Guest Commentary: Response to Davis Enterprise on Senior Housing

Special to The People’s Vanguard of Davis

By Elaine Roberts Musser

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It was with some disquiet that I read Claire St. John’s Jan. 2, 2009 article in the Davis Enterprise, entitled “Senior Living”. I immediately fired off a clarification of my position to the Enterprise that same day. I wanted to make clear the reader understood 1) I was speaking as an individual and not in my capacity as the Chair of the Davis Senior Citizens Commission; 2) the issue of how much senior housing is considered necessary in the future was left completely out of the article.

Because I have no 350 word limit as is required in the Enterprise, it would be my privilege to take this opportunity to more fully express my individual opinion. I was asked by Claire St. John what I thought were the most pressing senior needs in Davis. The list I gave included four items: 1) senior housing; 2) transportation; 3) elder abuse prevention; 4) greater fiscal responsibility with respect to city finances.

A lengthy discussion ensued about each item on the list, and what was being done on a city and county level to address these four issues - since I wear both a city and county hat. (I am Chair of the Triad Task Force, the action arm of the Yolo County Commission on Aging & Adult Services.) I mentioned transit mobility training and roving legal clinics at the county level, and talked of my concerns about the city budgeting process. I offered to Claire contact information for various people, to facilitate follow-up discussions - in an effort to assist the research process about her proposed article on senior needs.

However, Ms. St. John’s article only dealt with senior housing, and in my opinion left out the critical element the two of us had thoroughly discussed. How much senior housing is necessary? I doubt anyone would disagree that between now and the year 2013 that some more senior housing options would be nice, as was suggested in the article. Especially to give some desired competition to already existing and very expensive assisted living or continuum of care facilities in Davis. But what specific number of senior housing units would be essential is the million dollar question, the big fat elephant in the room!

In the article, only one number was discussed. The plan under contemplation at the old Covell Village site would have about 800 units of senior housing over ten years. This is an all or nothing approach. Are we only left with two possible options: 800 units or zero growth? In fact a city staff report put the internal need for more senior housing at an estimated maximum of 150 units between now and the year 2013, which from my perspective seems considerably more realistic than 800.

Claire St. John’s article relies heavily on the notion of “downsizing”, i.e. moving to a smaller home to cut down on maintenance needs. Ironically, statistics show that people prefer to remain in their home until the day they die. Often there is an emotional attachment to one’s residence. It is where children are raised and grow up. I doubt very many seniors would want to sell their home for the good of the community just to free up housing for younger families, as was put forward in the article as a reason for development of more senior housing. Nor do many seniors want to live in an age-restricted complex, preferring to live among younger folks.

Some months ago, I strongly advocated for the Davis Senior Citizens Commission to create a set of housing guidelines. The idea was to give developers and the City Council some guidance as to what seniors were interested in, and delineate their concerns. I felt it was time to reverse the trend of new housing in Davis being developer-driven. Such principles that involve sensible planning might also cut down on the divisiveness that seems to come with every discussion in Davis about growth. These guidelines are very close to being finished, but still require a bit of tweaking.

The gist of the guidelines, without getting into specifics, is as follows: 1) provide housing options for seniors of all income levels, with an eye toward meeting “internal” rather than “external” demand; 2) taking into account the fiscal impact of an increase in cost of city services that will entail. Too often residential growth has been initiated under the policy “ build it and they shall come”. Ultimately the developers reap a handsome profit. However, the inherent costs of such a careless strategy have not been fully borne by developers, but rather city taxpayers are forced to make up the difference, which has been substantial.

We are now facing a city budget crisis of epic proportions. Much of that cost is for road repair, and city employee benefits. Costs intrinsic to residential development. To put it bluntly, a massive influx of seniors would further strain the county social welfare system, city fire and ambulance services, city and county medical facilities, etc., above and beyond normal city and county services. Shouldn’t we be trying to further commercial development first, to bring in more tax revenue to pay for existing city services, let alone pay for any new ones created by more development?

Another issue raised in the article is of deep personal concern. “Part of their concept is a community…managed by residents. Maintenance would be paid for out of a homeowners association fund.” As a Board member of the Center for CA Homeowners Association Law (CCHAL), I can tell you from personal experience as an attorney, homeowners associations are rife with opportunities for elder abuse. A homeowners association is not the panacea many assume it is. In fact homeowners associations, and the management companies and debt collection agencies they hire, can perpetrate some of the worst cases of abuse on record. It can include taking away a person’s home and selling it for as little as $1.20; and can result in the death of the homeowner from the stress of any foreclosure proceedings.

I would strongly advise the City Council to tread very carefully, when planning future housing in general, and senior housing in particular. My hope is our commission’s guidelines will serve as a set of talking points, to begin appropriate discussion on projected residential development of senior housing. If the City Council finds these guidelines useful, I would encourage the planning commission to come up with a similar set of guidelines for overall residential development. It serves for better long range planning, should cut down on incivility in community discussion, and will better provide for actual community needs.

Elaine Roberts Musser is an attorney who concentrates her efforts on elder law and aging issues, especially in regard to consumer affairs. If you have a comment or particular question or topic you would like to see addressed, please make your observations at the end of this article in the comment section.

Commission Looks At a Variety of Senior Housing Needs

The Senior Citizens Commission met on Thursday. Along with the Social Services Commission they have been working on a proposed set of housing guidelines that will become increasingly important in the city as we move toward a full blown discussion on Senior Housing Needs. It is important to identify such needs independently of developer driven housing demands that we have already begun to see come forward such as the one we saw last week in the Davis Enterprise which is pushing for an 800-unit complex at the Covell Village site. The city of Davis on the other hand, has projected the senior housing needs for the next five years or so at a much more modest 150 units.

However it is important to recognize that Senior housing has a very particularized array of specific housing needs, and these needs need to be understood and incorporated into the general discussion on housing.

For example:

"The Commissions support the expressed preference for a variety of housing options that allows individuals to remain in their own homes, more commonly referred to as aging-in-place."

Part of that means that houses can be built in such as a way that they can be adapted and modified to meet the needs of an aging population. That means doorways wide enough to potentially accommodate wheel chair access, that means that the general housing structure is made so that they can be modified to accommodate a senior occupant without having to rip the house apart.

The report goes on to say:

"The Commissions place importance on providing housing that can address the specific needs of seniors and other special needs populations within the city's general housing stock, while also recognizing the need for some specialized housing options."

Here are some of the key issues that highlight this report.

The issue of accessibility and visitability is crucial. A lot of older homes, people with wheel chairs simply would not have access to in order to even visit. They discuss making a checklist of desirable features that would provide better access and usability in the housing unit.

These features could include:

"zero threshold entry, exterior and interior paths of travel, accessible half or full bathroom, accessible common room on the ground level."

They also put in language to "ensure affordable rental projects include fully accessible and visitable units..."

Transportation is crucial of course:

"Continue to promote and encourage public transit as an affordable and environmentally-sound alternative to personal vehicles."

Issues that are raised include good access to public transit, provisions for electric and alternative fuel vehicles for shared resident use and the infrastructure to support the use of these vehicles. Finally ensure adequate greenbelt and bike path connectivity.

Affordability:

"Provide a variety of housing types and prices, including city subsidized, affordable and middle income housing requirements in an effort to provide housing opportunities at a range of income levels."

Housing options:

"Promote various housing models in new housing developments that could accommodate seniors and other special needs groups."

The report suggests that there needs to be a determination of the need for housing.

"Determination of housing type should be accomplished in response to the expressed desires of the community through local outreach and measurements of local demand...

Independent Market analysis--market analysis of the true community need for housing should be done by an independent consultant."

The analysis should speak to issues of affordability, marketability, senior or special needs preferences, and current waitlists.

A couple more key senior-specific issues when looking at development of senior housing facilities.

One is on-site support staff:

"The need for medical, clinical, or psychological supportive staff and program planning and referral staff should be considered...."

Other services:

"The need for meal services, health services, recreational services and other basic life services being provided on-site should be considered."

A big issue that came up with the Eleanor Roosevelt project had to do with the location and proximity to busing. It appears that busing is close. But as the commission pointed out that is deceiving. The distance requires a walk that is prohibitive for the less physically able. Moreover it requires navigation across a busy city street.

Thus they suggest two provisions:

"If public transit access is located in excess of 200 feet from the housing project, then an on-site shuttle service should be considered for use by residents.

All multi-unit housing projects should consider providing a shuttle for use by residents."

It is understood that this is cost prohibitive and that small facilities would have greater difficulty doing this, however, they believe the term "should consider" mitigates that consideration and they want these guidelines at least considered and these issues raised at the time of development.

Location is important and they identify the need for housing to be built near public transit lines if there is no on-site shuttle, near a neighborhood shopping center especially with a grocery store and pharmacy, and near a medical facility that could provide both general health services and prescriptions.

I think this gets back to the issue of the need for neighborhood grocery stores but also neighborhood pharmacies. If we are going to have an aging population in Davis, having convenient pharmacies will be increasingly important.

