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Small Winery Ordinance
Small Winery Ordinance
Bill Hocker | Nov 10, 2023 on: The Winery Glut
Update11/10/23
WIN Advisor 11/8/23: Three Wineries Seek Federal & State Civil Rights Investigations
The Tentative Court decision
If the tentative decision become final, there will probably be further lawsuits challenging the County's long and torturous effort to insure that wineries are more about wine making than wine tourism. (Follow the Hoopes Saga here)
Update 4/4/20
Final Streamlining Ordinance
DP&F summary of ordinance
Administrative Use Permit modifications in Code
Administrative Permits for Wineries in Code
Update 2/8/20
Mike Hackett LTE 2/8/20: Small Winery ordinance only helps the big ones
Update 1/30/20
NVR 1/30/20: Napa County's winery streamlining plan faces legal threat
1/21/20: Water Audit Notice of Intended Litigation
1/28/20 BOS meeting video
1/28/20 BOS meeting agenda and docs
NVR 1/15/20: Napa County favors streamlining for some winery expansion requests
Update 12/23/19
NVR 12/23/19: Napa County Planning Commission favors winery streamlining
Video of the 12/19/19 Planning Commission meeting
Agenda and Documents
Update 10/18/19
NVR 10/18/19: Napa County works on permit streamlining for small wineries
Update 9/13/19
Dir. Morrison has released an update to the fast track ordinance for small wineries intended to enable small wineries to participate in the wine tourism economy without the enormous cost and time needed for the current use permit modification process. He is asking for public comments to be submitted by Oct. 4, 2019 (to David.Morrison@countyofnapa.org) and will present the ordinance and comments to the Supervisors on Oct 15, 2019.
Dir. Morrison's email and request for comments
Revised Outline of Ordinance
Update 7/18/19
NV2050 Letter to Dir. Morrison concerning the proposed ordinance
Update 6/24/19
NBBJ 6/24/19: Napa County creating special blend of regulations for small wineries
The note has been sent from Planning Director David Morrison to various stakeholder groups in the county to elicit comments on a proposed small winery definition ordinance:
Update 5/23/19
NVR 5/23/19: Small wineries plead for regulatory relief from Napa County
Good luck coming up with an ordinance based on the free-for-all of ideas thrown out at the meeting, many requiring changes to the WDO, the General Plan EIR and the entire winery regulatory regimen of the last 50 years.
Update 5/16/19
In the glow of positive public reaction to the Matthiasson Family Winery at the 5/15/19 Planning Commission, the BOS is going to take up the issue of the small winery ordinance again at their 5/21/19 meeting. The Staff letter is here.
While the emphasis seems to be on simplifying the process for the approval of small wineries, there is still the unresolved question of what the definition of a small winery is. In Napa county 30,000 gal/yr is a medium-sized winery. 60% of the wineries in Napa county are 30,000gal or smaller. The proposed 9800 visitors/yr to be allowed for small wineries (an approximation assuming half of the proposed 40 vehicle trips/day are visitor's cars+events) would be many times the median visitation of existing wineries that are 30,000 gal or smaller. Meaning that the impact of fast-tracking is not to encourage more wine making (it would just redistribute the existing Napa wine output to a greater number of makers), but to encourage more wine tourism venues and more urbanization to accommodate a larger tourist population.
Actually, the Matthiasson approval shows that the current review process can be expeditious for small wineries - as long as the proposals are appropriate for the communities in which they are located. The multi-year battles that some wineries are experiencing in obtaining approval are a direct result of the scale of the disruptive industrial and commercial impacts that they will bring to bucolic rural farming neighborhoods. A fast track process is a developers' (or realtors') solution to put small winery development beyond the reach of community participation; a willingness and mechanism to achieve community consensus about appropriate scale, beyond just telling residents and developers to work it out between themselves, is needed instead.
