Many people expect and promote Seward's growth. While development can encroach on wetlands, flood plains and forest it may also bring good, intelligent people to town. Sometimes Seward is just big enough to not realize how small it is.
Ideally, development will consider how building foundation fill can destroy wetlands or create a dike that redirects flood energy toward someone else's property. It will be responsible to the public cost of responding to and reconstructing buildings after flood events. It will consider the interests and desires of neighbors.
Some development is benign and provides all the benefits intended. Some private lands also contain resources important to the public, like wetlands or wildlife habitat, that require appropriate permits. RBCA monitors permit applications and when we are privy to it, bandit development.
One example of poor planning is that hundreds of road culverts across salmon streams have been built or maintained improperly. These improper road crossings prevent adult salmon from reaching spawning areas and also prevent juvenile salmon from moving around to find food and shelter. Hundreds of miles of salmon habitat have been affected. It is very expensive to fix these roads after they have been built. Now that we know about the problem it is important to make sure new roads are built correctly.
Smart land managment agencies don't permit building in floodplains. When that doesn't happen, smart homeowners either don't build in flood plains or build on tall beefy pilings. Others dimiss the negative impacts of their plans. For example, filling in 6 acres of wetlands on Old Nash Road has created an eyesore of flat gravel with a patchwork of fenced storage enclosures containing industrial equipment. The parcel used to host original spruce forest and functioning wetlands. Now it contibutes to stormwater siltation and flooding deflection.
A bold development proposal is in the works to develop a harbor at the northeast side of the head of Resurrection Bay. More to come.
Here's an odd and unsettling view of American consumerism.
