Council approves Forest Acres Improvement District

by Michael Armstrong

Special to The Seward Folly

As part of a continuing effort to address the housing shortage in Seward, the Seward City Council at its Monday meeting unanimously approved Resolution 2025-048 to create an improvement district for the Forest Acres-Afognak Addition Subdivision. Landowners and the city had been working on a plan to make it affordable to bring roads, utilities, sewer and water to the subdivision.

The full cost to bring in all utilities on a 0.82-acre lot could have been as high as $194,000. Under the improvement district approved on June 9, landowners would provide their own sewer and water through septic systems and wells. The city also would pay half the development cost of roads and electricity, lowering the owner’s price to about $59,000 for a 0.82-acre lot.

Landowners could pay the improvement district assessment outright or finance at 2% above the prime interest rate, currently 7.5%, or 9.5% total.

In public testimony, Forest Acres Subdivision land owner James Carlberg asked about that interest rate. 

“I’m just wondering, is the city taking this money from somebody else, using that interest for their cost of interest, or is this money that the city owns that we’re being charged interest on?” he asked.

Deputy City Manager Jason Bickling noted that the prime interest rate varies, and was as low as 3.5% in 2002. City Manager Kat Sorensen said payments go back into the Developer Reimbursement Program, or DRP, and not into the general fund. Under the resolution, the city would pay about $1.8 million, with about $800,000 coming from the DRP, about $700,000 from the Capital Acquisition Fund and about $300,000 from the general fund.

Carlberg also asked what would happen if in the future the city put in sewer and water lines. 

“Would we as owners of that property be forced to hook up to it and be forced to accept the full cost and then abandon what we put in with well and septic?” he asked.

Bickling said that under city code landowners would have to connect to sewer and water lines. However, he noted funding for most sewer and water infrastructure comes from federal grants.

“I would say we don’t foresee a lot of that coming down anytime soon,” he said. “… We have other priorities that we need to be spending money on in our infrastructure. We have a public works facility that needs to be built. We’ve got fire stations that need to be built.”

In a memorandum, Seward Fire Chief Clinton Crites raised another issue. With Forest Acres landowners providing their own well water, the city would not have water lines with fire hydrants. That could affect the fire department’s ability to fight fires — including wildland fires in heavily forested areas — but also the ISO or Insurance Services Office rating. A bad ISO rating could mean higher insurance costs for property owners. 

Bickling said that other Alaska cities also have the issue of subdivisions that don’t have fire hydrants. 

“Anchorage deals with this right now,” he said. “… They have actually, like, 12 square miles of residential areas that don’t have fire hydrants in them.”

Fire trucks have 1,000 feet of hose that could connect to nearby hydrants in case of a fire in Forest Acres, Crites noted. Council Member Kevin Finch asked if maybe another solution would be to get a tanker truck.

Sorensen said Crites’ memorandum was to inform the council of the fire hydrant and ISO issues.

“I wanted to make sure that Clinton (Crites) was able to showcase a concern from a fire standpoint, one for the community, but also for the property owners as well, recognizing that this is a big change in the way that we do things and operate under,” she said.

The council also passed Resolution 2025-022, removing plat notes from lots in the Forest Acres-Afognak Subdivision requiring connection “to public sewer facilities prior to development.” The Kenai Peninsula Borough Planning Department told city administration that the council removing those plat notes would be the best way for the borough to change that plat requirement.

In closing comments, Council Member Casie Warner spoke on the improvement district.

“I just want to echo ‘thank you’ for all the hard work for that special improvement district,” she said. “ I’m really happy that we were able to pass those resolutions and help some of those property owners become homeowners and have some development.”

“I want to thank everyone who came, and I’m really pleased that we’re moving ahead with the subdivision out there. And it’s time,” Mayor Sue McClure said.

Michael Armstrong is a retired Homer News reporter and editor. Reach him at wordfolk@gmail.com.

The Seward Folly publisher Robert Barnwell is a current member of the Seward City Council, but he did not participate in the editing of this story.