
Eternal vigilance is the price of preserving the Napa Valley.
- Former Planning Dir. Jim Hickey 2008.
This website was intended to create an online resource for the residents of Soda Canyon Road located in Napa County, California, born out of the threat of a large tourism-winery project proposed at the top of our remote and winding road. It has evolved into an obsessive archive and blog about the many development projects that, cumulatively, threaten the rural character and the agricultural economy of Napa County that county governments nominally claim to protect but, in fact, further jeopardize with each new building, infrastructure or deforestation plan approved...
Upcoming Events SCR calendar page | County agenda page
Wed, Jun 7, 2023 9:00am | County Planning CommissionDel Dotto Winery Major Modification [continued from 4/19/23] 52,000 more gal/yr, 30,000 more vis/yr, new 10,500 sf building, 16,500 more sf of caves, off site cave spoils disposal, 4 more employees, outdoor amplified music, kitchen for pairings, delivery access from Yount Mill Rd. Yet another major piecemeal increase of Napa's most kitschy winery. 7466 St Helena Hwy Project Documents Public comment letter |
Latest Posts
Below are the latest posts made to any of the pages of this site with a link to the page in the upper right corner.
Le Colline: one more cumulative impact on: Growth Issues
George Caloyannidis - Apr 19,23 expand... Share
I have been following the Le Colline project application. Two arguments in support by the applicant surprised me as considered relevant by people who want to enter the wine-making business in the Napa Valley. And as they are made again and again, they also seem to resonate with the Planning Commission and our Supervisors.
The first applicants’ argument is that planting a vineyard, building a winery, a home and raising their children in the Napa Valley has been their life-long dream. This sounds very romantic, noble and on its face convincing enough.
The second argument this particular applicant - and others before them - made when asked to minimize the scope of their project, is that such reduction would not economically support their business model.
The problem is that there are appropriate places in the Napa Valley to realize these kinds of dreams and inappropriate places without the environmental impacts Le Colline has. There are plenty of data on file on what these impacts are that I don’t need to repeat here.
But the presumption that this Valley has the obligation to make all kinds of concessions in order to facilitate any business anywhere has been promoted by our local government for so long or these types of arguments wouldn’t be made in the first place.
Over the more than two decades I have been here, I have seen how ineffective the County’s so-called mitigation measures have been as it consistently has failed to consider cumulative impacts of the projects it approves. This failure has created incremental deforestation, river bed siltation, commuters and traffic jams, declining school enrollment, affordable housing shortage, the list is endless. Yet, our government has assured us that all these impacts were mitigated by each project. How can such government by worthy of our trust?
If more proof is needed, it is the increasing contention of winery projects, especially ones in the hillsides for which the County’s taxpayers, the applicants and the public are forced to spend inordinate amounts of time and money better spent on our crumbling infrastructure than in lawsuits. The County has failed miserably to safeguard - in fact has promoted - the incremental degradation of our overall quality of life; its foremost obligation. Undaunted, it keeps at it!
NVR LTE version 4/18/23: Le Colline project not a good fit for the area
The first applicants’ argument is that planting a vineyard, building a winery, a home and raising their children in the Napa Valley has been their life-long dream. This sounds very romantic, noble and on its face convincing enough.
The second argument this particular applicant - and others before them - made when asked to minimize the scope of their project, is that such reduction would not economically support their business model.
The problem is that there are appropriate places in the Napa Valley to realize these kinds of dreams and inappropriate places without the environmental impacts Le Colline has. There are plenty of data on file on what these impacts are that I don’t need to repeat here.
But the presumption that this Valley has the obligation to make all kinds of concessions in order to facilitate any business anywhere has been promoted by our local government for so long or these types of arguments wouldn’t be made in the first place.
Over the more than two decades I have been here, I have seen how ineffective the County’s so-called mitigation measures have been as it consistently has failed to consider cumulative impacts of the projects it approves. This failure has created incremental deforestation, river bed siltation, commuters and traffic jams, declining school enrollment, affordable housing shortage, the list is endless. Yet, our government has assured us that all these impacts were mitigated by each project. How can such government by worthy of our trust?
If more proof is needed, it is the increasing contention of winery projects, especially ones in the hillsides for which the County’s taxpayers, the applicants and the public are forced to spend inordinate amounts of time and money better spent on our crumbling infrastructure than in lawsuits. The County has failed miserably to safeguard - in fact has promoted - the incremental degradation of our overall quality of life; its foremost obligation. Undaunted, it keeps at it!
NVR LTE version 4/18/23: Le Colline project not a good fit for the area
Develop a Napa Wine Online Portal on: Solutions
Bill Hocker - Mar 29,23 expand... Share
Update 3/29/23
NVR 3/29/23: Winemaker Dan Petroski's grapes, marketing stand out
This article highlights one of the (probably) numerous wines made in Napa that don't depend on wine tourism to remain in business. They do so through the effective use of online marketing, just as most of the world's businesses do today. A full description of the Massican wines are to be found on the Napa Wine Project website and on the Massican website.
Update 2/14/22
2/14/22: Sen. Dodd Announces Online Wine Auction Bill
Sothbys.com 2/5/22: Napa Valley Library Wine Auction
SF Chronicle 6/15/21: Napa’s extravagant wine auction ends after 40 years, changing to be less ‘elitist’
This all seems to be going in the right direction, increasing the visibility, market and charity clout of Napa wines without increasing the carbon footprint and other deleterious impacts of wine tourism.
Update 8/29/21
NVR 8/29/21: For some Napa Valley wineries, virtual tastings will persist beyond the pandemic
Update 8/9/21
NVR 8/9/21: Stags’ Leap jumps into the world of digital, augmented reality marketing
Update 8/21/20
Paul Mabray, the online wine sales evangelist, made another presentation to the Napa County Planning Commission on 8/19/20. It is the way forward in creating a viable wine industry that doesn't depend on the environmentally and culturally destructive use of tourism as a marketing vehicle. Will the County or the wine industry listen?
Update 4/18/20
NVR 4/18/20: COVID-19 could permanently reshape the business of wine in Napa Valley
This site was born out of the threat of proposed winery tourist attraction on the vineyard next to us at the very remote end of Soda Canyon Road. It was just one example the impact that tourism is having on all who live in Napa County. The basic argument of all of the articles here over the last 6 years is that tourism is bad for the maintenance of an economy based on agriculture and for the survival of a rural, small town lifestyle. Tourism development is an urbanizing process. More buildings are built for tourism venues, more workers must come to staff them, more housing and commercial buildings must be built to serve the workforce, more restaurants and hotels must be built to cater to the tourists, more road and infrastructure improvements must be made serve the increased population. If the tourism economy is successful, the urbanization will continue. At some point the need to accommodate that larger population outweighs the economic viability of agricultural land, and the fields that remain become merely landscaping to give purpose to the tourism industry. The actual wine industry moves to a more economical locale, and the authenticity of a wine making region leaves with it.
Update 2/7/20
NVR 1/24/20: Napa wineries are beginning to chat up customers online
NVR 12/13/19: Amazon could disrupt direct to consumer sphere for Napa wineries
Update 3/11/19
NVR 1/28/19: Winegrowers instructed on 'future-proofing' Napa wine in the digital age
From the Paul Mabray presentation to the NV Grapegrowers:
PressDemocrat 2/24/19: Rely on the numbers? Respected Napa consultant thinks it’s vital for wineries to survive
Forbes 10/12/18: Wine Industry Digital Leader Paul Mabray Pulls No Punches
SVB on Wine 3/15/17: The Tough Questions Wine Clubs Face
SVB State of the Wine Industry 2019
With visitor counts falling every year for the last 4 years in Napa county Rob McMillan advises that "Your winery needs to find new growth and new consumers, and they aren't going to come from the present tasting room approach". (Chapter 9: "Sales and marketing for family wineries" beginning page 45.)
Update 2/25/15
Amber forwards one website that begins to create the Napa Internet Wine Portal envisioned below: Dave Thompson's very cleanly designed site The Napa Wine Project. It is a tremendous, actually astounding, online catalog of Napa wines and their descriptions and backstories. Just the thing to begin to make the necessity of acually visiting the 770+ small wineries he has been to around the county unnecessary. (Of course transporting people to them is how Dave tries to make ends meet.)
The Napa Wine Project
Internet wine merchants:
invino.com Sonoma
nakedwines.com Sonoma
Wine.com no doubt the largest wine e-tailer.
Original Post 2/10/15
It is important to remember that the one purpose of the land use policies articulated in the Napa General Plan is to encourage a market for Napa grapes, not to create a tourist industry to consume Napa wine. Wine sales to tourists have major negative impacts on the character of the valley, on the lives of the people who live here and, I think, on the viability of continuing an agricultural economy. Alternatives need to be pursued.
Currently, according to to Rob McMillan's SVB statistics, 6% of Napa wine is sold via the Internet. His feeling in his presentation to the Planning Comission was that direct sales at the winery were still important because unlike books or shoes, fine wines didn't lend themselves to Internet sales - they can't be returned after they're opened. There may be hurdles, but a technique to sell high-end wine on the internet will eventually be perfected and the need for in-winery sales, which even now constitute only a small portion of the overall sales of Napa wines but have big environmental impacts, will be over. Internet sales promise greater profits to the vintners without the impacts, hence as much effort should be put into an internet portal for Napa wines as has been spent on Visit Napa Valley trying to lure more customers to its bricks and mortar outlets. We need to make sure that the rural character of the valley is not destroyed in the meantime by preventing the construction of tourist facilities which will remain even after their need to support agriculture is gone.
Each winery has its own internet site, of course, so the process works, and someone will eventually become the Zappos of wine. Which is why it is important now for a Napa-only website to be developed that can compete with a larger site when it comes. Such a site, if developed as a quasi-public company like Visit Napa Valley, would profit vintners more than might be the case in a purely private company. The site should extoll the qualities of Napa wines, the importance of the concept of the Ag Preserve to maintain that quality and the reasons that Napa wine is more than just a bottle of wine - it is a piece of winemaking history.
NVR 3/29/23: Winemaker Dan Petroski's grapes, marketing stand out
This article highlights one of the (probably) numerous wines made in Napa that don't depend on wine tourism to remain in business. They do so through the effective use of online marketing, just as most of the world's businesses do today. A full description of the Massican wines are to be found on the Napa Wine Project website and on the Massican website.
Update 2/14/22
2/14/22: Sen. Dodd Announces Online Wine Auction Bill
Sothbys.com 2/5/22: Napa Valley Library Wine Auction
SF Chronicle 6/15/21: Napa’s extravagant wine auction ends after 40 years, changing to be less ‘elitist’
This all seems to be going in the right direction, increasing the visibility, market and charity clout of Napa wines without increasing the carbon footprint and other deleterious impacts of wine tourism.
Update 8/29/21
NVR 8/29/21: For some Napa Valley wineries, virtual tastings will persist beyond the pandemic
Update 8/9/21
NVR 8/9/21: Stags’ Leap jumps into the world of digital, augmented reality marketing
Update 8/21/20
Update 4/18/20
NVR 4/18/20: COVID-19 could permanently reshape the business of wine in Napa Valley
This site was born out of the threat of proposed winery tourist attraction on the vineyard next to us at the very remote end of Soda Canyon Road. It was just one example the impact that tourism is having on all who live in Napa County. The basic argument of all of the articles here over the last 6 years is that tourism is bad for the maintenance of an economy based on agriculture and for the survival of a rural, small town lifestyle. Tourism development is an urbanizing process. More buildings are built for tourism venues, more workers must come to staff them, more housing and commercial buildings must be built to serve the workforce, more restaurants and hotels must be built to cater to the tourists, more road and infrastructure improvements must be made serve the increased population. If the tourism economy is successful, the urbanization will continue. At some point the need to accommodate that larger population outweighs the economic viability of agricultural land, and the fields that remain become merely landscaping to give purpose to the tourism industry. The actual wine industry moves to a more economical locale, and the authenticity of a wine making region leaves with it.
Update 2/7/20
NVR 1/24/20: Napa wineries are beginning to chat up customers online
NVR 12/13/19: Amazon could disrupt direct to consumer sphere for Napa wineries
Update 3/11/19
NVR 1/28/19: Winegrowers instructed on 'future-proofing' Napa wine in the digital age
From the Paul Mabray presentation to the NV Grapegrowers:
"I fundamentally believe that the only way we're going to survive as an industry is how we can help bring Napa Valley into people's homes, without them coming to Napa Valley."
Hear! Hear!PressDemocrat 2/24/19: Rely on the numbers? Respected Napa consultant thinks it’s vital for wineries to survive
Forbes 10/12/18: Wine Industry Digital Leader Paul Mabray Pulls No Punches
SVB on Wine 3/15/17: The Tough Questions Wine Clubs Face
SVB State of the Wine Industry 2019
With visitor counts falling every year for the last 4 years in Napa county Rob McMillan advises that "Your winery needs to find new growth and new consumers, and they aren't going to come from the present tasting room approach". (Chapter 9: "Sales and marketing for family wineries" beginning page 45.)
Update 2/25/15
Amber forwards one website that begins to create the Napa Internet Wine Portal envisioned below: Dave Thompson's very cleanly designed site The Napa Wine Project. It is a tremendous, actually astounding, online catalog of Napa wines and their descriptions and backstories. Just the thing to begin to make the necessity of acually visiting the 770+ small wineries he has been to around the county unnecessary. (Of course transporting people to them is how Dave tries to make ends meet.)
The Napa Wine Project
Internet wine merchants:
invino.com Sonoma
nakedwines.com Sonoma
Wine.com no doubt the largest wine e-tailer.
Original Post 2/10/15
It is important to remember that the one purpose of the land use policies articulated in the Napa General Plan is to encourage a market for Napa grapes, not to create a tourist industry to consume Napa wine. Wine sales to tourists have major negative impacts on the character of the valley, on the lives of the people who live here and, I think, on the viability of continuing an agricultural economy. Alternatives need to be pursued.
Currently, according to to Rob McMillan's SVB statistics, 6% of Napa wine is sold via the Internet. His feeling in his presentation to the Planning Comission was that direct sales at the winery were still important because unlike books or shoes, fine wines didn't lend themselves to Internet sales - they can't be returned after they're opened. There may be hurdles, but a technique to sell high-end wine on the internet will eventually be perfected and the need for in-winery sales, which even now constitute only a small portion of the overall sales of Napa wines but have big environmental impacts, will be over. Internet sales promise greater profits to the vintners without the impacts, hence as much effort should be put into an internet portal for Napa wines as has been spent on Visit Napa Valley trying to lure more customers to its bricks and mortar outlets. We need to make sure that the rural character of the valley is not destroyed in the meantime by preventing the construction of tourist facilities which will remain even after their need to support agriculture is gone.
Each winery has its own internet site, of course, so the process works, and someone will eventually become the Zappos of wine. Which is why it is important now for a Napa-only website to be developed that can compete with a larger site when it comes. Such a site, if developed as a quasi-public company like Visit Napa Valley, would profit vintners more than might be the case in a purely private company. The site should extoll the qualities of Napa wines, the importance of the concept of the Ag Preserve to maintain that quality and the reasons that Napa wine is more than just a bottle of wine - it is a piece of winemaking history.
Napa Soda Springs, County RSS and the BOF on: Napa Soda Springs
Bill Hocker - Mar 13,23 expand... Share
Board of Forestry Fire Safe Regulations & the NCRSS on: Fire Issues
Bill Hocker - Mar 6,23 expand... Share
General Plan Housing Element Amendments on: Affordable Housing
Bill Hocker - Jan 26,23 expand... Share
Board of Forestry education campaign on: Fire Issues
Bill Hocker - Jan 11,23 expand... Share
The California State Board of Forestry, following a 2 year effort to update their Minimum Fire Safe Regulations for fire safe development in State Responsibility Areas, has rolled out an education process to help governments, fire authorities, developers and residents understand the new normal in building in fire-prone environments. (An announcement was just received for training seminars fo rrelated professionals.) There are links to the national non-profit Community Wildfire Planning Center, a wildfire mitigation think tank, to encourage and illustrate fire safe planning and strategies. Their Wildland-urban Interface (WUI) Planning Guide for California is here. (Including a case study on Napa's Fire Hazard Abatement Ordinance). The Guide is in addition to the State's Fire Planning Technical Advisory
There are now layers of documents relating to design in the WUI such as this one: Building to Coexist with Fire: Community Risk Reduction Measures for New Development in California
I will update this post as I find more information about the program and its implication for planning decisions in Napa County including the General Plan Safety Element.
There are now layers of documents relating to design in the WUI such as this one: Building to Coexist with Fire: Community Risk Reduction Measures for New Development in California
I will update this post as I find more information about the program and its implication for planning decisions in Napa County including the General Plan Safety Element.
Anarchy in the hills on: Conservation Regulations
Bill Hocker - Jan 7,23 expand... Share
NVR 1/7/23: Napa County responds in Hundred Acre vineyard case near Calistoga
In one of the more bizarre examples of the anarchy that citizens are increasingly adopting in dealing with their governments, a vineyard developer has simply said that he doesn't have to play by County rules, that he is above the law. Right-wing tactical politics have arrived in Napa County. There may be some sympathetic judges to the argument government regulation can be an overreach when balanced against public well-being. The California First Appellate District court has expressed some sympathy for the fact that CEQA is exacerbating the state's housing crisis. But it is unlikely that they would conclude that trying to prevent hillsides from washing into creeks by regulating hillside development would be too great a burden to place on the development community.
Our complaint on this site is often that our County government has not done enough enforcement of its own regulations, often providing exemptions, exceptions and forgiveness in order to let developers do what they will. In this case the County has, as they occasionally do against blatent scofflaws, done the right thing. Let's hope that reports of the death of the rule-of-law in America are greatly exagerated..
In one of the more bizarre examples of the anarchy that citizens are increasingly adopting in dealing with their governments, a vineyard developer has simply said that he doesn't have to play by County rules, that he is above the law. Right-wing tactical politics have arrived in Napa County. There may be some sympathetic judges to the argument government regulation can be an overreach when balanced against public well-being. The California First Appellate District court has expressed some sympathy for the fact that CEQA is exacerbating the state's housing crisis. But it is unlikely that they would conclude that trying to prevent hillsides from washing into creeks by regulating hillside development would be too great a burden to place on the development community.
Our complaint on this site is often that our County government has not done enough enforcement of its own regulations, often providing exemptions, exceptions and forgiveness in order to let developers do what they will. In this case the County has, as they occasionally do against blatent scofflaws, done the right thing. Let's hope that reports of the death of the rule-of-law in America are greatly exagerated..
The New Board of Supervisors on: Campaign 2022
Bill Hocker - Jan 3,23 expand... Share
1/3/23
NVR 1/3/23: Napa County Board of Supervisors begins new year with new look
While I have many hopes and expectations that there will be a new emphasis on the sustainability of the ag preserve experiment that the county has been engaged in for the last 50 years, the pressure to facilitate economic growth and continue urbanizing the county is unlikely to recede. I hope that new Board is up to the task of curbing the developers' lust to convert ever more of the county's rural heritage into more profitable use.
NVR 1/3/23: Napa County Board of Supervisors begins new year with new look
While I have many hopes and expectations that there will be a new emphasis on the sustainability of the ag preserve experiment that the county has been engaged in for the last 50 years, the pressure to facilitate economic growth and continue urbanizing the county is unlikely to recede. I hope that new Board is up to the task of curbing the developers' lust to convert ever more of the county's rural heritage into more profitable use.
