The Davis City Council’s renewed examination of possible changes to Measure J reflects a growing awareness that the city’s long-standing framework for managing growth is colliding with a very different housing landscape than the one that existed when voters first approved the measure more than two decades ago.
State mandates are tightening, infill opportunities are dwindling, and future Regional Housing Needs Allocation cycles are unlikely to be forgiving.
Yet for all of that pressure, the current push to amend Measure J still feels uncertain and politically problematic, even in a community that increasingly understands the need for additional housing affordability.
The underlying challenge is straightforward and deeply structural.
Davis is running out of infill land. While small-scale redevelopment and incremental density will continue to play a role, there is no plausible scenario under which infill alone carries the city through the next two RHNA cycles, let alone beyond them.
One recurring suggestion that high-rise construction in the downtown core could close that gap has always been more aspirational than realistic. Market conditions, financing constraints, community resistance, and basic design limitations all conspire to cap what downtown vertical development can reasonably deliver.
That reality is acknowledged, albeit cautiously, in city staff materials.
What is less clear is how the city intends to bridge the widening gap between state housing obligations and locally acceptable development pathways. The staff report correctly notes the risks but stops short of presenting a politically viable solution.
One frequently proposed adjustment is to modify Measure J’s exemption structure, particularly by lowering the threshold for affordable housing projects that bypass voter approval.
Davis already allows a 100 percent affordable housing exemption, and that provision has yielded no proposals in 25 years. That outcome is not incidental.
Affordable housing projects face high land costs, limited subsidy pools, and complex financing requirements. Adding the uncertainty, delay, and expense of a Measure J election compounds those barriers rather than reducing them.
Lowering the exemption threshold to 50 percent affordable may sound innovative, but there is little empirical or local evidence that it would materially change developer behavior.
Affordable housing economics do not hinge on marginal regulatory tweaks; they hinge on land availability, subsidy certainty, and predictable timelines.
A partial exemption that still triggers Measure J risk for the remaining market-rate units is unlikely to transform the project pipeline. Without addressing those fundamentals, the exemption debate risks becoming more symbolic than effective.
A more substantive, if controversial, idea is the creation of an adjustable Urban Limit Line that could be revisited every eight years to align with each RHNA cycle. This would preserve the principle of voter oversight while acknowledging that growth boundaries cannot remain static in the face of evolving state requirements. Critics have described this approach as a blank check to SACOG or the state, arguing that it surrenders local control.
That critique, however, tends to ignore how housing governance already functions in most of California. The state is not primarily focused on cities with voter-approved growth boundaries; it is focused on outcomes.
Jurisdictions without urban limit lines routinely accommodate housing allocations through a mix of infill, peripheral growth, and rezoning.
While state oversight has become more assertive, it has generally remained tethered to regional need, infrastructure capacity, and planning consistency rather than arbitrary expansion.
An adjustable Urban Limit Line would not eliminate local discretion; it would formalize a process for responding to obligations the city cannot realistically avoid.
But various individuals and groups are fearful that such a line would be a blank check for more of the same — unaffordable, large lot, single family homes — rather than smaller, more affordable housing for middle income families with children.
This debate is unfolding within a rapidly shifting state landscape.
As detailed in a recent Vanguard analysis, California’s housing mandates are no longer aspirational guidelines but enforceable obligations with real consequences.
Over the past several years, the state has demonstrated both the legal authority and political will to override local plans, impose sanctions, and fast-track projects in noncompliant cities. Davis is not insulated from that trend simply because of its history of voter-approved growth controls.
Yet recognizing that reality does not automatically translate into voter readiness for reform. After reviewing the current staff report, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the city itself anticipates a legal challenge to Measure J.
That challenge becomes most likely if the two housing projects expected to go before voters in 2026 are rejected.
In effect, the city appears to be bracing for the possibility that Measure J reform will be forced externally rather than negotiated internally.
Paradoxically, that may be the most viable path forward. Without a concrete enforcement action, lawsuit, or ultimatum from the state, the political conditions for voluntary Measure J reform simply do not exist.
