More than two years of work culminated in success Tuesday when members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly adopted a comprehensive planning document for the unincorporated community of Funny River. The plan will support community pursuit of grants to fund its priorities.
When adopted, comprehensive plans become part of Kenai Peninsula Borough code. They function as a roadmap for a community, outlining goals and priorities for the coming years. When the community pursues funding or support for one of those priorities, it can point to its comprehensive plan to show its long-term vision.
Jim Harpring sits on Funny River’s advisory planning commission and worked on the plan from the start. Last year, he told members of the borough planning commission that getting the plan off the ground was a heavy lift, but gives residents traction.
“We have a document now that we can all have factual evidence of what the respondees want,” he said. “And now it’s just a matter of trying to pursue it.”
Funny River became a census-designated area in 2000. It covers about 30 square miles across the Kenai River from Soldotna and, as of 2020, is home to just over 1,000 people. The only way to get there is via Funny River Road, which branches off of the Sterling Highway at Kalifornsky Beach Road.
The community’s come a long way since 1940, when the first homesteaders arrived in the region. Over the decades, Funny River residents have used a pulley system to get people across the Kenai River, survived a nearly 200,000-acre wildfire and improved facilities for residents.
Now, the community is thinking bigger.
The 18-page plan adopted by assembly members is the product of years of effort by the community’s advisory planning commission. It’s built on a survey completed by nearly 300 residents and clearly outlines where Funny River has been, and where residents would like to see it go.
When the first iteration of the plan was presented to the borough’s planning commission last year, Borough Planning Director Robert Ruffner called the survey response rate “remarkable.”
“It was a higher percentage than you would typically expect when you send out a mailer to try to get feedback from the community,” Ruffner said.
In order, respondents listed protection of Funny River’s water resources as their top priority, followed by safety and maintenance of the area’s existing open natural spaces and agricultural land.
The community also wants its own post office. Currently, mail is delivered to individual and group mailboxes along major community routes by a contractor managed by the U.S. Postal Service. The plan says residents regularly report lost mail or packages delivered to the wrong address. The local planning group would like to get a grant to study the feasibility of bringing better postal service to the area.
Still unresolved is the future of a proposed public boat launch and a bridge connecting the community and Sterling. Conversations about the need for another community access point were revived last spring. A failed culvert caused a chunk of Funny River Road to collapse, temporarily severing access to the area.
During Tuesday’s assembly meeting, Harpring celebrated the plan getting over the finish line.
“It's been one of just perseverance,” he said. “I mean, we had very strong disagreements in some of the points that were in the plan. We built consensus, put it together, we tried to keep it as short as possible, but addressed all the points that we felt were necessary to bring Funny River into the, at least into the 20th century, maybe not to the 21st century.”
Glenda Radvansky, chair of Funny River’s advisory planning commission, was also happy.
“We are very excited that our comprehensive plan is being proposed to be amended to the KPB comp plan, and we are thrilled that you are helping us get the tools we need to improve our community,” she said.
Now that the plan has been adopted by the borough assembly, Funny River residents, community leaders and advisory planning commissioners can start work to implement its goals. Funny River joins the borough’s six incorporated cities and four other communities – Hope, Sunrise, Cooper Landing and Moose Pass – in having a comprehensive plan.
