“Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn’t go away.”
— Philip K. Dick

Tuesday, August 16th, 2022

To: Honorable Mayor Stacy Atkins-Salazar, Vice-Mayor Sarah Schaefer, Arcata City Council Members Alex Stillman, Brett Watson, and Meredith Matthews

Topics:            (click here)
1. The 3D Modeling is here
2. City Council / Planning Commission Joint Study Session next week
3. K Street / L Street Couplet Decision
4. Gateway Plan Advisory Committee
5. Building Height is not a popularity contest
6. Soils Testing in the industrial area is a must

1. The 3D Modeling is here

The 3D Modeling is here and it looks great. A big congratulations to Community Development Directory David Loya, the engineering sub-contractor GHD, architect Julian Berg, and all who worked on it.  Initial examples can be seen in the David Loya’s “Building and Massing” presentation, seen here.

This is a great tool.  Let’s make full use of it.  We want to see images of what a proposed build-out might look like.  What would K Street look like if the six potential redevelopment blocks — Bud’s Mini-Storage, AmeriGas, the car wash, the Clothing Dock / German Motors building, and the Ag Sales building — of the Gateway “Corridor” district were built out to height of 4 or 5 or 6 stories?  What would be the solar shading?  The 3D Modeling software can show us.

2. City Council / Planning Commission Joint Study Session next week: Tuesday, August 23rd

You have a lot of material to go over. I will remind you:  Time management is crucial. You will have your agenda. My advice is: Allot a length of time to each item and stick to it. Decide early which items might be voted on and which are only for discussion.

In David Loya’s message to us last Friday, announcing the 47-minute Building and Massing presentation, he proposed “A similar but shortened version will be presented at the study session on the 23rd.” I say strongly and firmly in no uncertain terms: Please no. Your limited time together with the Planning Commission is too valuable. Every member of the Council and the Commission can watch the video of this presentation prior to the Joint Study Session. I don’t think there needs to be any time spent discussing the presentation. To repeat:  Your time is too valuable. A discussion of the primary component of the presentation — Building Height — will be a part your agenda item on that subject.

Similarly, I make the strong request that every participant be offered equal chances to speak — and equal time. With all deference to the Community Development Director and the work he has done, this meeting is not here for his extended speaking.  If you and everyone else is speaking in two or three minute segments, so should he… or even less. This is your time, and the time to have a discussion among the 11 members of your two groups. (The Mayor is recused, as we know.)

A Planning Commissioner told me that what is missing at those meetings are actual discussions among themselves of the issues. Not just one-at-a-time “what do you think” pronouncements, but real back-and-forth discussions. Perhaps at your Joint Study Session you can encourage this sort of discourse.

3. K Street / L Street Couplet Decision

To me it is such a no-brainer decision that it defies any choice to the contrary. 

Cities and towns all over the world are trying to remove streets and create walkable areas.

They are taking pains to create one, and we already have one, on the L Street Pathway, right here.

There are decisions that need to be made that affect the consequences of all further discussions and design. One big example is on your Joint Study Session agenda:  The current plan proposes that K Street be one-way going north and a newly created L Street being one-way going south). The people and the Transportation Safety Committee in strong language wants to keep K Street as a two-way street and make L Street into a linear walking/biking park. That decision will affect discussions on every parcel along K Street and L Street — building height, setback from the street, upper-floor setbacks, the need for walkways and other public open space, the commercial frontage, parking, housing unit density, and on and on.

To me it is such a no-brainer decision that it defies any choice to the contrary.  Cities and towns all over the world are trying to remove streets and create walkable areas — whether linear parks or “walking malls” or whatever you want to call them. They are taking pains to create one, and we already have the start of one on the L Street Pathway, right here. And the December 2021 draft plan proposed to destroy this.

We want walkability, we want reduction of automobile dependency, we seek a vibrant town environment, we respect our natural spaces, we want parks, we promote meaningful shop spaces and the arts — it is all there, and more, with the L Street Pathway.

I am firm and clear on this — see my articles here and here and for the need for parks in the Gateway area here and here and in my June 9th letter to the Council and the Commission here. I’ll post the transcript of the Transportation Safety Committee discussion for you to read also.

4. Gateway Plan Advisory Committee

A presentation and discussion at your meeting on Wednesday. I’ve been observing and speaking to the lack of management-level oversight and direction on the Gateway plan for months. You can see what I’ve said on how an Advisory Committee is crucial to the Gateway process here and here.

“If we continue as it has been to this point — without the overview and direction offered by an Advisory Committee —

The chance that a good plan will come out of this is, in my view, pretty close to zero.”

Any question as to the whether management-level decisions are “slipping through the cracks” or otherwise put off into the future can be seen in Arcata Fire District Director Eric Loudenslager’s seven-minute speech to the Planning Commission on August 4th. Watch and read it here.

“It seems incomprehensible to me that a recommendation on building height could come out of the Planning Commission or the City Council until we have a full economic analysis of what it’s going to cost the City of Arcata citizens and the Fire District to actually provide the protection there.”

