Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

And Moulton, oh, sorry. Commissioners Fagerberg and Moulton are absent excused, and Commissioner Matroka is absent. Moving on to approval of the minutes from three weeks ago, April 22nd, 2026. Does anybody have comments, corrections? Seeing none, the minutes are approved. Public business from the floor is the audience's chance to address us on a non-agended item. All right. COME TO THE MIC AND STATE YOUR NAME FOR THE RECORD.

NEW SPEAKER ALAMINISH, RANGAMOUNTAIN TECHNOLOGY SERVICES. I'M JUST GOING TO TELL YOU THAT THE PLAT THAT'S BEFORE YOU TODAY IS MY LAST PLAT FOR VALIDEE'S RECORDING DISTRICT. I'M RETIRING. NEW SPEAKER OH. NEW SPEAKER I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT. SO THAT WAS COMING DOWN HERE SINCE MID-90s.

WELL, THANK YOU, HELEN. AND WE HAVE APPRECIATED WORKING WITH YOU. YOUR PLATS ARE ALWAYS VERY WELL DONE. THANK YOU. ANYONE ELSE? ALL RIGHT. PUBLIC HEARING NUMBER ONE IS FOR THE CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT 2601, AN APPLICATION FROM THE CITY OF VALDEZ FOR A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR A WELLHOUSE. DID ANYONE COME HERE TO ADDRESS US ON THE WELLHOUSE? IF SO, PLEASE COME UP TO THE MICROPHONE. OKAY. DID YOU WANT TO SAY ANYTHING OR OFFER AN OPINION? OKAY. WONDERFUL. ALL RIGHT. AND WE DON'T HAVE ANYONE ONLINE, SO WE'LL CLOSE THAT PUBLIC HEARING AND MOVE ON TO OUR SECOND PUBLIC HEARING, CONDITIONAL USE 26-02, ALSO AN APPLICATION FROM THE CITY OF VALDEZ, AND THIS ONE IS FOR A CHILD CARE FACILITY. DID YOU COME TO ADDRESS US ON THAT? ALL RIGHT. This is a quick public hearing. That one's closed as well. New business, item number one. Approval for final plat of Mineral Creek Cook Subdivision, a replat of lot 7A, block 8, Mineral Creek Subdivision, plat 2001-3. If we could get a motion, we can discuss this. I'll put it forward. Yes. All right. It's been moved by Commissioner Goodrow. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Wade. Any discussion on this? Okay, any comments from staff? Anyone in the audience? Yeah, it looks like a pretty straightforward plat. We already approved the preliminary, and everything that we mentioned has been picked up. So I would suggest we move on to the vote. Do you want to call the vote for us?

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. With that, we have four yeas, three absent. Commissioners Fagerberg, Moulton, and Matroka, motion carries.

Thank you. New business item number two is conditional use permit 26-01, a request from the City of Valdez to allow a well house. Thank you, Ellen. Thanks, Ellen. Utility class one on a portion of lot seven, Evergreen Vista, addition number one, plat 80-12. I guess we need a motion for this before we discuss it.

Move to approve.

I'll second. Moved by Commissioner Ratatitch, seconded by Commissioner Goodrow. And discussion?

Sorry, not on that one, but did I miss, did we not? Is this agenda, did we skip over number one?

on here, or did we? Am I just lost?

You just voted on the final plat.

Number one was the final plat that we just voted on.

Are you on the right agenda? Let me grab you. I think so. 80-12. 80-12. And this one is for the permit for the well house. Yes. Is that what we're? OK. Yep. All right.

Sorry. Yes, please do. Just point of order. So the public hearing is closed, which was the time for the public to comment on the application. And now the commission, there's a motion on the floor for the commission to approve the conditional use permit. So now it's time for them to have discussion of their thoughts of the application. And then if they have any questions for the applicant, we have our capital facilities director, Casey Walker, here. or if they have questions for staff, we'll answer them. And then it's really up to the discretion of the chair. If he wants to take public comment again at the end, he has that option. So that's what will happen leading up to the vote. Yep. Thanks.

Sorry. I just got confused because the well house and the child care both bought 80-12. Yes.

Yes. Same location. Very close to each other.

