Measure V Lost by 276 Votes. Measure W Is on Your Ballot Now.
Willowgrove, 1,250 homes in northeast Davis, goes to voters November 3. Here’s what it is, how it stacks up against Village Farms, and why the last one came down to a few hundred people.
Measure V didn’t lose because Davis said no. It lost because 276 more people said no than said yes, while more than 14,000 registered voters never weighed in.
That’s the part of the Village Farms story that should keep everyone in this town up at night, whichever way you voted. The next housing vote is already here. Ballots went out October 5. And this time there’s almost no campaign noise to remind you it’s happening.
- What
- Measure W — amends the Davis General Plan to approve Willowgrove, changing the land from Agriculture to residential and park uses.
- Where
- About 232 acres on Davis’s northeast edge, north of Covell, next to Wildhorse and Mace Ranch, beside Harper Junior High.
- How many homes
- 1,250, including 250 deed-restricted affordable homes and 288 “attainable” townhomes and condos.
- Election Day
- Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Polls open 7 a.m.–8 p.m.
- To pass
- A simple majority of Davis voters.
- Why you’re voting at all
- Davis’s Measure J/R/D requires a citywide vote before farmland on the edge of town can be converted to housing.
- Opposition
- None filed. No ballot argument against Measure W was submitted by the July deadline.
The dates that matter
Mailed ballots count if they’re postmarked by Election Day and arrive within seven days. Check your registration at voterstatus.sos.ca.gov, or register at registertovote.ca.gov.
What Measure W actually is
Willowgrove is the project of local landowner Jim Koppert. It has been through about four years of planning and, by the applicant’s count, more than 70 public meetings. The Planning Commission approved it 7–0. The City Council approved it 5–0 in May and put it on the ballot.
Here’s what’s in the package. Each item is a “Baseline Project Feature”, which means it is locked in and can’t be significantly changed later without another public vote:
- Housing: 1,250 homes. Of those, 250 (20%) are deed-restricted affordable, built in one phase with no city money, with The Pacific Companies as the affordable-housing partner. Another 288 (23%) are “attainable by design” townhomes and condos that the campaign says start around $480,000.
- Housing for adults with disabilities: at least 20 affordable homes for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, in partnership with Alta California Regional Center.
- Money for affordable housing: at least $6.8 million from the developer, including $1.8 million to the City Housing Trust Fund.
- Parks: more than 70 acres of open space, parks and trails, anchored by a 17-acre community park with an indoor gym and lighted fields. The developer pays for $21 million or more of park improvements.
- Roads: more than $11 million in traffic improvements along East Covell, the Mace corridor and the I-80 interchanges. Access uses the existing undercrossing of East Covell.
- Farmland: roughly 187 acres would be converted. On October 6 the council advanced a plan to permanently protect 374 acres of Bullseye Farms, just northwest of town, under a conservation easement held by the city and the Yolo Land Trust. That is the city’s required 2-to-1 ratio, and the easement takes effect only if W passes.
- Timeline: groundbreaking planned for 2027, with first residents in 2028.
One structural difference matters more than any bullet: Willowgrove already has a city-approved subdivision map. The lots, streets and parks are drawn and approved before you vote, not promised for later. Supporters say it’s the first project in Davis to do that.
Measure W vs. Measure V, side by side
| Measure V Village Farms · June 2 | Measure W Willowgrove · Nov 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Homes | ~1,800 | 1,250 |
| Site | ~498 acres, Pole Line & Covell | ~232 acres, northeast Davis |
| Guaranteed affordable | 360 units on donated land, with no guarantee they get built | 250 deed-restricted units, built in one phase with no city funds |
| Subdivision map before the vote | No | Yes |
| Organized opposition | Yes — loud and well organized | None filed |
| Election type | June primary | November general |
| Result | Failed by 276 votes | You decide |
The 276-vote lesson
Here are the certified Measure V numbers, so nobody has to rely on a flyer to know what happened in June.
The dashed line is 50%. Measure V finished 1.2 points short of it.
Put those numbers next to each other:
- The margin was 1.2 percentage points. In a town of about 37,000 voters, that’s fewer than one in every hundred registered voters.
- 139 people changing their minds would have flipped the result. That’s fewer people than a busy Saturday morning at the Farmers Market.
- About 14,000 registered Davis voters didn’t cast a vote on Measure V. That’s more than 50 times the margin.
Two neighborhoods decided Measure V. The rest of Davis, taken together, voted yes.
That isn’t a slogan. It’s the precinct math. The Davis Vanguard broke down the certified precinct results. The two precincts closest to the Village Farms site, including much of Covell Farms, voted no by a combined 1,467 votes. Every other precinct in Davis combined voted yes by 1,191. Subtract one from the other and you get exactly 276.
That doesn’t make the neighbors wrong. The people living next to a project have the most at stake, and they showed up. That’s how this is supposed to work. But it’s the clearest proof you’ll ever get that in Davis housing votes, turnout is the result. The people who vote decide what Davis looks like for the people who didn’t.
