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Category: Business

  • Please Re-Open G Street

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    By Adele Shaw

    I’m sharing this letter with people in Davis who might not be aware that retail businesses on G Street are suffering from the street closure.

    I’m an artist and one of 65 local artist/owners of The Artery Gallery located at 207 G Street. When the City issued “Temporary Use Permits” (TUP) and closed G Street, we supported it. But as an unsupervised, unkempt bacchanal unfolded we began to look forward to G Street’s re-opening.

    The original re-opening date of August 5th came and went. No information came from the City of Davis as the closure was extended without a word to affected businesses. Today, our customers continue to rant with frustration over the street closure’s unkempt conditions and filth.

    A permanent closure of the street will likely cause the death of many of the non-restaurant businesses on G Street.  The city issued TUP’s during “emergency” times but they’ve created another emergency all together- an inequitable restaurant takeover on G Street. It may look like a party when you’re picking up a pizza or having a beer, but it’s not an equitable, harmonious party.

    Non-restaurant businesses on the 200 block of G Street outnumber the restaurants more than 2:1 (24 retail, consulting or other businesses to 11 restaurants). Yet the retail, consulting and other businesses on G Street continue to suffer. We’re experiencing diminished income and are losing customers because of the street closure. I expect this will get worse as the winter comes.

    I wonder what’s the purpose of closing G Street?

    Is it a thoroughfare for pedestrians from one place to another? No.

    Does it provide pedestrian access a particular destination? No.

    Is it part of a multi-modal urban network to develop and foster a downtown core with flourishing businesses of all kinds? No.

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  • Davis Local Selected One of the Emerging Insurance Leaders In 2021

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    Photo courtesy of CSAA Insurance Group

    (From press release) A local Davis woman, Suzanne Meraz, has been selected as one of the top 123 insurance professionals across the country and globe.

    As Director, External Affairs of CSAA Insurance Group, Suzanne was chosen due to her and her teams' positive impacts on the insurance industry. Suzanne says, "As society's financial first responders, we're making and delivering on a promise to people to be there for people in their time of need. It feels good to be working in an industry that is doing something positive for the economy, for people, and for communities."

    Six leaders from CSAA Insurance Group, a AAA insurer, are among the 123 insurance professionals from across the country and overseas named to the 2021 Class of Emerging Leaders. The class will be honored at the 2021 Virtual Emerging Leaders Conference on Feb. 22-23, hosted by the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), the Insurance Careers Movement (ICM) and AM Best.

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  • DISC site not required to satisfy Davis’s commercial needs

    Infill would be a better choice

    By Pam Gunnell, Richard McCann, and Matt Williams

    A 200-acre business park like DISC is not an objective in the City of Davis’ General Plan.  Additionally, DISC contains uses (housing, retail, parks, ag buffer) that require land that would not be needed with an infill model that uses existing parcels inside the city limits. According to the project’s own environmental review documents, the FSEIR, only 101 acres of the 200-acre DISC are needed for R&D, office and light manufacturing.  (FSEIR p. 2-21 and p. 2-254) 

    Since DISC is proposed to be built out in 4 phases over 20-25 years, 101 acres of land is not needed all at once.  For that reason, existing smaller parcels in Davis may be able to accommodate the initial R&D development and defer the need to consider DISC for a number of years … at a time when the impacts of COVID on market demand for Office/R&D/Flex space are much clearer.

    The City, however, is not seriously considering meeting its commercial needs with infill of existing parcels, despite the fact that a 2019 City study enumerates 124 acres of vacant parcels inside the city limits. (FSEIR p. 2-21 and LINK) This does not include City–owned properties and parcels that are underutilized and could be rezoned – for example the PG&E property on the edge of downtown nor does it include redevelopable properties already appropriately zoned.

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  • Rebuttal to University Commons Staff Report

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    By Greg Rowe

    This is a rebuttal to the staff report on the proposed University Commons project.  It falsely implies that limiting 4-bedroom units to 45% of the 264 units (or 119 units) is a developer concession.  But as stated in the EIR Notice of Preparation (November 16, 2018, p. 4), the developer originally proposed that 66 units (25%) would have 4 bedrooms. The 45% cap now offered is higher than the original proposal by 20 percentage points and 53 units. Specifying there would be no units with 5 or more bedrooms is meaningless because the original proposal had no such units.

    The report asserts student oriented rental projects can have a beneficial impact by easing pressure on single-family neighborhoods and reducing competition for single-family rentals. That would be true if UCD's student population remained static, but UCD's July 16 "University News" confirms that UCD is continuing its relentless enrollment growth far beyond the City's ability to respond. UCD offered fall 2020 freshman and transfer admission to a record high 45,820 applicants, including 35,838 freshman admissions, a jump of 17.5% above last year.  The campus expects to enroll 9,500 freshmen and transfer students, or 5% more than fall 2019. The upshot is that UCD's student growth will outpace available housing no matter how many more student projects the City approves. The need for rental housing near campus for UCD employees has meanwhile not been addressed.

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  • Please Endorse the Planning Commission’s Unanimous Vote Against the Umall Project

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    The following letter was sent to the Davis City Council and is reprinted here at the request of the author.

    Dear City Council,

    I am writing  to ask you to support the unanimous decision of the Planning Commission to not  approve the U-Mall project for all of the reasons they gave and the ones that were elaborated on in great detail by Commissioner Rowe. I will only highlight several key points.

