by Claudia Krich
City planner Eric Lee (elee@cityofdavis.org) sent an email with specifications about the Sterling 5th Street proposal on the site of Families First, near the post office. The plan is for a huge country club housing complex for UCD students, with swimming pool, pool deck, club/fitness center, outdoor amphitheater, barbecue pits, cabanas, beach area, all far from UCD. The police were called much too frequently to Families First when there were only 80 students. This will be at least 203 UCD student units. Imagine the policing that will be required. There are other Sterling developments and they have a history of problems with typical student behavior, off campus, unsupervised.
The plan is for FOUR and FIVE story dorm buildings, and a SIX story (SEVEN floor) parking structure, with 586 parking places, all for the students. No information on how much bike parking there will be, but of course students will DRIVE, as they do now, from all parts of Davis. The intersection of the post office and the DMV (Fifth and Pole Line) is already a headache for people going in all directions, including heading to the freeway to the south, and particularly for those coming from south and east Davis to downtown. Police response time will be slowed down by all the added traffic. Certainly the police department is against this huge UCD party site with zero UCD supervision or policing. This development needs to be on campus, with campus supervision.
Each and every bedroom will have its own bathroom. That is an enormous and inexcusable waste of water. How many 18 to 21-year-olds will take very short showers for the common good, when they each have a personal bathroom, and they are not charged for water use?
The proposal also includes, because it has to, an affordable FOUR STORY housing development on the same site. Insultingly, it features only one amenity: A 1470 square foot laundry area. No pool, no cabanas, no barbecues, no clubhouse, no amphitheater.
There are no other tall buildings in the vicinity, though the artist’s rendering makes it look as if there are.
The Sterling Apartments plan is completely inappropriate for the city of Davis. Especially now that Chancellor Katehi has resigned, UCD needs to be pressured more than ever to use their extensive acreage to build housing for their students. Putting a huge student dormitory in a Davis neighborhood, very close to hundreds of family homes (Rancho Yolo, Mace Ranch) and far from the university is a travesty. It belongs on campus.
There is absolutely nothing to be gained from this project, except profit for the builders. The proposal should be denied. Please consider contacting the City Council and/or Eric Lee.
See city’s attachment, below.
The Draft EIR for Sterling 5th Street Apts. project is available for public review. There will be a 45-day public comment period that ends October 31, 2016.
STUDENT SITE
The “Student Site” would consist of a 4 and 5-story, 203-unit university student apartment project, which would include 727 beds, a 11,650 square foot leasing office/clubhouse, landscaped courtyards and common open space areas, a 6-story (seven parking levels) residential parking garage with 545 parking spaces, and other amenities including bicycle parking areas (accommodating 727 bicycle parking spaces), pedestrian pathways, and extensive landscaping improvements. Site amenities would include a club/fitness center, large interconnected courtyards between the residential buildings, a swimming pool, pool deck, outdoor amphitheater, cabanas, beach area, and barbecue areas. Vehicle and bicycle access is proposed around the perimeter of the project site. The Student Site includes a total of 61,028 square feet of usable open space and common space, which includes the proposed outdoor open spaces, the club/fitness center, and private balconies.
The project would include a mix of 1-bedroom to 5-bedroom apartment units ranging in size from approximately 500 square feet to 1,700 square feet. The 104 4-bedroom/4-bathroom units would comprise the largest share of the 203 units (51%) and 727 bedrooms (57%). The proposed site plan is shown in Figure 2.0-3, and includes a break-down of the proposed number of unit types and bedrooms.
The development is designed with University of California, Davis (UCD) students in mind as the target population, but would not be restricted to students. The project is proposed to be built as a LEED for Homes Silver certified project.
Access to the project site would be provided via 5th Street, which runs along the north edge of the site. A second driveway would be added on 5th Street for emergency vehicles and bicycle access only. The project proposes to connect to existing city utility infrastructure to provide water, sewer, and stormwater drainage.
The proposed project would represent a residential density of 39.3 units per acre, and would allow for a maximum building height of 66 feet (including the 6-story parking garage).
