Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, good morning, everyone, and welcome to the August 5th meeting of the Napa County Planning Commission. Ms. Vega, are you ready to do roll call?

Chair Brunzel? Present. Commissioner Brooks? Present. Commissioner Moran-Williams?

Present.

Commissioner Richmond?

Present.

And Commissioner Downbar is excused from today's meeting. Okay, will everyone please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God. okay um before we get into our um our public comments and our agenda uh we had some late comments uh and late changes yesterday and so we are going to need a 10 minute reading break so we will do that now we'll we'll we'll restart the meeting at 9 15. I believe we've caught up on our late communication. I don't think anyone left the room, so we will restart the meeting. At this point, we will move on to public comments and recommendations. The Commission invites public comment and recommendations concerning issues and future prospects of a planning nature, which are within the jurisdiction of the Planning Commission. Anyone who wishes to speak to the commission on such a matter, if it is not on the agenda, may do so now. Do we have anyone in the room who wants to make a public comment? This would be on something not on the agenda, just general.

Yeah.

Is there anyone online?

It looks like we don't have any public comment.

Thank you. Okay, moving on to item four on our agenda, approval of minutes. The Clerk of the Commission requests approval of minutes from the regular Planning Commission meeting that was held on July 1st, 2026.

I'll move approval. Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Minutes are approved. Okay. Moving on to agenda review. Is that you, Mr. Parker?

Good morning, Chair, members of the Commission. Today you have one item before you for consideration. That is the Ponderosa 1 LLC 80 Clear Creek Road View Shed Protection Program Application P2200182-View and the roads and street standards exception. This item is being presented by supervising planner Trevor Hawks and this item was before you on March 4th of this year and continued to a date uncertain.

Thank you. Okay. Moving on to disclosures, we'll start on my left with Commissioner Moran-Williams.

At the last meeting in March I mentioned that I visited the site and the applicant representatives and so that remains true and I've had no further Disclosures needed.

Thank you Commissioner Richmond I've had conversations with the county staff this week on the project to get some clarification.

Okay Commissioner Brooks

I've also had conversations with staff and I did contact the applicant's rep. I was out of town all last week. I did not make the first hearing where we heard this and I was trying to get a site visit, but we were unable to coordinate that.

Okay. And my disclosures are the same as Commissioner Moran-Williams. I visited the site prior to the last meeting and I have had no further communication with the applicant's representatives. Okay, moving on to the public hearing. Item 7A, Ponderosa 1, LLC, 80 Clear Creek Road, View Shed Protection Program, application number P2200182, view and road and street standards exception. I will open the public hearing and... We will have the staff report from Mr. Hawks.