As warehouses fill the wetlands... on: Growth Issues
Bill Hocker - Dec 29,22 expand... Share
The Guardian 12/28/22: Revealed: how warehouses took over southern California ‘like a slow death’
As we have driven up to Napa each weekend for the last 30 years, none of the many changes have been quite as disheartening as the loss of the vistas over the south county wetlands, now blocked by warehouses. As the master plans of the Airport and American Canyon industrial zones have been realized, the entry to the fabled Napa Valley is becoming an alley of tilt-up boxes filled with the noisy grind of semi tractor-trailers coming and going. As I've written about often on this site (here, for example), it is one of the "growth" elements contributing to the demise of Napa as a rural bastion in the urbanizing bay area.
Given the Guardian article above, the concern over the warehouse proliferation, and the destruction of a rural quality of life they bring, is not mine alone.
As we have driven up to Napa each weekend for the last 30 years, none of the many changes have been quite as disheartening as the loss of the vistas over the south county wetlands, now blocked by warehouses. As the master plans of the Airport and American Canyon industrial zones have been realized, the entry to the fabled Napa Valley is becoming an alley of tilt-up boxes filled with the noisy grind of semi tractor-trailers coming and going. As I've written about often on this site (here, for example), it is one of the "growth" elements contributing to the demise of Napa as a rural bastion in the urbanizing bay area.
Given the Guardian article above, the concern over the warehouse proliferation, and the destruction of a rural quality of life they bring, is not mine alone.
Vote for Cottrell and Gallagher on: Campaign 2022
Bill Hocker - Dec 2,22 expand... Share
Update 12/2/22
Despite the small number of people in Napa County it always seems to take a long time for the votes to be counted. Now, almost a month after the polls have closed, the Register has published the results of the races too close to call earlier. (KQED Napa County election results here). Joelle Gallagher and Anne Cottrell were declared winners shortly after the election, but it is good to know now that Don Williams has been elected mayor of Calistoga, Paul Dohring has been elected mayor of St Helena, and the expansion of the AmCan urban-rural line has failed. It has been a sweep for the races that mattered to me, with the candidates and issues winning that are more resistant to the development industry lust that continues to consume the rural character of the county.
10/1/22
Partisan politics, of the red and blue variety, barely raises its head in Napa County. The real political division is between development interests, who built or tapped into a thriving agriculture-tourism economy over the last 50 years and who feel that it can be expanded indefinitely, and preservation interests, including members of the wine industry, who see the process as beginning to exceed sustainable limits in urban growth and resource depletion that threaten the continuation of the county's rural legacy. That division plays out in the makup of Napa County's Board of Supervisors. Napa is Napa, and not Santa Clara, because a preservationist majority on the Board has more often prevailed.
But since 2000 there has been a shift from the Ag Preserve agenda, begun in 1968 and concerned with the constraint of urban development to allow agriculture to survive, to a Board majority more receptive to the "growth" concerns of most governments - how to create ever more jobs, housing, infrastructure and the illusive goal of more government revenue.
The two Napa County supervisors retiring after the coming 2022 election, District 3 Supervisor Diane Dillon and District 1 Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht, are the vestiges of the preservation agenda. Un-coincidentally their districts contain the vast bulk of vineyard acreage in the county. From the standpoint of the many people concerned about development pressure in the county, and who have shown up at Planning Commission and BOS meetings over the last 9 years, they have become the main voices weighing urban development against the desire to preserve an economy based on agriculture and the desire of residents to protect the county's rural character. That balance is now seldom the highest consideration in land use decisions with the focus now on tourism and industrial projects and the workforce housing and infrastructure needed for a "growth" economy..
Unfortunately, even with the election of "preservationists" to replace the two supervisors, it will only maintain the status quo, and the level of development now being approved will continue. But if their replacements are "growth" minded supervisors, it will probably usher in the end of the Ag Preserve experiment as the new board aggressively pushes more development as a solution to the traffic, housing and tight-budget problems caused by the Board's previous development decisions and more tourism as a solution to the declining value of wine to a younger generation more interested in "experiences" than the quality of the wine. If there is any hope of regaining a majority that will support the low-growth ideals of the Ag Preserve heritage, these two seats must be retained in the preservationist camp.
The planning commissioners appointed by Sups. Dillon and Wagenknecht, Anne Cottrell and Joelle Gallagher are both running in their respective districts, and both have made herculean efforts at moderating the scale of development proposals before them at the commission. Both have solid administrative experience that will allow them to take on the myriad issues that Supervisors must deal with on a day to day basis. But they have also proven themselves in the trenches as protectors of the land use legacy that makes Napa distinct from other Bay Area counties, and that is the core of Napa's economy, character and identity. Vote for Cottrell in District 3 and Gallagher in district 1 to preserve that committment to agriculture and rural protection for the next 50 years.
Anne Cottrell website
Joelle Gallagher website
Despite the small number of people in Napa County it always seems to take a long time for the votes to be counted. Now, almost a month after the polls have closed, the Register has published the results of the races too close to call earlier. (KQED Napa County election results here). Joelle Gallagher and Anne Cottrell were declared winners shortly after the election, but it is good to know now that Don Williams has been elected mayor of Calistoga, Paul Dohring has been elected mayor of St Helena, and the expansion of the AmCan urban-rural line has failed. It has been a sweep for the races that mattered to me, with the candidates and issues winning that are more resistant to the development industry lust that continues to consume the rural character of the county.
10/1/22
Partisan politics, of the red and blue variety, barely raises its head in Napa County. The real political division is between development interests, who built or tapped into a thriving agriculture-tourism economy over the last 50 years and who feel that it can be expanded indefinitely, and preservation interests, including members of the wine industry, who see the process as beginning to exceed sustainable limits in urban growth and resource depletion that threaten the continuation of the county's rural legacy. That division plays out in the makup of Napa County's Board of Supervisors. Napa is Napa, and not Santa Clara, because a preservationist majority on the Board has more often prevailed.
But since 2000 there has been a shift from the Ag Preserve agenda, begun in 1968 and concerned with the constraint of urban development to allow agriculture to survive, to a Board majority more receptive to the "growth" concerns of most governments - how to create ever more jobs, housing, infrastructure and the illusive goal of more government revenue.
The two Napa County supervisors retiring after the coming 2022 election, District 3 Supervisor Diane Dillon and District 1 Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht, are the vestiges of the preservation agenda. Un-coincidentally their districts contain the vast bulk of vineyard acreage in the county. From the standpoint of the many people concerned about development pressure in the county, and who have shown up at Planning Commission and BOS meetings over the last 9 years, they have become the main voices weighing urban development against the desire to preserve an economy based on agriculture and the desire of residents to protect the county's rural character. That balance is now seldom the highest consideration in land use decisions with the focus now on tourism and industrial projects and the workforce housing and infrastructure needed for a "growth" economy..
Unfortunately, even with the election of "preservationists" to replace the two supervisors, it will only maintain the status quo, and the level of development now being approved will continue. But if their replacements are "growth" minded supervisors, it will probably usher in the end of the Ag Preserve experiment as the new board aggressively pushes more development as a solution to the traffic, housing and tight-budget problems caused by the Board's previous development decisions and more tourism as a solution to the declining value of wine to a younger generation more interested in "experiences" than the quality of the wine. If there is any hope of regaining a majority that will support the low-growth ideals of the Ag Preserve heritage, these two seats must be retained in the preservationist camp.
The planning commissioners appointed by Sups. Dillon and Wagenknecht, Anne Cottrell and Joelle Gallagher are both running in their respective districts, and both have made herculean efforts at moderating the scale of development proposals before them at the commission. Both have solid administrative experience that will allow them to take on the myriad issues that Supervisors must deal with on a day to day basis. But they have also proven themselves in the trenches as protectors of the land use legacy that makes Napa distinct from other Bay Area counties, and that is the core of Napa's economy, character and identity. Vote for Cottrell in District 3 and Gallagher in district 1 to preserve that committment to agriculture and rural protection for the next 50 years.
Anne Cottrell website
Joelle Gallagher website
Napa Votes for the Environment on: Campaign 2022
Mike Hackett - Nov 23,22 expand... Share
After the narrow defeat of Measure C, the 2018 watershed and oak woodland protection initiative, the local Farm Bureau spokesman publicly stated that the Farm Bureau would become the lead voice in matters relating to the grape farming industry and land use decisions. Since then, large sums of donations have come into the Farm Bureau’s coffers, the vast majority of it from the extremely rich who are interested in the continued development on our watershed lands and open space.
The Farm Bureau courted candidates for the November 2022 election, and even went to far as to award like-minded elected officials and even the former CEO of Napa County, Minh Tran, who supported their development agenda.
But look what happened on Election Day. It was a veritable referendum on the unbridled growth and development ambitions of those that believe that all Napa land is theirs to develop without regard to environmental consequences. Well, the citizens of the county spoke with a resounding voice and expressed their concerns about our environment, social inequities, and awareness that our shared natural resources are at stake. The developer candidates were resoundingly defeated.
Some may call this a watershed moment, and perhaps a watershed election. But what has happened is a reawakening of our voters that unbridled development in this world renowned fragile valley, has negative impacts on many levels, from water quality and availability, to erosion of our hillsides, and the loss of our heritage oaks. All to what purpose? The continued enrichment of Napa Valley’s super rich and the wine conglomerates bottom lines? Or is it for the vainglorious and frivolous acquisitions of environmentally sensitive hillside lands for its future degradation? Since the super-rich have no terminal capacity to their voracious gobbling up of our hillsides and watershed lands, we, as citizens, showed that enough is enough! Big money will no longer control the lens through which our county land-use decisions are made. The first priority will now be, as it should have been all along, “Is it doing further harm to our Napa Valley?”
We are especially proud of the residents from St. Helena who had to make a clear choice about the future of St. Helena. Eric Hall was a development conscious man who would have liked to have seen St. Helena boom into a Vail or Carmel kind of place. Paul Dohring on the other hand, was a strong proponent of maintaining St. Helena’s small town charm. Another clear example of a referendum on the future, proved their desire to keep its current character, thank you very much!
We have hope for the first time in a long time. Everyone saw through the money smoke screen and voted with a sharing attitude. We came here to support one another, not to extract more than is one’s fair share. We celebrate as the Green Wave envelopes us in its warmth. For those of us who love Napa and what it has to offer us, to our children, grandchildren and residents of the next millennium, we think Napa is a living space for us all?"not just the land barons in our midst. Our Mother Earth pleads: ”please stop” and we have answered at the polls.
Mike Hackett and Yeoryios Apallas
NVR version 11/23/22: Election showed Napa residents concerned about environment
The Farm Bureau courted candidates for the November 2022 election, and even went to far as to award like-minded elected officials and even the former CEO of Napa County, Minh Tran, who supported their development agenda.
But look what happened on Election Day. It was a veritable referendum on the unbridled growth and development ambitions of those that believe that all Napa land is theirs to develop without regard to environmental consequences. Well, the citizens of the county spoke with a resounding voice and expressed their concerns about our environment, social inequities, and awareness that our shared natural resources are at stake. The developer candidates were resoundingly defeated.
Some may call this a watershed moment, and perhaps a watershed election. But what has happened is a reawakening of our voters that unbridled development in this world renowned fragile valley, has negative impacts on many levels, from water quality and availability, to erosion of our hillsides, and the loss of our heritage oaks. All to what purpose? The continued enrichment of Napa Valley’s super rich and the wine conglomerates bottom lines? Or is it for the vainglorious and frivolous acquisitions of environmentally sensitive hillside lands for its future degradation? Since the super-rich have no terminal capacity to their voracious gobbling up of our hillsides and watershed lands, we, as citizens, showed that enough is enough! Big money will no longer control the lens through which our county land-use decisions are made. The first priority will now be, as it should have been all along, “Is it doing further harm to our Napa Valley?”
We are especially proud of the residents from St. Helena who had to make a clear choice about the future of St. Helena. Eric Hall was a development conscious man who would have liked to have seen St. Helena boom into a Vail or Carmel kind of place. Paul Dohring on the other hand, was a strong proponent of maintaining St. Helena’s small town charm. Another clear example of a referendum on the future, proved their desire to keep its current character, thank you very much!
We have hope for the first time in a long time. Everyone saw through the money smoke screen and voted with a sharing attitude. We came here to support one another, not to extract more than is one’s fair share. We celebrate as the Green Wave envelopes us in its warmth. For those of us who love Napa and what it has to offer us, to our children, grandchildren and residents of the next millennium, we think Napa is a living space for us all?"not just the land barons in our midst. Our Mother Earth pleads: ”please stop” and we have answered at the polls.
Mike Hackett and Yeoryios Apallas
NVR version 11/23/22: Election showed Napa residents concerned about environment
BOS Revokes Mountain Peak Use Permit on: Mountain Peak Winery
Bill Hocker - Nov 11,22 expand... Share
Napa Soda Springs Resort omnious rebirth on: Napa Soda Springs
Bill Hocker - Nov 7,22 expand... Share
Donald Williams for Calistoga Mayor on: Campaign 2022
Bill Hocker - Nov 1,22 expand... Share
The division between residents trying to maintain the rural, small-town character that has been the hallmark of living in Napa County and a tourism industry trying to exploit that character with ever more venues and visitors is most acute in its up-valley municipalities, St. Helena and Calistoga. As with town councils everywhere, theirs are usually dominated by proponents of the economic growth that tourism brings. But both have been lucky to have the rare candidate come forward representing a commitment to the interests of residents and local businesses over the desires of the tourism industry. Donald Williams, running fo Mayor of Calistoga, is one.
This interview summarizes both his inclusive attitude and his unique commitment to preserving his community:
Interview with Donald Williams, Mayoral Candidate --- October 13, 2022
Q. How long have you lived in Calistoga?
A. I moved here from San Francisco in 1974. After 48 years living in Calistoga and working throughout the valley, I have a pretty fair sense of the history and values and people of our town.
Q. What prompted you to run for council?
A. Five years ago, with many others, I objected to the council’s process for determining water rates. We felt the rates were imposed without due regard for public input. We decided we needed to change the council to better respond to the public. After all, it’s the public that is in charge?"or at least it should be. I was elected, and really?"it’s been an honor to serve our community.
Q. And now you’re a candidate for mayor?
A. Yes. The mayor is one of five council members, each with one vote on any issue. The mayor also conducts council meetings, has input on council agendas, and nominates applicants to various committees. Besides that, at grand openings the mayor wields the ceremonial scissors.
Q. Do you feel equal to that job?
A. Oh yes. I’m handy with tools! Much of my work was in construction, very blue-collar. I think a council is fortunate to have members from a variety of backgrounds. Our council members don’t have to be professional politicians. But they should be well-grounded in local history and values. My tenure on council has been very educational. I’ve learned to navigate city hall, figure out how to help the public get what it wants.
Q. What other work experience do you bring to the job?
A. For 30 years I operated my flooring business. I also taught mathematics for almost 20 years at Napa Valley College. They are very different experiences and interests: construction, education, and now government. They help me see issues through very different lenses. For recreation I go another direction: 19th century novels. Often they talk about life in small towns.
Q. Bringing us back to Calistoga?"you’ve brought up the small town concept before.
A. Yes. But it didn’t originate with me. Our town’s Vision Statement begins, “Calistoga will remain a small, walkable town…” There are dozens of references to its small-town quality throughout our General Plan. When I talk about it, I’m just being respectful of our guiding document. I’m also reflecting the sentiments of many of our residents.
Q. Then you’re anti-growth?
A. A balance is needed, not a one-dimensional view. I avoid drastic heroic measures, such as a total ban on building, or unrestrained development. Artificially stimulated development seems contrary to the spirit of the General Plan. But if projects satisfy zoning and codes, let them proceed. (I supported the Indian Springs expansion for that reason.) If building is mandated by state laws, let it proceed. At the same time, abide by the council’s own guideline?"show a “preference towards smaller alternatives when feasible.” And be mindful of our limits: water, traffic, emergency evacuation.
Q. What are your thoughts about business in Calistoga?
A. I believe in business; that’s a way we take care of each other’s needs. I want businesses in Calistoga to succeed. I want them to make a lot of money. I have 30 years’ experience running my own business in Calistoga. I know what it’s like in the private sector?"to develop a market, manage employees, monitor a budget, provide a service or product, and hope for a profit?"all while dealing with external vectors like competition and macro-economic forces.
In support of business and residents, four years ago I called for greater relief from high water bills. During the pandemic I advocated for elimination of the business license tax?"a small tax, but hey, dollars were scarce for businesses then. The hospitality industry in particular suffered during the pandemic (as well as during the fires and recession). The city’s budget was in jeopardy. So I developed a plan for diversifying our local economy. The council agreed and now offers funding to Calistogans who provide a service or product not otherwise readily available locally. I also wanted our council to remind the county to enforce its food ordinance at wineries, to protect Calistoga’s and other cities’ restaurants.
But I opposed spending money to market Calistoga, because it’s not prudent to spend money where it won’t make a difference. My analysis of data for the last decade showed no correlation between marketing expenditures and tourist tax revenue. External forces were the bigger factor in tax revenue.
Q. Did the council agree with you?
A. They didn’t. But the discussion was respectful. They heard a credible alternative point of view. And it made a difference. The new marketing contract links payment to performance, meaning, if tax revenue declines, so does the city’s payment to the marketing firm.
Q. You dissented from the council sometimes.
A. In the last four years there were maybe a score of dissenting votes?"mostly mine, but still only about 3% of the time. However, every dissent represented some of the public. Each dissent gave hope to residents who might have felt unheard or unacknowledged. Not everyone in town thinks the same; why should anyone expect the council to always vote the same? Different ideas are a measure of true diversity, and that stimulates new ideas.
Q. Can you work with a council with diverse perspectives?
A. Certainly. I’m grateful for the service of every council member. Their ideas are important. Respectful, open, fair dialogue benefits our community. I look forward to that.
Q. What would you like the council to work on in the future?
A. The fairgrounds. It’s an integral part of Calistoga. The public wants it restored to public use and so do I. Second, as I go door-to-door to voters’ residences, I hear about water bills. Some trade-offs in the budget may be needed to respond to that issue.
Promoting economic diversity is also important. Not that it’ll replace tourism, but it could be a good backup. And I agree with a Chamber report that public art is important and should be
Maybe most important of all is engaging the public with the council. The council can’t very well represent residents if it doesn’t know what they want. To be good leaders we need to be good listeners.
Instagram: @donaldwilliamscalistoga
Facebook:https://tinyurl.com/donaldwilliamscalistoga
Website: www.donaldcalistoga.com
Also of interest:
Erika Pusey LTE 9/23/22: Donald Williams for Calistoga Mayor
Dennis Lang LTE 9/17/22: Vote for Donald Williams
Donald Williams LTE 11/15/21: Inform yourself, speak up early on important issues
Donald Williams LTE 9/29/20: Upvalley hotels and chasing the tourist dollars
This interview summarizes both his inclusive attitude and his unique commitment to preserving his community:
Interview with Donald Williams, Mayoral Candidate --- October 13, 2022
Q. How long have you lived in Calistoga?
A. I moved here from San Francisco in 1974. After 48 years living in Calistoga and working throughout the valley, I have a pretty fair sense of the history and values and people of our town.
Q. What prompted you to run for council?
A. Five years ago, with many others, I objected to the council’s process for determining water rates. We felt the rates were imposed without due regard for public input. We decided we needed to change the council to better respond to the public. After all, it’s the public that is in charge?"or at least it should be. I was elected, and really?"it’s been an honor to serve our community.
