee meeting, let me turn to the theatrical parts of the evening’s activities. City Finance Director, Paul Navazio got out his top hat, cane and Capezios for his dance around the question of how (and whether) Housing Development “pencils out” in Davis. Paul shared some very interesting material, and the words of his bottom-line answer to the question were “It depends.” I didn’t hear it that way. I heard, “Most of the time the answer is No, but in some special circumstances the answer may be Yes.” The problem for me is that those special circumstances revolve around building more “Million Dollar Houses” (Paul’s words), and that is the one housing type that this City does not need more of.

For me, Paul’s presentation and comments make Tuesday’s City Council discussion about the 1% Guideline all the more important. Mark Siegler advocated “a pause” in the coming months (and possibly years), so that we can really understand what kind of housing will make the most sense in Davis. Workforce housing and affordable housing do not “pencil out” in a financial analysis, but they do contribute to the vibrancy and sustainability of our City. Single-family, detached homes over $500,000 do “pencil out,” but they will make Davis even more of a bedroom community. Is that what we want? I for one hope not.

Council Moves Forward on Housing Projects Despite HESC Process

One of the points that came up over and over again during the discussion of the Wildhorse Horse Ranch project last night was why this project was being discussed and pushed forward at this time, given that the Housing Element Steering Committee was in the process of determining rank order of the best sites in which to have future growth.

In fact, it is not alone. Last week the City Council heard proposals about the Simmons Property and the Lewis Property has been going forward as well.

And yet at the same time, it would appear that at least according to the steering committee members prior to their meeting next week, none of these locations are ideal for growth in the next general plan cycle.

10 - Simmons, E. Eighth Street
21 - Lewis Cannery
27 - Wildhorse Horse Ranch Mix of Housing Types

This is not to suggest that I think these particular projects are good or bad. Only to question the process by which this is all occurring. And while, as I heard last night, I understand that for instance the Horse Ranch has been under proposal since Covell Village was voted down, I still have to wonder about the timing of things.

This came up during multiple points in time last night. Councilmember Stephen Souza made it a point to suggest that this is not meant to undermine the work done by the HESC. He saw the role of the council as being different than that of the HESC anyway, since the HESC is looking at sites and the council at specific project proposals. But I cannot help wondering how the council can go forward looking to develop a site that is in the bottom third of site priorities.

Thus from a procedural standpoint, not weighing on the merits of any of these three projects, I would argue that the council should not be moving forward with these projects at this time. Councilmember Don Saylor made it a point to say that he feels that we are in need of housing and projects are not going forward at this time. Part of that of course is due to the front-loading of projects from the last General Plan toward the beginning of the period rather than spreading them more evenly.

The fact remains that the housing situation has turn, RHNA numbers are down, and the need to grow is not nearly as apparent as it might have been even two years ago when Covell was first brought up.

Mayor Pro Tem Ruth Asmundson made a more basic appeal of our need for additional housing and particularly affordable housing. But again, ignored the broader implications of the current housing market.

The more surprising development last night was an assessment of where this project actually stands both in the minds of the council as well as the broader community.

For one thing, I think the council was led to believe as I was that there was broad buy-in by the neighborhood adjacent to the Horse Ranch for this development. As impassioned and articulated appeals made clear this is not the case. The neighbors like the Horse Ranch next to their street, particularly now that it is well run. There remains a bit of irony that you may be more likely to get what you want if you run your property poorly than if you run it well.

They have concerns with the density difference in the new proposal. They have concerns about the height of the proposed condos. And there are concerns that the new neighborhood would stand out some from the existing neighborhood.

While the council majority was willing to push the process forward for an EIR paid for at the developer's expense, even they had a degree of reluctance and hesitation with the project as it stands now. As it this requires a Measure J vote, both Councilmembers Souza and Saylor kept pointing to a "wow factor" to use Councilmember Souza's term, although Mr. Saylor had similar language and reservations. In other words, we need to be sold on the idea that this project is needed. There has to be a reason for the people of Davis to vote for it and they do not see that reason right now.