NV2050 Newsletter on the proposal
Update 11/5/17
Eve Kahn sent along this update on the decision to table the ordinance:
Update 8/14/17
NVR 8/14/17: Obscure Napa County position may play a bigger winery growth role
Update 8/11/17
[In response to questions from Chris Malan, Planning Dir. David Morrison elaborated on the process that the Limited Winery Ordinance will endure through the county meat grinder]
8/4/17
NVR 7/8/17: Napa County eyes streamlining approval process for smaller wineries
Proposed Limited Winery Ordinance
Dir. Morrison's request for comments.
Local Procedures for Implementing CEQA (CEQA sm. winery def. see appendix B, #10)
What can one say? The County is issuing use permits for new wineries at the rate of one a month (and increases to existing wineries at two per month) even with Planning Commission review. Apparently that is still not fast enough to keep up with developer's desire to profit from an expanding tourism economy and booming real estate market. The County wants to streamline the process, providing an easier avenue for speculators to increase resale value with "winery-ready" properties. Not one more gallon of Napa wine will be added to the county's "wine industry" (producing acreage hasn't budged in the last 10 years despite some 100 new winery approvals), just more luxury estates and tourism venues. This is not about affordable small "family" wineries. It's about expediting a real estate strategy targeting wealthy vanity investors.
One can see the problem from the County's standpoint: The amount of pushback from citizens who will be negatively impacted by all of the proposed development is bogging down a process whose purpose is to allow public participation. The solution proposed is to reduce the visibility and amount of public input in the process.
The Planning Commission is a public event. Its meetings are predictable and previewed on the county's website and in the Register. Its proceedings are broadcast and a video archive is retained. The county claims that the public will have a similar opportunity to vet projects being presented to the Zoning Administrator. But notification will only go to residents within 1000' of the project. No previews in a public calendar. And likely no mention in the Register. It will then be up to a neighbor to make the project known to a wider audience, a daunting task for some. Once the hearing is done, no record beyond brief meeting minutes will be available for review. But the collective changes that these projects bring, with increased tourism throughout the remote areas of the county and the expansion of taxpayer-funded infrastructure to accommodate an ever increasing number of tourists and employees, will affect the county as a whole, not just the immediate neighbors.
As a recent article on Visit Napa Valley highlights, county and municipal governments seem to see a "growth" economy based on tourism as the prime objective of planning decisions. As we have seen in all meetings throughout the last few years, the county is unwilling to seriously consider the increasing cumulative impacts of growth that have led to so much citizent opposition. In this proposal, conceding to the demands of the development industries, they wish to make the opposition more difficult.
The County's continued promotion of building projects and the resulting impacts on traffic, affordable housing, community character, infrastructure and service demands, the physical landscape and resource sustainability, run counter to the County's stated image of itself in the first paragraph of its Vision Statement in the Napa County General Plan:
Many county residents, seeing the urbanization taking place before their eyes, no longer feel that vision is being supported by their government, and they should be allowed to conscientiously make their voices heard. In a public forum.
The question the County should be addressing is not how the approval of building projects can be streamlined to increase the pace of urban development. The question should be how to scale back the amount of development being proposed, as previous governments and citizens have done with the Ag Preserve, zoning ordinances and initiatives, to insure that Napa remains a rural, agricultural place to be treasured in the future. Fast-tracking building projects (much like pretending that building projects are "agriculture") is not the answer.
7/29/17 LTE version: Fast tracking Napa County wineries isn't the answer
NVR 10/2/15: Planners look at fast-tracking small wineries
Note the difference between the 2015 and the current proposal: the requirement that grapes must come from the property has been eliminated. Wineries can be approved under the new proposal on properties having no vineyard potential (like The Caves); a lease on grapes (currently leased by someone else, no doubt) suffices. There is no mention of use-permit revocation in the ordinance, so presumably the lease may be sold as soon as the winery is approved.
