Bill Hocker | Aug 11, 2015

NVR: Vintners fear scope of suggested winery matrix (read the comments)

On Aug 10th, the Agricultural Protection Advisory Committee decided to sanction the status quo of ever more building development on agricultural land in Napa County. So far the committee has not agreed on a single proposal to protect agriculture, the purpose of its convening (although compliance with existing use permits has been supported). As Mike Hackett chastised the committee at the last meeting, so far it's been "no" to most every proposal thus far, and this meeting scuttled the one effort that was supposed to make up for all of the other individual proposals that have not been discussed over the last few months.

Framework X

The discussion this week revolved around Framework X. On July 22nd the committee voted unanimously to accept the concept, if not the specifics, of Planning Director Morrison's Framework X for use by the planning commission in evaluating the application requests for winery use permits. The framework contained a grid of variables involved in use permit applications: production capacity, tourism and food service requests, land consumption, variances allowed, etc, based on parcel size and location (valley floor vs watershed).

Peter McCrea of the Napa Valley Vintners began this meeting by announcing that the NVV could no longer support the framework. The numbers in the boxes of the grid might be interpreted as ceilings; the NVV doesn't want development ceilings. And the Framework might imply that existing wineries would have to abide by the requirements if they went in for a modification to their use permit. Alex Ryan of Duckhorn Vineyards, in public comments summed up this attitude: The matrix is OK - as long as we don't have to abide by it.

Bruce Phillips was disappointed by the NVV decision, as were all in the room concerned about the future urban development of the county, indicating that the framework was an attempt to eliminate some of the subjectivity of the Planning Commission process that has left the County rudderless in controlling development. This body is not here to craft specific policy. It is time to step out of the box and think of long term problem solving rather than protecting short term interests.

Comments went back and forth on the specifics of the grid: should AP and AW zones be treated differently; should there be a by-right "CEQA" small winery definition from the County's local procedures for implementing CEQA (Appendix B page 2). The small-winery-dream lobby, galvanized by early talk of increasing minimum parcel size, has been the most aggressive voice in these discussions (now with 2 attorneys to represent their interests).

Public comments:
Alex Ryan: see above
Bernadette Brooks: impact on neighbors and nature not being considered; development of +10 acre parcels in AW will be overwhelming.
Mike Reynolds: one size fits all-bad, loss of approved entitlements, denial of property rights
Jim Sabovitch: ditto.
Dario Sattui: right to farm = tourism. more tourism necessary, more tourism. more tourism.
Julie Arbuckle: wine industry = tourism. approve non-compliance. X means no new wineries. Treat AP-AW same.
Ginna Beharry: lots of fear-mongering. APAC exists because of tourism impacts. what is the end game - self interested grasping or intelligent group solution. we need leaders.
Yeoryios Apallas: APAC exists because of imbalance. Traffic and water concerns need solutions. AP and AW different
Geoff Ellsworth: wineries should't be punished - neither should residents. even a monkey knows when another monkey gets a bigger banana. rescind the 2010 WDO
Jim Felton: I paid a lot for my 10 acre parcel. Framework makes it less valuable - County needs to pay me the difference.
Harvest Duhig: adopt framework. AP-AW different, Adopt "CEQA" small winery.
David Pena: does X regulate farm management buildings?
Michelle Benvenuto: X retroactive? X not based on env. impacts. X numbers arbitrary.

With the tide shifted against approval of the framework content, Bruce Phillips moved to adopt framework without content as 1. a guideline not a policy proposal 2. Not retroactive for existing use permit provisions 3. would apply to use-permit modification changes only. Seconded by Cio Perez

Member discussion:
Dunbar: need to discuss line items.
Graves: Carneros should not be considered AW.
Morrison: vote to approve framework can have conditions.
Dunbar: calls for substitute motion to eliminate #3 from Philips motion.
Perez: huge mistake to exempt major-mods from X. Anything that affects future vineyard development in county needs to come under X.
Tony LeBlank: can't support X
Jeri Gill: can't support X
Dunbar substitute motion vote: 8-8 defeated.
Phillips motion vote: 6-10 defeated

The NVV, of course, essentially holds veto power on any planning decisions made in the county. It is unlikely that any of the soul-searching going on in the last year would have happened had not some of its more responsible members, like Mr. McCrea and Mr. Hall, not felt the development trajectory happening in the valley to be unhealthy. That why this decision is so disappointing.

Is this the end of Framework X - and of industry-supported change? Stay tuned.

Consolidated parcel development area

Cio Perez brings up motion for vote: recommend to BOS that combined development area of parcel be defined for all uses, winery, residential, accessory.
vote: 8-8 motion fails.
Dunbar asks that staff review issue and discussion be agendized for next meeting.

Definition of agriculture

Eve Kahn presented her revised definition of agriculture
Debra Dommen: General plan definition is summarized by Morrison's consolidated definition marketing=agriculture.
Dir. Morrison: General Plan Definition rules: marketing=agriculture.
Ted Hall: definition in General Plan arrived at after years of debate: marketing=agriculture.

Bruce Phillips asks McCrea and Dohman, who were involved in 2008 GP discussions, what was the intent in the decision that marketing was equated to agriculture.
Peter McCrea's non-answer: separating wine making and wine marketing was not possible.
Debra Dommen: what he said.
The definition of agriculture is to be discussed at next meeting though after these putdowns a recommendation for change seems unlikely. This was an enlightening discussion because it pushes the origins of the event-center winery boom back from the 2010 WDO discussions to the 2008 GP discussions.

The big picture

Here is APAC in a nutshell and why its efforts were preordained to be inconsequential: resident discontent over the impacts of tourism led to the creation of the committee but the county, both government and industry, is at heart a growth engine committed to ever expanding development. Despite a generation of visionaries that have tried to craft an agriculture based economy in an urban world, and the honest effort of Dir. Morrison to find a way to slow things down, the county government, like all local governments, is an extension of those who stand to profit through growth. Wine is a marketable and sustainable resource, but it is limited and can only support a stable economy. Wine tourism is a growth industry. The equation of agriculture and tourism is the development industry's solution to harness its growth agenda to the visionaries' agrarian ideals - and the residents (and farmers and vintners) concerned about what that growth may mean for their lives, their environment, and those ideals may be dismissed, in the words of the General Plan, as "neighbor complaints" about the right to farm. We appreciate that the county has taken some effort to listen to neighbor complaints, but the Agricultural Protection Advisory Committee, in rejecting the tourism limits of framework X and in continuing to insist that tourism is agriculture, appears increasingly to be a sop.

Until the wine industry and its government adopt the notion that continuing a "growth" economy means death for the agricultural economy, and until they begin to seek a "stable" economy based on the agricultural resource available, the desire of residents to protect the agricultural character and substance of the county will be futile.

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8/11/15 update:

At the BOS meeting today, Gary Margadant got up in public comments to voice his discouragement with the APAC meeting, "the wine industry just said no.", and encouraged the Supervisors to convene more informal discussions to pursue solutions to the development problems that are so evident in the county. Rex Stults of the vintners then got up with the same message, and a reminder that at the Mar. 10th joint PC/BOS meeting there was a commitment to create a committee including the county and the municipalities, to address long term development impacts.

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