During the course of this meeting I went from believing that this was merely a formality to believing that this project is in really serious trouble.

At one point Mayor Pro Asmundson asked City Manager Bill Emlen for an honest assessment. One of the goals is to have this for a Measure J vote by November of this year, but Mr. Emlen seemed very concerned about that ability to get the project to that point by that time. And he quite bluntly suggested that that timeline was in deep jeopardy based on what he had heard now.

There were a number of council machinations about what to do. Mayor Sue Greenwald first pushed for a vote to agendize a hearing that would kill the project altogether, but despite a second from Councilmember Lamar Heystek, that did not have the support of the Council Majority.

Clearly the council seemed disturbed--and all of them--that the neighborhood had not bought into this process at this time as they had previously believed. To me that is a key first step.

Having this level of density on the periphery is another concern. I am reluctant to expand the periphery of Davis to begin with. Frankly I like the smaller units on this project and the affordability of the units on this project, but the sustainability model, the model of smart growth is that you put this level of density in the core and that reduces the carbon footprint by reducing the amount of car trips. Putting this level of density on the perimeter obviously does not do that.

The big problem for me is again a timing issue. If the council is putting their trust in the HESC process, and clearly the members of the HESC have put in considerable work to determine where to grow, then the council should allow that to go forward.

The distinct impression I get is that the council would like to jump the HESC process by approving Simmons and Wildhorse in particular before the HESC wraps up. Lewis is more complicated with its vicinity to COvell Village. Once they have these properties in the actual approval stage then they would would consider the HESC' proposals.

The debate over growth rate is coming. Another debate over Measure J will be coming as well. Given concerns about the housing market, given concerns about carbon footprints and global warming, I am less than certain any of this is responsible. Mayor Sue Greenwald made a number of general points about growth that need to weighed heavily both on a local basis and a regional basis. It does not seem like anyone really wants to take on the tough questions.

I find it difficult to reconcile the concern that some on the council majority have about carbon footprint with the continuation of sprawl and urban development. And more importantly the lack of process based planning and development.

All of these considerations have probably been tossed aside by the reality on the ground so to speak that at this time, this project is not ready to go forward. They will take out an EIR and essentially push the decision into the future, but the tough work lays ahead on this. In the meantime, the HESC will come out with their recommendations for good areas to grow and none of the current proposals are going to make even the top 5 that place them into the likely category for development in the next six years given current growth guidelines and housing markets. It would seem then that the council ought to slow down and allow the HESC process to finish before moving forward on these projects.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Guest Commentary: Defining Davis’ Slow Growth Vision

by Eileen M. Samitz

Background

Historically, Davis has been a city proud and protective of its agricultural heritage, small town character and quality of life. In 1986, the citizens of Davis overwhelmingly passed Measure L, an advisory vote that mandated that Davis should only grow “as slow as legally possible”. Instead, developer-driven growth was allowed by pro-developer City Council majorities for over a decade. They approved one large residential development after another paving over 25% of the city in 12 years rather than the 23 years that was intended. An update of the 1987 General Plan emerged in 2001. It was drafted by the input of more than 200 citizen volunteers on 14 committees and was subjected to extensive public review. The new citizen-based 2001 General Plan reiterated the slow growth desire by Davis residents and strengthened agricultural protection language. It also reiterated that when housing is built at least 25% would be affordable housing. It also reminded the University of its promise to provide its share of housing for its students and faculty as it grew.

In 1998, tired of pro-developer Council majorities accelerating our growth, Davis voters elected Ken Wagstaff to join Julie Partansky and Stan Forbes on the city council, thereby creating a slow-growth majority. In 2000, when Sue Greenwald and Mike Harrington were elected to sustain a slow-growth council majority, Davis voters also approved the citizen-based Measure J ordinance. The Measure J ordinance empowered the citizens of Davis to decide if and when agricultural or open space land was to be developed. Measure J had strong developer opposition which poured an enormous amount of money into defeating the citizen-based measure, however Measure J passed. The new era that has evolved, enables the citizens to weigh in on the future of the city… however, developer pressure continues.

