Soldotna commissioner asks about council rezoning vote that city records don't show

Planning and Zoning Commissioner Lance Spindler asked Soldotna's planning director Wednesday whether a City Council vote he read about near Beluga Avenue should have come before the commission first. Linda Mitchell, the city's director of economic development and planning, said she did not recognize the project and would look into it.

City records show no such vote. Neither of September's regular council agendas carried a zoning item. What the council did hear, at a Sept. 23 work session where it took no action, was Mitchell's own proposal to rezone the Robin Place corridor, which includes the corner of Beluga and Robin Place. Her presentation calls for Planning and Zoning Commission public hearings before a council ordinance moves forward.

Spindler said a local radio news recap last week led him to believe the council had approved converting more of a mixed-use property near Beluga to residential use. Spindler, who called himself a relatively new commissioner, said he thought zoning items normally came to the commission first and did not want to shirk his duties. Mitchell told him he was not. "I am actually not familiar with what project you're talking about," she said.

At the work session, Mitchell told the council that a parcel at the corner of Beluga and Robin Place obtained a conditional use permit for a fourplex in early 2023, which later expired after the property changed hands. Staff recommend rezoning the corridor, which runs east of Redoubt behind the PC Mall, to limited commercial, a district that allows homes by right without that permit. She said outreach and an open house would come first.

No one at the meeting said whether the recap Spindler read described that proposal.