Streamlining diverted on Whitehall Lane
on the web at: https://sodacanyonroad.org/forum.php?p=2109
Bill Hocker | Jul 20, 2020

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.


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