The Haines Borough Planning Commission narrowly decided March 10 to deny a landowner’s request for unlimited use of a heliport near 35 Mile Haines Highway, stating that minimal historical use doesn’t entitle the owner to land as many helicopters as he wants on the property year-round.
The commission split 4-3 in the vote to uphold the decision by former acting manager Julie Cozzi and borough attorney Brooks Chandler to limit landings to 10 per year outside of the heli-ski season. Commissioners Heather Lende, Rob Goldberg, Rob Miller and Lee Heinmiller voted to uphold the decision.
In February, the commission granted property owner and Coastal Helicopters general manager Mike Wilson a conditional use permit to use the 35 Mile site for winter heli-skiing. But Wilson wanted more.
He claimed to have a pre-existing right to use the property because it was functioning as a heliport prior to 2011, when the law changed to require permits for heliports in the general use zone. He claims the heliport has been used about 25-30 days for landing helicopters since the site received approval by the FAA in August 2009.
While the attorney agreed Wilson does have a pre-existing right to use the property as a heliport, that right is limited to its historical use, or about 5-10 landings per year. The majority of planning commissioners agreed with that interpretation.
“Ten flights a year is not the same as 1,000 flights a year,” said commissioner Rob Miller. “It is qualitatively different, and it’s sort of almost a form of sophistry to argue that one should be able to transition to the other with no restrictions of any kind.”
Commissioners Donnie Turner and Brenda Josephson took issue with the attorney’s logic about historical use. If a person purchased a piece of property with the intent to use it as a heliport, and the law then changed to require a conditional use permit for such a use (as it did in 2011), that person would have a two-year window, according to code, to start up the heliport and be grandfathered in. Under the attorney’s logic, though, that person wouldn’t be allowed to use the plot as a heliport at all, because the historical use would be zero.
Wilson assured that he wasn’t intending to use the heliport for summer helicopter tours. Ideally, the site would be used for industrial work, mineral exploration and government operations, he said.
However, Wilson and fellow property owner Sean Brownell intend to build a lodge at the site. When Wilson mentioned that there might occasionally be clients who want to use a helicopter to access terrain for hiking or some other activity, commission chair Goldberg asked if that would be considered “tourism.”
“If a client is there and wants to go somewhere, whether or not it’s getting dropped off on a mountain so they can hike around, is that tourism? I think just driving through the city is tourism,” Wilson said.
Wilson has three options: Drop the issue, appeal the commission’s decision to the Haines Borough Assembly, or apply for another conditional use permit for year-round use.