The Angwin eco-village lives to fight another day.

A majority of Napa County Supervisors Tuesday voted to reject the Napa County Planning Commission’s recommendations for a new set of land use designations in the notorious Angwin “urban bubble,” and tasked the commission with taking another crack at the zoning.

By rejecting the commission’s proposal, the board reached a compromise of sorts: It toughened up land-use controls in the mountain community, but also steered clear of even tougher requirements that would effectively kill PUC’s eco-village even before a detailed plan for the project is submitted to the county.

Supervisors are asking the commission to create a zoning designation dubbed “public institutional” by Supervisor Mark Luce, who crafted the compromise.

Luce said the board’s recommendations are based largely on a new map proposed by PUC. The public institutional designation is designed to clarify what types of developments are allowed for PUC, Luce said, by limiting projects to those that “serve the college’s educational mission.”

Traditionally, such uses might include dormitories and libraries, he said, adding that a project should not be allowed simply because it makes money for the college. PUC officials have long said the primary goal of the proposed eco-village is to build up its endowment.

But Luce, an advocate for workforce housing, said that as county officials work to define what constitutes public institutional land use, they should include the caveat that “proximity housing” is allowed on public institutional land.

In other words, he said, the new land use designations should not necessarily prohibit supervisors from hearing development proposals such as the eco-village, which includes homes, a senior living facility and upgrades to Angwin’s small commercial core.

The motion also included direction for the planning commission to consider redesignating the land where the college’s spray field and water treatment facilities are located. Several supervisors Tuesday expressed an interest in designating the land as agricultural.

Supervisors Brad Wagenknecht and Keith Caldwell voted for Luce’s motion Tuesday.

Supervisor Diane Dillon voted against it, seeking stronger protections against development.

Supervisor Bill Dodd voted against it for a different reason. He disliked the aspect of Luce’s proposal that allows the supervisors to redesignate the potential eco-village land as public institutional in 2010 if the eco-village proposal fails.

Such a move by supervisors would be a “bait and switch” and “patently unfair to the property owner,” Dodd said.

Dodd added that he would have preferred for supervisors to hear the college’s proposal first and then, following a vote, convene a group of residents to establish a plan for the area.

Next date: April

The matter now goes back to the planning commission to get back to the supervisors with a new proposal by the end of April. At that time, supervisors will vote again.

Meanwhile, PUC officials have been saying for months that the environmental impact review for the eco-village proposal is near completion.

PUC President Richard Osborn said he viewed Tuesday’s vote as a win for the college. “We’re pleased that the project can be considered and so we’re pleased with the vote,” he said.

Allen Spence, spokesman for Save Rural Angwin, which opposes the eco-village, also said the vote represents progress for foes of the project. “Our view is that we are very pleased that the Board of Supervisors acknowledges that Angwin is a rural place and it needs to be protected as rural,” Spence said. “Every time they remove urban residential land from the map it’s a good thing.”

“I’d say it’s progress,” Spence said. But “you can’t claim victory in a process like this until it’s concluded.”

On Tuesday, Caldwell called the vote a “compromise” that would allow supervisors to “look at the project on its merits.”

Wagenknecht agreed. “This is much closer to where I can see us,” but he asked for clarification about what constitutes “proximity housing.”

“I can see dorms … (and) housing for faculty,” he said. “If that’s proximity housing, then I don’t have any problem with that.”

Dillon was the harshest critic of Luce’s proposal, expressing “grave concerns about the limitations of public institutional (designation) in the long-term.”

She said that “vagueness and uncertainty” have created problems in Angwin, and told supervisors, “The Angwin community deserves some certainty.”

“If we leave things too loose,” she said, “we’re going to be back here … with this same dilemma.”

Dillon, who represents the district that includes Angwin, has championed the idea of down-designating the land so as to stop the eco-village.

“I just really have concerns about this if we don’t paint the brush of rural on this,” she said Tuesday. “We need to preserve the rural character of Angwin.”