Soldotna: 09-02-26 Planning & Zoning Meeting

All right, I would like to call the September 2nd, 2026 Planning and Zoning Commission regular meeting to order. Would everyone please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, would staff please call the roll?

Uh, Commissioner Spindler? Here. Commissioner Bodloff? Here. Commissioner Reffridge?

Commissioner Dwyer? Commissioner Murray? Here. Commissioner Strasbaugh? Here.

And Commissioner Burton? Here.

You have a quorum. All right, thank you. All right, we're gonna move on to the approval of agenda. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve.

Thank you. May I have a second? Second. Thank you. All right, are there any changes to the agenda?

All right, hearing none, are there any objections to approving the agenda?

All right, hearing none, the agenda is approved. All right, we are going to go ahead and move on to the next item, approval of the minutes. July 1st, 2026 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting minutes. May I have a motion to approve the minutes? So moved.

Thank you. May I have a second? I'll second. Thank you. Are there any changes to the minutes?

All right, hearing none, are there any objections to approving the minutes?

All right, hearing none, the minutes for the June 3rd, 2026 P— Planning and Zoning Regular Meeting are approved.

Okay, on to the next item, presentation with prior notice. There are no presentations, so we will move to the next agenda item, which is public hearing.

Thanks. So, Resolution PZ-2026-012, granting a conditional use permit for a storage yard at 42360 Sterling Highway in the commercial district. May I have a motion to approve?

So moved. Thank you. May I have a second? Second. All right, thank you.

May we have the staff report?

Thank you, Chair Burton. Um, as you know, in the packet there was a laydown item, which is a postponement memo for this item, since we were— we didn't notify everyone within the 300-foot requirement buffer of the subject property. Therefore, staff is recommending that your commission postpone this to the following meeting on October 7th. And happy to answer any questions your commissioner may have. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, the public comment period is now open. Is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on this item? If so, please state your name and address for the record.

Are there any remote attendees wishing to speak? Yeah, it would be—. My—. Sir has been approved to participate remotely.

All right, sir, you may speak. Please state your name and address for the record.

Mr. Edwin V. Meister, uh, you are muted. Would you please unmute your microphone and you may speak?

Mr. Edwin V. Meister, if you can hear me, you may speak, but you will need to unmute your microphone.

Okay, the public comment period is now closed. Are there any commission comments or questions for staff?

Yeah, I have a question for staff just to make sure that I caught everything. I've gone through the packet. It looks like the request, the application meets all of our requirements. There's been a very thorough explanation of that in the packet. And am I missing anything, or is it up to snuff on all of all of the different requirements that were listed in that packet.

Thank you, Vice Chair Spindler. In terms of the meeting the requirements of the code for conditional use permit, they've met all the standards, obviously subject to the conditions that staff's recommending in the staff report. However, even though we sent the notice, you know, the Friday before, 2 weeks before the meeting, it was discovered only on Monday of this week that it wasn't notified to everyone within 300 feet. So therefore, that snippet where it talks about noticing, that part within the staff report is incorrect to say that we sent it to everyone. So that's the only portion within the staff report that isn't accurate.

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Uh, that, that was my understanding too, was simply there was the notification requirement. We didn't give sufficient notice as required by regulation and law. Um, but other than that, it looked like everything in that packet that had been submitted meets the code, meets our requirements.

So I don't think I missed anything. Thank you.

Um, to the chair, um, question: do we move to postpone while we have the resolution on the floor, or do we— what do we do?

Thank you, Commissioner Murray. Yes, staff is asking that you make a motion to postpone while the resolution is on the floor.

Mr. Chair, I would move to postpone consideration of Resolution PZ 2026-012 until our meeting in October. Thank you. Do we have a second? Yes, I'll second that.

Thank you very much.

All right, staff, would you please call for the vote?

Yes, you still—. Ever unless someone disagrees with the postponement. So we do need a majority unless you choose to say if no one objects to it. So whichever way you want to take it. If nobody—.

Yes, the vote is on the postponement. That's it. Yes.

Correct. So I'll have Beth, um, restate what's the motion on the floor. The, the motion on the floor is to postpone PZ-2026-012 to the October 7th meeting. So if there are no objections, uh, can we call for a vote? Okay, Commissioner Murray.

Yes, Mr. Dwyer. Mr. Rafferty. Yes, Mr. Straswell. Yes, Mr. Butler. Yes, Mr. Spindler.

Yes, Mr. Burton. Yes, motion passes.

All right, thank you. Now we're going to move on to the next item, unfinished business, and there is no unfinished business, so we'll move on to the following agenda item, which is new business. There is no new business, so we'll move on to the following agenda item, which is public comments without prior notice. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to comment?

