Large co-op winery proposed for 11-acre site south of Calistoga

(PD) - Napa County planners will consider a proposal Wednesday to build a winery complex south of Calistoga that could be home to as many as 14 producers making up to 300,000 gallons per year.

A St. Helena company wants to turn the 11-acre site, now home to a barrel storage warehouse and a PG&E equipment yard, into an 82,000-square-foot cluster of buildings that could be leased by a single winery or subdivided to allow smaller producers to have their own production and tasting facility without the expense of building a free-standing winery. It would be the first such facility in Napa County.

Neighbors and county staff, however, worry that the complex is far too large, covering too much land on the site and drawing too many people to the relatively isolated and quiet area on the east side of Highway 29 north of Larkmead Lane.

The application asks for permission to host up to 350 visitors each weekday and 500 per day on weekends. It seeks approval for up to 14 special events of 100 guests or more per year, including one of up to 500 guests.

“This would be very intensive and overly large for development in an agricultural area,” said neighbor Andrea Powell. “It's very quiet here; there is nobody around.”

The county planning commission is expected to hold a public hearing at 9 a.m. at the county office building in Napa on Wednesday, but staff is asking commissioners to hold off making a decision afterward in hopes the developer will agree to reduce the size of the proposal.

“We're supportive of a winery being built on that location,” said planner Linda St. Claire, “but we're just interested in something that fits that site a little better.”

As proposed, the complex would require a series of exemptions from normal zoning rules, including the set-back distances required from neighboring roads. Likely more troublesome is a request to have the buildings cover nearly 33 percent of the land area, well above the normal 25 percent limit in the county's carefully-protected agricultural zoning districts.