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Category: Land use

  • Two updates on the Village Farms project

    By Roberta Millstein

    This is just to call people’s attention to two updates on the Village Farms project. We had been expecting to see a Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), responding to comments on the Draft EIR, when on November 17, the City announced:

    New information has recently come to the attention of the City of Davis Department of Public Works Utilities and Operations related to the City’s overall Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) capacity. Preliminary results from an ongoing study – which is still underway – revealed that the wastewater treatment system is approaching capacity sooner than anticipated, in large part due to the City’s successful water conservation efforts. Simply put, reduced water flow causes a higher concentration of waste. Though the system is performing efficiently, changes to the composition of the wastewater and new assumptions about treatment necessitate modifications to the WWTP to ensure continued reliable service for years to come. Once the study is complete in early 2026, staff will facilitate a discussion with the City Council and community about next steps.

    Thus:

    … the City of Davis is recirculating the portions of the Village Farms DEIR that require revisions to reflect this new information. Until January 2, 2026, the public may submit comments on the recirculated portions. The City will prepare a revised “response to comments” document that includes comments on these revised sections of the DEIR, and intends to make the full Final EIR available to the public at least 10 days prior to City Council action to certify the EIR. Comments submitted during the initial circulation in early 2025, and the City’s responses to those comments, will be made available in draft form for public review prior to the Planning Commission consideration of the project.

    But then on November 21, the City made an additional announcement:

    A partial draft response to comments on the previously circulated Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) is provided at the link below. This document is a draft to provide the public and decision makers with an early preview of the partial responses to comments on the previously circulated DEIR for the project. This document is being released to the public prior to the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for the project and is not required by CEQA regulations but is being provided for maximum public transparency. Minor revisions to this draft document may be required to fully respond to public comment received on the partially recirculated DEIR during its 45-day comment period (November 17, 2025 through January 2, 2026).

    “The link below” that is referred to in the quote is here: https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/CommunityDevelopment/Documents/PDF/CDD/Planning/Project-Applications/Village%20Farms%20Davis/VFD%20Partial%20Draft%20RTCs%20DEIR_Optx.pdf

    For those of us that have been waiting to see the FEIR and have been wondering what was going on (e.g., me), this gives us probably a close-to-final version of what the FEIR will be — as I understand these announcements. (It’s a Draft Final EIR responding to the Draft EIR — got it??)

    For more information on the Village Farms proposal, and for the text of the two announcements copy-pasted above, go here: https://www.cityofdavis.org/city-hall/community-development/development-projects/village-farms-davis

  • Yolo County: It’s time to Fix or Nix the Cache Creek Parkway Plan

    Recent Google Earth photo of the 1,900 acre Cemex mining complex located one mile north of Madison and seven miles west of Woodland.

    By Juliette Beck

    In the early morning hours on July 4, 2025 as young campers were resting from their busy day at Camp Mystic, catastrophic floodwaters from Guadalupe Creek in the Texas Hill Country rose to a level that was deemed unimaginable. No parent would have ever knowingly put their children in harm’s way. They trusted their government — local planning departments – to do their jobs to protect public health and safety.

    This week, the Yolo County Planning Commission is considering a plan to extend deep pit gravel mining across more than 500 acres of the floodplain along Cache Creek. The county has hitched Cache Creek’s future to a long-term plan that involves the exchange of permits to mine aggregate deep into the aquifer in exchange for net gain “gifts” of land for a proposed 14-mile recreational parkway. However, this stretch of Cache Creek is a FEMA -designated floodway – designated to carry floodwaters to protect downstream communities, including the town of Woodland. Is it prudent to knowingly put birders, dog walkers, and recreational visitors in harm’s way?

    Yolo County staff are already in the hot seat — under investigation — for their lax code enforcement that led to the deadly July 2 fireworks explosion in Esparto. The staff report recommending approval of the permit application filed by CEMEX – an $18 billion global cement company – is full of assurances, Yet are these plans really climate proof?

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  • DEIR for Willowgrove project released

    The Willowgrove Draft Environmental Impact Report has been released and is available for public review for a minimum 45-day comment period.

    The Draft EIR public comment period begins on Nov. 10 and ends Jan. 2 at 5 p.m. Members of the public may submit written comments before the end of the comment period. Written comments can be emailed to the Project Planner Eric Lee at: elee@cityofdavis.org.

    The Planning Commission is scheduled to conduct a public comment meeting on the Draft EIR on Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 7 p.m. in the city of Davis Community Chambers (23 Russell Blvd). Members of the public or public agencies may provide comments at the meeting.

