The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly will hold a public hearing on the potential purchase of 80 acres in Seward at their next regular meeting on Feb. 4.
Ordinance 2024-19-24, sponsored by Borough Mayor Peter Micciche, would authorize a memorandum of agreement between the borough and the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority for the completion of a road access feasibility study to Blueberry Hill, the parcel in question for purchase. Contingent upon the study’s “satisfactory” completion, the ordinance would also appropriate funds from the Land Trust Investment Fund and the Land Trust Fund for the purchase of the parcel.
“The idea is to have access to Blueberry Hill and develop this land further,” assembly member Ryan Tunseth, who also serves as the Finance Committee chair, said at the Jan. 21 meeting when the ordinance was introduced.
The negotiated purchase price for the Blueberry Hill parcel is $1.2 million, which would be appropriated from the Land Trust Investment Fund. An additional appropriation of $50,000 from the Land Trust Fund is proposed to address costs related to the feasibility study, as well as additional due-diligence costs and closing fees, a Jan. 9 memorandum from KPB land management officer Aaron Hughes to the assembly states.
Purchase of the Blueberry Hill parcel would provide a “potential means of access” to approximately 2,300 acres of adjacent KPB-owned and managed lands, according to the ordinance, as well as land holdings by the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. As such, Hughes wrote that MHT has agreed to participate in the road access feasibility study by incorporating MHT-owned lands and by paying one half of the study’s cost, not to exceed $25,000.
Hughes told the Finance Committee on Jan. 21, prior to the regular assembly meeting, that access to the adjacent borough land is currently “fairly restrictive as far as access and future utility and use is concerned.”
“The proposed feasibility study would incorporate not only the subject property, but adjacent borough-owned and Management Authority lands, in addition to 196-acre parcel owned by the Alaska Mental Health Trust,” he said. “So the goal being having all of these properties contiguous might give the borough the best opportunity it’s had in recent history to gain access to the top of Blueberry Hill.”
Blueberry Hill has also been identified as an important location for long-term future community expansion in Seward. A Jan. 16 letter from Jason Bickling, Seward deputy city manager, expresses support for the land purchase, noting the general lack of residential housing and available land within the borough and that there are “not many existing areas for land expansion for residential development, inside or outside of city limits” due to the geography of the Seward area.
“(Blueberry Hill) is a strategic acquisition that would create potential for significant future residential development for the Seward Area,” Bickling wrote.
Hughes also said that the land acquisition could potentially “dramatically increase” the property values of borough land holdings in that area and provide both the borough and the greater Seward area with the decision-making potential for future land needs and community expansion.
The 80-acre parcel has been placed under contract through a purchase agreement between the borough and the seller. However, the purchase agreement is contingent upon approval by the assembly.
In answering questions from several assembly members, Hughes specified that the borough will move forward on the purchase based on the road access feasibility results.
“The purchase is contingent upon the completion of the feasibility study,” Hughes said. “So even though the property is under contract, we will not close until the results of the feasibility study are received.
“If the feasibility study comes back where we’re not able to get the access that we seek, we can back out of the transaction — (though) we would still be responsible for our portion of the feasibility study.”
An addendum to the purchase agreement notes that the feasibility study must be completed by July 1; the sale is scheduled to occur on or before Sept. 15.
Find the ordinance and supplemental materials in full at kpb.legistar.com.
