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Yet another update on Village Farms proposal — is this proper process?

By Roberta Millstein

A few days ago, I wrote about two updates from the City concerning the Village Farms proposal, one of which let citizens know that the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) would be recirculated in light of new information about impacts to the City’s wastewater treatment plant and the other which announced that the City was releasing a not-quite-final-Final-EIR — a draft Final EIR, if you will — to which information about impacts to the wastewater treatment plant would be added later. 

I wondered then how that would impact the City’s timeline for evaluating the Village Farms proposal — when would the Planning Commission weigh in on it?  When would the City Council weigh in on it?  (There is some discussion of this in the comments on the earlier post).  The issue there is that the City has been aiming to have the project up for a Measure J/R/D vote in June 2026, but (it seemed to me) the delays from this new wastewater treatment plant would make that extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Well, we have our answer now.  As I read the City’s new update (posted to the City’s website yesterday, November 25), it means that the City isn’t changing its timeline much, if at all.  In other words, the Planning Commission will weigh in on (recommend or not recommend) the project without having a completed Final EIR.  And then, the City will likewise weigh in on the project with the hot-off-the-presses Final EIR, using the (partial? conditional?) recommendation from the Planning Commission. 

I’m neither a lawyer nor am an expert on land use policy.  But I have been following things pretty closely in Davis for the last decade or so.  And I have never heard of anything like this. 

It seems highly irregular to me.  And it seems as though the City is shortchanging its analysis of the impacts to the wastewater treatment plant.  If the impacts legally triggered changes to the EIR, doesn’t that mean that they should be important enough for the Planning Commission to consider?

Here is the new update, with information about when the above-mentioned meetings will occur:

At the Planning Commission public hearing on December 2, 2025, Staff will recommend that the public hearing be continued to a date certain: Wednesday, December 17, 2025. Subsequent to the publication of the public hearing notice for the December 2, 2025 Planning Commission meeting, the applicant and the City agreed to continue the hearing for the Village Farms Davis project. The additional time is to allow for the final negotiations of the project’s draft development agreement to be completed such that the Planning Commission can take action before the draft is forwarded to the City Council for consideration.

Public comments at the December 2, 2025 hearing will be limited to comments regarding the recommended continuance only.

The agenda for the December 2, 2025 meeting will be published on November 25, 2025.

The City Council public hearing for the proposed Village Farms Davis project has been tentatively set for Tuesday, January 20, 2026. The required public hearing notice for the intent to certify the Final Environmental Impact Report and to adopt the ordinances for the General Plan Amendment/Baseline Project Features and the Development Agreement will be published at least 10 days prior to the City Council hearing, in compliance with State law.

[my emphasis added]

As I look at the timeline, it does say that public comment on the recirculated DEIR will be accepted until Jan 2 and that the City “intends to make the full Final EIR available to the public at least 10 days prior to City Council action to certify the EIR [and they are now saying that this action will be “tentatively” set for Jan 20].”  So it does seem like there is a very small window, between Jan 2 and Jan 10, when the Final FEIR could be produced, responding to comments on the recirculated DEIR, presumably extending that date later if they can’t get it ready in time.

But it’s still the case that the Planning Commission won’t be considering the Final FEIR, which again, seems irregular (or worse) to me.  And regardless of irregularity, this is a massively tight timeline, just to stick with the City’s and the developer’s desire for a June 2026 Measure J/R/D vote.

I’d love it if other people weighed in to say what they think about this process, and if they are aware of it occurring before in Davis or elsewhere in CA. It’s possible that I am missing something.

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Comments

10 responses to “Yet another update on Village Farms proposal — is this proper process?”

  1. Glen Holstein

    You are so right Roberta!

    Reply
  2. Tuvia ben Olam

    Holiday conveniently happening during the time when anyone specific expertise on this issue might not be available, or will find it difficult to sort out something by the 2nd.

    I assume that if a majority on the Planning Commission Is not happy with this and makes this known via, for example, abstaining on December 2nd, what happens next, considering that the City Council has gone forward with things which the Planning Commission voted against?

