The Cannery project moves forward with draft EIR
When the city of Davis built Village Homes in the 1970s, the world noticed.
Not only did fans of cutting-edge urban planning notice, they had to come see it for themselves.
First lady Rosalyn Carter, Prince Charles and French President Francois Mitterrand all came to see the environmental features the new West Davis neighborhood had to offer: south-facing homes, passive solar energy systems, common areas garnished with fruit trees and gardens, and narrow streets and winding bike paths.
Perhaps that’s why the city can’t wait to get its hands on The Cannery project to start molding its every detail, as some say it could be the next Village Homes in Davis.
And with the City Council’s go-ahead Tuesday on an environmental impact report, city planners and ConAgra Foods Inc., the applicant, can now begin crafting and refining a detailed plan for the 100-acre site that sits just north of Covell Boulevard.
Over the past few years, the city has outlined general details of what features it wants the property — the former site of the Hunt-Wesson Cannery — to have. These include a business park or mixed-use component with commercial, office and neighborhood-service retail spaces with the option of residential units above them; some form of mixed-demographic housing; an urban farm; solid transportation connections, especially for bicyclists and pedestrians; and sustainable and low environmental-impact principles throughout the entire project.
ConAgra has taken those guidelines and has proposed a project with a wide variety of mixed land uses to fit into the available space. The project includes:
* 96 units of low-density housing on 14.8 acres;
* 240 units of medium-density housing on 25.2 acres;
* 250 units of high-density housing on 10 acres;
* 24 units of business park/office/residential use on 15 acres; and
* 32 acres for parks, greenbelts, ag buffers and drainage.
However, those numbers may change, as the city continues to work with the applicant to finalize the plan over the next year.
“I would say that much of what you see in the project description, while it provides a significant amount of meat on the bones of the project, is a work in process,” George Phillips, speaking for ConAgra, told the council Tuesday. “We see areas of improvement throughout that will be achieved between now and (when) the draft EIR is released.
“While the EIR process is going on, we are also going to be making significant refinements to lot sizes, product type in terms of housing, architecture, design type of issues and how to incorporate and maximize the extent of feasible universal design.”
To reach this point in the development process, however, the city and the applicant have spent a lot of time consulting with community members to make sure it is planning the project in the best way possible.
“It’s really been a multifaceted effort of bringing in local expertise from a number of different fields … particularly on sustainability and bicycle connectivity,” the city’s principal planner, Mike Webb, said Tuesday.
One facet of the project that will face a lot of scrutiny will be how much land is dedicated for commercial and residential uses.
Councilwoman Sue Greenwald advocates allocating more space in Davis for business park uses.
“If we are as business-friendly as we say we are, then we would preserve more of this land than is in this plan for neighborhood-compatible mixed use, business park, offices (and) high-tech,” Greenwald said.
“We need that land and anybody who says that there’s no market for it doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”
But her colleague, Dan Wolk, said this project should focus on residential uses, pointing to the declining number of young families in the city and the need for more housing for senior citizens.
“I think we do need to plan for housing and we need to plan for it in a very smart and measured and environmentally sound way,” Wolk said. “What I like about this project is that it’s oriented toward two demographic groups whom I think … we need to be concerned about.”
Another question the city must answer will be what types of housing the project will feature.
Matt Williams, an El Macero resident, worries that the units will be unaffordable to the demographic groups that Davis already has trouble attracting.
“When I look at what’s been proposed, I’m extremely concerned that the housing … is not consistent with the economic challenges that Davis is going to face in the coming years,” Williams told the council.
“We need to keep our eye on the fact that we need to add jobs to this community and we need to be able to provide housing for those who are working in this community.”
Mayor Joe Krovoza said he couldn’t agree more.
“(The) jobs-housing balance is not the end of the discussion; it’s just part of it,” he said. “It’s really the jobs-housing match that we have to pay attention to, which is, are the houses that we’re going to create in this area matching the jobs and the needs of the community?
“I really want to affiliate with what Mr. Williams said during public comment and what Mike Webb hinted at, which is that this is a really unique opportunity to think about what kind of housing we need.”
The Cannery proposal also includes land dedicated to an urban farm. The California Farm Academy, a project of the Center for Land-Based Learning, hopes to use The Cannery farmland as its incubator space.
Academy graduates, who will be trained in farm field work and greenhouse work, will be eligible to lease farmland to get on their feet professionally.
“We would locate trained farmers right here in Yolo County, and, in fact, right in our own city of Davis,” academy director Jennifer Taylor told the council. “We would be adding small businesses to the community because each farm is its own small business.”
ConAgra submitted a formal application to the city in September. The EIR will take about one full year to complete. The city hopes all key details of the project will be finalized by the time the EIR is finished.
— Reach Tom Sakash at tsakash@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8057. Follow him on Twitter @TomSakash
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=135147
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Posted by Tom Sakash
on Feb 8 2012.
Last Login: Mon 21 May 2012 09:28:43 AM PDT
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I appreciate that the on-line version of this article has replaced the names of Mike and Judy Corbett as appeared in the print version with “the city of Davis” in the first sentence of the story. I have a hard time believing that they would endorse this design and, for that matter, I don’t expect any world dignitaries to show up if this is the design that moves forward. Aside from the “urban farm” how does this compare to Village Homes? What about solar orientation? Unless passive solar works differently on the cannery site, I thought homes were supposed to have a south exposure. I just don’t see how zero lot line east-west facing homes are going to be energy efficient and I don’t want to hear that photovoltaic panels will be used to offset the poor orientation. Please don’t try to sell this apartment complex inspired design to us as a Village Homes!
All of these fancy requirements will drive the cost of this development upward.
Not necessarily. Solar orientation is a design issue, not a cost issue. Long term cost of ownership due to decreased energy use is less in sustainably designed buildings and buildings that require less power need less photovoltaics. If they are built the way they are shown more money will be spent on AC and window shades to block the glare of the setting sun.
The master plan still shows all of that new traffic dumping onto Covell with virtually NO attempt to mitigate the traffic effects. If I lived anywhere near those choke points, especially on J Street, I would be most unhappy with the thought of the congestion and safety issues that will result.. Promoters might imagine a Utopian village with little or no automobile traffic, but I don’t buy it.