Denies permit for Lutak vacation rental

Planning commissioners last week united in opposition to a petition from more than 100 residents to prohibit commercial events in the Mud Bay Rural Residential Zone (MBRRZ).

Longtime commissioner and Mud Bay resident Rob Goldberg said he thinks the petition reflects “intolerance.” Other commissioners said they think it unfairly targets a single business — Viking Cove, a vacation-rental venue at the end of Mud Bay Road where guests occasionally host large events.

The commission ultimately took no action on the issue, opting for none of the three possible motions suggested by borough planner Dave Long.

Long said the next step was “not clearly identified” because the commission neither made a recommendation to the assembly nor tabled the issue for a later meeting.

The assembly had tasked the planning commission with making a recommendation regarding definitions of “event venue” and “commercial enterprise” proposed by the code review commission two weeks ago. That commission suggested defining “event venue” as the “commercial use of a building, or part of a building, or land as a place of assembly by the public for special events such as weddings, educational workshops, conferences, performances, cultural gatherings, etc.”

Ten residents commented at the March 10 meeting in favor of banning event venues in the Mud Bay Rural Residential Zone (MBRRZ), which encompasses most of the Chilkat Peninsula south of Carr’s Cove, and no members of the public spoke against doing so.

One of the Mud Bay residents who organized the petition, Katey Palmer, said after the meeting that she would have liked to see the planning commission discuss the code review commission’s definitions and more directly address the substance and intent of Mud Bay zoning code, which she said is to maintain the quiet feel of a low-density, single-family rural residential neighborhood with “limited commercial businesses whose impacts are no greater than expected from a residential neighbor.”

Goldberg said at the meeting that events at Viking Cove, which have occurred only a few times a year, aren’t much different from the private parties frequently hosted by Mud Bay residents. “No one is planning to build a Centennial Hall or a Madison Square Garden in the Mud Bay area,” Goldberg said.

Commissioner Jerry Lapp questioned the distinction, made by petitioners, between commercial and private events. “I could have a big party, shoot off all the fireworks I wanted to, and invite as many people as I wanted to, but if I charged 5 dollars and have people come out, then I wouldn’t be able to do it?”

Palmer, after the meeting, pushed back on the equivalence drawn between commercial and private parties, arguing that commercial ones, like weddings, attract non-residents and cause an influx of traffic and noise. “What matters is that the local residents don’t want commercial event venues in their neighborhood,” Palmer told the CVN. “A commercial business generally operates to make money, wants to have lots of business and therefore is likely to operate as much as possible.”

She said private parties in Mud Bay have been “about the community of neighbors, not about a business bringing a big group of ‘strangers’ to a residential parcel for events presumably on a regular basis.”

The Mud Bay petition was submitted to the Haines Borough Assembly in October.

Some Mud Bay neighbors have repeatedly, over several years, approached the planning commission with complaints about Viking Cove, which has a conditional-use permit to be a vacation rental business that the borough allows to host events. Two other Mud Bay businesses, Chilkat Inlet Retreat and Echo Ranch Bible Camp, are permitted to host events under the broad category of “commercial enterprise,” a conditional use defined in code as “any commercial, manufacturing, sale or service that occurs on a person’s private property.”

Event venues would be grandfathered in if the assembly changed code as requested by petitioners, but it’s unclear what effect the code change would have on Viking Cove, whose permit doesn’t explicitly allow or prohibit events, unlike conditional-use permits for the other venues.

In other news, the planning commission unanimously voted to deny a conditional-use permit application for a vacation rental at Lutak, after two neighbors testified in opposition to the permit.

It was the first application for a vacation rental rejected by the planning commission in recent years, commissioners said.

The house in question is located on Raven Drive, a one-lane private street off Lutak Road.

Lutak resident Dave DisBrow said it’s a quiet neighborhood and the narrow drive wouldn’t be able to support tourist traffic.

“We have enough tourism and recreational ventures allowed in our area. Leave alone our close-knit neighborhood,” DisBrow said. “We don’t need nor do we want people unknown to us coming and going within our community every week or God forbid every couple of days.”

The application sparked discussion among commissioners about the effect of vacation rentals on the housing market. Other communities, like Sitka, have capped short-term rentals to free up space for long-term housing. Commissioner Lapp mentioned that Girdwood has similarly had issues with vacation rentals and suggested the borough’s housing working group take up the issue.

Commissioner Don Turner Jr. suggested that the homeowner could come back to the planning commission with an application for a long-term rental.

There was some question after the meeting about the fairness of the planning commission’s decisions.

“It was so ironic last night that two people complained about the Lutak vacation rental CUP and the PC unanimously backed down while they paid no attention to our petition that has 120-plus signatures,” Mud Bay resident Patty Kermoian said.

In 2014, when the Chetneys applied for a permit to have a vacation rental at Viking Cove, several neighbors raised concerns at a planning commission hearing. The commission approved the permit unanimously, with the conditions that the Chetneys couldn’t build more accommodations and could have a maximum of 20 guests.