By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – On Tuesday, the Davis City Council will take the next step toward moving forward the second of two peripheral projects that are still in the pipeline—Shriners. It will be a long process once again, with the city issuing the NOP (Notice of Preparation) now ahead of the environmental review with an expectation that the project would be on the ballot in 2026—two years from now.
The two-year timeline caught my eye because the media coverage has focused on SB 423, which is expected to cut “approval time for projects in San Francisco from two years to six months, streamlining that housing advocates consider a much-needed course correction in a city where construction is beset by delays and high costs.”
As the LA Times noted, quoting Senator Scott Wiener, “The state-mandated change will transform the City by the Bay from having one of the longest approval times for new housing to one of the shortest.”
Using colorful language, Senator Wiener said the new rules will spare developers from the “hyper-political mosh pit” of the housing permitting process in San Francisco—that sounds eerily reminiscent of the “Davis spanking machine” a former councilmember once described the process as.
Since Measure J passed, the Davis housing process has ground to a halt and not much is likely to change any time soon.
According to data from the city, just over 700 single-family units have been actually 
built in the last 16 years.
The bottleneck is for the most part Measure J. Contrary to popular belief it’s not just the voting stage that is problematic—getting a project to the vote has been shown to be difficult as well.
A year ago, there emerged five potential Measure J projects. Palomino Place, by far the smallest of the projects, was able to utilize the fact that it is already part of the city to backdoor itself and avoid a Measure J vote.
Of the five projects, one appears likely to get approved and only two other projects are still in line to come before the voters—Village Farms and Shriners.
Here’s the thing: the projects have not really gone through the spanking machine just yet and already the number of possible units have been cut in virtual half. We don’t even have Draft EIRs yet.
Under the best of circumstances this is not lining up well. As we have seen with countless cities, the state is not just going to sit back and wait eight years to reevaluate the housing situation.
San Francisco, for example, the Times writes, “has fallen woefully short of its housing goals by tens of thousands of units.”
The adopted housing element calls for 82,000 units over an eight-year period for San Francisco. Since 2023, the city has only approved 3870.
Under the old rules, no big deal. But under the new rules of SB 423, San Francisco has much more limited discretion to review projects.
The city of Davis has an approved housing element for the sixth cycle, but it has to actually process housing to stay in compliance.
But more importantly, as we have explained time and time again, the city of Davis has a huge math problem. They have exhausted much of their available infill space in this cycle, which has prompted the council and staff to acknowledge they will need to go peripheral in order to be in compliance next cycle.
But under current rules that seems rather unlikely.
We have a few years still until we get to the seventh RHNA cycle, but given the length of time it takes to get projects approved in Davis, we should not be delaying.
We don’t yet know how many units we will have to build. I have operated under the assumption that the seventh cycle will look like the sixth cycle, but given the lack of state progress so far in the sixth cycle, it may be that the more aggressive numbers that the council put out in November will bear out.
For now, I would say at minimum we are looking at around 2000 overall units with half them being affordable in the low- and very low-income groups.
Shriners and Village are about 3000/500. That means that they have sufficient housing overall but not enough low-income housing to meet the needs.
To comply with Measure J both projects would need to be approved AND the city is going to have to find another 500 low-income units somehow.
That’s tantamount to drawing an inside straight-flush—it’s technically possible (I think) but it requires everything to actually pan out.
And that hasn’t happened.
This is why I start getting frustrated about things like commissions—the council burned a lot of good will on a merger that was not a must-do and only a nice-to-have (maybe! At best!).
The commission decision which was not essential will make it much harder—and unnecessarily so—to get the revenue measure passed.
In the meantime, the heaviest lifts figure to be a General Plan update and a Measure J Amendment.
How we are going to get two large peripheral projects approved by a pissed off active electorate without addressing the structural issues that have contributed to, if not outright caused, the housing crisis?
