SodaCanyonRoad | The growth curve (updated)

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The growth curve (updated)
Bill Hocker | Dec 17, 2015 on: Growth Issues

Update 3/24/17:
NVR 3/24/17: Napa County population grows by less than 1 percent

Everyone claims that this is a bad sign. More people means more tax money coming in. What's unrecognized is that a population consumes more tax money that they put in, and as the population grows, the quest for more tax revenue becomes ever more frantic.

To me low population growth is a very good thing: Population growth is the most egregious threat to the survival of the agricultural economy, a concept that most Napa politicians pretend to extoll and that residents actually do support. A low population growth means that the infrastructure costs of an increasing population, new roads, schools, emergency services, a new jail, sanitation facilities and water supply are easier to deal with.

Of course the population increase number doesn't include the transient population. At 3.3 million visitors/yr that would add 9000 people (6%) to the population. According to Visit Napa Valley, the number of visitors coming to napa has been increasing at the rate of 6-7%/yr.

It obviously costs a lot to live in Napa County, and building new housing is a devilish business here, thank goodness. Still, there are currently some 3600 housing units proposed or approved in the county, most condos or apartments. Don't expect many to be affordable. The county and the municipalities have worked for years to bring more affordable housing to the county with only a smattering of units built. One suspects most of the housing units in the pipeline are meant for the upscale techies, retirees or the tourist trade rather than the ever increasing workforce.

And the workforce is increasing considerably.While the population hasn't increased, the 6-7% yearly increase in the tourist population also means a similar increase in the hospitality workforce.n increased population is only one of two urbanization measures that threaten the continued survival of agriculture - the other is (non agricultural) jobs.

12/17/15:
NVR 12/17/15: California's population grows to nearly 39.1 million

The numbers from the Calif State Demographic Research Unit that this data comes from are here.

The Napa statistics:
Tot Population 141,625
Increase in population 2014-15: 905 souls
Ave tot increase since 2010: 1050/yr
Ave Rate of increase per year: 0.76%/yr
Ave natural increase (births - deaths) since 2010: 340/yr (i.e. immigration =710/yr)

The beginning of any attempt to control the urbanization of the county is a decision to base all development decisions on maintaining a desirable growth curve, and to limit the amount of development through zoning or other regulatory measures to that curve.

One such measure was instituted in 1980 when the voters approved Measure A which limited the annual growth of housing units in the county to 1%/yr. This measure has been incorporated into a growth management system on page AG/LU-73 of the General Plan Policy AG/LU-119. The rise in households has held at the 1% growth rate with an average of 406 new households each year for the last 30 years. (demographics here) There are currently about 3400 housing units in the planning stages in the county representing about 8.5 years of growth.

If we were to take the same measure on grapes, starting in 1980 with 80000 tons and 138800 tons in 2010 the rate of grape expansion has been 1.85% per year.

There were about 80 wineries in Napa in 1980 after the big boom in the 70's. In 2010 there were 400 wineries in the ag preserve about 5.5% per year. In the last 5 years 40 new wineries have been approved, about 2% per year.

The amount of other development, hotels, restaurants, commercial space, industrial space (which has exploded in the last 30 years) is a bit harder to establish. But just using the labor force statistics Napa county had 55000 people in the labor force in 1990 and 75000 in 2010 a 1.5% increase per year.