Bubble meeting bursting at seams

Crowded planning meeting turns into debate on future of Angwin

By DAVID RYAN
Register Staff Writer

It was wall to wall — to wall to wall — people at a Wednesday meeting of the Napa County Planning Commission, where the subject was the future of Angwin.

Citizens interested in the Angwin “bubble” — a zoning matter that was on the planning commission’s agenda — and the Pacific Union College plan for 380 new homes and an Eco-Village — which was not on the agenda —  packed the board of supervisors’ chambers and three overflow rooms.

Chambers at the downtown Napa building were so filled the planning commission voted to continue the public hearing to Sept. 5 at a place and time yet to be finalized.

The formal subject Wednesday was the zoning issue surrounding the so-called Angwin urban bubble, a more-or-less oval line on planning maps that carves out part of the rural community for potential development. But formality was overstepped at many points because residents chagrined by the proposed 380-dwelling development often did not distinguish between PUC’s wish to leave the bubble as is and PUC’s proposal for the Eco-Village.

Questions about the Eco-Village and the bubble are on separate tracks before county officials. But since both are arising at the same time, and since there is a chance the county’s decision about the bubble could limit the PUC project, the two issues have become intertwined in the eyes of many.On Wednesday, that was so much the case that an exasperated Planning Commission Chairman Jim King interrupted several speakers to keep them on the subject at hand and not the proposed PUC development.

“I want a jar on that table that everyone has to put in $10 every time they say plan,” he said at one point.

The group Save Rural Angwin wants to pop the Angwin bubble and re-zone the area as mix of institutional, agricultural, commercial and residential uses that would limit college expansion to about 190 affordable homes.

Officials for the college have advocated for leaving the bubble as is.

County staffers have considered redrawing the bubble so that it more accurately reflects the mix or rural and urban uses already in evidence in Angwin.

Bubbles, cars, torpedos

Allen Spence, spokesman for Save Rural Angwin, said the Eco-Village proposal would expand the size of Angwin by 22 percent. SRA members say local roads and water supplies cannot support such growth, and they also have expressed concern the community would lose the quiet, country feel that defines it.

College officials told the planning commission that altering the bubble would infringe on the property rights of the college, which owns vast tracts of forest that have been used for years by the public for biking and hiking. PUC President Richard Osborn told the commissioners that if PUC cannot develop a relatively small portion of its property for homes and commercial uses to bulk up the school’s endowment, it might have to choose grapes over houses.

“Taking land out of the urban bubble will deal a serious blow to PUC,” said Osborn. “If you remove PUC land from the urban bubble then its only value will be as vineyard land.”

In the past, the Seventh-day Adventist institution has sold land that has been converted to vineyards, and Osborn said those transactions have had a negative impact in the Adventist community, whose members do not drink alcohol.

“We’ve sold our land for vineyards before and let me tell you, it did tear our community apart,” he said.

Most speakers Wednesday came out against the PUC plan. However, many supporters spread out through the rooms did not get a chance to speak.

Terrance Ford was with the majority that reached the podium.

“I support bursting the bubble so the community as a whole can decide what their community should be,” he said.

Pat Griffith focussed on the traffic and water impacts that potential development might bring to Howell Mountain Road.

“We’ve just had our 15th wreck near our driveway,” he said. “... We have a neighbor whose well has gone dry and we are now sharing our water with them.”

Olaf Beckmann brought a homemade DVD of trucks rumbling through Deer Park, a small community west of Angwin.

“It never stops, there’s never a peak,” he said, narrating the short movie. “The road was never designed for this and now there’s talk of seven-to-nine years of construction.”

Longtime Angwin resident Virgil Morris was another supporter of the Save Rural Angwin proposal to burst the bubble.

“I chose the community for the peace and quiet that exists,” he said. “The bubble is an arbitrary circle drawn around this community.”

PUC representatives spent time trying to debunk that widespread notion.

Napa attorney and former Napa City Council member Kevin Block, representing PUC, showed minutes from a 1974 planning meeting where Angwin and American Canyon were both labeled as urban areas on purpose.

He said the bubble was meant to allow for inevitable growth in rural areas, and that it remains a valuable planning tool.

He also tried to steer the debate about the bubble away from the specter of PUC’s development proposal.

“It’s inappropriate to pass judgment on the project through the general plan,” he said.

Angwin resident Julie Lee spoke on behalf of herself, though she works in public relations for PUC.

She criticized the mostly gray-haired opponents of the urban bubble and PUC’s development proposal for wanting to shut the door on the younger generation who want to raise children in Angwin.

“For me the urban bubble represents a vision of a future, a future to which I can belong,” she said.

Other supporters were unabashed about the relationship between the Angwin urban bubble staying the way it is and PUC’s proposed development.

“This general plan should not be manipulated to torpedo what could be a very good project,” Manny Scrofani said. “They are asking to leave the bubble the way it is so they can finance PUC. Changing the bubble won’t help, it’ll just bury another (educational) institution.”

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