Thank you, Chair, members of the Planning Commission, Trevor Hawks. And I'll be presenting the project today. As mentioned during the agenda review, this is a project, it's a continuance hearing from a project that you heard at the March 4th, 2026 Planning Commission hearing. The project was filed on May 31st, 2022. I'll read the request just to remind the Commission of what they're being requested of here, which is approval of a viewshed protection program application For earth moving activities, new construction and expansion of existing structures on slopes exceeding 15% and located on a minor ridge line. The project consists of the construction of a 3,830 square foot underground storage structure, a 6,240 square foot tennis pavilion with an interior accessory dwelling unit, adjacent to an existing tennis court, and the expansion of an existing single-family residential structure consisting of 2,700 square feet of underground spa and 4,350 square feet of underground wine and art storage. The project also includes the development of a ground-mounted solar panel array. The project footprint will require the removal of 10 native oak trees and approximately 0.13 acres of tree canopy. 70 native tree species are proposed for planting to screen the project from views from designated public roads. Spoils from excavation to establish building foundations will be located at a disturbed area on an adjacent parcel. And this application is also requesting exception from the Napa County roads and street standards for five driveway segments with longitudinal slopes between 18% and 20%. along the center line which exceed 300 feet in length and do not provide transition area of 10 or less for the 100 feet immediately proceeding the request is supported by the napa county engineering division in the fire marshal's office and no road work is required for the existing driveway to meet same overall practical effect if the exception is approved. So this is a project that has multiple areas of disturbance on slopes exceeding 15% or more, and they're on a minor ridgeline. For that reason, based upon the size of the project, and its location, elements of this project qualify for discretionary viewshed review. Designated public roads for this viewshed are Dry Creek Road, Wall Road, Mount Vita Road, and Silverado Trail. All four of those are designated public roads under the viewshed ordinance and to some extent have views of the project area, some greater and less than other designated public roads. When you heard this on March 4th, 2026, we had completed a CEQA review in September, October of 2025. You're asked if you are approving the project to also adopt a mitigated negative declaration, which includes... mitigation measures for biological resources, which would be adopted along with the mitigation monitoring and reporting program. As I mentioned, this does not qualify for administrative clearance due to overall size and location and the overall project of what's included in it. Under the view shed ordinance, this would normally go to the zoning administrator and originally we were headed to a zoning administrator hearing on October 22 of 2025 when the applicant and staff identified a few things that needed to be updated in the project documents. at which case also on a kind of a separate track, the zoning administrator reviewed it because the project was publicly noticed and based upon public comments that came in from CDFW and neighbors of the project decided to refer this view shed to the planning commission, which they are allowed to do under the view shed ordinance. So I'm going to go through some of the, most of these graphics here are included in the graphics for this hearing, but a lot of them are also in the March 4th hearing, which I linked to in the staff report. But this is the overall project. You have an existing single family residential house. There's an existing guest house. And if you're looking really closely at this, there's, you know, it's kind of in front of the house, you know, towards us here. You have the underground wine and art storage on the left side of of the house as you're facing it. From this view, you have the underground spa, which is just to the right of the pool area there. And then over further to the right on the graphic, this exhibit of what's being proposed, you have the proposed tennis pavilion with the interior ADU that's adjacent to the existing tennis court. This additional underground storage that's proposed that's adjacent to the tennis pavilion on the exhibit, it's the structure that has the two cars parked on it. Showing exhibits of the tennis pavilion, this was one of the main structures that was discussed in the previous hearing and what is being proposed, what it looks like. We'll go through some of the other exhibits and talk about viewshed, what was determined. So when this was submitted, along with building permits, it was identified by staff as possibly subject to viewshed. We went out and we did a visibility determination. Because this is, to some degree, a difficult site to see. It was determined from driving around on designated viewshed roads, stopping, looking towards the site, and also from reconnaissance on the site by staff. that the location could be seen from the four designated view shed roads. And so what you're seeing here in the applicant's documents, they have several, they have a lot of pictures of views from certain areas, either from the project towards that that view shed on the designated public road or from the public road towards the project. And these are the main ones that you're going to be seeing throughout the project documents, either from Silverado Trail, both, you know, closer to what would be, I think, Rutherford Crossing Road, and then further south, you know, as you get closer to the town of Yontville, and then Dry Creek Road, Mount Vita Road, and Wall Road. This is an exhibit of what the project would look like if you're facing west looking towards the project. So this is somewhat like a view from Silverado Trail, although significantly closer. I mean, Silverado Trail is not just here. I think it's about, I might be corrected on this, about five miles away, so much further away. But this is an idea of what it would look like from Silverado Trail looking towards the site. You have existing vegetation that is screening to a certain degree, the underground wine and art stores, the underground spa, the other underground storage that's adjacent to the tennis pavilion. And then you can see the tennis pavilion on the right-hand side of the exhibit here. And this is a view from the site of the tennis pavilion towards Silverado Trail to give you an idea of how far Silverado Trail is from the site. Views, and I don't think actually at street level, I could be wrong about this, but views from the Dry Creek Road view shed, looking east to the project, give you a sense of what can be seen from Dry Creek Road, the existing vegetation, the proposed vegetation that the applicant is, or the vegetation that the landscaping the applicant is proposing to include with this project. This is a view from Dry Creek Road, I think further west, And then project views of where the Mount Veeder Road view shed is compared to the project. Mount Veeder towards the project. This is just an idea of the distances between the Dry Creek Road and the Wall Road view sheds. and then also Wall Road viewshed of the project. And these are in the project documents, both, like I said, the March 4, 2026, and the graphic packet that you have for today's hearing. So at the March 4 hearing, the commission elected and made a motion to continue the hearing to allow the applicant to respond to commission comments and to revise the project in response to those comments. Those revisions... What the applicant is proposing today, what you'll see in the project documents is that they've, well, the first thing they've done is they've moved a bioretention facility that's on the eastern side of the tennis pavilion, which has been reviewed by engineering and it's acceptable. But they've moved that. And then what they've also done is on that eastern side of the tennis pavilion. They've kind of reorganized. They've changed some of the species. Originally, what they had proposed to do was there were some interior live oaks. Now, those have been replaced with valley oaks and coast live oaks. Well, coast live oaks were already proposed there, but those are the two main tree oak species on the eastern side of the tennis pavilion. And they've kind of reorganized their positioning in order to provide screening on that side of the tennis pavilion. The interior live oak has been completely removed from the landscape plantings, both on the western and eastern side of the tennis pavilion. And then they've also provided you with some exhibits to demonstrate what they intend the tree growth would look like based upon similar species that were planted in the mid-2010s with this single family residential house and what they've seen in terms of growth of those species at the project site. So they have some exhibits in this packet or what they've resubmitted to the Planning Commission to give you an idea of what we could expect from growth and thus screening from that landscape. I have just a couple of examples here of what they're showing. So this is an example of the tree growth exhibits that they've provided to the commission here to give you an idea of what was planted in this case in 2015 and then what it looks like now in 2016, or 2026, sorry. Just another example of the exhibits that they've provided to the planning commission. And then an exhibit of what we could expect on the eastern facing slope of the tennis pavilion in terms of screening. There's actually three here where they show both what it would look like at planting and with the, I should mention the tree sizes that they're proposing, which are greater than the sizes that you saw on March 4th, 2026. So this is what it would look like at planting. And then this is a 10-year computer graphic demonstration of what we could expect in terms of growth. So included also in the revisions to the project that's been brought to you, staff also included three unique conditions of approval to address commissioner concerns when we reviewed the public hearing. the commission's deliberations. Those include condition of approval 4.12d, which requires the applicant to have a qualified professional review the planted landscape screen at two and five years from the date that it's planted and provide a report on that, which is provided to both the applicant and the planning division. And the applicant is expected to, you know, if there's any corrective measures warranted in that report to take action on those and to do those corrective measures. COA 6.16C, which requires the permittee to control all non-essential lighting with an astronomical timer. This is a timer that's basically set up. There was a large kind of a back and forth at the March 4th hearing about, well, should we set the lighting to go off at, I think it was like 10 p.m. or one hour after sunset. We've set the condition to be one hour after sunset, but since sunset is different in December and June, that would change as the seasons change and sunset changes. And then finally, condition of approval 6.16 , which requires the permittee to demonstrate to the planning division that all window surfaces are utilizing a glazing with a visible light reflectance factor. I think the number is 15 in the condition of approval, which is what a typical residential glazing for windows is based upon that measuring factor. So those are the main changes to the project that you heard on March 4th, 2026. I do want to mention that you received a change memo late yesterday with updated exhibits from the applicant, those updated exhibits. So they replaced all interior live oaks with valley oaks in the planting plan. But the exhibits they provided us only focused on the eastern side of the tennis pavilion and what that would look like with the change out of the interior live oaks and the only coast live oak and the valley oak on that side. I hadn't considered the distribution of coast live oaks on the western side of the project along the driveway when you remove the interior live oaks. And so those exhibits are in the change memo to show what that spacing would look like. it actually does you know the report that went out said that they were going to be adding three that's what we were informed the tree count would total would be when we received the original revisions but with the spacing required for the coastal live oak along the western side you'd actually see a reduction in total tree plantings across the project which is different if you look at the um you know it's like about four different areas of coast live oaks valley oaks and also california sycamores would come to a total of 56 tree plantings across the entire area in order to provide a vegetative screening to the project And just to give you an idea of what that looks like, this was the tree planting plan that you saw on March 4th, 2026. And then this is what's in the change memo, the exhibit of what the tree planting plan looks like with the change in tree species and the necessary spacing for those species. So with that, you received a public comment from Water Audit California late yesterday. Staff's reviewed it. If you have any questions about it, we're happy to discuss those. And that's about it for me. The applicant may want to present as well, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. MS.

