Aaron de Bruyn asks Kimberley White, Meredith Matthews, Brett Watson, Raelina Krikston , Dana Quillman, Jeffrey Scott Sterling…

1 ^

How high are we gonna get in Arcata?

What maximum building height do you think is best for the Gateway-Barrel District and Gateway-Hub areas?

— Aaron de Bruyn

Responses

Raelina Krikston

Hi Aaron, 

I know there has been a lot of contention with the proposed building height in the Gateway District, and here is my honest answer:

As high as we need to. When it comes down to it, we can’t build on top of existing buildings, so by giving ourselves the option to go higher, we allow room for positive growth in the city without sprawling into the beautiful nature which surrounds us. 

I would support 8 stories in the districts that are proposed to be zoned for larger buildings. I know that this type of structure isn’t going to come at once, it has to be a gradual build up to that point so that we can logistically accommodate a building that size. 

At the end of the day, by allowing ourselves the room to grow, we can ensure that we have housing for the people who live here, and the new folks who will be joining our community. Our community culture isn’t made up by the size of our buildings, it’s through our interactions with one another. It’s from taking the time to say hello at the grocery store, and looking one another in the eye when we pass by on the sidewalk. None of that is going to change with tall buildings, if anything by not building tall, we run the risk of turning our natural environment into a suburban sprawl hellscape. 

I imagine beautiful buildings with rooftop patios, greenwalls and mixed use commercial and residential in the Gateway District. We have the opportunity to make some really cool things happen here, so let’s do it. It will give the businesses in that area the chance to grow as well as provide the ability to build more neighborhoods and community in our town. 

Meredith Matthews

Hi Aaron,

I appreciate the question; I know it is a topic that all Arcatans have strong opinions about.

Right now, the discussion is happening with the Planning Commission. Understand that they needed a starting point to have those conversations, and they decided on 7, 6, 5 and 4 stories to start. However, there are experts they have indicated they want to consult with, and form-based codes that need to be decided upon. Not easy decisions, and I am glad they are taking their recommendations seriously.

Once the recommendation is made to the Council, and we vote, the onus is then upon the developers to do EIR’s, soil studies, Coastal Commission review, and design review.

So I guess my short answer is, realistically, I don’t believe there will be buildings in the Barrel District over 6 stories, and those would probably include step backs starting at 3 stories and every story after that.

No matter what is decided, the truth is we are in a housing crisis, and we need housing now.

As always, I am happy to talk about this with you any time you would like.  

 

Brett Watson

I am the only councilmember committed to keeping the Gateway Area Plan, as well as any other future development, capped at four stories in height.

I strongly believe the City has failed to significantly engage the public and gather opinions from the entire community on the Gateway Area Plan. We will cite numerous examples of efforts to engage the public but when these efforts are scrutinized, they’re shown to produce very little meaningful data. We need to hire a professional polling consultant to reach out to our residents and collect community feedback via unbiased and scientifically based methods.

The primary challenge with any new housing within Arcata is our ability to provide wastewater treatment services to new developments. From the existing data we have, we can only provide wastewater service for another 4,000 residents. Our outstanding City staff is arguing we will be able to increase this capacity, but we’ve yet to see any meaningful data or evidence this is true. We can’t spend tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money and make big decisions like this based on speculation and assumptions. 

Because of our inability to have a clear and fact-based prediction of our future infrastructure capacity, it makes sense to create a modest GAP. More importantly, the vast majority of feedback I’m constantly receiving from Arcatans via direct communication, public comments and surveys, is that our community wants to maintain the existing building height limit of four stories. This to me is very reasonable and would be the responsible way to move forward.