Eureka City Hall’s parking lot on K Street is owned by the company bankrolling opposition to housing construction on city-owned parking lots. Since its purchase, the lot has sat fenced, blocked and unused.
Security National acquired the K Street parking lot from Redwood Capital Bank as a bargaining chip to trade with the city in exchange for an empty lot at Fifth and D streets, said Gail Rymer, a company spokesperson. Security National bought the K Street lot roughly four months after the Eureka City Council unanimously voted to let the Wiyot Tribe build housing at the lot on Fifth and D.
“This scenario would preserve badly needed parking for Security National and businesses using Fifth and D and help assure employee safety,” Rymer said via email. “Even though the parcels could easily be interchanged, neither the city nor the Wiyots have agreed to enter into meaningful conversations about an exchange despite Security National’s numerous overtures.”
The Wiyot Tribe via Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust will build a total of 93 housing units between the Fifth and D lot and city hall’s other parking lot on L Street. Thirty of the units will be low-income and 10 very-low income — which in Humboldt County for a family of four, caps out at $70,650 and $44,150, per United States Department of Housing and Urban Development guidelines.
The Fifth and D parking lot remains city property and Security National is conducting property inspection and market analysis studies on the K Street lot to determine what exactly to do with it. In the meantime, the company erected a fence, then concrete barriers around the lot to prevent homeless encampments and for liability purposes, Rymer said.
Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery said he found the decision to block the K Street lot peculiar.
“I do find it ironic that they’re claiming that there’s a safety issue and we need all the parking we can but yet they’re blocking it (the parking lot) off.”
The city traded the lot alongside two others with the Pierson Company – which later sold to Redwood Capital Bank, which sold to Security National – for 3.5 acres of land on Harris, Broadway and Henderson streets owned by the Pierson Company. The city, in partnership with the Rural Communities Housing Development Corp., is planning to build an affordable housing project with at least 80 units called Sunset Heights on the former Pierson property.
When the city owned the lot and wanted a property trade, they were in talks with Redwood Capital Bank and Security National, but ultimately, the only successful deal was struck with the Pierson Company, Slattery said.
Security National is funding the lawsuits against the city alleging it violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to measure how businesses would be affected by a parking loss.
In March, Humboldt County Judge John Feeney dismissed the lawsuit targeting the lot at Fifth and D. Four more lawsuits remain.
Citizens for a Better Eureka, the group suing the city using Security National’s money, gathered enough signatures to place a measure on the November’s ballot that, if passed, would rezone the former Jacobs Junior High Campus for housing and require the city to replace each parking lot lost by downtown development. The proponents say the measure adequately balances the need for housing and parking, but critics allege it would effectively prohibit downtown development, given the prohibitive cost of adding parking for every slot taken away.
Some community members during Eureka City Council meeting public comment sections hypothesized that Security National is behind the recent and less-than-transparent acquisition of the Jacobs campus from Eureka City Schools by AMG Communities-Jacobs LLC, which was formed shortly before the deal and has not disclosed their investors. However, Security National head Rob Arkley said he had nothing to do with the purchase on a KINS Talk Shop conversation, and the company’s website denies being owned by Security National or Citizens for a Better Eureka.
The lack of a parking lot on K Street has not affected city hall employees, according to Slattery.
“It’s nothing, there’s plenty of parking around there,” Slattery said.
Jackson Guilfoil can be reached at 707-441-0506.
