Save Lodi Lane

NO ROOM AT THE INN

By J. D. Murphy—Preserve Lodi Lane

If the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for the creation of the Inn at the Abbey boutique luxury resort on both sides of Lodi Lane at California State Route 29 (SR 29) in St. Helena is approved without a present-day review of structural geometric hazards affecting public health and safety, and a cumulative traffic impact study including all 19 wineries within one-mile of the Inn at the Abbey, by the Napa County Board of Supervisors, a score of families long occupying rental houses on Lodi Lane owned by the developers will be evicted without concern for housing in a county long plagued by the absence of affordable family residences.

The Inn at the Abbey eviction of the families isdisguised by the characterization of their long-occupied residences as simply being remodeled for occupancy for employees of the new hotel, noticeably absent of any acknowledgement of the horrific consequences to the families. Absent linkage to the evicted families, the Inn at the Abbey proposes the creation of just five housing units at a yet-to-be identified location in Napa County, plus the donation of $250,000 towards public housing, despite hiring an estimated 103 new employees.

Neighborhood Proposal

The following modifications to proposed Inn at the Abbey physical locations on both sides of the Lodi Lane/State Route 29 would substantially address major health, safety, and housing concerns:

1. Construct the proposed Inn at the Abbey 50 rooms solely on the property occupied by the Freemark Abbey winery, together with registration, underground parking, restaurant, rooftop lounge, conference center, pool and spa, retail outlets, and other amenities, and

2. Replace the proposed 29 rooms on Lodi Lane with the five dwelling units proposed by the Inn at the Abbey designated for use by the evicted families.

Health and Safety Threats 

The placement of 29 Inn at the Abbey hotel rooms on Lodi Lane constitutes a health and safety threat to all guests residing in those rooms—together with the employees servicing them—because they will be required to physically cross Lodi Lane on foot, or by Inn service carts, 24-hours a day to utilize Inn amenities. Mitigations identified for this structural geometric hazard are a striped crosswalk and a ten-foot cement median at the tee-intersection of Lodi Lane and SR 29. 

The generic fault with these mitigations is that guests seeking hotel amenities will inevitably forgo across walk clogged daily with cyclists, passenger vehicles, big rig, service, and delivery trucks, and wine tasting visitors, among others, and cross Lodi Lane at unmarked locations both day and night on a narrow, two-lane road with virtually no usable shoulders, and a 40-mph speed limit.

Guests will share the crosswalk with walkers, joggers, and cyclists using the Vine Trail contiguous to the proposed Inn at the Abbey; big rig wine tanker trucks servicing a new Duckhorn Winery production factory near the eastern end of Lodi Lane prohibited from using a nearly 100-year-old deteriorated bridge over the Napa River on Lodi Lane adjacent to the Silverado Trail; the over 90,000 guests approved to visit the Duckhorn Winery annually; wine tasting visitors at 19 wineries within one-mile of Lodi Lane; service and delivery trucks supporting the new hotel and the existing  29 room Petit Pali hotel; electric carts delivering and picking up guests occupying the Lodi Lane rooms; 2,000 vehicles using Lodi Lane weekly(2017 traffic study); Inn at the Abbey guests traveling south from Calistoga who will be required to turn left on Lodi Lane to check in because of being not allowed to enter the SR 29 entrance to the hotel by stopping to turn left off SR 29 with traffic approaching out of a blind rise behind them at 50-mph; the nearly 101,000 vehicles (2017 traffic study) on California State Route 29 (SR 29)crossing Lodi Lane weekly; and the cumulative nearly 5 million vehicles traveling at 50-mph on SR 29 annually past Lodi Lane.

Flawed Cumulative Traffic Study

Although there are 19 wineries within one mile of Lodi Lane, the Inn at the Abbey FEIR cumulative traffic study included only 7 wineries (36 percent) within one-half-mile of the proposed hotel were studied, inexplicably even excluding six other wineries within its arbitrary study radius; Grace, Ravena, Ballentine, Markham, Titus, and Krug. A present-day cumulative traffic study must be undertaken with all 19 wineries within one-mile of Lodi Lane to obtain a factual assessment of its public health and safety impact.

Cooperative Solution

Designating the construction of 50 Inn at the Abbey rooms plus amenities solely on Freemark Abbey property together with the replacement of 29 proposed rooms on Lodi Lane with five dwellings for the families evicted as the result of the construction plans, will materially protect the health and safety of the public while ensuring the creation of Inn at the Abbey at a scale balanced with environmental and physical constraints, and avoid throwing families into the cold with no provision for their welfare.