- After nearly 25 years of experience with Measure J and its successors, it is increasingly difficult to express confidence that any particular peripheral housing proposal will pass.
The Davis City Council voted Tuesday night to place the Village Farms project on the June ballot. Whether that decision ultimately results in voter approval is, at best, uncertain.
After nearly 25 years of experience with Measure J and its successors, it is increasingly difficult to express confidence that any particular peripheral housing proposal will pass, regardless of its scale, design, affordability mix, or policy alignment with state law.
I would go further and argue that I am no longer confident that incremental tinkering with the Measure J process can fix this structural problem.
As things stand, I cannot in good conscience bet on a positive outcome of a Measure J vote. (Correction: initially left out “positive”).
At some point, as I have warned for years, Davis must reckon honestly with what Measure J has actually produced—not what it promised in theory, or what its supporters and opponents continue to hope it might deliver in the future.
After 25 years, the debate over Measure J should no longer center on its intent, which most acknowledge was rooted in a genuine desire to protect community character and preserve local control. The more pressing question is how Measure J actually functions in practice.
What matters now is not what the measure was designed to do, but what its structure reliably produces once it is put to use—how projects move through the system, how decisions are made, and what outcomes repeat themselves cycle after cycle. It is at that level, in the mechanics rather than the motives, that Measure J must be judged.
One of the most persistent claims from opponents of Measure J projects is that they are “rushed.”
Nearly every project to go before voters is described as moving too fast, cutting corners, or forcing a premature decision on the electorate.
Over time, however, this critique has become so routine that it raises a deeper issue, if every project is rushed, perhaps that is not a failure of individual applicants or councils, but a structural feature of Measure J itself.
The planning forces projects to endure years of planning, environmental review, staff and commission scrutiny, and City Council deliberation, only to have them labeled as rushed or insufficiently refined once they finally reach the ballot.
The implicit standard becomes perfection—an ever-receding horizon where no project is ever deemed ready—and after two decades of procedural layering, the problem appears less about insufficient deliberation than a process structured to produce delay without resolution.
Closely related is the belief by some that Measure J produces “better projects.”
Supporters argue that the initiative improves development quality by forcing responsiveness to community concerns, a claim that may sound plausible in theory but is far less convincing in practice.
Cycle after cycle, voters are told that the projects placed before them are not good enough—insufficiently affordable, sustainable, thoughtful, or aligned with Davis values.
If Measure J were truly producing better projects, opponents might be expected to acknowledge incremental improvement, but the critique remains unchanged, suggesting that no amount of redesign or concession is ever sufficient.
This leads to a familiar promise: vote this one down, and we will get a better project later. But history does not bear this out.
The most striking example remains Measure X in 2005, when voters rejected a proposal at the Village Farms site. The “better project” that followed arrived nearly 20 years later—still not good enough, still rushed.
In the meantime, the city added virtually no new housing in the last 20 years—even as prices rose, rental vacancies tightened, and affordability worsened.
If the model is rejection followed by decades of waiting, the costs are not abstract but fall squarely on renters priced out, families forced into long commutes, students crowded into inadequate housing, and a workforce increasingly unable to live in the community it serves.
This raises a blunt question: by the standards of project opponents, has Measure J actually generated better outcomes? Or has it simply generated fewer outcomes?
What Measure J has undeniably produced is less housing. Over roughly 25 years, Davis has built just over 700 single-family homes. That is not a typo. In the next few weeks the city should release its latest update on housing production.
During a period of sustained growth pressures within Davis itself, the city effectively froze its peripheral housing supply, with the predictable result being chronic housing scarcity.
Critics also criticize that the housing that is proposed is too expensive—this is pretty much every single time..
In the case of Village Farms, opponents cite a roughly $740,000 price point as though it were the sole offering, ignoring the project’s mix of housing types and price ranges that include affordable units, smaller homes, and higher-density formats.
Even if one were to accept the $740,000 figure as a representative number, the argument still collapses under scrutiny.
