By Penelope Haas

Vice-President Kachemak Bay Conservation Society


Do you want Homer to be filled with large apartment buildings, owned-and-operated by short term rental companies? Do you want more massive hotels and exclusive condos in prime bird-viewing locations, in moose habitat, or in wetlands? If you don’t tune-in to what’s going on in the City right now, that is likely what we will be getting. We can do better, but we all need to get engaged with the boring stuff.

Here’s some context: the City Council dedicated over $650,000 to get public input on what kind of future we want for Homer, and to write new Planning and Zoning laws (Homer City Code Title 21) in line with the vision. Surveys show 77% of the public wants moderate to minimal growth; we want more affordable housing, protection of green spaces, trails and walkability. But that’s not happening. Instead, staff and contractors are drafting new code would move us in the exact opposite direction.

Melissa Jacobson, the City Manager, and Julie Engebretsen, the Community Development Director—and at the end of the day, their bosses, the Homer City Council and the Mayor—owe us all straightforward answers to the following questions:

1. Why haven’t you drafted any code around short-term-rentals, even though the public and Council Members have asked for it over and over? People have asked repeatedly for regulation that treats short term rentals like every other business in town: if a short-term rental is in a residential neighborhood, it must be on property where you live (see Homer City Code Chapter 21.51 – Home Based Occupations). Other proposals have come forward, too, like limiting the number of short-term rentals, as a percentage of total housing; and prohibiting short term rentals in apartment buildings, Town-houses and other multi-unit residences that should be used for affordable housing. You should be drafting this kind of Code for public consideration.
   
   
2. Why are you ignoring the direction of the Mayor, the City Council, the public, and the Planning Commission to create an improved framework for managing stormwater and sensitive areas? You have received clear direction to develop a data-based mapping tool for managing development in wet and sensitive areas, and we have staff onboard who can help create such a system, similar to those used in Anchorage or Western Washington.
   
   
3. Why do you want to allow buildings over 8,000 sf (think Save-You-More and Ulmer’s size buildings) anywhere without a Conditional Use Permit? Public surveys show that Homer unambiguously wants moderate to minimum growth, and the Planning Commission has said unambiguously they thought this was a bad idea.
   
   
4. Why do you want to give the Planning Director “administrative authority,” aka unchecked power, to allow nonconforming uses (eg. Hotels in neighborhoods) and other powers like allowing reduced setbacks? No survey indicates that the public wants such a significant undermining of basic zoning rules, and the Planning Commission as a body said that they thought this was a terrible idea. What is the basis for this “administrative authority” proposal?  If you are trying to make the process more efficient, as you seem to be suggesting, it would be more in-line with public sentiment to just eliminate Conditional Use Permits of this type, and to just make clear rules for everyone to follow.
   
   
   There is no excuse for what is going on. Staff are facing no accountability for their actions. The Planning Commission is pushing back but getting nowhere. The public should be putting pressure on their bosses, the Mayor and the City Council to get code drafted in line with the public’s will. Otherwise, we will soon be handed new rules that will make Homer into a place where most of us don’t want, and/or can’t afford, to live.
   
   

We are expecting official draft code — with an official opportunity for comment — sometime this month, though that date keeps getting pushed back. The public will have a formal opportunity for comment then, and I hope everyone participates in that.

I am writing this now, because I want to encourage folks to engage outside the formal channels — to Council and the Mayor — (1) because I am seeing the input that was given through the proper channels (Comp Plan, Planning Commission, and Council) fully sidelined by staff and contractors during the code drafting process, (2) Council is responsible for directing and paying for the work that is being done on our behalf and (3) Council is ultimately responsible for voting on whether or not code ideas become law.

After the draft code is released and the public comment period has passed, a final set of code proposals will go to the City Council — maybe this summer sometime, though the exact timing isn’t clear. The public will have an opportunity for comment then, and I hope everyone will.

Code proposals will not likely not pass or fail as a package; Council members will be able to propose their own code for a vote (they can do that at any meeting, but this will likely be when they would want to bring something forward). It isn’t too early to be talking to the Council about what code changes you do and don’t want, especially since their votes may be happening in the summer, and most of us don’t have much if any time then.

We have an opportunity for positive change in Homer now, if we are willing to work for it!

“Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for a skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not need to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.”

–Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River