Bill Hocker | Dec 8, 2014

[LTE sent to the NVR and published here]

Another large winery has cleared the county planning department and is coming up before the planning commission on Wed, Dec 17th. It is the Girard Winery, 200,000 gal/yr, 30,500 visitors/yr on Dunaweal Lane just east of Calistoga. It raises most of the regular issues: The 250 acres of grapes it will process are already being processed in other valley wineries so where is the need? What is the impact of another 50 cars going up and down the valley each day or of 90 - 200 arriving and leaving evening events. Where will the 200 cars park? How does the county keep justifying the permanent removal of vineyard land from the valley to accommodate these projects. (Note the opening WDO quote here.). And, perhaps more wistfully, why despoil such a beautiful rectangle of prime agricultural land in the Napa valley with another warehouse pretending to be a castle? It breaks the heart.

The Girard Winery is one of 40 or so winery projects now being reviewed by the county. Since 2010 roughly 70 new wineries or winery enlargements have already been approved, most with the intent to increase profits through tourist traffic. Few so far have been built, so their visual impact has yet to be seen and the traffic impacts from their hundreds of employees and thousands of tourist slots yet to be felt. More proposals will follow.

The appeal of the Yountville Hill winery will be heard by the Board of Supervisors the day before at the Planning Commission, Tues, Dec 16th. Yountville Hill is the poster child for the county's shift from an agricultural to a tourism economy: 57,000 visitors/yr on a prominent, tight and steep 11 acre site. It will set the worst possible precedent for hillside development, and a well known part of the valley's rural landscape will be forever disfigured. The traffic created by its inadequate parking and the adjacency of Mustards Gril will cause havoc on that small stretch of 29. The county will probably have to install a signal on Hwy 29, yet one more sure harbinger of the death of agriculture.

A pro-development attitude for more than a decade has greased the skids of a development industry now realizing large resorts in the north and small cities in the south and these wineries filling up the valley floor. The most remote corners of the watersheds are now being proposed as housing estates and wine-tourism attractions. While the traffic generated from previous development is now a constant irritation, we are just at the beginning of this new development cycle, and its traffic has yet to arrive.

The valley is changing so fast into a suburban vineyard theme-park that many, more cynical than I, have already given up on the idea of maintaining a rural, agricultural community. You can't stop the inevitable says one of my neighbors. The best we can hope for are vines around the parking lots. He may be right. But the county as it exists now still has a quality-of-life that sets it apart from Bay Area sprawl. It is worth fighting to preserve it, an obligation really for those of us who cherish it, even if the odds seem long.

If you wish for a future even close to the Napa of today, the time is now to voice your concerns, write a letter, attend a hearing. We all share the same backyard, and it is about to be developed.

Bill Hocker
sodacanyonroad.org

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