What is going on with the City Council? Tuesday’s meeting was surreal.
By Roberta Millstein
First, Councilmember Bapu Vaitla, critic of NIMBYs who dare to say that projects should be better, suggested that the proposed University Mall redevelopment isn’t good enough. Somehow, even though the site has been retail-only for decades, Councilmember Vaitla claimed that that use isn’t consistent with the General Plan – stating, among other things, that the project does not provide “a diversity of housing options” – and he called for an appeal of the Planning Commission’s approval of the project.
If Councilmember Vaitla were a defender of the project as approved, he would likely say that an appeal like this was just a delay tactic. But because it’s his objection to the project, he marshaled Davisites to come speak in favor of the appeal.
Then Councilmember Gloria Partida, who has consistently argued that we need more housing in Davis, voted to deny Councilmember Vaitla’s appeal, effectively guaranteeing that there would be no housing at the University Mall site (since the vote to hear the appeal had to be unanimous).
To further the up-is-down left-is-right Council meeting, the council – to a person – decided no, it will not go forward with putting any of four housing-projects-in-process on the ballot for November 2024.[1] This is in spite of, again, all four councilmembers touting themselves as being pro-housing, and perhaps even more puzzling, in spite of the fact that two of the four councilmembers wrote the report suggesting that the Council take up the question of which project to put in process for November 2024.
A representative of one of the developers of the four projects even got up to say that nothing should be put in motion for November 2024! Surely this was April Fool’s? Nope, April 4.
Davisite 