The Mountain Peak Winery approval has been remanded by the Napa County Superior Court to the Board of Supervisors to re-evaluate the BOS approval of the remote winery project in light of the evidence of the 2017 Atlas fire. The fire closed access in and out of Soda Canyon Road and required residents in the area surrounding the proposed winery site to be evacuated by helicopter. The BOS approval of the project was contingent on the appeal finding that "In the event of a fire that results in mass evacuations from this area, the road has sufficient capacity and roadway width to accommodate all outgoing traffic while allowing incoming fire response units." (see "Tenth Ground of Appeal...Findings and Decision" on pg. 15 here.) The fire proved them mistaken in their finding.

The hearing will take place at Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at 2:00 pm in the BOS Chamber, 1195 3rd St, Napa. The number of seats in the board room will be somewhat limited, but there will be an "overflow" room as well. Virtual attendance is also possible.

The agenda for the hearing:

1. Board disclosures and staff presentation re 2017 Atlas Fire.
   
2. Soda Canyon Group presentation (Supervisor Pedroza has limited us to 20 minutes; I will plan to handle the presentation, which will include a PowerPoint).
   
3. Public Comment: This is the time when any members of the public, including declarants, can be heard. Time limited to 3 minutes. Again, we strongly encourage everyone to attend and speak in-person, as it is simply more powerful to be able to look your Supervisors in the eye and share your experience from the 2017 Atlas Fire.
   
4. MPV presentation (also limited to 20 minutes).
   
5. Soda Canyon Group rebuttal (time permitting).
   
6. Chair closes public hearing, board deliberations.

Documents:
Notice of Remand Hearing
Napa County Superior Court Remand Order
(Harrowing) Fire wItness declarations and fire documentaton

Update 4/26/21

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NVR 4/26/21: Napa County worries that proposed state fire rules could trigger costly road improvements
Latest (4/23/21?) markup of the text of the BOF Regulations
BOF Statement of Reasons for changes to the Regulations

I'm not sure if the claim by the Supervisors that rebuilding fire damaged homes will trigger new road construction is more than just a scare tactic to get the public involved. There was an exemption for fire rebuilding in the existing road standards and that exemption has been widened to allow increased footprints.

The notion that adding a bedroom or a minor modificaton to a winery should be allowed discretionary thresholds of intensity or density increase, sounds reasonable until you extrapolate it to all properties using a road and realize that a "mitigation" will always be found to exceed any threshold. Nominally "less-than-significant" impacts on each and every project being built in the County, as we have contended since beginning this blog, add up to a very significant impact on county urbanization as a whole.

Dir. Morrison's concern that the regulations would have a "dramatic effect on development" is, of course, just the point of the regulation changes: to stop the spread of urban development into high fire areas that don't have the firefighting infrasturcture to defend the new development.

Update 2/15/21

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The Board of Forestry has sent out a new draft of the fire safe regulations. In this latest revision, existing sub-standard roads, for example those less than 20' wide or dead-ends greater than 1 mile in length, may be used for new development that doesn't exceed pre-defined numerical thresholds. Several options are proposed in the new draft as possibilities for creating those thresholds. This acknowledgement that the Board of Forestry is willing to accept sub-standard, and more dangerous roads in certain development circumstances is a divergence from the previous regulations which, in theory, would have made standards applicable all new developent.

The revised (2/8/21) Draft is here.
PRN comments on the draft

2/3/21

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Following the California wildfires in 2017, which had major impacts on Napa and Sonoma counties (though worse was yet to come), Sen. Bill Dodd sponsored CA SB-901 in a wide ranging effort to address wildfire danger in the state. In one of its many provisions, "This bill would also require the state forestry board to adopt regulations implementing minimum fire safety standards that are applicable to lands classified and designated as very high fire hazard severity zones and would require the regulations to apply to the perimeters and access to all residential, commercial, and industrial building construction within lands classified and designated as very high fire hazard severity zones, as defined, after July 1, 2021"

Following the California Wildfires of 2020 which again devastated large areas of Northern California, State Sens. Stern and Allen introduced Ca SB-55 that would "prohibit the creation or approval of a new development, as defined, in a very high fire hazard severity zone or a state responsibility area." The bill is short with no exemptions, and seems unlikely to become law. The Board of Forestry seems to be proceeding on the basis of attempting to satisfy the requirements of SB-901 rather than the absoulute prohibitions of SB-55.

In 1991 the State of California Board of Forestry (BOF) established Fire Safe Regulations defining road standards in state responsibility areas (SRA's are beige on this map). The regulations define minimum road widths, maximum gradients, required turnouts and turnarounds, road surfaces, dead-end road lengths, curve radii, water provision, and vegetation management. The standards are intended to insure that firefighters have adequate access for their equipment in the event of wildfires.

Following the requirements of SB 901, the Board of Forestry has begun to review its 1991 standards. In 2019 they produced a first draft of changes to the current regulations. And beginning in Nov 2020 the Board has convened a series of workshops on the draft regulations, and comments have been submitted. A new draft of the regulations will be published on Feb 8th with a request for further comments. The documents are here. A background of the issues and contacts for submission of comments, from the perspective of some concerned citizens of Sonoma, are here.

The draft regulations would expand the areas of regulation to another set of High Fire Hazard Severity Zones beyond the current SRA's into Local Responsibility Areas (LRA's). And they would strengthen certification to insure that local fire safety regulations comply with state regulations with a new emphasis on existing roadways serving new development.

The use of substandard existing roads to access new development has in the past been excused in new development approvals; since the preponderance of new development in the state has been to expand into rural and mountainous areas at the edges of its megalopolises, the impact on new development projects requiring all existing roads to be upgraded would be substantial. In the case of existing dead-end roads, or roads with non-compliant widths, curves and gradients previously mitigatible development would become unfeasible.

State regulations allow for local governments to use their own standards in approving development projects as long as those standards are "equal or more stringent" and provide "the same practical effect as" the level of fire protection in the state standards. But seldom are the mitigations that local authorities accept as providing "the same practical effect" challenged, and counties have been free heretofore to approve developments based on local regulations often, in fact, more lenient than the state regualtions.

But the recent wildfires have changed the state's willingness to allow local governments to overlook or mitigate-away state standards. In 2019 an exception for existing roads was argued by Monterey County on the behalf of a developer and the argumemt was firmly rejected by the State Atorney General. The Attorney General has also stepped in to join a lawsuit against the Guenoc Valley project in Lake County over fire issues.

Sonoma County has tried in the last year to certify their own Fire Safety Ordinance. An article in the Sonoma County Gazette gives an overview of the effort so far. The State has not been persuaded. The BOF responded to the Sonoma Ordinance in this letter. The Board has suspended certifying any local ordinances until the revision of the state regulations are finalized.

An association of county governments that lobbies the state, the Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC), is weighing in on the proposed BOF Fire Safe Regulation changes. The member counties, often in the grip of development interests that promise fees, taxes, jobs (and campaign contributions), are, of course, quite concerned about the regulations' impact on their construction projects. It remains to be seen how effective they will be in reducing the fire safe measures the state now seems intent on enforcing. Sup. Diane Dillon is Napa's member in the assocaition. Napa County doesn't yet seemed to have weighed in on the draft.

What this means for Napa County

Wine and Water Watch take on NapaVision2050 article: PLAYING WITH FIRE Is Napa County Ignoring Forestry and State Road Standards for Fire Safety?

It was news to me that State regulations do not allow commercial development on dead end roads longer than 1 mile in high fire severity SRA's like Soda Canyon Road. In the new draft, that distance for new roads is shortened to one-half mile. It may be news to other residents of the county facing a winery in their backyard that roads leading to the project might be required to be raised to state fire safe standards if the projects are to be approved. Such a requirement would be good news to all county residents currently fighting the county over the commercialization of their neighborhoods for event centers and tasting rooms.

A remand of the Mountain Peak project back to the Napa Board of Supervisors to revisit the fire safety of Soda Canyon Road in light of the devastation of the 2017 fire is due in the not-too-distant future. The Board of Forestry should be asked to weigh in specifically on their half mile limitation on new development in the SRA's, and the county should be asked to justify their exemption from BOF standards in approving some winery projects.

4/26/21 Update

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NVR 4/26/21: Member of Ghisletta family denies plans for developing lands in south Napa

Although the family says that it has "never had an agreement" with any developer (very specific language to use), the fact that the family supports the rezoning of the land for housing in the new general plan, and their dubious rationale that more high-end homes will lead to a general reduction of home prices, is a very ominous sign.

3/15/21

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NVR 3/13/21 Foster Road supporters continue push for area’s inclusion in new Napa greenbelts

That hillside along Hwy 29 coming into the Napa Valley, which I now know as the Ghisletta diary farm, with its picturesque barns, farmhouse and ecalyptus trees has always seemed the essence of rural California now forever disappearing. Even when I first came to Napa in the 1970's in search of beaucholic landscapes to photograph, I remember it as a notable landscape composition. It should be preserved in a bell jar as an icon of what California was once-upon-a-time, before such places were buried by developers seeking greater profits from chewing up raw land rather than recycling underused urban land.

As a gateway to the Napa Valley, it is a reminder of a time before vintners began excavating similar hillsides to cage and discipline nature to their own more profitable ends. We love the look of vine covered hillsides, of course, a better example than housing tracts of man's relentless footprint on the land. But to see the vestiges of real life before the advent of the goodlife as you drive into this tourist destination is a history lesson well worth preserving for everyone.

The idea of a greenbelt between Napa and the rest of the world has taken a hit over the last few years. In one of many Napa Pipe hearings, a slide flashed up on the screen, almost incidental in its implication for the project, but profound in its implication for the future of Napa.

All of those areas that should have consitituted a greenbelt at the edge of Napa rural-urban line are now being filled with buildings. Napa Valley Commons, Airport industrial zone, Stanly Ranch, Carneros Inn, Meritage Resort, Napa Pipe, the Syar expansion, and for that matter the incorporation of American Canyon in 1992, are all filling the boundry that might have separated Napa from the urban sprawl of the rest of the Bay Area. More such projects are coming.

The idea of greenbelts and rural-urban lines, a product of the same enlightened era that created the Agricultural Preserve, seems to have passed. Yet it is heartening that the idea is being revived here and elsewhere. The Greenbelt Alliance is active and full of hope.

But in Napa it is a bit too late. This is not to say that the Foster Road ridge shouldn't be protected. It should. It is a window into what Napa County once was, a reminder to residents and tourists what the land used to look like, and perhaps a tourist attraction itself. But it is a tragedy that we are reduced to talking about a greenbelt separateing urban Napa from western rural Napa rather than the relentless suburbanization coming from the south, already having consumed what should have been Napa's real greenbelt. Yes, preserve as much unspoiled landscape as we possibly can. The few still unspoiled wooded hillsides around Napa need to be preserved. We owe that to future generations. But let's admit that the idea of a greenbelt to protect Napa from being engulfed by the greater bay area is a faded memory.

NVR 4/8/21: Napa County asked to spend $42 million to reduce wildfire threat

The Napa County Community WIldfire Protection Plan was presented to the Board of Supervisors on 4/7/21. The video of the meeting is here beginning at 3:21:00 on the video. The Plan website was prerepared by Napa Communities Firewise Foundation and represents an incredible amount of work portraying and analyzing the fire situation in Napa County with specific preparedness recommendations, projects and a heafty budget request to match.

Napa County Community WIldfire Protection Plan(CWPP)

Unfortunately, while the amount of data presented on the CWPP website is probably extraordinary, the site is quite wonky and disorienting and requires an up-to-date browser, a big screen and a robust amount of clicking to get at revelant information. Using the site is akin to learning a new computer program (this one) rather than browsing a website. The site designers have provided a video to show you how to use it.

Mui and I have spent the last 26 years keeping ourselves fit by clearing broom and brush and raising tree hemlines on our property just for the beauty of the park-like setting that is the result. Little did we think there might be another reason to do the work.

Update 4/2/21

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SFChronicle 4/2/21: Napa's prestigious Staglin winery says it needs more visitors to succeed. Its wealthy neighbors are fighting back

3/3/21

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NVR 3/4/21: Napa County tries to find Staglin winery visitor balance

3/3/21 Planning Commission Agenda
3/3/21 Meeting Video

On Feb 3rd the County Planning Commission approved the visitation expansion of the Staglin Winery on Bella Oaks Lane, owned by one of the "Old Land, New Money" generation of winemakers roasted by James Conaway in the "The Far Side of Eden".

The project generated an unusual, and organized, amount of neighborhood opposition (20 some neighbors) in a short period of time. This was a one month turaround from the shock notice that the county sends out warning neighbors of pending destruction of their bucholic lives. Most end up having at least a few months and sometimes years to assemble their defense.

As often happens, the commission fell into horse-trading on the tourism numbers, probably leaving both sides unhappy. Visitation went from 2980 to (about) 10800 vis/yr. Given the full blown legal brief filed by neighbors (see here), there is a good chance that the project will be appealed to the BOS seeking an EIR.

The proposal had nothing to do with wine production - it was strictly a request to increase tourism and tourism hours at the winery. After 34 vintages the winery doesn't see survival possible without more visitors. It is another indication of the fall in demand for $100-$350 bottles of wine as The Wine Advocate connoisseurs die off and well-heeled millennials turn to less pretentious and more eclectic quaffs. For the Napa wine industry as a whole, pursuing more visitors rather than expanding internet sales advocated by Rob McMillan earlier in the day (beginning at 43:00 in the meeting video) to offset the demographic change will probably doom many small wineries to expensive and futile tasting room competition, and the physical environment of the county will continue to degrade, as more and more tourism venues spring up desperately hoping for tourism as their salvation.

In each of the neighbor-opposed projects that have come to the commission over the last 7 years, I keep wondering why more residents (including growers and vintners) only see tourism as a problem when it shows up in their backyard -- at which point it is a battle over the technical nitty-gritty of a proposal rather than the "big picture" issue of tourism degrading the quality of life of every rural county resident. The Supervisors in 2015, with Sup. Luce still on the Board, tried to take on the issue after hundreds of residents showed up for a meeting to address winery proliferation. The result was the creation of the APAC commission which ultimately, under industry pressure, did nothing to reduce winery proliferation, but instead lead to the creation of a process to exonerate and legitimize wineries already operating well above their permit limits. Since then a small winery ordinance has been added to make proliferation easier, and now there is mention of a micro-winery ordinance probably to encourage tourism to winemakers not yet owning a permitted winery.

Most residents bemoan the baleful impacts of increased tourism, but until those impacts finally get to their front door there is no effort to do something about it. Activism led by Napavision2050, and the diligent NVR reporting of Barry Eberling on the issue never seem to lead to another surge among the public to act. After 7 years of obsessing about this issue, it is a bit depressing that the battle is still being fought, quite ineffectively, one impacted community at a time.

Update 3/29/21

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County Documents including comments submitted on the DEIR have been collected here
Center for Biological Diversity DEIR CEQA rebuttal
Amber Manfree DEIR CEQA rebuttal

Update 3/11/21

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Amber Manfree writes that a public notice of the Draft Environmental Impact (DEIR) for the Gallo Stagecoach North ECP/EIR has been posted requesting public comment, with comments due by Mon. Mar. 29, 2021 to Donald.Barrella@countyofnapa.org.

Again, questions or comments regarding the project may be addressed to County Planner Donald Barilla at Donald.Barrella@countyofnapa.org

Update 10/14/19

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The County has just sent a Notice of Preparation for the Stagecoach North vineyards EIR. The Erosion Control Plan has been available for some time.

Notice of Preparation of the Draft EIR for Stagecoach North Vineyard Conversion
The County's Stagecoach North page

Note below the concern that this expansion will become the precedent for the vineyard development of all the ridges surrounding the watershed, in a watershed already burdened by the greatest level of watershed development in the county.

4/23/19

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Winebusiness.com 4/23/19: E&J Gallo to Expand Stagecoach Vineyard

Gallo has taken up an expansion of Stagecoach Vineyards first proposed by Jan Krupp but then abandoned when he sold the property. The expansion adds 116 more acres to their existing 600 acres on the Rector Reservoir watershed.

The County documents page is here.

It's interesting to compare the Gallo proposal to Bloodlines, both similar sized proposals. Other than a couple of blocks which may not be developed, the Bloodlines proposal infills a development pattern that has already been established on the Rector Plateau which stays away from the ridgelines. The Gallo proposal pushes all the way up to the ridge, breaking the de facto development boundary and establishing a precedent for development on the rest of the ridges.

The Rector watershed is already the most heavily developed by percentage in the county. The impact of siltation on the capacity of Rector Reservoir has already been raised, and continued development of the the ridgeline slopes will only continue the process as well as further constraining wildlife movement. And of course will add that much more traffic on the road.

The County, at the 4/23/19 BOS meeting, requested $330,000 to contract for an EIR on the project (paid for by Gallo). The EIR will probably take a year of so to be finalized.

Update 3/31/21

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Shelle Wolfe, in her letter to the Planning Department regarding the Stagecoach North DEIR included a group of photos which, taken together gives a sobering view of the perils of driving on the road:





Update 3/29/21

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Glenn Schreuder sends along another accident along the road this week (in addition to the blue dump truck and red car at the bridge shown above):

And Amber Manfree adds some of her photos:


Another tourist van stuck on the grade and a car over the edge at Mike's culvert

Update 3/21/21

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Glenn Schreuder sends along this tale:

A few minutes ago, I just learned from one of our neighbors exactly what happened on the grade on Soda Canyon Road on Monday March 8th and you won’t believe it:

According to the account I just heard, apparently two trucks from Oaxaca, Mexico carrying finished case goods of Mescal were given an incorrect delivery address in upper Soda Canyon by a large local trucking company that was, in some way, involved in this trucking shipment.

The first tractor/trailer got stuck on the “S” curve just below the Martucci’s driveway around 9am.

That driver tried to radio the driver of the second tractor/trailer to let him know not to come up here but the message was not received or perhaps not heeded (unknown).

The second truck got stuck and rolled backwards into the hill just below the driveway of the property formerly owned by the Dixon family (driveway just before Martucci coming up the grade).

Thankfully by the grace of God he didn’t roll backward and down the steep ravine and into Soda Creek. Probably a heads up play by the driver. must have terrifying for him/her.

The back of the trailer of the second truck was badly damages and, sadly, some bottles of Mescal were lost forever…But at least the driver and anyone else nearby was not injured.

If you need more details we can follow up with the neighbor. Attached are the pictures.

Judy took the one at 9am (first truck that got stuck on the grade). I took the pictures of the second truck at about 11:45am again on Monday, March 8th.

Update 9/6/19

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The latest examples of the driving rigors on this most problematic road. One, a narrow escape on a very steep section of the grade; and another, a tourist highlight as wine barrels end up scattered across the landscape near the blind curve beyond the Soda Springs gate. Glen writes about the upper photo:

"took this photo at about 8:30am PDT 09/10/2019. That guy is very lucky. Would like to know how his truck ended up in that position. Could have started a fire, could have rolled down to the creek, could easily have been seriously injured or worse. I keep saying SCR is not a fundamentally safe roadway for increasing traffic loads. Fully pave it and people will start hauling ass increasing the frequency (and severity) of vehicular accidents. Only workable solution: Stop treating Soda Canyon road like it's an appropriate place for more and more commercial development."

Update 7/13/18

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Shelle Wolfe sends this video of un-notified paving of our gravel road, which given the traffic now on the road, will be a noise mitigation for her and a dust mitigation for those on the road.

But another bit of rural Napa is paved over.
Since we are here only 2 days a week and only have a short stretch of the gravel road to traverse and are removed from the dust thrown up, we have little right to complain. But I will anyway.

As with the loss of the mailboxes, the paving of the road is just one more step in the conversion of a truly rural place into a suburb.

Old man MacCabe talked about the time that neighbors got together to regrade the runoff wash that was the access to houses here, into the gravel road we know. "It was the worst $400 I ever spent." The gentrification continues.

I agree with Yeoryios' email response to the news. Improved access is generally a harbinger of further development.

