There exists a high degree of concern among many residents, business owners, and elected officials in Napa County that second-home purchasers are depleting an already low supply of family homes for Napa Valley workers. The combination of the County’s legal mandate to provide for affordable housing and the need for market-rate homes that do not disappear into the weekend retreat category are both addressed in the Ecovillage community.
Affordable Homes
While Napa County obligates by ordinance that all new development provide 10% of its housing as inclusionary, the Ecovillage voluntarily raises that to 15%. These units would be controlled through 55-year covenants to guarantee compliance with State inclusionary requirements. These affordable condominiums and attached homes would be interspersed throughout both campus and ecovillage areas. In the Ecovillage, they would also be designed and constructed to the same green building standards as adjoining market rate homes. Close-in, affordable housing will be important for both the college and nearby St. Helena Hospital staff currently priced out of Napa County and forced to commute from five surrounding counties.
Local Preference Housing
To address local officials’ concerns about the diminishing stock of market rate housing for Napa County workers, the Ecovillage community intends to introduce an innovative new concept that provides appropriate incentives for linking local jobs with local housing. In essence, the program will offer relief to Napa County workers from normal assessments to be levied against Ecovillage parcels for the cost of maintaining and operating the infrastructure and services provided by the Ecovillage Homeowners Association, the Ecovillage Special Services District, and the Angwin Agricultural Conservancy. This works because the LPH program uses market incentives, not household income caps as with inclusionary units, to attract buyers through financial incentives, not penalties.
Fifty percent of the Ecovillage homes are being proposed for the LPH program. These homes will have binding covenants in perpetuity recorded on title to ensure the reduced assessments for residents who work in Napa County. The covenants will not require the owner to sell to someone who works in Napa County. However, if the future resident is a legitimate, documented worker in Napa County, they will be assessed at a lower rate based on the location of their employment.
The LPH program will be a three-tiered system of varied assessment reductions. Each of these levels is determined by location of employment. The first level will be for people employed in the Angwin and Deer Park areas, the second level is for people employed in the St. Helena and Calistoga areas, and the third level will consist of people employed in the cities of Napa, American Canyon, and all other unincorporated areas of southern Napa County. The table to the left illustrates an estimate of the number of homes and percentage of assessed value proposed for each level.
For example, if someone was to purchase a home and they work at St. Helena Hospital, they would qualify for reduced assessments under the First Level Adjustment. Assume an assessed value of the home being considered is $750,000. For an Ecovillage home not in the LPH program, a homeowner would need to pay an estimated annual assessment of $7,200. A comparable home in the LPH program under the First Level Adjustment would be estimated to pay only 10% of this total, or $720, for an overall annual estimated savings of $6,480 on property assessments. The program self-adjusts as the mix of employment based residents move in, always guaranteeing enough funds levied to maintain all Ecovillage systems. This market-based incentive stands an excellent chance of truly linking Ecovillage homes to closer-in places of employment.
Compliance with LPH annual monitoring will be the responsibility of the County’s Housing Authority in conjunction with their monitoring of affordable home compliance. Out-of-county workers will pay the maximum homeowner’s assessment to, in effect, subsidize the efficiency of the LPH program.
Second Home Purchasers
The Ecovillage community is not being conceived as a weekend retreat location for wealthy second home buyers. Enough of that already exists in the Napa Valley, reducing valuable housing stock for local workers. Several lifestyle systems should discourage second home considerations without violating anti-discrimination law, such as, the obligation to financially participate in the Angwin Agricultural Conservancy and accept weekly delivery of farm produce; the obligation to financially participate in the Transportation Management Program and adapt to a non auto-centric routine of alternative transit; and socially active participation in local voluntary land use and conservation programs, public safety programs, eco-literacy in schools and farmer’s market programs, and renewable energy operational systems. Paying for and accepting locally grown organic food and monitoring rainwater recapture and reduced potable water usage requires awareness and consistent attention to conservation measures, not particularly suited for weekend visitors.