Controversy over housing development continues

PALMER — An administrative appeal officer heard public testimony Thursday on a controversial affordable housing development given preliminary approval for construction in South Palmer.

The 88-unit development is billed by the developers as one part of a solution to meet the Mat-Su Valley’s high demand for affordable housing. Opponents — many of whom hail from an adjacent senior housing development — say the construction of the units would adversely impact their quality of life, concerns they say the Palmer Planning and Zoning Commission largely ignored during a public hearing issuing a preliminary approval for the project.

Ross Kopperud, a lawyer hired by the Mountain Rose Estates Homeowners Association, pointed out that the residents listed in the mission statement for Valley Residential Services (VRS), the local group which collaborated with national group Volunteers of America on the project, does not include traditional middle class professions like those listed during testimony by representatives from the group.

Howard Bess, a frequent contributor to the Frontiersman’s religion page, and co-founder of the Valley Residential Services said the placement of the development could blunt positive social impacts, particularly for younger residents who could live there.

“I’m here today not representing Mountain Rose, but rather representing the hundreds of children that will live in this proposed project for the next 50, 75, 100, years,” he said. “They will be living in an enclosed — I want to use the word ghetto, I won’t — but it’s a giant cul-de-sac, is what it is.”

The group would need to abandon its mission in order to welcome the types of individuals discussed, Kopperud wrote.

“If (Valley Residential Services) plans to abandon its Mission Statement to provide housing for special needs individuals and instead intends to provide as stated in their brief, housing for middle class individuals, then Mountain Rose’s concerns are irrelevant,” he wrote.

In addition, the development would clash with the surrounding developments, which include Mountain Rose Estates, but also include the MTA Events Center and Palmer Ice Arena, Alaska Job Corps, and Palmer Middle School, Kopperud said.

“This is essentially going from a R-1 which is the lowest-density single-family housing to a PUD that appears even to exceed the R-4 high density without really critical discussion,” he said.

Age restrictions on residency in Mountain Rose Estates are kept by covenant, not by a zoning designation, observed presiding administrative appeals officer Ronald Baird. Enforcing a standard of requiring a similar use by the presence of Mountain Rose could potentially amount to public resources used to enforce private agreements.

“Aren’t you then asking me and the commission to basically give public enforcement to a private use restriction?” he asked Kopperud at one point.

Baird also appeared critical of concerns about future residents, based on his line of questioning.

“I’m having trouble seeing how that isn’t just prejudice,” he said. “Because we don’t know how this is actually going to play out until it’s built. So we have to focus on what we know about it.”

For example, if Walmart planned to build on the site, but residents objected and requested a Coach store on the grounds that they wanted higher-quality type of resident, that would be inappropriate, Baird said.

Attorney DanaLyn Dalrymple represented architects Lumen Design and VRS to the hearing, and said the matter pitted one type of vulnerable community against another.

“We have some serious concerns on this shotgun approach that the appellant has taken in asserting various issues that vary from the initial letter that was sent claiming some sort of procedural due process issue — which (Palmer economic development officer) Sandra Garley has clearly said all of the notices were proper — to the original briefing that talked about issues regarding ghettos, which we found particularly offensive, particularly in light of VRS’s mission to serve vulnerable communities, and also considering the fact that Mountain Rose Estates is itself a vulnerable community,” she said. “The fact that would even be raised in a brief is very disturbing.”

Numerous people testified in support of the project.

Volunteers of America Alaska president Elaine Dahlgren said the target resident would be professionals whose professions may not pay $80,000 or $90,000 per year, Dahlgren said.

“Our national organization does not build ghettos,” she said. “We do not build communities that isolate small children or single women or senior citizens. We simply don’t do that. We build a community that is built with affordable housing.”

Dave Rose, coalition coordinator for the Mat-Su Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, also testified.

“Palmer: Alaska at its best,” he said. “I’m sorry to say that I think you’re seeing some of, uh, not its best. And I think your concerns earlier about … ‘those type of people’ and the use of the term ‘ghetto,’ I’m afraid to say that we’re not at our best when we’re talking that way.”

Final approval for the development has not yet been granted. The Feb. 18 meeting of the Palmer Planning Commission was listed as cancelled Friday evening. Baird said a written decision would be likely be published before the beginning of March.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.