That price is approximately 20 percent below the median home price in Davis as well as with broader California averages.
Rejecting a project for failing to magically undo market forces while simultaneously blocking new housing supply is not a realistic standard but a contradiction that guarantees the very outcomes critics claim to oppose.
Many of the loudest complaints about unaffordable housing come from residents who have not faced the housing market in years and purchased their homes at prices far below what today’s constrained market demands.
It also bears acknowledging that this project is broadly consistent with housing developments being approved across California, even as it is unfortunate that a first-time homebuyer program was ultimately removed from its final parameters.
The affordability issue becomes even more acute when viewed through the lens of state housing law and could ultimately be the undoing of Measure J itself.
In the current RHNA cycle, Davis must plan for 920 low-income units, and Village Farms alone would supply more than one-third of that requirement, with few other sites in the city capable of delivering affordable housing at that scale.
If Village Farms is rejected, the obvious question is: how does the city meet its affordable housing requirement?
There is no hidden inventory of shovel-ready sites capable of absorbing that loss. Nor is there an alternative pipeline of projects waiting in the wings to replace hundreds of units with equal affordability commitments.
Traffic concerns are frequently raised and have already been raised with regard to Village Farms, but any remaining peripheral site in Davis capable of supporting significant housing will inevitably raise similar issues.
To treat traffic as a disqualifier here is effectively to argue against peripheral housing altogether, regardless of mitigation or comparative impact.
While I’m sure that’s what some people would prefer—how we get to the number 920 in this cycle for affordable housing seems fraught without considering peripheral housing.
The same logic applies to market-rate housing, as Davis cannot meet its broader RHNA targets through small infill projects and incremental rezoning alone, which, while necessary, do not come close to penciling out at the scale required.
Some dismiss these concerns by suggesting that the next RHNA cycle will not begin until 2030.
They forget, however, that Davis must still comply with the current cycle.
That includes rezoning sufficient land to accommodate 920 affordable units—something the city has barely begun to accomplish.
Catch-up is still possible, but not if projects capable of delivering large portions of that requirement are repeatedly rejected.
There is also a growing legal reality that many in Davis prefer not to discuss.
The state has already sued jurisdictions that have voted down compliant housing projects. It has imposed penalties, overridden local controls, and forced rezoning through court action.
To assume that Davis is somehow immune—that the state will look the other way here—is not realistic.
If the state does intervene, Davis may find itself losing precisely the local control that Measure J was designed to protect.
None of this requires supporting Village Farms uncritically.
Reasonable people can disagree about the project’s design or scale, but those disputes must be judged against Measure J’s empirical record, which after 25 years shows fewer homes, higher prices, unmet state obligations, and increasing legal risk.
The uncomfortable truth is that Measure J has never functioned as its supporters claim.
Rather than producing better projects or improved housing outcomes, it has entrenched a system where rejection is routine, delay is normalized, and accountability is endlessly deferred.
Davis must ultimately decide whether it is willing to confront this reality, because rejecting nearly every project, waiting for a perfect proposal that never arrives, and treating voter rejection as a planning tool have produced stagnation at best and a looming conflict with state law at worst.
The fate of Village Farms does not change the larger reality that Measure J has now been in place long enough to be judged by its results, and those results raise serious questions about whether the policy is serving Davis’s long-term interests.
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Jeez David, such a wimp. You write the indictment but fail to ask the jury to convict. After 25 years, you can’t say, end it, don’t mend it. Of course I’ve been pounding the table making everyone of these arguments for decades and you obviously know I’ve been right the entire time yet you are still too weak to say it.
Patience grasshopper – you can’t ask for a jury to convict during arraignment
Oh please David, you’ve been saying patience for over a decade. And the legal rhetoric is a metaphor not a map. If after 25 years you are still at the indictment stage your learning curve has a slope of almost zero. And don’t forget in 2020 you caved and supported renewal even though you didn’t get any amendments. So I’m tired of your patience BS. What I am curious about is why you refuse to admit the obvious. I don’t think you are that dumb so I can only surmise you are too weak to speak truth to power.
