1% Growth Rate Cap

Wish the Hogwarts Cap Hat Would Sort City Council

Last night at the City Council meeting, we wrangled with math, statistics, history, parliamentary procedures (substitute-substitute-substitute motions), and rhetoric in an effort to clarify our fair city’s growth rate.

It is interesting that the current City Council, some of which are often unfairly pilloried and publicly whipped for “being in the pockets of developers”, has presided over one of the slowest growth rates in the modern history of Davis.

So, if this Council is “pro-growth”, why haven’t they allowed huge apartment complexes to be built all over town?  The short answer? No person in this town is simply “pro-” or “anti-” growth.  We all have nuanced beliefs about growth that allow exceptions for many types of growth.  Stephen Souza wants more senior housing and affordable units.  Mayor Greenwald would build thousands of units a year if they were all “infill” and conformed to her guidelines.  Rob Roy wants high-rises downtown.  I don’t know about you, but I just want to stop renting (although, I would miss my landlady’s cupcakes).

Does this new-fangled 1% Growth Rate Goal Parameter Guideline Cap actually mean anything to new housing in Davis?  No, absolutely NOT.

After the jump, drop in on my 1% Cap Academy to find out why the answer is so simple.

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MATH Class

Q:   How many new units does it take to make Davis grow by 1% ?
A:  325

Q:   How many new units has Davis built in recent years?
A:
2007 – 44
2006 – 104
2005 – 250
2004 – 134

Bonus Q: What about compounded growth?
A:  Seems like that isn’t really an issue, but if you want the extra credit, I’ll accept reports until next month.

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DAILY ACRONYM from the primer for Davis Housing Policy neophytes (Welcome! First to comment gets a cupcake… hope you don’t mind I “borrowed” it from my landlady).

SACOG – Sacramento Area Council of Governments – A regional collaboration of municipal governments that is mandated by state law and oversees, among other things, housing and transportation issues. SACOG anticipated that Davis’ fair share of growth for the region should be 1% per year until 2013, but the final number just released is actually about 0.25% per year until 2013. They allocate money, but they’ve never tested their teeth.  So, what happens if we tell SACOG, “Sorry guys, no more new houses.”? We simply don’t know, its never been done.

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Now, for a HISTORY lesson with a look back to 1986 (thanks Mike Fitch, you rule).  The citizens of Davis voted that year to pass Proposition L. It stated “the growth of Davis should be as slow as legally permissible” and Davis should “maintain a compact urban form that preserves agricultural land”.  Then, the developers of Mace Ranch came along, and said, “Meh.”

Mayor Pro Tem Ruth Asmundson noted,

“While serving on the DJUSD School Board in 1986, the City Council was allowing growth at a rate around 3-5% per year and the schools suffered because we never knew what to expect and how to fund specific schools.  SACOG growth expectations at that time were 1.8%”

Now, please move forward to the year 2005.

To be fair to our vociferous anti-growth neighbors, if 8.75% of voters had voted yes rather than no on Measure X (Covell Village) we would have a baseline of 180 new units (50% affordable) per year until about 2017.  For the sake of my readers who refuse to do any more math, 180 units per year is about 0.55% growth.

Moving on to the matter at hand, the Council discussed the reasoning and assumptions behind the original 1% Growth resolution.  Councilmember Steve Souza asked about the status of the proposed UCD Research Park, which was then seen as a major potential driver in internal housing needs.  City Manager Bill Emlen indicated it is not being actively pursued.

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Time for RHETORIC class.   Let’s explore a sampling of quotes by the City Council from the meeting.

Mayor Sue Greenwald – The mayor believes that the city should be actively pursuing housing for young professional couples, empty nesters, and low-income peoples on the PG&E site (has PG&E ever expressed this as a feasible option??) and other infill sites, but not the Cannery or Covell Village site. “There are a lot of housing projects that I want to see happen to decrease pressure on apartment vacancy rates… Some of the best and most exciting projects can’t be metered, they might have to all be built in one year.”

Mayor Pro Tem Ruth Asmundson – The Once and Future Mayor thinks that while 1% is a nice framing device for this discussion, “We would, and do, reject inferior projects with or without this guideline.”  She also asked City Staff to meet closely with SACOG Staff to ensure that in 2013 these expectations don’t change drastically.  Asmundson has also expressed concern for the lack of housing options for young families that want to make Davis their home. “We need affordable housing for our workforce, but the only known way to do that is in conjunction with market rate housing… we are constantly stymied in the attempts to build stand alone affordable housing … Every project that comes before the council is judged very carefully on its merits… I think that 1% is reasonable, but I don’t worry about meeting it…”

Councilmember Lamar Heystek – While noting the plight of renters in a very tight vacancy market (Heystek is the only Councilmember who rents his home), Heystek would like for Davis to “grow as slow as legally possible”.  Mayor Greenwald noted that nobody knows what that means.  Heystek is also a proponent of increased housing for the local workforce and seniors.

Councilmember Stephen Souza – Souza drafted the original 1% guideline and maintains that it was always meant to be a cap.  “This is a guideline that helps to smooth out the ups and downs of development that ultimately harm our city’s fiscal health…  There is not a science to figuring out how many people will come to this community as students, fall in love with this community and want to build their lives here, three of us [Asmundson, Heystek, Souza] did… There is a greater need for senior housing, student housing, and affordable units in this town than single family units… If a project comes up that allows us to build 100% affordable, we should not be discouraged to do just that.”

Councilmember Don Saylor – Saylor believes this conversation is premature and should wait until after the Housing Element Steering Committee finalizes its report. “This measure was in fact a reasonable metering of housing development in regards to the past spikes in entitlement numbers… Housing must be balanced and at a reasonable level to ensure that students, faculty and Davis workers are not overwhelmed by high income out-of-town owners…We have to have reasonable conversations about this issue without the current polarization… Seniors want to downsize … renter vacancy rate is far too low … there are more commuters now than in 2003, that is a problem.”

Is it just me, or does it seem like this Council can’t agree to agree on types of housing needs?

The final action on this matter was to adopt staff suggested language crowning the word cap as the big 1% winner (Greenwald & Heystek dissenting).  Also, per language in the original, the Council will soon be looking into a “mid-course correction” for the growth rate guideline cap based on a new understanding of internal housing needs.  By the way, that last one passed unanimously.

Oh, I almost forgot.  In a surprising admission, Mayor Sue Greenwald stated for the record, “Steve [Souza] and I have a lot in common.” I don’t think that she was talking about personal preferences in cap hat fashion.

Class dismissed.