The timber company formerly known as Simpson is proposing to rezone 2000 acres from Timber Production Zone (TPZ) to Rural Residential, according to Jen Kalt of Humboldt Baykeeper and the California Native Plant Society.
Kalt told KMUD last month rezoning would occur on 1000 acres outside Eureka, 300 acres adjacent to McKinleyville, and areas outside Trinidad, Arcata, and Rio Dell. The proposed rezone would be adopted as part of the General Plan update.
The Eureka-area acreage — called the McKay Tract — includes 16 miles of fish bearing stream in the Ryan Creek watershed. Ryan Creek is the best coho producing stream in the Humboldt Bay area, Kalt said. Restoration has helped the area recover from past logging, and most of the area is forested with some large 80-90 year-old trees, she said.
A February meeting between Green Diamond and Community Services Director Kirk Girard resulted in an “agreement with the county planning department on how the McKay Tract Master Plan should be modified to ‘drop into’ Alternative B. As Alternative B will be Planning Staff’s preferred alternative this gives us comfort that the project will ultimately be included in the final version of the General Plan,” Green Diamond Timber Investment Manager Daniel Opalach wrote in a letter to Girard.
“This would basically double the size of Eureka in the next 20 years,” Kalt said.
256 acres of the McKay Tract are already zoned for residential or commercial uses, according to the letter.
Green Diamond says “one of the most appealing aspects of the plan” is building a road to relieve traffic congestion, but Kalt questions that logic. “How are we going to then relieve traffic for the 7000 new houses? Build another 7000 new houses? It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “It certainly hasn’t worked very well in the Bay Area or Los Angeles to keep building out and building bigger roads.”
May 9, 2008 at 1:38 am
Umm, baloney. He thinks that many houses could be built and sold in 20 years? Changing the zoning doesn’t mean the land will be developed overnight (and yes, 20 years is overnight).
If you think the land is better kept natural, make that argument. Don’t scare monger.
May 9, 2008 at 5:54 am
The McKay tract borders Cutten / Ridgewood. How could anyone support this conversion to residential but oppose Forrest-Gill in the same area but surrounded by, not bordering, residential? Is the opposition to Forrest-Gill because the good ole boys don’t own the land? What’s up with this?
May 9, 2008 at 6:35 am
The McKay Tract is the last hope for a freeway bypass, too.
May 9, 2008 at 6:57 am
Will Mark Lovelace support this one too if they call it Smart Growth or hire him to do some consulting?
May 9, 2008 at 7:15 am
Forest-Gill is already circled by development and maintains the watershed. Big difference. I know, you find science scary.
May 9, 2008 at 7:38 am
How do you know Green Diamond’s plan doesn’t maintain the watershed?
May 9, 2008 at 7:50 am
Is there a “plan” as of yet? We’re just talking about rezoning.
May 9, 2008 at 8:05 am
If there’s no plan how does Jen Kalt know it will double the size of Eureka?
May 9, 2008 at 8:09 am
They want 7000 lots. Multiply that by 4 occupants per house. (28,000)
May 9, 2008 at 8:13 am
That, of course, is without any other subdvisions or infill occurring.
May 9, 2008 at 8:34 am
I would point out the similarity between Jen Kalt’s thinking and that of Jane Doe. Both member of the cult or perhaps the same.
May 9, 2008 at 8:37 am
Wow, Jen knows how to multiple too? What a coincidence.
May 9, 2008 at 8:47 am
The McKay tract should become a community forest, managed similarly to Arcata’s forest, and yes, homes can and should surround it. That would be a huge boost for Eureka. The biggest dig I and many others have against Eureka (other than the tweakers) is that you have to drive 15 miles or more to find any substantial, legally useable open space.
May 9, 2008 at 8:52 am
Eureka has a community forest, its called Sequoia Park.
May 9, 2008 at 9:17 am
8:48, the Gill development includes a community forest. Sequoia Park is 70 acres. The Gill web site says it’ll make (keep) a 200 acre forest.
