Soldotna – At the Feb. 27, Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting, an ordinance passed on an 8 to 1 vote authorizing the sale of parcels of Kenai Peninsula Borough-owned land by live outcry auction, which will also be simulcast online. Property not sold will be available at a later date via a secondary online-only auction. The Kenai Peninsula Borough offers surplus land every year through competitive public sale. The recent ordinance specifies that the land sale will be a public live outcry auction in an effort to make the process fair and transparent.
The land auction will be held May 11, 2024, at Soldotna High School beginning at 10:00 AM, with in-person bidder registration starting at 9:00 AM. For more information and to view the borough’s complete brochure on land sales, go to KPB Land Sales: https://kpb-land-sales-kpb.hub.arcgis.com/. Parcels offered for purchase are linked to the KPB GIS system for easy access to maps highlighting the property for sale.
Mayor Micciche said, “It is a priority of this administration that KPB lands are made available for conversion to public ownership for the purpose of building our communities. The public outcry option is the fairest way for interested parties to participate versus the sealed bid or negotiated sales methods. An outcry auction allows each potential bidder to know the exact amount of each bid so they can gauge their individual interest accordingly.”
Borough land offered for sale comes from different sources, including municipal entitlement and tax foreclosure. Municipal entitlement lands are parcels selected by KPB from the State of Alaska. Land forfeited to the borough due to delinquent taxes is also made available for auction. Land available in the upcoming May auction includes substandard lots that may pose development challenges but still hold interest for some bidders. Financing is available through the borough for 10% down and financed over 10 years. The interest rate on the seller financing will be 2% over the Fed Prime Rate as of May 10, 2024.
Mayor Micciche said, “We are encouraging transparent, competitive bidding in the interest of fairness. The borough has distributed a lot of land in the past in ways that lack fairness and transparency and, in some cases, clearly not in the best interest of the borough or the public we serve. For me, it’s a purity thing. We want to get the highest value for the people of the borough. We have approached KPB land sales in a way that guarantees the fairest and most competitive method possible. In the future, we also want to be able to provide borough residents a first shot at these land sales. We are a borough that is about equal opportunity for all, not special treatment for a few.”
