Nishi’s costs, health risks, and loose ends

By Cara Bradley, Thomas Cahill, Gilbert Coville, Pam Gunnell, Marilee Hanson, Michael Harrington, David Kupfer, Robert Milbrodt, Roberta Millstein, Don Price, Nancy Price, Rodney Robinson, Johannes Troost, Dean Vogel, Colin Walsh, and Michael Yackey

Two years after Davis voters rejected the Nishi project at the polls, it’s back on the ballot as Measure J with the same pollution hazards from the adjacent I-80 freeway and railroad, but without the commercial component that was supposed to deliver significant revenue to the City.

Here are seven problems with the Nishi project:

Problem 1: Harmful air quality.  The Nishi property is sandwiched between I-80 and the train tracks. Students are the targeted residents but non-students may live there also, and allowed uses include daycare and a nursery school.  Preliminary and short-term air quality measurements taken at a nearby site three years ago showed worse air quality than was measured on the same days by UCD and by the YSAQMD.  The tests also showed particularly bad levels of airborne ultrafine metals from braking on the days when traffic backed up, which it frequently does near Nishi because I-80 narrows from 6 to 3 lanes there. The Yes on J campaign has made much of wind direction statistics, but the measurements – most of which the Yes side conveniently ignores – don’t lie. The measured pollutants are associated with increased risk of lung damage, cancer, heart disease, and developmental defects – serious conditions that follow a person throughout their lifetime.  (See http://noonnishi.org/airquality.html for peer reviewed studies).

Problem 2: Refusal to do inexpensive additional testing. After the preliminary tests were taken, air quality experts advised further testing to get a more accurate picture of air quality at the site.  However, both the City and the developer refused to have those tests performed.  It’s worth noting that to date the developer has spent more than $250,000 trying to sell the project to voters with online and print ads, paid canvassers, direct mailings, and more.  The tests would have only been $30,000, so clearly, they were easily affordable.  They should have been performed. That would have been the scientifically responsible approach.

Problem 3: Speculative mitigation. The developers promise a “tree screen” and state-of-the-art air filters, an admission of the hazardous air quality at the site.  But their claims for mitigation are overblown and based on ideal conditions, not real-life conditions. More importantly, there is no guarantee that these mitigations will materialize, since they are not part of the baseline features of the project. All it would take is a plea from the developer and a 3-2 vote of a development-sympathetic Council to eliminate the mitigations.

Problem 4: Poor use of land. If air quality were not an issue, the developer could actually be building more than twice the number of units on Nishi (based on the housing density of the 2016 proposal) and more affordable housing than is currently planned.  So while it might seem like the developers are saviors who will help resolve the housing crunch in Davis, in fact, they are shortchanging us with a substandard project and an affordable housing program that will, by design, turn away qualified non-students.  If these same “saviors” really wanted to help, their current rental properties in Davis (Tandem Properties) could be made denser with far less effort, given that new infrastructure like the railroad underpass would not be required. Finally, not only could the Nishi project be denser, there may be better uses of the land: commercial with an eye toward UCD innovation or a solar farm. 

Problem 5: Costs to taxpayers. For the 2016 Nishi proposal, the City used two financial forecasts: one that only took into account immediate costs and one, recommended by an independent analyst, that took into account future infrastructure costs – for example, those needed for firefighting and public safety. For the current proposal, the City eliminated the independent analysis, ignored the question of future infrastructure costs, and used an arbitrary estimate that each Nishi resident would cost the City 75% of what an average Davis resident costs the City.  The result?  According to a full life-cycle analysis done by two Finance and Budget Commissioners, the City – and thus Davis citizens – would be on the hook for between $350,000 and $750,000 annually. Furthermore, the big financial promises made on the Yes ballot argument are deceptive.  The claimed one-time benefit of over $11 million in revenue is in fact, by California law, a one-time impact fee paid by the developer to offset the City’s estimated one-time costs.  It is not revenue, merely a reimbursement.

Problem 6: Loose ends. There is no legally binding agreement with UCD or UPRR to allow the one planned automobile exit to be built for the traffic-inducing 700 planned parking spaces; plans are for this exit to go under the railroad tracks and connect to campus. This railroad underpass is a major project that is both expensive and time-consuming, and it is estimated that the Nishi project as a whole would not be completed for five years – so, this project will not actually help the immediate housing crunch.  If UCD or UPRR decide not to allow the railroad underpass, the project will be thrown into limbo, perhaps forcing general access to the Olive Drive exit.  Another loose end is that there is no tax-sharing agreement between Davis and Yolo County.

Problem 7: Better options. Many have urged UCD to house more students on campus, and twice now, UCD has agreed to increase the percentage of students it will house.  Political pressure can be successful.  However, UCD still isn’t housing as high a percentage as other UCs are, even though it has plenty of land to do so.  Meanwhile, the City Council recently approved thousands of new beds for Davis.  Now the university needs to house the additional students that it decided to accept.

In summary, please don’t vote for a substandard project that will bring additional tax burdens, additional traffic, and regulatory confusion. Please don’t let the developers turn a short-term housing crunch into a long-term environmental assault on the health of unsuspecting students, children, and other residents.

Vote No on Nishi – No on Measure J on June 5.