When I was on the San Anselmo Town Council early this century, we faced the same problem of the number of mandated new housing units. We considered promoting second floors on downtown buildings, second floor housing on our local Safeway - all a bit silly - and never done.
The predatory capitalist dogma of wage slavery to support low costs and ignoring unchecked population growth is the heart of the main problem. Under this doctrine, economic growth is only achieved by population growth. Sustainability should be defined as “better not bigger”.
Tourism is never going to pay enough, but we are stuck with it for now. I think if we pushed to build housing instead of tourism type structures, ie build an apartment building instead of a hotel, a new economy generated simply by more locals would begin to generate itself.
Let's say instead of that new hotel Napa city is planning at Main and First they built a big apartment building. It would shift some of the business downtown to local serving instead of tourist serving. It would also then generate some business that is not dependent on tourism. If enough of that was done over time different types of business would sprout.
Also, Tim excellent article, thanks for doing all this work on this.
And where would those people work? What types of businesses would support them? The data show building anything other than good paying jobs comes with serious risks. Either way, thank you for sharing and the feedback. Much appreciated.
You are welcome, and I think some entrepreneur types would move in that just like to live in Napa. Maybe someone who will teach me how to spell entreprneir for starters:) Good job right there lol.
Seriously, I know a number of Silicon Valley types that moved here just to live and work from home and commute down to the Silicon Valley several times a week. I think if there were more and better quality housing especially in a downtown space it would generate something. If there were more of a cluster of those types they may start tech related jobs, there are actually a lot of seasoned tech pros already living here. It will be interesting to see who moves into Napa Pipe.
But that is just one idea that is a maybe. The fact is that things have to change and the first thing to creating something new is creating a space for it to happen. I don't think "central planning" is going to start a whole new business development, new type of industry here. Planning housing to attract young, entrepreneurial types who create opportunities will.
We used to have a pharmaceutical manufacturing company, Dey Labs. I owned an exec search firm in the pharmaceutical industry and placed several engineers there in the early 90's. Napa is the kind of place a lot of those people would want to live just to get away from the crowds in the south bay. We have to create a space to attract those kinds of people.
One problem that feeds into this is the housing that is available in Napa mostly sucks. A lot of really old, broken down places that cost way more than they are worth. My wife and I just spent months looking at everything in the county that was available and there is not a whole lot of new single family housing period. My idea is to build housing that young relatively well off tech or business people would want to live in and I do think they would want to live in upscale apts or condos downtown.
Healdsburg is trying this, so we’ll see. But white-collar jobs are getting hit hard by AI, and who really knows what the future holds? Betting big on luxury apartments feels like a gamble—especially when dozens of other towns are chasing the same idea.
Why not focus instead on transforming existing neighborhoods into places where people actually want to live? Small homes with backyards. Clean, safe, and human-scale. That would be far more appealing to innovative young families than another stack of glass-walled condos downtown. If they’re going to reinvent the local economy, they’ll need more than a parking space and a rooftop lounge.
maybe you are right, I didn't know about Healdsburg etc trying this idea already. Would Napa Pipe fit your narrative there? I haven't seen it.
But in any case, I think new business is going to come from creating the space, whatever that is, whether new single family homes or otherwise, that innovative young people move into and gradually create a shift over time.
As a long-time resident of Hidden Valley Lake, I see tons of traffic on Highway 29 going over Mount St. Helena, especially during commuter hours. Has any government agency, regional transportation agency, etc. done a survey of where the people are going, to jobs in Napa or Sonoma counties? The expensive commuter buses, which travel from Clearlake to Calistoga twice each morning are usually mostly empty.
This is an interesting, and partially convincing, analysis, but I still have questions.
Last I knew, the vacancy rate for houses, apartments, and condos was very low. Far lower than is healthy for a good seller-buyer balance. Has that changed? A tight housing market suggests that vacant units are snapped up quickly. And, with low vacancy rates, the power is in the hands of sellers'/landlords' to keep raising prices. That seems to be exactly what is happening, with housing costs far outpacing wages.
It is not only "low-wage" workers who are priced out of Napa County housing, many higher wage professionals cannot find housing that they can afford in Napa County. What is that if not a housing shortage?