Update 10/25/17

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Lauren Griffiths writes: Two vehicle accident off into the creek at the McFadden curve on 10/25/17. The first responders arrived in force, not taking any chances.

After the fire, just at harvest, the road is busier than I have ever seen it. There are the grape trucks, repair trucks servicing fire damaged properties, utility trucks, and residents in what amounts to an almost continuous stream (by Soda Canyon standards) of vehicles on the road. It will not end anytime soon. All of this activity will be supplanted first by debris loading and hauling equipment and then by construction vehicles as residents rebuild in the coming years. As in the argument concerning tourism traffic, with each new vehicle on the road the potential for accidents on the blind curves and rises increases.

Update 4/19/17

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Some of the members of the Soda Canyon community on their way to the hearing on the very inaccessible Caves at Soda Canyon winery almost didn't arrive because of a typical example of inaccessibility on our road.




Update 3/27/17

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Just another day on the road.



Update 2/15/17

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Residents send along these photos of an encounter that may become all too familiar along the grade: stranded tour buses awaiting reinforcements in their assault on the Rector plateau. And the final indignity: being towed from in front of the Mountain Peak site (probably the first place they were able to turn around after being hauled up the grade?).




It appears that the van was headed to the Beau Vine vineyard as part of a release party at their nascent winery on the Trail at Soda Canyon Road. Approval of modification to the Beau Vingne winery just happened at the planning commission (the hearing is item 9B here) in what one could only consider as a love-fest about what Napa "family" wineries should be about.

The visit to the vineyard in conjunction to a event at the winery does raise a question that I have always had about visitation to vineyards as opposed to wineries. Visitation to wineries is regulated to the nth degree, implying that unpermitted tourism visitation to vineyards might be illegal. Is that true? Even as an opponent of tourism to remote areas of the county, if the allowance of vineyard visitation defuses the need to build wineries in remote vineyards, that is a much preferable alternative. Provided that visits to vineyards don't become events, with food service and large quantities of people, there should be some codification of the process which does not now exist. (Of course, containing the extent of a privilege once codified has been at the heart of problems now confronting the county.)

2/2/15

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It begins again, our first for 2015, overloaded vineyard truck dead on last curve, had to be towed with tractor.

Update 11/16/21

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The site of the Napa Oaks II proposal is currently zoned "Resource Area". The legal battle the developer has waged and lost a couple of times is to get the resource designation changed to allow residential development. The City of Napa is now going through the General Plan 2040 Update process, and lo-and-behold, there was a proposal to change the zoning to residential. As the comments indicate, the residents who have been fighting so hard to keep the ridge from being developed were not happy. The plan now seems to reflect that the property will remain resource area.

Update 10/27/20

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Wakoh Shannon Hickey LTE 10/27/20: Annexing rural lands can only be a last resort

An eloquent retort to the charge of NIMBY-ism from the son of James Hickey, County Planning Director from 1970 to 1989 who oversaw much of the rural legacy still tresured (by most) in the county today.

Update 9/21/20

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NVR 9/21/20: Debate over Napa's future development turns toward future of Foster Road

A pro-developer councilman raised the spectre of "NIMBY-ism" in the concern over protecting the hills west of Napa City from development. In this case, of course, those hills, like all of the hills surrounding the valley, are in the back yard of everyone who lives here.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, the term was invented by developers to denigrate residents' self-interest in protecting the character of their communities. There is no similar distillation of developers' self-interest in profiting from the destruction of that character.

It is up to government to decide whose self-interest is the more important, and since most governments revere wealth creation (for the few) over quality of life (for the many), residents are most often pushed into a more urban future than they would prefer. Given the lipservice that government officials often bestow on Napa's rural heritage and natural envirnoment, one would hope that it would be different here. But as is evident in the hundreds of projects that have been approved in the 6 years this site has existed, a rate that shows no sign of lessening despite climate change, pandemic and the vociferous and legal efforts of conservationists, the urbanization of Napa County continues apace.

The General Plan 2040 documents are here

Update 9/9/20

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NVR 9/9/20: Timberhill, Napa Oaks, Foster Road residents oppose intensive homebuilding in Napa's future general plan

Update 2/25/20

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NVR 2/25/20: Neighbors fear return of Napa Oaks threat to western hills

Update 6/19/19

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The City Council has voted 3 to 2 to deny the request to rezone the Napa Oaks property, thus rejecting the Napa Oaks II proposal.

NVR 6/20/18: City Council narrowly rejects Napa Oaks II homes, 16 years after first veto

Update 6/16/18

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Chris Benz LTE 6/18/18: Let's protect Napa city's oaks
Kevin Teague LTE 6/18/18: Why I believe in Napa Oaks
Pat Clay LTE 6/18/18: Napa Oaks offers many benefits

Update 6/16/18

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Lisa Batto LTE 6/16/18: Weak argument for luxury housing by the Napa Chamber of Commerce
Sharon Macklin LTE 6/16/18: Chamber should advocate for affordable housing
Napa CofC LTE 6/16/18: Can we decide without divide?
Davidson Homes LTE 6/16/18: We have worked closely with the community on Napa Oaks

Update 6/14/18

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NVR 6/14/18: City Council set to resolve battle over Napa Oaks II housing development
Florence Linstrom LTE 6/14/18: Don't approve Napa Oaks II
Suzanne Truchard LTE 6/14/18: Chamber shouldn't take position on Napa Oaks
Carol Barge LTE 6/14/18: The one thing Napa Oaks II can't mitigate
Keith Lindstrom LTE 6/14/18: No to Napa Oaks - report proves we have plenty of existing land zoned for housing.

Update 5/25/18

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Stop Napa Oaks has sent out this reminder that the Napa City Council will be deciding the fate of the Napa Oaks II project on Tuesday, June 19th at 6:30pm.

Napa City Council Set to Vote on Napa Oaks II

Update 5/3/18

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Christina Bettencourt LTE 5/3/18: Kill Napa Oaks for good
NVR 1/31/18: Council vote on Napa Oaks II homes delayed after release of new quake maps
Duane Cronk (last) LTE 12/28/17: For the right reasons
NVR 12/21/17: City planners narrowly vote against Napa Oaks II homes
SNO 12/21/17: Planning Commissioners vote in a 3-2 split in our favor!

Update 12/7/17

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After public testimony the 12/7/17 hearing was continued to 12/21/17 at 5:30pm
SNO update
NVR 12/8/17: Foes of Napa Oaks II housing turn out in force; city planners delay verdict
LTE's:
Tony Truchard: Napa Oaks project will destroy our scenic gateway
Chuck Dresel: Opposed to Napa Oaks, then and now
Eve Kahn: Do we want to destroy our hillsides?

Update 12/5/17

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NVR 12/4/17: Battle over Napa Oaks II homes to go before city planners

Napa City Planning Commission meeting on the project, this thursday Dec 7th, 2017. Stop Napa Oaks requests your support and presence here
Update 11/29/17 Meeting Report

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NVR 11/28/17: Napa Oaks II developers revise housing plan; neighbors still push back
SNO counterpoints to developer's presentation

Stop Napa Oaks sends this notice after the 11/28/17 presentation hosted by the developers of the 53 unit Napa Oaks housing subdivision slated to replace the oak-covered hillside on the west side of town (pictured). The project will be heard by the Napa City Planning Commission on Dec 7th 2017, with a decision on the project to be rendered in the new year.

The Final EIR describing the project is here (All less-than-significant impacts of course.)

Update 5/4/17

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NVR 5/4/17: Possible Truchard winery, Napa Oaks subdivision developers clash
[The Truchard winery was approved on 9/20/17 at this planning commission meeting.]

A clash between tourism urbanization and housing urbanization: The natural landscape of the county loses both ways. The Napa Oaks site should never have been incorporated into the city limits and the housing project is the infinitely more egregious insult to the rural character of the county. The site plan, which shows the tops of the hills being sheared off for building pads, is truly heartbreaking. Let's pray they lose the coming battle with their city neighbors to the east and the Truchards (who seem to be the county ideal of the family farm vintner) to the west. The housing developer's letter does just look like harassment in retaliation for the Truchard's opposition to their project. (The Truchard's opposition letter (at the bottom here), however, is a dead ringer for all of the letters we have written opposing tourism wineries these last 3 years). The best outcome, of course, would be for both to abandon their development plans in order to preserve "the sheer natural beauty of this place".

Napa Oaks II DEIR
Truchard documents Item 8B here

Update 3/1/17: Napa Oaks Development

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The Greenbelt Alliance, an organization dedicated to preserving open space in an urbanizing world for 60 years, has just issued a 2017 report At Risk: The Bay Area Green Belt which features the Napa Oaks Project as open space under threat of development. (No mention of Walt Ranch?) More here from the Stop Napa Oaks group.

Stop Napa Oaks petition
Stop Napa Oaks Facebook Page

LTE 6/10/16: Development will have huge impact
LTE 5/4/16; A test of character
LTE 5/3/16: Don't destroy gateway to Napa
LTE 4/18/16: Development would scar the land
NVR 5/3/16: Homebuilder revives plans for rejected Napa development
Napa Oaks II DEIR
NVR 8/1/12: Neighbors demand study of Napa Oaks II hillside subdivision

In true developer fashion this project is named for the environment it destroys. (I grew up in an LA suburb called Sherman Oaks, none of which remained). A part of the oak studded hills that define the rural character of the Napa Valley is to be littered with suburban McMansions. The immediate question when looking at Google maps is why this parcel is within the city limits, surrounded as it is on 3 sides by identical county open space. Not as bad as the absurd Napa gerrymander of Stanly Ranch, but still one of those unfortunate bumps in the urban-rural line that just invites urban expansion into the countryside.

The battles of communities throughout the county these last two years to maintain what is left of Napa's rural character in the face of a resurgence in developer zeal and money has been both heartening, because the desire still exists to retain this place as separate from the rest of the suburban sprawl of the bay area, and discouraging in that governments seem ever more willing to sacrifice that character to developers' interests.

9/4/16: Andersen Ranch Development

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Now a second housing project, by the same developer pursuing the Napa Oaks project, is proposed to carve up more of the few remaining Oak Hillsides within the city:
NVR 9/4/16: Planners endorse 37 east Napa homes despite privacy, tree concerns

I thought you might enjoy seeing pictures of upper Soda Canyon yesterday. We had a hail storm that lasted for quite awhile!

Update 3/8/21

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NVR 3/8/21: Nape County will develop rules to allow micro-wineries to offer wine tasting
Video of the 3/1/21 BOS meeting (discussion begins at 1:33:15)

It was good to hear that the proposal has changed in the last 2 years to stay clear of the WDO. The details, unknown at present, will be critical to insure that these permits won't just provide a cheaper gateway for the wine-tourism commercialization of the rural communities whose residents support agriculture but not the conversion of their neighborhoods into tourist destinations. In a previous proposal both capacity (30,000 gal/yr) and visitation (25 vis/day) allowed were well above the medians for real wineries in Napa County,

The supervisors in their comments seemed to recognize that the impacts of such tourism intensification should be an important consideration in the drafting fo the ordinance. Sup. Dillon also pointed out the danger of homes being built as micro-wineries and how development standards for homes should also be part of the discussion.

The essence of the ordinance will be to allow home visitation and sales. But the purpose of the visitation should be to sell wine, not to profit off tasting and event fees. I think this is an opportunity to analyze, perhaps for the industry as a whole, how much visitation is actually necessary to sell, say, 5000 gallons of wine a year taking into consideration wine club sales and the increasing use of online sales. There should be a direct quantifiable relationship between the level of visition and the amount of wine produced. Dir. Morrison's Proposal X at APAC was one indirect attempt at defining that relationship -- it was shot down by a wine industry that knows that the profit to be made from tasting and event fees is a revenue source quite independent from actual wine sales.

Update 1/3/21

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NVR 1/3/21: Save the Family Farms makes wine-tasting pitch to Napa County

Update 8/10/20

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Several Letters to the Editor from "Save the family farms" folks in the last year:

8/12/20 Leslie Hoopes LTE: The major issues small family farms face in Napa County
NVR LTE 4/6/20: How the pandemic is affecting small family farms
12/11/19 Dylan Rahn LTE: Blood, earth, and legacy
8/6/19 George O'Meara LTE: Your Turn: Leadership, Legacy and Napa's all-star leadership team
7/5/19 Hayley Hossfield LTE: Small family farmers the true legacy of Napa Valley
6/12/20 Ken Nerlove LTE: Why I support “Save the Family Farms”
5/8/19 George O'Meara LTE: Your Turn: “Napaland” - How Napa may become the next Disneyland

Update 11/4/19

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NVR 11/3/19: Small winemakers pitch 'Save the Family Farms' to Napa supervisors

Save the Family Farm seems like one more end run around protections of the Ag Preserve and the WDO meant to speed up the conversion of an agricultural economy into a more profitable tourism economy, just as is the Winery Streamlining Ordinance considered by the Supes in October (item 10A here).

12/19/18

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NVR 12/19/18: Napa Supervisors surprised by deluge of comments on family farm woes and winery rules

Save the Family Farms facebook page
Save the Family Farms on Change.org
Save the Family Farms Committee statement

At the Strategic Plan hearing before the BOS on 12/19/18 several people got up to describe how difficult it was as for small winemakers to survive: those vintners that had a small number of acres of vines that they processed at a custom crush facility or in their barn, but had no means, in an age of consolidated distributers needing large quantities, of actually selling the wine other than inviting people to their farm. The cost of getting a use permit for a winery, a multi-year process at the County, and the cost of actually building a commercial winery was way beyond their means.

The refrain of the small family winery being priced out of the Napa Valley has been fairly constant since APAC and before, with the discussion about the CEQA small winery exception. Apparently there are many winemakers out there that have been operating completely off the grid of official county statistics for some time.

The County's winery database of use permits now has some 500 wineries, not even half of Dave Thompson's Napa Wine Project database of 1100 Napa commercial wine makers, most of which he has visited and written excellent reviews about.

For me, and perhaps the Supervisors, this is much like the issue of winery use-permit non-compliance which turned out to be a much more widespread than first thought. The emphasis on the plight of the small family winemakers, operating without a winery permit and depending on "home" tours and tasting to sell their product may be just as big. And now that the County is cracking down on winery non-compliance with a deadline of 3/29/19 for wineries to register to recognize the conditions of their use permits, the many sub-permit wine makers may be getting nervous.

It seems unlikely that the County doesn't know about number of commercial wineries documented in the Napa Wine Project, regardless the Supes surprise as the small winemakers are coming forward. But it is probably safe to say that the impact of those wine makers on their neighborhoods and on the metrics of traffic generation and housing need have thus far been ignorable. Until now.

The Save the Family Farms Committee has produced their own definition of the Small Family Winery. There are good aspects to the proposal, but the 30,000 gallon limit represents a 50% increase on the median size of existing use-permitted wineries in remote areas, not really small by Napa standards. And the 25 visitors every day is 4 times the median visitation in remote areas and would present a noticeable commercial presence in most rural (or urban!) neighborhoods.

In 2017 The county floated a Limited Winery Ordinance but tabled it because of likely pushback. With the county approving one new winery a month, developing a fast-track method of administrative winery approvals didn't seem like a good idea. The specs were even further above the existing median Napa winery than the Small Family Winery.

Actually, the County already has a Small Winery definition on the books for old existing wineries. It would seem a reasonable template to fit the needs of "Save the Family Farm" petitioners, with the removal of the word "existing". It prohibits tours and tastings, a deal breaker for the Committee I'm sure. But it is worth noting that Screaming Eagle, Coglin, Scarecrow and other very pricey Napa cult wines are all in compliance with this definition - >20,000 gal/yr, no tours, tastings or events. It is possible for a small winemaker to be successful based on the quality of the wine rather than the quantity of the experiences.

In 2014, the first year of doing this website, I proposed a series of solutions attempting to stall the urbanization of the county. One was a "true" family winery ordinance of my own. The overriding considerations were that such small wineries have minimal impacts and that they not be expandable - that they are meant to allow a proof of concept for budding winemakers and an authentic tasting experience for a limited number of aficionados. If the wine maker wishes to expand, it is time to move additional production and visitation out of the hills. The most important aspect of the proposal was that the permit is given to the owner of the land. If the owner left the land, the permit ended. And that it be the only type of winery allowed in the watersheds going forward, so that these permits are not simply a cheap and easy way to start a large event center project. Protecting the watersheds from corporate and plutocratic overdevelopment is the goal. And prohibiting tourism development of the watersheds means that the properties that are available are less expensive for small family farms. It is a workable proposal for just the vintners that are coming forward now.

One of the other "solutions" that gets at the issue of marketing small brands might be appropriate to mention here: The development of public wine markets in each of the municipalities specifically to sell the county's small labels, with a boutique stall for each of the winemakers. The TOT would be used to subsidize, or pay entirely, for the cost of rent on the stalls. The marketing of wine by dragging ever more visitors into the rural areas of the County is not a sustainable approach - in terms of protecting that rural character or of dealing with the VMT issues of climate change and global tourism. But small family farms are sustainable - if they remain small family farms.

NVR 2/20/21: High stakes 2022 election to shape Napa County wine country

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 govenments - how to create ever more jobs, housing, infrasturcture and the mirage of more government revenues.

The two Napa County supervisors retiring prior to the coming 2022 election, District 3 Supervisor Diane Dillon and District 1 Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht, are the vestages of the prerservation agenda. Uncoincidentally their districts contain the vast bulk of vineyard acerage 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. 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.

Update 2/24/21

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NVR 2/10/21: ABAG's mandate for new Napa County housing grows

The unincorporated county's share of the RHNA mandate for 2023-2031 will be around 200 additional units, 10% above the 180 units in the last allocation. Let's hope a way is found to build those 200 units that doesn't require the building of another Napa Pipe-sized city on county land to finance them.

NVR 2/24/21: Napa County again tries to sell Old Sonoma Road site for housing
In the meantime the county is putting their Old Sonoma Road property up for sale again after the previous deal fell through because the site isn't yet zoned residential, a complication for a buyer. The City of Napa is about to update their general plan with residential zoning for the site included. Regardless, the County is trying to sell the site at a cut rate because of the current zoning. If they waited they could get more money. If they waited they could use the site for some of the housing they are required to provide under 2023-2031 RHNA. If they were smart they would give the land to a developer willing to do 100% affordable housing on the site.

Update 11/22/20

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NVR 11/22/20: Napa County pushes back on possible, big housing mandate

Just below the above article in the Register is a video of the construction ongoing at the Stanly Ranch Resort. The resort will eventually employ 500 people, most needing affordable housing. This is just the population growth that ABAG is trying to house with their mandates. The committment by the cities and the county to continue to approve resorts, hotels, winery entertainment venues, industrial warehouses are all creating the conditions needing more housing. ABAG should be apportioning housing mandates based on the number of jobs communities are creating. And the amount of job-creating development ongoing, much but not all shown here and here, is quite astounding.

At the end of last year the County finally recognized the link between job creation and urban development in refusing to ramp up industrial development in the south county. But much like climate change, the projects already in the pipeline make make modest efforts at mitigation futile. And nothing in the approvals made in the last year, slowed somewhat perhaps by the pandemic, makes one think that a radical rethinking of the problem is in the offing.

The cities and county are trying to hide behind some high minded dedication to agriculture and open space to shirk their duty to provide for the housing need they are creating in their approvals. If they truly were committed to agriculture and open space they would stop, immediately, promoting a tourism/industrial economic base for the county and concentrate on how to make their unique, low urbanizing, agricultural product more viable in a global marketplace. Napa has spent millions promoting Visit Napa Valley and nothing promoting the sale of Napa wines outside the county. Selling wine as a tourist good is more profitable for more people than growing and processing crops for export, but the urbanization needed to achieve that additional profitability will eventually undermine the agriculture and open space that governments hypocritically claim to treasure.