Comments
Update11/10/23
WIN Advisor 11/8/23: Three Wineries Seek Federal & State Civil Rights Investigations
The Tentative Court decision
If the tentative decision become final, there will probably be further lawsuits challenging the County's long and torturous effort to insure that wineries are more about wine making than wine tourism. (Follow the Hoopes Saga here)
Update 4/4/20
Final Streamlining Ordinance
DP&F summary of ordinance
Administrative Use Permit modifications in Code
Administrative Permits for Wineries in Code
Update 2/8/20
Mike Hackett LTE 2/8/20: Small Winery ordinance only helps the big ones
Update 1/30/20
NVR 1/30/20: Napa County's winery streamlining plan faces legal threat
1/21/20: Water Audit Notice of Intended Litigation
1/28/20 BOS meeting video
1/28/20 BOS meeting agenda and docs
NVR 1/15/20: Napa County favors streamlining for some winery expansion requests
Update 12/23/19
NVR 12/23/19: Napa County Planning Commission favors winery streamlining
Video of the 12/19/19 Planning Commission meeting
Agenda and Documents
Update 10/18/19
NVR 10/18/19: Napa County works on permit streamlining for small wineries
Update 9/13/19
Dir. Morrison has released an update to the fast track ordinance for small wineries intended to enable small wineries to participate in the wine tourism economy without the enormous cost and time needed for the current use permit modification process. He is asking for public comments to be submitted by Oct. 4, 2019 (to David.Morrison@countyofnapa.org) and will present the ordinance and comments to the Supervisors on Oct 15, 2019.
Dir. Morrison's email and request for comments
Revised Outline of Ordinance
Update 7/18/19
NV2050 Letter to Dir. Morrison concerning the proposed ordinance
Update 6/24/19
NBBJ 6/24/19: Napa County creating special blend of regulations for small wineries
The note has been sent from Planning Director David Morrison to various stakeholder groups in the county to elicit comments on a proposed small winery definition ordinance:
From: Morrison, David
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2019 5:05 PM
Subject: Small Winery Protection and Use Permit Streamlining Ordinance
On May 21, 2019, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to prepare an outline for discussion of a future ordinance focused on four areas:
A draft outline of an ordinance to accomplish these goals is attached here.
You are being provided this outline as one of our key stakeholder groups. Your comments on this draft proposal would be greatly appreciated.
The draft outline, as modified by any public feedback, is tentatively scheduled to go back to the Board of Supervisors in late July for additional direction.
Please provide your organization's comments to me by July 11, so that they can be incorporated into the staff report when this item goes back to the Board.
I am also available to meet with your group and discuss the outline anytime within the next three weeks and welcome the opportunity to discuss with you.
A draft ordinance is expected to go to the Planning Commission for recommendation in October, and to the Board for adoption in November.
I know that we all have busy schedules and vacations this time of year. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.
Respectfully,
David
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2019 5:05 PM
Subject: Small Winery Protection and Use Permit Streamlining Ordinance
On May 21, 2019, the Board of Supervisors directed staff to prepare an outline for discussion of a future ordinance focused on four areas:
- Protect small wineries by allowing them to reasonably expand their business through the use permit process, in a way that isn’t cost and time prohibitive;
- Create a path that allows facilities operating under a Small Winery Exemption to transition so that they can fairly compete in the modern economy;
- Streamline the use permit modification process, so that County resources can be focused on more complex projects and policy issues; and
- Provide incentives for wineries to expand operations in the Airport Industrial Area Specific Plan (AIASP), to relieve traffic up valley and create shorter commutes for out-of-county employees.
A draft outline of an ordinance to accomplish these goals is attached here.
You are being provided this outline as one of our key stakeholder groups. Your comments on this draft proposal would be greatly appreciated.
The draft outline, as modified by any public feedback, is tentatively scheduled to go back to the Board of Supervisors in late July for additional direction.
Please provide your organization's comments to me by July 11, so that they can be incorporated into the staff report when this item goes back to the Board.
I am also available to meet with your group and discuss the outline anytime within the next three weeks and welcome the opportunity to discuss with you.
A draft ordinance is expected to go to the Planning Commission for recommendation in October, and to the Board for adoption in November.
I know that we all have busy schedules and vacations this time of year. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.