Community Development Director David Loya’s response that these costs and considerations will be covered in the EIR is, to my mind, essentially nonsense. If the costs are then evaluated as being too great, then what? Do we start over with building height considerations and new Form-Based Code decisions?  Supplying fire protection is not just a matter of paying for a new fire truck, as Director Loudenslager well knows.

Any management-level decision — whether building a town or as simple as planning for a vacation — requires early recognition of the decisions that affect the outcome.  When planning a family vacation to London, you don’t make lists of all the sights you want to see and all the attractions you want to visit… and then look at the cost of the airfares and hotels. But that sure seems like what we’re doing here with the Gateway plan and process.

When Scott McBain presented the Advisory Committee concept the the Planning Commission last week, I said:

I spoke a few months ago about my concern that we’re going to get through this process in six or eight months. There’ll be all the recommendations from the Committees, they will all be compiled into a report. And this Committee will want this, this Committee will want this –and they will not be cohesive. And the Council will not know what to do. I’m not saying this [the Advisory Committee] will solve that. But I think it’ll help with any disagreement or provide more cohesive results that allow you to evaluate what the input is, what the information is. Again, I’m not connected with Scott. I support what he’s doing. I don’t agree with everything. I’m not a signatory on this for a variety of reasons. And that’s it, I hope you consider what he said.

5. Building Height is not a popularity contest

A decision on building height does not fall in the category of “I like this” or “This is what makes sense to me” or “We need housing and the only way to provide it is to go up” or “I want Arcata to be the way it’s been” or any of those sentiments.

It’s a decision made by planners and people connected with the planners, with great thought and consideration.

I respect and encourage public input on all sorts of matters. I want more public input — and I am continually surprised at lack of involvement among the people of Arcata in a plan that will change Arcata forever. But a decision on building height does not fall in the category of “I like this” or “This is what makes sense to me” or “We need housing and the only way to provide it is to go up” or “I want Arcata to be the way it’s been” or any of those sentiments. It’s a decision made by planners and people connected with the planners, with great thought and consideration.

There are many facets and factors involved in any building height decision.  There is an obvious balance between how many people can live there and the size of the apartment buildings. And there is a big question of whether it is feasible in practical terms to construct tall buildings in the industrial zone along Samoa Boulevard (see Item 6, next). If it’s not cost-effective for a developer to build there, and if we agree that we need more housing, then we would need to take another look at the big picture about what we’re doing.

I have been pushing for a greater number of height districts. I think the Creamery area and the surround blocks deserve its own height district. As it is now, a 7-story building could be put up directly to the west of the Creamery Building and an 8-story building could be put up directly to the south.  Yes, the Form-Based Code can take care of this on a block-by-block basis, but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of that and what might be in it.

From Andrea Tuttle’s letter:

“The Draft offers no 3-D visualization examples of what different building heights would look like at full-buildout of 3500 units.

Mockups should visually place structures in actual neighborhoods to show the impacts of mass and shadows on existing structures and pedestrians.”

Here’s a solar-shading image for December 1st for 2 p.m. — the solar shading would be greater for later in the year up through December 22nd. This represents what it would be — or greater — for 6 weeks of the year.  The imaginary buildings shown are 8, 8, and 6 stories, and are placed so as to include upper-floor setbacks.  This depiction is not perfect, but gives a good idea as to what we’re looking at.

Now that we have the excellent 3D modeling software in place, staff can provide images of what a build-out of what a 5 or 10 buildings might look like. And I’ll add that there may be, perhaps 80 or 100 individual apartments in a single 6-story building. (Unless the apartments are all micro-studios, that is.) TEN of those 6-story buildings amounts to perhaps 800 or 1,000 apartments… and the Gateway plan was talking about over 3,000 apartments. That might be THIRTY block-size buildings. The 3D modeling software can show us just where they might be.

6. Soils Testing in the industrial area is a must
— as well as evaluation of Sea Level Rise, ground water table rise, and if the land is needed for wastewater treatment plant expansion.

Every since the beginning of this plan people have been calling for soils testing to take place in the industrial zone along Samoa Boulevard. Because if the soils there cannot support 6- or 8-story buildings on a practical basis — that is, if the construction cost is too great — then development on the scale that the plan calls for will not occur. A big feature of the Gateway plan is the planned development of what is the largest expanse of raw buildable land in Arcata.

If it’s not practical to build there in the quantities the plan calls for, then providing housing in the other zones has to be increased.

Wouldn’t you want to know this, like, um, right away? If the buildings for housing we need cannot be built there, then what?

Well, if that were to be the case, we’d move on with other plans. But if we don’t know then we have no clue. We wouldn’t be creating our future — we’d be reacting to circumstances.

Community Development Director David Loya continues to insist that soils testing is not part of what this plan is, that it will occur when an actual project is submitted for review, and that the developer is responsible for soils testing to determine the costs and feasibility of the required foundations.

To me, nothing could be farther removed from actual planning for a reality-based future.  If the buildings cannot in practical terms be built there, then we are just spinning our wheels working on a plan which could not come into existence.  As I continue to say, again and again:

A plan that cannot reasonably be implemented
is no plan at all.