Q. And now you’re a candidate for mayor?
A. Yes. The mayor is one of five council members, each with one vote on any issue. The mayor also conducts council meetings, has input on council agendas, and nominates applicants to various committees. Besides that, at grand openings the mayor wields the ceremonial scissors.
Q. Do you feel equal to that job?
A. Oh yes. I’m handy with tools! Much of my work was in construction, very blue-collar. I think a council is fortunate to have members from a variety of backgrounds. Our council members don’t have to be professional politicians. But they should be well-grounded in local history and values. My tenure on council has been very educational. I’ve learned to navigate city hall, figure out how to help the public get what it wants.
Q. What other work experience do you bring to the job?
A. For 30 years I operated my flooring business. I also taught mathematics for almost 20 years at Napa Valley College. They are very different experiences and interests: construction, education, and now government. They help me see issues through very different lenses. For recreation I go another direction: 19th century novels. Often they talk about life in small towns.
Q. Bringing us back to Calistoga?"you’ve brought up the small town concept before.
A. Yes. But it didn’t originate with me. Our town’s Vision Statement begins, “Calistoga will remain a small, walkable town…” There are dozens of references to its small-town quality throughout our General Plan. When I talk about it, I’m just being respectful of our guiding document. I’m also reflecting the sentiments of many of our residents.
Q. Then you’re anti-growth?
A. A balance is needed, not a one-dimensional view. I avoid drastic heroic measures, such as a total ban on building, or unrestrained development. Artificially stimulated development seems contrary to the spirit of the General Plan. But if projects satisfy zoning and codes, let them proceed. (I supported the Indian Springs expansion for that reason.) If building is mandated by state laws, let it proceed. At the same time, abide by the council’s own guideline?"show a “preference towards smaller alternatives when feasible.” And be mindful of our limits: water, traffic, emergency evacuation.
Q. What are your thoughts about business in Calistoga?
A. I believe in business; that’s a way we take care of each other’s needs. I want businesses in Calistoga to succeed. I want them to make a lot of money. I have 30 years’ experience running my own business in Calistoga. I know what it’s like in the private sector?"to develop a market, manage employees, monitor a budget, provide a service or product, and hope for a profit?"all while dealing with external vectors like competition and macro-economic forces.
In support of business and residents, four years ago I called for greater relief from high water bills. During the pandemic I advocated for elimination of the business license tax?"a small tax, but hey, dollars were scarce for businesses then. The hospitality industry in particular suffered during the pandemic (as well as during the fires and recession). The city’s budget was in jeopardy. So I developed a plan for diversifying our local economy. The council agreed and now offers funding to Calistogans who provide a service or product not otherwise readily available locally. I also wanted our council to remind the county to enforce its food ordinance at wineries, to protect Calistoga’s and other cities’ restaurants.
But I opposed spending money to market Calistoga, because it’s not prudent to spend money where it won’t make a difference. My analysis of data for the last decade showed no correlation between marketing expenditures and tourist tax revenue. External forces were the bigger factor in tax revenue.
Q. Did the council agree with you?
A. They didn’t. But the discussion was respectful. They heard a credible alternative point of view. And it made a difference. The new marketing contract links payment to performance, meaning, if tax revenue declines, so does the city’s payment to the marketing firm.
Q. You dissented from the council sometimes.
A. In the last four years there were maybe a score of dissenting votes?"mostly mine, but still only about 3% of the time. However, every dissent represented some of the public. Each dissent gave hope to residents who might have felt unheard or unacknowledged. Not everyone in town thinks the same; why should anyone expect the council to always vote the same? Different ideas are a measure of true diversity, and that stimulates new ideas.
Q. Can you work with a council with diverse perspectives?
A. Certainly. I’m grateful for the service of every council member. Their ideas are important. Respectful, open, fair dialogue benefits our community. I look forward to that.
Q. What would you like the council to work on in the future?
A. The fairgrounds. It’s an integral part of Calistoga. The public wants it restored to public use and so do I. Second, as I go door-to-door to voters’ residences, I hear about water bills. Some trade-offs in the budget may be needed to respond to that issue.
Promoting economic diversity is also important. Not that it’ll replace tourism, but it could be a good backup. And I agree with a Chamber report that public art is important and should be
Maybe most important of all is engaging the public with the council. The council can’t very well represent residents if it doesn’t know what they want. To be good leaders we need to be good listeners.
Instagram: @donaldwilliamscalistoga
Facebook:https://tinyurl.com/donaldwilliamscalistoga
Website: www.donaldcalistoga.com
Also of interest:
Erika Pusey LTE 9/23/22: Donald Williams for Calistoga Mayor
Dennis Lang LTE 9/17/22: Vote for Donald Williams
Donald Williams LTE 11/15/21: Inform yourself, speak up early on important issues
Donald Williams LTE 9/29/20: Upvalley hotels and chasing the tourist dollars
Napa County questions Cal Fire services on: Fire Issues
Bill Hocker - Oct 26,22 expand... Share
NVR 10/25/22: Napa County looking at how to run county fire services
Video of BOS 10/18/22 meeting
For 90 years Cal-Fire has provided fire protection services to Napa County in both the State Responsibility Areas (wildlands) of the county as well as the unincorporated areas of the county not in the SRA. The protection outside the SRA is separately contracted and that contract is up for renewal. The county has done a study to determine how much it would cost for the county to have its own fire department and not rely on Cal Fire. The study determined that there would be over $5 million/yr in extra personnel costs. The costs of additional fire stations and fire equipment was not calculated.
Not addressed in the study or the discussion with the BOS was why the county would be considering the change after 90 years. Is the county miffed that Cal-fire wants to limit future development in much of the county? The change seems to have been supported by the Napa Valley Vintners. Did Cal-fire let them county down in the Glass Fire?
Barry Eberling, in his article, highlights one quote from a report that was not among the documents presented to the BOS in their Oct 18 meeting. The quote was, to me at least, telling: "Recent catastrophic fires in Napa County and the popularity of our community bringing countless visitors to our majestic valley have influenced the need to ensure that our fire protection services are able to provide the highest level of service possible." Tourists, apparently, need more protection than residents. It is, of course, one more specific example of the transition from an agricultural to a tourism economy and, to my mind, from a rural to an urban county as ever more tourist attractions are built needing an ever increasing supply of patrons and workers. The fact that the NVV is supporting the change is also one more indication that it is now as much a lobbying organization for the tourism industry as the wine-making industry.
Video of BOS 10/18/22 meeting
For 90 years Cal-Fire has provided fire protection services to Napa County in both the State Responsibility Areas (wildlands) of the county as well as the unincorporated areas of the county not in the SRA. The protection outside the SRA is separately contracted and that contract is up for renewal. The county has done a study to determine how much it would cost for the county to have its own fire department and not rely on Cal Fire. The study determined that there would be over $5 million/yr in extra personnel costs. The costs of additional fire stations and fire equipment was not calculated.
Not addressed in the study or the discussion with the BOS was why the county would be considering the change after 90 years. Is the county miffed that Cal-fire wants to limit future development in much of the county? The change seems to have been supported by the Napa Valley Vintners. Did Cal-fire let them county down in the Glass Fire?
Barry Eberling, in his article, highlights one quote from a report that was not among the documents presented to the BOS in their Oct 18 meeting. The quote was, to me at least, telling: "Recent catastrophic fires in Napa County and the popularity of our community bringing countless visitors to our majestic valley have influenced the need to ensure that our fire protection services are able to provide the highest level of service possible." Tourists, apparently, need more protection than residents. It is, of course, one more specific example of the transition from an agricultural to a tourism economy and, to my mind, from a rural to an urban county as ever more tourist attractions are built needing an ever increasing supply of patrons and workers. The fact that the NVV is supporting the change is also one more indication that it is now as much a lobbying organization for the tourism industry as the wine-making industry.
So long, vineyards on: South Napa County
Bill Hocker - Oct 17,22 expand... Share
Update 10/17/22
Hugh Davies LTE 10/16/22: Protect farmland, vote no on Measure J
The County Measure J page
The LTE above comes from the board of the Jack L. Davies Agricultural Land Preservation Fund. It makes the point that allowing urban development on ag land just because the land is not suitable for grapes is a dangerous precedent. The loss of any agricultural land is a threat to all agricultural land in the county. It is a sentiment I totally agree with.
I'm not sure if the JLD Ag Fund has weighed in on specific projects before. I wish they would take the same public stance when it comes to the use of ag land for tourist attractions like wineries and resorts. They also should have have been more concerned about the loss of the Hess property just to the east and the loss of the Ghisletta property to city annexation. Napa farm land is being urbanized almost every week at the county's planning comissions and governing boards, and it is only a matter of time before Napa farmland as a whole is seen as less desirable than the residential, commercial and industrial uses that Napa's burgeoning urban "growth" economy requires.
Update 8/19/22 Green Island Vineyard
SF Chronicle 8/19/22: Why one ordinary vineyard may threaten the future of Napa’s wine industry
NVR 6/9/22: Proposal to turn Napa vineyard into industrial land generates dispute
NV2050 6/2/22: Death Spiral of a Vineyard
A vineyard in the county wetlands just north of American Canyon is generating a lot of angst about the conversion of ag land to urban development. It should. But I'm a bit mystified by the concentration of interest, from the county, wine industry "stakeholders", LAFCO and activists alike, in the loss of what, given rising sea levels, has become marginal land for grapes. At the same time much less concern is voiced about the loss of prime vineyard land in the ag preserve to tourism development (see here) and the loss of a still larger, more inland and much more visible vineyard to warehouses a mile to the east on the Hess-Laird property. (see below).
Update 5/22/21 Hess-Laird vineyard conversion at the BOS
NVR 6/21/21: Napa County to consider bigger industrial area, Highway 29 reliever
7/22/21 BOS meeting video (Hess conversion presentation starts at 1:47:20 into video).
The BOS decided unanimously to have PBES begin the process needed to change the zoning of the property. It will take some time. The 3-person development wing of the board felt that the new road would be a boon to ease traffic congestion on Hwy 29 and wondered how the project could be accelerated. The Supes made no mention about how much traffic the new development will add to the congestion. Sup. Dillon wondered where staff was going to get all the time to work on the project. Sup. Wagenknecht wondered what the real benefits were, and would not guarantee that he would vote to approve the project later. Sup. Pedroza, as usual, lauded the sanctity of agriculture before he approved the conversion of another 281 acres of it into warehouses. This decision is not about agriculture he said, but about how our communities are growing.
Open space activist Barry Christian, in public comment (beginning at 1:57:30 into the video), most clearly defined what was at stake: the traffic was not going to relieved by adding a new mega development; replacing agriculture with more profitable uses is not a good direction in county policy, and the loss of one more vista in the approach to the Napa Valley is not a benefit to visitors or residents whose joy in being here is the beauty of the county's open spaces
Update 5/20/21 Hess-Laird vineyard conversion
A site plan for the conversion of the Hess vineyard just north of American Canyon into industrial parcels has been submitted to the County. It requires a change in zoning from AWOS to Industrial in order to proceed. The request will be taken up by the Board of Supervisors at their June 22, 2021 meeting (Agenda and Documents). The 281 acre property spans from the northern edge of American Canyon to the Napa Flea Market. It may be the largest single rezoning from agriculture to industrial use in the county's history. (Not counting the creation of American Canyon, of course). By comparison, Napa Pipe is 154 acres. It is also the largest area of producing vines removed for urban development.
Prior to the 2008 General Plan, the property was zoned industrial, but was rezoned AWOS in the General Plan update, with the provision that it "shall be considered for re-designation to an Industrial designation if Flosden/Newell Road is ever extended north of Green Island Road, through the property." The cause of that interesting inversion of the normal rezoning pattern needs a little research.
The rezoning will require a modification to the General Plan. It is unclear why this property, unlike the few square feet of terrace at Don Giovanni's in 1994, doesn't require a vote of the people under Measure J/P. [Update: The Hess property is not subject to Measure J per County-supplied excerpts from Genreal Plan]
Watson Ranch, the massive housing project that extends Newell Drive along its eastern edge, was approved in late 2018. Some of the Hess vineyards have been left fallow since, with more vines pulled out after the 2020 harvest. There is still an extension from Watson Ranch to the Hess property, crossing a railway line, that needs to happen. Although it is unclear when, or if ever, the Newell Road extension will be finished, developers are chomping at the bit to buy more industrial land in Napa. And the recent removal of the vineyards would seem to imply that development interests and the property owners know the outcome of the Supervisors meeting on Jun 22nd and the swift passage of the project through the County meat grinder.
The property will provide direct access via S. Kelly Rd to the Jameson Canyon freeway (Lincoln Hwy) without having to use Hwy 29 and its 29/Airport Rd bottleneck. It will, of course, create a new bottleneck at the Lincoln Hwy/S Kelly Rd intersection. The significance of the widening of the Jameson Canyon highway, championed by Sup. Bill Dodd, to the urban development of Napa County can't be overstated. It has made possible the development of an industrial hub that gives the central valley wine industry a link to the Napa name, and it eases the use of commuting workers and contractors from outside the county allowing continued growth of the tourism industry. It also lays the groundwork for a Highway 12 freeway connecting the central valley to Sonoma county, and the opportunity for massive tourism projects along its route. (See the Hudson and Reata wineries.)
The project is one more building block in the urbanization of the space between Napa and the rest of the Bay Area and another addition to the alley of warehouses that will define the entry to the Napa Valley. It is one more indication of the difficulty in maintaining Napa as an agricultural enclave in the expanding megalopolis for the next 50 years. Napa wines have already been priced out of the world marketplace because of the urban-level land and labor prices, and now are desperately trying to survive as a tourist good. The Napa wine industry's survival, embodied by the warehouses that will bury the Hess vineyards, seems to be moving toward the claim of being the cellaring and bottling capital of California's wine industry, a mark of status on the back of the bottle if not the front.
7/9/17 Napa Logistics Park
NVR 7/9/17: Hello IKEA. So long, vineyards?
NVR 6/23/17: Developers lament short supply of industrial land in Napa County
As was the intention, no doubt, the title of Noel Brinkerhoff's article, less the question mark, could be the epitath on the Ag Preserve's tombstone.
The scale of the Napa Logistics Park development is more visible when you realize that IKEA's northern California distribution center would fit iinto just one of its four buildings. Napa Logistics Park is only a part of the un-built industrial development in the AmCan Industrial area and the Napa Airport industrial area just to the north. Who would have thought that Napa would eventually be known more as a light industrial center, a blue-collar Silicone Valley, rather than a bucolic agricultural Eden. Yet that will be the overwhelming reality of the "Napa Experience" as visitors are stuck in the traffic jam at Bottleneck Junction with an alley of tilt-up warehouses as their only view of Wine Country. And no 600 foot setbacks here.
The fact that real estate interests are bemoaning the scarcity of industrial property and that the county is suggesting that vineyard land with less expensive grapes might fill the bill shows where things are headed. All that is needed now is a definition for "less expensive" to be codified in the next update of the general plan. Under $10,000/ton, perhaps?
Hugh Davies LTE 10/16/22: Protect farmland, vote no on Measure J
The County Measure J page
The LTE above comes from the board of the Jack L. Davies Agricultural Land Preservation Fund. It makes the point that allowing urban development on ag land just because the land is not suitable for grapes is a dangerous precedent. The loss of any agricultural land is a threat to all agricultural land in the county. It is a sentiment I totally agree with.
I'm not sure if the JLD Ag Fund has weighed in on specific projects before. I wish they would take the same public stance when it comes to the use of ag land for tourist attractions like wineries and resorts. They also should have have been more concerned about the loss of the Hess property just to the east and the loss of the Ghisletta property to city annexation. Napa farm land is being urbanized almost every week at the county's planning comissions and governing boards, and it is only a matter of time before Napa farmland as a whole is seen as less desirable than the residential, commercial and industrial uses that Napa's burgeoning urban "growth" economy requires.
Update 8/19/22 Green Island Vineyard
SF Chronicle 8/19/22: Why one ordinary vineyard may threaten the future of Napa’s wine industry
NVR 6/9/22: Proposal to turn Napa vineyard into industrial land generates dispute
NV2050 6/2/22: Death Spiral of a Vineyard
A vineyard in the county wetlands just north of American Canyon is generating a lot of angst about the conversion of ag land to urban development. It should. But I'm a bit mystified by the concentration of interest, from the county, wine industry "stakeholders", LAFCO and activists alike, in the loss of what, given rising sea levels, has become marginal land for grapes. At the same time much less concern is voiced about the loss of prime vineyard land in the ag preserve to tourism development (see here) and the loss of a still larger, more inland and much more visible vineyard to warehouses a mile to the east on the Hess-Laird property. (see below).
Update 5/22/21 Hess-Laird vineyard conversion at the BOS
NVR 6/21/21: Napa County to consider bigger industrial area, Highway 29 reliever
7/22/21 BOS meeting video (Hess conversion presentation starts at 1:47:20 into video).
The BOS decided unanimously to have PBES begin the process needed to change the zoning of the property. It will take some time. The 3-person development wing of the board felt that the new road would be a boon to ease traffic congestion on Hwy 29 and wondered how the project could be accelerated. The Supes made no mention about how much traffic the new development will add to the congestion. Sup. Dillon wondered where staff was going to get all the time to work on the project. Sup. Wagenknecht wondered what the real benefits were, and would not guarantee that he would vote to approve the project later. Sup. Pedroza, as usual, lauded the sanctity of agriculture before he approved the conversion of another 281 acres of it into warehouses. This decision is not about agriculture he said, but about how our communities are growing.
Open space activist Barry Christian, in public comment (beginning at 1:57:30 into the video), most clearly defined what was at stake: the traffic was not going to relieved by adding a new mega development; replacing agriculture with more profitable uses is not a good direction in county policy, and the loss of one more vista in the approach to the Napa Valley is not a benefit to visitors or residents whose joy in being here is the beauty of the county's open spaces
Update 5/20/21 Hess-Laird vineyard conversion
A site plan for the conversion of the Hess vineyard just north of American Canyon into industrial parcels has been submitted to the County. It requires a change in zoning from AWOS to Industrial in order to proceed. The request will be taken up by the Board of Supervisors at their June 22, 2021 meeting (Agenda and Documents). The 281 acre property spans from the northern edge of American Canyon to the Napa Flea Market. It may be the largest single rezoning from agriculture to industrial use in the county's history. (Not counting the creation of American Canyon, of course). By comparison, Napa Pipe is 154 acres. It is also the largest area of producing vines removed for urban development.
Prior to the 2008 General Plan, the property was zoned industrial, but was rezoned AWOS in the General Plan update, with the provision that it "shall be considered for re-designation to an Industrial designation if Flosden/Newell Road is ever extended north of Green Island Road, through the property." The cause of that interesting inversion of the normal rezoning pattern needs a little research.
The rezoning will require a modification to the General Plan. It is unclear why this property, unlike the few square feet of terrace at Don Giovanni's in 1994, doesn't require a vote of the people under Measure J/P. [Update: The Hess property is not subject to Measure J per County-supplied excerpts from Genreal Plan]
Watson Ranch, the massive housing project that extends Newell Drive along its eastern edge, was approved in late 2018. Some of the Hess vineyards have been left fallow since, with more vines pulled out after the 2020 harvest. There is still an extension from Watson Ranch to the Hess property, crossing a railway line, that needs to happen. Although it is unclear when, or if ever, the Newell Road extension will be finished, developers are chomping at the bit to buy more industrial land in Napa. And the recent removal of the vineyards would seem to imply that development interests and the property owners know the outcome of the Supervisors meeting on Jun 22nd and the swift passage of the project through the County meat grinder.
