Note:
Commissioner Peter Lehman was absent from the March 14, 2023, Planning Commission meeting. He submitted this memo, which was distributed by Community Development David Loya to the Commissioners and to members of the public who were physically present.

Unfortunately this involved a Brown Act violation as nothing was available to persons who were watching on-line either at that time or who have watched since then.

At that meeting, a new Chair and Vice-Chair were elected. The wording of the 1st line — “I support Scott Davies as Chair and Dan Tangney as Vice-Chair of the Commission.” — seems to imply that Commissioner Lehman had advance knowledge that Commissioners Davies and Tangney would be nominated.

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 will 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.

Comments for Planning Commission Meeting of March 14 Peter Lehman

I support Scott Davies as Chair and Dan Tangney as Vice-Chair of the Commission. The FY 23/24 Capital Improvement Program seems fine. I vote Aye on the proposed resolution.

Considering a meeting framework going forward:

o      I support using our scheduled study sessions to continue with business as necessary to meet our July timelines.

o      I also support the framework described by Scott and David in their memo to aid in making our meetings more efficient and productive. I’ll note that for this framework to be successful, the chair of the meetings will have to be assertive and firm in sticking to times and guidelines.

o      I make this comment as a rookie on the Commission with still a lot to learn. It         seems like we’re facing a LOT of work. With that amount of work and despite  the efforts above to make meetings more efficient, I’m wondering if we should have weekly (instead of bi-monthly) meetings until our July deadline. It would give us more time to discuss important issues and we want to make careful and reasoned decisions. I realize that this is a large time commitment and I apologize in advance if this is an unreasonable suggestion.

o      And a personal note: I’ll miss the Maich 14 and 18 meetings. I’ll also be out of town from June 6-21. I will try to provide comments by phone and email.

Density Bonus o It seems that the density bonus can be large and the rules covering the bonus are evolving rapidly. Given that, I suggest that we set our density limits low enough so that—even if a developer qualifies for a large bonus—we end up with a reasonable density we can -live with.

Prioritizing Topics (Concerns) in Appendix A:

o      General comment: I’m new to this list and it seems somewhat jumbled to me,  with topics of different levels of detail and some much more important than others. That said, here’s my list.

o      Crucial, must deal with before July:

 Form Based Code—Getting a finalized draft seems (to me) like a huge job. It seems like Height & Shading & Views are a subset of Form Based Code.

 Availability of Housing—I added this as an overall topic; it seems crucial. Ownership Opportunities and Gentrification/Housing Affordability would fall under this category.

 Lack of Multi-modal Infrastructure—This must be built into new development.

o      Important, should deal with before July:

 Infrastructure impacts—We should consider water, sewer, internet, and electric power. Electric load will increase dramatically with EVs and all electric homes. Fire/Police Service

 Construction impacts—It will be important to hear from construction experts, not just Danco.

 Accessibility o Important, but can be dealt with later:

Sea level rise—According to the NOAA website, sea level will have to  rise 6 feet to directly affect the Gateway area. That will not happen soon.

Tsunami/Storm Surge o Not that important

• Impacts on Creamery District/Building

 Effects on business—I don’t understand this. Which businesses? How are the effects gauged?

Fiscal impacts—I don’t understand this either. Fiscal impacts to whom?

The City? Citizens? Tax payers? Businesses? How are they measured?

Vision Statement o •I support the “Revised Vision Statement” (Appendix D). I don’t support the  “Reorganized Vision Statement” (Appendix D2). The former is well written (see comments below) and concise. The latter has some empty language and is not nearly as effective.

• Typos: Under Health and Safety: Word should be “healthy.” Under Equity, last sentence: City of Arcata . “works” with o Under both Equity and Connection and Community: Religion is not called out as a characteristic. Do we want to call it out?