AFFORDABLE HOUSING SITE
The “Affordable Housing Site” would consist of a 4-story, 41-unit apartment building, with 74 bedrooms and a maximum building height of 54 feet. The project would include a mix of 1-bedroom to 3-bedroom units, ranging in size from 645 square feet to 1,125 square feet. As shown on Figure 2.0-3, approximately 44% of the units would be 1-bedroom units. The residential density of the Affordable Housing Site would be 49 units per acre.
The project includes 41 surface parking spaces. 75 bicycle parking spaces would be provided. The site would include a 1,470 square foot laundry area, a 1,993 square foot common area, and 8,109 square feet of usable open space and common areas, which includes the proposed outdoor open spaces, common areas, and private balconies.
Access to the project site would be shared with the “student site” and provided via 5th Street, which runs along the north edge of the site, as shown on Figure 2.0-3. The project proposes to connect to existing city utility infrastructure to provide water, sewer, and stormwater drainage.
The 41 low and very-low income affordable apartment units would be developed adjacent to the Student Site in order to meet the city’s Affordable Housing requirements.
Claudia’s headline says:
“Site Near Post Office to Turn Into Huge UCD Dorm”
Claudia’s second line says:
“The plan is for a huge country club housing complex for UCD students”
Reading the rest of the article Claudia writes that the property:
“would not be restricted to students”
I’m wondering if David would accept and post a letter from the Rosecreek residents with the headline:
“Site near Rosecreek to Turn Into Sex Offender Dorm”
As long as they mentioned that “like every other hotel in America there is a chance that a registered sex offender might stay there some day”
I don’t think “UCD Dorm” and “Sex Offender Dorm” are comparables. Nice try though.
David wrote:
> I don’t think “UCD Dorm” and “Sex Offender Dorm”
> are comparables. Nice try though.
So it is OK to make false statements in a headline on your blog as long as they are not related to sex?
Reading the line “Imagine the policing that will be required. There are other Sterling developments and they have a history of problems with typical student behavior, off campus, unsupervised.” it sounds like someone thinks the place will be full of criminals with cops on site often.
P.S. Would you run a story that said: “Site near Rosecreek to Turn Into UCD Dorm” as long as they wrote that the extended stay hotel “would not be restricted to students”?
It’s their opinion. You don’t have to agree with it.
David, the statement,
purports to be ‘fact’, not ‘opinion’… with no documentation…
Look, we don’t micro-manage or fact-check guest submissions. Neither does the Enterprise or any paper. You have the option of posting comments to debunk claims and submit your own column in response.
David wrote:
> It’s their opinion. You don’t have to agree with it.
Will UCD own the property? NO
Will the property be a dorm? NO
I don’t have a problem with someone with the “opinion” that UCD students are bad neighbors and they want them to live somewhere else but I don’t get why you would let a guest poster say a “privately owned apartment building” is a “Huge UCD Dorm”? Do you think the Enterprise would let me write a guest column that calls the Vanguard a “Pro Trump Republican Blog” (a totally false statement)?
“Do you think the Enterprise would let me write a guest column that calls the Vanguard a “Pro Trump Republican Blog” (a totally false statement)?”
I have no idea, they published someone telling my wife (and Jann Murray-Garcia) to go to South Africa if they don’t like it in Davis.
As I said, the Vanguard’s policy is to print people’s opinions and allow readers to respond or post their article in response.
I don’t think it’s as factually indefensible as you seem to anyway – while UCD doesn’t own the property and it will not be technically a dorm, UCD students will live in the “student site” and they are renting by the bed. Therefore you could argue (not saying I agree) that it becomes a de facto UCD Dorm. Disagree? Then argue.
Once again, a short bio of author would be helpful and I think should be policy. Assume Rancho Yolo resident but who knows?
I’m shocked that students would have un-monitored showers. That is just wrong. BTW who is monitoring Claudia Krich’s showers?
Who will monitor the showers in the affordable housing site? Given the choice I would prefer to be the student housing shower monitor.
Gives a whole new perspective on the concept “body cams”… if the City “monitors” those, it is arguably public information… if we sold “pay-per-view” access, we may well have found great way to solve our revenue problems!
FYI, Rancho Yolo didn’t meter individual water use until very recently – about a month ago. The original opinion piece smacks of hysteria and should be disregarded.
We all know that there will be pluses and minuses to this development – but the world will not come crashing down.
