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Tourism versus houses
Tourism versus houses
Bill Hocker | Sep 18, 2015 on: Growth Issues
In several recent editorials in the Napa Valley Register, here and here and here, a line of argument has been advanced that the residents that show up at planning commission meetings and APAC meetings in an effort to protect our communities from development are against the wine industry and opposed to agriculture. And that if tourism at wineries is not supported that the wine industry will die and housing projects will ensue. In fact, the arguments are simply scare tactics used by those who profit from tourism in the county.
The Napa wine industry is healthy because there is a world wide respect for the quality of its wines and hence a world wide market for their sale. The reputation was initially established by a tasting abroad. The reputation continues to be upheld by tastings around the world. Despite the mega-amounts of tourism now coming into the valley, promoted by Visit Napa Valley and hundreds of tourist attractions, the vast majority of Napa wine drinkers around the world will probably not travel here; and if they do it will probably be because they already know the quality, not because they need to be sold on it.
It is natural that the home of a product of such renown would be a place of pilgrimage for afficianodos and the Napa Valley has always welcomed appreciative visitors. Tourism is the valley's second largest business. But let's not confuse the two industries. The tourism industry did not establish the reputation of Napa wines, nor build their market. That was done by previous generations of vintners and entrepreneurs willing to do the legwork necessary to establish the brand on the world stage. The tourism industry exploits their effort.
It is also worth noting that some of the most respected wines in the valley, e.g. Screaming Eagle, Harlan, Dominus, allow no tourism whatsoever. The notion that the wine industry would not exist without the tourism industry is simply a tourism industry invention. In fact, it is quite possible that by associating Napa wines with gigantic chrome rabbits, cable cars and tuscan castles and french and persian palaces, and by turning this mythical eden into one big traffic jam, that the negative reputation of this place as a tourist trap may be diminishing the respect accorded the wines.
By conflating tourism and the wine industry, the fear mongers intend to divert attention from the obvious erosion of our rural environment and small town life caused by ever increasing building development, rising housing costs, conversion of housing to short term rentals, and traffic. All of these negative impacts, exacerbated if not wholly created by an expanding tourism industry, are the price to be paid for no housing projects, the fear mongers argue. But the reality is just the opposite. As the tourism industry has expanded and more people visit and more workers are required to tend to them, and the commute traffic has increased, the pressure to develop more housing has only increased. Traffic mitigation and affordable housing are now at the top of the NVV solution list to deal with the fallout from their embrace of tourism; more development to try to ease the impacts of previous development.
Let's be clear about what the residents are now arguing for at these public meetings. This battle is not about what the Valley is now. Its not an attempt to diminish the current profits of the tourism industry or the wine industry, an economy which has created a place treasured by all. (although we do wish for wineries to live with their use permits.) It is a battle about the future of this place. Part of that future has already happened, though it isn't visible yet: more than 70 new or expanded winery projects have been approved by the planning commission but have yet to be built - their visitors, (900,000/yr), and their employees have yet to arrive. (Enormous amounts of non-winery development, like Napa Pipe, are on their way as well.) And part of that future that is about to happen: more than 40 new or expanded wineries are currently in the planning department awaiting their day before the planing commission with a known 200,000 visitors/yr and more to come. (Enormous amounts of non-winery development, like Watson Ranch, are also in the planning stages.) But there is a third future to be fought for beyond those - the projects that haven't yet arrived at the planning departments. It is this future that all the effort at APAC and that the visitation discussions at the Planning Commission are all about. The skirmishing over projects currently being proposed and use permits being abused are at the fringes of the effort to protect the future character of the county.
The residents that show up in the meetings are there because we feel this to be a unique and wonderful place to live - and we see with an objectivity unclouded by profit motives a direction that is beginning to damage all that is beautiful here. Slowing the development clock has been tried in the various slow growth initiatives currently in place to limit development, but the development continues to come. We need to think now about how development may be stopped so that the impacts that we already feel can be worked on. The goal is that the future character of the county remain somewhat the same as it is today. The alternative is that it will be something different. A better place to live? Unlikely.
The wine industry and the tourism industry have managed thus far to allow a relatively rural economy in an urban world. But the impacts of urbanization, like those of global warming, are already upon us, and corrective action is needed now. The American ideal of an ever growing economy frankly doesn't work when the goal is to protect a rural place. A growth economy is about more people and more jobs and more development to generate ever increasing profits. If the rural character and crop based economy are to survive we must begin to develop a stable economy that doesn't see continued growth as its measure of success, an economy that seeks sustainable profits from its finite renewable resources to support a stable population. Without such an attitude, inevitably the fear mongers will be right in their predictions, though wrong in their causality, and the housing tracts along with all the other development will continue to make their way up the valley. We need to act now.