1% growth may sound slow, but is not slow growth

In more recent years, the public elected Don Saylor, Steve Souza and Ruth Asmundson, all of whom ran on “slow growth” platforms. Instead, they set out to justify a 1% housing growth rate. This seemingly innocuous 1% growth rate was based upon an impossible task assigned to city staff and the Bay Area Economics consulting firm of trying to define our “housing needs”. Since there are no standard formula’s for such a study the parameters were guided by Council. The genesis of this new 1% growth rate imposed by the current Council majority included Ruth Asmundson’s frustration expressed at Council meetings, that some of her children, and others could not afford to buy a home in Davis. Therefore, one of the goals for the “internal needs” study became that Davis should be able to build enough homes to provide a home for every child born since 18 years ago. This was deemed a “natural growth” factor. This invented factor wound up accounting for about half of the 1% growth rate. The 1% growth rate turns out to be at least 328 units per year, adding up to at least 2,300 units for every 7 year SACOG cycle. This means approximately 1 1/2 new Mace Ranch developments every 7 years. The astonishing part about this study is that no fiscal analysis was done to assess what the costs would be to the city and the citizens of Davis.

Sacramento Area Council of Government’s (SACOG) is a local entity whose primary job, is to try to do traffic planning regionally. They try to do this by dividing up projected population growth into the various SACOG cities (which includes Davis). An important concept to understand is that SACOG can not force cities to grow, but requests that cities plan for the number of units assigned. Sites that are designated for development towards the assigned growth cannot legally be forced to materialize, only to be planned. The SACOG number currently assigned to Davis between 2006 and 2013 is only 498 units. However, the Council majority of Asmundson, Souza and Saylor want Davis to grow by at least 2,300 units, which is almost five times faster than what is being asked of us. The language of Measure L is included in our General Plan to grow as slow as legally possible. Yet this new Council majority growth policy is clearly in the best interest of the developers, not Davis citizens.

Not only is the 1% growth policy inconsistent with the intentions of our slow growth citizen-based General Plan, but mandating this number of units encourages SACOG to increase Davis’ fair share assignment for future years. The Council majority never asked the citizens if they wanted this new growth rate added to the citizen-based General Plan, nor did they do any analysis of the impacts or the costs to the city and the citizens. Given that SACOG has asked us for only 498 units, that the current nationwide housing financial situation is in crisis, and that Spring Lake has 4,000 units under construction only 5 minutes north of Davis on Pole Line Road, why would we want to impose a mandatory growth rate contrary to Measure L?

The Covell Village site- a history of problems

Contrary to Kevin Wolf’s enthusiasm for another iteration of Covell Village, this parcel has inherent problems, which cannot be ignored and has a history to attest to these problems. The current developers had bought the huge parcel for only $3.1 million since the previous out of town developer was unable to resolve the traffic issues due to its access and egress problems. The land, located at Covell Blvd. and Pole Line Road, is primarily prime agricultural land, which is not within city boundaries but is Yolo County land. This means that the city would not get all of the property tax if it were developed but the tax would be split with the County. In 1998 the developers offered it as Covell Center, a 386-acre parcel at Covell Blvd. and Pole Lane Road with 688 housing units and a school site. When the school district clarified that it was not interested in the site due to the location, the developers quickly substituted a sports complex hoping to harness the sports community to pull the project politically. It did not take long for the citizens to assess the infeasibility of the sports complex fiscal report. The sports community could not sustain it, and Davis residents would wind up inheriting the financial albatross as well as the traffic, noise, night lighting as well as the other impacts from day and night tournaments.