Also, water use per person in a residential situation (not considering landscaping) is less than 2 CCF per month – usually more like 1 CCF per month.
Water for landscaping on a typical 1 family house during the summer is about 15-25 CCF per month. Note the ORDER OF MAGNITUDE difference.
Such provocations to hysteria discredit other opponents who might have legitimate concerns about this development.
The more I read people who have problems with development in Davis, the more it all sounds like NIMBY.
Let’s start with probably the least informed, untruthful statement by the author,
Author shows a serious lack of awareness… PD does not operate the way FD does. PD has its officers patrolling constantly… they are not “dispatched” while they are at the station. FD does not “patrol” and dispatches from their ‘stations’.
There are many other highly questionable facts/opinions in this piece of “work” [being slightly charitable, and wishing to avoid the ‘filter’].
This is a good point. Also the traffic analysis suggests that the road is no worse than LOS C until full build and other factors.
Claudia
I suspect that we may share some of the same concerns, but it is a little hard to tell from your article on some points.
1. Is your concern that the project as planned is too large ( either in building size or population), or is your concern that this will bee too many students specifically for one site. If the latter, I can offer an example of one such student site in which there seemed to be minimal problems and that is Francisco Torres in Santa Barbara where I lived as a re entry student. I was significantly older than most of the students and even I saw no major problems during my times there despite its off campus location. There were police calls, but no more than at other large apartment complexes in which I have lived.
2. I am unclear rather than the idea of social equity what your concerns might be about proximity of an affordable housing site and a student targeted site. In this situation, I would see the availability of housing as the over riding factor and the amenities as clearly a secondary consideration.
3. Since I live quite close to this intersection ( relatively speaking) and use it on a regular basis, I do not perceive it as the “headache” that you seem to. There are relatively short wait times and not much confusion. One problem that I do see is that there is not a continuously separated bike, pedestrian path extending all the way to campus. I do see safety along 5th ( and neighboring streets) as a potential problem given the likely increase in both cars and bikes.
4. With regard to water usage, I am not understanding your point. Students are going to shower regardless of where their apartment is located. Surely you are not recommending open showers as a means of water conservation ? If so I would ask you to recall the number of times you have seen a public or club shower head left running or at least dripping. Since no one “owns” it, no one is checking to ensure complete closure. Perhaps I misunderstood your point ?
5. With regard to property management and maintenance, a quick on line search shows what one would expect…..a wide variation in opinions about how nice the features are, how responsive the staff is, how quickly repairs are attended to ….. quite a mix. I am wondering if you have any less subjective information quality and performance at these projects.
Claudia wrote:
> Each and every bedroom will have its own bathroom.
> That is an enormous and inexcusable waste of water.
I have friends that live in Midtown Sac and in recent years all of them have started getting billed for water use. In the past year at least one person living in a Davis apartment has told me that they are now being charged for water use and they mentioned that they have friends in other Davis apartments paying for water. Does anyone here live in a Davis apartment that is now charging for water use (I’m wondering if they charge per person or per unit)?
P.S. I’m also wondering if anyone here used a lot more water when they had their own bathroom?
Doesn’t Claudia live in Wildhorse and likely doesn’t have multiple houses on her street turned into mini-dorms for students? She is a busy body and is one of the characters in Davis that make planning discussions difficult.
I question the density, but only in terms of the health implications for its residents. Students will not be driving to UCD any more than students at Greystone Apartments drive to UCD. I imagine that if this was an assisted living complex, instead of for students, it would be looked at differently. If the number of units was spread over a larger property, than rising vertically, I think it would be better received also. We have yet to see a plan so It is hard to envision.
[moderator] Please stick to the issues and avoid characterizations of guest authors.
Who you refer to as a “guest author” has already posted the same broadly on NextDoor Davis last night (not just her neighborhood, but many neighborhoods across Davis). Is this really a guest author or just a letter to the editor that she is sending out to all local media and posting on available social media?
Thanks, South of Davis, for bringing up that other foolish (at best) point the author made about water use…
Does anyone think that if there are four people in a unit, with one bathroom, or four people in a unit, with four bathrooms, that there would be more water use in the latter? That is absurd!
“The police were called much too frequently to Families First when there were only 80 students.”
