Bill Hocker | Oct 2, 2015

NVR 10/1/15: Planning Commission wrestles with definition of agriculture (read the comments)
NVR 10/2/15: Planners look at fast-tracking small wineries

Definition of Ag

The planning commission seemed to have arrived at the most efficient way of dealing with the consternation everyone outside of the tourism industry has had with the APAC approved definition of agriculture crafted by Dir. Morrison as a consolidation of the various definitions of agriculture in the General Plan and county ordinances.

After much discussion of an alternate, unambiguous, definition put forward by the Farm Bureau, the commissioners returned to the infamous General Plan Policy AG/LU-2, every word of which was apparently labored over in 2008, during a period less concerned with the impacts of tourism development on the environment and character of the county. The Commissioners sent on to the Board a recommendation to amend Policy AG/LU-2, reflecting the intent of Action Item AG/LU-2.1, to state that wineries are conditional agricultural uses and that the marketing of wine is clearly incidental and subordinate to the main use of a winery as a processing facility. In doing so they will bring AG/LU-2 into greater harmony with every other ordinance and general plan reference to marketing and the definition of agriculture. My screed on the definition of ag is here.

Small Winery ordinance

The Commissioners also sent on the the Board the recommendation to institute a "streamlined" process for approving small wineries based on the "CEQA" definition already on the books but rarely used. My screed on the "CEQA" small winery is here. They made two tweaks in their recommendation: The 40 vehicles/day allowed in the definition has the potential to translate into a lot of visitors if each vehicle is a 50 person tourist bus. They included a proviso not to exceed 15 visitors/day, which is better. Of course, from the standpoint of a neighbor in a remote rural location, it is still a lot of strangers in the neighborhood. And they applied the 75% rule - 75% of the grapes processed must come from the estate. Like everything else there is a question about the definition of estate, unfortunately. Lets hope, as they implied, the term means the parcel on which the winery is located.

There was a concentration on small wineries for the dreamers during the APAC meetings, with heavy support from larger vintners and the tourism establishment, In this meeting there was support from the winegrowers and our own developer of the Mountain Peak mega winery next door on Soda Canyon Road became a spokesman for the small winery push. I keep suspecting that there is tourism trend that we haven't even realized yet, in which dozens of micro wineries will replace the larger projects bringing the same tourism impacts but even more neighborhood impacts. We'll see.

The Commission sent on to the Board without discussion the APAC recommendations to limit total parcel development, including residences, to 20% of parcel size but no more than 8 acres, and the inclusion of outdoor hospitality areas and type 3 (public) caves as a part of the accessory area defined in the WDO. And they seemed to let stand the APAC disinterest in net vineyard loss as an issue, though they asked that staff, lacking enough to do, begin keeping track of the vineyard loss. They decided to defer until the next meeting a decision on the applicability of changed requirements applying only to new wineries or to winery expansions as well.

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