Ketchikan resident urges borough to rescind commercial tideland lease and amend code for residential floats
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Summary
Longtime resident Mike Holman told the assembly his tideland parcel (ATS 1485) was conveyed with a DNR lease now held by the borough, said he no longer seeks commercial use and asked the borough to draft an ordinance to treat residential, noncommercial floats like other borough properties so a lease is not required.
Mike Holman, a property owner who identified his parcel as Alaska tideland survey ATS 1485, spent nearly half an hour walking the assembly through decades of lease documents and state actions and urged the borough to change its code so residential, noncommercial floats on borough-owned tidelands would not require a DNR-style lease. "I don't want the lease anymore," Holman said, describing that he sought a lease in the early 1990s for a proposed commercial lodge but abandoned the commercial plans years ago.
Holman summarized the documentary record he provided to the assembly, including a state title decision, the 1996 lease documents and correspondence he said show the borough now holds the state's management authority for the tidelands. He told the assembly the lease contains a "valid existing rights" clause and argued his residential dock was lawful as a preexisting right. He told the assembly he believed the boroughs conveyance from the state left the lease intact but that the borough, not the state, administers it today.
Assembly members and the borough attorney discussed options. Borough Attorney Barrett Brown noted a provision of borough code that limits the assemblys authority over state-assigned tideland leases and suggested Mr. Holman could seek relinquishment of the DNR lease directly from the Department of Natural Resources. Brown said he sent Holman information on how to relinquish a DNR lease and said the borough code allows the assembly to apply chapter requirements to leases after their termination.
Holman asked the assembly to direct the borough attorney to draft an ordinance patterned after state regulation language that would exempt personal noncommercial dock uses on borough-owned tidelands from leasing requirements. He specifically requested "4 hands" from the assembly to: (1) ask the borough attorney to draft a code amendment, (2) bring a draft ordinance back for first reading, and (3) pass it in second reading.
Assemblymember Thompson later characterized Holman's proposal as a likely path to resolution and asked staff to review the page-44 draft Holman distributed. The assembly did not take formal action on the request at this meeting; members indicated staff follow-up and possible agenda placement would be the next steps.
The assembly's discussion clarified that the question turns on the interaction of the original DNR lease, the state-to-borough conveyance and the borough code provision permitting application of chapter requirements after lease termination. Brown advised that Holman could pursue DNR relinquishment to remove uncertainty about the borough's ability to treat the parcel as a residential tideland use without a lease.