Read the fine print
Willowgrove is a cleaner package than Village Farms on paper. That’s exactly when you should read it most carefully, especially with no opposing argument in your voter guide to test it.
That headline adds two different things together. 20% is deed-restricted affordable housing, legally required to stay affordable. The other 23% are smaller market-rate homes. Smaller and cheaper is useful, but it isn’t the same as guaranteed affordable.
Run it through the same math we used for Measure V: 20% down, a 6.8% 30-year loan, about 1.1% property tax, plus insurance. That’s roughly $3,080 a month before HOA dues. A conventional lender would want around $132,000 a year in household income, plus about $108,000 in cash up front. The median Davis household earns about $90,000. That’s a lot closer than an $877K resale home, but it’s still out of reach for a median family.
The campaign’s own materials don’t agree on this. The Yes on W site says a $15 million surplus to the city over 15 years, conditional on long-term maintenance funding. Earlier campaign materials reported by the Davis Vanguard said $5 million. Either way, it’s a projection, not a guarantee.
The campaign projects 700+ new students next door to Harper Junior High. For a district worried about declining enrollment, that’s the point. It’s also 1,250 households sharing East Covell at rush hour. The $11M in road money is real, but whether it’s enough is the question to ask.
Steelman both sides
The serious case
This is what Measure J/R/D was supposed to produce: a project negotiated in public, with affordability, parks, farmland protection and road money locked in before the vote, and a subdivision map already approved. Davis hasn’t added family housing in a generation. The state keeps tightening the screws on cities that don’t build, and supporters argue that approving a good project is how Davis keeps its right to vote on growth. If not this one, which one?
The serious case
No one filed an argument against W, but the reasons Davis has said no before still apply. It is peripheral growth onto prime farmland. It adds traffic on a corridor that’s already busy. And the 2-to-1 easement protects farmland elsewhere; it doesn’t keep this land farmed. The “affordable” headline leans on market-rate homes most Davis renters still can’t buy, and the fiscal promises are projections. A no isn’t a vote against housing. It’s a vote for infill first and against pushing the city’s edge outward again.
No opposition doesn’t mean it passes
Here’s the uncomfortable part for supporters, for opponents and for everyone who skipped June: quiet elections are the easiest ones to lose by accident. With no organized No campaign, there are fewer mailers, fewer yard signs and fewer reasons for anyone to remember Measure W is on the ballot. A measure nobody is fighting can still fail if the people who like it assume it’s already won.
Measure V was decided by about one percent of the vote. Measure W will be decided the same way: by whoever bothers to vote. That isn’t a pitch for yes or for no. It’s a pitch for you deciding instead of the next 276 people.
- Check that you’re registered at your current Davis address, especially if you moved for the school year: voterstatus.sos.ca.gov
- Register by October 19, or use same-day registration at a vote center through Election Day.
- Read your voter guide: the impartial analysis and the one argument for W. Then read the fine print above.
- Return your ballot at a drop box or vote center by 8 p.m. Nov 3, or mail it postmarked that day.
- Bring one person with you. Measure V needed 139.
In June, Davis decided its biggest housing question in years by 276 votes. In November it gets another one. Show up for it.
— Brandon
Catch up on the last vote: Some Honest Thoughts on Measure V, and the Davis Real Estate dashboard behind the affordability math. MyDavis covers Davis straight: no developer money, no slate, no agenda except getting it right. If we got something wrong, tell us.
Sources & Methodology
- Measure V certified results (11,414 yes / 11,690 no / 276-vote margin): Yolo County certified canvass, as reported by the Davis Enterprise, “Yolo County primary election results: Measure V fails,” updated July 6, 2026, and the Davis Vanguard, July 8, 2026.
- Davis registered voters (37,251): Yolo County Elections figure reported by the Davis Vanguard, June 3, 2026. The “~62%” figure is votes cast on Measure V divided by registered voters. Total ballots returned were slightly higher, because some voters skipped the measure.
- Precinct breakdown (1,467 combined No margin in the two nearest precincts vs. 1,191 Yes margin elsewhere): Davis Vanguard analysis of certified precinct data, “Precinct Data Suggest Measure V Was Defeated by Neighborhood Opposition Closest to Village Farms,” July 2026.
- Measure W project features, approvals, fiscal and school projections: Davis Vanguard (July 30, July 2026, September 2026); The Aggie, October 6, 2026; Yes on Measure W: Willowgrove campaign site (campaign claims, marked as such).
- 374-acre agricultural mitigation plan: Davis Vanguard, “City Council Advances 374-Acre Mitigation Plan for Willowgrove Development,” October 8, 2026.
- Election dates and registration deadlines: California Secretary of State calendar for the November 3, 2026 General Election.
- Measure V project details (homes, acreage, affordable units): MyDavis, Some Honest Thoughts on Measure V, and the sources listed there.
- $480K affordability math is a MyDavis estimate: 20% down, 6.8% 30-year fixed, 1.1% effective property tax, insurance at 0.35% of price, and a 28% front-end debt-to-income ratio. HOA dues are excluded. Davis median household income ($90,045) is from the U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2019–2023. Illustrative only, not financial advice.