I was just thinking of the judge from My Cousin Vinny… “It appears to me that you want to skip the arraignment process. Go directly to trial. Skip that and get a dismissal. I’m not about to revamp the entire judicial process just because you find yourself in the unique position of defending clients who say they didn’t do it”.
But there might be a more pertinent line here…
“Hey Stan, you are in Ala-f***-bama. You come from New York. You kill a good ol’ boy. There’s no way this case is not going to trial”.
So here let me spell it out Ron Glick, you are in Davis California, the voters in 2020 by an 83-17 margin voted to renew Measure J. It’s 2026. People are still in denial about the change in state laws and what might come down the pike. There is no way Measure J is going out unless the state comes here and does it. In order for that to occur certain things need to happen, the next step is Village Farm and we will see where things go.
If people, yourself included, never speak truth to power, of course you’re going to get lopsided election outcomes. Especially when seniors are afraid to run a campaign during a pandemic as I admit I was.
One thing you left out is the viciousness of these elections campaigns. The last one was so contentious the city council needed a hiatus throughout the 2024 cycle. On Village Farms people are bracing for the onslaught to come.
Repeatedly tearing the community apart over peripheral development is a feature of Measure J with lawsuits and friendships damaged, but hey, were protecting farmland.
“I would go further and argue that I am no longer confident that incremental tinkering with the Measure J process can fix this structural problem.”
That took awhile. Welcome aboard.
“As things stand, I cannot in good conscience bet on the outcome of a Measure J vote. ”
So you won’t be predicting the outcome of Village Farms or Willowbank. We’ll be watching.
On the last quote, I was actually trying to say I wouldn’t bet on it passing
Willowbank already exists. Its lovely with large lots and single family homes.
You’re thinking of Willowgrove. Not to be confused with Willowbank, New Willowbank, Willow Glen, The Willows, and undoubtedly several other willow-neighborhoods which no longer have any willow trees.
Willowbank has plenty of willows along the creek.
It was a joke, Ron.
“has Measure J actually generated better outcomes? Or has it simply generated fewer outcomes?”
If it has generated fewer bad outcomes, then it has generated better outcomes.
Davis voters have, for at least 50 years, expressed a strong desire for the city to grow slowly. They’ve watched what happened in Vacaville, Elk Grove, West Sacramento, et al and don’t want that to happen here, so they enacted Measure J. As evidenced by the last renewal vote, they’re glad to have it.
At one time Davis actually codified the meaning of “slow growth” in terms of new units approved per year. I don’t think that definition exists in the municipal code anymore, but it’s a moot point — the state has defined the city’s fair share of growth in the form of RHNA targets, and I accept those as reasonable. If we need peripheral projects to meet those targets, I’m okay with that, but I’m not inclined to support projects that go beyond those targets. That’s why I continue to support Measure J.
Whether or not the state can force a community to approve a peripheral project before the peripheral land is annexed is an open question in my mind, though I’m leaning toward the idea that annexation has to happen first. So it’s premature to say that Measure J is in danger.
“Village Farms people”
Isn’t that a group from the 1970s? One guy pretending to milk cows, one guy pretending to pick crops, . . . (none of them actual farmers, but have some bitchin costumes).
Seems like even Trump is a fan of that group, and has got the dance moves down to prove it.
One of the most persistent claims from opponents of Measure J projects is that they are “rushed.”
Thing is: From a planning perspective, what a reasonable planning timeline should be.. Measure J project ARE rushed.
A “normal” planning process will look out 20-40 years or more, will anticipate needs for additional wastewater / fire coverage, will anticipate transit and bike path connectivity… all of that, and it will provide a little bit of certainty and time to iron out details.
Yes measure J takes years… but its is so dis-connected from an actual long-term planning process, that there are to many issues to work out in the back and forth especially in light of the next point.
