By Sentinel Staff
The Sitka Planning Commission made short work of a three-item agenda Wednesday night, unanimously passing three variance requests as recommended by the city planning department.
All five commission members – Wendy Alderson, Stacy Mudry, Darrell Windsor, Chris Spivey and Katie Riley – attended the meeting.
Before tackling the agenda, commission members posed several tourism-related questions to Planning Director Amy Ainslie. In response, Ainslie said the new left-turn lane at the intersection of Harbor Drive and Lincoln Street, which was approved earlier this year by the state Department of Transportation, may be painted Sunday or Monday by city workers. Also, she said, there is no plan for the city to place a toilet facility on Maksoutof Street again this year, and that the planning department has no formal request to use Baranof Elementary School for bus parking. Any potential proposal for that use would receive a thorough public review, she said.
The first variance request at the meeting was for a reduced front setback for a tiny house at 106 Kelly Street. Property owner Linda Behnken said there is already a 220-square-foot tiny house on the 5,720 square-foot lot, and the second house would be larger but less than 400 square feet. Behnken told the commission that a 14-foot setback in the code was not possible while providing a required 10-foot fire separation zone between the buildings. She said she planned on renting the houses to long-term residents. Noting the need for more long-term rentals in town, Alderson said she liked the plan. The request passed unanimously.
The second item on the agenda was a request made by Christa Teichmann to modify the terms of short-term rental conditional use permit she received in 2022.
The single family house is being turned into a duplex, and Teichmann said she would like to rent them separately. She said that renovation work on the house at 2613 Halibut Point Road was under way when she got the idea of making it a duplex. Teichmann, who lives in Sitka for the summer months at another residence, said, “As we went into the house after purchasing it... we wanted to do some renovations and ... we realized we had an opportunity to meet some of our needs, if we have family visiting we can separate ourselves from our family and have them close without having them in our house...” During the winter she said the plan was to rent to longer-term residents, such as hospital workers.
Since granting the first short-term rental conditional use permit on the property, the Assembly imposed restrictions on new short-term rental permits. Explaining the planning department’s endorsement of the new request, Ainslie said, ”We’re not removing a dwelling unit that otherwise would be in the long-term market.” She said the duplex would accommodate six guests, the same number allowed in the original conditional use permit, and that it was important to respect the terms of that permit when it was granted.
Without comment, except a suggestion by Riley to have handouts available to renters about proper fish waste and trash handling, the commission passed the permit modification request unanimously by voice vote.
The final item on the agenda was a building setback reduction request filed by Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (NSRAA) for its hatchery expansion in the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. The request, to reduce the required 10-foot front setback to zero, was made after design of the facility expanded to a 174’ by 86’ structure. The new building is to have four roll-up garage doors and six standard doors, within 10 feet of a gravel access road. During a presentation, Ainslie showed slides of other GPIP buildings, former mill buildings, built close to the roadway, reminding commissioners that the industrial park has its own special zoning designation. She said NSRAA planned on accessing the doors of the new building only a few times each year.
Ainslie said the planning department discovered the need for a variance when reviewing a foundation permit for the building. She said modifications to the lot and variances made at an earlier meeting likely caused confusion on the part of the applicant. In recommending approval of the request, she cited the special circumstances at the site, and that fish hatcheries by their nature “can’t be stacked vertically you have to spread horizontally.”
She said it’s also consistent with the Sitka Comprehensive Plan to “... encourage marine industry and fishing industry development at the GPIP.”
NSRAA operations manager Adam Olson said he appreciated working with the city and the “fast-tracking” of the request by the planning department. He said ground breaking has already begun and completion of the expanded hatchery has been set for November.
