Sitkans gathered Wednesday evening (9-30-26) for Orange Shirt Day to honor Indigenous children impacted by residential schools. The community filled the Sheet’ká Ḵwáan Naa Kahídi Community House for speeches, reflection, and dances. 

Robin Smith is a student at Outer Coast, a liberal arts undergraduate program in Sitka. He acted as the master of ceremonies for the event. Smith explained that Orange Shirt Day was started by Phyllis Webstad who was sent to St. Joseph’s Mission in British Columbia as a girl. 

“On the very first day, her grandma got her this nice, beautiful orange shirt, and it was stripped away from her as soon as she got to the school and she was put into a uniform,” Smith said. “So it’s used as a symbol to remember what happened to those kids who didn’t make it home, and to those who did make it home and still fought for their culture to stay, even though they went through all of that. “

From the early 1800s to the mid-20th century, tens of thousands of Indigenous children were involuntarily removed from their communities and forcibly assimilated at residential schools across North America. There were over 400 schools in the U.S. where many children lost their lives.

Yeidikook’áa Brady-Howard is the tribal council chair for Sitka Tribe of Alaska. She’s a long-time educator and currently teaches at Outer Coast. She said many people’s education has excluded the history of residential schools in North America.

“Now, more than ever, we have people who don’t really want to tell any aspect of our history that might reflect badly on the people who came before us, but yet it’s a really important part that more people need to learn to understand where Indigenous people are coming from,” Brady-Howard said.

Community members were invited on stage to share stories of relatives who attended residential schools. Brady-Howard said it’s important for people to understand how the institutions affected generations of Indigenous people.

“We need to approach one another with love,” Brady-Howard said. “We need to approach one another with understanding, and we need to approach one another with support on Indigenous land as we learn these indigenous languages, as we do these indigenous songs and dances, and as we, as a community, work to keep Haa Ḵusteeyí, our way of life, alive.”

Brady-Howard said teaching language, art, and history will make sure the residential schools never succeed at erasing Indigenous cultures. 

In Sitka’s zoning code, all commercial docks are treated the same– it does not differentiate between the size or type of dock, whether it’s a dock for charter fishing boats or cruise ships. And commercial, waterfront and industrial zones currently allow commercial docks by right.

At a meeting on September 29, Planning and Community Development Director Amy Ainslie said that means cruise ship docks could be developed in Sitka with little to no public process involved.

Before an audience of around 30 Sitkans, Ainslie gave an overview of a draft ordinance that seeks to plug that hole, which was identified by the tourism task force several years ago. It would create a permitting process for new or expanded cruise ship docks – existing docks would be grandfathered in. Ainslie said the goal is to ensure there’s a public process and review for approving a new dock is comprehensive. 

“We know that cruise ship docks have an impact on our whole community,” Ainslie said. “Typically, in zoning hearings, you’re looking at the impact of a use on a particular property, and just a narrow kind of window around it. But we know that this is an industry that impacts our whole community. We want to make sure that our review is comprehensive, and we also want to make sure that decisions we make under these regulations are sound and defensible.”

The planning and tourism commissions have been working on the ordinance for some time– The ordinance is in draft form right now. Ainslie said now is the time to get feedback. 

“And so, we want to hear more from you. Are we on the right track? Does this solve the community’s concerns when it comes to regulating cruise ship dock development?” Ainslie asked. “We also want to know: Are there potential consequences of taking this action, whether intended or unintended, good or bad?”

After Ainslie’s presentation, she and members of both the planning and tourism commissions took questions from the audience. One speaker, who did not identify himself, said he did not understand why the city was looking to regulate cruise ship docks if Sitka hasn’t had a lot of interest in building them, and said the city shouldn’t add more regulations to address something that isn’t really a problem. Planning Commissioner Wendy Alderson said she sees the ordinance more like housekeeping than regulation. Larry Edwards with Small Town Soul said the city should instead develop an ordinance prohibiting future cruise ship dock construction. Private cruise dock owner Chris McGraw asked if future updates to the draft ordinance could clarify how the city would define a dock expansion under the new regulations.

“The ordinance talks a lot about ship sizes and it uses numbers of passengers, but you have, you know, the Ritz-Carlton ship that I think has sometimes 300 passengers on it, yet it’s 800 feet long. So that’s something to take in consideration,” McGraw said.

