40 South G Street, where the facility may one day be established. Submitted photo.


PREVIOUSLY

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Another chapter in Zachary Vondrak’s entrepreneurial saga ended in an anticlimax.

Last night’s meeting of the Arcata Planning Commission was the latest round of bureaucratic wrangling over the fate of Vondrak’s proposed contrast therapy/sauna manufacturing facility, which he wants to heat by burning wood sourced from forest fires or downed trees. The members of the Arcata Planning Commission, wary of being the authority to interpret an odd wrinkle in city code, decided to let the city council make the final decision.

Arcata prohibited the installation of new wood-burning stoves several years ago to reduce the amount of toxic particulate matter trapped in Humboldt’s oft-dense marine layer, and its code seems clear. The heading over the important section: “Reduce emissions from stationary area sources: residential, commercial, and industrial.” Vondrak’s sauna facility would be a commercial source of woodsmoke; if the code is read at face value, he’d be forced to change his plans. (He claims that his stoves, which use a “gasification” system, produce less soot than traditional woodstoves, citing some evidence produced under laboratory conditions. The commission noted his evidence is unverified, and that less soot doesn’t necessarily translate into less particulate matter.)

But that wasn’t necessarily the city’s intention when the code was updated, David Loya, Arcata’s director of community development, said at the meeting. They were mostly concerned with residential woodsmoke, not “one-off” sources like, say, a wood-fired pizzeria or Vondrak’s saunas. Yes, the heading mentions commercial interests, but that wasn’t what city staff, the planning commission or the city council were talking about at the time, he said. They weren’t trying to eliminate particulate matter pollution altogether, just to reduce it. 

“Almost my whole career, I’ve had to say, ‘I think what we were thinking at the time was,’ or ‘I believe the discussion was,’ or ‘I heard from someone that what they were thinking was’ — I have the benefit of actually having been involved in this discussion, and when that policy was developed, 100% of the conversation was around household usage,” Loya said. “And, I agree 100%, I can’t deny the heading says ‘Industrial, Commercial, and Residential.’ The discussion that led to that policy change…all of that conversation focused on, ‘How is that going to impact residential use of these wood-burning stoves?’”

If the commissioners wanted to, Loya said, it would be up to them to decide what mattered more. Their decision could have implications for future business owners who wanted to use wood-burning appliances, or they could narrowly tailor this decision to Vondrak’s facility.

The city’s intentions at the time didn’t matter to at least two of the commissioners, Dan Tangney and Peter Lehman, who said that what was written down outweighed any past discussion about which groups should be regulated more. Lehman also objected to the use of any wood-burning appliances for public health reasons. 

Many of the commissioners said they weren’t comfortable interpreting the policy, though it was within their power. They kicked around a few ideas (granting Vondrak permission to use wood-burning stoves on a three-year trial basis, implementing no-burn days during the winter, only allowing him to use gas or electric stoves), but finally decided it should be the city council’s decision to make. The decision was unanimous.