With just two months until the first cruise ships arrive, the Sitka Assembly finally has a plan to see the city through its biggest tourist boom in years. And that plan includes closing one of Sitka’s main thoroughfares on days with high cruise traffic.

From street signs, to trash cans and additional bathrooms, Sitka is preparing to receive an estimated 480,000 cruise ship passengers this season, following the expansion of the privately owned Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal. 

After a lengthy planning process, the Sitka Assembly on February 8 finally approved the city’s new short-term tourism plan, and with it, the decision to close about five blocks of Lincoln Street, from Lake Street to Katlian Street, downtown on days with 3,000 or more cruise passengers. That’s around 71 days out of the summer cruise season. 

The decision isn’t universally popular. Shauna Thornton works at a local bank, and she’s worried about access for customers with disabilities. She said they’re looking to install a new ramp, but the ramp is expensive, and Thornton had concerns about the city’s permitting process to install it. 

“For just the ramp, without being it shipped here, we’re looking at approximately $15,000, and that’s going to take out two of our parking spaces to go with that,” Thornton said.

Thornton was one of four Sitkans who commented on the plan at the February 8 meeting, but it’s not the only time the Assembly has heard public testimony on it. Last year, the Assembly tasked the Planning Commission with creating the plan for this summer’s cruise season. Since then, the short-term tourism plan has been discussed at more than a dozen commission and assembly meetings combined. 

Read the final draft of the plan here

Much of that discussion has been focused on 2022, which is bringing nearly double the number of cruise visitors Sitka had in its previous biggest year. Kent Barkhau said what the town really needs moving forward is more long term planning, and figuring out how to stem the tide.

“We’re in need to do some serious future planning and long-term planning and in my estimation need to find out ways to control the growth and visitation of cruise ship passengers,” Barkau said. “Some of our previous long-term planning and tourism planning has shown that the public supports the idea of controlling the growth of that particular industry.”

There is more work on the horizon for the city’s Planning Department, including a traffic study. But for now, Assembly Member Rebecca Himschoot said the plan needed to be flexible, especially if midway through the summer it became clear that certain aspects weren’t working.

“And I hope that my yes vote can be understood to include latitude to adjust. It’s not a hard and fast ‘We’re going to do this plan exactly how it is.’ Rather, we’re going to do this plan and adjust it as we need to, and make room to improve,” Himschoot said. “And I think there are some things coming for Sitka that could be good for all of us, not just visitors. So I want people to be open to the idea of some changes.”

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said he would vote in favor of the plan, but expressed disappointment with the Lincoln Street closure. And he invoked the former Mayor, Gary Paxton. 

“As Gary Paxton likes to remind me, sometimes it’s harder to deal with success than it is with failure. I think that’s definitely what we’re experiencing right here. Not too many years ago, we sat here wondering how we were going to get our visitor industry back from an all-time low of about 90,000 people wondering what the next steps were for this community,” Eisenbeisz said. “We found a solution to that, we dealt with that now we have almost half a million people coming. And so we’ll find a way. We’ll deal with this as well.” 

The tourism plan passed unanimously. The Assembly also approved a tourism budget for the city, including $124,000 for additional staffing, $25,000 for supplies, $150,000 for a traffic study, and nearly $700,000 for equipment like temporary restrooms, a new patrol car, an ATV ambulance, and bike racks.

Read the Assembly’s memo outlining the full budget here

City staff plan to cover the bulk of the $1.1 million dollar budget with money from the “head tax” collected by the state, more formally known as the Cruise Passenger Excise Tax Fund, which must be spent on services for cruise passengers. The budget does not include money for Lincoln Street closure. The Assembly will likely approve those funds at a future meeting.

If the critical areas ordinance passes on June 27th, it would change development rules for South Kramer Avenue. An outside firm mapped the area for landslide risk in the aftermath of the August 18, 2015 landslides. (Map from Shannon & Wilson South Kramer report)

The state is currently mapping the potential risk for landslides in Sitka. This time next year, the Sitka Assembly will be presented with a community-wide map. Whether they adopt the maps or not, city staff wanted to be prepared for how the information could affect property development. They presented their critical areas ordinance (Ord 2017-14) to the Sitka Assembly on Tuesday night (06-13-17).

Downloadable audio.

This is a policy rooted in tragedy. “We all remember August 18th, 2015. Over 65 landslides hit Baranof Island that day,” said Sitka Community Affairs Director Maegan Bosak at the start of her presentation. “We had extremely heavy rainfall in the morning and a shift of wind patterns that left our community reeling over the tragic loss of life and damage to property.”

Future development in Sitka is now a fraught enterprise, particularly in the South Kramer and Gary Paxton Industrial Park areas. Bosak said this leaves the city in a tough position and in writing the critical areas ordinance, staff looked to other places with hazardous land.  

“We’ve compared other municipalities, specifically Juneau – they have both a hazard, landslide, and avalanche area – Seattle, and Snohomish County. We’ve included outside counsel in drafting and review. And really struggled with this ordinance all personally. It’s really the argument of what is the role of government. Where do we step in? And what is that demand for public safety or the need to develop?” she said.

Right now, the city cannot issue permits in landslide areas unless the homeowner pays for a geotechnical evaluation and any necessary mitigation. Under this new critical areas ordinance (Ord 2017-14), the homeowner can waive that requirement. That person would sign a covenant with the city that would be tied to the deed of the land, “stating that essentially that they know and accept the risks and are protecting the municipality from financial liability,” she explained.

Subdivisions and high occupancy buildings would not qualify for this waiver option. Future homeowners could cancel that covenant at any time.

The Assembly had mixed opinions on how this, with some wondering how designating land as “risky” could change its value, development, and financing. Would a bank be reluctant to loan money for a house on the Benchlands?