These will be guidelines as the commission pointed out throughout the discussion, they will not be requirements. But I think all housing projects should keep these issues in mind for both seniors, but also for people with a variety of disabilities. This is a good start the housing discussion we are going to need to have over the coming months and years as our population continues to age.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Enterprise Pushes For Senior Housing On the Covell Site

Last night, the Davis Enterprise ran a full-1200 word front page special on the push by the Covell Partners to re-package their failed 2005 project as Senior Housing. The push which began with a new proposal before the HESC (Housing Element Steering Committee), continued with a letter writing campaign that eventually nullified the HESC workshop, and continued this fall with a number of handpicked Seniors coming before the city council asking for a senior housing facility at the site formerly known as Covell Village.

The Enterprise article features Janice Bridge, the former School Board Member, who has been on the fore of pushing for a senior housing project. Of course those with a fairly good memory will recall that Janice Bridge was one of the leaders of the Covell Village project as well, serving as Secretary of the group Neighbors for Covell--a very different project that did not offer the senior housing and scale-down options that just three years later Ms. Bridge is now pushing for.

The argument made by Janice Bridge is that their 4000-square foot house is too big for them and they need a smaller house.

'If you could move us old fogeys out of our house and into an age-appropriate space, then instead of creating a new development that is family-oriented that needs new parks and new schools, the kids could go to the parks and the schools that are being underutilized in our area,' said Janice Bridge.

Bridge and her husband, Adam, live in a 4,000-square-foot home on B Street. The house served them and their three children well, but now that the kids are grown up and out, the house is too big.

'I am sitting in a house that is 4,000 square feet,' Bridge said. 'For me, my home is not appropriate for the lifestyle I want to lead. This house should have lots of active kids running up and down the stairs like it did 20 years ago. I look around and all I see are more houses like this one.'

The Enterprise goes on to write that the Covell Village developers have been meeting with almost 600 people who are "curious about or interested in a plan to build a senior-oriented community north of Covell Boulevard between J Street and Pole Line Road."

Interesting that it is not until about halfway through the article that the real agenda appears(although as soon as I saw the article's headline last night, it was obvious where this was going).

The Enterprise continues:

The community would include 'micro-neighborhoods,' a care-continuum, services for seniors and recreation options for a healthier, more active lifestyle than many senior communities offer, according to Project Coordinator Lydia Delis-Schlosser.

The concept has not yet been submitted to the city, but the developers - who also proposed Covell Village on the site, a 1,864 housing unit project that voters rejected in 2005 - hope to submit something to the city soon.

'If we're comfortable with how we're progressing with meeting the needs of the community, then we would like to submit a pre-application in about a year,' Delis-Schlosser said.

According to this article, the plan includes about 800 units and will be built out over 10 years. Sounds reasonable, until you realize it is only on the southern-third of the property, something that does not appear to be mentioned in the article.

The Enterprise continues:

'The biggest benefit to non-seniors is these big houses are opened up,' said developer Bill Streng, one of the owners of the property. 'My block used to have 20 kids, and now it only has four.'

The biggest benefit to seniors, Streng said, is a neighborhood that would have all their needs in one place. Seniors, like everyone else, have different needs and desires, and Streng said he and his partners want to address them all in one place.

'This is something John (Whitcombe) and I want to do, aside from financial reasons, you want to have something to leave,' said Streng, who is 82. 'The more we study and the more we see, the more we want to do it.'

The problem with this article is that it once again appears to slant the article. The article does quote Elaine Roberts Musser (senior citizens advocate and Chair of the Senior Citizen's Commission) a few times.

They bury her skepticism of the project until the very end of the article:

Good transportation is key for seniors, said Roberts Musser, so a senior development would have to include plenty of options - other than personal vehicles - for getting around.

But Roberts Musser would also like the City Council to consider how to pay for all this. The question is, will Davis be able to support a large, senior neighborhood?

'Honestly, and this is personal, but my feeling is I would like to have us worry more about commercial development right now, whatever generates tax revenue,' she said. 'We're so strapped right now. I'm not willing to build more residential when we really haven't built up our tax revenue.'

The problem with this article is that it portrays quite heavily the perspective of Janice Bridge and the Covell Partners. However, there is a whole other side of the story that is either buried in the case of Elaine Roberts Musser or completely untold.

Back in November the Vanguard ran a story on this and suggested that many seniors are not interested in this kind of housing. Much of this push appears to be developer driven. Indeed, Janice Bridge is not a developer, but does anyone else find it interesting that one of the strongest advocates for Covell Village I is now the leading spokesperson again, this time as a citizen pushing for Senior Housing as a means to downsize?

The developers of Covell Village have suggested we need a seniors-only facility. As the Vanguard suggested in November, many seniors do not want to live in a seniors-only community. They enjoy a more mixed community where families with children and even students also live.

That thought was backed up with a slew of email received from senior readers of the Vanguard, many of whom whole heartedly agree.

The question is what type of housing would work best for seniors. Some have suggested instead of facility like an Eleanor Roosevelt Circle, a series of smaller condominiums and townhouses may be the best fit. An added advantage there might be that we could build a small amount over time which would serve the senior population.

The big issue here is that we are again facing the prospect of developer driven development. It is clear that the Covell Village partners are driving the discussion here and in so doing, we are not getting perhaps a clear picture of what seniors in this community actually want.

Thus my first suggestion would be to find out what seniors actually want. How many people are looking to downsize from their current homes? How many people would like to live in a Senior-only community? How many people would be willing to trade for a smaller existing home with another resident?

This type of inquiry should occur not at the behest of a developer, but rather with leadership from groups like the Senior Citizen's Commission. Let us determine what the internal housing demand really is for seniors, what seniors really want, the numbers that we are really talking about, and the time frame that we are really looking at.

Unfortunately, once again, the Enterprise really only brings us one side of the story. They bring us the Janice Bridge story, which many have to view with skepticism given her past support for a very different Covell Village project. What would she have done had Covell Village I passed, pushed for a Senior Housing facility in the Northwest Quadrant?

The Enterprise could have interviewed others from the Senior Citizens Commission to give us a very perspective, perhaps someone like Tansey Thomas,a commissioner, would offer her a very different take. But unfortunately, we do not get that perspective.

For those who want to try to argue that this is a fair and balanced article, consider this, there was a total of 1269 words in the article only the last 79 words of the article expressed any kind of skepticism or alternative viewpoint to the dominant position. The only even remotely skeptical comments are buried at the end. That's fair and balanced? That's objective?

The Vanguard gives you the other side of the story here, talk to seniors, you find a variety of different perspectives on this issue, unfortunately we do not get to hear them in the Enterprise, maybe we will in the comment section of the Vanguard.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

As Regional and State Growth Rates Fall, What Will Be the Impact on Davis?

The Sacramento Bee reported back on December 18, 2008 that the regional and state growth rates have fallen to its lowest levels in more than a decade.

In six counties surrounding Sacramento which include Yolo, Sutter, Yuba, Placer, El Dorado and Sacramento Counties, the growth rate from July 1, 2007 to July 1, 2008 was only 1.39%. Separately, Yolo County grew at 1.46 percent adding around 3,000 people. Placer was the fastest growing county in California at 2.6 percent. Sacramento grew at a rate below the statewide level at 1.11 percent.

Statewide the growth rate was actually lower at 1.16%.

More people moved out of California than moved into California during this time period.

What does all of this mean for Yolo County and Davis?



Davis has spent considerable time and energy focusing on the issue of growth. One of the arguments in recent years has been that Davis must take on its fair share of new growth. That was a more poignant argument in the early part of this decade was population growth was exploding and the housing market booming.

Regional governance groups like SACOG (Sacramento Area Council of Governments) and RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Assessment) have developed models for growth based on allocations of fair share. In other words, the basic model determines how much of the region's growth a given area should accommodate.

The problem is that this has become a moving target for local growth politics. Back during the Measure X debate, the argument used by proponents was the Davis would be penalized if it did not take on its supposed fair share of growth.

However, by 2007, RHNA had come out with new numbers suggesting that Davis needed to take on a much smaller share of growth--considerably less than the current projected growth rate of 1%. When it did however, the debate was shifted in Davis.

First, the 1% growth requirement became a growth cap. Now 1% is the target and the limit rather than the threshold that we need to meet.

Second, the debate in Davis is about internal housing needs rather than regional fair share growth allocations. Frankly this is what the debate always should have been about from the beginning.

In this sense, falling state and regional rates may relieve some pressure for Davis to grow. However, perceptions about the internal needs of Davis, which have thus far been more theoretic and less concrete, have continued to drive the debate.

Frankly, for everyone but the most ardent no-growther, the question is really about where, how, and how quickly we grow. I am not in the no-growth camp. I would also prefer not to put a number on our growth rate.

From my perspective one problem with housing in Davis is that UC Davis has taken on less than its share of student housing. UC Davis has the lowest percentage of on-campus housing in the UC system. There are several advantages for UC Davis to provide more housing. First, they can subsidize it, which lowers the costs to the students. Second, they have a large amount of available land. A good, dense, and environmentally friendly project on the UC campus would go a long way toward helping the city better assess its own needs.

A recent survey of apartments in Davis found that the vacancy rate in the city of Davis increased slightly this fall to .8 percent. However, the rental rates continued to rise by an average of 4.36 percent. Interestingly, though the vacancy rate was higher this year, the rate of increase was also higher than the previous year where a .7 percent vacancy yielded a 4.18 percent increase in rent. This despite the depressed housing market and economy.

In the comparable cities, Woodland saw a 4.1 percent vacancy rate but a 4.8 percent rent increase. On the other hand, West Sacramento nearly has 20% of its apartments vacant and the resultant rate only saw a .6 percent increase.

