By ARIADNE WILL
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Planning Commission unanimously issued a conditional use permit to the Sitka Sound Science Center, at their regular meeting Wednesday.
The permit will allow the center – located at 834 Lincoln St. in an R-2 multifamily district – to build a new facility for fertilizing and incubating the hatchery’s salmon eggs. The hatchery exists in the zone as a legal nonconformity.
Lisa Busch, executive director of the center, told commission members that an upgrade to the facility won’t change any of the hatchery’s activities.
“This is not an expansion,” she told them, adding that upgrading the current shed will instead allow for a safer, more efficient means of fertilizing and incubating the salmon eggs.
Currently, eggs are fertilized in a small shed, and then carried by hatchery workers a short distance, in buckets, to the basement of the center’s Sage Building for incubation. The new facility will allow for both incubation and fertilization to take place in the same building.
The permit had already received approval from the Historic Preservation Commission. City Planning Director Amy Ainslie said that the permit also is in agreement with multiple goals listed in Sitka’s comprehensive plan.