EIGHTY poorly supervised high risk foster youth living in a group home because their psychological and emotional issues are so severe they are unable to live in foster homes or attend traditional elementary school are comparable to UCD students because both groups attend school. This could actually beat out the “strangers” concern for the most ludicrous NIMBY argument against a development project and be the worst ever!
Oh, darn, the first few paragraphs made me think that this was an Onion-style satire, and I was getting excited that the Vanguard was starting to post humorous articles. And then, I realized that the author was serious. Womp womp.
Me too.
womp womp! 🙂
I am fine with David posting this as is, because it demonstrates what happens to people in opposition.
They get all worked up and start embellishing. They get together with their like minded NIMBYs and and create even bigger stories of dread. Soon they lose track of reality and are living in a parallel universe where the proposed new project might as well be a dynamite factory or chemical plant.
This is why we need representative elected officials to make the decisions and why direct democracy does not work when it comes to the vetting and approval of development projects. This is true especially in Davis where other people from town are quick to jump into the parallel universe.
Recently the Yolo County Supervisors demonstrated to the Davis CC how real representative government officials are supposed to perform in these situations. They listen to the facts and objectively weigh the cost-benefit. They reject the irrational arguments and the embellished stories of dread. They basically don’t allow the foolishly fearful and self-centered to run the show.
Will the Davis CC do their jobs the same way, or will they bend to the outpouring of irrational and emotional tirades from those in opposition?
Says the guy who (just this week) brought up his own concerns regarding traffic and road narrowing, on Fifth. (Including buses, which block the remaining lanes.) Should be quite a “show”, to watch what happens with large numbers of inexperienced bicyclists, cars, buses, and double-parkers along that narrowed (single traffic lane for each direction) corridor.
I guess the intersection of Sycamore/Russell (adjacent to Trader Joe’s) isn’t providing a “clear enough” example, for some.
All of which can be avoided, by putting housing on campus (which doesn’t require a daily commute, through the congested city). Perhaps some at the University enjoy watching us “dance”? (Some of you are certainly making it easier for them.)
The EIR doesn’t even examine the impact in the core area (because it’s already at level “F”, which is “allowed”).
hpierce, congestion tends to reduce emergency response time, throughout the city. (Regardless of the origination point of responders.) Perhaps that’s the point the author was making.
Why don’t you come over to my office around 5 PM and I will stand with you on the corner so we can both observe what is actually happening, not what we image in some hyper emotional state.
Frankly: I’m not sure that we’re “disagreeing”, regarding traffic congestion on Fifth. (This article is related to Sterling, and the resulting impact on that same corridor.)
The problem is not Sterling. The problem is the road diet.
Ron: Students are not driving in town to campus. They are biking and taking the bus. I don’t see how a relatively small apartment complex is going to impact “the corridor” and add to that, the traffic analysis and EIR agree with me and disagree with you.
Ron… you make a lousy ‘apologist’… the author is just wrong in the context of the proposal and that segment of Fifth… the risk of those delays will not go up (except in a 1 one in a 100,000 chance) one way or the other… today, a USPS semi could overturn at the post office TODAY… that scenario “could” delay response times to the Families First site… a meteorite could land on Fifth, delaying response times… making decisions on land use proposals should not be based on “what if” speculations… yet the author presented it as “fact” as to what is likely to happen… I’ll stick with what I wrote…
“Certainly the police department is against this huge UCD party site with zero UCD supervision or policing” Has the DPD commented on the Sterling plan or is this a feverish fantasy of the author? I suspect the root cause is reading too many “bodice ripper” novels.
And really, a “(SEVEN floor) parking structure, with 586 parking places”. And, no one seems concerned in this “green town”?
By the way, here’s some reviews for the apartment complex on nearby Cantrill, where students are complaining about the lack of parking for themselves, and visitors.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-u-apartments-davis
Also, hope you don’t mind the stop signal that will eventually be required on 2nd and Cantrill. (The EIR discusses this.) I previously predicted that this will be needed, as development intensifies.
I won’t have much time to argue this today.
I’m not sure what point you’re making. Too many parking spaces, but a nearby apartment complex they complain about lack of parking? So which is it? You want more, or you want less, parking?
Beat me to it
“You want more, or you want less, parking?”
