How much land does a borough need?
The answer may be a surprisingly large number.
Wrangell is in the process of selecting 849 additional acres of land from a bevvy of local sites on Wrangell island, other nearby islands, and the mainland to complete a special issuance of 9,006 acres issued by the state legislature, according to Economic Development Officer Carol Rushmore. The borough had originally requested approximately 18,000 acres on legislative appeal after borough officials deemed the original selection amount inadequate, Rushmore said.
Petersburg is in the process of selecting about 1,375 acres awarded by the state after incorporating into a borough, though that number may increase – as Wrangell’s did – after a legislative appeal according to Rick Braun, Petersburg’s Land Selection Committee chairman.
The land grants are a windfall of the incorporation process.
Each borough is employing a different method for selecting the land.
Wrangell has approached the dilemma of what land to select and how much of it by employing multiple existing committees, while retaining experience from the planning and zoning commission and economic development committee. Wrangell’s 2008 borough incorporation puts it years ahead of the Petersburg push.
By contrast, Petersburg is employing a single committee to identify and select lands provided by the state for various uses. The process is in the embryonic stages, Braun said. The committee hasn’t yet laid out criteria it will use to determine which parts of various areas it will select.
“That’s kind of the point of my testimony on Monday... we need to set the criteria before we start looking at all these parcels of land,” he said. “When we’re looking at it, we don’t know whether it would qualify in our categories or not. Is this suitable for recreation? Is this suitable for commerce? Transportation? Energy? What are we looking for? I wanted to encourage them to get started on the comprehensive plan because during the planning process, you’ll have public input. Which direction the borough’s going to go, what are its needs going to be in the future?”
They have identified several areas they would like to select land from, including the Coho Creek drainage, Ideal Cove on Mitkoff Island, the valley above Frederick Point North, and the Sandy Beach uplands, Braun said.
This contrasts with Wrangell’s relatively more advanced stage of the process. The borough’s first round of land selection went through, and officials started discussing a second round of land selections – after a corresponding number of selections rejected by the state Division of Forestry – earlier this year.
Complicating matters is the fact that Wrangell and Petersburg are both taking steps towards creating comprehensive plans, which outline the intended land use of various areas within each borough. Petersburg’s last plan predates the Jan. 3, 2013 incorporation of Petersburg by more than a decade. Wrangell’s last comprehensive plan dates to 2010. Its formulation included land selection. Committee members and commissioners have been asked to focus instead on completing the land selection ahead of a July deadline.
As for Petersburg, a deadline is far off and may depend in large part on when the borough’s comprehensive plan is completed, Braun said.
“I think we really need to do the comprhensive plan first in order to do the criteria,” he said. “So when we’re looking at land, they qualify under the criteria we’ve established.”
In addition to coinciding comprehensive plan processes, both boroughs face uncertainty from the Division of Forestry’s plans for their various lands. The Wrangell bodies have selected land near St. John’s Harbor on Zarembo Island. That land was initially rejected, only for the state to turn around and suggest that land for selection in the second round, Rushmore has told various committees.
Remaining selections are focused on the Zarembo Island land, as well as land on the Back Channel, Thom’s Place, and the Earl West Cove, Rushmore said.
The state’s land use plan for the area poses another limitation on the borough, with the Wrangell bodies only allowed to select land zoned for settlement use, Rushmore said. Other land designated for habitat protection, for example, will ultimately end up part of Alaska’s Southeast State Forest, one of several proposed state forests under the Division of Forestry’s purview. Selections can only be made from state land, and not federal land, putting the Tongass National Forest off-limits for selection, according to Rushmore.
Discussion on the subject has led to comparisons between the land selection process and a giant game of poker, particularly after a suggestion that present selections could, in the future, be traded to the Mental Health Trust or other large landowners post-selection.
The sea change basically depends on whether or not timber has been harvested from those areas, Rushmore said.
“They’re looking at it, since the timber has now been harvested, there are potential conflicts down the road,” she said. “Not short-term necessarily, but long-term, depending on what types of uses the borough has for those lands, there could potentially be conflict to manage them as forest lands versus whatever economic use the borough might put them to. They’re trying to alleviate conflict down the road.”
An ideal selection process would be to submit choices to the state by June, allowing time for the borough to identify and select alternatives before the deadline, Rushmore said.
“There’s some area on the south we could potentially select and then the other area,” she said. “There’s some land in Earl West Cove that could potentially be available. Some of it may be dependent on whether they want to include it in the Southeast State Forest or not. That will be a question.”
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