Kodiak's Road System

One of the best things about living in Kodiak, and something that we tend to take for granted, is our undeveloped roadsystem. Most people live either in town, out at Chiniak or in Bell’s Flats, and the rest of our road system is undeveloped land where people can hunt, fish, hike or whatever. In this regard Kodiak is like many European cities where everyone lives in town and they keep the countryside undeveloped. We are very unlike most American cities that tend to sprawl.

What most people do not realize is that our undeveloped roadsystem is an historical accident. And until last summer when Lesnoi, Inc., a major roadsystem land owner, decided to limit access to their land – most people did not even realize that most of the road system is privately owned. But for 30 years because of the ongoing litigation between Omar Stratman and Lesnoi, Inc we have largely treated it as quasi public recreation land, and it has remained undeveloped.

Now with the litigation wrapping up it may be time to pay the piper. Regardless of which side wins (and I’m not here to pick sides) Kodiak recreational pursuits could lose. All that land could get developed and closed to public access. Kodiak really does not have good long term planning, zoning laws, or land trusts to help guide the development of the road system. For instance, we could lose all the beaches we take for granted to private condominiums, the rivers could end up with private lodges on them, we could even end up with houses every 5 acres and a gravel pit around every corner. My worst nightmare is that we end up like either Wasilla (unfettered development) or Homer (a house every 5 acres and no wild undeveloped land for hunting).

Kodiak needs to plan for the future, and decide what we want where. We need to identify what places are special to us, and what places would make good gravel pits. We need to think of ways to purchase private land and keep it open to the public, to work with landowners on obtaining public easements to their land, and we’ve got to stop taking continued public access to the roadsytem for granted. Patrick