All right, did anyone have comments on this or questions? No, that wasn't, let me ask for a clarification.

Was that well put in last year or a year and a half ago?

Is the well even dug yet, or is it just a...

The well is in place.

It seems like it may have been more than just a year ago, but it has been in the last couple of years.

Last couple of years. Okay. And with this well, they want to supply water to the tank on the other side of that subdivision that's there. Up on Meals Hill. Up on Meals Hill, right. Okay.

yeah and the applicant can probably better address these questions okay all right is that on or yeah okay uh yes i believe that you're correct in that um it has been installed for uh over a year now and so we are looking to add the addition of the well house on top of that to help supply that water and those water needs on that side of town all right and the water needs are needed for the fisheries

Is that what I read in the write-up? Not the hatcheries, but the fish processing plants? I believe that's part of the need for it, yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Absolutely.

All right. Just to clarify, too, so there's already a well there, and they're going to be – Drilling another well in that similar location?

Not drilling another well, no. It's just the implementation of the equipment that will be used to supply the water from the well and transport it.

Okay. Thank you. So there was already well number four there, and then well number five is the one that's been there about a year and a half, and it's operational now?

It will be at the end of the building of the well house.

HASN'T BEEN IN OPERATION, AND THEN THEY'LL BUILD A HOUSE.

NEW SPEAKER The future fill station on the site, is that something that's planned, or was that just a pie in the sky dream? NEW SPEAKER Future fill station. NEW SPEAKER So people could fill up a truck if they needed to supply water to a tank system.

NEW SPEAKER That is something that I would need to look into a little bit further. I'm still getting up to speed. I'M RELATIVELY NEW TO THE POSITION AND THIS ONE WAS EXISTING PRIOR TO ME JOINING THE CAPITAL FACILITIES TEAM. BUT AS FAR AS THAT GOES, I BELIEVE THAT'S SET ASIDE AS A FUTURE OPTION, BUT I DON'T KNOW THAT IT'S NOT CURRENTLY AS FAR AS I UNDERSTAND.

I'm not sure if you introduced yourself at the beginning.

Sorry, my name is Casey Walker. I am the new acting director of, or the new director of Capital Facilities for the City of Valdez. Any other questions?

I'd just like to point to the narrative that was submitted with the application, just noting that, you know, if that dispenser is added, the Traffic is expected to be minimal from that since the houses in town have water service. So just for your consideration of traffic, it's not expected to have a big impact or be high traffic.

My two cents, it's a very good idea that that does get installed.

Yeah.

I've had times, I'm out on a private well where I've had times where my well's gone dry and it would have been nice to be able to come in and get water from someplace in town. Mm-hmm. I'm in favor of it.

Would that be accessible, like, not just to the city, but general public as well, the billing station? Yeah, if it's put in at a future date, that would be the idea.

Anything else? Thank you. The conditions seem to be all reasonable, pretty much. what you would expect. I didn't see anything that stood out. I'm in favor of this. Are you guys ready to vote? Did anyone in the audience wish to address us now that you've heard something about it? Please come to the microphone and state your name. It's recorded and goes into the minutes.

And press the button so it gets read. Press the button, yeah.

Michael Sims. A question that we had was... We live at 602 Cottonwood. So our living room window, we look out, we see right where the school administrative building is, which I believe is the piece of the plot that you're talking about. So our question was, because we didn't know anything about well houses and what they look like. I mean, this thing is going to be, we're going to be looking at it right out our window. possibly, if that's, I mean, but then I'm told that, oh, no, the well is already there, but the well house is not. So I guess our question was, you know, what does this thing look like? What are the, is there any ramifications for the people living right across the street from it, right next to it? What is it, I mean, what's the noise level? What's the, anything like that? Just anything? Some questions that we had. I mean, it looks like a great thing we should do, but I just wanted to know that just as a neighbor, just to know what I'm looking at.

That's a fair question. And I would suggest if you haven't heard any noise from the pump itself, you probably won't because it's an in-ground pump. The only difference is there will be a backup generator, so when power goes out, you'll have generator noise.

Okay. That's kind of...

I believe they do. There will be some noise because of the generator, but that's not going to be very common.