“Supporters argue that the initiative improves development quality by forcing responsiveness to community concerns, a claim that may sound plausible in theory but is far less convincing in practice.”
Severe understement. Developers dont respond to community concerns: they attempt to gaslight / ignore them. They respond to city hall… but our planning department works FOR them
“What Measure J has undeniably produced is less housing. Over roughly 25 years, Davis has built just over 700 single-family homes.”
Single family homes is a horrible metric. If anyone reading this Doesn’t understand the myriad negative consequences of building primarily from single family homes, then honestly, you aren’t qualified to even opine on these issues – you are IGNORANT. You might as well go hang out with the flat earth people at the farmers market.
Im truly sorry to be that blunt and rude… but its the truth, and its backed up by EVERY set of data, every person in the field who studies these things. It is not in the city’s actual best interest to build housing that:
– Loses money for the city
– Guarantees traffic ( while making transit impossible in the future)
– Has twice the climate impact ( both in terms of household energy and transportation emissions)
– Requires more than twice the land per resident
– Pushes our local workforce to have to commute in every day ( even more traffic and a de-facto $10k / year tax on all of those lower wage workers)
If you want to be educated on these topics, there is a great, well done series of videos done here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa&si=LZy1IHtqvD52kuOm
Nobody making planning decisions in our community should be ignorant of these issues, it is a dis-service to us all.
“The uncomfortable truth is that Measure J has never functioned as its supporters claim. ”
Not as they claim, but as they actually intended – thats part of the problem. And if you make the assumption that they just wanted to be able to say no to sprawl perpetually, then its working as intended, and by the wayt their instincts to say no to sprawl were correct given all of the reasons above.
What we lack is a way of saying YES to better projects… which wont happen because the planning process is driven by the same developers who ONLY know how to build sprawling projects that harm us in the long term.
This is why we need a systemic modification to measure J, a pathway to produce housing that is actually non-sprawling, is revenue-positive for the city, that integrates transit options and is actually affordable by the people we most need to house.
Hundreds of communities have woken up to this and embraced better forms of development, and if ANY city is capable of making a shift towards better, more climate-ready / affordable / just / inclusive housing, I HAVE to think Davis would be it.
“Critics also criticize that the housing that is proposed is too expensive—this is pretty much every single time.. ”
Againg, So long as the developers keep primarily proposing single family housing, it IS going to be too expensive. That is a generational change we need to digest. A starter home is no longer a single family home. That ship has sailed. Market-Rate muiltifamily is what we need most for our younger demographic that is being left out in all of this.
To go further on Tim’s comments, I point to 1) factual errors in your statements and 2) viable alternatives that support the notion we can have the housing the community wants. The problem is, as Tim points out, we have no way of conveying to developers what is desirable and acceptable before they submit their proposals. That’s what needs to be corrected.
Ron G has long ignored, and David seems to have failed to recognize the history of Measure J. It was created in response to the sprawl built in Mace Ranch / Alhambra / Wildhorse / Northstar / Evergreen / Aspen in the 1990s. Voters said no more. But developers kept coming back with the same formula. David is incorrect that Village Farms is an improvement on Covell Village–it has the same 1800 homes on about 225 acres! CV was about the same density as VF at about 8 units per acre. (https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content/is-davis-turning-red/44445/) Why is this an “improvement” on what we saw in 2005? Of course voters will reject this–the developer has failed to learn the lessons of the last 20 years.
Further, the average home purchase price you present is incorrect. (Until EPS presents its workpapers on its calculation we cannot take this as a valid estimate.) The Davis Citizens Planning Committee presented in articles in this space that show the expected home cost will be about $840K, or ABOVE the current median price of $826K on Zillow. (https://www.zillow.com/home-values/51659/davis-ca/) This does not solve our problem of delivering market-rate affordable housing for young families–only raises the moat higher for buying into this town.