May 9, 2008 at 9:18 am
Sequoia Park is tiny. Nice for a little walk, to take the kids out, but not much else. Not for a run, a bike ride, a horseback ride, etc. Beautiful place, but not what I’m talking about.
May 9, 2008 at 9:34 am
What’s the url?
May 9, 2008 at 9:35 am
http://www.cuttenridgewoodvillage.com/
May 9, 2008 at 9:37 am
Thanks.
May 9, 2008 at 12:06 pm
7000 lots or 7000 dwelling units? I don’t think those are the same thing.
May 9, 2008 at 1:50 pm
That’s classic NIMBYism… raise lots of questions, and don’t wait around for the answers.
May 9, 2008 at 2:00 pm
All the area above Trinidad will be prime real estate.
May 9, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Methinks the further you build out from the city center, the less attractive a house becomes because of the costly travel distance. It’s time for neighborhood groceries again.
May 9, 2008 at 2:15 pm
It doubtful that the planning department would allow a development of this size. Taking productive timberland out of production will not improve Eureka’s economy. A community forest would provide sustainable jobs and directly benefit and improve the quality of life for most citizens of Eureka. Let’s hope a conservation buyer can enter the picture fast! Land trusts where ya at?
May 9, 2008 at 2:22 pm
They’ll annex McKay but still haven’t annexed Cutten or Humboldt Hill? Doesn’t sound right.
May 9, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Talk to your city council member about that. Having the word “planner” in your job title doesn’t automatically make you wise.
May 9, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Luckily, I’m old enough that by the time Humboldt County turns into Los Angeles north, I’ll be dead.
May 9, 2008 at 7:56 pm
“Luckily… I’ll be dead”
If thats luck then we’re f—-d.
May 9, 2008 at 8:02 pm
That’s right 7:24, Los Angeles North is one tomorrow away.
Dude, stop mixing doobies with Fruit Loops.
May 10, 2008 at 6:07 am
Is there is need for such expansion? Do people from outside the area really want to live here? Seems like the opposite has been the case lately- more people leaving. What would sell 7,000 living units or pieces of property? This sounds like an exaggeration.
May 10, 2008 at 7:11 am
Again, it’s not really our concern. If they can’t sell it, it’s their loss. Worst cast scenario, they create a glut of for-sale homes on the market and suddenly we have home prices become affordable. Perish the thought!
But in reality, they do research and believe there are people to buy the homes.
May 10, 2008 at 8:00 am
Even over 20 years that is aggressive, more like 40 or 50 years. 350 homes per year in one area when currently there are less new homes than that sold in the whole county yearly. Check Kalt’s info too, she was very misinformed on TPZ issues.
May 10, 2008 at 12:10 pm
The illegal aliens have to live somewhere.
May 10, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Well to all the laissez faire folks who say “what do I care if its a bad idea, its the private developer’s problem”, you haven’t learned anything from the problems of Shelter Cove or Lake Earl in Del Norte, the most blatant local examples of the harms of uniformed planning.
You probably also talk out of the other side of your mouths and complain that BLM and USFS public lands should be privatized because that guarantees a better idea for their use.
The many abandoned mills and contaminated industrial sites and waterways are futher evidence of the harm caused by careless land planning. And regardless of what anyone thinks of the Marina project, no one says the present condition of the Balloon tract is good for the community.
There is a lost opportunity to the entire community when unproductive schemes that take years to die are publicly sanctioned.
And if you think I’m just against privatization, let’s not forget that the publicly owned mythical railroad and container port is sucking money away from real economic development.
May 10, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Hear, hear!
May 11, 2008 at 12:41 am
You have lost all sense of reality. We’re talking subdivisions… you know, houses. Maybe all those houses will be populated by families with mothers who buy mercury thermometers and those thermometers break and the mercury is thrown into the backyard, contaminating the soil. Uh huh. Keep dreaming with your scare tactics.