Jim Steffen said the city’s current agreement with McGraw’s dock doesn’t address Sitkans’ concerns about cruise traffic growth and hoped any updates to city code would include some teeth. He was glad the proposed ordinance would also come with an amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan, which was developed before the community saw a big jump in cruise tourism. But he said updates to that plan should come first.

“It’s really the only document that’s going to give guidance to all these questions about impacts on our community, and I believe the comp[rehensive] plan is woefully inadequate in this area,” Steffen said. “And so I’m glad to see an interest in updating the comp plan as regards pretty much anything that this would affect– quality of life, our services, our roads, our, you know, jobs, housing. These are all things that would be affected.” 

Assembly member Scott Saline, who was in the audience, asked if there was an appetite for asking voters to weigh in on whether future cruise docks should be built in Sitka. Planning Commissioner Robin Sherman said she preferred a regulatory approach and finding compromise when addressing a divisive issue like cruise passenger limits. 

“I do not think that we have consensus. I think we have a diversity of opinion, and when that is the case, I can speak for myself personally in looking for a compromise that makes nobody completely happy,” Sherman said. “Because when you have very, very different opinions, if you make one contingent very, very happy, somebody else is very unhappy. So I personally strive for some kind of a balance.” 

It’s not the last time the public will have an opportunity to give feedback on the proposed cruise dock code update. A joint work session between the planning and tourism commission will take place in October along with a legal review of the ordinance. After commission feedback is folded in, a new draft of the ordinance will be posted to the city’s website for a 30-day comment period. Then it will go before both commissions for approval, and finally to the assembly for consideration- a culmination Ainslie said is still “many months away.”

View the draft ordinance here or learn more here

A Coast Guard crew from Air Station Sitka rescued a man earlier this week after his fishing boat sank near Murder Cove, on the southern tip of Admiralty Island.

A statement published by the Coast Guard on Wednesday (9-30-26) said the man was in stable condition. The fishing vessel Tyee had departed from Sitka on Friday, and was expected to arrive in Ketchikan after the weekend. 

On Monday, the Coast Guard received word that the boater hadn’t been heard from since early Sunday morning. After unsuccessful attempts to contact him over VHF radio and by cell phone, the Coast Guard launched a helicopter from Air Station Sitka and the Petersburg-based Cutter Pike.

Around 3 p.m. a good Samaritan vessel found an ice chest and a life raft in Murder Cove. Around 5 p.m. the Coast Guard found the man on the shore of Admiralty Island, two miles east of the cove. The crew hoisted him aboard the helicopter and brought him back to Sitka. According to the release, the survivor told the crew that when the boat started taking on water and sank on Sunday, he put on a survival suit and jumped into a life raft. When the raft began taking on water, he swam to shore. 

In the release, Coast Guard Commander Rianne Troutman said the man’s survival suit QUOTE “extended his survival time and gave our search crews the fighting chance needed to bring him home safely.” Troutman said the Coast Guard cannot overstate the importance of carrying proper survival gear, ensuring that equipment is accessible and filing a float plan before an emergency occurs. 

Students at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka are meeting again to prepare for a state-wide conference for Educators Rising. That’s a club that trains high schoolers in teaching techniques to compete in education-related competitions at the state and national level. Competitions will range from children’s literature and creative lectures to lesson planning and interactive bulletin boards.

Euan Abroguena is a Mt. Edgecumbe student who runs communications and outreach for his school’s chapter. 

“My family, almost everybody, are teachers, and that has inspired me to become one,” Abroguena says.

Abroguena isn’t the only member who comes from a family of educators. So is Sophia Manuba, who says Educators Rising helps her understand what goes into each lesson, from its planning stage to the classroom. 

“I now understand how hard a teacher has to work towards just delivering their lesson. My lesson took about a week to prepare, but if you are in a career like my mother is, you would have to prepare your lesson within a day or even a night,” Manuba says.

Over the next few months, students will meet every week in preparation for the state conference in February. Some will advance to the national competition. Earlier this year, Emma Talus placed first in lesson planning and delivery and Claire Talus took seventh in creative lecture. 

Only a handful of the chapter’s nearly 20 students want to be teachers. Many are involved to practice public speaking and build leadership experience. Jolie Samah sees Educators Rising as an opportunity to hone skills she could one day use as a lawyer.