Okay. Before we get into the applicant's presentation, do we have any questions, anything we need clarified from staff? Commissioner Moran-Williams, do you have anything?

MS. Not at the moment.

Okay. All right. So would the applicant like to make a presentation?

Wayne Leong, architect for the project. Thank you, commissioners, for reviewing this project for the second time. I have with me Monica Shaw. She's the civil engineer with Summit. We also have Andrea Coble. She's the landscape architect. She's also the original landscape architect going back over ten years. And so she could also speak more precisely to the tree visions that we made. I'll go over briefly, I think Trevor made a pretty good complete presentation of where we are with the project. I'd like to go over some of the revisions that we've made since we met back in March, this project. has been going on, this review process has been going on for four years now. Let me remind you that the original concept and buildings, the project has not changed in any scope. But during the nine review process, reviews that we've done, we've put into all of, we addressed all of the various comments from all the different departments. And so that, you know, did take a fair amount of time and then going back and forth between the planners and our group, you know, things take quite a while these days. So I just wanted to reiterate that, that nothing has changed with the concept of the project or the scope of the project. It's just that the review process has been quite extensive for a residential project, a view shed residential project approval. I'll address some of the key points that were brought up at the last meeting in March. I think Trevor went over the lighting issue. We completely agree with the timer that will be placed on all the lights for the pavilion. There was also the issue of the glass reflectance and just for your background, the visual lighting reflectance coefficient of being less than 15, virtually all modern glass windows now are below that 15. Windows today are double, triple insulated, so the reflectance did go up. original glass, pure clear glass that you would have is 8%. So I think the idea of the requirement is that we do not add any reflective material to the glass and so that's I think I wanted to make that clear. Yes. Let's see. The other issue was brought up by the neighbor, Greg Flynn. And for that issue, I personally made a visit to his property back in April. met with him I walked through his residence and Went out to the pool and you it's obvious. Yes, since we can see his property he can see our property and we prepared a a visual image with a normal focal length camera and then superimpose what is existing now and then superimpose what the tree coverage would be in five, ten year period. I did suggest to Mr. Flynn that he has a live oak tree adjacent to the pool facing the pavilion project. And I said, you might not want to prune that tree. I think it's a matter of a couple feet and from the pool it would screen out the tennis pavilion. But that's something I certainly suggested to him. And he took that under consideration. So that's what we did in trying to work with the neighbor, although I'm sure you're aware that the view shed is primarily shielding a project from a major street and not from the neighbor, since if you're up on the site, you can see all the other neighbors and they can see our project. Just to clarify that. In regards to the revised site plan, where we changed the tree count. As you can imagine, a project of this sort went through several landscape revisions. And we had focused primarily on the tennis pavilion since that was the most visible project under consideration. And we somewhat didn't put as much attention on the west side of the project, which can only be seen from really Wall Road and from some parts of Dry Creek Road, which is over half a mile away. But we did go through the process. of revisiting that section. And what was revised on the site plan that you received was there are a lot of existing trees on the west side slope. And the original site plan did not show those because they were never picked up by the surveyors. But we went back and looked at the images and the drone images and then placed all the trees that are already existing on the west side and then since we decided to use the coastal live oaks over time they actually get quite large so in order for them to grow properly they require the proper spacing and Andrea the landscape architect could speak more precisely to the positioning and the spacing required for live oak trees. We also did a survey of the trees at this point in time, 10 years after they were planted. And I think you saw the images. And they're doing quite well. And Ron Lusko's office agrees to be the firm that would monitor the tree growth if the project did move forward. So I just wanted to ensure that that was something we agreed to. And if you have any questions, Andrea is here to respond to all of those. I think one of the benefits of using the coastal live oaks and the spacing is we reduce the number of trees from what was originally 70 trees Now it's down to 56 and spread and then also it cuts down the water usage and also with the native trees once they get established then they actually do not need much irrigation. So I think it was a good design change to make that. It's also very compatible to the area and also to the planting that's already been established. And we have proof based on how the property has been cared for of how well the trees have been doing and will continue to do well in the future. I don't want to go over all of the various things that was covered in the last meeting, and I think Trevor did a very complete assessment of where we are at this point. drag this thing longer than we already have. I would like to see if you have any questions. I'm happy to address them or anyone of the group. Also, I think the water memo came in yesterday and the project team has not had a chance to have someone to address that here. But if you do have any questions, I believe the engineer from Summit is available by phone if you need to have any questions for that. And also if you have any questions about the road or the erosion or the sloping, Monica Schaaf, civil engineer from Summit, is also here to answer those questions. So with that, I would like to conclude my presentation and see if you have any more questions.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Leong. Do you have questions, Commissioner Brooks? Okay. Why don't you go ahead.

