An order to cover up artfully painted crosswalks on Main Street is only the most recent wrinkle in a prickly relationship between the Alaska Department of Transportation, downtown property owners and the Haines Borough.
Since 2011, when DOT used federal money to pave streets and rebuild sidewalks on state thoroughfares downtown – including Main Street and Second Avenue – property owners have come under a new system of regulations, including annual fees, for things they’ve done for years.
“DOT accepted a lot of federal money to do that job,” said Matt Boron, DOT’s local foreman. “As soon as we accept federal money, we are obliged to abide by federal rules.”
DOT this week forwarded to the CVN a list of 37 encroachments on state right-of-ways in Haines, including about 20 of them on Second Avenue and Main Street properties.
After 2011, DOT gave property owners a choice: Remove encroachments or pay $100 per year for awnings, marquees, and signs that fall within right-of-ways on state roads and streets. Encroachments include porches, steps and, in the case of the Haines American Legion, a flower bed, basement and upstairs entrances.
“They send us a notice once a year. We pay it and no one makes an issue out of it,” said Legion commander John Newton. “When I was with the Elks Club, (DOT) tried to get us to move the flagpole, too, but we didn’t do that.”
Clifford Thomas, a resident of Main Street, removed a balcony and relocated his entryway to his home’s side after DOT determined they were encroachments.
“They said, ‘Well, you could leave it up (if you) give us $200 a year in tax,’” Thomas said. “I said, ‘I’m not going to pay you $200 more dollars. It’s simpler for me to remove it.’” (DOT spokesman Jeremy Woodrow says that the annual fee for an encroachment permit is $100.)
Debra Schnabel, whose family owns the Gateway Building, is among those with DOT permits. She pays a permit renewal fee of $100 each year for the concrete marquee that holds up the front of the building. Schnabel said the building predates statehood, but she is still bound to pay for a “renewal fee.”
“When the state demanded that we remove all obstructions, it was impossible to do that,” Schnabel said. “In order for me to not pay $100 a year, I would have to remove my marquee.”
Schnabel suggested this week that the borough might be able to pay $100 per year to allow crosswalk art, but DOT spokesman Woodrow said that wouldn’t work, as the crosswalk is a safety concern. “Everything we do as a department revolves around safety. An encroachment means yes, you have something in our right-of-way, but it’s not a safety issue.”
“Everything had been there for decades with no problem,” said Jeff Haisler, who owns Main Street’s Haisler Building, and pays DOT to permit the awning that keeps rain off pedestrians. “It’s like swimming upstream, trying to fight against it.”
Encroachments in Haines bring in about $2,000 annually, Woodrow said. “I should point out that this comes nowhere near to covering administrative costs,” he added.
The new rules may also affect longstanding Haines traditions, like hanging Christmas lights on the state’s Main Street light poles for the holidays.
Last Christmas, when a state light pole along Main Street lost power, preventing an electric snowflake decoration from lighting up, the borough’s public works department chose not to call DOT for repairs for fear that the state would require all the lights – which had no encroachment permits – be taken down.
“They’d shut all of them down,” public works superintendent Ralph Borders. “Every idiot in town called and said, ‘That Christmas light’s out.’ (I said,) ‘I know that!’”
“Are the snowflakes on the light poles an encroachment? Yes,” said local DOT foreman Boron. “Technically, they should be permitted. They have not been permitted in the past. It’s just always been done.”
On the subject of the crosswalk art, Woodrow said the department would have preferred a better dialogue with the borough. “We say this all the time: we’re a department of ‘yes,’” Woodrow said. “We try to work with people as much as possible.”
On crosswalks, the state uses the U.S. DOT’s official position, that reads, in part: “Any…such treatment that features bright colors and/or distinctive patterns, would clearly degrade the contrast between the white transverse crosswalk lines and the roadway pavement, and therefore should not be used.”
Referencing a 2013 DOT memo, Woodrow said, “there are options available,” including “brick lattice patterns, paving bricks, paving stones, setts, cobbles, or other resources designed to simulate such paving. Acceptable colors for these materials would be red, rust, brown, burgundy, clay, tan or similar earth tone equivalents.”
In Haines’s case, however, these treatments would be subject to state approval, Woodrow said, due to the high volume of traffic on Main Street.