The Angwin eco-village proposal remains in limbo after a four-hour Napa County Board of Supervisors hearing Tuesday ended in a split vote.

With Supervisor Mark Luce excused for medical reasons, the four remaining supervisors deadlocked 2-2 on whether to approve the Napa County Planning Commission’s recommendations for reconciling land maps in the areas of Angwin and Pope Creek.

Supervisors Bill Dodd and Brad Wagenknecht voted to approve the Napa County Planning Commission’s recommendations and allow developers to move forward with the eco-village proposal. Supervisors Diane Dillon and Keith Caldwell voted against the Planning Commission’s recommendations, suggesting additional changes to the maps that would ultimately preclude the eco-village proposal from appearing before the board unless developers seek a special General Plan amendment.

Because the board split with one member absent, supervisors will take the issue up again Feb. 24.

The February meeting will not include public comment, but will allow for further deliberation by the board with all members present.

If the board votes not to accept the Planning Commission’s recommendations, the issue must go back to the Planning Commission again. The Commission then would have a minimum of 45 days to respond to the Board of Supervisors’ suggestions.

The vote is part of a larger discussion to deal with a dozen “urban bubbles” throughout the county. These roughly identified bubbles seem to allow for urban development in rural areas because of conflicting maps. Supervisors are working to pop these bubbles by aligning the two sets of maps.

In Angwin, the bubble discussion could determine the fate of Pacific Union College’s eco-village proposal, which would feature 380 environmentally-friendly homes, retail space and improvements to the college campus.

PUC officials argue the residential development is needed in order for the college to build up a much-needed endowment. Critics of the eco-village — including a group known as Save Rural Angwin — feel the project is too large given the rural nature of the community. SRA claims the project should be limited to the 191 units already approved by the county.

An environmental review of the eco-village is close to completion, but the project may never get that far if a decision about Angwin’s urban bubble deems the eco-village inconsistent with the county’s General Plan.

At the hearing Tuesday, held at the Lincoln Theater in Yountville, about 40 people argued both for and against the Planning Commission’s recommendations for the Angwin urban bubble. Proponents of the eco-village asked supervisors to make no changes to the bubble, or to adopt the changes in the Planning Commission’s proposal, which would not affect the eco-village.

Members of Save Rural Angwin rallied for their own proposal to stop the eco-village.

“We must have a policy in the General Plan which will protect the community from over-development (and) preserve agricultural land,” said Duane Cronk, a resident of Angwin and member of SRA.

Cronk told the board that to allow developers to continue with the eco-village proposal would be to “forget all we have learned about property rights in the course of the Ag Preserve, Measure J, Measure A, Measure P, and a host of individual land use decisions.”

“You are being asked to turn the clock back 40 years,” Cronk said. “Don’t do it. Just don’t do it.”

Paula Peterson of Angwin asked supervisors to look to the future of Napa County in making their decision, citing potential long-term impacts of allowing development in her town.

“Putting a good idea in the wrong location is costly on many levels,” she said.

College employees also pleaded for the board to allow the college to develop the eco-village and build its endowment.

“Our mission is to serve. Please do not close that door for us,” said Rosario Caballero-Chambers, a professor at PUC.

“I think this is taking unfair advantage of the school,” PUC employee John Milholland said, calling SRA’s proposal “absurd” and “selfish.”

PUC President Richard Osborn challenged supervisors to consider the eco-village on its merits, rather than through a series of “political maneuvers to even deny any consideration” of the project.

Many speakers Tuesday disputed the process of considering new land use designations to keep the eco-village proposal from ever coming forward.

“I think this is a very dangerous precedent,” said Don Peterson of Napa. “What’s going to happen next time another special interest group comes along?”

Napa Valley Land Stewards Alliance President George Bachich said that “to change that (land designation) now would be a clear departure (from custom) and I think unfair to the applicant.”

“If, in the end, you can change the rules whenever you want … we don’t need rules,” he said.

Several people also claimed it would be unfair to residents in south Napa County if supervisors voted to remove the possibility of building significant housing in Angwin. To do so, they argued, would push all of the state-mandated growth into the southern part of the county.

“What I’m asking for you today is a consistency,” said Napa Mayor Jill Techel, “a consistency for Upvalley versus downvalley.”

Napa City Councilwoman Juliana Inman told supervisors that “People all over the county are paying attention, and we care about this being a fair process.”

“I am really concerned about what message would be sent” by thwarting development Upvalley, she said.

Howard Ellman, a San Francisco-based attorney for PUC, told supervisors he was there “to put you on notice of arguments we think we have.”

On Friday, Ellman submitted a 10-page letter to the county outlining grounds for possible legal action if supervisors vote to stop the proposal from moving forward.

SRA’s “proposal is arbitrary, capricious, lacking in rational basis on its face,” the letter charges.

Not only does it fly in the face of individual property rights, but it opens the county up to previous claims that the county is doing too little to develop affordable housing, it states.

Further, the letter threatens litigation based on religious discrimination, arguing that SRA’s proposal would impose a “substantial burden” on PUC in violation of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.

Last year, Alan Reinach, a lawyer and president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church State Council, made similar charges. He claimed that changes to Angwin’s urban bubble could be seen as religious discrimination because the decision-making process was applied differently to Angwin than it was to other urban bubbles.

County Counsel Robert Westmeyer told supervisors Tuesday that SRA’s proposal is too general to be fully evaluated for potential litigation, but noted that “the chance for legal exposure is relatively low.”

“Developers take their chances when they buy land and try to develop it,” he said.