Yeah, so this is really for commission discussion, and you're, of course, welcome to discuss anything that comes from a public comment. but we can also show you, I'm not sure if you reviewed the agenda packet, but we can show you some designs of the structure. It's going to be a similar look to the structure that was put in for public works by the animal shelter. So it's kind of a blue shop building, but a smaller structure. So we can definitely show you that after the meeting.

Okay. Yeah, that's what we want to know. We want to see what it looks like. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right. Did that bring up any other discussion on the commission? All right. Seeing none, let's go ahead and vote.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Those opposed, please say nay. With that, we have four yays, three absent. Commissioners Fagerberg, Moulton, and Matroka, motion carries.

Thank you. New business item number three is approval of conditional use permit 26-02, the request from the City of Valdez for a conditional use permit to allow a child care facility and a portion of lot seven, Evergreen Vista, addition number one, flat 80-12, and to adopt the findings.

Motion to approve.

I'll second. Moved by Commissioner Wade, seconded by Commissioner Goodrow. Any discussion?

I just had a couple questions. So is this, and because I don't keep up on them too much lately, did this plan and everything already go through like city council and this or like has this been gone through the different department processes and stuff before and now it's?

Yeah, I can speak to the process a little bit. Yeah, so this is actually something that came out of the city council process where they established a child care task force. You know, this has been one of, of course, this is a goal within the comprehensive plan and also one of the city council priorities the last few years to bring childcare options back into the community beyond what's available in home daycares. So the task force was involved with a consultant assessing different options for sites for childcare. And so, yes, this is what was selected and there's been various city council approvals including relocating the school district offices into the elementary school. So there's council oversight during that process. So it has worked through various other processes within the city, and now we're at the point for permitting. And so the first step was because child care is a conditional use in the public lands district, Now it's before you for your consideration and then like any of these projects the next step Should you approve the conditional use permit will be for it to go through the standard building?

permit process as well this is gonna be like city staffing and Who's running

So Chugachmute is running the child care center, and they're actually already in progress using a temporary location. So if they're not open yet, they are going to be soon at their first location, and they are taking applications, certainly, for students. So they are running the center, and they're currently taking applications.

So is that the one at Royal University? Yeah, the Royal Center, like the old Puffin place. Yes. Okay. Because, yeah, I just heard today that somebody, like, got a grant or whatever and were working on opening a child care center there. And then I was... This is the hopeful future one for that. Now, all of a sudden, we have two child care centers going. So they're temporarily, and then they'll be transporting over. Okay. And are they... I'm not familiar with them. Are they associated with the city? Are they a nonprofit? Are they private?

You know, I probably should have brushed up on the structure exactly, so I don't want to speak exactly what their relationship is with the Chugach Corporation, but they are related. I believe it's like a nonprofit arm, but please don't quote me on that. I can get you more information. And they have a website where they're taking applications, so I'm not prepared to speak to that specifically. Okay.

Is there anybody here from the city that can answer some of these questions?

Casey is here from the city as well.

All right. Thank you.

Really, what we're here for is to approve whether a child care facility is an appropriate use for that piece of land, regardless of who's going to be running it. But if you do know, we'd appreciate the information.

Unfortunately, I have about the same amount of information Thank you.

Yeah, I guess the only, and you probably don't know, the two questions I had is One question was, where are the lockers going to be? Are they going to be in the hallway or are they going to be in the individual rooms? When the kids come in, kick the boots off, blows off, that sort of stuff.

So I believe that the interior of the building is broken out into a number of different rooms for different ages. And I think that those lockers and cubbies will be located within those rooms. Within those rooms.

Okay. The other question I had is, do you know how many people are going to be in that building? Going through the plans, they said 49 boys and 49 girls, but that was just for the toilets that were supplied.

Is that how many kids they're going to be having? Do you know? Again, I think a lot of that depends on their capacity with regard to who they're able to hire, how many employees that they can have at a time. I am not 100% sure on the building capacity itself. But I think a lot of it will burn down to how many people they have staffed and their capabilities with those staff members. Any idea when the opening date is going to be? As of right now, we're still in the early phases. We're still working through the permitting requirements right now, and we're hoping to start construction on it this summer. That is currently the plan, and so we're hoping to have it done by end of summer. But a lot of that hinges upon where we're at right now. That's all I had.

