The Planning Commission last week voted to recomend raising the building height restrictions in Haines.
The measure was introduced by commissioner Brenda Josephson, who said a review of other towns in Southeast Alaska and elsewhere showed that 30-foot height limits put Haines’ code out of step.
“I asked myself why we have a 30-foot height restriction and I couldn’t find any reason,” she said.
A check showed that Juneau, Cordova and Sitka all had 35-foot limits.
Even though the measure was passed, the discussion wasn’t all smooth sailing.
“I’ve never heard anyone complain about 30 feet,” said commission member Donnie Turner. “All the complaints is that the 30-foot limit is too high as it is.”
Under Josephson’s proposal, height limits in Haines would change everywhere except the Mud Bay area, where no height restrictions exist, and Lutak Rural Residential zones, where the limit is already 35 feet.
Chairman Rob Goldberg said the current height limit has been a sore spot for some time.
“We’ve got an abandoned building right there on Main Street,” he said. “The height limit resulted in a lawsuit and now the building is just standing there empty.”
The commissioners agreed to relax all height restrictions, but to different degrees around town. The most dramatic change came in the town’s light and heavy industrial zones, which rose from 30 to 50 feet.
The code changes will face public comment in January.
The height regulations came nearly 20 years after the borough assembly denied a variance from the 30-foot height restriction for a combined residential and commercial building erected downtown by Erich von Stauffenberg.
The prefabricated, three-story building, intended to be his home, consulting business and two bed-and-breakfast rooms, was constructed near Main Street and Third Avenue.
He told borough officials that a manufacturer’s error in cutting materials resulted in the building coming in too high.
The controversial case resulted in the building sitting vacant. It was never finished, and von Stauffenberg, who lost a lawsuit he filed over the issue, died several years ago.
Josephson said she did not consider the von Stauffenberg project when she began her research into building height limits in the borough.
“You see that building in town, and you know its history, but that wasn’t the reason,” she said.
Edith von Stauffenberg said the new building height limits did not affect her decision to complete her husband’s building project.
“That’s water under the bridge,” she said. “I stopped caring about that a long time ago.”