A Sitka nonprofit seeks to bend the rules to build more housing

A Sitka housing nonprofit wants to fit more homes onto a lot on Halibut Point Road — and to do it, it's asking the city to bend a few rules. The Sitka Community Land Trust is seeking to build with no required parking and on three lots smaller than city code normally allows.

Randy Hughey, who filed the requests for the trust, says the changes would make the project feasible and let it fit more housing on the site. In practice, that means waiving the usual two required parking spaces, allowing narrower and smaller lots than the code sets, and splitting the parcel into three. The land is owned by the Sitka Community Development Corporation.

The Sitka Planning Commission takes up the requests at a hearing Wednesday. The tension is one cities across Alaska are debating — whether parking mandates and lot-size rules constrain housing.