The Haines Borough Planning Commission last week approved unlimited, year-round use of a 35 Mile Haines Highway heliport, though the owners will not be allowed to use the site for commercial tours outside of the heli-skiing season without an additional permit.

The commission voted 6-1 to approve the three-year conditional use permit submitted by Mike Wilson, manager of Coastal Helicopters. Wilson owns the 35 Mile property with Alaska Heliskiing co-owner Sean Brownell.

Some commissioners and residents expressed concerns that the move was opening the door to summer helicopter tours, which the community voted down in a 1996 advisory vote.

Brownell said he and Wilson have no plans to develop a summer tour operation at the site, which will be used for refueling, transporting heavy equipment and on-demand charters. “We don’t have any plans to do tours. We just want to use the heliport now. If we decide to do tours, we’d apply for a (commercial tour) permit. So I don’t think the fear of this heliport doing flight-seeing tours is an issue,” he said.

A point of confusion and discussion arose over the difference between a “charter” and a “tour,” with commissioner Heather Lende, who cast the sole opposing vote, asking what the difference was.

“A charter would be, say, that you and your family wanted to go berry-picking and you came out to me and said, ‘Hey, you know, we just want you to take us out to this spot.’ You could come and ask me to do that. Constantine could come up and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to be in the valley. We want to come and get fuel,’” Brownell said. “Anybody could come by and say, ‘We would like to use your helicopter for whatever we want, because we are the public.’”

So, Lende asked, how is that different from a tour?

“A tour would mean we would actually have to apply for a permit and go through this huge process of people saying we can do something and fly from this place to this place and do something on the land,” Brownell said. “We’re not asking to do anything on the land. We’re asking to facilitate anyone who wants to use a helicopter for industrial or personal reasons.”

After grappling with the 35 Mile heliport issue since October, the commission in February approved the site for winter heli-skiing. Based on the site’s historical use, the commission also allowed 10 landings outside of the regular heli-skiing season.

Wilson and Brownell appealed the 10 landings decision, but the commission voted the appeal down on a 4-3 vote in March.

They returned to the commission this month with the conditional use permit request for year-round use, stating they had already used up four of their 10 allotted landings in the past month due to refuelings by Constantine and Raw TV.

“We just want to be able to accommodate helicopter activity whether it is refueling, slinging objects off the property, or maybe somebody just really wants to go somewhere,” Brownell said.

When commission chair Rob Goldberg asked how many times a helicopter might land at the site in the summer, Brownell said it was hard to guess. “It’s just random. It could be 10, it could be five, it could be 100. It just depends on what kind of industry comes around and needs service,” he said.

Only two residents spoke at the June 9 public hearing, though six upper valley residents submitted comments to commissioners opposing issuance of the permit for year-round use.

Mark Kistler and Mardell Gunn, who live at 38.5 Mile, implored the commission to deny the permit. “Every morning between June and September we wake up to the sound of helicopters that are flying over to the mine. This is not a maybe/if situation. We already have regular helicopter use in our area seven months out of the year between the mine and heli-skiing. Please do not open the door for more,” they wrote.

“Do not try to convince me that the tour permitting process will prohibit summer heli-tourism because history shows it will not. It is your task and opportunity as planning commissioners to help avoid the degradation of our property values out the road, and for the larger community to avoid summer heli-tour madness we see in other places,” they added.

Carrie Kinison, a 38 Mile resident, also used helicopters flying to and from the Constantine site as a reference, and questioned why there should be two heliports two miles apart, at 35 and 33 Mile.

“We, too, never get used to the noise, and even feel the vibrations in our body from this loud intrusion. So we know what it’s like to have an unconditional heliport nearby. It has greatly disrupted our quiet lives and the very reason that we and our neighbors bought property this far out the highway,” Kinison wrote.

Brownell, whose company Alaska Heliskiing uses the 33 Mile site, said the plan is to use 35 Mile in lieu of 33 Mile. This year, Brownell said, after receiving the permit to use the 35 Mile site for winter heli-skiing, Alaska Heliskiing didn’t use 33 Mile at all; the only use 33 Mile saw was from competitor Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures for two to three days during the Freeride World Tour.

Much of the commission’s discussion centered around the heliport’s potential use for on-demand charters. Commissioner Donnie Turner pointed out that people can already charter flights from 33 Mile, 10 Mile and other heliport sites, and that approving another will move traffic instead of increasing it.

“The helicopter traffic that is in the valley is already in the valley. They can already charter. The fear that we are opening something up that’s not already existing is not a very valid argument to me,” Turner said.

Commissioner Rob Miller agreed. “Given the state of things now, it seems to me that moving to 35 Mile improves things, doesn’t make them worse, and I don’t see that we’re opening up a can of worms that already isn’t open,” he said.

Adding another heliport isn’t going to result in a big bump in charter business, Turner said. “Helicopters are expensive. A family is not going to rent one to go play around. There’s already four or five heliports in town. I don’t think you’re going to see an increase of people berry-picking with helicopters,” he said.

Commissioner Larry Geise said while he understood the concerns of residents, helicopters have been using that area for years. “Those helicopters predated many of the people that are in that valley now. Just by looking at the buildings being built out there and stuff. Like I said, there’s always been miners,” Geise said. “The population base out there — the people who want quiet — has increased, granted, but they’re buying into something they maybe didn’t know what they were buying.”

Commissioner Lende made a motion to limit the heliport’s hours of operation to between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. and to require the permit come back before the commission in two years, but the motion failed.

“Because anybody can do what they want at 33 Mile, anybody can do what they want at Constantine, it might be good if we’re going to give a new conditional use to at least say, ‘You can’t do anything you want,’ so that the residents have some idea that we’re not literally just saying it’s sort of a free-for-all for helicopters out there,” Lende said.

After Lende’s motion failed, commissioner Miller’s motion to have the permit come back for renewal in three years narrowly passed on a 4-3 vote. Goldberg said the three-year clause would allow residents and commissioners to observe the impacts and alter the permit conditions accordingly.

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