See also:  Gateway Needs Parks!

Shouldn’t we be able to WALK to our parks?

The “plan” for human-access parks in the Gateway area is woefully inadequate.
To make the Gateway area livable for thousands of people, we need real parks.

What is the Quimby Act?

The Quimby Act, originally passed in 1975, required new subdivisions to provide open space access in the area of the subdivision — or pay fees so that the city could provide  parks in that area, to serve the residents living there. 

The guideline was for there to be for 3 acres of accessible parkland (i.e. not wetlands or other non-entry open space) per 1,000 persons.  So for the Gateway area the math would be like:  3,500 housing units; ~2.2 person per housing unit = 7700 people or 7.7 thousand; 3 acres per thousand = 23 acres needed. Wow! That’s a lot of open space — that sounds great!

It is a lot of open space because the Gateway plan encourages dense housing development — and there will be a lot of people there.  Potentially more people there than the neighborhoods of Vaissades, Westwood, Greenview, and Sunny Brae — combined.

But the Gateway is not a subdivision…

But the Gateway area isn’t a subdivision, and so the Quimby Act doesn’t apply at all.  But it does give an idea of what the State of California regards as a good amount of open space to maintain the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being for the people who live there.

… and the open space isn’t required to be close-by 

Then in 2013 the Quimby Act was amended to allow cities to take the funds collected from one subdivision and use those funds in other areas of the cities, to purchase or expand or improve parks there — even if that meant that the people who needed the benefits of a park had to drive to another part of the city to get there.  The notion of having a nearby neighborhood park to stroll to got tossed out the window.

Looking at Arcata’s citizens’ needs for accessible open space would thus be looked at on a city-wide basis, and so would include the Community Forest –793 acres in the main forest plus 171 acres in the Sunny Brae extension.  On a mathematical basis, that’s enough accessible open space for over 300,000 people.

Shouldn’t we be able to WALK to the parks?

But New Urbanism and other contemporary urban design thinking places an emphasis on walkability and an increased awareness of the value of neighborhoods.  And also recognizes that even a small park — a “parklet” — where people can meet and congregate is of vast human importance.  Just to be able to sit in the outdoors, especially seeing as most (if not all) of the development in the Gateway area will be in the form of apartments.  And even a tiny park, say, the size of one city lot — one tenth of an acre — is of great benefit to the everyone who lives nearby.

How can we get our parks?

The design of the Gateway plan, as it exists, is that developers would get amenities (i.e. benefits for the developer) as an exchange for providing Community Benefits. I happen to think that this is a bogus plan, and will not result in real, substantial, necessary benefits to the people.  (See here and elsewhere on this website for the issue about the amenities program.)

Do we really believe the owner of a 1/2 block-size lot — 0.7 acres — is going to give up over 25% of that land to make a useable park?  A park that, for us, would be smaller than the very-small Bloomfield Park, which at 0.2 acres is the 2nd smallest park in the entire City of Arcata?  

 [Note:  Below where it shows “Q Street” is a subdivision of 17 lots.]

The only park that is smaller than Bloomfield Park is the absurdly small 0.09 acre Vinum Park — the little triangle strip alongside Highway 101 at 1450 F Street — essentially, a lot that no one can build on.  It’s good that it’s there, but it’s pretty minimal.

Will the Gateway area truly be walkable ?

Let’s see about getting parks closer to where people live.

In the interests of making the Gateway area a walkable neighborhood as is stressed throughout the policies, and in making an original Quimby Act type human-needs proposal, I suggest that the areas of Community Forest and the Marsh be left out of our thinking.  As great as they are (and I thoroughly enjoy both), I say:  Let’s see about getting parks closer to where people live. 

Perhaps the City could see about purchasing land off of 8th Street – adjacent or behind where Open Door Health Center is now (formerly Tomas, behind the Creamery) for a real park.  Or open space to the south and west of where Bug Press is, off of M Street. 

If we do not speak up on this, it not likely to happen.

And there will be no substantial parks
in the entire Gateway Area.