Haines Borough manager Mark Earnest said he would turn to the assembly or possibly the planning commission for direction on the question of permitting for food stands operating in modified trailers.
Three businesses selling food under temporary use permits are seeking permanent status. Their current permits require either that they can be moved immediately, or that they operate only six months per year.
“I’ll be asking the assembly to discuss the issue for clarification and direction because it’s a policy issue,” Earnest said this week.
Changes might include making amendments in code, Earnest said. “There’s enough ambiguity in the language of the code. We need some clarification and direction on these types of businesses.”
Earnest said he didn’t know whether referral to elected leaders would come before or after he acted on the requests from the three businesses. Planning staff recently suggested the businesses may seek permitting as “light commercial” structures, which would effectively make them permanent.
For lack of other standards in code, the difference between a “temporary use” structure and a permanent one appears to be attachment to a permanent foundation.
The Downtown Revitalization Committee this week sent a letter of concern to borough assembly members, asking them to “uphold borough code to require permanent foundations for commercial structures.”
“If a structure used for commercial purposes is not on a permanent foundation, it is qualified only for temporary use and its license is reviewed annually,” said the group’s letter, drafted by chair Lenise Henderson Fontenot.
The committee also raised questions about equity in borough tax code. They pointed out that the repeal of taxes on personal business property two years ago also removed the obligation to pay property tax on equipment such as trailers. “An unfair tax advantage was granted to these businesses using non-permanent structures.”
“We are in favor of new business, but new business that helps promote permanency, long-term investment and contributes to the general fund of our community,” the group’s letter says.
The planning commission last fall discussed the modified trailers, agreeing they were neither “trailers” nor “mobile homes” under current borough code, but took no other action.
Planning commissioner Roger Maynard recently penned a strong defense of the drive-up businesses. In a newsletter and blog he maintains, Maynard wrote last week, “These are business owners who’ve invested in buildings and support our town through property tax… they are creating wealth for themselves that benefits the town by contributing to the overall economy…”
Maynard said the businesses “have chosen an affordable location that keeps their expenses low, and a proximity to tourists afoot from cruise ships…” To force the businesses into more expensive real estate on Main Street would kill them, he said.
Maynard pointed to Mosey’s Restaurant, that started as a trailer here.
Christine Harder, who opened a store on Main Street last fall, said she’s afraid the modified trailers at the edges of downtown dilute the town’s core. She said one of the reasons she opened her business here rather than in her hometown of Kodiak was because businesses there had fled from downtown, where high rents limited the businesses there to banks and bars. “All the interesting shops there are gone. The downtown has been destroyed by people moving out.”
She said she also was concerned that a stand with a temporary use permit might be set up offering the same products she does.
Main Street building owner Fontenot said the issue isn’t about pitting businesses against others; it’s about vision and boundaries.
“I’ve been in business all my life. I can see all the sides of the argument, but I want the town, as a whole, to be marketable. I have a picture of a vibrant, permanent, sustainable community. I keep that picture clear in my head,”she said.
Henderson Fontenot said she’s also concerned that businesses not on permanent foundations don’t pay property tax. “We’re trying to shape a vibrant downtown corridor. To have, two blocks away, a business with a fraction of the investment and a competitive tax advantage, that’s not going to work.”