The Kenai Peninsula Borough planning commission dealt with something new at its meeting this week. For the first time, it had to handle a permit denial for building within the borough’s 50 foot habitat protection zone.
It’s been awhile since habitat protection measures around the borough drew much attention. Unless you’re a property owner looking to do some work within 50 feet of an anadromous water body, where fish like to hang out. That could be because since the borough approved new rules a few years ago, there haven’t been many issues.
“I think anywhere from 5-8 permits that we’ve done," said Tom Dearlove.
He manages the Kenai River Center. That’s where you go if you live along the Kenai River, or any of a number of fish-bearing waters, and you want to do certain kinds of work on your property. Put in a boat launch, say. Or, move a shed from one side of the driveway to the other.
That’s what Judy and Michael Madden want to do on their lot in Poacher’s Cove in Soldotna. So, they applied for a permit to move the 8X8 shed about ten feet, to the other side of a car port, under which sits an RV. The Maddens are seasonal, they’re in Washington right now and didn’t want to comment until their permitting is finished. Which is taking a while because theirs is the first permit the River Center has denied.
Generally, Dearlove says they’ll work with people to find some sort of compromise.
“Cutting trees, for example. They look at that and they want to make sure I can see the grandkids and I don’t want to have bears walking through, because there’s bears here all the time. I just want to have the trees out. And I say, if you just limb up the trees on the bottom, you’ll be able to see. And also, you’re not having your neighbor across the river looking right at you once the trees are gone. It’s those kinds of things that they’re very happy with the outcome on both sides.”
He gave several examples like this. But the Maddens requested to go through the appeal process. That placed the issue in front of the borough planning commission.
"This is getting much more confusing than I think it needs to be. So, if we vote to uphold the staff’s decision, then the applicant can still come up with a plan B," said planning commission member Franco Venuti.
That’s more or less what the commission decided. And actually, just before the meeting, the Maddens indicated they would be open, maybe, to some mitigation measures. And that’s a lot of what the commission discussed. Basically, what’s a fair trade for this 8X8 footprint?
Commission vice chair Robert Ruffner said that decision will ultimately be up to staff.
“When me move things around, this is really our opportunity to have it come into compliance with the code, which is protecting the water quality and so forth. I don’t think it would be reasonable to just do a 64 square foot to 64 square foot conversion to natural vegetation, but something more. I’m not going to say what that is, but it should be something more than just changing the foot print.”
Poacher’s Cove presents a unique challenge for planners and property owners. It’s densely developed, very close to the river, a lot of natural vegetation has been removed over the years and the surface is a lot hard packed gravel.
That’s not an indictment on folks who live and play there. It’s just that development happens quickly; science and building codes, not so much. And the concern here is simply not adding to that overall footprint of impervious surface. That helps keep runoff at bay, which is a good thing for the river.
How this all plays out is yet to be seen. The planning commission did uphold the permit denial. Now River Center staff will try again to work with the property owners to find common ground for people and fish.