In 2005, Covell Village was their new iteration but this time 1,864 units were being proposed on the handicapped parcel which would have been the largest residential development proposed in the history of Davis. The project was strongly supported by Council members Asmundson, Saylor and Souza despite their slow growth campaign promises. The citizens review of the EIR which revealed that the traffic would double on Covell Blvd. to 39,000 cars per day and on Pole line to 26,900 cars per day. The analysis found that Level of service “F” would result on many streets defined as “conditions that are intolerable for most drivers”. Traffic would back up onto neighborhood streets and cause associated safety and pollution issues especially for children, seniors and those with respiratory conditions.

The Covell Village EIR also revealed that the majority of the soil is prime ag land and the 2002 FEMA maps demonstrated that almost half of the 386 parcel was in the 100-year flood plain. New flood control legislature this year will now force cities and counties to cover a share of damage caused by flooding so it will cost Davis citizens when there is a flood event. It is possible to engineer control of a small flood plain area but it is not “smart planning” to deliberately build homes on more than 150 acres of flood plain. The Covell Village developers advertised that their project would bring Davis citizens affordable housing, however, the EIR revealed that the average house in Covell Village would cost $683,945. Another consequence would have been that we would prematurely exhaust our waste water treatment capacity. The current estimates for expanding the waste water treatment plant is over $150 million.... a cost which would be hoisted upon Davis residents. The project would also put enormous pressure upon our water resources. Our Council majority is pursuing surface water to fuel the growth train at an estimate of another $150 million also to be paid for by Davis residents. Fire and police demands would increase significantly also at a high cost (see Rich Rifkin’s Lexicon Artist article Weds. December 26, 2008 in The Davis Enterprise). Despite over 1,000 EIR comments from citizens ( including engineers and other planning professionals) opposing the adequacy of the EIR, the Council majority approved it and the developers will try to use that same EIR for any future project. Fortunately, on November 8, 2005, Covell Village was voted down 60:40, but now only 2 years later, the developers are back with a new proposal.

The Covell Village site – the latest “carrot”

As if there had never been a vote against development on the problematic site, the Covell Village partners are back with yet another project. The partners have taken on a new name -- North Davis Land Company, and have a new “carrot” – senior housing, for the entire 386 acre parcel (including more than 150 acres of flood plain). According to a letter they submitted to the General Plan Update Housing Element Committee they interviewed 75 senior community members who would like quality homes, neighborhood services, and health care delivery. The developers submitted a letter to the Housing Element Committee recently hoping to get the committee to consider only the entire 386 acres, presumably as a condition to offer the new senior housing project. For size perspective, University Retirement Center (which is a continuum) is approximately 11 acres, so asking for 386 acres is more than excessive. Considering that the 386 acres cost the developers only $3.1 million means that they could develop only a third (or less) of the land and leave the rest for agricultural mitigation, and still make an enormous profit. However, while it would be good to plan for more senior housing, clearly this is another “carrot” or lure consistent with a number of other offers in the past, all of which had many more problems than benefits. There are other site options within the city that could be used for senior housing in Davis that are not huge peripheral sites needing annexation and are not such a distance from other services. These sites will be listed for the public’s review and comment at this Thursday’s public open house workshop, Jan. 24, 2008 at 7:00 pm- 9:30 pm at Holmes Jr. High School Multi Purpose Room.

In this newest project proposal the developers are offering to have three phases of the project. The first phase would be approximately 130 acres for 800 units, the second phase of approximately 110 acres would be for 400 units, and the last phase would be approximately 140 acres for “urban reserve”. The last phase would be reserved for an undefined number of units. The developers are so enthusiastic that they bought 650 of acres to the north of the parcel to use for the required agricultural mitigation expanding the footprint of the project to 1,036 acres. Apparently, the developers must feel that the gamble is worth the potential multimillion dollar gain. Were it not for a long history of offers, promises and packaging that did not turn out to be what the public first thought, one might be attracted to this proposal without hesitation. The reality is that the developers know that the northern end 2/3’s of the 386 acre parcel should never be developed because of the enormous flood plain and the liability that comes with it. Instead of even attempting to reduce the footprint to avoid the flood plain and reduce the traffic impacts they return with simply a new design. Whether this proposal goes to the ballot for another Measure J vote will be decided by the new City Council to be elected this June which will include incumbents Sue Greenwald (who opposed Covell Village), and Don Saylor and Steve Souza (who supported Covell Village).