Update 11/6/20

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The Board of Supervisors and City of Napa have drafted a response to the ABAG proposed RHNA allocation for 2023-31. It will be presented and discussed at the BOS meeting on 11/10/20 (item 10E here). The county's agenda letter more clearly spells out the thinking than the letter to ABAG (the ABAG unincorporated allocation seems ot have risen to 880 units!). While the letter gets into the weeds of ABAG's "methodology", they are essentially pleading that the unique circumstances of a county devoted to preserving an agricultural economy needs a more flexible approach to affordable home building goals than the rest of the constantly urbanizing Bay Area. Of course the county's promotion of tourism and industrial development in the unincorporated area over the last 20 years are making that argument more difficult with every new (mostly low-paying) job created.

10/28/20

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Every 8 years the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) sets an affordable houisng requirement, called Regional Housing Needs Allocations (RHNA), for counties and municipalities with in its jurisdication, for the 8 year period ahead. It is the government's job to make sure those allocations are realized.

On Nov 4, 2020, the County Planning Commission will get an update from the Planning Department on the current 2023-2031 proposed allocation. It is not good news.

In 2012, for the period of 2015-2023 ABAG required Napa County to supply 180 affordable housing units. The result of that allocation was a difficult effort to find sites in the unincorporated county on which to build the units (documented in the Genreal Plan 2014 Housing Element), resulting ultimately in a complex deal with the City of Napa to build them as part of the Napa Pipe Project, the only site beyond one in Angwin, strongly opposed by Angwin Residents, that was remotely suitable. The desire to fulfill the RHNA allotment was a principal reason the Napa Pipe Project was approved. Of course along with the 180 units came an additional massive urban development project. Unfortunately the method of supplying affordable housing in a capitalist society is to fund it with fees and taxes from vast amounts of other, more profitable consturction.

This time around, ABAG is alloting 792 affordable units to be built in the unincorporated county between the years 2023 and 2031, not quite four and a half times the number of units alloted, but still not built, from the 2015 to 2023 requirment. And Napa Pipe is no longer an eligable site. How much additional urban development of Napa's open space, the legacy of a committment to agriculture by a previous generation of citizens and politians, will be necessary to accomodate the next RHNA allotment? Something four and half times the size of Napa Pipe, perhaps.

A County courtesy notice has just been sent out for a proposed major modification of the use permit for The Caves of Soda Canyon. The notice is here.

The request is to increase visitation for seven months of the year from 70/140* vis/wk to 250 vis/wk, and visitation for the rest of the year from 70/140* vis/wk to 80 vis/wk, add 7 parking places, add 7 more employees, and a continuation of the road and street exceptions for its very substandard driveway.

The winery is an icon in the county for its chutzpah incrementalism, use-permit non-compliance and neighbor aggravaiton on a remote and difficult-to-access site that should never have been used for a custom crush facility.

* Note there is some concern at to why the allowed visitation was increased from 70 to 140 vis/wk at the time that the appeal of the generator issue was resolved on 2/27/18, desite no request to increase visitation. I'll have more once the county has clarified what happened.

Update 2/4/21

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SH Star 2/3/21: State seeks to join lawsuit against Lake County resort approval
SR PressDemocrat 2/6/21: California enters legal fight over massive Lake County resort, housing project

Attorney General's press release on motion
State's Motion to Intervene

Update 9/7/20

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SH Star 9/7/20: Environmental group sues over approval of major Lake County resort

Update 7/21/20

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NVR 7/201/20: Major Lake County resort development approved

Considering the two month turnaround between the Draft EIR presentation and the FEIR approval, given the massive scale of a project that will change the character of both southern Lake County and northern Napa County forever, this looks like a brazen example of a wealthy international investor squeezing a small county government to quickly rubber stamp a major project with the lubricant and promise of big, easy money.

Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR)
Lotusland Guenoc Valley website
Lotusland Investment website: The connection to Soda Canyon Road: Howard Backen, the lead architect on the Guenoc project, is also the architect of the Mountain Peak Project (another international investment) as well as of a nearby $13.5 million estate prominently featured on the Lotusland website.

Update 7/16/20

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SH Star 7/16/20: Second public hearing set for Guenoc Valley project, massive resort development

7/7/20 Lake County BOS agenda and documents
6/25/20 Lake County Planning Commission Agenda and Documents

Center for Biological Diversity Letter
Calif State DOJ Fire concerns letter
Other response letters here

Some 4400 vehicle trips a day will be added to Napa Valley's traffic by the project, all passing thorugh Napa CIty and many probably passing through Angwin (rather than the longer route through Calistoga and Tubbs Lane), and yet Napa county governments or their affected citizens seem to have no real influence beyond letters of concern. As the FEIR states, "It should be noted that no project components or related improvements would occur within Napa County." Butt out.

6/9/20

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SH Star 6/9/20: Massive resort development planned in southern Lake County

16,000 acre development
850 hotel and resort rental units
golf course
1400 residential vineyard estates
500 worker SRO's on site
50 unit workforce houses off site
865,395 sf commercial/retail
spa, entertainment, equestrian, camping facilities
850,000 gal/yr wineries
2 heliports!

14783 trips/day generated
4434 trips/day through the Napa Valley, the only access from the Bay Area

Lake County Guenoc Valley Mixed-Use Planned Development Project
EIR Notice of availability
Final EIR for the Project

Lake County News 5/16/17: Middletown Area Town Hall hears update on Guenoc Valley project

Update 1/28/21

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NVR 1/28/21: Anthem winery wins Napa County approvals in winery growth battle

Another loss for rural residents in their battles against the pernicious impacts of the wealthy pursuing their dreams of being goodlife impresarios.

It is perhaps a coincidence that the article on Sup. Dillon's decision not to run for re-election, happened one day after the Anthem hearing in which she was the one supervisor to vote against its approval. "I have a suspicion that there will be [at least] three votes to approve this," she said near the beginning of her comments. There was a wearyiness as she enumerated her concerns about the project, the verifiable and obvious lack of water, the fire danger posed by such a substandard access route in an age of fire, and the use of exceptions to (i.e violations of) county ordinances to make the project feasable.

The two events are not directly related, of course, but one could easily imagine a link. She is the one member of the board that rose out of the battles to prevent agrictural land and open space from being developed. That battle is being lost with each new tourist attraction, warehouse, hotel, housing and deforestation project that the growth-centric board majority now supports. Those projects will induce more development and the cascade of urbanization -- unrestrained by the preservationist ideals that created and defended the Ag Preserve -- will eventually dominate the life and environment of the county. The slow demise of Napa's vineyards and woodlands will not be a pretty sight. To remain on the board with that inevitability, would be a wearying prospect, indeed. On the other hand, it is a better position from which to protect the ag legacy than from the sidelines.

The owner of Anthem is a member of Coalition Napa Valley, the small group of winery owners and developers who wish to abandon the limitations on winery visitation in county ordinances and general plan that hobble their ambitions. The group's (so far only) champion on the Board seems to be its current chair, Sup. Pedroza. It is a group so fervent in their tourism ambitions that even the wine industry 'stakeholders' who created the tourism carveouts in Napa's unique definition of agriculture are not yet on board. The group is led by Dario Sattui, developer and major-domo of Castello di Amorosa, Napa's biggest tourist attraction. It is possible that someone from the group, perhaps the aggressive Mr. Sattui himself, will run for Sup. Dillon's seat in 2022. That is also a wearysome prospect.

One other dissuasion from seeking re-election: having to listen to 3 minutes of truly ugly vitriol from James Hinton at each meeting.

Unfortunately, the Board majority's lack of concern about the fire dangers of Anthem's access constraints does not bode well for our own Soda Canyon goodlife dream project when it returns to the board for review sometime this year.

Update 1/24/21

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The Anthem Winery appeal is coming up before the Board of Supervisors this Tues., Jan. 26, 2021.

After approval by the Planning Commission one year ago, the appeal of that decision by neighbors is being heard by the Board of Supervisors.

Appeal Documents
BOS 1/26/21 agenda
Staff letter for Appeal
Hearing Notice
Project Appeal Documents
Video of 2/5/20 PC Meeting
Agenda for 2/5/20 PC Meeting

One appellant has forwrded this list of specific issues on the Anthem project:


Anthem is one of numurous winery projects that have been vehemently opposed over the last 7 years by rural communities who's quality-of-life is threatened by a winery event center in their neighborhood: Yountvile Hill, our own Mountain Peak, Woolls Ranch, Girard, Raymond, Hard Six, Aloft, Caldwell, Scarlett and others. In addition, in that period, are the mega projects, Walt Ranch and Syar Quarry that have galvanized neighbors intent on protecting their rural communities. Each project has been legally argued on the basis of very specific impacts, necessitating the involvment of lawyers and consultants to show that the project will comply with or violate some aspect of county code. Never are they argued on the basis of the loss of rural tranquility that has attracted many to live in the county.

County ordinances are created with developer underwriting to codify the conditions that will allow development to happen, never to codify the value of undeveloped land. It is the development threat to Napa's agricultural, small town quality-of-life that is at the center of resident concern about every project in this 7 years -- as it was to the establishment of Napa as an agricultural preserve 50 years ago. Since the election of Bill Dodd as Supervisor 20 years ago, that commitment to preservation over development has been losing ground, figuratively and literaly, "Once it's gone, it's gone", Sup. Pedroza reminded us about the agricultural-watershed-open-space land protected by a previous generation of county leaders. With each new development project he and other Supervisor approve, it continues to go.

Supervisors,

I would ask you to reconsider the approval of the Anthem Winery project by the Planning Commission and uphold the appeal of neighbors who will be impacted by imposition of this public facility in the midst of their rural community.

There are technical grounds to uphold the appeal; at the end of the Staff letter to you, while recommending support of the Planning Commission decision, Staff also leavened their advice with this contradictory qualification:

"[G]ven the local context of the winery site, site constraints, water supply, the extent the site would need to be manipulated to provide adequate access and accommodate an expanded winery and visitation levels, and the requests and exceptions necessary to accommodate the expanded winery, this site may not be appropriate for a winery of the requested size and visitation level."

For those of us on Soda Canyon Road, the question of access constraints became very real during the 2017 Atlas fire. Just before the fire, the Board approved findings for a similar winery project proposed near the end of road. The findings concluded that emergency ingress and egress on the road would not be a problem in the event of an emergency. A downed tree at the start of the fire quickly gave lie to that finding. Emergency vehicles could not move up the road. Residents could not exit as the fire surrounded the road. It was a near catastrophe.

In the Anthem project, one look at the one-lane bridge and the 17' wide driveway leading to it on the site plan, and at the 20% grade to be surmounted on the route, should be enough to question the wisdom of accommodating dozens of vehicles for events and visitation and for the passage of heavy trucks needed for production and response vehicles needed for emergencies. The narrowness of the driveway, and its steep gradient, is testimony that this access to the site was never intended for commercial and industrial traffic. It is a driveway for a private residential estate.

The findings for the project indicate that the exceptions in road width, road gradient, bridge width, turnout accommodation, are all acceptable because of a fairly elaborate system of electronic and static signs use to direct one-way traffic and to limit road usage in the event of an emergency. Also necessary is the training of employees in how to operate and implement the system.

Can an emergency evacuation really be so predictably choreographed? People fleeing in fear of their lives are unlikely to pay attention to signs. Employees in the midst of a chaotic event may have limited experience, information, time and concentration to implement the optimal evacuation plan. And external events -- a power outage, a stalled vehicle, a downed tree as happened on Soda Canyon Road, may instantly foil any emergency plan.

The findings for the Anthem road exceptions are not a simple as finding the county's RSS's to be an acceptable level of safety, even though those standards proved inadequate in the Atlas fire. In this case, the Board must find that the various exceptions and mitigations -- accommodating a sub-standard road width, accepting a sub-standard road gradient, use of a one-lane bridge, use of an elaborate electronic signage system, the use of staff to make evacuation decisions -- will insure the safety of visitors and staff in an emergency. It is, in fact, taking a leap of faith that all will go as planned in a severe event, and the county will bear some responsibility if things do not go as planned.

As Staff noted in its qualification, it is not just the question of safe ingress and egress that makes this project problematic. There are numerous reasons to question its approval. (Unstated, of course, is the issue at the heart of all projects that eventually end up before you: the impact that tourism -- as opposed to real agriculture -- poses to the quality of life treasured by rural residents.)

But given the increasing frequency of fires, now an inherent part of living and doing business in the county, the issue of fire safety for the general public in the approval of commercial building sites should be of paramount concern. Hopefully, you will begin to revisit your interest in promoting tourism attractions in the fire prone areas of the county. You should start with this project.

Bill Hocker
3460 Soda Canyon Road

Update 3/13/21

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NVR 3/13/21: Privacy's group sues Napa County over hot air balloon launch increase

Update 1/15/21

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NVR 1/15/21: Napa supervisors grant Balloons Above the Valley more launches

The Board split along its pro-development faultlines with Sups. Pedroza, Ramos and Gregory supporting more tourism and Sups. Dillon and Wagenknecht pushing back on the ever increasing commercial business use of lands zoned for agriculture. The problem is that once you officially define tourism as an essential element of the wine industry, as has happened in Napa County, it's difficult to exclude those tourism uses that go beyond the restaurants, event venues and amusement parks (like Castello di Amorosa) currently allowed on ag zoned lands.

1/11/21

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NVR 1/11/21: Once thought decided, winery and hot air balloon issues are having new life in Napa County

Barry Eberling, reporting in the Register about the upcoming "Balloons Above the Valley" appeal hearing at the Board of Supervisors on Jan 12, 2021 (item 13B here), links to other projects coming before the Board which, taken together, represent a broad issue: the pushback of residents trying to to prevent the commercialization of their communities in a county now more devoted to urban development than rural protection. Each project, like the remote Mountain Peak winery proposal on our fire ravaged road, has its own specific issues that have brought them to the Board, a couple with a detour through the courts that question the Board's previous approvals. But since these legal battles must be fought on very specific issues, the more general issue of loss of community quality of life that each development represents often goes unsaid. Yet it is at the core of the anger makes residents willing to spend the vast amount of time and money needed to fight them. Unlike developers, residents get no tax writeoff for their efforts or the promise of money returned on their investment. Their only reward is the maintenance of the quality of life that they feel they have found in rural Napa County, "the agricultural lands and rural character that we treasure" in the words of the Napa County General Plan vision statement. In its rush to promote tourism, housing and industrial development in the name of "growth", the Board of Supervisors no longer embodies that vision.

While each new year I feel like giving up on this quixotic effort to document the progression of urbanization in Napa (and thereby feel I'm doing what I can), an article like Mr. Eberling's comes out, or the Planning Commission makes a good decision like "Balloons", or the Board steps back from its development zeal, just enough to show that the ideal of retaining Napa county as a rural refuge in the greater bay area still has some currency; and I go on adding to the site.

Update 12/18/20

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NVR 12/18/20: Napa supervisors won't consider major winery rule changes
NV2050 LTE 12/15/20: Don't use pandemic to erode winery regulations

It seemed as if Sup Pedroza was the only Board member supportive of the effort by Coalition Napa Valley (most of its members having generously supported him for reelection) to gut the winery regulations that have attempted to keep winery tourism from dominating the wine industry for 30 years. Even the traditional "stakeholders", NVV, Winegrowers, Farm Bureau and Grapegrowers, normally not inhibited when it comes to direct-to-consumer marketing, were unwilling to back the suspension of the WDO that they had spent so many years negotiating. Is there a renewed recognition in the industry that there may be a downside to opening the tourism development floodgates on an agriculture based economy? Is it a recognition, as others have suggested, that the industry needs to find a different method of marketing their wares than the boom-and-bust strategy of at-winery sales? Unlikely. Coming out of the pandemic there will be enormous pressue from the industry to loosen the WDO, just as happened after the 2008 recession, to allow more tourism to make up for a lost year of revenues. This seems more like a battle over who will be controlling the process.

In a notable intrusion to the proceeding, Save the Family Farm members phoned in to make their case for winery-less visitation and sales on their properties. A financial mechanism, supported by the government, does need to be found to allow independent small winemakers and their farms to survive. They represent the authenticity that has been lost in the corporate-plutocrat-tourism model that the wine industry has become. Unfortunately, relying on bringing even more tourists each year into the county, and into every private rural neighborhood, should not the answer. The Supes seem reluctant to even listen to their concerns, perhaps a recognition of just how locked in they are to the stakeholder view of the industry.

Update 12/10/20

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At their 12/15/20 meeting, the County Board of Supervisors will take up the proposal of Coalitiion Napa Valley to essentially eliminate the regulation of visitation that has been in place since 1990. They seek an unlimited restriction of the Napa's tourism-based marketing model in the future in response to the collapse of the tourism industry today. (Item 10A here) Planning Director Morrison has presented a chart of actions that would be required to change the ordinances and the General Plan to accomodate the group's wish list -- a mere 895 hours of staff time and the decimation of the preservationist soul of the county defined in the battle between agriculture and tourism for the last 5 decades.

It has become fairly obvious that those trying to preserve the rural character of Napa County have been losing the battle as building developments and tourism expansions continue to be approved. Enacting the Coalition Napa Valley wish list would represent one more concession to development interests that have already become the norm from the Planning Commission and the Board. At best it would be an accelation of the evisceration of the county's preservation policies. At worst it might be eventually be seen as the coup de grâce to Napa's rural agricultural protections.

Update 12/2/20

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George Caloyannidis LTE 12/1/20: Wineries seeking advantage in a crisis

In a related development, Castello di Amorosa, Dario Sattui's mega-tourist trap, has recently submitted a request for a modification of its use permit that would allow
This has to be the poster child for the "recognize and allow" process established by the BOS after APAC (recommendation 4 here) to legalize production, visitation and construction beyond the limits of existing use permits, with no penalty and often with an approval to expand operations even beyond those being done illegally. The county has for years, apparently, turned a blind eye to the flouting of use permit restrictions, even for wineries as hard to ignore as the Castello di Amorosa.

Update 11/17/20

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Patricia Damery LTE 11/17/20: Don't loosen the rules that protect our environment

G/VRA response 11/4/20: Loosening restrictions on hospitality industry would be a mistake
NVR 10/22/20: Hurt by the pandemic and wildfires, some Napa Valley vintners request loosening of winery regulations

Much like the recession of 2008 which decimated the market for $100 bottles of wine, the pandemic and fires of 2020 have decimated the tourism market created to mitigate the recession's losses. In both cases vintners have lobbied to ease restrictions on tourism marketing to improve their profitablility. Oddly the pandemic has caused a spike in retail and online wine sales, but the Napa Wine industry having spent all its energies in the last 12 years trying to promote tourism as their business model rather than promoting a strong retail presence elsewhere, is suffering.

The eternal battle between tourism development and agriculture in Napa Valley has recently produced two wine industry groups specifically to represent each side in the debate. Growers/Vintners for Responsible Agriculture (G/VRA) represents the side of the industry attempting to restrain tourism, woodland conversion and climate change that they feel poses a theat to the rural heritage and agricutural viability of Napa County. Coalition Napa Valley (CNV) sees the future of the wine industry in the unfettered expansion of vineyard acerage and the development of tourism as the means to market wine. The two groups coalesced in the fight over woodland protection vs. vineyard development in Measure C.

But the tourism stances draw on the personal experiences of the founders. Mega-grapegrower Andy Beckstoffer, of the G/VRA, had to confront, just like many residents in the county, the prospect of tourism revelry in his backyard with the expansion of the Raymnond Winery by the bon-vivant wine impresario Jean-Charles Boisette.

Members of the CNV have roots in their own grievances with neighbors over their event center ambitions and with the county over their disinterest in staying within the law. Chuck Wagner was fined by the county for exceeding his production capacitiies. Ryan Waugh was reprimanded by the county over illegal construction. Dario Sattui is quite literally trying to turn Napa Valley into Disneyland, and Stuart Smith just can't bear government meddling in his property rights. A couple of other members have been stalled for years in battles with neighbors over their winery ambitions.

But like Measure C, it is a fight beyond personalities. It is the fight over the future character of Napa County: either a world reknowned wine making region for the ages tightly regulated, as the wine regions of France are, to prevent urban development, or else, in the American style, a Las Vegas of wine where the principal industry is tourism and vineyards survive only as photo backdrops in travel agency brochures. It is a fight, unfortunately, that I am more and more certain has already been won by developers and entrepreneurs seeking a better return on investment from the land than agriculture can provide.

