Thumbnail image courtesy of ccdowntownplan.com.
Before launching into a presentation of the different architectural styles that would preserve Downtown Crescent City’s small-town character, Don Arambula mentioned the opposition some have to the city’s plans.
Arambula, principal planner and urban designer for Portland-based Crandall Arambula PC, spoke at a workshop Wednesday for business owners, nonprofit and other government representatives — members of a steering committee driving the development of Crescent City’s Downtown Specific Plan.
During the workshop, Arambula urged steering committee members to think about context. The city’s architectural guidelines and standards need to reflect its “Redwoods to the Sea” motto, he said.
“The standards and guidelines need to respond to your physical conditions, your traditions and your historic precedent. Whether that’s about the redwoods or the sea or a merging of the two, we want to make sure that happens,” Arambula said. “We don’t want to create a Disneyland sort of false narrative. It’s got to be about what is here and reflected, whether there’s the Battery Point Lighthouse or the Cultural Center or any number of buildings that you own that you can point out in the downtown.”
Crescent City officials continue gathering public input as they plug away at the second phase of the city’s plans to revitalize the downtown area. The project is expected to be finished by the end of the year with the workshops held Wednesday and Thursday focusing on regulations and guidelines, City Manager Eric Wier said.
Another community meeting will be held on Oct. 26 to discuss a draft of the Downtown Specific plan. It will go to the Crescent City Planning Commission in November. The Crescent City Council will then offer its input in December before being asked to approve it, Wier said.
“We’re going to make a recommendation that whatever the recommendations come from this plan are followed up as quickly as possible so this plan doesn’t get cold,” the city manager said. “That would be within a year or two to really go through that full adoption process.”
Following Wednesday’s and Thursday’s workshops, the city deployed a short survey to gauge the community’s reception to the proposed architectural guidelines. Community members are asked to submit their answers by Oct. 11. For more information about the Downtown Specific plan and to view a recording of Thursday’s public workshop, click here.
In a July 7 workshop, Arambula presented the revitalization of 3rd and K streets as the catalyst projects for the downtown plan. At a July 6 meeting, the City Council approved using $100,000 in Road Repair and Accountability Act dollars toward preparing design work associated with those catalyst projects.
At Wednesday’s steering committee meeting, in addition to focusing on architectural guidelines, Arambula touched on design standards. Design standards are the musts he said, an insurance policy for the fundamentals.
Arambula again mentioned some of the negative comments made before the city planning commission and the Crescent City Council.
“Part of this is (because) you don’t have the regulations that are measurable and verifiable without a gray area,” he said. “If you have this list of key elements, you will avoid some of the conflicts I’ve heard at numerous community meetings we’ve had for almost the last two years.”
The goal, Arambula said, is to streamline the city’s municipal code, eliminating the regulations that don’t approve livability in Downtown Crescent City. If those regulations contribute to increased development costs, he noted, either unit prices will increase or certain amenities won’t be included.
But instead of prescribing a specific look and feel for the downtown area, he said, the city will offer a menu of numerous styles with guidelines to what the building facades, roofs, windows and doors as well as the color and accent will look like.
“What we’re going to describe is three types that we think will fit well into Crescent City,” Arambula said. “They are either here currently or within a 500 mile radius of your downtown.”
The first style, Pacific Northwest Coastal Commercial incorporated Cape Cod and Saltbox style architecture. According to Arambula, they’re house-like structures that “fit comfortably with the scale of a village and a small town.”
Examples of such architecture can be seen in Cannon Beach and Manzanita, Oregon, Arambula said. They’re buildings that age well in rugged, damp and windswept environments.
“They’re not 300 feet long or 150 feet long, but they’re 120 feet or less,” he said. “It’s a series of small buildings rather than expansive buildings that appear to be a beached whale or a yacht that’s landed downtown.”
Arambula’s second example, Pacific Mountain Rustic, can be compared to a movement called “National Parkitecture,” or National Park Service Rustic. Describing the style as a hybrid of “where the redwoods meet the sea,” it incorporates heavily timbered materials with stone and big beams typical to a grand lodge in a national park, he said.
A local example is the Six Rivers National Forest’s Gasquet Ranger District building on U.S. 199 as well as the Forest Service Building in Gold Beach, Arambula said.
The third style is “about the nuts and bolts” of what made this community go — a working waterfront, Arambula said. There’s metal and board and batten siding and a lot of gray, he said. Arambula pointed to SeaQuake as a local example, but said the style can be found between Monterey and Astoria, Oregon.
Arambula also discussed design guidelines for multi-family housing, or multiplexes. These styles included third bay tradition style, craftsman shingle homes, a modern farmhouse and a modern coastal cottage design.
An example of third bay tradition architectural style is the Crescent City Cultural Center, Arambula said. Craftsman shingle buildings are more suitable for higher-end housing — a previous discussion concerned potential luxury housing sites along Front Street, according to Arambula.
The modern farmhouse has the board and batten look of a barn, but is more contemporary and adaptable to workforce housing, Arambula said.
Finally, the modern coastal cottage style consists of a cluster of small homes that range from 500 to 700 square feet, Arambula said. He noted that they could be duplexes, triplexes or four-plexes.
“It gives people a chance to not only rent in the downtown, but to have ownership opportunities,” he said. “It’s inwardly focused with green spaces and courts as part of that concept.”
According to Wier, even after the Downtown Specific Plan is finished, both the planning commission and the City Council have to adopt it in order for the next step to be taken. The City Council will also have to approve any changes to the zoning code and general plan, he said.