Respectfully,
David
Update 5/23/19
NVR 5/23/19: Small wineries plead for regulatory relief from Napa County
Good luck coming up with an ordinance based on the free-for-all of ideas thrown out at the meeting, many requiring changes to the WDO, the General Plan EIR and the entire winery regulatory regimen of the last 50 years.
Update 5/16/19
In the glow of positive public reaction to the Matthiasson Family Winery at the 5/15/19 Planning Commission, the BOS is going to take up the issue of the small winery ordinance again at their 5/21/19 meeting. The Staff letter is here.
While the emphasis seems to be on simplifying the process for the approval of small wineries, there is still the unresolved question of what the definition of a small winery is. In Napa county 30,000 gal/yr is a medium-sized winery. 60% of the wineries in Napa county are 30,000gal or smaller. The proposed 9800 visitors/yr to be allowed for small wineries (an approximation assuming half of the proposed 40 vehicle trips/day are visitor's cars+events) would be many times the median visitation of existing wineries that are 30,000 gal or smaller. Meaning that the impact of fast-tracking is not to encourage more wine making (it would just redistribute the existing Napa wine output to a greater number of makers), but to encourage more wine tourism venues and more urbanization to accommodate a larger tourist population.
Actually, the Matthiasson approval shows that the current review process can be expeditious for small wineries - as long as the proposals are appropriate for the communities in which they are located. The multi-year battles that some wineries are experiencing in obtaining approval are a direct result of the scale of the disruptive industrial and commercial impacts that they will bring to bucolic rural farming neighborhoods. A fast track process is a developers' (or realtors') solution to put small winery development beyond the reach of community participation; a willingness and mechanism to achieve community consensus about appropriate scale, beyond just telling residents and developers to work it out between themselves, is needed instead.
NV2050 Newsletter on the proposal
Update 11/5/17
Eve Kahn sent along this update on the decision to table the ordinance:
"David Morrison was reviewing staff priorities with the board in late Sept and when Limited Winery Ordinance was discussed the board opted to table it to an unknown date. Diane felt that this was a solution looking for a problem - and was definitely not what she expected or wanted to see.
SO - bottom line, between given a low priority prior to the firestorm and more pressing issues at hand - this one is off the radar for now."
SO - bottom line, between given a low priority prior to the firestorm and more pressing issues at hand - this one is off the radar for now."
Update 8/14/17
NVR 8/14/17: Obscure Napa County position may play a bigger winery growth role
Update 8/11/17
[In response to questions from Chris Malan, Planning Dir. David Morrison elaborated on the process that the Limited Winery Ordinance will endure through the county meat grinder]
- Date: August 11, 2017 at 6:14 AM! PDT
Chris,
Thank you for the inquiry.
No, a CEQA document has not been prepared as of yet. This comment period is solely to obtain public input and concerns regarding the proposed ordinance.
After the additional 45-day review period has been completed, staff will revise the draft ordinance, incorporating public comments where appropriate. The revised draft ordinance will then be used as the project for preparing a CEQA document, which will have a separate public comment period. In addition, the public will have opportunities to comment at public hearings before both the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors.
I hope you find this helpful in clarifying the status of the current review period. If you have any further questions, please let me know.
Respectfully,
David
8/4/17
NVR 7/8/17: Napa County eyes streamlining approval process for smaller wineries
Proposed Limited Winery Ordinance
Dir. Morrison's request for comments.
Local Procedures for Implementing CEQA (CEQA sm. winery def. see appendix B, #10)
What can one say? The County is issuing use permits for new wineries at the rate of one a month (and increases to existing wineries at two per month) even with Planning Commission review. Apparently that is still not fast enough to keep up with developer's desire to profit from an expanding tourism economy and booming real estate market. The County wants to streamline the process, providing an easier avenue for speculators to increase resale value with "winery-ready" properties. Not one more gallon of Napa wine will be added to the county's "wine industry" (producing acreage hasn't budged in the last 10 years despite some 100 new winery approvals), just more luxury estates and tourism venues. This is not about affordable small "family" wineries. It's about expediting a real estate strategy targeting wealthy vanity investors.
