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An alternative to Triad's "Eco-Village"
ANGWIN RESIDENTS SUBMIT PLAN
FOR FUTURE OF VILLAGE |
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A PUC farm rig loading hay bales on the site where Triad would build some 220 housing units and commercial enterprises. Howell Mountain Road Angwin's Main Street - runs from left to right just this side of the wooded College campus. This agricultural environment gives the community its semi-rural definition, the historic environment which the community seeks to preserve. |
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Several months ago, Pacific Union College and the Triad Corporation of Seattle, Washington, announced a " Grand Plan" to build 591 housing units on Angwin lands which the College would sell to Triad.
Shocked and angry, community leaders realized that such a sharp increase in population would dramatically change the nature of the village's semi-rural environment and create significant new costs for residents. They foresaw increased traffic on the winding roads leading to Napa Valley, the probability that the little public school would have to be reconstructed at considerable cost, and dense urbanization on green open space in the heart of the community. The Triad proposal was a wake-up call to a community which has never before been forced to defend its future.
Under community pressure, Triad agreed to reduce the acreage of its subdivisions from 885 to 680 and its housing units from 591 to 391. This large reduction failed to dampen the opposition. Representing the community, Save Rural Angwin undertook to study the long-range needs and desires of the residents and come up with an alternative plan.
That plan was completed on June 15, after considerable input by planners and legal counsel and submitted to Napa County officials. SRA asked that it be adopted as the County's long-range General Plan for Angwin, and thereby prevent the kind of development envisioned by the College and Triad.
In brief, the plan proposes to remove the notorious Urban Bubble drafted 30 years ago which designates Angwin for greater growth. Instead, it would employ four conventional zoning tools to preserve the semi-rural nature of the community, while still recognizing the needs of the College.
The SRA plan envisions four zonings Institutional, Commercial, Agricultural, and Rural Residential to achieve its goals: 1) to respect the College's desire for present and future housing for its faculty and staff, 2) to provide for expansion of the College's educational facilities, 3) to recognize the necessity of a commercial Plaza, and 4) to protect agricultural lands in the heart of Angwin from developments like that proposed by the Triad corporation.
The existing PUC campus and large adjacent acreages would be zoned "Institutional." This zoning would add enough land to the existing campus complex to permit any expansion the College might envision for future college housing and new educational facilities.
Split zoning Institutional and Rural Residential would be applied to two PUC parcels designated by the County months ago for future housing.
One would be the parcel which stretches from the Fire House to Brookside Drive. The other parcel, on Las Posadas Road next to Discoveryland, would also be split zoning, with Institutional zoning to permit new PUC housing in the area adjacent to the campus and Rural Residential applied to the lower portion of that parcel, fronting on Las Posadas Road./div>
The Angwin Plaza would be zoned "Commercial."
The other lands across from the campus (surrounding the tennis courts) have historically been farmed and they would be zoned "Agricultural."
Such zonings would recognize the need of the college to build enough housing for its foreseeable needs and to expand its educational program in almost any way it wished. However, they would not permit the College to depart from its educational mission to become a real estate developer, converting agricultural lands along Main Street to a large residential and commercial development such as presently being proposed by Triad.
Save Rural Angwin argues that all other College lands, presently zoned "Agricultural" would remain as agricultural, including its hundreds of acres on both sides of the airport runway and along Howell Mountain Road.
"This is a very positive proposal," said Allen Spence, SRA spokesman. "From the first day of our organization, we have declared that we will support PUC's need for faculty and staff housing. This proposal makes that possible.
"Beyond that, we believe, also, that the College should be able to expand its educational facilities, and we are recommending that large parcels beyond the existing campus be incorporated into the same Institutional zoning as the existing campus complex.
"The only major restriction we envision would apply to the agricultural lands across from the campus in the heart of the village. The College's desire to build a residential subdivision of several hundred housing units here, completely unrelated to its educational mission, has prompted the community to oppose such possibilities. These lands have provided a green environmental setting for the community for nearly a century. We think they should remain as such."
SRA maintains that the community plan is in compliance with the land use policies of the County and will be supported by both public officials and other civic groups in Napa County.
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