Maybe he wants both
Don (the “double-parker” on that same corridor):
Actually, it’s both points. You can try to eliminate driving by eliminating parking, but it won’t necessarily work that way. This was discussed in the article regarding Lincoln40, as well. To pretend otherwise is not realistic. (But, it will be more of a factor at a remote location, such as the proposed Sterling complex.)
Students and others who live at a relatively far-flung location (such as the proposed Sterling complex) will need access to motor vehicles, in some manner. (Not necessarily to commute to the campus every day.)
This really needs to stop, Ron.
I think you’re ignoring that driving is eliminating itself.
Don: “This really needs to stop, Ron.”
I’d have to agree, but perhaps not on what needs to “stop”.
If the following is not true, please clarify:
You brought this issue up yourself, and said that a city representative told you that you’d still be “allowed” to double-park, if/when the traffic lanes are reduced (to single lanes, in each direction, with a bike lane).
You brought up concerns regarding restriping of lanes which would eventually be needed as a result of the traffic lane reduction. (The traffic lane reduction, with a bike lane will especially be needed, if the Sterling development is approved.)
If bicyclists are “forced out” into the traffic lane as a result of double-parkers, buses, etc., it’s a real danger.
I find it somewhat ironic that you’re a very strong advocate of Sterling, but are (apparently) not willing to change your own practices to help ensure the safety of large numbers of bicyclists to/from campus, from that proposed development. That’s a primary reason why I bring it up. However, I’ve also never understood why anyone is “allowed” to block traffic lanes (which is against the law, to my knowledge), impacting other motorists and bicyclists. The “inability” to find a place to park, and/or using vehicles that are too large to fit into your lot is not a legitimate “excuse”.
How we receive goods will not change with re-striping of Fifth Street, nor will the method of all the other businesses on our end of Fifth Street nor most of the businesses in downtown. Delivery trucks stop, unloading occurs quickly, and that is accepted practice everywhere. If it were to be ended, commerce would basically cease.
The only difference will be that delivery trucks coming to our store (or any of my four neighboring businesses here, which also receive deliveries this way) will now be stopping in a bike lane instead of a car/bike lane. Bicyclists will merge into traffic, as they do now. The trucks are obvious, they leave their lights flashing if necessary. In short, all precautions are taken to ensure safety and continued flow of traffic. We’ve done that for many years, and will continue to do so. A dedicated bike lane rather than a mixed-use lane will not change any of that.
We verified with the police when we opened that this would be acceptable practice. Individual officers have considerable discretion as to when the issue citations for moving violations. We were assured then that for a truck to stop, engine running, and be offloaded rapidly would not be considered a moving violation. UPS, FedEX, and the USPS do this routinely all over town. In downtown Davis, the hours that this practice can occur were just regulated; therefore, since the practice is being subjected to regulations, it can be considered accepted practice. I have now verified with city officials that this practice will continue to be acceptable. Basically, as long as everyone keeps it moving (unload quickly, don’t just leave the vehicle there), it is accepted and not subject to citations.
So we are not “double-parkers” and to continue to single me out on this as you have now done four or five times is unacceptable to me. I was answering Alan Miller’s question or concern about why I addressed the Fifth Street re-striping at our end, because he had concerns that I was acting in self-interest or something. That is what brought it up.
So can I count on you to stop singling me out in this regard now?
Don:
Thanks for that explanation, but it still doesn’t really address most of the points I brought up. (But, I did not intend to imply that you’re the only business engaging in that practice.)
I’m assuming that most other business owners who engage in this practice are not frequent commenters on the Vanguard, actively supporting a proposed development located on the same corridor as their business.
Most business owners don’t comment on the Vanguard or anywhere else. They don’t think it’s a good idea to take public positions on issues, because people like you take potshots at them.
It would be a good idea for bike traffic to slow down, not speed up, on that stretch of Fifth. I am concerned that a dedicated bike lane will actually encourage higher bike speeds. IMO the “road diet” between L and Poleline is unnecessary, unlikely to be beneficial, and might even make the street less safe for cars and bicycles. But we have a very wide street here: four traffic lanes, parking, a dedicated center lane for left turns, and an enclosed bike lane on the south side. We have plenty of room. I would be curious what the accident rate is on this stretch of road, because I can’t remember ever seeing an accident here.
