The Chilkat Valley Preschool’s plans to buy part of a building on Willard Street have fallen through due to zoning issues, preschool administrator Renee Hoffman said this week.
The preschool, housed in the Haines Borough’s Human Resources Building, intended to move into about two-thirds of the building owned by Sue Folletti, buying those sections of the building and two lots there. The space in the building was previously occupied by Lynn Canal Counseling Services.
But the building’s partitions don’t align with the property’s lot lines, Hoffman said. “The property line and the way the building is divided on the inside didn’t line up,” she said.
Asking the borough to move the lot line isn’t an option, because it would cause the third lot – which Folletti would keep – to fall below the minimum allowable size for a piece of property, Hoffman said.
Buying the entire building and all three lots would add another $125,000 to the $200,000 the preschool was expecting to pay for the two lots and portion of the building, Hoffman said. That spike in price plus the loss of an anticipated, private funding source puts the preschool back at square one in terms of finding a new space.
The preschool has raised $100,000 since July but needs to raise $200,000 before moving forward with anything in order to avoid unsustainable payment plans, Hoffman said. “You have to have a large sum to start with,” she said.
The Haines Borough Assembly last week approved a one-year lease extension for the preschool to remain in the Human Resources Building until June 30, 2016. The nonprofit has leased the building since 2000.
Several members of the public appealed to the assembly to extend the lease, including Emily McMahan, who recently moved to Haines. McMahan said she was living in Anchorage and looking to move to a small community. The two most important facilities she was searching for were a clinic and a preschool.
“A lot of the small towns didn’t have preschools. So when I found Chilkat Valley (Preschool) in Haines, I was thrilled that that could be an option for my son and my family. That’s a huge reason why we decided to come to Haines,” McMahan said. “I think that in order to continue to make Haines a welcoming, enticing community for young families it is really vital to support and facilitate early childhood education and enrichment.”
Assembly member George Campbell balked at the lease extension request, saying the preschool already asked for and received a one-year extension last year and has been told for the past five years it needs to come up with a plan to move out of the Human Resources Building.
“I’m willing to support the lease, but I want the (assembly) to understand that if this comes in a year, what happens if they come and ask for another year a year from now? This is what has been happening, and that’s why I want it known that we need to be able to say, ‘No,’” Campbell said.
Preschool board member Alissa Henry objected to Campbell’s characterization of the situation.
“I don’t think it is fair to say that we have had five years to think about this, because we haven’t. We have had one year. Maybe you have talked about it, but we haven’t been aware of it until a year ago,” Henry said.
Henry also defended the volunteers and parents who have put their time and effort into such a large project.
“I don’t think a year is a lot of time for a project like this,” Henry said. “How long have you been talking about helicopter noise and putting together a study for that and paying people to do it? We’re just a board and we’re doing our best.”
Preschool administrator Hoffman said the group is in the process of setting up more community fundraisers.