FAQs

Measure B: the St. Helena Agritourism Initiative, is a citizen’s initiative that will appear on the ballots of registered voters in the City of St. Helena ahead of the November 5, 2024 election. The Initiative creates a stringent set of rules and environmental regulations to allow resort development on the Charles Krug Winery property, and makes the city the permitting and enforcement agency with authority to withhold permits and occupancy if conditions are not satisfied.

Measure B would allow the City to issue permits to build the St. Helena Resort project within a zoning overlay at the Charles Krug Winery property, within St. Helena city limits. The resort project, if approved by voters, would be limited to no more than 56 rooms, along with a restaurant, spa, and other amenities, subject to 92 environmental conditions.

Measure B is a citizen’s initiative filed by 5th Generation St. Helenan Krisi Raymond. The initiative’s sponsor: Noble House Hotels & Resorts, the owners of the Napa Valley Wine Train since January 2016, is the parent company behind the initiative. Noble House, a family-owned hotel company, would construct, manage, and oversee the project from start-to-finish in partnership with Charles Krug Winery and the Peter Mondavi Sr. family.

Measure B is the culmination of a citizen’s initiative process, which allows voters to directly decide on policy matters, in accordance with the California Elections Code. In the case of Measure B, a City of St. Helena registered voter filed the initiative with City Hall and after meeting and exceeding the signature-gathering requirements specified by state law, the St. Helena City Council in June 2024 placed Measure B: the St. Helena Agritourism Initiative, before voters in the upcoming November 5, 2024 election.

The initiative sponsors did not take the decision to pursue a ballot initiative lightly. The initiative process was chosen after extensive consultation with community members, and in response to the city’s financial realities. Placing Measure B on the ballot allows the residents of St. Helena to decide if they want the project. This approach embodies direct democracy, giving the community the power to make a decision on a project that will significantly improve our city’s future.

Measure B’s local tax revenue will largely come from Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT) paid by visitors, not locals. Measure B will boost city revenue without burdening residents, and is especially important given the financial challenges facing City Hall, and recent bond ratings outlook downgrades in St. Helena. Measure B is expected to generate $3.6 million in total new annual tax revenue through the construction of the St. Helena Resort project, improving city finances long-term. The increase in tourism will also support downtown merchants, local restaurants, and other locally-owned businesses in St. Helena, further improving local economic conditions.

Water, workforce housing, and traffic are a few of the most common issues raised by the residents of St. Helena. Please see the reverse side of this fact sheet for additional information on these notable topics.

No. To avoid burdening city infrastructure, the project will use existing on-site wells and build a state-of-the-art recycled water treatment system on the property. Environmental analysis concluded that the wells provide enough water to meet the water needs for the project without depleting the aquifer. The recycled water system planned for the St. Helena Resort project will not only treat resort wastewater that will be recycled, it also will treat and recycle Charles Krug Winery wastewater to be treated at the resort site – an on-site water treatment capability not currently available to the winery. This will increase the ability to recycle significant amounts of water for both the resort and winery’s continued use.

The initiative requires the project to use existing wells and it cannot exceed the County’s GSA Groundwater Management Ordinance allotment of 0.3 acre-feet per acre, which must be fully documented before any permits can be issued. The initiative requires the Project to “incorporate best practices for water conservation, which shall include metering the water production/extraction and well water levels.” These regulations do not apply to the property today.

Measure B includes a Workforce Housing Obligation that requires the creation of workforce housing at an off-site location in St. Helena city limits. If Measure B is approved, building permits would not be issued to the developer until a housing application is on-file with the City of St. Helena with at least 50 units of affordable housing. At that point, the city and developer would work together to get the workforce housing proposal approved by the time the resort is completed and ready to open. If an approval is not issued in that 3-year period, then, and only then, could the developer exercise an option to pay into the city’s affordable housing fund.

Noble House already has housing in other communities for its resorts, such as Jackson Hole and Key West. They want and need workforce housing because it is important to them to be able to attract and retain employees. Noble House is a hotel operator that plans to remain in St. Helena and Napa County where it owns and operates the Napa Valley Wine Train and other facilities.

Yes. While separate from the initiative itself, Noble House Hotels & Resorts owns property on Fulton Lane where the Napa Valley Wine Train tracks intersect the roadway in an area not immediately surrounding other residences. This location, which is zoned for both commercial and housing uses, is the proposed site for workforce housing. Noble House is working with planners to complete the workforce housing submittal package for the City of St. Helena soon.y.

Vehicles entering the St. Helena Resort site will do so from a newly-constructed roadway off Deer Park Road, to minimize additional traffic on Highway 29 and Silverado Trail.

A traffic study was prepared by W-Trans last fall. W-Trans is one of the leading traffic engineering consulting companies in Northern California. The findings of the traffic study concluded that traffic from the up to 56-room resort would be “less than significant.”

As part of the construction phase of the St. Helena Resort project, a left-turn lane would be built for those entering the resort site from Silverado Trail to Deer Park Road. Those entering the project site from Highway 29 to Deer Park Road would turn right to enter the property with minimal disruption. The developers are also required to contribute to future improvements on Deer Park Road at Silverado Trail and Highway 29. In addition to this, the project will create a new paved bicycle and pedestrian trail open to the public connecting the resort to Fulton Lane.

The St. Helena Resort project is expected to generate more than $3.6 million annually, or more than $70 million over 20 years. This ongoing source of new funding would provide a significant boost to St. Helena, including a large amount of unrestricted resources that can be invested by future City Councils to improve the St. Helena community. It is important to keep in mind that most of this new tax revenue would be generated by visitors, not locals.

Yes. This summer, S&P Global, one of the leading credit agencies that rates municipalities on their ability to meet current and future debt obligations, downgraded St. Helena’s long-term credit outlook from “stable” to “negative.” This is due in part to high operating costs at City Hall, with no guaranteed revenue sources to meet an estimated $7 million structural deficit. Measure B would provide a long-term revenue source to help bridge this structural deficit.

With an estimated $3.6 million in new tax revenue each year, it is expected that approximately $1.8 million of this money, or roughly half the total tax revenue, would be available for the City of St. Helena to use on unrestricted expenditures, boosting St. Helena’s General Fund. The General Fund could invest these tax proceeds into a variety of community improvements, from smoother streets and sidewalks to improvements to city facilities like the water and wastewater treatment systems, police and fire services, city parks, and more.