Davis voters have consistently supported Measure J not because it is technically optimal, but because it offers certainty, predictability, and a sense of control in a volatile housing market.
Abstract warnings about future RHNA cycles have not historically do not appear to have moved the electorate.
This creates a timing problem that looms over the current discussion.
Voters are unlikely to support a Measure J alternative absent tangible evidence of an imminent state threat. At the same time, that threat is unlikely to crystallize before the amendment options now under consideration would need to go before the ballot. The result is a policy limbo in which reform is widely seen as necessary but politically unattainable.
Previous Vanguard reporting on possible Measure J amendments has highlighted this disconnect. The proposed pathways each carry significant trade-offs, and none command anything close to broad community consensus.
Efforts to preemptively reform Measure J risk alienating both housing advocates, who see the changes as insufficient, and growth skeptics, who see them as unnecessary or threatening.
In that context, Davis may be headed toward an outcome shaped less by careful design than by conflict.
A failed pair of Measure J votes in 2026 could trigger legal scrutiny that ultimately resolves the issue through the courts rather than the ballot. That path would likely reduce local control rather than preserve it, but it may also clarify questions that gradualism cannot.
Measure J has long functioned as both a growth control mechanism and a community identity marker. Altering it requires more than technical justification; it requires a shift in collective understanding of what the alternative looks like and what risks inaction carries. That shift has not yet occurred.
Reform may indeed be inevitable. The state’s housing framework is not retreating, and Davis’s land constraints are not disappearing. But inevitability is not the same as readiness. For now, Measure J reform occupies an uncomfortable space between necessity and feasibility. When that tension breaks, it is unlikely to do so gently.
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“adjustable Urban Limit Line”
Some might call this a self defeating phrase or an oxymoron.
you are missing the big point. Doing an amendment now threatens to undermine the two projects headed to the ballot next year. Oddly the City Council already told staff they didn’t want an amendment to interfere with the two proposals currently in the pipeline. The staff or CC people pushing this are blatantly trying to defy the CC majority.
That assumes that the timing is discretionary on the part of the city
It also assumes that having concurrent discussions, all of which revolve around the need for housing will make people less likely to support housing
Apparently the timing is discretionary which brings us back to the point that the Mayor and his political allies thought they could roll the council majority essentially wasting an entire council meeting.
Ron G
The two proposals are already dead unless they are greatly modified. The no growthers opposed and the pro housing groups opposed them because they are just most sprawl that fail to deliver missing middle housing. We should just toss aside putting them up for approval until we amend Measure J with the specifics that most of the electorate wants and that the developers can target for their new proposal.
“That challenge becomes most likely if the two housing projects expected to go before voters in 2026 are rejected.”
This is the relevant sentence.
“Yet recognizing that reality does not automatically translate into voter readiness for reform.”
That’s like YOUR reality, man :-|
“Davis voters have consistently supported Measure J not because it is technically optimal, but because it offers certainty, predictability, and a sense of control in a volatile housing market.”
No, it was at first because old Council was doing bad developments against the will of the populace, and to preserve farmland. Later, voters who are mostly land owners — because students talk a lot but vote a little — found they could control keeping their property values high. I doubt there are many so high on their ideals that they would ignore the ability to control value of what is for many their only large asset. I doubt some vague threat from the state, even if they believe you and even if you are right, would change any of that for the majority of voters with a house.
“Voters are unlikely to support a Measure J alternative absent tangible evidence of an imminent state threat.”
I don’t believe most give a ding dong darned about a state threat.
“Davis may be headed toward an outcome shaped less by careful design than by conflict. ”
On that we agree.
“A failed pair of Measure J votes in 2026 could trigger legal scrutiny that ultimately resolves the issue through the courts rather than the ballot.”
That really is the ironic tragedy here. Measure J was enacted to so voters could reject exactly the kind of sprawling development that had been thrust upon the community in the early 1990’s. (mace ranch in particular). yet if we fail to modify it into something more sane, we will just pave the path to a legal challenge which allows exactly the same kind of sprawling development to go forward.