Clearly Davis needs more student housing. The argument again for UC Davis to provide on-campus housing is first that they have the land and can subsidize the property, but second that UC Davis' growth in recent years is a large culprit in the lack of student housing in Davis. By providing more housing, more single family units within the city could be freed up for people who work in Davis but have not been able to live here.

This is the strongest pressure driving the need for Davis to grow. Earlier this month, the Vanguard suggested one option, similar to what Cal Poly did, which is create a large and dense housing complex on campus. A facility of that sort, highly innovative and land conscious, could take a huge pressure off the city to have to expand its borders.

For all of the talk about internal housing needs, very few of the proposed projects in the Housing Element Steering Committee's top sites have a sizable student housing component. Almost all of them focus instead on single family residences with a few affordable and multifamily dwellings thrown in the mix.

In other words, with perhaps the exception of Nishi, which has other problems, there are no plans put forth to deal with the largest internal housing need we have.

The West Village will break ground this year and provide an additional 2000 units or so for student housing. That is a good start, but with UC Davis continuing to grow and not enough student housing at present, West Village is clearly not enough.

Many residents are not opposed to growth with good, environmentally friendly projects that continue to preserve the character of Davis. The problem is from many of our perspectives, the new subdivisions that we have seen in town could have been plopped down anywhere in the country. That's not the kind of large scale growth we would like to see.

Give me a housing project I can get behind and I will. I would like to focus on environmentally sustainable, smaller houses so that middle income people can afford them, a student housing component, a senior housing component, and a work force housing component.

The city of Davis has already approved housing for Verona, for Simmons, and for Grande. That's over 200 units right there. In addition, West Village will provide a large number of units over three phases. In addition, Lewis is proposing 600 units, on a property that would be better served with a business park. The Wild Horse Ranch will be proposing somewhere just under 200 units in the coming months for a project that would require a Measure J vote.

In this housing market, that is more than enough housing to last us the foreseeable future. I would like to see one additional project, and that would be a high density, UC Davis campus project that provides 3000 to 5000 beds on the UC Campus in an environmentally sustainable way. If we do that, I think we our needs for a while in terms of housing.

The external pressures have lessened and the housing market is in bad shape. That will give us time to work on making what we do have as carbon neutral as possible--a very worthwhile endeavor in the coming years.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Council Goes with Equal Weight Alternative EIR on Cannery Site by 4-1 Vote

The Davis City Council eventually agreed by a 4-1 vote to go with City Manager Bill Emlen's recommendation for the Lewis-Cannery Project.

a. Evaluation, refinement and processing of the mixed use project concept proposed by Lewis or some variation thereof
b. Request Lewis to also prepare a full business park alternative plan for the site
c. Initiate City sponsored public outreach efforts with focus on the immediate neighborhood; and discussions with UCD and representatives in the tech sector regarding future business park land needs
d. Conduct an equal weight EIR analysis that evaluates the impacts of both the Cannery Park mixed use and Business Park Use concepts
e. Direct staff to conduct a more detailed analysis of options and strategies for meeting future business park land needs in light of current build out rates, including but not limited to, retaining the current zoning and the potential use of the Lewis site for other purposes
f. Direct staff to prepare a detailed timeline for completing this work; return to Council to adopt the timeline; make a strong commitment that the city will adhere to the timeline

The council eventually agreed to this well-crafted compromise with two modifications. First, they put a one-year time-frame on the EIR. Second, at the behest of Councilmember Sue Greenwald, the city with possible outside expert help will develop the full business park alternative in order to prevent a possible conflict of interest with the Lewis Planned Communities expressed desire to create a mixed-use project.

The centerpiece of this compromise was Bill Emlen's belief that there has not been a full study of the business park alternative. That the city has not fully considered the impact of a change in zoning from the current usage. Emlen argued the full-weight alternative EIR was needed to fully consider the business park alternative. In addition, having a full weight EIR would allow the council in a year's time to adopt this alternative and put it into place if that is the route they decide to go. Emlen did not believe that the city had enough information to make a decision on the form of the mixed use or even whether to go with a mixed-use approach exclusive to the site.

The eventual 4-1 vote with Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor the lone dissenter, however belies quite a bit of difference in the council's general belief of what should be done on this site.

Councilmember Sue Greenwald was adamant that the current owners of the site have been strongly opposed to a business park alternative that would feature high-tech and possibly green technology industry. She made an alternative motion to deny the zoning change and direct the owners to find suitable business ventures for the site. Councilmember Lamar Heystek joined her on the motion, but the substitute motion was defeated 3-2.

Councilmember Don Saylor largely supported the current proposal and believes that it was the proper approach. However, it was clear from the beginning that he was outnumbered 4-1 in terms of his view of proceeding with the main project. He tried to argue for a substitute motion which would make the Lewis-Cannery proposal as the main EIR and the business park alternative as an alternative, but not an equal weight alternative. The Mayor Pro Tem was turned down by both the City Manager and Councilmember Souza on that approach, both of whom argued that such an EIR would not fully explore the business park alternative and if the council adopted that approach in a year, it would be required to do a new EIR with the business park option as the main project. This would slow things down. As it is, the cost to the developer according to the city manager will run from between $50,000 to $100,000 in additional money to do the equal weight EIR versus the more traditional main plan and then alternative project EIR.

The swing votes on the council ended up being Stephen Souza and Mayor Ruth Asmundson. The Mayor wanted some sort of mixed-use project. However, the definition of mixed-use to her was unclear in her own mind. She could foresee something that was anywhere from 50-50 to 80-20. Moreover, she could also mixed-use not as project-specific but rather area specific, where a large area of residential neighborhoods surrounds the business park.

Councilmember Stephen Souza was quite eloquent. He passionately argued for the need for Davis to take advantage of the green-technology revolution that is sweeping the country. He also argued that this project does not have the "wow factor" that he is looking for, and thus is not a project he is inclined to approve. However, he also stopped short of calling for the business park alternative. He wants 100 acres of dedicate business park, but said he is not convinced that this is the location for it. In fact, he believes it is not. He also wants the area studied with the adjacent Covell Village to determine the best usage.

While I do not fully agree with Stephen Souza, I think he did a very good job of articulating the need for the city to be on the edge of innovation in terms of its land use both in terms of green technology and also in terms of sustainable development. In the end, we probably do not see eye-to-eye on the issue of masterplanning the entire area of Lewis plus Covell, but I think he made a strong point on his concerns about completing the bike loop and road access to the east.

Lamar Heystek argued passionately that we need jobs and have good high-tech, green technology jobs was a strong way to go. Sue Greenwald continued her strong advocacy of high-tech, arguing that we have missed out on a number of these start-ups because we did not have the land available for high-tech. The period of build out is not prohibitive because the land is already zoned and in place. We need to however forcefully and strongly pursue these start-ups. She also made a good point about the proximity of the university. There are many university towns looking for high-tech jobs that are close in proximity to the university. People argue that our cost of housing is prohibitive, but places like Berkeley and Stanford for example actually have higher costs for housing. Davis has a lower cost of housing than many competing university towns.

In the end, I would argue that Bill Emlen and his staff did a commendable job laying out the issues and crafting a compromise that keeps the alternative of a business park and a high tech build out on the table. Lewis Planned Communities argued that they would accept business suitors for the property, but the problem is that they have not made a concerted effort to publicize that desire. They believe that the housing option would be more lucrative. But the city in fact has a number of housing options on the table already. For instance Grande has 41 units if approved, Verona another 83 and is already approved, Simmons 90-110, Wild Horse Ranch could feature another 191 if the voters approve that project following council approval. Right there is over 400 units that could be built if the market allows. That does not include the rather large West Village Development. Does the city really need an additional 600 units at this time, in this market? That's questionable.

For those arguing that we need more affordable housing, ask yourself, does Lewis provide that? And should we settle for what appears to be a mediocre housing proposal because we are desperate for housing? I agree with Stephen Souza, we need a wow factor. Don Saylor argued last night that we'll never find a wow project. I disagree. I saw a wow project just last week and I will be discussing that project in the future. I think there are wow projects that could come forward and can be on the cutting edge of innovation. We just need to raise our standards.

At the end of the day, Kevin Wolf, former chair of the Housing Element Steering Committee made a vital point, Lewis Planned Communities bought this property knowing its current zoning. We do not owe them anything. We need to do this process right. Bill Emlen, who I often disagree with, gave us a plan by which we can do exactly that.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Lewis-Cannery: Wrong Place, Wrong Time For Housing

The issue of what should be done on the long-vacant Lewis-Cannery Property has been discussed at great length in this community and on this blog. I invite everyone to hear the radio show where the Vanguard interviewed Lewis Planned Communities representatives Ken Topper and Jeanne Jones. In addition, Sue Greenwald yesterday had guest commentary in support of keeping the current high-tech zoning in place. Up until the last few days I have remained neutral on the issue of whether to keep Lewis-Cannery as currently zoned, high-tech, and create a 100-acre business park, or whether to change the zoning to mixed-use, and build up to 600 units of housing with a 20-acre business park.

There are indeed good reasons to change the zoning of this property. As we look for locations with which to accommodate new housing needs from within the city, this is an area that is already within the boundaries of Davis and more importantly already paved over. with infrastructure and many city services already in place The ideal of preserving farmland and agriculture is a strong priority for me as well as others in this community.