Hunt-Wesson/Lewis Cannery - A better site for housing

The 100-acre Hunt-Wesson Cannery site was abandoned approximately eight years ago. To expand the uses of the site the zoning was changed shortly after to allow high tech industrial. Despite political desire to redevelop it into high tech, no company was willing to invest in it presumably, because it was surrounded to the west and south by residential. Also, since Mace Ranch has more than 70 acres of vacant commercial land available closer to I-80, any high tech companies wanting to come to Davis would most likely prefer to locate there. In 2004 Lewis Planned Communities purchased the land and asked the city and residents what they would like to see redeveloped there. The desire for more housing for the workforce was a clear objective by the City Council, so the developers were encouraged to proceed with a proposal by the city. The Hunt-Wesson site is clearly a better alternative for housing than its neighboring Covell Village site, since it is within the city limits. This allows the city to get far more property tax rather than having to split the property taxes with the County as we would need to with Covell Village. It is already zoned for urban use and is an underutilized site. Also, the units proposed are far less in cost than what Covell Village was proposing to build.

The project design is not a finished product, however the developers have had a series of public meetings to get input from the public which they have utilized and integrated into the proposal. As a result the design has changed due to citizen and city staff input. Davis planning director Katherine Hess first hobbled the project by recommending that an industrial viability study be done, which the Housing Committee unanimously did not support. However, the City Council approved the study. She then wanted another access to the project than the single entrance originally proposed. The developers responded with a second access point. But then, Hess wanted access through Covell Village to Pole Line Road. Since Hess was the city planner in charge of the failed Covell Village project, it seems rather interesting that she appears to be trying to link the Hunt-Wesson site and the Measure J dependant Covell Village site. Although the historical Simmons property parcel on East Eighth Street has similar access issues, Hess does not seem to have the same concerns. The Hunt-Wesson site does not need Pole Line Road access and the project would fall into a timeline when the city would get fair share credit for the next SACOG cycle. Hopefully, there will not be an attempt to blackmail the public into a package deal of Covell Village and Hunt-Wesson because the public will clearly see through such a ploy. Finally, since this land is within the city boundaries and has urban zoning it is not obligated to provide 2:1 agriculture mitigation. Contrary to a claim in Kevin Wolf’s recent guest commentary, there was a misstatement that this project be being exempted from the General Plan agriculture mitigation policy.

UCD needs to build more on-campus student apartments

Another issue of concern that needs to be addressed is the lack of student high rise apartments on the core campus. The University of California statewide has the goal of providing 42% of student housing by 2012. So far UC has admitted that it is shy of this 42% goal and has plans for 38% UC student housing. Yet its largest campus, Davis, with over 5,000 acres has never provided the 25% of on campus student housing that it promised in its current Memorandum of Understanding to the city. The university could control the cost of rents for students and reduce traffic and travel costs but instead UCD continues to try to hoist the responsibility of its housing needs on the city as it expands its student population. Unlike the city, only UCD can legally dedicate its housing to UCD students, staff, and faculty and offer permanently affordability. UCD is willing to expand other dorms which are temporary housing for freshman, rather than helping to solve the housing problems by building subsidized on-campus student apartments. UCD is currently complaining that the city does not have enough apartments although they increase their student population one year and decrease it the next due to their budget changes. Logical planning would call for increasing their student population after UCD builds more student housing on-campus. An added benefit of more on–campus student housing is that it would free up more housing within the city for non-student Davis residents.

So what do we do now?

