Davisville

At a very simple level, we’re talking today about hamburgers, although the subject goes much deeper than that. Today’s show concerns food, taste, the environment, commerce, questions of how to feed the world — and it’s directly a Davis story, because the University of California at Davis is a national leader in this area of research, and their work is attracting food tech startups to the region. The subject is cultivated meat, or meat substitutes that barely exist beyond the lab for now, but should come eventually to a store or menu near you.

Our guests today are Denneal Jamison-McClung and Kara E. Leong. Kara is the executive director of the UC Davis Cultivated Meat Consortium; Denneal is the director of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program, and co-founded the consortium. They can help us understand what’s happening and why it matters.

Fairfield Mayor Catherine Moy was among the first people a few years ago to draw attention to extensive and secretive land purchases in Solano County by Flannery Associates. Who the buyers are, and what they wanted, has now become much clearer thanks to reporting from The New York Times and other media — Flannery wants to build a green “dream city” from scratch on rural, arid land in southeastern Solano County, one of the least-populated parts of the greater Bay Area and Yolo County’s southwestern neighbor. The backers include some of the wealthiest people in America, with ties to Silicon Valley.

Today on Davisville, Moy criticizes the idea, says the opposition is large and growing, and chides the buyers for conceiving big plans involving Solano County while not engaging the people who live there. “I have literally had several hundred people [in Solano County] contact me,” she says, "and about 95, 96 percent want them to go away. For a number of reasons.”

After this interview was recorded, Flannery began saying more about its plans. This SFGATE article has details.

Bill Pride is retiring this fall, and this is news because he has been really influential in addressing homelessness in Davis, at several levels. He started with Davis Community Meals and Housing 30 years ago as a volunteer with its Saturday meal program, and will leave this fall as its executive director. The nonprofit has helped create 160 units of permanent supportive housing for the homeless in Davis, as well as transitional housing and other services to help people, and has grown along with the need — this photo shows Pride on the fourth floor of Paul’s Place, the DCMH project that opened four months ago on H Street.

Three separate housing proposals have recently emerged that would add about 460 apartments and live/work lofts at three locations on G Street downtown, from 2nd Street near the Amtrak station north to the former Hibbert Lumber property on 5th. You can find the applicants’ plans and illustrations on the city’s projects website. One feature that immediately stands out is the idea of building most of these new homes without parking for cars.

Our guest today, Steve Streeter, has a background in planning and recently completed two terms on the Davis Planning Commission. He has no stake in any of the proposals. We talk about what’s proposed, context, why these projects are emerging now, and how the city's downtown plan and new state laws that encourage homebuilding are influencing these developments.