Additionally, some have argued that development on the 100-acre Cannery property would relieve pressure to build on the larger adjacent Covell Village site. Unfortunately, two recent developments belie that belief. First, the circulation of the map of the property which contains two rather telling arrows, one of which points north from the Cannery site towards Covell Village and the other points east from the Cannery site again towards Covell Village. The consultants for Lewis-Cannery argue that they are designing the site independently of Covell Village. Covell Village rests outside of the current city boundaries and would require a Measure J vote. Therefore different issues underlie the two properties including a 60-40 vote from just three years ago against the development of Covell Village. The goal of Lewis-Cannery is to enable a decision to made independent of their site.

However, by accommodating potential future growth at Covell, Cannery unwittingly perhaps is facilitating future development. A more sinister development occurred with the city's staff report on the site for tonight's city council meeting which includes a memo from City Manager Bill Emlen. The Davis Enterprise yesterday excerpted from the memo, but buried the lead on the key portion. The last two paragraphs of the big-headlined front page article: "City manager: Cannery site needs more study."

Emlen also would like the City Council to consider the cannery's neighboring property, an 800-acre parcel that is technically outside of city limits. The parcel was proposed as a large housing development, Covell Village, but Davis voters rejected it in 2005.

'While not in the city, it is designated industrial in the county and clearly has future development potential,' Emlen wrote. 'It seems a lost planning opportunity to not address both properties in a master plan concept.'

City Manager Bill Emlen spells it out quite clearly--the city is looking to plan for the two projects concurrently and there is no way to escape the conclusion that Lewis-Cannery is in fact the gateway to Covell Village. For this reason I can no longer remain neutral with regards to Lewis-Cannery.

Today for the first time, I publicly oppose the mixed-use option, the current proposal, and any change to the high-tech zoning of the site.

In fact, there are a number of other key issues that have led me to this conclusion including my recent visit to San Luis Obispo over the Thanksgiving Holiday. As many know, I grew up in San Luis Obispo. There are many similarities between San Luis Obispo and Davis including a strong commitment to the preservation of open space, agricultural land, natural habitat, and toward the implementation of public policy designed to produce slow and controlled growth. However, there is a big difference between the two besides the obvious climatic and geographic differences. San Luis Obispo while having almost the same population of 44,000 that it had when I moved in 1996, has a much more strongly developed commercial base.

People have expressed concern about housing in Davis, but given the development of West Village by the university, and the smaller developments such as Grande and Simmons within town, and the other available infill options over the next ten years. I am not that concerned about housing. We will meet many of our internal housing needs as well as our state mandated growth targets over the next decade.

However, the housing market makes any new housing development precarious at best. The credit market is in dire straights, and the ability to finance such projects remains in serious doubt for the foreseeable future.

From a commercial perspective, the city of Davis is in dire need of additional sources of revenue. We are staring down a deficit, unmet needs, the collapse of the revenue from automobile sales, the possibility of new taxes to pay for basic city services, and the certainty of rate hikes for utilities. We know from past discussions, that housing is not a good source for on-going revenue. In fact, given the costs of provisions of city services, new development is as likely to lose revenue for the city as gain it.

Even without the housing situation, the Lewis-Cannery property falls short of what City Councilmember Stephen Souza called the "wow-factor." This project could quite simply be dropped into any city, any town, any neighborhood. There is no great innovation. There is nothing to lend itself to suggest, wow, this is a great project that we need in this city. At best, it fills a need for housing that could be better addressed in other parts of the city in more innovative and eco-friendly ways. In terms of green innovations, there are vague mentions but nothing specific in terms of carbon-neutrality, design-efficiency, alternative power, energy neutrality. By way of comparison, the proposed-Wild Horse Ranch project is well ahead of Lewis in these areas despite the fact that Lewis-Cannery is further along in the process at this point in time.

If we are going to development new housing, we need it to be cutting edge housing that moves us forward into the next era of urban land use. The current proposal from Lewis-Cannery quite simply does not do that at this point. The proposal is fine, but there is no "wow factor." (Later in the week, I will talk about a "wow" moment I experienced in San Luis Obispo that gave me great insight into the type of housing that we need in Davis.)

The other great problem with the Lewis-Cannery property is that of traffic mitigation. The preliminary estimates are that the current proposed development would produce something between 11,000 and 14,000 (at minimum) additional car trips a day spilling onto the already congested Covell Blvd. When asked about the traffic impacts, the consultants suggested that the traffic study would help them figure out how to mitigate. The problem is that we have been down this road once before with Covell Village. There was no answer then to the traffic impacts and the mitigation thereof. And it seems unlikely that the Lewis Planned Communities plan will have any better luck. One of the reasons that Covell Village went down to such a large defeat was the impact on traffic and the fact that there is no clear outlet. Bike paths and alternative transportation are great, but cannot be relied upon to reduce traffic impacts. There does not seem to be an easy answer here.

The current Lewis plan is for 46 acres to be developed for 610 homes however once they are built there is nothing to stop the developer from organizing the new residents into supporting Lewis Planned Communities from converting the additional 20 acres from commercial/ light industrial to residential and finish building another 300 homes, for a full build out of 900 homes. So on a total 98 acre lot Lewis Homes will have built half of the homes originally proposed by Covell Village, 1900 homes on a 484 acre lot. In other words, this is not a small proposal. This is a huge proposal that would go forth with no Measure J mandated vote.

Given the lack of innovative housing plan, given the likely unmitigated traffic impacts, given the state of the housing market, given our need for commerce, the answer for what to do with the Lewis-Cannery property becomes much simpler. I recommend the city place the property in urban reserve for the next ten years. In the meantime, the city should assign a staffer full-time with the responsibility of bringing in new business and developing the business park. The viability study suggested a protracted build out, but if done properly and aggressively, this would not be an impossibility. I want to see green, high tech companies come in that produce jobs and revenue for the area. Davis should become a leader in green technology and there is frankly no better location in the city to do this than the Lewis-Cannery property. It is the largest parcel of land zoned for high-tech.

Unfortunately, the city has not put the type of effort needed to attract that kind of business. So the city council is going to have to direct city staff to do this and make it a priority. This is our shot at creating a lasting legacy that can transform Davis into the center for new and sustainable green business that it ought to be based on both the proximity of the university and the commitment that this community has toward environmental sustainability. Moreover, it is time for this community to stop developing huge sprawling new and expensive subdivisions that could be located anywhere and to once again become the cutting-edge for environmental sustainability in terms of sustainable and energy efficient housing, housing that achieves carbon neutrality, housing that is designed specifically to protect farmland from urban development. This is not the time to compromise on these principles.

Tonight, our city council needs to stand up for green high-tech industry and for moving Davis forward into a new era of sustainable development.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

The Campaign for Senior Housing at Covell Village Continues

Given the election last week and slew of issues surrounding the election that came up, the Vanguard is just now getting around to what turned out to be a very interesting and important meeting on Wednesday night.

Three years ago this month, a proposed development at Covell Village was defeated by a massive grassroots effort. The overwhelming defeat of Measure X by nearly a 60-40 margin has not slowed efforts to develop the property that is bordered by Pole Line and Covell Blvd.

Instead, the would-be developers of the property have changed tactics and changed the form of the would-be development. Now they are looking at a senior development.

Slowly and methodically, they are building toward a community consensus on the need for senior housing. They have done this by meeting with key stakeholders in the community and also senior groups, selling the case that the community of Davis is in need of more senior housing and that their property offers the ideal location for that development.

Earlier this year, we got a window into their tactics when an email sent to various prospective supporters was leaked to the Vanguard. The email contained instructions on how to raise the profile of Covell Village at the Housing Element Steering Committee's (HESC) workshop. They laid out in that email, very specific instructions for both demonstrating the need for senior housing as a priority as well as showing support for expanding city boundaries. However, the leak of that email to the Vanguard and the general public, thwarted efforts at that point to change the HESC's assessment of the feasibility and need for housing at Covell Village.

What is clear however is that while opponents of Covell Village sleep, the developers remain hard at work. We flash forward to Wednesday night, where a well organized group of seniors came forward to speak at city council during a discussion of the HESC's report and the next steps that the council would take with that report.

From this meeting, the group was clearly well-coached. They laid out the need for senior housing. This was done with two key points that were made. Seniors generally do not need large homes which are too bid for them to care for and inefficient in terms of energy usage--heating, electricity, and cooling. Second, that seniors wish to remain in the community but sometimes cannot due to lack of senior housing options in the community. They made these points and yet there was never one mention of Covell Village--the obvious focal point of this strategy.

At a certain and critical level, the seniors are correct on these two issues. Allowing seniors to downsize would free up larger housing for new home owners. And many Davis residents would like to stay in Davis, and the community ought to accommodate them.

However, from my experience not as a senior but talking to many seniors, the questions that need to asked and discussed are not whether we need more housing options for our seniors, but how best to provide them.

Here is where consensus breaks down. One idea is the senior-based community that would provide housing for seniors in a close-knit and segregated community. However, many seniors do not want to live in a seniors-only community. They enjoy a more mixed community where families with children and even students also live.

Second, it is the fear of many if we build a large senior-development that we would end up accommodating large numbers of people from across the region. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but if our goal is to provide for our current housing needs for local demand, building a large development may not serve that need very well. Even a somewhat smaller Eleanor Roosevelt Circle ended up serving more people from outside the city than from inside the city.