Agree with everything you are saying here. Thank you. I am lucky to own my home, but really feel for renters. The county's ADU program supports homeowners to build ADUs, with the promise that they will rent to a worker who earns less than 80% of median income ($89K), which then sets the "affordable" rent at $2425. The county is out of touch with their formula. That's a steep rent for a single in a small dwelling for most of our workforce.
I work for Napa County Office of Education in a position that requires a bachelors, preferably in Education, with experience as an Educator. I easily meet those qualifications for my very professional position, but the pay is low and I could no way afford that rent. That doesn't make sense.
We need more supply to bring down housing costs here, no matter what. I know SO many people (lots of people who work for Napa County Office of Ed) who would definitely live here instead of another county if it were more affordable.
You’re right that low vacancy rates can suggest a tight market, and in many places that can drive up prices. But that’s only one piece of a more complex picture. What we’re asking readers to do is not take a single metric in isolation but look at how it interacts with broader economic and demographic trends.
In Napa County, prices remain high, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to a sustainable or local demand. We see a pattern where housing is filled, yes—but increasingly by commuters or retirees whose incomes are tied to jobs or assets elsewhere. That’s not the same as local job growth supporting local housing growth.
The deeper issue is whether housing being added—or proposed—matches who lives and works here now and who we expect will live and work here in the future. If most of the new units are filled by people commuting out for work or bringing income from elsewhere, then we’re not solving a local housing problem. We’re building infrastructure that’s increasingly disconnected from Napa County’s own economic base.
We’re also at a demographic tipping point. The aging of the baby boom generation and the shrinking size of younger generations suggest that long-term demand may actually decline. The real question is: Are we building the right kind of housing in the right places for the people this community wants to support—teachers, nurses, firefighters, local entrepreneurs—or are we building what outside capital wants to finance and what external markets will absorb?
Appreciate your engagement—this is exactly the kind of discussion we hoped to spark.
Thank you for sharing this, Gayle. Your story highlights why this conversation needs to go deeper than just “supply.”
The ADU program, as you noted, relies on formulas that don’t reflect the realities facing most of our workforce. When “affordable” rent is set at $2,425 for a small unit, it’s clear the numbers aren’t grounded in local wages—not for educators, nonprofit staff, ag professionals, wine workers, or many others doing essential work here.
The broader point is this: Yes, housing will fill. But if the people moving in aren’t working here—if they’re commuting out or bringing income from elsewhere—we’re not solving a local housing problem. We’re just becoming a bedroom community for other places.
We’ve seen this pattern before. In the 1950s and ’60s, Silicon Valley was told that more growth would make housing more affordable. But what happened instead is what always happens in desirable regions: people with outside income moved in, prices stayed high, and the workforce got pushed farther out. You can build and build—but unless the housing is aligned with local jobs, you’re not solving affordability. You’re just shifting the pressure somewhere else.
That’s why the Ag Preserve was created—not to stop growth, but to ask what kind of growth actually serves the people who live and work here. That question still matters.
This issue, like many here, has several angles. No easy solution.
I appreciate your mention of Ag Preserve. I am pretty familiar with the founders' story and frustrated by how often I hear it misconstrued. I agree that the intention included HOW to grow, and that considerations for how how to accommodate those who work in the wine industry were important in determining what would need to be built.
A summary of the article for those who want a tl;dr: “Our generations of NIMBYism has already screwed up our local economy for generations to come, so let’s continue to pull up the economic ladder behind us by continuing to not build.”
*edit* this post is snarky, and I thought about coming back to remove some of that snark on second thought, but I am leaving it to let the frustration show a bit.
Of course. But it’s worth remembering that the Ag Preserve was created in 1968 by an earlier generation (the “Greatest Generation “)—many of them farmers, not developers or politicians. They weren’t trying to block growth; they were responding to what was already happening just south of here in what would become Silicon Valley.
At the time, developers were pushing the idea that building more housing—bedroom communities for the Bay Area—was the only way to achieve affordability. The people behind the Ag Preserve saw the long game. They knew that once you start building to chase affordability without tying it to local jobs, infrastructure, or land conservation, you don’t get affordability—you get sprawl and dependency.
So the debate today isn’t just about one generation pulling up the ladder. It’s about whether we’ve learned anything from the last time a place gave in to the “just build more” narrative. That path is already mapped—and it leads away from local resilience.
The only way to respond here without writing an entire paper in response is to focus on housing stock type.
