Among the items discussed at Monday’s Crescent City Council meeting:
Apartments on 3rd Street? Crescent City resident Gloria Carone went to the City Council with her concerns about a “stack and pack” apartment complex she said was slated for 3rd Street between E and F.
According to Carone, the apartment building is being spearheaded by LNL construction and will be right across the street from St. Joseph Catholic Church. She said she worries about impacts to the sewer system and people’s views. Carone said she also wonders where the residents are going to go for medical care.
“Doctors and dentists are so overbooked for the people who live here,” she said. “Stop with all these mega big construction companies coming in and building up these stack and packs all over the place.”
City Manager Eric Wier told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday that the Planning Commission did entitle a proposal from LNL Construction to build a 33-unit 2-story building on 3rd Street between E and F about two to three years ago. However, the construction company has yet to break ground and has no active building permits in place for the project, Wier said.
The building would consist of single-bedrooms and studio apartments for low-income residents, the city manager said. Before it entitled the project, the Crescent City Planning Commission looked at the site and considered the state density bonus that comes along with an affordable housing project, Wier said.
“It was entitled at that point. It has been a significant amount of time, but you don’t lose your entitlement,” he said, adding that Public Works Director David Yeager told him that the owners of LNL have had some conversations with him, but have submitted nothing official. “They may have to go to the Planning Commission for architectural review, (to) look at the site condition itself, but as far as the project, it was entitled at that point in time.”
KidTown’s Facelift: Though he estimated it’ll be a year before it’s open, Wier said the new playground at Beachfront Park is taking shape.
In addition to providing a facelift to the existing KidTown play structure, Wier said the new playground will feature wheelchair accessible merry-go-round, swings and teeter-totter. Youngsters can also bang on drums, chimes and xylophones in the music section, he said.
But Wier also walked the Crescent City Council through a playground celebration of everything that makes Del Norte County unique. Kids will be able to learn about the redwoods while climbing up, and sliding down, a life-size replica of a tree. They’ll explore a miniature mockup of St. George Reef Lighthouse and ride a 12-foot-long 3.5 foot tall gray whale.
They’ll also be able to climb boulders dotted with urchins and sea stars while learning about the tidewater ecology at the water’s edge.
“We’re putting the final pieces on some exciting improvements that the community and the Council has been waiting for for a really long time,” Wier said, adding that KidTown isn’t being enhanced instead of going away. “There’s a foundation that goes along with each of these pieces, they’ll start to get those in. We’re going to try to keep KidTown open for as long as we can.”
For the wheelchair accessible surfacing at the playground, that can be installed in May or September, Wier said.
Hazard Mitigation Plan:
City councilors adopted the Del Norte County Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, which included an addition to the overall plan focusing on Crescent City.
By adopting the five-year plan, the city is eligible for FEMA grants to mitigate hazards including drought, earthquake, excessive rainfall, extreme heat and wind, flood, landslide, tsunami and wildfires, according to City Manager Eric Wier.
Wier credited a previous Hazard Mitigation Plan that allowed the city to obtain roughly $750,000 in FEMA funding to seismically retrofit its fire hall at 5th and I streets in 2016.
The current plan identifies the seismic retrofitting of the city’s water storage tank on Amador Street as well as the Kings Valley water transmission mane. According to Wier, the old water line on Kings Valley Road is a bottleneck in the city’s overall water system.
“We talked about it a lot with our water capital improvement plan,” he said. “It is vulnerable to seismic activity. Because it’s vulnerable to seismic activity, it can go in a plan like this and there might be some mitigation dollars that could be awarded in the future.”
The Del Norte County Office of Emergency Services hired global engineering firm Tetra Tech to assist the community in drafting its hazard mitigation plan. The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors adopted the plan in September. Other jurisdictions participating in the plan include Elk Valley Rancheria, Crescent Fire Protection District, the Smith River Fire Protection District and the Gasquet, Klamath, HRC and Smith River community service districts.
2027 Utility Allowance Schedule: Acting as the Crescent City Housing Authority Board of Directors, the City Council approved corrected utility allowance schedules for 2027. According to Housing Authority Director Megan Miller, the Housing Choice Voucher program determines that the total payment of rent includes both shelter and the cost for “reasonable amounts of utilities” not supplied by the landlord.
On Oct. 19, the City Council approved the 2027 Utility Allowance Schedule, which includes electricity, bottled gas or propane, kerosene, water and sewer and garbage. Non-essential utilities including telephone and cable aren’t included.
On Monday, Miller told councilors a formula error was discovered in the zero-bedroom category for water included in the utility schedule they approved. The flat fee was included, however the consumption fee was omitted.
Miller said that has been corrected to include the $35 flat fee plus $10.87 for consumption.