    Firstly, let it be noted that last week UCD projected that fall enrollment would be almost 40,000 students, or, I think, 13.6% above last year. I am a retired university professor and I have lived in university towns all my life in the US and UK. I am not anti-student. I continue to like living in a university town and that was one reasons I moved here in 2000 and bought my first house. However, I never imagined that UCD's rapid enrollment expansion would, and will further,  drastically re-shape the city. I don't have time to crunch a bunch of numbers but few cities in the US can have such a high proportion of students to its population. Furthermore, until about five years ago I was not aware of UCD's abysmal record, the worst in the UC system, of building on-campus student housing.

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  • ARC Project Recommended Sustainability Features

    Recommended Project Alternatives for the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report

    Rough-ARCmap-corrected-sustainabilityThe following comments were submitted to the City by The Aggie Research Center Working Group, an ad hoc committee of interested Davis environmentalists with experience in evaluating land use and planning issues in Davis, on December 7. The Group has collaboratively developed this set of recommended sustainability features for the project and submitted them to the developer in November, 2019. With his knowledge, these recommendations are now formally submitted as scoping comments to the supplemental EIR for the purposes of evaluating desirable sustainability alternatives for the project

    Others who wish to submit their own written scoping comments can do so via the City of Davis Community Development and Sustainability Department, 23 Russell Boulevard, Suite 2 Davis, CA 95616 Attn: Sherri Metzker, Principal Planner or via electronic mail to smetzker@cityofdavis.org up until Monday, December 9, 2019 at 5:00 PM.

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    I. SUSTAINABILITY PLAN

    Functional Goal: Develop and implement a comprehensive Sustainability Plan and ensure sustainability commitments made in the Plan are embodied in the subsequent Development Agreement and implemented and maintained for life of project.

    1. Mandatory, measurable and enforceable.
    2. Equivalent in scope and detail to Nishi.

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  • Business park outside of Mace curve: More environmental review

    Questions about traffic, area impacts, climate change

    Rough-ARCmap-corrected-traffic-climateThe following comments were submitted by Roberta Millstein to the City of Davis. This is part 2 of 2; other comments submitted by Millstein and posted earlier addressed land use, parks/greenways and open space.  These comments serve as recommendations as to the scope and content of the supplemental environmental impact report (EIR) for the "Aggie Research Campus," a proposed massive ~200 acre business park on prime farmland outside the Mace curve, focusing on the changes in project and conditions from the previous Mace Ranch Innovation Center (MRIC) proposal.

    Others who wish to submit their own written scoping comments can do so via the City of Davis Community Development and Sustainability Department, 23 Russell Boulevard, Suite 2 Davis, CA 95616 Attn: Sherri Metzker, Principal Planner or via electronic mail to smetzker@cityofdavis.org up until Monday, December 9, 2019 at 5:00 PM.

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    The following questions need to be addressed by the Supplemental EIR for the “Aggie Research Campus” (please note that wherever I say “impacts” I mean “environmental impacts”):

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  • Business park outside of Mace curve: environmental review

    Rough-ARCmap-corrected-landuseQuestions about land use, parks/greenways and open space

    The following comments were submitted by Roberta Millstein to the City of Davis today. This is part 1 of 2; other comments submitted by Millstein to be posted later [edit: see here] will address traffic/transportation, area impacts, and climate change impacts/interactions.  These comments serve as recommendations as to the scope and content of the supplemental environmental impact report (EIR) for the "Aggie Research Campus," a proposed massive ~200 acre business park on prime farmland outside the Mace curve, focusing on the changes in project and conditions from the previous Mace Ranch Innovation Center (MRIC) proposal.

    Others who wish to submit their own written scoping comments can do so via the City of Davis Community Development and Sustainability Department, 23 Russell Boulevard, Suite 2 Davis, CA 95616 Attn: Sherri Metzker, Principal Planner or via electronic mail to smetzker@cityofdavis.org up until Monday, December 9, 2019 at 5:00 PM.

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    The following questions need to be addressed by the Supplemental EIR for the “Aggie Research Campus” (please note that wherever I say “impacts” I mean “environmental impacts”):

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  • Post-Carbon Potluck & Mace business park environmental review

    Rough-ARCmap-corrected copyTwo important events at almost identical times, but synergy possible

    By Roberta Millstein

    Attend a climate crisis potluck or give comment on the scope of an environmental review?  Both?

    The first event: the Davis Post-Carbon Association (DPCA) is having a potluck this Monday, Dec 2 in the Davis Library: Blanchard Room 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. You can meet fellow residents who are taking action and learn how you can join the effort!

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  • Massive Mace business park comment period extended

    Scope of environmental review is in play.

    Buow-says-hunhBy Roberta Millstein, Colin Walsh, and Rik Keller

    The period for commenting on the scope of the environmental review of the Mace business park, dubbed “Aggie Research Campus” (formerly Mace Ranch Innovation Center, or MRIC), a proposal to build a ~200 acre project on prime farmland outside the Mace curve, has been extended until December 9.  

    Edit added Wed, 9 AM: We have learned from Ashley Feeney, Assistant City manager, that there is another change to the previously scheduled meeting Monday Dec 2 meeting, discussed below.  Instead of being a pure open house, "the planning consultant will be making a brief presentation at the beginning [of the] meeting on Monday further explaining the supplemental EIR scope and process. They will be available to explain process and answer questions throughout the meeting as well. The applicant will also have representatives there to answer questions about the project."

    Here is some of the backstory and explanation about the comment process.

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