10/11/20

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Gary Margadant writes:

NVR 11/27/20: American Canyon's massive Watson Ranch nears building phase
The first group of 98 homes, the vanguard of the 1200 unit development, has been approved by the Planning Commission. Bay Area suburban sprawl comes ever closer to consuming Napa Valley.

NVR 10/17/18: American Canyon council approves expansive Watson Ranch development after years of study

AmCan Eagle 10/11/18: American Canyon planners approve Watson Ranch despite late opposition

Sigh! From the EIR: "significant and unavoidable impacts with respect to: air quality and greenhouse gas emissions, noise, and transportation and traffic." There would seem to be no limits to the damage government officials will visit on their constituents in support of their patrons.

Update 11/20/20 Foxbow Hotel

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NVR 11/20/20: Napa council narrowly approves 4-story hotel for Oxbow District

The rendering shows as clearly as possible the results noted in the discussion of the Black Elk Hotel below: that the development being approved by the city for the Oxbow tourism district is in fact creating an inhospitable barrier between the district and downtown. The walk between the two, perhaps the most heavily touristed route in the city, is already a dispiriting gauntlet of traffic and narrow sidewalks. Now the walker will be confronted by a wall of buildings before reaching the destination.

The lack of overall city planning and the relegation of the future development of the city to the avarice of building developers wishing to maximise their envelopes is just one more example of the failure the governments of Napa County to maintain the rural, small town, agricultural character that made this an enjoyable place to live and a memorable place to visit.

NVR 7/17/20: Napa's Planning Commission declines to recommend Oxbow hotel project
NVR 7/11/20: City to evaluate Napa hotel straddling Wine Train line; two historic homes to be moved

NVR 3/2/18: Napa planners ask is Foxbow too much hotel for the neighborhood
NVR 2/28/18: Napa city planners to take up Foxbow hotel plan in Oxbow District

Oh No! Another over-scaled, over-wrought hotel crammed onto First Street.
This one is more apartment-looking than the previous version, an advantage if the tourism market crashes at the end of this hotel bubble.

Preliminary review at the Napa City Planning Commission Thursday, Mar 1st, 2018 at 5:30pm. Staff report is here.

Update 1/6/18 Wine Train Hotel

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NVR 1/6/18: Napa planners comment on Wine Train's future hotel, rail depot on McKinstry Street
The Staff report on the project is here. (large file)
NVR 12/23/17: Top 10 of 2017, No. 7: Hotels, tourism continue Napa boom
7/14/17 Black Elk Hotel

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NVR 8/18/17: Napa planners approve 5-story Black Elk hotel in Oxbow district
NVR 7/4/17: Proposed four-story Oxbow hotel to receive Napa planners' scrutiny

The Black Elk Hotel had a preliminary review by the Napa City Planning Commission on July 6th 2017. The Staff Report and Documents are here. It is a very innappropriate building for the location, out of scale, a visual barrier to the Oxbow district, of "barnish" shape and materials out of place in its urban setting, a box of a building trying to squeeze as many hotel rooms as possible on the small site, which brought to mind a 19th century tenement house.

What became very apparent here, and in all of the hotel projects in the news recently, is that the city has no master plan for the development of the city, no commitment to integrate housing and real people and businesses into the tourism economy, and no design guidelines to regulate what the character of the place will become. As with the rural areas of the county, the future of Napa City is being irrevocably altered in this developer boom period, and the Planning Commission decisions about Napa's future are being made on an ad hoc basis, one isolated project at a time, without looking at the long term result. Which, of course, will be a hodgepodge of developers' schemes, some with good taste and some without, trying to maximize the money to be made from the tourist trade on every square inch of the city, while the residents are forced out.

Update 11/5/20

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

There is a difference between agriculture and tourism.


Napa Valley then and now

Update 2/26/20

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

Update 8/16/18

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

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

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

Original Post 5/7/17

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

The property was annexed to the City of Napa in 1964 for future use, in an age when suburban expansion was the anticipated fate of all Bay Area counties. As a far-removed extension of the subsequently-created urban-rural lines in the county, it can now be seen as a historical artifact, like the property proposed for the Oak Knoll Hotel, that violates the separation between existing urban and rural uses that the county and cities have been committed to since the ag preserve and Measure J were enacted. It could be rezoned back to agricultural use if there was a will, but it is another example that zoning changes only go in one direction - toward urban development.
Articles
NVR 12/20/15: City gives thumbs-up for luxury hotel at Stanly Ranch
NVR 11/2/15: Stanly Ranch receives recycled water go-ahead
NVR 5/9/15: Stanly Ranch resort developer promises 'authenticity'
NVR 11/19/13: Pipeline project to bring water to Carneros area
NVR 11/6/10: Settlement says St. Regis developer must support affordable housing
NVR 1/23/10: Critics blast St. Regis project, but city touts revenues; more hearings ahead
NVR 4/17/05: Merryvale set to begin Stanly Ranch renovation this summer

Documents
2009 City of Napa Stanly Ranch EIR project description

Update 10/31/20

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George Caloyannidis LTE 10/28/20: Cooperation with firefighter should be countywide model

George writes to say that "The fires came to within 20 feet from my own home on Diamond Mountain. Two other homes were lost.."

9/29/20

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Caltopo Map to chart fire progress
AlertWildfire Live North Bay Web Cams
Nixle Alerts Napa County (inc city alerts)
Twitter #glassfire
Napa County Road Closures

On Sep 23, 2020 Napa County gave an administrative review and approval to the despoiling of another of the valley's remaining isolated wooded knolls, this one between Yountville hills and the Trail. The hearing lasted 20 minutes.

The agenda letter and documents are here.

The project involves the removal of 52 mature trees, flattening the knoll and topping it with a 13,685 sf house, 1000 sf guest house and 4 water tanks. A driveway will be cut in the face of the hill. The approval requires adminsitrative review, and a chance for public comment, because its exceptional visibility from the Trail and Highwy 29 requires compliance with the county's Viewshed Protection Program, enacted to protect the Napa Valley's iconic landscape from exactly the deleterious effects of this kind of development. As anyone casting an eye around the Valley's encrusted hillsides will see, it is an ordinance without teeth. Show a couple of trees in front of the building on the plan and a prominent piece of the valley's natural landscape is forever disfigured by human detritus which no amount of planting will ever really mitigate. Mother nature has been forever fouled.

All things are relative, I suppose. This disfigurement is only a bit less egregious than the gross deforestation for the estate atop Oak Knoll just down the Trail, as well as the homes sprouting again on the once-beautiful craggy ridgeline at Stag's Leap. Viewshed protection, just like agricultrural preservation, should mean something when it comes to land use policy, and if the policies can't protect the virtue of the isolated wooded knolls and open vineyard vistas at the visual center of what people think of as "The Napa Valley" from being ravaged by a few wealthy egos, the effort at regulation and due diligence would seem just a fig leaf to deny responsibility as "the agricultural lands and rural character that we treasure" are slowly developed out of existance.

Staff contact was Sean Kennings, Contract Planner, (415) 533-2111, or sean@lakassociates.com (A private contractor to oversee the public interest?)

Update 9/19/20

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NVR 9/19/20: Napa County balks at amplified music request by St. Helena winery
NVR 9/23/20: Nickel and Nickel winery will restore its farmstead history

Update 9/15/20

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NVR 9/17/20: Proposed 475,000-gallon Napa Valley winery raises size concerns
The 9/16/20 PC meeting video is here

The Planning Commission has completed its review of 6 wineries in the last month. The most controversial of them was continued to a date uncertain (the Commission's polite kiss of death). The other 5 were approved unanimously and added 150,000 more winery visits per year to the county.

The controversial one, the 475,000 Benjamin Ranch Winery ran into pre-CEQA-appeal resistance from neighbor Michael Honig and pushback from the one industry group that seems to be taking on the unlimited growth agenda of the wine&tourism industrial complex, the Growers/Vintners for Responsible Agriculture. (More on the G/VRA here.) Both opposition and support for the project was made by other well known names. It also ran into a planning commission unwilling to pass at one sitting a new mega event center in the heart of the valley.

The developer, Hollywood mogul Rich Frank, is expanding the wine empire he established with the purchase of Larkmead Winery in 1993. The initial ask on Benjamin was for 146,000 visitors/yr but the ask was dropped prior to the hearing to about 87,000/yr in the hopes of pushing the project through - to no avail. Like some other entrepreneurs in the valley, the Franks expressed their frustration with a bureaucratic process that stands in the way of such entrepreneurial spirit.

Update 9/14/20

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The 9/16/20 meeting of the County Planning Commission will be reviewing use permit requests from 3 more wineries. Together, the 3 will be asking for almost 198,000 more visitor slots/yr, with the bulk, 146,000/yr for one new winery in the heart of the valley. (A continuance has been asked for.) If all are approved, it would be a significant 1 day increase in the wine tourism industry in Napa County. In the last two Planning Commission meetings a total of about 68,000 more visitor slots/yr have been approved to add to the tourism load, potentially adding 260,000 more winery visits/yr in 1 month of approvals.

Update 9/7/20

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NVR 9/7/20: Napa County approves more visitors for 2 wineries

Update 8/20/20

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The 8/19/20 Planning Commission Meeting

The first of the projects, a Saintsbury Winery request for 36,000 more visitors/yr was approved by the Planning Commission on 8/19/20 after horse-trading brought the number down to about 24,000 more vis/yr. (NVR article) After his vote to bring more tourism into the county, during a workshop on winery comparison charts later in the day, Comm. Whitmer made a somewhat stirring exortation of Planning Commission purpose:


Bravo! ... But then, perhaps looking out at the wine industry lobbyist in the audience, he deflated his own lofty rhetoric:


A few minutes later, that lobbyist, Michelle Benvenuto of the cliquish Winergrowers, got up to remind the Commisssion who they worked for:


My interpretation of her statement is that important decisions in Napa County [policy decisions] are made by the moneyed interests [stakeholders] behind closed doors directly with the supervisors [stakeholder meetings] and not debated in public [formal session] at the PC level. As everywhere, unfortunately, public policy is crafted by businesses to promote their own economic interests.

The referenced APAC hearings, begun in an effort to address citizen concerns over winery proliferation, is good example. The public APAC committee came up with a list of recommendations which tried to incorporate public concerns, although still watered down by the large majority of "stakeholder" representatives on the committee. The Planning Commission, in their public review of the recommendations again restored some citizen concerns into the recommendations. But eventually the Supervisors, perhaps after some "stakeholder meetings", "honed" (I would say eviscerated) the recommendations in their final actions. The result was to create a policy that allowed wineries to legalize and expand their previously illegal activities. Another policy created a fast track policy for the approval of smaller wineries. Nothing was done to limit winery development or the continuing tourism urbanization that results. The resulting policies only made winery proliferation easier.

(Similar stakeholder meetings, following the 2008 meltdown, led to 2010 "clarifications" of the 1990 WDO to allow food service and non-wine-related events at wineries, vastly expanding their use for tourism. Considering them "changes" in WDO policy would have involved a much more public process.)

The resistance to creating any "black and white" policies that seek to control future development, the original intent of convening the APAC Commission, is a bugaboo for the wine industry that knows they will be more successful in getting what they want without clear cut development rules. And what they want is more tourism development.

The Mabray presentation

The planning commission meeting of 8/19/20 was quite remarkable. The first item on the agenda was a presentation by Paul Mabray, the online wine sales evangelist. His message is that a marketing strategy that attempts to sell wine through tourism is ultimately a futile and environmentally unfriendly business model and that wineries, in the internet era, must become more effective at moving their goods though online sales rather than brick-and-mortar (literally for some wineries!) outlets -- just like the rest of the world's economy.

As Dir. Morrison later pointed out, the previous Mabray presentation to the commission happened 6 years ago, just at the beginning of winery development becoming a more controversial topic. He hoped this presentation would not be a harbinger or omen of more to come. Paul Mabray is proposing a solution, in Comm. Whitmer's words, "allowing for economically viable and sustainable businesses while not creating an environment that changes the bucolic nature here." Is the County or the wine industry listening any more now than they were 6 years ago? (More on Paul Mabray here.)

8/18/20

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Coming to the Planning Commission

At the Napa County Planning Commission In the month between Aug 19 and Sep 16, 2020, 5 winery expansions and one new winery are requesting use permit approvals. Together they are seeking to add 286,000 visitor slots per year, and 137 more employees. By my calculations:

If approved, eventually a cascade of urban development will be needed to accommodate the new people that make those projects profitable. More hotels, more houses, more restaurants and commercial areas, wider roads, enlarged sewers and more water.

There are dozens of new or expanded wineries behind these 6 projects, awaiting their day at the Planning Commission. The laborious PC hearings (and BOS appeals of the PC decisions) have done little in the last 6 years to change the trajectory of approvals and their eventual impacts on us all. There are marginal reductions in visitation, moderation of requested visiting hours, notifications required for events. The effort to exercise planning oversight, in staff, applicant and citizen time and money, is disproportionate to the actual impact on development. It is the figleaf of due diligence, nibbling at the edges, while allowing the urban development to continue as it would unscrutinized.

The Lost Cause

The attempt over the last 6 years to keep Napa from becoming the Las Vegas of wine has probably failed. For the concerned citizens that have shown up at Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors meetings, and have funded and presented costly project appeals, and have protested and signed petitions and written letters and worked to elect officials and pass initiatives all aimed at slowing ongoing urbanization in a county nominally committed to rural preservation, it is too little too late. It has been like filling sandbags to protect against a tsunami of development lust washing into the County wanting to fill up the open space and cash in on the rural heritage left by 50 years of preservation policy.

In that 6 years, the changes have been noticeable but not overwhelming. A few more wineries occupying the vineyards, more buildings poking out of ridgelines. A few more bare patches in the forested hillsides for vineyard estates. More noticeable are the warehouses taking over the southern wetlands and acres of vineyards taking over the southern rolling oak woodlands; the urban areas beginning to fill up with apartment buildings and shopping centers; downtowns increasingly ceded to a transient population; the increasing loss of affordable housing and local businesses when the tourist dollar sets the price of everything; and the traffic.

But for all that has been built up in the last 6 years, the real end of Napa as a rural place is in the projects approved, or in the pipeline, yet to be realized. Perhaps 100 new winery-event centers. 3000 hotel rooms. 4000 housing units. 4 million sf of commercial space. Coming soon.

At one point in the history of Napa County, the interests of residents and the "wine industry" coincided; the growers and wine makers that built the industry were also residents with a committment to the place they wanted to live. The policies on agricultrual protection from that generation of leaders are what Comm. Whitmer referred to in his comments. But as the industry has become an economic powerhouse it has moved to corporate and plutocratic ownership with less interest in a preservation ethic that stands in the way of economic expansion and increased profits. As perhaps with every other local government on earth, Napa County now protects the economic interests of developers over the quality-of-life interests of its residents. Residents now look in vain to the hollow rhetoric of the Napa County General Plan enacted by that previous generation to preserve " the agricultural lands and rural character that we treasure." The concept of the Ag Preserve, as becomes more apparent with each new building project approved by the Planning Commission, is history.

Update 2/20/21

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Groundwater Sustainability Plan Advisory Committee meetings Agendas, Documents, Videos

Update 9/14/20

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NVR 9/15/20: Citizens group begins deep dive in Napa Valley groundwater issues

9/10/20
2020 County Groundwater Sustainability Plan Documents

Update 6/11/20

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The County will have a Water Availablity Analysis workshop with the Planning Commission on 6/17/20 (subsequently cancelled). Several documents will form the background for the discussion:

Draft markup of the 2015 WAA Guidance Document
Executative Summary of the Napa County Groundwater Sustainability Annual Report fo 2019
Comprehensive Timeline of County WAA activities since 1963

Update 1/9/20

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NVR 1/9/20: New Napa County groundwater agency hears from critics at its first meeting
NVR 12/29/19: Napa County supervisors to govern groundwater agency
NVR 11/22/19: State tells Napa County to form agency to monitor Napa Valley groundwater

Update 7/24/19

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NVR 7/19/19: State dissatisfied with Napa wine country groundwater plan
Mike Hackett LTE 7/24/19: Take real action on water and development

Update 3/20/19

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NVR 3/20/19: Report says Napa County's 2018 groundwater levels stable

2018 Napa County Groundwater Sustainability Annual Report
Report Summary

Staff will be presenting the Report to the Supervisors on Mar 19, 2019. The Agenda letter is here

Update 5/21/18

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NVR 5/24/18: State proposes change in monitoring status for Napa County's groundwater

Chris Malan has passed along the email below from the State Department of Water Resources which indicates that the Napa Subbasin has been reclassified in a draft document from a "medium-" to "high-" priority basin. It is unclear how this change would affect Napa's Groundwater Sustainability Alternative but does suggest that the condition of the Napa Subbasin may be of greater concern than the county has indicated. A public comment period on the Draft runs through July 18th, 2018.




Dan Mufson of NapaVision2050 has sent a copy of his 2/15/17 letter in response to the County's Sustainable Groundwater Management alternative critical of the alternative's lack of consideration of an increasingly dryer climate future.

Update 4/25/17

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NVR 2/25/17: Napa County says groundwater picture continues to be good

Update 2/15/17

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This is a summary of documents and posts on Napa County's sustainable groundwater management alternative plan, titled Napa Valley Groundwater Sustainability - A Basin Analysis Report for the Napa Valley Subbasin, in response to the State's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

State Links:
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA)
Sustainable Groundwater Alternative Plan description
List and Map of all water district SGM Alternatives with comments
Comments specifically on the Napa County Plan

County Links:
12/13/16 Staff Presentation of supporting documents for the Napa Valley Groundwater Sustainability - A Basin Analysis Report for the Napa Valley Subbasin to the California Dept of Water Resources (DWR), Item 9A on the Board Agenda.
The County's Groundwater Basin Analysis page
The Nov 3rd WICC workshop and draft report
Napa Grand Jury 2014-15 Report on groundwater

Individual Responses:
Donoviel LTE 2/26/17: Concerns over water plan
Gary Margadant: What is Happening to Our Most Precious and Irreplaceable Resource: Our Water
Letter sent to the BOS on Dec 19th 2016
Chris Malan, Mike Hackett: Napa's Sustainable Groundwater alternative
Dan Mufson: got Water? Will you have water?
Responses to the Draft Napa Valley Basin Analysis Report

11/13/16

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Chris Malan has sent this informative email concerning the WICC workshop that was held on Nov 3rd, with the resulting workshop report to be presented to he BOS on Dec 13th 2016 [now Dec 20th].



The WICC Nov 3rd workshop agenda with supporting documents are here.
The county's page on groundwater sustainability is here

DIssenting voices to the County's proposed alternative to SMGA requirements by Gary Margadant and Gordon Evans among others are summarized in this response to comments, one of the documents in the Nov. 3rd workshop packet.

In an email to WICC Board Member David Graves after the Nov 3rd workshop, Mike Hackett of Angwin writes:

Update 9/16/20

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Lenore Wilson poem-to-the-editor: Dark Mountain

And without the ads:




Update 9/12/20

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The Economist 9/12/20: Wildfires will be more common in a warming world

The Economist gives a shoutout to the fire preparedness of CIrcle Oaks (with a mention of Larry Carr and crew). Unfortunately the article is buried behind a paywall. In the Sept 12-18 2020 print edition the article is titled "Learning to live with it". (more here)

Update 9/3/20

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Dan Mufson forwards this article written and photographed by Hardy Wilson:

The Guardian 9/3/20: My family built our dream home in the woods. It was no match for wildfire

8/21/20 The Fire at Circle Oaks

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Circle Oaks, the compact rural community of 180 homes often at the forefront of conservation issues in the County, seems to have resisted the siege of the fire. It was very ominious, but as of the afternoon of 8/21/20 things are looking better.

The Final Caltopo map at Circle Oaks is here

A photo album of the damage that the Hennessey Fire caused to the last three properties on Soda Canyon Road at the base of Atlas Peak.