The property will provide direct access via S. Kelly Rd to the Jameson Canyon freeway (Lincoln Hwy) without having to use Hwy 29 and its 29/Airport Rd bottleneck. It will, of course, create a new bottleneck at the Lincoln Hwy/S Kelly Rd intersection. The significance of the widening of the Jameson Canyon highway, championed by Sup. Bill Dodd, to the urban development of Napa County can't be overstated. It has made possible the development of an industrial hub that gives the central valley wine industry a link to the Napa name, and it eases the use of commuting workers and contractors from outside the county allowing continued growth of the tourism industry. It also lays the groundwork for a Highway 12 freeway connecting the central valley to Sonoma county, and the opportunity for massive tourism projects along its route. (See the Hudson and Reata wineries.)
The project is one more building block in the urbanization of the space between Napa and the rest of the Bay Area and another addition to the alley of warehouses that will define the entry to the Napa Valley. It is one more indication of the difficulty in maintaining Napa as an agricultural enclave in the expanding megalopolis for the next 50 years. Napa wines have already been priced out of the world marketplace because of the urban-level land and labor prices, and now are desperately trying to survive as a tourist good. The Napa wine industry's survival, embodied by the warehouses that will bury the Hess vineyards, seems to be moving toward the claim of being the cellaring and bottling capital of California's wine industry, a mark of status on the back of the bottle if not the front.
7/9/17 Napa Logistics Park
NVR 7/9/17: Hello IKEA. So long, vineyards?
NVR 6/23/17: Developers lament short supply of industrial land in Napa County
As was the intention, no doubt, the title of Noel Brinkerhoff's article, less the question mark, could be the epitath on the Ag Preserve's tombstone.
The scale of the Napa Logistics Park development is more visible when you realize that IKEA's northern California distribution center would fit iinto just one of its four buildings. Napa Logistics Park is only a part of the un-built industrial development in the AmCan Industrial area and the Napa Airport industrial area just to the north. Who would have thought that Napa would eventually be known more as a light industrial center, a blue-collar Silicone Valley, rather than a bucolic agricultural Eden. Yet that will be the overwhelming reality of the "Napa Experience" as visitors are stuck in the traffic jam at Bottleneck Junction with an alley of tilt-up warehouses as their only view of Wine Country. And no 600 foot setbacks here.
The fact that real estate interests are bemoaning the scarcity of industrial property and that the county is suggesting that vineyard land with less expensive grapes might fill the bill shows where things are headed. All that is needed now is a definition for "less expensive" to be codified in the next update of the general plan. Under $10,000/ton, perhaps?
Campaign 2022: Following the money on: Campaign 2022
Bill Hocker - Oct 2,22 expand... Share
During this campaign season, Beth Nelson has been following up on her tenacious pursuit of Sup. Alfredo Pedroza's questionable self-dealing over Walt Ranch with a breakdown of the money behind the 2022 Napa election. She has provided financial analysis and 460 funding documents for every candidate in the 2022 campaign here (view the menu):
NapaCountyCash.com
Napa County politics has always centered around the conflict between preservationists and developers. The Napa County Farm Bureau, formerly a bastion of agricultural protection and now promoter of tourism and real estate development in the name of protecting agriculture, recently cast the preservationists as a "small vocal minority". Every political movement has stalwarts leading the charge, but some are easier to see than others. We know where the passion of preservationists come from: they wear their hearts on their sleeves. When it comes to the passion of developers you need to follow the money. The money shows that a small wealthy minority is in fact bankrolling candidates who they know will enable their development plans, and napacountycash.com shows who they are.
NapaCountyCash.com
Napa County politics has always centered around the conflict between preservationists and developers. The Napa County Farm Bureau, formerly a bastion of agricultural protection and now promoter of tourism and real estate development in the name of protecting agriculture, recently cast the preservationists as a "small vocal minority". Every political movement has stalwarts leading the charge, but some are easier to see than others. We know where the passion of preservationists come from: they wear their hearts on their sleeves. When it comes to the passion of developers you need to follow the money. The money shows that a small wealthy minority is in fact bankrolling candidates who they know will enable their development plans, and napacountycash.com shows who they are.
Water for agriculture or tourism? on: Watershed Issues
Bill Hocker - Sep 10,22 expand... Share
Update 9/10/22
Guardian 9/10/22: Tourism is sucking Utah dry. Now it faces a choice - growth or survival?
Just another example of the pernicious connection between tourism, the urban development that it induces and water consumption.
Original post 11/3/16: Bali, Napa and sustainable groundwater
We have just returned from a "fact finding mission" to the island of Bali. (It has become impossible to be simple tourists on our travels any more.)
We were struck by some comparisons to the situation in Napa: The two economies are principally a combination of agriculture and tourism. Napa is about a third the size of Bali. (Napa and Sonoma together are about the same size). While Bali has always been renowned for it's rice production, a committment to tourism in the last few decades has made it 70-80% of the island's economy. Tourism is about 30% of the Napa economy (and growing). There are some 8-10 million foreign and domestic tourists coming to Bali each year, somewhere around 2 tourists for each of Bali's 4.2 million residents. Napa has about 3 million tourists, equating to 21.4 tourists for each of its 140 thousand residents. Maybe that's why some Napans get more worked up over the impacts of tourism than the Balinese seem to.
One of the interesting comparisons was the concern that both places have for water availability. Bali is a very wet place with rainfall about 15 times that of Napa. It was hard to imagine a water shortage. But apparently the conversion from an agricultural to a tourism economy over the last 3 decades has had a significant impact on the available water and the island has reached a water crisis. This article explains the problem:
Jakarta Post: Tourism industry responsible for water crisis in Bali: Expert
As well as this informative site: Sawah Bali
And this YouTube video: Bali Water Crisis - The Time to Act Is NOW!
And this academic study: A political ecology of water equity and tourism: A Case Study From Bali
Solutions to Bali's problems are being proposed that depend on retaining more of the substantial rainfall in the groundwater aquifer. That is not an option here. Given our modest and dwindling rainfall such technical solutions are less likely. The impact of increasing tourism and urbanization, along with the expansion of vineyards, have the potential to present a similar significant crisis as the development boom continues.
The comparison of the two tourist economies and the impact on water is well worth a look, particularly in light of the scant concern given to future tourism development in the WICC report the county has penned to submit under the State's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, to be presented to the BOS on Dec 13th, Item 9A here.
Guardian 9/10/22: Tourism is sucking Utah dry. Now it faces a choice - growth or survival?
Just another example of the pernicious connection between tourism, the urban development that it induces and water consumption.
Original post 11/3/16: Bali, Napa and sustainable groundwater
We have just returned from a "fact finding mission" to the island of Bali. (It has become impossible to be simple tourists on our travels any more.)
We were struck by some comparisons to the situation in Napa: The two economies are principally a combination of agriculture and tourism. Napa is about a third the size of Bali. (Napa and Sonoma together are about the same size). While Bali has always been renowned for it's rice production, a committment to tourism in the last few decades has made it 70-80% of the island's economy. Tourism is about 30% of the Napa economy (and growing). There are some 8-10 million foreign and domestic tourists coming to Bali each year, somewhere around 2 tourists for each of Bali's 4.2 million residents. Napa has about 3 million tourists, equating to 21.4 tourists for each of its 140 thousand residents. Maybe that's why some Napans get more worked up over the impacts of tourism than the Balinese seem to.
One of the interesting comparisons was the concern that both places have for water availability. Bali is a very wet place with rainfall about 15 times that of Napa. It was hard to imagine a water shortage. But apparently the conversion from an agricultural to a tourism economy over the last 3 decades has had a significant impact on the available water and the island has reached a water crisis. This article explains the problem:
Jakarta Post: Tourism industry responsible for water crisis in Bali: Expert
As well as this informative site: Sawah Bali
And this YouTube video: Bali Water Crisis - The Time to Act Is NOW!
And this academic study: A political ecology of water equity and tourism: A Case Study From Bali
Solutions to Bali's problems are being proposed that depend on retaining more of the substantial rainfall in the groundwater aquifer. That is not an option here. Given our modest and dwindling rainfall such technical solutions are less likely. The impact of increasing tourism and urbanization, along with the expansion of vineyards, have the potential to present a similar significant crisis as the development boom continues.
The comparison of the two tourist economies and the impact on water is well worth a look, particularly in light of the scant concern given to future tourism development in the WICC report the county has penned to submit under the State's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, to be presented to the BOS on Dec 13th, Item 9A here.
Tourism at what cost? on: Fire Issues
Bill Hocker - Jul 26,22 expand... Share
SF Chronicle 7/26/22: 'That’s how people die in wildfires': How Wine Country’s fancy new resorts could increase fire risk (pdf version)
An important point about the nexus of fire and tourism is not just that tourists place themselves at risk congregating in venues served by small rural roads in fire prone-landscapes, which is true, but that the increase in number of people needing to evacuate in a fire puts residents at greater risk as well, residents who have often fought the development of tourism venues in their midst.
This article was also published in the Register.
An important point about the nexus of fire and tourism is not just that tourists place themselves at risk congregating in venues served by small rural roads in fire prone-landscapes, which is true, but that the increase in number of people needing to evacuate in a fire puts residents at greater risk as well, residents who have often fought the development of tourism venues in their midst.
This article was also published in the Register.
The predictable water wars have begun on: Growth Issues
George Caloyannidis - Jul 23,22 expand... Share
Readers who may have missed Thomas D. Elias’ July 19, 2022 Commentary: “Facts don't matter to Sacramento's Democrats” would benefit by reading it because it explains in good detail our state’s various laws, which effectively end the single family R-1 zoning allowing it to be split into two lots by right and add a second housing unit.
Other mandates such as locating housing development along transportation corridors are just as troubling. In addition, Elias points out the questionable statistics provided by the state -- claiming housing shortages of 3.5 million, later revised to 1.8 million, and now upped again to 2.5 million in AB 2011 -- to justify these laws.
Looking into the future, Elias writes that legislators are making an “effort to make California at least as dense as New York state.”
Adding to the shoddy statistics there are two more troubling effects that point out how lackadaisical the legislation’s approach has been in crafting these laws.
The first is that a large part of local planning authority is overridden by state law, which over time will strip away the individual character of counties and municipalities. We who live in Napa County treasure the individuality of its cities and its Ag Preserve and so do the millions who visit it to enjoy just that. The transformation of Calistoga, St. Helena etc. will be a slow process, slow enough as not to be obvious, little by little. The economic burden and upheaval, immeasurable and shoved under the table.
It is common knowledge that growth collapses when one of its vital structural components collapses, and as we have become aware, the most obvious one right now is water. Space limitation does not allow me to dwell on the many others that are just as important but less obvious such as traffic congestion, CO2 emissions (counteracting climate change policies at that!), police and EMS services, the power grid and general infrastructure and many more.
We all experienced restrictions on water use, as well as the crippling increase of water rates. While several areas in the San Joaquin Valley have subsided by as much as 30 feet, much of its fertile land is lying fallow with thousands of uprooted fruit trees lying down in tree cemeteries, current mitigation debates at local agencies are proposing a moratorium on new well drilling, metering existing ones, enacting all kinds of financial burdens on water use, such as parcel taxes, well and regulatory fees, all focused on conservation. But curtailing usage at the local level while increasing demand by mandating the construction of millions of new housing units at the opposite end is a losing proposition any 10-year-old can figure out but not our legislators. And it is already turning ugly.
American Canyon has filed a lawsuit against the city of Vallejo which allegedly has reneged on its contractual obligation to deliver water to its 35-lot Canyon Estates development. The city of Vallejo on the other hand justifies its action on the fact that California State Water Resources Control Board has curtailed its own water allocations to Vallejo from waters in Solano County. This is the very state of California! The one which mandates more housing, not facilitating the construction of a mere 35 homes! How about water for the rest of the homes the state has mandated for American Canyon or any locality up and down the state?
The predictable water wars have begun! The one between American Canyon and Vallejo is between municipalities, but how about the state involvement itself which enacts laws without looking a few yards ahead? And specifically in wine country, how about looming wars between agriculture (the largest users) and urban dwellers who will have to subsidize it with higher rates lest the economy collapses? How about the future of agriculture as the largest holder of lands, much of it along transportation corridors? The future of the Ag Preserve?
The mandate for new housing must be examined holistically, considering and safeguarding the precious diversity of the state’s localities with its implications on the health of the environment, and its effect on each local specific economy, history, culture and resources.
State laws cannot be overridden by local initiatives. We expect our local senators to pick up the ball and get into action in the legislation. That failing, only a statewide ballot measure will do the job. We cannot allow California’s local cityscapes ?" indeed their diverse local economies ?" to be upended and fall victim to myopic state housing-zealot legislators who have a duty to get this right but refuse to do the arduous job.
NVR LTE version 7/23/22: The predictable water wars have begun
Other mandates such as locating housing development along transportation corridors are just as troubling. In addition, Elias points out the questionable statistics provided by the state -- claiming housing shortages of 3.5 million, later revised to 1.8 million, and now upped again to 2.5 million in AB 2011 -- to justify these laws.
Looking into the future, Elias writes that legislators are making an “effort to make California at least as dense as New York state.”
Adding to the shoddy statistics there are two more troubling effects that point out how lackadaisical the legislation’s approach has been in crafting these laws.
The first is that a large part of local planning authority is overridden by state law, which over time will strip away the individual character of counties and municipalities. We who live in Napa County treasure the individuality of its cities and its Ag Preserve and so do the millions who visit it to enjoy just that. The transformation of Calistoga, St. Helena etc. will be a slow process, slow enough as not to be obvious, little by little. The economic burden and upheaval, immeasurable and shoved under the table.
It is common knowledge that growth collapses when one of its vital structural components collapses, and as we have become aware, the most obvious one right now is water. Space limitation does not allow me to dwell on the many others that are just as important but less obvious such as traffic congestion, CO2 emissions (counteracting climate change policies at that!), police and EMS services, the power grid and general infrastructure and many more.
We all experienced restrictions on water use, as well as the crippling increase of water rates. While several areas in the San Joaquin Valley have subsided by as much as 30 feet, much of its fertile land is lying fallow with thousands of uprooted fruit trees lying down in tree cemeteries, current mitigation debates at local agencies are proposing a moratorium on new well drilling, metering existing ones, enacting all kinds of financial burdens on water use, such as parcel taxes, well and regulatory fees, all focused on conservation. But curtailing usage at the local level while increasing demand by mandating the construction of millions of new housing units at the opposite end is a losing proposition any 10-year-old can figure out but not our legislators. And it is already turning ugly.
American Canyon has filed a lawsuit against the city of Vallejo which allegedly has reneged on its contractual obligation to deliver water to its 35-lot Canyon Estates development. The city of Vallejo on the other hand justifies its action on the fact that California State Water Resources Control Board has curtailed its own water allocations to Vallejo from waters in Solano County. This is the very state of California! The one which mandates more housing, not facilitating the construction of a mere 35 homes! How about water for the rest of the homes the state has mandated for American Canyon or any locality up and down the state?
The predictable water wars have begun! The one between American Canyon and Vallejo is between municipalities, but how about the state involvement itself which enacts laws without looking a few yards ahead? And specifically in wine country, how about looming wars between agriculture (the largest users) and urban dwellers who will have to subsidize it with higher rates lest the economy collapses? How about the future of agriculture as the largest holder of lands, much of it along transportation corridors? The future of the Ag Preserve?
The mandate for new housing must be examined holistically, considering and safeguarding the precious diversity of the state’s localities with its implications on the health of the environment, and its effect on each local specific economy, history, culture and resources.
State laws cannot be overridden by local initiatives. We expect our local senators to pick up the ball and get into action in the legislation. That failing, only a statewide ballot measure will do the job. We cannot allow California’s local cityscapes ?" indeed their diverse local economies ?" to be upended and fall victim to myopic state housing-zealot legislators who have a duty to get this right but refuse to do the arduous job.
NVR LTE version 7/23/22: The predictable water wars have begun
Pacaso in your backyard on: Tourism Issues
Bill Hocker - Jul 5,22 expand... Share
NVR 7/5/22: Pacaso causes stir in rural Napa County neighborhood
Pacaso, like Airbnb before it, is quickly becoming the scourge of communities worldwide that are desirable places to live. Time share ownership of luxury homes and estates used occasionally during the year, like Airbnb rentals, reduce the number of residents in a community that have a long term stake in what happens there. The sense of neighborhood disappears. Local businesses that serve real communities disappear in favor of transient oriented goods and services. And, like Airbnb on a more grandiose scale, they are apt to serve as party venues for tenants who see themselves as being on vacation and want to have a good time, an unfortunate addition to any neighborhood. Pacaso is just one more symptom of the disintegration of real life in the county being replaced by a tourism economy. It should be resisted at every opportunity and I'm glad that this neighborhood has organized to fight an unwelcome intrusion into their backyard.
But that is not what makes the story interesting to me. The chief antagonist in this case is Paul Bartelt, a civil engineer involved in the development of numerous wineries in the county, several of which have been contested by their neighborhoods, including the Mountain Peak Winery in my backyard. Not that I wish him ill -- he seems normally congenial and professional -- but I must confess, it is of some ironic comfort to see that someone so instrumental in enabling the intrusion of unwanted tourism into rural communities should now cry foul when it is his community affected.
Pacaso, like Airbnb before it, is quickly becoming the scourge of communities worldwide that are desirable places to live. Time share ownership of luxury homes and estates used occasionally during the year, like Airbnb rentals, reduce the number of residents in a community that have a long term stake in what happens there. The sense of neighborhood disappears. Local businesses that serve real communities disappear in favor of transient oriented goods and services. And, like Airbnb on a more grandiose scale, they are apt to serve as party venues for tenants who see themselves as being on vacation and want to have a good time, an unfortunate addition to any neighborhood. Pacaso is just one more symptom of the disintegration of real life in the county being replaced by a tourism economy. It should be resisted at every opportunity and I'm glad that this neighborhood has organized to fight an unwelcome intrusion into their backyard.
But that is not what makes the story interesting to me. The chief antagonist in this case is Paul Bartelt, a civil engineer involved in the development of numerous wineries in the county, several of which have been contested by their neighborhoods, including the Mountain Peak Winery in my backyard. Not that I wish him ill -- he seems normally congenial and professional -- but I must confess, it is of some ironic comfort to see that someone so instrumental in enabling the intrusion of unwanted tourism into rural communities should now cry foul when it is his community affected.
The 2022 campaign for Napa's soul on: Campaign 2022
Bill Hocker - Jun 7,22 expand... Share
Update 6/7/22
Napa County June 7, 2022 Primary Election Complete Coverage
It appears that Anne Cottrell and Joelle Gallagher have substantial leads in their respective districts, which is good news for the preservationist faction of the county. It still remains to be seen if either reaches the 50% needed to avoid a runoff in November.
Update 4/21/22
Lisa Seran LTE 4/21/22: Follow the money in political races
NVR 2/4/22: Truchard the top fundraiser for Napa County supervisor races
In each election we get an accounting of the power of Napa's wine oligarchy and the weight of their patronage in Napa county politics. The patronage seems to be spreading into elected office beyond the Supervisor's chambers. It is also interesting that Sup. Pedroza, the prime conduit for development interests in the county since taking over Bill Dodd's seat 8 years ago, is raking in substantial campaign contributions two years away from his next run for political office, whatever office that might be.
