Letter to UC Regents re Aggie Square

October 10, 2020

Sacramento Investment Without Displacement, of which ECOS is a member, sent a letter to UC Regents regarding our concerns about Aggie Square.

Below is an excerpt from the letter.

We are writing this letter to appeal to you and the Board of Regents to request that UC Davis and its developer Wexford Science and Technology commit to signing a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with our broad coalition. We believe that this project could bring great possibility and promise for the future of Oak Park and other nearby neighborhoods, the City of Sacramento and UC Davis Medical Center, if the benefits are shared widely and equity and inclusion are embraced as core values.

Before this project’s Environmental Impact Report is approved, it is a moral imperative that the UC system consider our community coalition and the impacted community we represent. The leaders of our coalition are requesting a meaningful conversation with UC Davis and its developer to address inequities and unintended consequences of this project.

The Oak park community is mostly made up of people of color, low-income people and immigrants who have carried a heavy burden for generations in the history of the development of this region. Unfortunately, deep poverty, violence, inadequate affordable and safe housing, employment discrimination and the many subtle actions of hate have deeply wounded countless promising young and old souls alike. Residents have a list of concerns about how the build-out and operation of Aggie Square will impact their neighborhoods.

Click here to read the letter in full.

Community Seeks Aggie Square Partnership

By Genoa Barrow | September 28, 2020 | The Sacramento Observer

Aggie Square is described as a “game changing partnership” that will bring innovative opportunities to the area surrounding the UC Davis Medical Center on Stockton Boulevard. Local residents say they don’t want to be losers when the project, which will include the building of spaces for research facilities, academic programs, offices, retail and mixed-use space,and housing, kicks into gear.

Kim Williams, of Sacramento Building Healthy Communities says the Aggie Square project should benefit everyone in the surrounding area, not just a certain part of the population.

The Sacramento Building Healthy Communities: Community Development Action Team and Sacramento Investment Without Displacement (SacIWD) held a press conference at the Fruitridge Community Collaborative last week, demanding a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in the UC Davis Aggie Square project to ensure issues of affordable housing, jobs, healthcare access, and other issues are addressed in any major projects brought to the community.

SacIWD is a coalition of community organizations and neighborhood associations. Coalition members have been working together for almost two years and say the proposed Aggie Square project at UC Davis Medical Center “has the potential to improve and protect residents’ health, provide residents with access to good union jobs that pay a living wage, improve the quality of our neighborhoods, and reduce existing inequities.” Members want to make sure area residents in the 95817, 95820 and 95824 zip codes aren’t summarily boxed out, and priced out, by the Aggie Square project.

Community involvement topped a list of concerns.

“While neighborhoods surrounding Aggie Square will be altered by the many thousands of new workers and students at Aggie Square, with a recent estimate as high as 25,000, and the flow of billions of dollars, the traditional avenues of resident involvement will be weakened, and those communities already on the fringes are likely to be further silenced,” reads a statement from the group.

Concerns also include local hiring, affordable housing access, access to primary care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries, project labor, and local business protections and support.

“This is about building with our community,” HUB Director Kim Williams said.

Click here to read the full article.

Aggie Square Environmental Review Update

September 18, 2020

The environmental review for Aggie Square Phase 1 is being done in a document called the “Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the University of California, Davis Sacramento Campus 2020 Long Range Development Plan Update.” For additional information and to access the Draft Supplemental EIR and Draft 2020 LRDP Update, click here.

Public comments on the Notice of Availability of the Draft Supplemental EIR were due on September 16, 2020. The Environmental Council of Sacramento and its partners submitted comment letters outlining our concerns with the document.

“Our primary concern is that the planned expansion of the UC Davis Sacramento Campus facilities does not cause displacement of low-income residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.”

Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS)

Click here to view the letter from the Environmental Council of Sacramento.

“We hope to see a version of Aggie Square that supports the health and livelihoods of existing and future Sacramento residents through the creation of affordable home and job opportunities for communities too often excluded from the economic prosperity and investments elsewhere in the City.”

Sacramento Investment Without Displacement

Click here to view the letter from the Sacramento Investment Without Displacement.


Learn More

Click here to learn more about this project, and our concerns.


Councilmembers back call for community benefit ‘commitments’ on Aggie Square

September 18, 2020 | By Felicia Alvarez | Sacramento Business Journal

Two Sacramento city councilmembers, Jay Schenirer and Eric Guerra, are backing a call to prevent gentrification near Aggie Square.

Aggie Square is the University of California Davis’ planned satellite campus in Sacramento. The $1.1 billion, 25-acre project would fill land the university owns near Stockton Boulevard and Broadway with over 1 million square feet of research, wet lab, commercial space and housing.

https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2020/09/18/councilmembers-back-community-benefit-aggie-square.html

Click here to read the full article.

Please! Attend Thursday’s public hearing on Aggie Square

August 2020

At 5pm on Thursday, September 3, 2020, UC Davis is holding a Zoom public hearing on the Aggie Square Supplemental Environmental Impact Report. We need you to register online and briefly express your concern about community displacement and related issues as Aggie Square is built out.  

If you can attend, please register now. You must register prior to the hearing.

Register here: https://ucdavisfoa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8Ij6K0WSQDW_Ho0pgtbWzg

Hearing is: Thursday, September 3, 2020 starting at 5:00 p.m. online via Zoom webinar.

For a link to Thursday’s public hearing and the full Supplemental EIR, please go to: https://environmentalplanning.ucdavis.edu/sacramento

We are also encouraging written comments be sent to UC Davis prior to its comment deadline on Sept 16.


Community Concerns that YOU can bring up on Thursday, Sep. 3rd:

  • Displacement of families.
  • A commitment from UC Davis to implement a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).
  • Access to affordable housing on & near Aggie Square
  • Local hiring for community members living in zip codes 95817-24 and those displaced in last five years; job application support and streamlining; ‘ban the box’ for offenders.
  • Local business protections and support, local business purchasing, and a focus on improving existing commercial corridors without neglecting neighborhood-serving commercial.
  • Environmental protections and improvements, including policies to support clean air and safe and healthy lighting.
  • Transit-oriented development serving those with highest likelihood of using public transit
  • Support and programs to keep neighborhood youth in schools; high-school and community college student job opportunities with mentoring, school-to-job pipeline; safe homework space and assistance.
  • Anti-demolition policies and procedures to protect homes in surrounding neighborhoods
  • An increase in the number of MediCal recipients seen at UC Davis from surrounding neighborhood

Click here to learn more about Aggie Square and ECOS’s involvement: https://www.ecosacramento.net/aggie-square-ucd-med-center-in-sacramento/

Transportation, Air Quality and Climate Change meeting August 6th

Join ECOS this Thursday evening via Zoom for 2 presentations:

Click here for the meeting agenda.

Link to join the TAQCC Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85805612058
To phone in: 669 900 6833, Meeting ID: 858 0561 2058

ECOS’s Transportation, Air Quality & Climate Change (TAQCC) Committee meets at 6 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month on Zoom, barring any schedule changes. Visit our community calendar to check for any changes.

Click here to learn more about this committee.