The Napa County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Tuesday to send the largest development proposal the county has ever seen down a public path of inquiry, setting in motion environmental studies for the residential and commercial development of the 152-acre Napa Pipe site.

Supervisors Brad Wagenknecht and Diane Dillon broke with the majority, opposing the idea that Napa Pipe developers had a sufficiently detailed proposal — and one that was in line with the county’s current land use blueprint — to allow county staff to process the application and order an environmental review.

The developer seeks to build 3,200 dwellings, with about 80 acres of parks and open space, about half a million square feet for business and light industrial uses, a 150-unit condominium hotel and 40,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail. About 20 percent of the dwellings would be classed as affordable housing.

The proposal comes at a time when the county is vulnerable on the question of whether it has enough affordable housing to meet state requirements, even as it tries to preserve agricultural uses on most county lands. Complicating matters are agreements the county entered into with the cities of Napa and American Canyon, where the cities took on some of the required housing for the county in exchange for financial assistance for Napa and agreements to allow annexation of county land by American Canyon.

Some supervisors have said the county can’t afford to make such deals again.

Enter the Napa Redevelopment Partners, a group of businessmen led by Keith Rogal, who developed Carneros Inn, and including former Napa Mayor Ed Henderson and former Napa Pipe worker Steve Orndorf.

The group wants to convince the county to accept the project, arguing that it benefits the county by providing homes in the region where most of the county’s jobs are centered.

“Large and constantly growing numbers of people, people who work here, people who have grown up here, can’t live here,” Rogal told the supervisors Tuesday, adding he saw his proposal helping to alleviate traffic on Napa County highways. Rogal said his research showed 13,000 people commuted to Napa in a typical workday.

County staff came to the board Tuesday recommending the green light for the Napa Pipe application process, reasoning that the developers could start an application for a general plan amendment on land currently zoned for heavy industrial use because such a use is in line with the new draft general plan that calls for the area to be zoned as “transitional.”

Rogal was careful to point out the technical issue before the board.

“What we seek today is not an endorsement of that plan,” Rogal said. “What we seek is confirmation that the plan is worthy of study.”

The public speaks

Many in the audience were well aware of the technical distinction, and opposed the idea on those grounds.

Harold Kelly, a member of the newly-formed Napa County Parks and Open Space District and a longtime agricultural land preservationist, said if the board allowed the proposal to go forward it would circumvent the new draft general plan process.

“Many of the ideas in the revised general plan document under public discussion, and especially the idea of a special transition zone for this property, are controversial and approval at this time is not in the public interest,” he said. “The Napa Redevelopment Partners are obviously pressuring the staff for a quick decision without public discussion so they can write the conditions of the revised general plan document to fit their needs.”

In a letter to the board, Napa resident Eve Kahn, a member of Get a Grip on Growth, said allowing the project to go forward would set a bad precedent.

“By accepting these changes now, you will establish land use and policies that are incompatible with the existing (general plan) and, most probably, inconsistent with the new (general plan) as well,” she wrote.

Representatives of the local chapter of the Sierra Club and the Napa Coalition for Slow Growth echoed those sentiments, some adding the development might squash 1 percent growth restrictions approved by voters years ago in Measure A.

But there were also members of the public who praised Rogal and his vision.

Former Yountville Mayor Carlee Leftwich, advocating for seniors, said Rogal’s vision for Napa Pipe gave her hope for the future.

“When I read about this project I had a dream that I could grow old in Napa Valley,” she said.

Lindsay Kitchens, a 25-year-old American Canyon resident who said she is a fourth-generation Napan, said the Napa Pipe development would allow her to stay in California.

“I’m here (at the meeting) because my husband and I have been having discussions of moving out of the state,” she said. “We don’t want to do that because all of our friends and family live here.”

Supervisor Mark Luce said the time was right to start the studies for Napa Pipe, arguing that he needed more specifics about the plan before making an informed decision, and that an environmental review would provide specifics.

“That can’t happen until we begin the process,” he said.

Still, Luce also said he wanted to see better assurances from Rogal that the project might provide workforce housing in the project, possibly through deed restrictions.

Supervisor Bill Dodd said it was important the county work with the city of Napa, which, if the development goes through, will likely be asked to provide water service at the very least. But Dodd emphasized that expensive housing agreements with the cities could not be sustained again. Then there were other pressures.

“Napa County will continue to be subject to expensive litigation if we do not go through this process,” he said.

Supervisor Harold Moskowite said he agreed with Luce.

“We just need to go ahead and separate the wheat from the chaff,” he said.

Wagenknecht rejected Luce’s argument, saying he heard the same information but came to a different conclusion.

“The precedent we’ve always had on the board is urban uses in urban areas, the cities,” he said, adding the county had no business building workforce housing on the scale of the Napa Pipe project. “We’re not the city. If we did it we’d be doing it out of context.”

Dillon focused more on the legal aspects of the plan, when she rejected a move to have the application processed.

“The proposal that we have in front of us today is not specific enough and does not have enough guarantees,” she said.