Can I just add one more thing? So I just referred to the Chugachmute website, and I was correct. It's It's a nonprofit arm that serves the seven tribes in the Chugach region. So that's their nonprofit arm. So it is associated with the Chugach Corporation, but it's a 501c3. Thank you. Thank you.

I did want to share that I have been following the child care situation for a long time. And particularly starting in 2019, I was going to school for my master's degree, and that was something I was studying and involved with the task force as well. And so I know there was discussions before 2019, too, but I went to law from 2019 until 2023. A lot of work has been put into this by a lot of different people. And I'm super excited for our community that we have come this far. And I know a lot of people have been doing a lot of work for that. It's a huge satisfier. I mean, I did my thesis on it. It's a huge benefit to our town, continuing to keep people that have children here, Coast Guard, to come here. because the lack of daycare makes people's decisions whether to come here or not. And if we have people come when they have children that need daycare, then they will stay here, you know, more likely to stay here to go to our schools and to become community members. So I thoroughly support this and I'm really excited to, I mean, look how complex this is and all the different pieces and parts that have gone into it. I've been to several of the meetings of the Child Care Task Force and been involved with that. A lot of people do a lot of good work, so thank you for all that.

Thank you. I'm assuming this goes year-round. Is that true?

Okay.

Yes, that's correct.

I didn't see any, and I guess it's probably kind of just beyond our scope anyway. I was just wondering if there was any comments or, like, dissenting comments. Only just... or like private sector properties, and I know this is just like conditionally, but being city land, and like where they're at now, I would assume like their landlords and stuff would probably want them to stay there. Like is there, you know, was there any discussion or feedback from anybody about, you know, like city conflict conflicting with private business or private property owners or private rental properties or anything like that?

Sure, I can take that one. So I do just want to remind the commission that the focus of this discussion is on this use as a conditional use. So we're looking at the criteria that are laid out in the draft findings that was prepared by staff. So really, really for both of these CUPs, we're focused on the potential impact to the property and the surrounding properties for the use. but I'm happy to kind of answer some of these questions just to get the information out there in the community. And so in regards to your question, a big part of that assessment that was done out of the Child Care Task Force was looking at all potential facilities and really making sure that, you know, trying to find a facility that could serve the needs of an operation like this that will have multiple classrooms and could, you know, depending on their hiring, I don't have an update on their hiring, but the space and the hiring to provide infant care as well. And so there really wasn't a facility that could provide what was needed. They found a temporary spot so they can at least get open and be offering some services. But that assessment really found that there wasn't an existing facility that could meet the needs of a child care center of this size and that this was the best option. So the city, the Economic Development Department, And the Child Care Task Force has done a lot of work to support other smaller home daycare operators or other options. So the idea is to have another additional option. It's not going to replace any of the existing options that are out there in the community. And we didn't receive any public comments on this additional use permit application.

Very good question. Any others? I'm in favor of it. I think this is a good location. I'm a little bit concerned about the traffic since the school is only partial year and this is full year. And probably more cars coming and going than would be for staff that were working in the building. But I don't think it's out of line for the street that's there. I don't think it's going to increase traffic enough to give me any heartache over it. Other than that, everything was addressed in here.

Yeah, I'm in full favor of two I've been following this for years It's good to have yeah All right, let's go ahead and vote all those in favor.

Please say aye Those opposed please say nay With that we have four yeas three absent commissioners Fagerberg Moulton and Matroka motion carries Thank you

And our final new business item is approval of an amendment to temporary land use permit 26-03 for Chugach Outfitters LLC for an up to 25-acre portion of City of Valdez-owned land at the Valdez Pipeyard, USS 439, for up to 90 days from May to September 2026 with conditions.

Move to approve.

I'll second. Moved by Commissioner Ratatitch, seconded by Commissioner Goudreau. Discussion?

It sounds like there's a lot of questions that they haven't come up with answers yet.

Could I provide a little bit of context for the commission for this request?

Please, can you put this together?

