Building and Massing Presentation
2: Solar Shading
This is Part 2 of 5 of the Building and Massing Presentation. 6 minutes, 35 seconds.
Dated August 5, 2022. Released to the public August 12, 2022.
How to watch this video and read the transcription
The video is ready to start. Just press the Start triangle and it will go.
You can pause or continue at any point
The video takes 6-1/2 minutes to watch, if played at normal speed. You can change the playback speed on the video.
Sections of the Building & Massing Presentation:
- Current and Proposed Height Standards
- Solar Shading
- Proposed Setbacks and Massing Impacts
- Height Ratios and Unit Calculations
- Financial Feasibility of Development
(Click on the link to go to that section.)
To change the speed of the video: After starting the video, use the “Settings” tool button 
and change the speed to be 1.25x or 1.5x times faster. The video is displayed on a screen that stays in the lower right corner. If you want to watch the video on its own, you can enlarge the screen with the “Square” at the lower right of the YouTube screen.
The video times are showed, so you can easily jump to that section of the video.
This transcription is believed to be an accurate rendition of what was said. Any discrepancies between what was spoken and what is written here are unintentional and are not believed to alter the intent or meaning of the speaker. Many of the “uh” and “you know” and “um” words have been removed. Some sub-headings have been added.
The transcript is in black text. Highlights have been added as bold highlights. Notes and comments have been added in RED. The comments and opinions are those of the author and are not presented as fact, but as opinion — unless it actually is fact, in which case it is clearly stated as such.
David Loya 16:46 in Solar Shading: 0:00
Okay, so now I want to jump into how the design standards will put additional limitations on height, and how that impacts the community around these new builds. They impact shading, street impacts, massing and design, among a whole host of other features. We’re going to go back and take a look at the Car Wash now looking at it from the aerial image, looking west-southwest. And you can see 10th Street there in the foreground running out to the Bottoms. And what we’re going to evaluate here is impacts on shading.
So here’s our model, we’re going to zoom in a little bit. This is, again, our rough model. You can see the glass boxes and the rough model inside the Car Wash parcel there. You can see some solar shading in the background GIS there. But we really want to use the GIS tools to their maximum potential. The tools allow us to evaluate different models and what the shading impacts would be. And so I’ve run a couple of different scenarios I’m going to share with you now. This is that same model with the shadowing for December 20. And it’s showing us areas that are in shade for more than two hours during the periods from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. As we all know, the winter here on the north coast is typically a darker time of year, cloudy, rainy, but solar access is still important. [Actually, it is MORE important when the days are gray.] Because of this, we want to make sure that we design appropriately, and ensure that the new designs don’t unduly cast shade on other buildings. This two hours of shading is sort of a standard in the industry. And the 9-to-4 is a slightly larger window than is typical.
David Loya 18:37 in Solar Shading: 1:56
What you can see from this model, though, is that the shadow comes all the way across the street. It encompasses these existing buildings — these are a couple of the multifamily residential units on the Lord House property. It goes quite a bit into the parking lot for German Motors here.
So that’s pretty intense shading on December 20th. By February 20th, the two hour shadow cast is to about 10 feet within the front property lines, the southern property lines of those properties we’ve looked at before. And so recognizing that as we get closer to the Summer, the sun gets higher in the sky, you’re going to have fewer and fewer impacts. So just December 20 is kind of like worst case scenario. We’re starting to see those resolved by February, in this real rough model that we’ve got.
Well, what is the more refined model look like? And again, I’m not suggesting that these standards be the standards that we adopt, but I’m showing you how if you adopt standards that further refine the development potential, how they can have an effect on these impacts.
So here’s December 20. With the refined model. You recall the shadow was up on top of the rooftops of those existing one-story buildings. So now it does cast onto the buildings but not all the way up to the rooftops. And this is two hours of shading on December 20.
By February, two hours, the shading is all the way out to the street, and there’s no impact on the rooftops. And so the vast majority of the year, there’s no shading across the street to the other existing development or even proposed development on the German Motors back parking lot, if that’s to develop in the future.
David Loya 20:26 in Solar Shading: 3:44
Okay, so I know what you’re thinking, well, two hours of shading, you know, that’s one threshold, but maybe your threshold is lower. The GIS model can also show us what hourly shading looks like. And so here, you’re looking at that same refined model that we’re working with, that could be the result of a Form-Based Code. And you see these pools of shadows getting progressively lighter, representing fewer and fewer hours of shading, extending outward from the building. And this is in February, so we’re looking at the area where by February, this building had no impact on the two-hour model. You can see that it does shade the adjacent parcels to some extent.
So how much, we want to know out how much to that extent. This area right here is 45 minutes. There, you are up to 60 minutes, so you’re almost off the property before you get to an hour, and it’s five hours in the middle of the street.
There are many places within the City of Arcata, I think you’ll find that you get five hours of shading in the middle of the street with any sized building, but this shows how you can ameliorate the impacts to other property owners if not to the street.
David Loya 21:36 in Solar Shading: 4:54
So again, just recapping the Form-Based Code can refine what you’re seeing in the jewel box, it can further refine what you’re seeing in the rough model. And the Form-Based Code can really address a lot of these impacts that we’re all concerned about. Those decisions will be adopted by the Council. And so to the concerns that we’re going to adopt some kind of Code that would have undue impacts on the adjacent neighbors, I just want to remind us all is that the Council is in charge of that process, and is very interested in hearing from you. And so if you have particular ideas, they want to hear about them. The Planning Commission also likewise is an important recommending body to the Council on this and they want to hear your thoughts too
David Loya 22:22 in Solar Shading: 5:42
I just wanted to close this portion of it by showing you what that building looks like by April. By April you’re going to get shadowing right adjacent to the building. Right underneath it, you’re going to during the daytime, you’re going to have some shading that you’ll have to walk through if you’re walking on the south side of the street. But for the most part, you’ve resolved all the impacts to even the street, as well as adjacent neighbors.
David Loya 22:51 in Solar Shading: 6:09
Okay, so just to recap. Form-Based Code can refine those development standards so that they’re appropriate to the setting. And the maximum building height can be further limited by the standards, limitations imposed, these standards can address many of the things that we’re concerned about in larger stature buildings in our community.
