Ongoing Community Input is integral to ensuring our policy is current and effectively addresses community needs and priorities. We will continue to create input opportunities through a variety of outreach methods over the next two years.

Get in Touch

• Sign up for our Long-Range Planning & Community Visioning eNotification Listserv to receive updates on upcoming meetings, draft documents.
• Email or call us at comdev@cityofarcata.org or #(707) 822-5955.
• Follow us on Facebook and Instagram!
• Take our visioning survey or learn more about how to conduct your own visioning session with our "Meeting in a Box".

Future visioning sessions will be listed in the Ongoing Community Outreach page and will be posted on the City's Facebook and Instagram accounts, as well as sent out on the City's "Long-Range Planning" listserv.

The General Plan helps shape how the City will look, function, manage resources and provide services for the next 20 years. Comprehensive in scope, the plan conveys the fundamental values that public decision-makers will use to guide the City's evolution, from its physical development to the network of services provided to Arcata’s residents. 

In order to plan for 20 years of growth, the City adopted a General Plan in October 2000 based on low population growth from 16,500 residents to an estimated population of 20,000 by the year 2020. Click here to learn more about the current General Plan, or to review the document in its entirety.

Although the majority of the General Plan is still relevant, Arcata is nearing the 20,000 residents projected in the plan, and some elements must be updated to accommodate future growth. Among them, the Land Use, Circulation, Utilities, Open Space, Resource Conservation and Management and Growth Management Elements , will need revision in order to strengthen conservation and infill policies. Other updates that will be made include new land use and utility priorities, equity and environmental justice policies, and more.

NEW! View the draft Gateway Area Plan here.

Our first public meeting on the Gateway Plan draft will be held December 9th, 2021. Click here for details!

Key to the effectiveness of the Strategic Infill Redevelopment Program is the "Arcata Gateway Plan", a specific rezoning and re-imagining of 106 acres directly west of Arcata's core downtown Plaza area.

The Gateway Plan encompasses a 138-acre area of land that was once used mostly for industrial purposes. Some of this land has already been redeveloped or adaptively reused, others retain huge potential for investment and redevelopment. This area is located within 1/10 of a mile of downtown Arcata, so the Gateway Plan area holds huge potential for redevelopment.

Current planning regulations prevent large-scale residential development, so the Gateway Plan will establish streamlined permitting for projects in the urban core and strengthen policy, programs, and organizational capacity to protect working forests, agricultural lands, open space, and natural resource lands surrounding the City.

Explore the Gateway boundary on the City's public parcel finder by turning on the Arcata Gateway layer (GIS layers>Land Use-General Plan>Arcata Gateway Area).

The Infill Market Study provides a comprehensive assessment of the City's current housing stock and market forces to help City staff and the public understand how to plan for housing that the current and future market of Arcata can realistically support.

The Infill Market Study is the first step in the planning process and will identify the demographic data and trends, housing needs, and economic conditions the City is currently facing, and will project changes that will occur over next twenty years.

The Infill Market Study provides a comprehensive assessment of the City’s current housing stock and market, economic conditions, commercial and industrial space needs, and existing gaps and opportunities for each. This data and analysis will be used by the City, in its Strategic Infill Redevelopment Program, to identify the types of programs and policies needed to address the gaps and opportunities that will also be identified in the Strategic Infill Redevelopment Program.

The Infill Market Study was adopted by City Council on February 3, 2021.