Category: Housing

By Gilbert Coville and Roberta Millstein

Davis residents have now received a second glossy multi-page mailer in support of the Nishi 2.0 project. Most likely, there will be more to come. How do proponents of Nishi spend their money? What are their priorities?

In local elections in California, campaign finance reports are filed with the local municipality. Here in Davis, these forms are viewable on the eCampaign Public Access system accessed from the City of Davis website’s Financial Disclosures page.

When trying to influence an election, corporations are required to report any related expenses as independent expenditures.

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Expensive and glossy mailers from the Nishi developer (paid for by "Davis Gateway Student Housing LLC & Affiliated Entities") have begun arriving at Davis addresses. The back of the mailer touts support from "local leaders we trust." These leaders are said to include the five current members of the Davis City Council.

But how strong is the support of those Councilmembers? Let's review some excerpts from their comments from the meeting where the Council voted to put Nishi on the ballot on 2/6/2018. The video is located here. Numbers in parentheses refer to the approximate time that the Councilmembers' words appear in the video.

Edit 4/30/2018 to add an edited version of the full video, containing just the clips where City Council members disparage Nishi 2.0.

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Yesterday, Dan Cornford wrote about how the Nishi project would contribute to traffic and the deterioration of air quality downtown.  People who don't travel these roads frequently might have trouble seeing why that would be the case.  Well, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

If the Nishi project goes through, an underpass would be built under the railroad from the Nishi property to Old Davis Road.  As the graphic shows, there is already significant traffic from Old Davis Rd to First Street and downtown, and onto Richards Blvd.  Cars from the Nishi development – with its 700 parking spaces – would contribute to that traffic as residents drive to and through downtown.

This is just one of a number of concerns about Nishi.  As I said in an earlier post, the unhealthy air quality experienced by residents because of its location is my primary concern.  But the concerns about traffic and air quality downtown are serious ones and should not be overlooked. 

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1. What is the Nishi project?

Measure J/R gives Davis citizens the right to vote on whether residences (aimed at students, but not exclusively for students) should be built on the Nishi property.  Two years ago, Davis citizens voted down a project at Nishi.  That project had a commercial component and a residential component.  The new project proposal, often called Nishi 2.0, just has a residential component, plus allowances for daycare, nursery, outdoor exercise areas, etc.

2. Nishi is near a freeway. So what? A number of places in Davis are near freeways.  Do they have bad air quality too?

Studies show that all sites near freeways suffer from poor air quality.  Quoting a recent LA Times article:

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Source: Davis LocalWiki

At its February 20 meeting, the City Council was supposed to review a proposal to bring a large, corporate gym to the Cannery, a change to the original proposal that the developer is asking for. The Council decided at the request of the developer to delay the item until March 13, but a number of people gave public comment anyway.

I found many of these comments to be heartfelt, insightful, and persuasive, but one resonated with me in particular because it was so similar to my own experience, and also because I think it has very far-reaching implications:

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