One can see the problem from the County's standpoint: The amount of pushback from citizens who will be negatively impacted by all of the proposed development is bogging down a process whose purpose is to allow public participation. The solution proposed is to reduce the visibility and amount of public input in the process.
The Planning Commission is a public event. Its meetings are predictable and previewed on the county's website and in the Register. Its proceedings are broadcast and a video archive is retained. The county claims that the public will have a similar opportunity to vet projects being presented to the Zoning Administrator. But notification will only go to residents within 1000' of the project. No previews in a public calendar. And likely no mention in the Register. It will then be up to a neighbor to make the project known to a wider audience, a daunting task for some. Once the hearing is done, no record beyond brief meeting minutes will be available for review. But the collective changes that these projects bring, with increased tourism throughout the remote areas of the county and the expansion of taxpayer-funded infrastructure to accommodate an ever increasing number of tourists and employees, will affect the county as a whole, not just the immediate neighbors.
As a recent article on Visit Napa Valley highlights, county and municipal governments seem to see a "growth" economy based on tourism as the prime objective of planning decisions. As we have seen in all meetings throughout the last few years, the county is unwilling to seriously consider the increasing cumulative impacts of growth that have led to so much citizent opposition. In this proposal, conceding to the demands of the development industries, they wish to make the opposition more difficult.
The County's continued promotion of building projects and the resulting impacts on traffic, affordable housing, community character, infrastructure and service demands, the physical landscape and resource sustainability, run counter to the County's stated image of itself in the first paragraph of its Vision Statement in the Napa County General Plan:
- "While other Bay Area counties have experienced unprecedented development and urban infrastructure expansion over the last four decades, Napa County's citizens have conscientiously preserved the agricultural lands and rural character that we treasure."
Many county residents, seeing the urbanization taking place before their eyes, no longer feel that vision is being supported by their government, and they should be allowed to conscientiously make their voices heard. In a public forum.
The question the County should be addressing is not how the approval of building projects can be streamlined to increase the pace of urban development. The question should be how to scale back the amount of development being proposed, as previous governments and citizens have done with the Ag Preserve, zoning ordinances and initiatives, to insure that Napa remains a rural, agricultural place to be treasured in the future. Fast-tracking building projects (much like pretending that building projects are "agriculture") is not the answer.
7/29/17 LTE version: Fast tracking Napa County wineries isn't the answer
NVR 10/2/15: Planners look at fast-tracking small wineries
Note the difference between the 2015 and the current proposal: the requirement that grapes must come from the property has been eliminated. Wineries can be approved under the new proposal on properties having no vineyard potential (like The Caves); a lease on grapes (currently leased by someone else, no doubt) suffices. There is no mention of use-permit revocation in the ordinance, so presumably the lease may be sold as soon as the winery is approved.
Comments
George Caloyannidis - Jul 10, 2017 7:50AM [Comment submission to Dir. Morrison re limited winery ordinance] Dear David, Attached is my revised comment on the Limited Winery Ordinance. I revised Section "H" with a calculation of visitors this Ordinance would permit which is so staggering that one has to indeed wonder what thought if any is behind it. George Small Winery Ordinance Comment And Divid Morrison's response: From: Morrison, David [mailto:David.Morrison@countyofnapa.org] Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2017 1:14 AM Subject: RE: SMALL WINERY ORDINANCE George, With all due respect, I strongly disagree with several of the statements made in your letter. A. There is a policy reason for the draft ordinance. It says so in the third paragraph of the ordinance recitals, where it states: 'Action Item AG/LU-16.1 directs that consideration be given to amendments to the Zoning Ordinance that define "small wineries," a "small quantity of wine," "small marketing events," and "mostly grown on site," and establishes a streamlined permitting process for small wineries which retains the requirement for a use permit when the winery is in proximity to urban areas. In turn, the Action Item implements Policy AG/LU-16, which states: In recognition of their limited impacts, the County will consider affording small wineries a streamlined permitting process. For purposes of this