Update 8/21/20

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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

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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

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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

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NVR 1/28/19: Winegrowers instructed on 'future-proofing' Napa wine in the digital age
From the Paul Mabray presentation to the NV Grapegrowers:
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

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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.

2/10/15

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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.

This post now has its own page here

Update 8/6/20

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NVR 8/6/20: Napa County takes initial look at proposed Highway 29 hotel
8/5/20 PC meeting video
8/5/20 PC agenda and docs

7/31/20

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A "scoping session" will be held by the Napa County Planning Commission on Aug 5, 2020 for The Inn at the Abbey, a resort project being developed as an extension of the Freemark Abbey north of St. Helena. The meeting agenda with project documents is here. The project will be presented, and the public and planning commissioners will have a chance to weigh in on the project prior to the Planning Department's preparation of an Environmental Impact Report.

Notice of Preparation of the Environmental Imapct Report

This is one of several projects under government review in which the wine industry is making its way into the hotel business. The Farmstead Hotel and the Hall Winery Hotel are also under review. In addition there are at least a couple of projects in which a winery is integral to the resort being developed: Marriott AC Hotel being developed with a winery next door. And the under development Calistoga Hills Resort bought the Reverie Winery and vineyards next door. And then, of course, there is the mammoth Guenoc Valley development proposed just over the county line.

The combination of wine making and hotel accommodation is a new paradigm in Napa County but also, in fact, just represents a continuum in the conversion wine production facilities into tourism venues, first with paid wine tasting and then with food service. Wineries are now only being built based on the tourism related "experiences" and income they produce. The incorporation of lodging into that "experience" is the next step. It is an ominous direction for those that feel that Napa County has already become overburdened by tourism impacts: traffic, housing shortages, loss of local businesses and small-town life.

There are well over 500 official wineries in Napa County. As more winery-hotel projects are realized, the wineries currently prohibited from increasing their revenue stream with overnight guests will agitate for the further loosening of the WDO, as they did for food service, to allow them to compete. Converting wineries into hotels puts Napa County on the road to become a wine-themed Las Vegas. It's easy to imagine what the Palazzo di Amorosa or The Prisoner Cells will be like. Considering how hard Napa has resisted the incursion of casinos into the county, it is odd that they seem to be so willing to consider this transformation.

George Caloyannidis, in a written comment for the scoping session, has asked county planners to consider the cumulative impacts of similar projects, existant and proposed, near the project as required by the State for the production of an Environmental Impact Report. It is an analysis often glossed over with token mitigations in the planning review resulting in a conclusion in the EIR of less-than-significant impacts. Yet the impacts of project after project being built in the county, bringing ever more visitors, employees, traffic, strain on services and resources, loss of rural character and small-town life, have begun to impact everyone that lives here - very significantly.
Caloyannidis Comment about cumulative impacts of resort projects

Update 7/20/20

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NVR 7/20/20: Napa County questions how Walt Ranch vineyards will mitigate greenhouse gases

Update 10/1/19

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NVR 10/1/19: Court says Napa County's Walt Ranch vineyard project needs more work

Update 3/1/18

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A hearing participant reports that on day two of the court hearing, the Circle Oaks attorney and the attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity each made their points to Judge Warriner, but that he seemed somewhat bored by the proceeding and left as quickly as possible after the presentations were made. The hearing lasted just over an hour. Let's hope this isn't the whimper of an end to four contentious years.

Update 2/14/18

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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

NVR 2/13/18: Tentative court ruling sides with Napa County and Walt Ranch

Sue Wagner's notes from the hearing

2/5/18

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NVR 1/21/17: Walt Ranch approvals head to court

NVR 7/19/20: Napa County seeks middle ground in Whitehall winery/neighbor dispute
Agenda and minutes for 7/16/20 PC hearing

The county, in one of their first attempts to implement the new streamlining ordinance to handle winery expansions administratively rather than through a planning commission hearing, illustrates the concern in allowing County staff to decide which winery projects should be public knowledge and which should not.

For a large winery with massive visitation in the heart of the Hwy 29 tourism kill zone, the request was modest: a small building is to be rebuilt to be more visitation friendly. And event hours were to be extend from an old permit allowance of 6:00pm to 10:00pm. The winery has residential neighbors who objected to the extension of hours. Apparently even the heavily trafficked areas of the valley are still quiet and dark after nightfall. In this prime area of the valley the neighbors are well tied into the wine establishment of the valley and the opposition was led by John Williams, the founder and owner of Frog's Leap, one of the iconoic Napa brands established in the 1970's. Mr. Williams initial letter is here.

Mr. Williams concerns are not at all different from the concern over tourism impacts that we voiced in our opposition to the Mountain Peak Winery beginning 6 years ago. And that neighbors of every contentious winery project since have expressed about tourism impacts to their neighborhoods. This is not the first time that founding members of the wine industry have been impacted by the negative impacts of the entertainment model that their industry is adopting. Yountville Hill was torpeoded by the opposition of neighbors like of Dennis Groth and Christian Moueix. Andy Beckstoffer battled mightly with the tourism expansion of the Raymond Winery next door. Winery developer Paul Woolls was pained that B-Cellars across the street from his home was operating like a restaurant. Their are other examples.

No one who lives in the county wants tourism to spoil the quiet enjoyment to be had being in a rural small town community. Yet members of the wine industry continue to push the conversion of the economy from wine making into tourism, in their own economic self-iiterest only recognizing the pernicious, long-term effects of such efforts when the events and parties and traffic come to the property next door to their homes. Until the moguls of the wine industry recognize collectively that something they value personally is being lost by converting to a tourism economy, there is little hope that that Napa will escape the the sad trajectory of urban development that it is on.

[Barbara Guggia, our Soda Canyon Firewise Council point person, has sent along this note about funds available for fire prevention measures on our road.]

GOOD NEWS FROM THE SODA CANYON FIRE SAFE COUNCIL:
The Napa Communities Firewise Foundation received a $130,000 fuel reduction grant from PG&E and $50,000 will be applied to work along Soda Canyon Road. We sincerely thank PG&E for funding this grant. This fuel break project will provide fuel reduction along Soda Canyon Road and will focus on roadside clearance of fuel, fuel spacing, and the removal of potential strike trees which could block access and egress along Soda Canyon Road. The work will be completed by November 2020. This is great news for the residents of the Soda Canyon community and we are extremely grateful to all the individuals from the Napa Communities Firesafe Foundation who worked hard writing this grant. Their support of our community is sincerely appreciated.

Update 9/17/20

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SH Star 9/17/20: St. Helena holds first public hearing on Farmstead hotel project

7/14/20

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The wine industry is now venturing into overnight accommodation after their success in becoming restauranteurs. A prime example is the movement of Ted Hall's Long Meadow Ranch, starting from grape growing to wine making to the Farmstead Restaurant and now to the proposed Farmstead Hotel. Mr. Hall is so far the exemplar developer in the Valley. Each effort to move into tourism has been conceived in an understated, locationally appropriate and environmentally sensitive way. No Tuscan Castles, French Palaces or Bunny Foo-Foo's to litter the landscape.

But no matter how well done, the Farmstead Hotel represents an acceleration of the massive tourism expansion that has already distorted normal life in Napa. Wine makers are getting into the hotel business.

Ted Hall's project is a sensitive attempt to accommodate community concern while still tapping into the conversion of his home from a wine making region into a tourist destination. The project site, when viewed in the aerial photo, a field notched into the urban fabric of the town, is not destined to remain a field for long. The visual, traffic and water impacts on the town would be barely different and perhaps less than the townhouses that would probably be built instead.

But it is right to push back on the unceasing expansion of the tourism industry that is destroying the rural small-town authenticity that used to be the county's claim to fame. This project deserves scrutiny, especially since it is an early example of an ominous new trend in the wine industry toward hotel development. The winery hotel being proposed by the other Halls and the Freemark Abbey Hotel are also in the vanguard. The continued development of such projects at the more than 500 wineries in the county, developed by less community-conscious entrepreneurs than Mr. Hall, will have far reaching consequences for the character of Napa County.

Documents
7/14/20 City Council meeting agenda and documents
7/12/20 George Caloyannidis Letter
Staff Agenda Report and Graphics

Articles
NVR 7/12/20: St. Helena seeks input on Farmstead hotel proposal
SH Star 4/29/20: St. Helena to negotiate with applicant on potential Farmstead hotel
SH Star 2/19/19: Farmstead owner plans new hotel in St. Helena
NVR 8/1715: St. Helena council praises Farmstead hotel plan

Update 7/12/20

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NVR 7/11/20: City planners to review post office-to-hotel conversion in downtown Napa

NVR 9/14/19: Updated design for Napa's Franklin Station hotel

Nicer renderings, and the more solid box on the corner is a better fit with the Post Office. building.

11/14/18

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NVR 11/14/18: Napa council grants historic, earthquake-damaged post office new life as a hotel
NVR 10/25/18: City: Hotel plan preserves historic quality of downtown Napa's post office
NVR 10/19/18: Hotel at earthquake-rocked Napa post office wins city planners' backing

Kudos to the developer for taking a financial gamble on this significant restoration project. But still, another 163 rooms added to the thousands in process

NVR 6/7/19: Napa County Landmarks questions design of post office-to-hotel conversion

Napa County Landmarks letter

NVR 6/4/19: Napa planners to get their first look at the Franklin Station hotel project

It's a shame that this hotel building boom is happening during the current revival of the boxy modernism from the 1950's through the 70's that severely dehumanized the Beaux Arts character of most American Cities up to that time. While it is commendable that the developers have made the costly effort to incorporate the historical structures on their sites, the two prewar remnants embedded in the Franklin Station and Archer Hotels will be only forlorn reminders of Napa's lost, small-town environment.

Another chunk of the wetlands that form the greenbelt between Napa and the rest of the Bay area suburban sprawl is to be put up for subdivision at the Planning Commission on 7/15/20. The rural character that used to define the entrance to the Napa Valley leading to the Soscol split and the Grape Cursher monument is being urbanized with the worst kind of industrial detritus. The really gross Chevron Station built a few years ago signaled the death knell of the expansive view of the wetlands on leaving the valley. This project will complete the destruction of the view and add greatly to the entry to Napa County as an alley of warehouses.

Update 6/22/20

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The Napa Water Forum and The Refugia Project Update

Update 2/10/20

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NVR 2/10/20: Watershed forum looks to defuse Napa County water issues

1/27/20

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Water Audit California, a public benefit corporation that has filed numerous lawsuits against water agencies in the state of California for failure to provide enough water to maintain fish habitats, has served notice of potential legal action to the Napa County Board of Supervisors to court over a new winery streamlining ordinance that will induce development of additional vineyard and winery estates.

Water Audit California Notice of Intended Litigation
(from this Napavision2050 article)
SCR on the Streamlining ordinance

Water Audit has also sued the Kimball and Bell Reservoir agencies.
Issues about the Rector Reservoir outflow and the Water Audit lawsuit are here.

Another new winery is up before the Planning Commission on Jul 1, 2020: the Alta Napa Valley Winery. It is modest; 10,000 gal/yr, 3660 visitors per year. It is just the kind of small "family winery" that is easy to approve. But there are issues nonetheless.

It will be located on the Trail just south of the strawberry stand. The building is about 85' from the edge of the Trail requiring a variance to the 600' required setback. It is so close to the road because that is the one tiny corner of the site that is not in the Napa River flood zone. (It seems the only affordable sites for new wineries these days need dispensations to be developed, and the County seems to want every 10+ acre site to have a winery on it.)

It is an unhandsome box of a building bristling with solar collectors surrounded by a parking lot and water tanks. It's entry is a couple hundred feet south of the strawberry stand increasing the dangers of the harrowing traffic movement already there. And It is one more winery adding to the strip-mall of wineries developing on the lower portion of the Trail.

This box will join the just-finished boxy house north of the strawberry stand and the boxy Ellman house completed last year. (I have a thing, obviously, about boxes in bucholic landscapes.)

Documents for the project are on the 7/1/20 agenda and on the new Napa County Current Projects Explorer. (You'll have to do some digging to find the documents - it is no longer possible to link to a individual project page.)

Update 7/1/20

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New discovery: County Winery Explorer Very nicely done.

Update 6/21/20

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The county has once again updated an important part of their website: the Current Projects webpage (now defunct) has been replaced by the Current Projects Explorer.

Accessing projects in the Planning Commission pipeline from a map is good, but the info is no longer available through simple links to web pages and can now only be done by individually navigating through the dashboard. Even the County's own hearing notifications can no longer link directly to the project information. The dashbord currently always opens up, confusingly, on the "Red Lake Winery" and you must begin searching for the right project. The low key "here" link, buried in a sentence at the bottom of a scroll then makes it unintuitave for first time users to find a project's documents.

More importantly, just as with their previous website update, all the documents related to these projects are accessed through a new database with new URL's, meaning that hundreds of links on the internet (and my website) no longer work. Staff is probably in the process of updating everything but it will take time. Walt Ranch and Mountain Peak have no documents yet (nor does Red Lake Winery). This is the fourth attempt to organize current project data in the last 6 years. Each has been an improvement is some respects but the loss of document links with each change is a problem.

The fact each project page and its associated documents disappear once the project has been approved is also annoying. The "final" documents for each project, I suppose, reside in the granicus database linked to the BOS and PC agendas. But try finding the final documents of a particular project by scouring the meeting agendas, in some cases with numerous meetings going over years at both the commission and the board - it's an impossible task. On the current projects page all the documents related to a project are available. There is no reason why that page should not be updated when the project is approved and remain a permanent record available to all.


Original Post 1/3/18

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NVR 1/3/18: Napa County tries to cut bureaucratic clutter with new, intuitive website

The County of Napa has just put up their new website at https://www.countyofnapa.org/

As an enthusiast playing around with data-based websites myself, I have been amazed at the transformation of the County site over the last 4 years in bringing its many disparate services, documents and data systems online into a consistent portal. As with anything that grows organically there was a level of eccentricity that made finding some things a challenge, but the fact that the most obscure information was available at all is a miracle.

The new site will probably create a more logical hierarchy and ease the ability to find stuff. It is presumably the first step in beginning to manage all of the documents being digitized in the coming years.

The "branding" has changed. Just like the Register, it now has a bunch of very big (and unnecessary) photos taking up space on its home page. And its livery is now blue and purple instead of green and yellow. Green seems a more appropriate color for a county committed to agriculture. Perhaps the change shows a change in commitment: note that "A Tradition of Stewardship" has been eliminated under the logo. I know it's human nature to want to redecorate periodically. Still, consistency over time should be a hallmark of a substantial institution. As the post about the new Napa City logo Indicated, I'm not a big fan of rebranding.

The downside of the change for me is that I have hundreds of links to county webpages and documents on this site. Many of them are now broken. The county webmaster has made some effort to "redirect" old main page addresses to the new pages, (and is doing so as I write). But many of the documents and sub pages may be harder to relink. For example, all of the documents related to the 2008 General Plan DEIR and FEIR are not yet findable on the new site. Not intentionally, I trust. In time I will do my best to repair the broken links.

Contact me if you find a link that you particularly want reestablished.

Following the Supervisors denial of the Hard Six Cellars Winery on the remote Diamond Mountain Road, George Caloyannidis has begun a discussion, in the form of a draft initiative, to codify the conditions under which winery projects and their tourism programs may be developed in the watershed areas of the county in order to protect the health and safety of county residents and visitors. Planning Commissioners, in originally approving the Hard Six project, expressed concern that they had no code justification to consider the severe access constraints on this property any differntly than a more accessable winery.

Update 4/4/20

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George Caloyannidis letter to Supervisors and attached articles on human-caused wildfire danger:



Original post 5/18/20

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George Caloyannidis letter to Supervisors on a proposed initiative to codify road access conditions for developments projects in the watershed areas of the county:

Update 5/23/20

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5/19/20 BOS/PC Joint meeting video
NVR 5/20/20: Napa County looks at wine country growth

5/18/20

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NVR 5/18/20: Napa County to tackle wine country growth issues in COVID-19 world

The 5/19/20 meeting of the Napa County Board of Supervsors will include a joint session with the Napa County Planning Commission to discuss planning issues and priorities coming up in the near future. Item 9H here.

The session was added at the last minute in the midst of public-participation Covid constrictions. The input of residents impacted by continuing urbanization will no doubt be muted. The last joint meeting, in 2015, drew hundreds of citizens to the process, and a lengthly, though ultimately unfruitful, airing of concern over the pace of development in the county.

How tourism and the wine industry will rebound from the Covid crisis is still unknown, but the people packing bars in Wisconsin and the pro-tourism legislation in Napa passed after the 2008 downturn indicate that tourism impacts will probably be a bigger issue after the virus than before. The direction toward more urban development projects -- hotels and winery tourism venues, housing, road and warehouse construction, deforestation for vineyard estates -- has solidified in the last years, and the battle to limit that development seems, unfortunately, to be more and more a lost cause.

The emphasis in the Staff letter to the Supervisors for this session seems to be on the next ABAG RHNA affordable housing requirement for 2023 to 2031. The previous requirement for the 2015-2022 cycle was 180 uints which were accomodated after incredibly convoluted negotiations within the Napa Pipe project. In fact the County's desire to develop Napa Pipe was based on the affordable housing it would provide to meet ABAG requirements. Ultimately it will be a counter productive effort. In addition to 180 affordable units the project will have 750 market-rate units, 200,000sf of industrial/commercial space, a hotel, nursing home and a Costco. The number of added employees in the county created by the project and needing affordable housing will no doubt be greater than the affordable units added. Building the project will exaserbate the housing shortage, not reduce it. Probably another developer is currently in the wings with another massive urban project on county land promising to accomodate the 2023-31 allotment.

The only site currently identified as a potential for affordible housing in the unincorporated county is one owned by Pacific Union College in Angwin. Napa's oldest commmunity pushback organization, Save Rural Angwin, challenged the potential use of Angwin sites to meet the 2015-22 RHNA allotment in the 2014 General Plan update. The organization is still quite active in opposing development in Angwin.

PBS has just re-aired the 2011 documentary, Saving the Bay. It covers the history of the bay and the more recent efforts to restore its wetland ecology. But it is the political effort to preserve the bay from landfill development in the 1960's (clips 24 and 25 here) that had the most resonance in the current effort to preserve Napa County from the wave of housing, tourism, industrial and good-life development brought on by the Bay Area tech boom. While the significance of saving the agricultrural and rural character of Napa County perhaps doesn't rise to the same level of importance as preventing the San Francisco Bay from being paved over in the post war development boom, it is inspiring to see an example of a grassroots effort that thwarted the never ending ambitions of developers to fill up open space with buildings.

Update 4/11/20

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George Caloyannidis LTE 4/10/20: County must reassess its public hearings policy
CNPA 3/12/20: Governor suspends some Brown Act provisions to allow teleconferencing

3/18/20

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The County sent this notice regarding the 3/17/20 BOS meeting:

Public Participation Notice re: 3/17/20 BOS meeting
The meeting will feature the use of Zoom videoconferencing technology to allow remote public participation as will as a limited number of people to attend the actual meeting.

The meeting will deal with the appeal of the Bremer Winery "recognize and allow" use permit modifications approved by the Planning Commission on 10/16/19. More on the Bremer Winery Saga here.

Bay Area Counties, NOW including Napa County, have announced a complete "Shelter in Place" policy which will prevent all movement, including to public meetings, except for the purchase of necessities, in the affected counties.

George Calyoannidis has just sent a link to the Australian 60 Minutes (very informative) report on the potential of the coronavirus: https://youtu.be/Y7nZ4mw4mXw

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NVR 3/18/20: Updated: Napa County orders people to shelter at home because of COVID-19

NVR 3/29/20: Shelter-in-home repercussions may doom 2 proposed Napa County ballot measures
NVR 3/24/20: COVID-19 complicates proposed Napa ballot measures about cannabis and watershed protection
NVR 3/6/20: New Napa County ballot measure sought for watershed protections

Update 12/10/20

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NVR 12/11/20: By a 3-2 vote, Napa County agrees Bremer Winery barn can stay

Update 7/17/20

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NVR 7/17/20: Napa County gives split decision in Bremer winery stream case

Update 3/17/20

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The 3/17/20 BOS Appeal hearing for the Bremer WInery took place with 2 supervisors videoconferencing and dificulties in the tansmission. No appellants were able to make it into the hearing. The appellant William McKinnon of the Calif Water Audit did manage to make the somewhat garbled Zoom connection and made a somewhat circuitous and philosophical presentation about the County's handling of the Bremer bootlegs through speed-cop analogy.

