Feedback & FAQ

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.

You can learn more about the initiative process by clicking here.

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.

Water, workforce housing, and traffic are a few of the most common issues raised by the residents of St. Helena. Please see below 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.

The northernmost segment of the Napa Valley Vine Trail between the City of Calistoga and northern part of St. Helena will soon open. The southernmost part of this new segment, which will end at Pratt Avenue, will create an opportunity for the resort to create a connection from the Vine Trail to the resort property, to further incentivize future hotel guests to use alternative modes of transportation.

The project is designed to have minimal visual impact from surrounding properties. Most buildings on the property are only 1-2 stories high, and are designed with natural earth tones to harmoniously blend in with the natural environment. Photorealistic renderings of the project from select vantage points on Highway 29, Deer Park Road, at the future driveway to the property, and from Charles Krug Winery have also been prepared to show the minimal visual impact the project will have.

With the City of St. Helena’s budgetary challenges, the St. Helena Resort project will provide a windfall of one-time and ongoing revenues to help the city improve essential services, which include new city facilities, improvements to streets, sidewalks, and water and wastewater treatments plants.

The resort will provide significant income to the City of St. Helena in the form of higher property taxes, transient occupancy taxes (more commonly referred to as “TOT”), sales taxes, and one-time development fees. More than $2.05 million in total annual taxes is anticipated in Year 1 of operations, growing to $3.46 million in total annual taxes anticipated in Year 3 of operations. Based on these projections, over 20 years, the project could provide well over $65 million to the City of St. Helena.

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.

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.”

What kind of improvements would be made immediately, and what other improvements could be considered long-term?