Daily Sitka Sentinel

Improvement Allowed For Fry Bread Stand

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    A street vendor received the go-ahead from the Sitka Planning Commission Wednesday to replace his tent with a removable shed of comparable size.
    The vote was 5-0 to approve an amendment to Colin Flanagan’s conditional use permit for a food stand in the Central Business District. The property owners are Troy and Vickie Denkinger.
    Flanagan runs a seasonal fry bread stand in the summer in the space between the buildings at 200 and 206 Lincoln Street.
    Flanagan said he has been talking with the Sitka High School shop teacher about having a shop class build a more durable structure than the canopy, which he and his business partner have been putting up and taking down every day. The shed would be put up at the start of the summer visitor season and removed at the end, he said.
    Planner 1 Amy Ainslie asked the commission to consider the aesthetics of the more permanent structure, as well as fire and life safety issues. She said Flanagan has been working with the city building department and the fire department on those concerns.
    Flanagan told panel members it is his goal to have “an aesthetically pleasing building,” as well as a safe one.
    From the public, Richard Wein asked that special attention be given to life safety issues, noting that an enclosed structures will increase certain dangers such as fire.
    Chairman Chris Spivey noted, “It has to pass life safety inspection with the building department.”
    The vote was to approve the amendment and conditions, which include keeping a safe walkway and approval of the building department and the fire department.

Other Business
Short-Term Rental
    In other business, the commission approved a conditional use permit for a short term rental at 210 Lakeview Drive for Jacob Kirkness and Kerri O’Toole. It’s the second short-term rental in the neighborhood, Ainslie said.
    She showed maps of other short-term rentals in the area. Lakeview Drive has only one other STR, but an adjacent neighborhood – Erler, Spruce and Marine Street – has “quite a bit of density” of short-term rentals, she said.
    The owners of 210 Lakeview will continue living on one side of the duplex, but said they “want the flexibility to explore both options” of having either a long-term or short-term rental unit in the second unit, O’Toole said.
    The vote was 5-0 to grant the conditional use permit and approve findings.
    The residence is in the R-1, single family, duplex residential district.

Anna Drive
    Most of the rest of the meeting was spent on two requests related to a lot at 123 Anna Drive, belonging to Dan Falvey and Kathleen O’Gara, who are developing a property for a new house.
    The commission voted 5-0 on requests for a hybrid subdivision creating a new lot from one existing lot, and a platting variance allowing six properties to be served by a private utility system. City code limits a private utility easement to serving a maximum of four lots.   
    The project received preliminary approval in March, with the property owners given a list of tasks to accomplish before coming back to the commission for approval of the subdivision. Falvey said they have accomplished the tasks as directed.
    Ainslie said the property owners considered options for tying into the public system before asking for the utility variance.
    “As the project has developed, it has become clearer that there are significant barriers to tying into the public utility system, such as the distance between the newly created property and the public utilities, the angle of the connection, and the disturbance to adjacent property owners this connection would create,” she wrote in her staff report. “Therefore, the applicant wishes to tie the new property into the private utility system and requires a platting variance.”
    The private utility system route means the property owners can avoid the expense of 300 feet of trenching, and the disturbance it would create for property owners who use Anna Drive for access to their properties, Ainslie said.
    She said all of the affected property owners have signed off on the agreements for an access easement and utility maintenance.
    Falvey said he has followed the steps outlined for him by the planning department, including updated utility and maintenance agreements, a preliminary survey, and an engineers report on drainage.
    A few of the commission members were hesitant to approve the plans.
    “I’m a little uncomfortable not having a planning director,” Darrell Windsor said. “This is one of the more complicated ones ... I’m a little iffy on it.”
    Other members, though, noted that issues such as sewer and drainage were reviewed by city engineering staff.
    Spivey said he didn’t have concerns about the variance, since public works and the building department had been involved in working out a plan.
    The subdivision request was decided separately, and was approved 5-0.
    One of the lots in the four-lot subdivision will be divided, creating a fifth lot. The division creates lots of 24,233 and 13,887 square feet.
    The newly created lot would be the “first lot” in the hybrid subdivision, meaning that it would have a direct connection to the right-of-way, Ainslie wrote in her report.
    Ainslie said the city has agreed to the drainage plan for the steep hillside.
    Falvey told the commission that his drainage plan will improve water flow in the neighborhood, which has been a problem, and that he has been working in good faith to follow the city’s requirements outlined in March.
    While Mudry said she was still concerned about drainage, others said the engineers have said the plan will improve drainage and “water handling.”
    “Drainage is a concern ... it is a valid concern,” Spivey said. But he said the question of drainage is more of a question for drainage engineers or engineers on city staff, rather than a planning director, unless the director has expertise with drainage.
    A neighboring property owner, Dave Hunt, also expressed concerns, asking the commission to table action until a planning director is on board. Concerns were also raised about how close the house would be to the road.
    In the end, the vote was unanimous in favor of the property owners continuing their development work, given the plans in place for improving the drainage.