The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly has approved the lease of a one-acre Cooper Landing parcel to a concrete company, amid vocal protests from local residents, who say the location is dangerous and will impact their safety and quality of life.
The lease would offer Kenai-based company Davis Block and Concrete a place to set up a batch plant to supply concrete for the building of the Juneau Creek Bridge and major Cooper Landing bypass highway project over the next five years. The site is on Snug Harbor Road, which runs along the south edge of Kenai Lake.
Cooper Landing residents, many who live along Snug Harbor Road, turned out in strong opposition to the lease. The assembly received 46 pages of public comment, almost all against the site, in advance of its meeting Tuesday night. During public testimony on the ordinance, residents urged the assembly to table the lease, citing safety concerns about concrete trucks traversing the rural road.
Snug Harbor resident Karen Button circulated a petition against the site. She said the petition has gathered more than 100 signatures over less than two weeks.
“The gist of the petition is that funneling concrete trucks through a neighborhood that already deals with excessive vehicles and speeding vehicles is dangerous,” she testified Tuesday. “And having those trucks share an intersection with emergency vehicles, particularly in the summer, is untenable.”
The plant location would be down the road from Cooper Landing Emergency Services, the community’s EMS provider. Residents also expressed environmental concerns about the site’s proximity to Kenai Lake, and said the site’s classification of “light industrial” was not appropriate for a concrete batch plant.
Others, like David Nees, criticized the short timeline and lack of community engagement with which the local Cooper Landing Advisory Planning Commission approved the lease.
“We don’t have a voice in this process. You’re our backstop,” Nees said. “We don’t want that plant there, cause we were given notice of real close to the minimum.”
The local planning group voted on the ordinance during a Zoom-only special meeting with just a couple days of public notice in late February. It passed in a 5-1 vote.
In response, members of the public proposed four different potential sites for the batch plant. Land Management Agent Aaron Hughes told the assembly Tuesday night that one is currently leased to another agency, one is classified as rural and residential, one is owned by the state and one is owned by the U.S. Forest Service, making none of them viable options.
The assembly also heard testimony from a representative of the company Davis Block, who said he had no concerns about safely operating trucks on the road.
During discussions, Eastern Peninsula Assembly Member Cindy Ecklund reiterated concerns about the site, and proposed other locations closer to the bridge and bypass. But she was alone in her opposition. Brent Hibbert, the Kalifornsky assembly member, said no location would make everybody happy.
“We have a road that is way past due, the bypass up there, and I think that it’s not gonna be perfect for everyone: the residents of Snug Harbor, it’s not gonna be perfect for David Block, and it’s probably not gonna be perfect for the residents going up and down the road to Anchorage,” he said. “But it’s something that I think we can all deal with.”
The assembly ultimately supported the lease in an 8-1 vote, with Ecklund the only vote against. Work at the site is set to begin this summer.