I've got a number of questions. Why don't we start with the water? If I've seen in one place about three acre feet per year and another four point six nine That translates to about four thousand gallons a day And I'm just trying to understand, you know, typically for a residence. We're looking at a half an acre foot to an acre foot so The allocation of three acre feet or you know Whatever it is You know, it's quite a bit higher than a normal residence. I was trying to understand the uses of the water. What's driving that I

Yeah, I'm not prepared to address the water issue. There's other members of the team that have worked on that particular area. I'm not sure if anyone... Oh, yeah, can you contact Gina at Summit?

i can also respond to that i'm i'm familiar with the wa yeah that'd be great so um the uh water use if you look at the wa so they've done two things in calculating what they think their existing demand is uh it is based upon the uh appendix b of the water availability guidelines for residential um residential projects uh which you know i think they say that okay we have a um If anything, it's a little conservative, because they say we have a single family residential structure, which the WAA guidelines say usually uses between 0.5 and 0.75 acre feet per year. We have an ADU, which they estimate to use 0.2 acre feet per year, and then they also have No, I'm sorry. And then they calculate the guest house to use 0.2 as well, which isn't technically a dwelling unit. But then the remainder of that demand of what existing is, is based off of what the wheelo approved wheelo documents for the building permits when um when the structures were originally built based upon those wheelo plans uh water efficiency landscape ordinance so that these are landscape plans that come in there's a very particular way that you put them together, and usually based upon hydro zones and where things are, evapotranspiration for the area, you have these calculations that figure out, okay, well, this is how much landscape you have, this is what your water budget is for that type of landscape, and this is how much you're expected to probably use in order to keep that landscape alive based upon the know if you're using drip emitters or spray what the evapotranspiration is in that area and so they used those to calculate what the landscape water use was in addition to the wa guidelines for a single family residential house and a a guest guest house

Okay, so still is it true that roughly a half an acre to an acre foot would be what we would expect, including the wheel of plans in a kind of normal residential. So I'm trying to understand if your argument is driving at just the scale and the size of this property. So they're landscaping a lot more. So that's adding several more acre feet of water. Demand just from the sheer size of the property. Well, what what makes this three times bigger than kind of the normal?

residential water use that we approve if that's that's what their WAA shows which is that in addition to the the typical water use of a single-family residential house that they have enough landscaping that those two combined have a existing demand of And then it's also the landscaping use across the two parcels because there's landscaping at the project entrance at Dry Creek Road and Clear Creek Road where they intersect. So all those combined equal the, I think it's 4.49 acre feet per year calculated as the existing. Correct. Yeah.

Okay. At least I understand that now. You brought up the second property and the spoils from all these cut and covers or caves, I'm not sure how you would classify what we're doing with the underground facilities. They're there to be distributed on that, like the other parcel, the Dash 43 parcel or something? And I didn't see anything, any of the drawings or the package I had about where the spoils were being distributed. And that parcel, I think, is down quite close to Dry Creek Road and the creek there. So I didn't know if there's any issue associated with distributing that and then potential erosion effects and things from the spoils.

Well, to answer kind of the first question, we refer to it as an underground spa, underground wine and art storage, underground storage. We don't have an exact definition of when you're digging into the earth, when is it a structure and when is it an underground structure. They appear to be more underground than normal, so we refer to them as underground structures. Those spoils are being deposited underground. I don't have the APNs in front of me. I believe it's APN 02731043, which is the parcel that the driveway goes through before it gets to the project parcel. They can kind of comment on this, that location, it should be in the graphic packets, both from the March 6th and the one we have today, there should be a graphic in there somewhere that It shows the spoil locations about halfway across the parcel in a location where likely there had originally been the idea that there was going to be a there's no existing house on that parcel. But I think that's location where they had there had been an original plan to put a single family residential structure.

Okay. Next question, vis-a-vis the bioretention, which was just a reference that the bioretention facilities were moved. And I'm not as certain because I wasn't at the original review where they were and what's going on. Typically, bioretention on 30% slope average is really kind of a no-no. They don't work well, the high-velocity water erosion and everything. It looks like we flattened out a part of the area, but in doing that, we created a 2 to 1, 50% slope that's driving down towards the retention area. And it seems like this is at the limit of engineering for bioretention. There's a whole bunch of you know, you should put in terraces, you should put in riprap to slow flows and do everything. Do you feel like you guys have looked at the bioretention engineering and you're satisfied that this is going to work well in this area? Because, you know, from the research I did, if you had another area to do it, you wouldn't do it like that or in that area.

Well, I... If you'd like me to take the time, I can contact engineering real quick and have them come up. They said they'll be on standby to come up and talk about anything if you have an engineering question. Both the civil plans that show the bioretention area from the March 4th hearing and the civil plans today have been reviewed by engineering and approved. Yes, the slopes are, I mean, several of the areas were right hinging on the edge of being into Conreg territory, having to get a use permit. But engineering has reviewed the slope methodology. They've agreed with it. We have cross sections. You're mostly asking about the bioretention, but we have cross sections of the slopes for the structures. Kind of the remaining questions, I probably need to ask engineering to come up and respond to those.

The lighting, which was one of the major things that was changed from the last one, and it talks about essential lighting. And I noticed that at least in one of the pictures there were lighting standards for the tennis courts is – Playing nighttime tennis and is that considered essential or non essential? What's why are those standards there? If you're going to turn all the lights off at dusk and what's going on with how that tennis court will be used in the evenings.

I tennis court is non essential. So we would expect the tennis court and that that's the expectation. I think in the condition of approval, I think. I think I actually specifically call out, including the tennis court lights, that those are considered nonessential and are expected to be connected to that astronomical timer to shut the lights off.

So they essentially, they're not really needed or they would only be used for a brief period around dusk or something? Is that the idea?

That would be the idea.

