Davis, California, is a small city of about 64,000 in Yolo County. Adjacent to Davis is the University of California Davis (UC Davis), a large and growing university with approximately 40,000 students and 25,000 employees. While the UC Davis campus is not within Davis city limits, more than 60 percent of its students reside within the municipality.  

Due in part to the growing student population and land use regulations designed to limit growth and preserve agricultural land, housing in Davis has been a complex and sometimes contentious issue. For example, in 2024, campus neighbors sued UC Davis to block West Village, a large proposed development for students and faculty. Similarly, in 2007, other residents sued the city to block the expansion of a student room house close to campus. In 2018, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees also sued UC Davis to block the implementation of the university’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) and expansion of West Village. Each lawsuit contended that these projects did not undergo a proper environmental review, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). 

Davis has experienced a very low housing vacancy rate and an increase in rent prices that has outpaced inflation. Between 2017 and 2018, the average rent for an apartment increased by 8.5 percent. According to the 2022 Joint Annual Housing Report, from 2015 to 2019, 16.6 percent of renter households in Davis were cost-burdened, and 39.4 percent were severely cost-burdened. Rising rents and low vacancy rates have motivated some renters to move outside of Davis. Additionally, the city has seen higher rental unit occupancy as renters share bedrooms or repurpose other rooms as bedrooms.

In 2018, as the school’s expanding student population occupied an increasing share of the city’s housing stock, tensions developed between UC Davis and the city. Specifically, the city expressed concerns over the university’s LRDP, which projected a 5,000-student increase in enrollment between 2017 and 2018 along with the addition of 9,050 student housing beds on campus. Officials and planners from the City of Davis stated the LRDP did not adequately address the environmental, housing, traffic, and other impacts of planned growth. They also said the plans for new construction were not bound to an enforceable timeline. The city demanded that the university house more students on campus and provide compensation for the strain that the large student population placed on public services. 

In response, UC Davis agreed to enter into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the city and Yolo County to address their concerns. According to background information included in the MOU, the city and county indicated in July 2018 that they might pursue litigation if UC Davis approved the LRDP and the West Village expansion. In order to resolve their differences, the three parties agreed to mediation and development of the MOU. 

The MOU committed UC Davis to building more housing for students and faculty. The university agreed to a multi-year set of housing construction benchmarks that would ultimately increase the number of student housing beds by 15,000 by the fall of 2023. Additionally, UC Davis consented to provide on-campus housing to cover all student population growth (i.e., all additional students who enroll beyond the 33,825 enrolled at the time of the MOU). To hold the university accountable to this plan, the MOU required that it pay $500 per bed for all beds not completed as promised. If the university had to pay these fees, 80 percent of the funds would go to the City of Davis and the remaining 20 percent to Yolo County. 

In the MOU, UC Davis also committed to end the practice of holding master leases, which allowed the university to set aside apartments in the city for university students instead of housing them on campus. This placed extra strains on the already tight rental market. Before the MOU, UC Davis held such leases on apartment buildings in the City of Davis to ensure that transfer students, who are admitted to the university later than other students, could find housing.

Additionally, the MOU outlined a joint transportation plan that included traffic improvements and investment in alternative transportation, including bike and pedestrian infrastructure and a plan for Transportation Demand Management (TDM). The university agreed to make financial contributions and approvals for a variety of traffic projects, including an interchange, road improvements, a bike path, and landscaping and lighting enhancements. It also committed to inviting representatives from the city to its working group on its bus system, Unitrans, which serves the campus and surrounding neighborhoods in Davis. 

The MOU also formalized a stronger partnership between the university and the city. It established an annual public meeting to be attended by the Chancellor of UC Davis and elected Davis officials. It also required two additional public meetings in the first year after the MOU was established to be attended by two members of the Davis City Council, two members of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, and two high-ranking employees of the university, including one employee with the rank of vice-chancellor or higher. The city and university also agreed to hold four working group meetings annually to produce written reports for the public. 

In addition to these meetings, the MOU mandated a continuing strategic partnership and collaboration between the city, county, and university. As part of this collaboration, UC Davis committed to conducting an economic and fiscal analysis of the university’s impacts on the City of Davis and the surrounding area.

The university also made a series of financial commitments to lessen the strain on public services. It agreed to pay the equivalent of the city’s parcel taxes for school and library services for any new projects that will house university faculty or staff on and off campus. It also waived its right to seek a property tax exemption for master leases in the 2019-20 academic year, the final year it used them. The university also agreed to contribute $25,000 a year to Davis’s Rental Resources Program, which provides renter education and works to ensure that rental units are safe and compliant with state and local laws.

Finally, the MOU stipulated that the City of Davis and Yolo County would not take legal action against the UC Davis LRDP nor challenge the CEQA-required environmental impact report the university completed for its proposed West Village expansion. The city and county agreed to support the LRDP and West Village expansion and issued a joint public statement.