There are four very auto-centric businesses between L and Poleline. Next to me there’s a tire store, a smog station, an auto repair/rental/auto sales business. None of us get a high percentage of bike traffic for rather obvious reasons. And further down, the DMV which is auto-centric by definition. So I suggest that the planners consider the nature of the businesses here as the plans go forward.
Don wrote:
> How we receive goods will not change with
> re-striping of Fifth Street
Is the re-striping of 5th east of L a “done deal”? Last I heard it was still in the “let’s think about it” phase.
I had a serious bike wreck here. It was in an unstriped, wide area where the car drifted over in front of me at least partially because there was no striping.
There are two Yoga studios, Davis Public Access, Omsoft (now in same corridor, other side), all of which I have biked to, and it’s a total bear to reach them without doing something unsafe and/or illegal. I’ve also biked to the city yard to vote, and on a couple of occasions strapped a cactus to my bike basket from some plant nursery.
I have several times biked to the DMV.
Yup. ALL the businesses, AND the through traffic.
To be specific, my concern was that businesses on your stretch of Fifth, or at least you, might do as downtown businesses did for years, and vocally speak against the re-striping based on fears/concerns about traffic volumes or other concerns, most of which turned out to be unfounded in the case of downtown.
After my apology to you in the last article, you again restated that 5th is now more dangerous for bicycles. That is not an accurate derivative statement from those statistics, which the Traffic and Bicycle Commission questioned the usefulness of anyway.
I will state my bias outright — that stretch of 5th needs bike lanes.
In our previous conversation, you said “Very few bicyclists used the corridor before.”
I replied: That “is not what I’ve observed. I’ve been on this street for many years. Give me data, not exclamation marks.”
You replied: “I don’t know if the report had numbers for the bicycle counts before and after. That would have been very useful for the article.”
We know from the previous article that “the collision rate … increased from 3.5 collisions per million vehicle miles to 5.39.” [emphasis added]
More:
“The vehicle-on-vehicle collisions increased from 16 to 19 over those periods. There was an increase of 7 to 10 of vehicle-on-bike collisions, and an increase of 0 to 1 of bike-on-pedestrian collisions.”
“The number of the bicycle related collisions has increased throughout the corridor…”
All of which leads to the reasonable conclusion that the changes have increased the bike traffic on Fifth Street and, overall, have made Fifth Street less safe.
It’s a small data set, but my conclusion doesn’t seem unreasonable. Certainly it hasn’t made Fifth Street safer in total number of accidents, at least not yet. Possibly it has made nearby streets more safe. But we don’t have any data that shows that.
No, I’m not going to oppose the continuation of the Fifth Street road diet to Poleline. But it doesn’t seem to have any evidentiary basis.
Here’s the staff report.
Alan wrote:
> I will state my bias outright — that stretch of 5th needs bike lanes.
It has a bike lane on the south side of the street (where I always ride). Sure it is not a smooth ride (on a carbon road bike) but is OK on mountain bike or beater bike (with big lower pressure tires), but a rough ride to me is better than a “serious bike wreck” (like Alan had)…
How is this any more confusing than we need more affordable housing in Davis, just don’t build anything in Davis?
Don wrote:
> You want more, or you want less, parking?
I think Don has been in town long enough to know that the people that want to kill development will complain about “lack of parking” on projects with little parking and “too much parking” on projects with lots of parking (just like they will complain about lack of affordable housing for families with kids at the same tome that they complain that the site is a “toxic soup” of polluted air that will make kids sick)…
Exactly. Just hang with them long enough and you will note they shift to exploit both sides of the argument to gin up FUD in the foolish emotional voters types.
For them the sky is always falling. The next development is terrible, awful, a traffic nightmare, the pollution, the global warming, the poor people displaced, the developers making profit on the backs of all the poor impacted residents, the bikers will be unsafe, the character of the town will be lost, tall building will cast shade on them and bad strangers will come to town and peep into bedroom window and steal little children in the dead of night. Too many lanes. Not enough lanes. Too much parking. Not enough parking. Too many stories. Too much sprawl. Too much density. Not enough connectivity. Too much connectivity. Not enough green and sustainable features. Too expensive and not affordable enough. Not enough open space. Too expensive and not affordable enough. University needs to build housing on their property but not there and not there and not there. Need to have a car-less community but UCD needs to build housing WAY out there or not at all.
