Kenai Peninsula Borough considers $1.2 million purchase of 80 acres in Seward to study road access to Blueberry Hill

The Kenai Peninsula Borough finance committee on Tuesday held a public hearing on Ordinance 2024-19-24, which would authorize the borough to acquire 80 acres in the Blueberry Hill area of Seward for $1,200,000 and to enter a memorandum of agreement with the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority to share costs for a road-access feasibility study. The purchase, the ordinance says, would be funded from the Land Trust Investment Fund and due diligence/feasibility expenses from the Land Trust Fund, and would be contingent on a successful feasibility study covering the subject parcel and adjacent borough and trust lands.

Land management staff member Aaron Hughes told the committee the study would evaluate potential road access to the top of Blueberry Hill and to adjacent borough lands, and that if successful the acquisition could provide vehicular access to about 2,300 acres of contiguous borough-owned land. Hughes said the parcel’s proposed classification is “rural,” consistent with surrounding unclassified borough lands, and that…