South Napa showdown

Two years ago, the Napa Pipe property was just a rusty relic of Napa’s industrial past.

To the west, the Ghisletta property was an example of the county’s deeper agrarian roots, its grassy slopes greeting people on their way into the valley.

Today, both sites are battlegrounds, and in a sense may be competing against each other. The Ghisletta family and the city of Napa are marching toward a plan in which nearly 1,000 homes may stand where one or two homes stand today. No blueprints exist, but the city has moved toward annexation of the land, with the Ghislettas’ encouragement.

Across the Napa River floodplain, Napa Redevelopment Partners paid some $40 million to acquire the 152-acre Napa Pipe site, with a plan to reinvent it. The proposal is for 3,200 townhomes as well as commercial and industrial activity on the land between the Napa River and the Napa-Vallejo Highway.

The Napa Pipe plan has met headwinds since it was unveiled, despite county officials’ hunger for more affordable housing near the work and transportation hubs of the valley, and despite the developer’s stated goal of a handsomely-designed, socially-beneficial community. Napa Pipe is the target of a ballot initiative, perhaps to appear in June, that would effectively kill the project while it is still in the study phase.

The Ghisletta plan is not nearly so far along. There is no design for the streets and homes that would occupy the land. Napa city and Napa County are wrestling over which will get the larger share of the property tax pie, when and if the land is developed. Neighbors are staking their opposition to the development on hard questions about planning, traffic and environmental impacts.

Beneath the surface tensions is even more tension — a sense that the two projects are in competition.

Do we really need to set aside land for 4,000 new homes — perhaps 10,000 more residents — in south Napa in the next decade or so?

Isn’t Napa Pipe better, since the reuse of the industrial land will not cut into our ag heritage, or our views?

Isn’t Ghisletta better, because it does not envision a mini-city outside city boundaries, nor does it seek — as Napa Pipe does — buildings taller than any other in the county?

Might we be better off with neither? Or would Napa be even more out of balance without at least one of the projects, lacking housing that anyone but the elite can afford?

City and county officials who want to see these areas developed need to convince residents that they are not selling out the county for a long-term tax boost, or to reach a set number of housing units to appease state and regional agencies. They must explain to residents why working with these developers’ ambitious dreams is in our best interest.

They must make the hard choices — on maintaining open space, encouraging economic balance, creating a pool of truly affordable housing and preserving resources — to earn popular support.

The Ghislettas and Napa Redevelopment Partners may find themselves in a race to get approval before the other guy does. With the Responsible Growth Initiative gaining signatures and the Keep Napa Napa and Save Foster Road groups emerging, the battle is joined.

Elected leaders cannot simply take sides in these fights, or push the outcomes that benefit their agencies the most. They must stand above them, imagine the best Napa Valley we can hope for in 40 years, and work purposefully toward bringing that vision to life.

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