|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Similar shades of green on an Alameda County zoning map have been causing Nella Terra Cellars Winery and Event Center owner Gerry Beemiller headaches for years.
He’s owned a 100-acre parcel on Sheridan Road south of Interstate 680 at the top of the Sunol Grade for decades. Initially, he built a home for his family while he pursued his technology career in Silicon Valley. They’ve lived there since 1991. With his career winding down and no monthly income source for his bank account, he thought he should make it productive.
He pursued planting a winery (the cooler climate makes it ideal for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) plus permitting and building an event center that catered to weddings. That set off a process with the county to obtain the necessary permits in the area that is zoned for agriculture. When he bought the land, the county had minimum parcel sizes of 100 acres.
Beemiller presented his plans to the county in 2011 and was awarded the conditional use permit for the winery, with a large tent and no limit on the number of events in any year (there are no neighbors). At the time, the county staff approved the tent with the understanding that they eventually preferred a permanent structure. County zoning rules had changed when the Sierra Club-authored Measure D passed in 2000. In 2015, a second permit was granted to allow the permanent meeting structure.
A year later, the county staff called him to a meeting and admitted they’d made a mistake between the shades of green on the zoning map. The permit for the permanent structure would stand until November 2018. In May 2018, plans were submitted for the permanent structure and approved. Nella Terra did not pursue the plans because of construction costs.
Now the county considers the tent a “legal non-confirming use” and will no longer allow the event center to construct the permanent structure county staff had encouraged 10 years before. Beemiller has replaced the large tent three times and now is stymied and trying to find a way forward to build the permanent structure with a kitchen.
Thus, the shades of green headaches. The county has clarified that all of the land south of I-680 is the agricultural zoning that does not permit event centers. He’s hoping to convince staff or the supervisors to extend the other agricultural zoning to include his parcel, the only one south of the freeway with an active use.
Through this long period, Beemiller’s foresight with the event center has provided a steady income stream that has provided the funding for what’s now 15 acres of grapes. It also provides a built-in market for the wines because it’s a tough business to sell wines today as the younger generation either prefers cocktails or skips alcohol all together.
Given our flexible schedules, my bride and I have been taking advantage of matinees and bargain prices on Tuesdays. Last week, we saw “Reagan” starring Dennis Quaid. The fall of the Berlin Wall was particularly important to my wife who spent 13 months in Northern Germany as an exchange student that included visits to Berlin. Assuming the script was relatively accurate, we learned a lot about Reagan and his habit of thinking big and his important role with the screen actor’s guild in Hollywood before he got into politics and won the California governorship.
He was governor during my freshman year at Cal that had protests each quarter capped off by People’s Park with the National Guard helicopter flying by the Campanile to spray tear gas at the protesters. I was in the gym for my basketball class and got a whiff of the gas before the teaching assistant in charge of our class chased the sheriff’s deputies off the floor in their street shoes.
Critics have panned the movie and the those attending — presumably of a conservative bent — have loved it.
We could say the same for The Forge that we saw mid-day Tuesday. It’s the latest Kendrick brothers’ production. It’s a powerful story about God’s transforming power, the need to forgive, the power of prayer and the need for men discipling men. Sadly, we had the theater in Dublin to ourselves. We were glad we went and heartily recommend it for people of faith.
