K-J plans for Knights Valley winery stir controversy

By JOHN WATERS Jr.
For the Register

A plan by Kendall-Jackson founder Jess Jackson to build a winery and visitor’s complex in bucolic Knights Valley continues to drive a wedge between neighbors in the Franz Valley/Knights Valley area.

The controversy lingers even though the plan has been scaled back from the original presented two years ago. Knights Valley is a quiet grapegrowing region divided  in Sonoma County, just five miles from Calistoga along Highway 128.

“The Sonoma County general plan has designated the whole valley along Highway 128 as a scenic route,” said Craig Enyart, a member of the Knights Valley/Franz Valley Association. “The whole Franz Valley/Knights Valley area within the county general plan is even more restrictive, and this project, we feel, will severely and negatively violate the protective aspect of that plan.”

Jackson has filed a use permit for the construction and operation of the Kellogg Ranch. The plan includes a winery and what would be Knights Valley’s first public tasting room. The permit application also includes planting 42 acres of grapes, building storage caves into the hillside, and building a 200-person event center.

The project was unveiled two years ago when Knights Valley resident Gloria Ball discovered that county permits and other materials that were meant to be mailed to Jackson were accidentally sent to an incorrect address. At the time, Ball said, “It’s by sheer and absolute luck that we found out about his plans for the area. These developments were never meant for us to see.”

Today, Ball says she has “no problem” with the proposal.

 “The reality is that this project is unstoppable,” said Knights Valley resident Gloria Ball. “Jess Jackson has made a lot of changes to his plan over the last 18 months or so, and his plan is much more viable that it once was.”

Ball herself has been criticized for changing her opinion of the Jackson project, but she says that is not the case.

“About 18 months ago, when we held our first public meeting on the subject, I was just reporting the facts as I’d understood them based on county records,” Ball said Tuesday. “I never opposed the project.”

The disagreement over the project has caused a rift on the Knights Valley/Franz Valley Association board of directors as well. Some members began proceedings to remove at least two others.

When that effort failed, Ball said, board members supporting the impeachment of Enyart and board member Jaimie Zukowski resigned “en masse,” effective at an unspecified future date when their positions can be filled through elections.

In a February letter to Sonoma County planners, members of the Knights Valley/Franz Valley Association Board listed about half a dozen concerns. Chief among them was a plan to change lot lines to allow additional buildings within the agricultural preserve, the grant of a use permit for a 5,000 case winery to include a public tasting room, and permitting up to four special events for up to 200 people annually at the facility.

Ball said Jackson has effectively addressed several concerns, including reducing the size of the winery, preserving and retrofitting a historic stone barn and holding ongoing public meetings.

One such meeting was planned for 40 members of the 180-residents community on Friday. Even that drew controversy.

Enyart said the meeting should have included all members of the community, but that 40 people “hand-picked” by Ball were the ones invited.

“It’s part of the Jackson plan to divide and conquer, so I sent out copies of his invitation to all of the members of the community who were not invited,” Enyart said.

Ball called Enyart’s conspiracy theory “ludicrous,” and his mailing of invitations “rude and out of line.”

“It’s not logical to think we can fit 180 people in the Knights Valley fire house,” she said. “We were trying to keep the attendance to a manageable size, not exclude anyone. And not all those whom I’ve urged Jackson to invite support the project.”

Jackson’s proposal has rekindled the passion that boiled over in Knights Valley back in 1988, when Peter Michael’s winery was proposed there.

Plans to build that winery, which is next to Jackson’s property, caused so much strife in the community that people stormed the project area with shotguns and one man used explosives to blow up a dam on the property.

“It was awful,” Ball said. “The community was so divided, some neighbors didn’t speak to each other for a decade following that, and I think all that has come back.”

The Peter Michael winery is open to visitors by appointment only, and does not have a public tasting room or retail facility.

“There was serious opposition to that winery at first,” Ball said. “But it’s been a good neighbor and now it’s a highly respected member of our community. We can only hope the same will become of the Jackson property once all of this is over.”

The plan

Kendall-Jackson wants to build Kellogg Ranch, which will include a winery, the valley’s first public tasting room  and a facility for  agricultural products.

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