Developers have theirs, but
What’s your vision for the future of Davis?
What we lack is planning
Lack of Engagement
In our current system there is no forum for interactive and proactive community participation to affect developer proposals:
Measure J is not interactive participation
Lobbing EIR comments is not interactive
participation
Attending unrecorded presentations is not
interactive participation
The Davis Planning Group has been convened to fill in the gaps in these two issues, by leveraging the expertise present in our community, engaging our neighbors, developers and the city, and doing a lot of the forward-looking, integrated, proactive city planning that Developers can’t do, and the City doesnt have the ability to do.
Lack of Vision:
Davis has let the General Plan slide
(Last updated in 2007) So there is no general direction for city growth.
City Voters adopted Measure J to curtail growth, which set up a process where DEVELOPERS do the planning, and the citizens merely have a right to say yes or no.
This lack of central planning direction means that we get “housing projects” not “neighborhoods”
Without a high-level master planning function it is impossible to plan simple things like:
What kind of housing do we want?
Where do neighborhood shopping centers need to go?
How do we ensure that bike paths connect in a reasonable way?
How can we plan transit lines?
Our Beliefs and Inspiration
We are pro-growth, but don’t believe that developers are offering ideas that most benefit Davis.
We believe that infill is priorotiy one, but accept the reality that there is not nearly enough infill opportunities to even start to meet our communiys housing shortage. So while we accept that expanding our city’s boundaries is inevitable, we want it to be done carefully and wisely.
We believe that our history building sprawling single family housing developments, which can only be accessed by car was a grave mistake.
We believe that the best cities are designed to be walkable, bike-able, at medium density with a mix of building types and commercial public spaces.
We believe that Davis deserves BETTER than the development proposals we have been seeing which continue to perpetuate the sprawling mistakes of our past.
“Nobody builds a great city without careful urban planning, and if the city cant do it, we will.”
WHO WE ARE
We are a group of professionals seeking to restore meaningful community participation in major land use decisions.
We see the problems that exist in our current process, and we are stepping up to be part of the solution.
We are recruiting similarly-minded residents of Davis who have expertise to lend
The East Covell Specific Plan
Our first priority is to work with the city, the citizens, and the land owners of properties along Covell and mace boulevard - the most logical area for Davis to find the majority of its growth.
Developers are currently proposing sprawling, low-density developments in this area of our city and doing so without any amount of coordination, master planning, or citizen input.
We need to pump the brakes and do some thinking about how these properties all work together so they are a “neighborhood” and not “a series of developments”. And we need to insist on more responsible forms of housing to align what we build to the population we most need to build for:
Local Service sector workers
University Staff
Young Families
Join the conversation about how we plan this section of our city in a better way
Get Connected
If you are interested in what we are doing, want to be kept in the loop, or have some thoughts of your own you want to share, please join our mailing list.
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