The Kenai Peninsula Borough Lands Committee discussed Ordinance 2024-33, which would amend KPB 21.46.070 to create the Kina Wellness Estates addition local-option only mixed-use C-3 district and grant an exception to the code's 12-contiguous-lot minimum. Planning Director Robert Ruffner told the committee the item is a conversion of an existing local-option zone and that the borough was not a party to an outside arbitration that produced a smaller-area threshold.

"This particular area has a local option zone in it, so this is a conversion," Robert Ruffner, planning director for the Kenai Peninsula Borough, said in presenting the item. Ruffner said the local-option program allows neighbors to sign petitions asking for zoning restrictions or changes in their subdivision and that this proposal would convert an existing local-option designation to a different local-option type.

Ruffner told the committee that neighbors initially feared the conversion could open the door to commercial uses such as gravel pits. He said the neighbors pursued an arbitration outside of borough proceedings and agreed in settlement to a smaller minimum area than the code requires. "The borough was not a party to that," Ruffner said, describing the arbitration and settlement as separate from the borough's review process.

Under current KPB code, a local-option zone generally requires 12 contiguous lots; the settlement reduced that requirement in this case to a 6.5-acre minimum, which Ruffner said allowed three lots to be converted into the limited commercial or mixed-use C-3 district. He said the planning department initially had reservations about making an exception but, after hearings and community meetings and considering the surrounding land use'including existing gravel pits and unzoned lands'concluded the limited C-3 zone could serve as a transition between unzoned land and nearby single-family (R-1) areas.

Ruffner also told the committee that the C-3 designation proposed in the ordinance does not allow gravel pit development. "The C-3 zone does not allow for gravel pit development, so that was part of the compromise," he said.

Assembly member Dunn asked whether similar local-option conversions had occurred before; Ruffner said he was not aware of another conversion during his roughly 2'.5 years as planning director and would check the historical record if needed. On whether the arbitration outcome sets a precedent, Ruffner said it provides an example of how a conversion can be handled but is not an automatic rule for future cases.

Ruffner said the petition in this case met the signature threshold required to move the proposal through the process and that "the vast majority of the members of that subdivision are in agreement with this," though he acknowledged not everyone is fully satisfied with the outcome. The transcript contains no recorded motion or vote on Ordinance 2024-33; the committee adjourned after the presentation and questions.

The presentation referenced KPB code sections KPB 21.46.070 (local-option zones) and KPB 21.44.040(a) (minimum contiguous-lot requirement). The planning department said the only explicit departure from code in the packet is the exception to the 12-lot minimum agreed to in the arbitration settlement (6.5 acres).