By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Gary Paxton Industrial Park board is recommending changes to the city code that would reduce the board’s autonomy and make it an advisory organization.
In a report to the industrial park board of directors at their meeting Monday, park director Garry White said the intent of the recommended changes is “to capture how the GPIP board and the management service contract has been performing for the past 19 years.”
White said the new language “removes authority from the GPIP board and makes the board more of an advisory board. The suggested changes mirror the reality of past actions of how the GPIP Board has been operating.”
“In the original code, it was a quasi-port authority,” White said today. “It hasn’t been operated like that in the last decade.”
The board voted 4-0 in favor of sending the proposed changes to the Assembly, where the words “recommend” would replace such words as “be responsible for,” “enforce,” “adopt” and “administer” throughout the section of the code related to the industrial park.
White holds dual positions as director of GPIP and as executive director of the nonprofit Sitka Economic Development Association, which for the past 19 years or so has had the contract from the city to manage the industrial park. The Assembly appoints the members of the park board, which under Sitka General Code is charged with “operation, maintenance, development, and marketing of the municipally owned and operated Gary Paxton Industrial Park.”
“Recent disputes between GPIP board actions and CBS (City and Borough of Sitka) staff has highlighted the rationale to have Sitka General Code 2.38 reflect actual operations versus what currently is detailed in current SGC 2.38,” White said in his report to the board. “Additionally, CBS administration has presented SEDA with a modified new agreement between the CBS and SEDA for assistance with development and marketing of the Gary Paxton Industrial Park.”
White said he would like the language in the code to reflect how the board actually operates, and not necessarily what was envisioned when the city took over the park and the Assembly appointed the board.
“It’s inappropriate for a volunteer board to take responsibility without the tools to make stuff happen,” he said. “It’s become an advisory board ... ‘We think this should happen at the park.’ We want to clear up the code to make it operate more like it has in the past.”
He added at the board meeting, “It’s not what SEDA signed up for. We’re here to help and support the board, market the park and work with tenants.”
The recommended code changes go next to City Attorney Brian Hanson for review. If there are major changes, it will go back to the GPIP board for review, and then to the Assembly for final approval.
GPIP Zoning
In other business Monday, the board voted 4-0 to recommend a zoning code change to define permitted uses at the industrial park.
White recommended adding specific permitted uses for the park to Sitka General Code, which will need to be reviewed by the Planning Commission before going on to the Assembly for approval.
“Now that a majority of the property is privately owned, any uses of the private GPIP property outside of what the original intent use of the property when it was sold is not an approved zoning code use,” he said in the information packet.
White told the board that it makes sense to add some “permitted” uses to the zoning code so that new tenants will not have to go to the park board for approval of a specific use.
He recommended the following permitted uses under the code: bunkhouse for transient workers, fuel storage, resorts, docks, brewery and winery, animal shelter, public infrastructure, mariculture, and seafood processing, along with many other uses allowed under the city’s industrial zones.
White said the need to add permitted uses in the zoning code came up after the old APC administration building, one of the original buildings in the industrial park, was sold.
“It was brought to my attention by the planning department that this is the way the code was set,” White said today. “It was whatever the board said was permitted. It was probably a good tool when the property was leased but now that most of the parcels are bought it’s not as efficient.”
In other business, the board:
– approved an early termination of a lease for one parcel for Northline Seafoods, at the company’s request.
– approved a short-term lease for Silver Bay Seafoods to house seasonal employees.
– heard a report from White and Chairman Scott Wagner about the bulk water and NSRAA water delivery systems, which were the subject of a recent meeting of the board with the municipal Assembly.
Board members asked White how GPIP was supposed to market bulk water when there is no way to get the water to the shore’s edge for export. They also questioned how industrial water could be delivered for NSRAA’s needs or those of anyone else who uses NSRAA’s delivery system, White said today.