May 11, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Anony.Miss @ 6:07 am,
#1. the need for expansion is really the need for an increased local tax base. Since this community does not have enough appropriate industrial, heavy commercial and manufacturing jobs helping to provide “local and state tax revenue flow”, government depends more on expanded service taxes and expanded property taxes by allowing more “dwelling” units to be built.
#2. This expansion is also a realism of housing quotas which all “local jurisdictions” are mandated by state law to meet. In the feverish fervor of slowing “growth” by over-excessively disallowing and/or monitoring “construction/development”, local jurisdictions and groups over years’ past have actually created a “development” situation where a heavier impact will be felt in a shorter time-span. Some of these places up for “potential” development have been pondered or known for years, if not decades. Instead of slowly phasing them in to avert a crisis, the act of prolonging and disallowing development on the essentially approvable sites has now required an expediacy to develop them for increased revenue generation and housing numbers. Afterall, who needs the homes more – govt. or people?
#3. Also, if and when the Mckay Track is ever phased out, the main road will probably be aligned so as to merge or terminate into a new freeway by-pass. Eureka does need a by-pass. It would reduce and/or eliminate congesting traffic on 4th-7th Streets, Broadway, S. Broadway, etc… And for those who never had any intention to stop in Eureka anyways, no business lost. And for those who would have intended to shop, if not for the traffic, could now safely walk, run and bike from their close neighborhoods to merchants and their stores for a less vehicular experience.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
May 11, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Silly me, I thought it was about working class people having an affordable place to live. If it was all about taxes, we would be building expansive retirement communities… lots of money infused into the economy with no need to employ ‘em.
May 11, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Jeffrey, that’s your usual anti-communitarian, tax denyer, mythical self-made rant.
Many studies have shown that residential develpment by itself creates a net loss to local goverment’s budgets, as the property taxes collected don’t cover the cost of publc services. Thats especially true in California, where prop 13 has limited property taxes severely. At best, the infrastructure costs are paid when proper planning and honest developers are present.
Now, most people do have jobs and act productively to obtain income that produces additional tax revenues which can cause economic growth for local governments. But people do those productive things regardless of their residence. People living in older or less expensive residences are just as productive as those in newer or more expensive homes. So new housing, by itself, doesn’t increase tax revenues(other than what’s collected due to the construction phase).
Now you’ve also taken State housing mandates and ignored the planning process taking place right now to meet that mandate. It isn’t a conspiracy of excessive limitation, its about growing “smart” by building as it is needed, not speculatively and rampantly to create a “boom” which inevitably is followed by a “bust”. Why do you think the fastest growing areas of the early 2000’s (Las Vegas, Sacramento, Riverside County) are now the biggest busts? And why has housing in Humboldt been much more stable and more reflective of overall economic conditions? Its a result of better planning and your calls to stop that will create in Humboldt the human misery, neighborhood deterioration and financial meltdowns that other areas are now dealing with.
And I really like how cavalier you are about personally planning the future of the McKay tract. You write it will “probably be aligned…” and then make your “probably” into a cold hard fact and justification for the project today. You’re into heavy speculation but don’t even realize it since you’re transported into your personal fantasy of egotistical ramblings.
May 11, 2008 at 4:05 pm
In California, the only one who can be blamed for that is the local government itself for not properly charging the developer impact fees that cover the true impact of the development.
May 11, 2008 at 4:29 pm
N.O.N. “many studies”, citation please.
New housing doesn’t increase tax revenues? False – They are paying property taxes at double and triple the rate of the previous residents. With these new rates, how does your residential development is a net negative on local governments argument go in today’s market?
May 11, 2008 at 5:48 pm
For one reference see:
http://caltaxreform.org/?p=11#more-11.
Impact fees only partially cover initial infrastructure costs(and usually developers convince officials into putting in public funds too). To facillitate uneconomical sprawl development, as in Orange and Sacramento counties, developers successfully lobbied for Mello-Roos districts to artifically lower their costs.
