Alta Heights neighbors challenge Napa commission’s approval of day care

A Napa day care recently given the green light to move into a former church will now require permission from the City Council after residents challenged the approval’s legality.

The Alta Heights Neighborhood Coalition appealed the Napa Planning Commission’s approval of the project, which came after a roughly five-hour meeting April 4 that spilled out of the council chambers with over 100 people in attendance.

The appeal letter — which notes the coalition does “fully support a child care use at the former Mormon church” — is focused on non-day care uses at the proposed site and says the city didn’t comply with the California Environmental Quality Act in approving the project.

Commissioners had approved a use permit for Le Petit Elephant Nursery and Preschool to use the former church, at 15 Chapel Hill Drive, as a day care center for up to 250 children, with 220 children up to age 5 and 30 children ages 5-12.

Le Petit was also approved to operate and rent out a community playroom and a gymnasium or multiuse space, including a stage and a basketball court.

Commissioners at the meeting responded to complaints about possibly disruptive non-daycare activities by restricting the use of the facility to what was contained in the project description.

That means weddings, for example, wouldn’t be allowed at the site unless city staff approved an exemption. And Milli Pintacsi, founder of Le Petit Elephant, said at the meeting she envisioned other uses would be child-focused.

But the Alta Heights neighbors argue the non-day care uses constitute “unrelated commercial uses of the facility” which they say isn’t allowed under applicable zoning. Such uses shouldn’t be allowed, according to the coalition.

Their appeal letter also says the coalition contacted “most child care facilities in Napa, Solano and Sonoma Counties” and that none allowed outside rental of their facilities.

The neighbor coalition goes on to argue the city didn’t comply with the state’s Environmental Quality Act, given the exemption the city used requires “negligible or no expansion of existing or former use.”

That’s because the proposed day care use is “completely different from the prior religious use of the facility,” among other reasons, the coalition argues.

The letter also states the project, at a minimum, should be subject to environmental review.

The neighbors also want operating hours to only include weekdays, that there be a reduction in hours of operation, that there be a “significant reduction in the project’s overall scope” and that there be a denial of off-property parking.

At the planning commission meeting, Alta Heights residents generally complained of traffic problems they said the day care would create in the hilly, wealthy residential neighborhood — and how that would contribute negatively to emergency evacuation situations.

But they were outnumbered there — though not counting comments via email — by people saying the child care center is sorely needed in Napa, given that child care is very difficult to find locally.

Supporters included Teresa Shinder, chief medical officer of Communicare+OLE, who noted that many of the people who provide medical care in the county can only do so because they have access to child care.

“We can’t hire doctors in Napa because we can’t bring in young families, and it’s really frustrating,” Shinder said at the meeting. “We need to make Napa available to young families.”

The planning commissioners agreed. They said — though they sympathized with the Alta Heights neighbors — child care was needed in Napa and no location was perfect.

“I have been an employer for a long, long time and I know the importance of stable child care so people can come and work,” Commissioner Bob Massaro said at the meeting. “I guarantee that our government, our services, all of our businesses are feeling the impact of inadequate child care in this community.”

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281 or edward.booth@pressdemocrat.com.