On Thursday’s (August 11th) lead editorial I wrote about the Gateway Plan Advisory Committee presentation to the Planning Commission. To read that click here.
The original request, from the August 9th Planning Commission meeting agenda packet, is here.

There’s been a variety of confusion about what the Advisory Committee would be and what it would do.

The details of a Gateway Plan Advisory Committee were presented to the Planning Commission on August 9th, and will be presented to the City Council next week on Wednesday, August 17th. Scott McBain and Chris Richards are behind this and they are the principal instigators, and, yes, they are members of the Responsible Growth Arcata group. 

But a look at the names of the 84 people who have already signed onto this proposal should cure any skeptic that this would be an RGA-themed committee.  To see those names, click here.

And I will go further: 

 

If the City Council chooses to go forward without the formation of this Advisory Committee, the completion of a good Gateway plan is, in my view, doomed to fail.

 

Sorry to say this, but that’s sure how it looks to me.

And why is my name not on that list of people who support the Advisory Committee?  Because when Scott was first promoting the Advisory Committee, starting four or so months ago, his proposal seemed not clearly thought through. And, as Planning Commissioner Tangney pointed out, the connection or influence of the RGA group on the advisory group was not clear. For me, there were some things that RGA stands for that I could support and other areas I do not.

Now that it is clear that the Advisory Committee is entirely 100% separate from the Responsible Growth Arcata group and that the structure and purpose of the “task force” is spelled out and solid, I’m behind it, in concept at least.  The execution — and getting the right people on it — will define its degree of success. And I will go further:  If the City Council chooses to go forward without the formation of this Advisory Committee, the completion of a good Gateway plan is, in my view, doomed to fail. Sorry to say this, but that’s sure how it looks to me. 

I’ve been observing the process of how this Gateway plan has been unfolding — both the formal, designated (and often-altered) wishful process described by Staff, and the actuality of what’s really been happening.  And I have been and continue to be very critical of what I regard as poor management and lack of true oversight.

In my view, if we continue as it has been to this point — without the overview and direction offered by an Advisory Committee, the chance that a good plan will come out of this is, in my view, pretty close to zero.

How the Advisory Committee would be created

The members of this Advisory Committee would be appointed by the City Council.

The members of this Advisory Committee would be appointed by the City Council. The Advisory Committee, as envisioned, would be composed of management-level persons — not a housing specialist, or a wastewater treatment specialist, or a person oriented toward building height or design, or a parks or streets proponent.  Those “detail” people would be part of topic sub-committees.

The Advisory Committee would collect information.  They’d report on that information, as an exchange with the existing Committees and the Planning Commission. From what I’ve read, I view it somewhat like how the Humboldt County Grand Jury operates, in the sense that they are able to do more in-depth investigation and research into topics that other staff and elected and appointed officials simply cannot do — and then they issue a report.

There is so very much to research and understand about the many aspects of the Gateway plan.  It cannot be done even through the Commission and Committee system that we have in place. While we’ve heard staff reports and testimony and input from the public on a great variety of topics, at the Commission level and at the Committee levels, we can observe how few decisions have actually taken place.  

Reading the words of Arcata Fire District Director Eric Loudenslager here about how the Fire District’s recommendations seem to be being ignored — that makes me want an Advisory Committee.

The idea is:  The Gateway Plan Advisory Committee would make sure that these necessary components did not “fall through the cracks” or be “put off until later.” They would have the overview needed to assess what has to take place — now — for this plan to continue.

And in that way the Advisory Committee wouldn’t be slowing things down. 

 

They’d be speeding things up.

And in that way the Advisory Committee wouldn’t be slowing things down.  They’d be speeding things up. If, without the Advisory Committee, in another 6 or 8 months we collectively have as little idea as to what’s going on as we do now, then we would have wished that we’d had it in place. And by then it will be yet another half-year down the road, with little progress and insufficient agreement.

As I said to the Planning Commission at the August 9th meeting: The draft Gateway plan came out on December 1, 2021. The original timeline for review, update, and adoption by the City Council was by the end of 2022 — that would be 13 months.  Staff is now suggesting that we’re looking at Spring 2023, or 16 months from the start. 

We are now 8-1/2 months into a 16-month plan for adoption. We do not have 3D modeling; we do not have quantified results from the large Open House held 7 months ago in January; we have yet to see even one page of what the new Form-Based zoning code might look like. We’ve been told that we can create a finished plan, review it, and have the City Council — likely just 3 Councilmembers, because of recusals — vote on it to adopt it. It would be adopted as law for Arcata.

And we’ve been told: That they can approve this without even the zoning code that would support it. And without the promised 3D modeling that would show us how the tall buildings would appear. And without modeling of how the solar shading might work.  And without any notion of the feasibility of affordable or owner-occupied housing. And with no studies on the impacts on schools, police, fire protection, infrastructure maintenance, and actual — honestly assessed — future wastewater treatment capacity. And without regard to the financial impacts on the City.

Just to make one thing clear:  If adopted, we would have new policies in place for the construction of apartments in the Gateway area — and we would not have in place the zoning codes by which those apartments could built.  The Planning Commission understands this.  It was talked about at their July 26th meeting.  See the transcription and video of that meeting on this website here.

Does this sound like “Alice in Wonderland” to you?  It does to me.  Within that July 26th meeting, see my comments on the absurdity of passing the policies and not having the actual code in place here.

Commissioner Judith Mayer comments said, in effect: You can’t adopt a plan without having a Code!

We don’t have to have everything figured out in order to move forward with a Gateway plan. There are some things, though, that cannot be ignored.

In my view, the presence of a Gateway Plan Advisory Committee is a way of moving forward.  That committee won’t solve everything in order to create this plan. But having that Committee in place will sure get us a whole lot closer.

And again:
A plan that cannot reasonably be implemented
is no plan at all.