KIB Assembly to Prep Land For Sale and Reserve Land for Mobile Home Storage

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Land was a primary topic of conversation at the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly regular meeting last night, both opening up property and reserving it. The assembly looked at a recommendation from the Borough Lands Committee to put thirteen parcels of borough land up for sale. Assemblyman Kyle Crow said he hopes the borough can find solutions to the affordable housing problem through partnerships with the public on those properties.

“Historically in Kodiak, when land has been made available by the borough, it’s been snatched up rapidly by developers who have hung onto it and then sold it lot by lot with a house built on it, and that is added to the cost of housing, and so I am hoping that we will continue to do this and to try to make as much land available as possible in some unique way.”

Borough resource management officer Duane Dvorak said, in terms of preparing land sale, they’d put together a brochure.

“We would provide in a sort of a packet that would be given to potential bidders, whether it’s outcry auction or sealed bid, all the information, including sale agreements, terms of sales, how much money down, how much money deposited, how much interest for over what term. Those are all things that would be set by the assembly.”

The borough assembly accepted the Borough Land Committee’s recommendation to put those properties up for sale, which means borough staff will move forward to prepare the lots for that process.

For the next agenda item, the assembly looked over the second resolution under new business: a license agreement to open up spots at the end of Selief Lane and at the borough landfill for Jackson Mobile Home Park residents to store their trailers. According to the meeting packet, the Selief lot would provide 30 to 35 spots and the landfill would provide 10 spots.

However, staff called into question whether the landfill was an option. Borough engineering and facilities director, Bob Tucker, explained someone chose to take the landfill off the table when he mentioned previously that it needed another layer of bales, or compacted waste, and that the process would take a few months.

“Whether it’s doable or not, we would have to stop and we’d have to see how far we’re down across that face now and how much is left and how long it would take us. I don’t have that information off the top of my head, but it’s gonna take us more than a couple of months to fill that out.”

The assembly decided to leave the landfill in the resolution until further notice, and it approved that license agreement.

Later, during public comment, Kodiak community member Scott Arndt pleaded with the assembly not to use that property. He said the area has a big rat problem which would make it a poor choice for a storage space. The borough assembly’s next work session is scheduled for May 26 and its next regular meeting for June 2.

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