A lot of people don’t believe me—the state would love nothing better than to take out Measure J and open the spigots for growth in Davis. San Francisco is a far larger and more inviting target. But the state has proven to be aggressive and persistent. Right now, Davis can’t get out of its own way to make sure it stays in compliance on housing.
According to data from the city, just over 700 single-family units have been actually built in the last 16 years.
David – You keep citing this number as evidence that no new housing is being developed in Davis. But then you and others otherwise repeatedly claim we do not need new single family stand-alone homes but more dense multi-family housing to balance Davis’ housing stock.
There has seemingly been a rush of apartment building that have gone up in the Davis/UCD area over the past 5 years (e.g. on Russell, 5th St, Olive Dr, two on Cowell Blvd, and of course West Village) to the extent that (as was told to me) the apartment vacancy rate has risen from around 1% to a healthy 5% in Davis.
Can you tell your readers how many apts have been brought on-line (or are currently under construction) in Davis over the same period? I think that would present a more balanced view of the true state of housing in Davis. Thank you
Alan –
Just to be clear, I never said there is no need for new single family housing. Others have. That’s a debate within the portion of the community that favors more housing.
That said, I have pointed out in the past, that I use that number as an indicator because it illustrates the lack of housing we have built over the last 16 years.
Here is the total units: https://www.davisvanguard.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/HE-2022-Total-Units.jpg
Here is the breakdown by type: https://www.davisvanguard.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/HE-2022-Unit-Types.jpg
You can see from the second chart that almost all of the housing is student housing – and yes, we needed to build more student housing in town, but we also need family housing and have not built it.
The problem I have with your oft-repeated “700 single-family units” argument is that all you do is wield it as a sound bite. If you truly believe that Davis needs family housing, I would expect that you might drill down into the 700 single family units that were actually built to see what proportion of them could actually be afforded by the families you appear to be advocating for. My suspicion is that very, very few of the 700 were purchased by the kind of families you reference in your comment above.
I’ve also been struck by the near complete absence of any analysis on your part of the June 24th proposal Rich Rifkin recently put forward. For those who have not read that proposal it covers the following points:
Correct. They should put it on the ballot and let the voters decide. I suggest you stop trying to micromanage the housing types.
Don, it is very hard to have micromanagement when (as Keith Echols has so clearly pointed out over and over and over again) there isn’t even macromanagement.
That’s an interesting point. To Keith I suggested that Measure J was an over-correction. I would argue that Measure J makes it very difficult to manage housing. I believe that you are attempting to over-correct for that in a different way and attempting to somehow dictate to the private market how to build the housing, which I don’t believe works – in part because it’s not based on a cost assessment or market realities.
David, what you appear to be saying is that you believe developers can not manage their costs effectively enough to make a profit when building 1,200 (plus or minus) square foot homes. What is your rationale for that belief?
I don’t believe I said that.
David, you did not explicitly say it, but you very clearly implicitly said it.
But to get this off a he said, she said impasse, do you believe Davis developers can effectively manage their costs so that they make a profit from a development where none of the residential units exceeds 1,200 square feet?
It depends. Unit size is just one variable among many that would determine viability.
What are the other variables?
You have to stop framing the discussion as “The Housing CRISIS”. For god’s sake, it’s mostly about people not being able to live where they DESIRE to live.
On the other hand there’s the actual issue about the quality of life about the CURRENT residents of Davis. I (and others) have tried to make as the more important or primary topic is the city of Davis’ ECONOMIC DEVEOPMENT and FISCAL HEALTH of which housing and all it’s mandates are an important part of the equation.
