The location of Lookout Park and the size of the parking lot again dominated committee and commission discussions of the Small Boat Harbor expansion project last week.
After a back-and-forth conversation between critics, manager David Sosa and PND Engineers vice president Dick Somerville, the Haines Borough Planning Commission made several recommendations to the assembly regarding the project’s 95-percent design documents.
The commission suggested moving Lookout Park to the water’s edge, immediately installing protective anodes on the steel wave barrier, seeking review of design documents by a state engineer, and acquiring more information on the safety of the distance between the wave barrier and docked cruise ships.
It also passed a motion stating the current plan, referred to as concept “14B,” conforms with borough land use planning and zoning requirements.
Sosa steered the commission in the direction of that motion at the beginning of the meeting when he told the group they should be reviewing the current design “within the context of planning and zoning.”
“The administration and the assembly are looking for a recommendation on concept 14B’s consistency with borough land use planning and zoning requirements,” Sosa said.
The assembly didn’t give direction on what it wanted the commission to discuss or recommend.
Commissioner Heather Lende voted against the motion.
“I don’t believe it’s consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and I also don’t believe that the planning process has been consistent. The planning commission is the sole planning body for the borough and this is our first public hearing on the biggest public works project we’ve ever done. And I think that’s a shame,” Lende said.
Sosa said this week the Department of Transportation has agreed to review the designs and give feedback on some of the questions raised. The agency won’t be able to do that by Tuesday’s assembly meeting, so DOT’s review and the 95-percent design won’t come before the assembly until the first or second meeting of October, Sosa said.
Included in last week’s commission packet was a petition submitted to the borough by Port and Harbor Advisory Committee member Don Turner signed by more than 300 people supporting the current design.
PND’s Somerville said he liked the idea of moving Lookout Park to the southeastern edge of the project’s footprint, a change critics have advocated for since February. “When you do that, it really does help improve the circulation within the parking area. From an engineering perspective, it’s far advantageous to move Lookout Park to the waterfront,” Somerville said.
PND has provided the borough with a $130,000 rough estimate for moving Lookout Park, a figure that doesn’t include the cost of moving structures or demolishing its present location.
Resident Evelyna Vignola rejoiced after hearing Somerville’s remarks and resident Debra Schnabel’s presentation on a plan that would also move the park. “It feels like there is an opening for a better design and that PND noticed this right in the beginning,” Vignola said, referencing a design option called “3A” that the assembly discarded in February 2014 in favor of the current design, 14B.
“I’m so excited I just don’t know what to say, except hooray. Because I felt like, who is leading this and why is this park in the middle of a parking lot? Why are we supposed to think that’s a good idea? It’s a bad idea. They know it. Everybody knows it,” Vignola said.
Commissioner Lende tried to push for consideration of design 3A, but no other commissioners appeared to be on board. Commissioner Donnie Turner said fishermen and other people he knows wouldn’t support 3A over 14B because it creates a float system that would be congested and limits the size of the parking lot.
Discussion of the planned sport fish ramp and its connection to the size of the parking lot also resurfaced, with Port and Harbor Advisory Committee member Turner saying the parking lot size is necessary to satisfy Fish and Game requirements.
The borough’s current plan is to have Fish and Game pay for the launch ramp through the Sport Fish Restoration Program. Tax revenue from the federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service comes to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which then uses that money to fund sport fish projects.
To qualify for funds, the municipality has to provide wave protection for the ramp and associated parking for its users, said Mike Wood, regional access project manager for Fish and Game’s Southeast region.
The borough’s current design plans for a two-lane boat launch ramp, and Fish and Game determines the parking space required based on lanes. For every lane, Fish and Game likes to have 50 parking spots provided, Wood said.
However, that number is negotiable, he said. For example, Petersburg used the same program to fund their harbor’s one-lane sport fish ramp. They signed a contract to provide 20 parking spaces adequate for a standard truck and trailer, Petersburg harbormaster Glo Wollen said this week.
Not having 50 spots per lane “isn’t going to kill the project,” Wood said, but the borough would need to explain why it couldn’t or wouldn’t provide more spots.
The borough hasn’t submitted a grant application for the sport fish ramp yet, but did send Wood a letter last fall requesting funds, he said. Currently, Fish and Game has what Wood referred to as “legislative authority” for $500,000 in this fiscal year for the ramp project.
“The money is not sitting in a pot that we can grab right now,” Wood said, and needs to be approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Wood intends to ask for another $500,000 for the next fiscal year and $500,000 for the following year, a total of $1.5 million for the ramp project. “Whether I get that or not, I don’t know. But I will ask for it,” he said.
Fish and Game also expects the borough to provide 25 percent matching funds, Wood said.
At Thursday’s planning commission meeting, manager Sosa submitted a recommendation that the commission advise the assembly on whether the harbor’s current design is consistent with borough land use, planning and zoning requirements.
Sosa laid out his rationale in a two-page document, pointing to specific portions of the 2009 Haines Portage Cove Harbor Master Plan, the Haines Borough Comprehensive Plan, the borough’s official townsite zoning map and the 2006 Haines Coastal Management Plan as supporting his recommendation.
Commissioner Lende said she was frustrated that the commission received Sosa’s recommendation the afternoon of the meeting, when the administration has known for a month that the planning commission would be considering the 95-percent design at its September meeting.
“It really upset me that we got basically an order from the manager at quarter-to-two today, citing a bunch of documents that I had no time to look at, and I felt that an educated response to those particular points required research and materials not readily at hand,” Lende said.
“It’s hard to serve when we aren’t given the information in time to make a good decision,” she said. “It seems that the assembly and the administration is much less interested in the actual public planning process than their own agenda, and for the life of me, I don’t know what that is, because it seems to change with every issue.”
The waterfront aesthetics committee also met last week to discuss the 95-percent design, but only submitted a general “status report” to the planning commission instead of recommendations.
“This initial list should give you a good idea of the current focus of our committee. Please keep in mind that these discussions are still very general,” wrote Mayor Jan Hill, who co-chairs the committee with assembly member Diana Lapham.
The report contained four points: “waterfront trail,” “greenbelts and buffers utilizing greenery that is native to the area,” “costs and funding sources,” and “safety considerations for trails, sidewalks and walkways.”
“We will continue to work toward fine-tuning these ideas as this project moves forward,” Hill wrote.