    This seems to fit into the genre that includes the following specific example, but likely others: I recall a vote in the Bicycling, Transportation and Street Safety Commission where they made a recommendation about something on a Thursday, but then the council met on the following Tuesday to make a decision on their recommendation, even though the video of the commission meeting was not yet available…. A short summary of the commission recommendations in the Council agenda was, I think, insufficient.

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      Yes, interesting question. What if some members of the Planning Commission didn’t show up as a protest, and there was a lack of quorum? Dec 2 is supposed to be the “discussion” meeting — presuming there will be a lot of public comments — with the subsequent meeting where the vote takes place. So, they could also have one meeting but not the other. All that being said, I don’t get the sense that this is an “activist” sort of Planning Commission. Then again, perhaps this is an extreme situation. Apart from it being incomplete, they have received a very long draft-FEIR with very little time to review it.

      More generally, I’d be grateful if anyone could point me to the ordinances that govern CA Planning Commissions. I could not find that info when I looked.

      Reply
      1. Greg Rowe

        Roberta, the role and responsibilities of planning commissions is in CA Government Code 65100 – 65107. The longer cite is Title 7 – Planning and Land Use, Division 1 – Planning and Zoning, Chapter 3 – Local Planning.

      2. Roberta Millstein

        Thank you very much, Greg! Doing overtime on Thanksgiving, I see, so I hope you get to enjoy some of the day!

  3. Greg Rowe

    Roberta, this is my second comment today. The earlier one provided the CA Gov’t Code citation for the roles and responsibilities of planning commissions.

    Regarding the comment that perhaps the current commission is not an “activist” commission, it should be noted that making decisions and recommendations regarding important planning and zoning issues and problems calls for a measured, reasoned and deliberative process, and not one based in activism. That being said, I would suggest that readers look at Chapter 2 of the final EIR released on Nov 21 (on the City website), which consists of the comments on the DEIR and the responses of the city and consultant. In particular, see pages 1001-1003 of the overall document, which summarizes the Planning Commission comments during its Village Farms DEIR workshop on Feb 12. (These are pages 2-987 thru 2-989 of Chapter 2.). I would contend that the commission’s comments during that meeting indicate that the commission had thoroughly studied the DEIR and had numerous concerns about the proposed project.

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      Thanks, Greg. With my comment about “activism,” I certainly didn’t meant to imply that the Planning Commission has failed to speak up when it saw issues deserving of criticism, and thank you for pointing to the relevant pages in the DEIR. I meant only to suggest that taking other sorts of actions, like deliberately choosing not to meet, might be more in the realm of activism.

      Reply
  4. Eileen Samitz

    Thanks so much for this information, Roberta. As if it is not bad enough that the Village Farms proposal has a terrible design and a plethora of unresolved problems and unanswered questions as the City races it to a premature ballot vote next June to the detriment of our community. On top of that, the City has been bending over backwards to accommodate the Village Farms developers demands, including fast-tracking this seriously flawed project.

    Village Farms is a disastrous project with toxics like carcinogenic PFAS “forever chemicals” leaking from the adjacent unlined Old City Landfill and Sewage Treatment Plant, carcinogenic and neurotoxic soil toxics like toxaphene as well as lead where the large park is to be located and kids would play, a 200-acre floodplain with potential flooding issues, unsafe access issues, unprotected vernal pools without a conservation easement, enormous infrastructure costs, massive traffic issues and predominately unaffordable housing.

    For decades in Davis, we’ve followed one basic rule on big development decisions, which is that the Planning Commission does not make a recommendation on a project until a complete and Final EIR is done and on the table. State law (CEQA) says the decision-makers have to act after a completed Final EIR is prepared, certified, and considered. The City of Davis has formally adopted those rules into our own municipal code by reference.

    This was the approach the City took for ALL major development developments historically. In every case, the completed Final EIR existed before the commission made its recommendation. Therefore, the Planning Commission should NOT move Village Farms forward before the Final EIR is done including all recirculated pieces and updated responses to comments. As a former Planning Commissioner and someone who has watched and participated in Davis planning issues over the years, the Planning Commission should not be asked to make recommendations regarding any project without having a completed Final EIR and ample time to review. The full environmental record needs to be completed and ready for review by both the Commission and the public FIRST, for input and recommendations for a proper process. The Village Farms Draft EIR section on public services has a major error in that it prematurely claimed that there was adequate wastewater treatment capacity for the enormous 1,800 housing unit project. Apparently, there is concern that there is not enough capacity, so that section of the Draft EIR is being re-circulated for 45 days for comments. Therefore, no recommendations or decisions should be made until this wastewater capacity issue is resolved and there is a complete Final EIR. The City needs to not segment this review process.

