Planning and Zoning Resuming Code Revision Hearings in January

Jay Barrett/KMXT

The Kodiak Island Borough Planning and Zoning Commission will be resuming public hearings on the update of the borough code book. By the time hearings start back up on January 12th, according to acting chair Alan Schmidt, there will have been about a two-month hiatus.

KMXT was to have broadcast the last hearing, in November, but it was canceled due to a lack of quorum. We’ll be carrying the next one, which Schmidt told the borough assembly last night.

“We’re hoping that that, in addition to the live stream will allow people in the villages a better opportunity to provide us with some feedback. And we want to hear from there. So wanted to take this opportunity to get that out.”

Schmidt said the commission has been discussing how to proceed with their deliberations and in what order the sections of code are addressed and forwarded on to the assembly for final approval.

“What appears to make the most sense is that we’d start our deliberations with Title 18. That’s the code that deals with borou8gh property and that’s the one on which we’ve had the fewest comments. And it would provide us with the opportunity to test how we’re going to work through this to ultimately get these documents to you. And as an aside, while it’s on my mind, what we’re thinking would make the most sense, and we’d like to certainly hear from you, is maybe get you Title 18 first, then Title 16 the subdivision and platting section of the code, which we’ve received a few comments on. More so than Title 18, but nothing like Title 17. And then, ultimately, we’ll get you Title 17, which is the big one, with all the zoning code sections.”

Schmidt said the commission plans to discuss each comment the public has made on the code revision.

“Well, we’ll have a motion to adopt that particular change, and we’ll talk about it and vote it up and down. And it’s going to be tedious, but 18 to should be the easiest one to deal with in the first instance to see how that would work. But we want to try to deal with all the comments. Because some of them were good. And by no means did the commission have all the answers on this. And in fact, there was some disagreement among the commission itself when we were going through, getting the initial product out.”

If you’d like to go through the changes, the borough’s web site hosts a color-coded version showing what has been changed a bit, what has been completely rewritten and what has not been changed. You can find it here: http://www.kodiakak.us/index.aspx?NID=572