The Humboldt County General Plan Update has just passed a milestone. The draft plan has been written. The Planning Commission has heard public comment on each chapter as they became available over the last 8 months, and now it’s decision time. This plan directs land use, transportation planning and most everything else the county does for the next twenty years. How will they tweak the plan to accommodate projected growth for the unincorporated areas of the County? They have three basic choices: Alternatives A, B, C and D.

Alternative D is the old plan that helped generate automobile dependent places like Central Avenue in McKinleyville. Minimum parking requirements, setbacks that prevent building entrances from opening directly to sidewalks, , and a lack of constraint on urban land expansion encouraged development of a place that’s hard to enjoy being in. You must traverse large parking lots to walk between businesses, most residents live far from the “downtown” and it just looks ugly. If we create and implement a good general plan for the county, we can encourage development of communities where it is much easier to walk and bike, and more cost effective to provide transit service.

Alternative A focuses growth in existing urban areas and creates mixed use town and village centers where residences and shopping are placed side-by-side, a perfect formula for making neighborhoods more walkable. Alternative B allows a little more sprawl outside the urban boundaries, and is viewed as the staff-recommended alternative. Alternative C allows for substantial conversion of agricultural and timber lands to low-density sprawl, and fails to designate the more pedestrian-friendly mixed-use town centers.

The political atmosphere around the process is polarized, with many (though not all) developers and realtors wanting more developable land to do things the way they are used to doing them. Anti-sprawl advocates want to focus growth in urban areas, compelling developers to build more infill projects and invest in a healthy urban environment.

The impacts of the way we grow are broad and substantial. A sprawling growth pattern will increase traffic congestion, transportation expenditures and dependence on ever-more expensive oil-based fuels. With oil at $108 per barrel (as of March 27) and the price of gas jacking up, this would be bad news for individual pocketbooks and the economy as a whole. Sprawl will discourage active transportation like walking and biking which is so important to physical health. Compact growth will be easier to serve by transit, providing more equitable access for those that don’t drive for whatever reason.

In the process of selecting the planning commission draft, an Environmental Impact Report will be completed and then it’s off to the Board of Supervisors for final approval. If all goes well, that will be a year and a half from now. In the meantime, Green Wheels’ noses are to the grindstone to ensure the policies in the plan allow for land use and a transportation system that support all modes: walking, biking, transit, carpooling and even driving.

20 Years of McSprawl (above): Aerial view looking south over Central Ave. and Heartwood Drive, McKinleyville, overlaid with the parking codes that create environments unfriendly to bikes, transit, and pedestrians.

Sprawlwood Heights in the Next 20 Years (above)? Looking North toward Eureka, a View over Ridgewood Heights, site of a large portion of the Humboldt County’s future development.

UPDATE

This article was discussed in a blog post at the McKinleyville Press, "Mack Town unfriendly to bicycles?"