The Homer City Council introduced two ordinances at their regular meeting Monday evening, about marijuana zoning and restricting driving on beaches.
Ordinance 16-04 covers zoning for marijuana sales and cultivation. Council Member David Lewis proposed an amendment to allow permits for marijuana sales in the central business district.
“I would like to amend the Central Business District, which is CUP use only to have it where it is permitted outright,” Lewis said.
Lewis said the city has had a lot of litigation about conditional use permits and his intent was to protect the city.
“And this is just so that if there are any complaints then they can be presented at the state level and then the state would have the problems of litigation and not the city,” said Lewis.
Council member Gus Van Dyke proposed an amendment to remove marijuana sales in the marine commercial zone on the spit from the ordinance. He argued the spit campgrounds were full of families.
“Every one of those has tons and tons of families and children in there and I just think that we shouldn’t have, we shouldn’t allow any kind of cannabis activity at all on the spit,” said Van Dyke.
Council member Lewis argued that cannabis businesses would fit in on the spit.
“We’re talking like the spit it’s this great, wholesome place. We have the Salty Dog, we have other bars, we have liquor stores,” said Lewis.
But the amendment passed. Council member Lewis proposed another amendment to allow limited marijuana cultivation in rural residential areas on lots of 20-thousand square feet or larger. However it was not approved. Mayor Beth Wythe said there will be two public hearings on the Marijuana zoning ordinance.
“Based on the planning commission having really limited input it sounded like at their meeting, it makes sense to have an additional public hearing to make sure we’re giving the community adequate time to really respond to this. We’re doing it on the radio so that they’re hearing us talking about it and hopefully people that are concerned or interested will take the opportunity for an additional public hearing, so we’ll have two public hearings on that topic in February,” said Wythe.
Next the Council introduced ordinance 16-05, which would ban driving on some beach areas – Bishop’s Beach and the area below Beluga Slough are areas of concern. Council Member Catriona Reynolds spoke in support of the ordinance.
“I brought this as seeming like a good compromise between people who wanted no vehicle access at all to the beach and people who need access to gather coal and other aspects of their recreation and livelihood,” said Reynolds.
Concerns are habitat destruction, safety, and trespassing onto private property. The Council discussed a partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create interpretive signs that would explain the restrictions. Council Member Donna Alderhold said this:
“I’m with you on this ordinance. I think it’s high time and needed. I love our beaches. Everybody loves our beaches. They are loved to death, I think. We’re damaging our beaches because we all want to be out on them,” said Aderhold.
Council made no amendments to the ordinance.
The Commission is also looking at issues of beach access at Mud Bay. Public hearings for the ordinances are set for February 8th and 22nd.
