County analyses reach opposite conclusions about growth cap

By DAVID RYAN
Register Staff Writer

It looks like land-use schizophrenia.

Napa County has put forward two reports on residential development.

Both were done by independent consultants, one in 2000, one last month. Both addressed virtually the same subject: What would be the effect of a 1 percent per year cap on residential growth in the unincorporated county?

The reports came to completely different conclusions.

The 2000 report was drafted as the Napa County Board of Supervisors considered passing a law that would cap annual residential growth at 1 percent per year.

Last month’s report was issued in response to a ballot initiative that would up the ante on that law — barring the supervisors from allowing any exceptions to that 1 percent cap and forcing any large county development to go to the voters.

In the 2000 report, “unregulated growth” is painted in a negative light.

Each new home, it said, would cost the county $1,705 each year to provide police, water and other services, but would bring in only $955 per year in taxes. “This would create an average deficit for the county of Napa of $750 per home, per year,” the report reads.

Given the costs, in addition to efforts to preserve the county’s rural heritage, the county determined that controlling residential growth in unincorporated areas is “critical to preserving the public health, safety and welfare of county residents.”

Fast-forward to February 2008, when the an independent analysis of the Responsible Growth Initiative was formally presented to the Napa County Board of Supervisors.

The 2008 report warned that the same restrictions on county growth would have dire effects in the long term, because the county would be hamstrung from adding homes as needed to meet state mandates.

The report even raised the threat that the Responsible Growth Initiative might jeopardize Measure J — a popular slow-growth law that forces any zoning changes to the Agricultural Preserve to go before the voters. The 2008 report concluded that strict growth caps might lead to new legal challenges to Measure J, which faced legal challenges for years before finally winning court approval.

So what’s changed?

Victor Ajlouny, a political strategist hired by proponents of the Responsible Growth Initiative, said the chasm between the two reports illustrates how the county is biased against the initiative, which is set to go before voters in June. In his view, the county is reluctant to obstruct the prospects for development at the former Napa Pipe site. Since the Responsible Growth Initiative would do that, the county is looking to poke holes in the initiative.

“They are spending taxpayer dollars for a fair and balanced report and yet the (2008) report never addresses the positive impact on maintaining agricultural land and saving water resources ... it’s focused strictly on the negative,” he said.

Napa County Supervisor Mark Luce says the report is a neutral analysis of the measure by outside advisors, and that county officials had no say as to its conclusions.

“It’s not really our report,” he said. Luce acknowledged that the board gave the consultants instructions to look at broad policy impacts, such as what effect the initiative would have on the 2004 settlement agreement with affordable housing advocates.

In fact, that legal agreement is one of the key differences between 2000 and 2008 when it comes to residential development in Napa County.

In the lawsuit, advocates for farmworkers argued that the county was out of compliance with housing laws and needed to provide more homes. To settle the case, which the county was likely to lose, officials entered into expensive housing agreements with the cities of American Canyon and Napa. They also identified several areas in the unincorporated county where more residential development could take place — including Angwin, Moskowite Corners, Spanish Flat and land near Silverado Resort.

The idea of developing homes in several of those areas has proven controversial or unlikely because of infrastructure restrictions. As a result, the county remains at risk of running afoul of state housing laws.

That, in part, is what makes the Napa Pipe proposal for 3,200 townhomes — 20 percent of which would be set aside as affordable — a possible benefit for the county.

It is also what makes the authors of the 2008 report concerned. If the new initiative makes the county less flexible when it comes to housing, the report says, that could hurt the county in the long run.

Luce said the Responsible Growth Initiative offers no new benefits to the county, because the zoning restrictions within it are already on the books.

“All the benefits of that ordinance are in place ... its not going to reap any new benefits because the ordinance is already in place,” he said. “Those benefits were achieved in the first ordinance and now this initiative can’t claim those benefits.”

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