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Proponents of an initiative that would effectively block the city of Eureka's plans to convert municipal downtown parking into multi-family housing have collected enough signatures to qualify the measure for the March ballot, they announced in a press release.

The release says that Mike Munson, one of the leaders of the so-called "City of Eureka Housing for All and Downtown Vitality Initiative" effort, turned in petitions with 2,811 signatures to the city clerk's office, significantly more than the 1,600 valid registered voter signatures required to move the effort forward. If the county registrar of voters verifies the requisite number of signatures are valid, the initiative will go before the Eureka City Council, which can decide to put the matter before voters in March, enact the initiative outright or ask planning staff to compile a report on its impacts within 30 days.

While the initiative is being cast as an effort to bring "housing for all," its ability to add housing stock to the city is hypothetical, at best.


If passed, the initiative would rezone 8.5 acres of the former Jacobs Middle School site to accommodate housing development. But the property remains under the control of Eureka City Schools, which is in active negotiations to sell it to the California Highway Patrol, which held a community meeting last month to gather input on its plans to convert the property into its new headquarters. The property is not under the city's control and the initiative would do nothing to change that.

But the initiative would have very real impacts on city plans to convert a number of downtown parking lots into apartment complexes. If passed, it would prohibit the development of any of the city-owned lots that do not both retain the existing number of parking spaces and provide off-street parking for the developments' residents. (The initiative creates a carve out for the Wiyot Tribe-led Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust's plans to build more than 90 housing units on two city-owned lots.)

Opponents of the initiative — who include Fourth District Humboldt County Supervisor Natalie Arroyo, Eureka Mayor Kim Bergel and immediate past Mayor Susan Seaman — charge the parking requirements "functionally" make "housing construction impossible on these sites."

Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery also said the initiative could put the city's housing element out of compliance with state requirements, potentially putting grant dollars, as well as state and federal funding, at risk.

Local businessman Robin P. Arkley II, who's leading the initiative effort, has been an outspoken critic of the city's plans to convert downtown parking lots, saying they would have a devastating impact on local businesses, despite a city-funded consultant study showing parking would be adequate even without the lots. Arkley led an effort to file two lawsuits blocking the city's plans prior to the initiative effort.

But while Arkley has primarily cast his concerns about the city's plans as being about the loss of parking, the initiative effort's messaging has focused first and foremost on housing.

"We believe the city of Eureka needs to provide more housing to address the unprecedented housing crisis," Munson said in a press release, before turning his focus to the parking issue. "The city has a badly flawed plan. It will eliminate hundreds of downtown parking spaces to make way for low and very low income housing. the loss of parking will devastate downtown businesses and do nothing to relieve the housing crisis experienced by working- and middle-income families."

The release then states that, if passed, the initiative would "give Eureka the ability to provide hundreds of units of housing at both the Jacobs site and downtown," while failing to note the city does not own or have any direct control over the old school site.

Read the full press release from the initiatives proponents here and the letter from current and former officials and others urging residents not to sign it here.