The glass, the reflecting glass, I mean, at least even where I live and looking over towards the Vaca Mountains, some of those properties over there at sunset have mirrors on them. You referenced sort of normal glass, I think, has an 8% kind of reflectivity. If you use anti-reflective kind of architectural glass, which costs, you know, 20 to 50 times more than normal glass, you can get that down, I think, to 1% or less. And I'm just kind of asking, is that the idea for the pavilion, that those use... Pretty massive glass panels are gonna be in the 1% or less reflectivity And so the this mirror like effect you might get you think you've pretty much eliminated that This

I'm sure the way the building is situated that there will be some type of covering that will go over the windows, maybe curtains or some kind of system in order so that the glass is always not quite exposed. So that's one issue. But we really anticipate using standard modern glass, and I'm not sure how we would get glass that would be so clear that it would get it down to 1%. We haven't looked into it as far as getting glass that could be so less reflective than 8%. A standard, you know, of Cardinal or PPG, they're running at around 11%. Okay. So we'd have to do some pretty serious research to get it down to 1%.

Okay. And in my reading and looking into it, you know, in the 8% to 10%, you will get that mirror effect if there weren't any coverings or anything yet. At sunrise or sunset at low angles that amount of glass would produce a mirror effect or I think no

There's a pretty good overhang over it so certainly the high when the sun's very high when it's coming down very low That's something that you'd have to try and simulate. It's not really clear Exactly what the reflectivity would be when the Sun is coming in at a horizontal angle So it's very difficult to answer that but you know I

Okay. There's a section on road maintenance, and there seems to be some concern. The slopes are quite steep, and I think for fire safety, we have to be sure the road can support like a 75,000-pound vehicle. I think that's what we're looking at. And we address it directly, but it says we want periodic maintenance and reporting, but we don't establish any period and we don't say who it has to be reported to. And so, you know, it seems to me that that COA should be more specific that, you know, I don't know, I think engineering, you guys would know, should we be looking at it every five years or something? My friends who have built roads on these really steep slopes and with our clays and everything have a lot of trouble with separation and maintenance of the roads and stuff and so I was just trying to understand whether we should be a little more stringent in in the way we have it assessed and reported I could speak to that just from experience and traveling that road for the last 10 years that it's the the way it's been designed is extremely

It's designed very well, and even though there's some steep slopes, you don't see any wear or cracking in the road after – it's got to be more than 10 years at this point in time. And with the first – with the second construction and the first construction, there were fairly large, heavy trucks going up the road with no problem. You know, obviously a concrete truck that was coming up, they have a hard time –

with the load coming up but we did not see any signs of wear from heavy equipment right with this new project right where you're uh transporting spoils you'll use that road to transport the spoils to the other properties so you'll be back in the mode of putting some pretty heavy trucks on that road again yes i'm sure that would be the case but the

The site where the spoils will be placed is almost midway up the road. It's not anywhere close to Dry Creek. So it's just a downhill trip to the adjacent site.

I guess my point to Trevor would be Why have that condition in there at all if, you know, there's no requirement for it to be reported to anybody and there's actually no interval specified for when you inspect it. I mean, every one year, every five, every 20 years. So, I mean, I feel like we either drop it or we put some teeth in it.

Commissioner Brooks, can you just help me out? Can you direct me to which condition of approval you're looking at?

I have to go back to my notes because I'm not sure where. It'll take me a minute, but if we take a break later, I can look at it. But have you found a condition, something in there on reporting on the roads that has some teeth in it? Because maybe I just missed it.

There's, I mean, it's from the engineering memo on the road exception. There's the roadway will be reevaluated on all future projects that require application of the RSS. That's based upon when a future project comes in.

I think that's where it was in the engineering memos, yeah. Which they are considered conditions, right? Whatever we put in the engineering memos. They are.

They are. And the reason I hesitated was because that one is obvious, is intending that we're saying, look, we can reevaluate this RSS exception. Because so the roadway as designed can't meet the current RSS standards. They were able to make... know the the request for the rss exemption which was supported by engineering and uh fire but i think that condition is saying look you don't just automatically get this on a future project we will reevaluate whether or not to support an rss exemption when new projects come in i i don't see it a condition and that's why i'm just asking if you can point it to me where there's a um without a timeline a continuing evaluation of the uh road improvements okay sorry

I thought it said something like just periodic assessment and reporting.

I'm just a slow reader too, so it's taking me a second.

I can assure you that it's to the best interest of the owner to keep the road, and they have kept the road up to the highest standards.

And again, I totally understand that. But for us, when we grant these entitlements, this may or may not be the owner 20 years from now or 50 years from now, and they may or may not have the same sensibilities your owner has. So I think we have to treat it in a general sense.

So I guess is the question whether or not there's, instead of just saying kind of a blanket periodically, and I found the condition. Sorry, it was literally two up from the one I was looking at. Whether or not we should set some sort of you will do this on this sort of continuing basis. I'm going to let Patrick Ryan here respond to that. Thanks, Patrick.

Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. Patrick Ryan, Assistant Director for Planning, Building, Environmental Services. OK, so in practice, typically what we do for these roadways for this periodic maintenance is we do continuously kind of review the access road during construction. Before certificate of occupancy, both fire and engineering will evaluate the road following construction. If there's any degradations or improvements that need to be made, they would be required before we final out the project. The way this condition is really written is that their staff, the engineering division, and the fire marshal's office doesn't go out there and periodically maintain it. There are circumstances in which I think this was the condition that Trevor read earlier, as which we have projects that occur on that roadway, that driveway, periodically through time. If it's an improvement to an existing structure, intensification of use, change of use to an existing structure. Any trigger to the road and street standards allows the engineering division and the fire marshal's office to re-evaluate that road. That includes the surfacing, the load requirements. But after we final out the project, we don't go back out there and evaluate these roads on a periodic basis. That's really the responsibility of the property owner and the other property owners that are served by that access.