He said that he has already submitted the case to the courts on the basis of the existing record and that undefinedundefinedhe feels that the hearing conditions are untenable and that the Board's decision today is, in any case, superfluous.

Chair Dillon is struggling to keep the hearing going when, in fact the hearing should probably be continued. Applicant lawyer Kathy Felch says she is having trouble on Zoom. The Board's lawyer is making a case that the board is taking significant steps to meet all legal requirements no doubt in preparation for future lawsuits. The Board is making an extrordinary effort to proceed with the hearing despite no appellants, bad zoom connection and a process that is wildly irregular. It is impossible to believe that any hearing decisions will not be legally challenged just on the chaotic nature of its process.

David Galbreth, Bremer's lawyer, presented the appeal as just a punitive attempt to make a poster-child case for watershed con reg strengthing. Fish and wildlife has signed off on creek modifications. Phil Blake of RSA testifies that the creek does not violate any wildlife and fish regulations or the intent and spirit of the conservation regulations in protecting the water flowing through the creek. Other consultants said the same.

Supervisor discussion revolved around the 6 constructed items identified on the staff map of the disputed additions within the creek setbacks. On items E and F, the rock walls retaining the creek and two bridges over the creek they decided to approve (ie deny the appeal on those two issues). On items A, B, C and D, a newly built barn, a patio, an addition to the house and free standing bathrooms, the decision was to was to remand those issues back to the planning commission for review. The vote was 5-0 to remand A thru D and deny appeal on E and F. Sup Dillon in the end did manage to provide an orderly process despite the extreme technical difficulties.

It seems like a punt on the part of the Supes. It is difficult to see how the planning commisssion will be any better judges of the appropriate course of action than the Supes who seemed to show a lack of courage foisting the decision back on the the PC. If the PC does change its mind and recomment tearing down the buildings the Supes will again have to hear an appeal this time from the Bremers side and be confronted with the same decisions they have punted on today. In any case it apears that the project is already headed to the next phase in the courts regardless of the County's decision. Mr. McKinnon has proven himself a very tenatious litigator.

Update 3/16/20

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The Bremer Winery "recognize and allow" use permit modifications approved by the Planning Commission on 10/16/20 are being appealed before the Board of Supervisors on Tue, 17 Mar 2020, 9:00am.
BOS agenda and documents
Staff letter to BOS about appeal
Special meeting participation precautions because of coronavirus

2/2/20

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The Bremer Winery has become the poster child of good-life developer hubris and county impotence in dealing with it. The feeling that it is better to ask forgiveness than permission is evident in all of the efforts the Bremers have taken to develop their wine county ambitions. They developed their vineyard beyond their permit, were called out by both the county and regional regulators and were required to restore their alterations to waterways. At the same time they asked the county to legitimize additions to their winery and to increases in wine production and tourism on the basis of unstated limits on their use permit as well as allow illegal encroachments into stream setbacks. The county denied the increases and exceptions and then sued the Bremers for violation of the county's ordinances. The Bremers technically lost the suit, and in a settlement agreement, paid off the county $271,000 and reduced visitation and production with the agreement that the county would reconsider their legalize their illegal conditions after a year. The Bremers then sued their layers for losing the suit! After several months they reapplied for legalization of their encroachments to the Planning Commission, which the county then approved in accord with the conditions of their legal agreement!

It is now up to residents impacted by the Bremers' arrogant flouting of the county decisions and actions to litigate (with time and money) the county's convoluted sanctioning of that illegal activity.

The appeal of the Planning Commission's approval of Bremers' illegal upgrades is now scheduled to be heard at the 3/17/20 Board of Supervisors meeting.

The Appeal packet is here
10/16/19 Planning Commission video
10/16/19 Planning Commission agenda and documents


Articles
winebuisiness 12/11/19: Napa County Board of Supervisors to Review Planning Commission Vote in Bremer Case
NVR 10/17/19: Napa County grants Bremer winery exceptions for footbridges, storage barn
NVR 4/23/19: Napa County's Bremer winery sues local law firm, alleging negligence
winebusiness.com 4/24/19: Napa Valley Winery Sues Law Firm
NVR 2/12/19: Napa County, Bremer Family Winery reach lawsuit settlement
NVR 12/24/18: Trial date for Napa County suit against Bremery winery pushed back
NVR 9/25/18: Napa's Bremer case may have larger winery visitation implications
SH Star 8/8/17: Napa County decides to take Upvalley winery to court
Michael Honig LTE 7/19/17: Stop allowing them to ask forgiveness
NVR 7/12/17: Upvalley winery hit with water agency violation
NVR 12/30/16: No. 1 story of 2016: Wine industry under fire
Micheal Sutty LTE 9/26/16: Why not plant more cover crops
NVR 9/17/16: Napa red-tags Bremer soil-hauling vineyard creation project
NVR 8/26/16: Angwin winery importing Napa Valley soil for hillside vineyard
7/22/16 Kellie Anderson letter to county about the Bremer ECP

Update 3/21/20

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NVR 4/21/20: Napa County Election Division posts final certified results from primary election
Final 2020 Primary Election Certified Results

3/9/20

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County Mar 3, 2020 Election Results as of 3/10/20 ("last" unofficial results?)
NVR 3/4/20: Measure K short of approval threshold; supporters still hopeful
NVR 3/4/20: Pedroza, Ramos lead Napa County Board of Supervisors races
NVR 3/4/20: Incumbents take lead in early Napa County returns

Amber Manfree, in the 3/9 unofficial results, trails Alfredo Pedroza by about 800 votes in the election for District 4 Supervisor. Pedroza has 4449, Manfree 3,672. 6,700 ballots still to tabulate? (I think...the numbers are a bit confusing.).

In the race for District 5, Belia Ramos leads Mariam Aboutdamous 4125 to 3,620. 9,500 votes still to count

In another potential blow for preservationists, Measure K doesn't look like it will reach the 2/3 threshold needed to pass at about 63% yes to 37% no. The lack of a predictable funding source for the purchase of open space in the county by the Park District means that keeping those lands out of the hands of private developers will be much more difficult.

In all, the election seems to be a rout for anyone wishing to protect the county's rural and natural heritage. The majority on the Board remains the same, and so far that majority has been consistent in allowing development of vineyard property into event centers and in encouraging the development of woodlands for vineyard estates and of industrial development of the wetlands in the south county.

Added to these worries are the inducements that the pandemic, stock market crash, short term impact on tourism and long term fall in wine sales, will create for future dilution of rural protections. Following the 2008 recession the wine industry and government made an effort to spur tourism development by loosening the restrictions on winery entertainment, a more profitable business than making wine. Visit Napa Valley was empowered. The municipalities also threw out the welcome mat for hotel development the effects of which we are just beginning to see. Another dose of tourism stimulus is to be expected.

NVR 3/16/20: Amid declining travel, Napa's wine industry braces for coronavirus impact

But already the direction of urban development in the county has shifted away from tourism and is headed in the more traditional directions of housing and roads, the directions explicitly rejected by the founders of Napa's agricultural economy. Mr. Pedroza ran on the basis of encouraging housing and transport projects. Promotion of such projects, by developers and politicians alike, is touted as relieving existing problems. The reality is that, by bringing a larger population into the county, they just induce even more development, urbanization increases and the problems get worse.

Statewide election results: CNN results by county here

Update 3/4/20

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3/4/20 Planning Commission video
3/4/20 Planning Commission agenda and documents

In perhaps one of the more interesting discussions from a policy standpoint in the last so many years, the County Planning Commission seems to be saying that approval of the Oak Knoll Hotel EIR might require the applicant make a real solution to the housing need created by the new jobs at the project. Either through a COA that so many units of a market-rate housing project elsewhere will be made affordable by the applicant or that the applicant will be directly involved in the creation of affordable rate units elsewhere. This new emphasis on providing housing follows the concern of nearby Yountville mayor John Dunbar expressed in this letter. And following the example of Gasser allocating affordable housing specifically to support its hotel project.

The applicant has proposed an increased one-time contribution to an existing housing project to subsidize the costs of providing affordable housing at the time of the building permit is issued. (Say toward to Napa Pipe's affordable housing units.) One developer contributing to another developer? hmm. Planning Commissioner. Mazotti, a developer himself, has the most significant comments in all this and he does have concerns about tying this payment and the permit to vagaries of the execution of another project.

$1 mil seems to be the amount the applicant has offered as a one time contribution.

Planning Director Morrison acknowledges that building affordable housing is really expensive and tying the contribution to the building of new units might be ineffective. The county does have a worker proximity housing fund which might be a better place for the contribution. That fund is for home buying rather than rent, and hence would probably preclude most new workers in the county.

Dir. Morrison said the 150 units at Napa Pipe cost $30mil, or $200,000 per unit (which seems really low to me compared to this in-constructtion recent example). $1mil would provide 5 units for the 33 employees of the hotel, i.e. at most 30% of the new housing need created assuming 2 employees per house. Napa Pipe has also taken 12 years of convoluted effort to begin. On the other hand, $1mil divided as monthly rent subsidies of say $1000 per month per unit would amount to 5 years of subsidies for the 33 workers assuming 2 workers/unit.

This whole discussion and the COA that the Commission wants to add, represents a major policy issue that should be made through the BOS on a county wide basis applying to all new projects, including wineries, industrial buildings, as well as resorts and hotels, that add to the affordable housing need in the county. The easiest COA might be to add a condition that for each employee of the project, a yearly payment, or a one time payment covering say 10 years, is made by the owner of the property that amounts to the difference between affordable and average market rate housing in the county. Employees could then draw from that fund (presumably a more inclusive worker proximity fund) to supplement their housing pay. How that fund is administered and regulated, since it would be substantial and need a lot of bookkeeping, might require a greater effort than the county currently makes on the worker proximity fund. As a major effort to combat the housing crisis and make developers and owners factor in the impacts they create, some similar policy would be a landmark piece of legislation. It is a decision that needs to be made by the Board and not the Commission.

The FEIR was certified 3-0 with Gallagher no and Hansen gone, with the added COA that $1mil would be handed over upon issuance of a building certificate, to another housing developer or to the county's proximity workforce housing fund.

Update 2/28/20

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NVR 2/28/20: One rural Napa County hotel wrapping up, another on the horizon

The Oak Knoll Final EIR will be certified by the County Planning Commission on Mar 4, 2020. The meeting agenda and documents are here. It is the only item on the agenda.

And now a new winery hotel is being proposed, The Inn at the Abbey, following on the Farmstead Hotel at Longmeadow Ranch and the Hall Winery Hotel. It is only a matter of time, perhaps when the next recession occurs, before a push will come from the industry for a change in the WDO to allow overnight accommodation in addition to food service. As we've seen, it is difficult to limit the profits to be made from tourism entertainment solely to the major wineries. The vanity vintners want in on the act.

The trend seems fairly predictable. The consideration of food service as an agricultural process has been promoted by the industry and legalized in successive ordinances since 2008.

Update 1/23/20 Oak KnollFEIR

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NVR 1/23/20: Proposed hotel on Solano Avenue wins Napa County Planning Commission praise

And there you have it: "Planning Commission Chair Dave Whitmer said the commission wouldn’t consider a hotel in this area if the property wasn’t zoned commercial. But it is." Zoning changes are a one-way street: urbanizing density can only be increased, not decreased. The future urban development of the county is assured.

Update 1/2/20 FEIR

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The Final Environmental Impact Report of the the Oak Knoll Hotel project is done and will be presented at the Planning Commission on Jan 22, 2020.
Hearing Notice
County's Oak Knoll Hotel page
Oak Knoll FEIR, comments, responses
NVR 1/2/20: Napa County answers questions about proposed Solano Avenue hotel

I had forgotten that I had submitted a letter on the project. (It was the 6/30/17 entry below). Ascent's response to one point in the letter restates a circular argument made often by EIR consultant's to less environmentally impactful alternatives:
Less impactful alternatives are infeasible because they are not what the developer wants to do. As is the case with most of the winery projects being approved in the county, this project's actual objective, given its suitability as prime vineyard land, is simply to make more money from the land than can be made with agriculture. To dismiss the feasibility of raising crops because a developer wants to make more money than agriculture can provide is a slippery slope in a place with the purported objective of preserving ag land. The slide has well begun.

Update 7/5/18

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NVR 7/16/18: Napa Planning Commission gets a first look at rural Oak Knoll hotel project
NVR 7/5/18: Proposed Solano Avenue resort under environmental scrutiny by Napa County

Update 6/22/18 DEIR

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A Draft EIR for the Oak Knoll Hotel project is now available.
The Notice of Availability is here
The DEIR is Here

Original Post 6/30/17

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NVR 6/29/17: County studies proposed Oak Knoll hotel on rare rural commercial property
Yountville Sun 6/29/17: Neighbors Not Sold on Oak Knoll Hotel Project

County Oak Knoll Hotel page
EIR Notice of Preparation

Given the relentless explosion of hotel projects in Napa, it is only a matter of time before overnight accommodation is included in Napa County's definition for agriculture - just as food service and party events are now - to allow for their construction in the vineyards. The Oak Knoll Hotel, filling up a parcel on a legacy commercially zoned parcel surrounded by Agricultural Resource zoned land, is a forerunner of a trend that will become increasingly common in the current development frenzy to convert agricultural land to more profitable use. We already have the examples of the Carneros Inn and the Poetry Inn and the approved resort at Stanly Ranch. And the always threatened Altamura hotel at Trancas and the Trail. A highly respected grower-vintner is also proposing a hotel adjacent to one of his wineries and recently another winery hotel is being proposed by the Halls. Again, as with Oak Knoll, the zoning may allow such projects, but the incorporation of overnight stays into the heart of the agricultural landscape, even more impactful than the event-center wineries currently being approved throughout the vineyards, sets a precident that will up the pressure to change the definition of agriculture to allow inclusion of such use on a routine basis.

The county policy in the General Plan that applies to this legacy property use, Policy AG/LU-45 states that :

"With respect to Policies AG/LU-44 and 45, due to the small numbers of such parcels, their limited capacity for commercially viable agriculture due to pre-existing uses and/or size, location and lot configuration, and the minimal impact such commercial operations and expansions will have on adjacent agriculture or open space activities or the agricultural and open space character of the surrounding area, such limited development will not be detrimental to Agriculture, Watershed or Open Space policies of the General Plan."

This parcel is eminently viable for agricultural use, leased perhaps to the owner of the adjacent vineyards. This project will not have a "minimal impact". The impact of a 50 room hotel, 33 employees and 109-space parking lot, on the open-space character of the surrounding vineyards plus the increased traffic and water and sewer concerns such a project presents, should be a point of contention between the county and the developer. Perhaps the various alternatives presented by staff to the planning commission represent some pushback from the county. But it is not enough.

An alternative not presented in the DEIR (which might be considered "2c-No Project-Existing Entitlements Alternative (Agricultural Restoration)") is the use of the property for agriculture. Money can actually be made growing grapes in Napa County. It is not a taking to disallow building construction on prime arable land at the center of the Napa Valley.

Paradise is being paved over in one building project after another as the official guardians of the county's rural heritage continue to promote development interests, hoping to bolster government coffers while really just adding to the government expense of maintaining a more urban environment.

This project is an opportunity to mitigate that development trajectory and suggest that the urbanization that is currently nibbling away at Napa's agricultural land, with building projects approved at almost every planning commission meeting, can not only be slowed but in fact reversed.

Documents
Website: ambermanfreeforsupervisor2020.com
Facebook: facebook.com/ambermanfree2020/
Articles
NVR 3/4/20: Pedroza, Ramos lead Napa County Board of Supervisors races
Bill Hocker LTE 2/24/20: Vote Amber: 20 years of "growth" is killing Napa
Elaine de Man LTE 2/22/20: Democracy drowning in a sea of money
Ron Rhyno LTE 2/22/20: Governance for sustainability, or vulnerability and decline
Rebecca Steinschriber LTE 2/19/20: Amber Manfree: Adding expertise to the board of supervisors
Donald Williams LTE 2/13/20: Fresh perspectives are needed in elective office
George Caoyannidis LTE 2/11/20: Buying elections in Napa Valley’s 4th district
Jim King LTE 2/7/20: Endorsing the wrong candidate
Beth Nelson LTE 2/7/20: Amber Manfree is needed on the Board of Supervisors.
Patricia Damery LTE 2/6/20: Vote for Amber Manfree
Harris Nussbaum LTE 1/25/20: Support Amber Manfree for Napa County supervisor
NVR Editorial Board 1/26/20: The choices for Napa County supervisor
NVR 1/25/20: Napa County candidates give wine country visions
Elaine de Man LTE 1/23/20: Support Amber Manfree to unseat Alfredo Pedroza
Napa vision 2050 Newsletter 12/10/19: Genuine Amber "Putting Locals First"
NVR 12/5/19: Pedroza vs. Manfree could be only contested Napa County supervisor race

Ron Rhyno writes:

Rebecca Steinschriber writes:

Jim King writes:

Beth Nelson writes:

Patricia Damery writes:

Elaine de Man writes:

Mike Hackett writes:


Videos

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Vote for Amber	Amber Manfree for Supervisor: Putting Locals First
Kathryn Winter Endorses Amber Manfree	Environmental Forum For Napa County
Amber Manfree springs into action	Amber at the Arty Party Hour Great interview!
Amber Manfree reflects on the 2017 Atlas Fires	Vote for Amber!
Vote for Amber!	Still time to vote!

Napa history has always played out in the flux of "growth" and "preservation" interests embodied by the Board of Supervisors (BOS). Napa is Napa (and not Santa Clara) because the preservationists have more often carried the day in BOS decisions. But in the last 20 years the balance has been shifting distinctly in the direction of growth.

That transition began in ernest with Bill Dodd's election as District 4 supervisor in 2000. Defeating preservationist Kathryn Winter, his election was a signal, in campaign promises and the press, that priorities would be changing on the board. The results of his growth-friendly tenure are omnipresent - in the traffic, in industrial development, in hillside development, in the amount of tourism development and the consequent loss of affordable housing and local businesses and the disappearance of a small town, rural way of life. Under his tenure, Carneros Inn and Meritage were built. He was instrumental in pursuing Napa Pipe, the biggest urban development in the history of the county, as well as the Jameson Canyon freeway that has enabled the development of the airport and American Canyon industrial zones. He supported the 2008 General Plan Update and 2010 WDO revisions that codified tourism marketing as agricultural activity allowable on ag zoned lands, tilting the balance of tourism and production codified in the 1990 WDO toward the tourism industry.

In 2014 Mr. Dodd supported the Governor's appointment of Alfredo Pedroza as his successor. Since becoming Supervisor, in the face of rising concern by local residents about the growth trajectory that the county is on, Mr. Pedroza has continued to promote the interests of corporations, entrepreneurs and plutocrats in their development projects. Under his tenure woodlands continue to be converted into vineyard estates, farmlands to be converted into winery tourist attractions and wetlands to be converted into warehouses. All with predictable traffic increases and housing shortages. He worked to eviscerate the BOS response to Agricultural Protection Advisory Commission recommendations, a process begun by public demand to curb winery proliferation. He approved the 2,300 acre Walt Ranch vineyard estate project, the remote Mountain Peak Winery and supported, through his commissioner, the Palmaz personal heliport, each to benefit plutocrats in the face of overwhelming opposition from his own District 4 constituents. He opposed Measure C's woodland protections, instead helping to craft an ineffectual alternative. He supported the redefinition of agriculture in county code to lock in tourism as an agricultural activity. He supports bringing in ever more tourists by generously funding Visit Napa Valley and streamlining winery use permits for new venues to accommodate them. He supported the expansion of the Syar excavations up against Skyline Wilderness Park in the face of substantial resident opposition. He supported the development or expansion of Girard, Raymond, and other winery projects vigorously opposed by residents defending their neighborhoods against commercialization. He is promoting infrastructure improvments to allow faster buildout of the airport wetlands, already a major area of traffic congestion. He appointed a developer to the County Planning Commission to advance his land use agenda there.

