DAVIS, Calif. — Has the city of Davis finally moved away from the housing/no housing frame into a debate on the city’s need for “a range of housing”?
The phrase “range of housing” captures an increasingly central question in Davis land-use policy. The issue is not simply whether the city should approve one project or reject another, but whether Davis’ existing housing stock aligns with the needs of the people who live here, work here, study here and hope to remain here.
Debates over growth in Davis often become project-specific and highly polarized.
One side focuses on farmland loss, traffic congestion, infrastructure burdens, fiscal risk and skepticism toward developer promises.
The other focuses on affordability, housing scarcity, demographic change and the consequences of long-term underbuilding.
Neither of these viewpoints fully addresses the structural question now facing the city: what kinds of housing are missing, and how could pending proposals change that picture?
Village Farms and Willowgrove have emerged as the two most significant responses to that question because they are the most recent major proposals and large enough to materially affect Davis’ overall housing landscape.
They are not identical projects, and they should not be evaluated as though they are; nor are they competing proposals, but complementary projects that address different dimensions of the city’s housing needs.
Taken together, they offer a clearer picture of whether Davis is prepared to expand and diversify its housing supply after years of limited production.
We often start these housing debates with unit total — we hear that projects are too large (occasionally not large enough), will cost a loss farmland and increase traffic impacts, but at the same time, Davis is under the proverbial gun to increase its housing production or face the potential wrath of the state.
What gets lost in that debate is a thorough examination of what kinds of housing are actually being built.
A city can add housing while still failing to meet critical needs if the new supply is concentrated in only one segment of the market.
A city that adds mostly student rentals may still lack ownership opportunities for middle-income families.
A city that adds expensive single-family homes may still fail lower-income households.
A city that permits small infill projects may still fall short of producing family-sized units or senior-friendly alternatives.
This is why planners often speak of a housing ladder.
Different households need different options at different stages of life.
Young adults may seek apartments or entry-level condos, families may need townhomes or detached homes with more space, older residents may look for smaller low-maintenance units that allow them to remain in the community, and lower-income households need homes priced far below market rate. If enough of those rungs are missing, pressure builds throughout the entire housing system.
The question for Davis, then, is not only whether housing exists, but whether enough of the right kinds of housing exist.
Recent city reporting has shown that Davis’ housing production over the last decade and a half has been modest relative to sustained demand. Between 2009 and 2025, the city added 2,818 total units, including 805 single-family units. Averaged over time, that amounts to roughly 165 total units per year and fewer than 50 single-family units annually.
Reasonable observers may disagree about what level of growth is appropriate for a university city bounded by farmland and conservation priorities.
But the numbers do suggest that Davis has not undergone rapid outward expansion in recent decades, with housing added incrementally and much of the more recent pipeline oriented toward multifamily and student-serving projects.
That pattern helps explain why multiple constituencies can feel underserved at the same time.
Renters may face intense competition and high prices, while prospective buyers may find too few attainable ownership options and families may struggle to find homes within city limits. Employers may face recruitment challenges when workers cannot live nearby, and older homeowners may wish to downsize but find limited alternatives.
When different groups report different symptoms, the common cause may be insufficient diversity in supply rather than a single shortage category.
According to city materials, Willowgrove proposes approximately 1,250 units on a 232-acre site in northeast Davis. The project includes detached homes, townhomes, condominiums and 250 deed-restricted affordable rental units, along with parks, greenbelts and other amenities.
The Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approvals and cited, among other factors, the project’s housing mix and affordable housing plan.
From an analytical standpoint, Willowgrove’s relevance lies in its internal variety, as it is neither solely a detached-home subdivision nor solely an apartment project, but one that combines multiple housing formats and income targets within a single proposal.
That does not settle the merits, as critics may still question traffic assumptions, farmland conversion, infrastructure timing, fiscal impacts or whether affordability commitments will be delivered as promised.
Those are legitimate areas for scrutiny, but if built substantially as proposed, Willowgrove would appear to expand housing options across several market segments rather than just one.
Village Farms, though separate and subject to its own review process, raises many of the same policy questions.
Public descriptions of the proposal have focused on a large-scale mixed neighborhood with a range of housing types, including ownership products, attached formats and affordable components.
Its importance in the broader debate lies less in any single feature than in its scale and breadth, as a project of that size has the capacity to affect multiple parts of the housing market simultaneously, including rental supply, ownership inventory, moderate-income opportunities and deed-restricted affordable housing, depending on final approvals and execution.
As with Willowgrove, that does not mean concerns disappear.
Peripheral growth, agricultural land conversion, transportation impacts, service demands and implementation risk all remain relevant.
But, Village Farms belongs in the same conversation because it addresses the same underlying issue: whether Davis needs a wider housing portfolio than it currently has.
Each project can and should be debated on its own merits, yet evaluating them only in isolation may miss a larger planning reality. That is another problem with Measure J overall—we discuss projects in isolation rather than examine the totality of the impact.
Cities do not experience housing markets one project at a time; supply accumulates over years, shortages compound across categories, and policy outcomes emerge from the combined effect of approvals, rejections, delays and partial buildouts.
