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Category: Land use

  • 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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  • NE Transportation Corridor – Tonight on City Council Agenda @8:40pm

    Open Letter to City Council on NE Transportation Corridor Item 7 (8:40pm, Tues 4/1)

    City Council,

    I may not be able to attend tonight so am making email comments here.

    I appreciate your taking up the NE Transportation Corridor.  As specified, the item as written would be part of the General Plan.  From the staff report, this involves more detail than the concept suggested by the Davis Citizens Planning Group (DCPG or close to that name).  

    I also came up with the almost identical idea of a transportation corridor north and east of Covell/Mace to run through the new suburbs, as a BRT or Bus Rapid Transit corridor parallel to a bike line.  As separate citizens came up with almost identical comments, perhaps the consultants should meet soon with the citizens for initial input, rather than or in addition to the consultants having citizens comment on the consultant's plans.

    Here are the basic features that I believe I and DCPG agree on:

    • There would be minimal stops as per BRT standards (1/4-1/2 mile spacing).
    • The corridor would not be for automobiles
    • There would be and adjacent and parallel bike track on the south/west of the corridor.
    • There would be minimal intersections, with only major arteries crossing the corridor to minimize conflicts.
    • The BRT would continue into Davis on regular roads, with some upgrades for the BRT infrastructure.
    • The Route:
      • The BRT would start at shopping center south of Hwy. 80 along Mace (Nugget) for a SE anchor.
      • The route would cut east on the north side of the tracks to access the corridor.
      • The dedicated corridor would continue in an arc north and west parallel to the curve of Mace and Covell.
      • At Wildhorse, the BRT could divert south to Covell, or use the 'cut-through lot' to access Moore and run to Moore & Pole Line.
      • From there the BRT could continue through Village Homes or south on Pole Line.
      • The BRT would serve Oakshade Shopping Center
      • The BRT would then continue Covell–>F Street–>Amtrak–>First Street–>South Campus (Library Silo)–>West Village
    • Each development could proceed on its own once the basic route is confirmed through the to-be-developed areas, as long as all developers agreed to link to the future through corridor once each segment is built.
    • The new route should minimize turns and instead follow a smooth arc.
    • IMPORTANT:  Building density for each development should be at its maximum nearest bus stops and along the corridor, and step to medium and to lowest densities (per project) as one gets further from the corridor.

    I believe the transportation corridor placement needs to be negotiated and agreed to with each landowner/developer far in advance of the General Plan Update.  This will allow the corridor to be whole and usable once all developments are in place.

    Alan C. Miller

  • Sierra Club Yolano Group Comments on Village Farms DEIR

    The following comments were emailed by the Sierra Club Yolano Group to Dara Dungworth, Principal Planner City of Davis Department of Community Development, on Feb 25. 2025, concerning the Village Farms DEIR. (See https://newdavisite.wordpress.com/2025/02/02/draft-eir-for-village-farms-released-for-public-comment/).

    1. Alternatives

      a) Recommend Consideration of Co-op Housing – Evidence suggests that a housing co-op model can provide stable, affordable workforce housing for individuals and families (see California Cooperatives: Today's Landscape of Worker, Housing and Childcare Cooperatives). Providing affordable local housing for people currently commuting to Davis from outside Davis will lessen the VMT and GHG emissions impact of this project and should be considered as an effective mitigation measure.

      We recommend that the FEIR analyze as a Project Alternative a co-op model (perhaps similar to Dos Pinos or Muir Woods) as a supplement to the proposed starter-home program to explore the environmental benefits that such a model could produce.

      b) Recommend Consideration of Alternative Only Below Channel A – On December 8, 2023, the County of Yolo Planning, Building, and Public Works Departments sent a letter to the City of Davis commenting on the Village Farms NOP which stated, "The Draft EIR should consider a reduced footprint alternative that defines the northern project boundary south of the existing Davis Drain and explores the opportunity for increased density, thereby maximizing housing options without compromising economic returns". Quoting from Cal. Code Regs. Tit. 14: "Because an EIR must identify ways to mitigate or avoid the significant effects that a project may have on the environment (Public Resources Code Section 21002.1), the discussion of alternatives shall focus on alternatives to the project or its location which are capable of avoiding or substantially lessening any significant effects of the project, even if these alternatives would impede to some degree the attainment of the project objectives, or would be more costly. "

      We similarly recommend that a reduced footprint alternative be examined with its northern project boundary south of the existing Davis Drain to determine if building 1,000 or more units on such a reduced footprint can provide increased density and maximize housing options while preserving more trees and habitat and still meeting project objectives.

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  • The Gravel Mining Companies Operating Adjacent to Cache Creek are Continually Violating Numerous Provisions of the Yolo County Surface Mine Reclamation Ordinance

    The following was emailed to Stephanie.Cormier@yolocounty.gov and clerkoftheboard@yolocounty.gov on Feb 7, 2025 with a request that the memo be forwarded to the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors

    From:  Alan Pryor, Chair – Sierra Club Yolano Group
    To:       Yolo County Planning Commissioners
    Date:   February 7, 2025
    Re:       The Gravel Mining Companies Operating Adjacent to Cache Creek are Continually Violating Numerous Provisions of the Yolo County Surface Mine Reclamation Ordinance

    On behalf on the Sierra Club Yolano Group, attached please find a report in which numerous violations of Yolo County’s Surface Mining Reclamation Ordinance are disclosed and documented.   Download Yolo County Gravel Mining C

    Further, these violations were not disclosed last year to the Planning Commission when it was charged with certifying the 2023 Annual Compliance Report regarding off-channel gravel mining as required by County Code.

    Instead, as explained in the attached report, false representations that all of the mining companies were in compliance with the provisions of all applicable mining ordinances in the State and Yolo County were made to the Planning Commission in Findings of Fact statements.

    The ongoing failure by the County to enforce the provisions of the applicable mining ordinances in Yolo County has resulted in continued production and bioaccumulation of methyl mercury to excessive levels in fish in most of the impoundment pits on the mining sites and required Lake Management Plans to remediate the problems have not been implemented. These compliance shortcomings have also resulted in the ongoing failure by the mining companies to fully restore formerly mined farmland back to its pre-existing soil quality and crop productivity. 

    This is fully explained in the attached report entitled, “Yolo County Gravel Mining Companies are Continually Violating Numerous Provisions of the Surface Mining Reclamation Ordinance_2-7-25”.

    We request that the Planning Commission refrain from wrongfully certifying that mining companies are in compliance with Yolo County mining ordinances in the future. We additionally request that the Planning Commission not permit or entitle any future new mines or extensions or expansions of existing mines in Yolo County until such mining companies are in full compliance with all existing ordinances.

    Toward that end,  we ask that the following questions be addressed with detailed written answers.

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