Mr. Pedroza is a skilled politician. Were he to make a realistic commitment to curbing the development forces that now threaten the county's rural character, rather than embracing them, he would be an admirable champion. Unfortunately his political decisions and substantial campaign donations from major developers in the county (some $380,000 from 2018 to Feb 2020) point elsewhere. On the stump his issues are the need for more housing and more transportation options, both pressing issues created by the last 20 years pursuing a "growth" economy. His platform is more development as a solution to the impacts of growth. It is a developer's agenda guaranteed to make housing and traffic problems worse.

The majority of the Board of Supervisors will set the future direction of the county. The majority currently supports more development. We will already see a vast amount of future development as the dozens of wineries, millions of square feet of industrial space, Napa Pipe and numerous other major projects all approved under Mr. Pedroza's tenure in the last few years become a reality. Continuing that trajectory with even more approvals going forward will only make the traffic, housing infrastructure and resource impacts exponentially worse.

Yet there is the possibility that those problems can be lessened if the growth trajectory we are on is changed. To do so means that a preservationist majority must be returned to the Board. Two of the current Board members, those on it the longest, understand how difficult it has been to maintain an agricultural and rural county in the face of urban development pressure. A third preservationist back on the board might lead them to take a more forceful role in returning to the principles that created the ag preserve in the first place and that have protected this place since.

Local residents, opposed by their political leaders and development interests, have increasingly taken on the task of preserving Napa's unique rural heritage, by participation in planning and Board meetings, by public advocacy and costly litigation, and by the promotion of ballot initiatives and candidates for office. Residents need to have stronger representation on the Board. As in 2000, this election can have a significant impact on the future of Napa County, but instead in the direction of preservation rather than development.

Dr. Amber Manfree is running against Mr. Pedroza in the upcoming election. She is smart and capable, and is committed to supporting the interests of local residents, vintners and growers who understand the unique and fragile value of their rural, small-town enclave in the urbanized Bay Area. In addition to the refreshing, personable authenticity lauded by the Register's Editorial Board, Dr. Manfree brings a scientist's analytic ability to define problems and devise solutions and a longtime rural resident's desire for solutions that protect the unique character of this place. Most importantly, she knows that in the land use battles that have made Napa a "national treasure", it has been a commitment to preservation rather than growth that has allowed this rural environment and agricultural economy to survive the past fifty years and that the same commitment is needed now more than ever if they are to survive the next fifty.

NVR LTE version 2/24/20: Vote Amber: 20 years of "growth" is killing Napa
This is the shorter version of this article published in the Register.

One of the county supervisors once told me that campaign contributions have no effect on their decisions. This brought to mind an expression I heard recently in the UK, "Don't pee up my back and tell me that it's raining."

I am looking at a graph that displays how much money certain individuals have “invested” in the three Napa County supervisors who are up for reelection on March 3. And the view is staggering.

In the 2020 election alone, Charles Wagner (Caymus & Wagner Family Wines) has contributed $42,500 to the three incumbents, including $20,000 to Belia Ramos.

Craig and Kathryn Hall (Hall Wines, Walt Ranch, and more) came in second, with $39,500. The lion’s share of that, $25,000, went to Alfredo Pedroza. In fact, the graph shows that Pedroza takes the lion’s share of money from all the big spenders except for Wagner.

Looking at these numbers, and seeing what’s happening in the county, I find it difficult to believe that it has no influence on the decisions being made by the Board of Supervisors. Otherwise, why would these people throw so much money their way?

The specific favors they might be looking for become even more apparent when you look at how much money has been given to Pedroza since the 2016 election. Here is another graph that shows how much influence ($37,300) Craig Hall, from Frisco, Texas, wields over Pedroza. That might help to understand why Pedroza supported Hall’s 2,300-acre Walt Ranch project, which will cut down 14,000 trees, threaten local water supplies, and amplify oak woodland destruction. And Pedroza supported it even though there was overwhelming opposition from local neighbors and residents throughout Napa County.

Other Pedroza benefactors also have big projects either already approved or in the works. Peter Read’s Circle R Ranch will soon be converted from wildland and cattle grazing to vineyards. The run-off from that could impact Milliken Reservoir and Napa’s municipal water supply. Read has given Pedroza $17,500.

David Phinney’s 278-acre Bloodlines Vineyard project above Rector Reservoir, currently before the county for approval, will also impact a municipal water supply. Phinney has given Pedroza $12,500.

Peter Nisson (Hess Collection) has a 20+ acre vineyard expansion project pending approval that will require the removal of some 368 coast live oak trees up on Atlas Peak. Nissen has given Pedroza $8,000.

But what is most disturbing is the impact this huge influx of money has on the democratic process, which becomes crystal clear if you look at the graph that compares the amount of money available to each of the contestants in District 4 to spend on their campaigns.

As of January 18, Pedroza had $357,352. Amber Manfree had $30,239.

Keep in mind that we are talking about a district where only 8,639 people voted in 2016.

What we have here is not a democracy. But a plutocracy. A society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth.

The amount of money Pedroza's sponsors give him is not needed to win this election. But it does create a virtual firewall to prevent anyone else from daring to run against him.

Fortunately, Amber Manfree did not get that memo...or she simply chose to ignore it. That's courage of the highest order. And that’s what is lacking on the current Board of Supervisors.

Since deciding to run just a few months ago, Amber has inspired more than 200 volunteers who are busy now pounding the pavement, talking to constituents, writing postcards, distributing signs, and making phone calls on her behalf. They don't have boatloads of cash to influence the outcome of this election. But they are giving her their most valuable asset, their time -- because they have the most to lose, their quality of life.

And Amber has respected their commitment by facing every challenge thrown her way, appearing at every candidate's forum and participating in every interview she's been invited to.

I can't say the same for her overly-funded opponent, Alfredo Pedroza, who seems to think giving away tacos on Tuesdays, hiring organizations to make robo calls, and mailing (ad nauseam) misleading fliers is all it takes to earn him the votes he needs.

It’s clear to me that Amber is the most qualified choice for Napa County supervisor. I hope you agree because this corrupt funding of our local elections has to stop. And we're the only ones who can do it.

Let's send the plutocrats an important message. If you live in District 4, please vote for Amber Manfree. If you don’t, please tell all your friends who do. This is how we'll reclaim democracy. Together.

NVR LTE version 2/22/20: Democracy drowning in a sea of money

[This post was sent in response to a Nextdoor discussion on the Napa River Watershed Symposium]

Just to add another viewpoint to the discussion:

Supervisor Pedroza is an experienced politician but he has done no favors for residents who value the rural environment or quality of life that is the legacy of Napa's ag preserve legislation.

While often expressing concern for environmental stewardship, Mr.Pedroza, in fact, continues to pursue a growth agenda championed by his predecessor and mentor, Bill Dodd, elected to the board 20 years ago (I would recommend this refresher). Together they have led the Board in promoting more tourism and industrial growth than the county can handle, clogging county roads with traffic, creating an affordable housing crisis, consuming small town life to serve a growing tourist population.

He worked to eviscerate the Board's response to Agricultural Protection Advisory Commission recommendations, a process begun by public demand to curb winery proliferation [1]. He supported the redefinition of agriculture in county code to lock in tourism as an agricultural process [2]. He supports Visit Napa Valley to bring in ever more tourists [3] and supports streamlining winery use permits for new venues to accommodate them, most, no doubt, in remote areas [4]. He approved the expansion of the Syar excavations adjacent Skyline Wilderness Park in the face of substantial resident opposition [5]. He approved the development or expansion of Woolls Ranch [6], Girard [7], Raymond [8], and other winery projects all vigorously opposed by residents defending their neighborhoods against commercialization. He approved the 2300 acre Walt Ranch vineyard estate project [9] and the remote Mountain Peak Winery [10] (my personal reason to be here) and supported, through his commissioner, the Palmaz heliport [11], each to benefit plutocrats in the face of overwhelming opposition from his own District 4 constituents. Unfortunately, Mr. Pedroza continues to support policies and make decisions that benefit the entrepreneurs that contribute to his substantial campaign war chest leaving residents to suffer the impacts of their developments.

Regarding the aftermath of Measure C mentioned above, Mr. Pedroza opposed Measure C's substantial woodland protections [12], crafting instead the Board's modest proposals (linked in Ms. Tauziet's post above.) Those proposals were shown by Dr. Manfree's "fact-based" analysis to create a 4% saving in deforestation. (see her analysis here). The resulting ordinance is not nearly enough to discourage the status quo rate of deforestation nor does it show a commitment on the part of the Board to take woodland preservation or climate change seriously. [13]

Despite a wealth of environmental regulations, under the current Board hillsides continue to be littered with buildings and vineyard estates, vineyards continue to be filled with tourist attractions, wetlands continue to be covered with warehouses, and housing and major road projects, the nemeses of the creators of the ag preserve [14], continue to be proposed as the solution to our problems. A change in the growth trajectory is needed.

Please, if you wish to see the survival of a rural Napa County for the next 50 years, I urge you to consider a closer look at Amber Manfree. She brings a scientist's analytic understanding to the problems we face and a longtime rural resident's passion to protect the qualities that make Napa a desirable place to be.

[1] NVR 1/6/16: Supervisors set rough outlines for winery rule changes
The APAC process and the subsequent tweaking by the planning commission and BOS was long and convoluted. 4 of the 12 APAC recommendations were massaged by the Supes and their versions, as noted here, were quite different from the APAC versions. The policies that were finally implemented in the name of APAC, a legalization process for out-of-compliance wineries and a fast track winery approval process have only benefitted the industry with residents worse off than before.
[2] NVR 4/9/17: Napa County's new definition of agriculture to include marketing and sales
[3] 11/12/19 BOS agenda item 9B
[4] NVR 1/15/20: Napa County favors streamlining for some winery expansion requests
[5] NVR 10/19/16: Napa supervisors pass final Syar expansion approvals as lawsuit looms
[6] NVR 11/22/14: Supervisors approve Woolls Ranch Winery
[7] NVR 3/10/16: Supervisors back proposed Girard Winery
[8] NVR 8/16/17: Napa County Supervisors side with Raymond Vineyards
[9] NVR 12/6/16: Napa County supervisors endorse controversial Walt Ranch
[10] NVR 5/25/17: Napa County approves remote, controversial Mountain Peak winery
[11] NVR 9/7/17: Palmaz heliport team weighs options after Napa Planning Commission defeat (Sup. Pedroza's commissioner Terry Scott was the only vote to approve.)
[12] No-on-C endorsements
[13] NVR 4/9/19: Napa County passes controversial tree and water ordinance, so what's next?
[14] NVR 4/20/08: How Napa's Ag Preserve beat the odds, and saved the valley

The Register reported on supervisor campaign contributions recently:
NVR 1/28/20: Napa County Supervisor Pedroza leads the fundraising field.
The county has a website to track the contributions here (although it does take some effort to extract the information).

From 2018 though Jan 18, 2020 Supervisor Pedroza has raised a total of $372,809, and according to the NVR article currently has $284,713 still on hand. (By comparison Incumbent Belia Ramos has raised a total of $196,629, incumbent Ryan Gregory $132,216, challenger Amber Manfree $70,302, and challenger Mariam Aboudamous $55,660. The real power of incumbency is fairly clear.)

Supervisor Pedroza's fundraising prowess and his stable of all-star wine industry contributors get a write up in each election cycle. They have now been graphed. Notably many of the names have had development projects up before the Planning Commission and BOS in the last few years. I'm sure in any election for any public office in the world the names of contributors come up in the applications and legislation managed by the elected officials. Yet when seeing the vast amounts of money being thrown at a candidate by development interests in a community, far beyond that needed to cover direct campaign costs, one can't help but feel it is more than just friendship. The legal precision of quid pro quo immunizes the intent of contributions, but contributor, recipient and the public understand why large sums of money are given. It is, of course that direct link between elected government employment and urban development that is so hard to counter in a rural community attempting to forestall urban takeover.

It may look bad but it's all above board. An interesting tidbit to be gleaned from the contribution summaries: Mr. Pedrosa's campaign committee, Friends of Alfredo Pedroza, spent over $43,000 at the Meratige Resort in 2019, and at least $131,000 there in 2018. That's a lot of friendship which I, though a District 4 constituent, seemed to have missed out on.

I appreciate your editorial board interviewing candidates for county supervisor. Thanks to you for that service, and to them for running. The editorial explained that your board’s default position is to favor incumbents because of their experience. (“The choices for Napa County supervisor,” Jan. 26).

But two principles powerfully antithetical to incumbency are just as important as experience. One is a new supervisor’s fresh perspective. Anyone in any job after a while can become stale. Supervisors, too, can stall out. New people bring new ideas and different approaches. Defaulting to incumbency, by contrast, discourages innovation.

There’s another reason to favor newcomers. A change of supervisors means even more and different people are in service to our community. I dream of a day when strolling the street I encounter everywhere people who’ve taken their turn at local government. But broader participation won’t happen if we reflexively favor incumbents.


Challengers offer an opportunity to connect with people whom the incumbents couldn’t reach (even the most earnest incumbent can’t reach everyone). When more people connect and feel involved, democracy thrives.

Elected officials in our county are a small group. Protracted tenure makes it too easy to become clubby with special interests, with one another, or with staff --- public excluded. Not good. The remedy is to open the elected-official club, rotate its membership.

Incumbents leave office, yet counties manage to survive. Every incumbent was once new to the job. If experience was the crucial criterion for success in legislation, we’d just hire people to sit there for lifetimes. But let’s not fantasize that holding office bestows any special skill or aptitude.

I wish it did. I sit on the city council in Calistoga. I’m conscientious and try to be responsive to Calistogans. But the experience I’ll offer after eight years (if I’m there that long) won’t be as valuable as the fresh perspectives and approaches of a new council member. Holding office can become a bad habit. Would you like our presidents to serve more than eight years?

Incumbent Supervisor Ramos did not impress your editorial board. If a challenger had presented herself the way Ramos did, the editorial board would probably dismiss her. Still, your panel couldn’t bring itself to endorse Aboudamous---a “bright” and impressive alternative---so prejudiced were they for “experience”!

Only that prepossession could explain the editorial board’s unfathomable reluctance to endorse the other challenger, Amber Manfree. As you noted, she is “intelligent, personable, and passionate,” with “refreshing authenticity.” (Already she deserves our vote.)

But there’s more: “She is a scientist . . . and understands the issues at stake in development of wild lands as well as anyone on the board.” And she’s not endorsed? You gotta be kidding. Manfree is a rare and precious opportunity that Napa cannot afford to let slip by.

Instead you offer faint praise for Pedroza’s “policy points” on transportation issues -- ironically, since this incumbent government has superintended massive traffic miseries on Napans. That’s not to mention the precipitation of an alarming identity crisis: Are we authentically ag or are we Disneyland?

Now, now, now is the time for change on the board of supervisors. What in the world are we waiting for?

NVR version 2/13/20: Fresh perspectives are needed in elective office

Update 2/13/20

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NVR 2/8/20: A welcome new focus for Visit Napa Valley

The message seems to be getting through. Tourism is a threat as well as a cash cow. While the recognition is a welcome sign, the potential mitigations of more affordable housing and better traffic management are simply developers' solutions to the problems of urbanization. They are solutions that make further urbanization more likely. The supervisors took a modest step recently toward solving the real problem by deciding not to ramp up industrial development. It is hard to think of Visit Napa Valley trying to discourage tourism, but that is what's really needed: an organization like Visit Napa Valley that spends its money trying to promote export sales Napa Wines beyond the county border.

Update 11/13/19

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NVR 11/13/19: Visit Napa Valley says its tourism promotion is producing more overnight stays

Update 5/9/19

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NVR 5/6/19: Visit Napa Valley celebrates national travel and tourism week May 5 - 11

2018 Visit Napa Valley Quick Facts
Visit Napa Valley statistics page

According to the VNV stats, the county now hosts 950,000 more visitors per year than it did 6 years ago, an additional 2600 more visitors per day on average. The total resident population of Napa County has increased by 1.4% in that period to 141,000. The yearly tourist population has increased by 33% to 3.85 million. The yearly visitor/resident ratio has gone from 21:1 to 27:1.

As VNV celebrates it will, no doubt, boast about how much residents benefit from the tourist dollars. But for many residents, the specious $1728/ household in generated tourist taxes (used to pay VNV salaries and the increased infrastructure of an expanding tourism population among other things) is a sop to cover the negative impacts of an expanding tourism economy. For those residents the clearing of vineyards for event centers and parking lots, loss of local businesses and housing for boutiques, hotels and airbnb, and roads clogged with tourist traffic and tourism events all represent a lost Eden that money, real or fictional, can't replace.

The rural, agrarian, small-town soul of the county that attracted many here, the
result of a successful economy based on a low-impact agricultural product within a beautiful natural environment, is dying under the tourism onslaught. Residents futilely show up at government meetings, write letters and vote to stop the pain of the loss. Eventually they will probably move to Oregon, because the lust for more money continues to ruin everything - as it always has.

Update 8/31/17

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Clay Gregory LTE 8/31/17: Tourism Matters: the economic benefits of tourism in Napa

It appears that the Napa hotel lobby is launching a promotional campaign to convince residents of the county that tourism is good for their way of life, despite evidence to the contrary. Visit Napa Valley CEO Clay Gregory extolls the economic benefits that his organization is helping to bring to Napa County. Visit Napa Valley, he says, "is working daily on behalf of the lodging industry with local government officials and partner organizations to help address the collective impacts of tourism on our community."

There are indeed collective impacts on our community. How is he addressing them? "Attracting visitors during non-peak seasons and mid-week in order to minimize traffic and crowding, as well as working to convert day trips to overnight visits." How exactly does spending $6 mil/yr to attract additional tourists minimize traffic and crowding? The effort is really meant to ensure high occupancy rates and maximum traffic all week and all year around. And to insure that the collective impacts of tourism on our community happen 24 hours a day and that the lodging industry on whose behalf he works can continue to expand, with traffic increases and the loss of affordable housing and local shops, and a once serene landscape littered with building projects, and the disappearance of a rural and small-town quality of life.

The TOT, touted by Mr. Gregory as the principal benefit to the residents of the county, will never pay for the increased costs of infrastructure and services needed to serve the new development. As they are now, residents will continue to be asked to pay for bond measures, and tax increases to fix potholes and sewer systems and school upgrades each made worse by the ever increasing tourism and hospitality employee populations.

There is a place for tourism in the Napa economy, as an incidental and subordinate activity to the business of making wine. The amount of wine that can be made from Napa grapes is finite - the number of producing acres in Napa county has barely risen in the last decade. The amount of tourism must also be finite to maintain an appropriate balance. What we need is not a promotional campaign trying to sell residents of the benefits of tourism, or of a promotional campaign to sell Napa county as a tourism destination. If money is to be spent on promotion let it be on a campaign to sell Napa wine to the world beyond the county borders. There are numerous ways to do so other than tourism and many Napa wineries survive quite well in the business without encouraging the urbanization and resident discontent that tourism brings.

As Andy Beckstoffer has said, Napa is one of the few places on earth in which agriculture can survive the pressure of urban development, but it means a commitment to not let more profitable uses - and tourism is a more profitable use - become the driving force in the economy. The first place to make that commitment is to shut down Visit Napa Valley.