Viewed together, Village Farms and Willowgrove suggest what a broader housing strategy might look like, not reliance on one product type, one location or one affordability mechanism, but multiple complementary projects serving overlapping needs.
No single development is likely to solve Davis’ housing challenges.
A downtown infill project may add apartments but little family housing, accessory dwelling units may help at the margins but are unlikely to produce large numbers of deed-restricted affordable homes, small subdivisions may add ownership units but not enough lower-income supply, and large peripheral projects may provide scale but also generate the greatest controversy.
The likely answer is not one tool, but a mix of tools.
State housing law adds another layer, as RHNA obligations do not simply ask whether a city has approved some housing but assign targets across income levels, especially lower-income categories where market delivery is least likely without subsidy or inclusionary requirements.
This is where larger mixed projects often become significant, as they can produce affordable units in numbers that smaller scattered projects may struggle to match and can also create enough market-rate supply to relieve pressure elsewhere, though economists and residents often debate the degree and timing of that effect.
At the same time, relying too heavily on a few major peripheral projects carries risk, because if voters reject them, financing falters or buildout stalls, the city can be left with unmet targets and little time to recover, suggesting diversification should apply not only to housing types but to strategy itself.
In other words, a prudent city would not rely solely on Village Farms and Willowgrove, but neither can it ignore what projects of that scale can contribute.
Growth debates often focus on the visible costs of new development—traffic, construction, land conversion and neighborhood change—which are tangible and politically salient.
But the status quo also has costs, even if they are less visible, including rising prices, longer commutes, reduced socioeconomic diversity, workforce displacement, constrained school enrollment patterns and fewer pathways for younger generations to remain local.
Recognizing those costs does not require endorsing every proposed project; it simply means comparing alternatives honestly, because development has impacts, but so does nondevelopment.
Too often, local discourse reduces complex planning questions to yes-or-no campaigns around individual ballot measures, which is understandable in a Measure J/R/D environment but can flatten the analysis.
A more useful framework would ask which housing segments are currently underserved, what housing types each proposal adds, how credible affordability and infrastructure commitments are, what the environmental and fiscal tradeoffs may be, what realistic alternatives would meet the same needs if a project is rejected, and how each decision affects the city’s cumulative housing position over the next decade.
Those questions do not predetermine outcomes; they improve the quality of decision-making.
Village Farms and Willowgrove should not be viewed simply as two controversial growth proposals, but as case studies in a deeper issue confronting Davis: whether a city with strong demand, limited recent production and evolving demographics can continue with a relatively narrow housing model.
Reasonable people may conclude that one project should proceed and another should not, that both need revision, or that both should move forward—but whatever the conclusion, the larger challenge remains. Davis is not only deciding how much housing to build, but whether to build a housing system broad enough to serve the full range of people who make up the community.
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“Different households need different options at different stages of life.”
No, they don’t (at least, not “for sale” housing). In fact, that’s a great way to LOSE money – selling and buying, repeatedly. (On the other hand, it’s a great way for real estate agents to MAKE money.)
The “one-floor” myth (also under the umbrella of “downsizing”) is just that – a myth. You need MORE space when you’re older – since you’re home all the time (suddenly home with your partner all day). And stairs sometimes provide the only exercise that seniors ever get.
If you can’t walk up the stairs, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re soon headed to a place where you don’t need housing. But many houses don’t have stairs in the first place, or have bedrooms on the first floor.
The bigger issue might be if one wants to remain in a single community (e.g., Davis) for one’s entire life.
In any case, there is the senior citizen mobile home park off Pole Line (the nicest mobile home park I’ve ever seen) AND Bretton Woods. There’s also a small senior-only development adjacent to Explorit, as I recall. I believe there’s also one other senior-only facility in that same general area (off of Fifth Street).
Senior housing probably has among the highest-level of turnover of any segment – for obvious reasons.
“Reasonable people may conclude that one project should proceed and another should not, that both need revision, or that both should move forward, . . .”
I’m pretty sure that there’s a substantial portion of “reasonable” voters who won’t vote for either of them.
The relevant question is not whether everyone should downsize, but whether Davis offers enough diverse housing choices including large homes, smaller homes, accessible homes, rentals, ownership options, senior housing, and multifamily units for people with different needs at different life stages.
It does offer those (let me know if you have trouble with Zillow), though you recently ran a story how one apartment complex is converting to a “rent by the bedroom” megadorm. (Granted, it might already be occupied exclusively by students.)
My guess is that there isn’t really much of a non-student demand for rental housing in Davis – other than renting entire single-family houses.
“Professionals” don’t want to live in housing primarily occupied by students. (Plus, they work in Sacramento in the first place – not Davis.)
Here’s the basic formula (for any city): Decide how large it’s going to be, and stop inventing problems that don’t actually exist. (Always arising from interests which are self-driven.)
This is also why I don’t object to Atherton having an $8 million dollar “average” house price. (The reason being that I don’t have to move to Atherton.)
