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The Arcata Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a final draft of the Gateway Area Plan, the city’s long-range planning effort to make way for high-density housing and mixed-use development on underutilized land on the west side of town — north of Samoa Boulevard and west of K Street. The plan will be sent to the Arcata City Council for final approval in the coming months.

“This is a major milestone in this process,” Arcata Community Development Director David Loya said during Tuesday’s meeting. “We’ve been working on the General Plan [and] Gateway code for seven, close to eight years now – from a concept to where we are now.”

The commission’s action came in the form of two resolutions: one certifying the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for the Gateway Area Plan and another updating the 2045 General Plan and Gateway Code. The action was approved in a 5-1 vote, with Commissioner Abigail Strickland dissenting and Commissioner Daniel Tagney absent.

During a brief presentation on the findings of the FEIR, Loya said the document had identified “unmitigated impacts” to historic resources and air quality in the Gateway Area, but said such impacts would be addressed in the city’s Statement of Overriding Considerations.

“Any large project that’s contributing particulate matter is going to have a significant environmental impact,” he said. “What a Statement of [Overriding] Considerations allows you to do is to say, even though there’s this unmitigated impact, the social benefit that we garner from approving the project outweighs the environmental impact, and so we’re going to go ahead and make findings to do that.”

During the public comment portion of the meeting, a few community members asked the planning commission to pump the brakes on the Gateway Area Plan to give local agencies and residents more time to look over the final EIR, which was released for public review on May 10. 

Another commenter, Arcata resident Fred Wise, said there are “dozens of errors” in the Gateway Code, including one section about inclusionary zoning. “It has the information from … before you and the council came up with numbers,” he said. “These can all be fixed, [and] they have to be fixed.”

Following public comment, Commissioner Peter Lehman said he was under the impression that the section on inclusionary zoning was correct. The language was previously approved by the commission, Loya said, but the city council had since decided to pull the section out of the Gateway Code and add it to the Land Use Code “because it will apply citywide.”

Speaking to concerns that the city has not provided enough time for the public review process, Commission Chair Scott Davies emphasized that the city has had “more than 100 meetings about this project, [and] many, many hundreds of hours of discussion.”

“Whatever else people may think about how this process has evolved, it has certainly not been [a] rushed or a quick process,” he continued. “I can personally attest to that.”

After a bit of additional discussion, Commissioner Joel Yodowitz made a motion to approve staff’s recommendation to certify the FEIR and approve the update to the General Plan and Gateway Code, with a small amendment to remove the following paragraph from page 31 of the code:

Inclusionary Zoning. For projects with 30 dwelling units or more, the project provides a minimum of 4 percent of the units affordable to very low income households or 9 percent of the units affordable to low or moderate income households as defined in Chapter 9.100 (Definitions). Moderate income units shall be for sale units consistent with State Density Bonus Law. 

The motion was approved 5-1.

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The Arcata City Council will review the proposed changes to the Gateway Area Plan and Gateway Code at tonight’s regular meeting – agenda here – but the council is not expected to make a final decision on the plan until July. 

The council will hold a public hearing on May 29 to consider the adoption of the FEIR and the Statement of Overriding Concern. At another public hearing on July 17, the council will consider final approval of the Gateway Area Plan.

Above: The boundaries of the Gateway Area. Zoom in and around if you like.