Bordeaux (the district) has been more successful, by allowing denser housing right next to vineyards. Its zoning laws are less weaponized to protect NIMBY-faithful existing homeowners and their property appreciation.
A high-rise rental life must preclude outsider freedom to opine and question long-existent orthodoxy.
May I someday be fortunate enough to gain your Ptolemaic insight.
As usual, you fail to address the issues that you (and everyone else who considers themselves an urban planning expert) can’t answer realistically… 
I’m unsure why victor’s answer is creating such heated replies. He’s accurate. Zoning laws need to adjust to allow For height and density
I don’t think he’s remotely suggesting someone living on a 25/40/160 acre expanse should put up an apartment complex.
I think he’s simply stating that densities must go up as it is the most effective at solving this situation.
I now work in SFO and work for a firm related to these issues (high housing costs) and I’m often scratching my head at the decisions SFO/CA zoning boards make when developers try to meet demand.
This situation feels very self-inflicted to me.
I agree Chris. Faced the same issues in NYC.
Instead, kindly and specifically advise us how an agricultural community that has metamorphosed into a luxury destination can solve issues around housing, infrastructure and transportation without resorting to eminent domain?
That’s the problem though, isn’t it? You can’t have both an agricultural community and a luxury destination. In the one case, you have guys with pick up trucks and muddy boots. The sight seers want to come and “experience” wine country and maybe the “lifestyle”, which to them mostly involves sitting on a patio overlooking the valley and sipping wine. They’re not going to get their hands dirty. So eventually the agricultural community is no more.
And that’s if you get nice places going up for the wealty. If you just get random building for everyone, you end up with Los Angeles.
So one solution would be to prohibit things like golf courses, which I think should be prohibited in the desert anyway. And also prohibit hotels, any type of resort or camping space, and most of all AirBnB. That may keep an agricultural area viable for a while. But eventually, you’ll have to deal with the fact of appreciating real estate prices and in a generation or two, people may think differently. If you expand roads and infrastructure, you enable more building and have to expand roads and infrastructure again.
The issues regarding agricultural areas are quite different from those affecting urban areas, but the cost of housing can be an issue in both. One of the things that a lot of people ignore is that the agricultural areas are not, any more than the cities, entirely the problem of the people living there. We all need and want food and agricultural products. You can’t keep building over those places and expect affordable food. Similarly, cities offer benefits that you don’t get elsewhere, which is why people have moved to cities for thousands of years. High rise living is not undesirable for many people. The only sure fire way to ensure insufficient and inadequate housing is to impose rent control, which seems to be the approach California is taking.
Maybe the landed gentry just prefer not to see my kind, especially in crowds.
If more housing allows workers to afford living near work, current transportation infrastructure can suffice.
That is how other cities have accommodated growth but reduced roadways.
California claims to be addressing home affordability. NEWS FLASH: any home which zoning laws prohibit from existence will necessarily be unaffordable to everybody.
Hey, but current homeowners get appreciation profits in private silence. It is interesting to watch young adult children reap the harvest which their NiMBY parents have seeded, watered, and especially fertilized.
We have density zoning…it’s called “City” and the Ag Preserve is in “County.” We do not receive city services in the Ag Preserve, or in “County.” County or Ag Preserve has limited natural resources and we protect them with all we have. Calistoga City Police and Fire are not in charge of my safety in those areas…it comes from County…or the County Seat in Napa - 45 minutes away. There is a lot that outsiders do not comprehend about our agricultural lifestyle. BTW, “City” is less than a mile from me.
How does building a three-family home on a small plot damage NIMBY Nirvana?
Enlighten this city ghetto rat.
Not enough water, not enough septic space, 3 stories cannot be supported, not to mention the viewshed. This is what “tourists” expect: Nirvana. They rent a room and have expectations of a lifestyle that is different from city life. You still seem to not understand…but someone who chooses to rent in a high rise in a major city perhaps can’t imagine our lifestyle. But they sure like to avail themselves of it on their vacations/celebrations/weddings, etc.
Victor,
Napa is not set up with the density of New York. It’s not 10 blocks to work. Merrill may be close to the city of Napa, but the overall area is rather spread out, with no subways. Your concepts don’t work.
Rhys has built housing in the vineyards for the workers but that is not the norm or practical in many areas.
As mentioned above, this is an issue in the bay area and socal too.
Many teachers can’t live near the schools they work in not to mention unskilled labor.
Septic systems are a whole other problem, in terms of groundwater pollution and sometimes food contamination. Municipal sewerage networks are more effective, especially in land usage.
Sometimes, innovation means crossing long-held boundaries. Cities have begun to embrace rooftop and warehouse agriculture.
Hey Victor…ever heard of earthquakes?
Yes. Ever hear of SF, LA, DC, Tokyo, Kobe, and NYC?
Some numbers to contemplate: California’s population has doubled over the past 50 years from 20M to 40M. That’s a 1.4% annualized growth rate, significantly higher than the U.S. overall (which is a little under 1%). Some areas have barely budged (San Francisco county, for example, went from a little over 700k in 1970 to a little under 900k now. Many inner Bay Area communities are similar, because there just isn’t much open land to build on. Napa went from a rural agricultural valley, with a bit of wine growing in 1970, to being dominated by vineyards and tourism today. I don’t know that anything could really make a big difference in the outcome, aside from building a lot more high density housing in the residential/business areas of Napa itself. Anything beyond that (like building large high density apartments in St. Helena) destroys the very essence of the valley, which is what attracts the tourists in the first place.
Then, wine-country tourism operators should charge higher much prices for that experience, in order to pay workers enough to live there.
Do you recommend leasing a magic wand, or buying one?
Otherwise, tourism operators are unhappy but acting helpless.
That’s already happening. Hotels and restaurants have gotten much more expensive over time. I don’t know if that trickles down to the workers, but presumably does to some extent. You also have workers who are willing to work for lower wages, thus depressing those salaries, but now we turn the discussion in a political direction.