Update 7/19/17

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NVR 7/19/17: Report says well-heeled Napa Valley tourists love wine and scenery

Update 5/3/17

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NVR 5/4/17: Napa Valley visitors spent nearly $2 billion last year

The latest Visit Napa Valley statistical analysis of the tourism industry is out; the numbers are good (oddly better, in fact, than the Visit California numbers outlined here). The number of visitors are increasing but at a slower rate than the previous 2-year cycle, it seems. Revenues from tourist venues are way up, so the amount taken in per visitor is dramatically increased. (The median family income of visitors is $161,000 - a bursting tech-startup bubble may have significant impacts.) The number of employees is way up so perhaps service is good, although the daily commute and need for affordable housing is getting much worse.

More visitors seem to like the place as it is than they did 2 years ago. Except for the traffic. What will they make of the 140 or so wineries still in the planning/construction pipeline, or of Napa Pipe, Watson Ranch, and the dozens of other projects destined to fill county landscapes and roads. Sup. Pedroza's question from 2015, what is the carrying capacity of the county?, isn't yet answered.

Tourism taxes are way up as well, but the county still doesn't have enough to repair potholes or bridges, build a jail, upgrade the sanitary system, relieve traffic congestion or build affordable housing, and probably not enough to cover the costs of servicing the 17,000 visitors (12% population increase) driving into the county each day. $6 million of those tourism taxes goes to Visit Napa Valley to encourage more tourism and create more jobs, and to fund the studies.

The Latest Reports are here:

Visit Napa Valley 2016 Quick Facts
Visit Napa Valley 2016 Visitor Profile
Visit Napa Valley 2016 Economic Impact Report

12/14/15

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NVR 12/26/15: Napa rings up another busy tourism year

At the Board of Supervisors on Dec 14th, 2015, Visit Napa Valley presented its financial report for fiscal 2015 and an overview for the first half of fiscal 2016. Tourism "shows healthy Napa County growth in all key lodging metrics". No one can accuse VNV of not doing their job.

Given my now almost manic obsession over the development impacts of ever increasing tourism in the county, VNV director Clay Gregory had some reassuring news: the number of tourists arriving each year is only increasing at about 1.5%. The amount they are spending is rising several times faster, meaning much more money in TID and TOT to deal with a modest increase in impacts. He also made a point of stressing the mandate of VNV to promote off season and weekday events, which seemed a direct link to an answer Sup. Luce gave me several months ago when I asked how the county justified spending $5.6 mil to increase tourism impacts.

I want to be comforted. But somehow the county pursuit of 130 new or expanded wineries under review or approved but not yet built with their cumulative request for 1.6 mil new visitor slots per year does not speak to a goal of just evening out the tourism flow. Just as with the discussions about wineries, the present is often conflated with the future. There are presently 3.3 mil tourists coming into the county each year who feel overwhelmingly they like things the way they are. In this regard Sup. Pedroza asked the right question of Mr. Gregory:

"The way tourism grew in our valley was remarkable, but at a certain point our lens should be, how do we live within the means of what we have. More rooms than this will not survive because of traffic and lack of access...That's information we need to know as we grow. How do we know we are within our capacity."

A question that has been asked before in respect to wineries as well - what is the tourism carrying capacity of the county? We will see if Sup. Pedroza's question finds an answer in Mr. Gregorys' presentation two years hence.

I just sent a $2,000 check to Amber Manfree who is running against the establishment incumbent Alfredo Pedroza in Supervisor District 4. It's a drop in the bucket.

By now, every citizen in this country is aware that elections are being bought. Almost impossible to reverse this corrupt culture at the national level, perhaps it is at the local levels. How inspiring if that place were the Napa Valley.

Consider that citizens time and time again have stood no chance in opposing wineries in places where they impair the convenience, even safety of the locals, or the dozens which have their use permits adjusted to fit their violations just for the asking, increasing their visitors and events or becoming veritable restaurants with commercial kitchens causing ones in the cities to close.

All the while the impacts of these establishments have been certified as mitigated to “less than significant” without standards to measure them against, year after year, project after project piled on top of one another. The ordinary citizens in this county who go to work every day have been trusting our government to indeed have all impacts mitigated. Until one day, they wake up and what took them 20 minutes to go to work, takes now 40. Mitigated?

The jobs this kind of growth creates -- vineyard and hospitality workers - are the lowest paying ones. They invite commuters who, in turn, require affordable housing and let’s be honest, several thousand units of them to make an appreciable dent.

But more housing units put a strain in our resources such as water and to our infrastructure such as water, sewer, electrical and gas delivery networks and diminish its useful life.

Our supervisors are well-educated people who ought to know what’s going on. They live where we live, they know that their policies are inviting more and more low paying jobs, they know that wineries in remote areas with accessibility problems are the wrong places for them, they know that their economy model is destroying our common quality of life and yet, they continue the course. They even instituted a “streamlining” winery approval process which excludes public testimony, designed to sideline the considerable brain power of citizens in this county as a nuisance.

They have also distanced themselves from project approvals by leaving it up to their hand-picked, unelected Planning Commissioners. They hear about them only on appeal which is an expensive process for ordinary citizens. Non-responsive government invites expensive lawsuits as the county well knows.

Amber Manfree is a Ph.D scientist whose campaign has collected fewer than $30,000. Her opponent, Mr. Pedroza, has about $250,000, 95% of which come from the hospitality and winery businesses (amounts and percentages change daily). Five donors alone have contributed over $110,000. Law firms hoping for positive rulings for projects they represent, and like sold ambassadorships, his Planning Commissioner’s firm are among his contributors. It is hard to disassociate this culture with the growth model the county keeps promoting. And bit by bit, the Napa Valley is being destroyed. From within.

I read a few letters in support of Mr. Pedroza. They thank him for helping them through their home permitting process after the 2017 fire. Such help shouldn’t be needed. Clients whose home I designed only 18 years ago had to wait eight weeks to get their permit, even two weeks just to get a nailing inspection. Roadblocks, rather than streamlining where streamlining ought to have been for the fire victims. Approved plans are still not kept on record at the county when people lose them in a fire as was in this case. All under Mr. Pedroza’s watch.

And when it came to support his district’s constituency in their fight to disallow helicopter landings at a private home in their neighborhood, he never as much lifted his finger to support them claiming conflict of interest. But when it came to Measure D, which disallowed helicopter landings at residences in general, he continued to remain silent even though he voted for the county to adopt a single interest measure saving it the expense of going to the voters.

Ms. Manfree’ s primary platform states: “Putting locals first.”

It is about time someone running for supervisor committed to that. This does not mean she is taking aim at the hospitality and wine industries. What it means is balance - a highly complex undertaking at this point - in the way growth in general is being envisioned and managed considering that ordinary people also live here but striped of their balancing power. It means that cumulative impacts of projects will no longer be pushed under the rug, it means searching for sorely needed ways to diversify our economy and it means that no one will have bought her vote.

In this endeavor, her science-driven analytical expertise will add a valuable dimension hereto lacking on the board.

NVR version 2/11/20: Buying elections in Napa Valley’s 4th district

NVR 2/11/20: A lineup of Napa wine country controversies is coming back for hearings

At a previous BOS meeting Planning Director made a brief list of appeal projects that would be coming up before the Supes, those outlined in Barry Eberling's article, and mentioned that there would probably be more.

It has been 6 years since the Walt Ranch Project and Mountain Peak projects became known to their neighbors. The two projects, along with the Yountville Hill Winery, ignited a broader realization among county residents that the development trajectory in the county was beginning to impact residents feeling of well being living in a rural oasis in the greater Bay Area. It has corresponded with an effort following the 2008 recession to encourage more tourism into the county to support a movement of the wine industry from distributer sales to direct to consumer sales through increased winery visitation. The increasing number of project appeals and the pursuit of litigation beyond the appeals are the result. Thus far, unfortunately, there is little evidence that community pushback has done much more than slow down the conversion of the landscape into building sites and the ultimate suburbanization of Napa County.

Update 2/11/20: project denied

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NVR 2/11/20: Napa County supervisors nix remote winery near Calistoga

On Feb 11, 2020 The BOS upheld the appeal and denied the project despite the owner proposing a last-minute reduction in volume and visitation. It is a significant decision concerning the Board's responsibility to begin to look at the issues surrounding remote wineries as more suitable locations for wineries (and vineyards) become scarce and more and more winery entrepreneurs continue to pursue their dreams on the parcels remaining. Following on the Planning Commission denial of the Dry Creek Winery this decision continues a shift toward more scrutiny of wineries proposed in remote rural locations.

The vote makes Planning Commissioner Joelle Gallagher's uncharacteristic approval of the project look a bit more strategic, in allowing the Commission to claim that without more direction, i.e. a Remote Winery Ordinance, the Commission was powerless to consider this any differently than a project on Hwy 29. The Board now has good reason to take up the issue.

One ominous note (being the contrarian that I am): Winery expediter Donna Oldford also urged the Supes to come up with a remote winery ordinance to insure that developers know what the rules are in these locations. The fact that the industry now sees the ordinance as inevitable and is now supportive of it, makes me think that, as happened with the 2010 WDO, APAC, Watershed Ordinance and the definition of agriculture, the hope that a new ordinance will support the goals of preservation over development is a faint hope indeed. Based on the outcomes thus far, a new ordinance may just solidify the ability to develop in these areas rather than limit it.

Update 2/7/20

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The appeal of the Hard Six Cellars use permit approval will be heard by the BOS on Wed Feb 11, 2020.

BOS agenda (item 9C)
Board Agenda Letter
The appeal packet is here.
Complete appeal documents are here
Video 10/16/19 PC meeting
10/16/19 Agenda and Documents
Transcript of Hard Six portion of meeting
Appellant request to augment record
Fire Safety Analysis on project

Thankfully the project has been appealed. Although a smaller project than Mountain Peak on Soda Canyon Road, the access constraints on this project are even more egregious. After all the issues that have been raised since the fires concerning the dangers of remote roads, in addition to the impacts of these tourism projects on their remote rural communities, it was really disappointing that the project was passed by the Planning Commission. Comm. Cottrell, as the only no vote, has been consistent since Mountain Peak in opposing remote winery-tourism projects, and two devastating fires in the interim have proved the wisdom of her decisions. The biggest disappointment was Chair Gallagher's yes vote. She has been a reliable voice in the consideration of access constraints and of community concerns. Noting that the Supervisors have as yet not produced a remote winery ordinance that would allow her to consider access constraints in her decision, despite noting that such constraints do exist on this project, seemed a weak argument indeed. The supervisors' appendix to the 2010 WDO changes makes clear that access constraints should be considered.

Update 11/1/19

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Mike Hackett LTE 11/1/19: Remote winery approval is poor planning
Charles de Limus LTE 10/29/19: Negligent omission and Napa County's liability

10/19/19

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NVR 10/19/19: Despite public concerns, Napa County approves a 'remote' winery on a mountain road
Caloyannidis opposition letter

In the Planning Commission hearing of Oct 16, 2019 four winery projects were approved, a new normal perhaps. After a summer hiatus, and a year of light, non-controversial, winery approvals as the planning department dealt with staff shortages, fire rebuilds, "recognize and allow" submittals, and the watershed, winery streamlining and cannibus ordinances, the government seems to be pressing ahead full force to expedite the 80 or so projects on the county's pending projects page.

Of the Oct 16th approvals, it was hard to tell which was the most egregious: the Bremer "recognize and allow" permit after truly outrageous flouting of the county's laws; or the Hard Six Cellars Winery approval as another inappropriate location for a tourist attraction intruding into the rural peace and tranquility of the county.

The winery was approved to allow 80 (or is it 112?) visitors/week for tours and tastings, and events up to 125 people (leaving at 10:00pm). Diamond Mountain Road doesn't meet the county's road and street standards. It is, in fact, a one lane road , far short of the 2-10' lanes plus 1' shoulder the county requires. The driveway on the site also does meet those standards, and exemptions were granted. This deficiency of legal access alone should be enough to should be enough to deny the project form simply a practicality standpoint.

In approving Hard Six, several commissioners felt that the lack of the "Remote Winery Ordinance" (one of many "to do" items on the Supervisor's bucket list) prevented them from evaluating this winery any differently from the standpoint of access constraints than a winery on the Trail.

But, of course, realizing the potential impacts of their 2010 changes to WDO to encourage more tourism at wineries, the Supervisors made exactly this distinction in their Interpretive guidance at the time:

This approval also comes in the wake of the 2017 fires, and a renewed understating about the consequences of building in areas with "access constraints". Our own neighborhood-busting winery approval, Mountain Peak at the top of Soda Canyon Road, was approved by the Supervisors on the basis that "In the event of a fire that results in mass evacuations from this area, the road has sufficient capacity and roadway width to accommodate all outgoing traffic while allowing incoming fire response units."

In the Atlas fire of 2017, a tree fall blocked the road to exiting traffic and to incoming response vehicles. The tree was moved enough to allow cars to get by, but by that time the entirety of the canyon was engulfed in flames. The response vehicles retreated and the residents that remained on the upper parts of the road had to be evacuated by helicopter, a dangerous task in the ferocious winds. A judge has ruled that the Supervisors must reconsider their approval based on the evidence of the actual fire dangers on Soda Canyon road.

Diamond Mountain Road is both narrower and more heavily forested than Soda Canyon Road. It did not burn in the 2017 fires, and the fuel load and potential tree falls remain severe. A fire during a 125 person event at the winery could be catastrophic. The planning commissioners who voted to approve the project seem to be ignoring the recent evidence of the real dangers that concentrating tourism activities in the remote hillsides of the county will present. It may be a decision that comes back to haunt them.

Residents will make an effort to introduce issues of fire safety at the BOS appeal hearing of Hard Six Cellars on Tues, Feb 12, 2020. The fire safety report is here.

Following the fires of 2017, and the near calamity that befell residents trying to evacuate Soda Canyon Road, and the actual calamity of the blocked highway in Paradise a year later, two winery use permit applications in remote areas of the county have been challenged by neighbors with expert opinion on the fire dangers posed in these areas. The first was made before the presentation to the Planning Commission on the Anthem Winery and was essentially ignored in the discussion. The second was submitted after the Planning Commission approved the Hard Six Cellars project and appellants are trying to get it included in the appeal.

In fact, fire safety reports should be a part of every remote winery application, in the way that water availability and traffic impacts are. Following The Soda Canyon event, it is no longer acceptable for the county fire chief to rubber stamp projects based on project specific mitigations that don't address the dangers beyond the boundaries of the property.

The reports are here:
Anthem Fire Safety Report
Hard Six Cellars Fire Safety Report

Update 2/5/20

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The Anthem Winery was approved by the Planning Commission after reductions in the production made by the applicant, reductions in the visitation numbers made by staff at commissioners' request and a proposed lot line adjustment to eliminate the variance request. There were still concerns over the fate of the entry road.

NVR 2/6/20: Napa Planning Commission pares Anthem winery expansion
2/5/20 PC hearing video and documents


Update 1/24/20

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The Anthem Winery, continued from its first hearing in Oct, 2018, will again be heard at the Planning Commission on Feb 5, 2020.
Neg Dec notice
County Anthem page with documents
10/3/18 hearing video
10/3/18 hearing agenda and docs
Dry Creek Road Alliance website

New neg dec indicates a reduction in visitation from 15,532 to 13,208 yearly visitors. Event closing time change from midnight(!) to 10pm. No changes apparently to the problematic access driveway or viewshed request.

Update 1/8/19

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The continued Planning Commission hearing for the Anthem Winery was to take place Jan 16, 2019 but has been continued to a date uncertain and will be renoticed 1/16/19 agenda and documents here.

Update 10/3/18

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After 3 hours of presentation and public comment the Commissioners sought additional work by Staff to review and address the many concerns raised. The hearing was continued to Dec 5, 2018 [now Jan 16, 2019]. (The Davis Winery marketing, caves and production expansion was approved)

NVR 10/4/18: Napa County needs more time on controversial Anthem Winery requests

9/29/18

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The Anthem Winery project, at 3123 Dry Creek Rd, will be up for a use permit modification at the Napa County Planning Commission on Oct. 3, 2018.

Technically a use permit "modification", it will be, in fact, a newly constructed complex including a new 10,000 sf winery building, 29,000 sf of new caves, a new 1500 sf tasting room, a new 1700 office building, outdoor event spaces, 22 car parking lot, and newly constructed entry drive from Dry Creek Rd. Tours and tastings and events will bring 15500 visitors/yr and 7-12 employees/day.

The site is 3.4 miles from Hwy 29. At 56 proposed trips per day, that amounts to 69495 VMT/yr due of its remote location - almost 3 times around the earth.

The project has been vigorously challenged by neighbors whose enjoyment of their remote rural properties will be destroyed by an event center in their midst. The adoption of tourism as an integral part of the wine Industry has much to do with the current antagonism of residents toward the industry as a whole. In this case it is also another example of neighbors who are themselves farmers and vintners - as happened with Yountville Hill, Girard, Raymond, Melka, B-Cellars and others - coming forward, not in opposition to a neighbor's right to farm and process their crop, but their right to create a tourism entertainment venue. Tourism may be defined as agriculture in the pro-development dogma of wine industry stakeholder groups and in the County ordinances that they have crafted, but in the real world, tourism is not agriculture - especially when it shows up next door. If only more farmers would act on the real possibility that an event center will eventually be their neighbor, the county might return to a more realistic definition of agriculture.

The Anthem project involves a road exception for the entry drive constraints, setback variances from the private drive, a viewshed ordinance regulation because of its visibility on the hill, and the removal of 130 trees. As was the case with the nearby Woolls Ranch winery, the project involves the contested use (commercial vs residential) of an easement over a neighbor's property. It raises once again the issue of water availability in the western watershed, having had to truck in water for a couple of years, also the case with the Woolls Ranch vineyard. It also raises the issue of remotely located custom crush facilities, with only a small percentage of its 50,000 gallons coming from grapes on the property. And then there is the dispute with another neighbor over the clearing of a woodland preservation easement between their properties. Finally, some events will be allowed until the trend-setting hour of midnight. The project pushes the boundaries of every norm.

Given the continued expansion of wineries into the watershed areas of the county, numerous projects have come before the Planning Commission asking for variances and exceptions to county ordinances to make the projects feasible in the hilly terrain. The ordinances were enacted specifically to recognize that some locations are not appropriate for building projects in order to maintain the rural and natural beauty that has been one of the county's principal assets. Unfortunately, the County, under pressure from a never-ending tide of profit- and ego-driven entrepreneurs, continues to approve projects requiring such exceptions to exist. And a rural landscape, protected by a previous generation of civic leaders and responsible stakeholders, is slowly being diminished as a consequence.

The Oct 3rd Planning Commission will also hear the Davis Estates Winery request for a large expansion in capacity, facility size and visitation numbers located on the Silverado Trail. Between the 2 wineries, 37,000 new visitation slots per year will be created, adding to population increase and the urbanization needed to accommodate it.

There are approximately 140 new wineries or expansions that have been approved since 2010 that will add some 1.8 million visitor slots. Another 30 are in the planning pipeline seeking to add 260,000 more visitor slots. Of those already approved, few have been built and their visitors and employees and the traffic they generate and the need for infrastructure, services and housing that they will create have not yet added to the impacts of urbanization that we already feel.

These wineries also represent an increase in permitted production capacity of 6+ million gallons/year. According to crop reports, the number of producing acres of vines has only grown by about 1000 acres in the last decade, barely enough for 1 million gallons of new production capacity. Many new wineries, like Anthem, will be used principally to process off site grapes that are undoubtedly being processed elsewhere now. Their wine will add little to Napa's overall wine output. Their real product is wine tasting experiences and the events they will host. These wineries would probably not be built were it not for their tourism function, a fact that Anthem's owner quantified in her letter to APAC.

In 2014, when we first found out about the event center proposed for the property next to us, it was already obvious that winery construction to serve a tourism economy was distorting the concept of agriculture as being the highest and best use of the land. It is now past time to decide that there are enough wineries already, enough boxes littering the landscape, and begin to use the county's discretion to deny those whose reason to exist is little more than the dream of owning a winery of one's own and the wealth to realize it; in particular those wineries that must stretch every ordinance and antagonize every neighbor to accommodate that realization.

GVWire 5/15/19: Weakling or Bully? The Battle Over CEQA, California’s Iconic Environmental Law