Campus planners last week offered members of the Chancellor's Public Advisory Committee on the Long-Range Development Plan a "bookend" view of options for accommodating the approximately 6,000 additional students and 600 faculty and 1,400 staff members expected to arrive on campus over the next 15 years. Options included at one end a baseline scenario that would provide for all academic, administrative and infrastructure growth needs and house 25 percent of the student population on campus. At the other end was an option for an expanded growth scenario that could accommodate all academic, administrative and infrastructure growth while housing 39 percent of students and providing 1,100 faculty/staff housing units in order to maintain the current 75 percent of faculty and 40 percent of staff living in the Davis/UC Davis area. All planning options for campus development would have compact growth, agricultural land preservation and sound environmental principles at their core, said Campus Planner Bob Segar. "We ought to be sure we look at alternatives to keep faculty, students and staff close to the campus community," he said. Such proximity, he said, encourages a sense of connection to the campus; allows people to walk, bike or shuttle to campus; and reduces air and transportation impacts. A "study zone" of land immediately adjacent to the central campus has been established, Segar said, to explore potential growth scenarios, including a 300-acre university community of faculty/staff member homes, greenbelts, a school and other amenities. The study-zone land, which stretches west of the central campus to the east side of the University Airport and is bordered in the south by Putah Creek, includes university property currently used for agricultural and environmental research as well as the 650-acre Hamel Ranch. The university obtained an option on the Hamel property to study alternatives for adjacent development. Options were also obtained on 1,000 acres in the Kidwell/I-80 interchange area southwest of the city and south of Putah Creek to study it as a regional agricultural buffer and a site for new or displaced agricultural research programs. The lands under study cross three jurisdictions -- the city of Davis, Yolo County and Solano County. "If compact development is a shared goal, and if securing regional open space and ag preservation is a shared goal, then we ought to be able to work across boundaries to make it happen," Segar said. He and Vice Chancellor for Resource Management and Planning John Meyer noted a "site authority" model used in the cross-jurisdictional development of California State University, Channel Islands. "This model changes the fiscal rules of the game and allows agencies to share in (property tax) revenue," Meyer said. "With the site authority model, there are no fiscal losers." Such an arrangement would require a legislative enactment, he said. Cal Aggie Alumni Association representative Francisco Rodriguez, West Sacramento Mayor Pro Tem Mark Montemayor and Davis School Board President Joan Sallee asked if the university is considering establishing satellite campuses to accommodate growth. Segar responded that cross-disciplinary work is requiring greater proximity. Added Academic Senate Chair Jeff Gibeling: "We have low boundaries for collaborations, and those collaborations are facilitated by being in proximity to one another. There's no obvious reason, academically, why we should do satellites." Davis resident Ernie Pfanner expressed concern about the university's interest in property bordering Putah Creek. "The university is constantly acquiring lands along Putah Creek. People on Putah Creek are not too happy with the university constantly telling them what to do with their land." Meyer said that "others argue it's a positive thing to have more environmental stewardship of the creek." Davis City Council Member Sue Greenwald questioned the campus' study of "1,100 new homes for faculty and staff when 10,000 new homes are coming on line in Woodland." She also expressed concern about a new university community in a non-City of Davis voting jurisdiction. "If we don't all vote, we won't be a community," she said. Rodriguez, who is also a Woodland Community College administrator, suggested the university consider building dormitories at local community colleges for UC-accepted students completing two years of general education requirements. Yolo County Supervisor Lois Wolk advised finding a better venue in which to answer the questions raised. "The magnitude of what will happen in the next 10 to 20 years is pretty dramatic," she said. Meyer said the campus is planning immediate additional meetings with the city, counties and school district and that a soon-to-be-hired consultant will assist with the scheduling of in-depth public workshops. Growth planning options are scheduled to be discussed and refined over the next year. Another year is anticipated for preparation of the Long-Range Development Plan's Environmental Impact Report. The revised LRDP and its draft EIR are expected to be ready for UC Board of Regents review by spring 2003. The next meeting of the Chancellor's Public Advisory Committee on the Long-Range Development Plan is scheduled for 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, May 31, in MU II of the Memorial Union. The public is welcome to attend all advisory committee meetings.