The Skagway Municipality Planning and Zoning Commission on June 12 voted to direct staff to prepare a resolution approving setback-nonconforming status for application 2025038, filed by James Higgins for Block 76, Lots 9 and 10 in the Residential General zone.

The commission’s motion instructed staff to prepare findings that the structure was located within the setback on or before Oct. 1, 2024, and that the applicant had submitted two acceptable forms of documentation. The two documents identified in the motion were a property survey dated August 2020 showing encroachment and a borough-issued building permit number 79-29 dated Nov. 20, 1979. Commissioners amended the original motion on the record to specify the 1979 borough building permit (79-29 from Nov. 20, 1979) as one of the qualifying documents.

Applicant James Higgins spoke during the public-hearing portion, noting some supporting records arrived after application deadlines and asking the commission to consider documents such as earlier appraisals that include site plot surveys. Higgins told the commission he had obtained a 1976–86 assessment image that shows a garage and a July 2019 borough building permit in the submitted packet and urged the commission to consider that material as proof. He said, in part, “So the stuff that I wear, I really wanna direct your attention to in there for the proof that I need for this is the the 19 76 through '86 assessment. There's actually a picture in the lower left hand corner of the garage and then also the actual building permit.”

Commissioners reviewed the borough’s qualifying documents list for the new ordinance and noted the burden is on applicants to provide two qualifying forms of documentation showing the nonconforming structure existed before Oct. 1, 2024. The commission voted to direct staff to draft the resolution; the chair announced the motion passed with four yes votes.

The draft resolution will be prepared by staff and return to the commission for adoption at a future meeting; the setback-exemption status, if adopted in a later resolution, would document the nonconforming status but would not itself authorize changes that require a conditional-use permit or variance.