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The best attended public engagement event regarding the Draft Gateway Area Plan was the open house held in January, 2022. Community members gave a great amount of feedback on a number of topical posters that were placed around the room. The City did not document the feedback given at this event in sufficient detail. A very limited summary is included in the Draft Engagement Report. Community members took it upon themselves to review photos of the engagement posters and prepared reports for each poster, documenting all feedback that was visible in those photos. A small number of responses were hidden by overlapping sticky notes or were illegible.
Open House feedback was not included for consideration at the August, 2022 Planning Commission and City
Council study session and was not mentioned in the packet for the Planning Commission’s form-based code
workshop that took place on February 11, 2023. Why not? Everyone who took the time to attend and provide
feedback should be heard. Their feedback continues to be relevant to the current discussion.
Considering this, I have attached reports regarding the posters that are most relevant to the current topics of
building design and streetscape. For your review:
What Have We Heard So Far?
Arcata is Growing…Planning for Growth Helps Manage It
Arcata’s future multi-family housing developments should look…More like this
Gateway Area Amenities
Final Thoughts/Feedback
The table “Building height maximum – per January 2022 Open House engagement” documents the following:
 written feedback from all posters
 comments that mention a specific number of building stories
 vague references not included
 visible written comments
Please note that the overwhelming number of attendees want buildings with no more than four stories. A distant second is three stories.
Thank you for considering the community’s voice in your decision making process.

Sherri Starr
Bayside