Any new assisted living facilities and homes built within the Kodiak Island Borough need at least three off-street parking spaces and can be located in nearly any zoning district.
That’s after the Borough Assembly approved changes for local assisted living facilities last month on Aug. 21.
Meiann Danner is the Program Manager at the Sunrise Assisted Living Facility, one of ten assisted living homes or facilities in Kodiak. She said parking can be a challenge for residents, visitors and employees.
“Sometimes when we come into work, some of the tenants here park their car, park their vehicles even if we have the sign up, it says nursing staff only, like reserved for nursing staff," she explained.
Danner said that Sunrise can have up to 15 residents, but only has five parking spaces available specifically for them. Although not every resident has a vehicle. Still, the assisted living facility would be compliant if the new zoning regulations affected its current operations. The parking space requirements would only affect Sunrise if the facility decides to expand its beds and Danner said at this time there are no plans to expand.
Sunrise and the other existing facilities are grandfathered into the new regulations according to Chris French, the community development director. But new assisted living homes and facilities must have at least three off-street parking spaces. The parking requirement scales up with staff size and number of residents or, 1 off-street space per employee on maximum shift, plus one visitor per 5 residents, whichever is greater.
Prior to the changes, where assisted living facilities or homes could be used was not listed within borough code at all, leaving its uses very ambiguous. The main distinction between an assisted living home and an assisted living facility in local regulations is in scale. Homes can have up to five residents. Facilities have six or more.
Sunrise has the most beds out of all the assisted living options locally and is the only one that is located in a business zone. All of the other assisted living homes, or assisted living facilities, are located in residential districts according to borough records. That includes the Full Life Assisted Living & Group Home, the Hope Alaska assisted living homes, the Kodiak Assisted Living and Group Home, Our Kodiak Home, Spruce Cape ALH and others.
Borough Manager Aimee Williams said during the Aug. 21 Borough Assembly meeting that the zoning change allows assisted living facilities to be located in nearly all districts.
“Assisted living facilities would be allowed in the multifamily residential district, business district and urban neighborhood commercial districts, as well as retail business districts," she said. "Conditional use permits would allow assisted living facilities to be in the rural residential one district, single family residential district and two family resident district.”
The updated assisted living facility and home changes went into effect immediately with all the existing ones grandfathered in after the Borough Assembly unanimously approved them during the Aug. 21st meeting.
