Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

The Haines Borough Planning Commission’s Resource Extraction Committee last week fleshed out how to better define resource extraction in code to accommodate both small commercial timber operations and large borough landowners that might develop their properties into subdivisions.

The committee meeting was precipitated by a property owner on Mud Bay Road who wanted a local sawmill operator to remove six truckloads of trees from her property.

Commission chair Rob Goldberg said resource extraction is not expressly defined or prohibited in borough code.

“If you haven’t clearly restricted it or clearly allowed, then you’re in what I would call a gray area,” said borough attorney Brooks Chandler.

Resource extraction is currently considered an industrial use, which is not allowed in rural residential zones where the Mud Bay property is located.

“This isn’t just a Mud Bay issue, this is a boroughwide issue,” Goldberg said.

Community members suggested making resource extraction a commercial enterprise, which is allowed under a conditional use permit. But an individual would have to live on their property to develop it commercially.

Choosing that option may exclude large landowners like the University of Alaska or the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority from developing land into residential subdivisions.

“The university is going to say ‘That ain’t us. We’re not a family, we don’t have any employees, we don’t live there,’ therefore they don’t need a conditional use permit,” Chandler said. “You’ve got a reality that I think you need to put your arms around, which is when you have large institutional landowners if they’re going to develop property for residential use.”

Commissioner Brenda Josephson did not want to limit large landowners. “There’s an awful lot of land that is undeveloped, and the state and other property owners have a right to develop their property,” she said.

There is risk of the landowners threatening a lawsuit for “takings” if the borough were to completely prohibit resource extraction in residential zones, Goldberg said.

Goldberg suggested making code for the Mud Bay residential zone similar to what is written for the Lutak residential zone, that any uses that are not listed are prohibited.

“It seems too restrictive as far as I’m concerned,” said commissioner Donnie Turner.

Another option was to set limits in board feet or yardage and say any amount removed above the limit is considered resource extraction and is prohibited.

“In my opinion, if you want the maximum protection from commercial logging in your area, you should take this opportunity to make your existing code more specific,” Chandler said.

Commissioner Larry Geise took issue with “restricting all resource extraction that is not expressly listed in code. “This town is dying if it doesn’t get more jobs,” he said.

Mud Bay resident George Figdor said the amount of timber that can be removed from private property, and from land to develop a subdivision should be addressed in separate code language.

Figdor also was concerned about property owners keeping green “buffers” between the road and property lines. But Josephson and Turner said adding rules about buffers would cause regulations to be inconsistent, and too many variables like terrain would be involved.

“I think it’s important for the planning commission to have a long-term perspective on this…it’s important to maintain certain parts of the community for the next generations to be able to have residential lots available to them,” Figdor said.

Goldberg said he would work with planner Holly Smith and borough attorney Chandler to come up with new code language to later bring to the planning commission.