Well, that's why I thought I read it that way that in fact you that engineering memo was switching the owners to the owner to do some periodic inspections and report but doesn't say what the period is and it doesn't say who it reports to. I'm just saying if we don't want to do that and then don't have that in there or if we're gonna have that in that memo then we ought to have a period and somebody to report it to.

Yeah, I mean, this is standard language that comes out of the Napa County Road and Street Standards that the property owner is responsible for maintaining access to their property and their structures. That onus is always put on the property owner for emergency access and egress purposes. during an incident or during new development on that roadway because there's multiple parcels that are served by it, Napa County does get an opportunity to reevaluate that road during applications that trigger the road and street standards. And so periodically, we will be reevaluating that road based on development of this access. We will be evaluating that road during construction. And before we final it, we will get an engineering letter of certification that states that that roadway is and meets the provisions and requirements and conditions that are outlined in the road exception approval okay thanks

My final question is actually sort of the most serious one I have, which is the accessory use on the pavilion. In doing research, the pavilion that's suggested is roughly the size of the pavilion that the Golden Gate Tennis Center uses. An average pavilion for a residential would be maybe 500 to 1,000 square feet. This is like... you know, six times or more larger than a normal pavilion. It also, when you, at least to me, when you look at the picture, the accessory shouldn't change the nature of the property or what it looks like, but in some of the views that you guys have presented, I feel like the pavilion actually dominates the landscape more than the house and everything, and so it seems to me it doesn't meet the definition of an accessory use. It's certainly the spirit of what we had in mind when we were, you know, defining accessory uses and also the landscape pictures that I've seen seem like it will block it somewhat, but even at the 10-year point, it looks like, you know, that pavilion is quite visible. I mean, bottom line is, I mean, I've asked some other clarification questions here, but in general, the rest of it seems reasonable, but the pavilion seems like totally out of scale for both an accessory use and for a private residence. If you want to address that.

Yeah, I'll leave it up to the owner to interpret exactly how the facility will be used. We just worked through the objectives of the project. But let me remind you that the images that we show are what a bird would see because from any road or from from where a person would be those views are not existing right their views taken with the drone in order to explain to you what the project is so the visibility of the building is probably amplified by the presentation more so than if you were actually on on site thanks

Okay. Commissioner Richmond, do you have questions?

Yes. I have some landscape questions. So maybe you'd like to have your landscape. Sure. Okay. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair.

Good morning. She's the chair. Oh, hi. I'm just the guy. Just general questions that maybe you can help me. So you're planting valley oaks. Are there any valley oaks that have been previously planted on the property?

Yes.

Okay.

And that was in some of the visual of the pictures.

And success rate?

They doubled in size. They're quite beautiful.

Okay. And my concern is... Because of farming on Mount Veeder, soil pHs there are typically four to five, relatively low. And so the survivability of valley oaks specifically in soils is tough for those. So amendment process on what you already planted, was that considered as far as soil amendments?

Yeah, so we will be working with a landscape contractor who we work with on many projects. And we really dialed that in with soil amending. And so I don't foresee that being the issue.

My other concern is valley oaks are named valley oaks for a reason, right? Right. They thrive in the valley. And in the literature reviews I did, they don't do well on the sides of hills. And can you address that?

Yeah, that is true, but that's how you see them in nature. But when they're grown at nurseries and nurtured, and then if you get them through the first couple of years, they really establish well and root in. So I think that they've been adapted well to the site already, so that gives us confidence that they'll do well in that location.

Okay. I think that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Commissioner Miranda-Williams?

Sure. Yeah. Also on the landscaping front, it was noted that the size of the trees is greater in this proposal than the last landscape design. So can you elaborate on that? Is it like the ‑‑ are they older trees that you're planning on planting?

Yeah. So the live oaks are going to be 36‑inch box. That's pretty standard size, a good size to put in. And then the valley oaks, since they're going to be the closest to the building, we wanted to get them a little bit larger and kind of your reasoning of adaptability to the soil and making sure that they have a good start. Those are 48-inch box trees. And so they'll be a little bit bigger, a little bit taller. And the reason why we're using valley oaks is they grow faster than our live oaks. So that will give us a little head start on getting some height there. We also wanted to do a mix of evergreen and deciduous. because that will blend in with the surrounding landscape versus just having the coast live oaks. They're also layered, so we can kind of future-proof, you know, getting different angles and visibility, making sure we can get a good screening and layering and kind of match the tapestry of the plants that are surrounding there.

Okay. And, you know, I read the letter that was in attachment C, I think it was, and it didn't really go as far as to specify how long it would take for the trees to grow to really provide the required screening. So, you know, I think just in terms, this is maybe more of a staff question, but, you know, in terms of our ability to meet the findings of the V-SHED ordinance, we're relying here on, you know, the promise of sort of like the unplanted trees as they're being presented, and that is adequate for this finding.

One of the findings you have is – I need to maybe look it up and look at the findings document to read it out exactly. Hold on a second.

I'm talking specifically about the screening for the view shed.

Right, yeah. So you are –

We just don't really know how long it's going to take.