The real tragedy here is the staff report. Despite the calls for input, they have stuck with the same slate of overly-simplistic policy options, and this is something that can NOT be fixed with a single policy tweak. Im more in the camp of being “for fixing measure J” than probably anyone else in this town and I wouldnt vote for a single one of the proposed ammendment ideas. Its that bad.
There is only one path yet proposed that actually balances the majority of the issues, and its the one that DCPG has been writing about for years now. it isn’t perfect, but it is actually a cogent fully formed plan, and nobody has proposed anything competitive.
As we wrote earlier this year: “The only thing worse than measure J is NO measure J” Yes it has many unintended consequences which are holding our city back. But it is impossible to recover from bad land use decisions, so no growth is still better than bad growth… at least with no growth (this time) you have a chance to make a better plan (next time around).
“But it is impossible to recover from bad land use decisions, so no growth is still better than bad growth… at least with no growth (this time) you have a chance to make a better plan (next time around).”
I’m not a kick em while they are down kind of guy but I feel I must respond to this revealing statement. Essentially what Keller is saying is its my way or the highway. If it isn’t his vision he doesn’t want it.
I remember when Measure X happened opponents made a similar argument that we should wait for a better project. Almost 20 years later we are still waiting without adding much non-student housing to the community housing stocks. So I ask Keller how long is he willing to wait until a project comes along that meets his vision?
Ron, I dont think you understand how truly bad these proposals are, and how easily they could be made better.
Nobody in any negotiation EVER has suggested that you need to accept the first proposal or walk away.
These proposals could easily be made better, there IS a good measure J ammendment concept out there, and we are not the only ones who have pointed out that the currently suggested alternatives are all non-starters.
We want better, we are asking for better, thats how all of this works. Its not some absolutist decree.
OMG Tim, I swear the exact same words were spoken to me 20 years ago during the Measure X campaign by a guy named Mark something. He was an econ professor who was opposed. He told me we shouldn’t accept the first bid. Twenty years later you are making the same argument even though this is actually the owner’s second bid.
I get what the owners are trying to do and I get that it isn’t what you would like to see but what it will do is add much needed supply to the housing stock.
Here is the difference between us Tim. I think you should build your dream community and I think the Village Farms people should build the project they envision. I think the Shriners people should build their vision. The problem is you want to defeat other projects instead of creating your own but that simply causes more delay and a continued dearth of supply. We need all these projects and then some more. What I would like to see is you and your friends get creative and figure out how to build your dream development. Certainly the groups that were at DCAN the other day have the skill sets to do that instead of going around trying to undermine other peoples dreams.
Pfffft . . . look I don’t agree completely with either of you, but a pox on the idea of doing no planning to accommodate future transportation alternative modes, especially pitiful for a town that is supposedly progressive yet mostly talks the talk and then shuts off the community brain.
Both Shriners and Village Farms have paid the city to figure out a transportation plan.
Not what I mean, RG. There is the usual thing that people in government who don’t know what they are doing do to meet the terms of a grant or satisfy a directive: they type “Yes” in the box on the form, and satisfy the overlords. But that’s very different from good planning, which means laying out the plan for the entire area, including routes, ahead. You can’t fix those once blocked without eminent domain, large bulldozers, and a ton of money and angry neighbors who lost their houses — in other words: auto forever.
Ron, Im going to have to re-state what I think the disconnect here is again: You dont understand how bad these proposals are, and how easily they could be better.
The plans for village farms are not “much needed supply to add to our housing stock”. We have no absolute need to build additional expensive single family homes. More single family homes doesnt actually help the city at all. We need an entirely different type of housing – its like throwing a lunchbox to a drowning man… yeah he might be hungry.. but his hunger for food isn’t his biggest problem.
The land use and transit master planning is a seperate but equally critical issue
I know that by the time you have even read that line you have already written these statements off as nonsense, but I would like to suggest that you open your mind to the fact that it is true, because it very much is. Its not us making this stuff up. Urban planners have known that the “suburban experiment” has failed for decades now.
There are only two reasons why we are even contemplating building more sprawling developments like this:
1) The developers make the most amount of money this way
2) People in planning departments and most rank-and-file citizens dont know any better.. because they have lived in badly planned cities their whole lives… they dont know any different.
