Planning commission pauses vote on Title 19 setback and housing-use changes after public hearing

The Skagway Planning and Zoning Commission on Thursday opened a public hearing on proposed amendments to SMC Title 19 that would revise setback rules and allow certain residential uses, but the commission voted to postpone further action until a dedicated work session.

Mike Healy, a local builder who identified himself as a concerned citizen, said the town faces a long-standing housing shortage and urged the commission to ease zoning limits to allow densification. “This is simply because we care about our community and we want more housing,” Healy said, arguing the changes would allow more bedrooms per lot, streamline permitting for accessory dwelling units and make triplex development more financially feasible.

The proposed changes discussed during the hearing included removing ADUs from the conditional-use process and making them a permitted principal use, allowing triplexes with a higher bedroom capacity (Healy cited a working maximum of 15 bedrooms for some triplex configurations), shifting parking requirements from a per-unit to a per-bedroom metric, and relaxing side-yard setbacks where one-hour fire separation walls would be required.

Mayor Meryl Ryan Hansen, who spoke from experience on planning and zoning matters, cautioned commissioners about eliminating the conditional-use process for multi-dwelling units. “If you read number 7 in the clerk’s memo, these resolutions are recorded with the state, and they convey with the land,” Hansen said, noting conditional-use review protects neighbors’ ability to raise concerns and pointing out triplex construction costs can exceed $1,000,000.

Commissioners raised multiple substantive questions about storage-container rules, height limits, parking, and how recently proposed manager revisions differ from earlier Civic Affairs recommendations. Several commissioners said the draft before the commission did not include all the items raised by Healy’s letter and that further clarification was needed on intermodal containers, the municipal sprinkler grant, and the interaction with potential IBC (International Building Code) updates.

Faced with the volume of outstanding issues and procedural questions, the commission voted to postpone consideration of the Title 19 amendments and to schedule a work session for a detailed review. The motion to postpone, made and seconded during the meeting, passed on a 5–0 roll-call vote. The commission directed staff to circulate manager and attorney revisions and to set a date for the work session, with commissioners suggesting the week of May 4–8 as a possible window.

Next steps: staff will prepare materials reflecting the manager’s suggested edits and circulate them to commissioners in advance of the scheduled work session. The commission’s decision to postpone means no change to Title 19 is being forwarded to the assembly at this time.