“A leader is not just someone that’s loud or talks a lot,” Samah says. “A leader’s someone that’s doing things behind the scenes, working on something to improve their organization.”

Whether they envision a career in education or not, Manuba says the club has shown her and her classmates just how much work goes into teaching. 

Access to a popular outdoor recreation area near Sitka just got a bit easier thanks to a grant-funded trail rehabilitation project that wrapped this summer. 

Kruzof Island, about 13 miles west of Sitka, is home to miles of multi-use trails that were once logging roads. Two U.S. Forest Service cabins, Shelikof and North Beach, are popular destinations, but people hunt, hike and bike, ride ATVs and recreate across the area – all national forest land.

Ben Hughey is the executive director of Sitka Trail Works. He says in recent years, accessing the Twin Lakes area of the island has become more challenging. 

“These two really beautiful low elevation lake, so, in trees and somewhat close to the coast, surrounded by some interesting terrain…were getting to be almost inaccessible because of brush overgrowth,” Hughey said. “We know we live in a rainforest; stuff grows pretty well here, and alders love to take over gravel roads, and basically they had grown to the point where they were closing off branches from both sides, had met each other in the middle, and to ride or hike or bike, you were just pushing through branches.”

Hughey said a few years ago, the Sitka Ranger District reached out to the nonprofit, and asked them to help with trail maintenance on Kruzof by applying for an Alaska Department of Fish and Game grant that the federal government isn’t eligible for.  

“In an ideal world, this would be a part of the Forest Service’s annual maintenance funding, and they would be able to take care of this work and keep these public access points open all the time for us, without having to go through a competitive grant process and scramble and find money,” Hughey said. “But they are so reduced in capacity, reduced in funding that we had to step in, and we’re grateful to be able to do that.”

Trail Works scored the grant and began the project with contractor Island Enterprises this summer. In addition to the brushing, they replaced decking on bridges that were beginning to rot, and repaired an eroding section of the Twin Lakes road.

Hughey says Trail Works’ mission is to provide public access to public lands, and he’s excited to help make more of that land accessible. 

“We have so much land in the Tongass, and it’s hard to get around and bushwhacking in the rainforest. And so, being able to get out on a road, get some distance from town, and explore new terrain is really essential,” Hughey said. “So I think that’s the biggest impact, is right now people can spend the fall and get out into a lot more terrain.” 

Hughey says the project, which wrapped just in time for fall hunting season, cost $150,000. 75% of the funding was covered by the state’s hunter access program. 

Isabella the Dachshund parades in the middle of a crowd circled around the Crescent Harbor net shed. She’s vying for the title of tiniest dog in town.

“Isabella is a year and a half,” says Kristina Tirman from Friends of Sitka Animal Shelter. “Her favorite activity is going for walks.”

Tirman is emceeing the community’s first-ever dog show.

There are eight categories in all: smallest dog, biggest dog, fluffiest fur, waggiest tail, floppiest ears, best costume, best tricks, and an owner-pet lookalike contest. Tirman’s co-emcee, the city’s animal control officer April Wheldon, introduces the big contestants.

“Spud is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and his favorite things are swimming and chasing fish,” Wheldon says.

For each contest, an owner walks their dog around the net shed while Tirman and Wheldon read off a few fun facts. Then, they line up in front of a panel of judges.

“We are very grateful to have these three judges volunteering their time and their expertise,” Tirman says.

One judge is former dog sled racer Janet Clarke.  

What I really enjoyed when I was racing sled dogs is looking at such athleticism. But here, there’s also just the different shapes and sizes of dogs. So fun to look at,” Clarke says.

Some dogs weigh just a few pounds. Others are nearly half their owners’ height, like Walter, a 12-year-old Great Dane competing for largest dog.

“All right, judges. Who’s the winner?” Tirman asks.

They turn to each other and whisper over the scores they scribbled on their clipboards. Once the dogs circle up in the middle, they point to the winner.

“Walter!” Tirman yells as cheers erupt from the crowd.

The Great Dane has officially been named the biggest dog in Sitka. Seth Brown is Walter’s owner. He says he’s relieved his friend isn’t here with her Mastiff.

I was like, ‘Well, if Anna girl shows up, might be some competition,'” Brown says. “Because she’s bigger in the head, like even the bones and stuff. That’s a serious dense dog, not quite as tall, but like bigger than any other dog here.”

