Travelers along the Spur highway may notice some signs protesting a proposed gravel pit at the Pillars off Silver Salmon Avenue.
The application for a conditional use permit to extract surface material has been in the works since last fall with the city of Kenai.
Full details aren’t yet available for the plan, but the applicant intends to remove 500,000 cubic yards of gravel from his property in order to install two ponds, totaling about eight acres. When the planning and zoning commission first took up the issue, they postponed making any decisions so they could get more information.
“He did give the city some additional things. He could still, right up until the public hearing, submit additional material if he would like," city planner Elizabeth Appleby said.
A public hearing on the matter is scheduled for June 13th before the planning and zoning commission. Appleby says this application in particular spurred some changes in how such applications are handled. Now, instead of the commission deciding if an application is complete, that decision will come from her office, with the commission in charge of the next step of approval.
This story has been updated. The original incorrectly said the surface material extraction would total two tons.
