• Welcome.  Welcome again to our newest Commissioner, Abby Strickland.
• Your Arcata1.com portal is:   arcata1.com/pc
  I put links there that I believe are useful to you and the Council. The list is added to at the top, so you can scroll down and see what was of interest at times in the past also. Right now there are the links for the State density bonus laws, Dan Burden videos, the effects of smaller upper-floor step-backs, images of Woonerfs, and much more.

  As a reminder:  There is no sign-in on Arcata1.com. There is no tracking on who visits the website. I do not know who visits the website or what articles are looked at. It is completely anonymous in that way.

The Arcata1.com website is organized by “chapters” — based on functionality. The chapters are here — and you can click on the links to go there directly:

• Thank you to Commissioner Yodowitz for his proposal that public comment be opened up at 8:23 PM. Clearly I was the only person present, although there could have been people on-line wanting to speak also. What I might have said wouldn’t have taken longer than a minute or two. We can note that his request just vanished — there was no discussion whatsoever on Commissioner Yodowitz’s suggestion.
• Surprisingly to me, there was very little discussion on the upcoming City Council joint study session — on what the Commission might want to bring up with the Council. Perhaps the Council will be determining what items are discussed.
• K-L couplet video. We look forward to the upcoming video on the couplet, to be out this Friday. My large hope is that it does not contain much (if any) of the bogus information that was in the GHD presentation on the K-L couplet from the August, 2022, joint study session, a year ago. We are aware that it is possible to make a safe, pedestrian- and bike-friendly road out of K Street, as the Commission has noted. If you want to read or watch last year’s presentation (14 minutes), see it here.
• Density Bonus laws video. There was a discussion on the very well-done 15-1/2 minute video from Director David Loya on the State Density Bonus Laws / Inclusionary Zoning / Community Benefits. I regard this as a “must watch” video. It is available on Arcata1.com here, and is also highlighted on the Commission / Council portal page arcata1.com/pc, along with many other timely and pertinent articles.

  The article includes a full transcription of the 15-1/2 minutes, and is set up so you can read while you watch, or watch the video full-screen. If you are a faster reader, you can speed up the video to watch it in less time.

  There is also a very good 3-page written summary from David Loya on the State density bonus laws here on Arcata1.com and also linked on your portal page. It was in the March 14 and 27 agenda packets, and became kind of buried in those packets. It’s important, and so I extracted it and saved it.

• In speaking on the state density program, inclusionary zoning, and the community benefits program last night, Director Loya said:

“It does impact the effect of the community benefits program. I wouldn’t go as far as to say we’re not going to see community benefits from these projects. But what I will say is that it does impact the effectiveness of those programs. And then it’s hard to say which of the standards that we have baked into our Gateway Code would be subjected to waivers, and therefore, you know, we wouldn’t see those standards as well. Whether it’s a step-back or a setback, or, you know, whatever the architectural features are that we are requiring.”

The conclusion in the Density Bonus laws video is: 

“And our design standards and Community Benefits programs are unlikely to be implemented due to waivers and concessions.”

I regard this as a crucial matter, which perhaps you will discuss further. If it indeed is the case that “our design standards and Community Benefits programs are unlikely to be implemented” then that’s not a good situation.

My recommendation would be for 10′ lanes on streets that are not intended for bus transit traffic or regular truck traffic — and 11′ lanes for those streets. Yes, we know that every foot of lane width (which equals 2 feet on a two-lane two-way road) counts… on K Street, in particular. On the 50′ width of K Street, there could be an 11′ northbound lane, an 11′ southbound lane, and one 8′ lane of parking. Total is 30′ — leaving 20 feet for, say, a two foot increase in sidewalk width on each side (4′), two 6′ bike lanes (12′) and two 2′ buffers with pylons (4′). Without the one parking lane, there is even more flexibility, of course — but the one parking lane can certainly fit.

• Bus stops. When removing parking on both sides of K Street, there still needs to be pull-outs for bus stops. Street diagrams to this time have all been general and “high level” — I say it’s time to look at the real details on what the road actually is.
• Dan Burden mentioned making a “chicane” for slowing traffic. He suggested having parking on one side of the street for a half-block, and then on the other side of the street for the other half — thus drivers could not travel in a straight line, and would have to steer a bit while travelling down the block.

  In looking at K Street — either in person or via a satellite view — we can see that the existing curb cut-outs on K Street make for a parking layout on alternating sides for half-block sections quite feasible. There are only 9 blocks that have to be dealt with — and these can be looked at on a block-by-block basis.

• Size of the Arcata Plaza.  As noted, a city square block is a bit under 1-1/2 acres — 1.46 acres. It is 250 feet square. That is the block only — not the road. If we include the block plus the full width of road (50 feet), it is 300 feet square, or a bit over 2 acres — 2.06 acres.

  Thank you for upping the minimum size of the future park in the Barrell district from the too-small 0.5 acres to the 1.0 acre minimum. I still think it should be 1.5 acres, but a master plan is still far in the future, as was discussed.

• For a depiction of what an 8-foot-deep fifth-story stepback looks like on 6-story buildings, see this article. I consider an 8-foot step-back to be woefully inadequate. We all are aware of the low angle of the sun here — not just in the middle of Winter, but for half the year. An 8 foot stepback that’s up at the height of Sorrel Place does nothing to help with the “canyon-like” feeling of tall buildings. And, by the way, the step-backs that are depicted in the diagrams shown in the draft Gateway Plans are 22 feet deep.
  

Thank you.