Angwin eco-village EIR Expected by year's end

By JILLIAN JONES
Register Staff Writer

While controversy swirls over proposed development in the South County, quiet Angwin is also the subject of a development effort that may come before lawmakers later this year.

Pacific Union College originally unveiled plans for a 591-home eco-village, including a new park and community-serving stores. The project, to be built by private developer Triad Communities, has since been scaled back to 380 homes.

Napa County Planning Director Hillary Gitelman said the environmental impact report, which is already underway, could be complete by early December. The public will have the chance to comment on the draft EIR before a final report is drawn up, she said.

Possible areas of concern, according to Gitelman, are traffic, emergency access, water availability and water quality.

Also, Gitelman added, “In Angwin, you have the whole question of the character of the community. It is a rural setting, and we want to preserve the character of the community.”

But to some, development and preservation are mutually exclusive. The group Save Rural Angwin launched a campaign from the start against the eco-village, saying local roads, water and sewage services cannot handle hundreds of new homes, and that the college should settle for the 191 residential units already approved by the county.

Allen Spence, spokesperson for Save Rural Angwin, said the group is pumping up its fundraising efforts in order to keep the project in check.

SRA launched a fundraising drive to finance legal counsel, hire its own environmental consultant to review the EIR and to expand its base of 1,100 supporters, Spence said.

Fundraising efforts include two challenge grants of $10,000 each, one from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars’ Warren and Barbara Winiarski, and one from Dario Sattui, owner of Castello di Amorosa and V. Sattui Winery.

Spence said the group has raised almost $30,000 in the past couple months.

“We are going to pursue every legal option available to us to stop this project,” Spence said.

If necessary, he said, the group might challenge the EIR in court.

PUC officials have said the project — which includes construction of homes with energy- and water-efficient features, upgrades to the PUC campus and an overhaul of Angwin’s small commercial zone — is essential for the school to remain vibrant.

At county hearings and elsewhere, they have argued that the college should not be hindered from what PUC leaders characterize as modest changes to their sprawling property, that they have made adjustments in relation to community concerns and that the county needs housing that will support locals, including workers at the college and nearby St. Helena Hospital.

Peter Bartelme, spokesperson for Triad Communities and PUC, pointed out that the school and developer have created a new Web site with information about the project, www.angwin-ecovillage.com.

In an e-mail, Bartelme said, “We welcome scrutiny of the EIR and believe it will show that the eco-village is a model of sustainability and an environmentally sensitive project that will benefit the community of Angwin in a variety of ways. We find it unusual that this group would mobilize to challenge an EIR that has yet to be completed or released, which demonstrates the group’s unwillingness to even consider the EIR findings in an open-minded or fair manner.”

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