The source cited about housing type reveals a huge disconnect that is absent in this analysis. In the aggregated analysis, 42% of respondents wanted housing that is smaller but closer to amenities. Disaggregated, 56% of democrats and 62% of “liberals” want this type of housing, and as a person increases their education, they also prefer smaller, denser neighborhoods. Bumped against the existing stock in the city of Napa, where I will focus, there’s a huge and widening gap.
Napa has an overall walk score of 42, meaning that almost all daily errands need a car. 62% of Napa is comprised of single family homes and is zoned exclusively to only allow that type of housing. Furthermore, the high-ish density housing Napa has built has been far away from amenities and entertainment (SoCo can only reach Walmart and limited other shops, Gasser Dr isn’t close to anything, and most others are built on the periphery of town). There has been zero housing growth in downtown and along commercial corridors, where a traditional city would have built out first. The zoning code in Napa and the city council mandate this type of growth and prevents the sustainable growth of a traditional city.
It’s simply a fact that most Americans haven’t been introduced to living in a small, walkable community because this type of building density outside of “traditional neighborhoods” is the norm across the US. No one wants to live in a small apartment where they have to drive everywhere when the alternative is a house with a yard where they have to drive everywhere too, but that’s all that is offered. This proof plays out in those same cited statistics where those who already live in urban environments prefer that type of living where 57% prefer that density.
We limited our growth outwards which was the right call, but we also said we can’t grow up and in. That killed the opportunity for small chains like Vallergas to adapt and instead made land so unaffordable only the big players could bear that cost. So, instead of a local chain with 3-5 locations and the management overhead that pays higher salaries for that chain, we have Safeway/Albertsons (HQ: Pleasanton), Lucky (HQ: Colorado), Target (HQ: Minnesota), and Walmart (HQ: Arkansas) with mainly minimum wage salaries. We did that through zoning and parking requirements that necessitated a minimum lot size with a maximum coverage, maximum height, and a set amount of required parking. All that overhead is simply too much for the Main Street style store to bear. Walmart can run a loss on one out of its hundreds of stores for years until it prices out competition. The Smith family can barely last a month. Paired with the city code, a large business operating in that model isn’t capitalism, it’s state sponsored oligarchy. It is mandated by our zoning code and reinforced by our city council who refuses to encourage density and instead continues to try to expand out to Napa Pipe, Foster Road, and Big Ranch Road.
The apocryphal quote from Henry Ford is apt here: “if I asked people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses.” Yes, the push for sprawl-based growth in the post war era was bad, but that type of growth is still supported and subsidized by NIMBYs who think we shouldn’t grow from where we are today. We have 35,000+ people who commute into this valley for work every day. The housing that would be built for them would spark a huge growth of jobs even if it were only the services those people would need—from construction to domestic labor to everyday needs, and again, the staff needed to manage those businesses. Saying we shouldn’t grow to accommodate them is simply a privileged position that says, “I’ve got mine; you figure it out on your own without inconveniencing me at all.” It is anti-democratic, it is anti-community, and, ultimately, it is selfish.
The concern isn’t about opposing density, walkability, or thoughtful infill — those ideas can absolutely support a stronger Napa community. But the core point remains: speculative demand is not a strategic plan — it’s simply what every developer (and even well-intentioned civic leaders) often use in place of a plan. Building large amounts of housing — of any type — without first ensuring a stable base of well-paying local jobs leads to unsustainable growth, strained infrastructure, and ultimately, a more fragile community.
We’ve seen this story play out in countless places — Danville, VA (tobacco economy vanished), Youngstown, OH (steel bust), Austin and Boise today (overbuilt housing now reversing), and even right here in Calistoga, when the early 20th-century spa economy collapsed — just like many other once-thriving spa towns. Today’s data show clear signs of overbuilding in U.S. markets that rushed ahead on demand-driven arguments.
The lesson is clear: build the jobs first. Then build the housing to match real, sustainable economic need.
The Ag Preserve was developed by visionaries who were not NIMBY or anti-community. It was — and remains — a sound vision that highlights the need for thoughtful planning. A jobs-first agenda is the only sound path forward to protect Napa’s long-term future.
When I was on the San Anselmo Town Council early this century, we faced the same problem of the number of mandated new housing units. We considered promoting second floors on downtown buildings, second floor housing on our local Safeway - all a bit silly - and never done.