As a member of the General Plan Housing Element Update Committee I have felt privileged to serve and I have a great deal of regard for the 14 other members as well as staff who have been serving. I know that everyone has good intentions for our city’s future, however, we agree on some issues and disagree on others. Some members believe that if we build many housing units in Davis the cost of housing will drop. Historically, this result has not been the case in Davis when even when large numbers of units were being built, the housing prices continued to rise. This is a consequence of Davis being a desirable community to live in. If Davis is to remain a small, compact university town surrounded by agriculture as our General Plan states, then we need to acknowledge that there are limits as to how much growth Davis will have without losing our quality of life and agricultural land around us. Smart planning begins with choosing sites which make sense to build on and then makes the best use of the land that you sacrifice for that growth. We can increase our densities to a certain extent but there is a finite point when you start overpopulating an area. The goal is to have well planned densification which is a delicate balance of how much works well to have livability as well as compatibility. Otherwise you create an inner city atmosphere with more crime and stress, rather than a community which is a good place to live. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that you can’t build your way out of city fiscal problems which only becomes exacerbated by adding much more residential growth. Given that the housing market is currently undergoing a fiscal crisis, and that SACOG has assigned only 498 units for Davis, the time for us to slow our growth is now.

In summary, none of the peripheral sites should be approved now, and at best, only the Hunt-Wesson/Lewis Cannery site should be planned to start no sooner then 2011 to assure that Davis will get SACOG fair share housing credit. Given the timelines we are facing, this can happen if the citizens of Davis make clear their desire to oppose and demand the repeal of the 1% growth rate imposed by the current Council majority. Notably, the 386-acre Covell Village site should not be developed now and the northern 2/3’s of this parcel should never be developed in the future because of the huge flood plain and its risks and liability to the city and residents. If this parcel was ever to be developed in the future, the northern 2/3’s of the 386-acre parcel should instead be used to fulfill the 2:1 agricultural mitigation requirement for a use such as organic farms, which would be compatible and would endure a flood event better than a massive residential tract. The Nishi property should not be developed either, due to the access issues that can never be resolved unless the University agreed to be the only access and egress. Otherwise the development of Nishi would be a disaster for Davis because of untenable traffic problems pouring traffic into the downtown at Richards Boulevard with no where to go. Finally, the university needs to provide more on-campus housing to help accommodate its own growth.

Now is the time to make it clear that it is the citizens of Davis, not the developers, who will plan future of their city.

Thank you for your time and please come to the General Plan Housing Element Update this Thursday to give your input at the open house workshop at 7pm at Holmes Junior High School at 1220 Drexel Drive in the Multi Purpose Room. This is such an important meeting and we need your input to help guide the future of Davis.


-Eileen M. Samitz, General Plan Housing Element Update Committee member

Guest Commentary: Examining the Effect of Housing Density on Open Space

by Matt Williams

Friday in his Guest Commentary, Kevin Wolf covered a lot of well thought out points. I would like to focus on one of those points . . . the effect that decisions about housing density will have on how effectively we protect/use the open space around Davis. Rather than force everyone to reread Kevin’s whole commentary, I have excerpted the portions that focus on density here:

The Housing Element Steering Committee asked the public for feedback on what principles and goals [the committee] should use to prioritize where new growth should occur. The top five highest rated principles translate into placing new housing near the downtown and university and/or close to schools and shopping.

I translate this to mean that Davisites prefer we grow at higher densities than lower densities, or for some that we do not grow at all. For example, Lewis Homes’ Cannery Project will eat up one acre of land for every six units it develops even though its densities will average 8 – 22 units per acre. The reason for the lower average for the 98 acres is because of the land that gets taken up by streets, drainage ponds, parks and non-residential buildings. If we increase a site’s density by six units, we will have save an acre of Ag land or habitat from being lost in the future.

The Steering Committee, the City Council, and ultimately, with any new major development outside of existing city limits, the citizens of Davis should prioritize those developments that do the most good in relationship to the negatives they cause. I

If we think out 30 years and have a 1% growth rate, which would be among the very lowest in the region, we will build out just about every one of the 37 sites presented to our committee if we build at the density proposed for Grande (39 homes on 7 acres) or Lewis Homes (6 homes per acre). In every location, we need to build wonderful, engaging, and highly energy efficient homes, townhouses, condos and apartments at higher densities than in the past to reduce the amount of driving that is needed by residents and to protect ag land and habitat in the region. I hope my work on the Housing Committee helps achieve that.

