Sharon King – January 4, 2023

    By
    fredredwoods
    -
    0
    332

    Loading

    January 4, 2023 

    Arcata City Council 
    Arcata Planning Commission 

    Members of the Arcata City Council and Arcata Planning Commission: 

    My name is Sharon King. I live on Villa Way. 

    I’d like to address development in Arcata, specifically the Gateway Project, as it is most likely to affect me personally, and is representative of other developments we are seeing in Arcata. 

    I’d like to thank all of the members of the Council and Planning Commission for your hard work, attention, and  thoughtfulness regarding development in Arcata. And thank you to all the people who come to the meetings, month  after month, well informed and well meaning. You too are representing us.  

    When we first were asked to weigh in on concerns about the Gateway project, we wrote on post-its and stuck them on posters at the Community Center. I remember clearly that I met David Loya, Director of Community  Development, then, and told him I thought the poster about which amenities we should choose was an error. All the amenities we chose should be considered non-negotiable requirements: sunlight, parks, walkways, setbacks,  playgrounds, meeting places, community gardens, native plants, accessibility, bike paths, safe roads, art. All of it. We all want all of that. David told me that he wanted a Lamborghini but he couldn’t always have whatever he wanted.  

    We don’t want Lamborghinis. We want human dignity, quality of life, potential for community interaction, safety for our children, and, yes, beauty. That’s why we live here. 

    How we achieve this, what steps need to be taken, in order to achieve a safe, livable future for our community, is in your hands. I personally feel intimidated by my inability to converse in technical terms. Often, when I watch meetings online, I don’t understand why information is so convoluted, so lacking in transparency, so cumbersome. 

    The other issue that concerns me is Infrastructure. We have heard from citizens who are experts about water tables, earthquakes, fires, police protection, transportation, building height, sewage treatment, and more. They have told the Council and Commission about how infrastructure needs to be strong to support development, and that we need to  address these issues before we accept development plans. How are these infrastructure improvements going to be made? When? This issue is ignored, even as it is brought up in meetings again and again.  

    And lastly, not actually about the Gateway Project, but overall, I am in favor of housing the homeless. Where does  that factor into the development of housing in our community? 

    Honestly, I see huge, ugly, unviable, spiritually defeating structures in Arcata as a definite possibility at this point.  You can see them in other cities in California already.  

    I believe in basic human rights, of which housing is one, and should be for everyone. But it isn’t houses, anymore, that we are talking about. These structures are not houses.  

    What people need is a home, a sanctuary, a resting place, to have peace, and beauty, and joy. That is what we want. Homes.  

    We rely on our elected officials and the people they choose to work beside them. Please listen, respond, stand up to the influences that are contrary to what you believe the community wants and needs. We count on you. Thank you.  

    Sharon King

     

    Regarding this portion of Ms. King’s letter:

    “I believe in basic human rights, of which housing is one, and should be for everyone. But it isn’t houses, anymore,  that we are talking about. These structures are not houses.  
    What people need is a home, a sanctuary, a resting place, to have peace, and beauty, and joy. That is what we want.  Homes.”

    In the article on this website “Draft Gateway Plan WordCloud” it’s stated: There are over 28,000 words in the draft Gateway Area Plan document.In the entire Draft Gateway plan, the words “House” and “Home” — as meaning a place where people will live — do not appear a single time.

    The word “Development” is there 253 times. “Housing” is there 157 times. “Amenity” and “amenities” are there 56 times. “Opportunity” and “Opportunities” are good buzz-words. They are in there 95 times. Also “Community” (196 times), “Sustainable” or “Sustainability” (27 times), “Density” (50 times). And “Vision” — we can’t have a plan without Vision — is there 96 times. Even the word “penthouse” is there three times — twice as “luxury penthouses” and once as “penthouse units for high-income households.”

    But not one mention of “house” or “home.”