Planning and Zoning Commission to Discuss Several Conditional Use Permit Applications

Kayla Desroches/KXMT

The Kodiak Island Borough Planning and Zoning Commission will hold its monthly regular meeting tonight to talk about adding additional lots to Rasmussen’s Mobile Home Park and the expansion of the quarry on Near Island, among other topics of discussion. Bob Pederson is the community development director for the Kodiak Island Borough and says there will be three main items on the agenda.

“The first is a conditional use permit application for the expansion of Rasmussen’s Mobile Home Park to add seven units on the northern end of the park, on a partial adjacent to the park … and the second piece is a tract of land on the southern end of the park designated for 22 spaces.”

Pederson says the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly has approved code that allows for nonconforming parks to accept trailers from Jackson Mobile Home Park, but now it’s up to the owners to create lots and prepare them for additional units.

“The spaces have to be served by utilities, so the basic requirement is the property owner will have to run the water and sewer connections to each space, and then once that’s done and the drive aisle for people to drive on is installed, then the mobile homes could be moved into the park, and then they would have to hook into those utilities and the KEA grid and so forth,” says Pederson.

Another item on the agenda is an application from the City Council to expand the quarry on Near Island into the conservation zoning district. The Kodiak Island Borough Code defines this district as being “established for the purpose of maintaining open space areas while providing for single-family residential and limited commercial land uses.”

“It came to our attention that the gravel extraction approved by the city back in 2009 exceeded the limits of the industrial zoning district where gravel extraction is a permitted use and it’s now started to work a little bit into the conservation zoning district,” says Pederson. “And in that zoning district, gravel extraction requires a conditional use permit, and that’s what the city’s applied for.”
    
In a letter to the commission in late June the city explains that, in 2008, the three operators on the quarry expressed a need for more resources for rock, and the City Harbor Department stated a desire for more area for harbor-related operations. The City decided the quarry would answer both problems.

Accordingly, on its conditional use permit application, the city writes that the quarry expansion would provide space to support the ship yard and harbor facilities as well as an area for setting vessels and constructing maintenance shops. It also writes that it will build a fence in order to ensure the safety of people walking the trail along the quarry’s boundary.

Pederson says the last item on the P&Z Commission’s agenda is a discussion of possible amendments to the mobile home park chapter of the zoning code.  

“P&Z’s been examining some changes to the code to lessen some of the regularity hurdles associated with construction of either new mobile home parks or expanding existing mobile home parks, such as reducing requirements for play areas and storage areas, and also looking at adding a mobile home park as a conditional use in the R-2 zoning district,” says Pederson.

The P and Z regular meeting is open to the public and begins at 6:30 p.m. tonight in the Borough Assembly Chambers.