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       Planwest’s schedule: We’re completely off-course.

The theoretical completion dates for Arcata’s General Plan and Gateway Area Plan keep changing. We’ve seen the projected delivery date be extended many times. What’s the current projection?

In 2022, it was projected that the General Plan and Gateway Area Plan would be completed in December 2022.
In 2023, it was projected that the General Plan and Gateway Area Plan would be completed in December 2023.
(See these calendars below, here.)

It has been two full years now since the Gateway Area Plan draft plan came out. The completion date on any timeline that the Community Development Director has given us just gets pushed farther and farther out into the future.

The calendars for completion have been shown on the City’s Strategic Infill Redevelopment Program webpage — although those calendars are not updated very often.

Currently the City’s SIRP webpage shows the draft EIR release on July 31, 2023. As of December 2023 we have yet to see any inkling of the draft EIR. 

That webpage shows “Adoption of EIR and revised Form-Based Code, General Plan, Gateway Plan” — all of this being adopted by the City Council just four months from now. This is impossible, as we don’t have any finalized drafts currently… nor does it appear that we close to seeing them.

Currently on the SIRP webpage:

When will these documents be completed and ready for presentation to the City Council, for discussion and adoption?

We don’t know when.

A clue as to the new completion date can be seen on the Local Coastal Program Update page, updated November 22, 2023.  It shows that “the City creates a final draft” of the Local Coastal Program update in September 2024 for submittal to the Coastal Commission. (See below, here.)

The Local Coastal Program is an Element of the General Plan. If it’s not going to be ready until September 2024, then neither is the General Plan.

And as a reminder, the Local Coastal Program, the General Plan, and the Gateway Area Plan — with its plans for a build-out of about 1,800 apartments within the coastal zone — all have to be approved by the Coastal Commission.

I get the impression that we are now looking at the end of 2024 for the General Plan and the Gateway Plan to be ready for discussion as completed documents. This would be after the November 2024 election and potentially after the swearing in of new Council members.

What we are seeing here

The point is this:  Arcata’s Community Development Director, David Loya, does not know how to manage a large project like this. The proof is right in front of our faces. The Planning Commission is directed to meander from one topic to the next, with no completion of any single area of study. There has been no realistic timeline for completion for:

• The Gateway Area Plan
• The form-based code for the Gateway Area
• A feasible Community Benefits program for the Gateway area
• A inclusionary zoning, affording housing, and home-ownership in the Gateway area
• The General Plan updates
• The Local Coastal Program updated document
• The draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR)
• Coastal Commission submission

What is needed

First, an explanation of where we are. What’s needed for us to see a draft EIR? What’s the status on what’s needed for that? What would it take to complete the update of the Local Coastal Program Element? Can that be put to bed?

A suggestion:  A quarterly written update on where we stand, what’s been done, and what’s left to be done. And not in “bureaucrat-ese” language. The update should be one or two paragraphs with bullet points — a one-page executive report.

If you want to really laugh, read this

At the July 26, 2022, Planning Commission meeting — a year and a half ago — the Community Development Director,  David Loya, proposed that the Gateway Area Plan be recommended, voted on, passed, and implemented — before the Gateway form-based code was written. That would be done later.

“The way that we’ve got it scheduled, that the EIR for this work and General Plan amendments will be adopted first, then the policy will be adopted, and then we’ll initiate formal hearings [on the form-based code],” he said. “So you’ll be seeing some of the work as we’re developing it over the course of the next six months, but you won’t formally see it in public hearing until after this is all adopted.”

The Commissioners were having none of this. As Commissioner Mayer said, “So you’re basically saying that you’re hoping that the Gateway plan and presumably the General Plan Update would be adopted and the EIR Complete — before the Form-Based Code would be before the Planning Commission or the City Council?” And then later: “However, without the details of the Form-Based Code that it envisions there is no way that either the Planning Commission or the City Council can responsibly rely on ministerial approval for specific projects, especially large projects or projects of a fairly unprecedented nature in Arcata.”

A lengthy article and video on all this is found at Obfuscation and Gobbledygook here on Arcata1.com. The article has a table of contents with over 20 sections that you can jump to, so you can see what was proposed at that July 2022 meeting.

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Completion Calendars from the past

In 2023, it was projected that the General Plan and Gateway Area Plan would be completed in December 2023.

In 2022, it was projected that the General Plan and Gateway Area Plan would be completed in December 2022.

In the Planwest Partners proposal, from April 2021, the schedule is shown as the Gateway Area Plan and form-based Gateway Code as being complete in April 2022, the draft EIR being ready in June 2022 (shown in blue on this graphic), and the the entire Gateway Area Plan going to the City Council in December 2022. 

This schedule of work was outdated even when it was first released. It dates from 2-1/2 years ago, and Planwest, currently under contract to complete this work, has not updated this schedule (as of December 2023). For more on this, see Planwest’s schedule: We’re completely off-course.

This same schedule of work was included in the agenda packet for the November 16, 2022, City Council Meeting, even though it was completely out of date at that time. At this meeting a request for $117,874 for an enhance form-based code for the Gateway Plan was presented and approved.

Here’s a Gateway Area Plan timeline from July 2021, showing “Adopt and Launch” in December 2022 or January 2023.

Background: When was the Gateway Area Plan started?

It depends on how you look at it. The larger parcels located in the area west of K Street were for a long time viewed as potential sites for redevelopment and construction of new housing. Arcata’s Housing Element, passed in December 2019, contains a map, a couple pages of text and a list of parcels in what was then called Arcata Gateway. (You can view this here.)

The contract with the consultant Planwest Partners was signed in April, 2021. (The proposal and contract can be viewed here.) The first draft of the Gateway Area Plan was released in early December, 2021 — two years ago at this time (December 2023).

See the September 2024 date on the Local Coastal Program update webpage