Comments on the Village Farms recirculated draft EIR

Comments

8 responses to “Comments on the Village Farms recirculated draft EIR”

1. Dec 29, 2025 7:17 PM

   Greg Rowe

   Roberta, as you are aware, the Planning Commission vote to recommend that the City Council certify the EIR was not unanimous. I just want it noted that I voted against that motion, and voted against the overall project. One of my main concerns is another procedural irregularity. That is, the manner in which the EIR alternatives were determined.

   The usual practice–the standard of practice in other words–is that project alternatives are not selected until the impact analysis has been completed. The reason for this is that the purpose of alternatives is to evaluate whether changes to the project could eliminate or at least reduce some of the impacts. The identification of alternatives is typically a collaborative process involving the project applicant, the lead agency staff (in this case, City planners) and the EIR consultant. But again, this is done only after the impact analysis has been completed.

   In this case, Council selected the alternatives well before the environmental impact analysis had even begun. They started discussing potential alternatives in October 2023, and made their final determination of alternatives in December 2023. They did this even though Community Development Director Sherri Metzker told the Council point blank that selecting the alternatives in this manner was the exact reverse of how the process is supposed to work, and that they were “…putting the cart before the horse.”

   It was obvious that the Council selected the alternatives because they had a preconceived notion of how they wanted the alternatives analysis to turn out. High importance was placed on a high density alternative, which increased the number of housing units by 50%, from 1800 to 2700, on the same acreage. The rationale for this is that the City ranks reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) per capita as its highest priority. Studies show that there is an inverse relationship between density and VMT per capita. So, it was intuitive to Council that boosting density by 50% would virtually guarantee that the alternative would emerge as the EIR “Environmentally Superior Alternative” because it was the alternative that achieved the greatest reduction in per capita VMT.

   During the December 2023 meeting, one Councilmember, Donna Neville, to her credit raised the question as to whether a smaller footprint and lower number of units should be studied as an alternative. Unfortunately, none of the other Councilmembers had any interest in this suggestion.

   In contrast, the smaller footprint alternative was overwhelmingly determined to be the Environmentally Superior Alternative in the December 2004 EIR for the Covell Village project on the same site. That project was in many ways almost identical to the current Village Farms project, 1864 units versus the currently proposed 1800 units.

   I strongly criticized this process at the Village Farms EIR workshop in February, and subsequently circulated a memo to the rest of the planning commissioners explaining why the Council’s process was not the correct way to do things. As I said at the December 17 public hearing, the Council’s actions were like a metaphor for a patient going to the doctor, and the doc proceeds to outline alternative treatment options before they even find out the reason for the patient’s visit.

   After the December 17 hearing ended in the early hours of the morning, I briefly spoke with the EIR consultant, who I have known for a number of years. He is highly experienced and has probably performed many dozens of EIRs. I asked him if he has ever worked on an EIR for another city in which the Council “preselected” the alternatives to be studied. The answer was “no,” as one would expect. I began working with EIRs in 1984 and have never seen the process handled in this manner. I hope the City of Davis never does this again, because I feel that it basically tainted the entire EIR process.

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   1. Dec 30, 2025 8:50 AM

      Alan C. Miller

      Greg, appreciate the POV. The view that it has never been done this way implies that it isn’t a valid way to go. Because if it were a valid approach, why would city councils not be doing this all the time? But if it is not valid, is there an implication that the way it was done was ‘wrong’ and could be legally challenged?

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      1. Dec 30, 2025 5:00 PM

         Greg Rowe

         Council was advised that the way they wanted to do it was not prohibited by CEQA. My point is that it makes no sense to establish alternatives before the environmental impacts are determined. They were not following the usual standard of practice because they had a predetermined outcome in mind.
2. Dec 29, 2025 7:32 PM

   Roberta Millstein

   Greg, thank you for clarifying that the Planning Commission votes were not unanimous. I was expressing my frustration with the outcome, but it’s important to give credit where credit is due, and I thank you for your principled “no“ vote. I also appreciate you explaining the irregularities that you saw with the process. I think many people will benefit from hearing that explanation.

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3. Dec 29, 2025 11:24 PM

   Eileen Samitz

   Roberta,
   Thanks for this “heads up” and the important points you have brought up here. I have had the same concern about why did it take more than a year for the City to acknowledge the wastewater capacity issue when Brown and Caldwell was hired in July 2024 to address this issue? It certainly feels like the inconvenient answer was perhaps suppressed because the Village Farms project as was being fast-tracked to a premature ballot before the would public know about this major issue.

   This erroneous information in the Village Farms Draft EIR (DEIR) is not the only incidence. There is other erroneous information, like the DEIR states that the flow of Channel A goes east to west, when it is the opposite. It is common knowledge that Channel A, the main drainage for the City, flows west to east. So, is the engineering being planned also backwards for the massive drainage of the 200-acre flood plain?

   Then there is the additional erroneous map that the DEIR has in it that you pointed out. Given that the responses to DEIR comments also appear to be dismissing most, if not all of the 200+ letters with comments and concerns. It leaves the conclusion of a “no confidence” in this EIR “process”, which does not even have a Final EIR, yet demanding certification. It was shocking that the Staff recommended certification, and then disappointing that 5 of the 7 Planning Commissioners went along with the Staff (voting yes).

