mailbox / By North Coast Journal Readers

Dancan’t

(Oct. 8, 2009)  Editor:

The North Coast Journal did a good job last week of explaining the Creek Side developer’s complaints as to why his project failed to get off the ground (“Growing Pain,” Oct. 1). It should be noted, however, that the developer’s failure is about much more than getting tangled up in the complicated politics of development — it’s about following the rules and getting it right. And those rules, as he found out, do apply to all of us.

After such diligent and indulgent use of civic and public time on this project, it is both foolish and cynical to say that City of Arcata officials and the citizens who tirelessly attended hearings in attempts to understand the impact of annexation and a 150-unit subdivision in their community, do not “understand” the issue of annexation.

As the evidence shows, it was the developer who failed to understand what must be done for Creek Side to meet the annexation requirements, and whose repeated attempts at revising EIRs and plans for the project demonstrated that his employees were ultimately unable to comprehend the language and rules that would have qualified them to make a bona fide annexation bid – or unwilling to do so. The criteria for annexation are detailed in plain language in the General Plan 2020, available on line or at city offices or the library, and they are easy to understand. 

As for fair hearings, the developer has had plenty of them over a five-year period, but each time that commissioners or the public questioned or pointed out the flaws in the Creek Side EIR the developers declared such objections were overstated, or “less than significant.” And when the objections were placed into context with GP 2020, the developer was judged wrong.

As council members explained at their latest hearing in June, the annexation failed because among other things, it did not comply with a basic tenet for annexation: infill before expansion. While some have claimed that such an annexation amounts to infill, how can expanding the city limits be defined as infill?

Of equal importance, the Council pointed out that Creek Side was not fiscally neutral. Further, the landlocked parcel’s map proposed access routes which proved virtually impossible to create, according to the Planning Department, and the city’s ability to provide services such as police, fire, water and sewer are questionable and they were judged a financial liability. 

Two years ago, in June 2007, Commissioner Ann King Smith pointed out that GP 2020 clearly stipulated that such expansion projects must wait until other infill opportunities had been exploited, and she read from a long list of more than 100 properties which provided infill sites to meet housing needs. As he announced the 5-0 negative decision, Commissioner Robert Flint said: Creek Side is clearly “too much, too soon.”

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