David, regarding the Davis housing choices the 2025 transactions history tells us we have:
— an abundance of large homes,
— a dearth of smaller homes,
— insufficient information to make any determination on accessible homes,
— an abundance of rentals with lots more coming, but a problem that the wealth of student renters create a living environment in apartments that young parents find problematic for their impressionable children,
—an abundance of high priced ownership options, but a dearth of low priced ownership options
— plenty of full-sized aging-in-place senior housing, but a severe shortage of small square foot downsizing ownership options, as well as only URC as a retirement community option
—as noted above the multifamily units for people with different needs at different life stages is not a supply issue, but rather a cultural issue with the lifestyles of UCD student renters being incompatible with the lifestyle desires of constant renters.
That cultural issue isn’t a simple supply/demand challenge. It can only be fixed if the developers and/or operators of multi-family complexes take steps to make their complexes unattractive to students, and as a result, available to non-students even though they are unattractive. Of course that is not a business model very many if any, developers/operators are going to deploy. If anything, the multi-family business model in Davis is moving toward more attractiveness for UCD students and less attractiveness for non-students with more and more complexes deploying/converting to by-the-bed leases.
Matt & David
I’ll point out that almost all of the “multi family” built in the last decade that David mentions serves only qualified low-income households in Affordable housing. All of the rest is targeted at students, even as rent by the bed. This is one of the key errors in the school district’s student population projection which renders it largely useless.
It is possible to build market-rate MF for families by offering 3 or more BRs and larger common living spaces. Being farther from campus like VF and WG also helps.
Richard, why would offering 3 or more bedrooms be more attractive to young families, when the preponderance of young families are going to have no more than 2 children. Two bedrooms … one for the parents and one for either the single child or for two children to share makes much more economic and sociological sense.
Ron O
Having lived in 6 different places in Davis in a 30 year period, your rationalization makes little sense. Right now households move on average every 12 years and even that’s too long. We get more community vitality from people moving more frequently and intermingling. People move for a variety of reasons and distinguishing stepping up the housing ladder from other life decisions is difficult. But we know that households are making the decision at different life stages of what type of housing they prefer. I’ve posted research before showing how these decisions differ, particularly for first time buyers who purchase smaller houses.
Richard, the numbers don’t lie. Your anecdotal situation does not change the cost of selling/buying/moving.
The standard is still a minimum of 5% (just in realtor fees alone, let alone all of the closing costs, government fees, moving costs, etc.). 5% of $750K, for example, is $37,500. All of these fees are ultimately paid by the buyer (baked into the price of a house). Those fees are immediately “lost” the day you purchase a house (and would essentially have to be subtracted from the price if you immediately sold it).
If you purchased a house for $750K “today”, and tried to sell it for $800K “tomorrow”, there’s no way a buyer would help you recoup that loss.
Those costs are not unlike the depreciation that car buyers experience, the moment they drive a new car off a lot.
Now, maybe you can afford to lose $300K (6 X 50K or so for each transaction), but I’m pretty sure that would cause most people to go broke. (Again, assuming that your transactions did not involve moving from a rental.)
Of course, you’re also providing no detail (e.g., whether or not you moved from rental-to-rental, rental-to homeownership, etc.).
Perhaps my own family (parents/grandparents/siblings) provides a much better example of stability, as none of them sold and purchased a “replacement” house in my lifetime. (Other than a brother who did buy a house in El Centro, when he mistakenly thought he’d be stationed there for awhile. Of course, housing was, and still is pretty cheap there regardless – so I don’t think it hurt him.) As I recall, he sold it after about a year or two.
Village Farms doesn’t offer much of a range of housing types. It would look much like the Evergreen development in West Davis. Remember this is largely a rehash of Covell Village with the same housing density. Based on the housing types that VF has specified the average owned homes will have about the same price as city-wide average of $840K. That’s not the housing we need.
Willowgrove is harder to discern. It has a higher density that VF which is a good sign, but then it cuts off access to transit with the large ballpark at the south end.
We clearly need much more of the missing middle housing. We have plenty of single family for commuters and apartments strictly for students. Its in between housing that we are missing. That 4,500 workers have been priced out of Davis over the last two decades is a striking indicator of this problem.
4,500 workers have not “moved out” of Davis.
A more accurate scenario is that there were ALWAYS workers who chose to live in other communities – are there any numbers regarding THAT?
In the meantime, there likely are some “former” UCD workers who have since retired. All of whom will move away or die (or already have), and someone else will replace them. The houses WILL outlive them.
And then there’s Spring Lake, another 1,600 housing units coming at the “technology park”, etc. Almost none of whom actually drive “through” Davis to reach UCD, unless they’re perhaps dropping off their kids at a Davis school along the way.
And why aren’t the people on here concerned about Roseville, Elk Grove, Rancho Cordova, etc.? Shouldn’t you be advocating for them to live in downtown Sacramento (where they actually work), instead?
Not to mention those commuting FROM Davis to Saramento.
Hell, Natomas (despite being IN Sacramento) is about as far from downtown Sacramento as Spring Lake is from Davis. Most parts of Sacramento are as far from downtown Sacramento as Spring Lake is from Davis.