Brown and Walter will walk away with a first-place ribbon and gift basket of treats and toys.

“Everybody seems to love him,” Brown says. “Should have put him on Facebook. He’d have like 800 friends by now. I got 32.”

Tirman announces it’s time to judge floppiest ears. That’s the second category Walter is competing in. Walter didn’t end up winning for floppiest ears. Marty, a 6-month-old mini Dachshund, did. 

According to Clarke, judging was pretty straightforward. They had to see if the dog met the category’s criteria. 

“But it also was about their showmanship and about their charm. Did you notice how many charming dogs there were out there? They were so adorable,” Clarke says.

Although only one dog could win per category, every contestant got a ribbon and was hounded with applause.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month announced its plan to repeal the Roadless Rule, a 2001 environmental conservation law that protects national forests from logging. That includes about half of the Tongass National Forest’s 16.7 million acres. Subsistence users in Southeast Alaska are concerned how the potential rollback could impact their resources.

Public hearings were held in Sitka in 2019 the last time the Roadless Rule was in limbo. With a repeal back on the table, the U.S. Forest Service will once again hold hearings for subsistence users to comment on how the change would impact the land they rely on.

Jeff Feldpausch, the resource protection director at Sitka Tribe of Alaska, said seven years ago, a vast majority of commenters were opposed to rescinding the protection. 

“But it was already a done deal, and they move forward with it anyway,” Feldpaush said. “I don’t know that it’s going to be much different this time.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said unrestricted road construction would help with wildfire management and forest health. Feldpausch said more roads won’t help mitigate wildfires. Especially in a temperate rainforest like the Tongass. 

“We don’t have those forest fire dangers here,” Feldpausch said.

According to the National Park Service, roughly 85% of wildland fires are caused by humans. Feldpausch said more roads will give people greater access to forestland in states where that’s a bigger concern.

“For every positive that they can point out, there’s a negative on the other side. It just depends on which group you’re focusing on. If you’re focusing on the money side, yeah, there’s a lot of positives. If you look at those impacts again on the subsistence side and long term, there’s some negatives there,” he said.

But Feldpausch said some subsistence users can benefit from increased road access. Like Thomas Smith, who said he used logging roads to hunt when he was in Kake on Kupreanof Island.

“We would use them to drive around, look for signs of moose, and hike around and call them, and we did get a moose,” Smith said. “But simultaneously, while you’re driving around, you look and you see stumps of old growth and really skinny, skinny small trees and forests that almost look impossible to navigate.”

Smith said the land has provided for his family for generations, and time spent harvesting outdoors can reveal how things have changed over the years.

“You have to see your resources leaving. You have to hear your elders and listen to the days that they would writhe over 50 pound king salmon and look at the fish now and be like, ‘Okay, that’s not the same, and frankly, that’s not healthy,'” Smith said.

Smith isn’t the only one who’s seen how development has impacted the land they hunt and harvest on. Jim Phillips is a long-time subsistence user and hunting guide in Sitka. He said timber harvesting has altered tree cover and the flow of the Katlian River on Baranof Island.

“Every year you went in there to hunt it, you’d have to find a new way to get up the valley because the banks were basically gone, and the river would flood out and go all over that valley,” Phillips said. “It changed that valley completely.”

The deadline to submit public comment on the proposed repeal has been extended to Oct. 6. The Sitka Conservation Society will host an event on Wednesday (9-30-26) at 4:30 p.m. at ANB Hall to help Sitkans craft and submit comments.

Dates and times for the upcoming hearigs, both in-person and virtual, are listed below:

Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM 

Southeast Alaska Discovery Center, 50 Main Street, Ketchikan, Alaska

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026

11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

VIRTUAL: Microsoft Teams CLICK HERE TO JOIN MEETING   

Call-in number: 202-650-0123, Passcode: 844934670#

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM

VIRTUAL: Microsoft Teams CLICK HERE TO JOIN MEETING 

Call-in number: 202-650-0123, Passcode: 844934670#

Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM

The Loussac Library, 3600 Denali Street, Anchorage, Alaska

“This one’s a hard one because we also like Harbor Brewing Company a lot, and it was an unfair position to be put in. That being said, I’m here tonight to stand up for my business and for my twenty-some employees that I employ all year round,” she said. “Approximately 70% of our sales are food. We are not proposing to build a food program around a beer and wine license. You know the reason why we want this license is because we need to continually add to our business in order to provide the employment that our staff needs.” 

