SodaCanyonRoad | Another impacted community

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Another impacted community
Bill Hocker | Oct 8, 2015 on: Mount Veeder

A new event center winery, the 90,000 g/y O'Connell Winery, proposed at 4110 Dry Creek Road plans to disrupt another ag-residential neighborhood surrounding the Napa Valley. It is just one of the 42 new or expanding wineries currently under review by the planning department. Most all are being built to attract more tourists to the county. At the Planning Commission meeting on Oct 7th, in testimony to the threat that these tourist attractions present to the tranquility of rural life residents have long enjoyed, neighbor Freiderike Heidger spoke publicly for the first time in her life:

    Hi. I'm Freiderike Heidger from Oak Knoll Avenue. To the planning commissioners and everyone in the room I want to thank you for the amazing service that you are doing for us all by volunteering in such a demanding and also very important decision-making position that determines the future of the Napa Valley. I'm in awe of your commitment and your dedication to the affairs of the county which requires a lot of studying, researching and soul-searching.

    I moved to the Napa Valley in 1979 from Germany and found a little house in the vineyards for me and my young family in 1980. I wanted a rural setting because of the closeness to nature and the quiet atmosphere so that my kids could run around and be connected to the land, protected from the hustle and bustle of the big city. They were born and raised here. Now I have two grandchildren who are also born and raised here. Over the last 35 years of living here I put new roots down after having been uprooted from my home country. This is now my home. My children grew up with the sounds and tastes of nature around them and they all have a strong dedication to preserving the environment and living conscientious lives.

    I feel the wineries that are proposed in a rural neighborhood are destroying the life styles that the people there have chosen for themselves. If any permit for a small winery is given, I ask it to be given in consideration of respect and protection of those neighborhoods that have been there long before those proposed wineries. I want to ask all of us who live in a quiet country setting how would you feel if you had to suddenly face the possibility of a loud commercial winery with production sites and tasting rooms right next to your property. There would be constant noise form production, beeping, cars and visitors, there would be air pollution, light pollution at night, your well might run dry. Do I need to say more. In short the tranquillity and privacy of your life and home would be gone.

    What do we want to leave to our children and our grandchildren? Memories and the possibility of living in the rural setting that Napa still has, close to family; or having traffic commercial activities, more cars and visitors in an already busy valley - a Napa Valley that has become a little LA. After all, why are we living here and not in the densely populated and commercialized bay area? Isn't it the rural setting? Do we need more until the valley is a commercial strip mall of wineries?

    I also have a concern about water issues. Our present drought is showing us clearly that we have to be conserving and live sustainably. The more wineries, visitors and influx of population we have the more we put a strain on our limited resources, putting at risk what is already here. If we want to protect the natural setting of the Napa Valley, how about letting those smaller parches be planted with olive trees or lavender. They don't have the water requirements that grape vines do and there would be much less water use in the production olive oil verses wine. We wouldn't have a mono-culture of just grape vines which makes whole valley vulnerable to being wiped out by just one pest or disease. We still have a beautiful valley with plenty of wine and wineries, and we also want to preserve our lives here in this beautiful place.