Napa Residential Design Guidelines 10/30/01 Community Workshop

Napa Residential Design Guidelines Community Workshop Summary

On October 30, 2001, over 30 people attended a community workshop to discuss residential design issues in Napa. The workshop objectives included:

Discussing how to implement Napa's housing policies;
Reviewing residential infill opportunities and issues; and
Identifying Napa's neighborhoods' special or unique character.

Important Themes

Workshop participants assisted in identifying the key design features of Napa's neighborhoods the design guidelines should build on. There were three overall themes that emerged from the discussion:

Old Town Napa has many of the residential design features the community values. Participants felt traditional neighborhoods have a sense of place, mature streetscapes, a variety of architectural styles and housing types, integrated parks and open space, less visible parking, and are more pedestrian friendly.
Parts of Napa are still evolving and can be enhanced with well-designed infill development. Former rural areas with farmhouses, heritage landscapes and scattered contemporary housing, and new subdivisions, should be developed to incorporate historic features and utilize many of the design elements the community finds desirable in Old Town.
New development should be an integral part of Napa, not isolated enclaves. There was concern that new "monster homes" on the edge of Napa were being developed as separate communities, both in terms of their design character and connections to the city.

Workshop Exercises

There were three workshop exercises:

Exercise #1: Napa's Context

From memory, participants created drawings of Napa indicating the historic part of the community, principal neighborhoods, community gateways, edges and landmarks. Participants identified features that have shaped Napa's growth. These included:

Natural features such as mountains and the river;
Regional connections with major roads and highways and community gateways; and
Historic evolution of neighborhoods, street patterns, and districts.

Exercise #2: Character Area Mapping

Using a map. participants indicated the boundaries of areas that have distinctive characteristics. Teams generally identified four types of districts:

Old Town traditional neighborhoods;
Post War subdivisions;
Evolving formally rural areas with scattered infill sites, and
New subdivisions on the edge of Napa.

Exercise #3: Distinctive Characteristics

Participants used photographs of streets and buildings to illustrate distinctive features in character areas.

Planning Teams Summary

Workshop participants worked as members of four planning teams. Each team identified areas of special character and key features the guidelines should incorporate. The following summaries include their analysis maps and descriptions of three character areas.

Team 1

Orchard Avenue