The Napa RiverLine Strategic Plan reached a significant milestone with its presentation to City Council on Aug. 19, marking the completion of an extensive planning process that began in July 2024. This transformative initiative recently received statewide recognition with a California Association for Local Economic Development (CALED) Award of Excellence in Programs and Promotions, highlighting the project's innovative approach to community-driven economic development and environmental stewardship.

The Strategic Plan directly advances four of the six City Council Focus Areas for 2025-2027, demonstrating how thoughtful planning can simultaneously address multiple community priorities. The plan identifies opportunities to diversify visitation and build the recreation economy, particularly significant given that 56% of citywide jobs are located in river-adjacent areas. The initiative also supports Parks & Community Spaces by envisioning 470 acres of enhanced connectivity, linking existing assets like the Oxbow Commons, the Oxbow Preserve and Trancas Crossing Park into a cohesive recreational network.

Community engagement was central to the planning process, generating input from over 100 participants at the January open house, 25 members of the Napa County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce workshop and 138 survey responses that created an engaged stakeholder list of community members. The plan also emphasizes Climate Action through environmental stewardship, thoughtful trail design and ecological education opportunities that harmonize public access with environmental protection using the flood control project's "living river" principles.

Implementation will be phased across four priority areas: Trail Development, RiverLine Highlights, Activation Programming and Operations & Finance. The plan serves as a visionary framework for smaller projects to be completed over multiple years, with each requiring separate environmental review and detailed engineering. Following the Council presentation, focus shifts to early implementation actions including nonprofit formation, branding development, coordination with flood control construction and identifying funding opportunities.

The completed Strategic Plan is available at www.NapaRiverLine.org and represents a community-driven roadmap for transforming Napa's relationship with its defining natural feature while building economic resilience for the future.