Two men walk through the barn under construction at The Cannery housing project in Davis during construction. The Cannery’s approval in 2013 was controversial, but today Davis faces renewed pressure to approve housing like Village Farms as shrinking school enrollment reflects the city’s declining population of young families.
Manny Crisostomo
Sacramento Bee file
The company behind Village Farms, a proposed 1,800-unit housing development on the northern edge of Davis that is seeking voter approval, has registered a committee to support the initiative.
The development, which received City Council approval last month, and will appear on the June 2 ballot as Measure V, according to the Yolo County Elections Office.
The committee, Yes on Village Farms Davis, filed incorporation documents with the California Secretary of State on Feb. 10. An amended filing document was received by the Davis City Clerk on Wednesday.
The committee’s principal officer, Doug Buzbee and Sandy Whitcombe, and treasurer Lydia Delis-Schlosser are all members of the Village Farms project management team, according to the filing. The committee had yet to report any donations or expenditures.
The committee’s goal was to “make sure Davis voters understand what Village Farms Davis will mean for our community,” Whitcombe said in a statement. “More housing at every income level, stronger schools, a healthier city budget, and over half the site preserved as open space and habitat.”
Opponents include a committee first formed in 2018 that has supported several ballot measures, including Measure D, the Davis law requiring voter approval to rezone agricultural land for urban use. The Citizens for Responsible Planning committee registered as the No on Measure V committee in a Feb. 5 filing. That committee also had not reported any donations or expenditures.
The No on Measure V committee listed Eileen Samitz — a retired microbiologist and medical technologist at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, as well as a former city planning commissioner — as its contact. Samitz worked on the land-use portion of the 2001 General Plan update and has been a vocal critic of the Village Farms development, citing what she described as an insufficient environmental impact review and an unorthodox approval process.
Samitz said she was concerned about potential flooding, toxic runoff, steep infrastructure costs and worsening traffic, all to serve a project she does not believe will be affordable to the young families the Davis Joint Unified School District hopes to attract.
“This project has a plethora of problems,” Samitz said. “It needs to go back to the drawing board.”
This story was originally published February 20, 2026 at 8:54 AM.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct Eileen Samitz’s job history.
Corrected Feb 20, 2026
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Daniel Lempres is an investigative reporter at The Sacramento Bee focused on government accountability. Before joining The Bee, his investigations appeared in outlets like the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.