The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly passed an ordinance during their most recent meeting on Feb. 4 to conduct a Road Access Feasibility study on a parcel of land in Seward. The intent of the study is to determine the viability of the acquisition of the 80-acre parcel in the Blueberry Hill area. The ordinance was sponsored by Borough Mayor Peter Micciche.
According to the memorandum accompanying the ordinance, “The Blueberry Hill Parcel provides a potential means of access to approximately 2,300 acres of adjacent KPB-owned and managed lands, and Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (MHT) land holdings.”
Seward City Manager Kat Sorenson spoke in favor of the study and potential land acquisition, calling it a “strategic investment in the future growth and development of both Seward and the Kenai Peninsula.”
“This parcel presents a rare and valuable opportunity to unlock access to already owned developable land and explore the opportunities that come with it,” said Sorenson.
Ed Oberts, Soldotna resident and former assistant to Borough Mayor Dale Bagley, said during public testimony that he believes it is in the borough’s best interest to leave land acquisition and development to private companies.
“Let the private sector do its job,” said Oberts. “Land coming from the federal government to the state to the borough land selections was to help offset the cost of providing governmental services to the citizens of the area, not to go buy some piece of property, to spend money that you don’t have.”
Assemblymember Brent Johnson said that the size of the land parcel presents a potential financial challenge to private developers.
“A private developer would have a hard time coming across the acreage available that is going to be available between us, looking at the 80 acres and the Alaska Mental Health Trust acreage that gives you a wide swath to play with roads.”
Mayor Micciche emphasized that the role of the feasibility study is to determine the viability of land acquisition. “There’s a reason there’s a study in here. I have no intention of supporting a purchase if this feasibility study were to come back, which I highly doubt at this point, but if you were to come back and say that it’s unbuildable. [That] doesn’t do us a lot of good,” said the Mayor.
The borough would share the cost of the feasibility study with the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, which would also benefit from future road access and land-planning activities in the Blueberry Hill area. The cost is not to exceed $25,000 for each entity
The ordinance passed by a final vote of 8-1. Assemblymember Cindy Ecklund was the lone “No” vote.