Arcata, California Strategic Infill Redevelopment Program, 19 Aug 2022

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From YouTube: Form-Based Survey Part 5: Height

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Form-Based Survey Part 5: Height

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All right, so this is the third and final topic for tonight's workshop and um thank you for your patience as you wait it to get to this point, because I know that many of you are very interested in the subject of building height and maximum allowed building height within the plan area, and we deliberately weighed it to bring this up to the last item tonight, because we first wanted to talk about building massing and strategies that could be used to break up the massing of larger buildings to support a more walkable community oriented feel, and we also wanted to talk about community benefits and how taller more intensive development could help to enable the city to capture the value from increased heights, to provide community benefits that wouldn't otherwise be possible through a development project.

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So we wanted to frame the discussion of allowed building height with that context of massing strategies and community benefits. Before talking to you about this important issue, so I'm going to go over existing allowed heights within the gateway area and then talk about allowed heights, as established in the gateway area plan. Before asking for some of your thoughts on this subject, so here is a diagram that is showing the plan area and the different colors represent.

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The existing zoning and existing allowed height is dictated by the zoning district that a property is in so most of the gateway area is light industrial and that has a maximum height of 45 feet which can accommodate a four-story building.

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There's a portion of the site, that's dark purple, that's heavy industrial and a heavy industrial property. um The city can allow for a height, that's more than 45 feet through a used permit process in order to accommodate an even taller building, there's a portion of the gateway area. That's currently zoned commercial that allows for 35 feet, 35 feet: you can fit a um a three-story building uh and there are some other little pockets that are 38 feet maximum height, but the majority of the plan area.

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Currently the maximum allowed height, is 45 feet which can comfortably accommodate a 40, a four-story building, and so, as I've already alluded to previously in tonight's meeting, the the draft gateway plan allows for height beyond the existing height allowance. If a project provides community benefits and conforms with design standards and as described before the greater the value of the benefit provided through the community benefit program, the greater the allowed heights- and there also would be limits on the tallest buildings- nobody is envisioning the entirety of the gateway area being developed with seven eight-story buildings.

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There would be limitations on the location of the tallest buildings, as well as potentially the number of the tallest buildings that are allowed within sub-areas or within the plain area overall and lastly, um projects that include height above the existing limit, as well as all projects must conform with whatever massing standards, ultimately get incorporated into the form based code. So just to review some of the things that was that was presented previously, the baseline height within the gateway area would be four stories.

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Additional height would be allowed only if a project provides community benefits, the greater the value of the benefit, the greater the height and there would be limitations on the tallest buildings, with the location in terms of the location and the number of buildings.

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So, with the way it's set up currently with the community benefit program, up to five stories with community benefits would be allowed in the brown areas on the map. That's the neighborhood sub-area up to six stories maximum in the orange area.

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That's the corridor, seven stories in the blue, that's hub and eight stories in the barrel district and again eight stories only for a limited number of projects that incorporate the highest level of community benefits and any project also needs to conform with all applicable standards within the zoning code municipal code, as well as building code requirements as well.

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So, lastly, before asking your input on the subject, I do want to say a few words about why the draft plan calls for increasing allowed heights.

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First, increased heights advances the plan's goal of promoting infill housing production by increasing the number of units that can be accommodated on an individual site.

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Second, by increasing building height, the city can create additional value that can be captured through the community benefits program and then third, additional building height, increases opportunities for development projects that provide onsite, publicly accessible, open space, which we've heard tonight is a priority of many people, as well as a greater flexibility to protect, enhance and restore natural habitats beyond minimum requirements, including doing things like creek daylighting.

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So those are some of the reasons driving the proposal within the draft gateway plan for these increased heights. So with that, we want to know what you think on this subject, so we'll do our final. Following of the evening and I'll hand it back to salah.