Update 3/28/22
NV2050 3/28/22: Napa County BOS Candidates: We Asked. They Answered.
NVR 3/18/22: Napa County races set for June election
Original post 2/20/21
NVR 2/20/21: High stakes 2022 election to shape Napa County wine country
Partisan politics, of the red and blue variety, barely raises its head in Napa County. The real political division is between development interests, who built or tapped into a thriving agriculture-tourism economy over the last 50 years and who feel that the process can be expanded indefinitely, and preservation interests, including members of the wine industry, who see the process as beginning to exceed sustainable limits in urban growth and resource depletion that threatens the continuation of the county's rural legacy.
In 2016, the loss by Mark Luce to Ryan Gregory for District 2 Supervisor created a majority on the Napa County Board of Supervisors that marked a shift from the Ag Preserve agenda that began in 1968, concerned with the constraint of urban development to allow agriculture to survive, to a board majority more receptive to the "growth" concerns of most governments - how to create ever more jobs, housing, infrastructure and the mirage of more government revenue. (The movement toward an urban growth agenda in Napa County took off with the election of of Bill Dodd in 2000, replacing preservationist Kathryn Winter.)
The two Napa County supervisors retiring after the coming 2022 election, District 3 Supervisor Diane Dillon and District 1 Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht, are the vestiges of the preservation agenda. Un-coincidentally their districts contain the vast bulk of vineyard acreage in the county. From the standpoint of the many people concerned about development pressure in the county, and who have shown up at Planning Commission and BOS meetings over the last 7 years, they have become the main voices weighing development decisions against the desire to preserve an economy based on agriculture. That concern is now seldom the highest consideration in board decisions.
Unfortunately, even with the election of "preservationists" to replace the two supervisors, it will only maintain the status quo, and the level of development now being approved will continue. But if their replacements are "growth" minded supervisors, it will probably usher in the end of the Ag Preserve experiment as the new board aggressively pushes more development as a solution to the traffic, housing and tight-budget problems caused by the Board's previous development decisions and more tourism as a solution to the declining value of wine to a younger generation more interested in winery experiences than the wine itself. If there is any hope of regaining a majority that will support the low-growth ideals of the Ag Preserve heritage, these two seats must be retained in the preservationist camp.
The planning commissioners appointed by Sups. Dillon and Wagenknecht, Anne Cottrell and Joelle Gallagher are both running in their respective districts, and both have made herculean efforts at moderating the scale of development proposals before them at the commission. But tourism, real estate and construction interests are now dominant forces in the county, as well as a wine industry that continues to embrace ever increasing tourism as its salvation, and the battle will be hard fought and costly.
Napa County June 7, 2022 Primary Election Complete Coverage
It appears that Anne Cottrell and Joelle Gallagher have substantial leads in their respective districts, which is good news for the preservationist faction of the county. It still remains to be seen if either reaches the 50% needed to avoid a runoff in November.
Update 4/21/22
Lisa Seran LTE 4/21/22: Follow the money in political races
NVR 2/4/22: Truchard the top fundraiser for Napa County supervisor races
In each election we get an accounting of the power of Napa's wine oligarchy and the weight of their patronage in Napa county politics. The patronage seems to be spreading into elected office beyond the Supervisor's chambers. It is also interesting that Sup. Pedroza, the prime conduit for development interests in the county since taking over Bill Dodd's seat 8 years ago, is raking in substantial campaign contributions two years away from his next run for political office, whatever office that might be.
Update 3/28/22
NV2050 3/28/22: Napa County BOS Candidates: We Asked. They Answered.
NVR 3/18/22: Napa County races set for June election
Original post 2/20/21
NVR 2/20/21: High stakes 2022 election to shape Napa County wine country
Partisan politics, of the red and blue variety, barely raises its head in Napa County. The real political division is between development interests, who built or tapped into a thriving agriculture-tourism economy over the last 50 years and who feel that the process can be expanded indefinitely, and preservation interests, including members of the wine industry, who see the process as beginning to exceed sustainable limits in urban growth and resource depletion that threatens the continuation of the county's rural legacy.
In 2016, the loss by Mark Luce to Ryan Gregory for District 2 Supervisor created a majority on the Napa County Board of Supervisors that marked a shift from the Ag Preserve agenda that began in 1968, concerned with the constraint of urban development to allow agriculture to survive, to a board majority more receptive to the "growth" concerns of most governments - how to create ever more jobs, housing, infrastructure and the mirage of more government revenue. (The movement toward an urban growth agenda in Napa County took off with the election of of Bill Dodd in 2000, replacing preservationist Kathryn Winter.)
The two Napa County supervisors retiring after the coming 2022 election, District 3 Supervisor Diane Dillon and District 1 Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht, are the vestiges of the preservation agenda. Un-coincidentally their districts contain the vast bulk of vineyard acreage in the county. From the standpoint of the many people concerned about development pressure in the county, and who have shown up at Planning Commission and BOS meetings over the last 7 years, they have become the main voices weighing development decisions against the desire to preserve an economy based on agriculture. That concern is now seldom the highest consideration in board decisions.
Unfortunately, even with the election of "preservationists" to replace the two supervisors, it will only maintain the status quo, and the level of development now being approved will continue. But if their replacements are "growth" minded supervisors, it will probably usher in the end of the Ag Preserve experiment as the new board aggressively pushes more development as a solution to the traffic, housing and tight-budget problems caused by the Board's previous development decisions and more tourism as a solution to the declining value of wine to a younger generation more interested in winery experiences than the wine itself. If there is any hope of regaining a majority that will support the low-growth ideals of the Ag Preserve heritage, these two seats must be retained in the preservationist camp.
The planning commissioners appointed by Sups. Dillon and Wagenknecht, Anne Cottrell and Joelle Gallagher are both running in their respective districts, and both have made herculean efforts at moderating the scale of development proposals before them at the commission. But tourism, real estate and construction interests are now dominant forces in the county, as well as a wine industry that continues to embrace ever increasing tourism as its salvation, and the battle will be hard fought and costly.
District 1 Candidates respond to KNGG on: Campaign 2022
Bill Hocker - May 24,22 expand... Share
Update 5/24/22
Christiane Robbins sends these KNGG questionaire responses from Supervisor Candidates in District 1.
While KNGG concerns (here) are focused on the Ghlisetta/Horsemans properties, the questions and answers by the candidates cover broader issues of county housing policy.
Christiane Robbins sends these KNGG questionaire responses from Supervisor Candidates in District 1.
While KNGG concerns (here) are focused on the Ghlisetta/Horsemans properties, the questions and answers by the candidates cover broader issues of county housing policy.
Walt Ranch in Court and Beyond on: Walt Ranch
Bill Hocker - May 17,22 expand... Share
Update 7/22/22 Coda
Sue Wagner LTE 7/22/22: Lessons from Walt Ranch project
Patricia Damery LTE 7/17/22: Questions remain about Walt Ranch decision
Update 5/17/22
NVR 5/17/22: Napa County endorses Walt Ranch greenhouse gas plan
BOS 5/17/22 hearing video
With Sup. Pedroza recused, by a vote of 4-0, the Board of Supervisors denied the appeal and swept away the last legal obstacle to the bulldozers.
Well, almost. Today's vote needs to be finalized with exact language on 7/12/22. And a conservation easement, made through an organization like the Napa County Land Trust, and an endowment to maintain it, must recorded before any land clearing operations can begin. That may take a year.
It may have just been my imagination, but it seemed that 3 of the 4 supervisors would rather have voted to halt the project. The realization comes many years too late. "If we had known then what we know today..." Sup. Dillon lamented at the last meeting. Of course many people knew then that this project was going to be an environmental black eye for a county nominally committed to preservation, even before fires depleted much of the county's sequestered carbon and the groundwater began to run dry; and they said so at every hearing for the last 8 years. Could the supes or staff have short-circuited the project if there was a will? The Hall's attorney, citing the length of this process and a recent, much more protracted, CEQA decision in Marin, ominously summed up with a quote implying that the 1st District Court now frowns on the use of CEQA as an instrument of oppression and delay, implying, one assumes, that the county will be sued if it prolongs the approval process further.
The notion of future development was brought up again. Sup. Ramos made a last ditch effort to broach parcel mergers as a way to encourage future conservation. Dir. Morrison, always anxious to derail the image of the vineyard estate mansions that will eventually sprout on the very visible hillsides, quickly intoned the disclaimer that "Future development is speculative. Staff would not recommend taking measures regarding that." Future development is, of course, what makes this absurdly costly 200-acre vineyard worth doing.
Update 5/13/22
On 5/17/22 the BOS will again consider the appeal by the Center for Biological Diversity of a mitigation measure for the removal of 14,000 trees from the project area. See item 13D on the agenda.
Since the last hearing a 30' non-development zone (dark blue on the map) has been added to the edges of some of the vineyard blocks to address concerns raised by CBD, raising the number of protected areas in the mitigation from 248 to 267.7 acres. There is a suggestion that somehow the atomized acreage designated for protection (dark green on the map) has been consolidated to provide more continuity of protected areas. While a few of those areas may be large enough to be developed, the many, many small isolated patches, most less than an acre in size, surrounded by areas protected because their slope exceeds 30% (light blue on the map), are not realistically under threat of development. The First District Appellate Court cited in its decision, referencing a precedence in a Cap and Trade case, that "carbon sequestration from permanent conservation constitutes an offset only if the forest conserved was under a significant threat of conversion". These small patches of trees surrounded by un-developable land are not under a significant threat of development and should not be considered as a mitigation. The notes below still apply.
Update 4/19/22
NVR 4/19/22: Napa County wants more time on new Walt Ranch GHG plan
Gary Woodruff LTE 4/19/22: Napa County regulators need to do a better job protecting the land
The continuance was desperate measure in a futile effort to cobble some legitimacy to their decision. But no amount of "consolidation" of the hundreds of micro parcels in the conservation easement will solve the fact that this mitigation, much like the tree planting, will ever compensate for even a quarter of the lost carbon stored in the trees and their roots.
The $960k settlement to the Halls in St. Helena must loom over the Board of Supervisors as this approval is being deliberated. It is quite possible that a majority of the board now thinks that, in a time of climate crisis, and the need to reduce GHGs and to protect water resources in a drying world, that the development of 2300 acres of virgin Napa county woodland for wine grapes (and potential vineyard estates) is no longer something they individually or the county can be proud of. The project was begun in a period in which the county promoted anything that fitted the expansive wine industry definition of "agriculture", even something as audacious and objectionable as Walt Ranch. This decision is being stretched out, IMO, in a desperate search for a late term denial to prevent the bulldozers from moving in. As the St. Helena settlement shows, the Halls will take punitive action to enforce their ambition, and in this case it will be substantially more than $1 mil that county residents and visitors will end up paying in one way or another.
Update 4/18/22
NV2050 Eyes on Napa 4/18/22: Walt Ranch: An Important Vote - Do No Harm!
Iris Barrie LTE 4/17/22: Land use decision of upmost importance when dealing with climate crisis (NVFB LTE)
Sue Wagner LTE 4/16/22: Walt Ranch project bad for the environment
Laurie Claudon (G/VfRA) LTE 4/14/22: Action needs to be taken now to stem further climate change damage
Update 4/13/22
On 4/19/22 the BOS will be reconsidering the appeal of the Walt Ranch GHG mitigation plan preliminarily denied on 12/14/22 but then derailed before a final sign-off by conflict-of-interest allegations against Sup. Pedroza. In the meantime the developer has proposed, and the staff accepted, a change in the mitigation under appeal. While the mitigation proposed on 12/14/22 involved 124 acres in conserved woodland and the planting and maintenance of 16790 seedlings to replace the 27496 tons of GHG's emitted in the destruction of 14000 mature trees, the new mitigation merely sets aside 248 acres of otherwise developable woodland in a conservation easement with no replacement planting.
Incredibly, this mitigation does nothing to compensate for the tons of GHG emissions the project will create. It only insures that a small percentage of the property will not add to that GHG emission in some unspecified and unforeseeable project in future. In looking at the proposed map, it is fairly obvious that the areas identified are simply a computer algorithm designed to fabricate conservation matches rather than an effort to find meaningful areas of conservation that might otherwise be developed. It is also fairly obvious that many of the designated areas, surrounded by un-developable land, are highly unlikely to be developed in any case because they are too fragmented, small or inaccessible to be considered for vineyard blocks (or as winery and estate sites). The white areas on the plan, not defined in the index, are presumably where future development can occur. The conservation areas do little to prevent future GHG emitting development outside the atomized 248 acres. This proposal makes no sense as a replacement for a plan that attempted to offset emissions with new plantings, however deficient that offset would have been.
I am trying to understand the court decision that led to the 12/14/22 BOS appeal. Given the legalese and double negative expressions, the decisions are a bit difficult to follow.
The 1st District Appellate Court, in upholding the GHG part of the appeal and sending it back to the Superior Court seems to downplay the notion that preserving existing trees are a mitigation for the removed trees unless those existing trees are "under a significant threat of conversion":
Is the designation of conservation areas evidence of a foreseeable threat? My (albeit layman's and biased) interpretation of this conclusion is that, given that future development is not a foreseeable consequence of the project, and that there is no substantial evidence that additional trees in a 'business-as-usual scenario" would be "under a significant threat of conversion", their permanent protection would not be considered a mitigation of the project's GHG emissions. Unless, of course, a foreseeable threat is specified to particular areas that could then be protected as a mitigation. At this point, the designation of 248 acres that can be cleared in a future project if not protected seems little more than a fabricated threat intended to thwart any need for actual GHG mitigation in the current project.
A question still to be answered is why the County proposed an elaborate tree planting program to offset the GHG loss in the 12/14/21 hearing, when the Superior Court judge already suggested the much simpler248 acre solution (that does nothing to offset the loss).
Update 2/2/22
Nancy Tamerisk LTE 2/2/22: 'The stench of corruption is the air'
Phil Burton LTE 2/5/22: Shame on our county supervisors
Update 12/15/21
NVR 12/15/21: Napa County backs Walt Ranch mitigation plan
Nadean Bissiri LTE 1/20/22: Who do our county supervisors serve?
In a vote by the BOS on 12/14/21 that was perhaps better than anticipated, the supes split their decision on the Walt Ranch mitigation, with the 3 pro-development members of the board backing the mitigation plan, but the 2 preservation members holding firm and voting to turn it down. The fact that those two are not running for re-election in 2022 might have made it a bit easier to vote in the best environmental interest of Napa County and its residents rather than the financial interest of major campaign contributors. Hopefully the split decision will encourage the appellants to return to court for the judge's opinion on the mitigation.
Walt Ranch will be the most expensive 200 acres of vineyard ever developed in Napa County. 15 years of consultant costs, government fees, legal battles, 21 miles of all weather road, a community reservoir and water system delivering water to every one of the 35 properties on its 2300 acres. But, of course, this is not a vineyard project. It is an estate subdivision with the potential to turn over each legal parcel for much more than its value as a vineyard, as the developer has done before. It is, in fact, an end run around Napa's token attempt to promote "agriculture" over urban development by building the infrastructure needed to develop a housing project in the name of agricultural necessity. It is of a piece with the county defining winery tourism as agriculture to insure that the money to made from urban development by both developers and the county can proceed apace under a legal framework that is nominally intended to preserve agriculture in the face of urbanization.
Update 12/10/21 Appeal of PBES decision
On 12/14/21 at 2:00pm the BOS will hear an appeal by the Center for Biological Diversity of the court-mandated revised greenhouse gas mitigation plan that has been approved by PBES for the Walt Ranch project. The agenda and documents for the hearing are on pg. 15 here. The proposed mitigation calls for the planting of 16,790 new trees (to replace the 14,000 mature trees that will cut down for vines), but also allows for a reduction to 124 acres in the permanent conservation easement originally required to be 248 acres. The staff agenda letter is here. The Center for Biological Diversity argues that no detailed plan for the implementation of the new mitigation measures has been prepared, and thus there is no way to evaluate the potential success of the mitigation. They also challenge assumptions made about the success rate for re-plantings.
NV2050 Eyes on Napa about Dec 14th protest rally
Comment letters on the PBES decision
Elaine de Man LTE: Alfredo Pedroza and Walt Ranch
Walt Ranch Documents
PBES greenhouse mitigation decision
NV2050: Sue Wagner on the appeal hearing
NV2050 Walt Ranch page
NV2050 on the appeal hearing
Wagner, Hirayama LTE 11/30/21: To all Napa County residents concerned about climate change
Ross Middlemiss LTE 11/4/21: Supervisors’ final call on Walt Ranch will be lasting
NVR 10/26/21: Walt Ranch greenhouse gas decision appealed
CBD press release 10/25/21: Appeal Challenges Weak Climate Plan for Harmful Napa Vineyard Project
Update 10/5/21 PBES decision
County Decision to approve greenhouse gas mitigation
County Walt Ranch Documents
Public Comments
The decision can be appealed to the BOS.
NVR 9/23/21: Napa County ready to approve Walt Ranch greenhouse gas plan
WineBusiness 9/24/21: Walt Ranch Nears Approval as Halls Submit Greenhouse Gas Emissions Mitigation Plan
NVR 7/20/20: Napa County questions how Walt Ranch vineyards will mitigate greenhouse gases
Update 10/1/19 Court decision
NVR 10/1/19: Court says Napa County's Walt Ranch vineyard project needs more work
The court denied several appeal petitions, but the project was remanded to the County to reconsider how greenhouse gas emissions caused by the project were to be mitigated.
Living Rivers Council et al vs. County of Napa et al (court decision and disposition)
Disposition:
Update 2/14/18
On Feb. 13th the Circle Oaks County Water District and CO Homeowner's Assoc, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, and the Living Rivers Council began presenting their CEQA lawsuit against the County for approving the Walt Ranch development. After testimony from attorneys for the Living Rivers Council the Circle Oaks Water District, the hearing was continued to March 1st, 2018. Prior to the hearing, the Judge in the case had already issued a tentative ruling in favor of the County.
Text of Tentative ruling by Judge Warriner prior to the hearing(gone)
NVR 2/13/18: Tentative court ruling sides with Napa County and Walt Ranch
Sue Wagner's notes from the hearing
2/5/18
NVR 1/21/17: Walt Ranch approvals head to court
Sue Wagner LTE 7/22/22: Lessons from Walt Ranch project
Patricia Damery LTE 7/17/22: Questions remain about Walt Ranch decision
Update 5/17/22
NVR 5/17/22: Napa County endorses Walt Ranch greenhouse gas plan
BOS 5/17/22 hearing video
With Sup. Pedroza recused, by a vote of 4-0, the Board of Supervisors denied the appeal and swept away the last legal obstacle to the bulldozers.
Well, almost. Today's vote needs to be finalized with exact language on 7/12/22. And a conservation easement, made through an organization like the Napa County Land Trust, and an endowment to maintain it, must recorded before any land clearing operations can begin. That may take a year.
It may have just been my imagination, but it seemed that 3 of the 4 supervisors would rather have voted to halt the project. The realization comes many years too late. "If we had known then what we know today..." Sup. Dillon lamented at the last meeting. Of course many people knew then that this project was going to be an environmental black eye for a county nominally committed to preservation, even before fires depleted much of the county's sequestered carbon and the groundwater began to run dry; and they said so at every hearing for the last 8 years. Could the supes or staff have short-circuited the project if there was a will? The Hall's attorney, citing the length of this process and a recent, much more protracted, CEQA decision in Marin, ominously summed up with a quote implying that the 1st District Court now frowns on the use of CEQA as an instrument of oppression and delay, implying, one assumes, that the county will be sued if it prolongs the approval process further.