You need to frame it in 2 simple pictures. One picture of a well planned community that has a major commercial component that pays into the city (sales and biz taxes) integrated with planned housing. The other picture is a of massive single family suburban sprawl and indicate how it’s a drain on the local economy. You can show a nicely well planned out peripheral new communities in Davis. Like a smaller version of Cordova Hills or be potentially forced by the state to allow builders to build endless peripheral suburban sprawl (endless single family houses) in/next to Davis (in fact, I’d advocate for something similar inside Davis on and near Russell). With no adjustments to Measure J or even better yet rescinding it; Davis could be on the road to uncontrolled residential growth with no way to plan and pay for it. Basically, commercial growth is even more important to the fiscal future of Davis and it’s ability to support at least it’s current quality of life for it’s residents. The majority of the mandatory housing growth imposed on Davis needs to be planned to integrated into those fiscal plans of which economic growth and development are half of the equation (also a significant amount of affordable housing is mixed in to the new housing growth too….though I’d advocate for a public development solution). It’s the integration and planning that makes residential growth support and bolster the commercial growth. Otherwise, if you’re just building houses to because a builder wants to build or because the state is forcing you to too…you’re likely creating a fiscal burden on the local community.
“You have to stop framing the discussion as “The Housing CRISIS”. For god’s sake, it’s mostly about people not being able to live where they DESIRE to live.”
At some level that’s true, I mean people don’t need things like homes, plumbing, electricity and such to actually survive. People can camp on the side of the road after all. Many do.
Or they could…I dunno…not live here. That’s what most people do when they can’t afford to live somewhere. Again, we’re talking about the majority of people in the housing market choosing not live in Davis because they’ve been priced out. So OH THE HORROR!!!!…they have to live in Woodland, Dixon or West Sac…etc.. I had to move from San Francisco because my family grew and we couldn’t afford to live there (public schools were horrible and private school was too expensive)…..you don’t hear me whining that San Francisco owes me an affordable house to live in. I’d like to live in Maui…but I don’t think Maui owes me a house I can afford to live in while taking surfing lessons.
You like many progressive extremists (who get an inflated sense of self righteousness over whatever their crusade is); conflate housing affordability and homelessness as completely one and the same thing…they’re related but not a 1 for 1 relationship. Homelessness is more of a socio-economic problem than it is a housing market problem. Yes, if we could build an unlimited number of houses then home prices would be cheap enough for almost everybody to live in. But that’s not the world we live in. It’s time to live in the real world. MOST RESIDENTIAL LAND IS PRIVATELY OWNED. That means most new homes are built to make money…not for people to live in. Until you change this fact…you can whine and complain about the housing market’s failure to provide housing for everybody…or accept that THE HOUSING MARKET DOES NOT HAVE THE ANSWER TO HOMELESSNES OR AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROBLEMS. Carve the this issue out as a separate issue to deal with. This is why I advocate for a public affordable housing solution. But the little bit of RHNA housing that is required to be built isn’t going to make much of a significant impact on the homeless situation. It’s also not going to do a damn thing about housing affordability in Davis either.
“Or they could…I dunno…not live here. That’s what most people do when they can’t afford to live somewhere. ”
I think the problem is the rising cost of housing at all levels.
You’re attributing this to progressives, but conservatives are also concerned about housing in California.
BINGO!
@David
Tell ya what; you retract your claws a little and I’ll retract mine some and let’s discuss this. Because despite my criticism of how you frame the housing issue, I was trying to provide a rational reason for the amendment and/or abolishment of Measure J (which I believe you support) to allow housing growth that incorporated good planning with the economic development and good fiscal planning in mind.
I attributed the irrational conflation of blaming the housing market on the homeless problem on EXTREME progressives. I believe extreme conservatives really don’t care too much about the homeless issue other than it lessens the quality of life of the community and impacts business at the local and state level. In theory the EXTREME conservatives believe it’s up to the homeless to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” to help themselves. Or at best communities on the local or even the individual level should do what they feel they can to help the homeless and not involve government. But sure, more moderate conservatives have plans for addressing the homeless issue too. My initial EXTREME progressive comment was a dig at you in response to your self righteous overly emotional and completely irrational response to my initial post (which again SUPPORTED your contention that Measure J needs to be changed).
Both of your comments show that you completely missed the point of my posts. Let me repeat:
Land owners generally seek to get the highest sales price when they sell to builders
Builders build with the intention of making the most profit they can.