The predatory capitalist dogma of wage slavery to support low costs and ignoring unchecked population growth is the heart of the main problem. Under this doctrine, economic growth is only achieved by population growth. Sustainability should be defined as “better not bigger”.
Tourism is never going to pay enough, but we are stuck with it for now. I think if we pushed to build housing instead of tourism type structures, ie build an apartment building instead of a hotel, a new economy generated simply by more locals would begin to generate itself.
Let's say instead of that new hotel Napa city is planning at Main and First they built a big apartment building. It would shift some of the business downtown to local serving instead of tourist serving. It would also then generate some business that is not dependent on tourism. If enough of that was done over time different types of business would sprout.
Also, Tim excellent article, thanks for doing all this work on this.
And where would those people work? What types of businesses would support them? The data show building anything other than good paying jobs comes with serious risks. Either way, thank you for sharing and the feedback. Much appreciated.
You are welcome, and I think some entrepreneur types would move in that just like to live in Napa. Maybe someone who will teach me how to spell entreprneir for starters:) Good job right there lol.
Seriously, I know a number of Silicon Valley types that moved here just to live and work from home and commute down to the Silicon Valley several times a week. I think if there were more and better quality housing especially in a downtown space it would generate something. If there were more of a cluster of those types they may start tech related jobs, there are actually a lot of seasoned tech pros already living here. It will be interesting to see who moves into Napa Pipe.
But that is just one idea that is a maybe. The fact is that things have to change and the first thing to creating something new is creating a space for it to happen. I don't think "central planning" is going to start a whole new business development, new type of industry here. Planning housing to attract young, entrepreneurial types who create opportunities will.
We used to have a pharmaceutical manufacturing company, Dey Labs. I owned an exec search firm in the pharmaceutical industry and placed several engineers there in the early 90's. Napa is the kind of place a lot of those people would want to live just to get away from the crowds in the south bay. We have to create a space to attract those kinds of people.
One problem that feeds into this is the housing that is available in Napa mostly sucks. A lot of really old, broken down places that cost way more than they are worth. My wife and I just spent months looking at everything in the county that was available and there is not a whole lot of new single family housing period. My idea is to build housing that young relatively well off tech or business people would want to live in and I do think they would want to live in upscale apts or condos downtown.
Healdsburg is trying this, so we’ll see. But white-collar jobs are getting hit hard by AI, and who really knows what the future holds? Betting big on luxury apartments feels like a gamble—especially when dozens of other towns are chasing the same idea.
Why not focus instead on transforming existing neighborhoods into places where people actually want to live? Small homes with backyards. Clean, safe, and human-scale. That would be far more appealing to innovative young families than another stack of glass-walled condos downtown. If they’re going to reinvent the local economy, they’ll need more than a parking space and a rooftop lounge.
maybe you are right, I didn't know about Healdsburg etc trying this idea already. Would Napa Pipe fit your narrative there? I haven't seen it.
But in any case, I think new business is going to come from creating the space, whatever that is, whether new single family homes or otherwise, that innovative young people move into and gradually create a shift over time.
As a long-time resident of Hidden Valley Lake, I see tons of traffic on Highway 29 going over Mount St. Helena, especially during commuter hours. Has any government agency, regional transportation agency, etc. done a survey of where the people are going, to jobs in Napa or Sonoma counties? The expensive commuter buses, which travel from Clearlake to Calistoga twice each morning are usually mostly empty.
https://nvta.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NapaValley_TBS_Document_final-May-2020.pdf
This is an interesting, and partially convincing, analysis, but I still have questions.
Last I knew, the vacancy rate for houses, apartments, and condos was very low. Far lower than is healthy for a good seller-buyer balance. Has that changed? A tight housing market suggests that vacant units are snapped up quickly. And, with low vacancy rates, the power is in the hands of sellers'/landlords' to keep raising prices. That seems to be exactly what is happening, with housing costs far outpacing wages.
It is not only "low-wage" workers who are priced out of Napa County housing, many higher wage professionals cannot find housing that they can afford in Napa County. What is that if not a housing shortage?
Agree with everything you are saying here. Thank you. I am lucky to own my home, but really feel for renters. The county's ADU program supports homeowners to build ADUs, with the promise that they will rent to a worker who earns less than 80% of median income ($89K), which then sets the "affordable" rent at $2425. The county is out of touch with their formula. That's a steep rent for a single in a small dwelling for most of our workforce.
