PUC restarts study for eco-village

On ice during ‘bubble’ review, plan may not surface til 2010

By JILLIAN JONES
Register Staff Writer

With the infamous “urban bubble” debate finally resolved, developers with ties to Pacific Union College plan to resume preparations for the proposed Angwin eco-village.

But even as they pick up where they left off earlier this year, the months-long stall in drafting an environmental impact report could push a decision about the controversial development into 2010.

Featuring 380 homes in the heart of Angwin, Pacific Union College’s eco-village proposal hit a snag last year when county officials embarked on a process to resolve long-standing land use inconsistencies in the quiet mountain town. Concerned that the process could kill the eco-village, PUC officials and developers from Triad Communities stopped work on the environmental review in January.

Fortunately for PUC, but to the dismay of critics of the eco-village, the Napa County Board of Supervisors opted this week for land-use regulations that will place new restrictions on PUC’s ability to develop but will not stop the eco-village proposal.

Given the news, Triad developer Curt Johansen said he and PUC officials are ready to start back up on the environmental impact review of the project — a critical piece in the project application.

The first order of business, Johansen said, is to reconvene the team for a meeting with county officials so they can analyze the supervisors’ decision.

“Some of the stuff that ended up getting approved … is different from what anyone would have predicted,” Johansen said.

In particular, Johansen noted a change in designation from residential to agricultural on a portion of PUC’s property used for ball fields. Though this area is not a part of the eco-village proposal — in fact, none of the land where the eco-village is proposed was affected by supervisors’ decision — Johansen said the changes may affect PUC’s longer term “master plan.”

“What we want to do is make sure the EIR as it’s crafted to this point isn’t affected by any of those decisions,” Johansen said. “On the face of it, I’m not overly concerned. It’s just prudent to have that kind of meeting to make sure that we all understand what the board of supervisors did.”

Allen Spence, spokesman for Save Rural Angwin, which opposes the eco-village, said he worries that Johansen’s comments signal a plan to develop more than the 380 units already proposed.

“I think everybody’s worried about further development,” Spence said, adding, “Everybody I know is very concerned (that) once you break it open up there, the momentum’s going to keep going.”

Johansen said he does not expect PUC or Triad to alter to eco-village proposal “with the caveat that we’ve always staked the success of the college on the goal of having all impacts mitigated to insignificance.”

Said Johansen, “Generally, we’re so much on that path of making sure that happens that I can’t see any significant chance to the application itself.”

Johansen said he expects his team to meet with county officials within the next two weeks, but that many months will pass before the process is complete.

“The original goal was to have all of this up for a vote by the end of 2009,” Johansen said. “I would say it’s probably going to be challenging to finish it by this year and it will probably drift into 2010.”

As part of their compromise this week, supervisors promised to come back in June 2010 to consider changing the designation of the 63 acres where the eco-village is proposed. They left those 63 acres alone this time, fearing the ramifications of precluding the project application outright.

Whether the EIR will be finished and the eco-village application will be heard before June 2010 is unclear, but Johansen said that while “there’s always a risk,” he is optimistic that a decision will be made before the next round of land use changes.

In the meantime, Spence said SRA will use the extra months “to expose the inappropriateness of such a large development in such a remote area.”

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