All maintenance costs increase over time at a higher inflation rate than prop 13 constrained tax rates. Wonder how all those public service and safety workers manage to keep a living wage? Would you want them not to? Do you realize that the government has to pay current market prices for police cars, road asphalt, school building maintenance, etc.? Have you read that Vallejo has declared bankruptcy?
So new sprawl development gives a quick rush of economic activity followed by a slower long term decline ending in fiscal crisis. If that sounds to you like the effects of a very addictive and dangerous drug, then you understand the allure of rampant development.
May 11, 2008 at 5:56 pm
N.O.N.,
In your post, do you mean to say Humboldt County Planners are not at their best? You know, if our taxes were properly allocated, we would not be having this discussion.
People living in newer homes regardless are paying more in taxes than those who live in older homes of alike characters (except for when an older home is more valuable to begin with). Since value is the key factor, the increase in California alone, even for resale, should garner 2-3 times more local tax revenue than a year over year comparison to let us say 5 years ago.
Obviously, your second and third paragraphs were a negative reversal of sorts to deceive the readers. So, I will just say at least you understand it is about “building as it is needed”. You see, if Planning’s actions were about building as it was needed, then more numbers of units would currently be considered existing; less numbers of units would be considered proposed / new. Instead of a genuine, smooth and controlled efficient flow with the processes, we have what we have – a quick fix desire. The building element process has remained similar; so has the General Plan Process which is SEVERAL YEARS LATE.
In your third and fourth paragraph, you make claims which are unwarranted. Please provide specific details and references to your conjecture. And where did “probably” turn into a “cold-hard fact”?
Sorry if you do not like my point of views. Your wordplay and twisting is less than desireable.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
May 11, 2008 at 6:51 pm
anon 4:29, other studies that find residential sprawl development results in net loss to local government:
http://extension.unh.edu/CommDev/Pubs/CstComSv.pdf
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/lcr/LGIEN2000-0011.html
http://www.warnell.uga.edu/h/centers/cfb/files/10.pdf
May 11, 2008 at 7:00 pm
anon 4:29, Other studies that show sprawl development results in a loss for local government:
I tried posting this before, apparently wordpress sees the links as spam so I’m puting in more text to fool the filter
http://extension.unh.edu/CommDev/Pubs/CstComSv.pdf
Still more spoofing text, gotta feed the filter:
http://www.warnell.uga.edu/h/centers/cfb/files/10.pdf
And yet more unnecessary bytes sent into the ether to appease the Goddess of spam filtering:
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/lcr/LGIEN2000-0011.html
May 11, 2008 at 7:04 pm
N.O.N. you said “Many studies have shown that residential develpment by itself creates a net loss to local goverment’s budgets, as the property taxes collected don’t cover the cost of publc services.”
I did not see any studies on that page, or anything you have posted so far to back your claim. The page you linked to is an argument against prop 13 written 8 years ago, funded by labor unions and public employee groups.
May 11, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Anon 7:04 i tried posting several studies but the spam filter took out the mesages. I’ll try one here http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/lcr/LGIEN2000-0011.html
May 11, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Anon 7:04 Tried to post several times but the spam filter doesn’t like too many links. Google “cost of community services studies” to find several studies
May 11, 2008 at 7:13 pm
OH, by the way anon, assuming you’re not a sarcastic juvenile dipsh*t, it isn’t “N. O. N.” its NAN
May 11, 2008 at 7:15 pm
One more try
extension.unh.edu/CommDev/Pubs/CstComSv.pdf
http://www.warnell.uga.edu/h/centers/cfb/files/10.pdf
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/lcr/LGIEN2000-0011.html
May 11, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Sorry, NAN. I didn’t see your posts in the spam filter until just now. Feel free to email me whenever that happens.
May 12, 2008 at 6:47 am
NAN, N.O.N. it was an error, but a funny one now. I am aware of the C.O.C.S. studies, I was waiting to see if you were. According to the C.O.C.S. studies residential housing costs anywhere from 100% to 125% of the property taxes they produce.
