At the June 13, 2023, Planning Commission “special meeting” this past Wednesday, Chair Scott Davies asked the question of David Loya: “And do you know or have you looked at what percentage of the actual buildable parcels in that 138 Acres is the ratio of those orange parcels to the total acreage of the Gateway Area?”

This is an important question, and it is worded well. Thank you for bringing this up, Scott. It’s a question that should have been evaluated from the beginning in looking at the Gateway Plan — but was not, and has not.

 

The “orange parcels” mentioned refers to the “Opportunity Sites” parcels within the Gateway area. They are described by David Loya as “These are sites that have a lot of potential for future development and are largely viewed as the areas that are going to provide the majority of future development over the next 20 to 50 years in this plan.” (See the Building & Massing presentation #3, here)

This question is critical for understanding development in the Gateway area. At the same time, the question is more nuanced than it might appear. The key is the phrase “the actual buildable parcels.”

 

David Loya, June 13, 2023:  “If you look at the Plan area, you’re going to find that many of the sites are just too small to accommodate larger buildings, higher density developments, and many of these sites are going to have at the most maybe a fourplex or a eight-plex.”

Staff report on Ownership Opportunities, May 9, 2023:  “…many of the parcels in the plan area are too small to build multistory buildings.”

 

When I started looking into the Gateway Plan I made a spreadsheet that identified each parcel with its size, address, name of the business if applicable, the Gateway district, and — most importantly — the likelihood that the parcel might be developed. 

 

This “likelihood of development” factor is, of course, very subjective. If a parcel is completely empty and there are no wetland issues, for example, then it can be a clear “Yes” on potential development. If a parcel is a recently-built building or has historical significance, then it might be considered a strong “No” — not likely to be built.

 

Examples of a likely “No” might include the Creamery Building, Portuguese Hall, the new data center building on 11th Street, and the new townhouses off of 12th and O Streets. For all those buildings, it would seem unlikely that the owner would tear down the building to redevelop the property. Similarly, the Holly Yashi building, the Northcoast Children’s Services building, the Hilliard building at 11th & N, the Thom Payne building, the Tomas Jewelry / Open Door Clinic building, and others — even though only one or two stories high, it does not seem likely that the owners would redevelop those properties. The buildings are too new or too valuable relative to the value of the land.  Even a metal industrial building such as North Bay Auto at 10th & L has more value as a building than the land value, at this time and this may continue to be the case for 30-40 years or more. The assessed value of North Bay Auto is roughly $260,000 for the lot and $400,000 for the improvements. That lot is 1/2 acre, about one-third of a block. Is the owner going to tear down a $400,000 building to build on a $260,000 lot?  Not likely. Even if the value of the lot doubled or even tripled — the value of the building would also likely be considered higher, and a tear-down seems unlikely.

 

 

 

In the figures supplied here, the numbers may be off by a small amount — but not by significant amounts. The City’s GIS system can provide potentially more accurate data if that were desired. These number of parcels may be accurate or they may be very slightly off. There are five parcels that are extremely small (706 sq.ft., 832 sq.ft., 1533 sq.ft., 1984 sq.ft.) that probably shouldn’t be counted as separate parcels. They are “attached” to other parcels but do exist legally as parcels. Regardless, any small inaccuracy would not affect at all the overall conclusions.

• The 138 acre figure is a gross size and includes the area of the paved streets. The total acreage of actual parcels that I come up with is about 109 acres.
• The Opportunity Zone parcels add up to a little over 66 acres as shown. But the figures in the Gateway Plan document are incorrect. It is actually under 43 acres of buildable, developable area.

The draft Gateway Plan needs to have this Opportunity Zone section closely looked at and the areas checked.  These figures need to be revised.  The figures on those pages do not account for environmentally protected areas on those parcels, including open space and creek daylighting.

 

The Opportunity Sites pages are in the “Vision” chapter. The “Open Space and Conservation” chapter shows the areas that are considered as needing to be preserved as undeveloped land for environmental reasons.

 

Here are some (not all) examples:

• Opportunity Zone “E” is shown as 12.2 acres, and the assessor shows it as 12.38 acres. The recently-built structure on it is described as 2-story, and actually it is 3-story.  But about 60% of it is not buildable for environmental reasons. “About 60%” being not buildable yields about 4.9 acres. There is a recently-built building on it — you can see this new building Google Street View at the southernmost end of O Street, south of 10th. It’s not yet on the satellite images or on the Arcata GIS map. Let’s say the new building uses ~1/2 acre. What’s left for redevelopment is ~4.4 acres.
• Opportunity Zone “I” is shown as 2.65 acres. It’s shown as 1 parcel and in reality it’s 2 parcels. The Plan also describes the existing building — the Tomas jewelry building — as a “one-story metal industrial building” which is not true at all. It is a high-quality architect-designed building that happens to have a metal roof. It is unlikely to be removed. The south section is now a beautiful garden, used by the Montessori school. Yes, it could be torn down, but if you go to look at it you’ll see how permanent it appears — it has fruit trees planted in the ground. Taking the garden out, there’s perhaps 1.7 acres of buildable space. With the garden remaining, there’s about ~0.7 or 1 acres of buildable space.
• Opportunity Zone “A” is shown as 16.7 acres. It has a large amount of environmentally protected designated open space. It also has six recently subdivided residential lots, unlikely to have anything other than detached single-family homes built on them (unless some are combined, in which case they could support multi-story buildings). The net buildable area is about 8.7 to 9.2 acres.

   

• Opportunity Zone “G” is the car wash site. It is shown as 1.42 acres. The other blocks are 1.44 acres — for some reason this block is listed as 1.42. Arcata’s GIS shows it as 1.46.
  What the plan fails to include is that this is an area where Jolly Giant Creek will be daylighted. The actual portion of the parcel where construction could take place is roughly 0.9 to 1 acre.

   

• There are parcels in the Opportunity Sites that David Loya has described as vacant and ready to build that actually — in reality — already have existing, active buildings on the parcel.
• Opportunity Zone “M” and “B” are the mini-storage businesses. They are shown as 1.44 and 3.9 acres. From what I’ve been told, those owners have strongly said that they are not going to redevelop their properties and will not sell them.
• And of course there is the question of how many years it will be until the complex of industrial buildings that houses Wing Inflatables and other businesses gets torn down so that that area can be redeveloped. And the question of what kind of foundation is required to build a tall building in the soft soil of the Barrel District.

  And the question of whether the California Coastal Commission will allow construction in the Coastal Zone at all.

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