In several recent editorials in the Napa Valley Register, here and here and here, a line of argument has been advanced that the residents that show up at planning commission meetings and APAC meetings in an effort to protect our communities from development are against the wine industry and opposed to agriculture. And that if tourism at wineries is not supported that the wine industry will die and housing projects will ensue. In fact, the arguments are simply scare tactics used by those who profit from tourism in the county.
The Napa wine industry is healthy because there is a world wide respect for the quality of its wines and hence a world wide market for their sale. The reputation was initially established by a tasting abroad. The reputation continues to be upheld by tastings around the world. Despite the mega-amounts of tourism now coming into the valley, promoted by Visit Napa Valley and hundreds of tourist attractions, the vast majority of Napa wine drinkers around the world will probably not travel here; and if they do it will probably be because they already know the quality, not because they need to be sold on it.
It is natural that the home of a product of such renown would be a place of pilgrimage for afficianodos and the Napa Valley has always welcomed appreciative visitors. Tourism is the valley's second largest business. But let's not confuse the two industries. The tourism industry did not establish the reputation of Napa wines, nor build their market. That was done by previous generations of vintners and entrepreneurs willing to do the legwork necessary to establish the brand on the world stage. The tourism industry exploits their effort.
It is also worth noting that some of the most respected wines in the valley, e.g. Screaming Eagle, Harlan, Dominus, allow no tourism whatsoever. The notion that the wine industry would not exist without the tourism industry is simply a tourism industry invention. In fact, it is quite possible that by associating Napa wines with gigantic chrome rabbits, cable cars and tuscan castles and french and persian palaces, and by turning this mythical eden into one big traffic jam, that the negative reputation of this place as a tourist trap may be diminishing the respect accorded the wines.
By conflating tourism and the wine industry, the fear mongers intend to divert attention from the obvious erosion of our rural environment and small town life caused by ever increasing building development, rising housing costs, conversion of housing to short term rentals, and traffic. All of these negative impacts, exacerbated if not wholly created by an expanding tourism industry, are the price to be paid for no housing projects, the fear mongers argue. But the reality is just the opposite. As the tourism industry has expanded and more people visit and more workers are required to tend to them, and the commute traffic has increased, the pressure to develop more housing has only increased. Traffic mitigation and affordable housing are now at the top of the NVV solution list to deal with the fallout from their embrace of tourism; more development to try to ease the impacts of previous development.
Let's be clear about what the residents are now arguing for at these public meetings. This battle is not about what the Valley is now. Its not an attempt to diminish the current profits of the tourism industry or the wine industry, an economy which has created a place treasured by all. (although we do wish for wineries to live with their use permits.) It is a battle about the future of this place. Part of that future has already happened, though it isn't visible yet: more than 70 new or expanded winery projects have been approved by the planning commission but have yet to be built - their visitors, (900,000/yr), and their employees have yet to arrive. (Enormous amounts of non-winery development, like Napa Pipe, are on their way as well.) And part of that future that is about to happen: more than 40 new or expanded wineries are currently in the planning department awaiting their day before the planing commission with a known 200,000 visitors/yr and more to come. (Enormous amounts of non-winery development, like Watson Ranch, are also in the planning stages.) But there is a third future to be fought for beyond those - the projects that haven't yet arrived at the planning departments. It is this future that all the effort at APAC and that the visitation discussions at the Planning Commission are all about. The skirmishing over projects currently being proposed and use permits being abused are at the fringes of the effort to protect the future character of the county.
The residents that show up in the meetings are there because we feel this to be a unique and wonderful place to live - and we see with an objectivity unclouded by profit motives a direction that is beginning to damage all that is beautiful here. Slowing the development clock has been tried in the various slow growth initiatives currently in place to limit development, but the development continues to come. We need to think now about how development may be stopped so that the impacts that we already feel can be worked on. The goal is that the future character of the county remain somewhat the same as it is today. The alternative is that it will be something different. A better place to live? Unlikely.
The wine industry and the tourism industry have managed thus far to allow a relatively rural economy in an urban world. But the impacts of urbanization, like those of global warming, are already upon us, and corrective action is needed now. The American ideal of an ever growing economy frankly doesn't work when the goal is to protect a rural place. A growth economy is about more people and more jobs and more development to generate ever increasing profits. If the rural character and crop based economy are to survive we must begin to develop a stable economy that doesn't see continued growth as its measure of success, an economy that seeks sustainable profits from its finite renewable resources to support a stable population. Without such an attitude, inevitably the fear mongers will be right in their predictions, though wrong in their causality, and the housing tracts along with all the other development will continue to make their way up the valley. We need to act now.