Jane Woodward – June 13, 2023 – Comments for the June 13 Planning Commission meeting. There were two letters, put into one file, and duplicated.

Did not appear as a Public Comment letter until June 28 — six weeks later.

Note:  What is shown below is a copy of the original letter, made for this website.  It is included here only so that the contents of the original letter can be searchable.  (The PDF received from the City is in the form of an image, and so is not a searchable document.)

What is below is not the letter sent by the letter-writer. It may contain typographical errors and other departures from the original.  The PDF displayed above is accurate.  The text below is not accurate.  It is printed here for indexing purposes, so that each word can be indexed and included in the search.

June 13 2023 PUBLIC COMMENT TO PLANNING COMMISSION
In reading the extensive packet for this meeting, I have several questions:
1) How do you plan to proceed in discussing/approving the Form Based Code (FBC)? Are you going to go
through it section by section, or topic by topic? How can the public comment in 3 minutes at the beginning
on such a wide array of provisions? If the FBC were addressed doing a regular meeting, we could
comment on it separately.
2) I continue to be concerned that you aren’t taking the recommendations of the Transportation Safety
Committee and the opinion of the public into account regarding the L/K Street Couplet. Are you going to
do so, and if so, when? Are you willing to reconsider your initial vote in light of widely expressed public
concerns?
3) I appreciate Staff’s attachment of the “Bike Rack” issues and Attachment E, non-comporting items
presented as “Other Considerations.” The considerations do not include addressing the impact of sea level
rise or other constraints imposed by proposing high density building in the Coastal Zone. Is that ever
going to be discussed, if so when, and where does it come in your schedule and agenda?
4) I think you are not taking the need for parking seriously enough. There are not even any diagrams
showing parking locations associated with buildings presented in the code. And if you have buildings that
are going to be in coastal zone, perhaps you should consider requiring underground parking, which would
also serve as a buffer if sea level/groundwater upwelling does begin to affect the areas of concern (most
specifically, the barrel district).
Thank you for all your work. I hope you allow sufficient time for thorough consideration of the issues of public
concern, and adequately address the recommendations of Judith Mayer.
Thank you for your attention,
Jane Woodward, Arcata resident