Third, the question is what type of housing would work best for seniors. Some have suggested instead of facility like an Eleanor Roosevelt Circle, a series of smaller condominiums and townhouses may be the best fit. An added advantage there might be that we could build a small amount over time which would serve the senior population.

The big issue here is that we are again facing the prospect of developer driven development. It is clear that the Covell Village partners are driving the discussion here and in so doing, we are not getting perhaps a clear picture of what seniors in this community actually want.

Thus my first suggestion would be to find out what seniors actually want. How many people are looking to downsize from their current homes? How many people would like to live in a Senior-only community? How many people would be willing to trade for a smaller existing home with another resident?

This type of inquiry should occur not at the behest of a developer, but rather with leadership from groups like the Senior Citizen's Commission. Let us determine what the internal housing demand really is for seniors, what seniors really want, the numbers that we are really talking about, and the time frame that we are really looking at.

My fear is that if we were to say build a senior housing facility in the next five years, it would get filled up largely with people from outside of the area. I am not against people from outside of the area moving in, but there is a problem with that happening if our purpose is to first provide for our local senior housing needs.

To put it in concrete terms, Janice Bridge, the former school board member and proponent of Measure X, got up on Wednesday evening to suggest that she will be looking for senior housing in the next 10 to 15 years. Let us say we build Covell in the next five years. It fills up with people from outside the community since she is not quite ready to move in there. Where is she going to live?

These are some of the reasons that the community needs to figure out its housing needs independently of a developer driven campaign to create the impression that senior housing in this form is a critical need. Again, I am not suggesting that we do not need senior housing, what I am suggesting is that we need to find out what the real need is and we need to figure that out from a more independent source.

In the meantime, opponents of Covell Village better be aware that as they sleep at night, the Covell Partners are hard at work fostering strong community consensus behind their latest project. They have learned from past mistakes and are slowly and methodically bringing stakeholders into line. By the time Measure Y gets on the ballot, it might be too late to change things.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

City of Davis Responds to Yolo County General Plan's Inclusion of City Edge

The Vanguard is fully aware that most of the population is following the election today, and the bulk of our coverage today will be on the election. However, this is issue is too important to let slide. Tomorrow evening the Davis City Council will be taking up a response to Yolo County on the General Plan.

Here's the key sections of the General Plan that impact Davis' planning area:

Policy LU-6.2 reads: Coordinate with the University of California at Davis regarding the Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), campus facilities, off-campus agricultural and open space property and joint venture development with the private sector to achieve the best possible outcomes consistent with the General Plan.

Policy LU-6.11 reads:

Coordinate with the City of Davis to explore mutual opportunities regarding the following projects:

a) Special needs housing, including housing for seniors in the area north of Covell Boulevard and west of State Route 113.
b) Land uses that complement UC Davis, the University Retirement Community, Sutter-Davis Hospital and other nearby social services in the area north of Covell Boulevard and west of State Route 113.
c) Alternatives for the Binning Estates project, including the clustering of residential units and increased densities.
d) Extension of water and sewer infrastructure to the Binning Farms community.
e) Life science, biotechnology and related research uses along the Interstate 80 corridor.
f) Commercial and mixed uses at Covell Boulevard/Pole Line Road and coordinated planning with the Hunt Wesson site.

The city of Davis' staff report responds to these two items.

First they restate the mantra that the city has operated under for the last two years of discussion with the county and the prior to that, the spirit of the pass-through agreement.

"The City assumes that any development on the edge of Davis will occur through the City’s planning process"

Second and more pointedly in response to Policy LU-6.11:

"The City supports the Board’s desire to explore opportunities for mutual benefit. However, the City strongly opposes the inclusion of this policy that identifies specific uses and locations for urban development on the edge of Davis. So far, we have not had any discussions that would indicate that these are appropriate uses or locations. Including this policy in the General Plan is premature and implies that this is a “done deal” without any meaningful participation from Davis or its residents. In addition, listing the specific uses to be considered requires these uses to be analyzed in the “cumulative impacts” section of the EIR for the General Plan."

Third, in response to residential development:

"The City supports the Board’s previous decision to not include housing units in the Northwest Quadrant on the base map for the General Plan Preferred Land Use Alternative. The City recognizes the desire to comprehensively review the area, rather than consider individual development proposals. Our General Plan Housing Element Steering Committee and Planning Commission have recommend this area be “tabled indefinitely,” as there is no need to consider residential development through 2013. Whether and where the community will grow after 2013 will be considered through the City’s General Plan Update anticipated to begin next year."

Fourth, on Research park development:

"The City supports creating additional opportunities for life science and biotechnology research, but the identified location south of I-80 is not the appropriate location. The necessary housing development is counter to City and County planning principles, and these uses should be nearer the City of Davis and closer to improved roads and the Mace/I-80 interchange. Alternative sites should be jointly explored, including the North Central “Covell” site. This site has convenient access to I-5 and employee housing in Davis and in Woodland’s Spring Lake neighborhood."

Yes, you read that right, the city of Davis now surreptitiously is inserting the Covell site as an alternative research park development site.

Fifth on commercial development along I-80:

"The City supports the County’s removal of 43 acres of commercial development at I-80 and Mace and I-80 and Chiles. Such development would violate the principles of the Pass-Through Agreement between the City, its Redevelopment Agency, and the County. Our existing agreement, and our two decades of practice in its implementation, show that the City and County can work cooperatively in evaluating specific development proposals."

The staff report recommends future discussion through the City-County 2x2 process. They also suggest as an alternative to the letter, they could hold discussions at the 2x2 which is scheduled for November 14, 2008.

I have two thoughts. While this is not as alarming as the previous proposals by the county, clearly the city is taking this seriously. However, it is equally alarming to see city staff place Covell into discussion. That seems inappropriate given the public vote that took place now just three years ago.

---David M. Greenwald

What Should Happen with the Lewis-Cannery Property?

The Cannery Park property and how it should be developed is one of the biggest looming questions before the city in the next few years. Some have suggested it needs to remain zone light industrial in order to attract new cutting edge high tech business. Others have pointed out that this is not a viable use for the land and have favored either a residential development or a mixed-use that combines a business park with residential workforce housing.

The city commissioned a viability study that was discussed earlier this week at a joint BEDC-City Council Meeting.

According to the study:

"The Cannery Park site includes 66 acres of the remaining 138.9 acre vacant land supply currently designated for business and industrial park development in the City of Davis 2010 General Plan, or about half the total supply. It also represents the largest infill parcel considered by the 2013 General Plan Housing Element Update Steering Committee and Davis Planning Commission for housing possibilities."

In terms of feasibility the reported offered the following:

"Although the Cannery Park site is a viable and competitive location for business and park development, feasibility of development at the site will be driven in large part by the specific definition of entitlements for this property. This definition is policy driven and requires consideration of the types of uses, intensity of development, and development controls that the City of Davis will permit at the Cannery Park site."

"Currently, the Cannery Park site is partially entitled and it is unclear to what extent the site’s current “Planned Development #01-00 (Industrial)” zoning classification adopted in 2000 can accommodate the business park market opportunities identified in this report."

"Entitlements with highly restrictive, discretionary, and unclear regulatory controls will limit the site’s capture/absorption of business park market opportunities and will negatively impact project feasibility."

This is a key point that the report makes, because apparently the zoning for this site is unclear and incomplete and that may be contributing to some of the problems that they have had finding businesses to come in.

Thus the report suggests:

"Business park development at Cannery Park can be best facilitated by clear rules of development that accommodate business and tenant needs while providing economic incentives for the development to occur."

The study looks at five different scenarios of which we will look at three.

"Scenario 1 -Basic Business Park/No Residential. This scenario assumes that Cannery Park is developed as an 862,000 square foot basic business park that is similar in form, character, and tenanting to the overall Davis business park market. This scenario assumes that the site is entitled to compete for 100 percent of the demand for Davis business park space by permitting occupancy by all types of firms currently in office and flex space in Davis. It would have a 16 year projected buildout and assumes a 55,000 square foot annual absorption rate inclusive of ancillary support uses."

"Scenario 4 -High Tech Business Park/No Residential. This scenario assumes that Cannery Park is entirely developed as an 862,000 square foot high tech business park. This scenario assumes that the site is entitled to compete for about 40 percent of the market demand for Davis business park space by permitting occupancy by high tech uses while not allowing most other uses. This scenario is considered infeasible given its projected 39 year build out period and a 22,000 square foot annual absorption rate (inclusive of ancillary support uses)."

"Proposed Lewis Planned Communities Plan. This scenario summarizes the proposed Lewis plan for Cannery Park as provided by Lewis Planned Communities to ESG. This Plan assumes 225,000 square feet of business park space and 610 residential units. It is unknown to what extent the business park space includes (or does not include) ancillary support uses. This scenario assumes that the site is entitled to compete for 100 percent of market demand. Lewis estimates that this scenario would have 5 to 8 year buildout based on a 28,000 to 49,000 square feet annual absorption rate."

The report goes on to suggest the following impacts of those scenarios.

"Scenario 1 would generate the most jobs (2,586) and business activity with 862,000 square feet of building area and no residential. Annual business revenues are estimated at $301,700,000."

