The Haines Borough Assembly passed an ordinance on Tuesday that requires land use permits for site development in the townsite, Mud Bay, and Lutak zones, exempting the majority of the land in the borough, which falls in the general use zone.
The ordinance exempted the general use zone after residents petitioned the past two weeks against the permitting system for “any area outside the townsite.” Last week, petitioners gathered about 50 signatures, and ahead of Tuesday’s assembly meeting, they presented a petition with 234 signatures.
The planning commission advanced the ordinance to require boroughwide permits of $25 for site development. Site development is defined in the ordinance as “any clearing, grubbing, grading, and filling earthwork activity which exceeds 100 cubic yards or 5,000 board feet, except utility improvements, which are subject to permit.”
Planning commission chair, Sylvia Heinz said, “The intent of this ordinance is simply an educational tool. It is not intended to restrict development.”
At the assembly meeting, planning commissioner Diana Lapham spoke against the ordinance. “I’m asking for the assembly to either postpone or table this ordinance,” she said. “This may need to have more education, and hindsight tells me that as a planning commissioner I should have requested that.”
Heinz said that her opinion on the ordinance, “depends on whether I am thinking with my ‘planning commission brain’ or my ‘young mom with recent housing security issues’ brain.” Heinz said that as a citizen, she understands that creative projects need freedom to create landscapes and homes. But as a planning commissioner, she said, “I get to see the consequences that can arise when people are able to do whatever they want, whenever they want. I’m sad to see it pass. But I understand the reasoning.”
Assembly members William Prisciandaro and Sean Maidy opposed the ordinance, because they wanted to include the general use zone in the permitting process as well.
“It’s not a zoning issue, it’s an accountability issue,” said Maidy. “This is one of the most basic and standard accountability permits that you can have. It’s extremely basic. It’s for protection of your neighbor.”
Maidy raised further objections to the petition itself. “There was an entire page of signatures that didn’t have names or dates of P.O. boxes next to it,” he said.
“I read the petition and thought, woah, that’s not what this is about at all. It’s certainly not the intent. I apologize, it got way out of hand,” said assembly member Heather Lende. “I’m fine with not having the general use zone,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s something that the people in the general use zone want.”
Assembly member Tom Morphet voted in favor of the ordinance with the exemption for the general use zone. “If you want to go out and live a wild Alaskan life, you’ve got the whole general use zone. If you want to live in a neighborhood where your uses are pretty much restricted to your residential uses, you can live in Mud Bay and Lutak,” he said. “This is Alaska. This is the last vestige of Alaska that we have.”