Bill Hocker | Jan 12, 2017

Video of the hearing
NVR 1/4/17: Napa County Planning Commission approves Mountain Peak Winery

After almost three years since the fateful day that neighbors on Soda Canyon Road discovered a tourism winery was planned for their remote rural community, the County Planning Commission has approved the project, their first approval of 2017. The vote was 3 to 1 with Heather Phillips' seat still unfilled.

Comm. Cottrell voted to deny, arguing that the level of visitation was inappropriate for the remote location, following the Supervisors direction to planning commissioners to consider the remoteness and access constraints in determining visitation numbers. It was, I think, a courageous vote in support of residents interests and the county's rural legacy in a county government and in an era that is ever more dominated by developers.

There will be an appeal to the Board of Supervisors. Perhaps they can summon a bit of that courage as well.

The approval came despite 900 county-wide signatures of opposition to the project, including the majority of the Soda Canyon Road community. Unfortunately, the interests of many concerned citizens in the preservation their rural communities appear to count for very little against good-life entrepreneurs and a tourism industry pretending to protect agriculture with ever more buildings and parking lots.

In perhaps one of the few unexpected moments of the day, Comm. Basayne asked County Road Engineer Rick Marshall about the comparison made by the planning department between this project and several other 100,000 gal wineries on mountain roads in the county. My thoughts on his very informative responses are related separately here.

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