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Stanly Ranch
Bill Hocker | Jun 10, 2022 on: The Hotel Binge


The site plan seems to have become much more dense as the project has progressed.

Update 6/10/22
NVR 6/10/22: Napa's Stanly Ranch resort welcomes guests

Homes: $6-12mil
Rooms: min $1250/night
Spa day-pass for locals: $350

Update 3/14/21
Gary Margadant sends this link to Stanly Ranch's hiring page. As noted in the EIR for the project, Stanly Ranch anticipates hiring some 500 people to staff the resort. In most economies, creating jobs and expanding the population to fill them is a sign of capitalism at work increasing prosperity. But such a prosperity scenario has always had a corollary: increased urbanization. In a county that has nominally resisted urbanization to protect its agriculture-based principal product, such job growth dogma, and the cascade of urban development that follows in its wake, will continue to erode the longevity of that product.

Update 10/29/21
NVR 10/29/21: $4 million Stanly Ranch homes debut in south Napa: Auberge Resorts launch sales

No doubt this is just one of many high-end gated communities that will fill in the vineyards as the valley suburbanizes in the coming decades.

It is the second resort to bury totally rural vineyards with suburban development: Taking a trip to Calistoga last year I was blown away to see a housing tract on the east side of the Silverado Trail - the Four Seasons Resort. The shock of confronting such a project on the pristine "rural" side of the Trail made it all too clear that the battle for the rural soul of Napa has been lost to developers' frantic lust to turn this place into Walnut Creek.


For decades the wine industry fought like hell to limit the housing tracts that threatened the survival of their vines and their rural lifestyles. Now, with the industry wedded to the entertainment industry, call it a resort and there's no problem.

Update 11/5/20
NVR 11/5/20: Amid rolling vineyards, a new luxury resort is rising in south Napa

There is a difference between agriculture and tourism.


Napa Valley then and now

Update 2/26/20
NVR 2/26/20: Second phase of Stanly Ranch Resort approved by Napa's Planning Commission
NVR 10/3/19: Napa city to review designs for Stanly Ranch resort residences
NVR 9/23/19: Napa's Stanly Ranch resort starts construction

Update 8/16/18
NVR 5/9/15: New $45 million investment for a planned Stanly Ranch resort in south Napa

Stanly Ranch returns from funding limbo. The project would add another 500 low wage employees looking for affordable housing. It would also contribute $4.4 million to the city's affordable housing fund. The cost of 50 units of affordable housing in Napa was just pegged at $24 million. By that standard the $4.4 million will be enough for 9 affordable housing units, enough to house perhaps 18 of the 500 employees. The continuing imbalance of jobs and housing in Napa County, increased with each new development project, is not sustainable.

This is also another example of the trend toward the winery hotel that will eventually be demanded in the unincorporated areas just as restaurant wineries are now.

Original Post 5/7/17
Update 5/7/17: Only recently, after stumbling upon these documents, have I become attuned to the third mega-project that will be urbanizing the agricultural entry to the county just south of the Hwy 29 and 121 junction in Carneros. It is a housing project and resort known as Stanly Ranch. The resort project was approved by the City of Napa in 2010. Sometimes, until you see a site plan, the numbers representing the project in a table don't have an impact. A big chunk of vineyards at the approach to the Valley is to become suburbanized and another bit of Napa's forlorn effort to maintain a greenbelt separating the city from the sprawl moving up from American Canyon will disappear.

The property was annexed to the City of Napa in 1964 for future use, in an age when suburban expansion was the anticipated fate of all Bay Area counties. As a far-removed extension of the subsequently-created urban-rural lines in the county, it can now be seen as a historical artifact, like the property proposed for the Oak Knoll Hotel, that violates the separation between existing urban and rural uses that the county and cities have been committed to since the ag preserve and Measure J were enacted. It could be rezoned back to agricultural use if there was a will, but it is another example that zoning changes only go in one direction - toward urban development.

Articles
NVR 2/17/21: Napa gives go-ahead for Stanly Ranch luxury hotel
NVR 12/20/15: City gives thumbs-up for luxury hotel at Stanly Ranch
NVR 11/2/15: Stanly Ranch receives recycled water go-ahead
NVR 5/9/15: Stanly Ranch resort developer promises 'authenticity'
NVR 11/19/13: Pipeline project to bring water to Carneros area
NVR 11/6/10: Settlement says St. Regis developer must support affordable housing
NVR 1/23/10: Critics blast St. Regis project, but city touts revenues; more hearings ahead
NVR 4/17/05: Merryvale set to begin Stanly Ranch renovation this summer

Documents
2009 City of Napa Stanly Ranch EIR project description