They say, “a picture is worth 1,000 words.” The following graphic prepared by the Planning Department Staff, takes Kevin’s words and converts them into a very compelling picture.

The story this picture tells is both simple and compelling.

• If Davis grows at a rate of 300 units per year between now and the year 2050, that will add 12,600 New Units.
• If those 12,600 units are added at an average density of 8 units per acre, then the developed footprint of Davis will expand 2,472 acres.
• If the average density increases to 14 units per acre, the footprint expansion will reduce over 1,000 acres to 1,410, and
• If the average density increases to 20 units per acre, the footprint decreases another 500 acres to 894

20 units per acre is a much higher average density than Davis has historically experienced, but when I look at the three maps, I find the top one is the one with the most appeal. Thursday night I will have the chance to share that opinion with the Housing Element Steering Committee at their Community Workshop at Holmes Junior High School. Don’t miss the opportunity to share your opinion as well.

By the way, the three-map graphic can be just as effective in demonstrating the effect of varying annual growth rates at constant density. Mathematically, at a fixed density of 8 units per acre, the bottom map represents an annual growth rate of 1.2% (300 new units per year), the middle map represents an annual growth rate of 0.7% (170 new units per year), and the top map represents an annual growth rate of 0.5% (120 new units per year). As the smoking Nazi soldier, Arte Johnson used to say, “Very interesting . . . “

Guest Commentary: General Plan Housing Element Process

by Matt Williams

In 2007 if you wanted to unify the residents of Davis, the best bet was to raise the topic of how and how much Davis will accommodate the demand for additional housing. Thus far, January 2008 is following the same pattern, with

· The City Council voting on Tuesday night to bring back for discussion the Resolution Regarding Annual Growth Parameter passed by the Council on March 8, 2005 . . . also known as the One Percent (1%) Growth Guideline, the text of which can be read here and

· The Housing Elements Steering Committee (HESC) coming to final decisions about the Community Workshop scheduled for Thursday, January 24^th from 7:00 to 9:30 PM at the Holmes Junior High School Multi-purpose Room. The HESC has conducted 24 public meetings since February 8, 2007, and the second Community Workshop is intended to:

1) Share with the public an explanation of how Davis will meet the RHNA allocation,

2) Show HESC’s ranking of 37 future potential sites for housing,

3) Show the Principles and Tradeoffs HESC has used to ranking potential housing sites

4) Get feedback from the public on the above three items, including changes to the ranking of the 37 future potential housing sites, and

5) Get feedback from the public on what directions Housing in the Davis Community should take in the years to come. Some of the feedback questions the HESC will be asking are:

a) Housing Density and Intensity Near Downtown and Neighborhood Nodes – Which of the following strategies for developing housing sites, if any, would you support or suggest?

¨ Locate new housing as near as possible to downtown

¨ Avoid infill housing that is developed at higher densities than the surrounding area

¨ Allow for increased densities above existing densities for housing development near the downtown or neighborhood centers, when the site offers flexibility to address potential neighborhood impacts.

¨ Disperse higher density housing throughout the City

¨ Other

b) Housing Development Within the City as Compared to Peripheral Sites – Which of the following strategies would you support or suggest?

¨ Maximize “infill” development within the current City limits.

¨ Protect agricultural lands as much as possible.

¨ Expand City boundaries to all development of peripheral sites where services and facilities can easily be extended consistent with community housing needs.

¨ Other

c) Variety of Housing Types – Which of the following strategies would you support or suggest?

¨ Strive to maintain the current mix of housing types and tenure, including an adequate supply of affordable and workforce housing.

¨ Place greater emphasis on rental housing

¨ Place greater emphasis on ownership (for-sale) housing

¨ Place greater emphasis on ownership (for-sale) moderate income housing

¨ Place greater emphasis on senior (age-restricted) housing

¨ Place greater emphasis on attached housing and smaller housing units

¨ Place greater emphasis on single family detached housing

¨ Other

The HESC and Planning Department Staff have produced an excellent comparative growth map that shows visually the impact of density and growth rate decisions.

