Daily Sitka Sentinel

Planners Call for Smaller Lots

By Sentinel Staff
    The Sitka Planning Commission voted 3-1 Wednesday night to forward to the Assembly a set of proposals to ease zoning code standards for residential development.
    Among other things, the recommendations would reduce the minimum lot size from 8,000 to 6,000-square-feet, increase the allowable height of structures, reduce setbacks, and increase the allowed building coverage to 50 percent of the lot size.
    The new standards were proposed by the City Planning and Community Development Department to encourage higher density development and reduce the number of variance requests processed by city staff.
    Interim Planning Director Scott Brylinski showed slides of existing Sitka neighborhoods where nearly every lot is smaller than the 8,000-square-foot standard in the current planning code. Former city planner Mike Scarcelli attended the meeting and spoke about the recommendations, many of which resulted from the recently completed planning process for the Sitka Comprehensive Plan.
    Commission members voting in favor were Chair Chris Spivey, Darrell Windsor and Randy Hughey. Victor Weaver voted against, saying that the issue should be looked at only after a master plan is developed for 800 acres of undeveloped city-owned land around No Name Mountain. Commission member Taylor Colvin was absent.
    In other business the commission passed 4-0 a recommendation to the Assembly to create a new zoning district for cemeteries. Under the proposed “overlay zone” the only allowed uses would be for cemeteries, parks, churches and museums. Sitka currently does not have a zone for cemeteries, most of which are located in residential zones.
    Speaking from the public, Bob Sam, who has spent 30 years restoring Sitka cemeteries, said the change is long overdue and would help in his work getting burial transfer permits from the state. Brylinski explained the new overlay district would be applied only to lands where the property owners have made a request for the designation. Planner Amy Ainslie said the new overlay zone would result in spot zoning, but that this would be a case where spot zoning is appropriate.
    Also at the meeting the commission approved vacating a portion of the city’s Eagle Way right-of-way so it could be sold to Adam Chinalski for his bakery business, and a conditional use for Issam Samman for a fish-smoking operation at 4610 Halibut Point Road.
    Samman attended the meeting and said he plans to sell his smoked fish wholesale, and also smoke fish for individual customers. The property is owned by Connor and Valorie Nelson, who attended the meeting and said that they didn’t expect smoke to be an issue for neighbors. Part of the conditional use permit requires installation of air filtering equipment.
    At the end of the meeting, under persons to be heard, Anne Pollnow asked that the Planning Commission have the city deny a building permit to the Sitka Summer Music Festival for its planned remodel of Stevenson Hall, a National Historic Landmark building, because the plans do not comply with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Properties.
    Pollnow said a plat note recorded when SSMF bought the property from Sheldon Jackson College requires the organization to comply with the national historic preservation standards.
    Spivey said the Planning Commission is not legally allowed to deny permits, but that it can take up the topic of enforcement of plat notes and hear about the Stevenson Hall issue at its next scheduled meeting.