University Commons: Public Meeting and Environmental Review

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2 responses to “University Commons: Public Meeting and Environmental Review”

1. Dec 2, 2019 9:40 AM

   Eileen Samitz

   What a disastrous project. This project would put roughly 900+ more residents on the corner of Anderson and Russell which is already incredibly impacted with traffic.
   It is proposing horrendously inadequate parking, will create complete gridlock all along Anderson Road, Russell Blvd. and the intersection between them (as if Russell Blvd. is not already impacted enough).
   This U-Mall proposal is just another mega-dorm charade which just de-motivates UCD to build the needed on-campus housing while also creating costs and enormous impacts to Davis.
   This proposal is a lose-lose situation. The City is losing some of the biggest sales tax stores in the City, World Market, The Graduate, Forever 21 and undoubtedly is going to get a non-community oriented retail targeting student needs, like a huge fast food mall.
   Proposing a behemoth project like this at that already circulation impacted location which would had devastating impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods and the City as a whole is ridiculous.
   On top of everything else, the City presents this right in the middle of the holiday season just like the Mace Ranch Aggie Research park proposal soliciting EIR input. This has become a tradition with the City bringing large projects for EIR “input” right in the middle of the holidays to diminish community participation since people are busy with holiday activities.
   Thank you Davisite for bringing this to the attention of the public to give them a “heads up” to give input on this monstrosity U-Mall proposal.

