on the cover / By Ryan Burns

Growing Pain

Arcata’s sidelined Creek Side project, a case study in the complicated politics of development

(Oct. 1, 2009)  When it comes to community planning and growth, we here on the North Coast are a wary lot. Go to any planning commission meeting and you’re almost guaranteed to hear someone fret about preserving our county’s unique character and quality of life. In fact, that very phrase appears as a guiding principle in the current draft of our county general plan. We’ve got it good up here, and we’d like things to stay more or less how they are, thankyouverymuch. In an increasingly homogenized America, we defiantly pedal our kooky, kinetic civic processes against the prevailing winds. Wheee!

But, like it or not, we must allow for growth. State law mandates that every governing body — be it a city council or a county board of supervisors — develop a long-term, comprehensive plan to accommodate projected housing needs. Our projected needs from 2007 through 2014 call for 4,747 new housing units county-wide, according to The Humboldt County Association of Governments (HCAOG). And not just for SoCal retirees erecting mansions on Fickle Hill, or neo-utopianists seeking solar-powered co-housing on the bay. No, we have to provide homes on all levels of the economic ladder. “Make room!” our government masters command. And in typical contrarian fashion, we respond like a Co-op-shopping Clint Eastwood: “We’ll grow,” it says in Arcata’s General Plan 2020, “but on our own terms.”

GALLERY >

Both the city and the county are on the verge of adopting updates to the housing elements of their general plans. But the guiding philosophies of growth on the North Coast have remained relatively unchanged for years now: Promote infill, not sprawl. Build responsibly, protecting natural resources and preserving open spaces. Make sure the new homes jibe with community characteristics.

In the abstract, there’s broad, if not complete, agreement on these principles. In practice, however, that consensus tends to fall apart, especially among the immediate neighbors of proposed developments. When analyzing a specific project it becomes imperative to define your terms and consider implications. What exactly qualifies as infill? Or sprawl? Where do you put housing if not open space? (Atop stores is the latest trend.) And how do you build anything without at least subtly changing a community?

Creek Side Homes, a proposed development at the edge of Arcata, has raised these and other questions. The developers, Danco Development, see the project as the very definition of what Arcata officials asked them to provide. Neighbors, on the other hand, call it sprawl and worry that it would prompt encroachment on the Arcata Bottoms’ agricultural land.

City staff and council originally encouraged the project, prompting Danco to spend close to a million dollars on studies, reports and staff time. But in June a new city council voted unanimously to deny for now at least annexation that would have made the project possible. The Planning Commission also unanimously shot the project down last year, citing concerns over protecting the neighboring agricultural land, the projected cost to the city and the timing of the project.

Now, the developers feel let down by Arcata’s “godfathers,” as Danco owner Dan Johnson calls the city’s decision-making bodies. Those “godfathers” counter that Danco hasn’t adequately incorporated the city’s recommendations. When word got out that Danco was considering taking the annexation decision directly to the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCo (the state agency that has exclusive authority on annexation decisions), the debate reached a fever pitch.

There’s more to community growth than just establishing a vision. As local governments put the finishing touches on our blueprints for the next five to 20 years, it’s the process of manifesting that vision that’s come under greater scrutiny.

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