I work for Napa County Office of Education in a position that requires a bachelors, preferably in Education, with experience as an Educator. I easily meet those qualifications for my very professional position, but the pay is low and I could no way afford that rent. That doesn't make sense.
We need more supply to bring down housing costs here, no matter what. I know SO many people (lots of people who work for Napa County Office of Ed) who would definitely live here instead of another county if it were more affordable.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Nancy.
You’re right that low vacancy rates can suggest a tight market, and in many places that can drive up prices. But that’s only one piece of a more complex picture. What we’re asking readers to do is not take a single metric in isolation but look at how it interacts with broader economic and demographic trends.
In Napa County, prices remain high, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to a sustainable or local demand. We see a pattern where housing is filled, yes—but increasingly by commuters or retirees whose incomes are tied to jobs or assets elsewhere. That’s not the same as local job growth supporting local housing growth.
The deeper issue is whether housing being added—or proposed—matches who lives and works here now and who we expect will live and work here in the future. If most of the new units are filled by people commuting out for work or bringing income from elsewhere, then we’re not solving a local housing problem. We’re building infrastructure that’s increasingly disconnected from Napa County’s own economic base.
We’re also at a demographic tipping point. The aging of the baby boom generation and the shrinking size of younger generations suggest that long-term demand may actually decline. The real question is: Are we building the right kind of housing in the right places for the people this community wants to support—teachers, nurses, firefighters, local entrepreneurs—or are we building what outside capital wants to finance and what external markets will absorb?
Appreciate your engagement—this is exactly the kind of discussion we hoped to spark.
Thank you for sharing this, Gayle. Your story highlights why this conversation needs to go deeper than just “supply.”
The ADU program, as you noted, relies on formulas that don’t reflect the realities facing most of our workforce. When “affordable” rent is set at $2,425 for a small unit, it’s clear the numbers aren’t grounded in local wages—not for educators, nonprofit staff, ag professionals, wine workers, or many others doing essential work here.
The broader point is this: Yes, housing will fill. But if the people moving in aren’t working here—if they’re commuting out or bringing income from elsewhere—we’re not solving a local housing problem. We’re just becoming a bedroom community for other places.
We’ve seen this pattern before. In the 1950s and ’60s, Silicon Valley was told that more growth would make housing more affordable. But what happened instead is what always happens in desirable regions: people with outside income moved in, prices stayed high, and the workforce got pushed farther out. You can build and build—but unless the housing is aligned with local jobs, you’re not solving affordability. You’re just shifting the pressure somewhere else.
That’s why the Ag Preserve was created—not to stop growth, but to ask what kind of growth actually serves the people who live and work here. That question still matters.
This issue, like many here, has several angles. No easy solution.
I appreciate your mention of Ag Preserve. I am pretty familiar with the founders' story and frustrated by how often I hear it misconstrued. I agree that the intention included HOW to grow, and that considerations for how how to accommodate those who work in the wine industry were important in determining what would need to be built.
Great research, as usual.
It's all going to change with AI. And, probably, not for the better.
A summary of the article for those who want a tl;dr: “Our generations of NIMBYism has already screwed up our local economy for generations to come, so let’s continue to pull up the economic ladder behind us by continuing to not build.”
*edit* this post is snarky, and I thought about coming back to remove some of that snark on second thought, but I am leaving it to let the frustration show a bit.
Build what? Good jobs? The data show building well paying jobs is a very good strategy.
I have lots of thoughts. Let me gather them and respond later today hopefully.
Of course. But it’s worth remembering that the Ag Preserve was created in 1968 by an earlier generation (the “Greatest Generation “)—many of them farmers, not developers or politicians. They weren’t trying to block growth; they were responding to what was already happening just south of here in what would become Silicon Valley.
At the time, developers were pushing the idea that building more housing—bedroom communities for the Bay Area—was the only way to achieve affordability. The people behind the Ag Preserve saw the long game. They knew that once you start building to chase affordability without tying it to local jobs, infrastructure, or land conservation, you don’t get affordability—you get sprawl and dependency.
So the debate today isn’t just about one generation pulling up the ladder. It’s about whether we’ve learned anything from the last time a place gave in to the “just build more” narrative. That path is already mapped—and it leads away from local resilience.
