SodaCanyonRoad | Urban limits

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Urban limits
Bill Hocker | Oct 20, 2015 on: Growth Issues

Steven Rodriguez LTE: We need a cap on developed areas

The concept of buildout should be the basis for all planning decisions and for the construction of the general plan. It is not in Napa county. A desired buildout answers the question "what do we want this place to look like in the future".

The one such metric that exists in the General Plan, a current 115 unit per year cap on new home building permits (Policy AG/LU-119 here), has in fact been held to, and developers are spending their money instead on tourism projects (some of which are labeled wineries) and on industrial development neither of which have credible caps.

There is agricultural and industrial zoning, yet if each achieve the buildout allowed under current regulations, this will be a place that no one will want to call home. While it is probably true that complete buildout is unlikely to happen, our planning department needs to assume that it will happen in making their planning decisions just as they would for 100 year floods.

In the agricultural zones each of the 5000 parcels in the county above 10 acres can be developed with a tourist event center, with undefined amount of visitation. Up to 25% of the land on parcels less that 60 acres (perhaps 3500 parcels) and 15 acres/parcel on those larger can be covered with structures and paving. Each of those parcels can also have a home and a guest home, (subject to the 115/yr restriction).

There probably was an analysis of buildout when the industrial zoning of south Napa was enacted. Unfortunately, we are already beginning to see major impacts to the traffic infrastructure with only about half of the industrial zoned lands of Napa and American Canyon occupied. It is unlikely that road construction will be able to keep up with industrial building. The widening of Jameson Canyon has, in fact, increased the traffic into and through the industrial area, no doubt increasing the rate of development of the industrial zone, while creating enormous gridlock already at times of the day. (More proof that road widening never relieves congestion, it merely encourages more development and more traffic.)

As if they haven't enough already on their plate, the county planning department needs to take Mr. Rodriguez's words to heart and tell us, based on current zoning what this county would look like if all properties are developed to their potential under the General Plan. And then we can ask ourselves, is that what we want our future to look like?