Builders build where they can increase the value of a community. (Gentrification). This results in the home prices going up in markets where home prices are usually already rising. The intentional gentrification effect is greater than any additions to the housing stock will make on the housing supply in terms of housing prices.
So again, I will repeat: as long as property is still a private asset, treat the housing market and the socio-economic problem of homelessness as a mostly separate problem.
Fair enough.
In my view, the basic problem with the housing market is scarcity due to over regulation at the local level and land control issues. I partially agree with your statement that the housing market does not have the answer… except that I believe that the housing scarcity exacerbates both homelessness and unaffordable housing. With that said, I also believe the solution for affordable housing is created by having market rate housing subsidize low income housing. I also believe that the solution to homelessness is combination of finding more low income housing and creating permanent supportive housing – most of which will have to be funded by the government but some of which can be siphoned from market rate housing.
With respect to Measure J, I believe as currently written it does not work. It is an overcorrection to the problem of runaway growth and it needs to be amended or the state or the courts will come in and end it.
Hey, I’m all about cleaning up the over regulation. I’ve had projects stall and even die because of regulations and the local political slog that slows the approval process to a crawl. So again, I’m the number one fan of reducing and streamlining regulation. But let me tell you that even if you gave developers a rubber approval stamp; they’re not going to build our way to the point where supply significantly impacts affordability. Once again, let me restate that builders build not to house people but to make the most money they can by housing people. Building is expensive. Yes land is a huge variable (the biggest). But there’s also the ever increasing cost of labor and materials. We’re not building software….building homes is a major labor and materials intensive investment. There’s also availability of infrastructure and natural resources….like water. All these things act as constraints on home building. Building is a big financial risk. It’s why builders make sure to build in growing markets that they can add value too (gentrify) to mitigate those risks.
Market rate housing scarcity effects a segment of the homeless population but not the largest. So yes, building more housing may marginally effect some but most with housing problems have socio-economic problems like chronic unemployment (possibly due to disability), crushing medical debt and the big one: mental health problems. If you want to help these people you need create shelters, heavily subsidized housing, major health care and social services outreach programs. Or let me put to you this way; how many of the homeless in tents in Davis will be helped by the construction of Village Farms? Will there be some affordable housing built yes. Will it help house people in the lower end socio-economic scale? Yes. But will those affordable homes help the homeless in tents? Probably not. And I’d argue that the effects of gentrification adversely effect housing affordability more so than the number of affordable units that are produced. Again, the affordable units produced help but they’re sort of a consolation prize which will never help the community achieve any sort of victory over the homeless problem.
You’re mostly or sort of right here. Yes the government will have to be involved for funding. But think of the government as your uncle that gives you seed money to create the product/service and company you envision. It’s start up funds. Government money isn’t the long term solution. As for siphoning off of market rate housing. Yes. But HOW? Government can push for inclusionary housing. But again, that’s the consolation prize. We can tax people but you can only tax so much from people. Plus at some point by taxing new home buyers you’re only exacerbating the market you’re trying to cool down. The key is to create a nearly self sustaining financial model for funding affordable housing. And I’ve state many times that cities should become their own developers and land owners of public housing. They can create long term public housing that has workforce and affordable that are funded by the market rate units. I said before: this isn’t a foreign concept even in Davis where the city owns a market rate apartment complex that funds it’s affordable housing fund/initiatives. For profit builders grow and produce housing and pocket the profits. Why can’t cities build homes, grow their portfolio and use the profits to grow too?
As I initially stated: paint the picture that Measure J as it is could potentially CAUSE RUNAWAY GROWTH because the city could lose oversite and control of future proposed projects because it fails to meet the RHNA. This would cause negative impacts on the community in the forms of unfunded infrastructure and services costs to the new residents. The alternative is controlled and planned growth that benefits the community through integrated commercial planning with residential growth.
David, that was a cheap catty response.