About Protect Rural Napa

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Protect Rural Napa, established in 2014, is a public benefit organization that advocates for local and state legislation and planning decisions regarding land use development that encourage:

• preservation of natural resources and soil conservation
• promotion of water availability and quality
• improvement in the health of our river and stream ecosystems
• overall reduction of traffic congestion and promotion of traffic safety
• reduction of air, noise and light pollution
• prevention of wild land fires including the promotion of wildfire safety
• protection of open spaces.

Protect Rural Napa promotes the preservation of a rural, small town future for Napa County. To do so it supports the maintenance and preservation of a healthy agricultural economy, and it encourages land use policies that support agriculture. It also discourages uses that are detrimental to the rural way of life that is the result of agricultural use. The development of venues for wine tourism within agricultural zones, and the destruction of woodlands for vineyard related estate housing and resorts, while done in the guise of aiding agricultural viability, are seen by Protect Rural Napa as detrimental to the rural nature of the county and in the long run detrimental to the viability of an agricultural economy as a continued influx of people and urban development build pressure to put agricultural land to more profitable use.

In 1968 the Napa Valley floor was established as an Agricultural Preserve (AP zone), and in the 1973 Napa County General Plan much of the remainder of the county was established as an Agriculture/Watershed Open Space (AW zone). Limits to the development of non-agricultural uses in the last 45 years have meant that a county so close to the urban sprawl of the San Francisco Bay Area has managed to retain much of its rural character. But despite the protections inherent in the AP and AW zoning, development pressures hoping to turn Napa land to more profitable use are constant. Revisions to the General Plan to increase profitability have been enacted, resulting each time in a dilution in the commitment to the original intention.

Protect Rural Napa has been created in an effort to reinforce the original intentions of the Ag Preserve through local community support and action. As a community, we have the opportunity to challenge the adverse impacts of commercial opportunism that the county has seemed to encourage in the last few years. We need to act on that opportunity. Please Join us.

Board of Directors

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Shelle Wolfe	President	Board Log In
Ann Palotas	Vice President
Glenn Schreuder	Treasurer
Shelle Wolfe	Secretary
Anthony Arger
Julie Arger
Cindy Grupp
Bill Hocker
Jim Wilson

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