Daily Sitka Sentinel

Planning Panel Approves Variance, 2 Use Permits

By ARIADNE WILL
Sentinel Staff Writer

The Planning Commission unanimously approved a variance and two conditional use permits at a meeting Wednesday, and did some more work on the city comprehensive plan.

Members identified five items from the city plan to focus on in the near future, and continued their review of the city’s land use tables.

Comprehensive Plan and Use Tables

The commission identified items 2b, 2c, 6a, 6b, and 7b from their shortlist to focus on in upcoming months.

Those involve housing, parks, trails and recreation, and land use as it relates to gardening and agriculture.

A PDF of the shortlist is available at sitka.legistar.com by clicking on the agenda listed for the April 7 Planning Commission meeting.

The panel also finished a discussion on residential land uses.

Changes to the code include permitting bed and breakfasts on un-subdivided general islands and requiring a conditional use permit in the cases of subdivided general islands. The same goes for short-term rentals.

Planning Director Amy Ainslie said general islands that are separate, but that can be accessed on foot at low tide, also qualify as subdivided islands.

Hostels are now permitted in the central business district, and in the public zone by conditional use permit.

Ainslie also had the commission revisit conversation on definitions for docks as defined in the cultural and recreational land use table.

Commission members decided to combine the definitions for “personal use docks — one lease slip, float houses permitted in accordance with the Sitka Coastal Management Program, no linear perimeter restriction, allowing liveaboards, and allowing float planes” with “personal use docks — no perimeter restrictions, no restrictions on liveaboards and float planes (with) float houses permitted in accordance with Sitka Coastal Management Program.”

Public Business

The panel granted a conditional use permit to the City and Borough of Sitka to amend a permit for landfill activities at Upper Granite Creek in the industrial district.

The property is also known as a Portion of USS 5530 and a Portion of Lot 1, USS 3670, and will be a new site for overburden — mostly organic material that’s cleared away from a building site prior to construction.

Allowing overburden to be accepted at that landfill was one of three changes to the 2006 permit, Ainslie said.

The conditional use permit will also allow hours of operation to increase to better suit Sitka’s short construction season, she said. New hours will reflect those at the other Granite Creek overburden site.

Public hours will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Those operating the site will be permitted to work between 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

The original permit also restricts operation of the site to city staff. The conditional use permit issued Wednesday will allow the city to lease out the site.

A variance was issued to allow  the owners of 4305 Halibut Point Road, also known as Lot 2 of Myron Oen lot line adjustment in the C-2 general commercial and mobile home district, to build a greenhouse.

David and Connie Oen requested a reduction in the front setback from ten feet to one foot, and a reduction in the rear setback from eight to three feet.

Chair Chris Spivey said he usually doesn’t like to mess with setbacks, but the shape of the Oen’s lot and their interest in investing in a greenhouse was something he was comfortable with.

The commission issued a conditional use permit for a short-term rental for the apartment in the downstairs of the primary residence of Terrence and Kimberly Babb. The Babbs recently bought property at 2950 Sawmill Creek Road, also known as Lot 1, Amended Silver Bay Subdivision.

Commissioner Wendy Alderson asked whether the Babbs had considered turning the apartment in the home into a long-term rental.

Terrence Babb said they had not. He said he was interested in pursuing the possibility of a long-term rental, but appeared not to have known it was an option.

“We’ve applied for the short-term (rental permit) but if it’s possible we’d love to do something for a longer term,” he told the commission.