Yeah. So the applicants provided you with exhibits that, like I said, they're saying these trees were planted in some of them 2015. This is what they look like by 2026 when they recently took the picture. So that's about 11 year. time span. The finding that you are asked to make is, I'm looking at number 15 from the recommended findings, a landscape or vegetation retention plan in conformance with the design manual has been submitted and approved for the site. that would provide maximum screening from designated public roads through preservation of existing vegetation and the planting of new vegetation and provide for defensible space in conformance with state law. Obviously, with this project, there's a component of both existing vegetation. They have a planting plan for new vegetation. And the fire marshal has looked at this for defensible space considerations and is okay with the project. The design manual, I'm kind of going off of memory here, I can look it up real quick on the website, mentions the ability to screen predominantly at about two to five years. Oddly, but, you know, the design manual isn't code. It actually says that in the design manual that it wasn't updated at the most recent update of the viewshed ordinance. The viewshed application itself mentions in the exhibit section that exhibits should show vegetation at 10 years or what the vegetation would look like at 10 years. So I don't know if that's exactly answering your question. That's just some of what's available to you. That's what the finding is, that the vegetation landscape meets the design manual. Design manual mentions two to five years. Application mentions that we should see exhibits with what it will look like in about five years. Ten years, sorry.

OK. I mean, I appreciate the kind of prioritizing of trees that are larger in size to begin with and the update of the landscape design. I still, just based on the scale of the building, Yeah, I'm curious about how that would kind of play out in the two to five year period for adequate screening. So that was kind of the point of my question. But I can kind of hold on that for right now because I can kind of sit with that for a minute based on your response. And then I think going back to commissioner brooks's questions around the staging of the spoils i think that's why mr ryan came up here earlier and its proximity to potential proximity to dry creek if county staff could address that did you already address that question or if you could address the question of whether or not the staging of the spoils has any impact on the creek area

so under california state law as well as napa county conservation regulations we would be implementing best management practices to maintain to eliminate erosion or sedimentation from the spoils piles as part of the grading permit for the excavation and depositing of those soils we will have periodic inspections of the site based on the size of this project they will be required to get a permit through the state of california the regional water quality control board for a storm water It's a SWPPP, Stormwater Prevention Pollution Plan. And so they're going to be regulated by the state as well as by Napa County on their stormwater quality, best management practices, implementation, maintenance, and operations of those. based on the current rules, the setback requirements, the erosion and sediment control requirements from the state and Napa County, our existing practices over the last, my tenure here at Napa County, we have very few and limited instances of construction sites becoming illicit discharge sites in which we have sediment and erosion coming off of construction sites. This is attributed to the programs we have in place throughout Napa County through our Napa County-wide stormwater prevention pollution program, as well as the state's requirements for getting a construction general permit for the earthwork activities on that property. And so to say all that, we have provisions in place and regulatory framework in place to ensure that there is no impacts to that waterway during construction. Before we finalize that site, they will be required to demonstrate 75% stabilization of the overall disturbed area that is maintaining, like creating a vegetative cover to, again, minimize that erosion potential. And so we won't final that project out until we meet all those provisions of the state construction general permit as well as our stormwater discharge ordinance.

Okay. Yeah. That helps clarify that. Thank you so much.

Okay. One more.

Okay.

I didn't know in terms of when because I wasn't here for the meeting when this was continued, but it seems to me that the Pavilion itself had been taken down from two stories to one story and I'm assuming it's two stories because it creates a better view You can go to the second story and and see the valley better and you know, just kind of looking at the drawings you supplied, it would really mitigate both the amount of glass and even the view of it, and you'd still be at 3,000 square feet, which is, you know, four times larger than a standard residential tennis pavilion. Was that considered at all?

We had looked at several different designs, but I think the owner prefers this one, and I can only speak to that requirement.

Okay. I think we're ready for public comment. If there's anyone in the room who would like to comment on this item, you can approach the podium and you will have three minutes to speak. And just a reminder that each member of the public only gets one chance to speak.

please introduce yourself hi my name is greg flynn i'm the neighbor referred to and i addressed you last time um i think commissioner brooks put his finger on it there is a intent to the viewshed ordinance that architecture should protect the scenic quality of the county for residents and visitors by ensuring improvements are compatible with the land to minimize the impact of hillside development on views and protect major and minor ridgelines to minimize cut, fill, and grading to promote architecture that is compatible with hillside terrain and minimizes impact. The tennis pavilion is the opposite of all of that. It is a giant, it's three-story, not two-story. Remember, there's five bedrooms downstairs. I'll get to that in a second. and then two tennis pavilion stories above that. It's glass and steel. It is the opposite of compatible with or sensitive to the landscaping as required by the viewshed ordinance. The screening proposed, even in their optimistic 10-year view, leaves the top two floors visible. And I'll tell you, the sun comes up, depending on the time of year, either over Rutherford or Yonville. Those are the two visible views. It's going to be a perfect reflection on these giant glass windows, visible from the valley, because it's going to be a shining light there. I mentioned this before, but it seems to me obvious that this is going to be likely used for commercial purposes. The downstairs three ADU units really are five. There's an exercise room, which clearly is not for that purpose. It has two bathrooms, two closets. They're going to divide it and make two more bedrooms. They're going to remove the single non-structural wall that will connect it to the upstairs pavilion. it will violate the approvals, the conditions under which you can approve an ADU. This is a structure that has more bedrooms than the main residence. It has more parking spaces than the main residence. It's higher at three floors than the main residence. It's not accessory. It doesn't meet the definition of accessory. And then think about the impact on water. Like, the fact that this is likely a commercial use It will intensify the use of water, not just the addition of 56 trees, which will require a lot of irrigation because it's dry as hell up there. I know. I live right there. And trees struggle up there no matter in the best circumstances. So you'll need to irrigate them all. But this is going to have a lot of people there, too. There's a spa. There's five bedrooms. I would – think a lot about the fact it already uses 5 to 10 times more water than a regular residence. With the intensified use and landscaping, it could be 10 to 20 times. I'm making up that number, but obviously more. I think that you should reject the tenants pavilion in its entirety.

it barring that i think you should reduce the height because it'll never be covered by these trees thank you very much thank you mr uh is there anyone else in the room who would like to uh comment on this item ms vega do we have anyone online let's give it a few seconds to see if anybody raises their hand okay it doesn't look like we have any public comment OK. Then I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission for discussion unless, is everyone OK to keep going? Or does anyone? OK. Commissioner Moran-Williams, would you like to start?