Oh, okay.

All right, so we will move on to the next agenda item, informational items. It appears we have no informational items, so we will move on to the next agenda item. Which is reports. So we will look at the mayor, or hear about the mayor and council reports from Council Member Dave Carey. Thank you very much.

I'm glad to be here. I'll get to be here next month also, filling in for Lisa. We've switched our times. Very efficient meeting. Looks like you guys are doing a great job.

Thank you.

All right, are there any questions or comments for Council Member Carey?

All right, thank you. We will move on to the City Manager report. Uh, she is— or the City Manager is not present, so we'll move on to the Director's report. The Director of ED&P, Director Mitchell. Thank you, Chair Burton.

Welcome back. Um, we almost had a full body. I was hopeful. Um, thank you for everyone for showing up today. So I pass along a department report Um, should be a copy in front of you, and I hope moving forward with every meeting that I will be providing this—.

This is not a very comprehensive, it is missing some elements just due to my time. I wanted to at least start this process and kind of give you a preview of what's to come with your packet moving forward. So I made sure to include last month, or the prior month, July and August, since we didn't have a meeting, um, in August. So a little bit about this as we go through You know, code enforcement. We have the minor subdivision with the code amendment.

You know, part of it requires that as staff we come back and let you know what's pending for minor subdivisions, and we do have one pending. It is just a lot consolidation of 2 lots. It's literally across the street here off the Kenai Spur Highway. It's a commercial building with a— to be consolidated with a vacant lot, and ultimately is providing parking for this the new building that— it's a building that's getting— that's received a complete facade improvement if you look across the street. So that's under review.

Um, as part of that new process is we will send out a notice and giving a 14-day public comment period that has now expired. We're wrapping up the staff report and we'll be probably issuing this administrative approval early next week. So just putting that on your radar. Otherwise, you know, when it comes to code enforcement, I just want to kind of walk you through a little bit. What does that look like?

How do we get there? Um, most of our code violations is in regards to short-term rental permit. Um, the reason why is because the city has, um, a contract for short-term rental monitoring. So that has made it really efficient to really— the moment they post something on VBro or Airbnb, we get that listing notification. And so it's been very effective, but also means we are doing a lot of code violation and enforcement with it.

Um, most of the time it's just really they need to apply for the permit. So you can kind of see the status here. We do our best to work towards compliance. Right now we give up to 3 warnings. Yes, right now is first warning 2 weeks, second one 2 weeks, third one 2 weeks.

And on rare occasion we skip all that if we know the person that we're dealing with is fully aware of the city's why go through that tedious effort? But we really are trying to work with them. And so in this case, the top one that you see, minor offense citation, that's when we actually are going to issue a minor offense citation, which goes on to the court records. Then they have to submit a fine.

You know, that's really a last resort. We generally probably do more than just the notice. We call, we email, we try to make contact, and sometimes people just refuse. To comply because they disagree with our process, and this is our last resort. And we can continue to issue additional minor offense citations because the way our code is written, it could be a daily fine.

So the other two short-term rental were in notice of violation. Um, the one, the last one on the list, 156 Linda Lane, that's an interesting one. It's an unpermitted accessory use because it's in the short single-family, two-family zone, you can't have RV and camping within that zone unless you have an established principal use, in which case a house. So they went ahead and just cleared their lot and put RVs and accessory structures. So they're in violation of the zoning code for that particular zoning district.

However, staff has met with the property owners and working on a plan to get them into compliance. And That may look different for every situation. It could be because obtaining—. Trying to build a house, you can't do that in a 2-month time period. You know, building permit, finding the right people to get your permitting process takes time, but they are on board with the plan that we have.

And so that you'll see in progress. Once they start complying with those steps, you'll see that status change to maybe monitoring, meaning we're just waiting for them to comply with the next steps that we agreed to. And lastly, the 3rd one, issued administrative zoning permits. So these, you know, I think this being asked too, so that you're aware what's going on, what things were issued. I'm only listing the stuff we received in this month report.

Otherwise, it's going to be a long list that you're going to just be overwhelmed with. These are stuff that we received either between July or August. So off Meridale, Echo Lake Meet, um, you see that they're really kind of done renovations and it's been an improved site. So with that one in particular, the zoning permit is—. It used to be one use, kind of a shipping, um, use, like a storage facility, but now they've created additional tenant space.

So it's a multi-tenant space building now, and with their food truck and so forth. So that's their zoning permit that they've done there. And then you probably already see the 24-unit apartment complex off 415 Rita across the street from, um, Soldotna Prep. That took a while to get issued. Unfortunately, there's just been miscommunication with the applicant, and mainly staff was working on them to ensure their site improvement met code.

It takes a lot to get people to do the landscaping or their parking and the drainage to our standard, and this is why it was delayed. We issue the building permit because it met the standard. However, I don't issue it until they have adequate plans that meet the zoning code. And so even though you see the building, The zoning permit itself was only recently issued. Um, lastly, the one on 129 East Coral.

This is kind of behind SoWell and the Montessori School. It was a duplex that was constructed in 2020, and it's in the limited commercial zone, and they submitted a zoning permit to convert it to commercial office, a 2-unit commercial office. The zoning allows for residential. I mean, the downside is we were losing housing. Units, but they met everything within the code itself, and so that's why it was issued.

Other than that, I will plan to add short-term rental permits that's been issued, and so you're going to see this list kind of be more expanded in the future. I do want to give credit to Beth because when we amended the short-term rental permit, we required those that were in the limited commercial district as well as owner-occupied to obtain a short-term rental. And since July and August, there's been 18 short-term rental permits that were issued. So we're getting compliance from those that needed it. So it's rather impressive.

Other than that, if you've been reading your email, if you open your city email, I sent out an email maybe a couple weeks ago regarding the 2026 Alaska Planning Conference. Um, you know, I'm adjusting my budget because it's been a while since they have offered this planning conference in Alaska. I think it was my first year moving to Alaska in 2023, and I haven't had one since. And I really want to encourage all your commissioners to attend. The only shortcoming with that is I can't afford lodging for everyone.

I can only afford lodging for up to 4 commissioners. If you can provide your own housing, we will cover your registration, your per diem, and obviously your mileage if you're, you know, if you're driving or whoever's carpooling. So if you can let me know who would like to go, I've only received one person confirming their attendance, and that's Commissioner Ruffridge. Otherwise, please work with me and we can see what we can. I would love to see all of you there, December 7th and 8th.

And if you need me to resend that, I'm happy to do so. Lastly, I'll try to keep it short now. I've been working on a planning and zoning student rep policy. It was just published with the City Council packet for next week's meeting. This policy is a little different than the council student rep.

I've opened it up to just not high school students. Since I've been here in Alaska, I've had college students reach out to me interested, you know, just to sit and not make a decision, you know, because they just want to observe part of the school. Maybe it's an introduction to being exposed to local government, just to see how things flow and be— still be a part of it and have a little bit of expectation, like I need to read the packet and so forth. So I made it very broad. In hopes to expose young adults who may have graduated college, but, or high school.

I just want to see opportunities. I got into it because I got an internship during college and was not something I had planned to do, and now I love it. So if they have the opportunity to be exposed to it, whether they're in college or in high school, I really want to open that door for them. So, um, encourage you to read it. But if things— it gets passed next week, then hopefully we can announce it.

And if you know anyone who may be interested, please pass the word along. Otherwise, I'm happy to answer any question your commissioner may have. Thank you. Thank you, Director Mitchell. Are there any questions or comments for Director Mitchell?

I just had a question about the postponed item, the storage yard and commercial district. Is that, um, Were we in the, the efforts for the riverfront redevelopment? Um, was that a hoped-for conditional use, or hoped for, uh, I think, like, not— I'm pretty sure that was one of the uses that we were hoping to not have in the commercial district, but none of that went through. So thank you, Commissioner Butler. You are correct.

When the riverfront rezone came through, the proposed those use for storage yard within that district would have been to prohibit storage yards. Um, so it's not to say, even though right now in the commercial district where that corridor is, it is a conditional use still. However, we have adopted a plan which we have incorporated as part of our comprehensive plan. So something that you may haven't you haven't seen in previous staff report is that standard in regards to in harmony with the comprehensive plan. That's actually should be expanded a lot more than just the comp plan itself.

It's any adopted policy that's been enacted by an ordinance to be incorporated into a comp plan. So you're going to start seeing that section of that standard about it being in harmony with the comp plan be elaborated to include other plans like the Master Street Plan, the The downtown district plan, the riverfront plan. So if those plans are applicable to the site itself, staff will start elaborating and looking at that as a tool for your commission to make decisions of adopted plans and how you make decisions, not just focusing on the comp plan itself. And so that is a tool that we will use in the interim as we—. As I'm working towards I'm working on a storage yard code section specifically to state, you know, these are the standards we want for all storage yards, you know, and potentially maybe we say if it's a storage yard of this certain size of magnitude and certain heavy equipment that maybe access off a highway is not appropriate.

Maybe it's on the interior, but I'm trying to draft something within reason to bring back to your commission, and maybe that's kind of how we go about it for now. But yes, that's a great question. Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments for Director Mitchell? Through the chair, I just had a question, um, on the applicant that you were talking about. Is that going to be something that's shared? Is it on the website right now and we can share that in regards to— or You were talking about it being approved, kind of missed a minute of what you were, um, uh, so the applicant that could apply, I think the student, sorry, the student that could, um, apply to be on the commission, where is that information? Thank you, Commissioner Riffage.

So right now, because we're pending council's approval, it's in council's pack right now, which which does include the policy, the procedure, and a copy of the application. Okay. And once it's approved by council, um, it more than likely will reside on the city clerk's side in their website. But I will make sure to pass that along to your commissioner once that's approved, that policy is approved.

Are there any other questions or comments?

Okay. We're going to move on to Commission comments, and we will start from this end. Okay. Yeah, I have just 2 comments. First thing is kudos and thank you.

I love this department report, and I know we talked about it last meeting, and it's great to see it in action. I look forward to seeing it every time we have a meeting and watching the updates flow through. It helps me stay on top of things. The second thing, And this is just— I'm always in favor of full disclosure. Um, from 2014 until 2019, I was a chief financial officer at the hospital here at Central Peninsula Hospital.

And at that, during that period, we recruited Dr. V. Meister. I believe that's the same V. Meister applicant. And, uh, do we have any, or have we ever had any business relationships? No. And do we have anything other than cordial, you know, knowledge.

No, but I thought just let folks know I know who Dr. Wiemeister is. I know a couple of things about him. He's a nice guy and everything else, but I always like to make sure I'm always above board with those sorts of things. Other than that, no comments. It's great to see almost everybody.

We're only missing one.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for this. So Was my understanding 18 are, are good, and we only have a couple who are out of compliance in terms of short-term rentals that you've corralled?

Yes, Commissioner Wadler. I mean, that's like more of the people that had to apply after the fact. They've been operating for a while, but in terms of how many were actually out of compliance because they weren't part of that group, I would say there's at least 6, and some of them are been ongoing for a while. I didn't include on the list, we have another one that we also are working to issue a minor citation. It's just they were beyond the July date, you know, it's not something I want to do, but yes, there's more than the 6 or 7 that we have left.

Yeah, thank you.

Commissioner Susie, I, I do really appreciate this as well, so thank you. Other than that, I don't have any comments.

Uh, no comments, just thank you for the work.

Um, I think again, the report's a good thing. It reminds me that there's a lot that goes on And you know, when we have one at Hyundai, it seems like, gee, what do they do all month?

So thank you for the report. I'm sure you could add to it, and it's good to know that enforcement does occur. In a citation, what helps? Is that a fine? Is that a cease and desist?

What do we do? It depends on the nature, but most of the time it's a fine. Most zoning violations are just fines unless, you know, the building itself itself is deemed unsafe for welfare purposes, then of course we coordinate with the building official and then we do cease and desist. It's rare, but we do. And I drive along with the building official quite a bit, so there's a lot more code enforcement, but it's more of structures that I do work with them on.

But yes, usually it's penalties and fines under the minor offense citation. And I will share with you that I am working in another code amendment to switch from minor offense citation to civil fines. Because when it comes to minor offense citation, as you know, it goes to the court, it's filed with the court, it goes on your record. Depending if you're a business, it goes to your business record. But you're an individual and they look up your name and you've been issued one, it will be under your name.

But part of the delay and inefficient process with that is we have to have a police officer enters that citation and then have to serve it in person, which is very challenging. So to be more effective in our code enforcement, we're seeking civil administrative code enforcement. And so that as staff, we have the ability to issue fines and accumulate it and maybe see faster results than we're seeing, because typically things drag out for almost a year and longer depending on certain ones, particularly the ones that require abatement of property, like the one we remember off Arlington It was a building that's been vacated. It was boarded up for a while, and it finally sold after 2 years with code enforcement, and it took a lot of work even on staff's end to work with their realtor and their representative just to get that property on the market and sold to someone. So that will be coming down the pipeline.

We're just working with other departments on what other minor offense that we can pursue the civil approach. Makes a lot of sense. Obviously, sending a police officer is a law of diminishing returns in terms of the fine versus the effort.

Yes.

I want to thank, uh, staff for their work putting this together. I want to thank Councilman Carey for being here today. And I want to thank Vice Chair Spindler for filling in for the chair role for the past 2 weeks. And it's good to be back, and I am glad to ease back into the role of chair with a quick and efficient meeting. So thank you, everyone.

All right. The next regular meeting will be held Wednesday, October 7th, 2026, at 5:30 PM. Seeing no other items on the agenda, this meeting is adjourned.