The notion of future development was brought up again. Sup. Ramos made a last ditch effort to broach parcel mergers as a way to encourage future conservation. Dir. Morrison, always anxious to derail the image of the vineyard estate mansions that will eventually sprout on the very visible hillsides, quickly intoned the disclaimer that "Future development is speculative. Staff would not recommend taking measures regarding that." Future development is, of course, what makes this absurdly costly 200-acre vineyard worth doing.
Update 5/13/22
On 5/17/22 the BOS will again consider the appeal by the Center for Biological Diversity of a mitigation measure for the removal of 14,000 trees from the project area. See item 13D on the agenda.
Since the last hearing a 30' non-development zone (dark blue on the map) has been added to the edges of some of the vineyard blocks to address concerns raised by CBD, raising the number of protected areas in the mitigation from 248 to 267.7 acres. There is a suggestion that somehow the atomized acreage designated for protection (dark green on the map) has been consolidated to provide more continuity of protected areas. While a few of those areas may be large enough to be developed, the many, many small isolated patches, most less than an acre in size, surrounded by areas protected because their slope exceeds 30% (light blue on the map), are not realistically under threat of development. The First District Appellate Court cited in its decision, referencing a precedence in a Cap and Trade case, that "carbon sequestration from permanent conservation constitutes an offset only if the forest conserved was under a significant threat of conversion". These small patches of trees surrounded by un-developable land are not under a significant threat of development and should not be considered as a mitigation. The notes below still apply.
Update 4/19/22
NVR 4/19/22: Napa County wants more time on new Walt Ranch GHG plan
Gary Woodruff LTE 4/19/22: Napa County regulators need to do a better job protecting the land
The continuance was desperate measure in a futile effort to cobble some legitimacy to their decision. But no amount of "consolidation" of the hundreds of micro parcels in the conservation easement will solve the fact that this mitigation, much like the tree planting, will ever compensate for even a quarter of the lost carbon stored in the trees and their roots.
The $960k settlement to the Halls in St. Helena must loom over the Board of Supervisors as this approval is being deliberated. It is quite possible that a majority of the board now thinks that, in a time of climate crisis, and the need to reduce GHGs and to protect water resources in a drying world, that the development of 2300 acres of virgin Napa county woodland for wine grapes (and potential vineyard estates) is no longer something they individually or the county can be proud of. The project was begun in a period in which the county promoted anything that fitted the expansive wine industry definition of "agriculture", even something as audacious and objectionable as Walt Ranch. This decision is being stretched out, IMO, in a desperate search for a late term denial to prevent the bulldozers from moving in. As the St. Helena settlement shows, the Halls will take punitive action to enforce their ambition, and in this case it will be substantially more than $1 mil that county residents and visitors will end up paying in one way or another.
Update 4/18/22
NV2050 Eyes on Napa 4/18/22: Walt Ranch: An Important Vote - Do No Harm!
Iris Barrie LTE 4/17/22: Land use decision of upmost importance when dealing with climate crisis (NVFB LTE)
Sue Wagner LTE 4/16/22: Walt Ranch project bad for the environment
Laurie Claudon (G/VfRA) LTE 4/14/22: Action needs to be taken now to stem further climate change damage
Update 4/13/22
On 4/19/22 the BOS will be reconsidering the appeal of the Walt Ranch GHG mitigation plan preliminarily denied on 12/14/22 but then derailed before a final sign-off by conflict-of-interest allegations against Sup. Pedroza. In the meantime the developer has proposed, and the staff accepted, a change in the mitigation under appeal. While the mitigation proposed on 12/14/22 involved 124 acres in conserved woodland and the planting and maintenance of 16790 seedlings to replace the 27496 tons of GHG's emitted in the destruction of 14000 mature trees, the new mitigation merely sets aside 248 acres of otherwise developable woodland in a conservation easement with no replacement planting.
Incredibly, this mitigation does nothing to compensate for the tons of GHG emissions the project will create. It only insures that a small percentage of the property will not add to that GHG emission in some unspecified and unforeseeable project in future. In looking at the proposed map, it is fairly obvious that the areas identified are simply a computer algorithm designed to fabricate conservation matches rather than an effort to find meaningful areas of conservation that might otherwise be developed. It is also fairly obvious that many of the designated areas, surrounded by un-developable land, are highly unlikely to be developed in any case because they are too fragmented, small or inaccessible to be considered for vineyard blocks (or as winery and estate sites). The white areas on the plan, not defined in the index, are presumably where future development can occur. The conservation areas do little to prevent future GHG emitting development outside the atomized 248 acres. This proposal makes no sense as a replacement for a plan that attempted to offset emissions with new plantings, however deficient that offset would have been.
I am trying to understand the court decision that led to the 12/14/22 BOS appeal. Given the legalese and double negative expressions, the decisions are a bit difficult to follow.
The 1st District Appellate Court, in upholding the GHG part of the appeal and sending it back to the Superior Court seems to downplay the notion that preserving existing trees are a mitigation for the removed trees unless those existing trees are "under a significant threat of conversion":
- "Here, the EIR does not identify the location of the woodland acres that it commits
to preserve. The property itself is undeveloped, but over 40 percent of the property is not developable under local regulations. As we previously concluded herein, future development on the property is not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the project. On this record, CBD has demonstrated a lack of substantial evidence supporting the inference that the trees to be permanently conserved would not reasonably have remained on the property. CBD has accordingly satisfied its burden of showing that substantial evidence does not support the EIR’s conclusion that the project would have a less-than-significant GHG emission impact."
Is the designation of conservation areas evidence of a foreseeable threat? My (albeit layman's and biased) interpretation of this conclusion is that, given that future development is not a foreseeable consequence of the project, and that there is no substantial evidence that additional trees in a 'business-as-usual scenario" would be "under a significant threat of conversion", their permanent protection would not be considered a mitigation of the project's GHG emissions. Unless, of course, a foreseeable threat is specified to particular areas that could then be protected as a mitigation. At this point, the designation of 248 acres that can be cleared in a future project if not protected seems little more than a fabricated threat intended to thwart any need for actual GHG mitigation in the current project.
A question still to be answered is why the County proposed an elaborate tree planting program to offset the GHG loss in the 12/14/21 hearing, when the Superior Court judge already suggested the much simpler248 acre solution (that does nothing to offset the loss).
Update 2/2/22
Nancy Tamerisk LTE 2/2/22: 'The stench of corruption is the air'
Phil Burton LTE 2/5/22: Shame on our county supervisors
Update 12/15/21
NVR 12/15/21: Napa County backs Walt Ranch mitigation plan
Nadean Bissiri LTE 1/20/22: Who do our county supervisors serve?
In a vote by the BOS on 12/14/21 that was perhaps better than anticipated, the supes split their decision on the Walt Ranch mitigation, with the 3 pro-development members of the board backing the mitigation plan, but the 2 preservation members holding firm and voting to turn it down. The fact that those two are not running for re-election in 2022 might have made it a bit easier to vote in the best environmental interest of Napa County and its residents rather than the financial interest of major campaign contributors. Hopefully the split decision will encourage the appellants to return to court for the judge's opinion on the mitigation.
Walt Ranch will be the most expensive 200 acres of vineyard ever developed in Napa County. 15 years of consultant costs, government fees, legal battles, 21 miles of all weather road, a community reservoir and water system delivering water to every one of the 35 properties on its 2300 acres. But, of course, this is not a vineyard project. It is an estate subdivision with the potential to turn over each legal parcel for much more than its value as a vineyard, as the developer has done before. It is, in fact, an end run around Napa's token attempt to promote "agriculture" over urban development by building the infrastructure needed to develop a housing project in the name of agricultural necessity. It is of a piece with the county defining winery tourism as agriculture to insure that the money to made from urban development by both developers and the county can proceed apace under a legal framework that is nominally intended to preserve agriculture in the face of urbanization.
Update 12/10/21 Appeal of PBES decision
On 12/14/21 at 2:00pm the BOS will hear an appeal by the Center for Biological Diversity of the court-mandated revised greenhouse gas mitigation plan that has been approved by PBES for the Walt Ranch project. The agenda and documents for the hearing are on pg. 15 here. The proposed mitigation calls for the planting of 16,790 new trees (to replace the 14,000 mature trees that will cut down for vines), but also allows for a reduction to 124 acres in the permanent conservation easement originally required to be 248 acres. The staff agenda letter is here. The Center for Biological Diversity argues that no detailed plan for the implementation of the new mitigation measures has been prepared, and thus there is no way to evaluate the potential success of the mitigation. They also challenge assumptions made about the success rate for re-plantings.
NV2050 Eyes on Napa about Dec 14th protest rally
Comment letters on the PBES decision
Elaine de Man LTE: Alfredo Pedroza and Walt Ranch
Walt Ranch Documents
PBES greenhouse mitigation decision
NV2050: Sue Wagner on the appeal hearing
NV2050 Walt Ranch page
NV2050 on the appeal hearing
Wagner, Hirayama LTE 11/30/21: To all Napa County residents concerned about climate change
Ross Middlemiss LTE 11/4/21: Supervisors’ final call on Walt Ranch will be lasting
NVR 10/26/21: Walt Ranch greenhouse gas decision appealed
CBD press release 10/25/21: Appeal Challenges Weak Climate Plan for Harmful Napa Vineyard Project
Update 10/5/21 PBES decision
County Decision to approve greenhouse gas mitigation
County Walt Ranch Documents
Public Comments
The decision can be appealed to the BOS.
NVR 9/23/21: Napa County ready to approve Walt Ranch greenhouse gas plan
WineBusiness 9/24/21: Walt Ranch Nears Approval as Halls Submit Greenhouse Gas Emissions Mitigation Plan
NVR 7/20/20: Napa County questions how Walt Ranch vineyards will mitigate greenhouse gases
Update 10/1/19 Court decision
NVR 10/1/19: Court says Napa County's Walt Ranch vineyard project needs more work
The court denied several appeal petitions, but the project was remanded to the County to reconsider how greenhouse gas emissions caused by the project were to be mitigated.
Living Rivers Council et al vs. County of Napa et al (court decision and disposition)
Disposition:
"We affirm the judgments denying the petitions for writ of mandate as to Circle Oaks and LRC. We reverse the judgment denying CBD’s petition for a writ of mandate, and we remand the CBD matter to the trial court to grant the petition as to the following EIR issue: to ensure that the GHG emissions associated with the Project, as mitigated, constitute a less-than-significant impact, as set forth in Section II.F of this opinion. In all other respects, we affirm the judgment as to CBD. The parties shall bear their own costs on appeal."
Update 2/14/18
On Feb. 13th the Circle Oaks County Water District and CO Homeowner's Assoc, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, and the Living Rivers Council began presenting their CEQA lawsuit against the County for approving the Walt Ranch development. After testimony from attorneys for the Living Rivers Council the Circle Oaks Water District, the hearing was continued to March 1st, 2018. Prior to the hearing, the Judge in the case had already issued a tentative ruling in favor of the County.
Text of Tentative ruling by Judge Warriner prior to the hearing(gone)
NVR 2/13/18: Tentative court ruling sides with Napa County and Walt Ranch
Sue Wagner's notes from the hearing
2/5/18
NVR 1/21/17: Walt Ranch approvals head to court
Walt Ranch decision possible May 17th on: Walt Ranch
Bill Hocker - May 12,22 expand... Share
On May 17, 2020 the BOS may dismantle the last legal roadblock that has kept the bulldozers out of Walt Ranch. It is unknown what impact the project will have on dwindling water resources, the habitat and movement of wildlife, or for the promotion of more goodlife development in the county's eastern wildlands. It is a very big piece of Napa County and no environmental impact report will every convince many that its impacts are less-than-significant.
Since 2019, in response to concerns raised by Measure C, Napa County Revised its conservation regulations the amount of woodland land that can be converted into agricultural use from 40% of a propertiy's area to 30%. The remaining 70% of woodland must be left undeveloped. Also a minimum of 40% of scrubland must remain undeveloped.
Geographer Amber Manfree has argued that there is a loophole. The county looks at contiguous individual parcels under the same ownership as one piece of property when assessing the "70/40 rule" during development. Some of those parcels may retain less of the natural landscape as long as the balance for the aggregated property fits within the 70/40 rule. It is thus an advantage to have or to buy adjacent parcels that are not developed, to be able to max out other parcels that are. The loophole is that once the development is approved, there is little oversite on a per-parcel basis as to which particular acerage was to be restricted from conversion. Years later, particular parcels may be resold and their new owners will submit ECP's to convert land that was protected to allow for over-conversion on other parcels. Or the same owner will submit a new plan for a specific parcel having conveniently forgotten that it was supposed to remain undeveloped.
The latest propossed expansion of Stagecoach Vineyards on Soda Canyon Road by its new owner, Gallo, represents the reality. Many of the parcels that make up Stagecoach are developed well beyond 40% allowed in the 1991 Conservation Regulations. But adjacent parcels not developed were no doubt used as an offset in the 1990's to allow the over-development. Now Gallo is planning to develop some of those parcels.
Walt Ranch is another example. The chart below shows that several of the 35 parcels that make up the project have exceeded the 70/40 rule on a per-parcel basis, though below the limits on the total project. Unlike Stagecoach, Walt Ranch, as I think everyone knows in their heart despite denials, is an estate development project, not a vineyard project. That is what the Halls do to make money. Wine is a glamorous side business. Once the parcels are sold off to new owners the opportunity for each of them to develop to the 70/40 limit will be difficult to police.
The chart below shows the breakdown by vegetation type and parcel. It is a bit confusing to figure out. Basically 4 of the 35 parcels exceed the 70/40 limit on development area.
Dr. Manfree has also argued in this report presented during the 2019 Con Reg discussions, that a part of any watershed parcel may already be "undevelopable" because of other con regulations, including setbacks from streams, reservoirs and prohibitions on slopes over 30%. The 70/40 rule should be applied on the "developable area", not to the entire property. She has presented a breakdown of woodland and scrubland for each of the 35 parcels.

Since 2019, in response to concerns raised by Measure C, Napa County Revised its conservation regulations the amount of woodland land that can be converted into agricultural use from 40% of a propertiy's area to 30%. The remaining 70% of woodland must be left undeveloped. Also a minimum of 40% of scrubland must remain undeveloped.
Geographer Amber Manfree has argued that there is a loophole. The county looks at contiguous individual parcels under the same ownership as one piece of property when assessing the "70/40 rule" during development. Some of those parcels may retain less of the natural landscape as long as the balance for the aggregated property fits within the 70/40 rule. It is thus an advantage to have or to buy adjacent parcels that are not developed, to be able to max out other parcels that are. The loophole is that once the development is approved, there is little oversite on a per-parcel basis as to which particular acerage was to be restricted from conversion. Years later, particular parcels may be resold and their new owners will submit ECP's to convert land that was protected to allow for over-conversion on other parcels. Or the same owner will submit a new plan for a specific parcel having conveniently forgotten that it was supposed to remain undeveloped.
The latest propossed expansion of Stagecoach Vineyards on Soda Canyon Road by its new owner, Gallo, represents the reality. Many of the parcels that make up Stagecoach are developed well beyond 40% allowed in the 1991 Conservation Regulations. But adjacent parcels not developed were no doubt used as an offset in the 1990's to allow the over-development. Now Gallo is planning to develop some of those parcels.
Walt Ranch is another example. The chart below shows that several of the 35 parcels that make up the project have exceeded the 70/40 rule on a per-parcel basis, though below the limits on the total project. Unlike Stagecoach, Walt Ranch, as I think everyone knows in their heart despite denials, is an estate development project, not a vineyard project. That is what the Halls do to make money. Wine is a glamorous side business. Once the parcels are sold off to new owners the opportunity for each of them to develop to the 70/40 limit will be difficult to police.
The chart below shows the breakdown by vegetation type and parcel. It is a bit confusing to figure out. Basically 4 of the 35 parcels exceed the 70/40 limit on development area.
Dr. Manfree has also argued in this report presented during the 2019 Con Reg discussions, that a part of any watershed parcel may already be "undevelopable" because of other con regulations, including setbacks from streams, reservoirs and prohibitions on slopes over 30%. The 70/40 rule should be applied on the "developable area", not to the entire property. She has presented a breakdown of woodland and scrubland for each of the 35 parcels.

The solar powered landscape on: Solar Farming
Bill Hocker - Apr 22,22 expand... Share
Update 4/22/22
A private residential solar panel project is scheduled to appear before the Planning Commission on 5/4/22. The documents are here. It is only on the PC docket because exemptions are needed for construction on slopes over 30%, not because of its visual impact on the environment.
The fuzzy photo at the right shows what the installation (top arrow) might look like from the center of the valley. It may be more or less visible. It might be darker or brighter (especially if the sun reflects off it.) I am not creating it to object to this particular project but to show that solar projects do have a visual impact that are at odds with the natural landscape. It is an impact that should be considered as more and more of these project are proposed. The bottom arrow shows an existing array.
The use of solar power, of course, is necessary if we are to meet climate GHG reduction goals in this climate crisis. But the glut in solar power that already exists shows that the ultimate solution is in large scale storage and distribution rather than more individual solar arrays. And there are impacts in building thousands of private arrays, particularly potential visual impacts in a county that derives some of its income from the appreciation of the natural beauty of its environment. Thus far the discussions on solar power have not highlighted visual impacts.
The county seems at the moment to have shelved the proposed ordinance on renewable energy systems, including individual and large-scale solar arrays, in the county. The last action the BOS took regarding that ordinance was to ban solar farms on ag or residential land until the ordinance could be finalized.
Even if it were in effect, the proposed ordinance does not address the visual implications of projects. This is a negligent omission. At the least they should be regulated specifically under the county's view-shed ordinance which would apply to slopes under 30% as well and require planting to screen the view. Until the county does so, there should also be a moratorium on private deployment as well. (Unfortunately the view-shed ordinance seems to be doing little to prevent visible development defacing hillside views, but that's another discussion...)
In crafting zoning ordinances, there is a government obligation to consider the maximum impact that the zoning will permit. Not to do so is cumulative negligence. As the panoramic wetland and vineyard entry to wine country is now being converted to an alley of warehouses, that negligence is upon us. In the battles over winery development, the County was asked to consider the cumulative-impact question: what if every property that is allowed to have a winery builds a winery. The attitude seemed to be that ain't gonna happen, trust us. As I look at the winery approvals at our Soda Canyon Road junction their blasé attitude is definitely beginning to look like cumulative negligence.
So with solar arrays: what if every homeowner builds a solar array on the hillside above their house. There are implications to the visual character of the bucolic landscape that we and visitors treasure. That implication needs to be vetted before the county begins issuing permits, lest it become another example of cumulative negligence in the county's stewardship.
Update 4/25/18
NVR 4/25/18: Gateway to the city of Napa getting stealth solar farm
Exactly the solution needed for the Rector dam corporation yard!
Update 3/17/18
NVR 3/17/18: State wants half-acre solar array along Napa's Silverado Trail
The Trail is already filling up with garish homes and event centers and parking lots and left turn bumps and now the indignity of an industrial power plant.
It's churlish, and un-PC, to bad-mouth solar power. But we should recognize, as solar power provides more and more of our energy, that solar collectors are attractive only in their novelty and their benefit toward prolonging life on earth. In fact they are little different in appearance than a full parking lot.