policy, small wineries are those that produce a small quantity of wine using grapes mostly grown on site and host a limited number of small marketing events each year. The County's intent and purpose in considering this ordinance is clear. It is to amend the County Code and create a simpler permit review process that reflects the limited impacts of smaller wineries. You may not agree with the policy, but the basis for this action does not require any surmise. I would also point out that the proposed ordinance does not minimize either public scrutiny or the CEQA process. Applications considered under the draft ordinance would still be subject to CEQA review. They may obtain a Categorical Exemption, if they qualify, as they may currently do under the adopted Local CEQA Guidelines. If they do not qualify for a Cat Ex, then a Negative Declaration, Mitigated Negative Declaration, or EIR will be prepared, as is appropriate. The draft ordinance would not change CEQA review in any way. Similarly, applications under the draft ordinance would still be noticed to all neighboring property owners within 1,000 feet of the project, still be noticed in the newspaper, and would be considered in a public hearing, where interested parties may testify, and any resulting decision may be appealed to the Board of Supervisors. The draft ordinance would not minimize public scrutiny in any way. B. There appears to be a misunderstanding. The provisions of the draft ordinance would be available to all wineries that meet the qualifying criteria, whether they are newly established or are already established and want to modify their existing use permit within the constraints of the definition of a limited winery. To do otherwise, would create an unfair advantage for one class of business over another. C. Why is 30,000 gallons considered a small (or in this case limited) winery? Because that is how they are defined in Napa County's Local Procedures for Implementing CEQA. Appendix B, Class 3, Subsection 10 states: Construction and operation of small wineries, other agricultural processing facilities, and farm management uses that: (a) are less than 5,000 square feet in size excluding caves; (b) will involve either no cave excavation, or excavation sufficient to create no more than 5,000 additional square feet with all of the excavated cave spoils to be used on site; (c) will produce 30,000 gallons or less per year; (d) will generate less than 40 vehicle trips per day and 5 peak hour trips except on those days when marketing events are taking place; (e) will hold no more than 10 marketing events per year, each with no more than 30 attendees, except for one wine auction event with up to 100 persons in attendance; AND (f) will hold no temporary events. As for national metrics, wine economists generally categorize wineries as follows: Large - 500,000 cases and up (1,2 million gallons) Medium - 50,000 cases to 500,000 cases (120,000 - 1.2 million gallons) Small - 5,000 cases to 50,000 cases (12,000 - 120,000 gallons) Very Small - 1,000 cases to 5,000 cases (2,400 - 12,000 gallons) Limited - less than 1,000 cases (under 2,400 gallons) By this standard also, 30,000 gallons is considered a small winery. D. The focus of the draft ordinance is to provide some relief to small and family-owned businesses. If there are many such businesses, should they be denied relief simply because of their number, or should policy instead be based on their circumstances? For clarification sake, about 1/3 of the wineries listed on the Napa County database would fall within the criteria of the draft ordinance. While there are more wineries that produce under 30,000 gallons, about 70 of those wineries have buildings, caves, visitation levels, or marketing events that exceed the definition of a "limited winery." E. I don't agree that there is a contradiction. If wineries were to take advantage of the draft ordinance (should it be adopted) to increase production to 30,000 gallons, they would still be small wineries. There is only a contradiction if you define a small winery as having much lower production. I do not share that perspective. F. Once again, I have to disagree. The cumulative impacts of winery development was already evaluated in the General Plan EIR, which was certified in 2008. Each winery permitted under the draft ordinance would undergo appropriate project-specific CEQA review. The draft ordinance does not allow any additional winery development not already anticipated in the General Plan. In fact, as stated previously, the draft ordinance is a direct implementation of the General Plan. Additional cumulative CEQA review of the draft ordinance is not required, in my opinion. G. See F above. H. See F above. I. With regards to justifying the consideration of the draft ordinance, that was part of the policy debate regarding the General Plan in 2008. The purpose of the General Plan is to provide a set of policies under which the County would operate over the following 25 years. That is why adopting comprehensive General Plan updates is such a lengthy and expensive process. If you believe that circumstances have changed since 2008, you may want to