"In contrast, the proposed Lewis Planned Communities plan with 225,000 square feet of building area and 610 residential units would generate the least jobs and business activity of these scenarios. Its annual business revenues are estimated at $78,750,000."

"Scenario 4, the high tech business park with no residential, is excluded from this discussion because it is considered infeasible."

"Scenario 1 would generate fiscal surpluses because fiscal costs to service business park development are typically a fraction of fiscal revenues since employees generally utilize a smaller percentage of governmental services than residents."

"The fiscal impacts of Scenario 3, which would generate 1,034 jobs and business activity in combination with 500 residential units, and the proposed Lewis Planned Communities plan, which would generate 600 to 850 jobs and business activity in combination with 610 residential units, cannot be evaluated at this point because they both would include significant residential development."

Discussion and Commentary

The meeting on Monday generated no action, but there was a clear consensus from the BEDC Commission that the mixed-use model was the most appropriate model to move forward with. Indeed there is much to lend itself to Lewis' plan for the property. The goal is to provide workforce housing in the affordable range. This would be accomplished through a mix of smaller units, larger amounts of open space and shared space, and then about 20 percent of the property being used for a business park.

The breakdown of 80-20 is interesting because they suggest they would generate on the low end about 600 jobs in combination with about 610 residential units, roughly a one-to-one ratio. While there would likely not be overlap between the jobs and the residents, in theory it would make it feasible for less commute and therefore make the project more environmentally sustainable.

The other finding of interest here is that they found that the high tech business park with no residential to be infeasible. The study projects that it would require a roughly 40 year build out period that does not fit in with the goals of the community. Large users, in addition, according to staff want distance from residential and community uses.

The question now as the council decided to bring back the item before the council on a future Tuesday night is what the council will want to do and how quickly they want to go forward with this project.

The community still needs to assess whether they think a plan with 610 residential units and a corresponding number of jobs in the business park is the optimal use for the property.

The other key factor is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, the adjacent Covell Village. There are some on the council that believe that the two sites need to be planned concurrently. However, the people at Lewis do not necessarily concur with that assessment. They believe that there are separate issues on each site that make them very different planning challenges. Lewis is within the city limits, it is paved over and thus the issue of agricultural land and the issue of flood abatement are not there. There is no Measure J requirement for Lewis.

That said, obstacles remain. A plan that would include 600 new residences and 600 jobs will have a huge impact on traffic on Covell Blvd that must be dealt with. From their standpoint, the two sites can be dealt with separately, their plan calls for a community open space park to border the Lewis property on the East. Should a future development go there, the park could be expanded and adapted to accommodate increased needs, but it would not necessitate such a development. The goal seems to be to neither preclude nor require future development.

Nevertheless the future of Lewis seems very uncertain at this moment. The process has not moved forward very rapidly. The council called for a future discussion, but that future discussion may be in the distant rather than near future. In the meantime there has been no EIR planned and the project remains somewhat in flux.

We will see in the coming months what the future holds for the largest undeveloped parcel within the city limits.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Models Conflict on Whether Davis Needs Senior Housing

Elaine Roberts Musser had an excellent column this week in the Vanguard. If you did not read it, you should. I am following up on it but I will not do it justice.

I start at a midpoint in her article which I think is actually the starting point for any discussion not just on senior housing but on development overall. I think it too often gets over-shadowed in the whole housing debate. The question is one of internal need.

Elaine Roberts Musser writes:

"Necessary to the process will be for developers to consider “internal” community needs rather than “external” needs of those who live outside Davis. (This is not an elitist attitude, by the way, but a recognition that the efforts of the City Council need to be directed toward addressing community problems first and foremost, if at all possible. This is the charge of the City Council.)"

What is interesting about internal need is that regional housing boards like SACOG do not use internal housing need, instead they use what is called a Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) in order to figure out what the "fair share" of growth for a community is. Of course the problem is that at least in part those numbers are externally driven. SACOG like other "Councils of Goverments" is a pseudo-elected body made up of representatives from various governmental bodies. The very idea of a RHNA mandate for growth is a strict limit on local autonomy.

We started this week with a discussion on the reduction of sprawl at a state level. However, communities within that framework ought to have a good deal of say as to how, when, and how much they should grow. Some communities would like to grow quicker than others. I certainly believe that is something within their rights.

A true internal needs assessment for Davis is not surprisingly a matter of controversy. But there is quite a bit of locally driven demand from the university in the form of both faculty and staff as well as students. As I have mentioned at other points in time, the university could go a long way toward helping to alleviate the student housing crunch if they were willing to take up their own fair-share of proposed growths. According to statistics, UC Davis has among the lowest, if not the lowest, on-campus housing in the UC system.

Like any model, internal housing needs depends on the assumptions of the model. And here is where the article by Elaine Roberts Musser to me is so important.

The Housing Element Steering Committee (HESC) determined that there would be "an “internal need” for somewhere between 200 to 400 units of senior housing between now and the year 2013."

Ms. Roberts Musser goes on to argue:

"The members I talked with and a person on city staff are indicating there is very little justification for the numbers arrived at, ostensibly because it is a difficult figure to quantify."

But here is the key point that I think underscores the problematic nature of such projections.

"The notion that all seniors want to downsize is fallacious. An AARP survey indicates otherwise. Actually 83% of those 45 and older would prefer to stay in their existing home, and not downsize."

This is consistent with a number of seniors or soon-to-be seniors I have spoken with. The other key point that many miss, is that a lot of seniors also do not want to live in what they think of as segregated communities or "Senior Ghettos" to use a more pejorative term (remember the original meaning of ghetto was simply a segregated community rather than a dilapidated one. Here is one definition: "a ghetto is an area, usually within a city, in which members of a particular cultural, ethnic, religious or national group live in high concentration, whether by choice or by force.")

Ms. Roberts Musser then raises the key point: if we re-orient the model to use the 83% figure, we come up with strikingly different results.

"If that statistic is applied to:

Tandem Properties’ alleged “internal need” of 800 units by year 2013, the “internal need” shrinks to 136 units;

HESC’s estimated “internal need” of 200-400 units by year 2013, the “internal need shrivels to between 34-68 units.

In fact, the current wait list for Shasta Point and Eleanor Roosevelt, both essentially low-income senior facilities, is virtually zero. As is the wait-list at Atria Covell Gardens, an assisted living facility for the elderly."

These assumptions are instructive however because they allow us to understand in concrete mathematical terms the nature of the debate and why I consistently hear from different individuals very different figures on the need for senior housing.

I want to bring up a second key point, one that was not raised in the Tuesday column, and that is about the nature of the Covell proposal.

Everyone knows the history of the original Covell Village proposal and the ensuing debate and campaign battle for Measure X. The Covell Partners, who I shall continue to reference as such, recognized some of the errors of their campaign and decided to scale-down their proposal.

Except that they really have not. What they have done is broken down the proposals by stages. The senior housing facility will only occupy the lower third of the property. Stages 2 and 3 would follow after successful approval of stage 1. They do not like to publicize this fact, but they have admitted it to various people that they have met with during the course of their outreach or focus group efforts.

In other words, if you were concerned about the Covell Village site because of the size and traffic impacts, then be mindful about how the big picture looks here.

From my perspective, it is going to take a long time to convince me that a senior facility at Covell Village really serves internal housing needs. In as much as I would be willing to support development, modest as that support would be, I would start with meeting internal needs for students and faculty through infill development. And I mean really infill development in properties that are already located within current city boundaries and that are already zoned residential. I do not see a need to develop Covell Village in the next general plan period. As the HESC showed us, we can meet our RHNA mandated growth by relying strictly on infill. I would suggest we bracket this discussion until after we have exhausted those possibilities.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Early Meeting Set for Housing Element Discussion

Covell Village II Big Issue on the Table

There will be a special workshop to open this week's council meeting from 5 pm to 6:30 pm. Then the council will begin its normal meeting with a full agenda including public comment at 6:30 or 6:45.

The question one might automatically ask, is why put the most important topic, that of the housing element discussion at 5 pm when people are not paying attention and many are just getting off from work?

One of the things that will happen during this meeting is that there will be modifications to the site rankings as laid out by the Housing Element Steering Committee.

A key change that will occur is that the Housing Element Steering Committee (HESC) rank ordered all the sites. They also divided the top 20 into "green light" sites where development would be given a priority and was expected to occur during this general plan cycle and "yellow" and "red" light sites where they saw develop occurring in future general plan cycles depending on the growth rate set by the city council.

Now the Planning Commission and city planning staff recommends removing the ranking numbers from the 20 "green light" sites.

According to the staff report:

"Development applications should be allowed for these highest ranked sites. Although the property owners of several of these sites are likely not ready to submit applications in the near term, development status will be monitored to ensure that the 1% growth cap resolution is not exceeded."

Other recommended changes:

• Move Oakshade Affordable Housing from #26 to green.
• Move Nugget Fields from #28 to Green.
• Keep Lewis Cannery at #21.
• Move Wildhorse Horse Ranch to #22 from #27.
• Willowbank Church: Move from green to yellow.

The rationale on Lewis Cannery and Wildhorse is:

"This site and the Wildhorse horse ranch site (below), with current development applications, are recommended for the top two rankings of the “alternate” sites because they are relatively large sites currently in the city not used for agriculture and can provide a mix of housing types to meet housing needs."

