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Village Farms…Is It The Right Time? 

By Georgina Valencia

There is no perfect project and there is no perfect time.  But, there are good projects that come at the right time.  Such a project is Village Farms.  There are a few reasons I will vote YES for Village Farms. 

First, Village Farms is contiguous with the City and I would label this site infill.  It is surrounded by The Cannery, F Street, Covell Blvd and Poleline Road.  While this land is farmland and has been planted under tomatoes, wheat, corn over the years.  It is surrounded by our community on three sides and is ideal for development.

Second, the property that Village Farms sits on is in the sphere of influence created in 2008.  What is the Sphere of Influence?  “The legislature created the mechanism a “’sphere of influence’ (SOI) as a means for planning of probable physical boundaries and service areas within a local agency…SOIs are designed to both proactively guide and respond to the need for the extension of infrastructure and delivery of municipal services to areas of emerging growth and development.”  Village Farms (formerly Covell Village) is largely within the City’s SOI.  This means we as a community, former Councils as well as City Staff, have thought for decades about the areas of future growth and this is one of them.

Third, and the most important reason, is the incredible need for housing in this town.  I have worked in the Real Estate Industry for almost 30 years honing an education as markets rose and fell.  That education tells me that Davis is expensive, not because it has an incredible downtown and shopping area, not because of the schools, not because of UC Davis.  Davis is expensive because there is little growth and everyone that wants to live here competes with UC students, staff and faculty for food, parking and most especially housing.  All of which makes us an expensive town to live in.  I might add that along with those students there are a lot of landlords. In fact there are more landlords that own homes in Davis and rent them than there are actual homeowners living in their homes.  To the tune of nearly 56.5% of Davis homes are non-owner occupied (i.e. rentals).

Finally, I read the EIR and understand the many ways that the dump site and plumes of toxins will be mitigated by this project.  Let me offer the thought of “What will happen to those sites if we don’t develop the property?”  If the site remains just as it is the waste will continue to leach into the soil and possibly the acquifer.  Developing the site assures we deal with the issue, in a constructive way and that we build needed housing at the same time.

Davis is my town just like it is your town.  Village Farms is being proposed for development by a local family.  I have a greater confidence in the Developer who is a neighbor, whose kids went to our schools, who supports our community in so many ways, than the developer I don’t know, who isn’t my neighbor and hasn’t supported various community efforts. 

I am voting yes on Measure V and Yes for Village Farms and I hope you do too.

Georgina Valencia is the Owner and Broker of Valencia Real Estate & Consulting.  She has served on the Davis Social Services Commission, the Housing Element Commission and now serves on the City of Davis Planning Commission.  She is a UC Davis Alumnae and lives in Davis with her husband and her standard poodle, Red.

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Comments

4 responses to “Village Farms…Is It The Right Time? ”

  1. Ron O

    So just to clarify, the author of this article is combining (both) apartment buildings and single-family rentals in the “56.5%” figure. In other words, a substantial portion of that figure are INTENDED to be rental units (including megadorms, for example).

    Reply
  2. Dave Bakay

    It seems to me her argument is a little disingenuous. Davis is expensive partly for the reasons she dismissed out of hand. Can she honestly tell us that in 30 years of selling houses that no one has told her they wanted Davis because of our schools (and our record of voting for more funding) or because of UCD? But she’s partly right: One reason for Davis being expensive is that we are competing with UC students, staff and faculty for housing. Historically, UCD has not lived up to its agreements to house more students. It has the largest UC campus but houses a far smaller percentage of the student population than several other campuses. UCD should do more for housing especially since they decided to greatly increase the student population. This increased competition increases demand and thus prices.
    Much has been said about how nice the developer families are. That is not the point; the project is. In fact, since the landowners got the property at a garage sale price, they could easily afford to realize a smaller enormous profit. They could offer a scaled down version; such has been recommended by several in meetings with the developers and the city. How about developing below the channel and offering fewer houses (while allowing for more affordable housing?
    It does not have to be this development of nothing. It’s not ‘never’ develop; it’s better develop. Back to the drawing board.

    Reply
  3. ER

    “Developing the site assures we deal with the issue, in a constructive way…”. What a casual way to disregard the immense costs that Davis voters will have to cover. Who’s going to pay for the mitigation?? The city will have to. Because once everything is dug up, when the roots of all the mature trees they want gone are pulled out of the soil, that soil will no longer be held in place by those decades old roots and any toxins will spread/leech out unhindered. Davis residents will ultimately have to foot the bill to “deal with” this disaster. “We” get to share the costs to bail out a business, but not the profits. Sound familiar? “We” are being treated like an unlimited bank account that the developer count on for any “issue” that will surface once the site is dug up and torn to shreds. I, for one, am tired of always being the purse.

    Reply
  4. Eileen Samitz

    No, actually this is not the time for this Village Farms proposal, nor ever.

    Between Village Farms toxics, enormous floodplain unsafe access issues, infrastructure cost, massive traffic (more than 15,000 more car PER DAY near Covell and Pole Line) and Unaffordable housing. With the market rate housing being $740,000 to $1.34 million per the BAE Village Farms fiscal report, that means at least a $6,000 house payment per month to cover mortgage, property taxes , insurance, CFD and other fees. Local workers and families with young kids cannot afford this. So, Village will not bring hundreds of kids and will not help the schools as the School District would like to believe.

    The Village Farms affordable housing “plan” is abysmal. While this article praises this developer for being local, the City is being cheated out of affordable housing acreage. The project is required to donate 18.6 acres yet only donating 16 acres. So, this local developer, John Whitcombe partner of Tandem Properties, a multi-million-dollar company, could not find 2.6 aces to dedicate for affordable housing out of a 498-acre project with 1,800 units? I mean, seriously?

    Historically, this local developer refused to cooperate to allow a safe a better bike/pedestrian path through his Cranbrook Court apartments under the Covell car overpass about a decade ago. Not very altruistic for a local developer.
    Further on the affordable housing “plan” the developer not responsible for building the 360 affordable units, yet Yes on Measure V campaign false advertising implies that. Instead, the developer “may” (as in might) build 100 affordable apartments IF the City has not first built 100 affordable units. Then the City “may” ask the developer to do so in the LAST phase (Phase 3) 10+ years down the road. The City would then need to return the unspent amount of the $6 million “donation,” for affordable housing, plus interest to the developer.

    So, this is supposed to be an adequate affordable housing plan? It’s an embarrassment. Another issue, which one Council member raised the concern repeatedly, what that the developer could always walk away from these Phase 3 100 apartments loose arrangement which “may” happen or not. The developer could abandon the last 160 building permits, because by Phase 3 the vast majority of the project will have been built with massive profits. So, the developer can afford to walk away from 100 affordable apartments that he is supposed to build by then. The BAE fiscal report points out that affordable apartments cost at least $400,000 per apartment, so 100 affordable apartments would cost at least $40,000,000

    Reply

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