    However, the Village Farms Project continues to be careening towards a June 2026 ballot without all of the needed and required review. The priority appears to be the City accommodating the developer’s desire to race to an early vote before the City and the community can fully understand the consequences of this project which is ridden with problems, impacts, and costs. The City is fast-tracking Village Farms through the process at a reckless speed and bypassing scores of major issues (including this latest wastewater treatment issue) in a desperate attempt to get to a June 2026 Measure J/R/D vote. It’s obvious that they are desperately trying to get this deeply flawed proposal entitled as fast as possible, at any cost. It’s now time to slow down and send this project back to the drawing board and for starters, downsize it to a “reduced footprint” alternative that even the Yolo County Community Services Planning Department asked for. It would make no sense to put this project on the ballot in its current seriously flawed version and so prematurely due too its many problems and unresolved issues.

    It is important to recognize that the same developer, John Whitcombe (Tandem Properties partner) has not delivered the promised grade-separated crossing nor the housing at his Nishi project approved 7 years ago. What makes us think he will deliver TWO grade-separated crossings (which may or may not be “feasible” or if he is paying for them) or any housing at Village Farms? Particularly, when there is a FEMA moratorium on relieving FEMA floodplains of FEMA Hazard Zone A status after fill is added to raise the level to allow housing to be built. And Village Farms has an enormous 200-acre FEMA Hazard Zone A (the worst category) area where so much housing is supposed to be built. The likelihood of those houses being built for the predominately unaffordable housing being proposed ($740,000 – $1.3 MILLION) is unlikely and so the pitch that Village Farms will help bring hundreds of school age kids as the School District would like to believe, is a fantasy.

    The solution to this chaotic planning dilemma is that this process needs to slow down and re-evaluate. The Village Farms project proposed is simply too big, and has too many problems, impacts and costs. This project needs to go back to the drawing board to propose an downsized ‘reduced footprint” project below Channel A to distance the housing from the old landfill toxics and the massive 200-acre floodplain, protect the vernal pools with a conservation easement, and reduce the number of housing units to 900 -1,000 units or less.

    Reply
  5. Mike Curro

    The real solution is to vote no.

    Reply
  6. Susan Rainier

    As a Climate Champion, LEED AP, Living Future Accredited advocate for sustainable development I cannot endorse Village Farms as shown at this time. I was shocked when the original Village Farms EIR did not show a smaller footprint as is always part of the environmental process. I did not know an “all or nothing” approach could be allowed. Now, even with significant changes, the EIR process is being gamed again it seems.

    The problem with the mega footprint being proposed now, the land above the channel presents the most risk to the City for allowing building in that area. It is in a floodplain. It has the abandoned, unlined landfill, and sewage treatment plant. This should be a ‘non-starter” in lawyer terms, where the risks far outweigh the benefits. Many Davis Citizens have expressed the concerns at city meetings yet the City and all the commissions seem to be more wanting to please the developer than listen to the citizens concerns. The City is taking on huge liabilities for allowing building in the above channel region.

    Now that the EIR has to be redone, it would be ecological and sustainable planning to make the project below the channel and have Cal Fire Access requirements for all the roads inside the development.

    Be Advised: Village Farms, as is now will generate 1,630 cars added to Davis traffic, on Davis worn down roads. That is why the existing EIR talks about 15,000+ vehicle miles travelled. There will be a new day in Davis where instead of having a robust public transportation option or fantastic flat bike highways away from cars, we will have City Gridlock. Cars/Trucks when idling will produce the most pollution.

    I share Roberta concerns and I hope that this 2nd round of EIR can actually work as it was intended, to produce a highly sustainable and resilient community suited to the times we are living in, a more attentive and awakened City Governance that listens to its citizens.

    Reply

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