    To view the DEIR, visit https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CDD/Planning/Special-Projects/Willowgrove/EIR-Draft/Willowgrove-Draft-EIR-Nov-2025-Combined.pdf

    To learn more about the proposed Willowgrove project, visit https://www.cityofdavis.org/city-hall/community-development/development-projects/willowgrove

  • No to Co-op at Village Farms

    [The following letter was shared with the Davisite for posting]

    November 1, 2025

    To the members of the:
    Davis City Council
    Davis Planning Commission
    Davis Social Services Commission

    From David Thompson, Davis Citizen and Affordable Housing, Advocate, Co-Founder National Cooperative Bank and Inducted into the US Cooperative Hall of Fame

    No to this flimsy, sketchy, ill-prepared and financially dangerous to co-op members Limited Equity Housing Cooperative (LEHC) proposed by Village Farms

    My first major point is that the path of an LEHC(laid out below) takes many steps and requires much over $2 million dollars of an entity’s money prior to even starting construction, The path to a LEHC if travelled, will take about five years from inception to occupancy. The member’s own investment of $50,000 each ($3.5 million overall) is likely at risk during the latter two years of construction. Dos Pinos took close to 3 years of active one on one marketing to get to 85% occupancy. At Dos Pinos, no one lives on top of anyone else. At 15 townhome units per acre it is an attractive community. Each owner member has a separate front door on the ground floor with a front and back patio. A four floor apartment building with no patios at 30 units per acre is not an attractive home ownership model.

    Much as I love LEHC’s, the Village Farms LEHC proposal is impossible to develop under present circumstances. To be fair to the City and to the citizens this proposal should be removed immediately or else it will be a huge waste of the City’s time and the citizen’s resources or it will be a major housing proposal seen as an ill-prepared developer’s red herring that should have been eliminated. Village Farms does a disservice to the City by presenting a thin dream without details to back up the Co-op.

    The City should immediately reject the Village Farm LEHC as being infeasible.

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  • Urging a No vote on the Village Farms PIP

    [Note: This letter to the Planning Commission was sent by the author for posting. PIP = Project Individualized Plan]

    October 20th, 2025

    To Planning Commission for Meeting of October 22nd, 2025

    FR. David J Thompson, Affordable Housing Advocate

    Vote No on the VF PIP. My Arguments Against the PIP proposed by Village Farms

    After reviewing the Village Farms PIP I do not see how what is being proposed meets the requirements of Section18.05.050 that is equal to or better than what the city would get under standard affordability requirements.

    I urge the Planning Commission to vote no on the PIP before you.

    For example,

    Under Section 18.05.050 18 acres would be set aside to meet the standard affordable housing requirements. However VF intends to remove 50% of that required land and asks the city to accept 9 acres of land. Removing 9 acres of land for the use of affordable housing is more acres than any affordable housing project has received in the history of Davis’ affordable housing that began about 1980.

    It does not seem equal to the PIP requirements that 18 acres is culled down to nine.

    Or that, the number of affordable units required are stuffed into 9 acres (31 units per acre) rather than 18 acres (15 units per acre). The city requirement is for a project to host 15 units per acre.

    It does not seem equal to the PIP requirements that the density of affordable units goes up from 15 to 31 units per acre.

    The cities for sale units single family ownership units are usually about 5 + units per acre

    No single family affordable homes meeting the city’s requirements are being provided.

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  • Village Farms Needs To Be Fixed

    By Elaine Roberts Musser

    I am trying to keep an open mind about Village Farms, a new housing development proposal for northeast Davis.  But try as I might, there are a couple of new concerns that have surfaced which really bother me.

    I am disturbed at two of the features being suggested for Village Farms: to wit, a fourth fire station and a city run down payment program.  Our municipality is in so much financial trouble, that it is short more than $2 million a year just for pavement management alone. The estate of a deceased Davis citizen was just awarded a whopping $24.2 million because of the city’s negligence in not properly maintaining its trees.  We face similar financial risks because of our neglect of other city infrastructure.

    The harsh reality is the city cannot afford a $3.4 million annual hit to its budget to pay for operating another fire station. Nor can it afford the cost of construction of a new fire station, potentially in the tens of millions of dollars. Similarly, the city cannot bear the expense of running a down payment program for housing, and who knows at what expense?

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  • On Education, Accountability, and the Price of Pretending: Part One

    By David Taormino

    It has often been said, sometimes in reverence and other times in jest, that the Davis Joint Unified School District is “doing the Lord’s work on Earth.” And perhaps, in part, that is true. There is no higher calling than the education of our children—no greater trust than that which we place in those who shape young minds.

    But let us not, in our admiration, lose sight of the facts.

    The School District, noble though its mission may be, is also a business. It employs administrators, staff, and teachers, all of whom depend upon the continued operation of schools—regardless of whether the children who fill those classrooms live in Davis or are brought in from elsewhere. This is not criticism. It is recognition of reality. But reality, too, must be subject to the rule of law.