It reminds me of what it must be like to work in an asylum and debate with the patients.
Stop light should have been put in at 2nd and Cantrill when Target went in. That intersection needs it badly.
Biddlin wrote:
> Don, do you have the capacity to block ip addresses from logging on?
Even better would be a way for people to block the posters they don’t want to read. If people want to read Grok posting 50 times a day that the people on Olive drive will be parking in Old East Davis to commute to Roseville every day great, but the rest of us can block him and also block Ron who posted over 50 times that he was against Nishi due to no affordable housing, yet he is against Sterling that has affordable housing (and now seems to think that double parking on 5th is a big problem)…
SouthofDavis:
My primary concern with Nishi was with traffic. Regarding affordable housing, I recall pointing out some possible discrepancies regarding the proposal, vs the ordinance.
Yes, I have proposed an “ignore” function but so far to no avail. Perhaps David would consider a poll to see how many readers would employ such a system, were it available.
[moderator] edited
I’m not so sure isn’t working. I clicked on the “ignore” button and typed in “Marina”. It seems to have worked flawlessly for a couple of weeks now.
Bidding are you incapable of averting your eyes for those you don’t want to read?
No, he would rather troll and complain.
SouthofDavis:
50 times? If you say so, I guess.
I do recall engaging in lengthy, nonsense communications with someone (not you), regarding what the ordinance actually said. However, I did not say that I was against Nishi due to the lack of affordable housing.
Ironically, the one place that affordable housing seems most appropriate (Olive Drive/Lincoln40, due to those who already live there and would be displaced) is also the only active, proposed development that doesn’t have any affordable housing included.
Ron wrote:
> 50 times? If you say so, I guess.
The link below was not your first time (or last time) saying things like “It’s also painful to see a development bypass low-income housing requirements” and in just a single day you posted 13 times related to “low-income housing requirements”. If you click on other Nishi threads in April I’m betting you will find close to (or more than) 50 of your posts on the topic…
http://www.davisvanguard.org/2016/04/monday-morning-thoughts-nishi-vertical-mixed-use-project/
I agree with other commenters on the absurdity of many of the trumped-up arguments against this proposed housing (e.g., individual bathrooms mean more water use). I am particularly disturbed with the bias expressed toward students. “Putting a huge student dormitory in a Davis neighborhood, very close to hundreds of family homes (Rancho Yolo, Mace Ranch) and far from the university is a travesty.” “Imagine the policing that will be required.” A mile and a half is far from the University? Students shouldn’t live near families? These are college students, for goodness sakes, not registered sex offenders.
Apparently intended as a criticism, the article states that “[t]he plan is for a huge country club housing complex for UCD students, with swimming pool, pool deck, club/fitness center, outdoor amphitheater, barbecue pits, cabanas, beach area …” My response was: Wow! This sounds amazing! The author, on the other hand, opines that “[t]here is absolutely nothing to be gained from this project, except profit for the builders.”
The City’s economy depends heavily on revenues from UCD students and staff. We can’t welcome students to contribute to the local economy but treat them as pariahs when it comes to housing. I fully agree that UCD should be doing far more to provide on-campus student housing. But, whether built on or off campus, this project will hardly make a dent in the overall need for student housing. It does, however, appear to provide a well-considered option that even includes parking and affordable housing.
Or the fictitious “Biddlin”. One’s man’s troll is another man’s poster. Oink
” No information on how much bike parking there will be, but of course students will DRIVE, as they do now, from all parts of Davis.”
A majority of students actually bike (52%), walk (9%) or take the bus (24%) (see page 23 of the PDF: https://its.ucdavis.edu/research/publications/?frame=https%3A%2F%2Fitspubs.ucdavis.edu%2Findex.php%2Fresearch%2Fpublications%2Fpublication-detail%2F%3Fpub_id%3D2537). Same with graduate students, where only 20% drive (or DRIVE, as this hilarious person describes its).
This article is so factually wrong I almost wonder of the writer is intentionally and in fact brilliantly satirizing NIMBYs??