Here is an amazing series of youtube videos that is very well done, it covers city design, transit, city economics, etc: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa&si=tKtZm_R0J8cSp0Et
I would ask that anyone who wants to opine on the topic of urban planning at least make the modest investment of watching some of those videos. Its very easy.
Ron G
You’re ignoring that “just leaving it to market” is what got us into this mess in the first place! You act like what’s built doesn’t affect the people around them. Developers’ “dream” projects are too often ones that the rest of us don’t want because they impact us too adversely.
Mace Ranch and Evergreen were just thrown out there just like every other suburban sprawl development put up in that era, the voters responded with outrage. These are energy guzzlers that isolate homeowners and worsen our climate impacts. We don’t want any more of these. Developers too often are out for short run profits with no real vision of what the community should look like. We need to inject some sense into the developers and tell them what’s acceptable. We can’t go down the same road that created our current situation. We need to learn our lesson.
“no growth is still better than bad growth…”
Couldn’t agree more. People have their heads up their buttz regarding decent land use for transportation. You mess up this one chance to build an alternate transportation corridor in that sector of the city, and it is the blob-cul-de-sac form forever wedded to cars. You can’t fix it, ever. All that is needed is to dedicate the right-of-way, and the city has to force this. You can do stuff like convert to electricity later — but if you don’t build the proper land form, we make car-only developments.
“no growth is still better than bad growth…”
Depends on what you are calling bad growth and certainly you would want a cost benefit analysis before making such a determination.
Ron, if you are open to an actual “cost benefit analysis” you really should watch the video series I linked above. The work of Strong Towns and the work of urban economic consulting firmst like Urban 3 all show that these decisions are massivley important economically.
If you are just wondering about the cost benefit of transit.. there is a LOT of information out there about that too. We massivley subsidize our car infrastructure, multiple studies have shown that when cities invest in transit to the extent they invest in automotive infrasctucture, people DO ride the transit, they actually LIKE it, and it saves municipalities something like 10% on total infrastructure costs.
“You’re ignoring that “just leaving it to market” is what got us into this mess in the first place!”
Oh the mythology of revisionist history. Were you here? What happened was a bunch of Malthusian NIMBY’s, educated in the 60’s and 70’s and inspired by people like Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome, freaked out over the transition of Davis from rural to suburban. When they lost a referendum on Wildhorse they put forward an ordinance that sounded good but in reality turned the local planning process upside down.
What got us here was not letting the market work and under building for 25 years especially when interest rates were at all time lows.
So now you seek to perpetuate that underproduction by fighting projects that don’t conform to your vision of the future. It has been 20 years between proposals at Village Farms. My question to you is how long are you willing to keep under producing until you get what you want?
“Ron, Im going to have to re-state what I think the disconnect here is again: You dont understand how bad these proposals are, and how easily they could be better.”
Oh I understand perfectly. You really don’t need to repeat yourself.
What I can’t figure out is why would these project proponents spend millions of dollars bringing projects to the ballot that are so bad when in reality they are bringing proposals that more than anything are designed to pass a Measure J vote. Your argument falls apart to the point of where you and your friends have argued that the proponents are spending millions of dollars because they want to fail. I think that is more a projection of your own desire than any reality.
By the way, I’m not opposed to amending Measure J but the reality is it’s not going to be as easy as you think. The turnout the other night should give you pause about how to proceed. The difference between putting an amendment forward before re-authorization is that it shifts the burden of passing changes from the City Council to the voters. Under re-authorization the CC makes changes and the public accepts them or Measure J ends or people can petition to put a competing proposal on the ballot. Under an amendment put forward before expiration the voters can simply say no and the status quo remains.
But its even worse because if your amendment is voted down it makes it much harder for the CC to amend Measure J through the re-authorization process. I can hear it now. People will say we just voted these proposals down. So in my mind you are taking a big gamble with an early amendment. A gamble that based on my observation of public comment at the CC Tuesday night is a much heavier lift than you seem to recognize.