After a nearly a year of debate and neighborhood anguish over inadequate fire department response times, Napa officials allowed the Silverado Napa Corp. to build a 43-home subdivision on a former school site in Browns Valley.

The Napa City Council approved the Crossings at Browns Valley Tuesday after the developer satisfied neighbors by reducing the size and height of homes on the perimeter of the 10-acre site.

“I think it goes from a really bad project to a really good project,” said Councilman Peter Mott, who credited activist neighbors with forcing design changes.

The council suspended action on the subdivision in September, directing the developer to meet with neighbors and work out a compromise while the city grappled with slow fire and medical response times.

“This is the compatibility we were looking for on the perimeter,” said Cathy Felder, a neighborhood leader who had complained that the original plans called for too many big two-story houses.

Most of the perimeter models are now one-story, with larger backyards than first proposed.

Left unresolved are the traffic improvements that the city will require Silverado Napa Corp. to make at Browns Valley Road and Austin Way to make it safer for pedestrians to cross. This matter will be referred to the city’s Traffic Advisory Committee for resolution. Neighbors want the developer to install flashing lights in the crosswalk across Browns Valley, while city staff prefers that the crossing be narrowed with bulbed-out sidewalks.

Councilman Mark van Gorder said the Traffic Advisory Committee needs to assess the project’s impact on other intersections and streets and find ways to keep conditions from becoming worse.

Neighbors suggested stop signs at the corner of Austin Way and Scenic Drive and at the corner of Austin Way and Carmel Drive, while one neighbor said a traffic light was the best solution to safety issues at Browns Valley and Austin.

Whatever the traffic impact of these 43 houses, it will be considerably less than if the Napa Valley Unified School District had built an elementary school there, Krider said. “The traffic would have been crazy bad a couple of times a day,” he said.

The council approved the Crossings at Browns Valley on a 4-1 vote, with Councilwoman Juliana Inman refusing to endorse the project until the city comes up with a plan for improve fire and medical emergency response to Browns Valley.

Browns Valley generates relatively few calls for service, but paramedic and firefighter response times to Browns Valley are among the slowest in the city.

Neighbors cited poor emergency service in fighting both the Carmel Drive project and the larger 72-home Hussey Ranch project on Partrick Road. That project received council approval in September.

Silverado Napa Corp. had earlier offered to pay $35,000 toward city efforts to find an emergency response solution for Browns Valley. But after Hussey Ranch volunteered $216,000, or $3,000 per parcel, the developer upped its offer Tuesday to $129,000, an equal per-parcel amount.

In December, the city used a portion of Hussey Ranch money, paid by the O’Brien Group, to commission $72,000 worth of fire response studies, which will be completed by mid-year.

Mayor Jill Techel announced another step Tuesday to make good on her promise to work out a Browns Valley emergency response plan before the first new homes at Hussey Ranch and the Crossings at Browns Valley open in two to three years.

Techel is forming a committee of residents, top city staff and council members who will analyze new fire information.

Notices went out to 600 Browns Valley residents asking if they wanted to volunteer for the committee, Techel said. Of the 18 who said yes, six are being selected to work with Techel, Inman, Fire Chief Tim Borman and City Manager Mike Parness.

Responding to neighbor suggestions, the council said that outdoor construction could not occur on Carmel Drive on the weekends. Neighbors bordering the construction site will be offered backyard fences before site work begins.

To promote more affordable housing choices, the city is requiring that 40 percent of Carmel Drive houses have accessory units that can be rented out by homeowners.

To discourage buyers from breaking out walls and incorporating this extra square footage into their homes, the council will require deed restrictions on these 15 houses to prohibit it. Using the small units as vacation rentals will be similarly prohibited.

John Kolkhorst, president of Silverado Napa Corp., said most buyers would view the accessory units, which are under 1,000 square feet, as a valuable asset. Many owners are expected to rent the units to family members.

The Crossings at Browns Valley features 22 larger houses ranging from 2,268 square feet to 2,863 square feet, not counting accessory units, around the perimeter, with smaller, clustered houses, from 1,961 square feet to 2,380 square feet, at the center.

The clustered units will have small lots, but share a common open space. The subdivision will have landscaped passageways to two city parks, Kensington on Scenic Drive, and Sunrise on Westview Drive.

Kolkhorst said the project would take two years to build, with construction possibly starting this summer, depending on how long it takes the city to review construction drawings.

Because getting project approval took an extra year, with fewer and smaller homes than first intended, Silverado Napa Corp. will reap a smaller profit than projected, Kolkhorst said. “It will definitely affect the bottom line,” he said.

Kolkhorst, whose company paid $9.6 million for 10 acres, declined to predict the sales prices at the times the first homes come on the market, potentially in 2008. This is an uncertain housing market, he said.