Hit by a barrage of last-minute legal criticism, the Napa City Council is delaying for a month the adoption of its new seven-year housing plan.

Using the services of an attorney, former Napa County Planning Commissioner David Graves submitted a 24-page letter last Friday challenging the draft housing plan’s environmental underpinnings.

A week earlier, David Grabill, a Santa Rosa attorney who once sued the county over the adequacy of its housing plan, filed an eight-page critique saying the city’s strategies would short-change development of housing for low-income residents.

Grabill submitted another letter Tuesday that echoed Graves’ request for new environmental studies of traffic, air quality and the impact of new housing on global warming.

The city’s new housing plan had been sailing toward council adoption with little public criticism. Indeed, the state Department of Housing and Community Development, which must approve all such plans, had given it  a mostly thumbs up.

At the state’s urging, the draft housing plan commits the city to promoting affordable, higher-density housing downtown and on several major streets.

A hand grenade

Responding point-by-point to Grabill’s first letter, city staff said Tuesday that the housing plan represented a good-faith effort to encourage housing for all income levels.

Graves’ letter, which arrived two business days before the council met, stopped the council in its tracks. City staff asked for extra time to analyze and respond to Graves’ arguments that the city needs to prepare an environmental impact report on its new housing plan. The housing plan will come back to council on June 16.

After the meeting, council members questioned whether Graves, who lives in Old Town, represented only himself or a group seeking to sabotage the city’s housing plans. Mayor Jill Techel said some advocates of a large residential development at Napa Pipe would like to see the city run into trouble with its housing plan.

“This looks like a hand grenade being thrown at us,” Techel said of Graves’ last-minute criticisms. “If you really wanted to be part of the solution, why would you wait until the 11th hour?”

As things stand, Napa County is considering Napa Pipe for much of its affordable housing.

The city opposes a developer’s plans for 2,600 houses at Napa Pipe, which lies just outside Napa’s city limits. The city is trying to negotiate a deal with Napa County to absorb the county’s regional housing allocations for the next 21 years.

A challenge to the housing plan would complicate those talks.

Councilman Peter Mott said Wednesday that he was suspicious of Graves’ letter, which read like a lawyer’s legal brief. “I think he’s representing somebody else,” Mott said.

Graves acknowledged that he used the services of an attorney to prepare his environmental report critique, and that he did not pay for those services. Graves did not respond to requests made over several days to reveal who paid for the legal opinion.

In the letter, Graves challenged the city’s intention to use an 11-year-old environmental impact report, prepared for the city’s 1998 General Plan, to support strategies for housing development through 2014.

Jean Hasser, the city’s principal planner, told the City Council on Tuesday that the draft housing plan only adds 88 housing units to the amount of new housing anticipated by the 1998 General Plan.

In a city with 30,000 dwellings, that’s not a significant amount, Hasser said. Napa would remain a slow-growth city. The 1998 environmental report is adequate, she said.

Citing nearly a dozen court cases, Graves shredded that assertion. Many streets and intersections now have twice the traffic that 1998 environmental report anticipated, he wrote. A new environmental report  is needed, she said.

In an interview Wednesday, Graves said the city needed to follow accepted standards for environmental reports. How can the city offer to take county housing when needed environmental studies are more than a decade old, he said. Given the level of road congestion today, the city’s offer to absorb county housing was “just silly,” he said.

“It just seems clear to me we’re at a real cusp of some very serious decisions about growth, housing, circulation, the future of downtown,” Graves said. “I really think the process needs to be respected.”

Graves, who owns Saintsbury winery, said he supported urban-based growth as a way of protecting agriculture. From many standpoints, the Napa Pipe project could be considered “smart growth,” he said.

Graves said he had no financial interest in Napa Pipe nor did he have an opinion as to how much housing should be allowed there.

As for concerns that he intended to sue the city over its housing plan, Graves said he would not be party to any suit.

Spotty record

Councilman Mark van Gorder said Thursday that the tone of Graves’ letter gave another impression. “It appears that David Graves wants to sue the city. To me, that’s sad. Many of us on the council know David Graves. It would have been nice to get a call saying he had concerns,” he said.

“I have no idea who is financing this and why there is so much interest from people who aren’t in Napa,” van Gorder said.

In a phone interview, Grabill, who has a law office in Santa Rosa, said he was representing a group of low- income city residents who need affordable housing.

Many Bay Area cities have made greater progress developing housing for low-income workers than Napa, Grabill said. The city is planning to adopt a housing plan that doesn’t have enough easily developed sites for affordable housing, he said.

“The idea wasn’t to condemn the city, but to tell you your record has been far less than stellar,” he said. Napa is doing a better job than 10 years ago, “but we’re still not getting the units built that the city needs.”

Napa County has so many restrictions on development on agricultural land that if affordable housing is going to happen in Napa County, it mostly has to happen in the cities of Napa and American Canyon, Grabill said.

Grabill wouldn’t speculate on whether he would sue the city if the housing plan isn’t changed to his liking. He prefers talking with the city, he said. “You pick up the phone and say, ‘Is there some middle ground here?’”

Van Gorder said the council would seek staff assurance that the draft housing plan has no “fatal flaws” before voting on June 16.

Based on talks with staff, Mott said he was confident that the plan could withstand legal challenge. “If we have to go to court over it, we would,” he said.

The day before Graves submitted his letter, the city received a critique of traffic conditions from a Union City traffic engineer, Daniel Smith.

Smith argued that the city needs to do a new traffic environmental report because the conditions analyzed in 1998 are so out of date. He offered data similar to the traffic analysis contained in Graves’ letter.

Efforts to reach Smith were unsuccessful.

Keith Rogal, representing the developers at Napa Pipe, said he could not take any credit for Graves’ work.

The city’s housing plan aims to promote affordable housing as well as a compact, mixed-use, walkable community, Rogal said. His proposed development at Napa Pipe would achieve the same thing, he said.