Examples of profitable high density family friendly developments about. Chapel Hill has one example in Southern Village that is on about 125 acres south of the city. It has mixed uses with mixed housing types, substantial amounts of lower-priced common-wall housing. And the developer obviously found this to be financially viable and attractive. Here’s a website with more information: https://erikaandcompany.com/neighborhoods/southern-village What we need is a planning process that delivers these types of projects from developers
An important point is that the VF developer is likely to make a profit of nearly $1.5M per acre after paying infrastructure costs that are unlikely to exceed $200K per acre and selling to separate builders to then incur the construction costs. (Look at your home property assessment to calculate the value of developed urban land.) Given that ag land is going for less than $30K per acre around Davis, that’s a substantial profit. The developer can easily afford to choose alternatives that are acceptable to the community while still making a significant return on investment.
I have voted for most of the Measure J/R/D proposals, but I won’t for this one given the lack of willingness to address community needs and desires. But I would support wholeheartedly a proposal based on a modified Alternative 4. Unfortunately, we never got to see a version because the alternatives were misspecified in the original CEQA process and the Council did not demand a revision from the staff or the consultant. If we truly had a planning process that ahead of time laid out the specifications that led to a submittal that looked like Alternative 4, and we approved these ahead of time so a developer need not run the political gauntlet of Measure J/R/D, that would resolve most of our problems.
As it is, David is apparently capitulating entirely and just saying “let the developers decide everything that maximizes their own well being, the community be damned.” That’s what Ron G has been saying for years, ignoring the political reality that voters won’t accept that. If we just simply vote yes on essentially the same proposal from 20 years ago, we will be giving up any local control. How’s that different than having the state come in and impose a “builder’s remedy”?
I’m not sure if it is more amusing or irritating that the vast majority of Village Farms naysayers live in large single family homes with average home values pushing $1 million.
What’s the old saying? Oh, I remember now…”Do as I say, not as I do!”
I’m not sure if I find it irritating or bewildering that the local leader of the Sierra Club advocates for sprawl that would continue that trend (e.g., housing approaching $1 million, though it has been going down lately).
In any case, perhaps the “main” problem is that $1 million is cheap for someone with assets from the Bay Area, assuming that the goal is to house less-fortunate folks.
Truth be told, this is less of an “age” issue than it is an “inheritance” issue (for those who want to “level the playing field”, at least). Most of the people commenting on this blog won’t be around within 30 years (or less).
But parents (understandably) generally do seek to ensure that their “own” kids don’t have to face a competitive world entirely on their own.
With all due respect Alan, that is what I call the narcisists’ view of housing. – evaluating if YOU want to live there, and objecting if you wouldnt.
In reality this isnt about you, or me, or anyone who is privelaged enough to be in the set of people who CAN afford to live here and vote on these things.
The entire premise here is that we have 17000 people commuting into town at the moment who are displaced economically. Some of them work lower wage jobs, some are just younger in their careers and arent making a lot of money yet.
By definition, if you live in davis right now you are either a student in student housing, or you are a much more established wealthier and older.. At least a mid-career professional all the way through retirees.
Do I want to live in a 2-bedroom townhome? No. I have two kids in the house and I need something bigger, but when I started my career and my wife and I needed a house… we were thrilled to find a little townhome that fit our budget as we started life together. Most of us dont want to live in a 600sqft studio apartment either… but did a lot of us inhabit such a modest kind of dwelling at some point in our lives? Yes.
THAT is the point. We need housing that fits EVERY phase of life, and every income level for the people who work here. This isnt about US. Its about the people we have priced out – our teachers, our university staff, the people who cook our food and cut our hair.
I’m SO SICK and tired of this vapid charge of hypocrisy from entitled people who cant understand that not everyone is as fortunate and wealthy as the previous generation who was just lucky enough to make it in under the wire before housing became so unaffordable.
” . . . as the previous generation who was just lucky enough to make it in under the wire before housing became so unaffordable.”
I suspect that most of them are counting on their parents while they’re still alive (and after they’re dead), at this point.
