After years in the making, we have finally come down to a decision point on Napa Pipe, last night's meeting being the first in several that will take place over the next few months leading to a vote by the Supervisors.

I was an early but reluctant supporter of Napa Pipe, telling the developer on each occasion that I met with him that I thought it was too big. When I ran for Napa County Supervisor in 2009-10 my position was that we needed it due to the affordable housing law suit, and to meet our State mandated housing requirements. In a televised candidates debate I supported the fewest units possible to meet those needs, up to 800 at the most.

In the mean time the County has won the affordable housing law suits, and the state has greatly reduced the number of required housing units to the point that we essentially have no requirement, the ones we normally build anyway meet those low numbers.

Real estate prices have also crashed, making a $300,000 condo unsellable in today's market and that is quite likely to continue for some time.

Things have changed so much that most of the major selling points of Napa Pipe have evaporated.

I have spent considerable time reading all the documents associated with the project over the last year, 600 pages of traffic information alone, 600 pages ofcomments, most of the new documents that just came out, and I have written in considerable detail my thoughts about all that and it sits now on my hard drive.

For this piece today I am just going to tell you my conclusions without the back up, but the back up is there and I will be submitting it to the planning commission in the next few weeks, so if you are interested it will be in their comments available to the public.

The most important thing to understand is the context in which all this takes place. In brief, Napa must limit any development that it can in order to stay a farming community. Farming and urbanization are not compatible. There is simply no way around this.

There are three major issues which are a problem for Napa Pipe. The biggest problem is water. The state's water is already 30% overdrafted, which means that water has been taken out of the ground 30% past replacement level. The Delta surface water as a source is stretched to the max. Even one year of drought, the way this year is shaping up to be, is going to cause problems for city water supplies.

Farming in Napa uses a lot of water, mostly out of the ground. The nightmare scenario that could shape up is the cities are desperate for water, and they start tapping ground water. They already have in Napa County, and we have a ground water ordinance in place that allows only temporary use of ground water by the cities, but that could go on for years because a drought can go for years.

The nightmare for Napa farming begins when that tapping of ground water causes dry wells on farms. That is a very real possibility and why we have to protect ground water, and one way to do that is by limiting the population in Napa. The more people you have the more open taps in a drought. What are you going to do in a drought, tell people they can't turn on their tap water? No, the farms will just lose their crops, and that would be a total disaster, and no one knows for sure how much water is under there.

Napa Pipe mainly wants to use ground water, and a lot of it, and that is a threat to farming. Also, if we are going to start to tap ground water for residents, why do only new residents get this water? Is that fair? State water project water is scarce and expensive, local ground water is free. 

This is the kind of thinking that is going to happen as soon as water dries up.

The second biggest problem for Napa Pipe is economic. Because of the real estate recession it doesn't pencil  out any more, if it ever really did. Who is going to leave a $150,000 home in Fairfield to live in a $300,000 condo in Napa? Especially now that Jamieson Canyon is being widened and it will be easier than ever to commute in? Not many.

The third problem is traffic. Reducing traffic has been one of the developer's main selling points and it is the area I have looked into the most. And there is no doubt that Napa Pipe will greatly increase traffic in Napa.

The selling point is that it will be a place to get those commuting into Napa to move here and therefore off the road. I doubt it will do that to any great extent, but even if that is true it will only reduce traffic south of the project location, it will greatly increase traffic, especially in the south part of the City of Napa. This is laid out clearly in the original EIR.

We have been told for a while now that there are 21,000 commuting in and out of Napa daily, that is 21,000 both ways. Last night that number abruptly changed to 29,000, according to the developers consultant. Pretty big switch on one days notice, but in any case a big part of that is those who live in places where it is unlikely that they would move to the Napa Pipe location. People who live in Santa Rosa who commute to the upper valley, people who live in Vallejo who commute to American Canyon, etc, etc.

At the 21,000 level I broke it down to about 3,000-5,000 who lived somewhere and worked somewhere that made it likely that their commute would be significantly improved by moving to Napa Pipe. And that is assuming they want to move. Napa and Napa Pipe will always be more expensive than Solano and Contra Costa, and many workers want to live in a house with a yard because they have a family.

Also, there are just as many people who want to live in Napa who work outside the county. They are just as likely to want to buy at Napa Pipe as anyone else, as it is close to the freeway and Highway 12 for their commute out of town.

The fact is that we would be lucky to get even 300 market-rate units sold to current Napa workers commuting in from out of town. The rest would simply be new growth and new population.

There are many more minor points that are troubling, one response in the latest EIR supplement mentioned that the county expects a high level of retail development along 29, that Imola Avenue is essentially going to become constantly congested, that Soscol will need a new lane on each side, that all kinds of major mitigations need to be done and there is no money to pay for it, etc, etc.

You should read the traffic EIR, it is quite enlightening and I can't imagine that anyone who does thinks that all this growth would be a good idea. If I lived off Imola I would be very concerned.  

On top of that, if in fact it is true that 29,000 commuters are coming in every day, and even if all 2,050 units were taken by 2,050 of those commuters, we would not be able to notice the difference on the roads. We would still have 27,000 commuting in and within two years at present growth rates we would be back over 29,000. Building Napa Pipe would accelerate the problem, not solve it.

There are other issues, it is not infill development, infill means there is a house next door, not a rock quarry, it is not a transportation hub, there is no reason to think people there will use the bus there any more than people in Yountville or Brown's Valley, it is hardly the last place to put residential in Napa, there are 675 units planned for downtown Napa right now which actually is infill, etc, etc.

In a final blow to Napa Pipe, it turns out that leasing of industrial space in south county is starting to pick up. Included in the current packet of information was an article from the North Bay Business Journal dated Febuary 13, 2012 which details the increased activity. See here, item T:

http://services.countyofnapa.org/AgendaNet/MeetingDocuments.aspx?ID=3285

Sometimes less is more. I favor leaving the Napa Pipe property zoned just the way it is, industrial. There are just too many problems with switching it over to residential, with either the planning department's new version or the current developer proposal.