Candidate Forum
 
Question 6: One of the major identified infill areas is the PG&E corporate yard at 5th and L Streets. What is your position about the possible redevelopment of this area?

Charlesworth / Forbes / Saylor  / Greenwald

JJ Charlesworth:
A huge and big thumbs up. Better that than our city's few remaining open spaces. I will do everything in my power to avoid turning Davis into Vacaville. (Something which the Councils that last 6 years have been trying to do, by their massive Upper/Middle class home build-up.)

Stan Forbes:
The PG&E Corp yard is a desirable space for a mixed use project that would focus on ownership townhouses rather than rentals. Downtown would be enhanced by adding a significant population base. Ownership housing provides a more stable neighborhood. It would provide an opportunity to absorb some of our population increase with less sprawling. However, it is impossible to determine at this point when or even whether the corp yard would ever become available. We should also look to moving the city and school district corp yards on Fifth Street to the periphery and develop those sites as well, either as commercial or mixed use since Fifth Street has both commercial and residential components to it.

Don Saylor:
This location is very desirable for conversion to residential, commercial and open space due to its location near downtown. The present uses of this property and the corporation yards operated by the City and School District are no longer the best and highest use. They are no longer on the edge of town.

This was one of the areas addressed by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments Blueprint project. A variety of concepts emerged for redevelopment of the area.

However, any movement on this site is sometime in the future - perhaps on the ten-year horizon. Like any industrial site, there is tremendous potential for environmental concerns to emerge when we actually look at redevelopment. We need the owners to be prepared to collaborate.

In addition we need to select sites for the corporation yards and be able to finance the moves that would be needed.

Any infill project, no matter how small, must be designed in the context of the surrounding uses and involve those who will be affected in key planning decisions. The Council has considered several relatively small infill projects over the past few years. These projects have invariably presented challenges of impacting the existing neighborhoods in traffic increases, noise, and generally disruption of existing patterns of life. This is even more critical when we are addressing a project area of this magnitude.

To me there is great potential with the Davis Manor shopping center and we should focus there immediately. The PG&E site is a more long-term project and one that will need to be very carefully considered.

Top of Page

Sue Greenwald:
The PG&E corporate yard is a 27 acre, underused parcel near the downtown. I would like to see it turned into a substantial townhouse or condominium project. Townhouses and condominiums represent smart growth at its best. They provide housing options for singles and empty nesters who can then have the option of leaving their large, suburban houses to younger families, while they can enjoy the pleasures of living more centrally, driving less, and walking downtown. The owners of such town houses or condominiums would also provide a market for downtown retail. Condominiums and townhouses near downtown are an essential feature of great cities and modern planning.

Previous     Back to Index     Next

 
Home     Contact the webmaster