Sure. So I mean, I think obviously the focal point of this discussion is the tennis pavilion. There's a lot of other aspects of this application that I think we all are fairly comfortable with. However, you know, this is on a bridge line. It's a rather large unit. And I think, you know, I can imagine probably Maybe like 10, 15 years ago, conversations around screening would be very different. We could have been talking more about landscape design that would have been closer to the building, cypress trees, things that grow really quickly. And there's a little bit of a tension these days between defensible space and screening, which puts more of the kind of burden of meeting the viewshed standard on architectural design. And so I think we're feeling that tension right now in this discussion because we have to worry about fire safety in addition to the view itself. And so I still have concerns about whether or not the kind of, I love the native plants, the use of native plants. I don't want to deter use of kind of oak trees in screening for landscape design. But I have concern about how long it's going to take for those to grow to adequately screen a three-story building. So I'm curious from other commissioners how they feel about this updated design. I think the last time we spoke, we had said, We either want to see an updated design that adequately screens, or we want to see a change to the building, perhaps a change that would involve reducing the number of stories. And we left it up to the applicant to make some decisions around that. But I'm still a little bit concerned about whether or not this is actually going to adequately screen and meet the conditions.

OK. Commissioner Richmond.

Thank you. I echo my fellow commissioner. Focus entirely on the view shed and I am not at all questioning Ms. Covell and her experience. I am relying on my experience of 35 years of working on Mount Veeder and across the valley and the difficulty on steep slopes to get things to grow. I'm also very concerned about protecting the view shed as we move forward, no matter how minor it may be. And so at this point, I'm not in favor of this project.

Thank you, Commissioner Richmond. Commissioner Brooks.

Yeah, I think Commissioner Moran-Williams' comments were on point, but I have the same problem, and I don't know what your intent was, but I think the screening is not going to be effective, and the scale of this isn't a necessary use, so I can't support it as it is.

Yes, for myself, I do appreciate the lovely landscape design. You know, we visited that property. It is beautifully maintained and all of that. And I want to, you know, thank the applicant for reaching out and working with the neighbors because that's something we you know we encourage and it's just best practices so that is all great however I did go back and listen to our last meeting and and the end of that meeting what we all said was that this needs to conform to the spirit of the design guidelines I I've gone back to the design manual several times and it says you know that under these conditions uh accessory buildings shall be low in height and or be stepped back and and you know we we asked for some of that to be to be added you know or for it to be screened. And we don't have that. We have the same exact building we saw before, which to me doesn't meet the design guidelines. So I agree that I can't support what's being proposed today. So do we have a motion?

I would move to deny application P22-00182 as it relates to the viewshed, road, and street standard exemption.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. The item is denied. Okay. We have no administrative items on our agenda. So we will move on to item 9, which is the director's designee report. Is that you, Mr. Parker?

It is.

So we have a regularly scheduled meeting of the planning commission on Wednesday, August 19th. This Friday I will be canceling that meeting as we don't have any items currently ready to bring forth for a public hearing for your consideration. So you can update your calendars.

Doing that right now.

We also, for Board of Supervisor actions, I have nothing to report out on recent actions pertaining to the Commission or PBS. Since my last report out at our last meeting, the Zoning Administrator has approved two temporary events. The first was the Raymond Vineyards Winery Napa Knockout Legacy and Honor Gala, which was held on Saturday, July 25th. And the zoning administrator also approved the Harvest Stomp 2026 at Opus 1 Winery, which is a temporary event, Category 4, which will be held on August 22nd. That concludes my report.

Thank you. Do we have any Commissioner comments or Commissioner reports?

Could I ask? The WAA, I mean you guys have the revised WAA out and comments came in. I think if I understood correctly maybe a matrix of comments you know we're going to be consolidated so you can see sort of the family of stuff and where you guys might be going with what you'll accept in comments and and what the final WAA would look could we get an update on where you are on that

Yeah, so I'm not certain, but I believe the comment period for the WAA closed. Engineering and our outside consultants have been working through comments and response to comments. They have consolidated matrix of that and responses. And the item is tentatively scheduled for the Board of Supervisors for August 25th. But the Assistant Director, Patrick Ryan, has to make a final call on that this Friday. But I believe it's scheduled for August 25th. That item, if it proceeds, will be staff's recommendation on what the final WAA should be, as well as the matrix for responses to comments and asking for board input and direction.

So there won't be a briefing to us before it goes to them, and you're not looping back with the public at all, so that matrix of comments is just for presentation to the supervisors?

It's for presentation for the supervisors, but it then will be released to the public as to what the responses were when that agenda publishes.

Okay. Great. Thanks.

Okay. I have a quick report on the Airport Advisory Commission. We met on Monday. As usual, we meet six times a year on the first Monday. of the month, and the most notable thing continues to be the Alta Heights neighborhood noise complaints. The county has, to my mind, stood up a really impressive website where people can comment You know, there's an ongoing process with the consultant to try to come up with a different approach that will mitigate the noise but people continue to be quite angry and so we're seeing people in the meetings and it's You know, it's interesting one interesting thing is People seem to be angry in part that the mechanism for commenting is online they They want to be engaged in a more organic way, I guess. So that's what's going on at the airport.

So I think we're... Do we have the agenda item for the 19th?

He's canceling.

Oh, you're canceling. I'm sorry. I apologize.

Okay, and with that, I will adjourn the Wednesday, August 5 Planning Commission meeting. Thank you, everybody.

So, Michael, your note to us was if we wanted to stick around, you were going to help us with Legistar.