   But, kudos to Commissioners Greg Rowe and Jon Troost for making the right decision and calling out this charade of an EIR process by voting NO on recommending the certification of the EIR, which is not even a Final EIR document yet.

   The City has NEVER asked the Planning Commission for a recommendation of an incomplete EIR, and it should not have for Village Farms. This is yet another giveaway by the City, added all the other special treatment and favors Village Farms has gotten. This corrupted process, and the many other unresolved issues is why the Village Farms EIR must not be certified.

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   1. Dec 30, 2025 8:59 AM

      Roberta Millstein

      Eileen, yes, I should have thanked Jon Troost for his thoughtful vote against bad process as well. It is not Jon’s and Greg’s fault that the rest of the Commission went along with staff’s inappropriate recommendation. Approving an EIR before it is final sets a very bad precedent.

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4. Dec 29, 2025 11:51 PM

   Eileen Samitz

   Greg,
   Thanks for this thorough explanation of this corrupted process that Village Farms has undertaken since the beginning. Your comments that the Planning Commission were also well said, explaining the many reasons why you voted NO to Staff’s pressure recommending certification of and EIR which is not even finalized was disappointing.

   Further, you are completely correct that the “reduced footprint” alternative needed to be included for the analysis in the Draft EIR. Even the Yolo County planning department also formally requested a “reduced footprint” alternative in their Notice of Preparation (NOP) letter for Village Farms at the beginning of the EIR process, which was also ignored.

   A “reduced footprint” alternative was also formally requested by Davis citizens in writing including to the City Council at the Dec. 12, 2023 City Council meeting. The reduced footprint alternative recommended was to develop only below Channel A, but preserving the vernal pools, and reducing the number of units to 900-1,000 units. This would distance the housing from the unlined Old City Landfill and Sewage Treatment Plant leaking carcinogenic PFAS’ “forever chemicals” and other contaminants, and away from the bulk of the 200-acre flood plain. This significantly reduced the impacts including traffic, flooding potential and toxics exposure, which is why a reduced footprint alternative was the “environmentally superior” alternative in the Covell Village Draft EIR.

   These citizens even had to wait until 1:00 AM at the City Council meeting submitting a letter recommending a reduced footprint alternative included the graphic of the similar Covell Center “environmentally superior” reduced footprint from that DEIR. But this formally submitted recommendation and the public testimony supporting it, was ignored. Mayor Vaitla clearly had decided on the alternatives he wanted and that he had pushed for in an earlier meeting. So, those alternatives, most of which were 1,800 units or more, with similar impacts, were pushed through. The result was that the “reduced footprint” alternative with fewer impacts, was excluded by the City Council.

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5. Dec 30, 2025 12:31 AM

   Eileen Samitz

   Roberta,
   Thanks for pointing out the Notice of Availability (NOA) text which I just noticed has incorrect information. This appears and attempt to suppress additional public comment by stating that letters “must be restricted” to comments related only to the partially-recirculated DEIR. This is simply not true.

   While it is true that staff doesn’t have a legal responsibility to respond to letters that are off-topic, they have a legal requirement to receive all letters on any Village Farms topic and add them to the administrative record.

   The law says that all submissions “shall be considered by the public agency.” This means that they have to at least be read carefully enough to determine if they contain on topic information or “significant new information.”

   If Staff is not cutting corners, that means the submissions must be evaluated for information that falls into any of the four “significant new information” categories defined by CEQA:
   1. A new significant impact would result (from the project or a new mitigation).
   2. A substantial increase in severity of a previously identified significant impact.
   3. A new feasible mitigation/alternative would clearly reduce impacts, but the proponent declines it.
   4. The draft EIR was so fundamentally and basically inadequate that meaningful public review was impossible.

   The fact that the Draft EIR did not test for toxics from the burn pits used for over 30 years at the adjacent Old City Landfill and Sewage Treatment Plant is a clear example. Carcinogenic dioxins are a common toxic result of burn pits.

   I did some research and here are some specifics on why the NOA statement is wrong. The City’s instruction in the Partially Recirculated DEIR NOA stating that public comments “must be restricted” is incorrect. CEQA Guidelines §15088.5(f)(2) provides only that the City may request focused comments during partial recirculation; it does not empower the City to restrict what the public may submit. To the extent the City intends only to limit its response obligations, it should say so accurately. Regardless of any claimed limits on responses, the City must accept and retain written submissions and include them in the record of proceedings as “written comments” and “written evidence or correspondence” under Public Resources Code §21167.6(e). Any attempt to refuse, return, or disregard timely written submissions before project approval is improper and will be cited as a procedural defect and record-related prejudice.

   So, for the record, letters from the public can be submitted up until the final decision by the Council (which tentatively is Jan. 20th). These letters will serve to strengthen the administrative record in case that this ultimately goes to court. So, everyone wishing to still comment, please get your closing statements in by Jan 19th before the City Council meeting on Jan. 20th. This meeting is when the Council will be deciding on if they will approve certification of the inadequate Village Farms EIR, and if it will be placed on the June 2026 ballot or not.

   It would be important for folks to state in your opening paragraph that you are submitting your final comments, and please specifically state the you want them included in the administrative record as required by law.

   If there is any concern that the letters are being ignored. We can submit a public record request to verify receipt and get copies that will validate the letters were at least retained and cataloged.

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