Straight Talk About
UCD's Planned Hotel-Conference Center
By Dave Rosenberg, Yolo County Supervisor, 4th District
Two members of the Davis City "Council majority" (as they called
it) published an op-ed piece in this newspaper on October 7, 2001, choosing
to pick a fight not only with UCD but with the County, as well. (I hasten
to add that there is a "Council minority" which does not share
the "Council majority" viewpoint.)
The immediate target of the "Council majority's" ire is UCD's plan to build a hotel-conference center on campus. They insist that the hotel-conference center must be moved from its present planned location (near the existing alumni center and the performing arts center currently under construction) to the city's preferred location on Toomey Field (at the corner of Fifth and B Streets). I find the position of the "Council majority" to be divorced from reality. To begin with, UCD is not within the Davis city limits, the city can't tell the University where to build its buildings, and UCD officials have said time and time again that putting a hotel-conference center on Toomey Field is simply never going to happen.
That, frankly, should end the discussion.
However, there are numerous other reasons why the move won't happen. Let's just do a quick reality check:
The Neighbors of Toomey Field. I suspect that all the neighbors surrounding Toomey Field have never been consulted by "the Council majority" on their plan to place a hotel and a conference center right next door to them. I suspect this will come as quite a surprise to the neighbors. One day, they have the historic Toomey Field as a neighbor and the next day they find that their neighbor is a hotel and conference center. The neighbors may not welcome this change with open arms.
Traffic. For years, Davis City Council after Davis City Council has encouraged UCD to divert UCD traffic from the Richards Boulevard quagmire to the Old Davis Road route. That is precisely what UCD has attempted to do with its proposed hotel-conference center. To move the hotel conference center to Toomey Field would turn this effort on its head. It would impose considerable additional traffic impacts on Richards Boulevard, not to mention the neighborhoods around Fifth and B Streets.
The "New Quad". In fact, UCD's plan is to develop a "New Quad" on campus, near the Mrak Hall Administration Building, all focused on Old Davis Road. The New Quad is planned to feature four structures: (1) The alumni center (already in place), (2) The performing arts center (currently under construction), (3) A proposed new visual arts center, and (4) The proposed hotel-conference center. This new complex will become not only a great asset for UCD, but a tremendous cultural asset for residents the city of Davis, and a regional asset. Rather than join in the exciting vision of this cultural center, the "Council majority" is searching for nits to pick. To move the hotel-conference center away from the rest of the planned buildings in the "New Quad" challenges the very heart of UCD's planning.
Annexation. Even if UCD were to move the hotel-conference center to Toomey Field, which UCD has said it will not do, there are substantial hurdles to annexation of the land into the Davis City limits. The "Council majority" seems to feel that the two Davis Supervisors can simply wave their hands and make it happen. But annexations are rather complex undertakings. The annexation would require University approval, City of Davis approval, County of Yolo approval, and complicated tax sharing negotiations. The basis for the City's desire to annex is to obtain the hotel tax. But the County would certainly want to negotiate a tax sharing arrangement to obtain that very hotel tax before the County would agree to annexation. More importantly, however, annexations must be approved by LAFCO. The City of Davis, at best, has one vote on the LAFCO Board. The County has two votes, but neither vote is a Davis supervisor. LAFCO is controlled by representatives from Woodland, Winters and West Sacramento.
UCD's Efforts at Conciliation. UCD has made major efforts to work with the city. UCD proposed to give the city of Davis the equivalent of 3% of the hotel tax (even though the hotel is in the county, and not in the city limits), and UCD further proposed cutting the size of the hotel in half, from 150 beds to 75 beds. The "Council majority", however, says that these efforts are "only small concessions to the city." Small, I guess, is in the eye of the beholder. But a 50% reduction seems pretty "big" to me.
Competition. One concern expressed by the "Council majority" is the competition brought by the new hotel-conference center to existing Davis hotels and motels. This is a legitimate concern. However, for the life of me, I cannot see how moving the proposed UCD hotel-conference center from the center of campus to a location within a couple of blocks from existing hotels and motels will alleviate the situation. In fact, it will make it worse. Moving it to Toomey Field makes the UCD hotel-conference center an even bigger competitor of downtown hotels and motels.
Consistency. It seems to me curious, at best, that the "Council majority" wants to take UCD to task on the hotel-conference center, but blithely ignores the performing arts center and the visual arts center. If, indeed, the city is determined to obtain revenue from hotel tax, why wouldn't the city also want to obtain revenue from the entertainment tax? Why not argue that all three facilities should be moved to Toomey Field? Following the "Council majority's" logic, if the hotel-conference center is an "urban use" that should be annexed to the city, then so are the performing arts center and the visual arts center. That, at least, would be consistent. But the reality is that the "urban use" argument is nothing but a red herring. The "Council majority" knows (or should know) that there are historic exceptions to the position of the city and the county that "urban uses belong in city limits". For example, there are urban zones throughout the county that are not within "city limits": Esparto, Dunnigan, and Rumsey to mention a few. Further, there are "urban zones" outside the Davis city limits that have been specifically and explicitly exempted from agreements between the city and the county. They include, for example, El Macero, Willowbank, and the UCD campus itself.
If the "Council majority" wanted to talk about the proposed hotel-conference center issue seriously and in a constructive format, then they would have responded positively to the county's suggestion and invitation last August to sit down in the same room and around the same table with UCD and talk about these issues. Instead, the "Council majority," in September invited UCD to sit down without the county to discuss land use planning, campus growth and revenue sharing with the county. I think this is curious since the UCD campus is located in the county, not the city. I suggest that this effort to try to deal the county out of the game is a mistake, and will only further isolate the "Council majority."