Young Road residents in December made quick work of a proposal to site a cell phone tower in their neighborhood.
About 20 of them showed up at a Haines Borough Planning Commission meeting and effectively torpedoed the idea. Developer Roger Schnabel, seeking to build the tower on his own hillside property, withdrew the proposed location, which never made it to a public hearing.
The action by residents of the residential neighborhood was in line with action by Mud Bay residents opposed to a commercial lodge in their neighborhood which was in line with several highway neighborhoods opposed to heliports in their neighborhoods which were in line with residential opposition to an industrial rock excavation at Highlands Estates in 2017.
It turns out that neighbors fight for their neighborhoods and against the idea of being disturbed in their homes or on their properties. That’s also why, all over the nation, the cops phone you after midnight if your dog won’t stop barking.
“A man’s home is his castle” is the applicable maxim here and assaults against castles aren’t typically well received.
None of this should be surprising but Alaskans particularly are afflicted with the notion that they should be able to do anything anywhere. But just as your right to swing your fist ends at first contact with another person’s nose, an Alaskan’s right to do anything ends when their activity bumps into another person’s home.
This is elementary stuff. Without reasonable protections from disturbance, no one would ever buy a home.
(For the record, homeowner protection also exists in borough law under nuisances, specifically section 8.12.020 sections (B) and (D). “B” generally prohibits activities that “endanger the repose of the public,” and “D” specifically addresses “unreasonable noise.” Repose means “state of rest,” which a person typically enjoys in their home.)
The short-lived cell phone tower war is yet another example of homeowners protecting their turf. It and the other examples above demonstrate that this is not a liberal or conservative idea. No one wants to be bugged at home.
Interestingly, fear of neighborhood protections was a great motivation twenty-five years ago for large landowners and developers living downtown who supported combining our two local governments.
At the far ends of Mud Bay and Lutak roads, Haines Borough residents had formed large land planning service areas to preserve the rural and residential nature of their neighborhoods. The idea was encouraged by conservative Haines Borough Mayor Bob Henderson, a supporter of small government who thought outlying neighborhoods should be able to steer their own fates.
That idea didn’t t sit well with developers residing in the City of Haines.
What developers wanted from consolidation was an areawide planning commission that would allow development of the outlying areas as they saw fit. It half worked. The planning commission gave generally preferential treatment to developers until 2023 when voters democratized the commission by requiring it to have elected – instead of appointed – seats.
Ultimately though, the areawide planning commission recognized, or was forced to recognize, the moral legitimacy of neighborhoods and the sanctity of people’s homes. Ironically, the neighborhood that has lost the most ground since government unification was downtown, the former City of Haines itself.
At the time of government consolidation, downtown Haines was kept neat and orderly by enforcement of City of Haines code that prohibited such things as commercial trailers and unlicensed junkyards. House trailers were confined to trailer parks. Unlike the city’s planning commission, the members of the new, consolidated borough planning commission didn’t so highly rank the look of our downtown.
So it’s been a slide since then, particularly in compliance and enforcement of planning and zoning code.
As a result, our outlying neighborhoods grow more attractive while downtown starts looking ramshackle.
This development hasn’t gone unnoticed. Two very old-timers of a conservative bent cornered me a few summers ago to ask me “why downtown looks like crap. Jon Halliwell or Frank Wallace never would have put up with this.” (Halliwell and Wallace were former mayors of the City of Haines.)
Author and former assembly member Heather Lende, who lived downtown for decades, has suggested a separate service area board for the townsite service area to represent the interests of the former City of Haines.
If there’s a lesson here it’s that neighborhoods aren’t always defended by code or good intention. They’re defended by neighbors defending them.