Seldovia council workshop reviews sweeping zoning rewrite to create a "Central Business District"

Seldovia's city council spent a May 14 work session reviewing Ordinance 25-09, a broad rewrite of local zoning code that would rename the existing Commercial Business District the Central Business District and reorganize dozens of land-use definitions and the land-use table.

City staff and the planning commission characterized the changes as the product of a two-year review that included business owners, community representatives and a planning commission subcommittee. "This has ended up being a two-year process. We started this in 2023," Planning Commission Chair Sweet said, summarizing the outreach and drafting effort.

The ordinance would consolidate many use categories under a new "business general" heading, alphabetize and streamline the land-use table, and add specific lodging definitions (bed-and-breakfast, hostel, hotel/motel, long-term residential rental and short-term accommodation) linked to a 30-day threshold. Staff said those lodging definitions were modeled in part on other municipal codes and were intended to align with borough rules.

A central policy question at the workshop was how to treat incidental or secondary residential and other nonprimary uses in the business district. The draft requires an administrative permit or approval for incidental secondary uses that exceed a threshold; staff originally proposed a 50% test, but several councilors said that numeric rule was ambiguous and hard to apply. "The number doesn't mean anything to me," one councilor said, noting the draft did not specify whether the percentage meant time, floor area or some other measure. Councilors explored alternatives including a structure-based square-footage test, a requirement for a designated business entrance, or phrasing the rule so a permit is required when a secondary use becomes the primary or majority use of a building.

Councilors also debated storage-use language. The draft defined a "storage mini facility" as a completely enclosed structure containing "three or more areas or rooms available for lease or rent," which would have prevented small, shared storage arrangements (for example, kayak or equipment storage in an existing garage). Council member Nicola (spelled "Icola"/"Ecola" in places in the packet) asked whether residents should be able to lease small spaces in existing buildings; staff and council suggested removing the "three or more" units requirement and allowing incidental storage facilities as a secondary use, subject to administrative review.

Another contested area was dwelling-unit language: some table entries read as if a dwelling-unit structure ("structures containing four or fewer units") were a standalone use rather than a description of a building type. Councilors asked staff to clarify that the land-use table references residential use and not structural form, and to make explicit that the district's intent is a primary business purpose with residential uses allowable as secondary or via permit.

The ordinance adds an "administrative permit required" flag to the land-use table and contemplates expanding the administrative-permit program beyond the existing long-term residential rental permits. Councilors raised transparency questions about how permit counts and a cap (the current long-term rental cap is 10%, staff said) will be tracked and made available to potential investors and the public. Several members urged a public-facing tally of how many administrative permits are issued and how many slots remain; staff agreed to improve planning web pages and to refine permit language, including renewal and transfer rules.

Council members asked staff to run the revised draft through legal review, to correct ambiguities (especially the 50% threshold and dwelling-unit wording), and to present cleaned language to the planning commission for review. Staff said the planning commission meets in early June and that a short follow-up work session could be scheduled before introduction of the ordinance.

The council did not take any formal votes during the work session; members directed staff to revise the draft and return with clarified administrative-permit procedures and cleaned land-use language. "If staff can take the first pass at it, and then we can bring it back to the planning commission," one councilor said. The mayor adjourned the meeting after staff outlined next steps.

What happens next: staff will redraft the ordinance language to resolve the flagged issues, circulate it to the planning commission for further review and bring a revised version back to council for a final workshop or formal introduction.