Davis's Planning Commission on Oct. 28 voted to send a set of recommendations from its land use subcommittee, Commissioners Vince McLaughlin and Greg Rowe, to city staff and the consultants writing the city's 2050 General Plan. Three commissioners were absent and the alternate voted; the commission approved four recommendations by voice vote and skipped a fifth as too similar to the first. They call for an easy-to-use map and inventory of city-owned land that could be developed, a General Plan policy to make city land more productive and consider using non-essential parcels to attract private investment in housing, offices and retail, and a study of that land. They also ask the plan to recommend moving city operations out of the corporation yard on Fifth Street so about 8 acres there could be zoned for high-density housing near downtown, the subject of a feasibility study the council has already commissioned.
On open space, the subcommittee recommended against any modification, consolidation or swapping of open space and conservation easements, which it found carry perpetual restrictions that are extremely difficult to change, including on the Wildhorse golf course, and asked for an updated easement map in the plan. It also recommended an updated map of all flood-prone land and identifying funding for a comprehensive stormwater and flood control plan, and a condensed public inventory of the city's roughly 54 property leases, 48 of which were producing revenue, without financial details that the subcommittee said could put the city at a disadvantage.
Most public comment was about the revised Draft Land Use Map, which the city's consultants first presented at an Oct. 14 workshop. The acting chair of a Wildhorse neighborhood association said the map's urban limit line now reaches far to the northeast and northwest, to Road 29 on the north and Road 105 on the east, and that a landfill buffer zone, FEMA floodplain and high-quality farmland would sharply limit what could be built there; the speaker said the new line was introduced at the workshop without explanation. Other speakers objected to two areas the map shows on the Village Farms site north of Channel A, which they described as industrial and as floodplain with possible contamination, after voters rejected development there, and some asked the city to rule out data centers. The map's legend designates both areas Business Park/R&D, a proposed new designation the city describes as larger-scale clustered office buildings for research and development, tech and biotech, rather than Industrial, a separate designation that includes heavy industry, warehousing and logistics. Speakers also said the process was moving too fast, that the maps were new on the day of the workshop, and that the growth they implied would overwhelm city infrastructure and water supplies. One speaker warned of a referendum effort if residents' input was ignored.
Staff said a City Council subcommittee, responding to public comment, had directed them to remove the land uses the council had approved for Village Farms after that project failed at the ballot and to suggest alternatives; the two Business Park/R&D areas, which staff also referred to as proposed industrial areas, are staff's suggestion, and staff said they connect better to the north than to the south and the rest of town. Principal Planner Dara Dungworth said two fields on either side of Emerson Junior High were not meant to be shown as high-density residential and will be changed back to school property. Staff said the Davis Planning Area, about 160 square miles, dates to the 1987 General Plan and was meant as a buffer between Davis and Woodland; it is not a legal boundary like the sphere of influence. Dungworth said the map is an early draft: the council will direct further changes after reviewing it, and policy work later can change it again.
Commissioner Alan Bennett called the revised map a big improvement over the last version but said anything north of Channel A should come off it because it is so inflammatory. Many people had read the larger urban limit line as a prescription for something like 25,000 new homes, Bennett said, but in Bennett's view it provides flexibility for different kinds of development, most of which will not happen. Rowe said the map's depiction of Village Farms, with a habitat and open space preserve of about 47 acres plus high- and medium-density housing, tells property owners what the city wants there, and said the city should settle whether contamination left from its old burn pit and disposal site near Village Farms can be cleaned up. Citing a former member of the city's budget and finance committee, Rowe said the city has about $265 million in unfunded infrastructure costs, $240 million in unfunded pension costs and $40 million in other retiree benefit costs, and argued the plan should tell investors Davis is open for business. McLaughlin called flood risk the single biggest obstacle to growth outside city limits and said requiring each developer to do its own flood study discourages building, especially by affordable housing developers.
Earlier, a commissioner asked how the draft map would be reconciled with the current General Plan, which designates land within one mile of the landfill and the sewage treatment plant as open space and says homes are prohibited there because of health concerns, and how an urban limit line reaching Road 29 and Road 105 would square with Yolo LAFCo's farmland conservation policies, which a comment letter raised. The commissioner said those apparent conflicts need to be resolved as the plan moves forward.
The city's third General Plan survey, on the draft maps, is open until Friday, Nov. 13, on the General Plan Update website; its questions differ from those asked at the workshop. A webinar repeating the workshop presentation was scheduled for Oct. 29. The Transportation Commission reviews the draft mobility map Nov. 9. On Dec. 9, in place of the Planning Commission's meeting, the General Plan Committee, made up of representatives of the city's commissions, will consider a revised land use map along with all the public input. The map then returns to the Planning Commission in early 2027 and after that goes to the City Council.