Read The Bee endorsement in a controversial Davis housing measure | Opinion

In 2000, voters in the City of Davis approved a measure requiring a public vote on any proposal to expand city development into neighboring farmland. Ever since, voters have not approved a single project with new family housing.

Enrollment at UC Davis, meanwhile, has grown by more than 50%. The lack of new local housing has led to long commutes, high housing prices and declining school enrollment.

Measure V on the Davis ballot calls for development of about 400 acres of land off Covell Boulevard with about 1,800 residences suited for varying income levels. The project, called Village Farms, would be surrounded on three sides by existing neighborhoods. Where else should Davis possibly expand?

Measure V represents a logical expansion of the city’s urban footprint. If passed, it would signal that Davis’ intense system of democracy can function in a modern California desperate for more housing.

The Bee recommends Davis voters approve Measure V.

It is a smarter version of a housing proposal for the same land, known as Covell Village, that was put to a vote in 2005. Back then, public voting on developments was still new, with widespread civic fear that one expansion would lead to another. The Bee supported Covell Village then, saying at the time: “If voters reject this one, it may be a long time before they see anything — good, perfect or otherwise.”

How right we sadly were. It took the landowners nearly a generation to muster the courage to propose Village Farms. In the meantime, voters have approved only two expansions: a senior community that has already been constructed and a student housing complex that hasn’t.

Village Farms has gone through the wringer in the city’s exhaustive planning and public processes. The project includes affordable housing, townhomes and small single-family residences. Half the land is open space. After securing one concession after another, the Davis City Council unanimously approved the project before sending it to voters.

Some of the same activists who opposed Covell Village 21 years ago oppose Village Farms today for many of the same reasons, claiming that this intensely analyzed project did not identify risks from toxics, flooding and traffic.

Village Farms won’t ruin Davis as we know it. The concern about traffic is particularly backward. The no-growth tradition in Davis for the last quarter-century has led to long commutes for thousands of people working at the university. It makes all the sense in the world for this university community to accommodate its faculty, staff and students. If anything, Village Farms should have been more aggressive at ushering in denser and more affordable forms of housing.

Residents should be the city losing control of its own housing destiny. State housing officials have been watching Davis closely. The dearth of adequate affordable housing has led the city council to pledge placing a measure on the ballot to exempt from affordable housing from a public vote.

But the council has avoided placing this before voters twice. It clearly fears rejection by voters.

Measure V is a test of whether the city can confront its self-created housing crisis with a sensible expansion that its leaders fully support. Voting Yes represents a much-needed shift in what is politically possible when it comes to new housing in Davis.