The St. Helena Planning Commission refused last week to sign off on a lot line adjustment that city officials say will facilitate the construction of the flood project levee.

The agreement, which involves land beyond the terminus of Adams Street, was hammered out by the city council and property owner Dennis Hunter during years of closed-door negotiations. Under the plan, the city will give Hunter some land and pay him $899,500, and he’ll end up with 17 acres of medium-residential-zoned property behind the new levee.

In the first public hearing on the land swap, the commission on Tuesday continued the issue to its Dec. 2 meeting. Given that it seems to be a done deal, commissioners questioned why it was on their agenda at all.

Commissioner Peter McCrea referred to the exercise as “a charade” and “a kangaroo court.”

“It would have been nice if somebody had come and asked us six months ago what we thought of the land use implications of this,” he said.

“Decisions … were made in this process that are not good land use decisions, and it’s not providing the greatest benefit to the citizens of our community,” said Commissioner Cary Shott.

However, she said, she feared the commission’s thoughts on the deal are “basically irrelevant because this has already been approved.”

Those concerns were reinforced by City Attorney Amy Valukevich, who in a break from normal procedure was seated next to commissioners during that particular agenda item.

“The council’s decision regarding the transaction itself has already been completed, so the resulting configuration is not within the jurisdiction of the planning commission as a consideration of this application … Your job is not to decide whether you like it or not: It’s to decide whether the application meets the standards under which you weigh it,” she said.

Lot line adjustments are generally approved or denied at the staff level, then forwarded to the commission, which may appeal the decision to the council. Staff recommended approval of the Hunter deal.

As it became clear that commissioners planned to vote against the lot line adjustment anyway, Valukevich warned them that doing so could expose the city to litigation.

“Are you instructing us how to vote on this?” asked Shott.

The commission eventually voted 4-0 to continue the matter so commissioners can look at more documents relating to the transaction, including the flood project’s environmental impact report. Commissioner Kay Philippakis recused herself because she owns property nearby.

Members of the public were also critical of the deal, which they saw as a great deal for Hunter but not for the city, and of the way the city approved it.

They were particularly concerned about a key 114-foot strip of land connecting the end of Adams Street with the city-owned property adjacent to the Napa River and Vineyard Valley Mobile Home Park.

Under the agreement between the city and Hunter, the city would end up with a 50-foot-wide strip, and Hunter would keep the rest. City officials say they need that strip so they can patrol the levee, and there’s been some talk about a public trail leading to the river.

Ann Nevero, a neighboring homeowner, said 50 feet won’t be enough to create the recreational opportunities and levee access that the city needs on that property. She recommended that the city take the entire strip so it “has control over a critical pathway between two very important city properties.”

John Milliken criticized the secrecy that surrounded the deal. He said the city council seems “to want to ram this thing through with the least amount of controversy.”

He said the city might have violated the Brown Act by approving the deal at a hastily arranged special meeting in early October, and by failing to note on its closed session agendas that city-owned property was involved in the negotiations.

Milliken also questioned whether Hunter, a Sonoma County-based real estate investor who didn’t attend Tuesday’s meeting, has the city’s best interests at heart.

City Manager Bert Johansson said property negotiations have to take place behind closed doors, but he apologized for the way the council’s approval of the deal was reported out of closed session.

He said the Napa flood project has proven that amicable agreements with property owners are preferable to going to court with eminent domain actions. Juries tend to favor private property owners when they’re deciding on a fair land price, “so there was a huge incentive for us to negotiate this in a settlement fashion as opposed to litigation,” he said.