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2. Dec 2, 2019 12:27 PM

   Todd Edelman

   Foreword: The following is an edited version of my questions and statement for the November 14, 2019 meeting of the Bicycling, Transportation and Street Safety Commission (BTSSC), when my fellow Commissioners and I discussed this item. In order to save time during the meeting and because they are somewhat redundant with my statement I didn’t ask the following questions…
   Questions:
   1 – Why does the Low Parking Alternative in the DEIR not include any reductions in retail parking?
   2 – Why does the Low Parking Alternative not consider the possibility of increased provision of housing within the project, i.e. on the surface parking lots, and how it could presumably further reduce regional VMT?
   3 – The “significant and unavoidable impacts to Transportation and Circulation” exist partly because UC Davis is in control of areas that could mitigate impacts. Is there an existing entity which brings together – on an equal as normal level – the City of Davis, UC Davis, the developers and the consultant?
   4 – Was there a survey amongst current visitors – they are all retail visitors – to U-Mall to determine how e.g. paid parking and alternatives to driving I might affect their choice for how they visit the location?
   5 – What is the logistics volume of the current individual purchases at TJ’s or other locations at U-Mall? In other words, are they amounts – number of bags, etc – which could reasonably be considered to be bike-able or bus-able? (In regards to cycling, this should probably be formalized in some way for guidance: I would say it’s one bag for a bike share bike*, two bags for a normal bike, up to four or six bags for a long-tail bike or normal bike with trailer and even more with a Dutch-style cargo bike or a combination of the preceding methods!)
   6 – How many purchases are currently walked, biked or bussed away from the location?
   7 – The following is a design detail, but it can directly impact the space available for e.g. building interiors, as well as cost, so please bear with me: What are the planned dimensions of the elevators used for bicycle access and what will be their capacity, time-wise? (I did ask this at the meeting, noting that some large bikes and bikes with trailers can be close to 10 ft. in length. It’s not clear what the developers have in mind and there’s nothing in City code to ensure this.)
   * A bike share bicycle could easily have more cargo capacity than the current one. This would help it truly meets user needs in Davis and the region.
   Recommendations:
   Introduction: The Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for the proposed University Commons has two serious flaws. First is that the “Low Parking Alternative” proposes very few concrete parameters that could otherwise encourage a significant differentiation in the project from others. The second is that the DEIR has not been created based on the fact that UC Davis is an equal partner in a shared district – if only an informal one – of the region’s unique City-Campus.
   The re-development of a 1960’s-style shopping center across the street from one of the country’s greenest universities in a city that has the best bicycle transportation in the country and one of the best bus systems for a city of its size, should be required to not only complement these benefits, but also to push them further and increase their value. Preservation of surface parking across the street from the University during a housing crisis is absurd on multiple levels and is very disrespectful to the needs of students struggling to get housing. It’s not a “commons”, it’s still a mall!
   It’s unfortunately not the job of an EIR to look at positive impact. But for the purpose of discussion it seems reasonable to suggest that it can be sympathetic. It’s also unfortunate that the Low Parking Alternative in the University Commons DEIR arbitrarily limits its parameters. I say “arbitrarily” because while it appropriately considers an amount of residential parking well under the City’s traditional provision and even recent approvals — it simultaneously does little to address the retail parking situation at the development. There’s a suggestion of various measures, but nothing concrete like the residential number differential in the Alternative. We all deserve credit for more than 50% of people arriving at UC Davis or 30% at junior high by bike, but the approximate 20-25% Citywide modal share leads me to believe that only around 10% of everyone else reaches their work destination by bike, and the even smaller fraction of trips to retail centers by bike makes it clear that the trip-to-the-store-by-bike is one of the biggest mobility challenges in Davis. It’s a challenge that the design of University Commons does not adequately address.
   However, the Alternative’s greatest flaw is that it doesn’t look into what it would happen if there were more housing in the same footprint, replacing not only residential parking but also retail parking in both structures and at surface. This would result in hundreds more people living closer to their destination then they currently do. This would decrease VMT, an argument familiar to those that supported the “Nishi 2.0” project and others. Decreasing VMT is a topic mentioned throughout the DEIR.
   I don’t agree with any narrow interpretation that rejects the BTSSC’s input into how much housing should be at the site: If we say that we don’t need so much parking, we should use it for something else: Less parking should mean more housing. Parking is a convenience, housing is a necessity. We have a responsibility to both the City and to our regional partner SACOG to take reasonable measures to decrease VMT, and we can decrease it if hundreds more people can live a short and safe distance by foot, bike or bus to the UC Davis campus, and to the other destinations in the area.
   Zooming out a bit, I would consider the whole DEIR tainted and fundamentally flawed, not only because of what amounts to self-censorship of the Low Parking Alternative, but because it places an arbitrary line in a living transportation network. The arbitrary line is Russell Blvd. The “multiple significant and unavoidable impacts to transportation and circulation” – as stated in the report – cannot be addressed as many of the impacts are under the sole domain of the University. To use an analogy from the medical field, this makes it impossible to treat the whole person. UC Davis needed to be a full partner in the DEIR, perhaps based on some kind of temporary district. The Russell Corridor project is coming soon, but is unlikely to form the necessary basis for this temporary district.
   In sum, in two major aspects the DEIR is fundamentally-flawed. The narrow view of its most climate-repairing Alternative is nevertheless not truly onboard with City policy. The formal or perhaps legal basis or structure that requires this DEIR is not based on the reality of a dynamic and shared area of the City and campus… the City-Campus. There are some design details which could be addressed now, but they are not the main problems.
   Thus it is the recommendation of this Commissioner to the Council and other City bodies that this DEIR needs to be rejected, and returned to us only after the Low Parking Alternative has significantly expanded features, and it is created on the basis of a formal and more equal participation between the City of Davis and UC Davis.

   At the BTSSC meeting Commissioner Mike Mitchell made the following motion, which I seconded though it was more limited than what I asked for – it was nevertheless closer to it then any other opinion presented during the discussion:
   “The BTSSC cannot recommend that the University Commons project move forward because impacts to bicycle facilities, pedestrian facilities, and to study intersections, as identified in the Draft EIR, remain “significant and unavoidable”.
   Vote: Aye: Andrews, Edelman, MItchell; Nay: Gudz, Jacobson, Patel.
   Motion Fails. (Further details will be the meeting minutes, which will be available in draft form by the end of this week.)

   In regards to Eileen Samitz’s comment above:
   * The “traffic” she refers to is caused by people using cars, not people.
   * The local streets north of and surrounding the project space has extensive resident-only parking permits, and it could be expanded.
   * Forever 21 and the Graduate are already closed; the future retail capabilities are likely robust and in my opinion certainly more so if this becomes a much denser project with more housing and perhaps even more retail in place of all the surface level parking, surrounding a nice square (not a patio on the side of a parking lot, like with E St. Plaza…)
   * About a “charade” and the University’s responsibility, the project is part of the “City-Campus” I mention above, but this is not recognized in the formal structure of either entity, and thus we have an EIR with one hand tied behind its back. My suggestion of a City-Campus District should probably be a permanent feature that could improve the actual mobility (and beyond) interplay of the two entities…. with a true Commons quality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

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