A nearly two-hour discussion at the Kenai Peninsula Borough’s meeting on Tuesday night led to a room filled with concerned community members and an even more interesting outcome.
The recent talk for members of Snug Harbor Road in Cooper Landing is that a concrete plant may be built near their homes.
A proposed ordinance would authorize a negotiated lease with Davis Block and Concrete Company for Concrete Batch Plant Operations. This would support the Sterling Highway MP 45-60 Construction near Cooper Landing.
According to a memo from Aaron Hughes, the Land Management Agent, Davis Block and Concrete Company (“Davis Block”) has been selected as a subcontractor to provide specific materials and services necessary for the completion of the construction project. Davis Block has submitted an application for a negotiated lease for the expressed purpose of a batch plant facility in support of construction operations necessary to complete the Juneau Creek Bridge.
The lease will encompass approximately 1 acre of a larger KPB-owned parcel currently managed as a material and slash disposal site, commonly referred to as the Snug Harbor Materials Site.
Leasing of the site will provide benefits to the KPB through the generation of lease revenues, materials, site management services, and improvements to the site resulting from the lease. An additional benefit to the community of Cooper Landing will be in the form of locally available concrete services during the term of the project.
The negotiated lease terms provide for an initial annual lease amount of $3,500 for a 5-year term, including a 3% annual escalation, with an option to terminate the lease early based on project completion or to extend the lease for 2 additional one-year terms.
Authorization of the lease in support of the Sterling Highway MP 45-60 Project will help to improve safe and efficient travel on the Sterling Highway for residents and visitors while generating additional lease revenues and other added values for the KPB.
However, the community response to this project has been very negative, especially from the residents who reside in Cooper Landing. More specifically, people who live near Snug Harbor.
The most common concerns heard from the community included safety, traffic, and pollution.
Community member Ed Holsten says he was opposed to the placement and surprised that this location was being selected for the concrete plant.
“I find it hard to believe that right now, we’re looking at where to place a concrete batch plant. You would think as soon as they broke ground, there would be discussions about the production and movement of cement instead of waiting five years for these discussions to happen,” said Holsten.
Resident David Neese understood the decision to add the concrete plant, but he disagreed with the location. He does, however, have an issue with the fact that there was no better public notice about the situation at hand.
“It can be anywhere in the build site. It can be where you guys put in a man camp up the up above. I don’t know why Davis selected this. I don’t know if it was the Planning Commission. Those are all questions you gotta ask your planning department. The ‘why did they give [it to this] one site,” said Neese.
At least eight other community members spoke before Cory Davis of Davis Block and Co. stepped forward to address some of the residents’ concerns.
In regards to this being an environmental concern, he reminds everyone that concrete is biodegradable, and will not harm the environment in regards to fish or marine life.
As for safety, it is something that he and his team take very seriously.
“To address some of the safety concerns, I operate a very modern fleet. These trucks are less than five years old automatics. Anti-lock disc brakes, anti-roller over technology, we run dashcams. All my drivers are top-notch. Safety is a huge priority. We have safety meetings every morning. Safety would be a major priority for us,” said Davis.
And in regards to traffic, “once every seven to 10 days throughout the summer, we’d probably have 5 to 10 trucks for one day. So, one day, 7 to 10 days apart, there would be a production day. In between that, there would be nothing going on,” explains Davis.
After the public comment period ceased, the assembly members shared their thoughts on the matter.
“One of the things that’s come out of the last, you know, year, year and a half of conditional land use permits and growls and zoning and land classifications and stuff is, is that I kind of keep saying that you can’t legislate good neighbors. And one of the big things that I keep hearing when we start talking about lease or operators or industry, especially as it’s around some of our, you know, housing dense areas is how important it is to have good neighbors. And everything I’ve heard about Davis Block is, is that they are just that, a good neighbor. And so when we have an opportunity to do a property or land lease, and it’s with somebody that you know is gonna be a good neighbor that wants to care about their community and everything.. I mean, I tend to be of the opinion that we put that lease out and that we take care of it. I am sympathetic to the cause of the the folks in the community and I really do appreciate everybody coming out giving testimony, but at the same time, there’s a lot of construction going on over there and when I look at the maps, the roads with the ingress/egress, all of the plots and everything, I’ve been out there and looked at it. I really don’t see a better solution,” explained Assembly member Bill Elam.
Once a vote was taken, the final results were eight members in favor and one opposed.