request that the Board amend the General Plan to delete Policy AG/LU-16. Again, you may not agree with the idea, but an adopted policy carries significant legal weight. If you are suggesting that the production level for limited wineries in the draft ordinance could be reduced to 15,000 or 20,000 gallons annually, I agree. The 30,000 gallon criterion was initially offered as a starting point for public discussion, but one that was consistent with the adopted Local CEQA Guidelines. Others have also suggested a lower threshold. The Planning Commission or Board of Supervisors are free to use an alternate metric. J. Once again, I have to disagree. Length of time in permit review does not necessarily equate to public benefit. Staff is required to follow State law, which includes the Permit Streamlining Act. There is a balance between the exercise of private property rights and public interest. This ordinance would continue to provide full public review and participation for the review of development applications. The draft ordinance would not permit any greater level of winery development than is already allowed under the General Plan, which evaluated the cumulative impacts of winery and vineyard development between 2005 and 2030. As this ordinance would not increase that potential, further cumulative analysis is not required. The Zoning Administrator would not become a "winery czar," any more than the Planning Commission could be described as such. The Zoning Administrator currently makes decisions regarding Use Permit Modifications, Variances, Certificates of Non-Conformance, and other applications. This would be similar to the Administrator's existing duties. The Administrator's decisions may be appealed to the Board of Supervisors, who ultimately is responsible for setting policy in the County. As always, I am happy to discuss these issues and welcome constructive dialogue towards developing a better draft ordinance. Thank you for you comments. Respectfully, David And George Caloyannidis' response Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2017 11:37 AM To: 'Morrison, David' Subject: FW: SMALL WINERY ORDINANCE Thank you David. Your statements are technically correct as they reflect the provisions of the Ordinance which are already known. However, they neither refute or specifically address mine because by their nature, they try to show the shortcomings of the Ordinance. Specifically, your statements do not provide answers to the points I presented. • They do not explain the rationale for the need of the Ordinance other than to make things easier for applicants. • They do not explain by what standard (or reason) a 30,000 gallon production winery is a new "small" one when 52% of all existing wineries in the county produce less. • They fail to explain why potential quantifying data have not been presented to the Planning Commission. • They do not explain why potential impacts of the Ordinance have not been presented to the Planning Commission or even a suggestion by staff that there may be worthy of consideration. • They fail to explain which specific provisions of the Ordinance are the ones which facilitates its "streamlining". What specifically has been eliminated from the current process and what is its downside? Maintaining that the Administrator's decisions may still be appealed to the BOS is correct but let's stop trying to hide the fact that it facilitates a process by which many of his/hers decisions will occur under the public's radar. Unless you can explain otherwise, this is the main instrument behind the "streamlining" of the process. The 1,000 foot notification radius is grossly insufficient. Has staff tried to put the adequacy of such radius into perspective? For example, how many property owners would be notified if some of the randomly selected wineries below would apply? Colgin (20,000) Dalla Valle (20,000) Diamond Mountain (10,000) Kongsgaard (12,000) Mayacamas (5,000) Saddleback (8,000) Signorello (20,000) Titus (25,000) Does Staff seriously believe that a 1,000 foot radius is sufficient to serve the public interest? Or does this number prove my point? But the main concerns is the roundabout way by which this Ordinance will have advanced the Napa county CEQA baseline (traffic, water etc.) without CEQA review. Your response does not address how an Ordinance which has the potential to incrementally add 3,564,277 gallons of production to the EXISTING "small" wineries, add 7,931 acres of vineyards plus 3,248,628 annual visitors is not cause for alarm meriting responsible environmental review. Mind you, this does NOT include special event visits NOR the impacts of NEW "small" winery streamlined applications, the number of which staff has also failed to make a credible effort to quantify. These are massive numbers with potentially profound cumulative impacts - none of which were presented to the Planning Commission or the BOS for consideration - but obvious to any thinking person. They are so obvious that it is hard to hide the agenda driving this Ordinance by disingenuously hiding it under the innocent clothing of "SMALL". George PS: When will the Ordinance be heard by the BOS? |