Bill Hocker | Jan 10, 2020

NVR 1/3/20: Fearing a housing mandate, Napa County turns down airport industrial area designation

The supervisors are apparently worried that in accepting development money from ABAG, that ABAG will increase the amount of affordable housing required to be built by the County in their 2023-2030 allotment. But that allotment isn't just dependent on new jobs tied to ABAG supported development; it is tied to all jobs created in the county, and the Supes have not shown a similar interest in slowing down job development otherwise.

I'm pleased that they have finally acknowledged the connection between jobs created and the amount of affordable housing they are going to be required to provide. Providing the 180 units ABAG required in the 2017-2022 allotment proved to be a major headache. It was satisfied by approving Napa Pipe after 8 contentious years, which, given the vast amount of development on the site needed to subsidize 180 affordable units (800 non-affordable housing units, 200,000sf of commercial/industrial space, a hotel, nursing home and a Costco), created many more jobs than the new affordable housing would accommodate - thus increasing the need for even more affordable housing in the near future and in the next ABAG allotment.

The county continues to approve, on a bi-weekly basis (and at present weekly basis) new industrial projects and new and expanded winery projects that will bring ever more jobs into the county. Where is the recognition that all of those new jobs (and the additional jobs needed to service the new projects' employees and visitors) will also add to their 2022-2030 ABAG affordable housing mandate?

Jobs are the building blocks of urban development. The Supervisors have made great efforts to resist urban development through their policies over the last 50 years. The decision to decline the ABAG development assistance shows that the spark is still there. But it is not enough: the onslaught of development projects continues. Until there is a recognition that the County must do whatever it can to put a brake on new development projects, it will be forever increasing the demand for more housing and urban growth - as well as its ABAG affordable-housing mandates.

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