See also:  Re-Zoning Arcata: The Big View and aerial images

The proposed re-zoning of certain Arcata parcels, as part of the updating of the General Plan, includes sections of our town both south and north of the Craftman’s Mall site.

The request to the Planning Commission

Please recognize that the southern portion of this area is very much different from the central (the dorms) and the northern portions of this area. De-couple the southern portion, and do not re-zone that neighborhood as Residential High Density.

The Craftman’s Mall site was purchased for use by Cal Poly Humboldt, and will have two 7-story dormitory buildings constructed there. If you want to read more on this, there are many articles to choose from.

There’s “Cal Poly to Break Ground on Craftsman Mall Project Next Month” at the Lost Coast Outpost or “HSU’s planned Craftsman Mall housing shaping up” at the Mad River Union.

Or for further reading, see “Craftsman Mall Dorms Environmental Impact Report is flawed” and “Cal Poly ignores Arcata Fire District response to the Draft EIR” and “The Village Project: What went wrong?” at this Arcata1.com website.

First, let’s locate where this Craftman’s Mall re-zone area is.

And we’ll try to figure out why the proposal is for the large area.  It sure seems that the northern portion is substantially different from the southern portion of the re-zone area.

Now let’s get oriented. The red border shows the parcels where the Cal Poly 7-story dorm buildings will be constructed. The white border is more of the “Craftsman’s Mall” re-zone area. 

Here’s a closer view of just the southern portion, with no labels. Arcata Elementary School is the white-and-dark roofs in the upper center. The green tennis courts of Larsen Park are seen in the lower portion of the image.

That’s Eye Street in the center of the re-zone area. Note that there will be a barrier or gate at the north end of Eye Street. The City (and the residents) do NOT want the 800-or-so residents of the dormitories there to be driving down Eye Street — ever.

And closer yet. In this image we see that section of Grant Street that is west (to the right) of the tennis courts is not a full-width road. As a result, parking is not allowed on the south side of the street.

Here’s an image from Arcata’s GIS mapping system. The property lines don’t always exactly match up with actuality, so in the measurement below it goes from curb to curb, not to the property line. Why the sidewalk and curb were built this way, perhaps someone can tell us. Regardless, here it is. 

But the real issue with a traffic bottle neck is on Jay Street. It also is a non-standard street with regard to width.

Here’s a closer view:

A street view:

This is the parcel that would be the main beneficiary of the zoning change to Residential High Density. This is a 1.72 acre site that is owned by the developer and large local landlord Steve Strombeck.  Mr. Strombeck also owns the Westwood Gardens Apartments. His recently-approved and appealed project for that space involves 102 one-bedroom apartments, each 284 square feet, in “two-story” parallel rows of buildings — most of them being one level of residence on top of a carport space. That design is about the worst design possible in terms of wasting valuable land and providing a minimal amount of  housing for Arcata. The design creates solar shading for each successive row of buildings, so that for large portions of the year the renters get zero sunlight.

That same type of senseless and resource-wasteful housing could be built at this location, unless the City takes action to prevent it.

If 4-story buildings of apartments are built on this site, there could be 80 units or more of tenants. This narrow section of Grant Street (shown above) is the only access road.

A view to the west of the entire Craftman’s Mall re-zoning area.