The new draft General Plan elements would reduce maximum parking requirements in the most walkable parts of the city and eliminate parking minimums entirely where possible, alongside investing in alternative modes of transportation, such as the bus system and bicycle infrastructure.
The General Plan, which will govern the next few decades of Arcata’s infrastructural policies – in many ways it determines what the city physically is – will now be discussed by the Arcata City Council, which will include several aspects they have yet to decide, such as inclusionary zoning and parking standards.
No formal action was taken, but several councilors and commissioners took the opportunity to express their opinions regarding several of the plan’s elements, such as land use policy, where mixed residential and commercial sites are appropriate and the future of parking in Arcata.
The measure would not impact Arcata, which has its own permitting process for cannabis cultivation, but Community Development Director David Loya said he believed the measure, if passed, would impact the local manufacturing sector via downstream impacts to cultivators. Among establishing new rules around water use and surrounding infrastructure, the measure would ban new or expanded permits for mixed light and indoor grows and outdoor grows over 10,000 square feet, though nonconforming farms could remain so long as they do not expand.