An additional reason might also be that both Lewis Cannery and Wildhorse Horse Ranch have been moving forward with actual development proposals while some other properties are in the more theoretical stage.

One of the groups hoping to move up as the result of this meeting are the Covell Village Developers. The Vanguard has received word that these developers have been working hard to mobilize a huge turnout of seniors who will advocate for the Covell Village Senior Project Proposal.

Having seen their large development that was proposed in 2005 voted down by a 60-40 margin, the Covell Village Developers have broken down their latest proposal into three phases. The first phase is to develop a senior housing facility on the southern portion of the 386 acre parcel.

Few of the seniors who have met with the Covell Village Developers have been told this is only the first part of their plan.

The Housing Element Steering Committee spent considerable time on the Covell Project. There are concerns about prime agricultural land in the bottom portion of the land, where the senior housing facility would be. And there are concerns that the upper two-thirds of the project rests in a flood plain that would represent considerable liability for the city both physically and financially. State legislation in recent years has placed the financial burden on cities who build in flood plains and will no longer bail out cities in the event of a flood.

In addition, the Covell Village developers have purchased additional land north of original property to act as their 2:1 Ag mitigation.

As a result, the Housing Element Steering Committee, composed of a number of very strong supporters of Covell Village including Chair Kevin Wolf, who was a huge advocate for the project in 2005, ranked Covell Village very low as a site. The developers who own the property have been working hard to change that ranking. And are expected to pack the chambers with seniors that they have worked with to bring on board.

Opinions by leaders in the Senior Community vary as to whether or not we actually need additional senior housing. Recent events at Covell Gardens have suggested the need for extreme scrutiny when building and opening senior care facilities. Many seniors have expressed an interest to not downsize and move into a senior community. Many like to live with the general population to begin with. The demand from the local senior population is unclear.

Personally, while I favor slower growth in an environmentally sustainable manner, if I am looking to add housing first, I would look to see infill projects on sites already incorporated within the city. As the HESC indicated, we have plenty of those type of sites and projects to meet our housing needs for the next general plan period.

Second, if we are to add housing I would look toward workforce housing, housing for UC Davis faculty, and student housing first. Those people who work in Davis but do not live in Davis should get the first priority for new housing. Concern has been expressed about the vacancy rate in Davis for apartments and student housing. This is where the priority should be.

It should be noted in the staff report, the only mention of Covell Village is the preference to plan for the Lewis Cannery site in consideration of the adjacent Covell Village site. This remains a chief concern of mine with regards to the Lewis Cannery site. Many have suggested that the site is better suited for high tech or light industrial use. I am circumspect on the type of development that needs to go there and for the most part agnostic. What I am bitterly opposed to would be the use of Lewis Cannery to facilitate development on the adjacent Covell Village site.

Any effort to get the property to move up is coming entirely from the developers and not from the HESC, the Planning Commission, the city planning department, or even the Davis City Council Majority.

I am not one who believes that the 2005 Measure X forever precludes development on the Covell Village site. However, there are many places that should be developed before we even start considering this. It appears that the Covell Village developers will not take no for an answer here. And that at some point we will go through this process once again.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

LAFCO Votes to Enlarge Sphere of Influence

Vanguard is Concerned About the Process of the 5-0 LAFCO Vote

In a strange turn of events the evening of March 6, 2008 the Davis City Council passed a recommendation for the Sphere of Influence (SOI) that was notable in that it excluded from its sphere two controversial properties on Davis' periphery--Northwest Quadrant, Covell Village and the Nishi Property. The motion made by Lamar Heystek and seconded by Mayor Sue Greenwald passed by a strange vote of 2-1-2. Councilmembers Stephen Souza and Don Saylor, a month before the council election decided to abstain from that vote.

This was a reconsideration of a vote that had originally attempted to make the SOI extremely large. When LAFCO originally took up this item in April, they expressed concern that the size of the original SOI would invite properties not intended for development in the foreseeable future. LAFCO's report warns that adding such areas would lead to land speculation on those sites for the purpose of development.

As a result, the council revisited the issue. At the May meeting Councilmember Heystek complained about the lack of clear direction from city staff on the issue of the SOI.

"I don't see this as merely a ministerial action of the council, because personally I will speak very frankly, I don't feel that I received enough information from city staff to be able to make a decision. I understand that LAFCO has made a recommendation that certain sites be excluded, but I have not received information for our staff as to why certain sites should be included."

He continued:

"I don't understand and I haven't heard from city staff, why we have to include other areas such as the northwest quadrant, such as Covell Village, such as the Nishi site, when we know we already have Measure J, when we know we already have the pass-through agreement, and we know that those are really the strongest protections from unwarranted or undesirable development on our borders."

As Councilmember Heystek pointed out, it appears in the next five years we neither intend to expand city services into these areas nor develop in these areas--so why include them in the SOI?

As a result of that discussion, the motion to exclude the Northwest Quadrant, Covell, and Nishi was passed largely because neither Councilmember Souza nor Councilmember Saylor voted on the matter.

Flash forward to Monday at the LAFCO meeting.

The LAFCO staff recommendation rejected the Davis City Council's proposed boundaries.

This is from the LAFCO staff report:

As previously discussed, a sphere of influence under LAFCO law is a guidance document for the Commission to determine what areas are best suited for inclusion, or removal, from a city or special district. Historically, spheres of influence for cities in Yolo County have been drawn tightly; however, those lines must be drawn with the intent to meet the projected growth and service capabilities of the affected agency. The latest request by the City of Davis would not provide sufficient land within the sphere for the City to meet its own population growth projections in the coming years.

Staff believes that given existing policies, service capabilities and impacts on agricultural land, the LAFCO staff recommended sphere of influence includes the areas that are best considered for annexation over the next twenty years. The staff recommended areas that are already developed, are infill property, or have already been evaluated in previous studies. The City’s current land use policies call for controlled and well planned growth. The County’s general plan identifies itself as the protector of agricultural land. The land use policies in conjunction with the City-County Redevelopment Agreement and Davis’ Measure J provide strong adjuncts to controlled growth in the City of Davis. The staff recommended boundaries balance the need for some expansion of boundaries while addressing the need for deliberate, logical and orderly annexations.

The first map is the Davis City Council recommended Sphere of Influence:

The second map is the LAFCO staff recommendation:

The LAFCO recommendation is as follows:

a. Ten year sphere of influence:

i. City owned property: Davis Municipal Golf Course, City of Davis Park on County Road (CR) 102 (Old Landfill Site), and Davis Wastewater Treatment Plant.

ii. Urbanized properties: El Macero, Willowbank, Royal Oaks (formerly Barthel’s Mobile Home Park), Rust home site parcel, and University of California, Davis campus.

iii. Undeveloped properties: Covell Village (Hunt-Wesson) parcel, Mace Curve parcel and Nishi parcel.

b. Twenty year sphere of influence:

i. Urbanized property: Cactus Corners (CR 98 and Russell Blvd).

ii. Undeveloped property: Northwest Quadrant (north to Binning Tract subdivision, east to State Hwy 113, south to Covell Boulevard, and west to CR 99).

The LAFCO board that includes Davis City Councilmember Stephen Souza as the representative from the Davis City Council and County Supervisors Helen Thomson and Matt Rexroad, voted to pass staff recommendation 5-0.

Key Commentary Regarding the Role of Councilmember Stephen Souza's Role in This

As a member of LAFCO, Councilmember Stephen Souza has a duel role in this process. He sits on the board of LAFCO but he also needs to represent to LAFCO in this matter, the wishes of the Davis City Council. In the packet to LAFCO was presented the Davis City Council's recommended SOI.

Responding to a question from Councilmember Lamar Heystek last night, Councilmember Souza acknowledged there was not much discussion on the item at the Monday meeting. He did mention that Supervisor Rexroad had asked him about what the Davis City Council wanted. Councilmember Souza conveyed the impression at the LAFCO meeting that this is what the Davis City Council wanted and had mentioned his role on LAFCO as the reason for him abstaining from the vote.

I spoke up at the City Council, which is something I do not ordinarily do, to clarify this point.

Here are my comments:

"I wanted to raise the issue of yesterday’s LAFCO vote on the sphere of influence. I was not able to attend the meeting, however, talking to folks who did I got the impression that the message was somehow conveyed that the LAFCO staff report was what the council majority wanted. [Note: Councilmember Souza had actually acknowledged this in response to Councilmember Heystek's question]

I am a bit confused by that if it is that case, because the most recent vote that I am aware of on May 6, 2008 ended with a very different recommendation from the Davis city council.

That vote was a bit odd in that two members supported, one opposed, and two members abstained. However, it was a valid vote of the council. The motion passed and that was the recommendation ostensibly sent to LAFCO.

If that is the case, then I do not know how it could be accurate to suggest that the majority of the Davis city council wanted anything but the May 6th vote results.

As such I am very confused and would like an explanation as to how the message was apparently conveyed otherwise. And I would like to also know if the will of the council, as expressed by vote on the night of May 6th, was represented by the current LAFCO representative from this council."

Unfortunately I did not get an answer to those questions, although there was the beginning of a heated exchange, when another member of the public, Eileen Samitz, spoke during public comment in an attempt to get an answer on this issue. The Mayor [probably wisely] however cut off Councilmember Souza as he was about to respond to Ms. Samitz's comments and moved the meeting forward.