As every home and business begins to burden the landscape with an array, the landscape will suffer. We see even now the jarring apparition of arrays climbing the hillsides behind homes and wineries, with little thought about their visual impact, but much admiration for the "green" commitment of their owners. And large solar arrays, as with the half acre at Rector, are significant money makers that will further speed their adoption, particularly in areas with a lot of open space - like Napa. It is really time for a solar array ordinance to "mitigate" (I would prefer "eliminate") their visual impacts and potential consumption of ag land going forward.
About the Rector array: this is an ideal opportunity to propose a 6-8' berm (a modest bit of earthwork perhaps garnished with vines) at the front of the property to hide both the panels and the corporation yard with its industrial detritus. It could be constructed perhaps with a bit of the 1400 acre feet of silt washed down from the vineyard development in the hills that currently diminishes the capacity of the reservoir. A definite win-win for all.
A private residential solar panel project is scheduled to appear before the Planning Commission on 5/4/22. The documents are here. It is only on the PC docket because exemptions are needed for construction on slopes over 30%, not because of its visual impact on the environment.
The fuzzy photo at the right shows what the installation (top arrow) might look like from the center of the valley. It may be more or less visible. It might be darker or brighter (especially if the sun reflects off it.) I am not creating it to object to this particular project but to show that solar projects do have a visual impact that are at odds with the natural landscape. It is an impact that should be considered as more and more of these project are proposed. The bottom arrow shows an existing array.
The use of solar power, of course, is necessary if we are to meet climate GHG reduction goals in this climate crisis. But the glut in solar power that already exists shows that the ultimate solution is in large scale storage and distribution rather than more individual solar arrays. And there are impacts in building thousands of private arrays, particularly potential visual impacts in a county that derives some of its income from the appreciation of the natural beauty of its environment. Thus far the discussions on solar power have not highlighted visual impacts.
The county seems at the moment to have shelved the proposed ordinance on renewable energy systems, including individual and large-scale solar arrays, in the county. The last action the BOS took regarding that ordinance was to ban solar farms on ag or residential land until the ordinance could be finalized.
Even if it were in effect, the proposed ordinance does not address the visual implications of projects. This is a negligent omission. At the least they should be regulated specifically under the county's view-shed ordinance which would apply to slopes under 30% as well and require planting to screen the view. Until the county does so, there should also be a moratorium on private deployment as well. (Unfortunately the view-shed ordinance seems to be doing little to prevent visible development defacing hillside views, but that's another discussion...)
In crafting zoning ordinances, there is a government obligation to consider the maximum impact that the zoning will permit. Not to do so is cumulative negligence. As the panoramic wetland and vineyard entry to wine country is now being converted to an alley of warehouses, that negligence is upon us. In the battles over winery development, the County was asked to consider the cumulative-impact question: what if every property that is allowed to have a winery builds a winery. The attitude seemed to be that ain't gonna happen, trust us. As I look at the winery approvals at our Soda Canyon Road junction their blasé attitude is definitely beginning to look like cumulative negligence.
So with solar arrays: what if every homeowner builds a solar array on the hillside above their house. There are implications to the visual character of the bucolic landscape that we and visitors treasure. That implication needs to be vetted before the county begins issuing permits, lest it become another example of cumulative negligence in the county's stewardship.
Update 4/25/18
NVR 4/25/18: Gateway to the city of Napa getting stealth solar farm
Exactly the solution needed for the Rector dam corporation yard!
Update 3/17/18
NVR 3/17/18: State wants half-acre solar array along Napa's Silverado Trail
The Trail is already filling up with garish homes and event centers and parking lots and left turn bumps and now the indignity of an industrial power plant.
It's churlish, and un-PC, to bad-mouth solar power. But we should recognize, as solar power provides more and more of our energy, that solar collectors are attractive only in their novelty and their benefit toward prolonging life on earth. In fact they are little different in appearance than a full parking lot.
As every home and business begins to burden the landscape with an array, the landscape will suffer. We see even now the jarring apparition of arrays climbing the hillsides behind homes and wineries, with little thought about their visual impact, but much admiration for the "green" commitment of their owners. And large solar arrays, as with the half acre at Rector, are significant money makers that will further speed their adoption, particularly in areas with a lot of open space - like Napa. It is really time for a solar array ordinance to "mitigate" (I would prefer "eliminate") their visual impacts and potential consumption of ag land going forward.
About the Rector array: this is an ideal opportunity to propose a 6-8' berm (a modest bit of earthwork perhaps garnished with vines) at the front of the property to hide both the panels and the corporation yard with its industrial detritus. It could be constructed perhaps with a bit of the 1400 acre feet of silt washed down from the vineyard development in the hills that currently diminishes the capacity of the reservoir. A definite win-win for all.
Farm Bureau ignores the weather report on: Growth Issues
Patricia Damery - Apr 21,22 expand... Share
Farm Bureau President Peter Nissen is correct in his assessment in a recent letter-to-the-editor that “the current climate we find ourselves in does not bode well for the future of agriculture in Napa County...”
Indeed, the current, changing climate is one of increasing heat, fire, continued drought and concerns for water security. We are hotter and drier. Unless we change our ways, and possibly even if we do, agriculture in Napa County is going to be severely impacted.
However, Nissen and the Farm Bureau appear oblivious to the fact that we are deep in a climate emergency and what that means for growers and farmers. Instead, Nissen bemoans that applicants wanting to develop vineyards fear “unjustified attacks,” presumably by those concerned about the larger environment and the changing conditions brought on by exponentially increasing heating. He appears to believe that the “extremely thorough regulatory process” is doing its job to protect our environment.
He is wrong. Our regulatory processes are woefully outdated. After 13 years, we have yet to have a County Climate Action Plan. We are in a time of great transition and changes are needed. Campaign donations appear to have turned our local decision makers into a puppet government for the prevailing industries: wine and tourism. All the while, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued it’s most dire warnings and sounded the alarm that we must lower the emissions of greenhouse gases, and soon, if life on earth will be sustainable.
Yet, Napa County’s General Plan that guides critical land-use decisions, relies on old, historical conditions, not those presented in our new normal, nonlinear heating. And, citing one case, one needs to only study the facts surrounding the shoddy way our county avoided a required EIR for Mountain Peak Winery, incorrectly relying only on the California Natural Diversity Data Base Management Data for the presence of endangered species.
Only when informed citizens who sued, again and again, did the Courts agree an EIR would be required. This lengthy process could have been avoided had the state regulations been followed.
When properly enforced, many of our county regulations work to protect agriculture, our community, and the environment. Sadly, enforcement continues to be an issue. Too often our county will mitigate anything, bypassing regulations and scientific facts. It has become the burden of concerned citizens to address these problems. These are not people wanting all agriculture shut down. Many are growers and vintners themselves. This is public scrutiny to protect agriculture and the environment. Only in a healthy environment can agriculture thrive.
Has the Farm Bureau become only an advocate for those who believe development interests trump the needs of the environment and more generally, the common good?
Since the Valley Ag Preserve has been mostly planted out, as Director David Morrison has stated, now applicants look to the hillsides and the Ag Watershed lands. Very few of these applicants are farmers but investors or individuals “living their dreams” of a vineyard. However, their dreams involve converting land integral to the county’s water security and global climate stabilization efforts. The native vegetation of these hillsides sequesters far more carbon than the vines applicants seek to replace it with, a critical issue and one our current General Plan addresses.
These investors and “dreamers” want to call their dreams agriculture, but unfortunately, their acts commercialize Ag lands and degrade the environment at a time we need to get smarter about managing our wildlands. When you buy land in the Ag Watershed, you are buying watershed. It’s time our county considers this.
My husband and I have been members of the Farm Bureau for years. However, this is not the Farm Bureau that Donald and I knew even ten years ago. This Farm Bureau appears to be controlled by political agendas which threaten to destroy the very environment that could mitigate our survival into the future.
Patricia Damery LTE 4/21/22: Farm Bureau doesn't understand climate impacts of vineyards
Indeed, the current, changing climate is one of increasing heat, fire, continued drought and concerns for water security. We are hotter and drier. Unless we change our ways, and possibly even if we do, agriculture in Napa County is going to be severely impacted.
However, Nissen and the Farm Bureau appear oblivious to the fact that we are deep in a climate emergency and what that means for growers and farmers. Instead, Nissen bemoans that applicants wanting to develop vineyards fear “unjustified attacks,” presumably by those concerned about the larger environment and the changing conditions brought on by exponentially increasing heating. He appears to believe that the “extremely thorough regulatory process” is doing its job to protect our environment.
He is wrong. Our regulatory processes are woefully outdated. After 13 years, we have yet to have a County Climate Action Plan. We are in a time of great transition and changes are needed. Campaign donations appear to have turned our local decision makers into a puppet government for the prevailing industries: wine and tourism. All the while, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued it’s most dire warnings and sounded the alarm that we must lower the emissions of greenhouse gases, and soon, if life on earth will be sustainable.
Yet, Napa County’s General Plan that guides critical land-use decisions, relies on old, historical conditions, not those presented in our new normal, nonlinear heating. And, citing one case, one needs to only study the facts surrounding the shoddy way our county avoided a required EIR for Mountain Peak Winery, incorrectly relying only on the California Natural Diversity Data Base Management Data for the presence of endangered species.
Only when informed citizens who sued, again and again, did the Courts agree an EIR would be required. This lengthy process could have been avoided had the state regulations been followed.
When properly enforced, many of our county regulations work to protect agriculture, our community, and the environment. Sadly, enforcement continues to be an issue. Too often our county will mitigate anything, bypassing regulations and scientific facts. It has become the burden of concerned citizens to address these problems. These are not people wanting all agriculture shut down. Many are growers and vintners themselves. This is public scrutiny to protect agriculture and the environment. Only in a healthy environment can agriculture thrive.
Has the Farm Bureau become only an advocate for those who believe development interests trump the needs of the environment and more generally, the common good?
Since the Valley Ag Preserve has been mostly planted out, as Director David Morrison has stated, now applicants look to the hillsides and the Ag Watershed lands. Very few of these applicants are farmers but investors or individuals “living their dreams” of a vineyard. However, their dreams involve converting land integral to the county’s water security and global climate stabilization efforts. The native vegetation of these hillsides sequesters far more carbon than the vines applicants seek to replace it with, a critical issue and one our current General Plan addresses.
These investors and “dreamers” want to call their dreams agriculture, but unfortunately, their acts commercialize Ag lands and degrade the environment at a time we need to get smarter about managing our wildlands. When you buy land in the Ag Watershed, you are buying watershed. It’s time our county considers this.
My husband and I have been members of the Farm Bureau for years. However, this is not the Farm Bureau that Donald and I knew even ten years ago. This Farm Bureau appears to be controlled by political agendas which threaten to destroy the very environment that could mitigate our survival into the future.
Patricia Damery LTE 4/21/22: Farm Bureau doesn't understand climate impacts of vineyards
Napa Vision 2050 is visionary on: Community Groups
Eve Kahn - Apr 18,22 expand... Share
This letter is in response to Igor Sill piece. ("Napa Vision 2050 is misguided," April 4, 2022)
Napa Vision 2050 humbly walks in the footsteps of the many “misguided” heroes in Napa Valley. A brief history of the visionaries (whom many at the time labeled misguided) follows:
In 1968 Warren Winiarski led the effort that established an Ag Preserve to stave off commercial growth in Napa Valley. Many pushed back as they felt this was an unwanted turn toward socialism. This deeply controversial issue increased the minimum parcel size from 1 acre to 30 (and ultimately 40 acres.) Warren was successful in selling the idea that vineyards and wineries are good for the valley. The Board of Supervisors agreed and voted 4-0 to approve.
Twenty years later, Volker Eisele saw the destruction of orchards in Santa Clara and wisely stepped forward to create Measure J (extended as Measure P). This initiative moved the decision power from the Board to the voters when developers wanted to re-designate ag land for commercial uses within the Ag Preserve. Measure J passed and prevailed during two court cases.
Ginny Simms, Diane Dillon, and others successfully challenged a developer’s desire to build 1700 homes on the hills above the Southern Crossing (highways 121/29). Measures X and Y gathered 80+% of the votes. Get a Grip on Growth was born and next turned its focus on preventing an 800-home subdivision at Stanly Ranch. Two major gateways were preserved!
Moira Johnston Block, Harry Price, and numerous other community leaders joined forces to challenge the US Army Core of Engineers’ plans for a cemented channel through the city of Napa. The Napa community’s plan was built upon a set of “living river” principles. An unprecedented countywide coalition of political and community leaders, private industry, natural resource agencies, non-profit groups, and private citizens, agreed on a plan providing flood protection in part by connecting the Napa River to its historical floodplain and restoration of over 600 acres to tidal wetland.
Residents throughout the valley strongly supported Measure A to provide additional funding. And the rest is history.
Without these “misguided” heroes, who relied upon appropriate science, facts, and strong intuition, the Napa Valley would not be the world-renowned destination it is today. And where will we be without present-day visionaries who rely upon the democratic process to preserve and protect the land, the water, and the environment during a climate emergency and severe drought?
Napa Vision 2050’s goal is to shine a light on any action that threatens the delicate balance between commerce and quality of life.
Eve Kahn
Co-President
Napa Vision 2050
LTE Version in NV Register 4/18/22: Napa Vision 2050 is visionary, not misguided
Napa Vision 2050 humbly walks in the footsteps of the many “misguided” heroes in Napa Valley. A brief history of the visionaries (whom many at the time labeled misguided) follows:
In 1968 Warren Winiarski led the effort that established an Ag Preserve to stave off commercial growth in Napa Valley. Many pushed back as they felt this was an unwanted turn toward socialism. This deeply controversial issue increased the minimum parcel size from 1 acre to 30 (and ultimately 40 acres.) Warren was successful in selling the idea that vineyards and wineries are good for the valley. The Board of Supervisors agreed and voted 4-0 to approve.
Twenty years later, Volker Eisele saw the destruction of orchards in Santa Clara and wisely stepped forward to create Measure J (extended as Measure P). This initiative moved the decision power from the Board to the voters when developers wanted to re-designate ag land for commercial uses within the Ag Preserve. Measure J passed and prevailed during two court cases.
Ginny Simms, Diane Dillon, and others successfully challenged a developer’s desire to build 1700 homes on the hills above the Southern Crossing (highways 121/29). Measures X and Y gathered 80+% of the votes. Get a Grip on Growth was born and next turned its focus on preventing an 800-home subdivision at Stanly Ranch. Two major gateways were preserved!
Moira Johnston Block, Harry Price, and numerous other community leaders joined forces to challenge the US Army Core of Engineers’ plans for a cemented channel through the city of Napa. The Napa community’s plan was built upon a set of “living river” principles. An unprecedented countywide coalition of political and community leaders, private industry, natural resource agencies, non-profit groups, and private citizens, agreed on a plan providing flood protection in part by connecting the Napa River to its historical floodplain and restoration of over 600 acres to tidal wetland.
Residents throughout the valley strongly supported Measure A to provide additional funding. And the rest is history.
Without these “misguided” heroes, who relied upon appropriate science, facts, and strong intuition, the Napa Valley would not be the world-renowned destination it is today. And where will we be without present-day visionaries who rely upon the democratic process to preserve and protect the land, the water, and the environment during a climate emergency and severe drought?
Napa Vision 2050’s goal is to shine a light on any action that threatens the delicate balance between commerce and quality of life.
Eve Kahn
Co-President
Napa Vision 2050
LTE Version in NV Register 4/18/22: Napa Vision 2050 is visionary, not misguided
The nameless Walt Ranch Debate on: Watershed Issues
Bill Hocker - Apr 15,22 expand... Share
Two recent letters-to-the-editor from agricultural organizations reflect the battle lines drawn over the Supervisors upcoming decision on Walt Ranch, though neither mentions the project by name.
For the wine industry to flourish, the Farm Bureau argues for vineyard expansion, property rights, playing by the rules, and fact-based decision making. It also claims that small group of radicals that is trying to destroy the wine industry.
The Growers/Vintners for Responsible Ag considers the climate crisis as the real threat to the wine industry and that protection and restoration of natural vegetation and water resources on which the industry and the climate depend is the best way to insure a flourshing industry into the future.
For the wine industry to flourish, the Farm Bureau argues for vineyard expansion, property rights, playing by the rules, and fact-based decision making. It also claims that small group of radicals that is trying to destroy the wine industry.
The Growers/Vintners for Responsible Ag considers the climate crisis as the real threat to the wine industry and that protection and restoration of natural vegetation and water resources on which the industry and the climate depend is the best way to insure a flourshing industry into the future.
To the Supervisors on Walt Ranch on: Walt Ranch
Bill Hocker - Apr 14,22 expand... Share
The Walt Ranch development has divided Napa County since it was publicly announced over eight years ago, pitting residents and environmentalists against developers and much, though not all, of the wine industry. It has engendered countless packed county meetings and protests, fueled two election campaigns, spawned a major watershed initiative and changes to conservation regulations, drawn several court cases, consumed vast quantities of time and money on the parts of opponents, developers and the county alike, generated press far outside the county's boundries, and brought a whif of corruption down upon the government. The increasing recognition in that period that climate change is not an abstraction but has very real impacts on residents and the wine industry alike, has only further highlighted the debate over continuing to convert hundreds of acres of carbon-storing oak woodlands into carbon-emitting vineyards.
The fires and drought we now experience should have made clear this reality: that the continued conversion of watersheds into water-consuming, GHG-generating vineyards and the continued conversion of vineyards into GHG-generating tourist attractions has become less important than the preservation of the environmental resources needed for a current economy to be sustained and even to survive.
The reality is that any individual project, including Walt Ranch, may have little impact on the rate of climate change. But every project that has modified the natural landscape for human use has combined to produce the existential threat we now face. It is up to you to seriously weight the benefit of an individual project against the collective inpact that an economy based on ever-expanding development creates. Here it means asking if the tons of GHG's emitted in creating this vineyard and the ongoing tons GHG's emitted to farm it are worth the additional profits a few more bottles of wine will bring. Perhaps to the Halls, but not to the rest of the world.
Few projects are worth the effort of an elected official to stand up for a long term, perhaps nebulous, benefit to humanity over the near term benefits of tax revenues or jobs. But this project, given the envirnomental issues it illustrates, given the amount of unspoiled Napa woodland it encompasses, given the division it has sewn in the community, and given its high profile beyond the county, is one project that can define how serious Napa County is in doing its part to confront the climate crisis we now face, just as state courts are doing elsewhere in even larger development projects.
The current GHG mitigation proposal that you are voting on, guarding a few trees from some unspecified and unforeseeable project in the far future, will do nothing to offset the thousands of metric tons of GHG's emitted by this project now and in the near future. I urge you to uphold the appeal and deny this proposal.
And I also urge you to find the courage, after this vote is taken, to recognize that eternal economic growth is no longer a viable goal and that the preservation and protection of our existing resources and environment must now become the highest and best use of the land.
The fires and drought we now experience should have made clear this reality: that the continued conversion of watersheds into water-consuming, GHG-generating vineyards and the continued conversion of vineyards into GHG-generating tourist attractions has become less important than the preservation of the environmental resources needed for a current economy to be sustained and even to survive.
The reality is that any individual project, including Walt Ranch, may have little impact on the rate of climate change. But every project that has modified the natural landscape for human use has combined to produce the existential threat we now face. It is up to you to seriously weight the benefit of an individual project against the collective inpact that an economy based on ever-expanding development creates. Here it means asking if the tons of GHG's emitted in creating this vineyard and the ongoing tons GHG's emitted to farm it are worth the additional profits a few more bottles of wine will bring. Perhaps to the Halls, but not to the rest of the world.
