Yountville and lot line anger

By MICHAEL HALEY

Tuesday the Supervisors are going to take up an ordinance, seventeen pages in length that we have had only the weekend to try to digest, further restricting property rights in Napa. This is the spawn of a woman who lives in Yountville "most weekends" and got upset because a neighbor nearby wanted to adjust lot lines on a large parcel in order to potentially build six houses on it.

The Town of Yountville has jumped into the act, apparently now that they have completed their most recent building binge they want to make sure that no one else gets to use their property nearby. This will enhance the value of the Yountville properties, you see, because putting only two houses on this parcel instead of six will enhance the view of some Yountvillians who are here "most weekends".

This is a threat to every property owner in Napa County, because it is a willy nilly and illegal effort to take away someone’s property. Property is only worth what you can do with it, and not being able to use it the way that the law legally has spelled out for some time amounts to stealing someone’s money, same difference. If they can change major rules for this property they can do it to yours for as silly a reason.

There is a large group of people in Napa who would like to stop any kind of development at all, any use of someone else’s property, but not of course their own. For once I would like to see one of them step forward and agree to bulldoze their own house in order to create more land for the ag preserve. 

Ostensibly what is being changed is the lot line ordinance that will now require someone with more than four parcels or lot line adjustments to pass through a CEQA review. This amounts to code that permits any neighbor to name any environmental objection and the property owner has to respond to it, often they have to perform some mitigation in order to get their permit, if they can then get it at all.

And mind you, we are talking about moving lines around on a map here, not even a proposed development. It is the beginning of a process that could lead to development, but so is being born. Most of the time lot line adjustments do not lead to development of anything that probably couldn’t have been done anyway. In the case of the Yountville property, they already have six parcels, it is just that one of them would end up odd shaped.

How about this as an alternative? I propose that we no longer allow part time Yountville residents to use their houses on the weekends. They will still have use five days a week, and with a CEQA review and proper mitigations, myself as a neighbor will probably allow them to come "most weekends."

Due to the fact that Yountville is getting overbuilt and now building 2-3 residences on what used to be a single family home lot, and due to the fact that greenhouse gases and other gnarly gaseous emissions are profoundly forthcoming from Yountville these days, we need to cut back on the number of cars in town on the weekends.

If they agree to park their cars outside town and not use them, and not go to Bouchon when I want to get coffee around 9:00 am and really don't like waiting in line, then we could give the "most weekenders" a conditional use permit to park in their own driveways on Saturday and Sunday. Of course if they were to sell the property it would automatically only be useable during the week days as the new owners would not be grandfathered in.

Too bad if it ruins your property value or if you find yourself in need of the money by selling it, if you can afford a second home in Yountville you are obviously rich and don't deserve to have rights anyway.

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