From winterety at sbcglobal.net Thu Jul 8 22:08:51 2004 From: winterety at sbcglobal.net (sheryl lynn gerety) Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 22:08:51 -0700 Subject: [OldNorth] (no subject) Message-ID: <1151611F-D166-11D8-8590-00039370746A@sbcglobal.net> From: bwinterhalder at ucdavis.edu Subject: neigh borhood Date: July 8, 2004 10:01:31 PM PDT To: winterety at sbcglobal.net Cc: bwinterhalder at ucdavis.edu Thursday, July 08, 2004 Dear Old North Neighbors: I attended last night's City Planning Commission meeting to participate in discussion of items 8D and 8E on the agenda, the two high density developments proposed for B Street. These are projects designed by Maria Ogrydziak for lots at 233 B and 315 B. Both are located within the University Avenue/Rice Lane Neighborhood. The two properties belong respectively to Ms. and Mr. Ogrydziak and to a Davis couple, the Aikens, who retained Ms. Ogrydziak for help in developing and selling their property. The proposed developments would remove cottages and place four, separate, 2.5 to 3 story, single-family units and eight parking spaces on lots subdivided from a single 7500 sq ft lot. Staff recommended denial on multiple counts of inconsistency with the CASP (Central Area Specific Plan), PD-86 (local zoning) and the Neighborhood Design Guidelines. On the Guidelines alone, 13 and 14 inconsistencies were noted by the staff report, respectively, for the two projects. Aware of the staff recommendation, the owners asked that the developments go forward under a procedure that allows the City to create a special zoning district for an individual lot, thus voiding any other of the policies. The staff report documented so many definitive inconsistencies that it seemed implausible the projects would be approved. Hence, they got little attention from those of us in Old North and Old East who worry about this kind of hyper-in-fill. Unfortunately, letters written by several Old North residents were neither mentioned nor summarized by the commissioners during the course of the meeting. Few of us attended. It was a hard, four hour lesson in the vulnerability of our neighborhood to high-stakes building projects and well-organized, aggressive developers. Attending the meeting was a large contingent of project supporters, organized down to the level of 'campaign buttons,' among them a group of appealing young adults all of whom made emotional appeals for the chance to live in downtown Davis in units exactly like those proposed. To her credit, Ogrydziak made a highly organized, 55-minute presentation extolling the virtues of the projects and high density infill. Among other arguments, she made the case that if not this type of construction, then the area would devolve into yet higher-density student rentals. Aside from the negative staff recommendation, Esther Polito, one other individual and I were the only persons present to speak in opposition to the first development that came up, 233 B. We did so primarily by citing the vulnerability of all historical neighborhoods if the Commissioners set the precedent of over-ruling such a strongly negative staff report. After hearing public testimony and holding almost no discussion amongst themselves, the Commissioners voted 4-3 to do just that, overrule the staff recommendation against the 233 B Street project. It will be forwarded to City Council with a favorable recommendation and one minor modification. After a brief break, everyone regrouped. Because of the late hour and because the projects were so similar, discussion on 315B was abbreviated by all parties. However, this time several Old East residents, surprised as were all of us by the outcome of the first vote, also spoke in defense of the Neighborhood Guidelines and staff interpretation of them. There ensued some further testimony and debate from the public, and this time, again after brief discussion, the Commission voted 5-2 to support the negative recommendation of the planning staff. There may be several reasons for the different decisions on two, almost identical projects: i) at least one Commissioner who changed his vote noted that the 300 block of B street has a more homogeneous, historical character, meaning that there is more there to protect; and ii) third-street may have provided a break-point for another Commissioner who reversed his/her vote. This is hard to discern because commentary was sparse. I speculate -- this is intuition only -- that it helped that the opposition, still in a minority, remained resolute, and further, that Commissioners themselves may have been surprised by the aggregate outcome of the first vote, their second tally expressing a little bit of 'buyer's regret.' The latter is made plausible if we recognize that a majority of the seven Commissioners are newcomers who found themselves instantly faced with a controversial issue over which there obviously was a lot of conflict. It may be that the next opportunity for Old North and Old East to weigh in on these applications will be the City Council Meeting on July 27. Meanwhile we need to meet and determine what our neighborhoods' positions will be on the project/s. As the votes suggest, the Commissioners themselves were divided. I think two elements of this are especially important: (a) awareness and respect for the process that produced, and the intent of, the Neighborhood Guidelines; and (b) susceptibility to the siren call of "in-fill," the word seeming almost so magical that one can't raise issues even of appropriate degree. With respect to the first, old-timers on the Commission did speak of the importance of historical scale and character, recalling the long process leading to the Neighborhood Guidelines. However, some new-comers spoke as if they were an after-thought, about as relevant as the Magna Carta, and antiquated by fresh ideas like those in the proposals before them. They had to be reminded at one point by a colleague that the Guidelines were in fact the result of a recent process. With respect to the second point, for some Commissioners, in-fill, even 'super-sized' in-fill, appears to hold attractions that trump all three of the CASP, PD-86 and Neighborhood Design Guidelines. This despite Esther Polito's strong warning of the hazards of piece-meal, single-lot zoning. With respect to these points, I think that we need to consider two things: first, we need to educate Commissioners, especially new Commissioners, about our feeling of the importance of the community Guidelines to our neighborhoods; and, second, we need a formal and well defined position on in-fill. It can't be a simple "No," it has to be a well-argued defense of appropriate infill for neighborhoods such as ours. We have to take the initiative to define densification, even quantify it, that respects the historical scale and character of our neighborhoods. If we don't, developers/investor/speculators will do it for us. My feeling, on leaving the meeting is that we now are much more vulnerable to single-lot zoning. The financial enticements are enormous for projects approaching the density of those proposed for B street. Commissioners were aware they were setting significant precedents, and while some spoke carefully in terms of the "B-Street transition zone," others spoke more globally of a new vision for the core areas. The precedent, partial for the moment and subject to City Council action, to set aside zoning and the Guidelines for single lot, four-unit, three-story infill should cause a shudder in all of us who treasure the ambience of Old North, Old East or the University/Rice Lane areas. Please take a minute to inform yourself about these two projects. I have copies of the basic staff reports and they can be viewed in the Planning Dept Office and at other sites stated in the meeting agenda. And please attend your next neighborhood meeting to help us with this issue. Another point became evident last night: bodies willing to step up to the podium count. They count a lot, as does organization. Letters to Commissioners, however cogent or elegant, and I read a half dozen that came to me via e-mail copy, appear to have had little effect. Bruce Winterhalder -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 8767 bytes Desc: not available URL: