As a Davis parent, I’m really uncomfortable with how Measure V (Village Farms) is being pitched in parent spaces.
We keep hearing: “We have to pass this or schools will close.” But:
– This is not a near‑term “save our schools” fix. Village Farms wouldn’t be built out and occupied until around 2035 at the earliest because they have to move roughly a million cubic yards of dirt to fill in a floodplain. Most of our kids won’t even be in the school district at that point. DJUSD is selling it as an answer to closures that are happening now, long before any of those homes exist. The idea that this would “save” Birch Lane and/or Patwin is unconvincing.
– Even the Davis Enterprise has published an article recently titled, “This won’t keep schools open,” saying the supposed enrollment bump from Village Farms is being oversold and that the schools issue should be handled separately.
– A Planning Commissioner has laid out his NO votes on Village Farms — this isn’t just a handful of NIMBYs; people inside the process have serious concerns.
– The project itself is 1,800 units with a product mix heavy on “small homes,” townhomes, and higher‑end units, not a ton of true, family‑sized, actually affordable 3–4 bedroom homes that would bring and keep middle‑class families here. On top of that, we’re talking major traffic, toxics, floodplain issues and big infrastructure bills.
– The developer is not responsible for building the affordable housing units — except possibly 100 affordable units in the last phase, in 10+ years, and only if the City doesn’t first build affordable units.
– The No on V flyer lays out what this really is: a huge 1,800‑unit subdivision in a FEMA flood hazard zone, with toxic contamination questions, massive traffic impacts, and big infrastructure costs the city (and ultimately taxpayers) will be stuck with.
So to me, Measure V is not a realistic, near‑term solution for keeping schools open. It’s a risky, developer‑driven project that’s being wrapped in “for the kids” branding to get parents to look past the fine print. I am hoping that Davis parents are analytical enough to detect the misleading claims in the “save the kids” branding, and not respond emotionally to the manipulative marketing.
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Suit yourself. Vote against housing and see what happens to the schools.
Remember when the West Davis neighbors sued the university about campus housing south of Russell? As a result a bunch of faculty housing never got built and now there aren’t enough kids to sustain Patwin Elementary.
Two years after Covell Village failed at the ballot box two decades ago Valley Oak Elementary closed.
and yet, as a city, we somehow survived
A rather glib response considering how contentious it was at the time.
Maybe glib, but accurate.
Our local retail has mostly died. Downtown has lots of empty commercial space. Our roads are the worst in the County. Our sidewalks are breaking. Our school enrollment is in decline. Our city budget has a structural deficit. Lack of construction has made all these problems worse. Except for the property values of the “Progressive” boomers no good has come from our unwillingness to build homes.
Ron, you two comments above are contradicting each other. What is it about Our local retail has mostly died. Downtown has lots of empty commercial space. Our roads are the worst in the County. Our sidewalks are breaking. that matches up with a growing economy?
Matt is correct. It is the pattern of outward single family sprawl that is responsible for the pathology he describes. SIngle family homes do not produce enough revenue for their own maintenance, let alone paving roads elsewhere, they are too far away from shopping for there to be a dense retail environment that isnt crushed by parking requirements.”
The way to solve these issues is to focus on densification, mixed use, and intentional development of non-car mobility – bikes and transit. It has worked in hundreds of other cities, it will work here.
What doesnt help is letting ourselves get distracted and divided by developer proposals that dont actually solve these problems.
Ron G
You confuse building any kind of houses that developers want to build, and building the type of housing that our community needs. Unfortunately as has been revealed over the last 50 years, releasing private greed to drive social and economic change has led to increasing inequality and a lack of affordable housing. It’s time to seize back the reigns in directing community development. We need the right type of housing, not just more McMansions.
“What doesnt help is letting ourselves get distracted and divided by developer proposals that dont actually solve these problems.”
Says the guy who doesn’t offer any funding or take on any risk to actually address ‘these problems’ but is happy to whine about those who are willing to do so. Pathetic.
“We need the right type of housing, not just more McMansions.”
Are you saying Village Farms is only McMansions? That is demonstrably false. Or are you saying you don’t like the mix of housing? To which, I say once again, instead of trying to block someone else’s project why don’t you put up your own capital and build your own project on your own land. There is room enough for both.
There are plenty of kids to sustain Patwin School. It is the only elementary school west of 113. The issue is that there are not enough kids to sustain schools nationwide. And here in Davis because we overbuilt our elementary school infrastructure in the late 1990s (and thankfully didn’t go forward with the planned additional schools at Nugget Fields and Grande) we do not have enough kids to fill the overabundance of infrastructure we built across the District.
In 2007 DJUSD’s demographer provided the School Board with a very clear declining enrollment forecast with graphs and tables. In that packet was also a table listing each of the elementary schools with their grade by grade capacity compared to how that capacity was being used. The story that table told was that all the elementary schools were being under utilized … and the projected declining enrollment was only going to make that underutilization worse!
That was in 2007, and the School Board did nothing in the intervening 19 years to be honest with the community and proactively address that underutilization.
What is that expression about Nero?
Except for the part about Patwin having enough students you were doing well until your conclusion. The school district did all they could, loading up our schools with inter-district transfers, in those 19 years. With student enrollment declining nationally the inter-district transfers aren’t enrolling as much as in the past.
At Patwin they are down classrooms at the lower grades that translate to classrooms across the school as they advance to higher grade levels. Even if you re-draw the lines, DJUSD is likely going to be forced to close schools. To counteract that decline additional housing may offset some of that decline. That decline is self inflicted and Davis’ continued resistance to new housing has exacerbated that decline.
You may think there is some sort of cabal between the school district and developers but what you are facing is the reality that not building housing in a growing economy has starved our local schools of students.
Ron, are you blind? The economy in Davis is not growing. It is shrinking. The vacancy rate of commercial properties in Davis is at an all time high. The Cannery Marketplace continues to be a figment of imagination. UCD enrollment is growing, but the number of employees per student is shrinking, so employment on the campus is flat.
Davis has arguably abdicated its ability to call itself a university town. The number of Davis residents working in intellectual capital creating jobs is half of what it was 20-25 years ago. Key intellectual capital creating businesses in Davis have left town, and they have not been replaced, so the impact of intellectual capital creating businesses in Davis has decreased. All that is important because the core competency of a university town is intellectual capital creation.
We have become a food and beverages services town where the customers just happen to be students … and residents of our bedroom community where the vast majority of jobs holders commute to their work in places outside the City Limits.
Depends on how you define your jurisdiction Matt. The City of Davis economy sucks because of the no growth attitudes of this community while the University, the County, and the Sacramento region are doing much better. Davis could be doing better if we pass Measure J votes. If not the decline of the city of Davis will continue.
Ron G
You’re behind the times. There are many people who recognize that Davis needs to push more growth to accommodate outside housing demand and the decline of internal vitality. Reading the comments in Nextdoor on Village Farms reveals that there are many fewer people saying “no more houses in Davis.” There’s a much higher recognition of “we need more affordable housing.” But there’s opposition to the Village Farms proposal because these people see that it is not providing the type of affordable housing that we need. You somehow view opposing a new project means that opposition to a housing project of any kind. That might have been true in the past, but is no longer a valid assessment.
Ron G
False relationship. Valley Oak closed because Korematsu opened in 2006 as part of the agreement with building Mace Ranch. Valley Oak was then converted to DaVinci High School. There was no link between converting Valley Oak to a high school with failure of Covell Village.
That’s not completely true. They opened Korematsu because they were anticipating additional developments in Davis, when that was shut down, the district moved to close Valley Oak.
If Korematsu had not been opened, Valley Oak would have still remained open. And the district still needed to find a new campus for DaVinci at that time.
That is correct. Korematsu was based partly on the projection of more students at Covell Village.
How do you build a school based on a development that hasn’t even been approved?
In the 90’s, before Davis went full no growth, the school board built schools to accommodate anticipated growth. The school board with people like Marty West, Joan Salee, Don Saylor, Johm Munn and others built Korematsu and Montgomery.
When Davis stopped growing after Measure J passed Davis and Measure X didn’t Davis ended up with extra capacity at the elementary level and had to close Valley Oak.
Seems to me that Patwin in particular would draw non-resident students from Woodland parents commuting to UCD.
I guess they’re running out of kids to poach in Woodland, as well – despite another 1,600 housing units to come at the technology park. (It doesn’t appear that they’re going to build another school there, despite the concerted efforts of a bunch of Spring Lake parents. I think they’ve given up at this point.)
As a side note, DJUSD is not “required” to accept UCD’s non-resident employees’ students, if there’s no room for them. And as they close down a school or two, there will be less room for them.
WJUSD also has the option of denying transfers.
https://www.djusd.net/DJUSD_Enrollment/intradistrict_transfers
What seems to you is once again belied by reality.
Thanks, David. Yes – if “space is available”. (And it sounds like there will soon be “less space available”.)
But the process seems to require approval from the employee’s actual resident district, as well. It is unclear to me if (for example) WJUSD can deny a transfer to DJUSD.
https://www.djusd.net/DJUSD_Enrollment/interdistrict_transfers
Most important data points: 63% of IDT’s are by reason of employment and 79 percent of the remaining students originated in the school district.
I’m not sure that’s the important point.
Maybe at some point, students should attend their OWN district, and teachers should work in their own district as well.
And stop expecting Davis property owners to pay for their education and employment (many of whom don’t even have kids in the system).
The state recognizes the district where the parents are employed as their own district. They also recognize the right of a student to remain in their district of origin.
The state does not fully recognize a “right” to attend a district outside of one’s home. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be subject to “available space” – as you yourself noted.
There is no such restriction on a student’s actual home district.
Can a student’s home district also deny a transfer to a different district?
“It is unclear to me if (for example) WJUSD can deny a transfer to DJUSD.”
Yes they can. But students with existing transfers must be allowed to continue if they have done so without interruption. So if a school district wishes to discontinue interdistrict transfers they have to phase them out; i.e., stop allowing new ones, but renew those that are continuing.
Were WJUSD to do that, it could increase demand for housing in the Davis school district. It would also put pressure on WJUSD to build the schools they promised for Spring Lake, but without providing the funds to actually build the schools. So cutting off the current flow of students from Woodland to Davis would create very challenging issues for both school districts.
Thanks for confirming that a student’s home district can deny a transfer to a different district.
As you noted – this situation has probably already resulted in failing to commit to building schools in Spring Lake and in the planned technology park. And it’s likely that the “cream of the crop” (so to speak) are the ones being siphoned-off to DJUSD, thereby leaving lower-performing students behind (which then impacts the entire system).
The situation also disincentivizes Woodland from investing in their own school system.
Funding to build schools comes from more than one source.
Seems to me that the real question is whether or not Davis should keep schools open for Woodland students. (And it also seems to me that the answer is a “no-brainer”, from a Davis perspective.)
“The situation also disincentivizes Woodland from investing in their own school system.”
Why should they when Davis residents will make up for the shortfall?
Ron O
You’re all over the place. I can’t tell if you believe that we should just let high housing prices keep the rabble out of Davis or that we should redistribute income to allow people to buy into Davis or we should shut out those who want to come to Davis for higher quality schools or we should just plan for a declining population in the future. None of these positions seem to recognize the reality that families want to move to Davis to be in a school district that delivers a desirable educational experience, and the housing shortage in Davis is described by the 50% house price premium created by that scarcity. You keep trying to dodge the obvious solution of increasing the housing supply for those families. Instead you appear to want to squeeze them off to somewhere else where that won’t satisfy their desires. It’s unclear who you are trying to make happy. You chose to leave Davis for Woodland. Why are you trying to “protect” some unknown set of preferences in Davis if you no longer live here?
I don’t understand your series of questions, Richard – and they’re worded as allegations/assumptions, more than questions.
Would you care to rephrase your questions in a more honest manner?
Elections are one day sales. Whatever I can do to get you to vote a certain way on the day you cast your ballot is all that matters. So it is no wonder that the Malthusian Troll makes arguments that are all over the place because he is only focused on tearing down anything he can to get people to vote no. Furthermore we should expect these attacks to become more shrill the closer we get to the election.
In the old days we called that the ends justifies the means approach Machiavellian. Today in response I say pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.