The only way to respond here without writing an entire paper in response is to focus on housing stock type.
The source cited about housing type reveals a huge disconnect that is absent in this analysis. In the aggregated analysis, 42% of respondents wanted housing that is smaller but closer to amenities. Disaggregated, 56% of democrats and 62% of “liberals” want this type of housing, and as a person increases their education, they also prefer smaller, denser neighborhoods. Bumped against the existing stock in the city of Napa, where I will focus, there’s a huge and widening gap.
Napa has an overall walk score of 42, meaning that almost all daily errands need a car. 62% of Napa is comprised of single family homes and is zoned exclusively to only allow that type of housing. Furthermore, the high-ish density housing Napa has built has been far away from amenities and entertainment (SoCo can only reach Walmart and limited other shops, Gasser Dr isn’t close to anything, and most others are built on the periphery of town). There has been zero housing growth in downtown and along commercial corridors, where a traditional city would have built out first. The zoning code in Napa and the city council mandate this type of growth and prevents the sustainable growth of a traditional city.
It’s simply a fact that most Americans haven’t been introduced to living in a small, walkable community because this type of building density outside of “traditional neighborhoods” is the norm across the US. No one wants to live in a small apartment where they have to drive everywhere when the alternative is a house with a yard where they have to drive everywhere too, but that’s all that is offered. This proof plays out in those same cited statistics where those who already live in urban environments prefer that type of living where 57% prefer that density.
We limited our growth outwards which was the right call, but we also said we can’t grow up and in. That killed the opportunity for small chains like Vallergas to adapt and instead made land so unaffordable only the big players could bear that cost. So, instead of a local chain with 3-5 locations and the management overhead that pays higher salaries for that chain, we have Safeway/Albertsons (HQ: Pleasanton), Lucky (HQ: Colorado), Target (HQ: Minnesota), and Walmart (HQ: Arkansas) with mainly minimum wage salaries. We did that through zoning and parking requirements that necessitated a minimum lot size with a maximum coverage, maximum height, and a set amount of required parking. All that overhead is simply too much for the Main Street style store to bear. Walmart can run a loss on one out of its hundreds of stores for years until it prices out competition. The Smith family can barely last a month. Paired with the city code, a large business operating in that model isn’t capitalism, it’s state sponsored oligarchy. It is mandated by our zoning code and reinforced by our city council who refuses to encourage density and instead continues to try to expand out to Napa Pipe, Foster Road, and Big Ranch Road.
The apocryphal quote from Henry Ford is apt here: “if I asked people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses.” Yes, the push for sprawl-based growth in the post war era was bad, but that type of growth is still supported and subsidized by NIMBYs who think we shouldn’t grow from where we are today. We have 35,000+ people who commute into this valley for work every day. The housing that would be built for them would spark a huge growth of jobs even if it were only the services those people would need—from construction to domestic labor to everyday needs, and again, the staff needed to manage those businesses. Saying we shouldn’t grow to accommodate them is simply a privileged position that says, “I’ve got mine; you figure it out on your own without inconveniencing me at all.” It is anti-democratic, it is anti-community, and, ultimately, it is selfish.
Richard — thanks for your thoughtful comment.
The concern isn’t about opposing density, walkability, or thoughtful infill — those ideas can absolutely support a stronger Napa community. But the core point remains: speculative demand is not a strategic plan — it’s simply what every developer (and even well-intentioned civic leaders) often use in place of a plan. Building large amounts of housing — of any type — without first ensuring a stable base of well-paying local jobs leads to unsustainable growth, strained infrastructure, and ultimately, a more fragile community.
We’ve seen this story play out in countless places — Danville, VA (tobacco economy vanished), Youngstown, OH (steel bust), Austin and Boise today (overbuilt housing now reversing), and even right here in Calistoga, when the early 20th-century spa economy collapsed — just like many other once-thriving spa towns. Today’s data show clear signs of overbuilding in U.S. markets that rushed ahead on demand-driven arguments.
The lesson is clear: build the jobs first. Then build the housing to match real, sustainable economic need.
The Ag Preserve was developed by visionaries who were not NIMBY or anti-community. It was — and remains — a sound vision that highlights the need for thoughtful planning. A jobs-first agenda is the only sound path forward to protect Napa’s long-term future.