Bill Hocker | Jun 22, 2015

APAC #6 minutes
The agenda letter for APAC #6
APAC #6 documents
NVR: Ag committee accepts 'Proposal X'

I always feel like I'm coming into the meeting halfway through despite having been there from the beginning, like in a dream where you are the only person that doesn't know what's going on. As the fixed agenda of discussing specific solutions collides with the numerous related or unrelated requests to the planning director for more analysis and his subsequent reports, there is agenda disorientation.

In open comments this time, vintner Bob Dwyer spoke about tourism and the original intent of the ag preserve, which relieved my nervousness at having to speak later. And Geoff Ellsworth warmed up the crowd with a performance piece, "a few words about greed in 3 minutes".

Several unrelated proposals from committee members and the public (pages 6-12 of the agenda letter) were made since the last meeting, my own included. Director Morrison assigned them to 5 buckets for discussion here:

1. A definition of agriculture and of accessory uses (U)
2. A framework for policies defining winery uses (X)
3. Enforcement and compliance issues at wineries (W,R,P)
4. A policy for Variances (O,T,R)
5. Agricultural Development Incentives. (V)
not categorized or part of 1?:
Temporary Events(R,S)

Definition of Agriculture

One of Director Morrison's tasks this week was to look at an appropriate definition of agriculture and accessory winery uses. Scouring the ordinances and the general plan (pages 2-5 of the agenda letter) he came up with a "consolidated","working" definition (pages 5-6 of the agenda letter).

Toward the beginning of his presentation he reiterated Bill Dodd's contention that the 2010 changes to the WDO were "clarifications" rather than modifications of the ordinance. I was dismayed.

A discussion on the definition occupied almost an hour and a half. Dan Mufson with a magazine full of winery ads touting concerts, art exhibits, lunches and dinners, asked how that could be considered agriculture. The business members responded that most of those were "temporary" events and I suddenly realized why temporary event permits, which had been so low on my radar, were a big issue. They have become an enormous tourist revenue source completely unregulated by the use-permit process.

Dan used the word "tourism" in his remarks and I realized that the word is never, never used in these discussions, just as it is never used in the General Plan. The perhaps more accurate and unloaded terms "hospitality" or "visitation" are spoken, but the "T" word is the elephant in the room, the reason these meetings exist, and no one wants to say it's name.

At the end of the "consolidated definition" discussion Christina Benz raised an objection to the inclusion of marketing and non-commercial service of food as being agricultural activities equalivalent to grape processing wishing to move it down to the accessory use category. With the objection outvoted, a vote was taken on accepting the consolidated definition. (12-4 "for") The committee with almost no debate seemed to be accepting the idea that tourism is agriculture. Does this supermajority vote mean attempts to change that definition in the committee's final recommendations are dead?

(Personal note: my proposal, proposal U, suggesting a change in the WDO to reduce tourism uses at wineries, and essentially rejecting the notion of the equality of tourism and agriculture, was lumped into this bucket and, I thought, summarily ignored as off-the-wall, which perhaps it was. In fact the bulk of my proposal, 6 "recognitions" of the negative impacts of tourism in the vineyards, was cut entirely from Proposal U in the agenda letter. The polite and stony silence that greeted my verbal defense, laden with the "T" word, was a bad sign.)

Proposal X

The remainder of the meeting was devoted to Director Morrison's Winery Use-Permit Framework Proposal X (page 12 of the agenda letter), a grid of criteria that attempts to encapsulate a wide range of winery parameters grouped according to parcel size and location. It was another bravura feat of multilateral resolution that Director Morrison has brought to the many fractured ideas coming his way. It is too bad such a grid did not form the basis for previous discussions, but obviously the open ended discussion had to get this far to make the formulation of such a grid possible.

Proposal X was seen as a lifesaver by the committee in trying to come to grips with the complexity of the interrelated problems, David Graves' "wicked" problem, that they have been discussing through 6 meetings. The committee eagerly embraced it as an organizing framework for future discussions with the first unanimous vote in this process.

The issues of enforcement, variances and ag development incentives were put off until the next meeting on July 13th.

copyright © sodacanyonroad.org