In what could appear as yet another typical if passionate land use battle in Napa over the rights of development in a county that is largely controlled by an extensive agricultural preserve, the Pacific Union College (PUC) story stands out as a unique case.

PUC became a college in Angwin in 1909, and this year marks its century point. As such it is one of the oldest land owners in the county. Their plans for economic survival have always included using some of their land as a salable asset, and indeed beginning in 1911 PUC created its first small subdivision of homes.

Since that time about every decade or so they have either built a subdivision of homes themselves or sold a block of land to a developer to do the same. They have depended on this money to help fund the college. Ironically, many of the very residents who are protesting further development in Angwin live in the very houses created by these small subdivisions.

They stopped that process since the last development in 1975, and since then the population of Angwin has shrunk by 800 residents. However, recently due to a deteriorating balance sheet and increased costs for students and faculty they need to sell some more property for development to ensure their future.

Angwin has always been a college town based on PUC’s presence, and pre 1980 it was one of two areas of Napa County identified as places to build housing within the ag preserve, along with American Canyon.

From the beginning of the General Plan process, Save Rural Angwin (SRA), the neighborhood group opposing development in Angwin, has attempted to hijack the general plan process to stop PUC’s plans. SRA went so far as to create a new zoning plan for Angwin on their own, creating an "institutional" type of zone that they planned to insert in the area where PUC wants to sell some property, thus foiling attempts to build housing, or anything at all as PUC does not need new land to build school buildings which is what this zoning would allow.

The General Plan Steering Committee dismissed that plan as beyond the purview of the committee, and frankly some of them felt it was so off the wall that it was a non starter and would never get taken seriously.

Lo and behold, out of the blue at a Supervisors meeting on December 9 that proposal resurfaced and is supported by Diane Dillon, Brad Wagenknecht, and Mark Luce. What they are proposing at SRA’s behest is to create a new general plan overlay over the existing planned development zoning of PUC property that would limit any development to "college serving" uses. This would effectively deny PUC the right to develop their property as it has always been zoned.

This would be an unprecedented down zoning of property caused by a newly created type of zoning advocated by a neighborhood group trying to shut down the property rights of a neighbor.

This is outrageously unfair.

It would be the first time that zoning of property for planned development in the ag preserve bubbles is being taken away from a property owner under protest. Could that attitude extend to other property owners? Can neighbors invent a new zoning code? Are we going to mob rule with this?

Dillon and Luce are both claiming that no promise was made that PUC could develop the property for anything but "college serving" purposes, but that flies in the face of a long history of other use and of county documents from previous planning meetings that indicate that the county clearly intended for this land to be used for housing.

From a meeting minutes document of the Planning Commission in 1975 during an update of the General Plan, then Planning Director Jim Hickey stated that "Angwin was urban in the same sense that American Canyon is urban in terms of development, etc. Angwin had all the complete services that made it urban, including a school, a store, and a gas station." He was explaining to the commission why Angwin was designated for urban planned development in the General Plan at that time.

Technically, legally, the Supervisors could rezone it to a big dog park if they wanted to, but would it be right? They are changing the rules in the middle of the game. This "college serving" proposal is a misuse of the general plan process and a denial of the routine process of planning that everyone else in the county goes through. This is a really dangerous precedent.

Here is a property owner that has a 100 year history of using their property the way that the government allowed, which has been affirmed and reaffirmed over and over by that same government, that now suddenly wants to single them out and change the rules on them.

Being for fairness on this issue does not necessarily mean you support the entire eco-village concept, just that PUC not be singled out for discrimination which is now clearly what is happening.

A public comment meeting is being held on January 27 at 1 p.m. concerning this issue at the Lincoln Theater. From the sounds of the December 9 meeting this hijacking of PUC’s rights to a planning commission review of their proposal is already a done deal. I suggest you be at the meeting to protest and e-mail the Supervisors before then to tell them to stop this outrage.

Michael Haley is President of the Napa Valley Taxpayers Alliance. He writes a weekly blog and a daliy blog at NapaValleyRegister.com on local, state and national issues. He can be reached at napaeagle@hughes.net