Neither of these two events transpired without significant disagreement, and all Davis residents should take the opportunity to participate in the next steps the Council and HESC take in the coming weeks.

Some of you may be asking yourselves, why does Davis need to grow at all? The reality is that if there is no demand for additional housing, Davis does not need to, nor will it grow. However, the story does not end with that statement. California General Plan law requires each city and county to have land zoned to accommodate its fair share of the regional housing need. This fair share is known as the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), which for Davis is calculated by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG). Information about RHNA is available here.

To comply with the RHNA requirements of California law, Davis is not required to make development happen, but it must eliminate barriers to the production of 498 additional housing units by ensuring that enough land is available to accommodate that RHNA allocation specified by SACOG for the period from January 1, 2006, to June 30, 2013. The RHNA allocations for the whole Sacramento five-county region are available here.

One of the significant areas of disagreement within the HESC members has centered around the charge it was given by the City Council regarding Growth Rate. On the one hand, the RHNA allocation is only 498 additional residential units between January 2006 and December 2013. On the other hand, the Planning Department Staff’s interpretation of the 1% Growth Guideline as a target rather than as a cap means over 2,300 additional residential units over the same period. One can’t help but ask the following question:

“City Council members and Davis residents came out in force in March 2007 to strongly oppose Yolo County’s recommendation to consider 2,100 additional residential units in the HESC planning area in the 23 years between now and 2030. Given that, why is the City Council and HESC now considering even more units over 6 years?”

No matter what your answer is to that question, the HESC and City Council need your feedback. One could even add a fourth set of feedback questions to the three groups HESC has identified above:

d) Volume of Housing Growth – Which of the following growth rate targets between now and December 2013 would you support or suggest?

¨ Only grow by the RHNA mandated allocation of 498 additional residential units.

¨ Grow at a rate between 498 and 1,500 additional residential units.

¨ Grow at a rate of between 1,500 and 2,300 additional residential units

¨ Grow at a rate higher than 2,300 additional residential units.

¨ Other

To put those numbers into further context, (click here), the Planning Department Staff provided the HESC with a breakdown of the inventory of residential units for which certificates of occupation (181), building permits (115) or other additional permits (339) have been issued or approved. Those 635 already approved (or built) units more than meet the RHNA allocation, and further they raise the Planning Department Staff growth under their interpretation of the 1% Growth Guideline to 2,950 units between now and December 2013.

Fortunately, the Council has voted to clarify the wording of the 1% Guideline Resolution. Sue Greenwald and Steve Sousa both made motions to that effect, and both Sousa and Ruth Asmundson stated on the record Tuesday night that the 1% Growth Guideline was always intended to be a cap, not a target. So if you have an opinion about the 1% Growth Guideline, let your Council members know your thoughts, and be sure to ask them to be more explicit in their charge to the HESC.

You may ask, why do we need a Growth Guideline at all? The answer to that is clear when you look at the following annual building permits issued numbers:

1998: 999

1999: 926

2000: 566

2001: 206

2002: 307

2003: 265

2004: 135

2005: 250

2006: 104

The huge spikes in 1998 and 1999 represent the rapid build-outs of the Mace Ranch and Wildhorse developments. Council wanted to be sure that did not happen again, so they adopted the resolution, which begins as follows:

The City Council finds that an annual average growth parameter for the City is appropriate for future growth management and planning after considering:

a. The internal housing needs identified in the “Internal Housing Needs Analysis” report.

b. The most recent and likely future fair share housing needs issued by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG).

The idea behind the resolution is good, but it was never intended to be anything other than a cap . . . to prevent a recurrence of the problems experienced with Mace Ranch and Wild horse. To their credit, Council appears poised to clarify any misunderstandings that may exist vis-à-vis the 1% Growth Guideline.

In closing, please read and act on the following HESC flyer: