Napa needs something new

If ever there were a metaphor for what is happening in Napa right now it’s this whole controversy over the new flight path to the airport, which causes low flying private jets to go repeatedly over much of the city that are so loud people can’t hear the person standing next to them. This is due to wealthy visitors increasingly using the airport to come in to town, rather than landing at a nearby airport and driving in as they used to, combined with a new flight path created by the FAA with little community input. Now they say it can’t be changed. The neighborhoods lose once again.

Everything is being done to encourage more visitors, much of it at the expense of the working classes who in return are getting to pay more and more for everything with less and less local services for them.

There’s two main problems here, tourism jobs don’t pay well and at the same time more and more stores are geared to higher prices that only the tourists will pay, for the most part. The more wealthy tourists, the more impoverished locals. That is what is happening more and more and as the tourist industry demands more visitors to make up for sagging interest and a constant expansion of wineries, it is only going to get worse.

Napa is slowly but surely being turned over to wealthy people who don’t even live here, to the profit of companies that are not located here. The locals get last consideration. I’ve detailed that further in my first four articles on this subject.

And what is happening is that the local population is shrinking, few people that get a new job here want to live here, and they don’t, so that swells the roads with commuter traffic.

 

Napa needs something new, many people say, but what and how do we get there? Over the last several days I have realized that most people do see the damage that tourism is doing to the community, they just don’t know what else to do. No wants to slam the wine industry which is what this sounds like to many, but that is not really my intention.

My intention is to soberly and clearly address the problems that we have so we can do something about it. We have bifurcated into two fairly equally sized communities, those who are directly making money from tourism and are typically financially well off and support this constant expansion, and everyone else, mostly not as well off.

Facebook is partly my barometer. When an article about new hotels come up, I soon see a hundred negative comments. Then one post from someone praising the new hotel got 65 likes and loves in rapid order. Two communities.

Those directly benefitting from tourism want to ramp it up as much as possible so they can make more money, and see that as the answer to Napa’s problems. They are frustrated that others can’t see that, often intoning that is the way business works. For them, it’s the answer to our problem.

Those opposing it are not being listened to, part of the reason I focus on that side myself, and facebook is one of the only places they have to vent. The business side has paid representatives to lobby the government, the pro neighborhood side has, well, complaining on facebook and nextdoor.

One often sees people say things like, well we are a tourist town, so that is what happens. As if we have no other choice, and that is not true. In Napa’s 170 plus year history it has always been primarily a farming town, this high level of tourism that could well be called overtourism has only been going on for about fifteen years and there is no reason it has to stay at this level. It’s clear to see that the place was not built to handle the mass tourism that has been placed on it, and the more we have, the lower the quality of life for locals here.

So how does something new get created? There is a process that goes on of creation, maintaining that creation, and finally destruction.  Out of the destruction, new creation emerges and the cycle repeats.

If you want to build a house, the first thing you do is scrape some ground, and maybe cut down some trees. Destruction. A space is created. From that space creation can begin.

The house is there and you maintain it. Over time you decide you want something else, a vineyard. The first thing you do is tear the house down, then disc the ground, remove some trees, and plant it out.

Creation, maintenance, destruction of what you have created. It is a basic process in life, and often times the destruction phase is painful.

I grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, and the whole town centered economically around building Pontiac cars, you may remember them but they are no more.  My Dad worked there for twenty years.

Well, at some point people just stopped buying Pontiac cars so much, the whole auto industry got hit, and the factory got shut down. Destruction. It was fantastically stressful for the town, as it was then central to their economy.

But then, after a few years of real trouble, new businesses started to form, new investment, they are doing other things now and are doing well. Creation, Maintenance, Destruction, followed by new creation. It happens to people psychologically too, it’s a pattern that is unavoidable in life.

The point here is that destruction creates a space for change.

Napa is in that position now, the wine industry and tourism here are going through a period of destruction, not total destruction, obviously, but business is down, way down. That means it is ripe for change if we want to, and maybe if we want to or not. Most of the industry is busy figuring out how they can continue to do business as they always have, how to reverse it, when all signs point to a long term structural shift in wine drinking.

Rather than do that, try to amp up something that is diminishing, why not create something new? As I have pointed out earlier, too much tourism is not good for local communities, it drains them more than it gives to them when it becomes too big.

Yes, there are other factors in all these things but in Napa the dramatic upswing in tourism that started in the late 00’s is a key factor to what is causing it. And it is something we have control over and can do something about.

Create space, the first thing you need through the destruction is to create space. Nature hates a vacuum, and without doing anything, if you create the space, organically something will start to fill in that space. The key though is you have to be willing to create the space and let it be.

The need to create space is so important and it is what people are going to be reluctant to do, as it will be seen as doing nothing. It’s a mentality of always pressing the pedal to the metal to make money, which is basically American culture.

