Rich Rifkin: Approving Village Farms will reduce our housing shortage

By Rich Rifkin. Special to The Enterprise Apr 27, 2026

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Does Davis need more housing?

That, I believe, should be the first question voters consider when casting their ballots on Measure V — the Village Farms proposal — in our June primary election.

Most of the demand for housing in our community is driven by growth at UC Davis. That starts with more new students. There were 39,414 enrolled at the university last fall. Undergrads made up 31,965 of those.

UC Davis received 122,271 undergraduate applications for fall 2026. That was up 1.8% over the previous year. Both were new records.

While it’s reasonable to expect the university to build dorms to accommodate the increase in each freshman class, the vast majority of sophomores, juniors and seniors want and need housing in Davis.

That’s similar with most new graduate and professional students. Many might prefer to live in an on-campus apartment their first year at UC Davis. But they too like to live in the city and be a part of our community after they’ve been here a year.

For decades, Davis has had a serious shortage of student housing. Growth in the student population has been much faster than growth in the number of dorms and apartments. Not only has that driven up rents. It has pushed groups of students to live in older single-family houses in town, reducing the supply for families with children.

The housing shortage and high rents in Davis have also driven students to live in Winters, Woodland, West Sacramento and Dixon. They drive into and out of Davis morning and night.

As a result of recent on-campus housing construction, it’s true that the apartment vacancy rate in the city of Davis is not as bad now as it had been earlier this decade. That in turn has resulted in a small decrease in rents.

But it remains unlikely that the apartment vacancy rate will be in a healthy 5-10% range as the university admits more students, unless we build a lot more housing in Davis.

Growth in the student population at the university drives growth in faculty, staff and other employment on campus, and those new people need housing, too. Yet for decades we have failed to build homes for thousands of people who work on campus.

According to a recent survey conducted by the administration, only 31% of people who work on the main campus of UC Davis live in Davis. The other 69% are commuting in — largely by private automobile — from nearby cities.

They cannot afford the high prices charged in Davis for apartments or rental houses. They also don’t make enough money to pay the roughly 100% premium per square foot to purchase a home in Davis compared with Woodland, Dixon, Winters, etc.

So I think it is obvious: we need more housing in Davis. It’s also plain to see we especially need more large apartment complexes for students and for-sale units that are affordable for younger faculty and staff.

As I wrote in a column last November, I don’t think the mix of housing included in the Village Farms proposal is ideally suited for the shortages Davis faces. The developer’s proposal — which the City Council approved and has put on our ballot — includes 213.2 acres of residences.

Of that, 28.8% (61.4 acres) will be for low density single-family housing; 63.7% (135.8 acres) medium-density single-family housing and duplexes; and 7.5% (16 acres) high density apartments, including 360 units that are “affordable.”

The rest of the land will be dedicated to agriculture (114.9 acres), parks, greenbelts, sports fields, roads, a natural habitat area (47.1 acres), a pre-kindergarten site and a few other amenities.

One of the main complaints by opponents of this project is additional congestion on our streets. In fact, it is the first point they make in the official ballot argument against Measure V: “Massive traffic, adding over 15,000 car trips daily near Covell Boulevard and Pole Line Road.”

That ignores what the traffic impact of not building housing in Davis will be.

With a substantial percentage of students, faculty and staff who study or work on the UC Davis campus now driving into Davis every day, our streets are jammed. Yet because they live in other cities and drive here, we get the road damage from their vehicles but not the property taxes to help repair them.

That’s one reason why Woodland’s pavement is substantially better than ours in Davis.

So if we reject Measure V, we will compound the traffic and air pollution problems in Davis. Students and workers who might have traveled to campus by bicycle, e-bike or Unitrans will be driving cars on Russell Blvd, Covell Blvd, Pole Line Road and many other Davis streets. A no vote means worse traffic in Davis.

Another argument offered by those against Village Farms is the fear of groundwater toxins from the old landfill “leaking to Village Farms.”

This seems to be much ado about nothing. It’s not the case that the domestic water for the residents at Village Farms will be sourced from on-site wells. They will get the same high quality drinking water as everyone else in Davis.

Other opponents believe, instead of peripheral growth on farmland, we should just build infill. Perhaps. But if we are short several thousand housing units in Davis, they don’t say where the buildings will go, explain how much units will cost or who will build them.

Davis approved three large infill housing projects on G Street a few years ago. None have been built. Why not? Dense construction is, unfortunately, too expensive to generate a profit.

While I am not wildly enthusiastic about Measure V, it will make a dent in our housing shortage. That will lower costs for buyers and renters. That’s much better than building homes for UC Davis workers and students — in distant cities.

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— Rich Rifkin is a Davis resident; his column is published every other week. Reach him at Lxartist@yahoo.com.