Bill Hocker | Mar 11, 2015

The video of the meeting is here
The meeting agenda is item 9c here
The agenda letter is here
the press reports are here

Three presentations were made prior to the public comments:

Data analysis of the county 2015
Director Morrison gave a bravura presentation of number crunching which brought not just one but two ovations from an audience prepared to be skeptical. His numbers seemed strictly factual with some comfort and some chagrin for both the preservation and the development camps. Despite his quick wit, his poker face never betrays his leanings in this battle, but I continue to hope that he will end up in the small pantheon of Napa planning directors that are venerated for their preservation of an agricultural ideal against the forces of development.

Supervisor Luce took this break to voice a position on prohibiting wineries in the "ag resource" areas - the AP zones of the valley floor and several smaller basins in the county. (I initially misinterpreted resource to mean watershed, leading to both elation and then embarrassment in several emails). He has questioned the need for more wineries before, given the probable surfeit of winery capacity, but it sounded here as if he had made up his mind: no more wineries in the ag preserve. He went back to the history of the 1990 WDO, (he was on the planning commission at the time) and gave context for his feeling now. Allowing wineries into the vineyards at the time was seen as a way to insure that Napa grapes would be processed locally rather than shipped out of the county. The situation is reversed now with grapes being shipped into the county to fill available capacity. His point was that the goals of the original WDO have been met and that it is time to rethink at a fundamental level what the new definition should be. His position is definitely a huge step in the right direction with one caveat: he hedged on whether allowing wineries in the AWOS zones was still desirable. That may be bad news for the watersheds that would have to begin bearing the full weight of vanity winery lust. He then reiterated this position at the end of the meeting - his determination on this issue, which I must applaud, is remarkable. (more on his statement is here)

Napa County Travel Behavior Study 2015
The actual study is here
Kevin Johnson of Fehr & Peers made a very good presentation, without notes, of the recent traffic study that will be the basis of discussion over the year. The study included data from license plate monitoring and cell phone movement which are probably really effective tools but are also pretty creepy.

Tourism in Napa County 2015
The actual study is here
Larry Florin, Director of Housing and Intergovernmental Affairs, reviewed the information of the 2012 Destination Analyists study done for Visit Napa Valley.

60+ speakers in public comments

Mayor John Dunbar of Yountville led off the public comments with a description of the negative impacts county winery development was posing to his town. He may be genuinely concerned about increased traffic seeing the negative impact that traffic is having in St. Helena, but it is also quite possible that the municipalities are beginning to see the downside of winery event centers that will begin to draw patrons, restaurant staff and revenue away from the towns.

I was pleasantly surprised that the wine industry as a whole has finally come out the closet (or from beneath the cloak of omertà) to say that the trajectory of development in the county might be bad for the survival of agriculture. The real winemakers, not the vanity vintners, are sensing trouble with the DTC dogma, and the impacts it is creating. Even the Winegrowers seemed to recognize there might be survival issues for the Napa brand if the current development rate continues.

A few of the statements are well worth saving:
Dan Mcfadden
George Caloyannidis
Zia Shepp
Geoff Ellsworth

While many of the speakers mentioned watersheds, there seemed little interest on the dias for that discussion here. There will be much discussion later when the Water Availability Analysis and the Climate Action Plan are taken up.

The issue that I felt was woefully missing here, just as it was in the first coalition meeting, was the development taking place beyond the wine industry. Dir. Morrison brought it up during his presentation, but the rest of the day was spent on wineries and watersheds. I suppose that until the municipalities are brought into this discussion, as Dir. Morrison was charged to undertake in #3 below, the impact that continued urban development in the cities is going to have the ag areas, much greater frankly than more wineries and vineyard conversions, would be academic.

Supervisor Dillon also had some remarks at the end seeming to chide the planning commissioners for not exercising more of the discretion granted to them under the WDO and mentioning the Draft EIR done before the 1990 WDO which gave examples of mitigations that might be applied as guidance in current projects. It is a good sign that they are beginning to discuss original intentions and their relationship to the situation we find today.

BOS-PC Direction to staff

1. Finish Climate Action Plan
2. Revise circulation element of GP and draft traffic mitigation fee plan
3. Define BOS ad hoc committee to create forum with cities about joint regional land use issues (more important to the future of ag, IMHO, than #4)

traffic
affordable housing

4. Define ad hoc committee to review WDO

17 member committee
min parcel size
estate grapes
no vineyard loss
variances
outdoor space
enforcement
visitation
separate AP and AW standards
temporary event ordinance
(Note 2 Vision 2050 mentions!!)

5. Refine winery review guidelines and matrix

After 6 hours of talk It seemed that everyone was worn out and perhaps it would be expected that things would end with a whimper rather than a bang since no votes were required. But it is a start of a process unimaginable 1 year ago.

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