Right now numerous people in the wine and tourism industry are demanding that our county government fill in that space right away, do something! Many are angry in fact that something hasn’t already been done. The government has already relaxed the rules quite a bit, for instance allowing the wineries to serve food more, but the main effect appears to be that it is hurting the restaurants.

They are also pushing to allow tasting in the vineyards and at estates, whatever that means, and pushing to have more events and concerts and things to bring tourists in besides wine because they are coming less and less for that. Bring them in for music and whatever else we can conjure up.

Hotel investors must believe tourism will increase because a number of new hotels are somewhere in the works.

I am more afraid this all will work than not, and Napa will not be able to handle it. Hwy 29 seems to be crumbling, Silverado Trail as well and the whole industry is dependent on getting traffic up and down the valley. Those roads have been over used for over fifteen years now.

If 29 collapses in a way that they have to shut the whole thing down it will be a nightmare, especially if it is in the summer. A big patch of road near Oakville which has more traffic than it is rated for even during the off season is collapsing with a long sink hole, and another one is starting near Mee Lane. They are going to have to shut one lane down soon for 3-4 weeks to fix it, what if more collapses happen and they have to shut down both lanes, and unexpectedly? Could really be trouble.

What if the commuter work force start to find jobs where they live, and the hotels, etc start having trouble finding enough low paid workers? Kate Miller, the head of the transportation agency, was quoted in an article earlier this year saying we have 30,000 housing workers commuting in every day, implying that they could have housing here if we had it. There is no way we are going to be able to build that much and maintain a large farming area which is the main draw for tourists. We’re in a no win situation with housing.

Napa is in more of a crisis than we realize, and we are risking have a really major one at any time.

Here’s some more specific ideas.

Stop allowing winery/vineyard expansions outside the valley floor. No more new hotels or other tourist serving businesses. If you want to help current business in that category, stop building competitors. #1 best thing you could do to help tourism related business is reduce their competition.
Some kind of limit has to be imposed on winery development. We can’t accommodate everyone in the world who wants a Napa winery, we are too small.

Investors take over a winery up in the hills, the first thing they want to do is expand visitors, tasting room size, plant more vines, in places that make no sense to begin with. Windy roads up mountainsides that are already overused and crumbling apart. Dangerous even. I live on one and see what happens.

It may suit some investment groups profit plans, but for the overall community it is destruction, we have so many farmers now going through a lot of pain from not being able to sell their grapes, it would be in all our interest to support them being able to sell them. No need to plant now when so many are being ripped out.

Alternatively, we should consider easing restrictions on wineries on the Valley floor where it makes more sense, if they want to expand. The approval process has gotten ridiculous and it is because the people opposing the overdevelopment have no other effective way to fight back except through environmental lawsuits. As the winery business shrinks, regulations need to be adapted to encourage the high end wineries only, make it easier for them. That’s the true Napa market.

One thing that should be done to reduce marginal new vineyard planting is increase fees on marginal areas, impose stiffer limits, and at the same time reduce fees for wineries in those areas who agree to buy grapes, or vineyard, from the valley floor. Cut the new permit fees to zero if they agree to source grapes already growing in the valley.

The government must use it’s power to incentivize with tax policy to change the way we do business.

I can see we are heading to petting zoos and wave pools on the valley floor to attract different visitors, and that will not work for the community. Do what we do best. And less of it. More exclusive and more money per acre.

Start focusing on and encouraging local serving businesses instead of hotels and more tourist amenities like we are doing now. The new Costco in the city of Napa is slated to collect more tax money than any other single source for the city. Locals do pay a lot of taxes if they have local serving businesses to pay them through. I haven’t priced it out but I suspect we could make far more from local sales taxes than TOT if we ramped up local business enough, most places do.

Car dealers are another big source of tax revenue for cities, but second home owners, which we increasingly have, don’t buy cars where they vacation.

And we need more ideas to save the local community here, which is why we need to allow a space to create something new. Napa farmers have gone through this from time to time in our history, as I have heard from my wife and her family. Our farm at one time was prunes and pears. When one market dies down, they shift to something else. Right before wine grapes got going in 1972, cattle were King here.

As I write this the planning commission has approved an expansion of a winery on Darms Lane, formerly a neighborhood street. The neighbors went to protest it, saying it was disruptive to the neighborhood in a number of ways. Once again, the neighborhood loses.

The impact of that is going to be that those residents, some of them, will try to sell their homes to second home owners. Community continues to deteriorate. If this were any other kind of business the government wouldn’t allow it. A hardware store? A small manufacturing plant, with attendant noise? Wineries are actually worse in some ways because of the constant need for visitors, creating traffic and noise.

Why are wineries continually getting an exception to normal zoning rules? In the past where there were few wineries, it wasn’t such a problem. Now it is. Things change.

People, we need to stop and think about where we are going. Napa is going to lose the once wonderful community it had because of these current policies. Just expanding more of the same is the path of least resistance that people fall into, but it is not working.

It’s time to stop, take a breath, and reorient toward saving the neighborhoods and the community.