Planning Director Michael Scarcelli said that is beyond the city’s control and the market for supplemental insurance is growing. Homes in Juneau have been able to access “difference in conditions” insurance, or DIC, that is designed to cover catastrophes the broader insurance market won’t touch.

Scarcelli pointed out that an ordinance like this may be inevitable, as the federal government pushes for GIS mapping. FEMA recently published drafts of a multi-hazard map for Sitka, which the Assembly will review next year.

“Those private [insurance] markets – whether the Sitka Assembly would adopt those [flood] maps – might use those for those risk actuary analysis,” Scarcelli said. 

Some on the Assembly were ill at ease with continued hazard mapping in Sitka, with Steven Eisenbeisz worrying about homeowners who suddenly find themselves in a high risk area. As for the critical areas ordinance, he said, “it scares me.”

“It seems like the city is just trying to wash its hands of any responsibility here. We’re just trying to step back and say, ‘Yeah no, let’s not be a part of this.’ But there’s still something in here that’s unsettling to me,” he said.

Kevin Knox reasoned that landowners have their hands tied as is, under current rules, and saw the ordinance as a move in the right direction. “There are landowners right now that are hamstrung. They can’t do anything,” Knox said.

Mayor Matthew Hunter went so far as to say that this ordinance gives rights back to property owners. “If I owned a lot that was in a risky area and I wanted to use it, I’d say, ‘I own this property but why can’t I use it? I’ll sign a waiver that says I recognize this is dangerous, but just let me do what I want to do.’”

That may come to pass if the Assembly gives the critical areas ordinance final approval at their next meeting on June 27th. They passed the ordinance on first reading Tuesday night 5-2, with Eisenbeisz and Aaron Bean voting no. 

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The Planning Department recently conducted a land use inventory, mapping how Sitka lands are used and plotting future use. Highlighted in orange are all municipal tidelands, 25 of which have leases. (Map from Planning Department)

The Sitka Assembly held a work session Tuesday night (5-10-16) to review a land use inventory recently conducted by the Planning Department. Long term, the city wants to determine what municipal lands can be put up for sale.

In preparing the document, Senior Planner Mike Scarcelli said that department staff traveled on foot and by car, looked at aerial maps, and pulled old city records to try to pin down how much land is city-owned (Answer: 1.8 million acres of land and 1.2 million acres of water) and how that land is being used (Answer: Only 1% of the land is developed and 2.4% of the tidelands are platted).

See the Planning Department’s 2016 land use inventory here.  

“Our goal was really to go parcel by parcel and create a baseline inventory of current use is so we can figure out what’s going on now, where do we want to go, what trends are occurring and what may be causing those trends,” Scarcelli told the Assembly.

Municipal lands out Halibut Point Road (highlighted in green), include the Benchlands Lots and a large parcel called Upper Granite Creek. (Map from Planning Department)

The land use inventory found that of the 1.8 million acres of land in the City and Borough of Sitka, only 1% is developed, mostly for residential purposes. The majority of industrial land is located out the road, but some of it is spot zoned, which is illegal.

Municipal lots in the downtown and CBD area (highlighted in green). Much of this land is devoted to public services. (Map from Planning Department)

“Spot zoning is a term that we often refer to when something’s not planned for. So when the market just drives up a particular type of use in a certain area, as opposed to having a set plan,” explained Planning and Community Development Director Maegan Bosak. “We’ll see areas where you have heavier commercial use in the middle of a residential lot. It doesn’t really make sense and causes for a lot of angst in the neighborhood. These are the cases we hear most about in the planning office, so our goal would be to move away from that.”

Municipal lands out Sawmill Creek Road (highlighted in green), include the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. (Map from Planning Department)

Another major goal Bosak shared is rewriting the land use section of Sitka’s Comprehensive Plan and making sales a less “cumbersome” process. One of her slides listed parcels deemed “surplus” to municipal needs and laid out a multi-year plan to put them on the market. That list of parcels includes Jacobs Circle Properties, Harbor Mountain Bypass, and two tracts above Sitka High which could fit 30 home sites.

A proposed schedule of land the city is eyeing to sell. The Planning Department presented this to the Assembly Tuesday night (5-10-16).

The Citizens’ Task Force has encouraged the city to sell $1 million worth of land in the next year, but Bosak reminded the Assembly that sales won’t happen overnight.

“A lot of these portions – the high school tracts, the Harbor Mountain Bypass – those are going to take money to make money. Those need to be subdivided. There needs to be studies done. We need to have really comprehensive plans for how those are going to be laid out in terms of utilities, access, etc. So, that needs to be part of our future budgetary concerns if our intent is really to sell some good quality home sites,” Bosak said.

The Planning Commission will seek public input during their next land use meeting on June 7th at the Sitka Fire Department at 7 p.m.

During its regular meeting, the Assembly also passed – on second and final reading – an ordinance to allow short term rentals on boats and approved the municipal contribution to the school district at $6.7 million.

And before adjourning for the night, the Assembly got an update on the replacement of City Attorney Robin Schmid. Schmid was summarily dismissed last week after she retained an attorney of her own – Clay Keene of Ketchikan.

The Assembly appointed Brian Hanson as interim attorney, who is available to work ten hours a week. In the meantime, City Administrator Mark Gorman said the city’s legal affairs will be overseen by Reuben Yerkes.

“As you all recruit for a permanent replacement, we’ve got something in place that will keep the wheels on the bus,” Gorman said. Last meeting (4-26-16), the Assembly agreed to interview candidates for municipal attorney in late June.

And for the second time, an ordinance to create a utility subsidization program – sponsored by Assemblymen Tristan Guevin and Bob Potrzuski – was pulled from the agenda.