This most likely does not apply in Humboldt County since the government services they are talking include schools, which accounts for 45% to 65% of the property taxes spent, or services provided. In Humboldt we have schools closing due to lack of students. A number of teachers just got noticed they may not have jobs next year in Eureka. Our new developments are not adding a burden on the school systems because we are not attracting families. As a matter of fact, a new development that was teeming with children would probably have the opposite effect since the schools get their income based on the number of students enrolled. Increased enrollment would increase their budgets, possibly raising them to maximum capacity, which, like water and sewer, gives them the most efficiency economically.
May 12, 2008 at 9:04 am
Yes,
And here are some questions to consider:
and since schools get much of their funding by the number of “heads” in the classroom; and since there does not exist enough adequate economic job/industry sectors in our communities to regenerate good paying jobs; and since these two previous known facts are comparable and equate to reductions in “locally raised families”; and since less families means less generation of a myriad of types of tax revenues (including property taxes); and since individual school funding goes down when “heads” go down, then the state school system receives no less money, right – at least until a funded school district is taken off the books?
So, what happens to the generation of property taxes charged when those taxes have been paid for by the property owner, but the school district’s enrollment is going down. This lowering student population is lessening the costs per student and other expendiatures created by educating an increased student body (statewide more so than locally).
Further, when enrollment goes down, why would a local school district want a ballot measure for increased funding when property taxes have just shot to the moon over the past several years (construction costs)? Yes, it may take a little time for furlonged projects to become fully funded by the increased infusion of tax revenue, but don’t let old rhetoric overlay today’s tax revenue generation facts.
Now, if the lack of students is due in part to poor jobs, appropriate and liveable/affordable housing needs not being met, non-monolithic transportation needs not being met, and a host of other reasons, then what would be a financial quick fix to secure more “local” funding knowing that the competing jurisdictions would not cumulatively receive a 100% newly injected student population.
In other words, building new homes will be filled with people which include many children, but not ALL children. Therefore, building more homes for which folks with “NO Children” purchase is a better fit for the state school system and “local govt.” regardless of the local government’s cut-of-the-tax-pie or local school district’s enrollment.
In fact, if a property tax bill generally charges the same percentages and increases the base rate yearly with a C.O.L.A. change; and the education system and local governments were to receive their yearly percentage of taxes generated; and, all of a sudden children disappeared, where would your taxes go? Would you still pay the same amount of taxes? Is not unemployed teachers and administrative level educators that which is mostly “all that is left”?
Remember, it is not as if a property owner’s tax bill goes up or down depending on whether or not they have children and how many. You either live in a school district or don’t. You either live in a fire district or don’t. You are either a student who lives within a school district or you live outside of one. You are either taxed for education or not. What are you receiving in return is the real question?
Further, a school’s budget should also go down when enrollment goes down. These two adjusting indicators of the well being of a school need to move in synchronicity. It is not in and of itself that a reduction in enrollment is bad. Enrollment can be good and/or bad depending on whether or not adjustments in operations have been made to counter a shortfall of “student population” generated school funding.
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
May 12, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Well anon, you asked for studies and then when I produced them write you knew about them all along.
So, we know you’re not honest. Hiding information you don’t like is duplicitous at best, but normally just considered sneaky and intellectually immoral.
And you’re wrong about the study result for schools. The studies show that even without schools included, residential development results in a local government loss of 11% to 76% for each tax dollar.
http://www.warnell.uga.edu/h/centers/cfb/files/10.pdf
And your assumptions about school funding reveal you have a welfare, cargo cult attitude that believes money just comes from “somewhere else” for nothing in bountiful amounts. State education funds come from taxes, largely property taxes, and the State isn’t able to sustainably pay the necessary education costs throughout the state. There’s a state level education funding deficit because those taxes don’t cover the costs, just like the studies conclude.
