Skagway planners weigh where to claim borough's last 118 acres of state land

Skagway's Planning and Zoning Commission will discuss Tuesday where the borough should claim its last 118 acres of state land: 55 acres along the Klondike Highway that have waited nearly 30 years for approval, or a full 118 acres somewhere else.

The work session starts at 6 pm Oct. 27 in the Assembly Chambers and is meant to shape a recommendation to the Skagway Borough Assembly.

State law lets a borough claim a set amount of state land inside its boundaries, called its municipal land entitlement. Skagway's totals 7,977 acres. The state has conveyed 7,846 acres and approved 13 more, leaving 118 acres still to select, according to a memo from Borough Manager Emily Deach and a letter from the state Department of Natural Resources.

Deach laid out two options. Skagway could take the 55 acres between the Skagway River and the Klondike Highway that the state has held in conditional approval since 1997, then select 63 more. Or it could give up those 55 acres and select the full 118 elsewhere. The borough can choose from almost any state land in the borough; state law excludes federal land and land held for schools, the University of Alaska and the Alaska Mental Health Trust.

Conditional approval means the state set the land aside for Skagway but kept managing it until it is surveyed. The state's final decision on them, called adjudication, would hand management to Skagway, but only if the borough asks. "The CA acres are not counted as part of your remaining entitlement, unless you choose to have them adjudicated," wrote Mary Hermon of the department's Municipal Entitlement Unit. Deach wrote that surveying the land would give the borough a better idea of how much entitlement is actually left.

The acres date to the 1990s. Skagway dropped an application for land in Dyea in February 1997 and selected 62 acres along the highway. The state approved 7.32 of those acres that July and deeded them to Skagway in 2005. A 2011 state note said the rest would be surveyed after all other surveys and "may not be enough acres" to fulfill the entitlement.

The commission first took up the question Sept. 10. The presiding commissioner said they had not reviewed the 2030 Comprehensive Plan and were not prepared to act, and Borough Clerk Steve Burnham said, "I don't see a deadline." One commissioner said land suited to housing should come first because the plan "has said we need housing over and over." Another said some of the highway land looked unbuildable and hard to reach. The commission took no action.

Deach has asked commissioners to weigh the plan's priorities, discuss each option, identify other areas and recommend a course to the Assembly. Her memo does not say which option staff favors.