What does “No on Measure V” really stand for?

By Matt Williams

For Davisite readers, the following is a response to an Alan Pryor post that made the following accusation, “Grass Roots” is not an accurate description of the opposition to Village Farms. How do you spell “NIMBY”? It is not spelled “Grass-roots”! (see https://nextdoor.com/p/9nSwSrmBTckW/c/1585068648?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=1776984857876&share_action_id=a32ff6cd-07c2-4764-a989-a686060c125a)
 
Alan, is there a reason you are deploying the “If you can’t address the message, attack the messenger” tactic?  There are very few NIMBYs in No on Measure V.   That is very clear in the unifying principles of No on Measure V, which were just yesterday presented to DTA, the DJUSD teachers union, and are anything but NIMBY, specifically:

1. Davis needs housing, but the kind of housing our community needs is missing from the Village Farms project.
2. Davis has a substantial shortage of workforce housing designed and built to be affordable for members of the Davis workforce of modest financial means and modest annual salary and benefits … workers like DTA members, whose starting salary at DJUSD ranges from $49,930 to $61,570 per year (see https://www.teacher.org/school-district/davis-joint-unified-school-district/)
3. Davis has systematically excluded the members of the local workforce from ownership and owner occupancy by only building expensive homes … building no market-priced single-family homes small enough to be affordably priced. In our opinion, the exclusion borders on discrimination.
4. Davis has a surplus of housing only affordable by wealthy folks who are more often than not empty nesters, without children who will be going to DJUSD schools.
5. Annual Housing Costs in Davis are very high. According to HUD, annual housing costs should be no more than 30% of total annual household income. In Village Farms a $740,000 home with a 20% cash down payment and a 6.0% mortgage has a total of over $6,000 of housing costs per month … over $75,000 per year … requiring an annual household income greater than $250,000. Ask your members how many of them have a household anywhere close to $250,000.

In conclusion:

1. Our group opposes Village Farms because it is too big, has too many impacts and costs.  It would have unaffordable housing, and has a seriously inadequate affordable housing plan which can very likely result with no affordable housing.
2. We are not anti-housing. We support a smaller “Reduced-Footprint” alternative below Channel A that avoids the vast majority of the floodplain and toxics problems. This plan also avoids City liability exposure into the future due to the toxics exposure and flooding potential.
3. In addition to the Social Justice issues described above, it is important to clearly say that Village Farms is a poorly conceived project that should be rejected at this time, and go back to the drawing board for a reduced footprint with housing that is affordable. We will address those “bad project, bad planning, bad process” issues in your Question 5.
4. It is the largest residential project ever proposed in Davis: 1,800 units on about 498 acres at Covell Blvd. and Pole Line Rd. with the most impacts and costs.
5. Our concerns are the same core concerns Davis voters had with Covell Village (voted down 60/40 in 2005) – massive traffic, floodplain risks, toxics, unsafe access, habitat impacts, costs, and unaffordable housing.