Few projects are worth the effort of an elected official to stand up for a long term, perhaps nebulous, benefit to humanity over the near term benefits of tax revenues or jobs. But this project, given the envirnomental issues it illustrates, given the amount of unspoiled Napa woodland it encompasses, given the division it has sewn in the community, and given its high profile beyond the county, is one project that can define how serious Napa County is in doing its part to confront the climate crisis we now face, just as state courts are doing elsewhere in even larger development projects.
The current GHG mitigation proposal that you are voting on, guarding a few trees from some unspecified and unforeseeable project in the far future, will do nothing to offset the thousands of metric tons of GHG's emitted by this project now and in the near future. I urge you to uphold the appeal and deny this proposal.
And I also urge you to find the courage, after this vote is taken, to recognize that eternal economic growth is no longer a viable goal and that the preservation and protection of our existing resources and environment must now become the highest and best use of the land.
Napa County has 'heads in the sand' over climate change on: Watershed Issues
Lisa Hirayama - Mar 30,22 expand... Share
On Feb. 28, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report said that climate change is impacting the world much faster than scientists had anticipated. There's a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future on this planet.
It says we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because if we don't, it's going to be catastrophic.
On March 18, a report came out that the eastern Antarctic ice sheet was 50 to 90 degrees above normal temps and scientists are stunned. This is the coldest location on earth, and that week it experienced an episode of warm weather that has never occurred before.
Parts of eastern Antarctica had seen temperatures hover 70 degrees above normal for three days plus, and at the same time, the Arctic had temperatures 50 degrees above normal. Researchers are likening the Antarctic event to last June's heat wave in the Pacific Northwest which scientists concluded would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.
Reports have now come out that the 450 square-mile eastern Antarctic Conger ice shelf collapsed in mid-March during the heat wave. The loss of a shelf can allow faster movement of the glaciers behind it which can lead to more rapid ice sheet loss and greater sea level rise.
These are "canary in the coal mine" reports, and we should be heeding their warnings.
Given that ominous forecast, how does Napa County justify allowing over 14,000 mature oak trees to be cut down to plant vineyards on Walt Ranch?
Those destroyed trees and the carbon they sequester can never be replaced. How profitable will those vineyards be in 10 to 20 years when Napa will be too hot to allow those grapes to thrive?
There are already reports that Napa Valley may become less suitable for premium wine grapes as our climate changes. 2021 was the world's 6th hottest year on record and those trees need to be protected now in this global climate crisis.
Yes, I know it's private property and plenty of people will tell me to buy Walt Ranch if I want to save those trees ?" that's their mantra. My response: why are multi-millionaires who claim to be concerned about the environment so driven to do such environmental destruction all in the name of wine, which they already have plenty of?
On March 24th, the Register published "Napa County raises red flags on groundwater." For the last five out of seven years, the county has already exceeded the sustainable yield of 15,000 acre feet being pumped out of the subbasin. The watersheds help replenish the subbasin if we have rain, but we're now heading into another year of drought with no signs of it letting up during this time of mega drought.
Again, why do multi-millionaires want to destroy the watersheds that we need to replenish the subbasin for all of Napa Valley?
The Napa Schools for Climate Action's presentation by Emily Bit at the March 8 Napa County Board of Supervisor's meeting told us that one mature oak tree can store 1.3 metric tons of carbon in its trunk, branches and roots. Students with Napa's Resource Conservation District Acorns to Oaks program found that out of 5,525 acorns planted over eight years, only 936 seedlings have survived (17% survival rate), and all those combined only sequester half the carbon of one mature tree.
Napa County is claiming that 17,582 seedlings will make up for the more than 14,000 mature oaks that will be destroyed on Walt Ranch. By my calculations, those seedlings will only replace 9.5 mature oak trees, and that's only if every one of them survive, which isn't reality.
The county's greenhouse gas numbers are absolutely inadequate and amount to fake mitigation, especially under current environmental conditions.
Tell me how the amount of carbon 9.5 oak trees will sequester equals the more than 14,000 carbon sequestering trees that will be destroyed for vineyards. This doesn't even take into account the carbon sequestration that was lost in the more than 50,000 acres of oak woodland habitat that was damaged or destroyed in the Atlas and LNU wildfires.
Now, more than ever, the County's Planning Director and Supervisors need to take immediate action to respond to the undeniable fact that climate change has created a "house on fire" emergency in Napa Valley.
Emily and her classmates are the generation that will inherit this planet from us, and they already know that we must stop killing our old oaks. They're asking for Napa County's help, and the county knows what it needs to do.
We have eight years left to get down to net zero emissions annually to stop the worst effects of climate change. We can't plant our way out of this. Tough decisions need to be made now. The planet is on fire, and Napa County is sticking their heads in the sand.
NVR LTE version 3/30/22: Napa County has 'heads in the sand' over climate change
It says we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because if we don't, it's going to be catastrophic.
On March 18, a report came out that the eastern Antarctic ice sheet was 50 to 90 degrees above normal temps and scientists are stunned. This is the coldest location on earth, and that week it experienced an episode of warm weather that has never occurred before.
Parts of eastern Antarctica had seen temperatures hover 70 degrees above normal for three days plus, and at the same time, the Arctic had temperatures 50 degrees above normal. Researchers are likening the Antarctic event to last June's heat wave in the Pacific Northwest which scientists concluded would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.
Reports have now come out that the 450 square-mile eastern Antarctic Conger ice shelf collapsed in mid-March during the heat wave. The loss of a shelf can allow faster movement of the glaciers behind it which can lead to more rapid ice sheet loss and greater sea level rise.
These are "canary in the coal mine" reports, and we should be heeding their warnings.
Given that ominous forecast, how does Napa County justify allowing over 14,000 mature oak trees to be cut down to plant vineyards on Walt Ranch?
Those destroyed trees and the carbon they sequester can never be replaced. How profitable will those vineyards be in 10 to 20 years when Napa will be too hot to allow those grapes to thrive?
There are already reports that Napa Valley may become less suitable for premium wine grapes as our climate changes. 2021 was the world's 6th hottest year on record and those trees need to be protected now in this global climate crisis.
Yes, I know it's private property and plenty of people will tell me to buy Walt Ranch if I want to save those trees ?" that's their mantra. My response: why are multi-millionaires who claim to be concerned about the environment so driven to do such environmental destruction all in the name of wine, which they already have plenty of?
On March 24th, the Register published "Napa County raises red flags on groundwater." For the last five out of seven years, the county has already exceeded the sustainable yield of 15,000 acre feet being pumped out of the subbasin. The watersheds help replenish the subbasin if we have rain, but we're now heading into another year of drought with no signs of it letting up during this time of mega drought.
Again, why do multi-millionaires want to destroy the watersheds that we need to replenish the subbasin for all of Napa Valley?
The Napa Schools for Climate Action's presentation by Emily Bit at the March 8 Napa County Board of Supervisor's meeting told us that one mature oak tree can store 1.3 metric tons of carbon in its trunk, branches and roots. Students with Napa's Resource Conservation District Acorns to Oaks program found that out of 5,525 acorns planted over eight years, only 936 seedlings have survived (17% survival rate), and all those combined only sequester half the carbon of one mature tree.
Napa County is claiming that 17,582 seedlings will make up for the more than 14,000 mature oaks that will be destroyed on Walt Ranch. By my calculations, those seedlings will only replace 9.5 mature oak trees, and that's only if every one of them survive, which isn't reality.
The county's greenhouse gas numbers are absolutely inadequate and amount to fake mitigation, especially under current environmental conditions.
Tell me how the amount of carbon 9.5 oak trees will sequester equals the more than 14,000 carbon sequestering trees that will be destroyed for vineyards. This doesn't even take into account the carbon sequestration that was lost in the more than 50,000 acres of oak woodland habitat that was damaged or destroyed in the Atlas and LNU wildfires.
Now, more than ever, the County's Planning Director and Supervisors need to take immediate action to respond to the undeniable fact that climate change has created a "house on fire" emergency in Napa Valley.
Emily and her classmates are the generation that will inherit this planet from us, and they already know that we must stop killing our old oaks. They're asking for Napa County's help, and the county knows what it needs to do.
We have eight years left to get down to net zero emissions annually to stop the worst effects of climate change. We can't plant our way out of this. Tough decisions need to be made now. The planet is on fire, and Napa County is sticking their heads in the sand.
NVR LTE version 3/30/22: Napa County has 'heads in the sand' over climate change
Mountain Peak back in Court on: Mountain Peak Winery
Bill Hocker - Mar 23,22 expand... Share
Update 3/23/22
NVR 3/27/22: Judge requires EIR for Napa County's Mountain Peak winery
A final judgement has been made in the case of Soda Canyon Group vs. County of Napa et al:
The Court decision is here.
If an expected appeal is denied, the use permit process for the Mountain Peak Winery will begin anew.
Update 1/21/22
NVR 1/21/22: Tentative Napa court decision would require Mountain Peak winery EIR
The Tentative Decision is here
1/20/22 The CEQA Court Hearing on Mountain Peak
Date: January 20, 2022
Location: Napa Superior Court, 825 Brown St, Napa
Judge: Hon. Cynthia Smith (Department A)
On January 20, 2022 residents of Soda Canyon Road will return to the Napa Superior Court for the final hearing to challenge the County's re-approval of the oversized Mountain Peak Winery development located at the remote end of Soda Canyon Road. Prior to approval, the County conducted an in-house, cursory review of the project and its potential impacts on the community and environment, and, ultimately found that the project would have a "less-than-significant" impact. In returning to Court, opponents of the project seek a more thorough assessment of the project, through an Environmental Impact Report, which would be conducted by an independent third-party. Given the size and scope of the project, and what appear to be obvious adverse impacts on the community and environment, such an independent review must be conducted.
The issues raised by the project to be presented in court include the increased traffic that it will bring to an already dangerous road, the environmental danger of moving millions of cubic feet of earth within feet of two blue line creeks, a lack of biologic resource analysis, insufficient and inaccurate analysis of groundwater extraction, a disputed analysis of noise impacts, and insufficient consideration of the fire danger on a long dead-end road in a remote area.
The project is for a 100,000 gal/yr winery, 33,400 sf of caves, 28 parking spaces, 19 full-time employees, and an above ground 8000 sf tasting room. About 3 acres of vines will be permanently removed. Visitation will include 275 visitors/wk, plus 2 - 75 person and 1 - 125 person events/yr. The total amounts to 21,510 tourist/employee users on the site each year (59 people avg per day) and 120 vehicle trips on the road each day, which amounts to ~44,000 trips/yr. The winery is located approximately 6 winding, dead-end miles from the Silverado Trail.
The Use Permit was approved by the Planning Commission on Jan 4, 2017, and an appeal of the Planning Commission decision was denied by the Supervisors on May 23, 2017 (finalized August 17, 2017). A suit against the County to compel an EIR for the project was filed by project opponents Sep 20, 2017.
As part of the lawsuit, residents had already requested that the project be reconsidered by the Board of Supervisors in light of the evidence of the 2017 Atlas Fire which occurred after the project was approved. (On October 8, 2017, the Atlas Fire quickly engulfed lower Soda Canyon Road. A fallen tree blocked traffic coming down the road and fire trucks coming up as the fire burned on all sides. A frantic effort cleared the road just enough to let the line of cars get by. Dozens of residents, unable to make it down through the fire, had to be precariously evacuated by helicopter in 60+ mph crosswinds. 134 of the 163 residences (82%) on Soda Canyon Road were damaged or destroyed, 118 of them a complete loss. Tragically, two lives were lost.) In June 2020 the Judge in the case agreed that fire danger had been unconsidered in light of this evidence and remanded the project back to the BOS for reconsideration.
The Judge on Mountain Peak was not alone in highlighting the ever-increasing fire danger now experienced by wildland development. Courts and the California Attorney General have acted on the increased danger such development brings to existing and new residents in remote and rural areas like upper Soda Canyon, including (1) the luxury Guenoc Valley Development in the wine region of Lake County, (2) a major housing development in a fire prone area of San Diego and (3) another major housing development at the north edge of Los Angeles County.
In the BOS remand hearing on May 18, 2021 (see pg. 19), the Supervisors again found, incredibly given the evidence of a second devastating wildfire season in 2020, that the potential impacts of fire to the safety of a much larger daily population on the road were still less-than-significant, and voted 3-2 to re-approve the Project.
The impacts that may be considered under CEQA are primarily quantifiable environmental and public safety-related impacts. And they will be diligently and forcefully presented. But for those of us who live on the road, the introduction of daily tourists and large number of employees at the winery will also be a quantum change to the remote, quiet, and dark isolation that has made this place so special in an urbanized world. The increased traffic and daily presence of visitors will mean the death of another remote rural place. The loss of something so increasingly rare is impossible to quantify.
Soda Canyon residents are not alone in recognizing the threat that development is bringing to agriculture, the environment, the rural and small-town character of Napa County. In the eight years that this project has been contested, numerous community groups have formed to oppose development projects that threaten their community's character and safety. Municipal and county governments have turned a deaf ear to their pleas, anxious for the increased revenues to be made as the hospitality industry slowly eclipses the wine industry in Napa County.
At one point in Napa history, the interests of residents and the wine industry coincided; the growers and vintners that built the industry were also residents with a commitment to preserve the place they wanted to live. But the industry has moved on to corporate and investment ownership with less interest in a preservation ethos that stands in the way of economic expansion and increased profits. Unfortunately, when it comes to land use policy, the county government seems more interested in protecting the economic interests of tourism and real estate developers than the quality-of-life and public safety interests of residents, and in so doing have abandoned the commitment to "the rural character that we treasure" that a previous generation of leaders embraced. Residents must now turn to the courts in an attempt to preserve that legacy.
NVR 3/27/22: Judge requires EIR for Napa County's Mountain Peak winery
A final judgement has been made in the case of Soda Canyon Group vs. County of Napa et al:
"Based on the foregoing, the Petition is GRANTED. Let a peremptory writ of mandate issue directing the Respondent to set aside its actions adopting a Negative Declaration and
approving Use Permit No. P13-00320-UP and exception to the County’s Road and Street
Standards for the Project and further directing Respondent to prepare an Environmental Impact Report for the Project prior to any subsequent approval."
approving Use Permit No. P13-00320-UP and exception to the County’s Road and Street
Standards for the Project and further directing Respondent to prepare an Environmental Impact Report for the Project prior to any subsequent approval."
The Court decision is here.
If an expected appeal is denied, the use permit process for the Mountain Peak Winery will begin anew.
Update 1/21/22
NVR 1/21/22: Tentative Napa court decision would require Mountain Peak winery EIR
The Tentative Decision is here
1/20/22 The CEQA Court Hearing on Mountain Peak
Date: January 20, 2022
Location: Napa Superior Court, 825 Brown St, Napa
Judge: Hon. Cynthia Smith (Department A)
On January 20, 2022 residents of Soda Canyon Road will return to the Napa Superior Court for the final hearing to challenge the County's re-approval of the oversized Mountain Peak Winery development located at the remote end of Soda Canyon Road. Prior to approval, the County conducted an in-house, cursory review of the project and its potential impacts on the community and environment, and, ultimately found that the project would have a "less-than-significant" impact. In returning to Court, opponents of the project seek a more thorough assessment of the project, through an Environmental Impact Report, which would be conducted by an independent third-party. Given the size and scope of the project, and what appear to be obvious adverse impacts on the community and environment, such an independent review must be conducted.
The issues raised by the project to be presented in court include the increased traffic that it will bring to an already dangerous road, the environmental danger of moving millions of cubic feet of earth within feet of two blue line creeks, a lack of biologic resource analysis, insufficient and inaccurate analysis of groundwater extraction, a disputed analysis of noise impacts, and insufficient consideration of the fire danger on a long dead-end road in a remote area.
The project is for a 100,000 gal/yr winery, 33,400 sf of caves, 28 parking spaces, 19 full-time employees, and an above ground 8000 sf tasting room. About 3 acres of vines will be permanently removed. Visitation will include 275 visitors/wk, plus 2 - 75 person and 1 - 125 person events/yr. The total amounts to 21,510 tourist/employee users on the site each year (59 people avg per day) and 120 vehicle trips on the road each day, which amounts to ~44,000 trips/yr. The winery is located approximately 6 winding, dead-end miles from the Silverado Trail.
The Use Permit was approved by the Planning Commission on Jan 4, 2017, and an appeal of the Planning Commission decision was denied by the Supervisors on May 23, 2017 (finalized August 17, 2017). A suit against the County to compel an EIR for the project was filed by project opponents Sep 20, 2017.
As part of the lawsuit, residents had already requested that the project be reconsidered by the Board of Supervisors in light of the evidence of the 2017 Atlas Fire which occurred after the project was approved. (On October 8, 2017, the Atlas Fire quickly engulfed lower Soda Canyon Road. A fallen tree blocked traffic coming down the road and fire trucks coming up as the fire burned on all sides. A frantic effort cleared the road just enough to let the line of cars get by. Dozens of residents, unable to make it down through the fire, had to be precariously evacuated by helicopter in 60+ mph crosswinds. 134 of the 163 residences (82%) on Soda Canyon Road were damaged or destroyed, 118 of them a complete loss. Tragically, two lives were lost.) In June 2020 the Judge in the case agreed that fire danger had been unconsidered in light of this evidence and remanded the project back to the BOS for reconsideration.
The Judge on Mountain Peak was not alone in highlighting the ever-increasing fire danger now experienced by wildland development. Courts and the California Attorney General have acted on the increased danger such development brings to existing and new residents in remote and rural areas like upper Soda Canyon, including (1) the luxury Guenoc Valley Development in the wine region of Lake County, (2) a major housing development in a fire prone area of San Diego and (3) another major housing development at the north edge of Los Angeles County.
In the BOS remand hearing on May 18, 2021 (see pg. 19), the Supervisors again found, incredibly given the evidence of a second devastating wildfire season in 2020, that the potential impacts of fire to the safety of a much larger daily population on the road were still less-than-significant, and voted 3-2 to re-approve the Project.
The impacts that may be considered under CEQA are primarily quantifiable environmental and public safety-related impacts. And they will be diligently and forcefully presented. But for those of us who live on the road, the introduction of daily tourists and large number of employees at the winery will also be a quantum change to the remote, quiet, and dark isolation that has made this place so special in an urbanized world. The increased traffic and daily presence of visitors will mean the death of another remote rural place. The loss of something so increasingly rare is impossible to quantify.
Soda Canyon residents are not alone in recognizing the threat that development is bringing to agriculture, the environment, the rural and small-town character of Napa County. In the eight years that this project has been contested, numerous community groups have formed to oppose development projects that threaten their community's character and safety. Municipal and county governments have turned a deaf ear to their pleas, anxious for the increased revenues to be made as the hospitality industry slowly eclipses the wine industry in Napa County.
At one point in Napa history, the interests of residents and the wine industry coincided; the growers and vintners that built the industry were also residents with a commitment to preserve the place they wanted to live. But the industry has moved on to corporate and investment ownership with less interest in a preservation ethos that stands in the way of economic expansion and increased profits. Unfortunately, when it comes to land use policy, the county government seems more interested in protecting the economic interests of tourism and real estate developers than the quality-of-life and public safety interests of residents, and in so doing have abandoned the commitment to "the rural character that we treasure" that a previous generation of leaders embraced. Residents must now turn to the courts in an attempt to preserve that legacy.
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