    That is why I have filed suit—on behalf of myself and future homeowners of Palomino Place—to challenge the District’s newly-adopted fee on new development. The total for a 2,000 square-foot home now exceeds $10,000. This fee, and the rationale for it, strain both legal boundaries and public trust.

    The Law Is Clear—and It Is Not Being Followed

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  • The General Plan won’t be a Genial Plan

     

    Screenshot 2025-07-30 8.22.55 PM"The goal is to manipulate

    Heavy hands to intimidate

    Snuff out the very idea of clarity

    Strangle your longing for truth and trust

    Choke wisdom sapience and prudence

    The war economy is inviolable violently

    Suppresses all intelligence that conflicts

    With the stakes of those who drive it."  - 

    From "Melodie is a Wound" by: Laetitia Sadier, Tim John Gane. Performed by Stereolab. Album: Instant Holograms On Metal Film. Released: 2025.  https://youtu.be/Nndpg90P2O8?

  • No Measure J/R/D amendments

    Suburban sprawl
    It was disappointing to read the recent Davis Enterprise article regarding the City Council meeting item on  Measure J/R/D on May 13th. To be clear, there was no “confusion” by the public of what was being discussed or what could have resulted from that meeting. The Council was deciding if and when the City would add “exemptions” to Measure J/R/D on a ballot.  Any project including any of these exemption conditions would avoid a Measure J/R/D vote and disenfranchise Davis citizens from voting on it. 

    Also, there was no mention about the huge number of citizens who expressed their opposition to any Measure J/R/D “amendments” (exemptions) in person, by voicemail and by email at the meeting.

    How coincidental, that this subject of “amending“ Measure J /R/D was raised just when the egregious Village Farms project is supposed to be the next project on the ballot? Unless of course, it was somehow “exempted” by an “amended” Measure J/R/D.  Village Farms is a 1,800-unit project at Covell and Pole Line with a 200-acre floodplain, toxics from the adjacent unlined Old City Landfill, massive infrastructure costs, and enormous traffic and unsafe access issues.

    To be clear, any amendment(s) to Measure  J/R/D to exempt large projects which would annex in large parcels of ag land or open space for development, is for the benefit of the developers, not our community. Measure J/R/D already has exemptions built into it including for affordable housing.

    While the Housing Element Update citizen committee evaluated addressing new housing needs,  they did NOT make any recommendation to amend or add  Measure J/R/D exemptions. That concept came up between the City Staff and the State. Was this Staff’s idea, or was Staff given that direction, and by whom, to offer the concept of amending Measure J/R/D?

    With democracy on the line on a daily basis, we don’t need that happening here in Davis. The intention of Measure J/R/D is to give the public the ability to support good projects, and reject bad projects. Measure J/R/D is “The Citizens Right to Vote on Future Use of Open Space and Agricultural Lands”.  It passed 83%:17% when last renewed in 2020.  Measure J/R/D is democracy in action, and it does not need any “amendments” to weaken or invalidate it.

    Eileen M. Samitz

  • Check The Box, Yolo Capay’s Hungry Hollow Farms are in a Water Crises

    Check the box

    By Scott Steward

    We have a Groundwater Sustainability Agency called the Yolo Subbasin Groundwater Agency (YSGA).  Evidently, the word "Sustainability" is optional when considering well permits in Yolo County, as Annie Main found out after a 2-year struggle to point out the obvious to the Yolo County Supervisors who voted 3 to 2 on April 8th last week to add another high capacity 350 gallons per minute corporate well to further drain Hungry Hollow's already well documented declining water table.  The Boundary Bend well could mean the end of her Good Humus third-generation farm.  What's worse, there are four more deep well applications on the way to Hungry Hollow.

    You can't see our groundwater, but according to our Groundwater Sustainability Agency there are 346,000 acre feet that can be drawn from our 540,000 acres of ag land. That's 2.6 billion bathtubs worth of water.  That's our budget; use more and our invisible mega bathtub might not re-fill as high – ever.  Consider Annie Main, the most recent canary in a long line of canaries in the water coal mine, Yolo County the aquifer of choice for corporate tree crops (olives and nuts) and our County Supervisors, for now, the court of last resort.  

    Hungry Hollow family farmers like Annie Main of Good Humus are under threat of disappearing. Her area of land is in a designated "Focus Area." Focus Areas are so named because of the historical steady Hungry Hollow drop in the water table and because it's taking forever to get decent monitoring wells into place to "understand" what locals have been saying for the last two decades (no more additional well capacity!).  

    State and local water policy that was not enforced on April 8th.

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