Its not about enrollment. Even school systems around the state that aren’t losing students are still losing state funding and cutting back their faculties in response.
And BTW locally, charter schools, private schools and “home schooling” is attracting more pupils so the total number isn’t declining at the rate being reported by the traditional public systems. In response to public desires, schools are transitioning to become less uniform.
And then you don’t address the study results other than to write “most likely does not apply” and “we are not attracting families”. Finally you contradict the studies results about school costs with no evidence other than to write “a new development would probably have the opposite effect….”
So you take studies written from real data and then deny the results with the evidence of “most likely” and “would probably”. No only is that dumb but your statements have no backing, so they’re meaningless. You just pulled them out of your backside. And that’s the best place for them to go back to.
And your unfounded assumption stated as fact that “we are not attracting families” is pure bunkum because it doesn’t address how people live their lives. Many young people are starting their lives here, most of them graduates of local colleges. And over the years, many of them will form families. And many young adults come here, find mates and have children. Humbolt grows families, just like other places.
May 12, 2008 at 6:14 pm
N.A.N. you have posted studies conducted 5 – 10 years ago from the South and Eastern U.S. Are their educational systems funded the same way as CA?
I took studies with real data that have nothing to do with the Green Diamond proposal and yes, discounted them because in EUREKA THEY ARE LAYING OFF TEACHERS.
Here is a bit from the New Hampshire studie you linked to:
“The COCS study ratios should not be used to predict the ratios of future land use. In order to measure the impact of new development, researchers need to predict the revenues and expenditures of specific developments. Ratios from COCS studies calculate the revenues and expenditures of existing land use classes. The balance of revenues and expenditures for an individual development may be different than that of the land class as a whole. For example, the ratio of a new apartment complex may differ from the ratio of all current residential development. Therefore, knowing the balance of expenditures and revenues for an entire land class does not allow decision makers to
accurately predict the ratio of a single piece of property within that land class. Another reason that COCS study ratios are not predictive is because they indicate the total, rather than marginal, costs of expenditures. The marginal cost of development is the cost for each additional unit to be serviced. For example, a municipality spends a certain amount of money to provide elementary education. The municipality may or may not be able to enroll new students with no major additional cost. The cost of residential development, therefore, may be high if it requires new infrastructure or it may be fiscally beneficial if it diffuses the cost of existing infrastructure. Applying the concept of marginal costs indicates that future development may or may not impose an additional burden on the municipality. COCS study ratios are the balance of expenditures and revenues only for a given year and therefore do not indicate if additional capacity exists.”
Eureka school enrollment is down. That is why they are closing schools. In 2000-2001, eureka had 21,000 students enrolled and for 07-08 they have 17,000. Certainly they now have some excess capacity. Whatever the reason, if 50% of the property taxes go to schools and the schools get their money per pupil, as the enrollments go down the budgets will too.
Using the C.O.C.S. numbers, one can conclude in order to have a financially successful community, one need only to exclude any residential development. Does that make any sense? All commercial, industrial, and farm land, but no homes?
In reality the land uses are interdependent, so for you to say residential does not pay its own way may be true in one, very strictly measured way, but in reality, without residential, there would be not commercial or industrial possible.
May 12, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Now, if the school district portion of the levied property taxes do not go down on your bill (until district termination), then what funding is really going down?
In fact, just because a school loses per student (head count) funding, does not mean overall system is receiving less funding. If the system has taken in $100 to spend on 100 students, then spending $100 on 99 students should be easier, right? Afterall, your property taxes are not decided by how many children you have or how many children the school system has. Your taxes paid are based upon whether or not you are located in a school district zone.
If that school which lost the student receives less per student (head count) funding, then which school or schools are receiving that denied funding? What is the revenue and expendiature loss/gain factor when losing a student? Is it 1 to 1 ( for every dollar of student enrolled funding which is lost is also a loss of a dollar in expendiatures)? Is it 1 to 1+ or 1 to 1-?