I'm the best person for it. This was the last minute agenda item that we were able to get in on Monday. And so commissioners will remember that we had an extensive discussion around the original temporary land use permit request from Chugach Outfitters for dog mushing. And that original location that was requested was at the Goldfields. And so last week, at the end of last week, Mr. Fowler came down to town now that the snow has mostly melted and was looking at the conditions of the trail and kind of figuring out his last minute steps while we also helped him to get Um, some of the things required for us to even execute the permit, like his required waivers and things like that. So we hadn't actually gotten to the point of ever executing that original permit that was approved. So that's an important piece of information. So he came down and looked at trail conditions, um, and they just really weren't, um, sufficient for him to offer a good guest experience for someone riding in a rolling cart behind a dog sled. The other issue that he found when he got to the river was that where there had previously been some more area that he had intended to turn around the dog teams, it's really eroded even more significantly. Um, and so it's not going to be a good fit for him for that reason as well. So, um, end of day Friday and over the weekend had some conversations and with the city manager and animal control department, the parks and rec department parks maintenance, and talked with everyone about the possibility of him temporarily operating at the pipe yard. Um, I also spoke with the president of the Valdez motor sports club because they have a lease of that area. but it is a non-exclusive lease where the city sometimes does overlapping temporary land use permits or leases at that site so the motorsports club confirmed that they don't have any summer events planned and they were really supportive of the concept of the dog mushing tours and were kind of like let us know how we can help so That was all really positive. Um, and so that leads us to tonight and what you see before you is an amendment to the existing temporary land use permit. And it is vague, um, because we haven't nailed down exactly what the boundary within the pipe guard would be, um, because he doesn't need that whole space that's highlighted in the map in your packet. Um, and the fee will be determined based on the final area. And so likely he'll keep it under two acres, but it will be contained within that boundary of the map that you have in your packet tonight. The idea is that if you should approve this amendment, we will execute the temporary land use permit so that he has a spot that he can start operating as cruise ships are going. We had the second one today. And that would give him some time to work with staff and reevaluate some of the other trail locations that he was interested in But that would take more in-depth conversations particularly with our parks maintenance staff to bring back to you so Whether or not you approve this amendment tonight I fully anticipate bringing you a new separate temporary land-use permit application from Chugach Outfitters This location, as you saw in the packet, is not appropriate for winter because the Motorsports Club has all their activities there in the winter. So he's hopeful to find another alternate route for summer operations this summer. But at a minimum, if this is working and he wants to continue through the winter, we're looking at reevaluating some of those options and some of the ideas that came up in your discussion to see if we can find an alternate. That's why it's a little bit open-ended with the number of days and the area. I tried to pick something that I felt was reasonable but gave him some flexibility when he finalizes his dates and the exact area that he'll run folks on the tour. But what's before you would be completely contained within the pipe yard. We're not authorizing anything outside of the pipe yard at this time. Wonderful.

Any questions for her?

I would just like to say it's a dog musher in this community. Used to mush on that property. I think it is a good location also particularly for that turnaround. When you have enough room for that turnaround, things go a lot smoother too. So this is a really good location for that. And also from the public comment, there was concern by the gold fields and that heavily used trail would down to the river where this doesn't have that same usage. So I think this would, I appreciate you guys working together on finding a little bit better solution for both the applicant and the community that spoke about that. So I think this is a good solution. Thank you.

And I would echo that. When I read this, I felt like you had heard all of our concerns because we were sort of tentative when we approved the Anyone in the audience have comments on this? Okay. And are we ready to vote?

Okay. Ready? All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, please say nay. With that, we have four yays, three absent. Commissioners Fagerberg, Moulton, and Matroka. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.

We have reports from the community director.

I don't have much for you tonight, other than I'll just touch on that I'm still working with the parks and rec director and the city manager to bring back the bathroom proposal that you requested. So we don't have it yet, but it is not forgotten. And yeah, I expect to have another Chugach Outfitters temporary land use permit for you as well. So nothing else to report tonight.

Thank you. Commission business from the floor. Commissioner Adikich.

Thanks for the hard work and getting things moving. I know we've got summertime here, so this kind of stuff is important to get going during the season. So thank you so much.

Commissioner Goodrell. I really don't have anything to say, but thanks for all the information.

Commissioner Wade. And I have nothing either. Thank you guys for showing up.