See also: Keeping us closer (Quicktime, 11 min 2 sec)
Paul Pfotenhauer, producer; Ken Zukin, videographer
More housing planned for students, staff and faculty
Campus planners are gearing up to move West Village from drawing board to reality.
The UC Board of Regents approved the first phase in November, giving the campus authority to move ahead with ground-lease negotiations for the public-private development. Once the leases are signed, groundbreaking can be scheduled.
Officials hope that occupancy of the first units will occur in the fall of 2009 on the site west of Highway 113, between Russell Boulevard on the north and Hutchison Drive on the south.
The 120-acre Phase 1 calls for 312 single-family homes and town homes for faculty and staff, apartment housing for up to 1,980 students, and a village square surrounded by ground-floor commercial space with housing above.
Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef said West Village's proximity to the main campus just across Highway 113 is one of the bonuses of university life.
‘We will now be better able to provide the opportunity for our faculty, staff and students to live adjacent to where they study and work.’
Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef
"We will now be better able to provide the opportunity for our faculty, staff and students to live adjacent to where they study and work, and to participate more fully in the range of campus life that makes Davis unique," Vanderhoef said after the Board of Regents approved the first phase.
Important tool for recruiting
Officials say West Village will be an important tool for recruiting and retaining top faculty and staff, by providing housing priced about 30 percent less than market price for similar homes in Davis.
Along with housing, the implementation plan includes 45,000 square feet of commercial space, 60,000 square feet for a branch campus of the Los Rios Community College District and 15,000 square feet for a magnet high school for the Davis Joint Unified High School District, as well as a child-care facility or a preschool within the faculty-staff housing area.
Vanderhoef, who presented the project to the regents, said: "West Village, with its innovative and environmentally sensitive features, will be a model university neighborhood."
Many bike trails
The plan calls for bike trails within the community, as well as bike trail connections to the campus, and frequent Unitrans bus service.
UC Davis' development partner is the West Village Community Partnership, a joint venture of Urban Villages-Davis, of Denver, and Carmel Partners of San Francisco.
At the November regents meeting, UC Davis officials presented an 11-minute video that outlined the housing crunch in Davis, made the case for West Village, and laid out the project's design and environmentally friendly features.
In the video, Pat Turner, former interim dean of the College of Letters and Science, said "the single biggest deterrent in attracting high-caliber faculty is the cost of housing."
Staff is not immune, either. Police Chief Annette Spicuzza described "sticker shock" when she started looking, unsuccessfully, for a home in Davis. She ended up buying in Sacramento.
On the home page: West Village will include homes, apartments, stores, a magnet high school, a community college branch and the Village Square. (Courtesy rendering)