This special meeting of the Davis City Council was convened primarily for a public hearing on the Village Farms Davis project, a proposed 1,800-unit development on approximately 497 acres north of Covell Boulevard. The Council considered certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR), a General Plan Amendment, prezone, Development Agreement, and ballot measures for a June 2, 2026 special election. The meeting lasted from 6:30 p.m. to approximately 12:30 a.m. and included extensive public comment, staff presentations, and Council deliberation.
I'm just trying to even everyone. And welcome to the January 20th regular meeting of the Davis City Council. Please come on in. There's still lots of seats left. Please go ahead. I'm going to first of all recognize that all of my colleagues are here in attendance. And first item of business is just to approve this evening's agenda. Is there a motion to approve? Moved by Councilmember Dio, seconded by Councilmember Chapman. All in favor of approval of the agenda say aye. Aye. Aye. Any no's abstentions. Hearing none, the agenda is approved unanimously. And now I'm going to turn it over to City Manager Dunstan for some brief announcements. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Two quick announcements this evening. It's annual beautification event on January 24th from 9 a.m. to noon. This is in partnership with the city's open space program. And we are asking participants to meet at all at the Owl Drive entrance. Supplies will be provided. And just a reminder that any youth under the age of 13 must be accompanied by an adult. And we are asking folks to register at Puta Creek Council.org backslash events. And just another reminder about the Children's Summer Activity Fair being held on February 18th at the Veterans Memorial Center from 5 30 to 7 p.m. This is an opportunity for parents to check out all of the programming that the city provides. If you're interested in your child participating in summer program, this is a great opportunity to learn more about that and how you can register for those events or seek more information from staff. Again, that's February 18th at the Veterans Memorial Center between 5 30 and 7 p.m. And that concludes my announcements, Madam Mayor. Great. Thank you, City Manager Dunstan. Are there any reports of two buys or jurisdictional attendances or commissions from my colleagues? Seeing none. Very good. We will now turn our attention to item two, which is the item I'm sure that you are all here for, and that is a public hearing on village farms. And for just a moment before I turn it over to staff, I just want to make a couple of brief comments. Tonight, as you know, this is a hearing that is made up of many different parts. Within this single hearing that we are conducting tonight, we'll be making some potential minor changes to our general plan. We'll be doing some work on pre-zoning for the project, as well as planned use development work. That's part one. Part two deals with land use entitlements that contains issues like the baseline features for the project and the development agreement. Part three of the hearing is the environmental impact report, which has been prepared under the California Environmental Quality Act. And part four is a series of smaller actions but very important actions that would potentially certify the project for the ballot. But what I want to be sure that everyone here in attendance knows is that we will do a single round of public comment on all aspects of the hearing. I want to be sure you know that when we do open it up for public comment on the item, whatever your issue is, whether it's the development agreement, the EIR, or whatever, that will be your opportunity to offer public comment on the item. And I'll repeat that later for those who may come in late. And we're going to follow the same general format that we do for all items of this nature. We'll have a staff presentation on the project that will include a brief presentation from our CEQA consultant. And then the applicant will have the opportunity to provide a brief presentation as well. And then unless there are some brief uh clarifying comments here from the dais from my colleagues, we will turn to public comment and then we'll come back to the dais for our deliberations and actions.