But for anyone starting out these days, this isn’t the place to do it anymore. Those places do exist elsewhere, however.
Davis (and Sacramento) used to be “elsewhere” in the past, and are still “elsewhere” for those moving out of the Bay Area (and have some equity).
I know someone who stupidly sold their house in the Bay Area, bought a house in this region, paid a boatload of capital gains on the sale of their Bay Area house, AND lost their low property tax (which I understand doesn’t help those moving to a cheaper house, in regard to Proposition 19).
And after all of that, found out what a miserably hot place this is (really – she didn’t already know that)? I think the part that surprised her more, however, is that it’s also colder in the winter.
If you REALLY want to save on taxes and costs for your descendants, the way to do so is to die – which erases almost all tax.
But seriously, a lot of younger people are staying at home longer, getting help from their parents, etc. And they pretty much have to do so these days, since they also believed the lie that it’s a “good idea” to assume a $100K student loan, since they’ll be making “oh so much money” as a result of their degree.
Thanks for labeling me and my older compatriots as “Naysayers” . You must be older than me if that’s in your daily vocabulary. Us “older” naysayers experienced the city being taken hostage when the Mace Ranch Development was rejected and the Ramos Group said they would build without city incorporation regardless under County control, but civic amenities would be reduced to the minimum. And of course the City capitulated and annexed the land. The motivation behind Measure J has a history. Anyone with less
than 40+ years here might not understand that. But I do. Measure J is represents the Democratic Empowerment of the Citizens of Davis. It was established for a reason.
” If we just simply vote yes on essentially the same proposal from 20 years ago, we will be giving up any local control. How’s that different than having the state come in and impose a “builder’s remedy”?”
The difference, ironically, is that under the builder’s remedy we’d get affordable housing.
I didn’t keep score the other night but it felt like the young were more united in asking for more housing even if it didn’t meet their particular needs. The old were more mixed but it seemed all the naysayers were older. The age divide is one of the biggest divides in American economic life today.
Maybe – right up until the time that their kids age out of the school system (which on average, is not that long from now). Or, right up until the time that they inherit a bunch of money/assets from their parents.
Overall, I don’t care if some young parent needs to send their kid to a different (but also highly-regarded) school, which might not even happen until they age-out of that particular school in the first place. Especially in regard to a school system that EVERYONE ELSE is subsidizing, regardless of whether or not they get any benefit from it.
And I’d be glad to explain this to them in person, as I can’t imagine anything more selfish than voting for a harmful, sprawling proposal just to avoid a temporary/fleeting inconvenience for oneself. I’m not sure where/how some parents started believing that they were (uniquely) on a mission from God, while also driving themselves and their kids all over town in an SUV – INCLUDING to/from school.
The City simply needs to stop putting terrible projects like Village Farms on the ballot and then those better projects will pass a Measure J/R/D vote. The City keeps repeating this same foolish mistake of putting a badly planned project on the ballot, then it is rejected by the voters, and then the City (and the Vanguard) turns around and tries to blame Measure J/R/D.
This Village Farms project was already rejected, and this version is worse than the last. So, what does the City do? It puts this even worse version of the project on the ballot again, rushes the project through the process through the holidays to accommodate the developers demands for a premature June ballot, with incomplete planning and incomplete documents deferring critical decisions and details until “later” and with a grossly inadequate EIR. And then they expect this mess of a project to pass a Measure J/R/D vote? I mean, really?
Measure J/R/D is NOT the problem. The City’s aberrant planning process is. Thank heavens we have Measure J/R/D, so we can vote down this disastrous Village Farms project. It needs to go back to the drawing board for a reduced footprint alternative similar to the Covell Village EIR’s “environmentally superior” alternative. The citizen-based reduced footprint alternative was formally proposed in the beginning of the EIR process but ignored. That alternative needed to analyze is to build only below the channel, preserving the vernal pools with a conservation easement, and reducing the number of units to 900 – 1,000 housing units.