This would be Highliner’s first and only license to serve alcohol. The brewery already has licenses to serve beer and wine, but a restaurant license would offer the business more flexibility in its serving limits and operating hours. 

Emerald Hagy is the brewery’s assistant general manager. While she said the assembly should approve both applications, she said giving AMCO local perspective is crucial. Otherwise the decision could be left up to chance, like when the brewery was competing for the community’s lone distillery license last year. She said at that time the board “explicitly expressed frustrations with the lack of weigh-in from the local governing body.”

“The decision ultimately came from drawing a name out of a dirty coffee mug,” she said. “This was disheartening, not because our name wasn’t chosen, but because our elected officials had failed to advocate in any fashion what was in the best interest of the community and allowed that decision to fall to the state.”

While state law allows the local assembly to express a preference for one applicant over the other, city staff recommended the assembly approve both businesses for AMCO’s consideration. Municipal attorney Rachel Jones said if the assembly did want to recommend one business over the other, it had to be intentional. The assembly could only weigh things like sales tax records, the number of jobs the business provides, or public safety as factors when making its decision. 

“If you make any recommendations-based public policy, it can’t be arbitrary and capricious, which would be personally liking one business more than the other, or ‘I go to this one more often. My kids like that one the best.’ That’s personal reasons, that’s not public interest reasons,” she said. “You would be wanting to distinguish between applicants on the basis of things you, as the governing body, have authority over.” 

That put the assembly in a tough spot. With friends involved in both businesses, Chris Ystad recused himself. And Scott Saline said they should just ask for more licenses.

“We should make a motion right now and tell AMCO, ‘Hey, you dudes are creating a division in our town. We’re trying to keep it together as it is. We need more,'” Saline said. “Anybody want to back me up that we vote on this right now and just get onto the next thing?” 

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said they could ask for more licenses, but the question would need to return to the group for consideration at a future meeting. He and other assembly members, including Kevin Mosher, agreed that approving both was the right move. 

“Both businesses are great and worthy businesses,” Mosher said “But I will point out that AMCO…they’re involved with alcohol all the time. We’re not. I know we have the right, but I do feel uncomfortable just trying to pick one over the other. So I would prefer to stick with the staff and forward it on as is.” 

The group briefly considered a proposal to table the item, but ultimately voted 6-0 to approve both applications, sending them to the AMCO board for a final decision at its November meeting. 

In the past year, Sitka gained 150 new jobs and $37 million dollars in wages. When Meilani Schijvens of Rain Coast Data presented her annual update on behalf of the Sitka Economic Development Association, “The State of Sitka’s Economy,” she said it’s a new record. 

“I have a question mark on this slide, but I’m going to say this with absolutely zero question mark. You are at your peak jobs ever in the history of Sitka,” she said. “You have more jobs now than you have ever had before.”

Schijvens said jobs are up across many sectors this year, including seafood, healthcare and tourism, the three industries that make up half of Sitka’s economy. 

She said wages are up and rising at a rate faster than inflation, which is good for workers, and the community’s housing supply has increased. And it’s not the only thing that’s up. 

“I often will have good news about Sitka, and then I have to tell you your population is down, but not this year. This year your population is up by 10 new residents,” she said. “It’s the third time that’s happened in a dozen years. So it’s a small number, but I’m very happy to be reporting it to you.”

Still, Sitka is not immune to the region’s larger population trends. Schijvens said in about the last decade, Sitka has lost over 875 residents of “prime workforce” age and nearly 600 kids [590], while gaining almost 400 [380] senior citizens as Sitkans age in place. She said those demographic shifts have put pressure on the workforce. 

“So altogether, we’ve lost 975 residents, nearly 1000 residents, but we’ve gained 270 jobs. So there’s jobs, but it’s really tough to find people to fill those jobs, and so that’s why those wages are going up at a faster rate than inflation,” she said.

So what do you do when you’re losing people and adding jobs? Hire from outside. Not counting self-employed Sitkans or Coast Guard, Schijvens said about 40% of Sitka’s wage-earning workforce are non-residents. They only earn about 16 percent of the total workforce earnings, but also put pressure on the housing market. 

