Is storing heavy equipment an industrial use or a commercial one?
That was a question raised at the Haines Borough Planning Commission Jan.15 by resident Joan Snyder, who has filed a complaint about a heavy-equipment staging yard downtown.
The borough on Jan. 9 renewed a two-year permit for storing heavy equipment at the lot at First Avenue and Mission Street, adjacent to the Haines Senior Center and Tlingit Park playground.
Southeast Roadbuilders three years ago cleared and started using the lot. The company has used the lot for parking front-end loaders and other heavy machinery while working jobs downtown, including Third Avenue resurfacing.
“This is zoned commercial and this is an industrial activity,” Snyder said in an interview. “Why do we have zoning if we’re going to have this? It just doesn’t belong here. To me it’s unsightly and there’s a potential for accidents.”
At the end of the planning commission meeting, chair Rob Goldberg directed planner Tracy Cui to tell Snyder that because heavy equipment storage is allowed in the townsite’s commercial zone, the company’s use of the lot is permitted.
“We’re sorry, but there are trucks there, and you’re just going to have to look at trucks. That’s just how it is. If they’re not violating the code, there’s nothing that can be done,” Goldberg said.
Assembly member Mike Case, who serves as assembly liaison to the commission, differed with Goldberg’s assessment at the meeting.
“There really is something that can be done. It’s kind of laborious but if that’s really onerous to her and other property (owners), they could go to (the commission) and suggest that code be rewritten, so that’s not a use-by-right in the future,” Case said, adding that such a change wouldn’t retroactively apply to Schnabel’s lot.
“It’s industrial machinery. (Snyder) has a good point,” Case said.
Planner Cui said she tried addressing Snyder’s concerns by placing conditions on Schnabel’s permit, including prohibiting access from First Avenue and prohibiting long idling times and storage of construction debris.
Cui said she considered restricting access to the lot to Second Avenue but was dissuaded by summer traffic there. “I was trying to minimize the impact to the neighbors. I can’t stop (Southeast Roadbuilders). I can just minimize impacts,” Cui said.
Planning commissioner Heather Lende also expressed an interest in a zoning change, noting that the public recently spent money building sidewalks for tourists in the same area. “It’s in a tourism area… For future planning, (we) may want to look at the commercial zone and think about what it’s going to look like, for what its purposes are for that area.”
Southeast Roadbuilders president Roger Schnabel, who owns the lot, last weekend moved snow-clearing equipment from the lot to the Haines School parking lot. The school comprises most of his plowing work, he said.
Schnabel said it’s not practical or safe to move equipment to town from the company headquarters at 5 Mile Haines Highway. “And it is expensive to scoot into town at early hours of the day in a snowstorm to plow.”
Schnabel said he has decreased equipment speed and traffic and placed barriers around the lot in response to Snyder’s concerns.
“I am fully aware that looking at heavy equipment from the window of a residence may be less than welcome, which is why I left a green buffer around the lot. In winter, there are no leaves, so Joan and others see the equipment,” Schnabel said.