The Napa County Planning Commission Wednesday tentatively approved plans to redesignate nearly 2,000 acres scattered across 12 separate pieces of unincorporated county land. The land, currently set aside for residential use, would now be designated for agriculture.

The modifications to these so-called “urban bubbles” — roughly drawn circles on county planning maps that designate areas for residential use — will go before the Napa County Board of Supervisors for final approval in December.

The effort to redraw the bubbles began in April, and grew out of a development dispute regarding the urban bubble in Angwin. The Board of Supervisors first considered reducing the size of the Angwin bubble as part of a disputed Pacific Union College proposal to build hundreds of homes in the area. As the Angwin controversy brewed, the county undertook a study of all the bubbles, which include lands in Pope Valley, near Lake Berryessa and on the edge of the city of Napa.

In some cases, the zoning of areas within the bubbles and what county land use maps say would be allowable uses of the land are inconsistent.

The purpose of these efforts is to correct these inconsistencies.

Napa County Planning Director Hillary Gitelman, who presented the proposal to the Planning Commission, stressed that with one possible exception in Pope Valley, these “technical changes will not affect the use of property or change existing development potential.”

In the proposal approved by the Planning Commission Wednesday, 2,000 acres would be removed from the 12 urban bubbles and redesignated as agriculture to match the zoning.

Some part of the bubbles would remain in all 12 locations.

Angwin action

The Angwin bubble is particularly contentious because of the proposed eco-village development by Pacific Union College.

The college has proposed allowing residential developer Triad Communities to build hundreds of energy- and water-efficient homes and remake Angwin’s commercial area, drawing fierce opposition from Save Rural Angwin, a group of Angwin residents and environmental advocates.

SRA offered its own proposal for modifying the Angwin urban bubble that would effectively kill the eco-village project and limit the PUC development to 190 homes on campus.

The plan approved Wednesday removes agriculturally-zoned land north of the proposed development, but it would not affect the eco-village proposal, Gitelman said.

Numerous Angwin residents expressed dismay Wednesday that SRA’s proposal would not be adopted. Representatives from the Napa County Farm Bureau voiced their support for the SRA proposal, as well.

Loose ends

The mapping changes make for a few unavoidable land-use contradictions.

In 1990, voters passed Measure J, which requires a vote by Napa County residents in order to change uses on agricultural land. Measure J applies to the maps in place at the time the measure qualified for the ballot, Gitelman said.

The 2,000 acres newly designated as agriculture under the proposal tentatively approved Wednesday would not be protected under Measure J, she said.

Measure P, which appears on the Nov. 4 ballot to essentially extend Measure J to 2058, also would not protect these lands.

Planning Commissioner Jim King Wednesday suggested the possibility of a new ballot measure intended to protect the potential new ag lands.

Another strange feature of the plan affects pockets near the city of Napa.

The county seeks to adjust maps that do not accurately depict city boundaries. The result is a net loss of city land on the map.

If the county map is adjusted to accurately reflect city boundaries, some land — small pockets around the city  — would be placed outside city boundaries but remain within Napa’s rural-urban limit line.

Under the plan tentatively approved by the Planning Commission, land within the RUL already designated for agriculture would remain agricultural. Land previously designated as belonging to the city would not be redesignated as agriculture, because, Gitelman said, “We didn’t think that would be fair.”

Instead, those areas would be designated as rural residential. The result is that some parcels within the RUL would be designated as agriculture and others residential.