The Davis City Council met on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, at 6:30 PM in the Community Chambers. The meeting focused on policy considerations for peripheral housing developments, including a workshop on traffic impact fee programs and climate/energy requirements for the Village Farms Davis and Willowgrove projects. The Council also approved the consent calendar, heard public comments, and adjusted the timeline for upcoming public hearings.
Policy Considerations for Peripheral Projects – Traffic Impact Fees (Item 4): Staff recommended Alternative 2: a focused fee program covering only Village Farms Davis and Willowgrove, using existing traffic analysis data. The study would cost $360,000 (to be split between the two projects) and take 4–6 months. Councilmembers Neville, Deos, Partida, and Chapman supported this option, emphasizing it would not delay project timelines. The motion passed 5-0.
Policy Considerations for Peripheral Projects – Climate and Energy (Microgrid): Staff presented three options: (1) defer microgrid requirements until the General Plan update, (2) create a community microgrid through ad hoc negotiations, or (3) pause processing of peripheral projects. Council discussion revealed lack of support for any of these binary options. The Council instead directed staff to work with the City’s new Climate Resilience Coordinator, Sam Blacklock, and the project subcommittees to develop a list of feasible climate resilience options (aligned with the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan) that would not trigger EIR recirculation or delay project timelines. This direction will be presented at the November 4 workshop.
Long-Range Calendar (Item 5): Staff proposed moving the public hearing for Village Farms from December 2 to December 16 to accommodate councilmember travel. The calendar was confirmed as: November 4 workshop, November 12 Planning Commission, December 16 City Council public hearing, and January 6 City Council public hearing.
Note: The meeting lacked formal minutes; this summary is based on the agenda and raw transcript.
Colleagues here present. Is there a motion to approve today's agenda? Councilmember Deos, is there a second? Second. Vice Mayor Neville. Any comments? All in favor say aye. Aye. Nay. Abstain. Motion passes five to zero. We have an agenda. Welcome everyone to the meeting of the Davis City Council Tuesday, September 30th, 2025. We'll start with brief announcements from our city manager Dunstan. Thank you. And good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of the council. And we are expecting over a hundred parties. And we're asking folks to have fun, but also to be safe. You can visit the city's website that's up on the screen for additional information. Tune into KDRT 95.7 FM for prizes and great music.org. And we also um want to highlight a great accomplishment, uh Campamento Allegre, uh, which is a summer program um in partnership with uh Davis Parks and Community Services, YOLO County Housing. Um, and these activities took place at the Davis Migrant Center, and there were five days of educational fun and activities. Um Campamento Allegre translates to happy camp. And we're super excited about uh this this successful program that's been in place for three years now. Um the activities were on site and uh offered in in Spanish, and we do want to acknowledge um donations from the offices of Supervisor Sheila Allen and Assembly Majority Leader uh Aguilar Curry because without their support that this wouldn't have been possible. Um and we also want to shout out YOLO County Housing and as well as our parks and community services department. Uh and that concludes my remarks, Mayor. Thank you, City Manager Dunstan. Are there any brief announcements or liaison reports for my colleagues? No. Uh is there any intention to pull items from the consent calendar? Great. We'll move on to public comment. Uh please come on up uh if you're in the house to give a comment on items that are not on today's agenda, or if they are and you can't stay. Please limit your comments to two minutes. Welcome. Hi, my name is Dorda Jensen. I live in Davis. Um, so I wanted to talk to you about the fact that you don't have uh police officer here anymore in the back of the chamber. I don't know why. Uh when I first started coming to see you guys and to give public comment, there was a police officer here in the back of the chamber uh just monitoring the situation. And I really appreciated that. I think it's a uh gives people a feeling of stability at order, the rule of law that we matter and uh things are going to be uh monitored properly. And so now we don't have a police officer back there. I don't know why. We don't have the police chief here either, as far as I know. I'm trying to look around and see if he's here. He's certainly not here in his um in his uniform. So it's just I don't know what the problem is. Um do you is there not enough people at the Davis police department now to spare somebody for your meetings?