Commentary: Most Necessary Planning Points Dealing with Davis

In a remark yesterday, somebody requested an awesome query—determine the three most necessary subjects for future planning wants and priorities going through the Davis Group.  It’s actually laborious to get to solely three however I’ll talk about my high three after which add a fourth for the aim of dialogue.

My high three planning points are: Reasonably priced and reasonably priced housing, financial growth, and the Davis Downtown.  The necessity for a Normal Plan replace most likely underlies all three, so I’ll go away it out of my high three after which I’ll talk about the Measure J renewal.

Reasonably priced Housing

You possibly can actually interchange the precedence of #1 and a couple of on this checklist—it’s most likely extra like 1a and 1b.  However I’ll lead with reasonably priced housing, each backed and “small a,” as a result of I don’t imagine this neighborhood can maintain itself with present housing insurance policies.

Mainly, individuals like me—of their 40s, with children, and making an affordable mixed family earnings—can’t afford to reside in Davis.  If I cared in any respect about materials issues like proudly owning a house, I’d not reside right here.  Nevertheless, I worth the schooling of my youngsters and residing in an engaged and progressive neighborhood above materials achieve.

However we’ve got priced the households largely out of Davis.  We now have shrunk the center.  We now have college students.  We now have individuals who have lived on this neighborhood for a protracted and are retired or retiring.  We discuss desirous to protect the character of our neighborhood—however we’re doing the alternative.  We’re altering that character slowly over time and in 10 years or maybe 20 years, we’d protect the agricultural lands on the outskirts of city however the inside dynamics of this neighborhood will look very completely different than it did within the mid-90s after I moved right here.

If you wish to give households an opportunity to reside in Davis, you should look towards backed housing and affordability by design.  In any other case, most households are going to maneuver to communities the place they’ll purchase a home relatively than hire an house or a home.

As I’ll clarify on the finish, this isn’t a YIMBY argument.  We must always take a look at issues like infill first, we should always restrict progress on the periphery, we should always not construct giant single-family houses on agricultural land.  However we are able to’t proceed the housing insurance policies of the final 20 years and protect Davis.

Financial Growth

This isn’t about DISC.  The Davis Innovation & Sustainability Campus is a method to an finish, it isn’t the top.  The opposite a part of sustaining Davis is that it must be fiscally sustainable.  Even earlier than the pandemic hit, this neighborhood was in bother.  We didn’t have a mechanism to keep up our infrastructure, keep our high quality of life—roads, sidewalks, greenbelts, parks and metropolis infrastructure.

There are those that need to proceed to chop metropolis companies—I help sturdy price containment however I’m not at this level keen to think about deeper cuts.  We proceed to chop, we lose metropolis companies, and the standard of life turns into diminished.

I’ve and can proceed to help a parcel tax for roads as a short-term resolution to that downside.  The final measure in 2018 fell brief with simply 57 % of the vote.  As I famous when it went all the way down to defeat, it might be not less than 4 years earlier than it comes again—now I worry longer.

I agree with our extra conservative poster that we are able to’t proceed to extend taxes in Davis and maintain it viable and reasonably priced.

That has left me with in search of to keep up our metropolis taxes, include elevated metropolis prices and pursue financial growth as a method to extend income.

I don’t know the place we’re going to go along with COVID.  If something it’s going to make it more difficult sooner or later.  However we’ve got waited 10 years since DSIDE (Designing a Sustainable and Modern Davis Financial system) to even get a peripheral park on the poll.  At this level I don’t see another location within the metropolis.

And pushing financial growth to Woodland or West Sacramento might be superb from a regional standpoint and helps to create jobs for faculty college students graduating from UC Davis—however it does nothing to assist us with our true wants.

So I help the dispersed financial mannequin that got here out of Studio 30 a decade in the past.  Proceed to make the most of present house, develop near-term websites—Nishi is gone, however College Analysis Park remains to be round—after which persuade the voters to help a peripheral website.

Davis Downtown

The best way Davis is structured, the downtown/core space is an important a part of city and, for a very long time, I believed it was in bother.  The final decade-plus has seen a sluggish shift away from retail and towards leisure within the core.

Was that long-term viable?  Exhausting to know.

COVID is probably going going to complete off what macro-economic shifts began.  I don’t assume we are going to actually get a way for a way unhealthy it’s till COVID is over and we see what number of locations are gone and never coming again.

The Core Space Particular Plan was necessary in 2019—the way forward for this neighborhood could now relaxation on it.  I’ve been a vocal advocate for a while of the concept of bringing mixed-use redevelopment to Davis.  In truth, I really feel strongly sufficient about to it need to see the state reinstate redevelopment so as to finance a few of it.

We now have a necessity for workforce housing—housing that younger professionals coming into the work place can transfer into and will help revitalize the downtown core.  Now greater than ever.

Lastly, Measure J Renewal

One of many individuals responding to the preliminary query had as a high precedence to Protect Measure J.  The truth is that Measure J goes to get renewed for an additional 10 years by not less than 70 % of the vote.

There simply isn’t a lot in the way in which of opposition.  There was no formal poll assertion submitted and few individuals opposed it through the public hearings final spring.  That is actually a non-issue by way of renewal.

So why do I convey this up?  As a result of we have to create a technique to have Measure J and stay a significant and vibrant neighborhood—and that’s far larger problem than individuals who help Measure J need to acknowledge.

I help Measure J—I need to have dialogue about it for the explanations I’ll get into quickly, however I help it and I’ll clarify why in a second.

The underside line is: I’m not a YIMBY.  I’m not a NIMBY.  I’m a part of that center inhabitants that believes housing is an issue however I don’t need to return to the 1980s and 1990s.

I supported Measure J and opposed Covell Village for one easy cause—we want stability and in 2000 and even 2005, we had been out of stability.

However we’re out of stability now, as nicely, within the different path.

Earlier this week I argued that you just can’t fairly oppose Measure J after which vote towards a housing venture, since you are primarily saying that the general public shouldn’t be the ultimate arbiter of housing developments after which vote to be the ultimate arbiter of a selected housing venture.

However, I’d argue you can’t be a supporter of Measure J after which come out and oppose all housing—both since you don’t need any extra housing, or the housing that’s being proposed doesn’t meet your unrealistically excessive calls for.

That’s as a result of one factor is obvious—in the event you dam up housing for too lengthy, that dam will burst.  There was one likelihood to defeat Measure J this yr—if Nishi and West Davis Energetic Grownup Group (WDAAC) had failed, Measure J could be underneath hearth such as you couldn’t imagine.

That is all about stability—within the 1970s, the stability on taxes received thrown off and the dam burst with Prop. 13.  We’re nonetheless paying for that now, however that was largely a failure of the legislature to cope with the truth that individuals had been getting taxed out of their houses.

Proper now the pendulum has swung too far the opposite method on housing.  As I began this housing dialogue, we’re shedding the center of our neighborhood and that can make this neighborhood a lot tougher to maintain.

You need Measure J long run?  We have to work out a technique to keep our stability inside that framework.

Last be aware: I suggest we resolve to both name this Measure J or rename it in colloquial phrases because the Proper to Vote on Land Use points or one thing to that impact, for the reason that letter designation retains altering.

—David M. Greenwald reporting