The Petersburg Borough Assembly directed Borough staff on March 2 to start rewriting part of its zoning code to be implemented beyond municipal limits. The move follows months of work and deliberation over potentially updating Petersburg’s zoning code as the Borough navigates emerging concerns about constructing new communications towers in the community.
Zoning determines how property can and cannot be used. Different types of zoning allow for different uses, and some require landowners to get permission from the municipality for certain projects.
Title 19 is the legal anchor for how the Petersburg Borough enforces zoning, and currently, it only applies within the Borough’s municipal limits of Service Area One, which ends roughly nine miles south of town.
Past that, the Borough doesn’t have any zoning authority.
“We can’t use the powers of Title 19 zoning where there is actually no zoning and there’s no conditional use permits and there’s no enforcement of zoning,” Community Development Director Liz Cabrera told Assembly members on March 2.
A portion of Petersburg residents live outside of the Borough’s zoning area. Over the past several months, a number of them have testified to the Assembly expressing concerns that a planned communications tower is legally allowed to be built next to homes in their neighborhood. Those concerns kick-started the conversation about updating Petersburg’s zoning code.
The Borough’s Planning Commission is drafting an ordinance to change how Petersburg’s zoning code regulates Wireless Communication Facilities, like towers, borough-wide. When Petersburg became a Borough in 2013, it incorporated 3,829 square miles of land from Mitkof and Kupreanof Islands up toward Juneau; that means the borough-wide area spans much further than Petersburg’s town proper. However, the Assembly hasn’t successfully extended Title 19 zoning outside of Service Area One. So the Borough would not be able to enforce those potential updated regulations outside of its municipal limits because Title 19 doesn’t reach that far.
But that could change. The Borough is starting the process for extending zoning regulations borough-wide — exempting the City of Kupreanof — by rewriting Title 19.
Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht told assembly members that the Commission’s anticipated ordinance would only affect the town proper, until the Borough rewrites Title 19 so it can have a way to enforce the specific zoning rules that residents outside of town have been asking for.
“People outside service area one are saying they want the Borough to do something. Well, this is a way for the Borough to do something going forward,” Giesbrecht said.
Rewriting Title 19 is a multifaceted project that takes several years. But a borough-wide ordinance about regulating communication towers will roll out as part of the process. And during that transition, property outside of Service Area One, except for the City of Kupreanof, will be placed in a “holding district.” It’s temporary, and the Assembly emphasized that all uses will still be allowed in those areas, except for towers — those will require a conditional use permit.
Any official changes to Title 19 will go before the Assembly for approval.
