Bill Hocker | Dec 21, 2018

The one aspect of the Strategic Plan that is bothersome is its focus on the next 3 years. The significant outreach to solicit and document input from such wide variety of county "stakeholders" is an effort worthy of loftier goals than just prioritizing the County's short term agenda. The problems of traffic and affordable housing, and the infrastructure and social strains of an expanding population, when looked at in a 3-year time frame, become merely exercises in trying to mitigate the existing impacts of the previous 20 years of urban growth. The 3 year strategic plan lets stakeholders vent about existing problems and lets government commit to do something about them (whether it can or not). The Strategic Plan doesn't, unfortunately, embody proposals that might challenge the trajectory of growth that has created our current problems and will continue to compound them into the future.

The comments of some of the participants do reflect an interest in the bigger picture of land use policy - how does the vision at the heart of the Strategic Plan, the same vision at the heart of the Ag Preserve 50 years ago to retain a small-town, rural place in the midst of an urbanizing world, remain relevant for another 50 years. When looked at in the longer term bolder solutions need to be looked at. And some of the Participants in the Strategic Plan have done that.

So far there are three proposals that have been submitted outlining long term land use strategies:

Coalition Napa Valley white paper
Napa Vision 2050 Strategic Plan outline
Growers/Vintners for Responsible Agriculture outline
NVR 2/24/19: Need a scorecard of key players in Napa's land use battles? Here it is

copyright © sodacanyonroad.org