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Farm Bureau sells out
Farm Bureau sells out
Bill Hocker | Apr 3, 2018 on: Measure C
The Farm Bureau has sent out a letter fear-mongering the potential effects of Measure C: Lower property values! Government intrusion into your landscaping decisions!
In a recent editorial, a vintner condemning Measure C as an assault on property rights, praised Prop 13 as a good example of why California has the initiative process. "Initiatives", he wrote "are considered a safety valve, the court of last resort, when government is unresponsive to people's wishes". I couldn't agree more. Measure C exists because Napa's government has been unresponsive to its citizen's desire for more protection for their rural environment.
The survival of Napa's rural and agricultural landscape is a direct result of the desire of the county's residents to sustain, in an urbanizing world, an agricultural based economy and the rural quality of life that it creates. In a time when the wine industry was made up of mostly resident farmers and wine makers, the interests of the wine industry and of county residents were coincident in that goal, and protections against the urbanization of the county were enacted by elected governmental officials.
But the wine industry, as is often pointed out, has changed. Aging resident farmers and vintners have sold out to corporations and a plethora of good-life entrepreneurs seeking cachet with a winery-of-their-own and tourists to admire it (latest example). And the wine industry and the government that serves it have sold out as well, with little interest in Napa County as a place to live, only as a resource to be marketed and taxed.
The Farm Bureau, until recently the most staunch protector of the rural heritage of Napa County, has now become a greenwash for the development industries that wish to carve up the real estate of the watersheds for vineyard estates and event center attractions.
The amount of vineyard area that may be added to the county is unlikely to be large even without Measure C. Barely 1000 producing acres of grapes have been added in the last 10 years. But the increased value of property with even the smallest life-style vineyard is enormous - enough to make the development of remote properties profitable. Walt Ranch, dividing 200 acres of vines among 35 inaccessible properties over 2300 acres, is the poster child for the trend. This is not about the expansion of wine making in Napa - it is about real estate development.
As with almost every other local government, the Napa county government which was once committed to prevent urbanization, has now become a tool of those development interests. The impacts are all around us: in traffic congestion, and buildings invading the vineyards, the scars in the the forested hillsides for vineyards and buildings, in the loss of affordable housing and local shops to the tourism economy, in the requests for bond measures to pay of the new infrastructure to support the expanded development.
The shame is that the Farm Bureau, until recently, was vehemently opposed to this urbanization. Previously leaders of the Farm Bureau knew, as anyone who has lived in California for any length of time knows, that the urbanization that developers bring, whether housing tracts or destination tourism venues and events, is the death of agriculture. I suspect that the current leaders of the Farm Bureau know this as well. I can only assume that agriculture just isn't that important to them.
Manuel R
In a recent editorial, a vintner condemning Measure C as an assault on property rights, praised Prop 13 as a good example of why California has the initiative process. "Initiatives", he wrote "are considered a safety valve, the court of last resort, when government is unresponsive to people's wishes". I couldn't agree more. Measure C exists because Napa's government has been unresponsive to its citizen's desire for more protection for their rural environment.
The survival of Napa's rural and agricultural landscape is a direct result of the desire of the county's residents to sustain, in an urbanizing world, an agricultural based economy and the rural quality of life that it creates. In a time when the wine industry was made up of mostly resident farmers and wine makers, the interests of the wine industry and of county residents were coincident in that goal, and protections against the urbanization of the county were enacted by elected governmental officials.
But the wine industry, as is often pointed out, has changed. Aging resident farmers and vintners have sold out to corporations and a plethora of good-life entrepreneurs seeking cachet with a winery-of-their-own and tourists to admire it (latest example). And the wine industry and the government that serves it have sold out as well, with little interest in Napa County as a place to live, only as a resource to be marketed and taxed.
The Farm Bureau, until recently the most staunch protector of the rural heritage of Napa County, has now become a greenwash for the development industries that wish to carve up the real estate of the watersheds for vineyard estates and event center attractions.
The amount of vineyard area that may be added to the county is unlikely to be large even without Measure C. Barely 1000 producing acres of grapes have been added in the last 10 years. But the increased value of property with even the smallest life-style vineyard is enormous - enough to make the development of remote properties profitable. Walt Ranch, dividing 200 acres of vines among 35 inaccessible properties over 2300 acres, is the poster child for the trend. This is not about the expansion of wine making in Napa - it is about real estate development.
As with almost every other local government, the Napa county government which was once committed to prevent urbanization, has now become a tool of those development interests. The impacts are all around us: in traffic congestion, and buildings invading the vineyards, the scars in the the forested hillsides for vineyards and buildings, in the loss of affordable housing and local shops to the tourism economy, in the requests for bond measures to pay of the new infrastructure to support the expanded development.
The shame is that the Farm Bureau, until recently, was vehemently opposed to this urbanization. Previously leaders of the Farm Bureau knew, as anyone who has lived in California for any length of time knows, that the urbanization that developers bring, whether housing tracts or destination tourism venues and events, is the death of agriculture. I suspect that the current leaders of the Farm Bureau know this as well. I can only assume that agriculture just isn't that important to them.
Manuel R