Housing access is a concern across Southeast, but Sitka is adding more supply to the pool than other communities. Schijvens lauded the community for developing over 400 new housing units in the past 15 years.

“I’m assuming a lot of these are snowbirds. I’m assuming some of them are vacation homes,” she said.”

However, she said the number of vacant homes has increased by nearly the same amount. While she said the American Community Survey data should be taken with a grain of salt because they don’t actually survey that many respondents, she pointed to Sitka’s property tax rate as a possible incentive for the trend.  

“You’ve got a just a much lower mill rate when we compare it to other communities. Six points compared, you know, Valdez is 20,” she said. “It almost incentivizes people to have a home here and then have a home someplace else as well.” 

Still, Schijvens said in a recent business survey, Sitka earned the best quality of life rating of any community in Southeast Alaska and a majority of business leaders felt the economy was either “good” or “very good.” 

After her presentation, Schijvens took some time to answer questions from the audience. The city’s Planning and Community Development Director Amy Ainslie asked if Schijvens had a more detailed wage and earnings breakdown to better understand how money is moving through the community.

“In local government we’re hearing from citizens a lot about economic stress in this time, and at the same time, we hear these kinds of presentations that jobs are up and wages are up, and the economy has a really bright outlook,” Ainslie said. “I’m wondering if we have a better sense of how those wages and earnings are getting distributed…throughout our economy, and to see you know what percentage of our households are not experiencing the kinds of gains that the economy is overall.”

Pat Alexander felt the data didn’t reflect many Sitkans’ experiences.

“You know, as I watched your presentation, I wondered, ‘Where is this magical place? I want to live there. I want to move there,'” she said. “But do you ever include any reality from the people who live in the place about what their perspective is?” 

Schijvens agreed that the business indicators don’t necessarily paint the full picture.  It doesn’t really factor in affordability, which she says is key to Sitka’s outmigration. 

“People are struggling in this community, absolutely,” she said. “There’s that divide between economics, between how the overall economy is doing and then the household economy, how how individuals and people are doing.” 

Schijvens acknowledged that while those experiences weren’t a part of her presentation, they are part of the fabric of Sitka. “It’s a good point,” she said. 

Finding housing in Sitka is tough. There aren’t enough affordable units, the seasonal nature of the community limits the availability of year-round housing, and there really isn’t that much buildable land between where the ocean ends and the mountains begin. But a lot of folks have empty backyards. 

That’s where Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs come in. ADUs are essentially smaller, detached units on the same lot as a larger home. At a Sitka Assembly meeting on September 22, Assembly Member Katie Riley said they’re one part of the solution to Sitka’s housing shortage.

“We’ve talked a lot about the housing shortage here in this body, and this is definitely not a silver bullet that’s going to solve it,” she said. “But it is a way to create more affordable and accessible housing on already developed land.”

Riley has been working with the Planning Commission for months on an ordinance that would make them easier to build. Housing advocates in Sitka have long said that local ADU regulations are a barrier to development. 

Under current code, a proposed ADU must meet 14 separate requirements. And if any one requirement can’t be met, the applicant has to get a Conditional Use Permit — a process that requires a public hearing before the Planning Commission.

“That whole process can take up to five or more weeks,” Riley said. “This will create the opportunity for many more property owners to be able to build [ADUs] outright, given that they meet all of the existing conditions.”

The code change would cut the requirements from 14 down to 8. It would also create a clearer pathway to construct an ADU first, so the owner has a more affordable landing pad while they build a primary residence, and would allow the owner to use an ADU as a short-term rental for a time to recoup some of their initial building costs. 

Assembly Member Thor Christianson said he’s optimistic that the changes will make a real difference for Sitkans and help with some of the community’s housing issues.

“I’ve often said that we’re not going to fix our housing issues in one big fell swoop. We have to nibble at it from the edges,” he sais. “This is more than a nibble, it’s a bite. It’s definitely a move in the right direction.”

Ultimately, assembly members voted unanimously in favor of the changes, on first reading. If they give final approval, Sitka will join other Southeast communities like Ketchikan and Juneau in taking steps to encourage building ADUs. Juneau currently offers nearly $14,000 to homeowners seeking to develop them on their properties.

The assembly will review the ordinance for a final time at its next meeting in early October.