Jeffrey Lytle
McKinleyville – 5th District
May 12, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Forget whining about tax revenues and schools, the real problem with slapping 7k houses onto the wrong side of eureka will be transportation and services. EG, there are none. This is the biggest problem with the kind of housing development you’ve seen up and down the state primarily over the past 20 years. A bunch of cul de sacs with a shopping center is NOT intelligent, sustainable development. It is, however, the direct cause of traffic amongst other problems.
If you want to move your core population to a different geographical part of the city you also need to develop supporting services in that area such as fire departments, a police station, integrated retail/light industrial/housing. There should be commercial office space built along with adequate road infrastructure (not big roads, smart roads) that funnel traffic within appropriate usage rather than in a design intended to reduce cars and accompanying noise on cul-de-sacs.
If you want to expand a city in a smart way you have to build it smartly. Look at the rest of Eureka, part of it is intelligently designed and part of it is clearly tacked-on at the end. This accounts for the lop-sided commercial development of the city and the increasing traffic issues associated with them.
Annexation is absolutely critical and I was happy to see someone else mention that Humboldt Hill, Cutten and the rest of the areas surrounding Eureka that use its infrastructure without supporting it need to be annexed as well.
Bottom line is that if Eureka really wants to be smart it will force high-density mixed-use development with extreme amounts of green and open space along with bike corridors, future public transit rights-of-way preserved in the blueprint along with nice residential spaces for family homes, commercial businesses, light industrial and the rest. Most important this all needs to be well-integrated into the existing Eureka street grid and coincide with improvements throughout the city.
Eureka is a small city with a LOT going for it. If smart growth development were to come up to discussion it would be wise for the more progressive residents of the city to think big in terms of concessions. The rest of the city will suffer if a huge new wing is added to the town without doing anything for the existing city. I’d recommend a focus on transportation corridors designed to move people (not just cars) more quickly and pleasantly through the city and re-bridging Old Town with the rest of Eureka.
May 12, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I thought everyone has been fighting high density. Whoever lives closest to a proposed HD development cries fowl and the nearest elected representative cowers into submission. Is there a planning department in Humboldt County that has embraced high density of a significant size in recent memory?
May 13, 2008 at 2:14 pm
This is what the TPZ fight is really about, the timber owners what to turn tens of thousands of acres into subdivision, be it by rezoning, or the ones like PL proposed, where they just build McMansions.
May 13, 2008 at 3:39 pm
anon, 6:14 Recent “Cost of Community Services” (COCS) studies have the same results as older ones, there are plenty of recent ones on the net. You wrote you know about these studies, so do the digging.
This isn’t really about schools, but becuase you seem obsessed with the Eureka City School layoffs, I want to point out that last year, the Arcata school district closed Bloomfield Elementary, after much public anguish. Immediately, two charter schools competed fiercely to locate into the Bloomfield building, evenually one was selected. The building is still a school, with teachers working in classrooms. Six Rivers charter High is co-located with Arcata High, maximizing facillity use. My point is that in Eureka too, parents are taking their children out of the Eureka system and putting them into other learning situations. Teachers are hired by those “other learning situations”. So stop the dire CAPS OF ALARM about layoffs. Good, flexible teachers will have jobs consistent with pupil demand. However State funding cutbacks are real, partly due to the factors identifed in the COCS studies.
A final point about school funding. The CA State support per pupil isn’t a fixed amount but varies annually based upon the characteristics of the district. So stop seeing it as a unchanging situation. The numbers are continually being adjusted by administrators and politicians. Specifically, rural districts receive more funds per pupil. Its another instance of government rural subsidization that also applies to telecom, agriculture, and health. If a COCS study were done over a much broader area, it would show that urban areas and productive rural areas(farms, ranches, timberlands) are positives to government budgets while the suburban and exuban(sprawl) areas are negatives.
And don’t confuse the issue by misusing the term “residential” development. The COCS studies analyse suburban and exurban residential development, usually far suburbs or exurbs. That’s their definition of “residential”. Compact residential development, where government services can be supplied with high efficiency are not the same thing, at all.
As I wrote much earlier, people who are productive in sprawling exurbs will be just as productive when they live in more compact residential areas, close to the industrial and commercial locations that they support, as you rightly point out.
Think about the “good ole’ days” local people talk about. That was when people worked in mills, nearby to where they lived. The mills are gone forever, but that way of life was and still does, facillitate efficient and abundant government public, and other services. The many public budgetary crises we’re experiencing are caused, in good part, by the type of land use that occurred subsequent to those days.
May 13, 2008 at 3:51 pm
NAN, your example is exactly what’s wrong with our public schools. Charter schools are supposed to be experiments. Alternative learning systems that prove successful are then to be incorporated back into the public schools, not for the charter schools to operate indefinitely. Charter schools as they function today, contrary to the original intent of the law, are bleeding our public schools dry.
May 13, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Funny to use the word “experiment”. As I recall, the adoption of democracy in the US was called “The Great Experiment”. So far, so good.
The debate over charter schools is officially done, I’m not going to rehash it here. Parents are “voting” for charter schools with their children. Charter schools “bleed” district schools only in the sense that Ray’s Supermarket “bleeds” Safeway.
Charter schools ARE public schools, publicly financed and required to meet the same academic standards as municipal schools. Charter schools claim they receive less funding, per pupil, than their local district schools. They are here only because they are what parents choose.
May 13, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Until one of the grocery stores goes out of business and is replaced by the other. It has happened many times in Humboldt County.
If you’re unfamiliar with the history of charter schools in California, don’t venture to post your guesses here.
May 13, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Oh, wait, that’s right, schools are indeed closing and being replaced with charter schools. How, exactly, does that comfort the parents who CHOSE to send their kids to the public school that has since closed because of the bloodletting performed by charter schools?
May 13, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Don’t bother with NAN. He/she still hasn’t backed up the original statement that residential development is a net loss to local governments and how it relates to the green diamond proposal.
May 14, 2008 at 7:48 am
You’re absolutely wrong Anon 6:08, I’ve given several links to many studies that used actual data from local government and showed in every case that residential development distant from existing habitation is a net loss to local government budgets.
The studies aren’t perfect but no one has been able to refute the study data with other data. Speculation, maybe, could be, and should be aren’t data. The truth is that suburb/exurb davelopment costs local government more than it gives back.
May 14, 2008 at 8:39 am
Residential development is a net loss for local governments? That reminds me of a quote from the movie Clerks.
“This job would be great if it wasn’t for the ****ing customers!”
May 14, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Randall, Rather than having a concrete mind that is all mixed up and permanently set, read the studies that prove the point. Residential developments that are beyond urban areas, result in net additional costs to local governments.
What may be confusing you is separating out the productivity people create, which does result in net local government fiscal gains.
But those gains can’t be subtracted from the development costs because the gains are from people not residences. And the people will be just as productive regardless of where they live.
Another way of looking at it is from a local government fiscal point of view, people are more productive(cost government less) when they live near urban areas.
February 17, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I feel everyone is very off track from the real issue. Re zoning will result in homes, tax, revenue, cost, infastructure, jobs, ect. But the biggest issue is moving lands out of productive forest, and into polluting homes. Residential developments are not industrial waste sites, but paved roads, roofs and other impermialbe surfaces causes runoff which is deposited into our waterways as sediment and pollution. A clearcut and the network of roads required has a peak discharge of relatively harmless sediment when compared to the perpetual discharge of filth from residential development.
Some lands will inevitable be moved into “Higher and Better Use” (HBU), but it is a far stretch to refer to this expansive connected tract of land as having a better use of spralling Eureka into the hills.
This is again further proof of the what over regulation and soft wood lumber imports, caused by Bill Clinton’s NAFTA agreements, is doing to the value of timberlands in california. Its more profitable as residential real estate than as productive timberlands.