As I stated at the meeting, I believe that Councilmember Souza had every right to vote as he did, however, my concern was he somehow conveyed the impression that there was a different will of the council majority than the one reflected in the vote taken on May 6, 2008, which was the only vote on the topic and therefore should have been, despite its strange numerical nature, the reflection of the council's desires on this subject.

My concern is therefore strictly procedural here. I do not understand how the councilmember arrived at a different conclusion from Davis' own recommendation.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: Growth, Growth, Growth

There are actually a lot of issues in Davis that do not involve growth directly. But as the city council campaign winds down, in the end it is all about growth.

How is Davis going to grow, where, and how fast? To answer that let us look at the key questions from this council and before the next council.

Measure J Renewal and Measure X

The first answer toward that is the question of Measure J's renewal.

Two former Mayors and a Former Davis Councilmember, Ken Wagstaff, Julie Partansky, and Stan Forbes, each who sat on the council that would put Measure J on the ballot weighed in on that yesterday in the Davis Enterprise.

They write:

"No on X proved we need to keep Measure J: The obvious demonstration of Measure J's merits was the Covell Village/Measure X election in 2005. Having approved a subdivision of more than 1,800 homes, the council was required by the Measure J law to have the project ratified by the voters.

Most of the homes to be sold by the project would have been unaffordable to the average Davis worker. Traffic on Covell Boulevard would have been 'intolerable,' according to the environmental impact report. Despite the developer outspending the citizen opposition by more than 10 to 1, the voters rejected the project by a 60 percent no vote.

Had there been no Measure J, a massive project the public did not want would have gone forward. The only way the community could have stopped it would have been to create an organization to gather thousands of signatures and force a referendum vote.

Some say the public should not have the right to vote on growth issues. We disagree. Growth fundamentally affects our quality of life. It affects the taxes we pay. It is vital that citizens have the insurance that Measure J provides.

Moreover, it is evident that City Councils do not always act consistent with the public will. Even after their approval of Covell Village was soundly rejected by the voters, at least two members of the council, one of whom is seeking re-election, tried to justify what they did by saying the public just didn't understand the project. After countless public hearings, and after the Covell Village developers spent more than $500,000 trying to 'educate' the public about their plans, this attitude is condescending and insulting to the voters.

The next council will determine whether Measure J is left intact or gutted. We believe the reasons Measure J was necessary when enacted remain unchanged. Indeed, given the experience of Covell Village/Measure X, the necessity of Measure J is even more manifest."

The differences on Measure X/ Covell Village among these candidates is clear. Sue Greenwald, Rob Roy, and Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald opposed Measure X in 2005 and will oppose a new iteration of it if it comes forward. Don Saylor and Stephen Souza led the charge for Measure X and would likely support a new version of it. Sydney Vergis claims she also supported Measure X and would support a new version of it.

1% Growth Guideline

There are really two issues here--one is how fast we grow and one is where we grow.

The council recently renewed the 1% growth guideline. During the Measure X debate, we were told repeatedly that if we did not meet the mandated growth demands, Steve Gidaro would come in and impose growth on us whether we liked it or not.

Now the message coming from Souza and Saylor is that the 1% is a cap and a target, not a mandate. They cite our relatively growth rate the last four years. Sydney Vergis has been advocating a broad range of new housing to meet our housing needs including development on the Nishi property.

Sue Greenwald, Rob Roy, and Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald have suggested that 1% is too fast to grow. We should look to approve housing based on the projects not based on some artificial growth cap. Moreover, the RHNA mandate is for considerably lower than 1% to meet our internal housing needs.

What is clear is based on Housing Element Steering Committee's report, most of the growth in the next decade or more can be met with infill development. Both sides somewhat agree on that while disagreeing on what infill is. Both Wildhorse Ranch and Nishi would require Measure J votes, but some have suggested given their locations that they are really infill. Then again, they have called Covell infill as well. None of them meet the true definition of infill.

There are basically two key components of infill. First, it must take place within existing communities or established areas of the city. It could be a vacant lot or a piece of land with dilapidated buildings. Second, they must have existing city services and infrastructure. Neither Nishi, Covell, nor the Horse Ranch fit those definitions. They all currently have agricultural uses, none of them are within the city, and none of them have existing city services already within them.

Regardless, of the definition of infill, we have heard constant rhetoric about as Saylor puts it, "canaries in the coal mine," the danger signs of lack of growth. Souza laments the number of students who have to commute into Davis. Sydney Vergis talks about the need for a range of housing so that generations can live together in Davis.

All of them suggest that while they do not support sprawl (Covell is not sprawl to them apparently), they are concerned that people who live and work at UC Davis have to commute to Davis.

Frankly I think everyone is concerned about this issue, there are a range of solution to it being offered.

However, when they start talking about only 44 new housing permits, it begins me wondering about something. There is an argument that the cost of housing in Davis is so high because of our slow growth policies. They are argue that these policies are making Davis an elitist exclusive town. And that the answer to affordability is of course to build more houses.

A few weeks ago, we showed a data analysis that suggested that there no relationship between the number of residential permits and the cost of housing. The cost of housing in Davis trended almost exactly with the cost of housing in Sacramento.

One of the reasons Measure J passed is that in 1998 there 1013 new housing permits followed by 954 in 1999. That's roughly a 3% growth rate based on current figures.

What Souza and Saylor do not tell you is that they have overseen a period with among the slowest growth in Davis for the past several decades. In 2002, we had 307 new housing permits followed by 277 in 2003. In 2004, the year they took office we had 135, then 250 in 2005, 104 in 2006, and just 44 last year.

What happened? Some will say this is a manifestation of our slow growth policies. But what really happened is that they pushed for Measure X/ Covell Village in 2005. When that was rejected by the voters, they had no back up plan. They put all of their eggs in the Measure X basket.

When Souza and Saylor complain about the lack of growth in Davis, they are as much to blame as anyone. They backed a Measure J project that was too large and the public did not buy and then had nothing else to offer for two years. So despite a 4-1 pro-growth majority from 2004-2006 and a 3-2 pro-growth majority (which is really all you need to pass things in Davis anyway) from 2006-2008, the Souza-Saylor led council has resided over one of the slowest growth periods in Davis history.

It is therefore somewhat ironic when you hear people like Sue Greenwald or others pushing some of the infill development plans and people are skeptical that they will ever get built.

The best opportunities for growth that actually meets our internal needs rather than feeding more commuters as Covell Village would have, rest in projects around the core of Davis and also with the university. The university houses among the fewest students on campus of any university. They have the most available land to expand student housing and that would alleviate the 1% apartment vacancy rate in the city of Davis.

I have heard Souza and Saylor complain about that rate at almost every council campaign forum, yet no one ever asked them what they have done during their four years on the council to address that. Covell Village certainly was not going to address that.

My own preference for growth would be to look toward some of the infill sites and put in smaller units--duplexes, condos, and town houses. Put them near the core of town so that people do not have to drive to downtown. Work with the university to help provide housing for students and new faculty members. If you are concerned about families with children moving into Davis, the best thing we can do is provide housing for young university employees who are most likely to have families. I do not see a need to build outside the current boundaries of Davis for at least the next general plan period. Smaller, more affordable units, can accomodate much of our so-called internal housing demand and if we do it right, we can meet those needs within the current boundaries of our town.

Getting Back To Measure J

The three strongest candidates on preserving and maintaining Measure J are Sue Greenwald, Cecilia Escamilla-Greenwald and Rob Roy. Both Don Saylor and Sydney Vergis have suggested looking at possible changes to Measure J. Ms. Vergis in particular has suggested it is long, cumbersome, and complicated and wishes to make non-substantive changes to streamline it.

The problem with that approach, as we showed a few weeks back is that Measure J is long but it is very straight forward in terms of its language.

The framer's of Measure J were very thorough in their work to insure that there were no loopholes to the ordinance. However, the language itself is simple, direct, and to the point. Any attempt to streamline the ordinance would actually weaken it greatly.

For that reason, for those who view Measure J and a key component of our land use policy and a key feature of the democratic nature of this city, ought to support those candidates who would continue the measure in its current form and seek to make it permanent.

Preserving the Character of Davis

Everyone talks about the character of Davis. For me it is about the charm and atmosphere of this city. You walk through the core of town and there is a unique feel. Of all the things that have happened under the current city council, one of the moves that I disliked the most was the B-Street Visioning Project.

That old neighborhood directly east of campus between A Street and Russell is one of my favorite places in all of Davis. As you walk down third, you really feel that you are in a college town. You have the shops, the students, the old cottages, and you just have a feel for it. It is the part of town when I first visited in 1993 prior to becoming a graduate student, that I fell in love with and one of the reasons I applied to come to school here and eventually made it my home.

I understand the need for more density if we are not going to grow beyond our current borders. But you also have to do it while maintaining the character of Davis. At times in this city, we have done a great job with the concept of adaptive re-use. Taking an existing structure and adapting it to a new use. I have been less of fan when we tear down an old structure and build a new one. There are a lot of ways we could have revamped B-Street while maintaining the character of that neighborhood. This was not one of them.

Some have questioned the feasibility of the PG&E site. But there is so much that it has to offer while maintaining the rest of downtown as the walkable, bikeable, small town feel.

Regardless of what happens tomorrow, there are many issues with which this city has to wrestle with and the Vanguard will continue to be on the front lines of those issues.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting